His Perfect Love

Guest (Male): Pastor Matt VanderVen says when you realize who you are in Christ, it dramatically impacts your life.

Matt VanderVen: You are sons and daughters of the living God. Do you believe that? Are you receiving that in your spirit? It changes everything. All of you are pilgrims. You're sojourners. You're just passing through.

Your jobs, that's your tent making. I don't care if you're president of the United States. It's your tent making. You glorify Jesus Christ; that's why you're here. And you go and you do it at your job.

Paul was a leatherman, right? He worked with leather materials, a tentmaker. We see that. You're just tent making there, where God has you. He's called you. He's sent one of His own in undercover, an undercover agent.

Guest (Male): We've all seen and admired those before and after shots of someone who lost a lot of weight or experienced a total makeover. We're going to talk about something even more outstanding as we take notice of the wonderful changes God brings to a human life.

We're talking about the new you in Jesus Christ today on His Perfect Love. And yes, there should be a big difference between your BC days and your new life in Christ. You shouldn't be sinning like you used to. Here is Pastor Matt VanderVen with more from Romans Chapter 6.

Matt VanderVen: So he says, "Shall we continue in sin?" And again, the verb tense here is a future active tense. So he's saying, "Should we continue to continue in sin? Living our lives continually like this, just sinning and sinning and making more sin?"

He makes it clear that he's talking about habitual sin. He's not saying that we as believers are not going to sin and make mistakes. We do. I blow it. Maybe you don't blow it, but I blow it. I'll start there. I blow it.

But he's telling me that this is not about blowing it. This is about a habitual sin that I keep doing over and over again. And then I turn to God and say, "I'm sorry. I repent, Lord Jesus." I turn to God, but at the end of the day, I go right back to the vomit.

I know you guys don't know what I'm talking about, right? None of you have ever seen that. None of you have ever faced that in your life. I know it's a stretch. Paul says, "Certainly not." In Verse 2: "How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?"

So he's saying—"Certainly not" is no way, José. A modern paraphrase is what he's saying. Absolutely not. It's a strong phrase. He says, "How shall we who died to sin live?" Remember, he's already handled that. The adamic nature is dead. It's as dead as dead can be.

There is no reviving it. There is no pulling it back. We're going to learn through Paul that he's going to teach us there's a difference. He's going to say that plants, for example—if you build out his argument—plants are made of minerals, right? They have the minerals in the dirt and everything like you and I.

I know there are some people here that might enjoy talking to your plants or singing to them. Awesome. I'm not knocking that. Do your thing. But if your plant sings back, we need to talk. That's when we need to come in for counseling.

Then we're told there are animals. We see the difference in animals. I have a dog. I love dogs. I have two dogs now. My one dog walks in the room and then he walks out. Then he walks back in and he walks out. He just looks around.

I can tell that he knows he wants to come in the room. He's able to express a consciousness. I can see that if I go, "What did you do?" He's moving and grooving and he's out of dodge. Cats don't do that, do they?

I could go somewhere with that, but I won't. Back to dogs. There's a consciousness there. The Bible refers to it as the soul. So we would say even animals have a soul, a conscience. They know right and wrong, and they know what they're doing.

When you have food, they know how to come up and lay right on your lap and look at you and say, "I love you for that biscuit." Then when that biscuit's gone, I don't need you. No, that's humans. Dogs are supposed to be our best friends while we have food.

What are we learning here that he's trying to communicate to us? Then he's saying humans are different. We have something else. We're not just body from the ground, ashes to ashes and dust to dust. You breathe into the life of dirt, like plants.

Animals take it a step further; they have a soul and a conscience. But then we see something else that's added to that in God's ingredient of humanity. And what is that? The spirit. The Bible teaches us about a spirit. You and I have a spirit.

We have the ability to communicate and see things in the spiritual realm with the Lord. If you really extrapolate that and you begin to understand what that's saying, that adamic nature, which really dealt more with our soul and our enmity being enemies with God—he says you're dead to sin.

That part is dead. But we were told in John 3 we have to be born again. Born twice, die once. You know the idea: if you weren't born again, you're going to face an eternal death at the lake of fire. Hell.

