Romans 6:1-14 (Grace Destroyed Sin's Dominion, Pastor Jeff Kliewer)

Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for the blood of Jesus that washed all of our sins away, and you have declared us righteous on account of the blood. We also thank you that the blood of Jesus has power to destroy every stronghold of the enemy.

We pray that sin no longer has dominion. We thank you that sin no longer has dominion. And we pray, Lord, that you would strengthen us now to trample on serpents, that by grace you would give us victory over the darkness.

Lord God, that you would empower us by the preaching of your word to overcome sin in our lives. And we look forward to the return of Christ, at which time we will leave the sin behind forever and for good.

We look for the coming of Jesus, and we pray, even so, come Lord Jesus. Amen. Church, turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter 2. And today we'll begin by reading 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 1 to 7, before we dive into Romans 6 as the primary passage.

2 Timothy 2, verses 1 to 7. You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.

Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.

It is the hardworking farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. Let's do that for a moment. Let's think about what Paul is saying here to Timothy, particularly as it relates to grace.

Does grace make us weak and soft? Well, according to verse 1, it says, You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Grace actually strengthens the Christian. Now, I have a question for you.

When President Xi Jinping, or Putin, or the commander of the Taliban, look across the ocean, and they see America, assuming that America is a Christian nation, and they see that here in America, women are treated as commodities through the process of IVF fertilization of their eggs from men who are not their husband.

Gay couples artificially inseminating a woman to carry their child as if she were a commodity, purchasing that to the highest bidder, and the baby that is then born from this woman is given to these men to raise.

What does that look like to the world at large? When the world sees that, they don't see strength, they see depravity. In fact, even the pagans see the wickedness of that great evil. And I can hardly think of something more wicked and evil than what's being allowed in this country.

And when they look at the world from the world's point of view, they look at America as a so-called Christian nation, they say, no, that looks more like the great Satan. Because so many of the horrible practices of this world are being produced in Hollywood and exported to the world.

And when they look at grace, they say, you see, the Christians, they preach grace, they say Jesus died for their sins, and then they just go on living however they desire to live, indulging the flesh, and they have no power over sin.

And so they assume that grace is weak. But the truth of the matter is that a nation is not saved or lost, but individuals within the nation come to saving faith. And the truth of the matter is that Christians deplore those things more than anyone else.

And it is precisely the grace of God that made this country strong at one point in its history. Look at our analogies in 2 Timothy chapter 2. The soldier, and after the soldier comes the athlete. I couldn't find it for a second.

And then the hardworking farmer. My grandfather was a soldier in World War II, fighting for the Americans. On my mother's side, Bill Wagner. He was in what was called the Battle of the Bulge. There came a point in that battle where he was a runner.

He had to deliver a message from one point of the battlefield to another because the telegraph machines had been blown up and you had to do it by hand. So he ran across the front of the battlefield and he saw soldiers dropping to his left and to his right.

After the battle, he was so dismayed and so broken by what he saw, on hands and knees he threw his Bible across the room. And he didn't have the strength to go on. And then he crawled to that Bible and when he opened it, he read Psalm 91.

You will not fear the arrow that flies by day or the pestilence that stalks at night. And as he read the soldier's Psalm, Psalm 91, he told us for all of his days that there was never again a moment of fear in his heart for the rest of World War II.

After that encounter with the grace of God and the Word of God, he was strengthened by grace and he became a fearless soldier. That's why he ended up becoming a missionary when he returned after the war.

Fearless, strengthened by grace. Soldiers are not afraid precisely because of grace. They know to whom they belong and they know the power of grace to strengthen them. I have been very encouraged by the athletes in this country recently.

I talked a couple of weeks ago about Sydney McLaughlin-Lavrone, the athlete of the year in 2022. She testifies that everything she's accomplished has been by grace. Why does she strive so hard to work so hard to accomplish what she has?

She says it's because she wants the microphone in order to give glory to Jesus Christ. And so she works. She is not soft and weak. She is strong. We've seen the athletes at Ohio State University, football players, baptizing much of the team right out on the campus lawn because they're standing on grace and they're strengthened by grace.

Very often athletes who perform well are doing so for the sake of the name of Jesus. Many of them. It's been encouraging to see. But what about the farmer? The farmer, in my mind, is the unsung hero. The soldier gets the glory when he comes home from the war.

The athlete gets the limelight, but nobody notices the farmer. How hard does this man work? He rises at the break of dawn. His hands are in the dirt. He works all day long and he looks to God, the grace of God, to give irrigation to the ground.

He trusts God and he prays. The Christian farmer is strong and he's strengthened by grace. So it could be said of the hard working businessman or the construction worker, the person who works and does everything he does as unto the Lord.

