Resurrection Living

Well, good morning. It's, of course, always a pleasure, always a blessing to be with this church here.

Quatro and I were texting this morning. First off, I was surprised that he could still text from Mexico.

So I wasn't expecting that. Sometimes I don't get service in Arkansas.

Apparently, whoever his carrier is, he's good to go in Mexico as well.

But we were texting this morning, just words of encouragement. He said he was praying for me. He said he was praying for you.

I said he was praying for him. And it's encouraging, in a sense, to be co -laboring with my friends, with my brothers, as he's in Mexico.

I'm able to preach here. In a small sense, this is what it really looks like for churches to cooperate together, to have friends and fellowship in this world and in the ministry.

So it truly is an honor, a blessing to be preaching to you this morning, while one of your pastors is laboring in Mexico, and the other one is sipping sweet tea on the beach.

And so I'm happy to be here. We're going to be in the book of Romans this morning.

Romans chapter 6, verses 1 through 14.

Now that may scare you with it being 14 verses, but I don't preach like Quatro.

I don't have 17 point sermons and whatnot. And so have no fear about the 14 verses.

Romans chapter 6, verses 1 through 14. My title of the sermon today is

Resurrection Living. Resurrection Living. And basically, here's what

I'm trying to accomplish. We know that the resurrection is central for a

Christian faith. Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 says, if the resurrection isn't true, if there is no resurrection, we're a people most to be pitied.

And that all the preachers actually are preaching in vain. That there's no power, there's no true salvation.

So we know that the resurrection is absolutely central. It's Christ's death and resurrection that's the central point.

This is what we call the gospel. This is the very thing that our faith hinges on.

But oftentimes, we know that it's important. We know that the resurrection is essential for the basis of our salvation.

But we forget that the resurrection has implications for our day -to -day life.

Practicality for our regular Christian walk. And this is what I want to speak to this morning.

And this is what I believe Romans 6, verses 1 -14 addresses.

This is what the Lord's teaching us in it. So the resurrection is not merely an important event that has happened in the past.

Though it absolutely is that. It has everyday implications and applications.

How should we live in light of the most important historical event?

We look back in just recent American history.

And we see that we can look at key things that happened that absolutely changed our world or changed our nation.

I'm thinking of something like the industrial revolution. Absolutely transformed our nation some ways in great good and some ways in the negative.

We think of something like World War II and how dramatically that changed the nation.

And how both of those things, both the industrial revolution, both the second world war, had an impact to some extent or another on your actual day -to -day, everyday life.

If that's true of a world war or a movement throughout culture and society of the industrial revolution, how much more is that true about the most important event?

The most world -changing event that has ever happened throughout human history and ever will happen.

Surely there is something about our lives that are actually changed. Our day -to -day lives that are actually adjusted because of it.

In this chapter, Paul is anticipating a response from chapters 5 and verses 20 -21.

Chapter 5 verses 20 and 21 say this, Moreover, the law entered, that the offense might abound.

But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our

Lord. Who am I? Through Jesus Christ our Lord. This leads us to some good, reflective, personal questions of reflecting.

Who am I? Am I united with Christ? Grace abounds more than sin.

Okay, if grace abounds more than sin, does this create an incentive or an encouragement or a license to sin?

And you may say, Danny, that sounds absolutely silly. Who would think that we have an encouragement or a license to sin?

Well, have you ever heard this? I know it's a sin, but the

Lord will forgive me. This is exactly what Paul is talking about here. As we begin reading in chapter 6 verse 1, this is exactly what

Paul is addressing. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the

Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.

Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.

Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.

For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all. But the life that He lives,

He lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our

Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lust.

And do not present your members as instruments of righteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

The first thing that we see in this passage to us, the first thing that we learn here about resurrection living, is that the resurrection accomplished victory over sin.

The resurrection accomplished victory over sin.

The resurrection, as I stated in my introduction, is a historic reality.

Absolutely. But it's a historical reality that had a great effect.

You could say it was a historic effectual reality. That there was something powerful in it.

That it was a historical reality accomplishing a spiritual effect.

Accomplishing spiritual reality. John Calvin in commenting on this says that the apostle does not simply exhort us to imitate

Christ as though he had said that the death of Christ is a pattern in which all

Christians are to follow. The death of Christ is effectual to destroy and demolish the depravity of our flesh.

Did you pick up on what this commentator is trying to communicate here? What he's trying to explain here?

