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WEEKLY
Volume 1 Number 15
10 September 2006
If Ye Then Be Risen with
Christ
(Message
delivered by Pr Hien Nguyen at the Sunday Worship Service, 2 pm, Sep 3,
06)
Text: Col
3:1-4
The philosophies of this world
teach people to promote their self such as self-esteem,
self-confidence, self-image, self-importance, etc. They say, You should
cultivate positive feelings and thinking of yourself. Always think that
you are good, you are able, you are important. Never think that you are
bad, you are helpless or hopeless.
Most religions of this world
also promote self. Even some of them may realise that men have sinned,
they still think that men have a good heart or good nature. According to
them, men are bad or become bad due to the bad environment or society
around them. Therefore, they try to keep themselves from sinful deeds
and to make themselves better and holier by staying in a temple, a
pagoda, a shrine, or a place far away from this sinful world. They
perform their religious rites and practices, and abstain from eating
meat and from killing even insects! Those who can do that for a long
time regard themselves as saints of a holier level and despise others as
common or sinful people! Sadly, they fail to see their sinful heart with
lustful desires and pride, not knowing that they are deceiving
themselves. The Bible says, If we say that we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).
How about Christians? What
proper attitudes should we have toward our heart and our lives?
A Depraved and Sinful Heart
The Bible
tells us that God created human beings in His image, very good and
perfect. However, due to the disobedience of Adam and Eve, their heart
was sinful and separated from the Holy God. Consequently, all the
descendants of Adam and Eve including you and me have a corrupt and
sinful heart whether we admit that or not. The holy and righteous God
had to judge the world through the Global Flood as GOD saw that the
wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually
(Gen 6:5). Thank God for saving Noah and his family through his faith
in the Lord (Heb 11:7). But the heavens and earth, which are now, by
the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of
judgment and perdition of ungodly men (2 Peter 3:7).
Moreover, the Bible says, The
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:
who can know it? (Jer 17:9). It is an evil heart (Jer
3:17; 7:24, 11:8) a revolting and a rebellious heart (Jer
5:23), Our Lord Jesus exposes the human heart, For from within,
out of the heart of men, proceed evil
thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness,
wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride,
foolishness (Mark 7:21-22).
Then my dear friends, are you
and I prepared for the Judgment Day? How can we have a clean and pure
heart to meet the holy and righteous God?
A Clean and New Heart in
Christ
The heart of men is too
depraved and corrupt to be improved or changed by themselves, Can
the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye
also do good, that are accustomed to do evil (Jer 13:23). Thank God
so much that He has dealt with the sinful heart of men, the root of sin,
not just sinful deeds as human religions of this world do. God sent His
only begotten Son into this world to die for our sins and to rise again
to save us and transform our lives. The Bible says, But if we walk
in the light, as he (God) is in the light, we have fellowship one
with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from
all sin and, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness (1 John 1:7, 9).
Moreover,
through our living faith in the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and in
Gods Word, we are born again (John 3:5; 1 Peter 1:23)
and are a new creature in Christ (2 Cor 5:17) as God has
promised, And I will give them an heart to know me, that I
am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God:
for they shall return unto me with their whole heart (Jer 24:7; cf.
Heb 8: 10-11), and I will give them one heart, and I will put a
new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their
flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh (Eze 11:19).
My dear friends, we ourselves
can never make our heart clean without the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ nor change our heart without the gracious work of the Lord. May
God help us be grateful to Him and commit our heart and lives to Him to
be cleansed and transformed to His image.
No Death, No Resurrection
Our Lord Jesus says, Except
a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if
it die, it bringeth forth much fruit (John 12:24). Our Lord refers
this truth to Himself and to all of us.
Although we are born again
and have a new heart, our sinful nature is still with us while we are
living in this flesh. To deal with this sinful nature, the Biblical way
is to keep it dead and not to improve it.
