Identification Truths
Mike Doyle · May 14, 2006
Identification (2005-06), No. 32
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262351165195

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, today, there's a lot of verses that were under this heading, and I probably could have made this into two or three weeks of class, but with the much more care of God, within the much more care of God, and the first question I asked was, described the much mores of Romans 5, which meant you had to go to Romans 5 and look at verses 9, 10, 15, and 17.

And the descriptions are fairly interesting there because Paul in Romans chapter 5, what he's doing is describing or contrasting from the old to the new. and how the new is much more, verse 9, much more than, having been now declared righteous by means of his blood shall we be saved through him from the coming wrath.

So, the point here is that maybe, say it this way, that God has done the harder thing. He will do the easy thing. He has had Christ die for us while we were yet sinners, right? But much more, He will see to it that we, being now believers and accounted righteous in view of Christ's blood, shall be saved from the coming wrath through Christ. What's the coming wrath? I think so.

There's going to be a time, although we grow lax, when God will visit the earth with His wrath against sin. And it's not going to be a fun place. If you've ever spent any time, and I don't recommend you spend a whole lot of time, but just going through and clearly and easily look at what God's going to do. If you remember when Vern was teaching on Revelation, it's going to be just You can't imagine, you know, the tsunamis and the earthquakes are going to be on the back page compared to what's going to happen on a daily basis during the tribulation.

Okay, verse 10, much more, being reconciled we shall be saved by his, and I put in there, risen life. So what does reconciled mean? What does reconcile mean? Anybody? See, now if you come back and take the course, I don't see if reconciliation is in here. Wrong page. What does reconcile mean? It means to be brought back into favor. So God has brought us back into favor, which is, He's done that by reconciling us to what? To Himself. Yeah. He reconciled us to Himself. He has had Christ die for us while we were yet sinners, right?

So, what's the much more? If you'll do the lesser thing, what will the much more be? He will be saved by his risen life. What does that mean? Do you think about salvation as something that, you know, somebody gave you a merit badge or a ticket or a credit card that gives you a free pass? What does salvation by his life mean? And the key is, whose life is it? It's his very life. So, yeah, we've been reconciled, we've been brought back to God in His favor, but the much more part of this is the fact that our salvation is because we have His risen life.

Make sense? Are you tracking on that? Would that be a much more? I mean, it would be like, how would I describe it? We view reconciliation as we get angry with someone or something happens and we make peace with them and so now our relationship is restored. But there's no transference of life. And when you think about it, if you have God's very life, the resurrected life of the Lord Jesus, there isn't any better place or possession you could have. Make sense? Yeah, that's exactly right. The idea is to maybe get a handle on how grace functions. It's always much more, and it's always not only that, and not only that, but it's much more, and it's not only that.

See? 15 says, if by the trespass of one, death came upon the many... Do you have a question? Much more did the grace of God and the gift by grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto many. Now, a couple of things here. The trespass of one. Who's the one? Our pal Adam.

And notice it's a trespass. Remember what a trespass was? It's more than a sin. It's a violation of a law. See? Adam violated a law. He had one law. Couldn't keep it. So he violated the law and because of that, death came to every man. Separation from God. Now, the much more is based on the grace of God and the gift by grace of the one man Christ Jesus abounded unto many. So, what's the gift? In a sense, yeah. Well, what does He bring? What does He give you? Life.

And so, because of the transgression or the trespass of one man, death passed upon all men, right? And in verse 12 it says, because all men sinned in Adam. But God does the much more thing. By grace, the one man's work or his act allows grace to abound to the many.

Now let me ask you a question. Before Christ is in place, which is kind of hard to say because he's a lamb slain from the foundation of eternity, but the question is this. Could God, based on his personhood and his character, decide at some point, you know what, yeah I've been offended by Adam's sin and all of your sins, but you know what, I'm going to set that aside and I'm going to demonstrate my grace and I'm going to offer salvation to men. The question is, could he have done that without Christ's work? Could he have just said, oh never mind about the sin, I'll just put it aside. Yeah, there is no other way.

The thing about the righteousness of God and His holiness, it demands, when it's insulted, it demands satisfaction. Absolutely demands satisfaction. And even though God is loving and gracious, He can't demonstrate His love and grace until He's been satisfied.

All of the symbols on the day that Christ died show that, like the veil being rent from the top to the bottom, God can now come out. The top to the bottom is key, it wasn't bottom to top, which meant man could go in. God had to be propitiated in order to demonstrate.

