1 Corinthians 1:30-31 | What's The Big Deal about Being in Christ?

Well, a couple weeks ago, I, I started off by talking about sophomores, wise fools.

But if you will, I want you to go back to, those of you who have been,

uh, your senior year of high school.

There's no higher m- point in, in life a- a- as a high school

student than your senior year.

You are, you are at the, the top of the heap, and you just think from

then on, life is g- just gonna look like you being at the, at the top.

Everybody else is, is beneath everybody else.

Nobody else has the same status that you do.

You walk with a little bit more pep in your step.

You have a little bit more, more zip.

You have a little bit more swagger, a- a- and rightly so.

You, you're a senior.

You've reached that point.

You've achieved that status, and so you've put in your time.

You've put in your freshman year, your sophomore year, your junior

year, and now you're a senior.

I remember a- at my school, being a senior meant we got to

park in a paved parking lot.

I did grow up here in Texas.

So, uh, we, uh, we went from a dirt lot to a paved lot, which, uh, was a big deal.

And then we got some, some other perks.

Off-campus lunch was a perk that we got as seniors, so as seniors we could

leave and go off campus for lunch.

We got, uh, to, to leave during free periods, study halls.

We didn't have to be on campus for that.

A- and I went to a private school, so we had uniforms.

Well, seniors got extra non-uniform days, so we were kind of a big deal.

I don't wanna brag, but it was a big deal at the time.

But that status, right?

All of those perks and the way that I was living, the way that

I was conducting myself, had to do with my status as a senior.

Uh, juniors can't do the same thing.

Freshmen can't do the same thing.

Sophomores can't do the same thing.

That was reserved for people that had been seniors, that had become

seniors, that had achieved that status Your identity when you were a senior

changed something about your life.

It was a big deal.

It was a big deal.

And this morning, what I want you to do is I want you to think about a, a,

an even more significant identity that you and I have that should also have

an impact on our lives, and that is our identity as those who are now in Christ.

In Christ.

The title of the sermon is What's the Big Deal About Being in Christ?

And that's really the question that we wanna ask this morning.

What is the big deal?

What difference should it make?

The most important thing about a senior is that he is a senior.

He's gonna brag about that.

He's gonna wear that proudly.

He's gonna allow that to change the way that he's gonna live.

He's not gonna do the same things that he did before because he's got

a new status, and with that, the new privileges and the new blessings and

the new perks that come along with that.

Well, likewise, as Christians, the most important thing about a Christian

is who we are in Christ, that we have a new status as those that have been

brought from death to life, that we've been placed into Christ, and with

that now comes perks and blessings and benefits that should indeed

change the way that we live our lives.

Your identity in Christ should make an impact on who you are.

It should change who you conduct yourself as, who you put yourself

out there as versus who you were before you came to Christ.

That's true for Christians, but I would even go so far as to say the

most important thing just in general about anyone is this question right

here, whether or not you are in Christ

Believer, unbeliever, this is the status that is going to

ultimately decide eternity.

Are you in Christ?

It's the question I want us to ponder this morning.

It's the question that I think our, our text is gonna address by helping

us to understand, well, what's the big deal about being in Christ?

Why should I wanna be in Christ?

Seems like maybe some of you might be out there thinking, to be in Christ,

uh, that seems to cost quite a bit.

I have to change things about my life.

People aren't gonna like me because the, the, the beliefs, the tenets,

the doctrines that Christians hold to, the world doesn't really

love a lot of those these days.

So I don't know, I, I'm gonna have to give up friends, I'm

gonna lose people in my life.

What's the big…

Why should I want to be in Christ?

Or maybe you're out there and, and you've been in Christ for decades,

and, and you, you, like me this week, you need that refresher.

You need that reminder of why this matters so much, why it's such a

significant thing to, to be in Christ.

What's the big deal about being in Christ?

It is the most important thing about you, whether you are or you aren't.

That is what's going to define eternity.

Our text is 1 Corinthians 1:30-31.

1 Corinthians 1:30–31

We read it together earlier.

It's our memory verses, and it says this, "And because of him you are

in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and

sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, 'Let the

one who boasts boast in the Lord.'"

Uh, Paul begins here in verse 30.

He says this, "And because of him you are in Christ Jesus."

Because of him.

The, the him there is God.

We're gonna see that momentarily here.

But this is Paul introducing the, the status change for the Corinthians.

Remember, he's writing to a group here who were looking at a status

of saying, "Well, I'm in Paul.

I'm in Cephas.

I'm in Apollos."

And Paul's saying, "That's, that's not what matters.

Don't brag about that.

That's not what to, you should boast in.

Th- your status that matters is whether or not you are in Christ."

And again, in Christ, th- those two words are repeated even just in the

New Testament so many times that I fear they may have lost their

significance for us, their impact for us.

Man, what does it mean that I am in Christ?

What does it mean?

Uh, uh, is, is that…

Do I still feel like that is the, the good news that it once was for me?

Or has this just become more of a theological tenet than it has one of the

core pieces of my identity, of who I am?

What does it mean to be in Christ?

