Who You Are In Christ, Born Again

Well, I wanted to start out this morning by asking the question that I've got written on the board here. How does the world describe our relationship with God? Okay, we're going to take a look at being children of God in a minute, but we're going to need to ask, how does the world describe our relationship with God? Wacko? I'm sorry, what? Wacko. Wacko, yeah? Yeah, I was going to say irrational probably. Oh, here, I'll just tuck this in. The world definitely thinks wacko. I think Lily said crutch earlier when I was writing that on the board. When the world describes our relationship to God, what are they basing that on?

Unbelief. They don't believe. Do they have an understanding of God's word for the most part? I mean, obviously there's exceptions. There's people who've made a whole living out of not being Christians and studying the Bible. But the world describes our relationship with God as a crutch. They do it out of unbelief. And they often describe it as slavery. Now, it just so happens that Paul uses the description and analogy of slavery to describe the fact that the world is a slave to sin and we're a slave to Christ. But it's not the same description that they would use. I would get called sheep and all kinds of other things.

This morning we're going to look at the very positive description of the believer as a child of God or collectively as children of God. We're going to take a look at some sub-descriptions of that relationship. We're going to take a look at being born again, regenerated, quicken, which is also sometimes translated as made alive, sons of God, and being called a new creation. Now some of those overlap in a little bit, and we'll take a look at how they overlap. This picture of a kid being hyperactive kind of amused me because I have two young children. They're not allowed to jump off the couch arm like that, but we are children.

The first one we're going to take a look at is born again. Born again comes with it the idea of receiving a new origin. All of us, to my knowledge in this room, and let me know if it's different for you, came out of a mother. If you didn't come out of a mother, we're going to have to have another discussion. But we were born the first time, and we were born from our mothers. And the first passage we're going to take a look at is John 3, 3 through 6. But we're not quite there yet, but go ahead and if you've got your Bible, flip to John 3.

A person born of Adam's line has a natural birth through a woman, a mom, a mother, a birth of life unto death. Okay? So the first birth for all human beings is you're born into life, but you're immediately starting the pathway to death. And I don't mean to be too morbid when I say that, but that's just the way things go. A person born of Christ's line through the Holy Spirit has a supernatural birth via Christ's death which is a birth of death unto life.

Christ in Colossians 1.18 is called the firstborn of the dead. firstborn from the dead. It's not normally a phrase used to describe Christ, but Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, uses that term. And it's something that should really cause us to think about that. As we're born again, we're born from death unto life. Let's take a look at John 3, 3-6 now and dig into that. I'm going to read it out loud so that it's on the recording.

Jesus answered and said to him, and he's talking to Nicodemus, the Pharisee that comes to him in the nighttime. Jesus answered and said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he? Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. I do want to recognize right off as we dig in here that this is pre-Christ on the cross.

So his vocabulary and the way he's talking to Nicodemus is as to a Jew and as not to a New Testament church believer, okay? So I want to make sure that we make that distinguishment because you're going to see some language in here that is certainly not the way that Paul writes or any of the other epistles are written in the New Testament. But he says, truly, truly, which of course if everyone's familiar with the or hopefully everyone or many people be familiar that in writing if there's repetition it's for emphasis Alright, that's why when you read tax code, it's very repetitive. I'm getting ready for taxes this year, and I'm like, my goodness, could they write any worse? But this is Jesus speaking, so I know it's not bad writing.

Truly, truly, I say unto you, or say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Obviously, this concept of being born again is pretty shocking. When Nicodemus hears it, his response is, I can't crawl back into my mother's womb. Any of you who are mothers who've had children, you're probably glad your children don't crawl back into your womb.

But he's misunderstanding. He's kind of feeling out the concept of Christ's statement. He can clearly not be talking about a second birth from a mother. And so Christ, after having seen Nicodemus' half-hearted response and attempt to rebuff what Christ is saying, he says, unless you're born of water...

Now let's ask a second. John the Baptist said... I'm sorry, that was cheesy, but I couldn't help myself. John the Baptist came and what did he baptize with? Water. What was the water baptism a sign of? in the time, again this is before Christ's death, burial and resurrection. It was an attitude of repentance. It was a physical outward sign of that which was already an inward decision. Unless you're born of water, and the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Now the water part he would have understood, but the spirit was a new concept.

