If you would turn with me to
1 Corinthians 1. I want to begin reading in verse
23, but my text today will be found in verses 30 and 31. And if I was to title this message,
I would call it, Our Union with Christ. Our Union with Christ. In verse 23, the apostle writes,
but we preach Christ crucified. That's the only message worthy
of being preached. Christ and Him crucified. And it's unto the Jews a stumbling
block, and unto the Greeks it's foolishness. But unto them which
are called, unto them which know God, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness
of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger
than men. For you see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh Not many mighty, not
many noble are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things
of the world to confound the wise. And God hath chosen the
weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. And base things of the world
and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things
which are not to bring to naught things that are. Why? That no flesh should glory in
His presence. But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God has made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,
and redemption, that according as it is written, He that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord." The sovereignty of God is a great
deep. A deep so profound as to be absolutely
unfathomable by the human intellect. You see, unable and unwilling
to believe what rebellious sinners cannot comprehend, they've denied
the sovereignty of God. And they've sought with feeble
minds and hearts to refuse to bow to the mighty Lord's sovereign
power and glory. Now, a sovereign God is a God
who disposes of all things as He pleases, how He pleases, as
He pleases, when He pleases. And according to Daniel 4, verse
35, He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and
among the inhabitants of the earth, so that none can stay
His hand or say unto Him, What doest Thou? And friends, this
God is willfully rejected by mass multitudes as being the
God who saves us. Men's opinion, you've heard me
say this, you'll hear me say it many times in the future,
men's opinions of God are way too low. The sovereign grace
of God. God alone is the reason men and
women are saved. And just because we cannot comprehend
the sovereignty of God, it doesn't make it any less real or any
less so. Now, can we really comprehend
by nature any perfection of God's great and glorious being? Well,
the answer is no, not with our finite minds. He's the one who
dwelleth in the light which no man can approach, whom no man
hath seen or can see. Can we comprehend, for instance,
His eternal existence? I can remember as a young boy
knowing just enough in Bible stories and what I'd learned
from Sunday school that in the beginning was God. Who created
God? No one did. But where did God
come from? He always was. We cannot, even
now as adults, comprehend in our mind the eternal existence
of God. And our so-called intellect,
it's unable, we're unable to fathom that profound mystery. But we believe it. Can we understand by nature that
there is a glorious, self-existing being who from all eternity has,
according to his own declaration, done as he pleases according
to his own sovereign will? By nature, men don't like that. Men want to be in control of
their own destiny. Men want to make their own decisions.
Men want to be called self-made men. We want to say that we pulled
ourselves up in time trouble by our bootstraps and made things
happen, but that's not so. Oh, there's a glorious self-existing
being who has from eternity, by his own declaration, done
as he's pleased with his own And He's done as He will with
His own, according to His own sovereign will. Now listen, faith
is not understanding God. Faith is not trying to figure
God out, especially intellectually. Faith is simply believing God
in everything that He's written in this Word, even when we don't
completely understand it. That's what faith is. And faith
has an object, and that object is Christ. Faith in anything
other than Christ will not bring salvation. Again, our finite
minds are lost in the consideration of an eternal, self-existent
being. And yet to deny Him, according
to the Scripture, is eternal death, eternal hell, eternal
condemnation. And so we've been studying through
the attributes of God on Sunday morning, ten o'clock service. What do we say of His omnipresence? That's the fact that God fills
all time and all space so that wherever we are, God is there. Many years ago, a popular singer
came out with a song, God is watching us from a distance.
