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Pastor Ed Pruitt
Do You Ever Get The Spiritual Blahs?
Pastor Ed Pruitt
August 12, 2007
Romans 6:1-14 (NLT)
6 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace?
2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?
3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death?
Have you ever had the spiritual blahs?
If you have followed Christ for any amount of time you surely know what I am talking about.
That spiritual lethargy, spiritual emptiness when God seems a million miles away and life seems just so routine.
I know I have had them.
In fact about two weeks ago it hit me, hey I think I’m coming down with a case of the spiritual blahs.
I came to church and as your pastor it is not easy to admit this.
I figure why try to be something I’m not.
I came to church and sang the songs, and prayed the prayers and give my offering and on the outside everything may have seemed to be okay.
But the songs seemed empty to me, my prayers seemed to stop at the roof, my offering was more routine than joyful and the Bible seemed especially complicated and lifeless.
I couldn’t point to one great area of sin that consumed me or some horrible situation or circumstance that had me feeling this way.
It was just a good old fashion case of the spiritual blahs and I knew if I didn’t do something about it, it would only grow.
Yet I lacked the motivation or the clarity to do what I needed to do.
The Spiritual blahs can take many forms, weeks or months without time spent with God.
Prayer and worship that seem as I said lifeless.
No evidence of God, or what the Bible calls, fruit in your life.
Whether it would be the fruits of the spirit showing up in your character with things such as love joy peace patience kindness good gentleness faithfulness or self control – and no fruit as far as the impact you are having on others for the kingdom of God.
A general lack of passion and desire.
A lot of times doubts will creep in at this time – is all this real, God are you there, how do I know any of this is really true.
How often it seems that when we are most on fire for the Lord or serving him most effectively that we will also go through difficulties.
We seem to have spiritual attacks, trials and temptations.
At times like these wouldn’t it be easier to just cruise through life, not too high not to low, just cruising along under the spiritual radar and sneak into heaven without anybody asking too many questions?
It is a mark of the spiritual blahs to just be okay with the routine.
Okay without a passion and without any real connection to a living God who came to give life to the full.
It’s the kind of thinking that says if God is going to forgive my sins I might as well live any old way I please.
And as I was thinking about this I know that many of us may find ourselves in the middle of one of those tough times now, and if not now I’m sure sometime it will creep in.
I am also not talking about ongoing rebellious sin.
In other words I know what the Lord wants me to do but I find myself out of control and unable or unwilling to stop.
This will come out of a spiritually cold heart but again sometimes the response to that open sin needs to be more drastic and as a church we would love to help you make those significant life changes.
But if you find yourself in a time of spiritual lethargy, the life gone out of your relationship with God a few simple things you might consider:
First, Admit that you are there – admit it to yourself and to God and also tell another Christian friend about it.
There is something powerful about just bringing it into the light and you will find most other Christians are going to be sympathetic and have been through it themselves.
Second, Exercise, eat right and get some sleep.
I know my physical disciplines are often closely aligned with my spiritual disciplines.
I had a friend who told me he would always fall asleep when he prayed, and would ask, pastor what should I do – I told him get more sleep – don’t ignore your physical condition and sometimes those disciplines can jump start other parts of our life.
Third, Turn off the TV and anything else that likes to suck the life out of your soul.
Not only does TV just suck up our time, but it also can just suck the life out of us.
I am not saying you can never watch TV but if you spend hours in front of it every night and then say oh God why do you seem so far away. then the answer is probably right in front of you.
Turn off the TV, set down the newspaper or the internet and pick up a book, write a letter, play a game with a family member, go for a walk but don’t let that TV suck you dry.
Fourth, Take baby steps towards God – it is okay to read 1 verse or 2 verses in your Bible – to pray very simple and short prayers – and as we take simple tastes and see that the Lord is good we can move on to big and better and things.
Fifth, Remember that the ruts of routine are often God’s grooves of grace.
Spiritual maturity does not always mean I’m totally on fire for the Lord, emotional highs, God’s power every minute.
We want to strive towards that but often maturity is proven in the routines of life.
Sixth, and this is what I really want to focus on this morning.
Go back to foundational truth – Ephesians 6 tells us we are in a spiritual battle and as God’s soldiers we must daily put on the armor of God!
That will protect us in this battle, starting with the belt of truth, there are so many lies, so much deception and confusion flying around that it is easy to become off track when it comes to the truth of who God is and who we are as His children.
We need to come back to those truths and that is what we are going to do this morning as we get into our text.
In Romans 5 Paul had just written about God’s incredible grace to forgive any sin and so in chapter 6 we read, What then shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
You see that that is the spiritual blahs – it is easier to just live in our sin knowing God will forgive it – and that kind of thinking and that kind of living need a heavy dose of the truth dropped on it.
So Paul writes – by no means – that’s crazy talk – he says, “We died to sin (by the way this is written to Christian people who have made a commitment to Christ and been as the Bible says born again – if you are not sure that is you then listen up and maybe today is a day you want to really make that commitment)
But to the Christian Paul writes – We died to sin, how can we live in it any longer…..
There is a lot there, but there are two primary, foundational truths that Paul says characterize the believer and he talks about them in the context of Baptism.
This is one of the New Testaments important teachings on Baptism and yeah there is a lot of confusion out there about the subject.
In fact it reminds me of the old town drunk who one day stumbled across a baptism service down at the river.
He proceeded to walk down into the water and stood next to the Preacher.
The minister turned and noticed the old drunk and said, "Mister, Are you ready to find Jesus?"
The drunk looks back and says, "Yes, Preacher. I sure am."
The minister then dunked the fellow under the water and pulled him right back up.
"Have you found Jesus?" the preacher asks.
"No, I didn’t!" says the drunk.
