Welcome to Life Group. We invite you to join
us in this verse -by -verse study through the
Word of God. In this lesson, we're going to be
looking at Romans chapter 6. Let's start with
verse 1. Well then, shall we keep on sinning
so that God can show us more and more of His
wonderful grace? Now, as a recap, in Romans chapter
5 verse 20, Paul had stated, that as people sin
more and more, God's wonderful grace becomes
more abundant. So, he presents this question.
Why would he present such a question? Well, from
a natural viewpoint, grace seems dangerous. This
is why many people today don't teach or believe
in grace, but emphasize living by the law. They
believe that if you tell people God saves and
accepts them apart from what they deserve, then
they have no motive to be obedient. In their
opinion, you simply can't keep people on the
straight and narrow without a threat from God
hanging over their head. If they believe their
position in Jesus is settled because of what
Jesus did on the cross, then the motivation for
holy living is gone. That's the way so many people
see Christianity. But the truth is we will never
experience freedom in Christ through legalistic
performance -based Christianity. True freedom
only happens when we live under God's grace.
In verse 2, Paul answers the question, of course
not. Since we have died to sin, How can we continue
to live in it? And Paul says, of course not.
He's saying that the idea that anyone might purposefully
continue to sin so grace would abound, that's
unthinkable. Actually, Paul asks and answers
this same question three times in the book of
Romans. We looked at it in chapter 3 in verse
8. here in Romans 6 .1, and we'll see it again
in this study in Romans 6 .15. What does this
tell us? Why would Paul have to keep asking?
Should people keep on sinning so that God's grace
would abound? Well, here's what we need to know.
When grace is presented correctly, people often
think it's too good, it's too easy. And that's
because our human reasoning always defaults to
works, to the law, to works, righteousness, deserving
it or earning it with God, a right standing with
God. And here Paul establishes an important principle.
When we believe in Jesus for our salvation, our
relationship with sin is permanently changed.
We have died. If we have died to sin, then we
should not live in sin anymore. This phrase,
have you forgotten, is really a fundamental concept
that every Christian should know. and it's illustrated
through believers' baptism. Have you ever heard
at a baptism, the pastor say, buried with Christ
in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life?
That's what it is. It's an illustration of believers'
baptism, and that's what he's talking about here.
He's like, have you forgotten this concept? The
ancient Greek word for baptized means to immerse
or overwhelm something. So water baptism, Being
baptized into Christ is really a demonstration
or an acting out of a believer's immersion or
identification with Christ in his death and resurrection.
Baptism, therefore, is important because it's
an illustration of a spiritual reality. It does
not make that reality come to pass, but if someone
has not spiritually died and risen with Jesus,
then all the baptisms in the world would not
accomplish it for them. Doesn't matter how many
times you get baptized, if it's not a real reality
for you, because it's just an illustration. It's
just a demonstration of what's happened on the
inside. So something dramatic and life -changing
happens in the life of the believer. not by their
work, you know, just being sprinkled in water
or dunked in water. You can't die and rise again
without it changing your life. And at salvation,
a believer has a real spiritual death and a real
spiritual resurrection with Jesus Christ. Back
to scripture, verse 5. Since we have been united
with him in his death, we will also be raised
to life as he was. We know that our old sinful
selves were crucified with Christ so that sin
might lose its power in our lives. We are no
longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ,
we were set free from the power of sin. So this
phrase here, united with Christ, then it's expressing
a close union with him. and exactly it's exactly
expressing the process by which we graft something
like a graft becomes united with the life of
a tree like if you take one tree clipping you
can graft it on to another tree and that process
you can't view like one without the other like
you see them as one identical tree at that point
when something has been engrafted onto another
tree and it's kind of a demonstration here and
an example of like what it looks like a picture
of what it looks like when we have been engrafted
into christ we are identified with his death
we are grafted into his death and his death becomes
our death we we identify with his death and our
old self our sin nature was crucified then with
Christ. The death of the old man is an established
fact, and it happened spiritually when we identified
with Jesus' death at our salvation. None of us
nailed our old man to the cross. Jesus did that
for us, and we are told to consider it done.
