Bibles to Romans chapter 5. I want to read several verses. I'm not going to preach on all of these verses, but I want to get this passage in our heads because we will think about some of the truths that are revealed in it. Romans chapter 5, I'd like to begin at verse 10 and then I'm going to read over to chapter 6 and verse 14. So bear with us and you follow along. as we read Romans chapter 5 and verse 10. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass. But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we've been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace. May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his holy word. This is a most happy day. Baptisms are always happy days in the life of God's church, and certainly it is a happy day for will and for grace and for their families, but really for all of us, a happy day for the church. Because in the ordinance of baptism, all of us can remember and all of us celebrate this remembrance and a reminder of the glorious fact, the great blessing of being a Christian, which is union with Jesus Christ. That is the most happy union that we're going to look at and think about today. The union with Christ is a most happy union because all of the blessings of the Christian life come through are being united with Christ. Now, Romans 6 is going to particularly speak about being buried with Christ in his death and in his glorious resurrection. Those are two wonderful blessings of the Christian life. But it's not all that there is. And quite often, we can think of those as being the only blessings, really, but they're not. Being united to Jesus Christ in his life and in his death means that everything that was true of Christ amazingly is true for us as believers in Jesus Christ. In fact, both of the ordinances of the church that the Lord gives to us, the Lord's Supper and Baptism, set forth the glorious doctrine of union with Christ. What does it mean to be united with Christ? Though they cover different aspects and they call to mind different things, both of them have their foundation in the fact of being united to Jesus Christ. If you'll keep your finger there at Romans and turn over just a few pages to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, just a verse that shows that about the Lord's Supper. In verse 16 of chapter 10, Paul says, the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation or a union, we might say, in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Now, the word, of course, that Paul uses there that's translated participation is the great Greek word koinonia, and it speaks about a union, a togetherness, a sharing, a participation, a fellowship, we might say, but it speaks of this idea of union. In 1 Corinthians 1.9, Paul says you've been called into the fellowship same word the fellowship of his son and in Acts chapter 2 that description of what the church is to be is a dish that word is used again to describe the fellowship that we have in the Word of God and the worship of God and in the shared life that we enjoy as Christians in a local body of Christ. And all of these things, all of these blessings come to us by virtue of union with Christ. All of the blessings flow from that union. If we think, for example, of a great passage like Ephesians chapter 1, I would like for you to turn there. I'm just going to read the passage again. I'm not going to try to exegete it here, but just as an example, of this great central truth. I want to read for you and I want you to kind of perk up your ears as you're hearing to that little phrase, in Christ, in Christ, in the beloved, and how often it is repeated and what flows from it. Let's read again, Ephesians chapter 1 and begin at verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will. according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things, according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. Ten times, ten times in these 11 verses we read in Christ, through Christ, in Him. And it reveals to us in these passages nine different blessings of the Christian life. Did you count them as we were going through? Election in Christ from before the foundation of the world, holiness that we shall have in Christ, adopted into the family of God, in Christ, redemption, a full redemption, not only of our souls but of our bodies on the last day, forgiveness of sins, knowledge, understanding of His will, a great inheritance that is waiting for us, hope in this life, the seal of the Holy Spirit, just in the space of those verses, blessing after blessing after blessing after blessing that comes to God's people in Christ, through Christ. It is a most glorious glorious truth that the believer in Jesus Christ, and this is true of these two who will profess today their faith in Jesus Christ, is they have been plunged, we might say, into Christ. And therefore, they participate in all of the blessings that come by that glorious union. Now, that's what we want to talk about today. We want to explore just two aspects of this union with Christ. And I want to do it under these two heads. First of all, what is objective? What is an objective truth, an objective reality of what it means to be united to Jesus Christ? And that is, we're going to call it representative. union, or substitutionary union, and I will explain those words, and what that means in terms of the Christians' permanent, eternal standing before God. the reality of what it means eternally for us to be in Christ. But then secondly, there's another aspect of this union that is, we might say, vital, spiritual, living, organic union, and what it means for the new and the ongoing life of the believer. This is high theology that we're going to be looking at today, but great blessing that comes with it. First of all, this representative union, it actually goes back a long way. It goes back to the Garden of Eden and our understanding of what happened there in Genesis chapter 3 when Adam fell. Now, we know what a representative is. A representative is a kind of substitute. We live in what's called a representative democracy. We don't vote on everything. That's