Union with Christ- Finishing Well II

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Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder and with me again is Teddy James, and this is our first episode of the new year.

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Yeah, thank you. This is the year for the Yankees. This is it, Teddy. I'm so sad.

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Yeah, I know. I know, they got a Braves player. They have to persevere. We got to keep going, because it's going to make me sad.

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They lost their salvation. They're totally, they're apostate. That they are. That was embarrassing. All right, so this year may be better.

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So we're talking about something more serious than baseball. We're looking at how union with Christ is at the heart of the preservation and persevering of a believer.

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How do we know that a believer will make it? That they will be presented without spot or wrinkle, without any shame, before the face of a

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God that can see everything about us? That we will look like our Savior at the end of time?

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To use a word that you used last week, how can we trust, or how can we know the guarantee that we will be conformed to the image of Christ?

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When we look at ourselves in the mirror, and we see all the warts, we see all the ugly, and yet God has promised that we will be conformed to the image of Christ.

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Right, and that is in light of the fact that, like we talked about last week, we're gonna have to persevere, because there are several passages in the

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Bible that warn that those who say they love Christ, or they say they trust in Christ, they say that they are

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Christ's, and yet they turn away from Christ and walk, you know, just the opposite direction.

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I've got no more use for this, Jesus. What we call apostasy, that that kind of a sin does exist, and God has given us warnings so that we will stay away from that, and the true believer demonstrates that they are a true believer by not doing that, and the false, or the hypocritical person whose religion is only a fine mask that they've put on the outside, demonstrates that they aren't what they say they are by being careless, and, you know, in a sense, walking off the cliff, or walking away from Christ.

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So, today we want to talk about how does union with Christ guarantee that our efforts to persevere will be effective.

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It is true that because we are in Christ, we will not fall away from Him.

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Now, there are a lot of passages that are what we call if passages, and we want to read some of them for you, and these are passages that, if we're not careful, you can kind of just skim over the top of them and say, well, because we believe in the security of the believer, the eternal security of the believer, that we have everlasting life now, and that will never be taken from us.

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John chapter 10, no one will snatch us out of his hand. John chapter 6, everyone that comes to me believes in me.

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Everyone whom the Father has given me, Christ says. He says it from both angle, both angles, the divine and the human,

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God giving, us believing. He says, I will raise them up on the last day. So, we have the honor of the

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Father. He made promises to the Son. These are your people. The honor of the Son, I will present everyone you've entrusted to me complete.

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The honor of the Spirit, I will apply and seal every believer and see to it that they are brought safely in.

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All the honor of the triune God wrapped up in the rescue of every individual believer.

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So, with all those wonderful, you know, solid objective reasons for hope for a believer that I won't fall away, how do we read the if passages?

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Well, we understand that all of that objective hope guarantees I will be able to press on, and my efforts will be effective.

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Let me read just a few, and then I want you to read some. So, in Matthew chapter 10, and again in Matthew 14, and then again in 24, but I'll just read a couple,

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Christ talks about the need to endure. In Matthew 10 verse 22, He warns His disciples, you will be hated by all because of my name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.

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And we know that 11 of the 12 endured to the end. Judas turned his back on Christ.

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Matthew 14, another warning, at that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another.

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Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many because lawlessness is increased.

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Most people's love will grow cold, but the one who endures to the end,

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He will be saved. Now, listen to what Paul writes in two letters, one in Romans, one in Colossians.

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Here he's going to give an if statement. Behold the kindness and the severity of God, and that's

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Romans chapter 11, sorry, verse 22, where Paul's saying, look, these Jews who had the hope preached to them all through the

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Old Covenant, so many of them have turned their back, and even in the New Testament so many Jews are rejecting the Messiah, and they will be cut off.

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They will not be the people of God just because they are connected to Abraham ethnically or genetically.

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They must be connected to Abraham by the same spiritual quality of faith, and Paul explains that's always what a true

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Jew is. It's not just someone who has Jewish blood, it's a person who has faith.

