Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 13, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 28: Our Life in Christ

Transcript

October 13, 2021 | Chronological Bible Study with Patty Diliberto - Session 28: Our Life in Christ · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hello, welcome to Crono this morning or today, whenever you're watching it.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Pray with me.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Father God, thank you very much for this time.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I'm so excited with what we get to see today, and I just ask that your spirit would come and manifest this teaching would manifest our hearing and our seeing the things that you want us to see.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: So, God, please just do that for us in a mighty and powerful way, I pray.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, amen.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Our looking at the life of Christ wouldn't be complete if we didn't look at how his life and his coming impacted our lives.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're going to see today.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had many missions when he came to earth from heaven.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: First and foremost, he came to reveal the Father.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: He came to reveal the Father.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: He came to give his people a more complete revelation of who the Father was.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Through Jesus, we learn that God the Father is gracious, that he is merciful, that he's faithful, he's redemptive, he's forgiving, and a host of other things.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' goal was first revelation, and secondly, it was salvation, because he came to seek and to save the lost.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: We could probably say that revelation and salvation are in tandem, and we would be correct.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: We tend to think that Jesus just came for salvation.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: But I pray that as you read through the New Testament in the coming months, the next two months, that you will see that Jesus came and declared his mission over and over and over.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: He could not reveal who the Father is without being obedient to the will of the Father.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: And those goals of revelation and obedience drove his ultimate sacrifice, which led to salvation.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: It's clearly there in the Gospels.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: And I pray so much that that is what you see and hear from Jesus.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: There are many other things that Jesus came to do, but revelation and salvation are the two primary ones.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: We are the lost and found of the Lord Jesus.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: And because we are His, we have certain inalienable rights as His children.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: I think that is the perfect word to use because that term inalienable, which is really hard to say, means something that is incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred to another.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: That's what we possess in Jesus Christ.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: And I'll be building on that the rest of this lesson.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: The word Christian is used only three times in the Bible, but the phrase in Christ is used 27 times in the book of Ephesians alone, and over 160 times in the New Testament.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: So that term represents the new supernatural union of Christ living in you and you living in him.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Your physical identity lasts only as long as your body lasts and exists.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: But your spiritual identity lasts forever.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Throughout the New Testament, there are statements about this, the new us, the us after we have believed in Jesus.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: But before we see what the new us looks like, let's look at the at what represents the old us.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Apart from Christ, everyone has a common identity.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: This common identity is linked to what we have done, and we see it in Romans 3.23.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: What is our common identity?
4:31
SPEAKER_00: We are sinners.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: We are all sinners.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if someone has sinned a little or a lot.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: Everyone has sinned and can be identified as a sinner.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: That's our identity.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Before Christ, we are sinners.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Paul gives us more detailed information, however, in Ephesians chapter 2.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: He says, therefore remember that formally you who are Gentiles by birth were called uncircumcised, that's the Gentiles.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: By those who call themselves the circumcision, that's the Jews.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, you were excluded from citizenship in Israel, you were foreigners of the covenants of the promise, you were without hope, and you were without Christ in the world.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: What those are the things that we were separate from Christ, foreigners to the covenants, the Abrahamic and the Mosaic covenant, the law, without hope and without God.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: That's who every one of us were.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: We were that.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: What are we now?
6:59
SPEAKER_00: We are brought near to God through the blood of Christ.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: We are fellow citizens with the Jews, God's people, his chosen people.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: We are members of his household with a foundation of the apostles and the prophets.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: Jesus replaces the what we were with what we are.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: That's where we're talking about today.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: We see more evidence of it even in 1 Corinthians and in Romans, both of which Paul wrote, in 1 Corinthians 15, for since death came through a man, Adam, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man, Jesus.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: From God's point of view, there's two kinds of people in the world.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Those who are in Adam and those who are in Christ.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: And amazingly, God loves both groups of people.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: He absolutely loves completely both groups of people.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad that that's true.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: Because it says to me that he loved me before as much before I came to Christ as he did after I came to Christ.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that he loves everyone, everyone the same.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: And when we allow that love to penetrate us, it changes us and it gives us a new identity.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Romans 5, 12 and 17 says, Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, Adam, and death through that sin, and in this way death came to all people because all sinned, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through one man, Jesus Christ?
