By: Mark Engler Mt. Vernon Christian Church, Mt. Vernon MO.
Sermon done with help from the Preacher’s Outline & Sermon Bible.
The Believer is Not to Continue in Sin (Part 1):
He is to Know His Position in Christ
Rom. 6:1-10
Intro: Saving Private Ryan clip (scene on bridge when Captian Miller tells Private Ryan to "earn it" by living a good life) We don’t earn salvation, but we should do the best we can in living a good life because Christ died on the cross for us.
The believer who is justified is to work toward holiness and righteousness. The believer is to live a holy life and become a servant of righteousness. A genuinely saved person cannot abuse the mercy of God. He cannot walk in sin; he cannot make a habit of sinning. To do so is to tread upon the mercy of God and make a mockery of God’s grace. It is to say that God’s grace gives a person the license to sin, and such is a contradiction of terms – as much as it is a contradiction of terms as to say that a dead man is alive.
The way for a man to break the habit of sin is for him to know the glorious position he can have in Christ. One thing is certain: every believer should definitely know the position he holds in Christ. It will revolutionize his life.
The point of this passage is so that every believer knows his real position in Christ, the knowledge of his position will help keep him from sin. I want us to note this morning the word “know.” Note that it is used 3 times in our text. It’s used in vs. 3, 6, & 9, and each time it tells of a different position we hold in Christ. In vs. 3 it tells us that the believer is immersed, placed into Christ. In vs. 6 it tells us that the believer’s old self was crucified with Christ. And in vs. 9 it tells us the believer lives with Christ – now & forever.
I want to cover briefly this morning in the first 2 verses about the believer and the question of license. In doing so I think we need to talk about a few things.
First, Does the grace of God give a person a free reign to sin? Can a person just go ahead and do what he wants expecting God to forgive him? Grace means God’s undeserved and unmerited favor. It means that God freely accepts us and forgives a person’s sins; that he freely justifies a person by faith. Even though common thinking says that if God will give more grace to cover more sin then I should sin more in order to get more grace, it’s not true. God has enough grace to cover all the sins you could ever commit, but after we become a believer we should strive to become righteous and holy, not strive to sin so God will give more grace.
Paul answers his own question “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” And the answer he gives is a one of righteous indignation. “By no means!” Away with such a thought. Far be it that we could think such a thing! Especially as believers.
The believer’s position in Christ shows the utter impossibility of a true believer continuing and going on in sin. What that means is not that we don’t sin, we do, we all know that, but we should not continue in sin, we should not habitually do the same sin over and over again. We cannot say, “It’s ok if I do it just one more time, after all that’s why Christ died for me on the cross.” We all know that one more time leads to one more time and then one more time and then one more time. No! When you do that you make Jesus’ sacrifice null and void. Heb. 10:26 says, “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left.” It is of the utmost importance that we strive for righteousness and holiness.
1. Know 1st: By position the believer is immersed, placed into Christ. Vs. 3-5
This is the first thing the believer should know about his position in Christ. This is one of the most glorious truths in all of Scripture, yet so much controversy has raged over what is meant by baptism that the meaning has often been bypassed and misunderstood. We will talk more about what baptism is later for now lets just say that Christians everywhere agree that baptism is a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
When one is immersed in Christian baptism he is being identified with Christ.
Ø By being placed under the water he is identifying himself with the death and burial
Ø By being raised up from the water, he is identifying himself as being raised from the dead with Christ to have a new life.
I think it’s good to note here a few things. First, the believer is immersed, placed into, or identified with Christ in death. This is the believer’s position in Christ. Very simply, if the believer really died in the likeness of Christ, in baptism, then he has died to sin and is freed from sin and its penalty and punishment. What a wonderful gift from God! And what a glorious position to receive from God’s wonderful grace!
When a person takes this step in Christian baptism he is participating in Christ death and God counts and considers the person
Ø To have died in Christ’s death
Ø To be placed into Christ’s death
Ø To be identified with Christ’s death
Ø To be a partaker of Christ’s death
Ø To be bound with Christ in death
When a person truly honors God’s Son by trusting and obeying Him, God honors that person by spiritually placing him into the death of Christ. What is it that causes God to do so much for the believer? His love for His Son. God loves His Son so much that He will do anything for anyone who honors His Son by believing and trusting, Him and obeying Him in Christian baptism.
If the believer is counted by God as having been immersed into the death of Christ, then the believer
Ø Has died to sin
Ø Has died to the penalty of sin
Ø Has died to the judgment of sin
Ø Is freed from sin
Ø Is freed from the penalty of sin
Ø Is freed from the judgment of sin
This means that the rule and reign and the habits and desires of sin no longer have control over us. Sin ceases to have a place or a position in our lives. We are free from sin, free from.
Ø Sin’s habits
Ø Sin’s control
Ø Sin’s bondage
Ø Sin’s enslavement
Ø Sin’s rule and reign
Ø Sin’s guilt
It means that we not longer live “in” sin, in the position and place of sin. We cannot live without sin, not perfectly, but we are free from living “in” sin. We desire, instead of sin, we desire and practice righteousness and seek to please God in all we do.
It is no longer us that live, but Christ lives in us. Let’s look at Gal. 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
We get a picture from Gal 3:27 that we have clothed ourselves with Christ, “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” And its not clothing like you would put on when you go to the beach, its like the clothing you would wear if you were at the North Pole, Christ covers every part of us.
