Last Sunday we asked you to join us in looking at the key to having a loving, intimate, and truly biblical marriage that goes beyond a husband who sacrificially loves his wife, and a wife who returns his love with submission and respect. This marriage no longer relies on conflict resolution tools because there is hardly any conflict anymore, and if it arises it is solved in an instant. The marriage has grown up into Christ and by pleasing God, both spouses in turn work hard to please each other. Selfishness, and looking out for “my needs” and “my desires” pales in comparison to being a true image bearer who shines the life of Jesus in life and marriage.
If you have been reading Romans 6 with us this week you must
have some questions. To set the scene, remember that the apostle Paul has just
explained how we are justified by faith in Christ Jesus and His work on the
cross. That “by one man's {Adam’s} disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one {Jesus} shall many be made
righteous” {Romans 5:19}.
With the key truth of justification
by faith established, Paul moves on in Romans 6-8 to discuss the next logical
step for all believers. Now that I am saved by the blood of Jesus, how do I
grow up and begin to please him? Let me give a hint here that if God saves us
by faith, it is also by faith that we are going to grow us up into a mature Christian who
pleases his Father. God did not place His Spirit inside of us just to watch us
as Christians go back under the law and try to please Him by our works.
Paul asks the question to his readers, especially for the
Jew who believed the law was a much higher standard than grace: "Should we continue in sin that grace
may abound?" The resounding response is “God Forbid!” “No Way,
No How, Never!” is the shout of the apostle as he uses the strongest negative
possible. Then he explains why we can’t keep sinning and his argument is
astonishing:
2 How shall
we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
3 Know ye not,
that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his
death?
4 Therefore we
are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life.
5 For if we
have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in
the likeness of his resurrection:
6 Knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be
destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
7 For he that
is dead is freed from sin.
God is telling us that when we accepted
Jesus as Lord and Savior, we were baptized into His death. Outward baptism is a representation
of what God in His great wisdom and power has done with us, to first place us into the
death of Christ Jesus on the cross, and then buries us with Jesus so that we can
rise with His resurrected body and “walk in newness of life.” Our old man, our
old being, was nailed on the cross with Christ, that our flesh might be
destroyed. All of our being was set and focused on self and the things of the
world, but now, in Christ, because our old self died, we are “freed from sin!”
Wait a minute! I don’t feel free from sin!
Unless something changed with God recently, our feelings
about the subject will never inform His truths, thank goodness! Can you even imagine what sad shape we would
be in with our Christian lives if God’s truths depended on me and my feelings? Instead,
God’s truth is the immovable rock where we must stand by faith. Faith ignores
feelings to believe God in His promises even in the things that are difficult
for our time limited and finite minds to accept. If the test for God’s promises is what I can see and experience, then the gospel is very weak indeed. But if God alone is the keeper of His promises, then my salvation and sanctification are assured with certainty.
So this Sunday and going forward, will you believe these important
truths and allow them to flow into your life and marriage? Think about what
this means practically:
DEAD THINGS DON’T CARE ABOUT SELF, OR THE THINGS OF THIS
WORLD!!!
That is right. The next time your spouse says or does something
that begins to upset you just remind yourself that dead things don’t get upset
in return. Beyond this, the
clear teaching of the New Testament is that the believer becomes a new creature in
Christ, the old is gone, and the life we live is alive to Christ and dead to
sin.
God
says these truths a little differently other places, but they all point to the
same reality. “For as many of you as have been baptized into
Christ have put on Christ” {Galatians 3:27} and again, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old
things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” {2 Corinthians 5:17}.
The
journey to growing up in Christ begins right here by understanding first what
God has done to make you and me brand new and then beginning to live out this reality
in our lives. Your identity as dead to sin and alive to Christ should permeate each and every aspect of our lives, especially our one flesh marriages.
For the believer, we are
what God thinks, but we behave the way we think.
If you want to stop sinning and to begin to
walk in the newness of life alive in Christ Jesus, then all you have to do is
match up your beliefs with what God says is true. Easier said than done? Yes
and no. It really depends on whether we first know the truth, and then if we
are willing to believe it. I am not saying, believe more. I am saying actually
believe that you are dead to sin and alive to Christ. If we do, our spouse will
stop seeing death in us and instead will see the life of Jesus flow in and
through us. This is our hope. This is our faith. This can be our marriage.
***Written by Ken
***Written by Ken
