March 19, 2017 The Death of Sin by Pastor Josh Sheldon

I tell you, if there is a line in our hymnal, in any one hymn, that just kind of stops me in my tracks, in my spirit, it's the third line in it is well with my soul, my sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, emphasis

I, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, praise the

Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul, that just somewhere deep inside, almost a visceral level, every time

I sing that I just have to stop, I don't think 10 % of the time I actually get through those words when we're singing,

I hear the crescendo of all the voices as we get to that truth of God, that God, when he put our sin upon his son

Jesus, he didn't forget any of them, and the son,

Jesus Christ, gladly, because it was the Father's will, bore them all, it's an amazing truth, and I really appreciate that being one of the hymns before the preaching, if you would turn your

Bibles please to chapter 6 of Romans, chapter 6 of Romans, we'll attend ourselves this morning to the first 14 verses,

I'll begin reading actually a couple of verses above the end of chapter 5 verse 20, and then I'll read through 614, now the law came 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. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death. In order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the

Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him.

For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law, but under grace.

God bless the reading and the hearing of his word. I wonder what is wrong with the church today?

What is wrong with the church today? There's so many opinions on what that answer might be.

If you did a quick perusal of periodicals and websites, they would offer things like this to tell you where the church is deficient.

One group says the church is deficient because there is no prophetic voice in the church anymore.

Another says that the evangelism of the church is anemic. And one person looks at another person's evangelistic efforts, and he says the problem with that church that that person comes from is that they preach an easy -believism.

Some say the church does too little to relieve the fallout from social injustice. Others say we're not radical enough against abortion.

Churches have fallen apart over things like style of worship, the type of music that could be played in church, the role of women in church.

One man says the wine at the Lord's table is a sin. Another man says that only grape juice can be used because the

Lord wouldn't drink wine, actual wine. And both would say that the trouble with the church is a lack of unity.

Well after reading Romans 6, 1 through 14 for you, having studied it to prepare this message for you, here's the problem

I think we might find in the church today. And this might be a rather widespread problem.

Here's what I think is the church's problem. There's not enough death. The problem with this church today, there's not enough death in it.

In a text this morning, the verses I read to you from 6, 1 to 14 in the book of Romans, it's only 14 verses.

Death, or some equivalent of that word, buried, died, crucified, death, that word comes up 16 times just in those 14 verses.

Now the death it speaks of of course is not the cessation of life. That's not what

Paul is arguing for here. Paul in fact has been arguing for something as far from physical death as can possibly be.

He's pressing us towards life. Life in Christ Jesus. That's what he's moving us towards.

That's what he wants the church to have. True life. Abundant life.

A life that grows in sanctification and holiness. A life that becomes more and more and more like the

Savior, Jesus, who saved us. He speaks of the end of sin's domination of you.

Sin's dominion. Sin's reign. Sin's mastery over you.

The dominion of sin your life. These verses tell us, and we need to believe this, has been decisively broken through our union with Jesus Christ in his death and his resurrection.

You need no longer, if you are in Christ Jesus, obey it. It is no longer your master.

I'm not going to speak much about the slave and master relationship because that comes up in the second half of this chapter.

And God willing we'll get to that next week. But understand this. The dominion, the reign, the mastery, the domination, the need to follow the ways of sin.

Decisively broken by Jesus Christ and his work on the cross. And that's the point here.

Now that's his point. This has happened. This is what Jesus Christ accomplished, or one of his many accomplishments on the cross.

And this, God willing, will be the message that you leave here. What's the takeaway? I'll give you the takeaway now.

Sin is no longer necessary for you. We do still sin. We do still have to fall on our faces before God, pleading 1

John 1 9, that he hear our confession and forgive us our sins and restore us to all righteousness.

We need that. We struggle with sin because of the flesh that is still in us. We know that.

But understand this. Here is Paul's point. It's not the necessary directive of your life any longer if you are in Christ Jesus, if you are in union with him in his great salvation work on the cross.

That's what this is about. It starts with two questions. What shall we say then?

Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? It's really one question. It all looks back to verse 21, which is why

I started there at the end of chapter 5. As sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign in righteousness.

Without going back in detail through the whole argument of chapter 5, it amounts to this.

