Romans 6:1-14 Attending Your Own Funeral

Good morning, everybody. This morning. We are going to be in Romans chapter 6. And we're gonna read verses 1 through 14. Now in Romans Paul is writing to the Roman Saints with a purpose of very systematically and Logically laying out the truth of the gospel of Christ Jesus and he takes great care to explain the why's and the what's of Jesus the Messiah and the life of those who claim him as Lord.

If we tried to give Romans an overall theme, it would probably be that the gospel is God's power for salvation. The gospel being that Jesus Christ paid for our sin allowing us access to complete forgiveness through faith in him For all the evil crap we've done in our lives.

Which is a far better option than having to pay for that ourselves.

Amen and.

It's better than having to earn God's favor through what we do, which is an impossible task. So Romans is meant to help us understand who Jesus is and what he's done for us as well as to help us respond appropriately and live correctly.

Romans 6 and the Gospel of Grace

So for our purposes today, we're gonna drop in midstream to his argument in 2 chapter 6 verses 1 through 14 but what's really interesting to me in our text is that to make his point about living in faith and The incompatibility that sin has with such an endeavor.

He brings up baptism. So Paul wants us to know that our entire life is in God is Accessed by faith not through any work of our own. It's a work of God and To remember that and live appropriately in that he uses baptism as an important tool in our spiritual kit to help us accomplish that.

I Also want to know that baptism to me is a pretty big deal in my own personal journey. I grew up in the Reformed Church of America RCA Gave me an awesome foundation my for my faith built a lot of the the key theological Truths into me and yet we baptized infants and maybe some of you have been there.

Maybe you've been baptized as a baby. I was baptized as a baby. But in my early 20s as I was reading the Word of God, I kept Coming against something in the scriptures as I read about baptism and as I tried to understand what God's will was for me that was incompatible with What I saw us doing in church and even when when I went to the catechism That was kind of our main theological teacher it just seemed like there was something off and I actually came to the point where I changed my views on baptism which Was a was a part of me leaving the denomination of the RCA and I have family and friends there and and I love them.

And they're brothers and sisters in Christ, but but we differ on this point. So what I'm going to present to you today out of Romans is essentially something that greatly impacted my own walk with the Lord and that was what I felt was a Biblical understanding of what baptism is and why God would give us on the sacrament and what we'll find is that the what's behind Water baptism is incredibly important for us as we walk forward in our life with Jesus and leave our life of sin.

So that's what we're going to talk about this morning. So let's read Romans chapter 6 verses 1 through 14. 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 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. 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 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 instruments for righteousness.

For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace. Let's pray Father in heaven, I thank you for your word. It is such a beautiful thing and I thank you for the work of the Holy Spirit that takes These records these letters.

And and joins them with faith in our hearts father and I pray that this morning each of us would come to this text with open hearts and open ears and open eyes. So that we can truly see what your will is for us so that we can understand your truth about us so that we can know what has happened to us in this transaction of faith and Father if there are those of us who haven't yet come to that point.

Of.

Faith and trust in you and your gospel Lord. I pray that they would be convicted even this morning that they need you so desperately. And then may all of us look to Baptism and understand what it is. That you've done in our lives and why we do this thing that we're gonna do even this afternoon with with our people here Lord so that we can look back on it as a powerful moment in our lives.

And we pray all of this in the name.

Of Jesus Amen.

Paul’s Argument in Romans 5 and the Problem of Sin

Romans chapter 6. Everybody there. Romans chapter 6 starting right at verse 1. We have this phrase What shall we say then. And Paul is signaling to us That there's an important aside in his current argument carried over from chapter 5 and That's going to set the context for us this morning, so we're jumping in into the flow of An important logical treatise that he's laying out and based on what he said previous to chapter 6.

He he makes this transition. What what shall we say then based on what I've said before. And what he said before in a nutshell is that when Adam sinned All of his offspring suffered under that curse Being born sinners and receiving as the just penalty of our rebellion death Sin leads to death and.

We are.

