Dead With Christ and Risen With Him — Erlo Stegen

Union With Christ in Romans 6

Lord Jesus, by your Spirit, wouldn't you open our ears, our eyes, our hearts to grasp firmly what you have for us and your word? Show us wonderful things in thy word. Amen. Let's read from Romans chapter 6.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? No, never. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.

Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. For if we died with Christ, we believe that we also shall live with Him.

Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more, death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. We will read thus far. The cross is a marvellous and an amazing thing. It is a miraculous, wonderful thing, the cross.

You might think of the cross as just that cross where Jesus died and then He died and was raised from the dead and that was it. And that's why you live the life which we observe. It has not yet been revealed to you, this great mystery.

Here in Romans, it asks the question, how can we who believe continue in sin any longer? Why so? It asks, how can we continue in sin any longer? When we have died to sin. Because When Jesus was on the cross, God baptised us into Christ So that when He died, we died with Him.

When He arose from the dead, we rose with Him. Let me illustrate for you. Here is a piece of paper. Let's name this piece of paper John. This book, let us call it The Word, Jesus. The Word was crucified on the cross, Jesus was nailed there.

When Jesus was nailed to the tree, God took John, He took you, Mary, Spousiso, He baptised you into Jesus so that as Jesus was crucified, so you were too. And when Jesus arose from the dead, you also rose with Him.

Jesus as the Judge Refused by the Innkeepers

Yesterday, at three o 'clock in the afternoon, we had a service here. And we mentioned that when the innkeepers refused room to Mary and Joseph, they didn't see Jesus. They refused the judge of all created things, of heaven and earth, and when they died, they would have been so shocked to discover they had refused room to the judge of judges.

They will say on Judgment Day, Lord Jesus, we did not know, we didn't realise that it was you coming, that we had refused room not just to Mary and Joseph, but to you. Had we known, Lord, we would have even spoken to Herod himself and asked him to get off his throne for you.

But they didn't know, they were ignorant of the fact of the one who was in them, the one that they had refused place to. They only saw Mary, not Jesus. They didn't see the Messiah. They didn't see their Saviour.

They didn't see the judge. They didn't see the one who holds the keys of their death and of Hades in his hands. They took it lightly. Now listen very carefully, you young people in particular, because you are still immature in your minds.

The Miracle of Being Crucified and Raised With Christ

Even if you are 25, I have to use your age as an excuse and say that you are still immature in your mind because that can be the only reason why you run after money, position, power, recognition. And that can be the only reason why you don't understand, don't take in and listen to what you are told, and what is true is even deeper and more profound than what you are told.

When Jesus came in, they didn't see him, they only saw Mary, they didn't realize that the creator, the judge, the one who had made all things was there. And when Jesus was crucified on the cross, they looked at him and they didn't see the great miracle.

And you don't see the great miracle, you don't see that you have been placed in him. That God has for you performed this wonderful miracle, he baptized you into Christ at the cross. When Jesus was crucified, you too were crucified.

When he died, you also died, your life of sin, you died to it. When Jesus arose from the grave, you arose, I arose. All of us who believe in him have been raised together with him. Marvelous! How glorious, how wonderful is this mystery revealed here in Romans, what God performed for us on the cross.

Here is my handkerchief, I put it into my Bible.

You don't see the handkerchief anymore, you see the Bible. God took his people and he placed them into Christ, so that when he died, they died, when he was buried, you were buried, when he arose, his people arose.

Jesus died once for sin. And we being placed in him have died to sin. How can you possibly continue with sin, for you have died to it. And when Jesus arose here in Romans 6, and I'm just making it brief, I don't want to take too much time.

We arose with him. We now live a new life. How marvelous was this miracle which God performed for us on the cross. What does it mean to be dead to sin? Do you know what death is? I was married. I lived with the man of God.

The mother of our children, my wife. She died. I can no longer speak to her. I can't ask her to cook food for me.

I can't ask her to make the bed. I can't ask her to make the bed for me.

Death came and through death I can no longer communicate with her. So she can't communicate with me. If you have died to sin, can sin still call you? Haven't you died to sin? If I've died to sin, then it's finished with it.

