Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
chapter 1. Last week we talked about the
testimony of Christ. And this testimony of Christ
being confirmed in the hearts of all those that believe. They all receive it. They all
understand it. They all rejoice in it. and they
all give God the glory for it. He confirms His testimony, the
testimony of this book, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
That's God's testimony. He tells us in 1 John 5 that
this is the testimony of God. He that believeth not the record
that God gave of His Son, he hath made God a liar. And here
Paul tells these Corinthians that when they received the Gospel,
God confirmed that testimony in them. In them. And they received
it and rejoiced in it. And then Christ, who is the Gospel,
Paul goes on to say, will confirm them. He confirms them. And He confirms them to the end. He's the reason. for their calling. Why did God call you and not
somebody else? How come Him to call you, John,
and didn't call your neighbor? Why is that? It's because of
God's free, sovereign grace. He calls whom He will. And He's
the reason for their calling. The Father gave them to Him before
the world began. And He's also the basis of their
salvation, and He's the foundation for all their hopes and desires.
Christ in you, the hope of glory. And this morning then, I want
us to look at verse 9 and see if the Lord will increase our
understanding and the grace and knowledge of our Savior just
a little bit more. I've been trying to take these
verses one at a time, statement in one statement at a time. 1
Corinthians 1, verse 9. God is faithful by whom you were
called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Now first of all, let's just
consider His opening statement here. God is faithful. God is faithful. When God proclaimed
His name to Moses, and showed him his glory and passed by before
him, what's the first thing he told him? He said, I am he that,
he said, keeping mercy, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving
iniquity, transgression, and sin. He's the keeper. God is
faithful. He keeps this mercy. We don't
keep it. He keeps it. keeping mercy for
thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Our God
is faithful. In one place, in one of Paul's
letters to Timothy, he told him this. He said, though you believe
not. He's not talking about the fact
that they had no faith at all, but the fact that they were filled
with unbelief. The disciples said, we believe.
Help thou our unbelief. And he makes a statement. He
said, if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful. God is faithful. He cannot deny Himself. That's
2 Timothy 2, verse 13. God cannot change. He makes that
clear in the Scripture. In Him is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning. And God cannot lie. If God promises
a thing, it must come to pass. God is faithful. He's faithful. And to be faithful is to be true
to oneself and true to one's nature. God's faithfulness arises
from His own character. It arises from His own attributes. It arises from His own person.
And you've often heard me and other preachers make this statement,
if God were to do this, God would cease to be God. That's what
I'm talking about. I'm talking about His nature.
There's something God can't do. God can't lie. He cannot lie. He cannot change. And you can't find a single breach
in God's faithfulness. Our Lord said to His disciples,
I give unto you eternal life, and you'll never perish, neither
shall any man pluck them out of My hand. And nowhere is this faithfulness
manifested as it is in the person and work of Christ. He's the
faithful high priest. Isn't that what the Scripture
said? The faithful witness. Faithful, he said, to Him that
appointed Him in all things. He is faithful to forgive us
our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And He that
sits upon the throne, John tells us in Revelation, is called faithful
and true. God is faithful. Now watch this. By whom you were called unto
the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." There's two
words here that are completely missing from the ministry of
the professing church in this world. I'm not talking about
His church. I'm talking about the professing
church. And here's the two words. By whom. By whom. My friend, this book
begins with these words, In the beginning, God. In the beginning,
God. Nothing will ever take place
in the heart of any sinner of any spiritual significance that
cannot be traced back to God Himself. God Himself. Over and over in these letters
that Paul writes to these churches, the very first thing that comes
out of his mouth in this introduction is how he thanked God. And then
he goes on and he talks about their faith and he talks about
their repentance and talks about these confirmations of God and
all these things. He begins with the source. He
takes his thanksgiving back to the source. I thank Him. Thank
God. Grace and peace comes from God
our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. And all of his
offices, and all of his appointments, and all of his work, and all
of the means of salvation, and all of the providence involved
in our being called, and all of the inward workings and reasonings,
even to the willingness of the sinner, can all be traced back
to him and say, by whom? By whom? It's God who worketh
in you both to will and to do of His good place. Paul writes to the Ephesian church
and he said, in time. He's talking about that whole
work of Christ from the foundation of the world. And he said, in
time, in time, we all also come to obtain our inheritance in
Him being predestinated according to Him who worketh all things
after the counsel of His own will. That's what those words,
by whom, have reference to. The will of God. The everlasting,
unchangeable, sovereign will of God. And I don't care what
it is, from the very sacrifice of the Son of God to the smallest
circumstantial event that leads the sinner to Christ. By whom
is His testimony. That's the testimony of every
true believer. And then one more time, let's
read verse 9. God is faithful by whom you were called unto
the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. What does God
call His people to? Unto the fellowship of His Son,
Jesus Christ. Well, what does that mean? What
does that mean? What is it to have fellowship
with Christ? What does that word fellowship
mean? Have you ever thought about it? What does that word fellowship
mean? Well, it carries with it the idea of a partnership. A partnership. It implies that
those called and enlightened of God have an interest. They
have an interest in all that Christ is and all that Christ
has done. Let me see if I can make good
on this in the Scriptures. Turn with me over to Romans chapter
8. In Romans chapter 8 and verse
14. For as many as are led by the
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received
the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the
spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The spirit
itself, or himself, beareth witness with our spirit that we are the
children of God. And if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if so be we suffer
with him, that we may also be glorified together. To be called
to the fellowship of Jesus Christ is to be enlightened to know
that we have an interest in all that He is, in all that He's
done, and in all that He's doing. We have an interest. If we had
no interest, we wouldn't have a fellowship. Is that right? We wouldn't have a fellowship.
