We are now living in anticipation of one day dying. Dr. Tony Evans says we need to concentrate more on what happens after that day than before it. You must flip the script spiritually in order to experience what God has for you. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. When Jesus told us to take up our cross, he wasn't talking about hanging a piece of jewelry around our neck. Today, Dr. Evans looks at what it really means to merge with the cross.
Let's join him. Unfortunately, many Christians do not have a clear picture of who they are. And because they don't know who they are, we function in ways we were not designed to function once we came to Christ. It's not that you don't have the right nature.
It's that you don't fully understand the nature that you do have, that I have. Paul, in Romans chapter 6, wants these believers to have a correct and clear understanding of who they are. He's concerned that they don't fully understand where they are spiritually since they've come to Christ. And that lack of understanding has led to a whole series of problems or challenges that he himself had to struggle with that he talks about in chapter 7.
He raises the question, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase? He knew that many of the people he was writing to didn't understand grace.
They looked at grace as a license to sin rather than as a power not to sin. Having stated this, he now talks about the merger that occurred at salvation. This is what we want you to understand. There was a merger.
Something was merged. Verse 3, Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so you too might walk in the newness of life. For you have become united with him in the likeness of his death. Certainly, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. He says, you and I, when we trusted Christ, were merged together with Christ in his death.
That's the cross. In order that we might experience the merging effect of his resurrection. He says, the reason that you died with him is so that you could live like him. Now, you have to understand that this is a reversal to how we're living. We are now living in anticipation of one day dying. We are now living our lives in anticipation that one day this physical life is going to end. So physically, we are living in anticipation of dying. But it's supposed to be the direct opposite spiritually. Spiritually, you are dying so that you might start living.
You follow me now? You must flip the script spiritually in order to experience what God has for you. Physically, you're living to die. But spiritually, you're supposed to be dying to live. If you're supposed to be dying to live, but you aren't dying, then you can't be living. The cross of Christ is not just a historical 2,000 year old experience. It's supposed to be your point of reference. If you want to live now, you got to die.
The problem comes when we either don't know that that's the case or refuse to adapt to the new reality of it. He says, you used to be in a realm defined by sin. That's why he says, our old self was crucified, verse 6, with him in order that the body of sin might be done away. He's talking about a realm of existence where that which was against God ran the show.
You were switched. Look, why did Jesus die? Galatians chapter 1, verse 3 and 4.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins so that he might rescue us from this present age according to the will of God the Father. Jesus Christ, he says, died on the cross to rescue us. He's not talking about heaven. He's talking about earth. He says from this present age. Jesus Christ died on the cross to extract us from the dominion or the rule or what he calls in Romans 6, the reign of this present age.
This present age is told to no longer define you. When a man sees a lady he's interested in, he often speaks in rescue language. I mean, he becomes chief rescuer. He says, you know, I'm going to protect you. I'm going to provide for you. I'm going to take care of you. And when she says something is wrong, at least while he's dating, he says, I'm going to take care of it. I'm going to take care of it. He speaks in rescue language. And ladies, you know he's for real when he says, and your bills are now my bills.
Ain't too many people talking like that. So your bills are my bills. I'm going to take ownership for your debt. I'm going to rescue you economically.
I'm going to rescue you. Here's what he's saying. He's saying, I'm going to deliver you from your present circumstances.
That's what he's saying. He said, if you come over here with me, I'm going to take all of the stuff. You've been mistreated by your daddy, but I'm going to treat you right. You've been mistreated by other guys, but I'm going to treat you right. I'm going to rescue you from your present order, from your present situation. And then he speaks about rescue in the name of sacrifice. He talks about, I'm going to rescue you because I'm going to give up my time, my energy, my money. I'm going to do all of that so that you can be whole, you can be at peace, you can be taken care of. I'm going to be your deliverer.
Now he may be lying through his teeth, but that's the talk he's going to give because he wants this relationship. What God is saying is, I died to rescue you. I died to deliver you. I died to deliver you because the main thing that is the problem is the effect of sin. I died for sin, so I died to deliver you from what this present age offers.
I died to deliver you. He says this baptism that you illustrate in water. By the way, I've never seen a person go down in the water and come up dry. I've never observed that.
Why? Because the baptism affects you. When you were baptized into Christ spiritually, illustrated by the water baptism, you were to be plunged into death because life comes out of death.
This is very important for you to know. Life comes out of death. That is, your association with the cross will determine how you live.
Not your physical life, your financial life. All those have a place in terms of us functioning physically, but in terms of seeing God at work, unless you're hanging out around death, you won't see life. And most of us try to hang around life to see life. No, if you hang around life, you see death. If you hang around death, you see life. He says you were buried with it. You died with him. You were buried with him so that you could be resurrected with him.
You were put in another realm. Look at 2 Corinthians 4. But we have this treasure, verse 7.
