The Culture of Heaven - Love

I want to talk with you about two things

Firstly, I want to say a little more concerning the things we’ve been sharing about how the Lord has made us brand new people.

Secondly, I want to talk to about our awesome friend, the Holy Spirit, who has come to help us experience the wonder of that brand new life.

The Cross has made us brand new people

1. •our old sinful nature (that Paul calls “our old man” or “the body of sin”) is dead; it was crucified with Christ
   

2. •now we have a new righteous nature (Paul called it “Christ in you” and “Christ lives in me”) … not two competing, but one new nature in which sin finds no place, rather the nature and character of Christ reigns
   

3. •this truth is the basis of our being able to experience the culture of heaven among us like Paul described in Colossians 3:12-17
   

Our old man tried to live like that, but couldn’t because of a sin-nature

1. •some have tried to make these a set of requirements, a law.
   

2. •When Jesus said love your enemies and you are to be perfect (Matthew 5:43) he wasn’t making a new law, but in the same breath gave us the life-giving key ... so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. In other words, the nature of Christ is a result of your new birth, you’re just like your Father.
   

John 13:34-35

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you . . . and by this shall all men know that you belong to me”

1. •Jesus carried the love of heaven to earth.
   

2. •He says I want to set up a culture like that here, and I’m starting with you.
   

3. •The culture that permeates heaven, have it among yourselves, and it will impact all men – the rest of the world will be touched by it.
   

This is a “new commandment” = Kaino – of a new kind, uncommon, unheard of and unprecedented. In other words, this is “commandment” that it different in every respect to the OLD understanding of commandment.

1. •the old understanding of commandment was – summons up the best moral qualities you can find within and make your best effort to obey.
   

2. •Hebrews 8:6 – 12  a better one because the old didn’t work v 6
   

3. - the old (first) was faulty v 7 & 8 … all it did was reveal our sinful
   

4.   nature, and show us how desperately we needed a Saviour.
   

5. -The new and better is about something God does in our hearts and in
   

6.   our minds (no longer externally flogging ourselves to live up to an
   

7.   external standard)
   

Jeremiah’s prophecy is looking 500 years into the future and sees that mankind is to get a totally new deal, a different and better covenant was going to be established that would …

1. •replace a culture of legal requirement, self-effort and subsequent failure
   

2. •and replace it with a culture of freedom from requirement, miracle change in our hearts and minds, that would lead to days of heaven on earth.
   

3. •We’re not just fixed up/forgiven, but brand new! We have a new nature . . . a brand new ‘bowling ball’.
   

In Galatians 2:20 Paul answers an important question; “how can I live right here, right now, in this body; but live out of my entirely new nature?” Here’s what he says:

I have been crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not I, but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh  I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

His answer … by BELIEVING IT. Faith empowers either a lie or the truth (How do you empower a liar? By believing him!)

OK . . . I’ve been born again / I’m a brand new creation / Christ lives in me / and I believe it / and I try to remember to declare that this is true as often as I can / but I don’t always remember / and I don’t always succeed in letting the Christ life flow out of me / I think. Maybe it’s not working quite as it should . . . WAIT, WAIT, HOLD ON THERE . . . Help is on the way!

Listen to Jesus (all this recorded in John chapter 14, 15 and 16)

I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever   . . .   But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.   . . .   But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.   . . .   It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you    . . .   He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you

Amplified: He will take of (receive, draw upon) what is Mine and will reveal (declare, disclose, transmit) it to you.

‘Helper’ = one called alongside to help. Jesus never intended living out of the new Christ-like nature to be a struggle – it’s to be a nature that’s energised, released, made contemporary, experienced, rubbed in, poured out, made to overflow

. . . through the involvement of the helper, the awesome Holy Spirit!

That’s why Jesus said Wait until you’re endued with power from on high

WAIT . . . HELP IS ON THE WAY (don’t leave town without him)

Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God  . . .  Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us

1. ✤I have a new commandment to love. LAMP
   

2. ✤love is the new big thing in the new heaven-culture on earth
   

3. ✤my old nature that kept failing in the love department has been crucified (good riddance). DEAD LIGHT BULB
   

4. ✤I have a new Christ-nature which makes me a man of love, naturally. NEW LIGHT BULB
   

5. ✤now I have a Helper, the Holy Spirit, taking the Jesus attribute called love, and declaring, disclosing and transmitting that love in me . POWER CONNECTION
   

Ephesians 5:8-10, 17-21

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light  . . .    And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be (continuously) filled with the Spirit, 19speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, 20giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21submitting to one another in the fear of God.

A culture full of melody, full of thankfulness and full of the love that prefers others above oneself  . . .  is  released, experienced and made to overflow . . . through the involvement of the helper, the awesome Holy Spirit! Be filled!