Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. Do you live under a cloud of rejection and condemnation?
Well, you can be free. Let's continue the study of Colossians to see how the cross provides the ultimate declaration of our acceptance. Not on the basis of our performance of what we would do on the basis of what we had done or any basis of what we promised to be like in the future. But God has accepted us on the basis of what his son did at Calvary and our response to that by accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior. Now, we all know that today and God has made that very clear in his Word.
But there's going to come a day when there will be a declaration that is a declaration of that acceptance, of the ultimate acceptance, the declaration of that acceptance to the whole world. You see, the world does not understand why you and I live the way we live. They don't understand when we talk about a relationship to Jesus Christ. You see, you and I only have a glimpse of what reality is about. And if we only have a glimpse of it and we're saved by the grace of God and Christ is our life living within us, then we should be able to understand why the unbelieving world has no earthly idea what the Christian life is all about. So I want us to look at the last half of this verse in the light of this very idea. There will come a time when there will be an ultimate declaration of our acceptance by Almighty God and how He's going to reveal that to the world. So I want you to notice, if you will, in verse four what he says. When Christ who is our life is revealed, that is when He returns, He says there's going to be a manifestation, there's going to be a revealing, there's going to be an unfolding, that is the world is going to see Jesus Christ as He really is.
And this is what he refers to here when he speaks of His being revealed. Now, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lost, listen, not for themselves only, but Adam and Eve lost for all of mankind what God had intended for all of us. Because you see, they walked in a garden with absolute perfect fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. They were in a state of absolute innocence, untried innocence. Then when they were tested, they fell.
What happened when they fell? Not only did they lose, but they lost for all of humanity what they once had. They lost the Garden, surely. They lost all the privileges of the Garden of Eden. But the thing that Adam and Eve lost above everything else, they lost that perfect intimacy with God.
And it has been lost ever since. Even though you and I are saved by the grace of God, the perfection of the intimacy and the oneness and the understanding and the knowledge of who God is has never fully been regained and will not fully be regained until one day you and I stand in His presence and we see Him and we know Him as He is. So that today every child that's born is born to parents who have an old sinful nature. And because all of humanity has fallen, God has been in the process since Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden of doing what? Of reconciling fallen humanity to Himself. And the Bible says it is His purpose to conform us to His likeness.
Why? Because God loves us. The only reason He created us is to love Him, to glorify Him, to be with us. And if you'll notice in this passage how many times in the book of Colossians Paul talks about being with Him, he says we were crucified with Him, we were buried with Him, we were risen with Him, we are seated with Him, we are hidden with Him and we're coming again with Him.
My friend, there's not an unimportant word in the Word of God. Why does He go to such extremes to say crucified with Him, buried with Him, resurrected with Him, seated with Him, hidden with Him, coming with Him? Because with Him is God's great goal for His children. God is more interested in your personal relationship with Him than anything else on the face of this earth.
Everything else He can control sovereignly. But He has chosen to allow you and me to make the decision about our relationship with Him. And my friend, God loves you and He loves you fully. And those of us who receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior know that we've been fully accepted. But listen, He says I'm going to bring you into a sense of oneness and intimacy.
He says when I come, I'm going to bring you with me and the whole world is going to know you just the way I know you as the living resurrected sons and daughters of the living God. So when you and I think about the time that we spend thinking about God, thinking about Christ, do you know how much time God spends thinking about you? Has it ever dawned on you that there's not a single second that goes by? If you want to begin, it's your life's beginning since your heart beat the first time. There has never been a second in your life that God did not know you perfectly, was interested in you fully, and is thinking about you all the time.
Not a single second of your life. When you and I feel lonely, it isn't because we're alone. When you and I feel that God is nowhere to be found, it's not because He's not close by. You see, every single second of your life, God has you in mind.
That's how much He loves you. You see, once we get a little glimpse of how much God loves us, nobody will have to tell us to read our Bible and tell us to live holy before Him and tell us to live godly before Him. God's overwhelming, incomparable, immeasurable love for us is such that not a second of our day is it, that He does not think of us, is concerned about us, watching over us, guarding us, caring for us, providing for us.
Why? Because He's accepted us in His Son, the Beloved, and we're His forever and ever and ever. Paul says in this passage, he says, when Christ who is their life appears, then you shall also appear with Him. Now, what does he mean by that?
