Wanna discover your freedom in Christ? Then listen in as Mike Stone and Kevin Smith talk about it today on Grace Coach. Welcome to Grace Coach. My name is Kevin Smith. I'm with my co host, Mike Stone.
What's up, Mike? Hey. Hey. Good to be here, Kevin. We're gonna talk about Romans 6 today.
I'm gonna, back up into Romans chapter 5 verses 20 to 21 as a little bit of review. So if you guys wanna, open your bibles to that verse, you can read along with me in just a second. But as I have been preparing for this podcast, that is like a funeral that you have never attended before because every funeral you've ever attended before, the person dies, you cry, you weep, you mourn, like rightfully so, and you go on with your life. But we have great news. The gospel is great news because you died, but now you are alive.
Oh, Givin, that's a great picture of what's happening here that we've crossed over from death to life. And that's what the apostle Paul wants people to know who aren't saved, that they came into this world spiritually dead. And as a result of Adam's sin and Adam's disobedience, sin came to all people. It says that in Romans 12, therefore, just as sin entered the world through 1 man and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all people because all have sinned. That is is a funeral right out of the gate.
I mean, we're born physically alive, but spiritually dead. And, what you're talking about, Kevin, is that we have now, as a born again Christian, crossed over from death to life. And that is just an awesome, truth that we are no longer spiritually dead, but as a result of our faith in Christ, we are made alive. And that is exciting news that we're gonna talk about today. So jump right in here to Romans chapter, 5 verses 20 and 21.
And this is just a little bit of a review to kinda set us, up for Romans chapter 6. Alright. Verse 20 says, the law was added so that trespass might increase, but where sin increased, grace increased all the more. So that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our lord. So that those two verses encapsulate what I just said basically.
It's a life and death situation here. Death through sin, life through Christ. Amen, Mike? Yeah. That is good stuff.
And I I know, in my early days of being a Christian, that that was a hard thing to get into my mind that the law was actually added so that sin might increase. You know, the purpose of the law in the Old Testament is different than the purpose of the law now in this New Testament. The law was given to Israel. God would bless Israel if they followed the law, and they Israel was cursed if they didn't follow the law. And then there was punishment as a result of not following the law.
That ended at the cross, Romans 104. The punishment of the law for people and Israel only was never given to the Gentiles anyway. It ended at the cross. And now when the law comes into your life, the purpose is to lead you to Christ. It's to show you your inability to follow the law.
Kevin, that is just something that really has continues to blow me away that the purpose of the law today is to lead lost people to Christ. I wanna read a few verses. First Timothy 189 says that the law is for the lost, and that the law is only good if one uses it properly. The law is not made for the righteous, but for the ungodly. Yes.
Okay? So that clearly says the law is not for people who are right with God, who are born again. Yes. The law has already done its work in your life. It's brought you to Christ.
Yes. Other verse is, Galatians 32425, and it says that the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. And now that this faith has come, we are no longer under the law. Amen. And so that that's pretty much the same thing that the law was put in charge to show you something very important about yourself, that you're spiritually dead, born that way, and you need life.
It's like a mirror. You look in the mirror, and you realize you're a sinner, you're lost, and you need new life. And the only one to give life was Jesus. So that's why this is a funeral. And the good thing about this funeral is that we now come to Christ.
We're made alive. We're resurrected from the dead. We were in Adam, dead, and now we're alive in Christ. And so it's just a beautiful thing, and that really does lead us, Kevin, to Romans 6. Alright.
What should we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means. We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer?
Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, we too may live a new life. Now that's a mouthful right there in just the opening verses of this chapter. This chapter is Romans 6, 7, and 8 are the pinnacles of Romans, I would say, like a diamond nugget. But this verse basic these few verses encapsulate the whole package, come to life through baptism.
We were baptized into Christ's death, and we are raised again just like he is, in our living a new life in Christ. Yeah. So his question, what shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? That will only be a question from somebody who doesn't understand the purpose of the law.
Because somebody who thinks that they're still under the law would be surprised that Paul would write that the law arouses your sinful nature. The purpose of the law is to lead you to Christ. They they're thinking that the purpose of the law is to keep me in line so I don't sin. Mhmm. Okay?
