Alive Through Christ’s Death (80-137) (Romans 6:1-11) - Grace to You

 

But this is the point I want you to understand a Christian is not simply a person who gets forgiveness, a Christian is not simply a person who gets to go to heaven, not simply a person who receives the Holy Spirit.  He is a person who has become someone he was not.  He is a Saint, a child of God, a divine masterpiece, a child of light.  A born son, a citizen of heaven.  Not only positionally, not only judicially, but actually.  Becoming a Christian is becoming a new creation.  That’s what we are.  And that’s what we see as we look at our lives.  I don’t see my own life as perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  I see sin in my life, but I hate it.  That’s the evidence of my new nature.  John Newton who was a dissolutant, dissipated debotched sinner of the worst ilk was converted by amazing grace.  And wrote so many hymns like that.  One thing that he wrote that is not in his hymnology sums up what Paul is saying here.

     This is what John Newton said.  “I am not what I ought to be.  I am not what I wish to be.  I am not what I hope to be.  But by the cross of Jesus Christ, I am not what I was.”  That’s it.  That’s a new creation.  What a gift.  Let’s bow in prayer.  Our Lord we have just touched the surface of this so much could be said and I pray that your Holy Spirit would make these things clear through all our hearts.  We thank you that you’ve shaped us and made us into new creations.  And we’re not what we ought to be and we’re not what we want to be and we’re not what we’re going to be, and neither are we what we used to be. 

     Father, how glorious a gift is this to have all things passed away and be made new.  To be granted love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self control the fruit of the spirit.  To be given the knowledge of the truth, the power of the spirit, oh Father, how rich we are.  We thank you for the miracle of transformation.  That accompanies justification.  We pray that this sanctification, this transformation which was begun at that moment of our faith will progress and continue along the path towards Christ’s likeness.  Ever increasing until Jesus we see.  We pray in his great name, Amen.  We pray in his great name, Amen.

Alive Through Christ’s Death (80-137) (Romans 6:1-11) - Grace to You