[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's open up our final part in this series with a word of prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Heavenly Father, thank you and praise you for the gift of being able to come together and worship you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And behold, your son, through your word, is here the marvelous message of your gospel.
[SPEAKER_00]: The good news of what it means that you have identified us with you, given us life
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything we could ever ask for, imagine, far, far away beyond the praise you and thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But your Holy Spirit will be working our lives today as we come to your word to study and understand more and to work out this great salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is understand this great salvation that you have worked out for us, Jesus name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
[SPEAKER_00]: This morning we get to conclude our four part series on identification.
[SPEAKER_00]: After warn you that this is one of those topics that we could probably talk about for years and years and years at a time and there are authors who've written books and books and books never got tired of writing about this amazing reality of our identity and Christ or identification with Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just because we're done we've really only gotten the tip of the iceberg and the rest of our lives will be learning more and more and applying more and more
[SPEAKER_00]: of the great truth of this topic.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, today's, let me tell you my life story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, jokingly, shows that title somewhat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not actually going to share my life story with you here and now, though, happy to do that privately later.
[SPEAKER_00]: Reminder of where we've been on February 7th, we looked at the bad news as an atom all die.
[SPEAKER_00]: We learned about our identification with Adam there, and the death that is our destiny, or anyone's destiny who is in Adam.
[SPEAKER_00]: We learned that we are positionally helpless.
[SPEAKER_00]: We learned that we were by our works completely incapable of doing anything that was worthy of pleasing God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was a key study in a key place to start because if we don't understand the bad news, we won't understand the urgency of the good news and the wonderful depths of the good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how in the heavenlies did we get here was our next study on February 14th?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we looked at Ephesians 1, 3, 2, 1, 3, 6, and we jumped around quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the point was, as we looked at our heavenly seating with Christ, and what that was all about.
[SPEAKER_00]: We looked at the amazing riches that our arms and Jesus Christ, that are already ours, and we looked at the fact that in our position, we are positionally sanctified, positionally perfected.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last week, in spite of the great snows,
[SPEAKER_00]: We got to look at those of us who are here, got to look at death in consequences.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you weren't here, that sermons up on the internet.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're welcome to check it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we have some possibly have some handouts from that available.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want one, please contact me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can email it to you, don't like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we looked at death in consequences.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we looked at the great part about death, or the great news about death.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's that we've died, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our sin nature, and even though we've died too, that has been separated from our sin nature, it is still a manipulating force.
[SPEAKER_00]: We looked at Roman VI and about how it's a, it's a dethrone dictator, Paul pictures our sin nature as a dethrone ruler in our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: And how even though it has no authority, it can continue to bait,
[SPEAKER_00]: Cajol, insult, mock, or, in other ways, try to convince us of the lie that it's still calling the shots that it's still running the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it was an exciting study because we realized that the God's solution for that signature was for us to reckon in Romans 6.11.
[SPEAKER_00]: Counted is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put it down as a fact.
[SPEAKER_00]: and live as if it were true because it is that we are separated that we are no longer obligated to listen to those arguments from our son nature and hopefully if you understood correctly what we are getting at if I was clear enough you understood what a great freedom
[SPEAKER_00]: That is, and that's ours in Christ that we're no longer slaves to the sin nature, and we no longer have to be slaves to its manipulations of our emotions, our thoughts, our feelings.
[SPEAKER_00]: But rather we can reckon it, that as we can accept what Christ has done and believe that it is true, and be freed from those constant patterns of fear and hatred and loss and all those deals.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today we get to talk about the story of my life and this will be a sort of a wrap up of the whole series and also some more of the implications of this great reality, this great salvation that the Lord has won for us and it's a big, big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and once again, like I said at the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: repeat.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will be working out the consequences of this salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: The consequences of our identification was Christ for the rest of our earthly journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, Ephesians 27 tells us
[SPEAKER_00]: that will spend the ages of eternity, as the ages of eternity unfold, God will continue to be wowing us, amazing us by unfolding the riches of His grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that process in your life now, figuring that out, understanding that more, believing and trusting in His salvation more, is a process that in some respect is going to go on through eternity, which is exciting.
