Last Weeks Sermon

Before I begin this week I want to let all of you in on a little secret that I have. After I tell you, you may not think it that secret after all, but I have to open with something, and this is what I have chosen. So the secret is that I am terribly ambitious. Now, I know that is shocking, but it is true. I am also, what some might call, slightly manic. Often I get grandiose ideas, and want to quit everything and begin the new thing, only to have yet another new thing a week later. Let me give you an example. Some of you know I am an artist. Well whenever I paint, I think, “I should become a full time artist”, and then for about 2 days I paint and draw 4-5 masterpieces, make frames, talk to art galleries about hanging my stuff, and then I forget all about it. And it is not just art. A few weeks ago I joined a book club and we began talking politics, and I used to be a political science major (and I was good at it) so I wrote a position paper, and then decided maybe I should go into politics. And then I remembered that I had a sermon to write, so I stopped thinking I should be a political scientist, and thought, “I should write a book, because I love writing”. But I also like writing sermons, so maybe I should be a pastor. See very manic. The reason I am telling you all of this is I also want to be a comedian every Thursday at about 9pm. Why such a set time, because it is when Last Comic Standing is on, and I watch it. Very often I think, “I am funnier than them, I could be a comic”. I have decided my ideal job would be a stand-up, church-planter, ghost speech writer, who drives public policy by being in a think tank, paints on Saturdays, tutors in Math and Physics in my free time, and writes a book about it all, oh, and maybe someday is President. Why am I telling you all of this? Because I often open with a joke to appease the stand up comedian in me, but couldn’t think of one for the life of me this week.

That brings me to today’s sermon. This week we begin our new series on the book of Romans. We only have 9 weeks until the next series though, and as such will be walking through only a small part of the book. We are going to start in Chapter 6 and will end at Romans 8. “Why so little”, we may think, and the answer is simple enough- the book is dense. It is one of the most theologically packed books of the Bible. It is so packed in fact, John Piper- who some of you may know, he is a pastor in Minneapolis- spent 5 years going through this book alone. Well, Robert didn’t give the summer preaching team 5 years, he gave us 9 weeks, so some compromises had to be made, and as such, we will begin in Chapter 6. This doesn’t mean that the first 5 chapters aren’t important. They are. In fact the chapters we are going to look at don’t make sense without them. So before we jump into chapter 6, we are going to back peddle and summarize the preceding sections.

I spent hours paraphrasing Paul, and quoting certain sections of each chapter to show exactly what he said, and after all that work, I went back and read what I had written and found out it was crap. It wasn’t wrong, per se, it was just boring, and in some places terrible writing. And since I just confessed that I want to be a speech writer in my free time, I can’t afford bad writing. I was also hating my life as I was doing it. It was passionless and sophomoric- and since I have been complaining to some of you about another writer’s style, I felt the weight even more to communicate these first five chapters beautifully and effectively. Instead then, of simply quoting Paul and laying out a straight outline, I will be taking a different approach if you will allow me. What Paul does in the first five chapters of Romans is to lay out the Gospel. And that is what I am going to do. Paul explains grace, and I will do the same.

People are broken. That is where Paul starts, and so it is must be with us as well. They used to be not broken. When God first envisioned Man, he was made in His image and was in perfect communion with God. God created all things, and then set Adam down in the center of it. He gives man a garden, and then a wife so awesome that Adam sings a song (and I imagine does a cheesy dance as well). And everything seems great. And then something cosmic happens. Man chooses to disobey God, and everything changes. Man becomes separated from God, although still in somewhat of a communion with him, but the communion isn’t perfect as it was before. Soon we read of Cain and Able, and the first murder takes place. God, right before this happens, tries to warn Cain not to do it, telling him that sin crouches like a tiger. Cain doesn’t heed the warning, and commits fratricide anyway. Soon all of humanity is so wicked that God almost wipes them all out. But he finds one righteous man, Noah, and so spares him and his family. And you would think that that would solve the problem, but it doesn’t. Noah gets off his boat and gets drunk, and the whole thing starts again.

Noah’s family set off to repopulate the world, and ideally they would bring this knowledge of God with them. Whether they did or not, a few years later everyone is worshipping idols. Paul says that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and began worshiping creatures and carvings and everything else, besides God himself.

And because of this God gave them up to their passions. He released his hand of Grace, and when he did so, sin spread even faster. They knew God and saw him, but refused to worship, and as such they were given over to their debased minds. All manner of sin exploded. They were filled with unrighteousness and evil. And since the evidence of God as overwhelming, they were without excuse. They knew God, but refused to worship him. And so God washes his hands of them.

