Good morning My name is Matt and one of the pastors here and if you have a Bible would you Turn to Romans chapter 6 with me. We're going to continue our sermon series on the difference and we're going to be looking at Romans chapter 6 verses 1 through 18 It's on page 1,199 if you're going to use one of the Bibles that we provide for you underneath the chair Here now, God's holy and true word from Romans chapter 6 starting in verse 1 The Apostle Paul writes What shall we say then? Are we to continue and send 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 and 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 We'll have no dominion over you Since you are not under law but under grace What then are we to sin because we are not under law, but under grace by no means? Do you not know that if you present yourself to anyone as obedient slaves you are slaves of the one whom you Obey either of sin which leads to death or of obedience which leads to righteousness But thanks be to God That you who were once slaves of sin have become Obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed and Having been set free from sin Have become slaves of righteousness The word of the Lord you pray with me father. We give you praise this morning We thank you that we can gather here and sing praises to your name Sing praises to our Savior and Lord Jesus Sing praises to the Holy Spirit who is Inside of us reminding us that we belong to you Holy Spirit we ask that you would give us years to hear this morning that you would use this time to transform us More into the likeness of our Lord Jesus And we thank you for these amazing truths that we will Talk about this morning Father, we do pray that you would use this time to transform us and make us new Equip us to run with this good news of the gospel and word indeed to our neighbors and to the nations for it is in Jesus name that we pray Amen Well, we are in a series called the difference and it is focusing on some of the most fundamental critical important doctrines or truths that are found in the Bible and One of the reasons that we're doing this is because there are a Lot of people outside the church that do not understand what the Bible actually teaches about these things and in reality There's a lot of people occasionally inside the church that don't understand some of these things as well And so we want to make sure we are rooted firmly in these critical and essential doctrines Last week we talked about the doctrine of justification by faith alone Which is this amazing reality that we see in God's word that we receive his full acceptance Through faith alone. It's not according to anything that we do Jesus death on the cross paid for all of our sin We did not contribute to that payment, but we receive it by faith and then also that his righteousness the Perfectly righteous life that he lived is given to us for our record Freely and that too is received through faith and so we contribute absolutely nothing to God's acceptance of us We just receive it through faith. It's an amazing Amazing reality that we see in scripture and we talked about Some of the differences that that makes in our lives if we believe that if that is true for us and for example We talked about how if you believe that all of your sin past present and future is forgiven then that power that guilt can have over you as lifted And we talked about how if we know that we are fully accepted by God because of what Christ has done Then that appetite that we have for acceptance is satisfied. It's amazing stuff Well, one of the things that we didn't talk about another difference that it makes to be justified by faith We're going to talk about this morning and that is that when we when we know that we are completely forgiven and that we are Completely righteous and we receive those things through faith It gives us an ability to look into some things that Apart from knowing that we're accepted by God. We just can't do And what those things are are Really the combination of God's holiness has amazing perfection and goodness And then simultaneously our sin our wickedness and how destructive our sin is only when we know that God accepts us because of what Christ has done can we begin to Realize and see how amazingly holy he is and therefore how wicked and unlike him that we are When we know we're accepted by what Christ has done we can look at these things otherwise it's just too frightening But we can realize these things and what happens when you realize that and you see how holy God is and how perfect and how amazing and how loving he is and that he accepts us Through faith it creates in us a desire God not only Justifies us, but he also puts within us this desire to grow to be more like him To realize that we don't want to be In sin that we want to grow and become more like him more like our perfect savior Jesus and That really we're talking about this morning the doctrine of sanctification But there's a whole lot more to that doctrine than that than what we'll see today But we're gonna look at a few things regarding that but this amazing reality that God not only forgives us, but then he also Changes us he transforms us and allows us to grow more and more like him more and more like his son through the work of the Holy Spirit Now the hard truth on this reality is that if somebody Says that they're a Christian But they have no desire and show no effort to be growing more like Christ There's a major disconnect there and what we would say is that either that person doesn't actually believe Or perhaps they believe but are still immature in their faith They need to come to understand these things in a deeper way Maybe understand justification by faith alone even more and that can enable a Desire to begin to want to be more like Christ to pursue