Our Response to His Coming
Mike Doyle · Dec 22, 2019
Specials, No. 01
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261917183707

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

Good morning, you know, I was looking at I gotta go back and check us show you this you see right there where it says born that no man may die Born to raise the sons of earth and born to give them second birth That's really what we've been talking about the last few days Friday night on the Philippians Christmas Eve program where we talked a lot about the first few Verses in Philippians 2 5 We talked about what it cost Christ to come to the earth and become a man, and how difficult, at least from our perspective, it probably was.

But the Apostle Paul had encouraged the people in Philippi by saying to them, there's a mindset contained herein. Here's the mindset, the very mind of Christ, and let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And these verses are really interesting because they cover, as we talked about on Friday, the entire life of the Lord Jesus. It covers his pre-existence, it covers his incarnation, his humiliation, his crucifixion, resurrection, and it also covers his ascension and exaltation. So, like we said on Friday, it shows you the round-trip itinerary of the Lord Jesus on the earth.

Did he come and realize his purpose? Yes, he did. He came all the way down from heaven to eventually outside the city of Jerusalem to a cross and he gave his life. And it wasn't by accident that this happened. The cross was in God's mind way before Christ showed on Christmas Day It was the real reason or the initial purpose of his coming to the earth was to die. That's why he came.

And then he went from glory all the way down to die a common criminal's death. To the point on the cross where he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So even the death of the cross indicates the kind of death he died. It just wasn't that all men die, but this was a particularly severe and demeaning kind of a death. And the stress is on the kind of death that he died. Now, the word death, as we talked about on Friday night, means separation, and so the question has to be asked, when Christ died, what did he separate from?

What did he separate from? Well, we talked a lot about the fact that he separated from this world, which we identified as the first creation. It was his, he created it, and yet he allowed his creatures, his created ones, to kill him and to remove him from his own creation. They kicked him out. So, he separated in that process from the whole principle of sin and its penalty, which actually is part of the first creation. That's where sin exists.

His death actually, well, let me back up a little bit. I think when he came to the earth, which we celebrate now Christmas Day, it was the death now. It was the beginning of the end of the first creation. And fast forward 33 years, he actually dies. And that was the first indication that the first creation was going to end.

And we talked a little bit about how God does things. He told Adam, when you sin, you will surely die. Well, when he sinned, he died immediately spiritually, but it was 900 plus years before he died physically. So God can implement His purposes, but not have them carried out over Immediately over a long time like we know that the earth is going to be blipped out of existence And there's going to be a new creation.

Well. It's at least a thousand and seven years from right now Seven years of tribulation and a thousand years in a millennial kingdom, so We get to wait no So When the Creator is removed from His creation, there's no meaning anymore for the first creation. If the Creator is out of there, what's the meaning? What's the purpose? There isn't any. So in summary, from the other night, we could say that Jesus the Son came to die, but He also came to be raised out of a now passing away creation to a brand new creation.

In Ephesians 1.10, We're told God's purpose for the stewardship or the fullness of times, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, that He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on the earth in Him.

Gather together all things in Christ which are in heaven and in the earth, all to the glory of God the Father, all in Christ. He has made him the head over all things to the church. He, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all. Christ fills everything, but he doesn't do it in the first creation. It's going to take the new one to accomplish all that.

The church, we as members of the body of Christ, we're the first fruit of the new creation. We all look the same, our bodies are the same, and we live in the first creation that's dying, but we really are seated in Christ in the heavenlies and members, first fruit of this new creation.

So, God sending his son, the number one thing is that he came to die. And death meaning separation, he not only is separating from sin, but the separation includes the first creation. He died for sin, to pay the penalty for everybody's sins, to God's satisfaction, not ours, to God's, which means that everybody's sins have been paid for by the work of Christ on the cross. But for those who believe, He died unto the principle of sin. He died unto this thing, sin itself, and so did you when you believed on Him.

So what should our response be to His coming? John 1.14 says, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And what did we do? We beheld His glory. John says, They beheld His glory. The glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. He came to become what we were so that we could become what He is.

And 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. Why did he do that? So that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ.

So the verse that we've been studying as we've gone through Galatians, the key verse is Galatians 2.20. I am crucified. I have been crucified with Christ.

He took us with him And we died unto sin, the whole principle. He didn't forgive the sin nature, he condemned it. He forgave your sins, but he didn't forgive the one who does the sins. He condemned it. And the reason he did that was because he knew that my sin nature would never change. Your sin nature would never change. He couldn't fix it up. So he deals with the issue of your penalty because you had produced and continue to produce sins and took care of that whole penalty. But he had to do something about the producer, the source, and he crucified it and condemned it.

