Unsearchable riches of Christ Part 1, MP3

Here is a teaching, discussion on the Unsearchable riches of Christ found in the Gospel, concealed in the Old Testament but Revealed in the New Testament through Jesus the Messiah!!!

Feel free to listen and download by clicking right button and ‘save link as’.

RevelationOfChrist

I will add some study notes and Q & A section to this as well later on, thanks.

*****************************************************************************************************************************************************

The mystery/secret of the Good News of Christ

 

Ephesians 3:1-12; Colossians 1:25-28

 

It was kept hidden for ages past but it has now been revealed to us New Testament saints who believe in Jesus as the Messiah

 

What is this mystery? This secret? What is the unsearchable riches of Christ? What does unsearchable mean?

 

How did paul receive revelation to understand this mystery?

On the road to Damascus. Acts 26:12-23. Compare this with the mount of transfiguration Matthew 17:1-13. He counted all things as poo compare to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ. Php 3:1-11

 

What is this mystery?

Luke 24:25-27; 44-48

Jesus is the completion, fullfillment of prophecy, types and shadows of the Old Testament- Law, Prophets and Writings. Jesus is the OT manifested/revealed in a human body (John 1:1.)

Paul saw Jesus in every page of the OT. To preach Jesus from the OT was his revelation.

2 Corinthians 1:20

 

Christ in the Old Testament

Since God’s plan focuses on Christ and his glory (Eph 1:10), it is natural that the promises of God and the symbols in the Old testmant all point forward to him. “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him [Christ]” (2 Cor 1:20).

The OT as a whole, through its promises, its symbols, and its pictures of salvation, looks forward to the actual accomplishment of salvation that took place once-for-all in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Sometimes God gives immediate, temporal blessings in the Old Testament. These blessings are only a foretaste of the rich eternal blessings that come through Christ: Eph 1:3

The NT constantly talks about Christ and the salvation that he has brought. That is obvious. What is not so obvious is that the same is true of the OT, though it does this by way of anticipation. It gives us shadows and type of things that were to come. (1 Cor 10:6,11; Heb 8:5)

A type is a special example, symbol, or picture that God designed beforehand, and that he placed in history at an earlier point in time in order to point forward to a later, larger fulfillment.

Animal sacrifices in the OT prefigured the final sacrifice of Christ. So these animal sacrifices were ‘types’ of Christ.

Fulfillment takes place preeminently in Christ (Eph 1:10; 2 Cor 1:20).

 

The law is Shadow, but Christ is the Reality/Substance. (Colossians 2:16-20)

 

Even angels and the OT saints longed to look into these things to uncover the hidden gospel but you and I have been privileged to have it revealed to us!!

1 Peter 1:10-12

 

What are some of the unsearchable riches of Christ as hidden/concealed in the OT that has been revealed to NT saints since Jesus death, burial, ressurection and ascension?

 

-The heavens have been opened by Jesus’ baptism. It never closed since then.

Under Moses law, your sin brought a curse that could close the heavens above you like bronze. Deut 28:23. But Jesus rescued us from the curse of the law Gal 3:13.

Isaiah 64:1; Matthew 3:13-17; Luke 3:21-22; Acts 7:54-56.

Don’t be like the confused pentecostals who asked God to open the heavens, but thank God the heavens are already opened above you!!!!

 

-Psalm 51, Ezekiel 36:22-27; Jeremiah 33:8; 31:33-34 Prophecy=> Hebrews 10:15-18; 1John 1:5-9; Colossians 2:13-14; Ephesians 1:7; Matthew 6:12-15; John 20:22-23

-Psalm 25:3-6 Prophecy => Fulfillment Hebrews 10:19-23; Colossians 1:22

-The Glory of God lives inside of you! We don’t have to ‘get’ into the Glory, we are already in the Glory!! Colossians 1:24-27; 2:9; Hebrews 1:3; John 17:20-26. That is the Glory and the Unsearchable Riches of the New Covenant in Christ compared to moses covenant.

The OT Glory was a fading glory that’s why you had to get more of it. But NT glory is unfading glory and is ever increasing glory!! There is only 2 types of Glory: OT glory or NT Glory. (2 Corinthians 3:7-18)

 

Conclusion:

The mystery is this: Jesus Who is the fulfillment of the OT lives inside of you so you can experience God’s Glory!!

