Reality of Union with Christ

Introduction: Two Preliminary Reminders

0:03 Now we return again this morning to Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians chapter 2, and in our study of this portion of the Word of God, the question that is before our minds is simply this, what is the method that God uses in saving spiritually dead, spiritually enslaved, spiritually condemned sinners? Having described what mankind is by nature in verses 1 to 3 of Ephesians 2, a description that brings together these lines of thought, spiritual deadness,

0:49 spiritual bondage and condemnation, the Apostle, beginning with verse 4 through to verse 10, describes the amazing work of God. The transformation that God Himself brings to pass in His grace. God is the author of that transformation. Mercy and love are the motive, and according to the Apostle, the method of God is bound up in these words, He hath quickened us together with Christ, has raised us up together with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places.

1:31 In Christ Jesus. And for several weeks we have been attempting to grasp the meaning of the Apostle as his thought is expressed in those words, quickened together, raised and seated together with Christ. Let me remind you of the illustration that we've used as a point of reference. These words of the Apostle are like the tip of an iceberg. When you see the

2:01 words quickened together with Christ, raised and seated with Christ, you are seeing, you are confronting only the tip of some great and sweeping concepts of biblical truth which lay behind the Apostle's use of these words. And without his understanding of that which is beneath the surface, the Apostle never would have said that the divine method and the salvation of sinners was to be understood as a co-quickening, co-raising and co-seating with Jesus Christ.

2:42 Now at this point I need to remind you of two things before we move into our further study this morning. The first is this. The work of God in grace is like a beautifully cut and polished diamond. It has many facets or sides to it. And when we look at the work of God in grace, we

3:01 must never think that one facet or one surface is the whole. Now when you're looking at one facet as we are in these days, you could get the impression that that's the whole, but never mistake any individual part for the whole. Salvation is in a glorious and wonderful sense, a being quickened with Christ, a being raised with Christ and a being seated in bed with Jesus God. Now this can mean and is also the result of this kind of thinking of God, or of the creation of God. Now, everyday with the

3:26 only pure and powerful place there is a bilang saying the effect one must never think of the abсылka of man in rowing together with seated with Christ. But in another sense, it is a being drawn nigh to God through Christ. And there are all these various dimensions of our relationship to God in grace, and it would be a tragedy if we only conceived of our relationship to Christ in terms of the concepts here in Ephesians 2, as wonderful as they are, as exalted as they are. And as one church member said to me this past Friday when we were visiting in the home, he said, I feel like my head is going to break as I try to take it in. Quickened with Christ,

4:10 raised with Christ, seated with Christ, as wonderful as it is, that is not the whole story of what God in grace has conferred upon you. So that when we approach God in prayer, our confidence that our sins are pardoned is wonderfully strengthened by the contemplation that we were with Christ when He died. The demands of the law have been discharged. We have been brought out of the tomb with Christ. He was raised for our justification. We are

4:43 seated in the place of privilege. However, the psychology of actually thinking of my prayers as addressed to God, I must in no way think of myself as sitting at God's right hand. I am the poor, helpless, needy, imperfect saint down the road. I am the poor, helpless, needy, imperfect saint down the road. I am the poor, helpless, needy, imperfect saint

5:00 down the road. I am the poor, helpless, needy, imperfect saint down the road. I am the poor, helpless, needy, imperfect saint down here upon earth, approaching, in the words of Hebrews, the throne of grace, that I may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Now, there are other times when I need to conceive of my relationship to the Lord as that of a slave to his master, a servant to his Lord. Other times, a foot soldier in

5:23 the army of God in Christ as the captain of our salvation. So you see, the Bible is full of these various analogies and pictures and illustrations of the many facets of our glorious inheritance in grace. And it would be a tragedy indeed if anyone thought that I was asserting, and certainly it would be a tragedy if you thought the apostle was asserting, that the beginning, middle, and end of our relationship to God in Christ is found in these three verbs, quickened, raised, and seated with Christ. No, that is not so.

6:00 There's much more. And that's the benefit of systematic reading and preaching through the scriptures so that we can turn the diamond all of the ways that God has given it to us and see the many facets of the virtue of Christ and all that comes to us because of his grace. And then the second thing I want to say is this. I know it's been hard work to hang in there these past few weeks. You've had to think. You've had to labor at thought.

