First Baptist Church of Crawfordville Florida - Pastor David Fell - Sermons Teaching Preaching Inspiration Help and Hope

To win over sin, give yourself as a slave to righteousness in view of your spiritual past, present,and future

To win over sin, give yourself as a slave to righteousness
Slavery is an imperfect, yet useful analogy
"Present" means to give oneself as a servant or slave
When tempted to ask yourself, "Whose slave do I want to be?"
Will you serve sin that leads to destruction and death or serve God that leads to righteousness and life?
Keep in mind that Paul is describing a process, not a once for all decision
There is no spiritual experience that will transport you beyond sin and temptation
Sanctification is a lifelong process that requires a daily battle against sin and temptation
To win over sin, remember your shameful spiritual past as a slave of sin
Unbelievers sin because they want to sin
To be delivered from sin, God has to give you a new nature through the new birth
Giving yourself to impurity and lawlessness doesn't satisfy your needs
What did you gain from having sin as your master?
Let the memory of former sins humble you so that you deal graciously with fellow sinners
To win over sin, keep in mind your blessed spiritual present as a slave of God
Your present spiritual condition is due to a great change that God has made in your life
Your present spiritual condition rests on your new position in Christ
Your present spiritual condition includes the many wonderful benefits of satisfaction
To win over sin, look forward to your glorious spiritual future: eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord
God's free gift comes to us "in Christ Jesus our Lord"

Let's open our Bibles to Romans 6:15-18.

Either you are a slave of sin, resulting in death, or you are a slave of obedience, resulting in righteousness

1. If you think that being under grace means that you are free to sin, you do not understand God's grace

a. Legalists - they put people back under the law by emphasizing rules for what they consider to be holy living

b. Licentiousness - if we are under grace then sin doesn't matter

c. Both are two sides of the same coin whose operating principle is the flesh

d. The result of God's grace is to make us slaves of righteousness, not lawlessness

2. The only options are: You give yourself to be a slave of sin, resulting in death; or you give yourself to be a slave of obedience, resulting in righteousness

a. The master you obey shows whose slave you are

b. Obedience is not the means to salvation, but rather the result of it

c. Everybody serves somebody or something

3. The only way that you can change from being a slave of sin to being a slave of righteousness is for God to free you from sin by changing your heart

a. Salvation is neither a human project nor a joint human-divine project; rather, salvation is of the Lord

i. Slaves of sin are not able to free themselves by their own efforts

b. The way God changes us is by bringing our mind, heart, and will into submission to His word

i. The evidence of this change of mind and heart is that our wills gladly obey the truth

c. The teaching is not committed to the Christians, but rather the Christians are committed to the teaching

i. Being a Christian means being put under the authority of God's Word

d. When God saves you, He frees you from sin and makes you a slave of righteousness

i. We no longer live under sin as our master

Let's open our Bibles to Romans 6:12-14

Don't let sin reign by following your lusts, but give yourself to God to live righteously under His grace

1. To apply these commands, you must understand and apply the truths of Romans 1-6:11

a. We all have sinned

b. God sent His Son to bear the penalty that we deserved

c. God graciously justifies the ungodly person who believes in Jesus as their sin bearer

d. We are now united with Christ in his death and resurrection

e. We are to consider ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ

2. Sin is a tyrant that will reign over us if we allow it to do so (6:12-13a)

a. Sin still has a strong appeal, even to those who are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus

b. Sin's Goal is not to assist you with your program for happiness and success

c. Sin seeks to dominate us through our bodies

d. For sin to reign, you must allow it to reign by giving your body to it as a weapon for unrighteousness

3. In Christ, exercise your will to say no to sin and yes to God (6:13b)

a. We have an active responsibility to stop the reign of sin

b. Victory over sin begins by personally giving yourself to God

c. Victory over sin is only possible for those who are spiritually alive from the dead

4. God promises victory over sin to those who are not under the law but under grace (6:14)

a. There is no such thing as a Christian who consistently lives under the lordship of sin

b. The law commands, but it contains no power to obey

c. Grace frees us from condemnation, motivates us by God's undeserved love, and empowers us by His Spirit

Rom 1:21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him

Psa 69:30 I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving.

