The Day of the Lord | Douglas Wilson

the text this morning is from first thessalonians chapter 5 starting at verse 1. these are the words of god but of the times and seasons brethren you have no need that i write unto you for you yourselves know perfectly perfectly that the day of the lord so cometh as a thief in the night for when they shall say peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child and they shall not escape but ye brethren are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as the thief ye are all children of light and the children of the day we are not of the night nor of darkness therefore let us not sleep as do others but let us watch and be sober for they that sleep sleep in the night and they that be drunken are drunken in the night but let us who are of the day be sober putting on the breastplate of faith and love and for in helmet the hope of salvation for god hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by our lord jesus christ who died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him wherefore comfort yourselves together and edify one another even as you also even as also you do father in heaven we thank you for this text i pray that you'd be with us as we work through it i pray that your spirit would teach and instruct and encourage and establish us and we pray this in the name of jesus amen so we are returning to our series through the book of first thessalonians picking up at the beginning of chapter five as we work through this next portion of paul's letter to the thessalonians we want to continue to hold the various elements of the last things eschatology eschatology is the study of the last things and there's two senses of the word eschatology eschatology can refer to the final judgment heaven and hell the sheep and goats before the throne of god the last things in that sense but eschatology also and more frequently applies to your view of what the bible teaches about the end of human history in the run-up to the final coming of jesus christ so we're we're going to be uh here in 1st thessalonians we're going to continue to talk about eschatological things and also when we get to second thessalonians and the fairly near future when we get to chapter two it'll be the same thing there we wanna hold we wanna hold all these things together loosely in the palm of our hand after we have all the pieces on the workbench in in front of us especially after second thessalonians 2 we will then seek to look at how they all relate to one another for the moment to help us keep everything straight in our minds i'm going to begin referring to the end of all things as the final coming of christ and i'm doing that because popularly most christians speak of the second coming of christ so christ in his incarnation uh was that was the first coming of the christ and then we talk about his coming at the end of the world as the second coming of christ but then if you start working through oh was his was the destruction of jerusalem a coming of the lord in judgment on jerusalem was that a was that an appearance or was that the day of the lord was that a coming well if that was a coming of the lord then that's the second coming well and the second coming is not the final coming so just to keep things straight i'm going to be talking about the end of the world coming of christ as the final coming and there there are other comings in judgment as we will see so this is the budget for the fact that when christ comes whenever he comes in judgment as he did with jerus jerusalem in 70 a.d that is a day of the lord so having said all this at the same time we should work through all of this in real humility not we don't want to just hold things loosely in our hands so we can get all the pieces as we seek to assemble them uh later on but we should also hold them loosely because this is a difficult passage to understand this is a difficult passage to understand the the teachings of paul in 1st and 2nd thessalonians we should remember that augustine one of the greatest minds in the history of the church over 2000 years one of the greatest minds said of second thessalonians two quote i frankly confess i do not know what he means so let that be running in the background you can say yeah i know better than augustine so so as we consider this passage starting in verse 1 paul had not had the opportunity to teach the thessalonians everything that he had wanted to but he had already covered this so remember he was only there for a handful of weeks and then he had to leave uh and he he was frustrated that he hadn't been able to teach them everything that they needed to know but he had covered this he says you know the times and the seasons this is something i i don't need to i don't need to go into this but of the times and seasons brethren you have no need that i write unto you that was something that we did cover you know the times and seasons verse 1. the day of the lord he says the day of the lord would be sudden and unexpected like a thief in the night verse 2. now you should be aware that throughout scripture that phrase the day of the lord is commonly used throughout the old testament it's commonly used for any number of historical judgments all right it's a so if you're reading through the old testament the day of the lord when the when the lord visits his wrath on different cities or empires or pagan pagan potentates the prophets commonly call that sort of visitation the day of the lord and and paul uses that phrase here the day of the lord is not necessarily the final