Sinners and Not just kind of sinful, but we're really good at it, right? I'm a really good sinner when I want to be. Because we have this rebellious Nature of Adam in us that takes what God tells us and we decide to do the opposite.

And Sin as a term is actually an archery term and it means to miss the mark of God's holiness. So we're all taking out our area arrows of righteousness, and we're trying to to hit that bullseye that God wants for us.

Perfect righteousness and our arrows don't even hit the target half the time. I'm a really bad archer too, so Good demonstration of that. God has revealed to us in his law what we need to do to be righteous and it's a really really tall order.

Romans 5 20 says that the law came to increase the trespasses or the sins. Meaning that God did us a favor By making sure through his commandments that we understood what it takes to please him. But it also humbles us leading us to his grace because when we read Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy and the Psalms and The Prophets we realize that we are totally totally lost.

And the good good good news is that despite our sins Piling up like bad credit card debt with compound interest. God's grace has abounded. Paul says Abounded all the more. Which has paved the way for us to forgiveness and righteousness through Jesus Christ resulting in eternal life.

Yahoo Amen, so when we come back to chapter 6 here Paul knows that that little line about where sin increased due to the law grace abounded all the more might be abused.

In.

What way in.

Knowing that God has brought glory by his grace grace meaning the forgiveness of sins some might ask should we continue in sin so that he has to forgive us more and Therefore look even more kind and patient.

That's really the argument here that he's that he's coming against. Can we make Jesus a sacrifice even even more meaningful? By adding more junk to our ledger that he nailed to the cross. Should we pile up our debts so that he has to look more merciful.

It's hard for me to imagine This question getting asked legitimately, right? It's this kind of weasley logic that people either use to justify themselves in illicit behavior. Or to just try and win an argument by making the other person sound stupid, right?

Which many of Paul's detractors were out to do they wanted to prove him wrong? To make him look dumb like Oh Paul what you're just saying we can go and sin. Well, he says of course not. I think it's interesting too that Jesus himself was called a drunkard and a glutton and a party boy.

Because he hung out with sinners, right? He had grace and so he went to where the sin was was the worst. Not joining them in that sin not staining himself, but loving people in it and he got a bad rap, too.

That's just An aside.

But I think it's important to note here Part of what makes this logic so stupid, right? There's this false notion in this argument of glorification by differentiate. I knew I was gonna blow that glorification by differentiation.

Do you hear that? Glorification by differentiation. Which is contrary to God's nature and revealed will God doesn't want us to be as bad as we can be so that he looks even better in comparison and Some of us might have something similar to this.

Driving our spiritual life, right? That somehow boy when I mess up, well at least God's looking even better. At least he's more glorified in what I've done. But this isn't what this isn't what he wants.

He wants glorification by replication. He made us in his image. He's shaping us into the likeness of Jesus Christ. He says be holy as I am holy. So we glorify God best by doing everything we can to be like him.

Which makes an idea like sinning more to bring him glory absolutely abhorrent to Paul. God wants glorification by replication. So may it never be he says he shouts it exclamation point. And he takes the next 13 verses to clarify a statement by reminding us of one of the core realities of our salvation if we're in Christ and That is that we have died to sin.

Look at verse 2. He says you want to believe that but how shall we who died to sin still live in it? I Love how Paul says this and I and as often happens with Paul. There's a touch of wit in it a little sarcasm, right?

He says it matter-of-factly like it's common knowledge, but it's a bit of a shocker. Right. Yeah, but we died right? Wait. Yeah. Well, hold on. Did I really die? Wait a minute. And we've all seen this kind of thing in the movies right this little episode the bad guy thinks he has the upper hand and he corners the hero and He points the gun at his temple and then he monologues.

And the whole time the hero sitting there cool and collected, you know. And then the bad guy finally gets to the point and he pulls the trigger click. No, bang. Hero laughs, haha, you know and then it goes back to the sequence.

We're like somehow he snuck the bullets out of the gun or whatever, you know. So the the bad the good guy knew the whole time that there was no there was no there weren't any bullets. And I think a little bit that's what's happening here with Paul.

