05/05/24 Sermon Recap: Sermon, Memes & Notes.

If you are struggling with sin, do you identify with your new nature in Christ, or still with the old sinful one?

You are a new creation in Christ, the old life is gone, a new life is begun. In the Greek “new creation” means something that has never been created before. For many years the collective church has preached “you are a sinner, just pray the prayer, and get to heaven”, but have you been born again, has your life changed, has anything changed? We are good at being a Christian on Sundays, but really we should have a 24/7 transformation in our lives. If you are still struggling with sin, do you identify with the new nature, or are you still identifying with the old, sinful one?

Did you just say the prayer, or has your life been transformed as a new creation in Christ Jesus?

When you are a Christian, old sins don't feel right anymore.

Romans 6: 1-4: What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. You need to stop resurrecting the dead person, the old you is dead to sin and alive in Christ. When you are a Christian and try to go back to back to sin, it just doesn’t hit right anymore. When you get transformed in Christ, you can’t go back to that old lifestyle.

If your sins still feel right to you, are YOU right with God?

We grieve the Holy Spirit when we don't live out our purpose or in our potential.

The Holy Spirit enters into grief when we don't live to the potential and purpose that happened in the new nature when we said yes to Jesus. Grief happens when relationships are lost, or expectations are unmet. Ephesians 4:22-30: Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy. So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth, for we are all parts of the same body. And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil. If you are a thief, quit stealing. Instead, use your hands for good hard work, and then give generously to others in need. Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption.

Is the way you are living your life bringing sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit?

The way to get out of your addiction is to stop identfying with it.

The way you get out of your addiction is to stop identifying with it. Romans 7:20 gives keys to overcoming addiction: “now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” When I sin, it is not me sinning, but sin living in me. It is time to start saying,"that’s not who I am". I am declaring a new nature that God is calling me to. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, and the power to sin no more begins with no condemnation.

Are you still identifying with your sin?

Don't be a thermometer, be the thermostat!

Do not just be the thermometer that reads the spiritual temperature of the room, instead be the thermostat that sets it! When Jesus went to His hometown of Nazareth, He could do no mighty miracles there because of their unbelief. Do not be filled with unbelief, do not put out the fire of God that is burning inside of you by quenching the Holy Spirit. Quenching the Spirit is putting a limit on what you think He can do. Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world; use the power of God inside of you to change every place you go to.

Are you a thermometer, or a thermostat?

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less. Phillippians 2:3-4 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

Is your focus on the things of the world and how you can get them, or on the things of God and how you can give them to others?