Dan Self- The Presence of Christ Within

The Christian Life as Union with Christ

Everybody having a good time so far. All right. So uh my privilege to introduce brother Dan self. I would say that brother Dan is the first Presbyterian I've ever met. I think truth be told. And the rest of them are like him ain't too bad.

I don't reckon. Brother Dan's been married for 12 years he has four children Judah Logan Amelia and Arwen. He's been saved for 15 years and he's been studying for some sort of ministry the entire time especially pastoral ministry.

For the last 10 years he's classified as a student under care in the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America and seeking ordination to serve in that same denomination as a pastor. He's currently working with a home group out of church plant near Oniana New York close enough Jefferson New York.

Please welcome brother Dan. Afternoon. Turn in your copy of the scriptures to 2nd Peter chapter 1 verse 3. While you turn in there I want to read from our Psalter that we sing from in our church. It's a song that we sing especially when we're getting ready to leave or end a time together.

But it fits well even though we'll be back again in the morning. Behold how very this comes from Psalm 133. Behold how very good it is a pleasant thing to see when brothers joined to live as one in peace and unity.

Yes it is like the precious oil poured out upon the head which running down from Aaron's beard upon his garment spread. It is as though Mount Hermon's dew on Zion's hills descends. For there the Lord bestowed the gift of life that never ends.

It's that life that gift of life that never ends. I want to talk about today how we as people sinners as we are are joined and united to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. How the work of God Father Son and Spirit is brought to us by the goodness and grace of our Lord.

Let's pray God in heaven. There are things that we're going to talk about today we can't truly understand and yet you've revealed them to us in your word. Pray that I would stick close to your word that your people would be edified that we would all be raised up to the heavenlies.

We would understand what it is to know you to be known by you to be partakers of what you have given to us God. I pray for clarity of thought and clarity of speech for clarity of hearing. I pray for your name to be magnified in Jesus name.

I pray amen. Second Peter chapter 1. We're gonna start in verse 3. His divine power is granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he is granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature having escaped from the corruption that is in this world because of sinful desire.

For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love.

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

Therefore brothers be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. For if you practice these qualities you will never fall for in this way you will be richly. There will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ word of the Lord.

Butterflies Have Nothing on Us

So you know my topic for this afternoon is our union with Christ the presence of Christ within as we are united to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. But the title of my sermon today is butterflies have nothing on us.

I say things weird sometimes that way we'll remember them but I don't try to say them weird too often. So that way it takes away from what we should be remembering which is God's Word. So butterflies have nothing on us.

There are two things that are incredible changes that we see in the world. And indeed three that are miraculous. A butterfly as he becomes a caterpillar and crawls up into the cocoon. Now I don't know exactly how this works but from my understanding a caterpillar will climb up into the cocoon and basically turn to mush and then somehow when he emerges out the other side he is completely changed into a butterfly.

And after wings dry out and all that other good stuff flaps and flies away. It's an incredible change in this animal. Number two is a seed that falls into the ground. A seed that falls in the ground dry has a little no shell around it falls in water gets on it it begins to crack open and a life comes up from it.

From that little bitty seed you have a large plant. We hear the mustard seed in God's Word. Mustard seed being the smallest of the seeds in the garden goes into the ground and comes up as a large tree where all the birds of the air come and nest in his branches.

Incredible things that God has placed in his world to show us that things change and that God is the one who orchestrates that change. And third most incredible change of all when fallen man is redeemed by glorious holy perfect God.

We as human beings were created perfect in the garden to be in the garden with God and walk with him in the cool of the day and take care of the garden and expand the garden off into the rest of the world to make everything that God had created look beautiful the way that God had set things out to be.

And we took that privilege and we squandered it. We sand and fell in the garden and it's such we became wretched worthless pathetic slimy grimy. Your word putrescence comes to mind. And yet Christ came and redeemed us.

He came to the earth took on flesh live the life that we could not and did not live died a death that we could not die paying for the sins of many laid in the grave for three days. He then rose again with life.

He now sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven and orchestrates all things after the counsel of his own will. And he has sent us the Holy Spirit and done so that the life that is in him can be ours.

That change is miraculous. Now throughout church history people have called this by different names. I've called it theosis or deification or divinization not divination divinization crucifixion. But I think the best way to put it is union with Christ that we have been brought in to be with Christ now those words that I threw out there there's some misconceptions that go along with them some things that we should not believe that people believe we're going to stick with the scripture today.

