Source of Our Spiritual Strength: Christ

The Reality of Human Weakness and Mortality (Psalm 90)

0:01 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, January 5th, 1997, at the Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, New Jersey. Now, if I were to ask you to turn with me to the New Year's psalm, I wonder what psalm would come to the minds of most of you. I have reason to believe that if we were to ask for hands to be raised and for suggestions to be given and then a vote to be taken, that most likely Psalm 90 would win the day. And if it would not, by your common suffrage, it is the psalm to which I would ask you now to turn with me, not for a detailed exposition this morning, but as the basis and framework for our meditation in the scriptures in this hour. Psalm 90. Psalm 90, and I shall read in your hearing just the first ten verses.

1:14 This psalm that has the title, A Prayer of Moses, the Man of God.

1:22 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. You turn man to destruction and say, Return, you children of men. For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

1:58 You carry them away as with a flood. They are as asleep. In the morning they are like grass which grows up. In the morning it flourishes and grows.

2:10 In the evening it is cut down and withers. For we are consumed in your anger, and in your wrath are we troubled. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance. For all our days are passed away in your wrath, and we bring our years to an end as a sigh.

2:39 The days of our life are long gone, and we bring our years to an end as a sigh. The days of our life are long gone, and we bring our years to an end as a sigh. Our years are threescore years and ten, or even by reason of strength fourscore years. Yet is their pride but labor and sorrow, for it is soon gone, and we fly away.

3:00 Now if there is any emphasis in this 90th song, which comes through loud and clear, even to the half-attentive reader or listener, of the psalm, it is that you and I are pathetic, weak creatures of time, marked for death and the grave.

3:28 Now as unpleasant as those words may be, they reflect the reality emphasized in this psalm. And they did not come from a man who had a melancholic, negative temperament, and therefore sought, or sought to give expression to that psychological aberration. They came from a man who had witnessed an entire generation of tens of thousands who came out of Egypt by the outstretched hand of God die by the thousands week after week, until the entire generation of those twenty years old and upward who came out of Egypt, until the entire generation of those twenty years old and upward who came out of Egypt, and were in the language of the New Testament, but carcasses strewn in the wilderness. And unlike the one true and living God who is, in the language of this psalm, from everlasting to everlasting, the God before whom, as Peter reminds us, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day, you and I are time-bound, time-bound creatures.

4:46 Each of us has a very special day that reminds us of that reality. It's called our birthday. And I've been amazed over the years at how quickly the youngest among us become very conscious of this. I might ask the toddlers the date of Lincoln's birthday, and they shake their heads, have no idea.

5:08 The day World War Two began, no idea. But long before they know the dates that are the dates, the great benchmarks of world history. They come up to me bright-eyed and try to get the right number of fingers up and say, Pastor, I'm this many years old tomorrow. And I know immediately that they are very conscious of that particular day and that particular month in which they were brought into the world. It is their birthday. And each time we go into a doctor's office and have to fill out a form and we apply for a job or we're applying for our working papers and we're making application to school, whatever it is, almost invariably, whatever else is on that form, there's always a place that says day, month, and year of birth. We are reminded that we are time-bound, time-marked creatures. Furthermore, we live our lives by those numbers and words on that piece of paper that we call

6:19 a calendar. And we think in terms of the structure of our lives around those calendars. And even more repeatedly throughout the day, our clocks and our watches get a measure of attention that perhaps many a neglected wife or child would envy. And why is that?

6:42 Why is it that we glance at our watches and look at our clocks and structure our lives by our calendars? It is because we are creatures of time. And it is for this reason that the change from one calendar year to another has such an inescapable impact upon us. When you stop and think of it, technically and in reality, there is no fundamental difference between the 24-hour period and the 24-hour period.

7:12 What is the difference between the 24-hour period designated December 31 of any given year and January 1 of the so-called new year? It is a block of time comprised of 24 hours.

7:27 And yet, inevitably, we find ourselves drawn into some measure of heightened and focused recognition of that transition from December 31 to January 1. And while we may turn away from the kind of celebration which the world engages in, finding in that notoriety and in that change from one calendar year to another an occasion to indulge the flesh, while we turn away from that, nonetheless, we cannot help as human beings but feel the pressure of that change. We're reminded of it when we go to school after the new year and how often you kids have had to strike out the 1996 that you will write. If I had a dollar for every time one of you writes 1996 on a paper in the next two weeks, I'd have some nice vacation money. And those of us who write our checks find that we must write ahead for the first two or three months into the new year or we revert to 1996 and we're reminded we are in a new year. Now this is just a fact of humanity.

