Sermon Tone Analysis

We serve a God who loves riddles, he loves mysteries, he loves to play games of hide and seek with his creation.

Jesus was a master at telling riddles that would leave people scratching their chins trying to figure it.

The Lord loves mysteries.

We mystery all throughout the prophets and embedded in the sacrificial system.

And he loves to play the game of hide and seek with his creation.

Next time your kids play hide and seek, you ought to praise God because they are acting like their creator.

God loves concealing his glory throughout the pages of scripture, throughout creation itself.

The concealed glory of the universe is being searched out with things like Webb Telescope.

The glory of Christ is concealed through the OT in astounding ways.

We find Christ when we search the pages of the OT

We find Christ in creation,

We find Christ in the story of the flood and the story of Abraham

As we look close we Christ throughout the Tabernacle and the Mosaic Law

Christ in the Writings and Christ in the prophets.

This is the ultimate goal of bible reading.

This is the ultimate goal of life… to discover Christ.

It is our glory, it is the glory of kings, to search out that which God has concealed.

God loves mysteries, he loves riddles, he loves suspense.

We are going to be looking at one of, if not, the greatest and most glories mysteries of God.

And that mystery is our union with Christ.

When we start looking, we see clues and breadcrumbs left for us all throughout the OT.

This mystery is one that Paul particularly was called to reveal to the church.

The mystery hidden for ages and generations has now been revealed to his saints… to his people.

And what is this great mystery?

The great mystery that has been hidden for ages and generations is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

This mystery of our union with Christ is one that has been revealed to us by Christ himself.

And it is the central theological theme of the NT - and I think we could make an argument that it is one of the central theological themes of the whole council of God

In the realm of Christian theology there are many deep wells of truth to explore.

Perhaps there is no greater truth, no deeper well, no more glorious reality than our union with Christ.

John Murray wrote that “union with Christ is . . . the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation. . . .

It is not simply a phase of the application of redemption; it underlies every aspect of redemption”

Charles Spurgeon once said, “There is no joy in this world like union with Christ.

The more we can feel it, the happier we are.”

Union with Christ is the essence of our salvation: Jesus saves us by uniting us to himself

Individual Christians are united with Christ in his

righteous life (Phil 3:9),

crucifixion (Rom 6:6),

death (2 Cor 5:14),

burial (Rom 6:4),

resurrection to new life, and ascension (Eph 2:6).

We are united to Christ in his heavenly status

We will be united to Christ when he returns in glory.

Union with Christ is an majestically expansive topic.

It underlies all the works of God in our lives:

election, calling, regeneration, faith, justification, adoption, sanctification, perseverance, and glorification.

All of these blessings are “in Christ.”

All that a Christian receives from God is received “in Christ,” .

If we could think of salvation as a meal, this is metaphor the bible encourages us to use.

I see ads all the time for meal prep packages that companies will send to your door.

They will send you the ingredients and the recipe for a very specific meal.

We should not think of our salvation in this way.

As if Jesus is something that is sent to us individually that we are able to take and enjoy by ourselves.

But rather, we should think of salvation like a grand feast that the king has prepared in his Kingdom.

And the only way to enjoy the benefits of this feast is to come into the his gates, come and dwell in his midsts.

Christ is the feast, he is the gates, he is the one we are brought into in order to have eternal life.

Noah’s ark likewise demonstrates this reality.

God did not have Noah and his family build individual arks… but rather one ark, which is a type of Christ, for all the people to come into for their salvation.

John’s gospel has been bringing this mystery to the forefront.

Our Passage this morning is John 16.25-33.

We are going to be finishing chapter 16

In Christ we Know the Father

In so many ways, at the heart of the gospel, at the heart of Christ’s work, is to make the Father known to his people.

Jesus has come to make known the Father.

Jesus makes the father known in his deeds, in his words, in his life, and in his being.

However, the disciples were not ready to bear the full weight of Christ’s revelation of the Father…

Because of this, Jesus had to wait to speak to them plainly about the Father… he had to speak to them in parables, figures of speech, cryptically.

So he says the hour is coming, it has not come yet, but it is coming.

The hour that is coming is referring to the time that will come after the cross and resurrection.

Its the hour where the disciples will be united to Christ in his death and resurrection.

Its the hour when the Spirit comes to dwell with the people of God.

When this hour comes, when the disciples have eyes to see and ears to hear, then Christ will speak to them plainly about the Father.

The Son reveals the Father only after the cross, resurrection and ascension,

And the reason for this we cannot know the father apart from the Son, and we cannot understand the son until we see him lifted up in glory upon the cross.

We cannot know of the Father’s love apart from the cross.

For only when we see Christ on the cross can we begin to understand the love that the Father has for us.

Only when we see Christ on the cross can we understand the God’s grace and mercy, his redemption and reconciliation.

Only when we see Christ victorious over the grave can we understand the promises of God and the power of God.

Only when we see Christ defeating death can we understand the plan of God and the victory of God.

Jesus has come to make the Father known.

And he makes him known through his life, death and resurrection.

And apart from Christ, outside of Christ, we cannot know the Father.

Not only does our union with Christ allow us to know the Father, but also…

In Christ We Have Access to the Father

I am the type of person that if I have a question I need answered I like to go to the source.

avoids drama… it avoids triangles… it avoids confusion and frustration.

However, that is not always easy to do…

If i had a question about Teslas I could not pick up the phone and get Elon Musk on the other side.

If I had a question about about a particular ruling I would not be able to get one of the Supreme Court Justices on the phone.

If I was doing research on the monarchy of the United Kingdom and traveled to the London, i would not be able to walk up to Buckingham and get a meeting with King Charles.

Now if there was a chance for me to get time with any of these people i would have to go through layers and layers of people before getting a conversation with any one of them.

But it isn’t like that in the Kingdom of God

On the contrary…

The mysterious and intimate union between Jesus and the father, which is one of the main subjects throughout gospel of John, means that those who are united to Jesus, the branches who are united to the vine, are granted the same immediate access to the father that Jesus himself has.

Jesus is saying that we don’t need to ask him to talk to the Father for us, but rather in our union with Christ, he brings us into the very presence of God.

Because we are in Christ, we have immediate access to the Father.

This is part of the wonderful doctrine of justification.

We are justified when, by faith, we are united to Christ.

Which means, that we are declared righteous by the Father, not because of anything we have done or not done, but because we are united to Christ.

When we are united to Christ we are clothed in his righteousness… which means when the Father looks upon you - he sees Christ!

Thus we have the righteous standing of Christ before God, so we are able to boldly come before the Father in prayer making our requests known.