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(upbeat music) - Hello, this is our daily drive time devotions through the book
of Romans. Hi, I'm Pastor Tom Holliday, and this week we're taking a look
together at Romans chapter six. Yesterday, the first couple of verses of this
chapter reminded us of the fact that God gives us a new life in Christ, and
because of that, we can begin to win in this battle that we have against sin.

By that, I don't mean that we can become perfect in this world, because we
can't, but we can have victory in our daily lives. We can have victory today,
and that's all you can do is live the life that God's given you to live today.
The truth is, if you want to live a life of faith, you have to deal with the
reality of sin in your daily life.

And Romans chapter six, verses three to five tells us that if you're going to deal
with the reality of sin in your daily life, you have to understand the
importance of your baptism. Let me read these verses, Romans six, three to five.
Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into his death?

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just
as Jesus Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too
may live a new life. If we have been united with him, like this in his death, we
will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. Now let's walk
through these verses together and let me just share with you a few truths about
these five verses.

First, these verses focus on the baptism of the Spirit, not water baptism. They
focus on what happens to you the moment you believe in Jesus. The Bible does
talk about both water baptism and the baptism of the Spirit.

What the Holy Spirit does in our lives, the moment we become a Christian, is
what these verses talk about. All of us were baptized into Christ Jesus. We were
baptized into his death.

It's interesting that the word baptized is really just a Greek word
transliterated into the English language. The letters are just brought over into
the English language and the Greek word means immersed. So you could read it
that way.

Don't you know that all of us who were immersed into Christ Jesus were immersed
into his death? And this is talking about a spiritual reality. Now, our physical
baptism, when you're baptized and you're put underwater and brought up again,
it's a picture of what happens here.

But this is talking about a spiritual reality in our lives. We are immersed in
Christ Jesus. In fact, notice in verse three, it says we are immersed in his
death, into his death.

The Greek word isera means into. We are in Christ, even in his death. So that we
might live a new life.

We are therefore buried with him through baptism into death, just as Christ was
raised from the dead. So that just as Christ was raised from the dead through
the glory of the father, we too might live a new life. That's the point.

That's the point. That's why you have to understand the importance of your
baptism. That the moment you became a believer, something essential about who
you are changed.

You're now a believer in Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 5 17,
the old person has passed away, a new person, new thing has come. Things are not
the same anymore.

Too many Christians try to live between Good Friday and Easter, experiencing the
forgiving power of the cross, but not living in the resurrection power of a new
life. What a discouraging place to live. And you do not have to live there.

You do not have to live there. You and I need to realize that God wants to do
something new in our lives. And so he talks about you and I being united with
him in his death so that we can be enjoying together his resurrection.

It's interesting. There are really two pictures in this passage. One of them is
the picture of baptism.

And this picture, when it talks about being united with him in his death, the
word united really has behind it in the Greek language, the idea of being
grafted in. It is the picture of a plant being grafted together so that now the
new grafted part draws its life, its energy from the part that it's been grafted
into. We have been grafted into Christ so that now we can become like Christ.

We can bear fruit for Christ. I have a new life and the result of that is a
different kind of fruit, a fruitfulness in my life. When I think of what it
means for me to be a new person in Christ, one of the pictures that I often use
is the picture of a butterfly.

When you become a new person in Christ, it's like a butterfly that goes into a
cocoon. Actually, it's the caterpillar that goes into a cocoon and then the
butterfly emerges. And once the butterfly emerges out of the cocoon, it is
changed.

Its essential nature is different. It can't become a caterpillar again. It is a
butterfly from that moment on.

Spiritually, that's what happens to you when you become a believer in Jesus
Christ. The moment you believed in Christ, you were immersed in Christ and
something essential about your spiritual nature changed in that moment. And you
can never go back.

Just like a butterfly couldn't go back into the cocoon and try to become a
caterpillar again, you can never go back. You are a new person in Jesus Christ.
Now I know, I understand.

You may not feel like a new person, especially today, but that doesn't change
the truth. The essential spiritual truth is when I come to Christ and put my
faith in Him, He changes our very nature. We become a new person in Him.

