Die to Live

I was tarred and feathered.

Who does that?

And that was after they had put my arm in a cast with a spoon in it, a full cast.

They don't do this anymore.

So if you didn't know what tarred and feathered is, they covered me in my undies in maple syrup and feathers.

Back in the day, in the early 90s, people did horrible things to their friends in Bucks Parties.

That doesn't happen anymore.

And I got so fortunate to go to Ben's Bucks Party, who was married recently, and they had a wonderful weekend doing fun stuff.

And one, they had a dinner out, and then they came back to our place and we were around the fire.

And instead of doing horrible things, they did lovely things.

They shared meaningfully and said what, you know, Ben meant to them?

And the question was raised amongst a couple of people that married in the group of, say, 15 guys.

What are your tips on marriage?

Ben's about to get married, so how can we share in a community of men?

And there was my nephew who's been married about three years, and he shared some things, nothing intimate about their relationship or anything about his wife, but just about marriage.

Gave some great tips.

And then there was a Tim from our church, and he'd been married about two months, and he was next in line for wisdom, and so he shared a little bit, and then they were talking around, and then I was the only guy left, and they finally said, Oh, Johnny, have you got anything to share?

Of course, I've been married for over 30 years, been in ministry all that time, done marriage education for over 100 couples.

So I thought, well, I'm glad you asked.

I've sort of been doing this for a long time.

So what do I say?

What's the wisdom that you say?

And many of you have been married a lot longer.

So what I said was this, die a little to live a lot.

Die a little and you will live a lot.

Give the time it takes to learn what your soulmate needs and who they are.

And there's a little cost to give a bit, but you'll live a whole lot.

Die a little and you'll live a lot.

That wisdom, I didn't come up with, it comes from Romans E6, where we are in today.

I hope you've got a Bible with you and you can turn to Romans.

We've been studying Romans for a few weeks and we've got a few more to go.

We'll finish, Lord willing, at the end of Romans 8.

Life follows death.

It is a kingdom principle that you find in the Bible.

And it's really what we learn here in Romans 6.

Life follows death.

We die a little, but we live a lot.

Life follows death.

Jesus said the same in John 12.

He said in verse 23, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Very truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.

But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Anyone who loves their life will lose it.

While anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Unless a seed dies, it can't produce what it was destined to produce.

In life, life follows death, which is sort of weird, isn't it?

Most of us think, well, death follows life.

And after a really long life at that, give me a lot of days.

I want a lot of life and then death.

But the Bible teaches, that's true, but the Bible teaches life follows death.

In fact, firstly, I think we find in these first verses, life follows death to Adam's inheritance.

Let me read from the text.

Again, what shall we say then?

Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?

By no means.

Where are those who have died to sin?

And how can we live in it any longer?

Well, don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

For if we've been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Now we're back in Romans and it takes some effort to work out what is Paul meaning here.

Baptism is a symbol of a watery grave.

One of our young adults, Jack O'Connell, is being baptized tonight behind these barn doors.

This afternoon, we're going to fill up the baptistry pool.

So if you'd like to come and hear his testimony and support him in baptism tonight, please come along the services at 6 o'clock.

Baptism is a symbol of what happens in Christianity.

We die, we repent, we die to our old life in the water, we go under the water.

And when we put our faith in Christ, we are promised eternal life, new life, and we come out of the water symbolizing, representing what we have received spiritually by the grace of God in Jesus.

That's new life, eternal life.

Now the Apostle Paul has just established that life is found in the Jesus story.

Who was here last week?

Many of us, we heard Ben preach on the Adam story, which ends in death, and the Jesus story, which ends in life.

And that's what the end of Chapter 5 was all about.

Sin and God's judgment on sin is basically, we're told in Romans 6, inherited.

Now, it's not that we don't sin.

We have all sinned and deserve God's judgment upon sin.

But we're told very importantly here in Romans 6 that there is an inheritance for every human being, which involves original sin.

And we're born into Adam's sin.

Paul has been teaching that Christ has paid for all of our sin, the inherited sin and our own contribution to this pile of sin that we will be judged for.

Now, Paul is anticipating the response of his hearers in Rome.