He's like There's no more bullets in your gun, man. The sin bullets are gone. You can't even ask the question. Can we go on sinning because you've died to sin? It's not even supposed to be a possibility for you anymore.

How do you suppose that if you're already previously historical fact removed from such a state. Going to continue in it. You have died past tense. Which makes it impossible for the Christian to go on continually living in sin.

Something happened back in the life of anyone who is a true Christian that has rearranged our future. There's no more bang to the accusation that gate that grace gives us the freedom to sin. Because whatever was causing that sin has died.

He goes on to explain verse 3. He basically says you guys have been baptized, right? You Roman Christians the ones I'm writing to you got baptized in the Lord Jesus and Here the way he says this is kind of assumptive.

Which I think also shows us something important about baptism. Paul takes it just as a simple fact that anybody who has called themselves a Christian would be baptized. It's hard for him to conceive. That someone who is a saint in the body of Christ or a member of the church Would not yet have been baptized.

Of course, they were baptized. That's just what you do. And so he leads with it in his argument. It's also interesting that in Hebrews 6 The author who we assume is Paul says that we ought to move on from baptism or washings.

Which are considered part of the elementary teachings of Christ. And in that contest context, he's basically saying guys. This is this is the basics. Yeah, you get baptized. This and that let's move on to maturity.

Let's stop wrangling about these these issues. So what's behind Paul's assumption here? Why does he why does he just assume first that they've been baptized and what was in the early church's practice and In in Paul's understanding of it.

That he would find it appropriate to use it in this context, so let's unpack this concept of baptism as we move through. The text here. What is baptism? First of all baptism is a ritual involving water.

Baptism or Greek baptizo means literally to dip or submerge. Cloth that was colored like dyed a certain color like purple Especially was baptized in the bowls or jars of dye. Being submerged and saturated for staining so royal garments that were that were created for the priests and whatever.

They were baptized into the dye. They were stained people's clothes, etc. But it could even have a violent bent to it in that it was used to describe drowning people sinking ships. Even the idea of a city being ransacked.

Some of the Jewish historians recall people coming and flooding certain certain areas and they say it was like they were baptized in the people. I mean, so it's this idea of immersion of of being overrun.

So at its core, it's this idea of saturation or infiltration or complete covering. So baptism as a ritual came to be associated with washing the idea that being submerged in water. Cleanses the object of dirt as something is put under the water the The surface the water does its work removes the dirt and it comes up clean.

It came to be closely associated with repentance and baptism was used as a way to symbolize a new start or recommittal of one's life. John the Baptist right had a ministry of calling people to repentance in preparation for Jesus Christ and they would be baptized to demonstrate to God that they were washing themselves of their old life and Committing to walk in newness of life and holiness in preparation for the Christ.

Jesus himself came to John to be baptized at the start of his ministry and It was at his baptism that the Spirit came down on him like a dove. Now what I find interesting in this is that Jesus Jesus would be baptized at all, right?

He didn't need to be washed. He had nothing to repent of in fact. John says are you kidding me cuz cuz they were cousins? I'm sure they were like, you know, what up cuz He comes he's like, I'm not gonna baptize you.

I'm not even worthy to untie your sandal. I need to be baptized by you and Jesus says no. It's right for us to do this. And so he's baptized. Insisting that it was the proper thing to do. So it's a ritual involving water where there's a cleansing.

Or.

Repentance or recommittal. But it is also a command. Not only was Jesus baptized by John But when Jesus Was ascending back into heaven after the resurrection He made baptism a core part of the mission that he gave to his apostles and followers to carry on without him, right?

It's called the Great Commission. He said go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. What? Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost Holy Spirit. Teaching them to obey all That I've commanded you.

So he makes it a core part of what we do as his followers who are carrying on his work until he he returns. And I think the Apostles must have taken his command to baptize disciples pretty seriously. Because in nearly every conversion story in Acts whether it's one of the Apostles telling someone how to be saved Or it's a description of people getting saved baptism is included.