Solid Food Requires Chewing: The Call to Theological Labor

6:30 And as I was preparing again this week, I thought of the Hebrews 5 passage in which the writer to the Hebrews says, I have many things that I'd like to convey to you, but he says, I cannot because you are become dull of hearing. For when by reason at the time he ought to be teachers, ye have need again that someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk and not of solid food. For everyone that partakes of milk is without experience in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe, but solid food is for full-grown men. Now, granted, we're dealing with the meat,

7:15 the solid food of the word of God in these days. And solid food, no matter how well it's cooked, no matter how deliciously it's served up, no matter how much it's even cut into bite-sized, pieces, the great contrast between milk and food is this. You've got to chew the one to derive its benefit, at least gum it. Even when you don't have teeth of your own, when you began to take solids as a kid, at least you gummed it. And if the teeth of your own have long since gone,

7:49 and you've got an ulcer on your mouth and can't use what the dentist provided for you in your upper and lower plate, unless you're going to have your food pureed, you can derive no benefit from solid food unless you gum it. You've got to at least gum it, if not chew it. And that's the great contrast in this passage. The apostle is saying that you people to whom I am writing, you want that which just slides down without any gumming or chewing. And he says that's no mark of

8:21 spiritual maturity, it's a mark of immaturity. Now, we've had to do a lot of gumming these days, if not chewing, to get benefit, to derive spiritual nutrition, from the wonderful concepts bound up in the apostle's words, quickened with Christ, raised with Christ, and seated with Christ. But I would simply remind you that as much as I may labor at cooking it well in the oven of meditation and careful exegesis, as much as I may labor in the kitchen of my own preparation to serve it up so that it looks good and it smells good,

9:01 my friend, I can't chew it for you. You've got to do your own gumming. You've got to do your own chewing. And so may the Lord help us all to shake ourselves loose from the spiritual infantile mentality that says, I want it to slip down nice and easy like milk. No, we've got to chew if we

9:25 would derive benefit from it. All right, so much then for those two introductory words, which I felt were needed in the unfolding of the gospel. I'm going to read them to you now. of the exposition. Now, I have suggested that the tip of that iceberg, quickened, raised,

The Two Previous Axioms Reviewed

9:40 and seated with Christ, is attached to this great substructure best expressed in several axioms or principles of God's truth. Thus far, we've covered two of them. I've suggested that when the apostle says the method of God in saving us is a quickening, seating, and being raised with Christ, it's because he understood this first axiom. All that transpired in the life history of our Lord Jesus Christ bore the distinct nature

10:19 of representative, substitutionary, soteric activity. Put in more simple terms, the apostle as a believer understood Christ in his life, acted for me. Christ in his life acted as me. Christ in his life acted for me and as me in order to deliver me. He could never write in Ephesians 2 that the method of God in saving these Ephesians

10:55 was one in which they were quickened with Christ, raised with Christ, and seated with Christ unless he had a quickening. He could never write in Ephesians 2 that the method of God in saving these Ephesians bore the distinctive nature of vestigial activity. This is an absolutely clear understanding of the first axiom. All that transpired in the And the second axiom we studied last week. With this the apostle never could have written without, but he could never

11:30 have written feelin' that opening as part of Rachmaninoff and Regal in New Mexico. But Paul says to him on this other bible here that this way now he can be built upon, as would the people who suffered and migrated in the old cont BLACK daytime again, not just as the project, much as to give, as the the зачkaun Social bottoms from past, distant palm from future. And a clear understanding of that first axiom all that transpired in the life history of the Son of God bore the distinct nature of substitutionary activity, he did what he did for me. In my place, representative on my behalf, in order to deliver inclusive.

11:33 . could have written as he wrote, all that transpires in the realized salvation of a sinner bears the distinct nature of an application of some specific aspect of Christ's saving work. And that's like the fraction 5 thirteenths. You can't reduce it any more than that.

11:56 That's the irreducible minimum. Listen, when God took these Ephesians in hand, described in verses 1 to 3, they were dead. They were bound by the world, the devil, and their own lusts. They were in a state of condemnation.

12:13 Now when God actually takes them in hand to bring them into the experience of His grace, how did He do it? Everything that transpires in the realized salvation of these Ephesian sinners and these eschatologists, these Essex County sinners, bears the distinct nature of God applying to the sinner some specific aspect of that which Christ did as representative and substitute. That's why the apostle takes language that so obviously refers to events in Christ's life. He was quickened in Joseph's tomb.

12:53 He was raised from the dead on that first Easter. He ascended back to the right hand of the Magisterium. You see on high, Acts 1. And yet he says, you Ephesians were also quickened.

The Problem: How Could Christ Act for Me Before I Existed?

13:05 You were also raised. You were also seated. In other words, that which happened in you was an application in your life experience of some dimension of that which occurred in the life history of the Son of God.

13:27 Now we come this morning to the third and final axiom. Which I trust you will understand when we're done. Brings the whole together into one complete unit of thought. Here's our problem.

13:46 Christ acted on my behalf. You say, I can see that. At least I'm beginning to. When God lays hold of me, he applies to me some dimension of that which Christ has done.

14:01 But how could he act for me? And as me, when as yet I was unborn? That question occurred to you? How could Christ be my representative when I didn't exist to be represented?

