Paul's subject in Romans chapter
6 is the believer's life of faith in this world. He's telling us
how to live in accordance with what we profess in believer's
baptism as being dead to sin and alive to God, as men and
women redeemed called, justified, and sanctified by the grace of
God, Paul is telling us how to live. And three times in this
chapter, God the Holy Ghost inspired the Apostle Paul to declare that
every believer, every sinner who trusts the Lord Jesus Christ,
every person born of God is free from sin. What a way to inspire believers
to live under God. Three times the Spirit of God
tells us in this chapter that we are free from sin. Let's read
them. Romans 6 verse 7, For he that is dead is freed
from sin. Verse 18, Being then made free
from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. Verse 22, but
now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye
have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. As God the Holy Spirit will enable
me, I want to preach to you for a few minutes on this great,
great, great subject. from sin. What a thought, free
from sin. It is my prayer, my heart's desire
before God that every one of you will know what it is to be
free from sin before you leave this building this morning. All
who trust Christ are free from sin. Free from sin because of
our union with Christ. Throughout this chapter, the
apostle keeps reminding us of our union with the Lord Jesus
Christ. We live with Christ while he
walked on this earth, serving God, obeying God, loving God,
believing God, by which He brought in everlasting righteousness,
we lived in Him, serving God, obeying God, doing the will of
God, loving God, believing God. What He did, He did for us, but
more than that, what He did, we did in Him, just as what I
do with these hands, The whole body does. What I do with these
feet, the whole body does. It's impossible to separate the
members from the body. While Christ Jesus lived on this
earth, we lived in Him. We were crucified with Christ,
we're told in verse 6. Paul said, I am crucified with
Christ. The word literally is, I have
been crucified with Christ. When He died under the wrath
of God, We died under the wrath of God in Him. When He arose,
we arose with Him. And that's what we confess in
Believer's Baptism. We ascended with Christ and sat
down with Him in Heaven. And we've been accepted of Him
at the Father's right hand. We now live with Christ in the
newness of grace, and Christ lives in us, being sanctified
by the Spirit. We have life in Christ because
Christ, who is life, lives in us. If God the Holy Ghost will
enable us to grasp in some measure, or just a little bit, the reality
of our union with Christ, if he will enable us To live in
the awareness of the fact that we are one with Christ. Just to walk on this earth with
this awareness. I am one with Christ. That would,
with great measure, free us from every sense of bondage before
God. Every sense of dread before God. Every sense of apprehension at
the prospect of meeting God face-to-face in judgment, whether it be at
death or at the great white throne judgment. He that is dead is
freed from sin. Hold your hands here in Romans
6 and turn to 1 Peter 4. I want you to look at this one
more time. 1 Peter chapter 4. Sin has no dominion over those
who are free from sin. No control. It has no demand
upon us. It can claim nothing against
us. Because we're in Christ, and being in Christ, we are dead
to sin. Look at 1 Peter 4, verse 1. For
as much then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves
likewise with this same mind. That is, get hold of this. Get
hold of this. Make this the strength of your
mind. He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin. He that hath suffered in the
flesh hath ceased from sin. Well Bill, that's talking about
the Lord Jesus, it sure is. He who has made sin for us suffered
in the flesh because of sin and now He has ceased from sin because
He put away sin. But it's not just talking about
Him. It's not just talking about him. Read the next line. That
he, that is, he who suffered in the flesh, he who has ceased
from sin, that he should no longer live the rest of his lifetime
in the flesh to the lust of men, but to the will of God. That's
not talking about Christ. That's not talking about him
at all. That's talking about me. That's talking about you who
are His. For in Christ we suffered in the flesh, and now we cease
from sin, that we should live the rest of our days to God who
loved us and gave Himself for us. That's the subject of Romans
6. If a man goes to the gas chamber or to the electric chair, once
they flip the switch and that man's executed and put to death
for his crime, the law has no more claim upon him. The law
has nothing else it can do to him. The law wants nothing else
from him. The law can't charge him with
anything else. He's dead. That means he's free
from his sin, free from his crime. Romans 6, 18 says this, being
then made free from sin, delivered from sin. Paul uses a different
word for free here than he did in verse 7. He uses the same
word in verse 22. He's told now not about just
being justified from sin, but delivered, exonerated, liberated,
set free, taken away from, delivered from sin. Ye became the servants
of righteousness, being made free from sin, being given this
blessing, this glorious standing, this soul-cheering awareness
of freedom from sin. Ye became the servants of righteousness. That man, that woman, who has
been made free from sin, has been made by the same grace of
God the servant of righteousness. Look at verse 22 again. But now,
being made free from sin and become the servants of God, ye
have your fruit unto. Now the word does not imply that
you have fruit that produces holiness. No, no, no, no. That which makes us free from
sin is the gift of life in Christ Jesus, who is our holiness. But
now being made free from sin, ye have fruit with reference
to holiness, the fruit of the Spirit, the gifts and graces
of God in us. And the end, that is the consummation
of this, is everlasting life. Being made free from sin. becoming
the servants, the bond slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ, you
now have fruit, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance, those things against which there is no law.
