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THE WORK OF CHRIST: OUR SANCTIFICATION Romans 6: 1-14 INTRODUCTION Don’t you just hate it when you’re watching a video and someone comes into the room half way through the movie and after they sit quietly with you for a few minutes they begin asking you to explain who the characters are and what has happened up to this point? You can’t really pay attention to the movie and explain what has happened at the same time. Yet, if the person who has come in the middle is going to enjoy the movie they need some explanation. Therefore, the best thing to do is to stop the movie and give them a summary of what has happened before you turn the movie on again. I feel a little bit like that this morning. You will notice that we are looking at Romans 6: 1-14 this morning. We are coming into the middle of the story, so to speak and not all of us are familiar with what has happened in the first 5 chapters of this letter. In addition, the opening line obviously is based upon what has gone before. Who are the “we”? What is grace? What is sin? Why would anyone ask this question? Like every good story, the one that Paul tells in this letter to the Romans begins by revealing a problem that seems to have no solution. Then the story is the resolving of the problem. The problem that Paul describes is the dilemma posed by the sinfulness of humanity and the justice of God. God made human beings in his image for the purpose of living in joyful dependence upon himself. We were made to enjoy God, to trust God, to obey God, in short to live our entire lives with God at the center. Paul says in Romans 1:24 that men “exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things, rather than the creator.” In other words, rather than trusting God for our happiness we all have chosen to depend upon created things for our happiness. We transgress God’s perfect law, which teaches that we are to act like God from a heart of dependence and for his glory. God is holy and just. He cannot be who he is and live with sinners. Just as human judges are bound by justice to find criminals guilty and sentence them to the appropriate punishment, so God, if he is to be just, must condemn sinful humanity. “The wages of sin is death”. God does not grade on a curve. “The soul that sins will surely die” is the sentence of God on all of us. Death does not mean only physical death but refers to being separated from God and all that is good forever in hell, the place of eternal torment and wrath. The question that humans continually ask is how can a loving God send people to hell? However, the far more difficult question is how can a perfect, just God accept sinful human beings into his presence? I told a make-believe story last week of Osama bin Laden being made President Bush’s advisor and given the keys to the city of New York. We all know that it would be evil for our leaders to reward Osama bin Laden with honor and wealth and protection. We all know that there is nothing Osama bin Laden can do that would make it right for us to not only forgive him but reward him with a prosperous and happy life as a citizen of our country. In the same way, it is impossible for sinners to do anything, to obey any law or to fulfill any religious duty or ceremony in order to overcome the guilt of sin and earn the favor of God. The amazing thing is that God has made a way to do what is, from a human point of view, impossible. God the Father sent God the Son to planet earth. He took on human flesh and lived as a man among us for 30 years, perfectly obeying his Father’s will. Then, after three years of a public ministry characterized by teaching and healing he was handed over to sinful men who mocked him, tortured him and finally killed him by nailing him to a cross. However, it was impossible for death to keep him. God raised him from the dead and he appeared to his disciples for a period of 40 days and has now ascended to the place of power and authority at his Father’s right hand where he waits for the day when he will come in power to destroy evil and all who do evil. In the meantime, the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection is being proclaimed throughout the whole earth so that all who will trust in him can be justly pardoned of all their sins, declared righteous in God’s sight and made God’s own dear friends. No one is made right with God because of anything they have done but only because of what Christ has done in obeying God’s law, dying on the cross for sin and rising from the dead. The question that Paul asks in 6:1 is quite logical at this point. If God forgives sins and makes people righteous because of what Jesus did and simply because these people believe in Christ, not because they obey any law, then why in the world should people not sin? If you’re acceptance by God does not depend upon your behavior, then why should you care whether your behavior pleases God? In fact, according to Paul in 5:20, the more sin grows, the more the grace of God in forgiving sin is experienced. In other words, it would appear that rather than being a bad thing, sin is a good thing because the more you sin, the more grace is shown to you and experienced by you. The question he is asking here is one I have been asked hundreds of times, though not exactly in this form. Often, while counseling professing Christians who are involved in some sin or contemplating some sin, I will tell them that if they are going to be a Christian they must stop sinning. They will say to me, “God will forgive me, that’s why Christ died.” In other words, the fact that they are accepted by God because of