SPEAKER_03: Today's reading is from Romans chapter six, verses one to fourteen.
SPEAKER_03: What shall we say then?
SPEAKER_03: Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
SPEAKER_03: By no means.
SPEAKER_03: How can we who died to sin still live in it?
SPEAKER_03: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
SPEAKER_03: 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.
SPEAKER_03: 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.
SPEAKER_03: 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.
SPEAKER_03: For one who has died has been set free from sin.
SPEAKER_03: Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
SPEAKER_03: We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again.
SPEAKER_03: Death no longer has dominion over him.
SPEAKER_03: For the death he died, he died to sin once for all.
SPEAKER_03: But the life he lives, he lives to God.
SPEAKER_03: So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.
SPEAKER_03: Do not present your members as 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.
SPEAKER_03: For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to uh to City.
SPEAKER_01: If you're new or visiting with us, we are in the book of Romans or in that passage that that Abby read for us.
SPEAKER_01: It'd be great if you have uh a Bible or uh a smartphone with web access.
SPEAKER_01: You can look it up.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but we're back in uh in Romans chapter six after a brief uh break over the last uh couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine you were uh you were writing uh a handbook for a for a new religion, kind of religion 101.
SPEAKER_01: What would the uh what would the first page uh be about?
SPEAKER_01: What is any uh religion worth its salt uh about?
SPEAKER_01: What does any religion worth its salt uh do?
SPEAKER_01: Uh the answer, I think, for religion 101 is that it should make people good.
SPEAKER_01: Should make people good people.
SPEAKER_01: Uh that's what religion is kind of for, at least that's what people think religion is for, that if you're religious, you're supposed to be uh a good person, certainly a better person than either you were or than most other people.
SPEAKER_01: That's the cell.
SPEAKER_01: You follow this path, this belief system, and you'll be a better person.
SPEAKER_01: And the question then is so flip over to page two of your religion manual.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so you want people to be better.
SPEAKER_01: Question is, how do you do that?
SPEAKER_01: How do you make people good?
SPEAKER_01: How do you make people better?
SPEAKER_01: Well, religion has two ways.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, the first way is you give people rules to follow.
SPEAKER_01: People need rules, uh, they need to be kind of hemmed in, controlled morally.
SPEAKER_01: So you need to give people five pillars or 613 laws or the eightfold path, that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01: People need a uh a bit of a firm hand morally in order to become better, right?
SPEAKER_01: You just can't let this kind of moral free-for-all happen.
SPEAKER_01: That would be that'd be chaos.
SPEAKER_01: You know, if you were designing a religion, first thing you need is you need some rules, right?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh second thing that you need um that go hand in hand with the rules is you need uh a mixture or a balance of carrots and sticks, right?
SPEAKER_01: So if you're making a religion, you've got the rules, and then you've got carrots and sticks in order to incentivize carrot-like uh good behavior and sticks to disincentivize bad behavior.
SPEAKER_01: So uh you have hope on the one hand, you're going to achieve, reach this um this apex, this zenith, heaven, nirvana, whatever you want to call it.
SPEAKER_01: That's the that's the thing that you're journeying to.
SPEAKER_01: That's the big carrot that keeps people in the rules, right?
SPEAKER_01: And then on the other hand, you need some sticks, you need the thread of the thread of judgment.
SPEAKER_01: So obviously, hell's the big ticket item there, right?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Again, if you're writing down how to design a religion, you're you're channeling your inner L.
SPEAKER_01: Ron Hubbard, right?
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you think, okay, well, hell's the big ticket item, but you can actually do other things.
SPEAKER_01: You can do things like guilt.
SPEAKER_01: That can be uh a disincentivizing thing.
SPEAKER_01: You just make people feel ashamed, and that's kind of keeps them on the on the path, keeping the rules, right?
SPEAKER_01: Uh or you can do social pressure, uh pressure to to conform, pressure to uh to say certain things, uh, the threat of uh the threat of rejection.
SPEAKER_01: Uh you uh have this implicit um the uh you can communicate implicitly this idea of actually if you stray off the path, if you don't keep the rules anymore, then you'll be out of the community.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we're going to we're going to reject you, right?
SPEAKER_01: So uh what do you need to do?
SPEAKER_01: You need your rules.
SPEAKER_01: You think about, okay, what kind of rules do I want for the religion that I'm creating?
SPEAKER_01: What kind of carrots do I want?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: What's your what's your hope?