[UNKNOWN]: Hi.
[SPEAKER_00]: brief reminder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keywords in our study, in these are the words of identification.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we set again and again, identification is just a helpful handle.
[SPEAKER_00]: to fit all of these verses in all this scripture, all this truth in, we can just kind of fit it all in the nice, tight convenient handle of identification with Christ or the identification truths, if you like.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's not, like I say, it's a representative body word for this representative body of knowledge that includes the understanding of a lot of these words throughout scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: One, in,
[SPEAKER_00]: being placed entirely in, so as to share an identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once again, we looked at the image of putting a piece of paper in the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you put the piece paper in the book, it shares the identity and destiny of the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how you can be predestined in Christ, saved in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of these things chosen elect all these words are true of us once we are in Christ and not true of the person who is not in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, with, intimately, joined in action and consequence and the additional addition of the word together, together with, as above, with together, underscoring the sameness of identity and action.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, we talked about the illustration that I can't say that I went to the store with April, if I went to the store and then two days later, she went to the store.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't say that we walked, I walked down the aisle after being married with April if I walked down two days before she did.
[SPEAKER_00]: With is something and we'll see it today as we look at Galatians 220, if you were crucified with Christ must be true that 2,000 years ago you were on the cross, spiritually speaking with Him, and that's a big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: United with, United implies a oneness, so a spiritual oneness, is what's communicated.
[SPEAKER_00]: And baptized into, baptized means to be immersed entirely into, and thus permanently changed in identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And every baptism in Scripture speaks to a change in identification.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm no longer being identified with this party, I'm being identified with this party.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're no longer identified with Adam, you're now identified with Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: be keen to these words once again the reason where we go over these words is so that when you see them in your own personal Bible reading you can perk up and say oh this is an identification word because these these words that we'll see again in the beginning again their common words they're easy to blow by and yet if we do blow by them we miss the whole uh... meaning of scripture by neglecting their clear and plain meaning
[SPEAKER_00]: we look at a verse that says like we looked at last week walk by means of the spirit or walk in the spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We say, well that sounds weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what that means.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll just move on.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll know we shouldn't move on.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to understand these these words and these concepts or else the most important parts of Scripture will be opaque to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this series is intended to be a help in your personal pursuit of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: as you look at him and behold him through your word, both privately, corporately, and in any other facet that you do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now, we've got a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of our talk about identification with Christ can oftentimes seem a little bit intellectual or far off.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can seem,
[SPEAKER_00]: It could seem like the message doesn't actually apply to our lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the question is, what does this message have to do with our actual lives?
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it have to do with what actually goes on as we walk around throughout the day?
[SPEAKER_00]: We think of the things we've done.
[SPEAKER_00]: We think of the things that have been done to us, or the events that have happened, or the things that we are currently doing, or that we habitually do as our identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you always wonder, or often wonder, why didn't God address this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why didn't God address this specific issue that I'm dealing with?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why didn't God address this specific pain or difficulty?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is there a clear passage of the Bible that talks about my personal problem?
[SPEAKER_00]: The world has plenty of answers, doesn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an always a new therapy, a new doctor, a new spiritual treatment, a new book to read, a new distraction to take in.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's always something else, someone's going to offer you a new discipline, a new way to deal with this stuff that somehow has been missed and the question that comes to mind is, how did God miss this obvious need of mankind that Dr. Freud, Dr. Phil and others seem to have captured so perfectly?
[SPEAKER_00]: You ever wonder that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Here God wrote us this, gave us His revelation, and yet we see all these people and even Christian psychologists saying that what we need is not what's in here in this book, but what we need is some of this secular psychology to make it right.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: How is it that God missed this important and vital need of mankind?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well the problems are real, statistics are discouraging to say the least, regarding the tragic number of lives being ruined by drugs, abandonment, abuse, loss, and addiction, and that's the short list, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's so much more that can be said about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: People struggle with and suffer with the shame and fear of either having been the victim or the victimizer.
