Can't Get Right

So That

There are some things in life that need more than a little cleaning up. You can wash a truck, but that does not fix the engine. You can paint over a wall, but that does not repair the rotten wood behind it. You can put on clean clothes, comb your hair, and look fine on the outside, while carrying the same old mess on the inside. And sometimes that is how we treat faith. We want Jesus to improve us. We want Him to make us a little better, a little calmer, a little more respectable. We want Him to help us manage the parts of life that are out of control. But Romans 6 tells us that Jesus did not come merely to improve the old life. He came to put it to death.

Paul says, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death…” That is stronger language than most of us are comfortable with. He does not say we were lightly adjusted with Christ. He does not say we were encouraged by Christ. He says we were buried with Him. Baptism is not just a church tradition. It is not just a moment when someone is lowered into water and brought back up for everybody to see. Baptism is a picture of a funeral and a resurrection. When we go down into the water, it is a picture of being buried with Christ. It is a declaration that the old life no longer has the final word. The sin that once controlled us, the shame that once defined us, the failures we cannot forget, the habits we cannot seem to shake—those things do not get to own us forever.

That does not mean we have no past. It means our past no longer has possession of us. There is a difference. Some people are still living under the name they gave themselves years ago. “I am the one who messed up.” “I am the one whose marriage failed.” “I am the one who made that terrible decision.” “I am the one who cannot get it right.” “I am the one who will always be this way.” But when you belong to Christ, that old name is no longer your name. You may remember where you have been, but you do not have to keep living there. You may carry scars, but you do not have to keep wearing chains. You may have failures behind you, but they do not have to be the thing steering your life in front of you. Paul says we were buried with Christ. Buried means something has been laid down. Buried means something has been left behind. Buried means you do not keep digging it up every morning and dragging it back into your house.

Yet that is what many of us do. Jesus forgives us, but we keep accusing ourselves. Jesus sets us free, but we keep returning to the same sin. Jesus calls us new, but we keep introducing ourselves by the old life. We keep making peace with what Christ died to free us from. And Paul says, “No. That is not who you are anymore.” “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” There is the purpose.

There is a scene in the movie Life, with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, that has always stuck with me. The movie is set around a prison camp in the 1930s. It shows hard living, hard work, and men who had been labeled by their past. One of the prisoners was a quiet fellow everybody called “Can’t Get Right.” That was not his real name. It was just the name they had given him because, in their eyes, he could not seem to do anything quite right. He was awkward. He did not say much. People looked at him and assumed they already knew everything there was to know about him. Then one day they played a baseball game.

And all of a sudden, “Can’t Get Right” stepped onto that field and did something nobody expected. The man they had overlooked could play baseball. He could hit. He could run. He could make plays. He had something in him nobody had seen because nobody had ever expected much out of him. For most of the movie, he had lived under the name they gave him. “Can’t Get Right.” And that is where this gets close to home. Some of us have been living under names that were given to us a long time ago. “Failure.” “Addict.” “Angry.” “Not good enough.” “Always messing up.” “Too far gone.” “Never going to change.” Maybe somebody else gave you that name. Maybe a parent did. Maybe a former spouse did. Maybe people in town did. Maybe you gave it to yourself after enough mistakes and enough regret. And after a while, you begin to believe it.

You begin to live like that old name is the truest thing about you. You say, “I just can’t get right.” I cannot get my temper right. I cannot get my habits right. I cannot get my marriage right. I cannot get my mind right. I cannot get my life right. And here is the truth: on our own, we cannot. We cannot fix the deepest part of us simply by trying harder. We cannot scrub away guilt. We cannot erase sin. We cannot raise ourselves from the dead. But Romans 6 says that when we are joined to Christ, something bigger happens than just trying to become a better version of ourselves. Paul says, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

That means the old name does not get the final word. The old life is buried with Christ. The old guilt is buried with Christ. The old shame is buried with Christ. The old identity that says, “I can’t get right,” is buried with Christ. And you are raised so that you can walk in newness of life. Now let us be clear: this is not saying that there is some hidden greatness in us just waiting to come out if we believe in ourselves enough. It is better than that. It is saying that Christ puts a new life within us. The power is not that we finally discover how impressive we are. The power is that Jesus takes what was dead and makes it alive. He takes what was broken and begins making it whole. He takes people who have spent years being defined by the worst thing they have done and gives them a new name. Child of God. Forgiven. Redeemed. Made new. The sad thing is, some of us have been raised with Christ, but we keep answering to the old name.

