The way the cross changes our lives has to keep on going because many of the changes when we are first converted are very implicit.
How does the cross continue to shape our lives?
Romans 6:1-7, 11-18
The passage talks about freedom from sin that the cross brings us. Freedom to change. The cross brings the power to change in our lives.
What does the cross free us from? for? and how does it do it?
1. The cross frees us from (spiritual) masters.
The language all through Romans 6 is all about slavery. Everyone is serving something. In this regard it is following the first commandment. 'I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.' It is saying there is no other third way. There is a not a person serving nobody... This is highly disputed today, but I think that you really can’t understand a critical part of your self until you see this.
Everybody, religious or not, offers themselves to somebody. If you are not then you are not living. You have to live for something. There has to be something that keeps you going. Something that gets you out of bed... And some of these things are really, really good like living for your family, living for your children, for the love of your life, your career, a good cause... But Romans 6 is saying here that whatever you live for is actually a master. Nobody is really independent...A master is whatever you live for most, the thing that you feel like that gives you meaning and happiness... and this is so regardless of your belief. You may say my master is my Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, my Catholicism, a Protestantism... but I am talking about THE functional master in your life, what you REALLY offer yourself to, what you REALLY live for.
In Romans 6 verse 13, a word in the Greek - "Epithumian" - shows up (it actual shows up quite a bit in the New Testament when change is spoken of). It is almost invisible in the NIV. (I wrote about this in another blog, but quickly here it is again) It is an 'epi' desire, like an 'epi' center. You cannot translate it as an evil desire. It is not necessarily talking about wanting bad things, it is talking more than not about wanting good things too much. This word can be more sharply translated as "over-desire". Good things as ultimate things -
If you want something, and it is a good thing, and somebody gets in your way, you get mad, but if it is an ultimate thing you get bitter and furious. You won't be able to deal with this anger, you can't forgive this person. It is inordinate anger. Anger is fine. There really is nothing wrong with anger in these situations. But if this thing is a 'master' in your life, it will control with inordinate, outrageous anger and you won't be able to get over it.It is like what can happen when a parent wants the best for their children. If it is an over-desire it will look like this: ‘If you turn out happy, and you love me, then I will feel like my life was not completely hopeless. But if you turn out to hate me and you get into drugs and jail, well then I will not even want to live’... There is a difference between letting something your child does get to you and making it a master. I am sure it is only natural for it to effect you if you love them. But there is a difference between making it a good thing and making it an ultimate thing.
When a good thing is threatened you are worried. Really worried! But when an ultimate thing is threatened, you are paralyzed with fear. When a good thing is denied, you are angry. When an ultimate thing is denied, you are uncontrollably angry. When a good thing is lost, you are in despair, but eventually you do come out of it.
But when an ultimate thing is lost, you will want to kill yourself, and there is no way out... unless you are willing to admit that this was a spiritual master and it is your fault. When you break up with somebody it is awful! And it takes time to get over it. But if you never get over it then it is because male or female affection has been your master. Down deep you have made it clear that as long as you had it, you had worth... but what is that? That is a master of your life. And EVERYBODY has one. Regardless of what you say you believe or don't believe.Looking at that first commandment one more time - "I am the Lord your God. Have no other gods before me." It is saying Him or them. You have a choice, but there is no third option. Martin Luther once wrote (paraphrased), 'You never are disobeying the other commandments unless you are first disobeying the first one... Why do you lie? Usually because of human approval, money, reputation... something else is more important to you than it ought to be.' He is talking about spiritual masters. These things that if you don't have will devastate you and you may not even want to face life because of the loss. If there is anything you say that about except God, even at a semi-unconcious level, you are a slave to something besides God. And that's simply why you and I have got the problems we have got.
2. The cross frees us for unconditional love.
Romans 6 verse 13 - the whole New Testament is pretty much about this... It pretty much says, 'Christian you have died with Christ. You have identified yourself with the cross. You have been united with Him in His death.' There is an objective and subjective meaning to that. Subjectively - Jesus died for me. I see the sacrifice that He did and I want to live in the light of that. Ok... but what kind of life comes out of that. How does being brought from ‘death to life through the cross’ change a person? Let’s dig deeper into our Christianese.
The cross is completely counter-intuitive to everything we have been taught in the world. When you look at the cross you see the way up is down, the way to influence is to serve, they way to wealth is to give away, the way to win is to lose... The most powerful being in the universe became weak, poor, died for His enemies, turns the other cheek, gives Himself, takes no political power... and by doing all of this He changes the course of human history. Now what are we supposed to do in the light of that?
