Dying to Live

Introduction

Do you mind if I share a boring story with you from this past week? I got out of my car at a store, and I attribute what follows to my OCD personality, but I always am keenly aware of my surroundings. Everything, including what’s on the ground. And I got out of my car and I noticed something on the ground. And I stopped and looked at it. Because at first, and I attribute this to my being cheap, I thought at first it was money on the ground. Might have been a quarter, but I observed, I looked at it and decided that it didn’t look like a quarter. And so I went ahead and went in the store, did my business and transaction, came back, and as I walked back to my car, that shiny object was still there.

So curiosity got the best of me, and so I bent over, picked it up, and sure enough, it was a quarter.

It was one of those fancy new quarters. It didn’t have the eagle on the back of it. I don’t remember what it had, some state park or something on it, but it just didn’t look like a quarter. And so the good and the bad of that story is the good is I’m 25 cents richer than when you saw me last. The bad news is it reinforces my grumpy old man philosophy. I don’t like the new quarters. I don’t like the new quarters, but that shouldn’t surprise you because I hate all change. I’ll give you a minute. I don’t like change. You may be like me. I like things to stay as they are. I like my routine the way my routine is. I don’t like change.

And I certainly don’t like big change. But change is an inevitable part of life, isn’t it? And we’re better off knowing that change is inevitable. We’re better off if we can just embrace that change and see the good or the beauty that can be had in change. And not only should we embrace change and try to see the positive in changes that are inevitable in our lives. As a Christian, we recognize that some change isn’t bad. Some change isn’t even good. It’s essential. And it’s life changing. And so this morning I want to talk to you about change. A change that is so big that we won’t even call it change. We’re going to call it transformation. The Bible calls it conversion. And so let’s talk about this transformation, this conversion.

Do you have your New Testament? Join me in Paul’s epistle to the Romans in Romans chapter 6, a familiar text, Romans chapter 6, where the Apostle Paul is going to remind these Sunday attending pew sitting Christians that a change has taken place in their life. And it was a good transformation. But it was a transformation that required a complete reset. A complete reset of their thought process, of their lives, of everything. And so let’s talk about this transformation that is so big that the apostle is going to call it death and resurrection. Now we know that as New Testament Christians, as Bible-believing men and women, we’re looking forward to a resurrection. But Paul would remind us that if you are a New Testament Christian, you’ve already experienced a death and a resurrection.

And sometimes we use those biblical spiritual sounding words so frequently that they can lose their meaning or their impact. But I want you to be reinforced this morning that this change is so big we won’t call it change, we’ll call it transformation, and it’s so big we won’t even call it transformation, we’ll call it dying and being raised again. Read with me if you would, beginning in Romans chapter 6 and in verse 3 beginning. Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should also walk in newness of life.

For if we’ve been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also will be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we also should live with him. Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus the Lord.

1. We Must First Realize a Change Is Needed

In this change, this transformation that can only be likened to dying and coming back to life, and not just dying and coming back to life, but dying and coming back to life a new person. The Apostle Paul emphasizes the importance of this change. And so let’s talk about this and let’s talk about it from two standpoints. One entering into the change and then living in this transformation. The first point we want to notice from our text this morning is the importance, the absolute importance of this spiritual transformation. It needed to take place.

They need to die to the status that they now live. And the first thing we need to recognize about this is that in order, this transformation is so monumental and so important in our lives that we must first realize that a change is needed. What is so frustrating to us and surely must be frustrating to our loving Father is that so many are living their lives completely unaware that they need to change. It’s like watching someone driving at a rapid speed, and a cliff is awaiting them. And they’re completely unaware of how drastic of a change needs to take place, and how soon it needs to take place. Earlier in this letter, the apostle or the Holy Spirit through the pen of this apostle Christ to emphasize that.

When he comes to the conclusion in Romans chapter 3 and verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans chapter 1 was written about the Gentile world and how sinful and outside of God they were. Chapter 2 and the first part of chapter 3 was written, I believe, to the Jewish world, been saying, but you’re no better. You’re outside of Christ and therefore outside of God. And the point of those two and three-quarter chapters was not simply to point out how bad these people were, universally Jew and Gentile. The point of those two and three quarter chapters was to say, you need to change. You need to change. Later in this chapter, Romans chapter 6, he would emphasize in verse 23 that the wages of sin is death.

