Resurrection Power!

Several years ago, (March 19, 2005), medical personnel did what they usually did when a resident at an extended care facility in British Columbia, Canada died. They placed a call to Fraser Health Authority, who then sent a driver to pick up the deceased woman. The driver dutifully transported an elderly woman to the hospital morgue.

Unfortunately, the driver failed to check the wristband for identification and carried off the wrong woman. The 87-year-old resident he wheeled away was simply sleeping. And even after the driver left her on a gurney in the hospital’s corridor, she was still fast asleep.

Meanwhile, an employee at the extended care facility noticed the deceased resident was still in her room, but her living roommate was gone. The employee alerted the hospital, which promptly returned the woman to the facility in an ambulance. (www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/03/21/ sleeping-dead0321.html; www.Preaching Today.com)

When I read that story, I thought of the many believers who look like they’re still dead in their sins when they are very much alive in Christ.

Today, we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, which is more than just a fact of history. It means that those who have trusted Christ with their lives can live in resurrection power! They can operate with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. They can live a new life free from the power of sin every day!

You say, Phil, that’s what I want for me. How can I live in resurrection power? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Romans 6, Romans 6, where the Bible shows you how.

Romans 6:1-2 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? (ESV)

If you want to experience the power of the resurrection over sin in your life, then 1st of all you must consider yourself dead to sin. Realize that you are free from sin. Know that you are separated from its power in your life.

You say, “Phil, when did that happen? Because I sure don’t feel like I’m free from sin. In fact, I feel like sin has attached itself to me like ugly on an ape. I can’t get away from it. When did I become separated from sin? When did I die to sin?” Well, you died when Christ died.

Romans 6:3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (ESV)

Now, don’t misread this verse. It is not talking about being baptized in water. It is talking about being baptized into Christ and into His death.

The word, “baptize,” literally means “to dip.” The ancient Greeks used the word to describe the dyeing of a garment. For example, when you take a white garment and dip it into red dye, you no longer have a white garment; you have a red garment.

So it is when you take a sinner and dip him or her into Christ. You no longer have a sinner. You have a CHRISTian, a Christian, i.e., one who looks and acts like Christ. When you trusted Christ as our Savior, the Bible says you were baptized; i.e., you were dipped into Christ. That means you died when He died. You were crucified when He was crucified.

Romans 6:4-6 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, – or better, rendered ineffective – so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. (ESV)

In some states it’s legal to buy and keep a baby lion or tiger. They are incredibly cute and fun, but what do you do when they become adult tigers, weighing several hundred pounds in just a year or two? Then they are capable of ripping to shreds—and eating—their owners. On top of that, tigers are untamable, fickle beasts, playful one moment and deadly the next. Their owners can’t control them anymore. That’s when some of them call Joe Taft, founder of the Exotic Feline Rescue Center (the EFRC) in Indiana.

Joe's sanctuary for abandoned wild animals is the second largest in the nation and provides a habitat where lions and tigers and such can live out their days peacefully. Although Joe and his team try to avoid letting the big cats reproduce, sometimes, well, accidents happen. Cats will be cats, so when there's a new cub born on the grounds at EFRC, it's hand-raised by humans until it is ready to live in the wild.