So Nicodemus is going to be a little bit uncertain about that. Christ will go on to that. In the next verse he says, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. Obviously Nicodemus understood that part. And that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Now the Holy Spirit's bringing us and causing us a rebirth or causing a second birth or initiating a second birth is highly shocking for Nicodemus, but even for the world is something that is mysterious. They can't understand that and it's hard for them to describe. And it's generally offensive to everything because that birth comes through... What? What does that birth come through? We already said that a little bit. The Holy Spirit. Yeah, the Holy Spirit. God. Through God. But it comes through death. the second birth has to come through our death from Adam.

We talked in the past when I was teaching, we talked about the concept of federal headship. Does anybody remember federal headship? A quick recap is that Adam was the federal head for all of mankind and his sin was the reason that all of mankind dealt with sin. He was the federal head for mankind. We had to die to that federal head to also die to the law. So the only way that we could start life anew, and of course be born again, would be to be born into a new federal head, was Jesus Christ.

Any questions on John 3, 3-6? It's a quick overview, and we've got several verses to go over this morning, so I don't want to go too briefly, but I also don't want to belabor any points so that you can't wait for me to be done. We're going to take a look next at John 1, 12-13. This is, of course, moving backwards through the book of John. Would somebody mind reading John 1, 12-13 out loud with your best out loud reading voice so that it gets picked up on one of these microphones?

But as to many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. 13 as well, yeah. Who were born, not of blood, for the will of flesh, for the will of man, but of God. Alright. Now this passage right here is fantastic. Of course, John chapter 1 has got so many nuggets of awesomeness that we could spend, well, if you were in the John class, you know they spent quite a bit of time on it. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God. Obviously that's part of the focus of the class this morning. But they were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Born of God, again a second birth. It's not the birth that our mothers gave us, it's a different birth. It's a different origin. The concept of a second new and different origin is something that is not, well let me rephrase that, is not is a bit of a broad statement, was not in my own life emphasized growing up. I didn't understand that I had a new origin, I just understood that Jesus paid for my sins. It's one thing to have sins dealt with in Adam, it's another thing to be made a new creation with a second birth. And I probably would have had a totally different junior high and high school experience as a teenager had somebody spent some time talking to me about proper theology and my relationship with the Lord.

Instead I just got told don't do that. And as you might know, the law doesn't cause us to sin less. The law doesn't cause us to suddenly walk in righteousness. It causes us to stumble a lot more often. So if someone had spent some time explaining John 1, 12 through 13 and said, hey, you're not born of blood or I'm sorry, you're not born of the flesh, but the will of the flesh or man, but it's the will of God and that you're related with God.

Oh, you've got a new origin. That would have been a lot handier than the weirdness I was wrestling through. I don't know how many of you have lived a life wrestling with sin and then somebody finally starts to explain your identification with Christ. You've got a new origin and suddenly sin becomes a whole lot less of an issue and your relationship starts to grow. This week I spent some time in Texas on a business trip but I usually try to get together with some friends I have down there either in the morning for breakfast or in the evening once I'm past my work day. And I spent some time with one brother and he was telling me all this stuff that he was trying to do and get done and it ended up when we were all said and done, I said, you might consider re-evaluating your whole process. His approach was geared towards a checklist instead of a relationship. The relationship happens because you were born and have a new origin in Christ. So the impact of being born again is significant.

Let's take a jump ahead to 1 Peter 1.23. For you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. Now here, this word seed is used. Obviously he's not talking agriculture, or at least it's obvious to me he's not talking agriculture. Apologies to any farmers that are here. Where does the concept of seed get introduced in the Bible at the very beginning?

Genesis 3.15.

Genesis 3.15, that's right. Thanks, Doug.

Genesis 3.15, God promises that the seed of Eve would come and crush the serpent's head.

And from that point in time, we have the issue of seed comes up. Abraham, the promise of Abraham's, a seed from Abraham would bless all of the world, the Jews and the Gentiles. Abraham would have many seed. Well, here Peter uses seed again. He's not talking about Abraham. He's not talking about Eve.

For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable. Those seeds were described in a perishable sense. But imperishable seed. That is through the living and enduring Word of God. Now, here's an interesting concept. Or a question to ask, I should say. Who are we born through in the earlier verses? Well, yeah, the first birth is of Adam, the second birth is of Christ.

