Alive In Christ
Notes
Transcript
Opening Illustration
Opening Illustration
Edith Burns was a wonderful Christian who lived in San Antonio, Texas.
She was the patient of a doctor by the name of Will Phillips.
Dr. Phillips was a gentle doctor who saw patients as people.
His favorite patient was Edith Burns.
One morning he went to his office with a heavy heart and it was because of Edith Burns.
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When he walked into that waiting room, there sat Edith with her big black Bible in her lap earnestly talking to a young mother sitting beside her.
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Edith Burns had a habit of introducing herself in this way:
“Hello, my name is Edith Burns.
Do you believe in Easter?”
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Then she would explain the meaning of Easter, and many times people would be saved.
Dr. Phillips walked into that office and there he saw the head nurse, Beverly.
Beverly had first met Edith when she was taking her blood pressure.
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Edith began by saying,
“My name is Edith Burns.
Do you believe in Easter?”
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Beverly said,
“Why yes I do.”
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Edith said,
“Well, what do you believe about Easter?”
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Beverly said,
“Well, it's all about egg hunts, going to church, and dressing up.”
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Edith kept pressing her about the real meaning of Easter, and finally led her to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
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Dr. Phillips said,
“Beverly, don't call Edith into the office quite yet.
I believe there is another delivery taking place in the waiting room.”
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After being called back in the doctor's office, Edith sat down and when she took a look at the doctor she said,
“Dr. Will, why are you so sad?
Are you reading your Bible?
Are you praying?”
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Dr. Phillips said gently,
“Edith, I'm the doctor and you're the patient.”
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With a heavy heart he said,
“Your lab report came back and it says you have cancer, and Edith, you're not going to live very long.”
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Edith said,
“Why Will Phillips, shame on you.
Why are you so sad?
Do you think God makes mistakes?
You have just told me I'm going to see my precious Lord Jesus, my husband, and my friends.
You have just told me that I am going to celebrate Easter forever, and here you are having difficulty giving me my ticket!”
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Dr. Phillips thought to himself,
“What a magnificent woman this Edith Burns is!”
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Edith continued coming to Dr. Phillips.
Christmas came and the office was closed through January 3rd.
On the day the office opened, Edith did not show up.
Later that afternoon, Edith called Dr. Phillips and said she would have to be moving her story to the hospital and said,
“Will, I'm very near home, so would you make sure that they put women in here next to me in my room who need to know about Easter.”
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Well, they did just that and women began to come in and share that room with Edith.
Many women were saved.
Everybody on that floor from staff to patients were so excited about Edith, that they started calling her Edith Easter; that is everyone except Phyllis Cross, the head nurse.
Phyllis made it plain that she wanted nothing to do with Edith because she was a “religious nut.”
She had been a nurse in an army hospital.
She had seen it all and heard it all.
She was the original G.I. Jane.
She had been married three times, she was hard, cold, and did everything by the book.
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One morning the two nurses who were to attend to Edith were out sick.
Edith had the flu and Phyllis Cross had to go in and give her a shot.
When she walked in, Edith had a big smile on her face and said,
“Phyllis, God loves you and I love you, and I have been praying for you.”
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Phyllis Cross said,
“Well, you can quit praying for me, it won't work.
I'm not interested.”
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Edith said,
“Well, I will pray and I have asked God not to let me go home until you come into the family.”
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Phyllis Cross said,
“Then you will never die because that will never happen,”
And quickly walked out of the room.
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Every day Phyllis Cross would walk into the room and Edith would say,
“God loves you Phyllis and I love you, and I'm praying for you.”
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One day Phyllis Cross said she was literally drawn to Edith's room like a magnet would draw iron.
She sat down on the bed and Edith took her Bible and shared with Phyllis Cross the Easter Story of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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Edith said,
“Phyllis, do you believe in Easter?
Do you believe that Jesus Christ is alive and that He wants you to surrender your heart to Him?”
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Phyllis Cross said,
“Oh I want to believe that with all of my heart, and I do want Jesus in my life.”
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Right there, Phyllis Cross prayed and surrendered her life to Jesus Christ.
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Two days later, Phyllis Cross came in and Edith said,
“Do you know what day it is?”