And there the death is an eternal separation from God. The first thing that must be imprinted in the human mind is our desperate need for change. And never forget that that’s where the gospel began. That wonderful glorious sermon on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 did not begin with the solution. Repent and be baptized for the remission of your sins. It began by emphasizing that you need to change. By inspiration, Peter would point out that you killed the Son of God. It was only when they became aware of what they had done and what that had done to their relationship to God, would they cry out, what should we do? Part of our role in teaching and reaching people is to help them to understand the dire situation that they’re in.

2. Baptized Into His Death

You need to change. You need a transformation. You need to die to the way that you’re living. And so the apostle Paul in our text here emphasizes this. Well, look with me again in verses 3 and 4 of Romans chapter 6. Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death, therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. You needed a change, he says. So much of a change.

And just start all over. And that could only take place through Jesus Christ. And that’s what your baptism accomplished. Let’s talk just a little bit about baptism. Sometimes we’re criticized for talking too much about baptism. Here would be my reply to that objection. You talk too much about baptism. I would really have a couple replies to that. Number one is that, yeah, you may be right. But to religious people who may largely agree on the subject of faith, who will certainly almost universally agree on the subject of God’s grace, who will understand the importance of confession and repentance. We make no apologies for emphasizing one part of the equation they may have overlooked and gotten wrong. Baptism.

You were baptized into his death. This same inspired apostle would say to the Galatian churches that you put on Christ in baptism. Every, check this, every conversion in the book of Acts, and there are many, every conversion in the book of Acts mentions baptism. It’s there. And it’s there a lot. Now, we’ll add this. If it was just there once, that’s enough. But it’s there a lot. And so maybe we need to examine it. Or maybe more than examine it, maybe we just need to do it. Two things you’ve heard me say over and over again. One is God did not call us to be theologians. He called us to be disciples. God has not called me to be able to understand all of the intricacies of the Greek language and the meanings and all of how it works and how grace and faith and obedience works together in the plan of God.

Now, I believe we can. I believe the Bible explains that to our understanding. But God didn’t call me to be able to be a theologian to be able to perfectly understand it and be able to explain that. God just called me to obey it. Those, again, back with Acts chapter 2, the day of Pentecost, who had found out, thought they were serving God, but found out they had killed the Son of God, the very Messiah that they and their grandparents for a hundred generations had been waiting for, that they had actually taken him by lawless hands and crucified him. And they cry out desperately, what are we going to do? And the Holy Spirit tells them, repent and be baptized. Can you imagine those people saying, Well, now wait a minute, Peter, help me understand then?

No. That would be like somebody literally having the clothes they’re wearing on fire, and somebody pulling a pin to a fire extinguisher, and that person that’s literally up in flames saying, wait a minute, explain to me the chemical makeup of what’s in that fire extinguisher. And how is that going to actually put out the fire that’s on me right now? No. No one would do that. You would just say, help me.

Here’s something else you’ve heard me say about baptism. It’s there. And it’s there so prominently and so repeatedly. That to my knowledge, every, and I’m using this term in the most accommodative sense, almost every Christian church and religion includes baptism somehow, somehow. Because they know they can’t just eradicate it completely. Here’s my illustration to that. You go to IKEA and get some furniture. Well, you don’t go to IKEA to get furniture, do you? You go to IKEA to get boxes. And you bring that back, and you get all those parts and pieces and the instructions, and you lay all of that out, and you start putting it together, and you put it together, and there’s some parts still remaining. And you get those instructions if you’re like me, a typical guy, that now you get the instructions out and you look at it and you see those parts in those instructions.

And in fact, the parts say these are important.

You and your family will die if you use this object without these parts. These parts are important.

3. There’s Results to This Most Glorious Change

And so you get that bag of parts that the instructions said were so important, and you just tape them to the back of that dresser. There, it’s there. And I don’t mean to be trivial and make fun of anybody’s religion. I don’t want people to make fun of mine, but it seems to me that’s what many people do with baptism. It’s there. It’s there a lot. It seems important. And so we got to stick it somewhere. This transformation is so not just important, so essential. I want to make sure I do it the right way for a change to take place. But then here’s really the main point of our text. And that is that there’s results to this most glorious change. Paul, the Holy Spirit is not directing Paul to write to people urging them to be baptized, to emphasize the need for something they need to do in the near future.

Who, like on the day of Pentecost, were confronted with their sins and said, What will we do? And someone like Peter or Paul or somebody else said, Here’s what you need to do. And that included baptism, and they said, then I’ll do it. But somewhere along the line, they had forgotten that a change had taken place. And they started to look like and act like and be like the old dead person that they used to be.

