I'll turn with me once again
to Philippians chapter one. It's a blessing again, as David
said, to be here for me and for all of us. I was thinking as
I was preparing what a blessing it is that the Lord has given
us an understanding. to know him who is true, isn't
it? And it's because of that that we are here tonight. You
know, here in Philippians, as we saw, is this Gentile city
of Philippi in Macedonia. And it's a pagan city full of
all sorts of depravity, idol worship, and sorcery, And people
who were, as we mentioned, were without Christ, being aliens
from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the promises of
God, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now as
we see, here is Paul and he's writing to a group of people
in this city, and just consider as we read the first seven verses once again of the
wonderful grace of God. We begin, Paul and Timothy, bondservants
of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi,
with the bishops and deacons, grace to you and peace from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every
remembrance of you Always, in every prayer of mine, making
requests for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel
from the first day until now, being confident of this very
thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete
it until the day of Jesus Christ. Just as it is right for me to
think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, and as
much as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation
of the gospel, you are all partakers with me of grace. How great is
that, isn't it? Now, as we consider these things, think
too that everything that is said is true of this church here in
Houston as well, and the great grace of God to us isn't diminished
in any way from what we're considering here. And so, you know, as we continue
on in this little epistle of Paul, let's think. What's true of these people is
true of us in every respect. And we see that How did all this
happen? Well, it was entirely of God,
wasn't it? And that hasn't changed at all.
It still is only entirely of God and will forever be entirely
of God. Now, we saw, and I remind you
again, that the gospel wasn't sent forth indiscriminately,
but to a specific people chosen by God to salvation. The Lord
ordered all the circumstances so that these ones would hear
the gospel of their salvation. And he opened their hearts to
believe this message of life. Lydia and her whole household
and the Philippian jailer and his whole household were saved
by God's grace and the Philippian church was begun. And so, again,
we talk about planting churches, but there's only one church planter,
and it's God, isn't it? You know, a few years ago, Inase,
a pastor in the Kayagan tribe where my parents worked, said
that the saints there often speak about the gospel coming to them
through the ministry of my father Cliff. And he said they, They
speak about it in this way, that the gospel was sent to us from
a far away place, America. And we hear it's a great country,
a powerful country, but we don't know anything of it. But the
gospel came from there and it came to Australia. And he said,
it could have stopped there. But it didn't stop in Australia.
It came up, it came up, it came up to Port Moresby, which is
the capital of Papua New Guinea. And they said, but it didn't
stop there either. And it came to this highland
town in the eastern highlands of Papua New Guinea called Garoka. And they say it bypassed all
these other people. the country. And it came, and
they said it could have stayed in that town. That's where most
people stay. But it didn't. It came to the
end of the road. And it didn't end there. It continued
on, coming, and this is how they say, coming, coming, coming. And it came to us, this little
tribe in the highlands, this nothing people. That's how they
put it. This nothing people. And that's
true of you and I too, isn't it? We're just nothing people. And yet God, because of the great
love with which he loved us, has done so much for us. He sent the gospel of his grace
to reveal to us this so great salvation. Well, how does the
New Testament refer to these nothing people there at Philippi. His saints in Christ Jesus. Now think about that. Well, we're
gonna think about it tonight, Lord willing. But you might be
surprised to know that in the New Testament, the word saint
is the most commonly used word to refer to a believer. It's
used 66 times. And that should tell us something,
shouldn't it? The word Christian is used three. And so I think,
and I think as we see, I hope we'll see why this is so important. It's important for us to understand
what does this word mean? Why does the Holy Spirit use
this word when it's referring to those who have been saved
by this great work of grace? This, we could say, is the biblical
definition of a Christian. He's a saint. in Christ Jesus. And that's a good definition. And this is the only point we'll
be looking at tonight. Well, the first thing then is
we are people who have been set apart or made separate because
this is the primary meaning of that word saint. I was reading
something on this last week as I was looking at preparing, and
the writer said, this immediately makes us ask, separate from what? But that's the wrong question,
isn't it? The real question is, separated to what? Separated
to what? Set apart to what? And the answer
is right there, isn't it? It's immediately supplied. Saints
in Christ Jesus. were set apart to God in his
son. This is always the biblical emphasis.
It's being set apart to God when we're speaking of saints. Not
so much being set apart from something, although that's true
too, and we'll see that. It's also, as I said, that being
set apart, we're separated from certain things, but you can't
set apart to something without being separated from something.