But that's not true. It's the grace of God which teaches us to say no to unrighteousness. The law is only what arouses our sinful thoughts. I'll never forget the old Bob George story where he's, like, walking down the road and and there's construction there and there's a hole in the fence. And he doesn't think twice about looking at the hole to see the construction until somebody from the construction site puts a sign over the hole that says, do not look in the hole.
Well, he couldn't walk past the sign because it says, do not look in the hole without wanting to go look in the hole. Yeah. There's actually a line forming for people wanting to look in the hole. So, you know, verse 3 now says, don't you know that all of us were baptized into Christ? We're baptized in his death.
And, you know, we we hear the word baptism. We always think of water, but we're not talking about water. We're talking about an identification, that you're identified in his death. To me, what it really means is that you accept his death for the forgiveness of your sins. Mhmm.
And when you accept the forgiveness of sins that Jesus provided, you stop asking God to forgive you because you've accepted the fact that he's taken away your sins, and you've been identified in his death. You believe that he took away your sins. And those sins are past, present, and future. Every sin that you will ever commit has been forgiven the moment you enter into a relationship with God. It's it's done.
It's a done deal. With god, it's it's done. It's a done deal. Yes. Can we acknowledge that we've done wrong?
Absolutely. Can I ask you to forgive me? Absolutely. Can you ask me to forgive you? Yes.
On a horizontal plane, yes, we can forgive one another. But the forgiveness that God has given to everybody who are in Christ, it's already accomplished. It's already done. He's not it's not a progressive forgiveness. It's a complete package that he's already given to us.
Yeah. And Paul is talking here about what is the purpose of this forgiveness. And he says this in 4. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, we too may have a new life. So that in order that, what that says to me is that's the reason for his death.
In order that you might have a new life. But Jesus did, he cleared the deck. He took away the sins of the world for the purpose that anyone who comes to him by faith would have a new life and be born again. As John 524 says, you've crossed over from death to life. Right.
So that really gives a purpose to the death of Christ, our identifying, our baptism into his death, that we might have a new life, that we would come to Christ and put our faith in his resurrection, that he rose from the dead. Yeah. That reminds me just as Jesus was talking to Nicodemus, the Pharisee. He said, you must be born again. Yes.
So when we go on to Romans 5 verse 5, Kevin, I'm gonna read 6 5 through 6 7. Or if we have been united with him in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. What do you make of those, couple of verses there? One of the key phrases in those verses is the body of sin, and we don't wanna get confused with the gnostic heresy that our bodies are sinful.
You know, our bodies, we can sin is a separate thing that's outside of our bodies. But the gnostics thought that our bodies were sinful, And I don't wanna get into all the, beliefs of gnosticism, but, just leave well, no. We could go for an hour just talking about it. Are you kidding me? Anyway, our bodies are not sinful, but we can sin with our bodies.
We can go one way or we can go another way. And then the the reality it is is that if we continue on sin like it says, sin is gonna lead you to death. There is no good things in sin. You you can sin as a Christian. You're just going to be miserable doing it.
It's not what our new heart is designed to to do and to be. Before we were a Christian, we were fine. Carousing and sex structure and rock and roll was a theme of my life before I became a Christian. I had no problem doing all that stuff. Now it doesn't jive with who I am as a believer.
I'm not being fulfilled like I was as a non Christian. Yeah. So I think, the, verse 7 is really the key here. It says because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Well, a couple things.
We've been set free from the sin of being in Adam. We've been set free from our unbelief when we came to Christ by faith. We're no longer in Adam. So we've been set free from that. But I think also what Paul's talking about in 7 that the reason why we have been set free from sin is because we're no longer under the law as a born again Christian.
The law again has done its work, and the power of sin is actually in the law. Like you said, if there's a hole in the fence, if it wasn't for that hole and the sign that says do not look in this through this hole, you would just be passing by it. But it's because the law came and aroused your sinful nature and aroused you, and it says, you you shouldn't do this. You know, shouldn't do what? Oh, now you're start thinking about what you shouldn't be doing because the law came in and spring to life, which Romans 7 is gonna be talking about.
