(Romans) the Way to Victory Over Sin — Brian Brodersen

Romans 6 and the Epistle's Four Sections

Let's go to Romans chapter 6 as we move on in our Roman study. We come to a new section of the epistle as we come to the 6th chapter here. Most commentators see the 6th chapter as the beginning of a new section of this epistle.

They divide the epistle into four sections. Chapters 1 through 5, which we've covered, deal with justification. That's of course what we've been talking about over the past few months. Now chapters 6 through 8 deal, I think, to a large degree with sanctification.

Justification and Sanctification

Now sanctification is different than justification. Justification, as you remember, is the declaration that you are righteous. God declares you righteous, not because of what you do, but because of your faith in Jesus Christ.

But justification then will result in sanctification. And sanctification is your life being set apart for God. You becoming more and more holy. You becoming more and more like Jesus in a practical sense.

And Paul does go into that certainly in these chapters. Now chapters 9 through 11 deal with the subject of Jewish unbelief and God's future plan for Israel. And then chapters 12 through 16 deal with the practical issues of Christian living.

So those are the four sections that the epistle is divided into. Now here in the 6th chapter, what Paul is really going to deal with is, to summarize it, he's going to deal with how to have victory over sin.

Christ's Saving Work and Victory Over Sin

You see, Jesus didn't come to save us just in the future, when we get to heaven. He came to save us now from the power of sin dominating our lives. He came to save us from the effects of sin destroying our lives.

And there's absolutely no reason why a Christian should be living in sin or having their life devastated by sin. God has given us everything that could possibly be given to have victory over sin. And Paul tells us all about it here in this 6th chapter.

And so that's what we want to consider. Now the New Testament teaches that sanctification is produced by knowing and applying God's truth to our lives. And we're going to see that tonight. It's first of all about knowing something.

It's secondly about applying what we know. And both things are essential. You have to know, but you have to apply. If you don't know, you can't apply. If you do know and you don't apply, then you're completely missing out on what the Christian life is really all about.

Grace Does Not Encourage Sin

But in order to get the connection of this first verse in chapter 6, we need to back up to verse 20 of the 5th chapter. And here the Apostle says, You see, Paul makes a statement. He says, we're sin abounded, grace abounded much more.

His objectors would say, oh listen, listen to what the Apostle's saying. He's saying that the more you sin, the more you open up the opportunity for God's grace to come. So Paul is actually teaching us that we ought to sin.

That's what his objectors were saying about him. Paul had enemies coming from a Jewish background, and they were trying to continually promote the law over against grace. And they were distorting Paul's message of grace, saying things like, Paul teaches let us do evil that good may come.

He mentioned that back in the 3rd chapter. So here again, he anticipates, having made this statement where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. He anticipates his objectors coming along and saying, look, we told you.

You see what he's saying? He's saying, let's keep sinning so we can get more grace. And so Paul basically asked the question rhetorically, is that what I'm saying? And then he answers, certainly not. That is not what he is saying.

That is not what the New Testament teaches. The New Testament isn't, the message is not, hey, just keep on sinning. Don't worry about it. You're saved by grace. You're going to get to heaven anyway. That's not the New Testament message.

But guess what? It's been distorted by people to be that. And I've heard people say things like that myself. Hey, it doesn't really matter how you live. We're saved by grace. You know, don't give me that legalism stuff.

And people distort the grace of God. And they twist the grace of God. But Paul says that the purpose of Jesus' coming is to deal with sin, is to destroy sin, is to free us from sin. And that's what he's going to go on and talk about here.

Union With Christ in Death and Resurrection

So he says, 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. Now, notice he says here that we died to sin. We died to sin. Now, in the Greek language, you have various tenses in which the words appear.

And just like we do in English, but there's a little more to it in the Greek. In the Greek language, you have what is known as the aorist tense. And the aorist tense, when a word appears in the aorist tense, it means that it's referring to a completed act, something that's already been accomplished in the past.

It's not an ongoing thing. It's something that's been done. So Paul says here that we have died and the word is in the aorist tense. It's something that occurred in the past. We have died to sin. It's a completed act.

