Romans 6.
What shall we say then?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may
abound?
God forbid!
How shall we that are dead to sin
live any longer therein?
Know ye not that so many of us
as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized
unto his death?
Therefore we were buried with him by baptism
unto death, that like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of
the Father, even so we also should walk
in newness of life.
For if we have been planted together in
his likeness, the likeness of his death, we
shall also be in the likeness of his
resurrection.
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified
with him, that the body of sin might
be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve
sin.
For he that is dead, pardon me, for
he that is dead is freed from sin.
Now if we be dead with Christ, we
believe that we shall also live with him.
Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead
dieth no more, death hath no more dominion
over him.
For in that he died, he died unto
sin once, but in that he liveth, he
liveth unto God.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead
indeed unto sin, but alive to God through
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let's pray together.
Dear Father, as we come before you this
evening, and Lord as we open your word,
we ask Lord that you would take it
and that you would speak to us.
Lord, I pray that you would touch me,
that you would strengthen me.
Lord, you know my weakness, you know my
inabilities, but Lord I pray that in this
precious piece of scripture, that your Holy Spirit,
the powerful truths that are in it, that
your Holy Spirit would take it and break
it to our hearts.
And Lord, set us free from the power
of sin.
Lord, this tremendous truth.
Lord, we pray that you would open it
up to us, make it simple, make it
clear, do a work.
We ask that your Holy Spirit would touch
us, would fill us.
By your grace, Lord, the joy that you
have of dying for us, forgiving us, cleansing
us, adopting us, the joy that you'd have
and the desire you have that we would
reign with you and we would live in
victory.
Lord, may we know that victory, may we
know that fullness in our lives.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Well, tonight I want to try to, after
a few weeks break, you probably need to
remember we were in the book of Romans
last year when we were in it.
It seems like a long time, it was
actually last year, but after a few weeks
off for Christmas and New Year's activities, we're
back here to the book of Romans.
Now, if you'll recall back in Romans chapter
5, just to give you a very brief
memory of it, is that you'll recall is
that there Paul explained to us on how
that we have this wonderful standing in Jesus
Christ, that when God looks at us, we
are literally brought in, we are introduced, we
are ushered in and introduced as royalty to
God by Jesus Christ.
To stop and think that our Lord and
Savior, who we love and adore, who died
for us on the cross, to remember that
he not only died for us to take
our sins, but then he rose from the
dead, he ascended to the right hand of
the Majesty on high.
In there, this very moment, he ever liveth,
the Bible says, to make intercession for us
and he presents us faultless before God.
In there, as we are presented faultless, God
sees us through that wonderful intercessory love and
prayer and presentation of Christ that he presents
us as royalty, every one of us, while
all of us far from that, not a
one of us near unto what we will
be like, that when, as David said, I'll
be satisfied when I awaken thy likeness.
That's the one day that what we have
always been presented to be before God, we'll
actually be it, not before heaven though, not
before then.
But here we're introduced as that.
He then goes on and he tells us
in chapter 5, if you recall, that very
simply there's two identities, there's two natures in
all of history, just two.
There's Jesus and there's Adam.
We were all born in Adam and we
were all in fallen man, fallen nature.
All of us had that Adamic, self-willed,
egotistical, I will, I want, I think, I'll
have nature.
And that's a fallen nature, we were born
with it.
But by God's grace, we are offered another
nature.
You'll recall that we looked at that back
in chapter 5 last time.
And that here Jesus Christ, he's offered to
us and now God simply says here, you
have either one.
You can have the nature you were born
with or you can be born again into
another nature.
And you can grow in that nature.
You can desire that nature.
You can seek that nature.
You can long for that nature.
Now as we get here into chapter 6,
Paul goes on to want to tell us
our position in Christ.
What again, a little bit more from another
perspective, on what God sees and what God
wants us, I believe, to know.
A Roman 6, Paul says, what know ye
not?
And usually when Paul says to somebody, didn't
you know?
It's because Paul realized we didn't know.
And so it's, and when he says, didn't
you know?
He says, I, there are some things you've
got to know.
And I wanted to tell you about them.
You see, an awfully lot of the growth
in the Christian life is based upon knowledge.
And, and that's how it all starts essentially.
You became a Christian based upon knowledge.
You were saved, the Bible says, as Paul
even says, by that form of doctrine that
was delivered unto you.
When you were told about Jesus Christ and
he died for you, that knowledge became a
saving knowledge.
You turned to him and said, really, my
sins can be forgiven?
Christ died for me.
He'll come for me.
I want him.
And based upon knowledge was offered and you
responded to it.
Well, growth in the Christian life is the
same way all the way through.
There's knowledge.