Paul is heading off at the past people who might think that if sinning is a catalyst for more of God's grace to be poured out, then we ought to sin.

Because wouldn't it be a good thing for God's grace to come down upon more people, more manifestly, in a more obvious way?

And if my sin brings that out, should I not sin some more? That's exactly what he's arguing against here.

So presumably there are people he knew, maybe they're in the Roman church, maybe during his evangelistic, his missionary journeys, who would actually make that case.

Let's sin, because sin brings out more of God's grace, more of his goodness, and looks like somebody has to sin in order to do this, and I'll step forward and volunteer.

The emphatic, by no means, tells us how absurd this is.

Now the way I said it sounds almost ridiculous when I repeated it, when I gave you the implications, the ramifications. It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?

But that's exactly what people were saying to Paul, and he wants to head it off right there at the past.

No, don't go here by no means. Absolutely not. Now the analogies we can make, and all analogies do fall apart, but they're pretty simple.

Let's imagine a child who says that he's going to misbehave because it gives his parents more opportunity to show off their wonderful parenting skills.

My parents are the best in the world, and one of the things that makes them the best is they discipline so well. They are so consistent.

They know how and when to spank. They know how and when to rebuke. They know everything about parenting, and it's my misbehavior that gives them a chance to show that off.

Now a sore behind might dissuade them that the purpose of discipline is not so much to show off what good parents they are as much as it is to bring an end to disobedience and make them into a good child, but that's exactly the argument that Paul is arguing against here.

Let's do bad because it shows off how good God is. I heard some snickering out there, and it should, not in a humorous way, because the sad thing is that some people who are in the church, and I should say nominally in the church, would behave as though this were some axiom, this were some precept, as if God actually said,

I need you to misbehave some more because I need your neighbor to see more of my goodness. By no means.

That's the old person. That one who is attracted to sin is the old self.

Paul writes of this one in verse six exactly that way. The old self, and look down, if you still have your

Bibles open there in Romans 6, look down to what he says of them in verse six.

We know that our old self was crucified with Christ. The old self was crucified with Christ.

If that one is dead and buried, what then is in his place? Crucified, we know that crucifixion brings death.

There are those who have a theory that Jesus just swooned and got taken off the cross. We know the

Romans didn't make mistakes. They were experts at bringing death, especially death by crucifixion. Christ died on the cross.

He was crucified. We know that the old self, that old man, this one who would be attracted to sin, this one who would actually say, well, let's go and sin more because now we have an excuse.

It makes God look better. That old person crucified with Christ, and what is in his place?

If you have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, having repented for your sins and fled to his cross as your only means for coming to God.

I speak of a Christian. What is in his place if the old self, the old man is crucified?

We have to go to some other scriptures to flesh this out, and I want to bring this to you because I think it's very important.

God doesn't just leave us there dead and buried and crucified in that sense.

Ephesians chapter 4 verse 22. Paul says, put off your old self. Put off your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.

Be done with it. Get rid of it. Take it off. The image there is of getting dressed and undressed in the morning.

Take it off. Take off those clothes. Take off that manifestation. Take off that behavior. Colossians 3 .9.

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. Later in this book of Romans, Paul's going to say, so then let us cast off the works of darkness.

The idea here is put off, take off, cast off, be rid of. Why? On what basis?

Because if you're in Christ Jesus, that old self was crucified with him.

It's not who you are if you are in Christ Jesus.

This is a new identity. You're dead to sin and all that it leads to. When the former manner of life rears its ugly head, it is looking at what should be sort of a corpse.

The old practices have been set aside with that old man, and the desire for them, the temporary pleasure it brings, is gone.

Or we could say, because we know that we are progressively sanctified, that we grow into the image of Christ, that we don't get there all at once, and we never accomplish it fully in this life.

It's becoming less and less attractive to us. And when we look back upon the things that we did and still do, we're more and more horrified at them.

And by that process, put it off more and more conclusively for longer and longer time before it slips back onto us.

We don't preach here perfect sanctification, perfect holiness in this life. We preach the striving after it.

It's a process as long as we are in this life, as long as we are in Christ Jesus. The important thing here, your immediate takeaway from this message, is that's the old self.