SPEAKER_01: What is the thing you're journeying towards?
SPEAKER_01: What are your what are your sticks?
SPEAKER_01: That's how that's how you create a religion.
SPEAKER_01: You know, decent religion worth its salt, it's going to uh gonna create good people, right?
SPEAKER_01: Then you look at Christianity and you realize that it's a terrible religion.
SPEAKER_01: It's a really terrible religion.
SPEAKER_01: Because just before we uh read chapter six, Paul makes this comment.
SPEAKER_01: Actually, the verse just above it, again, you can look at the uh at the end of Romans chapter five.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says about the rules uh in Romans 5, uh verse 20.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Now the law came in to do what?
SPEAKER_01: To increase the trespass.
SPEAKER_01: That is to increase the sin.
SPEAKER_01: So what's Paul saying there?
SPEAKER_01: Paul's saying that actually what the rules do is the rules make you more sinful.
SPEAKER_01: The rules are doing the opposite of what they should be doing, they're actually making you worse.
SPEAKER_01: And he's going to unpack this in uh in Romans chapter 7.
SPEAKER_01: But just to give you a brief taste, basically he uses the idea of envy, of coveting.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Well, I had no idea what coveting was until I read the rule, do not covet.
SPEAKER_01: And as soon as I read the rule and found out what it was, it aroused in me all of these envious desires.
SPEAKER_01: And so the law made me more sinful.
SPEAKER_01: So you think, oh gosh, right?
SPEAKER_01: So the the rules thing doesn't seem to work.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Christianity, Christianity is a terrible, terrible religion.
SPEAKER_01: And what's worse, Paul has been telling us for the first five chapters that if you have faith in Jesus, that there's no more judgment for you.
SPEAKER_01: So the big stick has been taken away.
SPEAKER_01: So what's the incentive to actually keeping the rules?
SPEAKER_01: Why would you bother?
SPEAKER_01: If there's no more judgment and it's all just carrots all the way down.
SPEAKER_01: Heaven and grace and uh life and adoption and hope and joy and all these things.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that might keep you on the straight and narrow, but you need a good stick.
SPEAKER_01: But Paul said that actually Jesus has already taken the judgment.
SPEAKER_01: But God is so gracious, so loving, so kind that he took the judgment upon himself, into himself.
SPEAKER_01: And so no matter what we do, we will never face his anger because of faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity is a terrible religion.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't get the rules right, it doesn't get the sticks right.
SPEAKER_01: What a disaster! How on earth are you gonna make good people with this sort of religion?
SPEAKER_01: Surely if there's no more rules and if there's no more thread of judgment, then it's gonna lead to moral chaos.
SPEAKER_01: Why would you lead a better life at all?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, why not sin as much as you can?
SPEAKER_01: Surely that's the thing to do.
SPEAKER_01: If Paul has been saying that I see, the more you sin, the more God's grace looks amazing, then why not sin it up?
SPEAKER_01: If you're taking notes, you write that.
SPEAKER_01: Your pastor on Sunday, the 5th of May, said, sin it up.
SPEAKER_01: Because that will make God's grace look more impressive.
SPEAKER_01: Richard Dawkins was uh was talking about the death of Jesus, uh, and he said uh quite uh quite tongue-in-cheekly, he said, Well, Jesus died for sins.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you don't sin, well, Jesus died for nothing, and you wouldn't want that now, would you?
SPEAKER_01: Many of us don't think that we're just gonna sin it up.
SPEAKER_01: But lots of us here who are followers of Jesus quite like the grace loophole, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: Because we still want to sin from time to time.
SPEAKER_01: There's still things that we want to do that we know that are wrong, uh, but where our mind goes that we wouldn't want to say it, I'd lie, is think, well, I'm gonna do it.
SPEAKER_01: And I know it's wrong, uh, and I do love Jesus, but uh I'm gonna I'm gonna come to him afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna say I'm sorry, because it's kind of it's kind of his job to to forgive me.
SPEAKER_01: And so we've got this kind of loophole that grace creates.
SPEAKER_01: So the religious person looks at Christianity and thinks it's a disastrous religion because it's gonna lead to moral chaos.
SPEAKER_01: This grace idea is just gonna lead to an absolute free-for-all and never really make good people.
SPEAKER_01: The atheist, like Richard Dawkins, well, he sneers at Christianity because if Jesus took your sin, well, you may as well have some sins to take.