The preacher then dunks him under for quite a bit longer, brings him up and says, "Now, brother, have you found Jesus?"
"No, I did not Preacher."
The preacher in disgust holds the man under for at least 30 seconds this time brings him out of the water and says in a harsh tone, "Friend, are you sure you haven’t found Jesus yet?"
The old drunk wipes his eyes and says to the preacher..."Are you sure this is where he fell in?"
Yes there is a lot of misunderstanding about the subject of baptism and in Romans 6, oddly enough Paul wasn’t talking about water Baptism.
What did Paul mean by the word baptize in this third verse?
I do not think he refers to water baptism primarily.
Don’t misunderstand me; I believe in water baptism, and I believe that immersion best sets forth what is taught here.
But actually he is talking about identification with Christ.
Here in Romans 6:3 Paul is speaking about identification with Jesus Christ.
We were baptized or identified into His death.
In 1 Corinthians 12:13 Paul says, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body….”
We are identified in the death of Christ, as Paul will explain in the next verse.
We were identified with Jesus Christ.
That is something that we should know, and it is very important for us to know.
We’re identified with Him.
Now Paul will amplify this in verse 4:
4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.
“We are buried with him by baptism into death”—just as we are identified with Christ in His death, likewise are we identified with Christ in His resurrection.
We are joined today to a living Christ.
In other words, our sins have already been judged; we are already raised; and we are seated with Christ in heaven.
My friend, there are only two places for your sins: either they were on Christ when He died for you over Two Thousand years ago,
because you have trusted Him as your Savior, or they are on you today, and judgment is ahead for you.
There is no third place for them.
“We are buried with him by baptism [identification] into [His] death.”
Let’s read verse 5,
5 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was.
In other words, if we are united by being grafted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also united by growth—grafted, vitally connected—in the likeness of His resurrection.
We actually share the life of Christ somewhat as a limb grafted into a tree shares the life of the tree.
The life of Christ is our life now.
We have graduated from the life of sin!
The sinning business should now be a part of our past.
Now for verse 6,
6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.
“Knowing this”—these are things we know.
When Paul says your “old sinful selves” is crucified with Him, he means your old nature is crucified with Him.
“That the body of sin might be destroyed” meaning “to make of none effect, to be paralyzed or canceled or nullified”—“that henceforth we should not serve sin.”
Paul is not saying that the old nature is eradicated.
He is saying that since the old sinful self was crucified, the body of sin has been put out of business, so that from now on we should not be in bondage to sin.
That comes with true repentance, being born again.
7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.
We are to die to sin and become alive with Christ, be part of Christ, live like Christ, and as Matthew 5:48 tells us, 48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.
8 And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him.
If we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also be living with Him both here and hereafter.
We share His resurrection life today, and we will be raised from the dead someday and be with Him forever more.
9 We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him.
“He ever liveth” is the victor’s chorus.
The glorified Christ says, “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Rev. 1:18).
The Resurrection opens up eternity to Christ, and it will open up eternity to those who will trust Him.
We who believe will someday live with Him.
10 When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God.
He died one time, but He is alive today.
And He ever lives to make intercession for those who are His.
Because of this, He can save you right through to the end.
11 So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.
We are to count on the fact that we are dead unto sin and alive unto God.
We are to (count on it) that our old nature lay in Joseph’s tomb over two thousand years ago, but when Christ came back from the dead, we came back from the dead in Him.
This is something to count on.
12 Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires.
That is, don’t let sin keep on reigning in your body, that you should obey the desires of the body.
We are to know God’s method of making a sinner the kind of person He wants him to be.
It gave him a new nature.
Now he is to know that he was buried with Christ and raised with Him. God wants him to live in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The believer is joined to the living Christ.
He is to consider it as true.
You see, God saved us by faith, and we are to live by faith.
Many of us, and that includes me, have trusted Him for salvation, but are we trusting Him in our daily living?
We are to live by faith.
13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.
Romans 12:1: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God….”
The idea of the surrendered life or the yielded life sounds colorless to so many people.
We talk about surrendering and at the same time living the victorious life, and they seem to be a contradiction of terms.
I like the word present much better—“Neither present ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.”
The reason most of us get into trouble is because we yield ourselves to the old nature.
By an act of the will we can yield ourselves to do God’s will through the new nature.
A little girl fell out of bed one night and began to cry.
Her mother rushed into her bedroom, picked her up, put her back in bed, and asked her, “Honey, why did you fall out of bed?”
And she said, “I think I stayed too close to the place where I got in.”
And that’s the reason a great many of us fall, my friend.
It is because we are actually yielding ourselves to the old nature.
We’re following the dictates of the old nature; that is what gets us into trouble.
Although we will not get rid of that old nature in this life, we are told now, “Yield yourselves unto God.”
Just as you yield yourself to do sin, you are to yield yourself unto God “as those that are alive from the dead.”
You’re now alive in Christ.
You have a new nature.
You’ve been born again.
“And your members as instruments of righteousness unto God” deals with that which is specific and particular.
What is your real problem, friend?
I know what mine is. What about yours? Whatever that specific thing is, yield it to God.
A bad temper?
Well, take that to Him and talk to Him about it.
What about a gossipy tongue?
If your tongue is your problem, yield it to God.
And by the way, in this day in which we are living, what about immorality?
Sex is the big subject of the hour.
My, everybody’s getting in on the act today.
Is that your sin?
Well, you’re to yield yourself to God—your members “as instruments of righteousness unto God.”
And don’t tell me you can’t do it.
You can do it through the power of the Holy Spirit.
14 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.
The Law was given to control the old nature.
As a believer, you are not to live by the old nature.
You have a new nature, and you are to yield yourself or present yourself to God.
What a glorious, wonderful privilege it is to present ourselves to Him!
