Wanted Dead or Alive

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Turn your Bibles to the most important sanctification verse found in the
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New Testament. Go ahead, the one that's most important, the one that when you say, I'm struggling with sin,
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I'd like to say no to sin more by the grace of God, and I'd like to say yes to righteousness more.
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When I'm struggling with being a Christian, with a husband, being a wife, being a child, a student, and I'm really dealing with sin and I'd like to kill it,
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I'd like to mortify it, what verse do you turn to? What book of the Bible do you turn to?
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What chapter? If you've got to have one chapter out of all the Bible that's your desert island sin eradication chapter, what chapter might that be?
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Sadly, it's in your bulletin, so turn your Bibles to Roman chapter 6. I was wondering where you would turn your
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Bible. Remember, beloved, if anybody ever asks you those questions, always turn to Romans and you're in pretty good territory.
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There should be a crease on your Bible in Romans chapter 5 and 6 because this is critical information for us as we have a desire impelled by the
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Spirit to say yes to Christ -like living, to say with affirming hearts,
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Lord, I'd like to live for your son. This is a chapter that helps Christians deal with sin and helps
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Christians act righteously. For those who aren't Christians, we would have to back up a little bit and say, let's look at the book of Romans and it has 16 chapters and the first three and a half deal with the issue of sin.
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Sin is a reality, Paul knows it's a reality and Paul says when it comes to sin, Gentiles sin and are given over to sin.
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Jews, even though they have the oracles of God, still sin. There's a conscience that drives us and compels us to say we fall short of this great glory of God.
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But thankfully, God has not left us in our sin like He did the fallen angels. God has sent a
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Savior, a Rescuer, a King named Christ Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords and He, Romans chapter 3b, 4 and 5, say that He's justified us,
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He's declared us righteous. Based on His work, we stand before God holy and blameless.
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Why? Because we stand before the triune God, the holy
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God, not based on our own merits or our own works but based on Christ the Son's perfect work.
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So in a sense, when God sees us and He sees us in Christ, He sees us perfectly holy because we have an alien holiness.
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We have a different righteousness, not our own but the righteousness of another and that other is
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Christ Jesus, the perfect God and the perfect man. And so then you think in logical progression, if sin has been dealt with and now we stand before God justified by faith alone, through Christ alone, by grace alone, what's the next step?
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And chapters 6 and 7 in the book of Romans deal with the topic of sanctification and that's where we'll park today.
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As we would expand the trajectory out, chapter 8 deals with security, chapters 9, 10 and 11, the sovereignty of God dealing specifically with Israel and then chapters 12, 13, 14, 15 on how we serve in light of who we are, chapter 16, salutations and a bunch of other things.
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So if you think about Romans again, sin, chapters 1, 2 and 3a, salvation, chapter 3b, 4 and 5, sanctification, 6 and 7, security, chapter 8, chapters 9, 10 and 11, sovereignty, chapters 12 through 15, service and then chapter 16, salutation and closing.
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So we're going to look specifically here in Romans chapter 6 this morning, taking a minor detour from Matthew due to the snow day and due to my travel schedule.
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Romans chapter 6. Let me read you what James Montgomery Boyce said and I think you'll be now interested in what he says.
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By the way, I think you're interested already because you're here on the snow day. Finally, I've been able to identify the elect in the church.
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No, sorry. To understand this statement,
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James Boyce says, is to understand how to live a holy life. And because it is the key to sanctification, now listen to Boyce, I would go so far as to say that Romans 6, 2 is the most important verse in the
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Bible for believers in evangelical churches to understand today. If you could go to James Boyce when he was alive and say,
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I'd like to deal with my holy life. I'd like to say no to sin more. I'd like to be a better Christian.
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I'd like by the spirit's power. Of course, this isn't moralism, but I'd like to say, yes, Lord, I want to live like you.
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I want to act like Christ. What's the verse out of all the Bible to look at? And Boyce would say
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Romans chapter 6, verse 2. And this whole chapter in Romans is dealing with Christ, not only as our substitutionary redeemer, but Christ as our representative.
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And so today we're going to look at Romans chapter 6 in kind of a cursory view, looking at four key words.
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And if you get these four revolutionary words, you will get Romans 6. Four key words that as we look at Romans 6, next time you read it, you'll say,
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I see it. The thing is opening up in my mind, and I don't say Romans 6 is one of those difficult chapters.
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If you're like me, I default to chapters like Romans 5. Oh, look at the benefits of justification.
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If you're like me, I love to read Romans chapter 8. Therefore, there's now what? No condemnation for those who are in Christ.
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The operative justification is a legal declaration of condemnation. And for us as Christians, we have a risen
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Savior who stands in our stead. And we love Romans chapter 8, but I have a sub -goal today.
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Besides teaching you the text, I want you to love Romans chapter 6. I want you to say,
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I don't need some kind of how -to book to deal with sin. I need Romans chapter 6.
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It spells it all out. God is a wonderful Father to us, and He has not played hide -and -seek when it comes to sanctification.
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He has not said, well, you just figure it out, or you go to church with, let's figure out our love language for the day, and then we'll get it.
