Romans 6:1-10 Jimmy Draper

The speaker announces that he will be teaching for the next three Sundays, with Jack teaching on the 8th of October in Byers, Texas. The speaker will preach on Sunday night, while Jack will preach on Sunday morning. They will be covering Romans chapter 6 and 7, focusing on the questions that arise after being saved by grace. The speaker emphasizes that believers are dead to sin and should not continue living in it. He discusses the difference between the spirit and the flesh, and the battle between the two natures within a believer. The speaker highlights that salvation is a free gift of God and that our justification comes through grace, not works. He emphasizes that our salvation is not based on feelings, but on the presence of the Holy Spirit in us. The speaker concludes by stating that Christianity is an exciting and exhilarating personal relationship with God. All right, let me tell you where we're headed, we think. I'm going to teach the next three Sundays. Today and two Sundays, that'll be three Sundays. Jack and I have been going two weeks at a time, swapping off. That worked well, except that on the 8th of October, he is going to be teaching up in Byers, Texas. Anybody know where Byers, Texas is? There's one. There's two. It's a little country town. I don't know, probably doesn't have any more people in it than we have here. Less. The pastor is one of Jack's former students. I have met him as well years ago. So he's asked me to preach on Sunday night, the 8th, but Jack's going to do Sunday morning. So I'll do this Sunday and two more, and then Jack will do three Sundays. I told him, if I've got to do three, you've got to do three. So we're going to go that way. I hope we get a microphone here. It's funny what you think about. I thought about how my voice is getting old this morning. I don't know why I thought about this. So it's not quite as loud as it used to be. Anyway, thank you for listening. These three Sundays, we're going to cover Romans chapter 6 and chapter 7. Jack then will pick up there. Now, the good news today is that since I'm teaching three Sundays in a row, it doesn't really matter how far we get today. Because we'll just pick up there next Sunday. But three Sundays from now, we will have finished the 7th chapter and get down to the wonderful chapter 8 in the book of Romans. Well, I really think that chapter 6 and 7 are the pivotal chapters in the book of Romans. In chapter 6, after all the emphasis has been upon saved by grace through faith, then he begins to deal with the questions that come from that. So the first question comes up in this first verse. He says, what shall we say then should we continue in sin so that grace may abound? In other words, if it's all by grace, the more we sin, the more grace there is. So maybe we could just live it up. At the end of the day, let God forgive us and move on. So Paul has a very mild response to that. He says, absolutely not. Maybe your translation says, don't forbear. But he said, no way. How in the world can those of us who died to sin continue to live in sin? So this chapter gives us three key phrases. Number one, we're dead in sin. Apart from Christ, we're dead in sin. Christ comes into our lives, we're dead to sin. Oh, we also have in these two chapters the adversary within. What happens if we do sin? Now that's a very key area for us because the idea is not that we will never sin, it's that we never continue to practice sin. We're never going as a habitual lifestyle. We're not going to keep on doing the things we did when we weren't saved. So we're not looking at sinless perfection, because there are some denominations that believe that you can actually reach sinless perfection. That's really not what Paul's talking about. But he's giving three pictures. He's giving a snapshot of what it means not to be saved. And that's what he's been talking about, justification, moving forward. With this chapter, we start moving towards sanctification. What should a believer look like? How should a believer live? What is the conduct supposed to be? Can he continue to live a life that looks like the life before he got saved? And of course, we're in an area that we need to be very careful about because we are going to sin. If these questions that he raises in here about the tendency to sin after we're saved, and we get into the seventh chapter, we'll have a very strong emphasis of it. Those questions wouldn't be asked if sin wasn't still present in us. So we're looking at the difference between the spirit and the flesh. Now, the flesh is never going to change. The flesh is flesh. It may get better, but it's always going to have a sin nature. Back in the 70s, there was a big hoopla about whether we have one nature or two natures. And we won't get back into that. But I really believe, I don't know how you can read Romans 6 and 7 and not believe that we have two natures. And the difference is not that we never sin, it's essentially that we do not deliberately, habitually sin. In other words, that's not our lifestyle anymore. So that's what the Bible is looking at. And we'll get to that perhaps in a little bit. So the questions that are asked start with this. First, there are about four questions in these two chapters that we look at. The first is here, can we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? He comes along and says, we can't do that because we're not under sin, we're under grace. We're not under the law, we're under grace. And he has said many times in the book of Romans that no one is ever saved by the law. So the Jews had great dependence upon the law. And Paul is trying to say, you can't keep the law. We're not capable of keeping the law. If you could keep