No, He's not. Now, do I understand that God
fills all time and space so that wherever we are, God is? No,
I don't understand it. I'm not smart enough to understand
it, and neither are you. But I believe it. That's what
faith is. Faith is believing what God says
about Himself and taking sides with God against ourselves, knowing
what we are by nature. Can the mind of man fathom a
presence that is everywhere and every place and yet is but one
God? No, you can't. Can we view His
omniscience? Now that simply means all-knowing. God knows all things. Can we
fathom that He easily reads with one glance of the hearts of millions
of men and women? Can we fathom that? No, but a
child of God believes it. Can we understand His omnipotence? We talked about that this morning. His power and His might. That the same command which formed
the sun also created the little crawling worm and slimy snail. We comprehend that. Oh, we didn't
evolve, friends. Made in the image of God. And
are we not lost when we attempt to bring the powers of our puny
reasoning to dispute the perfections of a Jehovah God? Can we fathom
the perfection of the Almighty? If we're all honest, we'll say,
no, I can't. Then why do you believe it? Sovereign
grace. God revealed it to us. God showed
us in His Word and by the preaching of it that it's so. To all such
vain reasoners who attempt to measure God by the mind of their
intellect will most certainly reject what they cannot understand
unless God divinely intervenes. Canst thou by searching find
out God? Job 11, verse 7. Canst thou find out the Almighty
unto perfection? Can we know His perfections by
searching Him out with our intellect? Absolutely not. And then He tells
us why. It is as high as heaven. What canst thou do? It's deeper
than hell. What canst thou know? The measure
thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. The
psalmist wrote in Psalm 39 verse 5, Behold, thou hast made my
days as a hand breath, and my ages as nothing before thee.
Verily, every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Friends, vainness and vanity
come to us like breathing does. We are in our best state altogether,
vanity. And there's a generation of men
and women and a numerous number at that, who because the Scripture
denies their free will, they get mad and fight against God
with desperate enmity. How dare you say, they'll say,
that I don't have a free will, that I don't have a choice in
the matter, that I don't have a decision. I didn't say it.
God said it. And your argument and your fight
is with Him. I don't debate it. I don't argue
it. I simply proclaim it. They clearly
see that the sovereignty of God cuts up, by the very roots, their
little darling doctrine of free will because God, who is the
sovereign disposal of All events interferes with the liberty of
man to do what he pleases and be what he wills. So men and
women would sooner reject the sovereignty of God. Now listen,
that's why men and women don't believe the sovereignty of God.
They'd rather reject it than to give up their so-called free
agency. And they would rather, by their
own mind and heart, allow God to be the governor of His own
world, while they put every circumstance under the dominion of blind chance
and confused raffle of luck and nature. And that's what men mainly
attribute the events of this world to, instead of God. And
this is what's wrong with the religious world today. Men's
opinions are way too low of God. And whether men deny His sovereignty,
whether they dispute it, it doesn't matter. For God, who sovereignly
reigns, sits upon the circle of the earth. And He claims that
the inhabitants of this unbelieving world are nothing more than grasshoppers. Grasshoppers. But the child of
grace. the elect child of God, the one
whom God has chosen and called and taught by divine intervention,
the truth of scriptures, and who is under God's divine teaching
and is brought sooner or later to see and acknowledge the sovereignty
of God in everything. Everything. Have you been brought
there? If we look at creation, We see
the sovereign hand of God who fits the sun and the sky that
threw the planets into orbit and they perfectly orbit and
revolve as God intends them to do. That's not by chance. Come
on, anybody that wants to be honest with themselves and before
God knows that's not so. If we look at ourselves, we see
and feel that a sovereign power called us into birth and being. I told a friend one time, an
acquaintance, that I was what I was by the grace of God. He
said, do you really believe that? I said, yeah, I do. He said,
well, I don't. What makes you believe that?