God wasn’t completely done however. Again he finds one man, a man called Abram, and calls him to himself. Abram converts, gets a new name, Abraham, and the Jewish people are born. God chooses to bless him, and the world through his offspring, even while sin is running rampant everywhere else. The Jews find them selves slaves soon after, and it appears like they will never get out. But again, God has a plan and raises up for himself a man called Moses who leads Israel to freedom. God creates a covenant with them, saying that if they would be his people, he would be their God, and he brings them to the Promised Land. This is not to say the Jew’s were any better than anyone else. God repeatedly has to call them back to himself, and as the rest of the world’s people, Israel constantly refuses to worship God.

There is a difference though. As God made a covenant with them, he also gives them something called the Law. This was the first 5 books of the Old Testament, and it was the rules that Israel was to live by. When other tribes sinned, it was their conscience that condemned them. We all know that certain actions, like cold blooded murder, are wrong. This testifies to our knowledge of God. Israel had Gods law though, and so it was the Law, and not their conscience that bore witness to their sin. It says in the Law that murder is wrong, and so it becomes another conscience, if you will.

So no one is free from blame. We have all sinned, and stand condemned either by our conscience or by the Law. Why even give the law then? What value is it to have the Old Testament if all it does is condemn us, especially if we stand condemned already? The answer is that the Law didn’t only condemn. It also contains a promise. Before we get to that, let me digress for a minute. The Jews, having received the Law felt they were special, privileged. They understood the Law to be Gods word, as well as his standards for living, and so prided themselves on keeping it. They thought was that one could be righteous is one kept the Law perfectly. And so the Jews set out to make themselves righteous before God. But as I already said, the Law condemned them, for no one could maintain perfect adherence to it, and so they too were as sinful as the Pagans who didn’t have it. So what advantage is it to have the Law? That is where this promise comes in.

The promise was that God would save his people. That a Savior would come and establish God’s kingdom, that at some time in the future, we would be free from unrighteousness, that somehow we would be saved from sin and death. That is the value in the Law. Paul says it like this

Romans 3:21-23

“21But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”

This is the benefit of the Law. They knew this was coming. They were entrusted with the Scriptures. They were the light to the Nations.

When God chose Abraham, there was no Law, but he was counted as righteous anyway. How then was this possible? It was because he had faith. And God rewarded this faith with a child, and eventually with a nation. We read in the Old Testament that Abraham’s faith was counted to him as righteousness. His righteousness wasn’t in keeping the Law, but rather in his faith, and faith alone. This was the reason for the Law, it was to bring us to faith, not only proscribe how we can make ourselves righteous. The lesson is that righteousness came by faith.

And remember what the Law testifies to- it testifies to the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ. The benefit to having the Law is that we can see Jesus more clearly. And Paul writes all of this in 4 chapters to bring us to the end of chapter 5. Here we hearken back to Adam. He sinned, and so cursed us all. Death rained from Adam to Moses, Paul says. Even the man who gives us the Law and revealed God’s plan to us died. We all died because Adam died and cursed us with death when he sinned.

But Paul goes on; the gift of God is different. Just as all died through Adam, all can be made righteous through Jesus. Just as condemnation came through one man, so does justification. Just as we were separated from God through Adam, so are we reunited through Christ. Just as the trespass of one man lead to death, so does the obedience of one man lead to life.

Paul tells us at the end of Romans 5 that the law came to increase the trespass, but where sin abounded grace abounded even more. He says just as sin reigned in death, grace might also reign on righteousness leading to eternal life.

What Paul is proclaiming in these chapters is the Gospel. If you will allow me, I would like to paraphrase my paraphrase. Human are sinful and broken. We do wrong all the time, and so stand accused and condemned before God. However God promised to save us. Eventually he sends his Son, Jesus, to do what we could not, namely live a sinless life. By faith in Christ we are given the gift of righteousness. This gift was by grace. It was undeserved. It is also greatest in the ones who deserve it least. This is the definition of grace. If we could earn it would not be grace but our due wages. We couldn’t earn it though, and so God did for us what we could not do for ourselves. By faith we were given righteousness and life.

And so, with all of this in mind, we turn to Romans 6. Before we get there, though, let us return briefly to a statement that both Paul and I made. Quoting Paul I said that where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. How can this be true? Well the more one sins before one is a Christian, the more they are forgiven, and so the more Grace there is. As someone who sinned a lot, I can attest to this. Many of you have heard my story before. I was a drug addict alcoholic who slept around, swore like a sailor, lusted after money and power and fame and women and booze and darkness. Yet here I am preaching. When God washed me clean of all my iniquities he poured out more grace than I can fathom. Where sin abounded grace even more abounded. I am not saying grace would not have abounded had I not lived that life, certainly it would have, but it had to increase in measure to what my sin had been.

