Identification Truths

Okay, we're going to try to go fast today. You'll notice if you looked at the questions that I didn't delve into them all that much. I just sort of tried to put their tough questions. In number 29, it says that we are light in the Lord. And so my question was in Ephesians 5, 8 and 1 Thessalonians 5, 4 through 5, talks about that.

How does a believer walk in the light? I thought I'd start off with an easy question. What's the first thing? If you were to systematize it in your mind in terms of how does this really work? Walking in the light, how is that going to be or how is it accomplished? What would be the first thing that you would be thinking of?

You have to believe in the light first. That's right. You have to know that you're positioned in Christ in the light. And if you don't know that, You have no chance at walking in the light. Do you buy that statement? You have to know. So that's why we spend time studying the Word of God. We learn that we are already positioned in Christ, who is the light. Then the next step is, we believe it. Real simple thing. We believe what God tells us about who we are, where we are. In this case, Now you are light in the Lord, walk as children of the light.

You never get an exhortation from Paul to do anything until he's already said, here's what's already true of you, now function based on what's true. If you don't know what's true, you can't function. It's a really important principle. You have to know. And so one of the things you're going to find as you move on in your Christian life and you come in contact with other theologies and that kind of thing, that if positional truth is not known, then there's going to be nothing but unrest and struggle. There just will be. Do you agree with that? Sure.

There won't be rest. You can't rest in anything other than the position that God says is already true of you. We're not Jews hoping that something's going to happen in the future. We're Christians who believe in facts. things that are already true of us. One of the old brethren said, it's only in proportion as we are filled with him and have him to the exclusion of our own evil that we ourselves walk in the truth. Let us have our hearts fixed on any one thing or person save the one who is our life and evil results.

It seems kind of weird when you talk about that. We were talking about this on Tuesday a little bit. when you're walking in the Spirit, because we're talking about the fruit of the Spirit, what's going on behind your eyeballs? What are you seeing? What are you experiencing when you're walking in the Spirit or in the light? Tell me. A lot of hard work. A lot of hard work. It's interesting. Is it work? Because in Galatians where we're studying, the work is in the works of the flesh. But what is it called? The works of the Spirit? It's called the fruit of the spirit, right?

And fruit is a result of the vine doing all the work. Isn't that interesting? And we're the branches and the fruit hangs on the end of us and we're hooked into the vine and the life comes out of the vine through the branch and produces a fruit on the end. How much energy does the branch contribute to the production of fruit? Zippo! Oh, that means we all get to get real lazy.

What are you doing from the back of your eyeballs when you're walking in the Spirit? What are you thinking about, focused on? What do you think? I'm focused on Christ. Christ himself. And when you say that, you think, what does that mean? I have to be consciously praying all the time? No. It's the Spirit's job, from John 14, 15, and 16, to reveal Christ to the believer. And not only through the Word, but to have that understanding permeated in your mind and your focus as you just live your life. Have you not experienced just driving down the street and Christ is in your mind?

You wake up in the middle of the night, Christ is in your mind. Do you not know what that's like? Sure you do. Well, he didn't get there because you're smart and because you made a mental note right before you went to sleep that if I wake up at 2.30 I'm going to think of Christ. That isn't the way it is.

It's the Spirit's job in you. So what's neat about that is that because it's his job, what do you get to do? Trust him and rest. To do what he's been sent to do. If you try to work at it, you frustrate what he's doing. Any questions? So my next question was, do you have a responsibility to walk in the light? Well, it's either yes or no. Pick one. Yes or no. Let me say yes. Absolutely. You do. It's a command. That's an imperative. So it's not a recommendation. You know, it's a command.

Just looking at it, the light isn't something that are walking in the light isn't something necessarily. that we perform to walk in a certain way. We are the light. We were darkness, but now you're light. Walk in it. That's exactly the point. That's exactly the point. So you, like we started out, you learn that you're in the light or in Christ, right? By faith you say, okay, I believe you. I trust there.

