GBSC Principles of the Christian Life I - Lecture 2 - The Nature of the Christian Life

1. Th 140
Principles of the Christian Life I
The Nature of the Christian Life

2. The Essence of a Christian

The essence of being a Christian is
1.
having a right relationship with God and His
Son.



John 17:3 “This is eternal life, that they may know
You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You
have sent.” (NASB)
Eternal life flows from being rightly related to God.
1 John 5:11 … God has given us eternal life, and this
life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has the life;
he who does not have the Son of God does not have
the life.

3. The Essence of a Christian
2.
being an apprentice to Jesus = learning
how to thinking like Him about every area
of life so you can live like him in every
area of life.

John 8:31 Then Jesus said to those Judeans who had
believed him, "If you continue to follow my teaching,
you are really my disciples

4. I.
Our Problem as Sinners
1. We were dead in trespasses and sins.

Since spiritual life is having a right relationship
with God, being dead must mean being
alienated from God.
Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in your
trespasses and sins,

5. I.
Our Problem as Sinners
2. We used to “walk” in our trespasses and
sins.
Ephesians 2:2 in which you formerly walked
according to the course of this world, according
to the prince of the power of the air, of the
spirit that is now working in the sons of
disobedience.

“Walk” means to “live” in this verse

Verse 3 describes this life as one that indulges
the desires of the flesh and mind.

6. I.
Our Problem as Sinners
3. We were alienated and enemies of God.


Colossians 1:21 And although you were formerly
alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil
deeds,
Romans 5:10 For if while we were enemies we
were reconciled to God through the death of His
Son, much more, having been reconciled, we
shall be saved by His life.

7. I.
Our Problem as Sinners
4. All our righteousness (our good works) is
like filthy rags.
Isaiah 64:6 For all of us have become like one who
is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a
filthy* garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and
our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
*filthy = menstrual

8. II. God’s Provision for Sinners
1. God provides salvation and offers it to all
men.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He
gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish, but have
eternal life.

9. II. God’s Provision for Sinners
2. God enables all men to respond to the truth.

Romans 1:20-21 … since the creation of the
world His invisible attributes, His eternal power
and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being
understood through what has been made, so
that they are without excuse. 21 For even
though they knew God, they did not honor Him
as God or give thanks

10. III. Our Response to God’s
Provision
1. Recognize that we deserve his wrath and
Hell

Ephesians 2:3 Among them we too all formerly
lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the
desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by
nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

11. III. Our Response to God’s
Provision
2. Confess our rebellion, sinfulness, idolatry

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful
and righteous to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

12. III. Our Response to God’s
Provision
3. Repent—turn from our idols to serve God
only, asking forgiveness for our sins


Acts 3:19 Therefore repent and return, so that
your sins may be wiped away, in order that
times of refreshing may come from the
presence of the Lord;
See also 1 Thess. 1:9

13. III. Our Response to God’s
Provision
4. Believe that Jesus is God’s Son and that He
died & rose to provide us salvation

Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your
mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart
that God raised Him from the dead, you will be
saved;

14. III. Our Response to God’s
Provision
5.
Begin as an apprentice / follower of Jesus.

Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to His
disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he
must deny himself, and take up his cross and
follow Me.

15. IV. God’s Salvation
1. God has reconciled us to himself through
the death of His Son on the cross.

Colossians 1:22 yet He has now reconciled you
in His fleshly body through death, in order to
present you before Him holy and blameless and
beyond reproach–
2. We are new creatures created in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creature; the old things
passed away; behold, new things have come.

16. IV. God’s Salvation
3. We are quickened together with Christ
(made alive spiritually).

Ephesians 2:5 even when we were dead in our
transgressions, made us alive together with
Christ (by grace you have been saved),

17. IV. God’s Salvation
4. We become sons and daughters of God,
members of God’s Family


John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them
He gave the right to become children of God,
even to those who believe in His name,
Focus: Loving Relationship with God our Father
through Jesus, our High Priest and Brother.

18. IV. God’s Salvation
5. We become members of Christ’s Body


1 Corinthians 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all
baptized into one body,
Focus: Loving Relationship with our fellow
members in the Body.

19. IV. God’s Salvation
6. We become citizens of the Kingdom


Colossians 1:13 For He rescued us from the
domain of darkness, and transferred us to the
kingdom of His beloved Son,
The Kingdom has …




A King – Jesus
Laws – God’s law
A culture – the values, perspectives, and institutions
established by God’s word
A mission – making disciples

20. The Contexts of the Christian
Life

21. V. Our Response to God’s
Salvation
1. Grateful Self-Sacrifice

Out of gratitude for …




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the new life God has given us
freedom from sin’s power
the inheritance we have been given,
sonship,
all of God’s mercies,

22. V. Our Response to God’s
Salvation
… we give our new life back to God as a living
sacrifice – we are all His, every part of us.
Romans 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the
mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy
sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual
service of worship.

23. V. Our Response to God’s
Salvation
2. Believing Self-Yielding

We believe (reckon) that we are indeed free
from sin and yield ourselves to God as his
servants. He is the master; we are the slave.
Romans 6:11-13 Even so consider yourselves to be dead
to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so
that you obey its lusts,
13
and do not go on presenting the members of your body
to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present
yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your
members as instruments of righteousness to God.

24. VI. God’s Response to our
Consecration

Entire Sanctification by Spirit-filling

God sanctifies us entirely – spirit, soul,
body.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 Now may the God of
peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may
your spirit and soul and body be preserved
complete, without blame at the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you,
and He also will bring it to pass.

25. VI. God’s Response to our
Consecration

God’s Spirit takes full control of us (“fills us”).
Ephesians 5:18 And do not get drunk with wine,
for that is dissipation, but be filled with the
Spirit,

Illustration: Back seat driver.

26. VII. Life after Entire Sanctification
1. Joyous, God-glorifying service.

We live out our lives in joyous, grateful, loving
service, striving to please Him in everything, to
glorify Him in all we do, and to grow more and
more into the image of His Son.
Ephesians 2:10 For we are His workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus for good works, which
God prepared beforehand so that we would walk
in them.

27. VII. Life after Entire Sanctification
2. Continued apprenticeship to Jesus = growth
in Christlikeness


We “press toward the mark of the high calling
of God in Christ Jesus” = full Christlikeness (Phil.
3:14)
As we discover areas in our lives which are not
like Jesus, we cleanse ourselves from such
“filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting
holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1)

28. VII. Life after Entire Sanctification
3. Abiding in Christ


We are created in Him, it is only as we are “in
Christ” that we have spiritual life.
Our spiritual life exists only through our union
with Christ.

29. Abiding in Christ

John 15 pictures this union as a branch in a vine.
Christ teaches us that unless we are abiding in him
we can do nothing, we cannot produce fruit, we
will be nothing but a dead dry branch fit only for
the fire.
John 15:4-5 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot
bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither
can you unless you abide in Me. "I am the vine, you are the
branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much
fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

30. Abiding in Christ

How do we abide in Christ?
1.
2.
Depend totally upon Christ for everything.
Bring his word in to abide in us (memorize,
meditate, assimilate, and practice God’s word).
1 John 2:24 As for you, let that abide in you which you
heard from the beginning [the Word of God]. If what
you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also
will abide in the Son and in the Father.
1 John 3:24 The one who keeps His commandments
abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He
abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.