Dead: That state in which there is total and permanent cessation
of all the vital functions.

I am aware that with a title like this for a sermon, many imaginary thoughts must come to mind, but I can assure you that the question has clear Biblical support, and it demands a clear answer on the part of all of us. This message is not for you to wish the person in the next seat to hear, it is for you and it is for me. It is a sermon that I wish for everyone of us to examine because of it's obvious spiritual implications. I believe that at the end of this message many questions that you may have in your mind about Christianity and how this life is to be lived will be either answered or made more clear. So read carefully and with an honest inspection of your own life.

All three of the synoptic gospels, Matt, Mark and Luke, contain the same call to discipleship that Jesus gave to his disciples and to the people who were listening to what He was saying.

Mark Chapter 8

From verses 27-30, Jesus inquired of His disciples of what the people thought of Him. Many names were given, but Peter was given the right one, directly by God's revelation to Him. This indeed was God's plan. In verse 31, Jesus attempts to further teach the disciples more of God's plan. The plan of God was that basically, Jesus was to suffer and to die at the hands of the religious rulers of Israel.

30 And he charged them that they should tell no man of him.
31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
32 And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.
33 But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.

As Jesus was giving to the disciples the Father's plan for His death, Peter took it upon himself to rebuke Jesus at the thought of Him dying, which in turn Jesus rebukes Peter and satan, and tells satan that the plan that was given by Peter was not the plan of God, but of man. Jesus rebuke of satan, as he rebuked Peter, is something not to look over lightly. The strong statement of absolute resistance to anything that Peter said needs to be examined with some detail. The popular view of the coming Messiah was to be one who would come with strength, not in weakness, as perceived by the eyes of Peter and the disciples. So for Jesus to make such a profession of suffering and death would be for those who thought differently from the plan of God, to be absolutely unthinkable! Jesus told Peter, and I would be led to believe all of His disciples felt the same way, since He looked at them all, that his plan, though popular, though logical in his own mind, was from satan. This entire word-play between Jesus and Peter is very significant in this regard: The eternal plan of God was for Jesus to die. This would be in complete obedience to the Father's will. Jesus said to His disciples, I am not come to do my own will, but the Father who sent me. The will of the Father was that Jesus is to die. Now Jesus expands the Father's will to those who will follow Him as their Messiah and Lord.

34 And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.
36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
38 Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

Jesus made some of the most remarkable statements ever written in this verse. Jesus said that if you determine to follow Me then you must do what I do in this sense. You must be willing to do only and everything of the Father's will and not your own. Jesus is saying to those who were listening, deciding, contemplating to follow Him to renounce self. To cease to make oneself the object of one's life and actions. This involves a determined, fundamental reorientation of the principle of life itself. God, not self, must be at the center of life. Without that discipleship is not possible and not happening regardless of the claim of discipleship. There's not one mention of verbiage, or speech, or creed, or profession that qualifies a person towards Christian discipleship. But in every qualification given by Jesus to discipleship, it involves the action of one life in following Him. Not only does discipleship involve the willful decision to follow Christ, of self renunciation, but of taking up one's cross. This means one thing—death.

Not only is it needful to deny oneself, but to be dead to oneself. Are you dead yet??

If Jesus must die, and that's the Father's will, then all who would follow Christ must not only be willing to die for Him in one act of martyrdom, but to die a million, a billion deaths daily, if need be, for His sake while you let live.

You must die for Him when you die and you must die for Him when you live, whether you live or die, you must be dead, and that's the Father's will also.

Any other so called so-called commitment, apart from what Jesus says comes from the same enemy that attempted to thwart God's plan through Peter. It comes from satan.

With this in mind, it is then a foregone conclusion, that a person contemplating discipleship, following Jesus, must be dead to the self life. Nothing less is following Jesus since these are clear qualifications that He requires.

But the life of self death does not end there by a long shot. Clearly the dead-self life is the way of Christian living. Are you dead yet??

Galatians 2:20
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Philippians 1:21
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Colossians 3:1-4:
1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

2^nd Timothy 2:3-4:
3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.,

In all four of these references we see some great common denominators:

1) The death of self. Everything of the self life, which is always associated with the unsaved years of our life, are dead. All of it's goals, all of it's dreams, all of it's desires, all of it's wishes, all of it's objectives, all of it is dead to the believer, dead to the disciple. Are you dead in this area? Or is there still life brewing about self? Are you dead yet?? This is not my opinion, but it is what the word of God teaches.

2) Life is Christ: I didn’t say we live with Christ. I said that life is Christ for us. Colossians 3:4 says: Christ, who is our life. Christ is not our unseen roommate, fighting to have some back seat to our laid out plans of life, but Christ is life and life is Christ. Without Him, all we have is self. Are you dead yet??

3) Your relationship to everything and everyone on this Earth is insignificant and also dead. Christ cannot and will not compete with our Earthly wishes and desires. Until our lives are immersed in the person of Christ, into the love for Christ, into obedience to Christ, in responding to the Christ of scripture, then in no way will God ever allow any of our plans and wishes to come to pass by His hand. How about this area, Are you dead yet??

4) If you are dead to this life, you will have a Heavenly focus of everything in life. In the good time and the bad times, when the circumstances are totally good, or completely rotten, if you expect to survive down here, you better have a genuine Heavenly fix that is real because of Jesus Christ living in you! How about it, Are you dead yet??

5) Your complete and total life's direction and priorities are now spiritually, Heavenly and Godly. Not Selfish, Earthly and fleshly. Nothing comes between you and God, not even you because you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. Philippians 3:7-16. Are you dead yet??

You are a dead man, you are a dead woman, you are a dead young person. Our old life, the way we did things the way we wanted things the way we acted about certain things, the way we respond to certain things, the way of our attitudes and the ways of our actions are all dead, that's a part of the old man which was corrupt according to the deceitful passions, and that same old man, or woman was crucified with Christ and is dead. Are you dead yet? Have you truly been crucified with Christ? If not, then you may be dead in trespasses and sins, you may be dead, but it's a spiritual death, not a death that identifies with Christ. Galatians 5:24: (read).