A New Life As Paul considered ’ death and resurrection, he came to the Romans 6:1-11 understanding that the implications were more than historical. They were Toward the end of 2 Peter, there is a statement that always makes me personal. And they reached into the present life and experience of the believer. chuckle a little bit. Whatever we might say about Peter, we cannot say that he Consider, for example, what Paul says in verse 4 of Romans 6: “We were was given to pretending to be something he was not. His transparency therefore buried with him through into death in order that, just as Christ sometimes got him into trouble in that he tended to speak before he thought. was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new But, at the same time, I love him for his honesty. He is writing about the apostle life.” Paul in this case and he says, “Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means Paul grasped the fact that the resurrection of Christ was not just about salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God Him – it was also about us. But notice his logic. In verse 4 we would expect gave him. He writes the same way in his letters, speaking in them of these him to say, “. . . just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand ” (2 Peter Father, we too will one day be raised from the dead.” Paul did believe that as he 3:15-16). makes clear before this passage is finished. That is not where he begins, Peter’s admission makes me feel a lot better. When Peter made that however. Instead he says, “. . . just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too statement, I suspect he had Paul’s letter to the Romans in mind. I’ve been may live a new life .” studying Romans for decades now and I still have to work to get my head The point is that, for Paul, the resurrection was not only about an event around it. But, at the same time, no letter has greater insight to in the past. And it was not simply about a hope for the future. It was both of offer into the implications of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for our lives. For the those, to be sure, but it was also about the Christian’s experience in the present. next few weeks, we’re going to be looking at the heart of this letter and I For Paul, the fact that Christ was raised from the dead means that we are encourage you to take some time to read it through. You might want to do it empowered to live a new life right now! more than once because – well, like Peter says, “his letters contain some things In these verses he outlines the nature and characteristics of this new that are hard to understand.” life. The apostle Paul came late to an experience of resurrection life. For I. First, it is life that is no longer under sin’s control. In verses 5-7, the first several years following the death and resurrection of Jesus, he did his Paul writes, “If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will best to stamp out the Christian faith. He led the persecution of the young church certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old in and beyond. But one day, on his way to the city of Damascus to self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that prosecute the followers of Jesus in that city, he was personally confronted by the we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been risen Christ. It was no longer possible for him to deny the ’ central freed from sin.” claim. Over the next several decades, Paul became one of the great defenders As Paul understood it, the old life was one of bondage. For him, the and evangelists of the faith. word “sin” designates the force that once controlled our lives. Sin was the inescapable pattern of self-centeredness that caused us to rebel against God and

