SPEAKER_01: To the book of uh Romans, chapter six together, the book of Romans and chapter number six.
SPEAKER_01: Neither is there salvation in any other.
SPEAKER_01: There's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
SPEAKER_01: Easter week is so important in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: We were seated in the fellowship hall last Sunday evening.
SPEAKER_01: A missionary was telling the story of how a man from Holland had come to faith in Christ and surrendered his life to share Christ with other people.
SPEAKER_01: The man became a missionary.
SPEAKER_01: And going to El Salvador, he met, he led a man to Christ, and that man led a man to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It was the missionary's grandfather.
SPEAKER_01: As he told his testimony of serving in a third world country, I couldn't help but sit there and think how our church, our Christian life, needs often to reset, to focus on what matters the most.
SPEAKER_01: And what matters the most is what we celebrate this week.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what the Lord Jesus Christ did for us when he walked up that Calvary road, suffered and bled and died, was beaten, scourged, mocked and whipped, betrayed and denied.
SPEAKER_01: But he finished the work his Father sent him to do and buried.
SPEAKER_01: He rose again the third day, according to the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: And that message is our message.
SPEAKER_01: That cause is our cause.
SPEAKER_01: It's the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I hope you've shared Christ with someone this past week.
SPEAKER_01: And I trust you've already thought about and have already acted on the people that God has brought into your circle of influence that you could share Christ with and invite them to what God is doing on next Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: Let's not miss our moment.
SPEAKER_01: And let's let God use us for his honor and for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: Let's all stand together in reverence for God's word.
SPEAKER_01: I'm in the Gospel of Romans.
SPEAKER_01: Why do you call it the Gospel of Romans?
SPEAKER_01: You said, I thought there were four Gospel records.
SPEAKER_01: Brother, there are 66 Gospel records.
SPEAKER_01: And they all point to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Spurgeon said, wherever you are in the Bible, make a beeline for the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're going to cut this passage this morning and see what Christ accomplished for you and for me.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says in verse number one, What shall we say then?
SPEAKER_01: Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
SPEAKER_01: God forbid.
SPEAKER_01: How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?
SPEAKER_01: Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
SPEAKER_01: For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: And want to speak this morning on the subject of the miracle in burial.
SPEAKER_01: The miracle in burial.
SPEAKER_01: And because of that, we have been planted also in the likeness of his resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray and discover this miracle through the scriptures this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Father, I pray that you'll bless this meeting in a particular and very special way.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I'm aware that there are so many distractions and so many lives, so many thoughts that compete for our divine attention.
SPEAKER_01: Have thine own way, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We are the clay.
SPEAKER_01: You're the potter.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, this is not your church.
SPEAKER_01: My church or our church, Lord, this is your church.
SPEAKER_01: This is your truth.
SPEAKER_01: These are your people.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, this is your day.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the time we set aside to hear from you.
SPEAKER_01: So speak to us is my prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And if anyone in this room today has never accepted Christ, or if someone who is a Christian has not lived in the authority and power of this passage this morning, may your Holy Spirit work in our hearts to draw us to Christ is our prayer, for we pray it in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for standing and please be seated together.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to hold your place here quickly, and I want you to go to the Gospel of John with me.
SPEAKER_01: The Gospel of John, chapter number 12.
SPEAKER_01: We, of course, are worshiping on Palm Sunday, the Sunday before the resurrection of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So much of the gospel records record the activity of Jesus in this particular week, his entrance into the city of Jerusalem and his resurrection from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 12, the Bible says in verse number 20, and there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast.
SPEAKER_01: The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Besseda of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Philip cometh and telleth Andrew, and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified.
SPEAKER_01: Verily, verily I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.
SPEAKER_01: But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
SPEAKER_01: These Greeks that were in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, the day upon which our Lord died, ask a great question.
SPEAKER_01: Sir, we would see Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I trained in Bible college by a preacher who had in big letters on the back wall, as you were standing in the pulpit, looking at the back wall, you saw those words, Sir, we would see Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Where would you find the Son of God?
SPEAKER_01: Well, Jesus gave them a clue.
SPEAKER_01: Tell them that the hour is coming that the Son of Man must be glorified.
SPEAKER_01: Then look at verse 24 again with me.
SPEAKER_01: Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.
