Romans Chapter 6

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

Romans Chapter 7

00:00
Open up your Bibles to Romans chapter 6.
00:05
We are continuing in our chapter-by-chapter overview of the book of Romans.
00:11
This is not a full exposition because we don't have time to look at every single verse, but we're trying to get the general idea of what Paul taught in his letter to the Romans.
00:23
And so far, we have followed his train of thought from chapter 1, where he began with introducing himself, introducing that the thesis of this letter is the Gospel of God.
00:39
And I often make that distinction.
00:42
I say when we talk about the four, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we say that's the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
00:50
And oftentimes when people talk about Acts, we say that's the Gospel of the Holy Spirit because we see the Holy Spirit going out and forming the church.
00:59
And so Romans sometimes is referred to as the Gospel of God.
01:02
Not that you divide the Father, Son, and Spirit, but Romans is helping us understand who we are from God's perspective.
01:13
And it begins in chapter 1 by saying that God has revealed His wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
01:23
And so that unrighteousness becomes the theme of the next two chapters.
01:27
In the latter part of chapter 1, he talks about the unrighteousness of the Gentile world.
01:34
In chapter 2, he talks about the unrighteousness of those who had the law, which would be the Jewish community.
01:39
And then in chapter 3, he brings it all together by saying all are under sin, all have turned aside, all are opposed to God, and no one seeks after God, no, not even one.
01:50
And so all men are sinners, whether they be Jew or Gentile, everyone needs a Savior.
01:57
In the beginning at the end of chapter 3, or right around the middle of chapter 3, he begins to talk about how men are justified.
02:03
If all men are sinners and all men are opposed to God, how can anyone then be made right with God? And he begins to talk about justification, and he describes justification as a forensic act, and by that the term forensic simply means a legal act, God legally declaring someone just because of the work of Christ.
02:25
They trust in Christ, Christ's death becomes their death, His righteousness becomes their righteousness, and God as the judge can make a legal declaration and say, you are now legally justified.
02:39
And you're justified not by your works, but by faith in Christ.
02:44
Chapter 4, he describes Abraham as being justified by faith, he becomes the model of justification by faith, and then in chapter 5, he describes this justification as being a product of our being in Christ.
03:00
We know that he said there's two people you can be in, you can either be in Adam, and in Adam you are condemned, or you can be in Christ, and in Christ you are justified.
03:11
And so there are only two types of people, we are not divided ultimately by how we look, we're not divided by our color, our language, our nationality, or any of that, we are divided either we are in Adam or we are in Christ.
03:27
And the Bible says in Adam all die, but in Christ all are made alive.
03:31
So that's the distinction of the whole world.
03:34
And whether I am in Russia, or Czechoslovakia, or Burma, or America, if someone's in Christ, they're my brother.
03:43
Because that being in Christ makes a universal brotherhood around the world.
03:49
And so when I take communion on Sunday morning, and I take the bread and the cup, which represents Christ's body and His blood, I'm being reminded that this is one bread, one body all around the world that is united in the person of Jesus Christ.
04:04
So this brings us to the end of chapter 5, where Paul says something very important.
04:12
So with your Bibles, I know I said turn to chapter 6, but I want you to just notice chapter 5 beginning at verse 20.
04:21
Because Paul is talking about the law, and when he refers to the law, he's referring to the law of Moses.
04:27
He says this, Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
04:50
So Paul has just made an important claim.
04:53
He says the law came in to increase the trespass.
04:57
What that means is by giving the law, God showed that we are sinners because we couldn't keep the law, and the more law we have, the more we can't keep it.
05:09
You guys have seen the, I think some of you have seen the video, because I know they show it here sometimes, of the Pilgrim's Progress, where he's trying to get up the mountain, and it's law mountain, and every time he tries to go up, a new law comes up and knocks him back down, and so the law just continually shows how much we are in need of grace.
05:30
And so Paul's argument is where law increases, grace increases, because sin abounds, grace abounds.
05:39
And this leads to a question.
05:41
And the question is this, Well, if sin causes grace to abound, and I want grace to abound, does that mean I should do more sin so that I get more grace? And the answer is no, you're right, but that's the whole question that chapter 6 is based on, is a misunderstanding of how we should see sin as believers.
06:08
So we're going to read chapter 6, and then we're going to pray, and then I'm going to try to give an understanding of it.
