A time to die and a time to live, Romans 6

One of the strongest human needs is that we should belong to someone. Our little Noah is at the stage now where he’s looking around as if to ask, who do I belong to? Who’s my mum? Where’s dad? And if he’s not picked up and held, he cries of insecurity because his basic needs of security and belonging are not being met. In the same way, God desires relationship with us, that we should belong to him, that our security and significance should be found in him. That’s why we are made in the image of God, as it says in Genesis 1.

Human marriage is an earthly reflection, albeit imperfect because of the frailty of human nature, of our covenant relationship with God in eternity. That’s why Jesus used the imagery of marriage, bridegroom, wedding feast, in the stories he told about what the Kingdom of God is like. The intention of earthly marriage is that man and woman belong to each other, just as they each belong to God in relationship. And that is why a relationship with Jesus Christ satisfies the human quest for meaning and a sense of belonging like nothing else can.

Now, the big question is, how? What makes it happen? And this is where this morning’s reading from Romans chapter 6 gives some insights.

Paul writes at length about dying to sin and being raised to a new life, of an old self being let go of in favour of a new self, of being united with Christ in his death so that we can be united with him in his resurrection. What does this mean and where does it take us?

Well, let’s start with a story. One day, a young man full of ambition and desire for self-fulfillment left home with his share of his father’s property. Off he went and lived the good life. After some time it was gone. He was unemployed, homeless, and destitute. Then he came to his senses and realized he was utterly alone in this situation. His longing turned to his father’s house of rest and plenty. So he set off for home. Waiting for him, long before he appeared on the horizon, was his father with welcoming open arms. A new life awaited the young man, no longer lost, homeless, and destitute. Life could begin again.

There are many points to this story, it’s the prodigal son of course, but one of them is that the young man had to turn away from his life of self-living on his own terms before he could return to his father’s house, before he could enjoy the fruits and blessings of where he really belonged. The high life of spending and self-living, in the end, brought him no peace, no security at all, and he didn’t belong to it. It’s a story that Jesus told to highlight the absolute need for those who would be his disciples to turn completely away from their old self-interest and self-living. In fact, they must die to it, as it were, as St Paul puts it.

There is a lot at stake here. The life of Christian discipleship is radical, life-changing and a hard call. How often are we led to believe that Jesus wants to enrich our lives by adding religion to them, some extra spirituality and ethical living perhaps? How often are we led to believe that we can live the Christian life on our own terms? Discipleship would then be an easy matter.

But I ask you, did all the people in the New Testament who came under the power of Jesus Christ look even remotely as if they had merely been enriched by religious experience add-ons? No! They were people for whom the door of their past lives had been slammed shut, and who then saw that they had been set down in a totally new life, different from what they had before. What they had, and what we all experience in Jesus Christ, is no mere extension or addition to our settled and undisturbed lives, but rather a new life before which the old life fades away and is cancelled out.

And so it is when a person comes before the Lord with empty hands, or maybe with a sorrowful heart, or even a sense of being lost and just trying to fit in with everyone else but not really having a true sense of belonging to anyone else. That person stands before Jesus alone. All predispositions, ego traits, and diet of self-living are exposed for what they are in the presence of a holy and loving God. And it takes courage to allow these dark recesses of our former lives to be illuminated by the bright light of the Son of God. Jesus waits, calls, and invites us to come. Taste and see that the Lord is good, that the Lord is slow to anger and full of compassion, that he is like a father waiting for his wayward children to return.

Now, someone is bound to put their hand up and challenge these points about dying to self, setting aside the old life so that the new can come. Does that mean we have to somehow deconstruct our familiar old selves, or to despise how God has made us? Is it not also written that we should love our neighbours as we love ourselves? How might this square up?

Well, yes, we should love ourselves as God intended us to be, so that we can love our neighbours. And that’s the key point: it is as God intended us to be, as God intended us to belong to him, and not to the unbelieving, unregenerate world that stands in opposition to God through sin, through refusing him, and merely fitting in to its own schemes on its own terms. But when a person belongs, that requires vulnerability and commitment to whom you belong, forsaking all others. And here again the language of marriage is apt. For the person who belongs to Christ, the power of sin is broken; slavery to old ways of self-serving is no more, and that person is free to be who they are as God intended them to be.

Perhaps another illustration would help. Young person, let’s call him Greg, gets caught in the drug or alcohol scene. Greg can’t help himself; he lives for it and it rules his life. He becomes a slave to the unredeemed world of drink and drugs. Then one day Greg wakes up under the local railway bridge, cries out that he’s had enough of it, and turns away from an awful life of self-indulgence and self-pity.

In rehab, Greg is offered the opportunity of transformation by the renewing of his mind, body and soul. No longer is he lost and enslaved to his old life. Greg leaves rehab born again, as it were. Life can begin again, and it’s a quality of life far superior to his old one. Greg has a family to belong to, rather than just trying to fit in to the old crowd who never really cared about him anyway.

And so it is with those who turn to Christ and die to their old ways of living for self. Life can begin again, and it’s a quality of life far superior to the old. With God at your side anything is possible. You are free to be who the good Lord above intended you to be. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, you will be transformed into one who loves God, neighbour, and yourself.

So, the invitation this morning, for those who may be visitors listening in, is to come, taste and see that the Lord is indeed good, and be willing to allow his light to shine in the shadows of your life so that they too can be transformed into his likeness. Listen to these words from psalm 94: The righteous will flourish like a palm tree planted in the house of the Lord. They will flourish in the courts of our God. They will bear fruit in old age. They will stay fresh and green, proclaiming the Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him. There is indeed a time to die and a time to live.

For us who are Christian believers, dying to self, dying to sin, and living for Christ is a command. We must put aside whatever comes between us and our relationship with God, forsaking all others, and we have to do it daily. Why? Because our enemy prowls around looking for a way to drag us back into a life of self-serving, wallowing in the world. And it is all too easy. He will turn the screws, as it were, a little bit at a time, and then a little bit at a time. At first not noticeable, but then one day we realize what’s been happening, and we cry out, save me Lord. And that’s why we Christian believers need to spend daily time with God in prayer, confession and vigilance.

There is indeed a time to die and a time to live. Life can begin again.

Philip Starks
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