Are We Becoming A Dead Church

. When we die to Christ all that is left of us is the site.

. Everything else must die and Jesus must take control and build a whole new creation in us.

. A dead church is one where the members are dead men and women walking.

. There was a movie by that title here a few years back. That’s what they called people who had been convicted of murder and were waiting on death row to be executed.

. Christians are dead men walking.

. They have died to their sins and they are allowing Jesus to resurrect them into a new life.

. When I baptize someone I say to them that they are buried with Jesus through baptism and they are raised with him into a newness of life.

. They have been reborn.

. Born again as Jesus told Nicodemus over in the third chapter of John.

. In order to be born again, we must first die.

. Churches can never flourish and be successful in it’s mission of making disciples until it’s members are dead people.

. Dead to sin

. Not only are we to be dead to sin, we must also be dead to self.

. Dead to self.

. Look at verse 12-13; Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires.13Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.

. Folks we have to die to self

. We have this new life that has been given to us through being born again the old life is dead.

. Our priorities change.

. What used to be important has changed.

. No longer are we to be the old selfish gotta have my way person.

. We have died to that old selfish life.

. We must die to ourselves.

. A great illustration of that is the Apostle Paul.

. We started a study of the book of Titus on Wednesday night and as I prepared for this study I concentrated on the first chapter thinking that the first chapter would be enough material

to cover the time that I had available.

. Folks we didn’t get out of the first verse of that fist chapter of Titus.

. There was so much there that we couldn’t get past it.

. My goal next week is to at least get to the fourth verse.

. This is what Titus 1:1 says; 1This letter is from Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. I have been sent to proclaim faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know the truth that shows them how to live godly lives.

The King James translation translates slave as Bond Servant

. Paul writes that I am a slave or a bond servant.

. Now I googled bond servant and this is what I got. ( www.the bondservant .org)

. The best definition here is “devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests.” On its basic level a bondservant is simply following your master to complete disregard of your own will, emotions, desires.

. A bondservant disregards their own self interests. Their own will. Their own desires and even their own emotions.

. A bond servant was a slave as the NIV and the NLT translate the word but they were voluntary slaves.