When did we die to sin? That's the question. And the answer is this. When Jesus Christ was crucified and died, that's when we died to. We died to sin in Christ. He was dying for us. Now, you see, we have to make this connection.

What literally happened to Jesus happens to us spiritually. And we identify with what he went through literally on the cross. We identify with that spiritually. And that's where this death occurred. Now, he tells us that it's the old man that has been crucified.

The Crucifixion of the Old Man

Look at verse six. 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 the 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. Paul says your old man, the old man was crucified with Christ. What is he talking about? Now, the old man is who we are by nature.

Who you were born to be. That's who the old man is. The old man is marked by the fact that he's dead to the reality of God. He's dead to the truth of God. He's dead to the purposes of God. And the old man lives his life in obedience to the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.

That's the old man. That man, Paul says, was crucified with Christ. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, that's the person he was dying for. He was dying for that man. He was dying in the place of that man.

He was becoming a substitute. And so that man was crucified with Jesus Christ. Now, Paul says we need to know this. He assumes that we do know it. But I find that a lot of times we don't really know what we ought to know.

You see, sanctification, if it's going to be a reality in my life, I first of all have to know certain things. I have to know what Christ has done and I have to know the implications of his act on my behalf.

Reckoning Ourselves Dead to Sin

So, the first thing I need to know is that the old man was crucified with Christ that the body of sin, he says, might be done away with. Now, here's another interesting Greek word translated done away with.

The word is pronounced katergio. And it means to render inactive or inoperative. It means to put out of business. I like that one. The old man is put out of business. That person that I am by nature, that person that I increasingly became through a life of selfishness and a life of sin.

That man has been put out of business, run out of town, no longer has any place in our lives. Now, Paul says that's something that you need to know. Knowing that the old man was crucified. But then, in verse 11, he tells us something else.

He tells us in verse 11 that we are to reckon ourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Now, here's how it works. We still, as you know, I mean, you know, we're talking about the old man's crucified with Christ, body of sins put out of business.

If that's the case, why are we still struggling? If that's the case, why do I still have certain desires and things that well up within me? And why do I have an inclination to go still many times in the wrong direction?

Well, it's, there's somewhat of a paradox here, really. You see, the old man was crucified indeed, but I must consider that to be a reality in order for that to actually occur in my life experience. You see, when Paul says reckon, to reckon ourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ.

What the word reckon means is to consider it to be a fact. So, when I have this experience of having an inclination to go in the wrong direction. When a temptation comes upon me, it's at that moment that Paul says, I reckon myself to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

So, you see, here's how it works practically. When those kinds of things arise, I recognize it for what it is. Oh, that's the old man. That's not me. That's the old man. That man is crucified. What's he doing trying to get off the cross?

What's he doing trying to take control? Wait, no, he's crucified. And I recognize that to be a reality. And then I act upon it. No, I cannot do that because that's not me. I'm somebody else. I'm different.

I'm a new creation in Christ Jesus. See, that's what the Bible tells us, right? Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. A new creation. Old things have passed away.

Behold, all things have become new. So, I have to stand on that. You see, this is where faith comes into the picture. I have to stand on this fact. No, I'm not that person. That person was crucified. The old man was crucified.

I'm a new person in Christ. I am dead to those kinds of thoughts. I'm dead to that kind of behavior. I'm dead to those desires. I'm dead to that activity. No, that man is crucified. I'm a new man. I'm a different man.

And I am alive now to Christ. You see, but it's something that I have to consciously do. I have to practice this. I have to know the facts and apply the facts to my life. As you have noticed, we have an opponent.

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil

We have an adversary. We have the world that's aligned against us. We have the devil that is there to tempt us and to attack us. And we have the flesh that wars. And so I've got to be on my toes spiritually.

And that's why what Bob was saying is so right. You know, the world, the flesh, and the devil, guess what? They never go on vacation. They never take a break. They never tire of attempting to pull you back into that web.

And since that's the case, I cannot afford to slack off in my life spiritually. I've got to maintain a level of spiritual intensity. So I know that the old man is crucified. I reckon that to be the reality.

Presenting Our Members to God

And then he goes on and he says that we are to present our members as instruments of righteousness to God. So there are three things that we do. We need to know the facts. We need to embrace them as the truth.

