©2010 Larry Huntsperger
09-26-10 A New You
We are back into our study of Paul’s letter to the Romans,
and our study this morning is going to move us into chapter 6,
but before we do that
I want to follow up one comment I made last week.
If you were with us last week
you will remember that we spent our morning
looking more closely at a phrase in Romans 5:17
where Paul talks with us about the gift of righteousness.
The statement itself is amazing almost beyond belief,
a statement telling us
that our God wants to literally give us the gift of righteousness,
He wants to give us
what we could never give Him - true personal righteousness.
As we talked about that amazing truth
we saw that what our God wants to give us involves three distinct elements.
It involves our standing with God - how He actually sees us,
it involves our true spirit or heart identity - who we really are at the spirit level of our being,
and it involves our practical ability to live lives free from our former sin bondage - to live truly righteous lives.
We looked at each of those three,
but when we were talking about the third part of that list,
about our practical ability to live lives free from our former sin bondage -
to make truly righteous choices in our daily living,
at one point I made you a promise.
I said that, if you are God’s child,
if your spirit truly has reached out to Him as your Savior
and He has created that new holy spirit within you
and you find within yourself right now
what Christ described as “a hunger and thirst for righteousness”,
you WILL know that freedom,
and it will come to you ultimately
in the same way you received your righteous heart - as a gift from God.
He will give you the moral strength and the moral freedom you long for.
It is a part of the gift of righteousness
that He seeks to give to each of His children.
When I made that statement
I didn’t take the time to frame it or qualify it in any way
because there were other things I wanted us to focus on in the time we had together,
and I also knew that those who needed to hear that promise
would receive it and draw strength from it.
But before we move ahead any farther in this study
I do want to take just a couple of minutes
to say a little more about that promise.
And let me explain first of all why I said what I said.
There were two reasons that motivated me to include that promise in my teaching last week.
The first reason is because I was simply sharing with you in my own words
a promise that Christ Himself made to us.
Of course He said it a whole lot better.
His statement of that promise
is found in the opening words
of what we traditionally refer to as the Sermon On The Mount,
recorded for us in Matthew chapter 5.
In verse 6 of that 5th chapter He said simply,
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
The opening section of that Sermon on the Mount
is a truly remarkable passage,
a passage in which Jesus targeted eight specific groups of people -
the poor in spirit,
those who mourn,
the gentle,
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
the merciful,
the pure in heart,
the peacemakers,
and those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
And then He gives a special closed-circuit communication,
a special promise to each of them.
But the one that I want to point out this morning
is the promise He makes
to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
And before I say any more here
I just want to point out
that His words here are not an exhortation.
He’s not trying to motivate people,
telling them that they really should hunger and thirst more for righteousness.
He’s not telling His listeners that they should DO anything.
He’s simply making a promise
to those who fit within this very specific group of people.
And what a promise it is!
Obviously He knows that those who fit into this group,
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
are people in whom God has already accomplished a powerful work.
That hunger and thirst could only be there
because a major recreative work of God
has already been accomplished within them.
Do you remember that statement I’ve sometimes used
to try to explain the change that God’s Spirit accomplishes within us?
Before we come to Christ we think we should be good,
after we come to Christ we wish we could be good.
That’s what Jesus is talking about
when He talks about those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
He’s talking about that remarkable work of God
in which He creates within those who come to Him
a longing for a life that honors their King.
And what I want to point out in this passage
is the obvious promise our King makes to us
that, for those who find that hunger within themselves,
we have His assurance, His promise that what we hunger for
will become a living reality in our lives - the hunger and thirst for righteousness
will be satisfied.
That’s the main reason why I made that promise to you last week -
I made it to you
because our God has made it to you.
But I also did it because I know how crucial this promise is
to those who know that hunger,
and how this promise can and should become
an anchor for our soul.
We need to know
that our God both can and will reconstruct our lives,
rebuilding us into the people He has called us to be.
And my point here is simply that,
if you know that hunger and thirst within yourself,
recognize it for what it is - a great and wonderful work of God within you,
and then when you get frustrated with yourself
don’t hesitate to bring that promise back to your Lord
and tell Him that you will trust Him to fulfill it in your life.
But then, having said that,
I also need to say just a little bit about those within the church world
who either don’t have that hunger within,
or who have it and yet seem forever powerless to have it fulfilled in their lives.
And let me first offer just a few words
about those who seem to have no such hunger.
I can tell you why that hunger is absent -
it is absent because the Spirit of God is either not present within them
or because He is not free to do His work in their life.
If He is not present
it’s because the person is one of the countless religious folk
who crowd under the Christian banner
and identify themselves as Christians
but who have not as yet submitted to the personal Lordship of Christ.
Religion is the safest place in all the world to hide from God
and our world is bulging with such people.
