So we're reading from Romans chapter 6, beginning at the first verse.
We too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like this, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like this, like his.
We know that our old self was crucified with him 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.
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again.
Death no longer has dominion over him.
For the death he died, he died to sin once for all.
But the life he lives, he lives to God.
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body.
To make you obey its passions.
Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness.
But present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.
And your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
For sin will have no dominion over you.
Since you are no longer under, not under law, but under grace.
Well, today is the last in a series of four sermons on key words in the Bible on salvation.
So let me recap just quickly.
And we've heard a lot about what we've been saved from.
So we've spent three weeks really talking about what we've been saved from.
We've been saved from our sins.
And we've been saved from our enslavement to sin.
There's a problem at the heart level that we just want to live for ourselves.
And then we've heard that we've been redeemed.
We've been set free from this captivity.
And that came at a great price.
The cost of Jesus' blood.
And then we've heard we've been saved from all the anger of God.
All the condemnation that we deserve for our sin and the way we've treated God and treated people made in his image.
We've been saved from all that.
We are declared righteous before God.
Not because of anything we have done.
Nothing in ourselves.
But as a gift.
All our sin is transferred to Christ.
All his righteousness transferred to us.
Heaven guaranteed.
All the things we've been saved from.
I want to ask then, what have we been saved for?
Because what we've been saved from is only half the story.
What have we, if you're a believer, what have you been saved for?
We need to understand this.
I'm not sure where your mind is going right now.
Is it we've been saved for relationship with God?
Praying, singing.
Reading his word.
So relating to God.
Is that what we've been saved for?
Have we been saved for a new life of obedience?
Or have we been saved for becoming the person God made us to be?
So change within us.
Have we been saved for belonging to a local church?
Have we been saved for witnessing for him?
Wanting the gospel to get out?
I'm going to suggest that if any of those were your answers, I think there's truth in them.
I think they're partly right.
But none of them go deep enough.
At worst, they could be confused for something you must do.
Something you must muster up.
Now that God has done so much for you, you better repay him in a sense.
It could be confused for that.
So what have we been saved for?
I just want to give two quick quotes from my reading in preparation for this week.
John Murray said,
Without this, and I'm going to leave it blank, although the sermon title gives it away,
our view of the Christian life would be gravely distorted.
Without this, which we're going to cover today,
your view of the Christian life would be gravely distorted.
Not just missing a bit.
Or Bruce Milne said,
All Christian experience can be focused in this one gift of God to us through his spirit.
I hope you want to know what this is.
What are we saved for?
We're saved for union with Christ.
Fellowship.
Communion.
Communion with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Not union in the sense of trade union.
Not in the sense of rugby union.
We don't use the term union a lot.
It's more like a marriage union.
Where two become one.
We're saved to become one with God.
Anyway, that's crazy.
We're going to...
Not crazy in that it's not untrue.
It's just mind-boggling that we're going to look into this today.
And really, we're going to scratch the surface only.
There's so much to what we've been saved for.
You'd be forgiven if you haven't heard of this term, union with Christ.
We don't seem to talk about it in churches as much as justification or election even.
So you'd be forgiven for that.
But while you won't find the phrase union with Christ explicitly, as we saw last term in Colossians,
once you see it in Scripture, you can't help but not see it.
It's just everywhere.
So we heard it in Colossians.
How does Paul describe what the message of Christianity is?
Christ in you.
The hope of glory.
What's Paul's goal in serving the church?
To present everyone mature in Christ.
And how does he go about this?
He works with all the power that's working in Paul.
His power.
Not Paul's, but Christ's power.
He even claims, I'm filling up the sufferings of Christ.
Paul uses the phrase, in Christ, in the Lord Jesus, with Christ over 160 times in his writings.
And it's all throughout the New Testament.
And the Old Testament prepares for this understanding as well.
Or think about when Paul got converted.
What was he confronted with when he met the Lord Jesus Christ, the risen, ascended Lord Jesus Christ,
came to him in a brilliant light.
