Trials and Suffering
Hal Molloy · Feb 15, 2004
Trials & Suffering (2004), No. 07
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/482623383170

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, we said that we're laying a foundation right now for trials and sufferings in life. Because the very normal part of life is to go through trials and to go through sufferings. And we're laying a foundation. The first part of the foundation was God's eternal purpose in our life. And now we're looking at our identification in Christ. And so we're taking a little time on this, but this is a critical study. Without understanding our identification in life, in Christ I should say, it is going to be almost impossible to understand trials and sufferings when they come into our life. We ask the question, what happened here?

What happened at the cross when Christ died and was buried and was resurrected? We've gone through point number one, that he died and was buried for the sins of the world. As our substitute, he paid the penalty for everyone's sins, bar none. Every single person ever born, ever will be born, he's paid for their sins, past, present, future. We looked at the second point last week, that he died unto sin. Change in preposition here. For the sins of the world, unto sin. Sin singular, sins plural. And we need to understand the difference between these two points.

And we said that when He died unto sin, He died unto the sin nature. And what did He do with the sin nature when He died on the cross? This is a test to see if you were listening last week. So what did He do? He took it offline, okay. He separated us from sin nature. What else did he do with sin nature? Where is the sin nature now with respect to God? What did he do with it? What did Christ do with it? put it on the cross, and what?

Dead and buried. Dead and buried, and he condemned it. Right? He condemned it. Okay. Third point we didn't get to, but talking about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because without the cross, without the cross as burial, there has to be the resurrection.

A couple of weeks ago I asked you a trick question. I said, if Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, would the sins of the world be forgiven? Right? And many of you said, yes. I asked you a trick question. And the answer is, no. And we need to understand this. That anybody could come into the world and say, and die on a cross, and say that they are dying for the sins of the world. Anybody could do that.

The question is, would that death be efficacious of any value? Would it really pay the penalty for man's sins? So how do you know, and how do I know, that Jesus Christ's death was efficacious, of value, that it really did forgive the sins of the world? How do we know that? Well, God said back in eternity past, when he made the eternal covenant, the way you'll know is that the person who dies for the sins of the world, I'm going to raise them up. That's how you'll know.

So that's why the resurrection is so critical. I'm not going to go through the point and look at all the points on the resurrection, but just to summarize it, because I'm kind of falling behind the schedule I have. I mean, we've got six months, but I'm trying to lay this foundation. Now here's the last point. With respect to the cross, his death, his burial, his resurrection.

And here's the most wonderful news to you this morning, that you were identified, you were placed in union with the person and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. When he died, you died. When he was buried, you were buried. When he was resurrected, you were resurrected. We're going to look at that now.

We'll spend some time trying to understand that. What does that all mean? So let me ask you a question first. And the question is this. Why did God identify you in Christ's death, burial, and resurrection? And I want you to think about the first part of the foundation that we laid here, weeks ago. That's the only clue I'm going to give you. So why? Why did you need to be identified in Christ's death, burial, and resurrection?

Okay, that's the end point of it, for sure. So that's the one book end, okay? Ah, wonderful. Take it right out of the book. There would be no other way for you to share. His eternal purpose was for you to share in the very glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, right? So the only way that could happen is that you be identified with Christ.

So, the thing is this. You and I had the wrong identity. We didn't have the right identity to share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if we look If we look at our identity, and what I'd like you to do is help me this morning. I made up a little chart here in terms of aspects. with respect to man and the identity of natural man and the identity in Christ. We're going to look at the comparison. So the point is this, is that here was our identity in Adam.

So let me just reveal a couple of these things to you. Let's take the aspect of man's heart. The Lord tells us that it's deceitful, above all things desperately wicked who can know it. That's how God identifies man's heart. In order to be identified with Christ, it has to be absolutely righteous. The question is this, what is heart? I went through both Old Testament and New Testament in terms of the word heart.

