{"id":18655,"date":"2016-08-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-07T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/identification-truth-the-foundation-for-eternal-security-part-2\/"},"modified":"2016-08-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-08-07T05:00:00","slug":"identification-truth-the-foundation-for-eternal-security-part-2","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/identification-truth-the-foundation-for-eternal-security-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Identification Truth – The Foundation for Eternal Security: Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[94],"series_event":[485],"sermon_service_type":[473],"speaker":[152],"class_list":["post-18655","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-ephesians","series_event-soteriology-sp-anatomy","sermon_service_type-sunday-school","speaker-dr-jim-mcgowan","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Identification Truth - The Foundation for Eternal Security: Part 2","sermon_date":"20160807","sermon_month":"8","sermon_year":"2016","sermon_notes":3797,"sermon_slides":3796,"sermon_mp3":3800,"sermon_id":"8716930572","series_or_event":485,"service_type":[473],"speaker":152,"books_of_the_bible":94,"chapter_and_verse":"2:4-7","sermon_transcript":"SUGAR LAND BIBLE CHURCH\n\nDr. Jim McGowan\n\nIdentification Truth \u2013 The Foundation for Eternal Security: Part 2\n\nEphesians 2:4-7\n\n8-7-16\n\nI\u2019m so delighted to have the opportunity again to come and speak to\u00a0 you.\u00a0 Let\u2019s open up with a word of prayer, shall we?\u00a0 Heavenly Father, thank\u00a0 You for Your great truth and Your great Word, and thank You for the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.\u00a0 And Father, as we continue on in our study today and the issue of the Identification Truths and how they relate to eternal security, \u00a0my prayer, dear Father, is that You would speak through me and that we all might learn from what it is that You have for us this morning.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, Amen.\n\nI do have to make one little housekeeping chore here, my wife wasn\u2019t able to attend today because she\u2019s under the weather so I wanted to say good morning dear, I hope you\u2019re listening in, you said you were going to.\u00a0 Having said that, let\u2019s get into our study.\n\nLast time we were talking about the foundation for eternal security and we did Part 1.\u00a0 Let\u2019s do just a quick review just to remind you.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what our Lesson 2 outline looked like.\u00a0 We said that we cannot become what we already are in Christ until we know what we were in Adam.\u00a0 And I hope that you have had opportunity to reflect upon that statement since we met last time because it\u2019s very important that we understand this.\u00a0 I think that most of our failure for victory in our Christian walk is centered right in this statement right here.\n\nWe said last time that we had a personal history in Adam, a personal history!\u00a0 Just like the United States has a history that we can refer back to and we can look at signposts in our history to see who we are today and how we got where we are.\u00a0 Similarly we have the same situation in terms of our relationship to Adam; it\u2019s a historical relationship, isn\u2019t it.\u00a0 And historical means it\u2019s something in the past.\u00a0 So here we see who and what was Adam; we said he was the seminal representative head of the human race.\u00a0 We said that we inherited our sinful self-oriented nature and condition from him.\u00a0 And we said that we\u2019re all born into sin and that results in death, judgment and condemnation.\n\nAnd we said that this affected us in three different manners; it affected our position, our nature and our personal sins.\u00a0 So we, when we\u2019re born into this life as unbelievers we\u2019re born into Adam and that has consequences that go along with it, including a nature and then the personal acts of sin.\u00a0 However, we said that God in His great love for us, He didn\u2019t leave us in our sin to just do the best we could do.\u00a0 He provided a solution to the sin problem but in order to do that He had to address sin at all three levels.\n\nSo He dealt with it in terms of our position in Adam.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because when we became a believer we were translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son. We are now no longer in Adam, we have been put into Christ.\u00a0 And then also He dealt with our sin nature, you recall it said\n\nthat we\u2019re to \u201creckon ourselves dead unto sin but alive unto God.\u00a0 [Romans 6:11, \u201cLikewise reckon\n\nye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.\u201d KJV]\u00a0 That\u2019s our standing right now.\n\nAnd then He also dealt with our personal sins.\u00a0 And I\u2019m not going to take time to go into depth, this is just review right now.\u00a0 I\u2019d encourage you to get the first lesson and that will probably help you.\u00a0 So we said that because of God\u2019s solution that our relationship to Adam has been completely terminated, and that\u2019s a great word--terminated.\u00a0 I think sometimes our struggle again comes from the fact that we forget that our relationship to Adam was terminated.\u00a0 We have a tendency to want to go back into the old Adam.\u00a0 It was necessary for God to terminate our positional relationship to Adam because the Bible clearly says \u201cthe wages of sin is death.\u201d\u00a0 [Romans 6:23, \u201cFor the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.\u201d]\n\nSo God had to do something about this issue of sin in our lives.\u00a0 And when did He do it and where did He do it?\u00a0 It was, of course, done on the cross of Calvary and we should every day be rejoicing and when we start our prayer life out, probably the first thing we should do is \u201cthank You Lord for the cross, thank You for what You did there.\u201d\u00a0 How did He do it?\u00a0 We said that the Lord Jesus on the cross was identified with our position in sin and our sinful nature.\u00a0 And as our old man was condemned and crucified with Christ at the same time in His substitutionary work of redemption on the cross He paid the penalty of our personal sins.\u00a0 And so we had some key points, we said the source and principle of sin was not forgiven but it was judged and it was condemned.\n\nOur inherited Adamic nature was not forgiven, God couldn\u2019t just wink at this, He had to deal with it and what did He do?\u00a0 He judged it and He condemned it in and through Christ\u2019s death.\u00a0 And then finally, because of that we say Christ\u2019s death on our behalf completely freed us as individual believers from the Adamic principle, which is again the source, nature and practice of Adam.