“But God…” (Part 2 of 2)

What exactly does it mean to die to sin and to be made alive in Christ? We'll find out the answer today on Truth for Life with Alistair Begg What a dinner party.

Have you ever thought about what that must have been like? You get invited, and you go. Maybe you've been out of the area for a while, and you come back, and you sit down, and everybody is introducing themselves. Hello. Yes, I'm Simon. Hello. And your name is Lazarus.

Oh, okay. So how's it going with you, Lazarus? What's been happening lately?

I mean, the usual kind of dinnertime conversation hadn't been going on. You say, well, I don't know if you'll believe this, but I was a dead man. I was dead and buried. You've got to be kidding me.

What are you talking about? No, Jesus here. Jesus raised me. He came and called my name. In fact, if he hadn't called my name, if he had just made a generic call, who knows how many people would have come out of the grave? He simply called out, Lazarus, and I came out, and they took all my clobber off me, and here I am tonight, and I'm having dinner with you.

This is a wonderful illustration, loved ones, of what happened when you were converted, if you were converted, if you are. You were dead. I was dead, physically alive.

I was part of the walking dead. I heard his voice. He called me into life.

This is the amazing wonder of the transforming power of Jesus, and Paul says, this is what you were, by nature, and look at what has happened to you now. God has called. Now, when you think about the idea of God calling to us, there is a call in creation, isn't there? In all of this beauty, in all of this grandeur, in all of the budding of these flowers and so on, it speaks to us of a glory beyond here. In your scientific work, in your lab work, in the intricacy of the universe, in the joy of wonderful music, there is a call from creation. There is a call also in our consciences.

Each of us by conscience is aware of God. God has made us with an innate sense of right and wrong. That is why when we go wrong, we know inside of us we are wrong.

That is why we want either to try and cover up the fight that we're wrong or to figure out a way to be put in the right or to justify ourselves. It's the call of God making us aware of the fact. There is also a call that comes in the preaching of the Bible when the Bible is proclaimed. It is as if there is a knocking on the door of our hearts. But the real effectual call of God, the inner call of God, is that which unlocks and opens the door of our hearts. That's why we often say, don't we, I think I probably said it last week, I say it to redundancy, that my voice can unlock nothing, can unlock no heart. I can say to you as I'm saying to you now, you know, creation speaks, your conscience speaks, the Bible speaks, and you can still sit there and go, I don't think so.

No. Until God speaks, until God takes up his word and calls you by name, speaks into your life, says to you, I'm talking about you. This generic description of humanity actually finds its focus in you. You know this to be true. That's something God does. That's what he did in the life of Lazarus.

He called him by name. He was deaf, but he heard him. He was dead, but he was alive. That is the transforming power of Jesus. And all of this is accomplished on account of the fact that Christ rose from the dead and sat down at the right hand of God. We have been made alive with Christ.

I spent too much time on that. Secondly, notice we have been raised with Christ, raised with Christ. Now notice that each of these verbs is in the past tense, in the past tense, because all of this has already taken place. All of this was accomplished when Christ rose from the dead and he himself then sat down at the right hand of the father. You see, what Paul is doing here is quite magnificent. He's pointing out the fact that Christ was dead and buried for our sins and he was raised. He ascended.

He was seated. And now he says, in Christ, that is what has happened to you if you are a believer. First of all, you have been raised with Christ, past tense.

Romans chapter six and verse six or so. We know that our old self was crucified with Jesus in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Here we go. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again and death no longer has dominion over him and therefore death no longer has dominion over us. If Christ does not return first, we will physically die. But to die is to fall asleep in the arms of Jesus and to waken up and discover that we're home, that what we fear most we will never experience.

Why? Because our life is now hidden with Christ in God. Because when we died with him, we were then raised with him and we have, as we're going to see in just a moment, been seated with him. That's our position in Christ.

It's an amazing thing. Tonight when we have baptisms, when they open up the baptism of Paul up here beside me and people testify, what they're going to really say is going down into the water, it is a picture of death and coming out of the water is a picture of life. I died with Christ. I have been raised with Christ. He called my name and I'm here tonight not to talk about myself, but in order to tell you about the amazing truth that Jesus has actually done what he said he will do. That's why, incidentally, when we sing the hymn before the throne of God above, we have the line in it, one with himself, I cannot die.

