Alright, Romans 6. A few years back, it was a few days before Easter Sunday, and somebody asked me if I'd be preaching on the resurrection on Sunday. And I said, I preach Christ every time I stand in the pulpit. And I said, and involved in preaching Christ, you have to preach Christ is risen because it declares He accomplished what He came to accomplish. So yes, I'm going to preach on the resurrection on Sunday like I do every time I preach. Christ is the resurrection. So if I preach Christ, I'm going to preach the resurrection. He is the resurrection. He's the life.

This person was wanting to argue about it, and I just thought, Lord, save us from wanting to just strive and argue about Scripture. I think there are people that would have no interest in the Gospel except that they want to strive and debate about it and argue about it.

The Lord's given us peace. by what he's done, to rejoice, to be glad, to be thankful. And the Lord said, let the potsherds strive with the potsherds. Let the broken clay pots strive with one another. You rejoice in the Lord. You look to the Lord, believe the Lord, rejoice in the Lord. You know, the Lord said it's not circumcision that avails. That's somebody thinking they're saved by their works. That doesn't avail. But he also said, neither does uncircumcision avail. A person could know they're not saved by works and wanna strive and argue with people over that. That's not availing.

What avails is the Lord making you entirely a new creation. And that is by what we're gonna see in this passage today. While the world gives lip service to Christ on their so-called holy days, We try to preach Christ every time the gospel goes forth because, and in fact, the resurrection is the basis of our faith and our hope.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, 17, he said, if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain and you're yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. Our brethren that have died, which he calls just falling asleep, he said if Christ is not risen, they perish. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death. By man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam, all who Adam represented died. So in Christ shall all who Christ represented live. So yes, I want to hear Christ is risen every time I hear the gospel preached, because that's my hope. He is my hope.

I want to show you what Christ accomplished by his death, and I want to show you what he accomplished by his resurrection from the dead, and I want to show you what this means for those that God chose to reveal Christ in, what it means for us who believe. First of all, what did the Lord Jesus accomplish by his death? Why did he die? and what did he accomplish?

Romans 6, 6 says, knowing this, this is what the Lord reveals to everybody he saves. He makes you know this. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin. This is what the Lord's going to make his child know. When he blesses us to hear the gospel, we know this. Here's what he's going to reveal.

Our old man is crucified with him. Our Lord Jesus went to that cross for a specific people. A people the Father chose before the world was made by grace. purely by God's grace and gave to him. And that's who the hour is, our old man. He's talking about all his elect. And the reason we declare that is because one, the scripture declare it, God declares it, but number two, because Christ accomplished justifying his people. He didn't try, he didn't give men a chance. He didn't make it possible, He accomplished it. Our old man is crucified with Him. Our old man is crucified with Him. Now the Lord Jesus is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. The Lord Jesus could not die, because He knew no sin. Death is due to sin. and the Lord knew no sin. He came into this world holy from the womb, holy when he came forth, righteous in all that he did. He's the just one. He's the holy one. He couldn't die. Sin had no claim on him. Death had no claim on him.

When Christ presented himself to the Father, the spotless Lamb of God, to be made sin for his people, that was the just laying down his life for the unjust. He's just, he's holy, he's spotless, he's sinless. But the purpose of the cross, first of all, preeminently above everything else, the purpose of the cross is to manifest God's righteousness, is to show God is righteous, God will not condemn a just man. He will not pour out justice on an innocent man. And he will not clear a guilty man. He's righteous. He is the righteous judge. He only does right. And so in order for God to be just and manifest his righteousness, in making Christ a curse for his people, in pouring out the justice of God on him.

Before he would do that, he made him sin for us. The Lord Jesus presented himself the spotless just one, and he hath made him sin for us who knew no sin. Now, I want you to try to enter into what that means. The Lord Jesus, he became the one man representing all his elect, the only one, all his people are in him, and he's the one man who stands with all the sin of all his people on him. Made sin, bearing our sin in his own body on the tree.

And because of that, the scripture says, God spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. When sin was on his son and God saw his son bearing sin, God is so just and so righteous, he would not clear his son. Do you think that God's gonna accept anything you do and clear you of your sin based on something you've done, he would not clear his son. He's not going to clear a guilty sinner, and we are all guilty sinners outside of Christ. But when our Lord spared not his son, he died, he bore the second death that his people owed to divine justice.

