Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us for this Bible study, this message
of the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace as I preach it
from the Bible. And today's message is entitled,
The Power of God's Grace. Now this is part four. of a series
of messages that I've been doing. I've been preaching through the
book of Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6, if you'd like
to follow along in your Bibles, we're talking about the power
of God's grace. The reason I got onto these messages
as the Lord laid them on my heart was these issues that prevail
today among so-called Christians especially the issues of perseverance,
which means to continue in the faith, and preservation, being
preserved unto glory. And it boils down to a very simple
question that many argue over, many who claim to be Christian.
And that's this, can a person who has been saved by the grace
of God, in the Lord Jesus Christ, a true believer now, can such
a person lose that salvation? And if we consider that question
in the Bible, biblically, the answer is no. A person who is
saved by the grace of God. Now, that's the key now. See,
we're talking about the power of God's grace, not the power
of the person. See, I have no power to save
myself, I have no power to keep myself, preserve myself, and
I have no power to bring myself into final eternal bliss or glory. That's the work of God. Now that
work has results, it has effects, it has evidences, and God uses
means to accomplish all of that, but it's all of grace. Salvation
is all of grace. So can a person who is saved
by grace, truly saved, a true believer, lose that salvation? And the answer is no. Now what
we have to understand is that there are a lot of people who
claim to be saved by grace but who are really not saved by grace. and you know you you may look
at such a person and you may see great changes in their lives
as far especially in the areas of going from immorality to morality
or lack of dedication to dedication irreligious to being very religious
even being baptized join the church and then maybe they forsake
what forsake their claim You say, well, I know that person
was saved. Well, the only way you can know that is to go to
the Bible. You have to judge those things
and answer those questions by the Bible. And in the book of
1 John 2, which we've read, John answers that question, that those
who leave the gospel, and there he's talking, most people, when
they talk about somebody who claims to be saved and then they
forsake their claim or forsake their profession, what they're
forsaking is a false gospel to begin with. They were never saved
to begin with. But John, the apostle John in
1 John 2, he's talking about those who claim to believe the
true gospel and then left it, and he said they never were of
us. If they had been of us, he said, they would have continued
with us. So the power of salvation, the power of preservation and
perseverance, the power of final glory, by which a sinner is raised
in the resurrection of life, unto life, eternal life. That's
the power of God's grace, and that's what I'm talking about.
Well, as you know, whenever we talk about this subject, the
objections will flow in. And the main objection is an
objection that the Apostle Paul anticipated in the book of Romans
chapter six. And that's when people say, well,
if a person can't, if there is no possibility of a saved sinner
losing that salvation, then it doesn't matter what we do. It
doesn't matter how we act. We can even sin as much as we
want to. That's, that's the kind of objections
that you get. Now, listen to me very carefully
on this. Those kinds of objections come
from people and they may come from you, but they come from
people who do not know and understand the grace of God, the gospel,
and the power of God's grace. That objection was raised and
anticipated by Paul in Romans six. Look at verse one, what
he's talking about in light of the fact that salvation is all
of grace, not by the works of men, not even by the wills of
men, Then it says in verse, he poses the question, what shall
we say then? How are we going to respond to
this? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Now that's
kind of like a person saying, well, if I cannot be so bad in
sin that God cannot save me, then I'll just sin more. No,
that's not what, listen. There is no one who is beyond
salvation as far as the grace of God. Now, I know people talk
about the unpardonable sin, but that's another issue. I've got
a message on that, and you can go to our website and look for
that. But here's the thing about it.
When God saves a sinner, that power is able to save that sinner,
to keep and preserve that sinner, and to bring that sinner to himself.
So, and salvation is for sinners, not for the good people. Christ
said this himself several times. He said, I didn't come to heal,
the well don't need a physician. I came to call sinners to repentance. And so shall we sin that grace
may abound. Verse two, God forbid. How shall
we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Now, what
does it mean to be dead to sin? Now, we're gonna see. Now, don't
stop there and start speculating on your own. And that's what
a lot of people do. Well, I'm dead to sin. Well,
what does that mean? He tells us what it means to
be dead to sin in the Bible. Context, context, context. He makes, we want to understand
that. I know myself. I know I'm a sinner
saved by grace. I cannot tell you that I'm dead
to sin's influences in my life. Sin still influences me. I'll
tell you how. Listen, the Bible says a true Christian is in a
warfare with himself. That's the warfare of the flesh
and the spirit. Galatians chapter five, for example. explores that
and explains it. Romans chapter 7. A Christian
is a person saved by the grace of God, kept by the grace of
God, who has a righteousness that equals and answers the demands
of God's law and justice, but that righteousness is not his
character. It's not his conduct. It's not
his sincerity. It's not his morality or his
dedication. It's not his charity. That righteousness
that he has, he or she has, that makes him right with God is the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, given to that person
by grace. It's the gift of God's grace.
