Crucified With Christ

What if the most honest question you could ask today is simple: am I walking in the light or settling for a comfortable lie? We open Romans and confront the tension between the flesh and the Spirit, not as a theory but as a daily choice. “I have been crucified with Christ” becomes more than a verse—it’s an identity that changes how we think, love, and live.

We trace Paul’s argument from creation’s witness to the human tendency to trade truth for idols. Gratitude fades, hearts grow dark, and we start reshaping God to fit our preferences. That idolatry shows up not just in statues but in our screens, our relationships, our sexuality, and our politics. We address marriage and design, the chaos of self-invention, and the harm of pursuing desires that promise freedom yet hollow out the soul. Along the way, we widen the lens to include the sins we often excuse—gossip, pride, deceit, covetousness—because the debased mind isn’t a niche problem; it’s a human one.

Through all of this, the gospel doesn’t blink. Jesus bears judgment, breaks the power of sin, and raises us to new life. The call isn’t to perform for God but to surrender to Him: trust His finished work, cultivate gratitude, and walk in truth with courage and grace. Parents, protect your kids. Believers, speak clearly and love deeply. If the times feel stranger by the day, the remedy remains the same: the good news of Jesus Christ still saves, heals, and frees. Subscribe, share this episode with someone who needs hope, and leave a review to help others find the message. Then ask yourself: where will you choose light today?

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com.

Chapters

• 26:00 Marker 01

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_02: 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_01: 0:20

If we don't walk in the truth, if we don't walk in the light, what are we walking in? We're walking in the dark, we're walking in lies. But those lies sound so good, we believe them and we follow after them because our flesh likes it. You know, the flesh doesn't like the gospel, but our spirits love the gospel. Our flesh needs to be put to death. And if we focus on the gospel of Jesus Christ, we realize every day, I have been crucified with Christ.