Now, you could say that the whole program of reconciliation was because of his grace. But it's also necessary. You see that? It's absolutely necessary that if God... God has to propitiate himself or satisfy himself before he can demonstrate his grace and his love to his creatures. But you know what?

He could be propitiated and not do that. Do you understand what I mean? Once he's satisfied, there's nothing in the rules that says, well, now I have to be gracious, and now I have to offer salvation. No, he doesn't. Because he's satisfied. Your salvation doesn't add anything to him.

Does that make sense to you? Or not? I've got a lot of foggy lips in here. You can't set aside his purpose because they go together. Yeah, no, I agree with that. The point is that his satisfaction of his holiness and his righteousness is the first issue that's got to be handled in order to carry out his purpose. The engineering brain is clicking here. You say he doesn't have to be gracious after he's satisfied. It seems like you almost have to... the flip side of he has to be satisfied. He can't just put it aside. His righteousness has to be satisfied.

Right. Well, I think the flip side has to be true too. If he's satisfied, he has to be gracious. Oh, yeah. I'm not sure that he does other than he has a purpose. But he's gracious. Yeah. So, you can say he can turn off his graciousness, but he can't turn off his righteousness. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's right. Yeah. You know, his character is that way.

I mean, once he's satisfied, he's gracious. Yeah, I mean, the desire of his heart is to come out and... So I don't think you can... I mean, his nature, his attribute is to be gracious. Yeah. That was his desire for knowing us before the Foundations. Yeah, that's true, it was.

So the contrast here is that you have the results of one trespass, and God and Christ and what they have done is superabounding much more than the creature Adam did. That's the point, that everything is much more with him. And then verse 517, for if for the trespass of the one, death reigned as king through the one, Much more, those accepting the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness shall reign as kings in life through the one Jesus Christ. So, it's not only that you have life, but what is the deal with this life and its eternal life?

What does it do? When Adam sinned, there was a king put in place. Who was that king? When Adam sinned, who was the king? It says here, death reigned as king. The lever that Satan has had and has over mankind is death. That's the king. Ever know anybody who missed that boat? What does death mean? It means separation.

What's interesting is that Separation, you could say, reigned as king. It was the ruling principle. Now, because of what Christ has done, what now becomes the ruling principle? The free gift of righteousness shall reign as king in life. So rather than being separated, the word righteousness means to have a right standing or right connection with God, and that reigns as king now, in life, key, in life, through the one Jesus Christ, through that one man. Much more. That's right. And that's much more than what Adam had before he sinned. That's exactly right. It's always much more. Where sin did abound, grace did much more abound. So, question two.

Ephesians 5.2. What enables us to respond to these commands?

I didn't write them down, so somebody read Ephesians 5.2. 1 and 2. Let's do both verses. Okay, so we're to walk in love. How do you do that? How are you able to respond to the commands, these kinds of commands? How is that possible? Wake up in the morning and say, no problem. I'm going to take care of it today. You know, I'll be obeying all day. How can you possibly do that? You do it through Christ.

Now put all the pieces together, because there's more than just one piece. We talked about a minute ago that you have new life, and it's the resurrected life of Christ. And that life has a nature. a nature that functions and operates in a certain manner. And that nature and that life is also guided by the Holy Spirit. And it's formed by the Word of God. All of those pieces go into it. And so therefore, That life of Christ is manifested through the believer in the sense of responding to the commands.

The command goes to the new life. Does the new life have to decide whether it's going to respond or not? Good example. A non-believer has the life of the sin nature. The temptation for sin comes. Does he have to decide whether he's going to sin or not? No. It's just ordinary and normal for the old man to sin. And I don't mean doing really terrible things. I mean just functioning outside of the realm of faith. Just being outside of the realm of life.

Remember how we're always talking about imitation? Look at verse 1 where it prefaces all that. I don't know what your... it says, be imitators. Yeah, what does imitator mean here? Is this Thomas at campus sneaking his... Again, that's a command, right? Is it not a command? I didn't look it up, but I'm sure it's in the imperative mood, which means do it, and you do it, be imitators of God. Has God called you to imitate? He didn't call you to be good, right? He called you to do what? To imitate who? Him. How can you do that? How is that possible?

Unless you understand where the command comes from. And if you've read the first four chapters of Ephesians, you know. It's typical of Paul, in all of his epistles to set up the positional truth in the first part of his epistle and then to give you the command based on a walk that is commensurate with the position that he just said to you.

