Identity in Christ | Sunday Service

Union in Christ

What does it mean to be truly righteous before God? Not almost righteous, not working toward righteousness, but declared righteous in a single, final, irrevocable moment? That is the stunning reality at the heart of what we explore in this message on justification in Christ.

Drawing from Romans 5, 1 Corinthians 6, and Ephesians 1, we are walked through one of the most significant legal and spiritual realities in all of Scripture: that the same God who once looked upon us as condemned in Adam now looks upon us as righteous in Christ. The verdict has changed. And it changed not because we improved our record, but because someone else settled it entirely. We examine the courtroom language of justification, understanding that this is not a feeling to be maintained or a status to be earned in degrees. It is a declaration, spoken once, standing forever. For anyone who has ever wondered whether they are truly accepted by God, or who has treated their standing before Him as something fragile and conditional, this message confronts that uncertainty with the full weight of what Christ actually accomplished. We are not almost accepted. We are accepted in the Beloved.

What actually happens the moment we believe the Gospel? Not what we feel, not what we decide to do differently, but what God does to us in that instant? This is the question at the heart of a profound exploration of Colossians 2 and 2 Corinthians 5. The central insight is both humbling and liberating: the transformation from being 'in Adam' to being 'in Christ' is not something we perform but something performed on us. Using the vivid image of a skilled surgeon, we are walked through what Scripture calls the 'operation of God,' a single, decisive, spiritual procedure that takes place the moment a heart believes. The Holy Spirit, working through the Gospel, first illuminates the darkened heart, reproving it of sin, righteousness, and judgment as described in John 16. Then, upon belief, He carries out a complete spiritual work, circumcision without hands, regeneration, indwelling, baptism into Christ's death and resurrection, and sealing. Understanding this changes everything about how we relate to our own assurance. When we grasp that our new identity was done to us rather than by us, our faith is no longer anchored in our performance but in the unshakeable work of God Himself.

How can someone be blind to God, and be certain they see just fine? In this message, Pastor Josh Strelecki concludes the three-lesson study of man's identity in Adam with alienation — the complete estrangement from God as His enemy, where a darkened understanding is defended as insight and embraced ignorance is mistaken for enlightenment. Preaching from Ephesians 4:17-19, he shows that this is not distance that can be closed by trying harder or learning more, but a total abandonment in which one comes to be identified not merely as producing the works of darkness, but as darkness itself.

Three features of that alienation are traced in turn to show how deep the estrangement runs: being under the power of darkness (Colossians 1:13) — a governing force that gives sin its motion and keeps a person content in it; being led by the spirit of this world (Ephesians 2:2), the prince of the power of the air who educates through philosophy and deceit, quoting Puritan William Greenhill on the world as "the devil's instrument" for taking men and women captive; and darkness itself (Ephesians 5:8) — not merely walking in darkness, but full identification with it. The resolution comes only from outside the darkness: Christ as the great Physician who names the disease and supplies the only remedy, reversing a condition no self-diagnosis or self-effort ever could. The message closes looking ahead to next week's study of the Operation of God — the means by which one is actually delivered from Adam into Christ.

In this message, Pastor Josh Strelecki continues the Union in Christ series with a study of condemnation — the second of three features of man's identity in Adam (alongside abomination and alienation). Preaching from Romans 5:18, he shows that condemnation is not a risk hanging over an otherwise-neutral person, but a judicial verdict already rendered and already in force, inherited from Adam by birth.

Three features of that condemnation are unpacked in turn: being under sin (Romans 3:9) — subject to sin's jurisdiction, not merely prone to occasional sin; the wages of sin (Romans 6:23) — a debt already earned and owed in full, including a sobering reading from Puritan writer George Swinnock on the weight of that debt; and being guilty before God (Romans 3:19) — a legal standing unaffected by personal feeling or self-assessment. The sermon closes with application to both the one still in Adam and the one already in Christ, pointing to the substitutionary condemnation of Christ as the only remedy the verdict demands.

What does God say about who we are apart from Christ? In this sermon from Titus 1:15–16, we begin examining our identity in Adam, starting with the sobering reality of “abomination in Adam.” Scripture’s verdict is not that mankind is merely flawed or in need of minor improvement, but that apart from Christ we are dead to God, alive to sin, and enemies of God—defiled in mind and conscience, servants of sin, and unable to produce anything truly clean before Him.

Yet this grim diagnosis magnifies the glory of the gospel. Our condition in Adam is so total that only the whole salvation found in Jesus Christ can remedy it: justification, sanctification, and glorification. Like the leper whom Christ touched and cleansed, sinners cannot make themselves clean, but Christ comes to save, forgive, and give righteousness to all who believe in Him.