UNION WITH CHRIST (Eph 2:5-7)

John 1 and the Call to Worship

Lord, how You love me, more than I've asked for, more than I've found.

We like to start off our service with a call to worship, a read and response, and today our call to worship comes from verses 14 through 18 of John chapter 1. It says, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Glory as of the only Son from the Father. For from His fullness we have all received. For the law was given through Moses. No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the Father's side. All Christ has made Him known, and all God's people said, Amen.

We thank You, Lord. Promises are true and sure. We come here to worship and honor Your holy name, because You alone are worthy. That's the only way that we come before You this morning is through the blood of Christ.

While there's nothing of ourselves, we only come here even worthy to stand in Your presence because of what Christ did, the Holy Spirit calling us to You, Father, to serve You, to love You, God. We thank You, Jesus, for what You've done, for the people You've brought here to worship and praise Your name.

Thank You, God. Praise You, Lord.

Mountain peaks, You paint the evening sky. Wizard to the sea. All nature testifies Your strength. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Let everything that I have come to sink. You're there to join me.

We're brought here to sing praise to Your name. Thank You, Lord, that You've given us a hunger and a desire for the Word. God, and we thank You that we have it here within our midst, Lord God, that it is live and active.

We pray that You open our hearts to receive it this morning, our minds to hear it, to understand what You have for us, God. We praise You. In Jesus' name.

You may be seated. Our psalm reading this morning comes from Psalm 69. Save me, O God, from the waters that have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters and the flood sweeps over me.

I am weary with my crying out. My throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. More in number are the hairs of my head than those who hate me without cause. Mighty are those who would destroy me, those who would attack me with lies.

What did I not steal must now I restore. O God, You know my falling. The wrongs I have done are not hidden from You. Let not those who hope in You be put to shame through me. O Lord God of hosts, let not those who seek You be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel.

For it is for Your sake that I have borne reproach. That dishonor has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons. For zeal for Your house has consumed me. And the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.

When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach. When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. I am the talk of those who sit at the gate, and the drunkards make songs about me.

But as for me, my prayer is to You, O Lord. At the acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of Your steadfast love, answer me in Your saving faithfulness. Deliver me from the sinking in the mire. Let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters.

Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close my mouth over.

Me.

Answer me, O Lord, for Your steadfast love is good. According to Your abundant mercy, turn to me. Hide not Your face from Your servant, for I am in distress. Make haste to answer me. Draw near to my soul.

Redeem me. Ransom me because of my enemies. You know my reproach and my shame and my dishonor. My foes are all known to You. Reproaches have broken my heart so that I am in despair. I have looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but there I found none.

They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink. Let their own table before them become a snare, and when they are at peace, let it become.

A trap.

Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually. Pour out Your indignation upon them, and let Your burning anger overtake them. May there can't be a desolation.

Let no one dwell in their tents, for they persecute Him whom You have struck down, and they recount the pain of those that You have wounded. Add to them punishment upon punishment. May they have no acquittal from You.

Let them be blotted out from the book of the living. Let them not be enrolled among the righteous, but I am afflicted in pain. Let Your salvation, O God, set me on high. I will praise the name of God with a song.

I will magnify Him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hooves. When the humble see it, they will be glad. You who seek God, let your hearts revive, for the Lord hears the needy and does not despise His own people who are prisoners.

Let heaven and earth praise Him, and the seas and everything that moves in them, for God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah. And people shall dwell there and possess it. The offspring of His servants shall inherit it, and those who love His name shall dwell in it.

And all God's people said...

Well, you all realize that we have walked consecutively together through the Psalms now, as of today, 69 weeks together. That's over a year of, as a people, reading through the Psalms one at a time. And it may seem random, but the Word of God is never random.

And I don't know about you, but every single Sunday, there's something in that that ties my thought into where we are guiding our direction today, which ultimately is on the Lord. And God works through the Holy Spirit within us through His Word, doesn't He?

Why We Open the Bible and Read Ephesians Aloud

So, let's go ahead, as we continue this time of worship, to go ahead and open your copy of God's Word to Ephesians chapter 2. As we get back into our series this week, we had a break last week when we were out of town, and Pastor Jeremiah was able to preach on the parable of the sower.