So, in the meantime, his sole purpose in coming again is to take us home, to be with him. So he's going to come twice. He's been here once. He's coming again. And sometimes we as believers view this plan of what we call two events or two Advents. The first Advent, He came to die. The second one, He's coming to take us home. Isn't that interesting? He's going to come and gather us up. But we're living in the meantime. We are waiting for this second arrival. And so what does our mindset tell us?

I better be reading my Bible. I better pray some more. I better be in a position where he's going to find me spiritually busy. I've got to go to church every Sunday. I've got to do that. And I'm going to try to live a better Christian life. That's kind of the mindset. But there's another purpose. that he came, and that is to live again. And to live again, for him, meant that death couldn't hold him. Even though he was numbered among the dead, it couldn't hold him.

There was an eternal covenant, and a covenant is a transaction, in a common language we would call it a deal, between the Father and the Son. And it was a pretty simple transaction. If you'll become a man and go to earth and die for the sins of the world, which you're the only one, by the way, who could do it to satisfy God's holiness, then I will raise you up and I will bring you as a man and seat you at my right hand. Now, he's talking God talking to God. And so they make this transaction.

What's happening is, as this new creation is brought forward, one of the problems we have is understanding when we read especially the epistles, well what's he talking about? Kingdom, new creation, heaven, the focus is really difficult sometimes to get our arms around what it is. So let's talk about the old creation for a minute. The first now old creation was made by the Lord Jesus with Adam being put in as the head of that creation.

Colossians 1.16 says, For by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. And all things were created through him and for him. Well, that kind of covers the whole first creation, doesn't it? Why it was done. It's for him. It's his creation.

But when Adam sinned, what happened? The whole race died because the whole creation died. Adam was in charge. 1 Corinthians 15, 22 says, for in Adam all die. All die. Even so, in Christ shall all be made alive. So the resultant judgment and condemnation were judicially accomplished on the cross in the death of Christ unto sin.

Romans 8.3 says, and this is the verse that talks about your and my sin nature, God did by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and according to sin, what did He do with the sin nature? He condemned sin in the flesh. Thank you, Lord. I'm really glad you did that because he is dealing with the producer of my sins. Now, Calvary judicially ended Adam and all of his creation.

It did, but it hasn't been implemented yet. It has for every one of us because we're in Christ. But the total carrying out of it doesn't happen for a while. 2 Peter 3 10 says but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with fervent heat both the earth and the works and the works that are in it will be burned up. End of first creation. I remember years ago listening to Hal Malloy talk about this verse and he said We know a little bit about nuclear power and how it works. Can you imagine where God, the Lord Jesus Christ, turns every molecule in the whole creation into a nuclear bomb? The whole thing? It would just disappear. It would go away. I hope you have a heat shield that day.

But 2 Peter 3.13 says, nevertheless we according to his promise look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Well, we have already entered into that. We have already become part of that.

Each believer's relationship to the fallen Adamic race was terminated at the cross. If the Lord Jesus born in Bethlehem came to die on the cross, he did a lot more than just pay the penalty for your sins. And I've taken Romans 6 here and I've kind of turned it around in the sense that I did verse 6 first and then verse 5. And I did it purposely so that we could look at it from the standpoint of, if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, we have, since we have, we certainly shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, yes.

Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, taken offline, put out of action, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. That's why he did it. So that we wouldn't be slaves to sin. Really important. Now, new creation. When Christ the Lord Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father on high, it was a brand new beginning.

Do you remember, I think we talked about it a few weeks ago, somebody did, maybe it was Sunday school class. He's standing around his own grave and Mary's there and she's looking for his body. And she's there thinking in her mind, I just got to find it. Somebody stole the body of Jesus. I got to find it.

I don't know what she was going to do with it when she found it, but she thought it was important to her. And Jesus comes up and talks to her and she thinks he's the gardener. And he says to her, back and forth, and when he mentions her name, she recognizes him. But then he said a very interesting thing to her.

He said, King James says, don't touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my father. Did he say, hands off? I think what he was saying to her was, don't identify with me because I have risen and I'm about to be glorified There's a brand new creation that has just begun and I'm standing right in front of you And I don't want you to identify with me from the old I Want you to identify with me?

After I've been glorified by the Father as a man So after the total termination of the first creation on the cross the last Adam who the Lord Jesus is the last Adam there isn't going to be another one and was free to rise as the head and life of the spiritual, eternal, all-new creation.

That happened on the day, what we call Easter Sunday. So he stepped forth on resurrection ground, bearing in his heart every single believer, every one of us, whom by death he has separated us from the first Adam. The first creation began with the heavens and the earth, followed by the creation of an earthly man. The new creation began with a heavenly man to be followed by a new heaven and new earth.

