Consider Yourself Dead to Sin

He is risen. We have come together to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Sam said, we celebrate this every Lord's Day, every Sunday. The saints gather to remember this most essential, most fundamental and foundational truth, because our lives have to be built upon that rock. that Christ, He's risen, He's given us new life. We have to constantly remember this truth, along with many others, because this world is full of lies. This world is full of darkness. Remembering this truth will guide us to worship Christ, because He has saved us. There are many foundational truths for Christians. Go back and look at the virgin birth, which is what we set aside Christmas for, that the fact that God became man to save us from our sin. We can look at the death on the cross. We did this Friday. We meditated upon the fact that Jesus Christ, he was forsaken so that we could be forgiven. A very foundational truth. This is God's inerrant word. This is the truth that Christ has spoken to us. There's a resurrection. He's alive. And there's His return. He's coming back to put all things in order. These are the truths that the church is built upon. We should have a lot of questions about these truths, but we can't question them. There's a wise way of asking about these very foundational truths that are beyond our comprehension without questioning them. These truths are the most foundational truths upon which the church is built, upon which Christ has taught us. We need to be careful to acknowledge that these things are true without appreciating them. We have to acknowledge these things are true and appreciate that these are life-changing, life-forming truths. Yeah, I'm talking about doctrine. Because doctrine leads to doxology. Thinking right about God leads to worshiping Him more truly and more properly. As we gather Friday to think about His death, we gather today to think about His resurrection. What happened between Friday and Sunday 2,000 years ago, it changed the world and it should be changing us constantly and continuously. And really of all these other fundamental truths, these foundational truths, the resurrection stands out even among all of them. Because as Christ says in 1 Corinthians 15, if He's not risen, we're to be pitied. We have to recognize, Christians, that this had to have happened for all this to be real. He has to be alive. He's either the risen Son of God and we must trust Him and worship Him, or we are all fools to be pitied. There is no gray area. There is no middle ground that maybe I'll acknowledge Jesus, but not commit to Him and affirm that He's alive and worship Him. So I ask you, Christian, how much do you think of the cross and the resurrection and the return of Christ? How much do your decisions every day reflect that Christ has come to die for sinners? He's risen again to give new life to sinners and He's coming back again so that we have to give an account. See, every decision in life is different when we actually think about it in light of the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the return of Christ. It should change everything because we are constantly given opportunities to sin. We know Christ died. to free us from sin, to forgive us of sin. He rose again to give us new life. He's coming back to make us, to have us give an account. We have to know these truths. We have to appreciate them. We have to form our lives around them. Before we look at our text, I want to talk to you if you're not a Christian. First, I'm really glad you're here. I'm thankful that you have come to hear us sing, to reflect upon the words, to listen to the gospel preached. Well, we need to tell you some basic truths. I want to make sure you understand what Christianity is. And I want to clarify this because there's a lot of confusion about what Christianity is. When I was a child, I understood Christians to be people who kept themselves from certain things. Christians didn't play games with face cards. Christians didn't dance. Christians didn't partake in alcohol or tobacco. Now, the problem with that is it's saying Christians are against something. It's not actually saying what Christians are for. It's not actually saying what has been done to them. Today I fear that Christians are more known for political stances and anti-this or that. So I just want to take a moment and explain to you what Christianity actually is. What Jesus actually came to do. So first, a Christian is someone who recognizes that they have sinned against God and they deserve His judgment. This is the beginning point. We have to be able to swallow that very difficult truth first. We're sinners. We reject God, we neglect God, we forget Him, we refuse Him, we resist Him. And because He designed us and created us to worship Him and to obey Him, we will have to give an account and His judgment and wrath will be upon us as sinners. Christians have to acknowledge that truth first. Because Christians believe in Jesus Christ, the Savior. We actually need to be saved from something. We need to be saved from our sins. The second thing the Christian is or believes is that they believe Jesus Christ is the Savior. That apart from His death on their behalf for their sin, we remain guilty. That's the beauty of the cross. He died in our place so that when the wrath of God came upon him, the wrath of God was satisfied against our sin because he suffered for us. He suffers the wrath of God instead of us when we believe in him so that we're not forgiven. We're not innocent. We're not counted as righteous rather than what we really are in our actions and our words, guilty. So Christians, we believe we're sinners. Jesus Christ has died for us and now we're forgiven. Third, Christian is someone who believes that Jesus Christ is no longer dead. That's why we're here this Sunday. That's why we're here singing that he's risen. Death, where is your sting? We're singing of the Resurrected Christ because that verifies, that demonstrates. He