[SPEAKER_00]: our identities are so often dominated by what we've done or what's been done to us that we can't see how relief and healing are even possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: You ever noticed that?
[SPEAKER_00]: It works our way into our identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Say, Brad, you don't know what I've done.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know what's in my past.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we just think, maybe it was just easier when Paul and the apostles were writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't have to deal with these kind of issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Drug and alcohol abuse were rampant in the ancient world.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were even religious festivals where drunkenness and drug abuse and orgies were glorified, not just permitted, but absolutely required as part of the worship of this God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Furthermore, people were bought and sold like cattle and used for whatever purpose they were wanted for.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were not protected from many of the things that we would call abuses.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cultural norms also did not look down upon things that would make us physically ill even to discuss.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I won't go into glory details about what was permitted and what was expected and what was accepted.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is, is that all of the problems that we see affecting us today would have been affecting the lives of first century believers.
[SPEAKER_00]: People have been used, abused, used up, broken, taken, given,
[SPEAKER_00]: But, I'm sold, time and time again, so the people that Paul wrote to dealt with many of the same issues, the same hurts, the same wounds that they were given that we deal with today.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's also, I'd say, almost more prevalent in the, you don't know what I've done, you don't know what I did to that person, you don't know I did to this person, how can I ever forgive
[SPEAKER_00]: How could God ever forgive me for?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what do we to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: What do we to do in light of all the pain and all the hopelessness?
[SPEAKER_00]: And all the horrible things that we've been touched by hurt by or hurt others with?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's God's answer for all this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's go through our study and see if at the end of it,
[SPEAKER_00]: a better understanding of what the Lord's answer to all this is.
[SPEAKER_00]: One, we need to walk through the identification truths, step by step, and I'm taking just sample verses, these are not the only verses by any stretch, the imagination that outline each part of this process, but Galatians 220.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have been crucified with Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith and the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Galatians 220.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's our identification word in this one with.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were crucified with Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sins of the entire world for all time, everyone on this planet, from Adam to the last one born in this present earth, were placed upon Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, of course, that's only appropriated to those who receive it in faith, by belief.
[SPEAKER_00]: But every sin, the one you have committed, the one you're committing right now, the one you will commit later today tomorrow next week, whenever they were all placed on the
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of times, it's hard for people to accept the fact that the sins, they say, oh, well, I can understand that I was forgiven when I put my faith in Christ for the sins before.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the current sins, those are after I put my faith in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: The future sins, those are well after I put my faith in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can there be any more forgiveness?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the reality is, at the time when Christ died on the cross for your sins, and when you were reckoned back with them, none of your sins had been committed yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the chronological illusion is not a valid argument against your full and complete forgiveness as John 316 and first John 2 2 especially make abundantly clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every person who has believed or will believe from Acts 2 to the rapture was there with Christ and his crucifixion being crucified with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The old man of each of us who believes was crucified there.
[SPEAKER_00]: That day, we looked at that chart, I believe, last week, maybe two weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the old man, we saw, was all of who you were in Adam.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the habits,
[SPEAKER_00]: all of the, everything that you'd done, everything about you, all of who you were in Adam was crucified at the cross, 2,000 years ago with Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: The law, we're told, was also crucified there, nailed to the cross as well, along with the debt note that was attached to it, that went with it, and you see that truth in Ephesians
[SPEAKER_00]: The believer died in relationship to the sin nature, and this is what we studied last week, which does not mean that the believer does not have a sin nature, but rather that the believer is no longer a slave to the sin nature, and we looked in great depth, we looked in great depth, at the fact that death in Scripture is never annihilation or finishing something permanently, but rather
[SPEAKER_00]: Death is separation.
[SPEAKER_00]: We look at that from Genesis and followed all the way through.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have died in relationship to your sin nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what happened 2,000 years ago on the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: Furthermore, the believer died in relationship to the law of Moses, any principle of law, additionally, that Roman 7474 in Galatians 219 talk about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: This means that no part of the law of Moses is applicable as law as law to the believer who is part of the body of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is incredibly important in our understanding of Scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: The law is referred to as a administration of death.