And then we refuse to present ourselves over to unrighteousness. Instead, we present ourselves to God to be used by him. So when I'm walking along or driving along or doing whatever I'm doing, and a nice-looking gal walks by, and something in me wants to turn and observe that, I say, no, that's the old man.

I'm a new person in Christ. And Lord, I surrender my thinking process to you right now. I surrender my eyes to you right now. I surrender my heart to you right now. These are yours to use for your glory.

And I have then obtained a victory over that temptation to lust. Now, you see, here's the thing. The more I develop the habit of doing that, the easier it becomes to do it, and the more it just becomes my manner of life.

You see, guys, we do not have to walk in defeat constantly. You don't have to live in defeat. So many do, though. Why? Because they just haven't laid hold of the victory that's available. The victory is there.

But you have to lay hold of it. Now, Paul says here something that I want you to see in the 12th verse. He says, Do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lust. Right here, Paul tells us that we can have victory over sin.

Sinless Perfection and Deliberate Sin

Now, there's no such thing as sinless perfection. I'll tell you that right up front. There's no such thing as sinless perfection. You're never going to come to a place where you can stand up and say, I am sin free.

I no longer sin. But there is a place where you can walk in victory to where you're not sinning in a deliberate sense or in a conscious sense. Now, when it comes to the fact that we're all sinners, and we always will sin, that's referring to sinning unconsciously.

And we do that. You know, we don't mean to sin. I didn't intend to sin here. I wasn't planning to sin. But I just sinned. I wasn't planning to think that, but that thought came before I could really do anything about it.

I wasn't planning to say what I said, but I said it, and I shouldn't have said it, I know. Those are the kinds of things we will live with to some degree or another throughout our entire lives. But when it comes to the kind of sin where it's premeditated, where you think about it, where you're faced with temptation, and you succumb to it, we not only do not have to do that, we should not be doing that.

That's what the New Testament is telling us. Jesus came to give us victory over sin. He came to destroy the work of the devil. John writes in his epistle, he says, he says, Beloved, I write these things to you that you do not sin.

And that's what he's talking about. He's talking about in that sense, that you do not sin. But then he recognized, he said, but if any man does sin, we have an advocate with a father. But the ideal is that we do not sin.

You see, sin should be the exception of my life, not the rule of my life. Before I'm a Christian, sin is the rule. Righteousness is the exception. The rule of my life is sin. I practice sin. I work hard at it.

I spend all my time doing it. When I become a Christian, it completely flips over. Now sin is to be the exception. Oh, you can see some sin here and there, little patches of it. But that's not the lifestyle I'm living any longer.

It's not the manner of my life. You see, God has called us. He's called us to victory. Paul says, do not let sin reign in your mortal body. The implication is clearly, you have power over sin. So when somebody comes to me and says, you know, I just, I can't help myself.

I can't control myself. I can't stop doing this. Then it's either because they're not saved or they don't understand how to have victory and they need to be instructed on how to have victory and to know that they can have victory because the devil's crafty.

He's sly. And he comes along and he works on our heads and he tells us, oh no, you know, you can never be freed from this. Oh, you've been doing this for so long. You'll never be liberated from this. And he'll remind you.

He'll take you all the way back. Isn't it amazing? You know, sometimes I cannot remember what happened yesterday. But I'll tell you what, I can remember what happened 40 years ago. I can remember sinning when I was a little kid.

I can remember the details of it. How on earth could I possibly remember that? Well, the devil was there with his video camera, filming it, and he shows up to just, you know, remind me of it. That's got to be the case because there's no way I could possibly remember that stuff like I do.

But that's the truth. He comes along and he says, oh no, you can never be freed from that. Remember, this started all the way back there. If there was no Jesus Christ, if there was no gospel, if there was no power of God, that would be true.

But there is a gospel. There is the Lord Jesus. There is God's power. And we can have it. And I'll tell you guys, the church today is living in so much sin because we've moved away from the biblical picture of walking in victory and sanctification and we've brought all of this psychological nonsense into the church and we've no longer calling sin, sin, but we're renaming, you know, all of these things and then we're coming up with different syndromes and different things that people have and, you know, that's not where we want to go.

