Sunday sermon: "Are You Dead Yet?'

It almost seems paradoxical that as Christians, we are brought from death to life, yet we are still to consider ourselves dead. In Romans 6:5-11, Paul deals with this idea. We are indeed brought to new life in Christ as we share in His resurrection, but that life involves dying. Many Christians accept that before we came to Christ we were dead in our sins, but are less comfortable with the idea that we still have to die.

This is a different death, however. We are to die to sin, so that sin no longer controls us. In verse 11 Paul tells us to "consider" ourselves dead to sin. This requires an active attitude on our part. Though our sin was put to death with Jesus, we must constantly remember that we are indeed dead. Sin does not rule over us, since we are dead to its power, but too often we want to go back to our deadness. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we would rather be dead and enslaved "back in Egypt" than alive and waiting for what the Lord is going to do. When we die to sin, we are able to put aside our natural desire to live for ourselves.

There is a flip side to this. While we are dead to sin, we are alive to God. In His death, Jesus broke the power of sin. In His resurrection, Jesus broke the power of death. This enable us to have a new life, an eternal life, which is like Christ's own resurrected life. While the full experience of this life is yet to come, we have already received it, and have begun to live it out in this present world.

This new life has a new focus. When we were under the power of sin, we lived for self. Everything we did was done for the benefit it brought us. Our chief end was to glorify and satisfy our own desires. Our new life is a life to God instead. Now we live for Him, to glorify God and our Lord Jesus. The focus shifts from self to God, and we are now free to live for Him. Just as we are to consider ourselves dead to sin, we are also to consider ourselves actively alive in the service of God.

So are you dead yet? Has sin lost its controlling grip on your life, and do you now seek to live for God's glory? When that happens, we will begin to see the ways God will work in us to bring about His glory in our world.