Misunderstanding the Message

Focusing on our Failures

In my life enemies often point out our faults and our proclivities for going against the truth of who Jesus Christ is. I know that because of who I proclaim that I am, a follower of Jesus Christ who attempts my best to listen and obey His word others look more intently upon my life to see where I will falter.

If I become accustomed to listening to the criticisms of the world without measuring it up against the truth of God’s word, I will let those enemies derail me from sharing the gospel according to Jesus Christ.

There were many years in my life where I thought I must behave a certain way my entire life in order to be accepted by Jesus Christ. I must first cleanse myself before receiving the forgiveness and restorative cleansing Jesus has to offer.

Even after accepting what Jesus has done for my faults, the measurement of my relationship with Him was always based on how good I was behaving or how I in my own power was able to make myself behave according to what Jesus wants for me.

Over time, I began to understand that it is the grace and love of God that surpasses all that I have done or could do. Our enemies would like for us to focus so much on our failures that we forget to look toward the one who has overcome all weaknesses both in this world temporal and time eternal.

Is your gospel one of only fear?

Most of us would agree that we have heard the sermon preached about escaping hell and that Jesus died for our sins in order for us to do so.

I am agreeing that Jesus did overcome our final destination by His atoning sacrifice but there is so much more to the message than making a decision based on fear.

If we are backing people into a corner and then offering them a way out through fear, are we really sharing all there is to know about Jesus?

Dallas Willard has said this is the gospel of sin management according to Scot McKnight in “The King Jesus Gospel.”

How often do we despair because we have given in to a temptation believing we have fallen off the salvation wagon?

If we argue that a person is capable of losing their gift of grace by God to be made new again as they fall off that wagon, we are also arguing that Jesus’ words that John 10:29 ““My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” are untrue.

Is your gospel one of only pleasantries?

However, there are some that believe they may continue in their former lives continually because God is so merciful. They have briefly stepped onto the narrow road to glimpse at their own selfish goal to save themselves so they can step back off into their former selves. This is the gospel of epicureanism.

It is not a new gospel but one founded by Epicurus 300 years before Jesus Christ. The prosperity gospel that you can do whatever you wish to achieve happiness as your end goal with no pain, no suffering, and no striving for anything is a false gospel as well.

Sandnes, Karl Olav. Belly and Body in the Pauline Epistles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Accessed January 15, 2022. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Micah 6:8 NASB95

He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

God is a God of both justice and mercy. Without one, how would we understand the other. This is what Paul explains with the divide between those who wish to achieve only mortal pleasures in Romans.

Romans 6:1-13

Romans 6:1 NASB95

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?

Romans 6:2 NASB95

May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

Romans 6:3 NASB95

Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

Romans 6:4 NASB95

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:5 NASB95

For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,

Romans 6:6 NASB95

knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;

Romans 6:7 NASB95

for he who has died is freed from sin.

Romans 6:8 NASB95

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,

Romans 6:9 NASB95

knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.

Romans 6:10 NASB95

For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

Romans 6:11 NASB95

Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Paul addresses here the intention for some to believe they may do whatever they wish because God’s grace is so great. But, Paul goes on to explain there is a need for one to recognize what they have been born into.

If one believes they have been truly rescued from death, then what are they living for?

Romans 6:1 NASB95

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?

If a person continues living for themselves in the same manner they were previously living then did they truly die to themselves and begin living a life for Jesus Christ, the one who has died once for all?

Paul’s words beg the question for many of us who believe we said a prayer once and that we received a magical ticket through that prayer which allows us to do whatever we wish because God is so merciful. Yet, we forget about His justice in times like that and forget that our love is displayed to Him through our obedience.

Romans 6:2 NASB95

May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

When we die to something, we turn away from it. Paul is encouraging those to recognize that they are living a duality by remaining in bondage to their former selves.

