This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at gracetruth.org and anchoringfaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. What shall we say then? Are we
to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who die to sin still
live in it? Do you not know that all of us
who have been baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His
death? We 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. For
if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we will
certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. We
know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body
of sin might be brought to nothing. so that we no longer be enslaved
to sin. For one who has died has been
set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ,
we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ
being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer
has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died
to sin. Once for all, but the life he
lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves
dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let's look at
this for a moment. Several things we went through
the first four verses this past week and when we think about
what Paul is doing, just a way of reminder, he has given the
gospel of grace and it is in such a place to where no man
is justified by works of the law that it commonly expresses
itself with this question, then why do we have to obey it all?
Why should we even worry about what we do in this life? Are
we able to just sin that grace may just be active in our lives? Paul, of course, answered that
that is an absolute impossibility, that it is an absurdity. It is
absurd for a Christian. to say, yeah, I just think I'll
just keep on sinning so that grace can abound. It is absurd
for a Christian to say, oh, that sin is covered by Christ. Let's
just go ahead and do it. It's an absurdity. It's an impossibility. It's something that he says it
cannot be. So as we get here, verse four, we dealt with a little
bit last week, but I want you to look at verse four. He says,
We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into His death.
Now, I brought that out a little bit last week, but I want to
focus on one specific word there tonight. And that word is buried. We have been buried therefore
with Him. Now we know that the baptism
that we are talking about, or that Paul is talking about, is
the baptism of death. Being immersed, or being submerged,
or being in, or being under the burial of Jesus. With Him, as
He is dead, we also then in our flesh have died. That's the argument
that Paul is bringing here. This being buried is the finality
of our flesh. This being buried is the finality
of anything that dies. We do not stuff it. We do not
try to keep it from rotting. When something dies, we bury
it. Therefore, it is now gone and
finished. So here in that, he says, we're
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. Now, we didn't
spend a whole lot of time learning what the newness of life actually
is. And quite honestly, that is a
lifetime engagement. That is a lifetime journey to
continue to look at the scripture, not so that we might say, how
do I walk in newness? What does newness look like?
So that I might put it on. But that as we continue to grow
in our understanding of the grace of God, as we continue to see
the instruction and the commands of God through the apostles,
we are therefore enabled and equipped and taught by Christ,
who is our wisdom, how we should live, how we should speak, how
we should think, and therefore we can. But we want to be reminded
these things are never perfect. They are never righteous in the
sense that they grow us in our righteousness. We are imputed
the righteousness of Christ. It is not our own. Verse 5 then,
we'll start. I want to have maybe one, two,
let's see, three, four points tonight. Point number one in
this reading through Romans 6 is straight from verse 5 and it
says this, We've been united with Him in a death like His,
we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like
His. In verse 6 he says, We know That
our old self was crucified with Him. You see the point? We've
been buried with Christ. We were raised with Christ. Our
old self was crucified. We have been united with Him
in death. We've been buried with Him in death. Our old self was
crucified with Him in death. And then now this new self is
what? walking in newness of life. This
new self is united in a resurrection. This new self is what? This body
of sin might be brought to nothing so that we're no longer slaves
to sin. So let's look at these things. The first point I want
to make in this text is we are dead as Christ has died. We are dead as Christ has died.
Therefore, we will be like Him in our resurrection to life.
I want you to think about that for a second. So in all three
of those examples that Paul gives us, we are dead in Christ. And
therefore, because we are dead in Christ, Christ is no longer
dead as he closes out verse 11. And verse 10, He's no longer
dead, so therefore we then are also no longer dead. But what
is it that lives? Christ died to sin. He died because
sin is the point in which He came to die that He might satisfy
the judgment of God against sin. Then also being raised to life
that He might overcome death and sin. So walking in newness
of life, as we'll focus on in the next few minutes, is walking
first by faith in the promises of glory. So walking in the newness
of life in Christ is to walk by faith in the promise of glory.
God has promised us glory. He's promised us, Paul will say
in 8, 28 through 30, he will say that we are glorified already
in Christ. It's not a reality, but we are
indeed, and so far as God's promises are yea and amen, we are glorified
in Christ Jesus. So walking in newness of life
is walking by faith in the future promise of glory. It is not,
listen, It is not to look at our lives and say, wow, how glorious
are we? But it is to say, looking at
the life of Christ and say, wow, how glorious is he? But by saying
that though, this is why chapter six exists. It's not to say that
we don't look at ourselves. It's not to say that we don't
measure ourselves. It's not to say that we don't
ask ourselves is what I'm about to say, think, do, or feel going
to honor Christ. As a matter of fact, the command
is to do all things for the glory of Christ. The command is that
we, in our obedience to these teachings of the New Testament,
are to give glory and honor to Christ. It's an act of worship,
as Paul would say in Romans chapter 12. But in no way does it measure
our justification. It's an important distinction.
