A LESSON I WOU LD USE AT THE HOME GOING OF A BELIEVER
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A portrait of the redeemed saints in glory doing what God designed for them to do from before the foundation of the world and that is to praise and glorify and honor His Son.
Part Two
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Footnote: Thanks for all the e mails, flowers, cards, thanks, visits, phone calls.
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Charles & Charity Whisnant
P. O. Box 270
Lucasville, Ohio 45648
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ELECTION TO JUSTIFICATION
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11 Thessalonians 2
vs.11-12
"But we are bound to give thanks, always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning CHOSEN you to SALVATION through SANCTIFICATION of the Spirit and belief in the truth." Whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the GLORY of our Lord Jesus Christ."
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Do you understand how justification works? Do you understand what that word means? It is a declared acceptable to God." Obviously, humanly speaking, none of us is qualified. So, at some point, in order that God’s plan founded in election can come to glorification, God has to get down to dealing with the issue of sin.
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How does He do it? Well, sin has to be punished and this is the great miracle of the Christian faith: he punished Jesus in our place. Jesus died on the cross, follow this thought, executed by God, as if He had committed every sin ever committed by every person who would ever believe, though, in fact, He committed none of them. If you understand that, you understand the core of the Christian gospel. God treated Jesus on the cross as if He had committed every sin ever committed by every person, who would ever believe. Though, in fact, He committed none of them. He died in our place.
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This question is: why did He have to come and live for thirty-three years? And we don’t even know anything about those thirty-three years. What was Jesus like as a little boy? Have you ever wondered about that? Did His father work real hard in the carpenter’s shop to make a table and He came in and said, "Table!" What was He like, God in human flesh? It doesn’t tell us. All we have is one small. tiny glimpse at the age of twelve when he was asking questions in Jerusalem of those religious authorities. Why thirty-three years? Why thirty years of absolute anonymity? Nobody really understood who He was. He didn’t make any great divine display, if you will, in the city of Nazareth or the village of Nazareth. Why all those years? Why seventy-six for Lenora?
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Well, I think it’s really summed up when He was baptized and John the Baptist said, "Well, why do you want to be baptized?" And He said, "In order that I might fulfill all righteousness." This is a great truth and it must be understood. Jesus needed to live a perfect life, a full and perfect life, so that it could be imputed to us. Let me sum it up this way. On the cross Jesus was without sin. He was spotless, He was sinless, harmless, holy, undefiled, separate from sin…Hebrews says. On the cross He was sinless; God treated Him as if He was a sinner. Let me tell you something. You’re not righteous and I’m not either but God treats us as if we were. He executed Jesus as if He lived your life so He could treat you as if you lived His. That’s the doctrine of substitution. That’s what justification does. There was a day in the life of Lenora when God, in His marvelous grace, moved that elective purpose one step further into justification. She heard the gospel, she believed the gospel, and God imputed the righteousness of Christ to her and her sin to the Savior who died on the cross, and she was saved.
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JUSTIFICATION TO SANCTIFICATION
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That wasn’t the end, because there’s a next step in the unfolding of this. Election: He "chose you for salvation," that’s justification, "through sanctification by the Spirit." The third great journal in the life of a believer is sanctification. What is that? It’s tied into belief, it’s tied into obedience……it’s just that progressive unfolding of a believer’s life lived in obedience to God."
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Bob, Rob, Debbie, Charity lived with Lenora through that great journal. How old was she when she was saved, be it seven or twenty one. Well, we saw the growth of her sanctification! And, for thirty-eight years, I was there with Charity, often at a distance, and nevertheless she was growing in the Image of Christ, and in those last months of her life we all saw that image of Christ take form.
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Her biography’s no different than any of yours if you know Christ. You’re living through this time of gradually being evermore separated from sin.
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FROM ELECTION TO JUSTIFICATION TO SANCTIFICATION
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That’s not the end. He says, in verse 14, "……to which He called you." He called you to this justification. He called you to this sanctification. He called you to "the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." That is incredible. That’s glorification, from election to justification through sanctification to glorification that is simply a statement that says that a believer in the end obtains, that is, participates in, the very glory of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
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FROM ELECTION TO JUSTIFICATION TO SANCTIFICTION TO GLORIFICATION
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She entered into that glory last Wednesday. Now he has no more sin; she is sinless. She reflects the glory of Christ. She was predestined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son: she is now bearing that image. She is not God, she is not deity, but she is as holy as God. Isn’t that an amazing thought-because it’s an absolute holiness. For this she was born. For this she was saved. For this she lived. And, this is her shining moment.
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AND FOR ALL OF US WHO BELONG TO GOD, THE BIOGRAPHY IS THE SAME.
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Now, I don’t want to minimize her uniqueness, but I do need to say that from God’s standpoint, she is one of the chosen to belong to the heavenly hallelujah chorus who forever will reflect the glory of Christ and worship and praise His name.
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We do not fear as those who have no hope. We, who love Christ, are just waiting for the reunion. People always ask me, "Well, will she be waiting for us?" Well, she’s in a world with no time. If you don’t have time, you don’t have waiting. Besides, there’s plenty to keep her occupied without worrying about us. For the first time, she will be free from that.
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And this benediction: verse 16, "May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting comfort and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work." I don’t know about you, but I’m greatly comforted in this truth. This is not an aberration. This isn’t something that went wrong. This is something that went perfectly right…perfectly right.
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And this is very personal, this verse, "May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting comfort and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work."
Don’t shake.
Don’t be afraid.
Don’t waver.
Stand fast,
hang on to the truth, the traditions you were taught -- hold onto everything she ever taught.
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It would be a great tragedy and I say this to the family in particular, it would be a great tragedy were we not to stand fast in the truth that she lived for. I mean that would be the ultimate tragedy, were we not to be faithful "in every good word and work." It would almost seem as if all that she did would be wasted.
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Stand fast, hold the traditions you were taught, receive the personal comfort of Christ and God Himself, and be established "in every good word and work." This is our biography. And we’ll all be there……we’ll all be there if we know Him.
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This could be said of Bob Temple, Sr. who for 55 years lived with Lenora a life that was lived in the manner of the Lord Jesus Christ. He as well as Lenora has lived a life as an example for their family. May we all live in the manner as they have.
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