Well, have you ever been convinced that you had the answer to a question right, only to realize that you were wrong? Have you ever had an unfortunate experience such as that where something where your level of confidence was high, and then you got humbled afterwards? Have you ever experienced something like that? I have experienced something like that in my life. Many of you know that Pastor Bobby and I are not just brothers in Christ, but physical brothers from the same mother. And we actually went to the same college. There was a year where Bobby was a senior, and I was a lonely freshman at the college together. And the year before that year, I went out to visit Bobby and stayed with him during like a preview weekend, you know, these things were these universities, they try to attract students to really sign up to attend their school. And so, we go there, and there's, you know, an event at night, and there's people there, and they're trying to bring the energy, they're trying to make this place seem fun. And so, they're doing some like giveaways. Right? The stuff we all get is being passed out. And they're giving it as a result of answers to trivia questions about the university. And the university president was a pretty well-known guy, and he's written books, and you know, very well known. And so, it would always be like his first name, and then you'd see his last name, but then you'd see his middle initial, and the letter for his middle initial was F. And so, in the course of this night, the question for a free T shirt, which, you know, back in 2000, a free T shirt was actually kind of a big deal. Right? So, the question is thrown out, what does the F stand for in the President's middle name? And I'm sitting right next to my older brother, Bobby, who at that time, was doing actually a weekly radio show on campus. And the very week before I was there, he had had this president on his radio show, and had asked him this exact question. And so, I'm thinking like, bring me the t shirt, like it's mine. And I looked to him, and he tells me the answer, and I shoot up out of my seat, and they call on me, and I'm thinking, yes, the Lord is good. And I say my answer, Fitzgerald. And I'm confident, and I hear something I did not expect to hear. Oh, I'm sorry. That's incorrect. And I look to my brother with astonishment on my face, and he's hitting himself on the head. And he's like, it's Fullerton. But then the time was passed, I couldn't give another answer. And I walked away, dejected and T shirtless. Now, obviously, my relationship with Bobby has a certain level of resilience. We still love each other and work together to this very day. But that was not a good feeling. And that would not be something I would want any of you to experience, and our text that we're going to study from God's Word this morning, asks possibly one of the most important questions that we could make sure that we have the correct answer to here this morning. So, I invite you to open your Bible and turn with me to Romans chapter 6. And there's a note sheet there in your bulletin if you'd like to take notes and follow along with us. But we're going to look at Romans 6:1-14. And I'd actually like to invite you to stand as we read God's Word. We'll read this whole passage, and then we'll study it together. So even if you're coming at us from the livestream, we invite you to stand at home. Let's give God's Word our full attention as we read it together. It starts off by saying,
“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 law but under grace.”
That ends the reading of God's Word. You can go ahead and take your seat. Well, hopefully you saw it there right at the beginning of our text, that we really start out with two questions. What shall we say then? And do we to continue in sin that grace may abound? So, what we're doing in this passage that we're studying is we're kind of jumping in that Paul is asking this question based on things that he has already said in this letter to the church in Rome. And so, let's actually go back to Romans chapter 1, just flip back there with me. And let's just kind of get some of the context. What prompts Paul to ask this question? And you can see that in Romans 1:1, we see that it is “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.” That's who's writing this letter to the Romans. It's Paul. And he describes himself in a few different ways, but one of those ways that he's set apart for the gospel of God, the good news about Jesus Christ, and if you are familiar with this letter, this is really Paul's masterclass on the gospel, where he just gives a full and robust explanation of the good news of Jesus Christ. And if you go down to Romans 1:16, this is what many people would even refer to as kind of the theme verse, or kind of the overall theme encapsulated right here. And it says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”
And so, that's what the letter really is all about is the gospel of God and what it means to have faith in the work of Jesus Christ. And anytime you preach the gospel, you invariably get usually one of two responses, you get a group of people, maybe categorically, that might respond to the message of Jesus Christ by acting like that they are not that bad, or that sin is not really that big of a deal. And so right after this, Paul really addresses that line of thinking right away when he says in Romans 1:18-20, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” But then it's really this very sad progression, where it's like, people know that there is a God, but because they want to live in their sin, in their unrighteousness, they suppress the truth, they try to push it down, they try to push it aside, and they want to go towards their sin. And there's this sad progression, where God allows them to go in the direction that they want to go, deeper and deeper into their sin. And if you read verses 18, really through the end of chapter 1, I mean, it is a chilling description, even very, very accurately, of the history of our nation over the last 75 years, how it feels like we have gone deeper and deeper into our sin, and God has given us up to more and more sin here in the nation of America. And so, the point is that, hey, this is really news we need to hear because there's wrath coming from God because of our sin. So, you might not be out there thinking that sin is a big deal, or that it's something that you really need to care about. But you do. So, there's that group of people, but then there's another group of people that when you share the good news, they say, I don't really need that, because I'm already good enough on my own. No, thank you. Right? We've got the self-righteous people, the people who think that they are good people. And Paul, I don't know if you saw this in that theme verse, verse 16, but it says that we're telling the gospel to the Jew first, and also to the Greek, that if you were to go to the religious Jews in this day, they would have thought all of that sin, all of that iniquity stuff, yeah, that's the Greeks, that's what they do. That's the Gentiles. That's what they do, people who are not ethnically Jewish, and are not paying attention to the law of Moses like we are. Like the Jews were the judges. Can we just be honest about them? They were the people who thought that they were really good, and they just looked down from their high perch atop their law at everyone else. Right?