The New Year as an Opportunity for Spiritual Reflection

8:41 It's a human experience. It's unavoidable. It's morally neutral in itself. But for the child of God, as surely as the world uses that fact as a springboard to indulge the flesh, we ought to use it as a springboard for concentrated, concerned, spiritual effort to fulfill our biblical obligations as summarized in a passage such as Ephesians, chapter 1, where the Apostle Paul commands all believers to walk as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil.

9:24 Not to be unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And so the coming of a new year, with its natural pressure upon us to think of time and of the passing of time, and of the structures of time by which our lives are bound, becomes to the child of God an opportunity for concentrated reflection, which, if blessed by the Spirit of God, can result in his spiritual progress. And one of the ways in which we can do that is to pause as we stand on the threshold of a new calendar year and to take ourselves, our spiritual bearings, by reflection on where we have been and what we have done and where we are and where we hope to go and what we hope to be and by what means we trust those perspectives will come to pass. As the sailor who is a responsible seaman will check the accuracy of his compass before he sets out to sea, and as the pilot will check the calibration, the calibration,

10:40 of his altimeter before he moves out into the runway and full throttle runs down the runway and takes off to his destination. And as the hunter sights in his rifle before he goes out into the woods to make sure that when he sees that buck in the crosshairs and pulls the trigger, the bullet will go where the crosshairs pointed, so surely, if the seaman recognizes the necessity of making sure that his compass is properly set and the altimeter is properly calibrated and the hunter that his rifle is sighted in, how much more should the child of God be concerned as he stands on the threshold of a new year to make sure that he's properly sighted in for the coming year, that his spiritual compass is accurate, that his sight is accurate, that his altimeter is registering as it ought before he flies off into the new year. And therefore, to assist you, the Lord's people, as I seek to deal with my own heart, I want to take these Lord's Day mornings in the month of January and bring a brief series of studies entitled,

Back to Basics: The Exclusive Source of Spiritual Strength

12:05 Back to Basics at the Beginning of this New Year. Back to Basics at the Beginning of this New Year. And as I attempt to do this, we're going to have three, possibly four sermons, each of which will be comprised of a very simple, focused exhortation. Not an admonition, but an exhortation.

12:33 An encouragement to given perspectives and to specific action. And all of them...

12:41 to comprise what I am calling this Back to Basics at the Beginning of a New Year. And this morning, the first of these exhortations is this. Consider afresh the exclusive source of your spiritual strength for 1997.

13:06 As we consider the call to go back to basics at the beginning of this new year, my first exhortation and the focus of our study in the scriptures this morning is this. Consider afresh the exclusive source of your spiritual strength for 1997. And I will attempt to open up this theme under three headings. Number one, the necessity for this spiritual strength.

13:37 Secondly, the identity of this spiritual strength. And thirdly, for want of a better term, the methodology of this spiritual strength.

The Necessity for Spiritual Strength: Our Duty, Our Nature, Our Environment

13:51 First of all, then, the necessity for this spiritual strength. Why should, why must the child of God be concerned about this issue of his spiritual strength standing on the threshold of a new year? Well, I answer, it is true that he ought to do so because of three inescapable realities which touch the life of every Christian. Now, there are hundreds of realities that touch all of our lives and none of them identical to those of another.

14:32 But there are three inescapable realities which pertain to the life of every true Christian which constitute, the necessity for spiritual strength as the child of God enters the coming year. And they are as follows. First, the nature of our duty. Secondly, the reality of what we are.

14:57 And thirdly, the fact of where we are. First of all, then, the nature of our duty. When we pick up our Bibles and begin to read with any seriousness that to which we are called as the people, as the people of God, if we are thinking it all, we will find ourselves crying out instinctively, who is sufficient for these things? Having fully prepared the message, I thought of that just as Pastor Jeff read 1 Peter chapter 2 this morning.

15:34 If you had no catalog of Christian duty for 1997, except that duty which is laid upon you, in 1 Peter chapter 2, you cannot take that seriously without saying, Lord, how in the world can I even begin to frame my life by the specific duties outlined in this one chapter of the Word of God? How can I so live that in every day of 1997, I will have the fresh, intense, spontaneous hunger for the Word that every little babe has for its mother's breast? Lord, that's impossible in myself. I am a mass of vacillation. I am a mass of spiritual fickleness.

16:30 My spiritual gut so quickly gets out of tune that I have an appetite for swill and for garbage, but no appetite for Your Word. You just take that first injunction, and you say, Lord, I have no strength to live every day of 1997 as a new born babe craving the sincere milk of the Word. I have no ability to put away all wickedness and all guile and all hypocrisy and all envy and all evil speaking. Lord, that's my duty.

17:07 But I don't have the power to do that any one day, let alone 365 days of the coming year. Furthermore, I've been commanded to abstain from fleshly lusts that war against the soul. Totally to abstain. To be a spiritual teetotaler in that sense.