1 that led us to think and act in ways that were destructive to ourselves and to Christians that they have died to sin. Paul is making an obvious point here. others. The irony of our sinful condition was that, even when we knew that what Death sets a person free in a number of ways. If he or she was in debt and has we were doing was detrimental to our own interests, we found that we were no money to pay, for example, the debt can no longer be held against them when unable to act in any other way. they die. The same is true of our bondage to sin. Dead people cannot sin. So, When our kids were young, we had a Nintendo console. I know that in a legal sense, when Christ died and was raised, the claim that sin had on them video games have come a long way since then, but Super Mario Brothers was was broken. “cutting edge” in those days. Our kids played all the time then. One evening, it Paul also recognized, however, that sin was sometimes still operating in was dinner time and we told the child who was playing to turn off the game and their lives in the choices that they made. So, he challenges them to no longer to get ready for dinner. Five minutes later, the game was still going. So, we continue in their sin. In verse 11 he tells them that they are to “count themselves said again, “It’s time for dinner. Turn off the Nintendo and come to the – or consider themselves – dead to sin but alive to God.” In other words, while kitchen.” the freedom of the resurrected life of Christ was now available, they had to Another few minutes passed and there was still no response. So, choose to exercise it. finally, I said, “If you don’t turn that off right now and come to dinner, you’re Several years ago now, a rape suspect named Brian Nichols not going to be allowed to play with it for the next week!” overpowered a courtroom guard at his hearing in Atlanta, took her gun and shot Still, the game went on. The child’s eyes never left the screen and his and killed the judge and three other people in an escape that eventually landed hands never left the controls. Only now, there were tears streaming down his him in the home of a 26-year-old single mom by the name of Ashley Smith. It cheeks. was 2 a.m. and Ashley was up late moving things into her new apartment. The That has become for me a picture of what Paul is talking about here. fugitive followed her to her door, forced her inside at gunpoint, and tied her up All of us were held in sin’s grip. At some point, we all recognized that our self- with tape. centered rebellious choices were robbing us of peace and of the purpose that Actually things had just started to improve in Ashley’s life. It was not God had for us. At the same time, we found ourselves bound to those attitudes at all an easy life. She was raised by her grandparents after her mother ran into and behaviors. We could not put them down no matter how much pain and some problems. Though she was raised in the church, she had made a series of trouble they were causing. bad choices. As a teen, she was arrested for shoplifting and was on probation The good news Paul proclaims here is that that bondage has been for a year. Later came arrests for drunken driving, speeding and battery. In broken! When Christ was raised from the dead, He triumphed over sin. He did 2001 her husband died in her arms after being stabbed. what we could not do when He took our sin on Himself. His death and There was a daughter from that relationship, but Ashley had not been resurrection unleashed a power that enables us to no longer live as sin’s slaves. stable enough to raise her consistently so the little girl had bounced between an However, this new life must be appropriated. It is not automatic. We aunt and her grandparents. However, things had been on the upswing for must choose to put it into practice in our lives. If you follow Paul’s argument in Ashley. She had just finished six months in a medical assistant course, was these verses, you find that there is a paradox at work. He tells the Roman working two jobs and had moved into a new apartment. She saw her daughter,

2 Paige, about once a week and, later that morning, was scheduled to pick her up a murderer doesn’t make sense when you look at her old life. But it is from a program at the church she had been attending. absolutely consistent with the life of Christ that is at work in her. There they sat, two lives dealing with bad choices. One was on her II. Because of the new life, we no longer have to live under the tyranny way back, the other was on his way down. Ashley asked her captor if she could of sin – and we no longer have to live under the shadow of death. In vv. 8-9, go get something to read – something that had recently been a great help in her Paul writes, “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with turnaround. For whatever reason, Brian untied her and let her go get the book, him. For we know that since Christ was raised form the dead, he cannot die and like a kid sharing something newly discovered, Ashley ran and got The again; death no longer has mastery over him.” Purpose Driven Life and started reading right where she had left off: Chapter In order to grasp what Paul is saying, we need to understand that the 33, “How Real Servants Act.” What she read pierced Brian’s heart. Over a life he now lived was a life that was lived “in Christ.” Throughout his letters, he breakfast of pancakes and eggs, they talked into the morning. uses this language. His great insight was that he – and every one else who had You see, Brian had also been exposed to better things. His older come to faith in Christ – were actually participants in the death and resurrection brother, Mark, had told Larry King that his younger brother was the successful of Jesus. In baptism, he especially saw this powerfully portrayed. In Christ’s kid in the family. He lived in an upscale neighborhood, worked for eight years triumph over death, we too triumphed over death. as an engineer for Hewlett-Packard, and played keyboards in a church he I can imagine someone saying, “Now, wait a minute! I don’t see the attended regularly. “It doesn’t seem like it’s real,” Mark said of what his apostle Paul around any more. He didn’t live forever. He died. And so will we. younger brother had done. Ashley said that, at one point, Brian himself said that So how can you say that the new life removes the shadow of death from us?” he couldn’t believe that he had done what he had done. “I can’t believe it’s me,” It’s a valid question. It is true that physical death is a reality for every he said. creature in God’s creation. However, the resurrection of Jesus has forever As the conversation came to a close, Brian told Ashley to go pick up changed the way that we view death and its implications for our present her daughter who was waiting for her, while he, knowing she would call the experience. Our old life – the life before we responded to Christ’s death and police, hung a white handkerchief out the apartment window and waited alone resurrection – that old life was characterized by anxiety. From our earliest for the police to arrive. experience we were aware at some level that death hung over our lives like a It is a terrible tragedy that it took the death of four people. Nothing can dense cloud. That awareness caused us to do everything possible to put barriers ever erase the loss that is felt by those who knew and loved them. But the between us and death. We may have attached tremendous significance to bizarre events that led these two improbable people together for a life-changing material things in an effort to distract ourselves from the temporary nature of our moment illustrates both the destructive nature of the sin that enslaves every one lives. We placed great emphasis on our physical comfort and pleasure because of us and the power that was unleashed by the resurrected life of Christ. Ashley it made us feel more alive for the moment. Smith is discovering that the new life that she is appropriating is enabling her to The problem was that those priorities kept us from the truly significant do things that reach far beyond her own ability. The poise she found to win over and meaningful aspects of our existence. We allowed them to keep us from valuing our relationships. We may even have found ourselves neglecting – or

