John: Hey, friends. Welcome back to the Eagle Community Church of Christ podcast. My name is John Gunter. This week we're talking about fix your focus. This is sermon 7 and we are talking about Romans 6 and every part of this series has been how do you live the Christian life?
If you've been baptized, what does that mean for you? Does your faith have consequences, we might say. And so I hope, again, as we do every week, that this is helpful in some way. And, if we can ever help you, hey, let us know. Have a great week.
Now you can stay awake. No sleeping, right now. Again, we are in our series called, Fix Your Focus, and I told you last week that I had done some of this for the revival I did in Mississippi, and there, what we called it was Faith with Consequences. And that might be an even better name than Fix Your Focus. But the idea is that once we have said, Jesus, I pledge my allegiance to you, that has to mean something, doesn't it?
That's got to mean that something in your life changes, that we don't just say, Hey, I want to be baptized. Jesus, I want to follow you, but then do nothing. Because what would that mean? Jesus, I want to follow you, but I'll do it my way. No, that's not following, is it?
Following means that I trust this person. To have a faith means I believe what you say and I believe it to the point that I will do it. Do you have some people like that in your life? People you go to when you need to talk about serious things that, you know, they'll give it to you straight. I also have people in my life that when they tell me something, I take it with the smallest grain of salt.
Because whatever they say may or may not be true. You ever have that friend, I've got one, that, if we are in a group of people, he likes to tell stories and he likes to rope you into it as if you were there, and I've never heard anything about what he's telling. When we trust, when we have faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that means we take His word as it is, right? We see it very seriously. We have to live our lives in that way.
And that's why we've started every week, with this passage from Colossians 3:1-four. Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things, for you died and your life is now hidden with Christ and God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. And so what we see in these short four verses that, if you have been baptized, your baptism has to mean something.
That your life has to change, that you need to, again, be focused not on all the things down here that try to grab us and pull us different ways, but to be focused on Christ, what He did, the life He lived, and now seated at the right hand of God. And what Paul says here is if you do that, if you live that kind of life, when Christ, who should be your life, appears, we get to live with Him. Amen? To Canaan's land, I'm on my way. But to Canaan's land, I am not on my way if I choose to ignore all of this.
Right? If I say, I trust you Jesus, but I'd rather not do any of the things you said to do, that is not the way to Canaan's land. This morning, we are going to be talking about Romans 6. It's still again, in this idea of basically Christian living, and having a faith that has consequences. So we are going to start here in verse 1.
Romans 6, starting in verse 1. Just a little background before we dive into it. Paul is dealing here with people who have kind of this messed up view of how they should live. A lot of you may not have grown up hearing sermons about grace. How many is that true for you?
I didn't really hear much about grace growing up. Raise your hand so I can see. Okay, yes, absolutely. And so, for some of us, that may be new. We thought we had to have it perfect or God wouldn't save us, we didn't understand his grace, but this, that Paul is dealing with, is a warped understanding of God's grace.
He's dealing with people that thought, you know, God is so gracious. What we should do is live a life however we want, you know, just keep on sinning. And what that'll do for God, he's so great. He's it's awesome that he has me to do this. What that'll do for God is it'll show how gracious He actually is.
And so, I'll live a life however I wanna live, and God will save me, and that will just show the graciousness of God. Isn't that great? So the church went out and rebel roused and did all this stuff, right? And so that's what Paul is dealing with when he writes these these very words here. Remember, as Paul writes letters, he is responding to things.
If the churches there would have had everything right, again, it wouldn't have much to say. Hey. Hope to come see you sometime. Keep it up. What he's dealing with most of the time is some kind of idea that is leading people away, from the true nature, true spirit of who God is or who they're supposed to be in this relationship to God.
And he says in verse 1, What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? You hear what I'm what I just explained? We should. We should go on sinning so that grace may increase and god will be glorified because of it.
And Paul says, by no means. Absolutely do not live this kind of life. He says, we are those who have died to sin. You hear Colossians 3 in this? We have died to sin.
How can we live in it any longer? So if you've been baptized again, he's talking to people who have been church people. He says, we who are died to sin, how can we live in it any longer? How can you, who have said, I have put off sin, God has washed me of all my sins. Why would you go back into that?
