Romans 6:1-14
When I was exploring the possibility of choosing to follow Jesus, one of my objections about Christian faith was the hypocrisy I saw in people who went to church. One of the Sunday School teachers in the church I attended while in high school left the US for Switzerland to escape the tax authorities. He left with one mistress and had a second mistress go to his apartment to get some things he had left behind in his rush to leave. He left his four sons who were in business with him to face the legal consequences of his actions and they were subsequently put on trial and found guilty of what he had initiated and led. He left behind his wife and a fifth son who was retarded and needed special care.
With religious hypocrites like this, why should I decide to be part of Christian faith?
This Sunday School teacher was a family friend, his ex-wife is still a family friend. It is clear to us that his association with the church had little to do with any relationship with Christ. So let’s say his is an extreme case.
But there are others who are not so easy to dismiss. There are those who have accepted God’s gift of salvation and still live a double life. I have a friend whose brother-in-law was a youth pastor and who was discovered to be addicted to internet pornography. Ministers are human, like all of us, and being human, they fail. The reasons vary, but from time to time ministers are exposed and their private sin is made public.
Christians get divorced. Christians commit fraud and are put in jail. Christians commit adultery. I have friends here in this country who struggle with internet pornography. There are some who struggle with anger. There are many ways in which we are caught up in sinful addictions. We may not outright lie but we tell a version of the truth to some people and a different version to others. In the interest of sharing concerns we gossip about people.
The truth is that Christians are sinful beings and we fail.
Ghandi supposedly once said he would be a Christian if it was not for Christians. The problem with this is that it is not just men like the Sunday School teacher who fled to Switzerland who are imperfect. The problem is that all Christians believe a truth they are not able to live.
The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 7
I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.
Not all Christians are hypocrites, but Christians who do not acknowledge their sinful nature and promote themselves as righteous, these are hypocrites who do much damage to the church. Christians are not perfect, just forgiven. Which leads us to Romans.
I began in January 2003 to preach from Romans. My intention is to preach from Romans each year from January up to the beginning of Lent. We did that with seven sermons in 2003 that took us to 3:8, six sermons in 2004 that took us to 5:4 and last year another six sermons that took us into chapter 6:1-14 where I promised in my last sermon on Romans we would return.
Paul wrote his letter to the church in Rome during his three month stay in Corinth, just before his departure for Jerusalem with the collection that had been gathered by the Gentile churches for the poor in Jerusalem.
As Paul contemplated his future, he felt led to take the Gospel to the Iberian Peninsula, what is today Spain. As he had used Antioch as a base for his church planting in what is today Greece and Turkey, so he needed a base for his church planting in Spain and decided that Rome would be the best location.
So Paul wrote this letter to the church there. The church in Rome had not met Paul but they had heard of him and what they had heard was not all positive. So Paul felt the need to explain his Gospel. He needed to set the record straight to defend himself and his Gospel from the accusations made against him. He wanted to establish a personal connection with the church in Rome so they would welcome him and support him.
This letter was one of great importance to him and so he put a lot into it. As a consequence, it stands as the greatest of his letters and the source of much of our theology.
Paul began by writing of the wrath of God. Before he could share the good news of Jesus, the bad news had to be presented. And the bad news is that all of us, every one of us, deserves the wrath of God. Depraved, non-religious society deserves the wrath of God. Critical moralizers who think they are basically good people, better than those around them deserve the wrath of God. Self-righteous, religious people who think because of their religion and behavior they are good deserve the wrath of God. And finally Paul summarizes by saying that if you thought you escaped one of the three previous categories, the whole human race is sick and deserves the wrath of God.
Then comes the stunning piece of good news in 3:21. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known. We all deserve the wrath of God but then God made known to us a way of escaping the consequences of his wrath. Paul goes on to detail what exactly this righteousness is and then in chapter 5 he begins to describe the benefits that come to the Christian who has been justified by faith alone.
Because we are justified by faith, we have peace with God; we stand in grace; we have hope of the glory of God; and we rejoice in our sufferings.
Paul has focused on justification, the first stage of salvation, what happens to us when we first submit and choose to follow Jesus. Although we are sinners, we are viewed by God as being righteous because we are viewed through the blood of Jesus shed for us that covers our sinfulness.
