Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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Blessings of Redemption

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Opening Prayer

Let’s go ahead and pray and then we’ll get into the Word. Lord, we thank You for the opportunity to come together and worship You today. We thank You, Lord, for Your presence. We thank You, Lord, for the fullness of the redemption that You have given us.

We thank You, Lord, that we have so much to celebrate. We have so much for which to be thankful. You have fully redeemed us. You are a complete and adequate Savior in every regard. Lord, I lift up Mike to you and pray that you give him strength and wisdom as he works with his dad. We pray, Lord, that you might spare his father. I don’t know if he knows you. But Lord, we know that you want to save Him. And we pray that if He doesn’t know you, Lord, we pray that you would open His eyes to truly see Jesus for who He is, truly understand that Jesus is truly the Savior, the Son of God who died, was buried, and is resurrected and is now alive. We pray, God, that He might truly come to know your Son, Jesus, and we pray in His name. Amen.

Opening Scripture

Open your Bibles. So many good texts that I want to talk about this morning. So it’s kind of hard to know where to begin, actually. But let’s just go to Revelation. Don’t you love Revelation? It says in Revelation, chapter 5. So I gotta know if you guys over here just read the news or you follow me on your online Bible there.

I figured you were. Kind of tricky though, you never know these days. Revelation 5 it says in verse 8, Now when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures, my twenty-four elders fell down before the lamb, Each having a harp and golden bulls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. We just sang about this, right? Day and night, night and day, let the incense arise. That’s what we’re talking about here. And they sang a new song, saying, You were worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation. that when we get to heaven there’s going to be people there that are not Americans. You believe that? And they’re not all going to be pale white like me. It’s going to be multi-colored, multi-national, multi-lingual. It’s going to be awesome. Amen.

Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation have made us kings and priests to our God, your version may say, made them. Same idea. And we shall reign on the earth. Here this text, like many, refers to the reality and the benefits and the blessings of the redemption that we have in Christ Jesus. It says, For you were slain, verse 9, and

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redemption. To remember Passover: Israel being redeemed out of bondage out of Egypt. We know that Egypt represents sin in the world. Pharaoh is of course a type of Satan who keeps people in bondage. Just as Israel was redeemed by the Paschal Lamb, so we, the people of God, have been redeemed by the blood of the true Paschal Lamb, the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. Jesus Christ, Amen.

A Threefold Redemption

This redemption is threefold. It is redemption, first of all, from the law. The Word of God says that we are born under the law and that means that we are obligated to keep the law in order to be saved if we want to live by the law. Of course, nobody keeps law. Everybody falls short of the glory of God, the Word of God says, right? So therefore there is a curse or there is condemnation connected with the law. Wherever there is law, there is violation of the law, where there is violation of the law, there is then judgment. The believer has been redeemed from that judgment. There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. That’s what the Word of God says. There is no curse for the Christian. So we’ve been delivered from the law, from its bondage, from its penalty, and from its curse. We’ve also been redeemed from sin. First of all, from the penalty of sin and also from the power of sin. The Word of God says the strength of sin is the law. That is the the law excites the flesh to sin, believe it or not. Even though the law is good, we being not good respond to the law in such a way that the law actually the word of God says, apart from the law, sin is dead.

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The believer is freed from the law by the body of Christ and therefore we are freed from the sinful impulses which move by the law. For we are now alive unto God, alive unto God, and we now have the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, says in Romans, right? Right after it says there’s no condemnation, that’s the legal aspect. It says that we have the spirit of life in us and that the spirit of life then gives us the righteousness of the law, it produces that in us. So it frees us from the dominion of sin. So not only is the blood the foundation of our redemption, but the spirit, as we talked about last week, the spirit then imparts to us the reality of that redemption. And it makes it experiential true in the life of the believer. The blood secures our legal deliverance from law and sin, but the Spirit procures our experiential deliverance from the power of sin. We are also redeemed, thirdly, from Satan. The believer is now no longer under the bondage of the evil one, the prince of the power of the air, the one the word of God says energizes those who are fallen. Jesus has destroyed the power of the devil. Amen.

Destroyed the power of the devil. Look at Colossians. We’re going to start in verse 9, just because this is so good. It says, for in him, meaning Jesus dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, bodily. And you, that’s you, if you’re a Christian, You are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power. In other words, there’s no authority higher than Jesus. There’s no angels. There’s no demons of any kind. There are any higher authority than Jesus. Jesus is higher than all principalities and all powers. In Him you are also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ buried with Him in baptism in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. And you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he is made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. The idea here is that because of our violations of the law, there was a long list of the way that we broke God’s law. There’s a long list of our debt, if you will. Jesus expunged that debt through his death and his resurrection. He has taken it out of the way, it says in verse 14, having nailed it to the cross. And notice verse 15, having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them in it. He has disarmed the power of the evil one, the devil. That’s why Jesus said right before he went to the cross, he says, Now is, the judgment of this world. Now is the prince of this world cast out. Now I’m going to destroy his power.