Holiness to become to seek to become more like God in his holiness those who do believe those who truly believe we do have this desire We have this desire to become more like God and therefore Simultaneously to be free from our sin. That is the desire that God puts in our hearts to be free And that's why the gospel is such good news Because it's more than just that we're forgiven and declared righteous, but also That we are transformed that we're made new in this life And that's what we're going to be focusing on this morning through faith in Christ We are not only set free from the penalty of sin, but also the power of sin Our God is amazing Setting us free not only from the penalty like we talked about last week, but even the power of sin is something he sets us free from We'll be talking about that this morning and one of the things I like to usually say is that I mean This is God is as gracious to forgive us of our sins as he is to deliver us from its power as well These are both incredible examples of God's grace. So we're going to talk about this This reality by looking at three things this morning if you're making an outline I want to talk about slavery and then union and then freedom slavery union and freedom and so we're going to start by talking about slavery Normally we like to walk right through a passage, but this morning we're just going to bounce around and pick up a couple verses So looking at verse six. Let's talk about slavery keeping in mind that Paul in the last few chapters he has Explained justification by faith alone and then the question that can come from that is then why do we fight against our sin? In other words, why don't we just go on sinning? Which is what we see in verse one of chapter six And so this is part of his answer to that he says that we've died to sin and then he says this very interesting thing in verse six Regarding sin and slavery look at verse six 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 And what that tells us is that apart from faith and Christ a human being is a slave That we apart from faith and Christ we are slaves to sin in fact in verse 16 We won't look at it in depth, but Paul does talk about how whatever you're obeying that's what you are a slave to whether you are a slave to sin or a slave to Righteousness or or to God Sin is slavery. That's what we see here sin is slavery and it's slavery to a very powerful slave master sin doing things that God tells us not to do or not doing things that God tells us to do that is slavery and God loves us too much To leave us in bondage to sin Sin always brings about misery it always brings about death and so God Graciously sets us free and that's what we'll see this morning, but think about slavery When you think about slavery and then using it as an illustration to understand sin. This is really really powerful You know when you and I think about slavery We usually probably our minds go to early American enslavement of Africans and that is horrific and terrible That didn't that hadn't happened yet. So Paul in thinking about slavery is not thinking about that But he quite possibly was thinking about when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt If you know the Old Testament if you know the story You know that the Israelites went down into Egypt and then a new Pharaoh arose and enslaved the Israelites Okay, and if you think about what their lives were like and then cross-referenced that with the effects of sin It's really amazing think about this What were their lives like what was what was life like for the Israelites well number one? They were forced to obey a master who did not care about them and was really using them Okay, they all day every day they had to do this work In obedience to Pharaoh Somebody that they didn't care about or they didn't they didn't want to work for and someone who didn't care about them one bit They were not free No matter what they thought they were not doing what they wanted to do they were Slaves to Pharaoh number two they never benefited from their work
All day they would work and create these bricks if you know the story and and then at the end of the day Whatever they had done would be taken away carted off to serve Pharaoh in some way they didn't get to keep it They didn't get to sell it and and have the money they it was taken away they worked very very hard and then there was nothing So their labor Their slavery their slave labor never benefited them at all That's the essence of being a slave is working really hard for nothing for someone else's benefit now The third thing would be that their work just got harder and harder They were slaves working for Pharaoh Never benefited from it and then in Exodus chapter five We read that Moses had begun to go to Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh to let gods people go and at the first sign of The Israelites wanting to be freed from their slavery from Pharaoh Pharaoh turns around and says no You cannot go and by the way I'm going to make it even harder on you your lives will be harder now because you're going to have to make have to make bricks without straw Making the bricks a lot more heavy and he said you got to pump out as many as you did before So in slavery to Pharaoh their lives continued to get harder and harder And we take those things and then think about the way that sin affects us It's amazing. It's the same things that happened to us when we are in sin when we are giving into sin We are obeying a master. It's not that we're just doing what we want This is a hard thing to realize, but what's happening when we're sinning is Sin the world of flesh the devil is saying do this thing and we say yes sir
