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The Truth Pulpit — The Centrality of the Resurrection #2. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
Welcome to the Truth Palpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hello again, I'm Bill Wright. It is our joy to continue our commitment to teaching God's people, God's Word. Today, Don is continuing with the second part of a message we started last time, so let's get right to it. Open your Bible as we join Don now in the Truth Palpit. Someone could ask, how am I supposed to live in the midst of this world of temptation, trials, and tears? How am I supposed to overcome the sin that still dwells within me? How do I face the temptations that come and would lead me away from faithfulness to my Christ? How am I supposed to have a hope that transcends the profound sorrow that this world brings into life?
Well, you turn again to the resurrection. Point number three this morning. The resurrection provides for our sanctification. The resurrection provides for our sanctification. What does that word mean? Sanctification. Sanctification is the believer's progressive growth and holiness after he becomes a Christian. The Holy Spirit conforms our character and behavior over time and increasing degrees to the image of Christ. This is an inevitable reality of true salvation. If a man has been born again truly, his life will change. Someone whose life never changes is not someone who can claim to be a Christian. You can't point back to the time when you prayed up front in the church when you were four years old and say, that shows that I was saved.
No, no, not if there is not a change that follows that, not if there is not some kind of love for Christ, love for His Word and desire for obedience that flows from that. How could someone possibly claim to have the life of God dwelling within them if they have no desire for the things of God? That's a travesty. And it is a problem of immense proportions that generations have been taught to look back to a single prayer of supposedly accepting Jesus back when they were a kid and to erase and pass over an unbroken life of sin for decades that followed and still claim to be a Christian. That is a biblical travesty. You can read the book of 1 John and see that that's evidently false. Now, some people pray when they're young and that is a true moment of their salvation, but the reality of that is shown by the fact that they have affections and desires for the holy things of God.
Absent those affections, no one has a claim to any assurance of salvation. That's just the teaching of the Bible. Now, we're dealing with the issue of sanctification. It's not that, let me be clear on this, it's not that we pursue those good works and we pursue those desires for holiness. In order to add to our merit or to complete our salvation to somehow add to the work of Christ so that that becomes the grounds upon which we stand righteous before God. That is not the point. It is not faith in Christ plus works that equals your justification. What we're saying is that a man who has truly been born again will change. The work of God and salvation is such that he brings a man to Christ and then he changes him. That is an inevitable part of true salvation. And the resurrection is the ground of the power for that change.
Now, the Bible says that you and I as Christians are responsible to pursue our own spiritual growth. We are to strive after it. Second Peter chapter 3 verse 18 says that we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It's stated as an imperative. We have that responsibility to pursue spiritual growth. But what we see in the resurrection, oh, this is so wonderful. This is so wonderful. In the resurrection, you see, you find that you are not left alone to your own natural abilities and your own inconsistent commitment in order to achieve spiritual growth. God gave to you as a Christian. To every Christian, God has given resurrection life in salvation and thus has given you the power to walk in newness of life.
It is not a matter of trying to grow based on your own innate natural abilities. Rather what we see is that God has given us such a total gift of life and salvation that it provides not only for your justification, but it also provides the power for you to walk in newness of life. Look at Romans chapter 6 with me beginning in verse 4. Romans chapter 6 verse 4 will read through a significant portion of Romans here. Romans chapter 6 verse 4. Paul says, therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death. Now that's not a reference to water baptism. How do you know that? Because it's a baptism into what? Death, not water, through a baptism into death. We have been joined with the death of Christ, is what he is saying.
So that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, going back to that first resurrection day, he says as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father. So we too might walk in newness of life. Look at that. The power to walk in newness of life for you is somehow tied to the reality of the resurrection of Christ 2000 years ago. And he goes on and he explains that. He says in verse 5, for if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this that our old self was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. Now let me stop there for a moment. If you are a Christian, the Bible says that you are no longer a slave to sin.