9:04
SPEAKER_00: That's the good news.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: To be in Adam means that you have inherited a nature, a sin nature.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: You are sinful.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: The consequences of his actions are condemnation, and his destiny is death.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: That's the totally terrible news.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: But to be in Christ means that you have inherited his nature, which is righteous, the consequences of his actions, which was justification, and his destiny, eternal life.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: The moment a person believes, the old self that was born in Adam positionally dies.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: And we call that personal justification.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: Now we're going to look at those that word in just a minute.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: But an easy way to remember what justification means is the term just as if I've never sinned.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Justification, just as if I'd never sinned.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: The moment you came, let me back up.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Inheritance and identity.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: This new identity means you can no longer go back to being, not being in Christ.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: You can't go back to that because you are now in Christ.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: You can't remove yourself no matter what you do, and no one can remove you from Jesus.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus never will.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: Never.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: The biblical for support for that statement is what Jesus declares in John 6, 37 and 39.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: He says, Jesus says, All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never drive away.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: For I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up in the last day.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: That is eternal security.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: That is eternal security.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Jesus spoke those words because he wanted us to know that we are anchored to him.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely anchored, not because we hold ourselves in that position, but because he holds us in that position.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: Instead of being being defined in relation to our sin to Adam, a believer in Christ, is now viewed as being in Christ.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul again says in 1 Corinthians 1 30, it is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: That is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: So the moment a person believes in Jesus Christ for salvation, they have a new identity in Christ, which encompasses the righteousness and holiness and redemption.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: All of those things.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: And when we recognize who we are in Christ, our behavior should begin to reflect our new identity.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: And if I when I kept doing it, that I was disobeying him.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: It was hard to change my old ways of thinking and my old actions and behavior that followed my bad thinking, because my thinking was so messed up.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: And God knows that, because He knows that it takes a while to change the patterns of our sinful nature, the patterns of our sinful thinking, and He's patient with us.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: But they don't.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: It's a process, and we have to change those bad ways of thinking based on truth, the truth of Scripture.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: And we won't be perfect.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: We will not be perfect.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: But the good news is God does not expect perfection from us because he already had that in Jesus Christ.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't expect perfection.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: But now, since we are in Christ, his perfection, Christ's perfection, his righteousness is now ours because we are in Christ.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Now when the Father looks at us, he sees us in Christ.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: He won't see us apart from that.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: There are a plethora of things that God does for believers, the moment of salvation.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: And these are fundamental realities for every believer who is in Christ.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: And they encompass foundational truths, and those two of those are justification and sanctification.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: Justification declares once and for all that a believer is righteous and holy before God now and forevermore.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: Justification is what God has already done on behalf of every believer and is perfect and it is permanent.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: We don't ever have to even question it.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: It's what he has already done.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: That's great news.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: Whether or not we feel it, it is still true about us.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: We don't feel necessarily like we've been justified, but it is a reality because God says it's a reality for us.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Then sanctification, it refers to God's continuing work in a believer's life that results in ongoing Christ-like transformation.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: This process is lifelong.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: But it will not bring any believer to perfection in this life.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: God's not after perfection with us.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Total sanctification is complete only, only when a believer is in the physical presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: We will always be in that sanctification process.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: And it's that sanctification that's the that that encompasses that old way of thinking and that old behavior that we have to change.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: And we change that over time, and it's called progressive sanctification.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: We're progressing towards something, away from something and towards something in that sanctification process.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: We are positionally justified.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: That's what we were talking about just a minute ago.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: We're positionally there, but the but and we are sanctified the moment we receive Christ, excuse me, as our Savior.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: But we're progressively sanctified as we change our behavior to be more Christ-like.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: For some of you, this is old news, and for some, this is new news.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: For all of us, it's a reminder of the goodness of our God.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Because He doesn't expect us to do everything.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: He's already put forth the work.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: As a believer, your identity in Christ is not based on your personal goodness or your works or your worth.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Instead, your identity is a demonstration of God's goodness, of his grace at work to justify you and to sanctify you to himself.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: It's not our work.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Could we have done that on our own?