It's laid out.
And now God says, now what are you
going to do with it?
Do you want to appropriate it?
Do you want to enter into it?
Do you want to trust in it and
believe in it?
And here there's some things that Paul wants
to lay out.
You've got to know them.
If you are going to be free from
sin, this is what he's going to be
talking to us about in this chapter specifically.
How do you get free from sin?
And, and how do you deal with it?
Now, obviously sin is the basic and greatest
problem in all the world, isn't it?
And it's the greatest problem in our own
world and our own life.
We may think it's our health or it's
our job or it's our, you know, husband
or wife or our kids, but that is
the greatest problem in all of life is
our own sin nature and our own struggles,
our own human weaknesses, our own problems with
sin and dealing with it.
And here Paul, in Romans chapter 6, as
we're going to get into it, we're going
to see that earlier Paul had told us
you are dead in sin.
And now he makes a very shocking statement
when he's going to tell us, and then
he's going to spend a chapter explaining it,
you are now dead from sin.
Amazingly.
And you're free from sin.
And yeah, and no, pardon me, you are
dead to sin.
Did you know that tonight?
From God's perspective, you are dead to sin.
Now you may look over at your husband,
look over here and say, I don't think
so.
And I can, my wife's got the proof,
you know, or whatever, that we are not
dead to sin.
But here Paul, he wants to tell us
you've got to know that as God looks
at us, from God's eternal perspective, the work
he has done, he says you are dead
to sin.
We're going to be looking at that more
in a few moments.
But it's how do I deal with sin?
You see, if I don't realize I am
dead to sin, now I've got all these
ways to try to deal with it.
In fact, that's what all the world is
trying constantly to deal with.
Any religious world, all the religious world, but
in even the various levels of Christians are
constantly, how do you deal with sin?
And within the ways that it is kind
of dealt with, and now when most people
deal with sin, I suppose, is there's, I
suppose, three basic ways.
There's moralism, there's legalism, and there's cheap grace
that a lot of people deal with sin.
And just to give you a little explanation
of some of those things, they're just simple
terms, but the way a lot of people,
we all know we're sinners, now what do
I do with my sin?
A lot of people in the world, they
deal with sin with moralism.
That is simply that they merely come along
and they realize, well, what I'm going to
do about my own sin, I recognize I
do sin and people do sin, but you
see, I have dealt with that with a
moral code.
I have a standard that I've set for
most people, many people.
I imagine the vast number of Christians, it's
kind of the golden rule.
I do unto others that I would have
them doing to me.
And sometimes that's it.
That's their whole way of dealing with sin.
And nothing more, nothing less.
I think many, many Christians, many, many denominations
in our world today, they just simply tell
the people a moral code.
Just do good, try hard, and be good
to other people, do unto others, and you
would have them do unto you, follow the
general teachings of Jesus, though they never study
them, obviously, but in order to come up
with anything like that.
But that'll never solve the problem of sin.
In fact, it doesn't even address it, really.
But a lot of people do it with
just some moralism.
A lot of people also try to deal
with sin.
They realize, I'm a sinner, yes.
But they try to overcome it with legalism.
That is essentially there, that they confront salvation.
It's by faith.
I need Christ.
He died in the cross, but now my
daily sin, my own nature and process of
sinning, I realize now the need to seriously,
dead seriously, attempt at a good life, a
strong life, a right life, and to avoid
all manner of sin.
I'm just going to do, I'm going to
deal with my sin by stopping it.
That's what I'm going to do.
I'm just going to stop sinning, you know.
And usually, many, many groups and churches and
all over the world, their legalism takes on
different forms, but there's a whole bunch of
thou shalt's and thou shalt not's.
Do's and don'ts, and they're all little kind
of regulations in different parts and different places
of the world that people have so often
of things that they do, that they have
standards of good, clean living, you know.
And, you know, thou shalt not smoke, thou
shalt not drink, thou shalt not go to
parties, thou shalt not dance, thou shalt not
chew, and thou shalt not go with girls
who chew, or whatever.
They'll have all these different sorts of standards,
you know, or something that they'll say, and
you don't do this.
And maybe another group will have one that
says, now, now, here's how you behave on
the Sabbath.
Here's what you can do and you can't
do, and here's the keeping of these laws
and dietary laws.
Here's things that you can eat and you
can't eat.
And if you eat these things that you
can eat and you don't eat the things
you shouldn't eat, you're, you're, it's legalism.
And if you, you know, or other places,
here's how much skin, you know, a woman
can reveal, you know, or something, or makeup,
or jewelry.
And here are the standards on, on things
that people set for these, you know, types
of things.
And essentially, though, they're all just rules and
they're all regulations, and they oftentimes come down
to virtually everything.
