We Christians love our bumper stickers. I’ve never spoken with someone whose life was forever changed by seeing a cliché slapped on the back of a vehicle, yet we just can’t seem to quit the darned things. From the passive aggressive Christian (“Are you following Jesus this close?” or “Honk if you love Jesus; text if you want to meet him”) to the cheesy Christian (“C H__ __ C H , What’s missing?”) to the confrontational Christian (You’ve seen the Jesus-fish eating a Darwin-fish) … the possibilities are nearly endless, and usually rather embarrassing.
One of the worst Christian bumper stickers is this: “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” It’s true, of course, that Christians aren’t perfect. But they aren’t just forgiven.
As the Apostle Paul put it, “If we have been united with [Jesus] in a death like his [through baptism], we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom 6:5). In other words, the gospel doesn’t just provide us with a way of escaping the penalty of sin, but a way of escaping the power of sin, too.
Many Christians live their lives nearly unaware of the power God gave them in Christ. They’re looking for so little when it comes to salvation. They want inner peace, or purpose, or a ticket out of hell. And the gospel can provide those things, but it’s so much bigger than that. Union to Christ means that what is true of Jesus is now legally true of us. We have his perfect record. We have his resurrection power. Christianity isn’t about turning over a new leaf at all; it’s about the power of a new life.
This should be encouraging for messed up people like us. The people God uses to change the world aren’t those with a morally clean slate. Peter was a coward. Paul was harsh and abrasive. John was arrogant and vengeful. They were not made of more promising material that you or me. But the new birth turned them into men of incredible power. There is no brokenness or corruption or weakness that the power of Christ’s resurrection cannot remove, heal, and redeem.
And how do we tap into that power? Paul shows us the way: “Likewise, you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 6:11).
“Reckon” is the Greek word logizomai, often translated “count,” “consider,” or “credit.” It’s the word Paul uses in Romans 4 to illustrate how God credits us with righteousness, even when we aren’t actually righteous. When God sees our faith in Jesus, he reckons our faith to be righteousness.
When it comes to accessing power over sin, it’s our turn to do the reckoning. We are to reckon ourselves as already dead to sin, and when we do, God infuses the power of new life into us. “But I don’t feel dead to sin,” you say. “Sin and wrong desires definitely feel alive in me.” That’s exactly why reckoning is so important: our feelings will tell us that we’re dead to God and alive to sin; we need to listen to God’s voice telling us the opposite.
Abraham is the perfect example of this. He was infertile and 90 years old when God declared that he would have a son. When God said that, Abraham didn’t think to himself, “You know, that sounds about right. I have been feeling a bit more frisky the last few days.” No, Romans says that he believed God, even though he didn’t feel it. And only after believing did he receive the promised strength.
You and I will only receive strength to be dead to sin when we believe God has already made us dead to sin. We always want to feel first, and then we’ll believe. But God says, “You have to believe first, and then you’ll feel.” In a sense, this is “name-it-claim-it” sanctification. The “name-it-claim-it” crowd has one thing right: we can and should claim Jesus’ power, even when we don’t feel it. What they get wrong is what you claim. Jesus’ promises of power aren’t for more prestige, influence, or wealth; they’re for something much more valuable—growth in Christlikeness.
Eternal life is at our fingertips—not simply a length of time that God allows us to live, but an entirely new quality of life that we can take part in now. The question isn’t simply, “If you died tonight, where would you go?” It’s also, “If you wake up tomorrow, how will your life look different because Christ is in it?”
For more, be sure to listen to the entire message here.
