A New Creature

The Riches of Grace in Christ Jesus. This is Schaeffer. And by the way, just parenthetically, we've sent the whole four-volume set to Kristen and Wade for their Christmas gift this year. So anyway, this is a good place to get built up in the truth of the Word of God. All right, so there are three verses we're gonna look at this morning that Schaeffer lists. He gives no detail beyond the verses. He simply gives us the verses, and he's leaving it up to us, hopefully spirit-led, to dissect this in terms of what these say. And I read The Hungry Heart this morning. I'm gonna share that a little bit with you as we go through this this morning, because it really pertains to the topic before us.

Therefore, if any man be in Christ, He's a new creature, or creation, as it's better translated. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. You know, when I first got saved, my late wife Sharon and I started to change how we decorated the home with kind of some scripture on the walls and other kinds of things.

And I thought this was a good place to start. She said, oh, that's so commonly used. Little did we understand. that this really had a lot more meaning that we put to our minds at that point in time. But anyway, so there's the verse before us. Let's dissect it and grow through Grace in it. What's it there for? Come on, class, what's it there for?

For all the things that preceded it. Thank you, Margaret. Therefore, always summarizes what preceded. So I'm going to ask you, Margaret, to read verses 12 through 17 to see what preceded it. Well, fortunately, my Bible was put back together last night. She's just trying to boast to you that she's reading it a lot. Would you like me to ask someone else to read here? No, sir. Oh, good. Thank you. I expected Phil to solve the problem, but Thomas solved it. So we're reading 2 Corinthians 5, 12, right? 12 through 17, please. This is what preceded it. That's how we got there.

For we commend not ourselves again unto you, but give you occasion to glory on our behalf. that ye may have somewhat to answer them with which glory in appearance and not in heart. For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God, or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Through 17?

Okay, that's what I thought. Wherefore, henceforth, know we no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new. So what do we make of verse 16 where it says, henceforth know we no man after the flesh. Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now hence we know him no more. What do we make of that? Tom.

You could be reading a Bible like it was just a plain Jane newspaper, but when Christ comes into your life, because you've invited Him to, then it's a different deal. Kind of like reading the newspaper, huh? Head knowledge, et cetera, with not a life. And the title of our lesson today is We're New Creations in Christ Jesus. That's a paraphrase. Let's turn to Romans 6, 9 through 11. And I'm not gonna ask you to read much more. We have many of the verses I'm gonna share with you already in the text here, so. And whoever gets that, please read out.

Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again. Death no longer is master over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Hmm. Gee. kind of fits the theme of the lesson today, doesn't it? We should be alive in newness of life in Christ Jesus. We're going to return to that theme and remember the whole lessons on a new creature. Okay, let's go ahead. What does it mean to be a new creature or a new creation? So I'm going to help you along here. We're the same physically, so how then does this happen? All right.

Again, I pointed this out before, but if I showed up in the emergency room and I had some reason that I was there because of something criminal, perhaps I could say that's the old nature and they're going to call the psychiatrist. So schizophrenics have two natures. So we're in trouble here trying to present this concept to the world. But ultimately, you know, this is something, the one nature is how do they deal with this? They say it's old habits. Old habits. Do they deny that they have a sin nature?

Roger Dangerfield, right? No, no, it was Flip Wilson. What did Roger Dangerfield say? I don't know, but it was Flip Wilson. Oh, thank you. Okay. We have a television authority here. Watch out for we're number one and don't step in number two. We'll scratch that from the tape, okay? All right, let's get back to the topic here. So, you know, it turns to one of our favorite verses here.

I'm crucified with Christ. Christ nevertheless, with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. Notice that's bolded. In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. So, fill your rights, faith. Do we believe that we've been crucified with Christ and risen with him in newness of life? And that takes us to Romans 6, 3, 5, which David preceded 9 through 11. So to put 9 through 11 in context, I love this section.

Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism unto death. that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we've been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. How's that for being new creations?

Anybody have some thoughts on these verses that support the fact that we're physically the same, that sin nature's still there, but as David read, we need to reckon or consider that we're in fact one in Christ and dead indeed into sin. That power's still there, but yet, in fact, God sees us as having, you know, there's no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. Isn't that beautiful? We have no condemnation. You have to accept that by faith, because it's tough to accept, isn't it, when we have this old nature showing up all the time? We're going to come back to that here in a second. All right, let's go ahead. What things have passed away? Nobody's answering. What things have passed away? Well, that we can only sin.

