Romans 6:1-14
Main Idea: Be A Living Disciple of Jesus
Objectives a. To teach that disciples of Jesus cannot go on sinning against God. b. To teach the congregation on to be alive to God in Christ.
A. Introduction
- Have you ever kept on sinning against God in the person of Jesus? You know it is wrong, you just keep doing it.
- You can be doing it just because you always have Jesus to forgive your sins. After all, Jesus is very forgiving. You reason with yourself, you are not a perfect person, you sin first, and then, Jesus will definitely forgive you as He promises in the bible. And so, some Christians have the mindset that on Monday to Saturday, they take their liberty to sin against Jesus and they believe that however much the sin is, on Sunday, once they ask for forgiveness of their sins, all their sins are cleansed.
- This is exactly the practical issue of holiness that apostle Paul is dealing with in today’s passage.
- That is why he ask the question in verse 1, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
B. Shall we go on sinning?
- Apostle Paul immediately gives the answer in verse 2, “By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” He is really telling Christians can no longer live in sin. How can you as a Christian sin against Jesus habitually from Monday to Saturday?
- He justifies his answer with the following verses in the passage. It is eye opening and there is great learning and reminder for all of us today in this Easter. Through verses 3 to 4 he teaches that the readers then and of course all of us today since we are baptized into Christ’s death, we are now buried with Him. And now, we are raised from the dead through the glory of the Father and now we can live a new life.
- A Christian, after being converted, after going through baptism, he now must live a new life, a different life from before his conversion. He is no more the same person as before, who had no power over sin, who sinned against God all the time. Now, let us from verses 5 to 10, how Paul explains about the new life, new creation in us as a Christian.
- As Paul explains in detail about the implications of baptism, he says in verse 5 that when we are baptized in Christ, in His death, we are also united with Him in His resurrection. This resurrected life, new life, is a life where our old self, the life before conversion, which was crucified with Christ. Now, this new life, new body is no more a slave to sin. If you, after conversion, you still habitually sin against Jesus from Monday till Saturday, and you expect Jesus to forgive on Sunday, then, I like to question your conversion. Was it a genuine conversion? Because a new life in Christ is no longer a slave to sin. Because in verse 7, it says, anyone who has died in Christ and buried with Christ has been freed from sin.
- So, Paul now emphasizes that this new life has Christ who rose from the dead is now living in a Christian. And this Christ who died once for our sin will not die again, He died to sin once for all. Paul is really teaching that since this resurrected Christ is now living in us, He gets us to live unto God.
- The powerful Christ who overcomes death and sin, the resurrection power of God is now in us, can we now choose to continue to live in sin. Paul’s answer is strictly no.
- That is why in verse 11, he says, “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Once you have the resurrected Christ in you, you have the resurrection power (the power which raised Jesus from the dead), you will choose to live a new life, you will be alive to God in Christ. You will have all the power to overcome your sinfulness.
- Then, Paul goes on to show his readers and all of us today how we can be alive to God in Christ today in verses 12 to 14. Now, before I go into the details of how to be alive to God in Christ, you must remember that I keep telling you that Paul says the resurrected Christ is living you and so I keep telling you that the resurrection power that caused Jesus to rise from dead is also in you. With this resurrected Christ living in you, any temptations that come along, do you believe you overcome them or not?
- No wonder, Paul can remind you and me in verse 12, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desire.” If his readers had no means to overcome temptations and sins, Paul could not teach that.
- Not to mention verse 13, “Do not offer the parts of body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life…” But now, in later part of verse 13 he is able to say, “…and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.” How can this be done, because of the resurrected Christ, who is living, who has the resurrection power.
- Of course now, sin cannot be our master as Paul says in verse 14. As we are under the forgiving grace of Christ, not law, where we have to hard to obey the law.
- I can read and understand from verses 12 to 14 that we ourselves to exercise our will power, as Paul reminds us, “… do not let sin reign in your mortal body… Do not offer the parts of your body to sin… offer yourselves to God…offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.” All these words and phrases show that we need to use our willpower to choose to be righteous, only the resurrection power becomes effective in us.
- This is how you can be live in God in Christ.
- With explanation of the text today, may I preach in the same of Jesus Christ to you that if you choose to continue to sin against Jesus from Monday till Saturday, then, on Sunday, you expect Jesus to forgive you sins again and again, then, you are proclaiming to the whole world, to the people around you, your loved ones, relatives, your colleagues, your neighbors, etc, your Christ is dead. Your Christ is not relevant to your life at all; your Christ cannot save you from your sin; your Christ is not a living God; your Christ is your slave who is made to forgive your sin at your command; and the most scary implication is this: YOU ARE YOUR OWN GOD AT THE CENTRE OF YOUR LIFE, YOU ARE MORE POWERFUL THAN JESUS IN YOUR LIFE!
- If we sin against God habitually all the time, we end up we are all the time we are the ones who crucify all the time and we do not want Him to resurrect!
C. Applications
- Let us do some very serious applications now with the above teaching of Paul on how to be alive to God in Christ.
- (1). To be alive to God in Christ, you need to exercise your will power to do God’s word and at the same time you need to be empowered by the Spirit of Christ (the resurrected Christ); (Romans 8:5-11). God does not force you to do the righteous. If so, He should have made you to be a robot. He gives you the freewill to choose the right thing. When you choose the wrong path, way, ideas, sins, etc, you suffer the consequences. That is universal truth. But when you need to choose the right paths, choose to do His will and you encounter difficulties, you have the resurrection power of Christ, you have the Christ living in you to help you. Let us read Romans 8:5-11. You see the spirit of Christ help you to overcome sin?
- (2). To be alive to God in Christ, you need to be like a living fish in the sea; not a dead fish, a salted fish. We are all living in a fallen world, a sinful world. But we can be a most powerful disciple of Jesus with the Christ who lives in us and we can choose a life that is not sinful like the rest of the sinful world. We can be like a living fish living in a salty sea, without being salty. Only with the help of the living Christ, resurrected Christ living us in helping us to overcome sin and temptation. Unlike a dead fish, a dead Christian, who has no Christ in him, of course, now, salt, the sin of the world can now enter his body and become salted, sinful. Brothers and sisters, without the empowerment and presence of the resurrected Christ in you, you become a dead salted sinful Christian/ fish.
D. Conclusion
- You need to constantly prove to the world, the people around you wherever you go that you are alive to God in Christ. Can you now see why Jesus matters so much to you?
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