Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 27, 2025 | Onward - Looking Back

Transcript

July 27, 2025 | Onward - Looking Back · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: It is good to be uh in front of all of you today.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: I see a lot of very familiar faces and some uh unfamiliar faces as well.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Um for those of you that don't recognize me, my name is Spencer.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: I am the College Age Ministry Director here.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: And those of you that didn't recognize me or probably also like, we have a college age ministry.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: We do.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh we meet every week after second service uh over in the cab basement.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: So if you know of anyone of the college age variety, send them over there.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Um but I am not here to advertise and talk about the college age ministry as much as I would like to.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm here to continue the sermon series that we've been in since last week.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: And before we get into all of this, um, before we get into any scripture reading, any um sermons or anything like that, um, it is very, very important, in my opinion, that we go before the Lord in prayer.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: So uh join with me in prayer as we um set our hearts before Him.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for this time.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for this time for us to uh dig into your word and understand more of what it means and what it means to be a Christian, to be your son and to be your daughter, Lord.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: Um give us ears to hear, Lord, guide my words.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Um may they be glorifying to you.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: In your name I pray.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: So, last week Connor uh began this series called Onward.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: It's this idea of starting at the very beginning of the the gospel and accepting Christ.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: And then we're gonna go through, march it step by step onward to the next step, all the way basically into eternity.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: The series is gonna be a while, just kidding.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Um and we're going through the steps of the Christian life, what it's like to live this Christian life.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: So last week, Connor was talking a lot about this idea of um how impossible it is for a rocket ship to kind of lift off of base.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Side note, this is space theme, if you couldn't tell.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Everything's about space.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: And so he connected this almost impossible nature of salvation with this almost impossible nature of how heavy and how fast this rocket has to go just to lift off.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: And so today I want to uh continue that analogy.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: So, congratulations, you're in space now, okay?
2:34
SPEAKER_00: You're in space.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, things feel weird, things feel different.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: I want you to really picture this in your head.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: You're in your ship, you're in space, and you're no longer feeling gravity, there's new uh rules, there's there's new there's a new environment, for lack of better terms, that you're in a new space, okay?
2:53
SPEAKER_00: You're probably feeling a lot of things very similar to the crew on uh Apollo 17.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, for those of you that don't know, uh Apollo 17 was when they the last manned crew that went to the moon.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: So they got out of Earth's orbit, they were heading towards the moon, uh, but then they decided to turn around, not not the ship, but they themselves turned around and looked back to see where they came from.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: And this is what they saw.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: Very small.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: They saw a very small picture of the world, almost the size of a marble.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: Now let me make it bigger for you guys.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: They took a picture, and this was one of the first high-resolution pictures of this earth.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: And you can imagine being in their spot, just the surreal moment of realizing, whoa, I've lived my entire life there.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: But now I'm in this new area, this new, uh, there's a new mission, and everything's just so weird and so different.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: And in the same way, for those that accept Christ, those first steps are new, are different.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: And you're probably swirling around with questions like, what do I do?
4:08
SPEAKER_00: What does this mean now that I've accepted Christ?
4:11
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be a Christian?
4:13
SPEAKER_00: What's true?
4:14
SPEAKER_00: What's what's wrong?
4:15
SPEAKER_00: And so today, this next step that we're gonna step onward to is answering one of those questions of who you are, your identity in Christ.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna focus on one specific truth, one specific truth that has applications not only to new believers, but also to the very seasoned believers as well.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Because I found in my study of this, this was very enriching and rewarding for me, because it is a truth that I forgot the depths of and I forgot how important it is to understand it, believe it, and live it out.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: So, this whole time we're gonna dig into just one concept, one truth, and that truth is that you are dead to sin and you are alive to God.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: Now that you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you are dead to sin and you are alive to God.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: So, what does this mean?
5:10
SPEAKER_00: If you will, open up your Bibles to Romans 6.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be in Romans 6 for the entirety of our time here, specifically in verses uh 3 through 11, but we'll march through it together.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Now, for those of you that don't know, this was a book written by a guy who used to kill Christians.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then God appeared to him and was like, Hey, why are you killing the Christians?