He was made a curse for us, really made a curse for us. Forsaken of God, bearing, we can't even really enter into what he was bearing, but that darkness for three and a half hours manifests something of the darkness he was bearing himself. Separated from God, made a curse for his people. He's bearing the hell that his people deserved.

That's what he was bearing. And that's what it took to satisfy divine justice. It took the holy God being a man and going to the cross and laying down his life with the sin of his people on him, bearing all the full brunt of God's holy justice himself. And that's what he did.

And the scripture says, when he died under the justice of God, each of God's elect was crucified in him. Our old man is crucified with him. Our old man is crucified with him. That's what the scripture says. when he was crucified under the justice of God, my old man. What I see in myself is sin, that's all I see. The old man of my sin nature, that's all I see. But we're talking about before God, before the holy law of God, my old man was crucified under the justice of God when Christ was crucified.

And that's so of you that believe him. Paul said, I am crucified with Christ. Now listen, God doesn't play pretend. God was not pretending you were crucified. I was crucified in Christ. It's a mysterious thing that we were in Christ, but we were in Christ. And when he was crucified, our old man is crucified with him under the justice of God. It was a must in order to sever us from the dominion of our sin. The dominion of our sin was because we were guilty, and the law had us as slaves under the wrath of God, the justice of God, and we couldn't be freed from that any other way than the Lord Jesus going to the cross on our behalf. And that's what happened on that cross. Here's why he did it. Verse seven, look at the second part. That the body, Romans 6, seven, the second, I'm sorry, Romans 6, six, the second part. That the body of sin might be destroyed. That henceforth we should not serve sin. Just like every elect child was really an Adam and we really sin. When Adam sinned, we sinned. That's how we became guilty. By the disobedience of one. Well, every one of God's elect was in Christ. We were in Christ.

And when he laid down his life and he bore that justice of God, he did it so that our old man is destroyed. We're talking about before God, before the law. I know what people will say. I heard somebody once try to say that meant that he didn't have sin anymore and he wasn't a sinner anymore. His old nature was destroyed. It's talking about before God. It's talking about before the justice of God, where it really matters. Our old man was destroyed so that we would henceforth not be the slaves of sin.

The word serve sin there means be the slave of sin. You know what keeps most men working in religion? Most men are doing all the good works and everything they're doing in religion because they're terrified that they're the sinner and they're trying to appease God.

That's clearly what the Hebrew writer said. If any of those sacrifices had put away sin to the soothing of the conscience, they'd have never offered another sacrifice. And it takes God revealing, purging our conscience with the blood of Christ, making us behold that when Christ died, I was crucified and my old man of sin was destroyed before God, before the law of God.

And here's why, here's what that means. Destroyed means to render idle, unemployed, inactive, inoperative, to cease, to put an end to, to abolish, to be severed, to be discharged from. Destroyed is a good word because it means all of that. Destroyed before God.

He don't exist before God by what Christ did. So for God to be just in justifying his people, for him to be just, for him to be just to show us grace and mercy, Our old man of sin had to die under the just judgment of God and be destroyed so that we would be justified. God's law had to be thoroughly satisfied in full.

Verse seven, for he that is dead is freed from sin. That word freed, if you have a Cambridge Bible, the marginal reference says justified. Freed from sin, justified from sin. When Christ laid down his life on that tree and said it is finished, that's what he declared. He justified every single sinner for whom he died. Our old man was destroyed when Christ died.

Now listen, let's just take our law for an example. law of our land. We have a death penalty. If a man has sinned, he's committed a crime, and the law arrests him and puts him in prison, and he's on death row, the law is not satisfied until that man dies. That man is the slave of sin. The law has him in bondage. He can't be set free. But the moment The moment the law is poured out in full upon him and he draws his last breath and dies, that law has not another word to say to him.

Satisfied. The law has been executed in full. It cannot say another word to him. That's what Christ did for us. The law can't say another word to us. Not another word to us. Justified means he put our sin away. Before God, the all-knowing, all-seeing God, we don't have the old man of sin anymore. That's all we see, that we know it. It's with us all the time. But before God, before his law, that old man is dead. He's destroyed. He's gone.

The law is satisfied. Now, secondly, what did the Lord Jesus accomplish by his resurrection from death? Why did he rise? And what did he accomplish? Verse eight. Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing, again, this is what the Spirit reveals, this is how we know this, that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more.