We're a new creation in Christ, so now our nature is Christ's nature, and even though we still sin, we're not ruled by sin anymore. Those of us who are married in the room kind of have this sense when you're deeply founded in good theology, then when we fall short of our spouse's expectations, it's pretty rapidly dealt with and forgiven, and we have to move on. this kind of the idea of the fact that ultimately, you know, this sin nature has any long-term power in terms of who we are before God.

So that's all passed away. That doesn't, you know, Paul said, should we continue in sin that grace may abound, God forbid, right? Let it never be. But there's this, I think it's an important thing to understand. We all fall short at times, but Yet having good theology allows us to be forgiven and we move on, get back in Christ Jesus spirit-led.

All right, I've turned to the Old Testament here. I like this verse and I think it has application. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth, shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. Now, of course, that's probably looking to the millennial kingdom. But another thing, I mean, I think God often works in metaphors, and I think they help.

The idea of making rivers in the desert, I mean, how reality testing, and the wilderness, we're not thinking there's a trail somewhere out of it. I mean, but God's ability to make us new creations in Christ Jesus that's spirit-led is something goes beyond our understanding. But yet, do we believe that that's true? Do we respond by faith? Roy?

Just a word about that phrase there, I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. as streams in the desert. And there's a book with that title, a missionary wrote, that her life was that way, that God had made through the desert that she walked, literally a stream Isn't that neat? I had no idea you'd be here with that piece of wisdom here today. That's great. Because I worked for an outfit called Kalman Publications, and that missionary sort of founded that, and that book is published, Streams in the Desert.

David, I'm Wayne. You might want to check that reference. It's only six verses in Isaiah. Four. What verse is it? It isn't in there, I thought. It was not a 419, it stopped at 6. It turned a 19-4, is that it, perhaps? Another one of those earthly faults. Well, I apologize for that. So we need to check that where it is. Roy, we'll leave that up to you. That's not your first rodeo.

I didn't have to ponder that one too long. Let's continue, what things have passed away? Well, Paul stated it pretty well, but what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. Doubtless I count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge, that's the personal knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things and do count them but done that I may win Christ. You know, all these, You know, we reflect back. I'm a pretty sentimental guy. I think about things in the past all the time. And you know, some of those are good thoughts, some of them aren't so good.

But you know, those have all passed away. We're new creations in Christ Jesus. We live for today. And His glory might be shown in our lives. Anybody, just some additional thoughts here? What does all things indicate? All things good and bad. Remember, self-righteousness is like filthy rags before the Lord. We have no righteous capabilities, no, not one. Have all things passed away from our perspective?

If not, what holds us back? Well, what does hold us back? Yeah. Yeah. But many of us can identify when we were saved. Many of us grew up as believers, but I mean, you look back and there were some good things that seemed to have happened looking back. There aren't all bad memories of the flesh just ruling our lives, but there was, even though we didn't know it at the time. But anyway, I think we do get held back by our experiences and our past. And before God, those are all washed clean.

Yes, Dave? It's 4319 at Isaiah. Very good. OK. So just one digit was left off there. Just one digit. Could you answer that better than that? Good. All righty. 4319, please correct your handout. And Wayne, I'm going to leave it up to you to correct the handout. Okay, I could send it again when I get home today too. All right, so what things are new? What's new? I mean we're positioned in Christ Jesus. What's new? Remember Paul declared this unequivocally in Romans 6. We've looked at some of those verses, but what happened in Romans 7? He did what he didn't want to do. And why? He didn't do what he wanted to do. Why did he respond that way? Why did he not do what he wanted to do? Because he still had a sin nature. Well, and what's a sin nature respond to?

Law. Law. Right? So what's the purpose of law? It's perfectly righteous, right? Law, from God's perspective, is perfectly what He intended. Discipline reveals sin. Yeah, and Galatians speaks to it clearly. We've been taught that. The purpose of law is to convict us of sin. It's not to be kept. It's impossible to do that. That's where the Jews fell way short. I think I've shared this before.

We were on a trip to Sydney many years ago, and this guy had just finished time at Yeshiva University in New York, which is a very Orthodox Jewish college. And ultimately, he was keeping all 623 laws, he told me. He was keeping them all. And Bob got to hear about it for 15 hours. Yeah, no more details on that one.

All right, so what's different? It's a spirit-led life. And I think the teaching of the Holy Spirit is something we fall far short of. And probably in mainline churches, they fall totally short. Not that we have the secret. I mean, the Holy Spirit-led life is really a difficult, topic to really teach, but it's very scriptural.