06:15
So let's begin chapter 6, verse 1.
06:20
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means.
06:27
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 the newness of life.
06:45
For if we had been unified with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.
06:51
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.
07:00
For one who has died has been set free from sin.
07:02
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.
07:06
We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again.
07:09
Death no longer has dominion over Him.
07:11
For the dead He died, He died to sin once for all.
07:14
But the life He lives, He lives to God.
07:16
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
07:22
Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
07:27
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.
07:38
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
07:43
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means.
07:48
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
08:13
I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.
08:17
For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.
08:26
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
08:30
But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
08:38
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and it's into eternal life.
08:46
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.
08:54
Let's pray.
08:56
Father, there is so much in this one chapter.
08:58
Lord, we certainly will not be able to address everything, but I pray that what we do address would be used to edify these men, to draw them closer to You.
09:10
And Lord, if there are those here today who are saved, I pray that You would encourage them in their faith and walk with Christ to hate their sin and to love righteousness.
09:21
And Lord, if there are those who are here who do not yet know Christ, I pray that today they would see Christ as beautiful and as necessary and as the only one who can provide them salvation from sin.
09:35
I pray, Lord, all these things in Jesus' name and for His sake.
09:41
Amen.
09:47
So I'm going to write a question on the board.
10:02
Does sin matter? Now the reason why I ask that, I know some of you say, of course.
10:07
Well, the reason why I ask this question is because I think that within a context, this question can be more nuanced than we may originally think.
10:24
Because if someone were to say, does sin matter? The answer is obviously yes.
10:29
But we have to then begin to break down the question of in what way does sin matter? Because if a person is an atheist, let's just take for instance, someone says, I don't believe in God.
10:44
Then in that sense, they may say, sin doesn't matter.
10:49
Because it's just the moral behavior of people who are ultimately sacks of stardust, who came from nothing and are going back to nothing and there's no ultimate meaning in the universe.
11:00
Yet at the same time, if you were to say to that person who is an atheist, if they say sin doesn't matter and you steal their wallet, then they might say, don't do that.
11:11
That's my wallet.
11:12
You say, but wait a minute, you just said sin don't matter.
11:15
No, it matters when it affects me.
11:17
Right? So in that sense, even the atheist would become a moralist if his rights were violated.
11:27
Right? Even the atheist has to say, we have to have some standard.
11:32
We can't just all live as the animals.
11:36
We have to have some moral standard.
11:38
In fact, recently, a very famous noted atheist made a point in one of his lectures.
11:45
And this is the man who declares, he declares there is no God, even though I think he knows in his heart that's not true, but he says he believes there is no God.
11:53
But he said, he said that the better way for us to live is to live as the Christians tell us to live.
12:04
And that is don't steal, don't lie, you know, doing others as you have them done to you, those things, because those are the best ways to live.
12:14
Even if you have no belief in God, then there has to be an understanding that there's a right and wrong way to be.
12:22
And if everybody lived like there was no God, in fact, one notable theologian did say, if there is no God, all things are permissible.
12:30
If everybody lived like there was no God, then the world would be out of control.
12:34
It would be hell on earth.
12:36
It would be anarchy, right? So when you ask the question first, does sin matter? The answer immediately is, even if you don't believe in God, the idea of right and wrong has to have some place, right? There has to be some realization that goodness and virtue is distinct from badness and wickedness and we want to be on the side of the angels, not on the devils, because if everybody's on the side of the devils, then eventually the world's going to turn itself inside out, right? So yes, sin matters in that regard, but there's a bigger question.
13:14
Okay, so if we ask the question, how does sin matter? We say, does sin matter? Yes.
13:18
How does sin matter? Well, first and foremost, the Bible says sin brings death.
13:25
In Genesis chapter three, the Bible says the first sin occurred among men.
13:32
We talked about last week that there was sin in the heart of the devil before this, but among men, the first sin occurred with Eve taking the fruit, giving it to Adam.
13:41
He ate and he ate.
13:43
According to scripture, he ate as our representative.
13:45
So his sin became effectuous for all of us.
13:48
And when he sinned, he affected everyone and he brought death into the world.
13:52
Remember what we read last week? In Romans chapter five, verse 12, it says through one man, sin entered the world and death through sin and death spread to all men because all sin.
14:03
So in that case, the consequences of sin affect everyone.
14:08
Every one of us has experienced death in some form or fashion.