Whatever your hand finds to do it, do it unto Christ. So look again at 2 Timothy 2, verse 1. Grace strengthens the Christian. It's often assumed that grace makes us soft and weak. Why would people assume that?

That grace would make you soft and weak? Because God already accepted you before you worked, before you performed, before you accomplished and strove to do something. God already declared you righteous.

And so some would say, well, then grace is going to produce a weak culture,.

A weak people.

Christians become soft and weak rather than tough and strong. But as we go now to Romans 6, we shift in the emphasis of the text away from justification by faith, that you are declared righteous on account of the finished work of Christ, to the next section of Romans.

And that is the power of grace to destroy sin's dominion in our lives. We're moving from justification to sanctification. The cross of Jesus Christ, His blood shed was for the forgiveness of our sin that we would be declared righteous.

But His blood also has unending, dominating power over sin. And everybody here who struggles with sin, which is all of us, should be very glad to hear the news you're going to hear today. Romans 6, 1 to 14.

Before I read the passage, just remember some things about the context. We'll turn back a couple pages and just look at a few verses. Romans 1, 1. The point of this book, Paul is a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for what?

The gospel of God. Set apart for the gospel of God. It says, which he promised beforehand, through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his son, who was descended from David, according to the flesh, and declared to be the son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness.

Underline that word power. Think about that word power, because this gospel of grace that Paul preaches, is not a weak, soft, or flimsy gospel. It doesn't end with a declaration of righteousness. It also empowers the believer to trample upon serpents.

So at the end of this introduction to Romans, verses 16 and 17, Paul says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God. For salvation to everyone who believes. Now salvation is the overarching term.

It encompasses both justification and sanctification, and even glorification, that one day we'll go to the presence of God, and leave sin behind entirely. Salvation is the powerful work of God. It's for the Jew first, and also for the Greek.

In it, the righteousness of God is revealed, from faith, for faith. Which means faith from beginning to end. Not just a one-time declaration, but that and an ongoing life of power. Because it says, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

From chapter one, verse 18 to 320, we have the horrendous domain of sin. Sin reigning over all mankind, whether Jew or Gentile. And then that great word in chapter three, verse 21, but now. That's a major transition from sin to justification.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. And we go on to hear that this is a declaration of righteousness to those who believe in Christ. By faith, you are imputed with Christ's righteousness.

In chapter five, we'll learn that you were accounted a sinner based on the fallenness of your federal head, Adam. As your representative, he sinned, and you were guilty with him. Because you were in him.

And with that, you also inherited a sin nature from Adam. And so the problem of sin is dealt with by Christ. His righteousness is credited to you because he's the second Adam. He declares you righteous based on what he did on the cross.

And so that brings us to our passage today. Because it raises the most important question in the mind of the reader. If you're sitting as an unbeliever in Russia or Afghanistan, and you hear that the Christians preach grace, it sounds soft and weak to you because you'll say, well, then people will just go on sinning so that grace would increase.

Look at Romans 6, and this is the problem that all of us must encounter here. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? That's the transition from justification to sanctification in Paul's mind.

Recall I taught in Romans chapter 3 that this form of teaching is called a diatribe. Remember what that is? Paul's writing a diatribe. A diatribe is a long verbal argument where the one making the argument anticipates objections.

And then he himself poses the objection and then answers it. In chapter 3, he said, well, then what's the value of being Jewish if you're not saved by the law? And then Paul explains there were other things.

The Christ came through the Jews. The word of God came through the Jews. And there's much value in the law of God, the moral law of God. He poses a question, then he answers it. Here in chapter 6, he poses the question that sets up his answer.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? What motivation do you have to trample sin under your feet rather than to give in to the temptation? There was a boyfriend who went to visit his girlfriend.

And when he knocked on the door, he discovered that the parents weren't home. And he came into the house and they sat down on the couch.

And before long,.

They started to kiss. And he tried to press her to go farther by saying, I can't control this passion. I can't control the urge. I can't help it. Until all of a sudden, he heard the sound. It was the garage door opening.

And dad had come home.

Don't you know that that young man bolted out the back door? Because the truth of the matter is he could control the passion. It's not that he couldn't stop. It's just he didn't have the motivation. He didn't want to stop.

But see, the fear of judgment, the fear of judgment can take away the practice of sin, can't it? If you live in Taliban Afghanistan, you're not going to steal because they'll chop off your hand. Fear of judgment might keep you in line.

And along come Christians saying, you're declared righteous before you do anything. On the front end, so now you have no fear of judgment. Romans 5 .1, you have peace with God. You're already at peace with God.

