Our Ultimate Safety

SERMON: 2017-11-19--ac17188--our-ultimate-safety SOURCE DURATION: 00:45:48.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.90 APPROVED: false REASON: The material consists of the speaker's final spoken words following a scripture reading (Romans 8). Since prayer and benediction are retained as part of the sermon content, this segment is considered the last piece of sermon material before an assumed transition to non-sermon content. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:45:37.480-00:45:44.720 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Paul's concern for the Ephesian Church, we've been seeing in recent weeks, is that upon his departure, savage wolves from the inside and from the outside are going to try to play havoc with the flock. And God's provision for that, we saw last week, is to appoint local leaders who can shepherd God's people and keep watch over them. Listen again to verse 28, Acts chapter 20. He says to the elders, "Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the Church of God, which he bought with his own blood." Overseers are to be shepherds of the flock. And just as a shepherd leads his sheep to green pastures and beside quiet waters and the paths of righteousness and does all of the things that sheep need, so shepherds or leaders in communities of believers have a responsibility to give of themselves to be able to bless God's people. Peter echoes the very same thought in 1 Peter chapter 5 in verses 2, 3, and 4 when he says, "Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers." There you have that word again, linked with shepherds. "Not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be. Not greedy for money, but eager to serve, not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away." The chief shepherd, of course, is the good shepherd. It's the Lord Jesus. He has ultimate responsibility for his people. But typically speaking, he works through under shepherds to keep God's people safe. And many of us here this morning can testify that as we look over our lives that God has raised up people, sometimes parents, sometimes teachers, sometimes maybe a catechism teacher, sometimes an elder, sometimes maybe even a pastor or a good friend, small group leader, who identified our needs, loved us to the core, and helped us on our journey. We wouldn't be where we are today if it wasn't for the people God has raised up over the years in our lives. Isn't that true? And we can thank God for every one such person. That said, and you know this just as well as I do, people are people. And people can't always be there. Sometimes they're fallible, sometimes they miss us, sometimes they are preoccupied, sometimes they have needs of their own. And the result of that is that not infrequently in the course of life, to the degree to which we have looked to other people, sometimes we are disappointed because they're not meeting our needs. Isn't that also true? The more we open up our hearts, the more that we expect from parents, from friends, from church leaders, from political leaders, the more likely we are to be disappointed. And that produces for a lot of people a cynicism that says, "Who's going to look after me?" I believe Paul understands that. And so after all the things that he's talked about so far in this particular passage, he takes us one step further back as to where our ultimate safety lies and that is with God himself. Listen again to what he says in the words of our text, verse 32, "I commit you to God and to the word of his grace which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I commit you to God and the word of his grace." See, while it is true that typically the chief shepherd, the Lord Jesus, will minister to our needs through other people, and we can be grateful for people that God has used in our lives. He is not limited to those people. And there are situations when those people fail us or when those people aren't there for us, then God himself has promised to step in and be to us what we need to be. I love these words in Isaiah chapter 59, the verses 15 and 16. This is in the context of injustice in the land of Israel. And Isaiah says, "Truth is nowhere to be found." Kind of like in the world today. "And whoever shuns evil becomes a prey." The righteous get persecuted. "The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice, nobody to stand up for those who were being treated unjustly. He saw that there was no one. He was appalled that there was no one to intervene, so what did he do? His own arm worked salvation for him and his own righteousness sustained him." When all has been said and done, our hope and our confidence ultimately are not in the buckets that God uses to purvey his grace into our lives, but to the fountain itself or himself who is the Lord God. Now I commit you to God, to the word of his grace, which can build you up, give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. And in the time that we have this morning, I want to walk you through that verse a little bit in order to highlight five words that I think are significant in capturing this process of what it means to be in the hands of God and his promise to look after us in all the years to come. First word I want us to look at is the word inheritance. I commit you to God, to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Over 200 times in the New Testament and in the Old Testament you find the word inheritance. Paul himself uses it a number of times in the New Testament, and he always uses it in the context of the riches that God has given to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Listen to these familiar words, Ephesians 1-3, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing." Doesn't include the word inheritance, but read further down in chapter one of Ephesians, the verses 13, "Having believed, you were marked in him that is in Christ with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory." The Holy Spirit is the deposit or the down payment of the inheritance that God has promised us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, don't want to unduly belabor this point, but the theme of inheritance is of such huge importance in the Scriptures that I want