I said, well, let me ask you a question. What did you have
to do with being born a white male in the United States of
America to parents who loved you and sacrificed for you? What did you have to do with
it? He said, nothing. I said, exactly. Exactly. You see, friends, when we look
at ourselves, we know that it was the sovereign power of God
that called us to be born and caused us to have the parents
that we have and be where we are. And we see that we had no
control over our own coming and condition. And it's the same
with the new birth. Oh, we didn't have any choice
as to who our parents would be. No control over what space we
should occupy. Had no choice of whether we'd
be born into prosperity or as peasants. No control. It was determined by God and
God alone. And the child of grace sees that
their free will had nothing to do with the disposal of any of
these events on earth, especially those in heaven. And when our
eyes are opened to see the sovereign hand of God and the fixing and
the determining the circumstances of everything, and how all was
arranged by infinite wisdom and executed by infinite power. We bow, and we bow willingly. Why? God revealed it to our hearts. And we know it's so. I remember
when I first heard of this God, I remember thinking to myself,
it wasn't by my intellect, it wasn't by my will, it wasn't
by my wisdom, but I thought to myself, finally somebody's told
me about the true God. He's the only one that could
be God. A God that's wanting and trying and frustrated and
desperate. What kind of God is that? And
we read in Isaiah, there's no God beside me, and this God is
a sovereign God. Anything less than a sovereign
God is no God at all. And really, we shouldn't even
have to distinguish God as a sovereign God, because a God who's not
sovereign is not God. Just as we called grace amazing. There's no grace other than amazing
grace. There's no grace other than sovereign
grace. Grace is amazing and grace is
sovereign and so is God. And truthfully all men deep within
themselves deep within themselves know that these things are so,
but they refuse to bow because it takes them and their pride
and their self-proclaimed power completely out of the equation.
When it comes to the sovereign dealings of God with men and
women's hearts, they know assuredly now that free will had no place
there and that it's not of Him that will it. It's not of him
that runneth, but of God. But of God that showeth mercy.
Romans 9.16. It was sovereign grace, dear
believer, that brought you to the footstool of mercy. Would
you have ever come? No, you wouldn't come. It was
sovereign grace which revealed the Savior and applied the message
of mercy and peace to your heart. So what some deny and others
dispute, the child of grace is brought to and made to receive
these things as soul in the simplicity of faith. Why do you believe
that? God revealed it to me. My spirit
bears witness with His spirit that it's so. What if you're
wrong? I wage my soul on the fact that
I'm not. That's what believers do. The
sovereign grace of God glorifies God, and when God causes us to
receive it, let me tell you what happens. We admire it, we adore
it, we submit to it, and we give Him all the glory for it. Is
it not so with you, child of God? The sovereignty of God is
stamped upon our text in the living letters of life. Now I want you again to look
at verses 30 and 31 of 1 Corinthians chapter 1. But of Him are you
in Christ Jesus? who of God has made unto us wisdom
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according
as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Now
the word sovereignty is not mentioned in our text, but the truth is
there even if the word is absent. And it's so with the whole of
Scripture. Many of you might know this. I'm sure I knew it
and forgot it. But did you know that the word
sovereign Or the word sovereignty doesn't appear in the Bible?
You can't find that word in the Bible. Yet every page of this
holy rite declares the sovereignty of God. It does. And I can see
the sovereignty of God stamped upon our text in the broadest
characters. Look at it again with me. First
I see it in the expression that says, but of Him. That's the
sovereign due God. But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus. Am I in Christ Jesus because
of me? No. I'm in Christ Jesus because
of Him. But of Him are you in Christ
Jesus. What but sovereignty is fully implied and positively
expressed in the declaration that is of God that chosen sinners
are in Christ Jesus. I did the sinning, He did the
saving. Oh, for it to be holy and solely of God, it is holy
and solely of the sovereignty of God. Now, did the saints here
at Corinth, let me ask you, you think about this, did the saints
of God at Corinth put themselves into Christ? Or did God put them
in Christ? Paul said, but of Him. It's His
doing. God did it. That's why you're
in Christ. And if God put them in Christ
so as to give them a standing in Him, a union with Him. This
is what I want to drive home to you this morning. Union. One
with. The Scripture says when a man
and a woman come together in marriage, they become one. And
Christ is our bridegroom and we as His bride are one. and union. And I also see in