He thinks they're gonna say to themselves basically, okay, God's grace is sufficient to cover all of our sin.

Well, why don't we keep on sinning?

There's plenty of grace.

God seems to love giving grace.

So I'll sin so that grace may abound.

He says, no, stop now, by no means.

By no means.

That'll be a terrible conclusion.

Life follows death and we need to die to that inheritance that we have been given through Adam.

In other words, we need to stop it.

We need to stop.

Check out how many times Paul restates his point about dying to Adam's inheritance.

Verse two, where those who have died to sin.

Verse three, we are baptized into his death.

As Christians, we were therefore, verse four, buried with him through baptism into death.

This theme of death is very strong, isn't it?

Verse five, united with him in a death like his.

Verse six, old self was crucified with him.

Verse seven, anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

When we put our faith in Christ and we wear the wedding ring of baptism, as it were, we are saying that we have put to death our inheritance, the inheritance of Adam.

Has anyone done any ancestry.com work out of interest?

A few of us.

I haven't done it myself, but my brother has.

So we sort of looked on both sides, going back a couple of hundred years.

And so with ancestry.com, you're looking at the genealogy of your life.

Your predecessors, what are they called?

Ancestors.

I just said it.

You're looking at your ancestors.

And you can see it on a page.

What Romans E6 tells us is every one of us goes back in an Ancestry family tree all the way back to Adam.

And that all carries sin.

But in Christ, we press delete and it all disappears.

Hallelujah.

That's what it means to die to sin primarily.

We die to the inheritance of original sin.

It must mean that because we're talking about this odd concept of dying to sin.

What does it mean?

Because some of us will sin now.

Some of us will sin this afternoon.

We're going to probably sin tomorrow.

What does it mean to die to sin if I'm still going to sin tomorrow?

Well, primarily, it means I choose by the grace of God in Christ, I receive His forgiveness when I repent of my sins, put my faith in the risen Christ, and I die to the inheritance of Adam's sin.

That is a choice that we've been given as a gift, but it's a belief, a faith step.

It is done.

Are you with me?

This is good news.

If you want to find the application of this message, that's it.

If you have faith in Christ, you no longer are part of the inheritance of Adam, because that's Adam's story, but we're in whose story?

Those of us who believe in Jesus are in the Jesus story, and it ends in life now and forever more.

It is a wonderful thing to be found in the Jesus story, and it comes through death to the Adam story, death to inheritance in Adam.

How do you take that on?

Through faith and repentance.

That's all.

So it's a faith thing.

It happens in here and here.

We have to just decide, it is a done deal.

I am now in Christ.

He said it and that settles it.

I'm in Christ.

I'm meaning to labour it, because if we don't get this, we will labour under some works righteousness, but we have it all in Jesus.

Romans E6 teaches, life follows death to suffering avoidance.

Verse 8, Paul writes, now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

If we died with Christ.

It's the stuff that we sing about, isn't it?

Dying with Christ.

It becomes very theoretical.

It's sort of lovely theology.

But what does it really mean?

To die with Christ.

Well, he was very frank, very honest with his disciples.

He said to them, clearly, the son of man, that's me, this is Jesus, I'm gonna die on a cross.

I'm gonna suffer for the sin of the world.

And what did he say to his disciples about a cross?

You're gonna carry a cross too.

So when we read, if we die with Christ, we can't just make that theory.

It is theology, it has happened, we accept it by faith, but it's part of our calling to live a cruciform life.

There will be a cross for us to bear, amen.

There will be a level of suffering for us to embrace on this journey.

Life follows death to avoiding suffering.

In other words, life follows death to suffering avoidance.

I know that sounds a little bit wordy.

I'm inviting you to think about it.

We tend in our day and age to avoid suffering, don't we?

We don't even like the temperature not to just be perfect.

So as you can tell, we are in perfectly thermostat controlled environment, because no one's meant to suffer in here.

We used to suffer in the old red building, amen.

We used to, it was cold and it was hot, but not anymore.

We tend to take this into life.

We avoid suffering.

I think it's at our own peril in some ways.

Verse 8 says, if we died with Christ, we believe that we'll also live with him.

In God's wisdom, he knows that suffering is what we might call connective.

Suffering is connective.