to just walk you through that really fast from one end of Scripture to the other so that we can get a handle on what is the inheritance of which we have received a down payment by the Holy Spirit. An inheritance is what you receive from your forebears typically. Your father or your mother dies and they leave possessions or many and it becomes yours by virtue of being their child. You are in the wheel. It's not something you necessarily work for. It's something that is given to you. And when God first created Adam and Eve and placed them in the garden, he gave them not only the garden, but the whole world as their inheritance. Listen to how Scripture puts it. Genesis 1.26, God speaking, he says, "Let us make man in our image and our likeness. Let them rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." Rule over all the earth. Rule over all the earth. He gives the earth as an inheritance to Adam and Eve. And here's the beauty of it. There is nothing they had to do to earn it. Remember, they were created on day six and their first day alive was day seven, the day when God rested. The inheritance was a gift of grace. And if you want to, and I've often said this, if you want to understand what that looked like, look at Adam and Eve in the garden in the first two chapters of Genesis. Relationship with God of an intimacy that we can hardly begin to imagine. An intimacy with each other that we can hardly begin to imagine. All their needs were met. Life was truly paradise. Lasted all of two chapters, as you know. You know the rest of the story. There was a serpent in the garden. He convinced them to turn their backs on God. And they fell into sin. And when they fell into sin, they were exiled from the garden. And here's what the Bible has to say about that in words that you've often heard me quote, "God says to them, 'Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you. You will eat the plants of the field. We were originally designed to be vegetarians, much as I hate that.'" Just so you know. And it goes on to say, "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken for dust you are and to dust you will return." We all know that from that day to this, we labor under the curse. And it doesn't matter how healthy we are, how rich we are, how beautiful we are, how gifted we are, how much power and control we exercise. We all die and we all lose our inheritance. Whatever we have in the world gets lost. It is perishable. You don't have to live very long before you discover there's a lot of pain even as there's a lot of joy in living. But the inheritance is perishable. Keep that in mind because we'll come back to it later. Now I've often said God could have left us there, could have sent us all to hell, didn't want to do that, wanted to regain paradise for us. And in the history of salvation, that begins to take a gigantic leap forward in Genesis chapter 12 when God calls Abram from Ur of the Chaldees and says to him in Genesis 17, 7 and 8, "I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for generations to come to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and to your descendants after you and I will be their God." Now we know from the New Testament that included in this covenantal relationship with Abraham and his offspring was the promise that Abraham's offspring would inherit the earth. Inherit the earth. You find it in Romans chapter 4. That is to say, God says to Abram and his descendants, "You are going to be set free from the power of the curse. You're going to be restored to paradise regained. You're going to experience glory beyond imagination." You were tracking with me here? Now when you get to the New Testament, you discover that Abraham's descendant is who? After all these years you better know the answer to this or I'm not going to quit next week. You're going to be stuck with me for another 20 years. Jesus. Jesus is the son of Abraham who because of his obedience to the Father not only suffered our death but experienced our resurrection, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty and the message of scripture is that God has given him the name that is above every name and he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings both in this life and the life to come. The whole universe belongs to Jesus. Belongs to Jesus and belongs to Jesus now. But more. Remember we've talked about being heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. What do you think that means? When by faith in Jesus we become the children of God, we become heirs of the, say it with me, inheritance. Listen to how Peter puts it. If we can get blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ by his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, now notice, to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you. Notice those three adjectives. Imperishable. It's never going to be corrupted. It's going to last forever. It is undefiled. There is no filth in it. There's no sin in it. There's nothing that's going to make it rot and it is unfading. It will never lose its splendor. That's the inheritance that God has laid up for those who are his children. An inheritance that through Christ Jesus is made available to you and me. When he says that the Holy Spirit is a down payment of that inheritance what he means is that we get the foretaste of the glory that is to come through the inheritance of the Holy Spirit today. So he opens our minds that we can turn our eyes upon Jesus and all the things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. And the more we grow in Christ, the more we realize that blessed as this life can be and wonderful it is to have a great house and a wonderful mate and beautiful children and riches and whatever it is that the world craves, it's temporary. It always has in it the seeds of corruption. Your money fades. Your car rusts. Your appliance dies. Your relationships turn sour and life can often be even with all of its joy a veil of anguish and tears. But God says to his people, "You've been born to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead." He is King of kings and Lord of lords. He sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty and what God has given him is yours. That's what Paul