(This is the second post in a series.)

The first fruit of redemption that we’ll discuss is conversion.

What is conversion?

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

“…in Christ…”

Have you ever considered what it means to be “in Christ”? Simply put, it is to have absolute assurance that Christ is the complete and perfect propitiation for our sin and by faith—through grace—we believe in His work on the cross.

It is to rest in Him and to know that He resides in us. It is also to let Him live through our lives so He may be glorified in all that we do (yes, everything…that means eating, drinking, working, playing, resting…everything). It is not just having belief with no result, but it is knowing with full confidence that the Lord is fighting for us.

“We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4).

That’s what it is to be in Christ.

What does it mean to be a new creation? or to have newness of life?

“New” implies a new nature quite different from anything that previously existed. This “new” is not comparable to adding a new paint job; for this is just applying a new thing to the old—simply a cover up. Rather, this “new” is like the complete stripping of a wall to the bare bones—the foundation. Everything old is removed and rebuilt in perfection.

And guess what? The same goes for our new nature. Before Christ, our nature was totally and utterly depraved, trodden down and hopeless. Now, like that wall, our old nature has been torn completely down, burned up and blown away in ash. A new creature has been built, a nature that is perfect through Christ alone and whose sin has been washed away by His blood.

Redemption by the blood of Christ has converted us from children of wrath into children of glory. From darkness to light. From an enemy, into a son of God.

“Behold,” the Word proclaims, “the new has come.” It blows me away when I meditate and think upon the “new”. There’s no stopping after we say a prayer and get saved, only to see no corresponding result or fruit. Our life is completely transformed and every action, every thought and every deed is new. It is through Christ that we live and it is Him who enables us to live a life that is centered on the cross. This should be the proper response because we are no longer our own but have been bought with a price—the blood of the Lamb.

“People are strange”

True conversion is that strange thing a lot of non-believers notice but do not quite understand. It is what separates us from the world. Conversion completely changes our hearts and minds so that our affections are rightly fixed where they ought to be: on Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Just as God created life out of darkness, so it is with the believer.

We now have true life.

Stop right now to consider and meditate on the many ways that God, in your own life, has made the old pass away and the new come.

Do you have faith in Christ? If so, you have been converted. Rejoice, you have been born again!

• Fruits of Redemption: Introduction

Church Planter. It’s been all the rage since its presale. Our friends at Crossway released this long-awaited book just a few days ago, and The Resurgence produced the following trailer. Well worth watching.

From The Resurgence:

It’s not often that we create something that we think every man needs to watch. This video is one of those you must see. We made it to announce the new book, Church Planter, and we think every reader of the Resurgence should read it ASAP.

Darrin Patrick, vice president of the Acts 29 network and a veteran church planter himself is one of the most qualified men on the planet to write this book. It is written for Church Planters, but will challenge any man (really any person) to follow Christ with everything he’s got.

This book is a call for God’s men to rise to their calling to be the men God’s called them to be, with the Word God has called them to preach, on the mission God has called them to. Seriously… Get a group of guys together and read this book.

Buy at Amazon: Church Planter: The Man, the Message, the Mission

“Church Planter” by Darrin Patrick from Crossway on Vimeo.

I had a conversation a couple days ago with a very sweet woman. We were making small talk at a coffee shop when she asked me what I was reading.

I responded, “the Bible.”

I value the Bible, first, as a dining table where I can eat the spiritual food I need every day to be sustained in my Christian life; however, the ease with which a godly and edifying conversation can be initiated simply by the presence of a Bible, or even by simply mentioning it, cannot be discounted.  On this occasion, as in so many others, the presence of my Bible altered the course of our conversation.

This woman was thrilled that I, a twenty-something young man, would spend my time reading the Bible by myself. She felt comfortable and decided to tell me a bit about herself, and her love for God. And that is what struck me: the way she talked about her love for God. I wish my mind was able to articulate this thought in that moment because, while we talked, I struggled to find encouraging words to share with her beyond the usual agreements and affirmations (like the classics “mm-hmm“, “uh huh” and “totally“). To be honest, I said very little in our conversation.

She, however, continually spoke of her love for God. It overwhelmed her. She said, repeatedly, “My love for God is huge.” And I think the message she wanted me to finally get was that she thought of God as totally valuable; also, that she knew God in an intimate way that many others don’t.

This might be true; however, there is something about that phrase that really irks me. Think about it: “My love for God is huge.”

My love for God is not what is glorious. My love for God is contingent upon God’s love for me. That’s what is glorious—his love, not mine.

And now, I stand convicted by this realization. I’m forced to ask myself: How do I fare in speaking about God’s love? Do I speak about God in such a way that his victories in my life proclaim his might, his glory and his LOVE?  Or do I exalt both the praise I give God and the affections I have for God above God himself, making it more about the praise than about the One whom I am praising? Too often, I camp out in the latter group.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. 1 John 3:1(a)

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

May we never tire of praising God for the great victory he won in loving us. He calls us his children because of his love. Amazing, isn’t it? “God’s love for us is huge.” Now, that’s a true statement worth repeating.

Grace will take control out of your hands, while it blesses you with the care of One whose plan is unshakable and perfect in every way.

Jason had some kind of distant belief in the sovereignty of God, but it was almost completely separate from his everyday experience. He lived like he had no idea that Jesus was ruling over all things for his sake (Ephesians 1:20-23). So Jason was constantly dealing with the frustration of trying to control people and things which he had little power to control.

He spent way too much time calculating the “what ifs” and regretting the “if onlys.” He seemed like he did not know that his security and rest were not to be found in his ability to predict the future and control the present, but in the faithful love and expansive wisdom of his sovereign Savior, Jesus, so his living always was more anxious than restful.