So we walk in this life by walking in faith in the future promise
of glory. Glory is that state in which Christ now stands. It's
the state in which he stands not only in his divinity, which
he's had for all of eternity, but it's the state in which Christ
now stands perfectly. Listen, perfectly. in His humanity. So Christ is glorified in His
humanity, so shall we be glorified in our humanity, just as Christ
is glorified. So when we walk in newness of
life, we walk by faith in that promise. The second thing that
I feel, and this is not exhaustive, this is just what I can peel
from these few verses. The second thing that I feel
that this text is teaching us about walking in the newness
of life, is that we walk in the newness of life in the hope of
glory and the promise of glory by faith, but we also walk in
the reality of that by faith and the hope of one day we shall
be perfect. One day we shall be perfect, that's Christ is
perfect. The command that God has on all human beings, be holy
for I'm holy, one day will be realized fully in our flesh when
we are resurrected and given our new bodies. We will be people,
we will have flesh, our bodies will work, they will never die,
we will never be sick, we will never We will never sin again,
we will never be tempted to sin again, and we will be holy in
all perfection just as we are promised. So there is that day
of perfection that we look in. Walking in the newness of life
is walking by faith in the promise of that perfection. That way,
as we continue to fight the good fight of faith, as we walk in
this life imperfectly, though we strive and fail and strive
and fail, we have the promise of God for that perfection. A
third thing that I believe that we need to know tonight, and
this will be the last time I deal with the walking in newness in
tonight's message, is that walking in the newness of life is with
the mind first and foremost. The word repentance is, by definition,
meaning a change of mind. So when we see the apostles preach
the gospel and they say repent and preach the gospel, at no
time whatsoever in the totality of the New Testament has that
word ever meant stop sinning in action. It means stop thinking. the way you think and believe
in Jesus Christ. It is a command of the change
of mind. There's no command giving to
stop sin because that command's been giving from the beginning
to Adam. Be holy, for I'm holy. Obey me. We're all guilty of
that disobedience. That is done. We have not anything
to bring but our sin and rebellion to God. So the walking in newness
of life is walking with the mind and that mind is the mind of
Christ given us by Jesus by the Spirit through grace. And so
we walk with the mind of Christ as we relate to our flesh. I
want you to think about that for a second. Where do I get
this thing? Well, let me just finish my point,
then I'll go back in and pick it out. I believe that walking
in the newness of life is walking with the mind of Christ, relating
to the flesh that is no longer important, no longer active,
no longer living, no longer striving for wickedness. We do it in our
mind. This is a powerful working of
God in the mind of the believer through which He, the believer,
is transformed in the attitude of the flesh toward Christ and
the perfection of the salvation that Christ has. Therein, then,
we look at sin a little bit differently. So we see these words. For if
we've been united with Him in death like His, we'll be certainly
united with Him in a resurrection. We know that our old self was
crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought
to nothing. So that we no longer are a slave
to sin. No longer a slave to sin. You might think, well, what does
that have to do with the mind? It has everything to do with
the mind. Because sin, beloved, starts with our mind. It starts
with our thinking, first and foremost, for the temptation
that comes from our flesh. that which we want to do and
that we desire in our flesh is there and so we fight against
that temptation because by the Spirit of God we know that those
things are not holy and they're not righteous and they're not
pure and we do not want to be engaged in those things but those
feelings and those temptations come. And so that when the enemy
tempts us or when the enemy through other means tempts us the only
reason we desire to do or have those things is because our flesh
wants them in the first place. We see that in James chapter
1 where it says that God himself does not tempt us but we are
tempted because of the desires of our flesh. And that temptation
gives way to sin, and that sin gives way to death. We are going
to desire the things that our flesh desires. And by the grace
of God, some of us in due time, for some seasons of our life,
not wholly, not fully, and not holistically, some of us will
be set free from some of those temptations altogether. But in
most of our lives, there will always be something that will
be a button for us. There will always be a trigger
there for us. And as the argument Paul has
already given, we aren't to say, oh, let's just push the button
and fulfill the flesh because grace, grace, grace. No, it's
not possible. Do not do that. Do not say that. Do not go there. That's what
Paul's saying. So the powerful working of God
in the mind of the believer means that his mind looks differently
now because he has been crucified in his flesh. Christ has died
for sin, so we have died for sin. We deserve death because
of sin, but Christ took death in our place, though he had no
sin, so that we would not be enslaved, but are free from sin. You see that there. Verse 6.
