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This morning, I would like to speak to you about the effects of the resurrection on our lives as believers. How does Christ's death and his resurrection relate to us? We're aware of the historical events, but do they simply symbolize spiritual realities in our life, or do they actually empower certain realities in our life? How do they influence us in the way that we live. This is what I want to focus on by looking at Romans, chapter six, the first 14 verses. So, if you will turn there, Romans six, let me read the passage to you beginning in verse one.

"What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?

"May it never be!" How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

"Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

"Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

"For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,

knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;

"for he who has died is freed from sin.

"Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,

“knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master 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.

"Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

"Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,

"and do not go on presenting the Members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

"For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace."

When we look into the history of the Old Testament, we see how God raised his people up to build a tabernacle that later on became the temple. No one could come near the inner sanctuary of the tabernacle because it housed the Ark of the Covenant. Only one person could do that, and that would be the high priest, one time per year on what's called Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; and inside the ark, which was a box that was overlaid with gold, according to Exodus 25, was the Covenant, the law of Moses, the holy standard, also called the Sinaitic Covenant. And above the ark, on each end, you could see the golden cherubs with outstretched wings as they hovered over the ark, symbolically protecting the holiness of God. And between the cherubs existed the Shekinah glory of God; the brilliant, dazzling light that he would often use to materialize himself; a light that no one could possibly see. But there was a lid on top of the ark, a golden lid that separated the law within from the presence of God above.

And the reason for that is because the violated law below prevented anyone from entering into the presence of God unless there was the shedding of blood. And dear friends, that golden lid of separation has staggering implications for each one of us, for every sinner who wants to be reconciled to God, because on that lid, divine justice and grace came together symbolically when the high priest would sprinkle the blood of an animal once per year on that lid for the atonement of the sins of Israel. And that lid was called the Mercy Seat, according to Exodus 252:1. The Septuagint, that is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, translates it as the "hilosterion," meaning "the place of atonement," "the place of propitiation, or satisfaction." The mercy seat was the place, again, where the just wrath of God was symbolically propitiated. His vengeance upon sinners was temporarily placated by the sacrifice of an innocent substitute. And you must understand that the Old Testament sacrificial system pictured the ultimate and final propitiation, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. In fact, John tells us in First John 4:10, "and this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." The "hilasmos," from where we get the word hilasterion. To "propitiate" means to appease or to satisfy, to placate. God himself provided the means to appease his own wrath, and here we witness the infinite, the unfathomable love of God for sinners like you and me. To think that he died for all who will believe.

Now, as we look at the death and the burial and the resurrection of Christ by way of context, we need to remember that Jesus was buried sometime before sundown on Friday, and then his body laid all of Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and then just before sunrise on Sunday, the Lord Jesus was resurrected from the dead. We read about that some in Luke. Let me give you Matthew's account. Matthew 28 beginning in verse one,

"Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave.

"And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it.

"And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.

"The guards shook for fear of him and  became like dead men.

"The angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified.

"'He is not here, for He has risen, Just as He said. Come see the place where He was lying.

"'Go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you.'"

Beloved, the most compelling evidence that Jesus Christ was and is who he said he was and is - that is the Son of God - is the resurrection; the fact that he was resurrected from the dead. Romans, chapter one, verse four, we read, "He was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead." The angelic announcement runs shivers up my spine when I think about it. Try to put yourself there. Come see the place where he was lying. See the massive stone rolled away from the sacred sepulcher. Enter the tomb. Look inside. Gaze upon the slab where your Savior was lying; the God Man who was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He is not there. His work is finished, and he now sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding on our behalf, waiting to return again in power and in great glory. And every man and woman will see him one day. You will see him either as the risen Lord and your Savior, or as your righteous judge, who will sentence you to an eternal hell while you repay for your sins eternally.

Now bear in mind to understand what Paul is saying here in our passage in Romans six. The Jews were convinced that they had to earn their way into heaven by doing religious deeds, keeping the law. So in other words, you have to merit God's favor through your works. If you can impress God enough, then he will grant you entrance into his kingdom. By the way, that is the kind of heresy that is part and parcel of all false religious systems. But Jesus and the apostles come along, and they say something very different. They say, "No, no, no, salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. That's the heart of the gospel." Galatians 2:16 says, "Man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus." And you're familiar with the passage in Ephesians 2:8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."

