Christian Life

New Creatures in Christ Jesus

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 7 Comments

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. – 2 Corinthians 5:17

Christ has made for us a new covenant. The old covenant was, “Do this and live.” That covenant was a sentence of death upon us all. We could not do, therefore we could not live, and so we died…The covenant of grace reveals God’s kindness towards us, and our part thereof has been fulfilled for us by our surety, Christ Jesus. Thus it runs, “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more for ever; a new heart also will I give them, and a right spirit will I put within them.” The old world is still under the old covenant of works, and its children perish, for they cannot carry out the conditions of the covenant, they cannot keep God’s law, they break it constantly, and they die. But the children of grace are under the new covenant of grace, and through the precious blood, which is the penalty of the old broken covenant, and through the spotless righteousness of Christ, which is the fulfilment and magnifying of the old covenant, the Christian stands secure, and rejoices that he is saved. Christ has thus made His people dwell under a new covenant, instead of under the old one.

In addition to the new covenant, Christ has been pleased to make us new men. His saints are “new creatures in Christ Jesus.” They have a new nature. God has breathed into them a new life. The Holy Spirit, though the old nature is still there, has been pleased to put within them a new nature. There is now a contending force within them-the old carnal nature inclining to evil, and the new God-given nature panting after perfection. They are new men, “begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” This new nature is moved by new principles. The old nature needed to be awed with threatenings, or bribed with rewards; the new nature feels the impulse of love. Gratitude is its mainspring: “We love Him because He first loved us.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3467.cfm

A Glorious Purpose

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, Sovereignty of God 2 Comments

“Behold, I make all things new.” And He said unto me, “Write: for these words are true and faithful.”- Revelation 21:5

It is the purpose and intention of the Lord Jesus to make this world entirely new. You recollect how it was made at first, pure and perfect. It sang with its sister-spheres the song of joy and reverence. It was a fair world, full of everything that was lovely, beautiful, happy, holy. And if we might be permitted to dream for a moment of what it would have been if it had continued as God created it, one might fancy what a blessed world it would be at this moment. Had it possessed a teeming population like its present one, and if, one by one, those godly ones had been caught away, like Elijah, without knowing death, to be succeeded by pious descendants-oh! what a blessed world it would have been! …But there came a serpent, and his craft spoiled it all. He whispered into the ears of a mother Eve; she fell, and we fell with her, and what a world this now is! …Devils could not be worse than men when their passions are let loose. Dogs would scarce tear each other as men do. Men of intellect sit down, and put their fingers to their foreheads, racking their brains to find out new ways of using gunpowder, and shot, and shell, so as to be able to blow twenty thousand souls into eternity as easily as twenty might be massacred by present appliances…. It is a dreadful world. But Jesus Christ, who knew that we should never make this world much better, let us do what we would with it, designed from the very first to make a new world of it. Truly, truly, this seems to me to be a glorious purpose. To make a world is something wonderful, but to make a world new is something more wonderful still.

Jesus Christ, coming in the form of a man, revealing Himself as the Son of God, determines to make all things new; and be assured, brethren and sisters, He will do it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3467.cfm

A New Start

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God 3 Comments

“He that sat upon the throne said, Behold I make all things new.”- Revelation 21:5

 If our calendar suggests some dismal memories in the past, our calculation forestalls some happier prospects in the future. And it will sometimes happen that we leave so much anxiety, adversity, and chastisement behind us, that it is a relief to hope that the tide has turned, and that a course of comfort, prosperity, and mercy lies before us. One weeps over the past and the lost. I suppose the best of men must do so at times. I am sure those of us who are not the best, feel often constrained to pour out some such a lamentation as this:

“Much of our time has run to waste;
Our sins, how great the sum!
Lord, give us pardon for the past,
And strength for days to come.”

I do not know but it is sometimes as well, when one has been plunged in sorrow, or feels ashamed of his past life-after having regretted that which is bygone and repented of it, and sorrowed over it-to feel as if he breathed another atmosphere, and had started on a fresh career. Having thrown away the old sword, he is now about to see what he can do with the new: having put off an old garment, he is desirous to walk more worthily of his vocation with fresh ones that are provided for him. Perhaps the thought of freshness, the fact of new time having dawned on our path, may be a little help to those of us who are dull and heavy, and we may be stirred up to action, or, if not to action, it may awaken earnest hope that the infusion of a new start into our lives, new vigour instead of the old lethargy, new love instead of the old lukewarmness, new zeal instead of the old deathlikeness; new, pertinacious, persevering industry for Christ, instead of the old idleness, may result. God grant that it may be so! ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3467.cfm

Not One Is Missing

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, prophecy, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. – Ephesians 5:30