There is no more wrath reserved for you. You see the problem? You see why many Christians think, you know what, I'm just going to do this because God's going to forgive me anyway. Chapter 6, verse 1, are we to continue in sin that grace may abound.

I'm going to give you now two reasons why this is not the case with grace, how grace actually strengthens us,.

How Paul says,.

Meganoita, by no means, no. He changes our thinking then he commands us not to think that way. And then he declares victory in verse 14. So the first is baptism. Read with me in Romans 6 .1 -4. 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 in death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, that just means by his glorious power eminently beautifully displayed when Christ came back to life, we too might walk in newness of life.

Did you know that grace justifies you by faith. You are declared righteous and grace destroyed sin's dominion over you because in baptism, you were crucified with Christ and raised to the newness of life.

I did not plan to arrive at Romans 6 on September 8th. This is the providence of God because right after church today, I'm going to jump in my car, drive down to Beach Haven, and I think there's eight or nine new believers who are going to give testimony about the salvation they have in Christ and then we're going to take them into the ocean and put them under water and splash them back out.

Why would we do that? Because it will be cold, but see, we're soldiers. Yes, we can handle this. A good soldier is not afraid of suffering. It will be cold, but the picture is death and resurrection. Baptism, listen, this is very important, is identifying with Christ.

That's why you're baptized in the triune name, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Matthew 28, 19. You're identifying that you're with Jesus. By identity, we need to understand that you are claiming that he is your representative and you are with him now, that your old man was buried when Christ died.

God knew it before the foundation of the world and when he rose, that was your new life and now that you've believed, this life is in you and your old man is dead. Did you know you used to be a slave?

A slave to sin, you had no power over it. Egypt was a land of oppression, slavery, and the children of God were in Egypt, but they were baptized out of slavery when they went through the sea. Did you know that?

As they passed through the waters, the waters opened and separated and they walked through and came out in freedom. 1 Corinthians 10, verse 2, says that Israel there was baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

They were identified with Moses, who was a forerunner of Christ. Christ would be the Deuteronomy 18 greater prophet like Moses, but better. They were identified with him in being set free now to live for God, newness of life, identification.

When Jesus was baptized, what happened? The father spoke from heaven, the spirit descended and landed on his shoulder like a dove and there was Jesus in the flesh, baptized in water. His baptism identified him as the son of God.

Because what did the father say in baptism? This is my son in whom I am well pleased. Baptism identifies. There are other ways in which we are identified with Christ. For example, in his suffering, Christ was baptized in his death.

He says, are you able to be baptized with the baptism with which I will be? When the disciples were asking for blessings, in that he was referring to the cross because he would be drenched in blood, sweating wet on the cross, baptized in suffering because he was identifying with sinners, identity.

He was taking the place of sinners to stand in our stead. And he asks us, are you willing to suffer like a good soldier with the baptism with which I was baptized? And sure enough, the disciples said they would and he told them they would and they died identifying with Christ.

If they had not made a public proclamation of the resurrected Christ, they could have lived peacefully with Rome. The Jews would not have killed him and handed him over to be crucified. But because they were willing to identify with the son of God, they suffered for it.

Here's my point. When you were baptized in water, you identified yourself dead with Christ and a new man resurrected. He represented you in taking your penalty. He also represented you in dying your death and giving you new life.

Is that how you think about yourself? When you think about your life as a Christian, do you think of yourself as a poor, hapless sinner? One who can't help it because you're under the domain of sin? Or like Paul, do you identify Christians as saints?

A saint is a holy one. Do you know that when Christ died and rose, he conquered sin? Not only in principle, but also in its power. We go there now in verses 5 to 11. 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. What does that mean, our old self? Does that mean our heart stopped beating when we got saved? No, it's not the physical man. The old self here refers to the corrupted nature that took over us and had reign over us.

That old man. 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. That word dominion is the issue here.

A ruling principle. Sin, everybody in this room will still sin before you die. Instances of sin against our nature as saints sadly are still a reality of this life. 1 John 1 says if anybody here says that they no longer sin,.

They're a liar.

But what Paul is saying here is that the dominion, verse 9, that ruling principle over you is no longer in power. Verse 10, for the death he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God.

And this is how you ought to think. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God. But don't stop there. In Christ Jesus. Notice verse 5 begins with united with him and verse 11 ends with in Christ Jesus.

So sandwiching this idea here, the concept is union with Christ. It's not just that God declared you righteous, that's justification. Romans 3 .21 to 5 .21. Here we're talking about another principle, sanctification.

You're identified with Christ. More than that, you are in him and he is in you. You have union with God. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead now lives in you. You understand the weight of this.