But what's interesting is this, is that sometimes it's, number one, difficult to separate both heart and mind. The two go together. It's almost like sometimes soul and spirit are used together, but yet they're used separately. Same thing with heart and mind. And the heart, I think, is just the inward person, the person himself, without the flesh, without the bone. It's the personhood, the best way I can describe it. It's who the person is. Aspects of the heart. Anybody else? Kardia in the Greek. Okay, but press on here. Here comes the vine. And a natural man has the mind of Adam. Then with Christ, you have the very mind of Christ. In Christ, we have the very mind of the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you think of some others here that we should, now that you get the feel of what we're doing?

How about desires? Desires of the natural man is the desires that come out from the flesh. The desires of being identified with Christ is the desires of the Spirit. And we have that contrast there in Galatians chapter 5. For you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And it goes on to say, for the Spirit lusts or desires against the flesh, and the flesh lusts or desires against the Spirit. Two sets of desires. And these are the desires for identification in Christ.

Think of some other aspects here that we should list. How about thoughts and ways? In Isaiah 55, God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither my ways are your ways. There's two different ways, two different thoughts. Man's ways, his own, and God's. of identification of the natural man, identity with Christ. The natures are diametrically opposed. Natural man is a sin nature, those who identify with Christ, has Christ's very nature diametrically opposed.

I guess the mothers, come on, I need your help. OK. OK. Will. All right. Will. Natural man. Whose will? His own. Identity in Christ. Whose will? God's will. All right. Hope. OK. Hope. Whose hope? Hope, we could say confidence. Hope is a confidence. It's a fixed confidence. Where's the confidence of natural man? In the world and the flesh? Where's the confidence or the hope of an identity with Christ? At the right hand.

I'm sorry? Rest. Rest? Okay. Oh. Rest? Okay. Excellent. So, aspect rest. Where's the rest of the natural man? Where does he rest? He doesn't. He doesn't. Okay. Where does he try to rest? Where does he try to rest? In self. In self. And there is no rest there, is there? And where's the rest here? And faith has an object, and the object is Christ. Any others?

How about righteousness? Natural man, he rests in his own righteousness, right? And what does God say about man's righteousness? Filthy rags. And for identity in Christ, you have to have Christ's very righteousness. His righteousness. Right? We need His righteousness. How about Father? Who's the Father? Right?

And John 8.44, the Lord Jesus Christ says to the Pharisees, no, your father's not. Abraham, your father is who? The devil, Satan. In identity with Christ, the father is God.

Okay. Any others? Faith? Okay. Good. Faith. Natural man, where's his faith? In self? The one who identified in Christ? Where's that faith? In Christ himself. Okay, good. Strength? Good. Power? Strength? Natural man? Self? Identified with Christ? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Okay, here's Bob's, and I can't believe that he didn't say this. I'm overwhelmed by all these other ones. Citizenship. A cave, right? A natural man? Earthly. One identified in Christ? Heavenly. Okay. I'm not going to go through each one, but this is just a partial list. I just sat down and just started scribbling. So this is a scribble list. But I know that we could make this three, four, five pages long.

But it goes to show, and the whole point of the chart is this, is to show that we have the wrong identity. Right? We have the wrong identity. So here's the question. One point is this. I should ask you this question. Can there be any intimacy with Christ with one identified here? Where must the identification be in terms of intimacy with Christ? The identification has to be here, right? Now, question.

Can the natural man change his identity? By himself? Yes. Can the natural man change his identity? So is the answer no? He cannot change his identity? But how about parts of this list? Can he change just some aspects of his identity? Not one single one? Not one. Isn't that interesting?

He can change the way he acts, but... Actually, I think people do. People can look like they are fine. Okay, good point. So, the point is, gee, a natural man can kind of look something like this, right? He can buff himself up. Buff himself up? And what does Christ say about that? When man tries to buff himself up, and outwardly appear like this, but exist inwardly. In Matthew chapter 23, he talks to the Pharisees and he says, outside you're like whited sepulchers, but inside you stink. Isn't that... Well, for the believer though, 1 Corinthians 3, right? Wood, hay and stubble kind of stuff.

Sure, sure. What happens between our identity with a natural man versus Christ doesn't change our position. Right, right. This is positional. How about this? Is this positional? Or condition? Condition, position. We've got lots of conditions. Some positions. It sounds like 50-50. We're positioned if we're not believers. Right. Okay. Alright.

