Episode 2288 - Where the Rubber Meets the Road part 1

Good morning and welcome to this brand new day. This is Scripturelinks daily dose of Inspiration for Tuesday April 1, 2025 and today April Fool's Day. You know, day. We like to play jokes on one another and things like that. I was looking to try to. Well, darn it just left me here. I had pulled up a thing here that talks about the origins of April Fool's Day. It also is called National Tomfoolery Day. let me see if I can pull it up here again real quick. Talks about the history of April Fool's Day. Some believe according to this is nationaldaycalendar.com this is where I get all our things to celebrate each day says some believe the day is celebrated in hon in honor of the trickery that Mother Nature plays on us this time of year with her unpredictable weather. Could be we're supposed to hear in East Tennessee we're supposed to be getting up near 90 this weekend and then going to be back down into the 50s on Monday. So that's kind of odd there. It goes on to say other scholars point to the reformation of the calendar by Pope Gregory and the Gregorian calendar we use today. In the 1500s in France, the new year would take place in April, not January as it does now. The theory is that those who continued to celebrate the new year on April 1st was called April Fish and pranks would be played on them. In Britain in 1776 there is a clear and reliable reference to April foolishness in an article Gentleman's Magazine reference to a custom in the kingdom of making fools of people on the first day of April. It addresses the day being the accumulation of an eight day feast at the beginning of the new year. I don't know if I could ever think of celebrating the New Year and April 1st, but an eight day feast, that would be kind of nice.

Today we're gonna start, let's see our Bible reading today. We're going to start going through the New Testament and I thought it would be cool to go through the New Testament in 100 days. So it's going to be going from now until July 10th I believe it is. we're going to read through the entire New Testament. We're starting today in Matthew chapter 1 through 3 and Proverbs chapter 1. So get on board, read through the whole New Testament. it'll be a blessing to you, trust me.

