1. Paul talks about death and living Romans 6:1-11 “Wanted Dead or Alive”
• Paul writes How can we who died to sin go on living in it.
• We who are baptized are also baptized into his death
• Christ was raised from the dead so we also can walk in newness of life
• We are united with him in death and we are united with him in resurrection
• Death no longer has dominion now we are alive in Christ
2. “Wanted: Dead or Alive”
• We see this on many westerns on television
• Many movies such as, The Quick and the Dead, Tombstone, 3:10 to Yuma, Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill.
• Steve McQueen was the star of “Wanted: Dead or Alive,” on for three years, 1958-1961.
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3. Paul knew in the early church many followers were wanted people
• Many early believers were followed, harassed, imprisoned and executed.
• If you identified as a “follower of the Way”, you could become a wanted man or woman.
• God wants us. God wants us, and in so many ways.
• God wants us to walk in the Spirit,
• God wants us to be unceasing in our prayer life,
• God wants us to be holy and be filled with the fruit of the Spirit.
4. Paul tells us we’re dead.
• Paul says we’re dead — to sin, to self and to death itself. We just need to act like it.
• To be clear, the death to which he’s referring is a vicarious death. We are dead because we have died in Christ. “I have been crucified with Christ,” he tells his Galatian readers (2:19). When Christ died, he conquered sin, self and the devil. Even humans’ most feared enemy, death, was vanquished: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).
• So, Paul argues, we should start acting like we are dead to sin, and not alive to it.
• We should remember that sinful practices and habits no longer have a hold over us.
• We should not forget that Christ has broken the chains that bound us to our former life. We are dead to that past. It is gone.
• And in Christ, we are also dead to self,. “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (v. 6).
5. God tells us we are either dead or Alive.
• Dead folks are full of negative-ness. They are against change and oppose positive things.
• Spiritually dead folk have zero interest in helping others.
• Dead folk just go through the motions of living for Christ, dead folk live dead spiritual lifes
6. God also gives us an example of Alive Christians
• Alive-in-Christ Christians are generally positive, and unafraid of change, love each other
• Rather than having self-interest, they lift up the concerns of others.
• Alive Christians are energized by the Great Commission and seek to fulfill their mission,
• Alive-in-Christ persons, like the apostle James, when facing “trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because” they “know that the testing of … faith produces endurance; and [they] let endurance have its full effect, so that [they] may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4). In other words, they’re mature; they’re willing to do the heavy lifting and do it without whining. They are full of hope faith and love.
• Good News whether you’re a dead Christian or an alive Christian God wants you dead or Alive it really doesn’t matter
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7. Finally God wants us dead or alive
• Ezekial tells us ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’ ” (Ezek. 33:11). God no matter I still love you!
• Romans 5:8 But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
• John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
• 1 Timothy 1:15 that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom
• God wants when were dead God wants when were alive