For an
atheist, he does not see nor believe in God except his big I. For a
professing Christian, he believes in the Lord without any commitment nor
submission. He may profess Lord, Lord on his lips, but in his heart it
is his I first and then the Lord. For a true believer, he submits
himself to the Lord and puts the Lord first and above his I, and
growing up in Gods grace and knowledge, he will then only desire the
Lord to take control of his heart completely, live in him and manifest
His life through him (2 Cor 4:10-11). That is what the apostle Paul
said, Not I, but Christ (Gal 2:20). Then how can we put away
our old self I? Surely we cannot do that by ourselves apart from
Christ. If we want to be risen with Christ, we are to be one with Him in
His death on the cross and in His burial. The Bible says, Knowing
this, that our old man is (was) crucified with
him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth
we should not serve sin (Rom 6:6). If our eyes are opened to see
our Lord Jesus not only bear our sins but also our sinful nature on the
cross, we shall reckon (count/ put into our account) this truth, Likewise
reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed (truly)
unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord
(Rom 6:11). Like Paul, we can say, I am crucified
(have been crucified) with Christ: nevertheless I live
(am living); yet not I, but Christ liveth (is living) in
me: and the life which I now live (am living) in the flesh I live
(am living) by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave
himself for me (Gal 2:20).
My dear
friends, being crucified with Christ on the cross is the only way to set
us free from our sinful nature and our old self I. Then, are you and I
willing to die to sin, to self, to the flesh, and to the world? (Rom
6:11; Gal 2:20; 5:24; 6:14). The Holy Spirit can help us do this, For
if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit
do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live (Rom 8:13; Col
3:5,8.9). It should be noticed that our old man only died with Christ
and in Christ, so the old nature may arise and take control of us if we
are not in Christ moment by moment with full dependence and submission
like the branch in the Vine. The apostle Paul rightly says, I die
daily (1 Cor 15:31). It means to take up our cross daily. Are you
and I taking our cross now and daily to follow our Lord Jesus Christ
with our full submission?
Risen with Christ
To be one with Christ in His
death, we are also one with Him in His resurrection (Rom 6:4-5). If
ye then be (were) risen with Christ, (v 1). This
condition is in first class, denoting a true fact. The apostle Paul
wants to say that if you were truly raised with Christ, this is the
evidence: seek those things which are above
and set your affection on
things above (vv 1-2). These two commands are in present, active,
imperative, denoting a continuous action: Keep on seeking and keep on
setting
Keep on Seeking
those things which are above, where Christ sitteth (is sitting)
on the right hand of God. It means to keep on seeking the Lord
Himself and His face and His strength (Prov 8:17; Ps 105:4), His
precepts/His Word (Ps 119:45; Acts 17:11; Col 3:16), His kingdom and His
righteousness (Matt 6:33), His will and His glory (John 5:30,44), His
grace and mercy (Heb 4:16), His spiritual blessings (Eph 1:3-14), wisdom
from above (Prov 3:13; James 1:5; 3; 3:17-18), godly virtues in Christ
(Col 3:12-14; 2 Peter 1:4-8), etc. Truly, when we keep on seeking the
Lord diligently with faith, He is our Rewarder (Heb 11:6) as they
that seek the LORD understand all things (Prov 28:5) and shall
not want any good thing (Ps 34:10). Then, what are you and I
seeking now?
Keep on setting your
affection (mind)
on things above, not on things on the earth. The
unbelievers love this world and have a worldly mindset with all the
lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life
(1 John 2:15-16), but Gods children are not to do so. They are in the
world but not of the world, nor are they to be conformed to this world
(John 17:14-16; Rom 12:2). It does not mean we ignore what we are doing
or working on earth, but we are to live for the Lord and do all in
the name of the Lord Jesus (v 17), do it heartily, as to the
Lord, and not unto men (v 23), and do all to the glory of God
(1 Cor 10:31). Then, are you and I living for the Lord and for His
glory?
Christ, Our Life
God does
not give us new life or eternal life as a separate gift from His Son
like a battery that needs to be recharged regularly, but God hath
given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath
the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life
(1 John 5:11-12). It is not enough to think of the Lord and seek after
Him only in our daily devotion or on Sunday worship, but moment by
moment. The life of a branch is hid in the Vine; likewise, our new life,
resurrected life, eternal life is the living Lord Jesus Himself and is hid
with Christ in God. We are to have a living contact with our Lord
Jesus in full dependence and submission, looking unto Him for life and
strength moment by moment. Then, When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Conclusion
My dear friends, are you and I
truly raised with Christ? This is a strange question to unbelievers
whose heart is depraved and corrupt. Thank God that only in Christ is
our heart cleansed, our sinful nature crucified, and our new life given.
May God help us keep on seeking Him, His kingdom and His Word first, and
living for Him and for His glory until our Lord Jesus comes back again
soon, knowing that we can do this only by the life and strength of
Christ moment by moment with our full dependence and submission. Praise
the Lord! Amen.
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