Be in Christ (Part 1 of 2)

Often young children look up to and imitate an older sibling. We are children of God. Jesus is our older brother and we are called to follow his example. That's the subject of a new series. We start today on Truth for Life weekend titled To Know Christ. Alistair Begg begins with a reading from Scripture.

Verse 25.

Matthew 11 at that time, Jesus said, I praise you, father, lord of Heaven and Earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my father. No one knows the son except the father. And no one knows the father except the son. And those to whom the son chooses to reveal him. Come to me. Oh, you are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble and heart. And you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Well, in our studies this week, we're going to look together at what the Bible says concerning the purpose of God, the father to make those who are his children like his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So if you need to know where we're heading, we're heading in that direction. We're going to think of the process that is involved, at least part of it, in becoming like Christ. But it seems only logical, sensible, profitable to pause before we turn their.

To consider what it means to be in Christ.

For the Bible makes it very plain that it is only those who have become God's children by grace, through faith, who have been placed into Christ, that the father by the Holy Spirit is in the process of making light Christ. And so I want does this morning and the time that we have to think concerning what it means to be in Christ. And most importantly, to ask ourselves the question, does that phrase describe me? The apostle Paul really made the phrase in Christ his own. When he told his own story, he told of how it was before he came to understand who Jesus was and why he came up to that point. His life disregarded Jesus in a pretty remarkable way. As you will discover if you read the story. But it was when he came to discover the wonder of Jesus work that he was placed in Christ. And he said quite memorably, writing to some people who were living in Corinth at the time. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come. In other words, something has happened to change the status of that individual. If you like, their lives written out would be two volumes.

One, pre Christ, Christ, disregarding him, knowing of him, but yet not knowing him. And then coming to know him. And then volume two.

In Christ.

Now, it was with this in mind that I've turned to, I think, what is arguably one of the loveliest invitations in the whole of the New Testament. It comes in the final three verses of the passage that we read. The source of the invitation is Jesus Christ himself. It is Jesus that is speaking, as you will note, from verse twenty five, Jesus speaks first to his father in prayer. He then makes observations concerning the nature of the fathers revealing of the son, and then he issues this invitation.

The scope of the invitation, you will notice, is comprehensive. Come to me all all you who are weary and burdened. That is not actually to sequester a certain group among a larger group, but it is really a description of the totality of humanity, as I'm going to show you. The source of the invitation is Jesus.

The scope of the invitation is universal, and the significance of the invitation concerns the fact that Jesus is inviting these people to find rest for their souls not to have a vacation, not to just simply find that which would make life a little more bearable for them. But he's speaking in eternal terms. He's speaking in a way that encompasses the totality of human existence. He's speaking in a way that addresses the big questions of life.

Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going?

And does it even matter? All of those questions that any sensible man or woman will find themselves asking from time to time is somehow or another wrapped up in this loveliest of invitations.

I want to suggest to you, therefore, that it is not an invitation to be set assigned. Rather, it must be given a top priority. It demands our attention and it calls for immediate action. And if we want to know the action for which it calls, we need only pay attention to the action words, which means we're not going to adjectives or prepositions or pronouns or nouns.

But we're going to verbs and the verbs are clear and we're going to go through them. There are four of them. I will spend longer on the first than I do in the remaining three. I say that as an encouragement to the young people who, after I finish the first one, are saying, goodness gracious, there will be no lunch today at all. No, I have found over time that I do spend too long on the first. But I, I've learned also to warn my listeners. Well, let me point out the verbs first come.

In verse 20.

Eight, take verse twenty nine, learn verse twenty nine. Find verse twenty nine. OK. So we just work through them as we go. First of all, this invitation is to come and to come to me.

This is Jesus. Come to me, he says. In other words, it is a person to person invitation only. Those of you who are a certain vintage will even pay any attention to the phrase person to person. If you remember in the old days before we all had cell phones and interstellar communication that was instantaneous with one another, we would make telephone calls, sometimes across an ocean. And in making the call as a Scotsman, it seemed to me only sensible to ask for it to be person to person. That way, if a operator was unable to get the other person on the other end of the phone, I didn't have to pay for the telephone call. And as a Scot, that was and remains a significant issue. Well, you see, this invitation is both generic and specific.

It is an invitation that is made by a person to persons. It may be personalized by all who hear it and all who listen to it. It is an invitation not to a program. Nor is it an invitation to a philosophy. But it is an invitation to and by Jesus himself and he who, by virtue of his identity may command a response, introduces himself as being gentle and humble in heart. And instead of commanding our response.

He entreats our response. Come to me. He says, I want you to come to me.