17:29 Not occasionally to sip the wine of this world's pleasures and lusts, but to be a total abstainer. Who has power to do that for one day? Friends, read just one chapter like this. Then add to it all of the exhortations of the Sermon on the Mount, the discourses of our Lord Jesus.

17:51 Add to that all of the didactic sections of Scripture followed by the hortatory sections, Ephesians 4, 5, and 6, Colossians 3 and 4, scattered throughout the epistles. And then add to that the law of God. Add to that the whole corpus of biblical revelation that is profitable not only for doctrine, but for reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. Take the book of Proverbs alone.

18:20 Dear people of God, when we take seriously the nature of our duty to be holy as our God is holy, 1 Peter 1, 15 and 16, to walk as blameless and harmless sons of God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, Philippians 2 and verse 15, for us as husbands to love our wives as Christ loved the church with a selfless, sensitive, nourishing, cherishing, caring love, to love our enemies, to do as we were reminded in this chapter when reviled, to revile not again, but to silently commit our cause to Him who judges righteously. Child of God, do you take your Bible seriously when it delineates? Does it delineate your duty? Or have you become so accustomed to these things, yeah, yeah, that's sort of nice, God would like. My friends, that's not God's holy wishes.

19:22 Those are divine directives. And if we lay them to heart and say the God who has mandated them expects us to lay them to heart and to bend all of our faculties into a path of diligent obedience, surely we will cry out in the language of 2 Corinthians 2.16, who is sufficient for these things? You see, if you don't take them seriously, you have no felt sense of weakness.

19:54 You think, you know, you're living a relatively respectable life. You're not going out and getting smashed on booze, blowing your mind on some other kind of mind-altering drug. You're not cussing. You're not chewing.

20:09 You're not going around and whoring and bedding down. And reasonably be respectable. And you sing your hymns. And you come to Trinity Church.

20:17 And even come to prayer meeting. What's the big deal? Well, that is no big deal. It takes nothing but perhaps a mingled sense of desire to have respectability and acceptance with some good people to live that way.

20:34 But to take seriously the length and breadth of divine directives, surely the nature of our duty as defined in Scripture, impresses upon us the necessity for spiritual strength that goes far beyond anything we possess in ourselves. But then secondly, this necessity is rooted not only in the nature of our duty, but in the reality of what we are. In the reality of what we are. Now if we are indeed the children of God, there are many things that constitute our identity that are glorious.

21:12 Glorious beyond our full comprehension and present appreciation. We are justified. Declared in the court of heaven just as if we'd never sinned. We are given by God's imputation on the ground of the perfect righteousness of Christ.

21:34 A perfect standing before the court of heaven. We are legally adopted. We are all the sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. We are indwelt by the Spirit who is the Spirit not only of grace and of supplication and the Spirit of power, but He is the Spirit of sonship, enabling us to say, Abba, Father.

22:00 We are the objects of the constant intercessory work of Christ. We are marked for glorification. That's in reality what we are yet, yet the scriptures teach us that there's another side to what we are. And that in ourselves, that is in our flesh, Romans 7 in verse 18, there dwells no good thing.

22:29 Now that's the apostles saying that. This one converted and commissioned by direct revelation caught up into the third heaven who heard things that it was unlawful to utter and yet he says, I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For to will is present with me, but to perform I know not that when I would do good, evil is present with me. Galatians 5 in verse 17, the flesh lust against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these two are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. And our Lord Jesus said in John 15 in verse 5, without me, severed from me, disjointed from me, you can do nothing. Nada. You can do nothing.

23:34 Now that's not rhetorical overkill. That's reality. In your flesh, and in mine, no good thing. A constant antagonism between what I am as a new man or new woman in Christ and that which the Scripture calls remaining sin, flesh that wars against the Spirit in a constant, vicious, irreconcilable conflict severed from vital union from Christ and the grace of His own life imparted to me in that union, I can do nothing.

24:18 Do you see the necessity for this spiritual strength? It's rooted in the reality of the nature of our duty, the full corpus of the revealed will of God without exception. In the reality of what we are, not only all of the blessed things we are in Christ and because of Christ and the gift of the Spirit, but what we are in terms of remaining sin, of the principle of flesh yet within us. And then thirdly, the fact of where we are.

24:54 Where we are. As we stand on the threshold of this coming year, we need to understand where we are. Christians seek not yet repose. Cast thy dreams of ease away thou art in the what?

25:15 midst of foes. Watch and pray. Principalities and powers. The hymn writer goes on to sketch in the fact of where we are.

25:30 Where are we? Well, we are in the midst of hostile enemy territory. That's where we are. Isn't that what Ephesians 6 and verse 12 teaches us?