14:12
Maybe your parents have died.
14:13
Maybe you've had a child that has died.
14:15
Maybe you have a friend who has died.
14:17
I mean, we all have experienced death in some way or another, and we see that and we, and we feel like there's something wrong with it.
14:25
And it's, that's true because death is not the design.
14:29
God created life for life, not life for death.
14:33
And death is a virus that was entered into the creation order.
14:38
God created life and man brought sin and sin brings death.
14:42
And so there's consequence.
14:43
So when you say the sin matter, yeah, because it brings the worst consequence of all.
14:47
One day I'm going to either, I'm either going to outlive my wife, or I'm going to not outlive my wife.
14:54
But one of us is going to go first.
14:57
My wife and I have been married 23 years.
15:00
One day, one of us will be alone.
15:04
Unless we die together.
15:07
And some, you know, potentially, you know, we die together in an accident, or maybe we just both, both lay down at night and both die together like the notebook.
15:16
You know, there's, there's always, but, but most more than likely she will outlive me, right? And there's going to be a sense of loneliness and brokenness and sadness, even though she would believe that I'm with the Lord, she's still going to be without me.
15:33
Or like I said, if she goes, I'm going to be without her.
15:36
And so there's this idea where does sin matter? Yeah, it matters because it separates us from our loved ones.
15:42
It hurts.
15:44
Sin brings death.
15:45
And death is the worst thing that we have to face in life.
15:53
But then the next question is, okay, all right.
15:55
But Jesus came to deal with sin.
15:58
Yes, he did.
16:00
He came so that he would become the penalty bearer for sin.
16:06
Because what is the penalty for sin? Death and hell.
16:11
Jesus dies on the cross.
16:13
He receives God's wrath in my place.
16:16
And so he becomes the penalty bearer.
16:20
And now I don't have the penalty of hell anymore.
16:23
I still have to die because I'm in a, I'm in a sinful flesh that has to be buried so that it can be raised.
16:29
The Bible says like a seed going into the ground and being, uh, coming to life.
16:34
I have to be dead and so that I can be raised to a glorified body.
16:39
So I know that has to happen, but I have to die.
16:41
But when I die, I don't have the penalty for sin anymore.
16:45
So the penalty has been erased in the sense that I don't have to go to hell.
16:50
If you trust in Christ, you don't have to go to hell, even though you deserve it.
16:54
Don't ever think you don't, but you don't have to go there.
16:59
So now the question is, well, does sin matter to me? Because if I had been saved, if I have been justified, if my penalty has been paid, then man, what does it matter if I continue to sin? That's the question Paul is dealing with.
17:23
Does sin matter for the believer? And the answer he gives is absolutely not in the sense that it's going to cause you to go from being saved to unsaved, but that that was not the life that you have been saved for.
17:45
Christ did not save you to continue to live in sin.
17:51
There was a man, and this is a true story, and I've told it here before, so if you've heard it before, repetition is the key to learning, so you hear it again.
18:02
There was a man who I know, he's my best friend from high school, and he was in college with a dorm room, or he shared an apartment with another man while they were going to college.
18:16
Well, this other man, this was very early in the age of the internet.
18:20
By the way, I'm older than the internet.
18:23
Some of you guys are too, right? So I've been around longer than Google.
18:29
So yeah, you too? Yeah.
18:32
Well, back in the late 90s, they had things called chat rooms that people would get into, and they would make contact with other people in their local area, and sometimes they would use those to create rendezvous, you know, to meet up and do things together, and oftentimes they would be unseemly things.
18:53
Well, this man that my friend lived with loved to watch TBN, and he loved to watch the Christian preachers on TBN, and he would watch all of these talking heads on TV that were telling him about Jesus.
19:08
So he considered himself a strong Christian because he watched TBN on the television all the time, but he would then go to his computer and he would type out instant messages to women in the area who were willing to meet with him and have one-night stands.
19:33
So here's a guy who's having his spiritual life in the television through TBN, then going and typing, hey, let's go have sex, and he would meet these women and have sex.
19:46
And this was what he would say as he was leaving the apartment, according to my friend.
19:53
He would look at my friend, and he would say, I'm on my way out to sin so that grace can abound.
20:03
Like that was his quote.
20:06
I'm on my way to go sin so that grace can abound.
20:11
Now first of all, if you're a believer in Christ, that should just turn your stomach.