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And Paul points out the failure of so many of the Jews to believe, and they're being broken off, and then he talks to the

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Gentiles. So he says, behold then, the kindness and the severity of God, to those who fell, severity, but to you,

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God's kindness, if warning comes. Gentile believers, if you continue in his kindness, otherwise you will also be cut off.

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So you look at the Jews and you think, how could they do that? How could they turn their back on their own Messiah? And so Paul says, that's a great question, because it's a tragedy, but I want to warn you, as you're looking at someone else's stumbling and turning away from Christ, make sure you don't turn away from Christ, and prove by turning your back on Christ, that you, like the

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Jews, appear to be a child of God, but in reality you never were. Colossians 1 verse 21 through 23, at the end of this great description of Christ, you know,

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He is. At the end of that, he says, all the fullness dwells in Him, and then he talks about how that impacts our salvation.

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He says in verse 21, and although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death, in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

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Then here comes the statement, if indeed you continue in the faith, firmly established and steadfast and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which

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I, Paul, was made a minister. So, you will be presented.

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Your hope is in Christ. How do I know I'm in Christ? Well, if you don't turn away from Christ, if you don't throw away the hope that there is in the gospel, if you won't ever quit clinging to Christ, you demonstrate you are what you say you are, a believer.

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Now, there are a number of statements from Christ. In case we are unclear, in the book of Revelation, what does

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Jesus have to say to churches right now from His throne in heaven? Six of the seven churches receive rebukes, one doesn't, but all seven have something in common.

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They all end with an exhortation to endure, or to overcome.

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Yeah, and every one of them, Revelation 2 7, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

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To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

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Revelation 2 11, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.

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2 17, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him

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I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone and a new name written on the stone, which no one knows, that he who receives it.

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2 26, He who overcomes, and he who keeps my deeds until the end, to him

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I will give authority over the nations. Revelation 3 5, He who overcomes will thus be clothed with white garments, and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before my

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Father and before his angels. 3 12, He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my

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God, and he will not go out from it anymore, and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my

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God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God and my new name. Lastly, Revelation 3 21,

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He who overcomes, I will grant him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my

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Father on his throne. So while each of those is worded differently, the description of eternal life, of the reward of overcoming, is different in each of those, but they're all basically saying the same thing.

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All that you've hoped in, all that I've promised you, all that I have purchased for my people in the new covenant, if you are a believer, you're my people, and if you will keep believing, demonstrate that you are who you say you are, a believer, even though you are imperfect, you don't let go of your hope in me.

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You don't turn your back on Christ. Then you have overcome. You've climbed over every obstacle.

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You have, you have, you know, pushed through every dense brush in the road.

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You have fought against every lie and foe. You know, and so you think of the

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Christian, they are described as an overcomer, or as a battler, as we said, a soldier that battles.

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Ephesians 6, they're described as a person who runs a race. Hebrews 12, you know, they are persevering by faith.

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So we must overcome, we must press on, we must run all the way to the end.

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It's not enough that we are at the beginning, you know, we appear to at the front of the race, we appear to be a great strong runner, we jump off this, you know, the starting line just like everybody else.

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The question is, but do we see you at the finish line? Do you really run all the way?

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You know, and that's one of the things that has always struck me in my Christian walk. When we think of the

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Christian life as a battle, if we were to go into...so one of the things,

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John, that I've gone down a rabbit hole over the last couple of months has been medieval battles. I don't know why, but I just find them absolutely fascinating.

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And one of the things that has always struck me is having the hindsight of looking at these battles, and not just medieval, but also

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Napoleon and guys like that. The strategies that they used, the men had absolute faith in their general.

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And so when you were to watch the soldiers or even read some of the letters of the Napoleonic soldiers, they really did have faith in their general.

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And because of that, when they were asked to do things that to them seemed impossible, or things that they were not capable themselves of doing, they said, if my general has commanded me to do it,

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I will succeed. Because he's commanded it. We as believers have a general.

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They didn't know for sure that Napoleon would win, but we do. Because God's sovereignty, we know that he will win.

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And every promise he's made, he will deliver on. And because of that, when he promises that his children will finish the race, well, we will.

