Easter (Wednesday 2023)
Notes
Transcript
The gospel reading this evening assures us that Jesus lives! “Believe I live,” Jesus promises, “you will live also” (John 14:19) — not just in a physical, earthly way, but in a higher, heavenly way.
Yet, we live amid trial and tribulations in this place, so it begs the question, “HOW?”
Well, first we must remember that,
We Have Died to Sin
We Have Died to Sin
Colossians 3:3 “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Our sinful nature was buried with Christ in Baptism (Col 2:12
buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Since we are not yet rid of sin in our bodies, we continue to feel its effect.
We may become preoccupied with earthly things — making money, acquiring things, getting ahead.
Our minds may dwell on evil rather than on good — on envying, lusting, and coveting.
We sometimes forget that evil thoughts, as the ancient Prayer for the Second Sunday in Lent put it, do “assault and hurt the soul.”
Yet, we must consider ourselves dead to sin Romans 6:11
Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We Christ rose, He destroyed sin’s control over us Col 2:12
buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
Our baptism enables us to crucify the sinful flesh Rom. 6:6
knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
Christ’s power is available to us to put down sin in our bodies.
The same power that He displayed in His resurrection, He now uses fully at God’s right hand. As the living, ascended Lord, He gives us power to live on a higher level.
For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
We do not have to set our minds “on things that are on earth” (Col. 3:2). Nor do we have to occupy our minds with what is sensual and mean. Rather, we can think on those things that are good and right anad noble and true. Our thoughts are important. Proverbs 23:7
Proverbs 23:7 (NASB95)
For as he thinks within himself, so he is.
So, not only have we died to sin...
We Have Been Raised with Christ
We Have Been Raised with Christ
We are made spiritually alive in our Baptism.
WE live through faith in the forgiveness that Jesus’ resurrection guarantees us Col 2:12-13
buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
WE are now sensitive to God’s thoughts toward us.
Our life is hidden with Christ (3:3).
Christ is withdrawn from the world of sense, yet He is with us always.
It is a mystery that we can be in Christ and He in us.
Christ in us draws us to Himself and enables us to think His own thoughts
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Our life will be manifested when Christ appears Col 3:4
Our living Lord will come again, and then we shall be like Him in glory.
When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
And our life in Christ will have perfect bodily expression 1 Cor 15:35-49
But someone will say, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?” Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain—perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.
For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.