died. He took away our sin. Now he's alive to give us new life. He takes away our death and he gives us new life. And fourth, a Christian is someone who now follows Jesus. It's not a mere intellectual acknowledgement that these things are true. It's a life commitment. We no longer play with sin because we realize sin brings judgment. We no longer play with sin because we realize Jesus Christ died to conquer sin. We no longer play with sin because He's alive. We cannot refuse the sinful temptation. We now seek to love Him because He first loved us. So a Christian is somebody who should be marked by humility because they acknowledge their sinners. A Christian should be somebody who is marked by confidence in the cross. A Christian is someone who should have reverence for the risen Savior. They should be marked by obedience to Christ's commands. Now if you're here and that doesn't describe you, you do not need to clean yourself up to become a Christian. You simply need to acknowledge, I am a sinner. I need a savior. I want to see how Christ died in my place for my sin. I want to see how that love could be real. You don't have to clean yourself up because what happens is you recognize your sin, you bring it to Jesus and he washes you of your sin. He forgives you of your sin. He breaks His power over you. And He gives you new life. So as you hear this call to Christians as to how to now live according to the resurrected life of Christ, don't think I'm not good enough. None of us are. It's because of the grace of Christ. You first have to see your sin. that you need a Savior and that Jesus Christ has come to bring you salvation. This morning we're going to meditate on a passage that points us to the power of the gospel to save sinners. Because that's what God, He created us to worship Him. He created us to love Him. He's also redeemed us to bring us back into that proper relationship. We're going to be in Romans. We're going to be looking at Romans chapter 6. If you're using a pew Bible, if you don't have a Bible, there's a pew Bible in front of you, I hope. If not, you can raise your hand and somebody will pass one along. We're going to be on page 942. Please, if you don't have a Bible, take that with you. That's the Word of God for sinners to know how to be saved and know how to live for Him. Please take it with you and read. What we're going to see is that God sent Christ to pay the penalty for our sin. God sent Christ to break the power of sin over us. God sent Christ to give us the new life we need to enjoy Him forever. As we look to Romans six, I want you to first see a few things. If you look to verse one, Paul's answering a question. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? And look at his very strong answer, by no means, absolutely not unthinkable. Now, it's important to know what comes before this. Paul has just explained in Romans 5 how where sin abounds, grace abounds. We can't out sin the grace of God. The grace of God will cover every kind of sinner, no matter how sinful they are. And so the question, he's wondering if his readers, if the church is going to ask in response to this, should we sin more so that grace could bow? No. How can we who died to sin still live in it? He's going to apply the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ to us so that we know how we can live in the victory of Christ. Do you not know? He died, he conquered sin, he rose, now walk in the newness of life. As you listen, I want you to listen for three commands. There's three imperatives here. Know, know, K-N-O-W, know, consider, present. Know, consider, present. Hear the Word of the Lord. 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've 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. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you have not left us in our foolishness, Our minds being darkened because we rejected You, the one true light. You've not left us to our own thoughts and desires that only breed corruption and more rejection of You. But God, You have let us know these truths that set us free. Set us free from the penalty of sin, so that we are no longer under Your judgment. where we thank you that we can know these truths that set us free from the power of sin, so that we can live in the resurrected life of Christ, so that we can have the newness of life. Thank you, Almighty God, for not only sending your Son to die for us and rise again, but letting us know it. Thank you, God, for speaking. Help us, Lord, to consider these truths our own. Help us to consider ourselves in light of what you have said so that we can then present our lives to you for worship. In Jesus' holy name we pray. Amen. There are three points because there's three commands. It's nice when that works out. First, No, you can enjoy a new life in Christ. No, you can enjoy a new life in Christ. You don't have to settle for that old life of sin, which I think you know is unsatisfying. No, you can enjoy a new life in Christ. Secondly, consider yourself alive in Christ. Consider yourself alive in Christ. Now, let me just go ahead and say, this is the most difficult one and the most important one. This is the hinge. It's the hardest one and it's the hinge, because in order to move from the knowledge to the presenting, we have to form that identity. The second one we're gonna spend some time on, even though it's only one verse, verse 11. And thirdly, present yourself. to pursue this new life in Christ. Know you can enjoy a new life in Christ. Consider yourselves alive in Christ. Present yourself to pursue this new life in Christ. First, we must know that we can enjoy a new life in Christ. Over and over again, Paul is pointing to what we know. He asks a rhetorical question. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We need to know this. And let me point out also, we don't start with the presenting. It starts with the gospel about what Jesus did and then applying that to ourselves that then causes action. Because if we start with what we're supposed to do, it's moralism. Christianity is not moralism. Christianity is not merely good manners. Christianity is about saving sinners who then present themselves to live out the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's also not mere head knowledge. When we say we know Christ has died for our sins, when we say we know He's risen, we're affirming and we're trusting. The first thing we need to know is that we have been baptized. We have been baptized. In order to live the new life, we must know we've been baptized. Do you not know that you were baptized? Now, we're baptized in Christ. We're baptized into his death. We're buried with him. We're united with Christ in verse five, into his death and his resurrection. We must know this. Now, baptism first, it's a metaphor for salvation. It's a change of identity. When you take a white cloth and you dip it into purple dye and you pull it back out, what is it? It's a purple cloth. Something has changed. It has a new identity. God transforms. He changes. Baptism refers to that heart transformation, the regeneration that we were dead, now we're alive. When we are baptized, we now get to participate in the death of Christ and that he died for our sins. Identity change, we were guilty, now we're forgiven. We're raised a new life. We were dead, now we're alive. That baptism, it points to the change It's an identity change from death to new life. Now, baptism is also a practice that we get to celebrate today. We as believers reflect upon that change when we gather for baptism. That's why this is an extra exciting day because God gave us this visual representation of what takes place. God gave us this. I think a lot of times we can see He gave it to us for the children. So they can see what the gospel is about. They can see that it's about dying. They can see it's about resurrecting. So make sure your children are able to see what's happening there and make sure you talk about it with them afterwards. Baptism is a practice and it's important. It's one of the two ordinances. Christ ordained two things that we do as a church. Baptism, which is the entrance into that public declaration, I am now alive when I was dead, and the Lord's Supper, that's the ongoing reminder. These things are important because they remind us of what Christ has done. He died for us. He rose again for us. He spilled his blood for us. He broke his body for us. It constantly reminds us we were sinners. until Jesus Christ gave us new life. We are going to celebrate the new life of Chris and Hannah and Jim. But as we're celebrating baptism, remember, this is celebrating your new life. We all get to participate together in the baptism because it reminds us we are all baptized in the one name of Christ. It's our death too. It's our resurrection too. We're now united with Him in a unique way. So it's not just passively sitting there and observing if you're a Christian. It's truly participating. It's bearing witness and being reminded. I was dead, but now I'm alive. We were dead, but now we're alive. It reminds us that we We get to participate in that same Savior that we are now brothers and sisters united under that one head. And I want you to notice something. I'm going to say we baptize. I don't have any power to baptize anybody. We, the church, because we hear the profession with our lips, we see the evidence in their lives, we are baptizing. these believers who are coming to join us to worship Christ. So now we've been baptized and now secondly, we know that we've been baptized and it was death. There are two things we can see. One, sin, the body of sin, it's brought to nothing. Nothing. that body of sin that we have, it has been crushed with Christ. The guilt that we had before God, it is now nothing because Christ paid the full penalty once for all. All the guilt that we have because of all the filth on our hands, all the filth that comes in our minds, all the filth that comes in our hearts, all the filthy words that come out of our mouths, all that should make us so guilty All that is nothing because Christ paid the full penalty. We're forgiven. We're forgiven. All the filthiness, all the guilt, it's nothing. We are not guilty in Christ. The second thing we see, we're no longer enslaved to it. This is very good news. Because we may not realize it, but Scripture is very clear about it. When we choose to sin, we are choosing sin as our master. When we choose to sin, we're saying that you're my master. We're choosing to enslave ourselves to sin. Christ is saying, sin is no longer your master. It no longer has the power over you that it once had. Christians, you can make the choice. because of the new life that Christ has given you, because of the new life that the Holy Spirit is creating inside of you, you don't have to obey sin when it says sin. Before you were a Christian, sin barked orders and it had a chain around your neck and it yanked and you had to obey. Christ broke the chain, that temptation that still talks. It's always calling for your allegiance, it's always calling for your allegiance, but it can't make you obey. because Christ broke its enslaving power. We all listened to sin and we had to obey it. We learned habits because we listened. When Christ set us free, it now means we can stop listening to sin and we can start listening to him. The chain is broken, but what we have to learn is how to listen to him instead of sin. This is a process. Your entire Christian life is learning how to stop listening to sin and how to break all those habits that it created in us. And none of us will ever break all the habits. None of us will ever completely remove all the sinful tendencies we have, but we are all called to persevere in fighting against it with every bit of the power of the resurrection that Christ has put inside of us. Verse seven. For one who has died has been set free from sin." We're free. We're free. We're free to obey a new master. Sin mastering you is causing your destruction and your death. Christ, when we choose Him as our master, He gives us life. The third thing we must know, we must know that we've been baptized, a new identity, a change has taken place. We must know that He has died for us. We must know that we now also benefit from His resurrection. Look at verse 4. 