Speaking Of Life 5031 │ Dead to Me
This week we’re sharing a Speaking of Life message from our archive as a supplemental resource. We encourage you to use this for reflection and preparation, or small group discussion. For your worship gathering, consider how a call to worship from a local voice or contextualized introduction to the theme might serve your congregation well.
Watch video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QSSU1DJf-Y
Program Transcript
Speaking Of Life 5031 │ Dead to Me
Cara Garrity
The phrase “dead to me” has unknown origins but saying that someone is “dead to me” communicates that you no longer want to speak or have any kind of contact with that person. This can be a harsh statement to make, especially if we consider that forgiveness benefits us as well as the person we think wronged us. But what if we use the phrase “dead to me” differently and apply it to the shadow side of ourselves? You know, the parts of ourselves that we wish we could change, like acting selfishly, thinking ourselves better than others, or feeling abandoned by God and other people.
The truth is, you and I should consider ourselves dead to these negative behaviors and thought patterns and be alive for something bigger and more life-giving.
The apostle Paul has written about this idea of considering certain aspects of ourselves as being “dead”, especially in the way our baptism mirrors Christ’s death and resurrection. Let’s take a look at what he says in Romans 6:
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin.
Romans 6:5-7 (NRSVUE)
We learn that when Christ was crucified, our “old self,” our shadow side, was crucified with him. Why? So we would no longer be enslaved to sin. When we are in him, we are “dead” to those behaviors and thoughts that make us cringe and think, “Why did I do that? What was I thinking?” Christ’s death frees us from the power of sin and gives us another alternative.
The old self, now dead to us, was preoccupied with egoic concerns, like personal preferences and opinions. If sin is dead to us, then we can be alive for something else. We’re free to be alive in Christ. Let’s continue this passage:
But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:8-11 (NRSVUE)
Notice that Christ’s resurrected life is lived to God, and Paul is encouraging us to remember that we, too, are “alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We are freed from our compulsion to egoic concerns and our feelings of unworthiness or separation from God. Instead, we are liberated to live a life of radical love, using our skills and resources to help those who are in need.
Being alive to God means we view the world through Jesus’ eyes and view others through his eyes as well. He often noticed tax collectors, women, and children – those who were judged by their culture. As we live to God, no longer slaves to sin, we allow him to bring to our attention the God-given dignity of all people.
May you realize that sin is dead to you and no longer holds you in its grasp, thanks to our Savior Jesus. May you know the freedom of being “alive to God in Christ Jesus.” And may you always join Jesus in looking for ways to lift up and bless others who need his radical love.
I’m Cara Garrity, Speaking of Life.
Program Transcript
Speaking Of Life 5031 │ Dead to Me
Cara Garrity
The phrase “dead to me” has unknown origins but saying that someone is “dead to me” communicates that you no longer want to speak or have any kind of contact with that person. This can be a harsh statement to make, especially if we consider that forgiveness benefits us as well as the person we think wronged us. But what if we use the phrase “dead to me” differently and apply it to the shadow side of ourselves? You know, the parts of ourselves that we wish we could change, like acting selfishly, thinking ourselves better than others, or feeling abandoned by God and other people.
The truth is, you and I should consider ourselves dead to these negative behaviors and thought patterns and be alive for something bigger and more life-giving.
The apostle Paul has written about this idea of considering certain aspects of ourselves as being “dead”, especially in the way our baptism mirrors Christ’s death and resurrection. Let’s take a look at what he says in Romans 6:
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin.
Romans 6:5-7 (NRSVUE)
We learn that when Christ was crucified, our “old self,” our shadow side, was crucified with him. Why? So we would no longer be enslaved to sin. When we are in him, we are “dead” to those behaviors and thoughts that make us cringe and think, “Why did I do that? What was I thinking?” Christ’s death frees us from the power of sin and gives us another alternative.
The old self, now dead to us, was preoccupied with egoic concerns, like personal preferences and opinions. If sin is dead to us, then we can be alive for something else. We’re free to be alive in Christ. Let’s continue this passage:
But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:8-11 (NRSVUE)
Notice that Christ’s resurrected life is lived to God, and Paul is encouraging us to remember that we, too, are “alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We are freed from our compulsion to egoic concerns and our feelings of unworthiness or separation from God. Instead, we are liberated to live a life of radical love, using our skills and resources to help those who are in need.