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No, we need to understand Romans chapter 6 as Christians so we can respond to God's great work at Calvary.
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Now, to get the context, let's start with Romans 5 .17. Build a little context, and then we'll get to those four revolutionary words that you need to understand to help you say yes to Christ Jesus and no to yourself and sin.
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Romans 5 .17, as Paul is comparing Adam and Christ, he says,
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For if by the transgression of the one, of course we know that's Adam, death reigned through the one.
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It had a field day, as it were. Much more, Paul likes to argue that way, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one,
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Jesus Christ. And so Adam, the one representative, and Christ, the one representative, you see the comparison in how much greater
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Jesus Christ is. Verse 18, So then, as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, all those who are in Adam, every person ever born besides Christ, condemnation reigned, and this one transgression affected more.
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Even so, through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men.
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Verse 19, For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, capital
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O, the one Christ Jesus, the many, all those in him will be made righteous.
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And the law came in that transgression, in that the transgression might increase. Verse 20, But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
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That as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our
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Lord. Now, because of all that, Paul starts with this questioning, with this kind of question and answer to stimulate your thinking.
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And he says in chapter 6, verse 1, what? He starts off with a question, What shall we say then?
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In light of what's happened in chapter 1, 2, and 3 with our pervasive sin, how
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God has rescued us in chapter 3, 4, and 5, this great work that Christ has done, what shall we say then?
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What is the response? And you see that often in scripture, don't you? Here's God's revelation, and it demands a response.
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Why do we sing a hymn after the sermon's over? Some churches like to just stay quiet and reflect upon the service.
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Well, we sing a hymn because after we've heard the word of God preached, we want to respond. There's some kind of response to the truth that must be there.
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So what's the response to the truth of chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5? What shall we say then?
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He asks another question. Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? Why do people say that?
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Are we to just start sinning with more determination so that God can show off His grace?
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You say, Who would ever say something like that? Rasputin did. He was an advisor to the
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Romanov family in Russia, and he said, You know, if you're just kind of a lightweight sinner,
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God doesn't show Himself as such a great Savior because He just has a few sins to forgive you for.
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But if you run full throttle, full bore, you open up that accelerator to sin, and you just go for it, then
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God covers all those sins, and He shows Himself on display. Is that the way we're to act?
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Well, we know that what God has done for us should never be an enticement to sin, an encouragement to sin.
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No. But people also look at this verse, and they'll say this.
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If, in fact, Jesus has died for all my sins past, present, and future, if, in fact, I can't sin my way out of the kingdom, if, in fact,
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Jesus has, based on His work, imputed all His righteousness to me and all my sin has been imputed to Him, why not sin?
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They ask Luther this. They ask Whitefield this. Roman Catholic friends of mine ask me this.
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And so Paul is going to give an answer. If God declares you as perfectly righteous as a Christian, why should you live for Christ?
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And that's what we're going to see right here. If salvation is all of God, it's all of grace, then why do we live like we live?
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I like to sin. God likes to forgive. What a perfect match. Paul says, no, we aren't to continue in sin that grace might increase.
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Justification by faith alone does not lead to a life of sin. So what we'll do is we'll look at Romans 6, verse 2, and we're almost to those four words, but not quite yet.
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Still more introduction. Romans 6, 2. To answer the question is to answer it. May it never be.
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Who has the authorized version here? King James. What's it say? It's a Sunday morning, snow day.
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What's it say? God forbid. Are we to sin so God can display
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Himself? God forbid. Don't let it cross your mind. Paul says this statement, these two words in the
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Greek, often, and it's almost as if he wants to kind of grab you by the shoulders, half in love and half with kind of a little squeeze to get your attention.
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How could you let it cross your mind? No, no, translated the NEB. J .B.
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Phillips' translation. Here's how he translates it. It's fascinating. What a ghastly thought.
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Are we supposed to sin like mad now because we're forgiven? What a ghastly thought. And Paul uses this idiom, and it's full of strength and full of weight to say, don't ever try it.
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No way, Jose, you could say. We have a Jose here now, I guess.
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Paul is shocked. He's repelled. You take a magnet and turn it the opposite way to another magnet, what does it do?
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It just pushes it away. It's repelled. This is a repulsive thought for Paul. May it never be.
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And then he asks another question, and to ask it is to answer it again. How shall we who died to sin, chapter 3b, 4 and 5, still live in it?
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It's impossible. We can't. We ought not to even think that way.
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Died, if you look at the text, it's a single action in the past. We died.
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Somebody else made us dead. We didn't crucify ourselves. We were made dead to sin. No legal claim on us any longer.
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Lloyd -Jones says, what is the business of grace? It is to allow us to continue in sin? No. It is to deliver us from the bondage and the reign of sin, and to put us under the reign of grace.
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Now let's come to those four words, four revolutionary words that help us zero in with the struggle of sin.
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And what you're not going to find is kind of a checklist. You're not going to find if I just go home and do these things.
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You're not going to find kind of five easy ways to take care of something. You're going to get a big picture to think through Romans, chapter 6, in this thematic outline, four key words.