\u00a0 Not only that but all of the penalties and consequences associated with that at the point of salvation, at the point of faith, at the point of belief in Christ, so God is now able to justly include us in Christ\u2019s death unto sin.\u00a0 And then we said the first step to our becoming experientially free from all that is associated with the first Adam in our daily experience\u2026 how do we do that?\u00a0 Well, we have to know that positionally we died or were separated once and for all from the first Adam by Christ\u2019s crucifixion and burial.\n\nAnd then we have a final point here, we have received the ultimate in deliverance when we were identified with Christ in His death, and my prayer is that we can all grasp this information right here and really make it a part of who we are.\u00a0 The more that we understand and focus on who we are in Christ now the more victory we have, where we get that old Adamic mindset and set it aside and we put on the mind of Christ, don\u2019t we?\n\nSo that brings us to our outline for today and what we\u2019re going to talk about here is our personal history in the Last Adam and notice again the phrasing here, this is historical fact that I\u2019m sharing with you.\u00a0 In other words, when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, when we were saved, we immediately were identified with Him and something became true about us that represents a past accomplishment in and through our lives through the \u00a0Lord Jesus Christ.\n\nAnd the topics we\u2019re going to talk about are the fact that we were buried with Christ, we\u2019ve risen with Christ, we have a new position of life because of that, and also a new nature of righteousness and we\u2019re ascended and seated with Christ and because of that we have a new walk of fruitfulness.\u00a0 So let\u2019s get busy.\n\nWe said our personal history in the last Adam, Jesus Christ, begins on the only basis for resurrection life, which is death.\u00a0 You can\u2019t have resurrection if you don\u2019t first have a death.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 Does that make common sense?\u00a0 Is that a logical assumption?\u00a0 I think so.\u00a0 Resurrection life can only spring forth from a prior death and while our relationship to the first Adam rendered us dead in sin, like we mentioned that already, our identification in death with Christ made us dead unto, or in relationship to sin.\u00a0 And this death unto sin is the one condition for new life.\n\nSo how did we become resurrected? \u00a0I think we don\u2019t really think these things through enough.\u00a0 How is it that we received eternal life and resurrected life?\u00a0 Well, we had to die, we died with Christ.\u00a0 There had to be a death.\u00a0 This is not something that we think of in terms of a corporate event, although that also is true, but we think of this in terms of our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and our personal identification.\u00a0 So as we talk about these things today what I would want you to do is I would want you to think about this as being personal to you, not your neighbor next to you but YOU personally.\n\nSo we said first of all that because of what Christ did on the cross and our placing faith and trust and confidence in what He did, we were buried with Him.\u00a0 And so since this is true\u2026 and again, we are focusing on what happened historically in the life of the believer here.\u00a0 So as we think about this what actually happened when we were identified with Christ?\u00a0 Well, we were placed in the tomb with Him; we were identified with Him, joined together with Him in that sense.\u00a0 And so we now\u2026 and kind of what we\u2019re doing here is we\u2019re giving you, as it were, a progression of what happened.\u00a0 Okay.\n\nNow again any time we try to explain spiritual truth with human understanding we always fall somewhat short.\u00a0 However, that said, I do think this gives us a good picture of what it was that transpired.\u00a0 So when we put our faith in Christ what happens?\u00a0 Immediately we were crucified with Christ; when He was placed in that tomb, because of our identification with Him we too were placed in that tomb.\u00a0 And we need to understand that\u2019s where we were.\u00a0 Through our identification with Christ in His death our relationship to Adam significantly changed.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019ve kind of mentioned that already but let\u2019s stop and think about that.\u00a0\u00a0 When we died with Christ immediately everything about us changed.\u00a0 Now does that mean that the moment we become a believer suddenly we\u2019ve arrived, we have it all together, we soar through this life with no problems and issues and such?\u00a0 NO, because while it is true that we have been saved, right?\u00a0 We were saved, we have been saved, we are saved, there\u2019s still something that we\u2019re dealing with here in this life which is the sin nature, which is still hanging around.\u00a0 We\u2019ll talk about that some more here in a second.\n\nRomans 6:3-4, \u201cOr do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?\u00a0 [4] Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death,\u201d look at the wording here.\u00a0 Now I was raised up in a particular denomination and it\u2019s very common in most denominations today to take this passage and apply it directly to water baptism.\u00a0 That\u2019s not what it\u2019s talking about.\u00a0 It\u2019s talking about Spirit baptism; it\u2019s talking about our being placed into Christ.\u00a0 Notice what it says, it says we \u201cwere baptized into Christ Jesus.\u201d\u00a0 When you see the word \u201cbaptized\u201d you should automatically associate the words \u201cidentified with;\u201d that will help you understand the real meaning behind it.\u00a0 We were identified with Christ when we were baptized into His death.\n\nLook at Colossians 2:12, this says that we were buried with Him in baptism. \u00a0\u00a0[Colossians 2:12, \u201chaving been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.\u201d]\u00a0 Do you get the picture here that we were identified with Him.\u00a0 So in Christ\u2019s burial we said having died in Christ our death to the flesh, which I\u2019m referring to as the sin nature in this instance, has become the very means of our triumph over it.\n\nNow I don\u2019t have time this morning to go into all of the details but if you\u2019ll go back and look at Romans 5, 6 and7 you\u2019ll see the word \u201cflesh\u201d quite a bit, depending on the translation you\u2019re using.\n\nAnd I would like to suggest to you that in the Greek that word has the definite article with it and it\u2019s a singular word in most instances, in which case it\u2019s not talking about sins, it\u2019s talking about the sin nature.\u00a0 And I would encourage you to read the passage that way; I think it would probably illuminate your understanding to what Paul was trying to say in these chapters.\u00a0\u00a0 We died with Christ, our death to the flesh or death to the sin nature has become the very means of our triumph over it.