Heb 13:15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name

How can I as a sinful person have peace with a righteous God?

Jesus came and suffered and died and rose again from the dead to pay the price for our sins

How can I know that beyond the grave there will be life and joy and not a fearful prospect of judgment?

Hell - where the worm never dies, and the fire never goes out

Jesus spoke twice as much about hell as he did about heaven

Jesus is the only way to heaven

How can I have the deepest longings of my heart satisfied?

The appetites of our hearts were made for God and they will not be satisfied until we feast on fellowship with God

How can I know God personally?

The God who created the universe is unspeakably great

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us

God in the person of his Son has become flesh (human)

Jesus told Phillip, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father"

Jesus is God reaching out to us

Is there a power to love?

Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me

The disciples went from being a bunch of wimps in the Garden to some of the boldest people on earth and turned the world upside down

You can find more information about John and Mollie's ministry here: http://wellsministry.com/.

Let's open our Bibles to Romans 6:11.

The work of God in Christ is foundational to everything else about Christianity

A Bookkeeping Term - Logizomai - count, reckon, or credit

Bookkeeping term from which we get log, logistics, and logarithm

Philosophy - objective, non-emotional reasoning from which we get logic and logical

Logizomai has to do with reality, with things as they really are

Our sin is reckoned to Jesus and His righteousness is reckoned to us

The First Reality: Dead to Sin

"Dead to sin" means that we are dead to our old way of life in Adam, and we cannot go back to it

The believer is not just a remodeled sinner, but a remade saint

Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Six things "dead to sin" does not mean

It does not mean that it is my duty as a Christian to die to sin

It is not a command for me to die to sin

It does not mean that I am to reckon that sin as a force in me is dead

It does not mean that sin in me has been eradicated

It does not mean that I am dead to sin, as long as I am in the process of gaining mastery over it

It does not mean that reckoning myself dead to sin makes me dead to sin

The Second Reality: Alive to God

We have been reconciled to God

We have become new creatures in Christ (2 Cor 5:17)

We are free from sin's bondage

We're pressing forward to a sure destiny and new goals

We can no longer be satisfied with this world and its offerings

"A Man Like Me"

Nehemiah: "I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?" (Neh. 6:3)

"Should a man like me run away? Or should one like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!" (Neh. 6:11)

Let's open our Bibles to Romans 6:5-10.

Living in light of our union with Christ is the key to overcoming sin

To overcome sin, know that you are totally identified with Christ in the likeness of His death (6:5a, 6-7)

Paul is talking about the knowledge of what God has revealed, not the knowledge that we gain by personal experience

We are completely united with Christ in the likeness of his death

The word "united" means, literally, to be grown together with, or grafted into Christ

"Likeness" - Our union with Christ is very close, as "united" implies, but it is not exact

This union with Christ means that our unregenerate life is over so that now, we do not need to obey our old nature

In the context here "the old self" represents what we were in Adam

Thomas Schreiner: The old person has been crucified with Christ and the new person is a reality, and yet the old person still must be resisted, and its desire thwarted

Paul uses the expression, "body of sin," because the body is the means by which sin is concretely accomplished

In Christ, sin's power over us has been broken

To overcome sin, know that you are totally identified with Christ in the likeness of His resurrection (6:5b, 8-10)

To overcome sin, know and believe that in the future you will share fully in Christ's resurrection victory over sin

Our union with Christ by his Spirit guarantees our future resurrection

Paul may be protecting himself from a heresy that was afoot in his day

2 Tim 2:17-18 Hymenaeus and Philetus said that the resurrection had already taken place

Believing that our future is gloriously secure and happy in Christ is one way that we experience the power of Christ now to free us from sin

To overcome sin, know that Christ's resurrection represents his complete and final victory over sin and death

We believe that we will live with Christ because we know that He is now beyond the reach of death

The promise that we will one day share completely in this victory gives us the desire and power to overcome sin right now