It's imputed, charged, accounted. to that person. So in other words,
the righteousness by which I stand before God justified, we're going
to talk about that more in this passage, is the righteousness
of another, the righteousness of God, the righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. In myself, I'm still under the
influence of sin. I can't get away from it. I'm
still under the corruption of sin in the sense of this. Not that I'm what the world would
call an immoral person. Now, there is immorality in this
world. And in the Bible, you'll see
even believers who fell into open acts of immorality. But
I'm still under the corruption of sin in this sense. Nothing
I do will measure up to perfect righteousness. You see, if I'm
going to have any perfect, any perfection rather, or perfect
righteousness, I only find that in Christ. You see, that's what
sets Christianity apart from all religions. It's grace. Grace reigns through righteousness.
He said that back up in Romans 521. It reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. So my righteousness
before God has nothing to do with what I do or don't do or
anything like that. Well, if that's the case, should
I sin more? Does it matter what I do? Yes,
it matters. Why? Why? Not because what I
do makes me righteous, not because what I do saves me, but because
what I do either honors or dishonors God. But now let's go on. He
says, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein."
Now, what does it mean to be dead to sin? Well, here he tells
us. Now, here's what he does. He first shows us the power of
God's grace in a sinner's justification before God. A sinner's justification
before God. Now, what is it to be justified?
What is justification? A sinner to be justified before
God means to be made right with God, have a right relationship
with God. It means that God is reconciled
to that sinner and that sinner eventually will be reconciled
to God. So it has to do, it has to do
with being made right with God, to be justified If I'm justified,
that means I am not guilty in this sense, in a legal sense,
whereupon my sins are charged to me and I'm condemned for them. You see that? To be justified
means I'm not condemned. It means I'm not guilty, not
in the sense that I'm not the committer of the sins. You know,
that word guilty, what does that mean? Well, it can mean different
things. Sometimes it means, you know,
if I'm guilty, I'm the one who committed the act. Caught red-handed. In that sense, that's me. But
to be pronounced in the court of God's justice as to be guilty
means to be condemned. And the reason is, is because
the wages of sin is death. And that's eternal death, the
second death. So you have the wages of sin
is death. In that sense, to be justified
is not to be guilty. It's not to be condemned. The
Bible says, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the spirit. And so to be justified is to be not guilty. Secondly,
to be justified is to be made righteous before God. Not only am I not guilty, Not
only do I not owe a debt to God's justice, but I have a righteousness
that answers the demands of God's requirement, God's justice, God's
law. Now what is that righteousness?
It's called in the gospel, Romans 1, 16, 17, the righteousness
of God. It's not the righteousness of
men, it's the righteousness of God. It can't be the righteousness
of men because the righteousness of the best men is not righteous
enough. In fact, technically, men by
nature born fallen in Adam, ruined by the fall, and born dead in
trespasses and sins have no righteousness. And they can't work one by their
best efforts. That's what the book of Ecclesiastes
is about. Vanity of vanities. That's man
at his best without God. Without grace. Without Christ. Vanity of vanities. So where
am I going to find righteousness? The only way to find righteousness
is to look to Christ. And so we see that's what Paul's
saying here when he talks about the power of God's grace in the
justification of the sinner. And listen to this. The power
of God's grace is the power of Christ crucified. Now look, go
back to verse two. God forbid, how shall we that
are dead to sin live any longer therein? If we're dead to sin,
what that means is if we're justified before God, if we're not guilty,
if sin cannot be charged to us and sin cannot condemn us, How
can, and knowing that, how can we live in it there? That brings
us to fight sin, not to give in to it. Well, look at verse
three. What does he mean? Know you not
that so many of us as were baptized or are baptized into Jesus Christ
were baptized into his death. Now, I've dealt with this verse
before on this program, and I've shown you that the word baptized
there is not speaking of the Christian ordinance of water
baptism, believers baptism. There is an ordinance, a New
Testament, New Covenant ordinance called believers baptism. And
it's the confession, it's the public confession of a sinner
saved by grace and identification with Christ in his death, burial
and resurrection. It's not a rite of passage. I
see these churches all the time, these preachers, trying to get
little children down the aisle and scare them, however they
do it, you know, and get them into the pool as fast as they
can, get them in, and it's sad to me. It's no different than
infant baptism, which is not biblical. That's a concoction
of the false church aimed at holding power over people. It's
not a rite of passage. It's not salvation. It's not
the washing away of sins. The blood of Christ cleanses
us from all sins, His people. But there is a baptism that believers
are to follow under the command of Christ, and that's believer's
baptism. But that's not what Paul's talking
about here in Romans 6. The word baptize means to immerse. It means to dip. It means to
place into. And it speaks of unity, union of one to another. And
what he's saying here is, no you not, look at verse three
again of Romans six. No you not that so many of us
as were placed into Jesus Christ, united to Christ. Now that's
what he's talking about. And who is he talking about here?
Talking about God's elect. He's already made that clear,
but he makes it even more clear over on into the book of Romans.
chosen before the foundation of the world, chosen by God before
the foundation of the world, and given to Christ, whereupon
Christ is their representative. You see, that's union with Christ,
He's my representative. Christ is their surety, which
means that all the debt of their sins was placed upon His account. that sin was imputed to Christ.
The debt was imputed to Christ. The guilt was imputed to Christ.