Being alive to God means we view the world through Jesus’ eyes and view others through his eyes as well. He often noticed tax collectors, women, and children – those who were judged by their culture. As we live to God, no longer slaves to sin, we allow him to bring to our attention the God-given dignity of all people.
May you realize that sin is dead to you and no longer holds you in its grasp, thanks to our Savior Jesus. May you know the freedom of being “alive to God in Christ Jesus.” And may you always join Jesus in looking for ways to lift up and bless others who need his radical love.
I’m Cara Garrity, Speaking of Life.
Psalm 69:7–10, (11–15), 16–18 • Jeremiah 20:7–13 • Romans 6:1b–11 • Matthew 10:24–39
Today’s theme is God has freed us from sin. The scriptures show us that God’s love meets people in real struggle and real pain and then draws them into the freedom found in Christ. Psalm 69 gives voice to someone who feels alone and overwhelmed yet still trusts that God sees them and holds them. The psalm is not just a cry of pain; it is a prayer of trust in a faithful God. In Jeremiah 20, the prophet feels worn down and rejected, yet God’s word lives within him, as a fire that gives him strength and purpose. In Matthew 10, Jesus speaks honestly about the cost of following him, but he also reveals a deeper truth: that robust life is found in belonging to him and sharing in his love. In Romans 6, Paul proclaims that through Jesus we are joined to his death and his new life, not by effort, but by grace. Together, these scriptures show us that God gives us strength, courage, hope, and new life, not as something we earn, but as a gift we are invited to live from.
Reminder: This introductory paragraph is intended to show how the four RCL selections for this week are connected and to assist the preacher prepare the sermon. It is not intended to be included in the sermon.
How to use this sermon resource.
God Has Freed Us from Sin
Romans 6:1b–11 NRSVUE
Have you ever wondered: If God already loves and forgives us, does it really matter how we live? Today we’ll hear Paul ask that same question, and his answer is better news than we might expect.
Last week, we talked about grace — about the love of God that meets us exactly where we are. This week, Romans 6 invites us to ask what that grace actually does in a real human life.
We know what it’s like to want change but feel stuck in old patterns. Romans 6 speaks directly into that tension with an announcement about what God has already done for us in Christ Jesus.
We’ll hear the good news of what the Father accomplished through the Son and is making real in us by the Holy Spirit. This is a story about being brought into a new life we did not create.
Romans 6, as God’s word to us, is not a self-help plan or instructions for how to make ourselves new. This passage is a declaration that, in Christ Jesus, we already are new.
Let’s read Romans 6:1b–11:
Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8 But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:1b–11 NRSVUE
Who Is God
When reading the Bible, a good place to begin is to ask, what does this passage tell us about God? And understanding who God is shows us who we are.
Unfortunately, some people hold this narrow view of God:
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- God has a list of rules.
- Breaking those rules is called sin.
- God commands us not to sin.
- God punishes us when we sin.
And worse yet, some believe the “rules” are as random and arbitrary as opening a bag of candy and saying, you can eat the red ones but not the yellow ones.
No. This is not who God is. And Romans 6 helps us see that’s not true.
God has shown us what will lead to death. God has shown us which ways of living lead away from wholeness and flourishing life, and he calls that sin. But God did not leave us there! God dealt with sin for us. In Jesus, God broke the power of sin once for all.
God has freed us from sin.
As we’ve already said, our sermons this month have discussed grace. We are justified, made right with God, by his grace as a gift. Grace is God giving us love, forgiveness, and new life as a gift.
In a sense, verse 1 is asking: if we are already forgiven and have been given grace, does it matter how we live? Are our choices and actions even important?
Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? Romans 6:1b NRSVUE
The answer is “By no means” should we continue in sin! Sin destroys. See, sin is any way of living that pull us — and others — away from the love, healing, and harmony God wants for us. We recognize sin when we see harm, selfishness, or brokenness.
Grace is not a free pass to keep doing damage to ourselves or others. Grace is not God saying, “Your sin does not matter.” Grace is God saying, “I am rescuing you from what is ruining you.”