So I'm commanded to do something that's already true of me. Positionally, I'm commanded to do conditionally. In other words, you might say, just stay where you are. Don't move. In Galatians it says, stand fast in the liberty with which Christ has made you free. And right away you think, well, what should I do? Nothing, just stay where you are by faith. It's not a struggle thing. No. That's exactly right.

So it shows you how important these 34 things are, positions that we've been studying, and how to live in them. Now, this next one, vitally united to the Father, Son and Spirit, it's interesting that the whole identification class has been pretty much about that. So I called it down to, what does it mean to be? And the first thing I said, what does it mean to be a member of Christ's body. What does that mean?

It's part of the family. Part of the family, okay. Which is important. Okay. What do you share? I mean... The same spirit. What's that? The same spirit. Same spirit? Same life? Your thumb doesn't occupy different life than your elbow does. It's all the same life.

So you're united to Christ And the word and the phraseology is His body. And in Ephesians it talks about how body works together, that everything works to the performance of the whole. The other cool thing about being a member of the body of Christ is that for all eternity God will manifest His glory through His Son, who is the head of the body, and who else? Us, who is the body.

I say this all the time and people blink when I say it, When we're ruling and reigning with Christ in the Millennial Kingdom, all of those human beings that are on the earth will be able to look at each one of you and say, there goes a son of God. Not because you're wearing a name tag that says, I am a son of God, but because the manifestation of the glory of God will be radiating out of you. And everyone will know you're a son because of that.

What does it mean to be a branch in the vine? You're grafted into the source of life. You're the conduit through which that life flows. And you're the hanger, so to speak, that the food hangs on. So being a branch in the vine, the life is in the vine. And the life comes out of the vine.

We did an experiment with the kids one Sunday to demonstrate this. We took a roll of paper towels. We took some off and made branches out of them by rolling them up and we cut holes in the side of the roll of paper towels and stuck those in there. And then we had a big bowl of colored water and we stuck it down in the water and that thing siphoned right up into the branch. So the kids figured out, hey, this is what John 15 means. The life comes up out of the vine into the branches. So their job is to abide in the vine.

So what does it mean to be a stone in the building? And by the way, Peter calls us what kind of stones? Living stones. So, again, it's a description, I think also, of the body of Christ. A building has to have all of its pieces to be called a building. And we're the living stones of it. This is also the temple of God, where God resides. We are part of that building. That's right. That's exactly right.

The body of Christ on the earth is also a building. I mean, if you think about, you know, if you have low self-esteem, I've got news for you. You're a temple of the very God of the universe and he abides in you wherever you go and whatever you do. How can you have low self-esteem if that's true of you? You know? It isn't about your esteem anyway. He's the chief cornerstone. Yeah. That's right.

What does it mean to be a sheep in the flock? The cool thing about being a sheep in the flock is the fact of the shepherd. And the shepherd is the one that takes care of the sheep and gave his life for the sheep. Really important. part of that too, where my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. It's the intimacy again. Isn't that awesome? It's not like you're just part of a bunch of a herd. That's right. You're individually known by the shepherd. Yeah. And they know my voice. And they know my voice and they follow me. It's John where?

27. Yeah.

That is an amazing verse when you think about it. The Lord Jesus speaks and his sheep know his voice. And that's true, not having spent a lot of time around sheep herders, but I know, years ago one time I was in the mountains looking for a place to fish way up high, and I ran into a bass herdsman with a bunch of sheep, and he could make them move just by saying something to them, and they all knew his voice. That's very cool. The Lord calls you, you know his voice, and you hear it.

What does it mean to be a part of his bride? Bride is a very special position to have, isn't it? No one has greater intimacy with the groom than the bride, right? So there you are. There is no more intimate fellowship between two persons than husband and wife, or bride, being the very bride of Christ. And he's going to present us to himself spotless. Isn't that neat? I'll say it another way.

