Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at The Reality of The Resurrection P17 (01-05-22)
You Are A Brand New Creation- Be Taught by The Holy Spirit of God
Pastors and teachers are God’s gift to the body of Christ. However, don’t rely solely on them to teach truth to you. They can be helpful to you to understand God’s word, but don’t depend on them to be infallible in their teachings. Any pastor or teacher could be lying to you or teaching things that are not true. That is why we need to depend on the Holy Spirit to teach us all truth and check out things with the word of God.
John 14:26
26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
Throughout church history, there have been many hindrances to the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ. An obvious one of these are other religious systems, like humanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and we could go on naming them. But there is one that is the most prominent of all, and that is legalism. Legalism turns Jesus into a religion.
The most effective spy today is the one that acts like an American and dresses like an American yet underneath all of that is a communist at heart. We have many of those here in America. That same thing also occurs in churches today. Pastors and Teachers act like they are a Christian, dress like they are a Christian, say all the right words of a Christian, but deep down inside they are a tool of Satan. People need to realize that they are teaching error. This is why we need to always go back to the word of God and be taught by the Holy Spirit, alive living in us (if we are indeed in Christ Jesus). So let’s dive into what it means to be a new creation in Christ Jesus.
2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
A Closer Look at The Reality of the Resurrection
Ministers of a New Covenant
Go back and review from chapter five and realize that we are under a new covenant. And that we have a new body waiting for us that we will be receiving.
2 Corinthians 5:1-5
1 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
As the world is in turmoil, we are closer to the day that we will get our new bodies. It is much closer than people think. We groan to be clothed with our new bodies. Jesus talked about this in the parable of the banquet, to be clothed in His righteousness, which is being clothed in the new body.
2 Corinthians 5:6-10
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
We often think that we are going to be going up there with God and we are going to be telling God, what our rewards are going to be for. Yet the bottom line is that those things that are done in the flesh are going to be burnt up into ash piles. Only that which we allowed the Holy Spirit to work in and through us will remain. Yet, some will probably be talking about how their ash piles are bigger then someone else’s ash piles (sarcasm).
2 Corinthians 5:11-15
11 Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. 12 We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. 13 If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
Fear of the Lord is not being fearful of Him, but a reverence for Jesus.
Now we are told to no longer live for themselves but for others. Help others in need. Think about others. We now live for Christ. Why? Because Jesus is alive living in us. The old is gone and the new has come!
2 Corinthians 5:16-20
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Christ in you is our only hope of glory. When we have Christ Jesus alive living in us, we have been made a new creation. God now lives in a believer. Before we were born again, we were like a light bulb without any electricity. A light bulb doesn’t work without electricity. It’s like a car without gasoline. God created man to be indwelt by the Spirit of God. Man doesn’t work properly without the Holy Spirit alive living in us.
Romans 6:6 teaches us that the old man was crucified with Jesus. That was the old me, without the Spirit of God living in me. The new me is with the Spirit of God living in me. That is my new self. The old self will never ever be again.
Romans 6:6
6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—
John 3:3
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
