(Pause) Alright, if you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans 6. We're going to be mainly focused on verse 8-11, but let's read from verse 5-11 this morning. Reading out of the ESV, "For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.

We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have 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. For 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." Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank You again for this morning. We pray, Father God, that You would anoint Your Word, You would soften our hearts, open our ears, and we pray, Lord God, that as we have come to worship You, that it would truly be from the bottom of our hearts.

I pray that Your name may be exalted, that Your children may be able to hear from You, and You alone. We thank You in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. You know, years ago when I was young in marriage, I think I was about two or three years in marriage, there was a guy that I knew who was about 12 years ahead of me in marriage, and he asked me how my marriage was, and I told him, "Things are good." And I remember him not being satisfied with that answer, saying, "Peter, you have to really share, you know what I mean?

What are the struggles that you're going through?" And I remember having that conversation, thinking, "Wow, is this how most people have been married for a while? Is this how they feel about marriage?" And sad to say, in our generation, people who've been married for more than a few years, don't have, again, generally, I'm not saying every single person, but generally speaking, don't have a high view of marriage.

In fact, it's pretty strange. If you are in a workplace filled with non-Christians, and sad to say, sometimes even Christians, it's strange to talk about your wife in a positive light. It's one thing to talk about it here up in the pulpit, but when you're out on the streets or in the gym, and you're talking about, "Yeah, my wife is the best.

She does this and that." And almost kind of like, "You're a weirdo." You expect men to be ripping on their wives, "Oh, that ball and chain, because of her, I can't do this and I can't do that." And you typically hear wives talking about their husbands like they're training monkeys.

You know, they got to train them to do this, and train them to do that. And that's a typical language that you hear of people who've been married for a certain period of time. And it's sad, but that is the reality that we live in. And sometimes, I think part of the reason why that happens is, I think if you've been in a marriage for a while, you forget why you decided to get together.

Nobody had a gun to your head and say, "You better marry this girl." Everybody gets married because they want to get married. In fact, a lot of people get married, despite the opposition from parents, from friends, because they wanted to. They wanted this more than anything else. If you remember, but for whatever the reason, time passes by and you forget about that, and then it becomes a burden.

It's important for us, and that's why we have anniversaries, that's why we have different days that we set aside to remember the gift that God has given in our marriage. But I think this morning, my point is not talking about marriage, but a lot of times in our walk with God, our relationship with God is perceived the same way.

When you see somebody on fire for God, we just assume they're a young Christian. They're young in faith or young in age, but rarely do you see somebody who's been walking with the Lord for 30, 40 years on fire for God. It's just strange. You expect people who've been in the church for a long time to be jaded, kind of lukewarm.

And again, it's a very strange scene. And I think part of the reason why we do that is because sometimes Christianity in our walk with God becomes nothing more than things that we need to do. We have things we need to do at work, things to do at home, and then there's things we need to do at church.

So sometimes you may be thinking that maybe if I didn't meet Christ, I would have less of a burden in life than maybe my secular friends. We've been talking about how Paul is trying to convince, as he is preaching the gospel here in Book of Romans, that every single person who has been united with Christ, first and foremost, have been united with his death.

That as Jesus was crucified, we were crucified with him. And that's absolute truth. He says every Christian who genuinely confessed their faith has been crucified with Christ. But if the gospel stops there, it would be a tragedy. You know, a lot of times we think about Christian life as sacrifice, picking up the cross.

He died, we need to suffer. We need to become the servant of all, consider others better than ourselves. And we think about all these commandments that are straight out of the Bible, but if we don't understand why these things are taught and what the purpose of these things are, and that's where we stopped.

That all we do is to celebrate Christ crucified, not realizing or celebrating what happens after. He is buried, he is resurrected on the third day, and he is glorified. And then he tells his church that one day, the same will happen to us. That if we are united with Christ in his death, we will also be united with him in his life.

But if we stop at the death and not recognize the life, that's when Christianity becomes a drudgery. Because we're not experiencing the life, all we're experiencing is sacrifice. See, the text that we're looking at this morning, verse 8, after he's established that we've clearly been crucified with Christ, starting from verse 8, he says, "The reason for this, "the reason why we were united with Christ in his death "is because we have been united with his resurrected life." So look with me in verse 8.

Romans 6, 8 says, "Now, if we have died with Christ, "we believe that we will also live with him." So I wanna make this very clear. We're not at the imperatives yet. This is not a command. Paul has not given a single command up to this point. We're gonna get to that when he gets to verse 11.

