Latest / Voddie Baucham Sermons / Voddie Baucham - This is Who You Are IN CHRIST
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Now, here's what's interesting.
- 0:01Speaker 2: The whole first half has been about your calling. And
- 0:05Speaker 2: Paul's demanded nothing of you. There's no imperatives. He's just going,
- 0:10Speaker 2: here's who you are because of what God has done
- 0:13Speaker 2: on your behalf through the person and work of Christ.
- 0:16Speaker 2: Here's who Christ is. And here's who you are because
- 0:19Speaker 2: you're in Christ. This is Jesus. This is you. This
- 0:22Speaker 2: is Jesus. This is you. This is his work. This
- 0:25Speaker 2: is your benefit. This is who you are. Over and
- 0:27Speaker 2: over and over again in the first three chapters. And
- 0:29Speaker 2: then he says, I therefore, as a result of all
- 0:33Speaker 2: the things that you are, because of what Christ has accomplished,
- 0:38Speaker 2: that you didn't accomplish. The prisoner of the Lord urged
- 0:43Speaker 2: you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling
- 0:45Speaker 2: with which you have been called. Notice how he roots
- 0:48Speaker 2: that even, here's the imperative and he roots it in
- 0:51Speaker 2: the indicatives. I'm calling you to walk a certain way,
- 0:54Speaker 2: but I'm calling you to walk a certain way in
- 0:58Speaker 2: light of and because of who I just told you
- 1:01Speaker 2: you are in Christ.
- 1:04Speaker 1: You see that?
- 1:06Speaker 2: With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one
- 1:11Speaker 2: another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit,
- 1:13Speaker 2: the bond of peace. And then he goes to some
- 1:16Speaker 2: more indicatives. One body, one spirit, just as you were
- 1:19Speaker 2: called to the one hope that belongs to your call.
- 1:25Speaker 2: One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father
- 1:27Speaker 2: of all, who is over all, through all, in all.
- 1:32Speaker 2: But grace has been given to each one of us
- 1:35Speaker 2: according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says,
- 1:40Speaker 2: when he ascended on high, he led a host of
- 1:43Speaker 2: captives and gave gifts to men. So even when he
- 1:47Speaker 2: starts in with his first imperative, he roots it in
- 1:53Speaker 2: the indicatives. This is very important to note when you're
- 1:58Speaker 2: reading the book as a whole, but also when we're
- 2:01Speaker 2: answering that question, what makes the good news.
- 2:05Speaker 1: So good?
- 2:07Speaker 2: So let's look there at those first 14 verses. And
- 2:13Speaker 2: answer that question. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by
- 2:22Speaker 2: the will of God, to the saints who are in
- 2:25Speaker 2: Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you
- 2:28Speaker 2: and peace from God our Father and the.
- 2:30Speaker 1: Lord Jesus Christ.
- 2:32Speaker 2: That grace and peace, it's kind of a gospel shorthand, right? Right?
- 2:38Speaker 2: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
- 2:41Speaker 2: who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing
- 2:43Speaker 2: in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in
- 2:45Speaker 2: him before the foundation of the world, that we should
- 2:48Speaker 2: be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined
- 2:52Speaker 2: us for adoption to himself as sons through Christ Jesus,
- 2:56Speaker 2: according to the purpose of his will, to the praise
- 2:59Speaker 2: of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us
- 3:02Speaker 2: in the beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood,
- 3:07Speaker 2: the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of
- 3:10Speaker 2: his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom
- 3:13Speaker 2: and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will,
- 3:17Speaker 2: according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ,
- 3:21Speaker 2: as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite
- 3:24Speaker 2: all things in him, things in heaven, things on earth.
- 3:28Speaker 2: In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined
- 3:32Speaker 2: according to the purpose of him who works all things
- 3:34Speaker 2: according to the counsel of his will, so that we
- 3:37Speaker 2: who were the first to hope in Christ might be
- 3:40Speaker 2: to the praise of his glory. In him you also,
- 3:44Speaker 2: when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of
- 3:46Speaker 2: your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the
- 3:51Speaker 2: promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of your inheritance
- 3:56Speaker 2: until we acquire possession of it to the praise of
- 4:00Speaker 2: his glory.