Our Lord Himself warned us to expect such folks around us.
At one point He went so far as to say,
"Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’. Mat 7:22-23
I never knew you...
Their submission was not to their God,
it was to their preferred religious system.
And then I believe there are others who truly are children of the King
but who have at some point in their walk with Him
drawn a battle line and declared they will not trust Him and will not follow Him
in some crucial area of their life.
And in my experience
one of the most common such battle lines
involves their refusal to trust God to work through the authority structure He has placed over them,
though there are other battle lines that can bring about the same effect.
John mentions three big ones in 1John 2:16 where he says,
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.
Making the pursuit of physical pleasure our reason for living,
or trying to gain security, identity, and purpose through the things we possess,
or viewing ourselves as being of more value because of our gifts or position in life -
all of these have the power to silence to voice of the Spirit of God within us.
And then how about those who have the hunger for righteousness
but simply never seem to find that hunger fulfilled?
And that brings us back to where we left off last week.
You may remember that I ended our time together last week by saying,
that there are four crucial areas of understanding
that must be in place in our lives
in order for God to then begin the healing process within us.
And what we need to understand
is that these four areas do not in themselves bring the freedom from sin,
or the practical gift of righteousness into our lives.
What they do is to create the framework,
the foundation upon which God can then begin revealing to us those lies
that are giving birth to the sin actions in our lives.
Once this framework is in place,
once we accept these truths and rest secure with our God because of them,
our Lord then seeks to lead each of us through an intensely personal healing pilgrimage
designed to break the power of the lies we have believed.
So then how does our Lord build this healing framework in our lives?
That framework is built into us
by our understanding and then building our lives
upon 4 major changes that God has already accomplished within us.
Those 4 changes are
1. His changing our true identity,
2. His changing our relationship to the moral law of God,
3. His changing our relationship to sin,
and 4. His changing our relationship to Christ Himself.
And I believe that one of the most common reasons why
God is not able to fulfill His healing program in the lives of some of His children
is because they have failed to understand and trust one of these truths.
And you shall know the truth...and the truth shall make you free!
So, with that as background,
lets take a look at the first of those four.
OK, in the next 3 chapters
Paul reveals to us
the 4 major changes God has already accomplished in the Christian,
the changes that then create the framework
in which He can accomplish the healing
that will bring about true righteousness in our lives.
And at this point let me begin by saying that
all 4 of these are not things we are suppose to do for God,
they are things God has already done
in and for us at the time we come to Him.
In those places where we still find ourselves being defeated
by old sin patterns in our lives,
that defeat comes not because we do not possess what we need for victory,
but rather because we do not yet believe
we have received what our God
has already given us,
and that lack of belief prevents us from entering into the healing we need.
If that sounds confusing,
I think it may clear up a bit
as we move through the next few chapters.
And the first change we’re going to look at,
the first one Paul talks about
is the way in which our God has changed our true identity.
And He presents this truth to us
in the first 11 verses of Romans chapter 6.
OK, he begins by saying,
Rom. 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
Rom. 6:2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
...How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
Now, Paul realizes that those words
will very likely cause a great deal of confusion
in the minds of most of his readers.
He starts with a bold statement of the truth -
we have already died to sin.
But he knows, too,
that at this point,
hearing those words,
most of us simply cannot make any sense out of them.
They are words that seem to be
absolutely inconsistent
with everything we experience in “real life”.
We don’t feel dead to sin,
we don’t always act dead to sin,
so how can Paul say we have already died to sin?
So, after making this statement of truth,
he then takes the next 9 verses
to explain to us why he has just said what he’s said.
And look at his next five words...
‟Or do you not know...”
He is saying,
“If what I just said to you
doesn’t seem to make any sense,
it is because something has already taken place in your life
that you don’t fully realize - let me enlighten you.”
The truth Paul then shares with us in the next 9 verses
is a truth you have heard me attempt to share countless times
with those who listen to my teaching.
It is the truth upon which
everything else our God seeks to do
both within us
and through us is built.
It is the truth that,
if we miss it,
will turn the living reality of Christ in us
into just one more man-made religion
calling man to try to be good for God.
And the two amazing things I want us to notice about this truth
as I share it with you once again,
is, first of all, the simplicity and clarity of the truth itself,
and, second, the way in which Paul tells us
this truth is to become a part of our life.
Let me read the passage for us,
and then I’ll show you what I mean.
Paul says,
Rom. 6:3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
Before I read any further
I need to let you know
that when Paul talks about ‟baptism” in this passage
he is not talking about the ceremonial water baptism we so often think of.
The word being used
means literally, “to be immersed”.
It is a remarkable term
used to describe the Christian’s true relationship with Christ.