the law, then Christ would not have had to die on the cross. He died on the cross because we couldn't do what God demanded. And we can't do it in our own strength. This is emphasized over and over again, that it's without any works on our part. We can never take any credit for our justification. We can't live good enough, give good enough, be good enough to deserve to be saved. God is never going to be indebted to us. In fact, in this sixth chapter, after he talks about grace, he comes down to the end and he starts talking about wages. Well, when you get a wage, you earn it. Well, you can't work for grace. So you never hear him talk about wages when it comes to grace. Grace is always a free gift of God. And so the world gives us wages. Satan pays his wages, but the wages of sin is death. And that's not something we want. By the way, death is mentioned 18 times in this chapter 6. So we're in the middle of two chapters that deal with an enormous focus on death. These verses remind us of Christ's death, which is necessary for justification. But what kind of life should we live? How should we behave? Justification is now finished, and so he's moving toward sanctification. And as Jack has said several times and will keep saying, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. A new creation. Now, either that's true or it's not. I mean, God said it. God said, when we get saved, we're a new creation. So there's a new nature that has been created. We are a new creation of God. But the flesh is the flesh and will always be the flesh. And so, in fact, he talks about sin revealing itself in our mortal bodies in this chapter. And the point that Paul is making is, why do you focus on your mortal bodies? Because they're temporary. And you seek to serve something that satisfies the desires of your mortal bodies, but your bodies are going to be gone. And he's turning our eyes toward becoming what God created us to be as a new creation. And when we get into chapter 7, he describes in detail the war with the adversary within. Every believer is going to fight the battle of the two natures. We're never free from the flesh. We're never free from the Spirit. But you never see them together. They don't belong together. So it's in a tricky area. But we need to be very careful that we don't judge our lives on the basis of how good we think we are, because our goodness is as filthy rags in the sight of God. So we don't need to try to prove something with God. We don't need to try to justify something with God, because we have no justification. We make no contribution to our salvation. And if you're saved, you're going to know it. My dad used to say, if you can be saved and not know it, you could lose it and never miss it. So, you know, if you're saved, you know you're saved. And it's the devil that talks to you and tells you you're not saved, because we're not saved by feeling, that's one of the things here. The mortal body indicates feeling. We're not saved because we feel saved. Do you ever wake up and don't feel saved? Well, you're not paying attention if you haven't waked up that way, because there are times that we just don't feel saved. And that's why God put the Holy Spirit in us. And the Holy Spirit is his guide for us. Now, free from sin, that phrase, free from sin, is repeated twice in this sixth chapter. And this is an apt description of the godly living which should characterize all believers. Now, some critics of Christianity accuse our Christian faith as being boring and dull, depressing, somber. Some critics claim the Christian faith is legalistic and binding. So it gives a false impression. Robert Louis Stevenson. I couldn't use that name effectively with a group of teenagers, but we all know Robert Louis Stevenson. He attended church one Sunday and wrote in his diary when he got home, I went to church this morning and strange to say I was not greatly depressed. There was an ad in a newspaper that appeared from a lady that was looking for a companion. She needed someone to live to help her and to assist her. And here's what the ad said. Wanted by an innocent lady, a housekeeper and companion. Must be a good church woman and must have good references and must be a cheerful Christian if possible. Now, where in the world did the idea come around that Christianity is dull? That it's boring, that it's somber, sad and frustrated? Well, this chapter points out that Christian faith is the most exhilarating and exciting thing in the world because it is a personal relationship with God himself. Now, just imagine that. The God of all creation wants to have a relationship with you. And he's never diminished. He can have it with all of us. No limits. That's something that's exciting. I mean, I've had the privilege of meeting a lot of important people. I was with James Kennedy and about four others when we met with Governor Ronald Reagan, the six of us, before he got the nomination. I sat next to James Kennedy while he asked Reagan the two EE questions. He said, well, Governor, if you died today, do you have confidence you'd go to heaven? He said, well, yes, I do. And he said, well, if God should meet you and say, why should I let you into my heaven, what would you say? Reagan kind of leaned back and he looked up at the light and he said, well, I never have thought of it that way. But I guess I would say because I pray to your son Jesus Christ every day. I thought, there's a politician I can believe in. That's an honest answer. He won me right there. And, you know, I mean, it's been great. I have met three Israeli prime ministers. Yitzhak Shamir and I were due to meet in Los Angeles, California when I was president of the convention. And the night before I was to fly to California