The one that immediately comes to mind, Romans 6.3, don't you realize you were baptized into Christ's death and you were buried with him by baptism? Just as Jesus was raised from the dead, you might also walk in newness of life. Well, if there's no baptism into his death and no burial and no resurrection, you can forget about the walk. There isn't going to be a walk. And so the idea here is that imitation is... And Paul said that.

If you want to see how the Christian life functions, look at me. And you think, well, that's pretty arrogant. But Paul understood the principles, and he understood that as he abided in Christ, that the life of Christ was manifested through him, and he knew it was. and it's not pious to think that. Do you understand what I'm saying? In other words, as you walk in the Spirit, as you abide in Christ, it's not arrogant for you to think that the life of Christ is being manifested through you, because it is. He says so. I've looked around at believers in my life and could see the life of Christ functioning out of them. Have you not ever seen that? And that's not arrogance. No. Because if you look at the fruit of the Spirit, that's what it looks like. And there isn't any arrogance in that life.

It's sacrificial. But if the command went to the old man, would the old man be responsive? He'd try to be. If I say to you, husbands, you better love your wife if Christ loved the church. If you receive it in Adam and try to do it, how much chance have you got to pull that one off? None. Zero. Only the life of Christ can do that. Did you see that? Is that alright, Steve? I'm sorry? Yeah, and what's the therefore therefore? It is there for nothing. Oh, that's a good way to look at it. The therefore refers back to the position.

According to Ephesians 2, 4-7, what's the purpose God has in saving us? Does he have a purpose? Just so you could be saved? Go to this cool place called heaven? Why? He wants to have communion with you. What's that? He wants to have communion with you.

Okay. Somebody else read Ephesians 2, 4-7. That God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace, and seated us with him in the heavenly places of Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." Okay, so that in the ages to come, what might happen?

He's going to show what? What's he going to show off? What's the verse say? The riches of his grace. Now, I know we think that we look at salvation as, I got my fire insurance paid up. But imagine that God has determined, He did all this for what reason? You know, God does everything to glorify Himself. But in the ages to come, your salvation by being seated in Christ in the heavenlies is going to demonstrate to all creation the riches of His grace.

Romans 8, 20, about 20. Yeah, 8, 20, somewhere in there, 16 maybe. So, what it points up is that God has a purpose that you and I are taken and ascended at His right hand. We're born from above, but we're there for a specific purpose. so that he might demonstrate his grace through you, and you really deserve it, because you're such good guys.

I think in time to come, the first demonstration of that, Courtney is talking about it in Romans 8, that the creation is waiting for the revealing of the sons of God. That's at the millennium. So it's interesting that the millennium, or the earth which has been subjected to vanity, to be released from that vanity is tied to the revealing of the sons of God. Now, the revealing of the sons of God is the exact same event as Christ's coming. to rule and reign.

So when he comes to rule and reign, you and I are going to be with him, and the whole creation will be released from this vanity. Do you understand what vanity is? That the whole creation is arrogant? What does vanity mean? It simply means this, that the earth was created to have a certain purpose, and to be carried out to manifest the glory of God, like everything else. Well, because of the sin of Adam, it has been subjected to this thing called vanity, which means nothing in the earth has ever realized its potential. Never. Everything is dying, birds sing in the flat keys, and nothing ever realizes the potential that it was created to be. Well, when Christ and the sons of God come to rule and reign, the vanity lid is taken off and the creation begins to perform at what it was designed to do. So God ties that to the revealing of the sons of God. Does that demonstrate His glory and demonstrate His grace?

Absolutely. We're studying on Thursday night in Hebrews being made a little lower than the angels, but man has been put in a position because of Christ to manifest the glory of God even above the angels, even to the point where we're going to judge them. Now, when we go into eternity, after the millennium, is this same principle going to hold true or the ages are over for us? No, for all eternity.

You're a son of God and you'll manifest God's glory for all eternity. Creatures, the saints on the earth will be able to identify you as a son of God because the glory of God will be coming out of you. And it will be by grace alone. You were hoping it would just be a little name tag saying, I am the son of God.

No. The fullness of the glory of God will be manifested through everybody in this room for all creation to see. Well, it's to manifest His glory, which is why He does everything. And to His creation. You okay with that? I'll take your glory if you don't want it. Yeah. And it's about his grace too, because think about this.