The strength of this. See, grace strengthens the believer. The most powerful spiritual week of my life happened in June of 1999. I was very much addicted to basketball. I had hoop dreams. And I had other priorities in my life, but God was sort of on the back burner.

Still important to me, but not the power of my life. And I went to North Carolina as a camp counselor for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. It was before my senior year of college. And I flew to North Carolina.

And when I got there, God met me and the first thing he needed to do is break me of my idolatry. I had put so many other things first. And so I needed to surrender to God. And in that surrender, I found release and freedom from sin and such a sweet fellowship with God.

And then he broke my heart for the loss and I began to evangelize for the first time in my life. And so that camp week was so powerful for me. I got on the plane to fly back from North Carolina. We were flying through Atlanta to get back to Tampa.

And I decided whoever sat next to me was gonna hear the gospel. So this man comes and I get out of the aisle seat and I let him pass. He sits in the middle seat. He's my captive audience. I'm ready to share Christ with him.

And so I reached down under the seat in front of me and I pull my sword out of the scabbard. I grab my Bible and as I open and see if he's seeing what I'm doing, you know what I see? He's got a bigger Bible on his tray table.

And I thought, wow, that's an interesting twist. Only his Bible was written in the margins. He must have had like 2015 vision because it was written so small. Every square inch of that Bible was covered with notes and highlights.

Quentin Williams was his name. And for the next two hours from Charlotte to Atlanta, he opened the word of God to me. He taught me before God sent me out to evangelize. And what he said is, go to the book of Ephesians and underline and remember every place it says in Christ.

And then go through the Bible and look for that expression. How many times? It turned out to be maybe 100 or more. Here it says in verse 11, in Christ Jesus. And what he wanted me to understand is that in Christ Jesus, I am a new creation.

I'm not to think of myself as a slave to sin, but as a free man in Christ and more than a conqueror to know that I stand on two good legs. I know who I am in Christ. I know what he wants me to do. If you understand that Christ is in you, you are in Christ.

You don't walk as a victim. You don't feel like sin is too powerful for you. Paul will explain at the end of Romans 16, after saying that we need to be innocent of what is evil and do what's good. He says, the God of peace will soon crush Satan underneath your feet.

Did you catch that?

Underneath your feet. Adam should have crushed that serpent in the Garden of Eden. Instead, he submitted himself. Do you know that when you sin, you are submitting yourself to Satan's power, to the power of sin, to the power of this world, the principles of this world.

And these are the very things that God put under your feet. This is the idea. In verse 11, you must consider yourselves dead to sin. The battle against the flesh, the passions of lust, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

These battles take place in your mind first. And here, this consider means you need to think rightly about who you are in Christ. What it means to have union with Christ. We're still referring here to baptism.

That you died and you are a new man in Christ, with victory over the enemy. Finally, in verses 12 and 13, we come to the first imperatives in the book of Romans. What's an imperative? It's a command. Good job, Bob.

When in the Greek, you have the imperative tense, that voice is commanding you to do something. It's something you have to do and obey. Why do you suppose that Paul waited all the way till chapter six, verse 12, to issue commands for you to do?

It's because the gospel of grace is what God has done for you. It's all the work of Christ. And now, having established that and secured that in your mind, that this is not earning anything from God, He will give you commands.

And here's what they are. The first two in the book of Romans, 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 instruments who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

Do you see in verse 12 where it says, to make you obey its passions? The idea here is that sin is no longer a ruling power in your life. It doesn't have dominion to make you sin. It used to in the old man.

The old man was controlled by the sin nature. He could not resist. In fact, he didn't want to. The old man, the old self, would run hard after sin. But the new man, resurrected in Christ, must not let sin therefore reign.

The power is in you. You can trample on the passions of the flesh, the pride of life, the greed, all of the things that tempt us in this world. When it says, do not present your members to sin, what are the members to which this text refers?

John Gill said, by members he means the powers and faculties of the soul. The Ethiopic version renders it your souls, or the several parts of the body, or both. What is John Gill saying? It is the faculties, the members, whether it's your soulish mind, your will, your thought life, or, and also, your body, your arms, your legs, your hands.

These are the members.

To which Paul is referring.

And he says,.

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness. It's interesting that he uses the term instruments there, because Gill says, the word translated instruments signifies arms,.

Or weapons.

Have you ever heard the expression, the right to bear arms? Does it mean you have a right to carry around other people's arms, or to bear your arms, or show your arms? I mean, some of y 'all think you've got guns,.

But what does it mean.

When it says the right to bear arms?

Weapons.

And the idea here, according to John Gill, is that the instruments.

Are weapons.