We have sometimes what we call fellowships. Well, we wouldn't
have much of a fellowship if we didn't have this interest,
would we? It wouldn't be much there. It wouldn't be in common
ground. And then flip over a few pages to 1 Corinthians chapter
3. You see, Christ, when we're talking
about the Christ, He said we're called to the fellowship of His
Son, Jesus Christ. Christ is a term that describes
our Redeemer and Savior as He set forth in the Word of God
from the beginning of this book to the end of it. It has to do
with all of His offices. Everything associated with Christ
has to do with the salvation of God's elect, which God has
purposed for the glory of His name. And it's in Him that we
discover all that God has freely given to His church. Now look
here in 1 Corinthians 3, and we'll pick up in the last line
of verse 21. For all things are yours. How
did they get to be yours? How did all things get to be
yours? In Christ. In Christ. Whether Paul, or Apollos, or
Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present,
or things to come, all are yours, now watch this, and ye are Christ's. And Christ is God's. We have an interest. We have
an interest in all that He is. And having an interest in all
that is, all things are ours. When you take away particular redemption, when you take away
this thing of Jesus Christ being a representative of a particular
people, You take away the meaning for everything that Christ did. It has no meaning whatsoever.
There's no way that you can apply what He did in a universal manner. There's no way. No way that you
can make any of those words and those promises ring true or even
make any sense. A general or universal Christ
offers no hope to dying sinners. If Christ loved all men and some
are damned in hell, then the love of God made no difference.
Made no difference at all. If Christ died for all men and
some perish in hell, then His death made no difference. It
bought nothing. It did nothing. It accomplished
nothing. If Christ's righteousness was not for God's elect but a
universal work, then every man is clothed in perfect righteousness
before God And there couldn't possibly be any unrighteous.
You see what I'm saying? You cannot make His work, His
person, His work, His appearance in this world in a universal
manner. You cannot make it make any sense. It won't make any sense. Over and over, He tells us here,
He put away our sins. He cast our sins behind his back,
scattered them as far as the east is from the west. He said,
I will remember them no more. And yet, at judgment, some men
are cast into hell. Now, if he doesn't remember their
sins, if he died for everybody, and he doesn't remember their
sins, and he's cast their sins away, why is he sending them
to hell? You see, you can't make it universal. It won't fit. It doesn't even make sense if
you read the promises of God. They're particular. They're particular. And those promises are to His
elect. And His elect, He calls. He enlightens. He makes them to understand that. He makes them to realize that
they have all that they have in Him. Nothing to do with them. Nothing in them. Whatever it
was that spurred Him to choose them, it had nothing to do with
them. All in Him. All in Him. Just an utter impossibility for
Christ to have represented all men. And then, if you try to
take these promises that I just read to you in 1 Corinthians
3, all things are yours, whether the world or life or death or
all this. Try to make that universal. You
can't do it. Can't do it. But it's to a particular
people. Now some of you have a Strong's
Concordance or Young's or some other Bible help that you can
look at, and you can look at these original words, and it'll
tell you what they mean. And it'll also, from time to
time, take that same word and show you a different word where
it's used. I've told you about that with
foreknowledge and foreordination. I've showed you that in 1 Peter
before. But there's another word in the Bible which is translated
differently, but it's the exact same word in the original. And
you can find it over in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 16. We're talking about
fellowship. Fellowship. Alright, in 1 Corinthians
10, verse 16, just let me read this to you. The cup of blessing
which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is
it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many
are one bread and one body, and we are all partakers of that
one bread. Now the word here, the exact
same word in the original that's translated fellowship is translated
communion. Do you remember why I told you
that word communion means? Common union. Common union. We have an interest. We have
an interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. By an eternal act of
covenant union, God's elect were all chosen in Christ and predestinated
unto the adoption of children. He'd become the surety of that
covenant. All the terms, all the stipulations
of that covenant, He agreed to. He agreed to. He's the surety.