Suffering connects us to Jesus, to what God is like.

He's a God who suffers on our behalf.

And suffering being connective, it connects us to other human beings who are going through tough stuff, doesn't it?

Suffering teaches us so much that we can't learn outside of that raw and challenging place called suffering.

It's what we talked about in Habakkuk, the dip.

God takes us to places in our lives where things are definitely not easy.

We can actually call it suffering that we are experiencing.

But I think in the midst of this chapter, there is a not even subtle reminder, embrace the fact that life follows death, embrace the fact that life follows suffering.

We can learn the wonderful truths about life that are profound in the midst of the hardest of times.

Sometimes God allows dreams to die, and the loss of these dreams causes us immense suffering.

And yet, as we learned last year in that series about waveform, sometimes we thank God for the things He didn't do, don't we?

What can you thank God for not doing?

Because you believe by faith, whatever He didn't do, He had a reason to not do it.

Amen?

He's at work in my life.

Life follows death to suffering avoidance.

And I'm not saying we get macabre and chase suffering, but there is a powerful wisdom and strengthening and maturity walking through suffering by the grace of God.

Life follows death to Adam's inheritance, death to suffering avoidance, and life follows death to the fear of death.

There is life on the other side of learning that I don't have to, in Christ, be afraid of death.

Verse nine, we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again.

Let that sink in.

He has already died and was risen from the grave.

He's not dying again.

And then there's this wonderful line, death no longer has mastery over him.

Hallelujah.

Death no longer has mastery over the risen Jesus.

He is at the right hand of the Father.

Stephen looked up and said, look, I behold, he's about to lose his life, the first martyr in Acts.

And he says, Jesus is at the right hand of the Father.

Of course, Jesus turned up as the risen Christ to the Apostle Paul before when he was called Saul, persecuting the church.

Jesus is not dying again.

He has conquered the grave once and for all.

Death no longer has mastery over him.

The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

What is the idea about dying with Christ?

Is that we die with him, that we might be raised with him.

We get what we didn't deserve in Christ.

It's the divine exchange.

He dies our death, and so we can live his life.

We are in a position, if you have faith in Christ, where death has lost its sting, amen?

Death has lost its sting.

Death has no mastery over Christ, and if we are in Jesus, in Christ, death has no mastery over us.

And, hey, many of us have lost people, and we know death is no fun thing.

Death is very challenging.

And it is scary, but this passage, along with so many others, points us towards a confidence that we can look at death and say, no, you have lost your sting.

I know where I am going.

Death, that most scary, looming, unknown, and dastardly future event, it no longer has mastery over those who are found in Christ.

Life follows death to the fear of death.

Amen.

In Jesus' name, may you bury the fear.

In Jesus' name, may we live with a confidence that as has been said before, as Christians, we don't truly taste death.

The last breath that we breathe leads us directly into, potentially after a period of sleep, we don't know what happens exactly in the intermediate state, but we will have our last breath here, and our first inhale will be in the presence of Jesus.

We don't have to be afraid of death.

Life follows death now, so that we don't have to be afraid of the death that will come at the end of our lives.

And life follows death.

This has been somewhat theoretical, I think, quite heady.

But the fourth part of this is, life follows death to unholy living.

Paul gets a little bit more practical about what this life is like that follows death.

This is not how we get saved.

We don't get saved because we are holy in and of ourselves.

It is clearly in the New Testament, through the blood of Christ, grace and faith alone.

But if you want the life which Jesus won for us to live through his cross and resurrection, we need to live a holy life.

In other words, there is stuff to be stopped.

There is stuff to be stopped.

Life follows death to unholy living.

Paul writes, in the same way, count yourselves dead, not only to Adam's inheritance, but dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ.

Therefore, don't let sin reign in your mortal bodies now, so that you obey its evil desires.

Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.

And offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness, for sin shall no longer be your master, because you're not under the law, but under grace.

He's very practical here, isn't he?

Don't let sin reign where?

In your mortal body, in the actions of your daily life, don't let sin be the prevailing habit.

Let righteousness offer yourselves to the Lord Jesus.

Paul's been saying over and over again about dying and death, and now he says grace has brought you from death to life.

Life follows death.