3 even abusing those relationships because we were so consumed with hanging on once.” In our texting age, it’s been abbreviated to “YOLO” – “y . . . o . . . l . . . to this life. o” – you only live once. Well, it was a losing battle – one that resulted in heartache and As is true with many things, there is an element of truth there. There emptiness. Our new life in Christ sets us free from that anxiety. Yes, we still are things we need to do – there are things we need to say – before it’s too late. realize the inevitability of death. But we also recognize that that is not the final But the logic is often being used today as an excuse for actions that are selfish word. No, far from it! Death is only a transition in the eternal life for which we and destructive – stupid even. Because we are aware that we are finite and that were created. And so, the old anxiety is replaced by a life that is characterized death looms over us, we are afraid that we will miss out on the things that our by confidence and peace. culture tells us makes life worth living. “You only live once” assumes that life III. The bottom line is all of this for Paul is that the new life is a life comes to an end at death – and all opportunity for meaning is lost at that point. that is different. It isn’t just the old life reformed. It is a brand new life. This Paul says that, because of Christ, we have an entirely different new life is different in its quality. It is a life that is empowered. It is a life that perspective. Because we know that we will live eternally with him, we are no is focused. It is a life that is no longer centered on selfish priorities and interests longer afraid that physical death will bring all meaning to an end. We don’t but which rather is free to serve God with the whole heart. That the grace of have to live self-centered lives that are consumed with personal gratification. God as it has been revealed in Jesus’ death and resurrection would leave us Because Jesus died for us, we are no longer afraid to “die” to the sin that once unchanged is absurd to Paul. “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may controlled our lives. increase?” he asks at the beginning of this chapter. “By no means!” he answers. What if you believed – really believed – that because of what Jesus did As we take hold of this new life – as we “count ourselves dead to sin for you on the cross and because of what God did in raising Him from the dead but alive to God in Christ Jesus” – we are transformed. Paul is not saying that you no longer have to fear death? What if “you only live once” didn’t come we have somehow escaped our bodily existence. He isn’t arguing, as some in with a death sentence hanging over it? What are you afraid of? How has that his time did, that our material existence is itself evil. He is saying that the new fear been keeping you from embracing the life that God offers to you? What if life in Christ empowers us to live out our mortality in a way that no longer is “dying to sin” is the door to a whole new life – one of power and freedom and bound by the sin that once caused our spirits to whither and decay. purpose? The good news is that we are truly free to live a new life! This different quality of life is made possible because the new life is I. It Is No Longer Under ______Control eternal. “If we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him,”

Paul says in verse 8. We are afraid that if we truly surrender our lives to Christ A. The old life was one of ______B. The new life must be ______– or to use Paul’s words here – if we consider ourselves dead to sin but alive to

God in Christ Jesus – we’ll miss out on a lot. II. It Is No Longer Under the Shadow of ______

There’s a phrase that has become popular in recent years. It’s not a A. The old life was characterized by ______new phrase but I’m running into it a lot lately. It’s the phrase, “You only live B. The new life is characterized by ______and ______

4 III. It Is Life That Is ______

A. It is different in its ______B. It is life that is ______

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