For those that don't know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It's important we say that. We're not hell-bashing anybody. It's so people know. That's real love. Real love is telling people the truth. That's what awaits those that reject Jesus Christ and His message of love.

We shouldn't shy away from that, friends. So the reality is when that adamic nature was dead, it's dead to sin. But wait a minute. Did I sin in the last day? I was going to say week, but that's obvious. Did I sin in the last hour? Yes.

But I thought my adamic nature was dead. Well, how can it be both ways? What does the Bible say we wage war against? The spirit and the flesh. What is the flesh? If you have a spirit and you have a flesh, what is the flesh?

We said we're three things: body, soul or conscience, and spirit. So if it's a wage against the spirit, it can't be the spirit waging against the spirit. Jesus already made that argument when they tried to say He was Beelzebub. It can't be that.

It's the soul. It's the flesh. It's the consciousness that's different than the nature that you were born into. The adamic nature that we're all born into after original sin. We're all born into that. Genesis 3 says that's the curse.

The world around you is still under that curse until the new heaven and new earth. That's why our flesh is at war with our spirit. Paul is going to come back and argue this in Chapters 7 and 8 to say, "I know the old nature's dead. And I know that I wage war against this flesh."

If you read only this from Paul, you would think he has some issues with multiple or split personality. But realistically, how is it, Paul, that you're saying that you aren't doing this, but yet you're saying it's the flesh in me?

He's showing us that there's a difference. There's a flesh consciousness that is at war with the spirit. That's what he's trying to help us understand so that born-again believers aren't going, "Oh man, I'm not really saved," or "Why do I still feel this way if I'm a born-again believer?"

There are so many TV evangelists that are lying to people. They say, "Well, see, you don't have faith." You're wrecking the heart. People leave churches. Churches are like hospitals, because they're not getting help.

They're not getting truth. There's nothing that's invigorating. There's no lifeline. Our lifeline is the Word of God. And if we don't understand where these things come from, we can begin to listen to the lies or the debased minds out there.

Next thing you know, we convince ourselves maybe we're not really saved. Maybe Jesus couldn't save us. Maybe Jesus isn't really God. And it goes on and on. It's a slippery slope. Jesus wanted to protect us from all this. He says, "Oh no."

This is normal. You're going to battle. Let's continue to talk about that. He says, "How shall we who died to sin live?" Again, future active tense here. "Living any longer in it." Paul establishes an important principle.

When we are born again, we have believed in Jesus for our salvation and our relationship with sin is permanently changed. We have died to sin. That's the aorist tense. It means immediate, but what's the aorist tense mean? It's in the past. It's done.

Paul's showing us this isn't something we have to keep retrying in the present tense. It's not something future that will happen. Paul's telling us in the aorist tense that this is done. When you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you received a new nature.

And it was given to you by Jesus Christ, imputed to us. But if we don't know the grammar, we miss the jewels of this. The pearls. Therefore, we've died to sin. We should no longer live to sin. Does that make sense?

If we've died to it, we should no longer live to it anymore, like he says here. It simply isn't practical to live any longer to something that you've died to or is dead. Ephesians Chapter 2, Verse 1 tells us that we who are alive were once dead in sin.

Paul is saying now that we are dead to sin. So we were dead in sin. What does that mean? That means when we were in the old adamic nature, we were dead in our trespasses. For all have fallen short of the glory of God.

The wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is everlasting life. Do we understand that? That there's a death to self? We talk about it in baptism. Paul's going to make that argument or case for us. Let's continue, Verse 3.

He goes on and says, "Or do you not know that as many as were baptized"—baptizo, and again, in the aorist, complete past tense—"into Christ Jesus were baptized"—baptizo, in the aorist tense again, past done—"into His death?"

"Therefore we were buried"—aorist tense again—"with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised"—aorist tense again—"from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk"—aorist tense, walked—"we are to have been walking."

Not something we do now, but we have been walking when we're born again. In what? Newness of life. Underline that. That's everything. There is to be a newness of life. We're not to get born again or to be saved and then go back and live however we used to live.