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Yeah, and it makes us run. And we'll talk about what running actually looks like. When we think of these matters, you know,

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I remember reading Spurgeon on the theme of perseverance. And Spurgeon said this, basically, okay, we'll put it in my language, not his beautiful language.

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He said, we don't call a person a farmer who goes out in the backyard and plants one, we'll say, you know, we're down south, one tomato plant.

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That's why I'm not a farmer. Right, so he plants his tomato plant, and then he gets tired of weeding, he gets tired of messing with it, and he just lets it shrivel up.

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And maybe he gets a tomato or two off of it, but the rest of it, you know, it's eaten by wild animals, you know, the deer that come in, or the bugs get to it.

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Now, if a person plants a tomato plant, and then quits, we don't say, man, that's a farmer.

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If a soldier rushes out into battle one time, but then never goes out again, just quits, leaves, abandons the army, we don't call that a soldier, you know.

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If a person starts to build a house, and so they get the plans, and they buy some of the stuff they're gonna need, but they don't think ahead of how expensive this will be, and they pour a great foundation, and then quit.

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We don't say, they built a house. And Christ warns us, those that put on armor should not act like they're taking it off.

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There's a battle, and it will take perseverance. And those that start to build a house better make sure they know it's going to be a long process, or else it would be better not to waste your money, and get it started, and then quit halfway.

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So he warns us, a quitter, a person that puts their hand to the plow, and then after about 15 minutes of work, quits and walks off the job.

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We don't call that an employee. A Christian is not someone that has an impressive start, emotions, profession of faith, you know, earnest -looking life, lots of changes, but then after a few months fizzles out and quits.

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That's not a Christian. A Christian is an overcomer, an endurer, a runner.

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Now, how do we do it though? Well, there are two sides. There's the wonderful provision that the

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Father gives us in Christ, and it is so full, it's such a flood of everything we need, that there is no way that we will, at any point in the journey, or any point in the battle, or any point of pressing through obstacles, that we will look to God and what we need won't be there.

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So his full provision, fullness, and then the other side, our response, faith.

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So let's think about fullness. In Ephesians 1, when Paul says, you know, right in the opening of the first chapter, you know, praise to God who has given us every spiritual blessing in Christ in the heavenly places.

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So Paul opens in verse 3 of chapter 1 by saying, I just have to say thanks to God who gives every

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Christian alike all that they could possibly need in Christ.

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And then he explains, he gives that, you know, chapter 1 is like a, it's a high watermark of doctrine.

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It'd be hard to find a place anywhere, from Genesis to Revelation, that gives so much truth about what has been provided in Christ in such a short place.

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The work of the Father, the work of the Son, the work of the Spirit, you know, everything from being chosen in Him, eternity past, to the hope of eternity future, when all things will be placed under Christ, and we will be complete.

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And then at the end, there's that wonderful prayer at the end of chapter 1, I'm praying that you would, by the

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Spirit, come to have an experiential, daily kind of acquaintance with these realities, that you would live on them presently.

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So, everything you need's in Christ, Colossians chapter 2, similar but different metaphor.

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In verse 9 and 10, he says, all the fullness of God dwells in the God -man bodily, truly, substantively.

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Now, if that's true, then Paul says, you are complete, or full, in Him.

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So, if all the fullness of God is poured into the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth, and He truly is

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God -man in one, and you are connected in a living, vital, branch -to -vine kind of way, then the fullness of life in Christ flows into you, and you are made alive in Him, and the fullness is there in Him.

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And it's impossible to think, Paul says, that you wouldn't have what you need. And chapter 2 of Colossians is taken up with showing that in very practical ways.

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You don't need circumcision for a new heart, because you've been circumcised in Christ, you're alive in Christ.

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You don't need, you know, good works to make yourself righteous, because you are washed in the blood of Christ at the cross, you are clothed in His righteousness, and the enemies that have surrounded you spiritually are trampled in through the cross of Christ, and you're in Christ, and so that means you participate in all those things.

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You don't know, you don't need any aesthetic practices, don't touch this, don't do this, don't do this.