Christ lives a perfect life. Perhaps you do not see how this is a link between His living and your living, but it is, because we are a part of Christ. According to the Word of Scripture, every believer is a member of Christ’s body. Now, a man who lives perfectly has not lost his finger, or his arm, or his hand. A man may be alive with many of his limbs taken away, but you can scarcely call him a perfect-living man. But I cannot imagine a maimed Christ. I have never been able to conceive in my soul, of Christ lacking any of His members. Such a thing was never seen on earth. The barbarous cruelty of the Jews could not effect that, and, by the Providence of God, Pilate’s officers were not permitted to cause such a thing. “Not a bone of Him shall be broken,” was the ancient prophecy. They brake the legs of the first and second thief, but when they came to the matchless Lord they saw He was already dead, so they brake not His legs. Even in His earthly body, which was the type of His spiritual body, He must suffer no maiming injury. Therefore, my brethren, because Christ lives as a perfect Christ, everyone that is one with Him must live also…Because He lives in perfect happiness, I conceive that all who are dear to Him will be round about Him. It shall not be said that He lost one of them, nor shall one of the family be missing, but:

“All the chosen seed
Shall meet around the throne,
To bless the conduct of His grace,
And make His wonders known.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3401.cfm

 

Debt Free, Praise Jesus!

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God 3 Comments

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. – Romans 4:8

You understand that so long as Jesus was here He lay under the charge of our sins. Whilst He was in the world, His Father had made to meet upon Him the iniquity of us all. But when He died, His death discharged all the liabilities of His elect. The handwriting of ordinances that was against us was then taken away. When He went to Calvary as our Surety, the sins of all His people were His debts: He had taken them upon Himself. But when He rose from the dead in the garden He had no debts of ours: He had no longer any substitutional engagement or liability. All the debts which He had taken upon Himself as our Redeemer He had fully and completely discharged. No officer can arrest a man for debt who has none, and Christ now lives, therefore, as a justified person. And,. brethren, no officer of justice can arrest any of the people for whom Christ paid their debts. How, then, shall death have any dominion over those whose debts are all discharged? How shall they be laid in prison for whom Christ was laid in prison? How shall they suffer death, which is the penalty of sin, for whom Christ has already suffered all the penalties which justice could have demanded? Because He lives the life of one who has discharged the debts of His people, they must, in justice, live.

Jesus Christ represents all the people who are in Him, and as long as He lives, they live. He is their Covenant Head. As long as Adam stands, his race shall stand; when Adam falls, the human race falls. While, therefore, Christ lives, the Christly ones, who are in Him, live through His representation. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3401.cfm

The Triumph of Christ

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Father 2 Comments

While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name: those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. – John 17:12

This is the triumph of Christ, “Of all those whom Thou hast given Me, I have lost none” Now, suppose there to be heard a whisper from the infernal pit, “aha! Aha! Thou liest! There is one here whom the Father gave Thee, but who Thou didst lose”-why, Christ would never be able to speak again by way of triumph! He could never boast any more. Then might He put down His crown. If it were but to happen in that one case, at any rate, the enemy would have got the advantage over Him, and He would not have been the Conqueror all along the line. But, glory be to God! He who trod the winepress with none for His assistant, came forth out of the crimson conflict, having smitten all His foes, and won a complete victory. There shall not be in the whole campaign a single point over which Satan shall be able to boast.

Christ has brought many sons to glory as the Captain of their salvation, and never yet has He failed, and He never shall in any point, neither the least nor the greatest, neither the strongest nor the weakest. This is essential, dear friends. It is essential to the acclamations of heaven, that every soul that believes in Jesus should live for ever. It is essential to the everlasting harmony and to the joy of Christ throughout Eternity, that all who trust in Him should be preserved and kept safe, even until the end.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3401.cfm

Life Incorruptible

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit 5 Comments

And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. – 1 John 5:11

“Now Jehovah’s banner’s furled,
Sheathed His sword because ’tis done”;

Reel, ye pillars of earth! Be shaken, ye arches of the starry heavens! Pass away, O Time, and you ye rolling worlds, dissolve into your native nothingness! But the believer must live on, because Jesus lives, and until the Lord’s Christ can bow His head, till He who hath immortality can expire, till God Himself can cease to be, no soul that believed in Jesus can lose the life incorruptible which God’s own Spirit hath put within it.

I want to sing, brethren, rather than to talk with you. These are words and thoughts fit for some ancient bard, or for the spirit of some inspired prophet sent from heaven. I do but lisp where even seraphs might find their loudest songs fail in the them. Let your hearts mount! Let your souls exult! Let your spirits be glad! Do you

“Long for evening to undress,
That you may rest with God,”

and enter into His heaven? Long for the evening of death, when your toil shall be over, and the hour of your bliss shall have come.  ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/3401.cfm