Starting from verse 11, he's gonna go to the imperatives, and he's gonna say, "Now that you know what it means to be a Christian, "now you ought to do this." So starting from verse 11, he's going to give imperatives, commandments. Therefore, this is how you ought to live. But up to that point, up to this point, he's just giving theological truths, that this is a fact.

So when he says, "If we've truly been crucified with Christ, "we believe," we believe that we will also live with him. He's stating a belief. The question that we need to ask in this is, is he talking about this belief that leads to life? Is he talking about that one day when we die, and we're gonna be resurrected with him in eternity, and we're gonna live?

Or is he talking about living as in, because we died with him, we're able to live in a certain way today? I hope you understood what I was saying. Douglas Moo, who's the leading scholar in the book of Romans, this is how he describes that question. He says in his commentary, "This future life of the resurrection "casts its shadow into the believer's present experience, "and it's clear from the sequel "that Paul wants us to see the present implication "of this promise of future resurrection life." So some of you guys understood that.

Some of you guys looking at me like, what? Let me put it in layman's terms. Basically what he's saying is, that promise of the future resurrection of Christ casts such a shadow in a Christian's life that it has no other way other than to make a radical impact in the life of the way that Christian lives.

You didn't understand either. Basically, this hope of the resurrection makes a radical impact in your life. The hope that you have changes the way that you live. That's true in every other aspect of our lives. Some of you guys are trying to get into grad school. And as a result of that, you got a cheap job.

You're getting minimum wage, and you're working 10, 20 hours, right? As an intern somewhere, and your other college friends who graduated college, and they're making 60, 70,000 a year, and you're making minimum wage, and the question is, why are you doing that? You're doing that to build up your resume in hopes that if you put in your time, that somehow that's gonna help you get into, whether it's med school or PA school, whatever that you're trying to get into.

So that hope of getting into that school is causing you to make some sacrifices today. We do that in every other part of life. Some of you guys have a picture of what your body, you want your body to look like, right? You have a very, you watch certain commercials, and you go to the gym, you say, that's what I want.

And so you're making sacrifices today. You're not eating pizza. Every time you go to Costco, you smell that hot dog, you run out. You're making some serious sacrifices in your life, and there's this desire that you have that you're not caving into. You're miserable. But you're willing to be miserable because of the hope of the new body.

You're making all kinds of sacrifices. You're getting up early, you're going to the gym, and you're willing to bear with some of these sacrifices because of the hope that one day your body's gonna look different. We practice that in every other aspect of our life, and the greater the hope, the greater the impact that it has on our daily life.

There is no greater hope that any Christian confesses than the hope of a new life in Christ. That death is not final. That one day we're gonna be in eternity with our Abba Father. And that hope changes us. It changes not just the way we think, not just the songs that we sing, not just the church that we attend.

It changes every aspect of our lives. I think John says this even better. In 1 John 3, 2-3, it says, "Beloved, we are God's children now, "and what we will be has not yet appeared." The promises that God has made, we know it in our head, but we haven't really seen it yet.

But we know that when He appears, "We shall be like Him, "because we shall see Him as He is." We've gotten a glimpse of what that eternal life will be like when we saw Christ. He says, "And everyone who thus hopes in Him "purifies himself as he is pure." So everyone who genuinely has this confession, genuinely is living with that hope, in other words, he says, it changes him.

It sanctifies him. And that's what he means. Those who have been united with Christ in His death, believe that we will also be united with Him, therefore we will be changed. Now, why is he saying this? He's saying this because, remember, the context in which Paul is saying this is to answer the question that came up in verse one.

Paul has been preaching in the Book of Romans that salvation is by grace alone. It is not by your good deeds. That if you are under the law, you'll be judged with the law. If you don't have the law, you'll be judged outside the law. But all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And salvation is by grace and by faith alone. So the natural question is, to a Jew, if that's the case, isn't that going to cause licentiousness? Isn't that going to cause people who say, you know what, one saved always saved, and he's gonna forgive sin, so it doesn't matter what I do.

Well, Paul answers that question in verse one. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? And the answer is, by no means, absolutely not. I know some of you guys may be thinking, it's like, hmm, that sounds good on paper, but that's not the reality.

That sounds good on paper theologically. That makes a good sermon, but is that really the reality? Hasn't salvation by grace produced cheap grace? Hasn't salvation, if you look at the Jehovah Witnesses, and if you ask them, are you assured that you're gonna go to heaven? They say, no, they can't.

