A New Walk For A New Man

A New Walk for A New Man

Romans 8:1-6

Introduction: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” When you accept the grace of God by faith, trusting in the finished work of Christ on the cross for your sin, you become a child of God and are saved from the penalty of a Christless eternity in the fires of Hell. You are freed from the law of sin and death enabling you to serve Christ. This new life is made possible only by power of the Holy Spirit. God expects and insists that if you have experienced this new birth that you act like a new person. He expects a new walk for a new man.

I. The Reality of being a New Man

A. When a caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly it becomes a totally new creature. A metamorphose takes place. Likewise when one becomes a child of God, he or she is transformed into a new person.

B. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

C. When some missionaries took the gospel to Vanino, a town in the far eastern part of Russia, they didn’t know what effect their work would have. A few years later, Gary Anderson, president of Baptist Mid-Missions, visited Vanino. He was met by the vice-mayor, who told him, "We have noticed that when people are associated with your church for a while, it makes a difference. It’s as though they are reborn." Anderson was then asked by the vice-mayor if his church would work with troubled families and directionless young adults in Vanino. Without knowing it, that city official had correctly described what had happened. People in Vanino had been "reborn"--born again by faith in Jesus, who died for their sins and rose from the grave. Each of them was "a new creation". – J D Branon

D. Romans 8:9-10 “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”

E. Romans 6:4-11 “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

F. Death to sin is not an absolute cessation of sin at any moment but rather it is an absolute breaking of the will with it and a redirection of your will toward Christ.

II. Being a New Man means having a New Heart

A. Jeremiah 17:9 “"The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; who can know it?”

B. Sin originates in the heart. Jesus said “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” (Matthew 7:21-22)

C. An old Delaware Indian chief sat with a Christian friend by a campfire, talking of the events of the day and the coming tomorrow. After a long silence the friend said: "Chief, did you ever hear of the rule called the golden rule, given to men by Christ who gave us our religion?" "Stop," said the chief. "Don’t praise it. Tell me what it is and let me think for myself." When told that it was for each one to do to others as he would have others do to him, he hastily replied, "That is impossible; it cannot be done." Silence followed. After about fifteen minutes the old chieftain spoke: "Brother, I have been thoughtful of what you told me. If the Great Spirit who made man would give him a new heart, he could do as you say, but not else." – Choice Illustrations, W.W. Clay pg. 9-10)