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Phyllis Cross said,
“Why Edith, it's Good Friday.”
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Edith said,
“Oh, no, for you every day is Easter.
Happy Easter Phyllis!”
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Two days later, on Easter Sunday, Phyllis Cross came into work, did some of her duties and then went down to the flower shop and got some Easter lilies because she wanted to go up to see Edith and give her some Easter lilies and wish her a Happy Easter.
When she walked into Edith's room, Edith was in bed.
That big black Bible was on her lap.
Her hands were in that Bible.
There was a sweet smile on her face.
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When Phyllis Cross went to pick up Edith's hand, she realized Edith had passed away.
Her left hand was on John 14:2-3 which said:
2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
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Her right hand was on Revelation 21:4 which said:
4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
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Phyllis Cross then lifted her face toward heaven, and with tears streaming down here cheeks, said,
“Happy Easter, Edith - Happy Easter!”
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Phyllis Cross walked out of the room, and over to a table where two student nurses were sitting.
She said,
“My name is Phyllis Cross.
Do you believe in Easter?”
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So, Beloved, please turn your Bibles to Romans.
We will conduct our study in Chapter 6 and focus on verses 1 through 4.
Our message this morning is titled “Alive In Christ.”
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As you are turning to our passage today please keep in mind that this fact...
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was the most significant event in history along with the Incarnation and Crucifixion of our Lord and Savior.
So, on the Resurrection Sunday, we will cover why Jesus rising from the dead was so vital.
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So, this morning we will cover three main points:
1) The Death to Sin
2) The Baptism
And...
3) The Resurrection
Opening Prayer
Opening Prayer
Before we consider our text, please join me in prayer...
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Heavenly Father...
You are the source of all creation and life...
You are the author of all existence...
And You are absolutely holy and above us all.
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Thank You for giving us the breath of life...
Thank You for giving us mercy to live when we deserve to be destroyed for our disobedience...
And Thank You for sending Christ to both live and die for us.
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Help us to to be more like Your Son every day...
Help us to better understand Your Word written by the Holy Spirit...
And help us to never forget why the resurrection of Your Son is so important to Your elect.
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And it is in Jesus’s name we pray all these things...
Amen.
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Let’s turn to our text for today:
Reading of the Text
Reading of the Text
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
So, let’s look at our first point...
1) The Death to Sin
1) The Death to Sin
Verses 1-2: What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
Beloved, as we know...
If we want to properly get to the heart of our passage...
Then we need to start our study by looking at the context...
And that means we need to find out what Paul was referring to when he said, “What shall we say then?”
For his answer that he is providing has to do with what he had just stated in Romans 5:20 and that says:
20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
So the question was bound to arise,
“Why not continue in sin so the greatness of God’s grace may be seen more fully?”
In fact, Paul almost most assuredly had been dealing with this very question by those who criticized his teaching...
For many claimed that Paul’s teaching where harmful and would lead to people sinning more.
However, Paul was not making up his own message...
Paul was teaching a biblical truth that needed to be understood by the followers of Christ.
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The ESV Study Bible says it like this:
“Paul is likely responding to a question posed regularly by his Jewish opponents.
They did not raise this question so that they would have an excuse to sin, though in every age some have wrongly interpreted and applied Paul’s gospel of grace to rationalize sin.
Instead, Paul’s opponents argued that his gospel must be mistaken since, in their view, it led people to continue in sin.
Paul will now show why their interpretation of his gospel is mistaken.”
So, Paul will go on to demonstrate that acceptance of the Gospel message does not lead to moral anarchy as some claim.
For by the grace of God those who accept this Gospel have died to sin with Christ and now live for God.
So, the opposite of the claim is true...
When we understand the meaning of grace biblically...
When we surrender to Christ and realize we are only saved by His works...
When we realize that we could not merit our own salvation...
And when we understand that no matter the amount of sin we may have commited in the past, God’s grace is greater...
That faithful and biblical understanding does not lead to a more sinful life...
It really leads to a much more commited life to Christ...
And that is a matter of fact!
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You see, Beloved, as many of you know, I was in the Orthodox Church...
I grew up under the false rhetoric that Protestants have a deficient faith because they believe one is saved by grace alone...
