What God Has Done in Christ

Scripture Text

                                    1 Corinthians 1:30-31 (NLT)
³⁰  God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin. ³¹  Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the LORD.”

Intro: There are many different religions in the world. Each one teaches a different way to try to reach God. Every religion except Christianity teaches works to try to make it to heaven. They are trying to reach God by their own goodness through their works, but our scripture for today says salvation is of God through Jesus Christ alone.

I. God has united us to Christ. [1 Corinthians 1:30] Even people who aren't any religion at all, think if they do certain good things God will accept them. However, since we have a fallen sinful nature no amount of so-called good works make us good enough to save ourselves. If we could work our way to heaven, then God would owe us salvation and Jesus died in vain. God will not be obligated to any man because man would try to boast of his goodness before God. In Christianity God did everything through Christ that was necessary for our salvation. God by His Spirit called us to Himself and then gave us the grace to respond to His call and when we did God united us with Christ. Our unity with Christ is by God's grace, not works. Read Eph. 2:8-10!

II. Christ is the wisdom of God. [1 Corinthians 1:30] If good works can't save a person, then how is God able to save men? By His wisdom. God took Christ and presented Him to the world as the wisdom of God. Christ is the wisdom of God given to the world so that men might know the way, the truth, and the life of God. God sent Christ to earth as the living Word of God. He was the perfect expression of God's wisdom to man. Everything Jesus Christ said and did was exactly how God wants man to speak and do. When you are united to Christ, you have God's wisdom. Read the N. T. starting with the four gospels to know the wisdom of God as revealed to us through Jesus.

III. Christ has made us right with God. [1 Cor. 1:30] It is not by man's efforts that we are made right with God, it is by what Christ has already done for us. God's wisdom tells us that. Jesus Christ is the answer, for He is the righteousness of God. God sent Jesus Christ to earth to live the perfect, ideal, and sinless life. Jesus Christ never sinned, not even once. Therefore, He stands before God and before the world as the Ideal Man, the Perfect Man, the Representative Man. By Christ's perfect life which He lived as man's representative before God and by His sacrificial death and shedding of His perfect blood on the cross for our sins, Jesus made us right with God. Jesus Christ is the righteousness of God. He is the only way a man can become righteous and acceptable to God. When a person believes in Jesus Christ—really believes—God takes that person's faith and counts it as righteousness. The person is not righteous; he and everyone else knows it. But God counts their faith and belief in Christ as righteousness. 2 Cor. 5:21 For God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Jesus has also made us pure and holy before God. Pure means without spot or blemish. That's what we are in God's eyes because of Christ's sacrifice for us. Christ has freed us from sin. Jesus has provided complete redemption. He has freed our soul from the very guilt, penalty and power of sin, and He has loosed our bodies from the bonds of the grave. Philippians 3:21 Jesus will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. Jesus will change our bodies into the glorious likeness of His resurrected body.

Verse 31 says that a man is not to boast in himself, but if a man wants to boast, let it be in the Lord for all He has done for us through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord.

Conclusion: God through Jesus Christ saves a person. No person can ever save himself no matter what good works he might do or by what someone says. Don't be fooled by what you here on the social media, news media, or what you here from a religious leader or any other leader. There's only one way to heaven and that's by Christ alone. [John 14:6] This is the wisdom of God.

Invitation: You must know Jesus as your personal Savior, or you will not make it to heaven. To know Jesus as your Savior, confess your sins to Him and ask Him to forgive you of those sins and invite Him into your life to take charge of you. Then be baptized as a public testimony and to show your sincerity. Then you will have a right standing before God and He will receive you into His kingdom when this life is over.