coming that's that's the point uh just because it's the day of the lord doesn't mean that the end of the world has arrived there have been any number of uh days of the lord when they're expecting peace and safety they will they will suddenly give birth to sudden destruction verse three and that reminds you of what peter says about noah's uh noah's flood knows the judgment in uh with uh in noah's day was a day of the that was the day of the lord the judgment on sodom and gomorrah was a day of the lord so and and this day of the lord is going to be no different when they're they're going on in their insolence and they're going on in their sleekness and their fatness they're expecting peace and safety they will suddenly give birth to sudden destruction verse three but their complacency was a moral darkness not an intellectual one verse four it's a moral darkness but ye brethren are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief in other words he's not saying the day is not going to take oh that you're not going to be surprised by it because you're so smart he's saying you're not going to be surprised by this day arriving like a thief in the night you won't be surprised because you were ready and you were ready because you were not living in darkness you were not you were not morally blinded so the the the darkness is not an intellectual iq issue it is what you see in proverbs folly in proverbs is a moral condition the and in the psalms the fool is said in his heart there is no god a man can be a great fool biblically speaking but have intellectual rpm can have a lot of uh abilities intellectually but still be foolish still be living in darkness so the children the believers in thessalonica were children of the day paul says they were children of light and that is what would prevent the day from overtaking them like a thief so verse 4 verses 4 and 5. so because you're walking in the light because you are standing upright because you're confessing your sins because you're worshiping the lord you're not going to be surprised you're not going to be overtaken it's not going to be a thief in the night event for you it is going to be a thief in the night event for them so his exhortation is that they remain awake and sober all right be sober minded be awake and be sober verse six sleep and drunkenness belong to the night not to the day verse 7. so people are asleep at night people who get drunk get drunk at night but i want you walking around like children of light i want you to be walking around like it's noon and that's a that's a moral noon right that's an upright noon so those who are of the day should be sober and they should put on the the helmet of the hope of salvation and the breastplate of faith and love so they are they are walking around in the day armed they're walking in the daylight armed for battle it's the church militant it's not the church triumphant it's not the church at rest this is the church militant prepared for collisions prepared for confrontations so the helmet of the hope of salvation and the breastplate of faith and love verse 8. the reason for this preventative behavior is that god has not appointed them to wrath as he did the others but rather to obtain salvation through christ verse 9. now if you look at verse 9 for god hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain obtain salvation just incidentally that is a clear passage that shows the sovereignty of god in salvation why are these others lost why are they children of the night why are they going to go down because they were appointed to wrath they were appointed to wrath and paul tells the thessalonians that you're not in that position you were not appointed to wrath but you were appointed to obtain salvation the reason you're saved is god called you the reason you were saved is that god summoned you and god's summoning god's call is efficacious and when he summons you you will come so you've not been appointed to wrath like these others but rather to obtain salvation christ died for those believers who were already dead now remember this is probably what occasion some of the questions the thessalonians had some of their number had already died since paul since paul was there and they were concerned about are the are the saints who died before are the members of our church who died perhaps even in persecutions these people these people died uh what what happened to them are they going to be left out paul remember has said no they're actually going to precede you we who are alive who are going to be caught up and meet the lord in the air those who are asleep in christ will go first but he mentions them again christ died for those believers who were already dead and for those who remained alive he also died for them they're not left out they just come second so that all of them would be enabled to live through him verse 10. these were to be words of comfort and edification not words of speculation and confusion comfort and edification that's that's what he's aiming at we ought not to be coming up with theories that divide christians we ought to be reading this in such a way that when we're done the cash value that comes out is comfort edification we are built up so these are to be words of comfort and edification which paul assumed that the thessalonians would continue in verse 11. now let's uh with that in mind let's get a few other pieces out on the workbench paul i would say it's obvious here that paul has the thessalonians of the first century people who lived and died 2 000 years ago paul wants