Paul’s own experience is witness to the power of the Risen Christ to radically change a life instantly. Paul was an angry persecutor of the first Christians. He had at least one killing on his hands in the stoning of Stephen. Acts 9 tells of his miraculous conversion. Paul is on his way to Damascus to imprison more Christians. The Bible says Paul “...was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. On that road, he encountered the Risen Christ and his life was instantly changed forever. That day he was transformed from the angry persecutor of Christ to a follower of Christ and a great missionary, spreading the Gospel throughout the known world. The best explanation of what happened is what Paul tells us in this text. The old Paul died, that is his old nature was killed, crucified, that day on the Road to Damascus. A brand new person came into existence. The miracle of the cross and resurrection is that it is they are not just something that happened to Jesus, but because of Jesus, we too can live brand new lives. Our old, sinful nature can be destroyed by crucifixion and replaced by resurrection life, by the power of God while we are still in this same physical body.

You may be thinking, “I can see where Paul needed some crucifixion, he was a really bad person. But hey, I’m not this gross, great sinner. I’m a pretty good person. Not perfect, to be sure, but compared to others, I think I do pretty well.” I understand those feelings. Most of us try to live the best we can and do as much good as we can. And many I meet, genuinely don’t see themselves as sinners in need of saving. They have it worked out in their minds that they are OK with God.

But let me suggest, just because you “feel OK” doesn’t mean you are OK with God. I’ve always found it rather interesting and mysterious how fashions change. When I entered the ministry, I had sideburns down below my ears, and that was still conservative. I remember earth shoes, leisure suits, and super-skinny ties. We won’t even touch women’s fashions. But how is it that what looked so cool and “in” a few years back now looks totally out of fashion? Well, we know someone is playing with our thinking, slowly evolving what they think we ought to look like. Something appears a bit odd, or extreme, and then the next thing you know we’re all wearing it. The same thing happens with our definitions of sin. We live in a culture of tolerance, where nothing is considered sin anymore. We just have alternative lifestyles and behavior– nothing is really bad or wrong anymore. So, if we take our cues from our culture, we are always in danger of feeling comfortable with attitudes and behavior that in God’s view are sin.

Yet, in spite of our self-justification, I think all of us get tired of what we are deep inside when we’re truly honest with ourselves. We know there is a basic twist in our natures. While we may want to do good and make plans to do good, more often than not we fall way short. Seldom are we the loving, kind, giving people we want to be. We want to be a better marriage partner, parent, a better son or daughter– only to find we’re messing up again. We are selfish and lazy, too busy looking out for number one and in the process hurting those closest to us. We find ourselves too often jealous of others or greedy for more things. We can be sensuous, lustful, driven by our passions. Wouldn’t you like to see that stuff dealt a death blow in you? Who of us hasn’t wanted to get rid of the bad inside us, leaving only the good? Have you ever cried out inside, “I don’t understand why I do what I do?” In spite of resolutions, trying, even our best intentions, we keep failing. Jer. 17:9 says,
The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

Hundreds of years before Christ came, God gave a marvelous promise to solve this heart problem that Jesus’ death and resurrection fulfilled for us:
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;.... And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees (Ezek 36:26‑27).
Wow! What a promise. To actually be given a heart that wants to do what is right.

Henri Barbusse tells of a conversation he overheard in a dugout in WW I. The dugout was full of wounded men. One of them is dying and says to another man,
“Listen, Dominic, you’ve led a bad life. Everywhere you are wanted by the police. But there are no convictions against me. My name is clear, so here, take my wallet, take my papers, my identity, my good name, my life and quickly, hand me your papers that I may carry all your crimes away with me in death.”

That is what Jesus is doing for us on the cross. In His death, He carries away all our sins so we really can be totally free of them, forgiven forever. This is not because we deserve it or have made up for them, but for Jesus’ sake. That is why Jesus died.

Of course, we do have a say in this matter. We need to choose to make Christ’s crucifixion and death our personal crucifixion. This is done by prayer, repenting of our sin, turning from it and asking for Christ’s forgiveness. This means letting go of our inner life and surrendering it to God. We realize we cannot save ourselves and accept His salvation provided on the cross. And that feels like a death. It is a turning over all we are and have– all our inner being to this God who loves us and gave himself for us. We die to SELF, our enslavement to our egos. Sin has an “I” in the middle. 

But, being crucified with Christ does more than take care of sin and the past. As the old life, our old willfulness is nailed to the cross, a new life is given back to us in resurrection. It is, as Paul has said in our text, “Christ living in us.” Think about it. Everyone agrees that no one has lived better than Jesus. Consider his love, compassion, and giving. He could handle anything, and nothing was beyond him. What an exchange. We give up our narrow, corrupted, weak selves for all of his nature and power to live within our bodies. That is the heart of the Gospel, and the message Paul summarizes in saying,
I have been crucified with Christ
and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

WALKING IN NEW LIFE
Paul goes on to say in our text:
The life I live in the body,
I live by faith in the Son of God....

Romans 6:4, he says that,
“... just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glorious power of the Father,
now we also may live new lives.(NLT)

The resurrection is about living brand new lives right here and now. Living with a changed heart that is also empowered to be what Christ has called us to be.

