God's Power For Transformation

0:05 What is eating from the tree of life? It is meditating on the fact that through the pouring out of Jesus's blood and the sacrifice of his body, that your sins are forgiven. And God says this message, which is good news because your sins are forgiven, is the power of God unto salvation. Welcome to Martha, Mary, and Mayhem. This is Cassandra Barbato, your host. And I am Amber Jinks, your co-host. Welcome. We're on episode three already of our season two. We are focusing on the identity that we have in Christ, really giving the believer that security that they have in Him and learning all about that righteousness that we have in Christ. Our first episode, we focus on the new covenant, the fact that we're not under law, but under grace.

1:03 Our second episode, we kind of really deep dove into the whole idea that we are really completely perfect forever in our inner person. We've been born of this spirit. We don't always get to see that perfect creation on the outside in our behavior, or do we hear the perfect righteous thinking in our brains all the time? There's still remnants of that old man in But that is the reality of who we are in Christ. We've been made completely perfect forever. We are part of a new covenant that says that he remembers our sins and lawless deeds no more. We're no longer under law of gotta do, gotta do. We are now under God's unearned favor permanently.

1:47 So good stuff. But we're going to focus on a new aspect here. We're going to talk about the transformative power of the gospel, which is... My favorite. And we get to talk about the two trees today, which I love to talk about the two trees in the garden. So we're going to talk about some things that I'm super excited about. What most people, when they go to scripture and they talk to the Lord, they're looking for freedom from things. They got stuff they don't like. Stuff they don't like about themselves. Right? I do. There's things I don't like that I do. Thoughts that I have that I don't like. And we're wanting freedom from those things.

2:28 And I think a lot of people, they're going to church, they're praying, they're reading the Bibles because they're looking for the freedom that is found in Christ. And sometimes that can feel like it's hard to find when we're really focused on the rules and the regulations. This is very true. I mean, for me, once upon a time, somebody, because I was very wrapped up in following rules, because that's my whole personality. And I was very... Defeated and someone told me once, like, by the way, you will never measure up. And it wasn't meant to be defeating. It was meant to be freeing. Yeah.

3:08 There is no checklist that will make you feel secure. And it's not even because it wasn't coming from a place of legalism. Like we had to meet these standards to make it to heaven. Right. It was just a being taught and seeing that being a Christian means you're a good person. And you're because I mean, we all know that one adorable, precious Christian lady who That is always praying. She's always organizing the potluck. She's always organizing VBS. I am not her. I am almost the polar opposite of her. And I've always been jealous of those women. Like that you just see as wholesome and good. Yeah.

3:48 And I... Oh, yeah. It's been a struggle because you feel like that's... What's the top of a mountain called? The peak? That's the summit. That's the summit. The summit. Yeah, yeah. That's what you're trying to reach, right? Yeah. And as you mature in Christ, that's what you're trying to get. So I was talking to a friend and they were like, you know, you're never going to get there, right? And you're just making yourself, you're putting yourself in a box, you're putting yourself in a prison, trying to be something that God did not design you to be. Because of the gospel, you're free. It's not a checklist. It's not a race to win even. It's just, you're bought, you're paid for, you're good.

4:30 You're righteous. I think one of the challenges for a lot of Christians is they come into the faith and maybe they're a new believer, maybe they were raised in the church but didn't really understand their foundation very well, and they get thrown into conversations about how they're supposed to walk right, how they're supposed to live right, the things they're supposed to avoid, how to take a stand against the devil. And nobody's taught them how to sit. Mm-hmm. And there's even imagery in a baby, right? You really are not going to be able to walk until you've learned to be seated properly. They got to sit up. They got to have their core muscles built, their balance built in order to sit. And then they can learn to walk. You've got to walk before you can take a stand against an enemy.

