In Christ - connecting with power in your life

Sermon Outline - “In Christ” —connecting with power in your life

What does it mean?

• In Christ means union with him, he in us and we in him.
  • we are going to look first at us being in Christ and then Christ in us

1. We are a New Kind of Being

• Story of the huge butterfly that was trapped under a sheet of plexiglass in the corner of my deck

Romans 8:1-16

5. For those who live according to the flesh
   have the mindset of the things of the flesh,
   but those who live according to the Spirit
   have the mindset of the things of the Spirit.
6. For the mindset of the flesh is death,
   but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace,
7. because the mindset of the flesh is hostile to God,
   for it does not submit to the law of God, nor is it able to do so.
8. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,
   if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.
   Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ,
   this person does not belong to him.
10. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin,
    but the Spirit is your life because of righteousness.
11. Moreover if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you,
    the one who raised Christ from the dead
    will also make your mortal bodies alive
    through his Spirit who lives in you.
    —

So what does this new way of living look like?

2. Jesus Christ is Living in Us ➜ a new strength

Romans 8:1-16

1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2. For the power of the life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus
   has set you free from the power of sin and death.
3. For God achieved what the law could not do
   because it was weakened through the flesh.
   By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,
   he condemned sin in the flesh,
4. so that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us,
   who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

3. Walking in freedom: Lies that Trap us and Truth that sets us Free

Romans 8:1-16

12. So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation,
    not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh
13. (for if you live according to the flesh, you will die),
    but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.
14. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.
15. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear,
    but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.”
16. The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are God’s children.