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 the newness of life. There's a clear connection. We walk in newness of life just as sure as Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead. Our new walk, our new life is based upon the fact that He is alive. He takes what is dead in us, our desires toward God against Him, and He gives us new desires, new life. We love God because He first loved us. We participate in the life of Christ so that we no longer fear death. We share in that indestructible life. Just as a grave cannot hold him, we know that when we pass from this life, there is now a new beginning. True life actually begins at death for Christians. Because what we get to do then is what life is really all about. Worshipping God. All our worship now is tainted with sin. When we die and we receive that glorified body and Christ brings us into the kingdom, we now worship purely. There's no fear in death. We even look forward to it. We say, Christ, come, come quickly. We know this world isn't all there is. We get sick of how our sin continually keeps us from loving him. That's a walk in the confidence of the new life Christ has given to us. The same power of the resurrection of Christ, it now lives inside of us so that we can enjoy the life God desired for us. We can be confident to pursue righteousness. We must know that our sin has been paid for on the cross. We must know that the power of sin has been broken. We must know that we have new life to enjoy in Christ. We have eternal life. Now for the hard part. Consider yourself. Look at verse 11. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Now again, this is hard, especially if you came to Christ late in life, because for a long time, we learned patterns to consider ourselves in sin. This new identity, this knowing what Christ has done, it now has to take a certain kind of reflection. This is the hardest part, but the hinge. This talks about how we think about ourselves. What is our primary identity? And in order to really wrestle through this, let me just probe a little bit. And these are some self-reflecting questions for you. If someone happened to come up to you and say, hey, I want to know who you are, For the first time, you don't know them, you've never seen them, who are you? What's the first thing you're going to say? What comes to your mind first if somebody asks you, who are you? I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a teacher, I'm a UVA fan, I'm an athlete, I'm smart, I'm creative, I'm musical, I'm adventurous. These are all identities that we might think about ourselves first and foremost. These are things that we might consider most important about us. They're things that compete with that most important identity. I'm a Christian. What do you long for people to know about you? When somebody meets you, what's that one thing you want them to know? Is it what you do? Is it what you've accomplished? Is it who your friends are? Or is it, I am a Christian. I believe in Jesus Christ who died on the cross for sinners and rose again. Are you eager for everyone to know something about yourself or him? As Sam preached a few weeks ago, Peter says not to be ashamed of that name, but to glory in it. There's no more glorious identity that we have as Christians than being a Christian. So first, what is that identity that you want people to know about? And secondly, let me press you that how we think about ourselves is important. What we think about is what we become. What we think about is what we become. So there's so many things pressing in. Let me give you some examples. Women, you're being told constantly that your identity needs to be defined in how you compel yourselves to airbrush pictures of models. This doesn't seem fair, does it? That's the lie that our world and our culture is constantly pressing upon women that you need to think of your identity when you compare yourselves to airbrushed pictures of models. That's not an identity. Men, we're told to compare ourselves to other men who are more athletic, smarter, have more money. We're constantly tempted to think about ourselves and boast of ourselves in comparison to someone else or to belittle ourselves compared to something else. Here's the truth for us. What Christ says about us is the most important thing about us. That's for Christian or non-Christian. What God says about us is the most important thing about us. So if you're not a Christian, he says you're a child of wrath who he is going to judge unless you believe in Jesus Christ. That is the most important thing about you. You need to repent of your sin or that will happen. If you're a Christian, he says you're forgiven, you're righteous, you're beloved. You may not feel that way. That's the beauty of the fact that God said it. His word is more important and more powerful than your feelings. The One who matters most is telling you what matters most. You're alive. You're free. You're forgiven. You're beloved. Let me use an earthly example. I believe God has designed it so that young children's identities are tied to their parents. The way young children think about themselves, it is by definition, tied to the way they relate to their parents. And so God designed it so that my children think about themselves in the way that I treat them and talk to them. So, for instance, if my child is fearful, I need to realize that I am not providing enough security. I'm probably yelling too much. So if my child is fearful, that is a way for me to reflect, I yell too much. Secondly, if my child is sad, I'm not providing enough joy, I'm probably being too grumpy. So that's how God designed that relationship to work. The young