SPEAKER_01: But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
SPEAKER_01: Our Lord is saying that if you're going to find him, you're going to find him in just a few days in a hollowed-out tomb.
SPEAKER_01: His body's going to be planted in the ground.
SPEAKER_01: A seed has great potential.
SPEAKER_01: If I had a seed in my pocket, I told myself to bring one.
SPEAKER_01: And I have some timer's disease.
SPEAKER_01: I forgot to bring it with me.
SPEAKER_01: A seed has a lot of potential, but there's really two necessary conditions for a seed to flourish.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, it must die and it must be planted.
SPEAKER_01: But when it dies, and when it's planted, there's something that goes on behind the scenes out of sight that is a miracle in nature.
SPEAKER_01: The miracle of life is that something is planted which is dead, but it a miracle takes place.
SPEAKER_01: It comes to life.
SPEAKER_01: Except Jesus is planted.
SPEAKER_01: But he is planted, and he rises from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: I wonder this morning if the same has occurred in your life.
SPEAKER_01: The Christian life begins with the paradox.
SPEAKER_01: The greatest miracle of the Christian life is not just that we live, the miracle is that we died.
SPEAKER_01: No Christian is merely a forgiven sinner.
SPEAKER_01: The scripture in Romans chapter 6 reminds us that we are people who have died to sin.
SPEAKER_01: And we are those who have been raised to walk in newness of life.
SPEAKER_01: I want us to walk through this portion of Scripture from Romans, if you'll follow me back to our text in chapter 6.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, I want you to notice in our passage faulty views that deny the miracle.
SPEAKER_01: Faulty views that deny the miracle.
SPEAKER_01: The first faulty view that denied these Roman believers of this miracle that took place in Christ was, first of all, a misunderstanding of sin.
SPEAKER_01: Notice in verse 1 in our passage, what shall we say then?
SPEAKER_01: Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
SPEAKER_01: Now, sin is defined in the book of Romans, chapter 3, verse 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: Sin, by classic definition, is that in which we do not hit the mark of God's holiness.
SPEAKER_01: And may I say this morning that to miss the mark is to miss the mark.
SPEAKER_01: You may be sitting here and you may see someone across the auditorium, and maybe you think to yourself, well, I've missed the mark a bit closer than they missed the mark.
SPEAKER_01: But can I just say this morning, if you miss the mark by five millimeters or five miles, to miss the mark is to miss the mark of God's holiness?
SPEAKER_01: Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
SPEAKER_01: Notice what Paul says of sin in our passage here in verse 16 of the same text.
SPEAKER_01: Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is not your servant.
SPEAKER_01: Rather, to sin you are a slave.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is never tame, it is eternally feral, and sin will always ruin your life.
SPEAKER_01: It's a Puritan writer who said, Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.
SPEAKER_01: I read the story this week of Ryan Easley.
SPEAKER_01: You see him in the previous picture.
SPEAKER_01: Easley was a tamer of lions.
SPEAKER_01: He loved them.
SPEAKER_01: He trained them.
SPEAKER_01: He worked with them.
SPEAKER_01: For many years he entered that cage in which I could but tremble to enter.
SPEAKER_01: He entered it bravely and proficiently until the day one of the animals he thought was tamed attacked him and took away his life.
SPEAKER_01: The newspaper article from his hometown said that week it was with profound sorrow that his family confirmed the tragic loss of Ryan Easley, who lost his life in an accident involving a tiger under his care.
SPEAKER_01: He was performing an act with the tiger when, quote, something went wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he was in the cage.
SPEAKER_01: This tragedy, they said, is a painful reminder of both the beauty and the unpredictability of the natural world.
SPEAKER_01: The animals under his care were not just animals to him, but beings he formed a connection with, one rooted in respect and daily care and love.
SPEAKER_01: And can I just say this morning, that which he thought he might have tamed eventually ruled in his life?
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you're here today at Calvary Baptist Church, and there are secret sins in your life for which you think you are in full control, and this is the deception of sin.
SPEAKER_01: Shall we, because of the grace that Christ has bestowed in our lives, shall we continue in sin that God's grace may abound?
SPEAKER_01: Now, this whole passage has regarded the wonderful, matchless, infinite grace of God for sinners.
SPEAKER_01: And can we just go on record today and say we ought to be astoundingly, eternally grateful for the grace of God in the person of Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_01: We should have suffered for our sin.