That's not who you are. That's not what God has created you, recreated you to be.

Now, it ought not to be a surprise to us that death is used as a metaphor for transformation. Back in the

Gospel of John, chapter 12, verses 24 to 25, the

Lord Jesus Christ says this, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone.

But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Now, that, of course, he's speaking of himself. And his soon to come, at that point in that gospel, his soon coming crucifixion.

But he goes on. And now he speaks of us. He says, whoever loves his life loses it.

And whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. There is in human experience,

I think, no change as complete and so thorough as to go from life to death.

A corpse has ultimately nothing in common with the living body that it once was. It is only the constituent elements that are contained in that shell that it once contained.

Without blood coursing through the veins, without air filling the lungs, without life, it is only the physical constituencies that make it up.

And so no relation to that person that it once was. Transformation by the gospel of Jesus Christ is like that.

The old self, the old man, relates to the new only in physical attributes. The new from the inner man, the new is completely new, as different from the old as life is from death.

A redheaded unbeliever becomes a redheaded believer. I was six foot one inch the day

I was saved, and I'm six foot one inch today. It's the inner man that is transformed.

It's the new person, the one created by God in true righteousness and holiness, that needs to come to the fore.

Well, we are not corpses. Death is 16 times in these 14 verses in chapter 6 of Romans, but we're not corpses, obviously.

And with Paul in the Philippian jail calling out to the jailer, I call out to you, do yourself no harm.

The death Paul speaks of is not of the body, but of the spirit and its relationship to sin.

We're not a suicide cult that says the way to God is to do that now.

Life is wonderful. God gives life as a gift. Read the book of Proverbs. Things are good in their time.

God gave these things to us that we should enjoy them. Enjoy him and give glory to him as we enjoy the things he's given us.

That's not what Paul's talking about, and that would be a blasphemous interpretation of these verses. Speaking of the inner man, he's speaking of the spirit.

He's speaking of complete transformation from what we were to what God has made us.

How then do we die? All these references to death and dying and burial and crucifixion in these few verses, how then do we die?

The answer relies on what really was preached last week in chapter 5, verses 12 to 21. I can't bring very much more of that here this morning.

It would take way too long. So very quickly, very simply, Christ as what we call our federal head, which was really more the point last week, our federal head, our representative head, he represented us when he died for our sin.

That's what it means that we're in him, to be united with him. We're going to speak more about that in this message this morning.

Look now at verse 3 in chapter 6 there. As a matter of fact, keep your eyes on that chapter.

I want to go back again through some of these. I'm going to read them to you in very rapid fire order. How do we die?

Look at verse 3. All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death.

Verse 4. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into his death. Verse 5.

We have been united with him in a death like his. Verse 6. Our old self was crucified with him.

And then verse 8. Now if we died with Christ, Jesus Christ in his death, we're speaking of the cross, we're speaking of his suffering, we're speaking of that point in time when he was on the cross and he was forsaken by God and cried out, my

God, my God, why have you forsaken me? As God's wrath for our sins was poured out on him.

That death. And in that death, what Paul is saying, if your faith is in him, if your trust, your hope is in Christ Jesus and him alone, you were in him.

You were in him and he represented you before God in that suffering. Verse 10 says the death he died, he died to sin.

Do you see that? The death he died, he died to sin. And pop back up to verse 2 now.

We who died to sin. And now look back down at verse 11. So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin.

You are dead to sin. Just as Christ was. Now he never did sin.

Paul is not suggesting any such thing. The New Living Translation gets to the meaning of this when it says, he died once to break the power of sin.

To break the power of sin. That's not a great translation of the original Greek, but it's a good interpretation. It's a good summary of what

Paul is saying here about Jesus Christ. He died, Jesus Christ died to break the power of sin.

Now not for himself, he never sinned. Tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin. We know that. He's the perfect Savior.

An unblemished lamb before God. He broke the power of sin for us.

For we who are in him, we do still sin.

Even spiritually we are not really corpses. What's Paul writing about here?

What's this framework that he has? Well it goes back to what I was saying about chapter 5 in the preaching from last week.

This federal representation idea. That he as our federal head represented us just as Adam as a federal head of humanity represented all humanity.

