Morning, church.
How are we doing?
Morning, morning.
Happy Super Bowl Sunday.
Who we ruined for? We room for the three. Pete.
Yay! Anyone out there?
No. How about for the Eagles?
Yeah, a little bit.
How about just.
We don't care who's winning.
We don't want our team next year. Right?
Although I will say a couple of our high schoolers
who are on the platform this morning.
Syd on drums, which she's awesome.
Come get up for.
Said and Asher over here on bass like their die hard Chiefs fan.
So for their sake, I hope they get the three peat.
But it was interesting.
I was reading about the three peat and and if you've heard the name Pat Riley,
he's an NBA guy. Legendary kind of figure.
Looks like the Godfather.
He, he he coined three.
He trademarked that.
And so he's definitely rooting for the three peat
because if that happens he is getting a huge payday from the NFL.
But this morning we're going to continue in our series in the book of Romans.
So if you have your Bibles, turn to Romans six while your smartphone's Romans six,
pastor calls did an amazing job,
going through chapters one through five and and unpacking that.
There's so much in the book of Romans, so much.
And we won't get through all of chapter
six today, even we're going to hit on most of it.
But I encourage you to go back and read it, this week sometime.
And I did this last time I was up here.
And so I'm going to do it, I think every single time I'm up here,
if you have Pastor Kohl's number, send him a text.
Right now.
I'm just going to continue that that that tradition.
Just tell him you're thinking about him.
You're praying for him. He's with family.
He's visiting grandkids.
Cinematheque.
Tell me you're thinking about him.
You're praying for him.
I know that he he loves getting away and spending time with family,
but he loves being here.
Like, he has a real gift to to unpack God's word
and to share it with, with the church every Sunday.
So, I'm definitely humbled to be up here in his space.
My Bible titles, chapter six and know what your Bible titles it mine says
Dead to Sin and Alive in Christ, dead to sin and Alive in Christ.
And those.
That's pretty bold statement, right?
That we can believe fully and with confidence that we are dead to sin
and alive in Christ.
And so this morning,
I want to I want to present to us a four step process as I was reading
through the text and processing it, and, and just kind of
praying about how to, how to, how to walk through it this morning,
a four step process so we can start living a new life.
So I want to put on the screen.
We will
we'll go through each step individually, of course, but I want to put them up there
so you can start thinking about them.
And the first step is to know
how you and I, as followers of Jesus, we have to know what God's Word says.
I'm not sure we can follow Jesus and in his ways.
If we don't open up the Bible and know what the text says.
So that's step one, right?
Very practical.
And then step two is to reckon,
reckon yourself, which is a word we don't use, but it's just to decide.
It's one thing to know what the Bible says.
It's another thing to decide to follow in what it says.
That's like that belief part, right?
That head knowledge versus heart knowledge that this is
this is for me, I believe it, I believe it to be true.
I reckon it to be true.
I've decided it is truth.
And then that third step almost feels natural.
We have to resist, right?
We have this desire to live for self and to play God and to be on the throne.
And so we have to we have to push back that urge of, of, of,
of being God and playing, you know, Savior and realize that,
you know, we have to we have to push back against it, against the culture
and against the things that distract us and that influence us in a negative way.
And then fourth step is to replace, right.
What are we going to allow in?
What are we going to allow to to speak to us?
What are we going to submit to?
What are we going to allow to be an authority in our lives?
And so know, reckon, resist and replace is what we're going to unpack this morning.
And as I was thinking, as I, as we, as we jump in dead to sin and alive
in Christ, I was thinking this week about this statement
that that the Christian life is a battle
and I thought you.
But it feels like a battle to me, and it's one that we cannot give up on,
especially as a spouse, as a parent, as an and an uncle, whoever.
You know that anyone that serves
this next generation, it is so vital that we realize that it is a battle
if we're doing the things that that God asks of us, if we if we are sacrificing
and we are tithing, and we are giving our time
and our talents and our resources,
if we are submitting to God and being in Scripture,
if we are in prayer, if we're letting our kids go out
and just trusting God with their lives like it is a battle
and it's one that we can't give up on.
We can't cut corners.
We can't, you know, shave a little off this year.
We have to be so intentional
with the with the life that that Jesus has given us, the Holy Spirit, the life
that he has redeemed
and I found
I stumbled on this quote this week from from Charles Spurgeon.
I'm just going to paraphrase.
I'm not going to read the quote, but it says this.
It says when someone is born again
through faith in Christ,
their life immediately day one, it enters into a spiritual battle against sin.