5:33
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I am Jesus, Jesus is God, and he's like, Oh, okay, fair enough.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: And he turned his life around and wrote almost the entirety of the New Testament, most of it.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so he wrote this letter to a church in Rome.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: And this whole letter, this book of Romans, is talking about what the gospel is, the different multifaceted myths of the gospel.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And so today we're gonna be digging into one truth and we're gonna dig deep.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: So join me in Romans 6, where we're first going to answer this question of why can we say this?
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Why can we say we are dead to sin and alive to God?
6:11
SPEAKER_00: By what basis?
6:13
SPEAKER_00: What foundation, what is the reason we can say we are dead to sin and alive to God?
6:19
SPEAKER_00: So meet me in Romans 6, verse 3.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Or do you not know that all of us who've been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, we've been buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in the newness of life.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: There's your answer.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: Baptism.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I want all of us to take this idea of water baptism that we're thinking about.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: You dunk underwater, you bring up, great.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: Take that idea, place it to the side.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: We'll get back to it, don't worry.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I want us to focus first on this very true reality that we don't we don't emphasize in church as much.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: There's this very real spiritual reality in which you and I have a spirit.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: God has a spirit, it's called the Holy Spirit.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And there's this spiritual reality in which things are happening.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Things are happening within that spiritual reality, and what this verse is saying is it's giving us a peek into the inner working, honestly, the mechanics of this spiritual reality.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: So what happens?
7:31
SPEAKER_00: Take my hand, represents Jesus.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: It just represents Jesus.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying my hand's Jesus.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: This represents my left hand represents your spirit.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: So here's what happens: Jesus, he dies, he buries, and then he rose again on the third day.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: We all know that gospel.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: This is your spirit.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: When you place your faith in Jesus Christ through faith and repentance, your spirit gets mapped on.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: You are unified with Christ.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: You are another word for baptism is you are immersed.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: You are immersed in his death, burial, and resurrection.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: This is a real reality that's happening in the spiritual realm.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: You can see it here.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: This is what this verse is talking about.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: That you've been baptized into his death, buried with him through baptism into death, raised from the dead, that we too might walk in this newness of life.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: So look, we are buried with him.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: That's what this is.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: We're buried with him, and then we are raised from the dead.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: So there's this very true reality in which something in your spiritual side dies and it stays dead.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: But then you raise to life to this newness of life.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: Emphasis on the newness of life, we'll get back to that in a little bit.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: But this is why we can say that we are dead to sin.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: Spoiler alert, the thing that dies is sin.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: And that we are raised to a newness of life.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: You are a new being, you are a new creation.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: There is something fundamentally changed about who you are, and it's happening within the spiritual realm.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: This is a very true spiritual reality that happened to every single person in this room that has accepted Christ as their Savior.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: Now let's pick back up water baptism.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Water baptism is super, super important because it points to this very real reality.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Water baptism is a visible sign of an invisible reality.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: It's this visible sign of you going down underwater, being buried under the water as Christ was buried, and being raised again.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: And it's pointing back to this spiritual true reality.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: Now, water baptism in of itself doesn't save.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: If it did save, I would not be working here at TBC.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: I would start my own ministry, I'd rent out a pool, kidnap people, and just baptize them.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Because it's just more efficient that way.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Water baptism, it's so, so important because we get to celebrate what is happening in the spiritual realm with something tangible.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: We do this a lot even in secular culture.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: Graduation ceremonies, for example.
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SPEAKER_00: If you were to ask me when did I graduate, I'd tell you I graduated back in May.
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SPEAKER_00: That's when I walked across the stage, but I was done with school in December.
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SPEAKER_00: There was this visible reality that I was done with school.
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SPEAKER_00: I was done.
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SPEAKER_00: But my actual graduation, that was when I walked across the stage.
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SPEAKER_00: Nothing special happened there other than the fact that I shake the president of my school's hand.
