The Gospel Of Christ - Personally Yours III

Romans 5:20–6:4 and the Personal Gospel

We'll turn your Bibles please to Romans chapter 6 as we continue in this short series that I have for you which is called the gospel of Christ personally yours and this is the third in that series. I will preach from verses 1 through 4 but we will read to verse 14.

So when you have that please stand in honor of God's Word. Romans 6 beginning at verse 1 I'm actually going to skip up two verses into the last two verses of Roman 5 and then I'll read what I just announced now.

The law came in to increase the trespass but where sin increased grace abounded all the more so that as sin reigned in death grace also must reign through the righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

What shall we say then. Are we to continue in sin. That grace may abound by no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it. Do you not know that all who were 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. For if we have been united with him in a death like his we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Now if we have died with Christ we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died to sin once for all excuse me.

But the death he died to sin once for all but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. And your members to God as in instruments for righteousness.

For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace. God bless the reading and now the proclamation of his word. Please be seated. So you recall where we started in Galatians 2 verse 20.

The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And I admonish you I encouraged you. I pleaded with you in that first week a few weeks ago to take that personally. To take that gospel as your own.

To take Jesus as your own as he has taken you as his own because the Father gave them to him and none that the Father gave me said Jesus Christ will be turned away. And what I encourage you to do to make this gospel personal.

So we take it away from the intellectual constructs that we have and that are so important and they are important to a personal ownership of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the very words of the Apostle Paul by inspiration of the Holy Spirit the Son of God who loved me.

Now stop put your name in there when you pray say it out loud. Please the Son of God who loved me Jane Doe and gave himself for me Jane Doe. It is that personal. And then we went to Ezekiel and we spoke about the new heart about God reaching into this body and taking it apart as it were and yanking out that harder stone and giving you a heart of flesh to believe to love God.

To want to love God and then to actually love him. So how does God accomplish this wonderful transformation. To take broken ruined sinners. Come ye weary heavy laden and can only come to Christ Jesus as we just sang only Jesus Christ only your need of him will suffice.

How does God give you a heart to believe. That you can come to him naked and poor and wretched. That you have nothing to give and nothing that is wanted. Because God gives it all to you. He gives you the heart of flesh.

He gives you a spirit to believe the gospel. He gives you faith to repent. He does it all. And yet all that beautiful theological teaching must come down to this personal ownership of the gospel which is the powerful bomb we have against sin.

This increased trajectory towards the image of Christ by owning him personally not just looking at him in the scripture and saying this is how we live this what I must do which is all true. But he's my Lord who loved me gave himself up for me.

He's my Lord on whose behalf the Father reached into me and yanked out that stony cold flinty impervious heart. I gave me a soft one malleable and desirous of his will. So this afternoon we move into Romans 6 and I'm jumping around.

This is a topical series. It'll only last a couple more weeks and we'll go back to more expositional verse by verse preaching as is our Brent here in this church. We said what shall we say then. Are we to continue in sin.

That grace may abound. Let's stop there for just a moment. Let's think about what the Apostle means in that first verse. Would somebody actually say okay. I understand the grace of God. God's grace abounds more than sin where sin abounded grace abounded all the more.

And grace is a good thing. Is it not. So grace is a good thing. What I should do is I should sin terribly. I should use my members for unrighteous deeds. I should go against God's law with this heart of flesh and that for your good.

I'm sacrifice sacrificing myself for you so that if I do this more grace will be poured out because we're sin abounded grace abounded all the more. I was ridiculous. I don't believe anybody in the Roman Church was actually saying that.

I think Paul is just so okay I'll keep going. I think he's preempting a silly conclusion people might go to. But he's also exaggerating and amplifying the trajectory towards righteousness. What shall we say.

Are we to continue in sin. That grace may abound. And he answers quickly says by no means that's not what we're saying. That's not what we mean. How can we who died to sin still live in it. Do you not know that all of us have been baptized in Christ were baptized into his death of his death again.