says in the verse that we're looking at. That's the inheritance that has kept God's people going through wars and famines and turmoils. They know that no matter how great the sufferings in the here and now, it is temporary compared to the new heavens and the new earth that God is going to create in which we will be forever rejoicing in his presence and in his glory. The problem with this is we have no frame of reference to even get excited about that because no more than a baby in the womb can understand what life looks like outside the womb. You and I can begin to comprehend what this life looks like. And so we have Paul who got caught up in the spirit and had a foretaste of the glory that it is to be revealed and he says he wasn't allowed to talk about it, couldn't even put it into words. That's how great the glory that God has for his children. And so throughout scripture we have images that God uses that try to amplify the hopes and the dreams of people and so the streets are paved with gold and people live to be a hundred and they're not sick and all their tears. God's trying to say your best dream, your best longing for a good life fades in the light of what I have promised for you. More than that, remember the Holy Spirit is the deposit, the down payment, the guarantee that we're going to receive the inheritance. The Holy Spirit communicates that life to us in the here and now. You've often heard me quote this verse. I love it because it is so powerful. The verse from 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 9, if we can put that up, "What no eye has seen nor ear heard nor the heart of man conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." God has revealed to us through the Spirit. I can tell you something that if you're in Christ and you're walking with him then the things of glory become stronger in your life to the point where you can say with the Apostle Paul, "For me to die is gain, to live is Christ, I prefer to be with him." Not because we're trying to escape this world but because we know we're made for something better. We ought to pray for God to grant us his Holy Spirit so that we are in a healthy way other worldly minded because it's been said that those who are most other worldly minded are in fact most earthly good because you can afford to give your life as Paul does in this chapter because you know you're laying up for yourselves treasures in Havan. You with me? All right, we need to move on but we need to understand the inheritance and we need to pray for God to reveal to us what that looks like. The second word then that I want to look at in this passage is the word sanctified. I commit you to God and to the word of his grace which can build you up, give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. To be sanctified is to be made holy. And if you know anything at all about scripture and the history of redemption then you will know that the big problem in the universe from God's perspective and from his holy angels perspective is that God is holy and you and I by nature are not holy. That's why Adam and Eve once they sinned were cast out of the garden and away from the presence of God and the angel stood there with his sword so that they couldn't come back. So for God and man to live together we have to be sanctified, we have to become holy. We'll talk more about that in a moment or two. It happens by faith in Jesus but we need to understand that the inheritance that God has for his people he has for those who through faith in Christ have become holy. Whatever that looks like at the very least it means putting off sin and putting on righteousness. Ephesians 5, you've heard me quoted before, 5 and 6, of this you can be sure. No immoral impure or greedy person such a man as an idolater has any inheritance. There you have that word again in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Should no one deceive you with empty words for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient. The book of Revelation teaches us the same truth, 21, 27, nothing impure, this is talking about the holy city, our ultimate destiny will ever enter it. Nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. And again that doesn't mean that unless we've got it all together we have no chance of going into the new inheritance and I don't just say heaven because heaven is not our eternal home, our renewed earth is our eternal home. What it means is that we need to always abide in repentance and faith in the person of Jesus because in him we are holy and then as we yield to his word and to his spirit put off the old and put on the new our lives will change so that when we get to the new creation we will actually fit in. Has it ever occurred to you that people who don't like going to church today but still want to go to heaven are going to have an awfully miserable time in a place where God is the center of attention and not the human heart? That's like hell if you want to be the center of the universe because God isn't going to move over and say well I'll let you be God and see where that got us. Sanctified. So sanctification is an important part of the Christian life. Peter puts it this way in 2nd Peter chapter 3 verse 11 and 12 since all these things that is the whole universe is going to be dissolved what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved and the elements will melt with fire. So what he is saying is this this whole present universe is going to go up and smoke God is going to make a new universe in which righteousness dwells and because your citizenship is already guaranteed in that new world start putting on the values of that new world so that by the time it comes you can live there and you can be comfortable because God has increasingly become your all in all. That's what you're committed to when by faith you're joined to Jesus. There's an inheritance. It belongs to those who are sanctified and the next word for us to notice then is the word build commit you to God and to the word of his grace which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Sanctification is a process and to build something is to take different parts put them together and create the sum total of those parts and the word build Paul uses