What did the Lord say to him?
He said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
That must have been a profound moment for Paul in understanding what the Christian life was about.
He was attacking the church.
And the Lord is saying, why are you persecuting me?
The Lord sees himself so united to his people.
So to go deeper in this, in understanding this, we're going to look at four biblical pictures at the end of the sermon.
But first we're going to start in Romans 6, if you want to turn with me there, or otherwise just listen along.
Here in Romans, our question of what have we been saved for is answered in the negative.
So we are not saved to go on living in sin.
And you can understand why someone might object.
Okay, so if salvation is totally free, if all your sin is definitely dealt with, and you are definitely going to heaven all because of Jesus,
that just motivates you to do whatever you want, to just keep on living in sin.
That can't be right, Paul.
There's no fear of punishment.
The promise of reward is guaranteed.
That's just going to motivate people to do what they want.
What's stopping a person doing what they want, living in sin?
In fact, why not sin all the more?
Because that will show how great Jesus is.
He will forgive and conquer even more sin.
How would you answer that question?
Paul's instinctive, just gut response, he doesn't have to think.
He just goes, by no means.
Now, that's not a throwaway line.
The truth of the gospel has gotten into Paul so deep that his just instinctive response is,
no way would you keep on living in sin.
And then he goes on to explain why.
Why is that the case?
And surprisingly, he talks about baptism, which is fitting for today.
He uses the picture of baptism.
Don't you understand what your baptism symbolises?
Baptism isn't about your parents, what they did when you were a baby.
It's not essentially about what you did in making a decision to follow Christ.
Water baptism pictures the spiritual, internal baptism that the Holy Spirit has already done.
Verse 3,
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death?
In effect, he's saying, don't you understand your baptism?
Don't you understand what it means to be a Christian?
Baptism is a naming ceremony.
It's a declaration that your fundamental identity has changed.
You now belong to God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit.
You are a new person.
By the work of the Spirit in you, by your faith in Christ, you have now been inseparably joined to Jesus.
All that has happened to him is now true of you as well.
Because he died, we've seen these verses, because he died, pictured in going down in the water, he died, you died.
He was buried, you were buried.
Your sin-orientated rather than God-orientated old self, which all of us were born with,
that self was crucified with Christ.
You were in him.
You were buried.
The sin we were so enslaved by, that enslaved self is dead and buried.
And verse 4, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life.
Spiritually, if you're a believer in Christ, you have been raised to new life.
Totally new desires inside of you now.
As 2 Corinthians 5 says, anyone in Christ is a new creation.
Verse 5,
So verse 11, here's the implication of it all.
Christian, you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
What have I been saved for?
Shall I do what I like because I'm justified as a free gift by faith?
Well, yes, I will do what I like now.
Because I'm so joined to Jesus that what I want to do, what I used to want to do is dead.
And now what I want to do, because God has made me alive in Christ, is I want to live for God.
Now, sin is still in our body.
Sin is still attacking this new nature the rest of our life until Christ returns.
But you are in Christ.
Christian, know who you are.
You are dead and now you're alive.
So the motivation for not sinning isn't fear of punishment or promise of reward.
It's know who you are.
And so be who you are.
That's the Christian motivation.
Know who you are and be who you are.
Here's an insight into how Paul viewed himself in Galatians 2.20.
You might have heard it before.
An example of how this way of thinking motivates us to pursue holiness is found in 1 Corinthians 3.20.
In 1 Corinthians 6.
Some of the Christians in that church in Corinthians, they thought it didn't matter what you did.
They were unashamedly sleeping with prostitutes.
Unashamedly.
And in 1 Corinthians 6, notice how Paul motivates the Christians.
He doesn't motivate them by saying you might lose your salvation.
He doesn't dismiss it as okay.
But he says in verse 15 of 1 Corinthians 6,
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?
Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute?