Notice in the Gospels how all the first witnesses to the resurrection ran. The women run from the tomb. Peter and John race to the tomb. The disciples on the road to Emmaus hurry back to Jerusalem. There is energy and excitement. But, even more significant is the transformation of their lives. They were timid, fearful disciples cowering behind locked doors, all of whom forsook Jesus and fled under pressure. Now, suddenly they are bold, literally running all over the earth in the Book of Acts, unstoppable, intimidated by nothing or no one. Even more than that, they are living channels of the incredible miracle working power of God through the Holy Spirit– healing, delivering people from the power of darkness, even raising dead people to life. As one scholar, Dr. J. P. Moreland puts it, these early Christians were, “so successful that today we name our children Peter and Paul and our dogs Caesar and Nero!” (Dog lovers, please don’t take offense!)
The transformation and empowerment of the disciples by the Holy Spirit is irrefutable evidence of the power of the resurrection.

It is interesting that Jesus’ tomb wasn’t preserved as a historical site. Today, there is no certainty as to the tomb’s location. There is the traditional sight,  The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem built over what is thought to be Calvary and Garden Tomb. But then there’s a rival site, called “Gordon’s Calvary,” where there is no church, but a tomb at foot of a hill thought possibly to be Golgotha. You might think, “How can such an important historical site not be well-known?” It is simply because the message is not, “Remember how great it was, what a great person Jesus was when He was with us.” The early Christians aren’t telling people to go look at the empty tomb. The fact is, if there was a body, certainly the Jewish religious leaders and Roman authorities would have been only too happy to produce it and squelch the message of resurrection. The message was and is, “He’s alive! He’s with us now.” Why show off an empty tomb? He lives within believers. As evidence, look–  we’re doing the same things He was doing while He was here in His name and power. Look at the sermons in Acts. They are saying in essence, this man that is now healed now in Jesus’ name is empirical proof of the resurrection. If Jesus were dead, how could these things be happening? And, look at our changed lives. It is obvious He is living in us. We have peace, joy, and love we could never have on our own. It is all because the Spirit of Jesus dwells within us now as the Holy Spirit.

Lee Strobel gives an interesting witness to his own transformation. Lee held a masters degree from Yale Law School and was the award-winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune for years. Lee was also firm in his atheism– until his wife became a Christian. That prompted an examination of the evidence for Christianity to prove to her it’s claims were false. As he interviewed experts and delved into the evidence, to his surprise he found the case for Christianity overwhelming. He documents all this in his book: The Case for Christ. Finally, in keeping with his commitment to intellectual honesty, he became a Christian, inviting Christ into his life. He shares the transformation in his own life made by that decision. Before he invited Christ into his life, he describes himself as, “Profane, angry, verbally harsh and all too often absent from his family.” He remembers coming home one night and kicking a hole in the living room wall just out of anger with life and his five-year-old daughter, Allison, hid in her room to get away from him. He says, five months after he gave his life to Christ, little Allison went to her mother and said, “Mommy, I want God to do for me what he’s done for Daddy.” Here Allison, at age five, recognized things in her own heart that weren’t right. She saw the power of God to change her daddy and she wanted in on it. So, at age five, Allison gave her life to Jesus.

All of us here this morning fit into one of three categories regarding living in the power of the resurrection.

First, there are some for whom this sounds a bit excessive, foreign to your experience. You are trying to relate to it through downsizing it to a feeling of optimism, hope kindled in a heart. To you, God is more a supplement to our efforts, helping us to be better people, teaching us the right way. But, you’ve never known the feeling of a heart swept absolutely clean of all sin, the assurance of feeling squeaky clean before God ,and knowing with absolute certainty that you have eternal life. You’ve never known the feeling of His resurrection power surging within you, actually transforming your heart’s desire to want to do only what pleases God and feeling His power within to accomplish that. You’re then in the not yet experienced category. This morning is an opportunity to change that.

The second group are those of you who know this feeling of power and have good memories of how it was when you came to Christ or experienced that renewal. But currently, you are not feeling much resurrection life– it has receded into the background or has gotten buried beneath current problems, needs or the stuff and busyness of living. You have it, but are not living it.

Then, of course, there is a third group who currently are living in this resurrection power and life. I hope most of us are there.

I want to give specific steps to take for those who may be in the first two categories, that is: those who have never had resurrection life surging within and those who have lost it somewhere along the way or are not currently living it. The steps are similar, whether first time or renewal.
1.         We start with surrender. This means letting go of our lives as we know them and want them– surrendering it all to whatever God wants. This amounts to a death to self and the old sin-bent nature, a kind of personal crucifixion. We let Jesus be Savior and Lord.
2.         Then we receive new life within by faith, inviting Jesus to live within. Jesus has promised to come into our hearts when we invite Him in. When that happens, we know it, we feel a change deep inside our hearts. A new Spirit has taken up residence. This is instant, a radical new beginning. It is the life, the nature of Christ through the Holy Spirit.
3.         After this, we then need to live by faith in this new life, a daily trusting. Living by faith involves a daily, hourly choice on our part to pay attention to the new life– nurturing it, feeding it and disregarding the old.
While the start is miraculous and we know change has happened, there is much that is also a process of growth in grace and obedience. But, remember, the point of all this is not working at being a Christian or trying harder. No. It is all about letting the Resurrection Life into your heart–