The dominating power of sin in your life has been broken. That is part of the purpose of salvation is to break the power of sin that dominated your life before you came to saving faith in Christ. That is part of the whole reason you have been saved unto holiness. It's not simply a future deliverance from hell that salvation gives to us. It is a present deliverance from the dominating power of sin. Listen, if you are a Christian, Paul says that you personally share in the resurrection power of Christ and that you have the power to increasingly overcome sin in your life, to increasingly put sin to death and walk in a holiness that is befitting of a holy Lord that you serve. And no, this is amazing truth. This is spiritual reality as God has defined it for us in the scriptures. Now continue on in verse 8 because Paul expands on this point.
He says in verse 8, now if we have died with Christ, if you have become a true Christian, we believe that we shall also live with Him knowing that, verse 9, knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead is never to die again, death no longer is master over Him. Listen, once you've died and come back to life, death has no more power. That's what he's saying. In the resurrection of Christ, we see that he has an indestructible life and he will never go into the grave again. Now, listen, when God saved you, he did more than cancel the penalty of sin and deliver you from hell. He imparted new life to you. The Holy Spirit took up residence in your life. You have a new nature in salvation. You have a new nature and that new nature is animated, get this, by the same power that raised Christ from the grave.
The power that raised Christ from the grave is the power that is at work in your life as a believer so that you may overcome sin. You share in that life. Look at verse 10 of Romans 6, for the death that he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives, the life that Christ lives, he lives to God. Verse 11, even so, in like manner, consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Verse 12, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts. Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. Look at this, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. Paul says, take that resurrection power that raised Christ from the dead and that God has imparted to you in salvation. Conscious of that resurrection power now go put sin to death in your life. It is not a matter of self-effort that you generate but it is a matter of conscious recognition of your union with Christ and the impartation of resurrection life into your soul that gives you the grounds to overcome sin. Now, let me call a time out here. Speak to you pastorally and help you to understand something important. If you are at all like me, there are days when sin just seems to cling to you.
There are times where things come out of your mouth that you look back on in shame. There are thoughts and wicked desires that animate your heart and there are things that you do and you detest that and you know that it is wrong, you know it is inconsistent with the desires of your heart. And you think, what is wrong with me? I am a Christian at least I say that I am and yet look at the filth that still comes out of my life. I won't take a roster of those of you that are nodding in agreement and understanding with me but you know what I am saying. This is the common experience of Christians. How does that fit with what I just said about the resurrection power that gives us power over sin?
Well, let me say something that should be a great encouragement to you. This is so very important to understand the nature of Christian life and to have your assurance grounded in truth and not in the fluctuating way in which you inconsistently obey the God of your salvation. Listen, those days when sin seems too cling to you do not contradict the reality that resurrection power is at work in you. They don't. We know that because Paul said in Romans 7, verse 15, he said, what I am doing, I don't understand. I am not practicing what I would like to do but I am doing the very thing that I hate. He says, there is still this element in my life where I find myself plagued by sin and I am not living out the perfection of resurrection life that I know that God has given to me.
I hate it that it's like that but sin just clings to me and I detest it and yet here I am. Understand this. This is so important. Resurrection power is not seen, it is not made known in your life by unbroken spiritual ecstasy. It is not seen in sudden perfection of life where sin is suddenly an utterly foreign element to your existence. You have to have the right conception of what resurrection power does in your life. It does not make you perfect in this life. It does not eliminate the struggle with sin.
What resurrection power does is it breaks the controlling power of sin. It changes your affections for one thing so that what you formally loved in the world of sin is now something that you hate and if you could get rid of it you would. For those of you that are Christians, couldn't you choose if you had the power to do it? If you could just utterly get rid of the remnants of sin in your life, wouldn't you do that in an instant? The things that tempt you and draw you away from Christ if you could utterly divorce yourself from that you would do it in a heartbeat. That affection against sin and toward holiness is a mark of resurrection power in your life. The fact that you don't live perfectly in accordance with that is not a denial of the reality of your salvation, it's not a denial of the resurrection power.