\n\nAs an unbeliever how did\u00a0 you deal with the sin nature?\u00a0 You didn\u2019t really, did you?\u00a0 You know,\u00a0 you might have got a self-help book, you might have went to a seminar, learned time management, you know (that\u2019s a joke, someone smiled, some gave me some feedback here).\u00a0 I mean, there are all kinds of ways that the world attempts to deal with the sin nature but there\u2019s no way to deal with it because the Bible refers to it in the life of the unbeliever as a tyrant, a dictator.\u00a0 Now of course once we come into Christ, if we look at what have said here we\u2019ve died to the sin nature because we are identified with Christ.\u00a0 Therefore we now have options available to us to deal with the sin nature, as a believer.\n\n1 Corinthians 15:54 and 57, because of what Christ has done for us and because of the empower\u00adments and enablements that He\u2019s given to us with the Spirit we can with Paul say \u201cdeath is swallowed up in victory, and we can say thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.\u00a0 [1 Corinthians 15:54, \u201cBut when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, \u2018DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory.\u201d\u00a0 1 Corinthians 15:57, \u201cbut thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d]\n\nNow I don\u2019t know about you but when I read this particular passage and passages like this sometimes I sort of get a little convicted because I feel like I\u2019m not walking in my inheritance on a regular basis.\u00a0 And that\u2019s my fault, that\u2019s not God\u2019s fault, it\u2019s because if I\u2019m not walking in victory I\u2019m choosing not to walk in victory for the most part; I\u2019m not doing those things that God has said in His Word that direct me into victory.\u00a0 So I hope that you\u2019re not in the same state that I am; you all look very pious and holy out there this morning and I wish you would pray for me.\n\nSo not only did we die with Christ, not only did Christ die, not only was He put into the tomb, not only was He buried, but did He stay there?\u00a0 And of course, the answer is no.\u00a0 What happened?\u00a0 Well, He rose from the grave.\u00a0 We say, of course, that we were identified with Christ in every sense, so when Christ arose from the grave guess what?\u00a0 Because of our identification with Him we too rose.\u00a0\u00a0 And God sees that as a historical fact, something that has taken place.\u00a0 That\u2019s part of our history in Christ.\u00a0 This is exciting stuff; I\u2019m holding onto the pulpit right now because I\u2019m really want to kind of jump up and down.\n\nWe say Christ\u2019s death and burial accomplished its liberating work on our behalf so we now begin to look up from the place of death and from our place in fallen Adam to the place of the new birth and new risen Christ.\u00a0 See how sequentially we\u2019re progressing here.\u00a0 For when the Lord Jesus burst the bonds of death He took us with Him in His glorious resurrection life, and I just want to say praise God for that!\u00a0 Hallelujah, I\u2019m so glad!\u00a0 Romans 6:4-5, look what it says here, \u201cjust as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. [5] For if we have been united together\u201d united is the same concept as identified with, so \u201cif we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection\u2026\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you but I\u2019m excited to know that I\u2019m resurrected right now and I\u2019m looking forward to the complete fulfillment of that when I get to drop off this old saggy weak flesh. \u00a0How about you?\n\nFrom our new foundational vantage point of resurrection in Christ we can now consider what it is that God has done for us.\u00a0 So we\u2019re resurrected.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019re walking around here with resurrected life and now we have a new position, we have a new nature, and a new walk of fruitfulness.\u00a0 And if you\u2019ll go back and look at the previous lesson you\u2019ll see that I\u2019m using the very same standard, the very same format here.\u00a0 In Adam what did we have?\u00a0 We had a position, we had a nature and we had a walk of sinfulness.\u00a0\u00a0 That was when we were in Adam.\u00a0 But now we are in Christ and that\u2019s new, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 So a new life, new position, new nature, new walk.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why you\u2019re not shouting \u201cHallelujah!\u201d\n\nIn our old position in the first Adam we were rendered dead to God and alive unto sin.\u00a0 Stop and think about that for a minute.\u00a0 Why do people in the world act the way they do?\u00a0 Why did that guy cut me off on the highway; I mean, it was very evident I was in that lane, what\u2019s going on here?\u00a0 What\u2019s going on, why did that person treat me that way at work at the water cooler when I mentioned the name of Jesus?\u00a0 Well, there\u2019s a reason\u2014because they are dead to God and alive to sin, and they don\u2019t even know it.\u00a0 And we were too.\u00a0 But our new position, in a risen last Adam that renders us alive unto God and dead unto sin because we find out in Colossians 3:1-3, \u201cTherefore since you have been raised up with Christ\u201d what does he say?\u00a0 Is there any variance there?\u00a0 Is there any indication that there\u2019s a question there?\u00a0 NO, not at all; he\u2019s saying here this is an established fact, it\u2019s happening.\n\n[Colossians 3:1-3, \u201cTherefore since you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. [2] Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. [3] For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. [4] When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.\u201d]\n\nSo because it\u2019s true how should\u00a0 you conduct\u00a0 yourself.\u00a0 Well, \u201ckeep seeking the things above, where Christ is,\u201d He\u2019s \u201cseated at the right hand of God.\u201d\u00a0 What else are we to do?\u00a0 We are to [verse 2] \u201cSet your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.\u201d\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Why do that?\u00a0 Because the argument here, he says, folks you\u2019ve died, you have died and your resurrection life is hidden with Christ in God.\u00a0 Oh my goodness, why would I want to go back to the world?\u00a0 Why would I want to go back to the Adamic way of doing things when I realize the pain and the misery and the suffering and the consequences and all the things that go along with that old life?\u00a0 Why would I want to do that when Christ paid the price to deliver me from all of that?\u00a0 Do you know why?\u00a0 As Pastor Andy has said, \u00a0it\u2019s because sin is fun.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 There is an aspect of fun to it.