Bible Guys Classics: Romans 6

Show Notes

In this episode of The Bible Guys, Jeff and Chris explore Romans 6, where Paul explains that through Christ, sin no longer has authority over us. We’ve been given a new life and a new identity.

Jeff and Chris discuss what it looks like to live free from sin’s control and how daily choices reflect that transformation. They challenge listeners to stop living as if they’re still bound.

If you’ve felt stuck in old patterns, this episode will remind you of the freedom you already have in Christ.

🎧 Listen now and step into the freedom Jesus provides.
#TheDailyBibleGuys #Romans6 #FreedomInChrist #SinNoMore #ChristianLiving #BibleStudyPodcast #FaithInAction

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Hey, everybody, we're the Bible guys. And if you're just tuning in recently, just know that we are showing a little bit of reruns for a few months, and then we'll be back bigger and better than ever on August thirty first, because behind the scenes, we're taking a hiatus to do some very important things. Yeah, we're building building out a new studio and we've got some new structure. Super excited about it. So August thirty first, brand new content. But in the meantime, enjoy some of our greatest hits. Hey, Chris, I'm excited about today's episode because we're talking about sin and apparently you could just keep on sinning, just keep keep on sinning, do whatever you want, like live it up right. Wow. Nope, Nope, that's what Paul says. Today. Paul says nope. So today he is Kyle. I am Chris, And because Jeff is still in India, that's right. We are the Bible guys. Jeff. We miss you, Yes, we certainly do. Hey, today, we are actually going to be hosting a segment that is a sort of you know, classic It's what's what I'm looking for. It's a spinoff spinoff. Yes, because of classic Chris that we're doing a spin off. Yet, well, listen, I'm old enough to know what the old spinoffs were like. Did you know that Happy Days had three spinoffs? Wow? You know, I didn't know? Idea and la Vernon, Shirley. Have you ever heard of Vernon? That was a spinoff from Happy Days? For really? Yes? And then there was an episode there's a thing called Jonie Loves Chatzi. I've heard the saying before, but I had no idea. Yeah, and it lasted like one season, and then there was a third one. Oh it was Morgan Mindy. Yeah, answer real quick, because this is totally unrelated. What's your favorite recent spinoff? You have? Any recent spinoff? Movie, spinoff shows? H recent spin offs? Holy Christmas? Recent spinoffs. I'm sure there's one that exists. Only when I well know, don't you like the eighteen eighty three and all that kind of stuff? Or no? Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah that was a considered spin. Was massive spin off. It was a prequel. Okay, but but but I mean I guess it could be called a spin off. Yeah yeah, actually no, I don't. I don't think they qualifies, no, because it really was it's different today than it was back then. Back then, they would take just a character and they would shut down that whole storyline and they would sort of build a new, a whole new thing based on one character. You know, I've not seen it, but I've heard that the Better Call Saul, which is a spin. That is a spin was good. That was great. I loved it. I love Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul was a great spinoff. I was thinking of Fraser. Okay, Fraser. Fraser was a spinoff from Cheers in the eighties. Yes, I don't. Well, Fraser's very popular as well. I didn't realize it was spin off. Well, yeah, it was a spinoff from Cheers. Is awesome, So okay, Well, anyway, so here's the spinoff. Instead of what Chris What made Chris mad this week, We're going to ask what made Kyle happy this week? What made me happy this week? A lot of things. But you know something that's a little odd that people may not know. I just picked up a new hobby last week, literally last week. But over the past month or so, my wife and I have been really taking Sabbath, taking a Sabbath day seriously as we should as Christians. Right. It's not aways easy, you know, to to really focus on that, but we really try to take our Sabbath seriously and try to rest from working and rest from technology that sort of thing. And so explain, explain the concept of what what do you mean when you say the word sabbath. So Sabbath, you know, it's part of a commandment, something Jesus even honored. But the idea of taking one out of the seven days a week and just taking a time just to I sent you. I mean, it looks different for a lot of people, but for us, it's this time of no work. It's a time of kind of resting in God's presence and whatever that looks like. So some people do, you know, maybe a spiritual retreat or get away or they're do a bobber reading thing or you know, no devices, whatever it may be. But and then a lot of people sometimes in the sabbath will may be fast and there's a lot of spiritual implications for fasting and that sort of thing. So for us, it's just you know, a twenty four hour span where we you know, try to refrain from working, right and focus on God and just enjoy his goodness. But Anyways, uh So, one of the things I did because we're trying to go technology free is last week my wife bought me a Sudoku book, and it makes me feel like a boomer playing sudoku. But it's funny because now I'm like hooked on Sudoku. Do you know, do you ever play Sudoku or any. Of the crosswords or any of those types of things? Not really? Okay, So Sudoku, it's just basically it's similar to a crossword puzzle and those types of things. But something about it, even though maybe I'm working a little bit, because it feels like I'm working my brain a little bit, I'm doing it, but something about it just feels nice to sit there with an actual book, like a physical book and a pencil and write things, sound things down. And so if you're somebody who's into Sudoku, crossword, any of those types of things, you know, message me let me know, or if you see me at church or see me around, let me know. I would like to I do wordle. You do wordle? Okay? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I on your phone though, yeah on the phone, yeah yeah. But it's kind of nice for you to just like, for a minute, just like work your brain a little bit and it's it's different. Yeah. Sure, So this is the sudoku and again not doing it digitally, just doing it with the book. And so that that's made me happy. I discovered a new hobby that I enjoy. That thing is going to bring me peace for the next stuck a couple of. Weeks in these weeks until it doesn't exactly. That's really funny. Yeah. Yeah. So by the way, just since we opened the can of worms, you know, so remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy was a very specific command given to a specific group of people. And there were a lot, I mean, just hundreds of commands that were actually given very very specifically, you know, to the children of Israel, and I had to do with them specifically, you know, like you know, we would never try to, you know, go collect manna. Right, There's so many things that were just given to them as commands for their situation. And so the principle of the Sabbath is what we think is important because I believe that even though that our days and our rituals and everything else, it doesn't fall into the you know, the Hebrews. However, the principle of remembering a Sabbath day and keeping it holy was if you read all the way through the Old Testament describes how the purpose is to rest, yes right, and to renew and everything else. And so, by the way, that's the reason why Seventh day Adventists would say that the true Sabbath is on Saturday, like that's a big point of contention for them, and whereas like Christianity would say, well, it doesn't matter the day, But actually we celebrated on Sunday for one reason, because Jesus rose again on Sunday, So our choice of Sabbath went towards Sunday. But the principle of practicing a sabbath for you and me, it is hard to do on Sunday because we work so hard on Sunday. Absolutely, So you got to find some other times, right, right. Because when you decided to go into full time vacational ministry, then that all of a sudden becomes a time where you're not obeying a sabbath, you're really working hard, you know, for honestly other people's sabbath. You don't know something crazy about you mentioned a Seventh day Adventist. So it's a denomination that takes that Sabbath very seriously, like it's religiously right. Maybe sure to be extreme, it's very very serious. But the crazy thing is there studies a show that when you look at the average life span of a human an American, right, and you compare that to somebody who has been practicing in that you know, that denomination and really takes that seriously the Sabbath. They say that Seventh day Adventists live on average of seven years more than the average person. And if you do seven years and if you do the math on the amount of days that essentially like off days that they take, that it works out to be like that that essentially is like almost like it's giving them more life in that wild that there's like studies that show that that they actually live seven years longer. So the message is if you want to live long longer, just convert, take. A day off, just convert. Yeah, I was gonna say, practice sabbath. Yeah, it's the principle of stress free. Isn't that funny? Huh? How stressed it was meant for us. That's the thing is people try to use it as a you know, obviously like a religion or rule or whatever that sort of thing, but it was the Sabbath was designed for us as something God blessed. I just hard for us. I know for you you're the same way. You're like a fast moving dude. It's very hard to slow down. But it's very important. So yeah, that's awesome, very good. So today we're talking about Roman chapter six, verses one through twenty three, and we're talking about sin's power being broken, and we're going to read through the entire chapter and Paul is going to just continue on with this idea of sin and what it means for our lives. That's right, Well, then should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not or as Chris said earlier, Nope, since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ, Jesus and Baptism, we joined him and his death. For we died and we were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives since we have been unified with Him and his death. We will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We're no longer slaves of sin from we died with Christ. We were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus. Do not let sin control the way you live. Do not give into sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God. For you are dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God's grace. Well, then, since god grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Nope, nope, yep. Don't you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey. You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. Thank God. Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living because of the weakness of your human nature. I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. I love how like blatantly puts that as if you know. It's like you didn't get it. So I'm just letting you know. I'm using this as an illustration. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you may become holy. When you were slaves of sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. And what was the result. You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. But now you are free from the power of sin, and you have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. For the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. Yeah, that's another classic mentioned to be ready several times here in this week. The Romans Road that that final one for the wages of since death, there was a payment for our mistakes. It was death. But the free gift of God is eternal life. Yeah. Yeah, And those of those people listening you don't are not familiar with the term Romans Road. It's just several verses out of Romans that were pieced together and made popular by calling it. It's basically a road map through the Book of Romans, and we're sort of skipping around chronologically in the Book of Romans, and it basically lays out salvation through the truths that Paul's laying out here. So that's what that's what Kyle's refern to do. So anyway, So yeah, so he starts out with the question should we should we