Currently
at Yucaipa Church of the Nazarene we are doing a series entitled “The Journey”
The material covered in this series is not my original work but is based on the
study of the same name by Chic Shaver. For decades, new Christians have used
this material to introduce themselves to the basics of Christianity. In fact, I
went through this material as a new Christian in 1985. Shaver’s series is an
eight-week personal or small group bible study for people new to Christianity.
Each sermon will summarize a lesson allowing each listener to then can lead
another through series.
To
introduce this series, Shaver writes, “If you have invited Christ into your
life, then you have begun a relationship with Him. The Scriptures in this study
will help you to better understand what it means to begin your new life with
Christ living inside you. And like in any new relationship, there will be highs
and lows in your walk Christ as you learn to navigate your journey together”
Week one of
the study is entitled, “Your New Life in Christ”. Here there are five basic descriptions of how
our live becomes new as we begin our relationship with Jesus. First, your life
becomes new as a child. In his gospel John writes, “12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in
his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12). This is
great news for those who come to Christ with a sense of being alone, or having
been raised in a poor environment.
This new life was not by our doing,
but by invitation. Your new life is begun as Jesus sought you out for
the purposes of a personal relationship. Notice the words of Revelation 3:20
“20 Here I am! I
stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I
will come in and eat with that person, and they with me”. Jesus knocks at our door and any one may
answer His voice. His goal
is to share life together. This happens when we open our hearts through earnestness
and repentance.
Continuing
with how our life becomes new, we discover that our new life rightly deals with
the problem of sin. Though many fail to realize the true nature of our
problems, Jesus deals with it as primary. Notice the very reason Jesus reveals
about the very reason for His coming. Luke 19:10 states, “10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Along
the same lines, Romans 3:23 states,
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.
Bringing this thought full circle are Paul’s words on the subject in Romans
6:22-23. “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves
of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord.”. We realize the solution provided by Christ when we confess
our sin. When we confess our sin, God is faithful and just in His forgiveness
(1 John 1:9).
Being that Christ calls us to
repentance, we come to see that our new life is received. It is received
as a gift per Ephesians 2:8-9 “8 For it is by grace you have been
saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God 9 not by works, so that no one can
boast.” This opens the possibility for all the good God has planned for us as described
in Ephesians 2:10. Here Paul writes, “10
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
prepared in advance for us to do.
Finally, our new life is a
journey of believing and knowing. We know God through Jesus. John 14:6,9, “6
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me.” This
believing produces confidence that we have eternal life. 1 John 5:13
reveals “I write these things to you who believe
in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
With this confidence, I challenge each and every one of us to take one
step at a time every day. This small challenge will propel us into wonderful journey
with our Creator.
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