Paul realizes this when he makes the statement about grace abounding, but also realizes that there may be a problem too. If I had a double measure of grace by sinning a lot, why should we not sin? And this is where our sermon begins. We read in Romans 6:1

1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

And what is Paul’s answer?

2By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

By no means! Paul is clear here that we are not to continue sinning so that Grace may abound. And his reason is as emphatic as his answer. You have been baptized into Jesus. He is reminding us of our identity. How can we want to sin more, don’t we remember who we are? We died with Christ. How can we go back to that life? It makes no sense.

The reason God gives for not sinning is our Identity. It is not who we are anymore. We are reminded of our baptism. I brought some pictures of the last baptisms a few months ago.

What you see in these shots is a person being held under water. They are not diving in. They are being drowned. They are dying to the old life that held them so tight. How can they go back to that life? How many of you have seen a dead body? As you looked at it, did you ever think, “I wonder what time they will be at work in the morning?” No. And why? Because they are dead. They no longer function in the same way me and you do. This is the image that Paul tells us we are to have to sin. We are dead to it. We will not wake up tomorrow and go to work. We are dead. Sin no longer reigns in us. How then should we go on sinning so that Grace may increase? It is not who we are. Our identity is in Christ and his baptism, not in sin and its life.

Those images of baptism are very important. It is a death. Now for the ancient man this would have been a much more, dare I say real experience. By being baptized in 60 AD one was really dying to the world. What I mean by that is very often before the person was dunked they had family and friends and business associates. They functioned in society like any other member. And then they were held underwater and died. When they arose from the water everything had changed. They were now Christian, and as such were forsaken by their family, abandoned by their friends, and ostracized by society. And more than this there was a real chance they would be rounded up and murdered by the state as entertainment for the very people who just hours before they were part of. When they emerged from baptism, their world was completely different. They truly died to the old ways, and were like babes.

And although it often doesn’t feel that way for us in post-modern America, the truth is the same. We have died to sin, the world, and all its desires. We are now citizens of this new kingdom- the kingdom of God- how are we to return to a country that isn’t ours anymore.

But Paul doesn’t stop there. He continues. Although we were baptized into Christ’s death, we were also raised to a new life. We were brought up from death to a new calling; a newness of Life, Paul calls it. Why should we not continue sinning? We have been given a new life that is so much more. The old life lead to death and destruction and despair. Why would we go back to that when God has prepared for us a better way? Paul continues in this vein. We read in Romans 6:5

5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

When we faithed in Christ, something happened. We were united with him in his death. This baptism that Paul had talked about is more than just a symbol. It is more than a way to abandon family and friends. It is a physical symbol of something that happened on a much deeper plain. When we faithed in Christ we were united with him in his death. When we faithed in him our old self was crucified with Christ. When we were held under water we were communicating what had already happened. We died. In as real a sense as we can imagine, we died. But we didn’t die just to die. We died so that we could live. Being united with him in his death, we shall certainly be united with him in his resurrection.

The reason to not sin is not simply because we died, but again, because we have new life. Paul is not telling us a negative command, “Don’t do it.” He is giving us a positive, “Live this new life.” The reason we die with Christ is not so that there are corpses walking around, but so a new life might be born. When we crucified our old self our old life of sin was brought to nothing, and this was so we would no longer be slaves to sin.

Paul continues this thought. A dead man has been set free from sin, he says. Regardless of the spiritual, this is true, is it not? How many dead people do you see robbing banks, killing people, lying? None, I would imagine. And if you ever do see this- run, ‘cause something ain’t right. Run and chop of its head. That’s what I’ve learned from movies- chop of its head. That’s right, I made a zombie joke, and I’m not going to apologize for it. But seriously, the dead can’t sin, they don’t sin, they are dead. This is us. This is who we are. In some real sense we are walking corpses, and as such we have been set free from sin.

Paul writes if we died with him, we will also live with him. Again, Paul is inserting a positive where it seems only a negative exists. Although is some ways we are walking corpses, in another we are truly alive. We have been raised from death to life, and can now live free. The death Christ died he died to sin, and we die to it as well. We unite ourselves with Christ in his death, and so we too have died to sin. But yet again this isn’t the end of the story. Yes we have died with Christ to sin, but Christ lives to God, and so, we, in uniting with him in his death and new life, are also united to this living to God. Paul finishes this paragraph telling us that we must consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. This is why we don’t sin anymore. This is why we were baptized.

