Created by Grace
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Grace is more than just forgiveness. In fact God’s grace is everything. It’s from justification to glorification. We have been created (made new) by Grace. And we remain that way because of God’s grace toward us.
A true Christian is a transformed life. More than changed, they become a new creation. A true Christian has a new identity. Understanding this fact is absolutely essential to your success in living the Christian life.
For in Christ, you are new person!
What does the identity of these people have in common? Michael Jordan was an athlete. Robin Williams was a comedian. Whitney Houston was a singer. Do you see a commonality?
The public identity of all three is based on their behavior. It’s not only famous people who are identified by what they do.
If someone asks you today, “Who are you?” How would you answer? I’m sure you’ll tell them your name. But if they then ask, “Tell me about yourself,” whatever you say next will probably reveal where you gain your sense of identity. And if you’re like most folks, you will tell them about things you do. We’ve been programmed to think of identity as inseparable from behavior.
But God doesn’t look at it that way. He doesn’t determine identity by behavior but by birth.
A person born into the family of God receives a new identity.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Paul says that those who have trusted Christ have become a new creation. The root of the word “creation” is “create.” The word doesn’t mean to improve something already in existence. It means to bring something out of nothing. God didn’t simply change you when you were saved. He created a new person! You aren’t the same person you were before you became a Christian.
A person who is dead in their sin is spiritually dead. And so the person who is born again in Christ becomes spiritually alive.
As I said last week, like God, man is a triune being. God exists in three persons, while you and I consist of parts:
Body
Soul
Spirit
In his book “Grace Walk” Steve McVey expresses it this way.
Grace Walk: What You've Always Wanted in the Christian Life (Chapter 3)
Your body has a sense consciousness that responds to the five natural senses. Your soul consists of mind, will, and emotions. Another word for soul is personality. The soul is self-conscious. Your spirit was dead when you were born into this world and remained that way until the Holy Spirit gave it life through the new-birth experience.
Here is the point:
Before you ever trust Christ by faith, you have no spiritual identity.
Everyone individual longs for an identity. To be somebody.
But a satisfying identity can never be found at the level of the soul or body. Since the essence of what we are is found at the spirit level, those outside of Christ are considered dead and those in Christ have been made alive. Paul said that God has brought to life those who were dead in their trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1).
1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
So then, what is the source that gives life to the spirit?
It is nothing less than Christ Himself!
When one turns to Him in repentance and faith, His Spirit comes into that person’s spirit and gives life. Since it is the presence of Jesus in the spirit that gives it life, our identity is simply that we are in Christ! He becomes our life. “For in Him we live and move and have our being…‘ For we are also His offspring’” (Acts 17:28).
28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
In Colossians 3:4 we read that Christ is our life!
4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
That mean your identity is in Christ. Christ is your identity.
Grace is the very thing makes that happen. And it God’s grace that marks us with family traits that we recieved by being born into the family of God and being placed into Christ.
Lets look at these traits together really quickly if we can.
You are a saint.
You are a saint.
In 1 Corinthians 1:2, Paul addresses the people of the church at Corinth as saints.
2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:
He certainly had to be talking about an identity that stemmed from their spiritual birth, because their behavior surely wasn’t saintly.
He calls them saints in chapter 1 and then spends the rest of his letter telling them to live like the saints they really are.
Don’t be uncomfortable with being called a saint, because that’s what God calls you!
That doesn’t mean you live a sinless life, but that God has set you apart and placed the nature of Christ within you.
You are God’s work of art.
You are God’s work of art.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
“We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:10).
The word “workmanship” is the Greek word poema, from which we get the English word “poem.” God has made you to be a heavenly piece of poetry on this earth!
You are righteous and holy.
You are righteous and holy.
You have received the gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17).
17 For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)
The Lord Jesus is your righteousness. When you received Him, your spirit was filled with righteousness.
What you are at the spirit level determines your real identity.
When you do not behave righteously, you are being inconsistent with who you are.
You are fully accepted by God.
You are fully accepted by God.
You are accepted because you are in Christ (Ephesians 1:6).
6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
Because Christ has received you and He is fully accepted by the Father, you are fully accepted as well!
You don’t need to change a thing about yourself for God to accept you. Your acceptance isn’t based on what you do, but on who you are and on who is inside of you.
Let me share with you this morning a illustration from Bob George the author of Classic Christianity which he wrote back in 1989.
Imagine that a king decreed that a pardon would be extended to all prostitutes. Would that be good news for you if you were a prostitute? Of course, it would. You wouldn’t have to worry any more about avoiding the law, or about having a criminal record. The pardon would definitely be good news to you. But it wouldn’t necessarily give you the motivation to change your lifestyle.
But suppose that in addition to extending the pardon, the king came to you personally and asked you to become his wife. Would that give you a reason to change the way you live? Absolutely! Who wouldn’t trade the life of a prostitute for that of a queen? Gaining a new identity as the king’s wife would be your motivation to abandon prostitution.
When you became a Christian, you probably understood that all your sins were forgiven. But did that forgiveness give you sufficient motivation to change your behavior? The Bible says that we are the bride of Christ, and that relationship gives us a new identity!
Steve McVey puts the new identity we all have in Christ this way...
It is important to see yourself as God sees you. You know how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly through the process of metamorphosis. The caterpillar weaves a cocoon around itself and a short time later emerges as a butterfly.
If you were to see a butterfly, it would never occur to you to say, “Hey, everybody! Come look at this good-looking converted worm!” Why not? After all, it was a worm. And it was “converted.” No, now it is a new creature, and you don’t think of it in terms of what it was. You see it as it is now—a butterfly.
In exactly the same way, God sees you as His new creature in Christ. Although you might not always act like a good butterfly—you might land on things you shouldn’t, or forget you are a butterfly and crawl around with your old worm buddies—the truth of the matter is, you are never going to be a worm again!
Oh, how amazing God’s grace is towards us. For I was once blind but now I see, I was once lost but now I have been found, I was once dead but now I am alive.