Mark 10 - Jesus tells His disciples that He will betrayed and killed, but rose again. Immediately after that James and John ask to be seated at His right hand and left... They did not get it! Jesus says thats how the Gentiles do it. They get in power and forget about everyone else. "But not so with you... the one who will be greatest will be the servant of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and give His life as ransom for many." Jesus is saying that we need to turn our thinking upside down on almost everything. When Jesus says, "not so with you,"
He is not saying to hole up and not engage the culture. He is saying don't engage the culture like the “Gentiles” do - with money, power, privilege - but pour out your life for your city, impoverish yourself for your city, make it such that the people around you, although they say they don't believe Christianity, could not see 'how the city would survive without the sacrificial loving lives of those people. If those people left the city would collapse.' That's what the church should be! And when others see your good deeds, they will glorify God in heaven.The cross proves that if you want influence, you go low, you don't go high. You serve. You do not try and take over... AND THEN they will ask you because they know you genuinely care about them. THEN they will want to learn from you and want to see... The only power that is going to make a difference, especially in our modern, cynical world, is freely given influence and power.
The cross turns everything upside down. When it comes to class and race, the cross will move you to a point of zero pride. The cross will move you to incredible generosity of your income, space, and time. "Offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life!" -- as those who have been brought into life from death, who have been brought into wealth through poverty, who have been brought into power though weakness. That's how the cross works. That's what it means to be righteous.
The interpersonal change that happens through the cross does so because of the intrapersonal change. Author, pastor Tim Keller commented on Deuteronomy 7:6-8 and helped me think this through:
"The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt."
It's circular reasoning! Do you see it? God is saying that He didn't 'love you because you were one of the great nations, in fact you were the least, but it was because I loved you that I brought you out of Egypt'... God is saying to His people (the nation of Israel then, and now to His people across all borders) that, 'I love you, just because I love you, just because I love you.'
Dani (my wife) will someday ask, 'Do you love me?' And I will say, 'Of course I love you! A million times over!' And then she will say 'Why???' This is where I will have to be very careful. I could truthfully say, "You the smartest girl I have ever known, the prettiest girl I have seen, I love how we can talk for hours, I love the ambition and life spark you have, I love how you want to see everything, I love how we can walk and get lost in a city and have such a great time doing it, I love how you make me feel good about myself because when someone like you is with me other people will say 'Hey! You must be pretty dang cool!'... But the truth here will not work. I think the only answer in which you can build an entire LIFE of love is, "I love you just because I love you." And this is not just sweet talk, it is not just pillow-talk nonsense. If you say to another human being that you love them because of such and such factor. Then all of the identity shifts to that factor because that is the basis for my love. 'Oh! Well then I better keep my figure! I better stay smart! I better keep in good shape so I can keep on walking through cities. What happens if I somehow can't walk anymore?? What if I lose my drive and ambition??' The basis of the identity, of this person's loveliness, the basis of their value is then shifted to these factors, and now slavery to these factors... But what if God, through the cross, says, 'I love you just because I love you'. 'Not because you are great, moral, cool. I am just going to love you by holy grace, or in other words, grace that is set apart from anything you have ever known. You want to be saved? There it is. I have done it!' Then because of this: You are free! Finally! Because He loves you for you! He loves YOU! He loves you for your sake and therefore He loves you for His sake! And that frees you! Then other external factors are driven into the ground. They do not hold relevance here.
And to the degree you understand the cross by the Holy Spirit (it takes a LONG time to sink in! a whole lifetime to really do so!), to that degree will you experience this freedom.
3. How does the cross actually free you?
Why does this take so long to get?
Supposedly there is a true story about St. Augustine -- He lived loosely among women before his conversion and he ran into one years later. He was kind and nice, but there was a barrier that had not been there before and she could sure sense it. She stopped him and protested, 'Augustine it is I!' 'I know,' he said, 'but it is not I.' St. Augustine is saying with this that he used to be a person that had to have female affection, it was his spiritual master, but he now had a new spiritual master. And to the degree that he could remember who he was in Him he was free!The reason that we do not live out of the power of the cross is that, although we have a new identity, we don't remember it. This is what Romans 6 is all about. In verse 11 - "consider your self dead", yes we are dead to sin, but it is a struggle to consider our selves as such! That is what Augustine did, but I am sure it was a struggle. It is certainly a struggle for me!!