Therefore, I was warned that Protestants simply sin and go on sinning because of their belief in grace covering all their sins.
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Now, so Protestants do use grace as an excuse to sin...
Just like the Orthodox and Catholics do, too.
The Notorious mad Orthodox monk Rasputin, was of the belief that the more one sinned the greater they were honoring God for He would have to provide more grace.
But all of that false teaching is in sharp contrast to the biblical truth of grace.
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So, when I started reading the Bible on my own...
When I started actually attending faithful Protestant churches...
And meeting genuine born-again believers...
My eyes where opened...
God in His mercy saved me from the false rhetoric that I grew up under and saw the beauty of God’s grace and how it always leads to faithfulness for those who are truly born again...
And in our passage today Paul wants to clear up this major misunderstanding.
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So, Paul says next in his letter to the Romans, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
By no means!”
Now, the phrase “By no means!” or as rendered in other translations as “May it never be!” is used 14 times in Paul’s epistles.
This expression is the strongest Greek idiom for repudiating a statement, and it contains a sense of outrage that anyone would ever think the statement was true.
As John Murray says:
“If we died to sin how can we any longer live in it?
Death and life cannot coexist;
We cannot be dead and living with respect to the same thing at the same time.
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A believer cannot therefore live in sin;
If a man lives in sin he is not a believer.
If we view sin as a realm or sphere then the believer no longer lives in that realm or sphere.
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The believer died to sin once and he has been translated to another realm.”
So, grace does not simply involve forgiveness of sins...
Grace also involves a transfer of lordship...
You see, Beloved, believers are no longer under the tyranny of sin...
They are no longer under the lordship of the devil...
They are no longer slaves to sin...
They are no longer bound to the world and it’s desires...
They now have a new Master...
Jesus Christ!
As Galatians 5:24 says:
24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
The followers of Christ have killed and continue to kill the desires of the flesh in them...
The followers of Christ have killed and continue to kill the wicked desires and passions they once held...
Of course, we are not perfect...
Every believer is still a sinner...
However, we no longer make a habit of our sins...
We are striving to remove the sin in our lives...
And we over time, grow in our walk with the Lord.
As 1 John 3:6 says:
6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.
Furthermore look at what 1 John 5:18 says:
18 We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.
So, it is clear from the Word of God that the one who is truly born-again is not living a sinful life...
That would be understood as making a practice of sin...
Instead, the truth believer makes a practice of righteousness...
And that fact right there...
How we live our lives...
That acts as proof if the faith we claim to have is true or false...
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If you want to know if you are a genuine believer...
Then look at your actions...
Your actions don’t save you...
But they act as a x-ray to reveal what is on the inside.
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So, death to sin removes the believer from the control of sin.
New Testament theologian Douglas J. Moo puts it like this:
“‘Living in sin’ is best taken as describing a ‘lifestyle’ of sin—a habitual practice of sin, such that one’s life could be said to be characterized by that sin rather than by the righteousness God requires.
Such habitual sin, ‘remaining in sin,’ ‘living in sin,’ is not possible, as a constant situation, for the one who has truly experienced the transfer out from under the domain, or tyranny, of sin.
Sin’s power is broken for the believer, and this must be evident in practice.
Yet the nature of Christian existence is such that the believer can, at times, live in a way that is inconsistent with the reality of what God has made him in Christ.
It is not sin, but the believer, who has ‘died,’ and sin, as Wesley puts it, ‘remains’ even though it does not ‘reign.’
Therefore, while ‘living in sin’ is incompatible with Christian existence and impossible for the Christian as a constant condition, it remains a real threat.”
Beloved, that is why it says in Romans 3:31:
31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
Some preachers, and I use that term loosely here, in an attempt to make the Gospel message more appealing will say that we don’t need the Old Testament...
They will say that following the commands in Scripture are really more like guidelines...
But grace has got you so it is all good.
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However, that couldn’t be farther from the truth...
Jesus Himself said in John 14:15:
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
That is why the reading and obeying of the Word of God is so critical to the Christian life...
One can claim to love God all day long...
But it is only true if they actually keep His commands...
For the person who has the Holy Spirit living in them is the person how loves and obeys God...