And we see that clearly in many places, Colossians one comes
to mind where we read, he has delivered us from the power of
darkness and translated into the kingdom of the son of his
love. See there's a deliverance from
and a translation to. But the emphasis is always being
set apart by God in Christ. We are translated into the realm
of the kingdom of the son of his love. But in doing that,
we're also separated from the power of darkness and separated
from the world. Well, right away we can see that
A person becomes a saint not by anything that they themselves
do. Isn't that right? They become a saint by a definitive
action of God. Not a process being worked out
throughout the life of a believer. He has been separated by God
in Christ Jesus into this particular realm of God's grace and favor. So the first thing is we must
not think of saints primarily in terms of the life that they
live. I know we're predisposed to that,
but that's not how the scripture presents it. This is most certainly
something that flows out of this, flows out of this, don't get
me wrong, but the essential thing about saints is that they've
been set apart to God. This is very important for us
to understand because the root word translated saint is the
same root word for holy. So what does this mean? It means
you could say perfectly correctly that instead of saints, you could
say holy ones in Christ Jesus. And the word uses that language
in many places with respect to saints. In Colossians 3, for example,
we read, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved. Put on tender mercies, kindness,
humility, meekness, long-suffering. The word there translated holy
is the same root word as here in our text, which is translated
saint. Holy ones, that's all comprised
in that word saint. What does this teach us? Well,
it teaches us that the saint is holy. They're not progressively becoming
holy, they are holy. This holiness is not something
that they do themselves, but something that God does in setting
them apart in Christ Jesus. Now, I think it will be helpful
if we consider what the Lord reveals to us in the Old Testament
scriptures with respect to these things. We know that the nation
of Israel, and especially the temple worship within Israel,
was all given by God as types and figures of the spiritual
reality, copies of the true. In other words, what followed
didn't copy those things. Those things were copies of the
true spiritual things that God in heaven, as the word says,
and that God purposed in terms of his spiritual kingdom. And so we know that, and this
is why they're helpful for us to gain an understanding of some
of these spiritual things that the Lord speaks about in the
New Testament. So the children of Israel, now
listen, the children of Israel were no different than any other
people in this world, no different than any of the other nations,
but God set them apart to himself. He chose them as his own special
people, and as a result of that, what did they become? They became
a holy nation to God. The temple, along with everything
having to do with the temple, was holy unto God for the same
reason. It was set apart for a specific
purpose, and that was the worship and service of God. The priests
were set apart by God for the service of the temple. Now the
priests were no different than any other men in Israel. In fact,
most were unregenerate. But God set them apart for this
purpose and therefore they were holy. This is in the Old Testament.
The vessels used in the temple worship were what? Holy vessels. Why? Were they any different
than any other vessel used every day in Israel? No, they weren't. They were vessels exactly the
same, but what made the difference? They'd been set apart by God
in the worship of the temple, and therefore these vessels were
holy vessels, holy unto the Lord. But two, no. Stay with me. In these types, we also have
a picture of being separated from, separated from. And so they were set apart by
God to these things, but as a result, they were set apart from certain
things. The priests were set apart by
God, holy unto the Lord, and as a consequence, only they performed
the service in the temple. They did different things than
all the rest of the people in the nation of Israel. By virtue
of being set apart wholly unto the Lord, they performed the
service which was unique to the temple. And the same was true
of the vessels, right? The vessels were set apart wholly
unto the Lord. They were the only vessels that, if I can put it this way, did
things in the temple? Did it perform the service of
the Lord in the temple? None of those, no other vessel
in Israel did, only those vessels. Now these are, maybe I'm making
this, beating on this too much, but
sometimes I think we stumble over these things. These were
pictures, these were types of the spiritual reality that God
has brought into into existence in his son, Jesus Christ. Now,
turn over to 1 Peter, chapter 2, where we see this spiritual
reality being worked out. 1 Peter, chapter 2. And I think this You know, these
types, we know, are worked out in many, many different ways
in the New Testament, in the Gospel. But I think this passage
really captures the essence of what we're speaking about tonight.
Look there, 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 9 first. And here we read, not about the type, not about
that holy nation of Israel in the Old Testament, but this this
spiritual entity that God has brought into existence in his
son. We read there, but you are a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special
people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called
you out of darkness into his marvelous light. So here we are,
set apart by God, a chosen generation, a priesthood, his own special
people. You see, that's all the same
language that was used of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament.
But here he's speaking about a spiritual aspect, this spiritual
aspect, and God, that God has set us apart in a spiritual way.