great that we don't have to do that, but we elect representatives who go to Washington or go to the State House or whatever, and they supposedly represent the will of the people. I said supposedly because it doesn't always happen that way, does it? But they are representatives of the people. They stand, in a sense, in our place. They're a substitute. If you know anything about athletics, you know that substitution happens all the time. You know me, I love baseball. I was watching a baseball game the other night, and only in baseball can a guy sit on the bench for nine innings doing nothing, we might say, and then at the very end of the game, when the game is on the line, he can come to the plate as a pinch hitter and change the whole course of the game. That actually happened the other night. A guy got up in the ninth inning. and hit a three-run homer and they won. He'd been sitting on the bench the whole time and not playing in the game himself, but he was what in baseball lingo is a pinch hitter. He's a substitute. He comes in, he takes the place of another. The truth of our union with Jesus Christ is that we have in Christ a great substitute, a great representative on our behalf. He has acted in our place. Now, we need to understand this and how it works in Romans. So if you go back to Romans chapter 5, and actually this is a somewhat difficult section from Romans 12 to 19, is a bit of an explanation of the problem that exists in verses 10 and 11. We read these verses, but I'll read them to you again it says for if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life more than that we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation That's a problem. There's a great problem that exists there in those two verses. If you're not a Christian, that is a problem that you now have. And that is, you're in great need of reconciliation. Now that's a big word, but all that it means is that there are two parties that are separated from each other Perhaps they were once friends, but something has happened, something has occurred that has caused a breach in the relationship. And this is the situation that we find ourselves in when we come into the world. Verse 10 says, we were enemies. Now you might say, if you're not a Christian, well, I don't feel like I'm an enemy of God. Well, the feeling may not necessarily be there, but the fact of the matter is that it is there, that there is a breach. There is a chasm that exists between you and God. And that was the case for every Christian. It was the case at one time. Reconciliation was necessary. Now, why was it necessary? Well, that's the section 12 to 19 that explains it for us. and explains it in a way that quite often people don't like it. They don't like to grasp the truth that's expressed in these verses. But there's a great happy good news ending to this explanation. And the first is this, is that Adam, when Adam sinned in the garden, Adam's sin included all of us. Adam, in a sense, was our representative. He was, in a sense, our substitute. He stood before God, as it were. He was created in the image of God. He had the ability to obey God or not. He stood as a kind of representative man. That's actually what verse 12 means, if you just read that. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, That means before there was sin, there was no death. And so death spread to all men because all sinned. Now that doesn't mean they eventually sinned. It means that they sinned in Adam. You did, I did, all of us did in Adam, our representative. When we send an ambassador to a foreign country, he acts on behalf of the rest of us. If he makes a great decision, we will benefit. If he makes a poor decision, we will suffer. But he is our representative. And that's what that section really goes on to say. It's made very clear, it seems to me in verse Therefore, as one trespass, that is Adam's sin, led to condemnation for all men. All men. And then again in verse 19, for as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made or constituted or imputed sinners. They were made sinners by Adam's sin. That's a difficult doctrine, isn't it? First thing we want to do is say, hey, I'm standing on my own boat. I'll stand before God on my own. I don't stand in Adam. Well, folks, that's the way that God has arranged it. That's the way he's determined that it is to be. And that there is a glorious outcome from it as well. But we need to get that fact in our minds. What was true of Adam is true for all of us. When Adam sinned, and the curse fell upon him, it fell upon all of us. And the condemnation against sin and that act came upon us as well. It's why David could say in Psalm 51, I was a sinner from the time my mother conceived me. I was conceived and born into this situation, into sin. Again, you may not like that, but that's the way God has determined it. He, Adam, was our representative, in a sense, before God. Now, of course, it's also true we've contributed to the mess, haven't we? We didn't really need for Adam to be our representative. We've done a pretty good job of sinning all our own. But the truth of the matter is that God, in a sense, looks at the world through this prism of Adam and Jesus Christ. And notice how Paul goes back and forth through the passage. and speaking of Adam and speaking of Christ. So we need to get that in our heads. God deals with us in a representative way. Adam was our representative. He stood for us. Now there's good news in that because Adam, as the passage tells us, was a type of the one to come. That there was going to be one who would come in place of Adam, so to speak, or in the likeness of Adam, the one born of a woman, born in human flesh, and who was going to come and he himself would be a representative. He himself would be a substitute. And that's exactly what happens in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is set forth as God's determining man to be a representative, to be a substitute for guilty sinners. And that all who would look to Christ in faith and in love and in trust, he said, would be seen by God, not in themselves, but in him. That when the Lord looks upon us, he sees Christ. Just as before, when he looked upon us, he sees Adam, now he sees Christ. The key verse again is verse 19. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man, who is that? Jesus Christ. By the one man's obedience, the many were made righteous. I am saved by the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, who took my place. He stood for me. He was the grand pinch hitter of my life. You could say, in a sense, we all struck out until the pinch hitter came. And he hit a grand slam and he won the game. That's our Lord. All we like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the representative, the substitute, the iniquity of us all. The great hymn. in my place condemned he stood sealed my pardon with his blood hallelujah what a savior it's a hymn that speaks of substitution and the work of Jesus Christ representing us when we believe on Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit we are plunged into Christ and we participate in all of the benefits that Christ himself has won for his people. Do you desire an inheritance in heaven? It's to be found in Christ. And as our hymn said, in Christ alone. In Christ alone. Do you want to have forgiveness of sins and a new heart? Where is it to be found? In Christ. And in Christ alone. Alone. Don't you love that word? In Christ alone. Thomas Goodwin, one of the Puritans, has a real quaint but illustrative illustration of this great truth of representation. He basically says in trying to understand this passage that God looks out upon the world basically and sees two men. He sees Adam and he sees Christ. And both of these men have, as it were, around their waist a tool belt, you know, If you go to work on a house, you do construction work or something like that, the first thing you're going to do is wrap your tool belt around you and you're going to put your hammer and maybe some nails and tape measure and all of the different tools of the trade, so to speak. They're going to be hanging from that belt that you wear. Well, Goodwin says that God looks out upon the world and there's two men and they got a tool belt on. And all of the people in the world are hanging from one of those two tool belts. You're either hanging from the belt of Adam or you're hanging from the belt of Christ. Let me ask you something. If you're not a Christian today, which tool belt are you on? I can tell you whose tool belt you hang from, and that's the tool belt of Adam. Adam's sin, which was imputed to you, you've added to it your own particular sins, the ones that have your particular name on them. And because of that, and there's no Christ in your life, you're hanging on Adam's tool belt. And it's a tool belt of condemnation. It's a tool belt of wrath. It's a tool belt of judgment. But in Christ, Jesus Christ himself and what Christ has done in coming into the world and living in this perfect life before God, not giving in to the temptations that you and I always give into or many times give into, and went to the cross and keeping that covenant with his father and said, Lord, I'm going to take upon myself all of their sins. I'm going to wear them all. I'm going to take off my perfect robe and I'm going to put on that filthy robe of their unrighteousness and I'm going to wear it to the cross. He was made sin for his people that they might have his own perfect standing. We sing the hymn and we will sing it at the conclusion of the sermon today. His robes for mine. What a glorious exchange that is. Have you divested yourself of the filthy rags of your own righteousness in order to put on the glorious robe of Christ's righteousness? That's why he came. He came to give you that. You don't have to earn it. You don't have to go to work to say, well, after a few years, maybe I'll do enough to earn that robe. No, no, no. It's a gift. It's a free gift. The trespass led to condemnation, but the free gift Grace in Jesus Christ. All those who come to Him and say, oh, I need this grace. I need peace. I need forgiveness. I need a new life. I need a new heart. I need to be different than I am right now. Oh, I tell you, come to Jesus Christ. Wear His robe. It's perfect. Not a blemish, not a spot on it anywhere. And I tell you, if you're united to Jesus Christ in that way, through faith, when He looks at you, He doesn't see all those blemishes. He sees you in Christ. In Christ. That's the way He deals with humanity. You may not like it, this idea of representation, but I tell you, I love it. I love it. It's what gets me up in the morning, is to know that Jesus Christ is my representative. Jesus Christ is my eternal substitute who will stand for me from now until the day of eternity. That's the gospel of Jesus Christ. But it's also true Jesus Christ is not simply the believer's representative, but this union with Jesus Christ is a living union. It's a How best to describe? Organic. We're all into the organic foods these days and the idea of life and dynamism and growth and vitality. That's part of the union that we have now with Christ. And that's Paul's argument, you remember, in Romans chapter 6. Because the question comes up, well, if this representative union with Jesus Christ has solved all my woes and all my problems and delivered me from all condemnation and all distress, then just live like you want to. And Paul said, no, no, no, you're not getting it. You're not getting it at all. If you're united to Jesus Christ, it means you have a new life now. You're united to him. And that's a living union. It's a vital union. It's an experienced union with Jesus Christ. It's a very practical union with Christ. I remember Andy Lutz many years ago speaking to the youth group and speaking of this very issue and he said, it's kind of like you're an electrical appliance and you've been plugged into the power source. You know, if you unplug a lamp, no matter how often you turn it on and off, it's not going to do anything, is it? But if you plug it in to the wall, you plug it into a socket that actually works, and you flip the switch, the light comes on. That's something of what we're talking about here, a union with