25:41 We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. This is the realm in which we are called to carry out our Christian life. Not against flesh and blood, but the principalities against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual host of wickedness in the heavenly places. That is the fact of where we are.

26:10 We are in the midst of hostile enemy territory. We are in the midst of a seductive world system that is not neutral to us. Paul had to write to the Romans and say in Romans 12 to and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Why did he have to say be not conformed or as Phillips paraphrases it, don't let the world squeeze you into its mold.

26:42 Because you see the world is not neutral to you or to me. Not only does it hate us, for Jesus said if the world loved me and received me it will love and receive you. If the world hated me and rejected me it will hate and reject you. But it's also aggressive in seeking to squeeze us into its mold.

27:01 Every Christian living true to his identity as part of the new humanity in Christ, is a pinpoint of laser-like light exposing the darkness of this world. The scripture says men love darkness rather than light. And what they did when the light came into the world they sought to smash it. That's Calvary.

27:26 And all who reflect in any measure the light of lightness to Christ, the world hates them, yes. And the world will not only seek to destroy them, but if it cannot destroy them, seek to conform them to its own patterns. Dull the wattage of the light. Reduce the lamp power of the light of someone living out a consistent, alternate, radical Christian lifestyle.

27:55 The fact that this is where we are is what undergirds the necessity for this spiritual strength. We're in the midst of hostile enemy territory. We're in the midst of a seductive world system. We are in the devil's prowling grounds.

28:13 Yes, we are. We're in the devil's prowling grounds. He's God's devil at the end of God's chain, but we're in his prowling grounds. That's why Peter wrote in 1 Peter 5, 8, be sober, be watchful.

28:29 Why? For your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may spook? No. Seeking whom he, to whom he may give a good case of the goose bumps with a loud roar?

28:46 No. Seeking whom he may devour. Seeking whom he may devour. Consume.

28:57 We are in the devil's prowling grounds. And unlike some of the modern zoo arrangements, he has real access to us. You know what I mean by the modern zoo arrangements? Some of you have been to some of the modern zoos, and it's an amazing thing, the way they have set up the wildlife sections of those zoos.

29:17 And you stand with no big fence between you and predatory animals. You can see polar bear, grizzly bear. You can see lions, tigers, cougars. And there's no big fence between you and them.

29:32 There may be a little wall, but there's no fence with barbed wire and curved angles to that fence. And you see the animals, sometimes 20, 30, 40 feet away, but you're not there biting your nails. And even if that animal should turn and bear its fangs and let out a growl that would give you the goose bumps, you don't jump. You say, Daddy, he's going to get me.

29:59 No, because what did Mommy and Daddy explain to you before you went to the zoo? Or when you came to that part of the zoo? They said, now that's a real lion. He got real teeth and real claws.

30:08 They haven't de-clawed him and they haven't de-fanged him. That's a real cougar. That's a real polar bear. That's a real grizzly bear.

30:17 But you see, they've so arranged it that the bear knows and you are to know that there is a space, whether a deep gully, other things are used that make it impossible for that predatory animal to put his paws or his jaws on you. So you see, when you come into the zoo and pay your entrance fee, you're not coming into the bear's prowling grounds. It's only his prancing grounds. He can prance, but he can't prowl and devour.

30:49 That's the way some of us, I think, assume this whole arrangement is. We're in Christ. Christ has saved us. God has pledged to keep his own.

31:04 We're sort of in a well-arranged modern zoo where the devil can roar, he can bear his fangs, and he can throw back his mane, but we really don't need to be afraid that he can devour. Peter had no such zoo in mind when he said, Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour. You and I are not only in hostile enemy territory with unseen spiritual forces arrayed against us. A seductive world system determined to squeeze us into its mold and ruin the sharp edges of a radical Christian lifestyle. But we are in the midst of the devil's prowling grounds. And he's been in the business of deceiving and deluding and crippling and marring and scarring God's people for thousands of years. Now I ask you, Christian, if you take these three inescapable realities seriously, the nature of your duty, that you are under solemn obligations of gratitude and submission to divine authority, to take seriously all of God's commandments

32:31 concerning all things and to hate every false way, that you are in the reality of what is sitting there in the space, the space you occupy this morning, not only all of these blessed things that God has made you in Christ, but one in whose flesh dwells no good thing, one in whom there is an active principle constantly warring against what you are as a new man, a new woman in Jesus Christ. And the fact of where you are on hostile enemy territory with a seductive world system attempting to squeeze you and on the devil's prowling grounds, I say if we take these things seriously, surely the cry of our hearts is going to be as we stand on the threshold of this new year, O God, by what strength and power can I even begin to begin, to begin to say with David, I esteem all of your precepts concerning all things to be right and I hate every false way. I will run in the way of your commandments. How can I begin to look up into the face of my Savior and hear him say, He who has my commandments

34:01 and keeps them, he it is that loveth me. How can I say, Lord Jesus, you know that I love you because I am keeping your commandments. How can I do that? Unless there is a strength far beyond what is in me, far beyond anything I can conjure up even by the most intense, sincere resolutions of will.

