Romans 6 Wake up to your new reality<br />ローマ書6 新しい現実に目を覚まそう

If sin has been defeated and Jesus is the victor, why does my life not look like that?

That is the question where we left off last week.

If you could return to Egypt, would you?

Many of the Israelites as they wandered in the desert grumbled to Moses saying how they wanted to return to their old ways of life.  Would you?

Romans 6:1-5

Paul compares our new way of life to 2 things: baptism and the Exodus.

Baptism as Paul defines it means: dying and rising with the Messiah (or the Christ), the Messiah as representative of the people who place their trust in Jesus in the dying of the cross and resurrection to new bodily life.

And the Exodus as the story that all Jews know about being oppressed and slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt but rescued and freed as they crossed the Red Sea.

Romans 6:6-11

So wake up to your new status.

As marriage changes our status from being single whether we like it or not, living a life in Christ means acknowledging and living a life in line with Christ whether we like it or not and whether we feel like it or not.

So count it, calculate it - verse 11.

This does not mean changing our reality, but waking up to it.

As when we have one apple and someone gives us another apple, we now have 2 apples, calculating this does not alter the reality, but merely recognizes it for what it is.

Romans 6:12-14

When we live in the Messiah, it's like having a new boss.

We don't live under our old boss anymore, so don't listen to those voices in your head telling you you are no good or telling you to do things you don't want to.

That boss, that master has no control over you.

Romans 6:15-23

We are slaves to obedience to God or slaves to something else which leads to death and we call this sin.

This is the framework which God created our lives, the universe to operate in whether we like it or not, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.

Much like gravity in that no matter how much we ignore it or choose not to acknowledge it, if we do try to jump off a building, we will seriously hurt ourselves.

And that is exactly what we do when we ignore God and live under sin.

It always leads to death, while living under God's framework always leads to life.