What are we to think about this? Well, look what he says. Verse 8. Now, if we've died with
Christ, we believe... What? We believe... What does
that mean? With our mind, we believe, we
have faith. Faith is in the mind. Faith is
something that God gives us the way we think about things. So
faith in Christ and all of His work then causes us to believe
a certain way about our flesh. The Bible says through the gospel
that our flesh has died with Christ. Part of faith in Christ
unto salvation is also equally believing that He's done the
work that we're dead and no longer enslaved to sin. Have you ever
heard that before? I pray you have. If you've been
listening on Sunday mornings, you've been hearing that. But it's very
clear here for the teaching of the Romans so that they would
understand that this is not a prescription of, now we have to do all the
work of sanctification, now we have to do all the work of righteousness.
Christ has done all the work of righteousness, and not only
that, but He has truly set us free from our sin. Not just the
penalty of it, but from being a slave of it now. And sometimes
we may feel like we're slaves to certain sins, because it may
be that difficult, but by the grace of God, we're not slave.
We're not a slave to that sin anymore. And it says we know
this. That's what believe means. We believe. We believe that we
will also live with Him. So if Christ has died and we've
died, verse 8, now we have what? We believe that we will also
live with Him. Now we know that means the resurrection
and it's in its simplicity, in its basic foundation, but it's
not just the resurrection because Paul has already said three times
that we're alive with Christ in other aspects of our faith,
in other aspects of our salvation, in other aspects of the gospel.
So we know this with our mind because of the truth of the gospel. The gospel, as Paul has already
said in chapter one, is the power of God unto salvation. So salvation
with it, with salvation, part of salvation is this freedom
from sin, not sinless perfection. Isn't it funny how we automatically
go there? When I say we're free from sin, most people say, oh,
you're saying we can be perfect? No, I'm not saying that. If I
wanted to say that, I'd say, we can be perfect. If I wanted
a ham sandwich, I'd say, I'd like a ham sandwich. I wouldn't
say, I'd like a grilled cheese and a little something maybe
on it if you care to do something like that with maybe pork. I
would say, I want a ham sandwich. I wouldn't say, I'd like a banana,
and you give me a banana, and I really wanted a ham sandwich.
No, we are not saying anything of the sort. Do not ever, let
me tell you what happens. When we read in between the lines
of what people are not saying, we are assuming. And when we
assume what someone is not saying, then we judge them by that. We
are bearing false witness, and because of that, we're a murderer.
And that's just enough of that. I'm preaching to the choir right
now. So that's what we do. We get
into this. We're not going to hear these
words. We're going to hear what the Word of God says. And the
Word of God says that we know because we believe that we also
live with Him. We also live with Him. Verse
9, look at this. Where else in the mind? We know.
The word know has everything to do with the mind, right? It's
what we believe with our mind. It's what we know in our mind.
We know. We know. What do we know? That Christ,
being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer
has dominion over. Him. So we're not enslaved to
sin because we know that this gift of faith has been given
us through Jesus Christ. We know that our dead self is
dead in Christ. We know that Christ died and
with Him we died. We know that our living self
is alive in Christ. We know that Christ rose and
with Him we live so that the latter part of verse... I think
I might have got ahead of myself there. so that we would no longer
be a slave to sin, as I've already said. This does not mean perfection. It does not always mean we're
going to be getting better, does it? Do our lives get better? Yeah,
sometimes. But then what happens when they're
not better? You see the point? Where is this standard of perfection
or betterment? And this is always troublesome
because people on, and it's amazing to me how many viewpoints I have
identified just in the last two months, seven different views
of the word sanctification. So that means seven different
views in the way people define in the evangelical, now let me
back that up, in the reformed Calvinistic churches that I would
say are orthodox in their doctrine, seven different ways that they
would define holiness in one's life. Seven. And I can't for
the life of me figure out how come we have seven different
meanings of one word when it's only used 10 times in the entire
New Testament. Only 10. But yet we continue
to see it. But it doesn't mean perfect.