So if, by definition, listen to this, by definition, a natural man is an unbeliever, by definition. If a believer acts this way, what kind of man is he? Carnal. Carnal man. So this is natural man. This is his position. This is one's position in Christ.

Can't change the identity. Cannot change it. Impossible change. Now, here's the next question. How about God? Does God change these aspects of the natural man? No. Why not? He doesn't associate with the natural man. He already has his man. That old guy has been crucified, right? Ah, what did we just look at, right? Where is that old man? He's crucified and he condemned this guy, right? He condemned him.

So, God is not in the business of changing the natural man, restoring the natural man. What does he have to do? replace him. He's got to replace him. Now the question is, how does he replace him? How does God replace the natural man? And we're going to have a little science project here today. How does God do that? Okay, he changes him into his image, but how? How does he change into his image? Born again? Oh, there goes the whole presentation this morning. No. So how does he change his image? Jerry said change his image. Yeah, he does change his image. How?

I want you to turn. to Romans chapter 6. Let's start reading. I want to back up from Romans chapter 6. Let's start at Romans chapter 5, end of chapter 5. Look at verse 19. It says, For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, And so you see, here's the natural man.

So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, and there's a definite article there, where the sin abounded, where the sin nature abounded, Grace did much more abound. And the word therefore abound is the word overflow. And Vern has been utilizing this word as he's been going through Ephesians in terms of overflowing. And he showed you a picture of Niagara Falls. And this is a wonderful illustration. in terms of overflowing. If you think of a little stream, where sin abounds, sin is just a little stream, and where grace abounds is Niagara Falls.

And Lindy and I, some years ago, I decided to take her back to see my roots in New York City and the Bronx. And so we took the northern route and came down through Niagara Falls. and we got into a boat that goes up to the falls. Now you can stand and you can look at the falls and they look tremendous, but you have no feel for the impact and the power that the Niagara Falls has. And that's only 10%.

When you get in that boat and it starts tracking up to the falls and they give you these raincoats and boots and hats and you get right up to the falls and the falls are coming down and you talk about surround sound and you hear the thunder and the crashing of that water. And the boat is rocking, and it's like, it's an experience I'll never forget. You've got to do it if you ever get back to Niagara Falls.

But do you understand the word overflow? Grace overflows, grace overflows the sin nature. Okay, so in verse 21, that as the sin, that is the sin nature has reigned, unto death, even so my grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."

So Paul asks a logical question in chapter 6. He says, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin? And there's a definite article there. Shall we continue in the sin nature? Because think about it. Where sin abounds, grace overflows. So why don't we just keep on sinning, so that grace can just overflow? And look at his answer in verse 2. He says, God forbid. And in the Greek, it is a very emphatic term. And it says, it's impossible. It can never be. it can never be. And he gives the reason.

And the reason is, how shall we that are dead to the sin, there's a definite article, how can we who are dead to the sin live any longer in it? So he tells us that as believers in Christ, we're dead. Death means what? We're cut loose from the sin nature. So if we're cut loose from the sin nature, how can we as believers live in it? In verse 3, know ye not that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

Therefore we are buried with him by the baptism into death, that as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should also walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection."

Thanks Wayne. Obviously, these always go out on a Sunday morning, right? Okay. I kind of went through that passage. I just wanted to go through it so that you get it in its entirety. I want to go back now. I want to go back to verse 3. It says, Know ye not that as many as of us that were baptized into Jesus Christ have been baptized into his death?

The key word for transition here from this man to this man is that one word, baptism. That's the key word in terms of how God, it's wonderful how he does things, that he takes the natural man and we're baptized. And we're baptized into his death, burial, resurrection. Not only that, we're baptized, as it says, into the person of Christ. First thing that happens, we're baptized into the person of Christ. Then his death, then his burial, then his resurrection. So now, what does baptized mean?

Now, I've done this before, and when I did it for real, I had some problems. So if I were to take a handkerchief, and here we are, and here's the natural man, and he takes the natural man, and he baptizes him. And if this is filled with, say, dye, and I know this is, or bleach, whatever, okay, I did this with real stuff, and I spilt it all over the auditorium, so we're not going to do it. And we're going to do a speed-up version of this.

