The Work of God in the Soul of Man
Notes
Transcript
The Work of God in the Soul of Man
The Work of God in the Soul of Man
Todays Scripture is a personal testimony of the one who wrote. We know that Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthian Church, and in one verse that most christians can recite almost as second nature, Paul sums up the work of Christ in the soul of the believer. Paul declares,
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
This is the work of God in the soul of man. It is God who takes the heart of stone and turns it into a heart that is flesh and is softened to the Spirit.
Ezekiel 36:25-27
English Standard Version Chapter 36
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules
The first time we see Paul is at the stoning of Steven- Act 7:58; Acts8:1-3, and what is Paul doing? He is destroying the church. dragging christian out of their house and throwing them into prison.
So What Changed for Paul?
Why did Paul go from persecutor to building the church? He would be in chains, prison, ship wrecked, stoned, and eventually die for this gospel that he once tried to destroy. What Changed?
Well, this is the first part of mans reconciliation to God and that is as Paul says, He no longer viewed Christ according to the Flesh
From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
It was truly seeing Christ for who He is that changed the way Paul lived. He was a New Creation because of the work Jesus Christ on the Cross- Paul was willing to suffer great because of the Grace that God had on His life, because God had opened his eyes to the truth- He was humbled by the grace of God
Luke record this new creation work in the books of Acts saying
And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized;
Paul, just all those who have not seen Christ as Savior and Lord are blind and therefore they Jesus in a prevented way:
A Good man
A Godly Man
A Prophet
A religious leader
or even as a get out of hell for free card ( Enteral Life insurance policy)
Yet seeing Christ as Lord- Kurios- Master, Lord of Lords
Paul had this view which is why He writes to the Roman believers and says.
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,
Our modern Bibles use the term servant or even bond-servant as the NASB does, yet the word Paul chose here to describe his relationship to Jesus is the Greek word Doulus- Which means a Slave.
Paul is introduces Himself as Paul a Slave of Jesus Christ
Savior comes from the Greek soter- which mean deliverer: The view we have of God should makes us shudder like the prophet Isaiah did
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”
It is important to note Isaiah’s response to seeing the glory of the Lord. It’s “woe to me”. It was acknowledging his sin and separation from God. It was “God is holy and I am so unholy.”
Paul describes it in His own life:
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Paul’s view of Christ and the work of God in His live reflects the quote of A.W. Tozer when He writes in The Knowledge of the Holy:
What I believe about God is the most important thing about me.
And this thought of God and seeing Jesus as Lord and Savior leads us to say along with A.W. Tozer and Paul:
Sometimes I go to God and say, "God, if Thou dost never answer another prayer while I live on this earth, I will still worship Thee as long as I live and in the ages to come for what Thou hast done already. God’s already put me so far in debt that if I were to live one million millenniums I couldn’t pay Him for what He’s done for me.
Do we have this view of God, this view of Christ an the work of atonement on the cross which Paul’s describes in verse 21
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Christ did just die for my sins, but He died as my sins on that cross. So that I might become righteous, or in right standing with (justified). This is atonement- Christ died in my place, in your place appeasing the or canceling our debt.
Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
What an amazing God who we serve. A God full of Grace, meaning He gives us what we don’t deserve- We all have sinned and fallen short, yet God has given us pardon because of Jesus, and Mercy, meaning He doesn’t give us what we do deserve- The wages of Sin is Death, yet God has laid on Him (Jesus) the iniquity, which means guilt, of us all.
To truly understand the love of the cross we need to understand the depth of sin- We deserved Divine punishment, not divine sacrifice!
John Piper writes- I have heard it said, “God didn’t die for frogs. So he was responding to our value as humans.” This turns grace on its head. We are worse off than frogs. They have not sinned. They have not rebelled and treated God with contempt of being inconsequential in their lives. God did not have to die for frogs. They aren’t bad enough. We are. Our debt is so great, only a divine sacrifice could pay it.
There is only one explantation for God’s sacrifice for us. It is as Eph 1:7 says, “for the riches of his grace.” It’s all free. It is not a response to our worth. It is an overflow of his infinite worth. In fact, that is what divine love is in the end: a passion to enthrall underserving sinners, at great cost, with what will make us supremely happy forever, namely His infinite beauty.
What great love God has displayed, and it is this love that motivates us as believers. Paul writes:
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
One Died so that all would not have to die. When we come together as the body of Christ we all of this in common, Christ died for us. The most amazing things about God’s love is that He first loved us while we were in hostility to Him.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
While we were enemies
What an amazing testimony that Paul, you , and I have. We were enemies to the all powerful creator of the heavens and the earth, but one died so many wouldn’t have to die. It is the famous Three Musketeers line, “One For All.” We can say that one died as a representative of all and brought benefits to all because that one died instead of all.
Paul also say, “ For the love of Christ controls us.”- Or the love of Christ impels us. The Love of Christ”- this phrase means His love for us as seen in His sacrificial death.
God is not like the god’s you read about in fictional writings like Greek Mythology. God isn’t like Zeus waiting to fry you with a lighting-bolt every-time you make a mistake. In fact when we were dead in our trespasses and sins that is when God sent Jesus. It is the complete opposite. When we could get to god, God came to us and made a way, not because we were good and great or had such great value, but because God is a God of love and grace.
Think about the love of Christ in your own life? This is the love that we have for things, such as my Phone, or even my dog. This is a love that an agape love. A love that while we were sinner and enemies of God displayed.
We love because he first loved us.