[SPEAKER_00]: And anyone who is law under the law is said to be under a curse.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have been placed in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we live under the new system called grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that obviously means sloppy agave I can do whatever I want and I'll never be punished.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reality is is that just as law was and laws the only system
[SPEAKER_00]: of dealing with things that we can understand, either law or no law, anarchy, and neither of those are what God has for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Law of course is a system of list of dues and don'ts with attached or correlated punishments or rewards.
[SPEAKER_00]: Under grace, that's not the system that we are under.
[SPEAKER_00]: we don't we instead of rather than obeying so that we can get blessings or not disobeyed so that we don't get cursed.
[SPEAKER_00]: We find that Ephesians 1-3 we looked at last week.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are already blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
[SPEAKER_00]: Under the law you had to forgive so that you could be forgiven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Under grace and Ephesians, Paul says, Hey, forgive one another as in Christ, God is forgiven you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Grace says, you're already blessed, you're already whole, you're already complete, you're already forgiven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now live out of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The obedience comes out of who we are, we don't become defined by what we do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is a key distinction in understanding why it is so important that we died to the law.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone always wants to jump up and wine about the Ten Commandments.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, we're going to put us back into the Ten Commandments.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you could throw the rest of the law away.
[SPEAKER_00]: All that ceremony, all the sacred, but I still want the Ten Commandments.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the reality is, the Ten Commandments were surely God's good standard, but any functioning as under law will be only death and only con only frustration for the believer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because God is not looking to you to be pleased by your obedience to any law, but rather
[SPEAKER_00]: to Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants to see you fully transformed into a full and complete mature humanity that lives and loves freely and manifests the fruit of the Spirit freely.
[SPEAKER_00]: say against such things, there is no law.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's an understatement to say the best.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reality is that life under grace coming to understand what God has already done for us is so much deeper and so much richer than any obey these 10 things obey these 15 things.
[SPEAKER_00]: The law might have nothing to say about how you should communicate with an estranged relative.
[SPEAKER_00]: But being conformed to the image of Christ does, knowing what the Christ's life and you, with the fruit of the Spirit and you applies to every situation, and there's a large distinction there.
[SPEAKER_00]: The believer died in relationship to the world and its basic principles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Galatians 614, Colossians 220, the world has its pressures and ways of insistence, and these
[SPEAKER_00]: The world's system you've died to.
[SPEAKER_00]: How many of our identities or how much of our identity comes from the world's system?
[SPEAKER_00]: You ask, if you're asked to describe yourself and say who you are, you might be tempted to describe yourself or give yourself an identity based on how you dress.
[SPEAKER_00]: The type of music you like.
[SPEAKER_00]: The type of politics you follow, or the politicians that you prefer.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might be tempted to identify yourself by your tastes, either in food or entertainment, television, movies, or your abstiments from those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world wants to force you to identify yourself in a million different ways and any of them will be acceptable to the world, except for as long as it keeps you away from your true identity, which is in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why it's so important that in Galatians 614 you have been separated from you have died to the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: It no longer has any claim or any ability to label or give you identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now moving on to burial.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are co-crucified with Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are co-bearing with Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for that we'll look at
[SPEAKER_00]: say it's one of many, but Colossians 212, buried with him in baptism in which you also were raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ burials a key point to understanding the reality of the crucifixion.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not a faint, it was not a swoon, but Christ actually died on the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: The swoon theory, or the theory that Christ fainted, is absolutely ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Roman soldiers had been doing crucifixion for a while, and you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd gotten good at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Furthermore, it was their life on the line where they'd to fail.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these guys were not rookies or goofballs.
[SPEAKER_00]: it was their job professionally to be executioners.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the idea that Christ could have just fainted and these Roman soldiers at the risk of losing their own personal lives would not have been able to figure out whether or not he was dead is a ridiculous assertion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ actually died on the cross and was actually buried.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we were actually dead and buried with Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The body of Jesus was wrapped and tended according to Jewish custom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the tomb was sealed with the Roman seal and protected by a Roman guard.
