Becoming Like Him in His Death

or

Dead men don't drive drunk


Romans 6:1-14

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Read Matthew 27:27-50

When the Stoke's house burned down, friends of ours, the Quigleys, who were their neighbors were among the first to come over to help. It was a horrifying experience for them as they looked on helplessly. They felt horror, grief, helplessness, fear.

These are all normal human responses to suffering and tragedy. And it's natural that we should feel these kinds of emotions on Good Friday as we consider the suffering of Jesus. It can be almost unbearable to me to imagine in my mind the pain of the nails being pounded through his palms.

There is nothing wrong with responding with grief and tears and emotion. But this morning I want to move us beyond a purely emotional response. I would invite you to consider what Good Friday means for how we live as Christians. How does Jesus death affect the way we think and act? The significance of Good Friday should not be merely in how we feel, but in how we live

Romans 6:1-14

Paul makes two simple points in this passage -- actually one point and an application:

His one major point is this: When we become Christians we die to sin. He says this in different ways: We were united with him in his death; our old self was crucified with him; we were in some sense "baptized" into his death, and our baptism as Christians is an illustration of dying to sin. But for all of these different ways of expressing it, the point is simply that there is some sense in which we died with Jesus on Good Friday.

But in what sense? What does it mean to be dead to sin?

Does it mean that we are like corpses? A corpse is unresponsive to stimulus. Does Paul mean that we are completely unresponsive to sin? Are we supposed to go through life somehow in blissful purity? If this is what he means, then this passage has little relevance for me. I am not dead to sin in this way at all!

When Paul says we are dead to sin, he's not thinking of the biological effects of death, but the legal effects. Let me illustrate with a story I heard on NPR on Wednesday:


Peter Gentry was arrested for drunk driving in 1991 [in Virginia?]. He never made it to court. Tragically, a few months after his arrest he died from multiple injuries in a terrible car crash in Los Angeles. The drunk driving case was closed.

Four years later, in July 1995, Peter Gentry was arrested for drunk driving again, this time in Maryland. Tragically, again, he died just before going to court. This time he met his end in Harare, Zimbabwe where he died of Denzor Hemorrhage Fever. Again the case against him was closed.

But in November 1995 Brantley Parks, the same Police officer who had stopped him in July, caught him swerving and running a stop sign. Unfortunately for Gentry, Officer Parks, being one of America's best and brightest, immediately recognized that dead people don't drive drunk.

Peter Gentry understood the legal effect of death -- death frees us from the penalty and guilt of sin. Gentry got the application a little off, but the major point of what Paul is saying here he understood quite well: When you're dead, the law can't get you. The penalty of sin no longer applies.

Being dead to sin means being free from th epenalty and guilt of sin, but it does not mean that we are somehow unable to sin. It's something like this: Yesterday in his meditation, Al compared our sin to a huge credit card debt. When we come to Jesus, he wipes out the debt -- pays it all completely. Not only that, he guarantees payment of all future debts! The account is in his name; the bill comes to his address.

BUT -- a very big BUT -- Jesus does not take the credit cards away from us. We can still go on using them.

And that is why we need Paul's application, which comes in verse 11 -- "Count yourself dead to sin." His main point: You are dead to sin. His application: Therefore, count or reckon yourself dead to sin and alive to God.

What does it mean to reckon ourselves dead to sin? Think of it like this: When a person marries they leave their single identity behind. Their old "single" self is dead at the marriage ceremony. But the change to ACTING married isn't automatic. A newly married person has to reckon him or herself married. He or she has to learn to think and act differently in accordance with his or her new identity.

So today, as you reflect on the cross, remember that Jesus was not the only one crucified there. Your old self was crucified with him.