them living in a state of high alert there is there are very few things um that are uh more obvious than the fact that if you read through the new testament the the saints in the new testament were something we're expecting something big in their lifetimes they were expecting that this is going to happen this is all you know james says the judge is at the door uh the lord the lord is coming the lord is coming soon the lord has come behold i come quickly so we all through the new testament you've got this sense that it's on top of us all right we're we're living uh we're living in the end of the age as paul says in corinthians these things were written as an example uh for us paul says 2000 years ago he's talking about the jews in the wilderness these things were written as an example for us upon whom the end of the ages has come so he they were living in a state of high alert paul wants the thessalonians to be living in a state of high alert they were to be awake morally and there to have their armor on if they could read these words of his to them and not be looking out the window at what might be happening in their day then that would be that would have been the result of them not paying very close attention paul is expecting them to know what he's talking about the the currents and the happenings the things in the newspaper of his day so the only way they could miss this note of urgency that this urgency throughout the new testament is something that every recipient of these letters and particularly the thessalonians something's going to happen all right something's going to happen it's right on top of us that tone of urgency that tone of urgency is very clear in this passage right put your armor on stay awake you know have somebody on watch that it's urgency now just as i have argued in the past that the presence of the general resurrection the presence of the general resurrection of the dead is an indication that we're talking about the final coming the general resurrection of the dead happens at the end of temporal human history and then we enter the eternal state all right so the general resurrection when we are all gathered to the lord when the dead are raised when the graves are opened that's an end of history event the anomaly the extraordinary thing was that god gave us an earnest payment a down payment on that final general resurrection in the resurrection of jesus so jesus rose from the dead in the middle of history as sort of an earnest payment so that we would all know what is coming so the way jesus came back from the dead his body went in the grave three days later he comes back from the dead that's what's going to happen to everybody at the end of history but it hasn't happened yet okay what happened to jesus has not happened yet that's going to happen at the final coming and any passage that talks about the general resurrection of the dead is talking about the final coming so also here's another indicator so also the presence of an any minute now vibe is an indication that we are talking about the events that run up to the destruction of jerusalem in 70 a.d so i um i believe the well i i believe that all the books of the new testament were written prior to 70 a.d some scholars believe that a handful of books are after that but i take the entire new testament as as having been completed before the destruction of jerusalem in 70 a.d and so consequently in any passage that's talking about when you see jerusalem surrounded by armies head for the tall grass when you when you see the romans coming it's time to get out of pray that you're pray that your flight not occur on the sabbath well because all the gas stations are closed on the sabbath right you you that's a a condition in palestine in palestine where they observe the sabbath pray that your flight not take place on the sabbath uh pray that you not be uh a pregnant woman or nursing when these things come down that sort of those sorts of urgent uh warnings and jesus is saying this generation will not pass away until all these things have been fulfilled that sort of thing is an indication that we're talking about the destruction of jerusalem or the events that run up to the destruction of jerusalem now in these two letters to the thessalonians we have both elements weaving in and out with each other we have both elements we have references to the general resurrection of the dead end of history final coming and we have references to the events of the first century and are the task when we get everything out on the workbench the the task is to assemble those uh images those references into a coherent picture a coherent whole looking ahead to second thessalonians 2 6 and 7 you see something similar another urgency passage in that paul tells the thessalonians that he that restrains is currently restraining and that is why the man of lawlessness has not yet appeared all right so the final coming is not going to happen until the man of lawlessness appears the man of lawlessness has not yet appeared because someone or something is currently holding it back there's there's one who restrains and he's talking about that restraint being applied at at that time in the first century that is going on right then so that's the setup as the first century christians were navigating their way through a very dark pagan century they were warned by paul against some very real perils in their day all right so they they had the apostles and the pastors and the teachers in the church had practical pastoral problems that confronted them day to day