Think about these verses. Acts 2 verse 38 Peter's preaching and he says repent and be baptized. And you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 8 16. There's a group of Samaritans, which it was just crazy that Jews would even go and preach to Samaritans but they did.

Philip went and they received the word and They sent a couple of guys up to talk to them about well as your conversion real is this really happened. And.

And.

They get they they confess that they and baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus and Then the Holy Spirit falls on them. And it's a super cool thing. Acts 8. Again Philip baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch in the chariot.

This guy's reading a scroll. Philip hears something out of Isaiah. He hops up into the carriage with him explains the gospel uses that to teach him about Jesus. And then the eunuchs like well What's stopping me from getting baptized?

Which means that Philip had to include baptism in the actual? Instructions about what it meant to come to Christ. And and they hop right out and they baptize him right there in the spot. Acts 9 18. Paul's scales fall off when he when he's converted.

And then he immediately goes and gets baptized. Acts 10. The Gentiles received the Spirit. And then as a sign that they've been indwelt by the the Holy Spirit of God they go.

And get.

Baptized.

Acts 16 and acts 18 people are coming to Christ. They're receiving the message and they get baptized. Acts 19 the Ephesian elders get baptized after hearing the full gospel and then receive the Spirit of God.

Now it's common among all these episodes and there is some discrepancy in the order of how things happen and when the Holy Spirit comes and all that stuff, but the point that I think is being made here is.

That.

Belief and baptism go together. When you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ You get baptized according to the command of Jesus Christ. The Apostles can't be baptizing people unless people are getting baptized, right?

So you come to Christ you get baptized. So I think we can make two general observations or understandings from this and that's number and number one is that baptism is for those who are mature enough to understand the gospel and Want to actively respond in faith.

Baptism, Belief, and Obedience

So here comes a big question, right? Should infants be baptized? I Said that I was baptized as an infant and I came to a place where I decided on August 17th 2004.

Right.

To be baptized. Went in a pool. The pastor of the church that I was there at Presently dunked me and it was a powerful moment in my life. It wasn't like mystical. I didn't see little fairies floating around my head.

Right. Wasn't tingly. Wasn't shooting lightning bolts out of my fingers That would have been cool. It was simply me. Recognizing that this was an important part of my mature decision to follow Jesus and I didn't want to put it off anymore.

So I decided to get baptized. So in my opinion, no infant shouldn't be baptized. Infant baptisms as I saw them practice in my church and as I understand the now are essentially parent dedications. Which are great.

A Parent is bringing that child to the church and saying we want to raise this child in fear of the Lord. Awesome but they bear little resemblance to our record of the early church's practice and Maybe even contradict or muddle the idea that it's faith alone in Jesus Christ who saves us from our sins.

And see the idea is that the the parents faith somehow gets transferred to that child. Until they can make a decision on their own. So the catechism that I was taught from the Heidelberg catechism said that that child becomes a part of the body of Christ of the family of God.

But when I read the scriptures, the only thing that makes us a part of the family of God is what? Our faith in Jesus Christ our profession of him. But what's really behind this? And I think for the people who really do it in good conscience and the parents who are very sincere and what they're doing.

There's often this fear that if I don't baptize my child, they're gonna go to hell.

Right.

That's a legitimate fear. But again, it's miss it's putting too much power on an outward symbol. There's nothing about that water. That's going to save that child it's only going to be the sovereign grace of God that does that and In in my more boisterous days as I was arguing with some people through this and arguing is a good word to probably use for it before I was sanctified.

I Said okay. So what do we do? We bless some water and we go like, you know drive-by baptizing, you know. We just squirt some water on people and say you got baptized see in heaven, you know. No, there's nothing in that water.

That does it it's it's it's faith in Jesus Christ. So what does happen to babies? I this this sermon is not about this, but I know it brings up the question, right? I Believe that God is good. I Believe that God is sovereign.

I Believe that he's just and I am okay putting my child in the hands of God knowing that he's going to do. Whatever is going to be right and holy. As hard as it may be if he decides that someone who has not been able to grow up and confess in Christ.