I know we more commonly use terms such as “receiving Christ”
or “accepting Christ”
or perhaps “submitting to the Lordship of Christ.”
But when Paul talks about the Christian’s relationship with Christ
he chooses a different term.
He says that we have been “immersed” in Christ.
Well over a hundred times
the New Testament writers
talk about us being, “In Christ”, or “In Him”.
It is exactly the same concept -
we are not just with Christ,
or loyal to Christ,
we are IN CHRIST,
immersed in Him
as our physical body is immersed when we dive into a pool of water.
And Paul begins his presentation of this truth
by saying that when Christ died,
because we are in Him,
we also died with Him.
Rom. 6:4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
Rom. 6:5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection,...
So, Paul follows through with this mental picture,
telling us that just as Christ died
and then rose again to new life,
because we are in Christ,
in the most remarkable way
the same thing has taken place in our own life.
Now, logically we would hear this
and assume that he must be talking about
the physical resurrection of our bodies
in the still distant future.
But that isn’t what he’s talking about.
He’s talking about
not the death of our physical bodies,
but the death of our true inner identity -
the person we are at the core of our being.
And just so there is no misunderstanding,
he goes on to say this:
Rom. 6:6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin;
Rom. 6:7 for he who has died is freed from sin.
Rom. 6:8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
Rom. 6:9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
Rom. 6:10 For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
He says, “...knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him...”
And right there is the first great truth
upon which all successful Christian living is built -
in Christ,
through Christ,
we have not just been forgiven,
we have died and been recreated by God
at the very heart of our being.
We are new creations.
Same physical body,
same emotional responses,
same memories,
same brain,
and eyes,
and voice,
and hands,
it is the same physical plant,
but that plant has a new spirit living within it.
Unfortunately, that new spirit will now contend with everything that already exists in that physical body -
every memory,
every reasoning process,
every emotional response,
every physical impulse and addiction-
like moving into and old house
and then having to contend with all of the abuse and neglect of the previous owner.
But nothing that ever comes out of that old body
can ever alter the true identity of the spirit that lives within it.
And then Paul concludes
by telling us how we go about making this truth
a living reality in our lives:
Rom. 6:11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
He says, “Choose to believe it is true.”
And in our final minutes here this morning
I will offer you just one suggestion
that can help in our acceptance of this truth.
I hear Paul telling us in this passage
to recognize that there are two distinctly different voices speaking to us
about who we should believe we really are.
One of those voices is the voice of our true identity,
a voice speaking to us about our love for our Lord,
about our longing to honor Him with our words,
with our actions.
It is a voice that cries our to God, “Abba, Father - my life, my King.”
With me, I find that I am able to hear that voice most clearly
when I first get up in the morning.
I am not a “morning person”.
I make no claim to being one.
It takes some considerable time
for my physical plant
to recommit to life,
for my mind and my emotions to regroup and rally for the day ahead.
But I have noticed something in recent years
that encourages me.
If I give myself a few minutes to just sit
before I reenter the world,
I have discovered within myself
a longing to live the next 16 hours of life
in a way that honors my Lord.
I often put it into words to my King,
affirming my allegiance to Him
and my desire to honor Him.
Do you know what that is?
That is the voice of my true inner identity.
Now, it is also true
that I never succeed in living out that longing perfectly
in the hours that follow.
There is far too much old clutter still churning around within me
from who I once was
before my Lord recreated me.
But the desire itself
is the voice of my true identity.
But then, there is another voice within us as well,
and this voice screams at us from our flesh.
It is the voice that tells us we are what we do,
and what we do is never good enough,
the voice that screams at us from our emotions,
those emotions that have been trained for years
to lunge out at so many lies,
telling us we need this and need that,
telling us we’re all alone,
telling us our God doesn’t hear,
or our God doesn’t care,
and the voice that screams at us from all of our past memories
of our life before we knew our Lord,
memories of the way things use to be,
telling us nothing has really changed.
When Paul says, Rom. 6:11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus...
he is telling us to listen closely to those two different voices,
and then strongly,
boldly affirm the truth,
and condemn the lies.
We are not who we once were,
and we never will be again.
I don’t know if this will be of value to you or not,
but for many years now I have lived with what I call a me-and-my-body approach to life.
By that I mean simply
that when I see some response or thought or action coming out of me that I know is not from my Lord
I’ll talk with my Lord about my screwed up flesh.
“Look at this, Lord! There goes my body again.
Thank you for giving me eyes to see the junk within me,
and for giving me a new heart that hates it.
Here again, Lord, you are my only hope - show me once again
how to bring my rebellious body into subjection to my try identity.”
Now, Paul has much more to say about this in chapter 7,
but this at least gives us a clear statement of the first change, then,
that forms the foundation for righteousness through the grace of God.
We truly are new creations in Christ.