this declaration by the Apostle Paul, in the same text, I see
that Christ Jesus of God is made unto us. Do you see that? Of
Him, are you in Christ Jesus? Who of God is made wisdom and
righteousness, sanctification and redemption. It was, I'm saying,
an act of God's sovereign grace. Could we or any other, now let
me ask you this, have made Him to be all this for us? Absolutely
not. Did we devise the plan, for lack
of a better terminology? Did we carry it into execution? Did we raise up Christ from the
dead? Did we set Him at God's right
hand in the heavenly places and make Him head over all things
to the church? Did we? Well, you know we did. Who did? and power and sovereign might. All we are made in Christ is
the sovereign will and gracious execution of the God of all grace. God did it, didn't have to. Could
have passed us by and let us go to hell and still been God,
a holy God. So let me briefly just give you
a few things. First, as I've said, we have
the union with Christ, which the saints of God have with Christ,
as declared in the words, but of Him are you in Christ Jesus. You see, our only hope of salvation
is to be in the perfect Redeemer. To be accepted, we must be perfect. We can't be perfect. So our only
hope of salvation is to be in the perfect Redeemer, our substitute. And it was God that sovereignly
put us there. Secondly, the benefit which spring
out of this personal union with Christ Jesus is that Christ of
God, by God, because of God, is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification and redemption. And thirdly, the fruit of all
these heavenly blessings is praising and blessing the name of Him
who loved us and gave Himself for us. Isn't that what verse
31 says? That according as it is written, He that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. I want you to clearly see the
union which the saints of God have with Christ Jesus. This
union is the source and foundation of every spiritual blessing,
every single one. In fact, without this union with
Christ, there is no spiritual blessings. None. We see and observe
that the Apostle Paul does not speak as if we gave ourselves
this union with Christ Jesus. Our union in Christ is declared
by the expression, in Christ Jesus. How are we in Christ? How are we in Christ? It's God's
doing. It's of God. It's by the sovereign
purpose, will, and grace of God. Whatever God does, He does in
harmony with His eternal purposes. And this is often time in the
Scriptures called the counsel of His own will. We read that
very often. We read, he who worketh all things,
Paul says, after the counsel of his own will, Ephesians 1.11.
And to the same end, the apostle speaks and says, having made
known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good
pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself. God has mercy on
us because he's pleased to do so. And that's sovereign mercy
and sovereign grace from a sovereign God. And again, with similar
speech, Paul expresses himself by saying, who has saved us? Speaking of God, God saved us
and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works. Oh, take your free will and let
her fly there. Throw it out the window, friends.
It's not of our works, but according to His own purpose and grace
which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. And still even more plainly,
he lays down the same solemn truth when he says, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will. Now you tell me the salvation
is not of the Lord. To tell me that, you've got to
deny the Holy Scriptures. And even though, as I said, the
word sovereign is not found in Holy Write, yet every page declares
God's sovereignty. Now, if we put together these
passages, we shall see in them all the sovereignty of God's
will, and that this will is determined by the fixed purposes of God
alone. That is what the sovereignty
of God is. God does what He wills, to whom He wills, how He wills,
and when He wills. And you know what? The child
of God says, I'm so glad. I'm so glad. Therefore, whether
we speak of the good pleasure of His will or the counsel of
His own will, or His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself,
or His own purpose and grace, we still come to the same place.
And that is the sovereignty and supremacy of the will of God. Now there's somebody in control,
and it ain't us. And it's very important to understand
something of the fullness of God's sovereignty. Not only is
God's sovereignty displayed in the good pleasure of His will
and His everlasting love, but in the execution of His eternal
purposes. And what do you mean by that?
Well, the good pleasure of His will can only be made known by
its execution of it to us. In pursuing His eternal purpose
and in the flowing forth of His eternal love, He gave His people
a union with Christ. And this is beautifully expressed
by our Lord when He said, I have manifested Thy name unto the
men which Thou gavest Me out of the world. Thine they were,
and You gave them to Me. And again, He said, they are
thine, and all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I'm glorified
in them. Now what is He saying there?