So, we do not continue in sin — not because we must prove ourselves to God or avoid punishment, but because something has already happened to us in Christ Jesus. We have died to sin.
How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Romans 6:2 NRSVUE
It does not mean Christians never struggle again. It means sin no longer controls us. Our relationship to sin has changed. We do not belong to that old life anymore.
God has freed us from sin.
Now Paul explains why believers have died to sin: because they have been joined to Jesus. Verse 3-4:
3 Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. Romans 6:3–4 NRSVUE
How is it we died and were buried with Christ Jesus? And how is it we were raised from the dead with Christ?
Because we have been joined to Jesus. In Jesus, God has united humanity to himself. And in a stunning mystery, that’s all of humanity — past, present, and future. That is how we can be included in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, even though it happened before we were even born.
This inclusion, this union is grounded in the Incarnation. So, when God became human in Jesus, he assumed our humanity. And he healed and renewed it from the inside.
This means union with Christ is not just spiritual or symbolic. Union changed the very nature of our being. (We call this an ontological union.)
Baptism
In this letter to the church in Rome, Paul relates our inclusion in Christ Jesus’ death to baptism. Baptism is a practice where we use water to show this reality — that we are joined to Jesus. Baptism does not create or activate the union, but it points to that reality. Going under the water is a symbol of dying and being buried with Christ. That’s why we sometimes refer to baptism as a “watery grave.” Coming up out of the water is a symbol of rising with Christ.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Romans 6:5 NRSVUE
Baptism is a picture of dying and being resurrected united with Christ.
Perhaps you are curious about baptism. Baptism is for everyone. If you would like to be baptized or learn more about baptism, we would love to support you. Baptism is a visible way of saying: I belong to Jesus, and his story is now my story.
What Christ Jesus has done, counts for us. His cross becomes our cross. His burial becomes our burial. His resurrection becomes our resurrection.
Baptism is a symbol of new life in Christ and freedom from sin.
God has freed us from sin.
In Christ, we walk in the newness of life. By this new life, we participate in love and bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The “fruit of the Holy Spirit” are the qualities that God, by the Spirit, grows or produces in us — traits like love, patience, kindness, peace, and self‑control. They’re the visible signs that God is transforming us and creating wholeness on the inside.
Why not read about it this week? You’ll find it in Galatians 5. You can also read a list of deficient or malformed qualities that are the opposite of what the Holy Spirit produces in us.
We do not continue in the old habits and old thinking that do not reflect our new life in Christ. Verse 6 calls it the old self. Why would we continue? It’s not who we are any longer. The old self is dead.
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin. Romans 6:6–7 NRSVUE
The old self was crucified with Christ. Not slowly improved. Not trained. Not managed. Crucified. Put to death. Finished. This means sin no longer owns us. Shame no longer defines us. Fear no longer rules us. The past no longer controls us. Not because we became strong, but because Christ was strong for us.
God has freed us from sin.
In Jesus, God became human and he did not come to manage our sin. He carried it in our place. He did not come to guide us around death. He entered death for us. He absorbed the brokenness of the world into his own body.
This is what God has already done in Christ. This is what the cross has accomplished and what the empty tomb has made true. This is what baptism declares: you are joined to Jesus, and his story is now your story.
God calls us to participate in the loving freedom of a new life in Christ. It is like a prison door that has already been opened. The chains have already been broken. There are no guards to stop you from leaving. The door is open. Freedom is already yours. But some people still sit in the cell because they do not trust that the door is really open. Paul is telling the church: you are not trapped anymore. You are not owned by sin anymore. You are not ruled by death anymore. You are not defined by your past anymore. You belong to Christ.
Christ gives us his life. He shares his breath with us. He shares his future with us. He shares his freedom with us.
We are united with Christ in his resurrection. That means the power that raised Jesus from the grave is the same power that works in us. Not because we earned it. Not because we deserve it. But because God is generous and faithful.
It is like a lamp sitting in your living room. The lamp may be beautiful. It may be new. It may even have a good light bulb. But no matter how hard the lamp tries, it cannot shine on its own. A lamp has no power by itself. The lamp does not create electricity. It receives it. The light flows from the source.
