Union with Jesus Christ is a heart-transforming, heart-motivating, heart-assuring, and heart-searching truth that touches virtually every aspect of the eternal life and the practical daily life of believers. Before the foundation of the world, throughout their earthly walk, and for all eternity in the world to come, believers are in union with Christ. Believers died, rose again, and are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. How does this vital, life-changing truth affect how we view Christ’s church, the family, and ourselves?
It is a great delight to be with you again. It is a privilege and an honor and I am deeply thankful to Scott for inviting me to be a part of this wonderful conference again. If you have your Bibles with you, by the way, as we're turning to Ephesians chapter 1, let me remind you that on our chapel library table, we've got a free grace broadcaster that we have just published on Union with Christ and I encourage you to get it and to study it. It is a feast of fat things. If you would please stand with me as we read the Word of God, we're going to read a fairly lengthy session or section.
We're going to read a portion of chapter one and then a portion of chapter two. Let's ask the Lord's blessing on the reading of his word. Oh my blessed Father in heaven, I praise and thank thee for the wonderful mercies that thou has poured out upon us today in Jesus Christ our Lord. We thank thee for thy holy, inspired, infallible, and preserved word, and we thank thee for the unspeakable privilege of having it in our hands. Now we ask, O Holy Spirit, thou that didst inspire this blessed text, I pray that thou wouldst come and give us light in thy word.
I pray, oh God, that thou wouldst help us to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ and that thou wouldst help me to handle thy word in a way that will bring thee glory and that will honor and encourage and build up Thy church. In Jesus' name I ask, Amen. Beginning in verse 3, Let us hear the Word of God. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to the good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him.
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ in whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession under the praise of his glory." Now if you will move down to verse 19 with me, Paul now prays that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened and he says he wants them to grasp this. What is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.
And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past she walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus and to good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Amen. May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word. Would you please be seated. Before the foundation of the world, long before God said, let there be light, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, loved the Church.
In the opening words to this inspired, infallible epistle to the Ephesians, Paul lifted up his voice in praise and he blessed God for blessing the church with all spiritual blessings in Jesus Christ. In Christ. Now God the Father loved the church, he showered his favor upon the church, and he poured out his goodness to the church in the person of Jesus Christ. The apostle wants us to know that in love, God chose the church in Christ. He did so before he created the world.
In love God purposed to make the church holy and blameless. In love, he predestined the church to adoption as sons and daughters through Christ. In love, God cleansed sinful, depraved, perverse, self-centered and self-righteous human beings from the filthiness of their sins by the blood of Jesus Christ. In Christ, in Christ shows up all through this text. In love, God adopted them into his holy family with all the privileges of Christ the Son.
We are joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ before God created the world. Now all this was according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of His grace in Christ. Paul wanted the Ephesians to know, he wants us to know, he wanted the saints in every generation to know that in Christ, The church has redemption through his blood. In Christ, the church has the forgiveness of sins. In Christ, the church experiences the riches of God's grace.
And in Christ, the church has an inconceivably glorious inheritance because God, who works all things according to the counsel of his will, predestinated her to it. All of this evoked in Paul, and brethren, it should evoke in all of us a burning, wholehearted praise of the God of glory. Paul declared that the Gospel reveals the glory of Christ's person and the glory of Christ's work. And those who repent of their sins and believe the gospel not only learn the great mystery of God's will, which he purposed in himself, they are sealed by the power of the Holy Spirit of promise." Brother, we can read this kind of thing and it can go by us so quickly. But all of God's children are sealed with the Spirit of promise.
That means they are, they must be, and they will forever be transformed, changed people. Now, this blessed spirit is God's love gift to the church and he sent the spirits life-changing, heart transforming, soul uniting power, power to dwell within the church as a portion of her eternal inheritance now. And the church will experience the Spirit's life giving, sanctifying and abiding power unto the glorious day that God makes her fully like Christ. We are one day closer to that extraordinary moment when we will be like our Master. No more wicked thoughts, no more fallen flesh.