The Identity of Spiritual Strength: Christ Himself and Christ Alone

34:27 If the nature of my duty is that, surely I need the operations of spiritual strength and power beyond myself. Therefore, as I urge you to consider afresh the exclusive source of your spiritual strength for 1997, I trust I have persuaded you of the necessity for this spiritual strength rooted in these three inescapable realities, the nature of your duty, the reality of what you are, and the fact of where you are. But now consider with me secondly the identity of this spiritual strength. I have said my exhortation is consider afresh the exclusive source of your spiritual strength for 1997. What is the identity of that spiritual strength? Where is it to be found? What is it?

35:31 Or perhaps better asked, who is it? Well, I want to answer that question by two simple statements. The identity of this spiritual strength, it is Christ Himself. It is Christ alone.

35:49 That's it. First, it is Christ Himself and it is Christ alone. How do we know it is Christ Himself? Well, here I want you to turn with me.

36:03 I've quoted many passages and not asked you to turn and I've done that deliberately. Not one of them has been quoted in a way that has misused the Word of God. But I do want you to turn with me to Ephesians 6 and verse 10 as I seek to demonstrate from the Scriptures the identity of this spiritual strength as being, first of all, Christ Himself. Here in Ephesians 6 and verse 10, the Apostle having laid out all of the great privileges that are ours as the people of God, blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ, having unpacked many of those specific blessings in those early chapters, and then for three chapters having spelled out one aspect of Christian duty after another that constitutes a walk worthy of our high and holy calling in Christ, he now comes to conclude his letter and he says in verse 10, finally, or henceforth, from this point on, be strong in the Lord, and then he piles up words, and in the strength of His might. Some render it, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.

37:30 You have the verb that is translated be strong, and then you have these two other words, strength and might. And putting them together, you have a combination of words that point to power, to ability, to might unleashed and might that is operative. And yet Paul is careful to say we are to be strong not in our resolve, not in our past patterns of personal discipline, not in any human agency or any means that God has ordained to be the conduit through which He gives us His strength. All of the attention is pointed to the Lord Himself. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. The might that is found in Him and as we are strong in our union with Him, then we are strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.

38:42 Not a strength of might that He parcels out in detachment from Himself, but a strength and a might that are known in union with Himself. For the Apostle began this letter by saying, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ. Jesus. And that little phrase, in Christ, Professor Murray has said the most strategic little phrase in all of the New Testament with respect to the doctrine of salvation found approximately 150 times in the New Testament. In Him. In whom? In Christ.

39:32 In Christ Jesus. Underscoring again and again for us that the whole of our salvation in all of its ramifications and in all of its glorious diversification is all summed up in Christ Himself, the Savior. And we see in this command to be strong that it is Christ Himself who is to be identified as the source of our strength. We not only see it in this command to be strong, but we see it in the testimony of one who was made strong.

40:11 Now if I ask you kids, next to the Lord Jesus, who in the pages of the New Testament stands out above all others as a man who reflected obedience to God, submission to God, active service to God? Well immediately, I trust, you think of the Apostle Paul, made of the same Adamic stuff of which we are made, but grace so operative, grace so operated in him that he became, and he was conscious of this, a pattern for others who would afterward believe on the Lord Jesus unto everlasting life and could say, be followers of me even as I am of Christ. Well let's look at his testimony as one who was made strong. Where did he find his strength? Philippians 4 and verse 13. Philippians 4 and verse 13.

41:06 Familiar text. The Apostle writing from prison, having experienced periods of great privation, having known from the kindness of the Philippians a period of great blessing in which all of his temporal needs were met and even more, he said that these varying circumstances related to how much food I have and what my wardrobe contains, these things do not unstring me or become an index of my joy, my peace. No, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. Verse 12.

41:49 I know how to be abased. I know how to abound in everything and in all things. I've learned the secret to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. And lest we say, well Paul, you're an amazing man.

42:04 You have an amazing resilience of will. You have an amazing stock of reserves of ability to roll with the punch. Paul, you're an amazing man. You can be singing hymns of praise when your stomach is growling and you're burping through want of any food in your stomach.

42:27 And you can sing the same hymns of praise when you're burping from a full meal and you're satiated with food. Paul, you're an amazing man. You have tremendous strength of...