He took Egypt and He delivered the Hebrews out of Egypt, but then He spent a number of years delivering the Egypt out of the Hebrews. The sin. That's a picture of sanctification. That forty years. Two years at Mount Sinai and the thirty-eight years wandering in the wilderness.

We're in the book of Leviticus. Join us on Wednesday as we're going through this and we can see it. Look at Verse 3: "Or did you not know?" That's in the present active tense. He's like, "You don't know this, believer? Like all of us here? You guys don't know?"

"This is your identity." We should know. I'm glad he wrote that. I should know this. Why? Because we can hold on to this promise. This is the idea that every believer should understand. It's a fundamental concept.

It says, "As many as were baptized into Jesus Christ." Again, the idea in the Greek word "baptizo," the word for baptize, is to immerse or overwhelm in something. So he's using that in the context here. It doesn't change in the Greek.

It means to immerse, overwhelm. So if he's using this in the context, the scripture or the idea here of being baptized is used in several ways in scripture. If you're taking notes, I'll give you examples just to make it easier.

When a person is baptized in water, they're immersed or covered over with water. Many of you were. All of you should be. It was a commandment. When they were baptized with the Holy Spirit, they were immersed. They were to be covered over.

We even say sometimes in the book of Acts that they were to epi, in the Greek, to come upon. Where we receive that dunamos, that power through the Holy Spirit. But what he's saying here is if you were baptized in that, you're immersed or covered with the Holy Spirit.

It gives us the picture of the olive oil, which in the Bible is a picture of the Holy Spirit, running over us. Just pouring over us. And that's what I picture when people are baptized. I picture when people are baptized in the Holy Spirit, just a pouring over, like a drenching.

An overwhelmingness of it. Because we can do nothing good of our own. Paul here refers to "baptizo" in the same word as an immersion or a covering over. But what's he saying is covering us now? Look in your Bibles. What's the immersion?

It's Christ Jesus. That's what we're immersed in now. When you think of a covered over, immersed, what does Paul say? "Put on Christ. Take off the old man." We're going to read about that. "And put on the new man in Christ Jesus."

It's that immersion. It's that putting on. It's that in Christ Jesus. That's why when we say, "Father, I know it's not me that You see anymore, but the righteousness of Your Son Jesus Christ that's been imputed to me."

That's why I can stand in Your presence. Why I can come into the Holy of Holies and not have to have a mediator besides the God-man, Christ Jesus. I can come directly in. And I can stand before the God of this universe.

Because my blood has been covered, removed; my sin with Christ's. And so is yours. Do you understand that? You are sons and daughters of the living God. Do you believe that? Are you receiving that in your spirit?

It changes everything. All of you are pilgrims. You're sojourners. You're just passing through. Your jobs, that's your tent making. I don't care if you're president of the United States. It's your tent making.

You glorify Jesus Christ; that's why you're here. And you go and you do it at your job. Paul was a leatherman, right? Works with leather materials, tentmaker. We see that. You're just tent making there, where God has you.

He's called you. He's sent one of His own in undercover, an undercover agent. Love that when some of the kids go to the public schools; got little undercover agents in there. Water baptism, being baptized in Christ, is acting out.

When we see somebody that's doing a profession of faith, they're showing you the inward transformation, but they're acting it out. They're showing their death and their life. They're identifying with Christ.

This immersion, what are they identifying? Death and newness to life. Resurrection. You're professing it even by your baptism outwardly as people see that. You're professing Christ of the inward transformation what He's done in you.

It's so beautiful. Look in Verse 4: "We were buried." Again, this is the aorist. Been buried. Been buried. When we did this, we been buried. Having been buried with Him. As Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should also walk in the newness of life.

Paul again builds on this idea of going under the water as a picture of being buried and coming up from the water again as rising from the dead. Now, I want to add something here. If someone has not spiritually died and risen with Jesus, what do we call that?

John 3 again: being born again. I love when people say, "Well, I don't know what that born-again thing is." It's not a thing. You need it. If you don't know about it, let us tell you about it. We're excited to tell you about it.

We probably have a couple hundred people here that would love to tell you about it. Anyone of us. It's in John Chapter 3, Nicodemus. "What is this born again? How could I be born from my mother twice that way?"