We want to get right back into the scriptures and see what God has to say. He says, do not let sin reign in your mortal body. So how is it that I can have victory over sin? Well, he tells us then in verse 13, as we've already seen, do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin.

Refusing Unrighteousness

The word member here, the Greek word, or excuse me, instrument. The Greek word for instrument is a word that is also translated tool or weapon. I like weapon. Do not present your members as weapons of unrighteousness.

That's what happens when you present yourself over to unrighteousness, then your members become weapons in the hand of the enemy. Your members, your strength, your energy, your speech, your imagination, your emotions.

Those are the things that he's talking about. And what does he say? He says, do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness. Do not do it. You just do not do it. You say no. You see, there comes a point where we have to realize that it really boils down to simply saying, no, I am not going to do that.

By the grace of God, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to step away from it. And once you do that, once you make that break, God meets you with that grace and he gives you the ability to do that. And the more consistently we do it, like I said, we develop a habit, we develop a pattern of victory.

But the more consistently we give in to the temptation, we also develop a habit in the other direction. And then we end up in all kinds of bondage. So there comes a point where you just have to say no.

You just have to say, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to be with those people. I'm not going to go to that place. I'm not going to visit that website. I'm not going to turn on my computer or I'm not going to see that person.

Radical Measures Against Temptation

It's like Jesus said, you have to cut things off. He said, if your hand offends you, cut it off. If your eye offends you, pluck it out. If your feet offends you, cut them off. And there are things that we have to recognize.

These things are stumbling me. These things are entrapping me. I've got to cut these things off. And you can do it. That's what Paul says. He says, do not let sin reign in your mortal body. It's not somebody else is going to do it for you.

You can do it. But you see the danger in our current situation is people have come along and said, well, you know, you don't really have power over these things. This is something that you need lots of counseling about and you're probably going to struggle and you're never going to get over this probably.

That's a recipe for defeat before you ever get started. Where do you find that in the Bible? You see, you don't find it in the Bible. But I've actually had people tell me that they've been diagnosed as having, you know, some sort of sex addiction or something like that.

And they've been told by their counselor that, you know, they can expect to really struggle through this and they're probably going to fall several times before they ever get a handle on it. But, you know, hopefully through enough counseling and so forth, we'll get you sorted out sometime down the road.

Where do you find that in the Bible? Where do you find any suggestion in the Bible that, hey, just slowly work your way through that sin and maybe someday you'll get out of it? The Bible says flee from that, run from it, get away from it.

But today, we don't want to take any extreme measures. How many men have been trapped in pornography on the Internet who refuse to get rid of the computer, who refuse to turn off their Internet connection?

You see, at a point, you got to get radical. If that stuff is stumbling you, if that stuff is causing you to sin, cut it off. So, we do not present our members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin.

Presenting Ourselves as Instruments of Righteousness

But what do we do? We present ourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. These eyes, these are to envision God's plan. God's desires. These hands are to be used for God's purposes.

The mind that God has given me is to be taken up with the things of God, the will of God, the purpose of God. And that's what Paul is talking about here. He's talking about a presentation of our members to God.

We're alive from the dead. And now that we're alive spiritually, he says, surrender all of these things over to the Lord. And as we do that, we will find ourselves having a victory. And then he says in verse 14, for sin shall not have dominion over you.

Wow, listen to that. Sin shall not have dominion over you because you are not under the law, but under grace. See, the point that Paul is making is this. If we were still under the law, then guess what?

Sin would have dominion over us because the law doesn't give you any supply of supernatural power to have victory over sin. The law simply comes along and tells you what not to do, but it doesn't supply you with any ability not to do it.

Grace as the Power of God

But Paul says, we're not under the law. We're under grace. Now, here's the thing to realize. Grace is not just a theological concept. Grace is the power of God. When the Bible talks about grace, it's talking about a force.

It's talking about a power that comes from God. You see, the beautiful thing about all this stuff that I'm telling you guys is that God will empower us to do these things as we make the choices to obey him.

That's the key. You make the right choice. God supplies the power. You see, you might be thinking, oh, I can't do it. No, you can't do it in your own strength or through your own determination, but you can do it because the grace of God is upon your life, and as you make the decision not to do it, God gives you the power to abide by that decision.

