Freedom in Christ Lesson 2 Podcast
Freedom in Christ Lesson 2: Who am I?
Focus Verse:
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)
17 Therefore, if anyone is
in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold,
all things have become new.
Objective: To realize that deep down inside we are
now completely new creations in Christ, “holy ones” who are accepted, secure,
and significant.
Focus Truth: Your decision to follow Christ was the
defining moment of your life and led to a complete change in who you are now.
Psalm 33:10-11 (NKJV)
10 The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He makes
the plans of the peoples of no effect.
11 The counsel of the LORD stands forever, The plans of His
heart to all generations.
Job 42:2 (NKJV)
2 "I know that You can do
everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
21 There are many plans in a man's
heart, Nevertheless the LORD'S
counsel--that will stand.
John 4:24 (NKJV)
24 God is
Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
John 3:5-6 (NKJV)
5 Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of
water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
6 That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
This spiritual
life, this connection to God, gave Adam three very significant things:
1.
Acceptance
Adam had an
intimate relationship with God. He could talk with Him at any time and have His
full attention.
2.
Significance
Adam was given a
purpose for being –
Genesis 1:26 (NKJV)
26 Then God said, "Let
Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion
over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over
all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
3.
Security
He was totally safe
and secure in God’s presence. Everything he needed was provided for – food,
shelter, companionship – everything!
Here’s the key
thing to get hold of. You were created for that kind of life: One that
includes:
·
complete
acceptance by God and other people, - Christian Community
·
significance
– having a real purpose and a designation of value and importance; and
·
absolute
security – with no need to worry about a single thing.
Pause for Thought 1
Questions:
What prompted you to come to the Freedom in Christ Course
and what are your hopes for it?
What were the consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin? What
are the ways it caused their relationship with God to change?
What sort of things in our daily lives promise to make us
feel accepted, significant, and secure?
______________________________________________________________________
What Jesus Came to Do
John 10:10 (NKJV)
10 …. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
Other verses in John referring to the
life Jesus came to bring: John 6:48; 11:25; 14:6.
John 6:48-50 (NKJV)
48 I
am the bread of life.
49 Your
fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
50 This
is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.
John 11:25 (NKJV)
25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in
Me, though he may die, he shall live.
John 14:6 (NKJV)
6 Jesus said to him, "I
am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through
Me.
Eternal life is not just something you get when you die, It’s a whole different quality of life right now (John 5:24).
John 5:24 (NKJV) 24 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)
17 Therefore, if anyone is
in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold,
all things have become new.
“If you are not sure that you are that you are a Christian then
it’s a matter of choosing to receive God’s free gift and making Him your Lord.
Simply thank God that He sent Jesus to die for you when you were in a
completely hopeless state and accept Him as your Lord and Savior. There’ll be
an opportunity to do this at the end of the session.”
Can you be partly old creation and partly new? No!
Ephesians 5:8 (NKJV)
8 For you were once darkness, but
now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
Can you be both light and darkness? Not according to that verse.
Many of us have come to think of ourselves as a “sinner
saved by grace.”
You certainly were a sinner, and you were saved by grace
alone. But here’s an interesting verse.
Romans 5:8 (NKJV)
8 But God demonstrates His own love
toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Past tense. This verse seems to imply that we’re no longer
sinners.
In the New Testament, the word “sinner” appears over 300
times. But it’s clearly a shorthand way of referring to people who are not yet
Christians. You never see it applied to a Christian, at least not in terms of who
they are now, only in terms of who they used to be.
There’s another word that is shorthand for believers and
you’ll find it over 200 times.
Traditionally in English this word has been translated “saint”, but it
really means “holy ones,” Languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and
French don’t have this problem “– the same word still means both “holy one” and
“saint’.
“Although in some
traditions it is common to use the word “saint” to refer to a Christian role
mode whose life on earth is complete, the Bible uses it to refer to
Christian believers in local churches”.
Yes, you are holy. Set apart by God. Special. At the moment you became a Christian – even if you can’t pinpoint the exact moment – you became completely new in your inner person. Who you are deep down inside changed from being someone who couldn’t help but displease God to someone who is accepted, significant, and secure in Christ.
______________________________________________________________________
Pause for Thought 2
Questions:
John 10:10 says that Jesus came to bring us life in all
its fullness. What do you think that might look like in practice?
How might knowing that we are “saints” or “holy ones”
instead of “sinners” change how we see ourselves?
What are some of the things that could prevent us from
fully knowing that we are now new creations in Christ who are completely
forgiven?
______________________________________________________________________
However, that doesn’t mean that we are living in a state of
sinless perfection. The Bible is clear:
1 John 1:8 (NKJV)
8 If we say that we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
We will go wrong from time to time.
Perhaps an accurate way to describe us would be “saints who
sometimes sin.”
When we do wrong, we need simply to go to our loving Father,
agree with Him that we were wrong, change our thinking about sin, turn away
from it, and know our sin is already forgiven because of Christ’s work on the
cross.
The truth is: nothing you do can make God love you any more
– or any less. If you were the only person in the whole world who needed Christ
to die, He would have died just for you. That’s how special you are!
I’ve posted the “Who I am in Christ” list on the mt4christ.org
blog post for Lesson 2 of The Freedom in Christ Course. Neil Anderson has taken
a variety of verses from the Bible that tells us who we really are if we have
decided to follow Jesus and has put them in the “I” form. Let’s read them together.