You know, people who try to admix Israel in with the church. Who did Jesus say was the greatest man that ever lived on the earth? John the Baptist. He says the greatest man that ever lived on the earth. Yet, what else did he say about him? John the Baptist said about himself, he said, I'm a friend of the bridegroom. I'm a friend of the bridegroom. He did not say, I'm the bride. See that? So Israel is a friend of the bridegroom. You're the bride. See? They get to come to the wedding. You get to be in it. And you're also a priest of the kingdom of priests. What does it mean to be a priest? What does a priest do? What is his function? He's a representative, isn't he? Who does he represent? That's right. In the things of God.

The Lord Jesus Christ is a high priest according to who? Melchizedek. Do you know the basic difference between Melchizedek and Levi? What did the Levitical priesthood do all day long? They prayed. What else did they do? What was their main job? Sacrifice. That's all they did, right? What was Melchizedek's main job? Blessing. You're a high priest after the order of blessing. Okay? So that's what you do. As a priest, you bless. Okay? Does that make sense? No, because Dick was a king, too. Yeah, he was a king of peace. Yeah, those were the two things, peace and blessing. So, you have by kingdom and by priesthood, the privilege of representing the whole body of Christ before God, because you're a priest. Pretty cool.

What is a saint of a new generation? What's a saint mean? What are saints? It means the same thing as sanctified, the same thing as holy, set apart. So you've been set apart in this context, you're set apart of a new generation, a new beginning. What is that? brand new creation.

You're the first fruits, which we'll talk about maybe in a minute. So, the next part is that we're first fruits or we're the earnest of the Spirit. We're born of the Spirit, we're baptized by means of the Spirit, we're enthralled by the Spirit, we're sealed by the Spirit, and we're anointed with the Spirit. What does it mean to be a first fruit? In Israel, when they had the first fruits, what did the first fruit represent? Wasn't that called a waving kind of a thing? What does the first fruit represent? It's the beginning of the harvest season. Beginning of the harvest. Dedicated to God. That was collected first and consecrated to God as an offering of gratitude. Dedicated to God before the rest could be used.

That's right. What was the unique thing about the first fruit? It's pure. It's pure. It also represented the whole crop. The first fruit meant that all that came after it was going to be just like it was. Okay? And God got the first fruit. So here you are and I am.

We're the first fruits of the new creation. What are we? We're representative of all that the whole crop is going to be. We're all going to be the same. himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, being the one who is the representative. So you're just like him. You're entitled first fruit. So there isn't any difference in terms of standing position before God in Christ. We're all first fruit. But the reason we're called first fruit is because a new creation hasn't been implemented yet. We're already part of it, but it hasn't taken over.

And it won't until the end of the millennium and God recreates the heavens and the earth. Who created the first creation? Christ. Who created this new creation? Put it this way. He is the new creation. He didn't create it. He is it. See that? He is the new creation. And it's really hard to think outside of creating things. But he isn't a thing. He's a creation itself.

What does it mean to be baptized? What does baptized by means of the spirit mean? Placed into? Yeah, it means that he was the agent in which something happened. By means of him, we were baptized. And baptism means to be placed into, never to be taken out of. Okay? So when you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and his work, The Spirit of God put you in Christ. How did He do it? We spent a year talking about it.

He identified you with the death of Christ on the cross, right? He placed you in Christ at the time that Christ died. You were buried with Him and when He rose to newness of life, so did you. See that? You got into that event by the Spirit of God placing you in Christ at the point of His death. So that when he died, so did you. When he rose, so did you.

I don't understand 1 Corinthians 10.7 how it's applying to that. It may not. I was looking at that myself, thinking somebody wasn't paying attention. Yeah, I agree with you, Steve. Was it another verse somewhere? Yeah, I think it's a wrongly placed verse and I don't know why. Well, to see who was doing their homework or not.

So by means of the Spirit or by his agency, you would change from being a lost sinner with a deprived nature to the righteousness of God, to now that you have the very righteousness of God, and you have a divine nature, and our relationship to the law has been totally changed, you once were a guilty sinner, now you're a totally justified saint. And all of that because the Spirit, by means of the Spirit, you were placed into Christ.