So if this were bleach, he takes the natural man and he baptizes him. Baptism, the word baptism, baptizo, means simply to immerse. That's all it means, to immerse. He immerses us. He immerses us. So, we're immersed. Now, we're immersed into, look at verse 3. Know ye not that as many as have been baptized are baptized into, who? Jesus Christ. So the first aspect The first aspect of our baptism, or our identification, is that we're baptized into the person of Christ. In Romans chapter 3, 6-3.

So let me go back to the experiment. Here we were, natural man. baptized into Christ, into His death, burial, and resurrection. And now, coming out of baptism, I feel like this is a magic show. Coming out of baptism, here we are. Here comes a new creation in Christ. Totally new. It's not the same natural man.

Does the belief of the natural man come before the baptism? Oh, okay. The question is, does the belief of the natural man come before baptism? Okay, good question. What do you think? Does the belief of this man come before baptism? Can this natural man believe? Can he exercise faith? Or does he have to be given faith by God because he's so depraved? I don't know if that is where you were headed, Art. Can this natural man believe? So this natural man hears the gospel, right?

He hears the gospel that Christ died for sins. He was buried and he was raised again the third day. And he hears the gospel in terms of the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That the person of Christ, the eternal Son of God, and that he died, was buried and was raised. Can a natural man believe that? to be baptized in the first place. I should ask my question a little differently. Can the natural man, does he not have to exercise the faith that he's been given before the baptism?

Okay, and when you say the faith that he's been given, help me to understand that. Well, I think you said or someone said that he has to be drawn or he has to be given the faith to believe so that this natural man has to exercise the gift of faith that he's been given or been drawn by the Holy Spirit that enables him to believe and then he exercises, he believes that faith, he believes the gospel that he's heard. Then, it seems to me, then comes the baptism. Okay. And so the point being made is this. that natural man is given the faith and then he has to exercise that faith to believe.

Let me tell you what I think scripture teaches us. As Art said in his comment, does the Lord draw us? Oh yeah. He tugs at every single person, every single unbeliever. He draws man. Man will never come to God of his own will. And it takes God to draw man, okay? So, God draws man.

Now, in Romans chapter 1, like in verse 18, it says, that which may be known of God is manifest in them. So God has made known into natural man what about God. He knows, and it goes on to say, that natural man knows God, deity, that he exists, Number two, he knows his eternal power. So he knows his eternal power and his Godhead. Natural man does. And God wants natural man to respond to the knowledge that God has given him.

So here comes the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit comes along to the natural man who doesn't have any faith, that is, Well, no, let me say it differently. Here comes the Holy Spirit, and he tugs on the natural man, and he's drawing him to Christ, and he reveals the person of Christ. He reveals to the natural man that he's a sinner, and he needs Christ.

The natural man, without being given a gift of faith, can respond by faith. He can believe. The natural man exercises faith every day. The natural man lives by faith. The natural man sits down in his chair and he believes that that chair is going to hold him up. The natural man gets on an airplane And he believes by faith that that airplane is going to get him to Los Angeles from Denver.

He exercises faith every single day. And so now God comes along with the gospel and man is to exercise faith. Yes, I believe who I am and I believe that Christ died for me, was buried and was raised again the third day. Simple faith. Faith out from the natural man.

Now, God is tugging him, but he's not giving him, if you will, a gift of faith. Okay? Don't you think, though, that the Lord has to open his ears and his heart and his eyes to hear it? How many non-believers do we know? They hear it and hear it and hear it, and it doesn't make any impact. I think the Holy Spirit has to prepare that person to be able to hear.

And that's the whole tugging process. And he comes, you're right, and he comes at man with the truth. He comes at man with the truth and says just trust. and rest in this truth. That's all he does. What he's given him is the knowledge. So I don't want to call that a gift. He's given every single person the knowledge of himself. And man has a conscience. He knows right from wrong.

Yeah, the 3 C's, right? Creation, Conscience, and Christ. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Paul, can I take you back to Romans 6 for a second? Okay. And I think this is important. I always thought that God forbid meant, may it not be. You say it means it's impossible.