It's not seen in that instantaneous change that young immature Christians sometimes think is available for them. No, rather it's completely different than that. What resurrection power does is that it strengthens you to change over time in increasing degrees of increasing growth in holiness and it causes you to persevere in the faith. There is an underlying power that is ever urging you on to continue to pursue Christ despite the obstacles that come your way. There is an ever present power that is keeping you in the faith so much that if you are a true Christian you couldn't walk away from it and you wouldn't if you could. There is a new dominating power, there is a new underlying controlling force that work in the life of a Christian that is always urging him on to take the next step to continue on, to not give up, to continue to love Christ and to grow in him.
The resurrection power makes Christ and the Bible sweeter to you over time even though you fall short along the way. Resurrection power doesn't make you perfect but it changes your whole orientation toward life and keeps you in that orientation until the day that you die. And so you have to have the right expectation about what resurrection power is going to do or you'll trip up on that. Here's the point, those attitudes of loving Christ, loving His Word, persevering in the face of obstacles, persevering when those closest to you make it most difficult for you to walk with Christ and you continue on anyway. Listen, listen, those kinds of spiritual attitudes are not natural. Men who do not have new life will constantly fall away and turn away from Christ when it starts to cost them something.
Men who are motivated by their own natural desires do not continue in righteousness. Eventually they give up the hypocrisy and like a pig they go back to wallowing in the old slop again. Those spiritual attitudes that cause you to persevere are not natural. Here's the point, beloved. When you see those kinds of spiritual attitudes and affections, you can know that the resurrection is at work in you providing for your sanctification. The now invisible reality of the resurrection is made visible in your transformed heart. When Christ was raised from the dead, there was a visible act of resurrection that hundreds of witnesses saw at the time. It was visible to them then. Now, to us today, the resurrection is an invisible reality revealed in His Word, but the reality of the resurrection is made visible as you and I grow in our sanctification.
Because that is the only power that could explain it, is that God has done a powerful work in our lives. And that's why it is so destructive to assure people of their salvation when they're living in sin. Say, I remember when Johnny prayed, of course he's a Christian. Well, maybe not. Jesus said, there are going to be many people on the day of judgment who said, Lord, Lord, I thought I knew you. Jesus said, no, I never knew you. So you see the resurrection at work as you have desires for holiness in your life. But you know what? It gets better. It's better than having the deity of Christ establish for us. It's better than having our justification establish for it. It's better than knowing that we have power provided for our sanctification. It gets better than that. Because I asked this question, well, what about when I die? What happens then?
Fourth point, final point this morning, is that the resurrection guarantees our glorification. It establishes our justification. It provides for our sanctification guarantees our glorification. Glorification is the final step in salvation. When you die, your spirit goes to be with Christ even as your body goes to the grave. One day, Christ is going to return. And it says, dead will be raised to life, meaning that he will raise us from the grave. He will raise our bodies from the grave and give us resurrection bodies that are like his. And somehow have a continuity with our present earthly bodies. God raised Christ from the dead. And because you are in union with Christ, you too will be raised from the dead. Look at Romans chapter 8, beginning in verse 28. Paul said, Romans 8, 28, we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
Follow His logic here, His chain of salvation. He says, for those whom He forenew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son. So that He would be the first born among many brethren. And these whom He predestined, He also called. And these whom He called, He also justified. And these whom He justified, He also glorified. That's God's plan of salvation from beginning to end. There's an eternal end to which we are all moving. God's plan for salvation includes your ultimate glorification. Now watch how Paul ties the intentions of God with the resurrection in this passage. Look at verse 31. He just said, God glorified them. It's still future, but it's so certain that Paul can speak of it as a past act.
Verse 31, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us, He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Now watch this in verse 34. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died. Yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. And so Paul has given this marvelous overview of salvation from justification to glorification. And He says, how do we know this is going to happen? It's because God raised Christ from the dead. It's the guarantee of your glorification. You will most certainly, if you are in Christ, you will most certainly be with Him in heaven.