So the Jews are saying to themselves, "Okay, now let me get this straight. You're telling us that all of our law keeping is really for nothing? That we just need to trust in the atoning work of Jesus of Nazareth, believe that He is the Son of God, that He is our Messiah, that somehow he died as our substitute, that He was buried and he rose again from the grave and he can forgive us of all of our sins, past, present and future? Is that what you're telling us?" Yes, yes. "So he took my sin and he gave me his righteousness if I believe in him?"  Yes. "And therefore, I can be justified in the eyes of God?" Yes. "I don't believe it. No, no, no," they say. And remember they said, "He is not our Messiah. He was a blasphemer who deserved to die; that he did not rise from the dead. His disciples stole his body. And if salvation is purely a gift of God, by grace through faith alone, then that would give every person a license to sin. No, I'm not buying any of that."

So Paul responds to that kind of misguided analysis in Romans chapter six and seven by explaining the implications of Christ's death and resurrection for all who believe in him. Now you will recall at the close of chapter five, there is a glorious climax. And the statement at the end of verse 20, he says, "...where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ." A powerful statement. Then in anticipation of the reaction that he knows he is going to receive from people, he begins here in verse one of chapter six, and he says, "What shall we say? Then are we to continue in sin that grace may increase?" In other words, if salvation is through merit, no merit of our own, then when sin increase, grace abounds all the more. So why not just increase sin so that God's grace will abound all the more? Well, he says, "May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" Very important. Grammatically, in the original language, the term "died" is in the in the past tense, and it speaks of something that has happened once and forever, an event that has taken place, and that is that we died to sin.

Fascinating concept. In other words, at conversion, we cease to exist in Adam, and we became alive in Christ. That which is dead is unable to respond or react to any impulse, any desire, and by extension, to be dead to sin means that we now no longer have that irresistible impulse to sin. Oh, we still sin, but we're no longer slaves to it. In fact, we read in First John 3:9, "No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because He is born of God." In other words, genuine believers are simply unable to live in the realm of sin because they have died to sin. The point here is: how can spiritual life and death coexist? They can't, and that's the persuasive corollary here. You can't be alive and dead at the same time. Well, yes, but we still sin. Well, certainly we do. You see, we have died to sin, but we are not dead to sin. A big difference. If we were dead to sin, we would never respond to it. But obviously, that's not the case.

For example, we see how the battle continues to rage within each of us. If we go to Galatians 5:17, we read, "For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." In other words, there's a tug of war in the inner man. Here, he goes on to say, "...for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please." In other words, every Christian is going to continue to battle the remaining effects of the law of sin in his inner man, in our unredeemed humanness. And while the old man no longer reigns, he nevertheless remains, you might say he is like a defeated tyrant, and he still tries to seduce us, but his strength has been greatly depleted. So because we are united to Christ, we are alive in him. Therefore, the law of sin no longer has dominion over us. We now live under a reign of grace. We have been liberated by his death, liberated by his resurrection, which was also our death and our resurrection. We have been crucified with Christ, and Christ lives in us, right? (Galatians 2:20) As a result, we have died to the reigning power of the old sinful life, and now we can experience the freedom of living in obedience to Christ. Romans six verses six and seven goes on to say, "...our old self was crucified with Him that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin."

So Paul now continues his inspired line of reasoning in verse three, "Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?" Now please understand the term "baptized" here, in the original language, "baptizō," which literally means to immerse, has nothing to do with water baptism. It's used metaphorically here to describe a believer's immersion into Christ at salvation. You see, when we were born again. We were mystically united to him by grace, through faith, which the ritual of baptism symbolizes. And at salvation, we are permanently immersed in him, united to him. Colossians 2:10, says we are complete in Him. Colossians 3:3, we are hid with Christ in God. And we can see this expressed, for example, in First Corinthians 6:17, where Paul said, "The one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him." Galatians 3:27, "For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ." It's an amazing thought, isn't it, that we are forever hidden, united, baptized into Christ?

Now the practical implications of this are staggering, and I hope I can communicate them to you effectively this morning. What he is saying is that our immersion into Christ included our immersion into his death.

In other words, when he died in some unfathomable way, we died with him. In fact, our spiritual baptism united us to Christ in his death and his burial and his resurrection. You see the old man of sin that once defined our fallen nature is now dead. He no longer reigns. His dominion over us has ceased. That's why he says in verse four, "Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life." Newness, a term in the original language that means a newness in quality with the implication of superiority; we have a radically different disposition than our former self. That is Paul's point. So what he's saying is that even as Christ's resurrection proved that his death was an acceptable sacrifice to God, so too, the believer's newness of life proves that he has been born again and that he has died to sin in Christ. Let me make it even clearer, any man who calls himself a Christian but lives in unrepentant sin and embraces things that God abhors is terribly deceived.

You will recall, for example, and I don't think you have this text to see, but in First Corinthians 6:9-10, we're told that, you know, don't be deceived. Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, referring to those with gender perversions like we see today with the transgenders, homosexuals, thieves, covetous people, drunkards, revelers, swindlers. Those people will never enter the kingdom because they're ruled by those sins. By the way, he goes on to say, "...such were some of you, but you were washed." Right? You were cleansed. And the list that I read there would include any one of any of us here in various ways. So Paul goes on to say here in verse five, "For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him." Our "old self," the term in the original carries the idea of of the obsolete self, the inferior self, the worthless self; the old self speaks of that worthless old man that we once were in Adam. That old self was crucified with him, and he goes on to say, "...in order that our body of sin," in other words, our body in which sin continues to operate, "...might be done away with." "Done away with" the original carries the idea of rendering something inactive and powerless. Why so? "...that we would no longer be slaves to sin."

Verse seven, "for he who has died is freed from sin." The term "freed" in the original language - "dikaioō" - is the term used to describe justification - to justify, to declare righteous. And this is the term Paul has used all throughout his epistle. We have been justified. In other words, by his grace, we have been declared righteous. The imputed righteousness of Christ is now upon us. And grammatically, that term is in what we call the perfect passive which indicates that we are the recipients of an action in the past that enjoys results in the continuing days of our life and into the future. And what a glorious truth you see when we came to Christ in repentant faith, our old nature that was enslaved by the law of sin, was suddenly slain. It was rendered powerless, and we were freed from sin. Again, our old nature was crucified with Him; that is, it died with him, as we see in verse six, and immediately, when this occurred in some inscrutable way, we joined him in his death and his burial. It's an amazing thought.

And I know this is some deep doctrinal truths, but folks, you need to understand these things. Our old, worthless self, died and was buried. That's what it means. It was done away with. But miraculously, our new self was resurrected with him, so that "we too might walk in newness of life," verse four. You see, we are therefore no longer slaves to sin. We've been freed from sin's bondage. We have a new nature. The old nature and the new nature are mutually exclusive, and that is the miracle of regeneration, whereby a sinful person, when he is born again, experiences a resurrection from spiritual death to spiritual life, because regeneration is that instantaneous impartation of spiritual life to the spiritually dead. So to walk in the newness of life means that we are going to function differently and how we think and how we act. Ezekiel, 36 verse 26 predicted that we would have a new heart and a new spirit. Galatians 6:15, we're a new creation. Second Corinthians 5:17, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things have passed away; behold, the new things have come." Suddenly, we become aliens in this world when we were once part of it, and oh, how we loved it so.

Isn't it amazing when you truly come to Christ, you begin to love what he loves and hate what he hates. Everything changes, and if it doesn't, you have no basis to claim genuine saving faith. In fact, a changed life was one of the surest ways to validate one's claim of genuine saving faith. Jesus said, "A good tree is known by its fruit" (Matthew 12:33). Matthew 7:21, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord!' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father, who is in heaven, will enter." James 2:26 says that faith without works is dead. You see, regeneration will manifest itself in discernible ways. There will be the internal evidence whereby a believer will have confidence in biblical revelation concerning Christ, a love for Christ, an inner witness of the Spirit, a hunger for God's word, a love for God and for other believers and so forth. And there will also be external evidence. There will be outward righteousness and selflessness and victory over the world and a life free from habitual or tolerated sin. However, bear in mind once again, although the sinful self is dead, we remain incarcerated in our temporal flesh, our unredeemed humanness, and that will continue until glory. Until that day, we will continue to battle our flesh, but not without the power of victory.

Dear Christian, please understand this: because we have been immersed into Christ in his death, his burial and his resurrection, everything about us is forever changed. And if that's not true of you, then you've never truly come to saving faith in Christ. And what a magnificent thing it is to experience this in ourselves and to witness it in other people. I can't tell you the number of times I have seen people who are enslaved to the most heinous, vile sins suddenly changed by the power of the gospel and the Spirit of God to the point where it's like I don't even know who this person is. Atheists, lesbians, homosexuals, serial fornicators, abortionists, you name it, porn addicts, drug addicts, murderers, thieves and on and on it goes, And it's not just the behaviors, it's the desires

Paul provides us with this contrast in Ephesians 4:22, he says, "in reference to your former manner of life, you laid aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which, in the likeness of God, has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth."

 Now back to verse eight of Romans six. It gets even better. Verse eight, it says, "Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we also shall live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him." You see, this speaks not only of the death of sin, it speaks of the death of death. Christ's resurrection has forever defeated the tyrant of death. It no longer has control over us. We've already died with Christ. We're going to be raised with Him. We're not afraid to die as believers. As I say, I don't look forward to the process, but I'm not afraid for the passage. You know, we've been raised to walk in newness of life.