And then in chapter 2, look at what it says in Romans 2:1. It says, “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.” That was the case with the Jews. They were there, and they were out to look down on everyone else. But they were still practicing sin in their own life. They weren't perfect. They weren't actually obeying God's commandments the way that God wanted them to. They were still falling short themselves. And so, through chapter 2, Paul makes it very clear that like, hey, all of us are going to get judged by the same standard. So even if you think you're good, unless you're perfect, doesn't really do you any good, because God's standard is not that you're better than other people, God's standard is going to be what you do in your life.
And then in Romans 3:1-2 it starts off with like, you can understand all these Jews to be like, well, what's the point of being a part of a chosen people of God, special people that he's made all these promises to? Well, Paul says, “what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God” that hey, the people who actually heard God's Word first were the Jewish people. They were the people that Moses came and delivered the law from the Lord to them. And really, God revealed himself to them. But then by Romans 3:9, we're like, “What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks are under sin.” So, we don't necessarily think about it in this category here in America. We're just kind of thinking about it in general. But at this point, Paul is writing, like, hey, the Jews would have thought of themselves one way, and the Greeks a very different way. But all, doesn't matter if they're “Jews or Greeks, are under sin, as it is written, ‘None is righteous, no, not one.’” So far, up to this point, it's kind of just been bad news so far that Paul is expressing. But then in Romans 3:21, it says, “But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.” So, it's not something that's going to come through doing the good things that God has told us to do. He says, “although the Law and Prophets bear witness to it.” And as we've read the Law and the Prophets over the last couple years at our church, we've just seen time and time again, predictions of the Messiah, the one who's going to come, the offspring, who is this Son of Man, who's going to come, who's going to deal with this problem of our sin? The Law and the Prophets are bearing witness to the good news of Jesus Christ. Romans 3:22-23 says, “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
So, this is something that we might think, oh, all have sinned, that means, like all Americans have sinned. But Paul is actually expressing it like, hey, all the Gentiles, or the Greeks, they've sinned, all the Jews, they've sinned, everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And the way that we're justified, the way that we’re made right, Romans 3:24, is “by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” So, the way that we can be saved, the way that we can be made right before God is not by the works that we do, trying to obey the law ourselves, we've got to get grace, like God has to be good to us in a way that we don't deserve. And we actually have to put our faith in the grace of God that has been given to us in Jesus Christ. That's the good news of the gospel. It's not about you and what you can do, and how good of a person you can be, it's about Jesus Christ and what he did for us, and really the solution, Amen, the solution for all of us is believing in the good news of Jesus Christ. And that's what Paul is really setting out to say here in this letter. And then you can tell after that he thinks, okay, those Jews will, they're just going to, they're going to play the father Abraham card, they're going to get out their Psalm, and they're going to be like father Abraham. And man, he sounds right.
And so, in chapter 4, what does he do? Well, let's talk about Abraham, let's talk about how “Abraham was justified,” how he was made righteous before God, and it wasn't by works. It was by faith. Right? So, he's making a strong case that it's not the things that we do. It's the grace of God that saves us. In chapter 5:1-2, he says, “Therefore, since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” And he's just talking about this grace and all of God's goodness that we don't deserve. And he's talking it up. And you get down to Romans 5:20, and it says, “Now the law came to increase the trespass.” So definitely, when God gave the Law, it really showed us all how much of a sinner we are. Right? Like, there's none of us that we can really read God's commands honestly and think, oh okay, that's fine. I've done all of that perfectly. My entire life. The law came to increase the trespass, but where sin increased people who knew that they were sinners, “grace abounded all the more.” Right? That there's this grace from God. Romans 5:21, “so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And so, it's just like grace, and it's God's goodness. And it's not the works that we can do. It's by faith in the work that God has done.
And this is where we get to our question of our text here this morning. “What shall we say that? Are we to continue in sin that grace may about?” And what's the answer? Okay, a couple of you said it right. Because I don't think we got to make sure we put the right emphasis on the right syllable here because this is not a kind of like so-so response, there is not a lot of wiggle room in what Paul says here. He is saying it very confidently. He is asserting it emphatically. He is saying it about as strongly as you possibly could say it. What's the answer to this question? It's “By no means like!” No way, like not even a little bit like no, like emphatically no, like typically no. Right? Like, that's the way he's trying to say it strongly. But if we were to think about the way that people around us are answering that same question today in America, is our answer the same?
If you're writing notes down, take this out and let's get this down for point number one: You need to make sure your answer agrees with God’s, because this is not just Paul and what he thought, this is Paul writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit himself. So, this is really what God thinks, not just what a person's opinion is, this is God's answer to that question, that it is not acceptable, by no means. Could someone who claims the name of Christ continue to live in their sin because of God's grace? So, the thought that many people have is like, well, God is so gracious, and he's so forgiving, that even after I become a Christian, it's okay for me to keep on sinning, because God will just keep on being gracious. God will just keep on forgiving me when I sin. And Paul is trying to say, no, that's not the way we should be thinking about it. But here in America, there are many people that their answer to that same question is a resounding yes. As strongly as Paul is saying no here in the Scripture, we have many churches in Southern California saying, yes, we can in America. Like this is probably the predominant answer, the way that most people would answer this question is exactly the opposite of what Paul says. And it should not be so, and I want to ask you to really consider what is your answer? And we could all shout, by no means, together here on a Sunday morning, but what's the way I really live my life? What do I believe on a Tuesday afternoon when temptation is coming my way? Do I still believe it then? Or is it just something I give lip service to here? Or probably what a lot of people do is they kind of try to tweak the answer. Right?