There's supernatural power. We serve the living God. You read through the pages of the New Testament. There's miracle after miracle after miracle. There's power being displayed. It's supernatural from cover to cover, and that's what God does.

This isn't just a bunch of propositions, theological propositions. Oh, yeah, we believe this. We don't believe that. That's a small part of it, but we're talking about a life. We're talking about connecting with God.

We're talking about a real power from heaven flowing through our lives, out from our lives, enabling us to do the right thing, and we need to get back to that reality in our culture. Christians need to be what Christians are really supposed to be, people who are infused with the power of God, people who are living above the natural realm, people who are living in the supernatural empowering of the Holy Spirit.

So when somebody looks at me, they're saying, wow, what's going on in that guy's life? Man, there's something happening there, and there's that demonstration of God's power, but the great tragedy in the church today is it's hard to distinguish a Christian from a non-Christian.

Returning to Biblical Victory

A lot of times the Christians don't look any different than the non-Christians, not doing anything any different, and quite frankly a lot of times caught up in the same kinds of sins. But you know, I honestly think that to some degree a lot of it has to do with an ignorance, a lack of knowledge, misinformation, wrong information.

Somebody comes and tells you, or you go to somebody, and you've got a battle in your life, and you've got a problem, an ongoing sinful thing, and they sort of indicate to you that that's probably just the way it's going to be.

Like I said, you're defeated before you can ever get started. But that's what's happening today. People are getting the wrong information. They're getting incorrect information. They're not being told that God has a dynamic power that will come into your life, and God will set you free from this stuff.

People are being told that, oh, you're just going to have to live with this, this is just the way it is, and we've got to get back to the Bible. And this is what the Bible says. Do not let sin reign in your mortal body.

You, you're in the driver's seat. Don't let sin reign. You're in the driver's seat because God is in you. And this is how you do it. Do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness. Just refuse to do it.

No, I'm not doing this. I'm not going there. I'm not going anywhere near there. Whatever I've got to do to free myself from that, to get away from that, then, of course, that's what you've got to do. But then you take those very members and you present them as instruments of righteousness to God.

You say, no, I'm alive from the dead. I'm not involved in that stuff anymore. Lord, here's my hands. Here's my feet. Here's my mind. Here's my lips. Here's my ears, my eyes, whatever. Lord, here you take all of this and you, you be glorified through it.

God will take you up on it. He'll do it. And then we will be who God wants us to be and who the church needs us to be and who the world would love us to be so they could also have hope and know that there really is something better.

Religion Versus Relationship With Christ

There's a reality to this. We're not talking about religion. And I think what's happened in so much of Christianity today is we've kind of reverted back to religion. You know, as Paul would talk about, there are those who, they have a form of godliness, but they deny the power of it.

They go to church. They go through the motions. They do all the religious things, but there's no power in their lives. You know what? That is the result of religion. You know what results from relationship?

Dynamic power. The power of God coming through our lives when we have a relationship with him. If you've got no power of God operating in your life, maybe it's because you just got religion and you don't have a relationship.

Do you have that relationship with the living Christ who will infuse you with his grace and give you the victory? That's a question that we all need to ask ourselves. And if we find that I do have more religion than an actual relationship, then we need to turn away from that and say, Lord, I need you.

Prayer for Victory and Sanctification

I need you personally in my life. This is the way to victory. No, the old man is crucified. Consider that to be a reality and present your members as instruments of righteousness to God. Lord, we thank you that you have not only called us to victory, but you have supplied us with the power of the spirit to be victorious.

Jesus, that you came into the world to save us from our sins, not just in the sense that we would get to go to heaven instead of hell, but to save us from our sins today and to set apart for yourself a people who are zealous for good works.

So, Lord, do that. And I pray, Lord, for myself. I pray for every one of us here tonight. Lord, that there would not be any sin reigning in our mortal bodies. Lord, that tonight we would just take that stand against it.

In Jesus name, Lord, that we would say no to the flesh. No to the devil. No to the world. And yes to you. Help us to do that, Lord. Help us to really do it so we can walk in that victory. We pray in Jesus name.

Amen.