A women successful, hard working, and rich marries a man lazy and poor. In an instant he is rich!
As soon as you say, 'Father, accept me for what Jesus Christ has done. I give my life to you!!!' When He accepts this plea (and just not when you utter the words, to often we think we can play God by simple cantation) you become objectively rich. When the Father looks at Jesus, does His heart not burst with love and enthusiasm for the beauty of His son, for the magnificence for what He has done? Of course it does! And now, when you are united with Him that is EXACTLY how God sees you! Augustine is saying through this story that when he remembers this he does not need female affection. Will this happen every time? No... But to the degree you are remember your identity in Christ...
Martin Lloyd Jones on Romans 6, verse 11 - came up with an illustration for this struggle to
"consider" our selves dad to sin and alive to God through Christ. --- Imagine a country in which one group of people has enslaved another group of people for centuries. A new King comes into power and decrees that all of the enslaved group is to be set free. Do you think it is as simple as that? For all of that time through the enslavement, when the oppressor group saw a slave coming, that oppressor group instantly could have that person beaten up, imprisoned, or even killed. 
Years go by and NOW the King says that these oppressed people are now free. And only upon dire penalty of prison and death could the oppressor group do anything to a member of the enslaved group... In reality (and our American history proves it), members of the former-enslaved group will still tremble when they would meet a member of the former-oppressing group. They had been trained to do so for centuries. 
They will still obey what the oppressing group says, and the oppressors will still do anything that they can, within that law, to hold on to what little power they have left. THE MEMBERS OF THE FORMER-ENSLAVED GROUP KEEP ON ACTING LIKE SLAVES DESPITE THEIR CHANGE IN STATUS. They are free, but they have not grasped there freedom. And every Christian is in this same position. Your status has changed! The only reason we don't change is that we don't know who we are in Jesus Christ.How are we going to overcome this?
The only way you are not going to be a slave anymore is if you see what Jesus Christ did with His freedom.
One more illustration:
There is an incredible movie called Three Seasons. It takes place in Vietnam right after the Vietnam War. In one of the stories within the movie a poor bicycle driver falls in love with a prostitute. He sees her always coming out of beautiful hotels that rich men have paid for her to be with them in. She never stays the whole night and he is always there to take her to the horrible part of town that she lives in. She knows he likes her. But she has come to be a very hard person. All she wants is to be a person who can come into one of these hotels on her own accord and stay over night because that is the world she lives in. She wants to break into that world of comfort and beauty. And it is not working. Prostitution is killing her, even though she does not see it. She says she is not going to do prostitute forever, but she is enslaved. She thinks it will get her out, but he knows the truth and she does as well but does not admit it... And then the bicyclist enters a bicycle race and wins! He wins 50 dollars, which is how much it costs for a night with her (the coincidence was not an accident). He immediately finds her and says, 'come on, let's go to the hotel'. She needs the money and says ok. She is expecting sex, the viewer is expecting sex, but after he tells her to lay on the bed he says, 'I don't want to have sex with you. I am not using the 50 dollars to get you. I am using the 50 dollars just so that you can spend the night here. And I just want to watch you fall asleep.' When she wakes up in the morning she is gone, with a beautiful breakfast in front of her... and now she cannot go back to prostitution because his selfless act changed her. The only money he had in the world he used, not to exploit her, but to serve her. She had never experienced that kind of redemptive love in her life and it has changed her. It has changed her identity and she can't go back! And she is mad at him!! ... and you just need to see the rest of the movie...Jesus Christ sees us, enslaved by the things that we think are going to get us our freedom (and we know they will not, even if we don’t admit to it). Not just at the risk of His wealth with the Father, but at the cost of His life, He comes down and becomes a slave, and He is put in chains, and He is nailed to the cross... not to exploit us, but to serve us, to free us... If this woman in the movie was changed and freed by the knowledge of the bicyclist's redemptive act, of his using the power he had to serve her and not exploit her, having never experienced anything like it in her life... then the selfless act of Jesus Christ going to the cross and becoming a slave will free you! You have to bring this into the center of your self. It is not just who I am in Jesus, but it is what He did to make me who I am! If you put that together and keep that alive in your 'religion,’ it will change your life. It will shape your life.
How does the cross unite us? How does the cross effect our relationships? to be continued...
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