1 Peter 1:23, Titus 3:5-6, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 8:15-16, 1 John 5:6-8, John 14:15-17, John 7:37-39
Hannah was one of my wife’s work colleagues. She used to love spending time with our congregation, but she found the gospel message just plain weird. We did some Bible studies with her over the summer...
Hope remains possible even amid our failures—whether we disappoint God, let down our families, or fall short of our own expectations—because divine compassion operates like an inexhaustible well. Each...
Eyes of Faith Verse 17 summarizes the Apostle Paul’s argument in this passage: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Throughou...
preaching commentary Scripture’s proclivity for a new creation Some people have an aversion to describing a future day when the troubles of this world will have passed into oblivion, the kitchen-ta...
Preaching Commentary a brief introduction I would like to start with a rather big question. How do we know that we are, in fact, Christians? We find some direction from Jesus on this subject in Mat...
Scripture’s proclivity for a new creation Some people have an aversion to describing a future day when the troubles of this world will have passed into oblivion, the kitchen-table expression being “p...
Redemption is a recovering and restoring of the original. The person who experiences redemption in Christ remains the same person, even though the transformation from the sinner dead-in-sins to the sa...
Titus 3:5-6, John 3:5, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Matthew 3:16-17, Genesis 1:1-2
At the very beginning of creation, the book of Genesis tells us, there was watery chaos. And over that watery chaos there was, depending on how you read the Hebrew, the Holy Spirit hovering or a great...
To partake of the new creation is to see Christ for the first time. And his glory changes us. “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image fr...
Thus a Christian life is nothing else than a daily baptism, begun once and continuing ever after. For we must keep at it without ceasing, always purging whatever pertains to the old Adam, so that what...
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconci...
Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself....
In his excellent book on worship, The Dangerous Act of Worship , pastor and president of Fuller Seminary Mark Labberton shares a story of the transformation of one of his former congregants: Ben ...
Pastor: If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. All: Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that a...
Jesus’s resurrection opened a door between the fallen, groaning world into which he was born and the renewal of all things. That door was a stone rolled back by the very finger of God from the mouth o...
Silently lost in adoration within the dust before God is preparation for the ultimate answer to all questions: one’s becoming a new creature in Christ Jesus.
We are to be re-made. All the rabbit in us is to disappear-and then, surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong,...
Revelation 21:1-6, Psalm 42:1-2, Psalm 63:1, Isaiah 55:1, John 4:13-14, John 6:35, John 7:37-38, Revelation 1:5, Revelation 5:9, Revelation 7:14, Revelation 19:13, Exodus 40:34-48, John 1:14
Preaching Commentary A Revelation and a Prophecy The Revelation of Jesus Christ can be overwhelming to read and difficult to understand due to its heavy use of imagery and symbolism. However, the o...
Acts 2:1-21, Luke 24:49, Acts 1:8, Acts 1:15, Exodus 20:null, Acts 2:9-11, 1 Samuel 10:10, Ezekiel 7:1-14, 1 Kings 19:11-12, Joel 2:28-32, Genesis 11:7-9
Preaching Commentary Clothed with Power I have a daughter who cannot acquire enough clothes. Every birthday, Christmas, or special occasion is an opportunity to shop online for something new. Fashi...
God's kingdom is launched through Jesus and particularly through his death and resurrection; but, by the Spirit, this kingdom is not an escape from the present world but rather its transformation,...
The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creation. Not to make people with better...
I love that part in The Silver Chair when old age simply vanishes from frail King Caspian, because age is the unavoidable meltdown, stripping even the bravest and most beautiful of their former glor...
O God, our resurrection and life, the promise of Your new life in Christ is like a breath of fresh air in a dry and thirsty land. We have gathered as believers, and as those who are honestly seeking t...
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5, Revelation 21:2, 10, 22-27, Revelation 22:1-5, 1 Kings 6:20, Genesis 12:1-3, Genesis 2:9, Genesis 3:23-24, Genesis 1:28, Genesis 2:15, Genesis 3:17-19, 1 Corinthians 15:58, Ephesians 6:5-9, Colossians 3:23, Genesis 1:26-27, Exodus 33:20-23, John 14:9, Colossians 1:15, Hebrews 1:3, Mark 15:34, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Exodus 28:15-21, 29-30, John 4:13-14, John 7:37-38, Matthew 27:46, John 3:2, Romans 8:29
Preaching Commentary Pulling Back the Curtain The Revelation of Jesus Christ is a “pulling back of the curtain” to reveal both the unseen realities of the present (what is really going on in the wo...
Introduction Easter stands out from every other day. It’s time to celebrate and to reflect: how will you “preach the resurrection” and proclaim the new life we have in Jesus Christ? How do we invite ...
Where his activity is recognized, there is ‘new creation’ (2 Cor. 5.17): his active presence is associated with an entirely new frame of reference for perceiving human agency and human hope.
This is the paschal feast, the Lord’s passing from death to life: so cries the Spirit. …You have protected us, Jesus, from endless disaster. You spread your hands like a mother and, mothe...
He goes 'to prepare a place for us.’ This presumably means that He is about to create that whole new Nature which will provide the environment or conditions for His glorified humanity and, in Him,...
Christ followers were first called Christians at Antioch—about fifteen years after the birth of the church at Pentecost. There must have been something remarkable about this particular group of believ...
Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord's...