Andrew Fountain - How the cross and the resurrection changed everything

• Union with Christ is the single most important idea in the whole of Christianity.
• If you truly understand what it means, and get a really firm grasp of it, then it will affect you profoundly.

Sermon Outline - How the cross and resurrection changed everything

• I didn’t understand this at all until 15 years after I became a Christian and it changed my Christian life.
• But first a recap:
• Summary of last three sermons

• Very important point—it was not eating this fruit that was the problem in itself,
  • it was a symbol of stepping out of dependence, which broke the flow of order, love, harmony & power
• Another being in the universe came onto the scene and suggested to them that
  • God did not have their best interests
  • He could not be trusted
  • They did not need him anyway
• The choice can by symbolized like this

• This sums up sin, and in a simple picture applies to every choice we have
• When Eve and Adam made this choice, it broke the carefully constructed universe they were in
  • We don’t understand the details, but the harmony was smashed, and this extended to the animal and plant kingdom as well
• Led to shame
  • Led most of all to a broken relatinship with God which resulted in brokenness everywhere
  • But there is still beauty everywhere
• Problem is often framed in terms of individial sin
  • Story of teaching kids in my early 20’s – scales

• But I had a problem finding very many verses that expressed it like this
  • By his stripes we are healed” -Is 53:5
• So how does the Bible most commonly frame the problem and the solution?

1. Solution: The New Creation

• God offers to freely give us this new life.
  • Just as we entered this world by being born,
    • we enter the new reality with a new kind of “birth”.
• Jesus called this new creation the “Kingdom of God”. He explained this to a man who came to him:

• Jesus taught that when this world comes to an end,
  • those who are part of his new creation will receive new bodies,
  • like the new butterfly emerging from the old cocoon.
  • Sickness, suffering and death will be gone forever.

• Read the passage:

Click link to Colossians 2:8–23

• The heart of this passage:

Explain the verses

• death pictured as circumcision
  • Even in the Old Testament, circumcision was a picture of a new beginning
  • It was done on the “8th day”, the first day of a new week
    • picturing the start of a new creation
  • Israel were told that their hearts were to be circumcised
    
    • they were told this mean to have a new and living heart
• bury—raised
  • death—life
  • “Together with him” Paul has actually coined new words here
• when someone was crucified, they would nail a list of their crimes to the cross
  • Our crimes were nailed to Jesus’s cross
  • Not transferred to him, as a separate entity
    • but he put his arms around us and said “let’s do this together” and then he did it all
• The core message of the gospel is union with Christ
  • Once I used to teach the Gospel in terms of scales
  • I once made a pair of scales to teach this to children
  • In one side goes our sin (heavy stone) and the other goes our good works (no substance)
    • Then we take the righteousness of Jesus and it balances it out
• However much truth there is in this image, it is not how Paul presents the Gospel
  • Not a cold, legal transaction with scales,
  • but union with a living person
• This is the same as being “born again” (=born from above)
  • The life of God is now in you
  • You are literally his child, born from him (although not a God)
• Joined at the shoulder
• Implications of being united with Jesus
  
  1. Our destinies are inseparably connected
     • Story of the sinking supertanker and the helicopter
       • Let’s illustrate this with two people
     • we are totally secure
  2. We actually have died
     • and we have been raised something else

3. What this means for us

Look at verses 8–10

• things they have to do, rituals, ceremonies, particularly from the Old Testament
  • many of these things were not wrong in and of themselves, they just belonged to a previous life
    • Sorting stuff out I found an old library card from when I lived in England
    • A tax form was sent to my old address, years after I had moved here—no longer relevant
• Look at Paul’s answer: it sounds like he is almost saying we are divine
  • He is not, of course, but we are a new kind of being
  • filled with the fullness of Christ, who is fully divine

Quick Look at verses 15–23

• When someone dies, all their legal obligations are wiped clean, all their convictions etc.
  • Lawsuite against a criminal is instantly dropped if he or she dies

• Jesus died by crucifixion—the most painful way to die known to the Romans.
  • Yet the physical pain was nothing compared to what he suffering in his spirit.
• When Jesus died, he took on the guilt of a humanity in rebellion.
  • He paid the price, and brought peace with God.
  • It was what was needed for our forgiveness. That is how much Jesus loved us!

• How much he loves us to do this for us!

Updated on 2019-06-02 by Andrew Fountain