That's why I'm so thankful for a passage like this and a verse like

this where Paul begins by calling our attention to this glorious reality

that because of God, you are in Christ

What I want us to start with this morning, and the first thing I want

us to do as we begin to consider this passage, is to recapture some

of the wonder of that reality.

Point number one this morning along those lines is this, humbly, humbly wonder,

humbly wonder at your position in Christ

Wonder at it.

We, we don't wonder at many things anymore.

I remember last year going to the, the ice, uh, event over at the,

the, uh, the big hotel over there.

The Gaylord.

Thank you, whoever that was.

In your mind, you were thinking, "It's the Gaylord, Pastor PJ,"

and you and I were tracking.

And so I got there.

But I remember…

And it, it was j- it was Elf-themed.

And, and this year I think they're doing Harry Potter or something like that.

I don't know.

But it was Elf-themed, and I, I remember walking in there and, and I was in,

I was in awe of these ice sculptures.

It was phenomenal, and, and it caused me to wonder at everything

that went into creating that.

And then it, th- my favorite part was actually after the elf, they

had this just clear, just plain ice.

It wasn't painted or anything else, and it was the Nativity

scene, and it was just beautiful.

And I just sat there and I was…

That was me wondering at that.

Maybe for you, it, it, it's been going camping and looking up at the stars in

the sky, and you're just wondering at the, the magnitude of God's creation.

Or you go to the beach and you see the, the ocean and you hear the

waves crashing, and y- y- you just are in wonder at the power of God.

That's what this word is, and that's what I want us to capture again or refresh

when it comes to our standing in Christ.

There are standings that people think matter.

I remember they just released the iPhone 18 and the iPhone Duo this week, and

people are all excited about that.

But, but I remember, uh, reading a story about the first iPhone to be released, I

think it was back in 2005, if I remember correctly, and it was a massive thing.

And so people were lining up in front of the stores for, for blocks, and

there was a story about a lady who got there after people had already lined up.

Well, her plan was she wanted to go in, and she wanted to be first in line,

'cause she wanted to go buy out all of the iPhones and then sell them for a profit.

And so she went up to this young man, it was this college student who

was the first one in line to buy the first iPhone out of the gates, and she

paid him, I don't know, 900 bucks or something like that for his spot in line.

And the kid's like, "Sure."

So he takes 900 bucks and, and he moves back, I don't know, 50 people maybe at

that point, and she's first in line.

And she's just beaming ear to ear.

She's like, "I got it.

This is the most important position in line.

I'm number one.

This is my place."

So she's out 900 already to this kid.

She gets in the store, she goes up to the counter, and she's like,

"I, I'm here to buy 10 iPhones."

And the lady behind the counter goes, "It's limit one per customer, ma'am."

And so she got her iPhone, and so did that young man, but his was

free because she bought it for him.

She had a status that she thought was gonna be valuable, only to get

in and realize that it really wasn't as valuable as she thought it was.

Your standing in Christ is not that.

Your standing in Christ, your position in Christ, is the most important

status, the most important identity that you own as a follower of Jesus.

Paul says, "Because of Him," that Him is God.

This goes back to the context that we talked about last week in 27 through 29.

From Him is literally what it is in the Greek.

From God you are in Christ.

Remember last week, he said over and over again, "God chose, God chose, God chose."

He chose the foolish.

He chose the weak.

He chose the things that are low and despised.

Because God chose, in other words, because of an act of God's grace in your life and

in my life, we are now in Christ, that He has placed us into this relationship

with Jesus, and that's what this is.

To be in Christ, it's in, it's a, a grammatical term there called a

dative, and it's about a, a sphere of location, that you have been placed

into the location being in Christ.

Now, that doesn't mean literally.

You are not inside of Jesus.

But you are in Christ in the sense that you've been placed into the

sphere of a relationship with Him and all of the benefits that come with that.

And God has done that for you.

God has taken you from dead and made you alive.

He's taken you from lost and made you found.

He's taken you from far off and brought you near.

He's taken you from an alien and a stranger away from Jesus,

and now He has put you into relationship with Him, in Christ.

This is not a position that can be earned.

It's not a relationship that can be manufactured.

It's not something that we can work hard enough and gain

access to of our own accord.

It's something that God has to do for us, and that's why Paul says, "Because of

Him," because of God, "you are in Christ."

You are in Christ.

But again, okay, I'm wondering at that.

I'm, I'm beginning to get there a little bit, but, but what

are, what's the big deal still?

Again, what's the big deal about being in Christ?

Last week, I mentioned that exclusive club in, in New York

City, the Knickerbocker Club.

Uh, uh, the benefits of that club basically amount to you get to be

a part of that club, your status.

You get to, to pay, to, to have an entry fee, and you get to pay monthly dues.

And yeah, they've got a clubhouse, and you get access to some other

clubs, uh, uh, around the country and even around the world.

And they've got nice things, like they've got expensive chairs for

you to sit on, and you can eat, eat food off of really expensive plates

and with expensive silverware.

But the greatest benefit to those in that club are, are just simply that you belong.

You have a status

Being in Christ is more than just a status.