We do not create new life. God gives it. We do not produce holiness. God grows it. We do not save ourselves. Christ saves us. We do not raise ourselves. God raises us. We do not rise into new life because we are strong or disciplined. We rise because God is strong.
The Holy Spirit is God with us and in us, empowering us live this new life. This is what the Holy Spirit is producing in us: new desires, new hopes, new courage, new love, new peace, new patience. This is what God is growing in us: trust, kindness, mercy, forgiveness, faith. Not because we are faithful, but because God is faithful.
If we have died with Christ, we believe we will also live with him. Romans 6:8 NRSVUE
We still struggle. We still fail. We still fall. But we no longer fall alone. We no longer rise alone. We belong to Christ. Romans 6 reminds us that real life comes from our union with Christ. The life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit flows into us. Our actions do not make it true, but we experience our union with God by trusting, showing up, by receiving, and participating in it.
Perhaps you are thinking: “I cannot show up and participate. I still struggle with old habits; I have doubts and questions. There’s so much I do not fully understand.”
Here’s the good news: Jesus does not just die for us. He also believes, obeys, prays, and worships for us.
Our weak faith is held within his perfect faith. Our failure to always avoid sin is gathered into his perfect, sinless life. Jesus has already lived the perfect human life for God — and we share in it.
So, you are welcome in the Jesus’ Body, the Church, and in this congregation with all your questions, doubts, and struggles. We rarely grow in isolation. We are changed and formed together. As we share life together, God is transforming us into his people who reflect his love to the world. Community is where grace becomes tangible.
Consider Yourself
This passage ends with powerful words:
Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:11 NRSVUE
Count yourself. Deem yourself. See yourself dead to sin and alive to God. It’s as if Paul is holding up a mirror, “See! This. This is who you really are.”
God has already deemed you, counted you dead to sin and alive in Christ. Now wake up to this reality! See it about yourself!
Do you know someone who needs to hear that? Is there someone this week who needs you to hold up a mirror and say, “Look, this is who you are … made new in Christ”? As Jesus’ Body, we can live this good news in our neighborhood. Let’s join Jesus in his ongoing mission to make all things new.
God has freed us from sin. It’s reality. May we see it as true about ourselves.
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit offer us this simple and holy invitation:
Come and rest in what Christ has done. Come and trust that the cross was enough. Come and believe that the tomb was and is empty. Come and participate in the life Christ gives. Come and live like someone who is already free. Come and live in the love that cannot fail.
The gospel simply means good news — good news about what God has done for us in Jesus. And here is the gospel of Romans 6: Christ died for you. Christ rose for you. Christ lives for you. Christ reigns for you. And Christ shares his life with you.
The old self, held captive to sin, is dead! You are free. By the Spirit, you are alive in Christ. Remember who you are and live from that new reality.
God has freed us from sin.
Listen to audio: https://cloud.gci.org/dl/GReverb/GR076-Pandel-YearA-Proper7.mp3
Sunday, June 21, 2026 — Proper 7
Romans 6:1b–11 NRSVUE
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Program Transcript
[00:31:14] Anthony: Let’s transition to our next passage. It’s Romans 6:1b–11. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 7 in Ordinary Time, June 21.
What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8 But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Verse 6 tells us, Matt, if the old self has been crucified, that’s been done. So why does sin persist? If we are no longer slaves to sin, why do we often feel, at least on a very subjective level, enslaved to sin? What’s going on here?
[00:32:52] Matt: I think to answer this, if I can tell a quick story. The War of 1812 — which frankly no one knows anything about — we’re post American Revolution. The British start to reassert some authority. They’re like, impressing American sailors into the British Navy. And the US, and there’s some shipping issues with taking cargo off boats. And the US government gets fed up with it, starts setting some ultimatums, and it results in the War of 1812, a second American revolution.
The most significant battle in the War of 1812 is the battle of New Orleans. It’s what makes Andrew Jackson famous. It occurs on January 8th, 1815, and the date is important. I’m going to say that again. January 8th, 1815. The treaty that ends the War of 1812 is the Treaty of Ghent in the Netherlands. It’s in modern-day Belgium. The treaty signed on December 24th, 1814. So, the war ends December 24th, 1814, but yet the most significant battle of this war is two weeks later on January 8th, 1815. How does that happen?