SPEAKER_01: We should have been separated from God for our sin.
SPEAKER_01: We should have suffered hell because of our sin.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus took all of that in himself.
SPEAKER_01: This is divine grace.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just that Christ's righteousness has imputed to my account, it was that my account was imputed to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He hath made him to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
SPEAKER_01: How unfair is that?
SPEAKER_01: He got what I've done, and I got what only he can do, brother.
SPEAKER_01: That's called Christian grace.
SPEAKER_01: But shall we continue in sin that the grace of God might be manifested in our lives?
SPEAKER_01: No! Why?
SPEAKER_01: It's a misunderstanding of sin.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what Paul says in the fifth chapter.
SPEAKER_01: He's writing about the wonderful grace showed to him in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
SPEAKER_01: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto life eternal by Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Here's how someone paraphrased the verse.
SPEAKER_01: But shall we continue in unrighteousness because Christ has redeemed us?
SPEAKER_01: No, because the wage of sin is death.
SPEAKER_01: And may I say to you that death doesn't just bring eternal separation from God.
SPEAKER_01: Death in any, sin in anyone's life produces death in many things in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: You know, sin sometimes puts to death purity and innocency and opportunities and relationships in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Sin always produces death.
SPEAKER_01: Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin.
SPEAKER_01: And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
SPEAKER_01: A faulty view of this miracle is a misunderstanding of sin.
SPEAKER_01: But may I say, second of all, there's a misunderstanding of grace.
SPEAKER_01: Paul goes on in verse 1 shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
SPEAKER_01: I was reading the story of Grigory Rasputin.
SPEAKER_01: Rasputin was a Siberian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man.
SPEAKER_01: He gained influence over Tsar Nicholas and Russia by allegedly healing their son.
SPEAKER_01: Rasputin's scandalous reputation and political interference undermined the Romanov dynasty, contributed to the outbreak of the Russian Revolution.
SPEAKER_01: Rasputin presented himself as a holy person, deeply spiritual and close to God.
SPEAKER_01: He ascribed himself as being a channel of divine power to the royal family.
SPEAKER_01: Yet behind that outward mysticism was a life marked by shocking contradiction.
SPEAKER_01: Historical accounts describe that Resputzin was a man of drunkenness and sexual immorality and manipulation and the exploitation of his influence for personal gain.
SPEAKER_01: They say that he moved freely between the language of repentance and an indulgence to sin.
SPEAKER_01: He was associated with ideas similar to those of a cultic sect who believed that one must experience sin deeply in order to fully appreciate repentance and grace.
SPEAKER_01: Can I put that in modern parlance?
SPEAKER_01: He believed that you had to wallow in the mud to tell others how badly it stink.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, sin more, so grace abounds more.
SPEAKER_01: This distortion echoes the very error Paul is confronting in this very verse Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
SPEAKER_01: Can I just go on the record and say to you today, you can have one of two testimonies in your life.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a testimony of having been saved from the power of sin in your life, or you can be saved from the exercise of those same sins.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus can save.
SPEAKER_01: Does anyone know what the next word is?
SPEAKER_01: 1 John chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: My little children, these things write I unto you that you sin not.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody know the next word?
SPEAKER_01: And can I just emphasize that one more time?
SPEAKER_01: My little children, these things write I unto you that you sin not.
SPEAKER_01: And he didn't say but.
SPEAKER_01: He assumed that we would sin.
SPEAKER_01: And may I just say, it would be better not to sin.
SPEAKER_01: And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
SPEAKER_01: Aren't you glad that when we sin, we still have an advocate who will plead our case before the throne of God?
SPEAKER_01: What a wonderful Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Did you know that in the courtroom of God's righteousness, in the courtroom whereby there's no need for a trial, there's no need for investigation, you are guilty.
SPEAKER_01: But aren't you glad that in the courtroom of God's righteousness, that the judge upon the throne is the holy God of eternity, the sovereign of the universe?
SPEAKER_01: But he gives you a defense attorney whose name is Jesus, and it works out really well because the defense attorney is the son of the judge.
SPEAKER_01: And not just the son of the judge, but the son raises his hands and he says, Father, can I speak a word for the defendant today?
SPEAKER_01: And when he raises his hands, he has nail prints in his hands.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad that I've been saved by the marvelous grace of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: But it'd still be better not to sin.
