New Life in Christ, renewed by the Spirit

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Speaker: 
Andrew Fountain
Date: 
Sun, 2019-06-09
  • Living in the New, not the old—two huge ways in which being in the New Creation changes everything (because we are united to Christ).

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Sermon Outline - New Life in Christ, renewed by the Spirit

Explore:

How being in the New Creation
because we are united to Christ
changes everything

Recap

  1. What God is like
  2. God and the Spirit World
  3. How the World got Broken

4. How the cross and resurrection changed everything

  1. Solution: The New Creation
  2. How it works: Union with Christ Col 2:8–23
  3. What this means for us

5. New Life in Christ

  1. The Two Creations
  2. Getting from the Old to the New
  3. Living in the New

Two Kinds of Stuff

  1. Things made out of paper, card, tape & glue
  2. Things made out of metal
  • Characteristics?
  • Can you turn something from card to metal?
  • How would you go about doing this?
  • So what was that all about Andrew?
  1. Paper & Card
    • does not last
    • easily damaged
    • not strong
    • can burn
  2. Metal
    • lasts indefinitely
    • resists damage
    • very strong and functional
    • cannot burn
  • No you can’t!
    • Have to start again and copy it

Problem at Corinth

  • There was a problem that some people at the Corinthian church were laughing at the idea of a resurrection
  • 1 Corinthians 15 starts by addressing this problem
  • Ends up with one of the clearest presentations of the “New Creation” in the Bible

1 Corinthians 15:1–50

  1. Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel
    • that I preached to you,
    • that you received
    • and on which you stand,
    • 2.and by which you are being saved, (if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.)
  2. For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received—
    • that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
    • 4.and that he was buried,
    • and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
  3. For just as death came through a human,
          —the resurrection of the dead also came through a human.
  4. For just as in Adam all die,
          —so also in Christ all will be made alive.
  5. So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
  6. However, the spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and then the spiritual.
  7. The first man is from the earth, made of dust; the second man is from heaven.
  8. Like the one made of dust, so too are those made of dust, and like the one from heaven, so too those who are of heaven.
  9. And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, let us also bear the image of the man of heaven.
  10. Now this is what I am saying, brothers and sisters: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

NET Bible, plus revisions by AMF


  • Read first section (v.1–4)
    • This is the core of the gospel that saves you
    • Paul: “this is so fundamental it is like ABC”
  • Read v.21–22
    • He begins to set up two contrasting systems, which will form the basis for the rest of the passage
  • Now maybe you can begin to see the connection with my paper and metal?
    • Paul is giving us two categories here:

The Two Creations

Old Creation New Creation
Adam Christ
Dust the Spirit
Perishable Imperishable
  • How can we be made of the Holy Spirit?
  • Adam was made of dust
    • atoms and molecules of this universe
    • Our bodies are the same basic stuff as the world around us
    • I am made of this same stuff
    • and when I die, I return to dust
  • Jesus was raised in the Spirit
    • a new kind of material
  • How can we be made of the Holy Spirit?
    • Well of course we don’t become God
    • As we will see in a moment, the Scriptures clearly teach it
    • So what does it mean?
  • If I was to visit London, England and collect a bag of rocks from the city
    • When I returned if I made the rocks into a little sculpture
    • I couldn’t say “this sculpture is the city of London”
    • I could only say “its made of the same stuff as London
  • Similarly our New Creation identities are made of the stuff of the Spirit

New Creation and the Spirit

  • John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
  • Rom 1:4 who was appointed the Son-of-God-in-power according to the Holy Spirit by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.
  • Rom 8:11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
  • but as we said before, these two kinds of stuff are completely different
    • if we are made of one, what do we have to do with the other?
    • how do we get from one to the other?
      • from perishable dust, to immortal Spirit?
  • The new creation has already begun, but the old is still here.
  • Our main problem comes from the fact we are living in both at the same time

O.T. Age to come

O.T. Age to come

2. Getting from the Old to the New

  • Definition of a Christian: in Christ
  • So how to we get from the old to the new?
    • You can’t suddenly discover that your leg is part of the New Creation
    • the answer is by being joined to Jesus who made the transition
    • we died with him and are being raised with him
    • we are united to him
  • Being United with Jesus is the answer to almost every question!
    • If you have ever taught children in Sunday School... “Jesus!”

Two Creations

Two Creations

  • So how do we get this?
    • Jesus offers it to us freely. “Come to me that you may have life”
    • It is a death and a life.
      • Jesus, I want the old me to die so I can have your gift of the new me
      • All our sin and guilt is taken away in his death.

3. Living in the New

  • Story of Larry’s goldfish

Image source: pngimg.com

Colossians 2 & 3

  1. Having been buried with him in baptism, you also have been raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead.
  2. Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
  3. Keep thinking about things above, not things on the earth,
  4. for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
  5. When Christ (who is your life) appears, then you too will be revealed in glory with him.
  • So what practical difference does it make?
  • Our second main passage today is Romans 6

Romans 6:5–14

Old Creation New Creation
5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection.
6 We know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
7 (For someone who has died has been freed from sin.)
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
he is never going to die again; death no longer is his master. 9 We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead,
10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11 So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, 13 and do not present the members of your body to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and the members of your body to God as instruments to be used for righteousness.
14 For sin will not be your master, because you are not under law but under grace.

based on NET Bible


  • Go through and point out comparison
    • Christ’s story has become our story

Two Differences in the New

  1. We don’t need to live as if we were slaves to sin. We are free now that we are under grace!
  2. Jesus now lives in us through the Spirit
  • Is it the Spirit in us or Jesus—amounts to the same thing
    • The Spirit is the channel of Jesus

Galatians 2

  1. For through the law I died to the law so that I may live to God.
  2. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
  • Once again, this is the New Creation life within us
  • God has put a piece of eternity inside us.
    • You are called to live out of this new reality
  • Every bit of the love of Jesus you show for another person is made of the stuff of eternity
    • Nothing you do for God will be lost
    • This will survive till the end of time
  • I have spend a lot of hours of hard work in my workplace this week
    • Is that just paper and card?
    • That doesn’t mean it is worthless building them—If you do it to God’s glory, everything has eternal value

Romans 7:6

“But now we have been released from the law,
because we have died to what controlled us,
so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit
and not under the old written code.”

  • The name of our church comes from this truth!

New Life in Christ - recap

  1. The Two Creations
  2. Getting from the Old to the New
  3. Living in the New:
    • We are no longer slaves to the old behaviour, but free to live in the new
    • We have the very life of God working in us through the Spirit

Romans 8:13–16

  1. …but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.
  2. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.
  3. 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.”
  4. The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are God’s children.
  • We live out of our self image. We must live out of this—the new us
    • So that way we respond to this is by grasping our new identity and living out of it.

Updated on 2019-06-09 by Andrew Fountain