Rob just read that passage in
Isaiah, seek ye the Lord. You know, we can't seek the Lord
by ourselves, except the Lord draw us, then we can seek the
Lord. the message that I'd like to
bring, by God's grace, a new creature in Christ, a new
creature in Christ. I'm gonna use 2 Corinthians chapter
five, Romans eight, Colossians 1, Ephesians 2, James
1, 18. I'm just giving you a little
bit of a view of the scriptures because I don't want to be talking
from myself. I really want to bring glory
to the Lord and let his word speak. But a new creature in
Christ, this creature, This creature is a real creature. And he's opposed to the old creature. The fruit, the first fruits of
the Spirit. Christ is the first fruit of
the Spirit. And, you know, This new creature has the spirit
of Christ in him. And the old creature, I'll call
him the old man in the flesh. Well, the problem here is this. The new creature that Christ
has made in us has to dwell in the tent. with the old creature. And that's a problem. That's
a problem for us. Because the old creature is always
sinful. He's always sin. And it's difficult
to live your life without sin, because we see ourselves as sin.
We are sin. That's what it comes down to.
Turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 5. I'm gonna start at verse 14. It says, for the love of Christ
can strength us because we thus judge that if one died for all,
then all were dead. and that he died for all, that
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto
him which died for them and rose again. Therefore, henceforth,
henceforth, know we no man after the flesh. Yea, though we have
known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know We know
him, we know more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. And all things are of God, who
hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given
us the ministry of reconciliation. Now this word reconciliation,
it's not a word that I use, but it really means a thorough change,
a thorough change. Propitiate, well I don't use
that word either. But atonement, I understand that
a little bit. Atonement, that's what it means,
atonement. Be thoroughly changed, thoroughly atoned. That's what
we look at Christ, the work of Christ. You know, it's easy,
I shouldn't say it's easy, the gospel, if you read it in First
Corinthians, you know, Christ came, he was buried, and he died
and he was buried, and then he arose, all right, that's the
gospel, and he paid for our sin. But you know, it's not so, It's
not so easy, you know. Hawker says we walk the border
between the visible and the invisible. And so this new creature in Christ. He's not a visible creature.
We don't see him. But we see the old man in the
flash. We see him. And and so. There's a conflict all the time
within us. And so I want you to look at Romans eight. And because it's important to
establish this spiritual life, because
The contrast is amazing when you really look at it. In Romans
8, it says, therefore, there now is no condemnation to them
which are in Christ, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the spirit. For the law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. For what the law could not do
in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son
in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in
the flesh. That the righteousness of the
law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the spirit. For they that For they that are
after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are
after the spirit, the things of the spirit. For the carnal
mind is death, but to the spiritual mind is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity
against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be. So then they that are in the
flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh,
but in the spirit. If so be that the spirit of God
dwells in you. And if a man have not the spirit
of Christ, he is not of his. And if Christ be in you, the
body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because
of righteousness. But if the spirit of him that
raised up Jesus from the dead shall dwell in you, he that raised
up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies
by his spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we
are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh. For
if I live after the flesh, you shall die. But if you through
the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. For as many as are led by the
spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For we have not received
the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the
spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, I have a father. The spirit
itself, bear witness with our spirit that we are the children
of God. And if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and join heirs with Christ, if so be, that we suffer
with him, that we may also be also glorified together. Now, it's important to know in the
gospel, you know, all the redeem in Christ, when Christ
died, he took, all those that he came to save and they died
too in our physical body. When he was crucified, our bodies
were crucified with him. Our sins were taken away. He imputed his righteousness
to us. And so we don't know that, That happened before we were
even born. That's amazing when you think
about that. I mean, you know, in retrospect, we look back,
we look at the cross and we see that our sins were paid for.
Steve was laying out the fact that we were dead spiritually
in Adam. And so that's another death that
we have to understand. But here we are, we're crucified
with Christ and his death back there at Calvary. And yet, this
new creature is the opposite of that. When Christ arose, his people are made alive. And so the first fruits of that
are the first resurrection. Now, I don't wanna sound like
it's so complicated, but there's not two resurrections. We have
a spiritual resurrection, and then we're looking forward for
the resurrection of our old bodies. that are gonna be in a grave,
in a tomb, or wherever we're at, dust, down the bottom of
the ocean, or up on the moon, I don't care where it's at, he's
gonna send his angels, and then he's gonna gather us, right?
