Exchanged Life Spirituality

Let’s talk about living a “spiritual life” for a minute. We need to understand certain things about this spiritual life we are attempting to live. We also need to understand what NOT the spiritual life is. Let’s talk about that for a little bit.

The book gives an interesting list of contrast of what the spiritual life is not compared to what it really is… here is that list.
The spiritual life is not:
A crisis but a continual process
Based on knowledge but on obedience
External but internal
Automatic but cultivated
The product of energy but of divine enablement
A dream but a discipline
An unusual experience but a normal experience
A list of rules but a life relationship
To be endured but enjoyed
Theoretical but intensely practical

Howard Hendricks says that a spiritual life is “the life of Christ reproduced in the believer by the power of the Holy Spirit in obedient response to the Word of God.” I think that is an awesome definition.

What does Exchanged Life Spiritually mean?
Exchanged life spirituality concentrates on the reality of a new identity through the in-Christ relationship that can and will dramatically transform us as we progressively grasp it.

Living an exchanged life spiritually stresses that the spiritual life is not a matter of trying to do things for Jesus but of claiming and resting in what he has already done for us!
What we are going to be learning about this morning is GRASPING OUR TRUE IDENTITY IN CHRIST.

You can not grasp your true identity in Christ overnight! That would be impossible. Understanding your relationship with Christ and what he has done for you will take your life time to understand. As a matter of fact if you think you have totally figured it out then I am scared of you. I don’t think we will ever understand what Jesus did while we are here on this earth when by taking your sin and my sin upon him self, dying and 3 days later defeating death, hell and the grave. That’s too big for us to comprehend and we’ll spend our life time contemplating the height, and the depth and the width of the love that God has for us.

After those 20 or so teen received Christ as their Lord and Savior during our teen rally, we took them in a room and I tried explained what had happened to them. I tried to explain that they had crossed over from death unto life. I tried to explain through scripture that they had been given a new life and they were a new creature in Christ Jesus. I tried to explain that they were now no longer under the bondage of sin and had the freedom and liberty in Jesus. But as hard as it was for me to explain I could since that it was harder for these teens, many of them un-churched, to understand. All they could do was cry because they felt a change had taken place in their being that they just couldn’t describe. At the very end after praying with them I encouraged them to talk to God everyday like they would talk to their best friend, and read their Bible everyday. That night I believed they started their journey into trying to understand what had taken place in their life… the journey into Exchanged Spirituality.

We will take a lifetime learning what an exchanged spiritual life is… but it’s a journey worth taking.

Before we can truly understand and practice the principles of exchanged life spirituality we need to understand a few things. The first thing we need to understand is God’s Character and Plan.

God’s Character and Plan

You know… people who don’t have a relationship with God, their creator, are hungering for something… for love, for happiness, for meaning, for fulfillment, but nothing on this planet offers what can fully satisfy these longings they have.

You know, in theory, most Christians acknowledge that Christ alone can meet these needs… but very few Christians can show them by example. This is because some Christians have missed one of the most important principles of Scripture. You see the fruits of the spirit such as love, joy, peace, long suffering, cannot be obtained by pursuing them in an of themselves. The only way to be successful at obtaining real joy, real love, real peace is by pursuing God! By pursuing God; this is just and overflow… a bi-product of what comes out of pursuing God!

In Exodus 33:13-14 Moses prayed this prayer to God…
Exodus 33:13-14
(13) Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.
(14) And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.
Like Moses we should pray to know God’s ways… by putting God first in everything, everything else falls into place!

God’s character is fundamental to everything we do and everything we are as Christians. Do you know the character of God?

The Bible tells us that God is:
Self-existent
Infinite
Eternal
Unchanging Creator of all things
In his powers, he alone is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.

In his perfections, his attributes include holiness, justice, truthfulness, love and goodness.

God’s love for us is proof that God is a giver… after all he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him shall have eternal life. God is a giver. God has given in spite of the fact that people reject his gift. But that is the essence of God’s love toward humanity… he doesn’t want anyone to perish but all to have eternal life.

Now… if we want to understand God’s love for us we need first believe ALL of God’s actions were born out of love.

1 John 4:8 says
1John 4:8
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

God is LOVE! That is part of his character.

And because God is love, his desire for you and for me (humanity) is to show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Scripture portrays the relationship God wants to have with us in terms of a shepherd and his sheep, father and his children, and a husband and his wife.

But… sheep can go astray, they can wonder away from the flock and the shepherd; children can rebel, and a wife can be unfaithful.

It was rebellion and the rejection of God’s love and provision that got us in this shape to begin with.

All of us live in a world of pain, injustice, disease, and death, and in the midst of this it is easy to blame God for our problems.

But our environment has been distorted by sin, and sin is contrary to the nature of God.

