Day #160: Romans 6:11-14

BACKGROUND:

If we have identified with Christ, what is true for him can be true for us. This identification starts in our minds by an act of mental reckoning or accounting. We can consider ourselves dead to sin. In other words, just as a dead body cannot respond to temptations or enticements, neither can we respond to them. Thus we are able to live for the glory of God through Christ Jesus because we have been given new life, a new lifestyle, and the sure promise of eternal life.

If we are dead to sin, how can sin still control us? We have died to sin, but we are constantly being freed from sin. When sin is in control, people have no choice but to give in to its lustful desires because they are its slaves. Believers have died to sin, but as long as we live in our mortal bodies, we will have the compulsion to sin. But only because we have died to sin do we have the power to no longer let it control us. We are, in fact, free from our slavery. But each day we must reject our old slave ways.

While we are in our bodies, there will always be the chance that some actions will be sinful or used as a tool to distort our relationship with God or with others. Because our bodies are mortal (decaying and dying), we should not yield to sinful desires and temptations. Why yield to a decaying master? Why offer the parts of our bodies to sin, something to which we have died? Instead, Paul tells believers, give yourselves completely to God and use your whole body as a tool to do what is right. We have a choice. We have been given new life by God; thus, our bodies are to be given to him to use for promoting righteousness. We are to refuse sin and instead be wholly committed to living for God. We make these choices moment by moment.

Sin cannot and will not ever again be our master because we are no longer subject to the law. What does it mean that we are not under the law?
We are not under the law’s demands, as were the people of the Old Testament.
We are not under curse implied by the impossible standard of the law (Galatians 3:10-14).
We are not under its system of requirements, the ceremonial laws that had to be meticulously kept.
We are not under the fear of failing the just standard of the law.

If believers were still under the law, then the sin would have to be master. By itself, the law produces both the proof and the acute awareness of sin but cannot direct or motivate a person to do what is right. Instead, believers are free by God’s grace because only grace can overcome sin. Only by living in that grace can we defeat the power of sin in our lives. When our lives are under the law alone, sin is our master. But when we live under grace, our master is God.

SO WHAT? (what will I do with what i have read today?)

Knowing that we have died with Christ, there are three things we must do with our knowledge. (When I died, my old sin nature died but that doesn't mean it was destroyed. We still have a sin nature. But it is rendered powerless. That means you now have a choice, it doesn't control you. You can now choose to do what's right. A Christian can never say, "The devil made me do it!" He can't blame the devil, Adam, anybody. If you sin it's because you choose to sin.)

Three things we must do:

1) Reckon. Believe that what God says is true. Romans 6:11 "In the same way count [reckon] yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." Reckon is a business term. Reckon or count mean compute, calculate, consider, count on it, don't doubt it, believe it. We're not talking about a matter of pretending. We're not pretending that sin doesn't have any effect on us. Paul is saying that sin does not have to have any affect on you. You start acting the way God says. But you don't feel it so... What are you going to trust? Your feelings or God's word?

God says that the way you take something that's true and put it into your life is you first reckon it, you count on it. It's not a matter of pretending that when you died with Christ 2000 years ago that sin can't make you sin. It's not pretending but believing what God has said in this verse. We can make our own decisions. We can choose not to sin. We do have a new strength. Reckon it. Count on it. Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Have you ever heard anyone say, "You've got to crucify yourself" or "You've got to die to self." The only problem is you cannot crucify yourself. You can't crawl up on the cross and nail your hands to the cross. You cannot crucify yourself. Nowhere in the Bible are you told that you have to crucify your old nature. The Bible says it has already been done. It's something that happened a long time ago. Past tense. Galatians 2:20 says, "I am crucified with Christ" not "I am crucifying myself with Christ."

You just agree with God, "I don't know how it all works out. I don't understand it all. But I believe that because I am in You, that somehow I've died to that tendency to sin." Paul takes three chapters to spell this out. It gets a little easier the more you understand it. This is the foundation tonight for all the practical stuff we're going to get into. Reckon -- believe what God says is true.

2) Resist. Romans 6:12 says, "Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Don't offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness." Don't let sin go unchallenged in your life.

A Christian has no business saying, "I can't help it." Because you can help it, according to God. The Bible says that Jesus Christ has broken that power and whereas before you became a believer you didn't have the power to change. But now that you are a believer you have a new power. And you believe it and you resist what God says to resist. Resist that sin! Reject the idea that you can't control your own desires. You can control your own desires.

Galatians 5:16 says, "So now I say, live by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature." Some people think that the more they become a Christian, the less they will be tempted. The stronger Christian you become, the more the devil is going to tempt you! I think Billy Graham and those kind of guys get temptations that none of us have to deal with! Sometimes I doubt that the devil even knows my name; I don't think I'm that big of a threat. I think the devil works on the big guns of Christianity. He just puts some little private demon on you or me. The devil probably doesn't even know who I am. But he knew who Paul was and he tempted him. And he knew who Jesus was.

People get psyched out by temptation. You've been a Christian for twenty years and one day in your prayer time the devil puts a thought in your mind that is the most ugly thought you've ever thought in the whole world. "Where did that come from?" It freaks you out! Maybe I'm not even a Christian, you think! Have you ever been intimidated by temptation?

Our mind plays all kinds of tricks on us. I imagine some of you mothers some days when your kids are all tense and you might think, "What if I kill one of my kids..." and you immediately think "No, I shouldn't have a thought like this!" God doesn't condemn you for a thought that comes into your mind. The devil can put thoughts into your mind. What makes you guilty is when you act on the thought! When you entertain it! Some of you men have been down at the beach... some cutie comes walking by in a next-to-nothing bikini. You can have several different thoughts. One thought might be, "That is a woman!" That's not even a temptation. Some people think that if they have a sexual desire that's a temptation. In the first place, you ought to thank God you recognize that's a woman. In today's society you ought to thank God you attracted to a woman! That means you're normal. The devil will give another kind of temptation: undress her or something else. Does that mean you have just sinned because that thought went through your mind? Not at all. What is a sin is when you begin to meditate on it, think about it, roll it over and over in your mind! Then you act on it.

This passage teaches, as a Christian, you do not have to be intimidated by your old nature, or the devil, or self, or anything any more. I died with Christ. That means when Jesus took the penalty for the sin, He took the penalty for all the sin: not only the sins I did yesterday, but the ones I do in the weeks to come. All of my sins have been paid for. Now do you see why it makes sense (in one sense) for someone to say, "If all my sins are paid for, I'll just go ahead and do whatever I want to." Do you understand why the first question was even brought up?

Have you heard anyone say, "I know it's wrong but I know God will forgive me"? That's what he's talking about in this passage. We don't fulfill the lust of the flesh. We have those desires. We just don't fulfill them.

3) Render. This means to give, to offer, to give yourselves. Romans 6. At first he says don't offer your body to sin, don't put yourself in situations where you're even tempted "...but rather offer yourself to God as those who have been brought from death to life and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness." Render means to put at one's disposal, to offer voluntarily. Romans 12:1-2 "Therefore I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God which is your spiritual worship." Make a present of yourself to God.

I love you guys. Stay faithful. Stay the course.