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3.19.23 Romans 6:1-14 Pastor Sam Porges · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  If you've got your Bibles, open them up to Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6. That's where we're going to be this morning. We're going to continue our study of Romans. And as you guys are turning there, I want to do a little bit of review. In October, when we started this series, we said we were going to spend about a year on the Romans road, as it were. And so we've been in this study for five-ish months, and we've covered a lot of ground.
• 0:31
  And so when we're looking in the rear view mirror, right, seeing how far we've come, what have we learned from the book of Romans thus far? There are two major themes that we've covered in chapters one to five. What are they? Me not talking is the cue for you to say something. Okay, justification is one.
• 1:01
  Condemnation is the other. Thank you. So in chapters 1 to 3, we've got this on the banners back here. If you guys feel free to turn around, take a look at them. But we've got six banners that split the book of Romans up thematically. And starting from this side and going to that side. And so, so far, we've covered chapters 1 to 3 where Paul tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Regardless of how religious or irreligious you are, all have sinned against God and so are under his condemnation.
• 1:29
  But then in chapters 4 and 5, we talk about justification, that all can be made right with God, but not through works, only through faith. That verse in Romans 3, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, continues by saying, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And so condemnation and justification. We just finished chapter 5 last week. We finished the justification portion.
• 1:57
  we said that justification is being made right with God. To be justified is to be treated just as if I'd never sinned. Just like the father of our faith, Abraham, we're made right with God not through our works, but only through faith. It's like Paul is saying, this was never about proving yourself to God by how religious you could be. He already loves you, and he already knows you. It's just about trusting in him. And everyone who trusts in Christ for the forgiveness of sins,
• 2:26
  is counted righteous before him. Last week, Danny preached verses 12 to 21 of chapter 5, and he said that the first Adam, who was Adam, right, in Genesis 1 to 3, brought death and decay to all through sin. But then the second Adam, who is Christ, reversed all of that and brought righteousness to everyone who believes in him.
• 2:53
  And so if you're like me, or maybe if you're like the Romans, after chapters four and five, reading about these glorious truths of justification, right? You may be wondering, okay, this is great. I'm made right with God. My sins are forgiven. I'm righteous in God's sight through the blood of Jesus. Why then do I still struggle with sin? Why do I still struggle with sin? Chapters six and seven answer this question.
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  Paul begins a new section here of Romans, right? We're moving from the second banner, justification, to the third banner, sanctification. And what we learn in this whole section is that God isn't just interested in declaring you righteous through Christ legally. He's not just interested in justifying you. He's also interested in actually making you righteous.
• 3:50
  He's interested in, as Titus 2.14 tells us, purifying for himself a people who are zealous for good works. And we call this purifying process sanctification. Look at the difference between these two. Justification is God's legal declaration of sinners as righteous through Christ. Anyone else grateful for that doctrine? Yes. But then look at sanctification. Sanctification is the process.
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  by which a person increasingly becomes Christ-like through cooperation with the Holy Spirit. In other words, sanctification is the process of being made holy. Now, justification answers the question, how can I be made right with God? That's probably the most important question a person can ever ask. But sanctification asks the question, how can I grow in godliness? Now, those are two very different questions, right?
• 4:50
  Because you're not made right with God by growing in godliness. That would be works salvation. We're made right with God. That is the work of God. But sanctification, he says, is cooperative. Chapters 4 and 5 are about salvation from sin. But then chapters 6 and 7, as we'll see over the next few weeks, is about the struggle against sin. And so Paul's going to walk us through this topic by answering a series of squirrely questions.
• 5:18
  You know, we're all in the throes of tax season right now, which I know is your favorite season of the year, right? Giving to Caesar what is Caesar is one of my favorite things, and I know it is for you too. You're just enjoying it, living life right now, cloud nine in tax season. But because it's tax season, you know what many people are either thinking about or participating in? Loopholes.
• 5:46
  Everyone's wondering, how can I not pay as much to the government? Now, these people are either shrewd businessmen or they've got that Al Capone-ish inclination to evade their responsibility to the IRS, right? They're looking for technicalities that will get them out of their responsibilities for taxes.
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  In this sanctification section of Romans, we're introduced to a series of hypothetical, what I'm going to call loophole questions, which Paul addresses in anticipation of them being asked. It's like after writing Romans 4 and 5, Paul can see the wheels turning in the minds of the Romans.