Now I know that's not something we like to think about But the reality is you you can feel it when and we've all done this we've all tried to stop We've all had times in our life where we've tried to stop doing something we know we're not supposed to do and then we do it again anyway That's slavery That's the proof that we are in bondage we cannot break free So just like the Israelites were obeying a master when we're in sin we're obeying a master Also just like the Israelites were working hard and and never benefiting from it our sin never benefits us Sin does not make our lives better We think it will But it doesn't it just does not and Paul says something in this chapter that I think is so bold It's in verse 21 you can look there. We didn't read it But in verse 21 he says consider the fruit that you were getting from the things of which you are now ashamed in other words He's speaking to believers he's speaking to people that have been set free from the power of sin and he's saying think back To your former life when you were stuck in sin What good came of it That's very bold because that means that we can look back on our lives And if we're honest that we really take an honest assessment have the simple things that I've done or been involved in Actually benefited my life or someone else's and we'll see that the answer is no So just like the Israelites did not benefit from their slave labor. We don't benefit from our sin at all In fact, it just gets worse It brings misery and more sin and more misery And that's the third thing that just like the Israelites it got harder and harder their lives got more difficult That's what happens to us too Our lives as we continue to give in to sin
Get more difficult and more difficult I think an example of this and I've told you this about me before So hopefully if this first time you hear in this about me, I hope you won't be too shocked But one of the things one of the sins that's very common in our country among men particularly young men Is the struggle with viewing inappropriate materials particularly on the internet and I've shared with you before that as a younger man I really struggled with that I had an issue with that and God has completely delivered me from that but what I can tell you Is that this is exactly how it works What I can tell you is that when you are stuck in that particular sin just like any sin You want to stop but you can't seem to stop It's like somebody keeps saying do this and we and you say okay
And it never benefits It never benefits you no matter what it's there's never a point where you where you say I'm glad That I'm doing this it never pays off it never benefits it never delivers sin never delivers on its promises And things only get worse and by the grace of God I was lifted out of this problem long time ago now But there are just so many stories of marriages and families They're destroyed By that issue and I know for fact there are men in this room. They're struggling with that And I also know that if you will Tell me about it I can walk with you through that Can help you with that but the point is this is what sin does Okay, it enslaves us it holds it has power over us and it causes us to do all these things that do not benefit anyone In fact it makes things worse And when we see that then we want out right when we can open our eyes and realize that even you know We it's easy to see with the bigger sins that this is how it works But the reality is this is how it works with all sin All sin does does these same things to us and so it Should make us Long to be free And the reality is just like the Israelites needed somebody to come and deliver them From slavery to Pharaoh We need someone to deliver us and continue to deliver us from our slavery to sin And I just want to say this I know sometimes uh This reality is is pretty shocking and people don't feel like they're really enslaved to something Well, what I would say as a challenge is consider something you're involved in that the Bible says you should not be doing And just stop don't ever do it again See if you try to stop you'll see You will see the power that sin has over us And that we need a savior we need to be Saved delivered and that's what's so amazing about the gospel is like I said before it's not just that we're forgiven of our sin but we're also given power Over our sin and it is through our union with Christ This is such a sweet sweet doctrine that we would be united to Christ And so let's talk about union union with Christ to see in verse five that it is through being united to Christ That we are set free from the power of sin Okay, this is critical that we understand this. This is where we get power It's being united to Christ verse five 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 This reality that we are united with him is absolutely amazing It's the Greek word sumphutosis and what it means is That it's actually an agricultural term that's used when you're talking about taking two plants and Engrafting them into each other so then they become one plant that's inseparable Okay, it's fusing those two plants together And so this is the imagery that Paul's using here that we are fused we are engrafted To Christ we become one with him and that Is where we get the power because think about this um Another another way that our relationship in our union with Christ is Illustrated in scripture is marriage and in a normal marriage when you say I do You become co-owners of everything that that person Had before and likewise them of you unless you know as long as it's not like a Hollywood marriage with a bunch of prenuptials and all that stuff a normal wedding You say I do And now you are co-owners of all that each other hat Okay, so when I got married When I said I do to Hannah I Got me not just a spouse But a 1993 Toyota camera It's purple stick shift Okay, I don't want to tell you what she got Seth is a Camaro. I don't know what I was doing. It's fast um And it was cheap. It was old just leave me alone. Okay, but Okay, just becomes right and I also I work for Best Buy okay? So I had I had a bank account the day Hannah said I do she suddenly co-owner hundreds of dollars hundreds
