Alive to God (Part 2)

Scripture Reading

Will you please turn in your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6. This morning we'll be looking at verses Specifically verses 8 through 11. We'll read verses 1 through 11 for context. Romans chapter 6, if you're using the New King James Pew Bibles, you'll find that on page 1003. You're now God's perfect word. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death. That just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, for he who has died has been freed from sin. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin. but alive to God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Prayer for Illumination

Let's pray. Father, you have given us your word. And we know that it is not like the wild flowers that were once in the ditches and withered away. But we know that your word endures forever. So Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit might take your word that we have read. We pray that you might use it like a surgeon's scalpel.

Sermon

Father, we pray that you would take out the cancer of our hearts. Lord, we know that there are areas in our lives that still need reforming. Areas of our heart that are still Clinging to the old man. The cancer of sin and death that still wants to be malignant and spread it throughout our souls. Oh, Lord, we pray that your spirit might apply your word to our hearts.

Help us, God. We need your spirit to be working. Please care for me and my sinful lips. Father, please be at work even in the preaching of your word. In Jesus's name, amen. You're going to serve someone or something. The question is, who or what is it? Who will you serve in this life? Or what will you serve in this life?

All of us, chapter five was saying, were born in sin. And we naturally served Adam, walked in the pattern in the way of Adam. Sin and death was our Lord. But Romans chapter five was pushing us that it's no longer your Lord. And as we looked at the first five verses or four verses, when we were baptized into Christ's death, we have a new Lord.

And so the question is, who do you serve? And I hope that as you go home today, I hope that you will know that you have a conscious decision every single day, if you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, if you've been baptized into Christ's death, if you are a new creation in Christ, you actually get to decide, how do I want to live? Well, I serve the old man, and His desires, or will I walk in the freedom that Jesus has bought for me, and go in the way that brings the Father glory?

You can truly live to God. You can live your life to God's glory. And so first, just as a quick recap of last week, it's only going to take about three, maybe two minutes, You must be united to Christ. That's something that you can't do, but the Holy Spirit must do in you. Your life must be implanted, engrafted into Christ. He must be the power, the source, the lifeblood of your life. If you are outside of Christ, none of this applies to you.

But if we are those it speaks of in verse five, and Paul certainly thought that the Roman Christians were, for if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. And then he wants them to know something in verse six, that our old man has been crucified with Jesus.

Elsewhere in the Bible it says that our sins were nailed to the cross. Our old man was crucified with him. That the body of sin might be done away with. Why? Look at the last part there of verse six. What's the purpose of our old man being crucified with Christ? That we should no longer be slaves to sin.

Jesus died so you can actually have freedom. For he, that's Jesus, for he who has died has been freed from sin. That is your life hidden in Christ. Jesus was freed from the tyranny of sin and death, even though He did not sin, He died for the sins of His people, and your life being hidden in Christ, being united to Christ, when Jesus died and paid the penalty for sin, that was the ransom payment. You no longer are owned by sin, but you are owned by Jesus. He paid the price with His own blood.

We Believe That We Will Live with Jesus

And so we come to today, verse 8. We believe that we will live with Jesus. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. I think this has two meanings. The first meaning of verse 8 is that there really is coming a day and age when Jesus will come back on that last great day and the body of those who died being united to Christ, their bodies still being united to Christ on that last great day, will rise up in the resurrection and will live with Jesus in the new heavens and new earth forever.

Body and soul reunited in perfect glory, living where there's no pain, no tears, where the toil and the curse of sin is done away with. That is the Christian hope. That is what 1 Corinthians 15 is getting at. And do not let anybody deceive you or steal the joy of the future resurrection of the dead from your heart.

Because if the resurrection is not true, then our faith is useless. But we know that if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. But that living doesn't just wait until the last day. That living even starts today in our spiritual life. We live, we shall live even now in the new life He has given us in Christ. This is tension. Theologians will call this the already but not yet. Are you alive in Christ? Yes, you are alive in Christ. Would you be alive in Christ even at the resurrection?

Oh yes, and so much more. There's this neat thing that happens with language like this. And one of my friends I was talking to over coffee a couple months ago, and he said, Brian, it's kind of like when you're driving to Colorado. And as you drive to Colorado, headed from the east going west, you can see all of a sudden, it comes out of nowhere, all of a sudden you start seeing little bits of mountains. And then you get close, and it just looks like one mountain. But then as you get closer, you realize it's not just one mountain, but there are mountains and mountains and mountains. And they're not just this way, but they're like stacked on each other.

And then you actually get into the mountains, and you realize, oh, I thought this was where the mountains ended, but there's even bigger mountains past and beyond that, and you go up mountains and down mountains, and you go back up mountains, even higher, and then back down, and there's even more beyond that.

That's how prophecy works here. That's how this passage is saying. We know the resurrection is coming. We know that Jesus is king now, but we know that it's not just right now what we see, but there's even something better coming. There's an even more glorious peak. And so your spiritual life is to be lived in Christ now.