[SPEAKER_00]: You get in the reality of the picture here, they took him down, a professional execution or looked at him and said, yep, that one's dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: then others took his body and wrapped him up and and bombed him with, um, you know, oils and incense and all this, and if he would have started breathing, they would have stopped that process immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was real.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our coberial with Christ was actual because his burial was actual.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our coberial is actual.
[SPEAKER_00]: Raised.
[SPEAKER_00]: If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, Colossians 3-1.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible tells us that when Christ was raised, who is raised, and to a new life, this is exciting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only are we dead to our old sin nature, separated from our sin nature, separated from the law,
[SPEAKER_00]: which was a ministry of death, separated from the world, which has nothing good to offer anybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were also raised into this new kind of life and righteousness of knowing God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not just a negative.
[SPEAKER_00]: We look mostly at the negatives, which are positive for us, but still the fact that we're separated from separated, from separated from, we are conjoined to and given a new life of righteousness,
[SPEAKER_00]: knowing God.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a complete change that comes from this new kind of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We look to where it tells us that we are, we are a new creature, a new creation, and that new there is not new in chronology, it's new in kind.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are a new kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that new kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: is permanent.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to be spiritually calibrated for the massive unparalleled magnitude of that resurrection life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We in our earthly perspective need to have a total change.
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans 121 and 2 talks about
[SPEAKER_00]: not being conformed to the pattern as we're about being transformed by the renewing of their mind, Arnold Fructabomb, who's a great scholar, said, this transformed and renewing of your mind would be akin to having your hard drive reformatted on your computer.
[SPEAKER_00]: You reformatted?
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing else there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then rebuilding it with the right information, God's information.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul writes about it in Ephesians 118 through 23, this recalibration, I'll read it briefly to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints?
[SPEAKER_00]: And what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward, that's the Greek word, ice into us who believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.
[SPEAKER_00]: Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he put all things in suggestion under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills
[SPEAKER_00]: all and all, just give you chills, just pull some highlights, this is the power that's going into us, working into us as believers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We who believe, not we who do good works.
[SPEAKER_00]: The primary prerequisite is that we believe and then this power begins at work at us, these
[SPEAKER_00]: In accordance with the working, that's in full accordance with the working of his strength which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: How much power does it take to raise someone from the dead?
[SPEAKER_00]: How many of us could do it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Of our own strength and our own power, raise somebody from the dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody dead three days, specifically.
[SPEAKER_00]: And estimation, who we put it in kilojoules or watts, how much power, how much authority must it take to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: More than we have any concept of because we are unable to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the amount of power that God is using, pouring, working into you every day for your sanctification.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now let's move on to ascended and seated before I get too excited and start crying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Acts 1 tells us about the day that Christ was ascended in the presence of His disciples.
[SPEAKER_00]: They physically saw Him go up and recorded it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When a process ends, where a process ends is key part of the importance of what that process is about.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in other words, the end is the goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our process ends with Christ in the heavenlies.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not just something that we have to look forward to.
[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't something that we're going to achieve or receive when we die or when we're raptured.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is something for right now today.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's spiritually true of you at this moment that your life is ascended.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are spiritually ascended and seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ is to live His life out in you and I, and we are to rest with Him in heavenly places.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is what the Christian life is all about.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can take almost every book on the Christian life at the Bible Superstore and throw it out the window.
[SPEAKER_00]: Talk about these five disciplines.
[SPEAKER_00]: This five that.
[SPEAKER_00]: How to do this?
[SPEAKER_00]: How to do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: How to forget?