Why would you choose after God has taken all those things away to go back into a life of sin? He says, or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? I think Paul is pretty consistent with these couple of different letters he wrote here. Sounds like Colossians 3, doesn't it? We 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. So it is through baptism that we get to experience this, right? In baptism, we see this kind of symbolic going down and being buried. Right? But we don't stay buried, hopefully.
Anybody felt like you stay under too long when you're baptized? Now we were pretty picky about if an arm came up or anything like that, you gotta go back down. But hopefully, nobody, you know, held you down till the bubble stopped. But what he's saying here is, if you've been baptized, you've been baptized into his death, you've been symbolically put to death, you've put to death all the ways that you used to live in sin, and that's not the end of it. You are raised again to have and to live a new life.
And if what you've experienced in your life is I put on Christ in baptism and I went through that thing, but when I come up, I had I decided just to keep on living the same life, You're not living a new life, and that needs to be corrected. That needs to be changed. And that's what we've been talking about each and every week that sometimes we choose not to live the right kind of life. Sometimes, what we have done is we have made so many small decisions that our consciences have been, scripture will say, seared like with an iron. We no longer have the sensitivity.
You remember reading that verse? We no longer have the sensitivity to that sin. We've we've made it okay in our minds. And so, though we have been buried with Christ, we have come up and we've decided, to live a different kind of life and we may not even see it. We may not even understand it, because we have done this so many times.
But Paul says, you have died, your life is now hidden in Christ. You're supposed to live what's called a new life. Verse 5, for if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. And the church said, amen. I hope so.
He said, this is a promise. If you've been united with him and his death, you will be united with him and his resurrection. I want that. I'd like to be here for that. I want to be resurrected with Jesus, don't you?
Hopefully, that's what we're living our life for. Thanking him for the grace and mercy and the way that He's forgiven us for all of our sins, right? For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with. That we should no longer be slaves to sin. That this act of baptism, again, leads you to this point.
That I'm gonna put away this life I had living in sin. Quick show of hands, how many of you lived a life in sin before you were baptized? Anybody not sure? Yeah. Didn't think so.
But we understand what we did, don't we? We understand because we've been a part of church. We've been a part of bible classes and sermons. We understand that we lived a life that wasn't right before God. And what we do here, again, is start this new life that we should be able to, through the power of the Holy Spirit, through god's grace and mercy on us, not just through our tightening up our belt and lifting up our pants and going, that we live a new life and that we are constantly changing.
Remember all the verses we've read about renewing your mind, continually maturing in Christ. And again, as you come to the scripture like this, we should come to it as in looking in a mirror. Is this me? And as I've said, each a week, what I don't want you to do is walk away thinking there's no way out for me. I know I've I've gone down this road.
But we should not give the devil a foothold in that in that thought. But just turn back to God. Because he has you. Doesn't he? Verse 7, because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
Now, we don't always feel like that, do we? But we have been set free from all the sin we've done before. Right? Any sin that you know of that that god does not cleanse you of before you're baptized? I had, after I went to Mississippi, I had someone reach out to me and ask me some very specific things about that.
Ain't it interesting? The things we kind of work in our mind and think, well, I don't know if God could have saved me from those things. No. No. We have been set free from all of this sin that we have done and we have lived in.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. Amen? Yeah. Amen. 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, but the life he lives, he lives to God. Now I don't wanna think about my death. Do you? Not my death.
Your own. Don't think about mine, weirdos. Don't think this is how he'll die. No. No.
Don't think about that. Anybody like think about their own death, planning for it, all those things. I don't like that. Well, I'll tell you the one thing that gives me hope is this right here. Because Jesus showed us.
Remember, when Jesus was crucified and he was buried, everyone there that was against Jesus thought, yes, we've got him. We finally got him. Within 3 days later, Jesus shows you that even death is not the end. Amen? How many of you lost some loved ones that you can't wait to see?
Me too. I cannot wait to reunite with my grandmother. She always lived in Tennessee. We lived in Southwest Arkansas. It was a long trip to see Granny.
And I loved it, and I told you guys our trip was usually in Thanksgiving, but we went so far that when we got there in Thanksgiving, the tree was already up. So that is a wild. Okay? We did Thanksgiving and Christmas with my granny. And we got there, there were always 2 staples.