Interestingly here, he says, through the living and enduring Word of God, the Logos nature, John 1.1, of Christ is emphasized here as well. Peter writes and talks about the Word of God being inherently part of Christ, being inherently part of who He is.

But we're born into that. We're born, we have the new nature. Any questions on born again? Because we've got more to go. I've got a list of five different types of being a child, and I don't want to rush ahead, but I want to look at that. I'll take that as a no. Here we go. Regenerated. The next one we want to take a look at here is being regenerated. A restoration to a pristine state. This was often used by the Jews to describe eschatology as in the world being returned to its pristine state.

I've got washing on there which is actually for the next screen so I put it in the wrong place. Here is an unregenerated mummy. That's on the picture there. The world's concept of regeneration is is really, if they ever use it at all, is very weak. We've got this mummy, we've preserved it. It's not going to really be regenerated. The world says, oh, reincarnation! There's a good one. That's kind of like being regenerated, right?

No. This is something that only a supernatural God can do. He's going to restore us to a pristine state. We will be generated into a pristine state, but not of an Adam-like pristine state, but of a Christ-like pristine state. Let's take a look at the first verse in this section.

Titus 3.5. He saved us not on the basis of deeds, which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit."

Regeneration by deeds. That's not what he's talking about. That's the contrary thought in this verse. How would you be regenerated by deeds? What could you possibly do that would cause regeneration? It's an impossibility. It's a fallacy. It's what the flesh wants us to try to achieve. You've got to be good enough. If you just do enough things, if you witness to enough people, if you pray enough times, the list goes long and long and long of the things that if you could just do enough of, then you could regenerate yourself.

Yesterday I happened to stop by Starbucks to get some liquid energy while I was trying to help my brother-in-law move. I was getting into my car ready to take off and a car pulled up next to mine and I was waiting for them to get out because I'm not a big fan of running people over. I might have made an exception for this one. No, I'm just kidding. But out of the car popped out four Jehovah's Witness women I know because they've all stopped by my front door.

They all strive very hard to achieve the right things so that they know that they might be regenerated to live on the new earth. They're no shock at getting into heaven in their minds. But at least they can work really hard and they might be good enough and in relationship enough to be regenerated to get onto the new earth. You know I have a friend that is one and I've tried to talk to her and you can't reach them. They're so into it working and knocking on doors.

Well, that's because in their theology, the way they're taught, you're deceived and you are a worker of Satan. They're not going to say that to you more than likely, but that's their theology. One of the interesting things, philosophically speaking, this happens is that you develop an us versus them mentality in a group of people and you build in faithfulness through the human psychological process.

It's not truth. They've disconnected from truth. And evaluating things on a logical process, you build in a psychological component that says this person's a liar and can never speak truth. If you come into a discussion with that as your assumption, they're never going to listen to you. It's tough because as a person who says this is what the Word of God says, and you can both read it and you both can comprehend it, But they start with the concept that you're a liar. It's hard to make good footing in a situation like that.

Now, there was a report that got released this week that actually said that it was like 43% of people leave the faith of their childhood. And the biggest percentage of that was actually Jehovah's Witnesses. But truth is truth and that just tells me that I need to be raising my children well. But that's a bit of a rabbit trail, and that was a good question, but I don't want to get too off topic.

So instead of doing things that were deeds of righteousness, were regenerated according to His mercy by the washing of regeneration. Now I had the word washing on the previous slide, so let's jump back. Washing, a Jewish bride would ceremonially bathe In this context, Christ is washing us through regeneration.

We can't regenerate ourselves, but it's through the washing of Christ's regeneration that is preparing us as his bride for him. So when we see here by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, this is Christ taking us and preparing us and making us new so that we are that spotless bride. I've never been a bride before, but I assume that since Christ is doing it, that I'm going to be, or we will be as a whole, as the bride of Christ, pretty awesome. We're going to be made perfect and we're going to be his perfect bride through his work. We're being regenerated, or we were regenerated past tense into that relationship, into that position. It was a little awkward for me to discover I was going to be a bride, but I got over it. In this case, we are regenerated into this perfect relationship with him as the bride. He washes us in regeneration.

