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Deny Yourself to Receive His Life: Sermon · Beyond the Sermon

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  You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast of First
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  Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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  On our podcast, the goal is not just to share the sermons we've
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  preached, but to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're
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  learning and what God is doing in US and in our community.
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  You can find more information about our church at
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  fumccollingswood.org. Thanks for listening.
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  Well, this morning Scripture comes from the book of Romans
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  chapter 6 verses one through 14. What shall we say then?
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  Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase?
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  By no means we are, we are those who have died to sin.
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  How can we live in it any longer?
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  Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ
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  Jesus were baptized into his death?
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  We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death,
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  in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the
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  glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
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  For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we will
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  certainly also be united with Him in a resurrection like His.
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  For we know that our old self was crucified with Him, so that
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  the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should
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  no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who has died has
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  been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we
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  believe that we will also live with him.
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  For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he
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  cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over
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  him. The death he died, he died to
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  sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives
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  to God. In the same way, count
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  yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
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  Therefore, don't let sin reign in your mortal body so that you
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  may obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of
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  yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer
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  yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to
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  life, and offer every part of yourself to Him as an instrument
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  of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your
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  master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
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  This is the word of God for the people of God.
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  Thanks be to God, Amen. I wonder this morning, this
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  Easter morning, how many of you have had the thought at some
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  point, maybe even in the past week?
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  You've thought it, but I wonder how many of you have thought
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  there has to be more to life than this, more than what I'm
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  experiencing. You may feel stuck in a current
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  job. The things you used to do might
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  not bring you the same enjoyment they once did.
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  You've realized that having a good marriage is hard work.
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  Your friendships and relationships feel more distant
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  than they used to. You feel isolated.
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  Maybe you feel like you're just going through the motions.
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  And add to that, your pastor for the last six weeks has been
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  telling you that you need to deny yourself.
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  Pick up your cross and follow Jesus.
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  Maybe you've internalized that message as I've got to say no to
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  anything that feels good, or I've got to stop being me and be
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  more like Jesus. And in some churches that that
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  is in fact the message that's been taught, right, that the
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  Christian life is learning to control yourself.
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  You have to deny your desires, you have to ignore your
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  emotions, you have to reject your needs.
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  That, we've been told, is what the faithful Christian life
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  looks like. And like all good lies, there's
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  a measure of truth in those ideas.
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  But that is not what the Gospel says.
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  Friends, I want to tell you this morning that the good news of
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  Jesus is life to the full. Right when those women who the
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  ones who stayed at the foot of the cross until Jesus died, when
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  they went to the Garden Tomb on that first Easter morning, they
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  went to the tomb where Jesus had been laid following his
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  crucifixion. As we read at the start of the
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  service, they went in sorrow. They went to anoint the body
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  that had been hastily taken down from the cross and and wrapped
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  in linen and placed in the tomb because the Sabbath was about to
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  begin and they hadn't had time to do all of the proper burial
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  preparations. They went to care for the body
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  of the one whom they had come to put their hope in, and they went
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  to say goodbye. So you can imagine, maybe begin
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  to imagine the surprise and confusion that surely
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  overwhelmed them when they reached the tomb and and they
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  found not only the big heavy stone rolled away from the
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  opening, but they found the tomb empty.
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  The body of their beloved Jesus was gone, and as they were
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  standing there wondering at this, suddenly 2 shining men
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  dressed in dazzling white clothes disappeared out of
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  nowhere. And their message was that Jesus
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  wasn't dead. He had risen just as he said he
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  would. Why do you look for the living
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  among the dead? They asked.
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  It was then, only then that the women began to remember what
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  Jesus had said. Friends, this is the good news
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  of Jesus. The call is to self denial and
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  cross and death. That's part of it.
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  We can't ignore that part of the story.
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  Following Jesus doesn't magically mean health and wealth
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  and an easy life. But the cross was not the end of
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  Jesus story and neither was the empty tomb.
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  Nor is it the end of the story that we are called into.
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  Jesus offer is life and it's not just a life full of of misery
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  and denial where we suffer through until we die and then we
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  get our reward in heaven. No, it's because Jesus died and
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  was raised to life again. His invitation to us is abundant
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  life. I think Paul was having this
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  same discussion in his mind as he wrote that letter to the
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  church in Rome and where he said in Romans 64 from the passage
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  that will just read for us, Romans 64 says we were therefore
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  buried with him, with Christ through baptism into death, in
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  order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the
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  glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
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  You see, when we die with Christ, we're also raised with
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  Christ to new life, so we no longer have to live as slaves to
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  sin and death. The new life is an offer of
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  freedom. It's freedom from the power of
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  sin, but it's also freedom to live the way God intended,
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  freedom for righteousness. Now, it's not often what we
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  think of as freedom as modern modern Americans, where we think
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  that that freedom means we belong only to ourselves, and
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  therefore only we can define meaning and value and right and
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  wrong for ourselves. No, this is a freedom that comes
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  from knowing we belong not to ourselves, but to Christ our
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  Creator, our Redeemer, our Sustainer.
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  It's freedom to live as citizens of the Kingdom of heaven even
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  now as part of the new creation humanity that God is building.
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  If you're someone who has heard the good news of Jesus as merely
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  a call to suffering and self negation and restriction or or
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  maybe arbitrary rules, I want to tell you this Easter morning
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  that is not what Jesus died and rose again to secure for us.
