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Sermon: Dead to Sin, Alive to God (Romans 6)
114 Plays4 months ago
In this sermon, I break down 5 observations from Romans 6 that should challenge the way we live.
I hope you are equally challenged and encouraged by it.
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Transcript
Introduction to Romans 6 and Theme of Sermon
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, thank you so much for tuning into the Office Theology podcast. I'm excited to share some sermons that I've preached with you. In this message, I break down all of Romans 6 and what it looks like to be dead to sin and alive in God. I hope you are challenged and encouraged by this message today. I've titled today's sermon, Dead to Sin and Alive to God. And before, come on, let's get excited about titles. Let's go. 10 a.m. is fun. 10.30 is fun. You guys are fun.
Discussion on Jesus's Sacrifice and Grace
00:00:34
Speaker
Before we dive into chapter 6, I want to remind us where this sits because scripture is the most powerful when it's interpreted in the context it was written. And so ah before we jump into 6, I want to remind us of where this sits. ah Right after in Romans chapter 5, Paul provided a great exposition on sin.
00:00:55
Speaker
It began with the inconceivability that someone being Jesus would be willing to die on our behalf. And it went on to explore the origins of consequence of sin and the gift of grace that turned a new page for us all, that's faith in Jesus. After leaning learning in ah all the devastation of and the consequences of sin and all the prospects of abounding grace in Jesus, you think people would turn their back on sin forever, right? But if we honestly examine why we sin, we realize that the origin can be traced at least in part to some sort of desire that's deep within us according to James chapter one. There is something about sin, isn't there? Something that deceptively draws us in with its lies.
00:01:52
Speaker
As we'll see later in Romans chapter seven right after this one, we still have to contend with the desires of the flesh. But even after we accept that God's gift of grace and were reconciled, we still must choose to reject sin and devote ourselves to God.
Prayer for Guidance and Illumination
00:02:09
Speaker
And that brings us to Romans chapter six. Before we continue, let's pray. Jesus, we love you. Apart from you, this is worth nothing. I pray for service today that it's not just another a to-do list item that we get done, but we are coming to encounter the living God corporately.
00:02:35
Speaker
And God, we're not here to make this about me, to make it about real life, but that you are glorified and magnified above all else, Jesus. You are the one we're here for. So we thank you. We ask for your spirit to illuminate scripture and convict us where we are out of alignment with it and bring us back to the goodness of who you are. We say this in your wonderful name and everybody said, ooh, I like 11, 1030. Okay, all right, here we go. Not that 830 was bad, they're 930. My times are all messed up, nine, if they're great. Okay, moving on. All right, Romans chapter 6 verse 1 says this, what shall we say then?
Question: Should Grace Lead to More Sin?
00:03:15
Speaker
Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who die to sin still live in it?
00:03:26
Speaker
Do not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of life. For we have been united with him in his death like his, then we certainly shall shall be united with him in a resurrection like his." Verse 6, 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. That's good news.
00:04:11
Speaker
Verse seven, for the one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that death will no longer have dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. So you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Verse 12. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members that's your life to sin as an instrument for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who've been brought from death to life.
00:04:58
Speaker
and your members to God as an instrument for righteousness. For sin will have will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law, but you are under grace." Verse 15, we're cruising. What then? Are we to sin because we're no longer under the law, but under grace? By no means. He's trying to make a point to the Romans and us today, right? do you Do you not know that if you present yourself to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey? Uh-oh, paul Paul's not making us guess. Either of sin which leads to death or of obedience which leads to righteousness, verse 17. But thanks be to God.
00:05:47
Speaker
that you who are once slaves to sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of the teaching to which you were committed. And having ah and having been set set free from sin and have become slaves of righteousness, I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations for you were For just as you were once presented, your members, that is your body, that who you are, as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present yourself as members of slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. And we're wrapping it up right here. For when you were slaves to sin, you were set free in regard to righteousness.