But that's the tense, isn't it, that has ongoing results? Yeah, it's the Arist tense, where it's past actions with ongoing results. And that's the thing, as we go through the 34 things, as we go through that in this class, the list of things that are true of us as believers, everything is past tense. When you became a believer, this became true of you. That's pretty awesome. When you get in a discussion with somebody and say you can lose your salvation or any of those things, they've not looked at the past tense nature of the Bible's description of the believer. Past tense with ongoing results. Yeah.

So when you say bride, that means after we've died. After we've died and then we meet up with God. Well, the marriage ceremony will take place. Jessica was my bride to be when we were engaged. So yes, it is a future. We will be the bride in the future. but we have been made the fiancé, if you will, at salvation. And the Bible doesn't use the word fiancé, but there were no French writers. So you get the idea that we are being prepared and brought into that relationship. Next word we want to take a look at here is quickened. And this has nothing to do with that financial management package that's available on your computer.

To be made alive with, to be created or born with Christ, the Greek word there, and I'm not a Greek scholar, but I looked at my Greek resources and they confirmed in multiple places that it was a compound word that comes along with the concept of parallel birth, to be born right alongside, with, or inside of Christ. It's not like you have twins and one comes out and the next one comes out. I mean, the concept is a unity, a relationship that is there, that's intimate. We were identified with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating in the heavenlies. And this goes right along with it. We were made alive and born with Christ. Let's take a look at two passages that talk about that.

Ephesians 2.5 being the first. Even when we were dead in sins... Oh here, let me read my New American Standard. I don't know why I chose to copy the King James Version there. In fact, if somebody gets there before me, go ahead and start reading. That way we don't wait on me. In fact, I'll start in verse 4.

But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. In our transgressions, in our state of being an Adam, what was the starting presupposition of life and being born to a mother? We're born into death. We're born just leading straight with death as the only goal. We were dead in our transgressions, but he made us alive together with Christ.

In Colossians 2.13, and you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses. okay, made alive with Christ regardless of the trespasses or the sins, the things that we have going on.

How many of you have heard people say, oh well there are sins that are bad enough that God's not going to be able to forgive them and you're going to go to hell? I've said that. Oh, you've said that. Many times. Do you hold that currently in your theology? No. Okay, well that's encouraging. But I think about it though. Sure, well we always want... Is it a normal thing? That's the flesh, yeah, that's normal for the flesh. That's absolutely normal for, I mean, that's not the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit doesn't bring to us a list of things that Christ's death was insufficient for. One of the things I think is important to recognize is that guilt is an activity of the flesh, and conviction is the activity of the Holy Spirit. Guilt draws us away from God and to look at ourselves. Conviction draws us towards God and to refocus our relationship with Him. So when we talk about things here, we were dead in the sins and uncircumcised in our flesh, but He's made us alive together with Him.

Now the thing is that this birth cannot be aborted. This birth cannot come about and make... We're born in death. We're born in Christ's death, the firstborn of the dead. You can't undo that. It breaks outside the cycle or the loop of what we think in life. It's kind of like a bulldozer through all of the previous world order that we knew. our worldview, the way we operated. It comes in, it says you can't go backwards. It's gone. It's demolished. It's destroyed. And so here we've been made alive with Christ. And then he says, having forgiven all trespasses.

All is one of those dangerous words because it means everything. And anytime you have a dangerous everything word, as a human being in Adam, you want to redefine all. You want it to be the detergent that doesn't get all the stains out, just most of them. You want it to be most of the things that God took care of, but there's a list that he's not good enough. Not good enough. And that's not the way that Christ operated.

He took care of all of those things and made us alive. But there is a list of one, Randy. Unbelief. Yeah, but that's prior to salvation. If you don't believe then you're not saved. But that's not part of the work of Christ. Once you're there, you're there. You can't undo his death on the cross. That's part of the emphasis in Hebrews chapter 6. Just because my clock is ticking, I'm going to just keep moving here.

Sons of God, 2 Corinthians 6.18, and I will be a father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord God Almighty.

Galatians 3.26, for you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. And beloved, now we are the sons of God. all of those saying that we are sons of God. Now what is being a... and in the case of gals you can be daughters of God because if we can all be sons of God then we're all going to be the bride of Christ.