Eternity with Him, like Him. Now this is why Paul earnestly prayed that God the Father would grant to the Church The spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ. None of us would have understood the things he wrote, the beginning of the epistle to the Ephesians, apart from the Holy Spirit of God. This is an eternal mystery that is revealed to us in Scripture. And more about that in just a few moments.
But Paul wanted them to understand this is a matter of revelation. He prayed, O Father, open their eyes! And that is my prayer for us. O Father, open! Open!
Open the eyes of your people and help us to understand who we are in Christ. He wanted the Ephesians to experience the exceeding greatness of God's power to the church. The exceeding greatness of power. I don't know how many of us could say, I attended an assembly where we know the exceeding greatness of power. The Word of God comes by the power of God's Spirit and we see transformation, not simply information.
Now what power was Paul talking about? It was the same almighty power that God worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. When he brings a sinful man, sinful woman, sinful child into the glories of the new birth. It is the same mighty power that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead. It is a resurrection in the soul of men.
It is the same almighty power that enthroned Christ, far above all earthly powers, and above all powers in the world to come. God the Father exalted Christ the Son then to be the head of the church. And miracle of miracles! Brethren, miracle of miracles. Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, the resurrected Lord of glory, the sovereign ruler of all people, places, things, and events, and the head of his eternally loved bride, the church, is forever one with his people.
This is an indissoluble union. Now, all that we have just considered, summarizing just a few of the main heads in the passage that we read, bring us to consider this. All of it flows from what we call union with Christ. There was a day when entire works were written on this subject, And yet it is a doctrine that is rarely preached, rarely understood, rarely apprehended by God's people, and it is one of their greatest treasures. So what does it mean to be in union with Christ?
Well, three things should help us to answer this question, God willing. This is by no means exhaustive. By no means. This is a great, a thrilling, an edifying, a humbling subject. Number one, we want to consider the definition of union with Christ.
Number two, we want to consider very briefly the nature of union with Christ. And finally, we want to consider the importance of union with Christ. God being our helper, let's consider the definition of union with Christ. Union with Jesus Christ is a real, living, and spiritual oneness in which the Holy Spirit unites Christ and his people. Let me say that again.
Now If you read books on theology, if you read many of the studies over the years done on this subject, you will find many broad, wide, difficult definitions. But I think this will at least give us something to lay hold of. First of all, this union with Christ is real. It is real. It is something that God's people experience.
It is something that they know. They learn it from the Scriptures and they are empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is real. It is living. It is living.
We are brought into a union with Jesus Christ, who is life. And it is spiritual, a spiritual oneness. It has begun, it is maintained, and it will continue throughout eternity by the power of God's Holy Spirit. Real, living, and spiritual oneness in which the Holy Spirit unites Christ, the head of the church, with the members of his body. Now the term that biblical writers most often use to describe this union is in Christ.
Hence my emphasizing that as we were reading the text, in Christ. For example, Paul said to the Corinthians, But of him, God the Father, are ye in Christ Jesus. We are talking about a miracle. We are talking about a work of the Spirit that brings us into an eternal union with Jesus Christ who of God is made unto us wisdom. He is made unto us righteousness.
He is made unto us sanctification and redemption. 1 Corinthians 1.30. And that brings us then to consider the nature of union with Christ. If we understand, if we can grasp this just a little, no Spirit of God, help us. Help us with this doctrine.
We want to think just for a moment about the nature of this thing. And if you will bear with me as we work through just a few heads, then we want to get to what does this mean to you? If you can grasp something of this mystery, why is it important where you sit tonight? Well then, the first thing we need to understand is that, as I've said, this is a spiritual union. When we say that this union with Christ is spiritual, that very word is something that's usually very misunderstood today.