00:06:34
Speaker
But what fruit were you getting at the time from the things which now you are ashamed? For the end of those things is death, but now you've been set free from the sin and they become slaves to God. And the fruit that leads to sanctification and its end eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen. We did it. One full chapter. A lot of times we know Romans 6.23 because it gets quoted very often of, for the wage of sin is death, right? But the free gift of God's eternal life in Christ Jesus, like, how much more weight does that verse carry?
00:07:21
Speaker
when it's stacked on top of the foundation of the first 22. See, Paul is addressing a handful of things in this passage, but I wanna draw out a few main
Challenging the Notion of Sinning for More Grace
00:07:32
Speaker
observations. The very first one is this. It wasn't as good as you remember. It wasn't as good as you remember. See, Paul is addressing this broken thinking of the more sinful I am, the more God's grace is on display. Um, almost. You almost got it. But what he's trying to do is saying, you know, like if I'm just going to perpetuate this life of sin and brokenness, so god God's grace could be on display even more, that shows that I have not fully understood the impact of the grace that has hit me. That has not hit you.
00:08:13
Speaker
To the power of our sinful nature and the desire that stems from it can lead us to rationalize why continuing in this destructive behavior can accomplish something positive. We are really good at convincing ourselves, aren't we? We're very good at making excuses for myself but not for everybody else. It's very easy to rationalize our brokenness and this is why I am the way I am and just to really ah believe the lie that you are a certain way and you can't get out of it and that's the opposite of the gospel.
Societal Norms vs. God's Standards
00:08:50
Speaker
um Is there any law enforcement in the room this see this morning? Good, I just got to make sure before I go continue on. excuse um So as I'm driving five to ten over as everybody should,
00:09:05
Speaker
um mom Lord send revival in the driving, come on. come Say we're all cruising in great unity of one heart, 45 and a 35, there's like five of us. We're just efficiency, we're making the day, we're taking the day, we're just cruising, we're getting where we need to go in an extra 10 miles per hour to get there together and it's glorious. You know what I'm talking about? Anybody else, come on somebody. And say a police officer doing their job might I add, pulls me over.
00:09:39
Speaker
doing 10 over. He goes, do you know how fast you're going? Obviously you say, how fast do you think I was going? Never answer. Actually this is, this is playing into our sinful nature. Let me redo this. um But what if he says you were speeding and then my response is, well, everybody else I was with was doing the same speed limit. What I'm doing is saying in community or a mutual agreement, it's okay to break the law. How many of the times, how much of the time do when we come to the sin and the brokenness in our life, we find unity in numbers, even though what the unity in the numbers is, is opposite to what the standard of God is. Sometimes we try to find security in our brokenness by other broken people's standards. But I am here to tell you this morning that freedom does not come from moving the line of God's standard. It comes from submitting to the standard of God's word. That's what it is.
00:10:41
Speaker
And so, what Paul's tried to do is he's trying to just call it what it is. Not because he's being harsh, but because he's being loving. Realizing that if we move the line of what we call sin and brokenness, we were we are missing out on the full potential of freedom. So wild we why would we settle for partial freedom when full freedom is available, right? So we tend to rationalize our sin for a few reasons. First, it's an excuse to not be sanctified, to have to die to myself in my desires. We love Jesus as Savior, but not so much as Lord sometimes.
00:11:24
Speaker
right Jesus, you can have my sin, you can have my brokenness, you can have my addiction and my bondage and all this, but when it comes to my time, when it comes to my finances, when it comes to how I treat people, when it comes to my family members, hello anybody, like don't tell me what to do in those moments. You know what's interesting about scripture? I don't know the exact number, but Grayson probably does, so ask him after this. But in scripture, Jesus referenced as Savior is in the 70s, 70 times. Jesus referenced as Lord is well over 300. But for some reason, we like Jesus as Savior, but not as very much as Lord.
Unity with Christ: Death and Resurrection
00:12:04
Speaker
But is it that Him being Lord of our lives leads us to the freedom that we've always wanted anyways?
