Maybe the greatest mistake we make as Christians, is that we fail to understand that death has to come before resurrection. It’s sounds so simple, yet so many miss it. We come to church looking for help. Our lives are a mess. Addiction, broken relationships, loneliness, fear, and a wealth of other things have beaten us down. We reach that point where we just cannot go on as we are. So, we show up looking for Jesus to heal us and to make our lives better. We want to be born again and have new life.
But we don’t come willing to die first.
There cannot be a resurrection of the living. For a resurrection to happen, there must be a death first. I am not talking about physical death of our earthly body here, though in the final end, that is exactly what will happen. We will die physically, and Jesus will raise us up with new bodies in which we will live eternally.
But that is the future, what about today? Tomorrow?
No, I am speaking of spiritual death and resurrection. Death must come to our old nature, which the Bible is clear about; we are dead spiritually in our sin.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Ephesians 2:1-3
Technically, we might say we are already dead before we come to Christ. The Bible says we are. But what’s not dead is our addiction to self, the passions of our flesh. Our sins are a direct result of our desire to please ourselves. We live for our own pleasure and seek to have the glory that only God deserves.
It is the death to self that must occur. Look around at the world today. Almost everywhere we go, we see that people are mostly concerned with themselves. They demand what they want, when they want it. For that matter, look inward at yourself. How many of the conflicts you find yourself in are a direct result of you not getting your way?
Self must die. It’s all over scripture.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Philippians 2:3
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23
Jesus is the perfect example.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:5-8
By the way, the use of the word servant in this translation is better rendered slave.
If we say we are Christians, then we are supposed to be disciples and followers of Jesus. This means it is our primary hope to become like Him. We must become slaves to Him, not to ourselves.
To do that, self must die. Until “self” dies, resurrection cannot happen.
The bottom line is that none of this is about us. It is about God. His glory. When we live for ourselves, we are trying to rob God of His glory. That, my friends, is a bad idea.
I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. Isaiah 42:8
Let us die, so that we can live in the resurrection of new life that Jesus has offered to us. He will raise us up to new life.
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