Everybody from Hindus to new age gurus are called spiritual people. People that seem to be interested in other worldly type things are considered spiritual. That is not the way the Bible ever means that word. When it speaks of something being spiritual, the New Testament means a oneness, a real unity that the work of the Spirit brings into existence. There is a time in the life of every believer when he does not know his oneness with Christ, But because it is a miraculous spiritual reality, it becomes a living thing within his heart.
Now, Paul again wrote to the Corinthians, for by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. This is what he's talking about. Now we read right over these things and we often don't stop to think, what in the world does this mean? What does it mean that the Spirit of God took me or took you, any of his children, and baptized us into the body of Christ? We can read a lot of commentaries and theology regarding that, but for the sake of time this evening, let me simply say it is an extraordinary miracle.
It is the very foundation of the Christian life. Everything, as I said that we read in Ephesians 1 and 2, flows from this notion of spiritual union brought into a oneness with Christ Jesus, the head of the church. It is not only a spiritual union, it's also a mystical union. And when we say that this union with Christ is mystical, what we mean is that it is a mystery. By mystery, the Bible is not using the modern sense of something difficult or impossible to understand.
It is something above ordinary understanding, and I want to put it this way. A mystery in the Bible is first a secret, something hidden in the mind of God from eternity. Secondly, a mystery does not remain a secret, because God reveals it. Thirdly, God reveals this secret in the Holy Scriptures. And fourthly, God reveals this secret by the Holy Spirit to bring people everywhere to the obedience of faith and to build them up as they learn the extraordinary truth of What has happened to them in this mystery?
Paul makes this clear in Ephesians chapter 3 verses 4 and 5. He speaks of the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known under the sons of men. It was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." Union with Christ is just such a mystery. It was not known. It was something gloriously hidden in God's infinite, holy, pure and eternal mind.
But it is something he doesn't keep a secret. He brings the revelation of it to men so that they might profit. He doesn't bring it to men in general. He brings it to his church that they might feast upon it and learn to love him and grow in him and walk with him. While this profound mystery is difficult for us to grasp, it is something that God clearly reveals to his children throughout the ages, and it is something that the powers of darkness want to leave us completely ignorant of.
Because there is no Christianity without spiritual and mystical union with Christ. You are not a Christian if you are not in union with Christ. The doctrine gets a little weighty then, doesn't it? That brings us to biblical figures of union. The Lord wants us to understand.
He's a blessed, holy, good Father, a wonderful teacher. He sends the Spirit to us. He's inspired in his word many biblical figures of this union. We don't have time to work these out, but the Scriptures compare the church's union with Christ to the relationship between a vine and its branches, between the stones of a building, as we have heard so well set before us yesterday evening and the chief cornerstone. The stones and the chief cornerstone.
It's between the head and the other parts of the human body, and between husband and wife. There are more, but those should at least ring a bell. If you've read the scripture, most of us could say, yes, I've heard those figures set before me. This is the point of those figures. A union, a spiritual, a mysterious, but a real union between the head of the church and the church.
Now Ebenezer Erskine said, Consider the closeness and intimacy of the union between him and them, Christ and the church. And let this encourage thee to lean and live on him." Understand what he's saying? This is crucial. This is a practical doctrine as we're going to see. While it is difficult, while we must by God's Spirit meditate upon it, pray, ask the Lord to help us understand something that is above ordinary understanding.
He has grasped the heart of this. He says, get a hold of this. See Christ and His church in the husband and in the wife. And then if you begin to see that blessed love, that wonderful union between them, then lean on Christ. Live in Christ.
Lean on him by faith. It is far more intimate and dear than the union between husband and wife among men, for they are indeed one flesh. And He, excuse me, but He is one body and one Spirit. Husband and wife, one flesh. Church and Christ, one Spirit, one body.
1 Corinthians 6, 19. Erskine goes on to say, He is in them and they are in Him, and by virtue of this intimate union, thou hast a title to Him. Thou hast a title to Him and to His whole purchase. If you get this, you understand that it is all in Christ. Now, the church's union with Christ is also eternal.