And again, notice verse eight more closely. It says, "Now if we have died with Christ, we believe..." in other words, we have faith. Faith in what? What do we believe? "That we shall also live with Him." Now here, both in the Greek and in the English, whenever the future tense is used, it is emphasizing the inevitability of a certain thing. In this case, the phrase "we shall also live with Him," speaks of the inevitability, the absolute certainty that when a person who knows Christ dies with Christ in salvation, they will inevitably be raised up and live with him. What a comfort; we've been raised to walk in newness of life.

And verse 10 bears this out more fully, "For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God." You see, likewise, this will characterize the believer who has died to sin. You see, the life that he lives, he will now live for God. That will be the passion of his heart. The greatest desire of his heart will be to honor the Lord because he loves him. That's the essence of true worship. Based upon the mercies of God we render ourselves a living sacrifice, right?

"Even so," verse 11, "consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ." Now the context here, obviously, is the certainty of holy living for all who have been immersed in Christ's death and resurrection. I might add in verses 17 and 18, he goes on to say, "Thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness." Folks, this is the stuff of genuine saving faith, of genuine Christianity that is so rare even in evangelicalism today.

But notice something utterly fascinating here in verse 10, "For the death that He died, He died to sin." Now think about this. In what way did the totally sinless Son of God die to sin? Well, the answer is this: he did not die for his own sins. He had none. He died for ours. First John 2:2, "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins." His death satisfied the justice of God. He paid the penalty for the sins of all who would trust in him. But what's fascinating here is his death not only satisfied the penalty of sin, but also broke the power of sin for all who are united to him, as Paul has so clearly described.

But notice something else in verse 10, "For the death that he died, He died to sin once for all." My, talk about the security of the believer, the penalty has been paid. There's no more need for sacrifices (Hebrews 7:27), because this he did, and I love this phrase, "once for all, when He offered up Himself." Hebrews 10:10, "We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."  First Peter 3:18, "Christ died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that he might bring us to God, having put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit." Once for all. My there's a great title for a song.

So again, verse 10, "For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God." This is astounding. You see, the sinless Savior lived a perfect life, then he died to sin once for all, and as a result of that, the life that he lives, he lives to God. And likewise, because we are united to him, we no longer live in the realm of Satan and sin, all of that is forever vanquished at the cross. We now live in the realm of God, the eternal splendors of heaven awaits us. And because we are united to him in his death and his burial and his resurrection, not only do we too share in this realm of glory in the eternal state one day, but right now beloved, right now, we too, like Christ, are able to live to God.

Remember, Christ is now seated at the right hand of the Father, right? We see this in Ephesians 2:6, Paul says that even now he has, quote, "raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace." You see, Christ manifests the divine character of God, and because we are united to him, we too can manifest the character of God in our life. Moreover, because our Redeemer is in constant fellowship with God, and because we are united to him, we delight in the infinite perfections of the sweet communion that he has. The same fellowship that Christ has is ours.

Now, as we move towards the end this morning, I wish to draw your attention to something most fascinating in the text. You see for 148 verses, Paul has been preaching doctrine. He's been talking about condemnation and justification, helping believers understand their new identity in Christ. And finally, in the 149th verse, he gives the first exhortation, and here's what it is, in verse 11, "Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." Consider yourself to be dead to sin. By the way, Paul loves the term "consider." He uses it a lot. "Consider" - "logizomai" in the original language - it means to count or to calculate, and it carries the idea of reckoning or of calculating to credit something or to someone. We might translate it, "regard" or "recognize this about yourself." And because of the grammar of the original language, this is a command that is to be carried out upon oneself. This is something we need to do to ourselves. We need to count ourselves; and grammatically, it indicates that we need to do this habitually on an ongoing basis.

Now notice the two things that we are to do, that we are to consider, that we are to calculate, that we are to regard or recognize about ourselves. Number one, consider yourselves to be dead to sin. Beloved, please understand this. What he's commanding us to do here is make it our constant habit to affirm this in our heart that sin and death no longer has dominion over Christ, therefore it no longer has dominion over me. I don't have to do what the world wants me to do, or what my flesh so often is tempted to do, and I have the power to resist it, because of the indwelling Spirit, because I am united to Christ. Christ's death has forever defeated the cruel taskmaster of sin, and his resurrection has forever defeated the tyrant of death. We're going to be raised with Christ.