Granny was making soup and my mom would make this, fudge. And I'm talking knock you down, put you in a coma fudge too. But I I think about this, I think when we come to Scripture, we need to think about these things. What does this mean? Because Jesus showed through the power of God, even death cannot contain us.
And if we are with him, it's the same for us as it was for him. And that we will be resurrected, we will see people again. I can't wait. Not that I want to die anytime soon, but I can't wait to be reunited, both my Lord and Savior and the people that I've loved right here. Verse 11, it says in the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Is it important to you to see those people who have gone before you? Is it? Yeah, me too. Yeah. Live the kind of life that God has asked you to live.
You won't be perfect. Scripture tells you, you won't be perfect if you say you're without sin, you're a liar. That's what scripture says. But if you're His and you try to walk in the light as He is in the light, again, repenting when we've done things wrong, this is for you. That you will live with him.
And man, I want that. Alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you so that you obey its evil desires. Paul is saying, again, the church people, this is an option. You can be living this kind of life right now.
You, yeah, you were baptized into Jesus, you said all these things. But you can be living this kind of life where sin is actually reigning in your body, and you're obeying its evil desires. Now we don't like to think that way about ourselves, do we? We like to look around the room and point at other people, and say, Oh, they just But we're a lot slower to look in the mirror and say, Well, that's me too. I need to change some things.
I need to submit my life to God. I need to die to those things and allow Christ to be my life. Don't be in this. Now, do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves 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. I love this verse because, how many times do we offer a part of ourselves?
Let's hear it, church. How many times do we offer part of ourselves? I'll I'll give some, but man, I am not really that committed. And I'll, I'll show up on Sunday every once in a while. Don't ask me to come to Bible class.
That's out of the question. Don't ask me to go into my workplace and live this kind of life. You don't know what kind of workplace I live in or I work in. Hopefully, you don't live there. But often, we are, again, partially in.
Jesus talks about that as well. Right? He talks about being lukewarm, being a person who's riding the fence all the time, and, yeah, you know, I go either way. What does he say about being lukewarm? I wish you were either hot or cold.
I wish you were one of them. Choose 1. But you're riding the fence so much, probably claiming to be a good Christian living a life for Christ when it's obvious that you're not. He said, I'll spit you out of my mouth. That is nasty.
Everybody like your drinks cold or hot? Anybody think, when you order a drink, could you make it room temperature? Anybody going to lunch thinking that today? Some of you are so mean, you're gonna tell your waitress, and if it's not room temperature, I'm gonna send it back. No.
None of us are doing that. We understand the scripture, don't we? Be cold or hot. And what I would say is follow Jesus. Follow him.
Do exactly what what Paul is saying here is die to sin, live a new life for Jesus Christ. For sin shall no longer be your master, but you are not under the law, but under grace. You know that, church? You are not under the law, but under grace. And the grace of God has you.
If you choose to live for him. Now, you can choose not to. You can choose to walk away, and we've talked about that in series before. But if you want to live for Him, that is all yours. That is a free gift.
He gives us all. And I pray that for each of us, as we look in the mirror, as we examine scripture, we say, Yeah, I want to live for Him. I want to die to those things. I don't like those things. Hopefully, that's the conviction you have that when you do sin and fall short, as we say, that it is a conviction.
That I don't want to live that way. I'm not okay with it. I'm not happy I got away with it or whatever it is, but I am convicted. I need to turn my life back to God. So if that is you this morning, we are going to offer an invitation in just a second.
We want to finish again with our our Scripture from Hebrews 12:12. Would you stand with me as we read our scripture together? And one thing I would encourage you to do as we examine ourselves this morning, that if this is not a desire of yours, don't read it. It must not be false. It must not be fake.
If your desire is to put off the sin that so easily entangles, let's read it together. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Amen. I pray that that's all of our prayer this morning.
Again, if you have any needs and would like prayers of this church, we'd love to pray with you. As I've encouraged you before, you don't have to pray with me. If you have somebody in your life that will hold you accountable, pray with them. Make sure that they will be there for you, that they're not gonna just okay those bad behaviors, but they will walk side by side with you. If you got somebody like that in your life, ask them to be there for you.
So if you'd like to begin that walk with him, you'd like to put on Christ in baptism today, we'd like to see that as well. Let us know and we can we can make that happen. Any invitation song picked out, would you come as we sing?