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve got to get our fun nature changed, right.\u00a0 I had to change a filter out in my car the other day.\u00a0 Why do we do that?\u00a0 Well, because the air flow wasn\u2019t right.\u00a0 I need to get that fun meter changed in my brain so that I\u2019ve got the right flow, it\u2019s coming from the right direction.\u00a0 I\u2019m not having a lot of success because I sit in front of the TV too much; okay, I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019ll get off of that, let\u2019s go on.\n\nI want to point out to you here that some of your translations has the word \u201cif\u201d there where I have the word \u201csince.\u201d [Therefore [*since] you have been raised up with Christ<\/u>, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. [2] Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. [3] For you have died<\/u> and your [resurrection] life is hidden with Christ<\/u> in God.\u201d (NASB95)]\u00a0 And the reason I didn\u2019t translate it that way is because there\u2019s Greek behind the English text and we have a tendency to kind of not talk about the original languages too much these days, after all, people are not really smart enough to handle that, you know (I don\u2019t personally believe that).\n\nBut I just put up some information here for you as to the reason why we have the word \u201csince\u201d here, this is a first class condition in the Greek and it indicates the assumption of truth for the sake of argument.\u00a0 The normal idea, then is if<\/u>, and let\u2019s assume that this is true for the sake of argument, then<\/u>, so when Paul is making this declaration here who is he talking to?\u00a0 Tell me, is he talking to believers or is he talking to unbelievers?\u00a0 It\u2019s the church at Colossae, right, the general understanding of church is believers, right?\u00a0 So he\u2019s talking to believers, therefore he can use this construction here.\n\nAll right.\u00a0 So now we also have a new position of life, don\u2019t we.\u00a0 When we were \u201cin Adam\u201d God was our what?\u00a0 He was our judge.\u00a0 Do you\u00a0 know why He was our judge?\u00a0 Because the Bible says that we were God\u2019s enemies when we were unbelievers.\u00a0 We were at enmity with Christ.\u00a0 But now that we\u2019re in Jesus, now that we\u2019re in Christ that\u2019s no longer true.\u00a0 We have a new position of life by means of God\u2019s Son\u2019s death and resurrection, and therefore God the Father is free to be our Father and we\u2019re free to be His sons.\n\nThere is a terrible misconception, that many believers and certainly the world has, about being sons of God, children of God.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 What\u2019s the general idea?\u00a0 What\u2019s the general concept that most people have?\u00a0 Well, everyone, everyone is a child of God and we\u2019re all\u2026 you know, we\u2019re all God\u2019s creation, we\u2019re all God\u2019s children.\u00a0 But the Bible doesn\u2019t say that, does it?\u00a0 In John 1:12 what does it say? \u201cBut as many as received Him,\u201d that is the Lord Jesus Christ, \u201cto them He gave the authority to\u201d what?\u00a0 To recognize that they\u2019re sons of God?\u00a0 To recognize that they\u2019re already sons of God.\u00a0 NO! \u201cto become\u201d sons and daughters, \u201cchildren of God.\u201d\n\nGalatians 4:6, who are we talking to in the book of Galatians?\u00a0 Believers or unbelievers?\u00a0 We\u2019re talking to believers aren\u2019t we.\u00a0 So Paul says, \u201cBecause you are\u201d YOU ARE \u201csons,\u201d and by the way, that\u2019s a present active indicative which is present tense, right, present tense, you are right now he says to the Galatians,\u00a0 you are right now \u201csons of God\u201d and because of this \u201cGod has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, \u2018Abba! Father!\u2019\u201d\u00a0 I read an interesting commentary on this.\u00a0 Typically when we see \u201cAbba! Father\u201d we think in terms of a little child and how they\u2019re affectionately going to their father and you know, daddy kind of thing.\u00a0 And there is that idea; that is not a completely incorrect idea but in terms of the life of a believer what this is referring to is not the daddy aspect but the intimate relationship, because I don\u2019t have to come to Him as a little bitty child in a sense, I\u2019m not coming to Him as just my child when he was two years old and didn\u2019t know and understand and she just knew if she got up in my lap that I\u2019d hug her and make everything all right.\u00a0 That\u2019s not really the intent behind this; this is talking about a deep, intense, internal relationship with the Father, a mature relationship.\u00a0 In fact, this particular word, Abba, was used in legal documents to describe the relationship between grown children and their parents.\u00a0 So it\u2019s a little bit different than what we normally thought.\n\n1 John 3:2, look what he says here, \u201cBeloved,\u201d now who are the \u201cBeloved.\u201d\u00a0 The \u201cBeloved\u201d are the believers, are they not; yeah they are, they\u2019re believers.\u00a0 He says, \u201cBeloved,\u00a0 now we are children of God,\u201d I\u2019m not hoping to become a child of God, I am a child of God, right now.\u00a0 I know I don\u2019t look like it, I know I don\u2019t have the glow of Moses on me (although Dan says that I do and he had to change the filters on the video to fix it, sorry, that\u2019s what happens when you get my age, but that\u2019s not from God, that\u2019s from the devolution of man.\u00a0 \u201cBeloved, now we are children of God\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 We also have a new nature of righteousness because of our identification with Christ.\u00a0 So in our co-resurrection with Christ our Father gave us a new life consisting of\u2026 here it is, new man with a new nature, which can only bring forth righteousness.\n\nHave you stopped to think about that?\u00a0 When you sin where is that coming from.\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s certainly not coming out of the \u201cin Christ\u201d person; it\u2019s not coming from the new nature.\u00a0 It\u2019s not coming from the new man, where is it coming from?\u00a0 It\u2019s coming from the sin nature.\u00a0 But Jim, I thought you said we died to the sin nature.\u00a0 We did!\u00a0 But remember that death in the Bible does not ever mean extermination; it does not mean annihilation, it does not mean a ceasing of existence.\u00a0 It means separation.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t know if you were paying attention but if you\u2019ll look at this picture I have up here it\u2019s somewhat different from the one I had up about Adam, being \u201cin Adam.\u201d\u00a0 Flip back a little bit in your notes there and you\u2019ll see that when\u00a0 you\u2019re \u201cin Adam\u201d what\u2019s the difference?\u00a0 That sin nature that I have there in the red, where is it located?