And the world is not like, get your bearings right, find a church,
find you know, understand Scripture a little bit like a certain saint.
Day one.
There's this immediate battle that you're thrust into because
now you're not dead anymore. You're made alive.
And when you're alive, you have choice.
And when you have choice and you have the Holy Spirit, it's this decision.
Are we going to live for God? Are we going to live for self?
And that's the tension
I think Romans is presenting is who are we going to live for?
And that Spurgeon is talking about?
I don't mean it happened day one
and you were with us in the fall.
Pastor Carl took us through judges.
It was a great series, great study, a lot to pull from it.
And he shared this with the church, and I was thinking about it a lot
the last couple weeks
that that you and I can be tired in it and we should be tired.
And if if we're living for others and we're sacrificing
and we're we're doing what we're supposed to do, we should be tired.
But we can't be tired of it.
That's the charge. As a Christian.
Don't get tired of it. Don't get lazy in your faith. Right?
I was talking to our our high school students.
We're going through the book of Hebrews.
When we talk about our faith is like a spectrum where
maybe we hear it's very legalistic and we kind of add things to the cross
over here. It's very lazy. Our faith.
We don't want to be either extremes.
We want to be right in the middle where Jesus is our fixed reference point.
And as we live this Christian life, we don't.
God doesn't mind us being tired.
And it we should be, but we can't be tired of it.
Because when we're tired of it, things get sideways.
Sin creeps and temptation creeps. And bless you.
When we get tired of it, we stop fighting.
We stop doing the things we're supposed to do.
We stop.
We stop inviting God into our lives and asking for his strength and his wisdom
and his discernment and his his, his, his what he has for us.
Right?
And so, as cheesy as it is, we have to be vigilant.
We have to be fighters, right?
Otherwise,
life can get a little bit weird on us.
As I was processing
the text, the Bible, I think the Gospels this shares that
although our spirits regenerated or made new, our flesh is not right.
And that means we have a warring, means we have conflict.
We have tension within us
because we certainly want to serve a God who loves us, who came down and took on
flesh and lived a life and then died and paid the penalty that we couldn't pay.
We want to we want to serve and we want to love him.
We want to live for him.
But then if we're being honest, we also want to live for self
and other things that I want and I want to pursue and I want to be in control.
I want to have the authority.
I want to me, me, me, me, me.
I think as we get married and we have kids and we,
we are getting further removed from that, you know, hope hopefully. But
but we have this conflict
and I think we have to acknowledge the conflict that exists within us.
We don't ignore it and we don't say it doesn't exist.
It does exist.
Bless you. Yep.
So as we jump into five, or chapter six this morning, I,
I want to remind us, Pastor Krall shared with us that
that the first five chapters has shown us that all nations are guilty.
There's not anyone that doesn't that that hasn't fallen short of the glory of God,
which is the beauty of, of of of the cross.
Right.
And it's the beauty of we don't look sideways and say,
you know, look at you and look at you,
and your sin is greater and your sin is less, right.
And we're supposed to focus on the plank
in our own eye, not the speck in someone else's eye.
But chapter five has showed us that all are guilty.
All nations, all peoples were guilty as charged.
Humanity is guilty.
But the good news is that Jesus took the penalty for our crime.
He took it away. He made us righteous.
That's an amazing thing that that Jesus became what we are
so that we could become what he is blameless in the sight of God,
righteous because of the cross, we are made new.
It's an amazing reality.
And so before we jump in,
I just want to put this on the screen for you to think about chapters 1 to 5.
They they talk about being dead insane.
We're dead in our sin.
And what can you do when you're dead in sin?
Not you can't do anything right.
But then it's sneaky.
You just sub one word in and one word out.
Chapter six seven, eight. It shifts.
Paul shifts his language.
He says, now we're dead to sin.
It's a big difference.
And this feels like it's our response. How do we respond, then, to the sin
that is still in our lives and in this world?
And so we're no longer dead
in Saint Paul's going to argue in chapter six, we're dead to sin.
Right.
And so it's that's very proactive.
Now, what are we going to do with our life?
What are you going to do with the life that God has blessed us with and given us?
So I want to start with that four step process, and we'll start with
the first word is to know for the note takers, I'm talking about no.
And before we jump into six we got to I got to remind you,
David just referenced it during communion.
Chapter five ends in this way it says, but where sin increased,
grace increased all the more.
It's important to note, certainly worse than increased grace has to increase
because the cross is complete, it has to increase.
We can't outspend the cross right.
And so Paul, with that in mind, is going to jump in to six
and acknowledge that right away.