SPEAKER_01: And then the spiritually immature Christian thinks that grace is kind of like a like a get out of jail free card when you want to do stuff that you know that you shouldn't.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul knows that all of these thoughts are building as he's writing the letter to Roman to the Romans.
SPEAKER_01: And so he begins in verse 1 of chapter six with a question.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Well, what should we say then?
SPEAKER_01: Are we to continue to sin that grace may abound?
SPEAKER_01: And then he immediately answers the question just with this emphatic statement, three words, by no means.
SPEAKER_01: Essentially, his answer is this is if you think that the abounding grace of God and his free gift of salvation has no impact on how you live now, you're crazy.
SPEAKER_01: You're absolutely crazy, and you have not understood, Richard Dawkins, religious person, immature Christian, you have not understood what I've been saying for the last five chapters.
SPEAKER_01: So let me spell it out for you.
SPEAKER_01: He says, you died.
SPEAKER_01: You died to sin.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: By no means.
SPEAKER_01: How can we who die to sin still live in it?
SPEAKER_01: Christianity doesn't change you with rules, it doesn't change you with threats of judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to how Christianity changes you?
SPEAKER_00: It kills you.
SPEAKER_00: At least the old ye.
SPEAKER_01: It kills the old ye and raises up a new ye.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul's saying here.
SPEAKER_01: You died, part of you, the old part of you, died.
SPEAKER_01: And a new part has been raised from the grave.
SPEAKER_01: And that is how you live as a different person.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what does this mean?
SPEAKER_01: Let's unpack this idea, and this is really point one, I guess, which is to say, you are dead to sin.
SPEAKER_01: You are dead to sin.
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you what it doesn't mean.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that you no longer sin.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've noticed that.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a follower of Jesus, maybe from time to time, you find yourself, oh, actually, I I I still seem to be still seem to be sinning.
SPEAKER_01: There was a there was a movement uh in the uh in the 1800s uh that's kind of it's dieted out in a lot, certainly a lot of the West.
SPEAKER_01: Um what was called kind of the holiness movement, this idea that you could become kind of sinlessly perfect this side of heaven, right?
SPEAKER_01: And uh in the 1800s, there was a uh there was a man who wrote a book uh called Holiness and How I Achieved It.
SPEAKER_01: Um kind of manual for how to live a sinlessly pure life.
SPEAKER_01: And the story goes that he was at a uh he was at a pastor's conference uh with a very famous London pastor uh called Charles Spurgeon.
SPEAKER_01: Uh those of you who've been Christians very much say, uh, a Spurgeon illustration?
SPEAKER_01: Huh, we haven't had one of those in years.
SPEAKER_01: Uh so there's loads of apocryphal stories about Spurgeon, but the story of this one I think is quite funny.
SPEAKER_01: It goes along the way that they're at this pastor's conference and this man's book, Holiness and How I Achieved It, has uh has just come out.
SPEAKER_01: And all of the pastors are kind of looking at Spurgeon to kind of see, well, what is he going to say?
SPEAKER_01: Is there going to be this great argument, this great debate on the nature of sanctification and holiness in the Christian life?
SPEAKER_01: And Spurgeon says nothing until the very last morning at the conference.
SPEAKER_01: They're all sitting around there at breakfast.
SPEAKER_01: And Spurgeon got up and he picked up a pitcher of milk and he dumped it over the guy's head, thus revealing that the man actually had still some work to do in achieving holiness because of the rant and tirade that he went off on.
SPEAKER_01: So it can't mean that you no longer sin, right?
SPEAKER_01: That'd be a silly thing to suggest.
SPEAKER_01: It also doesn't mean that you have no desire to sin if you are a Christian, that it doesn't have some sort of influence on your life.
SPEAKER_01: Again, it's not something that I feel, but I hear that on the grapevine that some of you might feel influenced to sin from time to time.
SPEAKER_01: That there is still a desire there.
SPEAKER_01: It also doesn't mean that one day you will die to sin.
SPEAKER_01: And that you're slowly moving away from it.
SPEAKER_01: No, you know, Paul says that you died.
SPEAKER_01: You died to sin.
SPEAKER_01: So what does it mean?
SPEAKER_01: Here's what it means.
SPEAKER_01: Are you listening?
SPEAKER_01: Paul is saying that sin no longer has the power to control you.
SPEAKER_01: Sin no longer has the power to control you.