to meet him, his wife died. Now, you know, Jewish tradition is that when a spouse dies and perhaps someone close to you, you go through a period of mourning. And in the Jewish custom, I don't know what it used to be, but what it was back in that time in the 80s, that he secluded himself for two months. So he got on a plane and flew back to Israel. Well, I was coming to Israel about two months later and did. And we did get to finally visit. But it was a funny visit because I was scheduled to meet with him at 10 o'clock in the morning. And I had gotten up and Dave Meyer was with me. You know Dave Meyer. Dave was with me. So the two of us are going to meet with Shamir. And we left the hotel. And what I didn't know was that that day, at the time that we left the hotel, I didn't know that his coalition fell apart. I mean, he had to reestablish his coalition if he's going to continue to be prime minister. And the radio all day long was talking about what Shamir was doing. Well, we got in a cab to go to the Knesset and they're talking about his schedule. And so anyway, I got to the Knesset. And by the way, it's easier to get into the Knesset than almost any place where I've ever had to go through security. It was amazing. But anyway, they took me right on in. And when we got through, our cab driver who kept the motor running and was listening said, on the radio they said he has left his meeting with the Orthodox Jews to meet with someone in his office. And that was me. And so anyway, so I sit down with him. I have a picture of him. And we're looking intently at each other. What's funny about it, Dave took the picture. I had just said to him, looks to me like you could use a Gatorade break. He had no idea what I was talking about. But anyway, it's kind of interesting. It's been great to be able to meet people like that all over the world. But listen, God invites us into a relationship with him. Wow. A personal relationship. That's why Christianity is not a religion. I mean, I still have a problem. When I'm writing or recording some things, I want to say no other religion. Well, that's not a fair statement to even begin with. Because Christianity is not a religion. It's a relationship. Now God himself wants to have business with us. Wants to do business with us. And that's the most exciting thing in the world, if we just realize what that means. This chapter says that we are dead in sin, then we become dead to sin, and then we become alive unto God. We're no longer what we used to be. We are alive from the dead. We have a new master, and now our allegiance is to him. So let's just look at these things. Like I say, time runs out, and then we'll start there next Sunday. So that's a lot of fun when we can do that. But every person is born dead in sin. That's what the first five verses talk to us about. What shall we say then? So we continue in sin so that grace may multiply. Absolutely not. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Without a relationship with God, every person is dead in sin. No fellowship with God. Drudgery in life. No purpose in life. No direction in life. Emptiness is everywhere. Sin is the one obstacle that we cannot climb over. I mean, it blocks us everywhere we turn. We cannot get over sin. Do you think God would have sent Jesus to die if there was any other way to do it? I mean, I think about it a lot. The cry on the cross from Jesus, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That must have brought showers of tears from weeping angels. But think what he did in the heart of God. He did that for us. If there had been any other way, he wouldn't have done it. In fact, Jesus even asked that. Before he submitted to the cross in that time in the garden, he said, Lord, if there is any other way, we can change this. I'd sure appreciate it if you'd give it some consideration. That was Jesus the man speaking. But he said, nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will. You know, the Godhead is such an amazing thing. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Each one of them is fully God. Not three gods, but they're all fully God. That's something we can never understand. But he provided salvation for us, justification. That's what he's been talking about. In the book of Acts, the early church is described with words like amazing, passionate, enthusiastic. They created an uproar, it said, in Thessalonica. And there they were accused of turning the world upside down. They were excited about their faith, and they experienced incredibly exciting things. Christianity ought not to be a ho-hum, PTA-type organization. Pleasant pagans pass by this church and every church every day in search of satisfaction for their appetites. They're bored with life, and they're burned out with the sensations. They shrug their shoulders and just assume that we are boring, misguided people who've given up on life. Truthfully, the very thing they're looking for is what they turn their backs on. Now, the reason for that, we won't chase that rabbit, but the reason for that is that the church doesn't always look like Christ. You would know the name Mahatma Gandhi, leader of India. He was trained and educated in the United States. He attended church with some regularity, and his statement was, I would be a Christian today if it were not for Christians. Do you know that I have never had an atheist threaten my life? I've never had a liberal create difficulty for me. I would have had a lot of professing Christians do both. In the end, being Christ is a new creation. Sadly, that's not true of everyone. But we are alive from the dead. Jesus, everywhere He went, things began to happen. When He died on the cross three days later, He rose from the grave. Alive