It doesn't mean always getting better, though we will see some
improvements in our life. That could be until we step our
toes, stomp our toes. That could be until our wife
or husband says the wrong thing. It could be until we drive outside
in Savannah. It could be whatever it might
be. And then we see our temper flare or what have you. By the
Lord's grace, maybe he would put some of those things to death.
Because we are free. But what does it mean then that
we have been brought to nothing? That our flesh of sin might be
brought to nothing? What does it mean? It referred
to that last week. We referred to that a little
bit last week when we said these words. That it is nothing. It doesn't live. Our flesh is
not alive. Our sinful flesh is not alive.
You see that. What do you do with living things?
You care for them, you feed them, you water them, you nourish them,
you clothe them, you have feelings for them, you want things that
are alive. I mean, you ever had a plant you just really wanted
to hang on to? Let's talk really superficial here. A plant. You
know, I've been trying to get this thing to grow for years
and it's just whittling away and you try, try, try, try, try,
and then one day you finally look in there and it's all brown.
Leaves have all fallen off. You know what you do? You water
it for a couple more days, right? Or you do like I have done, and
sometimes, you know, and you just got the stick that you hold
for a couple of seasons that's in a pot of dirt. You got the
pot of dirt with a stick. You know, the same plant that
our children make when they're toddlers. I planted a tree. You
know, the stick in the dirt. It's dead, and you finally go
there, and you go, okay, this is not coming back. Three years
now, this has been in the window. And I'm going to throw it away.
So you throw it away because you bury what is dead. It's no
longer alive. You no longer nourish it. You
no longer feed it. I've never met anyone, and I'm
sure there might be some people, I've never met anyone who kept
fish or kept birds or kept animals and after it died, they just
kept on shoving food in his mouth. They kept on pouring water down
his throat. Now I do know some people who taxidermy their pets
and that sits on the hearth and more power to it. But that's
them. I'm not making a statement on
that. But they don't feed that taxidermy pit. Why? Because it's dead. It no longer
lives. Our flesh no longer lives. It no longer breathes. It is
not nourished and beloved. Listen to me. That is a work
of God through Jesus Christ. Because if God did not put us
to death in the burial of Jesus, He would not have made us alive
in the resurrection of Jesus. And if our flesh was still active
and living in the sense of sin, we are still guilty of sin and
we are also guilty of the judgment of God. So as Christ has died,
so then He has also killed our flesh. It's as if we've died.
Now let me tell you what that really is talking about. First,
judicially. Christ died in our place and
it's so effectual it is as if we have died to pay for our sins. The problem is if when we die
in our sins, when human beings die, they die forever. They die
forever in the flesh, and they die for what the Bible calls
the second death, which is the judgment of God for all of eternity.
You see that. So it's so effectual, Jesus'
death is so effectual, it is as if we've died. But His resurrection
is also so effectual, is that it is as if we are a new creature
that has been raised in the newness of life. And the reality of that
is that we don't, we are no longer a slave to sin. And that is a work of God. That's
a work of God. No man can boast in that. And
no man can even say, wow, look how God's made me perfect. It's
not the place. Look how God has made me perfect.
And Christ, because Christ is perfect, that is the place. And though we might not be slaves
any longer, beloved, let me remind you, chapter 7 will be here soon.
Here it is. We are not out of the war with
our sin. Isn't that crazy? The war is
won. Christ is victorious. Our flesh
is dead. For some strange reason, we're
still in the war. We're still in the battle with
our flesh. How does that work? How is it
that we are fighting something that has no life in it? And I'll tell you what I really
believe. I believe that we're fighting that which has no life
in it because in our flesh, of course, it's still really alive,
isn't it? And the hostility that was true
for our flesh before we were converted by the gospel, by the
Spirit, is still true of our old flesh, isn't it? So that
if there is, what, the natural man is hostile to God, hates
God, is it not also true that in our depravity, in our flesh,
that those things would still war against the Spirit? That's
what Paul says, my flesh wars against the Spirit. He even goes
so far to say in chapter seven, as we'll see, it's not me, but
it's sin working in me. Now see, that's real good cop
out there, isn't it? Now we won't go there tonight,
but that's a real good cop-out. I would love to look in the mirror
and say, Jesus, there's this junk inside my body I just can't
control. But Paul says we can. Not perfectly, not completely,
not forever, but he's saying don't use that excuse that you
can't control it. Fight! Now here's the kicker. How do we fight it? Cause that's
what, that's where, that's where the rub comes in. How do we fight
it? Man, I'll tell you what, it'd be really good for me to
come up with a list. If I just flip through here, maybe a piece
of parchment or something fell out and it was the list, it was
the Pauline list of fighting the flesh. You know what he's
given us? This text right here. We know
that Christ has died. We know that we're alive in Christ.