You say, well, I see the devil’s power all kinds of places. I’m talking about the Christian. The devil has no authority over the believer. None. It doesn’t mean the devil won’t attack the believer, because we’re told that we wrestle not with Hush and Blood, we wrestle with principalities and powers. There are evil forces that we must contend with, but we contend with them not from beneath being defeated, but from above in victory. We fight them and we subdue them in the name and in the power of Jesus Christ, because He has already disarmed them and they have no authority over God’s church. None whatsoever. It is because we have been redeemed from their power by the blood of Jesus.

Blessings of Redemption

So some of the blessings that come, let’s quickly review redemption. And the blessings that come to the believer because of the redemption of Jesus. One, we are now under grace and we are not under the law. We are under grace and not under the law. Jesus Christ has perfectly fulfilled the law in our place. And his obedience and his death are now imputed to the believer and I now stand in grace before God. Do you understand that? In grace. I do not come to God based upon my performance. I do not have access to God because I’m good, or I do spiritual things, or I read my Bible, or I pray, or whatever. I have access to God because Jesus Christ has procured that for me through His redemption. He has provided that for me. He has removed the bondage of law. I now stand not under the law, but I stand under grace. Therefore, we also, secondly, the second blessing is we have forgiveness and justification.

The curse of the law is removed from the believer and we are able to experience God’s forgiveness. We are now justified, it says, by his blood through his redemption. Are you in Colossians? Go back to chapter one for a moment. In verse 13 it says, He delivered us from the power of darkness, which I just mentioned, conveyed us into the kingdom of His Son, or the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption, and some versions say, redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. So the Christian is not condemned. The Christian is not under the curse. The Christian is forgiven. The Christian is justified. He stands in grace. And because of that, the Christian has direct access to God. Pretty heavy. Direct access to God. It is because on God’s side, all of the obstacles, meaning all of the sins, have been removed.

And the only obstacle really is our faith, our lack of faith, which we’re going to talk about at a different time. Our faith or our lack of faith. The way has been made. We now have access to the Father. We now stand in grace because of the redemption we have in Christ Jesus. Thirdly, regeneration, being born again. The penalty of death which was connected to sin has been removed Therefore the believer receives newness of life. This newness of life is the life that one receives when they are born again. Look at Romans 5 for a moment. I know we’re jumping around, but it’s all good, right? Romans 6. I said 5, but let’s look at 6. Verse 5 of chapter 6, For we have been united together in the likeness of his death. we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be the slaves of sin, for He who has died died has been freed or justified from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.“ Alive to God. We know this is that the believer becomes alive at the moment that they’re born of God’s Spirit, because the word says before that time they are dead in trespasses and sins. When the Spirit of God quickens their heart or their soul and the Holy Spirit comes into them they have newness of life. Newness of life. The fourth blessing is sanctification. Christ has redeemed believers from the power from the power of sin. We can just go on in Romans and see this right here. He says, after he says, well let’s just start in 11 again. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed descend, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments Grant yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but you are in grace. What then shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? not? May it never be. Do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey? You are that one slaves whom you obey whether of sin leading to death or ofobedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Go to Titus chapter 2 for a moment. In Titus 2 it says in verse 11, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in the present age looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works.

These things speak, exhort, and rebuke with all authority, and let no one despise you.”

So one of the blessings of redemption is that because the power of sin has been broken, the believer is now able to live a holy life.

A holy life. The believer is able to live a victorious life. Because God has given the believer, has first freed through redemption the believer from the law, from the minion of sin, and has given the believer the Holy Spirit through the new birth, And it is the work of the Spirit to empower the Christian to live in a way that is pleasing to God. And so every Christian has the power to walk in victory over sin. No Christian needs to be defeated. No Christian needs to fail. No Christian needs to be in bondage, because the redemption of Jesus Christ is a full and complete redemption. Lastly, adoption. The privilege of adoption, the blessing of adoption. Adoption is the full redemption of our bodies from all corruption as well as our future inheritance as co-heirs with Jesus Christ. Look at Romans 8. Romans chapter 8. Paul says in verse 18, for I consider The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us for the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God for the creation was subjected to futility not willingly but because of him who subjected it in hope because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pains together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption. Notice, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. Now there’s a sense in which the believer is already a member of God’s family. We’ve been born into his family. And so many people assume that we’re adopted now. Well we’re children of God now. But what’s going to happen is heaven, there’s going to be a ceremony. And it’s going to be an adoption ceremony. And that adoption ceremony is where God publicly, in display of the entire created universe before angels and demons, before Satan unsaved, he is going to recognize each one of us as a child. And that ceremony is called adoption. It sounds odd to us, but in the first century that was the custom. When a child was born toUTF to a Roman father, the father would take the child and lay it at the father’s feet and the father would decide whether or not to recognize that child as his own. child was born, the child might be his blood, but until he recognized and asserted that he was that child’s father, the child was not adopted. Odd, sounds odd to us, but that’s the custom that Paul’s alluding to. We are already God’s children, amen? Already in his family, but there will be a time in which he will publicly recognize that, affirm that, And that will be when we are fully redeemed in the sense that the corruption that affects the fallen world will be fully removed, will enter into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. The curse on creation will vanish. We will receive a new and a glorified body. Amen.

