The subject of transformation is the critical doorway that all believers must walk through. However, we can only accept God’s new creation of our lives once we’ve first dealt honestly with sin. We will see that God has provided us more than just an answer for forgiveness, but through His Son we are offered an entirely new life!
- 2 False Approaches: 1. Hypersensitivity 2. Dismissal
- 3 Categories of sin: 1. Sin – What 2. Transgression – How 3. Iniquity – Why
- 3 Spheres of corruption: 1. Active 2. Passive 3. Corporate
I’m a sinner because I sin vs. I sin because I’m a sinner
Observations & Conclusions: The principles of transformation
- It starts with grace
- It is non-optional
- It requires a compete surrender
- It requires recognizing and rejecting worldly patterns, habits, systems, philosophies, definitions, and traditions
- It requires a mind made new by the reclamation of God
Application: How do we navigate in a world that isn’t calibrated to see sin?
- Confession vs Blame – To sorrow over sin
- Repentance vs Lack of Responsibility – Turn back to God
- Renew your mind according to God’s reclamation
Colossians 2:21-23
“Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”
1 John 1:8, 10
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us… If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.”
Romans 7:17, 20
“As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me… Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”
Psalm 32:1-2
“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.”
Psalm 51:1-2
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”
Romans 3:23
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
2 Corinthians 5:17
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”
Romans 8:1
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Ephesians 4:22-24
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Colossians 3:9-10
“Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”
2 Corinthians 5:21
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Romans 8:3-4
“For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Philippians 3:12-16
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.”