As Good as Dead
I. Introduction
II. Count Yourself Dead to Self to Live for Christ.
Romans 6:5-7 (NIV)
If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
2 Corinthians 4:11 (NIV)
For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.
Romans 8:10-11 (NIV)
But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.
III. Count Yourself Dead to Sin to Live for Righteousness.
Romans 6:9-12 (NIV)
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.
IV. Count Yourself Dead to the World to Live Forever.*
Galatians 6:14 (NIV)
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
1 Timothy 6:7 (NIV)
For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.
1 John 2:15-17 (NIV)
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.