Bulletins - Cornerstone Independent Baptist Church (Enola, PA)

Review
Turn to Romans chapter six
We have been learning about the New Identity and therefore the New life that Christians have in Jesus Christ.
In Romans 6:3-4, Paul wrote about that new identity and he used water baptism as an illustration of how God sees us after we are saved.
The moment I trusted Jesus to save my soul, God saw me as crucified, buried, and risen with Christ. What was true of Christ became true of me. By God’s grace, I have power to say “no” to sin and “yes” to King Jesus! In other words, I can now live a whole new life!
Introduction
And so we saw…
An illustration of the Christian’s identity - Romans 6:3-4
Now secondly, I want you to see…
Next slide here:
A declaration of the Christian’s reality - Romans 6:5-7
Read Romans 6:5-7
In August, 2011, I had just graduated from high school and I found myself making one of the biggest changes of my life. I was beginning my freshman year at Ambassador Baptist College in Lattimore, North Carolina. The big change was not that I was out on my own. I had already spent multiple summers serving as a camp counselor. Instead, the change was that I was living in…
A whole new state - I love them both, but Pennsylvania and North Carolina are not the same! It was an adjustment going from the central PA that I loved and moving to the foothills of western North Carolina.
A new culture - I learned that I didn’t need to remember people’s names at church because everyone was just “brother” or “sister”! I say that tongue in cheek, but there is some truth to it!
A new cuisine - my familiar diet of ham loaf, sweet bologna, and shoe fly pie was traded for hush puppies, fried okra, collard greens, and pecan pie.
And depending on how thick the southern accent was, it sometimes felt like I was learning a new language. Rather than “yun’s”, now it was “y’all.” Besides all that, I was learning a new way of life as a college student. One thing I had to learn was how every professor tested their students because they were not all alike. Some professors liked essay questions. They would ask a short question and you were expected to write a long answer. Dr. Childs liked to ask true/false questions on his tests. Now I liked those because I had a 50/50 chance of getting it correct. The problem was that Dr. Childs was a master of wording that question in such a way that you didn’t know if it was true or if it was false unless you really knew the material well. Pastor J was our missions professor and I never felt like I figured him out. The only certainty with him was uncertainty. His tests were so random.
And then, there was Dr. Surrett. He was one of the kindest and most logically brilliant men that you could ever meet.
Now Dr. Surrett was easy. You knew exactly what would be on the test. He would tell you everything you needed to know. All you had to do was memorize the entire outline of his class notes, and you would be just fine.
Next slide here, read slowly:
Christian, in very plain terms, Paul tells us here what we need to know: that your old man - the old, unsaved you - is crucified with Christ! It’s dead and gone, and it’s never coming back!
Christian, do you remember the moment you trusted Christ? Maybe you were a child so maybe you don’t remember too well, but for many in this room, you were older than that, and you remember.
The burden of sin was lifted!
Complete forgiveness of sin was realized!
The door of relationship with God was opened!
Perhaps your heart was filled with gratitude because of all that Jesus suffered on the cross to make your salvation possible!
But most of all, you became a completely new person at that moment. You were given access to God’s abundant grace and His power to say “no” to sin. Paul’s broader point is that now it’s time to live it out. Now it’s time to live “For Christ Alone!”
“Knowing this”
This is the second time that Paul says, “Hey, you’ve got to know this!” Please understand, I’m not repeating myself, Paul is! Compare verse 3 to verse 6.
So what is our reality?
Next slide here:
Verse 5 - Our union with Christ
Verse 6 - Our death with Christ
Verse 7 - Our hope of freedom from sin
Planted: united, engrafted - like a branch into a young sapling of a tree
We must accept all of this by faith. It’s as real and guaranteed as our eternity in Heaven with the Lord.
Application: Two weeks ago, you heard me preach on this theme from the verses prior, but Paul is driving home this point: he is saying that if you are ignorant of this reality, or if you don’t believe it to be true, then you will continue in sin.
I think Paul knew that difficult concepts must be said more than once, so I’d like to explain it this way:
Read slowly:
God works from the inside out.
At salvation, He made my dead spirit alive again. It is completely regenerated - you can’t improve on it! God has made it perfectly whole! I have eternal life. I can commune with God now in a personal relationship with Him.
But then there is this physical body of sin that Paul refers to in verse six. One day, sin will not torment me in this body anymore. I know that my old, unsaved man is dead, so I can be certain that if Christ doesn’t return first, this body and the sin nature I retain with it will die and then I will be completely freed from sin forever! This sin-cursed body will be destroyed, but Tim Brubaker will be freed from the power of sin forever! Until then, I am a work in progress, but listen to me:
Read slowly:
in verse six, Paul’s message is so hopeful! His point is that if we start thinking the right way, we will start living the right way and not serve sin anymore! If you accept that your old unsaved life is dead and gone, you render your body powerless today in anticipation of when it will be made powerless forever!
Application: So Christian, remember that…
2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV 1900
…if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Remember that the unsaved “you” is gone! It’s not coming back! It can’t come back! Don’t let Satan whisper in your ear that it is back! It’s not! It’s dead and buried! You are risen with Christ to a whole new identity! A whole new life! At salvation, you didn’t just turn a new leaf! You didn’t just start writing a new chapter! God began writing in you a brand new book!
Remember that this body of sin is temporary! It’s not permanent, thank God! Death will forever free us from sin!
1 Corinthians 15:55–58 KJV 1900
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
Remember, Christian, that with every passing minute, you’re another minute closer to eternity! It just keeps getting gooder and gooder and better and better! Why wait until eternity to enjoy it?! God, by His grace, has given you everything you need to enjoy eternal life now! Why trade the joys of our salvation for the pleasures of sin? Why serve sin and forfeit the joy
Remember these things, Christian! Start thinking right! Get a right perspective and reckon these things to be true of you! Tell yourself that it is so! This is your reality! Now go live it out and enjoy life as God meant for it to be lived!
God has given you the power to live new life.
Romans 1:16 KJV 1900
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
You access that power by grace through faith - the same way that you are saved.
Conclusion
So…
Application: Husbands, why wallow in the muck of pornography when you can build up and nurture your covenant relationship with your wife? Marriage is so much better God’s way. You cannot change your spouse but by God’s grace you can change you.
Why live in the grips of any addiction, for that matter? Why not humble yourself and start living the abundant life that Christ offers?
Application: Wives, why cut down your husband to nothing with your tongue, when you can build him up and encourage him to be the man and leader that God wants him to be?
Application: Young adults, why give your heart away to the cheap, shallow relationships that typify the American dating scene? Why would you put ground beef on your plate when you have a juicy ribeye sitting right in front of you? A dating relationship and then a marriage done God’s way is so much better than the run of the mill relationships that this world offers.
Application: Christian, why live a selfish life that is all about you? Narcissism is such an empty, unsatisfying, unfulfilled way to live. Devote your life to God! Choose today that you will live a life of investing in others! Give your life over to God! Here am I Lord, send me, use me!
Application: Christian, why do you hang on to your bitterness? It’s not affecting the other person as much as its affecting you. Your bitterness is destroying you from the inside out. You might be bitter against God. You might be bitter against someone else. Either way, it is dragging you down. Let’s sit down and see what the Bible says about your situation. Let’s live freed from sin!
Next slide here:
John 10:10 KJV 1900
I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
Christian, that is what Jesus offers you. He gives you a New Identity! He gives you New Life!
During our invitation, name your sin to God. Confess it. Claim His forgiveness, and then let’s talk through the steps to begin living new life in Christ today.
Invitation
Sin
Do you need to be saved from your sins?
Salvation
Maybe there is someone here that needs to do the same thing that I have done and that so many others in this room have done also.
You need to humble yourself before God. You need to change your mind about your sin and reject it. And you need to believe on Christ alone to save you from your sins.
With no one else looking around, is there anyone who would quietly raise their hand as a way of saying, “Pastor Tim, I’m not sure I’m saved. I’m not sure that my sins are forgiven.”
We can get that settled right where you are sitting right now.
Acknowledge that I see their hand. Ask them to quietly look at me.
As best as you understand, do you realize that you are a sinner?
Are you ready to turn away from the sin in your life - the sin that Jesus died for?
Jesus died on the cross to save sinners. He did all of the work of salvation. We can’t work for it. Are you ready to trust Christ alone for salvation?
Romans 10:9–10 KJV 1900
9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Are you choosing right now in your heart to trust Jesus alone to save you from your sins?
Let’s tell the Lord that in prayer.
“Dear Lord, I know that I am a sinner. I know that I can’t save myself. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me. Right now, I am trusting Christ alone to save me. Thank you for forgiving me of my sin. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.”
Did you just tell the Lord that? Did you mean it from your heart?
Welcome to the family of God!
- - John 10:10KJV1900

Review

Introduction

Conclusion

Invitation

John 10:10KJV1900