Edited contents taken from Living with the End in View, book 2, by Steve Husting
http://www.lulu.com/shop/steve-husting/living-with-the-end-in-view-book-2/paperback/product-753096.html
The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the defining aspect of the Christian faith. No other religion has this story of God dying for sinners. Yet the result of that resurrection — the aftermath of power available to us through the resurrection — is missing from the lives of most Christians. It’s like we heard enough of the gospel story to accept Jesus as our Savior, but not enough to live by the resurrection life and power He came to give us. When He ascended to heaven, He did not intend for us to fend for ourselves until we die and wait to be raised up to heaven. No. His death, burial and resurrection have an immediate effect on those who believe; He sends the Holy Spirit to dwell in us and make that new life a reality. Let’s look closer at the work of the resurrection in our lives.
A Gospel of Grace
The resurrection deals with the power of sin in our lives, breaking it. We are no longer to accept sin’s power nor make excuses for our bad habits and poor choices. Paul wrote, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not!” (Romans 6:1).
How should we view sin? At its heart, sin is living contrary to God’s ordered way of life. Today, we have reinterpreted sins as mental illnesses, far-right ideologies, religious prejudices, or unenlightened cultural mores. And we know how disastrously a doctor’s wrong interpretation of a symptom can ruin a life.
Paul used the figure of baptism to show us why we no longer should accept sinful behavior in us: “How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” (Romans 6:2-3).
Based on that passage, our escape from sin is linked to Christ’s death, and our body’s immersion in water with Christ’s tomb. When Jesus died on the cross, our flesh died with Him. When His body was buried, so was our flesh. When Jesus rose from the dead, He rose free from the demands of the flesh. Baptism signifies the reality that we are free from the flesh and its attraction to the world. In baptism, we sink our flesh into the grave, then rise up free from the flesh to enjoy new life with Christ’s leading.
The flesh is the part of us that seeks its own will, depends on its own resources, and trusts in its own senses more than in God. It relates more to this physical world it experiences than the spiritual sphere. We might say, “Sure, that’s what the Bible says, but this is how I feel about it.” That’s the flesh.
How do we put this resurrection power in practice? When I am confronted with a choice to obey the desire of the flesh or God’s desire, I can count the flesh as dead and buried and decide for God. I can say, “I don’t have to go that way anymore, for I am a child of God and subject to Him. Lord, I give myself to You.” Just as we can walk through the cemetery without fear of skeletal hands erupting from the ground to grab our ankles, so we need not fear the flesh that was buried with Christ stopping us from following God’s will.
When we choose to trust God instead of our feelings, we find grace to live this new life. Grace abounds much more — God’s deliverance is out of proportion to our sin. God does not merely remove those aspects of us that brought misery and replace the misery with boredom but with assurance and joy . . . not replaces it with just peace, but a peace that passes all understanding . . . not just love, but a love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Can you achieve all that in your own power?
Our sin is not just replaced with struggling to hold back sin with much effort, but replaced with the grace to say no to sin and enjoy a holy life. It’s time to move out of the misery of flesh’s self-effort and into the dynamic power of God.
The Dynamics of Death
What reasons do people give for why Jesus died on the cross?
“He died for my sins.”
“To bear my punishment.”
“To show us that God is love.”
“To be an example of suffering.”
“To take me to heaven.”
He certainly died for the above reasons, and more. However, sometimes we can’t see how His death produces the reasons we give for it. We know the car engine starts when we turn the key in the ignition. Most of us don’t know the chain reaction that happens between the key and the engine, the cause and effect, as it were. I began to show more interest in the engine when an auto mechanic showed me the effects of low maintenance. He lifted the small engine out of my Subaru Brat and ran his fingers over the gear teeth — which promptly crumbled. In time, I began to pay more attention to oil and other preventive maintenance to upkeep my car.
If you gave the above answers as to why Jesus died for you, but you feel your life is still crumbling apart, it’s time to look under the hood. Consider the following statement of fact:
“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin” (Romans 6:4-7).
