Sermon Notes for Sunday June 29, 2008

The following are sermon notes for Sunday June 29, 2008

PROPER 8, YEAR A

Isaiah 2:22

Whom will we follow? Man/creature or God/Creator

Romans 9:20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?"

BAPTISM

Baptism is an act that not only symbolizes but also propels one into the reality of the thing symbolized.

Galatians 3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

The sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.

1 Cor. 12:13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

Col. 2:12 . . . having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

What Jesus began in the wilderness, he guaranteed at the cross. Christ’s Reign of LIFE overpowered Satan’s reign of DEATH.

Why would we give back to Satan what Christ has delivered us from?

NEW CREATION

“Crucify” the old self [Romans 6.6] can also mean to “fence off” the old self.

Galatians 2:20 It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 6:14-15 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. [15] For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

If the old self has been crucified and buried, why do we exhume it and try to keep it going?

2 Cor. 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Col. 3:9-10 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices [10] and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Ephes. 4:22-25 . . . to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, [23] and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, [24] and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. [25] Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

SUBMIT TO GOD

Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

James 4:7-10 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. [8] Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. [9] Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. [10] Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

This no game of ‘let’s pretend’; believers should consider themselves to be what God in fact has made them. It is no vain exercise but one which is morally fruitful: the Spirit has come to make effective in them what Christ has done for them, and to enable them to become in daily experience . . . what they already are ‘in Christ Jesus’ and what they will be fully in the resurrection life.

- F.F. Bruce “Romans”, p. 132, regarding 6:11