12buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.13And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,14having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
Our old lives were buried with Him - the Bible tells us in Galatians that we were crucified with Christ. 2nd Corinthians declares us to be new creations in Christ Jesus. So we regard ourselves as dead to sin, dead to our old lives, and alive in Christ. That has enormous implications for the way we live our lives - we are declared to be right with God, with a capacity to triumph over sin. We have a new heart, and Jesus lives within us. Even though in our humanity we deserved to live apart from God, through Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, we have been set from from that old life and we have a new identity and can know and experience the presence of God, with us, every single day!
In this passage from Romans 6, we get an idea about the newness of life that God has provided for us through Christ Jesus and a glimpse into our new identity and capability to walk in victory over sin:
4Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.5For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,6knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
As we enter the final week of the Lenten season next week, theaters present a number of choices for moviegoers that contain messages that, to some degree, are related to the Bible. "Son of God" is still hanging on in a handful of theaters, but its distribution pattern may not permit it to be a relevant choice for those who want a movie where Jesus is the central character. It may be a good time to revisit "The Passion of the Christ" or even the classic "JESUS" film, which is now available in a re-mastered version to celebrate its 35 anniversary. And, churches across America have been lining up showings of the film in theaters, including a sold-out screening in Prattville next week. Go to JesusFilm.org/HD to learn more about bringing the film to your city.
I love the JESUS film, and the statistics are staggering, and a great testimony to the work of God. Listen to this from the film's website: Every eight seconds, somewhere in the world, another person indicates a decision to follow Christ after watching the "JESUS" film. That's 10,800 people per day, 324,000 per month and more than 3.8 million per year!
Called by some “one of the best-kept secrets in Christian missions,” a number of mission experts have acclaimed the film as one of the greatest evangelistic tools of all time. Since 1979 more than 200 million men, women and children worldwide have indicated decisions to follow Jesus after viewing the film. In addition, through hundreds of partners an estimated 10+ million decisions have been made as the film "JESUS" is used extensively by the Body of Christ worldwide.
In other movie news, as I mentioned on the show yesterday, "God's Not Dead" and "Noah" are still in the movie box office top 5. "Heaven is For Real" hits the scene next Wednesday, just in time for Easter. Christian communications expert Phil Cooke reports in a piece for Charisma News that the YouVersion Bible app team tracked the opening of the movie Noah, and during the three-day opening weekend, the app reported a 300 percent increase in people reading or listening to the Noah story from the book of Genesis.
In actual numbers, YouVersion reports during the opening weekend that the Noah story was read or listened to on the app 389,794 times—or about 129,931 times per day. It’s the highest number of people exploring that passage that they’ve ever experienced.
Bible Gateway, another top online Scripture site, reports similar findings, with a 223 percent increase. Geof Morin, executive vice president and chief communications officer of the American Bible Society, did a sampling among their huge number of Facebook followers and discovered that 87 percent of respondents said they were reading the story of Noah because of weekend conversations about the film. The American Bible Society has an effort underway to share the Noah story.
These are just samplings, but Cooke makes an excellent point:
God can indeed work with imperfect people and imperfect vehicles. In spite of the nonbiblical elements taken from Jewish and other sources, the film is still driving people to explore the real story in the pages of the Bible. This was my hope, and it’s certainly playing out.
I have seen the movie, and I agree with Phil. The plot does contain a man named Noah, chosen by The Creator for a special purpose, there is a an ark and a worldwide flood. And, earth seems to be far from a happy place - call it mankind's lack of stewardship of the earth or outright wickedness, but this is a desolate place. Unfortunately, the message seems to be that creation was all hunky-dory until man showed up and messed up the place. And, Noah, who was called a righteous man in the Scriptures, was portrayed, at least for most of the film, as a man who felt he was deserving to die like everyone else and that his purpose was tied up in saving the animals for a fresh start. He told his family that his youngest son would be the last man. That is, until it was announced that a grandchild was on the way, a child that had to be destroyed, if she were a girl, when she was born. That became the driving force of his existence, and the element really drove the film into the ground.
So, the theatrical Noah did not grasp what it meant to be righteous, chosen by God, and his purpose for being chosen. Do you? The Biblical story of Noah can help us with our identity and our walk with the Lord, and it's really satisfying that people are reading it, searching the Scriptures for...the truth!
Here's the deal: the real story is that Noah was declared to be righteous and was given a special purpose. What the Book says is that yes, humanity had departed from the ways of the Creator, from the ways of...God! Because of sin, God had determined to destroy the earth with a flood. The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death, but Jesus has come to offer us a better way, through salvation. Sin results in wrath, but God has given us a choice - accept the free gift of salvation through the death of Jesus or experience eternal punishment. The choice is yours!
If you've made the right choice, then we can embrace the righteousness that God has provided for us through Christ and walk in the new identity that He has given to us. Russell Crowe's Noah did not walk as a righteous man, he felt he was no different than those who perished in the flood. But, the real Noah was called righteous, and so are we. But, we live in a state beneath what God has called us to because we do not grasp who we are in Christ. He has provided new life in Christ, you are a new creation, and the Bible presents for us a narrative for those who have been called and chosen to be children of God. Rejoice in the newness of life!
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