So, let's not make it so black and white. Let's add some gray in there. Let's add some nuance. Let's just start saying, well actually, like that's just the way I am. Because if it's the way I am, then it's not really a problem. Right? Like, you can't fault someone for being the way that they are, but we start trying to think like, well, you know, like, sexual immorality, well, that's just kind of the way I am, you know. I can't really change that. Or, you know, there's this substance that I'm really addicted to, and so I can't change that. Or alcohol, I can't really change that. Or I was really born a homosexual and that can't really change. Or, you know, I'm just kind of an angry person, and that's not really changing. Or I've got this bitterness or this jealousy. That's not really it. I'm just kind of a selfish person. That's kind of the way I am. Or maybe other people try to tweak it a little bit by talking about it like it's a struggle. Right? Like when I hear someone say, oh, we all struggle with that. Like I've kind of learned to ask a follow-up question when I hear someone say that because I don't know what they mean. There are probably a lot of different ways that people could use that phrase. But you know, so I'm like, okay, well, what do you mean by struggle because I understand what it's like to be tempted? Does anybody in here understand what it's like to be tempted? We're all on the same page with that? None of us are immune from temptation. I totally get that. So, if we're talking about, hey, there's temptations that we face, and there's anybody in here, like you face the same temptation, like multiple times in the course of maybe a week or a month or a year. But you've got temptations that are more tempting to you than others. And that's not a pleasant experience. And there are times where that feels like it's kind of intense. Right? There's difficulty in some of those things, like that totally makes sense. But I get scared when it seems like people use that word struggle to not talk about like, well, there's a struggle against temptation, but I'm actually being successful against that temptation, in that struggle. The way they talk about it is like just keep giving in to that temptation over and over and over again. Really, like it's not really a struggle, because I'm losing all the time. It's like, it's actually more accurate to say, sin is dominating me. Sin has power over me, even though I don't want it to.
So, we’ve got to have clarity. We've got to really understand what the Bible is saying here. And Paul's answer is very clear. And it's not just here where he says it. Turn with me over to the book of Galatians. Just a few books to the right in your Bible, where in the book of Galatians, there's a strong Jewish component there where Paul is saying, no one's justified by the works of the law. And in this area of these churches that Paul is writing to. Go to Galatians 5 with me, and look at what he says again, just a very clear, very emphatic statement. And Galatians 5:19-21 is an example of a number of other passages I could point you to, but it says in Galatians 5:19-21, “Now the works of the flesh are evident.: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” So, I mean, we’ve got to pay attention that this is not a single sin being single that right. Did you see that there's a whole host of sins listed here? So, this isn't just like, well, if you've got this temptation, you're really bad. And you're worse than everyone else. I mean, a lot of these sins are very socially respectable in America today. You could be a jealous person and not feel bad about that a lot. You could be a person that's kind of like a just a divisive, dissension, kind of like I just like to argue, I just like to stir the pot a little bit. Right? Like you just kind of live your life that way, and no one would really call you out on it in many places in America today. But Paul is kind of like giving us the like, hey, I think anybody could find their temptation on a list like this. But here's the key thing. He says those who do such things… so he's not talking about someone who did one of those things in the past, but that's not what they are doing and how they're living their life now. It's not even talking about a Christian that has done something like that, or has fallen into that maybe a few times, he's talking about this is the way people live their lives, that this is the regular habit of the way that they conduct their life here in this world, that people who do these things, people that live in sin will not... And he's like, let me warn you, I've warned you before, let me warn you again, it's that important. Those people will not inherit the kingdom of God. So, people who are thinking, well, I can be a Christian and continue to live in a sin such as this, the Bible is saying the exact opposite. So clear. So many passages we could turn to that would help us understand the same exact thing that Paul is saying here. It's so important that we get the answer to this question right. There is a lot more on the line than a free T-shirt to the answer to this question.
So, let's go back to Romans chapter 6, and let's see that's a strong statement, that's a really an emphatic statement. You want to back that up? Can we see your sources? We’ve got some footnotes and endnotes, how do you arrive at this conclusion, Paul? And look at what he says. Let's go Romans 6:2. He says, “By no means!” And then he asks another question, “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” That's an interesting question because if we've died to sin, the thought wouldn't be, oh, I'm going to keep living in something that I've died to. And then he's like, well, maybe the problem is a lack of knowledge. Do you not know, in Romans 6:3-4, “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”? So, he's like, okay, well, maybe the problem is like people don't understand the way things really work. Then he starts talking about baptism here. Now I have come to know, in America, that there are a lot of thoughts that people have about the topic of baptism. Have you noticed this? A lot of different thoughts, a lot of thoughts where it feels like, well, these people think about it this way, and they want to do it this way. And these people over here are doing it like this. And these people over here doing like this. And it's very confusing. It's very hard to navigate. And there is a lot of baptism-confusion going on in America today. So, I kind of have like a personal mission of like, I would like to clear up a lot of baptism-confusion. Right? Like, that's kind of like a life goal I have, because I don't think it's as confusing as people would say. And actually, at the end of this month, on the 29th of August, we're going to have a baptism class. So, if you've been a believer of Jesus Christ, and you haven't been placed into water yet, we want to talk about that with you. We're going to do a Bible study; we're going to look at what the Bible says about baptism. We'd love to have you be a part of that. But what we will do, this is like a preview of what one of the things that will look at in this passage here in the text. And you can see in verse 3, that those of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus.