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: Before Christ, your identity your destiny was hell.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: But now, because of all that Christ accomplished, your destiny is heaven and eternal life.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: You are now a citizen of heaven.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: Right now, that is who you are.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: You are a citizen of heaven.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: And there are certain ways that those citizens act to represent the king of that country.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: We are God's subjects.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: And we show our reverence for God when our behavior more closely matches our Savior's behavior.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: When our thoughts more closely relate to Him.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: The reason we feel bad when we do something wrong is because it's now inconsistent with the new life that is in us.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: We feel bad because it feels inconsistent with who we really are in the depths of our being.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: And that conviction from God when we do something wrong is actually evidence of new life, right?
19:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he doesn't convict you if you're not his and if he's not in the process of sanctifying you and growing you.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Our enemy Satan wants to keep us from understanding and fully embracing who we are in Christ.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Why?
19:43
SPEAKER_00: Why does he want to keep us from that?
19:47
SPEAKER_00: Because Satan knows how dangerous we could be individually, corporately, if we ever really truly took our identity in Christ very seriously.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And if we if we ever knew God's truth enough so that it could defend the attacks of the enemy and replace his lies with God's truth, when we do that, and to the degree that we do that, we will be dangerous against the kingdom of Satan.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: If I were to ask how many of you feel holy, I imagine that none of us would say, Yeah, I feel holy.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even myself, I don't feel holy.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, if I asked you, do you feel righteous?
20:44
SPEAKER_00: You would probably have the same response.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: We don't feel holy and righteous, but that is who God says we are.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: He says we are holy.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: He says we are righteous.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: So are we going to believe what God says about us?
20:59
SPEAKER_00: Or are we going to continue to believe the lies that Satan has perpetrated on us and what we feel we are?
21:08
SPEAKER_00: That's the crux of it.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: We're either going to believe the truth or we're going to continue to live by our feelings that are deception and erroneous.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: The lies we have believed, whatever they are, are not truth.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: They are not truth, they are deception.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: And God declares us holy and so we are.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: We are.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: If we cling to the lies, we will be deceived.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: If we cling to the truth, we will be set free.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: When I was growing up, um my my mother would introduce our family by saying she had six children, three boys and three girls.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Girls.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: The oldest was a boy, the next one was a girl, the next one was a boy, the next one was a girl, the next one was a girl, and the next one was a boy.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: And then she would say, Patty messed it up.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: Patty was supposed to be a boy.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: That I heard for my whole life until about six, seven years ago.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: And it always stung and it always hurt and it made me doubt.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: But one day I was having this incredible time with the Lord in my home, and I had the Bible sitting on my lap, and I'd been in sweet fellowship with him when all of a sudden he brought that memory so clearly to my mind and the pain associated with it.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: And I knew, okay, we're going there.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: I've got to deal with this pain that this inflicts on me when I think about that.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: And so I was emotional immediately.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: And so I took my Bible, I went to my bed, I put my Bible on the bed, and I got on my knees before the Lord and my Bible, and I said, God, that's been my identity my whole life.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: I have felt like I've been a mistake, like I should have been something else.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: And I said, That's a deception that Satan perpetrated on me.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: So speak truth to me now.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: And he did.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: He started saying, I knit you together in your mother's womb.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: I know the plans I have for you.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: And those were the things I was receiving from him.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: And I said to him, I don't feel those things.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm like I wasn't supposed to be who I am.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: But God, I believe your truth.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: It is truth.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: What I have believed was something that the enemy has perpetrated on me.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm going to believe your truth until I feel like it's truth.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to believe it until I feel it.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: Because you've said it in your word, and it is truth.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: Today I feel loved and that I am who God made me to be.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
25:44
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to live with what anyone else or even ourselves have said about us because God has made it very clear who you are in Christ.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to live with those old tapes running through our minds.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to live with the accusations of the enemy.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to live that way because we are no longer that person.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: When you are in Christ, God gives you a new identity.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: Instead of sinner, you are called Christ.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: Instead of lost, you are called found.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Instead of enemy, you are called friend.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: Instead of unrighteous, you are called righteous.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: Instead of poor, you are called rich.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: I hope that you are seeing that this isn't just a matter of claiming Bible verses or having positive thinking.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: This is so much deeper than that.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: To have your identity in Christ means that you are placing your confidence for living the Christian life in what the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished for you on the cross.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: It's important that you know and act on truth.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Our world, our identity, kind of drives everything right now.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's it's crazy.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: You carry identity with you.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: You have to show identity.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: A driver's license has some identifying things about you your name, your picture, your address, and someone asks, Who are you?