He's saying that the resurrection of Christ is not a mere pattern to follow.

Or it's not a story to give you life lessons. No, and I know

I'm preaching to the choir here, but the resurrection of Christ actually conquered the power of sin.

It's not just a story of an example, but it's something that Christ did.

That the very Holy Spirit was the Spirit that resurrected Him from the dead so that Christ was actually and effectually vanquished on the cross.

This is not symbolism. This is not a fairy tale. This is not a story like we might read upon and get inspiration from to live better lives.

This was a sacrifice of actual payment, actual atonement for the actual reality that death has been put to death.

Sin has been put to death in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Charles Spurgeon on this theme says, if you are indeed called by divine grace, you have come into fellowship with the

Lord Jesus Christ so as to be joint owner with Him in all things.

Henceforth, you are one with Him in the sight of the Most High. The Lord Jesus bore your sins in His own body on the tree, being made a curse for you, and at the same time,

He has become your righteousness so that you are justified in Him. You are Christ and Christ is yours.

As Adam stood for his descendants, so does Jesus stand for all who are in Him.

As husband and wife are one, so is Jesus one with all those who are united to Him by faith.

One by a conjugal union that can never be broken. More than this, believers are members of the body of Christ and so are one with Him by a loving, lasting, living union with God.

What is Spurgeon referencing there? Well, also in chapter 5, the context previously before, it talks about being in Adam, our first father, or being in Christ.

That's your two options. That's the two states of humanity. You're either in Adam or you are in Jesus Christ.

We are all born naturally in Adam. He is our representative in the garden, and therefore, we have all fallen in Adam.

So it's asking the same question as, are you saved or are you not?

There's only two types of people in the world. Those who are in Christ and those who are not.

And if you are not in Christ and you are in Adam, and you suffer from His representation, you suffer from the fall of humanity.

We all know and experience this daily. But if you are in Christ, He is your new representative.

He was your representative on the cross. Having unity in Him means, as our verses said, that we have died with Him, and yet we are also made alive in Him.

The purpose of the atonement, the purpose of Christ bearing our sins on the cross, or you could say another way that the resurrection accomplished victory over sin, is that this was its very purpose.

The death and resurrection of Christ, its very purpose was to take away sin. And the

Scripture tells us this. Acts 5, 30 -31, The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you murdered by hanging on a tree.

Him God has exalted to His right hand to be

Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

This is the specific purpose in which Christ came. 1

Peter 2, 24 Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed.

My second point. The second way in which the resurrection affects our everyday life.

The second point here of resurrection living. We are now free from sin.

We are now free from sin. This is the greatest news.

That we're actually free from the very sin that had us in bondage.

Read with me again verses 5 -11. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.

Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.

Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more, death no longer has dominion over Him.

For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives,

He lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon, or your translation might say, consider yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our

Lord. What does the scripture say when it talks about this body of sin?

It's not talking about merely your flesh and your bones. Sometimes the scripture does talk about it in that way, but even then the concept is bigger than just your flesh, just your bones.

Really it's a term that communicates many things.

I would summarize it as this. It's all, this body of sin is all that rules me that is not

God. This body of sin is everything that rules me that is not

God. It could be idols or false gods, the world, the flesh, and the devil as controlling voices, inordinate desires, standards derived from the fear of man or pride, various things that obsess, rule and focus, whatever rules and focuses our lives that is not from the

Lord, sins of the heart, our very desires of the heart that are not from the

Lord or of the Lord. This body of sin is talking about something much more than just our flesh and bones.

It's talking about our very nature, or oftentimes in scripture it's summarized as our heart.

This is why in John chapter 3, when Nicodemus is asking of Christ, he's saying, how can you be born again?

Christ says, you must be born again to inherit the kingdom of heaven. And Nicodemus responds, well, how is it that someone could be born again?

Thinking naturally, thinking physically. When Christ is explaining, Jesus himself is explaining, no, everything about you needs to change.

You need a new heart. Or as another theme throughout the scriptures is, a heart of stone being turned into a heart of flesh by the work of Christ.

These are communicating the same concepts. It's everything about you, your entire nature, your whole constitution, the innermost thing about you being communicated as your heart, your will, your desires, your emotions, your volition, your lust, your mind, your thoughts, your intentions.

All of these, all of these is the body of sin. The word body is not to be taken for flesh and skin and bones, but so to speak for the whole of what man is.