I was sitting in a pew when we were singing, and I was thinking, the Lord Jesus is the gift that never stops giving. You know, most of us, we get these gifts that, like, where you're going to have to make an annual payment for, or something like that, and you think, oh, they gave me the gift that never quits. I'm going to have to pay. But the Lord Jesus, in His grace, gave us the gift that never stops, which is new creation life, and a position in the new creation.

So, Revelation 3.14 says, And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write these things, says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the new creation.

He's the new creation. You ever think about this? He created the first one. He is the new one. We are in Him. He is the creation, the new creation. The first creation was produced by the Lord Jesus as a groundwork actually for the new creation. Each of us, each of our relationships to the fallen Adam race was terminated at the cross. Each of us. I just read the verses out of Romans.

The risen Lord Jesus in Colossians 1.18, He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead, that in all things He may have preeminence. This new creation can't be spoiled by a creature because it's all about Christ. There's no restoration. There's no reformation of the old. This is not a rehab fix-and-flip process.

It's a totally new beginning from death into eternal life. Romans 6.4 says, therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, and just as Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should all walk in newness Life sounds like the word life is the noun there. It isn't newness is the noun We walk in a new creation newness Entirely new kind of kind and quality of life that never was before So another reason for its coming is to take us with him He told us he was going to do that and it's not in the future when he comes again, but it's right now. I Remember, not only did he take us to the cross with him, he also placed us in his grave with him, and he resurrected, he took us there, and he has taken us in his ascension to heaven.

So positionally, we're seated with him in the heavenlies right this second. Right this second. What should our response be to these additional facts that we now know? It's the same as when he came for the first Christmas. He dwelt among men, and what happened? They beheld His glory. Well, guess what? We're to do the same thing. We are to behold Him and His glory, and we're to do it right now, not when He comes. Back up.

2 Corinthians 3.18 Beholding, but we all with unveiled face, no impediments, beholding as in a mirror. What's the mirror?

It's the Word of God. The glory of the Lord Jesus. If you read your Bible to stick your head full of facts, you're missing the whole point. The reason you read your Bible is to behold the glory of Christ. That's what the Spirit of God has been given us to do. We are being transfigured or transformed into the same image from glory to glory.

And who does this work? It's the Spirit of God. He indwells each one of us. His job is to reveal the Lord Jesus personally to every single one of us and do it in such a manner that we would behold His glory. And when you behold His glory, guess what happens? You start getting transformed or transfigured into His very image. So the life He gave us begins to be the dominant life manifested through us. He came so that we could take us with Him to behold His glory. Starting right now, we get to behold His glory and it gets nothing but bigger all the time. Imagine, in eternity, people that we have known that are in eternity now, the minute they showed up there was the least amount of a capacity they're going to have to behold the glory of the Lord Jesus.

That will increase for all eternity. There will never be a time where you get to say, well, I got enough. Because you'll never have enough. And you'll never say, well, I'm satisfied. He is of such a character that we will continually grow in Him for all eternity.

Now, when did all this... I keep thinking about, in these verses, what was John the Apostle doing? Was he hiding behind a bush, listening to the Lord pray in the Garden of Gethsemane? But listen to what he says. The Lord Jesus is talking to the Father now, right before he's going to get crucified, and he says, Father, I'm not praying for these alone, meaning the twelve, but also for those who will believe me through their word. Now watch what he's asking for.

That they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us. Why? That the world may know that you sent me. How does the world know that Christ has been here? Because they can see Him in all of us and every believer. And the glory which you gave me, I have given them, that they may be one just as we are one.

You could spend the whole rest of the day just on those two verses trying to figure out, what is he really talking about? I can't get my arms around this. But he means it. And you know, I jokingly have said, now the Lord is praying to the Father, right? Is the father going to respond and say, I'll give you six out of seven? No. Whatever he asks for, he gets. All of it.

And the glory which you gave me, I want you to give it to them, that they may be one just as we are one. I in them, you in me, that they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me. Father, I desire they also, whom you gave me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which you have given me. For you love me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known. I have known you, and those who have known that you sent me, and these have known that you sent me, and I have declared to them your name, and I will declare it. that the love which that you love me may be in them and I in them.

I think it's essential for every believer to realize through his identification with the Lord Jesus and his cross he has been positionally separated from the old creation from the first Adam and he's been made a new creation in resurrection and ascended last Adam and now Christ is His very life. Christ is His very life. And because He is, we're able to do this. Colossians 3 says, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Hidden. So He came again so that He could take us to Him and we could behold His glory. So what does beholding this glory really mean? It's kind of an interesting concept when you think about it. As we look at 2 Corinthians 3.18, beholding, beholding, beholding. I took some quotes from some others that I'll mention in a couple of minutes. With everything becoming new, in dying and rising again, He begot us, He recreated us. We're the first fruit. You know what first fruit are? When the Jews had a harvest, they would take the very first part of the crop and they would offer it to God and they would say, you see this, the rest of the crop is going to be just like this. So the first fruit of the new creation, all of the fruit will be just like the first fruit. We're the first fruit. We're not recycling. We're not reclaiming. We're not restoring. There's no reformation. There's no first Adam being made up at all.