SPEAKER_02: 0:49

Isn't that the truth? Our flesh doesn't like the gospel, but our spirit loves the gospel. Each and every day is a reminder of this reality for the believer. Are we going to put the flesh to death and live in the spirit? Or are we going to dabble in darkness and quench the spirit? In today's message, Pastor Carl reflects on what it means to have been crucified with Christ as a believer. In his study, you'll learn the importance of walking in that truth daily, moment by moment, as you fight the good fight. And now here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness. You have been made righteous. Why are you going back and walking in unrighteousness? That makes you unfruitful. Not only for your soul, but for the soul of others. If we are given the charge of declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel that saves and changes lives and brings hope and healing, how can we declare it if we're not walking in it? Does that make sense? Why would anybody want to follow after a gospel that says one thing and does another? Let's walk in the righteousness of God. Let's obey the truth, which means believing and trusting in Jesus every day, depending on him, surrendering to him, saying, You belong, I belong to you. I am yours, I'm your vessel, do with me as you please, as opposed to, I'm going to do these good works for you, God, and I hope you're going to be happy with them. Because he's not going to be happy with them. So this is a message not only to the unbelieving world, but it's the message to us believers. Are we walking in the ways that God wants us to be walking? And that's not in the flesh, that's in the spirit, depending on him, relying on the grace of God and the finished work of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross on our behalf, that makes us whole, that makes us right, that makes us walk with God. Verse 20. Because we need to focus on the truth and declare the truth and walk in the truth, we need to know the truth that sets us free, and we need to live it to prove that we know it, right? Verse 20. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. There's something in everybody that knows there is a God, and that God will judge sin. There's something within us that knows us. In fact, everything that is created in some way understands that God is there and he will judge sin. I mean, you remember when Jesus came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and and all the crowds were worshiping him, basically, and the Pharisees were telling him, tell them to stop, tell them to stop. And Jesus said, if I tell them to stop, the rocks are gonna cry out, because there's something in creation that knows their creator as well. It's a mystery, but it's true, right? Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God. Um they they didn't glorify him, they didn't honor him, they didn't praise him, they didn't surrender to him. Are we doing that in our lives when we go our own way? Lord, thank you for saving me, but I'm going to go do my own thing. Of course, the world is going to reject God because the world hates God. You know, atheism, a great phrase that I've heard about atheists, is they they don't believe in God, yet they hate him. There's something within us that knows there is a God and we fight against them. They did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful. There's something about thanksgiving that makes us right with each other and with God, to acknowledge the goodness of God and to thank him for intervening in my life. Your goodness is coming after, it's coming after me, like that last song we sang. The Lord in his goodness comes after us. The Holy Spirit comes after us to woo us, to draw us near to him, to reveal our separation from him and to give us the answer for that problem that we have. But if we're not thankful, it doesn't apply to us. And the world in a lot of ways today is not thankful, but they raise their fits, the their fists against God, and they become futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. If we don't walk in the truth, if we don't walk in the light, what are we walking in? We're walking in the dark, we're walking in lies. But those lies sound so good, we believe them and we follow after them because our flesh likes it. You know, the flesh doesn't like the gospel, but our spirits love the gospel. Our flesh needs to be put to death. And if we focus on the gospel of Jesus Christ, we realize every day I have been crucified with Christ. Not only did he represent me and all of mankind on the cross to take my sin upon himself, but I'm also, because he represents me, in essence, I am with him on the cross and being crucified with them. So my sin in my flesh is being crucified, and I'm being brought back to life in his resurrection as well. A new creature that is free from the bondage of sin. We need to remind ourselves of that. If we're not thankful, we become futile in our thoughts. We begin to make ideas and justify things in our own heads on how things should be and how I want things to be, and we miss it. This is a message not only for the unbelieving world, but this is a message for the church. Are we walking in the light? Are we walking in the truth? Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible men, and the birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. In other words, we like to put God in a box and give him attributes that we can grab a hold of, that we can control, maybe. And the creation just becomes so easy to say God is in creation and he's in this bug and he's in this bird, and and you have control over it to some degree. God's not in a box, he's way bigger than we can even imagine. And in the theology of Narnia, when they the kids were asking about Aslan, the lion who represents Jesus, is Aslan's tame? And it's like, no, Aslan is not tame, but he's good. The Lord is powerful, the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our savior at the same time. He's taken the judgment upon himself of God the Father. Therefore, God gave them up to uncleanness and to the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves. If you believe a lie long enough, the Lord will let you continue in it. And what you think is beneficial to you, what you think is is is exciting your flesh and giving you satisfaction and peace in life is really destroying you from the inside out. Who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Our Lord, the creator, is worthy of worship forever and ever. Our creator, the Lord, is worthy of praise. Our creator, the Lord, is good. Our creator, the Lord, is He is faithful. Our Creator, the Lord, loves us and will always love us. It's we who leave Him. And we worship the stuff that He gives us instead of Him, the giver. This idea that God is in everything. You know, so I worship the creation, I worship the trees because God is in the trees. But God is not in the trees. God is is is manifest in the trees, but God is outside of his creation. And again, we try to put God in a box and we try to give him things that that fit our our desire, our kingdom, our agenda. And we we might use Bible verses to justify it all, but we go off astray and we go our own way and we end up in a bad place. And and and the although the creation is beautiful, it's falling apart. The grass is here today and gone tomorrow. Are you putting your trust in the grass? Are you putting your trust in the creator who is blessed forever, who will never be destroyed, but will always be blessing those who trust him and follow after him. Paul goes on for this reason in verse 26: God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature, likewise also the man having, leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their flesh for one another, men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error, which was due. The Lord set up ways things should work in this world. And when we go our own way, it doesn't work well. Marriage is one of those things. He's set up between one man and one woman for life, as a picture of Christ and his church. And when you walk in that, there is great blessing. It's not easy because we're still walking in a fallen world. You have two fallen people that are trusting in God together, and there are bumps along the road, but there's no better relationship in this world than that marriage relationship that's dedicated to God. But the enemy wants to twist things around and gives us ideas. Why do you have to do it that way? When you could have sex with all these people and all these people, and and you know, I came to a strange revelation this week when a realization that we're just talking about homosexuality here. In what we see today, homosexuality is is tame. In what we see today, even homosexuality is being being uh pictured as uh maybe too prudish. Because now you have transgenderism and and all these other things, I don't even know all the definitions of. All these sexual fetishes that go a different way. And just just focusing in on this transgenderism. And and and in light of this last this last part of the sentence, receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. In homosexuality, it does stuff to your spirit, it does stuff to your physical body, but even more so with transgenderism, especially when you're transitioning from one sex to another. Especially