So I want to read the first couple scriptures.
It says this
in six verse one it says what shall we say then?
Shall we go on sending so that grace may increase?
Verse two.
He says, by no means we are those who have died to sin.
How can we live in it any longer?
Verse three says, or don't you know that all of us
who were baptized into Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death?
Verse four says, 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, Paul, why is he talking? Any objections?
He's easy.
He's right away saying,
now we're just because grace increases and grace abounds doesn't mean we.
We want to lean in and live a selfish lifestyle.
Augustine said, love the Lord your God and do as you please.
Right?
And Paul's saying no when he's fighting every objection
here, he's saying, no, that's not how we're supposed to live our lives.
All right?
We're not.
We're forced to push back to any desire
to live for self and to please self, to think that sin right
should, should, should rule in our lives and then we should give in to it.
Now it's important to know, does unlimited forgiveness for standing exist?
Of course it does. It does.
But it doesn't mean we continue to live in that space any longer.
But I liken it to like the jail cell has been open
and we're just choosing to live in that cell.
Like, why are the doors wide open?
We might walk out for a little bit
and then we find ourselves right back in that cell. But the door is open.
We're dead to sin.
It means we should look and live and act a different way.
But unlimited forgiveness for sin does still exist.
Grace does abound.
But I think why Paul makes this argument, why we're not supposed to live
in our old, broken ways, is because of the cost of our sin.
We couldn't pay that cost.
So Jesus came down.
He paid that penalty for our trespasses.
I mean, I and I
just think of my own shame, my own guilt, my own struggles, my own disgust at times
that Jesus bore that for me on the cross times all of us
and the 8 billion people that live and has ever lived and will ever live.
I mean, I just think mine can be suffocating enough.
The things that I struggle with
and things I try to push back on and and try not to indulge in.
And yet it's billions and billions and billions of people more that
Jesus experienced that hurt on the cross, that guilt, that shame, that disgust.
And so, in my view, I'm just like, I can't keep living there
because in some ways it's like, am I even valuing the cross?
Then am I even valuing the
the gift that is grace and salvation and eternity with God?
It's like I have to start living right?
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, right here, right now, in my life
as it is in heaven, and flip sides life as it is in heaven.
So we have to push back. We have to fight.
And I think what Paul's is
getting out here is this, that you and I are supposed to walk in newness of life.
That's what
that's what verse three talks about, says, or don't you know that all of all of us
who were baptized into Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death.
It was actually really important to reflect on.
Right?
And we have to be pretty convinced of this.
We have no theology.
We have to know what this is saying, because so often
I think we say, no, I'm going to add Jesus to my marriage, which is good.
I'm going to add Jesus to my finances.
I'm going to add Jesus to my parenting, which are all good things,
but we don't add Jesus to us.
It says we're fully immersed in him.
I mean, you know, think of baptism, right?
Oh, we do baptism here in Carl's pool, right?
Full immersion.
Jesus was fully immersed when he was baptized.
And so we have to not fallen to the trap of, oh, I'm going to add Jesus to me now.
We're fully immersed in him.
That means in all aspects of life, we should have Jesus as our
as our reference point, as our as our, you know, glasses that we look through,
like whether I'm at work or at home or ballgame or
with my family or my friends or church or whatever, that Jesus is
on my mind always because I'm fully immersed.
You are fully immersed in him, and it's easy to live contrary to that.
And that's why I think Paul's hitting at this.
Don't forget, you're dead to sin.
You're dead to sin, not dead in sin.
And so we need to be mindful that when we're immersed in Christ's death
right through his, this baptism into his death.
And so Paul's again, he's just hitting the point.
How can we live in sin any longer?
He's saying, you know, God, you know the miracles, you know the teachings.
You know how he lived his life.
And in light of that, and you know the cost of the cross,
how can we live there any longer?
And I want to say it one more time.
Again, we don't look left and right, front and back.
We we look we search our own hearts when it comes to the sin issues that we have.
The plank in my eye is the same size, the plank in your eye.
But your eyes will look like a speck to me because I'm not focused on yours.
I'm focused on my own.
I'm focused on me, doing better. Me, me, me.
Growing in my faith and living that out through my marriage
and my parenting in my, you know, youth pastoring.
And so we're called to walk in newness of life.
I'm going to continue.
We're gonna jump into verse five.
It says, for if we have been united with him in a death like this,
we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like this.
For we know that our old self was crucified with him,
so that the body ruled by sin, it might be done away with.
We should no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who has died
has been set free from sin.
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.
And this is important.
But the life he lives, he lives to God.