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And the first word is think. You must think. Kind of a forgotten word in our society, don't you think?
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Kind of a forgotten word in churches where entertainment and emoting and kind of the lazy boy mentality is out there.
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Everything dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. It doesn't take you very long to read the book of Leviticus to figure out that God wants precise worship.
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Jesus said, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your what? Mind. In the
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Old Testament, the Shema said love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength.
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I thought you weren't supposed to add to Scripture. Jesus says your heart, soul, mind, and strength. He seems to be adding to Scripture.
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Isn't he not supposed to do that? But in the word heart back in the Hebrew, it was implicit in the word heart that it contained the mind.
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We think head knowledge, heart knowledge. Jews don't think that way.
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Greeks ought not to think that way, although sadly they do. You've heard it said well, you know, I understand it with my head but not my heart.
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And when Jesus says you love God with all your heart, he means your mission control center, not just your emotions but your mind as well.
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Sinclair Ferguson said how we think is one of the great determining factors in how we live. You've got to think.
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Christianity is a thinking person's religion. Dare I quote someone who's anonymous?
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The probable reason such people get lost in thought is because it is unfamiliar territory to them.
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Even Emerson said the hardest thing in the world to do is to think. And when it comes to sin in our lives and to say, you know, my selfishness and my pride and my arrogance and all the things that I do, when we want to tackle sin, when
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God says one of the first things you need to do is to think. And in this passage,
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Romans chapter 6, Paul uses four different words for think. Four different Greek words so he can hammer the nail into our minds and say we've got to think.
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Let me show you some of those words. The first one is found in Romans 6 .3. We'll be jumping around a little bit, verse by verse some, and we'll just want to find these four words that talk about thinking.
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Romans 6 .3. Or do you not know? That word not know means agnostic.
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Do you not know? Are you ignorant? Have you no knowledge? Are you unaware? Have you not thought through these things that all of us who have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into His death?
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That's the first word he uses for thinking. Or in this particular case, not thinking. He uses another word for thinking found in verse 6.
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Knowing this. This is experiential knowledge. This is gnosko.
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This is to be sure. To come to know, to comprehend. Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.
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He's talking about thinking throughout this chapter. Let me show you another one, verse 9. This is intuitive knowledge, a different Greek word than the other two.
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Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again, death no longer is master over Him.
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He says when you recognize this, when you're conscious of this, when you become aware of this, there's an impact.
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He says the same, uses the same word, this to be aware of knowledge in verse 16 of Romans 6.
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Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness.
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And then the last word to make sure when it comes to sanctification, as my father would say, you use your noggin.
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You've got to use your noggin. Chapter 6, verse 11.
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Another different Greek word for think. Even so, think.
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Even so, consider. Even so, ponder. Even so, count.
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Even so, reckon. Even so, suppose yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
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It's the exact same word Paul uses in Philippians 4. It talks about whatever's pure, whatever's holy, etc.
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Let your mind dwell on those things. You keep rehearsing those thoughts over and over and over and over again.
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So the first word is to think. You've got to think. You just can't say, think about my father.
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It was his birthday today, so he's on my mind. Mike, you can't get your room cleaned by osmosis.
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That's what he kept saying to me over and over and over again. My strategy was if I just left it long enough, maybe
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Mom would clean it. So it wasn't some kind of osmosis. Paul says when it comes to saying no to sin and yes to righteousness, you've got to think.
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He even uses more than different words. He asks a lot of questions because if you ask a person questions, they have to think about it.
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Look, in Romans 6, there's eight questions to spur your thinking, not just four different words to think, to stimulate your mind, but also to ask questions.
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Romans 6, 1, what shall we then say? Second question in the same verse, are we to continue in sin that grace might abound?
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He's trying to get us to think. Verse 2, question number 3, how shall we who died to sin still live in it?
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Verse 3, fourth question, do you not know that all of us have been baptized into Christ Jesus, have been baptized into his death?
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Verse 15, what then? Verse 15 again, question 6, shall we because we are not under the law but under grace, shall we sin rather because we're under law but not under grace?
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He's asking questions so your mind's engaged because he knows if you just kind of lay back and let
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God, if you're a pietist, let me say it maybe like how pietists say it, lay back and let
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God. I'm just kind of, you know, God, you're going to have to do it. Lay back and let
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God. You're like, you need a trip to Germany. You're probably right. He's trying to get your mind to think.
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God has ordained the ends, certainly your glorification and your current sanctification, but the means, he says, you know, by the grace of God, it's still for us to work out, as he would say to the
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Philippians in chapter 2. He asks a seventh question in verse 16, do you not know that when you present yourself to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
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And then the last question in chapter 8, verse 21, therefore, what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed?
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That's a good thing to do, is to ask the question, to ask over and over and over so our mind is engaged.
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And you say, what does it need to be engaged into? Well, that's word number two. But for now, it is adequate to say you need to use your mind.
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I'm not saying you should be emotionless, but I'm also not saying that your emotions should lead you and drive you and cause you to do things.