Death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Now, the Lord Jesus died unto sin once. This is how you know he was really made sin. He really died. There's no other way. He could not have died any other way except he was bearing sin. That's why he died. He died unto sin once. Death had dominion over him for a time.

He was willing. He did it willingly. He did it because he loved God and he loved his people. That's the fulfillment of the law. That's why he is the only one that ever fulfilled it. You wanna see what it takes to obey the law? You wanna see what it takes to obey the law? The spirit of the law is love, and the only one you see that ever kept the law of God is the Lord Jesus, and the way he did it was he bore the sin of his people and the curse of his people for God and for his people, because he loved them both with a perfect love. That's what it takes to fulfill the law.

He's the only one that ever did it. That's how righteous God is. That's what God considers keeping the law. This junk men are talking about having kept the law. No, no man's kept the law. Adam broke it and we all broke it in him and we come forth guilty. He is the only one that ever kept it.

Now being raised from the dead, he dies no more. Death couldn't hold him because at the same time that he bore that justly, At the same time, he was perfectly faithful to God and perfectly fulfilling God's will and all righteousness. And he so thoroughly put away sin, death couldn't hold him. Death could not keep him in that grave. And so death has no more dominion over him. He gave the law and death everything it wanted. And because he so thoroughly put away sin, Death couldn't hold him in that grave.

God was satisfied. And God raised him from the dead. He raised himself from the dead because he conquered death by putting away sin. He conquered death for everybody for whom he died. He put their sin away. And when the spirit of God comes and gives us faith, the spirit of God reveals to us that when he died, we died. And when he arose, we arose, we arose in him.

Ephesians 2, 6 says, God hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness to us through Christ Jesus. All those years ago, Christ died. And just consider this, if you were the only one Christ died for, all those years ago Christ died and God had in His mind and His purpose that in the ages to come, 2,000 and 25 years later, or 20, however long it was when He made you know Him, that God would reveal Christ to you and show you what He did for you way back there. That's what it meant, and He makes you know. that you're seated with Him right there at God's right hand because He has fully satisfied the law and you have in Him. Everything He is, you are in Him. Listen, that's what the good news of the gospel is. Our old man died, was buried, and our new man rose in Christ with Christ and we're seated with him right there.

Colossians 2.12 says, you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him from the dead. Risen with him. Now, look here in verse eight. If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, Death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

Now here is the good news that the Lord reveals when he comes and makes you hear this gospel. When the Spirit of God enters and gives you spiritual life, Here is how he gives you faith to believe him. This is what he reveals was accomplished on your behalf by the Lord Jesus. Verse 11. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Listen. When the Lord gives you a new heart and he gives you faith to hear and spiritual discernment to hear what this means, when you see what Christ accomplished, God commands you.

We saw this morning, he commanded that man with a paralyzed hand, stretch your hand forth. When God commands you to reckon, that word means impute. When he commands you to impute it to be the very way God imputes it to be. Imputation, men have preached for years that imputation is God treating you as if something. They say he treated Christ as if he was sin, and now he treats you as if you're righteous. That is not imputation. That's not how God imputes.

You go through the scripture and I'll give you an example. God is long-suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And he says, so account. That word means impute. Impute that the long-suffering of God is salvation. He's saying you impute God's long-suffering to be just what it is. It means you're going to be saved. If he's long-suffering that you and not willing that you perish, you will be saved.

Imputation is God counting a man to be what he is. It's God counting what is a fact, what is true, what is the reality. It's an accounting term. The Greek lexicon says, the illustration it gives is, if you account, you're imputing how much money you have in your wallet. If you count $10, then you impute $10 to your wallet. You didn't put the $10 in your wallet by imputing it to it. You impute it to be so, you account it to be so, because that's what it is. That's what imputation is.

So when God makes you hear this, He says, now you impute yourself to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. And that, for the first time, is when you really know how it is. In Christ, my old man really died. He's dead. God don't regard him anymore. And when Christ came out of that grave, I came out of that grave.

And I'm seated there at God's right hand right now. That's so for you, believer. If you trust Christ by his grace, and you can say truly, he's all my salvation, and he's made you to know this, when God commands it, this is when you start believing. When God says, now you impute it to be just like I impute it to be, that's when you'll say, I believe him. I died. and I'm seated there with Christ right now, perfect as he is, complete just like he is, seated right there with him.