42:39 No. He said, look, the reason I'm able to say these things, verse 13, I can do all things in Him who strengthens me, who strengthens me from within, who gives me power within. I can do. Yes, I can do.

43:05 I do. But I do not do because of something in me. But I can do in Him that strengthens me. There's the testimony of one who says that the identity of the spiritual strength, the strength needed in the nitty-gritty of being able to respond in a godly way to the broad diversity of divine providence from want and hunger and penury to fullness of bread and of clothing and of monetary support and everything in between so that there's no bitterness in the period of privation.

43:47 There's no pride and forgetfulness of God in the period of bounty. In the real world where you live and I live, subject to those temptations, he says, I have learned divine contentment so that my necessities don't unstring me and my bounties don't make me giddy with the heady wine of self-sufficiency and pride. And to what do I attribute it? To Christ Himself.

44:15 To Christ Himself. I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. Listen to his testimony in 2 Corinthians 12. Remember the setting.

44:30 God has allowed this active, passionate servant of Christ to feel a very keen impediment by something that he calls a thorn in his flesh. That God allowed the enemy to inflict upon him what it was no one but Paul and God and those who were around him at the time know for certain. And God hasn't told us and Paul's gone to heaven and so have all the others. But one thing we know, he saw this thing as an impediment to his sanctified passion to do the will of God, to complete the course of his gospel endeavors.

45:13 And therefore, believing that anything that was an impediment to his doing the will of God was something that God could and would remove for the sake of Christ and the advancement of the gospel, he spent three concentrated seasons of supplication and intercession pleading for God to remove it. Verse 8 of 2 Corinthians 12. Concerning this thing, I besought the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And he hath said unto me, This is his word that abides and on which I now feed.

45:47 My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly will I rather glory in my weaknesses now notice that the power of Christ may literally spread itself like a tabernacle over me that I may be intended in the very power of Christ himself. Wherefore, I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong.

46:30 And how is he made strong? He is made strong in no other way than the direct interposition of Christ himself and his gracious power in tempting the apostle, spreading itself like a tabernacle over his weakness, not removing the weakness, but so spreading itself over the weakness that when people see what he was and what he did, they had to stand back and say, This is the Lord's doing. And it is marvelous in our eyes. We have this treasure, he says, in earthen vessels, clay cracked pots.

47:12 Why? That the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God and not of us. That when people look at us, they see what? They don't see this majestic, glazed, ornate, carefully painted, treasured pot placed behind us, behind glass, with tremendous value, the thing that people come to see as an artifact in a museum.

47:39 No. They walk by us at first glance and all they see is a common earthen clay pot with cracks and chips in it. But when they see what God does through that clay pot, they stop and look and say, No way any of things like that could happen. But that Almighty God is dwelling in a clay pot.

48:04 There's the testimony of a man who learned the identity of this spiritual strength. It was Christ Himself. And we see it in the command to be strong. It's to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.

48:19 We see it in the testimony of one who was made strong. Philippians 4, 2 Corinthians 12, and thirdly, we see it in the instruction of Jesus Himself. And I have no intention to steal the thunder of our brother's exposition, of Pastor Lamar's exposition of John 15, which in due course will come to us in coming months. Suffice it to say this, when Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches.

48:47 Abide in Me, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine's soul, neither can you except you abide in Me. You are to draw your very life not from something I've instituted, something I've created, something that I set out there to be the conduit of My life. You are to abide in Me, in My person. You are to know My very life flowing into you as your strength and as your enablement.

49:21 It is Christ Himself. And hence the emphasis in the epistles, Colossians 1, 9 and 10, in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him you are made full or complete. In Him you are made complete. Colossians 2, 6 and 7, as you've received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and builded up in Him, and established in Him.

49:49 You see, there is no third element between us and Him. The identity of this spiritual strength is Christ Himself. But secondly, it is Christ, it is Christ alone. Christ alone.

50:03 The spiritual strength needed for the coming year is not Christ plus someone else, or Christ plus something else. And it's Christ plus that is always the great danger of God's people. Very early, the church faced this. The whole epistle of Galatians is Paul's sanctified, invective against a plus sign after Christ.

50:35 Much of the book of Colossians is a similarly white-hot invective against an attempt to put a plus sign after Christ. You see, the plus sign after Christ is not only deadly with regard to the question, how does a sinner find acceptance with God? That's the great passion of much of Galatians. It was Christ plus, circumcision.

51:01 Christ plus, keeping mosaic legislation, mosaic Levitical rituals and dietary laws, etc. Christ plus. And Paul says, no, anyone who puts a plus where God has put a period, may the anathema of God rest upon him. But you see, it also entered in to the whole question, how does one live the Christian life?