5:18 You're braced. Yes. So the second step is that walk piece. We talk so much in the church about your Christian walk piece. how to live a godly life. And all of this conversation about wisdom and the things pertaining to behavior are good conversations. But you don't understand them. I submit to the believer. You cannot properly understand it if you do not have your foundation situated, if you don't know your foundation in Christ. So there's the walk piece after that. We're telling people, you got to take a stand against the enemy. People are in bondage. They're in bondage to stuff that's just not good for them. And they're being told to take a stand against the enemy and all those things that he would try and bring. But they don't even, they're not walking. They don't know how to walk yet because they never learned how to sit properly.

6:10 And so we are really building this foundation of learn how to sit. Because if you want to have that fruit, you've got to know that you're under a covenant of forgiveness. That God is not remembering your sins. You've got to know that in your inner person, your new creation has been made right. It's completely perfect forever. That's your new identity in Christ. And regardless of what you're seeing on the outside, this is your sit position, that you are right with God. So this message, though, this seated foundational perspective of who we are in Christ is the part that begins to transform the believer. So you want to learn how to walk in the Lord? Get this part, this understanding correct. And that's what I'm going to prove to you using a lot of scripture today, is that this transformative power of the gospel is not about rules and regulations and behavior. It's about understanding your rightness, your foundation in Christ. I'm going to go through some Bible verses.

7:22 And I'm going to start with what I would consider my life verse. Romans 1 verse 16. And you can take it into 17 because 17 is also awesome. But verse 16 is really like my favorite. So here we go. It says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel. This is the Apostle Paul writing. For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first. and also to the Greek. So Paul's not ashamed of the gospel, but he tells us why, right? He says, for it is. So the gospel is God's power for salvation. And so we should probably look at a couple of things in that.

8:08 The word gospel is a very common churchy term that people say, but I don't know that it's ever Defined, it's just assumed everyone knows what gospel means. That's a really good point. Yes. So as you hear us say the gospel or we read verses that refer to the gospel, it is the good news. It is Jesus. It is his birth, death, and resurrection. Yes. That's the gospel. It's a really good point because if something is the power of God, we want to know what is it. The gospel is the power of God. Well, what's the gospel? It's the fact that you have the opportunity to have all your sins washed through faith in Jesus Christ. So the power of God is wrapped up in that very simple message. Jesus died for you. Believe in him. Sins forgiven.

8:59 So power. I wanted to look at just a couple of the Greek words because I like to do that. It's dunamis. Power. Strength. Ability. Might. Miracle. That's from the lexical summary. I always think of that hymn when someone says power. There is power. Power. That was the first worship song I ever sang in church. Oh, really? Yes. That I ever led. Yeah. Here we say power, though. Power. Power. Power. Is that how you do that? Yeah. I mean, personally, no, but sometimes accidentally it comes out. Power. So there's power in the blood of Jesus. P-O-W apostrophe R.

9:39 Yeah. Strong's exhaustive concordance says ability, power, strength, From dunamai, force, literally or figuratively, especially miraculous power. That's, I mean, this is why I like to look at the words. You start going, oh, it's a little bit bigger than it's got some ability. to do something. No, this is like dynamite, dunamis. It's where we actually get the word dynamite from. It is like an explosive, miraculous power and strength and ability. Yeah, it's more than the power that flips on a light switch. Yes. Yes. So we've talked about the gospel, defining that as being the message of Christ crucified for your sin. Faith in him brings you into eternal life. It's just really simple.

10:28 So he's not ashamed of this gospel because it's God's power. It's his dynamite, miracle-working power. Okay, for what? On to salvation. So we should look at what salvation is. Another very churchy word. Yeah, super churchy. It means to deliver... It means health. It means to save. It also means preservation. This is all from lexical summary, but it's also the word that's used when Christ said, your faith has made you well, it literally is the word that is, your faith has saved you. So this is the root. It comes from the word sozo, which means to save, to rescue, to deliver, to heal, to preserve. That's the root of salvation.