\u00a0 It\u2019s actually in and part of you since you\u2019re \u201cin Adam,\u201d but once you accepted Jesus Christ, once you believed in Him, remember we said you died to the sin nature, you were separated from it.\u00a0 It hasn\u2019t ceased to exist, it\u2019s still hanging around out there.\u00a0 It\u2019s always trying to get access into the new man.\u00a0 And of course, when we allow it to do so it does and that\u2019s why we sin as believers.\n\nWe\u2019ve all read this passage so many times, but I\u2019m hoping that we\u2019re seeing this in a little different, a little more refreshing new light this morning.\u00a0 \u201cIf anyone is in Christ, he is\u201d what? \u201ca new creature; the old things\u201d and I\u2019ve added in here based in our historical relationship in Adam, those are the old things that are being talked about, those things have \u201cpassed away; behold, new things\u201d what are the new things?\u00a0 It\u2019s everything based in our historical relationship in Christ, \u201cthe new things have come. [18] \u00a0<\/sup>Now all these<\/em> things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself\u201d how did He do that, how did God reconcile, He did it \u201cthrough Christ\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 He did it \u201cthrough Christ.\u201d\u00a0 [2 Cor. 5:17\u201318]\n\nAnd I want to emphasize this word \u201chistorical.\u201d\u00a0 I want to just repeat it over and over again, I want to get it into your consciousness.\u00a0 We\u2019re talking about historically what took place in the life of the believer.\u00a0 I love sign posts; sign posts along the way that God puts in your life.\u00a0 And He brings you through something and something new comes your way and oh man, I don\u2019t know how I\u2019m going to deal with this and God says well, let me remind you what I did back over here.\u00a0 That\u2019s one of the reasons why we read the Bible.\u00a0 I love the Old Testament because there\u2019s just sign post after sign post after sign post.\u00a0 Well God, I just don\u2019t know how you\u2019re going to meet my finances\u2026 well, let\u2019s go back and see what God did in the Old Testament for certain individuals. \u00a0Wow!\u00a0 God, I just don\u2019t know how I\u2019m going to deal with this trouble in my life\u2026 well, let\u2019s look at what God did back here, and oh, by the way, come over in the New Testament; hey, let\u2019s go look at Paul\u2019s life.\u00a0 Did God deliver Paul?\u00a0 Did He rescue Paul?\u00a0\u00a0 Yeah, he did.\u00a0 Okay God, yeah, thanks for reminding me.\n\nYou remember when the men were going to stone David because the Amorites came down and they took off all the families and cattle and everything and the men came home and everything was gone and all the men, you know, the men of David, you know, it\u2019s David\u2019s fault, let\u2019s just kill him right here.\u00a0 And what did David do?\u00a0 I love the wording, I love it especially in the King James Version, I think it says, \u201cAnd David encouraged himself in the Lord.\u201d \u00a0[1 Samuel 30:6, \u201cAnd David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.\u201d]\n\nNow I can\u2019t prove this but I just can\u2019t help but believe, because he was a human being like me that you know what I think he probably did?\u00a0 I think that David, when all this was coming down, he was thinking well, this is it, and God went pssst, remember the lion?\u00a0 Pssst, do you remember the bear?\u00a0 Oh, pssst, hey David, remember Goliath?\u00a0 Hey David, do you remember all those victories I\u2019ve given you up to this point in time?\u00a0 And David went oh, that\u2019s right, that\u2019s right God.\u00a0 God You can do anything; the situation I have right now is nothing, I am trusting You, I am putting my faith and trust in You to deliver me, even though I can\u2019t see what\u2019s going on, I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on, You\u2019re going to do it.\u00a0 And guess what, God did it.\u00a0 He\u2019ll do it for you in your life too.\u00a0 But historically what was David doing?\u00a0 He was thinking back to the things that God has historically done in his life and in his walk.\n\nHere you go, here\u2019s a good slide; you notice I have \u201cin Adam\u201d marked out; why do I have him marked out?\u00a0 Because you\u2019re no longer \u201cin Adam,\u201d right.\u00a0 Notice the difference, there\u2019s your picture, look at the sin nature, where is it?\u00a0 When\u00a0 you\u2019re \u201cin Adam\u201d it\u2019s inside you; when\u00a0 you\u2019re \u201cin Christ\u201d he no longer has access to you unless you allow him access.\u00a0 The old man position in Adam is not renewed.\u00a0 Oh boy, this is a good one, this is important.\u00a0 The old man is not renewed, he\u2019s not refurbished, he\u2019s not regenerated or\u2026 excuse me, renovated, he is replaced with that which is altogether new.\u00a0 Praise the Lord for that.\n\nSo all these things, it just keeps getting better.\u00a0 Do you feel like this is getting better and better, gooder and gooder?\u00a0 Well good, now because of all the things that have happened to this point in time we now have a new nature of righteousness.\u00a0 And as new creations in Christ we have been forever liberated from our relationship to the first Adam, which includes the position, the nature with its reign of sin and death.\u00a0 Jim, you keep repeating yourself.\u00a0 I sure do.\u00a0 What did Paul say?\u00a0 \u201cI put you in remembrance\u2026\u201d\u00a0 I put you in remembrance\u2026.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Oh, let me remind you, Peter says, let me remind you, you\u2019re going to hear me say this over and over again, what happened?\u00a0 We were liberated from being \u201cin Adam.\u201d\u00a0 Our Father now sees each of us completely new in His Son and He wants us to see ourselves from His point of view, as new creations in Christ Jesus with a new position in Christ and a new nature, Christ\u2019s very own nature.\n\nMan, I tell you what, when\u00a0 you wake up tomorrow morning and you go to work or you do whatever you do, and the enemy comes against you, you know, we have some enemies in this life, don\u2019t we, the world, the flesh and the devil, and one or the other of them, or they gang up on you, come back to this slide, wait a minute, the Father wants me to see myself the way He sees me, not the way the old man in Adam wants me to be seen.\u00a0 I want to see myself the way God sees me.\u00a0 Is that based in feeling or fact, by the way?\u00a0 \u00a0Thing about that.\u00a0 We sort of have a problem being human being preachers, you know, our first reaction to everything is feeling and I would like to suggest to you that as part of the being renewed in the spirit of your mind God is saying get off of the feeling wagon and get onto the fact wagon.\u00a0 Settle yourself on the facts of God\u2019s Word and what He says about you, and the feelings, the proper feelings, will follow.