How has he done that? Well, it says right here. He
has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. He's
called us into this realm of an entirely new spiritual existence. Look at verse 5. Verse 5 there,
the same chapter, verse 5. What do we read? We're not inanimate
objects like these vessels, are we? But we're living stones being
built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up what sort
of sacrifices, what sort of service, spiritual sacrifices acceptable
to God through Jesus Christ. We serve in the newness of the
spirit. And we serve as these living
stones, as ones who have life, spiritual life in Christ. That's
how we've been set apart. And that's what Paul, that's
what's encompassed in this description of, this wonderful description
of the believer, that we're saints in Christ Jesus. We're truly
a holy priesthood. We serve in the spiritual house
of God, apart from the world. to offer up spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Well, how is it that
we're set apart as a holy nation into this spiritual realm of
marvelous light? How is it? And the answer, of
course, we know, is in Christ Jesus. Saints, in Christ Jesus. And there, I think, is the answer
to one of the greatest stumbling blocks to the understanding of
a believer with respect to these things. We look at the law of
God, and it's holy and just and good, and we know that we're
none of these things. We look at ourselves and at our
own sin, and we know it pollutes everything that we do. And we
know that in ourselves we're not holy. But the word of God tells us
that we are holy and that it is a holiness sufficient
to enter in to the presence of a holy God and offer up spiritual
sacrifices acceptable to him. What a wonder, isn't it? How can this be? Because we enter
into his presence in Christ. We offer up spiritual sacrifices
through Christ. Did you see that in 1 Peter?
We don't just go in and offer sacrifice, do we? We go in through
Christ. In Hebrews 9, we read, for Christ
has not entered the holy place made with hands, which are copies
of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the
presence of God for us. This, I think, should make it
clear to us, to anyone, that our holiness is not the result
of anything that we do. The saint is holy for one reason,
and one reason alone, he is a saint in Christ Jesus, holy in Christ
Jesus. Our holiness is entirely of Christ
and is entirely due to our spiritual union with him. This is the reason
we read in Hebrews 10, having boldness to enter the holiest
by the blood of Jesus. Let us draw near with a true
heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. We draw near with full assurance
of faith. Why? How could we do that? Because
we know that we are holy, accepted in the beloved. There's no other
way that we could draw to him with full assurance of
faith. Is there? God is holy. Anything short of
that is not holiness. Did you hear that? God is holy. Anything short of that is not
holiness. Not biblical holiness. There's
no partial holiness. There are no degrees of holiness.
The idea of this progressive sanctification is completely
foreign to the scriptures. Christ is holy and there's no
other type of holiness, no other type of holiness acceptable to
God. And it's those who have been
made partakers of his grace, as Paul tells these Philippians.
It's these ones who have been made partakers of his grace that
have been made partakers of his holiness. These are the saints
in Christ Jesus. Well, then we would ask, well,
when do we become partakers of his holiness? When is it and
how is it that a person becomes united to Christ? When do we
become saints in Christ Jesus? Well, I think we've already been
seeing the answers to these questions in the text that we've been looking
at. We're set apart by God in Christ. We know from our own experience,
don't we? when the spirit comes in power
and does that work in our hearts that only God can do, only the
spirit can do. And he takes us and he gives
us that new heart and takes away that stony heart of the flesh.
And he unites us to Christ by his spirit. And he opens our
understanding to see and believe Christ, believe in Christ. This is a spiritual work we so
often just speak about as if it just happens. But it's a spiritual
work that is so great that the Word of God uses striking language
to convey to us the incredible nature of this work when the
Spirit comes in power and unites us to the Son of God. In Ephesians
2, just turn there, just turn, turn, back a few pages to Ephesians,
Ephesians chapter two. And there we read this well-known
text, but God, but God who is rich in mercy, Because of his
great love in which he loved us, even when we were dead in
trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have
been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You notice the emphasis there
on union with Christ? He's speaking about these great wonderful spiritual things that
are brought about by the Holy Spirit and he's made us alive. How has he done that? Together
with Christ. And he's raised us up together
and made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Here we're told of the richness
of God's mercy and of the greatness of his love which results in
this infinite blessing upon these people in Ephesus, upon these
folk in Philippi, upon you and I here in Houston. How are these blessings bestowed
upon these people? Through spiritual union with
Christ. And no other way. Together, together. Together,
when you read those verses, think of that. Together, together,
together. Well, these people, as a result
of this spiritual union with Christ, have been called out
of darkness into his marvelous light. I don't think there's
any greater contrast between darkness and light, is there?