He's going to manifest glory through creatures who don't deserve it. We were on the left side of the much mores, not the right side. Miles Stanford used to say that the glory of God shines a lot brighter on a black background. That's me. I was just going to add that the only thought of him being satisfied is his glory. That's his essence of glory. He is satisfied with these humans that are unworthy. And everybody else is going to see that he's satisfied. And all based on grace. Undeserving. That blows my jets. He wants to have, as I say, That's right. That's exactly right.

Well, I'm going to talk about that at the next hour, that this beholding his glory and being transformed into his very image, which begins now on the earth, that that is the principle by which this glory is going to be manifested. It will come from him through us, maybe is the way to say it.

And it all is based on the underlying principle which is fellowship. Isn't that cool? It isn't just an abstraction where you get six pounds of glory today and you manifest it all day because your little rock was shiny. It's not that. It's the fellowship with him is what radiates the glory.

I don't know where that came from. How much power did it take to raise Jesus from the dead and place you in him? None. Do I have anything greater than none? Think about power now. I think so. The thing is, is that it took a tremendous amount of power to create. You know, read in Genesis, the six days of creation, the power that God just spoke it and it was. It took infinitely more power than that to raise Christ from the dead. And to place you in him.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't understand it, but I know that the greatest demonstration of power anywhere is the resurrection of Christ. It took all three persons of the Godhead to pull it off. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And to you I commend my separation. I'll think of Christ holding this creation together. And He continued to hold it together even on the death of the cross. That's extreme power. It is.

And then to be raised to newness of life. You know, we show up around here at Easter time, everybody's got new clothes on, it's real exciting. You don't realize that the resurrection of Christ was the beginning of a brand new creation that is one that infinitely surpasses the one that we live in. And we're known as the first fruit of the new creation. And Christ was the creator of the first creation. He is the new creation. So everything's in Him.

Now, don't ask me what that means. I just know that that's the way it is. And so this new creation exists, but nobody sees it, except believers who can behold the glory of the Lord. It's here. It's been created, it's functioning right now, but nobody sees it. Unless they see Christ in you. Because he is this new creation. And everything in this new creation is entirely new. Kainos, meaning it's a new kind and quality. Nothing like it before.

Even the life is new. It doesn't even function by the same principles as the old creation does. And so here comes the Lord Jesus, through the Apostle Paul in particular, and he tries to describe to you and I what this new creation is, and we're kind of, hmm, gee, that's kind of cool, I guess. But it's entirely new, and there will come a time when this entire creation is blipped out of existence, and what's left is the rest of the new creation.

And it's totally different. I mean, there isn't even any water in the new creation. How about that? Don't need it. New heavens, new earth, new everything. The Hubble telescope won't be any good. I have no idea. Somebody said to me the other day, am I going to have a new creation? Do I get a pet? I said, I don't think you need one. Starbucks? Dr. Pepper?

So, I mean, the new creation is entirely new. If anyone be in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, everything has become new. So even though you're walking around in your old body, positionally in Christ, you're an entirely new creation. That's amazing.

That's a lot more than being saved. Isn't it interesting, and that goes to my next question, that God has made provision for us for every circumstance in our life now, and it's all based on this new creation. Question five was, when Satan approaches you in the midst of weakness and immaturity and charges that God has forsaken you because of your sinful condition, what do you do? What do you do about a circumstance like that? There you go. You reckon on your position.

I'll read a quote to you that I found from Louis Barry Schaeffer. He said, finally consider this encouraging word by Dr. Schaeffer. Could it be possible that God would so love an individual as to give his son to die for him and still love him to the extent of following him with the pleadings and drawings of his grace until he has won that soul into his own family and created him anew by the impartation of his own divine nature and then be careless as to what becomes of the one he has thus given all this to procure? The point is that God has Like Hebrews 13, God has said it, you believe it, and that settles it.

It's done. We've talked a lot, Don and I lately, and other people about how we have the faith of salvation, but not the faith to live. Yet, we sit in a class like this and we learn these incredible statements from God about who we are, where we are, and what we have. And here comes a circumstance and an assault, and we're scratching our heads as to what to do about it.

As ye have begun in the Lord Jesus, so walk ye in him. How do you start? By faith. How do you walk? Same way. But you've got to have the facts. And that's why identification is so important. If you have the facts of identification and a clear understanding about them, you reckon on those to be true. because they are true. The only reason Satan ever has an issue with a believer from God's perspective is to drive you farther into Christ. That's really why he's there. That's why God lets him there. You guys are murmuring back there, I know I'm in trouble. It's a back rows Jewish, they murmur. Which verse? Actually I'm going to use that verse next hour. It's probably less clear then than it is now.