That's how we fight it. What are we doing? We're putting
our knowledge, our trust, our hope back in the gospel. So if I'm able, if you make me
mad, and I feel all that, have you ever felt anger rising up
in you? Can you stop it? Can you really stop it? No. I mean, if you've been disciplined
enough to realize it's coming long before it gets across the
street, like you see it, you go, that's gonna make me mad
when it gets up here. But once it's up here, it's over,
right? If you get disciplined enough, you can see it down the
road, you know, that's coming, and you go, okay. You know? And in some spiritual sense,
you have an intimate moment with the Lord in a real way. And then
maybe you can prevent the feeling. But even when it's there, you
feel it rising up in you like vomit. And I'm just using anger
because I can relate. I know what that feels like.
People, you know, the, I don't know how he beat that man up
so bad. Cause it's called rage. You know what rage is? Rage. It's terrible. We see all that. We can't stop the feeling, but
with the gospel, what the scripture shows us is that we can prevent
ourselves from spilling out into each other's lives. How? Believing that Christ has died
and raised alive. Believing that. Focusing on that. Growing in that. Eating the bread
of life. Eating the Word of God. Friends,
so many times in our culture, myself included, we spend more
time in the name of studying Scripture, debating garbage,
than we do intimately reading Christ. Is justification important? You
betcha! But you know what's more important?
Being in the Bible and seeing it and learning it and growing
in it and then sharing it with those who are like-minded rather
than fighting with those doo-doo heads who aren't. Kids weren't listening. It's a work of God. We're at
war and we do struggle and we do fail, but we've not lost.
See, that's the clear foolishness of the gospel. That's part of
the foolishness of the gospel. 1 Corinthians 1, the foolishness
of the gospel. Paul says, I preach Christ and
Him crucified. That's it. Nothing else. I don't
come in teaching the church anything else. I just preach Christ and
Him crucified. That doesn't mean he just says,
Jesus died and rose again. Jesus died. He teaches Jesus.
He teaches who He is. He teaches what He did. He teaches
what it did for us. It's not just hearing the phrase,
Jesus died. Whoop-dee-doo. My dog died one
day. I mean, okay. You see, we learn. How do we do that? But Paul says,
I didn't come with human wisdom. Because we want human wisdom.
We want fleshly wisdom. We want the wisdom of our flesh
to be able to sit down at night and go, golly diggally, I just
got everything I needed to beat this sin in my life. Hallelujah. Guess what that would do if it
were true? We could take that thing to God
and say, here's my ticket, buddy. But the only ticket we have to
eternal life is Jesus, the righteous. There is no boasting except in
Christ. None whatsoever. None whatsoever. And the other side of that is
that we'd be so blind to think we were good and doing well.
Or the flip side of that would be that we're so downtrodden
because we know who we really are that we don't even think
we're saved. That's why Romans 8 was written.
Therefore now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Man, I was going to throw myself off a short bridge and break
my toe. We're in a war that's already
won. We walk around breathing in a
flesh that's already dead. We're innocent of the guilt that's
truly ours. And all because God became a
man and then hanged himself on a cross and was crucified and
raised himself to life. That is the dumbest thing that
the logical mind could ever hear. That's stupid. And as long as we're trying to
figure it out in our human wisdom, we will never grasp the joy of
Christ. As long as we're trying to be
the theologians that we all want to be. We all want to be the
heady guys and gals. We all want to have the answer.
We want to have the zip tie that takes us straight to the target.
We'll never see the freedom of Christ. That doesn't mean we're
not regenerate. It's just that we're going to
constantly struggle in such a hard way that we're never going to
understand what it means that we're free from sin. and in our
attempt to make our flesh conform to that which the Scripture commands,
even, quote, by faith, we're going to devour ourselves and
live in a state of hostility with our own mind, even though
there's no hostility with Christ, because He's torn down the wall
of hostility in His body of flesh. Because we, in our total essence,
are hostile to God. We're free from the power of
sin because, verse 7, 4, one who has died is free from sin. I find comfort in that. And sometimes
I find a wish in that verse. I will be free from sin when
my body stops breathing. I will never, ever, ever, ever
have to worry about it again. Isn't that great? But Paul says it's done already. So why do we fight in this life
as if the flesh is dead? Why not fight as if it's already
dead, you see? When it does die, we're free.
