As believers in Christ, we are a new creation in Christ Jesus, and we need to walk in newness of life; God is making all things new by adding His element to us to make us as new as He is, even to become the New Jerusalem. Hallelujah!
This week in our morning revival we come to a new topic entitled, Our Need to Walk in Newness of Life, to Serve in Newness of Spirit, and to Be Renewed in Our Inner Man Day by Day.
We may have a lot of feeling when we consider the matter of faith and love, but when we come to the matter of newness and being renewed, we may not have that much feeling for this.
We may think that it is so important to develop our faith and love, and indeed it is; however, we may not see the need to walk in newness of life.
There is an urgent and desperate need for us as God’s people to walk in newness of life and serve in newness of spirit, and we need to be renewed in our inner man.
This need of ours is a reflection of God’s need; being renewed, walking in newness of life, and serving in newness of spirit, is not only our need – this is God’s need.
God wants to see newness. Especially as we are approaching the end of this age, as God is accomplishing His economy, He wants to not only get His work done and accomplished, but that we arrive at a condition where He can say, I make all things new (Rev. 21:5). Hallelujah!
At the end of this age, at the beginning of the new heaven and new earth in eternity, God will make such a declaration, that He makes all things new.
God will not bring anything old into eternity; when the work has been done and completed, He will obtain a new heaven, a new earth, and a New Jerusalem – everything will be new!
The matter of newness is deep in God’s heart; there is a deep need in God to see His people be renewed.
Through His death and resurrection, He has brought them with Himself, and He made all His believers a new creation.
Now, He is bringing them through a process of renewal to bring their entire being into a state of newness.
When we speak of newness or being renewed we don’t mean what the human dictionary says but what God means in His word. We shouldn’t use our Oxford dictionary to try to understand what it means to be renewed and what is newness.
What we get from the dictionary is things such as being new in terms of age, condition, never been used, like a new car that was not yet driven, something being brand new.
Newness in the word of God doesn’t refer to that. Newness is God Himself – only God is new, and anything that doesn’t have the element of God is old.
In Heb. 1:11-12, we are told that in the beginning God laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the works of His hands; these all will perish, but God will remain; they will all become old like a garment and will be rolled up like a mantle, but God will remain the same, for His years will not fail.
With our God there’s no change – He is the same yesterday, today, and forever; He doesn’t know what oldness is.
We are getting older as the days go by, and the environment and things around us are also growing older and are decaying.
No matter the new technology, the fastest computer, and the newest invention, man is becoming older and is decaying.
When we talk about newness, we are talking about God, about having more of God added to us.
If we are lacking God, spontaneously we become old and decrepit. God will eventually gain His New Jerusalem, the new city filled with God and the man that was renewed by Him to become as new as He is. Hallelujah!
God Makes All Things New: we as Believers in Christ have been Made a New Creation!
Rev. 21:5a says, “He who sits on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new”. How exciting and exhilarating to hear a word like this.
When the Lord was on the cross, at the end of His suffering on earth, He said, “It is finished”.
This refers to the work of redemption being finally done, finished; this is in relation to the completing of the work of redemption.
But at the end of the Bible, in Rev. 21, He is not the One on the cross but the One on the throne, and He says that He makes all things new.
It’s one thing to have a work completed and finished, and it is another thing to make all things new. Hallelujah, the work of redemption has been completed and finished, and God is taking another step to produce a new creation.
He will eventually bring that new creation to full maturity, where He can declare that He has made all things new.
In Rev. 21:6 the Lord continues to say, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end”.
The One who declares that He does all things new is the beginning and the end; He is the source of His creation and all things come out of Him, and He is the end, He is the one who fully renews all things.
Newness is God Himself, and the whole creation will express Him in newness – He will make sure of this, He will see it done.
We as believers in Christ have been made a new creation and we need to walk in newness of life.
Hallelujah, we are persons regenerated with the life of God and living in the inner man, not in the outer man (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; John 3:3, 5-6, 15; 2 Cor. 4:16).
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away – behold, they have become new!
By believing into Christ we didn’t receive a new religion or a set of beliefs, neither were we just converted to another new philosophy, concept, or idea.
We have been regenerated with the life of God – we were born of God, born anew, having the divine life added to us.
Our human spirit is vivified, regenerated, and indwelt by the Spirit of God; now our spirit is our inner man, our person, and Christ as the Spirit dwells in our spirit.
This new creation is a new species composed of those who have received the life of God into them.
We are not only sinners saved by grace, having our sins forgiven and justified; something happened to us – the life of God has come in, and the life of God regenerated us to make us a new creation.
There’s nothing like the believers in Christ on the whole earth, for they are a new creation, a new species, having the life of God within them, and they live in newness of life.
Our spirit has been not only vivified but also is indwelt by the Spirit of God, and God as the source of newness is in us, renewing us daily and making us part of the New Jerusalem.
Our spirit has been animated, and there is a person living within us; Christ lives in us, He moves in us, and He imparts more of Himself into us!
Hallelujah, we believers in Christ have been made a new creation in Christ Jesus! We are persons regenerated with the life of God who live in the inner man, not the outer man! Thank You, Lord Jesus, for coming into us as life to regenerate us and cause us to be a new species, a new creation, to live in newness of life and serve in newness of spirit! Amen, Lord, we believe that You make all things new! Continue to add Yourself to us as the element of newness. Renew us day by day. Fill us with Yourself. Keep us in our spirit, our inner man, so that we may be renewed as we live in newness of life!