Christ says, “You are free,” and we say, “No, I am still the person who cannot get right.” Christ says, “Your old self was crucified with Me,” and we say, “Yes, but this is just who I am.” Christ says, “Walk in newness of life,” and we keep walking back toward the grave. But baptism is God’s declaration that the old life is not in charge anymore. We were buried with Him so that we could rise with Him. We were put under the water so that we could stop making peace with the things Christ died to free us from. And maybe the first step for somebody today is to stop calling yourself by the name your past gave you. Because in Christ, “Can’t Get Right” is not your name anymore.

We were buried with Him so that we could live differently. Not so that we could go back to the same old life with a little religion added to it. Not so that we could keep carrying the same bitterness, the same fear, the same anger, the same excuses, and call it normal. Not so that we could spend the rest of our lives looking backward. We were buried with Christ so that we might walk in newness of life. And the good news is this: the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power that gives us courage to let go of the old self. Not because we are strong enough to fix ourselves. Not because we finally get everything right. But because Christ has done something in us that we could never do for ourselves. The old life has been buried. And now, by His grace, we can stop living like it is still alive.

Then Paul brings it right down to where we live in verse 11: “Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” That word consider is important. Paul is not telling us to pretend that sin is not real. He is not saying temptation suddenly disappears, or that the struggle is over the moment we come to Christ. He is telling us to make a reckoning. To settle the matter in our hearts. To look at what Christ has done and say, “That old life does not own me anymore. That old sin does not get to name me anymore. That old self was crucified with Christ.” This is not passive. It is something we must choose to embrace every day.

Because the truth is, the old life has a way of calling us back. It knows our weaknesses. It knows the old habits. It knows the lies we have believed about ourselves for years. It says, “You will never change.” It says, “You have messed up too much.” It says, “Everybody knows who you used to be.” It says, “You just can’t get right.” And sometimes we believe it because the old life is familiar. We have lived with it so long that we cannot imagine living any other way. We may think, “This is just who I am. I have always had this temper. I have always held onto grudges. I have always talked this way. I have always made these choices. I have always been this person.” But Paul says, “No. In Christ, that is not the final truth about you.”

You may still have a battle, but you are not the same person you were before Christ. You may still be tempted, but you are not powerless. You may still remember your past, but you do not have to live under its control. You may still have scars, but you do not have to keep wearing chains. That is why Paul says we must consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. We have to remind ourselves of who we are now. We have to stop answering to the old name. The old self says, “I can’t get right.” Christ says, “You have been made new.” The old self says, “This is all I will ever be.” Christ says, “You are alive to God in Me.” The old self says, “Your past is too much.” Christ says, “My grace is greater.”

And part of embracing this new life means forgiving. It means forgiving the people who wounded us, not because what they did was acceptable, and not because we have to pretend it did not hurt. But we forgive because we cannot walk forward into new life while dragging old bitterness behind us. And sometimes the person we have the hardest time forgiving is ourselves. We keep bringing up things that God has already forgiven. We keep digging up what Christ has already buried. We keep punishing ourselves for sins Jesus already carried to the cross. But if Christ says the old self is dead, then we have to stop visiting its grave every morning. Maybe people remember who you used to be. Maybe they saw you at your worst. Maybe they know the decisions you regret. Maybe that is why you are afraid to live differently now. You worry somebody will say, “That is just an act. That will not last. We know who you really are.”

But perhaps God can use the very people who saw your old life to witness what He is doing in your new one. Maybe they need to see that Jesus can change a person. Maybe they need to see that grace is not just a church word. Maybe they need to see that someone who was angry can become gentle, someone who was bitter can become forgiving, someone who was lost can find their way home, and someone who could not get right can be made right through Jesus Christ. That is the testimony of baptism. We were buried with Him so that we might walk in newness of life. The old self is dead. The new life is here. And every day, by the grace of God, we are called to live like it.