And Paul says it's dead. This is silly. It's almost dumb. It's like, Paul must have hit
his head that day. He must have fell down and a
camel stepped on him or something. He was a little off. No, he wasn't
off. This is simply what God has done. And when we believe
the work of the gospel and we trust in the work of the gospel,
see, that's the thing about belief. It's a trusting. It's not just
going, yep. Happened. That's the gospel.
That's the faith of John 2 and John 12. It happened. Yep, that's Jesus. That's the
Son of God. Check. Judas knew he was the
Son of God and hanged himself. It's about trusting in Christ.
believing that Christ satisfies God's judgment and that he literally,
seriously, spiritually put our bodies to death. So we're free from the power
of sin, we're free from the consequence of sin, we're free from the control
of sin. Though we battle, it's no longer
characteristic. What happens when we have a professing
believer whose life is characteristic of continued sin? What happens
to them? Discipline. It's like the kid
who doesn't get up on time, constantly. Or the kid who doesn't clean
their room, constantly. Alright, y'all listening kids?
Or the kid who doesn't, you know, do their homework, constantly.
Or the kid who talks back, constantly. You can handle the infraction
every now and then. But the constant, never, ever
doing anything right, what do you do with that child? You discipline
it. Shake it real hard, or hit it
real hard, or wag your finger at it, or run it over the lawnmower.
Whatever it is you do at your house. That was the judgment. Everybody's
going, lawnmower? Never thought of that in our
play. And the same thing is true in
the church. We have times where we struggle with sin. We're going
to have those times, but it should have been characteristic. If
I'm still stealing, if I'm known as the liar, is it something
wrong with me? So we see discipline come into
play because sin should not be characteristic. Paul says it
very clearly this way in Ephesians 4. He says that these things
should not be named among you. What are those things? Crude
joking, lucidiousness, sexual immorality. Those things should
not even be named. So the Christian And the church
member who constantly has the, I mean, you know, if somebody
came in after service and was talking about the filthy movie
they watched the night before, what would you think? You know,
you'd be like, is he drunk? I mean, you wouldn't know what
to do. What would you do? I mean, am I upset it's because
he's going to say, I saw you watching it too. I mean, I don't
know what, but I mean, it's just one of those things that if somebody,
if we boasted in that stuff, what in the world would we think
of each other? I'll tell you what we should
think. We should think, Lord, have mercy. We should love each other and
try to correct each other by teaching that Christ died for
that. So we no longer live in it. And
then therefore, if that person says, get out of my business,
then we can deal with some Matthew 18 in that issue. And by the
Lord's grace, they're restored. But the reason Paul wrote this
section of scripture anyway is to battle against a type of legalism
called no-law legalism. And no-law legalism is known
also as antinomianism. Gnome being the law. Gnomean, the law. Anti, no law. Where some people say that, you
know, because grace abounds, let's just jump into the fire
of wickedness so that everybody can see how forgiven we are and
what we're forgiven from. That's the argument that Paul's
fighting against right here. And you might think that is ridiculous.
Friends, most people, most people who believe in a high Calvinism
live that way. And they teach that stuff. And
the opposite side of that is most people who don't live in
a legalistic way. But antinomianism is also legalism
because the new law that you live by is that there is no law. It's a law in itself, you see.
Carpe diem is not freedom, it's a new law. Paul is writing against
this silliness. And it's not, what we see here,
the freedom from sin is not this issue that we set down and go,
okay, we have an assurance now. This is our substance of our
faith. No, the substance of our faith is Jesus Christ and His
righteousness. So, that was point two. Point three and four. Verse eight. Now, if we've died with Christ,
we believe, there we are again, I've already taught it, that
we will also live with Him. If our old life is dead, then
our faith is that we are alive, so we believe in Christ alone.
We believe in Christ's work alone. I've already said all this, but
I didn't read it from a note, so I'm gonna give it to you in
order. We believe in Christ's life alone. We believe in Christ's
word alone that tells us we are dead and alive in Christ. And
so therefore we believe in that. We trust in that truth. We live
with Him. This is the other portion of
that. Christ is alive, we are alive, so we live with Him. What
does that mean? Let's remember the disciples.