• 6:32
  And after they've just read about justification, he knows that there's this human impulse to blame shift, a human impulse to make excuses. And so he addresses a lot of issues before they're ever even voiced. And so over the next few weeks, we're going to see how Paul responds to these loophole questions in chapters 6 and 7. And so if you are able, let's stand in honor of God's word. As I read it, I'm going to read verses 1 to 14.
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  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,
• 7:36
  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.
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  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.
• 8:34
  but under grace. And Father, we ask this morning that by your spirit and by your word, you would cause a gratitude to well up within us as we consider our union with Christ. And I pray that that wellspring would cause us to have confidence against sin as we fight it. We identify with your son and we rejoice in him this morning. We pray.
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  In his name, amen. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. Well, we've got a series of four loophole questions from chapter 6 to chapter 7, the first of which is here in verse 1. And what I want to do is I want to read each question just so you know what the trajectory of the next few weeks will be as Paul mounts this argument for Christian sanctification. And so look at verse 1 with me. This is the first one which we'll study this morning. He says, what shall we say then?
• 9:39
  Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? Now look over at verse 15. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? Ahead to chapter 7, verse 7. What then shall we say? That the law is sin? And then verse 13. Did that which is good then bring death to me?
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  Each of these loophole questions is born out of something in the passage that precedes it. And in our case this morning with verse 1 of chapter 6, that statement is chapter 5, verse 20, which we studied last week. So look there with me. Verse 20 of chapter 5. Paul writes, Now the law came to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, what does it say? Grace abounded all the more. Now the misguided logic that bridges
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  Chapter 5, verse 20, with chapter 6, verse 1, says this. If my sin shows God to be gracious, why would I not keep sinning in order to show how abundant the grace of God is? Are you guys track with that? You see that bridge there? Now, what's wrong with that question? Tell me. What's wrong with that question? What is it?
• 11:06
  What's the misunderstanding of the question in verse 1? Okay, yeah, so God, his grace is dependent on sin. That's one, right? It's okay to sin as a Christian. What this question fails to recognize is that justification necessarily leads to sanctification. Forgiveness must lead to godliness. We cannot divorce those two. As one man put it,
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  justification has inescapable moral implications. This is not a, I want to come to God and be forgiven and then just do what I want with my life. No, not at all. This loophole question fails to grasp the purpose of God's forgiveness. And Psalm 130 verses 3 and 4 tell us what the purpose of God's forgiveness is. Look at this. It says, if you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, if you keep track, O Lord, who could stand?
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  But with you there is forgiveness, that, what does it say? That you may be feared. This psalm tells us that the purpose of God's forgiveness is to lead us into holiness, not into license. God's forgiveness is not a get out of jail free card. It's meant to change the way that you play the game, right? The Christian life, Paul says, is not only characterized by justification, being made right with God, but also by sanctification.
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  holy living. And so you can see the spirit of Al Capone in this verse, right? I want to receive the blessings of justification, but I want to evade my responsibilities to live a holy life. It's unfortunate that those who would, in all genuineness, ask this question are in the right place at the right time, but they're getting everything wrong. I mean, you think
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  They've walked through chapters four and five. These people are Christians. And to ask this question, you're going, you're misinterpreting everything about your salvation, right? I know I've told this story before, but it's been three or four years. And it's one of my favorites because it's so funny. But the story goes like this. As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently, I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. The departed had no family or friends, and the service was to be held.
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  at a paupers cemetery in rural Kentucky. I was not familiar with the backwoods and got lost, and being a typical man, I didn't stop and ask for directions. I finally arrived an hour late and saw that the funeral workers were gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. Only the diggers and their equipment remained, and the men were eating lunch under the shade of a nearby tree. I felt bad about being too late for the ceremony, and I apologized to the workers.
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  I went to the side of the grave and looked down and saw that the vault lid was already in place. I didn't know what else to do, so I began to play. The workers put down their lunches and gathered around me with hard hats in hand. I played my heart and soul out for that man with no family and friends. I played for that man like I've never played for anyone. I played Amazing Grace, and as I played, the workers began to weep. They wept, and I wept, and we all wept together.
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  When I finished, I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full. As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, I have never seen or heard of anything like that, and I've been putting in septic tanks for 20 years. There's nothing like being at the right place at the right time and getting everything wrong, right? Think about this, Highland. We just finished chapter 5, and chapter 5 says that we,
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  have been made right with God in Christ. We have been forgiven of our sin. We've been freed from the first Adam by the second Adam. We have peace with God and access to God. And in light of all that, to see holy living as optional is to miss the point of justification altogether. You miss it. And it wasn't just first century Roman Christians who were struggling with this idea, but us today as well.