Now let me read quite a few verses.

How do we put to death unholy living?

Important question.

How do we put to death unholy living?

Paul's writing to the church at Rome that he's never actually been to, but he wants them to be a strong church, he wants them to be a platform that he can launch from to get even further west to Spain.

And so he says, what then?

Shall we sin because we're not under the law but under grace?

Again, by no means.

Don't you know that when you offer yourself to someone as an obedient slave, you are slaves to the one you obey, whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death or to obedience, which leads to righteousness.

But thanks be to God, that though you used to be slaves to sin, in other words, you had no choice, you were stuck in the inheritance of Adam and actually contributing to that stockpile of sin yourself through your own actions, he says, not anymore.

You have come to obey from your heart, the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.

You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

This is good stuff, isn't it?

He says, I'm using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations.

Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness, leading to holiness.

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.

But what benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?

These things, those things result in death.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness.

And the result is eternal life.

The foundation of holiness is to know that our right standing with God has been given to us as a gift through Jesus.

Amen?

That's the foundation of holiness.

It's a gift.

We've been made right, declared righteous because of faith in Christ.

We have died to the old person, the old man, the old me.

And I've come alive in the life of Christ.

I'm a new person.

And then we have this key line that I emphasize as we read.

You, Christians, you have come to obey from your heart, the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.

You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

Does anyone have that one locked in as a memory verse?

That's a cracking verse, don't you think?

How good is that?

Let me read it again.

You have come to obey from where?

From the deepest part of you.

Not because you have to from up here, because you're guilty and you're trodden.

No, no, from your heart with the source of your love.

You've obeyed what?

A pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.

This is habit language, isn't it?

This is a language of a life.

What you might call automaticity.

It's something that has taken over your habits.

You have become more inclined to righteousness and towards sin, because you've learned a new allegiance.

Now, make no mistake.

We find from the New Testament very clearly that this life, that is bent more towards holiness than sin, doesn't just automatically come.

It comes through effort.

Now, we're not earning our salvation, but we do learn habits that lead us into a pattern of obedience and allegiance to a certain way of life that results in holiness.

Hebrews 12 says, make every effort.

Who's making the effort?

We do.

Make every effort to live in peace with everyone, to be holy.

Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.

Holiness is both a gift and something you learn.

See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up.

Is anyone feeling bitter?

It's challenging stuff, isn't it?

Don't let bitterness take root because we're meant to be holy.

It's not the pattern of teaching you've learned.

It's not the way of the master that you've given your allegiance to.

Don't let it cause trouble and defile many.

See that no one at all is sexually immoral.

There's effort involved.

Second Peter says, For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness and goodness knowledge and to knowledge self-control.

There's effort.

Life follows death to unholy living.

There are some habits we have to say no to, therefore, and some habits we have to say yes to.

Galatians 6 is instrumental in understanding holy living.

Paul writes, Don't be deceived.

God cannot be mocked.

A man reaps what he sows.

If you sow into habits of sin, what are we going to reap?

Sin.

You don't reap the fruit of righteousness.

You don't reap the fruit of the spirit.

Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction.

Whoever sows to please the spirit, from the spirit will reap eternal life.

Can you see how this is connected to life follows death?

Death to unholy living.

It's a supremely theological idea, death to Adam's inheritance, but it's also a supremely practical idea.

Death to the stuff that is unrighteous, and ungodly, and unholy.

Had always put it to death, and that's the language of Colossians 3, Ephesians 4, put it to death, take off the old.

Well, we think about sowing, I think.

You reap what you sow.

If you constantly look at social media and compare yourself to others, that is almost inevitably going to make you someone who's a bit envious and jealous.

It just will.

If you constantly don't say no to lustful thoughts, that will manifest itself in fruit in your life somehow, because you reap what you sow.

You sow to please the flesh, you reap what?

What did the text say?

Destruction.

Sow into the flesh, but sow into the spirit, sow into righteousness, you reap holy life, holy living.

If you sow into holiness and purity and humility and servanthood and thankfulness, the seeds of giving glory to God the Father, the Bible says we will reap the fruit of peace and joy, fulfilment and purpose.

Amen.

It's a kingdom principle.