It's one thing to believe that we're forgiven and experience that.
It's another thing to live our life
to God, to dedicate that life to God.
Christ as he lives this life, he lives to God.
We are called to live to God, to seek holiness because he is holy.
Right.
Verses 5 to 10 I think they share with us that Christ died and rose again,
that Scripture assures that when he died, we died.
And when he rose, we rose.
And so there's something really magical, something really important,
something really mysterious about the cross.
Because the cross, what happened 2000 years ago.
But in 2005, I experienced the cross when I accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior.
And you experienced
and whatever you're you experienced that you became a believer.
So in that way, the cross will be alive forever.
Because once we become a believer, once, once the Holy Spirit regenerates
us, we experience that death and that resurrection is really this magical thing,
that God is a gift that he allows us to say.
That's a reality for me in 2005 and beyond,
and for all of you and whatever year you came to faith,
it's quite wild.
But if we do believe that we died with him when he rose again,
and we do believe
that the sins of our lives and the lives of those around us are forgiven,
and that means the power of our sin. Nature also died.
The power of our sin nature is dead.
The power is gone. We don't need again.
Go back in and out of that jail cell. It is gone.
It is done. We are dead.
It's interesting
if you think about right this older self, this older Michael before
I was a believer and then you have to we have to view him as dead.
I am a new person in Christ.
So that old version of me is gone, is dead.
Our our junior highers are in Genesis.
We're going through the book of Genesis and Revelation.
We're kind of like bookending scripture.
And we're going through
how God is using Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to bring about the Messiah.
And and we just got through Esau and Jacob twins.
But they're so different in every single way.
He's always hairy.
He's a man of the country.
He connects better with his father.
Jacob is smooth skinned.
It says, he stays among the tents and he connects with his mother.
And there's some family dynamics.
There's some hurt and brokenness. But.
But what we see talked about here in Romans
six was actually first talked about in Genesis with our story.
God told Rebecca, their mother.
He said that the older Esau will serve the younger,
just like my old self, my sinful self, my broken self, my dead
self is going to serve my new, younger self.
That is spirit led and spirit driven.
And so we see this.
That's how we have to be in Scripture because we see this connection,
the old version of me as Esau, he's going to serve the younger version of me,
which is Jacob, right?
The oldest there, the new has come.
And so we're called in that way to, to, to to reckon myself dead.
And we'll talk about reckoning in a minute.
But we have to get this done with the Norse theology.
We have to know that scripture and all the connections
and all that end in the out, because God talked about this very idea
back in Genesis, whatever, 20 something 26 but if we don't know
this, we're going to miss it.
And so our
old self should serve our younger self, the broken flesh, and serve the spirit.
It's a really cool concept, really cool idea.
And I think the one way to sum that up is just to say this, that
that sin is rendered powerless.
The sin you have in your life that still exists, it's still there, right?
Just because we're saved doesn't mean we still don't have sin.
Pop up here and there, but it's rendered powerless.
I think, as I process in, I think the reality is
that we should spend less as we as we mature in our faith,
and so we should sin less, but it should also hit us more, should hit us harder.
It hit us heavier because we we know how much we've been blessed.
We know how much God has done for us.
And so, although we have less than, it should almost be like
we're more convicted and we're more hurt and we're more broken over our sin,
less means more in some weird spiritual way,
because we don't want to walk in that way any longer.
But sin is better, powerless.
Verse five.
It shared that the body of sin should be done away with, done away with.
Think of it like it's void.
It's completely void.
It's abolished.
It's out of business.
That old version of me, it's gone. Why?
Because we were baptized into Christ. Death.
That old nature is voided.
It is gone.
But like I just said, the reality is that our old self
still lingers around, still fighting for its life, still wanting to find life.
Wanting to find out that hold on us, wanting it, wanting
to kind of jump back into the picture.
And so I think very practically,
we just have to say, all right, God, I need you more than I need me.
I need to get off the throne.
I can't keep playing God. I can't keep going for self.
And verse 11 speaks of that.
It says in the same way, count yourselves
dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
So the first step,
I think, to, to, to living this new life is to know what Scripture says, to know
the connection to the Old Testament, the new, to know what Jesus said,
to know that our God has ultimate victory.
Although the Christian life is a battle, a daily battle for you and for me,
we know the victor.
Our God is the victor.
And so we have to believe this stuff. We have to.
We have to rather we have to know it.
And that's going to lead hopefully to this, this deep conviction
and this belief.
And so that's what step two is, I think this morning is to reckon yourself
never use that word in my life before preparing this teaching.