He when he sinned, Christ when he obeyed. Adam brought sin and death,

Christ righteousness and eternal life. But the representation meaning that all who are in them receive the benefit or lack thereof of what that representative, that federal head accomplished for them.

Paul's writing those sort of terms here. When Christ died to sin, he bore its penalty.

That's what I was speaking of before. God pouring his wrath for your sin on him.

And that penalty he satisfied completely. That's why that line from it is well my soul gets me every time.

My sin, not the part but the whole. All of it because of the faith

God gave me. God willing the faith God has given you. All of it poured out on him.

He satisfied God's wrath because God held nothing back against his only son. He satisfied the penalty.

The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. That death, that penalty, that judicial statement against us done and satisfied.

That's the framework. That's the the way Paul's speaking of the death here. Which is why

I called out with the with Paul to the Philippian jailer. Jailer do yourself no harm. That's the death he means judicially.

The penalty has been paid. It was born on our behalf. And this is how

Paul can say to us then let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies. Let it not have dominion, reign, domination.

You doing what it commands you to do. Let not that be anymore.

Is he saying just pull yourself up by the bootstraps just do better? No. He's giving you a basis for it because Christ Jesus paid that penalty for you.

Christ Jesus took in himself all that the law of God said sin deserves and must be meted out against sin.

We've said it before. I'll say it again. Never forget this truth that God's wrath doesn't just go away.

God didn't just change the rules and say okay now I can forgive you because I made a different law. I redefined sin.

I redefined my holiness or my righteousness. No. God is eternal. Jesus Christ is same yesterday, today, and forever.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies because you know that the penalty is paid and that God is satisfied.

He doesn't ask for more than his word, his law says he demands. It's hold on you.

It's reign. It's dominion. It's mastery over you has been broken.

Verse seven says you've been set free from sin. You're free from it. You are no longer on its demands.

The wages of sin is death and that death, that literal death, now I'm not speaking in metaphorical terms there, that literal death has been accomplished by Jesus Christ.

He became the literal corpse that we should not. He became literally a corpse.

That's the point throughout Romans 6, 1 through 14. Not that we become dead.

That would be the teaching of the cults that we say that we all should join the

Philippian jailer and hope there is no Paul to stop us. That's what they would say.

All the references to death and dying and crucifixion, they're all judicial terms.

The fear of eternal punishment because of Christ is taken away. The wages of sin is death and the wage has been paid by Christ for you if your faith is in him.

So is the problem with the church today that there's not enough death in it? If by death is meant that Jesus's death satisfied the punishment that you deserved and that your account has been paid in full and that therefore you've been set free from the constant nagging always in your face enticements of sin, then yes, there needs to be more death in the church.

More death to sin. More understanding of what Christ did when he died and he paid the penalty for your sin.

We need to grasp onto this more. It's not a morbid thought.

My sin, not the part but the whole, nailed to the cross. Christ has gone to God as it were with the book that has our ledger in it and says guilty, guilty, guilty at every point.

Death deserved, death deserved. All God's judgments are right and fair and just and holy and because of Christ, penalty paid.

Penalty paid. You didn't get out of jail early. What do they call it when you get out of jail early? I forgot the term.

Somebody called out to me. Parole, thank you. You didn't get paroled. You didn't get paroled.

You didn't go to jail in the first place. Why did you go to jail? Because when you went to court, the judge looked and said, no, he's not guilty.

This has been paid. This is done with. You paid none of it.

Christ paid it. Paid it for you if you were in him, that federal representation.

What's the problem with the church today? There's not enough death. There needs to be more of us who understand that death doesn't mean just the cessation of our biological functions.

When we take it that way, it just becomes a weak metaphor, and it loses its power to lead us to holy living.

Verses three and four have a word that in those two verses is repeated three times, and I need to take a look at it.

I'm going to look at it fairly quickly because it's not Paul's main point, but it is an important point. The word is baptism.

You can look down at that again at verse three. Do you not know that we who are baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

This is the first answer to, shall we live in sin so that grace should abound? The first answer, do you not know we're baptized into Christ?

We're baptized into his death. Continuing blithely in sin makes a mockery of his death, so much so that salvation of such a woman has got to be called into serious question.

And then verse four, we were buried with him therefore by baptism into his death.