 

The Glory of God is the tangible Presence of God that is manifested into the earthly realm, that can be tasted, touched, smelt and seen.

 

The Old Covenant of Moses which was made obsolete is this: the Glory of God is outside of you!!

But the New Covenant established by Jesus is this: The Glory of God is inside of you!!

 

Say with me, Christ in me the Hope of experiencing God’s Glory!! Jesus is all I need and I have already have Him!! It’s all about Jesus!!!

 

Redeemed from the Curse of the Law, MP3 audio

13Message

To download the mp3, click right button “downlink link as”.

08/11/09

Yesterday was sharing a message to a group of believers about how God spoke to me about on Galatians 3:13 about Christ redeeming us from the curse of the law so that we might receive the blessing given to Abraham.

Here is a quick list of the notes and I will update it again soon in more detail- i made a couple of small mistakes in my talk.

Feel free to give any feedback, questions, challenges and answers because it helps us all to grow and expand our understanding of the truth.

Galatians 3 10 But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under his curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God’s Book of the Law.”*11 So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”*12 This way of faith is very different from the way of law, which says, “It is through obeying the law that a person has life.”* 13 But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”*14 Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised* Holy Spirit through faith.

Deuteronomy 2123 the body must not remain hanging from the tree overnight. You must bury the body that same day, for anyone who is hung* is cursed in the sight of God. In this way, you will prevent the defilement of the land the LORD your God is giving you as your special possession.

Obedience to the law results in blessings Deut 28:1-14

Disobedience to the law results in horrible curses Deut 28:15-68

Law is one unit

James 2 10 For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws.11 For the same God who said, “You must not commit adultery,” also said, “You must not murder.”* So if you murder someone but do not commit adultery, you have still broken the law.

In our day, what else can the ‘law’ refer to?
The ‘law’ not only stands for the Mosaic law, but it can also stand for church laws/traditions, denominations laws, or any requirements you put on yourself in order to obtain righteousness before God, right standing before God.

What is legalism? or does it mean to be ‘living under the law’?
i.e. if you don’t do this or dont’ do that, then God won’t love you anymore and He will be angry with you. God will only love you if you do this and that- conditional love.

What is the purpose of the Law?

-To reveal sin.

Romans 3 19 Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God.20 For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.

-To Stirup sin. Romans 7:8-13; 1 Corinthians 15:56

-To stop the mouth. Romans 3:19-20

-To lead us to Christ. Galatians 3:24

Are Christians under the old covenant law?

No. We live by the Spirit by Faith in Christ’s blood, we don’t live by external rules and laws written on tablets of stone but an inward guiding of the Holy Spirit of Grace that doesn’t bring any condemnation, guilty or curse but brings freedom and spontaneity.

Galatians 2:19; 5:18

Romans 6:14; 7:4

1 Timothy 1:8-11

We live by faith in Christ and we are made right with God through a Gift.

Galatians 2:20

Romans 3:21-26

Genesis 15:6; Habakuk 2:4

God swore an oath to never be angry with us again

Isaiah 54:9-10;43:25, Hebrews 8:8-13

We overcome the devil, the accuser of our brothers and sisters by the blood of Jesus given to us by God because God is FOR us not against us!! He is our Defender not our accuser!!

Spirit lead, free, organic church life

John 17: 20-23

“I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, 17:21 that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. 17:22 The glory you gave to me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one – 17:23 I in them and you in me – that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.

God the Father want’s His Church- His children, Called out ones, to be one. No matter what organisation, church group, denominations we belong to, no matter what differences we have in our beliefs in various doctrine of the Bible (just as long its not contradicing the essential truths of the faiths) we all need to humble ourselves, love each other, be teachable, work with one another for the Kingdom of God as much as we can, depending on the leading of the Holy Spirit.

I remember once I was talking to a hindu man about God. He said to me something like this, “Your religion/church is like mine; you have many groups, denominations such as baptists, pentecostals etc… many churches with different names. So it is the same with Hindus- there are many groups within Hindu relgion and many different ‘churches’ within.”

