Friday, March 23, 2018

Newness of life

Romans 6:4

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.

There often seems to be a disconnect between the things we believe and our actual experiences. Much of that disconnect lies in how we have been taught, and how we have been allowed to approach issues of life and faith.

Many who join the church today are expecting that, as if by magic, all of their troubles and challenges would disappear, and they would live some fairy tale life. For example, they will sow a seed in the offering basket and will be rewarded with a windfall like winning the lottery. There are other examples of miseducation in church but let’s leave them alone for now.

God has indeed promised to bless His children, and He does. But the reason we come to Jesus is not to see our money multiplied or our problems suddenly disappear. The primary reason we come to Jesus is to have a relationship with God.

Jesus didn’t suffer on the cross for our bank accounts, our academic degrees, or our promotion on the job, instead, as the old hymn writer put it, “He died that we might be forgiven, / He died to make us good, / That we might from our sins be freed, / Saved by His precious blood.”

There are a few variations on that verse of the hymn, “There is a green hill far away,” but the essential point is that we come to Jesus first and foremost to deal with the problem of sin and relationship with God, because that is the reason that He hung, and suffered, and died on the cross.

If we then see the cross of Jesus as the focal point of our faith we would grasp the idea that Paul was seeking to establish in the passage Romans 6:1-14. At the beginning of this chapter the Apostle in continuing an argument that ended in the previous chapter, about the relationship between sin and grace, but here extends the argument by establishing a relationship between the cross of Jesus and our initiation into the faith.

Essentially, if our faith is based on facts that, Jesus is the Son of God, that He came to live on earth to die for our sin, that He died and was buried, and that He rose again from the dead, then both our initiation into the faith and our living of the faith must be reflective of these facts.

Baptism is the initiation into the faith. As we believe in Jesus when the Gospel is shared, we demonstrate our faith in Him by following through with baptism. This is the New Testament pattern and for good reason, it lines us up immediately with the focal point of our faith.

Here is how the Apostle explained it, first he posed a fundamental question, “do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” Romans 6:3. Baptism lines us up with the cross. Death on the cross for Jesus, death of the old man for us.

The Apostle continued, “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.” Romans 6:4. So our walk with Jesus is primarily a walk in victory over death more than it is a victory over debt.

“For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 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.” Romans 6:5,6.

As we come to Easter and the Cross we must be careful to not see the events that will be described in the pulpits, and lessons, and devotionals as remote but that the sufferings of Jesus are very personal to us because this is the basis of our present lives. We have testified to that in our conscious and deliberate decision to be baptised.

Writing before to the believers in Galatia, the Apostle Paul put it this way, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Galatians 2:20. Here he places us on the cross too.

For the Christian therefore, the new life, at the core, is a walk with God made possible through the cross. It is a demonstration that a new way has been opened up for us to relate to God through victory over sin.

The disconnect that many experience is a function of the wrong starting point. In our desire to help people who are struggling with one thing or the other, we bring them to church and very quickly induct them into our religious practices and habits without effectively treating with the problem of sin and the way it was dealt with at the cross. We cannot address deliverance and blessing effectively without confronting the cross.

God will heal, God will deliver, God will provide, for God is a God of love who honours His Word and keeps His promises. But the way to Him is through Jesus and the cross with all that it means and all that it implies. The newness of life.

Think on these things:

1. How much of the singing and worship that you participate in brings focus to the cross and the suffering of the Saviour?
2. Have you shared with anyone recently that salvation is rooted in Jesus on the cross?
3. When you meet someone with issues or needs do you address the problem of sin before you talk about the ways out of the situation that they’re in?

Prayer focus:

Let us pray today that we would keep focus on the cross.

In His Grace
Pastor Alex