20:15
Amen? I mean, just to think that I'm just going to go sin and live it up just because my sin increases grace, I'm just going to go live it up.
20:25
That is the very thing Paul asks in verse 1.
20:30
What shall we say? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? And the next words is, well, this is interesting because depending on your Bible, it will be translated different.
20:47
In the King James Version, it says God forbid.
20:52
In the ESV, it says by no means.
20:56
I think the NIV may say, may it never be, something to that effect.
21:02
But in the Greek language, this is the superlative adversative, meaning it's the highest way of saying no.
21:14
Okay? So the word in Greek is may, which I know some of you probably can't read that, but that's fine.
21:24
Those are the Greek letters mu and eta, which makes the word may, which is the adversative no.
21:35
And then the next word is the word genomai.
21:45
And the word genomai means being.
21:51
And a better way to think of this is the word genomai or genoita is the idea where we get the word gene, which is like if I say your genes or that's what makes up you.
22:08
Right? Your genes.
22:09
That's your being.
22:10
That's who you are, right? And so the genomai is where we get the word gene.
22:16
So the idea is being.
22:18
The idea is something that exists.
22:21
And so if you think of existence as the meaning here, Paul is saying such thinking should not exist in the mind of a believer.
22:35
Such thinking should not even come into our mind.
22:40
Does that make sense what I'm saying? It's like that thought shouldn't even materialize in your brain.
22:48
Because if you're thinking that as a Christian, what I ought to do is go out and be a worse sinner so that Christ would be a better Savior.
22:57
That's just kooky talk.
22:59
I mean, it's just that doesn't work because that's not what Christ saved you to do to be a worse sinner.
23:09
And so he's giving this, as I said, I know it's a strange way of saying superlative adversative.
23:15
It's the highest way of saying no.
23:17
That's why the King James translators translated it.
23:21
God forbid that we should think like that.
23:26
May God forbid that thought from even coming into our mind.
23:34
Because if we are saying that the better sinner we are, the better Savior Christ will be, then what we are saying is that Christ saved us.
23:45
Not that we would live like Him, but that we would live opposed to Him.
23:51
And what does Romans chapter 8 say? Romans chapter 8 says that we have been destined to be conformed to the image of God's Son.
24:03
That's the reason why He saved us.
24:06
Not that we would be conformed to the world, but that we would be conformed to Christ.
24:13
You were saved that you might be more like Christ, not less like Christ.
24:17
You were saved that you might be more holy, not less holy.
24:22
You were saved so that you would be dead to sin, not reveling in sin.
24:28
Does this make sense? And you say, why do you keep saying it? Because in my heart of hearts, I know that people just don't get this.
24:38
Because all the time, people sin as Christians and you say, brother, you're sinning.
24:44
And they say, oh, that's okay, I'm under grace.
24:48
Yeah, but that's not an excuse.
24:50
Yes, you're under grace.
24:52
Yes, your penalty has been paid, but that's not an excuse to continue living in sin.
24:58
And if we continue living in sin with the attitude that grace can abound, then we are being disobedient to Christ and ultimately to the Scriptures, which tell us not to do that.
25:15
And that's the key to all of this is some people believe that as a Christian, there are no standards.
25:27
And sometimes they'll even quote, they'll quote verse 14.
25:34
They'll say, we're not under law.
25:36
We're under grace.
25:38
As if to say that because we're not under law, that Christ has no standard.
25:45
But let me challenge that for a moment.
25:48
When Paul says that we are not under law in verse 14, he is not saying that we have no standards.
25:55
In fact, I would challenge you to think this way.
25:59
The ethical standards in the new covenant are even more powerful than the ethical standards under the old covenant, even though it's the same God.
26:10
The old covenant law dealt primarily with the external things.
26:15
Don't eat, don't touch, don't taste.
26:18
Paul talks about this in Colossians 2.
26:21
But what does the new covenant deal with? What's in here? Jesus says what comes out of the mouth is what's in the heart.
26:31
He says if you look at a woman with lust, you've committed adultery with her where? In your heart.
26:37
And so Jesus deals with the inner man.
26:40
And He calls us to righteousness not just in the externals.
26:45
It's one thing if I don't steal from you.
26:48
But if I sit all the time staring at what you have, wishing it were mine.
26:54
Well, what's that called? Envy, but it's also called in the commandments covetousness.
