Buried With Him

“Shall the spiritual live as the carnal? How can you that were the servants of sin, but have been made free by precious blood, go back to your old slavery?” (C. H. Spurgeon)

But there is another truth I want to share with you this morning. So many times, we hear messages like this and believe we have to somehow make sure we are worthy of such a great salvation.

1 Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

1 Peter 1:4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,

1 Peter 1:5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. NKJV

The question for us is, “If it was the Lord who saved us, and it is the Lord who keeps us, what can separate us from His love?”

Romans 6:11 The word reckon does not to mean to think or to suppose, like some people in the South use it.

Reckon means to place into someone's account, or to impute.

This is telling us that the Lord has removed our old sin life and deposited into our account His righteousness, in its place.

The Lord gives us new life and He keeps us. Our part is to surrender to His Spirit and allow the Lord to live out His righteousness in and through us.

IV. Practical Application.

Once we are saved, we have to change our clothing. Colossians 3:8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.

Colossians 3:9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds,

Colossians 3:10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him,

The verbs “put off” and “put on” are a one time and complete action. Salvation naturally leads us to the process of becoming more like Jesus Christ which happens moment-by-moment.

Merriam Webster said, “Hypocrite is from the Greek, and it means to be “an actor” or “a stage player”, actors wore masks to depict a character they were playing.

Once in Christ, if we continue to allow the old behavior in our lives, we are actually being hypocritical and acting like someone who has not been crucified and no longer exists.

The 1st Adam is the old man we should be put off, because now we are created after the image of the second Adam, Jesus Christ.

In order to put on the new man, the action step the Christ follower must do, is to display different actions and have different attitudes, by surrendering control to the Holy Spirit.

Now the new outfit is Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering. NKJV

Since the Lord tells us we are to be set apart from the world as holy, our response to His great love is to put on these things:

1. Tender mercies.

This means having a heart of compassion; Adam Clarke said, If something is tender, it is sensitive to touch. “The apostle would have them to feel the slightest touch of another’s misery.