Sermon For The Hurting Christian

Apologia Studios

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

For you have died, and your life has been hidden together with Christ in God."

00:09

That is a statement that the world can never begin to understand, and unfortunately, many people in many churches are never challenged to really think, do

00:20

I live my life in light of the truth of Scripture in a passage such as this?

00:27

You have died, and your life has been hidden together with Christ in God.

00:37

What does that mean? Well, first of all, it means you don't control your life.

00:43

It's not yours to control. You've died. That life is done. That life is done.

00:49

Your sovereignty, your singing with Frank Sinatra, I did it my way. Oh, it just galls me.

00:57

When somebody dies, famous, some star or somebody, and they get old blue eyes to start singing,

01:08

I did it my way. No Christian would ever, ever, ever want something like that said of them.

01:19

That is a horrible thing to place upon the tombstone, I did it my way.

01:24

Well, you've died. And yet, as in so much in the

01:32

New Testament, we have the now and the not yet. We haven't adopted. We await adoption.

01:37

We have been saved. We are being saved. We have been glorified. We are not yet glorified. The now and the not yet, the reality now and the reality yet to come.

01:46

And here we have death and life all together. You've died, and yet your life, your life still exists in some sense.

01:57

In what sense is it? Well, we know what Paul said to the Galatians.

02:03

The life that I now live, I've been crucified with Christ. The life that I now live,

02:08

I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So there is the reality of my death, and now the supernatural reality of the life that I now live.

02:21

And here you've died, and yet your life, your life is focused somewhere else than upon this earth.

02:31

Have you ever thought of that? We are so accustomed to looking down, so accustomed to having to deal with the things of this world.

02:42

But you've died, and your life has been hidden together with Christ in God.

02:51

Now, if you don't have the highest view of Christ, if you don't understand the relationship with the Father and the

02:56

Son, this might not make a whole lot of sense. But once we understand the deity of Christ, once we understand the intimate relationship of Father and Son, and once we understand that in the triune

03:10

God's will, there is a special union between the elect and the

03:17

Son. Yes, we have an intimate relationship with the Father. We have an intimate relationship with the

03:22

Spirit. But we are specifically said to be joined to the

03:28

Son, so that in Ephesians chapter 1, how many times do you have, in Him, in Christ, 10 times in 13 verses?

03:36

All those blessings, in Him, in Him, in Him. And why?

03:43

Because it was the Son who became incarnate. It was the Son who still is incarnate.

03:49

I think a lot of Christians miss that. You know, Jesus gets resurrected and sort of becomes fuzzy. He's no longer the

03:57

God -man. No, He will always be the God -man. Have you ever thought of what that means? Have you ever thought of the condescension demonstrated by the

04:08

Son to take on that human nature? And then not, you know, it's not like, you know, you know what

04:15

Jehovah's Witnesses believe. Jesus dissolved His body into gases. Or some of them theorize that it's on display somewhere in the universe as a testimony to God's love.

04:25

I'm not sure how that would be a testimony to God's love, but that's what they say. That's not what happened.

04:31

That's not the case. He is the God -man. He remains that way.

04:37

And our union with Him, He chose, He freely chose to take that role.

04:44

And we are united with Him. And so our life has been hidden together with Christ, with the

04:52

Messiah, the incarnate one, in God. The world cannot touch the

05:00

Messiah any longer. The Roman soldiers cannot drive any more nails or swords.

05:07

He has been exalted to the highest place. He is beyond anything that this world can do to Him. And therefore, when we think about that, if we are united with Him, and He is at the right hand of the

05:20

Father, then there is a sense of hiddenness. The world no longer sees Him.

05:25

And they will not see Him until He's manifested in glory.

05:32

And so if we are united with Him, then our life has been hidden together with Him in the heavenly places.

05:42

That's why Paul can say in Ephesians, you have been seated together with Him in the heavenly places.

05:48

There is a true reality to our union with Christ. It's not just a conception.

05:57

And so when you consider your own life, first of all, do you ever contemplate what it means to say,

06:06

I've died? What foolishness is the world?

06:12

And if you're amongst us today and you've never bowed the knee to this Jesus, this may sound like absolute mumbo -jumbo to you because it looks like most of us are moving around pretty well in here.

06:22

And yet we're talking about having died. Well, we have. You wonder why

06:28

Christians behave so differently? You wonder why, well, believe me.

06:37

I worked as a hospital chaplain. I did many funerals. I've been to funerals of believers.