I think we get the principle there is less about gender and more about relationship. What is the significance of being called a son of God in contrast when we talk about the world describing our relationship with God? Well, we believe. Absolutely. We believe. But the world describes our relationship to God in a less than intimate way.

There's a concept of slavery or crutch or weakness and instead we're sons. Now, I don't know what those of you who are sons or daughters, I don't know what your relationship with your parents are, but my dad was a pretty good dad, I would say. And my mom was a pretty good mom. But if somebody says, oh, you're the son of Vern Peterman, I hope that means something beyond, oh, well, he teaches. But I hope that people see the character of Vern and that means something.

In the Indian culture, and by Indian I mean not Native American, I mean India, the country, it's common for someone to introduce a speaker by describing their father. And there's a Christian apologist by the name of Ravi Zacharias. And he went to speak in India and he sat down and they were at the head of the table and the MC stood up to begin speaking and he started to describe this man with just great grandeur and Ravi Zacharias started to feel a little self-conscious because he thought they were describing him. And then the man said, you know, the father of This is, I'm describing the father of the man who's going to be speaking to us tonight.

And it was, he's a little humbling. You can imagine, so. But the truth of the matter is that as sons of God, there is that relationship that's there that people should be, if people describe our father, the heavenly father, then that should be something. They say, oh, you're a son of God, that means something. Obviously, that's been used in a legalistic sort of way to say, see, that's why you should be good Christians. But instead, as sons of God, he's set an example for us. He is our source of life so that we can walk out and live a Christian life.

Again, in Galatians 3.26, he says, for you are all the children of God by faith. in Jesus Christ. That faith there is a past tense event. You had faith and you were saved. Yeah, Doug? Could that also include inheritance? Yeah, but that's another lesson from a different part of this series. But yes, absolutely. Inheritance is part of that.

We will receive an inheritance. But being a son of God, Christ was the first son of God. and because we were born with Christ, as we looked at in the earlier section in this lesson, we also are sons of God. We participate in that and we are born as sons of God with Christ. We're going to take a look now at being a new creation. Now this is going to be very similar to some of the other ones. Obviously you're going to see some redundancy here, but it's a thoroughness of the doctrine.

2 Corinthians 5.17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.

Ephesians 2.10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

We could spend at least one class looking at Ephesians 2.10, so we're going to have to be brief on that one.

But 2 Corinthians 5.17, if you are in Christ, you are a new creature.

Being a new creature is something that... what's the best way to say that? Being a new creature is something that is against the world system. The world system, and I kind of said this a little bit earlier, but the world system doesn't know how to deal with the fact that you're a new creature. It's offensive to them because are they that new creature? Are they a new creature? No. That new creature has what strapped to it? Ball and chain?

Sin. They're strapped to sin. Oh, the old, the people that have no faith you mean? Yes, the people that have no faith have sinned. Did I say it opposite of that? I'm sorry. I apologize. You're like going, wow, he's teaching heresy now. Way to end the class with a crash. But the old nature is bound, ball and chain to sin. It can do nothing else. And unfortunately, that means that we're offensive to them in that regard.

They want to be able to look at somebody and say, that person's good. I think the best time to evangelize is actually about this time every four years, not on leap day, but on the election times. People always want a politician that's honest, right? Everybody wants to vote for the honest politician or the one that's going to send them the biggest refund check. So, if you can get them to compromise, they'll go, well, okay, I guess politicians aren't always honest. But people are mostly good. But you can just keep whittling down.

Alright, let's talk about the honesty of the failures of Adam. Who we are in the flesh. The answer is always weakness. There's always weakness in Adam. In this case, we're a new creature. We don't have to be weak. Now here's the question again. Or the concept again of legalism and the law. Legalism and the law bring about failure, bring about walking in sin because you're looking at yourself instead of setting your mind on things above. So as a new creature, how do we describe our ability to sin? How do we describe that apparent contradiction? Well, we're aware of it. Right? Yeah. So therefore we wouldn't do what we would have done previously had we not had faith. Sure. We actually have a choice now based on relationship.

I like to draw a picture because this is one of those things that is good to see visually. Fortunately, I have an eraser this time because these sleeves are nasty to clean up. But here's a picture that I like to use to describe the relationship. And remember that if God drew the circle it would be perfect, but I draw it so it's really bad. It's beautiful. And I'm going to try to draw big, but I drew myself a little circle. that says spirit, that says will, and this says, the wrong letter, this says flesh.