We need to Walk in Newness of Life by Living in Resurrection and Reigning in Life
Since we as believers in Christ are a new creation in Christ Jesus, we need to walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4).
In our being, we are a new creation; in our living, we should walk in newness of life. As a new species, a new creation, we should no longer walk in the old creation but in newness of life.
To walk in newness of life means to live in the realm of resurrection and to reign in life (Rom. 5:17).
We have been buried with Christ through baptism in His death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we may walk in newness of life.
Rom. 5:10 says that we will be saved in the life of God’s Son, 5:17 speaks of reigning in life, and 6:4 declares that we have died and have been buried with Christ so that we may walk in newness of life.
When we speak of newness we don’t speak of being young in age, new in condition, or new in style or fashion; this newness is something in life, something of God Himself.
This life is not your life or my life but the life of God, Christ Himself as the resurrection life. Christ as life passed through death and overcame death, and this life reigns over death in resurrection.
We need to be impressed with the kind of life we have and walk in the newness of life.
As Rom. 5:10 says, we need to be saved much more in His life; we need to be saved not only from sin but also from our temper, our flesh, our self, and the world.
We need a daily salvation, a constant salvation. As we receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, we can reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
This life eventually enables us to reign in life; this is the peak of God’s salvation. God desires not only to save us from hell and God’s judgment; he wants to bring us to the throne for us to reign with Him.
The more we enjoy the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, the more we reign in life; this is to walk in newness of life.
Christ Himself is our righteousness, and He is grace to us; the more we open to Him and enjoy Him, the more we experience His salvation in life, and the more God is added to us to give us the newness of this life.
After our baptism, we became a new person in resurrection; resurrection is not only a future state but also a present process (2 Cor. 5:17; Phil. 3:10-11).
We are not only looking forward to a day of resurrection, as Martha did in John 11; the Lord is the resurrection and the life, and He is taking us through the process of being resurrected so that we may walk in newness of life.
Praise the Lord for our baptism in which all the old things were buried and terminated! Now we are daily entering into the reality of our baptism by being buried with Christ in His death so that we may walk in newness of life.
Through our baptism, Satan, sin, the flesh, the self, and all the negative things have been terminated, and we were raised together with Christ in resurrection to live in the new creation, live in newness of life in the church life.
We were buried with Christ into His death, and we have been resurrected as He was; hence, we should walk in newness of life (Col. 2:12; Eph. 2:5; Rom. 6:4).
Our baptism is not just an event that happened once for all; every day we need to live in the reality of that baptism, being buried with Christ so that all the things of the flesh, the old man, and the world would be buried with Him, and we would be ushered into the realm of resurrection to walk in newness of life.
If we have grown together with Christ in the likeness of His death through baptism, indeed we will also be in the likeness of His resurrection (Rom. 6:5).
This is a process, an organic process; we grow with Him in the likeness of His death and we grow with Him in the likeness of His resurrection.
When we were baptised into Christ, we were put into the mold of Christ’s death, and being in that mold is a process that is going on all the time.
It can be likened to us being grafted into Christ; we were grafted into Him so that we may live in this organic union in His death and resurrection.
Newness of life is closely related to the life-giving Spirit, who is Christ Himself in His resurrection; the Spirit is the way to walk in newness of life (1 Cor. 15:45).
This resurrection life is not a thing but a person – the life-giving Spirit. Day by day we need to walk in newness of life by contacting the life-giving Spirit, touching the Spirit, and living in resurrection so that we may reign in life.
When we touch the Spirit, we touch resurrection.
Walking in newness of life is the kind of living that deals with all that is of Adam in us until we are fully transformed and conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29).
This is how we need to carry out our Christian living as a new creation: we walk in newness of life by enjoying and touching the life-giving Spirit who is the reality of resurrection.
We remain in His burial, in the reality of the baptism, and we are growing together with Him in the likeness of His resurrection to live in newness of life
Hallelujah, we have been buried with Christ through baptism into His death so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, so also we may walk in newness of life! Amen, Lord, we open to You to be daily saved in Your life; save us much more from the self, the flesh, the natural man, Satan, and the world. We open to receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness so that we may reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. Amen, Lord, bring us fully into resurrection so that we may live in resurrection. May we live in the reality of our baptism, being buried with Christ in His death and having been resurrected as He was, so that we may walk in newness of life. Amen, Lord, keep us touching You as the life-giving Spirit, the reality of resurrection, so that we may walk in newness of life!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a message by bro. James Lee on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1989, vol. 3, “The Experience and Growth in Life,” ch. 16, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Meeting God’s Need and Present needs in the Lord’s Recovery, week 5, entitled, Our Need to Walk in Newness of Life, to Serve in Newness of Spirit, and to Be Renewed in Our Inner Man Day by Day.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Buried with Christ, and raised with Him too; / What is there left for me to do? / Simply to cease from struggling and strife, / Simply to walk in newness of life. / Glory be to God! (Hymns #483)
– I am crucified with Christ, / And the cross hath set me free; / I have ris’n again with Christ, / And He lives and reigns in me. / Oh! it is so sweet to die with Christ, / To the world, and self, and sin; / Oh! it is so sweet to live with Christ, / As He lives and reigns within. (Hymns #482)
– Our Father, as the evergreen, / Thou art forever new; / Thou art the ever living Lord, / Thy freshness as the dew. (Hymns #16)
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