So how can we know what's some diagnostic questions, what's some introspective questions that we can ask ourselves in understanding and trying to understand or check this body of sin?

Well, it's simple questions. What do you want? What actually do you want?

Or probably put better, what do you want most? Because we know what we want, what we desire often controls us.

What are your expectations in any circumstances or in life in general?

What you're expecting, what your expectations are, the way that you think things should go reveals the nature and the state of your heart.

What controls you? What controls you? Think about that.

What controls you? What gets you out of bed in the morning? If you react this way, that way or another, think to yourself, why?

Why am I reacting this way? And those could be good or bad things.

I'm not saying in relation to just sinful things, but evaluating everything in life.

Why am I doing this? Why do I want this? What is making me do this? What is controlling my life right now?

What am I living for? Or another question is, what is your heart? What is your heart on this matter?

Oftentimes, we talk to one another and this is a really good thing.

We say, well, I want you to hear my heart. Let me give you my heart on the matter. That's a question to ask your own self.

What is my heart on this matter? I think the best question is, what do you love?

What do you love? What is it that you love? What is your highest love?

This is going to reveal to you the state of your heart. Sometimes you can find yourself loving mere fainting entertainments, just being distracted by this world.

The thing that I'm living for is that three o 'clock nap in the afternoon. This is what

I love. The thing that I'm living for is the next entertainment, whatever it is, the next time you get to do your hobby.

And none of these things are sinful or bad in and of themselves. But if that is the compass of your life, if those things are the true north on your compass, then something is wrong with the nature of your heart.

This is what we're talking about in having the body of sin. This is bigger than particular sinful actions.

This is why in Matthew 12, verses 34 through 35, Christ, in rebuking the

Pharisees, He calls them, you brood of vipers. How can you, being evil, speak good, speak good things?

For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. This is what we were talking about in Sunday school class this morning.

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.

So your heart is the generating factory of her life. And this is why elsewhere

Christ says, where your treasure is, your heart will be also. This is why the

Pharisees, in that reference I just read, He's like, how can you, being evil, speak good things?

And His point was that you actually cannot. That your heart is not a good treasure.

You've not treasured the things of the Lord in your heart. And evil things come out of the evil treasure of someone's heart.

John Calvin, again, commenting on these verses, says, Though sin dwells in us, it is inconsistent that it should be so vigorous as to exercise its reigning power.

For the power of sanctification ought to be superior to it, so that our life may testify that we are really the members of Christ.

This is exactly what is being preached here. That if we have been united to Christ and Christ's atoning sacrifice has freed us from the power of sin, freed us from the slavery of sin, this body of sin that I've just been describing over the past several minutes is now dead.

This body of sin is now dead and no longer rules or reigns or is the slave driver of our life.

Unity with Christ is shown to us in Romans 5, verse 17.

Again, a reference to just the previous chapter. It says, For if by the one man's offense death reigned, he's talking about Adam there.

For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one

Jesus Christ. So if we have unity with Christ, that means that as from one man, as Adam's representation of us, death reigned, how much more is life reigning through the very person and life accomplished by Jesus Christ?

If we've been united with him in his death, we also shall be in the likeness.

We shall also be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection, as our text here in verse five says.

Our sin was crucified with him. That means our current and future hope is living with Jesus Christ.

We live with him now and there will be a ultimate living with him. There'll be a forever living with him at the resurrection.

And this is what our text encourages us in verse eight. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ and that live with him is both a present and future reality.

Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more.

Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all.

But the life that he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, this is giving us a present and future hope.

We have the present hope. It's saying that we live with Christ now and that there will be a fulfilled and ultimate living with Christ in our death and resurrection on the last day.

Verse 11 is the key point at this aspect. It says, Reckon, or as I mentioned earlier, your translation may say, consider yourselves to be dead indeed to sin.

So because of this reality, because Christ has indeed put death to death, put death to sin, taken the power of sin's dominion over us, what should we do?

We should consider ourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Jesus Christ our

Lord. And this is a powerful reality. In your own life, you can reflect on your own habits, in your own sin, the thing that the

Lord still has not sanctified or reproved in your life. And you could say, this sin, my anger that I still do not have under control,

I'm dead to that. I am dead to that. That died in Christ. This jealousy, this jealousy over this or that matter, that's now dead to me.

This addiction is now dead to me. Whatever sin it is, it is dead to you.

And in Christ, righteousness in his very law is now life to you.