week to week and they had to they had to decide what to do about them so formal emperor worship had begun under augustus so jesus was born in the reign of caesar augustus julius caesar was the first caesar in fact but he didn't take the title emperor because it was okay for him to be a dictator but people didn't want him to have the title of dictator it wasn't safe yet so he was the first emperor and then augustus was the second emperor and the second emperor in fact and the first emperor in title so there was the history of the roman republic and when the roman republic came to an end julius was the one who established himself as the first of the emperors in fact and then augustus was the first emperor in name and jesus was born in the reign of caesar augustus okay now in the reign of caesar augustus emperor worship began formal emperor worship where the emperor was worshiped as a deity as a god that began under caesar augustus now caesar augustus was enough of a decent human being to be embarrassed by it right he didn't he didn't like it it was one of those things for reasons of state um but he was he was uh embarrassed by it and didn't like it and and when people would fawn and flatter over me you know but it was established and thessalonica where paul is writing this letter thessalonica had a temple to the emperor all right thessalonica had a temple to the emperor so when you drove to church this morning you did not have to drive by a temple to the president you didn't have to drive by the presidential temple where a lot of your neighbors were going to worship and offer sacrifices that was a practical a very practical problem how do i deal with how do i deal with it with this how do i respond to this so thessalonica had a temple to the emperor and remember that these are written these letters are written in the early 50s okay in ad41 all right so 10 about 10 years prior to the writing of first thessalonians in in 1041 caligula had ordered a statue of himself to be set up in the temple at jerusalem which was only for stalled because caligula was murdered okay now and and and it was really touching it was really touch and go because caligula ordered this statue of himself to be set up in the temple of jerusalem which would have set off a a war it would have ignited a war a roman general was tasked with setting that statue up and he got to the border of israel and a delegation of jews came came out to remonstrate with him sort of along the lines of are you crazy you know is this do you really want to do this do you want a statue of caligula in the temple at jerusalem the roman general who was ordered to do this had his wits about him he knew what a bad idea it was okay he knew what a bad idea was so he stopped where he was he wrote a letter back to rome to ask the emperor are you sure about this all right you really want to do this and he wrote the letter went back to the emperor the emperor wrote a letter saying of course i want to do this do what you're told and sent that letter off and then the emperor was assassinated and a letter was a second letter was sent off to the roman general saying don't do it don't do it okay so there's two letters racing to the roman general the letter that with the with the information that caligula had been assassinated got to the general first and disaster was averted right but caligula just ten years before paul's writing this letter caligula had tried to set up not only an idol for himself a statue of himself because that had been happening all over the empire since augustus but caligula wanted to do it in the temple of god in the in the temple that had been established in jerusalem and so that was only for stalled because caligula was murdered now to give you a sense also of the atmosphere of the times in the forecourt of one of his homes right in the forecourt of one of nero's palaces nero had a bronze statue of himself built and the statue was 120 feet tall right that was so you go out to the theophilus tower count 12 stories up and that's what nero had in the forecourt of his house these people didn't have um well they had ego problems but they didn't have any problems they didn't have any problems themselves with their own ego they were outsized conceited arrogant i will ascend to the sides of the north they had arrogated to themselves divine honors it began with augustus who was embarrassed by it but by the time it got to nero there was no embarrassment at all about it so paul when paul's writing about this sort of thing this is this this is the climate that he is operating within now there were certain signs that indicated the pending destruction of jerusalem the day of the lord and that destruction paul says that destruction was something that had to occur before there could be a final coming jerusalem has to be taken out the day of the lord has to happen before there is a final coming that final coming was in paul's view he does talk about it in thessal in the letters to the thessalonians but it was like a very high and distant mountain range behind the mountain range that they were about to cross so think think of look at looking at this cataclysmic set of events that was going to happen by 70 a.d that's the mountain range that we're we're in the foothills of that mountain range but the mountain range beyond that the final coming is something we can even see from here so it's a far distant range but the the the end of the world is something that paul is teaching on he's talking to them about but it's not imminent the way the destruction of jerusalem