Two other places in the New Testament, Ephesians
4 .22, And Colossians 3 .9 mentioned the old
man and remind us to consider him done away with,
telling us to put off the old man as something
that is dead and gone. So, strictly speaking,
we're not supposed to constantly battle the old
man. We're supposed to consider him dead. Some
Christians focus solely on the crucified life.
But being crucified with Christ is the gateway
to resurrection life. See, his death was our
death. But this also means that his resurrection
was our resurrection. So the life of Christ now
flows through us. Our flesh is the problem in
the battle against sin. And it was trained in
sinful habits by three sources, we see. First,
It was trained by the old man. Before he was
crucified with Christ, the old man trained and
imprinted himself on our flesh. Second, the world
system, in its spirit of rebellion against God,
can have a continuing influence on our flesh.
And then finally, the devil seeks to tempt and
influence our flesh towards sin. So, when we
allow the flesh to be continually influenced
by the old man's habits of the past, the world,
and the devil, the flesh will exert a powerful
pull towards sin. But, if we let the new man
within us influence our mind, will, and emotions,
our soul, then the battle will be less intense.
we know we will also live with him. We are sure
of this because Christ was raised from the dead
and he will never die again. Death no longer
has any power over him. When he died, he died
once to break the power of sin. But now that
he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you
also should consider yourselves to be dead to
the power of sin and alive to God through Christ
Jesus. Jesus died unto sin once and death had
no more dominion over him. Those who recognize
their death with Christ unto sin will not have
sin rule over them anymore. struggling with sin
always struggling with sin have not recognized
that they are dead to sin let's pick up in verse
12 do not let sin control the way you live do
not give in to sinful desires do not let any
part of your body become an instrument of evil
to serve sin instead give yourselves completely
to god For you were dead, but now you have new
life. So use your whole body as an instrument
to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin
is no longer your master, for you are no longer
living under the requirements of the law. Instead,
you live under the freedom of God's grace. So
in this text, we see that our slavery to sin
was broken by Christ's death, which was actually
our death because we died with him. And because
of that, we are set free from sin because the
old man died with Jesus on the cross. Now a new
man, a free man lives. Everyone is free to sin,
right? Everyone in the world is free to sin.
But only those who are in Christ are free to
stop sinning. I want to share a story that I
came across during my study. It's a true historical
study, but I believe it goes along with what
we need to understand. In the 14th century, two
brothers fought for the right to rule over a
Ducatum in what is now Belgium. The older brother's
name was Raynaud, but he was commonly called
Crassus as a Latin nickname meaning fat, for
he was horribly obese. After a heated battle,
Raynaud's younger brother Edward led a successful
revolt against him and assumed the title of Duke
over his lands. But instead of killing his older
brother, Raynald, Edward devised a curious imprisonment.
He had a room in the castle built around Crassus,
a room with only one door. The door was not locked,
the windows were not barred, and Edward promised
Raynald, that he could regain his land and his
title any time that he wanted to. All he would
have to do is leave the room. The obstacle to
freedom was not in the doors or the windows,
but with Reynold himself. Being grossly overweight,
he could not fit through the door, even though
it was of near -normal size. All Reynold needed
to do, was diet down to a smaller size, then
walk out of the room a free man, with all he
had before his fall. However, his younger brother
kept sending him an assortment of tasty foods,
and Raynald's desire to be free never won out
over his desire to eat. Some would accuse Duke
Edward of being cruel to his older brother. But
he would simply reply, my brother is not a prisoner.
He may leave when he so wills. But Raynald stayed
in that room for 10 years until Edward himself
was killed in battle. Now this story accurately
illustrates the experience of many Christians.
Jesus set them forever free legally. and they
may walk out in that freedom from sin whenever
they choose. But since they keep yielding their
fleshly appetites to the service of sin, they
live a life of defeat, discouragement, and imprisonment.
See, a person can be officially set free, but
still live imprisoned. When a person lives in
prison for years and then is set free, they often
still think and act like a prisoner. The habits
of freedom aren't ingrained in their life yet.