\u00a0\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that interesting how that works?\u00a0 As new creations the Father maintains the identity of each believer so we remain the same individual but we acquire a new position, a new life and a new nature and it\u2019s all based in the risen Lord Jesus Christ.\n\nColossians 1:21-22,\u00a0 \u201cAnd you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, [22] yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and above reproach.\u201d\u00a0 I wonder, do you see yourself as \u201choly and blameless and above reproach\u201d?\u00a0 Probably not, and I\u2019m not going to stand here and say that I see myself that way all the time, but that\u2019s how God sees me.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 And so that\u2019s a real good reason to keep short accounts with sin, you know.\u00a0 That\u2019s one of the reasons why I love 1 John 1:9, because when I blow it and I am going to blow it from time to time, I can deal with that immediately; I can deal with that immediately and I can begin to feel and sense how the Father sees me.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 When I\u2019m walking in sin I don\u2019t feel very holy, blameless and above reproach.\u00a0 But when my relationship is restored instantly this is how God sees me, how I should see myself.\n\nColossians 2:13, \u201cWhen you were,\u201d notice the tense here, \u201cWhen you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He\u201d God \u201cmade you alive together with Him,\u201d Christ, \u201chaving forgiven us all our transgressions.\u201d\u00a0 Ephesians 5:27, \u201cthat He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.\u201d\u00a0 Wow, who\u2019s he writing that to?\u00a0 Man, you know, he was writing that to Ephesian believers and he was encouraging them to see themselves the way God sees them.\n\nSo we have a new nature of righteousness.\u00a0 So what does that mean?\u00a0 Say goodbye to that old life, say goodbye to it.\u00a0 Did you read the license plate?\u00a0 Somebody is out there going L8R, L8R, L8R, Later, right.\u00a0 I had to ask somebody to tell me what that was, I\u2019m not hip.\u00a0 You know, some of you old folks out there it\u2019s okay, really.\u00a0 Say goodbye to the old life.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because you have a new nature of righteousness.\n\nOkay, the story is not over yet, there\u2019s more to it, thankfully.\u00a0 We also ascended when Christ ascended and was seated in the heavenly places.\u00a0 The Bible tells us that we too\u2026 we too, because of our identification with Him, are joining together with Him, are being united with Him. We too rose with Him and we ascended and are seated with Him.\u00a0 So we\u2019re born from above, right?\u00a0 And we\u2019re supposed to abide above.\u00a0\u00a0 Ephesians 2:4-7,\u201d But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,\u201d what kind of love was it that God loved us with?\u00a0 A \u201cgreat love,\u201d \u2026 a \u201cgreat love!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cBecause of His great love with which He loved us [5] even when we were dead in trespasses,\u201d isn\u2019t that interesting, He \u201cmade us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),\u201d and what did He do?\u00a0 Because of His great love He not only made us alive, but He [6] \u201craised us up together \u00a0and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.\u00a0 From God\u2019s point of view this is a historical event, this has happened, \u201cso that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.\u201d\n\nThe little AAI there in parenthesis is grammatical nomenclature, it means aorist active indicative and the aorist active indicative in the Greek means something that happened in a point in time, it wasn\u2019t something that happened and it\u2019s continuing to happen, happen, happen.\u00a0 No, it happened, it\u2019s like taking the gavel and hitting it on the bench, bam, it happened, God did it!\u00a0 What did He do?\u00a0 He \u201cmade us alive,\u201d He \u201craised us up,\u201d He \u201cmade us sit,\u201d bam, He did it.\u00a0 I like the finality in that.\u00a0 You mean I\u2019m not going to slip out of that heavenly seat there?\u00a0 No!\u00a0 No, it\u2019ll fit you just right.\n\nNow because of all of that we have a new walk of fruitfulness, we said. We talk about fruit sometimes here.\u00a0 We\u2019re abiding above in Christ while we\u2019re walking below in the Spirit.\u00a0 Have you ever thought about that?\u00a0 We\u2019re joined together with Christ so we\u2019re actually \u201cin Christ,\u201d we\u2019re abiding above, but we\u2019re down here walking.\u00a0 But how are we walking down here?\u00a0 We\u2019re walking in the Spirit.\u00a0 As newly created believers we\u2019re in the Lord Jesus in the heavenlies while at the same time we are in the Spirit of Christ here on earth.\u00a0 Paul tells us what, but since we\u2019re in the Spirit let\u2019s walk by the Spirit.\n\nThe Comforter is now our natural environment as we operate as Christ\u2019s hands and feet in this sin-cursed world.\u00a0 Think about that for a minute.\u00a0 There\u2019s a picture there in the bottom left-hand corner of a diver, I don\u2019t know how well you can see that, a diver and he\u2019s swimming down there and what\u2019s all around him?\u00a0 Sharks everywhere, right.\u00a0 And he\u2019s notice that, we could probably say it this way, he\u2019s not in his own environment, is he?\u00a0 He\u2019s in someone else\u2019s environment and he\u2019s down there trying to interact with those people in that environment.\n\nThat\u2019s kind of a good representation of what it is for us.\u00a0 We\u2019re down here functioning in an environment that we\u2019re not equipped for the environment anymore; we\u2019ve been translated out of that.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 But we\u2019re having to try to relate to people who are caught up and still in that environment.\u00a0 But when we try to engage the environment\u2026 what happens when the diver pulls the mask off his face?\u00a0 Hey, I think I\u2019ll\u2026\u00a0 you know,\u00a0 I\u2019d really like to talk to this shark right here so let me just pull this mask off\u2026 hey, let\u2019s have a conversation.\u00a0 Well guess what, the same thing happens to believers when they take their spiritual mass, as it were, off, I\u2019ll just\u2026 you know, I want to identify myself with this unbeliever, you know, I want to make sure that he knows that I appreciate him and love him so I\u2019ll come down to where he is (in a sense).