Sunday Teaching at Lichfield's
Darwin Park Community Church
Freedom in Christ Session
2: Who am I Now?
I. Who
Am I Now?
A. Intro
1. Who
are you deep down inside? This question along with the question is a crucial
question because if we get this wrong then everything seems be tainted
by it. Ephesians 2 is a great description of the before and after - the
before Christ and the after Christ.
2. The
moment you became a Christian you became a new creation (2Cor 5:17) Can you be partly
a new creation and partly old?
3. For
you were once darkness, but now you are light in the |Lord (Eph 5:8).
4. What's
true is how God views you now that
you are a Christian. That is what is true about you. This is called our
position in Christ. This is how we should view ourselves as this is what
is true about us. But often we don't feel like new creations or like light
in the Lord. What then?
B. A
Saint – Not a Sinner
1. Would
you describe yourself as a sinner saved by grace? (pause)
2. Here's
an interesting verse: "While we WERE yet sinners, Christ died for
us". This verse seems to imply that we are no longer sinners.
3. You
certainly were a sinner and you were saved by grace alone. So if you're
no longer a sinner, who or what are you?
4. In
the NT unbelievers are identified as sinners (over 300 times). Believers
on the other hand are identified as "holy ones" or "righteous
ones" (over 200 times) and never clearly the other way around. If
you have received Jesus as your Lord, you are not a forgiven sinner but
a redeemed saint!
5. Yes,
you are a saint! That's not just a title. It reflects the fact that at
the moment you became a Christian - even if you're not sure when that moment
was - you became a new creation in Christ.(2Cor. 5:17). Your very nature, who you really are deep down inside (the spiritual
part of you - remember week 1) changed from being someone who could not
help but displease God to someone who is accepted, secure, and significant
in Christ. This is not just a covering of righteousness but a deep, inner
core change - spiritual.
6. Even
the youngest Christian is a saint - it's a term that describes our new
identity and position in Christ, but not necessarily our maturity as a
Christian. Is a less-mature Christian any less accepted by God than a
mature one?
C. In
Christ
1. We
are saints because of our new identity and position "in Christ".
In Ephesians alone we find this phrase now fewer than 40 times. It means
that we have a completely new identity - instead of being by nature "objects
of wrath" we now share in God's nature (2Pet 1:4)
II. Not
Just Forgiven But A Whole New Person
A. Changed
Behaviour Comes From Realising You Are A Whole
New Person
1. If
you think of yourself as a forgiven sinner (but still a sinner), what are
you likely to do? Sin! If you want to change your behaviour you have to
see yourself as more than just forgiven.
2. illus:
Suppose you were a prostitute and you found out one day that the king had
issued a decree saying that all prostitutes were forgiven. That's good
news - you are forgiven. But if that's all the decree said, would it change
how you saw yourself? No - you are still a prostitute. Would it change
your behaviour? Probably not. But what if the decree said that the king not
only forgave you but wanted you as his bride, wanted to make you queen?
Would that change how you saw yourself? Of course: "Why ever would
I want to go back to the life I had now that I'm the queen?"
3. YOU
are not only forgiven, you are the bride of Christ! In our understanding
of the gospel, we have tended to concentrate on just the first part of
the story - Jesus died for our sins. The trouble with that is that it
leaves us believing that we're not very different from who we were before
- just that we're forgiven and we're going to be with Jesus when we die.
But the truth is even better than that!
a) The minus signs represent sins on our account that are completely
forgiven in fig. #1.
b) If God merely declared us forgiven from our past sins,
that would not solve our problem. It would only make us morally
neutral in God's eyes - ie. Without
sin but also without any positive benefit or righteousness. This
is what the diagram would look like if we were the same person as we
were before redemption but just with our sins forgiven.
c) The plus signs in fig. #2 represent a record of righteousness before God. Moral neutrality
is not enough for acceptance by God (think of going to heaven as a morally
neutral person - you wouldn't be holy as heaven is). We must move to a
point of having positive righteousness before God, the righteousness of
a perfect life of obedience to him.
d) Therefore, God has declared us to actually be righteous in his sight.
We have the merits of perfect righteousness before God. Romans
4:3 says, "Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him
as righteousness". That "reckoned to him" phrase is what
is known as imputed. Romans 5:19 says, "by one man's obedience many
will be made righteous".
e) So, in actuality God sees us with the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. This is
what it means to be "in Christ". That is "whatever Christ
did as our representative, God counted it as being something we did too" (Grudem,
p841). Of course believers were not consciously present in Christ, since
most believers did not even exist yet when Christ was on earth. Nor were
we present in Christ in some mysterious spiritual way (as if, for example,
the souls of thousands of believers were somehow present in Chris's body
during His earthly life). Rather believers were present in Christ only
in God's thoughts. God thought of us as going through everything
that Christ went through, because he was our representative.
