1. The Benefits of Being IN CHRIST
Bridging the Gap
The Benefits of Being IN CHRIST

2. Last Week
The most important piece to understanding the practical hope of the gospel is to understand that the offer of salvation through Jesus and the hope of heaven is all about being united to Jesus so that we are in Him and He is in us.
Nothing is more helpful, comforting, and encouraging than to know that Christ is in us and that we are united to Him at all times.

3. The Benefits of being IN Christ
Justification
Justification is an act of God, where he decides and declares that all our sins are forgiven and that we are no longer guilty and separated from God, but are innocent and in good standing with Him.

4. The Benefits of being IN Christ
Romans 3:23-25 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith.”

5. The Benefits of being IN Christ
Romans 5:1 “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are IN Christ Jesus.”

6. The Benefits of being IN Christ
Important note: God does not just declare you forgiven and righteous (even though you’re not). If we are united to Christ, and what happened to Christ has happened to us, the only judgment God can render is innocent, forgiven, restored; that is what is true of you in Christ.

7. The Benefits of being IN Christ
All His righteousness is counted as ours if we are in HIM. 2 Cor 5:21 “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

8. The Benefits of being IN Christ
“Just as Christ became so identified with our sins that he was made sin [and was judged with death accordingly] so we, being in ourselves utterly ungodly, are so identified with Christ’s righteousness that we are made the righteousness of God. Christ is ours, and therefore all that is his is ours in union with him!” – John Murray

9. The Benefits of being IN Christ
The daily difference:
We mess up big time. How do we deal with this?
We don’t acknowledge our fault and spend time justifying ourselves or making excuses for why we behaved in a certain way. Why do we do this?
A teacher accuses us of doing something we did or didn’t do or a friend (or parent) rejects us or hurts us.
You feel like a failure in life because you did poorly on a test; made an unwise decision; forgot a meeting.

10. The Benefits of being IN Christ
Adoption Jesus is God’s only son. But if we are united to Christ, if we are in Christ so that whatever happens to Him happens to us, then we also become sons of God.

11. The Benefits of being IN Christ
Galatians 4:4-6 “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son…to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

12. The Benefits of being IN Christ
Being adopted means:
Sharing in Christ’s inheritance: “You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” – Romans 8:15-17

13. The Benefits of being IN Christ
Everything God does for us is done out of his perfect love for us, his perfect care for us, and his perfect wisdom of exactly what should happen in order to help us be the people He longs for us to be.
We are secure in Christ forever: “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” John 10:28-29

14. The Benefits of being IN Christ
Sanctification
First, the word sanctification means “to be set apart”. And when the Bible talks about sanctification, it says that we have been completely set apart, cut off from the power and reign of sin, and been made new creations IN CHRIST.

15. The Benefits of being IN Christ
“We know that our old self was crucified with [Christ] in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again…For the death he died he died to sin…but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Rom 6:6-11

16. The Benefits of being IN Christ
The second thing sanctification means is “to be purified”. And the Bible tells us that people who have died to sin and become new creations who are alive to God ought to and will begin to live more and more like the new people they are.

17. The Benefits of being IN Christ
1 John 3:1-3
“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”

18. The Benefits of being IN Christ
When I am tempted, I have a fight song – Sin, you don’t rule me anymore. I don’t have to listen to you.
When I am tempted, I have the Spirit of God dwelling in me who has made me a new creation by taking me along in Christ’s resurrection.
And when I fail, I still have the hope that sin doesn’t define me – my hope of being remade perfectly like Christ is still alive; He dwells in me by his Spirit, and is at work within me.