Then it hit me, one stumbling block for the world to see the church as one is this: our denominations, groups, names, organisations.

No what came to my mind was rob rufus saying something last year at glory and grace in sydney in session no.1 and 2,

“this not really about Law and Grace, it’s about who controls the church: does the man control the church, or does the Holy Spirit control the church?”

and in Session 3 He really preaches against the control spirit.

It can be downloaded from City Church International website

Christianity is simple; it’s all about Jesus from beginning to end; Its about a Person- God Himself. A passionate pursuit of Him, relationship with Him. Let’s not complicate it with traditions of man and good ideas of man that have no biblical basis and no church history to back it up even though they sound ‘good’.

It’s good to study church history.

The early church never owned one church building until the 3rd century when pagan emperor constantine did it while there were pagan temples around. It was Roman emperor Constantine’s fault because He was a pagan worshipper as well as a so called “christian”.

The early church never owned one church building and yet turned the world upside down; they wouldn’t want to own a church building because the pagans had their temples, the Jews had their synagogue and temple, it would have only confused the gospel message if they had! and had not the Lord said, “My body is the temple”.

Put yourselves in their shoes and imagine for a moment:

The early disciples realised they were the building of Jesus; they grew up in a culture of ‘temples’, pagan shrines and temples, for them to realise that they were God’s temple, it immediately would have taken away the need to have a ‘temple’ where ‘God lives’. Having a building today in our day was not part of early church tradition and also it only confuses the unsaved.

They turned the world upside down without one church building; they met in homes, outside in public places, on the streets, by the river, wherever they could. Buildings weren’t a issue for them, this world is soon passing away and will be burnt with fire. (2 Peter 3:10-13), Jesus is coming back in their soon in their lifetime (the early church sincerely believed that Jesus was coming back in their lifetime. 1Thessalonians 4:13-18)

And yet the church of our day has all sorts of buildings and monuments and its powerless to change the world.

So what happens when a meeting in a house becomes too big? well they go into another home? what if there is no leader to lead it?

Well that’s exactly right! God will take care of it!

Man loose control of the church and God  the Holy Spirit takes control!! it wasn’t a problem in Acts, they didn’t have that kind of thinking in place? ” do we have a leader? otherwise we can’t meet in a home?”

It says somewhere in Acts 4:4 that the number of men were 5000 people (not counting woman and children). But Acts 6:1-7 says appoint 7 deacons. so that is 7 deacons for 5000 people at least, not a very clever way to control the people beacuse that would mean about 700 for one deacon!!

That’s exactly right- man loose control of the church, the Holy Spirit takes control!

There is no need to have a ‘leader’ for every house group or home group meeting that takes place. there is no record of that in acts.

Church is not a ‘business’, church is a family. Whenever you have a business meeting supposed you have to have someone who directs it- (put all the seats in rows, dress up in nice clothing and listening to a message), but when family members get together, they can just enjoy each other’s company without worrying about ‘”who” is the leading the meeting?”

The church of God is the Family of God but sadly it is usually runned like a Business/

What about elders and deacons? Yes, it’s a biblical but they are birthed as God births it in his time, not our time. Not every church had elders and deacons in a same time frame I don’t think. The book of Galatians had no elders and deacons because Paul never mentioned any in his letter to the churches in Galatia.

1 Corinthians 16:19 Aquila and priscilla had a church in their house.

The key again is this: man loose control of the church, but the Holy Spirit takes control.

Who is building His Church? Who does it belong to?

Jesus is building His Church, not man. Matthew 16:18

There is a book about church history how pagan thinking crept into the church and created church traditions that have no biblical backing. He has a blog and I just got his book yesterday from Koorong bookshop in springwood, it has some good stuff.

http://www.paganchristianity.org/

I believe traditions and good ideas of men are ‘laws’ in themselves and enable men to control the church, but Grace releases men from traditions and allows the Holy Spirit to take control.

Galatians 5:18

“But if you are lead by the Spirit, you are not under the law.“

Any laws mean- church tradition laws as well- anything that is not in the Word of God.

It’s only the Glory of God that will make us One (John 17:22), and it comes by the Holy Spirit, being lead by Him, not by human laws and traditions of man which is doctrine of demons.

Bless you hope this helps