It's more than that.

There are so many blessings and benefits that come to you because you are in

Christ that should again leave us with this sense of wonder, this sense of awe.

Uh, benefits like 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is," notice

2 Corinthians 5:17

Paul's language here, "in Christ, then, then he is a, a new creation.

She is a new creation.

The old has passed away and the new has come."

He, he's talking about regeneration.

He's talking about going from, again, dead in our sins and alien, hostile,

uh, uh, an opponent of God to being reconciled, to being made alive, to

being forgiven, to being, uh, made new.

That is a benefit that's reserved for those that are in Christ

It, the transformation that takes place in the life of a believer, in other words.

You have people in the world that may not like themselves, and they may, may want

to change everything about themselves, and they, they may try, and they may be

to, uh, successful to a certain extent.

But the total transformation of a human being to go from a lost

sinner to a found saint, th- that's about a work of God that He does by

placing you into this relationship with Jesus through the gospel.

So in Christ, one of the benefits is that you are a new creation in Christ.

The old is gone, the new is here

But perhaps the, the text where we get the most clear explanation

of the benefits that come with being in Christ is Ephesians.

Ephesians 1:3 and following, and, and it'll be up on the

Ephesians 1:3

screen here, but, but here it is.

Paul says this, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who

has blessed us," notice the language, "in Christ with every spiritual

blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the

foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ,

according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with

which He has blessed us in the Beloved.

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our

trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us.

In all wisdom, in all insight, making known to us the mystery of

His will, according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a

plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Christ, things

in heaven and things on earth in Him.

In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according

to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel

of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might

be to the praise of His glory.

In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of

your salvation, and believed Him, were sealed with the promised Holy

Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession

of it, to the praise of His glory."

What's the big deal about being in Christ?

All of that.

That you are in Him according to the divine wisdom and love of God, that He

has chosen you, that He has placed you into Christ, that you have a inheritance

that's waiting for you, that you have been blessed with all of the spiritual

blessings in the heavenly places, that you have been sealed with the promised Holy

Spirit as a guarantee of your salvation, so that you know that you're not gonna

wake up tomorrow and just decide, "Well, I don't believe any of it anymore."

The blessings that are ours by being in Christ.

These are some of the things that should cause us to say, "Lord, why?

Why me?

Why me?"

Again, it's so much more than a status It's more than

simply a positional reality.

It's a reality that should encompass our entire lives.

We exist in Christ, so now we, we can walk in newness of life like

Paul talks about in Romans chapter 6 because we've been united to Christ.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

We can walk as new creations like we read about in 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

We are sons and daughters of God.

Galatians chapter 3 says that that's a product of our status as those

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

in Christ, as we have been adopted.

We are His sons, we are His daughters.

We can draw near to the God of creation and the Lord of the

universe as Abba Father now.

We now, in Christ, share the blessings of salvation and the certainty of

our future inheritance like we just read about in Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

These are the big deals of being in Christ.

This is why we should humbly wonder at our position in Christ.

Humbly, because none of us earned it.

None of us merited it.

None of us worked our way into.

And these blessings are, are more than just the doctrinal

sub-points to Christianity

They're blessings that are ours and tangibly ours because we are in Christ.

Newness of life, being a new creation, being part of God's family, the blessing

of, of salvation and eternal security

To find out that you are in Christ or, or just to pause and consider

all of these things about being in Christ, th-this is the greatest place

you could ever help-- hope to found-- find yourself, is to be in Christ.

There's no better place in this world Than to be in Christ,

regardless of where you are.

If your life is great right now, the greatest thing about your

life is that you're in Christ.

If your life is hard, you're walking through a trial, you're going through

grief, you've lost a loved one, you're in stress, you've got strain, your health is

not good, still, the, the, the greatest news that hasn't changed at all if you're

a believer is that you are in Christ.

It's the best news for any of us in this room because of who we are or

who we were before we were in Christ.

Ephesians chapter 2 says this, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following

the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons

of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh,

carrying out the desires of the flesh in the mind, and we were by nature children

of wrath, like the rest of mankind."

But now you have been made in Christ.

God has caused you to be in Christ through the gospel, through the

gospel, through responding in faith and repentance to the good news that

Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins, and He gave you His righteousness

so that you can be acceptable before God, and He rose again from the dead

so that you can live with Him forever.

If you believe that message, you have been placed in Christ.

No longer a child of wrath, but a child of God.

No longer dead, but alive.

No longer enslaved, but freed.

No longer condemned, but justified because of the grace of God.

So I want us to humbly wonder at that, but then I want us to think

about the difference that that reality should now make in our lives.

It's like being that senior.

You step on campus first day as a senior, y-you now can live differently

because of, of that reality.

Look at verse 30, where Paul goes next.

He says this.

Paul says, "And because of Him," again, because of Him, what

we just read, "Because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus," okay?

Status, in Christ Jesus, all the blessings that come with that, "who became to

us wisdom from God, righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption."

Okay, so because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus.

Now, the means of how God took us and put us in Christ is now explained with

these four terms that Paul is going to give us here, and that is that

Jesus became the wisdom of God for us.

