Being in Christ Jesus
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 576 aired on September 11, 2016
Money we don’t have, to buy things we don’t need, to impress people that we don’t even like.
Hello, I’m Rick Hughes, host of The FLOT Line, brought to you every Sunday here on this local
radio station. Stay with me for the next 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, a whole lot of
education and never any type of manipulation. Human solutions are no solutions and divine
solutions are the only solutions. The FLOT Line is all about learning God’s wonderful problem-
solving devices. There are 10 unique problem-solving devices that if you learn and use will make
up the FLOT line, the main line of resistance in your soul, the forward line of troops. You may
ask, “What is all of this about, the forward line of troops or mainline of resistance?” It’s a
military analogy just like Ephesians 6:11 uses when Paul talks about “Putting on the armor of
God so that you can stand against the strategy of the devil.” We are using a military analogy
here, a metaphor, and we are talking about how you as a Christian can establish a mainline of
resistance in your life made up of 10 unique problem-solving devices. If you learn them and you
use them, then you can stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside
sources of stress. This is why we always say that adversity is inevitable and stress is optional.
The FLOT Line has been on the radio over 550 Sundays across the United States and climbing
into more radio stations. We love to hear from our listeners and we encourage you to write to us.
You can go to our website and you can drop us a note or you can see what we have available for
resources and reading material. Everything on our site is free. We never charge for anything. We
never solicit money. We never ask for money because I’ve always believed, if God is in it, God
will pay for it. Last week if you were here listening, you heard me talk about the amazing thing
called the heart. Today I want to talk about a simple phrase in the Bible
“in Christ Jesus.”
I’d
like to tell you what this means. You hear people talk about this. We see this in Galatians
3:26-29. I’m going to show you some things today that are pretty unique. Here’s what it says,
“For you are all sons of God by means of faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized
into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female;
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
This
is interesting – there are no racial divisions in the family of God.
This is a direct reference to
the baptism of the Holy Spirit as per Ephesians 4:4-6. Listen as I read it to you,
“There is one
body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith,
one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.”
By means of
the baptism of the Holy Spirit you are placed into union with Christ, not by means of water
baptism.
Baptism of the Holy Spirit is when you are taken and put into union with Christ. If you
draw a circle and put a dot in the middle of the circle, the circle represents Jesus Christ. You are
in Christ. You’re in the middle of this circle right here. What a wonderful thing to be in Christ
Jesus.
All believers are in God’s royal family.
I don’t know you and you probably don’t know
me but we are all in the royal family of God together, no racial distinctions. One person, one
576-Being-in-Christ-Jesus-transcript.pdf
race, one fellowship, we are in Christ Jesus. Once you are in Christ Jesus there is security you
can bank on.
You are secure in Christ.
Go back to the circle with the dot in the middle of it and
this is what I was mentioning to you. When I say you are secure in Christ, listen to
Hebrews
13:5,
“I will never leave you and I will never forsake you.”
This is a divine promise from Jesus
Christ the Son of God, the anointed Savior of the world that He will not abandon us. He will not
throw us under the bus. He will not walk away from us. There is no doubt you maybe at some
time in your life walked away from God. He still loves you. He has not cast you aside. If He had,
you would not be alive today. He loves you in spite of what you have done that shocked yourself.
Forget about it. If you can go to the Father and admit your sin, He is faithful and just to forgive
you of your sin. It’s Satan that wants to always bring this sin back up to you and make you feel
guilty about it and tell you what a jerk you are because you did that. He’ll tell you, “You’re
probably not a Christian or you would not have done that sort of thing. This is not true. If you go
to the Father and confess the sin, this is called rebound. This is problem-solving device #1 in the
Christian’s life. We all sin and if we use rebound, 1 John 1:9 where it says,
“If we confess our
sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to purify us from all of our wrongdoing,”
we’re put back into fellowship with God. Jesus said,
“I will never leave you, I will never forsake
you”
(Hebrews 13:5). In talking about security in Christ, if you are in Christ are you secure? Do
you have eternal life for sure? Yes.
“No one can take you out of My Father’s hand”
(John 10:29).
This is a divine promise. In 2 Timothy 2:13,
“Even if we believe not, yet He, God, will abide
faithful.”