14:16 How could it be my substitute when I wasn't around to be substituted for? I can understand how the teacher needs a substitute. It's a real teacher in the real classroom who gets sick and can't show up on Tuesday morning. And because she's not there, the Board of Education sends in a substitute.

14:36 But how? How could Christ be my substitute in his life and death and resurrection and session at the right hand of the Father 2,000 years ago when I didn't even have any being? I wasn't even a twinkle in my pappy's eye 2,000 years ago.

14:54 How can it be? Have you asked that question? If you haven't, you should be. How could he act as my representative and substitute when I wasn't even around?

15:07 Then there's another problem when we look at the second axiom. How can I be said to be quickened with Christ, raised and seated with Christ, when 2,000 years separates my quickening, my being raised and seated, from his quickening, his being raised and his being seated? I can understand how God in grace could quicken me, could raise me from my spiritual death and put me in a place of privilege. I don't deserve it.

15:37 And it's an amazing thing. But I can understand that. But how can I in any sense of the word be considered as having been quickened with Christ as 2,000 years between us? How on the one hand can he act for me when I yet have no being?

15:55 How on the other hand can God's work in me be called a quickening, a raising, a seating when 2,000 years separates us? How do you get axiom one and two together? That's the question. Well, the answer is our third axiom.

16:08 And it is this. That which binds together, and here's where I exercise great discipline. I wanted to use a word that states it far more beautifully, but it would have scared some of you, so I didn't use it. But because it says it better, I'm going to sneak it in anyway as a little aside.

The Third Axiom Stated: Union with Christ Is the Bond

16:27 That which binds together the saving activity of Christ and the realized salvation of the sinner, that which brings together axiom one and axiom two is the reality of the union which exists between Christ and His people.

16:51 That which binds together, and the word I wanted to use was that which makes synchronous.

16:59 You say, I've got synchronous gears. No matter what gear I shift into, they fit. That which makes synchronous brings together so they mesh the saving activity of Christ and the realized salvation of the sinner. That which binds together the saving activity of Christ and the realized salvation of the sinner, is the reality of the union that exists between Christ and His people.

17:25 Now let me explain the axiom as we've done each week, demonstrate its scripturalness, and then bring a few words of application, and then God willing next week we'll enlarge upon the nature and the effects of that union with Christ. All right, let's look at the axiom and take it apart in two pieces. That which brings...

17:46 brings together the saving activity of Christ and the realized salvation of the sinner. Now isn't that the great problem of the Ephesians 2 passage? How did Paul get Christ and me together? Wasn't that the problem?

18:04 Quicken together with Christ. Christ quickened as the God-man? I understand it. I open up the Gospel record and I read, Now when it began to dawn upon the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, and they found the place empty, and they saw the man in shining apparel, saying, He is not here, he's risen.

18:24 You say, I've heard that all my life, I understand that Christ was quickened. Now my problem is, why and how in the world can Paul say, I was there in Joseph's tomb with him? Quickened together with him. That's my problem.

18:41 As long as it's just Jesus in Joseph's tomb, I've got no problem. As long as it's just Jesus coming out, I've got no problem. When you get me in there and out of there, I have problems. I have problems.

18:59 This is what perplexes me. Now listen. That which brings together the saving activity of Christ and the realized salvation of the sinner, that which binds together his experience and yours, is what? The reality of the union that exists, between Christ and his people.

19:27 Does not the Apostle Paul speak in this passage as though Christ and his people were one in those great redemptive acts? Does not the Apostle speak and talk as though they were one when the sinner received the saving virtue of those acts? The sinner was one with Christ when he was quickened, was raised, and was seated, and in a way I cannot understand, he is one with me when I am quickened, raised, and seated.

20:01 Now why did he talk that way? Did he look down, as it were, in holy cogitation and with some maybe a little gift of prophetic foresight and say, well, you know, a bunch of people are going to sit in a church someday and the pastor's going to be preaching through Ephesians and they're going to begin to get sort of dull in the sleep and we'll really throw in something to perk up their ears and really make them think. So we'll just put these words in there, quickened, raised, and, we have to know that preachers have a tendency to be lazy, so I'll fix them. In the midst of all that I'm saying that's quite obvious about being dead in trespasses and sins and saved by grace, I'll really throw in some tough nuts for the preachers to crack and set them to work.

20:41 Is that what he was doing? No, he wasn't. No, he wasn't. The Apostle understood that there was a real union between Christ and His people.

20:53 A union Christ entered into with them before Christ. Before they had any being. So that in all that He did, He did it representatively, substitutionarily, to save them. And the Apostle knew that when a sinner was actually brought into the orbit of divine grace, a union was established with Jesus Christ that constituted His experience nothing less than a quickening, a raising, and a being seated with Christ.