SPEAKER_01: That is not to say that sin no longer has any influence in your life, that sin doesn't arouse desire in you, but that there is something, there's a shift of power.
SPEAKER_01: Before a person becomes a follower of Jesus, they actually cannot help but follow sin's control and rule.
SPEAKER_01: That's not to say that if you're not a Christian, you only do bad things, but it is it is only by the work of God that you can you can respond to him as you ought.
SPEAKER_01: And until that takes place, you're kind of controlled by sin.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, this is what Paul has been saying, that sin is a kind of power that reigns.
SPEAKER_01: So 521.
SPEAKER_01: So sin reigns in death.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is a is a ruler over us before we are set free by Jesus, before we die.
SPEAKER_01: Before you're a Christian, sin is in charge.
SPEAKER_01: And its super weapon that it uses against everyone eventually is death.
SPEAKER_01: 521.
SPEAKER_01: So sin reigned in death.
SPEAKER_01: But if you've already died, then sin no has no more power to control you.
SPEAKER_01: It does not reign over you.
SPEAKER_01: It has no more dominion over your life.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you sitting there are saying, well, hold on a second, Mark.
SPEAKER_01: I I'm actually really struggling with sin, and it feels pretty darn powerful.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm following Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It seems super present and super controlling in my life.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean that I have died to sin?
SPEAKER_01: Think of it this way.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine that where you once lived was ruled by a vicious tyrant and his army.
SPEAKER_01: His control over you was absolute, and his reign was evil and a big brother-esque.
SPEAKER_01: It was a totalitarian, tyrannical regime over your life.
SPEAKER_01: And then one day, a good, kind ruler came in and toppled that tyrant, cast him down from his place of power, never to be reinstated again.
SPEAKER_01: But that tyrant and some of his army have fled.
SPEAKER_01: They have fled into the fields and villages of your life and still nigh to this day rage a guerrilla war against you.
SPEAKER_01: That while the tyrant will never take the throne again, he's still exerting an influence in your life.
SPEAKER_01: One day he will finally be defeated, but right now there is a kind of civil war going in going on in the country of your life.
SPEAKER_01: They still fight, and sometimes it feels like their presence is very threatening.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they even win the battle that day.
SPEAKER_01: And maybe even from time to time you search them out.
SPEAKER_01: You want to trade with them.
SPEAKER_01: You know it's not a good idea.
SPEAKER_01: You know that it's gonna harm you, but still you go in search of them.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is an overthrown tyrant.
SPEAKER_01: You died, and its power over you ended, though its presence and influence still persists.
SPEAKER_01: But you must, follower of Jesus, brother or sister, you must, if you take nothing else home today, realize that sin's tyrannical power has been broken over your life.
SPEAKER_01: If that's true, when did it happen?
SPEAKER_01: When did you die?
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna jump down to verse five and then I'll um unpack the verses above.
SPEAKER_01: Let's have a look at verse five.
SPEAKER_01: For if we have been united with him, who's the him?
SPEAKER_01: It's Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_01: If we've been united with Jesus in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
SPEAKER_01: When did you die?
SPEAKER_01: You died when Jesus died.
SPEAKER_01: Hold on.
SPEAKER_01: But how is that true?
SPEAKER_01: What's going on there?
SPEAKER_01: That sounds mad.
SPEAKER_01: I'm alive in 2024.
SPEAKER_01: He was alive a few minutes ago, right?
SPEAKER_01: Uh or on earth, he's still alive.
SPEAKER_01: Uh his earthly ministry was over 2,000 years ago.
SPEAKER_01: How is it that when Jesus died, I died?
SPEAKER_01: Well, the answer is there in verse 5 that we have been united to him.
SPEAKER_01: Remember all that we talked about when we looked at the second half of chapter 5?
SPEAKER_01: All of Humanity, in a sense, is united to either Adam or Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That we are either in Adam or we are in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Joined to Adam, we experience death.
SPEAKER_01: Joined to Christ, we experience life.
SPEAKER_01: This idea that the believer is united to Jesus is one of the most important and most neglected truths in all of the modern church.
SPEAKER_01: That you are inextricably joined by faith to Jesus in such a way that when he died, you died.
SPEAKER_01: And when he rose again, you rose again.
SPEAKER_01: Brother or sister, you are united to Jesus, inextricably linked to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Your life is bound up with him.
SPEAKER_01: When he died, you died.
SPEAKER_01: And when he was raised, you rose.
