The Resurrected Life 1

Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

If you remember back to the summer, Pastor Andy led us through a series on discipleship from the Gospel of Luke and we looked at the radical nature of following Christ and saw firsthand the sacrifice, the commitment, and the high cost of being an authentic Christian. Now gauging by the feedback from the past series, many of us are interested in pursuing that life and even those of you who are not Christian yet are intrigued by the idea of living, thinking, walking, and being like Jesus. If you are into making a real difference in this world, this notion of following Jesus should be taken seriously. After all, if you consider some of the greatest men and women of the 20th century, many of them considered their relationship with Christ the primary reason for their impact. Your have Mother Theresa in India, Desmond Tutu in South Africa, Martin Luther King right here in the United States, all devout Christians. (Here is a fun fact: MLK is a graduate of Boston University. My son, Jeremiah, happens to be applying there. I told him if he gets in, he should change his name to Martin Luther Kim.) This list of history changing Christians goes on and on. The two greatest novelists of modern history are arguably Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, again two ardent Christians.

It is not a stretch to say that these men and women lived life to its fullest just like their Savior and that very same power is available to each of us. The purpose of these next two message will be to examine the resurrected life that is promised to us through the death and resurrection of Christ. Turn with me to our text for this morning.

As we go through this passage, I want to look at three important steps that will move us into the newness of life that we are all looking for:

This morning, we want to look at three important steps that will move you into the newness of life that we are all looking for:

Death to the Law

Union with Christ

Fruitfulness of the Spirit

Death to the Law

We have been looking at some foundational material in terms of what it means to live life in the Spirit and it is important that we understand some basic concepts that might be new to us but which are essential to our understanding of New Testament Christianity. The first is understanding what it means to be dead to the law. Obviously this means nothing to us as non-Jews living in modern times but for a devout Jew like Paul, the law meant everything to him. It was the source of his validation, his sense of worth, and even his acceptance as a human being. It was his calling card, his ticket to a high social standing, what made his parent’s proud, and his source of personal significance.

Every culture across the world has some set of norms or a code of behavior that validates your existence and tells the community that you are a good person. So it is no wonder that people project this very same expectation on their own gods. In fact, every other religion and every other philosophy of life says if you want validation, acceptance, if you want a ticket to heaven, you need to earn it through your performance. If you are a non-Christian or a new believer and you have ever wondered how Christians can make this exclusive claim to salvation, herein lies the answer. If you have ever taken a multiple choice test and you are confused about the right answer, one of the strategies is to look for the choice that is clearly different from all the other options.

All human religion and every human heart has believed that acceptance to God was based on moral performance. That is until the apostle Paul had his history-changing encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus and he realized that everything that he had built his life on was actually worthless in the eyes of God. And through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, it dawned on him why Jesus had to die even for him, a Pharisee of Pharisees. In trying to attain a flawless record of performance, he had become a miserable, hateful, even murderous human being. His performance according to the law made him acceptable to an inner circle of people, perhaps exalted by his peers but it drove him further away from God. It’s not hard to see that is the trap that so many people fall into. People driven to prove themselves professionally, ethically, and even religiously can be some of the most venomous.

But the thing is this law based, performance orientation is so much a part of us and so much a part of our world that in essence it is almost like we are married to it. It is so hard to differentiate where I end and where all my insecurities about my worth begins. And what Paul is saying in his analogy is that those who believe in the Gospel are no longer married to this unhealthy partner because you have died with Christ and once you die, that first marriage is annulled, it is null and void. And now that you are risen with Christ, you’re free to purse a new marriage.

Union with Christ

The power of the resurrected life can only be fully realized if you are willing to give yourself completely to this new union with Christ. This is exactly what the apostle Paul is trying to get at in verse 4.

Romans 7:4 ESV

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

And because this first husband is now dead to you, you are now free to enjoy this new marriage. But we all recognize this is not as easy as it sounds because we keep on looking back at that old marriage. The memory of that first marriage, the hold that it had on you cannot be completely broken until you give your whole heart to Christ. It isn’t until we grow deeper into our new union with Christ that we can create distance from those old attachments.