Is that right? That's relevant there because, I mean, if you read 6.1, what shall we then say that we, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? May we continue in sin, do we not? The idea here is that once you've been born again, the idea there is that we don't force God's hand by giving more grace as a result of our sin, correct? Correct.

May it not be, or it's impossible. It's impossible for grace to be poured out. Since it's a question, maybe a better way to say it. How is it possible? How is it possible? How is it possible that if you're dead, you know, and the fact is, So here it says, you are dead. How is it possible that you could live in it any longer?

Very possible. Okay, so that's where we're at. Is it talking about position or condition? And so Bob is talking about position, right? but you have to look at, excuse me, you're talking about conditions, but you have to talk about position. And so that's the question. How is it possible that if you're dead, positionally, you are dead positionally, to live any longer in it?

So, so important, I think, is that God's view of us is entirely in our identity with the Lord Jesus Christ, correct? He doesn't consider this old guy even relevant anymore. Because he's what? He's dead? He's condemned him? And yet, I speak for myself, I get so preoccupied with the natural man and how to get him out of the way, right? So that in a sense is an act of faith to believe that God's okay with the way he's made things happen. In other words, how much more do we have to know about the natural man, right? Although we learn more about him every day, right?

Exactly right. And the way I look at it is this. Think of Christ. I'm trying to use an analogy here. Think of Christ as an infinite onion. Think of the natural man as an infinite onion. As we behold Christ through the Word, we start peeling off, and we start coming to a knowledge of Him. Day by day, week in, week out, we're coming to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ. But this is an infinite onion now. You can never exhaust those onion peels. Because we're going to be learning about Him in all eternity. In all eternity. We're never going to stop learning about Christ. So we're talking about Him being infinite. Now let's come to the old man. It's kind of like another infinite onion.

And the more we learn about Christ, little by little, the more we come to know about this old man, peel by peel. I'm finding out in my life, today, sin in my life that I never even thought or dreamed of was sin. But when I come to know Him, I'm saying, Lord, that's sin. There goes the onion peel. I'm coming to know more about this old man in terms of who he is.

So God reveals to us. I think it's beautiful that God not only reveals Christ to us, but He reveals the old man to us. And I often think, why Lord, why do I need to know any more about him? Right? Why do I need to know more about him? I can only say this.

The more I know about the old man, the more I understand Christ's death for me, who He died for, and the more I appreciate and come to understand His death. If I didn't know the old man, what he was like, I'd never really come to appreciate why Christ died, why He had to condemn that old man, And that is critical. But the difference in how we look at that in Christ is we see it and we put it away. Or the Lord puts away the old man. As opposed to the world which wants to wallow in that.

Yes. Oh poor me. Yes. She's terrible thing. Yes. Okay. Next week. We're going to take a look at, in terms of what this means, that here we are, identified with Christ. He had to recreate us. He had to replace this guy. Doesn't try to fix him up, change him. He's condemned him. But the interesting thing is, He's allowed him to abide in us. in terms of who we are positionally. Now here we have this guy who we are separated from positionally. No longer positionally tied to this guy, right? But yet he's part of us.

And so he's part of us and sometimes when the world sees us as we're walking by faith in the Spirit, the world sees who? and when we're walking in the flesh, and not trusting Christ, and not abiding in Christ, who does the world see? The flesh. Yeah. They think it's a hypocrite. Yeah. Pardon me? The world thinks it's a hypocrite. Yeah. And the world thinks that we're just play acting. Okay.

Any questions? I wonder, what I'm wondering is, do we need more than six months? Because we're going to be getting into passages on trials and suffering in the believer's life. But without this understanding without this basis, there'll be no way that we would have the proper response to trials and suffering. Okay? Let's close.

Our Father and our God, how we do thank you for your love for us. Father, as we come to know more about our wonderful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and our life in Him and who He is, We thank you for revealing to us what the natural man is like. And the more we know Christ, the more we know of Adam. And the more, Father, we appreciate the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And maybe that's the reason why you've left the old man in us. We don't know. You don't tell us why. But we do thank you, Father, for the truth that we've read this morning from your word. We pray, Father, that each of us may be edified by it and in our life that you may be honored and glorified. And we ask in Christ's name. Amen.