Dying To Sin And Alive In Christ

Romans 6:3-11

A dead body cannot do anything anymore.  That’s such an obvious statement that I really shouldn’t have to say that.  A dead person is no longer under the power or authority of anyone.  One can stand over the coffin and tell the dead body to do this or do that, and they won’t move a muscle.  They won’t, and in truth, they can’t do anything.  They are dead.  In our Scripture from the Book of Romans, Paul tells us, believers and followers of the Lord Jesus, how in a very real sense we are dead to one thing.  Let’s look at what God’s Word says.

As Paul began our Scripture, he spoke about being baptized into Christ Jesus, and how through that, we are baptized into His death (vs. 3).  Paul spoke of being deeply immersed in the belief and faith in Jesus Christ.  By placing saving faith in the Lord Jesus, we are spiritually immersed into the person of the Savior, united and identifying with Him.  Jesus became our substitute, and our identification with Him in His death gives us all the benefits for which He died.

In the days of the New Testament Church, baptism by immersion, where the body is submerged beneath the surface of the water, was the common form of baptism.  Going down under the water pictures and symbolizes the death and burial of the old way of life.  Coming up out of the water symbolizes a resurrection to a new life in Christ.  Our old, sinful life is dead and buried.  Paul spoke of how when we are saved, when we have accepted the Lord Jesus as Savior, we are now dead to sin and alive to a new life in Christ.  Being physically baptized symbolizes and shows that fact, and publicly identifies us as believers, united with Jesus.  Because our old life of sin has died, we are to treat the desires and temptations of that old nature as if they are dead.

Those who are united with Jesus by faith, His death and burial become ours (vs 4).  We are also united with Him in His resurrection.  Sin describes our old self, our old life, and the righteousness we receive through and from Jesus at salvation describes our new life.  All of our sins and transgressions of our past are now dead and buried.

When we accept Jesus as Savior, our old sinful self dies with Him, and the new life we now live is a divinely given life.  We do not need to, and should not follow the old sinful ways of our past (vs. 6).  The power and penalty of sin died with Jesus on the cross.  Believers are freed from its power.  Jesus defeated the power of sin at work in us.  We can enjoy a new life in Christ because we are united with Him in His death and resurrection.  Our desire for, and bondage to sin died with Him.  We now have freedom from sin’s hold on us.

Jesus was our substitute, and in the mind of God, we died with Him when we were saved.  Jesus set us free from the bondage of the sin nature.  He died to sin in two senses - He met the legal demands that were over the sinner.  He paid the penalty for sin.  Jesus also broke the power of sin over all believers.  We do not have to obey the orders of sin in our life any more.

We should now regard our old sinful nature as dead and unresponsive to sin.  Since death has no more dominion over Jesus, it has no more dominion over us.  The power of the sin nature is broken.  Because of our union with Jesus Christ, we are no longer obligated to follow those desires.

As believers and followers of Jesus, we need to consider ourselves to be what God has, in fact, made us, and that is dead to sin.  Remember that person lying in the coffin?  They can’t do anything.  No one can tell them to do anything.  If you are saved, you are now a dead person to sin, so act like one!

His Mercy Endures Forever

Psalm 136:1-4, 23-26

What is one of the best ways to learn something?  Repetition of the lesson.  Repeating something over and over again is one very good way to memorize, or get a lesson firmly implanted in our brain.  If we have something important to tell another person, we frequently repeat our message to them in order to be sure they heard.  If it’s important, we will often repeat our words.   God does the same thing.  If He repeats something several times in the Bible, it must be something important!  Our psalm for today has a message from the Lord that He has repeated over and over again.  It must be something important.  Let’s take a look at what this message is.

Today we are highlighting only the first and the last few verses of our psalm for this week, but the whole psalm is worthy of a read through.  This psalm, both in Biblical times and also throughout Church history, was very often recited responsively.  A priest, pastor, or church leader would recite the first half of each verse, with the congregation responding with the second half of the verse.  Throughout each of the twenty-six verses, the refrain is always the same words - “For His mercy endures forever.”  Obviously the Lord God has something that He wants us to know, to really get into our heads and hearts, and that is that His mercy endures forever.