And every moment as a believer we have the choice to walk in relationship through the spirit or to walk in the flesh. But we have a moment-by-moment choice because our spirit has been made alive because we're a new creature, a new creation. Now what happens if we have a dead spirit and we talk about Adam and Eve and we talk about no Holy Spirit in our lives? Basically they've got a spirit but it's dead and they don't have one choice or they only have but one choice. They can only walk in the flesh.

And so we live a moment-by-moment relationship with the Lord so that this actually becomes weaker for the believer. And instead, the normative relationship of a healthy believer is one that is spiritually oriented. But as we walk in our relationship with the Lord, it's moment-by-moment and we are empowered by the Spirit. The lost soul has no choice but to walk in the flesh every time.

And that's a sad state to be in. But it explains why they have this propensity towards wickedness. As a believer, often we're, as babes in Christ, we're not told about the potential of the relationship. We're just told we need to just make sure you do good. You're a son of God now. Make sure you represent him well. You do it. It becomes a fleshly thing. Did you have a question? but we're told we're a new creature.

Now Ephesians 2.10 goes further with this issue of works. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained or prepared before for us that we should walk in them. Now let's ask an important question. Can we thwart the will of God? According to this verse.

What if I was a I decided I'm gonna walk away from Christianity and be a heroin addict and I'm gonna go out and live on the streets in New York. Why I would do that, I don't know. I'm not a big fan of New York, but we're just gonna pretend that I don't care, okay?

If I decide I'm gonna do that, but God has prepared before good works for me to do. And on, let's just pick a random day, on October 7th, 2008, God has prepared a good work for me to do. But I have decided I'm going to walk away and be a heroin junkie.

He gives you free choice. He gives us a choice except for this verse says that we don't have a concern in our minds of whether or not we will fulfill this good work. He's ordained them and planned them ahead of time. Now this isn't to say that we should just choose to do whatever we want because we don't have a choice and we're God's little marionettes. Okay, I'm not suggesting that.

Instead, the thing is that the argument that I've heard brought again and again and again into Christianity is that, well, I'm afraid that I'm going to not do enough good things. I won't be able to do enough good. And the focus becomes me again. The focus becomes what is Adam going to do? And instead, this says we are his workmanship created in Christ and he has got these good works planned for us.

Now I threw the heroin junkie story in there just to throw a curveball at you. The truth of the matter is not that it matters one iota whether it's heroin, speeding, or murder. Those things do not matter Because sin is sin. What matters is that God has a relationship planned, and he has a relationship for us, and he has works planned that are going to take place.

Anytime somebody gives you this extreme case scenario, you've got to watch it. It's a straw man. It's a fake argument there to throw you and get you distracted. Think of an illusionist. The illusionist says, look over here, and you're over here, and he's doing the trick over here. Okay? It's a straw man argument.

It's not really there. The truth of the matter is that the love of God is so powerful and dynamic and active in your life as you're being conformed to the image of Christ that you are going to do these things. So the answer is you cannot. You cannot thwart God's will. He's got a plan for you. So we have to always remember it's not us that does the good things. It's the Holy Spirit through us. Yeah, clearly he's the one that's doing it through them. Yeah, it's his work. Yeah, it's his work through us. But that's part of it.

Anytime you bring in the heroin addict or whatever it is, that's Adam. And the thwarting is trying to say that Adam is somehow more powerful than the Holy Spirit. Which is just not the case. It reminds me of the story of Jonah. Yeah, exactly. Jonah was trying to go his own way and God had a plan and God worked it. Yeah, God's will was done.

And even in the life of believers, I remember hearing a story of a guy, well this is that Robbie Zacharias guy again, apparently he's influenced me more than I know. He went over to North Korea Or he went to Korea and was a guest for the military to go out and be a preacher and go talk to people. And he had a translator. that went with him. Well that translator got captured by the North Koreans later on and was put into a prisoner of war camp and they did all kinds of psychological things and they took his Bible away and they hated him and they loathed him and they treated him poorly and told him every day, God is not real, God is not real, God is not real. And one day He was pretty much ready to give up. He was like, well, if God's real, maybe he would have gotten me out of here by now. And he had just totally was ready to give up.