You know, what you do, what you think,
where you go, when you go there, why
you go there, who you can go there
with, or whatever.
And the list can be endless of, that
encompasses legalism.
But it's simply a standard that somebody sets,
a structure that says, I am going to
overcome sin by rules, and by behavior, and
by effort, and by a genuine desire, or
whatever they may have for it, to say,
I am going to do good.
And then a third way that people deal
with sin is essentially Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Some years ago, a German theologian, he came
up with the phrase, but cheap grace is
just a phrase that it simply says there,
it's, it's a third thing, and it actually
came up, was started by a fellow named
Rasputin, who was a theologian for the Empress
Alexandria of Russia.
And Rasputin essentially had a theology that was,
that says, when, when sin abounds, grace hyper
-abounds, as the Bible teaches.
Therefore, my sin brings glory to God's grace.
So therefore, the more that I sin, the
more glory God gets for his grace for
forgiving me.
That's how I deal with my sin.
That's what Rasputin, who lived a very immoral
and corrupt life, though a theologian, but he
simply said, hey, Jesus Christ died for me,
took all my sin, and so I get
to do all of this stuff, because it
glorifies how much he must love me, and
how great his forgiveness is.
Well, that's called cheap grace.
And, but essentially, that's the way many people
are.
Or, yeah, I suppose sometimes a lot of
us kind of mix them.
A lot of Christians, they just kind of
mix them.
We're, on some areas of our life, we
just kind of got that do unto others
sort of a thing.
And then maybe in other areas of our
life, we got real strict rules and regulations.
This is what I do, what I don't
do.
I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't
dance, I don't, you know, and all this
structure and things.
And I'm not saying you should or shouldn't
do that.
I can't dance, so, you know, it's a
public service not to.
But anyway, but at any rate, the thing
is, is that you can, some people have
these things, and then, so we kind of
have a little moralism, we kind of have
a little legalism, and then there's other areas
of our life where, you know, that's always
been out of control.
That's where the grace of God is really
wonderful.
So we mix them, you know, sort of
thing sometimes.
But none of those deal with sin.
All they really do is confess it, really,
and reveal it.
But they don't solve the sin problem.
Here Paul, he looks at this, as he
says, so we continue in sin, chapter 6,
verse 1, that grace may abound.
He said, God forbid, God forbid that we,
you know, that we should just go on
sinning.
And the way you fight it, and the
way you deal with sin, Paul's gonna go
on and tell us, it's not by moralism,
and it's not gonna be by legalism, and
it's not by chief grace.
Here he tells us, though, he says, God
forbid that we should ever go on.
And now he goes on, and I suppose
he drops almost a huge spiritual bombshell here.
It almost explodes, and you really stop to
think of it, in a sense, in verse
2, when he then goes on, and he
says, how shall we that are dead to
sin live any longer therein?
And at that point, I mean, this is
the apology, and he's including the body of
Christ.
If you're here tonight, and you're a child
of God, and you're forgiven, you're included in
this verse.
How shall we that are dead to sin
live any longer therein?
Here Paul is gonna tell us how to
deal with sin.
But one of the very first things, even
before dealing with it, he says, I want
to tell you, it's already been dealt with.
And we're gonna go on to that.
But here he says, when you're dealing with
it, you've got to realize it's been dealt
with, and the fact is that it has
happened, is that you are dead to sin.
And here Paul says a Christian doesn't deal
with sin by moralism, or legalism, or chief
grace, but he makes one of the most
awesome statements in the world here, when he
says that a Christian deals with sin because
he's dead to it.
He has died to sin.
And then he spends the rest of the
chapter explaining so much of what that is.
He goes on in verse 3, as he
starts to elaborate on it, and he says,
Know ye not that so many of us
as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized
unto his death?
Now, I usually don't do this, but show
of hands, how many of you have been
baptized?
That's wonderful.
It seemed like most every hand went up.
A few didn't.
Anyway, but the legalism says you better get
baptized.
Grace says you ought to.
But anyway, I hope you understand a little
more of why it's so important here, as
we look at it here, because here Paul,
he's going to tell us some things that
you've got to know.
I mean, he's given to you briefly, and
then we're going to go back and look
at it.
But here in verse 3, he says, Know
ye not that so many of us as
were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized unto
his death?
And he tells us, first of all, I
want you to know your baptism.
In verse 6, he says, Knowing.
Now, he says there's something else I want
you to know.
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified
with him, that the body of sin might
be destroyed, that henceforth you should not serve
sin.
And then on into verse 9, Knowing that
Christ being raised from the dead dieth no
more, death hath no more dominion over him.