SPEAKER_01: This is why Paul, so coming back up the verses, this is why Paul uses the image of baptism.
SPEAKER_01: Not because baptism causes the union with Christ, right?
SPEAKER_01: We do not believe that that baptism joins us to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: No, rather, what baptism does is it symbolizes a spiritual reality.
SPEAKER_01: Baptism dramatically represents this idea of being united to Jesus in death and raised to newness of life.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, in a fact, to the Roman Christians, he says, You remember, remember, when you were submerged under the water, that symbolized your death with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You went into a breathless grave.
SPEAKER_01: And then you were raised back up again, just as Christ was raised, in order that you might show the world that you are a new person.
SPEAKER_01: And so baptism is a picture of union with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So why don't we continue to sin?
SPEAKER_01: Why don't we continue to sin it up in order to show the greatness of God's grace?
SPEAKER_01: Well, Paul's answer is because you died.
SPEAKER_01: You died to sin.
SPEAKER_01: No longer are you under its tyrannical rule.
SPEAKER_01: No longer do you need to obey its dictates.
SPEAKER_01: So Christianity doesn't change your life the way a religion does.
SPEAKER_01: With rules and carts and sticks.
SPEAKER_01: It changes your life by destroying the power of sin over your life and uniting you to Jesus in his death and in his resurrected life.
SPEAKER_01: Now, a couple of implications of this teaching, right?
SPEAKER_01: So you're dead to sin.
SPEAKER_01: Why does that matter?
SPEAKER_01: What sort of impact does that have?
SPEAKER_01: Two implications.
SPEAKER_01: First, the old you is gone.
SPEAKER_01: The old you is gone.
SPEAKER_01: Have a look with me at verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: For one who has died has been set free from sin.
SPEAKER_01: The old you is gone.
SPEAKER_01: Here at the start of verse 6, Paul is talking about the old self and how he or she was crucified.
SPEAKER_01: What is this old self?
SPEAKER_01: Well the old self is your old ways of thinking, your old desires, your old drives, the things that you valued above all else, the thing that that uh that controlled and activated you, that actually your desires have changed, you have a different value system, you want different things now that you've died, now that the old self has been crucified.
SPEAKER_01: It is the it is the inner, it is the personality and ego of the old person.
SPEAKER_01: And many of you, I'm sure, feel this.
SPEAKER_01: Those of you who have become followers of Jesus later on in life, say in your late teens, early 20s, or beyond, you think back to before you met Jesus, before you became a follower of Jesus, and you think, well, hold on, I'm a I'm a completely different person.
SPEAKER_01: I don't recognize that guy.
SPEAKER_01: I don't recognize that woman.
SPEAKER_01: I have different longings, different desires, different things control and drive me.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Because the old person was crucified.
SPEAKER_01: The old person died.
SPEAKER_01: Then he goes on, we're still in verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: He says, The old person died.
SPEAKER_01: The old person was crucified with him, that is, with Jesus when he was crucified, in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing.
SPEAKER_01: It's a curious phrase.
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it doesn't mean that Paul thinks that your body is inherently sinful.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes is what Christianity people think Christianity teaches.
SPEAKER_01: That the things you do in the spirit, the religious pursuits, uh, they're they're the good holy things.
SPEAKER_01: The stuff that you do in the body, particularly sex, that's kind of mucky, right?
SPEAKER_01: So don't, don't, body things, bad, spirit things, good.
SPEAKER_01: That is not a Christian idea.
SPEAKER_01: That's a Greek idea, that's a Platonic idea.
SPEAKER_01: That does not exist in Christian thought.
SPEAKER_01: No, God loves the material.
SPEAKER_01: He made a material world and is redeeming a material world.
SPEAKER_01: And so, whatever Paul means here by the body of sin, it's not that Paul thinks that uh that your physical flesh is inherently sinful, right?
SPEAKER_01: No, rather what Paul is saying, and it's quite a simple point, really.
SPEAKER_01: It's like saying, if you're going to sin, you're going to do it in your body.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Uh if you're going to steal something, you don't steal it conceptually, right?
SPEAKER_01: You use your limbs to take the thing, right?
SPEAKER_01: Your body does the sin, right?
SPEAKER_01: Or you know, adultery, fornication.
SPEAKER_01: Again, obviously there is a conceptual element to that, but it's a physical act.
SPEAKER_01: Or lying.
SPEAKER_01: You know, use your tongue to do that.