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You don't have to add a bunch of rules to your life to make yourself holy. They don't actually work, because they don't change your heart, but in Christ, you're like a part of a body connected to a living head, and everything you need for holiness flows from Him.

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And so, Paul says all of that, and he says that's how, in verses 4, 5, 6, and 7, and 8, that's how you won't be kidnapped by the liars, by the false teachers, because you are going to, having been placed in Christ, united to Christ, now you're going to walk in Him, you're going to be built up in Him, you're going to grow and mature in Him with gratitude.

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So, that's God's part, but here's the trick.

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Remember, we don't want to allow the magnitude of God's provision to be mistaken as a substitute for our action.

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All of that will not benefit the man, or the woman, or the young person that will not then respond to that by faith all the way to the end.

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We have to take hold of that. We have to grab on. Right, now, so sometimes, you know, Teddy, that especially in our culture, people think that faith is kind of a fundamental optimism united to religion.

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So, I think everything's going to turn out okay, but I'm a church member, so I say it this way.

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Everything's going to be okay because God's in control, but that is not what the Scripture says. Everything's not going to be just fine for every person.

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So, how would you define faith? You know, don't worry about it being perfectly theological, but how would you describe faith if it's not this religious optimism?

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No, I mean, you're clinging and living upon the promises of God, who

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God says He is, and what He'll do. Yeah, so, and I think you could even go wider than that. When it comes to a promise,

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I trust this God, so what He said about this, I'm going to live on it. I'll risk everything because He doesn't lie to me, but faith could also be expanded to say it is a response to anything

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God says about Himself, about His Son, about you, about life. So, if God says that sin cannot satisfy, then

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I believe Him, and I think He told me that that's not my friend, so I'm not walking down that path.

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I'm walking away from the old sin. If He tells me He is sufficient for everything, then I make decisions based on that.

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If He tells me that a Christian is the bond slave of Christ and is to pour out our life out of love for God and for others, then when

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I get home at night and I'm tired, but I'm told so -and -so in the church is really struggling,

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I think, well, I believe what God says. The body of Christ is how God ministers to Christians, as well as, you know, directly, so I'm going to get back in the car and go visit

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Mississippi. It goes even further. When God says, as a believer, you will need, you need time with Me.

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Following the example of Christ, He woke up early and got away and prayed alone, and the disciples came and found

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Him, and He says, this is what you need because you need communion with Me. I'm gonna believe that's what

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I need, even when I don't feel it. Yeah, so that brings us to the means of grace. Absolutely, and so when we're talking about the means of grace, we cannot, you cannot read the

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New Testament without having all of these one another, love one another, bear with one another.

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The means of grace, John, so that is our name, by the way, Mediae Gratiae. If you're not familiar, it's just Latin for the means of grace, and when we use that phrase, that encompasses a few different things, but it is the ways in which

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God has said, here's where I'll meet you, here's where you'll be discipled, here's where you will be grown and conformed to the image of Christ, and those things include the reading of the

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Word, prayer, the singing of hymns, the fellowship of the saints, in the church, church meeting, preaching from your pastor, and so as we're entering into 2025, we're gonna get into, you know, running well later on in this episode in just a few minutes, but I want to encourage you, if you can look back at 2024, and you see,

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I mean, really examine 2024 and say, God, are there areas in my life where I did not believe you, where you said,

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I need this, and I said, no, I don't. Can you make 2025 and say,

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God, show me at least one of those areas where I didn't believe you, and so I did not follow you in need, and let me search you out in that need, and trust that you'll meet what

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I need in that. Yeah, so faith is a very practical, simple, wholehearted response to what

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God says, and like you said, He gives us means or tools or instruments or methods for responding to our spiritual need and to His fullness.

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Let me give a couple of examples with regard to union with Christ. So there is union with Christ, but it's described through a series of different metaphors, and each one of them kind of gives us a different emphasis, and we really need all of them to get the full picture, but let's take two.

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Union with Christ is a legal connection that is unbreakable, and that God has chosen for us.