Three Great Mysteries of Scripture

21:26 And the only thing that makes this language permissible is the reality of the union that exists between Jesus Christ and His people. Now that's what I mean then by the axiom. The only way you'll get together Christ's work and the sinner's experience is to understand the union that exists between the two of them. Now let me demonstrate its scriptural basis.

21:54 And as we do, we do remember what the old theologians constantly remind us of. There are three great mysteries revealed in the scripture. Now by mystery, kids, the Bible doesn't mean something that's spooky. It means something that you never could attain unto unless God had revealed it.

22:12 You can look up at the heavens according to Psalm 19 and Romans 1 and you can argue from the vastness and the might and the wisdom displayed in the heavens that Almighty God is a God of power and of power. And a God of wisdom. Romans chapter 1 says, The things that can be known are His everlasting power and Godhead. But these are things you could never, never understand by gazing at the heavens.

22:42 By gazing into your own heart. By gazing into the hearts of others if that were possible. A mystery is something that can only be known if God reveals it. And there are three great mysteries in the Word of God.

22:55 Three great mysteries of being. You know what they are? The first is the God who is one in three and three in one. The first great mystery of being is found in God Himself.

23:10 He is one God. But He exists in three persons and yet the three persons do not constitute three gods. Nor are they simply three manifestations of the one God. There are three distinct persons in the one Godhead.

23:28 So you have trinity and unity and unity and trinity. Now could you ever conceive of that notion by looking at the heavens? By looking within? Never.

23:39 That's the great mystery revealed. The second great mystery is the mystery of the God-man, Christ Jesus. How can God be so joined to humanity as to make one person and yet that person is truly God, fully God, unequivocally God, and yet He is truly, fully, unequivocally man? He has a man's body, a man's mind, a man's soul, and yet He is still in the fullest sense of the word Emmanuel, God with us.

24:15 Now you explain that if you can. The two natures in the one person join forever.

24:25 Can you explain that? The apostle couldn't. He says, Great is the mystery of godliness. God is manifested in the flesh.

24:34 That's the second great mystery of being. You know what the third great mystery is?

24:41 The third great mystery is the reality and nature of the union that exists between Christ and His people.

24:53 And it's in the same ballpark with those first two mysteries. Mysteries that baffle the mind. Mysteries before which we stand as light too bright even to look. And yet the apostle says in Ephesians 5 after speaking about the relationship between husbands and wives and says for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife and they too shall be one flesh.

25:19 This mystery is great. Nevertheless, I speak concerning Christ and the church.

25:30 The union that exists between the Lord Jesus and His people is a mega mystery. It's a great mystery. It's a profound mystery. And mysteries, Christian, listen to me.

25:46 Gospel mysteries, biblical mysteries are addressed to our hearts to be embraced in faith.

25:56 They are not given to us to dissect them and hold them as it were in abeyance until we can master them with our mental faculties. If you wait to embrace the one God revealed in the Bible until you are able to do it, until you understand Him, you'll perish in hell.

26:15 When you can fit God into a teacup mind such as you and I have, He ceases to be God. The person who says, well, I can't understand how God can become a true man. This business of Mary's womb housing for those months God Himself. Who can understand that?

Mysteries Are for Faith, Not Intellectual Mastery

26:37 My friend, I can't understand it, but it's true. It's a mystery. Addressed to the believing humble reception of the people of God. Now follow me closely.

26:51 You do not disbelieve or hold off faith in the mystery of the one in three and the three in one because you cannot understand all of its ramifications, do you? Don't you confess as you sit here this morning that you believe in one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? I trust you do. If you're a Christian, you're a Trinitarian.

27:16 I trust in the second place that you believe in the Christ of Scripture who is true God and true man. And you do not hold back reposing yourself in the arms of an omnipotent Savior simply because you can't fathom how He can be both God and man in one person.

27:37 You believe beyond what you can clearly and rationally spell out in all of its dimensions. Now here's then the great stumbling block. As we've been in this passage in Ephesians. You say, but I can't understand.

27:52 I could be quickened with Christ. Oh, I could be raised with Christ and seated with Him. I know where I'm seated. I'm seated right here in this pew in Trinity Baptist Church.

28:04 And for the life of me, I just can't bring myself to believe what Paul says that I'm seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You see what you're doing? You're making your rational faculties the measure of your loving trust. There's nothing irrational here.

28:23 But there is that which goes beyond the faculties of the human mind to reduce to simple little propositions.

28:32 And so I plead with you, dear child of God, to recognize as we come to demonstrate and then enlarge upon the nature of this wonderful union to realize we're in the realm of faith. We're in the realm that we spoke about in that wonderful hymn that we sang and I chose it purposely and I want to refer to it now. Hymn number 310. You see what you prayed?