51:24 And that's the great curse of the plus, of the Colossian heresy. They said, Christ is not enough. We need man-made rules of touch not, taste not, handle not. We must undergo rigors of asceticism.

51:38 We must batter the flesh inwardly by pinching the flesh outwardly. And Paul's great ringing cry is, no, Christ is all. Christ is enough. Anything beyond Christ has upon it the anathema of God.

51:54 So when we think of the identity of this spiritual strength, it is not only Christ himself, it is Christ alone. Listen to these texts. Galatians 2.20.

52:05 I've not directed you any to an abstruse text that you say, well, wait a minute, what's it? No, it's very familiar. I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh.

52:25 In the midst of that reality that we already looked at, Paul was no stranger to those very things that constitute the stuff of our spiritual context. The great apostle was in the same set of circumstances as we are. Yet he could say, the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Not Christ plus something else.

52:58 But Christ is the source of my strength, Christ himself, Christ alone. When he records in Philippians 1 how he prayed for that dear church that was so close to his heart, notice how he underscores this principle. He said, I pray, verse 9 of Philippians 1, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and void of offense, and to the day of Christ being filled with the fruits of righteousness, now notice, which are through Christ Jesus, and then he doesn't have a comma, and something else, and something else, no, no, which are through Christ Jesus himself and Christ Jesus alone. They are through Christ Jesus unto the glory and praise of God. This is John's testimony in 1 John 5, verses 4 and 5. This is not some exclusive, quote, Pauline theology.

54:15 1 John 5, verse 4, Whatsoever is begotten of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith. Well, why does our faith overcome? Verse 5 tells us, And who is he that overcomes the world but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

54:37 It is in the ongoing faith relationship to Jesus, Son of God, that we overcome the world, that world that would squeeze us into its mold, that would seduce us into its lusts, and into its pleasures that would turn us aside from a pure pilgrim walk. No wonder Paul could say in Colossians 3, 4, When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also be manifested with him in glory. What a marvelously fascinating little phrase. When Christ, who is not only our salvation from the wrath of God, the ground of our acceptance before God, and whose righteousness provides that declaration, not only not guilty, but perfectly righteous. He is not only the one through whom we receive the grace and status of adoption, sons and daughters. No, he says, When Christ, who is our life, he is our life. The identity of our spiritual strength is Christ himself.

No 'Christ Plus': The Danger of Adding to Christ

55:54 It is Christ alone. And as we stand on the threshold of this new year, and think realistically of the necessity for spiritual strength, may we as the people of God determine that we shall believe the testimony of God as to the identity of this spiritual strength, that it is Christ himself, and it is Christ alone. And if you're visiting among us, wondering what we're up to, and you're looking for some novelty, and you're looking for something that's going to take you where no one else has ever been, may I save you the trouble of whatever gas you'll use to get here for the next time. You may as well go somewhere else.

56:38 For God helping us in the coming year, I trust, as never before, the notes to be sounded in this place for those who are serious about obeying God as he reveals his will in Scripture, doing what is pleasing to God in personal, family, social, and in every sphere of life, you will be pointed away from yourself to Christ himself as the source of your strength, and to Christ alone. But now very quickly in closing, having considered the necessity for this spiritual strength, the identity of this spiritual strength, what is the methodology of this spiritual strength? I confess I struggled with any number of words and crossed them out and used others, but basically what I'm trying to do is just give you a peg on which to hang the answer to this question. Precisely how does this fullness of grace and strength in Christ actually become ours? Now we're not talking about those disciplines that Christ has instituted which under his blessing become a means of imparting.

The Methodology of Spiritual Strength: Union and Communion with Christ

57:54 God willing, that's our subject for next week. But we're dealing more with the heart of the issue this morning. What is the method by which this spiritual strength that is Christ himself and Christ alone is mine? And I can expect to be mine as I face all of the unknown pressures from my own remaining sin, from a seducing world, and from a vicious devil in the coming year.

58:24 Well again, just two very simple parts to the answer. First, we must be savingly united to Christ. And secondly, we must cultivate a believing, appropriating communion with Christ. Anything complicated about that?

58:40 We must be savingly united to Christ. And we must cultivate a believing, appropriating communion with Christ. First, we must be savingly united to Christ. Salvation is in Christ.

58:56 And God does not take any part of that salvation or the whole of it and dispense it out of Christ to this sinner, that sinner, and to another. What he does is he takes the vilest of sinners and he puts them into Christ. And when he places them into Christ, they are then in the sphere of every spiritual blessing. Hence the apostle writes in the familiar words of 2 Corinthians 5, 17, If any man be in Christ, a new creation.