Watch this. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. Okay, you have an earthen vessel, your body. Inside your body is a spiritual treasure, he says, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. The treasure chest you have inside your chest, so to speak, inside of you, has got so much stuff in it that you'll know it didn't come from you.
It is designed to reveal the surpassing greatness of God's power. If this chest is open inside your chest, inside your earthly vessel, if this thing ever gets opened up, it says what will come out of it is stuff that's not natural to you. He says what will come out of it is the surpassing power of God.
What will that look like when it shows up in your life because of this treasure you have inside of you? We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. He says we are perplexed, but not despairing. We are persecuted, but not forsaken. We are struck down, but not destroyed. He's not saying, understand your baptism, understand your death, and you won't have any problems.
What he is saying is the problems you have won't have the last word. Dr. Evans will elaborate on that when he continues our message in just a moment. First, though, today's lesson comes from Tony's 14-part series, Returning to the Cross. This collection spells out how truly understanding and appreciating Jesus' sacrifice is the very key to the Christian life. And through these messages, you'll gain better insight into how to access the benefits, blessings, and power the Lord died to give you. When you make a contribution to help us keep Tony's teaching on this station, we'll say thanks by sending you this complete series on either CD or instantly downloadable MP3s. And as an added bonus, but only for a couple more days now, we're able to include Tony's book that goes hand in hand with this series.
It's called The Power of the Cross. Get the book and the audio collection along with our thanks. Just request them when you make your donation online at TonyEvans.org. Or let one of our resource team members help you by calling 1-800-800-3222 any time of the day or night.
That's 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat that contact information for you after Part 2 of today's message and this. I urge you to take this course. Dr. Craig Evans, renowned expert on the New Testament, serves as the special guest lecturer for the Tony Evans Training Center course on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible. It covers very important ground, what they are and what they're not. One of the most significant archaeological finds of the 20th century, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide unparalleled insights into the accuracy of the Bible. These ancient manuscripts offer a treasure trove of historical and spiritual significance. They preserve for us the Hebrew Bible and shed light on the teaching of Jesus and the major contributors to the New Testament. The scrolls open a vivid window into the life and beliefs of the Jewish people during the time of Jesus. You will understand the Bible and Jesus and Christian origins better than you ever have before. Take your first step as an honorary amateur archaeologist. Dive into the Dead Sea Scrolls with special guest lecturer Dr. Craig Evans.
Discover this and other fascinating biblical studies at tonyevanstraining.org. Explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere. Here's what you got to do. Every day you got to decide to go to your own funeral. Paul said, I die daily. Daily I die.
So obviously he's not talking about physically. He doesn't physically die daily. Every day you get up, you get up as a dead man walking. You die. You say, how do I die? You declared to yourself that my independence from God is dead and that I identify with the judgment of Jesus Christ on my sin and I now free him to live his life through me for the glory of God according to the will of God. You die daily. If you want to live, let me invite you to the cemetery because that's, he says, where you live because that's where the life of Christ responds.
He says, why? He died, Romans 6 says, and then he arose to live unto God. We die so that we arise to live unto God. Communion is a reminder of that death that I am no longer, it is no longer I who lives, but it is Christ who lives in me. We call it the lordship of Jesus Christ.
And this transfer brings about a whole new rulership, a whole new reign, a whole new dictatorship in our lives. But see, the enemy doesn't want you to know this. If he can disconnect us from the cross, he disconnects us from life. The life comes through the cross. So if he can make you live your life apart from the cross reference, then he knows he can defeat you because he knows you don't know who you are. See, Satan wants us to forget who we are. Then we don't know who we are, where we are, why we are, and he does that through one way, causing us to disconnect from the cross. Verse 11, here it is.
Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Okay, here it is. He says, consider. That means calculate.
Calculate. One of my favorite Temptations songs is, Each day from the window I watch her as she passes by. I say to myself, oh, you're such a lucky guy with a girl like her, you know. Make your dreams come true. Then he comes to his senses and says, it's just my imagination running away with me. In other words, he was fantasizing about something that wasn't real.
Guess what Paul is saying? He says, fantasize about something that is real. He says, let your imagination run away with you, but you're imagining a reality, not a non-reality. Consider, fantasize. Fantasize that I'm a dead man in Jesus Christ and I'm alive to God. Fantasize it. Because it's spiritual, so you can't grab it in the physical sense, but you can fantasize about things you can't grab. He says, fantasize it and make it real in your thinking.
That's why he says, know this, know this, know this, know this. He said, because if you will fantasize it, declare it to be so, that I am now dead, I am now dead with Christ to sin at the cross, I am now alive to Jesus Christ, I have now been delivered from this present world, that is no longer my definition, I am married now to Jesus Christ, that is my new reality. He says, fantasize that, consider it to be so. Because it is so, you're not making it up.
It is the way it is if you've come to Christ. I was talking to a guy some years ago who was in the mortuary science. He was talking to me about, you know, him embalming bodies and all this kind of stuff. And he was telling me, he said, yeah, I'm down here with all these dead bodies, you know, and we got to get them ready for burial and all that. And he said, it's interesting what some of these bodies do. I said, whoa, whoa.