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We don't say to ourselves, I feel like doing something, therefore I do.
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I don't see any of that language here. If you really feel like you want to deal with your sin, then okay.
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No, we have to think properly. Well, along the same line of thinking, verse 11 has something peculiar to the first six chapters of Romans.
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What is so peculiar about verse 11? I'm even asking the question so you're engaged to think.
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So you're using your mind. There's something found in verse 11 of Romans chapter 6 that's not found in the first 10 verses of Romans 6, not found in chapter 5, not found in chapter 4, not found in chapter 3, not found in chapter 2, not found in chapter 1.
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For the first time in Romans, in 148 verses, we have something, and what is that something in verse 11?
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It's the first imperative, the first command.
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The very first thing he says is in chapter 6. Now, I would do it differently if I were
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Paul, and you can be glad I'm not Paul. I wouldn't have all this data. I'd just get right to it.
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He wants people to think. You say, I'm struggling with sanctification.
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Well, there's a lot that needs to go on, probably a good study of justification by faith alone. First, there's lots of thinking involved.
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One thing I've noticed about this whole thinking business, when it comes to sin, isn't it so often true that we don't want to think about that sin, we want to just run headlong into it?
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There's some kind of sin, and instead of standing back saying, you know what, I should analyze this, I should think about this,
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I should think about who I am in Christ, how God has saved me from all my sin, and I need to think about it.
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But there's this compulsion, whether it's external or internal or both, that just wants to drive us pell -mell and headlong into that sin.
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We have to sit back and think. And that's, by the way, another reason why sanctification is not some easy gimmick how -to.
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We need to think. Christianity deals with an engaged mind.
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Listen to John Stott. So the major secret of holy living is in the mind.
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It's in the mind. Word number one, think.
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Word number two, revolutionary word number two, dead. Dead. That's the word that you really need to think about.
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Laced through chapter six, sprinkled through chapter six, is not just the thinking concept, but a concept of dead.
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You're dead to your old self. The old you doesn't exist, and you've got to remember that when it comes to sanctification, comes to sin, you say, here's an opportunity for sin, here comes a temptation.
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I better stop and think about this, and one of the first things I need to think about is, I'm dead. How about that?
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That'll pack a church. Come one, come all. I mean, people can't even say the word dead anymore, right?
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When I do my preaching class, and the first day we get here, and I turn on Hunt for Red October's Russian National Anthem super loud to just make all the guys afraid and everything, and they're coming in, and we walk across over to that cemetery, and I make them take the
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Bible, and read Bible verses to the tombstones. People kind of wonder what kind of guy would make those students do that.
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Matter of fact, I talked to the neighbor over there, Phil, and I said, by the way, if you ever see a bunch of guys with books open, talking to the tombstone, you can know that it's men from Bethlehem Bible Church at the
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Southern Seminary. He said, oh, I saw you a few months ago out there doing that. Okay, fine.
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Dead. We are dead to our old selves. Look at all this death talk in Romans chapter 6.
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Quickly, verse 2. Died to sin. Follow with me. Verse 3 and 4.
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Baptized into his what? Death. Verse 5. United with him in his death.
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Verse 6. Old self was crucified. Speaking of death, of course, the worst kind, with him.
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Verse 7. Died with Christ. Verse 8. Died with Christ. Verse 9.
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Christ raised from the dead. Verse 10. Christ died to sin. And verse 11.
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Dead to sin. If you'd like to become a person who says,
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I'm going to think about my sanctification. I need to think about dealing with sin. One of the first things you're going to think about is that God considers you dead to your old self.
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No going back. No going back to that life that you used to live. You are a dead man walking.
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We'll get to what you're alive to in a minute. But you're dead to your old life. People that always say,
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Oh, I remember the good old days back then when I wasn't saved and I got to do all those wonderful good things.
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All those good things like guilty consciences and manipulation and angst and worry and selfishness.
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Those good days. Dead. I'm dead to that life.
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And you're going to see in just a minute, that is going to mean that you don't have to do the things that you used to do. Because once you have death involved, there's no claim anymore.
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You need to know that you're united with Christ and his death. Let's look at this. Fascinating.
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Where are the how -to books that deal with this? It is my premise that if you don't get Romans chapter 6 down, how -to books mean nothing.
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Pagans could use those. Verse 3. How does God want you to think about sin and sanctification and saying,
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Yes, God, I want to obey you. Verse 3. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Jesus Christ, identified with Christ, placed into Christ, have been baptized into his death?
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Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death. In order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the
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Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. True or false. Every baptism in the
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Bible is wet. Every time you see the word baptism, you should think of water.
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Answer, false. This is a dry baptism. This means to be placed into, to be immersed into, to be identified with.
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As 1 Corinthians 10 says, the Jews were all baptized into Moses. They had a permanent identification with Moses.
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And here, can you imagine, by divine reckoning, God says when Jesus died on the cross, if you're a
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Christian, you, get this, died with him.
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You say, I didn't feel it. It doesn't look like it. On all these other things, well, we have to take
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God's word for his word, as his word. When Jesus died on the cross,
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Christians died with him. You're dead. And in God's economy and God's divine reckoning, he reckoned you as dead with Christ Jesus.