And Paul refers to that as our adoption.

Application

So the question is, so what to all of this? So what? What’s the real application? We’ve been talking about redemption for weeks. What’s the real application? Well, I can make many points. I’m just going to mention a couple. The first application is believe. You must believe. The glorious truth, and I stress the word truth, the glorious truth of the redemption of the children of God is only actualized in the life of the believer when they exercise faith. Only when they exercise faith. A Christian walking in unbelief is no different experientially than the non-Christian. Maybe in some ways he’s worse off. No different than a non-believer, No different than a non-bel-believer if not walking in the power of the Spirit. Because it is the Holy Spirit who makes Christ’s redemption experientially true in your LIF. And so in order to walk in the redemption. In order to appropriate the redemption of Jesus Christ, we must exercise faith. And you remember when we looked at Israel, we talked about the ceremony of the Passover, how they took the blood and they put it on the post, but then they also had to eat the meat, and how eating the lamb was a really a symbol of appropriating, okay, appropriating the lamb, that is internalizing the reality of what this ceremony was really about. So it was a symbol of faith, of true internal faith. So Israel believed when they put the blood on the post and they ate the lamb, but as you read the story of Israel, when they went through the Red Sea, when they got to the Red Sea, they actually didn’t believe. So it didn’t take long for them to go from a ceremony of faith to an act of unbelief. A ceremony of faith, but in their living, they were in unbelief. When they got up to the Red Sea, they freaked out, right? they freaked out. Pharaoh starts coming behind them. They freak out. So God says, or Moses says, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. And that verse is quoted a lot. And I used to think that stand still meant like, just stand still. But what it really means is shut up. They’re freaking out. Okay, they’re like, oh, I mean, we’re talking about how many thousands and thousands and thousands of people, and there’s mass chaos next to this river because they are in a panic. And so he’s saying, stand still, calm down, is what he’s saying. God is going to do something awesome. Watch God’s salvation. And of course, we know God opened the Red Sea. He parted the Red Sea, brings them through, destroys your enemies. Then they go on their journey, three days later they hit bitter water. What happens? They didn’t believe that God could turn the bitter water sweet. Well, God does. Then they go a little bit further and they don’t have any food. And they didn’t believe that God could provide food. And all throughout the journey we see they didn’t believe they didn’t believe they didn’t believe they didn’t believe they didn’t believe. The redemption that God provided for them, which was to culminate in the Promised Land, the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey, that redemption, are you hearing me now? You’ve got to make sure. Say yes. That redemption of that generation was never realized because they didn’t believe.

The first generation of Israelites did not go into the Promised Land. A handful did. Moses didn’t even get to go in. Aaron didn’t get to go in. Joshua went in, Caleb went in, handful of them went in. The first generation did not go in and the main reason was is they didn’t believe. When you read the story, they were brought up right to the border of the Promised Land. They were there, ready to go. sends the spies in, the spies come back, Joshua and Caleb say, this is awesome man, this is a great place, they got good food there. Let’s do it, let’s take it. They brought back the grapes and the pomegranates and they tasted the fruit, this is a good place. Well, the ten other spies are like, I don’t know if I want to do this because there’s really big guys in there. There’s giants in the land, right? I’m afraid. See, fear is the opposite of faith.

They didn’t have faith. Joshua and Caleb, like, we can do this, man, God is for us. God’s on our side, God’s going to fight for us, let’s go, let’s go in. And the negative spies, the fearful spies, influenced the people and then what happened was all of the congregation of Israel said, let’s stone Joshua and Caleb. The guys that are giving good news get stoned. How do you like that? Israel was right on the border. That generation was right on the border. God had redeemed them from bondage. God had promised them a land flowing with milk and honey and they were right on the border and they did not go in. That because of their refusal to go in, right at the border, Because of their refusal to go, in God said, fine, you don’t want to go in, you’re not going in. And that generation died in the wilderness. And God took the children in. He took the children in, of course, they were adults by then, because God was fulfilling his promise. But his promise is not fulfilled to unbelief. It’s only fulfilled to faith. Faith is the means by which we claim, hold onto, and receive the promises of God.