This is called the doctrine of eternal security. 1 John 5:13 says,
“These things are
written so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
Once you make a decision to believe in
Jesus Christ and receive Him as your Savior, you are in union with Christ. You’re in God’s royal
family and He’s not going to turn His back on you. He’s not going to disown you. He’s not going
to kick you out of the royal family. You have eternal security. I can assure you that Satan would
like to steal the joy of your salvation by getting you to doubt that you’re really saved, he’s good at
this, to put a guilt trip on you. Never doubt God. If you have accepted Christ as your Savior, you
are in Christ Jesus and you are secure. He will never leave you. No one will take you out of His
Father’s hand.
Even if you stop believing, 2 Timothy 2:13 says,
“He abides faithful.”
There
may come a time in a person’s life, they accepted Christ when they were young, as they get older,
go to college, and get under some sort of teaching, all of a sudden they begin to believe, “Well,
maybe I was wrong. Maybe God doesn’t really exist.” Will they not be surprised when they wind
up in heaven? Once you believe in Jesus Christ, you’re in the circle. You are in the royal family
of God. You are secure. This doesn’t give you the right to do whatever you want to do because
along with being in the family, there’s discipline. This is why Hebrews 12:6 says,
“Those that
God loves, He disciplines.”
Sometimes He has to scourge us with a whip.
It’s not any fun being
on the receiving end of divine discipline that is designed to give an attitude adjustment. It’s
designed to induce humility to you so that you will quit being arrogant, denying your sin, and
you will confess your sin and restore yourself to fellowship with God. Security is in Christ Jesus.
We are in Christ Jesus the minute we believe in Him. The minute we receive Him we are placed
576-Being-in-Christ-Jesus-transcript.pdf
into union with Him, into His body, the church, the royal family of God. There is also strength in
Christ Jesus.
There is security in Christ and there is strength in Christ.
Paul says in
Philippians 4:13,
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
A lot of athletes will
have this tattooed on them. Some people have this verse printed on their refrigerator or on their
Bible. There is the strength in Christ Jesus we’re talking about but there is a requirement here.
If
you want to be able to do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens you, then you
have to be able to live like He lived and think like He thought.
What do I mean by this? You
must do what Romans 13:14 says,
“Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the
flesh.”
How do you put on Christ? Am I saying He’s like a robe and you put it on and you wear
it? No. What I’m saying is Philippians 2:5,
“Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ
Jesus.”
We are to learn to think like He thought. How does He think? 1 Corinthians 2:16 says the
New Testament is the mind of Christ.
As we learn the Bible, we assimilate His attitude of
humility and we begin to think in terms of divine viewpoint, not human viewpoint.
This is
taught in Romans 12:3 where it talks about,
“Stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance
beyond what you should think, but think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one of
us a standard of thinking from His Word.”
If you’re going to put on the Lord Jesus Christ this
means you put on His mindset. You begin to replicate His lifestyle and you cannot replicate His
lifestyle in the energy of the flesh. You cannot replicate His lifestyle without understanding what
He thought, how He thought. If I put on Christ, I let Him live His life through me. Listen to
Galatians 2:20,
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who lives but Christ lives in
me and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and
gave Himself for me.”
These words right there,
“He loved you and He gave Himself for you,”
without this we would be in a big hurt. He loved you. He loved you before the world was even
created.
“God so loved the world that He gave His uniquely born Son so that whoever believes in
Him should not perish but have everlasting life”
(John 3:16). 1 John 4:19 says,
“We love Him
because He first loved us.”
There’s no doubt about it, in eternity past God the Father loved you.
He knew who you were, what you would be, and He knew that the only way that He could have
any fellowship with you was for His Son to be the substitute for you. Paul said,
“He gave
Himself for me”
(Galatians 2:20). When our Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross He wasn’t dying
for anything He did wrong. He was dying as our substitute. We should have been there. We are
the ones that did the sin, not Him. He was the perfect Lamb of God, without spot and without
blemish and He takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).
On the cross He was dying in your
place. He was giving His life as a ransom for your eternal security.
Since He gave His life for
you, He’s asking you to give your life to Him, to let Him live His life through you.
There is
strength in Jesus Christ if you let Him live through you.