Do you ever wonder what that actually means? That ontologically, it is impossible for us to die, ultimately, because we have been united with Christ in his life. When he was raised, we were raised with him. Remember how Ephesians 1 has started. You were chosen in him before the foundation of the world, before there even was a world, before there ever was this, God did this.

He's not looking out of the window, as it were, trying to discover some nice people that he can include in his group. He is the God who has taken an initiative from all of eternity. And as Christ was raised, as the head was raised, so the body was raised with him, because we're placed into Christ, into his body, saved individually, set apart together.

It's a great wonder. One with himself, I cannot die. Or, in the Wesley hymn, alive in him, my living head. What does that mean? Alive in him, my living head.

What he's referencing is right here. We, he says, who were dead, who were enslaved, who were condemned, who had no possibility of fixing ourselves. This God has raised us up with him, having made us alive with Christ, raised up from spiritual death, our sins being pardoned, and our life, the very life that Jesus promised. I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it in all of its fullness. Here is the life that is really life. And thirdly, and finally, what has happened here is that we have been made alive, verse five, and we have been raised, verse six, and I'm doing this from memory now, because I turned to John, and we have been seated with him.

I think it's there, isn't it? In verse six still, yeah. Raised up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. What does that mean, the heavenly places in Christ Jesus? We're in Cleveland, for goodness sake. How could we be in the heavenly places?

Well, we are both in Cleveland, and we're in the heavenly places. What are the heavenly places? Well, the heavenly places is just another way of talking about the unseen world of spiritual reality, the unseen world of spiritual reality. When we did our studies in Daniel, we said there are evil forces that are at work in our world. If we could ever actually see the reality of this presence, it would be overwhelming to us.

We see the impact of this presence. People say, well, no, that's not why. But they have no real explanation for all the rape, for all of the hatred, for all the heinous crimes. Where does all this come from? Well, the evil one dragging people with him in his wake. And, says Paul, having been made alive and raised, we are now seated with him in this world of spiritual reality. In verse three of chapter one, he said this is the place of blessing. We've been blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

In verse 20 of chapter one, this is what he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him in his right hand in the heavenly places. In chapter six, if we ever get there, he's going to tell us that it is in the heavenly places that we wage war, that the church engages in spiritual warfare, not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and the powers and the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. That's why you see to become a Christian is to be reconciled to God and to be antagonized to the evil one. We're now antagonized to the evil one. As long as we were simply going down Broad Street with him, he didn't really care one way or another.

As long as we were simply going down Broad Street and seeking to be as ethical as we could or as nice as we might, he was quite content to leave us on our own. But have you discovered now that since you started to read your Bible, since you started to say, I believe in Jesus, since you were baptized, since you decided to make a commitment to these things, since you discovered new life springing up within you, did you discover now that all hell has been let loose against you? Did you realize this?

Why is this? Because we have been placed in a realm and in this realm, he says, chapter three, this is the realm in which the church, the church that is the people of God, chapter three and verse 10, so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. You get it? That in the church, big C, God's people throughout the entire world, the manifold wisdom of God, the triumph over enslavement, the victory over death, the pardon over sin, the life that is really life might now be made manifest so that the forces of evil recognize that that is actually the case. Says John Stott, and this is not a piece of meaningless Christian mysticism.

No, it bears witness to a living experience brought to new life. We were dead, brought to a new victory. We were enslaved.

Let me try and wrap this up in this way this morning because we're not going to have time to go to the why God has done this. Some of you will remember depending on your vintage that Jimmy and Carol Owens, who were songwriters in the United States, wrote two celebrated musical pageants, as it were, for the church to sing. One was called If My People, and the other from memory was called Come Together. You may have participated in one. I know I did at the Royal Albert Hall in London when I was still in my late teens. I remember being struck by the melodies. I remember being struck by the great crowd that was there. I remember feeling greatly encouraged just to be part of a significant number of people all declaring in the very heart of London the victory and the triumph of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the songs that we sang together goes like this, and right out of this text, keep looking down. You're seated in the heavenlies. God's mighty power has raised us over all. Keep looking down above all principalities, for we have died and risen with our Lord. Now, we often say to one another, don't we, that we want to distance ourselves from a kind of superficial form of triumphalism, and we do from ever suggesting to people that Jesus takes us into the realm of freedom from sickness and from disappointment and so on. We shouldn't say that because it's wrong to say that, and it's very unhelpful to say it because it just isn't true. So, in distancing ourselves from a superficial triumphalism, we dare not stand back from what the Bible actually says is true concerning us, namely that this is the case, that we have been raised, made alive, and seated.