Now there are a lot of people who, when we hear the word baptism, we immediately think about water. Right? We can remember maybe services up here where there's like a big tub, and like someone like me is going to like dunk someone in water and fully immerse them and they come up and they're sharing their testimony, like a lot of us our thoughts immediately go to that when we hear this word baptism. And I think that some of the confusion that is existing in America is because of the way that this is written in our English Bible. Do you realize that if you were to read verse 3, that there are a couple of words in there that have not been translated into English? Have you heard of this? Right? Okay. No, I don't want to, you know, give the guys who originally did this too hard a time; I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. But there are some words that you know, like the way we the New Testament Romans, chapter 6, was not originally written down in English, newsflash for you. It was written down in the Greek language. And so, to create the Bible that we have in your hands here today, like the process is we go and we understand the Greek language and we understand, okay, here's this Greek word, what does it mean? And then we try to think of like, well, what's the English word that basically captures that same essence? And then we go word for word, and we just kind of translated like that. That seemed like a solid kind of way of thinking about it to you, it seems like you're tracking with that it makes sense. Okay, well, there are a couple of words in this verse that the people who originally translated it into English, I think maybe they thought that there wasn't an English word that fully captured what the Greek word was trying to express. And so rather than using an English word, it's like they made up an English word. So rather than translating it, they did what's called transliterating it where you take the Greek word, and you make up an English word that sounds just like it. So, the word in Greek for baptism is this word that baptizo or baptismos, that sound kind of like baptism. That sounds similar to you guys. Right? Like there's also if you keep going, we were baptized into… what's the next word? Oh, wait a minute. Some people are confused. Like, why are we saying it in Christ Jesus? Like that's backwards, right? Like, is first name last name right? So, it should be Jesus Christ. But there's also confusion about Christ. It's not Jesus’ last name. It's his title. Right? And that's possibly also because we didn't translate the word Christ from the Greek into the English, we transliterated the word Christ Christos, in the Greek, Christ in English, those sound similar to you guys. Right?
So, if we were to translate the word Christ, maybe we could say, Messiah, or Anointed One, or chosen one. And if we were to translate the word baptism, we would say, to place into, or to immerse, like, I could literally take my phone and baptize it into my pocket. Right? like it has been baptized. It has been fully immersed; it has been fully placed into my pocket. So now let's go back to Romans 6:3, and let's actually translate it. “Do you not know that all of us who have been placed into…” what are we being placed into? Christ Jesus. Okay, that's interesting. We're placed into what? Okay, so this passage is actually not talking about water at all. It's talking about something that happens where a person gets placed into Christ Jesus. And then the thought after this, in Romans 6:5 is, “For if we have been united with him,” so maybe some of the confusion came that like, hey, that's a lot to communicate through one word, it's like, I've been placed into something, I've been immersed into something. And then it's like, I'm united with that thing. Okay, so maybe I've given them the benefit of the doubt. But it's important that we really understand that this is not talking about water baptism. And right here in Romans 5, you know, Paul explains that really like when you're born physically, you're born in Adam, like that is the category that you exist in. And so basically, because Adam was kind of like the first man, what happened to him, and the choices he made, have had an effect on everyone else who is in Adam. So, if we remember the story of Adam and Eve, like really, they sinned, and they rebelled against the Lord, and as a result of that, what has come into the world? Death, right, the as of the result of sin, came condemnation, and condemnation from God, judgment from God has led to every single person to die. And that's still the same way it's going to be today that because Adam sinned, like that means that all of us have followed in his footsteps, like each and every single one of us have sinned, and that has led to condemnation for us. And I guarantee you that if you live long enough, you will also die. Like that is the case for everyone who's in Adam. But in Romans 5, he's making the Christ that there's actually a new category that you could get placed into, that you could get placed not into Adam, like you were born into Adam, but you could actually be taken and be placed into Christ, that everything that's true about Christ would now be true about you. Right? Look at what he says in Romans 5:18, “Therefore as one trespass,” so Adam's sin, “led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness,” the work of Jesus Christ, “leads to justification in life for all men.” Oh, that sounds like a pretty good deal. I want to be in Christ, I want to be placed into him. Romans 5:19-21, “For by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. 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.” So, there's some context here that we have to realize that like, Paul is saying, like, something brand new could happen to you. Like this is actually a big deal that just like everyone who's in Adam, this is the way they experience life. This is what happens to them in the end. Well, now everyone who's in Christ, something totally different could happen to them. And what is it that's going to be different? Right? It says, if we were baptized into his death, so it's like interesting, because we know the good news is all about that Jesus is the Christ and that Jesus died for our sin, and Jesus rose again. So, we've been placed into his death, and we were buried therefore with him by being placed into death, in order that what's the purpose of all that? Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too, might walk in newness of life.
So, for point number two, I want you to gauge here this morning if you've been baptized. Gauge if you have been baptized, because if I were to ask you that question walking in, have you been baptized? You might have thought, oh, yeah, there was this time this day or at this church, I got into water, and someone dunked me, and I maybe said something or not. Right? But I remember that was when I was baptized. But the real baptism that really matters is not when you got placed into water. It's when you got placed into Christ. And the evidence of whether you've been placed into Christ isn't only did you get placed into water; it seems like there's going to be this newness of life that's going to characterize you. The way Paul talks about it is different. Look at what he says in Romans 6:5, he says, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection.” Like if you were out there, and I was trying to encourage you on how to share the gospel with someone, I would really strongly encourage you to not leave Jesus in the tomb in your gospel presentation. Right? Jesus died on the cross and we could focus on that, but there's actually more to it. He rose from the dead three days later. He conquered death and he's alive. So, the point is like when you get placed into Christ, it's like you get united with him, like you get stuck together to where you're inseparable with him.