You're like, I'm alive to righteousness now. I'm alive to communion with the

Lord now. I'm alive to prayer now. I'm alive to the scripture now. That these things are now made alive where before they were dead and sin is now dead where before it was the driver of my life.

The third point here, because of these realities, because of what's been accomplished in our union with Christ and accomplished by the resurrection, we now can resist sin and live for God.

These are in our concluding verses, verses 12 through 14. For sin shall, sorry, that's verse 14, verse 12.

Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lust and do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness through sin.

But present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead in your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

Do not let sin reign in your life. Verse 12, let me point out something to you of a consistency or a theme of language here.

In verse six, in verse six, we see or sorry, in verse nine, we see this language of death no longer having dominion over us.

And in verse six, it talks about us that we are no longer slaves to sin.

And then the text that we just read here, it talks about our instruments, or this could also be understand as weapons.

Do not give yourself as instruments or do not give yourself as weapons to unrighteousness or or to sin.

And then our concluding verse in 14, it says that sin shall no longer have dominion over us again.

So this is it's this language and it's this concept of of a leader giving us our marching orders or a leader giving us directions or a king or something that has dominion over us.

And so what are we what are who are we working for? Who is the authority figure?

Who is the general of our life that we are going to either put put our instruments to use for their mission, for their purposes or for another?

Which which army are you a part of? And this is the exact point is that sin and Satan and the world and the flesh, they no longer have dominion over you, yet they are still clinging on like like the losing like the losing side of a war.

They're they're trying to do their best. They're clinging on for dear life. They're trying to take and ravage everything that they can on the way out.

And they're trying to still exert some authority over you. And so the message here is to resist, resist, resist the reign of sin that actually has no longer reign in your life.

It is now without power. It is now no longer an authority in your life.

Therefore, resist it. First Peter chapter four, verse three says, for we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the

Gentiles when we walked in lewdness, lust, drunkenness, reveries, drinking parties and abominable idolatries.

I love the way that Peter puts that. We've spent enough of our past life. We've wasted enough time before the

Lord saved us. We wasted enough of it. No more in this new life.

We are no longer going to take orders from sin and the world and the devil.

We've done enough of that. We've wasted enough time doing that. Now being freed from sin, we are going to live for God.

Spurgeon again says, friend, just beginning in the divine life, the

Lord can give you an irreproachable character, even though in your past life you may have gone far into sin.

The Lord can altogether deliver you from the power of former habits and make you an example of virtue.

He can not only make you moral, but He can make you abhor every false way and follow after all that is saintly.

For the Christian now, for the Christian you obey sin as a tyrant because you let it reign in your moral body.

This is in reference to our verse there. This is what it means. By letting it reign in your mortal body, you're giving it authority that it does not have.

By letting sin control you, by letting sin reign, you're giving it the false authority that no longer has over you because of the resurrection of Christ.

You give sin headship in your life. The call now is to resist this tyranny of sin, as I mentioned before.

We see here that we are to present ourselves as instruments, tools, or weapons to God in verse 13.

Refuse to be used by the world and Satan himself. Later on in Romans 6, in verse 19, he says,

I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.

For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanliness and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now, so now because of the resurrection of Christ, present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

You have a new owner. You have a new commander.

You have a new king. The settings of your compass have been corrected to now where it's pointed to true north.

So do not, so no longer. Before you were oppressed and you had no other option but to serve a life of sin.

But Christ has freed you. He's freed you from the slavery of sin. And now you are a joyful slave to righteousness.

Make yourself a slave to righteousness, meaning serve righteousness. Make righteous, make in a sense.

Okay, now let me clarify this. We are saved only by the righteousness of Christ.

But now being freed from Christ, we can progress in righteousness. This is available to us.

He's given us the spirit. So pursue righteousness. Make righteous the pattern, discipline, and habit of your life.

Make those things righteous. Pursue righteousness. Matthew Henry commenting on these verses says, we must not only cease from the acts of sin.

This may be done through the influence of outward restraints or other inducements. Or in my terminology, it's not good enough to just paint a pig.

We can't just clean ourselves up on the outside. We can't just present ourselves as more righteous.

He goes on to say, but we must get the vicious habits and inclinations weakened and destroyed.

Not only cast away the idols out of the sanctuary, but the idols of iniquity out of the heart.

He's painting a picture here as if you had idols in the sanctuary. Or I heard a missionary once that he was a missionary to Mongolia.