There is a funny story that I heard through a friend that might help you visualize this. Married couples, especially when we get older have oddly morbid conversations. One of those conversations is the topic of who gets to die first as if we had a choice. Chances are you are not going to die peacefully together in bed. One of you will have to go first and typically the person who has decided they will meet the Lord first gives permission to their future widowed spouse to remarry. I heard through a source that Pastor Keith and his wife had a similar conversation and Yunghi agreed that he could get remarried but with one condition, he has to keep a picture of her on the bed stand. It’s hilarious but we all know that is going to ruin any chance of this hypothetical new marriage from forming deeply.

Justification by faith means not only are you completely absolved of your sin but you are also declared righteous in the sight of God because of your faith in Christ and not by your good works. This is central to our understanding of Christianity because in essence this doctrine is the starting point of your journey with God. If you don’t get this, nothing else about Christianity will make a whole lot of sense. If you are a non-Christian or a new believer and you have ever wondered how Christians can make this exclusive claim to salvation, herein lies the answer. If you have ever taken a multiple choice test and you are confused about the right answer, one of the strategies is to look for the answer that is clearly different from all the other options. Justification by faith is what sets Christianity apart from all of the other world religions and all other philosophies of life. Everything and everyone else will tell you that you need to earn your salvation by being a moral person and doing good works but the apostle Paul tell us that you cannot earn your salvation through the deeds of the flesh. Salvation is only available as a free gift of grace through your relationship with Christ.

Growing deeper in your relationship with Jesus Christ is the only hope you have of being freed from the law of performance. And this is where justification by faith is so instrumental in dying to this old law through the formation of an intimate relationship with Christ. Justification by faith means not only are your forgiven of your sin, God has gone infinitely further by declaring you as righteous as His own Son deserving of all the rewards and all the glory. And this is a solely a result of faith in Christ and not by anything you have done. This is central to our understanding of Christianity because in essence this doctrine is the starting point of your journey with God. If you don’t get this, not much of Christianity will make a whole lot of sense. Everything and everyone else will tell you that you need to earn your salvation by being a moral person and doing good works but the apostle Paul tell us that you cannot earn your salvation through your own deeds. You cannot justify yourself as hard as you try. Salvation is only available as a free gift of grace through your relationship with Christ.

Death to the law means accepting the fact that you have been justified by faith. Justification by faith means not only are you completely absolved of your sin but you are also declared righteous in the sight of God because of your faith in Christ and not by your good works. This is central to our understanding of Christianity because in essence this doctrine is the starting point of your journey with God. If you don’t get this, nothing else about Christianity will make a whole lot of sense. If you are a non-Christian or a new believer and you have ever wondered how Christians can make this exclusive claim to salvation, herein lies the answer. If you have ever taken a multiple choice test and you are confused about the right answer, one of the strategies is to look for the answer that is clearly different from all the other options. Justification by faith is what sets Christianity apart from all of the other world religions and all other philosophies of life. Everything and everyone else will tell you that you need to earn your salvation by being a moral person and doing good works but the apostle Paul tell us that you cannot earn your salvation through the deeds of the flesh. Salvation is only available as a free gift of grace through your relationship with Christ.

Now here is the nuanced but important difference between the two pathways of salvation:

1. The first path makes heaven and eternal life the primary reason for your good works and God is really an afterthought. Ironically, this is the law of sin and death because this path is a dead end.

2. In the second path, your relationship with God is the sole reason for your good works because you already know that your salvation is secure. This is the law of the Spirit of life.

If you can get the truth of justification by faith into your heart, it actually frees you to focus on your relationship with God. And maybe the best way to think about this is in pressing the analogy of marriage a little further. If there is a huge income disparity between two people who are dating, what will be the elephant in the room? Money and specifically the hidden motivation of the poorer person in the relationship. I heard that in South Korea, there is this whole wave of younger men who are looking to marry successful, educated, older women who will support their lifestyles. Clearly there are mixed motivations in these relationships and the only way to gauge the authenticity of love is to take the issue of money off the table. This is not a perfect analogy but in our relationship with God, eternal life in heaven is the elephant in the room because everybody wants to live forever in heaven. (If you grew up in the church, we all probably heard an incomplete version of the gospel.)