I hope you didn't miss that. If you did, go back online and check that out. You will be blessed by that sermon. But today, we're back in Ephesians chapter 2. And notice, I want to say something before we jump into it.

Notice I always say, open your copy of God's Word. And we're doing that on purpose. If you notice, we don't put the scriptures on the screen very often here any longer. And the reason that we don't do that is very purposeful.

We don't do it because, really, kind of threefold. There's one, we want you to keep us accountable. And so, we want you looking, whether it be a digital copy or your physical copy of a Bible, we want you looking at it.

We want you to keep us accountable and make sure that we're not adding or taking away and that it says what we say it's saying. But secondly, a big part of preaching is teaching each of us how to study scripture.

And for you to just listen to me is not really allowing you to hone in and focus on what does it mean, what does it look like to study God's Word. That's part of why we structure these sermons the way we do.

And thirdly, you are not consumers. I have not prepared this sermon this week to come in for me to be the active participant and for you to be passive in this. You are an expositional listener, or you're called to.

This is a corporate engagement here for you to study your word. So, that being said, I just wanted to say that every once in a while, just as a reminder. That's why I say open your copy of God's Word.

If you don't have one of your own with you, we've got copies up here. We can give to you. We'd love for you to have a copy of God's Word. Just let us know. But let's read our passage here in Ephesians chapter 2.

Our primary text is going to be verses 5 through 7. But let's start reading verse 1. Where the Apostle Paul says,. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

What beautiful, beautiful truth. All of God's Word is amazing. But sometimes we read words where it just causes our soul to come alive within us as we hear them, because it is a glorious truth of redemption.

Amen? So let's pray now. Let's stop again. Let's pray that the Holy Spirit would illuminate our hearts and minds to this great truth. Dear Heavenly Father, God, we humbly come before you and we ask for help because we are frail and we are finite.

God, we need you to work in our hearts and in our minds. We need the Holy Spirit to illuminate truth to us, to convict us where we need to turn from sin. God, to encourage us where our hearts are downtrodden and burdened.

God, we need you to work. You said that your Word never returns void. It always accomplishes what it sets out to do, and we ask for that this morning, Father. That you mold us as a people to be made in the image of your Son.

Father, help us. Help us to see truth. Guard my lips from error. In Christ's name, amen. Well, a prominent seminary professor and writer once wrote, spiritual life flows out of union with Christ, not merely imitation of Christ.

I find that statement very interesting. I've had to ponder on that this week because I think we hear a lot today about imitating our Savior. We often think of that. We're trying to be like Jesus. And we should.

We should be seeking to imitate. I mean, after all, the Apostle Paul himself said, Hey, imitate me as I imitate Christ. So there's an element in which we are seeking to imitate Christ. However, we often find that imitating Christ isn't easy.

Is it? It's not an easy task. We tend to spin our wheels trying to do and to say what we think Jesus would do and say. Some of you that are old enough, you will remember just a few years ago, we used to wear these little bracelets around our wrists, the WWJD.

What would Jesus do? And it was meant to be a reminder when we're going through life and circumstances happen to us, we look at our wrist and go, What would Jesus do? Now let me do that thing. Because that's innate in us.

We desire to be obedient to our Savior, don't we? But it's so difficult. It's so hard to imitate because we're seeking to imitate perfection. And we ourselves are not perfect. And when temptation comes our way, our desire, and we long to be like Jesus in the wilderness, we just quote scripture to it and turns from it and is not pulled away by it.

We long to be that yet cave into it more often than not. Let's be honest. Some of you are giving me a little bit of a holy look. I win that battle more often than not. No, you don't. None of us do. We all fall prey to this, don't we?

And then we wonder why. Why am I not living a holy life? Why? Why can't I not? It seems like all my other brothers and sisters at church, they seem to be upright. They seem to have it all together. They seem to dress nice.

They seem to not fall prey to these secret sins that I keep falling prey to. Why is that? Why can't I just get this following Jesus down pat? We all feel it, don't we? Why don't I always long to read my Bible?

Why don't I always long to pray to my Heavenly Father? I so often fight that. All of us are plagued with these questions at times. And I'll be honest with you. I desperately wish that I could give each of you that silver bullet today.

I wish that I had just the right verse in Scripture that I could take you to and you go, I know that verse, but I didn't realize it said that. And now that I know it says that, that changes everything.

