Romans 6:8-14 - Faith is about more!

If you are a person of the resurrection, in other words you believe in Jesus, how does that change your life today? Our faith isn’t just about the afterlife, it’s about the power of God working in us moment by moment.  I believe the Spirit of God can truly move the pieces of our lives around until we are fully new.   I also believe that one of the main ways that happens is when we let Scripture speak into our depths. Our passage is Romans 6:8-14, the part of Paul’s letter where he continues to develop this idea of being alive in Christ and dead to sin.

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If you're a person of the resurrection, in other words, you believe in Jesus, how does that change your life today? Our faith isn't just about the afterlife. It's about the power of God moving in us moment by moment. I fully believe that the Spirit of God can rearrange and move those pieces of our lives around until we are fully new. I also think that one of the main ways that happens is when we let the scriptures move into the very depths and center of who we are. On that happy note, welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I am so glad that you've joined us today. We're in Romans chapter 6, verses 8 through 14. It's the part of the letter where Paul continues to develop this idea of being dead to sin and alive in Christ. The idea that he started off at the beginning of this chapter. We're going to jump right into that text, but before we do that, let's pray. Jesus, thank you for this wonderful day that you've given us. God, thank you that you you desire to make all things new and to give us this life that is so much better, further beyond than anything we could achieve on our own. God thank you for for loving us. Be with us now. We ask this in your name. Amen. All right, let's jump into it together. Please go ahead and open up your own copy of Romans chapter six, verses eight through fourteen, and this is what Paul wrote. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. Let's take a moment to pause and just pray and listen to what God has for us. You can pause this podcast if you like. All right. Let's move into some observations, and uh it's always kind of like nice and neat when we are reading any of the letters that Paul wrote, just because of the way that he writes. And I identified three just kind of couplings, I guess, that I wanted to put together. I guess the first one is three verses, uh, but uh but we'll move into it. So the first bit is verses eight through ten, and I gave it this little caption of death is no longer in charge. And I love thinking about it in that way. Let's look at each of these three verses and kind of unpack it a bit more. So verse eight really is just that blunt, kind of straightforward messaging, which is kind of leaning on the first seven verses. And those ones, remember, talked about the idea of us being baptized or immersed into Christ so that we're changed, identified with him, and that includes both his death and his resurrection. And so there is this death toward the old ways and life in this newness that is ours in him. Again, if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. And that moves us into verse nine, uh, which brings about this further reality of Christ's resurrection. You see, it wasn't just that he came back to life the one time, but it's that he cannot die again, and death no longer has mastery over him. Now, if you look in in other parts of the Bible, Old Testament or New, you see other examples of people who were dead, brought back to life, either through a prophet uh praying and asking God to do that, or Jesus did it quite a bit, even Paul, uh, that happened in his life as well. Peter did it. Uh, but all of those other people, including Lazarus, by the way, who Jesus raised to life uh shortly before he was crucified, they they came back to life, and that was miraculous and nothing to uh to despise in any way, but they lived their lives and then they they died what we would all look at as a natural death. In other words, their time uh in their bodies on earth came to conclusion and they died. But it was different, it is different with Jesus because of all of the things that are connected with uh, I guess, not just the way that he died, but uh the spiritual implications of it. And so it wasn't just this bodily thing that took place, it was a spiritual thing. There was a battle waged and won by him for us and for himself. So death no longer has mastery, death is no longer in charge, and I think that's awesome. And then I wanted us to notice verse 10, I guess, and to think about it this way. Think about death to sin here as severance. And I know that that might sound a little odd, but I think it's a really good connection. And Paul is trying to help his readers, uh, the believers who were in the church in Rome to make that connection for themselves. And so he's using death and life, uh, not just imagery, but reality. But death really is severance. It's the severance of, or the separation, I guess, of life from the body. It's a cutting off, right? That's that's what's taking place. So when we think about it being like dead to sin, it's completely cut off, it's severed from us. And and the entanglement of sin, see, like the bond of sin isn't a healthy one. It's not saving, it's entanglement, it's a problem. The entanglement of sin is completely cut off through Christ. So think about death that way, but then think about life as connection. And in this case, it's perpetual connection to God. It's certainly what Jesus experienced and experiences, right? He's continuing in that. And for us, it can be the same. We go from ultimate severance, cutting off sin, to ultimate connection, death and life. Let's move into verses 11 and 12. And I'd like to tell you that you are in charge of what you let into your life. You are in charge, nobody else. Dead to sin, alive to Jesus. Uh I hope that you've chosen both of those to be dead towards sin and alive towards Jesus, and you haven't flip-flopped that thing, right? If you're pursuing sin and you're you're wanting to be that person of the resurrection, but you're cutting off Jesus and you're grasping a hold of sin, then one, it's probably leading to quite a bit of frustration. Uh, and you're you're being led away from from the Lord. So here's the the admonition for us is we we look at Jesus and what he's done for us, and that really is that verses eight through ten bit. But as soon as we hit verse 11, it's not just look at him or think about him or or understand him. It's do the right thing. So we've got to put our spirituality into motion, into action. Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. It's a really important thing that we that we grab a hold of that. And then verse 12 expands on it, right? Don't don't let sin reign in your mortal body. I'd like to say it this way don't don't just let sin invade, right? Don't be passive about it, much less invite it into your life. Uh, those are recipes for pain and disaster. Uh, it's just not going to turn out well for us. And the flip side of that is to move into operating um like we are a person of the resurrection because you are, right? Verses 13 and 14 give us that delight that's there for us. Offer yourselves to God. This is the second part of verse 13, as those who have been brought from death to life. That is a powerful image and a powerful statement for us to grab a hold of. So let's embrace that. That is our reality. Yeah, we we lived under condemnation, and Jesus stepped in and has absolutely changed that equation, and we get to rejoice as a result of that. And it's an amazing, amazing truth for us. And so let's let's live like it, right? Let's live as though we have the joy of the Lord in us. Let's live as though uh Jesus actually did conquer sin, that death doesn't have mastery over him, and by the way, doesn't have mastery over any of us either, because of Jesus. So operate like that person of the resurrection that you are, and and just refuse, refuse to give any part of yourself over to wickedness. That's the old thing, right? That's the that's the old stinking thinking, don't need to go back there. Sin is no longer in charge, and you're not actually doomed to mess up later today, right? If you if you're listening to this or watching this and you're like, yeah, this is the thing that I'm supposed to do. I know that I'm supposed to spend time with Jesus and I'm choosing to do it this way today, and you're like, yeah, this is good, but you're kind of also thinking somewhere later on, maybe this afternoon or or at some point during the day, you're just bound to mess up. No, you're not. That's nonsense. You are not doomed to failure. You can invite Jesus to lead you moment by moment, step by step throughout your day. And and and so just be aware of that, that we don't have to live defeated. In fact, we're called to live victoriously because Jesus was and is victorious. You're under grace now, you're not under condemnation or law. Use that power that Jesus gives you to live differently. All right, let's move into some reflection. I have two things for you. Neither of them are questions, which is a bit of a change for me. But the first thing is this increase your grip with God. If you feel like you're hanging on by a finger right now, like barely connected to God, first of all, thank God that you're hanging on by that finger. But secondly, try grabbing the whole hand. Just take another step. If you have a hold of God's hand, but just one, grab the other one. Whatever's going on there, reach for a little a little bit more. Now I know that that's a metaphor, so let's move that into something a little more practical. Let's talk about time in the scriptures. What we're doing together right now. If you're one of those people that that does it once or twice a week, and that's just where you're at. That's just the reality of it. Well, move that to two or three, or maybe three or four. If you can jump to seven, fantastic. But that may or may not be realistic for you. I'm just saying increase the grip. Take that next step. Uh improve your input overall, the things that come into your ears, your eyes, uh, take it to the next level. And I don't ever want to make too much of this, but think about the music, the media, the voices that you respect, the ones that you tend to turn to time and again. If you kind of take a moment and evaluate that, and you're like, yeah, that's not really helping my walk with Jesus, then maybe you need to make a change, right? So increase your grip with God, get in connection with others who also love Jesus and spend time with him. So, next part, keep cutting away your connection with sin, right? It's both things. Grab a hold of Jesus more than you are, and then keep cutting away sin. I'll offer you this idea. I'll bet that if you were to reflect on the last time that you slipped, you you slipped into behavior uh or or just kind of a thought life that you just you just knew it was wrong, you weren't supposed to go there, but you did. Okay, well, what do you do about it? And obviously we confess it, we receive forgiveness, but what do we practically do to keep severing the sinful way off? And and I have a suspicion that now, after the thing has happened, you can trace your steps a little bit here and and recognize in the clarity of right now, different moments along the way, maybe little little signals, little flags that show that you were heading down that particular path. And so the next time you you recognize those things and you say, Jesus, lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one, right? And you bring it right back there. And Jesus is good, he's gonna show you the way, uh the way of escape there. So just is it's a way to cut things off and to be practical about it. And sometimes we just have to be that blunt and straightforward and direct with ourselves so that we can just be honest and move forward in freedom and in grace, because there is always grace there, and it's the power to live differently than we have been. Let me pray for us. Jesus, thank you for this beautiful day that you've given us. God, thank you that you you desire for us to experience the power of the resurrection today. And God, we know it's incomplete for us right now. We know that we are fighting this ongoing battle, but Lord, we're grateful that you uh have not only called us to live with you forever, but you've called us to live differently and you're giving us the strength and the ability to do that. Uh, we love you. Amen.