The question isn’t whether or not you want to be in heaven, the real question is whether you want to be there with God or just with your friends and family like a sale at the Gap. So justification by faith takes the matter of heaven off the table, so to speak. Your path to eternal life is already taken care of. You don’t have to do anything to earn it or prove yourself through good works because the only basis for eternal life is a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ. After all, what is the point of heaven if you don’t want anything to do with the God who will be there waiting for you.

This is where the Holy Spirit comes in because His presence in our lives is the only way we can have this authentic relationship with Christ otherwise He remains an historic figure who lived, died, rose again, and ascended into heaven. Through the Spirit, the Jesus that we read about in the Gospels become a living, loving, active, present reality. Jurgen Moltmann, the great German reformed theologian, describes our relationship with the Holy Spirit in this way:

What serves the discipleship of Jesus, and can be put to use there, comes from the Holy Spirit, and what comes from the Holy Spirit leads us along the way of Jesus Christ and into his discipleship. What the Synoptic Gospels call the discipleship of Jesus, the apostle Paul calls life in the Spirit.

Jurgen Moltmann. The Source of Life (Kindle Locations 258-260). Kindle Edition.

Fruitfulness in the Spirit

This week, If you remember back to the summer, Pastor Andy led us through a series on discipleship from the Gospel of Luke and we looked at the radical nature of following Christ and saw firsthand the sacrifice, the commitment, and the high cost of being an authentic Christian. Now gauging by the feedback from the past series, many of us are interested in pursuing that life and even those of you who are not Christian yet are intrigued by the idea of living, thinking, walking, and being like Jesus. If you are into making a real difference in this world, this notion of following Jesus should be taken seriously. After all, if you consider some of the greatest men and women of the 20th century, many of them considered their relationship with Christ the primary reason for their impact. Your have Mother Theresa in India, Desmond Tutu in South Africa, Martin Luther King right here in the United States, all devout Christians. (Here is a fun fact: MLK is a graduate of Boston University. My son, Jeremiah, happens to be applying there. I told him if he gets in, he should change his name to Martin Luther Kim.) This list of history changing Christians goes on and on. The two greatest novelist of modern history are arguably Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, again two ardent Christians.

Through the Spirit and His Word, we can be as close to Jesus as the men and women who walked with Him 2000 years ago and we can begin to bear the right type of fruit in our lives. To have the Holy Spirit in us means to have Christ united to us. In more traditional cultures, fair or unfair, the health of a marriage was measured by the type of children you produced. If you had good children, it meant you had a good marriage. If you produce bad children, it meant you had a bad marriage. In the case of people this doesn’t always hold true but in the case of our union with Christ, the fruitfulness of our lives is guaranteed.

Death to the Law

John 15:5 ESV

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

Union with Christ

Under the old law of sin, why are you trying to do good? Why are you trying to be a good moral person? Why are going out to feed the homeless? Why are you serving at church? If is to justify your existence to yourself, to others, and even to God. If it is to prove how worthy you are, then that fruit is corrupt. It is rotten at its core. Now here’s the catch, if you understand the concept of free justification and your reaction is “Oh good, I don’t have to do good, I don’t have to perform, I can let loose.” This doesn’t mean you are Christian, it proves that you are using God to get to his riches. And if you’re using God to get the riches of heaven, you are actually no better than a Pharisee. Those who love Him, obey him.

The Epistle to the Romans 1. Released from the Law, Joined to Christ (7:1–6)

Our new relationship with Christ enables us—and requires us—to produce those character traits, thoughts, and actions that will be “for God’s glory.

But under the law of the Spirit, you’re finally free to bear good fruit, fruit that will last because now you are no longer using your performance to justify yourself but to bring glory to God.

Serving by the way of the Spirit

The Epistle to the Romans 1. Released from the Law, Joined to Christ (7:1–6)

Our new relationship with Christ enables us—and requires us—to produce those character traits, thoughts, and actions that will be “for God’s glory.

And it is under the law of the Spirit, you’re finally free to bear good fruit, fruit that will last because now you are no longer using your performance to justify yourself , you are no longer using God to get to heaven but you are living to bring glory to Him alone.