(1) For example, when Christ was leading his perfectly obedient life,
God thought of us as having perfectly obeyed too. Romans 5:19 says, "By one man's obedience many will be made righteous" (Rom. 5:19).
5. Remember
that the problem was that we were born spiritually dead because of sin.
Suppose you came across a dead man and you wanted to save him..
What would you have to do? Two things
a) You'd have to remove the disease that caused him to die but then you'd
also have to bring him back to life! Paul says "But God … even when
we were dead in our transgressions (there's the disease - sin), made us
alive together with Christ" (there's the bringing back to life) -
Eph. 2:4.
6. If
we knew only the truth that Jesus died to cure the problem of sin, we would
believe that we were forgiven sinners. BUT knowing the truth that we have
also received back the life that Adam lost and become a saint is crucial
if we want to live a life that honours God. If we don't know that truth,
our behaviour won't change very much.
7. The
fact that you are a saint doesn't of course give you any right to boast
- you didn't earn this, it was a free gift. Unbelievers too can become
saints at any time simply by putting their trust in Jesus Christ.
B. Defeat
Comes From Not Realising You Are A Whole New Person
1. Satan
can't do anything to change that historical fact of who you now are. But
if he can get you to believe a lie about who you are, he can cripple your
walk with the Lord because no one can consistently behave in a way that
is inconsistent with what they believe about themselves.
2. No
child of God is inferior or useless but if Satan can get you to believe
you are, that's how you will act.
3. No
child of God is dirty or abandoned any more. But if Satan can get you
to believe that you are, that's how you will act.
4. Show
me a defeated Christian and I will show you someone who has not grasped
these truths and turned away from his/her old way of living.
5. Some
might say:
a) "You don't know what's been done to me". It doesn't change
who you are in Christ.
b) "You don't know how bad I've been". It doesn't change who
you are in Christ.
c) "You don't know what failures I've had as a Christian".
It doesn't change who you are in Christ. Christ loved you when you were
still a sinner. That hasn't stopped now that you're a saint.
d) "But what about my future sins?"
When Christ died once for all, how many of your sins were future? All
of them!
e) "Wouldn't I be proud if I believed all those things about myself"? Not
at all. Because our new identity in Christ is not something we've
earned, but a free gift from Christ, instead it gives Christ the glory,
not us! God wants us to respond to Him by faith, by believing what He
has said and done for us. In fact, if you don't believe all those things
about yourself, youi are in effect calling God a liar!
6. You
are not saved by how you BEHAVE but by how you BELIEVE. This course
is not about learning to behave differently but to believe differently.
III. Being Pleasing To God
A. What
Happens When I Sin?
1. Ok,
we are to see ourselves as a whole new person, a saint or "holy one".
But we also know that we sometimes sin. So where does that leave us?
2. Often
because of our sinning we conclude that we are sinners at the very core
of our being. I sometimes burp - does that mean I am a burper?
The issue is who we are deep down inside. And if you are a Christian it
is a settled matter. At the very core of your being you now share God's
divine nature.
a) Colossians 1:27 says, "To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles
the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the
hope of glory".
b) In John
17:23 Christ referring to the disciples says, "I in them and You in me …"
3. You
have become someone completely new.
B. It’s
Not Inevitable – But We Do Sometimes Go Wrong
1. Being
a saint means that we have the capacity to choose not to sin: "My
dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin" (1John
2:1).
2. We
do not have to sin. Indeed we have ended our relationship with sin because
we have died to sin and its power over us. Romans 6:2
says, "We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" and
Romans 6:12 says, "12 Therefore do not let sin reign in
your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires".
3. Being
a saint does not mean that we live in a state of sinless perfection. 1 John
1:8 says, "If we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves and the
truth is not in us".
4. We
are saints who sometimes sin (as opposed to sinners saved by grace).
5. In
practical terms we must come to grips with two truths:
a) On the one hand we will never be able to say "I am completely
free of sin".
b) On the other hand, a Christian should never say for example, " This sin
has defeated me. I give up. I have had a bad temper for thirty-seven
years, and I will have one until the day I die, and people are just going
to have to put up with me the way I am"! to say
this is to say that our sin has gained dominion. It is to admit defeat.
