New Life in the Spirit

—Romans 6:5–14

Andrew Fountain – Oct 21, 2015

The New Design

Anyone here remember vinyl records?
- How record players once worked, 100 years ago (example of grater & chopstick)
Story of my Grandad: built factory in London, England to manufacture electrical items
- head engineer found a new design. It used “electricity”
- Volume and quality were astounding, so tried it out on the factory roof
- Immediately a call from a local pub—it’s amazing, can we buy one?
  - Talked to his engineer and they set up a production line
- Requests started flooding in
Two patterns:
- the old, which used only it’s own mechanical power
- the future design, which relied on a power supply and worked entirely differently
Just as we now have the old mechanical world, and the new electrically powered world
- Paul talks about two worlds, the old physical world, powered by laws of nature
- The new world, or “kingdom” that is powered by the Holy Spirit
Most of our problems as Christians are related to not understanding the two worlds we live in
We are born into the physical world
- The old creation
- Descendents of Adam
- antagonistic towards God
- unable to defeat sin in our lives
- under the condemnation of the law
But Jesus was also born into this world
- He triumphed over temptation
- He kept all the law perfectly
- He took on himself the condemnation his people deserved by dying for them
- God raised him up, the first of a new race of beings
Jesus resurrection was not just him coming back to life
- This was a bigger event than even the creation of the world
- Jesus’s new body was the first evidence of an entire new creation
  - One day we will all have bodies like his
  - There will be a whole new universe without sin
Jesus saved us by uniting us with him
- in his death
  - so that our sin was punished on the cross
- and then in his resurrection
  - so that we are part of the new creation
  - which at present is just like a seed in our hearts

Romans 6:5-14

Rom 7:5–6 The New Life of the Spirit

For when we were in the flesh, the sinful desires, aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
But now we have been released from the law, because we have died to what controlled us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code.

Romans 8:13–16

…but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.”
The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are God’s children.

Romans 7:6

“But now we have been released from the law,
because we have died to what controlled us,
so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit
and not under the old written code.”