06:47

I've been to funerals of unbelievers. There's a difference. Oh, there's a difference.

06:54

There were good deaths in the hospital and there were really bad deaths in the hospital. And the good deaths, they always had to do with the fact that the individual, the family, had hope because of their faith in Jesus Christ.

07:15

And so if you've already died, you can see why the death of the physical body is necessary in this fallen world, but it's an enemy that's been conquered by the resurrection of Christ.

07:31

But here it is something that we are to recognize is a spiritual reality that should have results in our life.

07:38

You've died. Oh, Lord, why are you bringing me through this difficulty?

07:43

Don't you love me? Wait a minute, you died. I've proven my love for you because you've also been risen from the dead.

07:54

I've joined you with my Son. I've proven my love for you. How can there be any greater demonstration of my love than the cross and the resurrection?

08:08

And then my graciously taking you out of your state of rebellion, joining you to my

08:13

Son, giving you all the gifts of redemption and salvation and sanctification.

08:19

What greater evidence do you want of my love for you?

08:27

And if we are thinking upon the things above, if we are focused upon them, then we will see this evidence.

08:35

We will see what it means. You've died and your life has been hidden together with Christ in God.

08:49

There's only one time I have ever walked out of a Bible study class.

08:56

I was raised to be a good, respectful Baptist boy. And so it took something big to make me as an 18 -year -old stand up in a

09:11

Bible study class at the very large Baptist church we were members of and to literally look at the

09:17

Bible study teacher and say, you are teaching what this church does not believe and I will not sit here and listen to it and walk out of the classroom.

09:27

What had happened was, it was a very large church. I did not grow up at PRBC.

09:35

Very large church. And in those mega, mega churches, you end up with all these little churches inside the mega, mega church.

09:45

It's just natural. We have to have those types of close relationships. And what happened was, the

09:53

Bible study teacher that I had in the small group, because he'd always keep breaking it down to smaller and smaller groups.

10:01

He and his wife had come to the conclusion that salvation in Jesus Christ is not an eternal thing.

10:08

That you can lose it. And they knew that the church didn't believe that. They knew the church taught contrary to that.

10:18

So they decided that one day, they were going to, since they were both, she had a girl's group and he had a guy's group, they were going to save us all the same day.

10:29

They were going to introduce us to the truth the same day, knowing what the result was going to be. Well, I asked questions.

10:40

I said, wait a minute, you're saying this? Because at first I'm like, no, this can't be right. And then once it became rather clear to me that's exactly what they were saying.

10:50

I said, you know this is not what we believe here. And what you're teaching is wrong. And I left and of course

10:56

I immediately contacted those in authority. And of course they were removed from teaching, they left the church, it was a stink and all the rest of that stuff as it normally is.

11:08

But the next Sunday evening, the pastor of that church gave a sermon on that subject because word had gotten around and he decided it would probably be wise to deal with the issue from that perspective.

11:20

And I'm going to steal the illustration he used, even though I've seen it other places, his was the first time

11:26

I saw it. And it comes directly from this text.

11:33

He was preaching on this text, on verse three. For you've died and your life has been hidden together with Christ and God.

11:42

And it's a very simple illustration, it's one you've probably seen before, but if you haven't, then

11:47

I want to be the one to introduce it to you because I have certainly found it to be a bulwark in times of darkness.

11:55

And if Jeff has already stolen it, then that's fine. It's good to repeat things. Having something said by different voices is good.

12:05

Jeff doesn't have much white in his beard yet, so it helps to have a little glow. It makes it a little bit, you know.

12:15

Someday though, he's working on it. He's working on it. Definitely working on the gray hairs. I think he's going to keep his hair though.

12:20

At least I hope so, because I'm sorry it would not, ninjas don't, bald ninjas don't go very far, so let's not worry about that.

12:29

But the pastor said, look, it's like this. It's like your life, and he took off his wedding ring.

12:37

This is your life. And it has been hidden with Christ in God.

12:47

And he said, now I dare anyone to come up here and get hold of that ring without going through my hands to get it.

13:00

And it made a clear illustration. But the ramifications of it were many.

13:09

Because you think about it. Now, Summer's probably chuckling.

13:15

I'm not sure where she went. Is she still there? Okay, still here? Okay, just down. Okay, got it. She's hiding.

13:21

Okay. If Summer could see this, she'd probably be chuckling, because I have a confession to make.

13:27

Does this look familiar, honey? Ring inside hands? Oh, yeah. She goes, yeah. And Josh, did

13:34

I do this with you? No? Okay, sorry. Josh is like, but sometimes in the back row at PRBC, this isn't being recorded, right?