And that fruit unto holiness and the end result of it all
is everlasting life. Now, this entire chapter, I repeat,
is talking about the believer's life on this earth, our life
of faith, the life that's ours in union with Christ. Now this
is not what we're expecting. This is not what we anticipate.
This is not what we hope for. Rex, this is what God says we
have. In this life, we have been made
free from sin. Free from sin. Are you interested
in that? If you are, this message is for
you. Our problem, our great problem and concern before God is sin. Sin. Not the sin that's in the
world, not the sins that other people commit, not the crimes
of an ungodly reprobate age, but our sin. That's our problem. That's true of you, and that's
true of me. David said, my sin are ever before
me. He said, as long as I refuse
to acknowledge this, when I kept silence, my bones waxed old through
my roaring. My sin is ever before me. Isaiah the prophet said, your
sins have separated between you and your God. Man's problem is
sin. That's what stands between you
and God. That's the whole trouble. There
wouldn't be any trouble with man in this world if it weren't
for sin. Sin is the thing that makes you
uneasy. Your sin is what causes you to
have trouble sleeping at night when you think about death and
judgment and eternity. Your sin is what causes you to
struggle with life, with peace in this world as you go through
the day and constantly it's brought before you. Sin's the problem. Our sin. There'll be no death,
no sorrow, no punishment, no fear, no dread of any kind if
it weren't for sin. The wages of sin is death and
we've all sinned. There's no exception. If we say
we have not sinned, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us. If we say that we have not sinned,
we make God a liar and his word is not in us. Our problem, our
great problem and concern is sin. Sin. Now, what would it
mean to you to know that you are free from sin? What would it mean to you to
walk out of this building this morning knowing that all of your
sins, past, present, and future, were pardoned, forgiven, put
away forever and ever, never to be remembered again by God? David and Paul knew the joy,
the blessedness, the double happiness of divine forgiveness. I pray
that you will know it. Here's David's song. Blessed
is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.
This was Paul's message in Romans chapter 5 and throughout the
book of Romans. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Oh, the blessedness, the joyfulness
of the sinner made free from sin by God himself. God says
their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. How can that
be? How can the omniscient God forget
anything? It's true only because the blood
of Christ is so effectual, so strong, so perfect, so infinitely
worthy that even the holy eyes of the omniscient God cannot
see sin washed away in the fountain of His precious blood, blotted
out and purged by the sacrifice of God's darling Son. The blood
of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. I'm not talking
about two or three things we did wrong in the past. I'm talking
about sin. All of it. All of it. The things I've done in the past
that other folks are aware of caused me to blush with shame
before them. but the things nobody knows except
me. I started saying me and God,
but God says he's forgotten it. Those are the things that make
me blush. Secret sin and known sin. Sins of omission, sins of commission. Inward sins and outward sins.
Past sins and present sins. The apprehension of future sins.
My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not
in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no
more. Praise the Lord. That means it
is well with my soul. Three times in this great chapter. I read, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. When Christ
died, I died. When He arose, I arose. When
He ascended, I ascended. When He was seated at the right
hand of God, I was seated in Him. And three times in this
chapter, I read that I'm free from sin. Paul's telling us that
every believer has died under the judgment of sin and is dead
with Christ. That means he's freed from sin.