How is that going to happen? So I want you to turn, if you will, to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians 15 describes something for us. In the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians, this whole chapter is given over primarily to the resurrection. And he says, beginning in this passage, let's look, if you will, in verse 41, he talks about the glory that God has given the creation.
He says, there is one glory of the sun that is one character, one outshining of character of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars, for stars differ from stars in glory. So also is the resurrection of the body, speaking of our human body. It is sown a perishable body. It decays. It is raised an imperishable body.
It will never decay again. It is sown in dishonor, but it is raised in glory. Listen, sown in dishonor, raised in glory, sown in weakness, raised in power.
Look, if you will, at the 49th verse. And just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. That means when the Lord Jesus Christ comes, He says that we too shall be revealed with Him. And we're coming in resurrected, glorified bodies bearing, listen to this, bearing such a likeness to the very person of Jesus Christ.
Not that we won't look as the way we look today, but that is our physical being, our glorified resurrected body. We will share in such glory that we will bear the very image of Christ Himself. I want you to go back to John chapter 17 for a moment. And you recall this is the prayer that Jesus prayed to the Father the night before He was crucified. Listen, if you will, to this 21st and 22nd verses of John 17. He says, Lord, Father, that they may be one, even as Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me. Now listen, look at, look if you will in verse 22.
And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given to them that they may be one, just as we are one. Listen to what He said. He didn't say I'm going to. He said, Father, the glory which You have given to Me, I have, past tense, already given to them. You and I may not be able to comprehend what this means. But if you and I can see ourselves from Jesus viewpoint, here's what He says.
Here's what He says about every believer. You've been saved. You've been forgiven. You've been redeemed. You've been justified.
You've been reconciled. You have been glorified. That is the glory with which God showered upon Jesus Christ. Jesus says, I have given to them. And He says in Romans that you and I have been glorified. Now, our experience of that, our understanding of that, the full comprehension of that, and the experience of that awaits the day when you and I will return with the Lord Jesus Christ. But He says we've been glorified.
Now let me ask you a question. How in the world can anybody whose sin has been atoned for by the blood of Jesus Christ, whose name has been written in the Lamb's Book of Life, who has been given a new heart, a new spirit, and a new nature, and who has been glorified, who has been glorified by Jesus Christ ever be lost again? How can you be the glorified Son of God and be lost?
It is an absolute total contradiction of everything that Jesus taught. And He says that in that day when Jesus comes, you and I will come in our resurrected bodies, bearing the image of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and we will be revealed. We will be made manifest.
That is the unbelieving world. All of humanity is going to see us for who we are, the living, blood-bought, perfect sons and daughters of the living God. That's what God has in store for us. When Christ who is your life appears, He says you're coming with Him.
Now here's our problem. We are so earthly minded. We as believers are so earthly minded. And it's as if there is some kind of non-spiritual gravitational pull to the earth and things and the material and the secular.
And we are bombarded with all kinds of ungodly messages. And all kinds of symbols are sent before our eyes. We have become so earthly minded that we have forgotten that we are the heavenly children of the living God who loves us enough to share His glory at His coming, that we will come bearing the image of the heavenly. We will come with glorified resurrected bodies bearing the image of Christ Himself. We will come to judge the world and to judge angels and to be with Him forever and ever and ever, friend. That ought to drive us to our knees, drive us to godly living and drive us to share the gospel. If I should ask you, how many of you give any thought at all to the fact that Jesus Christ could come at any moment?
Well you say I may think about it once in a while. You see the truth is our life isn't, listen we weren't created to live down here like this. We were created to live for God. We were created to glorify Him. And if God does not do what He said He's going to do, then He will have failed, His plan will have failed, but here is God's ultimate consummation of His plan. He says there's going to come a time when all history and all of time is going to cease. When He's going to bring this whole world and everything in this world to its climax and it will happen when Jesus Christ comes in the clouds with His angels, with the saints, in judgment to establish His kingdom, deliver the elect and God set up His earthly kingdom. Friend, there isn't any way in the world the church is going to set up an earthly kingdom when Jesus says He must come in judgment and cleanse it in order to establish His earthly kingdom. And all of us who are His children, who've been saved by His grace, washed in His blood, will be part of the bride of Christ coming with Him at that moment to share in His glory to judge the earth and to judge angels.