I don't reckon, I've used that.
But you have to reckon yourself,
you have to decide that you're dead to sin.
Yeah. Stupid joke.
If you decide that you're dead to sin, you have to reckon it fully.
I am dead to sin and I'm alive to Christ.
And you have to own it.
If the first step is knowing,
the second self is believing fully, all in wholeheartedly.
This is true.
As I wanted it.
I was thinking I wanted to give us a definition
for reckon just because it's not a word we use.
And so reckon is this.
It's a firm conviction reached by rational thought on the basis of the gospel.
So the gospel is the is the is the foundation.
But I love the first couple words.
It's a firm conviction.
To reckon that we're dead to sin is to be all in fully believe it.
1,000% convinced.
It's not like I'm kind of lukewarm. Or maybe it's true.
Maybe it's not. No, it's we're fully there.
It's a it's a firm conviction by by rational
thought on the basis of the gospel.
So reckon it's to count yourself to count this deed already completely done.
This deed is done.
I am dead to sin.
Say it over and over if you need to.
I am dead to it.
And I think how I've.
I've come to unpack this is we have to believe that.
That this new life is totally disconnected from our past life, right?
This, that when you were placed in Christ,
you were completely disconnected from your past. Right?
That Grand Canyon
seems like we are completely disconnected in this world and how we live.
It's hard to get rid of our past and the mistakes and the hurt
because we see the same people or we experience the same things.
But but the hurt in Christ, the hurt towards
God that existed, it is fully erased because of the cross.
It's gone.
And we don't have to live in that hurt space any longer.
All the stuff, the crap that maybe is coming to mind that you like.
I still maybe struggle with this.
Give it to God and you are dead to it
fully and forever dead to it.
Now Galatians 220 is a great scripture that speaks this truth.
It says, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live.
I don't live, but Christ lives in me.
The life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me, gave himself for you.
I think you can see this played out really in a really cool way
through Isaiah the prophet Isaiah.
If we go, if we jump in the Old Testament, I'm not going to read per se,
but I want to give you kind of a picture of what happens. Isaiah.
He sees a vision of the Lord.
He sees the cry of the servant, and he sees that God is holy
in light of who he is.
You see, God is so holy.
And when Isaiah got this revelation, he saw God's beauty and his majesty.
But it's important to know how did he respond?
Isaiah says, woe is me,
woe is me, for I am lost.
A man of unclean lips.
Isaiah responds to God's holiness
for seeing himself for what he really is sinful, wretched,
right, dirty.
And Isaiah cursed his own self right in light of just who he is.
And that juxtaposition of like, God is there and I am so far away from that.
I can never get there.
He was broken over his sinful nature and the things of his heart.
And this morning,
I think in the same way, we have to be broken of the things of our heart.
We do our hardest.
It's not always oriented towards God.
Even though we have this now heart of flesh, it's still not always,
you know, focus in the right direction as we broken over our sin.
Not in a way that leads to guilt and shame, but in a way that leads to us
pursuing Christ more and in in
like an act of thanksgiving.
We have to we have to believe,
that that nastiness that Isaiah describes is real.
And we have to reckon that we're going to live for Christ.
Verse 14 or sorry, verse 12 speaks to this.
He says therefore, which means with everything we've talked about in mind,
do not let sin reign in your mortal body
so that you obey its evil desires.
First step is to know Scripture, to know God's Word.
Second is to reckon and believe.
It is fully and wholly true,
not to live in guilt and shame,
not to live looking left and right,
but to say, God, help me with the plant in my eye.
Help me to look more like you.
And so our third step this morning
is to resist.
It's to resist.
And so maybe this scripture comes to mind.
Maybe not.
But James four seven says, resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Resist the devil, he will flee from you.
So as a as a believer, if we're just going progression right, we know Scripture.
We got to know it. We got to believe fully. We got to be all in.
Then we got to resist.
We got to act. We got to do something. Now.
But Isaiah or James rather four seven actually starts,
you know, different than what I just read.
It doesn't start with resist the devil. He will flee from you.
It starts submit yourselves into God.
Submit yourselves, then to God.
Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
The order of operation is important
because I believe that thing.
If we do not submit,
the ability to resist is not possible.
And I know as Americans we love our freedom.
If we do not like this submit,
we do not like even the word submission feels kind of nasty at times.
I think we attach negative things to it, but we're we're talking about submitting
to a God who was holy and just and righteous and good and sacrificial.
Christ suffered on our behalf
because he never gave in to temptation and sin.
