Becoming a New Creation in Christ

Anyone ever by laundry soap, dishwashing liquid, shampoo or any other type of cleaning supply? Everyone but the stinky people.

One of those things that gets me, especially with a cleaning product is the advertisement of “New and Improved”. If a product once claimed to get clothes or dishes, or countertops completely clean. How in the world could it be improved?

I mean if I wash my clothes with a certain detergent that gets my shirts white and my colors bright and removes all the dirt, how do they improve that, unless they gradually made it worse over time so that they could release a new and improved formula that was actually the formula from 10 years ago.

They change packaging to make the product more appealing, usually without making any improvements in the product. Which is really quite deceiving but it is all about making money. It really isn’t about making the best product; it is about making you believe they have made the best product.

Do you know who actually made the best cleaning product ever? God. He turns your sin from black to white as snow. He changes the blind to seeing, the deaf to the hearing and the dead to being alive again.

Let’s read our main text John 11:38-43.

As I was sitting in my office and I was thinking about and praying about what the topic of the message should be. I read the story of Lazarus and it came to be how things really changed for Lazarus because of Jesus’ work in his life. I felt God telling me that Lazarus’ resurrection is very similar to that of a person becoming a Christian.

I would like to point out some of those similarities and maybe just maybe each one of us will see some things in our own lives that could use a rebranding, maybe actually become “new and improved” and not just a change on the outside but a real change in the product that is on the inside. Maybe some of these things will speak to you about your walk with the Lord. Let’s start with the A of ABC.

1. Admit you’re dead in sin.

John 11:38-39

News writers, journalists, reporters or whatever they call themselves anymore are a great example of what not to do when it comes to being wrong. I remember years ago when newspapers were the big thing and the front page of the newspaper had a huge headline that caught your attention. They would try to get you interested in the story by they way they titled the article.

Then the article would go on to tell the story of what happened. “Fourteen shot at the local hospital” Might be the headline and the story would be about a group that went in for vaccinations or something goofy like that. I mean they wanted to sell newspaper, they want you to watch the news, they want you to click on articles on their websites so that they can get revenue, but what happens when they get the story wrong or they fudge the statistics in their reporting?

In the newspaper, they would print a retraction, never on the front page, but usually several pages in and hopefully you won’t ever read that far or even care by the time you get there. News stations rarely make corrections and when they do, they minimalize their mistake.

One of the hardest things to do is to admit when we are wrong. We like to blame other people. We like to push it off as not really our fault. We will even go as far as lie about what happened or try to make it less than what it actually is. We don’t call a lie a lie, we call it a fib. We don’t gossip; we share. It’s not adultery it’s sleeping around. It’s not a sin; it’s a mistake.

It is time for all of us to stop rebranding sin and start rebranding our souls. Admitting that we are dead in our sin, means that we are living for ourselves and that we are not living for God. Admitting that we have sin in our lives is acknowledging that we have made these decisions and we are owning up to the wrongs that we have allowed to control our lives. I John 1:9 if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Even as Christians, we should take note of this, because we get complacent. We don’t deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Jesus. We deny ourselves when it doesn’t inconvenience us. We deny ourselves when we don’t get uncomfortable. We deny ourselves when it is easy. Come on it is just us; we fall short and we may need to align ourselves more with God instead of aligning with the world.

2. Believe in Jesus. The One Who gives true life!

John 11:40

When I was in Bootcamp we had the Confidence Course. In this course we had the slide for life, a 25-ft tower with a 90ft cable that you climb the tower and slid down the cable on top of the cable head first for 30ft, under the cable feet first for 30 ft and then head first for 30 ft.

The stairway to Heaven, a 30ft ladder made of telephone poles, placed about 4’ apart at the bottom to 5 feet apart at the top.

The A-frame, a 30’ obstacle, climb 15’ rope to a platform with a 15’ wooden ladder at the other end. Climb it and then lower down a rope at a slow pace.

8-10 high walls with a single rope on one side

A reverse climb of monkey bars at a steep angle. Get to the top and up and over and back down.

The up and over bar. Telephone poles about 5 – 5 1/2’ in the air. Get over one, run to the next, up and over, run to the next, up and over seemed like 100 of them but probably more like 8-10. One obstacle after another to help build confidence. Then about 4 years later, I am hanging on the side of a mountain and can no longer do it. I knew the rope would hold me but I didn’t believe in it enough to hang upside down.

Believing in Jesus is same. Just because you know that He is Jesus and you believe that He is the Son of God, doesn’t truly mean that you believe in Him until you put your life in His hands. Until the only thing you are trusting your life with is that rope while hanging on the cliff. Believing in Jesus is giving Him full control of your life.

Acts 16:31 “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with everyone in your household. The word believe is also translated from the Greek to mean… be committed to, to entrust yourself to….

James 2:19 says, “You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.”

3. Change.

John 11:43-44 And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!” …. Lazarus was no longer the dead person that he was. There was a change in Lazarus and he lived in real life not in the old death. Does that make sense?

Romans 6:11-13

Can you imagine a person that was in the state of addiction, whether it was drinking, shopping, smoking, drugs, porn, or whatever saying that they had decided to live their lives clean? Let’s take an alcoholic as an example. Let’s say, that the alcoholic started going to AA 4 times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday they went to the bar and drank. Tuesday had the best prices. Thursday was sports trivia and other games, and Saturday always had the best crowds and most of their friends came on Saturday. Now if this person that said they were going to live a clean life was doing all these things, made the statement, went to meetings and to the bar, would they have changed? Would they be living a clean life or would they still be the person controlled by alcohol?

What if it was a shopaholic? They knew they had a problem. They had a few accountability partners that they met with several times a week, but yet they continued to go on spending binges and would buy and buy and buy. Would this person have really changed.

The bible tells us over and over and over to live holy lives. That we have to be born again and that we are made into new creations in Jesus to live lives that are pleasing and obedient.

II Corinthians 5:17

John 3:3

I Peter 1:15-16

Matthew 5:48

I Thessalonians 4:7-8

God didn’t call us to stay the same. God didn’t call us to continue to look like the world. We are called to be imitators of God. We are to strive for holiness. We will fail from time to time but that does not give us the “okay” to continue to live sinful lives. We are called to change. The old (sinful way of life is gone) and the new (denying ourselves and taking up our cross and following Jesus) has come.

Have you rebranded your life only to be the same old product that you have always been? Maybe a real rebranding needs to take place. I hope that you will do that before you leave today.

The ABC's of Rebranding