28:58 Here would I feed upon the bread of God. Here would I touch and handle things unseen.

29:10 You see, we Christians do not dabble in fantasies or mirages. You know what a mirage is, don't you? You know the picture of the poor desert traveler, his tongue's hanging out, and he's driving, and he sees on the horizon what he thinks is a pool of water, but it's a pool of nothing. It's only the heat waves rising off the sand and when he gets to his so-called pool of water, what's he find?

29:35 Nothing but more dry, burning sand. A mirage is something that is only an illusion. It's not really there. There are many people who think that faith makes people comfortable with illusions.

29:50 God and Christ and forgiveness. And communion with God in the blood of the everlasting covenant. These are beautiful mirages to help poor, weary earthlings as they try to make a go of it in life. And if they get comfort from the mirages, fine, leave them alone.

Hymn and Mirage: Faith Grasps What Is Real

30:08 No, no, my friends. We're dealing with the things of the Spirit of God. They have substance. They're real.

30:19 They're substantial. Though not substantial to these faculties, they are substantial to the world. They are substantial to the world. They are substantial to the world.

30:26 They are substantial to the world. They are substantial to faith. For faith is the evidence,

30:32 the substance of things hoped for. We're dealing with true, substantial issues as we come to this wonderful, biblical truth. Well then, I digress, but it's not been carelessly. I trust it's been with some measure of profit and under the guidance of the Spirit.

30:55 Having given you the third axiom, now, let me tell you, let me demonstrate briefly its scripturalness. Look at the context of Ephesians itself. When the Apostle Paul opened this letter, where did he begin? Well, he began after general words of greetings, for the Holy Spirit does not make men socially boorish.

31:18 And he took the common greetings that were in vogue at that time. And after greeting the Ephesians in verses 1 and 2, he begins this paragraph of eulogy. This is a eulogy to God. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, in Christ.

31:51 So at the very outset of his letter, the Apostle says in essence, O you Ephesians and all who will in time to come read this letter, join me in ascribing honor and praise to the God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And join me in ascribing praise to Him because He has blessed us as believers with every spiritual blessing and the sphere of that blessing is clearly defined in these words. In Christ. If we are in Christ,

32:36 every spiritual blessing is ours. If we are out of Christ, no spiritual blessing is ours. And if we are in Christ, there is not a spiritual blessing which is not ours. Now let me ask you, is being raised from spiritual death a spiritual blessing?

Scriptural Demonstration: Ephesians 1, Romans 6, Colossians 2

33:00 Yes or no? Yes. Is being brought out of the bondage of the world, the flesh and the devil a spiritual blessing? Yes or no?

33:10 Now some of you can't answer yes to that. But you think blessing is in your servitude to the world, the flesh and the devil. But it isn't. Blessedness is being delivered from the clutches of the world, the flesh and the devil.

33:25 Now then, where did this blessing come to us? Paul says every spiritual blessing comes to us where? Only in Christ. Now he didn't forget.

33:37 That's what he had written. Having then eulogized God for the fact that every spiritual blessing comes to every believer in Christ, a chapter and a half later when he talks about the spiritual blessings of being quickened and raised and seated, he must think in terms of the union that exists between Christ and His people as being the seedbed, out of which these blessings grow. So the quickening, the being raised and the seated must be in union with Christ Jesus since they are spiritual blessings. And if you look at the context

34:22 of all of the other key passages that we studied in past weeks that deal with this idea of being crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, raised with Christ, all of them with but one exception, are strong passages on the reality of our union with Christ. Let's just look at two examples very quickly. Romans 6 is a passage that we've referred to quite frequently in the course of our study. Romans chapter 6, where the apostle speaks of being baptized into Christ's death.

35:06 He speaks of our being raised with Christ. But now notice how careful he is in verse 3 to indicate that it's union with Christ that makes this possible. Are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ, that is, who were placed into union with Christ, Christ Jesus, were baptized into His death? Verse 11, reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin but alive unto God.

35:41 How? In union with Christ Jesus. So the orbit within which these things have happened to the Roman Christians is the orbit of union with Christ. And then Colossians chapter 2, and I'm limiting myself to these two passages arbitrarily in the interest of time.

36:07 Colossians 2, the only other passage that uses these words together as we find them in Ephesians 2.

36:16 Verses 12 and 13, buried with Him in baptism, raised with Him through faith in the working of God. You being dead, did He make alive together with Him? But notice how he introduces that whole section in verses 9 and 10. For in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him, that is, in union with Him, ye were made full, who is the head of all principality and power, in whom, that is, in union with whom, ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands.