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He's chosen Christ, His Son, to be our covenant representative, our federal head, the representative of a group.

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We understand representation in government. You know, if we go to war and our young men go and fight on the battlefield, it's not because every one of those young men has been personally offended by every young man in the other army that they're fighting against.

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It's that those that represent the nations have made that choice, and you're impacted for good or ill by their representation.

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We are either represented by Adam, Paul says in Romans 5, or you are represented in Christ. In Adam, no matter how good your day is going, it's terrible, because your legal standing before God is one of a rebel, guilty, you know, deserving of wrath, or as Paul says in Romans 5, an enemy, an opposer, and it doesn't matter if you're in church and you're feeling warm emotions.

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If Adam is your representative, that is what you still are, and you have no hope.

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But Paul says there is another representative. If you don't like Adam, why not go to Christ?

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Why not grab hold of Christ? Why not hand all that you are to Him and take all that you know of Him as yours?

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So if you're in Christ, Paul says, by faith, then all that Christ has done then impacts how the

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Father treats you. So you are right with God, and you are clean before God, and you are removed from the old country of darkness, the kingdom of darkness, and you are in a new kingdom, the kingdom of light, where His Son rules by grace.

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So those legal alterations, those aren't things that have changed in you morally, but they affect what changes in you morally.

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Suddenly, you live differently, because I am now represented by Christ, and I am now free from the old enemy's tyranny, free to live for God.

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So when Paul says all that wonderful stuff, chapter 6, verse 11, he says, okay, here's how you apply that.

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Reckon yourselves dead to sin, alive to God. In other words, wake up and calculate life correctly.

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God has made these objective, legal changes in your life because you are in Christ.

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So that's altered everything. You don't necessarily feel it, and it certainly isn't anything that you did to earn it, but if God declares it to be so, then you're gonna have to live on it, and that takes a very clear faith.

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I will believe what God says about the alteration of my legal standing before Him and towards sin, because I am in Christ.

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It's almost like a child who's been adopted. I mean, you talk about adoption in the Union with Christ series with AC, but a child who is adopted, they may not feel any different when they walk out of the courtroom or courthouse than when they walked in, right?

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I mean, but so much has changed, legally. Yeah, and they have to remind themselves,

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I have a right to these clothes in this closet. I have a right to the food on that table. I have a right to come up to mom and dad, even when

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I've been bad, and say, mom, dad, I'm sorry. I just did what you told me not to do, you know, but I have a right to their love, because I'm not a stranger they're being kind to.

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I'm their son or their daughter. So that's the right response. So faith is reckoning, but in John 15, when

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Christ describes the union that we have with Him, not merely as a legal, but as a living, vital connection, a branch to a vine where all the life of the vine provides life for the branch, which makes it fruitful, if we say to Him, I'm just gonna reckon that so.

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I just need to wake up and say to myself, God has said I'm a branch attached to this wonderful vine, and that's the end of it, but that is not what

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Christ says. There the command is, abide, or stick close to, or plant yourself in me.

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Camp out here. Make the fullness of Christ your permanent resting place, and when your hungry heart wants to roam to other areas, don't let it do it.

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Hold it there in Christ. Don't let anything come between you and that near, sweet communion with Christ.

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That's abiding. Not only that, but if you're a person like me who hears this and thinks, that sounds so sweet, but John, I've been there,

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I've tried it, and I've wandered away. I've been there, my heart has been so warm, and it's gotten cold.

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Look, the reality is this. It goes back to what we're talking about earlier. God has promised you certain things, and like an adopted child, you're able to come.

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When you see the beautiful buffet that's laid out on the table, you're not the child who comes in and says, okay, well

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I'll sit over here in the corner when everybody else is done. I'll get some of the scraps and the crumbs that's left. That's not what

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God has promised you. He has promised you, come, behold, and eat your fill.

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Yeah. And God has promised to give you that. So if you look at this and say, that promise is not for me, realize that it is.

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So we could say it like this, you know, what 1st Peter says, we obtain an inheritance, he says, which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God.