SPEAKER_01: It's saying that if you if you're going to sin, you're going to do it in your body.
SPEAKER_01: And so let's join these two together.
SPEAKER_01: And what we realize is that what Paul is saying is that God crucified the old, the old you, the old thing that motivates and drives you, so that actually you might live differently in the body.
SPEAKER_01: So the body of that gives itself over to sin because it's enslaved to sin might now present itself to God.
SPEAKER_01: That might actually live differently.
SPEAKER_01: A life that is no longer enslaved to sin, but set free.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he says in verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: That's the answer to the kid's question.
SPEAKER_01: For one who has died has been set free from sin.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you, I'm sure, are here this morning and you're you count yourself as a follower of Jesus, you're trusting Jesus, and you feel like there is no hope for you when it comes to sin.
SPEAKER_01: There is something that is so habitual, so ingrained that feels like its power has never faded.
SPEAKER_01: Feels as vicious as ever.
SPEAKER_01: And you're convinced that there's nothing can be done to help you.
SPEAKER_01: I need to tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that you're being told a lie.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that you're telling yourself a lie.
SPEAKER_01: One of the most liberating things to realize for you as a follower of Jesus is that sin's power has been broken.
SPEAKER_01: You can say no to sin.
SPEAKER_01: And sin wants you to believe that you can't.
SPEAKER_01: It's lying to you right now, going, it's not true.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna get you later.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: It's telling you lies.
SPEAKER_01: We believe lies all the time.
SPEAKER_01: There comes a point where we need to arrest our own soul and say, let me speak some truth to you.
SPEAKER_01: I've been set free.
SPEAKER_01: I've died to sin.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, the presence and the influence of sin remains in your life, but its power has been broken.
SPEAKER_01: Think of it this way: go back to the tyrannical country.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine, imagine in that land.
SPEAKER_01: The tyrant is sent down from his throne and he is he is on the run, he's in the fields and villages, he's in the countryside, but he still is able to broadcast.
SPEAKER_01: He still breaks in over the channels.
SPEAKER_01: He still gets his message out over social media and over the radio and over television.
SPEAKER_01: And he still says, I'm still in charge.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you believe that there's a good king on the throne.
SPEAKER_01: There's nobody there.
SPEAKER_01: I'm in charge.
SPEAKER_01: You will never be free while I'm in charge.
SPEAKER_01: He's controlling the media.
SPEAKER_01: And in a sense, in coming back, in coming to what Paul is saying here, in coming to God's word, it's like going to the Capitol and walking into government buildings and saying, ah, the good king is there.
SPEAKER_01: That all of the stuff that I'm reading and that I'm hearing, and that it's constantly on my on my radio that I turn it on and on my Instagram feed as I doom scroll, that it's all lies.
SPEAKER_01: I can say no.
SPEAKER_01: Holiness, and that's I mean, holiness is kind of like a muscle to be exercised.
SPEAKER_01: Goodness me, like I have sat so many people have I have sat with and had this kind of conversation with.
SPEAKER_01: And then the next week or two weeks later we meet, and they're like, I said no.
SPEAKER_01: I said no to that, to that thing, to whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01: I said no to it.
SPEAKER_01: Not every day, but I did it a couple of times.
SPEAKER_01: I said no.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't realize that I could.
SPEAKER_01: You can try it.
SPEAKER_01: Do not believe the lie that sin's power remains over your life if you are a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You died, and its power was broken.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, its presence might seem very near, and its rule very terrible.
SPEAKER_01: But that tyrant's on the run.
SPEAKER_01: The old year's gone.
SPEAKER_01: The second implication is that you are alive to God.
SPEAKER_01: Verses 8 to 11.
SPEAKER_01: Let me remind you of them.
SPEAKER_01: Have a look with me.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if we've died with Christ, we believe that we'll also be raised with him, so that we'll also live with him.
SPEAKER_01: We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again.
SPEAKER_01: Death no longer has any dominion, any rule over him.
SPEAKER_01: For the death he died, he died to sin once for all.
SPEAKER_01: But the life he lives, he lives to God.
SPEAKER_01: So you also must consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You see, Jesus didn't just die, did he?
SPEAKER_01: He rose.
SPEAKER_01: He rose to newness of life.
SPEAKER_01: He rose to live a life that would never be touched by death again.
SPEAKER_01: Because the power of sin would never touch him again.
SPEAKER_01: And you, believer, follower in Jesus, are united with him in his death and resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: Sin's great super weapon has been disarmed.