11:18 So when Paul writes that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, He's saying that the gospel is God's dynamite miracle working power to save, to rescue, to deliver, to heal, or to preserve. Because sometimes you're doing, you got good stuff going on. You don't want to lose it, right? It's also his power to keep those things. And this is the same word that Jesus used when he talked about your faith has made you well. For example, in Matthew 9, verse 22. So, but there's a little, there's a little bit of, there's an action on our part. So it says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation, but it's not for everyone. It's for everyone who believes. So this tells me that there is something that is our part and our part is to believe. That kind of drives us into verse 17, where the apostle Paul writes, for in it, that's in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith There's a faith part. And the believer, the work that we really have in Christ, that position of understanding our seated place of where we are, there is a work to believe. And the reason is, is

12:50 because we see other things. We see this world system. that has sin, it has corruption, it has tragedy, it has death. The enemy is at work here. We see our own behavior. We see things that contradict to the kingdom of God in our day to day. There is a faith part on our part to maintain a fixed position in the concept of the gospel that I am perfectly right. I'm God's kid. I have access to the kingdom resources through Jesus Christ. And living in that concept, that seated place releases God's power in our life. And so when we get out of that mindset and start going into there's something I got to do. I've got to earn God's favor. I've got to work to get God to do things in my life. I've got to act, talk, walk, look a certain way in order for the resources of the kingdom to be available to me. Or there's some believers who don't even think that God wants to bless them.

13:57 They don't believe that God has kingdom resources for them. They live in a mentality of lack, and they actually think that that's what God wants for them. And then we're telling them to go walk right. Go stand against the enemy. And they don't even have the, they're completely drained of the real strength that is available to walk and take a stand. Because it's only found in that fixed foundation of who we are in Christ. Because I was talking to someone recently that didn't understand that not only your salvation is forever, the gospel is forever.

14:37 forever it's two-sided you hear the phrase once saved always saved right but the qualification doesn't change either the price that christ paid when he died on the cross like that that doesn't change that is forever that is the only way that there will ever be to be right with god it's not gonna go away the gospel doesn't change it is firm it is set and so it's not like you meet this criteria now and then maybe later there's going to be something else come along This is it. Yeah. There's people who treat it like an entrance fee. Yeah. I got in and now I'm maintaining. And that's not it. The maintenance is God's business. This is where I'm going to jump over to the trees. The tree. The tree talk.

15:24 There's been a lot of trees in my life. You have a special relationship with trees. They kind of like to fall on everything. Yeah. I've lost a car to a tree. I've had some trees try and take out my house. It's been a little wild. Tennessee and the tree thing. I used to think the trees were just this beautiful, majestic. I just love them. I still think they're beautiful. But they're messy. They are weapons of mass destruction is what they are. I had no idea. But I should have learned from Genesis chapter two because there's some conversations around some trees.

16:04 You like my segue? I like that. Those are pretty good. So All right, Genesis 2, verse 9 says, Out of the ground the Lord God caused every tree to grow that is pleasing to the sight and good for food. And then he talks about two very specific trees. He says, The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So he names these two specific trees. What I have noticed is that we are really good of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We are constantly, constantly constantly looking for what's the good and what's the evil. Because in my mind, I'm going to do the good and I'm going to avoid the evil.

16:47 And this is a message of self-effort. I'm going to try to be really good. I'm going to try to avoid all the bad stuff. There's an outcome from eating from that tree. And the outcome is death. That's what happens. There's unrighteousness from eating from that tree. And that's what we see. Curse is brought on Adam and Eve because they ate from that tree. And we're not convinced today that that's not the tree we're supposed to be eating from. The other tree, however, if we really want life, life that is sourced from an eternal, unending resource that never dries up, that comes from the tree itself. So what do we want? Do we want the curse on our life that leads to death? Or do we want the resource of eternal life? Because if we think that the eternal life is found in constantly trying to do good and avoiding the bad, we have been mistaken because life comes from a different tree. I love saying that. It's like one of my favorite things. And what is the tree that life comes from? So I'm going to pull us out of the very beginning of the Bible and

18:18 I'm going to bring us right into the New Testament because Jesus says some wild things. that we're going to connect to this tree of life. So if we go to John chapter six, you can just imagine people being so offended when he says this. Chapter six, verse 51, he says, I am the living bread that came down out of heaven. If anyone eats from this bread, he will live forever. And the bread which I will give for the life of the world is also is my flesh. And then the Jews began to argue with one another saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves.

