Christian, This Is Your Life!

6th Sunday after Pentecost, 7/24/11
Romans 6:1b-11


Christian, This Is Your Life!
I. Dead to sin
II. Alive to God


Those of you who are my age and older might recall a radio program that later became a TV program called, “This Is Your Life.” The producer and host was a man named Ralph Edwards who would read the biography of a person who was the show’s guest that day. Some of the guests were entertainment personalities and some of them were “ordinary” people. As the host read the guest’s biography from a red book, family members, friends and others who had made an impact on the guest’s life would appear, surprising the guest. The show often helped to remind the person of how their life had been changed and shaped by the people in it over so many years.

We often think of the people who have shaped and changed our lives—parents, friends, teachers, grandparents. They made small and large contributions to our lives. We consider how different our lives might be without them. But how often do we consider the change that the greatest person in all of history has made to our lives? I’m talking about your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul speaks about that change in these words before us this morning from Romans 6. He talks about being “dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Being dead to one thing and alive to another is likely the most striking life-change we can imagine and it has taken place in us.

But what does that mean for us practically? How does that involve my daily life and your daily life? And if we don’t think of our Christian lives in that way all that often and ponder what it really means for us, does it really make such a difference in our lives?

As if we were guests on an episode of “This Is Your Life” let’s review our Christian lives on the basis of what Paul writes here. Let’s remind ourselves of the tremendous change that has taken place in us. Christian, this is your life!

Part I.

The power of addiction never ceases to amaze me. On a daily basis you can hear and read the accounts of what some addicts have done to feed their addiction. Many have literally ruined their lives. They’ve lost their jobs, families and homes. They resort to unspeakable crimes to get what their body craves. Every waking moment is spent either feeding their addiction or thinking of methods to feed their addiction. Many lose their own lives doing so.

St. Paul speaks about a power in our lives—the power of sin. Paul wrote these words to the Roman Christians, many of whom had spent the first decades of their lives in a heathen sinful lifestyle. In other words, they went about their daily lives committing sin as a lifestyle and not even considering that what they were doing was sinful. For instance, their heathen worship practices often involved sexual immorality. In other cases, it didn’t bother them to be driven by greed, to foster injustice, to oppress the poor and helpless, to lie and cheat to get what they wanted. Now that they were Christians, they realized such things were sins but they were still tempted to go back to committing them.

We know what that’s like. There are sins in our lives we get so used to committing that we’re no longer bothered by them. There are other sins that bother us at first, but they help us get what we want or think that we need, and so we justify them. Or, we note the sins in the lives of our acquaintances and they seem to be happy in their lives—more so than we are with ours. So we adopt their lifestyle in that regard, sinful though it may be.

Paul speaks to that very thing and shakes us out of our spiritual apathy. He writes, “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Notice that Paul doesn’t say, “It’s like we died to sin.” He writes, “We died to sin.” That’s a spiritual reality. It’s as real as the fact that we are sitting here in God’s house today.

So when did it happen? Paul answers that. “All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.” An astounding change occurred in us at our baptisms. We came to faith in Christ. We were united to Jesus. We became his children and members of his kingdom. His rule or influence in our lives began at our baptisms.

And that means “we were therefore buried with him through baptism into death.” Paul isn’t saying that we joined Jesus in suffering and dying for our sins. He says that when we came to faith in Jesus, our old, sinful way of life was buried with him.

Paul states that same thing in a different way with these words, “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin” Our old self was crucified. That’s our sinful nature with all its evil deeds and desires. That’s our sinful nature which refuses to obey God’s will and wars against everything our God stands for. That sinful self was murdered at our baptisms, thankfully so.

And the practical result? “We should no longer be slaves to sin.” That’s where we began minutes ago. We wanted to know what it means practically that Jesus has made a big change in our lives. We’re no longer slaves to sin. We have power over sin in our lives.

Christian, this is your life—dead to sin.

The recovering addict who thinks that he or she can indulge just a little in the sin of their addiction is gravely mistaken. That’s all it takes to get sucked completely into the addiction again.

As Christians, we’re dead to sin. That’s our life now. We know that our sins cost our Savior his life. He paid the penalty for our sins on Calvary’s cross to make us dead to sin. We know that sinning never gets blessed by God and that it only leads us away from him. But somehow we convince ourselves that sin is OK. At times, we’re convinced it’s even desirable. Christian, that’s not your life. This is your life—dead to sin. The Lord here is stating a fact, a spiritual reality. This is what you are because this is what your almighty and loving Lord Jesus did for you. Live now in the power of that Lord, dead to sin!

Part II.

Those who are recovering from addiction always look for something positive to do in their life in their life in order to replace the negative activities that led them into their addiction. For instance, recovering, addicted athletes will say that they became addicted to their particular sport, working out, staying in shape, studying their opponents on film. In a way, they found a new power in their life.

That certainly has occurred in us. We have a new power in our life. It’s not just some new, positive activity in our lives. It’s none other than the almighty Lord Jesus himself.

Paul writes, “If we died with Christ, we will also live with him.” Another way of translating that sentence is, “Since we died with Christ, we will also live with him.” Later Paul reminds us that we are alive to God in Christ Jesus. Just what does that mean?

It means that an entirely new and unique motivation fills the Christian. It’s love for Christ. When there is absolutely no good reason to be kind and loving toward others, especially to our enemies, love for Christ moves us to do exactly that.

Being alive to God also means that our purpose for living has changed completely as well. In another one of his letters, Paul urges Christians to do everything to the glory of God. In other words, what we do and how we do it reflects that we live for our God and not for ourselves. We’re on this earth to bring honor and glory to the God who created us, redeemed us, and made us his own eternally by faith in Jesus.

Sometimes that’s not so easy. First, our sinful nature pushes back with all its might. Second, there are times we want to do the right thing but we’re not sure what that is. That’s where God’s holy word guides us. It reminds us what our sinful nature is trying to accomplish in us and it holds before us the timeless, loving counsel of our God himself. It lights our path, enabling us to be alive to God.

Living that way—alive to God—brings countless, priceless blessings into our lives. Let me point out just a few of them. It brings harmony in the place of discord. It brings peace in the place of stress. It brings security in the place of restlessness. It brings purpose in the place of aimlessness. It brings compassion in the place of hostility. It brings wisdom in the place of folly. All these blessings and more are yours as you live alive to God.

You can easily see that, when your life is blessed in these many ways, you are in the perfect position to be a blessing to others. That’s one of the high reasons your God has changed your life and placed you here. He wants to use you to bless others. And the highest form of that is sharing God’s amazing love in Jesus with others. Jesus often spoke about living is such a way that draws others to him. That’s living alive to God.

Christian, this is your life—alive to God.

After a much-needed, successful surgery, you might hear the patient declare, “I got my life back. I started living again!” What they say is true.

You, too, started living again—really living—when your God brought you to faith in Jesus. You began living with an eternal purpose for the Son of God who lived for you, died for you, rose from the dead for you, and now rules all things eternally for you. That certainly puts our daily problems and struggles into perspective, doesn’t it? You’re alive to God! How practical that is, daily so! Christian, this is your life! Amen.