27:01
Right? If I'm sitting there, hey, I like that hat, brother.
27:05
And I'm not going to steal it from you because I'm not a thief, but I'm going to sit here every day just hoping that something happens and you leave it sitting somewhere so I can grab it.
27:15
Because I want that hat.
27:18
Anything, right? This happens a lot with men with their wives.
27:23
A guy's not happy with his wife.
27:26
He sees another man.
27:27
His wife is more attractive.
27:29
His wife is more jovial and fun.
27:32
She likes to go out and do things.
27:34
And he thinks, well, my wife sits at home and doesn't want to do anything.
27:37
So he begins to fantasize about another man's wife.
27:40
And then he begins to have a conversation with her when nobody's looking about how beautiful she is or how funny she is and begins to have that talk.
27:48
And then it begins to build into a relationship where she's not treated well either.
27:52
And so now they begin their relationship and it's all based on what? It's all based on the idea that, hey, I want that and I should be able to have it.
28:01
No one should be able to tell me I shouldn't have that.
28:05
Whether it's a person or a place or a thing or whatever.
28:08
I should be able to have it because there's no standards.
28:13
Beloved friends, brothers, as Christians, we do have a standard.
28:19
And the standard is Jesus.
28:23
You know, Jesus never coveted another man's wife ever in 33 years.
28:30
Jesus never coveted another man's property in 33 years.
28:35
We talk about the perfection of Christ.
28:37
We know He never sinned.
28:39
He never sinned externally, but He also never sinned internally.
28:43
I don't even understand how that works.
28:46
Christ went 33 years.
28:47
I can't go 33 minutes without struggling with some form of sin in my mind or in my heart.
28:55
And so what is my command? Be like my captain.
29:00
By the way, if you've never heard me say that before, I always talk about Christ as the captain of my ship.
29:04
When I became a Christian, I got off the ship of the world and I got on the ship that's Christ's and now He's the captain.
29:13
So now He's the commander-in-chief.
29:16
Everything else is subject to Him.
29:19
And the Bible says that.
29:19
The Bible says everything in the world will be made a footstool to Him.
29:23
That He is the King and the commander of the whole world.
29:27
And therefore, could I look at Jesus in the face and say to Him, You don't care if I sin, right? What kind of foolishness would that be to the one who never sinned to look at Him and say, Yeah, you don't care, right? Absolutely not.
29:44
Now, I want to very clearly say something.
29:47
I want to stop before I go any further.
29:49
I am not telling you that as a Christian that you're not going to sin.
29:54
We are sinful men in sinful flesh.
29:58
And I already told you, I can't go 33 minutes.
30:00
I'm not saying you're not going to sin.
30:01
What I am saying is you can't use grace as an excuse for sin.
30:08
You can't say, because I'm under grace, my sin don't matter.
30:12
That's the question.
30:13
Does sin matter? The answer is, even as a believer, the answer is yes.
30:20
Well, is it going to send me to hell? No, that's not the point.
30:23
The point is sin is opposed to the God who saved you.
30:27
Therefore, we are to hate our sin as much as we love our Savior.
30:33
Go ahead, brother.
30:44
Okay.
30:49
I do want to build up to that point, but I'll go ahead and answer the question since you are asking.
30:53
At least I assume because you made a statement, but it seems like you're asking the question, in what way does it not have dominion over you? First of all, sin does not have a dominion in regard to penalty because we have been saved from the penalty of sin.
31:05
And in that sense, we are no longer under the anvil that has been raised above our head that's about to break at any moment and crush us.
31:13
So, first of all, it's penalty.
31:14
But also, in this context, we do have, and this is the thing people, I do think we have to understand, we do have a different relationship to sin than the world because we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit.
31:32
And so now, the first thing we have is the recognition of what sin is and how sin affects us.
31:40
Second thing, he talks about earlier, he talks about being made alive in Christ.
31:47
The picture that I often give is the picture of a stream of water, like a river, with fish that have died that are all going down the stream.
31:57
Because if dead fish float to the top, they go wherever the stream takes them.
32:01
So as the stream is taking them down, they're all dead.
32:05
One comes alive by a miracle and now he begins to swim against the stream.
32:12
Well, swimming against the stream is hard, but he's not under the dominion of death anymore.
32:18
He now has life.
32:20
And so now he can swim against the stream.
32:22
He might get hit in the face with dead fish.