Let's look at this, 2 Corinthians 3, 5 and 6. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, the law, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. So this new nature has to be animated. We're new creations, but we could be created without any life if, in fact, we're not spirit-led.

Okay, any other thoughts on 2 Corinthians 5.17? And I'm just giving you a glimpse of the theme of this week's lesson by using the verse that Schaeffer suggested. We're gonna move forward with other verses now.

I think one of the things that we don't talk about a lot is that in eternity, it's going to take eternity for the love to reveal to us all those things that are in Christ. This grace, it's so big. It's huge. Yes. Well, eternity is a concept that we poorly understand, I think. But the learning curve will be steep, but it'll be very fluent there. Our understanding will be made complete.

All right, let's turn to the second verse, Galatians 6.15.

For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature or a new creation. What did Paul say about circumcision? said a lot. I mean, if you put circumcision and look at all the New Testament sections, there are about 25 or 30 verses that deal with this. So I just selected a few. So Romans 2, 28 through Romans 3, 1, for he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly. circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit not in the letter whose praise is not from men but from God what advantage then this is Romans 3 1 what advantage then has the Jew or what is the prophet of circumcision so let's see how we deal with that was there any prophet of circumcision and if not what by what principle existed for the Old Testament Saints I mean, they put this tradition on circumcision.

It was a God-given tradition. So if, in fact, the circumcision to the Jew and to us today is worthless in the flesh, by what principle did the Old Testament saints live? Oh, thank you. It's a simple answer, isn't it? You know, it's hard to put the same kind of metric on the Old Testament saint as we do today.

Did they get credit for keeping various aspects of the law? No, I think they believed that ultimately, and Roy can speak much further to this than I can, but the high priest, the annual sacrifice, that was an atonement at the time, just kind of put off the ultimate crucifixion and what it stood for. Anyway, but the Jew who lived by faith, and we see plenty of examples, don't we? in the Old Testament. Their faith had to be expressed, and that expression was in circumcision, in the sacrifices, in the temple worship, in so many ways that they had access because of those expressions of their faith to a fellowship with the Lord that is not on the level we have, but was on the level the Lord gave at that time. Aren't you glad we live in New Testament times?

Believing God in the wilderness for 40 years might have been difficult for this flesh right here. Circumcision of the heart. Well, that's the point I want to make here. The Jew fell short by not being circumcised in the heart. And you have to believe a little bit that the Old Testament saints that lived by faith had some, at least an application of circumcision of the heart. They believed God for what he revealed. And like all of us, because of a sin nature, they fell short at times too, I'm sure.

Look at David. I mean, here's an example of a man who had tremendous faith and fell short multiple times in multiple circumstances. A man of great faith, not a very good father, and other aspects of his life that we turn to. But nevertheless, I mean, here's a man that lived by faith and is highly honored, not only in Jewish tradition, but when we look back at David. Yes, Roy.

Something that impressed me this last week, I was reading about Elijah and Elisha, how the Lord worked with Elijah in such a way, in Elisha, that they could actually see the host of heaven defending them. That's an intimacy. That's a closeness. That's circumcision of the heart, correct?

Philippians 3.3, for we are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit. Look, we're kind of dealing with the spirit again. Rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Hmm. And by the way, the new creation that we are does not work alone, does it?

John 16, 13, and 14, more back to the Spirit-led life. However, when He, the Spirit of Truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth, For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will tell you things to come. And I love this. He will glorify me, and he will take of what is mine and declare it to you. The promise of the Spirit.

So this new creature, new creation that we are in Christ Jesus ultimately is in fact Spirit-led to be demonstrated. Now, we don't put yardsticks to each one of our behaviors. We're accountable to God vertically. And yes, the church is called to minister to brothers and sisters who fall out of the way.

But nevertheless, keep in mind, it's our spirit-led life that abounds us in this new creation we are in Christ Jesus. Actually, I think, did anybody read The Hungry Heart today? None but the hungry heart. Let me just read a section of that here that I thought was very much related to what we're talking about this morning. Okay. And this goes back to what Roy was saying.

The title of today's topic was Personal Attention, and the verse is Ephesians 1.3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. One's growth is gauged by one's gaze. The first impression on my heart when converted was, Enoch, walk with God. That was my start. Now then, I said, I will walk with God.