Just as Christ is free from sin, the sins he bore in his body
on the tree, we are free from sin in him. He was made sin for us. He bore our sins in his body
on the tree. Did he not? Then he was buried. Joseph and Nicodemus came and
took his body wrapped his body in linen garments, wrapped him
up, that was their means of embalming him that day, and anointed his
body with aloes and myrrh, and they put him in the tomb, and
they rolled a stone on the tomb, and they sealed it. And then
three days later, he arose without sin, justified in the Spirit. And we arose with him. He who was made sin for us buried
our sins in the depths of the sea. But now He is free from
sin and we're free from sin in Him. God will never, never, never
charge sin to Christ again. God will never remember sin against
Christ again. God will never bring him into
judgment for sin again, for he is forever free from sin. And to put it in the words of
inspiration, as he is, so are we right now in this world. Oh, God help us to get some grasp
of that. We're free from sin. No longer
in bondage to sin. no longer under the guilt of
sin. Now the servants of righteousness as once were the servants of
sin. Now the servants of God as once were the servants of
the devil. He that is freed from sin, from
the service of sin and the bondage of sin, has become the servant
of God and righteousness. And the fruit of all this, this
blessed freedom, is holiness. We, being made free from sin,
had been made holy in Jesus Christ the Lord. Not made holy by something
we do. Oh, my soul, no. Made holy by
Christ in you, the hope of glory. Made righteous by righteousness
imputed to us, performed by us in the person of our substitute,
the Lord Jesus. Now, let me wrap this up by showing
you four things. I'll be very brief, but I want
you to see these four things. First, when the Word of God asserts
that all who are free from sin, there are some things those words
obviously do not mean. There are some things they just
don't mean. Certainly, this does not mean
that we are free from sin's presence. Sin does remain in us. That needs no argument, does
it? Sin's in us. The scriptures plainly
tell us that is so. The motions of sin are in us,
even us who are believers. They're very real to everyone
who knows God. I'm not talking about getting
drunk rolling around in the gutter. I'm not talking about murder,
theft, rape, and adultery. I'm talking about sins of the
mind, the heart, the imagination. Which of you sitting here now has no problem right now, right
now, with pride, Raging lust. Envy. Jealousy. Prejudice. Malice. Who? Who? No need to prove anything else,
is it? Sin's in you. Sin's in me. Right now. Right
now. More so. than it's ever been,
right now. The thoughts of our hearts are
only evil continually. We're perfect in Christ, thank
God. He has perfected forever them
that are sanctified. But there's no perfection in
us. Anyone who claims to be perfect is a liar. The truth is not in
him. John Wesley is famous for his
heresy of sinless perfectionism. He's not the only one. Folks
have been teaching it for years. Pentecostal folks teach it. Most
everybody teaches the possibility of it. Most everybody says you
get saved and then the Spirit of God comes in and you start
to work and you get holier and holier and holier until at last
you're right for heaven. That means you're just almost
perfect now. What blasphemy. Those who think
so lie themselves and make God a liar. We never live a day. We never
live an hour. We never live a moment without
sinning. So free from sin doesn't mean
we're free from its presence. To be free from sin certainly
doesn't mean that we're free from its awareness. Oh no. Oh
no. In a week or two, we'll get to
Romans chapter 7, if the Lord willing. And in that chapter,
the Apostle Paul writes from the long experience of a believer
and talks about a struggle, a warfare that goes on constantly in our
lives, constantly in our souls, just a constant warfare. The things I had just mentioned,
these things that are in us. My God, you're my witness. I
hate what I am. I hate what I am. But I'm aware
of what I am. Bitterly, painfully aware of
what I am. The Apostle Paul wrote these
words, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of
whom I was chief. That's not what he said, is it? Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners of whom I am chief. I'm telling you the truth
and you know it. I'm not preaching for your money.
I'm preaching for your soul. I'm not seeking yours. I'm seeking
you. I want to talk to you truthfully and bluntly and honestly. For
another thing, freedom from sin doesn't mean that we're free
from the effects of it. We're not. Sin is the cause of
every difficulty in humanity. Sin is the cause of all sorrow,
pain, unhappiness, sickness, and death in the world. Sin's
the cause of all strife, all division, and all war. No exception. Sin's the cause of all that we
suffer in this world. Nothing's wrong with God's creation
except sin. Nothing was wrong with humanity
until sin entered into our race, and we and our father Adam sinned
against God. We're not free from sin, and
we're not free from its effects in this sense. No, no. So long
as we live in this world, are you free from depression? People
like to talk a big game. We like folks to be impressed
with us. Are you free from loneliness?
You'll never feel alone? Are you free from sorrow? You're never depressed? Are you
free from pain? You never have a headache? Are
you free from sickness? You never get sick, never have
a cold? Are you free from sadness? Never get blue, never get downcast? Are you free from fear? You're
never afraid of anything? Free from tears? You never cry?
Are you free from old age? Weirdness? Free from death? Oh, no. No, no. It's appointed
unto men once to die. I will tell you this. If you
had no sin, you wouldn't die. The effects of sin are going
to stay with us until we leave this world. When I say we're
free from sin in Christ, I'm not saying that we're free from
the presence of sin. I'm not saying that we're free
from the awareness of it, the conflict of sin. I'm not saying
we're free from the effects of it. That certainly is not what
Paul means. What does he mean? That's the
second thing. To be free from sin is to be free from any possibility
of condemnation. by God, or separation from God. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. Nothing shall separate us from
the love of God. Nothing. Nothing. There's no
judgment, no wrath, no charge against us. Christ hath redeemed
us, freed us by His blood from the curse of the law being made
a curse for us. Do you know why there's no condemnation?