from the dead. That's the message of this chapter. Our church motto is great. We are real people finding real hope and experiencing real life. That's what it's all about. Can you imagine Lazarus, after he was raised from the dead, ever being dull or gory? I mean, I can't imagine. He was dead. Not only dead, he was dead four days. Not only dead, he stank. I mean, he was already decaying. And then God called him back to life. He was such a sensational presence in the time of our New Testament that the Jews finally got fed up with it and planned how they could kill him. Got to get rid of this guy. Why would they want to get rid of him? Because he was blowing their ideas out of the water. He was exciting. People wanted to hear about him. That didn't suit well with them. Well, a Christian life is a resurrected life. It's a life that's filled with wonder and excitement and Paul found the best way to describe it was this phrase that he coined, alive from the dead. That is a vivid and accurate description of the Christian life. Already in Romans 5.12, Paul declared, Therefore, just as sin entered the world by one man and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people because all have sinned. Justification is God's offer to bring forgiveness and redemption from our sins for everyone who would receive it. And it's almost inconceivable to me that many people say, I don't want it. Free gift, eternal life. Salvation is a gift of God, the result of Christ's death and resurrection, not through any effort of our own. You don't have to be good or go through initiation. If you believe in Him, trust His death, burial, and resurrection, then you will experience the same things He did. When we're saved, we die to sin. The Apostle Paul over in Ephesians, well, I've skipped my mind here. We'll come back to it. The Apostle Paul tells us that we are saved by grace through faith, and over and again he emphasizes that it is no effort of our part. We can't claim credit for anything. We get in trouble in the Christian life, and there's a tendency for us, we want to help God out. Well, that's not a bad desire. The problem is He doesn't need any help. There's nothing we can do. Do you realize God doesn't use any of us because of us? It's always in spite of us. Just think, He can hit a straight lick with a crooked stick. Amazing what God can do. So, this was a stunning announcement for the Jews. I mean, the Jews depended so strongly on the law. And this statement resulted in certain concerns being asked. And the first verse tells us what are those concerns. Well, if we're saved by grace through faith, why don't we just keep on sinning so there will be more grace? And the Apostle Paul lets us know that that's not a good question. You don't want to do that. Second concern, why shall we sin? Because we're not under the law but under grace. No, the law never saved anyone. Grace is where justification is found. But the question is asked, since we're alive from the dead, we're not under law anymore. We're under grace. Third concern, what fruits were produced by your slavery to sin? Just think about it. At our very best, what fruits were produced? Well, separation from God, under the judgment of God. That's what resulted from when we did it our way. Fourth question is what fruit does justification produce? Well, it doesn't go into a lot of detail, but whatever it is, it produces fruit that results in holiness. These questions jumped out when you began Paul's insight so far about justification by grace through faith. Now he's moving into how your faith is going to express itself. A Christian ought to act different than another Christian. Now I've told you this before, but what always puzzles me is several times in the writings of John, and we talked about this back when we went through John. In John 3, there is a phrase that is translated, doing the truth. Doing the truth. Not believing the truth, but doing the truth. And the idea of the truth is not something that you can just believe and go on living the way you did. You do the truth. If we've been saved, we're going to live out what we say has happened to us. We're going to live out the salvation that is in us. And Paul uses, in this sixth chapter beginning in verse 3, he describes believers' baptism. Now, our baptism depicts Christ's death by which we're freed from sin, and our death, the sin, which happens when we're justified. Now I want you to notice something. There's something else about that brief statement in a minute. But not only is the believer transformed, but even death is transformed. Death was once our enemy. Now death is made to minister to the believer the benefits of Christ's victory over the grave. Baptism depicts the death of the believer with Christ by which we received our new life. We were once spiritually dead, now we are spiritually alive. Now, by the way, the Jews had many washings, ablutions. They were always baptized in everything. I mean, they baptized their head, their hands, their feet, even their pots and pans were part of their religious ceremony and their religious worship. But the first time in the world that anyone ever saw a man wash another man in baptism was when John the Baptist did it. It represented that we have died to sin, but more than that, we also by our faith in Christ have been joined together in the family of God, part of the body of Christ according to 1 Corinthians 12 and 13. Now, this baptism is twofold. It is certainly important that we immerse. You say, well, what's the real mode of baptism? Well, the name itself. We were in Greece years ago and we had a lovely guide that was very talkative, and so I asked her, I said, what does baptizo mean? That's still an active word in Greek. And