Walking On After Death

[podcast]http://www.revkwon.com/podcast/walking_dead-walk_on.mp3[/podcast] Hello everyone. I hope everybody is back to normalcy after that crazy snowstorm last weekend. In lieu of a sermon last week, I put up a video with a sermon on it. You should watch it to catch up or grab the audio podcast. But I wanted to pick this last week up where we left off two weeks ago and then again last week where the major idea in 2016 we have to get across is this: there are good works prepared by God that we need to walk in and on that walk of good works we will encounter all sorts of people close and on the fringes whom God never intended us to ignore. Our walk crosses with theirs for the good works that God prepared. It is the reason we are walking in the first place. Can we go to Romans 6 today? We’re going to look at verses 1 through 14 in Romans 6. It is pretty hefty and I want to read this passage together and expound on the idea I titled, “Walk On.”

¹What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ 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. ⁵ 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. ⁶ 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. ⁷ For one who has died has been set free from sin. ⁸ Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰ For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. ¹¹ So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹² Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. ¹³ Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:1-14 ESV)

Are you starting to check out and think, this is too heavy, too deep, too complicated? This is not where I live. I’m going to break this out into two parts, but before that, I’m going to give you some context as to what Paul is talking about. Let me give you some context so that this makes some sense.

Let’s go to chapter 5, verse 18 ¹⁸ Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. ¹⁹ For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. ²⁰ Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, ²¹ so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:20 ESV).

The Apostle was writing to talk to the Romans about how they were saved through Jesus Christ. What he was coloring in for them was the fact that all people were born condemned not because of anything that they may have necessarily have done themselves. After all, we are all relatively good people not deserving to die for some type of heinous crime. But rather, we were born already condemned to die. That was our future, there was nothing that we could have done to avoid it. The situation is more complicated than we people being born to die. It goes far beyond that. In fact, there is millennia that goes by whereby the problem of sin, that is the imperfection and guilt before God festers like a bad cold and plagues all of humanity. That is the reason God, in His great grace and wisdom allowed Jesus to walk our paths and die for us as the perfect sacrifice so that the blood guilt we were born with could be satisfied. He says, sin increased and grace abounded all the more… (that) grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ. Here’s what I’m talking about, if you don’t get how this applies to your life: you have a problem, that problem is death. You should be afraid of dying, because there is no coming back from it. It’s not like breaking an arm or failing a test. No, it is more like once you die, whatever you think you are doesn’t matter because you’re actually just fertilizer. Moreover, the bigger problem is not that you didn’t know you were dying, but rather, you know, because you have some faith within yourself, that death doesn’t end you because you believe Jesus Christ lived, died, and was raised from the dead for you, and therefore you are now liberated from death into the auspicious of life; however, you still live like you’re dead or dying and it doesn’t make sense as to why you’re doing this. Simple, you guys all following me? This brings us to part 1 of Romans 6. Let’s look Paul turns around in verse 2 of chapter 6 and says so animatedly: “By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”  When God set aside your lives for greater things in 2016, He did so that you wouldn’t have to live a ho-hum life that would make you walk around in the world looking for the next feeding frenzy. The good works that God set aside for you require you to stop being dead and stop living in the context of sin. Let me rattle off 10 sins that we slip into our lives that keep us dead—it keeps us from walking in the good works prepared beforehand by God.

1. Holding grudges
2. Justifying wrong attitudes
3. Putting your desires first (before God)
4. Feeling annoyed over the success of others
5. Getting hurt easily and reacting out of the hurt
6. Taking advantage of others’ work
7. Skimping on the work you are being paid to do
8. Criticizing and finding fault — secretly or outwardly
9. Focusing on the cares of the world
10. Gossiping

I just named 10 things, it doesn’t mean that the list is exhaustive, not by any means is this list exhaustive. In fact, these are the 10 sins that kill us softly and slowly without us knowing. It’s like eating poison and telling yourself that it tastes good. Rat poison is not good, you shouldn’t eat it, nor should you eat this sin. No way should you do it. Look at what Paul says in verse 5, these sins were buried with Jesus in his death. The reason Jesus had to go to hell and suffer there for three days away from the presence of God, the Father, was so that things like this, things like these sins would die and stay down there, in the middle of hell where they belong. When Jesus was resurrected, he didn’t bring any of that sin back up with him. He didn’t bring back the millennia of pain and suffering inflicted upon the earth. He left it there. He left it there because there was and is no place for it here on this earth, nor is there a place for it in heaven. Let’s look at verses 6-8 because when we read this now that we have some context, it should immediately illuminate our minds and eyes to a truth so powerful.

Let’s read verses 6-8. ⁶ 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. ⁷ For one who has died has been set free from sin. ⁸ Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

The truth is we have no reason to allow sin in our lives keep us from walking the path God set aside for us. That means the goals we have to do greater good in the world is within our grasp and we have no excuses available to us to say that we did not achieve or accomplish we know we were created to accomplish. Some of you may have used that to stop the pursuit of your dreams and ambitions in Christ, but now, at the end of January, you no longer have that excuse. Now, part 2. This is so much easier now that we did context and part 1.

Let’s read verses 9-14. ⁹ We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰ For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. ¹¹ So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹² Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. ¹³ Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.  ¹⁴ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

John Piper writes this analogy in reference to this passage: Don’t be like the person who goes to the Grand Canyon with a little garden shovel in his hand, and on the precipice of that majesty turns his back to the Canyon, kneels down, and digs a little trough with his shovel and shouts, “Hey, look at this! Look at my trough! Isn’t that cool!” I know that the pressing and desirable things of your life seem big. But just a little clearheaded thought will show you they are not. It’s all about death and sin and life and God and Christ and your mortal body and desire and the law of God and the grace of God. God calls us to something great. He did not give you life to spend it on troughs and trifles. We are united with Christ, death has no dominion over us. Death and survival does not dictate where we go or how we should live. No. We are “instruments for righteousness.” Things are awaiting us and our lives. Jesus was raised so that he can live to God, to intercede and rule as King. This is the life we are born into—it is why in verse 8 the Apostle Paul says, “we live with him.” We have the grace of God behind us pushing us forward. We may slip up and make mistakes and, yes, we may sin, here and there, but when we are repentant and live in the life Jesus saved for us, walking in the good works prepared for us ahead of time, we will be responsible for witnessing something great. Next week we start our journey into the Letter of James where we will get into the depths of this walk of righteousness, set aside for us. Let’s pray.