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SPEAKER_00: And so it's this visible sign of an invisible reality.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: And uh, for those of you that are Christians and have not been baptized, there is literally nothing getting in your way from being baptized.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: Next week we have baptism class.
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SPEAKER_00: Go to that, see what it's about, get more in depth so that we can celebrate together this newness of life.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: So, that is all to say we are dead to sin and alive to Christ because we've been baptized into his death and resurrection.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so now let's let's again go back to you are dead to sin and alive to God.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Let's break this apart bit by bit to really understand what it means, because this is what uh Paul does in this passage.
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SPEAKER_00: First, he talks about what it means to be dead to sin, and then he talks about what it means to be alive to God.
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SPEAKER_00: So Romans 5, Romans 6, 5 through 6.
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SPEAKER_00: For we have been united with him in the likeness of his death.
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SPEAKER_00: Certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection.
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SPEAKER_00: Knowing this that our old self was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.
12:04
unknown: Okay.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: A lot of church stuff happening here, lots of words.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, let's take it bit by bit.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: We need to understand what this means.
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SPEAKER_00: To understand first, what we're tackling is what it means to be dead to sin.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: We need to focus on this old self and this body of sin.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
12:23
SPEAKER_00: What is this talking about?
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SPEAKER_00: Christians in the past have taken this to mean that this, the flesh, the physical nature is bad, is sinful.
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SPEAKER_00: That is not the case.
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SPEAKER_00: What this is talking about is this past life before the work of Christ in your life.
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SPEAKER_00: Before that, sin had this overwhelming power over you.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Sin reigned over you.
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SPEAKER_00: It caused you to have no conviction over evil things.
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SPEAKER_00: It caused you to affirm things that are evil.
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SPEAKER_00: It even caused you to enjoy things that were evil.
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SPEAKER_00: Paul writes in a different letter in Ephesians 4, verse 22, he says, to put off your old self, this old self idea, which belongs to the former manner of life, and is corrupt through its deceitful desires.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: To explain this, I want to introduce you to uh a guy, his name is St.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Augustine, um, or Augustine, whatever you want.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you're probably wondering why he's in a spacesuit, space theme, okay?
13:31
SPEAKER_00: And so he wrote a very famous autobiography called uh Confessions.
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SPEAKER_00: And within this autobiography, there's a spot in which he talks about he's thinking back on his life before he knew Christ.
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SPEAKER_00: And uh him and his buddies would go to his neighbor's uh farm, yard, whatever it was, and they would steal pears from the pear tree.
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SPEAKER_00: And when he's thinking back to this, he's just mortified.
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SPEAKER_00: He's lamenting over the fact that he did this.
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SPEAKER_00: And to us nowadays, like, okay, you just you took some pears.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: Oh well, there's probably more pears on the tree.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: But what we come to find out is Augustine doesn't like pears.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I don't like pears.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: The only reason he did this, and his friends did this, was for the joy of sin.
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SPEAKER_00: The rush that you get when you sin.
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SPEAKER_00: He didn't even eat the pears.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: And this is what he was lamenting over.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: It's this old self, this former self.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Just look at culture.
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SPEAKER_00: Just do a couple scrolls on social media and you will see the depravity of this world, of how dark this world is, because they are ruled by sin.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: There's this power of sin causing them to live sinful lives.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: And I want us to go back to this picture of the world and go back to this analogy of like, okay, you're you're in space and you look back and you see this world, and this world represents your former life before Christ.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: In all of its sinful desires, the sinful lifestyle, where the power of sin was over you, where you were part of the world.
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SPEAKER_00: But there's good news.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 7.
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SPEAKER_00: For he who has died is freed from sin.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: For he who has died is freed from sin.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: This is what this means.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: You've been unified with Christ, and in Christ dying, he paid the penalty, so you can be freed from the power of sin.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: This power that leads you to live this broken life, this sinful lifestyle, that power is broken.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: You no longer have to keep striving after that.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: You see, so many people that don't know Christ look to the world, look to sin to get some sort of satisfaction, to get something out of it, but it never satisfies.