I'm not sure if my work is good enough. Same thing with the Muslims. If you ask them, are you assured? They can't be, because they don't know. Once they die, if they're good, it's going to outweigh the bad. So they work hard. They pray. They fast. They go door to door and get rejected because they have to do this in order to have at least even a little bit of assurance that they may be, after they die, go to heaven.

But if you give assurance of salvation to just everybody, if you just believe, isn't that going to produce licentiousness? Paul says, absolutely not. And here's why. If they have been truly crucified with Christ, so he's not talking about Christianity as you and I may know it in our generation, right?

So I want you to get that out of your head. Don't just, what Paul is saying is not defending modern day Christianity. That's not what Paul is doing. Paul is defending genuine Christianity. He's defending genuine preaching of the gospel and genuine repentance. That's what he's defending. So don't just automatically sit there and think, oh, this is referring to us.

It may be, but let's examine closely when he says that. If we have been truly crucified with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him because we have this groaning, according to Romans 8, that can't be satisfied in anything else but Christ. See, if you're a genuine believer, it says in Romans 8.22, "For we know that the whole creation "has been groaning together in pains of childbirth until now "ever since the fall." Everything that has been created, something went wrong.

It's been under the dominion, this dark cloud of God's judgment. And it's been groaning, waiting for redemption to take place. But not only the creation, it says in verse 23, "But we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, "groan inwardly as we wait eagerly "for the adoption of sons." The Holy Spirit has been implanted, given us, and that Holy Spirit primarily is groaning inside of us, longing for the second coming of Christ.

Now, some of you guys may say, wait a second, I thought we were already adopted. Why are we groaning to be awaited, to wait for him, his coming? It's kind of like a child who has been adopted, went through the papers, in every way is a child of the new father, new family.

But they didn't come and pick him up yet. So in every way, that child has the benefit of being a child of this new family, but the parents haven't physically come and gotten her yet. And that's how it's described, that all of us, every genuine believer, who has confessed their faith in Christ, has become an adopted child of God.

But the Bible says when he comes, he will take that into full fruition. We will be glorified as Christ is glorified. And until then, until then, there is a groaning in our hearts that cannot be satisfied until he comes. And it is that groaning that causes us to pursue him.

It is that groaning that causes us to worship him. It is that groaning that changes our lives. 1 Peter 1, 3, it says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. "According to his great mercy, "he has caused us to be born again, "to a living hope through the resurrection "of Jesus Christ from the dead." So again, he's not saying you should do this, he's saying this is who you are, right?

This is what a genuine Christian looks like. And this is the reason why a genuine confession of faith does not lead to licentiousness. It is to inherit, we have a living hope, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

So a believer who has been crucified with Christ, we believe that we also will be resurrected with him. And that everything that you and I have hoped for before we met Christ is rubbish. In light of what we are waiting for. In light of the groaning that God has placed in our hearts, everything else that gets in the way is rubbish.

Everything now is compared, well, if I do this, how does it affect that? And that's what Paul means here. Those who have genuinely been forgiven of their sins and repented and is united with Christ in his death will now be united with Christ in his new life. See, he says not only will be united with him in life, he says it's in Christ we will be united.

1 John 5, 11 to 12, it says, this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life. And this life is in his son, whoever has son has life, and whoever does not have the son does not have life. You know, back in college, I was taught how to evangelize and at the end, you know, how do you give assurance of salvation?

This is one of the things that they taught us. We'd come to this passage and we would say, you know, this is Jesus and this is life. And the Bible says that the life is in Jesus. So when I give you Jesus, and then they would take the Bible, say, what did you get?

They'll say the Bible, no, pay attention. This is Jesus, right? And this is life. When I give you this, what did you get? Jesus. What did you get with Jesus? Life. Good. See, that's what he means in 1 John 5, 11 and 12. He said, this life is in Christ.

Jesus said, I am the way and I am the truth and I am the life. So a life of a Christian is a pursuit of this life. And this pursuit of this life is a pursuit of Christ. And that's exactly what Jesus meant to his disciples. You know, in the book of John, there's seven I am statements.

The last I am statement that he gives to his disciples as he is leaving to go to the cross, he says, I am the true vine. Turn your Bibles with me to John chapter 15. I'm not gonna read all of it, but a portion of John chapter 15, one through 11.