We've been talking a lot about wisdom.

We've talk-talked about the wisdom of the world versus the wisdom of God.

The wisdom of God is Christ crucified.

The wisdom of God is what the world considers to be foolish, but

to us who are being saved, it's the power of God for salvation.

So Christ, in order for us to be put in Christ, well, Jesus had to become

the wisdom of God, and then He's gonna explain that wisdom even further in

the three additional terms that we find here in verse 30 But these aren't

just about our standing with the Lord, but as we're gonna find out here,

that these have something to say about the way that we should respond to our

identity as those who are in Christ.

Our second point this morning is this, I want you to live like you are in Christ.

I want it to show up in your life.

For a senior to go to school and to live like a freshman doesn't

make any sense in the world.

Why aren't you living like who you are?

Why aren't you taking advantage of the status that you have a- have

achieved, for the, the senior, that is?

Why, why aren't you using the benefits and the blessings that

have been entrusted to you?

We'd look at them and say, "What are you doing?

There's … Other than you're a little bit taller, I can't tell the difference

between you and the freshman anymore."

As Christians, we need to live in light of our identity in Christ, in all of

the blessings that we have received.

And, and this is gonna describe how we were placed into Christ

through these three terms.

But also, each of these three terms, uh, further explaining the wisdom

of God, is gonna have an implication for today, what that should mean

for how we're living our lives.

And so he became to us, even that idea there, Christ became for us.

Uh, back in the beginning of the verse, because of God we are

in Christ, and Christ became.

Now, that's an interesting word there, isn't it?

There's a doctrine about God, and, and it applies to Jesus, too.

It's called the immutability of God.

That is, that God does not change, that God is the same

yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

He is unchanging.

Okay?

So in what sense should we understand that Christ became the wisdom of God?

Well, it's not that he lacked something in eternity past, and now all of a

sudden he possesses it, but rather, through the incarnation, he was

revealed to be the, the wisdom of God.

A- and so God sent Jesus in the Son, Jesus the Son submitted t- perfectly in

perfect obedience to the Father's will to come to Earth, to live a perfect life,

to die on the cross for our sins, to give us his full righteousness so that we can

be acceptable to God, and to rise again so that we can live with him forever.

He did all of that, that he might become the wisdom of God.

He wasn't yet the wisdom of God, not because he lacked something, but because

that had not yet been accomplished for us.

But now that it has, Christ became the wisdom of God for

us, that wisdom that saves us.

And that wisdom of God is not the same as the wisdom of the world,

but rather it's a wisdom that has come to us through the cross.

In fact, if you look just back up the page, 1 Corinthians 1:23 through

1 Corinthians 1:23–24

24, Paul said there, he said, "But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling

block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles, but to those who are called,

both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

And so to put us in Christ, God sent Jesus, and Jesus, through the incarnation

and through His death on the cross and through His subsequent resurrection,

He became the wisdom of God for us.

Now, what about that wisdom?

Let's unpack that a little bit more, and that's what Paul does

with these next three terms there.

The first thing he wants us to understand about this wisdom is that th- this wisdom

was the righteousness that we needed.

This is the, the term that takes us into the courtroom before the judge.

To be declared righteous is a, a legal standing before God.

This is where justification takes place.

And the righteousness that we possess, as I've been talking about, it's

not just that He died on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven.

He didn't just bring us back to square one with God and say, "Well, don't mess up

anymore 'cause I got you out of that mess.

Don't get any more debt."

Rather, He died on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven, and

then He gave us this righteousness, and this righteousness is the

full righteousness before God.

This righteousness is our standing before God as those that obeyed the law

perfectly, as those who never sinned.

Jesus gave that to you and I when we put our trust in Jesus

as our Lord and our Savior.

And so His wisdom from God is this righteousness.

It's this imputed righteousness is the concept there.

Uh, 2 Corinthians 5:21, "He made him who knew no sin to be sin so that we

2 Corinthians 5:21

might become the righteousness of God."

And so we get this righteousness.

We, we lacked the righteousness.

The wisdom of God saw fit to provide the righteousness for us in the

only way that it possibly could.

And, and this is why, y'all, that it matters that Jesus didn't just

show up as a 33-year-old man and immediately go to the cross day one

and die on the cross for our sins.

This is why His earthly life matters.

This is why His upbringing matters.

This is why His adolescence mattered.

This is why His identity as a young man mattered.

This is why His three years of public ministry mattered.

Because the righteousness that you and I possess as Christians

is an earned righteousness.

It's merited, just not by us.

It's His.

Jesus earned it for us, and that's why the 33 years, give or take, of

His earthly life were necessary, because Jesus had to come and fulfill

the law which you and I can't do.

And so He did that, and He was righteous, and then He died on the cross and took

our sin and gave us that righteousness so that God looks at you and me now

and He sees us and says, "They're not just not guilty, but they're innocent

with the righteousness of Christ."

That's a, that's a pretty good perk of being in Christ

But what about today, right?

I said all this should impact our lives today, right?