The reason we are to not sin is that we are living for something different, our hope is in something different, our Identity is in something different. Before we died to sin, we were its slave. We lived for it, we obeyed it, we hoped in it. I know that this sounds strange, but I ask, “Isn’t it true?” Why do people steal? Because their hope is in money. Why do we commit adultery? Because our hope is in other people, relationships? Why do we drink? Because our hope is in the world. I know that is why I did what I did. But Paul is telling us that we are dead to this all. That hope is not ours. That identity is not who we are anymore. That slavery is not for us. We have been freed through death. We have been given new life through crucifixion. We have been given new hope through Christ.

And more than this, we have been given new life. We are no longer citizens of the world, we are citizens of God’s kingdom. We have a new hope and a new life, apart from sin. When we united with Christ we united with him in both his death and resurrection. How can we who died and were given this new life still live in sin? We can’t. We are therefore to remain walking corpses, and yet at the same time be more full of life than anyone else in the world. We are not to live for sin anymore, but for God.

I realize we have been in the Theoretical for most of this sermon, and I want to bring us down to Earth using an example from my own life. As I already said, most of you know my story. And if you didn’t before, you just heard the extremely short version a few minutes ago. Basically, what it comes down to is that I was an active alcoholic. I pursued the bottle and all the side effects of it. And then God, in his grace, rescued me. And it makes for a great story. I love telling it. My life is so different today that it is like night and day, black and white, darkness and light. I used to be a slave to alcohol and sin. And then I died to it. I was given a new life. How many of us would say that I should start drinking heavily again, so that I could stop, thus displaying God’s grace even more? I hope none of us would think that. Nor should I encourage others to walk down the road I travelled either. Sure, when God rescued them it would display even more of his grace, but if I start giving that sort of advice I hope you would not stop short of burning me at the stake as a heretic, in the very least. The very idea seems ridiculous to us, does it not? Go become a drug addict so God can rescue you. Imagine I prescribed a 30pack and a few shots for two years, so people can really get grace. No. You have died to sin, you are a new creation. Live like it.

I hope all of you think that I should stay sober and live like a Christian ought. I also believe most of us would not recommend to others to go become terribly sinful so that “grace may abound”. But Paul writes these words, and I have been preaching on them, so it seems that maybe some of us do say such things- or at the very least, maybe they were back then. At this point it would be a good place to talk about the Gnostics and their belief that you could sin with your body because only spirit mattered, but I am not going to do that, mainly because, although there is a new sort of Gnosticism today, it doesn’t seem that prevalent here, now.

What I am going to do is ask a question. How many of us have sinned today already? How many of us have known character flaws but refuse to fix them? How many of us, in trying to justify our sin have said that we are not fully sanctified yet? Or that we are working on it? Or that we are not perfect? Or that others don’t know our specific circumstances? Or I will stop when they do? Or its not that simple? Or God will forgive me? Or I’ll work on it next time? How many of us have had conversations where people have told us honestly and lovingly where we are living in sin, and we have said if God wants me to change, he is going to have to do it? How many of us have had conversations with ourselves before we sin justifying our actions? Or relying on God’s forgiveness after the fact? Or prayed for forgiveness knowing we will do it again? Okay, so I had more than one question.

If we relate to even on of these questions, are we not just rephrasing what Paul has said, or at the very least, begin walking down that path. What should we say then? Should we continue to sin so that grace may abound? BY NO MEANS. You are dead to it. How can you even entertain the thought of going back. You have been raised from death to life. Let the life you live now no longer be lived for sin, but rather for God.

Paul doesn’t say just don’t sin, and nor will I. He says, in light of the cross, how can you even think about it. Don’t you know that you have died to it. You are no longer its slave. Claim the life, therefore, that God has for you, and live to Him.

After all this theology, Paul wraps up this section as follows:

12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

How do we live this new life? Let not sin reign in your mortal body, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. Don’t present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. This image is of one at an altar presenting gifts and offerings. And Paul is saying don’t do it. Just don’t. You have a choice. Don’t you know you died to sin? You were united with Christ in his death, and now are being united with him in his life. You are no longer a slave to sin, so stop obeying it, stop offering sacrifice to it, stop letting it control you. Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies. Don’t obey its passions.

Let me ask another question. When was the last time you read of a corpse being arrested for not obeying a states laws? Never. And Why? Because it has died, and the state does not reign over it anymore. So shall it be with us and sin. We are dead to it. We no linger need to obey its lusts and commands. Sin has no dominion over us, for we are under grace. Let us instead then present ourselves before God as people who have been brought from death to life.

