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.
4Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
If this woman, while she is married to her first husband, tries to live with another, she will be called an adulteress. Who calls her that? The Law. The Law condemns her.
• It is only when the first husband dies that she is “released from the law” that condemns her and she can marry again.
• Death dissolves the marriage and renders it null and void.
Likewise, Paul says, when the Christian trusts in Christ’s sacrifice on his behalf, he “died to the Law” that condemns him.
• Our old relationship with the Law has been terminated because we have entered into a new relationship with Christ.
• Previously our best efforts under the Law can only “bear fruit for death” (7:5). It produces nothing good.
• But now in Christ, we are “released from the Law” that condemns us (for our failure to keep it). The Law cannot hold us captive.
The Christian now comes under Christ in a new relationship.
• Paul says, “so that you may belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.” (7:4)
• We have a new Master and He is Christ. We BELONG to Christ.
KNOW THAT WE BELONG TO CHRIST
• This is WHO we are. If this is who we are, then we will bear fruit for God.
This relationship is eternal and cannot be changed.
• Paul says we belong “to Him who has been raised from the dead” (7:4).
• And in 6:9 he says, “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.”
• He says in 8:38-39 that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
If we know who we are in Christ, we will bear fruit for God. We will not ask such questions like “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (6:1)
• It makes no sense. We will not CONTINUE in sin. We might fall during moments of weakness and disobedience, but we will not continue to sin happily.
How can, when we are DEAD TO SIN? Notice Paul did not say SIN IS DEAD. He says we are DEAD TO SIN. There’s a difference.
• Sin is still present. Sin is not dead. We live in a fallen world among fallen creatures. Sin is around us. We are not immune to sin. We can still be tempted.
• But sin has NO DOMINION over us (6:14), Paul emphasized. He is not saying sin is absent; he is saying sin is not supreme. It cannot rule over us.
• Paul says we can choose NOT to let sin reign in our body (6:12) because sin is not our master, Christ is.
That’s why Paul emphasized in 6:11 “So you also must CONSIDER yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (ESV)
• NIV “you have to COUNT yourselves dead to sin in Christ”. KJV “RECKON ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin”.
• In order words, we have to acknowledge it and believe it, that this is true. Sin is powerless over us who are in Christ. Believe right and we will live right.
Reminds me of this story of 2 princes vying for the throne. The younger one got it because his old brother was ill-disciplined and disorganised in his life, indulging in the pleasures of life.
The younger brother offered to let his older brother have the throne if he could get his life together. So he built an apartment in the palace for his brother to stay and said if at any time he can walk out of the house, he would let him have the throne.
The exceptionally fat brother agreed to the challenge. He stayed in the house that the younger brother built around him, with open doors and open windows. He was unable to get out until he could slim down.
Meanwhile, the younger brother feeds him with good food and provides him with everything he wants.
Is he in prison? Is he locked in? The doors and the windows are all open. He can walk out anytime he wants. He is free and yet not free. His indulgences lock him in.
Are we living like this man, with the freedom that Christ has achieved for us, we are still locking ourselves back into sin, living like we are enslaved to sin when we are freed.
• Still thinking and living like a chicken and not an eagle.
• Believing that we are victims of the circumstances, that we are weak and helpless, that we are defeated sinners and not victorious saints in Christ.
Don’t victimise ourselves. Paul says CONSIDER yourselves (ESV), RECKON yourselves (KJV), COUNT yourselves dead to sin! Believe that and we will act like one.
• We are not helpless sinners in Adam but victorious saints in Christ. We are a new creation in Christ. The old has gone, the new has come (2 Cor 5:7)
KNOW THAT WE BEAR FRUIT FOR GOD.
• Paul says in 7:6 “But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”
• The redeemed are led and empowered by the Holy Spirit to bear fruit for God.
• Paul is going to expound on the work of the Holy Spirit further in Romans 8.
This is what the Lord promised in Ezekiel 11:19-20 for His people:
• 19And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, 20that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
• Ezekiel 36:26-27 26And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
• Paul says in Gal 5:16 “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
The key difference between the old and new life is this - we are not trying to keep the Law as a “demand from outside” but obeying it with a “desire from within”.
• God places His Spirit within us and causes us to walk in His ways.
• It is a God-inspired desire that comes from within because God has given us a new heart and the Holy Spirit.
• Those who are Christians will understand. It is not some rules that we are told to obey but a motivation that comes from our hearts; we want to please God.
• That’s the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
CONCLUSION:
If you long for such a life – free from sin, marked in righteousness, living for God – then you need to put your trust in Jesus Christ.
• Christianity is not about keeping a set of rules. It is about our relationship with Jesus. We belong to Christ.
• Apart from Jesus, we are but another lost soul in this world, without hope.
• Therefore, for the sake of Christ and the sake of your soul, give your life over to Jesus. You can trust Him.
[You can view the sermon with slides at https://tinyurl.com/KTCC-EnglishService.]