And so submitting to Christ is best case scenario, because his yoke is light,
his burden does not exist. So where's ultimate freedom in Christ?
And so I think as I as I process this week, if I want to
resist, I have to submit.
And if I have to submit, I have to seek God.
And if I'm seeking God, then then that's what we call sanctification, right?
Big church, fancy word.
But but it just means to separate, to be set apart,
set apart from sin, and ultimately progressively becoming more like Jesus.
That sanctification
that you and I over our lifetime are going to look more like Jesus,
you know, in ten years and in 20 years and in 30 years than we do today,
hopefully, you know, over the next, you know, couple years,
maybe the next month or two.
But but the goal is to look more like Jesus
every day, which means he has to be on our hearts,
and you have to be on our minds,
and you have to be someone we seek and something we someone we interact with.
The result of submitting to seeking and seeking, I think, leads to sanctification.
And sanctification leads us to this scripture.
It's it's second Corinthians 318.
It says, and we know and we all who with unveiled faces
we should contemplate the Lord's glory.
Why? Because in that way we're going to be transformed into his image,
and we're going to experience the ever increasing glory
which comes from the Lord, who is the spirit I.
But as I look at it
right, we're supposed to contemplate the Lord's glory, seek his face,
and then it talks of this ever increasing glory like the more we seek him.
I mean, there should just be more revealing and more understanding and more,
more, more grace and more more of a freedom that we get to experience in Christ
growing in the Christian life.
Is it saying no to self and yes to Christ?
It's saying yes to repentance, yes to Scripture, yes to prayer.
Yes to accountability.
Looking left and right and saying, hold me accountable.
I need you to hold me accountable.
As long as today is called today, Hebrews says we should encourage each other,
especially as believers,
because we're working so hard and trying to please God and
and trying to do his work and further his kingdom.
But it's difficult.
So we need to encourage each other.
But we're called to sanctify ourselves.
We're called to seek God and submit to him.
You know, I like, sometimes I'm going to the gym.
I want to lift heavy weights.
You know, I want to be mindful of what I'm listening to.
And so
I have I call it aggressive worship.
Music, aggressive worship.
So it's it's like screamo singing music, but it's the Christians that that lead it.
And I wanted to share.
I wanted to share one of their, lyric with you.
It says this, it says you're born again.
You're a new life.
You are a new creation.
But there is to be progress.
There's to be growing.
There's to be growing into the likeness of Christ.
We have to begin to conquer the flesh little by little, day by day.
As you live, there is to be a progress in in conquering the flesh.
This new life, this new man, this new person that you are
has to begin to grow.
When we're placed in Christ, we're separated from our past of
has to begin to grow.
I love that right.
You don't hear much of that either.
Google it because he's just screaming the whole time.
But it's there.
It's there, the promise. It's there.
If you want the playlist, I'll send it to you.
It's really good, I promise.
It's awesome.
I initially convicted me this week.
I want I want this for myself, but I want this more for my family.
And so I wanted to talk to the parents or grandparents
or aunts and uncles, whoever
has kids in their life that they get to influence.
Right?
Because you know this, we can't take everything into heaven with us.
We can't take the cars, the house, the fancy toys, the nothing.
We can't. It's that's not how it works.
But we can stand before God, arms wide open and say,
look what I did with the lives you blessed me with.
Look, I do with seal, Jude, Levi, Logan.
I do with the lives you bless me with.
And in that way we have to sanctify ourselves.
We have to seek God, because if we don't, we will not do those things well.
You know what's true?
I think there's what one generation sees as optional.
The next might see is unnecessary,
and we don't want our kids to see seeking God and sanctifying ourselves
and knowing Scripture and being in prayer and being in community
and encouraging each other as optional kids, not it's not optional,
something that we have to have this deep conviction in
deep like, love for
because life is busy and it is loud.
And sometimes you can look up and like I have off my Bible in a week,
we have to take this seriously and spend time in here in this thing,
and I love I was one pastor, I was, I was listening.
There are a couple I follow online on social media and and
and he was talking about sanctification and he any, any
he shared threads and I want to share with you this morning.
Oh, skip that one. My bed.
Oh wait. Where am I at?
There it is.
Sorry. I'm all over the place.
So the 3D god declares,
Satan denies and we have to decide.
I think back to the garden.
God declared,
how many of you are safe?
You're taking care of your good like you're provided for.
I want to walk in the coolness of day with you. Trust me, trust me.
I'm your God. I'm.
I'm your creator. I want to, I want to do life with you.
But that one tree where they're just a tree.
I'm not going to believe that one alone.