by the way, English is a lazy language. I mean, we didn't even translate baptizo. We just transliterated it. We just took it and made it into English. Baptizo, baptism. Metropolis, great city. Metropolis. I mean, it's a lazy language. We just pick words up and we make English words out of them. But baptizo is still baptizo. I said, what does baptizo mean? She said, oh, that's what we do with our French fries. When you dip them in the hot grease, that's what baptizo. You know, in its basic form, it means to dip or immerse or wash or plunge. Now, in fact, in secular Greek, it also means to be drowned. Interesting, when we were in San Antonio back in the 60s, our church was just four blocks from St. Mary's University. Four blocks that way was St. Mary's. Two blocks this way was Assumption Seminary where the Catholic brothers and other ordained wannabes were educated. One day, the professor down at St. Mary's asked me to come and talk to his class about baptism. Well, I always said I'd preach in the Vatican if the Pope wouldn't tell me what I could preach on. So I went to the St. Mary's and preached and talked for a while with about 60 of the brothers. That's an order within the Catholic Church you don't hear much about. But anyway, and I talked about baptism. It was interesting that the Catholic teacher, when I got through, admitted that the proper mode of baptism is immersion. I just thought that was interesting. They don't practice that, but he admitted that that's the way it was done in the New Testament, which didn't seem to impress him too much. Not enough to practice it. But anyway, see, baptism is both passive and active. It's passive and it's something somebody does to us. You have to allow your body to be put under water. You can't breathe there. You can't stay too long. Oh, I have to tell you this. In Dell City, when we were there, it was an amazing church. We baptized 700 or 800 people every year. When we built a new building, we built it big enough so we could baptize six people at a time. And we did that often, that we would baptize people. Well, one Easter, my music director and I said, Albee, I want you to do something. We had a guy that we knew real well we were going to baptize. I said, look, when I get ready to baptize him, I want the choir to sing, low in the grave he lay. And I'm going to put him under the water. And then when I bring him up, I want you to say, up from the grave he arose. Do you realize how long it is from low in the grave he arose to up from the grave he arose? But we did it, and we made it. We didn't drown him. Baptism, it preaches a sermon. And its basic meaning is to immerse, to dip, to plunge. But also, in Greek classics, it pictures a blacksmith who places a piece of hot iron in water, and then he shapes it, transforms it into something that it wasn't before. The word describes the introduction or placing of a person in a new environment. It depicts also a union with someone else that alters its condition or its relationship to the previous condition. It's not just to dip them and get them up and get them dried off and change clothes. No, no, this is a very significant theological celebration that ought to take place. Our pastor and some of our staff just got back from Kenya. Now, if you want to know how to celebrate a baptism, you need to go to Kenya. One time when we were doing the Kenya Coast Crusade, we had nearly 100 people over there back in 1990. We baptized in the Indian Ocean. I don't know how many we baptized. There were 15 or 20 of us baptizing. But, boy, when people come up out of the water, the Kenyans just go crazy. They dance and they wave their hands and they sing and they cheer. I mean, it's a celebration. Well, it ought to be like that rather than just, oh, well, let's baptize these folks and get on with the service. It's a very meaningful time. It means to be joined with something in a way that changes and alters who that person is. It's also used of soldiers who sharpen the point of their swords. The word is used that way. For believers, it symbolizes the act of God introducing a believing sinner into a vital union with Jesus Christ. That represents that the sinful life is broken and the divine nature has been implanted through the identification with Christ's death and resurrection. And if that's not true, baptism has no meaning. Baptism signifies that a radical change has taken place. That's what 2 Corinthians 5.17 means. Any man being Christ, he is a new creation. Verse 4 starts off with therefore again. Well, what's it there for? Well, when we were justified, that's what he's been talking about, we died to sin and we were resurrected to a new life. And the verbs in that verse, were buried and was raised, are in the Aries tense. Jack has told us about that many times. The Aries tense, I would describe it like the firing of a rifle. Pop. It's done. It's been fired. But the effects of its firing are still real. I have some deer on my wall that I'd be happy to show you sometime that found out that when they heard the pop it was too late. It means something is done quickly, but it was done permanently. That's what it means. We don't have any English form that actually fits the Aries tense. It's more like a past perfect. It means that something was done and everything changed after that was done. That is what happened when we got saved. There's a note of finality about being dead and then being raised alive. We are baptized representing everything that Jesus experienced. He experienced death, burial, and resurrection. Baptism speaks of death, burial, and resurrection. Both of those happened to us when we were saved. In verses 5 through 9, Paul says, For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Christ was raised for the glory of God. We ought to live for the glory of God. We are no longer slaves to sin. Once we were unable to resist sin, but no longer. You see Colossians 3, 17 verses in Colossians 3 talk about that. God made death to work for us. Through Christ's death, the same mighty power that released him from the dead is at work within us. As he lives, so we live. He broke the power of death. When we were saved, we entered into the power of his resurrection. In Christ, death is defeated. We were justified by grace through faith, and then were declared to be participants in all that Jesus did while he was on earth. We were with him in his life. We were with him in his sufferings. We were with him in his death. We were with him in his resurrection. Paul put it like this in Ephesians, but God who is rich in mercy because of his great love that he had for us made us alive with Christ. Even though we were dead in trespasses, you are saved by grace. He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus. I think the most amazing thing for us to consider is that when Jesus sat down at the right hand of God, he did so to make intercession for us. I don't know all that that means, but I think it just means that everything we're ever going to be, the salvation we have and the future that we will hold and experience is all because of what Jesus did. He's there praying for us. We think about prayer, ought to get goosebumps thinking about Jesus actually praying for us. If something happens, he's praying for you. This class is a praying class. We pray for a lot of folks. But folks, Jesus is praying for us. That's his assignment now. Holy Spirit's in us. Jesus is praying for us. God strategized it all. It's going to be okay. The best is yet to come for what Christ has done. Verse 6 and 7 tells us that sin's stronghold in our lives has been broken. Indeed, we were crucified with Christ. That's what Galatians 2 says. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, not I live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. The old self, verse 6 or 7 tells us, is gone. It's now dead. That phrase refers to our corrupt human nature, the tendency that every one of us is prone to live under the control of Satan and sin. And Christ changed all of that. When we come to him, we're no longer controlled by sin, as well as with the whole issue of sin. The believer is pictured as a criminal who has paid the penalty for his crimes. He was guilty and deserved death. But Christ stepped in and was sentenced to death, and he died in our place. You know what really amazes me? We don't all have to think alike. We don't all have to believe alike. But did you know that one of the four or five things that liberals will not believe is that Jesus died a substitutionary atonement? They don't believe that. Oh, there's several other things. They don't believe he physically was raised from the dead. So you wonder why we went through the struggles we did 30 years ago in Southern Bay of Expansion. It was over issues like that because the liberals were moving us in a direction that we couldn't go. But Paul is telling us that when Christ died on the cross, God offered us salvation that we could never attain, never earn. And when he did, we moved from being dead in sin to being dead to sin. For the death he died, he died once for all time. But the life he lives, he lives to God. So you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ. That's that middle part of this chapter. We need to act like what we are. Once for all. Now I want you to notice he didn't say that he dealt with sins once for all. He said he dealt with sin once for all. His resurrection marked the end of his battle with sin. Jesus is still not struggling with it. We are. But he's not. In him we have victory over sin. 1 Corinthians 15, 55, 57. The entire 15th chapter is a great story, a picture of what it means to be raised in Christ. Three times in Romans 6 the expression free from sin is found. Verses 7, 18, and 22. And in verse 8 he says, Now since we have died with Christ, we should also live with him. Verse 11. So you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Our lives are now to be devoted to God. We are no longer slaves to sin. We are controlled by sin. We are now alive to God through Jesus Christ. Our death with Christ was not the end, but the beginning. We are to go on and live with Christ. Jack mentioned the other day Major Ian Thomas' book where he talked about the saving life of Christ. We think a lot about his death, but we're not just supposed to be blessed by his death. We're supposed to be blessed by his life. And he's planted that in us. So how can we keep habitually practicing things that is the reason why he died for us? We have a new master. The basis of slavery and human slavery is an affront to God. And thank God for men like Wilberforce in England who gave his life to move the English Commonwealth toward outlawing slavery. We were so hard headed we went through a civil war before that happened. And still resisted in many ways. But the essence of slavery is to be controlled by somebody. Nobody wants that. But we can trust God. He said if you were controlled by sin, I want you to be controlled by me now. That's a pretty good swap. We can let him do the heavy lifting for us. And that's what Paul is really talking about. Our lives are now to be devoted to God. And our death with Christ was not an end, but it was a beginning. Because we were not only identified with his death, but also with his resurrection. Again, you're not curious like Jack and I are, but when he says it, that we died to sin, what died? It wasn't our bodies. So what died? Well, verse 6 says