Christ’s death and not because of their obedience means they are free to sin. I think this is a question that every Christian has asked at one time or another when faced with temptation to sin. “If I am accepted because of what Christ has done and not because of what I do and it would give me pleasure to commit this sin, then why not enjoy the sin and count on Christ to do what he has promised to do, forgive the sin?” Why shouldn’t I go on sinning? This is the question that Paul is asking and answering in this passage. In answering this question Paul answers another question that many of you are asking. Every true Christian wants to escape their sin. Many of you want to know how to keep from sinning. You hate your sin and would do anything to be rid of it. There is great help for you in this text. MAIN POINT The grace of God delivers those who trust in Christ from the dominating power of sin because I. We are united to Christ (vv.1-5) Paul’s answer to his own question is a very forceful, “May it never be!” This is the strongest possible “no” that can be given. Absolutely not, Christians should not keep on sinning because they are forgiven by grace and not by works. Absolutely not, Christians should not live in sin in order to “show” how kind and gracious God is. Why should we not remain in or live in sin? Because we died to sin. Before I talk about what that means let me point out how carefully Paul is using language. Paul does not teach in this passage that Christians never sin but rather that Christians do not live in or remain in sin. In other words the way that a Christian relates to sin is radically different from how a non-believer relates to sin. The non-believer makes his home in sin, sin is his life, not so for the Christian. We’ll deal more with this later but for now note that Paul is using the language of dwelling in or living in sin. The reason we died to sin is that when we were baptized into Christ, we were baptized into his death. This means that we were buried with him through baptism into death. Then in v. 5 Paul says we were united with him in his death. But not only are we united with him in his death but we are also united with him in his resurrection with the result that we will live a new life. In the second and third point I will deal with what it means to die to sin by dying with Christ and to live a new life by rising with Christ. But what you must understand right now is that dying to sin and living a new life is dependent upon the fact that we are united to Christ in his death and resurrection. The foundation of Paul’s whole argument is that the Christian is united with Jesus in his death and resurrection. We died with him and we are raised with him. Why does Paul say that this identification with Christ is for all who were baptized into Christ? Why does he say we were buried with Christ into death through water baptism? What he is not saying is that baptism is the ritual you must go through in order to be justified, reconciled and united with Christ. He just spent 2 ˝ chapters declaring that the righteousness of God comes to the sinner through faith alone. It would make no sense for him to contradict himself and now say that these benefits come to those who undergo the ritual of water baptism. There are dozens of verses that say we are justified by faith. However, this is the only place where he uses baptism as the mark of those who are united to Christ. You do not have to be baptized to be forgiven. However, you can be sure that if you told Paul you were a Christian but you were not baptized he would say, “Why not?” Then why doesn’t he say in v. 3, “All those who have faith in Christ died with Christ”? “We were therefore buried with him through our faith in Christ into death…” Why does he say water baptism is the instrument through which we are united to Christ in his death and resurrection? First, for the NT, an unbaptized Christian is unheard of. The NT pattern is you believe and then you are baptized. If you are a believer in Christ but have not been baptized you should do so. It is God’s will. Throughout the NT the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, repentance from sin, faith in Christ and baptism into Christ are all part of the conversion or initiation of a sinner into life with God. These terms are used interchangeably and synonymously throughout the NT to describe Christians and their conversion. John Stott summarizes the NT teaching when he says, “union with Christ by faith, which is invisibly effected by the Holy Spirit, is visibly signified and sealed by baptism.” The second thing to note however is that baptism is the perfect symbol for the invisible reality that Paul is describing here. Going under the water symbolizes our death with Christ and coming out of it symbolizes our resurrection to a new life. We are “buried” under the water and die to our old life and then are “raised” out of the water into a new life with Christ. What happened to Jesus happened to everyone who trusts in Jesus. There are not two classes of Christians, the spiritual ones and the carnal ones. Everyone baptized into Christ died with Christ and is now raised with Christ. That is the foundation of Paul’s whole argument. What this union to Christ points to is the absolute inability of humans in themselves to escape the power of sin. You don’t get sinners to stop sinning by telling them to stop. You don’t get evildoers to stop doing evil by educating them. You don’t turn ungodly people into godly people by giving them a 12-step program. Sin is portrayed here by Paul as a powerful, pervasive force that dominates people’s lives. It’s like we are slaves