Sin is why Christ came into this world… to redeem us back to God. This was part of God’s plan. Christ did not come into the world to judge the world, but that the world through him might be saved (John 3:17).

I love this quote by Kenneth Boa –
“The better we grasp the love and goodness of God’s character, the less we will be tempted to think that he is carrying out his plans at our expense.”

Think about this… it is always better for us to conform to his will. Why? Because conforming to his will always leads to our highest good.

Obedience to God produces joy and fulfillment.
Disobedience produces sorrow and frustration.

Everything God ask of us is for our good.
Everything God ask us to avoid is harmful… therefore we should stay away for it.

Life would be so much easier if we would just learn to listen to and understand what God has for us to do in our lives.

God can be trusted!!

But love always involves a choice. Adam and Eve decided they wanted more than what God had given them and instead of listening to God and staying away from that particular tree… they disobeyed and ate of it. And disobedience produces sorrow and frustration. We have been cursed by their decision.

You see beauty was replaced with ugliness, holiness with evil, kindness with cruelty, generosity with greed, love with hate, peace with violence, security with fear, and joy with anger. All because this happened because of disobedience and being self centered instead of God centered.

Think about that for a moment… most sin occurs because of our selfishness. Most sin occurs when we only focus on ourselves and not God.

Our Old and New Natures

Prior to the fall, Adam and Eve were in harmony with God and their environment. Everything was hitting on all cylinders. They were alive in their spirit and they enjoyed constant communion with God. They grew and developed spiritually and mentally because God gave them task and things to do. Their bodies were flawless and they were perfect in every way.

But as I stated earlier… love always involves a choice. Adam and Eve became selfish in their thoughts and desires and this rebellion radically changed this world.

At the moment they sinned they suffered spiritual death because they were cut off from God. When their spirits died, their sin nature was born, and their minds, emotions and wills came under the dominion of sin with all its distorting effects. Their bodies began to deteriorate… pain and evil spread, and creation itself was corrupted. And the most tragic thing of all… there was not a way back to God yet.

When we are born into this world we are born in our own sin nature. You don’t have to teach a child how to sin… they do it naturally. It not that they are sinners because they commit certain sins… they are born into sin… it’s in our nature. Without the redemptive work of Christ, we would be cut off from God without hope of restoration. Why are we cut off from God? The answer is simple, because “those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:8).

Now… unlike those who are fallen, those who are redeemed are able not to sin. As they walk in the Spirit, they please God and exhibit Christ like qualities.

But don’t get me wrong… there is a war going on. The inner self joyfully agrees with the law of God (Romans 7:22) but there is still a law or power of sin in the outer self (Romans 7:23).

Our spirit… our inner most deep being inside of ourselves has been change… made into a new creature. But our redemption is not fully complete yet. Our spirits have been redeemed but our bodies are still weak. We still have to deal with this earthly body that has been contaminated with sin and it wars against our spirit.

One day we shall be like him when we see him as he is!
1Jn 3:2
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

On that day the inner man and the outer man are going to agree. We will be free from the power of sin, and our minds, emotions, and wills will be continually under the dominion of the Spirit of God.

Until that day… we constantly battle between the new creature we have become in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) and the mortal sinful nature we were born into thanks to Adam (Romans 5: 12-21).

You know… everyone human being has basic physical needs that must be met. There are physical needs like food, clothing, shelter, rest, and protection from danger.

In addition to the physical needs there is also a set of psychological needs that every human being needs to have met in order to have some sense of personal worth.

Things such as:
Love and Acceptance – everyone needs the security that comes from feeling unconditionally loved and accepted by at least one other individual. Without this it can cause one to have all sorts of issues, behavior issues.

Significance and Identity – people need a since of identifying with someone or something greater than themselves. The need to feel that their life is worthwhile and that life is meaningful is set in each of us in our inner being. God put it there. People who do not relate to God for their significance and identity tend to either over compensate and work to make them appear greater than they are or they simply have an inferiority complex that only God can truly heal.

Finally… Competence and Fulfillment – this is another universal need that all humans have to feel that one’s life has made a difference and that he or she has accomplished something that will last. One can see how a non-believer would try to over compensate for this lack in their spiritual life by their job performance, or academic standards.

For centuries humans have tried to turn to other people, things, and circumstances to meet these needs, but none of these can truly satisfy them. Even Christians fall into the same trap… trying to feel the void by not totally depending on God and their exchanged life.

God has set eternity in our heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11) and he alone can fill the void.

Now I need to make something clear here… this is not to say that it is wrong for Christians to be concerned about our appearance, our possessions, or our accomplishments. Whatever we do as “ambassadors for Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:20) should be characterized by excellence. Why should we care about these things… because it is done for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31; Colossians 3:23).

But… and this is a big but… if our joy and peace depend upon how we look, what we own, or how well we perform, we are looking not to the Creator but rather to the creation to meet our God-given needs.