The Gospel Of Christ - Alive To God

Well the scripture reading this afternoon will be once again in Romans chapter 6 and I'll read verses 1 through 14. Though the preaching this afternoon will be on verses 8 through 11 when we get there I'll remind you that we're reading the preaching text just those for just those few verses.

So when you have that Romans chapter 6, please stand for the reading of God's Word. It is the Word of God. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound by no means? How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of The Father we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing.

So that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died to sin has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that excuse me, that's the preaching text beginning there.

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we also will live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him for the death. He died.

He died to sin once for all but the life he lives. He lives to God. So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness. But present yourselves to God as those who've been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law. But under grace god bless the reading and now be as well the proclamation of his word, please be seated. We've been in this short series that I have devised hopefully for your benefit and hopefully you are benefiting from it and the series is the gospel of Christ personally yours and I admonished you from the first sermon which was in Galatians 2 20 to make this gospel personal.

When you ask what the gospel is. Not simply be able to describe it or to tell the doctrinal tenets of the faith, which are both important. But to also add to that with the Apostle Paul in context from Galatians 2 20 where he says he speaks of the Son of God.

That's Jesus Christ who loved me. That's Him Paul the Apostle Singular who loved me. That's you redeemed by Christ and Gave himself for me Me that pronoun singular twice in that one verse. I want you to apprehend this gospel personally.

I want you when you pray to know that you pray to a God who saved you. Personally not that you or I or anyone else in all history is worth saving. But God by the good pleasure of his own will for no other reason.

Ephesians 1 4 says he put you in Christ to be redeemed by Christ and that same God sent his spirit. To apply this salvation to you. So when you say when you pray when you're in your devotions and Remember this because your pastor is pleading with you to remember this.

I want you to say this out loud when you pray of Jesus Christ the Son of God who loved me stop paren say your name. That's not conceited. That's not saying anything other than that Jesus Christ by the will of the Sovereign God saved us for his own good pleasure.

But to remember this is personal revelation to that white stone that has a name written on it that only you and the Savior know a personal gospel. I Want to ask. I'm gonna ask a show of hands and just to embarrass you I know it's going to embarrass some of you not others a show of hands.

How many of you in the week since that first sermon? Have been praying that way and putting your name in the Son of God who loved me Joshua Sheldon and gave himself for me Joshua Sheldon, I've asked you to put your name in there.

How many have done that? Please start. I only had one or two hands. Please start. There's not power in the word I'm not saying anything like that, but it is the emphasis of the scripture there and as we continue in this Series the reason for making that gospel personal and we're coming into it even more intensively in Romans chapter 6 here.

Not exposing the whole book of Romans. We've been just been focused on these few paragraphs really in Romans 6 the reason for all this is as you personalize the gospel as you remember the Jesus Christ by the will of the Father took you with him to the cross and Redeemed you by the cross you personally as part of a people the church his body.

But yet you personally I think it gives us great strength and great motivation against our sin. I Think it deepens our repentance. Not just have the gospel and Jesus Christ died for sinners as a concept that is true and can be proven biblically that yes but more than that that that suffering was intended for me and Now in accordance with Romans 6 and where we've been for the last couple of weeks and again this afternoon free from sin.

Romans 6 1 through 4 he was raised. Jesus Christ was raised and we too might walk in newness of life. Equal Jesus newness of life equals you newness of life. Do we walk perfectly in newness of life? No, I would never say that.

Can we? Should we? Let's let the scripture tell us. But there's an equal sign between Jesus and newness of life and you. Verses 5 through 12 and we will finish with this this afternoon. So consider yourselves dead to sin.

And alive to God you've been crucified. The sins been done away with. It's no longer your master. Now I'm gonna take a few weeks off after this Sunday. So verses 12 through 14 are gonna have to wait until I think July 28th.

But there's where we have finally the application let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. And there's no print after that by the Apostle Paul. This says which by the way because you're fallen sinners and you know, you just cruddy people you can't do that.

He doesn't say that he puts it forth as a distinct Possibility as that resource which is available to us all will we sin in this life? Yes and constantly we have a life of repentance as we recognize our sin and.