There will be difficulties and
adversities. There will be temptations and there will be trials. Just as He passed those temptations
and trials using Scripture, you can do also when you let Him live through you. Here’s another
thought. Not only is there security in Jesus Christ, not only is there strength in Jesus Christ, but
you are not a stranger to God ever. Ephesians 2:19,
“Now therefore, you are no longer strangers
576-Being-in-Christ-Jesus-transcript.pdf
and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.”
Actually, you now have a dual citizenship. You have a citizenship in heaven. The Greek word is
politeuma,
your citizenship. You have a citizenship in heaven just as you may have a citizenship
in the United States of America if you’re an American.
As a Christian you have a dual
citizenship, a citizenship in heaven in the eternal state and a citizenship in the United States
of America in the time state.
Here you are with a dual citizenship and you’re not a stranger. God
knows you. He loves you. He sent His Son to die for you. His Son lives inside of you and
replicates His life through you. Philippians 3:20 says,
“For our citizenship is in heaven from
which also we eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
We wait. Is He going to
return? Yes, the Bible says He will, and Matthew 24:36 indicates that,
“No man knows the hour
or the date.”
It simply tells us and we know that,
“The dead in Christ will rise first. Then we
which are alive and remain will go together to meet them in the clouds and thus will we ever be
with the Lord”
(1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). This is called the Exit Resurrection or some people
call it the Rapture of the Church. Picture this, you’re driving down the road and all of a sudden
drivers began to disappear. Cars begin to crash. Pilots are gone from airplanes. People begin to
disappear and immediately go to be with the Lord. Again,
“The dead in Christ will rise first and
then we which remain alive will be caught up together with them.”
What an amazing thing. If
you’re a student and you’re at school and the Rapture takes place, bingo you’re gone. They are
going to find your clothes laying in the middle of the floor. People are going to think you’re
running around naked in the school. Somebody will be calling the police trying to find you and
you won’t be found because you have gone to be with Him. He comes back, He calls you, He
summons you, and He will take you with Him to heaven. Philippians 3:20,
“Our citizenship is in
heaven
[this is where you’re going to wind up]
from which we eagerly await our Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ,”
to come back and get us. In 2 Chronicles 16:9, following the thought that we are
not a stranger,
“The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself
strong in behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him.”
There never is a time when God is
not looking at you. There never is a place that you can go that God doesn’t see you and there
never is anything that you do that God is not aware of. This is His omniscience. His omniscience
knows everything and He can see your heart. It says,
“Whose heart is perfect toward Him.”
This
is a demonstration of your positive volition, that you are staying filled with God the Holy Spirit,
you are growing,
“In the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”
(2
Peter 3:18). If you’re not staying filled with the Holy Spirit, if you are letting unconfessed sin
reside in your life, if you’re not taking in God’s Word consistently, you’re just playing church,
showing up, part of the nod to God crowd, “Hello God, goodbye God, see you next Sunday God,
maybe Wednesday God,” this is not the heart that is perfect toward Him.
The heart that is
perfect toward Him is,
“The mind who is stayed upon Thee”
(Isaiah 26:3).
This is what God
is looking for. He’s looking for you to have an attitude of dependency upon Him. He’s looking for
you to get up each day and say,
“This is the day the Lord has made and I will rejoice and have a
superabundance of happiness in it”
(Psalm 118:24). Proverbs 15:3,
“The eyes of the Lord are in
576-Being-in-Christ-Jesus-transcript.pdf
every place beholding the good and the evil.”
God is very much aware of who you are. You are
not a stranger to God. You are strong in Jesus Christ. You are secure in Jesus Christ and in Christ
Jesus we have a completely new spiritual life. Jesus Christ our Lord was the prototype.
He lived
in effect the very first Christian life and then He passed this operational type spiritual life
to us with instructions recorded in the Bible.
This is what He says to the disciples in John
16:12-13,
“I still have things to say to you but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the
Holy Spirit comes, He will guide you into all truth and He will not speak on His own authority,
but whatever He hears He will speak and He will tell you things to come.”