Now, some of you know that I have twins, we had our firstborn, and I remember when we got pregnant again, and we went into the ultrasound appointment, your parents know, this is time and you're going to kind of find out what's going on and you're hoping everything's going okay. And you got, you know, the sweet lady who's there. And she's, you know, kind of looking at things that you're like, I don't even know what I'm looking at here. But she apparently does. And she starts asking some questions. And she asks us, like, do twins run in either of your family? And I remember thinking to myself, what an odd question. And then it hit me. She's asking that question because we're having twins. Something I was in no way prepared for in my life, I had never even thought about that as a possibility in my life. And I don't know why but the first thought that came to my mind after that point was like, are they going to be conjoined? Like, are we going to need to get some kind of world-class surgeon to do some surgery to separate these two so they can live their own life or something like that. Like that was the first thought that came into my mind there in the ultrasound room. It took me a while to recover from that. But that's the point is it's like, hey, we're out there on our own separate from the Lord. But when we get placed into Christ, it's like, we get stuck together with him. It's like we get united with him. There's no surgery that can separate you from Jesus Christ once you've been placed into him. There's nothing that can scare you away, or to take that away from you; we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection.
The point that Paul is trying to make is it's not like the real question that we need to make sure that we agree with is that the gospel is true. It's like even more than that, it's like when did the gospel happen to you? Like, Jesus did die and rise again, that's a fact. We don't need to worry about that. But maybe a question that you should think about in your life is, when did my old self get crucified with Christ, and I started living a new life? When did I die and rise again, because I got united with Jesus Christ. And look at what he says. He says in Romans 6:6, “We know that our old self was crucified with him.” I mean, a verse I'd encourage you to write down would be Galatians 2:20, where Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” The day that you got placed into Christ was the day that your old self died. That's what Paul is saying is the truth about everyone who gets placed into Christ. That's not a lot of the way that people like to think about it. But then he says in Romans 6:6 “that our old self was crucified with him in order that…” What's the point of this old self being 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,” might be brought to nothing. That's interesting. Like our old self was crucified so that our body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
Well, earlier this year, in 2021, there was a Tuesday night here at the church, where we were going to be having people coming in for fellowship groups, and people were going to be coming in for some kids’ ministry throughout the week. And I love those nights here at the church where we get to gather together and encourage each other and talk about the sermon that we heard from the week. It's such a special time, I look forward to it every week. And so, on this Tuesday night, I was out there early, and I was ready to greet people. Because just seeing people coming into the building is such a joy when we get to gather together, I get so happy when I see people encouraging each other here at our church. And so, I'm out there. And also, some of the people we're going to be checking in people for kids are out there. And we start chatting and talking as we wait for people to arrive. And one of them points over here to the area by the by the path that used to be the little sidewalk. And they said, is that a rodent? And let me just tell you, like all kinds of people are welcome here at the church, bring the children bring, bring everyone. But if there's a classification of organisms that we do not welcome here at Compass, HB, it's the rodents, right? Can we all can we all get together on that? Okay, all right. And so, I thought, hey, as a shepherd, as an overseer, this is my job to investigate this. And so, I get closer to this rodent. And I find out that it's a gopher, right. And I haven't had a whole lot of experience with gophers, and I don't know anyone who has, because you even just look at them and they're like, you can't get close enough to really interact with a gopher, has been my experience. Right? Like, they go down in their hole and it's like, where did you go, and then all of a sudden, they're over there, and they're doing like the whack a mole thing. Right? Like, you think you've got them, but then you can't get close to them. And so, I'm thinking, actually, this is a pretty easy fix. I'm just going to, like, you know, treat this like a bear and get large, and I'm going to go at it with a lot of volume and some speed, whatever I can muster, and it's just going to bolt, and there's no way I'm going to get close to this thing. And, and that'll be the end of it. Problem dispatched with right oversight. Accomplished. And so that's what I do I go towards this animal, and this animal does not run away. And it doesn't move. And I'm like, okay, that was my plan A, and I had no plan B at that point. Right. And so, I hastily devise a plan B, that, like, we need to capture this animal. Right? And so, I'm like trying to, you know, with the kids’ ministry team, we're trying to, like, okay, well, what could we capture this animal with, and the apparatus that we came to was a trash bag. Now, if you're trying to capture an animal, I would not really recommend you use a trash bag as your apparatus of choice for the capture. But that's what we had. And so, it's like this gopher is not necessarily acting normal, and so like, I throw the bag on top of it, but then it moves, like, as I'm throwing it, and so I'm like, all right, and now there are people starting to arrive, and there's actually small crowds starting to develop, and I'm like, oh, boy, here we go. And I'm realizing like, hey, this doesn't feel safe. Like, I don't want this animal around children here at our church. I'm like, I'm going to have to, like throw this back down, and then trap it with my hands, like, hold on to the edges of the bag, so that it can’t escape out the sides. So, I'm like, okay, this seems like a better plan. And so, I'm, like, going for it. And I actually, like, do that. But then it moves. So right, as I put my hand down, it bites me through the bag. I mean, of all facts, not the smartest decision for this gopher, let me tell you. Right? And so, I mean, eventually we capture it in the bag, and the children are safe, and everyone can come into church without rodents out front. But I've got this bleeding finger, like it drew blood. And you know, my wife is there and she, you know, gives me a band aid. And I'm thinking, well, that was weird. Let's go do some fellowship groups, right? And, you know, as like we're getting towards fellowship groups, this story is starting to spread as to what happened? And, you know, I see my friend, Pastor Daniel here at the church, and Pastor Daniel says, oh, you should go to urgent care. And I'm like, Pastor Daniel, my wife gave me a band aid, like, I'm good. Like, I can handle a little gopher bite. And he's like, no, you should go to urgent care because you might have rabies. And I'm like rabies, the thing that killed old yeller. Oh, okay. And so, I'm like, alright, Pastor Dan is a person whose medical opinion I respect greatly. And so, I am like, hey, see you guys, hope you have a great night of fellowship because I had to go to urgent care because of this gopher bite. I'll tell you about it later. Right?