And then go down to 16, we won't
get there, but he says, Know ye not
that to whom you yield yourselves servants to
obey his servants you are to whom you
obey.
And here essentially, Paul is going to say,
here's how you deal with sin.
Number one, you got to know your baptism.
Secondly, you got to know your crucifixion.
Third, you got to know your resurrection.
Know you not that we've risen with him.
And then fourth, he says, Know your obligation.
For he says, Don't you know that whoever
you yield your instruments to obey his servant
you are.
But here, Paul says, you want to deal
with sin.
And he says, first of all, know your
baptism.
You know, the Jews knew what this meant
very well.
Judaism, the whole history of Judaism, had an
awfully lot to do with baptism.
When somebody would come into the Jewish faith
in the Old Testament, when a proselyte came
in and wanted to be a part of
them, they came in essentially through baptism.
Literally, what they actually did back in the
Old Testament in baptism is that they literally
stripped down naked.
And then they went in and they were
fully immersed.
And in that, the Jewish proselyte, he rejected
all of his past, his identity, his heritage,
all of his human experiences, all through baptism.
And he became a Jew.
If you and I did this, you know,
you may come in here tonight and you
may be, you know, Asian or European descent
or African or South American or whatever else.
But in baptism, even back in the Old
Testament, you became a Jew.
You became, you know, everything down even to
your race essentially was being dealt with.
Your entire past, what you believed, where you
came from, how you lived, what's your standards,
you know, everything about your life, it was
all gone.
Your identity, your heritage, your human experiences, everything,
and you became a Jew.
And here was something that then as they
came up out of the water, they gave
them entirely new clothing and a new identity.
They're essentially as a Jew.
Ceremonial, essentially, you know, baptism for a Christian,
I'd about say, I think it's again a
public service that we keep our clothes on
when we do it.
But at the same time, what is happening
in baptism is essentially this is the same
thing.
When baptism happens, as far as Bible is
concerned, there's an entire transformation of everything that
is former.
Everything that is regarded is now absolutely irrelevant.
When a person is baptized into Christ, who
you were, where you came from, what you
did, how terribly you did it, how many
know you did it, how terrible it was,
whatever it is that you did is now
irrelevant.
You have a brand new start.
The Bible says, if any man be in
Christ, he is a new creation.
All things are passed away and behold, all
things have become new.
From God's perspective at that point, you're neither
Greek nor Jew, bond or Scythian or free
or male or female, but you're one in
Christ.
God at that point, He like He picks
you up wherever you've been else on the
globe, wherever your heritage, wherever your ethnic issues,
whatever past religious, whatever behavior, whatever everything, it's
all gone, blotted out, ceased to exist.
And now you become His.
You're a brand new person, is what it's
simply all about.
The picture here, when Paul says, didn't you
know when you were baptized, you were baptized
unto His death.
What actually happens there at that point?
You're catapulted into an entirely new realm.
Everything is changed.
The language is changed.
The currency, the past, everything is absolutely gone
essentially.
If you could imagine a person maybe that,
suppose you were in trouble with the government,
and you're behind in your mortgage, in trouble
with the IRS, you didn't pay your taxes,
you had an affair with your neighbor, you
didn't pay your bookie, and you sold some
big crime boss a bunch of bad drugs,
and he's got a contract out on you,
and just fill in the blanks, anything else
you want to put in.
But you've got this terrible life everywhere you
go.
You've ruined yourself with anybody, everybody.
Your wife doesn't want you home, your bookie
doesn't want you back, you know, the drug
dealers are looking for you, there's a price
on your head, the government wants you, every
place you've messed up, every relationship.
And then all of a sudden though, because,
you know, some comes along where you are
literally picked up by the government with all
of this crooked stuff you've been involved in,
terrible wicked things you've been doing your whole
life, but the drug, the government looks at
you and knows that you're just a pawn
for this whole drug world, the mob that
you've been all a part of, and now
they're out after you, and they've got you,
and they offer you a deal.
They say, listen, if you'll turn state's evidence,
we will put you in a witness protection
program.
If you, we really, you know, we know
all you are, you're just a, you're just
a pawn, you're just a sucker in this
whole system, you just got pulled into it,
but a little rat on it.
If you'll turn state's evidence, if you'll confess
what everything you did, we don't care whether
you just confess it all, but, and then
who made you do it, and how you
got pulled into this, and point out each
and every, all the ones involved.
If you'll turn them over to us, then
we will give you a whole new identity.
We'll move you from one end of the
country to the other, and in one process,
when one thing occurs in this witness, you
know, program, protection program, you'll wake up at
the other end of the country, 3,000
miles away, you'll have a new name, a
new address, a new phone number, a new
home, you'll have a job, you'll have a
new social security number, you'll have a closet
full of clothes, you'll have a whole new
world, and you'll have a new identity entirely,
and the person that you were will cease
to exist.