Yet if we look at what Paul is saying here as John Owen said in that great book of his. Which he titled just exactly right. The death of death in the death of Christ. That Christ died to sin once for all and because he died to sin once for all and because you were with him on that cross so to speak as he represented you and covered your sins and.

As he God the Father to his Lord resurrected Jesus Christ from the dead. So you have been resurrected now. Ephesians 2 says you've been raised with Christ. And we can walk in newness of life because of that resurrection.

That power of the resurrection that raised Jesus from the dead that God worked in him when he raised him. Ephesians 119 says he worked towards you who believe. And so far from preaching perfectionism or an end to all sin in this life far far from that.

I preach a deepening awareness of our sin because if you've died to sin. If God's given you a new heart as in the second sermon in this short series. If God's given you all resources 2nd Peter chapter 1 verse 3 He's gives us given us everything that pertains to righteousness and godliness.

God's left nothing out. Ephesians chapter 1 every spiritual gift. What does that have to do with our sin? Before I begin these verses 8 through 11. Let me tell you what that has to do with your sin my sin.

Brothers and sisters. There's no excuse for it. There's no excuse for that which God in his mercy because he pities his children. Knows we will constantly do and yet in his mercy in his goodness He forgives that for which we have no cause.

Because he's given us everything that pertains to righteousness and holiness because in Christ Jesus We died to sin our sin was crucified with him. And yet we bring it back. We need to break away from our sin.

We need to break away from our sin like it's the dead thing that is like the unclean thing of this dead bodies corpses in Scripture always something unclean. You just need to break away speed. You know the old Star Trek had that episode where they had to go fling around the Sun and that would get them enough speed.

To fly back to their own time because they'd gone back in time some crazy thing like that, but we need something like that. We need that breakaway speed as we go to something as gravitational. As a Sun that gets us going so fast and when it flings us around it.

We're leaving our sin behind more and more now if we have died with Christ verse 8 We believe that we also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him for the death.

He died. He died to sin once for all but the life He lives he lives to God so also you must consider yourselves dead to sin. So also as Christ died to sin so you have died to sin. Did Christ die for his own sin.

No. No tempted in all ways as we are yet without sin, but he died because of sin he died to sin. He suffered the death that sin brings. Because when he became your sin bearer he bore that penalty which was death.

He died to sin in that way not his own yours and. Yet we have another one of these equal signs. We died with Christ and The death he died he died once for all so also you consider yourselves you see these equal signs.

You see how far from your sin you must be so let me give a paraphrase of verses 8 9 10 and 11. Or says now if we've died with Christ, we believe we also live with him and the rest. You've heard it a couple times already.

Let me paraphrase this so maybe we can get the meaning a little more clear to ourselves. Something like this seeing that we or I state your name seeing that we have died with Christ. We have faith that we will live with him.

Now in this life and forever in the next having discerned that the resurrection certifies Jesus is total victory over death so that he and following him we Live now to God. Therefore we now reckon ourselves dead to the death of sin and alive to the God who gives life in Christ Jesus.

Because it has to do here with our thought process. We can circle back. I don't want to give you an idea here. He says now if we died with Christ, we believe we believe something that we will also live with him.

Do you believe that the word behind believe is the word for faith? Pistuello in the Greek so it's something like now if we've died with Christ we have faith. I Have faith that I will live with him. And when do you live with Christ?

From the moment of conversion from the moment the Holy Spirit opens your eyes gives you a heart and Causes you to believe. Now we could say I chose to follow Jesus. Yeah. Amen. I chose to follow Jesus because God Made me choose to follow Jesus.

God gave me a heart that wants to follow Jesus. God made me something was foreign to my whole nature so that after that monergistic or that solo work of God after that I Chose Jesus. I choose to follow follow him daily and that's what means we will also live with him.

When do we live with him we live with him now. We live in with him now as a picture of living with him in the after the resurrection. We live with him forever. You see the life we live today Is only a picture a practice session if you will for what it's going to be like to be before God.

To be sinless to be truly without sin. We have no barriers between us and our view of him and Jesus Christ. So if we died with Christ Seeing that we have died with Christ if you're a Christian you did die with Christ by God's will.