And, and so I go, I find the closest urgent care and I realized, okay, it's just before closing so I can get in, and they see me right away. And I'm, you know, describing what happened and feeling foolish at the same time. And, so, you know, they gave me a tetanus shot with it, which I didn't think I would need, but they know better than I do. And so, I'm asking them about like, well, someone mentioned rabies, right. And this was the point where I was like, I would really appreciate it if there would be no ambiguity from the medical professionals at this point. But they told me like, well, we can't give you a rabies shot here because we don't have any rabies shots here. You have to go to a hospital. But then there's this like ambiguity of like, well, do I need to go do that? Should I not do that? And it's like, they're not going to give me a straight answer.
And so, I walk out of the urgent care, and I go sit in my car. And I do something that I don't know, it was always the best idea. I googled it. Right? And, and I learned some things that I didn't know before. And I actually learned that rabies is the single most deadly infectious disease that we know about. If you get bitten by something that has rabies, and you start developing rabies symptoms, there is almost one hundred percent chance that you will die. I made my decision to go to the hospital at that point. And like as I read further, because this is interesting. Right? Like I realized that basically, you could start showing symptoms anytime from like a day or two after a bite to over a year after a bite. That is actually a virus that attacks your nervous system. And so, it takes a while sometimes to work its way all the way up your nerves to your brain. And then you start experiencing symptoms. And then basically like, it gets really serious really fast. And you've got one of two options. Either you go into a coma, and then you die, or you go mad, and then you die. It's basically like it leads your brain to swell. And then your heart can't handle it. And ten days after you start showing symptoms, you're dead.
Let's go to a hospital. Where's the closest one? And I go to the hospital. And I don't know if you've been to a hospital, but usually there's some kind of process you’ve got to go through. And I just walk in, and I say the word rabies, and all of a sudden, I'm getting service like I've never had at a hospital before. I am interacting with a doctor almost immediately, and the doctor goes away. And then you could tell I think he googled the same thing that I did. And it got pretty serious pretty fast. And it's like, we're going to talk to the health department on all this. And I'm like, well, but one of the things that I learned is that if you actually get the medicine that they can give you after you're bitten, you go from having a hundred percent chance of dying to a hundred percent chance of living. Seemed like pretty good odds to me. Right? And like later on, they’re talking with the health department, they're like, well, we've never had a go for test positive for rabies in Orange County. But I'm like, but there's always these like a patient zero. Right? Like, could that be the case? So, I mean, like, technically, it's been less than a year for me. So, at any point, I could just start showing symptoms and ten days later I’m dead. So, if that happens, it was great knowing all of you and I look forward to seeing you in heaven, it'll be great for me. And actually, like thinking, hey, I could die ten days from now has actually been a great way for me to think about my life. Because I better make sure what I'm doing right now matters. Because I could be dead ten days from now. Actually, any of us could be dead ten days from now. Right? So, I was amazed that here's this such a deadly thing. Such a deadly thing that may not kill you right away, it's going to kill you at some point in the future. And you don't know exactly when, but there's something that they could give you that would bring it to nothing. Something that would render it powerless, like I would still have, if that were to be the case, the rabies virus in my body, but it wouldn't be able to affect me, it wouldn't be able to mess with me. I wouldn't have any symptoms as a result of this.
This is what it's saying is that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin, or another way to maybe say this would be the flesh would be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin, for the one who has died has been set me free from sin. This is what the Bible is saying. And this is actually the exact opposite of what a lot of people are saying. The body of sin that you have, the flesh that you have, it could be brought to nothing, not just talking about the penalty for your sin could be brought to nothing, the power that sin has in your life could be brought to nothing. Like that's like actually like good news. That seems like it's even better than maybe we thought about it. At the beginning. Like this is really, really good news. Like and I don't know, if that's what you thought, right? Like, but you could no longer be a slave of sin in your life. Maybe you think I've got this habit, I can't shake. I've got this anger I can't get away from as hard as I try. I can only at best hold it off for a short period of time. But then it comes right back. And it's like it has power over me. Like I'm actually a slave to it as hard as I try, it's like I'm bound up in chains, and I can't get free. There's a lot of people that their answer to this question is, I don't want to do it. I feel bad when I sin. But that's not the way that Paul is describing it. He's saying, no, actually what Jesus did. And if you get united with him and a death like is your old self gets put to death to where your body of sin gets brought to nothing. It's more than just you want it to be different, it actually is different. The one who has died has been set free from sin. One hundred percent of people who have been placed into Christ and placed into his death get set free from their sin where it's no longer the master over them. A man that says now if we have died with Christ, we believe we will Romans 6:8-9, “if we 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.” And we can say Amen to that that Jesus is alive? Is he going to die in the future? Are we going to have a funeral for Jesus at some point? No, because he's conquered death, he's never going to die again. And look what he says Romans 6:10-11, “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.” It's like Jesus isn't going to die again. And so, you should be thinking, I'm never going back to my old dead life again, either, because I've been united with Christ.