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  That may be a gospel, but it is not the gospel.
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  The women who went to the tomb that Sunday morning 2000 years
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  ago, they, they took the news of what they had experienced, what
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  they had seen and what they had heard and they ran.
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  They ran to share the news with Jesus disciples.
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  And the disciples, when they heard it, like typical men, they
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  didn't believe the women what they were telling him, right?
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  So Peter himself, he gets up and runs all the way to the tomb.
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  He looks in and he sees the empty linen lying there and he
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  wonders what it is that has actually happened.
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  Remember, he's already been told what's happened.
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  But he wonders. But eventually, after Jesus
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  himself appears to those disciples, after he spent most
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  of that Easter day walking Incognito between Jerusalem and
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  a little village called Emmaus, as he spoke with a pair of
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  disillusioned disciples about all that Scripture had said
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  about him before he revealed himself to them in the breaking
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  of bread. And he disappeared from their
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  sight. Then those two disciples, they
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  too ran all the way back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples
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  what they had experienced, how their hearts had burned within
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  them as they walked and talked with the risen Jesus.
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  Eventually the disciples began to believe the good news, the
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  good news that Jesus wasn't dead.
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  He was really, actually alive. And it changed everything.
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  It changed everything not just for those original disciples who
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  had walked with Jesus and seen him arrested and tortured and
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  crucified. It changed the entire course of
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  history, These ordinary men, fishermen, tax collectors, a few
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  political activists thrown in there, and some some others.
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  They became people with such a burning desire to share this
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  good news that they let nothing stop them until they themselves
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  were put to death. If you notice, throughout all
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  the resurrection stories, everyone's response is to go and
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  tell someone 120 people who saw the risen Jesus waited in
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  Jerusalem for the promised Holy Spirit to come, and those 120
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  people became 2.6 billion people today who are gathering in
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  worship just like we are to worship the resurrected Jesus.
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  Because experiencing the risen Jesus changes everything.
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  He brings freedom to our lives. He invites us to live in a new
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  reality and actually empowers us to live there by his Spirit.
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  And so the natural response is, is to want to share that good
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  news. And so I wonder this morning,
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  we've all come to church, we've come to worship.
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  But I wonder, have you encountered Jesus, The Jesus who
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  is still just as risen and alive today as he was that first
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  Easter Sunday? I'm not talking about knowing
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  him or knowing about him in your head.
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  I'm not talking about learning the Sunday School stories.
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  I'm talking about experiencing the presence of Jesus.
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  The one who sets hearts on fire. The one who transforms people
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  like you and me and changes everything.
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  The one who sets people like you and me free from the things that
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  used to hold us captive and enslave us and, and he gives us,
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  he gives people like us new life full of meaning and purpose and
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  mission. It's amazing.
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  Let me be realistic though, right?
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  I don't want to mislead anyone. There will still be times we're
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  called to self denial. There will be times even as we
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  follow Jesus that we will suffer.
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  Suffering might even come to us because we follow Jesus.
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  But he's promised, He's promised and scriptures the, the story
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  that tells about the promises of God and how he's been faithful
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  all the way through to keep his promises.
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  And he's promised to be with us in the midst of it all, the
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  good, the bad, the ugly, and the spirit within us that he gave
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  us. He, he brings life to us and
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  love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and
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  goodness and faithfulness and self-control and gentleness.
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  He, he, the spirit, he forms holiness, right?
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  The very character of Jesus in US, people like you and me.
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  And he empowers us with gifts to serve the church and the world.
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  So friends, no matter what you've been told by churches in
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  the past, or maybe by your families or by the world, this
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  is the gospel, the good news. Because Jesus suffered, died,
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  and rose again, we too can die to that old self.
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  And in doing so, we can be raised to new life in Christ
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  Jesus's life, living in US, giving life to our bodies.
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  And if you've not experienced Jesus like that, you can today.
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  You can confess that to him in prayer.
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  You can admit that you've been trying to do life on your own
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  and it just isn't working anymore.
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  You can admit that you've been enslaved to things that you just
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  can't be. You can deny yourself.
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  You can turn to follow Jesus, believing that God did in fact
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  raise him from the dead. That Jesus is still active and
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  living and you can ask him to set you free, fill you with his
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  life and friends. He will.
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  He will. If you're one of those people
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  here today who has had that experience of the risen Jesus,
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  my question for you is, who are you going to tell about it?
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  Who are you going to tell today, this week?
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  Because the good news is worth sharing.
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  Because the good news is not just for you and me and the
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  people who come to church on Sunday mornings.
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  It's good news is for the world. He wants everyone to know.
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  He wants everyone to experience the grace and forgiveness, the
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  freedom and life that He offers, the life he died to give away to
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  you and me. Would you pray with me this
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  morning? Jesus?
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  We are so grateful that you would give yourself for us, that
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  even while we were still far away from you, while we were
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  still trying to live life on our own terms, Jesus, you came for
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  us to set us free from the sin and death that enslaved us and
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  kept us from being all that you imagined us to be when you
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  created us. Jesus here and now, this morning
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  we give you ourselves. Jesus, would you come and
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  encounter us this morning because you're always the first
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  one to make the move? Would you move toward us this
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  morning? Would you give us the grace and
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  the faith and the courage to respond and move towards you?
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  We pray this Jesus in your name.