That he's Lord and Savior if he finds it just to punish them. He's God now, I think. When the Bible says that his loving kindness endures forever. When he describes himself as as God as father, I think we can trust that he's going to be compassionate.

That he's going to be kind and righteous. But I can't tell you exactly what God will do, but I trust him with my kids. Does that make sense? I Don't feel like I need to go through some ritual or make up some theology.

So that I can guarantee or hold God to the fire to save my kids. I Think he'll do right in the end. So number one was that baptism is for those who are mature enough to understand the gospel and want to actively Respond in faith, but number two We can see that the person who comes to believe in Jesus ought to obediently get baptized as soon as they are able.

Baptism doesn't save us as I just mentioned right at least the water part of it. So then what's the big deal? Why make this a criteria in the church why encourage people to get baptized as quickly as they confess Christ is Lord.

Again, it's a command. Which is an opportunity to start your life of obedience off, right? In a way we can look at it like getting baptized is a test in your Christian walk when a command or rule of God is made clear to you and Intellectually, you know, what should be done.

Will you immediately obey or are you gonna think it over for a while. God's told you to do something. Are you gonna immediately obey? Are you gonna drop your nets? Are you gonna rationalize it make sure you're good and ready right our Christian walk is real.

Your life change is real and we'll see in a moment. Your insides have been changed by God. So that your outsides would manifest his glory when you can say like the Ethiopian eunuch, I believe. What you want to do is have your first experience in Understanding what it is to say.

Yes to God you want to begin to train yourself and Giving in to him in obedience not just in your heart and mind but with your strength also.

And.

So those two things I think are important to understand about baptism that it's about adult believers being immersed. And saying yes to God as an act of obedience. Baptism is also a proclamation. Part of the reason for wanting baptism to quickly follow belief is that it's also meant to be a public proclamation of our decision to follow Jesus.

Jesus said that if anyone was ashamed of him and his words He would be ashamed of them when he comes in his father's glory with the Holy Angels. That's recorded in Mark 8 and Luke 9. Getting baptized in public doesn't check this off your list like okay.

You don't have to worry about being ashamed of Jesus anymore. But it's a good start and I know public speaking is really hard for people. Number one fear. I still get freaked out when I come up here. Heart rate raises a little bit, you know all that stuff then I forget it, but.

But for a lot of people standing up and confessing even just talking about anything in front of people is really hard especially something as meaningful as baptism and what God has done in your life, but Please don't risk the chance.

That you allow yourself to be okay with not Letting other people know that you're a Christian by avoiding your baptism out of fear of other people. Take the plunge. Stand up and say I'm a Christian even even in front of family and friends.

And in the early days and acts people went down to public places and it wasn't that cool to be a Christian with a lot of people and So they would be baptized in front of everyone and now they had a mark on their chest on their back.

They had the bullseye every everyone see Kyle he's a Christian. Remember that you got you got his name down. So there is a real risk at publicly proclaiming that you were a Christian. And so isn't it the least that we can do in front of our family and friends here to at least acknowledge To our church that we're a Christian through baptism.

It is an initiation in the body of Christ. It's assigned to others that you're on the same team and now they know our your family here that they have a new Responsibility towards you to guard you and encourage you and correct you.

But and I think most important importantly it is an outward symbol of an inward reality. Which is the fact that we have been baptized spiritually by the Holy Spirit at the moment of our belief in conversion so we go down into the water and we dramatize something that God has done in us in the spiritual realm and we proclaim that and That brings us to the why of baptism.

Or why would we go through this? What does it really mean? Why would Jesus require those who confess him as Lord and Savior to go through a silly little ceremony in some lake somewhere? For all the reasons we just listed but also because it is an incredibly powerful visual aid to explain to us and Remind us of what God has done for us.

Who we are in him and how we behave? So here we come back to our Romans passage verse 3. Or do you do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?

Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into his death. That's trippy, right? I Thought when I signed up for the Jesus thing that I was just getting a ticket to heaven. Nope, there's some real stuff going on here death involved what?