Today we're going to continue talking on what we started talking about yesterday in our rejection of Jesus as the sin that we need to deal with today. And a lot of people sometimes have the misconception or the idea, especially in our day and age today, that you can be a Christian and follow Jesus, but do it on your own terms and live on your own terms, and it's not the way it works. the New Testament, especially in Paul's letters, is very clear on the fact that there needs to be a change. And we're going to spend the next couple of days, however long it takes, reading through Romans chapter number six. because I believe Romans chapter number six is pretty much where the rubber meets the road. It's where we are challenged and we're presented with living a new life. And I was reading in a book called A Year with Romans, this person breaks down the book of romans in the 52 topics. And for chapter number six, verses one through 14, he has it as alive in grace. This is by Jan Vanderberg. And I want to read a little bit of what this person put in here, what this writer, what he put in here. He says envision. Now let me back it up. Here in the rich tapestry of Romans chapter 6, we witness a vivid picture of sanctification, the journey of being sculpted into holiness. This isn't just another chapter in our story. It's the very essence of being alive in Christ. Just as baptism plunges us into the depths, uniting us with Christ and his death, it also raises us anew, drenched in the promise of resurrection. Envision now, if you will, a life shackled by debt every day marked by the weight of what you owe. And then in an instant, your slate is wiped clean. Not by any deed of your own, but by the generosity of another. This, in essence, is justification. Yet the story doesn't end there. Sanctification is the journey that follows. It's learning to walk in financial freedom, making wise choices to ensure the chains of debt don't ensnare you once more. This is not just about avoiding old traps. It's about embracing a whole new way of life. I'm going to stop right there. I thought that was fascinating there, reading about that, because, you know, in our day and age, in our time, people want to be able to continue living in their sin. They want to be able to continue living the way they were. And I feel sorry for the churches that when we stand before God on that great judgment day, that has to account for having gay preachers, transgender ministers, because that's sin. And we're mocking God when we continue living in our sin. So I said yesterday, looking in John, chapter three, I had said yesterday that Jesus came so that we can be saved. Does that mean that we continue living the way we've done? No it doesn't. Paul says in Romans, chapter six. I'm going to go ahead and read through the whole chapter, and then we'll break it down here. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. That, like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God likewise. Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead IND ded unto sin, but alive unto God through Christ Jesus our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lust thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall m not have dominion over you, for ye notto the law, but under grace. What then shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey his servants? You are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness. But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered. You being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men, because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity. Even so now yield your members as servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin and being servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Awesome section of scripture. We're going to go through this slowly so that we can grasp what Paul is trying to teach us. He's trying to teach us here that we need to have a new way of living. It's what the min. My ministry here with Scripture Links is striving to do. I'm striving to live the way God wants me to live. And I'm encouraging you to do the same thing. That's why our verse, the caption on our logo says that we should walk in newness of life. That's taken from Romans, chapter 6, ver. 4. There has to be a change. Paul addresses that. He says, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? In chapter five, he's talking about grace and he's talking about. We looked at some verses here yesterday and he's talking about how, how Jesus is. Through the obedience of Jesus, our sin debt can be paid, we can be forgiven. And because we have that grace, and I told you yesterday that we're living in the age of grace today because of that grace. Paul says, well, hey, should we continue living in sin that we get more grace? I mean, if God's grace is here, shouldn't we live the way we want to live and, and not worry about it because we have the grace of God on our life. He says, in verse two, God forbid. In other words, no way God forbid that would happen. He says, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Look at how we words this here. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? You see, he's talking about that in a past tense. How shall we live any longer therein? That's our past life. He says here in verse 3 that so many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death. When we're talking about baptism, when you are submerged in the water, you are going down into the grave. You're submitting to his death. You'likening to his death. He says in, verse four, therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we also should walk in the newness of life. So Paul is saying, were buried with Christ in baptism into his death. And just like Jesus was raised up and resurrected out of the tomb and is living at the right hand of God, we too are being raised up when we come back out of the water to come and walk in the newness of life. When Jesus was dead and laying in the tomb, death remained in that tomb. It didn't follow him to heaven. And likewise, our old life, our sin nature, are the things that go against the teachings of God. Needs to be left there in that baptism of water. You know, around here in East Tennessee, a lot of people want to be baptized in the river or in a stream, because the stream is flowing, the river is flowing. So when they get baptized and they come up, their old life is going down the currents of the river. Great way to look at it. I was baptized in a swimming pool, down in Florida many, many years ago. And when we are getting baptized, we are being raised to live a new life. We don't continue living in sin. He says here in verse number two, how can we that are dead to sin, dead representing our spiritual, not our spiritual representing the death of our old life, of our sin nature. How can we live any longer in that sin nature? The fact is, we can't. And as we go on studying this, we're going to see that we can't. But here in verse number five, talking again about our baptism, he said, for if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin Again, this goes along with what he said in verse number two as to how we can live any longer. Therein, he said, our old man is crucified with Christ. Our old man is destroyed. So that henceforth or from now on, we should not serve sin. You see, we see here, this verse that, that it's a choice. We're going to study that a little bit more tomorrow, but it's a choice. It's a choice each day, each minute, each hour, each second. It's a choice we're making. Are we going to follow God or are we going to follow our sin nature. Getting back to that illustration that I used out of that book, you know, when, when you've. When you've been forgiven of your debt when somebody else paid them the debt that you owed. You have a choice minute by minute, are you going to live in financial freedom or are you going to get back into the bondage of debt? So therefore you start changing your mindset because once you get out of thatin, out of that debt, you don't want to get back into it again. So you make lifestyle changes, you make thought changes.

Maybe I've read people that, that said that they don't go on, on shopping sites anymore like Amazon or Walmart or any of them other shopping sites because that's a snare to them. They want to go and they want to buy things and, and I pass a house on my way to work every day that has Amazon boxes piled up on the porch from from floor to ceiling. And it seems they get more and more all the time. We don't want to put ourselves, just like when we get forgiven of our debts that we owe, money that we owe, we don't want to put ourselves back into that position of having debt. And likewise, when Christ has given us new life, we don't want to get back into following our old sin nature. But yet so many of us do that. So many of us struggle with that.

And tomorrow we're going to continue looking and we're going to see what Paul has to say about that. And we're going to see some important things that we need to understand. But today, don't live in the past. Don't live in the past. When, when you were living in sin, you got to get away from that. Get away from living in sin. And from here forward, make that choice not to be a servant of sin. Think about that as you go through this day. And remember, get into God's word and allow God's word to get into you. Then share that word with someone today. Have a blessed day.