And I'm going to be able to defeat sin in my life, and this is over. This battle against my flesh, it just disappears. But it just doesn't work like that, does it? It doesn't work like that. We'll have to wait for glory for that one.

That's coming. We just have to wait for it. Yet here's what I can do is I can remind you that God has given us the victory. If you start to notice, that's what I seek to do every Sunday morning is come and gather before you and say, look at God's Word.

He won. Rest in it. Because that's all we have. And that's what helps us fight these battles. And He's given us everything we need for life and godliness right here in His Word. That's what He says He has.

It's what He's revealed through His Word and His truth. And we see one of those things in our text today. I believe one of the things that is grossly misunderstood, that is terribly overlooked, even though our spiritual life flows from it.

And it is this doctrine of union with Christ. Union with Christ. Just as Paul says there in our passage in verse 5. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive in Christ.

Is that what it says?

He made us alive in Christ. What's it say? With Christ. Made us alive together with Christ. Not just in Christ, which that is part of it, but He has made us alive together. There's a unity that Paul is speaking about here.

That it changes the way that we perceive our walk and our position with Christ. And Scripture teaches a three-fold union with Christ. We've actually looked at each one of these points over the past few weeks in this study because the Apostle Paul has addressed all of them.

We'll see that. So hopefully that is going to give us a little bit of a reference, some context and insight for today. But first thing is I want to point out what these three things, this three-fold union with Christ according to theologians is how we break this down.

First is eternal union. The second thing we're going to see is redemptive historical union. And thirdly, existential or experiential union. So let us consider the first one. Eternal union with Christ.

Well, we've already seen this. We see the beginning stages of this in Ephesians chapter 1. Look back at chapter 1. Look at verses 4 and 5 with me. In chapter 1, the Apostle Paul, he says, Even as He, who God the Father, chose us in Him.

Who? God the Son. God the Father chose us in God the Son before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will.

You see, this means that there was a type of union with Christ that all believers had from eternity past. There's a union with Christ that each one of us, if we are in Christ today, has had this union with the Messiah, Christ, from eternity past.

Now, if you've been paying attention over the past few weeks, you may actually be asking a very important question. You may be thinking, wait a second, Pastor. What about Ephesians 2 .3? We already talked about this.

What about what Paul said there in 2 .3? Look at it. He says, Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and of the mind, and were by nature, what?

Children of wrath. How could we be united with Christ at the same time that we are children of wrath? Because you and I were, before Christ, not children of God. We had to be adopted to be brought in as children of God.

We were children of wrath. So where's the united with Christ come in? How could we be children of wrath and be united with the perfect second person of the Godhead?

How does that work?

Now, remember, this is a threefold explanation of union with Christ. Understanding this is the first element of united with Christ that Scripture teaches. And this is just the first category. You see, we were united with him in that his purchase of us was secure, was inevitable, and was un-revocable.

Irrevocable.

I just made up a word.

Irrevocable.

I'm going to say that again. Our union with Christ was in the fact that his purchase of us was secure, inevitable, and irrevocable. Think about the ramifications of that. From eternity past is what he said.

Before the foundation of the world, before anything was created. And when you say anything is created, we're even referring to time. Before time is created, he had set his love upon us. He had chosen us.

You must understand, when Jesus said in Luke chapter 19, verse 10, that commonly known verse, he says, For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost, right? To seek and to save the lost. When Jesus said that there, Jesus is not speaking of two separate agendas for his ministry.

He didn't come to seek and then potentially save. That's not what Jesus came to do. He didn't come to seek and then be a potential savior for the lost. No, he came to seek after those that he is going to save.

And he says that he's not lost one of them. Because the Father had already chosen them. And he has come to save them. And the reason is because we are secure. We are united with Christ in this way. It was inevitable.

Our union with Christ was a guarantee. And it was guaranteed from eternity past. But here's the thing, it's not just eternity past. It's also guaranteed for eternity future, isn't it? It's guaranteed for eternity future.

John chapter 10, verse 28 says, I give them eternal life. I give them eternal life. Not temporary life. Not an eternal life if this, this, and this. An everlasting with no end. He says, and they will never perish.

And there's that phrase, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. It's absolute from eternity past to eternity future. We, those that are recipients of God's great love, we are united with Christ, the Savior.

Christian, if that doesn't get you so excited, you just want to get up and praise the Lord, what's wrong?