We may be far from perfect in obeying God...
But our life is defined by obedience and not rebellion.
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Look at it this way...
Do you know who has missed the most shots in NBA history.
The answer...
LeBron James has missed the most shots in NBA history, with 15,095 misses.
But this is also true...
LeBron Jame is the #1 leading scorer in NBA history with over 42,000 points.
So, regardless of where you stand on the LeBron vs Jordan debate...
LeBron is clearly a gifted athlete...
He is by no means perfect on the court...
He has missed a lot of shots...
But he makes most of the shorts he attempts and is know for being a great scorer.
As the Expositor’s Bible Commentary says:
“What [Paul] does present here is not the impossibility of committing a single sin, but the impossibility of continuing in a life dominated by sin.
Death to sin is not something hoped for or resolved upon by the believer; it is something that has already taken place.
It is a simple fact basic to the living of the Christian life.”
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So, Beloved, keep Romans 6:11-15 top of mind which says:
11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
Clearly Paul’s Gospel does not lead to more sin, since those who belong to Christ have died to sin...
This is the very same Gospel message presented by the rest of the apostles and what was proclaimed by Christ during His earthly ministry.
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I like how reformer John Knox provided this striking translation of verse 2 of our passage:
“We have died, once for all, to sin;
Can we breathe its air again?”
So, it is not merely that Christians should not continue to live in the realm and dimension of sin but that they cannot.
There is therefore simply no such thing as justification without sanctification.
There is no such thing as divine life without divine living.
The truly saved person lives a new and godly life in a new and godly realm.
He now and forever lives in God’s realm of grace and righteousness and can never again live in Satan’s realm of self and sin.
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When we are called to follow Christ...
That is a call to die to self...
We are to see that old person who we were executed...
As Colossians 3:5 says:
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
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So, that old person we used to be...
They are dead and gone!
Never to return!
And good riddance for before we were saved we were wicked wretches who lived in constant rebellion against our loving and mighty God.
Paul summed it up nicely in Galatians 2:17–21:
17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not!
18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.
19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.
20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
So, we are to take off our old selves...
And we are to put on a new self...
A new self that has been covered with the blood of Christ.
As Ephesians 4:22–24 says:
22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,
23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,
24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
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Then, Paul reminds us that as all obedient Christians have been baptized after their profession of faith...
We are likewise baptized with Jesus in His death...
And that takes us to our second point.
2) The Baptism
2) The Baptism
Verse 3: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
Now, the phrase “baptized into Christ Jesus” which is possibly shorthand for “baptized into the name of Christ Jesus”...
Does not refer to water baptism in the sense that it saves us...
In fact, Paul is actually using the word “baptized” in a metaphorical sense...
As we might in saying someone was immersed in his work, or underwent his baptism of fire when experiencing some trouble.
All Christians have, by placing saving faith in Him, been spiritually immersed into the person of Christ, that is, united and identified with Him.
The metaphor of baptism is clearly used in a relational sense elsewhere in Scripture...
For example, in the case of the Israelites baptized into Moses by reason of the crossing of the Red Sea as it says in 1 Corinthians 10:2:
2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
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Certainly water baptism pictures this reality, which is the purpose of water baptism—to show the transformation of the justified.
However, Paul is not arguing that water baptism magically destroys the power of sin.
Water baptism is an outward, physical symbol of the inward, spiritual conversion of Christians.
That is why in the Great Commission Jesus says it like this in Matthew 28:19:
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Pay attention to the order of instruction, Beloved...
Make disciples of all nations...
Then baptize them...
It is not the other way around...
One must be a believer if they are to be baptized...
For baptism represents someone who has already had their old self crucified and is now a brand-new creation.
So, in other words...
Baptism, if understood correctly, is an external action that represents a true and genuine internal transformation.
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary puts it this way:
“Paul uses baptism to illustrate this vital union with Christ in his death, though baptism does not accomplish it.
Apparently, he pictures burial with Christ, however momentarily, in the submergence of the body under the baptismal waters.
The importance of burial is that it attests the reality of death.
It expresses with finality the end of the old life governed by relationship with Adam.
It also expresses the impossibility of a new life apart from divine action.