SPEAKER_01: Grace is not permission to sin.
SPEAKER_01: It's God's power through Christ to be dead indeed unto sin.
SPEAKER_01: Rasputin's life asks a haunting question: what happens when a man talks much about God but uses grace to protect the very sins Christ died to restore?
SPEAKER_01: A man drowning in the ocean does not celebrate the water because a lifeguard is nearby.
SPEAKER_01: He clings to the rescuer and he forsakes the waves.
SPEAKER_01: Because his grace has changed us.
SPEAKER_01: It ought to change our view of sin.
SPEAKER_01: And it ought to change our view of grace.
SPEAKER_01: Abounding grace in the presence of overwhelming sin.
SPEAKER_01: Abounding grace in the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In Titus chapter 2, verse 11, the scripture says, For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, there are faulty views that deny the miracle.
SPEAKER_01: But number two, will you notice quickly, very quickly, you're not listening fast enough.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, help me out.
SPEAKER_01: The more amens you say, the louder, the louder I preach.
SPEAKER_01: Say Freudian slip.
SPEAKER_01: Never mind.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, the miracle.
SPEAKER_01: The miracle is that we died.
SPEAKER_01: Let me let me show you in the verse here.
SPEAKER_01: Verse two how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?
SPEAKER_01: Paul is making a Really specific statement here in verse number two.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, May it never be so.
SPEAKER_01: May it never be so that we live, verse one.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because we died to sin.
SPEAKER_01: Can we all say that together?
SPEAKER_01: Ready to begin?
SPEAKER_01: We died to sin.
SPEAKER_01: Now the word here is in a Greek case that means it already happened.
SPEAKER_01: You're not dying.
SPEAKER_01: You already died.
SPEAKER_01: You died to sin.
SPEAKER_01: Because of grace, because of Christ, you died.
SPEAKER_01: Now there are a few very distinctive things about dead men, but one is they don't act anymore.
SPEAKER_01: They're dead.
SPEAKER_01: How shall we that died to sin live as if we are alive for our own selves?
SPEAKER_01: God, death was in God's sight.
SPEAKER_01: With God's seal, a pledge of this face in baptism, he provides freedom from sin and assurance of our victory over it.
SPEAKER_01: How can a saved man plan a future in which he has already died to?
SPEAKER_01: You know, dead men don't make plans.
SPEAKER_01: I was thinking about Proverbs chapter 7, verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: Where the Bible says, she being the adulterous woman, notice what she says.
SPEAKER_01: She is without, now in the streets, she lieth in wait at every corner.
SPEAKER_01: And young men, I want to tell you, she's looking for a simple man at the wrong place at the wrong time, wandering, without a plan, and without a vow of purity.
SPEAKER_01: She's waiting for you.
SPEAKER_01: So she caught him and kissed him, and with an impudent face, she said unto him, I have peace offerings with me.
SPEAKER_01: This day I have paid my vows.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore came I forth to meet thee.
SPEAKER_01: She's a church girl, who knew she would sin, made preparation religiously to atone for her sin, was still a plan to sin.
SPEAKER_01: She misunderstood sin and she misunderstood grace.
SPEAKER_01: And if she were a Christian, she already died to the things she already planned to do.
SPEAKER_01: What Paul is saying here is that this change that has taken place is a change in our position because we are now in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what he says in verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death.
SPEAKER_01: Baptized.
SPEAKER_01: Placed into the body.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians 12, 13 says, For by one spirit are we all baptized in one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bonder-free and have been all made to drink into one spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Who baptized you?
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit baptized you.
SPEAKER_01: And when did he baptize you?
SPEAKER_01: He baptized you at the moment of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Galatians 3.27 says, For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Who baptized you?
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Into what were you baptized?
SPEAKER_01: Into Christ.
SPEAKER_01: When were you baptized?
SPEAKER_01: At the moment of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And when you were baptized, Paul is hearkening them back.
SPEAKER_01: Now we saw a ritual act that is very important because it is public, but it's not powerful because it is public, though it is very powerful in that it's a show of identity with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's powerful publicly because it's significant that in an inner sense, someone has identified with Christ in the inner life.
SPEAKER_01: And the only way we can see that God did something in the inner life is for someone to do something in the outer life.