We are not part of the old kingdom, the world, the darkness. We are instead children of light, citizens of a heavenly kingdom, a people of God. We no longer need to obey the ruler of this world. We no longer need to worship the darkness. Instead we can live as one who has been freed from the bondage and slavery to sin. We can offer our bodies to God, we can present our members as instruments of righteousness.

Sin has no dominion over us. Where before we were slaves, and could only do as sin directed, today we can be free. Why would we ever choose to sin again? So that grace may abound? Sin has no dominion over us. Let us then live to God. If we truly have been united with him in his death, let us also unite with him in his resurrection and life.

If that list of questions seems familiar to us, we need to ask why? Why do we continue to offer our bodies as instruments of unrighteousness? We no longer need to obey our flesh and its sinful desires. We have been freed with Christ. We died to sin already, why would we go back and offer ourselves as instruments of unrighteousness? How can the dead go back to the land of the living and reside with the others? How can we, being given a new life, return to the former? How can we turn our back on the citizenship offered us out of grace, and bow to the alter of our old ruler? How can we choose sin again?

Don’t you know you have been freed? You no longer need to offer at that twisted alter of sin. The gods of lust and anger, of malice and despair have no power over you anymore. You have been given a new life. God, in his infinite grace has given you his life. You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God.

So I ask again, what is keeping us from living to God? Why do we continue to live in sin and darkness? What lies are we believing? Who’s alter are we sacrificing on? Why are we, the dead, still trying to live in a world not for us? What parts of our life have we not presented to God? Why are we continuing to live in sin? How are we justifying it?

Don’t you know you died? When you were held under water by another, it was a symbol of what happened to you in the spiritual realms. When you were raised out again you were given a new life. How can we return to before? You are dead to all of that. This world and its powers have no dominion over you. Unite yourselves therefore in Christ’s life, just as you have united yourself with his death. This is not a negative sermon, but a positive. I am not telling us to only stop sinning, but reminding us that there is a life for us that is free from all of it, if we would only claim it. We are not called to only be crucified and die, but rather to be raised from death to new life, and live.

This then is the sermon. Should we sin so that grace may abound? By no means. Don’t you know that when you were baptized into Christ Jesus you were baptized in to his death? You are therefore no longer slaves to sin, for sin has no dominion over you. But not only were you baptized into his death, but also, and much more so, into his life. Live therefore, not for sin, but for God. Live this life that He has for you.

And this life is by grace. It is a free gift of God. He is offering it to you right now, you only need accept it. This life is more than we could possibly dream of. It is freedom. We are called to a new life, a new kingdom, a new existence. We need not earn it, it has already been earned for us by Jesus, we merely need to ask for it. To be united to Christ in this life, we simply have to ask him for it.

If you are here today and you are living as a slave to sin, I tell you there is freedom. Unite yourself to Christ and he will give you new life. You no longer need to be a slave to lusts and passions, darkness and despair, addictions and sin. There is freedom. If you are united with Christ in his death, then surely you will be united with him in his resurrection.

If you are here and see no way out, I tell you there is a light. Follow Christ to his cross, and offer your self to him there. Be raised form death to life in the same way that Christ before us was.

You no longer need to be a slave to sin. It can have no dominion over you anymore. You no longer need be controlled. You no longer need to sacrifice on the alter of sin. You can offer yourself to God, worship him, and be free.

In a minute we are going to have communion. If you are a follower of Christ, or would like to be, I invite you to this table. If you don’t know how to unite yourself to Christ’s death, here is the place to start. It was given by Jesus on the night he was betrayed, and for millennia has been he way Christians remember the death of Jesus. But also know that he rose again. The story doesn’t end here, but rather begins. When we come to the table we remember, not only that we have been united with him in his death, but also that we have been united with him in his life. Before you come here, I challenge you to examine yourself. What of your members have you offered to other alters? In which ways have you let sin once again have dominion over you? Where have you not fully died? Where have you not truly lived? Offer these to God. As you unite yourself once again to Christ’s death, even more so unite yourself to him life. As you come to this alter, present yourself to God as one who was raised from death to life, and offer your bodies as instruments of righteousness.

On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread and broke it, and said:

This is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way he took the cup and said:

This cup is the new covenant of my blood. Do this every time you drink of it in remembrance of me.

The band is going to come up and lead us in a time of worship. I encourage you to us this time to search yourself and commune with God. I am going to pray and then if you are a Christian you can come up whenever you are ready and take the bread and cup. If you aren’t, please feel free to use this time to pray, seek God, and think about what you have heard today.

Let us pray.