19:07 The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. He's relating it back to the manna, right? So when the Israelites came out of Egypt, God gave them this bread from heaven to eat and they would collect it daily. And there was also some birds that they would catch and eat as well. But there's another meaning here that we can relate all the way back to the garden. You see, eating from the tree of life is eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus and you can even see it in this picture.

19:51 When Christ was crucified, he hung on a tree. And he, that his physical body became that fruit of that tree. And that tree and that fruit is what gives life to the believer. So I'm going to, I want to just attach that to the communion a little bit, because this is what he's going to talk about. He's going to relate it all the way to what we talked about in episode one, where he connects it to the ratification of a new covenant. You are what you eat. This is true. You are what you eat. And what are you eating? Are you eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Or are you eating from the tree of life? So I want to try and take the believer into what it means to be eating from the tree of life, to have eternal life. Yes, we have it because we've already believed onto Christ. But I'm trying to say that there's a day-to-day life that can be visible in our walk. in our taking a stand against the enemy, if we're willing to believe for it and eat from it daily.

21:06 And it's not anything like that other than the blessings and the happiness that comes from it. And it doesn't mean that there's not going to be challenges. We're living in a war zone. We got an enemy. It's a really common thing right now, especially on social media, the choose your. Heart, right? It's a very good point. You can stay in a marriage or you can get divorced. Being married is hard. Being divorced is hard. You choose your heart. You can eat healthy and exercise or you can be overweight. Choose your heart. Both are hard. Choose your heart. And the thing about this is one, you get to walk with Jesus and the other, you have to rely on yourself.

21:47 And I would argue that the choosing your heart, one is easy. in comparison. For sure. It's not an equal weight. This is where when the storms come, when the enemy attacks, when you've made stupid choices, you have literally God's dynamite power ready to be released through faith in the fact that you stand completely perfect before your God. And this is the mentality. We were afraid to come to him because we think he's disappointed.

22:28 We're afraid to ask for the resources of the kingdom of forgiveness or strength or whatever it is because we think that he's mad at us because I didn't walk, talk, act, look the way that I thought I should. Or we have to reach some level of Christendom to be qualified for those types of things. Yes. But we are standing in complete peace with our creator through the bloodshed of Jesus Christ. And he desires to pour out his favor. Like, do we know what that means? He wants to bless us in very real ways. And we're not sure that that's what he wants. That's what I'm trying to convince the believer of. It's right there.

23:15 You've got a relationship with the father that cannot be broken by your behavior. And when you come to him, it is his, it is his loving desire to pour out his love on you in all ways, every way. I want to take us to the Lord's supper. I'm in chapter 26, verse 26. Now, while they were eating, Jesus took some bread and after a blessing, he broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, take, eat, this is my body. So we're kind of getting the explanation of what he was talking about in the other chapter, right? When he's like, eat my flesh and drink my blood. And they're like, what is this crazy dude talking about? Yeah, that's disgusting. And he's like, okay, so here it is.

24:00 Here's my, here's bread. He breaks it. And he says, he decides he's going to tell them that this is his body. And he's actually giving them a physical way to eat and drink of him. I think it's very cool because he, we have a way to eat and drink from that tree of life in a very physical way. Yes, we do that from a spiritual perspective through faith, but we can take communion as a real living action of remembering the body of Christ and remembering the new covenant. So take, eat, this is my body. And then when he had taken a cup and given thanks, he gave it to them saying, Just in case you weren't clear on what the new covenant is about. It's about the forgiveness of your sins. But what he says there, his blood is being poured for forgiveness of sins. What is eating from the tree of life? It is meditating on the fact that through the pouring out of Jesus's blood and the sacrifice of his body, that your sins are forgiven.