Christ, a connection, a participation in the very life of Christ. It's ours! in him. It's a living union. That's what John was talking about in John chapter 15 when he speaks of the vine and the branches. It's a living organic union. Just, you don't have to turn there, but I'll read it for you. the Lord says to his disciples I'm the true vine and my father is the vine dresser every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away that is the false professor and every branch that does that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit already you're clean because of the word that I've spoken to you and we would say and that they have believed Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing." That's being plugged in. That's participating, we might say. in the blessedness of Christ. And so it's that truth taught in Romans 6 that speaks of the believer's vital union with Christ that makes continuing in sin unthinkable. Union with Christ in his death and in his resurrection, according to Romans chapter 6 and verse 4, means a new life. That's what it says, doesn't it? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. That's what we'll be celebrating in just a few moments. A baptism, but don't think of it just in terms of death and life, but a baptism into Christ. That's what's happened. That's what the ordinance represents. It's a dying to self. and a life in Christ, a participation, a fellowship in Christ. Now, there's a couple of things about this that we must understand about this new life, and it's absolutely crucial, I think, in growing in grace, in growing in our understanding. And Paul spells it out for us here. The first thing is this, is a recognition of what has happened in your believing. What has happened to me? Something has occurred. There has been something supernatural, something spiritual, something vital that has happened to me in believing. And that certain thing is that you have been united to Christ. You've been united to Christ. Notice how Paul speaks about it, verse 10. Chapter 6, for the death he died, he died to sin. Once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. Now here's union. So you, so you, because he died and because he lives, so you, so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. So what's the first thing? What's the first step, we might say, in growing in grace, this vital union with Christ? It's, first of all, just realizing what's happened. Verse 11 is actually the very first command that there is in the book of Romans. It's a command that is a kind of bridge to all of the other commands that come in terms of living out the Christian life. But the very first command is consider. Consider. Think about what has happened to you. Think about the fact that you are no longer in Adam. But you are in Christ. Think about the fact that it's no longer about just you and yourself. It's about being in Christ. You've been united to Him. There's a whole different set of circumstances now of going from one life to another because you're in Christ. And you consider yourselves dead to sin. and alive in Christ. And then look at verse 12, let not sin therefore. See, that's the first hard commandment, we might say, dealing with our sin and so forth as we go along in the Christian life. But the first thing is just to consider, to think about it, meditate upon this glorious fact. Listen, These are great meditation times for us as believers, is to just think about what does it mean to be united to Christ. Go back to Ephesians chapter 1 and just meditate on those verses. I have a friend who tells me that when he gets a little depressed, he goes to Ephesians 1. A lot of people go to Psalms, he goes to Ephesians 1, because this is the truth about being united to Jesus Christ. And it kind of lifts the fog because he thinks, he realizes what's happened to him. There's a little illustration of this that I heard years ago about a man who lived in Mississippi, and he made a trip to England. And it took him a while to understand that they drive over there a little differently than we do. They drive on the wrong side of the road. It's the other side of the road. And it took him a while to really get somewhat confident in driving on the left side of the road. I won't say wrong anymore, the left side of the road. And he said when it was most tense in driving, which was when he was driving along and people were riding, you know, okay, but when he came to a hill, And he didn't know what was on the other side. He said, that's when I had a little bit of tension and I wanted to go back into that other lane. But of course that would have been disaster because somebody's coming on the other side. And so I thought to myself, I forced myself in a sense, stay in your lane. And he said, that's kind of like what sanctification is. God has put you in another lane. He's united you to Christ and he's put you into a new life. And aspects of that life are wonderful, but trouble comes and there's a tendency to revert back to the other side. He said, but no, he said, you consider, you realize, no, no, I'm in the right lane, I'm in Christ. and I must put to death the sin that reigns in me. I must not give way to my passions of anger or distrust or unbelief." He said, but I keep going, you see, I keep going. That's a big part of the Christian life. It's just realizing what it is that God has done for us in Christ. It is a most happy union to be in Christ. A couple of things, just by way of application. Of course, this truth of being united with Christ both in a representative way and in a vital way accents the believer's eternal standing before God. In Christ alone, I stand. All that He is has become mine. All that He is. The truth of union with Christ is meant to revolutionize our Christian lives. It's meant to revolutionize our whole experience because now we have the possibility of a living communion with Jesus Christ, of knowing him better and better and better. the put on and put off mentality of dealing with sin. Well now it makes some sense because that's not my sin. It doesn't fit with this new life in Christ and yes it's a bother