Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?” -MLK 1957

I’m saved by his service. I’m saved for his service!

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Good morning again, Life Center family. I am very excited to share the Word of God with you this morning. We are continuing our series called The Deeper Life, and today, we’re talking about one of the ways that the early Church, the first Christians and Christians through all centuries have experienced the deeper life, the full life that Jesus came to bring us, and we’re going to talk about that in just a moment. I first want to start with a verse, it’s 2 Corinthians 5:17. It says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the old has gone, and the new is here.”

If you’re in Christ, if you’ve believed in Jesus, if you put your life in Jesus’ hands, you are a new creation. The old you is gone, and a new you is here. God calls you a new creation in Jesus. God never calls believers normal in the Bible, and if you’ve ever met very many Christians, you’re like, “That’s pretty accurate, not very normal.” Like God does call us lots of things in the Bible.

He calls us salt and light, chosen, elected, selected, anointed, beloved, and His masterpieces. All of these terms that scripture uses are used to depict our difference from the world around us. God has made us into new creations. Dr. Dharius Daniels says that, “To be different from the world is to be normal as a Christian.” We are new creations in Jesus, which means that we are different in nature than what we used to be.

I was spiritually dead, but now, I am fully alive in Jesus. We were slaves to sin, but we have been freed to serve Jesus joyfully. You, you, you were far from Jesus, but now you’re intimately connected to Him because of His work. You and I are different in nature now because of what Jesus has done, and whatever is different in nature is different in purpose. Whatever is different in nature is different in purpose.

I’ve got two things here. I’ve got an iPad and a cutting board. Now, they are very similar in form, are they not?

Yes.

They’re almost the same width, almost the same length, height. I mean, these are very similar in form, but they’re very different in function. I hope you know that. Like if you try to use your iPad as a cutting board, it’s going to work as a cutting board, but it won’t work as an iPad anymore. Now, if you look at this and you go, “Yeah, I think I’ll use this for a little bit as a cutting board,” you’re using it for the wrong thing because this is different in nature, which means it’s different in function, it’s different in purpose, and it’s different in capabilities.

The iPad can do a lot more than the cutting board, right, because it’s different on the inside. See, when you are made a new creation by Jesus, you become different on the inside. You are far different in capability, in function, in purpose than what you used to be, and what you used to be was something like this, that was one-dimensional, but because of Jesus, you’ve been made three-dimensional. You’ve been given far more capability, far more purpose because of Jesus. The old nature that we had was to serve ourselves.

That was the purpose of our sinful nature, was to serve ourselves, to make us great for our own happiness. Sinful nature always serves itself. We are like black holes, consuming everything for our own happiness, and pleasure, and greatness, but our new nature in Jesus, our purpose has been transformed because we are now different in nature. We are different in purpose because of what Jesus has done for us. Our nature is no longer to serve ourselves, to serve our own success or our own greatness, we now, and this is the big idea, we are now saved to serve Jesus and others. I am saved to serve Jes