And, and Paul anticipates some of the thought to that because we might

think, "Well, that's fantastic news.

Then I'm gonna go sin up, sin up a, a storm because after all, if He paid for it

all and I've got His righteousness, then why does it matter how I live my life?"

Well, Paul anticipated that in Romans chapter 6.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

He said this, he said, "What shall we say then?"

'Cause he's just ta- been talking about how awesome grace is.

"Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more.

What shall we say then?

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?"

S- s- he's addressing the extreme of the response of the, the perversion to think,

"Well, if my sin results in God's grace and God is glorified by grace, then really

I'm glorifying God by sinning because He gets to be more gracious to me."

Paul says, "Should we do that?

By no means."

Knuckleheads, that's not in the original.

"But by no means.

How can we who died to sin still live in it?"

Right?

How can we who've been united to His death still continue

to live as though we weren't?

How can we who have been declared righteous by His death, how can we

who have been given His righteousness now go out and live as though we were

anything but those who are righteous?

And so part of our identity today as those who are in Christ is that it

should show up in the fact that we are living lives of righteousness before Him.

Not to earn it.

No, no, no.

That's been done.

But to live in keeping with who we are, who, what our identity

is as those who are in Christ.

To live a life of rampant sin-

and to be in Christ is completely incompatible.

It's like a freshman or like a-- Rather, it's like a senior, instead of taking

advantage of being a senior and living as a senior, choosing instead to say, "No,

I'm just gonna live as a freshman again."

It doesn't make sense.

And so for us as those who are in Christ, His wisdom means that we have

a righteousness that is ours, that has, has amounted to the fact that we've been

declared not, not just not guilty, but innocent with the righteousness of Christ.

That's done, and so now what should that do in my life today?

How do I live like I'm in Christ?

Well, I wanna live a righteous life because I am righteous in Christ

But he didn't just become righteousness for us, he also

became sanctification for us.

Sanctification.

This is now not the courtroom, but now the temple.

I want you to picture the temple, and I want you to

picture all of the instruments.

We talked about this in the first message of our 1 Corinthians

series seven weeks ago.

We talked about the, the fact that Paul wrote to those who are sanctified

in Christ Jesus there in verse two.

It's the same concept.

You have been set apart for the use of, of holiness, the

use of, of, of God, use by God.

And so that's why I want you to go to the temple because I want

you to think about the utensils.

I want you to think about the, the, the, the altar.

I want you to think about the, the cups that were used in the drink

offering and all of those things.

They were sanctified.

They were consecrated.

They were set apart to be used by God

In our state as those who were unredeemed, as those who were not in

Christ, we couldn't be useful to the Lord

But in the wisdom of God, He has made Christ both our righteousness

and now also our sanctification.

In other words, that what Jesus has done, because we are now in Christ, we now

have a new positional use to the Father.

We have been set apart.

We have been consecrated.

We have been sanctified, positionally set apart for Him.

Later on in 1 Corinthians Chapter 6, Paul's gonna say, uh, "Such

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified."

That term is gonna come back up again there.

So he opens with it in verse two, we get it here in our verse, in verse 30.

He's gonna come back to it in Chapter 6 verse 11.

So, so you have been sanctified.

That, that's part of the wisdom of God that saves us is it sets

us apart to be useful to Him.

Now, let's come to today and say, what does it look like then for

me to live like I'm in Christ?

Well, if I'm in Christ, and being in Christ means that I've been sanctified,

I've been positionally set apart as holy for God, well then what I need to say is,

"A- am I living a life that reveals that?

Am I being useful to the Lord?

If He has set me apart in Christ to be useful to Him, then it should

follow that I'm living a life that is indeed useful to the Lord.

I'm thinking about Him.

I'm, I'm, I'm serving Him.

I'm, I'm pursuing Him.

I'm pursuing a relationship with Him.

I'm, I'm thinking about my whole life and what I give myself to.

I, I need to think that what I'm doing, I'm doing in Christ, and so is what

I'm doing furthering my service to the Lord, or is this about my flesh?

What am I doing here?

Am I stepping into this identity as one who's in Christ, set

apart to be useful to the Lord?"

A-a-and that's really a good conduit into this third term that he talks

about, which is the term redemption.

That the wisdom of God meant that Jesus became our righteousness, declared

not just not guilty, but innocent with the righteousness of Christ,

and so I wanna live a righteous life.

He became our sanctification.

That is, that we have been positionally set apart as useful, as holy to the Lord.

So I wanna live a life that is useful and holy to the Lord.

And then finally here, He has become our redemption, our redemption.

This is now not the, the courtroom or the, the temple, but this is the slave market.

A-a-and so back in the, Paul's day, slaves were, were bought and sold

on the, the m- the market there.

And so what Paul is doing here is he's using language that would have r-referred

to a slave being purchased from one master and transferred into the ownership

of another master, and he's saying that that was part of the wisdom of God.

That's part of what took place with you being placed into Christ.

The word in the Greek means to be released from something.

But the way it worked was you were released from servitude to one to

be placed into servitude to another, and that's how the gospel works, too.