You have faith you will live with him now and after the resurrection. Is that your faith? It's that many people say well, I believe in Jesus and I'm having a better life. He gave me 14 ways to be a better communicator three ways to be a better husband and 73 ways for my wife to be a better wife.

It's a really good book in Proverbs. Yes, but isn't that so simplistic. When we look at Jesus Christ having died for our sin having Resurrected been resurrected from the dead and now living forever in the same way that we will Know walking and living with Jesus Christ is daily.

Constant we live with him now as we will live with him forever. We have faith. That we died with him seeing that we did die with him. It's a fact. It's an assumption of the Apostle Verse 9 we know that Christ being raised from the dead now know it is a word that means perception.

It means to have put the pieces together a bit. Okay, we believe we died with Christ, but that means something We've not perceived of course the reasoning comes from the Holy Spirit working within us and giving us the scripture and Yet the responsibility to perceive to understand to put the pieces together is yours.

It's mine as pastor Owens's as preachers to make it clear to you. It's yours to apprehend and apply it. So, do you know have you perceived? Do you understand that Jesus Christ being raised from the dead will not die again?

How can one who defeated death itself ever die again? That enemy has no more power over that one who died to him. Christ was raised from the dead once raised from the dead. He won't die again because death cannot have dominion over him.

He died that sin once he died that death once for all and that's it it was like a good boxing match. That doesn't get a rematch. Like Mike Tyson so often in his heyday and who want to go in the ring with him again?

That's just a small picture of The knockout round if you will, but the death of death in Christ Jesus is death. So We know this we've perceived this we understand that we've died with Christ. We're going to live with him and I perceive I understand that Christ because he's raised from the dead that resurrection proves death is done.

He won't die again. So you also Cannot die again. I Will all pass away in this world. Most of us will you know, the old statistic one out of one will die. And many of you know, it's been now just a couple days past four months since I lost my wife.

I Saw that last breath. But I know That because of Jesus Christ and her faith in him. She will never die again. She lives now and forever and she's only waiting for the resurrection as the rest of us.

Do you perceive that? Do you understand how that gives you a bulwark and a strengthening against your daily sin. How far that should be from us because that thing is a dead mangled corpse. Not just knocked out like a boxing match, but Jesus Christ defeated.

Completely done away with as certified by the resurrection death no longer has dominion over him or you or anyone who believes in him. The death he died he died to sin once for all the life he lives he lives to God.

Where's Jesus live. Have you ever questioned that? I've pondered that I cannot figure it out. Like where is he? He was resurrected in a body like ours, which is Right hand of the Father. Where is that?

Does he breathe oxygen? He's in a body like ours. You know. These are just the imponderables. I feel a like little Calvin and Calvin and Hobbes pondering the universe. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. I know that Jesus lives.

If you're in Christ, you know that too. And it's the peanut gallery said he's at the right hand of the Father and that's exactly right. And he lives forever there and the way he lives there now is how we are going to live.

There's another equal sign there the life he lives. He lives to God. He goes on so also. You must reconcile you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus as Christ Jesus is alive to God right now so you right now consider yourselves dead to sin as He is dead to sin the equal sign between ourselves and Jesus Christ.

How do we gain the benefit of this kind of theology? This kind of doctrine. Is as simple as what I've been advocating. Pleading with you. Put your name in there. Don't just pray prayers that explain the gospel to yourself.

Do explain the gospel to yourself to your children to your friends to your siblings your parents whoever needs to understand the gospel. Yes. But apply it to yourself personally the way the Apostle Paul did the way the Apostle Paul did and make these equal signs from the scripture.

Between yourself and Jesus Christ. It doesn't say you're as powerful as Jesus Christ. We're not doesn't say we're as holy as him. We are not. But in these limited ways that the scripture gives us this freedom do so with your name.

And just see you don't have to report back to me, but just see if that gives you a deeper horror of sin and a greater beauty of Christ. And what he did for us on the cross. It was once for all this turning point in history where Jesus Christ who are not to have died at all.

He died for purpose. You know as it says in Hebrews. Believe somebody's gonna call out the reference to me where a man might die for his friends. My man might die for a righteous person. Where's that?

Doesn't matter. Men might die for a righteous person and I think I would have been willing to die to protect my wife. It had ever been necessary. But Jesus died to turn the entire course course of history for the entire human race and all who would believe in him.