A lot of people think of Christianity is like some kind of light switch I can just turn on and turn off. And I am a Christian, I'm not a Christian, I am a Christian, I'm not a Christian, or now I've got victory over sin, I don't have victory over sin. That's not what happened with Jesus’ resurrection. He's not alive, and then dead and alive, and then dead and alive and dead. He is alive and he is never going to die again. Is that what's happened to you in your life, that you got stuck together with Christ, you got placed into Christ, and you're living now, you're living never to die again, you have an eternal life? And that just doesn't mean you're going to live for an indefinite period of time. That means you got a whole different type of life right here right now today, you're free from sin. And look at what it says? Romans 6:11 says, “you also must consider yourselves dead to sin,”
Let's get this down for point number three: You need to think about yourself accurately. If you are in Christ, you must, like not optional, you must consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God. And here's the key phrase, “in Christ Jesus,.” There is no way that by your efforts, your best efforts, that you could set yourself free from sin. The only way that you could be dead to sin and alive to God is in Christ Jesus, through the work that he did, and you getting united with him and placed into him to where it's like he covers you. And the defining thing about you is no longer how you've lived in the past, or what your career is, or what your interests are, what nationality or race that you're from, the defining thing about everybody who's been placed into Christ is that they are in Christ. That's what it's all about. That's like a whole new identity that I receive when I become a Christian. Like that old person, that's not who I am anymore. And I need to think about myself that way. Now, let me just be honest with you, that one that be how you feel, many, many times. When temptation comes in your life, you might not think I'm dead to this, it might be coming on and it might be feeling pretty strong. And in those moments, how do you think about yourself? Do you think about yourself as just yourself? That's what a lot of people do. And when I see a temptation that's feeling really strong, and I'm not feeling like I've got the power to say no to it, I'm not feeling like I can endure it, it's coming on, and it feels like it might have felt before. And maybe I'm discouraged because right now I feel weak. And I feel tired now; I feel like I can’t get into this. But remember the theme verse in Romans 1:16-17. It says that “the righteous shall live by faith.” There's going to be many, many times where I feel like one thing is true, but God is saying a different thing is true. And the question in those moments is, what am I going to believe? Am I going to believe my feelings or my own experience? Where am I going to believe what the Word of God says about me? Because I'm in Christ Jesus. If you've been placed into Christ, it's not just you anymore. You don't just have your own resources at your disposal. You have the resources of Jesus Christ at your disposal, and you must consider yourself this way, you have to believe that I'm dead to that. And let me just tell you, if you want to feel an exhilarating feeling, believe what God says and act like it's true. Like when that temptation comes at you this week. And maybe it's a temptation that you've given into in the past, if you're in Christ, you can look that temptation in the face, and you can say, I'm dead to it. Okay? Die to you. And you can actually not just hold it off for a minute, you can really say no to it. And if it comes back ten minutes later, you know what you can do ten minutes later, say no to it again. And if it comes back the next day, you know what you can do then? You can be who you are and who you are in Christ is that you're dead to sin. And you can say no to it again and again and again.
Now, I mean, this is not saying that we're going to be completely perfect, but it's saying, we have possibilities in Christ that we could have never experienced on our own. Right? Look at what it says Next Romans 6:12 says, it says, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.” So okay. So, the way it's describing us here is that we have a mortal body, a flesh. Right? I mean, like, there's going to come a day where Jesus comes back, and we get to go be with him in the place that he's preparing for us, you want to think is going to happen at that point, you're going to get a new body. I mean, anybody wants to say Amen to that? Anybody? Looking forward to a brand new body, one that doesn't like get broken down, and like, sickness and death, and all this kind of stuff? Right? Anybody looking forward to not being tired at all, ever? But one of the best things about this new body is it's not going to feel like sin is appealing. Like this new body that we get, we're not going to have this proclivity to sin because we were born in our current body in Adam. This is going to be a brand new body where we're just after Jesus Christ. And so, it's like, we just do what is right, and we want to do what's right. And that's all that ever happens. There is no sin at all. But right now, we've still got this mortal body and it has, look at what it says, “to make you obey its passions.”
So, I've talked with a number of people that they get discouraged because they're like, why am I still being tempted by this? Do you realize that God has not promised you that you're not going to be tempted? Do you understand that? Some people think like, I should reach this point where sin is no longer appealing to me? Well, that point is going to be when you get a new body. Anybody here got a new body yet? I think we're all looking like, we're still in Adam with their bodies, right? So, we still have a mortal body, but you don't have to let it reign. Like your body can want to do something that is sinful and wrong, and you don't have to obey it. That's good news, my friends. That is good news every single time that you experience temptation this week, you do not have to obey its passions because you're in Christ Jesus. Now, it's not saying that you won't have passions, it's not saying that you won't have desires towards sin, you won't experience temptation, but each and every time God is faithful, and it's really the work that he has done, and will do, that gives us the power to say no time and time again. Don't let it reign in your body. And then Romans 6:13 says this, “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.” So, it's saying that, hey, you're not the same person that you used to be. So, like your members, and Paul uses this kind of like terminology other places where he talks about like the body of Christ, and we've got many members, but they don't have the same function. And so, there's the hearing and smell and the hand and the foot. Like we have all these different body parts. And they're all important. Like, that's what it's talking about, hear like, like all of the different parts of me like what I think about, what I listen to, what I watch, what I do with my hands, where I go with my feet, like all of that I need to stop presenting it to sin as an instrument of unrighteousness.