Let's open our Bibles to Romans 6:1-4. Our union with Christ in His death and resurrection is the foundation for separation from sin and walking in newness of life There is a logical implication to reject: Since God’s response to increased sin is abundant grace, then we should sin more to get more grace (6:1-2a) Verse 1 is a test of whether you have correctly understood Paul’s message up to this point Since God justifies not those who are good people, but rather the ungodly, why work at being good? If we teach grace properly, people will at least think what Paul here anticipates. There is a spiritual fact to know and believe: In Christ we died to sin, so we cannot still live in it (6:2b) This is a rhetorical question leading to the conclusion that dead men can’t live in sin Paul does not mean that believers cannot sin or that they are immune to temptation If you are in Christ, when He died on the cross, you died with Him When we died with Christ, we were separated from the reign of death and put under Christ’s reign of righteousness Paul implies that we cannot continue in sin or live in it There is a spiritual analogy to help you understand: Your baptism pictures your union with Christ in His death To be baptized into Christ’s death means to be totally identified with Christ in His death Burial is mentioned because it confirms that death has occurred There is a spiritual fact to believe and act upon: Since we are united with Christ in His glorious resurrection, we should walk in newness of life The action on our part as a result of our spiritual resurrection with Christ is that we should walk in newness of life The description of this newness of life as “a walk” implies a long, steady, gradual process 3 Takeaways: Do not presume on God’s grace as permission to sin Make a distinct break with your past life and declare it publicly in baptism Meditate often on your union with Christ and what it means

Let's open our Bibles to Romans 5:21-22

Through the Law, sin reigned in death, but through Christ super-abundant grace reigns in righteousness to eternal life

Outside of Christ, the Law causes sin to increase and to reign in death

The law does not restrain sin at the heart level

The law cannot bring my sinful heart into willing submission

The law actually increases sin

The law increases sin by turning our imputed sin in Adam into actual sins of deliberate disobedience

The law increases sin by imputing our guilt to our account

The law increases sin by exposing the utter sinfulness of sin and removing all excuses for disobedience

The law increases sin by stimulating our sinful flesh to disobey it

The law is necessary to expose our self-righteousness and to convict us of our sin

The increased sin reigns in death

Sin reigns as an evil tyrant in those who are not under Christ's lordship

Sin does not lead to a better, happier life, but to temporal, and ultimately, eternal death

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, super-abundant grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life

God's response to increased sin is super-abundant grace

Donald Gray Barnhouse: Where sin reached a highwater mark, grace completely flooded the world

God's grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life

God's grace takes us beyond where Adam was before the fall

He did not possess eternal life before the fall, but we do

He did not have permanent, perfect righteousness credited to his account, but we do

God's grace is mediated through our Lord Jesus Christ

All blessings come to us as believers through Jesus Christ our Lord

Let's open our Bibles to Romans 5:12-19

If you're in Adam, you are under the reign of death, but if you're in Christ, you will reign in life, because Christ's gift is greater than Adam's sin

If you are in Adam, you are under the reign of death (5:12-14)

Sin and death entered the world through Adam and "in Adam," we all sinned

God appointed Adam as the representative head of the human race

The proof that Adam's sin affected the entire human race is that death is universal

All of Adam's descendants are implicated in his sin and die

All of Christ's descendants are counted as righteous, not because of their individual deeds of righteousness, but because of Christ's righteousness

If you are in Christ, you will reign in life because Christ's gift is greater than Adam's sin (5:15-17)

The work of Christ is greater than Adam's sin because it displays and dispenses the abundance of God's grace

"Many" is not viewing the affected groups numerically, but qualitatively

"Much more" refers to the superlative nature of salvation over judgment

The work of Christ is greater than Adam's sin because it overcame many sins to freely bestow justification

Christ's work is greater than Adam's sin because it overcame the great devastation that resulted from Adam's sin

The work of Christ is greater than Adam's sin because rather than bringing the reign of death, it causes those who receive it to reign in life

God doesn't just forgive your sins, He also bestows the positive righteousness of Christ to you

To sum up: Through Adam's sin all were condemned as sinners, but through Christ's righteousness all in Him are justified (5:18-19)

Since the universal problem of the human race is sin, the universal solution is the gospel

If the universal problem is guilt by identification with Adam's sin, then salvation cannot be through adding our good works

If we are in Christ, our salvation is secure not because of anything in us, but because we are in Him