SPEAKER_01: And what Paul is saying here is that when you trusted Christ, you were brought into this by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: At the moment of your salvation, you've been brought into Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And he's not just talking about the ritual act, he's talking about spiritually what we have in the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And what does he say?
SPEAKER_01: Did you watch what happened to Scott this morning?
SPEAKER_01: Scott disappeared for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: And I think he thought, I thought he was a really big sinner, and I was going to hold him under for a while.
SPEAKER_01: His daughter at least told me, hold him under for a while.
SPEAKER_01: It's been a long time coming.
SPEAKER_01: He disappeared.
SPEAKER_01: May I just say he he was buried.
SPEAKER_01: But praise God, Scott, you're not buried anymore.
SPEAKER_01: He resurrected.
SPEAKER_01: And in a spiritual sense, the same is true.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, when Jesus Christ died, we died with him.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus Christ was buried, we were buried with him.
SPEAKER_01: And when Jesus Christ defeated death and the grave, we ourselves were raised to walk in newness of life.
SPEAKER_01: He's not saying this will happen.
SPEAKER_01: He's not saying this might happen.
SPEAKER_01: He says that in Christ, this is our identity.
SPEAKER_01: This is our reality.
SPEAKER_01: Baptized unto death, we are buried.
SPEAKER_01: And the word here means it's movement into in order to become involved with.
SPEAKER_01: You've been buried with Christ by baptism unto death, that like as Christ was resurrected, we have been raised to walk in newness of life.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what Paul is saying here is that you are not just dead, you are alive differently now.
SPEAKER_01: I am crucified with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That already happened.
SPEAKER_01: I died.
SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless, I live.
SPEAKER_01: Yet not I.
SPEAKER_01: But Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He liveth in me.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus did not resurrect the old life.
SPEAKER_01: He did not resurrect the old nature.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't give our old nature another shot at it.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's the life of Christ in us.
SPEAKER_01: It's Jesus in us.
SPEAKER_01: It's the power of the Holy Spirit in us.
SPEAKER_01: I am crucified with Christ, but I don't live.
SPEAKER_01: It is Christ that lives in me.
SPEAKER_01: And the life which I now live in the flesh, Paul says, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, I want you to notice quickly what the miracle accomplished.
SPEAKER_01: Now we can live as if this did not happen, but if we are truly bloodbought, we indeed have died to sin.
SPEAKER_01: We've been raised to walk in newness of life.
SPEAKER_01: Now, can I ask you a question?
SPEAKER_01: Does every Christian consider this to be so?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: How do I know we don't consider that to be so?
SPEAKER_01: Because we sin and we plan to and we like it.
SPEAKER_01: It evidences, remember when uh remember when Lazarus died in John chapter 11?
SPEAKER_01: You remember that story?
SPEAKER_01: He died.
SPEAKER_01: They called for Jesus, Jesus did not come.
SPEAKER_01: He was less than 10 miles away.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus didn't stop everything he was doing in his resurrection week.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't stop what he was doing and come take care of Lazarus.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: He said sickness is not to death, it's for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: There's something a little more powerful than raising a sick man from a sick bed.
SPEAKER_01: It's raising a dead man from a sepulcher.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus walks to the sepulcher where Lazarus has been laid, and the Bible said he'd been dead for four days, and internally his body is decomposing and he stinketh.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus walks to the sepulcher and he says, Lazarus, come forth.
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad he said Lazarus because someone said if he would have just said, come forth, all the dead in the area would have come back to life.
SPEAKER_01: Lazarus raised to walk in newness of life.
SPEAKER_01: Now, picture this with me.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine Lazarus taking a shower?
SPEAKER_01: He's about to get ready for bed that night.
SPEAKER_01: He leaves the house.
SPEAKER_01: Mary and Martha say, Where are you going?
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm going to get dressed.
SPEAKER_01: Where?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm going to go back to the sepulchre.
SPEAKER_01: I left my rags in there.
SPEAKER_01: You know what we do when we plan to sin and choose to sin and love to sin?
SPEAKER_01: We walk back in that sepulcher from which Christ raised us to newness of life, and we put on the rags of our old life.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, but this miracle accomplished something very powerful in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Notice Paul says in verse 4, therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
SPEAKER_01: For if we have been, there's my word, planted.
SPEAKER_01: Buried, planted.