We've been buried with him through baptism into his death. Now I promise you that those of you who are gonna get baptized this afternoon. Don is not going to hold you under okay too long. But what this means is that at your moment of belief Which you're proclaiming through your physical water baptism something very important happened to you you died in Christ.

Through faith what was real for Jesus in the physical his death and resurrection has become yours in the spiritual. The sinful obnoxious rebellious you is no longer in charge. Your body of sin has been drowned in The Holy Spirit in the righteous grace and mercy of God.

God has saturated you in himself and The cleansing water of the Holy Spirit has effectively Violently suffocated the sinful person that's inside you. God doesn't want a piece of you. He doesn't want you just carrying around a membership card.

He wants every square inch of you and when you believe in him his spirit comes in and indwells you and will take over. Verse 4 is is it death? That's God's will for us. Is he just out to kill us all sinners, right?

No.

What is God's will for us? It's ultimately life. It's ultimately freedom from sin. Yeah, we have to go through this death to get there. But he wants us to walk in newness of life. Isn't that a beautiful line?

Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. So that we too might walk in newness of life. God's not trying to rain on your parade. He's trying to rain on your sin parade. But because there's something better for you on the other side.

It's called life in him. It's joy and peace and Shalom. This is the beauty of the symbolism of water baptism that though our old man has been put to death we have been resurrected in Christ. So that we can walk in this newness of life.

And this is why I think it's important to do it as immersion and not just sprinkle because you lose the representation of what's happening. You're going under the water. You're being buried. The old person is dead and you're rising again to new life.

We come up out of the water. We're showing everyone that we're alive in Jesus free from the power of sin here on earth and walking in confident expectation of That day when we will literally be raised from the dead.

To join Jesus and all our homies in heaven. You can't stay the same after coming to Christ. You're now a restoration project of the Holy Spirit. It's like you're a rusty ratty old 57 Chevy. That's been sitting out behind the barn.

Rusting away wasting away. God's got plans for you, baby, right? He came paid the price. He loaded you up on the on the trailer and he took you to his place to his shop. Anyone know of anybody who has an old restoration project?

Is it actually getting worked on? I got a Honda 450 sitting in my garage. It's been a couple years. Best of intentions, right you get the thing man. I'm gonna make this thing look good. And then it's just taking up space and collecting dust in your garage.

God's not like that. As soon as he purchases you he starts the project and he gets out that sander. And he starts ripping out the old torn seats and it hurts right amen to that new Christians. Usually right away.

There's some big stuff that has to get removed. You got to get scrubbed down. You got to get stripped to the bare bones and it's not easy. But the result is gonna be awesome. He's gonna trip your ride.

Did I say that Dave. I don't. I don't think I did. He wants to turn you into a shiny new beautiful creature, and he's gonna get to work but we have the privilege of participating with him in this and We can either cooperate or we can withdraw from his work.

And.

We will tend to do this because getting buffed out hurts. We have to go through a getting worse before it gets better type scenario. But it's okay. I Promise you you'll come through it and you'll be better off.

Baptism as Death, Burial, and New Life

I Love how watchman knee says this. He says the blood of Christ deals with our sins. But the cross deals with the sinner. So when we read here that we've been crucified with Christ that we have died to our sins.

That we've been buried. Jesus isn't just forgiving us for the things that we've done. He's removing the sin factory that produces all of that stuff. And it's a painful process to die. But walking in newness of life requires it.

Verse 6. How do we walk away from sin? How do we walk in newness of life? Well by faith. By faith. And what God has said is true of you because we all still have temptation right to sin. It's not like it never comes up again.

That just because you're in Jesus all the bad habits that you've carried and all the things that you've done just vanish. But it's it's an issue of our faith. Paul says this knowing this that our old self was crucified with him.

Do you believe that God has removed the power of death? Through your faith in Christ. Are you still worried about it? Well God, I know you said it. But it's just really really hard and I can't. I can't leave it and is it really gonna work out?