Now we need to be clear about the one who issues the invitation. And as a sidebar, I'm turning to Luke, Chapter four for those of you who like to follow along. You can turn for a moment to the account of Jesus returning to Galilee and going to Nazareth, where he'd been brought up and on the Sabbath day, going into the synagogue, as was his custom, Luke tells us.

And in the course of the synagogue worship, he stood up to read from the scriptures. And Luke tells us in verse 17 of Luke four that the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him unrolling it. He found the place where it is written. The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And these would be words with which the synagogue attendees were familiar. He was reading the familiar prophetic words that have come out of the scroll of Isaiah. Customary after the reading for someone to sit down in the place of the teacher, look tells us that once the scroll had been removed from him and placed in its position, he sat down in the position of the rabbi and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked, tells us were fastened on him. Now, think of this. He's in his own town. He's returned as a home boy to Nazareth. He is back among the people who would know him. The folks who went shopping with his mother. The folks who had children who were the same age as Jesus, who had grown up together in Nazareth. Those who knew him as the boy from the carpenter shop. He has returned. He's in his hometown synagogue. He has known the privilege of reading from the scriptures in this way. And every one was fastened on him to hear what he would have to say. And from his mouth came words that none of them would ever, ever have anticipated.

He said today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

And all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.

Isn't this Joseph, son? They said. Isn't this the boy from the carpenter shop?

Do I understand exactly what has happened here? He has just read the prophetic scriptures anticipating the coming of the Messiah, who will establish the kingdom of God, give sight to the blind and healing to the lamb and so on, and establish the day of the Lord's favor. He's just read all of that. And did I hear correctly? Did he say today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing? Is he suggesting that he is none other than the Messiah?

Yes.

Now, we have established this this morning without turning to the Bible. We have affirmed this this morning from the absolute commencement of our worship. We have a story to tell to the nations of a savior of a lord of a king. We haven't said this morning.

We have an option to give to the nations, that we have a possibility do it to be included along with Islam and along with Buddhism and along with Confucianism and along with new ageism and along with self ism that we've all gathered here in order to say that we just want Jesus to be included in the pantheon of 21st century duties. We haven't said that. We have affirmed in our songs the identity of the one who issued this invitation. It is the identity of the one who issues the invitation that gives significance to the invitation.

Hence, I say to you, it is not to be set aside. It is a priority to be attended to.

Well, from this Christ to all who are weary and burdened, all who are weary and burdened, oh, well, says somebody that lets me off the hook because I am neither I am neither weary nor burdened.

Now I can push the button and ignore the rest of this, because you're saying to yourself, I am strong and I'm carefree. Oh, are you really to come and introduce yourself to me at the end? I'd love to meet someone strong and completely carefree. I haven't met a single person who isn't pushing a wheelbarrow.

And in that wheelbarrow, he has all the cares and responsibilities and fears and failures that make up his or her life.

And you're no different this morning. Have you had the experience of going to the doctor for a routine checkup? Did you go early, as they told you at eight o'clock today, to do a desk, a twelve?

Where the well-meaning person wrapped that rubber band around whichever arm could produce the best vein. And they did the preparatory routine blood work. And have you ever had the experience of later in the day sitting there apparently fit as a fiddle?

I'm being told by the doctor. That despite all appearances to the contrary. You are significantly unwell.

Oh, when you walked in, you had no notion of it.

Frankly, none of your friends would even have considered it.

They'd senior running that morning or riding your bike the previous week. But now everything is different. In fact, it is the circumstances as they had been. They have only now been revealed. The result of blood work, the result of an MRI, a scan that has been done, revealing the true circumstances that are unapparent from the outside. That's what the Bible does. The Bible provides for us an MRI.

It investigates at the very core of our being. And it points out to those of us who believe we have the world by the tail, who are strong and carefree, that in actual fact, things are not the way we assume that when it comes to the issues of our souls. The Bible says we are suffering from a terminal illness. The terminal illness is is described in the Bible as sin. Most people think the issue is about our sins. Plural.

The things we do or we haven't done. And so if we haven't done a lot lately or we haven't really done as many as someone else we've known, we say to ourselves, well, you know, sins are not really that big of an issue for me. Well, then I shall fight. Sins are not really that big of an issue for you. The issue for you is sin.

Because it is our sin that has separated us from God and the Bible says that all have sinned and are separated from God. All of us have fallen short of the standard that God has established. That is perfection. And none of us have ever lived to perfection, in the words of Isaiah, from which we've already quoted at least the same book. All we like sheep have gone astray. Each device, no exceptions, has turned to his own way.

In other words, we've got a real dilemma, and the dilemma is simply this, that we are unfit for heaven and we're unable to rectify our circumstances. Now, that would be a burden if it once dawned upon us, wouldn't it?