But this first, the fruit of the first resurrection is Christ,
because he lives, we live. And so, let's look at Colossians,
Colossians chapter one. Sorry about that. Let's look at Colossians 1 verse
15. Who is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of every creature? That's who, well, I should start
back here, who was delivered, who hath delivered us from the
power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear
son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness
of our sins. Who is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of every creature? And go down here to verse 18,
and he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have
the preeminence. Now, Christ is the one who is
the first fruit that has risen. And all those
in Him that are in the first resurrection, in the Spirit,
Christ is the first, and then all the rest in time, like it
says in 1 Corinthians, in Adam all died, but in Christ all shall
be made alive in order. And so, You know, our joy is
now in Romans 5, it says our joy is now because now we see
our redemption. We see how God has atoned for
us. And so we're awakened spiritually,
we're alive. But the character of this new
creature, It's Christ in us. We know that we are justified. Christ has made it so that he
paid for the justice that was laid upon him for our sin was
accomplished. And so this new creature in Christ,
he's made perfect in Christ's righteousness. He's made so that it's Christ in him. And it's
so contrary to the old flesh, the sinful man. And so, If a person is born again, he
understands this. It's automatic. It's something
that, it's a work of God that makes you alive. We can't explain
that to someone because it's an invisible work. And so, and we see it in Ephesians
1, when, just turn back a couple pages, Ephesians 2, I should say, verse
1. And you hath be quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins. Well, when the Spirit of God
quickens us, that's what he does. He wakes us up. He makes us alive. And we... We are no longer spiritually
dead, we're spiritually alive. We're a new creature in Christ.
And then it says in 5 and 6, let's see what it says here.
Even when we were dead in sins, and quickened us together with
Christ, by grace you are saved. and hath raised us up together
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You know, this new creature is not like any other creature that
we understand. We can be seated with Christ
And yet we're here. Does that seem like it's possible?
But that's what the scripture says, we're seated with Christ
in heaven. I have something else I wanted
to say about that and I, well, And James 1, 18, it's the
same kind of understanding, but this is the first fruits. In James 1, it says, of his own
will begot he us with a word of truth that we should be a
kind of first fruits of his creatures. Now, In my little brain, I used to think about this, you
know, our sins are taken away in Christ. They're removed as
far as east from the west. And do we believe that? I do. But we have to pray. And we're
praying all the time, oh Lord, every day, Lord, I know I'm a
sinner and I, and, well, isn't that sin, didn't
we believe that that sin's all taken away? All our sins, doesn't
say just today, you know, it's the beginning sins that we started
with. Adam's sin and our sin every day, all those sins are
taken away, right? We believe that. And yet, we
pray every day for God to remove our sins. Why is that? Well,
because the old man of flesh, like I say, he's in the same
tent with us. And so, The Spirit of God is
in us, and we're just, we're miserable, because this new creature
is chained to the old creature, and he sees this sin. And here's how John, the Apostle
John says. In 1 John, he says, You can look at 1 John 1, he says, if we have sin, we confess our sin, right? If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Well, you know, when we read
in the first text I had, it says, he made him sin for us who knew
no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Well, that's the new man, the
new creature. But this, John is telling us about, who's
he talking about here? He's talking about the fleshly
man, the man who is captured with a new creature. He's a sinner. He's always going
to be, he is sin, it says. And why do I say that? If you
look over in chapter three, and this will make you think, it
says in chapter three, verse nine, it says, whosoever is born
of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and
he cannot sin because he's born of God. In chapter five, It says
almost the same. We know that whosoever is born
of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself,
and the wicked one touches him not. See, that's the new creature. That's the new creature in Christ,
the one that God has made alive. And the old creature is is someday is gonna be, when
his heart stops, could be any day, then we go into the grave. And actually, a lot of times
the scripture describes a believer as sleeping, not so much as dying,
he's sleeping. but he's dead, right? But we
understand that to a certain degree. But to be reconciled
to God is to be fully atoned. And we live as a new creature,
but God keeps us humble by this Sinful man, that is sin. He has to serve, he has to serve
the new creature. In other words, he's the vehicle,
he has to serve them. And we're told in Romans that
we're, don't let sin reign in your life. Why? Well, when Christ
came, he said, he destroyed sin in us, for the new man. And he defeated Satan. That's why the language sometimes
is like talking about kingship. Don't let sin reign. That's kind
of a, that's a, I don't know. It's a language of kings, right?