SPEAKER_01: Burial gives us the idea that something goes to that is dead.
SPEAKER_01: Planting gives us the idea of something that was dead that goes to come back to life.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Christ did for us.
SPEAKER_01: He planted us together in the likeness of his death, and because of that we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: May I say as I close this morning, we are so fully identified with Jesus Christ, that because he died, we are dead, dead to sin.
SPEAKER_01: The old man, the old life, the old ways are dead.
SPEAKER_01: No rights, no ownership, no pleasure, we're just dead.
SPEAKER_01: I am crucified with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Paul even says again, Galatians 6.14, but God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
SPEAKER_01: Very much dead.
SPEAKER_01: If you're sitting by a dead person this morning, will you raise your hand?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, me too.
SPEAKER_01: But very much alive.
SPEAKER_01: Though we are identified with Jesus' death, we are equally identified in his resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Easter is all about.
SPEAKER_01: We've been planted together.
SPEAKER_01: We have been.
SPEAKER_01: This is an abiding state.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is not saying this will eventually happen or that it could happen.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying that it already happened and that we are currently living in this experience.
SPEAKER_01: How do we know?
SPEAKER_01: I want to give you two things.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, we have a new nature.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 11 of this same text.
SPEAKER_01: Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We have a new, we have a new nature.
SPEAKER_01: We died to an old master, but we are raised to life to serve the true master.
SPEAKER_01: We were born to serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Peter says that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 12, 10, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians 4, that ye put off concerning the former way of life, the old man, and put on the new man.
SPEAKER_01: He's making a distinction here.
SPEAKER_01: We were by nature children of wrath, children of disobedience.
SPEAKER_01: We were of our Father the devil.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't seek to please God.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't seek to honor God.
SPEAKER_01: We were opposed to God.
SPEAKER_01: We're born that way.
SPEAKER_01: We were born shapen in iniquity.
SPEAKER_01: But brother, I've been born again.
SPEAKER_01: I have a new nature.
SPEAKER_01: But I not only have a new nature, I have a new name.
SPEAKER_01: I have a new name.
SPEAKER_01: Joe, would you mind to come help me real quick?
SPEAKER_01: And uh Paul King.
SPEAKER_01: Come on up here, Paul.
SPEAKER_01: I I need an old center man.
SPEAKER_01: Come on up here, real quick.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, stand right here.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, Paul.
SPEAKER_01: We'll be friends when the sermon's over, but right now.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, probably not.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: This is the old man.
SPEAKER_00: Why am I the old man?
SPEAKER_01: This is the new man.
SPEAKER_01: Old man and the new man.
SPEAKER_01: This is our first nature.
SPEAKER_01: This is our second nature.
SPEAKER_01: This was of earth.
SPEAKER_01: This is of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: This one was from below, naturally explained.
SPEAKER_01: This one, this one's from above, supernaturally explained.
SPEAKER_01: I have a new nature.
SPEAKER_01: This old nature was born, bent against God.
SPEAKER_01: Do we have the image of God?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: It's broken, it's incomplete, it's marred.
SPEAKER_01: We're made by God.
SPEAKER_01: We're children of God in the sense of we were made by God, but we're not part of God's family.
SPEAKER_01: But we enter into this new nature by faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And what Paul is saying is that when Jesus died, the old man, the old nature, was buried with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus died, our old nature died.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus was buried, the old nature was buried.
SPEAKER_01: And his patterns and his ways and his walk and his talk.
SPEAKER_01: That's the old life.
SPEAKER_01: We'll have to leave it in the past.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because it's dead.
SPEAKER_01: In Romans chapter 7, we won't illustrate this part of the text.
SPEAKER_01: In Romans chapter 7, Paul says, there's a lot of things I want to do that I don't do, and there's a lot of things I don't want to do, and those are the things that I do.
SPEAKER_01: Do you ever feel that way?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh, wretched man that I am.
SPEAKER_01: Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
SPEAKER_01: Certain Roman criminals who would not obey, the old, an old body, a carcass, would be tied to them.
SPEAKER_01: They'd walk around with a rotting corpse on them.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wretched man that I am.
SPEAKER_01: Who should deliver me from the body of this death?
SPEAKER_01: I grew up.
SPEAKER_01: Give me a little more runway.