It has always been a reality in God's infinite eternal mind. He has always loved the church. God is love, John tells us, and what we've read in Ephesians 1-4 makes this clear. He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Now some believe that in love here should be before verse 5.
And in that case it would read, in love having predestinated us into the adoption of children. Now, either way, the point is that, amazingly, God's people want to argue against one of the most powerful expressions of God's love in the Bible, the doctrine of election. God loved his people in Christ, and he chose his church in Him because He loved them and He predestinated them. He put their feet in the path that would lead to the revelation of the Gospel. He ordained every one of their lives so that they, the moment, the hour would come when they would realize they are lost and that they need the glorified and risen Savior, Jesus Christ.
Now, let me say this, God chose the church because He loves the church. He always has in Christ, and He always will in Christ. A.W. Pink said, The union between Christ and His church is so real, so vital, so Intimate that God has never viewed the one apart from the other. He has never viewed the one apart from the other.
There is such an indissoluble oneness between the Redeemer and the redeemed that the Father of mercies never saw them apart. He never saw Christ as Christ without seeing his mystical body. He never saw the church apart from its head." Brethren, do you understand this? Can you understand? And when I say that, I don't mean that in a demeaning way.
I have been astonished with this for weeks upon weeks now as I try to consider the immensity of the fact that Christ has loved his people from all eternity. God the Father has never thought of you apart from Christ, or Christ apart from you, ever. Ever. That is the foundation of your Christian life. We might put it this way, in his Eternal mind, God loved the church and gave her to Christ.
Christ loved the church and agreed to represent her. He purposed to be the substitute for the church, to die for her and to pay for her debt of sin, and this was a real gracious, loving, and legal union before God created the heavens and the earth. This representative legal union with Christ becomes an experiential historical union. You will forgive me as I'm watching a clock to try to stay a little closer to my notes. But now I do want to talk about this historical union for just a moment before we get into the importance of this doctrine.
Paul said, but God who is rich, rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace he are saved. Now there it is. He's quickened us together with Christ and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ. We are seated here, all of us that are in Christ, listening to a message, listening to revelation from the Holy Word, and by the power of the Holy Spirit and in union with Christ, we are seated with him at the Father's right hand.
This is one of the most astonishing statements and profound expressions of union with Christ in all of Scripture. He's raised us up together in holy places, heavenly places. We are one with Christ. Let me try to help this along with a quote by David Lloyd-Jones, David Martin Lloyd-Jones. He said, this, what we've just read in Ephesians 2, This is the very essence of Christianity and nothing less than that.
What is described in these words is the very nerve of the whole matter. It is what God has done to us and for us and not primarily anything that we have done. That is what makes it grace. It isn't simply that God didn't have to do it. It's that he chose to do it the way he did it.
Without this, no person is a Christian. Might be religious, might go to a church, might have a nice big black Bible, but that doesn't make you a Christian. It is union with Christ ultimately that makes a soul alive in Him and together with Him. God the Father loved the church in eternity and purposed to save her in Christ. Christ the Son accomplished a perfect redemption for his church.
And God the Holy Spirit comes to us in time. It begins in eternity. It becomes a reality for us in time, in history, regenerating our hearts and bringing us to experience our union with Christ the head. Election, calling, regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification all fall from union with Christ. Every aspect of salvation set forth to us in the inspired Word of God, is rooted in this glorious union.
And it is that which ultimately brings up the greatest joy that human beings can know in this life. And that brings us to the importance of union with Christ. Now, Pink also said, the present writer has not the least doubt in his mind that the subject of spiritual union is the most important and the most profound, and the most blessed of any that is set forth in the sacred scriptures. Yet sad to say, there is hardly any that is now more generally neglected. And the show of hands a few minutes ago made that clear, didn't it?
There was a time when the church of Jesus Christ rejoiced, reveled, drank deeply in the truth of union with the head of the church. Yet today it is barely ever preached, barely ever even mentioned. And yet, brethren, we are robbed of one of the greatest joys of life. We are robbed from one of the greatest treasures that the Christian can lay hold of. And it is this notion, eternal union with Christ the Son.