They're extensions of your arms, whether you're carrying a sword, or a gun. These are instruments that God has given you to conquer sin in this world. So why would you take an instrument that God has put in your hand, namely your body, your thought life, that belongs to Christ, is consecrated to Christ, and present those things as instruments for unrighteousness?

These instruments belong to Christ. So present your members,.

Your body,.

All that you are, your emotions, your intellect, your will,.

Your body,.

These are your members that are weapons in a war against the evil one. And so we need to think like that and obey the command. Do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness. That's in the imperative.

That's the command. And lastly, one more verse. It's not a command. Look at verse 14. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace. Y 'all remember where we began in verse 1?

What was the question?

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? Verse 14 is a final and conclusive triumphal answer to that question. This is all one unit. Should we think of grace as weak and making you soft?

After all, God's going to forgive you anyway. So just carry on in sin. Continue in sin that grace may abound. God will forgive all the more if you sin all the more. And Paul says no, rather look at the final answer in verse 14.

For sin will have no dominion over you. I think when Paul wrote that, he was yelling that with his pen. He's saying, you are not under law, but under grace. In other words, grace is not weak. Grace is a power for sanctification as well as for justification.

Amen?

Grace is powerful. It is not weak. So in application, be baptized. I mean, that's right here in the text, isn't it? Be baptized in water as an outward proclamation of the victory Christ won for you. Outward physical water baptism doesn't save you, actually.

And I'm sure many of you raised in baptistic circles, you know that, right? What is it? An outward sign of an inward grace. It's not enough, though, to be able to recite that and just assert it. Because the guy from the International Church of Christ or the Mormon Church or the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Oneness Pentecostals, none of them will take your word for it.

Rather, the scripture teaches that baptism is an outward sign of an inward grace.

Where?

Acts chapter 10, verses 44 to 48. You can look this up later. We're told there, Peter preached the gospel having believed the Spirit fell and they were saved even with the sign that the Spirit was on them.

And after that, they were baptized in water. Because Peter will say, well then, what keeps you from being, who can withhold water from these? They've received the Spirit. So the Spirit baptism is an invisible work.

Water baptism is the outer, physical, visible work. Think about this for just a moment. If your salvation depends on water baptism, what if you have a corrupt preacher out there who denies you water baptism till you jump through their hoops and then you die waiting?

Do you go to hell?

No.

What if you get to the place where you're going to baptize and it's frozen solid and you can't get in? And you die out there in the cold. Do you go to hell? No, in fact, I've actually seen videos from Russia where they crush through the ice sheet, get in that cold water and baptize in there and get back out.

So nobody complain in the ocean today, okay?

It's gonna be cold,.

But not like in Russia. Listen, these are human instruments and salvation is inward of the spirit. In fact, Acts 2 .37, there has to be the piercing of the heart, the inner work of the spirit so that a believer would repent and be baptized, the outward work, Acts 2 .38.

Got the point? Another example would be when Paul says, God did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel. So if there's a dichotomy there, 1 Corinthians 1, then preaching the gospel, which includes believing, you have to believe the gospel to be saved, that has to be distinct from being baptized.

So y 'all believe me now? It is an outward symbol of an inward grace. An important symbol though, so each one of us needs to obey God in being water baptized. Just like Jesus was, he set the example, now we go do as he did, Matthew 20 .18, 28, 19, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Is there somebody here that's not been baptized? You don't need to raise your hand, but talk to one of the elders and listen, if you have been baptized, remember that day, think about that day. Romans 6 is telling you that reminds you that your old man is dead and you walk in newness of life.

So we obey the imperatives. The old preacher said, sanctification is moving from having thin skin and a hard heart to having thick skin and a soft heart. I like that. When we're sanctified, we don't get soft.

Grace doesn't make us weak, it makes us tough and strong. 2 Timothy 2 .1, we're strengthened by grace. Titus 2 .11 -14, grace is that principle that strengthens us, not just justifies us. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.

So gracious Father, we thank you so much for your word today. Romans chapter 6, 2 Timothy 2, and we pray now that it would perform this surgery in us to cut away that weakness, let that weakness leave the body Father, that you would make us good soldiers, good athletes, good farmers, in a spiritual sense of the terms.

Strengthen us by grace. Lord, we pray for one another right now that each of us would have victory over the flesh, the sinful passions. We pray that you would make us strong, like Christ, as Paul modeled and all the other apostles, willing to identify with Christ, even into the baptism of suffering,.

Death.

We pray that we would be sanctified. Give us Lord, thick skin, resilient to the world, the flesh and the devil, but soft hearts, filled with love for one another. In Jesus' name, amen.