That's what it means to be put into Christ.

It, it, it works like this.

You, you are freed from your slavery to sin through the cost that was

paid by the one doing the redeeming.

That's why this is a redemption.

A cost is being paid to free you, and that's the cross.

That's Jesus dying for us, giving us His righteousness, and rising again.

That now has freed you from slavery to sin through the cost that was paid so that

you would now be enslaved to the Lord.

Paul talks about that in Romans chapter six, that we've been f- set free from sin.

How can we who die to sin still live in it?

But now we have become a slave of, of righteousness.

We have become a servant of the Lord

And so God in his wisdom, in making Christ the wisdom for us, he saw fit

to make Christ our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption.

And so as I think about my redemption today, it's not just that I'm free

from sin to just live autonomously now

Christians still have a master.

As Christians, we are still slaves.

It's just that our master is the Lord and not sin, and He is such a better master

But the question that I wanna ask myself is, okay, am I living like I'm in Christ?

Is Christ my Lord?

I mean, there, there's kind of a, a, a popular, and not, it's not new, it's been

around for a long time unfortunately, but there's a movement that would say,

"Well, I want Jesus to be my savior, but I don't want him to be my Lord."

A- and I, I just don't see where that measures up anywhere in scripture

I want Jesus to be my savior, but I wanna go ahead and just live the rampant life

of sin that I've always been living.

I don't want a savior that's gonna get in my kitchen.

I don't want him meddling in my life.

I don't want anybody telling me that what I'm doing is wrong.

How dare you?

Jesus died on the cross for my sins.

Who are you to tell me that I'm in sin?

Uh, this, man, this pressed home this morning.

I, I, I was on, on Twitter or X or whatever it's called, and there was a,

a young man who's a quarterback for a team who yesterday his team won a game.

And so in the post-game interview, he began the interview by giving glory to

the Lord and ended the interview with a pr- a statement of, of profanity

and a big one, a big, big profane word at the end of this interview.

And somebody posted about it on X this morning and said, "Hey, uh, you know what?

It's, it's not great when you're giving Christ the glory at the beginning of

your interview and then dropping that m- that word at the end of your interview.

That's not a great look."

So I did what any masochist does, and I went to the comments 'cause

I was like, "Okay, what are people gonna think about this?"

And it was fascinating how many people claiming the name of Christ were saying,

"S- quit being such a legalist about this.

Grown-ups cuss.

It's no big deal."

Or, "You know what?

People are doing way worse stuff than, than that.

Why don't you go worry about what other people are doing and

not giving this young man such a hard time about using that word?"

Y'all, that's, that's not following Christ

That's not what it looks like to be somebody who's been redeemed

To be redeemed is to say, "Well, I haven't just been set free from sin

to live however I wanna live now.

I've been set free from sin and transferred to a new owner, and that

owner is Jesus, and I wanna live a life that's gonna be glorifying to Him

And so the wisdom of God that has saved us, has saved us by Jesus

becoming our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption.

And so that should change the way we live.

Again, am I a senior living like a freshman?

Or am I really stepping into the full benefits of what I have in Christ?

Is my life showing that I've been put in Christ, that Jesus has become my wisdom,

that He is my righteousness, that He is my sanctification, that He is my redemption?

If, if He is, th- then the next thing that Paul's gonna say here in our final

verse, it, it makes all the sense in the world, that another component of how

I live my life is that now my life is gonna become a platform for His glory.

Look down at verse 31.

Paul says this, "So that…"

All this has happened.

Jesus became this for us, "So that, as it is written, 'Let the one

who boasts boast in the Lord.'"

Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.

This may remind you of last week, verse 29, "So that no human being

might boast in the presence of God."

Okay, but if we are gonna boast, we're gonna boast in the Lord.

He's gonna be the one that we're gonna platform.

It's gonna be His glory.

We're not gonna boast in these other things that people identify themselves

with, family, possessions, title, uh, you know, uh, uh, w- we're the,

the Instagram culture, and so our Instagram feeds, they show us in

the best light possible, you know?

Th- they don't show the, the, the, the floordrobe in the corner of the r- the

room, you know, that the husband and wife are, are, are having tension about.

They, they don't show when, you know, your, your kid comes home from school

and you're like, "Can you do the dishes?"

And the kid's like, "Yeah, I'll get to it eventually."

And you're like, "Uh, I'm, I'm sorry, what?

When did this become a, a, a democracy?"

Um, it's not.

They, they don't show the, the things about our li- they show us in the best

light possible 'cause we want people to look at us and, and be impressed with us.

Th- this is, this is not what it is to live in Christ.

I'm not saying delete Instagram.

Or maybe, maybe you should.

Maybe.

That's between you and Jesus I, I, I'm just saying if, if we're gonna boast,

y'all, i- if we want anybody to know anything about us, the thing that should

be at the top of the list for us is that we are in Christ and all that that means.

And so our final point this morning is this.

I want you to put your full confidence in your standing with Christ, not

in who you are as a mom or a dad, or as an employee or an, an employer.

I don't want you to put your full confidence in your bank account.