go on sinning? So that got me show more of us of his wonderful grace. Of course not. So it's so interesting, isn't it? Because he had just spent the previous parts of the letter that Paul's writing talking about how, hey, listen, obeying the law does not make you righteous. Right, It wasn't that way with Abraham. Listen that there were people who died before the law was given, you know, from Adam all the way to Moses. You know, Jesus Christ said that it's by faith. You know, it's not by works, you know, all these different things. So he's laying out, you know, that idea. But then he goes back and says, Okay, he's sort of feeling like what he's and he's about to get into actually that the law does have its purpose and that actually we should obey the law. We should strive to obey the law. It's just that the law is not a means of righteousness or right standing with God or salvation. But it doesn't mean that the law is discarded, doesn't mean the law is thrown out right. So that's why he asked the question, you know, is the law useless. Now, that's what he's asking. He's saying, like, does that mean that God no longer cares about our righteous living, our commandments, our obedience, you know, all the things that God wants us to do. Shall we just continue to just do what God doesn't want us to do because we have grace? And then of course he says, of course. Not right. And it makes me think too, the word that a lot of times it's a theological word that I don't it's not mentioned in this chapter, but a lot of times people think of the word sanctification, which is a theological term of this idea of becoming more like Christ. And I think this chapter, the word sanctified means to be set apart. Yeah, set apart. And so these this chapter, and I think the next few chapters, even in which we're going to continue out in the future, talk about this idea of becoming more and more like Christ. And this is this idea that as you get closer to Him and you're set apart, you're becoming more and more and more. And I think it's it's funny because he's talking about the opposite for so many people, you know, they may know the truth, but yet they're keep on sinning, and their sins just keep on separating them. And he even talks about the idea of you know, some people that share like it. Talks later on the chapter the idea of looking back and realizing you kind of threw your life away, you made there's mistakes, and now you look back, Man, I wish I would have done those things. And he's saying, well, what if you would have just, you know, quit sitting. What if you would have just accepted that free gift and started living this holy, blameless, sanctified life. So he's really talking about the importance of that right setting himself apart well, I mean. He's giving these the introducing the idea of baptism through Jesus' death in the Resurrection is an entirely different way to look at you being free from sin. And so think about it. If you're living in the first century, when you think about being free from sin, the only thing that is ingrained in your mind, especially as a Jewish boy, especially being taught all the scriptures, the only thing is just the law. If you want to be free from sin, obey, obey, obey, And what Paul is saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, the laws there, we don't want to keep sinning. But instead of finding righteous through the law, just know this that when Jesus died, that actually he freed you from the power of sin, that actually you're no longer a slave to sin. And by the way, where you thinking of the song? Yeah, yeah, no longer slaves to. Fear father something with the word father, isn't that. Yeah, So anyway, but when he talks about that, I love the word picture of baptism. So again, let's just talk about baptism for a minute. Right, So we have in our church baptism coming up in like ten days, right, and we baptize what three hundred and sixty people, three hundred and forty eight people. Yeah, it was close to it was close to three sixty five. And oh that's kind of We're like, it. Was close to that just in twenty twenty two, which is pretty pretty pretty awesome, really great, And so we're having our very first baptism in twenty twenty three coming up. And when we baptize at our church, we take somebody, you know, and we and we help them go under the water and then we don't hold them there. We bring them back up right, and a lot of times what I'll say is if I use extra words, is I'll say buried in the likeness of Jesus death and raised to walk in newness of life, or you know, raised to walk in the resurrection of Christ. And Paul is actually talking about the word picture here, which is the reason why we do immerse by the way we immerse, because as we believe that Jesus was immersed John the baptized John the Baptist baptized Jesus, and it says that he put him under the water, and then he straightway he came up out of the water, and so we do. And then and then also here Roman chapter six that also in Corinthians, he talks about the idea of the word picture. In order for Jesus to be buried under the earth, he would have to be lowered into, in this case a cave or a grave. Right, we see it as six feet under right, and we go into the earth. And then what happens in Jesus' case is he rises up from the earth. And so he took sin with him, he became our sin, and he died. And then what happened was he rose from the grave proving that he is power over sin. And so Paul is saying that, Okay, the person you used to be, the sinful person you used to be, your sin was paid for, so you through baptism, when you went under the water, you were actually attached to the sacrifice and the payment that was made by Jesus Christ, and just symbolically your sins went away, right and you were raised to walk as a new person. Yeah. That awesome. Yeah, that's verly cool. It's really cool. And even even still with this, when I read something like this to talk to this idea of should I just go on sinning? And it's this idea that as we come to know Jesus more, we understand the depths in which you went to save us. Our only response should not to continue on to just keep on sinning and accept his forgiveness. But it's to see change heart. Now. I was thinking about this way. Think about it from a parenting