Sunday, April 8, 2012

In Christ

Everyone likes Gloss; it's always better when given by others. Not he's cool or she's pretty but real gloss that describes character. How about "Mighty Matthew" "Joyful James" "Micah the mild". I call my son "Uriah the kind" because of his capacity for it.


 

    When I was about that 12 I received some gloss from my grandmother. Now we were country folks and moved from Ellensburg W.A. to Jamestown Rhode Island, this is a city. Although my Grandparents lived on a farm it was actually a million dollar estate; they were proper folks. Don't speak unless spoken to – children are to be seen and not heard; that sort of thing. In fact we were not allowed in the house just in the tack room off of the garage. We would see Grandee (grandpa) but not Nana (grandma). For some reason I don't know I was the lucky recipient of her scrutiny and received my first gloss= it was "delusions of grandeur"; meaning that I thought of myself far more highly than I should. I'd been pretty upset about it for years, but when I was born again it dawned on me that it was true. It's not just true for me but for the whole wide world and it all started with Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the garden. It's that pride that gets us in a lot of trouble and leads us into rebellion.


 

God in his abundant mercy Started with Noah and the flood (Gods Judgments display His love for justice) then sometime later we find Him establishing a covenant with Abraham. We get the sense that man was just messing up again at the tower of Babel. Then in Gods time we come to Moses and God hands us a most precious gift the law.


 

    From that time until now we have struggled with it and its purpose; the law confronts that pride in us. It's the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Galatians 3:24). Simply put the Law is how we are to love God and Love others. It is the greatest commandment enumerated.

  • Deut. 6:5. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
  • John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.


 

Looking at first John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God.

We see these things are essential and revealing. If someone in your life is breaking these they don't have your best interest at heart and shouldn't be trusted.


 

  • If you have an emotional sentimentality towards someone and they keep lying to you; we can know based on these principles that they don't love you.


 

The big problem is that we can't do it- we are trapped in selfishness and sin by our own desires. If that's not bad enough we defend ourselves with mountains of self-justification.


 

Immanuel means God with us and He is the son of promise. When the Israeli slaves were perishing in the mud pits of Egypt there only hope was in the promise of God to their father Abraham.

    WE have the finished word and a revealed savior but ask someone what the gospel is and what to do with the law and they just don't know.


 

On resurrection Sunday we should just drink deep of this truth à

    That we have a resurrected savior – He is risen!


 


 


 


 

We can see Him; the tangible realities of our Savior are plentiful.

  1. In Creation

    We see the all sufficient one displayed in all His Glory.

The beauty of the flowers Luke12:27

The tenderness of a Doe with her Fawn Proverbs 5:19

In the order and glory of the universe Psalm 33:9

His voice is like thunder Job 37:5 40:9 PS 29:3


 

  1. Jurisdictional authorities= for strength peace and accountability

    

The order balance and freedom of a Christocentric hierarchy (Christ ordered World)

    Romans 13:2-3"to reward good and punish evil" (God defines good and evil)

        -Apathy is its own reward.

-if we reward character we get more of it.

-Families are the building block of any society.

3. Repairing of broken things

Ezekiel11:18And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence. 19And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh


 

Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised    

    àThis really speaks to my heart as a fixer; I just fix stuff I always have.

When I was a child I would buy things at garage sales to take home and dismantle. My brothers and I assembled model cars – we would tare em down and then make them better. Each of us had boxes of spare parts and it was like a little wrecking yard in our bedroom.


 

  • When God finished creation it was good but sin entered the world and God gave us the Law so we could see it. Christ the savior came to fix it.
  • Soteriology= the study of the doctrine of salvation.
    • There are only 2 ways in the religions of the world
    • Works        
    • Grace=the power and will to do what you ought. ( Gothard )
      • Ephesians 2:8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast
    • But what is the Gospel?

            It is good news

            It is Christ centered

            It is God centered

It's God in Christ making salvation possible; the gospel is an expression of God's love.


 

  • John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.


 

What has he done? He has done it! – These things are all restorative – To what? – right relationship with God, Life.


 

àRegeneration=

  • 1. Reproduction; the act of producing anew.
  • 2. In theology, new birth by the grace of God; that change by which the will and natural enmity of man to God and his law are subdued, and a principle of supreme love to God and his law, or holy affections, are implanted in the heart.


 

He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. Titus 3.5


 

  • Propitiation=
    • 1. The act of appeasing wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person; the act of making favorable.
    • 2. In theology, the atonement or atoning sacrifice offered to God to assuage his wrath and render him propitious to sinners. Christ is the propitiation for the sins of men.
      • Rom.3:25. 21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all[h] who believe. For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
      • 1 John 2:1-2 my little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
  • Imputation=taking from one and crediting it to another.
    • God transferred innocence and righteousness to us from Jesus.
    • God transferring our sins onto Christ.
      • 2Cor 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
      • Jesus paid the penalty for our sin and if that's all he did it wouldn't have been complete.
        • Proverbs 27:22 though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.

        We were dead and rotten through and through- Jesus Christ took off his righteousness and put it on us and made it ours! The righteousness of the spotless lamb.


         

  • Redemption=
    • 1.Repurchase of captured goods or prisoners; the act of procuring the deliverance of persons or things from the possession and power of captors by the payment of an equivalent; ransom; release; as the redemption of prisoners taken in war; the redemption of a ship and cargo
    • the purchase of God's favor by the death and sufferings of Christ; the ransom or deliverance of sinners from the bondage of sin and the penalties of God's violated law by the atonement of Christ.
      • Ephesians 1:7In whom we have redemption through his blood.


       

  • Reconciliation=
    • 1. The act of reconciling parties at variance; renewal of friendship after disagreement or enmity.


       

    • Reconciliation and friendship with God really form the basis of all rational and true enjoyment.


       

    • 2. In Scripture, the means by which sinners are reconciled and brought into a state of favor with God, after natural estrangement or enmity; the atonement; expiation.


     

    • 2 Cor. 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
      • Word- used of Christ in John 1:1
        • logos=a word, speech, divine utterance, analogy(all words)
        • Jesus is the holy word- the true word
  • Justification=
    • 1. The act of justifying; a showing to be just or conformable to law, rectitude or propriety; vindication; defense.
    • Legal declaration of God over His saints
      • Romans 3:28-29 "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. 29Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one."
      • Romans 5:9 "Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him."
      • Being justified by God we can boldly approach the throne of Grace.
  • Adoption
    • 1. The act of adopting, or the state of being adopted; the taking and treating of a stranger as one's own child.
    • 2. The receiving as one's own, what is new or not natural.
    • 3. God's taking the sinful children of men into his favor and protection.
    • Acts 17:28 for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring.


 

  • Sanctification=
    • The act of making holy. In an evangelical sense, the act of God's grace by which the affections of men are purified or alienated from sin and the world, and exalted to a supreme love to God.
      • 2 Thess. 2:13 But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth
      • Like a seed planted becomes a tree bearing fruit in season.
      • Part of this Sanctification is a circumcised
        heart were we give up on self-justification and live a life of confession.


         

  • Glorification= The act of giving celestial bliss or of ascribing honors to.
    • Rom 8:18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
    • Heaven is unfathomable to us now, but is sure and coming.


       


 

When we come to God and seek His approval we can only realize there's nothing to add except our gratitude, the seedbed for love and Obedience.


 

Philippians 3:8-9 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.


 

Colossians 2:6-7 6So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness


 

Proverbs 28:4 they that forsake the law praise the wicked: but such as keep the law contend with them