We have no more communication with sin. Sin no longer has authority over me. Dominion. But if you're involved in the occult, are there any Xhosa speaking people here? Can I use then the name that means something different to them?

Death to Sin and Freedom From Occult Powers

Regarding ancestral worship. Speaking to the dead. In actual fact, they're not communicating with the dead, but with demons. Where is our Indian friend who works in the garden?

There he is over there to the right. Oh, you must stand up. I don't see you. You're the level of all the people. Yes. There, our Indian friend.

He used to... He used to speak to the spirits involved in the Hindu religion, of his religion and the spirits of that background. He too seeks baptism. Because he says he has repented and left those ancestral spirits.

Now, you Zulus who claim that you are so deep into ancestral worship, you're actually playing around. You don't know what serious ancestral worship is in comparison to the Hindus. Learn from the Indians who are Hindus and how they will regard even a cockroach as sacred because it might be their, one of their grandparents visiting them.

They might be visiting them. They don't kill any object because of their communication with the dead. Now he says he's finished with that life. He wants to live for Jesus Christ only. That's the end of his Hindu life.

He now gives himself to Jesus Christ. He wants to live as a Christian.

Our brother works in the garden for us. And he does a very good job. You can go and look at the cabbages and all the things that he's planted. You don't find weeds. It's clean. It's nice. So I asked him, what does the cabbage look like because it's bought by Woolworths?

He says, come and see, come and see. The Holy Ghost has gone through all the cabbages. That's Hindu language. So, at the cross, God the Father baptized us into the Son. And when Jesus died, you died. When he rose, you rose.

Worshiping Christ and Living a New Life

Have you thanked him for that already? Have you bowed before him, gone down on your knees, worshipped him for such a great salvation? That you are dead to sin, dead to the world, dead to the devil.

You are dead to sin, dead to the world, dead to the devil. You are dead to sin, dead to the world, dead to the devil. The world is no longer a problem to you.

Am I short? No, ma 'am, I'm long.

The World's Attraction and the Call to Holiness

And you'll find that the world beckons young people and brings them, calls them into following its pattern. Clothing, you'll find a girl wears tight-fitting clothing as possible, whether it's shorts or showing her belly button ring, all sorts of things, long or short.

I can't understand how the world, the rotten thing, can have such a magnetism and draw young people to itself.

I remember years ago there was a certain fashion, and remember fashions come and go and they change? A boy's fashion regarding hairstyle. Now, you know a pot, a potty, a bedpan, that have a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,.

A, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,.

I remember when Mr. Dube, the father of Brother Jablan Dube, how when he installed a toilet in the house, the whole neighborhood was astonished and they said, what, Dube has put a toilet in his house?

Now, this fashion of haircuts would be that they'd put a pot on the boy's head and then take a blade and or bob a thing and would cut all around so they'd leave this tuft on top. And white boys would dye their hair gray and other colors.

We'd say, we'd say that is madness, that's insane to do such a thing, but still the world beckons with such things and has power over young people through such things.

They're not yet dead.

If they were truly dead to sin, they would reject that and laugh at it, say that's satanic, but it's a proof that you're still alive to the world and that you're alive to hell when you show that these things beckon you and succeed to call you.

But the world no longer has dominion over us, we are dead to sin, dead to the world through Jesus. Sin no longer has power for the death of Jesus works in us. And we live a new life and as young people too, one lives a brand new life for we have died to the world with Jesus.

Isn't that a marvelous, miraculous thing? Isn't that a wonderful secret to be revealed to you? How marvelous, what a miraculous, wonderful thing God did for us when he baptized us into Christ. We died with him, arose with him.

Now we are new people and we live for God in holiness and righteousness, dead to stealing. If you put some money next to a corpse, does that dead body get tempted to steal that money? You who are involved in the occult, worshiping the ancestral spirits, you try to put food and things for your ancestors to come and get.

Do they ever come and eat that food or drink? No, never. It's just the cockroaches and the ants that come. For that person is really dead in the grave. And we at Golgotha died with Jesus. When he was raised, we were raised together with him.

How wonderful, how sweet it is to understand the mystery of the cross. That's why we sang that Zulu chorus, sweet is the gospel.