is imminent the jewish war would fill up the sins of israel the jewish war would fill up the sins of israel matthew 23 32. that time when when the jewish war occurred that began in 68 um so so what happened in there's there's so many things here but um the revolt against rome happened in 68 and was concluded in 70 a.d and the the length of the war was 42 months you remember that the beast in revelation the the time of trial the time of tribulation is 42 42 months that's how long the jewish war was and the bible tells us that that war that revolt was going to inaugurate the times of the gentiles the times of the gentiles a period of time that would be eventually completed jesus says jerusalem is going to be trampled on until the times of the gentiles are completed indicating that there's a period of time that will that has a beginning and an end the beginning was 70 a.d and the end i believe is at the final coming or shortly before that so i take that completion as being marked by the conversion of the jews an event that has not yet happened in romans 11 15. so um when the when the jewish nation returns to christ that will be the time when when they're grafted back into the olive tree that will be when the times of the gentiles will have been completed this means that we in 2020 are still living in the times of the gentiles so you have a day of the lord the destruction of jerusalem then you have this uh this mountain range then you have this long valley that we're living in and then another mountain range because that we would consider the end of the world now how is this to be an encouragement how is this to be an encouragement the thing that is striking you might um i was just chatting with someone before the service the year 2020 is uh is sort of uh god's um food blender you know the uh what do you call those kitchenaids so god has thrown us all into his kitchenaid on the counter thrown the big lump of dough called our complacent lives and and turned it on and that's and and we say god what are you doing what are you doing and he said i'm making bread i'm making bread this is how i do it this this period of time that we're in is a threshing floor this is a time of winnowing god shakes things up and when god shakes things up he is doing something wholesome and good when god shakes things as it says in hebrews he is doing it so that that which cannot be shaken may remain and what happens is over time christians even christians get attached to things that can be shaken we get attached to things so augustine referred to earlier when he wrote his great book the city of god after the barbarians from the north of europe sacked the city of rome city rome was supposed to be the eternal city and when barbarians came and and sacked rome a lot of christians in rome thought it was the end this is the end of all all things this this is the how could this possibly happen the the gospel had gone out the emperors had been converted by this point the roman empire was formally christian and then these heathen come down out of europe and and sacked the place and augustine writes his book the city of god to show to illustrate that god has bigger grander higher purposes than those things that we got mistakenly attached to all right so not only was rome not the final state of affairs not only was the a converted roman empire the end of the world but there have been multiple empires that have come and gone since that time and we and then we get to ours we get to our uh time of peace and security and we think like every other group of complacent christians who have peace and security we think ah this is it and god says nope into the kitchenaid you go right time time to say time to shake everything up because i want you to be attached to the things that remain the things that cannot be shaken i want you to have your focus on christ i don't want you to have your focus on those things that can burn up those things that can be destroyed those things that can be taken away so once a judgment now remember there are multiple judgments down through history there are multiple days of the lord then there's a final day of the lord the final coming the final day of the lord that will happen but there are days of the lord there are times of winnowing there are times of threshing there are times of shaking that god brings and he brings it because he intends to save this world and this is his way of doing it it's not our way of saving the world our way of saving the world would be to forego the mountain climbing entirely and just walk up a gentle slope forever and ever we we want and in the sunshine with pleasant grass under our feet and no real difficulties we we want we want to be patient christians oh lord teach me patience and let me learn it from books and god says no no that's not how i do it once the judgment begins once a shaking begins once a time of turbulent turmoil begins that is no time to prepare that's not when you start what what we're saying what paul's saying here is he wants you to be spiritual preppers not uh we're not talking about physical preppers fine knock yourself out but he does want everybody everything falls apart and all the non-preppers get together and say do you guys know any preppers let's go over to their house well that's a different subject you are supposed to be spiritual preppers you're supposed to be spiritually ready and you're supposed to be spiritually ready before the crisis hits once the judgment begins that is no time to begin to prepare the judgment might be temporal and historical