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And there's a link there, a personal and vital identification with Jesus' death.
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Did you know when Jesus went to the cross, he took you with him? You say, this is kind of expanding my mind.
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I don't know about this. I'd rather be told what to do and have to fish on Friday and have no tofu on Saturday and, you know, have no caffeine on Sunday.
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Well, that wouldn't work, would it? I just want the easy rules. Why do you think these other religions are so popular?
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Because if it was just easy, just tell me what to do today, God. I'll just do it. Versus God said, you know what?
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You are a living sacrifice. And I don't care what you do. I care about who you are, and I want all of you.
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I don't want some piecemeal thing. It's you, and you're a living sacrifice. Paul is saying, there's an actual relationship in the mind of God between Christ's death and your death.
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You say, I struggle with sin. Well, this is step one to think about that. Verse four, please, beloved.
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Therefore, we have been buried with him, union with his death, out of the world permanently with burial, buried with him through baptism again.
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This is not baptism with water. This is baptism unto salvation. In order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the
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Father, so too we might walk in newness of life. You're gone.
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You're gone so far that you had to be buried. You're dead. You're so dead that you need to be buried in the ground.
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You say, did I die with Christ? Yes, God says you died with Christ, and you're buried with Christ. And that old person that you used to be that had to sin, that wanted to sin, that hankered to sin, that craved to sin, that lived for sin, that the
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Bible says even unbelievers made a sport of sinning, is gone. R .I
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.P. The dead self, dead. Got to bury it.
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It reminds me of that story in California. I drove by my old house last week when I was there in Los Angeles, and I drove by, there's some bushes we used to have, and the super long story short is one day
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I got out, I got up really early to go into the operating room, and there's usually a cat there that lived down the street, and the cat's name was
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Jumpsalot. And I'm not the biggest cat fan in the world, but I wouldn't hurt a cat, at least now that I've been alive to Christ.
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The old dead man might have. But I just would always go, psst. And so I did that, psst.
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And then Jumpsalot didn't jump a lot. Jumpsalot just stayed right there by the car. It was probably 4 .15, 4 .30
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in the morning. Jumpsalot didn't jump any. And you say, why are you telling this story?
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Because Romans 6 is tough, and this is just going to give us a little mind rest, and then we're going to be back at it.
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So I went over, and Jumpsalot was dead a lot. Went down to the people's house, knocked on the door.
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Nobody's around, so I don't know what to do. I've got to get to the operating room. So I put Jumpsalot into a garbage bag, tied it up, and then put it in a box and stuffed it underneath the little bushes there.
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So I came back after a long day, a hot day, a long, hot day. Jumpsalot was kind of conformed to the size of the box on the inside, and I tried to pull
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Jumpsalot out, and then there was a hole in the bag and all the smell, and I remember the smell of death.
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And I went down to the people's house and said, I didn't kill your cat, but your cat's dead.
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And they said, well, you want to be the pastor, right? And I said, yes, I'm trying to be a pastor. Could you please have a service, a funeral service for Jumpsalot?
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I said, Kim, what am I going to do? Domino sank to Phileon. I don't know what to do.
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So I said, you know what, I don't think there's anything wrong if I help you bury the cat. She was a single mom.
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I'll help you bury the cat, and then we can say to the Lord, thank you for having this cat.
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A righteous man regards the life of his cat, that kind of thing. So long story short,
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I buried the cat and compromised my theology or whatever I did for the sake of expediency and buried the cat.
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I think it's probably against the law to bury a cat in Los Angeles, but I don't know. That was the dead Mike. Oh, I guess I was in seminary.
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Strike that. Long story short, when God looks at us, He doesn't just see us dead, but you bury things to get them out of the way, and they can contaminate.
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But here Paul is saying, this confirms the death. They had wakes for a reason back in the old day, because some people would wake.
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We have been confirmed dead because we are what? In God's legal reckoning, buried.
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That old you that loved sin, that worshiped sin is dead, and then Paul says buried.
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How do you know Jesus actually died? He was buried. How do you know God treated you as dead to your old self?
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Because you were buried. And when you're dead,
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IRS can't come calling. And when you're dead, you don't have to pay those heating bills.
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And when you're dead, you don't have to pay any other kind of bills, alimony bills or any other kind of bills.
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No authority any longer because you're dead. Sin, Satan, death, hell have no authority on someone when they have died.
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No authority. Free and clear. Just as a woman would be free to marry a new man if her husband died, so too we are free in Christ.
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Jesus paid the debt. God saw us in Christ as the debt was paid. No longer dominion.
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Take a look at verse 6. We're not only dead because we're united with Christ. This death means sin is powerless over the
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Christian. Yes, you heard me right, powerless. Verse 6, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him.
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That, see that little clause there? That our body of sin might be done away with. That we should be no longer what?
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Slaves to sin. Powerless over us. We were powerless to God, now we're powerless to sin.
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We're no longer slaves to sin. Verse 7, why? For he who has died is freed from sin.