You see, Jason didn’t need more grace. No, he needed to understand and live in light of the grace he had already been given. Jason was a grace amnesiac and so he lived like he was poor, when grace had made him exotically rich. He lived like he was weak, when grace had made him strong. He lived like life had no plan, when, in fact, he had been included in the unalterable plans of the God of redeeming grace.

Today we fight against materialism, especially the so-called Prosperity Gospel.  But there is also the danger of asceticism, the super-spirituality that denies the goodness of God in all things.  An almost endearingly absurd instance was Simeon the Stylite (c. 390-459), who lived in austerity for 36 years on top of a pillar, elevated above ordinary life.  This “holiness” is attractive, in a way.  It’s serious.  But it’s also fraudulent.  It tells an audacious lie about God and about us.

The truth is, everything created by God is good and is to be received by us gratefully.  This beautiful truth includes marriage and sex and food and mowing the lawn and flying a kite and paying the bills and sharpening a pencil and sitting on the porch in the evening and playing Monopoly with the kids and laughing at hilarious jokes and setting up chairs at church, and so forth.  There is so much divine goodness all around.  To push it away, to be above it, would insult our gracious Creator.

Our very earthly human existence is where true holiness can thrive.  How?  By thanking the Lord for it moment by moment, and by applying the word of God to it moment by moment.  It is written, “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).

Not ultimate, but good.  Good enough for God.  Good enough for us too.

Mark Driscoll writes for the Washington Post, saying “the world is filled with boys who can shave”:

Rather than moving from boy to man by this succession of sociological transitions, we’ve created something called adolescence. It’s a third life stage in the middle between boy and man. We don’t know what to call them so we just call them guys. These are boys who can shave.

Today, adolescence starts somewhere in the teen years and continues indefinitely. There is no foreseeable end. The problem with adolescence is guys don’t know when they’re ever going to grow up and be men, and no pressure is exerted on them to do so.

Is it when you’re sixteen and you can drive, or eighteen when you can vote and join the military, or twenty-one when you can drink?

Is it when you graduate from college after you’ve worked on your undergrad degree for seven or eight years?

Is it when you get married? Is it when you have kids? Is it when you buy a house?

No one knows. So, we are left with indefinite adolescence and a Peter Pan Syndrome epidemic where men want to remain boys forever.

He then contrasts men in the world, cowards in the church, and the biblical man. This is an important article. Read the rest.

Audio is from Tim Keller’s address at the 2007 Gospel Coalition inaugural conference.

Video mixed and edited by artist Heath McPherson.

I live my life with a defibrillator on my chest. And it is always on. It sends its charge, and my heart beats. It wakes me, and I am made alive. You might think that what I mean to say is “it wakes me, and I am kept alive.” That is not what I mean to say. I am not kept alive. From moment to moment my body wants to die, and with each moment it tries to. Death is the only thing my body knows how to accomplish, and it pursues it with a mighty zeal.

But each breath I take is sweet, because each breath I take is the first breath of salvation. Each breath I take is sweet, because each breath I take is the second first breath of Lazarus. I am not always preserved, I am always saved. I am always resurrected.

FACT #2: I am not alone in this. I am not the only one out there that naturally skirts over the deeper theological waters only to wade in the comfortable shallow end.

You might be someone like this.

In spite of these facts, when we actually seize the chance to sit down, remove ourselves from the busyness of the world and think about the underlying blessings of those deeper truths found within God’s Word, it opens up a world of joy. I am not saying this is essential; however, I am saying it is important.

Digging deep is important because it can drastically change our lives by bringing us into closer communion with Christ. When we dive down into the Word, it allows the Holy Spirit to change our hearts, conforming us more and more into His image. Our hearts become fertile soil.

Knowing Him better also allows us to love Him better.

The tiers of truth, when searched out and revealed to us in His Word, will absolutely cause us to love Him more. It will bring out praise that pours from our hearts. It will gives us a desire to please Him—to live for His glory. The more we actually delight in true and majestic things about Him, the more this world and its corresponding pop culture will grow strangely dim. The world and its things are but a vapor in the wind; Christ, however, remains the solid rock of the ages.

I want that. I want Christ. I want to dive into the deep with God and enjoy Him, don’t you?

Thankfully, Jesus Christ takes us there and bestows His truth. He makes the deep things of God plain to the believer. He does this by His Spirit and through His Word. One of these truths—and one of the most spoken of—is the particular work of redemption. We see it so clearly both in the old and new testaments:

• through acts of undeserved grace, God worked through the nation Israel to continually bring them out of bondage…
• furthermore, through Christ—the Perfect Sacrifice—He completes His plan of redemption for mankind. Our God is a great Redeemer.

What does redemption really do?

But what does redemption really do in our lives, and what comes from it? To know that we have been bought with the blood of Christ is an awesome truth, isn’t it? If you are a believer today, knowing you have the security of the cross, which fully satisfied the wrath of God on your behalf, is beyond normal human comprehension. It blows us away; it makes us stand in complete and utter awe.

Consequently, we find that studying beyond and into the work of redemption on the Cross is like swimming in an endless ocean that quenches the broken soul and never dries up… ever.

Redemption is everything to the Christian.

Through it, Christ changes your heart into a new one that seeks after His will and glory. It brings joy to the believer. It brings delight. It is moving from death to life—and so much more.

Over the next several weeks, we will unpack the fruits of redemption.

There is so much to cover, and we will only scratch the surface.

My prayer for you is this: that you will enjoy each of eight snapshots throughout the next several weeks on the fruits of redemption, and that it will fill your heart with joy and confirm your assurance in Jesus Christ, our Great Redeemer.

Stay tuned.

(to be continued…)