We died to sin. Now there's death. We're buried. You're dead. You're buried with him by baptism into death in order there's Christ was raised from the dead is dead dead dead in order that there be life.

As Paul says in first Corinthians 15 of the seed he's speaking of the resurrection. But the seed must go in the ground and die before it comes out. And it's something else we're dead to sin. When you come to Christ Jesus you died to sin.

A transfer from this world into the kingdom of Christ. A transformation of the self from a rebel hating God a willing sinner who loves sin from that to a saint. A transfer so radical a transformation so complete.

A transformation is so different. And you're looking back upon what you were and God willing you do look back upon what you were. We say what on earth was that. That was a miracle of grace. Because that is what you were while we were yet sinners.

And this difference that is made this death that we died to sin is so complete and so radical and so transformative that the only way the Apostle can convey it to us is with death. Because death is so final.

If you've been at a sickbed with someone who's taking their last breath have you ever been there. And as much as you might expect it as well known as it as it might be. And we know it's coming soon. There's still something awesome and terrible about that final breath because there's nothing you can do about it.

There's no way you can get it back. It's done. You dear ones in Christ are that to sin when Christ Jesus came to you when God the Father gave you the new heart to believe in his son who he gave you to him before the world was founded Ephesians 1.

For this beloved God this wonderful God gave you to him before he even put creation together before a star existed that God gave you that heart in order to give you to his son. And when he did that what happened.

You died to sin. Who died. Well it's funny to die to something isn't it. It's funny. It's a strange way to put it. It's like I used to smoke. I use this analogy a lot. I used to smoke at one point I just stopped it was hard.

It took months before I lost the urge. But I never gave into it. But I kind of died to smoking. And some of you have died to other things to sins which you used to commit to things that that stony heart that you had loved and the fleshly heart that God gave you hates.

And you died to that thing whatever that is it could be pornography it could be smoking it could be drinking whatever it was. If you are transformed away from it you died to it. There's a final break that is so severe that is so complete that is so final that is so just done that the Apostle Paul can only bring up death.

And death. And death this God who is life itself who sent Jesus Christ. So we have true life. The break with the old can only be conveyed by death. That old man was killed. I mean what happens when your heart is yanked out of you.

You can't live. We can't live with small heart problems. Much less no heart. But that old man with that old heart that old person in your world that stony heart he died she they are no more. And that's what's being conveyed to us.

So he says what shall we say there. Well if we understand the grace of God and the flow of thought in the book of Romans going all the way back to chapter 1 which we're not going to do we only have a few minutes this afternoon.

Then we must say something. If all this grace of God this single singular work that God and God alone in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone does to save sinners if that's been laid out for us here in these first few chapters you've got to say something about it.

Yes stop and think. But whoa let me take a breath. Let's slow down let's think about this for a moment or an hour or a day or a week or a lifetime. But we must say something he's asking. Will you say then that grace being so wonderful that you will sin in order for grace to abound all the more.

I mean it would be ridiculous. You can't do that because of God's grace. Now we're free to sin. I mean can that possibly be the right response. I don't know. Who would say that too often in our conduct we do kind of say it.

Don't we at least that's what we communicate when we don't look at the old man and the things that he or she used to do. And we don't look at that say well that's dead. I'm no longer. That God has not just changed me.

He's killed that one. In the next message from Romans 6 what I read we're gonna read of being crucified. You cannot get more dead than being nailed to a Roman cross. Too often what we advertise is that I am sinning.

So that grace might abound for your favor. I'm doing it for you. Look back upon that old one. And even if you don't want to remember all your old habits because some of us would shudder to think of them and we don't have to think of them.

They just think dead alive dead in trespasses and sins in which I once walked alive in Christ Jesus. How can we who died to sin still live in it. If you died to something how can you live in it. You know what is a corpse.

Get many answers. But I want to remind you that in the Old Testament a corpse was unclean. And even if someone came unintentionally upon a corpse or if they were with a relative when they died if it was a high priest he was unclean.