A lot of times we read that passage as an encouragement to do something to bear fruit. And I'm not saying that it isn't, because every indicative, every theological truth leads us to the practice of that truth. But typically when we look at this passage, we look at this passage as like, you know, Christians, you know, you need to do a better job.

If you wanna bear fruit, you need to remain in Christ. But I want you to look at this passage in the context that Jesus isn't necessarily describing a mature and an immature Christian. He's describing a Christian and a non-Christian. In John chapter 15, one is that I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser.

Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit, he takes away. What does he mean by take away? I'm not gonna answer, just keep that in mind. What does he mean by take away? He takes away and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit.

Already you are unclean because of the word, you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Obeyed in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. But jump with me to verse six.

If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers. Is that a Christian? Is that a Christian? Is that a lesser Christian who's not bearing fruit? He gets thrown away and gets burned? See, what he's describing is a Christian and a non-Christian. He's not describing a super Christian and a lesser of a Christian.

He's describing a Christian who is abiding in Christ who is bearing fruit. And he's telling his disciples, up to this point, you've been abiding in me, you followed me. They're afraid because Jesus has said, where I'm going, you cannot come. Jesus said, no, I'm gonna go and the Holy Spirit's gonna come and he's going to further.

He's gonna remind you of everything that I have said. And now he's going to empower you to do what I'm commanding you to do. But in that context, he says, you need to continue to remain in me. As you've been following me up to this point, as you've been depending on me up to this point, you need to continue this.

And so he's describing a Christian versus a non-Christian. So in other words, what he is saying is, a Christian life, his justification, sanctification, glorification is a pursuit of Christ. It is a continual, ongoing pursuit of Christ. And the reason why we pursue him is because that's where we find life.

That is the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. A Christian is not somebody who comes to church, owns a Bible, attends Bible study and evangelizes. That is not a definition of a Christian. A Christian is someone who is born again into a new life. Now, does a genuine Christian evangelize?

Absolutely. Does a genuine Christian read the Bible and do all that stuff? Absolutely. Those are the fruits that come from a genuine salvation. But the difference, the fundamental distinction between a Christian and non-Christian is, is he remaining in Christ? Is there a groaning for him that causes me, the hope that I have in him that causes me to make certain decisions and do this?

See, not only do we have this hope in him, in verse nine and 10, it says, "We know that Christ being raised from the dead "will never die again. "Death no longer has dominion over him. "For death he died, he died to send ones for all." This is what happened.

See, again, he's describing a Christian. Again, and let me make this clear. He's not describing everybody that goes to church. He's not describing everybody who confesses. He's describing every genuinely born again Christian. And this is why it doesn't lead to licentiousness. Because our hope is in Christ. And I want him more than anything else.

That's why we come to church. That's why we give. That's why we sacrifice. Because those are avenues in which we remain in Christ. But here's the other thing. Up to this point, he's been talking about indicative. He's describing a Christian. So starting from verse 11, he's gonna switch gears and start talking about the imperatives.

Therefore, this is what you need to do. Verse 11. So, again, so is just another word for therefore, you also must consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. That word consider is the first imperative in six and a half chapters of the gospel. Up to this point, Paul never said, you need to do this and you need to do that.

He's just been laying out what the gospel is and who a genuine Christian is. And so now he says, if that's who you are, consider yourself dead to sin. Now, when we read a passage like this, one of the first things that we may think is, is he talking about wishful thinking?

Is he just talking about positive thinking, like go to yoga and go up to the woods and say, dead to sin, dead to sin, dead to sin, dead to sin, dead to sin. Enlightenment, right? Is he just talking about positive thinking, deny the reality? Those of you who are dead to sin, that if you have these temptations and you're struggling and wrestling, that you're not a Christian, we're all guilty, right?

Is that what Paul's talking? Is he talking about just wishful thinking, but not dealing with reality? Absolutely not. So we need to know first and foremost, what does he mean then to consider? There's two meanings. The first again, is about what we think, right? To recognize that we have been freed from the bondage of sin.

Even though there are times that you may not feel like you've been freed. I'm pretty sure there are people in this room that may not feel that way, right? You genuinely believe, genuinely repent it, genuinely desire holiness, but there are times when we feel like we're bound, because we may not be successful for whatever the reason.

He is saying that every genuine Christian no longer has the reign of sin in your life. And let me describe what that means, okay? It's kind of like an example I can give you is a man who was convicted of murder, double life sentence, there is no possibility of parole.