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  Maybe you've ever felt that temptation to be like, ah, I know God will forgive me, so I'm just going to do what I want. Or maybe that's how you're currently living right now. You view forgiveness as a license. It's permission to just do whatever I want because I'm forgiven. This still tempts us today. But do you understand this morning that your justification is meant to lead you into sanctification? It's meant to lead you into holiness, not complacency.
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  And so if your attitude is, I'm forgiven by God, so I just get to do whatever I want, let me tell you, you're probably in the right place at the right time, but you are missing it. You don't understand the nature of your justification or the purpose of your forgiveness because it makes no sense to accept justification and then shun sanctification. For all of us who are tempted to live the loophole of verse 1, we need verses 2 to 10.
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  We need to continue in this passage because, as we're going to see, Paul lays before us glorious truth that should blunt our appetite for sin, but then also wet our appetite for Christ. And so, let's continue on in verse 2. Oh, I'm going to start again in verse 1, actually. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? Verse 2, by no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it?
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  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. The emphatic nature of Paul's response in verse 2 shows his incredulity that one would even consider such a foolish question. Like, should we continue in sin as the people of God? He says, by no means.
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  God forbid that we would ever do that. The theological reality to which Paul appeals in verses 2 to 10 as a response to that loophole question is this, union with Christ. That's the reality he appeals to here. To be a Christian means more than just confessing certain creeds and believing certain doctrines. To be a Christian is to identify with Christ.
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  Our world likes that language, doesn't it? This is how I identify. Well, guess what? For the Christian, this is how we identify. We identify with Jesus, not only in his life, but also in his death. And even more than that, even more than our identification with Jesus, think about this. Jesus identifies with his people. Jesus yearns for his people. He's jealous over them.
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  His love for us is strong, and he identifies with us not only as our redeemer and our savior, but as our friend. Jesus greatly cherishes your union with him to the degree that harm inflicted upon you, he considers as harm to himself. Remember Acts chapter 9? The apostle Paul, formerly called Saul, has made a career out of
• 19:05
  hunting down Christians, either to kill them or throw them in prison. And Jesus appears to him on his way to a city to do just that. And Jesus asks him a question. He says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting my people? No. Why are you persecuting me? And Paul's natural response would have been, I'm not persecuting you, I'm persecuting your people. But Jesus clearly states, no, if you persecute them, if you do harm to them,
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  You are harming me. Why? Because I love them. They're mine. I identify with them. Jesus so deeply cares for your union with him. He so treasures you. I think about the gravity of that thought. Oh, if the people of God, oh, if we would remember this thought that Jesus deeply treasures.
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  In Romans chapter 6, Paul speaks of two major ways in which our union with Christ manifests itself. He's saying, first, we are unified with Christ, or I guess two aspects of the union with Christ. He says, first, we're unified with Christ in his death. This is verses 2 and 4. But then second, we're unified with Christ in his resurrection, which is verses 5 through 10.
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  In verses 3 and 4, Paul says that everyone who has been baptized into Christ is first and foremost baptized into his death. Now, this baptism refers not only to the ordinance or the act of baptism, but more so to the spiritual reality which baptism illustrates. When someone goes under the waters in baptism, what they are declaring to everyone present is the old self, the self that craves sin, the self that...
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  rejects God is dead. It's dead with Christ and it's buried, right? Burial here is included because burial is the final confirmation of death, right? We don't bury people who are alive, except in some like thriller movies, right, that want to keep us on edge. But we bury dead people. Burial says that the old self is really dead, just as Christ really died and was buried.
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  And this death is one of the first steps in our lives as a Christian. It's an interesting first step, right? You want to become a Christian? First step, die to yourself. You die to yourself. You die to your sin. And you die to saying no to God. It's hard here in these verses not to hear echoes of Galatians 2.20 where Paul writes this. He says,
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  Since we have been united with Christ in death, Paul says, it is impossible to continue living in sin like you once did. It's not possible. This is the reality of every Christian. Even in the midst of our struggle against sin, your old self is dead. My old self is dead. I love what one man...
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  He says, what Paul does present here is not the impossibility of committing a single sin, but the impossibility of continuing in a life dominated by sin. Death to sin is not something hoped for or resolved upon by the believer. It is something that has already taken place. Think about how encouraging that final sentence is.