Second, the believer is immersed, placed into, or identified with Christ in His resurrection. God counts the true baptized believer as participating in Christ’s resurrection. He counts and considers the person
Ø To be raised in Christ’s resurrection
Ø To be placed into Christ’s resurrection
Ø To be identified with Christ’s resurrection
Ø To be a partaker of Christ’s resurrection
Ø To be bound with Christ in His resurrection
It is to be for sure that just as Christ had new life after he rose from the grave that a true baptized believer has “new” life after being raised from the watery grave of baptism. In the Bible the word “new” often carries the idea of purity, righteousness, holiness, and godliness. In baptism the believer
Ø Receives a “new birth” (1 Pt. 1:23; 2:2)
Ø Receives a “new heart” (Ezk. 11:19; 18:31)
Ø Becomes a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal 6:15)
Ø Puts on the “new self” (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10)
Third, the believer is immersed, placed into, or identified with the most glorious hope: that he shall be in the very likeness of Jesus’ resurrection. This simply means that…
Ø As Jesus was raised to a new life, so shall the believer be.
Look at Eph. 2:5-6, “Made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.”
Ø As Jesus was raised to live with God, so shall the believer be
Look at 1 Thess 4:16-17, “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”
We are to know 1st that by position the believer is immersed, placed into Christ.
2. Know 2nd: By position, the believer’s old self was crucified with Christ. Vs. 6-7
This is the second thing the believer should know about his position in Christ. Our old self is done away with, it is no more, it is a once and for all act. Christ takes our old self and does away with it; it dies just as Christ died on the cross. Jesus’ old body didn’t resurrect with Him, when He rose He had His new heavenly body. Now, at baptism we don’t get our new heavenly body that will happen after the resurrection when Jesus returns. But our old self is done away with, the “old self” means…
Ø Our old man
Ø Our old life
Ø Our sinful self
Ø Our sinful life
Our “old self” means our old life without God. The old self was crucified so that “the body of sin” might be destroyed or done away with. The “body of sin” is not plural (sins) but singular (sin). It is seen as containing and embodying and packaging all sin within itself. The idea is that all sin within a believer is destroyed, conquered, forgiven, and crucified with Christ. The believer is freed from sin. He starts anew, and he stays clean and free from sin by walking in constant confession and fellowship before God.
Luke 9:23 says, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” 2 Cor. 4:11 says, “For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.” After we have died in Christian baptism it is not our old self that is to show, it is dead, but it is Christ, it is His life, His heart, His compassion, His encouragement, His love, and we do things the way He would do.
The old self was crucified to enable and to empower the believer to renounce sin. The believer is not to serve sin; he is to renounce it, knowing that it has been crucified and put to death in Christ. By the power of the cross, sin is not to be served; it is...
Ø To be renounced
Ø To be refused
Ø To be repudiated
Ø To be rejected
Ø To be denied
Ø To be conquered
“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” Gal 5:24. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24. “Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.” 1 Peter 4:1-2.
The clearest of all illustrations that is given to show the believer’s position in Christ is the old dead self. The old self, which is dead, served sin, the new self, which is alive, serves God. Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” Mt. 6:24. As a believer it can be no other way, if we serve sin, it has mastery over us, if we serve God He has mastery over us.
Once our old self has died in Christian baptism we walk in our new self daily in the presence of God. This means that as we pick up the pollutions of this world and fail here and there, we can constantly come before God and ask forgiveness; and when we ask, He forgives. Why does he do such a glorious thing as freeing us from sin eternally?
Ø Because He loves His Son
Ø Because we honor His Son when we trust Him and when we obey Him in Christian baptism, Christ’s death frees us from sin. Anyone who trusts and obeys God’s Son will be honored by God and will be eternally freed from sin.
Eph. 1:7 says, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”
Know 1st by position the believer is immersed, placed into Christ. And know 2nd by position, the believer’s old self was crucified with Christ.
3. Know 3rd: By position, the believer lives with Christ – now & forever. Vs. 8-10
We are assured and posses absolute confidence that “we will…live with Christ.” The idea is that we will live eternally with Him. What gives us such belief and absolute assurance? It is the knowledge that Christ conquered death once and for all. Christ has already died. Now we are to know…
Ø Since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again
Ø Since He was raised death no longer has mastery over him
Ø Since Christ was raised He is freed from death
1 Peter 3:18 tells us, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit.”
Christ lives forever to God and the believer is to live to God through all eternity, beginning right at the moment of the believer’s conversion, death has no more dominion over him. He is an eternal person that is assured of eternity in heaven rather than eternity in hell. Therefore, the believer is to live to God beginning right now, even as he will live unto God through all eternity.
Phil 2:8-9 says, “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled
himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.”
We are assured of our position in heaven because of what Christ did for us on the cross and when we follow through with trust and obedience to God and to His Son we are accepting what Jesus did for us on the cross. It is through the act of baptism that we partake in Christ death, burial, and resurrection. When we do that in combination with belief, confession, repentance, and faithful living we can know that we will have eternity in the glory of God.
The believer is not to continue in sin because we know our position in Christ. We have been immerse with him in the likeness of his death, burial, and resurrection and because of that God identifies us with His Son.
Conclusion: Talk about baptism