27:29
SPEAKER_00: You could answer by showing your identity.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: Identities tell us that, and it's that's why it's so critical whenever they're stolen from us in this day and age.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's important.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: But your spiritual identity is of utmost importance.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Utmost importance.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: God made you, he claimed you as his own.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: You are his, and and when you move about, he goes with you wherever you go.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: Now your identity is for the sake of making his identity known.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: That's the purpose.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: That's what we hear in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 9 and 10.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: Peter gives us five ways of describing our identity.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: The first, you are chosen.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: You are chosen.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: This is a corporate identity because you belong to the church, but it's also an individual reality for each one, each believer.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: The chosen race is not red or yellow or black or white or brown.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: The chosen race is a new people from all peoples on earth, all the colors, all the cultures, who are now, as verse 11 says, foreigners and exiles.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: John Piper says, What gives us our identity is not color or culture, but our chosenness.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: We are the black chosen, the white chosen, the yellow chosen, and the red chosen.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: From all the races, we have been chosen one at a time, not on the basis of belonging to any group, but on the basis of faith in Christ.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: That's what makes us brothers and sisters in Christ with people all over the world.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: Our first identity is that we are chosen people.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: And then we have received mercy.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: We're not just the objects of God's choice, but we are the objects of his mercy.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: I get my identity not first from my actions and what I do, but from being acted upon with mercy.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: God saw our state of being in Adam, and he was moved with compassion to show us mercy.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: I wish we had so much time to spend on this, but we don't.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: But all through the Old Testament, we have seen this reality that God's mercy demonstrated to undeserving people.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: That is what we have seen over and over.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: And next, you are God's possession.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Every person is God's because He made them.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: First of all, we are His because He knit us together in our mother's womb.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: He created us, each unique.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: But in another sense, we are the ones who will inherit eternal life.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: Because we are chosen by God.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: We are God's inheritance.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Those who will spend, he will spend eternity with.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Next, you are holy.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: Because you are in Christ, you share his character.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: Because you choose, because he chose you, graced you, possessed you, you are holy.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: You are holy.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: If you do not act in a holy way, you're acting out of character because you are holy.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: And you are a royal priesthood.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: You and I have immediate access to God the Father.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: You don't need another human priest.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: We don't need a mediator.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Through Jesus Christ, you have direct access to God.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: You have access to the Holy of Holies, the very presence of God, because you are in Christ.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: You are chosen by God, you are graced by God, you are possessed by God, you are set apart as holy by God, you are vested as royal priests by God, all because we are in Christ.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: Why has God done all of this?
32:29
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9 tells us that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: That's the purpose.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: That's why He's done it.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Is it to elevate ourselves in God's sight, or is it to elevate God in the sight of others?
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SPEAKER_00: Why would we want to elevate ourself after all he has done for us?
33:04
SPEAKER_00: Why would we want to do that?
33:08
SPEAKER_00: To declare the praises of the one who called you out of darkness, into light.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: That's the reason to declare his praise.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: This is the full-time destiny and service of God's royal subjects to make the glories of the King known.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Our new identity in Christ encompasses at least 35 characteristics or benefits, and we get all of those benefits immediately when we receive Christ as our Savior.
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SPEAKER_00: Here are only 17 of those 35 that the New Testament writers tell us that we are in Christ.
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SPEAKER_00: First of all, I am a new creation.
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SPEAKER_00: Secondly, I am free from condemnation.
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SPEAKER_00: I am God's poem.
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SPEAKER_00: Poeme.