when you're talking about kids that think that they're born in the wrong body, and their counselors at school say, Yeah, you probably haven't been. Let's put you on some um some blockers, some puberty blockers, so that you can begin this process of becoming the person that you really should be. Which, when you do that, it goes against how God made the body. You're fighting against these processes that are happening. Uh, if you give puberty blockers to somebody too young, their their bones won't develop the right way, let alone other parts of their body. And then you have the physical surgeries to remove parts and to add parts. You have pains that they don't talk about that are there forever for the rest of your life. You have issues with with going to the bathroom for the rest of your life, you have issues with infertility. You can never reproduce after you go through this. And do they warn the kids of that? Do they even give their parents a place to say, hey, this is not right for my child? You cannot tell my child. The parents are the ones that are the evil ones, and the kids are being taken away from parents in certain states in this country. Do we see the evil? And it's because we've darkened our hearts to the truth and we believe the lie and we and we're attracted to it, and we and it makes some sense to us. Would you rather have a dead daughter or a live son? With the implication of if they don't have this transition, they're going to commit suicide. No, the answer to suicide is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The answer to unfulfillment in life and not sure of who you are is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. You have the United Nations trying to promote pedophilia now, to make it legal to have sex with minors. Because every human being is a sexual creature, and they have the human right to go have sex with whoever they want. What's wrong with that picture? You have innocent children that are taken advantage of by older people who have fetishes who operate under the the guise of human rights. This is not a human right to take advantage of other people. There's a movie out about um pedophilia, about child sex trafficking. It's not a Christian film, although it shows very clearly how alive and well evil is in our land, and how this plays out as we continue our progression of just accepting people for who they are. We do accept the people, but they need to be freed of their sin. I need to be freed of my sin. That's why Jesus came. And this is what Paul is is starting a dialogue with the Romans about. The gospel is everything, the work of God in our lives is everything. And when we go and justify the works of our flesh, no matter how small or great the sin may be, it's taken us down that path. And this is how we've gotten to this place in society. If we got to the place where people actually accepted the gospel and were changed by the grace of Jesus Christ, when they've surrendered their lives fully to the Lord and said, Not my will, your will be done, there would be no market for these things. But instead, we like to toy with things. Big among pastors. We need to repent. Because we're at we're playing right into the hand of the of the enemy. And we're not allowing the grace of God to work in and through in our lives that give us victory over sin, that give us life and hope, and the ability to share that truth with others. And he goes on. Verse 28, and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind. Do you just want God so you can escape hell, but you can continue to live like hell in the here and now? Or do you truly recognize that God is good? And what he wants to do in us is so much better than the empty promises that the world, our flesh, and the devil make to us, to give to us, tempt us with. But I don't want to have anything to do with God. I push God out of the way, and as we do that, I'm talking as mankind in general now, when I say we, God then gave them over to a debased mind to do things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, as one of the first ones there. From the very beginning, the enemy has been t attacking marriage. That's why sexual mur immorality is always so big. Because it destroys the picture of Christ and his church, it destroys the work of God among his creation. Sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness. They are whisperers, gossipers, always saying things about other people, justifying their own sin, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud. Pride is not a good thing. I'm proud of my sin. I'm proud of my rebellion against God. I'm proud of the fact that I'm headed to hell. We need to look at things in the light of the truth, in the light of the gospel. Boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents. Parents, undiscerning. They think they're wise, they think they're discerning, they think they know the truth. When all the social media says that's that's misinformation, they believe it. Don't believe it. Think for yourself. Think in light of God's word, think in light of the gospel. May the Lord give you discernment. Untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who knowing the righteous judgment of God, all these people that do these things inside, they know it's wrong, but they suppress it so they can go and feel right. They think they think the world is coming against them and they need to have rights and they need people to celebrate with them so they'll feel right, but they don't feel right because that's a conviction that's built in because of the grace of God, because God wants to save them from their sin. He wants to save us from our sin. Listen to the Lord when He's working in your heart and saying, Lord, we got to work on this. I died for this. Do you want to be freed of this? Knowing the righteous judgment of God that those who practice such things are deserving of death, they know that this is wrong. And this is leading to a bad place eternally. Yet not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them. We get so stuck in our sin that we justify it, and then we put we we stand up for it, and we stand up for the sins of others that do this. This is what we're seeing in our society today, all under the guise of human rights, and it's wrong. What a way to open the letter, eh? We found freedom in the gospel of Christ. We've found hope, we found a new life. But are we walking in it? If we're not walking in it, let's get back to it. Let's remember the cross. Let's surrender to the Lord anew. Let's give the Lord our whole lives and say, Lord, you do with me what you see fit and and and and and correct in me anything that needs to be corrected. Or point it out to me so I can repent and turn to you because I can't fix it, but you can. And then, Lord, use me to declare the truth to this world. And help me to do it with grace, with mercy, but help me to be strong, bold, in proclaiming what is true. And some of these things we need to speak out loudly. No, this is wrong. No, you cannot sneak past, you know, my authority as a parent and do things with my children that will destroy their lives forever. Not only in this life, but in the next life. But at the same time, but you don't have to be there either. You could be freed of this perversion. You could be freed of this lie. Because Jesus came to save sinners. He came to save me, he came to save you. May the Lord give us wisdom as we walk forward in this life that He's given us. In this time and history that He's given us to live. I believe we're in the end times. And I believe things are going to get weirder and weirder. But the answer to the weirdness does not change. The answer is still the gospel of Jesus Christ. May we walk in it. And may God use us to shine the light of the gospel to others as we go. Amen.

SPEAKER_02: 24:07

That's Pastor Carl of the Mountain Cross. He's simply going through the book of Romans verse by verse, chapter by chapter. There's just something about having the full counsel of God's Word, and that's our aim, to read and go through the full counsel of what God wants to teach us. Imagine the Apostle Paul writing this letter and sharing the good news, the gospel, to the nations beyond. He was giving a thorough explanation of the fact that before Jesus, we were trapped in a state of sin that was oppressive and limiting. Even following the laws of the Old Testament wasn't going to do us any good, as far as needing to be rescued. But through Jesus' mercy and grace, every single person has the opportunity to be brought into the fold, the family of God. Isn't that an incredible thing to think about? We are adopted by God and brought into his family. If you're not sure what some of this means, or if you'd like to learn more about being adopted by God, you can go to themountaincross.com where you can get a clearer understanding of what it all means for you personally. We have a tab at the top called How to Know God. Click on that and go from there. Once more, that website is themountaincross.com. We're so glad you've taken the time to listen to what Pastor Carl had to share in today's study of Romans. There's so much more to grow in as we study the Word. So come on up to the mountain with us again tomorrow as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come On Up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.