36:56 So do you see the point that I'm driving at? That whenever the apostle speaks of Christ's objective work, death, burial, and resurrection, and the believer's experience of being quickened with Christ, and the believer's experience of being quickened with Christ, and raised with Christ, he's careful to point out that that which brings together Christ's work as representative and substitute, and the believer's experience, is the reality of the union that exists between the Lord Jesus and His people, and His people and the Lord Jesus.

37:37 So apart from understanding this great spiritual reality, namely union with Christ, many pivotal points, many pivotal passages of the Word of God are closed to us, and if closed to us, the praise due to God for this great blessing will be withheld, and the comforts that these passages yield will be unknown. The understanding they give to the whole of divine revelation will be missing. Now to let your minds relax a little bit, I'll do most of the work as we conclude this morning, by giving just several observations, before we draw our study to a close, and then God willing next week, for at least a week or two,

38:21 I hope to expound something more of the nature of our union with Jesus Christ, so that a passage like Ephesians 2 will be part of our permanent inheritance as the people of God, as we understand its wonderful teaching. The first thing I would do is bring a two-fold exhortation to those of you who are the children of God. When I say a child, I mean one who is no longer spiritually dead, and spiritually bound, and in a state of condemnation. You know that you are no longer spiritually dead because you are alive to spiritual realities.

38:59 Through the worship of God, the seeking of His face, delight in His Son, sensitivity to His will, these are the things that comprise your life. You are not a dead sinner, bound by the world of flesh, and the devil. Though there is much you don't know, and much you haven't experienced, one thing you know, once I was blind, but blessed be God, now I see. Things that once had no appeal to me are now my meat and drink.

39:33 Though I don't understand much that is even said in a service here, the fact that I am here is a proof I am no longer dead. There are some of you, your very presence in a place of worship is an evidence that you are alive in Christ. Now some of you, it is only an evidence you have got some mom and dads with good sense and a good firm hand. That is why you are here.

39:54 Some of you, it is only an evidence that you have some good tradition. But for some of you, there is no reason for you to be here, except God has quickened you. And if that is not the key evidence, whatever in your life is the thing that nature would have never led you to do or to be, it stands there today as a monument of the grace of God. You are conscious of fighting with sin, wrestling with that world which one held you in its clutches.

40:24 Well listen dear child of God, there is a very practical word of exhortation with two prongs to it flowing out of our study this morning. The first one is this, and this is for your comfort. The reality of your experience is not determined by the extent of your knowledge. The reality of your experience is not determined by the extent of your knowledge.

40:48 The reality of your experience is not determined by the extent of your knowledge. I know what some, I shouldn't say I know, but I've got a sneaking suspicion as to what some of you have been thinking these weeks. As these truths have overwhelmed me, having been in the way for twenty some odd years, and having had the privilege for almost all of those years to expound the Scriptures and to live in the Scriptures not only as a Christian, but as a Christian minister. And I've confessed to you in this series, and I do again, that I have felt overwhelmed.

41:21 I felt like such a child, such a babe in the knowledge of God's truth. And I can appreciate how some of you must feel. You say, well if the pastor is holding forth these truths and they're there, he didn't put the words there, quickened with Christ, raised with Christ, seated with Christ, crucified with Christ. They're biblical concepts and I don't have a clue as to what they mean.

41:43 Do I have anything real? If my knowledge is so obscure on something so fundamental, can my experience be trusted? Ah, listen to me, Christian. Listen carefully.

First Prong of Exhortation: Reality of Your Experience Is Not Determined by Your Knowledge

41:55 The reality of your experience is not determined by the extent of your knowledge. And the devil would take these choice dainties and turn around and bring you under a spirit of bondage by very means of them. No, no, Christian, listen. The extent of your knowledge is not the determiner of the reality of your experience.

42:20 Paul was writing to real Christians when he said, are ye ignorant? And then he expounded this very doctrine in Romans 6. He's writing to Christians in Colossians 2 when he says, oh, if you only understood that you were crucified with Christ and you died with Christ to all of these regulations and all the rest. He said, now understand that and then your experience will catch up with what you are.

42:44 The Bible nowhere says, attain that you may become, it says grace has made you now live consistent with what you are. That's the whole emphasis of the word of God. So don't allow the devil to bring you under a spirit of bondage and say, well, if I don't understand this, that means I have nothing real. No, no, my friend.

43:06 Listen, listen. The evidence that you've been quickened with Christ though you didn't know it, as we've emphasized earlier, is that you're here this morning with the actings of a living soul. Delight in God. Delight in His Son.

43:23 Praise for His salvation. Those are the evidences that your experience is real, though your knowledge may be very limited. So lay hold of that, Christian, lest you be discouraged. The reality of your experience does not determine, is not determined by the extent of your knowledge.

43:42 But there's a second problem to that. Some would say, well, if the reality of my experience is not determined by the extent of my knowledge, why bother? I mean, Pastor, let's get on with it. You know, verse 7, verse 8, verse 9, verse 10.