59:31 The old is past, the new has come. 1 Corinthians 1, 30 Of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, that according as it is written, He that glories, let him glory in the Lord. Or 1 Corinthians 1, 9 Describing the conversion of the Corinthians, he says God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship, into the koinonia, into the shared life and communion of Jesus Christ. You must be savingly united to Christ.

60:11 And you say, well, how does anyone get united to Christ? Well, read in the book of Acts how the Corinthians got united to Christ. Paul could say, of him, that is by God's activity, you are in Christ. And in Christ you are all these wonderful things.

60:26 Well, how did they get into Christ? Acts 18 tells us. And many of the Corinthians hearing believed. That's it.

60:35 You get into Christ by hearing the word of Christ. The word of the salvation of Christ. The word that indicts you as standing in desperate need of Christ. The word that exhorts you to look away from yourself and to Christ in His perfect life, in His substitutionary death.

60:55 In the validation of the worth of His death through His open tomb and His ascension to the right hand of the Father. Hearing you believe and lay hold of the Christ who comes to us on the wings of that gospel message. Christ will come to no man prior to His second coming, but that He comes in the chariot of gospel truth. Christ died for our sins.

61:21 He was buried. He was raised. He's been exalted. And in His name forgiveness is proclaimed.

61:29 You must be savingly united to this Christ as you turn from your sin. Turn from trusting in anything you are or hope to be, have done or ever hope to do. And throw the full weight of your hell deserving person upon that glorious person whom the Father fully accepts. It's an amazing thing.

61:52 Reading recently the account of the baptism when the Father spoke from heaven and said this is my Son, my beloved in whom I'm well pleased. And I let my mind run over that scene and said oh Lord if I could somehow have slipped under the robe of Jesus and gone down with Him into the waters of baptism and stood with Him and been a few lumps under His robe and you were to have said this is my beloved Son if I were under His robe and heard your voice I would be able to say hidden in Him the Father is well pleased with me. And what the crazy imagination of a preacher did God graciously does for every sinner who believes on His Son. He hides us in His well beloved One. And when He says to him in whom I'm well pleased He says that to me. He said that's too good to be true.

63:01 My friend that's the gospel. That's the gospel. Throw off the rags and tatters of your own so called righteousness and efforts to make yourself accepted with God and hide in the robes of Jesus. And you'll hear the Father say my beloved ones in whom I'm well pleased.

63:26 We must be savingly united to Christ but then finally we must cultivate a believing appropriating communion with Christ. And all of these headings could take a sermon in itself. You know that who know your Bibles at all. We must cultivate this is not something that comes automatically.

63:44 Our senses are constantly pulling us downward and outward and away from Christ and what we are in Him. But we must cultivate a believing appropriating communion with Christ. What Paul says in Colossians 2.6 walking in Him.

64:03 In Galatians 2.20 that we quoted earlier living by faith in the Son of God particularly thinking of Him as loving us and giving Himself for us. In the language of Romans 6.11 counting, reckoning considering to be true what God has said of us that in union with Christ we were put to death we were buried we were raised to newness of life.

64:28 And in that conscious cultivation of believing appropriating communion with Christ then the strength that Christ is Himself and that He is alone more and more becomes the strength in us by which to put to death the deeds of the flesh and to cultivate the graces of likeness to the Lord Jesus. I come around then full circle to where I began. Back to basics at the beginning of a new year. My first call to you as it is to my own heart in going back to basics is consider afresh the exclusive source of your spiritual strength for 1997. Reckon anew with the necessity for that strength with the identity of that strength and the methodology by which that strength will be yours. And may God be pleased to find many in this new year united to Christ who came into it out of Christ. In the language of that illustration that Pastor Donnelly shared with us still clipped to the loins of Adam death, condemnation, alienation that you might be transferred and you might be found clipped to Christ hung about the girdle

Concluding Exhortation and Prayer

65:57 in the loins of Christ. And in union with Christ in this coming year we too may be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Let us pray. Our Father we do thank you that you have so ordered our lives that days and months and years constantly force their presence upon us.

66:29 We thank you especially for the sanctifying influence of the dawning of a new calendar year. And we pray that you would take all of these influences overlaid by the truth of your word and blessed by the Holy Spirit to cause us by your grace indeed to go back to these basic issues on the threshold of this new year that we may have a new sense of the vast and the deep scope of our need. Deliver us from being giddy with the wine of self-deception that we are able in ourselves to do anything. Lord bring us to a new level of poverty of spirit that drives us out of ourselves and into Christ. We pray that you would help your people in this coming year to be monuments of your mighty strength and power as never before. Take this cumulative mass of human weakness and potential for sin and failure that is Trinity Baptist Church from its pastors down to the newest member and make us the theater to display your mighty power.

67:51 Oh Lord will you not do this to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask in his worthy name. Amen.