regularly in the New Testament to apply not only to individual Christians but to Christians together. Listen to these verses he says since you are eager to have spiritual gifts try to excel in gifts that build up there you have that word build up the church. Ephesians 2 21 22 in him that is in Christ the whole building the spiritual temple joined together rises to become a holy temple in the Lord and in him that is in Christ speaking to the Gentiles you too are being built together to becoming a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit. Peter same theme you also he says to believers like living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. You see there is an inheritance we have to be sanctified to enter into that inheritance and in order to be sanctified we have to be built up and when Paul talks about being built up he talks about two dimensions a horizontal dimension and a vertical dimension. On the one hand we are to be built up in the faith that is to say in our relationship with Jesus we get to know him better we understand him better we are filled with his spirit more we are putting off old behaviors we are learning to love him increasingly that is one element of being built up in the faith and the difference between a baby Christian and a mature Christian is that hopefully for the mature Christian that relationship is deeper it is stronger it is more profoundly rooted in who Jesus is and what his grace is that is one dimension and you can never minimize that dimension but there is also a horizontal dimension because it is not only individual Christians that are going to receive the inheritance God makes his dwelling in the church and I wish people could really understand this it is my passion for the local church because it is not only good enough to have a relationship with God you know me and Jesus it is also a relationship with the rest of the body I believe with all my heart that God's plan for the world are local churches that are passionately in love with Jesus and in which each member of that body as they grow in Christ learn who they are what their identity is what their gifting is and they learn what their place is in the body and together they become the hands and the feet of Jesus wouldn't the world be revolutionized if we had churches so alive with the presence and the power of God's Holy Spirit that the world would sit up and notice and they would say look there is Jesus he is living among those people look at how they love God look at how they love each other look at how they give themselves selflessly in service it is a process and often we are impatient with ourselves even more impatient with other people because why aren't they getting it together but it is a process that God is committed to because when Jesus comes back for the church he is looking for a church that is holy and without wrinkle or blemish or spot welcoming home the bridegroom who has bought them with his own blood aren't you glad you came to church this morning? There's an inheritance the inheritance is giving to those who are sanctified sanctification is a process of being built up which then of course immediately raises the question is how do you get built up how do you get stronger with Jesus and how do you know what your place is in the community how do you you know get past the irritations and the cultural differences and the and all the things the backbiting that so often divides God's people well that's the next word actually it's a phrase that Paul brings up and that phrase is the word of his grace now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified how do we get built up by the word of his grace that is to say God's program of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ appropriated in our hearts by the word of his grace I've shown you this before the whole message of the Bible can be summed up in four words creation fall redemption restoration God made us we messed it up God comes to us he restores us and one day he's going to make all things near and the summary of that message is that when we own our sin and put our faith in Jesus not only are our sins forgiven but in Christ we are declared righteous we are positionally placed in God's kingdom we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven and now is citizens of the kingdom of heaven God speaks to us his word and it's a word of grace it's a word that says once you were lost but now you are found it's a word that says in Christ you have been redeemed it's a word that says because you are in Christ Jesus he will give you whatever it is that you need in order to be built up in the most holy faith because when God speaks the word is living and active it divides soul from spirit it lays bare our thoughts and our motivations and if we will but yield to that word of grace and allow God to speak into our hearts into our lives that word will cleanse us it will change us it will transform us when we are out of sorts living by the works of the flesh instead of the fruit of the spirit the word of God quick quickened and activated by the Holy Spirit speaks deep into the recesses of our hearts and it changes us and it finds its root there and it shows us again and again that the grace of God in Jesus is so immense that it's bigger than all our sin love these words in John's gospel concerning the Lord Jesus from his fullness from the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another the law was given through Moses grace and truth came through Jesus Christ the law says do this and you will live doesn't give us any help always brings condemnation grace and truth and Jesus says yes this is the standard and you'll never reach it on your own but Jesus has already reached it for you and he gives you the Holy Spirit as a down payment and if you will but abide in Christ and rest in him and let his Holy Spirit have his way in you then the word of God will transform you as it is implanted in your heart you can never remain the same when God's word starts niggling away at you convicting you of sin convicting you of righteousness convicting you of what it is that God's looking for and that's how we're built up in the most holy faith James talks about it he says therefore