No curse against the believer? Christ took it. Christ paid our
debt. Payment God cannot twice demand. First at my bleeding shirt, His
hand, and then again at mine. Jesus paid it all, all the debt
I owed. Sin had left a crimson stain.
He washed it white as snow. Who can lay anything to the charge
of God's elect? It's God that justifieth. That
word justifieth means we're without sin. We're without sin. We like
to say it, and I have said this, and it's wrong. Justified means
just as if I'd never sinned. Oh no, that's not what it means.
That's not what it means. It means I never sinned. It means
I never sinned. God put my sin away. They're gone. They're gone. To
be justified is to be not guilty. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died, yea, rather that's risen again, who's even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. He that believeth shall not come into condemnation. Preachers
can talk all they want to about believers being judged. Shelby and I last night were
watching one of our more risque programs on television. We were
watching a rerun of Daniel Boone. And they were rescuing a nun
from an Indian attack. And Shelby said, how did all
that stuff start? Who would persuade somebody to
live in celibacy and imagine they ought to wear those habits
and live in the convent and all that stuff? As well, nunneries
historically have been nothing but whorehouses. That's all they've
ever been. That's all they've ever been. And I doubt things
have changed in it. But historically, that's what
they've been. Whorehouses for the priest. That's what they
were. Oh, you're going to get in trouble for that. I invite
it. I invite it. That's what they've been. But
how is it that folks get such control on people? The whole
function of religion where Christ is not involved. is to control
you. That's the whole function. Our
Lord said to the maniac, loose him, or said to Lazarus, concerning
Lazarus, loose him and let him go. Loose him and let him go. He came to that maniac of Gadara
and set him free. Religion says don't do that.
We got to put some ropes and chains on him. We got to bind
him. We got to make him do this or that or the other thing. Because
men love it. Men love bondage. All men love
chains and They love constraints and laws. They love a measuring
stick by which they can measure themselves and think, yeah, I'm growing now. Boy, now
I'm getting good. Men love it. Men love it. And
religion loves to control you. Religion loves to control you.
And one way they do so is the fear of judgment. Oh, God's going
to get you. One of these days, Day of Judgment,
God's going to set up a great big movie screen and it's going
to be triple X rated. He's going to show the whole
world all the stuff you've done. What? Find me something like that in
this book. Find me something like that. When is God going
to bring up your sin again? When is God going to bring up
my sin again? When He brings up His Son's sin again. That's when and not until then.
But what about judgment day? Judgment day is not going to
be a day when a verdict is decided. Oh no. Judgment Day, the Great
White Throne Judgment will be a day when God shows the rightness
of His judgment both in the salvation of His elect and in the damnation
of the ungodly. Don't let yourself be fooled
by the nonsense that religious folks perpetrate in the name
of religion trying to bind folks and put them in bondage under
the law. God's not going to bring Christ
back into judgment. He judged Christ at Calvary. And when He
came to me in the gift of faith, He convinced me of my sin, and of His righteousness, and
of judgment finished. Judgment finished! Because the
Prince of this world is judged to be free from sin. is to be
free from guilt. Not guilty before God. The jury comes marching out of
the jury room, and the judge asks them, have you reached a
verdict? And they say, we have, your honor.
And the foreman says, not guilty. What are you going to do with
the fellow then? He's not guilty. He's not guilty. What are you
going to do with him? You're going to be nice and let
him go. No. You have to let him go. He's not guilty. Law demands
that you let him go. He's not guilty. This is what
God says to every sinner who believes on his son, not guilty. And he says to the law, let him
go. Don't touch him. He's not guilty. Pardon doesn't mean not guilty. It means pardon. Forgiven doesn't
mean not guilty. It means forgiven. Justified
means not guilty. Not guilty before God. And the conscience sprinkled
from guilt, sprinkled from sin by the blood of Christ as God
declares His testimony in the conscience and says to the sinner
who believes, you're not guilty. What does it mean to be free
from sin? Free from sin's penalty. Free from its punishment. so
that we shall never die. Brother Don, you know you're
going to die. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. No. One of these
days, at God's appointment, by God's design, according to God's
purpose, at God's hour, I'm going to cease breathing through these
organs of my body. I'm going to cease looking through
these eyes. I'm going to cease hearing through
these ears. I'm going to cease speaking with
this mouth. But that's because I'm moving
out of this crumbling tabernacle. I'm not dying. I'm just moving
out. I'm just moving out. When we finished the Parsonage
back here, what, 27, 28 years ago, in cold January, we started
moving. And moved out of that house over
Junction City. Very nice house. Very nice house. But you know,
nobody hung a wreath on the door. Nobody shed a tear. Matter of
fact, we were all happy. We'd been working on it a while.