The driver's license is no good, the social
security number is no good, any record will
cease and will be recorded as dead.
You won't even be able to do business
under that name.
You won't be able to do anything under
it.
The social security number will go nowhere, but
this one, a whole new identity, and essentially
that, you might say, is what Christianity fundamentally
is, and what baptism is, in a sense,
that when somebody comes and identifies with the
death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that
we realize it's like God looks at us,
I know you were just a sucker, I
know you just got pulled into a whole
world of immorality, and corruption, and lying, and
cheating, deceiving, and you did what you did,
but I want the big guy, who I'm
eventually gonna get, but if you'll rat on
him, if you'll deny him, if you'll confess,
this is what he'd made me do, and
I'm sick of it, and I'm tired of
it, I want out of it, I want
a new name, I want a new identity,
I want to start fresh.
If you'll do that, if you'll confess that,
we will put you into this Jesus Witness
Protection Program, and give you a whole new
identity.
And here, essentially, this is what Paul is
saying here, that God has done, that literally
now, the next day, if the government went
back to your old social security number, and
so the IRS agent is gonna, he's, boy,
he's got all these back taxes, and he
goes look at it, and all of a
sudden, he opens up the file, dead.
Oh, bummer, you know, or something, or everybody
else starts to look, you didn't look for
you, and they go look up your, you
know, the police, who've got all these outstanding
tickets on you, or whatever, you know, or
so, they go look it for you, dead.
Everywhere you go, dead.
Every record, every place you work, they just,
guy's dead.
It's just like he vanished off the planet.
But yet, he reappears, a whole new person,
somewhere else.
This is what Paul says has happened.
And from God's perspective, anything that is done
under that old car license, anything that's done
under that old social security number, anything that's
done under those old credit cards, they're not
acknowledged in heaven.
They, they, there's no account, it's dead, boxed,
goes nowhere.
And Paul says, this is a Christian, from
God's perspective, he sees these things, and that
they, that person, has died.
They do not exist.
Now, one of the great tragedies that happen,
I suppose, and even in all witness programs,
is the witness looks around, and he feels
uncomfortable, and, you know, gee, I don't know
these people, and I, and they're, and, and,
and, and I kind of miss my old
drug-dealing friend, Benny, in New York, you
know, or something, and we call up Benny.
Hey, Benny, how are you?
Who's this?
Well, you know me, Joe the Idiot.
Oh, yeah, where are you?
I'm calling you back.
I missed you.
I missed you, too.
I thought you were dead.
No, I'm not dead.
And the next thing you know, we can
go back at any point.
We can fraternize.
We can pick up old relationships, or other
people can come to us, you know, and,
and, but, but we, the first thing is,
we've got to know our baptism.
We've got to, do you know that when
you're baptized, from God's perspective, He looks at
you.
When you became a Christian, you ratted on
the old world.
You looked there at the enemy, and you
said, Satan deceived me.
He pulled me in like a pawn.
He took over my life.
He took over my character, my morals, my
values, my ethics.
He corrupted me.
All these relationships that I was involved in,
they're a mess.
And I'm a sinner, and I've blown it.
I've taken this nature, and I've just been
living in it.
And I'm tired of it.
And I'll be glad to turn state seven.
I'll be glad to confess it.
I'm a sinner, and I'm terrible.
I'm wrong, and I'm tired of it.
At that point, you know, God's protection thing,
He says, it's fine.
That's exactly what we're in the business of
doing, is giving you a whole new world
as a Christian.
And here, Paul says, if you're baptized, this
is what happened.
Now, Paul, maybe just like a lot of
us, you thought when you got baptized, you
just got wet, you know, or something.
Or you just, or you, you, you became
part of the fraternity called church.
You know, and you're one of the in
crowd now that, you know, I'm baptized.
Now I'm, I'm one of us, right?
And that's right.
But it's far more than that.
It's far more.
From God's perspective, He looks at you.
Maybe you don't know it.
That doesn't change Him.
He knows.
You're dead.
That old life, that old nature, it's dead.
It's gone.
It's buried.
He then goes on and he says, not
only to know your baptism, know your crucifixion,
as he says there in verse six.
He says, knowing this, our old man is
crucified with him, that the body of sin
might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not
serve sin.
This is how you deal with it.
And Paul now, essentially what he's doing here
with these other, with these next three things
is he's elaborating on baptism.
Because essentially in baptism, there's three things that
happen.
There's knowing you're to know your crucifixion, know
your resurrection, know your obligation.