But if we get to this last verse here in 14, it says, you are no longer under the law, but under grace. And when you're no longer under the law, you've been set free from the power of sin in your life. People who are still under the law today as Christians, one, has the law really done its work in your life? If you're still under the law, according to Galatians 324 and 5 that 25 that we just read, that the purpose of the law is to lead you to Christ. So if you're still under it, have you been led to Christ?
You gotta ask yourself that. Has the law done this work? Because if you're still under it, that tells me something. Maybe you haven't come to Christ. But when you know you've been set free from sin, Kevin, it takes away the power of sin in your life.
Yes. Before we're believers, sin was our master. We were waves tossed on the ocean, just guided and controlled recklessly. God knows. I'm for sure where I would be if not for Christ.
Would be on this podcast. Would not be on this podcast. That is for sure. But praise God that we are under grace. We are now slaves of righteousness.
We're slaves to righteousness. Yes. And that's because we have the righteous one living in us, living inside of us. Yes. We are slaves to Jesus Christ because he's never gonna leave us now.
Yep. Never ever going to leave us. Yeah. He lives inside of us. I want you to read 8 through 10 there, Kevin.
Alright. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, For the life he lives, he lives to God.
Yeah. So if you know you died with Christ and, again, you know your sins are forgiven, you stop shooting apologies up to God, you stop going to a a priest to to get forgiveness in the confession booth. You just say, okay, God. I know I blew it, and thank you for taking away my sins instead of asking him again for what he's already done. But that's not the only part of our life that we're forgiven.
We have to move on to the resurrection that he is now alive living inside of us. And that's what 8 says that we died with Christ. We believe that we will also live with him in us. Mhmm. Just I wanna make a note on this couple of verses that I know many, many people know this.
It's somebody may think because we're talking about sin and death and Christ dying, we need to really say that Christ did not get crucified because He was any sin in Him at all. He was a sinless savior. He was per he was the perfect lamb of God, and he died one time, never to die again for us and our sin, not for him and any of his sin. He he was sinless. Yeah.
He was a sacrificial lamb. So let's read here a lot Romans 611 through 14. It says, in the same way, count yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Mhmm. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.
Do not offer any part of your body to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourself to God as those who have been brought from death to life. And offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. And here's why. Persin shall no longer be your master because you are no longer under the law, but under grace. Praise be to God.
Yeah. Yeah. This is, your I just I think you were gonna go there on the practicalness of it. But go ahead. I'll let you finish your thought.
No. You know, it's great advice, you know, to for for Paul to say, and he was not without sin. Paul was just a man. He got mad. He got angry.
He got jealous. You could read the scriptures and hear some of his anger and his thoughts and his thinking just by reading the scripture. He always talking about I came in weakness. He confessed to being envious of everybody else's stuff. Yeah.
But this is practical to say, well, you're no longer under the law. So, therefore, don't let sin reign in your mortal body so you obey its evil desires. Right? It's just one thought that comes into your mind, and you could obey that evil desire. It just takes one sinful thought.
The answer is to walk in the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Right? You can't fight sin any other way than by walking in the spirit, walking in the word of God, the truth that he loves you, he forgives you, he's giving you new life, he'll never leave you because that squashes out the sinful desires when they do come. And it's a daily conscious choice each one of us makes. It's not a you take the red pill, you take the blue pill, and it's complete you're in the matrix.
That's why he says, therefore, do not let sin reign in your bodies and offer. Do not offer. You know, it's a daily offering. It's a daily letting. And so it's growth that each one of us goes through as we understand God's incredible love that he's given to us.
Why would we wanna go eat out of the garbage can when we have an incredible feast that God has lavished on us in Christ? And then in verse 14, again, there's you we can't talk about this enough where Paul is saying, don't let sin be your master because you are no longer under the law. The law has done its work to you as a born again Christian. Mhmm. So don't get back under the law.
The law is not for you. As first Timothy says, the law is for the lost, It's for the unrighteous, the unholy, the ungodly. But it's not for a born again Christian. So once you know that, there is peace in your heart because you have been accepted by God 100% when you're in Christ. Christ is living in you.
Thank you for listening to Grace Coach. If you want to connect with us, we would love to engage with you. Email us at the grace coach atgmail.com. Visit our Facebook page or visit our website gracecoach.org.