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Life in the Spirit: Justification & Sanctification

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Life in the Spirit: Justification & Sanctification

July 16, 2023 by Isaac Cundiff
Passages:John 1:12-13, John 3:5-8, Rom 5:1-5, Rom 8:15, Eph 1:14, Eph 2:18-22, 1 Pet 2:1-11, 1 Pet. 4:14, 2 Cor 3:12

Sermon Synopsis

All Summer of ’23, we are looking at Life in the Spirit. Knowing God the Holy Spirit as One who is with us, in us, and among us to lead us into His purposes and plans is essential in the Christian life. It is more than spiritual gifts. It isn’t just the ability to rightly interpret the Bible. Life in the Spirit is about the fullness of God coming to bear on our lives. Walking as Jesus did – totally submitted and obedient to God the Father, empowered in His flesh to walk in the Spirit. Abiding in Christ is a fruit of knowing God the Holy Spirit deeply, personally, and intimately.

 

This summer we hope to learn all about how He works, what He is doing in and through us, and the desires He has as a near expression of the Godhead three-in-one.

 

Click here to see this graphic that describes how we will move through these many subjects all summer.  

John 1:12–13

12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

John 3:5–8

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Romans 5:1–5

5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 8:15

15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

Ephesians 1:14

14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 2:18–22

18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

1 Peter 2:1–11

2:1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture:

  “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
    a cornerstone chosen and precious,
  and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,

  “The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone,”

and

  “A stone of stumbling,
    and a rock of offense.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

1 Peter 4:14

14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

2 Corinthians 3:12

12 Since we have such a hope, we are very bold,