Daniel,

I got through about 30 minutes of your sermon this morning before my daughter woke up and interrupted my listening.

I appreciate your distinction between positionally being a new creation in Christ and having ownership of it, but not yet full possession.

I wondered as I listened if people really see obedience to sin (and the flesh/old man) as producing death. I think if we all really understood that, there would be a true aversion to obeying the flesh.
Why would we want to obey that which produces death?

Anyway, I want to listen again when I can have more uninterrupted time.
It is a not-readily-apparent truth, at least for me, and difficult to articulate the distinctions of being a new creature, yet still walking in the flesh (and thusly tempted), but you have brought me closer to a more clear understanding. Thank you.

 

My only advice is to not presume that I have any more light than you do.

 

Daniel, I have JUST listened to your sermon in its entirety. Very good!

The whole of what Crist accomplished in His cross-work will not be realized until we go to meet Him, and become like Him for we shall then see Him as He is. Full realization then is conformity to Christ, and that in the eternal state. Until then we are to walk in the Spirit, Who is the down payment of the purchased possesion. Then, in the eternal state, the Holy Spirit will have unencombered reign over our new bodies.

 

Mark - I agree. What Christ did for us will not be fully realized until He returns. Thanks for laying that out.

 

Daniel, that was awesome! You succinctly laid out the christian life in just over 30 minutes.

This is the key; thank you so much for your diligent work in expounding Romans 6 and your obedience to preach the truth.

My spirit witnessed with the reality of the message you gave.

 

Jim, I am just thankful it made sense. ;-)

 

Since you commented on my blog, I figure I'll return the favour ;)

I agree with the end of your sermon, that is the practical application part of it. I'm not so sure about the centre of it; that is your explanation of the natures. What I am sure of is that one can hold to the application part without embracing your specific understanding of the natures; that is there are other interpretations , and I believe are, that leads to the same result. Therefore I wouldn't make the understanding of the natures you present as any test of orthodoxy. Not that you did, but just to remind you don't :)

The other thing, and perhaps I was just tired Sunday morning, but I did find parts of your explanation to follow, and therefore wonder how well others in the service were able to follow.

 

Bryan,

I need to be careful when I shift from "this is what the text says" mode to "this is how I think that plays itself out practically and experientially" mode. I need to remember that I am there to teach what the word of God says and what it means, and that when and where I can do that without my personal theology rationale, I am obligated to do so. I think I will be a far better steward of the word than I am when I learn to do that better.

As to being [hard] to follow - I personally wonder how anyone can follow my train of thought sometimes?

I think one thing that I will certainly do (should I ever enter into a full time preaching ministry), is spend far more time preparing the message than I am currently able.

But I think you are right about my explanation being hard to follow. I tend to rush to the point I am making, and often assume certain things are understood and need no real explanation. I hope time will iron out such kinks.

Thanks for the feedback. It is good to receive it.

 

Oh and Bryan, my comment was supposed to be on part 5 not part 4. I scrolled to the end of five (by habit), and clicked the link there...

 

I was wondering about that.
The 6th and final part will be up tomorrow.

 

Incidentally, along the lines of what Mark said, my pastor's wife had an interesting take on the topic of an earlier post of yours - on how we might react at the judgment seat in seeing a son or daughter told to depart from God, banished to Hell eternally.

She noted that now we know in part, but when we know fully - as we are known - then perhaps we will have a complete understanding of the way God is righteous and just, as well as total knowledge of the depth of sin and that we will be in agreement with the righteous judgment, without the emotions we deal with down here. I'm not articulating it perhaps as well as she did, but I tend to lean toward that understanding as well. Not that our knowledge of these individuals for whom we care on earth will be wiped out, but that our knowledge of God, His righteousness, His justice, His mercies, His grace, etc. will be not as dim as it is here, and seeing more clearly, we will be in agreement without the complexity of the tangled emotions we have here. Make sense?

Somewhat off topic of this post perhaps, but in some way connected in that in pertains to our final inheritance away from this earth.

 

I think your pastor's wife has a very similar opinion to my own, thanks for sharing that Susan.

 

I am currently listening to your sermon!
You don't have an accent; that surprised me.

You did speak in tongues!

I will let you know what I got out of it when I am done.

Thanks for the opportunity to listen. :~)

 

Daniel,
That was really good! With the exception of maybe one or two sentences, it makes perfect sense to me. :~)

You really have articulated his very well.

I like your preaching style too.
Thanks again :~)

 

Rose ~ I hope the one or two sentences were the Greek ones. ;-)

 

Argh -- won't copy to my iPod!

 

Dan, I don't think iPod plays Windows Media Audio files (.wma).

The guys who put these sermons on the net are the ones who decide what format to save them in, and since wma compresses better than mp3, I guess they went with that format.

You can still listen to the sermon on any windows system using (gah!) the default Windows Media player, or alternately you could download one of the many free wma to mp3 converters out there, and convert the sermon to an mp3 format yourself and thereby put it on your iPod. If you've never done that before it might be worth doing for no other reason than to have the facility to do so at your disposal.

 

I appreciated that you sang, and other things too, but the singing made me smile...

:-)

 

JD, I wish I could take credit for the singing, but that was one of the fellows from the congregation. He and his wife lead our congregational singing. I can't sing unless I am playing an instrument, or singing with a chior. ;-)

 

Still smiling anyway...