The union with the church was important to Christ himself. I trust you know that he prayed this, but he prayed this just before his indescribable, unimaginable suffering in crucifixion. He said that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee. That they also may be one in us that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that thou hast sent me and love them as thou hast loved me.
Brethren, God the Father loves every one of the members of the church as he loves Christ and they are eternally in union with Him. Is this a practical doctrine? Christ prayed for it. Christ prayed that we would understand this. Christ prayed that the union that God the Father has with the Son would be something we shared with them.
Now, number one, it's practical because it will affect the way we think about ourselves. No doubt some of you are thinking, well, this is weighty stuff. And it is. This is a deep profound truth, but how will this help me? What good does this truth do for me when I need to know how to love my spouse, how to bring up my children, how to deal with my job?
Well, brethren, I say to you, union with Christ is a transforming truth and reality. We cannot know it, experience it, believe it, and apply it to our lives, and remain unchanged. Do we get that? This is crucial. We must lay hold of this revelation.
It is set before us. It is something for us to believe. It is a treasure for us in heaven. A diamond, a ruby, a pearl, a gold, a silver of heaven given to us. We are in union with God's Holy Son.
He prayed for it and God the Father had it inscripturated so that we might know it and profit from it. He wants us to know and understand it. And if we apply it to our lives, believing with all of our hearts that it is indeed the revelation of Almighty God, you cannot stay the same. You cannot go on thinking about yourself the same way. Christians are people who were once dead in trespasses and sins.
What changed us? We didn't turn over a new leaf. And I can guarantee you that you weren't changed because you walked an aisle or shook the preacher's hand. If you were alive at that moment, it was because the Holy Spirit was already at work. You didn't get God to do something.
You were responding to what God was already doing because of union with Christ. What changed us? Paul tells us. But God who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us, quickened us together with Christ. This is the new birth.
This is when we experience our union with Christ. We once lived according to the ways of the world, But God quickened us together with Christ. We were once prisoners of the prince of the power of the air, and that's the spirit that works in all of those who are not Christians. You are prisoners to the powers of darkness. But this glorious liberating truth of union tells us that the Spirit that fills us is God's Spirit, bringing us into that blessed unity and oneness forever with the Lord Jesus Christ, alive in Christ, risen from our spiritual darkness to life in our Savior.
Now, we were people that lived every moment of our lives trying to satisfy the lusts that emerged from our flesh. But God quickened us with Christ. I'm going to tell you friends as I stand here, there was a time in my life whether I stood in a dark stinking bar room and had an audience of three, or whether I stood before 20, 000 or 30, 000, that is where I wanted to be. That was life for me, to entertain people, to strap on my guitar. That was life.
What in the world am I doing here with all these legalists? What would make me love somebody like Scott Brown or Doug Phillips or Joe Obegi? I would never wanted, I would never have wanted to know them, but I love them because the eternal union with Christ that I know has become reality. Why did you repent? Why did you believe that Jesus Christ was the only one that could save you?
Why do you believe that the eternal Son of God became a man? Why do you believe that they took the Son of God and put him in the place of sinners? They spat upon him, they put a crown of thorns upon his head and beat him with rods. They nailed him to the tree and they opened up the flood tides of blood from the veins of his broken body. Why did you believe that your sins were connected to that blood in any way?
Why would you believe that a dead man was raised from the grave three days later? Why do you believe that he ascended up into glory? Why do you believe that he is seated at the Father's right hand? It is not because we're smart. It is not because we figured it out.
It is because the mystery has been made known to us. And at that moment, God is working in us, giving us eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts to believe. A miracle beyond words is taking place. What was once in the mind of God and in our representative in heaven has become a reality for us now in this life. How practical is that?
Let me press it just a little bit further, just a little bit further. My brethren, we come here to talk about families, husbands and wives, all in the light of Christ, all in the context of the Church of Jesus Christ. But let me say to you, if we get a hold of this, we will look at our families a slightly different way. This is a second and important facet of this great truth. Nothing can be more practical than to realize, listen carefully, that your believing spouse or your believing child is in union with Christ.