13:50

Sometimes in the back row at PRBC, when

13:56

I could tell that Summer was getting a little bit distracted or something like that or really needed some entertainment, what

14:04

I would do is I would take off my ring, and I wouldn't put it necessarily in both hands, but I'd just put it in one hand, and I'd just sort of put it over here.

14:14

And she would start digging at my fingers, and she'd start trying to stick her finger up in there.

14:20

I've done this with Clementine a few times too now. And just anything to try to get that ring out, and I'm just holding on.

14:27

Oh, I don't know how long that would go on, but it was a long time.

14:34

And so there's a confession to everybody that even I, yes, sometimes was now, of course, being a multitasker,

14:40

I was listening very carefully to the sermon. I wasn't missing anything at all. I was just helping to keep

14:46

Summer from doing anything else. But that's what we would do. And like I said,

14:52

I've done it with Clementine a couple times too. And something tells me Summer's probably done that with Clementine a little bit as well.

15:01

But that illustration, it says a lot about the fact that there's nothing external to this world.

15:09

There's nothing external to God, I'm sorry, that could possibly rip that life out from, well, can you imagine a more intimate relationship than to be hidden with Christ in God?

15:24

What else? Have you thought about what that means? This is not, you know,

15:33

I think of my Muslim friends, they can't even be, this is so offensive to the Muslim mindset because this speaks of such intimacy with God that they could never conceive of this.

15:46

Couldn't begin to understand. But obviously, that life is secure.

15:56

Now you have to have died for your life to be hidden with Christ in God. It's not just simply a mere tipping of the hat.

16:05

It's not a trying Jesus. This is true saving faith we're talking about here.

16:12

This is death, burial, and resurrection. This is regeneration. This is a new creature. But you know what else it means?

16:22

Because even that night that the pastor used this illustration, and I knew what he was talking about because I was the one that had been involved with all of it, but still, even that night,

16:29

I could not help but think about the ramifications of what it meant to believe this text. Because not only did it mean that I was safe in Christ, but what it also meant was anything that touches that ring has been allowed to touch that ring by the very triune

16:50

God. Anything. Anything that touches the life of the believer, no matter how difficult, no matter how trying, it wasn't by accident.

17:06

It wasn't by accident. To get in there, you've got the

17:15

Father, you've got the Son who gave Himself in your place, the

17:21

Father who decreed your salvation, you're indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. If it touches that life, it has been allowed to do so by a loving

17:31

Father, a redeeming Savior, a sanctifying Spirit.

17:36

It is a part of God's purpose in your life. The whole idea of purposelessness is banished by a recognition of what the

17:47

Christian life really is. No such thing as purposeless evil.

17:55

Anything that touches our life has been allowed to enter into that incredibly personal, intimate place where my life has been hidden together with Christ.

18:11

There's never a time when the Father loses His attention span and something accidentally happens.

18:22

So often when I first became a hospital chaplain, I would look at the books that were written about how we're supposed to help grieving people and things like that and the constant drumbeat over and over and over again was you distance

18:38

God. God was not responsible, but He'll do something wonderful now.

18:47

And I couldn't talk to people like that because my theology wouldn't allow it. And I thought in many ways

18:53

I was robbing them of the only true consolation they can have. Because when you think about it, what the biblical teaching is, is if it's touched my life, it's touched my life because God chose to allow it to do so out of love.

19:16

Because how else would you describe what it means for God to have taken your life and hidden it together with Christ in Himself?

19:31

What is in there but love? What is in there but love?

19:38

There is no darkness in Him. There is no shadow or variableness of turning.

19:49

How would you describe the relationship of Christ and the Father if the word love is not the primary description?

19:59

Is that not what Jesus Himself taught? Did not the Father say, this is my what? Beloved Son.

20:08

The very essence of that relationship is love. And that's where my life has been hidden.

20:15

And so if it has touched my life, it has touched my life only in love. We're human beings.

20:26

We're finite, fallen. One of the things I learned as I did years of grief counseling was that in grief, we feel things and we think things we normally would never feel or think.

20:45

I remember once in one particular situation, I was trying to help.

20:52

There were a lot of widows in our group. The hospital is way out towards Sun City, and so very frequently what would happen is we'd have ladies in the group that had lost a husband of long, long standing, and they didn't know what to do.

21:06

Their entire lives had been wrapped up in that man and their identity in him, and it was very difficult to get them to have hope for the future.