So we look, but this is something I need to warn you, right? Verse eight, now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. I just want to be clear, because we said earlier that you are no longer a slave to sin, but you might, there's a temptation. There's a temptation in this Christian life as we do this thing called sanctification, and I included that definition again for you in the handout this week. As we try to be more like Christ, there's this thing that in our hearts and Satan tries to do where it tempts us. We start going inward. As we think about sanctification, we start thinking, well, I gotta try more.

And I gotta be stronger. And I gotta pick up myself by my bootstraps. And if I just get enough gumption, if I just have enough the old word in the Hebrew is me'odecha. All your umph, your might. Maybe if I just stir that up enough, then I'll be holy. I gotta tell you, you're gonna have to strive and you're gonna have to fight. But if it's by your own strength.

You're gonna fail. And you're gonna disappoint yourself. and you'll actually end up in a place of despair because you're not relying on the Lord. You're not living your life in Christ, you're going back to the old taskmaster. We don't look inwardly for our own righteousness, we look to Jesus.

And this is one of those areas, I put a big fancy word there for you, mortification. This is another theological word, this idea of mortification. Have you ever heard of a mortician before? What do they do? If you go to a morgue or you go to a mortician, you deal with people who are dealing with dead people and dead bodies, right? Mortification is putting to death sin. We put to death the body of sin so we might live holy lives.

But this is where I'm going to drop a name on you and give you a book. But I'm letting you know this is the type of book that you're going to read one page and you'll probably scratch your head. I don't understand what that meant. Go back and have to reread it two or three times. And then it'll become more and more sweet to you each time.

But there's a book written by a man named John Owen. And he wrote this book, The Mortification of Sin. And when I say you'll probably have to read it two, three times, I'm telling you because I have to read each page two, three times. But one of the things he'll talk about towards the second third of the book, is he actually starts talking about, what do you actually do to mortify sin?

And he starts off the first part of the book saying like, you gotta kill sin, you gotta hate sin, you gotta give it no quarter, you can't just let it kind of be a little bit of your friend sometimes, and then hate it other days. Like no, you gotta just hate it or hate it. But then he says, but it's not enough just to hate it.

Because there's all sorts of reprobate people who do not live regenerate lives. They have not been filled with the Spirit. And they feel bad for their sins. They feel guilt. But they'll never actually truly change. And then he does this amazing switch. So what produces real change? It's not just the hating of sin. but it's the loving of Jesus.

It's that when you love Christ more and more, when He becomes to you your chief jewel, your greatest joy, when you fix your eyes on Christ and you desire to be more like Him, And it's not of a slavish fear, but it's because He loves you so much that He died and gave His life for you, that your life is hidden in Him. Then, as your desires change, so will your actions.

Now I gotta tell you, some of you last week told me I put you in an odd spot. I ate a few meals with a few of you this week, and I had people telling me, well, maybe I shouldn't go back for that second helping because I don't want to be gluttonous, and you talked about that in your sermon. Well, good, I'm glad you listened, right? But what's going to stop you from that?

Is it just because Pastor Brian's there at lunch? What happens when nobody's there with you? Maybe you're like me in the night hour. I don't have a problem overeating when Olivia's watching. I have a problem when I'm up late at night doing my projects and she's asleep. That's when the cookies come out. What changes that?

What's your chief joy? What are you delighting in most? What do you want most? What do you want your life to look like? What do you want to give as your account on the last great day? See, as you desire, so will your heart do. Why do we do the stuff we do? Because we do what we want to do. So what do you want to do? Do you want to live your life to God's glory? Do you see your life hidden in Christ, and because you love Jesus so much, you do not want to bring Him shame, but you want to live your life for Him? See the difference? One is because you're a slave, and oh, I just gotta do hard enough.

The other is, man, I get to live this life that Jesus gave me. I don't have to live for sin, I can live for God's glory. We will live in this life constantly fighting sin, but we must fix our eyes on Jesus. We must love God and His glory. We must so desire to be with Christ that we would be able to say, I don't know what I would choose. Because if I stay alive, I get to do more stuff for Jesus. But to be with Christ is better. What do you desire most in life?

Jesus Is the Proof That We Are No Longer Slaves

For if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ Having raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. Jesus is the proof that we are no longer slaves. That's our fifth point in verse nine. Jesus is the proof that this is true. We know something. We know that Christ has been raised from the dead.

Again, I hate to just be story time here, but I remember vividly talking to somebody who went to a church just down south of here. And as her and I were talking, she was going to a different church, and she said, I felt so betrayed. Because on one day in the spring, the pastor walked into the pulpit, and he declared to the congregation, I no longer believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead physically. and went on for an hour about why the scriptures were just saying Jesus rose spiritually. And I thought, you're no better than a Muslim who would say that, well, he didn't really die, it just seemed like he died.

No, Jesus truly did raise from the dead. This is why the church for now 2,000 years has confessed that Jesus was died, Jesus was crucified, he died, he was buried, he rose from the dead, and he appeared to hundreds. And he ascended up into heaven. Jesus wanted it to be so clear to people that he really did raise from the dead spiritually, that when his disciples thought, oh, maybe, just maybe this is a ghost, he said, boys, let's have breakfast.