And they worshiped many gods. And they'd put little gods on their mantle. And he said, it wasn't considered conversion if they made another little god to represent the one that you just gave to them and put it on their mantle.

That's not believing in the one true Lord. And it wasn't even conversion if they took all the other gods off the mantle and just put the one that you presented them on there.

But conversion, he knew conversion happened when they took down the mantle altogether. But what

Matthew Henry is saying here is that you can't take all the idols out of the sanctuary and still be worshiping them in your heart.

But back to the whole point of this whole sermon, is that because of the resurrection, we are actually given new hearts of righteousness freed from the dominion of sin.

We must not only, oh I just read that, Christ frees you from the dominion of sin.

Verse 14, let's read it again. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

If we're no longer under the dominion of sin, why is it that we keep on sinning?

You may be thinking right now, okay, Danny, this all sounds great. But why do

I have remaining sin in my life? Well, the first thing

I want to do is give you hope. This is why we long for the resurrection on the last day.

Whatever your views of the end times are, the scripture is clear that when Christ comes back, there'll be a resurrection of the dead.

That those in Christ will be resurrected to Him in glory, and those outside of Him will be resurrected in judgment.

That this is when we will receive our glorified bodies, those who have already passed to be with the Lord. And it's at that moment that, as I said, we will receive glorified bodies.

Now, it is true that we will be sinless. Everyone who's gone to be with the Lord already, they're already sinless.

But they're sinless in a truly incomplete state. They're sinless, but even those in heaven are waiting.

They're waiting the final victory of Jesus Christ, where there will be that resurrection of the dead.

We were not made for our bodies and souls to be separated. We're made soul and body originally in Genesis.

And so we can long for heaven. Even now, we long for the sinlessness of heaven.

And then in an even fuller sense, we can long for the resurrection, where all things will be made perfect and complete once again, where we will have our bodies and yet still be without sin.

Sin will remain in us as long as we live on the earth. But this does not contradict my sermon.

This does not contradict our verses that we're reading here saying that we are no longer slaves to sin.

Because there's a big difference between sin remaining, the remaining sin within us and sin having dominion over our lives.

There is a big difference here. One is the glimmer of what it used to be.

Sin has a shred of the power that it used to have over us, yet it remains, yet it is not finally destroyed.

Satan even now has a mortal womb, a mortal death blow. Though he is still living, though he is still active, though he is still deceiving, he is on the decline.

He is on his deathbed, if you will. He's received a gunshot wound or a mortal injury that he will not recover from.

This is the state of sin in our lives. Though it still often creeps its head, though we still are all too reminded even daily that we have the remainder of sin in our life, we know where the final victory is.

We know that sin will be completely vanquished at the last day of Jesus Christ.

And that it no longer gives us our marching orders. That we now, through the resurrection, have the power to resist this illegitimate tyrant of sin that has illegitimate power now in our lives, because Christ, as it says above me, is king.

Final quote, this is from Matthew Henry again. Though sin may remain as an outlaw, though it may oppress as a tyrant, yet let it not reign as king.

Let it not make laws, nor preside in councils, nor command the militia. Let it not be uppermost in the soul, so that we should obey it.

Though we may be sometimes overtaken and overcome by it, yet let us never be obedient to it in the lust thereof.

Let not sinful lust be a law to you, to which you would yield a consenting obedience.

Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, Lord, the reality of your gospel, the reality of what was accomplished in Jesus Christ, His death on the cross and His resurrection, taking all power away from sin, all power away from the devil, is an absolutely life -changing reality.

Many, if not most, if not all of us here, have experienced that reality in our salvation, Lord, that we've come to know

Christ, we've come to believe upon Him in faith, Lord, and you have indeed changed our lives, you have indeed saved us, made us born again and are sanctifying us now.

Lord, if there's anyone here who does not know of this salvation, who does not know of the freedom in Christ and salvation from the slavery of sin,

Lord, I pray that you would make the gospel clear to them this morning, that they would see that this is a gospel of freedom, that this is a gospel of hope, that they would want rescue from their sin.

And for those of us, Father, who walk with you, this is a prayer of sanctification.

Let us not use our bodies, let us not use our whole selves, our whole being as instruments or weapons for sin or of this world, but Lord, we want to live for you.

Grow us in love. Grow us in resistance and hatred of sin, knowing that we have full confidence, knowing that that's based in and rooted in the freedom that is accomplished by the resurrection of your

Son, Jesus Christ. It's in His name we pray for all glory to go to Him.