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So there's God's part. Through faith, that's our part, for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

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Or we could say it this way, Philippians 1, verse 6, and chapter 2, verse 12 and 13, they go together.

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You can't cut the knot. So in Philippians 1, 6, Paul makes that great statement, I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you, in the

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Philippian believers, the average Christian, he will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

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So there's the object of hope. What's the daily response to that?

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Well, chapter 2, verse 12, so then my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out, or work outward, your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is

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God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. So there's the object of realities outside of us that we hope in, but that always is connected with a subjective or an experiential thing that occurs within,

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I will believe what God says, and that changes everything about how

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I value things, who I depend upon, who I live for, and that's the life of faith.

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Spurgeon points out that that does not make the Christian life easy. It doesn't mean that you get to skirt past all the battles, all the obstacles, all the kind of soul -rending doubts, and you know, it's easy to say them to people, like,

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I know what it's like to go through a difficult period where you can't sleep at night because you're crying out to the Lord for a loved one, and nothing, it looks like heaven is closed to your prayers.

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What will you do then? Will you trust Him, or will you believe your feelings? And it's easy to talk about this, quite a different thing to go through it, and Spurgeon says a

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Christian's career is always fighting, never ceasing, always plowing ahead in the stormy sea, and never resting till they reach the port of glory.

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But then he talks about the hope. If my God preserves you, he says, and preserve you,

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He must, or else you are not His. If He will keep you, and keep you, He will, if you have committed your souls to His faithful guardianship, what an honor awaits you.

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We could say, for the Christian, the best is yet to come. So we, even if we feel like I'm just crawling,

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I'm not sprinting, but I am not turning my back on Christ no matter what, and if I have to crawl the rest of the way, or as you know,

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C .S. Lewis's picture of endurance in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Reepcheep, the little mouse guy who's so courageous, he's a bit like the

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Apostle Peter, you know, a big mouth, a little too big of a mouth, but in the end, he sets off for Aslan's country, and he's in his little boat, and they say, but what if your boat sinks?

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He says, then I'll swim. What if you get tired? He says, then I'll die, but I'll die with my face pointed toward Aslan's country, you know, and that's the attitude of the believer.

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I will not turn my back on Christ. What an honor awaits everyone who clings to Him.

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Well, I want us to close our couple sessions on persevering in Christ with a simple illustration, running.

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We're not talking about, how do I keep from going to hell? How do I keep from losing my salvation?

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We're talking about, how does a Christian press on, or endure, or overcome, or battle, or travel, or run all the way to the end in a way that would demonstrate to the world what a good

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Savior we belong to? How can we finish in a way that honors Christ? How can we run well?

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And the illustration is negative splits. Now, in a race, I used to run with my daughter who was a cross -country runner, and you know, if you're a cross -country runner, then in the springtime when it's track season, usually coach makes you run track as well to stay in shape, and she would talk about negative splits versus the other approaches.

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Negative splits are these. It's when you're running a race, and let's say you have four laps in a race, then you start well, but each lap your goal is to run a little faster than the lap before, so you're finishing faster than when you started.

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Now, this is the opposite of the person who's not in good shape, who like me, starts well. Yeah, you start sprinting, you know, and you know, the first in a three -mile race, you know, you're like in the first three -fourths of a mile, you're like in the top 10%, and then in the last tenth of the mile at the end, you're like, you know, grandmas are passing you easy, and you're like, man, it's so embarrassing.

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We need to think, how do we plan to run for the glory of Christ?

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Not so you don't go to hell. The Christian, we want to run negative splits.

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He started us off well, but by His grace, why not run faster? Why not use the

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Scripture better? Why not pray more biblically? Why not be more involved in your church, in the lives of true believers?

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Why not run better in 2025 and help those in your church run better in 2025 than you ran in 2024?

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And then when 2026 comes, God willing, run better in 2026. Run faster, more faithfully, more dependent, more happy in Christ than you ever have before.

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And why would not God let us do that? It doesn't mean that 2025 will be an easier year, but it means that whatever comes next in our lives, we can, with Christ, we can run in a way that is better than we ran last year for the glory of this