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SPEAKER_00: That's why they want more, more, more, more, more, and they are never satisfied.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: But those that are in Christ are freed from that struggle.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: The power of sin is no longer on them.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: But there's even a more beautiful reality to this because there's many of us in this room that have done some things in our past that we very truly regret.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: It keeps us up at night.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: It even makes us think, am I a Christian?
16:43
SPEAKER_00: I did this in the past.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what?
16:47
SPEAKER_00: This word, freed from sin, it can also be translated as justified.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: This is where we get the doctrine of justification.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
16:59
SPEAKER_00: That means if you stand before it, this is an analogy, you stand before a court of law and the judge says, I have every single thing against you, every single way you broke the law, but I say you are innocent.
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SPEAKER_00: I declare that you are innocent.
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SPEAKER_00: All of that is in the past, none of that matters.
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SPEAKER_00: That is what happens to you, Christian.
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SPEAKER_00: All of that sin, that guilt and shame is forgiven and it is in the past, it is covered by the blood of Jesus.
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SPEAKER_00: You are freed from that weight.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: So, what does it mean to be dead to sin?
17:37
SPEAKER_00: It means to be freed from the power and the guilt of sin.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: To be dead to sin is to be freed from this power that makes you want to live this life that's never satisfying, that is ultimately evil.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: And it frees you from all the decisions that you've made in the past.
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SPEAKER_00: And you can walk in this newness of life.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: So we know a little bit more about what it means to be dead to sin.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: What about this second phrase?
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Alive to God, what does that mean?
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SPEAKER_00: How does that change my life?
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's dive into that because that's the next thing Paul covers.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Romans 6, verse 8.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we've died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.
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SPEAKER_00: Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again.
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SPEAKER_00: Death no longer is master over him.
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SPEAKER_00: For the death that he died, he died to sin once and for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: The life that he lives, he lives to God.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: So we're starting to get something.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: We're starting to get somewhere where, okay, Jesus, the life that Jesus lived, he lived to God.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: So there must be some sort of key, some sort of thing within Jesus' life, and which shows us what it means to live to God, to be alive to God.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: So what is that key?
19:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, what is that?
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's think critically about that.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: How did Jesus live his life?
19:21
SPEAKER_00: I would propose to you that Jesus live his life on a mission.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: He had a reason he came down to earth.
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SPEAKER_00: In John 6, 38, this is what Jesus says.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but to do the will of him who sent me.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' mission is to do the will of God the Father.
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SPEAKER_00: Now, this verse isn't saying that Jesus isn't God.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is 100% God.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: But his desire, his mission is to do the will of God the Father.
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SPEAKER_00: That might be what it means to live to God.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at another verse.
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SPEAKER_00: In John 17, 4, it says Jesus is saying this.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: He's praying to God.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: He's praying out loud with his disciples.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: He says this.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: The work that you have given me to do.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: What is that work?
20:23
SPEAKER_00: It is the culmination of his entire life, of his obedience, all to the point of the cross.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Where he bled and he died for you.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: So how Jesus lives to God is following his will, is glorifying God, doing what God says.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: So now we understand a bit more of how Jesus did that.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: How does that apply to us?
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, look at the next verse.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Even so, or so that.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: And in the beginning of verse 11, consider yourself dead.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: At the end of verse 10 says, the life that he lives, he lives to God.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Life, lives, lives, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: What we see here again is our unification with Christ.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: How we are to model who Christ is, but we are unified with him as well.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: And so what does this mean for you as a Christian?