How are you going to explain things to people about heaven and being a teacher of the law and all these things if you can't handle these simple truths? That's Jesus's words to Nicodemus. I was convicted by that.

If I can't handle the gospel to tell people, "Well, you need to be born again." Because in the beginning when I got saved, I was really nervous about how to handle the gospel. I wanted to do it so gently and so right. It is God's word. I take it very seriously.

He began to say, "Keep it simple." I think Nick at Night, keep it simple. That's it. Jesus loves you. He died for you. His grace was poured out so that you may be found forgiven, clean, cleansed, without sin before God the Father.

That you could enter into right relationship with Him forever. That you would receive a new nature that would allow you to have victory over sin so you would no longer be walking in the deadness of sin, but that you would experience life and being alive to righteousness.

That's the gospel of Jesus Christ. Who doesn't want that? Most people don't know because they've never heard the gospel. They've heard a gospel of man. We need to give the gospel of Jesus. It's His gospel.

So you can't die and rise again without it changing your life. If there's somebody sitting here this morning and you're going, "But I don't think anything's ever changed. Like ever. It's been forty years and nothing has still changed."

Friend, God is so gentle and He works in the life of a believer differently. There's no algorithm or formula for it. But if your heart isn't being melted and conformed and broken and reestablished by Jesus and His truth, and you desire to be more like Him and less like your old self, are you truly born again? Or did you call up an agent and order some fire insurance?

Because there are a lot of people that want fire insurance today. They don't want to go to hell. They want the fire insurance, but they don't know what it is to have a Master. Someone that guides them and leads them, loves them, and will never forsake them.

It's the greatest gift we're given. It's a death and resurrection with Jesus Christ. That's what we see here. And he tells us that we should be walking in a newness of life. Second Corinthians 3:2: "You are an epistle written on the hearts, known and read by all men."

That's your life. That's my life. Are we read as an epistle as a newness of life because of Jesus Christ? Pray about that. How do you want to be remembered? Who do people say that you are? Who do people say that Jesus Christ is in your life?

It's everything. How you answer that has eternal consequences. It's the most important question you'll answer in all your life. It's the most important question that you can pose to somebody else. Who are you in Christ Jesus?

Guest (Male): We'll leave you to think over that all-important question. You're listening to Pastor Matt VanderVen on His Perfect Love. Stick around; Matt will give us a sneak peek into our next study in Romans in just a moment.

You can hear this study again at hisperfectlove.org. That's hisperfectlove.org. Or also at oneplace.com and look for us wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a mobile app. This is a great way to take Pastor Matt's teachings with you at the gym, in the car, on your way to work, or as you're getting ready in the morning.

You can learn more about the mobile app and start your download when you visit our website hisperfectlove.org. And thank you for your prayers and financial support. You can make a donation to this ministry and send us your prayer requests through the website again at hisperfectlove.org. All right, let's see what's in store for next time.

Matt VanderVen: Paul's going to take this and we're going to go into Verses 5 and 10. And this is the primary area where we see the aorist tense. It was really Verses 2 through 6. But as we begin to go on, we're going to see this.

He's going to open up things because in Verse 7 and 9—7 is "freed," it's in the perfect tense if you're taking notes, circle it in your Bible. Verse 9, "knowing," in the perfect tense. We're now going to get revealed to us what God has always been trying to communicate from the very foundations of this world.

That He sent His Son Jesus Christ. And when we accepted Him, we inherited a newness of life. But it's not a newness of life that I think is being taught in a lot of churches. I feel like that's a spiritually bankrupt newness of life.

Because there's a whole lot of outward profession and like, "Oh, I'm acting this way," but meanwhile in our houses when we're alone, there's a TV going on and certain things are still coming into that house that are waging war against that spirit that's in us.

And people aren't talking about that from the pulpit today. At least not that I hear very often. And I think that if we're doing this and I want to do it in love, I want to handle the Word of God the right way. I think as we go looking at this, he's going to start to tell us that we were united together with Christ. So you've got to come back next week.

Guest (Male): That is coming up tomorrow on His Perfect Love when Pastor Matt goes deeper into Romans Chapter 6. We'll see you then. His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore.