A CHURCH OF NEW LIFE
Before we look to the Word of God I want you to know that I have some news to give you. In a moment I will share with you the Good News of Jesus Christ, but I am compelled to bring to you another more recent news of an event that has taken place.
Some of you may remember the story I am about to tell you…it happened a few years ago. It involves a lady by the name of Wanda McKinnis from Marietta, OK. Wanda gained national attention with a car accident she was involved in. It all happened when she was 86 years old and was driving to her home in the early morning hours. Unfortunately, Wanda lost control of her 1987 Pontiac Firebird and drove down a steep embankment and into a creek. Her car then flipped over and Wanda was trapped…upside down. No matter how hard Wanda tried there was just no way of escape. Her vehicle began to sink deeper and Wanda knew all hope was lost. Her life would soon come to an end.
But a miracle took place for Wanda. She found a pocket of air in the floorboard of her car that would barely keep her alive.
Picture this. An 86-year old woman is trapped in her car for more than 48 hours before she was finally rescued. During that 48 hours, Wanda had plenty of time to think about what had happened. With her face crammed into a tiny envelope of air Wanda began to think of what her life had come to. Wanda asked herself if she would ever see daylight again?
After her miraculous rescue Wanda was interviewed by the news reporters. They were amazed with her story of surviving for 48 hours alone and upside down in that creek. Her life being spared was truly a miracle when we consider her age. Her only comment to the world after her harrowing experience was this: “I told God that if He would get me out of this car alive that I might go to church.”
My point in telling you this story is to remind us that many people do not have an appreciation of how fragile life is.
Someone may spend 86 years of their life with a total disregard of where they will spend eternity. In those final fleeting moments of life some people will snub and mock God. That is, the One Who created and rescued us all from death and the grave.
This is a dangerous place to be with God.
This world needs Christ. They need to know that Jesus Christ has come to rescue us all from death and the grave.
Text: Colossians 3:1 thru 4
Prayer:
“…set your mind on things above…”
This morning I want to speak to you about what is on your mind. As with the story of Wanda, the things of God may be the last thought on some people’s mind. If you are like most people, you may have a lot of other things that you think about. You may find yourself overwhelmed with a lot of other things going on in your life?
It is easy to get wrapped up with all that is going on around us.
But our text gives us a simple direction as to what the Lord wants us to be thinking about. God wants you and I to have our minds set on the THINGS ABOVE. My friend this life is about Jesus.
We should know that we have been rescued and we have been raised from the dead (with Christ) into the newness of His life.
If Jesus Christ is not risen in us-
• Then our worship services would be in vain.
• Your faith would be in vain.
• We all would be lost in sin.
Jesus knew His resurrection was important in that He appeared some sixteen times to His followers (after His resurrection).
The resurrected Christ was seen by over 500 witnesses.
The proof of His resurrection cannot be refuted or denied.
When He showed himself to his disciples, He also ate and drank with them. The disciples touched his hands and his side, and they heard his voice, and they knew this glorious man was the same man of sorrows that had been brutally crucified on the Golgotha’s Hill.
Jesus gave to them evidence for their ears, for their eyes, and even for their sense of touch. There is no other (single) historical event documented more than the resurrection of the Son of God.
Unfortunately, mankind has made Easter Sunday a kind of a memorial of the resurrection. That is not what God had in mind. God wants us to not only celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection, but He wants us to experience it, also.
Listen carefully. Every Lord’s-day is Easter Sunday.
We are to celebrate His resurrection. Honor and glory is due to Christ who rose early on the first day of the week.
Did you know that in the days of the Old Testament (before Christ conquered death and the grave), the acceptable day of worship for God’s people was the last day of the week?
In the days of the Old Testament, the Lord’s Day was the day of rest that came at the end of each week. And we know that in Genesis, the Lord rested on the last day after He had created the universe.
Application:
Sometimes we may come to service on Sunday AM after a very long week at work. We may be thinking, “Let me just sit in my pew, be blessed of God and rest while the music plays and the people sing. I need the next few minutes of this church service to restore my weary body and my poor soul.”
This is kind of how the people of the Old Testament felt when they would come into the synagogue after six days of hard work.
In a way this kind of thinking sounds okay except that when Jesus came to earth all of that changed for the children of the Lord. What do I mean?
Jesus suffered and died on the Cross of Calvary so that we could have a new life. Amen? Jesus rose from the grave on that first Easter morning so that we could have life after death. Amen?
We are a church of New Life! Amen? We are not a dead church. Amen?
We are not a church of the Old Testament. We study and learn from the stories and great promises of the Old Testament, but we now live in the day of the New Testament Church. The church of New Life!
This is the plan of God for the church of Jesus Christ living in the New Testament. All things have been made new. Death has no longer has a grip on God’s people. Amen?
We are a church of New Life! Amen? We are not a dead church. Amen?
Example:
Did you know that after that first resurrection (Sunday) morning, the New Testament church decided to worship on the first day of the each week.
Not the last day of the week when everyone was tired and too exhausted to lift up the Name of the Lord in strength and newness.
The early New Testament church decided to do this because of the greatness and power of the Resurrected Christ. Gone were all of the Old Testament days of bondage to sin and slavery.
In honor to the Resurrected Christ, the apostles wanted to meet on the first day of each week. It was the first day of the week in which they first heard of the Resurrection Power of Jesus Christ.
And so it was that whenever they met together as a fellowship of believers their hearts were filled with the hope that Jesus would once again stand in their midst, and say,
“Peace be unto you.”
Today, some 2000 years later, the church of Jesus Christ must remember that we are still partakers of everything Jesus did.
We have been crucified with him. We have faced His death with him. We have been buried with him. And we have risen with him. We cannot separate ourselves from Who Jesus is.
Vs 3 – “your life is hidden with Christ…”
The Bible also tells us in Ephesians 2:1,
“And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
Our lives are to be lived for Jesus in newness and spiritual vitality.
We are a church of New Life! Amen? We are not a dead church. Amen?
The resurrection of Jesus has redeemed our spirit and our soul. And soon He will complete His resurrection by redeeming our body.
Set your mind on this: 1 Corinthians 15:22
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
Our text is talking about us having a spiritual resurrection.
In Christ our spirit man has been made alive by the Holy Spirit.
Example:
We know that in a physical death, a body cannot do anything for itself. In death, the eye cannot see and the ear cannot hear. The heart cannot express love and the mind cannot think or make decisions. The body is helpless and lifeless.
We are a church of New Life! Amen? We are not a dead church. Amen?
Likewise, the death of our spirit man is the same. Thank God that His Word tells us we are no longer spiritually dead.
We have been made alive by His resurrection.
We now have the newness of His resurrection. As individuals we are not dead…we have been made alive. As a church our people are not dead. We have been made alive by His resurrection.
We rejoice in that we are a resurrected church! A church of New Life!
Listen. The resurrection of Christ has placed Jesus at the right hand of Father God, Almighty. So where is Jesus? At the right hand of Father God.
Christ is now your life, and it is a life as you never known before. If you know you are risen with Christ, you should walk in the newness of His life.
Set your mind on those things above. Your life does not belong to you.
Set your mind on those things above. Your life is hidden with Christ.
Sadly ~
This is while others who are without Christ are dead and without life.
Those without Christ as their Savior, have chosen the evil of this world instead of the righteousness of God.
The lost man and woman prefer to live in this world’s darkness.
Consider the passage from Luke 20:36. It says that we are the
“sons of God in that we are the sons of the resurrection.”
I John 3:1-2
1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
What an honor this is! We were dead but now are made alive.
John 1:12
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God,
And what is this power the Bible is talking about. It is the power of His resurrection. What an amazing power this is!
This change to our spirit man is something only God himself could have accomplished.
“old things are passed away, all things have become new.”
So the man or woman renewed by the resurrection cannot live in sin. Sin used to be their grave, but no longer.
Resurrection causes us to leave those things that mean death to us. Those things of death are evil, and they are vile.
“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.”
When Christ arose from the grave, He left the sepulcher. Mary came to the tomb and was met by two angels. The angels asked a very good question: “Why seek you the living among the dead. He is not here, but is risen!”
As it was with Mary, so it should be with us. We have no reason to hang around where we were once dead in trespasses and sins.
We are a church of New Life! Amen? We are not a dead church. Amen?
We must pursue the things of God. We must leave behind those things that once held us in bondage. Find your new life in Christ.
“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are
above.”
We should also know that for forty days Jesus stayed on this earth because He still had work to do. In a sense, we also have our forty days remaining on this earth. We have work to do.
Maybe not exactly 40 days. Our 40 days may be longer, it may be shorter.
It is God Who has determined for us how long we should remain.
Let us spend the remaining resurrected and risen life we have left on this earth as Jesus spent His last 40 days. Let us live each day with our eyes looking up into the heavenlies. Let us live out our resurrected life in Christ serving Him and honoring His name.
Let everyone see that you are risen in Christ. We should be the spiritual resurrected life so that others may see the difference.
Luke 5:16
“let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works, and glorify your Father Which is in heaven.”
Your loved ones need to see your life resurrected in Christ.
Ephesians 2:5-6
5 even when we were dead in trespasses, (God) made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and (God) raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Our text says, “Seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God”;
Let us seek those things from heaven;
for “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.”
Let us seek more faith, more love, more patience, more zeal:
let us labor with greater diligence, have greater brotherly kindness, greater humility of spirit.
Let us seek those things which are pure, and honest, and of good report.
All that you are to possess in the eternity is above you, where Christ is.
We have a lot waiting for us in heaven. We have the groom waiting for His Bride. The church of Jesus Christ.
What does the bride think of when her future husband is away?
You have a right to be where Jesus is, for you are to be married to him soon. Therefore let your thoughts be with him.
“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”
What are these “things above” which we should set our affection upon? It is the residence of God. What do you see there?
First, there is God himself. Give Him your thoughts, your desires, your emotions, your love.
“Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he will give thee the desires of thine heart.”
Let nothing come between you and your heavenly Father.
We should be saying
Psalms 73:25
Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.
What do I see next? I see Jesus.
We should meditate upon His divine person, his perfect work, his glory, his second coming, his glorious reign on earth, his love for us.
Set your thoughts and cares upon him who has his blessing and affection upon you. He loves you.
Closing:
What do I see next when I look up? I see the new Jerusalem, which is that Holy City. And I see the church of Christ triumphant in heaven, and the great assembly of those who have gone on before us, whose names are written in heaven.
We should have fellowship with those who remain, but long to see those who are gone on before us.
Listen my friend, you have a enormous estate in heaven which you have never seen. And I am thinking that if I had an estate on earth, which would soon be mine, I would want to see it.
That estate in heaven is going to be mine before long. Christ has built for me many mansions.
And where Jesus is there shall I be; where Jesus sits, there I will rest for all eternity.