He could not perform his functions before God for a while. Dead things are unclean in the scripture. How can you who died to it you go back to that unclean thing that you were. How can you still live in it.

How can that which is dead become resurrected as it were be revived brought back to life. How hard we have to work. How many times we have to do the CPR or blow breath into the nostrils of that dead old corrupt thing that God put to death.

That God yanked out his heart and gave you another. You died to that sin. You died to that sin when you're baptized when you're immersed into his death. And you rose from death. You rose from the waters.

You rose from death to self and to sin to newness of life. You know it's baptism and Paul speaks of it here that you were baptized into Jesus. Death is more than just a public oath to follow him. It is a public oath.

You are taking oath before God and man that you will follow Jesus Christ. And we do ask that before we put you under the waters. But it's an article of faith that God the Father has chosen you to be in his son before the world was created and consequently that he carried you to his cross representing we whom the Father gave him in that he should take our punishment upon himself.

And then by the working of his Holy Spirit apply the benefits of what Jesus Christ achieved to we who achieved nothing in a word salvation. And that's what's being affirmed as you're baptized into his death.

That God the Father has done this work in you and he's killed that old man. And you no longer want to live in it. You no longer can live in it because you cannot go back into a corpse and live. Why don't God do something like this.

Why would God do this. No. Ephesians 1 4 it says that we might be holy and blameless before him in love. He predestined us to be in Jesus Christ. And that's just what's meant in Romans 6 4 it says in order that that's your purpose clause.

And in the Greek it's a little stronger than Evian. In order that means this was God's purpose. God had this in mind. We did all this in order that just as Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father we to you to meet to all who are in Christ to might walk in newness of life life now Jesus just as Christ now walks in newness of life so also we Christ newness of life.

Those in Christ newness of life. And we're connected to him by that word to t-o-o also in some translations I want you to think of it this way as an equal sign between Jesus Christ and yourself. I say we're up to him and I say we're sanctified.

When I'm saying we're perfect or a little Jesus is running around on earth. That's not what is being said here but what the Apostle says here is there is this equal sign this equation between us and him.

Think of it this way. I'll make an equation for you. J n equals I n. Okay where J is Jesus and I is me and n is new. So Jesus new equals I or you or me new. Okay that's what the Apostle saying it is an equal sign.

So thus Jesus's newness of life equals my newness of life in order that God's purpose and raising Jesus Christ from the dead just as the Greek word is hospere just as the equal sign a correlating word that equates two things.

Just as we too should have newness of life. Do you see what's being said here. The old man put to death. You've died to the sin that he used to love that she used to imbibe for newness of life. God doesn't leave us that way.

He did give you that heart that I spoke of last week. And so now you have newness of life just as Jesus. And we're not in the same place. We're not little Jesus's running around. But we have the same newness of life because we have the same power to walk in newness of life.

I circle back to Ephesians 119. You don't have to turn there. We're going too quickly. But Ephesians 119 it says that the power that God worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead is the same power that works toward we who believe in Christ toward us.

The same power what we call the resurrection power. The power that God exerted from himself to his son and raised him from the dead. The same power that works toward you who believe in Jesus Christ. This moment and that other moment when you want to reach back to that old man when you want to say that word take that drink click that site.

Newness of life. You're something different than what you were. This word for newness doesn't mean just something that is new. Like a new model of a car. Your car models come out. It's funny that comes out in September.

So 2002. This year in September we'll get the 2025 models coming out. I don't know what kind of car you want to think of. Let's think of a Honda Accord been around for how many years. 40 years 50 years.

Whatever. Next year's model is going to come out in September. But you know with all the improvements that they'll make and there will be some and all the new doodads they put on there to get you into your wallet.

And there will be some. It's still a Honda Accord is new. It's shiny. It's gonna have a new registration. You're gonna pay a ton of taxes for it and everything. But still just a Honda Accord. Paul's word for newness.

