So United Life has been in the midst of going through Romans together for some time now. And, just a couple of weeks ago, we entered with Paul into some new territory, chapter 6, to be exact. There, Paul begins to get a lot more personal with the small group of followers of Christ living in Rome, moving from the broader theological and historical themes he'd been explaining in the preceding chapters into the nitty gritty of day to day life.
Simply put, it's been pretty refreshing to preach from this angle, and I have to thank God and Paul for leading us in this way. I feel like I'm following a trail that allows me to see only a short ways ahead, and have just had the pleasure of being led to a beautiful scenic vista. What's so beautiful about it? I guess the simplest way of putting it is it's been so refreshing to talk and think about this new theme that Paul brings out in Romans 6, which is: who we think we are has everything to do with how we live (i.e. The way Paul gets at this is by asking the question: which of our "selves" is alive right now? The new self that is raised with Christ, or the old self that should have been crucified with Christ? Are we "slaves to righteousness", or are we "slaves to sin"?).
It's easy as a preacher or as a Christian to want to focus on what we do. Many of us make the mistake of acting as if we are the sum of our actions, as if they define what we are. But the testimony of scripture argues that our central identity is defined by how God has loved us through his son, Jesus Christ. In other words, we are not what we do, but what God has done for us already.
Do you believe this?
2 comments:
yezz i believe (:
thats hard for me to do.
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