Beautiful as far as it went, but I very soon found out, as Luther said to Philip Melanthon, the devil, you will find old Melanthon stronger than young Philip. Don't you love that? And so, you know, Luther, you know, of course, justified by faith was his great contribution, but he's learning the old nature, too. And I don't know about any of you with adult, I was converted at 30, and boy, I thought, you know, the first year, I thought everything was just, and then I started realizing that this old nature was still there. So it's a matter of, took me a while to figure that out. And I go on to say, I came to my wits end for I wanted to find whence to draw so as to live it out.

You're unable to live out of resources in yourself. You must not act as though your life is separate. The Lord Jesus must be the fountain. It's all very well to get the heavenly side of truth. But let me remind you that this, just a second, I've got to move over here. This will not do, for nothing will compensate for lack of walking in fellowship with the Father and the Son.

It is one thing to drop off or renounce certain things, and quite another to be engrossed with the right thing. Monks renounce much, but they are not engrossed with the Lord Jesus Christ. It must be not only forgetting those things which are behind, have we mentioned that today, but also reaching out unto the things that are above. It is that which you give yourself to, not what you have abandoned, that colors you and which imparts character to you. Look at the Lord Jesus firmly and fixedly, never letting your gaze wander elsewhere, and whatever temporal objects come between you and your Lord, look right through them as though a mist, and fix your eyes and heart upon Him and Him alone. Whatever condition you find yourself in, do not let either earth or heaven hide Him. and then goes on to finish, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. So I thought that really fit the kind of what we're talking about here today. Luther realized that there's somebody else working at his life beside this new-bound and new-directed faith towards the Lord.

So the third verse we have this morning is 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. Should works be our focus?

Why not? What's that? Back under law. Back under law, okay. And also, you know, it says that that He has created the good works. So we don't know what the works necessarily are. And sometimes we go down a path because we kind of have this motivation to do this good work. But it's not what the Lord ordained at all for us to do. And sometimes those things fall all apart. Because it's the wrong motive. I've always said that if we're giving our credit for doing something good, our focus has been misappropriated. I mean, in other words, that life lived in this new nature spirit-led is one that we don't pay much attention to. And I think that's hard sometimes to do.

Gee, that was a nice thing that I just did. Anyway, we'll let God be the judge of that. But nevertheless, good points, Mark. Are those some of the things that make that fire bigger? Let's not go there. All right, notice whose workmanship we are. Margaret kind of alluded to that in her comment. Notice whose workmanship we are. We are his workmanship. And it's in Christ Jesus that good works ensue. But you know what I always thought was the wildest part of this was he ordained the works for us to do, then we do them, and then we get credit for it. When we go into eternity, he's giving us credit for the works that he set up and wanted us to do that we did.

To me, that's mind-boggling. Well, that comes to the second part of this first. These works, by the way, have been ordained, which is aorist, active, and indicative. This is factual. God has ordained these works. And by the way, ordained can also be translated to make ready beforehand. I like Thayer's...

Isn't that incredible, if you think about that? And then we get credit for it. To me, that's like an oxymoron. But you're not giving credit to yourself for this, right? No. No, I'm saying that's the oxymoron part is that he ordained him and then we don't even realize and then we start doing these works that we don't even realize were ordained for us. And then when we get to heaven, we get the credit. Think about the world system. They would declare what you just said is just craziness. Exactly. I think it's craziness too, but it's reality. We'll talk later about that.

Romans 9.23, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had aforeprepared with glory. Isn't that amazing? And he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy. How about us, right?

I mean, Romans 9 is basically Jewish-directed. Nevertheless, we're circumcised in the heart, all of us, right? and which have been aforeprepared unto glory. Well, that's what the scripture is all about, right? It's just not written for the New Testament church early on.

Right. And it's going to live forever. Going along with that, it's going to live forever. So all of eternity, we'll get to go through scripture again. But this time, we'll understand it so much better. Can you explain what that's going to be all like?

J. Bernard McGee has things about it. He'll be teaching scripture. So you'll be teaching in heaven there. Remember, you didn't want to do the book of Revelation. Vern, where are you? And the pressure's off.

It's really a life lived by faith, and that's so important, which reminds me, when we pray, you know, thinking of Lamb and Ethan and the family, et cetera, they're all priorities we should think about, which I didn't mention. Okay, so John 15, 15 and 16 kind of fits this.

If you have not chosen me, but I've chosen you and ordained you, ordained you, set forth beforehand that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whosoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you. Now, how many people are fruit seeking? I mean, in other words, what's my ultimately gift of the Lord? Go ahead. Well, this very much parallels just the verse here, because once again, he ordains it, prepares it beforehand. So the works are there, the fruits are there. It's all ready for us to walk by faith in what he has for us.

