IDENTITY: "I am Victorious"

Here are the notes from Sunday's message at New Life Community Church.  This was the last is the series IDENTITY and is entitled "I am Victorious".  If you would like to listen to this message, you may do so by going to our website at www.newlifesite.com.  God bless.

IDENTITY, Part 6                                                                             Sunday, October 27, 2013

 “I am Victorious”

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

Three questions:

1.      Who do you think you are?

2.      Who does God say that you are?

3.      Who does Satan say that you are?

Old Game Show:  To Tell the Truth.  Three individuals who claimed the same identity.  Four panelists asked questions to determine who the real one was.

Will the real _________ please stand up?

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.  Galatians 2:20 (NKJV)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer:  "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die."

Inability to live “the Christian Life”

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  I Corinthians 15:57 (ESV)

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.  II Corinthians 2:13 (ESV)

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  Romans 8:37 (NKJV)

Question:  What things?

³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:  “For Your sake we are killed all day long;  We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”  Romans 8:35-36 (NKJV)

Context of TRUE VICTORY is

⁷ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. ⁸ We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—  II Corinthians 4:7-9 (NKJV)

1.     Victory comes from what you SEE

¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, ¹⁸ while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.  II Corinthians 4:16-18 (NKJV)

2.     Victory comes from what you KNOW

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;  Hosea 4:6 (ESV)

3.     Victory comes from where you FELLOWSHIP

Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”  I Corinthians 15:33 (NIV)

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.  Proverbs 13:20 (ESV)

The righteous should choose his friends carefully, for the way of the wicked leads them astray.  Proverbs 12:26 (NKJV)