in a concentration camp who have been convinced that we are not slaves but living a life of freedom and joy. If we are going to live like free men we have to be released from our tyrants and removed from their power. Not only their power to control us but also their power to persuade us. This is what Paul says has happened through our being united with Christ. We died with Christ and we have been raised with Christ. The grace of God delivers those who trust in Christ from the dominating power of sin because We are united to Christ And because… II. Dead slaves are free from the control of their masters (vv. 6-7) What exactly does it mean that we have died to sin? Let me begin by telling you what it doesn’t mean. There is a way of talking about our death to sin that is not true but very popular. The popular misunderstanding of this phrase teaches that to be dead to sin means that a Christian is as responsive to sin as a corpse is to stimuli. A corpse cannot see, hear, taste, feel or smell any longer and so does not respond to the physical world anymore. If you see a cat lying next to the road, you don’t know if it’s dead until you poke it with your foot. If it jumps up and runs away when you poke it, then it is alive. If it does not respond then you know it is dead. In the same way, this misunderstanding says, the Christian is unresponsive to sin’s temptations because we died with Christ. We know this is not true for three reasons. First, notice that in v. 10 Christ is said to die to sin when he died on the cross. We are dead to sin because he died to sin. We died to sin in the same way that Christ died to sin. In what sense did Christ die to sin? He certainly did not die in the way that I just described. That would mean that Christ was responding to temptation by sinning prior to his death on the cross. We know that Christ never sinned and so when we are told that Christ died to sin it cannot mean that while he used to be responsive to sin’s demands, now he isn’t. A second reason that we know that Paul does not mean that Christians are unresponsive to sin is vv. 11-14. Paul would not have to tell Christians to not let sin reign in their mortal bodies if they were dead to sin and sin couldn’t reign in their mortal bodies. Third, if being dead to sin means being as unresponsive to sin as a corpse is to stimulation then there are no Christians. At least I’ve never met any. I’ve never met a Christian who does not sin. This kind of teaching either creates despair or self-delusion and hypocrisy. I’ve talked with so many who have been taught that they are supposed to be unresponsive to sin and yet they know they are not and therefore have either given up trying to live like Christians or simply go through the motions but have no joy or real delight in being a Christian because they cannot live unresponsive to sin. I’ve met others who are living in delusion and self-righteousness, claiming that they don’t sin anymore because they are dead to sin. Christians don’t live in or make sin their home because they died to sin with Christ. In what sense did Christ die to sin? Throughout this passage, Paul describes sin as a power or authority that enslaves men. Christ, by becoming a man, placed himself in the concentration camp with us. The Scriptures are quite clear that there was nothing notable about Jesus as a man until he was 30 years old. He subjected himself to live in the world ruled over by sin and Satan. However, with this important difference; he never submitted to sin’s demands. He never believed sins promises and gave in to sins demand to find security and happiness in obeying its commands. But he voluntarily chose to live in the world dominated by sin. So when he died he died to the world ruled over by sin. He left behind sin’s tyranny in this world and now lives out from under the tyranny of sin. This is what has happened to every Christian. Verses 6-7 describe how that death took place and what results from dying to sin. You’re going to have to put on your thinking caps at this point. This sentence is a cause and effect chain followed by a general truth that explains why the cause and effect chain is true. Verse 5 restates our union with Christ. We are united with Christ in his death and we are united with him in his resurrection. We are certain that we are united with Christ because we know that our old self was crucified with him. What does Paul mean by our “old self”? Our “old self” is our old non-Christian, unbelieving self. When we were united to Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit, through faith and baptism we left behind our old non-Christian self. Our life of seeking all our happiness in the things of this world ended. Our living as if this world is the only reality ended. Our life lived without Christ, separate from God, indifferent to the things of God is over. This is a stated fact, this is not something I do. My old way of life is dead; I do not make it dead. When Christ died to life in this world of sin, so did everyone who belongs to Christ. This happened for a reason. It happened so that “the body of sin might be abolished or nullified”. Paul is not saying that your physical body is sinful. He is saying that the effect of your old, non-Christian way of life being crucified is that you as a whole person are no longer under the dominating effects of sin. Your relationship to sin and Satan has been forever altered. You no longer must obey the demands of sin. You are free to not sin. Before you were united to Christ everything you did was sin. You were free to sin but you were not free to not sin. You need to understand that our slavery to sin is