So when you go and make requests of God regarding your needs, what does He give you? He invites you to go, according to Philippians, so you go to Him with prayer and supplication and you make all your needs known to Him. What do you need? So He says, so you ask about it, what does He give you? It gives you the peace that passes understanding. Now put those together. Let's see, I went to you about the Mercedes, and I came out with a peace that passes understanding. How does that fit? How does that work?

Think about that. You go into the Lord about, you know, He says, based on last week's discussion, by the way, I want to share this with you. Because I think only two people saw it, although I've relayed it a couple of times. Last week we talked about access. Remember that? Access to God.

After class, I'm standing here and I'm talking to Courtney and Steve, right? Or somebody. And we're in the middle of a conversation and in the room comes John. He walks right between those guys. He walks up to me and he says, Steve looks at me and said, that's what you're talking about, isn't it? I said, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

So when you have access in terms of prayer, make all your requests known to God, you can barge between the two guys and say, hey Dad, I got this situation, here it is. He says, okay, so let me give you what I got. And he gave you His peace. Because why? Because you've been to Him about it. Do you see that? I mean, John came to me because I'm his dad and he thinks I've got power to fix whatever he came to talk to me about.

And if I said, don't worry about it, I'll take care of it, he goes out what? Satisfied. The God of the universe says to you, okay son, don't worry about it, I'll take care of it. You're going to go, oh gee, I wonder if He will. He gives you part of him. Yeah, the Mercedes isn't important. That's right.

And so what you find out is that the things that he gives you, the value of them to you, supersedes whatever you thought was really valuable at the time. That's what it gives you. So whatever, you're not worried, you're not... your mind, your heart, it's okay. So built into that is it giving you faith too, so you have faith that you have that peace?

Yeah, it's interesting. There's a whole... aura around all of those verses that is underlined by one word, and that's intimacy. There's an intimacy there that Christ says, make all your requests known, which means you can. Come and do it, right? And there's a, how do I say this?

It's much more satisfying to the human heart to know that the God of the universe, who loves you, has received from you your request, and he has given you himself as the answer. And so, in and of himself guards your mind and your heart, and you have peace about the issue. Because you walk away thinking, well, whatever he wants to do about it, it's okay with me. Even if he doesn't do anything.

What if you are dealing with people who are other Christians and they're in circumstances that really burden you and it's like there's a second link there? Where you're going to Him with somebody else? I think it's the same thing because I don't know about you but there's been lots of times in my life where Somebody like Courtney will say, can you pray about a circumstance?

I say, oh yeah. So I go to the Lord about it, and I get a sense from him that he isn't going to do it the way Courtney wants me to pray. Because, you know, you look at our minds. We know we can approach God, so we think about our needs, and not only that, we have the solution. So we go to God and we say, here's the need and here's how I want you to solve it. He must think, okay. But he doesn't solve it that way.

And so I'm praying about Courtney, and the next thing I know, what's happening to him is totally different than what I asked about. Where am I in this circumstance? I know, because I've put it in God's hands, that it's in the capable hands, and He's working it to the most advantage to Courtney, and to everybody that's around him, including me. So it may not turn out the way I asked. but it turned out to be the most edifying to Courtney and to the glory of God. Does that make sense? Because, I mean, I've prayed for, and I don't know anymore whether you should do this or not, I've prayed for people to be saved. I've prayed for, you know, lots of circumstances I know, like right in the body of Christ here, and sometimes the Lord, I'm tracking pretty good and it kind of works out that way, and other times, It's 180 from what I was thinking, but I was comfortable with it once I was with him about it. You know, I mean, it's in his hands. Because he says make all requests, not all of them. And he'll still do his will. But he wants you to have that intimacy. And then you learn through whatever changes, circumstances, whatever.

You know, John comes in, walks in and says, Dad, give me a shotgun and some shells and I'll go play outside. Yeah. I don't think you're just going to give me the keys to the car. That's even worse. Even though he has the intimacy to ask that, that's not in his best interest or will.

But you have that intimacy to come and ask. There's lots of times you ask. And a lot of times, I think we pray for God's glory through the circumstances. I go back to that song, sometimes he calms the storm and sometimes he calms the individual. The trials are there. Oh my goodness, we're over. We've got to quit.

Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace towards us and the fact that you're approachable and that you do give us this one thing that's over the top for us and that's the peace that passes understanding. We thank you for the life we have in your dear son and we pray in his name. Amen.