00:12:11
Speaker
Paul addresses this broken thinking by helping us remember that we are no longer that person. That person has died to sin. So why would we continue to live as that person? Have you heard the saying, absence makes the heart grow fonder? No, it's so nice, right? Unfortunately, that can happen to us when we look back on past sins. I know this to be true in my own life. I tend to forget the consequences and remember the appeal.
00:12:46
Speaker
But this is what happens. How do we not romanticize the past? The good old days. By seeing what Jesus is actually inviting us into.
00:12:58
Speaker
Romans six, four through five talks about how we have been identified with Christ in his death and that we will be identified with him in this life. So death is forever with no option of return. This is precisely how Paul wants us to view our old sinful nature. We are redeemed believers if you are in Christ. We need to leave behind the sin. and squash any fond feelings that we have from reemerging. Because we've been invited into this new walk of this newness of life, a new way of living, a new way of operating, a new way of thinking, a new priorities. We no longer live to the priorities and standards of what we were apart from Christ. That life did not glorify who he was or who he is. We are in a new creation, a new life.
00:13:54
Speaker
This life is far more fulfilling than anything you or I can manufacture on our own. Or better yet, anything the world sells us that will give us peace, hope, and joy.
00:14:09
Speaker
Paul uses the imagery of baptism um to help us illustrate that our identity is now in Christ. Baptism is this picture of our identity with Christ, just as he died, so we die with him, buried with him as it we're in the water. And just as he was raised to life, so we're raised from the water into this new life in him. The only hope that we have in living free from the sin is to die to it. Since we aren't going to die physically, at least not yet, identifying ourselves with Jesus's death and resurrection is key to overcoming the power of sin in our present and fallen state. So number one, it wasn't as good as you remember. Your old life was not as good as you remember. Don't believe that life for a second.
00:15:03
Speaker
The second is this. You are united with Christ.
00:15:11
Speaker
See, Jesus' crucifixion, his burial and resurrection accomplished much more than just forgiveness for those who believe. Because of that, we can become united with him. And we're united with Jesus that shifts our entire identity. See, sometimes we see as like, man, we are in a new identity with Jesus. He has saved us. We've been baptized, all these different things. We're like, we finally made it. No, it means we finally get to start. We finally get to start. You see, our old identity,
00:15:51
Speaker
Used to live for our own selfish desires. Now our new identity is to be about people, about the kingdom of God above all else. As we identify ourselves with Jesus, we figuratively go through the same process. Our old sinful self has been crucified and buried with Jesus. It's gone. Raised again to the newness of our life. The end goal of our identification with Christ is to not to consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God. Listen to this. Sometimes we focus on what we've been saved from more than what we've been saved for.
00:16:33
Speaker
The goal of following Jesus isn't just for me to be a little bit better, to have all my brokenness taken care of, to have all my sin and my shame taken care of. That is a byproduct of a life surrendered to Jesus. That's not the goal of following Jesus. It's ah it's a switch in our perspective. It's a shift in our priorities that all that we do is unto the glorification of Jesus and Jesus alone. You want to know how to rid yourself of brokenness? Stop looking at it and focus on Him. The brokenness cannot stand in the midst of Him. Romans gets me feisty.
00:17:17
Speaker
Because Jesus is worth so much more than what He can do for you, right?
00:17:28
Speaker
He's just not this person that just helps us become a little bit better. He's worth so much more devotion than that.
00:17:41
Speaker
And I wonder how many of us walk through our daily lives just with this casual approach to Jesus, thank you for saving me from my sins. But that's the main focus which praise God and thank you for that. But that is the the initial point where we are into this new life of being about the kingdom of God, to be about the Father's business. That's the goal. You wanna know what a Christian life fulfilled is? It's being about the Father's business wherever you are. Paul says it this way. You are ministers of reconciliation. Now that you're a new creation, you are in a specific context where the Lord has placed you. You want to find fulfillment in your work. like Think about it this way. You are there on purpose with a purpose, and that purpose is the kingdom of God. You don't need to bring your unsafe friend to church. We'll have him here, right? But you are there on purpose. I can't be where you are. But the Spirit of God in you can be where you are. That wasn't on the note, so it's for free, I guess.