God is always first. He was first in the Creation of the world, and He is first in the New creation in the Human soul.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
“IN Christ”- There is union with Christ. Spurgeon Writes,
300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon Becoming One with the Foundation (1 Corinthians 15:28; Ephesians 4:15; 1 Peter 2:6)
In the old Roman walls the mortar seems to be as hard as the stones and the whole is like one piece. You must blow it to atoms before you can get the wall away.
So is it with the true believer. He rests on his Lord until he grows up into him, until he is one with Jesus by a living union, so that you scarce know where the foundation ends and where the upbuilding begins; for the believer becomes all in Christ, even as Christ is all in all to him.
Believers are activity “in Christ”- This speaks of a position that believers have. In John 15 Christ tells His disciples to “Abide in Me”, or to take up residence. We live in Christ, and have fellowship with Christ activity now, Christ isn’t just our future get out of hell insurance policy, He is active in our lives now, and we are in Him fellowshipping through prayer and reading God’s word. This is how you know you are in Christ. It takes more then just coming to Christ on Sunday, it take living that new creation life in Christ Jesus and as we do that the Holy Spirit produces new creation Fruit,
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Explains this work of Christ in our lives as the ministry of reconciliation:
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
All this is From God- The new creation life or new transformed life in Christ is accomplished by a sovereign God 2 Corinthians 5:18 (2 Corinthians (NAC)):
(1)God is the driving force behind the redemption of humankind. Reconciliation comes solely at God’s initiative. (2) God acted through Christ’s death, and Christ alone is the means of reconciliation. (3) God continues to act through those who have been reconciled.
What do we bring to the table in our salvation?
The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott “Your Best Is to Get Me”
[In a] weaving factory, [a] new and inexperienced hand managed [to] get his machine into [a] terrible tangle. Afraid [to] tell [the] foreman, [he] tried hard [to] unravel it, but [it] only got worse. In desperation [he] fetched [the] foreman [and told him], “I did my best.” [The foreman responded, “Your best is to get me.”
Archbishop Temple’s oft-quoted words expressed this very pointedly: “All is of God; the only thing of my very own which I can contribute to my own redemption is the sin from which I need to be redeemed.”
What does it mean to be reconciled?
The basic meaning is “to make otherwise1… “to alter,” “to give in exchange,” or “to take in exchange,” as also in the intrans. signif. of “to change.”
To Alter- think of that Eph 2:1-10 passage. Change or altered from “death to Life”From enemies to children- Rom 5:10.
Reconciliation assumes ruptured relationships, alienation, and disaffection. The problem, however, is not with God, as if God were some cruel taskmaster from whom humans rebelled. Human sinfulness created the problem, and this sinful condition had to be dealt with before there could be any reconciliation.
God has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and now we have been sent out with the ministry of reconciliation as Ambassadors of Christ
that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
To be an ambassador is to be a representative of God. Nations of this world have ambassadors that are sent to other nations are representatives of the nation, meaning they speak as that nation.
We have been sent out as ambassadors and ministers to this world with the very message that God has used in our own lives to reconcile us to Himself, and that is:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
This is the message we proclaim- this is the testimony of our lives- this is the motivation that we have. “While we were dead in our trespasses and sins, God made us alive in Christ. The wages of Sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.”
Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Salvation, Assurance of
Several years ago one of the astronauts who walked on the moon was interviewed and asked, “What do you think about as you stood on the moon and looked back at the earth?” The astronaut replied, “I remembered how the spacecraft was built by the lowest bidder.”
We as Christians can rejoice that the work of salvation did not go to the “lowest bidder” but was performed by an infinite God. There will never be a deficiency in his work. Our salvation is as sure as the architect of that salvation, Almighty God.
Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says,
“In a favorable time I listened to you,
and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”
Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
“Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of your salvation”
For those of us in Christ we have this reminder and assurance, that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ:
Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Salvation, Secure Comfort
C. H. Spurgeon is quoted as saying that he was so sure of his salvation that he could grab on to a cornstalk and swing out over the fires of hell, look into the face of the devil, and sing, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!”
When the storms of life, the winds of trouble, and the sea of discomfort and emotional agony seem to overwhelm, we have to say with the songwriter, “Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. . . . We dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”
For you who are questioning:
You are hearing these words that the Corinthian Chruch was reading and the invitation is still the same. Today is the day of Salvation. Jesus’ invitation to to come to Him and find rest. Just as Christ met Paul, Christ can meet you to in this very moment no matter where you are physically or spiritually. Paul was murdering Christians when Christ made him a new creation, where are you at?
Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Salvation, Need for
A little boy came running into the house after playing outside. His mother stopped him and asked what was on his right hand. He replied, “Oh, just a little mud.” His mother then asked if he was planning on getting it off his hand. He thought for a moment and said, “Sure, Mom. I’ll just wipe it off with my other hand.” There was only one problem with the plan, one dirty hand plus one clean hand equals two dirty hands.
Many people are like that little boy, they see the evil and wrongs in their life and think they can make themselves clean by bringing the good in their life to bear on the problem. But it doesn’t work that way. We all need a way to be made morally and spiritually clean, and we will never succeed in doing it ourselves. The only solution is to be found in the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanses us from all of our sins.
There has never been a better day then today and there has never been a better moment then now to respond to the amazing Grace and Love God that He has shown us through Jesus Christ.
God says
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
This same work that God did in the soul of Paul, He can do you you very soul in this moment.
God does not turn away from sinners in disgust and leave them to their just desserts. Instead, while humans were still in open revolt, God acted in love (Rom 5:8) to bring the hostility to an end and to bring about peace (see Rom 5:1; see Isa 32:17). This peace is not simply a cessation of hostilities or an uneasy truce. It refers to the mending of the broken relationship that results from God justifying us (making us right) through faith and changing us from enemies to friends
Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, and inChrist alone.