If you really believe that that wife, if you really believe that that husband, if you really believe that your children are in union with the living Christ, will it make a difference in the way we talk to them? Would it make any difference in the way we treated them? Would it make any difference about the attitudes that we expressed to them? Brethren, stop and think. Think carefully.
Let me ask you, husbands, how will you speak to your wife if Christ dwells in her? Wives, How will you submit yourselves? How will you respect your husband if you believe that Christ, the living Christ, dwells within him? Children, how will you respect your parents when you realize that the authority God has put over you indwells your parents? We have the Scriptures of God to tell us, in the day of judgment, Christ will say, verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it, unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Now let's bring that into the context of what we're talking about.
We can't deal with God's people without dealing with Christ. That's a practical, everyday, in the home truth that we ought to love and respect. I will press on, very quickly say, number three, it will affect the way that we think about the church. The church is the temple of God's Holy Spirit. That's another way of expressing our union with Christ.
Christ commanded us that you love one another as I have loved you. Now we're not easy to love. That is the fact. But if Christ dwells within me, I can love those for whom He shed His blood, no matter how difficult they are. You realize that you can't play fast and loose with the church because It is his body.
You can't ignore it. Your relationship to God, your relationship to Christ is directly connected to your relationship in union. Now, finally it will affect the way that you think about the Lord Jesus Christ. Do let me say this. Christ loved the church.
Christ bled for the church. Christ died for the church. Christ rose again for the church. He ascended into heaven for her, intercedes for her, and will come again for her. He loves her.
We should love her. We should love her fervently with all of our hearts. And if you are in union with Christ, my dear brethren. Realize that He loved you before the foundation of the world. Think about how you were this week.
Look back over the week. How many of us could raise our hands and say, now, as I look at myself as a husband or a wife or a father or a mother or a child, a son or a daughter, this last week, there is no question in my mind that based on the way I lived, God should save me. Can anybody here do that? Pastors, we have to repent of our preaching, don't we? This should make us love Christ so intensely, love Him with all of our hearts.
We will love Him as the demoniac out of whom the Lord Jesus cast the legion, the legion of demons. We will want to go wherever Christ was. You see the picture? Christ gets up in the boat, and the man who is now in his right mind and clothes says, I want to go with you. Like the woman with the alabaster box, We will take everything of value to us and break it and pour it out on Him.
We want the fragrance of love in our lives and in our houses. We will love the head of the church because we are in union with Him forever and ever, and we will praise Him for His grace. God loves the church, brethren. That is why we are here in this conference. He loves the church in Christ.
He chose the church in Christ. He redeemed the church in Christ. He quickens the church in Christ, justifies and sanctifies the church in Christ, glorifies the church in Christ. So let us love the church. For by the exceeding riches of His grace, we're in union with its head.
And let me close with a quote by Spurgeon. And this is my heart's prayer and desire for all of us, pastors and members. Beloved brother or sister in Christ, how I wish, how I wish that you could get a firm grip of this blessed truth so that you could enjoy it to the full of your own soul. It is not always easy to realize your union with Christ, to see how He takes your place and you take His, to mark how He is bruised for your iniquities and how the chastisement of your peace is laid upon Him, and that in consequence you take His place as accepted and beloved by the Father that you are raised from the dead and honored even to share his glory in the highest heavens for he has gone up there as the representative of all his people, and you also are raised up together with him and made to sit with him in heavenly places." What a glorious truth This is that all believers are dead, raised, living, exalted, and glorified in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Father in heaven, take these truths and seal them to our hearts, that we might love Thy church, that we might love its head, and that we might walk in the glory and power of the redemption that has purchased for us to the praise of the glory of thy grace. Amen. For more messages, articles, and videos on the subject of conforming the church and the family to the word of God and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website, ncfic.org. You