a day of the lord or it might be final it might be the final coming either way you want to be ready the same way you want to be awake and with your armor on you want to be up standing watch and the final things can overtake any of us at any time as had already happened with some of the thessalonians right so this could be a temporal judgment that lands on us all it could be an individual judgment when everyone here is mortal everyone here is going to come to a point where tomorrow at this time tomorrow you will be in heaven everyone here is in in that position so and that had already happened to some of the thessalonians one of the thessalonians who had already died was the first one to die one of the people who read this letter when it first arrived at thessalonica he was the last one of that generation to die one of you uh out of out of all the people who are gathered here one of you is next right and one of you is going to be the last one of you is next one of you is going to be the last and all of us are called to be ready regardless of when that happens so in any case in any case the daylight is coming and so paul's charged to us is to act as though the day had already come so we are children of the day in a empire of night we are children of the day in an empire of night christians are those who got up early or we're expecting the dawn and so we're to live as though the day has already arrived because we are children of the day we are not to be ethically groggy for any reason all right we're not to be ethically groggy for any reason you don't want to be among those who were appointed to wrath because that appointment will be kept those who are appointed to wrath will come to wrath those who are appointed to salvation will come to salvation so rather we should yearn to be among those who will obtain salvation by our lord jesus christ paul says here who died for us and this is what brings us back to the everlasting center christ our lord because he was not overcome by the night it becomes possible for all those who have trusted him trusted in him to follow him and to do the same christ was a son of the day christ was born into a world of night a world of darkness and he lived perfectly as a son of the day and then because he rose from the dead giving us a down payment on what's coming and made it possible when he sent his holy spirit to pour his holy spirit out at pentecost on his church he made it possible for you to become sons and daughters of the day he made it possible for you to imitate him and to walk after him but it's not just imitation it's also he gives you the security to be able to do that because when you follow after him if if christians were just imitators of christ they everyone here imitates him imperfectly everyone here fails in our imitation and so and every time we fail that's another thing that's another invitation to a spanking that's another invitation to judgment every failure and so in in order to be able to walk after christ imitating him you have to be set free first and the way god the way god sets you free we're po where it says here obtain salvation we we have the hope of uh we have the helmet of the hope of salvation and we want to obtain that salvation by our lord jesus christ who died for us there are two aspects to this one is that one aspect of this is the fact that christ died to pay the penalty that you owed for the sins you've committed every sin you have committed every sin you might be committing right now if you're a child of god every sin you have committed every sin you're committing right this minute and every sin you ever will commit has been paid for by the death of jesus christ on the cross but there's a problem god imputes the death of g god imputes the death of jesus to you as the payment for your sin so in galatians 2 20 paul says i have been crucified with christ and i no longer live so when christ died you died when christ died you you're a sinner you're the sinner you need to die and so what god did is he made it possible for you the sinner the one who needs to die to die in a way that has resurrection before it so what god does is he if you have sinned you need to die if you have sinned you need to die and so you will die god has enabled the god has created a mechanism by which the death that you need to die as a sinner is a death that was joined to the death of christ so that when he died you died and when he was buried you were buried and when he was raised from the dead you were raised from the dead and when he ascended into heaven you ascended into heaven that is what it means when paul says obtain salvation by our lord jesus christ who died for us your penalty is paid you pay it but you pay it in christ you pay the penalty i have been crucified with christ in romans 6 it says as many of us as were baptized were baptized into his death so we share together in his death in ephesians there's a compound word that uh the r word is ko a prefix co in greek it's soon so there paul talks about believers being co-crucified co-buried co-resurrected so when christ was crucified christ christ did not die so that you might live that's shorthand that's fine christ died so that you might die he was buried so that you might be buried he rose so you might wrote so you might rise and he ascended into heaven so you might ascend into heaven christ was crucified buried rose and ascended so that you could accompany him in him and everything that you needed to do die you have done in him so that's what it means when it says christ died for our sins