to me and it's always going to be there but there's a new mentality now and I must deal with it. I must put it away. It takes on new strength, knowing that we are plugged in to Christ. We participate in all that Christ is. Let me ask you something, believer. Are there what you would call impossibilities in your life? You say, well, you know, going along for so long, but it's not going to be any better. It's not going to be, it's not going to get any better. It's just, you know, it's just the way it is. I'm the way I am. He's the way he is. She's the way he, she is, whatever. It's just not going to get any better. How does that square with union with Jesus Christ? I mean, the God who's come in the flesh and that we are united to him. How does that thinking square? It just doesn't, does it? It takes away all of the impossibilities and gives grand possibilities for living the Christian life. Are you living? Are you living? up to the reality, we might say, by God's grace. That's part of the union with Christ, is grace upon grace upon grace that he gives to his people to live out the reality of their union. But there's a second truth as well that we will notice when we witness the baptism, is that believers have been plunged into Christ. And all throughout the New Testament, they've been baptized into Christ. They've been baptized into all that Christ is. Christ is the head and Christ has a body. They have been baptized into the body of Christ. That's why there's a very close connection between someone's coming to faith in Jesus Christ and someone's joining themselves to a local community of believers. It's not exactly the same, but it's very close, very close relationship because you've been baptized into the body of Christ. And that means you're not anymore on your own. Your Christian life is not a life that's simply individual. You have your own individual Experiences and communion with the Lord, private times and so forth, wonderful, great. But now you've been brought in to a body. There's a baptism into the body of Christ that is true as well. And the reality of this corporate unity lifts church life into the realm of this supernatural union. It makes so much difference in how we view the body of Christ if we've been baptized into Christ. Because you know you don't split the head over here and the body over here. They're together. There's a dynamic union with the head and the body. And that's what's happened as well We don't put the corporate over the individual. The individual comes first, but the corporate reality is there as well. And Jesus Christ, I'm going to stop here, but in his high priestly prayer in John 17, he speaks to this very thing that I think is very important for us to think this way and think, what does this mean to be united with Jesus Christ? You know how the prayer begins there in John 17, when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that the son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. Those are those blessings in Christ from before the foundation of the world. And this is eternal life that they know you. the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed." And then he goes a little bit later on to speak about us. Verse 20, he says, I do not ask for these only, that is his disciples, he had gone on to speak of his disciples, but I don't ask for these only, verse 20, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that is through the apostles' word, People will come to faith in Jesus Christ. They'll be united to Him in the ongoing centuries. This will happen. And Jesus is praying for them. He's praying for us. pray for heritage church he's he's praying for these believers now in 2016 here in this high priestly prayer they will believe in me through their word that they may all be one just as you father are in me and I in you that's union in the Godhead that they also may be in us that's the supernatural union in Christ so that the world may believe that you have sent me." What does that mean? Well, when believers in a body, a local body, experience and live out their union with Jesus Christ, with one another, that's the primary means that the Lord uses to bring glory to the Father. as they unite with one another, and as they live together in love, so that, that's what it says, the world may believe that you have sent me, the glory that you've given me, I've given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, you in me. that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you loved me father i desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where i am to see my glory that you've given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world oh righteous father even though the world does not know you i know you and these know that you've sent me i made known to them your name and i will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them. Those are wonderful words. They're high, aren't they? This union with Christ and what it means for us individually, but also what it means as a body, as a body of believers, that the world may know that you sent me. That's how the world can perk up its ears and its eyes and notice. It is because this union with Jesus Christ is worked out on this horizontal level that makes the church, a spectacle to the world itself. It's high doings there, isn't it? Well, may God give us grace that we not only know this in our heads, the reality of what it means to be united to Jesus Christ, but it may be worked out as well. And for these two who are baptized today, we come alongside of them as brothers and sisters and We want them to know this reality and walk in this reality and live in this reality of what it means to be united to Jesus Christ, what the possibilities are in that. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word and we pray that as we now celebrate this ordinance of baptism that you would be with us and you would be showing us your own glory and what it means to be united to Jesus Christ in His life and in His death, His resurrection, and all that is in Christ that is ours. And we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.