Suddenly into the the resumé of our lives, into our CV, we have to write if we're honest. According to the Bible, I am by nature unfit for heaven and unable to rectify my circumstances.

That's a bit of a burden.

He said, well, we a very nice group here up at camp, and he wound up at camp. We went over a very nice group. I know you're a very nice group, and that's why I like coming. It's nice to come and be with nice people.

I have discovered over time that there are two ways that people reject Jesus as savior. There are two ways that they endeavor not to come to him, not to respond to his invitation. Here they are.

No one.

By being as bad as possible and breaking all the rules. Or by being as good as possible and keeping all the rules.

Those are the two ways that I'll find you say no to the invitation of Jesus. If you've been so bad and broken, the more you say to yourself, there's no hope for me and you're wrong. If you've been so good and done it all right. You said yourself, well, there's no need for me.

And you'd be wrong.

The invitation is clear. The source is articulated and the significance is undeniable.

Now we have three verbs to go.

The second one is take take and then there is a sense in which take, learn and find. Extrapolate the nature of what it means to come or if we put it differently. What does it mean to come? Well, it means to take to learn, to find a sense in which the other three should be shorter than the first.

I haven't I haven't forgotten. All right. I have forgotten. Second verb take.

Take my yoke upon you. Now the Yoke has some of you from a farming background will know was a wooden frame placed across the back of oxen, usually yoking them together. They use the Yog in order that the weight might be distributed evenly on both sides and make it possible for them to walk along the road. It's a lovely picture. It's a clear picture. It's the picture that Jesus is using. I want you to take my yoke upon you. My yoke upon you.

Do you know what he was doing there? He was distinguishing himself and his message from the story that had been given to these people by the religionists of his day, particularly peculiarly by the Pharisees. These were individuals who were meticulous in their desire to do what was right. In fact, they were so consumed by it that when they had finished with all the things that God had said they ought to do. They had a good dose of their own. And so they made it virtually impossible for anybody to be able to do anything. And the idea that a man might be accepted before God on the strength of all of these external obligations was absolutely crushing in its implications in much the same way that many have been brought up in a religious background. That has essentially been a succession of stories saying, come on, now, you can do this. Come on now. Try a little harder. Come on now.

This is just there for you to achieve that will where the neck of any thinking person quickly. But that's not what Jesus says. He says, take my yoke upon you.

To be under the yoke, the authority of Jesus is not a burden. It is a delight. And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

Free in order to become the very bond slave of Jesus. Free not to do what I want, but free to do what I ought. Since by nature, I cannot do what I ought because I'm in bondage to my own desires. I need somebody to set me free from the bondage of my own desires in order that I might live in obedience to his will.

Jesus is Lord.

That is not an expression of personal devotion. That is a statement concerning Jesus identity and because he is Lord, to come to him to respond to the invitation is to take on an obligation. And the obligation is a free and obligation, but an obligation nevertheless. And let me tell you clearly, since Jesus is Lord. Those who have come to Jesus and live under his yoke have no freedom. To behave in any other way than the way in which Jesus as Lord declares. So the issues of morality, the issues of sexuality, the conducting of business, the practice of family. All of these things are gathered under the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ. So when Paul summarizes it again and writing to people in quarantine says you're not your own.

You were bought with a price, therefore glorify God with your body.

The compelling start to a new series called To Know Christ. You're listening to Alistair Begg and this is Truth for Life Weekend. If you know someone who would enjoy this new series, right now is the perfect time to invite them to listen along. They can catch up on today's message by listening online. A Truth for Life dot org. Simply navigate to today's message titled Be in Christ and you'll notice an option to share the link. You can send it directly through email or share it to your Facebook page or on Twitter while you're on the Web site. We want to remind you about our current featured resource, a compelling biography of Eric Little. It's titled Running the Race. Eric Little was known as the Flying Scotsman, one of the most famous Scottish athletes of all time. In fact, while he was a student at the University of Edinburgh, he was known as the fastest runner in Scotland. He was regularly featured in the newspaper. He went on to win two Olympic gold medals. But as significant as his athletic achievements were, there is much more to Eric Lidle than sports. In fact, he eventually dedicated his life to serving as a missionary in China. While many biographies focus either on Eric Little the athlete, or Eric Little the missionary. This book, Running the Race, brings the two together, giving us a complete picture of an ordinary man who served an extraordinary God. This is an excellent choice for your summer reading. But this weekend is the last time we're making this book available. So don't wait. Visit Truth for Life dot org. To learn how you can request your copy again, go to Truth for Life dot o R.G.. I'm Bob Lipin, inviting you to join us next time as we continue our new series called To Know Christ. This program, the Bible Teaching of Allaster Begg, is furnished by Truth for Life.

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