You don't need that. It's not. There's no benefit to you.
I'm your God, and I'm going to. I'm going to take care of you.
Trust me.
God declared these things, and then Satan denies as we know, right?
He's like, I, can you believe God is trying to be in controlling here?
Why would he? Why would he keep something from you?
You know, I just want you to be like him, right?
He just denies he tweaks it. Twist.
And then Adam and Eve had to decide.
And we know how that went. Right.
And so I guess the same thing applies to us, right?
God is declaring these things to us.
And Satan might deny.
He might twist, he might turn.
He might say, Michael, you can't really serve, right.
You I mean, you know what you thought and done and things
that are of your own heart and the brokenness that exists.
And then I have to decide, am I going to believe those lies,
although they once were true?
Am I going to believe those lies and say, well, God can't use me because I have
made mistakes in my life? No.
So we have to decide, are we actually dead to sin?
Are you dead to sin?
Scripture is declaring that God is declaring it.
You are dead to sin and you're alive in Christ.
Don't believe anything short of that.
And so I think a good way.
It's sobering.
It's it's humbling
to to say, am I dead to sin or am I dead in sin is to look at your lifestyle.
What does it show?
Is God's Word trustworthy to you?
Is is community valuable right?
Am I the king? Is Christ the King? Who's leading this, this?
This thing?
Who's leading this show? You know.
Look at that lifestyle.
Look at what you pursue and the things you are and who you're becoming.
Are you dead to sin?
Are you still dead inside?
My hope is my prayer is that you are dead to it.
So in Corinthians is the scripture that I come back to all the time.
It's something I, I use when I was baptized at 21.
It says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
a new creation has come, the old is gone, the new is here. It's amazing reality.
It's amazing truth.
That means I'm not defined by my old self.
That means I'm not defined by my own mistakes or my sin.
I'm not the same dude anymore.
I'm a new creation.
And if I'm a new creation and you're a new creation, let's start living that way
with authority I.
We're defined by the cross, and that's been our hope
and our faith and our trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins.
And so much so that Paul in verse 13 here,
he's going to he's going to make it super personal.
He says, do not offer any part of yourself 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.
So when we talk about us being baptized into Christ, death, that's like full body.
But now we're talking about every member of our body, every member,
like hands, eyes, toes, knees, you know, whatever.
Like he's asking, what are you doing with all these different members of your body?
How how are you pursuing me? How are you?
How are you living for me?
How are you using your hands and your eyes
and your ears for my righteousness and for my glory?
Right is very personal.
It's very specific.
Our God wants us to be so intentional with our faith that we answer that question.
And we can say, here's how I use my hands for your glory.
Here's how I use my eyes for your glory.
I'm your ears for your glory. Here's how I do these things.
To not just go through life and not process how I'm being intentional.
Living for God.
It's important to process this now.
Our fourth point this morning is to replace,
and I'm not going to read the last all the last scriptures here,
but I want to jump into 16 in a couple others real quick.
It says in verse 16, don't you know that when you offer yourselves
to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey?
Whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death,
or to obedience, which leads to righteousness.
I think verse 16 is asking the question,
like which nature are you feeding?
Which nature?
Like who are you living for?
Are you feeding the slave the sin that leads to death,
or of obedience that leads to righteousness?
Because what we feed is going to grow,
it's going to grow in our life is going to manifest itself.
It's going to be known, and it's going to be visible.
So what do you allow in in what do you like to influence you?
What are you consuming?
What's what's what's
what's that look like for you this morning?
It's important to know what nature in my feeding.
And we jump into verse 21.
It says, what benefit did you reap at
the time from the things you are now ashamed of?
So I think he's referring to, like from your former life before you
and before you knew Jesus, that you were ashamed of what benefit was there, right?
What benefit did you reap at the time for the things you are
now ashamed of, the things that result in death?
And so I think as I process this scripture, it's
it's really challenging us to say,
don't look back at your life before knowing Jesus with nostalgia.
Like, don't look back. It led to death. There was nothing.
I mean, sure, you might have good memories or good moments
and God redeemed some things and guided you.
I'm not saying they're not valuable,
but don't look back at that old life and think, I wish I had
what once I did before Christ because it was leading to death.
There's no value.
Paul saying, he's saying, look forward.
Have your fixed reference point on Jesus going forward.
Don't focus on where you were, who you've been,
but where you're going and where God wants to send you
what's coming next and include you.
Don't look back. There's no benefit to that.
And then verse 23, this is just salvation in a sentence writes grace.
Verse 23 says, for the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Remember, we can't.