Okay? How'd you get to be First Fruits? Oh, it's simple. Come on. It's a really easy question. Huh? Yeah, but what makes you the first fruit? I think you got it. You were raised with him. That makes you the first fruit. See that? In the death part, you're not a fruit of anything other than death. Resurrection is the first fruit, because it's in the newness of life, the new creation. See that?

Okay. Alright, what does the sealing of the spirit guarantee? By the way, sealing, what does sealing mean? It means it closed up the box, put the lock on it, and stamped it. You're done. How does he seal you? The hole will be opened by the right person. That's right. And that's him. So you've been sealed permanently in Christ.

I've had people come to me and say, boy, you know, I'm really worried about losing my salvation because I'm not living the really cool Christian life that I think I should be living. So the answer I think is, number one, salvation wasn't your idea. Number two, it was something that God did. Three, the Spirit placed you in Christ at the time of His death, united you to Him. You were buried, you died, you were buried, you were resurrected, ascended and seated in the heavenlies.

And the Holy Spirit is the sealer of that, Now, if you were to lose your salvation, here's what would have to happen. Christ would have to do a U-turn, come back down from heaven, go back into the grave, go back up on the cross and come down from the cross and be all by himself and then disconnect himself from you.

That's what losing your salvation would require. Because your security is based on him, not you. You'd have to lose his connection with the Lord. You'd have to stop being God, for one thing. Yeah. You know, it's like how does a person in Adam not become a person in Adam? They got to die. So, the Bible says, you know, it's given unto man once to die and then to judgment. Have you all died? Yeah.

And it goes back to that line, not knowing that crucifixion, you know, through the tubes again. That doesn't make sense to people. But they don't also understand that they're dying in new creatures in Christ. No crucifixion. That's where the stumbling block is. They haven't gotten beyond that to where what they do, they're still an atom.

Trying to please and do by performance. They lose their position. accepted that part. Right. That's our own very nature. Yeah. To be that way. Yeah. Because we're so used to having to do something to please someone. That's right. That's innate in the old man. Yeah.

See the old man in Adam lost his first estate, did he not? He sinned and lost Eden. So what's Adam been trying to do these 10,000 years? Trying to get back. And he's, you know, in his makeup, he's thinking, boy, if I can just figure out what would please God, he'd let me back in. The problem is, is that not only when Adam sinned did he get kicked out of the garden, but he changed intrinsically. He became this thing called flesh. And flesh doesn't get to get into the Garden of Eden, so what does God do? He doesn't... polish up, fix up, wash up the flesh.

When you believe in Christ, what happens? You die. You get separated from all that Adam was. You get united to Christ and resurrected. Trust me, Christ isn't going to live in the Garden of Eden for all eternity. He ain't going back there. You know? You're now a son that lives in the heavenlies. You know, something that Adam never even thought about.

Does the Garden of Eden serve any purpose? Oh, absolutely. Today? Well, insofar as it demonstrates that man is earthly, God gave him dominion, that Adam was a perfect man in a perfect world. But also I'm not sure that that was the destiny that God always had for Adam.

If Adam doesn't sin, then there's no cross. How do you get identified with Christ then? How do you leave your position in Adam? There's no need for a new man, another man, representative man to come. It's interesting that God's solution to Adam's fall was greater than even his first creation. It's amazing when you think about it. Was it a mistake that it wasn't great enough? No, no it wasn't at all. I think that because God gave Adam a test, you know, I don't think God ever wants, or God's, because He gives man free will, or gave Adam free will, I'm not going to say man had free will, because He gave Adam free will, He gave him a test. And really, what did Adam choose between? What did he choose between really? Himself or God, right? And when he chose himself, God said, okay, you can have you instead of me.

This is what you are about me. Yeah, and here's what, now that you have a sin nature, I mean, you read Romans chapter 1, right? Once you get past the verses about what God requires of all men, how many verses is it before man is in total depravity? Three. Three, you know. He's so far down in his soup, there's no coming back, you know. Three verses, you know.