Somebody has compassion, say, you know, I'm gonna pay, I'm gonna take his place, and that's the gospel message. And then now the door has been opened. Door has been opened, he's no longer bound. He can live in the jail. He can eat their cafeteria food, he can use the library, he can use the infirmary, but he's no longer bound by that jail.

He's no longer bound because his guilt has been taken away. So anytime he wants to leave, he can leave. And so the first description when he says, consider yourself debt to sin, is describing and making sure that every Christian understands that you no longer are bound because of your sins.

Let me give you another way for us to understand this. Author of Hebrews says that the door to our heavenly Father has been opened. There is no longer any barrier. And so he invites us to come to this throne of grace with confidence because Jesus, our mediator, is constantly mediating on our behalf as our high priest.

So there no longer is any barrier because of this. So the difference between a non-Christian who sins and a Christian who sins is a non-Christian is bound. He has no answer for his sins. So every careless word that comes out of his mouth is under the condemnation of God.

Every lustful thought, every slander, every mistake that he's made that is considered sin, there's a weight of sin and judgment that is having dominion over his life 'cause there's no answer for sin. But for a Christian, we repent. And again, when we say we repent, we're not just saying like we say these magical words.

We genuinely come to the Lord and we repent. And when we repent, we're forgiven. And that weight of that sin is lifted every time we repent. And there is no barrier between us and God. So therefore, we have access to this God. And that's why Paul is able to say, I can do all things through him who gives me strength.

He's not saying I can do it. He said now, because the door has been opened and I'm no longer bound by the guilt of my sins, I have access to the heavenly Father that I can pray. And so I have strength. That's why Paul says I'm laboring and sacrificing with the strength that works so powerfully within me.

In other words, not by his own strength, but by the strength that God gives him because of what Christ has done. So the first and foremost, he's saying, if you don't recognize that this door has been opened, you can live the rest of your life saying, woe is me, woe is me.

But that is not you. If you are genuinely a child of God and genuinely repented and genuinely was crucified and was resurrected along with Christ, there's nothing between you and God. And that's why the second part of this is possible. The second part of the word consider is to actively pursue, like it says in Ephesians 4.1.

After three chapters of explaining what Jesus did for us, basically it's the gospel message. In chapter 4.1, it says, therefore I, prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. There's nothing more frustrating than if somebody above you tells you to do something that you just are not capable of doing.

If running a marathon was the qualification of a pastor, I would not be here. So you guys who love playing basketball, it's like, you know what, you have to be the center. We're putting a new team together and you're five feet three and they say, you have to be the center.

You may love basketball, but you're not gonna love that basketball. And every time you can't get a rebound and somebody towers over you, I mean, there's nothing more frustrating than to be commanded to do something that you are not capable of doing. A lot of people look at their Christian life and says, well, God is telling me to do things that I cannot do.

The gospel tells us, no, that is not the case. He says, there is no barrier between us and God. And what gives us the strength? Repentance. 'Cause every time we genuinely confess our sins, there's no barrier between us and God. So therefore, if you abide in him, in my words, abide in you, he says, ask whatever you wish, it shall be done for you.

The power is not within you. And that's why he says, well, I'm ready to go. I'm ready to preach the gospel. In the book of Acts chapter one, he says, do not go. The Holy Spirit's gonna come upon you. And when he comes with power, then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the remotest part of the world.

He didn't take this burden. It's like, these guys just utterly failed. They couldn't stand with Christ going to the cross, and then you're gonna give that burden to them to get the gospel to the remotest part of the world? Are you kidding me? Peter's gonna fail again and rebuke publicly in the book of Galatians.

2,000 years, we're still talking about him. His utter failure. You're gonna give that responsibility to him? Yes, because it wasn't Peter. It was the Holy Spirit. It wasn't Paul. It was him. And so the first and foremost, he says, recognize who you are. And if you recognize who you are, the second part of this consider is now live up to the calling you have been given.

Live up to it. (audience laughing) Right now, as you guys know, the Olympics are going on. And it's always interesting. It's not because, I'm not interested in all these sports. There's basketball, maybe swimming, if I know who they are. Archery is a few things that I have interest in.

I know nothing about archery, but just for some reason, it's just interesting to me. But every single one of these athletes have been preparing for years and years. Some of them, since they were little children. 20 years. That's all they've been doing. So they're coming up on the stage, and I look at that and said, wow.