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SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians 2.10, it says, For we are God's workmanship.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: That word workmanship in the Greek is poeme, poem, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
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SPEAKER_00: I am a child of the Most High God.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: I am the dwelling place and the temple of the Holy Spirit.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: It says, Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have received from God?
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SPEAKER_00: You are not your own.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?
34:39
SPEAKER_00: I am a citizen of heaven.
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SPEAKER_00: I am a friend of Jesus.
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SPEAKER_00: He says, No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father, I have made known to you.
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SPEAKER_00: I am an ambassador of Christ to the world.
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SPEAKER_00: I am a partaker in the divine nature.
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SPEAKER_00: I am seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
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SPEAKER_00: I am alive in Christ, and he lives in me.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: I am given the mind of Christ.
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SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 2.16.
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SPEAKER_00: For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?
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SPEAKER_00: But we have the mind of Christ.
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SPEAKER_00: I am the salt of the earth.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: I am a child of God, and I call him Daddy.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father, I am a co-heir with Christ.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: I am given boundless boldness and confidence to approach the Father through Jesus.
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SPEAKER_00: I am the light of the world.
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SPEAKER_00: That's just a very partial list of all that God says we are in Christ.
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SPEAKER_00: Not just a few of us, but all of us.
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SPEAKER_00: All of us.
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SPEAKER_00: Amazing, isn't it?
36:12
SPEAKER_00: The reason it's important to understand who we are in Christ is because it's our identity.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: And as we grow in knowledge and implementation of truth, we grow in spiritual maturity.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: Godly character grows faster when we realize who we are in Christ.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: And we don't, and that we don't have to function in the way that we did in the past.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: When we choose to walk in who Scripture tells us we are, we resemble Jesus Christ and others see Christ in us.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: When we operate out of that source, we find contentment, we find purpose, we find affirmation.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: Our minds are transformed, and that impacts our actions and our behaviors.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 1:6 says, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: The word completion in the Greek also means to perfect or finish.
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SPEAKER_00: Jesus is going to finish what he starts in you.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to switch gears just a little bit because next week, when we're together, we will look, be looking at the arrest and the trial of Jesus.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: I know we're moving way too fast through the New Testament, but we have to.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: But in light of that, I want us to look at some of the last words that Jesus says to his disciples before his death, and they really do play into everything that we have been talking about.
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SPEAKER_00: On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus communicated some of the very most important information to his disciples.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: That information was not for them alone, it was for all of us.
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SPEAKER_00: Jesus wanted those of us living 2,000 years after the disciples to know these truths that are absolutely foundational to our faith.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: That upper room discourse covers John chapters 13 through 16, and it ends with John 17, which is Jesus' high priestly prayer.
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SPEAKER_00: In the first five verses of this, Jesus prays for himself, and this is what he says.
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SPEAKER_00: I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.
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SPEAKER_00: And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
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SPEAKER_00: He is speaking this just hours before his arrest in the garden.
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SPEAKER_00: When Jesus left heaven, it's as if he took off the garment of his glory and laid it aside, and he took on the garment of humanity.
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SPEAKER_00: We hear in those verses, his desire for that glory to be upon him once again.
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SPEAKER_00: He says, Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had before the world began.
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SPEAKER_00: His pre-existent, pre-incarnate form.
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SPEAKER_00: Do you hear the longing?
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SPEAKER_00: Do you hear the longing in his words?
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SPEAKER_00: He has done everything, everything the Father wanted him to do, and he will come, it will be completed or finished by the next day.
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SPEAKER_00: Now he's longing for that eternal glory once again.
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SPEAKER_00: Aren't you glad you hear that longing in him?
40:28
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I am longing for heaven.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: The more the world deteriorates, the more I long for heaven.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: The world was deteriorating around Jesus.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: It was in total his total control.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: But he knew what laid ahead of him.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: And he's longing for it.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: I long for heaven to be with him, and that longing is just a mirror of what Jesus was longing for as well.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: And did you notice how Jesus defines eternal life?
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SPEAKER_00: He says that they that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you set.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: He defines eternal life by relationship.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: That they may know you, knowing God, love having a loving connection between you and God and fellowship with him is how Jesus defines eternal life.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: We don't wait for eternal life.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: Eternal life is right now.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: And it can be abundant life right now.