43:56 There's a lot more in Ephesians. What in the world? Let's get on with it. Oh, my friend, listen.

44:01 Listen to me. And some of you need this second prong of the exhortation. Some of you need to be comforted with the first. Some of you need to be pricked with the second.

44:10 And it's this. The stability and the richness of your experience is in great measure determined by the extent of your knowledge. The reality of your experience is not determined by the extent of your knowledge. But the stability and the richness of your experience is in great measure determined by the extent of your knowledge.

44:39 The proof of that is right in this very epistle when Paul says that God has given prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Why? For the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministry, unto the building up of the body of Christ, that we be no more children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. And the church is full of unstable saints.

45:03 Everyone who holds up a carrot and says, Come, taste my carrot. And they go running like silly rabbits to nibble at the carrot of charisma. And they think, Well, in the charismatic movement I'll find reality. And someone else holds up the carrot of some scintillating experience and some other thing.

45:24 And you see the church inundated with all kinds of carrot holders. And the people of God like rabbits scurrying around nibbling at all the carrots. What's their problem? They're unstable because their knowledge is so defective.

45:43 We're not questioning the reality of the experience. But the instability of life is directly attributed or attributable to the ignorance. That's why Paul writes in Rome, Are ye ignorant? This is what you are.

46:01 Do you not know? He says to the Corinthians. And so, dear people of God, the Holy Ghost never puts a premium upon ignorance. Spiritual growth comes in the path of spiritual knowledge.

46:16 Read the prayer of Ephesians 1. We studied it in detail months ago. He says, I pray that God will give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Chapter 3, the same thing.

46:29 Philippians chapter 1. He says this, I pray that your love may abound. In what? All kinds of unprincipled affection.

46:37 No. I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in all wisdom and in discernment that she may approve. Those are three words that have to deal with my enlightened understanding as a Christian. Wisdom.

46:52 Discernment. Approving. And so lay hold of the second prong of my exhortation. The stability and the richness of our experience is in great measure determined by the extent of our knowledge.

47:08 Do you know why some of you are so unstable? That every time you fall into an area of weakness, you begin to question your salvation. You begin to get unhinged in every department of life. It's because you don't understand Christ.

47:24 You don't understand it. And if the Spirit of God would simply bring home to your heart with power what you are in Christ, that would not minimize your grief over your sin, but it would bleed from your grief the sinful elements of unbelief. For sin is the act of a living soul. Therefore, it is to be an expression of faith, not unbelief.

47:52 The groveling kind of confession that is simply filled with a stench of unbelief is not pleasing to God. He has said, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us. Though I fall, I will rise again. And dear child of God, your instability in the area of assurance is rooted in your ignorance of what you are in Christ.

48:25 And also the richness of our experience is affected by what we know. Thank God that just as a parent brings home that little child and all it can do is gurgle and wail and holler and snort and make funny sounds that sound great on the ears of the parents so long as it doesn't go on too long at three in the morning, there is life. And the gurgling sounds are the living evidences, the audible evidences of that life. And I never saw a parent who despised the gurgling of a little newborn.

49:01 They get irritated once in a while when they cry and you check for pins and you burp them and all the rest. And some of you fellows are having your baptism these days and life is taking on entirely new dimensions. You thought you were really making progress when you came home and found a young weepy bride and you learned how to console her. But man, what do you do with that little kid?

49:21 You can't talk. You can't...

49:23 It's rough, isn't it? Yes, you're learning what life is all about. Ah, but listen, listen. If you came home ten years from now and that child met you there, at the door with nothing but gurgles and boos, there'd be nothing to bring delight to your heart then.

49:43 The fact that all that child could utter was inarticulate gurgles and boos at age ten. Every gurgle and goo would break your heart because it would be a monument of its arrested growth. How does Almighty God feel when He's given to us the richness of His Word so that from the inarticulate gurglings and gooings our new life in Christ we might develop so that we can articulate in our praise to God in our communion with Him concepts commensurate with our age in grace? How does the Heavenly Father feel

50:27 when some of you are still living, as it were, upon the substance of those first few months in the state of grace? Your concepts have not gone beyond your initial concepts. Your understanding has not gone beyond those rudimentary elements of the Christian faith. Isn't that what the writer to Hebrews is saying?

Second Prong of Exhortation: Stability and Richness of Your Experience Are Determined by Your Knowledge

50:55 The time you ought to be instructing others, you're still back cooing and gurgling. And that is the second great curse of the evangelical church in our day. Running after carrots? And those that aren't running after carrots have a perpetual gooing session.