Do you see how thinking of yourself in Christ just,
It is motivation to live differently.
It's like saying to Jesus,
Come Jesus, sit next to me.
Let's watch pornography together.
Help me craft this text message in flirting with this man that isn't my husband.
Thinking that way just makes you,
It motivates you to pursue holiness if you know how joined you are to Christ.
Complete forgiveness.
Like sin is waging war.
Like we will still give in to the sinful nature time and again.
But complete forgiveness.
But knowing we abound in Christ,
That not only doesn't permit sin,
It is the very power to fight sin.
Knowing you are united to Christ.
I can do what I want now.
And what I want has totally changed.
Because I am in Christ,
And he is in me by his spirit.
Now if all this hasn't blown your mind yet,
And I hope it has.
If it hasn't, that could be my fault.
But it's already gobsmacking.
But I want to step back and look at all of salvation.
Because scripture says more than what I've said so far.
It says that all of salvation is received.
In Christ.
So,
Some of you will know Romans 8.30.
It's a wonderfully reassuring verse.
People call it the golden chain of salvation.
Those who God chose
To set his love upon in eternity past,
He also called to himself in real time.
Those he called,
He also justified,
Declared righteous.
And those he justified,
He glorified.
Those he chose,
Will make it to glory.
There is no broken link in the chain.
Because it's all of God.
It's a wonderful verse.
But if this is the only way we think of salvation,
There's something missing in that.
There's been no mention of the person,
Jesus Christ.
Now, of course,
Romans,
The context of Romans makes that clear.
But I'm talking about the way us as Christians think about the process of salvation.
So,
I think we are in danger of thinking of it mechanically.
We can know all the steps and the doctrines,
And yet,
Not see them all as being received in Christ,
In the person of Christ.
So, for instance,
When we think of our justification,
All our sin becomes Christ,
And all his righteousness,
His obedience,
Becomes ours.
Now,
That great exchange
Is a wonderful truth.
But if we picture it,
Separate from Christ,
It can almost seem like God is playing.
As if he's going,
Let's just imagine that all your sin is his,
And all his righteousness is yours.
It can seem like he's playing.
But if you see justification as united with Christ,
It's more like a prince,
Marrying a common woman who is burdened with debt.
Because of their marriage union,
All the debt,
Becomes his,
And he pays for it.
All his riches becomes hers,
Because of that union.
If you are in Christ,
All the blessings of salvation are yours.
Even our election in eternity past,
We're told in Ephesians 1.4,
The Father chose us in him.
He chose us in the Son,
Before the foundation of the world.
Now,
To just help us feel the pastoral implications of this,
I'm just going to read from an author and teacher,
Sinclair Ferguson.
Listen,
Our union with Christ,
Which we experience through faith,
Is not first of all grounded on my faith.
And this is a tremendous encouragement to us.
Our faith falters.
But that doesn't mean our union with Christ falters.
Because our union with Christ is grounded in God's eternal purpose,
To think that before the foundation of the world,
He set his heart upon me,
That whenever he,
The Father,
Saw the coming work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
In some way beyond my imagination,
He saw that I was united to Jesus Christ.
He would never think of Jesus Christ without thinking of me.
He would never think of me without thinking,
That one belongs to my Son, Jesus Christ.
All of salvation is received in Jesus Christ.
Isn't it wonderful to see little Geordie
Running around the church
And just talking so much,
Just to see her to go from strength to strength.
Now,
Sam and Beth can tell you themselves
Of the agony of the process of legally adopting Geordie.
But do you think that their goal is just a legal change?
Of course not.
That legal side
Is for the sake of the full relational change.
They want Geordie to know who she is now.
She is their little girl.
They want Geordie to call Beth mama,
Sam dadda,
And experience the full relationship.
It's awe-inspiring enough
That God would pardon our sins.
But
Words fail us to talk about
That God wants to adopt us,
We're told.
That's the goal.
The spirit given to us
Is Christ's spirit,
The son of God's spirit.
