Romans 6:5-11 "Alive to God"

Introduction:

Recently I saw an article that linked the popularity of super-heroes with injuries in children. There were 5 case studies. The first case study was out of England. (Read it)

You can identify as a super-hero but obviously that doesn’t make you one regardless of how deep you convictions lie. Just because you believe yourself to be Spider-man that doesn’t mean you can stick to walls.

The reality of things like gravity have a way of exposing our true identity.

This is because in the ultimate sense God is the one who identifies us to be who we truly are in our physical identity but also for our spiritual identity.

We saw last Sunday that God is glorifying Himself in identifying us in Christ and this identification is certain in its implications. Look at verse 5-7 of out text:

I. The Certainty of Our Identification (5-7).

The certainty of our identification is not just here as a nice theological truth for us to store away in the closets of our minds (5).

No, it actually translates into our hope of the resurrection to eternal life.

Because if you are certain that you can see the Spirit working in your sanctification as you battle with sin; then that should translate into a certainty of you one day being raised to life in Him.

God’s work in our identification with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection has transformed us. We have been set free from being a slave to sin (6-7).

The first aspect of this is our faith in Christ which justifies us before a Holy God as an act of divine grace. This grace is effectual and it works. This should then mean that we are certain of our liberation in Christ from being a slave to sin.

Pacific Garden Mission

This is not a liberation or freedom to sin as in giving us a license to indulge but a liberty and empowerment to live free from it.

You see our identification in Christ has transformed us and we have now a whole new identity that we have to take into account as we live out the Christian life. Look back at your text to verses 8-11:

II. The Consideration of Our Identity (8-11).

The implications inform our faith (8-10).

We don’t live to ourselves as to fulfill our personal objectives.

The implications inform our perception about ourselves (11).

We consider our lives as dead to sin and alive to God.

Hash brown illustration: Hashbrown looking back at me.

Christian we can experience an encounter with our sin nature. And this world will tells us that all of those impulses that we experience and encounter are aspects of true humanity.

The world would tell us that such desires and impulses define us and living them out experientially is what it means to be a true authentic human being.

From purely a humanistic perspective this is the only way that someone can be free from hypocrisy. This is all a driving characteristic of what it means to root one’s identity into the self. The emphasis of such a philosophical world-view is not “in Christ” but “in me.”

But Christian if the gospel is true and our new identity is in Christ then the gospel of our justification by faith in Christ is challenging our self centered orientation right out of the box.

And it is not just a message that gives us hope for eternal life but a message that challenges our perception of this life and the actions we do as a reflection of our world-view.

First part not that difficult for a Christian. Second part much more difficult. Because the battles that we endure and the impulses that we find ourselves in conflict with go far beyond eating a hash-brown.

And when it comes, and it will, you will hear those little whispers of your nature say to you things like: go ahead, you deserve it, or you’re only human, or just once won’t hurt, or maybe go ahead you are under grace God will certainly forgive you, or come on think of your happiness for a change doesn’t God want you to be happy.

Make no mistake, God does want you to be truly happy and He made us to be happy and full of joy. But God knows something that we too often don’t; and that is that ultimate happiness is truly found in Him not in the indulgence of sin.

Psalm 16:11- “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Who is seated at the Father’s right hand Christian?

But it is not just fullness of joy that is in Him. The Apostle Paul writes to the Christians in Colossae about his ministerial ambitions in Colossians 2:1-3: we read in Colossians 2:1-3- “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Satan knows this better than we do. He knows we were made for happiness and joy. And that is why he uses counterfeit happiness and synthetic joy to lure us to the perception of fulfillment from the world.

But like the sirens who call to the sailors in Greek Mythology just under the surface there are rocks of destruction.

Christian if you are alive to God, your creator and your redeemer then your true identity, your purpose in life and source of truth, meaning, happiness and joy is in Christ.

If you don’t believe that you probably are not going to like churches and preachers that exalt Christ and make it all about Christ.

The challenge for us if we are “Alive to God” is to see our lives through Christ and not through ourselves or this secular world.

If we are alive to God then Christ is the prism that helps us see and understand how he radiates God’s glory in all of our experiences and encounters as we live in the world. We see the colors in the light of Christ as God’s glory radiates through Him.

Don’t let this world define you. Your purpose and your identity and your value and worth is all derived from God in Christ.

Your security in relationship to God is no different. It is sustained by God in Christ. Your hope, your joy, your happiness is all in Christ.

III. Conclusion:

Unbeliever if you are not in Christ today you need to be. Your identity is self determined if you are not in Christ.

Some of the false teachers in our day claim that Christ is the one that helps them be at peace by giving them the comfort and guidance to live as they perceive themselves to be.

That is the New Age Christ, not the Christ of the Bible. There are many false Christ in the world that people subjectively affirm. But there is only one true biblical Christ.

If Jesus Christ came into the world to affirm people in their sin, then the Cross was a cruel joke indeed that the Father played on Him.

The biblical Christ came to bring separation between us and the effects of sin. Life and Liberty in grace through faith in Christ. Believe the gospel.

Christian what life do we have apart from being alive to God? We don’t we are in Christ and He is everything to us even we we have failed Him God does not cast us away but calls us to repentance in light of the grace we are kept in by Him.

Confess your sin and rest in Him and His provision to you in Christ. Let’s Pray!