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  Your union with Christ is not something that you have to work up through church attendance or your emotions or your Bible reading plans. Union with Christ is granted to you upon your justification. When you're made right with Christ, you are made one with Jesus. Think about how much freedom there is in that thought. Your old self died with Christ and your unity with him is true now.
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  But that's not all. Not only do we identify with Christ in his death, but we also identify with him in his new life. Look at verse 4 with me. Verse 4. 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. Verse 5. Or in a resurrection like his.
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  Christ's story didn't end with the cross and neither does ours. After we have crucified our old selves, he says new life begins to bud. The winter has passed. Spring is afoot. And resurrection life begins to blossom within us just so that as Christ was victorious over sin and death in his resurrection, so too you, if you are a Christian, can be victorious over your sin.
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  Just as going under the waters in baptism symbolizes death, everyone comes out of the water, right? It'd be concerning if they didn't, right? But everyone comes up out of the water symbolizing a resurrection life in Christ. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 5 and 6 say that we have been made alive together with Christ and God has seated us with Christ in the heavenly places so that in the coming ages we might
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  he might show us the riches of his grace in kindness. Even though you may not see it with the eyes of flesh, God has seated every believer in heaven with Christ. There's an aspect of our spiritual life that is present even in heaven. I love how Eugene Peterson
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  who was the translator or paraphraser, if you will, of the message version of the Bible. I love how he summarizes verses one to five. Look at this. He says, so what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not. If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind.
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  When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus. When we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country. That's so beautifully worded.
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  You've been put into a different country. You've been put into a different land. Now Paul continues this thought on identification with Jesus in the resurrection in verse 6. Look at your Bibles with me. Verse 6. Notice here that the language Paul uses is that of certainty.
• 26:58
  He's not saying we hope that the body of sin might be brought to nothing. We hope that our old selves will be crucified. He says we know that our old self was crucified with him so that our body of sin might be brought to nothing. In other words, so that we might no longer have sin as our master. Now that phrase body of sin isn't referring to our physical bodies because we know that our physical bodies aren't inherently evil.
• 27:24
  Right? Jesus had a physical body. But Jesus taught in Mark 7 21 that what is evil doesn't come from outside of a man. It doesn't come from his body. What is evil springs up from the heart. And so body of sin here refers to every sinful part about us. Not only that former appetite for sin, but also the expression of that appetite through the use of our bodies. Now he ties this whole truth off in verse 7. And I'm going to read this slowly.
• 27:52
  Look at your Bibles with me. Verse 7. For one who has died has been set free from sin. I'm going to read it again. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Can I get a hallelujah from all the dead people in the room? Yes. Yes. Verse...
• 28:19
  Seven, you are no longer bound by your sin nature the way that you once were. And it kills me when I hear Christians talk as if they are still under the control of their sin nature. Like there's nothing they can do to escape it. There's nothing they can do to overcome their sin. Why? Because they just have a sin nature. No, because you've identified with Christ in his resurrection. Your sin nature no longer has authority over you. It's not your master. It's not the boss of you.
• 28:47
  Which means you guys can look at every temptation that comes your way square in the face and say, you're dead to me. Because this is not who I am in Christ. You are more than a conqueror through him who loves you because you're walking in the footsteps of the risen Jesus. Look at verse 9. He says, we know there's that language of certainty. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him.
• 29:17
  For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. On the cross, Christ decisively redeemed us from our sin by his death, never to die again. Notice he says once for all. He's not subject to death anymore. That once for all phrase, right, we saw in chapters four and five, and it's repeated throughout Hebrews. But he died once for sin, once for all, and now...
• 29:46
  As the resurrected Lord, Christ lives to God and is seated at his right hand from where he reigns. Based on this rich theology of our unity with Christ, Paul then writes verse 11. And this is the beginning of his application for us this morning, okay? Verse 11, look at this with me. He says, So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
• 30:20
  You must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God. This is more here than motivational self-talk that has no basis in reality. Like, I'm just going to keep telling myself positive things about my identity until one day it just kind of manifests itself out of nothing, right? No. He says the truth that you are to consider is actual truth. It's reality.
• 30:45
  These events that happen with Christ are based in history. They are attested to in the scriptures. So consider yourselves as new. Now this considering or this reckoning, it doesn't create union with Christ. Again, that was given to us in salvation. It's already ours. But what it does is it makes the Christian identity operative. What Paul is in essence telling us here is that every day,
• 31:17
  When you wake up, you should go into your bathroom, look yourself in the mirror, and tell yourself you are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Preach it to yourself. Why? Because it is true. Now, verses 2 to 11 all sound real nice and good, right? Yes, my old self is dead, but we're left with this pesky question.