\n\nIt reminds me of a story one time, I know a guy who used to do a radio program at a radio station I won\u2019t mention, it\u2019s not Bruce so don\u2019t say that one, but a pastor friend I used to have used to go to\u2026 he\u2019d record sessions on Sunday evening at this radio station and he came back one time and he told me, he says, you know, I was down there and there was a young DJ, probably twenty years old down there, and we got to talking and he said the young DJ said to me, you know, he says, you know I really feel like God\u2019s calling me to minister to the people in the drug culture.\u00a0 And you know, my pastor, oh, that\u2019s great,\u00a0 you know, and so how\u2019s God leading you?\u00a0 Well, you know, I know where to go and smoke pot and I go smoke pot with them, you know.\u00a0\u00a0 You know, I want to bring the walls down, bring the barriers down you know, and I want to be able to reach them you know.\n\nStop and think about that.\u00a0 And you know, that\u2019s a pretty extreme example but don\u2019t we sometimes do that ourselves, in terms of how we engage the world.\u00a0 Ah, you know, I don\u2019t want to come off too holier than though, and I don\u2019t want them to see my halo, you know, it might impede the conversation at the water cooler, when in reality just the reverse is what needs to happen.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 Stay in your environment, you know,\u00a0 you want to bring them to your environment, not you go into their environment.\n\nRomans 8:9, \u201cHowever, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.\u201d\u00a0 And so the point Paul is making here, he says look guys, you\u2019re not in the flesh any more.\u00a0\u00a0 You\u2019re \u201cnot in the flesh,\u201d you\u2019re \u201cin the Spirit,\u201d and notice again this is a first class condition. Why?\u00a0 Because he\u2019s talking to believers and he\u2019s saying we\u2019re going to assume this is true for the sake of argument; there\u2019s no doubt intimated there.\u00a0 He\u2019s saying look guys, you\u2019re in the Spirit, why are you wanting to try to deal with your walk in a fleshly manner?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t work.\u00a0 On the one hand the Holy Spirit continually applies the finished work of the cross to the mortal flesh life of the believer\u2026 the mortal flesh life of the believer, right?\u00a0 Would you agree we\u2019re all\u2026 part of our condition is that we have a mortal flesh life.\u00a0 Yeah, absolutely.\u00a0 Well, the Holy Spirit is dealing with that; He does that through conviction, wooing us and drawing us to Christ, right, when we sin.\u00a0 Encouraging us to keep short accounts, right?\n\nOn the other hand the Holy Spirit causes the fruit of the Spirit, which is based in the new nature and new life characteristics, He causes that to be manifested.\u00a0 Where does that take place?\u00a0 In the mortal flesh life of the believer.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that interesting?\u00a0 Have you ever considered how amazing it is that the Holy Spirit is manifesting spiritual fruit through a mortal flesh container.\u00a0 Have you stopped to think about being made\u2026 now that\u2019s a miraculous thing that only God can do.\n\nHere\u2019s some Scriptures that kind of give you an idea of that. Galatians 5:16, he says, \u201cBut I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.\u201d\u00a0 There it is, \u201cwalk by the Spirit.\u201d\u00a0 Why?\u00a0\u00a0 You\u2019re in the Spirit so \u201cwalk by the Spirit.\u201d \u00a0Galatians 5:22, he tells us what is the fruit of the Spirit, and there it is, \u201cBut the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, self-control\u201d oh I\u2019m so glad, I just have those in spades\u2026 how about you?\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 [Mentions name] is overt here going that isn\u2019t the Jim McGowan I know.\u00a0 [Laughter]\n\nA closer look at Galatians 2:20 will clarify the Bible distinction between what we were in the first Adam and who we are now in the last Adam, so if you have\u00a0 your Bible turn over there, or you can look at the screen.\u00a0 Here\u2019s our passage, right; we could probably all quote this one.\u00a0 Nest to John 3:16 this would be probably the next one, \u201cI have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life<\/em> which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.\u201d Yes, absolutely, go and walk in it.\n\nLet\u2019s break it down a little bit.\u00a0 What is he actually saying?\u00a0 What is Paul actually saying here when he says, \u201cI have been crucified\u201d?\u00a0 Well, who was crucified?\u00a0 It was the old man in Adam, right; the old man in Adam has been crucified.\u00a0\u00a0 Now what that means is it happened in a point in time in the past and the effects of that continue to the present.\u00a0 So I was crucified with Christ and I remain crucified with Christ in the sense that I died to everything that\u2019s Adamic.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t ever change, I can\u2019t go back and forth.\n\nWhat else does he say, \u201cit is no longer I that lives,\u201d well what does he mean? The \u201cI\u201d [the Old Man in Adam<\/em>] that lives,\u201d but who\u2019s living in me?\u00a0 It\u2019s \u201cChrist lives in me,\u201d in what sense does He live in me?\u00a0 Well, I\u2019m His new creation\u2014the New Man, and I have a new nature, don\u2019t I?\u00a0 and \u201cthe life which I [the New man], now live in the flesh,\u201d and what is the flesh here?\u00a0 It\u2019s referring to my physical container, okay. \u00a0This life which I have [the New Man] \u201cnow live in the flesh,\u201d how do I do it, \u201cI\u201d (the New Man) I \u201clive in faith; and this faith is in the Son of God who\u00a0 loved me,\u201d when did He express his great love for me? He did that as a lost individual in Adam.\u00a0 And He \u201cgave Himself up,\u201d when did He give Himself up for me?\u00a0 As a substitutionary sacrifice on the cross, when I was a lost individual in Adam, as we stay here.\n\nI would encourage you to maybe take this home and reflect on that and see if it doesn\u2019t open that passage up to you a little bit more, because there are very important things transpiring here that Paul is saying there\u2019s a historical relationship to Adam, and there\u2019s a historical relationship in Christ.\u00a0 Christ is our risen life and it is His life and His nature that composes our newly created life, therefore Christ is to be found in us.\u00a0 That makes sense, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Christ is the source and He\u2019s also the motivation now of my Christian life as such and He lives in<\/u> me, not instead of me.\u00a0 You know, you can pray all you want, God just live through me, live through me\u2026 okay, get up and go!\u00a0 He says okay, I\u2019m ready to live through you, I\u2019m ready to manifest Myself, make yourself available to Me; be My hands and My feet.\n\nPhilippians 1:21, \u201cFor to me, to live is\u201d what? \u201cChrist.\u201d\u00a0 Galatians 3:4, Christ, who is Christ?\u00a0 He\u2019s our life.