21:16

And I remember one afternoon, one of those meetings, I raised a difficult subject, but I said,

21:24

Now, some of you may have even felt feelings of anger toward the one you've lost because you're now alone and you were not prepared, and you've actually felt anger toward them for leaving you, and you felt guilty about that.

21:46

And this woman just goes, Oh! She could not, and I'm like,

21:54

And she said, I thought I was the only one. She was literally losing her grip on reality because she thought she was the only one that could ever be so evil as to have felt something like that.

22:09

The reality is, as believers, there are times we've read the

22:16

Psalter when the one suffering, Where are you, Lord? And there are times where there's questions.

22:26

Why me? I thought you were good. And what we're doing is from our darkness, from our pain, our ignorance, we actually question

22:42

God's goodness. And what we need to remember, what these inspired words tell us, is that if it touches our life, it has touched our life in God's purpose, and that purpose is wrapped up, soaked in, immersed in the love

23:08

He has for His own. You can no more question the love

23:18

God has for you even in your difficult situation than you can question that the

23:25

Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, and that their relationship is one of perfect, intimate love because your life has been hidden right in the middle of that.

23:44

The big questions, they always come back to what's true?

23:51

What is true? And what is true has been revealed to us in Scripture.

23:58

And for Christians, it always comes back to what is the Gospel? What has God accomplished?

24:04

What is He doing? It's all about Him. It's not about us. And when we consider it in that way, when we think about what has been revealed to us in these words, isn't it amazing that we as believers, we hear the words, you've died, and we rejoice.

24:28

We rejoice that we've died to that old life. We rejoice we've died to that old man. And then we hear about our life.

24:38

It's not ours to control, and we are thankful for that. The people and the culture around us give every bit of energy and fiber of their being to maintain control.

24:54

You and I, we rejoice that we've given it up. It's not ours to have because that life has been hidden together with Christ and God.

25:10

How can that not change the way we think, the way we view the world, the way we experience tragedy and difficulty?

25:19

It has to. It must. I'm very thankful that I'm looking into the eyes of people who very well know exactly what

25:30

I'm saying. This is not meant to cause anyone to boast or anything else, but the

25:46

Lord's working in your midst. I can see this because you're a people who respond in a godly fashion to trial and difficulty.

26:01

There are a lot of indices that are used by people in the church today to measure the church, and they're almost always based on numbers.

26:11

That's foolishness. The way to look at a church is to ask, are these people growing in godliness, growing in sanctification, growing in living out the

26:27

Lordship of Christ in their life? And the only way to see that is to see how people respond to tragedy and difficulty and hardship and trial and tribulation.

26:39

Because you find out pretty quickly whether people really recognize, I've died. I'm a new creature in Christ.

26:47

My life is hidden in heavenly places in Christ and God, and I'm going to live my life in light of that truth.

26:54

You find out pretty quick, because you can't fake that. That has to be real, and I see that it's real.

27:07

And that's a beautiful thing, and I thank you for that. That's a great testimony to Jesus Christ.

27:16

Join me in praying to Him. Our great triune

27:22

God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we have gathered this day once again desirous to have fellowship around the things of God, once again desirous to hear

27:34

Your Word and to meet with You. You've given us Your Word, You've given us

27:39

Your Spirit, and this day You have been gracious to meet with us. We would ask that You would give us insight into Your truth, that we would remember these things, and that indeed when tomorrow comes that we will not default back to an easy way of thinking.

28:01

We will start our day considering, what does it mean that I've died and my life is hidden with Christ and God?

28:09

What does that demand of me this day? And as we interact with others, our true and sincere prayer is that we will do so in such a way that our words and our actions will demonstrate the reality the reality of the

28:27

Gospel in our lives. Lord, we do pray that by Your Spirit You would bind

28:35

Your people together. Lord, that You would help us to love one another, to minister to one another, to bear one another's burdens.

28:45

For sometimes the burdens seem impossible to bear, but we know that if it has touched our life, it has done so in love, it has done so for a loving purpose.

28:58

Even when we cannot see, even when we cannot understand, help us to believe and to trust to Your honor and glory.

29:08

Once again, we thank You for Your Word. We are so thankful we are not left in darkness, but that we are able to possess

29:17

Your divine truth and it gives us light to be able to understand. Be with us through the rest of this service.

29:27

Be with us in this coming week of service to others. Most importantly, may the name, the honor, the glory of our

29:37

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ be made known through our lives. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.