What does First B Jackson teach about new life in christ?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on new life in Christ starts with something Paul establishes before he gives any commands: believers have already been raised to new life with Christ. Carl preached through Colossians 3:1-17 on this, pointing to Colossians 2:12, which pictures baptism as being buried with Christ and raised again. The new life is not something a believer works toward. It is something they have been given, and the three imperatives Paul builds on that foundation, set your sights on heaven, put off the old nature, put on the new, all flow from that prior reality.
The putting off and putting on that Paul describes both come back to the question of desire and direction. Carl brought in a C.S. Lewis quote to press the point: our desires are not too strong but too weak, too easily satisfied by things that cannot last. The old nature is not a set of bad habits so much as strong desires aimed in the wrong direction. The new nature, by contrast, looks like Jesus himself at every point. Carl said he could hear Jesus in every item on Paul's list: tender-hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness. These are not abstract virtues to imitate from a distance. They are the character of the One believers are now united with.
Pastor Deborah, preaching through Romans 6, brought the same center into focus from a different angle. The old self was crucified with Christ, buried with Him, and raised with Him. She used the story of Lazarus to make it concrete: Lazarus came out of the tomb still wrapped in grave clothes, and those clothes were taken off him. That is what happened at conversion. Nobody who has just been raised from the dead wants to walk back into the tomb and lie down again. The freedom Paul describes in Romans is not a freedom to live however one likes. It is freedom from a nature that once had total power, now made powerless, so that a person can be genuinely and fully alive to God.
Taught from Colossians 3:1-17 · Colossians 2:12 · Romans 6:1 · Romans 6:3-7 · 2 Corinthians 5:17
The passage taught · 1 Peter 1:3-4
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4 to an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance that doesn’t fade away, reserved in Heaven for you,
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- July 3, 2022 Set Your Sights, Put Off, Put On Colossians 3 calls believers to set their sights on heaven, put off the old sinful nature, and put on Christ's love, mercy, and peace as their new identity.
- July 3, 2022 Set Your Sights, Put Off, Put On Carl walks First Baptist Jackson through Colossians 3:1-17, calling believers to set their sights on heaven, put off the old nature, and put on Christ's love.
- September 23, 2015 WWW Be Right (31) Romans 6 shows that sin no longer has power over believers. We died with Christ and rose to new life, free to walk in His righteousness and strength.
- September 19, 2012 I Am Free, I Am New, I Have Eternal Life A sermon on what Christ's sacrifice truly means for us: freedom from sin's bondage, becoming a new person in Him, and the settled assurance of eternal life.