Now in chapter six, Paul begins to look at the second stage of salvation, sanctification. This is the process by which we are gradually transformed into being the righteous person God sees us to be when we are justified. The Holy Spirit works with us to help us become more righteous.
The last two sermons from Romans looked at the first part of this chapter and we will linger in this chapter for three more sermons.
I want to stay here in chapter six because I have been distressed to see how powerfully sin traps us. I have talked with people who struggle with internet pornography. I have talked with people who struggle with the expression of unbiblical anger. I have talked with people who are discouraged and have given in to their flesh in terms of what they eat, how they exercise, how they spend their free time. I have talked to people who are depressed and no longer have the ability to say no to any desire of their flesh. I have talked to people who are trapped in sinful patterns and see no escape.
I want over the next three sermons to try to offer some help in overcoming these addictions.
The key verse in Romans 6 is verse 2:
We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
I don’t have to look any further than myself to know that sin did not die. Sin is still a very real reality in my life. You don’t have to look further than the church to know that sin did not die.
Paul knew very well the struggle with sin as revealed in the verses from chapter seven that I quoted earlier.
I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing
So what does it mean that we died to sin?
When we were brought into the family of God, we were justified. We were made righteous in the eye of God. When God sees us, he sees not our sin but the righteousness of Jesus whose sacrifice on the cross covers us. When we accepted God’s gift of salvation, we died to sin. This truth is made clear in baptism by immersion when we are lowered under the water, dying to sin, and then raised out of the water into new life with Christ.
Sin no longer has the power over us that it once did, but sin does not die. John Wesley pointed out that sin remains but it does not reign. It is no longer only our efforts against the power of sin in our lives. Now the Holy Spirit is working with us to gradually transform us into righteous men and women.
In the first stage of salvation, justification, sin is pardoned. In the second stage of salvation, sanctification, sin is subdued.
In justification, God no longer sees our sin. In sanctification, we are in the process of reducing the power of sin in our lives.
It is important to note that we died, not sin. Sin still has great power but sin does not any longer need to be our master, our lord, our slave driver. We can be set free of the power of sin if we choose. And this is the key word, choice.
Because we have been set free from the power of sin over us, we can choose to turn away from sin. “I can’t help it,” and “If you can’t beat it, join it,” and “It’s stronger than me, I give up,” are not Christian responses to sin. Giving in to sin in our lives is not a Christian response to sin.
Richard Lovelace pointed out that sin exists in the form of the world, the flesh and the devil. Because humans have a sinful nature, the structures we create in the world will be flawed structures. Institutions will be set up so the rich and powerful benefit in ways that the poor and weak will not. Institutions will discriminate on the basis of race and family name and religion. Evil is found in the world.
Evil is also found in the flesh. The flesh is my own human nature. Given a choice between God and me, my flesh will always choose me. My flesh wants to find satisfaction in what does not and cannot satisfy. Food, drink and sex are wonderful gifts of God but the flesh distorts these gifts and they become my master.
Evil is found in the world, the flesh and the devil. The devil, as Peter wrote in his letter,
prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
If there is a struggle between me and the world, I will lose. If there is a struggle between me and my flesh, I will lose. If there is a struggle between me and the devil, I will lose.
But it is not me against the world, the flesh and the devil. It is Christ in me that gives me power over sin. John pointed this out in his letter.
I John 4:4
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome [evil spirits], because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
It is because of the work of the Holy Spirit in me that I have hope and am set free to make choices that cause me to turn away from sin and toward Jesus.
I am not powerless because God is at work in me, transforming me to become the righteous person he sees me to be through Jesus.
I am free to choose. I am always free to choose. God has set me free from the power of sin over me and I can choose. I can work to change the world. I can discipline my flesh and I can resist the devil.
If you are feeling powerless in your struggle against sin, you need to stop listening to the devil and begin listening to God. The devil will tell you to give up, to quit, that there is no hope for you. God always holds out choice and the possibility of change. You can change. You can defeat the addiction to sin that seems now to trap you so effectively. You may have struggled for years but I tell you that you have hope because Christ has broken the power of sin over you. As a follower of Jesus, you have died to sin and you can choose life.