but there's another component to this and that is not only do you need to pay for the sins what do you owe god well you owe god the penalty for having sinned but you also owed god a righteous life that you didn't live because you were busy sinning so you owe the penalty for having sinned but you also owe him a clean righteous upright life the bible teaches that that too is imputed to us christ lived that life there's been one christian there's been one perfect christian life jesus lived it and he lived it for you so you he paid the penalty for your sins but he also lived the christian life that you needed to live and so is this is called the imputation of the act of obedience of christ when christ obeyed his mother you obeyed your mother when christ obeyed his father in heaven you obeyed your father in heaven when christ resisted temptation in the wilderness you resisted temptation and all of that is given to you all of it is bestowed on you and so what that does and that's what our justification is the imputation of the act of obedience of christ and the imputation of the what theologians call the passive obedience of christ not that it was passive but the passion on the cross so the imputation of the way christ lived his life and the imputation of how christ died both of those things that jesus did which encompassed all of his life that they encompass everything about his incarnation those things are given to everyone who appropriates them by faith so when you appropriate those things by faith god looks at you and when god when you come to pray when you get on your knees to pray when god looks at you he sees perfection and what does that do that sets you free and this can be misunderstood and distorted and many people have tried to do it but when god imputes perfection to you that sets you free to be imperfect right now how does that how is that distorted well let's sin the grace may abound well that yeah how can but paul says how can we who died to sin still live in it no that's your reasoning wrongly what what it means is that because perfection is imputed to you when god looks at you he sees the perfections of jesus christ which is what you mean when you say in jesus name amen that's that's what you're saying when you conclude your prayers in jesus name you're saying god you have no basis for listening to me at all unless jesus lived a perfect sinless life and unless he died on the cross i couldn't talk to you i couldn't approach you but because he did those things and they're imputed to me i can talk to you and i'm doing it in jesus name clothed in his righteousness now what that that's justification and your justification is perfect because jesus is perfect and that means that we've got all kinds of christians here right we've got new christians old christians we've got christians who are staggering around and christians who have been upright for years we've got raggedy christians and we've got buttoned up christians we've got all kinds of christians here right every one of you your justification is identical everyone with with regard to your justification you are all equally perfect it's not the case that some of you have a justification that's in tatters and some of you have a shiny justification you all you're the saints of god you all have the same justification the righteousness of jesus christ imputed to you now what i'm talking about where you're learning to imitate and walk after god and follow him that's your sanctification that is how you do monday and tuesday and when and some people's sanctification is in better shape than other people's sanctification some people struggle and some people are doing well some people are growing and thriving and some people are having more difficulty your sanctification your sanctification is something that can be improved upon as the holy spirit works in your life but one of the central things you must do in order to get your sanctification up and running is understanding your justification one of the reasons why people falter in their sanctification is they they leave the justification out they're neglecting their justification you have been cleansed you've been set free so that you can follow after jesus christ and so that you're going to be able to put on the armor even if you put on the armor imperfectly even if you walk around as a child of the day imperfectly you're a child of the day and you're following after jesus christ and god receives your efforts at obeying him because it's all couched and offered up in the name of jesus that's how this works so this is why christians should be the most liberated people ever because um the the burden has been taken off like uh we just sang him by john bunyan uh what it is to be a pilgrim when when he comes to the cross and the burden rolls off of his back that's his conversion and the sense is buoyancy and relief and joy and i've got to sing i've got i've got to tell somebody how good this is because god has set us free now you can be a child of the day imperfections and all warts and all difficulties and all you can be a child of the day provided you have appropriated the perfection of jesus christ by faith if you have believed in jesus then you are perfect if you have believed in jesus when god hears from you he doesn't think oh there's that loser again that's not how god receives you god receives you with joy god receive he rejoices over you with singing he wants you to pray to him he wants you to fellowship with him and you have been set free to do so false and all stumbles and all all the