Go Logizomai Yourself
Posted By: Zach Hoag
In lieu of the fact that our audio failed us this week (check out this week's "best of" podccast), I figured I'd post some of the content from Sunday. The overall idea was simple:
You should all go logizomai yourselves.
We took a break from our Core Values series, which is basically all about our identity as a church called Dwell, to delve in a little deeper into a more important identity - our identity as followers of Jesus Christ.The fact is, if the kind of mission and multiplication we talked about on 7/12 is gonna happen in our city, we need power; and power comes, in part, when we gather to remember who we are.
Our text was Romans 6:1-14. And the central pivot point is verse 11: "So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus."
The word "consider" in the Greek is the word "logizomai" - to consider, to count, to reckon, to credit. All of this is in the metaphorical sense of an account - as in a bank account. Paul wants us to credit ourselves with something, to count ourselves as something, to reckon that we are something.
Does this remind you of any other passages in Paul? How about Romans 4:3b: “Abraham believed God, and it was logizomai-ed to him as righteousness.” That little argument in Romans 4 is about how God justifies the ungodly, the ones who do not do anything to make him respond but rather respond to what he's already done. When God credited Abraham with righteousness, he hadn't really done anything except sleep with his wife's personal assistant and have an illegitimate kid with her. God reiterated his promise to bless Abraham and Sarah with a natural son of promise, and Abe believed, and God declared him righteous on the basis of that belief alone (not on the basis of obedient works). See Genesis 15:6 for the source material...oh, and Paul's restatement of the argument in Galatians 3:6.
So in other words, in Paul and in Scripture, logizomai usually refers to something God does to us when we believe in Jesus - he credits his righteousness to our account. We are declared to be in the right before God, justified before him. Another word translators have used is impute or reckon - the Father reckons us as righteous and imputes that righteousness to us, all on the basis of what Jesus has already done and not on the basis of anything we do.
But here in Romans 6, the word is used differently. It's not something God does to us; it's something we must do to ourselves. The question is, What do you credit yourself with? What do you reckon you are?
Exegeting Baptism
We all need to remember what question Paul starts with here in Romans 6. It's a familiar one, and he uses forms of it elsewhere in Romans and twice in this chapter. It is, "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?"
The sentiment is not hard: If grace is so free, if it really doesn't depend on what we do but on what God does, if we really cannot gain salvation through any righteous or religious works but merely receive it by believing in Jesus alone, then wouldn't the logical thing be to just go flipping nuts? Wouldn't the logical thing be to sin your head off, like it's Real World Cancun or something, since God's already forgiven you for all your past, present, and future sins in Jesus?
Paul's answer is an emphatic No; and his reason why is completely different from anything you've probably ever heard at church.
Because most Christian folks respond to that question like this: "Well salvation is by grace, and God does accept you by faith alone, and it's not about your works and everything; but, you know, I mean, you do have to at least try to, like, work on those bad habits, and be a decent person, and go to church and tithe and go to small group and all that stuff, because that's just what a Christian needs to do," etc., etc.
But Paul's response is infinitely deeper and solidly grace-centric. And totally unexpected.
His answer is No - because of baptism.
Baptism?!
Specifically, he says this: "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, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."
Now, the baptism Paul is talking about here is clearly water baptism. And in baptism lies the secret to this riddle of grace and works - because in baptism we find out who we really are.
See, baptism is not special just because you are doing something that Jesus did at one point in his life; and it's not special just because it represents being cleansed from sin (since water makes you clean - usually anyway, unless it's Lake Champlain). No baptism is special because it symbolically represents your union with Jesus through faith.
NT Wright points out, "The key word is of course 'into': baptism is 'into' the Messiah, and hence into his death."
You see, for Paul, faith or believing in Jesus is this thing that makes you one with Jesus. And baptism signifies that perfectly. When you go down into the water, you are identifying with Jesus in his "going down" in death and burial; you are saying, in effect, When Jesus died, I died. And when you come up out of the water, you are identifying with Jesus in his "coming up" in resurrection; you are saying, When Jesus was raised to new life, so was I!
In baptism you are essentially saying, "As Jesus is in death in resurrection, so am I." Even though you weren't actually there with him, by faith you have been joined to him in such a way that when he died, it was for your sin, and so you died with him; and when he was raised, it was for your new life, and you were raised with him.
Our true identity is wrapped up in Jesus. And so, in verse 11, Paul is asking us to be who we already are in Christ - to consider, reckon, count, credit ourselves as totally dead to sin and alive to God; to live in a way that matches up with who Jesus has already made us by redeeming and saving us.
The call is not to do better in order to make God like us more - the call is to be the people God has already made us to be in Jesus.
Chocolate and Jogging
If you are still wondering how this identity in Jesus will lead us to actually use our bodies to live rightly and to put off the shackles of sinful habits, ya know, in real life, let me give you a couple illustrations.
God mainly speaks to me through my IPod, and last week I was hitting some sermon block and decided to go for a run. Had some podcasts on the shuffle, so I hit play and started jogging (or yogging, as they say in Sweden). And this guy in my earbuds named Shane Hipps started talking about knowing God, and he compared it to chocolate; and his main idea was that you can't experience chocolate by talking about it, or by hearing experts break down the way chemical reactions happen in your brain when you eat it, or learning about its history. No, in order to know chocolate, you have to TASTE it. And he said it's the same with God.
Believing in Jesus, the thing that justifies you, is not something you simply analyze and accept with your mind. It's something that happens in your heart. You have to taste it, not just think about it.
At the end of my run, which was 28 minutes long exactly and consisted of just about 2 miles covered at my lightning fast pace (I am the Lance Armstrong of lame jogging), I came to the point where I had to cross the street back to my building. I looked down for a second and saw what seemed to be a giant black grease stain on the sidewalk. It was circular, about a foot in diameter - and it was moving.
I knelt down bravely for a closer look and realized, as my skin tingled, that it was a mass of tiny black ants, all climbing on top of each other and moving furiously doing I-have-no-idea-what. Not only were they all in this circular mass, but the crack in the sidewalk was filled with the little things from one side of the walk to the other - like a solid black line of ants, 3 inches thick. And instead of being repulsed, I was strangely enamored.
I got closer and wondered at this display of togetherness (can the church start acting like ants, please?), at how all the hundreds of thousands of them did this in unity without fighting. I gloried in it. I then took a little stick and gently drew a letter "Z" in the mass of insects - and the "Z" stayed there for 30 seconds while the little things moved around the shape, as if I'd drawn it in dirt. Next, I drew a heart around the Z. I love myself.
The point is, believing happens when the truth of who Jesus is goes deeper than your mind. At that moment with those ants, the wonder of creation penetrated my heart. And believing in Jesus happens when the wonder of redemption penetrates your heart.
And who you are, your very identity, changes forever.
So this is our call, to live in this new identity, in this new reality that Jesus has worked out for us, for the rest of our lives. Consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God - Jesus has already paid it all, so it's who you really are anyway. Go logizomai yourself, right now.
John Mark McMillan, in his song, The Reckoning Day, says this (and we should all take heed):
Won't you come alive everybody
Won't you come alive everyone
Get up out of bed for the sound of the song unsung
So go ahead, come alive. Be who you already are in Jesus.
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