The God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead has likewise imparted life to those who are his.”
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Likewise, I would like us to look at this definition of baptism from in the Pillar New Testament Commentary on Luke:
“An examination of the references made to baptism across the letters of Paul indicates that he saw it as an initiatory rite undergone by people as a means by which they confessed Christ as their Lord.
It is a part of the full conversion-initiation experience that involves repentance and faith in Christ expressed in submission to baptism on the part of the convert, when God for his part grants forgiveness and the gift of his Spirit.”
So, water baptism is the outward identification of an inward reality—faith in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.
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Now, with that in mind...
Consider the truth in passages like Colossians 2:11–13 which says:
11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
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Beloved, Jesus died on the cross so that His followers would die to sin...
Jesus died on the cross so we could live a new life in righteousness...
For we were in true bondage...
We were in true slavery...
Slavery to the flesh...
Slavery to the world...
Slavery to sin...
And Slavery to Satan...
But He set us, His followers, free from all that with His death...
As 1 Peter 2:24:
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
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I really love how Paul puts it in 2 Timothy 2:11:
11 The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
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Then, Paul ends this section of his passage by connecting all believers to the Resurrection of Christ...
And that takes us to our third and final point.
3) The Resurrection
3) The Resurrection
Verse 4: We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Since we are united by faith with Him, as baptism symbolizes, His death and burial become ours.
This symbolizes the person’s union with, and incorporation into, Christ by the action of the Holy Spirit.
Hence, we now have the power to live in newness of life...
That is only made possible by the Holy Spirit’s power.
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I want you to take a look at what Paul says after verse 4 of our passage...
This really helps in bringing all that we have talked about today into a great summary...
So, look with me at Romans 6:5–10 which says:
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.
8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
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There is true power in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ...
For it was the God the Father who raised Jesus from the dead...
And it was by the power of God the Holy Spirit that Christ was raised...
And is proved to all that Jesus was exactly who He claimed to be...
God in the flesh!
The long-promised Messiah!
The Son of God!
The Alpha and the Omega!
The Lord of Lords!
The King of Kings!
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Beloved, we must also keep in mind that Jesus was the first to be resurrected with a new body...
Each one of us who is a believer will likewise be resurrected with a new body when we get to the point of glorification after the Final Judgment.
As Romans 8:29-30 says:
29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Likewise we must to consider the truth in Ephesians 2:4–7 which says:
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
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So, if you have surrendered your life to Christ...
Then you have the Holy Spirit living in you...
That very same power that raised Christ for the dead...
Is the same power that lives in us...
As Romans 8:10–11 says:
10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
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So, on this Reconstruction Sunday...
Meditate on the words that Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians...
The words found in Philippians 3:10–11 which says:
10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Closing Illustration
Closing Illustration
So, as this message comes to a close...
I would like you to consider this:
I heard a story about a family that tragically lost three of their four children within just two weeks to a deadly disease.
One child was left--a four year old boy.
The family had buried the third child just two weeks before Easter.
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On Easter morning the parents and the remaining child went to church.
The mother taught her Sunday School class about the resurrection of Jesus and the father read the Easter story as he led the opening Sunday School devotion.
People who knew about their great loss wondered how they could do it.
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One family of the church were in the car on their way home after church when their 16-year-old asked his father,
“Dad, that couple must believe everything about the Easter Story, don’t they?”
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“Of course they believe it,”
Said the father,
“All Christians do!”
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The young man then said,
“But not like they do!”
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Beloved, may we never take lightly the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and a it represents...
For if you can genuinely call yourself a Christian...
Then you are a new creation...
As 2 Corinthians 5:17:
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Closing Prayer
Closing Prayer
Let’s pray...
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Heavenly Father...
If anyone hearing this message right now does not know You in a saving way...
Then I beg you to give them that Damascus Road experience...
And bring life into dead dry bones!
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I appeal to Your Name’s sake!
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For those hearing this message who already know You...
Remind us daily that the power that lives in us is the same power that raised Christ from the dead...
And one day we will have brand new bodies to go along with our brand new minds!
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Again, I appeal to Your Name’s sake!
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It is in Jesus’s name we pray all these things...
To God be all the glory.
Amen.