SPEAKER_01: The church I grew up in, my pastor was radically saved.
SPEAKER_01: I've talked some about him, but he used to talk about who he was.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a wretch, I'm a worm, I'm a good-for-nothing.
SPEAKER_01: You've heard talk like that.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have heard talk like that?
SPEAKER_01: I want to go on record and say something.
SPEAKER_01: That's true.
SPEAKER_01: Isaac Watts, 300 years ago, wrote a famous hymn.
SPEAKER_01: Alas, and did my savior bleed, and did my sovereign die.
SPEAKER_01: Would he devote his sacred head for such a worm?
SPEAKER_01: Modern man doesn't like that term.
SPEAKER_01: They changed it to wretch.
SPEAKER_01: I was hellbound with the hammer down.
SPEAKER_01: You were too.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to say something here.
SPEAKER_01: All of those terms are true of this man.
SPEAKER_01: They're all true.
SPEAKER_01: I was a wretch.
SPEAKER_01: Paul said I was the chief of sinners.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Don't call this man a wretch.
SPEAKER_01: Don't call him a worm.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: You know what God calls him?
SPEAKER_01: If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature.
SPEAKER_01: 1 John 3, verse 1, now are we the children of God.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 8.14, for as many as they're led by the Spirit, they are the sons of God.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 8.17, he's a joint heir with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He's redeemed, he's justified, he's glorified, he's sanctified, he's washed from his den.
SPEAKER_01: He's called the household of God, the bride of Christ, the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He's a fellow citizen with the saints, a disciple, a saint, an ambassador, a servant, a laborer together with God.
SPEAKER_01: And part of our problem as a Christian as we take all of that, all of that feeling into our new life.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I used to be, but because of Christ, that's not who I am anymore.
SPEAKER_01: This is who I am, not because of what I've done, but because of what Jesus has done for you and for me.
SPEAKER_01: Now, can I ask you a question?
SPEAKER_01: When you wake up in the morning, do you make a decision about these two men?
SPEAKER_01: Every day you live, you're gonna have to make a decision about these men.
SPEAKER_01: This guy right here.
SPEAKER_01: I'll buy you lunch sometime.
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
SPEAKER_01: I'll let you get anything off the value mill at Wendy's that you want.
SPEAKER_01: Every day you wake up, you consider him dead.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus died, he died.
SPEAKER_01: When he was buried, he was buried.
SPEAKER_01: I've got to say, I'm a new creature.
SPEAKER_01: I have a new name.
SPEAKER_01: I have a new nature.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody said, I can sin as much as I want to.
SPEAKER_01: I just don't want to anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Because Christ has come to live in me.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Let's all pray together.
SPEAKER_01: The miracle of Easter.
SPEAKER_01: An empty tomb?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not just Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: A filled life.
SPEAKER_01: Because he lives, I can face tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: The death of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: My new life in him.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: My desire to walk in newness of life.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you'd say, Pastor, I've been giving that old man way too much time out of the tomb lately?
SPEAKER_01: Would you lift your hand and you say, I've been letting that guy out of that tomb?
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Reckon him, consider him dead.
SPEAKER_01: Alive to God.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're here today and you just have that one nature, that old nature, that first nature, that nature from our Father Adam.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, but to get to heaven, you have to have that second nature.
SPEAKER_01: That's the divine nature.
SPEAKER_01: That's Christ in you.
SPEAKER_01: I am crucified with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless, I live, yet not I.
SPEAKER_01: Christ.
SPEAKER_01: May the Lord have his way in our heart today.
SPEAKER_01: Let's all stand together quietly as God is speaking to all of our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, have your way and will in our lives today.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for a miracle.
SPEAKER_01: That we can reckon to be so in our life today.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to be the servant to sin.
SPEAKER_01: We've already died to sin.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to live into righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Lord, for your love for us and for grace that teaches us that you will forgive sin and that your grace will keep us from sin.
SPEAKER_01: Help us, Lord, to walk worthy of what we found in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And we thank you as our prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Have your way in this time of invitation and response in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_01: Let's sing it together.
SPEAKER_01: Let the Lord have his way in your life as we sing.
SPEAKER_00: Every soul by sin oppressed, there's mercy with the Lord, and he will surely give you rest by trusting in his word.
SPEAKER_00: Only trust him, only trust him, only trust him now.