Now by we who are baptized, up there in verse three, we who are baptized, Paul means we who have upon profession of faith submitted ourselves to the

Lord's command to be baptized, immersed in water in the name of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And the word baptism means literally just that, to be immersed in something.

This works literally to mean the actual water used for the ceremony and symbolically to show that we are immersed by faith into Christ Jesus.

Now we don't have a lot in the Bible about how to actually do the ceremony. We do know what it symbolizes, that God has saved you by giving you faith to believe and to repent.

At the end of the book of Matthew, we have the command to do it, to baptize disciples. And it is here that we understand that it is done in the name of each of the three persons of the

Trinity, where Jesus Christ just before he left the disciples said, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. But it's from our current passage, Romans 6, 1 through 14, it's here that we understand how it replays, as it were, our participation in Christ's death and resurrection.

You know, too often I hear people say that they're saved, but they just don't think they need to get baptized or join a church.

Just last week, my mechanics receptionist said this while I was waiting for my truck. She worships at home in her own way.

She worships God as she walks by the way, and she does things her own way and just doesn't see the need to come and put herself under man's rules because the church is just a bunch of people who got together and decided this is how we'll do it.

I tried to tell her it's an untenable stance that goes against so many things in the scripture, especially just do a quick study of the one another's.

In Paul's letters alone, you'd have enough of them to convict you that that is not a proper biblical stance.

It's a sub -Christian stance, actually. Baptism is commanded by Jesus himself.

Have you been baptized? Do you proclaim faith in Jesus Christ? The one you're proclaiming faith in commands that you be baptized.

As much as he commands you to be baptized, he commands the church to baptize you. You claim him.

This is what he says. And now Paul, assuming that he is writing to those who have been baptized, he explains the significance of it.

He tells us the reality that is signified by the ceremony. Not the reality that happens when you go under the water and come up again, but the reality that it represents.

It is by baptism that you publicly affirm your allegiance to Jesus Christ. In this church, before you're baptized, you stand here and you give your testimony.

And quite frankly, if we heard something that sounded like an untoward faith or not the faith that we understand in the scripture, we might not finish the ceremony.

That's why you stand and you give your profession. Upon faith, we baptize.

Now as I said, baptism is not Paul's main point, so I need to move on quickly. But the fact that is presupposed here in Paul's answer to, shall we sin all the more?

By no means do you not know that we have been baptized. His assumption should make it all the more important and necessary to you.

I'll say it this way. If you have not been baptized, do not claim to be a

Christian. Really, if you have not been baptized, if you have not submitted yourself to this most basic of commands, then please don't tell me that you live for Christ.

Because after baptism, the commands get only harder and harder and harder.

As we learn more of Christ, as we see our sin more clearly and the holiness, which is our goal, more certainly, it just gets harder.

Because you know, when you go down in the water, I'm going to help you down and help you back out. That's easy.

Living for Christ, considering yourself dead to sin, looking at what

Christ paid because of your sin and saying, because of Him and the power He gives me and the faith and the love

I have in Him, I will do this no more. That's a lot harder. So don't go publicly proclaiming yourself a

Christian if this most basic initiatory command from the lips of the

Lord Jesus Christ Himself has been set aside by you. It doesn't wash.

We know that being baptized does not save, only Christ what He did on the cross can save you. But the assumption

Paul has that all Christians are baptized, the signification of the symbolism, all this argues that except in extraordinary circumstances, believers have been baptized.

And Paul here assumes this. Verse 6 spoke of the old person, the one we were before the

Holy Spirit awakened our dead souls and spoke life into us. We were, each one of us, that pile of bones in Ezekiel 37 that William just read to you, just lying there inert and useless.

But this is not where Jesus Christ leaves you. This is not where He leaves any who are in Him. Our union with Him in His death for sin is paired with our union in His life.

He was resurrected from the dead. As He rose from the grave, He carried you with Him and delivered you to new life just the way

He carried you with Him in that federal representative ministry of His in His death, paying that penalty.

The wages of sin is death paid. And now stay with Him as He rises from the grave because as He comes to life, you're resurrected in Him to new life.

Look again please at verses 5 through 8 in Romans 6. I want to read these again.

For if we've been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.