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That old self that's underneath the influence and power of sin, dead. The old life is kaput.
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Immune from its power. The penalty has been taken care of and the power as well. Lloyd -Jones says, do not go on living as if you were still that old man.
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Because that old man has died. Christ was crucified for the purpose of destroying sin.
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The Bible says we know this. It's done away with. It's rendered powerless. It's rendered inoperative.
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It no longer has the force over us. We sin now, not because we have to, but because we what?
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Sadly, because we want to. We don't have to sin any longer. We're dead with Christ, buried with Christ.
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We only sin now because we have to. There's a road. There's a bifurcating road. That road only used to be a turn this way into the ditch.
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Sin. Every decision was sin because we had a sinful nature. But now there's a why, as it were.
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And we can either choose sin or we can choose righteousness. Augustine said before the fall that Adam was able to sin.
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After the fall, not able not to sin. Believers in Christ, Romans 6, able not to sin.
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And in heaven, not able to sin. We are freed from sin.
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Look at verse 7. Freed really is the word justified. Justified from sin.
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No legal right over us whatsoever. You can't hold a dead man to some kind of court or hearing.
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They're emancipated from that. Augustine, speaking of Augustine, he got saved when he heard the children chanting, pick up and read, and he picked up a
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Bible and read Romans 13, 14. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust.
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God used that word to save him, for him to follow Christ as Savior and Lord. His whole life was turned upside down.
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And he used to be going to brothels and all kinds of horrible things. And he had some business to attend to in a bad part of town.
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And as he walked along, the text says, not the Bible text, but the text from the illustration, a former companion saw him and began calling,
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Augustine, Augustine, it is I. He took one look at this woman of ill repute, this woman in whose company he had enjoyed before, and then he remembered who he was in Christ.
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Remember, she said, Augustine, Augustine, it is I. And he turned and he ran from her, shouting back this, it is not
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I, it is not I. I live, not yet I, but Christ lives in me.
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Look at verse 11. We've got to think about this death. This isn't gross, this isn't goth, this isn't weird.
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God commands you to think about your death in Christ Jesus. Verse 11, first imperative in all the Bible is the book of Romans.
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Even so, consider yourselves, think about it over and over and over.
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When was the last time, congregation, you thought to yourself, I'm dead to the old me. The old me is dead. God said, you know what, put that kind of like up on your windshield, as it were, to remember,
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I'm a dead man walking. Even so, consider yourself to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
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There's no quick fixes for sanctification, no easy way out, no little seminar, self -help book.
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The key is to think and to think about your death in Christ Jesus. By the way, this is a command, it has nothing to do with feelings at all.
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I don't feel like I died, I'm not sure I did, and all these kind of questions. God said, you think rightly.
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It's a waste of time to make any other excuses. To reckon and to count, literally the word means to calculate.
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I've got to calculate this death in my life, the death of my life should influence everything else
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I do, because I don't have to say yes to sin anymore. I'm dead to the power of sin. Basically, he says, you keep on counting.
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I hate to use a Sesame Street illustration, because they're probably as rationalistic and paganistic as you can find.
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But here, the counting, they're counting, one, two, three, and you can just hear the cadence for the kids to kind of count with them, you know, count
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Chocula, whatever that guy's name is. I don't know what these things are. What do I know?
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Whatever I know about pop culture is usually the wrong thing. You're counting, and you can hear Paul, as a good teacher, kind of counting along.
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Let's count through, one, two, three, and in your mind, you're just filling in four, five, six, and so instead of those ordinal numbers, let's think of Romans chapters one through sixteen.
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We need to learn how to count. When I was in Germany, I could count from one to twenty and kind of get by. When it comes to calculations of Christian thinking, you need to count to sixteen.
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It's as high as you need to go. Sixteen. Chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, and you're engaged in thinking.
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You say, that's right. You say, you know, I come home, and I blow my top, and I yell at my wife, and I do these things.
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I'm a Christian. This is the first attitude for sanctification.
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Dead to sin. Baptized into his death. Number three.
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Third word. We've got to hurry up. Third word. First one's think.
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Second one's dead. We were dead to sin. Now here comes the positive side. Alive. Think dead alive.
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If you'd like to say no to sin and yes to righteousness by the power of the Spirit, the Spirit of God has informed us through Romans six that first of all, you think.
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Second of all, you think about being dead to sin. Now you need to be thinking about being alive to God.
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Verse four. Raised from the dead. Christ was. Verse five.
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We shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Life. Verse eight.
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We believe that we shall also live with him. Verse nine. Knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead.
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All passages about the life of Christ and how he's been victorious over sin and death.
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Verse ten. The life that he lives, he lives to God. Verse eleven. But alive to God in Christ Jesus.
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And verse thirteen. Lastly, present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead.
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You are alive to God. When Jesus died on the cross, God made a divine reckoning.
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You died with him. When Jesus was baptized, buried rather, you were buried with him. And when
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Jesus rose from the dead, what do you think happened? God left you in the grave. He considered you dead.
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He considered you buried. And he considered you what? Raised from the dead.