[00:34:03] Anthony: Yeah.
[00:34:04] Matt: They didn’t know. It takes a long time to get an update from a treaty convention in Ghent Netherlands to the North American continent. The battle happens because none of the parties involved in the conflict were aware the war was over.
People don’t know is I think my first answer. I have two answers to it. That’s the first. People don’t know. They’re not aware that sin has been defeated. Our entire culture is inundated with good and evil paradigms that speak of them as one equal, as if good and evil are thrown into a boxing match and you’re not quite sure who’s going to come out. Sometimes it’ll be good and sometimes it’ll be evil.
But our theology, particularly in North America, is heavily influenced in this idea that you are still a decrepit, vile creation sitting before a God who, much more so a judge than a Father, can barely look at you but somehow because of Jesus as Advocate, he can now look at you in a fondness or a toleration. That is just going to skirt you through to heaven.
When you inundate people with that message through television, through sermons, through its infiltration within our culture as a whole, even those who don’t necessarily hold to a Christian faith — it nevertheless is Christendom versus Christianity — that’s a tough nut to crack.
And so, that would be my first response. I think the vast majority of even Christians are not aware this is done. And so, we do tend to behave in a manner in keeping with what we believe to be true.
Anthony: Yes.
Matt: So, if you believe that you are just a miserable wretch for whom every moment is a cataclysmic choice that you better make the right one or else there are substantive post-death penalties as opposed to the penalties that just naturally exist in life without God’s intervention —God’s not directing those penalties. It’s just the innate nature of cause and effect. If you own a business and you routinely are scamming people, eventually you’re going to lose your business because no one wants to do business with you. That’s not God punishing you for being a crook. That’s just the natural consequence of being a crook in the world.
But the other answer would be trauma. Wounds remain long after actual wounding is over. I had surgery about a month ago and the surgical cut that produced pain I was knocked out for, I didn’t feel anything. That was but a moment, probably took the surgeon 10 minutes at most to make the incision, but the process of healing from that, of the pain associated with that cut, took two to three weeks. It’s not that he was cutting me that entire time. But the shadows of that wounding were still present.
We, even among those who maybe have some awareness that sin truly has been defeated, that the tether that bound it to the creation has been severed, still tend to believe the shadows. We still tend to give our agreement to again this belief that we are in control of our destinies, that our actions are the means by which the world moves. And I, again, I think this is where an element of formation comes in that lets us learn how to hold two things as true at once, that we can objectively be completely and totally disconnected from sin and subsequently then the outgrowth of sin — death, and yet there are still parts of us that have not seen the light of Christ. And we remain in need of encounters with the great Physician.
Salvation, as a concept again, this fundamentalist argument that it’s a one and done light switch moment, you say a prayer, you are now saved, and nothing is now capable of touching you — it does not seem well-versed within Scripture itself, but certainly not even within the first exegetes of Scripture within the early church.
They tended to view salvation as this accomplished act, that you nevertheless live out in every moment of your life, that every moment of your life, you are in need of a deliverer. You need your creators sitting with you in that moment, navigating life with, for, and as you … we are not truly free.
I can use a movie reference. Shawshank Redemption …
Anthony: Oh, come on.
Matt: … features these guys. What, there’s never a wrong time …
Anthony: Never.
Matt: … to make a Shawshank Redemption reference. But I think about the character Brooks Hatlen. Brooks is a librarian in the prison. He’s a man of importance. He’s educated. And he is in prison for killing someone when he’s very young. We are encountering him in the movie. He’s quite elderly. He’s in his late 70s at the youngest. He’s been in there almost 50 years. He’s released. The parole board lets him out. He is free. The second the parole board signature hits that form, he is a free man.
Yet, we find him really struggle with assimilating back to a world that in 50 years had changed dramatically, and is nothing like the regulated world he had been living in for the past half century. What I ask students when this subject comes up is, okay, was Brooks Hatlen free? And the only right answer, honestly, is yes and no.
He is free objectively. The parole board signed, it’s done. That is the finished, accomplished work of Christ within our analogy. It is settled. It is done. And yet there is a subjective experience with this that each and every person has to journey in order for it to feel and be real to them.