Right?

What's wrong?

If you're indifferent to this great truth, that you're united with Christ for eternity, eternally united, that gives us great hope. It makes me go, I charge into a spiritual battle because it's done. It can't be taken away.

I can't run into the battle and Jesus go, you know what? I don't know if I like him anymore. And remove that united with him. I'm united to the King. And always have been in this sense. Well, there's a second category that theologians refer to as being united to Christ.

And that is the redemptive historical union with Christ. And we see this truth all through scripture, but we see it so clearly in Romans 6. So turn in your Bibles with me. Romans 6. I want us to look at a few verses starting in verse 5 of Romans 6.

We're not going to spend a ton of time on this text, but I want you to see a theme of what Paul is saying here in Romans 6. So Paul, as he gets to verse 5, he says,. For if we have been united with him, with who?

With Christ. In a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him, Christ, in a resurrection like his. Okay, so you're seeing the connection here. There's a correlation. Verse 6. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him.

For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Do you notice something in the text?

Every single thing that Jesus did in his earthly ministry, he did as a representative of those who were chosen. Did you catch that? Every move that Jesus made in his earthly ministry was made as a representative of his people, those that are united with him.

And that was absolutely necessary in order for us to be united with him eternally. There was a historical redemptive nature to it. It was in that moment, just as the writer of Hebrews says, right at the perfect time, at the right time, at the exact moment that God had intended and ordained, Jesus came as a representative.

In order for 2 Corinthians 5 .21, as Paul says, For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that we, in him, we might become the righteousness of God. He was our representative. That imputed righteousness at the right moment brought us into that inevitable union with him.

The righteousness of Christ clothes believers, doesn't it? We're clothed. That's part of your union with him. Because he perfectly represented those with whom he was united eternally. God had loved us.

God had chosen us. The Son came and purchased us. Lived for us. Was our representative. He took our sin. Gave us his righteousness. Talk about being united. It's a beautiful truth. Thirdly, another way that we are united with Christ is this existential, or I actually prefer the term experiential union with Christ.

We actually spoke about this a few weeks ago back in Ephesians chapter 1. Look back at Ephesians 1 and verses 13 and 14. Paul said, In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Notice the pattern of this threefold union with Christ. I talk about it all the time through this series, because this is vital for us to really be able to comprehend. I want you to see in this threefold union with Christ, what is it?

We're united with Christ in the Father's choosing. We're united with Christ in Jesus, the Son's propitiation for us. And now we're united with Christ within the Holy Spirit's indwelling. Only a triune God could accomplish this.

You see, even though our union with Christ was guaranteed from eternity past, it was not actually experienced until the Holy Spirit awakened us, and gave us faith and repentance. And then the Holy Spirit was given to us as a guarantee of that unity, of that great union that we now experience.

Before, we were children of wrath, right? But we still had union with Christ in that it was a guarantee it was coming. Then Jesus came in the history of time, in the perfect time, paid the price for us and accomplished what he was going to accomplish.

And then, in the right moment, the Holy Spirit comes and awakens you and brings you from death to life, and you see the beauty of Christ. And now, experientially, you understand and comprehend this unity with your Savior.

It's a beautiful truth.

And this allows us to realize. And now, right here in our text, Paul wants us to see just how united we are. He wants us to see just how united we are. Look at our text again in chapter 2. In verses 5 through 6, I want us to see the correlation to something here.

Look at verse 5. It says that he, God, made us alive together with Christ. As we read a moment ago, that alive together, not just in Christ, but together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him.

Now, if you've studied Ephesians or you've been with us throughout this study, you remember at the end of chapter 1, what is Paul doing? Paul has a prayer there at the end of chapter 1, doesn't he? Paul prays a prayer, and Paul prays this prayer for the saints to understand, to know, look at chapter 1, verse 19.

Keep your thumb on 2, and then look back at 1 .19, to know what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe. His prayer for us is, you need to know, you need to comprehend the great power that God accomplished when he raised Jesus from the dead, according to the working of his great might.

And then in verse 20 there of chapter 1, Paul says, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. Now, he uses the same language in chapter 2 about us, doesn't he? Look back at verse 5. He made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and then verse 6, and raised us up with him.

The same power that God used to raise Jesus from the dead is the same power that God uses to raise you and I from the dead. And we share together with Christ. But notice he doesn't just raise us up with Christ.