I don't want you to put your, put your full confidence in, in your home.

I don't want you to put your full confidence in, in those things.

It's not that you have to despise those things.

They're gifts from God.

Be thankful for them.

But put your full confidence in Christ.

Paul says, "So that…"

God made Him to be these things for us, wisdom from God, righteousness,

sanctification, and redemption.

He has caused us to be in Christ.

Now, so that, with the result that, what?

That we would boast in Him, that the fulfillment of all of Jesus' work for us

would be that we would boast in Jesus.

Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.

This is going back to Jeremiah 9:23-24.

Jeremiah 9:23–24

There, the prophet says this: "Thus says the Lord, 'Let not

the wise man boast in his wisdom.

Let not the mighty man boast in his might.

Let not the rich man boast in his riches.

But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I

am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.

For these things I delight in,' declares the Lord."

God has not changed, in other words.

His message to Israel is His message to us today.

Hey, if you wanna boast in something, boast in the fact that you know me.

Boast in the fact that you are in Christ.

Boast in what I've done for you, not in what you're doing for me.

Boast in the Lord.

Y- you may remember from last week, i- if you jump back up to verse 28,

it says, "God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things

that are not," in order to what?

To bring to nothing the things that are.

I- in other words, to bring to nothing those things that we are tempted to

put our confidence in, the things that we are tempted to identify

with more than others, the things that we are tempted to boast in.

God said, "Hey, I'm gonna take those things out of the equation, because none

of those things are gonna factor into how you're gonna be placed in Christ.

That's gonna be all me.

None of those things are gonna have anything to do with how you get from

dead in sin to being made alive.

That's gonna be all me.

None of those things are gonna be able to save you.

That's gonna be all me.

So I'm gonna take those things off the table."

And so God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the

things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, to

bring to nothing the things that are.

And, and again, this should show up then in how we live.

If our confidence is fully in Christ, it should show up in how we live.

We should be different from the world around us.

Your Instagram feed should be different from the world around us

Let me just give you a couple of examples here.

Maybe your company is massively successful.

You're an entrepreneur and, and you're just…

You're killing it.

You're just pulling in money hand over fist.

Well, you could conceivably make a post on social media somewhere about

that as a way to boast in the Lord.

Say, "Look what God has done."

Or you could put up a post about that somewhere, and it would

be, "Look how successful I am."

Or m- m- m- shifting gears here, maybe your kids are just excelling.

They're doing so well.

And, and you've got-- God has blessed you with, with kids that are smart

and that are progressing i- in school and their education and in, you know,

you've made a, a particular choice for, for schooling, and you just feel

like, man, that, that is the best thing that anyone could do in the world.

You could talk to other people and just say, "Man, I, I'm gonna boast in the

Lord for what the Lord has done through my family with the schooling choices

that we made and things like that.

I'm just so thankful to Him.

He's been kind to us

Or you could boast in, in yourselves in that and, and say, "You know what?

We made this choice.

We would never decide to, to put our kids in that situation."

I'll pick on my family.

We send our kids to public school.

We would never send … No, I'm not gonna

In, in, in other words, our temptation to boast is, is so insidious and subtle,

and we have to be on guard against it.

We have to make sure that we are boasting in the Lord, that He has our

full confidence in life, and that, that is evidence to those around us

It's not just that Christianity gives us better things to boast in.

Rather, in Christianity, it gives you someone infinitely better

to boast in, and that's Jesus

I don't know any better way to further explain this th- than to

go to Philippians chapter three.

It was read this morning, but I just wanna go back here.

Um, i-i-if you've got your Bibles, you can flip over to Philippians.

It's to the right a few books in your Bible.

Um, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, God's electric power company.

Um

Philippians chapter 3, I, uh, the, Paul lived this out, in other

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

words, is, is what I'm saying here

His full confidence.

Pick up in verse three.

Paul says, "For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory

in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, though I myself have

reason for confidence in the flesh also.

If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more."

So Paul's gonna look like he's boasting here, but he's setting it up, right?

He's saying, "I was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of

Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin.

I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews.

As to the law, I was a Pharisee.

I was an expert in the law.

As to zeal, I was a persecutor of the church.

As to righteousness under the law, blameless."

Okay?

So Paul's stacking the deck saying, "You want to boast?

Let's go."

And Paul says, "I could've gone toe-to-toe with the best of them."

Even when you read Persecuting the Church, you might be tempted to think

to yourself, "Well, that's a bad thing."

And yes, it was a bad thing, but in Paul's eyes what he's saying is, "My zeal

and passion was unrivaled for the Lord.

I was his soldier.

I saw the church at that time as a threat, so I was out on the front lines.

I was putting my life at risk to try to shut down the church and

imprison Christians, 'cause I thought I was serving the Lord in that."

So Paul's like, "You wanna boast?

Step up.

Let's see.

Let's compare resumes here."

And so he lists all these things, and then he says this in verse seven,

"But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

I count it as loss for the sake of Christ.

Indeed," he says, "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing

worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

For His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as rubbish

in order that I might gain Christ and be found," notice our words here, "in

Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that

which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends

on faith, that I might know Him and the power of His rec- resurrection,

and that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."