Creation has been pulled into the salvation of God. In that sense Karl Barth’s statement — a student asked him, “When were you saved?” And his response was, basically, he says it much more colorfully, but it’s basically, “When Jesus was crucified, that was the moment.” A Thursday, 2000 years ago or something, Friday, 2000 years ago — that is true and yet I can still live a life that is nothing but misery and confusion and distorted thinking and horrific, self-destructive decisions because I can’t see it. And so, to me, until our objective fact and truth align with our subjective experience, we are missing out. To overtly place focus on the objective and deny the need for subjective wholeness too leaves us with a very interesting theology, but it also puts all of our hope in an afterlife heaven and we’re just trying to survive day to day.
[00:41:34] Anthony: Yeah.
[00:41:35] Matt: Rather than being truly whole.
[00:41:37] Anthony: Yeah.
[00:41:37] Matt: Truly.
[00:41:38] Anthony: This whole conversation reminds me of a quote out of the book, Prophetic Imagination, from Walter Brueggemann, and he said, “When we live according to our fears and our hates, our lives become small and defensive lacking the deep, joyous generosity of God.” And I just think if our subjective experience doesn’t align with objective reality, this is what can happen.
Our lives just get really small and defensive, just trying to protect ourselves from all the outside forces. And ah, it’s so beautiful when the light comes on, when we, when the light, what I mean by that is, when a person comes to know what has already been true about them from eternity past to eternity future, that they are loved and God is inviting us just to come on and join him in this good work, that we’re no longer slaves to sin, but also recognizing as Martin Luther said that old wretch has a way of swimming even though he died, he didn’t always drown and we see sin pop up its head.
So, what, Matt, what is it theologically and practically — and by the way, good theology is always hyper-practical; I don’t see a distinction in the two — but what does it mean to consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus?
[00:43:10] Matt: I think it means to really lean into Galatians 2:20 and this idea that we have been consumed enveloped, adopted into the fullness of Christ’s humanity that we are now overshadowed. There is now a new sheriff in town. There is a new governing order of the world that frankly enjoys our participation, but is not dependent on our participation, that God is capable of being God without us, but doesn’t want to be. I think to put it just in, in a sentence, it’s to so completely identify with the humanity of Christ Jesus that our being can only be found in him.
[00:43:40] Anthony:
[00:43:41] Matt: That I can’t look at my behavior as being the core tenet of who I am. I can’t look at my education. I can’t look at my relationships. I can’t look at my family. All I can look to is that I am found in him, that whatever life I perceived myself as having apart from him has been crucified with him, and that the life I now live in this fleshly human body is his, not just as possessive, but as participation, that it is me participating in the fullness of who he is. The more I have sat with that idea, that principle, the more I have seen my own rough edges gently be sandpapered away, without, and honestly, without a lot of conscious effort …
[00:44:38] Anthony: Yeah.
[00:44:39] Matt: … or even focused awareness but just the simple, as I emphasize and get a better understanding of who I am in light of what Christ has done, the more I am able to see what is actually true of me, and that, that’s basic CBT therapy. As my awareness changes, it spills over into my conduct. Theologically metanoia, right? There’s this change in perception. You don’t see the way you did before, you see something new, but it doesn’t stop there. I don’t just see a new way, but continue to do everything the way I did before when I saw differently. No, it informs my conduct now, often subconsciously.
[00:45:23] Anthony: Yeah. Amen and amen.
Program Transcript
[00:31:14] Anthony: Let’s transition to our next passage. It’s Romans 6:1b–11. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 7 in Ordinary Time, June 21.
What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8 But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Verse 6 tells us, Matt, if the old self has been crucified, that’s been done. So why does sin persist? If we are no longer slaves to sin, why do we often feel, at least on a very subjective level, enslaved to sin? What’s going on here?
[00:32:52] Matt: I think to answer this, if I can tell a quick story. The War of 1812 — which frankly no one knows anything about — we’re post American Revolution. The British start to reassert some authority. They’re like, impressing American sailors into the British Navy. And the US, and there’s some shipping issues with taking cargo off boats. And the US government gets fed up with it, starts setting some ultimatums, and it results in the War of 1812, a second American revolution.