Remember when Jesus at the Last Supper, He told Judas to go and do what
he was gonna do. And he told Peter, who was feeling all high
and mighty about his zeal, you're gonna deny me three times before
the sun comes up, before the rooster crows, you know? Not
me, man. But when Jesus left his presence,
Peter like, I don't know that cat. Oh, he was with Jesus. No, I what? That was him. I mean, he didn't want to be
counted that number. He didn't want to go to the cross. And
he's thinking in his mind, you know, I love Jesus. I believe
in Jesus. I know who He is. He's the Son of the Most High
God. You know, God's given me that understanding. He has the
words of eternal life. But he can't die. See, that's
what Peter's rubbed the whole time. Peter's like, you can't
die. You don't have to die. Get behind me, Satan, Jesus says.
That's what I came to do. Aren't you listening? So here
we've got this mindset here that even the most devoted followers
of Christ, when Christ left them physically, when His presence
was gone, all of a sudden, see, they went back to doing their
same old stuff. And Peter went back to fishing,
and the rest of them went back to their jobs, and if Jesus had
not been raised on the third day, if He'd given them, that
was three days, y'all! I mean, I don't know about you,
but when I get tragedy in my life, we at least take a week
off work, don't we? These boys ain't worked in three and a half
years, Jesus dies, and they're like, back to work. I hope. Wasn't y'all with Jesus? Oh man,
that was yesterday. That's so last week. It's just
silly, but that's what we do in our humanity. It's the same
thing we do. We continue to go back to the flesh, go back to
this idea of trying to be sanctified in our own way, forgetting the
gospel of grace, and then walking into this place to where as if
Christ isn't with us, but Christ is with us. And then Christ meets
Peter and he what? What does he do with Peter? He
restores Peter. Can you imagine being Peter,
walking the zealous, the sword bearer, chopping ears off, all
sorts of stuff. I'm going to die with you. Everything's
great. Here we go. And there's nobody
going to take me away from Jesus. Hey boy, you need to get your
life together. Oh my goodness. Preaching all this kind of stuff.
And then I don't know him. That's not me. I don't know who
you're talking about. Cock-a-doodle-doo. And then Jesus walks up to Peter. And how does He introduce Himself
back to Peter, doesn't He? He walks back up to Peter by
yelling out, Hey, put your nets on the other side of the little
six-foot boat. No, the fish are better, you
know, 36 inches this way. Whatever. And they tear the nets
because Jesus put fish in there. It's like he fed fish, people
would fish. Just like he taught him to be fishers of men. From
the very beginning, he said you'll be fishers of men. Now get this,
here is when Jesus came back, he restored, he restored Peter. Friends, that's what Paul is
reminding us of right here. That we are what? Alive in Christ. We live with Him. We live with Him. That means
we are intimate with Christ. He is ever-present with us. He
is always actively working on our behalf as our mediator. He
is always working, empowering us, and doing the work of God
that He finished. He does the work of God in preserving
His people. Christ has not left us, and the
gospel and its learning and its continued reminder to our hearts
and souls helps us to know, to know, to believe, using the three
words that Paul uses in these verses here. So we live with
intimacy with Him, no longer enemies, though we struggle with
our flesh, we are no longer enemies with God, we are intimate with
God. We live in permanence with Christ,
not from afar away, but inclusive with Christ. The Spirit indwells
us, so God lives in us. We know also, as it says there,
verse nine, we know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will
never die again. I'm not gonna get verses 10 and
11 tonight. We'll just do verse nine. Will never die again. Death no longer has dominion
over Him. So here is the reality of Jesus.
Jesus, when He died in the days of the disciples, they thought
all hope is lost, right? But Jesus was raised from the
dead. And he will never die again. He is alive and death is defeated. So we are dead in our flesh,
but we are alive in Christ. So much so that Paul says it
this way. He says, it is not I who live,
but Christ who lives within me. And then he goes, I live this
life by faith. in the One who loved me, loves
me, and gave Himself for me. So in other words, to be alive
is to be intimate with Christ. To be alive is that our lives
are found, and the word Paul likes to use is, hidden in Christ. So that when Christ comes back
in all of His glory, we are not, as John would say, hiding and
cowering. Oh no, Jesus is going to see
me! And he says, no, we're not doing that. We're bold to stand there,
for as we see Him face to face, we shall be like Him. Perfect,
glorified, permanently holy. Hallelujah. He will never die. Death is the
wage of sin. It's what we do as we work the
hours of this life in rebellion of God, as we take the breath
into this life and our birth as those who are born of Adam.