perspective. When kids are small, when you have like a child and you have an infant, if you can remember back to having an infant, right as a parent, you have no relationship, like real relationship with that kid. Obviously you're their parents, you're the father or you know those listening to the mother. But so it's like high control, no relationship because you control everything about that child, right, You control how they eat, you control when they sleep, you control their clothing. You're like they're completely de pendant on you, but there's really no relationship. As kids get older, right, so my kids are ten and twelve, now, things are starting to change. Although I have control over them, like I provide a lot for them and that sort of thing, there are starting to be a shift where almost like there's control and there's also a relationship, like I'd be starting to become have a relationship my kids, so we're almost like friends, right, we have to have a strong relationship. And then there gets a point where the kids are like in their twenties, which is what you're experiencing in your life right now, where there's this this whole shift where all of a sudden, you begin to realize you have no control over your kids right the way they live their lives. You don't have any control anymore. And so the key then is to shift from control to relationship. And if you have a hot if you're high in relationship, all of a sudden, you don't need the control because that's kind of you know, the way the things shift. And I think in the same way when it comes to God, as we get closer to him, it's all about relationship and trust in him. And therefore I obey him, not because I have to. I have free will. I could choose, but I'm choosing to obey him and to be sanctified and to draw closer to him because my relationship with him and I want to be closer to him. Right. By the way, there's another way to say that too. I teach that same principle. The words I have always loved is as a parent. You know, you actually parent from a position you say because I'm mom, because I'm dad, and somewhere along the way you have to transition from position to influence. So if your words carry weight, you said relationship, right. I like the word influence because relationship hopefully exists the whole time, even when you're a parent. Right. You know, when you say because I'm dad, hopefully that's relational too. But position to influence is when they're twenty, and to be honest with you, it actually starts when they're like thirteen, twelve year old, and so hopefully have to. So one of our counselors that used to serve on our old staff used to say that as a parent, you need to just live in the question instead of saying I'm going to tell you what to do. What you do is you sort of ask them and you sort of live in the question and you start to you know, transition to that seat of influence. Because when they graduate and they leave, they leave out of your house. You want to be able to say, hey, I'm going to say, I'm going to say a sentence to you, and I want to still maintain so much influence in your life that you're going to still listen to me. Right, But it's not through because I'm Dad, it's because I mean I matter in your life. That's good. So to go from position influence. And I think that's kind of how God is really, all the ways he's influence, he's influenced, he's set, you know, sent his son to be the ultimate influence. And therefore we don't do these things. We don't try to live for him out of obligation or duty or the law whatever. We do it out of love. It's it's the relationship, it's the influence. So yeah, you can almost classify that as Old Testament New Testament. You can't you exactly. Let me just go ahead and say that there's a we Love our Life application study Bibles. And there's a section in here that breaks down everything we just read from chapter six, verses number one, all the way through in this case for summer sixteen. And it has three categories, and it basically says, hey, verses two or six is one category. Five through eleven is the other category twelve or sixteen, and it says Paul talks about new life, a new nature, and then new freedom, and so under new life. When he talks about new life, he says, sins power is broken. Your sin loving nature has been buried, and you no longer under sins control. That's why you have new life. When he talks about new nature, he says, now you share Jesus Christ new life. Your old self is dead. Instead, you are alive to God. That's a new nature. And then new freedom, and the next four verses he says, do not let sin control you give yourself completely to God. You are free and you can choose your own master. Gosh. I just love that. That's good, and it is pretty extreme that it uses the word slavery. And it's important to know that just because slavery existed in the Bible, and Paul mentioned slavery because it was a part of the culture, doesn't mean that he condoned slavery, right, So you know, just just as polygamy, uh, you know, existed in the Bible, people had multiple wives and even even God the people did. But but God never said that was a good thing, every right. He actually, in fact, whenever he spoke on it, he actually spoke of being a man of one wife, right, So he never condoned it. So the point is is that Paul uses the reference and he says, I'm doing this because of your feeble minds. I'm using this because you could understand the word picture. And Paul, as I mentioned before, is a He's a phenomenal word picture person. He's a visual learner. Yes, well, some people as soon as he said this being a slave, this sin versus slave to was he said at the end of some of the slave to basically following god like pain. In the contrast, there is just and the word. Slave he used very specifically is bond servant right to actually be to be tied to it with your life because of debt. Debt paid, so it's really cool. So it's a great word picture. I think that that's a good place to end, just knowing that God has freed us from sin, and just as we've been baptized and we have shown our commitment to Christ, that we are free from the power of sin that enslaves us. It's right. So anyway, that's good for today and we will see you hopefully on Monday on the Bible. Guys, see you