It's very different. It's something new. It's something that was not before the words only used four times in the New Testament twice in Romans. It's newness. It's a break that is as clean and distinct and as final as his previous idea of debt to sin.

You've died to sin complete final done with it. And now you're something new. Not just a burnished model not just a new wax job on an old car. You knew. And you walk in new life just as Jesus Christ because he was raised from the dead by the Father to newness of life.

He died to sin. He can die no more. We'll get to that in one of the next messages coming up in Romans. So also we. An equal sign between us and Jesus in that one aspect. An equal sign. Oh these are great theological truths here.

Jesus raised from the dead. The scriptures preached at the God caused it. Isaiah's suffering servant. Moses's prophet like me. Psalm twos forsaken King cried out my God my God. Why have you forsaken me.

Jonah's journey to Sheol. I'm back. Hosea is unfailing his undeserved love for Gomer as she was so unfaithful to him. There's more there's so much more. But that's enough for now. Prophetic word fulfilled by and in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That resurrection power that raised him and his work towards you. That resurrection power that killed the old. You gave you the heart to make a new you. There's another great theological truth here. Why would God do such a thing as that for such a one as I or as you or as anyone that we can claim the Son of God who loved me and put my name there and gave himself for me and put your name there.

Did it for mercy. Yes mercy's sake. For manifold mercy's sake. God is chesed in the Hebrew. No other can claim this but him. He is love. He is faithful to his word. But why would he do such a thing as can sign his beloved his only beloved son to die for me or for you.

Now. Isaiah 43 6 says Christ was raised excuse me. Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of God. That wasn't Isaiah. Isaiah says I will go to the north and say give up and to the south. Do not withhold.

Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. Everyone is called by my name whom I created for my glory. There's your purpose whom I formed and made. Or Ezekiel 36 22 it is not for your sake Oh house of Israel.

And that's leading to that new heart I've been talking about. It's not for your sake Oh house of Israel that I'm about to act but for the sake of my holy name. Why does God save sinners so we have nice happy lives.

I don't think God's unhappy when we're happy. But that's not the purpose. Why does God save sinners. Why did God make you new. Why did he have you die to sin. And the heart of stone taken out the heart of flesh put in first glory sake for his name's sake.

Because to convert a sinner like me like you like any pastor or preacher who stands at this pulpit is such an act of miraculous power and God's grace that we can only look at each other and see God in us.

As pastor Connie was saying in Sunday school this morning I see Jesus with feet on his. Some people like to put it. And if you do all glory to God because brethren I didn't do that. You didn't cause it to yourself.

Only God could do that. Only God has the power to do that. Only God has the mercy to do that. Only God has the love to do that. Only God would even think of doing something like that. Only God did do that.

So why would he do all this. Have you died to sin. Give you newness of life for his name's sake so that we are exhibits of his glory. That's what he says. He says I do it for my glory for my name. This is theology of the richest and the rarest and the most precious kind of theology.

It's priceless it's incalculable. Yet it lies on the surface like manna. It's easy to spot it's easy to harvest. It's right there for you. No degrees no skill in language no erudite learning is needed.

Just faith. Faith that God is. And faith that he is a holy and righteous and just and a forgiving God. And he's a glorious God whose glory is his own whose glory he himself jealously guards. And his glory is seen when sinners like you or me are converted.

That's why he does this. That's why he thought of this. That's why Jesus Christ so willingly went to the cross for the joy set before him. His glory is Jesus Christ is only begotten. The word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we have seen his as God the Father. We've seen his glory in Christ Jesus his son. We've seen his glory glory as a as of the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth. God saved you so that people might see his glory in us in you and in me in our conduct in our newness of life.

That's the purpose that we might walk that way this new life putting off the old man that is growing corrupt with his filthy corrupt unclean desires. And put on the new man created by God in true righteousness and holiness.

A life as radically different as the old man from the new man. A life that makes a complete turnaround from what that was that is as final as death itself. Brethren did that old man take its last breath for you.

You know so often we go back to that unclean corpse. And we kind of slap the cheeks around a little bit. We pump the chest come on give me give me one more breath. I just need to imbibe this one more time.