We're not going to get bogged down. And what folks have said we're gonna get bogged down and what the word is. And I say bogged down because I have been mulling over this for like constantly for about a year and I feel wholly inadequate to speak about this before you today.

This incredible work of the Holy Spirit is how God is applying salvation to our lives. What is it that Christ has purchased for us is being brought into our lives. And it's because the Holy Spirit is uniting us with Christ so that what Christ is we may have now throughout church history people said this in very strong language that you can misunderstand.

Try not to do that today. Well try not to do that today. Athanasius and Irenaeus said it like this. They said God became man so that man may become God. Red flags. Yes let's try to understand what it was that made them say something so strong.

Augustine would say the same thing but would liken it to adoption. The we being adopted into the family of God are given all the rights responsibilities privileges of being a part of the family of God.

But we are not God. Thomas Aquinas said it this way. The only begotten Son of God wanting to make us sharers in his divinity assumed our nature so that he being made man might make men. God's little G Petrus van Maastricht in the for the Dutch reformers put it this way.

We are vice gods red flags so good. We need to understand this so that we do not believe that we are God because we are not as we looked at before we are the ones who sin and need of a redeemer. But what happened when Christ redeemed us is that he has given us from himself so that the life that we now have is not our own life but life that comes from Christ that the incorruptibility that we have the or not we cannot be taken away plucked out of the father's hand is not because of anything that we do but it's because of Christ in his work upon the cross.

So when we look at this concept being united with Christ we want to stand with Peter and Christ and understand what does it mean to be partakers of the divine nature. And we're not going to fill or finish that task today.

It's going to be an eternity learning what it is to be with our God forever and be changed. Our passage says one thing right there in the very first line says his divine powers granted to us all things that pertain to life and God.

So forget nothing. Take nothing else away from today. Take this. It is God who gives us all that we need for life and Godliness. And he gives it to us because we are united to him in the most incredible way so that we are changed.

When we are changed we are changed into the image and likeness of our God not because we are God but because he has changed us from what we were to what we will be. And that is so incredible. We're going to look at that today that one truth today in three headings and I alliterated it and I hate myself for it.

But we're gonna look at it anyway. First the pictures of our change. We're going to look at some analogies through scripture then the Peter on our change. Where we're going to look at this text more thoroughly.

And power of our change which is still the same text. But we're going to look at how this comes to us. We're going to apply it and then we're going I would say go get some chicken. But we're gonna have a Q &A session and then go get some chicken.

Because I know how Baptist are I used to be one. So pictures of our change first a change occurs like a caterpillar to a butterfly. Like a seed into a flower a sinner to a when we are united with Christ.

Biblical Pictures of Union with Christ

First image. First picture of this union with our God comes from the image of God where we find him to be our creator and we are his creature. In Genesis 1 26 and 27 it says that we are made in his image.

Let us make man in our image male and female. He made them. We are the image of God to where. When creation looks at us can see reflection of God in us that we would proclaim just by our existence that God is God.

God is creator. We are not that God but when people look at us we should be imaging that God. We are the idols and icons that people try to make. We show the greatness of God to the world. We should show the greatness of God to the world.

And this is why we need to change. This is why we need to be morphed. It's why we need forgiveness and redemption from our sin. Because we as human beings need to fulfill our purpose. God deserves to be glorified.

He deserves to be glorified through us in the way that he has created us to do so. So first picture. We were created to look like God but we are not God number two. I want you to look remember Moses. When Moses went up on the mountain he was talking with God and received the the law of God.

He came down in his face shown. I mean he could have taken Ajax to it and scrubbed and everything that he wanted to that shine wasn't coming off and he was so bright they had to put a veil over. He was scaring folks.

And as he put the veil over his face to scare he still shown underneath it. Why. Because he had the glory of God shining off of him. That glory was not Moses's glory but Moses shown the glory of God because Moses had had an encounter with the thrice holy God of Scripture.

I want you to look at the picture of marriage real fast in Ephesians 5 it tells us that marriage is it's a picture. Then we should love our wives as Christ of the church and laid himself down for the church says that wives should submit to their husbands.

And then it says this right at the very end. It says that this is a picture. This is a mystery of Christ and his church that two things are brought together. My wife is not me amen I am NOT her. And yet we are considered one flesh in the same way we are united to Christ.

And that we are considered one flesh with our Savior. Yet we are not him even though he condescended and took on flesh for us. We are united with Christ. In 1st Corinthians 6 we're told that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Now this is incredible because when you look at in the the original languages it has a plural singular dynamic running through the passage which basically says y 'all are the body singular of the Holy Spirit collectively together we are where God dwells now that is incredible.

