New Life Series

INTRODUCTION

• Today, we will begin our new five-week series entitled Failing Forward[ Pursuing Spiritual Disciplines.

• When we think about the phrase "SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES," what comes to mind?

• We may think about prayer, meditation, scripture reading, and fasting, among other things.

• By the way, all of the things mentioned above are a part of spiritual disciplines.

• In this series, we will open the definition a bit and examine some other areas of spiritual discipline we may not consider.

• If we are not careful, prayer, fasting, Bible reading, and such can turn into items on a checklist.

› Big Idea of the Series: This five-week series explores how Christians can "fail forward" in life.

• In other words, we can grow through our failures.

• We can learn to grow from failure by understanding sanctification, the need to acknowledge brokenness, and how to forgive other believers.

• One of the issues we examined as we looked at suffering was the issue of free will and how free will impacts humanity from a negative standpoint.

• Free will is what we must possess to be able to love.

• Today, I want us to think about the fact that just because one is baptized into Christ does not mean free will ends.

• We must realize an initial decision to follow Jesus does not allow us to put our life on autopilot; we still have to make choices.

• Our new life in Christ that we receive when we are baptized (Romans 6:1-ff) is when the tough choices begin.

• For Christians, the subject of failure deals with sin, salvation, holiness, ethics, and what the Christian life looks like.

• Is the Christian life just one of constant failure?

• Are we helpless sinners who will never make progress?

• Aren't we supposed to be perfect?

• We are saved from something (damnation) but are we saved for something (sanctification)? (made holy)

• We must realize that choices have consequences, but we also need to know that since we are saved by God'sAren't grace, failure does not have to end our journey.

• Failure does not have to define us!

• Big Idea of the Message: To fail forward means to learn from mistakes. Christians can fail forward by knowing that sin is no longer our master.

• Today, we will examine three areas of our new life that will require us to choose.

• When we make the right choice in the first two, the third area will happen!

• Let's turn to Romans 6 together.

Romans 6:12–14 (NET 2nd ed.)

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires,

13 and do not present your members to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness.

14 For sin will have no mastery over you because you are not under law but under grace.

SERMON

NEW LIFE IS ABOUT...

I. Choosing the right master.

• Before we get too deep into this, I want us to look at verse 11

Romans 6:11 (NET 2nd ed.)

11 So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

• The context of this chapter up to this point is that when we have been buried with Christ in baptism, we are also raised up with Him into a newness of life (Romans 6:4).

• Because of what is written before verse 11, we are commanded to consider ourselves dead to sin but alive to Jesus!

• This gives context to what we see in verses 12-18.

• THEREFORE verse 12 tells us that SINCE we are to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God, there are two things we must make happen with the help of the Holy Spirit within us.

• Before we dig into those two areas, we need to see something.

• We need to remember that Romans was written to Christians.

• Now, WHY is Paul telling Christians about making a choice concerning who they are going to serve?

• Verse 11 is imperative, meaning that this command must be CONTINUALLY carried out.

• This is but one of many places where we see we are CALLED to make a choice.

• THIS CHOICE INVOLVES WHO YOU WILL CHOOSE TO BE YOUR MASTER, TO WHOM YOU WILL YIELD TO AND FOLLOW!

• Once you gain new life in Christ, God does not just take the wheel and tell you to sit back on it and go along for the ride.

• After we are freed from the bondage of sin in our lives, we must make a conscious decision as to what we will do with our lives.