To them, the apostle says, I want you to remember that you change. A change took place. This whole chapter is really prompted by the previous chapter that is Paul talking about the wonderful gift of God’s grace. That grace steps in where there is sin. In fact, God’s grace is so good, you can’t out sin God’s grace. For every time there’s a sin, there’s God’s grace. And Paul is not just brilliant, he seems to be somewhat clairvoyant because he says, now wait a minute, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking if every time there’s sin, there’s grace, then why not just sin? I like grace. And if how I get grace is by sinning, then why not just sin? And let God give me more grace. And to that, he begins the chapter by saying, God forbid.

Or literally he says, Absolutely. That’s not how this works. Don’t you know? Verses 3 and 4 again, don’t you know that as many of us as we’re baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. Don’t you know that that old way of doing things, that old way of thinking and acting and being, don’t you remember that that guy died? This same apostle would say in in Colossians chapter 2 of himself, it’s no longer, I’ve been crucified with Christ. No longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. And Paul says to those Roman brethren, some of you forgot that. And you’re wanting to take over control again. You remember the old bumper stickers? I hadn’t seen one in a while. The old bumper stickers that said, God is my co-pilot.

Remember those? And I appreciate the sentiment and what they probably intended to mean by that, but but I love the saying that followed that up. That said, if God’s your co-pilot, you need to switch seats. Because God needs to be the pilot, not the co-pilot. And sometimes we’ve switched seats. And we’ve gone back to controlling things and doing the old dead man ways. And Paul is saying, no, no. And you know the whole reason that he gives for not doing it that way, the old way?

Not even the reason we might expect him to say.

And you get in this whole thing, sin and get grace equation, then what happens if you die somewhere in between the sin and the getting grace? You died without that grace and you’re lost. That’s not the argument he gives. Those may have been valid arguments to give, but that’s not the argument he gives in Romans chapter 6 as to why a Christian doesn’t sin, why a Christian doesn’t live the old way. The reason he gives is because that’s not who you are. That person’s dead.

4. Become What You Are

Now live like it. Look at another text that emphasizes this, Colossians. Same author, the Holy Spirit, same penman, the Apostle Paul, in Colossians chapter 3, makes a very similar argument. He says, beginning in Colossians chapter 3, verse 1, if then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. If you were raised with Christ, now does that ring a bell from Romans chapter 6? You were buried with him, you were raised with him through baptism. We don’t have to go back to Romans chapter 6, just turn your Bibles back one page to Colossians chapter 2 and in verse 12. Buried, Colossians 2, verse 12, buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.

I know this is probably impossible to literally do in your Bibles, but in your minds at least, circle the word raised in Colossians 2 verse 12. You were buried with him in baptism and you were raised with him, and draw a line from that word raised to chapter 3, verse 1, when he says, if you then were raised. See, he’s making the same argument he made in Romans 6. You were buried, you were raised when? In baptism. If you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. In Romans chapter 6, as well as Colossians chapter 3, the apostle is making this argument. He is saying, become what you are. Become what you are. A transformation took place.

A transformation of status took place. You went from being dead to being alive. You went from being lost to being found. You went from being outside of Christ to being inside of Christ. Now, live like it. Live like a found person. Live like an alive person. Live like somebody who has been clothed in Christ Jesus, which is exactly what happened when you were baptized. Don’t ever forget who you are. And don’t ever forget that a transformation took place.

Conclusion

And you’re a changed person. And thanks be to God that a change took place. But now the onus is on you and on me to live like a change. Actually took place. Now, to those grumpy sods like me who don’t like change. I think I found a change we can like. Because it was a change that was so needed. And I’m so thankful that God devised a plan that I never would have been able to come up with. But I can humbly submit to. That I can believe in him, repent of my sins, boldly and openly confess my faith. And why wouldn’t I want to be baptized? Why wouldn’t I want to be clothed in Christ? Galatians 3, verse 27. Why wouldn’t I want to attach myself to his death, burial, and resurrection?

Romans chapter 6. Why wouldn’t I want to be raised with him? Colossians 2, 12, Colossians 3 1. And now I get to experience that transformation as a new living creature. Do you need to make that change this morning? Or more properly stated, do you need to let God, because that’s the only way this change can take place? Let God make that change in your life. Would you do that this morning? Can we help you this morning as together we stand and as we sing?