God who dwelt in the temple in the Old Testament has chosen to live among his people and indwell them so that where God is we are where we are. God isn't yet just like the temple stones were not God we are not God.

And yet we are so linked with our God that where we are he is to John 15. We hear of the vine and the branches that we are connected to God that we we gain our life our sustenance our identity. Our power to be able to do anything comes from God and from God alone.

We are connected to the branch to the vine as the branch and yet we are not that vine but connected with him. We have all the power life and sustenance of that vine. Adoption. As we see in Ephesians 1 4 and 5 we're adopted as the children of God.

We have all the rights responsibilities and privileges as children of God and yet we are not God. So that when when we are looked at we are considered by our God he looks at us as his children. We are sons and daughters of the one most high God and yet we are not that God.

We were adopted into his family which means that we have fellowship with the Trinity and that we could stay there for forever in Colossians 1. At the end of Colossians 1 it likens us to being the body to the head.

Christ is the head and we are the body. And then it says this and I still don't fully understand this and I doubt we ever will. But it says that we are making up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ when we suffer trials and temptations.

You may be saying what could be lacking in the suffering of Christ. Hasn't he paid it all. And he has. But we are so linked to our God. The him is the head when we are punched in the gut. When we face trials and tribulations it's as if God is Christ is punched in the gut as well.

We are brought into union and made one with our God. But we are not God. Jesus bled and died for us and we are made a part of his perfect humanity because we are united with him and we are not God. Bring all those things up to bring up this number one.

We are not and cannot be God. So whatever it means to partake in the divine nature. Take the idea of you becoming God out of the picture. You are not God. You will not be God. But through union with Christ we are changed.

We are to become one with God like we are married. Why we're called the bride is why we are said to be a part of the vine. So I were said to be his body is why we said to be adopted. Why we're image-bearers.

Why we're the we're the temple of the Holy Spirit. It's why it said that we are presently right now seated with him in the heavenlies. This is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. This is something that the angels long to look into.

They saw it coming and like what is this about. This will only be fully accomplished upon the resurrection when I'm just gonna turn over there real quick cuz I'm gonna butcher the butcher the quotation of it.

But in 1st John 3 it says. See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him beloved.

We are God's children now. And what we will be is not yet appeared but we will know that when he appears we shall be like him. Why. Because we shall see him as he is. God gives us all we need for life and godliness.

Peter on Our Change

And what God gives us is himself heading number two Peter on our change. Look at verses three and four. We're gonna go slow here because that's how I think. So we're gonna do that before we get in. I want to bring up something.

Let's look at the first three words. If you have the ESV will be the first three words his divine power. I want you understand something in this also bring up a lot of mind-blowing things. I want you to to understand.

I understand. I want you to see the glory of Christ even if we don't understand it fully there's a doctrine called divine simplicity. What it means is that God is not composite or made up of things. His attributes of being holy and righteous good eternal all of these things are not parts of him that make up him but they are him.

He is simple simple minded but simple. Which means that when it says here his divine power has granted us his divine power is what we see acting here. But what is coming to us what is granting us these things were about to read.

Is God himself. So understand that the God himself his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness which means life immortality godliness incorruptibility. Those things are granted to us.

Those things are attributes of God which means that those things are God. God gives us of himself that we have life and godliness in him as we're united to Christ. What I'm trying to get out here is that it's not just some some wiping away of a ledger which it is we are justified.

But it is much more than that that we are not just is not just something external that's happening to us. But God is is giving us of himself. And that is what our salvation is is gaining Christ in him.

We live and move and have our being because salvation is nothing less than an intimate and powerful encounter with the God of scripture. The one who has come and lived and been among us God gives us himself which is all we need for life and godliness.

Let's move on because it gets better. It really does call things pertaining to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own his own glory and excellence. Or by virtue of his own glory and excellence it's he has called us through the knowledge of him.

Now this is not a knowledge about him but there's that too but it's a knowledge of him. By knowing the one who has died for us by knowing the one who was risen again by knowing the one who has the divine power to give us all things that we need for life and godliness.

That is how he has called us to himself. It's his divine power that has given us these things that we may have life and have life in. By knowing Christ and Christ crucified we're called by virtue of his own glory to his own glory.