We are guilty before God and what we deserve in all of our
wickedness is death and the second death. Jesus suffered and died
when He should not have died. He paid it. He defeated sin and
He defeated death. Then right now we, in our lives
and in our flesh, are not engaged in the fear of death. And I'm not even talking about
the fear of the physical death. We're not engaged in the fear
of death, but by faith we're engaged in the life of Jesus.
You know the difference? The difference is where we look,
what we're looking to. The reason so many Christians
are so bound up with this legalism, antinomianism, all this stuff,
is because they're constantly looking at their flesh. They're
constantly looking at their sin. They're constantly looking at
their lives that is dead, instead of looking at Jesus who's alive. See, there's an Easter message.
It's dark. That's what we do. It's what
I do. It's what you do. It's what we all do. So we get together
to be reminded not to do these things. We're not engaged in
fear of death, but by faith we're engaged in the life of Jesus
because Christ has risen from the dead. We have hope that his
promises are true. We have hope that our sin is
defeated. We have hope that we will be
glorified. We then also have hope for the
death of our sin. Because see, death is final.
It is done. So if our flesh is dead in Christ,
it is finished. And if our flesh is finished,
let us not then walk therein. But how? We walk by the Spirit.
That's Romans 8. It's going to be so good, we're
going to forget about Romans 6 completely when we get to Romans
8. Let me let you hear a little sneak. For I consider these present
sufferings in this present time, not worth comparing with the
glory that will be revealed to us. For the creation wakes with
eager and longing for the revealing of the sons of God. Glorification. For the creation was subjected
to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected
it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from
its bondage to corruption and obtain freedom of the glory of
the children of God. So we talk about the things that
were made groaning to be glorified. Now, for we know, see back to
this mind, we know that the whole creation has been groaning together
in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation,
but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown
inwardly as we eagerly await the adoption of sons, the redemption
of our bodies. See this is what he's talking
about, our bodies. We have eternal life. We want
to get out of this flesh, and we want it to be new, the renunciation
of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that
is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But if
we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not
know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes
for us with groanings too deep for words. And He, the Spirit,
who searches Hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because
the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will
of God. And we know. See, that's the makeup. That's
the totality of the structure of the entire building of the
gospel of glory, and that's what's said right before this, and we
know, see, back to what we know, and we know that for those who
love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called
according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He
also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, which
is glory, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers
and preeminence. And those whom He predestined,
He also called. And those whom He called, He
also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified.
What shall we say then to these things? If God is for us, who
can be against us? If God did not spare His own
Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him
graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against
God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who
is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died.
More than that, He was raised, was at the right hand of God,
and indeed is interceding for us. Who shall then separate us
from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger assort,
as it is written, for your sake, we are all being killed all day
long, it is regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all
these things we are here, this church, more than conquerors
through Him who loved us. For I am certain of this." This
is something Paul knows. that neither life, nor death,
nor angels, nor rulers, nor present, nor the past, nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation
shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord." And that's where he's going. We're dead in our flesh because
Christ died. And we're alive in Christ because
Christ has been raised. By faith we trust in the finished
work of Jesus. And the characteristics of our
life will be found in this truth by faith. No matter how good or bad, perfect,
short or long they may see, we will live by faith in Jesus Christ
and that which we believe in is that which we hope in, and
we hope in Christ who is alive. Let's pray. Thank you so much,
our Father, for this beautiful and glorious truth, for the word
that you've given us that we might know you, that we might
know hope, that we might know life in Christ Jesus. Help us
to know. Help us never to fear this life. Help us to never fear this flesh.
Help us to never fear our sin. Help us to never fear the circumstances
that you've given us, for they are good for us and they are
given to us by you from above for our good, for your glory,
to prepare us for something that's not worth comparing. to prepare us for glory. It's not worth comparing this
life to that. Lord, help our children to see
us walk by faith in this life. When hell crashes through our
door, we stand firm, even though we may weep and wail. We do so by faith and know that
Christ is intimately with us forever because he has snatched
us into his kingdom. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you,
church. Romans, Romans, Romans.