[SPEAKER_00]: How to how to how to how to how to how to how to how to.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what the Bible has to say about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So which life's story do you want?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is all biblically revealed truth that we would not have deduced outside of the Bible telling it to us or revealing it to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We find that the experiences, labels, and details of our personal history once made up our identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you were just another
[SPEAKER_00]: person addicted abused lost broken the abuser once you were the drunk the hater once you were the one who was unlovable once you were once you were the one who did this the one who said that now as we are identified with Christ those things no longer have any power
[SPEAKER_00]: over us or any association with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is why it's so critical that we have this clear view of our identification with Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shive of that, we're going to fall into legalism, we're going to fall into loss, we're going to fall into this endless process of trying to live the Christian life and our flesh and do good things to please God, which we know we can't do.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's your new idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Things that once defined you and identified you before are gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: All those things of the flesh, the world, the devil are gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: No longer have power to identify you or be your identity in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: The things that you may be attempted to define yourself by now,
[SPEAKER_00]: You are dead too, separated from.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible tells us this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've been given a new history in Christ and nothing can touch that identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the work of God in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Realize that the things we looked at last week are innimately important in this as well, but you're no longer identified by the works of your sin nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: God looks at you and sees Jesus righteousness, he sees Christ's life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everything that comes out of that sin nature, really that comes out of that flesh, even if you are currently listening to it, and obeying it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we talk about last week, that's just silly.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's spiritual insanity every minute that we spend obeying the sin nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: But every minute, the Lord doesn't even see us, still doesn't see us as being identified with those sins, with that sin nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rather, the Lord now views us as being in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: and possibly insanely listening to our sin nature, probably, and insanely listening to our in nature from time to time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's spiritual insanity, but he sees us obeying the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, that's my child.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see Christ righteousness and they're not listening to my truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're listening to what the world has to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not listening to my truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're listening to what their flesh has to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's my child.
[SPEAKER_00]: That person is blessed with every spiritual blessing, even if they don't take out the credit card.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, final question.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we get into this?
[SPEAKER_00]: How did it look like?
[SPEAKER_00]: Seen this before we see this again.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see this again.
[SPEAKER_00]: First Corinthians, 15, three, three, four.
[SPEAKER_00]: More other, over brethren,
[SPEAKER_00]: I declare to you the gospel which I preach to you, which also you received and in which you stand by which also you are saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you hold fast to the word which I preach to you, unless you believe in vain.
[SPEAKER_00]: For I deliver to you first of all that which I receive, I also received that Christ died for our sins according to scriptures and they was buried and that he rose again on the third day according to scriptures.
[SPEAKER_00]: The word is uniform and clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got into this identification with Christ when you put your faith in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's my appeal to everyone out there in Internet land and everybody here today.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not a believer and you're wondering how to get out, how to get out of the abuse that has been done to you, the situations that have hurt you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: how to get out of the things that you've done, how to get away from that endless, nagging pile of guilt and hatred and fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're an unbeliever here today who's sick of being defined by the world and what the world says that you are or should be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Based on your age, based on your ethnicity, based on your based on your based on your.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're a believer here today, you've put your faith in Christ and yet you still haven't taken hold of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You still haven't believed dared to believe that Christ forgiveness and your identification with Him is big enough to cover that thing that you did.
[SPEAKER_00]: crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and ascension, and seeding with Christ, you've not dare to believe that that's the actual reality, dare to believe today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be free.
[SPEAKER_00]: For that's Christ design and plan for you right now today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And hopefully, I pray this is so, but
[SPEAKER_00]: probably isn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some of us I know who are walking in this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Put your faith in Christ, you've accepted your identification with Him and you know that you are perfected seated in heavenly places, mature, ready to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got a good message
[SPEAKER_00]: because we're identified with him, and he is able.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Heavenly Father, we thank you, and we praise you for the gift of this day, for the marvelous message of our identification with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You did that on our belief.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were on worthy, we are on worthy of this, but it's your grace, it's to your glory,
[SPEAKER_00]: to have made us whole, complete, holy, one in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Lord, as we continue to walk through these days, I pray that we would have the strength and clarity of understanding to let you live your life out in us and to be at rest in you in the heavenlies.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we would reject the lies of the world of our sin nature of the devil and accept the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: that we are separated from this in nature and no longer need a bad, that we are separated from the world and no longer need to hop to when it gives orders.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or that we are safe, secure, forever by you are doing saved because of our faith in you, because of how good you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we grow in the grace of knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ by beholding your son through His Word, I pray that this would be a week where each of us take a step closer to understanding how amazing the salvation is that you have won for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Jesus' name we pray, amen.