The scriptures tell us that. The word of God tells us there's
utter incompatibility between darkness and light. There's no
fellowship, is how he puts it. No fellowship between darkness
and light. Later in this epistle to the
Ephesians, Paul writes, for you were once darkness, but now you
are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. And the word of God in 1 Corinthians
1 puts these things in a slightly different way. But listen, God
is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of
his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. The saint doesn't become holy
by living a certain kind of life. The saint is holy because he's
translated into the spiritual realm of life. into fellowship
with Christ. He is light in the Lord, and
because he's holy, he walks in the light. He's a child of light. We've been called into the fellowship
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he lives a very different
life than he lived when he was in darkness. Don't let anyone
tell you differently. I think there's a common misunderstanding
that the believer, when he sins, is walking in darkness. I know
I have that tendency. Well, you sin or you fall into
sin, well, you're walking in darkness. But a believer never
walks in darkness. In the first epistle of John,
we read, if we say, that we have fellowship with him and walk
in darkness, we lie, and the truth is not in us. A believer
never walks in darkness. He's in the light because of
this spiritual union with Christ and the indwelling, of course,
of the Holy Spirit. But you say, you know, you say,
and I say too, I sin. And when I sin, how can I be
walking in the light? And it's a grief, isn't it? It's
a grief to every Christian. We sin. It is, isn't it? Well, let me give you an illustration
that I've used in Papua New Guinea. And I say to the saints, look,
let's just think of this illustration. You've been up in your garden
in the mountains. And you're coming home. And you're
past the garden of a brother. And you see this stalk of bananas
there. And it's ready to harvest. And
you think, well, that looks good. And I'm hungry. And that'd be
real nice to take home and put in the fire and cook up. And
you go. And you cut it down. And you
take it home. And I said, before you were saved,
you did that, didn't you? And they say, yeah. And I say,
well, now that the Lord has saved you, do you do things like that
at times? And there was silence. And then,
yeah, yes, we do. And I said, all right, so you
take it home. And you do that. You cook it.
But do you find satisfaction? Do you find joy as you're doing
that? And they say no. And I said,
but before you were saved, did you even think about it? No. No, they didn't think about it.
But now they do. Now we do. And I asked them. So you're there, you're troubled.
Why are you troubled? Well, because we think about
what the word has to say to us. And I said, well, before you
were saved, did this ever happen? No. Never. The word wouldn't
come to us. We didn't know the word. We didn't
understand the word. We were in darkness. Well, that's
it. That's the point. That now you're
in light. Yes, you do sin. But you say
you're in the light and you have an understanding of the truth
and you have an understanding of Christ. And most of all, this is what
they often say. They say, you know, we we think
about Christ. And that's it, isn't it? That
explains everything. We do sin, right? And yet, in
the Lord's mercy, he brings the truth to us. His word speaks
to us. We go into the word ourselves
or we come into the church and we hear the word preached. And
the spirit takes that word, and it speaks to our hearts. And
it speaks to us in many different ways, as you know. And one of
them is convicting us of sin. Well, why is that? Because we're
in the light. Because we walk in the light.
And you know, they say, and we think of Christ, and we think
that his blood was shed for me. His blood was shed for this sin
that I've committed. And that puts a different light
on things, doesn't it? And this is because we are in
the light by God's grace. We've been taken out of darkness
and translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love. In Titus 2.14 we read, who gave
himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless
deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for
good works. And there we see the close association,
too, of purity and saint. A saint is one who has been cleansed
from the guilt of sin. Isn't that true? We've been cleansed
from the guilt of sin and from the pollution of sin. We know
that the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. John writes
in his first epistle, if we walk in the light, and he's not saying
as if we do, since we walk in the light, since we walk in the
light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And what? The blood of Christ
cleanses us from all sin. Listen to what Paul writes to
the saints in Corinth. This is in First Corinthians,
chapter six, in verse nine. He says, do you not know that
the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be
deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters,
nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor
covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will
inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. And such were some of you. But
you were washed. But you were sanctified. But
you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the
spirit of our God. A saint is one who's been washed
in the blood of Christ's substitutionary sacrifice. He's been sanctified
fully and completely in him, just as surely as he's been justified
fully and completely in him. Well, in closing, let's just
turn to Colossians chapter one. Just turn over a few pages. Colossians
chapter one. And I think this passage will
help pull all these things together. Colossians chapter 1, look down
there to verse 9. Now, in our text in Philippians,
we've read, begins this prairie, and he says, I thank my God upon
every remembrance of you, always and in every prayer of mine making
requests for you all with joy. And we see the same here in his
letter to the Colossians in verse 9. He says, for this reason also,
that is, since he heard of their He says, since the day we heard
it, do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be
filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual
understanding. Now, let me stop for a minute. Paul is praying. He's making
his request known unto God. He's asking for good things,
spiritual things, things he knows or the will of the Father. Isn't
that true? Now listen, listen. He says,
to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will
in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of the
Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work,
increasing in the knowledge of God. strengthened with all might
according to his glorious power for all patience and long suffering
with joy. Now, why would Paul have any
expectation that these things could happen to these people
there at Colossae or the people at Philippi or you and I? Isn't that incredible? That's
what he's praying for. Well, why would he, well, why
would he think that? because he knows what God has
done and he thanks the Father for this. Look in verse 12, giving
thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us
from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom
of the son of his love in whom we have redemption through his
blood, the forgiveness of sins. That's why. That's why he can
pray that prayer, believing that God will do that. Will do that,
because God has done a great work in setting us apart to himself
as saints. Saints in Christ Jesus. Amen.