Paul says to each believer in Colossians 3, seeing that you put off in death the old man, why would you put him off? Because he is off. And you have put on the new man, the resurrected Christ, who is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. The new man is the image of God who is created and Christ Jesus resurrected.

Where there is neither Greek nor Jew circumcision, uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free, but Christ is all and in all. If there is ever a verse that explains really succinctly that we're not members of the old creation, this is it. Can you find any discrimination in this verse? You know, our society is so interested in where you come from, and are you this or are you that, or do you believe this or you do...

In Christ, there's none of that. The new creation doesn't have any of that, because Christ is the center of everything. So, as believers, we are renewed in the knowledge of Him that created Him. We continue to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. not in the things of Him that was created, Him alone. We're cut off from Adam and death, and since that's true in the cross, He recreated us in the Lord Jesus in resurrection.

He says we're to reckon upon these facts by faith. Ephesians 4 says, put off again the former manner of life. These exhortations that you see which Verne used to call imperatives, spiritual imperatives, are things that are encouraged by our will to believe that this has already happened. It's all based on something that's finished. It's not based on something that if you put off the old man, then that's a whole new thing. No, it's already done. We're to believe it.

So, when the great grain of wheat fell in the ground and He emerged from the tomb and ascended into heaven, He took this precious harvest of new creatures back with Him. You and me. He raised us up together. He made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. Imagine, He's already done that. He suited us out to be able to be in his company. Now, a couple of quotes from some people. F.W. Grant, he says, we can rejoice together in what these long departed grains of wheat have to say about the new creation position and glory.

Does this not mean a new sort of creation, as the word implies? Do we go back to Adam, the innocent man in the garden in which God set him to dress and keep? No. That would be no new creature in kind. Adam, even pure and good before his fall, is yet an earthly man. We're heavenly men now. Is the Lord Jesus Christ but the first man set up afresh? No, He's not. He's entirely new. He is the second man, the Lord from heaven. He is a heavenly man and He's the last Adam. He's the head of a new race. He's the beginning of a new creation. And you and I who believe in Him seem and accepted before God in the Beloved. John 17. The full image of Him we don't have yet. That's true. That will be ours in the day of His coming. The thing we are. Next one is J.G. Bellet.

In creation God planted a man in the garden in innocence. In redemption, God planted a man in heaven in glory. There is a glory that excels. The glory in redemption leaves the glory that once was in creation as nothing. Charles Coates is one of my favorites.

The Lord Jesus came from God alone, but he has gone back to the Father as the head of a new and blessed race. as one who has secured everything for God. So you and I are home free. The Father has every believer whom He chose in eternity past, every single one of us, whom He then promised to His Son safely and eternally in His risen Son.

John 6.39, this is the will of the Father who sent me that all He has given me I should lose nothing but should raise them up on the last day. You know, even if you change your mind, it's too late. In his prayer to his father, John 17, he said, Father, I will that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, and they will behold my glory. None of us are going to miss that bus. We all get to do that. And it starts now. It starts now.

The Lord Jesus prayed this prayer on the eve of his death, on the cross and it was all settled. It all had been settled since eternity past. It was there that we were chosen in Him, having predestinated us to the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to Himself. Why? According to the good pleasure of His own will. That's why He did it. He wanted to do it. The Lord Jesus had to die in order to bring to Himself to bring us to Himself in order to fulfill the eternal calling that the Father who had chosen us in Him.

James 1.18 says of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of His new creation. I think it's really important that we are clear about these things. these facts where Christ is and why he is where he is. He's at the right hand of majesty on high right now and his eye rests on believers there because Christ has removed everything according to his will, the Father's will.

He has, God says, I've removed everything from my own eye. in the most perfect way. If you don't believe this, you won't get to enjoy it. But it's done. It's already done. The question I have for you today is, does your soul grasp what he's talking about here?

The fullness of that wondrous fact that God has a glorified man in heaven, on whom His eye ever rests, and not only on Him alone, but on every one of us. I guess I have a prayer, a Christmas prayer for all of us that we all identify with the purpose of His coming to take us with Him. That our response would be that we do behold Him and we do behold His glory where He is. Roger and Bonnie and Don and I wish you all the best Christmas possible. Let's pray.

Dear Father, how we thank you for your great gift in the Lord Jesus Christ. The gift that really does keep on giving because you've taken us home with you so that we can behold your glory. Beholding your glory just never, never, ever will stop. And we get to increase and grow in that for all eternity. And we pray in your Son's precious name, Amen.