It's the excellence of Christ that calls us because it's Christ himself that we receive. That's the excellence of our salvation. Is that we receive God. And it says that he granted us by which by the knowledge of him and his great power we have been granted his precious and very great promises.

Think of the promises he's given. Think of the promises I will be your God and you will be my people. Your sins will be washed away that your tears will be removed that you will have life and life eternal.

These very great and precious promises come to us. It says by which he granted us very great precious promise that through them through his promises through his knowledge of him through the power granted to us by God that we may become partakers of the divine nature.

And that's why I gave you all those pictures. As we partake of the divine nature we become his image bearers proper. We are truly married to Christ adopted as sons and daughters. We are able to to shine the glory of God a glory that's not ours but we are able to shine the glory of God because God is working in and living in and through us that we can show the world around us that there is a living God and that he will change us to be like him.

That's what it means to be a partaker of the divine nature to have God give of himself and change your life. It is salvation full and free and clear purchased by the blood of Christ and applied to us by the union of us to Christ with the Holy Spirit at the decree of God the Father in heaven.

It is father son and spirit that has drawn us to himself and given us the great gift of salvation. We gain immortality. We gain incorruptibility. We are made something holy something that we can't do on our own.

The Spirit of God changes us into the image of God that was lost in the fall. We were brought into fellowship as sons and daughters. Bride body temple butterflies got nothing on us. It is God who gives us all we need for life and godliness.

The Power for Our Change

Our third heading power for our change. I want to show you this. I've been trying to emphasize that his his divine power is God himself who makes the change in the believer. God is not made up of his attributes.

He is those things. So through all the passage so far God has called us to himself. He has granted us all things for life and godliness. He has done so by giving us himself causing us to know him calling us who's on glory.

And then it says that we escape corruption. The corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. Verse 5. For this reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue. What is faith.

Faith is a trust and belief in God. Book of Hebrew says that without faith it is impossible to please God. Ephesians tells us it is by grace through faith that we are saved. That's the grace of God that saves us.

It's received by faith. So he's calling out to believers you who have faith. You who believe take that belief and don't sit idly by with it. Why. Because you have been given God himself. Christ has died for you and the Spirit is uniting you to your God.

Which is why he says add to your faith virtue. And what is virtue. It's the very goodness of God himself. You're not gaining some exterior conformity to some morals or to the law of God. You are gaining God's righteousness.

And this will be an ongoing process until one day we finally see him face to face and we are changed and become completely holy. That when we add to our faith virtue we are trusting that God will give us his righteousness that he has purchased for us upon the cross.

That he has lived for us when we could not live. It says add to your virtue knowledge. It's the mind of God given to us as we add virtue or knowledge to virtue we trust that what God has said is true and we live according to his power.

And we know according to his word. Because we trust in him we believe in him. We gain the mind of Christ comes from I believe 1st Corinthians 2 or 3 somewhere in there. It's good stuff. It's in the Bible we gain the mind of Christ.

Why. Because we have been given Christ himself and add to your knowledge. Self-control. Does God ever act out of control. Self-control. Steadfastness. Does God ever leave us or forsake us. Is he always right there with us.

Is he unchangeable immutable to steadfastness godliness. I don't know exactly but it's like whatever else God could give you. Add it there. And what's the product of these things we see in ourselves are working to change our hearts.

Brotherly affection. Our God has called us together not only to him but to one another. Behold how very good it is a pleasant thing to see when brothers join to live as one in peace and unity. All because of the grace of Christ.

All because of what he has done for us. And add to brotherly affection love. 1st John again says God is love. And then it says this. For if you have these qualities are some of your translations may say things.

If you have these things these things are yours and they are increasing. They keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And why is that. Because you have the very power of God inside of you.

You have Christ himself working in you to know believe and to do the things he has called you to do. Isn't the Holy Spirit incredible. That means that you can truly find your rest in Christ when you look at what God is doing.

Because you are not doing these things of yourself. God is working in you his power. He is applying the salvation that was purchased by the Sun verse 11. For in this way they'll be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ as creatures of God.

And as men and women called by God as those redeemed by God. We can receive God and partake in the divine nature so that we can have a real and true assurance of our faith that because it is God who gives us all we need for life and godliness because God gives us himself.

Application: Dependence, Assurance, and Repentance

Let's look at a couple points of application. And then if I go on to the next page I've actually got a whole sermon that I wrote based off a brother Claude's message the other day. So if I start getting into the book of James just stop me.