Once for all. Nothing we can add to it. Nothing you can do to gain the benefits of that. It's all from God given to those whom he chooses. He died for his crews. He was crucified for it and we were crucified with him and Sin itself your sin was crucified with Jesus Christ at that great turning point in history the cross.

When the Lord Jesus Christ is an interesting thought that he didn't really get killed by the crucifixion. How did he die? He gave up his spirit. Christ was in charge the whole time. At no point did man have sovereignty over him.

He gave himself up to their vagaries and Yet it was Christ who gave up his spirit when he knew he had accomplished the Father's will. That's a great turning point in history. And that's why the Apostle Paul can say he died for sin once for all sin is done dead.

Crucified and the slavery that we had to it. Again pastor Owens have referred to that this morning about being enslaved to do sin because of our fear of death. What fear should we have now of death. Death has died and the sin that brings death has been crucified.

It's because Jesus Christ shared the human condition to the full. I'm quoting a scholar here that is Overcoming the death which we all die can effectively break the despair and fear of death and so already break its grip on human life.

Because Jesus Christ shared in our condition became man like us the word became flesh and dwelt among us. His overcoming the death which we all die Can break the despair and the fear of death that if we're honest all of us have so we too in Jesus and because of Jesus because God put us in there are in the same way.

Alive to God the grip that death has on you the fear of it should be broken. Not easy if you've been in a deathbed, it's not easy. But the terror of it is gone for the Christian. There's no more profound Identification with us than for Jesus Christ for God to become man and experience our worst and most final fate.

Which is of course death? So do we understand this? Are you ready to put your name in this? We believe. We have faith that having Died with Christ who will live with him. We understand that Jesus Christ being raised from there.

We perceive that if the resurrection occurred which it did in time and space a historical event of the resurrection I can perceive that being a fact. Then he will never die again. And so also we must reckon with mother Gizmo logically arrive at this conclusion.

Dead to sin alive to God. You're dead to that which is dead. You're alive to God the God of life the God who lives forever the God who never was not God is the God of life. You know Paul's talking so much or writing so much about death here in Romans 6.

You might start thinking this is really depressing death death death died died died crucified crucified boy. When do we get the good news this has been good news brethren. That Jesus Christ died to sin and so with him you died to sin.

But let's understand that God is a God of life and that's why the dead are brought back to life. That's why Jesus Christ went in and raised Jairus his daughter. That's why he called Lazarus out of the grave.

If you read chapters 13 of 2nd Kings Verses 20 and 21 you read this very odd event when Elisha who finished Elijah's ministry. The two were one sort of like brothers together in this one minister bringing the Word of God to Israel but Elisha remember he was buried and After he was buried.

Some men who were out I forget what they were doing. But they some Midianite Raiders came and they wanted to hide from there. Oh, they the men were out there burying their friend. And when the Midianite Raiders came along they threw him without burying him and he touched the bones of Elisha and came to life.

Very odd event was it proved to us. It's kind of the same thing Romans 6 is about. That God brings the dead back to life. Ezekiel 37 and the dry bones God brings the dead back to life. If he's just chapter 2 and you who are dead in your trespasses the sins in which he once walked he made alive together with Christ.

He's a God of life. He gives life now and the life now is a life that we lead that acknowledges with every step. That we died to sin. That our sin with Jesus Christ on the cross was crucified. You cannot get deader.

Than a crucifixion you cannot have been more efficiently and agonizingly Executed than the Romans back in that day. We don't think about Jesus right now because that would take too long. And we've all heard the descriptions of the crucifixion.

But now take that description you've heard of the crucifixion and apply it to your sin. Because Paul says your sin was crucified with Christ Jesus. How far removed should you be from sin? All of us want to be totally removed.

Not possible in this life, but that's what we want. How far removed should we be in the here and now? As far as life is from death as Far as the resurrection is from the crucifixion. As Far as Jesus is now from us.

Where we are here God is a God of life. Jesus Christ the conqueror of death not a fixation on death but conquered death so that you and I and everyone who he represented on the cross would have true life in this life now and This true life is a step further and further for our sin each day.

We go. Amen. You.