What does this statement have to do with our workaday world? How can crucifying the flesh have practical effect on our daily lives?
Recently I was up late at night, praying and depressed. I like an orderly house. So I was depressed when I surveyed the house and saw the work that needed to be done in the kitchen and living and dining rooms. I prayed for strength for me to help my wife with the chores and put it back in order. (My wife was not to come home until late that evening.)
After prayer I realized that my depression stemmed from concentrating on my weakness (my helpless feelings) rather than God’s strength. I immediately stood up, acknowledged myself dead to the flesh, and went to the kitchen. I wiped and put away the dishes, utensils, pots, and pans. I went to the dining room table, bagged the old newspapers, removed a few of my son’s toys, and cleaned the tabletop. I moved my son’s toys from the floor to a spot where he could remove them later, and moved the couch to a new position. I removed flotsam and jetsam from several pieces of furniture. I was finished.
After I had prayed, I did not wish “something” would happen to the situation. I did not wait for a sign that God would help. I acknowledged that I was already risen with Christ, and when I acted upon that fact with confidence, God’s grace was released, so I could “do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13).
This simple faith has helped people to do more than housework. Christians have overcome shyness to witness to people on the street. Being crucified with Christ has been the foundational truth for building strong marriages and families as couples died to the flesh to live for Jesus. Drug and alcohol addicts have kicked the habit with one step instead of twelve (I quit my nail-biting habit in one day when I realized that I never had to do it again, since the habit did not reflect the image of Christ).
Since the flesh had been buried with Christ and we are risen with Him, we can look at all the applications in the NT of “do this, not that” messages differently. The commandments are not just good standards to live by as best as we can in our own strength. They are attainable by the grace of God for everyone who believes Him — with patience. The Author and Finisher of our Faith has given us every means to present us before Him without fault and in love.
The NT epistle writers refer to this crucifixion process again and again. Colossians 2:11 and 3:8–9 mentions putting off the sins of the flesh. Ephesians 4:22–24 tells us to put off the old man and put on the new. These are different ways of identifying with Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. They are acts of faith, of trusting God’s promise of deliverance instead of your feelings about it. In Galatians 2:20, Paul says that “I am crucified with Christ.” Galatians 5:24 tells us the result of this crucifixion: “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” We truly belong to Christ in practicality and not theoretically when we are dying to the things inside that oppose Him. He hate that which separate us from Him.
A doctor may give us bad news in a visit, then as our minds are clouded in alarm, we miss him telling us the good news of a cure. We absent-mindedly take the prescription, have it filled and taken home, our heads consumed with anxiety. We take the medicine irregularly, not knowing that a regular dosage will effect a cure or manage the symptoms.
Many of us miss key chapters or verses in the Bible, and the good news passes us by, leaving us with unnecessary worry. Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection has already defeated sin. Through faith in Jesus, the medicine is already available; the antidote is within reach of each one of us.
Dead, Dead, Dead
In scores of movies, criminals collapse in a blaze of bullets. With death, the danger is past. The hero and those he saved slump in relief. The SWAT team mops up and leaves. The body in the morgue can threaten them no more.
Nevertheless, the hero’s following nights are interrupted by nightmares. The bed is drenched with sweat. The locks are checked and double-checked. The protagonist is jittery whenever he leaves the house. The threat that stalked them for months is dead and buried, but the habits born of fear continue.
Many Christians live this way, though the flesh is dead and the power of sin is broken. We live in uncertainty rather than assurance, and worry rather than peace. We check our feelings rather than trust God.
Jesus came to give us life and that more abundantly by telling us the truth and empowering us to live it. Paul tells us how to live it: “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives to God” (Romans 6:8-10).
“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.” The two we’s in this passage refers to two separate things. The first we is the flesh to which we have been enslaved. It went into the tomb. The second we is the new creation in Christ. It went into heaven to sit there with Christ (Eph. 2:5-6).