What is mercy?  For a Christian, mercy is when God withholds from us the punishment that we justly deserve for our sins.  God’s mercy is most evident when He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for us, paying the price of our sins, so that all who trust in Him will not suffer the just punishment of hell.  Even after we have been saved, and we commit some sin, God could dispense some just correction upon us, but so often, in His mercy, He withholds that from us.  God’s grace is when He bestows upon us what we don’t deserve, such as His forgiveness, His blessings, a place in heaven as part of His family.

As our psalm teaches us, we should never forget that God is a good God (vs. 1).  And because He is good, He is therefore merciful.  That is one of the beatitudes that Jesus taught His disciples, an attribute of God’s that He wants His followers to emulate and practice in their lives (Matthew 5:7).

Because God’s mercy endures forever, our thanks to Him should also be everlasting, enduring forever.  The psalm opens and closes with commands to His people to give Him ceaseless thanks (vs. 1-3, 26).  How often does our thanks consist of just a brief saying thanks for our food before we eat?  Many people today have even forsaken that ritual.  When we have received the mercy of God so abundantly in our life, it is only appropriate and proper of us to give Him thanks!

Psalm 136 highlights God’s mercy in His creation (vs. 5-9), and then it focuses on the mercy that He showed to the people of Israel when He brought them out of bondage in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, and defeating Pharaoh, along with the kings of the Amorites and Bashan (vs. 10-22).  God does not forget those to whom He has given life.  He provides for every creature, and nourishes us (vs. 25).

God has rescued us (vs. 24), and has redeemed us by breaking the power of the one who has us bound, namely Satan, the prince of darkness.  Yahweh remembers His mercy and grace, and forgets our sins.  Man forgets God’s mercy and grace, and keeps a tally of others (and often their own) sins.

In closing, we need to remember that Yahweh is a God of gods, and a Lord of lords (vs. 2-3).  We can trust His promises.  He will never go back on His Word.  God’s love and mercy endures forever.  We do not need to ever fear that God will run out of love and mercy, because it flows from a well that will never run dry.  It will never fail us.  It will never end.  Whatever comes my way, I can rest assured that God’s faithful love for me endures forever.

A Reason To Rejoice

Isaiah 51:9-11

Once in a while something so wonderful happens in our life that we just feel like singing, maybe even dancing.  We can’t help but shout out and share the good news of what happened to us.  All of our other problems just fade into the background.  Our brief Scripture passage from the prophet Isaiah reminds us of a joyous event of deliverance that occurred to the Hebrew people that would bring singing and praise even centuries after it happened.  As Christians and followers of the Lord Jesus, we too have something so wonderful that He brought to us, that we can sing and shout for joy, as well.

As our Scripture opens, we read a brief prayer that the prophet Isaiah made.  The people of Judah needed God’s help.  Things were looking rather grim for them, and the Lord didn’t seem to be around.  He was silent, and Isaiah cried out to Him to wake up, so to speak (vs. 9).  Naturally God doesn’t ever sleep.  He is not a human, and doesn’t need to rest.  However, when He wasn’t answering their prayers, He might have seemed like a parent or spouse whose help you need, but you find them napping instead of helping.  Wake up!  Help me!  That was the people’s cry.

Isaiah reminded God of the times in the past when He came to His people’s aid.  He reminded God that it was He who had defeated Rahab and the serpent (vs. 9).  Again, God is not human, and He doesn’t need to be reminded of anything.  His memory is perfect.  It is us who need the reminding, and though Isaiah was speaking to the Lord, he was in essence reminding the people and himself of all that the Lord had done for them in the past.

Who or what is this Rahab and serpent that Isaiah was speaking of here?  Rahab was the name of a mythological sea monster, and was frequently spoken of by the Israelites and in Scripture to refer to the nation of Egypt.  The serpent, or as some versions of the Bible say, the dragon, is a reference to Satan, the enemy of all of God’s people.  In the Book of Genesis we read of Jacob’s family going into Egypt to escape a famine.  There they grew in number, and the Egyptian rulers grew suspicious of them, forcing them into servitude.  No one enjoys being a slave, and the Hebrews cried out to God.  He heard their cry, and brought them a mighty deliverance!  God broke the arm of Rahab, the nation of Egypt and their ruler, Pharaoh, when He brought the people out from bondage.

As we read further in verse 10, we are reminded of that great deliverance, when God parted the waters of the Red Sea, and led the people forth out of Egypt, saving them from the armies of Pharaoh.  All throughout Scripture we read about this great deliverance.  This was something so wonderful and memorable, that for centuries to come the people would remember with singing and rejoicing (vs. 11).

The people of Israel are not the only ones who have reason to sing and rejoice in the Lord.  Every believer and follower of the Lord Jesus Christ do, as well.  We have an even greater reason to sing for joy than the Israelites did, as we have been delivered from the bondage of Satan, from sin, and from death.  Just this past week we remembered the sacrifice that Jesus made with His death on the cross for our sins.  All those who accept Him as their Savior have their sins forgiven.  His resurrection from the dead destroyed the power of death, and we need fear that no more.  Jesus destroyed the power of Satan, that serpent, setting us free from his bondage.  We are the ransomed of the Lord, and we can sing with everlasting joy.  All of our sorrow and sighing can flee (vs. 11).

Is there something that is holding you in bondage?  Is there some “Rahab” in your life?  Is your life still held captive by sin and Satan, that evil serpent?  Cry out to the Lord Jesus, and give your life over to Him.  He delivered the descendants of Jacob from bondage to Egypt by His powerful arm.  The death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus destroyed the power of Satan, and when we call upon Him, He will set us free from Satan’s kingdom of darkness.  Call upon Him today, and come to Zion with singing and everlasting joy!

Resurrection Morning

John 20:1-18

The death of a loved one is a very sad, and sometimes distressing time.  Imagine then, if right after the death of someone dear, you went to the funeral home and found that their body was missing.  It just wasn’t there anymore.  That would certainly add to your grief and distress!  Our Scripture today gives a somewhat similar scenario.  Let’s look into one of the most joyous passages in the Bible.

Our Scripture begins very early on a Sunday morning.  The sun hadn’t even come up, yet Mary Magdalene was already up and had her supplies ready.  Late the previous Friday afternoon, the Lord Jesus had been crucified.  Several of His followers had removed the body from the cross, and laid Him in a tomb donated by a wealthy believer, Joseph of Arimathea.  Because sunset was quickly arriving, the beginning of the Sabbath, they could only give superficial anointing and care to the body of Jesus.  A proper anointing had to wait until Sunday, so that was why Mary Magdalene was up before dawn, ready to go to the tomb to take care of that.  That’s when she found that the grave was empty.

Running back to the remaining disciples, Mary Magdalene told them what she found, and they all assumed that the body had been stolen.  In their state of deep grief and shock, having just witnessed the brutal execution of their beloved leader and friend, the disciples seemed to have forgotten the words that Jesus had told them several times, just a few weeks earlier, that He would betrayed, turned over to His enemies, crucified, and that on the third day He would rise again (Mark 8:31, 9:31-32, 10:32-34).  Sure enough, Jesus had been betrayed and crucified.  And now, the third day, evidence was indicating that He had indeed risen.  Yet they did not comprehend that.

Grave robbers were an occasional occurrence.  Sometimes wealthier people might be buried with valuables or jewels, which the robbers would steal.  Also, if the dead were wealthy, the body might be held for ransom.  Pay them money and they would return the body so it could rest in peace.  However, the disciples, along with Mary, didn’t really think that theory through.  Jesus was not wealthy and had no valuables or jewels to be buried with.  Nor was His family or the disciples wealthy in order to pay a ransom.  Also, with the religious authorities against the disciples, along with Roman guards, what robber would want to risk getting involved with that?

Another clue that it wasn’t grave robbers was the fact that when Peter and John arrived at the tomb, they found the grave clothes lying there, neatly folded (vs. 5-7).  These would be the linen sheets that would be loosely wrapped around a dead body, somewhat like a mummy, only more loose, with ointments to slow down decomposition.  A grave robber would have left the grave clothes on.  It would be easier to carry a wrapped up body, and certainly more pleasant.  Even if they had taken the linen off, they wouldn’t have taken the time to neatly fold them!  So it was obvious a grave robber hadn’t come.