And here, Paul shows how to build the habits
of freedom in the Christian life. First of all,
he says, Parts of our body. I mean... You have
eyes, so don't put them in the service of sin.
You have ears, but don't put them in the service
of sin. David gives us a human example. God used
David's hands to slay Goliath in the cause of
righteousness. But later in David's life, sin
used David's eyes for unrighteousness when he
looked upon sin. Bathsheba someone else's wife
and two he says instead of letting any part of
your body become an instrument of evil to serve
sin instead of that number two give yourselves
completely to God so we need to walk in the freedom
Jesus won for us it isn't enough to take the
weapons away from the service of sin They must
be enlisted in the service of God, in the service
of righteousness. Verse 15. Well then, since
God's grace has set us free from the law, does
that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not.
Don't you realize that you become the slave of
whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave
to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose
to obey God. which leads to righteous living.
At first, verse 1 and 15 seem to say the same
thing in most English translations, but if we
take a closer look, they're different. Verse
1 says, should we keep on sinning? And verse
15 says, does that mean we can go on sinning?
You see, verse 1 is talking about continual,
habitual sin. Whereas verse 15 is talking about
occasionally playing around with or dabbling
in sin. But Paul's answer is still the same.
He uses the same phrase here. Of course not.
Paul uses the illustration of slavery to convey
this message. And this kind of reminds me of
the great philosopher, you could say Bob Dylan.
Bob Dylan. wrote a song and he said, you're going
to have to serve somebody. It may be the devil,
it might be the Lord, but you're going to have
to serve somebody. And in a lot of ways, that's
true and kind of saying the same thing that Paul
is saying here, right? It's like one way or another,
each one of us are going to serve somebody. And
there's only two options. We serve sin or serve
God. I want you to imagine something. Can you
imagine like having a new job and on the first
day of your new job, you leave work at lunch
and go to your old job and ask your old boss
what he wants you to do? In the same way, this
is like an example of the same thing that we
do sometimes as Christians. We return to our
flesh, our old man. We go back and we're like,
hey, what do you want me to do? We serve our
old self. But no, we're not supposed to even
consider it. It's supposed to be dead to us,
right? It's impossible for a new creation in
Jesus to be comfortable in habitual sin. We should
not just keep returning and sinning, you know,
and being this state of sin all the time. You
know, the state of sin should and can only be
temporary for the Christian. Spurgeon once said
that the grace that does not change my life will
not save my soul. We're supposed to be changed.
The changes may not come all at one time, and
the changes might come might not come to each
area of one's life at the same time, but they
will be there. The changes will be there. They
will be real and they will be increasing as time
goes on. Good illustration would be a caterpillar
to a butterfly. Like once the caterpillar becomes
a butterfly, It no longer crawls around on the
trees and the leaves and in the dirt like it
did when it's a caterpillar. It no longer returns
to that old state. It has become a butterfly.
It's now, its identity is flying, a creature
that flies. And as being a new creature in Christ,
we are supposed to be and live out that resurrected
life. Verse 17, thank God, once you were slaves
of sin, Verse 19. To help you understand all
this. Previously, You let yourselves be slaves
to impurity and lawlessness, which led even deeper
into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be
slaves to righteousness, living so that you will
become holy. When you were slaves to sin, you
were free from the obligation to do right. And
what was the result? You are now ashamed of the
things you used to do. things that end in eternal
doom. But now you are free from the power of
sin and have become slaves to God. Now you do
those things that lead to holiness and result
in eternal life. For the wages of sin is death,
but the free gift of God is eternal life through
Christ Jesus our Lord. For us to walk in victory
over sin, we must understand and recognize the
fruit of sin. The end product of sin is death,
not fun. I mean, sometimes we see sin for the
enjoyment or for the fun, but the end product
of sin is always death. But the end product of
righteousness. is everlasting life. So in conclusion
of chapter 6, as believers, we've had a change
of ownership. We've moved from being a slave
to sin into being a child of God who willingly
and joyfully serves Him. We resist sin because
sin is no longer our master. freedom. We have
freedom and we have new life in Christ because
he is Lord. Thank you for joining us for Life
Group. Allow God's word to build your faith and
transform your life.