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Look at verse four again, please. We're a new creature. We're a new creature. We were dead, now we're alive.
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Therefore, we have been buried with him through the baptism into death. In order that as Christ, as Christ, that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the
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Father, so we too, don't miss it, so we too might walk in newness of life.
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That word new means fresh quality. A life that has a freshness and a newness.
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We have been identified with Christ Jesus, and now we are alive with him. This is the ground.
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This is the foundation of sanctification. And as we said no to sin, and we have the ability to do that, we now have the ability to say,
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I'm a new creature, and now everything about me is new. What about you, if you put a little list together, is new about you since you've been saved?
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Can you just put together a little list? I've come up with a few that stress the newness of our life in Christ Jesus.
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The blessed newness, I might add. You have a new relationship to God. Did you know we used to be
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God's enemies, and now we're God's what? Friends. That Abraham could be called a friend of God, but we too, friends of God.
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True or false? All Christians now are new creatures in Christ Jesus. If any man is in Christ, he is a what?
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New creature. Old things have passed. Behold, new things have come.
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You have new appetites if you're a Christian. Remember when you were an unbeliever, what were your appetites?
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What did you like to do? What did you desire to do? What were your lusts? What were your desires? What were your passions?
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Bible reading? Saying no to sin? Saying yes to righteousness? Evangelism?
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Long sermons? I told you, one of the main reasons I know I'm a Christian, I shouldn't say main thing, but one of the reasons
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I know I'm a Christian is because I used to hate God's word, and now what? I love
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God's word. When God speaks, I want to know it. God has given me a love for his word.
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That's new. If you're a Christian, you have new friends even. As a matter of fact, some of you, including myself, the body of Christ has been elevated over even my own family.
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That's new. How about new priorities? What are your priorities in life? I used to think the first day of the week was
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Monday. I know. It's not money anymore and material things.
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I have new goals, new priorities. We have a new master. It's not sin. It's not Satan. We have a new destiny.
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It's not hell. It's not eternity being punished by God. No, it's eternal fellowship with God, standing before God, having him delight in us as a father with the children.
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Eternal delight. New longings, new cravings. We are closely knit to Christ and alive to God.
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Look at verse 5 with me, Romans 6. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, well,
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A plus B, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.
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This is an if -then. This is not one or the other. We are there with him in his death by a legal reckoning.
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We are there with him in his resurrection to a new kind of life. We have been united with him.
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Basically, that word united means to be organically united. That's like planting one little plant here, one little plant here, and then digging this one up and planting it right next to him and then kind of spinning them as they go and weaving them together so when it grows up together, it almost looks like it's one plant.
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That's the word there, united. What a neat word. In likeness of his resurrection.
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I can hear Paul saying, Philippians, that I may know him in the power of his resurrection. He knows it's true.
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Look at verse 8. This life language is there too, alive. Now, if we died to Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.
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Of course. He's been raised from the dead. Knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead is never to die again, death no longer is master over him.
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The death that we now will die will be a physical death, but it will never be an eternal death. Verse 10, for the death that he died, he died to sin once for all.
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Hallelujah. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Paul's not doing some kind of stupid power of positive thinking.
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He just says, I want you to think with sober judgment, deliberate judgment. Sin is going to try to rise up against you.
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There's still some unredeemed, harmatological hangover, some kind of what Paul would call the flesh.
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Others have called the old nature. There's something there that's around, and we still need to make sure we give it the death blow.
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And Paul says, I want you to think, and I want you to think that you're dead to that sin, and you're alive to Christ Jesus.
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That's why he says, verse 11, even so consider over and over and over, calculate about death to sin, but also over and over and over and over, like a cow chewing cud, think about you're alive to God in Christ Jesus.
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That's my position. That's my position. And since we're alive, we can do things now, like verse 12.
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We have the ability to obey God. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lust.
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Don't let sin reign anymore, because we're alive to God. We're able to do things, like verse 13, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness.
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He says, just stop that. We're able to do things, like verse 13b, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead.
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Who wants to give arms to the enemy? Who wants to give nuclear warheads to another country? And he says, and present your members as instruments of righteousness to God, living sacrifice with everything you've got.
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Sin isn't your Lord anymore. Last word, fourth word. Word one, what's the first word out loud?
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Think. Second word? Third word? Fourth word? Slave.
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Slave. We're going to have to go quickly on this one. When it comes to sanctification, your homework, by the way, congregation this week, is to read
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Romans chapter 6 and 7. And identify with your Bible marking pen or pencil, think, knowing, dead, alive.
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And now, finally, the word slave. The fourth key word that you must grasp if you're going to biblically deal with sin by the
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Spirit's power as we obey the Spirit's word, is the word slave.
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It reminds me of Ray Steadman. He used to have a sandwich board. Remember the sandwich board for advertisement?
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And on the front it said, I'm a slave for Christ's sake. On the back it said, Whose slave are you?
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Verse 16, Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience...
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You know what? We want to read 15 first. Excuse me. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace?
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No way! Verse 16, Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness.