things that you confessed at the beginning of the service when you confess your sins those things god does not take into account when you come to him in the name of jesus and because he does not take them into account when you come to him in the name of jesus he helps you to take them into account he helps you to figure out what you're doing he helps you to understand why you're having this trouble in your family why why you're having this difficulty in your marriage why why you are struggling in bringing up teenagers why you are having all this difficulty at work he helps you understand your life because you have surrendered your life it's not your life you've given the whole thing up in the name of jesus and because god receives you on that basis then you can with no condemnation no guilt no no uh threats hanging over your head god can then say now let's take a look at that let's take a look at this thing for which under which there in romans 8 it says therefore there's no condemnation for those who are in christ jesus you need to live your entire life imitating jesus imperfectly under that banner no condemnation none zero no condemnation and because there's no condemnation god's god can then say to you well let's uh let's deal with this thing in your life which if you were outside of christ would have been condemnation it would have been g it would have been condemnation apart from christ but you're in christ so let's have that out let's deal with that let's confess that sin but you can confess your sin and i'll conclude with this in hebrews it says let us approach the throne of grace with boldness seeking mercy why do you approach a throne of grace well you're seeking mercy right and when you seek mercy how do you come well our natural inclination would be to come crawling in on hands and knees right i'm seeking mercy i prosper on my face i'm seeking mercy but it says in hebrews we're to approach that throne of grace seeking mercy with boldness and the only way the only way you can follow jesus christ with boldness the only way you can approach him with boldness is to do so in the name of jesus our father our gracious god we thank you for your kindness to us we thank you for your word we thank you for your the gospel we thank you for the day of the lord the the different days of the lord that you've visited on us throughout human history we thank you for the end of human history we thank you for all of it and father we pray that you would help us to understand it and we help you we ask that you would help us to understand it in a way that enables us to encourage and edify one another as we put on the armor that paul instructs us to put on as we pray as we pray this we offer up the words that jesus taught us to pray saying the words of institution for this supper are a performative act they're not magic words that change the bread and wine into anything else but yet at the same time we really do partake of the lord jesus by faith that it is not a miracle can be seen in the fact that paul argues that the same thing happens when someone participates in idolatrous worship that person partakes with demons paul says when a new president takes the oath of office there's no magic there and neither are his words a mere reminder and yet before he says those words on the appointed day he is not the president after he does he is it's a performative act before a man says certain words and puts a ring on a certain woman's fing finger he's just her fiance afterwards he's a husband and there was no magic done it is a performative act in the same way when i hold up the bread and say this is the body of christ broken for you and you receive it you are partaking of christ if this were a black mass you would be partaking of the devil this is the this is the power of the performative word god created the heavens and the earth through the power of his word we were created in his image and god gave us the authority of words we see this when our great-grandfather named the animals naming is far more than simply attaching reminders or post-it notes or labels naming is authoritative and when this authoritative word is spoken and heard in faith and the spirit of god is present as he promised to be all things in heaven and earth are united and we are strengthened by grace in our pilgrimage as we partake of christ so come and welcome to jesus christ let us pray father in heaven we thank you for this table we thank you for what it cost you and your son and your spirit to set this table for us i pray that your spirit would be active here as we come in faith strengthen our faith so that we can be blessed and edified and strengthened by it we commit it all to you in the strong name of jesus and amen the charge is this live as children of the day live as though it were day put on the armor that god tells you to put on and as you do this make sure that you have the carton horse oriented correctly in other words the perfection of jesus christ goes before you and draws your christian life after it if you do it the other way the cart doesn't go anywhere you're just going to get stuck so let christ be your savior walk as though he's your savior and follow close after him in his name under his perfections now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us to him be the glory in the church by christ jesus to all generations forever and ever amen

Channel: Canon Press

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Id: eXnFfUCu6nQ

Length: 50min 24sec (3024 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 13 2020