Now listen, this is what scripture says. The reason the Lord does this and the context, I'm just gonna be brief right here on this, but the reason God is giving this word to us now is because as you can see right here in the beginning, This is what men charge us with saying.

They said, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Have you ever heard this? If you tell somebody the gospel, they'll say, well, if I believe like that, I just sin all I want to. No, that's not what we're saying. But here's what the spirit of God's telling us.

Verse two, God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein. Number one, before God, it's impossible. Not because you're not a sinner still, and not because you don't still sin, it's impossible because your old man is dead, and you're seated there with Christ. So it's a no. But the Lord blesses this message to our heart so that, just like we saw this morning, right there in the next part, And he says, he says, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lust thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. Listen, when you've been hearing this message this morning and the Lord's been just pointing you to Christ, have you even been thinking about you? You've been thinking about him. You've been, your heart is renewed saying, I'm seated there with Christ.

God does not, he's put my sin away as far as the east is from the west. He don't remember it anymore. That message strengthens you, renews you in your heart to say, I want to yield to him. I don't want to yield to sin. And when you do yield to him, and you don't yield to sin, it's entirely by the faithfulness of Christ living in you. You can't glory in it. We don't say, well, look what I did.

Paul said, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I. Christ liveth in me, and the life I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God. I believe because God sent the Spirit of His Son crying, Abba, Father. Well, don't you cry, Abba, Father? I do sometimes. But it's not me, it's Christ making me do it. And sometimes I can't cry. And Romans 8 says, but the Spirit makes intercession when groanings that can't be uttered.

No matter what, before God, in Christ, you're faithful. and you're not gonna yield to sin. And God only says you're yielding to him, and he's gonna keep you yielding to him. Because here's the fact, look here at Romans 6 and look at verse 14. And this is, Gil, I love what John Gil says on this, I don't have it written down, but he says, this is not a suggestion, it's not a maybe, it is a bona fide fact of what is and shall always be, verse 14.

Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. God'll never condemn you. He'll never charge you. He said, this is as the waters of Noah to me. He said, as I swore I'd never flood the world again. He said, I've sworn I will not be wrathful of my people. When the Lord chastens us, it's not legal rebuke and harsh wrath. It's a loving father turning us again to him, to trust him. He's not gonna let sin have dominion over you. You're not under the law. You are under grace. Look at Colossians 3. Let's end with this. Colossians 3. Actually, I don't wanna end with this. I got one other thing I wanna show you. Colossians 3. Here's what he tells you. This is what the gospel does to you.

This is how you yield to him rather than sin. If you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things of the earth, for you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory. That's how our flesh is mortified. Him turning you to see how it really is. You're seated there with him.

That's the good news, brethren. I wanna end with this. This is where I wanna end. Go to 1 Corinthians 15. Because Christ is coming back for us. And I gotta end with this. The reason I read to you there where Paul said those believers that have died, that they're sleeping The soul goes to be with Christ immediately. As soon as you die, you're with him. But our body is just sleeping. It's just there. We're with him already. The body's just there. But he's gonna one day come back and he's raising our body glorified with him. We're not looking for an event. We're looking for a person.

Christ is the resurrection. That's what he taught Martha. Martha, I'm the resurrection. I'm the life. This is a guarantee for his people. Look at 1 Corinthians 15, 51. I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep. We're not all gonna be dead and in the grave when Christ returns. Some are gonna be alive. But we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.

But we just saw Christ took care of both of them. He put our sin away. He conquered death for us. So thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. For as much as you know, your neighbor is not in vain in the Lord. You keep looking to Christ. You keep hearing his gospel. you keep helping and loving one another, Christ will not fail to bring us home with him.

That's why, I'm not just preaching this because this is supposed to be Easter, I'm preaching this because this is my hope, this is what I want to preach every time I stand here, because this is my life, Christ Jesus. If Christ has regenerated you and given you a heart to believe this concerning him, that he is your life, that he is all your righteousness, all your holiness, all your redemption, all your wisdom, he's coming again for you.

If he's given you that to know him, then he's given us a simple ordinance that we're about to observe. And he says, this do in remembrance of me. You gotta know him before you can remember him. So this is for folks that he's made to know him. What our text begin with? Knowing this, if he's made you know these things we've been hearing, he says, then you do this and remember it to me. You remember my broken body and my shed blood and you remember me. You're showing my death till I come, he said. So that's what we're gonna do now. All right, Brother Adam and Brother Jeff, would y'all pass the element?