32:24
He might get hit in the face with some sticks.
32:27
He may be tired sometimes and give up swimming.
32:30
And that does happen.
32:32
And our confession, the confession that you guys use, the 1689 Confession, it talks about how sin coming into our lives for a season, even as believers, and sometimes believers can fall into serious sin for a season, but that sin is not your master.
32:49
And we can overcome it by the power of Christ.
32:52
So this is the idea of dominion.
32:55
The idea is you were in the dominion of death, now you're in the dominion of life.
32:59
You were dead in sin, now you're alive in Christ.
33:02
You're swimming upstream and it is a difficult life because now the whole world, everything around us wants us to sin.
33:09
From the billboards with the women, with their parts hanging out, to the internet encouraging us to drink and do drugs.
33:18
And people around us, it's like we're constantly swimming against that stream.
33:22
But we're alive.
33:24
We're no longer in the dominion of death.
33:26
We're in the dominion of life.
33:27
So that's what that means.
33:29
Hopefully it makes sense.
33:31
Alright, so now let's go back up to verse 2 because I do want to, or verse 3 rather, because he mentions baptism.
33:39
And I do think this is an important concept that we need to understand.
33:44
And in verse 3 he says, Do you not know that all of us who've 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 the newness of life.
34:00
This is the illustration I just gave.
34:02
You were dead, and you've been raised to life in Christ.
34:05
Dominion of death, now you're in the dominion of Christ.
34:09
And the baptism here is a picture of your conversion.
34:16
Understand this.
34:18
Baptism by itself has no power to save.
34:23
If you don't trust in Christ, and you get baptized, guess what? All you did was get wet.
34:29
That's it.
34:31
And a lot of people do that.
34:32
I was 8 years old.
34:34
I didn't trust in Christ, but I wanted to be baptized because that's what people did.
34:39
I saw people in church be baptized.
34:41
I wanted to get in the water.
34:42
Water's fun.
34:44
8 year olds, right? So I got in the water.
34:46
I was baptized, but I wasn't any more saved when I came out than when I went in.
34:51
At 12 years old, my mother, who goes to a Pentecostal church, she told me, you're 12 now.
34:59
You've reached the age of accountability, which is what they believe.
35:03
At 12 years old, you become a guilty party for your sin.
35:07
Up until that point, if you died, you'd go straight to heaven, according to them.
35:10
But now that you're 12, you're accountable.
35:13
So she made me get baptized again.
35:15
Guess what? Still didn't trust in Jesus.
35:17
So now I'm double dipped, but not saved.
35:22
At 19 years old, the Lord saved me.
35:26
I was in my truck.
35:27
I was driving home from America Online where I worked.
35:29
I was weeping in my truck.
35:31
I had gone through several weeks of depression and difficulty because I realized I was lost and didn't know God.
35:37
And I cried out for God to save me.
35:39
And I pulled over to the side of the road right next to Island Point Apartments on Broward Road because that's where I lived.
35:45
And I wept in my truck there on that road.
35:48
I don't know if you guys know where that is.
35:51
Yeah, yeah.
35:52
I lived there.
35:54
Well, that was where my wife and I were living.
35:55
And I was weeping as I was praying to God to save me.
36:00
So I believe God did a work in my heart at 19.
36:04
But I didn't get baptized right away because I had already been baptized twice.
36:08
So I thought, why do it again? I didn't understand theologically that salvation occurs and baptism comes after.
36:17
So my baptism was over here.
36:20
Salvation was here.
36:21
So I had to come to the conclusion that I needed to be scripturally and properly baptized.
36:26
And when I was 24, I was actually the speaker at a camp.
36:30
I was speaking to a group of young people.
36:32
During the camp, I came to the conclusion that I had not been baptized properly and I fell under strong conviction.
36:39
And I asked the man who was there who was the head of the camp.
36:42
Brother Jim, he was the leader.
36:44
I said, would you baptize me in the pool? And that night, we all gathered around the pool and he baptized me.
36:51
And it was my legitimate, for real, one-time baptism that really mattered.
36:56
Now, was I saved before I was baptized? Yes.
36:59
But baptism is the sign of entrance into the New Covenant.
37:06
So even though I had already entered in the New Covenant by faith, I didn't have the sign of that entrance that is an important part of what it means to be part of that family, that kingdom.
37:18
And so Paul is using baptism here as an analogy for salvation because in the first century, when you believed, you were baptized immediately.