Who calls God father,
Abba,
Daddy.
That's whose spirit resides in us.
The same way the son can relate to the father,
So can you, Christian.
You are such a legitimate child
Because of your union with Christ
That scripture says you're an heir.
You will get the inheritance.
You are co-heir with Christ.
God wants you to know
You are in his son.
You are his
You are his little girl.
You are his
You are his boy.
He wants you to relate.
Abba,
Dada.
And a child who knows unconditional love,
They don't do what the father says
Because they're afraid.
They do it because they
They want to please their dad.
Jesus said himself in John 14,
If anyone loves me,
He will keep my word
And my father will love him
And we will come to him
And make our home with him.
Again, if that's not enough
To disfloor you,
Let's finish by looking at
Four pictures in scripture
Of how we're meant to live out this union.
We get four pictures.
We've got a husband and wife.
We've got the temple.
We've got the human body.
And we've got the vine
And its branches producing fruit.
Now I want us to notice three things
About all these pictures.
First, the individual believer
Is so connected
That the identity
Doesn't make sense
If you don't understand it
In connection
With the head, with the whole.
So you can't be a hand or a foot
In isolation.
That only makes sense
If you're part of the body
And connected to the head.
So notice that
Your very identity
Is in connection.
It's in union with Christ
And all who are with him.
But also notice
That this integration
Is not like the Buddhist
And Hindu idea
Where it's like
I think it's Hinduism
That talks as if
The human soul is like a spark
That returns to the great bonfire.
But then it's just lost.
It's absorbed into that great bonfire.
That's not Christianity.
You remain a distinguishable person.
It's just that
Who you are now
Is just part of something
So much bigger than yourself.
You can't even think of yourself
Without thinking of who you're connected to.
And the third thing
I want us to notice
Is that most important of all
While this mystery of being united to God
Is profound
So much so that the Apostle Peter can say
That we are partakers of the divine nature.
It's not symmetrical.
Christ is uniquely God
And the source of life.
You are a creature.
We are still a creature
Who rests entirely on God
Providing life.
The temple would collapse
Without the cornerstone.
A branch cannot produce fruit
On its own.
It needs the life of the vine
Flowing through it.
So
How are we to think and live in this union?
First
It's like a husband and wife.
A husband and wife.
Now I think
If I was to ask you
Where does it talk about marriage
In
The New Testament?
Everyone would think of Ephesians 5
That's the marriage bit.
But
Talking about
A husband and wife
Are so connected now
That they are one flesh.
One flesh.
You're not two anymore
But one.
And then
But Paul
Reaches the climax of his teaching
In verse 32 of Ephesians 5
Saying
This mystery is profound
This one flesh mystery
And I am saying
That it refers to Christ
And his church
It's not primarily
The marriage chapter
It's primarily
The union with Christ
Chapter
Where marriage is meant
To reflect that
I think we can think of this
As if
Relating as the church
To Jesus
We need to look at a married couple
And take our cues
From the married couple
But that's the wrong way around
Paul is saying
Married people
Look at how Christ
Relates to the church
And how the church
Relates to Christ
Marriage
I've heard it described
It's like
It's the analogy
Pointing forward
To the real thing
Which is our
Marriage with Christ
If I can just use that term
Christ knows nothing
Of a cold
Transactional
Arms length
Relationship
Marriage unites
Two people
At every level
He doesn't see himself
As independent
But he sees himself
With us
As one flesh
He is the faithful husband
Who cherishes
And nourishes
And protects
And never forsakes
Never divorce
Never abandon
His people
So we're to think of ourselves
As one flesh
With this
This loving husband
We take on his name
Our identity changes