51:16 So that as someone told me this week, so they dreaded to go to church because they could always predict the moment the preacher stood up, they could tell you what was going to come for the next half hour. There was nothing fresh, nothing new, nothing with new glory breaking out of the book. Just the same old cooing and gurgling, parroting over and over and over again, ad nauseum. Oh may God have mercy upon us as a people that we shall never enter that degenerate state where we are content because we say, well, the extent of my knowledge does not determine the reality of my experience.

52:00 Therefore, why press on? Why labor at masticating the solid food? Dear Christian, the extent of your knowledge in great measure, there are other factors, but in great measure will determine the stability and richness of your experience. Hasn't it done something for your world?

52:22 Hasn't it done something for your worship to know that you were quickened with Him? You were raised with Him? You are seated with Him? Hasn't it done something in your own experience of wrestling with the world to know that in Christ that world has no more claim upon you?

52:39 Hasn't it done something when the guilt of your own conscience rises up and looms over you, cast its shadow upon you, to be able to say, I died? The law has exhausted its rightful demands. I cannot touch it. Dear child of God, those are the problems with which I live, aren't they the problems with which you live?

53:00 The world, sin, guilt! Ephesians 2 is calculated to help you to face those problems in the triumphs of grace. And my closing word of exhortation is to those of you who sit here, strangers to God and to His grace. And perhaps you have been saying, look, if I've got to understand all that that preacher has been talking about the past few weeks, crucified with Christ, raised those big long axioms, big words, big sentences.

53:30 There's no hope for me. I might as well pack in and just go out and abandon myself to the world. I can't understand all that. Oh, dear unsaved friend, listen to me.

53:39 You don't need to understand Ephesians 2, 5, and 6 to become a Christian. All you need to know is that God's telling you the truth about you in Ephesians 2, 1 to 3. You're dead.

53:52 You're bound. You're under condemnation.

53:57 And Almighty God sends out that indictment. But that same God says, repent and believe the gospel. Turn from your sin. Turn your back upon that world to which you are married in an adulterous relationship.

54:15 Your heart was made for God and for His Son.

54:20 And plead with that God to have mercy upon you for the sake of His own dear Son. And the promise of the Word is that all who know another will know that there's no hope in themselves. All who know enough to know that God's only way of deliverance is in His Son. And who will repent and believe the gospel.

54:42 God has committed Himself to His own Word and He says, He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. Oh, may God help some of you who sit here today in your sins. If you've become heavy and discouraged, saying, if the saints, if the preacher who's been a Christian for years says he's just beginning to grow, what hope is there for me, my friend? Listen.

55:11 There is wonderful hope. Not to be found in your ability to understand Ephesians 2, 5 and 6. The wonderful hope in God's beloved Son. The blessed Lord Jesus Christ who stands before you in the preaching of the gospel and says, come unto Me.

55:30 All ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Oh, may you come and find the promised rest. Let us pray. Oh, Lord, we thank You this morning.

55:58 We confess with breathless wonder that we can never begin to understand why such astounding, such amazing mercy should be conferred upon such unworthy rebel sinners. We thank You, Lord Jesus, that You willingly assumed the place of a representative and a substitute. Long before the world was ever brought into being, long before we had any being in space and time,

56:37 we thank You that we were chosen in Yourself. And that You assumed all of the responsibilities for our deliverance. We thank You that in time You were willing to come to the humiliation of the virgin's womb, from the limitless recesses of eternity and the glory above, to all of the ugly reality of our sin. Oh, Lord Jesus, we praise You that being found in fashion as a man, You humbled Yourself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

57:21 That You were willing to be exposed to nakedness and shame, and most of all, to the brunt of Your Father's holy wrath. Oh, Lord Jesus, we thank You that in Your death, death is swallowed up. We praise You. We thank You, Holy Spirit, that You have come to give us understanding, to loose us from bondage to sin, that we might embrace the Savior.

57:53 Oh, God, be pleased to take the feeble efforts that Your servant has expended this morning in an attempt somehow to extol and magnify You as the God of grace. Oh, Lord, be pleased to blow upon all that has had the clay and the chaff of man's thought, and whatever has been a true exposition and application, proclamation of Your Word, seal it to our hearts and help us to be willing to expend the necessary energy and spiritual mastication in chewing upon the truth,

58:37 that we may derive its nutrients, that we may know its strength. Oh, Lord, we would not be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, by every blast of guilt, by every single influence of the world, Oh, Lord, we would become rooted and grounded in the truth. Hear us then in these our petitions, as with one heart we offer them before You. And then we ask You to be merciful to those who are yet in the clutches of their sin.

59:16 Oh, make the gospel invitation effectual this morning. May they hear a voice beyond the voice of the preacher, saying, Come unto me. And, oh, may they hear it. Come.

59:29 Father, may that great day reveal that this hour spent together was not in vain. Hear us, oh, Lord, we plead, and dismiss us with the benediction of Your own presence resting upon us and abiding with us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.