We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we've died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.

I believe that these verses have a here and now and a not yet meaning to them.

We'll be united with Him in a resurrection like His, resurrected so we might walk in a new life now.

And we will be resurrected then when Christ returns. We died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him.

We will live with Him when He brings us to Himself. And in the here and now, in this journey, on this world, we'll live with Him.

This is new life in Jesus Christ. This is setting away that old self that Paul speaks of that was crucified.

New life in Christ. He rose from the dead. God raised Him up. By our union with Him, we were raised up too.

By our union with Him as we're in Christ, as He represented us, we were raised with Him.

Just like the picture in Ezekiel 37, God by His Spirit has breathed new life into you.

This is what we call the power of the resurrection. Living today, now, in that power of that resurrection.

It is just as real and just as literal as was Christ's death. But there is a difference.

There is a difference. His death is imputed to you. Now, this relies quite a lot on chapter five and what we talked about over the last couple weeks in that chapter.

But His death was imputed to you. God literally marks your debt as paid, but the payment is reckoned to your account.

The payment is reckoned as if you had paid it, but is literally shown as paid. Living in the power of the resurrection is different from that because the

Holy Spirit is not imputed or reckoned to you. It's not as if you have the

Holy Spirit if you're in Christ. He is given.

He dwells within. That's not imputation. That's not as if. That's not a leisure mark so that it could be as if I was in Christ when

He died. This is real. This is literal. He is a person, not an it.

A real living person. The third member of the triune God given to you.

Paul writes in verse four, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

By the power of the resurrection, the indwelling Holy Spirit, new life. The old self crucified.

The new one who doesn't have to anymore give submission. To its ways and the desires that it gives you.

It is here. This is where we have the wherewithal to live lives that are well pleasing to God. In the here and now, the rough and tumble, day -to -day strains that we face, we have the power of Christ's resurrection to help us through.

Verse nine says that death no longer has dominion over you. It's no longer the governing force of your life because the sins that demanded death have been forgiven.

You don't have to worry about those anymore. And sometimes it seems so hopeless. The wages of sin is death and I sin, therefore

I'm gonna die so I might as well just eat, drink and be merry today because I'm gonna die and I don't have any choice about it anymore, do

I? Wrong. Flee to Christ. Fall down before him and repent of your sins.

Go to him and ask him for faith to believe and repent.

The order there is important. Faith to believe and repent of your sins. It's no longer there to make you feel desperate or fatalistic or as if there's just no hope.

These verses in Romans 6 would pull us away from that immediately if we understand what

Paul's really getting at. Christ paid your price.

It's no longer there. It's no longer hanging over your head. Do we say just stop doing it?

Well yeah, just stop doing it because you're resurrected with Christ in newness of life and you have the

Holy Spirit dwelling within and that specter of eternal death no longer hangs over you.

Not just do better, pull yourself up by the bootstraps. The message is so much more glorious than that.

Do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies. Verse 12, verse 14, sin will no more have dominion over you.

How can you do this? How can you live this life dead to sin and all its consequences? Walk in the freedom that Christ's cross purchased for me?

Just what we've been saying, it's the resurrection of Jesus Christ and it's living in that resurrection here and now.

Open again your Bibles please. Can you get to Ephesians chapter 1? I want you to see

Ephesians chapter 1 verses 19 and 20. We're speaking of how to live now in this power of the resurrection.

What it means that we were in Christ when he died and paid this penalty for our sin, when he cleared our account with God.

And what does it mean that we're resurrected into newness of life? And I was saying before death is imputed but the

Holy Spirit is given to you and you can walk in his ways now.

Not perfectly. We're not completely sanctified now. We're still struggling towards this goal but listen to what

Paul prays for the church in Ephesians chapter 1 verses 19 and 20. He prays that we would know the immeasurable greatness of God's power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.

Know that power. Know the immeasurable greatness of it. An immeasurable greatness, a power that raised

Christ from the dead. Arguably the greatest show of God's power since creation itself.

Know that immeasurable power because Christ was raised up by that power and seated with him at the father's right hand.

That's not an imputed, that's not an imaginary power. What God exerted in Christ when he raised him out of the grave is the same, mark it well, the same power that he works towards you.