And then in time, He came and became their substitute. He went
under the death, the wrath of God, for them as their substitute. That's what the Lamb in the Bible
pictures, the Lamb of God, the sacrifice. That's what it's all
about. It's to satisfy the justice of
God, to pay the price, that's redemption. for them. And when Christ did that, He
did it for His people. The Good Shepherd giveth His
life for the sheep. Okay? So the power of their salvation,
the power of their justification, is the power of Christ crucified,
which is the power of grace. And so he says, those so many
of us as were baptized, placed into, united with Christ, were
baptized, placed into, united into His death. That means when He died, He died
for them. For whom did Christ die? All
those whom the Father had given Him before the foundation of
the world. Look at verse four of Romans six. Therefore, now
listen to it, We are buried with him by baptism into death. You remember he says we're dead
to sin in what way? Representatively, as Christ the
surety took the place of his people and died in their place. When he died, I died. When he
was buried, I was buried. You don't bury somebody who's
alive, you bury the dead. So therefore we are buried with
him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life. So, the power of God's grace
in the justification of a sinner is the power of Christ crucified
in that when he died, he died for his people, his sheep, and
when he was buried, they were buried, And when he arose again,
they arose again. And the result of all this, he
says, is that they should walk in newness of life. Now that's
a whole, we're going to be dealing with that next. But that's the
power of regeneration. The power of preservation. the power of perseverance. But
let's go on and we'll come back to that. But look at verse five.
He says, for if we've been planted together in the likeness of his
dead. Now that tells you what he means
when he talks about the baptism back here. To be baptized into
Christ means to be planted together. Who's the together there? That
means Christ in his church, Christ and God's elect, See, that's
who he's talking about, Christ and his sheep, all right? For if we've been planted together
in the likeness of his death, all the whole true church of
the living God, all of Christ's sheep, all of God's elect were
planted together at one time in the person and work of Christ,
the likeness of his death. When he died, he died for their
sins imputed to him. He says, we shall be also in
the likeness of his resurrection. We're gonna be raised again.
All of his people. Christ did not die for those
who go to hell. That's not what the Bible teaches.
All for whom he died, they died with him. They were buried with
him. They were raised again with him
in representative, but they will be resurrected unto life in the
end. And so he says in verse six,
knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, our old
man. What is the old man? That's the
old state of things, our unregenerate state. Unbelieving, all of our
sins. That the body of sin might be
destroyed. That whole body of sin, see,
that would condemn people, that has been destroyed, how? By the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Not by what I've done or what
I will do or what I might do. It's been totally destroyed by
the body of Christ that henceforth we should not serve sin. Now
there it comes again. In other words, if I'm justified
with Christ, I'm going to walk in newness of life, and I'm not
going to serve sin. Now we'll talk about that later
on. Verse seven, for he that is dead, he that is dead is freed
from sin. Now that word freed is the word
justified. Justified, not guilty, and righteous
before God. That's what it means. And so
in verse eight, he says, now if we be dead with Christ, that
means when he died, I died, we believe that we shall also live
with him. When he was buried, I was buried. When he arose,
I arose, and I'll live with him. Verse nine, knowing that Christ
being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion
over him. Now, death has no more dominion
over the Lord Jesus Christ. He cannot die anymore. He did
die. He came to die. That's why he
was made flesh. So that he could die on that
cross. And he had to identify with his
brethren, that's God's elect, chosen before the foundation
of the world. Those whose names were written
in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world.
He didn't take on, when He became incarnate, when He was made flesh,
He didn't take on Him the nature of angels. He didn't die for
the angels, the non-elect angels. But He took upon Him, the Bible
says in Hebrews chapter two, the seed of Abraham. Now the
seed of Abraham there is not just national ethnic Jews. The
seed of Abraham are all believers, both Jew and Gentile. That's
who he's talking about. We need to understand that. But
they're justified in Christ. And that's the power of God's
grace is the power of justification. Let me show you another passage
that shows you the power of God's grace in the power of Christ
crucified. It's in Hebrews chapter 10, beginning
at verse 14. Listen to this. It says, for by one offering,
He, Christ, hath perfected, completed, finished, forever, not just partially,
forever, and not just temporarily, but forever, them that are sanctified. Now, who's sanctified? That means
to be set apart. All whom God set apart in divine
election, in redemption, And finally, in regeneration and
glorification, Christ perfected them, completed them, finished
their whole salvation by His one offering, the power of the
cross. And then over in the book of
John chapter 12, listen to this. In verse 31, He says, now is
the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. Talking about Christ defeating
Satan. Verse 32, and I, if I be lifted
up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. The all men
there is not all without exception, but it's all for whom he died.
He says, this he said signifying what death he should die. You
see that? It's the power of the cross.
First Corinthians one speaks of it. The preaching of the cross
is foolishness to them that are perishing, but it's the power
of God to them that are being saved, 1 Corinthians 1 and verse
18. You see, Christ, being raised
from the dead, dies no more. And all for whom he died shall
live again eternally. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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at 1102 Eager Drive. Albany, Georgia, 31707. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
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today and may the Lord be with you.