00:18:39
Speaker
When we identify with Christ, we're not only identifying with Him as our Lord and Savior, but also what He does. We become about the Father's business. The next piece is this. This is the last service, right? Nice. Moving on from the timer. Refuse to allow sin to reign in your life. Refuse to allow. I put that word in there on purpose. Allow sin to reign in your
Resisting Sin and Serving God
00:19:09
Speaker
life. In verse 12, Paul provides a summary conclusion of the chapter thus far. Read very closely here. paul's commortal bodies This is interesting. Paul does not declare that sin will no longer reign in mortal bodies. Sin still does reign in our in mortal bodies without any hope for change apart from Christ. Even as redeemed believers in Jesus,
00:19:35
Speaker
we must still contend with the ongoing presence of sin in our bodies. It's a constant, die to yourself situation. And Paul refers to our mortal bodies because he anticipates the day when we're receiving mortal bodies just as Jesus did. Until that day, the power of sin is still present in our lives. But listen, the only question is how do we respond to it now? whether we give it power it no longer has, or whether we allow Christ to live in us and put to death the deeds of the flesh. And as we wait for this day, God's indwelling Holy Spirit not only redeems us, but empowers us to live free from the bondage of sin.
00:20:31
Speaker
So if you hear in this sermon, I just have to try harder to not let sin rule my life and I need to choose the right things. Yes and amen, but how do we be empowered to do so? It is by the Holy Spirit empowered within you alone. I am no match for my sinfulness. I'm no match for my brokenness. I cannot defeat the brokenness in my life, but you know who can? The same power that raised Christ from the dead that dwells within us now. So now, so now, It's not in doing more or trying hard trying harder, it's in resting and abiding more. And the kingdom of God is the upside down kingdom. It doesn't make sense here and now, but it makes sense with Him.
00:21:23
Speaker
Sin may still dwell in our bodies, but we have the choice to whom we will serve. You see, if we go back to obeying sin's desires, it means we'll allow it to reign in our bodies. The old desires will still be present, but the good news is that we no longer have to be enslaved to them. See verse 13 says, do not present your members as sin and instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who've been brought, bought from death to life. You are members to God as instruments of righteousness. In this verse, Paul lays down three things real quick that when we are tempted to enslave ourselves to sin, the first one is this, when sin calls us, we must stop answering. Are you tempted to look at images on your phone? Throw that phone out the window.
00:22:11
Speaker
I'd rather buy a flip phone and a new phone than to say yes to be enslaved to that again. But, Brennan, that's a bit radical. We'll sin just as radical. It'll come after us. We have died to sin, so let's not go back. We are present. We are to present second pieces. We are to present ourselves to God as those who are alive and free from sins. We are willing and we are ready to be about the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of Brennan anymore. The third piece is this, we're no longer to offer our body parts as service to sin, rather use them as instruments of righteousness. Our entire being changes from satisfying our sin to being alive alive to God and being about the kingdom of God. Then Paul goes on to say, sin will have no more dominion over you, because we're not under the law, but grace. The law magnified our sin, we learned that earlier in Romans.
00:23:08
Speaker
but now that grace abounds to address our ongoing struggle with sin. Remember, this is not a license to sin. We learned that in verse one and 15. But he's helping us realize that grace makes this new life free from sin possible. But we have a choice to serve God or to serve sin. The next piece I take from this is you choose who you will serve.
Choice Between Serving Sin or God
00:23:39
Speaker
um My wife and I used to have these dogs called Newfoundland's. Does anybody know what those dogs are? They look like legal black bears. Like 150 pounds, massive, their heads like this big, so cute, teddy bears. um But if we're walking those dogs and they see something they want, you're not walking them, they're walking you, right?