So, I mean, that's something for you to think through if you're in Christ, how are you going to not do that? That's what it says, “Do not present your members.” Like I know a lot of people that are like, okay, I'm in Christ, there's grace, but here I am, and I'm just going to go home and watch my TV or my iPad or my phone, and I'm just going to let sin, I'm just going to let my members my eyes, my ears, my brain, really dwell on sinful content, or the music, or the podcast I listen to, or the friends I choose. Like, a lot of us, we are still like willingly like, hey, I know if I go and do this, I'm going to sin, but I'm just going to go ahead and go for it. Don't do that. And he says in Romans 6:13, “but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.”
One of the one of the reasons I love coming to church every week, and I love singing the songs that we sing. You want to know why? Because they remind me who I am. They remind me what Jesus has done for me, what it really means to be in Christ, right that he is like, he's taken away my sins, and I bear them no more. Praise the Lord that he's paid it all like that? Like I need that each and every week. I need to be going to God's Word, and I need to be presenting myself to him. And I need him to be reminding me, hey, I've been brought from death to life. Like I'm not that old person I used to be any longer; I'm a new person. I've gotten newness of life in Christ Jesus and then he says, “and present your members” so your thoughts, what you watch, what you listen to, “present your members” to God as instruments for righteousness. So, we used to be instruments for sin. Now it's instruments for righteousness. The way I like to think about it is like our mortal bodies, like a treadmill going two miles an hour. Right? That it has kind of pull to it. It has kind of tug to it. Right? Have you ever been like jettisoned from a treadmill involuntarily? Not the best experience. But if it's a two mile an hour treadmill, it's not like it's that hard to stay on the treadmill, all you have to do is walk forward, and it's going to be not a problem. Like that's the way we need to think about it. Like some of us, we get so focused on our temptations that we don't think, well, actually, what I need to be doing is I need to be presenting myself to God and all of me is like, how does God want to use me as an instrument for righteousness? Like a gardening tool for righteousness? How does he want me to be out there planting seeds and sowing seeds that like, the gospel is going to ring out? Like, I'm going to think about myself, like Paul thought about himself, like, I'm part of the gospel of God, I'm here for the gospel of God. Who needs to hear the gospel, which one of my coworkers or neighbors or acquaintances through my kids’ school, like, who have I not had a conversation about the gospel of Jesus Christ with? I want to go be about that today. God gives me an opportunity to do that. I've got this body of Christ that I'm now a member of. How can I be useful in that body of Christ? How can I actually build up and encourage other people? If you just go through your life and each day, you're presenting yourself to God, and you're thinking, I've been brought from death to life because of Jesus? And you're saying, God, what I'm really about today is not myself. It's you. So how do you want to use me? Like, it will be amazing how much you will think, well, I haven't been given into those same temptations. I haven't fallen into that, I haven't expressed anger in the way I used to, because I'm just presenting myself to God.
And Paul kind of wraps it up here in verse 14, or actually, let's get this down for point number four: Present yourselves to God for righteousness. I want you to go home this week, and there are discussion questions on the back that will hopefully help you think about this text afresh, sometime later this week. But I want you to think this afternoon, I want you to think tomorrow morning, how am I presenting my members to God as instruments for righteousness? That's the new life we've been set free to live. It’s like, hey, I've actually been set free from my sin to become a slave to righteousness, to become a slave to God, and really to live, to serve him. But he says this in Romans 6:14, look with me. It says, “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” So, the thought very clearly is that when I'm under grace, and I'm receiving God's goodness that I don't deserve, that means that sin is not going to have dominion over me. No dominion. That's exactly the opposite of what people are saying. Because there's grace, I can let sin keep reigning in my mortal body, I can keep obeying its passions, because God's going to be gracious. Actually, that would be the way it would work if you were still under the law. But now because of the grace of Jesus Christ, and how good Jesus has been to us, we can be set free from our sin, to walk in newness of life, because we've been placed in Christ. So, I've got a question for you at the end of the message: Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? Alright, let's pray. Actually, stand and pray together to conclude our service. Please pray with me.
Dear father, we're coming to you as a result of this time and your Word. God, we have heard what you have said. And God, I know God, I would think that there are people who came into this room, or watched this live stream, or sat on this front lawn this morning. And they came in here thinking, it is okay for me to continue in sin because God is gracious. And God, Lord, I pray that you would cause every one of us to repent from that way of thinking. That is not true. It is a lie. Again, thank you for this very clear passage that helps us, God. Thank you for showing us the greatness of what you've done for us through your Son, Jesus Christ. And God, we want to live as who we really are in Christ, we want to not present our members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but we want to present ourselves to you, God. We're so thankful that you came so that our body of sin could be brought to nothing, so that it would be rendered powerless. And we want to live those kinds of lives where it would be so clear that the ability to obey your commands could never come from us. It could never come from our own efforts. It could only come because of the work of Jesus Christ for us. And we want you to get the glory, we want your name to be lifted high, God. So, God, I pray that you would encourage us, that you would stir us up so that you reign and you get glory in our lives. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. And all God's people said, Amen. Hey whatever happens this week, we can be in Christ and be who we are. Hope you guys have a great day. Thanks for coming to Compass HB.