But don't let the sin reign. And so this verse in 2 Corinthians 5.21, is very significant to me because,
you know, if we come before God, we have to have his righteousness. We have to be as righteous as
God. How does that settle with you?
We have to be as righteous as God. And that's what it says
here. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him." The righteousness of God. Can
you get a hold of that? That's amazing to me. I heard a gospel preacher preach
this, and I want to tell you a little something. In my flesh, I really enjoy farming. I've always worked as a mechanic
in dealerships, but I've always liked farming. If I was sitting
in a pew out here, And I'd hear a tractor coming up the road,
crawling up this hill back here. I'd say, oh, man, is that an
Alice Charmer? Is that a 190? No, no, that's
a Turbo. That's an XL. Oh. You know, that's what I liked,
right? And planting corn, plowing fields,
smelling You plow five acres of land, and you smell that ground
turn over. It has aroma all by itself. It's
really cool. Disc it out, plant wheat, corn,
and boy, harvest time, you run that combine, picking that corn,
hear that thing singing along here. Oh, it's great. Just enjoy that. God quickens you in this verse
before he quickens you. Back in John 8, the Pharisees,
they bought this woman and brought her in adultery. And they wanted
to trick the Lord and see what he was going to say. I don't
know why they didn't bring the guy, they only brought the girl,
right? But anyway, there's something I wanna lift up, and that fact
is that Jesus, with his finger, with his finger, stooped down, and he wrote something on the
ground. And he said, and he without sin
let him throw the first stone. You know, the first Pharisee
he looked at that? Oh, I don't know what he wrote,
but he left, right? And he went right down the line,
right? Well, that finger is what I want to
kind of like point here. That finger, just the finger,
Christ in the flesh, just his finger can reveal your sin and
expose you. You know, I like farming, and
it was all good. That was not, there's nothing
wrong with tractors and combines. But you know, in here, I thought
God was pleased with those things. That they were good things. What
was I doing? I was being like Cain. See? You know, God will not share
his glory with anybody. And so, when God, when he, when
the spirit of God quickens you, it says in Psalm 119, verse 40,
it says, the spirit quicken me in your righteousness. That's what happens when God
quickens you. He, at the same time he makes
you alive, He shows you your sin. It's not just one sin. The sin
that he shows you turns you. It turns you. And you see yourself
as sin, your flesh. There's nothing good about you.
There's nothing. There's nothing good about us.
It's all Christ. It's his righteousness. And once
that happens, You know, I do a little thing. I don't think
I ever told Steve this. I get these centipedes. You know
what a centipede is? We used to call them thousand-leggers.
I come down once a while in the morning, and I'll have one of
these buggers in my kitchen sink. And they'd be running around.
I had one about that big. And I thought, oh, you know,
I'm going to have a little compassion. I'm going to have a little compassion
on this. And I have a roll of paper there, and I pull it off,
and I roll it up into, well, maybe a little bigger than a
quarter, half dollar opening. And you fold the end shut, and
I put it in a sink, and that little bugger, he goes right
up there. You got to be quick. You got to close the other end,
right? And I take them outside. And I put them on the pavement.
And I could not believe it. It ran
on the concrete and immediately put its legs back and it turned
into a worm, disappeared right in the crack. I could not believe
it. But it reminded me of a scripture
in Isaiah, it says, oh, Jacob, you worm. And that's what I am,
a worm. You know, I don't know if that
was a athletic centipede, but I've been doing that for a long
time, and they never do that. But if you ever try it, you let
me know if you ever see one turn into a worm. Well, I just, that's about all
I can bring to you, but I'm very grateful for the gospel. And
I know that this new creature in Christ is
a real creature. And so I just rejoice in that. And I'm thankful to be in this
loving family that will accept us. Let me just give praise to
God for a second here. Lord, I praise you for your kindness,
your mercy, and for your unmerited favor. Bless your people in Christ's
name. Thank you, Lord. problem.