Then when a person is truly baptized, number
one, they willfully walk right into their own
personal crucifixion with Christ.
Then essentially they're going to walk out in
newness of life and power.
And as they come out to present their
body as members of Christ, as members of
his body to be used for his glory.
And here, Paul, he looks at us and
now he breaks down baptism.
He says, number one, if you're, but what
is it be happening in baptism?
As you were crucified with Christ, essentially knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with
him.
And essentially there, what is to happen is
that now I'm just to agree.
That God came to me when he brought
me to himself, made me his own.
I went into the witness program is that
he came and he burned up and destroyed
all those records.
He gathered together all the history, you might
say, of the life and times of Don
McClure, or put your name in there.
And he gathered them out of every government,
out of every resource, out of every place,
and he destroyed them.
And he's done with them.
And he buries them.
And he says he doesn't exist any longer.
He's over in what God wants for you.
And for me is that I would do
the same thing.
That I would look at my old life,
my old nature and say, God, I want
to be done with it.
I want it dead.
I want it crucified.
I want to be dead to the old
life, dead to the old behavior, dead to
the old things.
Because even though we can be moved and
we can start a new life, the old
life has this amazing way of finding us.
This old life has this amazing way, you
know, you can come and have a wonderful
relationship with Christ, but you go to work
tomorrow and there's a lot of people that
know the old you.
They know you real well.
And then you want to look at them
and say, guess what?
I'm a Christian.
No, you're not.
No, no, no.
I know you.
And then they get you to respond in
that old nature rather than say no.
It's dead.
It's gone.
It's buried.
The old man has been crucified with Jesus
Christ.
That's what God wants, is that I would
simply agree with it.
That I just simply realize this is what
Jesus Christ did.
And here it's the most powerful, the one
of the most wonderful things to me in
all the world to realize God not only
says you're forgiven, but now he looks at
me and he says, now I want you
to bury it.
After I became a Christian, I went back
and forth like maybe others of us, but
I just didn't understand.
I tried to be a Christian.
I tried to do better.
I knew I loved the Lord, but here
I am in college and I basically just
had one set of friends all the way
from grammar school to high school, college, and
all of us just very worldly people all
the way through our parties and fraternity life
and all this sort of thing.
And so now I become a Christian and
now as I'm trying to become a Christian,
but I'm still back in school and working
around all these guys and in the fraternity
next year and I got to back out
of this, I'm going to quit.
And so I decided I'm going to quit
the fraternity.
And I can remember being called in and
said, nobody ever quits SA.
You're a fraternity.
You're part of us.
Now you can't quit.
I do.
You can't.
I did.
And you know that I did.
I'm gone and I just didn't come back.
That was it.
But, but yet at the same time, it
still found me.
And then I maybe see some guys, Hey,
let's go hang out or do this or
do that.
But the next thing you know, I'm back
hanging around with them and they'd look at
me.
Hey, how about having a drink?
No, I, no, no thanks.
Why?
Well, I'm not thirsty, you know, or whatever
else.
Well, why aren't you thirsty?
All right.
I quit drinking.
Well, what'd you quit drinking for?
Well, I'm a Christian.
You mean a Christian can't drink?
Where does it say a Christian can't have
a drink?
Well, I didn't, I don't know.
Well, it doesn't.
I have one.
Okay.
And then, you know, and the next thing
you know, they're driving me home in another
protection program, you know, or something, the wrong
one.
But you're back and you're wondering what's going
on here.
And you find yourself that the real problem
is, is that I, though Jesus had died
for me and my sins were forgiven and
they were gone and I, and the old
life was buried and I was dead to
sin.
And at the same time, I had not
personally by faith, desired that faith, that, that
death.
I hadn't come and said, Lord, I died
to these things.
I died to these relationships.
I died to the past, whatever, whoever, however,
whatever has got to be severed.
I'm dead to it.
Move me into your world.
And that's a great problem.
A lot of people come to Christ, but
they, they, they, they don't know what it
is to actually die to the old life.
They go back and let it be revived
again and again and again.
We ought to be like St. Augustine.
Maybe you heard his story and his confessions
is a wonderful little, you know, testimony gives,
but on how that his mother was raising
him, evidently he's a very intelligent, outgoing, handsome,
you know, young man.
And always they lived outside of Rome.
And she, he always, as a young man
wanted to go to Rome with his mother,
a wonderful Christian was praying for him, witnessing,
testifying all the time to him.
He didn't care about it.
Didn't listen.
And she used to pray, God, don't let
Augustine go to Rome.
Don't let him go to Rome.
Well, sure enough, he grew up and went
to Rome.
And then the next thing you know, he's
living in Rome and partying in Rome and
he's living with a woman in Rome.