We celebrate their achievement, but at the same time, it's like, there's no way. I could practice all my life, and I would never be able to do that. But when I look at the Paralympics, I look at these Paralympics, and I'm thinking, wow. Look at what they're doing, even though the deficiencies they have physically, that it's much more of a challenge.

20 years ago, a lot of these things that are happening now could not have been done. But because of the advance of technology, you have these prosthetics where people can actually run, like in full speed. They can actually swim, they can put limbs on. And recently, I've been reading articles where the prosthetics at the tip, they can actually sense things.

So they can distinguish when they pick up something, that if it's an apple or a rock. That's incredible, what they're able to do now. And so when I look at that, I say, wow. These guys are, again, physically challenged, but look what they're doing with that. Imagine if the new technology comes, and they're able to get these, this person who didn't have legs, and all of a sudden, because of technology, somebody gives them these legs, and you find them three years later, and you say, what did you do with that?

Well, I sat on the couch, I'm able to go to the bathroom by myself. And that in itself is great. But these guys are taking these legs, and they're maximizing what they can do with these. Like, they're running, they're competing, they're swimming, they're hiking. They're doing more than what average person does, you know, who are whole.

I mean, even eyes, I mean, more and more people, like I said, people who have gone blind. You know, there's some studies where some of these guys who are not 100% blind are starting to gain sight again because of, again, technology. Imagine if you found somebody who's blind, you know, all their life, and all of a sudden, they gain sight, and then you find them three years later, what did you do with those new eyes?

I watched every single movie on Netflix. High five. That's what you did with your eyes? That's what you did with your legs? That's what you did with your arms? See, what Paul is saying, every Christian didn't just get new legs and new eyes. We've been given a new heart.

We've been given new brains. We have been crucified, and our old self died, and we've been given new life. And so now he says, "Live!" That's what he means by consider yourself dead to sin, and alive to Christ, to pursue this life. See, the frustration comes when we passively receive this life, and say, "Oh, I couldn't see, "and then now I can see." Thank you.

If that's all Christian life is, what do you need eyes for? What do you need legs for? And we don't see the benefit of this new life because we passively, we're constantly passively hoping that we could live vicariously with somebody else. So we hear about people who went out to missions, and sacrifice, and making disciples.

We're looking at all of this, and living vicariously. We say, "Well, praise God. "High five." And then we kind of forward emails that we get. Look how encouraging this article is. "I heard this testimony, it's great." But we don't have our own testimony. All we're doing is forwarding information that we're seeing with other people.

And then when we don't have enough testimonies around us, we get frustrated. What's wrong with these people? See, when he says consider, the first imperative is, if you know that you've been given new life, and you've been given new legs, and new eyes, and new heart, now use it.

Now live it. I remember the very first time my eyes got open, and I believed that God was real. The first thought that I had was, I want to tell other people. Wouldn't you? If you were blind all your life, and all your friends were blind, and somebody gave you new life, and this new life is something that they can have too, would you get this new life, and just, fantastic, and then go on a trip?

I think we would all have the same thought. I know a bunch of people who can't see. I want them to have it. And we pursue Christ. We pursue fellowship. We pursue his word. Pursue, and let me, qualify that. Not just passively receive. And that's why people who are not actively pursuing Christ are the greatest critics.

You're like the people who are watching the Olympics, and you're watching, and then, you know, they do this fantastic vault, and then their leg moves just a second like that. (scoffs) They don't deserve a knight. That's a 7.5. You know? Michael fell, you know, like, swimming, you know, swimming his heart out.

And he missed his first place by a millisecond. (groans) 28 gold medals. He couldn't get 29. The people who are bystanders are the biggest critics. We're celebrating other people's life and critiquing how they're living. But if you're a genuine believer in Christ, you've been given a gift of new life.

And that's why he's not saying pursue it to make you feel guilty. He's telling you, pursue it. You have new legs. Run! I've given you a new mouth. Speak! I've given you a new heart. Feel! I've given you new strength. Now live. That's why when Jesus says, "I've come to give life, "I've come to give abundantly." Not just enough so you can come to church.

Not just enough so you can be okay at Bible study. But so you can live. See, for a Christian, life is found in Christ, in Christ alone. Alone! That's why we come to church. That's why we sacrifice. That's why we are united with Christ in his death, so that we may be united with Christ in his new, resurrected life.

Amen? That's why Paul is saying it does not. Genuine repentance, genuine acceptance, genuine fellowship with Christ does not lead to the sentience system, but a new life in Christ. Would you take a minute to pray with me?