The musical went on to these words. You are the children of the kingdom of God. You're the chosen ones for whom the Savior came. You're his noble new creation by the Spirit and the blood. You're the church that he has built to bear his name. And then came the refrain, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. And the hordes of darkness cannot quench your light, and the hosts of God shall stand and fight beside you till your king shall reign triumphant through his might. That's why we often sing at the end of a day, so be it, Lord, your throne shall never like earth's proud empires pass away. Why do we say that?

Because it is guaranteed to us. Part of this message this morning needs to say to some of us, let's get our chins out of our chests. Let us start to live in the light of what is true of us as individuals and as a church in a nation that largely has turned his back on God. In an environment where the hosts and the hordes of evil seem increasingly oppressive, move amongst the average church member, you'll find them either angry or depressed.

Why? Because we're not actually living in the light of the work of the Spirit of God within our hearts and lives. Keep looking down. You're seated in the heavenlies so that we might see now what God has done, sending his only son. His is the name of all majesty. He's the Savior of Calvary.

He's the source of all sovereignty. What God has done. And then he goes on to tell us why God has done it.

Well, we don't have time to go there now. Four words will encapsulate it for us. Mercy, love, grace, kindness. Well, when you think about the call of God, you think about the people that God uses in calling out to us. He doesn't always use the preacher, does he? He uses the preached word.

That's his plan. But he has his agents. Remember when Naaman, who was a mighty man of valor but had leprosy, received news from a little girl who had been snatched away from her family home and put in service of the king of Syria. When he heard from a little girl about the prophet who was the representative of almighty God, and so the little girl said to her mistress, if only my Lord would go and see the prophet. So he went to see the prophet, but he went on his own terms.

He went magnifying who he was. In contemporary terms, he would have gone in a few stretch limousines. He would have had an entourage with him. He would have carried with him gifts and offerings and things so that the prophet would know what a significant and wonderful person he was. And he arrived.

And he announced, I'm here. And the prophet didn't come out. The prophet just sent a message with one of his servants, said, tell Naaman to go and dip himself in the Jordan seven times. And big, smarty-pants Naaman decided he's not up for that kind of nonsense. Obviously the prophet doesn't know who he is.

This might have a ring for some of you, you know. I'm not sure Jesus knows how significant I really am. And so he went away in a huff, and the Word of God came to him.

How? Through his servants. My Lord, if the prophet had asked you to do something hard, wouldn't you have done it? And that rings for some of you as well. That's why you're a philanthropist. That's why you're an ethicist. That's why you're trying to make your situation as obviously wonderful as it possibly can be, because you've got the notion that God is just waiting for you to show how significant you are. And you don't want to hear any story about a dying Jesus being the only answer to your deadness, just like Naaman. All he said to you, Naaman, was, go and wash, and you will be clean. And Naaman heard the voice of God, and he was washed, and he was cleansed. Today, if you hear God's voice, do not harden your heart. If you are a committed follower of Jesus, you've been made alive in him, you've been raised with him, and you are seated with him in heavenly places. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life.

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You'll find the most recent articles at truthforlife.org slash articles. Now here is Alistair to close with prayer. Father, thank you for the clarity of your word. Any dullness and confusion is obviously on our part, but we know that while the knocking may come through the voice of a mere man, the external call in the voice of the preacher, the internal call that raises the dead and unstops the deaf ears and sets us free from condemnation and brings us into the reality of life that is really life. All of this, and more besides, is only accomplished by you. And we know that your word will accomplish its purposes, even this morning, even this talk. And here our confidence lies. Do as you have planned, Father, we pray, for your name's sake. Amen. I'm Bob Lapine. In a courtroom you'll often hear lawyers demanding justice for their clients. Tomorrow we'll find out why we don't want to make that demand in God's court. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.