The Lord Jesus Christ
has given you a spiritual life. You are living a physical life right now but there’s another you
inside of there and it’s the spiritual life. It’s the born-again man inside of you. There’s the outward
life that everyone can see and there’s the inward life that only God can see, the spiritual life. Our
Lord was telling those disciples,
“I would like to tell you everything right now but you can not
bear it”
[meaning basically it would just freak you out, but don’t worry].
When the Spirit of truth
comes, He will guide you into all truth because He will not speak on His own authority, but
whatever He hears
[from the Father]
He will speak and He will tell you the things to come.”
This
may be what you’re hearing now,
God the Holy Spirit through the Bible, through the Word of
God, speaking to you.
I know I’m the speaker on the radio show, Rick Hughes on The FLOT
Line, but it’s through the Scripture that God the Holy Spirit speaks to me and it’s through the
Scripture that God the Holy Spirit speaks to you. It has always been this way. In John 14:26,
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all
things and He will bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you.”
This is the
ministry of God the Holy Spirit. When you believed in Jesus Christ, Ephesians 1:13 says,
“You were sealed with the Holy Spirit.”
Let’s go back to the circle with the dot in the middle of
it. The reason you’re not going to get out of this circle is you are sealed in this circle by God the
Holy Spirit. There is a difference between the sealing of the Holy Spirit and the filling of the
Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5:18 says,
“Be filled with the Spirit.”
Ephesians 4:30 says,
“Do not
grieve the Spirit of God.”
1 Thessalonians 5:19 warns us,
“Do not quench the Spirit of God.”
When we sin, we break fellowship with God and we lose the filling of the Holy Spirit. We don’t
lose the sealing. We are still sealed in this circle but we break fellowship with God and this is
why rebound or problem-solving device #1 is essential to reinstate the fellowship. When we go
and admit our sin to God, we resume the filling of the Holy Spirit. When you admit that you
have sinned, you have failed, and you tell God what you’ve done, you are filled with the Holy
Spirit until the next time you sin. You say, “That may only be an hour from now.” That’s right, it
might be an hour. It might be 30 minutes but you can regain the filling of the Holy Spirit every
time you name your sin to God. Believe me, eventually you will grow and eventually you will
find that you may even be able to go for extended periods of time without sinning. You have a
sin nature. You are going to sin but it’s possible to go several hours without sinning, I promise
you. The Holy Spirit is there to teach you, to show you what is to come, and to help you live
your spiritual life because it’s a supernatural life. It cannot be lived in the energy of the flesh. If
576-Being-in-Christ-Jesus-transcript.pdf
you’re going to live the life that Christ lived, you have to know that He also was guided and
empowered by means of the Holy Spirit. You can read Luke 4:1-14 for yourself where the Holy
Spirit guided Jesus Christ in His humanity. The unique thing about Christ is He is the God-man,
undiminished deity and true humanity in one body forever. In the body He died for us. This is
His humanity, not His deity. Finally, there is safety in Christ. In 1 John 4:4,
“You are of God,
little children, and have overcome them because greater is the One that is in you than he that is
in the world.”
In 2 Corinthians 1:3-4,
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort who comforts us in our tribulation.”
There is
safety in Jesus Christ, this is the divine seat belt. In Christ I don’t have to worry about my
life. I don’t have to worry about my future.
I’m in Christ Jesus. I’m in the royal family of God.
I’m in God’s perfect, wonderful, safe hands. I don’t have to worry about disaster. I don’t have to
worry about freak things happening to me. I know that God is in control and if I will use
problem-solving device #3 called the faith-rest drill, standing on the promises of God, even when
I hit the stormy seas, I can remember 1 Corinthians 10:13 says,
“There is no temptation come
upon you that God is not aware of and He will give you the ability to sustain it.”
The testing that
you will go through, you are safe in Christ Jesus. Satan is not going to be able to take your life.
“Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world”
(1 John 4:4). There is safety in Christ
Jesus. Tonight when you go to sleep, you may want to pray, “Thank You for keeping me safe,
Father. Thank You for keeping my family safe and please keep us safe in the future as a family
and as a nation.” This is the most wonderful thing in the world, the safety in Christ Jesus. Well,
this is your host Rick Hughes, and I would like to say thank you for listening to me on The
FLOT Line. Come back next week, same time, same place. Until then, thank you.