Have we all been anointed by the Spirit? And what does anointing mean as a difference between being baptized by the Spirit and in Christ? Does every believer have a gift? Every single one of us has at least one, right? What is a spiritual gift? Something God says, okay, I got this, I'm going to give it to you, now it's yours. I'll give you instructions and do the best you can with it. Is that what it is? What is a spiritual gift? I think gift is kind of a misnomer, but what is a spiritual gift? How does it work? One, do you own it?

No. You don't own it. So what are you? Conduit. You're a conduit. Through which, who does the work? Yeah, it's interesting. They're the Spirit's gifts. They belong to Him. But He's using you to accomplish things, right? The other interesting thing about the spiritual gifts is that if you look at them, like in Ephesians, they're all designed for the edification of the body of Christ. Every single one of them is. None of them are designed for personal gratification. Not a single one. And in order for a spiritual body to grow and function, it takes gifted people to do it. See that?

It's interesting that God is so... His plan is so intricately thought out, that He makes each one of us interdependent on each other. Because you have different gifts than I have, and I have to rely on you, and you rely on me. Because we're all, as a body, you know, Your finger relies on your hand, relies on your wrist, relies on your forearm, and relies on blood and muscle and nerves and all that kind of stuff in order to function as a body.

Nothing in your body functions by itself. Trust me. If it does, you lose it. I think there's a little tweak there that can happen as a result of the old nature You can be anointed to use a gift, but then your old nature can supersede it if you're not paying attention and tweak it so that you're focusing back on your own. No question about that. There's no question about that. You know what's great about that? It just is another opportunity for the Spirit to use that for your growth.

There's nothing like somebody who knows they have a gift and it ends up back on them. And it's like, get ready, because here comes the squeeze. If you use it wrongly, it's obvious to me that you're not manifesting the gift you have. You're just trying to imitate it, and it isn't happening. And so if you're a teacher, you recognize that if you're in it and you're doing it, nobody's getting edified. Nobody.

And I have to tell you, bang, you know, that just hits you right between the eyes because you know if God has called you to do something, you know, and around our body you see all kinds of people with different gifts, you know, that do things, that contribute, and it's the Spirit of God doing it, you know, and it may be just a little thing that nobody notices. Somebody might have the spirit of exhortation, and they quietly go around and they exhort people. and they help them, they seem to know and pick them out, you know, and they just come up alongside them and exhort them, and the people walk away thinking, boy, am I glad they came by today. You know, all that kind of stuff goes on, and you never see it, seldom, but that's the way the body functions, I think.

It isn't just teaching. Teaching is one of those high-profile jobs, but there's all kinds of other things that are going on that each one of you is a participant in, John thinks that Ingrid has a spiritual gift. She does. It's baking. She's like, oh, I just welcome people. I'm like, are you kidding? I would never let people in my house every day, every week. Yeah. Yeah. So that's great. Okay. I have about five minutes to cover the last three, that's good.

The next one was that believers are glorified and it's Romans 8.30. Now, we've been sanctified and we've been glorified.

If you read Romans 8.30, somebody read it quickly who might have it. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, then he also called, and he called them also to be justified, and to be justified, then he also glorified. Don't you find it interesting in that sequence of verses that the word sanctified isn't there? Why? Why do you go from justification to glorification?

Nothing in between. What do you think? Somebody made a mistake, they left a word out. This is positional truth, which means you don't need the progressive spiritual growth mentioned there. God has justified you, he's declared you righteous and glorified you. So the issue is, from a positional standpoint, because you've been placed in Christ, you get all of the attributes that Christ has, which is glory. Remember when we studied John, maybe none of you were in that class, in John 17, the Lord says to his Father, Father, the glory which you have given me, I've given them."

What is he talking about there? What does he mean that he's... Earlier on he says, Father, glorify me with the glory that we had before the world began. So here's a man asking God, the Father, to manifest the glory of God in and through a human being just like they've had the first and second person of the Trinity for all eternity. So now, God says, I've glorified you and I'll do it in the future.