00:24:06
Speaker
Sometimes the sin and the brokenness in our life feels that way, right? I'm not really in control, sin's in control. Have you ever felt that way about some of your brokenness in your life? Like I'm not really in control as much as I think I am or what you're even saying today. But the reality is when we choose to sin, we don't like that because now we have to take ownership.
00:24:34
Speaker
Our actions have greater ramifications than we might realize. We're choosing to offer ourselves to sin instead of God. We have to call it what it is, right? In doing so, we choose who we will obey, to who we will enslave ourselves to. That's the language that Paul uses. Before Christ entered our bodies, we had no choice. We didn't. We were slaves to sin. And that enslavement leads to death. But now, but now we have a choice, which is a beautiful thing. We have a choice to who we will serve. Our choice about who we serve has significant ramifications to our life. If we serve sin, only outcome that we can anticipate is death.
00:25:31
Speaker
Contrast this with serving God, a choice that leads to sanctification, which means becoming more like him, which lens which ends in eternal life. If you have a problem with what I'm saying, I hate to tell you, I don't know how to tell you this, you have a problem with Romans 6, not me. don't Don't hate the messenger. By presenting it this way, what Paul is doing is making the decision simple. We must focus on the long-term range of our decisions.
00:26:00
Speaker
Now that we can serve God, we're enslaving and devoting ourselves to righteousness in the service of God. And in the end of this portion, Paul challenges us to vote ourselves just as fully to pursuing righteousness just as much as we used to devote ourselves to our sin and selfishness. He's like, I know you got it in you. I know you have that pursuit and that desire and that want, because I see it in your sinful, broken nature. You will pursue whatever you want. Now take that desire, take that drive and put it towards the things that lead to sanctification and eternal life. That's far better use of it. Then he ends it with this one. This is the last piece. The fruit in your life tells on you.
00:26:56
Speaker
The fruit in your life tells on you.
00:27:02
Speaker
See verse 20 is very interesting. This is what it says.
False Freedom in Sin vs. True Liberation in God
00:27:06
Speaker
For when you were a slave to sin, you were free in regards of righteousness. I'm gonna be honest with you. It sounds a little odd in this moment, but this is what's happening. The freedom talked about in this verse isn't really freedom. It's perceived freedom since we're enslaved to sin. This is what sin does. Sin lures us into thinking that choosing sin, we're actually acting with freedom, not knowing that we are inviting bondage and brokenness into our life.
00:27:45
Speaker
She sinned, sin presents itself. Um, all sin does is, is, is presented self as false mock versions of what God really offers. And so what can happen is there's this sinful desire that we have with him to say, I have freedom to choose this. And I think that I have freedom, but what I don't know is that behind that quote free decision to pursue sin, it actually comes with all sorts of baggage of bondage and brokenness.
00:28:16
Speaker
So the enemy takes what is good and pure and twists it,
00:28:23
Speaker
not knowing, and luring us into thinking that what we get to choose is actually freedom, not knowing that we're actually choosing to be enslaved to brokenness and sin. But this is what happens. As we look closer in this verse, I don't know about you, but in the Christian life, this is kind of what happens sometimes. Once we become Christians, Sin would die. And we just serve God, go on our merry way. Sure, there might be some struggles here and there, you know, little speed bumps, if you will. But overall, sin won't be a big deal. Has anybody found that true in your life so far? sweats up Okay. But if we read Romans a little bit closer, we'll see that Paul actually never said sin is dead.
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ
00:29:20
Speaker
Take it off your word. Instead, he tells us to consider ourselves dead to sin. That's a huge difference. That is a big difference because God does not promise that sin will never reign in me. He urges me to not allow it to happen. This comes back to our issue of choice, right? But we must remember, like this can't get twisted and missed. It's the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that guides us into all truth, John 16. And all of this is done through a life of empowered, being submitted to the Holy Spirit of God in our life. So don't get missed and don't make this, I need a work harder sermon because that does not produce the freedom that I'm talking about. It's a submission to the Spirit of God within us. Now that we have a choice about whom we will serve,
00:30:14
Speaker
We need to make that choice consciously. Our natural inclination is to fall back into this old pattern and re-enslave ourselves to sin. Paul challenges us in verse 21 to pause for a moment. We could do ourselves good sometimes if we paused a little more, right? Let me pause and think for a second. slave ah Sin wants you to act now. It's impulses.