We work so hard to do that. Don't we. Or maybe we don't work hard enough. Maybe it comes easy to us. A little nature was put to death. How easily we go back to it. Like a comfortable suit. You know the dog in his vomit.

Have you ever seen that. I like dogs. I like them. Do your dog. But I like dogs a lot. But I've seen that it's like something that makes you a dog sick so sick that he needs to vomit. And he wants to put it back in.

And this is us when we return to our sin return to that old corpse and say that is just the most disgusting filthy mess I can imagine when you look upon that old man your old man that's you. I say yeah.

Let me lap some of that up. That's not newness of life. You know the scripture also has many references to Israel's undying attraction back to Egypt. How often the people say let's go back to that slavery where we had the leeks and the onions and the fish and everything we wanted.

Oh yeah. They beat us up some. We had to work hard in the Sun. They whipped us some. But yeah it was comfortable. Wasn't it. Let's go back to that. We're tired of this manna. Can you imagine know what we've had here is death of self the end of who you were the end of what you were.

We borrow from the same Apostle Ephesians 2 where he says. And you were dead and trespasses of sin. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us. Even when we were dead in our trespasses.

Even we're unclean even when we wanted that heart of stone to stay. And we're holding it back. We're pushing the scalpel away. So no no surgery for me. I don't want you. I don't want you get away from me.

I don't want to be convicted of my sin. I don't want to know of your righteousness. Even then even then because of his mercy because of his great love with which he loved us even when we're dead in our trespasses he made us alive together with Christ by grace.

You've been saved. No carefully. That sin did not die. You died to it. But it itself did not die. Is that roaring lion seeking whom he may be he may devour. We need to be ever so careful because it's disgusting and awful as an old man was.

Sometimes it still tracks us. Be honest with me nod your head. He does attract us. We want to go back. For whatever reason is so much work to revive a stone. Can you imagine those paddles they put on the cardiac distress people.

What's gonna happen if they do that to a stone. Yet we find a way to do it and revive our old self. Just for that moment just for that one click. Just to expel that one word from our mouth just to imbibe that sin one more time.

Let's see if I hate it as much as I thought I did that grace may abound. That would be circling back to verse 1 of chapter 6 and Romans. Wouldn't it. Let me revive that old man. And let's have some more grace in my life by imbibing sin.

No newness of life. A clean break. Death to the old. I see you died. God killed you. He killed you in your old form. As Paul writes of the resurrection. As I said in first Corinthians 15 that one must die.

So something new comes back. So an old man died. And now what has come out a saint everywhere in the scripture though we know we sin and we will sin until Jesus Christ returns and resurrects us. And we're glorified with him.

We will sin. And yet do you know that not one of the letters that Paul or any of the Apostles wrote said greetings to the church in Sunnyvale. Sinners all know. Saints Saints new different. You died when God brought you to Christ.

You died a glorious and a wonderful death. And a very specific death. Death to sin. Look at that old one. Look at everything that he wanted that she did that was against God. And consider it a corpse death.

The sin you died to sin far from meaning we should sin all the more God's grace means that we should sin all the less newness of life leaves behind oldness of life in Christ because of Christ with Christ by the powerful working of Christ Spirit by whom he provides what the old man could never have.

What the law weakened by the flesh could never give you the desire and the ability to live in newness of life that Jesus's cross his burial his resurrection gives to all who believe. Paul writes in Ephesians 119 about that power of God that he worked in Christ when raised from the dead.

And it's the same power. Remember this brethren. It's the same power that raised you from the dead. Remember this brethren the next time you want to go back to that old man's ways that the resurrection power that God worked in Christ is being worked toward you.

You can turn the other way you can go away from that corpse. You can live in newness of life. As Christ Jesus resurrected from the dead lives in newness of life. By that power you've been made dead to sin.

May we never return to that old and rotten corpse. Amen. We turn now to a time of prayer. And so it happens.