I want to warn you against two very dangerous practices when it comes to this new
nature. Some people try to experience the new nature without making a commitment
to Christ. They want to live up to all the morality of Christ, maybe even all the
excitement of the resurrection without ever really turning their life over to
Jesus Christ.

Well, that's like a caterpillar trying to be a butterfly without ever going into
the cocoon and emerging with wings. I mean, you can try to glue the wings onto a
caterpillar, but it's not going to work. And some people spiritually try to glue
wings on and try to fly and well, the results are expected.

Splat, you're going to hit because you need the new life, the new power, the new
nature that only Jesus can give you. So I'd warn you against that. I'd also warn
you against the tendency that some believers have to sort of strap the cocoon
back on their back now that they're a believer and pretend that they're still a
caterpillar.

Oh, poor me. Oh, I still got all this old stuff in my life. Oh, I, of course you
got a life before you became a believer and it hurts, no doubt about it.

But you don't have to strap it on your life and carry it around the rest of your
life. Jesus Christ has done something new in your life. So I encourage you, do
all that you can to find that new life that Christ has given you.

Sometimes that means you need to get involved in counseling to see the new life
that Christ has given you. Sometimes it means that you talk about what happened
in the past with your small group. Sometimes it means you take it to God in
prayer.

There's a lot of ways to deal with this, but deal with it because you have a new
life in Christ. It is an incredible gift that he's given to you. One of the most
discussed points of doctrine over the centuries has to do with what the Bible
means when it talks about our old nature being dead and God giving us a new
life.

Some people, when we talk about the old nature being dead, suggest this means
that somehow it's disappeared. Well, obviously that's not true from our daily
experience. Others suggest that it's just a matter of our human discipline to
say no to our old nature.

But that doesn't work either. Self-discipline by itself is not enough changes.
How do we choose to trust with faith what the Bible means when it says we are
immersed in Christ and now we have a new life in Christ?

How do I put off the old nature and live the new nature? Well, I can't put off
the old nature by ignoring it, acting like I'm somehow above temptation and sin,
some kind of a perfect saint. Deep down, you know that is not true.

Should I just ignore these temptation feelings in my life now that I'm a
Christian? That's extremely dangerous, extremely dangerous. You can't deal with
temptation by telling yourself that what you know is real is not real.

That doesn't work. It also doesn't work to try to do this just by human effort,
somehow thinking that if I just had enough self-discipline and determination,
somehow I could suppress all that temptation and live as a new person. The
battle with sin is a battle we have to fight.

Our mistake comes when we fight it with just our own energy. Now, some of us are
more self-disciplined than others, but if you make the mistake of taking on this
battle alone, you'll find that the harder you fight, the more sin grips you.
It's like spiritual quicksand.

The harder you kick, the faster you sink. It is impossible for our human effort
alone to win this battle against sin. It's not by ignoring it.

It's not by human effort. It's by faith in what Jesus Christ has done for us.
When we are baptized as believers, we are by faith picturing what Jesus did for
us.

When he died for us, that's what it means when someone goes down into the water.
And when he was resurrected for us, that's what it means when someone comes up
out of the water. If you have never been baptized, baptism is simply a way of
saying to others, look at what Jesus means in my life.

If you've never been baptized, be baptized. Why? Because Jesus was.

Why? Because Jesus told us to. And you and I want to follow our savior.

If you have been baptized, then look back on your baptism as an experience of
picturing what we're talking about together in chapter six in these verses, the
new life that you have in Christ. Let's take a minute right now to thank him for
the new life that he gives us. Lord, we thank you for what you have done in our
lives.

By giving your life for us on the cross, by giving your life for us in
resurrection, you have given us new life. And Lord, if we've never trusted you
for that new life, we want to trust you right now. Not trust in what we can do,
but trust in what you can do.

And as those who have trusted you for new life, we pray that today you help us
to live immersed lives. Lives that are immersed in what you've done by giving
your life for us on a cross were forgiven. And lives that are immersed in what
you did by being raised from the dead, we have new life in Christ.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for what you've done for us. In your name we pray,
amen.

Tomorrow we are going to look together at Romans chapter six, verses six to 11.