We died with Christ. Imagine the possibilities. . . . When fear arises because one is shy, we assert that it is in the tomb, and refuse to be intimidated. When anger rises and threatens to turn into violence, we can die to it, and choose to respond calmly. We need not obey the fleshly impulses we picked up in our school, environment, upbringing, or thought life. What a new creation in Christ is this! Shall we not crawl out of our cocoons and admire our wings as they rustle into view?
To those who feel they are completely helpless and can make no holy decisions due to their sinfulness, it is possible you have not been exposed to this passage. You are not to remain a helpless slave of sin. Your new identity in Christ is characterized by freedom. Whenever sin presents itself, you can choose the narrow way that leads to life.
To those who believe that God will inevitably make you holy because He chose you, you now know the means by which He makes you holy and recovers you: faith in these truths. When you refuse to give in to rebellion or any other sin and turn to believe Him for this remedy of the exchanged life, you’ll find yourself recovered by God. God recovers you not by mystery or magic, but by telling you the truth to get you to return to Him.
Obey Christ
After Paul had presented his case for God’s way for us to triumph over sin through a life of faith, he turns his attention to those who are still living in sin. “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?” (Romans 6:15-16). Should we be indifferent to sin, since God will forgive us anyway?
“I am a sinner, so I can’t help it. And anyway, God will forgive.”
“This problem has been with me a long time. But God understands.”
“I’m not perfect, just forgiven.”
“Do you not know”? Paul wrote the rest of Romans 6 to explain the severe consequences for believers losing to sin without a fight. Jesus said that we cannot serve two masters. So what will we serve, God or flesh? Paul is not asking whether we received Jesus as our Savior. There’s more! Jesus saved us from the tyranny of sin so we can be led by His Spirit. Do we want this leading?
Paul’s choice of words makes it clear. We are slaves twenty-four hours a day. We may obey sin or obey God. There is no third option. What will we be a slave of today? If we take a stand to obey the Lord, we will enjoy His work of salvation, which is righteousness as we serve from obedience. If we pursue obeying the desires of the flesh that tempt us to sin, it will lead to death.
Are you a servant of sin or of Christ? Make your decision for Christ in an area you struggle with and stick with it. Your decision will do wonders regarding excuses and spiritual warfare, and lay another stone in the foundation of faith. Examine verses that support your stand and memorize them. Plead with God for the grace to serve Him. “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him” (2 Chron. 16:9).
The Flesh is Weak
My little boy’s flesh is weak. When I tell him to pick up his toys, he groans under the burden of putting away the toys scattered all over the floor. Taking his weakness into account, I tell him to put away just ten toys. This presents no problem with him. Fifteen minutes later, I tell him to put away ten more toys. He obeys quickly. And so it goes until the task is done. I deal with the weakness of his flesh.
Our flesh is weak. It has not been trained to follow in the way of righteousness. It has been trained to love and pamper itself. Paul is saying something radical about our flesh and what we need to do about it. It needs to die. It cannot gain the righteousness of God on its own.
Because my son’s flesh is weak, I can give him two things to do, and he’ll remember one of them. “It’s bedtime. Change into your pajamas and put your regular clothes in the hamper.” Later I walk into his room and he is in bed wearing his pajamas, but his clothes are on the floor. As long as I see him completing only half a job, I know his mind is not set on obedience. His mind was distracted somewhere along the line. He did not retain my words.
Earlier in the chapter Paul told us to give our members (bodily limbs and abilities) to God. In this verse he repeats the instruction. “I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness, for holiness” (Romans 6:19).
We too need to be told again. Is the flesh still in charge? Did we forget to follow the Lord’s path of deliverance from sin? If so, are we back in the flesh? Are we thinking of ourselves when we do our tasks, or yielding ourselves to the Lord, praying that God will lead and strengthen? “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41). We are indeed willing to escape from sin, but we cannot train our flesh to deny itself. Our only option is to die to it.
As the passage teaches, when we let the flesh continue in its own way, it grows worse and worse, “lawlessness leading to more lawlessness.” Boys resenting the authority of their parents grow up to resent the authority of their teachers, churches, and police.