In the next two weeks we will look at ways we can be encouraged to make good choices and cooperate with the Holy Spirit in our transformation process. But this morning I want to end with what is the most important key to our ability to resist sin and make good choices.
Thirty-six years ago when I was considering Christian faith, I struggled because I wasn’t sure there was really a God. I prayed that if there was a god, he would reveal himself to me.
At the time, I was stealing things from stores, mostly books, and I went into a store to steal a book I wanted and the most amazing thing happened. I stood there in the entrance to the store and I knew I could not steal a book because God was watching me. This was the first time in my life I had a clear sense of the existence of God. But I knew God was watching and so I turned around and left the store. It was another three or four weeks before I was willing to submit to God who had revealed himself to me, but the point is I knew he was watching me and could not take the books.
What is the sin to which you are addicted? What is it you do that you do not want to do? There are ways we can work to defeat the power of this sin over you and we will talk about some of these in the next two weeks, but I think the most important weapon in our arsenal to resist sin is an awareness of the presence of God with us.
I am convinced that when we sit down at the computer and begin looking at internet pornography, that we somehow have pushed Christ away and he is not present with us. It is like the cover of the bulletin this morning that has a picture of Christ blindfolded. We push away thoughts of Christ and then do what we want to do.
But Christ is not blindfolded. We are like my youngest daughter who when she was two or three years old was eating cookies she was not supposed to be eating. She was standing in the living room in the corner with one hand over her eyes and the other eating the cookie. She thought if she could not see us, we could not see her.
Christ cannot be blindfolded, it is our own eyes that we cover.
In chapter 44 of Isaiah, he talks about a carpenter who cuts down a tree.
Half of the wood he burns in the fire;
over it he prepares his meal,
he roasts his meat and eats his fill.
He also warms himself and says,
“Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”
17 From the rest he makes a god, his idol;
he bows down to it and worships.
He prays to it and says,
“Save me; you are my god.”
18 They know nothing, they understand nothing;
their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see,
and their minds closed so they cannot understand.
19 No one stops to think,
no one has the knowledge or understanding to say,
“Half of it I used for fuel;
I even baked bread over its coals,
I roasted meat and I ate.
Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?
Shall I bow down to a block of wood?”
20 He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him;
he cannot save himself, or say,
“Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”
We say, “How silly!” and we are glad we are not Hindus worshiping manmade statues. But in reality, we reduce Christ to a statue. Our devotional time with God becomes more and more routine and then less and less frequent. Our view of God becomes smaller and smaller until we have reduced Christ to the size that he can be put on a shelf with a blindfold over his eyes. And then we are able to satisfy the desires of our flesh.
In your battle against sin, the first and most important step you can take is to grow in your awareness of who Christ is.
Colossians 1
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
James wrote that if we come near to God he will come near to us.
Why is it that we always talk about needing to have a devotional time with God? Is this one of many religious rules that need to be obeyed?
I have struggled for a long time with having a devotional time. Reading the Bible in the morning for me was most often a search for some new truth, some new understanding. And after many years of being a Christian, it seemed there was not a lot new to understand. I would read the Bible and say, “Yes, I knew that,” or, “I’ve read this many times before.”
But something changed for me in the past four months. I get out of bed in the morning and go to my study and sit with my journal, prayer book and Bible. I read, pray and reflect and I do it not out of religious duty but out of desperation. I cling to this time with God because I have no other good choice.
The consequence is that my conception of who God is has grown and this has given me great strength in my Christian life.
Are you feeling hopeless because of your inability to resist sin in your life? Have you given in to despair? Are you depressed and see little chance that you will ever be able to resist your flesh and do what you know to be right.
It does not matter how often you have sinned. It does not matter how often you have tried and failed to resist the sin that attacks you and is your master. You can break free from the power of sin over you.
And the first place to start is to get out your Bible in the morning and read, pray, write in your journal, reflect. Be consistent, not out of duty but out of necessity. Be consistent and you will begin to see the greatness of God. The blindfold will come off your image of Christ and you will be confronted with the powerful loving presence of the living Jesus who longs to draw you close and like a mother hen with her chicks, pull you safely under her wing.
In your battle against sin, come to Jesus.