Now that's what God has in store for us. Now you know all of us like to take vacations or go places and do things and one of the greatest things about taking a big long trip is all the getting ready. Because if somebody offered me a long trip tomorrow and I didn't have time to get ready, I'm not too sure I'd be very interested. It's the getting ready and the thinking about it and laying all your stuff out and packing it about three or four times and it's to say you've got to get ready to go. And part of the getting ready is part of the fun. Has it ever dawned on you that you and I are in the process of getting ready for the greatest trip we'll ever take?
If you think flying somewhere around the world is something, well you take the big trip. When you and I come in clouds with all the heavenly hosts and with all the saints of God for all time from Adam and Eve all the way up to the second coming of Jesus Christ, we're coming together. Can you imagine the sound of that? Can you imagine the glory of that in your resurrected body? In your absolutely unhindered, resurrected, glorified body bearing the image of Jesus? In perfect oneness, absolutely, totally fearless and unhindered by time or space? Forever to be a child of God? Never having to worry about what you're going to put on again? You're dressed forever. Never worrying about where you're going?
You're going to be there forever. Everything in all of its absolute perfection, that is the blessing and the promise of God when Christ who is our life shall appear, hallelujah, He says we're going to appear with Him. Then how in the world can we be so earthly minded?
Saving and grabbing and clawing and climbing and getting and doing? When all of this is going to burn up? All of this is going to vanish away? What really is important is what's coming after this life?
And I want to ask you a question. Are you afraid to die? It's amazing to me that folks in good health say, oh, I'm not afraid to die.
But then go to the hospital where the doctor said, well probably at the most you only have about thirty days, six weeks, two years. It is amazing how people's attitudes change. The most ungodly, oftentimes this whole sense of values change. They begin to think about their family for the first time. They begin to think about life after death for the first time. They begin to wonder about God for the first time.
They begin to think about the past sin for the first time. The Bible says it is important to man once to die and after this the judgment. And I want to ask you again, are you prepared to die? Not unless you have been to the Lord Jesus Christ confessing your sins, and asking Him to save you, you're not ready to die. And if you're not ready to die, you're not ready to live. Oh, you'll struggle through life. You'll make it.
You may impress the world, but you will have lived unprepared. Because apart from Jesus Christ, you're neither prepared to live nor are you prepared to die. And I want to invite you, my friend, to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and tell Him that you're giving up all of your efforts to save yourself, because you can't, and recognize that Jesus' death at Calvary paid your sin debt in full. And if you're willing to ask Him to forgive you right now and to cleanse you right now and to come into your life right now, He'll do it right now.
And for how long? Forever and ever and ever you'll be a child of God. You can experience that right now by simply telling the Lord Jesus, Lord, I've sinned against You, I've wanted it my way, and I'm asking You to forgive me of my sins, and I'm receiving You right now as my personal Savior.
If you'll tell Him that sincerely, right where you are, Jesus Christ will come into your life. One of these days, when He comes with all of His glory and all of us saints, you'll be there with us, because we're coming in His glory with Him, the Bible says, to judge the world and to judge the angels and to live eternally with Him. If you were to die right now, are you sure you would go to heaven?
What is your basis for being sure? You may name a hundred things, but there's only one way that you can know for sure that you're going to heaven, that you have had a personal experience whereby you personally receive Jesus Christ as your Savior. And that is my invitation to you today to receive Him, that you, my friend, will say yes to Christ today and settle the doubts and the fears that you know that if you died right now, you'd be lost because you have rejected Him. The Bible says when Jesus Christ comes, He's coming in great glory. And when He comes, not only will He be revealed for all that He is, but you and I are going to be made manifest with Him. We're complete in Him.
He's indwelling us. Christ is our life. What really matters is our relationship with Him. And I want to go back to remind you, He says 2,000 years ago, crucified with Him, buried with Him, resurrected with Him, seated with Him, hidden with Him, and now one of these days, we're coming with Him. It is with Him, with Him, with Him, with Him, with Him, forever with Him.
The big question is right now, are you with Him, and is He with you? Thank you for listening to The Ultimate Declaration of Our Acceptance. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. And don't forget about our limited audio series this month titled Songs of Spirit and Truth, Got at Work in the Philippines and Indonesia. Find it at intouch.org slash global. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