Romans 6:3 NASB95

Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

This is the struggle with which every Christian suffers while remaining on earth. We misunderstand the meaning by our death and resurrection in our symbolic baptism. In our profession of faith through baptism we are not being saved by this act but we are declaring to the world that Jesus Christ died but now lives because He was the only one who could truly follow the will of God through the power of the Holy Spirit to sustain, guide, protect, restore creation.

Romans 6:4 (NASB95)

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

Jesus did not die that we may continue in our former lives barely escaping hell because of our bondage to sin. He has claimed victory over your formal eternal resting place to bring you into a path of discipleship. You must walk in newness of life.

Some of us clothe ourselves with just enough of Jesus to deceive others into believing we have changed without rendering our hearts to the sculpting hands of God.

Romans 6:5 NASB95

For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,

Paul encourages us to remember Christ’s death in that He did not remain there. He laid down His life to take it up again and those that He knows believe in Him will have this resurrected life as well.

Romans 6:6 NASB95

knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;

Not only are we given the restoration of life through our bondage with Jesus but we are freed from the implications of sin over our lives by our old selves being crucified with Christ. He has taken our deserved place on the cross (this is the justice of God demanding that sin is accounted for).

Romans 6:7 NASB95

for he who has died is freed from sin.

How many of us have never forgiven ourselves from our former ways of life? How many of you remind one another of your place in life by reminding each other of the sins of your former lives?

Do you proclaim you are a follower of Christ who has died to their former selves without allowing others the chance to die as well?

Paul proclaims those that have professed belief are dead to their former selves.

Jesus says this denial of self must be a daily occurrence. Luke 9:23

Luke 9:23 NASB95

And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.

Your struggle is realizing that you are living a dual life

If you remain so connected to your former self that no one recognizes any separation from who you are now compared to who you were then can one really say that you have died to your old self?

When you remain convicted that you may continue to guide your life by your own principles according to what you have always believed instead of daily living to have Jesus be the master over your life, you are making yourself out to be a false witness.

You proclaim one belief without understanding the fullness of what Jesus Christ has accomplished.

Your duality leads to division

Anytime you separate pieces of God to acclimate yourselves to accepting His words for your life are true, you are proclaiming that some of the things God says are false. We appoint ourselves as king over our dominion instead of allowing ourselves to be instructed by the Holy Spirit.

Every temptations is given a way out. Once you understand this is the way of Jesus to allow Him dominion over all things, you may understand the walking newness Paul was speaking of.

Paul yielded himself to a different life; one where he continually remembered his former self as only a way to compare where he was with where he stood at the point of writing his letters.

You too do not need to remain bonded to your former self. Others may keep you there but if you give over your life to Jesus, He will restore you in both this life and the next.

Your life should indicate some death to your former self and life to the one you now have bonded yourself to.

Death of body, mind, and spirit

Your entire body, mind, and spirit must die to its former self. It may be easier for some to clothe the outside body with newness and show the world through exterior motives their change. However, Jesus wants all of you. Deut. 6:4-7 ““Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. “You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.” ““Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!”

Christ’s Bride must proclaim all of His story

We must preach all of Jesus Christ’s story from beginning of creation to its end. Freedom from sin is more than the escape plan. Preaching the newness of life to the faithful prepares the path ahead of their journey when they encounter those who oppose them.

Witnessing for Jesus Monday through Sunday in all aspects of your life are important.

The way you think, act, speak, and listen should indicate your willingness to walk anew in the Spirit of Christ.

Paul’s words for the church are for us to recognize that freedom comes with responsibility. We have the message from God to the world and we must continually remind ourselves of that.

Open your mind to new learnings. Continue to believe yourself as being renewed by Christ. You are dead to your former life. If you are holding grudges, let them go. You are dead to them. If you are reminding someone of something in their life that they have asked forgiveness for, let it go. If they are new in Christ, they are dead to that life.

If someone remains committed to following their carnal lives, Paul’s words to them and us are to remind them that Christ is living as King today so they may live as His royal subjects which demand a whole lot more than what we often give.