And now look at chapter 2 of that same book, Ephesians. Look at chapter 2 and begin with me at verse 4.

But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Did you hear that? Did you hear what those verses tell us? How that ties into what he's saying in chapter 6 verses 1 through 14 of Romans?

He raised us up. He seated us now at Christ with Christ in the heavenly places.

Speaking of that power of the resurrection in guiding our lives and giving us the empowerment to do things that are pleasing to God to leave behind that old self and to believe with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength that he really is crucified and done with.

Do you know what it means to be united with Christ in his resurrection?

It means that the very power is worked towards you that raised up Christ Jesus out of the grave.

Not to raise you up at the last day. That's not what Paul's talking about here. It will be that and he will raise us up at the last day but this speaking of raising us up now in this life so we walk in the newness of life that Paul speaks of.

Look what I just read from Ephesians. Alive together with Christ.

Raised us up with him. Seated us with him in the heavenly places and why does he do all that?

What is the purpose? To show his grace in the coming ages. What are the coming ages?

The ages between Christ's ascension and his return in our age today.

His grace and kindness show grace and kindness shown in us as we live in newness of life and the power of his resurrection.

He's talking about here and now. He's talking about this morning, this afternoon, and tomorrow, and for that matter yesterday and last week.

This has to mean something to us today. This resurrection power that we're living in.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15 32. What do I gain if humanly speaking I fought with beasts

Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, can we say if there is no resurrection?

If the dead are not raised let's eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Do you hear what he's saying? He faced down beasts.

Many scholars think that these were lions sent to ravage the Christians as people of that day were wont to do.

Why could he do that? Because he knew the dead were raised.

He faced death in the body. Faced death for Christ's sake because he lived in the power and the hope of the resurrection.

It means something to us today, now. Not an imputed righteousness or not an imputed holy spirit reckoned as if you have him.

Real and literal and in Christ as he represented us in newness of life as he was resurrected from the grave.

Philippians 3 10. That I may know him, that's Christ, and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, of course, vicariously.

Look at what we read from Romans 6 1 to 14. Sharing his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.

That power lived out now, today. One more, 1 Peter 1 3.

Blessed be the God of our Lord, excuse me, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

A living hope, a hope that will not disappoint or in any way fail us in this life as the power of God has worked toward us and in the next when his power will raise us up to be forever with our

Lord. And so Paul can tell us, he can tell you,

Romans 6 12, to not let sin reign in your life. Why?

Because we died to sin. We don't have to obey the passions that it arouses in us. How do we do that?

By the power of the Holy Spirit breathing new resurrection life into us. He could tell us,

Romans 6 13, to not present our members as instruments of unrighteousness, but to present ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.

Do we struggle with sin? Of course we do. The exhortations we have throughout scripture tell us that there is a clear and a present and a constant danger.

We have in Romans 6 1 through 14 a great basis to help us. If you're in Christ, if you're in Christ, then his death for sin was yours.

Your penalty is over with. God's full measure has been paid and so you are free.

You're free from that mastery. As I said, the message next week finishes off chapter 6,

God willing. And we're going to do more with this business of the master and the slave because that becomes Paul's point.

But he's speaking towards the same thing, that you are now free to live the life that God in Christ meant for you.

Because his death has been imputed to your account and his spirit has been literally and actually given to you.

We have new life because of Christ. His death counted towards your account, so also the

Holy Spirit with the same power that raised Christ from the dead, he works towards you. What's the problem with the church today?

Not enough death in it. Not enough attention given to the death of Christ and its meaning.

Not enough understanding that his death bore you with it and so canceled the whole wrath of God, the whole penalty that's been hanging over your head because of your sin.

There's not enough death to sin in the church. Amen?

Lord God, we thank you for your word again and for the living God who gave it to us and for the power of the

Holy Spirit who keeps us, as it were, living and walking in your ways.

I just pray, Father, you continue to help us in this journey. Make us more like your Son. Help us more and more to mortify our sin in our mortal bodies, to cast off the old man more and more consistently.

And Lord, give us longer times before we even look towards the old man and even desire anything that he would bring to us.

May we be more like Christ. May we please you more as we walk more and more in your Spirit. We ask in Jesus' name.