get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and he says humbly accept the word planted in you which can save you see that's why reading scripture is so important that's why coming to church or to Bible studies and and listening to an exposition of the scriptures is so important because it cuts through the fog and the confusion of our society and the spiritual powers of wickedness that are constantly trying to deceive us and it shows us who God is it shows us who Jesus is it shows us the provisions that God has made in Jesus so that thank God from glory to glory we can be transformed until one day we stand before him without any wrinkle blemish or spot I think that is as good as it gets one more word and then we'll be done and that word if you could imagine is the word God I commit you to God and the word of his grace which can build you up give you an inheritance among all those who are satisfied who are sanctified much as God uses people to help us grow the ultimate responsibility for our growth lies with the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ and a lot of people including a whole lot of Christians sort of created dichotomy between God the Father and Jesus they say Jesus I like because he's lovable and he's huggable and he embraces the children and and and you know what I'm saying right he's the good shepherd who lays down but God the Father he scares the living daylights out of me he he seems angry he I'm afraid that he will uncover my do you know what I'm saying a lot of people are afraid of God the Father and they forget that God the Father and Jesus are the reflection of each other Jesus says if you see me you've seen the Father that isn't as if you know Jesus is the one who says well you know I'm gonna save everybody so that you won't be mad at them anymore I know the plan of salvation from the very beginning was God's design he's the one together with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit had this big conference in heaven long before any of this happened and they said let us make man in our image and our likeness we know they're going to mess up but we've got a way that is going to demonstrate our power our grace our mercy and our love and we're going to redeem them and Jesus said this is my job to go down and live and die and be raised from the dead and the Holy Spirit says I will make it happen and God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit said good for us we're gonna show that love triumphs over evil and the grace of God triumphs over the power of hell and so God is the one who takes ultimate responsibility for getting us to where we need to go listen to these couple of verses we're almost done a verse you know so well John 3 16 God so loved the world he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life Ephesians 1 5 he that is God destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will and then 2nd Corinthians 1 21 22 Paul speaking he says it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ he anointed us set his seal of ownership on us that's the down payment of the Holy Spirit put his spirit in our hearts as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come what that means is this if you're in Christ today you're a child of God and you're signed up to receive the eternal inheritance which will come to its ultimate fulfillment of course when history ends and Jesus comes again and he establishes his everlasting kingdom if you're in Christ then God chose you before the foundation of the world do you know that he had you in mind and said such and such a person is going to be born of such and such a parent in such and such a time and space and I'm going to write that person's book name in my book of life and I will see to it that in the proper time this individual will get exposed to the gospel will come to repentance and faith will give his or her life to Jesus I will fill him or her with the presence and the power of my Holy Spirit I will orchestrate all the events of this person's life so that they can grow up to be built up and sanctified into suitable inhabitants for my kingdom I will determine what their gifting will be I will determine how they will function in the body of Christ I will give them whatever it is that they need for time and for eternity and when the curtain falls in history I'm going to say to them well done good and faithful servant you've been faithful over little welcome into my kingdom you're going to inherit all the riches that I have prepared for you from before the foundation of the world and all the angels are going to stand there and they're going to applaud like crazy because God has finally redeemed his people and has conquered sin and death and hell all of which will be thrown into the lake of fire so that God's people can live forever in a glory they cannot yet begin to imagine that's the message of scripture that's the message of scripture and that's the inheritance that we have if by faith we're joined to Jesus and let him do what he must do I want to end with these verses from Romans chapter 8 they've long been personally favorite verses of mine and you know if you ever get a preach at my funeral hopefully not for a while yet but that's a passage that really clenches everything that we've talked about so I'm going to ask you to stand and I want you to say these verses out loud with me and then we'll be done this morning Romans chapter 8 read it with me Romans 8 31 to 39 if God is for us who can be against us he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen it is God who justifies who is he that condemns Christ Jesus who died more than that who was raised to life is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword as it is written for your sake we face death all day long we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered no in all these things were more than conquerors through him who loved us for I am convinced that neither death nor life neither angels nor demons neither the present nor the future nor any powers neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:45:37.480; remove through 00:45:48.000] our Lord I [CUT] think we should give the Lord a mighty hand [CUT]. 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