voluntary. In our unbelieving condition, all we want to do is sin. Now that your old, non-Christian life was killed with Christ, while you still live in this mortal body you do not live as a person who must sin. Your old affection for sin and for self-dependence and self-glorification is broken. Things that were pleasurable to you are no longer pleasurable because you don’t want to obey sin anymore. You see this quite plainly in the final result. You are no longer a slave to sin. Notice Paul is not saying you never sin he is saying you no longer want to live under the influence and control of sin. Your old desires and affections are killed. Verse 7 gives the simple reason for the Christians freedom from the domination of sin. Dead men are set free from sin. Dead slaves are no longer under the control of their master. What everyone who is a Christian has experienced is this: What you believed you needed to be happy you no longer believe. What you used to love doing in order to be happy and secure you no longer love doing. The things that you used to give your time and energy to, you no longer give your time and energy to. Why are you different? Because you no longer find pleasure or hope or comfort in those things. I came to faith in Christ during my junior year in college. Like most students I spent my time studying and partying and not necessarily in that order. A couple of weeks after I professed faith in Christ I was with some of my buddies, doing what we always did on weekends. I felt so weird and out of place. I did not enjoy what had been one of the focal points of my entire life for the previous three years. I didn’t feel guilty so much as I didn’t like coming under the influence of drugs. I didn’t enjoy the crass and foolish behavior we engaged in. My love for sin was broken. I still sinned and I still do sin but I don’t enjoy sin like I used to enjoy sin. I don’t enjoy living self-dependent and self-centered. My old affections and beliefs were crucified so that my responsiveness to the demands and allurement of sin is broken. I am now free to not sin. This is true for every Christian. The grace of God delivers those who trust in Christ from the dominating power of sin because We are united to Christ Dead slaves are free from the control of their masters And… III. Resurrection life is radically different from natural life (vv. 8-10) Not only did we die with Christ but we also are united with Christ in his resurrection. Now Paul says in vv. 5 and 8 that our unity with Christ in his resurrection means that we will, one day live together with him in our resurrected bodies in heaven. Paul wants us to know that while we are united with Christ in his resurrection, the fullness of that reality will not be experienced until heaven. However, according to vv. 4 & 10-11 we, because we are united to Christ in his resurrection will live new lives here. The main point I want you to see is the end of v. 10. Christ is now living “to God.” What does that mean? Again, we have to think about how is Christ’s experience in his resurrection our experience? Jesus lived his whole life “to God”. He always obeyed his Father, he always did what was pleasing to God. He loved God and people with his whole being every moment of his life on earth. So in what sense is he, after his resurrection, living “to God” differently than when he was here? Jesus is living in the presence of God in a resurrected, glorified body. While Jesus is fully God he is also, fully human. He is the first man raised from the dead and living in the state that all who are in him will live forever. His experience as a resurrected, glorified human will be the experience of every Christian. What is his experience in heaven? He lives in the fullness of the pleasure of God. Psalm 16: 11 is quoted by Peter as applying to Jesus and it says, “You have made known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” Right now, Jesus is living in the full enjoyment of God. He is experiencing what every Christian will one day experience, the joy of living with God forever. This is what we were made for and what we are saved for. What this means is that every Christian lives with their eyes fixed on that great, final and glorious future of living with God forever, in a resurrected body. Heaven is heaven because God is there. What is new for the Christian is that we have hearts that now love God and long for one thing, to live with him forever. It is our ambition to know this great God, to love him, to please him. It is so easy to talk about the Christian life in purely moral terms or in the language of duty or service. But to share with Christ in his resurrection is to have a new affection born in us for God. The life that Jesus is living is a life lived to God and so this is the life he has given to every Christian, a life directed to God. Paul talks about enjoying this life with God at the resurrection because that is when we will know it fully. But by doing this he shows us that this is how Christians live life in the present. They have their eyes fixed on the prize, life lived in the enjoyment of God forever. Psalm 73:25 is the affection that every Christian is given by virtue of being united with Christ. “Whom have I in heaven but you and earth has nothing I desire but you.” I don’t live a moral life for the sake of being moral. I want to live a moral life because I want to please my heavenly Father. I don’t want to read my Bible, pray, and go to church because I enjoy these activities in themselves. I do them because I want to know God. I don’t talk with others about Christ because it is my duty. I love to have others love this