So why don't we have classes on what is your fruit? I mean, you know, and there are churches that do that. They have all these classes on, come learn what your fruit is. And to me, that's just ludicrous. Well, it's more the gift. Well, I know, but it's what you should be pursuing. But instead of saying, what is the Lord ordained for you? You don't even know maybe what that is. We don't know what that is. Do you think he wants us to know, to focus on the fruit? He doesn't want us to focus on him, doesn't he?

That's what I read this morning. What it does is take the pressure off, but we have an active role to play here. We're just not robots. What's our active role? It's believing what God has revealed and how he's working in our life. That's our role is to believe. It's a gift, it's a free gift that we believe that we're taking part in this free gift.

It's Christmas time, right? But this is Christmas 24-7, 365 and a quarter a year. It's way beyond homework. And Hallmark's getting expensive, too. Anybody buy a Hallmark card recently? Never mind. Yes, Roy. You want to comment on the price of Hallmark cards? I'm so glad that he chose us. That seems to be the emphasis of this verse. But I don't know that it is. I'm just saying that that's the prefix, right? It's in that context, in that light, that he is actively involved.

And I can't help but think of the men and women who had given their lives not being able to see the good in things that they were going through. But God chose them to go through those things. That we might have the Scriptures, number one. I mean, Wycliffe and all of the versions that were in the first copies. Those men died. I mean, they were burned at the stake. But they were faithful in what God chose them to do.

We live in a very privileged time with a lot of earthly securities, don't we, compared to what others have gone through, to spread the word. I'm thinking of one more thing. These good works and the fruits are possibly, sometimes, they're trials. We don't think of a good work as a trial. A trial is something I don't want. I don't enjoy trials at all. But many times that's what it's about. We endure that trial looking to Him and that glorifies Him.

It reminds me of the loss of my first wife and the way she went home to be with the Lord. It was just beautiful. And there was some letter after letter after letter. I can't bear to go back and look at those, but I still have them. But anyway, yeah, trials are part of that fruit. Half of that is that little phrase in there, should remain. That whatever God produces, should remain.

What I've done with the bolding is arbitrarily highlight what I think relates to kind of the theme of a new creation or a new creature. All right, I put new creature because that's what I think Schaefer has, not creation. The words translate, new creature. Actually, the New York Standard does it sometimes. They kind of go bounce back and forth between creation and creature.

All right, let's look at another verse, Philippians 1.16. I love this verse. Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath, whoops, my bad, I didn't get the animation worked out here. He hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. By the way, the Greek verb tense is continue to perform it. This is an active, ongoing process.

Perfect tense, if I remember correctly. and Philippians 2 13 for it is God which works in you both to will and do of his good pleasure I mean by faith by faith and Philippians for me to live is Christ and die is gain I think either way you win there right Hebrews 13.21, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight through or in Christ Jesus or Jesus Christ. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.

This isn't our works. I mean, we're documenting this with multiple texts in Scripture to indicate it's His working in us. You didn't like that? Okay, let's go back. Pay attention please. Comic relief. Carolyn liked it. I'm glad somebody clapped. Anyway, to God be the glory.

Anyway, Romans 2.12.2 is a good one, I think, to think about how this applies to our life.

Be not conformed to this world. That's hard at times, I think, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So this act of faith actually transforms our mind. It's a renewing of our mind in terms of what God's called us to. This is by faith. Renewing of your mind. What are your thoughts about renewing of our mind?

I thought the mind could kind of go astray here. There's a parallel text in Ephesians 4 where it says you have put on the new man and taken off the old man, and in between is, and you are being renewed in the spirit of your mind. You know what's also beautiful about that section of Ephesians, something I kind of learned way back, the reason that people were falling short and living in the old man was what? They had not so learned Christ. Right, exactly. I mean, it fits the theme, doesn't it?

We need to learn our Savior, and that means by faith, ultimately, and then this life that's lived out in us becomes apparent to Him and to His glory. In the Greek, renewal, renovation, it's a complete change for the better, as it's translated in the Greek. The better, we're not kind of saying this versus that. The better meaning probably the best in terms of our mind and how it's really functioning.

Look at this. Let's do that one more time. I think you should mention for those that are listening in. For those of you listening in, there may be very few of you, but if you are, there's a series of animations that kind of are ticklish in nature, and I've shown a couple of those here. That's why everybody is behaving the way they are out here. It's one of your fruits, Bob. What was that? You had Siri on there or something like that. And Siri said, I'm not sure about that. Did somebody send that to me? Siri listening to the class online. She could learn a few things.