You will most certainly one day have a resurrected body. You will most certainly be in glory forever. The resurrection is the guarantee of that. Just as Christ was resurrected and went to heaven, so it is His perfect purpose to bring with Him, to raise all those who know Him up into heaven with Him. The resurrection is the guarantee of that. There is no aspect of the work of Christ from which you will be separated. Just as we have been spiritually joined with Him on the cross, where our sins were paid for, one day we will literally be with Him in heaven raised from the dead. The resurrection is the guarantee of that. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 14, now God has not only raised the Lord, but He will also raise us up through His power.
2 Corinthians 4, it says, he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus. The resurrection is a promise yet to be fulfilled to those of us who know Christ. The best part of your salvation, beloved, is still to come. It is still ahead. God will raise you in perfection, never again to sin, never again to fear, never again to grieve, never again to die. All of those elements that we just know intuitively to be a part of this life will be gone and we will be with our glorified Lord in heaven, seeing Him and adoring Him face to face without interruption throughout all the broken generations upon generations of ages to come.
That is the promise of the resurrection. As good as it is now to know the forgiveness of sin and have the power to live a sanctified life, the best is still to come. We haven't even entered into the fullness of the riches of our salvation. They're still ahead. Rejoice, beloved. Nothing will be better than that. Well, one thing would be better than that. One thing could make that better. That would be if every one of you knew Christ like this. There's enough people in this room that I can't assume that. I wouldn't be faithful as a minister of the gospel if I just assumed that and didn't appeal directly to you.
If you are not a Christian, come to Christ for salvation. We have been speaking of magnificent spiritual realities today. And yet I fear that some of you are on the outside looking in. Come with me to heaven. Come with these other believers that are gathered together. Come with us to heaven. Believe in Christ for the salvation of your soul. The resurrection applies even to you in your unsaved state. Romans chapter 10 verse 9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord. Get this and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. You will be saved. The resurrection has an appeal even to you who have been outside of Christ. You see the offer of the gospel is for everyone who believes. Look at verse 13, Romans 10, whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved based on the promise of Christ.
I can authoritatively and unconditionally offer eternal life to you if you would come to Christ for salvation. If you would turn from sin and give your life to him, that would make these glories even better if you would come to Christ today. Bow with me in prayer, would you? Our Father, we thank you for the glories of the resurrection. We understand that it was ultimately an act to your glory and yet we have so greatly participated in the wonders of it. You have just overflowed blessing upon blessing giving it into our lives as a result of the resurrection. Those of us who know Christ, we see that the resurrection guarantees our justification that our sins are forgiven, that the law no longer condemns us.
We see in it the power to live a godly Christian life because if the power is so great that it could raise Christ from the dead, then surely it can give life to our mortal bodies as well. We see in the resurrection the promise of heaven, of being with you in glory. Father, we are lost in wonder, love and praise this day. We thank you for the resurrection. We thank you for our salvation. And we pray for those here who do not know Christ. Father, may they understand that you are calling them and that today is the acceptable day of salvation for them. Work in their hearts and draw them to a saving faith in Christ. We pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. Let me just say a word to you, my friend, as we close today's broadcast. If this message has been meaningful to you or if the ministry of the truth pulpit broadly speaking is something that encourages you on a consistent basis,
take the opportunity to share with your friends about that, your family, your loved ones, send them a link of the particular message. You can find that at our website, thetruthpulpit.com, or just send them the link to the overall podcast and let them learn in the scriptures with you as you study along with us. You know, let me just remind you, we have in addition to this podcast that you're listening to on a daily basis, we have a weekly podcast called Through the Psalms that goes through all the 150 Psalms in three years. And also there's a separate podcast that is the weekly sermons that I preach at Truth Community Church. You can find all of those at thetruthpulpit.com, share them with a friend as we labor together in ministry to spread the word of God to our circle of relationships and trust him to use his word in the lives of those we love.
Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit. That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much, friend, for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us again next time as Don begins a new message. As we continue teaching God's people, God's Word on The Truth Pulpit.
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