that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless. So that we may no longer be enslaved to sin. So the thing that died was our old nature. Which means the old nature is no longer in control. The old nature, the old self that was ours in Adam, with its mind, its taste, its feelings, its desire, was crucified. Sin did not die. We died to sin. And believers are now new creations. And that has put away the old life and now has a new manner of life with new desires, new habits, new conversations. We're now alive under God. We have passed from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God. From the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. From death to life we've been identified with Christ and his death on the cross. We're no longer identified with that old self that was controlled by the forces of the devil and evil. But now we're joined to the resurrected power of Jesus Christ. That's a mouthful. But that's what it all means. I mean, listen, be what you are. You're not a helpless struggler along the path of life just doing the best you can and hoping for the best. You are a new creation in Jesus Christ. Believe it. Claim it. In fact, the apostle Paul is going to insist that the Romans make the same judgment he did. He's going to say, now you make this declaration. You're dead to sin. You're alive in Christ. Titus 2, 11 to 13, Paul declared, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age. In Colossians 1, he states God's commission that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to the saints. God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's the only hope we have. This old body is still a mess. Aren't you glad we get new bodies? Aren't you glad we're going to have a new earth? No snakes. Rose bushes with no thorns. Isn't this a beautiful place? I personally believe that the new Jerusalem's are going to come down and settle in the new earth. I think heaven's going to be right here when God's finally finished. The incredible grace of God not only redeems us, but instructs us and empowers us to deny our flesh and live a godly life. His grace guides us to be victorious over the sinful nature while we await for his glorious return. Bear in mind, Paul is addressing believers. It is our responsibility to live in his power. You can't do that if you don't have a relationship with him that allows him to empower you to do what you could never do, be what you could never be, and accomplish what you could never accomplish. Paul in this chapter is not complimenting the Romans on what they did. He's complimenting them on what God did through them because of their faith in Christ. God gets the glory. I've often said it would be amazing how much we could accomplish if nobody cared who got credit for it. God says, look, nothing good is going to happen unless I do it so you get used to it. God is the only person in the universe that wouldn't be egotism. It's not egotism, it's just fact. He is God. He is creator. He is holy. He is righteous. We are not any of those things. So, it's believers he's talking to. And by the way, so godly living, now listen to me. My daddy always used to say, don't stir up more snakes than you can kill. So I think about that, and I'm doing that today because I'm going to leave you wondering how on earth can I do that. And I don't mean to do that except that the Bible seems to indicate that's going to be the pattern of our lives because there is an adversary within who is relentless, who never lets up, never stops, who always is there to deceive us, to lead us in the wrong way. So, that's been stated in Romans 6. Now, whether or not a believer has victory depends on what he chooses. The doctrine is a matter of the head. To believe is a matter of the heart. So, we must act. Both victory and defeat are within our power, so there's no excuse for us continuing on in the sins of the past. Three times in this, well, two in this chapter and one in the first verse of chapter 7, verses 3 and 16 here and then verse 1 of chapter 7. Paul reminds the Roman believers that they know this. Three times he mentions our strength and power comes through the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 11, verse 23 in chapter 6, verse 25 in chapter 7. Now, to kind of underscore that, and we'll go five more minutes and then we'll quit, but to kind of underscore that, in 1 John 1, verses 8 to 10. Now, bear in mind that 1 John is written to believers. In fact, they weren't just believers. They were very, very close to Paul's heart. The language of 1 John is very tender. He uses the Greek word teknoi, my little children, my precious children. I mean, this is a doctrine of love. This is a message of love that he's sending to the churches who will read this. Here's what he says in verse 8, 1 John 1. If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. Some of you can remember revival meetings. They have disappeared from church life, it seems. I preached a lot of revivals when I was a teenager in the early 20s. And it always puzzled me why sometimes the first person down the aisle to really reaffirm their faith was the most godly person in the church. It used to bother me. Why would they do that? And then it dawned on me. The closer you are to Christ, the more sensitive you are to his leadership in your life. Well, a person who is deeply committed to Christ is going to be one of the first to get the message. And so, our strength comes from the Lord. And John says, if we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves. The truth is not in us. I don't know how to interpret that except it must mean what it says. If we confess our sins, he's talking to believers. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him, God, a liar. And his word is not in us. Now folks, those words were written to believers who had been justified. In chapter 2, verses 1 and 2 in 1 John, he writes, My little children, I'm writing these things so that you may not sin. Now, he wouldn't say that if there wasn't a possibility you would sin. I'm writing that you may not sin. But, if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world. Now, we'll get more into it. I think we'll just stop there at verse 10. And we will finish this and go on into chapter 7 next week. But we just need to be reminded, we have a new nature, but the old nature is not dead because the body is not dead. This old body is a sinful body. It can do a lot of good, but it can do a lot of bad. That nature is still there. We're not a spirit. We are a physical being. And we will always be a physical being. When Christ snatches up the church in the second resurrection, we're going to all have new bodies. But, while we live in this present earth, instead of walking the golden streets, we're walking the hot asphalt of earth. While that's going on, there is a battle that goes on within every believer. Don't be distraught by it. It's real. It's going to always be real. And you'll always have victory if you face these things in the fact and consistently proclaim that you are dead to sin and alive to God. And that's what conversion is all about. Now, what we have in the world today is a show and tell that this is what life would be like if the world had its control. Every problem we see in the world today, and how could it get much worse? Ruth Graham told Billy one day, she said, if God doesn't judge America soon, he's going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. I mean, it's unbelievable what's happening in America. When I became a pastor, it would never have entered my mind that we'd be discussing whether or not sex is determined by your birth or by your own choice of who you are. We never thought about that. And I feel for my grandson, who's in his first church. He's going to face things I never dreamed possible. The world is a mess. And I love when Chuck Colson said that what America needs is not going to arrive on Air Force One. We have a screwed up political system. The very definition of politics is the art of compromise. That's not a bad word when it's defining political people. They ought to be willing to compromise because they're not there to satisfy what they want. They're there to provide what is necessary for the people they represent. We're in a representative government. But we're not in a democracy. We are a republic. A republic is not governed by public opinion. A republic is governed by an established constitution, which is for us the word of God as believers, but for the United States it is the constitution. We can't do enough, think enough, be enough, spend enough, exercise enough, do anything enough to clean up the mess that's in the world today and in America today. Only God can do that. Someone says you can't legislate morality. That is absolutely false. All laws are somebody's morality. All laws are. Of course you can legislate morality. You just can't control it. You know, you can't do anything about it. Well, I won't get into that. But, again, I come back. Paul is painting a picture that if you're saved, you're going to know it, and if you're saved, other people are going to notice. And so we have to ask ourselves every morning, will people who know me know that I'm saved by the way I treat them? So let me just give you two or three counsel words. Number one, be nice to everybody. Everybody's having a hard time. There's nobody in here, or those who are not here, that's not having a hard time. I mean, even if you didn't have any ailments, getting old ain't easy. I mean, there are challenges. I used to be nimble, bounding up steps. I'd start to fall, I'd catch myself. I can't do that anymore. If I start to fall, I am going to fall. Nothing I can do about it. Things change. And we lose our ability to do things. So everything in this mortal body is going to be done away with. It's temporary. That's why let's not trust what's temporary. Let's trust what's eternal. Jesus said that when we got saved, we entered into His resurrection as well as into His death. And so that means we've got to live on. And we ought to be different people. By the way, the thing that thrust Christianity forward in the first 400 years after the resurrection was the example of believers. The Roman Empire, the emperors, the leaders, could not believe the integrity, the courage that was demonstrated by those early Christians. Do you know that as far as I could find historically, the Christians who were being martyred never prayed for the death of their enemies? And that was astonishing. So by 380 A.D., Christianity, though it had been illegal through most of those centuries and at the mercy of the Roman Empire, was officially the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 A.D. It really began in 313, 325. But they did it by the quality of their lives. It wasn't their doctrine. It was the way they lived. One historian summarized the early Christians in this way. He says, they outlived and outdied their enemies. Would you God they could say that about us? Father, thank you that you saved us. Forgive us when we act like we're not. Forgive us when we don't claim the power and victory that is ours in the resurrection of Christ. Continue to use us as instruments for your glory and not instruments for Satan's pride. And thank you that you're faithful and you're going to be with us all the way to justify us and to empower us to become what you created us in Christ to be. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Verse 11 next week.