We couldn't pay that penalty for our trespasses.
We couldn't pay the cost.
It's great. It's too great.
But our God did pay it. That's the reality.
He did pay it.
And we get eternal life with him.
And we should live as such here on earth.
We should live in a way
where we have that full confidence in that full assurance
that the Holy Spirit I have in me a new in you.
It is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance.
But it's a it's a deposit that he's saying I want to use right now.
I want to cash in right here, right now.
I want to use you in the space or in the ranchos or wherever you live.
I want to use you now.
Right.
It's not just for you look into eternity. It's.
No, it's like, what are you doing for me here and now?
2025.
We're going to have options.
We're going to live for self, for God.
We dead to sin. Are we dead in sin?
I want to end with a couple things.
Pastor Carl brought this up last week.
Which federal had.
Are you going to live under? Right.
He talked about Adam, which leads to death or Jesus, which leads to life,
and it leads to, peace with God and access to God's grace and even suffering.
Right? Even even glory in our suffering. Right?
These are the things that Christ offers us.
And I would ask the same thing this morning, like,
not maybe as a federal headbutt, but but what's
what are you going to believe the the declaration,
the truth that you're dead to sin or the lie that you're dead in sin?
What are you going to believe this morning?
I hope it's that you're dead to sin.
You're not dead, and then you're not stuck anymore.
God has redeemed you fully and forever.
And we have the freedom to live in that truth.
So as we wrap up, I just want to put back up
our four steps right to know, to reckon, to resist and to replace.
Maybe ask the question, where are you right now on this list?
Where are you? Where do you find yourself?
Are you still in the no stage where you're like, I need to know what God's Word is.
I need to unpack it and process in and walk and people to walk
alongside me to, to go through it.
Or have you gotten through that?
And you know it. You feel like you know it.
And now you're like, I need to, you know, I need to have deep conviction, right?
I need to believe that it's true.
Not just know what it says, but like, I need this.
I need to apply this to my life.
Or yet there was this stage where you'll be like, how?
And actively trying to be proactive and seek God and and resist.
Or you just replace and you're building up.
You're having good spiritual habit, habits and disciplines to to protect yourself
with one
maybe most resonates with you and which one feels most foreign.
I think that's also an important question to ask.
Because. Because why is it foreign?
Why does it feel far off?
Why does it feel like it's something that you you don't quite understand or me?
It's a good questions to ask.
You know, Pascale, we were talking about this.
This, you know, this chapter that the last couple weeks and
and he was saying, I think the Christian life is often, often,
it's like, you know, we're all swimming in a pool.
We're all hanging out or,
you know, swimming and and sometimes we have, you know,
some of us are on the sideline just kicking our feet in the water.
And we're saying we're swimming.
We're not we're just we're still on the sideline.
And our God is fully inviting us
into this relationship with him and saying, let me lead.
Let me guide, let me help you.
Let me, let me influence your thoughts and your mind and your desires.
Let me do that for you.
You need to know and you need to reckon.
You need to resist and you need to replace.
That's how we live out.
Jettison in life, in Christ.
Pastor Carl always asks, you know, he said, reread
six with this framework now, but read seven.
He'll be with us again next Sunday.
Read seven, but I want in with this.
Our series is greater than right, greater than whatever, greater than your sin
or whatever you're talking with. And I would say this morning,
grace is greater than your stubborn sin.
Grace is greater than your stubbornness in the thing that holds
you back, the thing that is just like that,
that lie in your head, the thing that just caused you to stumble.
Grace is greater than that.
Your stubborn, annoying, irritating sin.
Don't live a lie that you are dead and then you are dead to sin.
I hope that has been encouraging to this morning.
I'm going to pray for us
and we're going to sing one more song with the band.
Father, we thank you for this morning.
We thank you for everyone here. We thank you for your word.
We thank you that you pursue us and that you seek us
and that you have declared things over us, these these truths, Lord.
But I pray that we would have a heart to open up
your words, that we know these truths.
Father,
give us eyes and ears and toes and hands
and and help us to be so intentional with members of our body
that we can say, this is how I glorify you, this is how I glorify you.
This is how I serve you.
This is how I how I further your kingdom.
We are grateful for Paul and how you spoke through him,
and we pray that we would have a deep conviction this week.
So to know that we are dead to sin and alive in you, Jesus,
please be with us this week.
Bring us back next week.
So we continue to further understand your word and continue
to further grow in our
our role here in this community.
Please convict our hearts this morning.
Lord in love for you.
Visiting in Jesus. Amen.