Okay, it's I mean, there's just it's just hers Her things remind we were co-owners. We share everything and you know What else is amazing is when I was standing there looking at this woman who had chosen to unite herself to me
To become one with me and even though I have all that I have a past I Have baggage that I Regret things I'm ashamed of and she knows I told her these things Yet she looks at me and chooses to unite herself to me To become one with me and in a real sense She owns my past too, doesn't she? And the gospel is this amazing amazing reality that Jesus Who is perfect looks at you and me who are the farthest thing from with all of our baggage All of our sin and he says to you and me I do
and when the holy spirit in time Regenerates our hearts when we're born again and when we put our faith in Christ That's when we're saying I do as well and we are united to him We have union with Christ and therefore he gets all that we have and all we have to offer him is sin But he takes it and then on top of that we receive all that he has all that he's done And he has made a payment for sin And so suddenly we own that payment that payments our payment his payment Belongs to us that's how we are forgiven because being united to him being one with him means that his payment counts for us And also he lived this life of righteousness right all these perfect good works that he did And that too Is legally ours And we are declared righteous because we're united to the one Who is truly righteous That's justification that's what we talked about last week And now here's another thing look at verse 10 Another thing that we get Being united to Christ verse 10 for the death he died He died to sin Once for all so we also received through this union we receive a death to Sin a death that is powerful enough to break the power of sin and that becomes ours So on the cross Jesus was not only paying the debt for our sin and transferring his righteousness to us But he was also dying to sin breaking the power that sin would have over you and I who believe breaking it So that it cannot enslave us anymore and that death becomes our death If we want to be free from sin he who has died is free from sin it says if we want to be free we need a death And the grace of God is that we receive that death by being united to him and not experiencing that death Look at verse 6 again. He says that we were crucified with Christ We were crucified with him in order that the body of sin our old self would be brought to nothing the power of it Would be brought down to nothing and and we would no longer be enslaved to sin for one who has died It's been set free from sin and if we believe then we have died with Christ Paul says the same thing in Galatians 5 I have been crucified with Christ that means his death is my death And not just his death, but his burial and his resurrection and so we sing ours the cross the grave the skies It's amazing And another thing too on good Friday, you know, we sing were you there Were you there when they crucified my lord What's the answer to that question yes via by nature of our union with Christ we were there we were crucified with him And so Paul says in verse 11 so you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus which means our power For fighting against our sin and breaking free from its enslavement is Through our union with Christ and the fact that we have a death We own his death and that is what we need to be set free from its power And every time a believer is sinning when we give in to sin what we're really doing is we're forgetting that we do not have to obey that horrible master We're forgetting that we have been set free That we can say no and we can grow and we can fight against our sin and become more like Christ in this life And the reality is it's hard. It's not easy. We need somebody to lead us We need somebody to teach us take us along that journey and just like Moses led the Israelites out of slavery When they were in Egypt Jesus the true and better Moses is the one Who paid our debt and then broke that power of sin and it's leading us Into real freedom And so the difference this makes in your life is that we can be free that sin is not your master Listen to me. Sin is not your master Let me say that again because I know that some of us are really struggling and we feel like we can't stop doing these things that we're involved in And I want to tell you you need to hear this Sin is not your master Sin is not your master if you are a believer Jesus is your master now We need help to follow him to fight against our sin we need each other we need the Holy Spirit most of all we need the word of God but the Case in point is that sin is no longer our master. We are not enslaved in fact Paul says that we become slaves or servants of God And that's amazing because sin and God treat their servants very very differently sin is hard work. No pay off God God is so different Treats us like children showers his love upon us rewards our work as we strive for holiness He empowers us through the work of the Holy Spirit and the gospel and the word of God and we grow and we become Different people we are changed our lives change. That's the huge difference is that we really our lives truly Change as we grow more and more like Christ And that's why he calls us to obey that's where these calls and commands and scripture are therefore to call us forward God is telling us to come be what he has empowered us to be And the reality is sin Sin is is easy when