You've Been Dyed!

You consider yourself a follower of Jesus, but sometimes you don't feel like one at all. You wake up some days doubting your faith. There are even times when you don’t want to belong to Christ – maybe you’re having a spat with your spouse or someone at work, and you would rather be free to act like a complete degenerate! I know how you feel. I totally get it because I’ve been a follower since 1982 and I still have sin-patterns that dog me. What are we to do? How can we overcome those sins that seem to tempt us every day – whether it’s anger, jealousy, gossiping, sexual immorality, or pride. How can we be more like Jesus?

My personal Scripture reading this morning was in Romans 6. It is a powerful reminder of how to overcome the daily temptations to slip back into a self-centered way of thinking. God tells us very plainly in vs12 & 13 to stop allowing sin to reign, to stop obeying its lusts and passions, instead, we are to present ourselves fully to God. This is how we, as followers of Jesus, are to live each day. But before telling us how we’re supposed to live, he tells us why.

God gives doctrine before he tells us how to live. But don’t be intimidated by the word “doctrine”. It simply means truth – reality – God’s reality – our new reality because God has given us faith to believe.

In chapter 6, before telling us how to live, the Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to remind us WHO we are! This is how instructions on righteous living are always given in God's Word - first comes the truths that make right living possible, them comes the instructions on what right living looks like from God's perspective. That is always the most important aspect of your new life in Christ – who you are, who he has made you to be and is making you to be, your new and radical reality.

Read the first truth and think about how its illustrated in Romans 6:3, from the NIV translation: Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? The Apostle Paul is certainly not talking about the act of being baptized with water, either being sprinkled or immersed. We have to understand what this word means in order to understand the vivid illustration of our new reality.

"Baptism" has several distinct meanings. If a fishing boat sank in the sea of Galilee, they would have said the boat was “baptized”. It was completely immersed and engulfed by the waters, never to be seen again. The word also was used for dying cloth. If a piece of cloth was dyed another color, it was “baptized” that color. Again, its state has been forever changed, never to return to its original color. Lastly, an ancient Greek poet and physician named Nicander helps us understand how people in Paul's day would have understood the concept of being baptized in Christ. There is an ancient recipe for making pickles from the good Dr. Nicander. His recipe called for the vegetable to be dipped (the original Greek word is bapto) into boiling water and then baptized (the Greek word is baptizo) into in a vinegar solution, completely immersed until it is forever changed. That’s the idea. This is your new reality. You’ve been immersed, dyed, and pickled in Christ – forever changed - if you truly believe he is God's son, your savior and Lord. There is nothing that can change what God has done in you by baptizing you in Christ. The act of being baptized with water is simply a physical illustration of this spiritual reality. If you haven't been baptized, you should be. Jesus commands his followers to be publicly baptized as an affirmation for them, and for everyone in attendance, that they belong to him.

Then v4 says; We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may have a new life. What part of you was buried with Jesus? The part of you that stood condemned before a holy God because you were only self-centered, only self-focused, thoroughly selfish. But in Christ, because of your new identity and association with him, you have a whole new life – on this side of the grave and on the other side. Let’s read on…

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been set free from sin (vs5-7). I know you sometimes still feel as if you're still enslaved to sin. It’s like you can’t resist the temptation to do or say what you know is not from God but from your old nature. Why is that? In your physical body, the tendencies or the propensity to sin, a good SAT word, are ever-present. So we must keep this reality in the forefront of our thinking: your condemned- self died with Jesus and now as he has a new life, so do you. But you will have to wrestle against your sin-tendencies your entire life – but you are not enslaved. Your set-backs of sinning will cause consequences, sometimes really bad ones, but no sin can ever erase the fact that you have been baptized in Christ and united with him. Nothing can wrench you out of the all-powerful grasp of your Father and the Lord Jesus (John 10:24-30).

Romans 6:5 declares another illustrative truth. You have been united with Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God! The word “united” is a vivid picture word. It means to be born together with, of the same origin, implanted by birth or nature, grown together, or united with. When a first-century person would have heard this word, they would have likely pictured like plants growing together. Because the same kinds of seeds were planted, or buried together in the ground, they later erupted into new plants growing strong together.

So, the next sentence declares: Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him… the life he lives, he lives to God. Your union with Christ Jesus has changed everything. It changes the way you live this life and it has changed the way you will live your next life, in the spectacular splendor of the physical presence of the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit in the new earth where only what is good, right, and true will exist.

These doctrines - this new reality of your being in Christ - are the reason you can do this next verse: …count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. There it is. Another clear illustration. The word “count” means to consider, to reckon it so, calculate, count on, take into account, to accept it is so. The word deals with absolute reality. If you receive an email from Amazon stating your order has shipped, then it has most definitely shipped. You can count on it. If you later decide to return what you ordered and Mr. Amazon emails that you’ve been credited the full amount, it is so. You can go to your credit card app and see the money is there. That's the cool thing about Amazon, you can count on what they tell you. In the same way, you must continually count on the fact that you are alive TO God IN Christ Jesus.

That is how certain your new reality is! But you have to think about it. When temptation comes you need to run these pictures through your mind so you can ask your Father for strength to resist it and believe he will do exactly that. Consider yourself dead to doing things that you know your Father doesn’t want you to do. Take it as truth – you are a new creation in Christ – he is yours and you are his. Keep that reality in the forefront of your cerebral matter throughout each day. You are fully immersed, dyed, and united to Jesus!

Bill has halved his career between the marketplace and pastoral ministry. He holds degrees in engineering and theology. He is the author of four books, multiple articles, and hosts a podcast called Drive Time Devotionals. You can learn more about these resources on his website, BillSimpson.org.