The most significant battle in the War of 1812 is the battle of New Orleans. It’s what makes Andrew Jackson famous. It occurs on January 8th, 1815, and the date is important. I’m going to say that again. January 8th, 1815. The treaty that ends the War of 1812 is the Treaty of Ghent in the Netherlands. It’s in modern-day Belgium. The treaty signed on December 24th, 1814. So, the war ends December 24th, 1814, but yet the most significant battle of this war is two weeks later on January 8th, 1815. How does that happen?
[00:34:03] Anthony: Yeah.
[00:34:04] Matt: They didn’t know. It takes a long time to get an update from a treaty convention in Ghent Netherlands to the North American continent. The battle happens because none of the parties involved in the conflict were aware the war was over.
People don’t know is I think my first answer. I have two answers to it. That’s the first. People don’t know. They’re not aware that sin has been defeated. Our entire culture is inundated with good and evil paradigms that speak of them as one equal, as if good and evil are thrown into a boxing match and you’re not quite sure who’s going to come out. Sometimes it’ll be good and sometimes it’ll be evil.
But our theology, particularly in North America, is heavily influenced in this idea that you are still a decrepit, vile creation sitting before a God who, much more so a judge than a Father, can barely look at you but somehow because of Jesus as Advocate, he can now look at you in a fondness or a toleration. That is just going to skirt you through to heaven.
When you inundate people with that message through television, through sermons, through its infiltration within our culture as a whole, even those who don’t necessarily hold to a Christian faith — it nevertheless is Christendom versus Christianity — that’s a tough nut to crack.
And so, that would be my first response. I think the vast majority of even Christians are not aware this is done. And so, we do tend to behave in a manner in keeping with what we believe to be true.
Anthony: Yes.
Matt: So, if you believe that you are just a miserable wretch for whom every moment is a cataclysmic choice that you better make the right one or else there are substantive post-death penalties as opposed to the penalties that just naturally exist in life without God’s intervention —God’s not directing those penalties. It’s just the innate nature of cause and effect. If you own a business and you routinely are scamming people, eventually you’re going to lose your business because no one wants to do business with you. That’s not God punishing you for being a crook. That’s just the natural consequence of being a crook in the world.
But the other answer would be trauma. Wounds remain long after actual wounding is over. I had surgery about a month ago and the surgical cut that produced pain I was knocked out for, I didn’t feel anything. That was but a moment, probably took the surgeon 10 minutes at most to make the incision, but the process of healing from that, of the pain associated with that cut, took two to three weeks. It’s not that he was cutting me that entire time. But the shadows of that wounding were still present.
We, even among those who maybe have some awareness that sin truly has been defeated, that the tether that bound it to the creation has been severed, still tend to believe the shadows. We still tend to give our agreement to again this belief that we are in control of our destinies, that our actions are the means by which the world moves. And I, again, I think this is where an element of formation comes in that lets us learn how to hold two things as true at once, that we can objectively be completely and totally disconnected from sin and subsequently then the outgrowth of sin — death, and yet there are still parts of us that have not seen the light of Christ. And we remain in need of encounters with the great Physician.
Salvation, as a concept again, this fundamentalist argument that it’s a one and done light switch moment, you say a prayer, you are now saved, and nothing is now capable of touching you — it does not seem well-versed within Scripture itself, but certainly not even within the first exegetes of Scripture within the early church.
They tended to view salvation as this accomplished act, that you nevertheless live out in every moment of your life, that every moment of your life, you are in need of a deliverer. You need your creators sitting with you in that moment, navigating life with, for, and as you … we are not truly free.
I can use a movie reference. Shawshank Redemption …
Anthony: Oh, come on.
Matt: … features these guys. What, there’s never a wrong time …
Anthony: Never.
Matt: … to make a Shawshank Redemption reference. But I think about the character Brooks Hatlen. Brooks is a librarian in the prison. He’s a man of importance. He’s educated. And he is in prison for killing someone when he’s very young. We are encountering him in the movie. He’s quite elderly. He’s in his late 70s at the youngest. He’s been in there almost 50 years. He’s released. The parole board lets him out. He is free. The second the parole board signature hits that form, he is a free man.