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When you're under grace, when you're saved by Christ Jesus, it doesn't mean that you can go along and sin your merry old way.
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You're not a slave anymore to sin, granted. But now you're a slave of a new master, but you're still a slave.
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You're a slave to Christ Jesus. All this talk about free from obligation and free will and all this other kind of freedom, no one can serve two masters.
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You used to serve sin as slave and now it's
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God. Verse 17, But thanks be to God, thanks be to God, that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart.
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Only God could take our hard -hearted hearts, our hearts of rock, and make them obedient to that form of teaching to which you were committed.
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He did it all. And if you were talking to this group back in these days, they would go, slavery, we understand it. It's not like slavery in Mississippi.
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This is slavery in the Roman area, the Greco -Roman area, maybe a third or up to a half of the people all slaves.
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They understood what it was like. We understand that we used to think sin was slavery.
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I used to think that in my 20s. I'm free to do whatever I want, but this kind of slavery leads to death.
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But verse 18, Having been free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Remember when
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Bob Dylan was going through his kind of Christian phase? By the way, if anybody goes through a Christian phase and comes out in a new phase, you know something about their
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Christian phase. And that Christian phase was a small C. It wasn't a Christian phase at all. Christianity is no phase.
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Everybody has got to what? Serve somebody. You've got to serve somebody. And Paul, it's like he's going to tiptoe for a minute because he kind of hates to use slavery and righteousness together as words.
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It's almost got such a demeaning attitude toward it, this word slavery.
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How could he talk about we're being slaves to righteousness? And so he says with almost an apology.
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Of course, we know it's inspired. And why do I believe that men wrote the
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Bible? Through the inspiration of the Spirit of God. You can see Paul's personality right here. Totally inspired.
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Totally God -breathed. But you can just hear his heart. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.
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I could explain it other ways, but you wouldn't figure it out. But you can understand in slavery terms. For just as you presented your members to slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
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As you had full throttle for sin, now you're able to have full throttle for what? Righteousness. Full throttle for righteousness.
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And then he says, the last three verses, verse 21, Therefore, what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed?
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It didn't pay well. Sin is a bad master. What is the outcome for sin and slavery to sin and Satan and the flesh?
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For the outcome of those things is what? Death. That's why he says in verse 23,
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The wages of sin is death. But for us, 22, But now having been free from the sin and enslaved to what?
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You're a slave, friends. If you're a Christian, you're a slave. You're a slave to God.
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You derive your benefit resulting in sanctification and the outcome eternal life. Slavery to sin paid death.
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Bad taskmaster. Slavery to God pays what? What does the text say? Benefits.
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Sanctification. Eternal life. Who wouldn't want to be a slave to God? Paul says,
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I'm not going to brag about my past life. I can't take it when people get up for a testimony and just get up and talk about how great their old life was and all the key sins that they've done.
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It's enough to know, isn't it? That that person who gets up says, My life was categorized by just a few words.
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I was a slave to sin. And if God didn't interrupt me, I was going to earn.
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Isn't that enough for a testimony? Wouldn't we rather see the focus on the testimony as we've described how
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Christ has saved us? And then how this master pays. He doesn't even have to give us rewards.
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He doesn't give us need to give us anything. But because he's given his son everything and we're in Christ, he pays so well.
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Eternal benefits. Wonderful. A sanctification on earth. And the outcome, Paul says, eternal.
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Wages of sin is death. But the free gift from this master is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
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Spurgeon called that verse, by the way. By the way, if you ever want to use this verse for evangelism.
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Fine. But just make sure you read the whole verse. It's not only talking about the wages of sin is death, but it's the good part at the end to.
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This free gift from this master who owes us nothing. Spurgeon said, this verse here is a
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Christian proverb. A golden sentence. A divine statement of truth worthy to be written across the sky.
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Across the sky. We need to be like George Mueller.
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Who said when they wanted to know, what's the key to your spirituality?
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How can you say no to sin and yes to righteousness like you do? How is it that other people look at you and say,
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That is a fine illustration of the grace of God in someone's life. And he said very simply five words.
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One day, George Mueller dead. And if you can say as a
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Christian, one day I died. Paul says that's the key to sanctification.
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Luther justification by faith alone makes you want to sin. You can live as you please.
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Luther said you're exactly right. You can live as you please. Now, Christian, what pleases you?
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Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, it has pleased you to condescend and not only in your word, but also as you have sent your son
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Christ Jesus to be our propitiation, to be our reconciliation, to be our redemption, our sanctification, our wisdom.
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Lord, everything we have is because of your goodness poured out in Christ Jesus. And as your spirit has applied that to our hearts, we want to respond with thanksgiving.
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And we would ask that you would help us this week to consider, to think about how we no longer have to sin and how we now get the privilege to obey.
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And Lord, it is wonderful to be enslaved to you. What a joy that is.
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And I think about Christ Jesus and he talks about yokes and burdens. And it's not a heavy one.
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And it's not an awkward one. It's a wonderful bondage we have. And thank you for saving us. And thank you that we have been promised sanctification with the outcome eternal life.