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SPEAKER_00: It begins when the moment we believe.
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SPEAKER_00: In verse 6 through 19, Jesus prays for his disciples.
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SPEAKER_00: He says, I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world.
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SPEAKER_00: They were yours.
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SPEAKER_00: You gave them to me, and they have obeyed your word.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: For I gave them the word you gave me, and they accepted them.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.
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SPEAKER_00: I pray for them.
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SPEAKER_00: I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.
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SPEAKER_00: All I have is yours, and all you have is mine.
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SPEAKER_00: And the glory has come to me through them.
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SPEAKER_00: I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you.
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SPEAKER_00: Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.
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SPEAKER_00: While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: By that name you gave me, none has been lost except the one doomed to destruction, so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
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SPEAKER_00: He's talking about a Judas there.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.
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SPEAKER_00: My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.
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SPEAKER_00: They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
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SPEAKER_00: Sanctify them by the truth.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: Your word is truth.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: What kind of joy is Jesus giving, giving his disciples and us the full measure, the full measure of his joy?
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SPEAKER_00: It is God's will in Christ Jesus that we experience the full measure of his joy.
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SPEAKER_00: I can't even wrap my mind around how amazing that would be.
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SPEAKER_00: But every time you and I experience joy, pure joy, we are partaking of his joy.
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SPEAKER_00: And what does Jesus sanctify us according to verse 17?
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SPEAKER_00: The truth.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: Then he says, Your word is truth.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: He sanctified himself so that we could be sanctified.
44:36
SPEAKER_00: Now in verse 20 and through 26, Jesus prays for us.
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SPEAKER_00: And let's hear what he wants us to know.
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SPEAKER_00: My prayer is not for them alone, the disciples alone.
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SPEAKER_00: I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: Have we believed in Jesus through their message?
44:55
SPEAKER_00: He's speaking to us.
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SPEAKER_00: That all of them, all of us, may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.
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SPEAKER_00: May they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
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SPEAKER_00: I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, so that they may be brought to complete unity.
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SPEAKER_00: Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
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SPEAKER_00: Look at that last sentence.
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SPEAKER_00: Even as you have loved me.
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SPEAKER_00: The Father's love for us, the believer, is as deep, intimate, and lasting as his love was and is for his own unique son.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: That's a quote by Spirusodiatis.
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SPEAKER_00: I have loved it forever.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: And how incredible is that.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: And they know that you have sent me.
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SPEAKER_00: I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus want?
47:29
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to be with him in heaven and to see his glory.
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SPEAKER_00: To be eyewitnesses of his glory.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: How likely is the Father to give the Son what He is asking for here?
47:46
SPEAKER_00: There's no way He wouldn't.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: There's no way He wouldn't.
47:52
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is longing for us to be there and to see His glory as much and probably more than we are longing for it.
48:02
SPEAKER_00: How cool is that! And because we are in Christ, we will one day have the ultimate privilege of our heritage.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: When we see the glory of God revealed in the sun, it's ours.
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SPEAKER_00: It's ours now and it's ours then.
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SPEAKER_00: And whether we experience it through death or through the rapture, we will see it.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: We will see it.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: It is my earnest hope and prayer that today you have seen more clearly why the Lord Jesus came and what we have in Christ and how greatly we are loved by the obedient Son and the Merciful Father.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
48:52
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, thank you so much.
48:55
SPEAKER_00: We thank you so much that you came and that you accomplished everything for us.
49:02
SPEAKER_00: We could never have done it ourselves.
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SPEAKER_00: Never.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: You came to reveal the Father and you were so obedient, obedient to the point of death on the cross.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: Because it was the only way for you to accomplish our salvation, to bring us in Christ so that you could bless us abundantly.
49:31
SPEAKER_00: God, you did it all.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: You did it all.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: We praise you and thank you that you loved us enough to do that.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, thank you for being willing to go all the way to the cross in obedience to the Father.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: We bless you, we praise you, we glory in you.
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SPEAKER_00: We can't wait to see you in all of your glory.
50:09
SPEAKER_00: Come, Lord Jesus.
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SPEAKER_00: Amen and amen.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here today, and I will see you next time.