Yet, we find him really struggle with assimilating back to a world that in 50 years had changed dramatically, and is nothing like the regulated world he had been living in for the past half century. What I ask students when this subject comes up is, okay, was Brooks Hatlen free? And the only right answer, honestly, is yes and no.
He is free objectively. The parole board signed, it’s done. That is the finished, accomplished work of Christ within our analogy. It is settled. It is done. And yet there is a subjective experience with this that each and every person has to journey in order for it to feel and be real to them.
Creation has been pulled into the salvation of God. In that sense Karl Barth’s statement — a student asked him, “When were you saved?” And his response was, basically, he says it much more colorfully, but it’s basically, “When Jesus was crucified, that was the moment.” A Thursday, 2000 years ago or something, Friday, 2000 years ago — that is true and yet I can still live a life that is nothing but misery and confusion and distorted thinking and horrific, self-destructive decisions because I can’t see it. And so, to me, until our objective fact and truth align with our subjective experience, we are missing out. To overtly place focus on the objective and deny the need for subjective wholeness too leaves us with a very interesting theology, but it also puts all of our hope in an afterlife heaven and we’re just trying to survive day to day.
[00:41:34] Anthony: Yeah.
[00:41:35] Matt: Rather than being truly whole.
[00:41:37] Anthony: Yeah.
[00:41:37] Matt: Truly.
[00:41:38] Anthony: This whole conversation reminds me of a quote out of the book, Prophetic Imagination, from Walter Brueggemann, and he said, “When we live according to our fears and our hates, our lives become small and defensive lacking the deep, joyous generosity of God.” And I just think if our subjective experience doesn’t align with objective reality, this is what can happen.
Our lives just get really small and defensive, just trying to protect ourselves from all the outside forces. And ah, it’s so beautiful when the light comes on, when we, when the light, what I mean by that is, when a person comes to know what has already been true about them from eternity past to eternity future, that they are loved and God is inviting us just to come on and join him in this good work, that we’re no longer slaves to sin, but also recognizing as Martin Luther said that old wretch has a way of swimming even though he died, he didn’t always drown and we see sin pop up its head.
So, what, Matt, what is it theologically and practically — and by the way, good theology is always hyper-practical; I don’t see a distinction in the two — but what does it mean to consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus?
[00:43:10] Matt: I think it means to really lean into Galatians 2:20 and this idea that we have been consumed enveloped, adopted into the fullness of Christ’s humanity that we are now overshadowed. There is now a new sheriff in town. There is a new governing order of the world that frankly enjoys our participation, but is not dependent on our participation, that God is capable of being God without us, but doesn’t want to be. I think to put it just in, in a sentence, it’s to so completely identify with the humanity of Christ Jesus that our being can only be found in him.
[00:43:40] Anthony:
[00:43:41] Matt: That I can’t look at my behavior as being the core tenet of who I am. I can’t look at my education. I can’t look at my relationships. I can’t look at my family. All I can look to is that I am found in him, that whatever life I perceived myself as having apart from him has been crucified with him, and that the life I now live in this fleshly human body is his, not just as possessive, but as participation, that it is me participating in the fullness of who he is. The more I have sat with that idea, that principle, the more I have seen my own rough edges gently be sandpapered away, without, and honestly, without a lot of conscious effort …
[00:44:38] Anthony: Yeah.
[00:44:39] Matt: … or even focused awareness but just the simple, as I emphasize and get a better understanding of who I am in light of what Christ has done, the more I am able to see what is actually true of me, and that, that’s basic CBT therapy. As my awareness changes, it spills over into my conduct. Theologically metanoia, right? There’s this change in perception. You don’t see the way you did before, you see something new, but it doesn’t stop there. I don’t just see a new way, but continue to do everything the way I did before when I saw differently. No, it informs my conduct now, often subconsciously.
[00:45:23] Anthony: Yeah. Amen and amen.
Small Group Discussion Questions
- What are some ways people misunderstand grace, and how does this sermon challenge those assumptions?
- What might it look like, practically, to “live like someone who is already free from sin”? What makes that hard?
- How has community (or the lack of it) shaped your faith, growth, or healing — positively or negatively?
- Verse 11 invites us to “consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God.”
What would change this week if together, you and your congregation actually believed that this is already true about you?
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