He became the surety of that covenant. He'd become the guarantor
of all the promise inheritance of God. And in Him were blessed
with all spiritual blessings before the world was. We are the body, He tells us,
the church, and He is our head. And everything about Him is tied
together to His church. And if you take away or deny
His office as our representative and substitute, you destroy all
which His office signifies. You destroy it. And through the
preaching of the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit, chosen
sinners are brought to see their common union in Christ. And discovering
these covenant blessings, we become partakers, that's what
Paul said, partakers of the one bread. They're just one bread. Christ is the bread. Henry used to say this, fellowship
is fellers in the same ship. That's what I'm trying to preach.
I'm trying to tell you what the Scriptures teach on this thing
of fellowship. It's fellows in the same ship.
It's that common union with Christ. That's our common ground. That's
what brings us together. Let me tell you something else
about this fellowship. This fellowship has to do with
an understanding of the Word of God. People say all the time,
well, he just thinks he's right and everybody else is wrong.
My friend, let me tell you something. I'm not trying to convince you
that I'm right. I wouldn't walk across the street
to try to convince somebody that I was right and he's wrong, or
this guy down here is wrong and I'm right. That's foolishness. That's self-pride is what that
kind of stuff is. I'm trying to convince you that
this is the message of this book. I am trying to convince you that
this is His gospel. This is His way. There is no
other way. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
3. Ephesians chapter 3. Look down here at verse 8. Paul said, unto me who am less
than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should
preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ."
Now listen to this. "...and to make all men see what
is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the
world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ."
There was a time when all these things were hidden. There was
a time in eternity past when the covenant was drawn, when
the triune God agreed on this covenant of grace. There was
a time when a people was chosen in Christ, blessed with all spiritual
blessings in Him, before there was even a world. It was a mystery. It was hid in God. And then there
was a time when He created the world. A time when man failed. A time when God chose men to
give testimonies of His message. And they did that. And these
things were still in mysteries. Tied up in the Scriptures in
mysterious prophecies. Great mysteries. And this is what he's talking
about here. which from the beginning of the
world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ,
to the intent that now, under principalities and powers and
heavenly places, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom
of God." These mysteries are now made known. Christ came. Christ was manifested in the
flesh. The Word of God is just full
of mysteries. The mystery of iniquity, the
mystery of godliness, the mystery of the Gentiles. Paul said we
preach the wisdom of God in a mystery. Even the hidden wisdom which
God ordained before the world unto our glory. And to be called
into the fellowship of Jesus Christ is to be brought to see
the fellowship of these mysteries. The fellowship of these mysteries. This book plainly declares who
Christ is, and why He came, and what He did, and where He is
at. And it plainly declares for whom He died, and what was accomplished
for them in that death. And it plainly declares the means
of salvation, the means of faith and repentance. It plainly declares
the way of salvation, the way of grace, and the effects of
it. And then He tells us this, He
said, to the law and to the testimony. He said, if they speak not according
to this book, it's because there's no light in them. No light in
them. And then in Philippians 3.10,
Paul speaks of the fellowship of his sufferings. We have an
interest in the sufferings of Christ. We look at those sufferings
and we see what they bought. We see what they were for. We
see that He suffered for our sins. And we, because of this
interest, we suffer for His namesake. And we have fellowship in His
sufferings in that respect. When I was just a teenager going
to church and began to read my Bible a little bit, I'd read
in there what He had to say about sufferings. I think you might
be interested sometime to go back here in the back of your
Bible and look up sufferings and then start running those
things down. I couldn't figure out why I wasn't
suffering. I wasn't suffering. When I made
a profession of faith, everybody was happy. I didn't suffer because
of it. And when I tried to witness for
the church, nobody got upset. I wasn't suffering anything. Actually, it was almost like
being rewarded. Wherever I went, I was rewarded
for what I did. There were no sufferings involved
in it. There were no sufferings involved in it because there
was no identification with Christ. Once I found out who Christ was
and I began to witness those things concerning Him, then I
understood what the sufferings was all about and the persecution. To confess His name, and his
gospel to others. When you do that, you'll find
fellowship in the sufferings of Christ. Listen to this, 2
Timothy 3, verse 12, and I'll wind this up. All that will live
godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Every last one of
them. God is faithful, he said, by
whom you were called under the fellowship of his Son, Jesus
Christ, our Lord.