25:11 And God says, this message, which is good news because your sins are forgiven, is the power of God onto salvation. He says, that's the thing. And we're still trying to go back to trying to be pleasing with God some other way. We do have a walk that we want to be living that is in accordance with God's ways. There's good stuff there. We're in alignment with the Spirit when we're doing that. But I want to drive home that before we get into even talking about the walk that we have being led by the Spirit, we've got to understand where transformation for the believer takes place. So let's go to Romans chapter 12 and do not be conformed.

25:57 So this is Romans chapter 12, verse two, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. I have to organize everything or I can't understand it. So I have like an organized way of understanding how God is dealing with me as a believer. I've got my new creation in the spirit, which is my real identity. That's who I really am. I was born of the spirit. My spirit is renewed. Then I have the renewing of my mind. This is my personality. This is kind of Cassie, the soul of who I am, right? That is in transition. It's in transformation.

26:44 It's not perfect yet. I can assure you. I can assure you. It's not perfect yet. Okay? I'm being renewed to the truth. Scripture teaches... that there is a final renewing in the physical body. At some point, this physical body, hallelujah, will not be the body that it is today. It will be a glorified new body that cannot die. And that will take place in a moment. Either you'll be raised from the dead or you will be caught up in the rapture, which will be, that's a whole other subject. So we got three parts. We have the moment that we were born of the spirit. We have the in transition part, which is the one that we really talk about probably the most, which is our soul, our mind, our personality, our emotions, our will.

27:31 And then we have the physical person. Three parts. This conversation here in Romans chapter 12 is talking about the transformative part, the part that's in transition. And your mind is renewed to something new. that causes it to be transformed, that causes your actions, your life, your walk to be transformed? Well, the renewing of the mind is to the truth of the gospel, because that's where God's power is. It's not renewed to do's and don'ts. It's not renewed to a checklist of Christianese things that you got to do. It's renewed the power, the dynamite miracle working power for salvation is in the gospel. And that gospel is the thing that you are renewing your mind to. So if you want to grow spiritual growth, you want to grow in the Lord, you're going to renew your mind to the truth of who you are in Christ. of how forgiven you are, how right you are because of what Jesus did, not because of you. And then there's going to be something, there's going to be an outcome that happens. I like this part because it says you're going to prove what the will of God is. So that word prove in the Greek means to test and approve. It's like you tested it and then you checked it and it was good.

28:59 So you're like, it's like dipping your toe in the water. Is the water okay? You know, is it cold? So you tested the waters and you're like, yeah, that's good, right? And you're going to prove, you're going to test and approve. If you're willing to accept that your sins are forgiven, if you're willing to be in this foundation of that you are completely right with God, there can almost be like a little bit of a scariness of letting go of trying to measure up. But if you're willing and you want to test it, go ahead and test it. you're going to test and you're going to be approving of God's will. His will is good. It's acceptable and it's perfect. And the more you're transformed to this knowledge, it starts impacting your decisions. It starts impacting the way you interact with people.

29:50 It changes your anxiety levels are affected by this in a positive way. So you start seeing a transformation in your own person that becomes more and more in alignment with the way that God is even calling you to live as you meditate on this gospel message. And the more you do that, you're going to be testing and approving and testing and approving and testing and approving because you're going to see that God's will, his will for you to understand how perfect you are because of Jesus and not because of you has power in it. And you're going to say, you know what? It is good. It is acceptable. It is perfect. God's message of salvation for me results in positive things in my life. that are good, acceptable, and perfect. And that's the foundation. That's where we're going to live. And anytime we get squirrely, we want to come back and remember that. Who am I in Christ? Because of what Jesus did and not because of me. That is going to move us into our next subject, which is really being led by the Spirit.

31:07 Because there are things that we don't want to be doing anymore. There's things that we don't want to have as part of our life anymore. We want to see the fruit of the Spirit of God in our life. And so next episode, that's where we're going. We're going to be talking about being led by the Spirit. Jace. So exciting. And I hope you join us for that conversation. We'll see you next week. See you soon.