In other words, I'm going to manifest through you, human being, all of my attributes. You get those too? Isn't that too much? Yeah. You get that glory. And only because Christ said, I want them to have it. I want them to be with me where I am. I want them to share my glory.

How much did he do for it? Nothing. He didn't do anything for it. I think that we Christians just minimally understand what that is going to be like. To literally, I mean, you look at Revelation and you see the Apostle John walking around in heaven and he looks at angels and he hits the floor. And the angel is saying, hey, get up, I'm not the guy. In eternity, when we go into eternity, after we become the bride of Christ, the glory that will be manifested through each person in this room is greater than what John saw in an angel.

I mean, how do you hold on to that? But that's a done deal. I have glorified them. And not only that, God just determined to do it. When? The last time you were doing a good job? It's been done. It's been done. When did He determine this? Before we accepted Christ. Yeah, but even before that. He predestinated us to be conformed to His image and to be glorified. Man, is it necessary that we be glorified? Absolutely it is. The Son of God is always glorified. It's part of the deal. It comes with it.

Colossians 2.10 In Christ Jesus dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily and you are complete in Him. What does that mean, to be complete in Him? What's the word complete mean? Nothing missing. So in Christ Jesus dwells the fullness of the Godhead. So all that God is, is in the man. And then it says you're complete in him. You've got it all too.

I have a question about this. Please. A friend of mine was about to fall asleep on his sleeping pills or something, and he said something like, we all become God. Sounds like a Mormon. And I think I don't have any of that, but actually our friendship broke up because I was like, no, we don't become God's plural, we become God's possessive.

And so, like, there's an apostrophe there. Yeah. So, I mean, is this... Well, the thing about the... We get everything that Christ does except deity. Okay? So, when the Lord Jesus Christ, as a man, is... given the glory of God as a man, and I think as a man is really critical here, sitting on the throne of God today as a human being, not an angel, and not a spirit, it's a man. And that man is the son of God, and he's also the son of man, and the glory of God is manifested through him. Okay? We get all of that, but we don't get deity.

Maybe put it another way. You've heard people talk about the... Donna? I was just thinking what she was saying there. There's such a propensity in us that we're going to be individuals rather than one with Christ. Yeah, oh, that's a good point. I wouldn't want to be a God in... We wouldn't want to be. You wouldn't want to be. Only from Adam.

Yeah. Okay. That's what Satan wants. I want you to think that... That's what Satan thought of, be as God. You know, a theologian never had an original idea. He looks at what God's doing and he tries to duplicate it. What does he know? Nothing. The copy is always worse than the original.

So, and then the last, the very last one, which is probably a good one to end on, is Ephesians 1.3. I'm blessed with every spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. So, if God has determined that all the fullness of the Godhead is to be in Christ, then there isn't going to be anything blessing outside of Him. Back to what Donna said, you know, we like to think individually.

There is no spiritual blessings outside of Christ. And what's the difference between spiritual blessings and, say, earthly blessings? Why would you want spiritual blessings? I mean, why wouldn't you want earthly ones? They don't laugh. No, it's because you're spiritual people. You're not earthly people anymore. You're spiritual people. You're heavenly.

I'll read a quote that Charles Coates said, Every blessing is now connected with the Lord Jesus at the right hand of the hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. It's a great thing to have the consciousness that we are bound up with Him there in heavenly glory and to know that we are with Him in that sphere of ascension to participate in all that constitutes His life in that blessed circle of love and glory where He lives unto the Father. If we apprehend this we shall not be deceived and intoxicated by what goes on upon the earth." Isn't that a great statement?

That's it. Thanks for coming. Alright, next week we'll start the basic doctrines of salvation. If you're missing any sections, I promise you I'm still working on a correct sequence of lessons and chapters so you can have it in your notebook correctly done. Father, we thank you for your son and for all your blessings towards us. Father, we look forward as we grow in the knowledge and grace of your dear son to be able to abide in all that we are in him. We thank you. We pray in his precious name. Amen.