They belong to us. They belong to us. This divine
sovereignty is to be made known in manifestation, as well as
in purpose and execution. You see, the will of God is secret
to us, until it flows to us in the time of love and is manifested
and made known to our heart by God's divine heavenly power. There was a time in eternity
when I was God's chosen elect, God's chosen son, but I didn't
know it. I didn't know it until it was
manifested to me by God's divine intervention in the preaching
of the Gospel. Until my heart was made known
by His divine and heavenly power. Oh, there's an eternal union
with Christ, dear friends, and it's the purpose of God and the
gift of His people to Him and the gift of Him to His people. There is a spiritual and living
union built upon God's sovereign grace which is given to the soul
and unites us to Christ by the power of God. The Apostle tells
us that God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ hath blessed
his people with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. That's where God's blessings
are found. And these blessings depend and flow out of a manifested
union with Christ. Oh, friends, the greatest union
we have with Christ is a spiritual one. We have no spiritual union
until we've been made a partaker by His Spirit. And Paul said
in Romans 8, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he's
none of His. We must then see that the saints
of God are in Christ Jesus, not only in the original purpose
of God, but also in Christ Jesus by the execution of God and the
gift of Christ to us. Okay, there are four great blessings
mentioned here, and I'm almost finished. Bear with me a few
minutes longer. The Apostle declares that, O
God, that God made Him unto us, that we now have these things
because of Him and being in Him. He's made unto us wisdom. I didn't
have any wisdom. He's made unto us righteousness.
I had no righteousness of my own. Sanctification, holiness,
set apart, and redemption. We have these things in Christ
by the sovereign giving and grace of God. I want you to see that. That's the only reason we have
them. The first spiritual gift that's given to us, which is
far beyond all that we ever lost, is that God therefore made him
our wisdom. It had pleased the Father that
in him should all fullness dwell. And friends, there is a fullness
of heavenly wisdom that's given to us. Christ has made of God
unto us righteousness. We all have to stand before the
bar and justice of God. And how can we stand there unless
we have a righteousness that the law of God shall be fully
satisfied with? We can't. Our own righteousness,
the Scripture declares, is filthy rags. And that we cannot appear
before the throne of God. But our blessed Lord and Savior."
Now listen, this is the Gospel. wrought out a righteousness by
a full and perfect obedience to the law that you and I had
broken. And He's thoroughly obeyed it.
He obeyed it in thought, in word, deed and action. And this righteousness
is now mine by my union with Him. Do you see why this union
is important? In Him, I have wisdom and perfect
righteousness." This righteousness is our wedding garment. It's
our justification. We have nothing else in which
we stand before the throne of God. And this robe of righteousness,
which is imputed to those who believe, is perfect. Because it's of the obedience
of the Son of God and by it all that believe are justified from
the things from which we could not be justified in the law of
Moses. The law of Moses won't take care
of this and give us the righteousness. It was never given for that intention.
God's law was given to show man his inability to keep it and
to bring him to Christ. The law was our schoolmaster
to bring us to Christ. And then the third thing mentioned,
of God He's made unto us sanctification. There's a solemn declaration
of the Apostle that says, without holiness no man shall see the
Lord. You and I have no holiness. We
do in Christ. That's what sanctification is.
It's perfection. How can I believe that sanctification
is progressive? How can you improve on perfect?
And all God's people will one day see Him face to face for
Christ is made unto us. Sanctification. Perfection. And we're set apart and perfect
in Him. The last blessing of which the text speaks of, and
that's redemption. Redeemed. bought with a price. Now this word implies several
things. It implies first redemption from
a state of captivity. You and I were captive in sin
and bondage to sin. We were redeemed by Christ and
the price was paid for our deliverance. In Christ we were redeemed from
the captivity of sin. Other times redemption is applied
to the forgiveness of a debt. Redeemed. The debt's been paid. And we're no longer debtors,
friends, but we've been adopted by the one that paid our great
debt and we're now made joint heirs with Him. Oh, do you see
how much brought forth in that word redemption? We're redeemed
from the captivity of sin. We're redeemed from the curse
of the law. We're redeemed from the awful debt which we owe to
divine justice. And all who believe and trust
in Christ are redeemed from these things. Can you see that our
full redemption Full redemption. Full redemption and salvation
is by what God did for us. Truly, the child of God can enter
into Ephesians 2.8 which says, For by grace are ye saved. Every
child of God knows it was grace that saved them. And it was through
faith. But that faith was not conjured
up by the sinner, no. That faith not of yourselves,
it was the gift of God. Not by words, lest any man should
boast. So let me ask you, do you cherish
God's gift? All the blessings that we have
are in Jesus Christ. Do you cherish Him? He is God's
gift. It's in Him that we have these
things.