Free to Live a New Life
Romans 6:1-14
Joke---A man left work one Friday afternoon. But instead of going home, he stayed out the entire weekend fishing with the boys and spending his entire paycheck.
When he finally appeared at home Sunday night, he was confronted by his very angry wife and was barraged for nearly 2 hours with a tirade of his actions.
Finally his wife stopped the nagging and simply said to him "How would you like it if you didn’t see me for 2 or 3 days?" To which he replied, "That would be fine with me!
Monday went by and he didn’t see his wife. Tuesday and Wednesday came and went with the same results.
On Thursday, the swelling went down just enough where he could see her a little out of the corner of his left eye.
Introduction
Have you ever heard someone say, ?I want to go to church, but I just have to get my life straight first.? Or, ?I will accept Jesus as my savior, when he leads me to.? Maybe you have heard someone say, ?Baptism doesn?t matter, its just a church thing.?
The only way we can live free of sin?s compulsions is by remembering that baptism has linked us to Jesus? death, grave and resurrection.
There once was a rookie pitcher who walked three batters in a row. The manager called time out and strolled up to the mound. ?Son,? he said, ?I think you have had enough.?
The pitcher replied, ?But coach, look who?s up to bat... I struck this guy out the last time he was up.? ?Yeah I know,? said the manager, ?But this is still the same inning.?
It is a hard fact of life that no matter our grit and determination, some things in life are just bigger, badder and tougher than we are. For instance, you could spend every moment of your life battling against your old sin nature. But it will not give way to prayers, fasting, sabbaticals in the desert, mortification of the flesh or obedience to the law.
That is the bad news
The good news is that you can be free from sin by remembering that baptism links you to Jesus? death, burial, and resurrection.
That is God?s promise to us found in Romans 6:1-14.
I. God?s grace is absolutely positively free.
1. It is a gift that is void of any kind of human works.
2. It has no hidden requirements.
3. It contains no need for personal reform. You can not get your life straight first.
4. In a nutshell, Grace not only frees us from sin?s penalty, but it also frees us from having to sin.
5. This may sound like I am preaching cheap grace, good. That is just what it is. If I didn?t tell you that it is completely free to you, I would be guilty of preaching a false gospel to you.
6. Grace is free, stewardship is costly. Paul wards off those who would compromise God?s grace by asserting that.
II. Baptism joins us to Jesus death, burial, and resurrection.
In verses 2-11, Paul conveys three basic truths:
1st Baptism identifies us with Jesus? death, which frees us from sin?s penalty.
2nd Baptism demonstrates our freedom from the power of sin.
3rd Baptism symbolically frees us to live a new life.
1. Accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior means we receive the gift that he died for our sins and that we are forgiven, but through baptism, we actually die with Jesus. Let me explain:
· Look at verses 2 and 3 (read). Baptism identifies us so closely with Jesus that God treats us as if we were the ones who had died on the cross.
· In Mark 10:39, Jesus told his disciples, ?You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with.? Jesus was speaking of his death, burial, and resurrection.
· Look at verses 4-11. Die to self... Going down into the water. Buried... Under the water... raised from the dead....brought back up out of the water into a new superior life, this is a practical example of our original commitment to him in which we become free from the mastery of sin.
· Baptism symbolizes our victory over death, both physical and spiritual.
· There are three kinds of people: the sayers, the doers, and the sayer doers. It is important that we be more than sayers, more than doers, we should be sayers and doers.
III. Baptism obliges us to live out our new life for God
· If you receive an invitation to a be in a Wedding and you go through the trouble of RSVP, you would put on old rags, then run out and wallow in the mud. You would not show up and jump around the altar during the ceremony.
You are morally obliged to put on the new clean garments they provide, show up, and follow the way of the Groom or Bride.
· If you receive an invitation to make Jesus your Savior and you go through the trouble of responding, then you are morally obliged to put on your new clean clothes through baptism, and follow the way of the Savior.
1. Read verses 12 and 13. We are obliged to reject sin?s rule.
· We are free from sin, so we must fight against it!
· In the United States, we refuse to negotiate, or give in to terrorists who attempt to use fear to force their will upon us. We insist on living free so we fight terrorism. Rather than giving in to the terrorists who blew up the World Trade Center, or to the cowards who blew up the Alfred P Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, or to the murders who blew up the US. Military barracks in Saudi Arabia, we resist. We refuse to permit them to govern our actions. In the very same way Christians must resist sin and refuse to negotiate with the sin nature that still lingers within us.
2. Read verse 14. We are obliged to embrace God?s sovereignty.
· An illiterate couple had just been saved. They met with a group of believers who dressed alike. The men wore red shirts while engaged in a certain project, so the woman made one for her husband. He came home after the meeting, however, with a look of disappointment on his face because the others had a message printed on their shirts but he did not. His wife, undaunted by her inability to read, sewed three words on his shirt which she copied from a sign in a store window across the street. He wore it to the next meeting and came home bubbling with joy. He said all of the men really liked the inscription because it so aptly described the wonderful change they had seen in his life. It turned out that his wife had written, ?UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT.?
· Are you Under Jesus? Saving Grace?
· Are you Under New Management today?
· Have you been baptized into his death, burial, and resurrection?
Conclusion
I want to tell you the story of a little boy who understood what we are talking about today. He was 9 in a Sunday school class of 8-year olds. Eight year olds can be cruel. The third graders did not welcome Philip to their group. Not just because he was older. He was different.
He suffered from Down?s syndrome and its obvious manifestations: facial characteristice, slow responses, symptoms of retardation.
One Sunday after Easter the Sunday school teacher gathered some of those plastic eggs that pull apart in the middle---the kind in which ladies? pantyhose are packaged.
The Sunday school teacher gave one of these plastic eggs to each child.
On that beautiful spring day each child was to go outdoors and discover for himself some symbol of ?new life? and place that symbolic seed or leaf or whatever is inside his egg. They would then open their eggs one by one, and each youngster would explain how his find was a symbol of ?new life.? So...
The youngsters gathered round on the appointed day and put their eggs on a table, and the teacher began to open them. One child found a flower.
All the children oohed and aahed at the lovely symbol of new life.
In another was a butterfly. ?Beautiful,? the girls said. And it?s not easy for an 8 year old to say beautiful. Another egg was opened to reveal a rock. Some of the children laughed.
That?s crazy one said, How?s a rock supposed to be like a new life. Immediately a little boy spoke up and said, That?s mine, I knew everybody would get flowers and leaves and butterflies and all that stuff, so I got a rock to be different.
Everyone laughed.
Then the teacher opened the last one, and there was nothing inside. ?That?s not fair,? someone said, ?That?s stupid,? another said. The teacher felt a tug on his shirt. It was Philip. Looking up he said, ?it?s mine. I did do it. Its empty. I have new life because the tomb is empty.?
The class fell silent. From that day on Philip became part of the group. They welcomed him. Whatever had made him different was never mentioned again. Philip?s family had known he would not live a long life; just too many things wrong with the tiny body. That summer, overcome with infection, Philip died.
On the day of his funeral nine 8-year-old boys and girls confronted the reality of death and marched up to the altar not with flower. Nine children with their Sunday school teacher placed on the casket of their friend their gift of love-an empty egg.
