Good morning, CHURCH!

Welcome to FFM where we love God and love people.

Are you ready to be equipped today?

Let me see your Bibles.

Let’s Pray

Lord, help us to see you as new and fresh through your word today?

Lord, help us to see truth where we have believed lies?

Lord, speak to us through your word today.

Most of all, help us to love you and others more.

Let’s go to the book of 2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV for this week’s wisdom Vaccination.

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This Week’s Wisdom Vaccination

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Today’s opening shot of wisdom is this.

The world thinks that we are crazy for living a life that follows Christ.

They think we are missing out on living your best life.

But they need to be aware of this one thing.

Every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year of every decade this outer shell of mines is getting closer to its end.

And because of that, the new person on the inside, because of my participating in Christ’s resurrection, means more than the decaying outer person observable to human eyes.

‌2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!

How can I live for Christ in a society full of people living for themselves?

LOVE!!

Why does a man do what he does for his wife?

Why does a wife do what she does for her husband?

Why do parents do what they do for their kids?

Love compels you to do things that others won’t do.

The love of what God has done for us compels us to live the way we live for Him.

That should hit home seeing how we just finished up a series about the Love of God.

Now let’s get into today’s lesson.

Today’s message title is:

Who Am I?

No one knows about us more than us. (Other than God of course.)

But sometimes what we know about ourselves is more of a detriment to following God than anything else.

Not only what we know about ourselves, but what we continue to focus on about ourselves.

The Apostle Paul penned a well-known couple of verses in the book of Galatians chapter two which will be the focus of our time together this morning.

Galatians 2:19-20 NIV

“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.

20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

It is no longer I or the old I who lives but the life I now live is based on what the son of God did for me.

This was an astounding statement that God breathed through the Apostle that wrote more of the New Testament than any other author.

Before we dig in to what Paul was trying to express, we first must remember that prior to this new spiritual movement led by Jesus from Nazareth, the Jews felt like the God of the Hebrew scriptures was their God only for the most part.

And they most definitely felt a separation between themselves and Gentiles.

In Ephesians chapter 2 Paul makes mention to the former separation.

Ephesians 2:11-12 NIV

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)—12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

This was a time when the early majority of who Jesus preached to were Jewish.

And when it finally came time that it was understood that Gentiles also should be included in the family of God, there were some unwritten expectations by the Jews.

The Jews thought that Gentiles would first have to convert over to being Jewish or following there customs.

They expected them to start following the way of Moses before they could get to Jesus.

It just seemed right to many of them.

This is what the circumcision was a sign of.

If you’ve been circumcised, you follow the teachings of Moses.

But God was saying that you no longer must go through Moses to get to Jesus, but that you could go straight to Him under this New Covenant.

Now you can see why Paul’s statements were so astounding to most of them.

He was saying that Jews and Gentiles were to be brought into a single body of believers.

The Jewish believers accepted that Gentiles could now be believers, but they were having trouble with thinking that they were equals.

Were they expected to break bread together?

The Jews thought of the Gentiles as idolators and didn’t want to be polluted by them.

Now that we understand a bit of the tension between the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers, what does this have to do with who I am?

This gospel that Paul was preaching insisted that what happened in the death of Jesus was so dramatic that anyone who becomes part of the way by faith and baptism, have now stepped away from their old identity.

Your old identity might have been black, white, native American, Hispanic, Asian etc.

Your old identity might have been democrat or republican.

Your old identity might have been rich or poor.

Your old identity might have been educated doctorate, master’s degree, four-year degree, high school diploma, GED or drop out.

Your old identity might have been business owner, self-employed, W2 wage earner, or unemployed.

But none of that matters anymore.

Paul was saying that his new identity is in Christ.

And remember I said anyone who has become a part of the way or a believer by faith and baptism.

Being submerged in water is a representation of death to self, death to my own way, death to me being the center of my world, and death to my old identity.

This is what we see in Romans chapter six.

Romans 6:1-4 NIV

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?

2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

4 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.

And this new life we live becomes our new identity.

It becomes who we now are.

Question

Have you lost your previous identity through spiritual crucifixion?

And if you have, let me help you.

Having lost your old self doesn’t make you a nobody.

You are now alive through Him that saved you.

We are dead but alive.

How can this be?

It’s like a puppet or at least it should be.

(Someone in charge puts there hand in the puppet and controls its actions.)

We should be like puppets who are controlled by the Holy Spirit of God.

I am not defined by the life I live in the flesh.

Galatians 2:20 NIV

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

The faithfulness of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me is what now defines me.

Apostle Paul was trying to relay the message that his life was now about a debt of love which only love could repay.

And how do you repay that debt of love?

By simple obedience through your love for Him.

If you’re watching online or here in the building, I have a very important question to ask you.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you right now?