Everything, are you hearing me now? Because everything that God wants to give you to the redemption of Jesus Christ, everything that we’ve talked about, standing in grace, access to God, sanctification, power over sin, power over the devil, all of this which is part of the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is your Promised Land. This is your milk and honey. This is what God has promised you, the Christian. But you only get it through faith. If you don’t believe, you don’t receive. It’s really that simple. If you don’t believe, you don’t receive. It’s easy for us to blame God for things when in fact the real issue is us. We’re not taking what He is provided. We’re not taking what He’s provided. That’s why James says in chapter 1 1, when you’re tempted, don’t blame God as if the problem is God. That’s not the problem. God’s good. He’s the Father of lights, all good gifts, right? He’s good. He’s not the problem. The problem is in your heart, he’s saying. The redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ for His church is a full and complete redemption. I’ve been saying that over and over and over. And the reason is the Holy Spirit keeps on telling me, say it over and over and over. Because I actually didn’t want to talk about this today. And the Holy Spirit said, you need to say it over and over and over. Because some people are not hearing you. They’re not hearing what you’re saying. They’re not understanding, or they’re not hearing the fact that I have given them a full redemption. They are not appropriating the redemption that I have given them in my son Jesus Christ. So I have to say it over and over and over. The redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ is full and complete redemption and that He has provided you, if you’re a Christian, with life, with power, with victory, with grace, and is all accessible to you if you believe. Unbelief leads to the wilderness. faith leads to the Promised Land. The second thing, second application is Stand Fast. We have been brought out of bondage from law, from sin, from Satan, and we are exhorted in the Word to stand fast in our liberty with which Christ has made us free. Now that context in Galatians where Paul says that, he’s mainly saying stand fast and And you’re freedom from law. Don’t go back into legalism. If I asked you, are you legalistic, you’d say no. But you know what? Some of us are. And it works its way out in different ways. But the evidence of that is very simple. Do you have free access to God? And if you don’t, if you feel that you have to do something, and then you have access to God, then you’re a legalist. And remember, we’re all Pharisees by nature,

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They go to church, they go to synagogue, they go to mosque, whatever they do. People are religious. But we’re Pharisees. We want to justify ourselves. We want to do good works so that we feel good about ourselves. We want to feel that we have contributed some way to our acceptance with God. That’s legalism. We contribute nothing. Nothing to thy cross I bring. Right? We are saved by grace through faith, not of works. Nothing. Well, the good news is because I don’t contribute anything, none of those things can keep me from access to God. God is not computing and evaluating my work and says, ah, I see. Hmm, David’s been good today, I’ll let him come in. That’s not how it works. Our access to God is continual. We always have access to God. This is why we’re told in Hebrews to come boldly to the throne of grace in time of need. Boldly. That literally means with an open face. That means take the veil off and come into God’s presence. Stand fast in your liberty from law, stand fast in your liberty from sin. Don’t be content to be a carnal Christian.

Don’t be content to live in defeat. Don’t be content to be in bondage. Don’t be content to be mediocre. Don’t be content other than victory in your life. Don’t be content with anything other than victory in your marriage. Don’t be content with anything other than victory in the lives of your children. Don’t be content with anything other than the full redemption of Jesus Christ. Stop, settling for sand and wind when God wants to give you milk and honey.

Lastly, the last application, stand fast and then glorify God by how you live.

We are called to liberty, and Paul says that we are called to liberty that we might use our liberty not as a cloak for sin, but rather now that we have freedom.

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I don’t believe it either, actually. Okay. Jesus, verse 14, Titus 2, 14, He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed. That’s the victory that He can give you in the Christian life. Every lawless deed. Amen? But notice He doesn’t stop there. He says, And purify for Himself, His own special people, people zealous for good works. Those of us who are redeemed and set free are set free to serve. We are set free to do good. We are set free to minister. We are set free to claim. We are set free to minister healing. We are set free so that we can be agents of God’s mercy and love and redemption to other people. We are redeemed to bring God glory by our lives.

And it is a full, full redemption. Amen?

Closing Prayer

Let’s stand together. Lord, we thank You for the riches that You have given us, the wealth that we have, Lord, in You. I pray Lord for every one of us that we would appropriate what you’ve given us through faith, that we’d walk it out, that we would truly be a people that stand fast in our liberty, a people that are zealous for good works, a people that live in the Promised Land. Thank you Jesus for everything that you’ve done. We thank you that your salvation is full and complete. And we give you all the honor and glory. Amen.