So only in Christ Jesus. How do we know that we're in Christ Jesus? I mean, this is something that Feeling good about ourselves is not what it's all about, is it? What's different when we learn of Christ, when we're positioned at the right hand? Miles said, I use it all the time, just wrote letters to my kids, and I said, keep looking down. What's that mean? Keep looking down. That's God's perspective, that's where we are. There is therefore no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. That's something we have to remember after a wretched man that I am. Who should deliver me of the power of this death? It's our position.

And I think so many times we forget what our position is and we're focused on our condition. And that can be pretty depressing when we look at our condition. But if we would focus on where we're seated with Him, that just changes your whole perspective. It goes back to set your mind on things above.

Not on things on earth. I mean, Colossians 3, 1, 2, and 3. And if everybody in this room were all there right now, Every one of us is seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. You know, the thing about this too is it makes the Christian life one of joy, doesn't it? not of duty and requirement, but to think that the things that we do, what Marilyn does, and what Wayne does, and what Patty does, all of these have been ordained beforehand. And God hasn't given us a set of textbooks to study exactly what that looks like. He's just saying, live positionally where I've got you.

And it's so hard at times, isn't it? I mean, we have lots of emotions and feelings and thoughts of the past that we keep reflecting on, but Scripture calls us to that position of life, as Margaret said. That's interesting to conceptualize, but it's at times more difficult to apply. But remember, what Paul went through in Romans 7 is so instructive, isn't it?

Can you believe some people believe that that was all reflecting on before he was saved? I don't believe that for a minute. Because in fact, that's what the hungry heart was today. Luther ultimately found out that being justified by faith is fine, but there's this other guy that keeps showing up. Right, so that's the really truth of what we do. Any other thoughts about the text here today being newly founded in Christ Jesus and the spirit of life? David? I have a question.

It's on the Hungry Heart. It's that last sentence in there. It says, whatever condition you find yourself in, do not let either earth or heaven hide him. How would heaven hide him? I don't know the context, but what is it that it's referring to? It's the last... From today's message, right? Yeah. Read it again so we can... It says, whatever condition you find yourself in, do not let either earth or heaven hide him. Well, I think, I'm not sure I understand the earth perspective as much as I think I understand the heavenly perspective. Heaven isn't about revealing us? I mean, revealing the spirit-led life reveals this condition to be what it is?

Yeah, the context is, look at the Lord Jesus firmly and fixedly, never letting your gaze wander elsewhere. And whatever temporal objects come between you, whoopsie. Anyway, the context is looking at the heavenly things. by principalities and powers as well as things. Well, I mean, the condition we're in, the earth can see what it is, it may not see our internal feelings about the condition, but clearly it could be a parent, we could share it with our friends or spouses or children.

Fix your eyes upon Him, Him alone. And then that phrase comes in, whatever conditions you find yourself in, do not let either earth or heaven hide Him. Sometimes we look at heaven as the streets of gold and all the wonderful mansions and it takes the focus off of him. Well and also don't you think sometimes in different religious groups they're all focused on all this on angels or, you know, all kind of stuff instead of him.

Yeah, so that could come from any direction. Yeah, and the condition's not hidden. It's not hidden to him for sure, and when we keep our eyes on him, then it takes perspective, doesn't it? And when that was written, they had no idea what the Pope was gonna do and what the Catholic Church was gonna do. And you know, go to the Vatican, it's all about Mary. Jesus is still shown as this little baby. I mean, it's just so disgusting. Unless you just go there for the art, don't bother. I lost it. And don't ask Bob about it. Roger, I'll not be teaching next year. You can remind me, but you'll need to go to Doyle's class, everybody. The growth in grace is preparing this, and there's no question it's part of the path the Lord has for me. Let's turn to the Lord.

Father, we're grateful for the chafer and all that he stands for in terms of accurately revealing the Lord Jesus Christ and the fact that he is Christianity. And, you know, our sins have been forgiven. We've been crucified, dead and buried, risen with him in newness of life. That's such a thrill to accept, and it makes our life joyful in that the Spirit leads us to bring forth fruit, but it's all been ordained by you. And these are details we don't have, but we're thankful for that continuous working in the Spirit as the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed in each and every one of us. So we're thankful for these lessons and looking forward very much to the study of the first epistle written by Peter, and we pray for the Christmas season that's forthcoming that we will keep the focus on that baby who was the incarnated, ultimate savior of the world. So we're thankful, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.