Y- y- you see, that's what we're talking about here with this third point.

Can, can we come up with our own list that Paul has here and say, "What, what

would I boast in if I were to boast today?

W- w- what is my blind spot?

What's my weak spot?

What would I say, 'Hey, I'm gonna boast in this,' like the Texas Rangers being

one game up on the Houston Astros right now with seven games left to play.

Let's go, Rangers.

What would I boast in?

What would it be?"

Would it be your family?

Would it be your wealth?

Would it be your, your position at work?

Would it be your intellect?

Would it be your, your, your, your pedigree?

The car you drive

Your retirement funds, the trips that you get to go take

W- what are the things that you would boast in that you could line up with Paul?

And then I would ask you the question, can you say with Paul, "I count

it all as loss compared to Jesus"?

Take it all away and give me Jesus.

That's all I need.

Oh man, that's easy to preach, that's hard to live.

But by the Spirit of God within us, that is the life that we should live in Christ.

That is how we should live in Christ.

Paul's saying, "I'm not gonna boast in my resume.

I wanna be found in Christ and I want His righteousness," Philippians 3.

1 Corinthians 1, "You are in Christ.

He is your righteousness, so boast in Jesus

Put your full confidence in Christ.

Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

A diagnostic question that might be a little painful for us.

When somebody meets you for the first time, how long do they have to know you

before they know that you're in Christ?

Instead of what you do for a living or how big your family is or where

you came from, where you moved from

Is our identity in Christ evident because we're boasting in Him, in Him alone?

People know that's where my confidence is.

It's, it's fully in Christ.

The most important thing about you is whether or not you're in Christ.

And if you are in Christ, then it should be known

We're prone to anchor our identities to so many other things.

I want you to picture a ship for a moment going out to sea.

When a ship's at the dock, it uses its mooring ropes to tie itself

off, and that's what keeps it there.

But when a ship goes out to sea, not that I would know because I don't go on ships,

but those of you who do, when the ship wants to stop somewhere, it drops what?

Anchor.

It drops anchor.

And so when the captain wants to stay the ship in the middle

of the ocean, he's gonna put his full confidence and trust in what?

The anchor.

Your anchor is Christ.

Your identity, being in Christ, that's the anchor of your life.

That is the anchor that keeps your life static and stable no matter what happens

But we're prone to throw out so many other anchors that can't bear the

weight of the ship of our identity.

We throw out the anchor of our job, our income, our education, our

marriage, our family, our political party, our house, our possessions.

A- and, and not that any of those are bad things, they're not, but they're

not the anchor that stays your identity.

The anchor that stays your identity, even when all of those anchors

fail, is Jesus Christ, Christ alone

Because God has put you in Christ, who became to you wisdom, righteousness,

sanctification, and redemption, so that as it is written, "Let the

one who boasts, boast in the Lord."

Most important thing about a Christian is their identity in Christ.

The most important about any, uh, uh, any person, important thing about any

person is the question, are you in Christ?

Uh, the good news this morning, if you're not, is you can be.

Again, Jesus died on the cross for your sins so that you can be

forgiven, and He's offering you His full righteousness so that you

can be accepted by a righteous God.

And He rose again from the dead so that you will one day live with Him forever.

That's the gospel, and the call is repent and believe.

If you're somebody who's responded to that, it is amazing for us to think that,

that God has put us in Christ, who did become those things for us, not because of

the fact that we were lovable or lovely.

Quite the opposite

He did that as an act of grace, as an act of unmerited favor, as an act

of mercy so that we wouldn't boast in ourselves, but that we would boast in

Him, that He would get all the glory

Senior year is pretty great in its own right.

Lots of benefits, lots of perks, lots of fun to be had.

But the status that comes with salvation and the difference that it should

make in our lives is even better.

Let's pray

God, I pray that you would help those of us that are in this room that know

Christ as our Lord and Savior to live lives that are truly evidence, evidencing

that reality that we are in Christ.

God, I pray that we would not have these other anchors that we are putting

our confidence in and our hope in, but that we would have our hope and our

ultimate confidence truly in the anchor of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior,

and His accomplished work on our behalf.

That He died on the cross for our sins so that we could be forgiven.

He gave us His full righteousness to make us acceptable in your sight,

and He rose again from the dead so that we can live with Him forever.

Lord, that is, that is our hope.

No matter what comes, nothing can change that message.

Nothing can change that reality.

Nothing can change our status of being in Christ if you have placed us

into Him through faith in the gospel.

And so, God, we pray that you would help us to live as those that truly

are in Christ, that the world would see a difference in us, that we would be

faithful ambassadors to those around us that need the hope that comes

with the good news of the gospel.

And so, God, we are so thankful.

We're thankful for Christ.

We're thankful for this church.

We're thankful for this place.

We pray that you would help us to live this next week in front of us, this

next day, this next afternoon in front of us, just extra aware of the greatest

identity, identity that any of us has, and that is that we are in Christ.

We pray this all in Jesus' name.

Amen.