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AS DYING AND BEHOLD WE LIVE
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism
into death, so that 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. We know that our old self
was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and
we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from
sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live
with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never
die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he
died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you
also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:3-11
Back at the beginning when the disciples first met Jesus they could see
that the one thing which distinguished him from all the teachers they
had ever heard before was that Jesus conveyed life. Most religious people
convey death. This man conveyed life. When this man speaks dead hearts,
sick bodies, blind eyes, deaf ears come to life.
"How come your disciples don't fast?"
"Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?"
How can they fast in the presence of such life?
"Lord to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life."
But the life the disciples experienced as they traveled with Jesus in
flesh and blood was as nothing compared with the life they encountered
the day they met Jesus risen from the dead. Looking at Jesus risen from
the dead they are looking into glory itself. The last Adam, who has been
raised... a life-giving spirit. They are looking at one over whom death
no longer has dominion....who is alive, totally and completely to God.
They are looking at the firstborn of the new race of which they are being
made a part. They are looking at the final outcome of the years they are
now going to spend fishing for human souls. Every fish that comes into
the net and survives the final separation will be like this.
But how did Jesus get like this? What was it that worked this awesome
change in him? Three days a ago Jesus was weakness ... now he is power.
Three days ago Jesus was a physical body...now he is a spiritual body.
Three days ago Jesus was a man of dust, born of a race of dust...now he
is a man of heaven bearing the unclouded image of heaven. Two things have
happened to him in these three days: Jesus willingly went down into death.
Jesus was raised into life. This new Jesus standing before them could
not have come into being except through death.
What the disciples are now going to learn and what you and I are now going
to learn is that we can share in this resurrection life only by learning
to yield ourselves to death. We can be the new wineskins into which God
can pour the new wine of the Spirit of his Son, by learning to yield ourselves
to death. We will be able to raise other men and women from death to life
only when we learn to die.
Long before Jesus was finally nailed to that cross and long before he
came forth from that tomb two things were going on within him. Every day,
you could almost say every second, Jesus was dying to his own will and
he was being lifted into the Father's will. He was going down out of himself
and being raised up into the Father.
Jesus went down into the waters of his baptism...a death. He was raised
into the anointing of the Holy Spirit...a resurrection. Under the unction
of the Holy Spirit he went down into the death of that wilderness temptation
in which he denied his own inclination and refused short cuts to his goals,
until he was raised into a life that was ready to minister. Jesus goes
to his own home town and instead of becoming the home town boy who has
made it, and of whom everybody is proud, Jesus goes down before them in
the synagogue that day.... he offends them and they run him out of town
and try to push him off the hill. But the angels of God deliver him alive.
By the time we get to Luke 5, the fishing chapter, we see this pattern
not only in Jesus but in things around him. This is how fish are caught
into the Kingdom: The net is lowered down into the sea empty... a death.
It comes up jumping with fish...a resurrection. This is how the sick are
healed: A paralyzed man is lowered down from the roof into Jesus' presence...symbolic
of death. His sins are forgiven... he is raised to his feet, alive. How
better can we describe Jesus' life than a death and resurrection?
...who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with
God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled
himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore
God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above
every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven
and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:6-11
He lowered himself down .... God the Father lifted him up. This is the
heart of everything Jesus taught.
"When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit
down in a place of honor, lest a more eminent man than you be invited
by him; and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give place
to this man,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.
But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when
your host comes he may say to you, 'Friend, go up higher'; then you will
be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For every
one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will
be exalted."
Luke 14:8-11
The life of faith is willingness to trust God so much that you deliberately
allow yourself to be lowered into a death of some kind, believing that
God will raise you into life and make you fruitful as you could never
be before you died to yourself.
"...unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains
alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit..."
John 12:24
...because when it dies to itself it is raised to life by God and becomes
fruitful. The net isn't going to come up with fish until it learns to
go down... all the way down....into death.
Paul, the most fruitful apostle who ever lived knew this well, and taught
it clearly.
For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake,
so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death
is at work in us, but life in you. II Corinthians 4:11-12
We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well
known, as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed;
as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as
having nothing, and yet possessing everything. II Corinthians 6:8b-10
...as dying and behold we live...the missing ingredient in every professing
Christian's life that lacks joy, can't seem to catch any fish in the kingdom
net: dying and behold we live.
To live by faith is to die and be raised...die and be raised. I do the
dying, God does the raising. I take care of the going down, God takes
care of the coming up.
For instance, there is a dying and rising in our prayer life. Whether
we get down on our knees or stand with our hands uplifted, it only becomes
prayer when we go down out of ourselves. Not,
"God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are,"
but........“God be merciful to me a sinner.”
Not........“Here I am Father, you know me, I’m one of your
chief Prayer Warriors,”
but....... “God, I don’t even know where to begin, help me.”
Yes, we even have to go down out of our attitudes.
"When you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone."
For if you're not willing to die to that grudge you won't be able to pray
in faith. In prayer we find ourselves continuously having to die to our
fantasies, our idle thoughts, worries and daydreams and apply our minds...concentrate.
To remember what has to be remembered. Those names. Those needs. Then,
God raises us up, the Spirit comes upon us from on high and lifts us from
death to life. We may feel nothing but we will be lifted. And our prayers
will move mountains.
There is a dying and rising in corporate worship. Corporate worship is
not having three hundred people standing in the same room, who are still
each in their own compartment of self, sticking to my thoughts, my tastes,
indulging in my peeves.
"I don’t like that hymn. Why don’t they pick some good
ones."
In corporate worship you die to yourself and sing that hymn you don’t
like with all your heart. You come out of your soft warm compartment and
join your brothers and sisters and all the angels of God in praising the
One who sits on the throne of the Lamb.
Corporate worship is dying to every personal preference, every private
hang up and entering into harmony with those with whom I am gathered.
Then, God comes down and takes hold of these motley saints who have come
together and truly are striving to glorify him with one mind and one mouth
and raises us right up into the cloud of his glory.
There is a dying and rising in daily ministry. God doesn’t spell
the word ministry with old English letters and drape them in purple velvet.
To minister is simply to serve... And what do we do when we serve but
spend ourselves, give ourselves, pour ourselves out...a form of dying.
A lot of favors people do for other people are investments.
"I’ll help you put up your barn today, so when my barn burns
down you’ll help me. Or perhaps I can tap you for some other favor."
When we serve in the name of Jesus we spend ourselves without strings.
They owe us nothing. We’re doing it for him...that's reward enough.
And as we so serve and so speak his word and so draw near to little fish
at the bottom of this world's stratified sea to call them to repentance,
God meets us. The net is raised, crowded and jumping. Our death is swallowed
up in their life.
We are moving into a time when we shall see signs of God that will take
our breath away. People turning rapidly and in numbers toward God. People
coming into the Kingdom of God like these fish in Peter's net. The last
hour move of fishing has already begun on this earth... begun among a
peculiar people who so live in the fellowship of Jesus' cross that they
are able to convey resurrection life. They die and are raised a thousand
times a day.
For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’
sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So death is at work in us, but life in you.
II Corinthians 4:11-12
The Lord who rose from the dead is among us with power to raise us from
the dead. He waits for us to die with him again this day that we might
live with him and walk with him and fish for souls with him in the power
of his resurrection.