Look back at verse 6 again. And seated us, that's you and I, that's every believer, has seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Now look back at chapter 1, verse 20, in his prayer. The next part of verse 20 says, and seated him.

He seated us in chapter 2 and he's connecting it to his prayer back in chapter 1 that he seated Christ at his right hand in the heavenly places. And then back in our verse in chapter 2 and verse 6, and seated us with him in the heavenly places.

You see the connection? He's using the same language because we're together with Christ. There is great unity that we have with our Savior and his work. Our spiritual reality emulates Christ's physical reality in the work of redemption.

Christ is our representative. He lived the way that we could not perfectly and sinlessly. And we were spiritually dead. He was spiritually alive and willing to die to be our representative. And in his physical death, he was the perfect substitute that by the power of God he would be raised to life.

You see the correlation, right? You see the connection with our spiritual reality and the physical reality of Christ's earthly ministry and his plan of redemption? We were dead spiritually. He underwent death physically.

And the same power that raised him from the dead is the same power that raised you and I from spiritual death. We see it all interconnected in our unity with him. And we were raised up with him because we were raised up because of him, because of our union with him.

That's the reason we were raised up is because of what he has accomplished. And then, what does he do? He seated us. He has seated us with him, in him, because of him, in the heavenly places. We were perfectly and irrevocably united with the King, the one that is right now sitting at the right hand of the Father, interceding for you and I, and reigning as king.

Every molecule of the universe is subject to his reign. And you and I share in unity with him. We are united with him. And Paul says there in verse 7 of chapter 2, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

This reminds me of what he said back in chapter 1. There's another connection there. In chapter 1, verse 21, Jesus has been placed far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

We're united with him. And what is that referring to? This is referring to this age, the here and now, right? This age is the here and now, not just something in the future. We are currently in the church age.

Remember that union is sealed by the Holy Spirit. And we live in the power of that unity, not abstractly in the future, not even just absolute in the future, which I think many of us Christians live in.

We're thinking of, oh, one day, one day. We're looking to that one day, but no, it seems as though we are united with Christ perfectly right now, at this very moment, in the here and now, as he reigns.

But it's not just referring to the here and now. It's also referring to the next age, that age when death will be no more, right? Death will be no more. Christ's reign will be fully realized throughout the universe.

So there is something to look forward to. But it doesn't mean that we are powerless right now. We live in the power of union with Christ right now. And you and I will reign with him in the future because of our union with Christ.

It gives us great hope. So here's the question. What does it look like for us now? What is this union with Christ right now? How does this help us defeat sin in our daily lives, right? Because we ask that question.

Why do I not live a holy life? Why am I not pursuing Christ? So how does this help us right now? How does this truth change my day to day? Well, I'm going to give you three practical things. I don't ever give you all practical things, do I?

Let's give you some practical stuff today. Usually I just leave it out there. But I'm going to give you three things that I think are absolute from Scripture. That the unity with Christ, these three things are absolute for a Christian and will make all the difference in the world.

Spiritual Habits, the Body, and the War Against the Flesh

Number one, spiritual habits. So how does that connect to unity of Christ? What are you talking about? What are spiritual habits? Well, notice when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, what did he do?

He quoted Scripture, didn't he? He quoted a passage from Deuteronomy 8. And what did he say? He says, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Physical sustenance is not enough for you and I who are united with Christ. We created beings need a consistent diet of God's word, don't we? We need these spiritual habits in our lives. We're also told to pray without ceasing.

Essentially to pray as if it's as natural as breathing for us. Which it should be, right? This is what we're called to be. And for us who have been brought into union with Christ, we are communing with the Creator.

We can commune with the Creator. And when we commune with the Creator, we are communing with Him without divide. Without interruption and without hesitation. This should give us strength in our spiritual habits of what God has called us to do and to be.

You may feel at times that God's words are not speaking to you. Anyone ever experience that? You read your Bible and God's not talking to me. What's going on here? As you read that Scripture. There may be times when you're praying and it feels as though your words are hitting the ceiling and bouncing right back to you.

They're not making it into the throne room of God. It feels that way, doesn't it? But let me tell you something. None of that is true. Because if you are perfectly united with the reigning King who is currently, as we said, at the right hand of the Father, interceding for you, then absolutely everything has purpose.