Who I am in Christ
I AM ACCEPTED IN CHRIST
I renounce the lie that I am
rejected, unloved, or shameful. In Christ, I am accepted. God says:
I
am God’s Child (John 1:12)
I
am Christ’s Friend (John 15:15)
I
have been justified (Romans 5:1)
I
am united with the Lord and one with Him in Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17)
I
have been bought with a price; I belong to God (1 Corinthians 6:20)
I
am a member of Christ’s body (1 Corinthians 12:27)
I
am a saint, a holy one (Ephesians 1:1)
I
have been adopted as God’s child (Ephesians 1:5)
I
have direct access to God through the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:18)
I
have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins (Colossians 1:14)
I
am complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10)
I AM SECURE IN CHRIST
I renounce the lie that I am
guilty, unprotected, alone, or abandoned. In Christ, I am secure. God says:
I
am free forever from condemnation (Romans 8:1)
I
am assured that all things work together for good (Romans 8:28)
I
am free from the condemning charges against me (Romans 8:33-34)
I
cannot be separated from the love of God (Romans 8:35, 38-39)
I am a citizen
of heaven (Philippians 3:20)
I am hidden with
Christ in God (Colossians 3:3)
I
have been established, anointed, and sealed by God (2 Corinthians 1:21-22)
I
can find grace and mercy to help me in time of need (Hebrews 4:16)
I
am born of God, and the evil one cannot touch me (1 John 5:18)
I have not been given a spirit of
fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind (2 Tim 1:7)
I am confident that the good work
God has begun in me will be perfected. (Phil 1:6)
I AM SIGNIFICANT IN CHRIST
I renounce the lie that I am worthless,
inadequate, helpless, or hopeless. In Christ, I am significant. God says:
I
am the salt and light of the earth (Matthew 5:13-14)
I
am a branch of the true vine, a channel to His life (John 15:1,5)
I
have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit (John 15:16)
I
am a personal Spirit-empowered witness of Christ (Acts 1:8)
I
am God’s temple (1 Corinthians 3:16)
I
am a minister of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-20)
I
am fellow worker with God (2 Corinthians 6:1)
I
am seated with Christ in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 2:6)
I
am God’s workmanship, created for good works (Ephesians 2:10)
I
may approach God with freedom and confidence (Ephesians 3:12)
I
can do all things through Christ who gives me strength (Philippians 4:13)
I am not the
great “I Am,” but by the grace of God I am what I am.
You may have been sitting here
thinking “Does all this apply to me?” If you are a Christian the answer is a
definite yes- but if you are not a Christian it doesn’t. If you are not quite
sure you are a Christian or know that you are not, it’s very easy for you to
make a decision to make Jesus the Lord of your life. You can do that by speaking
to Him in your own heart.
If you want to, you can pray it
with me. Let’s pray: Thank You, Jesus, for dying in my place to take away all
of my sin. Right now I accept Your free gift of life. I choose to make you Lord
of my life so that I can become someone completely new. Thank you that I belong
to You and now am Your child.”
If you prayed that prayer for the
first time, go and tell someone. It will make their day. It means that the list
of Biblical facts we read now definitely apply to you.
There was a pastor who loved
skiing. One season he was given a brand-new electric pass you don’t even have
to take out of your pocket to go through the gate to the ski lift. But
sometimes when he tried to get through the gate the screen said, “not valid.”
However, he found that if he
jumped around in front of the gate long enough, it would eventually let him through,
He finally discovered the problem. In another pocket in his ski jacket, he was
carrying the old card from the previous year and the machine sometimes reading
the old card rather than the new one. The moment he got rid of the old card,
the problem disappeared.
As a believer in Christ you now
have a new card, a new identity. Get rid of your old way of thinking because
your old identity has gone, and your new identity has come. Begin to recognize
who you really are in Christ!
Reflection
Encourage people to face each other
and look at each other as they speak. Ask them to speak slowly, deliberately,
and meaningfully. Some will find this a little uncomfortable, but it can be
incredibly powerful.
Get together with one other person
and have the first person read the Who I AM in Christ statements to the other
changing the I am to You Are:
Read the List
Now that you have said these
statements about yourself, and I have confirmed them personally to you as true.
Use this week to reflect on them. I also invite you to look up the Bible verses
for each statement and to read and reflect on them.
Think about which statements impacted
you and why. Spend some time praying to God to thank Him for the new person He
has made you to be in your inner person. Ask God to give you a deeper
understanding of the acceptance, security, and significance that you have
received in Christ.
Let me close in prayer:
Dear heavenly Father,
Thank you for giving
us a new eternal life through our faith in Jesus Christ. I pray that all who
attend the class in person or via the podcast come to a better understanding of
who they are in Christ in both their minds and in their hearts. I pray that the
Holy Spirit will bless them with new revelations and insights and a new passion
to experience and live out their freedom in Christ. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
In the Coming Week: Read the Who I Am
in Christ List out loud every day. Then pick one of the truths that is
particularly meaningful to you and spend some time reading it in its context
and asking God to help you understand it more fully.
Thank You for your interest!
We pray that you have made Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior of your life and that you are becoming to know your acceptance, security, and significance in Christ.
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