It is to allow sin to reign in our bodies. It is to deny the truth of
Scripture. In Romans 6:14 Pauls says, "For sin will have no
dominion over you". Jesus has given us power to overcome patterns
of sinful behaviour. Romans 6:11 says, " … consider yourselves dead
to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus". HOLD ON TO THAT TRUTH!
C. Our
Fundamental Relationship With Our Heavenly Father
Does Not Change When We Sin
1. When
we sin, God still remains our father. The relationship stays in tack. "My
dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody
does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defence - Jesus Christ
the Righteous One" (1John 2:1). Your eternal destiny is secure -
Jesus paid the penalty for your sin.
2. illus:
Can anything change the fact that you are your parents' child? No - nothing
you can do can alter your DNA. You can disown your parents or do all sorts
of things that displease them. Perhaps you never see them because they
are on the other side of the world. Perhaps they are dead. But nothing
can change the fact that you are their child.
3. When
you were born again you became God's child. In a way you received His
DNA - God's own Spirit lives in you (Romans 8:9) and you now share His
very nature (2Pet. 1:4). Nothing can separate you from God's love, no
one can snatch you out of His hand (John 10:28).
4. if you
are truly born again then your relationship with God is settled
D. We
Restore Harmony By Turning Back To Him And Away
From Our Sin
1. But
can you disrupt the harmony of that relationship by doing something that
does not please God? Of course! A harmonious relationship is based on
trust and obedience - when either is lacking it affects the quality of
the relationship.
2. So
what do we do when we do something that we're ashamed of or that is wrong?
What is the appropriate thing to do?
3. We
must confess to our loving Father and agree with Him that we were wrong
and therefore turn away from our sin (repent - change one's mind), knowing
that it is already forgiven because of Christ's death.
4.
E. God
Does Not Condemn Us
1. Therefore
there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans
1:8).
2. We
can always be honest with God because we are already forgiven and there
is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. This fact, should revolutionize
our prayer life to be bare and naked in our praying - ie.
Honest before God, able to tell Him everything knowing that we are still
going to be accepted by Him.
3. God
is not a finger-wagging "inspecting" kind of God. We don't need
to earn our way back into His good books by having seven really good quiet
times in a row. We're already in God's good books because of what \jesus has
done. Realising that you can come straight back to God in repentance when
you have gone wrong and know that you are forgiven is a key to becoming
a mature Christian.
F. We
Don’t Have to Try to Become What We Already Are
1. Now
let's come to a crucial question, "What can I do to be accepted by
God?"
The short answer is nothing at all!
The truth is that you are already completely accepted by God simply because
of what Christ
has done. John 1:12 says, " But as many as received Him, to them He
gave the right to become children
of God, even to those
who believe in His name, who were born
not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God
2. If
we don't understand the grace of God and our spiritual inheritance we
will keep trying to become somebody we already are!
3. It
is not what we do that determines who we are, it
is who we are that determines what we do.
a) Illus. Augustine - An incident in Augustine's early Christian
life illustrates this. Before his conversion he had a mistress named Claudia.
Shortly after he found Christ, Claudia saw him on the street in the city. "Augustine!
Augustine!" she cried after her old paramour [lover]. Augustine paid
no heed. "Augustine! Augustine!" she cried out again. "It
is Claudia!" "But it is no longer Augustine," he replied,
as he continued on his way.
4. Consider
Paul's letters. They all divide neatly into 2 halves - the 1st is the
truth of who we are and the 2nd is the practical application.
a) We love to skip over the first part and get right to the application!
Skip the hard stuff and just tell me what to do! Remember the discussion
about Romans we had last time - everyone is comfortable with Romans 12
to the end but try to get someone to spend their quiet times on Romans
6-11 and it/s like pulling teeth!
IV.Conclusion
A. Christianity
is not about trying to become someone different - it starts with recognizing
that you actually became someone different the moment you received Christ - a whole new person!
B. One
thing the enemy likes to use in order to prevent that from happening is
to confuse us on the point of what is God really like. Let's finish this
session by renouncing lies that we may have believed about Him and declaring
together the truth. Read the "My Father God" list.
C. Closing
Illustration
1. The
new man in Christ is therefore actually living a holy life in Christ and
in the power of the Spirit. The old man he once was in Adam has ceased to
be.
a) An
incident in Augustine's early Christian life illustrates this. Before his
conversion he had a mistress named Claudia. Shortly after he found Christ,
Claudia saw him on the street in the city. "Augustine! Augustine!" she
cried after her old paramour [lover]. Augustine paid no heed. "Augustine!
Augustine!" she cried out again. "It is Claudia!" "But
it is no longer Augustine," he replied, as he continued on his way.
2. We
are a whole new person in Christ!