Life follows death.

Death to the stuff that's not life giving and saying yes to that which is.

You reap what you sow, but Jesus teaches that you reap more than you sow, doesn't he?

It's not just what you sow.

The kingdom principle that we find in the Gospels is, there's a hundredfold blessing available for people who want to sow into righteousness.

You reap more than you sow.

That's good news, isn't it?

What else do we know about sowing for farmers, with farmers?

You reap after you sow.

It's not the day after, but you reap a period after you sow.

So there's this bunch of truth that's about allegiance to patterns of life that we need to be reminded of in the application sense of this text.

We reap what we sow, so be careful what you sow into.

You reap more than you sow.

And you're probably going to reap more bad than you think, but you certainly will reap more blessing than you think.

And you reap after you sow.

We're called to be patient.

We're called to trust in the goodness of God and the principles he is teaching us in his word.

Life follows death to the stuff that gave us nothing anyway.

Remember, that's what the text says.

What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of, that you sowed into?

Those things result in death.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness.

And the result is eternal life.

So life follows death to Adam's inheritance, to suffering avoidance, to the fear of death, to unholy living.

And the last thing is the life that follows death is a whole lot of life.

It's eternal.

It's eternal.

It's forever.

It's never ending.

It's amazing.

It's not just a long time.

It's the quality of eternality.

It's a different life.

It's life with God.

So it's going to go forever, but it's going to be the best life you could ever imagine.

That's what we're promised, life to the full.

And finally, we're told in verse 23, the wages of sin is death.

You reap what you sow.

But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Adam story results in death, which is eternal condemnation in hell.

And whatever hell is, it's something without God, a place without God.

It's not where any of us want to go.

That's where the Adam story takes you.

The Jesus story, we die to living our own life, the secular mandate that I'm the boss, I'm the king, I'm the queen.

We say no to that and we repent of that life.

We fall at the feet of Jesus and we say, no, no, you are Lord, you died for me, here's my life, would you forgive me?

The wage of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord as we repent and receive him by his grace.

A person is no fool who gives up that which they could never keep to gain that which they can never lose.

Amen.

Life follows death.

Jesus said, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.

But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

All that's saying is we need to repent and go into the symbolic waters of baptism, die to being the boss, being our own saviour, and repent of that and call upon the mercy of God.

And if you haven't done it, I implore you in Jesus' name, do it today.

Do it today.

Get right with God, because it is a binary end.

Just read Revelation.

There is no way in the world you can read the New Testament and not come out with, it's not nuanced, it's not subtle, there's not three ways, four ways, five ways.

There's only two ways in the end.

And I think we live in a society that is so prone to avoiding suffering, we don't talk about it from the front in the pulpit anymore much, that there is suffering coming.

It's either eternal death that you're not conscious, or probably far worse, you are consciously tormented forever.

It's a place without God.

Hell, it's the end, it's sheep and goats.

Jesus said, it's one or the other.

In Revelation, you were either sealed with the spirit or marked with the beast.

There's only two in Revelation.

The end of our book, of the Bible, the end of the whole Bible says there's only two ways.

You either inherit what Adam gave you in your blood, and take that consequence to the grave, and you will be judged in that great white throne judgment by your deeds.

That's what the Bible says.

We will all be judged for our, and you can't get to the end and say, hey, I did a lot of good, but it's like, it's not good enough.

I want to get to the end, and I'm going to by God's grace.

And I'm going to say, don't look at me, Lord.

Look at yourself.

I'm in you.

And that's the future for everyone who puts their faith in Christ.

Hallelujah.

That we get judged by Christ's work.

And guess what?

He has a perfect mark with the Lord, with the Father.

His life is enough.

You've got to take this seriously.

And maybe you're listening online.

Repentance and faith leads to life forevermore.

To not repent leads to die forever.

The band are going to come up, and we're going to finish with some music.

Why don't we pray?

Thank you, Lord, for your word, and I pray that we might receive your grace today and say no to that which leads to death, say no to that which leads to ungodliness, and say yes to your wonderful love and mercy and grace, to say yes to your invitation to receive eternal life.

Yes to death now, that we might live now and forever.

In Jesus' name, amen.

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