At times I tell my son to do something, but make it fun. “It’s time to brush our teeth. First one there wins!” He rushes to the room giggling. As I put toothpaste on his electric toothbrush, I said, “The first one to finish loses.” (This makes him brush longer.) I want my home to be a place where he loves to serve and live. I want him to see that there is joy in serving Jesus in God’s house.
The time is coming when he will be interacting with others from more secular worldviews. They will invite him to sample the illegal or immoral “joys” of the flesh they learned on their own. At that point I want him to know the difference between good and evil, and to know where true joy lies — in obedience to a higher authority, the true joy that comes from the satisfaction of a job well done, free from a nagging conscience, secure in a father’s love.
We are being trained as we respond to the pain and unpleasantness of foolish indulgences. Hopefully, the Father’s chastisement and the consequences of our choices will cause us to reconsider our life choices, as it says in Hebrews, “Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (12:11). The psalmist, knowing the need to tame his tongue, asked God to help him: “Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips” (Ps. 141:3).
We’ve trained our flesh to be unrighteous by letting it lead. Now it’s time to learn righteousness by letting the Father lead.
Half a Gospel
To preach in Jesus the forgiveness of sins is to preach only half a gospel. More than forgiven, we in Christ are brought out from under the power and dominion of sin. Instead of letting our flesh pollute these vessels, we may now yield our lives to Christ for His glory. “For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness, for holiness” (Romans 6:19).
A lad, smeared from head to toe with mud from the backyard creek, must first be washed down by the garden hose and be towel-dried before he’ll be allowed inside the house. To be cleansed by the blood of Jesus is one thing. It also means we are now prepared to enter His house for communion and service.
We were not cleansed just to ease our consciences, but to make us holy. We are not anointed to do our works, but His. We don’t come into His house only to receive, but to give.
Our call to God’s service and house is a privilege accorded to those who were formerly on death row, awaiting their well-deserved, ghastly sentence. How should we respond to His forgiveness, to Him who opened the prison doors, to Him who pardoned us freely by sending His Son to die in our place? He has cleansed away the mud of sin that we may present ourselves as His servants in His house.
Throughout life we’ve been a slave to our selfish thoughts and impulses. A slave of righteousness is one who loves to follow the good thoughts and intentions that come to mind. “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). The one who knows good and runs after it, has indeed been set free, and is following the grace of God wholeheartedly. This servant has set aside the besetting weight of sin with its doubts, fears and worries. The mind of Christ has been put on, the mind of humility, love and service.
Don’t believe only half a gospel and then run back to the mud. Where we misunderstand Jesus’ mission, of saving us from sin, we have half a salvation. Jesus came to deal with our sin problem. When we are continually dealing with it in light of God’s revelation, then Jesus’ mission is a success in us. We’re not set free until we courageously resist sin, submit to God’s service, and enjoy the communion and holiness of God’s house.
All of this meant something to me because the Lord showed me early in my walk that He desired to conform me into the image of His Son (Romans 8:29). I assented to that vision and He showed me this way of salvation. But what if your desire is different? What if you just want comfort and ease? What if you want power or wealth? If your greatest desire involves indulging the flesh, you’ll find yourself working against God. The mind of the flesh is an enemy of God. Christ came to deal with sin and its effects in our lives in order to unify us with God and His will in an intimate way. He did so by crucifying our flesh. God has no other way to save us; we cannot reform the flesh, only put it to death.
Another way to understand this process is complete surrender, entire consecration, or total submission to the will of God. This is what the sanctification process is all about, where we continue on an ever-yielding allegiance to God and His purposes so that we are living billboards of God; to see us is to see God in disposition and behavior. The victory has already been won; our attention is now on the Spirit to reveal the work of the flesh in us so we can run to the throne of grace and find help in time of need: to die to it and rest in Christ’s finished work. This is God’s will; may it be ours as well.
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Edited contents taken from Living with the End in View, book 2, by Steve Husting
http://www.lulu.com/shop/steve-husting/living-with-the-end-in-view-book-2/paperback/product-753096.html