What are you talking about? He said, sometimes they quiver and shake on the table. He said he was back there one time and the body quivered so much it threw itself off the table.
He said he seen cadavers blink. Oh, no. I said, doesn't that bother you? He said, no, it doesn't bother me at all.
I said, why not? He said, because I know they're dead. I know that signs of life doesn't mean life. And because I know that, I'm unaffected by it. And so I am no longer controlled by that fear. What Paul is saying is I want you to know that you know of your position in Jesus Christ and that you are dying with him and that you are carrying the cross inside this earthly vessel and that you are fantasizing and your imagination is running away with you, that you are now tied to Jesus at the cross, which means you're raised with Jesus from the dead, which means that this present age and its authority no longer dictates to your life because there is a new ruler over your life. And now every time you commune with him, you are reminded of this new relationship, that the surpassing greatness of his power might be made manifest. And you begin to see things happen that you know was beyond you.
That's what he's saying. You remember that old movie, the first time it came out, The Blob? You know, way back, The Blob. This thing comes from outer space, hits the ground, inside is jello. This guy comes, he's got this little stick trying to touch it and figure it out, and the thing scoots up the stick onto the man's arm.
And the man goes to the doctor, and the doctors are trying to get it off, but they can't get it off, and it keeps climbing up the man's body until it encompasses the man's whole body. And now the man has been overwhelmed by The Blob. The Blob now is taking in everything it touches. It is consuming it, and people are being consumed by this thing.
And this thing is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And you come down to near the end of the movie and all these people are in the movies. They're in this movie house, and The Blob is behind the screen. And they're watching this horror flick, and they're in the movie house, and then The Blob comes from around the screen and starts to consume people in the theater.
And people are, come on, you all remember what I'm talking about? People are now running all out the theater and they're screaming because The Blob is taking over. It's ruling their present world. Their present world is being ruled by this alien force called The Blob. They're shooting The Blob, they're machine gunning The Blob, they're trying to blow The Blob up, they're trying to do everything they can to get rid of this problem, and they can't get rid of it because this is an unstoppable force. And it's just consuming everything. And now it's gargantuous in size, it's huge in size, because of all the lives that have been swallowed up by its presence. You know what got The Blob?
It wasn't the human ability of men to stop it. They discovered a very simple thing. It couldn't handle cold. Somebody shot it with some cold spray and it shrunk back.
So what they did was they threw a net around it, hoisted it up by a helicopter and took it to Antarctica. In other words, they relocated it to another realm. And when they put it in this other realm, in that realm, it lost its power. It didn't have power when its realm changed.
As long as they tried to resist it with their human ability, it won. But the moment they understood that it couldn't handle this realm, the realm defined its function. You and I are in another realm. But if we're trying to bring into this realm, that realm, that realm will keep us from experiencing this realm. If you want to experience this realm, you've got to leave that realm so the surpassing greatness of Christ's power in this realm is available to you. You must carry the cross, but not around your neck. You must die daily so that the surpassing greatness of His life might be made manifest.
If that decision to die daily is one you haven't made yet, here's Dr. Evans to explain how it works. If you've been listening to our broadcast and you have not personally trusted Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins so that He can give you the gift of eternal life right now, I want you to go to God and transfer your trust from any and everything else except the Son of God who died on the cross for your sins and arose from the dead. In fact, I'm going to say a little prayer, and you can repeat it after me.
You just have to mean it for yourself. Heavenly Father, I know I'm a sinner and that I can't save myself. I believe Jesus Christ, Your Son, died on the cross in my place for my sin, and I now am trusting Him alone to forgive me and to give me the gift of eternal life that He promised to give to anyone who came to Him for it. Thank you for saving me and help me from this day forward to live a life pleasing to you. If you prayed that prayer for the first time, or if you or someone you know wants to learn more of what the Christian faith is all about, visit us at tonyevans.org and click the link that simply says Jesus.
Dr. Evans will talk to you about exactly what it means to become a Christian, and there are also some free resources you can download to get you started. Again, that's tonyevans.org. In the meantime, I want to remind you that today's message is part of Tony's powerful series called Returning to the Cross. This two-volume, 14-message collection focuses on the very heart of the Christian faith and includes quite a bit of material we haven't been able to present on the air. Remember, when you help support this ministry with a contribution, we'll say thanks by sending you this complete audio series along with Tony's insightful companion book, The Power of the Cross. But tomorrow is the final day we'll be offering this special package, so don't wait. Drop by our website, tonyevans.org, to let us know you'd like to take advantage of this exclusive deal. Or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222, where the friendly people on our resource team are ready to help 24-7.
Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. Obviously, the biggest blessing we receive because of the cross is salvation. But tomorrow, Dr. Evans will talk about the other benefits the cross gives us, even here on earth. Be sure to join us.