you think about it What's hard is obedience obedience is very very hard But what's so amazing is the pay off is absolutely amazing for obedience because God meets us Empowers us changes us we become more loving more joyful more patient We become more like Christ and we experience what we were made to be In our lives really actually change when we fight When we fight against our sin. That's when we'll see the most life change because true freedom is obeying God That's what we were designed to do so true freedom Is to obey God in fact perfect freedom would be perfect obedience and that's what Jesus has and wants for us is that He was the most obedient person ever because he was perfectly obedient he was also the most free And while we won't be perfectly obedient in this life one day he'll make us perfect but in this life He's calling us forward to experience more and more of that freedom and that joy the joy of the indescribable joy of becoming more like him of an increase in holiness to be more and more like God like Christ and here's the thing Jesus perfectly obedient and therefore perfectly free and chose With that freedom to be bound
He chose to be bound and tortured and hung on across He used his freedom to die so that we could be free too
And that's what true freedom is and the more we see that sin is slavery and true freedom is is obedience the more we we want it and the more we we want To experience that look at verse 12 13 and 14. This is true freedom This is why Paul is saying this. He's explained these things to us now now. He's saying so be free Here he says verse 12 let not sin therefore rain in your mortal body to make you obey It's passions. He's saying don't obey sin. It's not your master anymore 13. 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. We'll have no dominion over you since you are not underlaw but under grace What a sweet sweet Thing sin will have no dominion over us. We can change we can grow we can fight Hard together against our sin and see Real life change see the reality is freedom is is it's all about realizing this that that it's through his law God teaches us how to be free Okay, that's why there's all these commands in scripture It's not about how do you how do you get God's acceptance? No Talk about that last week. We're accepted because of Christ's obedience our obedience is learning to be free It's learning to be like Jesus. It's learning to be what we were meant to be and The reality is the law when your non-believers designed to crush you and show you that you cannot live up to it And therefore you need to save your desperately and then the gospel is the good news that there is a savior one and only Jesus Christ and that not only will he deliver you from the penalty of sin but also through faith Through the work of the Holy Spirit. He'll deliver us from that power as well and our lives change It's amazing and when we see that the Bible teaches teaches this and teaches us how to live free then we long to bind ourselves to God That's what's so amazing see it's ironic But when the more we see the glory of God and the call he has to us to grow in holiness The more we want that the more we want to bind ourselves to God the more we want to serve him because we realize it's true freedom when someone Has formerly been a slave and then it's set free If they've been a slave they're whole life. They don't know how to live. They don't know how to be free And the law is a sweet sweet thing that God gives us to show us what freedom really is Once we know Christ Once he is the one leading us in this freedom We see him we realize that he's purchased our freedom and we want to go where he goes and do what he does We want to say what he says there's a A story about Abraham Lincoln nobody knows if it's really true But it goes like this that Abraham Lincoln went down to a slave auction and began bidding on a young female slave And so she sees this white guy bidding on her doesn't know who he is and she gets scared and worried and realizes She just thinks okay. Here's this other guy. He's gonna abuse me. He's gonna take advantage of me. He's gonna hurt me That's what she expects But Lincoln wins the bidding and so she's brought to him in chains and The story goes that he took the chains off And said my dear you are free And she said What does that mean and he said it it means you are free and she said does does that mean that I can Say whatever I want to say and he says yes dear It means you can say whatever you want to say She says does that does that mean that I can be whatever I want to be And he says yes, that means you can be whatever you want to be And she says does that mean I can go wherever I want to go And he says yes dear it means you may go wherever you want to go And with tears streaming down her face she said well then I will go with you
Because when someone has set you free
You want to go wherever they go you want to do what they do You want to become like them And Jesus is the one who's purchased our freedom on the cross and so we say Then I will go with you Let's pray Father we would never be able to face our sinfulness if we didn't know
That Jesus has paid for it And put his righteousness in its place
Father we Just thank you We ask that you'd help us to realize that sin is not our master Oh how often we forget that We hear it calling to us and we give in And you are so patient and you keep forgiving us Give us that desire to be free Fill us with your spirit help us to Live with grace driven effort to grow and holiness that we would experience more and more of this freedom that crisis purchased for us And as we do so let us glorify you with our lives and bless those around us
That people would see our good deeds and glorify you who isn't heaven
We give you praise and thanks in Jesus name amen