Knowing Who We Are In Christ Series

Paul did a remarkable job highlighting to us the true condition of man, not just before we know Christ but also after we know Christ, which is very important.

Do you know where you stand before God? Do you know who you are in Christ? Do you know your identity in Christ? Do you know how God sees you?

• These are the questions that jump up at us when we read Romans.

• They are important because when we truly know who we are in Christ, we will be able to behave and act like one.

We need to know who we are from the Scriptures. That’s the truth about us, and not from some other sources.

• Society can try to define us, our past may try to label us, our friends at school can give us names, our colleagues may tag us, and even our enemy, the devil, can try to deceive us.

• But the truth is our true identity can only come from God. He has the final say because He made and redeemed us.

It’s like the story of an eagle being raised on a chicken farm. The stray egg landed on the farm and hatched among chickens. The eagle grew up doing what the chickens do, living like a chicken, and believing he was a chicken.

We know he is not. The eagle can fly if the farmer urges him and reveals his true identity. We are not what we think we are but who God says we are.

Over the entire Romans 6, we see Paul taking great efforts to describe these contrasting pictures of our old life (in Adam) and our new life in Christ.

• He swings from one to the other, and back and forth, many times.

• Telling us the condition of our lives before we know Christ and then after.

• The consequences of our lives while in sin and after being saved.

• The power that is at work in our lives before and after, our different masters.

• Before we were helpless slaves to sin, but in Christ, we become willing slaves to righteousness.

• The old life bears fruit that leads to death, but now in Christ, we bear fruit of righteousness for God.

It’s very clear. When we place our faith in Jesus Christ, we moved on from the old life of sin to the new life defined by righteousness.

• That’s where we are if we are Christians. That’s our true identity in Christ.

• It’s like Paul is posing a silent question: “Which side are you on? Do you know which side you are standing on? And if you are in Christ, then do you know what it means to have this new life in Christ?”

KNOW WHO WE ARE IN CHRIST

Because understanding this new life will crumble the 2 rhetorical questions that he led us through in verses 1 and 15 of Romans 6.

• “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” (6:1) and “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” (6:15)

• “By no means!” Of course, Paul said it twice. These questions can only stamp from ignorance of our life in Christ. The justified WILL NOT CONTINUE to sin.

• Those who think this way do not understand what God has done when He made us new creations in Christ.

We saw Paul using the word “slavery” to describe our conditions.

• Slavery is a very strong word. I believe the Romans audience then, would appreciate it much better than us today.

• It’s about “power-play”. Who runs your life? Who has the power over you?

• Previously we are “slaves of sin”; we live under its dominion and we are bound.

• But now in Christ, we are freed from its bondage and come to experience another “power” (under our new Master) that enables us to produce deeds of righteousness.

R. C. Sproul: “No one ever becomes truly free until they become a slave of Jesus Christ.”

Paul’s use of the word is brilliant. We are now “slaves of righteousness”.

• We are willingly, helplessly motivated to be “slaves of righteousness” because we want to bear fruit for God.

• This is true of every Christian. There is no such thing as a Christian who does not bear the fruit of righteousness.

• Jesus said in John 15 when he talks about the vine and branches that in Him we will ‘bear fruit’ and ‘more fruit’ and ‘much fruit’. It is inevitable.

Paul continues the same theme in Romans 7 and re-emphasizes his point with an illustration from marriage. Let’s read Romans 7:1-6.

1Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.