We should be totally devoted
To our husband
Receiving his strong care
And joyfully following his lead
And we should forsake
All other men
We should think of
I'm going to use that
As a metaphor for idols
Everything else
That tries to capture our heart
We should forsake
So that's one picture
Of how we're to live out
Our union with Christ
But no one picture
Captures all of it
So we're given lots of pictures
Another picture is the temple
Our union with Christ
Is like a temple
And we see that
In Ephesians 2
And 1 Peter
But let me just talk
About Ephesians
If you are in Christ
All that is Christ
Is yours
Which includes
All the believers
In Christ
So verse 20
Of Ephesians 2
You are built
You are built on the foundation
Of the apostles
And prophets
Christ Jesus
Himself
Being the cornerstone
In whom the whole structure
Being joined together
Grows into a holy temple
In the Lord
In him
You also
Are being built together
Into a dwelling place
For God
By the Spirit
God has a grand
Building project
The goal is a home
A place for his name
His spirit to dwell
Not just live next door
But to live in
His people
His church
Is this great
Building project
Each of us
As believers
Are like a brick
Like a stone
In that building
Incorporated
Into it
Where Christ
Is the cornerstone
He underpins it all
If he was removed
It would
It would fall down
Fortunately he doesn't change
So it won't be removed
He is the cornerstone
And we also hear it
In whom the whole structure grows
So here
It's kind of
Mixing metaphors
But
In whom the whole building grows
So I think we talk a lot
About the body
Being the temple
As if it's got to be
The picture of health
Physically
That's
This is not talking about that
This is more talking about
Our relationships as Christians
Should be
The picture of health
The church should be so united
The context here is
Jew and Gentile
Who had such hatred for each other
Now in Christ
Are one
It should
Our relationships in the church
Should be the picture of health
And there's one foundation
The authority of Christ's word
Through the apostles and prophets
We don't have the freedom
To make some modern architectural
Monstrosity
We get our building of the church
Based on the pattern
Of the apostles' teaching
And this building
Is permanent
Because Christ is permanent
While the world cares about
Building the tallest tower
And the greatest organisations
The company apple
Will crumble one day
It will fall to the ground
The church is forever
He's building this great temple
To dwell in
The third picture is our union
Like a human body
We see this in a few places
But 1 Corinthians 12
Is a detailed one
For just as the body
One body
Is one
And has many members
Fingers, toes
I can't describe it all
Many members
And all the members of the body
Though many are one body
So it is with Christ
We are all filled with the same one spirit
Uniting us to Christ's body
He is the head
There's only one head
It's not you
It's not me
He is the head
All the members
Get their instruction
And their power
From the head
And verse 18 says
God arranged the members
In the body
Picture the local church
Each one of them
As he chose
You can't look at someone else
And go
Would be better off
If they weren't here
You
You can't do that
He
He assembled our body
This church
Every part of the body
Is needed
To be actively
Functioning
Healthily
We are totally
Interdependent
But taking our cues
From the head
Jesus considers
How we treat
Any and all
Of the members
Of this church
Is how we treat
Him
Because it's
His body
Like our head
We are to be patient
With each other's faults
And determine
Like the head
Of the body
To see us
Grow up
Into maturity
To be healthy
And when one
Suffers
We all suffer
When one is
Honoured
We all are honoured
This one spirit
The spirit of Christ
Animates
Should animate
This body
This local church
And the fourth picture
We've got
Is
Like the vineyard
A branch
Abiding in the vine
This is Christ
Speaking to his
Disciples
From verse 4
Of John
Chapter 15
Abide in me
And I
In you
And we're told
In verse 7
How to abide
It's his
It's his word
Abiding