- 4:01Speaker 1: Amen.
- 4:02Speaker 2: Hallelujah.
- 4:03Speaker 1: Praise the Lord.
- 4:04Speaker 2: That's just good. but we need to look at it
- 4:07Speaker 2: two more times in order for you to see how
- 4:09Speaker 2: good it is. I'm not going to read the whole
- 4:14Speaker 2: thing two more times, but I'm going to take two
- 4:16Speaker 2: passes because I want you to see something. First, I
- 4:21Speaker 2: want you to see that this good news is good
- 4:25Speaker 2: because of what God did. In verse three, who has
- 4:31Speaker 2: blessed us. In verse four, He chose us. In verse five,
- 4:38Speaker 2: he predestined us. In verse six, he has blessed us.
- 4:43Speaker 2: In verse eight, he lavished upon us. And then in
- 4:47Speaker 2: verse nine, he made known to us. This is what
- 4:52Speaker 2: God did. Amen. Amen. The good news is good news
- 4:57Speaker 2: because of what God has done. The good news is
- 5:00Speaker 2: good news because we were not asked to do it.
- 5:04Speaker 2: And the good news is good news because if we
- 5:06Speaker 2: had been asked to do it, we wouldn't have been
- 5:08Speaker 2: able to do it. You can't get there from here.
- 5:12Speaker 2: That's why this is good news. God did this on
- 5:16Speaker 2: our behalf when we could not do it for ourselves.
- 5:20Speaker 1: That's what makes the good news good news. Another pass.
- 5:27Speaker 2: If we make another pass, we see that this is
- 5:31Speaker 2: good news, not only because God did it, but because
- 5:34Speaker 2: God did it in Christ. Verse 6, blessed us in
- 5:42Speaker 2: Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Verse 4,
- 5:46Speaker 2: chose us in him. Verse 5, predestined us, amen, what?
- 5:52Speaker 2: Through Jesus Christ. Verse six, the last part of the verse,
- 5:58Speaker 2: in the beloved. Verse seven begins with in him.
- 6:01Speaker 1: Amen.
- 6:02Speaker 2: In verse seven, we have through his blood. Go down
- 6:05Speaker 2: to verse nine, the end of verse nine, in Christ.
- 6:08Speaker 2: Look at verse 10, in him. Look at verse 11,
- 6:12Speaker 2: in him.
- 6:12Speaker 1: We get the point? In Christ, in Christ, in Christ,
- 6:21Speaker 1: in Christ. This is good news.
- 6:29Speaker 2: Because God did what we could not do for ourselves.
- 6:35Speaker 2: And this is good news because God did it in Christ. Now,
- 6:43Speaker 2: to unpack that, God does this in Christ. We understand
- 6:50Speaker 2: that he does this in Christ because Christ is the God-man.
- 6:53Speaker 2: We understand he does this in Christ because Christ is
- 6:57Speaker 2: fully God and fully man. We understand that God does
- 7:00Speaker 2: this in Christ because it is only as the God-man
- 7:04Speaker 2: that Christ can keep the whole law and suffer death.
- 7:10Speaker 1: And overcome death and hell and the grave.
- 7:13Speaker 2: But we understand it's important for him to be the
- 7:15Speaker 2: God-man because as man, he has to take on our
- 7:19Speaker 2: sin and be our federal head, like Adam was our
- 7:23Speaker 2: federal head. Adam was our federal head, so all of
- 7:26Speaker 2: us sin in Adam. And then Christ is the federal
- 7:30Speaker 2: head of all of those who have faith in him
- 7:33Speaker 2: so that his righteousness can be imputed to us and
- 7:35Speaker 2: our sinfulness can be imputed to him.
- 7:38Speaker 1: And all of that is summarized in the phrase, in Christ.