We just moved houses, that's all. Just moved into this place
over here. Nicer, newer, and better. All
finished and complete. And our Lord Jesus said, He that
believeth on me shall never die. Not going to happen. Not going
to happen. Never die. Just moving out into a house
not made with hands eternal in the heavens. To be free from
sin is to be free from sin's dominion. What does that mean? What does
that mean? That means the lust and the pride
and the jealousy and the envy and the malice and the prejudice
and the ungodliness that rages in us. Mark, we can't even slow them
down. Can't even slow them down. Can't
even put a cap on them. Can't even put a cap on them.
Just bust out everywhere. But they don't control how I
live anymore. Don't control me anymore. been made a new creature
in Christ. And there is a new man in me
that God says cannot sin. That new man is Christ Jesus,
created in righteousness and in true holiness. Christ Jesus,
the King, has come into the straw man's house, bound the straw
man and cast him out, and has set up his throne in his place.
And now Christ sits king, king on the throne of every believer's
heart. You see, faith in Christ is nothing
less than surrender to Christ the Lord. Surrender to Christ
the Lord. You drive down the road and you
see a building sitting down there and it's got a big sign up out
front that says under new management. I'm under new management. I have
a new owner. I have a new master. His name
is Jesus Christ the Lord. That's what it is to be free
from sin. How? That's the third thing.
How can I obtain this blessedness free from sin? This is the gift of God. This
is the gift of God. It's not by works of righteousness
which we've done, but according to His mercy that He saved us. It's not something that we willed
to have. It's not something we willed
into existence. It is that which God gave us,
the gift of God. I'll say more about this tonight,
Lord willing, but a gift. People have the idea I haven't
seen it in a few years, but every year after Christmas, for years,
one of the preachers over in Lexington had an ad on television,
and he said, every year at Christmastime, we have a gift under the tree.
There's always one there. If somebody wasn't there and
is still waiting for somebody to come and get the gift, open
it and unwrap it. That's the way God's salvation
is. It's a gift God has out here for you to open it and unwrap
it, and then you can have it. That's the kind of gift I'm talking
about. I'm talking about the kind of gift you get when God
breathed into Adam that piece of clay and Adam became a living
soul. I'm not talking about a gift
that's offered to you. I'm talking about a gift that's put in you.
A gift that's wrought in you. has wrought us for this self-same
purpose. That's the language of the book.
He has wrought us for everlasting life with Him in glory. It was
God who chose me by His grace, God who brought me into the kingdom
of God, God who awakened me, God who has raised me from the
dead, God who has kept me, and God who will yet keep me. This
blessing comes by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
He bought for us this eternal life. With His own blood, He
entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us. He went to Calvary's cross, paid
the debt for our sins, arose from the dead, and sat down in
heaven, and took possession of heaven. And we arose with Him,
and sat down with Him, and took possession of heaven's glory
with Him. We're justified. And this blessed
freedom from sin comes to us by faith in Christ. By faith in Christ. Believe on
the Son of God. And you have this virtue flowing
out of Him into your soul, freed from sin. Brother Mark mentioned
to me last Sunday night, chatting a little bit after service, that
woman with the issue of blood. For 12 long years, she'd been
trying to find somebody to help her. She had spent everything
she had on physicians of no value. She had been to every preacher
and soul winner and religious organization in the country,
and she was none bettered. And then she heard that Jesus
of Nazareth passed by. And she said after she heard
about this man, heard about what he had done, and what he could
do, who he was. She said, if I could just touch
the hem of his garment, I'd be made whole. And she came, that
unclean woman, stooped and bowed with her oppressive load, with
her constant bleeding for 12 long years, and she reached out
and touched him. And immediately, she was made
whole. And the Lord Jesus said, somebody touched me. I perceive
that virtue is gone out of me. Oh, God give you grace now to
touch him with the hand of faith and you obtain this virtue out
of him, freed from sin. What's the result of this? You have your fruit with reference
to holiness. You live before God as gods. You walk with God by faith. You're
made holy through Jesus Christ our Lord. The very righteousness
of God, the very holiness that God requires is yours for Christ
is in you. And in the end, in the end, good as this is, I just, I can't
imagine, I can't imagine thinking about something better than being
freed from sin. But Merle, that's just the start.
In the end, everlasting life. Oh, God make Christ yours and
make you this day free from sin. Amen.