child's identity is tied to the parent. And whenever I see something wrong, I need to realize that it's probably my fault. I need to first probe, what am I doing to not provide the security that doesn't make them fearful? What am I doing that doesn't provide the security so that they're not sad? Let me move the example further. If I told my daughter that she was pretty and she responded, no I'm not, that would crush me. because her understanding of who she is needs to be tied to how I perceive her and how I affirm her. If she said, no, I'm not, that means I need to consider what I need to do to make sure she knows she's beautiful. And I need to consider how am I failing in my communication? How am I not affirming? What am I doing wrong? Now let me tell you how this relates to God. There are seasons when I question God's love for me. There are seasons that I go through that I have dark moments. I question God's love. I wonder what's going on. I wrestle. I question what He's done. I question how He sees me. And when I do this, there's something that's very clear. I cannot question God's ability to communicate his love. See, I'm a sinner, so I fail. I fail to communicate properly the things I'm actually thinking. I fail to affirm and to love God does not. God has made it so clear that he loves his children. He points to his son, I sent my son to become like you and to be treated as the worst sinner dying on the cross. I love you. Look, I sent my son to die for you. That's not enough. I sent my spirit to dwell in your heart, to convince you and to convict you and to confirm I love you. This leads me to wonder, why am I questioning God's love? It's not that he hasn't made it clear. It's that I have become foggy in my own thinking because I've chosen sin. There's always a sin that leads me to question God's love. It's never God failing to communicate. It's always my fault. I have to stop, I stop considering myself as his beloved child because of sin. If we want that affirmation, if we want that assurance, we repent. When we believe the lie that we're guilty, when we're overwhelmed with guilt, think about how God responds to that. If we walk around and we're constantly feeling the weight of guilt, Think about the father who sent his son to die for you to remove that gift. Think about how he responds or reflects upon that. It has to be crushing because he's saying, no, you're not guilty. My son paid the full penalty. Well, when we believe the lie that we must sin, when we're overwhelmed with temptation, we have to sin. The father says, no, my son died to set you free. We must learn to think about ourselves in light of what the Father has done for us, what the Father says about us. Knowing what He's done is the first step, affirming it, trusting it, but then actually saying, these are the most important truths. It doesn't matter what the world says. It doesn't matter the lies. It doesn't even matter how I feel. This says a word more certain than what I think or what I feel. We do not merely acknowledge the facts, we trust them. We make them our very own identity. We put these things on intentionally so that we can take off sin. Finally, what we all look for, what do we get to do? Well, how do we finally do something? We present ourselves to pursue the new life in Christ. This is that last few verses, let not sin therefore reign. Notice the power there, it reigns. You're not the master of sin, it's the master of you. Let not sin therefore reign to make you obey its passions. You're free. 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. One of the things that I find myself constantly having to do is to tell folks, stop it. It's gotten just kind of natural now. Stop it. We can't just say that. Because Paul's saying, stop presenting your members to sin, is built upon the fact that we know what Christ has done. It's built upon the fact that we consider ourselves alive, and then we stop it, and we don't even stop there. We stop sinning, and we start living in righteousness. We have to do the hard work. We have to stop sinning so that we can start presenting ourselves as instruments for righteousness. Your eyes are either being protected for purity, so that they might see the glory of Christ, or you're looking with lust and envy and covetousness. Your eyes are either doing what is sinful and corrupting, or they're pursuing the glory of Christ. We're either using our lips for slander, gossip, and tearing down, or for praise and building up. You can't do both. You are doing one or the other. We're either using our money as consumers to spend on what we want to gain, or we're considering ourselves the manager of what God has given to us. Stop pursuing sin, which is destructive. Start pursuing righteousness, which is life. No Christ has died for you. Know you are united with Him in His death and His resurrection. Consider yourself dead to sin and alive in Christ. Present yourself now to live in His righteousness. As we prepare to baptize Hannah and Jim and Chris, let us be reminded of what we know, how we should consider ourselves and what we've committed to do. It's a reminder Christ died for us, we are dead to sin. Christ rose again for us, we are now alive in Him to walk in the newness of Christ. Let this be what we mutually commit to together. Will you pray with me? Father, we praise You and we thank You that You are the good and holy and righteous God. Lord, if somebody here does not know You, I pray that as they have heard the Gospel, they will hear it again and again as we hear testimonies, sing songs, see baptism. Lord, I pray that Your Gospel would penetrate every heart that's resisting You. I pray that all of us who profess the name of Christ would be humbled because we look back and we see how sin was reigning over us, death was controlling us, but you made us alive. You gave us new life so that we could enjoy you. We praise you, Almighty God. Help us to praise you more faithfully. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.