“Beyond the door”

June 29, 2008   Ken Oren

Romans 6:12-23NRSV

 

 

I. The book of Romans is packed with information about our life with Christ.  Last week we talked about the issues that have brought us to the beautiful gate - the decision to accept and follow Christ.

 

A. Suppose we step through that door. Opening our heart’s door to Jesus is just the beginning. What happens beyond the door?

 

Romans 6:12-14NRSV
¹³No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness,

but present yourselves to God

¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you,

 

I. No longer present your members to sin

 

A. To what do you expose your members? 

B. What types of things do you look at, eat, think about, do with your body?

 

A. Beyond the door with Jesus we recommit our priorities.  We no longer work to satisfy our fleshly desires.  We work to do what Jesus desires.  It means a reorganization of our thinking. 

 

A. An eleventh century Monk wrote:

 

A. When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.

                              Source: Unknown Monk (1100AD). Found at Aspiring to Greatness

 

A. I was speaking yesterday with a young man who is confused about his calling.  This person felt he should be doing great things -things beyond his grasp.  Brothers and sisters, the greatest thing we can do is be servants of God in Jesus name.

 

I. Present yourselves to God.  When you wake up in the morning, present yourself to God and say, “Good morning God - here I am! What shall we do together?”

 

I. Sin will have no dominion over you

 

A. Your new priority is to do things right

 

Romans 6:15-17NRSV
¹⁷But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted,  . . .

 

I. Obedient from the heart means continually reopening our old lives and rededicating ourselves to our new life

A. Beyond the door we tame, break, train - our actions and words to fit our new priorities.  Like we saw last week in the training of wild elephants, if we stake ourselves to the priorities of Jesus, Jesus will train us how to live - but it will not be in pain, but in joy.

 

I. As strangers enter the door of our church they should see us helping them and each other like it was in the old time department store.  Welcome to our store - How may I help you?

 

A. We don’t want to be a Walmart church - with a stingy, find it yourself attitude.  When the church is like that many get frustrated and leave without investing themselves.

 

Romans 6:19NRSV
¹⁹I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.

 

I. We have been trained by our experience.  Jesus can move us beyond the door of our limitations.

 

A. During his first year of graduate study at the University of California at Berkeley, George B. Dantzig (later known as the father of linear programming) arrived late for a statistics class. He saw two problems on the blackboard. Assuming they were homework, he copied them and a few days later turned in his solutions. One Sunday morning six weeks afterward, the professor appeared at Dantzig's door, waving a manuscript. It turned out that the professor had merely written two examples of unsolvable problems on the blackboard. The manuscript was Dantzig's work readied for publication.

                    Reader's Digest, September 1990.

 

I. Most of our limitations are self imposed.  No one had told Dantzig the problems were unsolvable, and sense he did not have the limitation, he had completed them.  But we do have limitations.  We do need Jesus:

 

A. We cannot hear the Spirit without a relationship with God.  We cannot do miracles on our own.  We cannot save our souls

 

A. God calls to us - but we don’t listen.  The prayers of our neighbors and friends open the door

 

A. We are called to pray for our neighbors and show them how Christians love each other.  We are called to show others how Christians gently work to realign our own priorities.

 

Romans 6:21NRSV
²¹So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed?

 

A. The only advantage I can think of is that you learn how much pain your actions can cause - and to not do them again.

 

A. For example, gossip - tears down

1. Many times I have been shown the errors of talking about others - I still have much to learn

 

A. My mom would say, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

 

 

A. Every word should be used to build up - don’t speak unless your words will be helpful to the person or situation.  Words that are put out there cannot be taken back.

 

A. But there are good things we can say.  Words can open the door to eternal joy.

 

A. LOOK UP  Romans 10:8-13NRSV
⁸But what does it say? “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); ⁹because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. ¹¹The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” ¹²For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. ¹³For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

 

A. This is a beautiful promise.

 

A. Beyond the door is the dash between being reborn in Jesus and the end of our lives on earth

 

Romans 6:22NRSV
. . . the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life.

 

A. Sanctify: to make holy or ready for service to God

                              The Everyday Bible: New Century Version. 2005. Nashville, TN.: Thomas Nelson, Inc.

 

A. SANCTIFICATION is the process of God’s grace by which the believer is separated from sin and becomes dedicated to God’s righteousness. Accomplished by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, sanctification results in holiness, or purification from the guilt and power of sin.

Youngblood, R. F., Bruce, F. F., Harrison, R. K., & Thomas Nelson Publishers. (1995). Nelson's new illustrated Bible dictionary. Rev. ed. of: Nelson's illustrated Bible dictionary.; Includes index. Nashville: T. Nelson.

 

A. When Lewis and Clark floated down the Columbia River to the Pacific, it was known as the Great River. Its current boiled furiously through steep gorges, then flowed placidly but swiftly in broad stretches. Ever undisciplined, and sometimes consummately violent, it moved everything as it chose—giant trees as well as saplings, huge boulders and pebbles. Into the Pacific swells it charged with such fury that the resulting breakers defied passage without the threat of instant death. Far out into the briny ocean it discharged it fresh water flows.

 

A. Today, a sluggish whisper of its former thunderous mayhem, the Columbia is restrained by nine major dams. Grand Coulee, the greatest power dam on earth, harvests the river to develop millions of watts of electricity, its huge turbines charging long-distance lines with power to industries and homes.

 

A. Before we knew Christ, we were like the Great River—untamed, unrestrained, passionate. With little regard for control and discipline, we did what we pleased, said what we wanted, and went where we chose. Then Jesus came into our lives and harnessed our undirected energies into useful and productive habits, relationships, and purposes. He turned our chaos of complexities into disciplined harmony, our unregulated passions into exercised resolves.

Hurley, V. (2000, c1995). Speaker's sourcebook of new illustrations (electronic ed.) (41). Dallas: Word Publishers.

 

A. God can harness our rowdy past - and use it to God’s glory.

 

I. 300^th anniversary devotional and utmost both had the same Bible passage:

 

A. LOOK UP: Philippians 3:10-14NRSV and see what the apostle Paul has to say after he has gone beyond the door:
¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ¹²Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

 

Romans 6:23NRSV
 ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

A. Die and nothing?
The Bible says our Spirit lives on, but without Jesus we live in eternal separation - emptiness - loneliness.

 

A. Chuck  and I visited John Friday. 

 

1. Our visits bring reassurance and comfort to John regarding his place in the Kingdom. 

 

1. We review scriptural references of promises of heaven

a. New body, Know and known, Joy, Peace, Love

 

A. It would be difficult to make these visits to someone who did not know Christ.  It would be difficult to see someone who had made many mistakes in this life and had not accepted eternal salvation.  Difficult, but necessary. 

 

A. We meet together on Sunday to learn, to be encouraged, and for rededication and renewal of our vows.  All for sanctification: to make ourselves ready for service to God.  May it be so.