Another point to consider as we consider this Gospel account of the Resurrection, is that when Mary Magdalene first came to the tomb, the stone covering the entrance was already rolled away (vs. 1).  This stone weighed possibly 1,000 lbs or more.  Mary, even with several other women, could not have moved it.  Even several men would have had a difficult time, and the Roman guards would certainly have prevented that.  That stone was not rolled away for Jesus to get out.  He, in His resurrection body, could have walked through it, as He did through doors later (John 20:19-26).  The stone was rolled away so that people could get in and see that Jesus had indeed risen!

As our Gospel account continues, the disciples Peter and John left the grave, but Mary Magdalene remained.  Jesus had cast seven demons out of Mary, and thereafter she was a faithful follower and financial supporter of His ministry (Luke 8:2-3).  (Nowhere in the Bible does it ever say she was a prostitute.  That slander started in the late 6th century.)  She remained at the tomb crying.  She was crying both for the loss of the Savior she loved, and also with the thought that His body was taken and was lying who knew where.  It was then that, not only did she encounter two angels (vs. 12-13), but moments later she saw the Lord Jesus, the first person to see Him (vs. 14).  However, Mary did not recognize Him (vs. 15).  Perhaps tears blurred her eyes.  Also, she would have had the vivid memory of Jesus’ battered and tortured body in her mind.  Now Jesus appeared in His resurrection body.

As soon as Jesus spoke Mary Magdalene’s name, she recognized Him.  Just as Scripture says, His sheep know His Voice (John 10:27).  Mary did not meet the risen Jesus until she had discovered the empty tomb.  We, too, cannot really meet Jesus until we discover that He is alive, and that the tomb is empty.  Have you met the Risen Savior yet, and know that He is alive?

Paid In Full

John 19:30

One thing we like to hear are the words “Paid in Full”.  After years of paying a mortgage every month, or perhaps car payments, student loans, or any other time payments, when the notice comes stamped “Paid in Full”, it is very good news.  Knowing that there is one less thing taking our money every month brings a big feeling of relief.  It’s no fun having a debt hanging over one’s head!  Our Scripture verse for today tells us about another “Paid in Full” time.

Today we’re looking at just one verse from the Gospel of John.  While Jesus hung on the cross He made seven statements.  The sixth of the seven statements was “It is finished.” If we look at a list of these seven statements, they are all rather self-explanatory in their meaning.  However, one might wonder exactly what Jesus meant here.  Let’s take a closer look at this sixth statement of Jesus, and what He meant.

Just prior to our verse, Jesus had made His fifth statement, which was “I thirst”.  That’s easy to understand.  Part of the torture of being crucified was the terrible thirst that one experienced.  Jesus made that statement, and then one of the soldiers dipped a sponge in some sour wine, put the sponge on a stick, and handed it up to Jesus.  Then Jesus made our sixth statement, “It is finished.”  Some people might think that He was telling the soldier that He was done taking the sour wine, that the soldier could take the sponge back.  No, that is not what this statement meant.  Jesus wasn’t just having a brief conversation with the soldier.  It was so much more.

The best way to understand this statement of Jesus is to look at the words in the original Greek language.  The Greek word used is “tetelestai”.  It is a word that archeologists have found on sheets of ancient Greek papyrus, which were old billing receipts and accounting ledgers.  Written across these bills was the word “tetelestai”, which meant “Paid in Full”.  The people whose bills those were did not need to make any more payments.  The bill was paid!  Depending on how big the bill was, that would have been a happy day for the debtor!  The creditor could no longer demand any more money.  The debt was paid.

Some people may think that they don’t owe anything to anyone.  They may live in a house that was already paid for, perhaps by their parents or grandparents.  They don’t carry a credit card or car debt.  However, we all have one debt that we owe, and that is our sin debt.  We all have sinned (Romans 3:23).  No one is exempt from that.  And the penalty for sin is death and separation from God (Romans 6:23).  There is no way that any of us can fully pay the penalty for our sins.  It is like a creditor coming to us and telling us that we owe multiple billions of dollars.  How could we possibly pay that!!

If we have a large bill that we need to pay, we may be lucky to have someone with more money than us who is willing to pay that debt.  Generally a creditor doesn’t care who pays the bill, as long as it gets paid.  In the case of our sin debt, a debt we had no way of fulfilling, there was Someone who paid that for us, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ.  There was one thing that Jesus came to earth to do, and that was to redeem mankind.  His death on the cross paid our sin-debt.