00:30:47
Speaker
He wants you to think back to your old life. Just think back to your old life for a moment.
00:30:56
Speaker
The one that we consider dead. Actions that brought us from morse and shame. I have a lot of it. Do we really miss that life? Do we really want to go back to that way of living?
00:31:17
Speaker
Paul uses this analogy of bearing fruit to create another contrast between serving sin and serving God. Either way, we will bear fruit. But the question is, what type of fruit do you want to bear in your life? It's not an if, it's a what. It's not if I will or if I won't, it's it's you do and what is it?
00:31:45
Speaker
Do you want to be known for the things of God? Do you want to be known or do you want to be known as someone who just lived to satisfy their life and their needs and their things and their pleasures, whatever it is? Do you want to be a better husband? Do you want to be a better wife? Do you want to be a better father or mother or friend or a co-worker or a business owner? That does not come from a life of me choosing my way. It comes from a life surrendered unto the Holy Spirit at work within me. God cares about my wife way more than I do, so I need to be devoted to him to be a better husband. And I'm not devoted to him for what I get out of it. I'm devoted to him because he's worth it.
00:32:38
Speaker
See, Paul concludes the chapter was what had become a famous memory verse.
00:32:48
Speaker
Paul appears to believers to not return to their old lives. And he offers his statement as motivation to fight the urge of re-enslaving ourselves to sin. In this closing part of the chapter, Paul forces us to consider the wages for where we put our devotion.
Living a Fulfilled Life Devoted to God
00:33:12
Speaker
A life devoted to serving God leads to eternal life. This isn't an easy life, but it's a life that's worth living. It's a life where you'll find the fulfillment and satisfaction that you've been trying to manufacture over here. A life devoted to God is a life that will continually be sanctified and formed in the likeness of Him. That's the life we want. But the alternate is death. Death is the reward for a life devoted to sin.
00:33:43
Speaker
And as we put our trust in Jesus, we are freed from the penalty of our sin, but we still must choose each day, dare I say, each hour, who we will devote our lives to. So who will you devote your lives to? So what's the one sentence that sums up what Paul is encouraging us today? It's this behind me. A life devoted to God is far more fulfilling than anything this life offers. Right?
00:34:18
Speaker
So my final question for you is this. Would you devote yourself to Jesus, the one your soul longs to be devoted to? Whether that's for the hundredth time, the thousandth time, Christian of 30 years, you need a reminder of this as well. Maybe more so than some of us.
00:34:44
Speaker
Or maybe you're sin here, but I have not devoted my life to God at all. Now would you enter into this beautiful family of a life devoted to God and watch how he will transform your life through submission to him? Because how's it going now apart from him? Paul doesn't give us the wiggle room of, oh, it's okay, you know, you can find fulfillment out there. No, he says the only thing apart from Christ is sin and death. And in Him is the eternal life and the freedom that we've all been looking for. So would you devote yourself to Him today?
Closing Prayer and Emphasis on Holy Spirit
00:35:22
Speaker
Would you stand and pray with me? Jesus, you are worth devoting everything to. God, would you take people like us
00:35:34
Speaker
still in the battle of sin and brokenness. Would you remind us that a life devoted to you is far more fulfilling than anything we try to do ourselves, manufacture ourselves, or what we try to receive from the world? God, that your Holy Spirit dwells within us, God, to help us pursue truth, to help to pursue you, to help us be in alignment and accordance with your word. Holy Spirit, would you convict our hearts where we are out of alignment of your word and your truth and bring us back and remind us that it's the kindness of God that leads to repentance. So God, we say come Holy Spirit, have your way in this place, in this day, in this morning. We say this in your wonderful name and everybody said, amen. but