\u00a0 2 Corinthians 4:11,\u00a0 \u201c\u2026that the life of Jesus also may be manifested\u201d where is the life of Jesus going to be manifested? \u201cin our mortal flesh.\u201d\u00a0 \u201c\u2026in our mortal flesh.\u201d\u00a0 This is miraculous stuff here, just miraculous.\u00a0 So how are we doing on time here?\u00a0 Oh, not too bad.\n\nIf we sum this up we have a personal history in the last Adam and these are all the things, all the things, the last Adam is who? Jesus Christ, these are all the things that were accomplished instantaneously the moment that I put my faith in Jesus Christ, these things became true about me.\u00a0 I was buried with Christ; when He went in the tomb, I went in the tomb with Him.\u00a0 I have risen with Christ, when the stone was rolled away and Jesus came out of that tomb I was with Him.\u00a0 Because of that I have a new position of life; I\u2019m no longer in Adam, I\u2019m in Christ, I have a new vantage point from which to view all of life now.\u00a0 And because of that I have a new nature, I also have a new nature of righteousness, thank God for that, I\u2019m not under the tyranny and the dictatorship of the sin nature any longer.\u00a0 I have choices now; we like choices, don\u2019t we?\u00a0 Also I have ascended and I have ascended and been seated with Christ in heavenly places.\u00a0 And I have a new walk of fruitfulness.\n\nSo what do we want to take away this morning from this?\u00a0 As new creations in Christ we\u2019ve been forever liberated from our relationship to the first Adam, forever liberated, with its reign of sin and death.\u00a0 Our Father now sees each of us as completely new in His Son, and He wants us to see ourselves from His point of view, new creations in Christ Jesus with a new position in Christ and a new nature, which is Christ\u2019s nature.\u00a0\u00a0 The ground of the first Adam\u2026 why don\u2019t we want to go back to Adam?\u00a0 Look at this: The ground of the first Adam is that into which we were born and in which we grew, where even now the world, the flesh, and the devil would keep the believer in bondage.\u00a0 This second statement here, this is the struggle we have as believers; we listen to the voice of our enemy as he attempts to keep us focused on the world, the flesh and the devil.\u00a0 And finally the ground, being in Adam the ground in Adam is the ground of carnality, sin and death.\u00a0 And that is off limits to the new creation in Christ.\u00a0 It\u2019s off limits!\u00a0 That\u2019s not our environment anymore; we have a new environment, don\u2019t we?\n\nBut what about being \u201cin Christ?\u201d\u00a0 The ground of the last Adam is that into which we have been reborn and we\u2019re to abide; it\u2019s where the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit would have us grow and mature.\u00a0 And it is the ground of spirituality, righteousness and life, and that is the Father\u2019s one abiding place for the believer.\u00a0 Flip back for a second, how do you want to walk today?\u00a0 Do you want to walk in Adam?\u00a0 Do you want to associate yourself with that which is no longer true about you?\u00a0 Or do you want to walk in Christ as a new creature and all that that entails and all that that says about who you are and how God sees\u00a0 you.\u00a0 That\u2019s the challenge today, is to try this week to put this on your refrigerator, print it out and put it on your refrigerator, the ground of the last Adam is\u2026 and see that all the time and reflect on that and meditate on that and don\u2019t listen to how you feel; you might have had a bad pizza the night before, right?\u00a0 Don\u2019t base it on your feelings, base it in the facts, the facts of God\u2019s Word.\n\nAnd so finally, I want to leave you with this graphic here.\u00a0 Some people who don\u2019t believe in eternal security and you\u2019ll notice that I didn\u2019t use the word eternal security much this morning, did I?\u00a0 And yet I said this whole topic this morning is identification truth, the foundation for what?\u00a0 Eternal security.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 Well, why have I not said anything specifically, why have I not mentioned the words eternal security?\u00a0 I didn\u2019t think I had to.\u00a0 Here\u2019s why.\u00a0 What comes between the man in Adam and the man in Christ?\u00a0 It\u2019s the cross.\u00a0 See, one of the problems that people have who believe that you can lose your salvation is they don\u2019t understand the permanency of the cross.\u00a0 They can\u2019t transgress it.\u00a0 You can\u2019t go back and forth.\u00a0 The man over here in Adam can\u2019t, of his own choosing, under his own power, (notice the phrasing there) he cannot under his own power and choosing come into Christ.\u00a0 He has to have a Word of God delivered to him and the Spirit of God has to work on his heart and when he\u2019s wooed and he\u2019s convicted, then he can exhibit fright.\u00a0 Right?\n\nBut the reverse is also true, the man in Christ has no way of crossing the boundary or the barrier that the cross is.\u00a0 Why would you want to?\u00a0 Why would you want to?\u00a0 And yet what do we do on a daily basis?\u00a0 Do we not stand and look across the barrier through the barrier of the cross and we get engaged with the old Adam; hey, I remember when I used to do that; that was kind of fun.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 We begin to entertain, we look on the other side, we\u2019re looking past the cross and we\u2019re not paying attention to what it stands for and oh hey, yeah, oh, that\u2019s just a little sin, that won\u2019t make a difference.\n\nWhy would we want to come back under the bondage of being in Adam.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not do that; let\u2019s make a determination and a choice this morning that we\u2019re going to understand, know and walk in everything it means to be in Christ Jesus, to have a new nature, to be a new man, a new creature.\u00a0 As we take our rightful stand on the resurrection side of the cross, setting our minds and hearts on the Lord Jesus via the Word, the Holy Spirit will establish us in Him above and it\u2019s on that ground of growth that we will indeed grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.\u00a0 To him be glory both now and forever, Amen.\n\nAnd by my watch we\u2019ve got about three minutes to go, so let\u2019s close in prayer.\u00a0 Heavenly Father, it\u2019s my great heart\u2019s desire that this teaching, Father, would infiltrate every recess of our being and that we might truly, Father, on moment by moment basis see and understand and know who we are in Christ, what You delivered\u00a0 us from and what You have delivered us to.\u00a0\u00a0 And Father, my prayer is that you help us to walk in who we are in Christ and help us to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus as we see Him revealed, as we behold Him, Father, in the Word of God. And we thank You for these things, in Jesus\u2019 name, Amen.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t