37:28
And so if somebody wasn't baptized, they would say what? They didn't believe.
37:33
Yeah, because it wasn't that baptism caused salvation, but baptism accompanied salvation.
37:40
Everyone who was saved was baptized.
37:42
And so if you weren't baptized, you weren't saved.
37:45
Not because it caused it, but because it was a natural part of what it meant to be a Christian.
37:50
And so if a person said, I'm not going to be baptized, they would say, well, you're not being obedient to Christ.
37:54
Right? Baptism is an act of obedience.
37:56
So here's what he's saying.
37:59
Do you not know that all of us who've been baptized, meaning the full order of understanding who have believed in Jesus and have received the sign because that's what baptism is.
38:10
Do you not all know that you who have been baptized into Christ were baptized into his death because baptism is a picture.
38:18
This is why I do believe going under the water is a right way of doing it.
38:24
I know some churches pour water.
38:27
I know some churches sprinkle water.
38:30
And that's their conviction.
38:31
And I'm not going to stand up here and condemn them for their conviction.
38:34
But I personally believe that there is a symbolic reason for laying the person down in the water because what it symbolizes in this passage is being buried.
38:50
In fact, when I do a baptism in our church, I always tell the person being baptized, I say, hey, look, listen.
38:57
When I baptize you, don't freak out because I'm going to hold you down for a second.
39:06
I don't go, bloosh, and come right back up.
39:09
I put them down and I hold them down only for a beat, you know, Mississippi kind of thing, right? And the reason why is I want the water to go over them completely.
39:19
If you do it too fast, they'll come up dry here because they don't go all the way under, right? And I want them to be completely under the water when I bring them up because their symbolic nature of being buried, right? And you're not buried if your face is still sticking out, right? So I say, hold your breath.
39:39
We're going to go under the water and I'm going to hold you there for a beat.
39:43
And then I'm going to bring you up as a picture of being raised with Christ.
39:49
And so everybody's prepared for that.
39:52
We do that.
39:53
I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, buried with Christ.
39:57
And I hold you down for a second and then raised to new life.
40:02
And that's what baptism is the symbol of.
40:04
It's the symbol of the change that has occurred.
40:07
We went from being dead in sin, according to Ephesians 2, to being alive in Christ.
40:15
And that's the whole point of this whole chapter is how can we, who have been made alive in Christ, how can we say to Christ, well, I'm alive in You, but it hasn't changed me.
40:30
I'm alive in You, but there's no difference.
40:36
I tell you this, if you're in Christ, you're not going to be perfect, but you're also not going to be the same.
40:44
I'll say it again.
40:45
If you're in Christ, you're not going to be perfect, but you're not going to be the same.
40:51
St.
40:52
Augustine, however you want to say it, he was a man who was a rabble rouser.
40:59
He was a womanizer.
41:01
He was a man who enjoyed the life of debauchery.
41:07
He had mistresses.
41:09
He had all the things that accompanied sinful life.
41:14
His mother prayed for him to be saved.
41:17
And one day, he was saved.
41:21
There's a story that goes along with that.
41:22
The phrase tolelege, which means take up and read.
41:25
He took up the Scriptures and he read the Scriptures and God saved him through reading the Scriptures.
41:29
And so he was legitimately saved through the Word.
41:35
Later, he's walking through the market and one of his old mistresses sees him and she runs up to him and she says, Augustine, Augustine, it is I! And he says, yes, madam, but it is no longer I.
41:56
He was saying to her, I'm not the same man that I used to be because Christ has changed my life.
42:04
Not perfect.
42:06
I'm not perfect.
42:07
But I'm not the same.
42:10
If we say we're going to continue in sin so that grace can abound, what we're saying is Christ really didn't change me.
42:18
But if Christ has changed us, we'll say with the Apostle Paul, shall we continue in sin so that grace can abound? No way.
42:26
Absolutely not.
42:28
May it never be.
42:29
God forbid.
42:31
Let's pray.
42:33
Father, I thank you for your Word.
42:35
I thank you for your truth.
42:36
I pray that you'll be with these men now.
42:38
I pray that your Word will penetrate their hearts and remind us all that if we are in Christ, we are a new creation.
42:46
Old things have passed away and new things have come.
42:49
Help us to live in the newness of Christ.
42:51
In Jesus' name, Amen.