And a soldier came up and said, it's your day to be cleaning the latrines. It's your day to go clean the toilets. And so he went and he was, you know, in his tattered rags feeling pretty lowly. And he went into the latrines and he was, they basically, their toilets are not quite as nice as our porcelain little dealies we've got. And he went in, and in the toilet paper can, the little tin cans they used for toilet papers that were used, it was his job to clean it out.

Someone was using a New Testament ripping page by page out to use it as toilet paper. Now that's kind of gross, except for that as a person who's not had a Bible for a really long time and has given up hope, the Lord made him do latrine duty. And he went in, And he volunteered for latrine duty every day, so that he could carefully clean up these New Testament pages that he had, that were being thrown away every day, and he could use them and read God's Word as he was cleaning the bathroom in these filthy North Korean prisoner of war camps.

And then the Lord got him out of the prison camp later on, and he was able to share the story with Ravi Zacharias, obviously, so that's why we know it. But it's one of those things where God had good works planned and opportunities planned that were way outside of what we can see as human beings.

But it's a result of being a son of God. It's a result of being a child of God that these things take place. When the junk happens, when the trials happen, as a child of God, you know he's got a plan. You know he's got a work. He's got a thing he's going to do. We should close in prayer. But any other questions before we do that on being a child of God? Thoughts? Ideas? Bill? Could you explain a new creature? Sure. A new creature. We talked about the Federal Headship before.

But being a new creature, being a new creation is something that is required for us to have that relationship with God. Being an atom is insufficient. It's not good enough for dealing with with the lost soul to have a relationship. Instead, he makes us a new creature so that that relationship has absolutely nothing that violates God's holiness. Absolutely nothing that violates God's righteousness. And instead, so being a new creature, being a new creation in Christ, we're of a new type. We're of the Christ type. He regenerates us into that new creature.

Does that help answer your question a little better? Yeah, I guess the churches I grew up in, I guess they would preach that we become saved, that God comes in and totally redoes you and makes you not want to do all those things. Oh, that's the Extreme Home Makeover version. Exactly. He just What they're talking about, I'm using this diagram, what they're talking about is actually this.

So instead of having flesh at all, your will can only do that which is the work of the spirit. Now the problem is as soon as you accidentally don't do that, you have a problem. Suddenly you've got, oh I've sinned. And Paul writing, you know, I do that which I don't want to do, doesn't make any sense if he has no flesh.

But instead he's been, you know, again one of the biggest problems that we run into in theology, and at least I ran into this in seminary, was that there's not a recognition of position, which at the point of salvation, okay I'm going to do the cross here, the position is in the heavenlies. with Christ, and it's done, and it's ongoing forever. But, we do have what we like to call condition, at least here at Holly Hills, where you're going to have moments, and this could be any number of times, it's not a pumpkin tooth, it's a sign of our spiritual growth. At this point in time, let's say we choose to to walk in the flesh and we sin, that relationship, the position is always there, it's always solid, but the relationship is damaged, so to speak. And as soon as we confess our sins, it's restored and we begin the growth process again. And we keep going. And these lines don't line up. The idea is not the same. We have to start over again. Right.

Well, you become saved. You receive the Holy Spirit and the forgiveness of sins, I guess. Yeah. The sins are. That's what you get. Yeah. So we have our position and condition. The problem is that when they say that, oh, you you're a new creature in Christ and therefore you can't sin anymore, or you shouldn't sin anymore, brings about a burden in legalism that isn't described in the New Testament of the actual believer's life, which does have trials and suffering in it that are a result of... Yeah?

I think that concept of no flesh anymore creates The idea that you've lost your salvation. It definitely gets used that way. And that was one way I've heard it used in the past. I'm running way over in there. I should probably stop. But we can talk about this. I'm going to close in prayer and turn off the microphone and we can keep talking if you guys want to. Let me pray real quick.

Heavenly Father, we ask that you would just continue to draw in our minds the opportunities where we can see that we've been made your children, and we can see how those things affect our day-to-day walk and our relationship with you. We thank you for all that you've done, and we thank you for all that you're doing, and we look forward to your return as our groom, that we may be your bride. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.