Ghosts don't eat. Get some fish. I'm real. Resurrection isn't some myth. Wasn't the disciples' pipe dream. But Paul said, you don't believe it? There's still people alive. It's just a boat ride away. Paul's made that boat ride bunches of times. Go to Jerusalem and start asking around. You're gonna run into people who were there.

Jesus died, Jesus rose from the dead, and Jesus will never die again. That's our proof that we are no longer slaves to sin. Because his death was real, and his resurrection is real. Death no longer has any claim over Jesus, so how can it have a claim over you?

Could God do any more? Right? What could God do greater than giving up His only one and begotten Son to die on the cross to prove His love for you? I don't propose to you if that's not enough, nothing's ever going to convince you. God ripped apart all human understanding and how everything seems to operate between heaven and earth. And Jesus, even though he is in the fullness of God, the exact likeness and image, yet humbled himself and took on the form of a man and died for us.

We know that Christ has been raised from the dead and dies no more. And because of that, death no longer has dominion over him. And the tie here is that means death doesn't have dominion over you either. That's why Jesus told his disciples, though you die, yet you shall surely live.

See, Jesus is a perfect Adam. Adam died and he's dead. Jesus died and he rose again. Jesus proved his sinless life in his resurrection. Jesus endured all the trial and temptation that Satan can throw at him and prevailed. Jesus lived a perfect life. Jesus died the perfect death.

I Consider Myself Dead to Sin and Alive to God in Christ Jesus

And that means sin is no longer Lord. It's not Lord over Jesus. And if you're in Jesus, guess what? That means sin is not Lord over You. Jesus is Lord. And you were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. So what does this mean for your life? Or a last point, or point six, verse 10. I consider myself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Look with me at verse 10. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. I love that word in verse 11. Reckon yourselves. This is elsewhere, the word consider. Reason about yourselves.

When you're having that internal dialogue about yourself, and we're going to see that internal dialogue show up in chapter 7, by the way. Paul's going to talk about his internal, how does he talk to himself. Man, I can't wait to get there, when we get into chapter 7 and chapter 8, because we're going to find the internal dialogue of Paul as he wrestles with his own heart. But when you're wrestling in your own heart about who you are, when Satan comes and hurls accusations, when you sin yet again, you're like, oh man, I'm such a dummy, why did I do that? And you may even accuse yourself, maybe I'm not a Christian, or...

No. No, the instruction here is consider, reckon yourself to be dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. You are a new creation if you are in Christ Jesus. Behold, the old is gone, the new has come. So how will you live your life now? So when you catch yourself thinking according to the ways of the old man, you're gonna have to decide.

And let me just say, I think all of us do this. Maybe we don't wanna say it out loud, Maybe we're a little bit embarrassed, but there are times that you're gonna think, maybe, you know, a psychologist might call it intrusive thoughts or something, and there's an idea that pops into your mind of like, oh, maybe I should go do this, and it's this wild sin. Or, oh, maybe I should go this direction, and you're like, where did that come from? I haven't struggled with that sin forever.

You have an opportunity at that moment. To talk to yourself. And I'm not talking about the crazy way of talking to yourself. I'm talking about a healthy way to talk to yourself. Reason with yourself. Reckon with yourself. I am no longer a slave to sin. It doesn't have power over you. It can't force you to. You have new desires. The old man's gonna creep up. And guess what you do? You put him to death. That's not who I was. I'm not who I want to be yet. That's gonna come in glory. But I don't have to be who I was. I'm not gonna go that way.

So what are you hungering after? What are you thirsting for? What is the light showing you what path you're walking? What is your desire? What do you want most in life? What do you wanna tell King Jesus at his throne on the judgment day? Who do you want to be?

I wanna give you this morning the hope of the gospel that's applied to our hearts and lives. So the good news isn't just that Jesus died for your sins. Let's say he rose from the dead, that you get a new life. You get a new lease. You get a new way. You have a new opportunity.

Even today, who will you be? And please don't say, well, I'm gonna be perfect. Well, maybe you can strive to be, I'm gonna be perfect, or I'm gonna strive to be perfect like Christ. But don't deceive yourself. You're never going to be perfect in this life.

Closing Prayer

And if you need a reality check, just go talk to your kids or your spouse. Right? But you strive to bring God glory. You reckon yourself dead to sin. You choose in your heart, I'm not going to follow that old man. I get to live like Jesus. Because I love Jesus and I love His ways. And I want to bring Him glory. Who are you? How are you going to walk? Who do you love most? Let's pray.

Father, we thank you that you have freed us to love you because you first loved us. Lord, we thank you that you have given us your spirit that we might live in and under the lordship of our King Jesus. What a wonderful dominion. What an amazing kingdom to be a part of. Father, we thank you that we have been blessed to get to learn by the Holy Spirit to walk in newness of life.

So Father, please do it. I pray for my own self, I pray for the members of your church here, that you would please let us give our account with great joy at the last great day. Fill our hearts with love for you. Give us a new way to walk, Lord. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.