Just moments prior to His death, Jesus cried out Tetelestai!  Paid in full!  I do not imagine that He said that in a mumble, but instead cried that out triumphantly.  Jesus had finished what He had come to do.  The entire work of redemption had been brought to completion.  Jesus paid the full penalty for our sins.  With His death, the complex sacrificial system ended because Jesus took all sin upon Himself.

When someone pays a huge bill that we owe, we should be smart enough to believe that they really did pay it, and not continue to try and make payments ourselves, especially for a debt so huge we could never possibly finish paying it!  Our sin-debt has been paid by Jesus.  He paid that with His Blood on the Cross.  Stop trying to pay that yourself.  Stop trying to get to Heaven by your good works, because there will never be enough to pay that debt.  Accept what Jesus did.  He paid that for you.  Tetelestai!  Paid in Full!

Looking Unto Jesus

Hebrews 11:39 - 12:3

What is the best way to walk a really straight line?  If a farmer wants to plow a straight line, how can he make sure that the furrows are straight, and not veering off at an angle?  The best way is to keep your eyes focused on a single object off in the distance.  Keep walking towards the object, eyes steadily on that point.  If you look around at other things, or down at your feet, your path will be crooked.  In our Scripture for today, we read the instruction of what to keep our eyes on in order to successfully go through life.

In the Book of Hebrews we find a very well-known chapter, just prior to our passage, which is sometimes referred to as Faith’s Hall of Fame.  Each of the people who are listed in Hebrews 11 were believers and followers of God, who had genuine faith that persevered to the end (vs. 39-40).  They continued to believe the truth, in spite of harsh circumstances and trials in their life.   God’s Word lists them as examples for us to pattern our life after.  What helped and encouraged these believers to continue on in their walk of faith?  They kept their eyes on the Lord.  He is the Supreme One to follow, especially when we consider all that He endured in His life.

As we continue our brief Scripture passage, the author of Hebrews also compares the Christian life to running a race.  Most of us have seen races, whether at school sporting events or when watching the Olympics.  The runners in the race do not load themselves down with weights.  If they want to win, which would be their goal, they don’t run with backpacks filled with bricks!  They also want to make sure the running path is free from anything that could trip them or get tangled around their feet.  The Christian life can be weighed down by excess baggage, such as worries or our past.  As we will all find, sin is something that will trip us up throughout life.  God’s Word urges us to lay aside that weight (vs. 1).  We need to cast that weight onto Jesus, and then our burdens will be lighter, and the race easier (I Peter 5:7).

Another thing about runners, particularly for those who run marathons, is that runners in a race cannot set their own course.  Doing so will disqualify them.  If, when running a marathon, the runner decides to go off the designated path because it might seem easier and quicker, that runner is disqualified.  They cannot pick the route.  In like manner, we must run the race that God sets for us, not one we pick out for ourselves.

Running a race can be exhausting, and one thing that helps the athlete is to focus on the finish line.  He needs endurance, that steady determination to keep going, regardless of the temptation to slow down or give up.  When we’ve exhausted our resources, and life’s struggles are too much, we need to focus on the finish, and run the race with endurance.  As mentioned at the start, keep the eyes focused on the goal, and in the case of a race, it is the finish line.  In the life of the Christian we are to keep our eyes focused on Jesus.

Satan will try to get us to look at ourselves and other people, and that will only cause us to stumble and perhaps outright fall.  When we are trying to reach a goal, looking only at our feet will make us veer off course.  The best way to go straight towards something is to keep looking at it.  Our goal is heaven and having a life more like the Savior.  We need to focus on that destination, Jesus Christ, and look only to Him.

Our trials may seem heavy and hard, but when we look to Jesus, and we consider what He went through on that Good Friday, the brutal crucifixion, and the taunting and shame of that whole day, what we are bearing is nothing compared to what He endured (vs. 2).  He looked beyond the cross to see the joy that was before Him, the knowledge that His death would bring salvation to the world.

Jesus is the supreme example of willingness to suffer in obedience to God.  He faced hostility, and endured the cross.  We are not the first to struggle with problems we face.  Others have run the race and won, and their witness should stir us to run and win also.