SPEAKER_01: It is no longer something to fear.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we will all, while the Lord tarries, we will all pass through death's dark veil, but it no longer has the power that it had.
SPEAKER_01: And just as he was raised, you were raised with him.
SPEAKER_01: And he now lives for God, and that is what you are called to.
SPEAKER_01: We feel these conflicting desires, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: As followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We feel pulled in one direction to live for that old self.
SPEAKER_01: We want to go and trade with the tyrant and his army again.
SPEAKER_01: And yet there's another part of us.
SPEAKER_01: The part of us that wants something much, much more.
SPEAKER_01: Much more beautiful, much more life-giving.
SPEAKER_01: For the Christian, one of the things that we begin to realize is actually those desires are core and these are peripheral.
SPEAKER_01: They used to be core, but but now they're just they're trying to make us forget who we are in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: They're trying to make us forget what he has done and what how he has transformed us.
SPEAKER_01: For the Christian, we are our truest selves when we live for God.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we were made to do.
SPEAKER_01: We are most truly human when we pursue him, when we pursue holiness and love.
SPEAKER_01: When we listen to these desires, these old man, old woman desires, and give in to them, it's because we've forgotten who we are.
SPEAKER_01: We listen to the old tyrant when we forget what good King Jesus has made of us.
SPEAKER_01: We listen to the old tyrant when we forget that we are no longer slaves, but sons, daughters.
SPEAKER_01: We say no to sin when we remember who we are, because we're children of the king.
SPEAKER_01: And because we are children of the king, we will no longer dishonor and disrespect ourselves by running with that old rebel tyrant.
SPEAKER_01: The old you's gone.
SPEAKER_01: You're alive to God.
SPEAKER_01: Finally, if you've died to sin, and that has made you alive to God through Jesus, then how ought we to live?
SPEAKER_01: Well, Paul tells us, last two verses, 12 to 14, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.
SPEAKER_01: 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 of unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_01: For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
SPEAKER_01: Just focus in on that second part of verse 13 there.
SPEAKER_01: Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.
SPEAKER_01: This is how Christian ethics works.
SPEAKER_01: Paul tells you who you are, and then says, Be who you are.
SPEAKER_01: Every other religion, with its rules and its carrots and its sticks, says, Do these things and I'll make you different.
SPEAKER_01: You follow the rules, then I'll I'll transform you once you kind of get to the end, once you reach the goal.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity is completely the opposite.
SPEAKER_01: It says, I'm going to transform you, gonna make you a different person.
SPEAKER_01: And I live a different life.
SPEAKER_01: The first way of the rules and the currents and the stinks, well, that will only lead you in one of two directions.
SPEAKER_01: That will either lead you to despair, I can't do it, I can't get to the goal, I can't, I'll never get to the transformed part.
SPEAKER_01: Or it'll lead you to pride.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, I did it.
SPEAKER_01: Way better than you guys.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Christianity doesn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity changes you and then tells you to live out of that changed heart.
SPEAKER_01: Paul in these verses is pleading with you and saying, Don't obey, therefore, the old tyrant.
SPEAKER_01: That old tyrant that promises much and delivers little.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you know that about sin?
SPEAKER_01: Sin promises you joy and delivers shame.
SPEAKER_01: It promises you control and leaves you feeling helpless.
SPEAKER_01: It promises you connection and oh, doesn't sin leave you feeling isolated.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's saying, don't listen to it anymore.
SPEAKER_01: It promises life and delivers death.
SPEAKER_01: Don't follow his lies or obey his commands.
SPEAKER_01: Rather, live for the one who made you alive and set you free.
SPEAKER_01: If you are free, be free.
SPEAKER_01: Live how you were meant to live.
SPEAKER_01: For the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: This is how Christianity changes people, folks.
SPEAKER_01: Not with rules.
SPEAKER_01: Rules ruin people.
SPEAKER_01: Threats of judgment leave people feeling guilty or ashamed, or these days, cold, jaded.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants the guilt anymore.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus is saying something else.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, put your faith in me.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll kill the old you.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll raise up a new you.
SPEAKER_01: Put your faith in me, and I will put to death the old you that you hate, the old you that's killing you, and I will make you more alive and more free than rules and religion and carrots and sticks could ever do.
SPEAKER_01: Because you know what Jesus says, right?
SPEAKER_00: That if the sun sets you free, you'll be free indeed.