Augustine was.
And then thereafter he'd experienced Roman life, all
this thing that he thought growing up would
be so high and mighty and wonderful as
he really realized how empty and vain it
was.
Remembering his mother's witnesses, mother's testimony to him,
he comes to Christ.
And there, as he receives Christ, he then
goes home and gets a couple things and
leaves.
Never to come back again.
And here, you know, months later, one day
he's walking down the street and he sees
the gal that he's living with coming the
other direction.
Seeing her, he goes over to the other
side of the street and goes walking down.
And all of a sudden she recognizes him.
And she starts yelling, go Augustine, Augustine.
And he just keeps on walking.
She comes over, grabs Augustine.
And he said, what's wrong with you?
She said, Augustine, it's me.
Mildred or whatever name was, I don't remember.
She's Augustine.
It's me, Mildred.
Don't you remember?
And he looked at her and he said,
Madam, you may be Mildred, but I'm not
Augustine.
Good day.
And he turned and walked away.
There's a man that is dead.
There is somebody that honestly realized I'm crucified
with Christ.
The old man is dead.
He is gone.
He is buried.
I am done with him.
You don't entertain it.
You don't discuss it.
You don't negotiate it.
You bury it.
And that's the, and here Paul says, you
want to know how to deal with sin.
You're baptized.
Know your baptism.
And he says, then know your crucifixion.
And then third, he says, know your resurrection.
He says, knowing this, verse nine, that Christ
being raised from the dead dieth no more,
death hath no more dominion over him.
For in that he died, he died once,
but in that he liveth, he liveth unto
God.
And here the wonderful thing, Paul says, you,
you know your baptism, know your crucifixion, know
what it is to come.
Maybe some of us tonight, we've, you've, you
forgot that God looks and he says, you're
crucified.
You're died.
The records are gone.
You keep going back there, trying to raise
you the old life from the dead, trying
to live it again.
And isn't it miserable?
Because people look at you and you are
dead.
You ever notice that?
After you become a Christian, you're, you're, you're
ruined.
God, he puts this stamp on you or
he does this, he messes you up really
weird in a sense where you, I remember
literally, I, I, I enjoyed the life, you
know, in the world, fine as a Christian
a lot of times.
And then I became, I mean, not as
a Christian.
Then I come to Christ and I'm going
back doing the same things.
I literally remember times when I, I remember
one specific one.
I'm at a party and I'm talking to
somebody and I'm telling this joke, an off
-color bad joke.
And, uh, uh, and I'm telling this joke,
funny joke, every, you know, hilarious, great worldly
joke.
And I'm telling this joke.
And as I tell the joke, the people
are kind of laughing.
They thought it was really funny, but there's
a voice inside of me just louder than
their voices.
That isn't funny.
It is too.
It is not.
It is too.
That's a funny, listen to it.
Do you want to hear it again?
I'm going literally in my mind, it's, you're
ruined in my whole world.
I had, and this is a fun world.
And now you, people are looking at you.
What are you doing inside there?
You having a problem?
No, I'm fine.
I'm just having a personal discussion, you know,
or whatever on how though you find, I
don't fit here.
There's a conviction.
This person that used to be so much
alive, he did die.
He doesn't fit.
Why am I still trying to make him
fit?
God just simply says, crucify him, bury him,
be done with it.
And if we won't do that, we can't
deal with sin.
Moralism won't do it.
You know, the, uh, legalism won't do it.
You know, cheap grace won't do it.
God says, you want to deal with sin,
you bury it and you go out there
and you be done with it.
And then he says, now know your resurrection.
Realize there that every single day of your
life, there is a risen Lord who wants
to clothe you with his identity, who wants
you to be his, his life, the one
that by his spirit, he would fill and
take and bless and use you, use you
for a whole new life, far more exciting
than you ever knew before.
More wonderful, more, more glorious, more peaceful, more
joyful than you ever experienced in all the
world before.
The world hasn't, has nothing to compare with
it.
With somebody there that says, Lord, take my
life and fill me with you.
I am risen with Christ.
Now live in me.
Take over my life.
Fill me with your love.
Fill me with your spirit.
If, you know, if, if the old guy
that used to live here is now reckoned
to be dead, and we're going to look
at this next week, how to reckon yourself
dead.
But if it's to be reckoned dead, well,
I still got a heart that beats.
I still got blood that flows.
I still got muscles and nervous system in
the body.
And Lord, if you like this body, it's
yours.
And if you want to take it and
fill it with your love and with your
spirit, it's yours.
Do you realize that's what the Lord right
now with every one of us, what he's
longing for.
So often though, the, the tragic thing is,
is if we don't know our baptism, we'll
never know our resurrection.
