Rooted In Christ, Part One
March 19, 2019
One of my favorite questions to ask a new Christian is this: How is Jesus changing you? Or how has Jesus changed you? Without hesitation they have an answer: “I feel clean.” Or “I feel free.” Or“I feel like a great burden has been lifted.” I remember clearly the change I experienced, “I felt this overwhelming sense of peace.” My search for meaning in life had ended, because I’d found in Jesus what I’d been searching for all my life.” “I now knew God and God knew me.” And I was simply able to rest from my fears, my worries, my anxieties about life.
But soon there was another change that occurred in me that blew me away. God instantly cleaned up my mouth. Now this wasn’t something I consciously tried to make happen. Like knowing that now that I was a Christian I need to stop swearing. That wasn’t my experience. It was more like God’s presence in me overpowered whatever was foul in me, and the need to swear was just gone. It vanished. And I was left with this profound sense that I was a new person on the inside. And it wasn’t too long before I found out why. The reason I had changed had nothing to do with me, but had everything to do with what God had done for me.
What I learned about my salvation was that God saved me to change me. Although God had saved me from a life without Him, a life without meaning and a life without hope, I quickly understood that God saved me for a whole new life. And that new life began the moment I put my faith in Jesus. For at the moment I put my trust in Jesus, God joined my life with Jesus’ life. Jesus had taken up residence within me by His Spirit; and because my life had been united with Christ’s life, and I was a brand new person inside. And now God was changing me from the inside out.This is what it means to be rooted in Christ.
Becoming a Christian means more than believing that Jesus Christ did certain things for you long ago. It means that Jesus Christ joins his life to yours in such an intimate and comprehensive way that every about you is about to change. What I’m talking about is what God does in you that enables you to now live the Christian life. The Christian life is all about grace. You couldn’t save yourself, so God gave you a Savior. And you can’t change yourself, so God gave you Jesus to change you.
Let me ask you: Have you ever been frustrated with the lack of progress in your faith? Have you ever felt like there was a gap between the truth of what God’s Word says your life should be and the reality you experience everyday? For example: Jesus said,“Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” John 7:38 Now, you believe what Jesus said is true, because he said it. But when you look at your life, this river of living water seems more like an occasional trickle. And you wonder, what gives? Why is there this gap between what God’s Word says I should be experiencing, and my everyday reality? If you’ve ever wanted to really experience this new life Jesus promises, but you’re not changing as much or as quickly as you hoped, then what we’re going to look at today may just change everything for you. Because the truth is God saved you to change you. But you can’t change yourself anymore than you can save your self. But the good news is that God gave you Jesus to change you. The moment you trusted in Jesus, God united Jesus life with your life, so that your life is now rooted in Christ. And now…
Being “in Christ” Changes Everything About You! Listen to how Paul describes your salvation: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.”2 Corinthians 5:17 This is what it means to be rooted in Christ. You are a new creation in Christ. Ephesians 2:10 says it this way: For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10 You are now a masterpiece of God’s grace. The word, “handiwork” is the word used of a unique piece of art, or a masterpiece of poetry. In other words, the moment you received Jesus by faith, you became God’s best creative work – a new life, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for you to do. When God united you to Jesus, Jesus made you an amazing new person with God infused potential. He changes everything about you.
Peter says it this way: Praise be to the God and Fatherof our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.1 Peter 1:3 When God united Jesus’ life to your life, you were born again spiritually. This means you can know God personally and spiritually. Because Jesus is alive in you, you have a living hope, because Jesus rose from the dead. He will never die again. You will never die again. You are a new creation in Christ.
And by the way, notice too, that once you are united with Christ, the old you is gone. You’re no longer the center of your life. Jesus is. You no longer have to obey the cravings of your flesh. You are now free from the spirit of the age that says, “Do your own thing.” Once you were held captive to self where the only way you knew how to make life work was to embrace yourself, express yourself and exalt yourself. Now that too has changed, because the life of Jesus has come to you. For when Jesus comes alive in you, all of sudden you find yourself wanting to embrace Jesus, glorify Jesus, and exalt Jesus. Now, that’s a change! You are no longer the center of your universe. Jesus is. And that’s a change that only God can make. But that’s just the beginning.
For your union with Christ changes so much more about you. So for the remainder of our time today, I want to unpack at three of these changes from the letter to the Ephesians. And the first change is found in Ephesians 1, where we see that…
Being “in Christ” Changes Your Story Look at this first life changing truth: For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. Ephesians 1:4 Tennessee Williams once described one of his characters as a “water plant,” suggesting that she was rootless and dislocated, cut off from her history, and adrift… This displacement is a recurring theme in modern literature, and social theorists have increasingly commented on our growing sense of loneliness, especially as societies become more transient. This feeling of being unmoored, of being disconnected from our roots, might explain the proliferation of websites and television shows that help trace one’s ancestry. We long to be connected to something bigger than ourselves.
But here God’s Word tells us that your union with Christ connects you to a history far longer than you could ever trace in a family tree. It stretches from eternity past to eternity future and puts everything in between into fresh perspective. It tells you that God’s love for you stretches back before creation. It tells you that God has always had a plan for your life. Your life has purpose and meaning. It tells you that God has always wanted you to be with Him. And it tells you that God has always intended to make some thing beautiful of your life. For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.