But let's uh let's uh let's apply this. You can't do this on your own. Good habits. Virtuous habits are not holiness. There are sinners people who hate God in the world who have good discipline and do things in a proper way they do not have holiness.

Holiness only comes from God himself. This means that our righteousness. The things that we try to do is view this filthy rags. If you're going to build upon faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self-control you are going to follow through.

You're not going to look at these things and add these things to your faith on your own. You're not gonna be able to grab on and white knuckle your way through life. You're not going to be able to break porn addiction and alcoholism and whatever else it is you may be struggling with on your own.

These things are not things that we break ourselves free from. We don't gain righteousness because of righteousness for our sake. We gain righteousness because it's given to us by a holy God. Do not trust in your own works.

It is God who has given us all things that we need for life and godliness. Trust in him. Believe in him love him because you have nothing in yourself that is worth anything but in him. You have all things because you have Christ as you go forward remember the source of your power.

If you're going to do anything for the Lord you're not going to do it apart from the one who is the source of life and godliness. He is divine. We are the branches been convicted these last couple days to trust in the Holy Spirit.

To trust in my brothers and sisters. To remember that is God who gives us what we need. Want you to remember this because if we sever ourselves to cut ourselves off from Christ we have nothing. We can be branches broken off thrown in the fire.

I say this because we can go through our lives thinking that we know the Lord and at the end here depart from me. I never knew you. Your salvation is not just a legal declaration. It is a legal declaration.

That's what justification is. You're declared righteous by God. But it's more than that because you are truly changed. You're made righteous. You're made holy. You are truly changed. Butterflies have nothing on us.

And it's not because of us. It's because of our God. And what our God has done is because of Christ. What Christ has done and is doing in us. It's the power of the Holy Spirit that works in us. The things that have been purchased for us by Christ.

The room this size this many folks. I am terrified because the numbers the numbers say that not all of us know the Lord. I want you to know the Lord. I want you to know that union with the God of the universe.

The one who has created us and created us to be his image is one that's created us to be a part of his family. To walk with him and talk with him to glorify him to show him to all of creation. It is his divine power that is granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

Let me tell you how he did it. Jesus Christ took on flesh was born of a virgin and born of a virgin. He lived his life upon this earth completely perfect sinless. He took upon flesh that we may have the righteousness and life of God given to humanity.

And he lived that life in such a way that we we can't live up to it. He's done what we couldn't do. And then he went to the cross and he was beaten. He was blood and he was stabbed. He was poked down on.

And as he did those things he paid for sin. He paid for the sin of you and I. He paid for the sins that we've committed up until this point. He's paid for the sins we will commit in the future. He paid for the sins of men.

And this is incredible because if we die in our sins we die and we die eternally. But the one who is the author of life the one who has life within himself who laid in the grave did not stay there but he rose up three days later.

And when he got up he got up with healing in his wings. And he sits at the right hand of the father and he directs the world. This is where salvation will go. Salvation will go to men. And he calls to us to call to one another.

Repent of your sins. Turn away from those things that you've been doing before your old wicked lifestyle will do nothing but bring you pain and death. Turn from it. Receive the gift of Christ. Trust in him.

He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Because in Christ we have all things. It is the life of God himself. Turn from your sins. Find him to be your perfect Savior. Butterflies got nothing on us.

God will change us. God will bring us to himself. I don't know what that was all about but I want to end here. It says in verse 12. Therefore I intend always to remind you of these things though you know them and are established in the truth that you have.

I think it right as long as I am in this body to stir you up by way of reminder since I know that the putting off of the body will be soon as the Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I make every effort to do so that after my departure you may be able to at any time recall these things.

Want to remind you to look to Christ to trust in him to believe in him to not look anywhere else. I want to end by reading this song to you again. Behold how very good it is. A pleasant thing to see when brothers joined to live as one in peace and unity.

Yes it is like the precious oil which poured out upon the head which running down from Aaron's beard upon his garment. Spread. It is as though Mount Hermon's dew on Zion's hill descends. For there the Lord bestowed the gift of life that never ends.

That gift is Christ Jesus. Believe in him today. Thank God for the Holy Spirit. Let's pray God. You are good and gracious to us. You're merciful and kind. We pray that your spirit will work in us today to hear the words of the scripture to understand your goodness to us that we would be convicted where conviction needs to be had.

That we would be upheld and strengthened where we should be upheld and strengthened that you would not have your word not returned void to you God. We pray these things knowing that you are good and great and powerful.

To do them in Christ name. We pray. Amen.