If we don't know our crucifixion, we won't
know our resurrection, any of it.
It's an interesting thing.
Oftentimes we can pray, Lord, give me a,
I want the power of the resurrection.
I want the power of your Holy Spirit.
I want the power that raised Jesus from
the dead.
I want the, I want the resurrection power
in my life.
We can pray that way.
But you know, there's a very interesting thing.
I don't know if you ever noticed this
in the Bible.
There's only one type of person Jesus ever
raised from the dead.
Only one.
There was one qualification he had with every
person he ever raised from the dead.
Very simple one.
They had to be dead.
He didn't raise any living people.
He only raised dead people from the dead.
And one of the things we're oftentimes Lord,
give me a resurrection.
And I believe the Lord is looking to
say, I'll tell you what, you give me
a crucifixion.
I'll give you a resurrection.
You give me death.
I'll give you life.
You give me what you aren't.
I'll give you what I am.
What, how's that for a trade?
That's a tough one to beat.
But at the same time, as long as
I'm still determined to live, if I want
his power, and then I want to go
back to the old life and I want
to sneak out of the witness protection program
and go meet with the old buddies and
go do the thing and yet kind of
slide back in and be guilty and try
to put on all the garments and go
out into this new program.
But at the same time, have this secret
life.
The Lord says, no, don't deal with it
with legalism.
I'm not going to go out of that.
I'm not going out anymore.
I'm not sneaking out after midnight when, you
know, I'm not going to do this.
No.
The thing is, instead of going out, you
die.
You die.
You just come there and say, Jesus, I
want to die.
One time years ago, I don't recommend, I
don't do this anymore, but I did do
it this time for some reason.
But I remember there was a gal that
called on the phone and trying to talk
to her and comfort her.
And she's going through all sorts of stuff.
And after a few minutes, I realized, no,
remember what I said?
It wasn't going to help her.
And she's there.
So I'm suicidal and I want to take
my life.
I just want to die.
And I couldn't get her to off that.
So finally, I said, well, let's try going
with it.
I said, you know something?
Maybe that's a good idea.
And she said, what?
I said, yeah, I think that's a great
idea.
And you do?
Yes.
But let me ask you a question.
Is your heart working okay?
Yes.
Blood flowing?
Yes.
You can stand up, walk, talk, function?
Yes.
So there's nothing wrong with the body.
No, not particular.
But you want to die?
Yes.
So but so it's not physical.
There's just somebody living in your body that
you'd like to kill.
Well, the Bible has a wonderful way to
do that.
It's Christ.
You can be crucified with Jesus Christ, that
person that you hate, that person you wish
would die, that person you wish you could
commit suicide.
Why don't you just turn to him and
say, Lord, here is my body.
If you want it, I'm through with it.
I'm out of it.
I want to die.
And I want you to live.
Well, I've gone way over time, so we'll
have to pick up obligation next week.
But let's pray.
Dear Father, I thank you for your love
and your mercy and your goodness.
And I pray, Lord, that you would help
us to know tonight.
Maybe some of us, we realize I'm a
Christian, but we're trying by our own energy
effort.
We're legalizing ourselves.
We're putting ourselves under loss.
I'm not going to do this.
I'm not going there.
I'm not this and I'm not, not, not.
And Lord, you'd mean time look at us
as, say, well, it ain't going to do
you any good whether you do or don't.
The issue is, are you going to die?
That's how you deal with sin.
Not by effort.
It's not by struggle.
It's not by trying.
It's not by crying.
It's by dying.
By putting your own head on the chopping
block and letting yourself and your old life
die and Jesus live.
And Lord, I pray that we would long
to know that crucified life that would bring
us in to the power of the resurrection,
that we could then serve you in newness
of life.
Lord, maybe some of us have made all
sorts of efforts and promise, or maybe we
just say, well, I'm so glad for the
grace of God and how grateful we are
for it.
But Lord, may we realize your grace is
the very mechanism through which all this is
offered to us by grace.
Jesus, you died on the cross for us.
By your grace, we are crucified with you.
By your grace, we are dead to sin.
By your grace, we have a whole new
identity.
All by your grace.
Lord, may we find ourself tonight just saying,
take me.
I want to enter into your witness protection
program.
I need a new identity.
Jesus, help us to bury the old man,
to be done with him.
And now I'll be able to turn to
you and say, Jesus, for what I've been
offered to replace myself with, nothing other than
you.
The power of your spirit.
Will you take me?
Will you fill me?
Will you live in me?
Will you guide my life?
Will you put your hand upon me?
Will you take my members as instruments for
your glory?
My lips, my heart, my joy.
I offer myself to you in Jesus' name.
Amen.