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Is if Jesus was living to God through being on mission, through following the will of God, through glorifying God, that's the same thing that we are called to do.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: To live in submission to the will of God, to glorify Him.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 2 10.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Puts it this way, for we are his workmanship.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Pause.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: That's a crazy reality.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: We could preach a whole sermon on that, but that's beside the point.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of you in this room that have accepted Christ as your Savior, God has prepared certain things for you to personally do, good things for you to do that He has called you to do.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Talk about living a life on mission, having a purpose.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Instead of looking back at our previous world, our previous life, in which we're just striving after this thing that just doesn't satisfy.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: We get this newness of life where Jesus says, Hey, I have some things for you to do.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Talk about a fulfilling life that will satisfy.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: So to be alive to God is to live for his glory both now and for eternity.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: I want to emphasize that both now and for eternity because when you really dig into this passage, you see Paul is talking about both the life we live now, but also the life we will be living for eternity.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: Yes, and it's both.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: And so this being alive to God is living in this new world, this new reality with this new mission, new values that ultimately do satisfy.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: So to be alive to God is to live for his glory both now and for eternity.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: There's a theologian that put it this way that the scripture talks about this strange new world.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a strange world where, again, let's go back to the analogy of in space.
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SPEAKER_00: You're in this strange new area of like you're in space, the earth is behind you, there's just everything so new and different.
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SPEAKER_00: As Christians, we are called to the strange new world where things at times seem to be upside down.
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SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to pick up our cross.
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SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to focus on others more than ourselves.
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SPEAKER_00: But the strange new world is a beautiful world.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a very beautiful world.
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SPEAKER_00: So now we know what it means to be dead to sin and alive to God, but Paul's not done yet.
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SPEAKER_00: He gets more specific.
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SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna dive into the specifics on what does it really do mean to be alive to God, this strange new world, this newness of life.
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SPEAKER_00: Romans 12, verse 13.
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SPEAKER_00: Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its lusts.
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SPEAKER_00: And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of the righteousness of God.
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SPEAKER_00: Paul sets forth something not to do, and then something to do instead.
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SPEAKER_00: He gets specific.
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SPEAKER_00: If you want to be specific on how do I follow the will of God, well, this is part of the will of God, to not let sin reign in your mortal body.
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SPEAKER_00: Are you dead to sin?
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SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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SPEAKER_00: Can you still sin?
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SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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SPEAKER_00: We still have this capacity to sin as Christians.
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SPEAKER_00: 1 John says, if anyone says they've never sinned, they are a liar.
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SPEAKER_00: And that is the sin and of itself.
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SPEAKER_00: So they just sinned right there.
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SPEAKER_00: And so he's calling us to a life that is not ruled and dominated by this sin because that was our previous life.
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SPEAKER_00: Why are we presenting the members of our body?
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SPEAKER_00: And it's this picture of offering, kind of in terms of a sacrifice of take my body, do with it what you will.
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SPEAKER_00: What an odd picture to paint in Scripture, but this is the picture that Paul is painting.
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SPEAKER_00: He says, don't do that.
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SPEAKER_00: That was your formal life.
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SPEAKER_00: And when he says, do not go on presenting members of your body as sins of instruments of righteousness.
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SPEAKER_00: He's just painting that picture, getting it more detailed that we are not to do that.
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SPEAKER_00: We are not to present the members of our body as sins, as instruments of sin, of unrighteousness.
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SPEAKER_00: But instead, what we are to do is to present yourselves to God as those alive from dead.
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SPEAKER_00: Remember this?
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SPEAKER_00: Because that is who you truly are.
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SPEAKER_00: And out of that outflow of understanding we are dead and alive, out of that outflow, we get to present ourselves and say, God, use my body how you will, use my voice how you will, use my hands, my feet how you will.
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SPEAKER_00: Later on in this book, Paul talks about being a living sacrifice, saying, God, I am yours.
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SPEAKER_00: And this is what is part of this newness of life.
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SPEAKER_00: There's beauty in that.
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SPEAKER_00: Look at this picture of repentance, of turning away, of in our former life, we were presenting our members to sin, but now we get to turn and present it to God and say, God, use it.
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SPEAKER_00: Use it for your glory, for your good.
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SPEAKER_00: I want to love you and I want to love others.
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SPEAKER_00: Is that not the greatest commandment?
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SPEAKER_00: So being alive to God is putting away the deeds of the flesh and offering yourselves to Jesus.
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SPEAKER_00: That has application for the new believer and for the mature believer.
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SPEAKER_00: What does your life look like?
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SPEAKER_00: Are you presenting it?
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SPEAKER_00: Are you presenting the members of your body to sin or to God?