So not only in the resurrection, but also the moment we were born again we were raised to walk in newness of life, which is the primary emphasis of the text. Salvation is not just being saved from the penalty of sin and having the assurance of eternal life. It also includes being saved from the power of sin, right now. So consider yourself number one, dead to sin, but secondly, but alive to God in Christ. In other words, habitually affirm this reality in your life, even as Christ now lives in the realm of glory, beyond the reach of Satan and sin and death, because I am united to him, that same power that raised Jesus from the dead is working in me right now and will continue until glory. In Ephesians 2:5, "even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive, together with Christ." And in verse 10, "we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." Astounding. We are part of this predetermined plan.

Beloved, you are alive to God in Christ Jesus, and therefore everything about your relationship to him is forever changed. Obviously, this is not true for an unbeliever, they're slaves to their sin. The Bible says they're born in sin, dead in sin, children of wrath. Under the wrath of God, they have no life, and even though they party and do all kinds of things to somehow chase after the fleeting pleasures of life, the reality is there are slaves to their own flesh, to their own sin, and they're going to continue to struggle to survive. Oh, they're going to enjoy a few fleeting pleasures, but they too, are going to grow old, they're going to get sick and die. Welcome to life in a fallen world, right? But they have no hope. They have no joy; they have no purpose.

I remember an old beer commercial on television. I know you didn't expect that one, right? I love the commercial. It was bunch of guys sitting around a campfire up in the mountains, and that's been so much of my life down through the years. And I don't know they're drinking some beer, and one guy says to the other, "You know, it just doesn't get any better than this. It doesn't get any better." And I'll have to admit, it's a great thing to sit around with guys in the mountain, you know, the horses are put away, and you're relaxing and you're tired, and I don't care anything about beer, it tastes and smells like horse urine to me, but it is a great thing. But you know what? There is so much more than that when you're in Christ. I mean, that's just a little sample of something far more glorious. You know why? Because I am dead to sin, because I'm alive in Christ. That's the implications of the death and the burial and the resurrection of Christ on the believer.

Notice again, we're dead to sin, alive to God in Christ. Therefore verse 12, "...do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts." I mean, how foolish to obey the lusts of your mortal body that is temporal, that is dying. I mean, how idiotic is that? Paul speaks of that in Romans seven, remember he was grieved that he's still of the flesh, sold into the bondage of sin. Verse 14, he talks about, I'm still fleshly, for I know that nothing good thing dwells in me, that is my flesh. Verse 22, and he mourns, "For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members." That's why he went on to say, "Oh, but thanks be to God. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

So even though the sin principle, the law of sin, remains in our body, we are no longer subject to it because of the death and the burial and the resurrection of Christ; we don't have to obey its lust. Therefore verse 12, "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lust." Romans 8:13, says we are to "put to death the deeds of the body." Dear Christian, please hear me, sin cannot be domesticated. It must be eradicated. And this begins by remembering these great doctrinal truths pertaining to our union with Christ. To know them in our mind, to constantly reckon them, to think about them, apply them to our life. And I hope that you see that Easter is not about Easter bunnies and colored eggs and candy and all of those types of things. Easter is about the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus and the implications of these things upon all of us. I cringe when I see churches having Easter egg hunts. Man, you talk about missing the mark. Second Timothy 2:8, "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel..." that's what we need to do. Romans 4:25, "He was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification."

So again, because Christ's death has forever defeated the cruel taskmaster of sin, and his resurrection has forever defeated the tyrant of death, and since we are dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus, he said, "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its lusts and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourself to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God." And he closes with a final exhortation, "For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law," that is the condemnation of the law, "...but under grace" referring to that supernatural power of saving grace that is at work in you.

Beloved, I hope that you will celebrate the effects of Christ's death and resurrection on you. Those of you who know and love Christ reflect often upon your identity with Christ, affirm these truths in your heart and live for his glory, knowing that he is coming again, not to die, but to judge; not as a suffering servant, but as the sovereign King of glory, not as a lamb that opened not his mouth, but as the Lion of Judah, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Oh, how I long for that day.

Well, dear friends, if you're here today and you've never bowed your knee to Christ, I plead with you, as a minister of the gospel, that you humble yourself and you acknowledge your sin, and you cry out to God for his saving grace, and he will save you. He will radically transform you. Because unless you do, you will pay for your sins throughout eternity, rather than trusting in Christ to do that which he did on the cross of Calvary. And if you reject these words, may it never be said in this life or the next that you were not warned because you have been warned today by a minister of the gospel. So I plead with you for the glory of Christ and for your own eternal good. Come to faith in Christ today and experience the miracle of the new birth and all of the implications of the things that we've just talked about. Amen. Amen, let's pray,

Father, thank you for the eternal truths of your word. May they find a place in each heart, and may they bear much fruit to the praise of your glory, for it's in Christ's name that I pray. Amen.