God’s plan has always been to unite you with Jesus, so that you could stand pure and without blemish before Him. Do you know what sort of picture Paul is painting here? It’s a wedding picture. It’s a picture of a close intimate bond between God and His beloved. You, you who are united in Christ are His beloved! You have always been His beloved. And now by uniting Jesus’ life with your life, you can know His everlasting love for you on a daily basis. God loves you. He has always loved you. He will always love you. And the moment He united Jesus life with your life, He changed your story. Your life is now rooted in history with God.
So God has changed your story. For by uniting you with Jesus you now have a relationship with the Father, that is closer, more central, more defining, and more important that any other relationship you have or ever could have; closer than your relationship with your parents, your spouse, your children, even your own body. Indeed it is closer than any other union which you can possibly imagine.
So, being in Christ changes your story, because you are no longer alone. You are known by God who gave His only Son to die for you to bring you to Him. Being in Christ changes your story, because your life now has purpose. Everything in your life, the good, the tragic, the confusing, the beautiful all takes on meaning, because you now understand why God sent His Son to die for the world. And being in Christ changes your story, because you now know that God’s not done with you. He united you with Jesus so He could change your life and make something beautiful with your life. And that’s just the first change we see here!
Now the second: Being “in Christ” Changes Your Identity Look at verses 5-8a with me, In love he predestined us for adoption to Sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.Ephesians 1:5-6 Here’s where the genius of God’s grace gets even more personal. God didn’t just want you to be with Him. God wanted to make you part of His family. That’s what this word “predestined” means. This is the how of God’s plan to make you His own. He determined in the council of His will, that the only way to make you His own was to adopt you through Jesus. In this way, not only would you gain the character and purity of Christ, but you would now take on the identity of Christ as true son or daughter, a true child of God.
This is one thing that cannot be done in the legal process of adoption today. Today, when you adopt a child, you go through a process that ends when the judge transfers all legal rights of adoption to the parents. And this is great. The adopted child now belongs to her parents and the child receives a new identity – a new name. This is what happened with Jackson Cooper. Baby Jackson was by product of the union of two drug addicts. There was no way they could keep him. So he was going to become a ward of the State if no one stepped in to adopt him. But Joe and Amy Cooper heard about the plight of this boy and decided to adopt him. But it wasn’t until the judge finalized this adoption that Joe and Amy became the legal parents of Jackson. And at that moment, Jackson became their son and took on a new identity. He got a new name: Jackson was now a Cooper.
This is part of what happens when anyone trusts in Jesus! God unites you with Jesus and declares you are His. We get His name. He makes us heirs with Christ. That is why we now enjoy every right and privilege that belongs to Jesus. And that is why we can call God our Father, and He can call us His children. That’s our legal status.
But His adoption goes one step further when He unites us with Christ. For when He does, He gives us His very nature – His DNA. He gives us His Spirit! And now it is God’s Spirit in us that changes everything. Now we are not just the legal sons and daughters of God, but are true Spiritual Sons and Daughters of God. This is the wonder of God’s grace:He literally unites His life to ours. Romans 8:15-16 says: “For you did not receivea spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of Sonship. And by Him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”
Do you see how this changes you? Now that you’ve received the Spirit of Sonship, the Holy Spirit: Christ’s riches are your riches, His righteousness is your righteousness, and His power is your power. His privilege is your privilege: what He is we are. His possession is our possession: what He has we have. And the one thing we now have is this: His relationship is our relationship! You can cry “Abba, Father” and know He hears your cry. Being in Christ changes your identity. You are now the apple of God’s eye. You belong to Him. You carry His DNA. You are the beloved. That’s good news! But were not done yet. There’s one more change God makes by uniting you with Jesus and that is this:
Being “in Christ” Changes Your Destiny In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. Ephesians 1:11-12 Not only has God changed your story, changed your identity, He has also changed your destiny. But your destiny is not what first comes to mind when I use that word. Most of us think of destiny as our eternal destiny, an eternal life with God after we die. Yes, that is part of our destiny. It is the hope that anchors our souls. But that’s not the destiny spoken of here. No, it has always been God’s plan to join your life with Jesus is so that He could transform your life so He could make you like Jesus, so you might be for the praise of His glory.
You see, Jesus not only shows us who God is; but he shows us who we are, as human beings are meant to be. Jesus is the perfect image of God, not defaced by sin. Philosopher Peter Kreeft said it well: “We are half-men, he is perfectman. We are inhuman humans, he is perfect humanity. We are alienated from ourselves, He is perfectly himself… He is more us than we are.” So God united his life to ours so He could make it possible for our lives to made new again. As Colossians 3:10 says: We have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
It is this change that gives us hope for real change. We don’t have to be stuck. We can experience the abundant life Jesus promised. This is what God saved you for. God saved you to change you. He joined your life to Christ’s life, so He could change you to be like Him. He did this so He could transform the sin-scared image of God in you, into the gracious and loving image of Jesus Christ. Our destiny is to become likeJesus:to live in prayerful dependence like him, to grow in obedience like him, to become compassionate like him, to think like him, to serve like him, to love like him.
And as we learn to what it means to abide in this union that God created, as we learn to life this new life “in Christ, God will work to make us more and more like Jesus. And the more we become like Jesus, the more our lives will bring glory to God. That’s our destiny. This is what God saved you FOR. This why God united Christ’s life with yours: so your life would shine like Jesus. So take heart. God is not done with you. He’s just getting started. For if you are “in Christ” He will change you. For this is His promise to you who are in Christ: Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6
God saved you to change you. So how is Jesus changing you today? Let’s pray.
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