And dwelling in us
He says
As the branch
Cannot bear fruit
By itself
Unless it abides
In the vine
Neither can you
Unless you abide
In me
I am the vine
You are the branches
Whoever abides
In me
And I in him
He it is
That bears much fruit
For apart from me
You can do nothing
I think so often
We can get caught up
With what we're doing
To serve Jesus
Whereas
Do you grasp
The point of this passage
Stop focusing on
What you're doing
For Jesus
Worry about
Abiding in him
He will produce
The fruit
In a sense
It's the vine's
Responsibility
To produce the fruit
Where to stay
Connected to the vine
Having his word
Richly dwelling in us
In this picture
The father
God the father
Is included in this
Picture
This analogy
He is so committed
To our fruitfulness
That he will prune us
And there's two reasons
To prune
One is to cut off
Anything that is
Dead and unhealthy
The other is
To make us
More fruitful
It actually
Stimulates more fruit
I heard
A good quote
That captures this
By Amy Carmichael
What prodigal waste
It appears to be
To see scattered
On the floor
The bright green leaves
And the bare stem
Bleeding in a hundred
Places
From the sharp knife
But with a tried
And trusted husbandman
There is not a random
Stroke in it all
Nothing cut away
Which it would not
Have been a loss
To keep
And gain to lose
It's the Christian
It's the local church
That remains focused
On abiding in Christ
Being filled with his word
And trusting the father
To cut us
And make us bleed
That
Is
Will produce
Much fruit
Much living
That honours
Honours God
So they're the four pictures
Of how we can
Live out this union
Now if you're hearing
This today
You might be realising
You are only
Very loosely
Associated
With this Jesus
Maybe through
This organisation
Called Grace Evangelical
Or maybe through
A family member
You've only got
A pretty loose
Association
With Jesus
You need a vital
Connection to Jesus
You need his life
Flowing in you
By his spirit
You need to be
Baptised
Into Christ
To be dead
And born anew
You need a vital
Connection
That's what God
Wants with you
He wants to make
A home
In your heart
By his spirit
And Christian
We are so
I think in our
Culture
We're so
Individually
Minded
I hope today
Somewhere
The spirit
Is
Challenging
Cutting you
Where you
Are thinking
And acting
So individually
Let the spirit
Cut you
And take
Confidence
That Christ
Is fully
Committed
To you
Fully
Enjoying
This union
With him
And his people
He is so
Committed to it
We need to
Know who we
Are
We are
United to
Him
And so
We are united
To everyone
In him
Jesus
Is the one
Who will
Make sure
We will
Live out
This union
Just before
He died
On the cross
This is the
Purpose
For which
He died
Do you
Remember
What he
Prays
In John
17
What does
He pray
For
He prays
To the
Father
For all
Believers
That they
May all
Be one
Just as
You
Father
Are in
Me
And I
In you
That they
May be
In us
God
Wants
You
To be
In him
So that
The world
May believe
That you
Have sent
Me
The glory
That you
Have given
Me
I have
Given
Them
That they
May be
One
Even as
We
Are one
I
In them
And you
In me
That they
May become
Perfectly
One
So that
The world
May know
That you
Have sent
Me
And love
Them
Even as
You
Have loved
Me
I'm so
Shocked
By the
Phrase
That they
May be
One
Even as
We
Are one
That's
Pretty
One
And I
Just want
To finish
By asking
A question
I almost
Have no
Idea
How to
Answer
Why
Would the
Lord
Want
To be
So
United
To us
Forever
Considering
How
One
The
Father
Son
And
Holy
Spirit
Is
For all
Eternity
Fully
Sufficient
In themselves
Enjoying
That love
No need
Of anything
Else
What kind
Of God
Pursues
Sinners
That are
So
Determined
To reject
Him
What kind
Of a
God
Would
Redeem
Us
At the
Cost
Of his
Son
But what
Kind
Of a
God
Would
Satisfy
His
Justice
Totally
As a
Gift
And what
Kind
Of a
God
Would
Do
That
To
Unite
Himself
To
Us
Forever
Adopting
Us
So that
We
Can
Call
Him
Abba
What
Kind
Of a
God
Would
Do
That
I
Don't
Know
How
To
Answer
That
Why
Would
He
Want
That
It
Can't
Be
Because
We
Are
Lovely
It
Can't
It
Must
Be
Because
That's
The
Kind
Of
God
He
Is
And
He
Is
Worthy
Of
All
Our
Worship