Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:3-11
Back at the beginning when the disciples first met Jesus they could see that the one thing which distinguished him from all the teachers they had ever heard before was that Jesus conveyed life. Most religious people convey death. This man conveyed life. When this man speaks dead hearts, sick bodies, blind eyes, deaf ears come to life.
"How come your disciples don't fast?"
"Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?" How can they fast in the presence of such life?
"Lord to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life."
But the life the disciples experienced as they traveled with Jesus in flesh and blood was as nothing compared with the life they encountered the day they met Jesus risen from the dead. Looking at Jesus risen from the dead they are looking into glory itself. The last Adam, who has been raised... a life-giving spirit. They are looking at one over whom death no longer has dominion....who is alive, totally and completely to God. They are looking at the firstborn of the new race of which they are being made a part. They are looking at the final outcome of the years they are now going to spend fishing for human souls. Every fish that comes into the net and survives the final separation will be like this.
But how did Jesus get like this? What was it that worked this awesome change in him? Three days a ago Jesus was weakness ... now he is power. Three days ago Jesus was a physical body...now he is a spiritual body. Three days ago Jesus was a man of dust, born of a race of dust...now he is a man of heaven bearing the unclouded image of heaven. Two things have happened to him in these three days: Jesus willingly went down into death. Jesus was raised into life. This new Jesus standing before them could not have come into being except through death.
What the disciples are now going to learn and what you and I are now going to learn is that we can share in this resurrection life only by learning to yield ourselves to death. We can be the new wineskins into which God can pour the new wine of the Spirit of his Son, by learning to yield ourselves to death. We will be able to raise other men and women from death to life only when we learn to die.
Long before Jesus was finally nailed to that cross and long before he came forth from that tomb two things were going on within him. Every day, you could almost say every second, Jesus was dying to his own will and he was being lifted into the Father's will. He was going down out of himself and being raised up into the Father.
Jesus went down into the waters of his baptism...a death. He was raised into the anointing of the Holy Spirit...a resurrection. Under the unction of the Holy Spirit he went down into the death of that wilderness temptation in which he denied his own inclination and refused short cuts to his goals, until he was raised into a life that was ready to minister. Jesus goes to his own home town and instead of becoming the home town boy who has made it, and of whom everybody is proud, Jesus goes down before them in the synagogue that day.... he offends them and they run him out of town and tried to push him off the hill. But the angels of God bore him up.
By the time we get to Luke 5, the fishing chapter, we see this pattern not only in Jesus but in things around him. This is how fish are caught into the Kingdom: The net is lowered down into the sea empty... a death. It comes up jumping with fish...a resurrection. This is how the sick are healed: A paralyzed man is lowered down from the roof into Jesus' presence...symbolic of death. His sins are forgiven... he is raised to his feet, alive. How better can we describe Jesus' life than a death and resurrection.
...who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied
himself taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:6-11
He lowered himself down .... God the Father lifted him up. This is the heart of everything Jesus taught.
"When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give place to this man,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, 'Friend, go up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Luke 14:8-11
The life of faith is willingness to trust God so much that you deliberately allow yourself to be lowered into a death of some kind, believing that God will raise you into life and make you fruitful as you could never be before you died to yourself.
"...unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit..."
John 12:24
...because when it dies to itself it is raised to life by God and becomes fruitful. The net isn't going to come up with fish until it learns to go down... all the way down....into death.
Paul, the most fruitful apostle who ever lived knew this well, and taught it clearly.
For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.
II Corinthians 4:11-12
We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known, as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. II Corinthians 6:8b-10
...as dying and behold we live...the missing ingredient in every professing Christian's life that lacks joy, can't seem to catch any fish in the kingdom net...dying and behold we live.
To live by faith is to die and be raised...die and be raised.
I do the dying, God does the raising. I take care of the going down, God takes care of the coming up.
For instance, there is a dying and rising in our prayer life. Whether we get down on our knees or stand with our hands uplifted, it only becomes prayer when we go down out of ourselves. Not,
"God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are,"
but........“God be merciful to me a sinner.”
Not........“Here I am Father, you know me, I’m one of
your chief Prayer Warriors,”
but.......
“God, I don’t even know where to begin, help
me.”
Yes, we even have to go down out of our attitudes.
"When you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone."
For if you're not willing to die to that grudge you won't be able to pray in faith. In prayer we find ourselves continuously having to die to our fantasies, our idle thoughts, worries and daydreams and apply our minds...concentrate. To remember what has to be remembered. Those names. Those needs. Then, God raises us up, the Spirit comes upon us from on high and lifts us from death to life. We may feel nothing but we will be lifted. And our prayers will move mountains.
There is a dying and rising in corporate worship. Corporate worship is not having three hundred people standing in the same room, who are still each in their own compartment of self, sticking to my thoughts, my tastes, indulging in my peers.
"I don’t like that hymn. Why don’t they pick some good ones."
In corporate worship you die to yourself and sing that hymn you don’t like with all your heart. You come out of your soft warm compartment and join your brothers and sisters and all the angels of God in praising the One who sits on the throne of the Lamb.
Corporate worship is dying to every personal preference, every private hang up and entering into harmony with those with whom I am gathered. Then, God comes down and takes hold of these motley saints who have come together and truly are striving to glorify him with one mind and one mouth and raises us right up into the cloud of his glory.
There is a dying and rising in daily ministry. God doesn’t spell the word ministry with old English letters and drape them in purple velvet. To minister is simply to serve... And what do we do when we serve but spend ourselves, give ourselves, pour ourselves out...a form of dying.
A lot of favors people do for other people are investments.
"I’ll help you put up your barn today, so when my barn burns down you’ll help me. Or perhaps I can tap you for some other favor."
When we serve in the name of Jesus we spend ourselves without strings. They owe us nothing. We’re doing it for him...that's reward enough.
And as we so serve and so speak his word and so draw near to little fish at the bottom of this world's stratified sea to call them to repentance, God meets us. The net is raised, crowded and jumping. Our death is swallowed up in their life.
We are moving into a time when we shall see signs of God that will take our breath away. People turning rapidly and in numbers toward God. People coming into the Kingdom of God like these fish in Peter's net. The last hour move of fishing has already begun on this earth... begun among a peculiar people who so live in the fellowship of Jesus' cross that they are able to convey resurrection life. They die and are raised a thousand times a day.
For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.
II Corinthians 4:11-12
The Lord who rose from the dead is in our midst with power to raise us from the dead. He waits for us to die with him again this day that we might live with him and walk with him and fish for souls with him in the power of his resurrection.