• 31:47
  Why do I still struggle with sin then? The answer to this is because our body of sin, as verse 6 tells us, is still being brought to nothing. We're still in the process of being sanctified, and we will be in this process until death. Our union with Christ has taken us out of that first Adam, but God is still working on getting that first Adam out of us. And therefore, we should heed verses 12, 13, and 14.
• 32:17
  Look at verse 12 with me. He says, Now remember what I said in the beginning. Justification is the act of God, but sanctification is cooperative between us and the Holy Spirit, which means if we want to grow in godliness,
• 32:48
  We need to know what God says, and then we need to do it. Spiritual growth doesn't happen automatically like physical growth does. It requires that we listen to God and obey. And to let sin call the shots in our lives is to walk out of step with our identity in Christ. It's not who we are. Sin is not who we are.
• 33:12
  But to throw ourselves, he says, wholeheartedly into the truth of God, to throw ourselves wholeheartedly into service of God and service of his people makes perfect sense. And so Highland, this morning, if you are a Christian, you have a choice. Presentation matters. You either present yourself to sin or you present yourself to God. You either become the hands and feet of unrighteousness or you become the hands and feet of righteousness.
• 33:49
  Every person who places themselves into the hands of unrighteousness, into the hands of their own sin, is used as a weapon against others and against themselves. But every person who places themselves into the hand of God is used like an instrument to make beautiful music that is not only pleasing to the Father, but which is also hopefully attractive to others, that would attract them to Christ.
• 34:20
  And so what choice are you making? I would hope that the desire of every single person in here would be not to present myself to sin as a weapon, but to present myself to God as an instrument. And not only that, but a well-tuned instrument. The final verse of our study this morning is verse 14, and with this we'll conclude. He wraps it up by saying, for sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace.
• 34:55
  What an encouraging thought. How life-giving. He says, sin will have no dominion over you. Again, it's a fact, right? Think about this. Where is Jesus Christ right now? In heaven, at the right hand of God, the Father. How much authority or dominion does sin have over Christ right now? None.
• 35:29
  Where are you seated? With him. And if you're seated with Christ, how much authority and dominion does sin have over you? None. You're free. You don't have to keep saying yes. The victory is yours in Jesus. But this glorious truth also tells me that if this is real and I'm still living as a Christian under the dominion of my sin, who put me there? Me.
• 36:10
  If you this morning claim the name of Christ, but yet still have sin in your life, it's not God who put you under sin. It's you. It's me. And this should not be the case. We must not present ourselves to sin's oppressive rule any longer, but only to the benevolent rule of God's grace in our lives. And so Romans chapter 6, verses 1 to 14, introduced to us the first of these loophole questions, right? Should we keep on sinning?
• 36:41
  Just walking in sin as the people of God? Absolutely not. Should you keep giving in to those temptations that are always, they're kind of always in the corner of your mind, just waiting to attack? Should you keep giving in to those things? No way. Your union with Christ means that it makes no sense to keep on living in sin. Because as Colossians 1 tells us, God has transferred you and me from the empire of darkness
• 37:11
  to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have forgiveness of sins. And so this morning, put off your old self. Put on the new self. Present yourself to God as an instrument to be tuned according to his pleasure so that your life can be lived like a beautiful song to him. When we can say with the hymnist, right, prone to wander, Lord, I...
• 37:39
  Feel it. I feel it. I'm prone to leave the God I love. We can just go, okay, Lord, then here's my heart. Take and seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. I hope you would know this morning that you get the privilege of living in the joy of your union with Jesus who loves you dearly and who has raised you up to live in newness of life with him. Let me pray. Father,
• 38:16
  Your word is perfect. And we're so grateful that what we read in chapter 5 about the glorious blessings of the gospel in our lives, that it doesn't end there. You don't leave us wondering why we still struggle with sin. You tell us exactly why and you give us direction as to how to walk through it. And thank you, Father, that you say in your word by our union with Christ that we get to have victory over our sin.
• 38:47
  We are not slaves to it any longer. You are bringing our body of sin to nothing, and that will be complete one day when you come back. But for now, we live as conquering sons and daughters of the King. We present ourselves to you like instruments. Lord, tune us. How quick we are to get out of tune. By your Spirit and your Word, tune us so that we can live lives that are beautiful before you.
• 39:18
  We pray this in the name of your Son. Amen.