The Suffering Of The Messiah

Psalm 22:1-21

When a historical event takes place, we often find journalists and news crews there, taking down what happens for news reports.  How about when what is reported was written down a thousand years before the event actually took place, and written down with great accuracy?  In our psalm for this week, Holy Week, we read what might seem like an eye-witness news account of the crucifixion of Jesus.  Let’s look into Psalm 22.

Psalm 22 was written by David, and it reads as if he was right there at the crucifixion, yet as we know, he lived around 1000 BC.  We don’t specifically know the occasion of the psalm, but it is obvious that he was going through some distressing time.  The psalm opens with a cry to God (vs. 1-2).  David felt at that moment, and in the crisis he was in, that he was abandoned by God.  Have you ever felt like that?  Have you ever looked at the distressing situation you find yourself in, and feel as if God abandoned you?  Many of us have at one point or another.

We read in the Gospels that this is what Jesus cried out on the cross (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34).  It was the fourth of the seven words or sentences that Jesus said while on the cross, spoken maybe halfway through the six hours He hung there for us.  Because Jesus was taking the full punishment for our sins, God could not hear or answer His prayer right at that time.  Because God is so holy, He couldn’t even look upon this.  While His precious and dearly-beloved Son hung upon the cross, bearing our sins, God had to turn His back on Him.  Jesus could honestly cry out that He was forsaken.  Because Jesus went through that for us, we don’t ever need to fear that we have been abandoned by God.  Sometimes we may feel like we have, but in reality God will never abandon His Blood-bought children.

From His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane to when He took His last breath, Jesus suffered not only physical torture, but also terrible ridicule and shame at the hands of both the soldiers and the religious leaders.  His treatment was inhumane, and He could honestly say that He felt like a worm, and no man (vs. 6-7).  Jesus took the lowest place among men, to be rejected, scorned, spit upon, and humiliated in infamy and shame.  The reproach and ridicule hurled upon Jesus was overwhelming (Matthew 27:39-44; Luke 23:35).  Judas mocked Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when He was arrested by greeting Him with a kiss.  The chief priests and scribes laughed at Jesus to scorn.  Herod mocked Him.  The soldiers jeered Jesus, and brutally insulted Him.  While Jesus hung on the cross, He was also mocked by the crowds standing around.

Then in our psalm, we come upon a direct quotation that David made, which centuries later we find being said by the people who stood around the cross while mocking Jesus, quoted basically word for word (vs. 8).  The Jewish religious leaders said these very words to Jesus while He was on the cross (Matthew 27:43).  These were people who should have known the Scriptures, who should have been very familiar with this psalm, yet they were willfully blind to what God’s Word said.

All throughout this horrible day for Jesus, His enemies came upon Him, physically and verbally, like angry bulls and fearsome lions (vs. 12-13).  Where were His friends, His disciples, people we would think He could count on?  Everyone fled Jesus during His hours of need (vs. 11).  There is none to help.  And as we discussed, even God had to turn His back on Him.

Our psalm continues with some very clear verses that vividly describe how one might feel during a crucifixion (vs. 14-16), this being prophesied centuries before the Romans used this as a common form of execution.  One’s bones are pulled out of the joint.  It is very difficult to breathe while hanging on a cross, and the heart might feel like it is exploding.  In the hot desert climate, hanging in the sun, one gets extremely thirsty.  And, of course, crucifixion involves piercing the hands and feet with the nails.  All of this was prophesied centuries before Jesus was crucified.  It was a very tortuous death that Jesus suffered for each one of us.

Then, as a final insult, while Jesus hung on the cross, the soldiers who had finished crucifying Him, divided up His clothes among themselves (vs. 18).  These were the only items on earth that Jesus owned.  This was one very specific prophecy about Jesus that was fulfilled, one that Jesus would have had no way of influencing.  All four Gospel writers attest to the fulfillment of this prophecy (Matthew 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:34; and John 19:24).

This is an amazing passage of Scripture.  It might have seemed like David was there, penning exactly what was happening.  Nothing that any of us have gone through, or ever will, can compare to what we see that Jesus went through.  He went through all that was described in this psalm for us.  We can sing with the great hymn writer Philip Bliss, “Hallelujah, What a Savior!”