great God because he alone is worthy. Let my ask you a question that I first heard John Piper ask his congregation. If heaven is a place where all your favorite friends and family live; where you can eat all your favorite foods and enjoy all your favorite leisure activities. If it is a place where there is no more sickness or sorrow or sin. But Jesus isn’t there. Would you want to go there? If you are a Christian, you will say an emphatic no because you have been raised with Christ and so the life you live, you live to God. Your whole life is taken up with a great passion to know and love and enjoy him and you know that you will only fully enjoy what you long for after the final resurrection and so you live a new life, that rejoices only in the hope of the glory of God. The grace of God delivers those who trust in Christ from the dominating power of sin because We are united to Christ Dead slaves are free from the control of their masters Resurrection life is radically different from natural life And… IV. We are engaged in a war with sin (vv. 12-14) In verses 11-14 Paul begins to describe how these facts are to affect how I live. In v. 11 he summarizes the condition of every Christian, dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. The first thing we must do is consider this to be the actual state of affairs. Paul commands us to consider that what he just described in vv. 1-10 is actually true for you. I am no longer a non-Christian. I no longer am subject to sin’s demands. I no longer have to sin. I am free to not sin. Christ is my life. God is my joy. My ultimate ambition and hope is to live in the enjoyment of God forever. This is what I am living for. I want to know Christ. I want to be like Christ. This is what I think about, this is what I aim for in everything that I do. I consider myself dead to a life that is in pursuit of the pleasures of this world and alive to the pleasures of life with Christ. This is what you must fix your attention upon as a Christian. The next step is that you recognize that while you no longer have to obey sin, sin still is appealing to you as you live in this “mortal” life. You still live in this world and you still can hear the shouts and demands of sin to pursue life apart from God. You are, in a sense, now living behind enemy lines and are being subjected to the daily propaganda of the enemy. All around you sin is calling out, appealing to you to trust in its promises to pursue the pleasures it offers. You still retain all the memories of the pleasures of sin. You still have what our forefathers in the faith called, “remaining sin”. I’m not going to try and explain the details here, that is what Paul does in the rest of 6 and chapter 7. What I want you to see in v. 12 is that sin is seeking to dominate us by seeking to get us to pursue our pleasure independent of God. This could be through getting us to steal from work or get drunk or commit adultery. Or it could be to get us to lead a Bible study or preach a sermon or cook a meal for someone who is sick, without reference to God. Sin simply wants us to not pursue our life in God, to not live to God. It does this by offering to give us pleasure apart from God. According to v. 13 what are we to do? We are not to offer the members of our bodies to sin, to pursue our pleasure apart from God but rather we are to present ourselves to God as those who are alive to him and pursue our pleasure in God with all our might. While “the parts of our bodies”, does not simply refer to our physical selves but to all our abilities and capacities as humans, yet, it does include our physical selves. There is something we don’t do and there is something we do. First we don’t use our senses of sight, hearing, speaking, tasting, touching and our capacities of thinking, feeling, deciding in the service of sin. We don’t use our God-given capacities to pursue pleasure apart from God, without reference to God, without depending upon God. Rather, we offer ourselves and our capacities to God as resurrected people, believing his promises, loving what he loves using our facilities to delight in him and please him. We do this because the grace of God has freed us to love God. We don’t do this because we have any ability in ourselves to obey God’s laws. Let me just make this very practical. This afternoon most of us are going home to enjoy an Easter lunch together. Will you eat this lunch as a person who has died to sin’s dominion and has been resurrected and lives to God or will you eat it as a person who is alive to sin, living in sin? This afternoon you will be engaged in a war to consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God. You will either live as if the eating and the being loved are necessary for your happiness or you will eat as if being loved by God is necessary for your happiness. To offer your eating and relating to God means that you eat with gratitude and not as a glutton. It means you seek the good of those around you, rather than demanding they seek your good. It means you will not notice when others treat you wrong, but will delight to treat others well. It means you will eat and relate as if you believe the goal of your life is to enjoy God forever in heaven rather than the goal of your life being to enjoy the American dream of a pain free and safe life on planet earth. The grace of God delivers those who trust in Christ from the dominating power of sin because We are united to Christ Dead slaves are free from the control of their masters Resurrection life is radically different from natural life We are engaged in a war with sin
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