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SPEAKER_00: You are dead to sin.
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SPEAKER_00: In our last moments together, I want us to return to this picture we painted earlier of you're in space.
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SPEAKER_00: You look back and you see your previous life.
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SPEAKER_00: You see your previous life with all of its sinful patterns in the past.
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SPEAKER_00: And I leave you with two things.
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SPEAKER_00: This first thing is you are dead to sin.
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SPEAKER_00: You are dead to this life.
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SPEAKER_00: You are freed from it.
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SPEAKER_00: And what we need to do is we need to remember that, we need to believe it.
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SPEAKER_00: And this comes forth so strong in verse 11.
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SPEAKER_00: Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but to be alive in God in Christ Jesus.
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SPEAKER_00: This word consider is also translated as reckon or basically believe it.
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SPEAKER_00: Believe that you are dead to sin.
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SPEAKER_00: Why is this important?
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SPEAKER_00: Because ask any mature believer in this room, and they will say the enemy will try everything in his power to convince you that this is not true.
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SPEAKER_00: That the things you've done in the past do disqualify you from God's love.
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SPEAKER_00: That you don't have control over this sin.
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SPEAKER_00: You are dead to sin.
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SPEAKER_00: Believe this truth.
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SPEAKER_00: Meditate on it, speak it over yourself.
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SPEAKER_00: Just hammer it into your head until you understand that you are dead to sin and you are alive to God.
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SPEAKER_00: Consider this, believe it.
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SPEAKER_00: So look at your past life and don't go back.
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SPEAKER_00: Don't go back.
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SPEAKER_00: But now what I want you to do is take controls of your theological rocket and turn it around.
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SPEAKER_00: And I want you to gaze into the beauty of being alive to God, the galaxy that is before you of a life lived for Christ.
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SPEAKER_00: A life lived offering our bodies as instruments of righteousness to him.
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SPEAKER_00: It is a beautiful life.
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SPEAKER_00: It is also a difficult life.
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SPEAKER_00: But the greatest reality is that Christ is with you through it the entire way.
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SPEAKER_00: And at one point in time, you will meet with him face to face.
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SPEAKER_00: And you will get to explore this newness of life, this strange new world.
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SPEAKER_00: This being alive to God, you get to explore that even deeper as we go into eternity.
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SPEAKER_00: But as we are for now, what it means to be alive to God is to submit ourselves to his will, to bring him glory.
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SPEAKER_00: And now if we want to get even more detailed, we could.
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SPEAKER_00: We could preach forever on this idea of what this newness of life is, and that is what we're doing with the rest of this series.
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SPEAKER_00: So I encourage all of you, make sure to come to every single one of the sermons in this series because we are unpacking this idea of this newness of life, this beautiful galaxy, of what it means to be alive to God, what it means to walk this Christian walk.
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SPEAKER_00: But where we are right now, the step we need to take, that we need to go onward to take, is to believe that you are dead to sin.
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SPEAKER_00: And to start to engage in this newness of life, this beautiful life of sacrifice where we love God and we love others.
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SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
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SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for your sacrifice.
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SPEAKER_00: Thank you for who you are.
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SPEAKER_00: Thank you for what you've done.
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SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that you will work in our hearts to see the beauty of this newness of life, of being alive to you, of a life submitted to you.
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SPEAKER_00: A life that does satisfy.
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SPEAKER_00: A life where when things go wrong, you are there with us, walking along right beside us, God.
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SPEAKER_00: For those of us in this room that have a hard time believing that we are dead to sin, Lord, may we believe that truth.
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SPEAKER_00: Give us that extra grace to really do believe that truth, God.
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SPEAKER_00: Because it is true.
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SPEAKER_00: For your word is true, and we thank you for your word.
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SPEAKER_00: May we not live a life marked by the rain of sin, but may we strive to put it to death.
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SPEAKER_00: Better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today, God.
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SPEAKER_00: Help us.
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SPEAKER_00: In your name we pray.
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SPEAKER_00: Amen.
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SPEAKER_00: Connor and I love you.