Life Group - Romans 6

Welcome to Life Group. We invite you to join

us in this verse -by -verse study through the

Word of God. In this lesson, we're going to be

looking at Romans chapter 6. Let's start with

Romans 6 · chapter mention

verse 1. Well then, shall we keep on sinning

so that God can show us more and more of His

wonderful grace? Now, as a recap, in Romans chapter

Romans 5:20

5 verse 20, Paul had stated, that as people sin

more and more, God's wonderful grace becomes

more abundant. So, he presents this question.

Why would he present such a question? Well, from

a natural viewpoint, grace seems dangerous. This

is why many people today don't teach or believe

in grace, but emphasize living by the law. They

believe that if you tell people God saves and

accepts them apart from what they deserve, then

they have no motive to be obedient. In their

opinion, you simply can't keep people on the

straight and narrow without a threat from God

hanging over their head. If they believe their

position in Jesus is settled because of what

Jesus did on the cross, then the motivation for

holy living is gone. That's the way so many people

see Christianity. But the truth is we will never

experience freedom in Christ through legalistic

performance -based Christianity. True freedom

only happens when we live under God's grace.

In verse 2, Paul answers the question, of course

not. Since we have died to sin, How can we continue

to live in it? And Paul says, of course not.

He's saying that the idea that anyone might purposefully

continue to sin so grace would abound, that's

unthinkable. Actually, Paul asks and answers

this same question three times in the book of

Romans. We looked at it in chapter 3 in verse

8. here in Romans 6 .1, and we'll see it again

in this study in Romans 6 .15. What does this

tell us? Why would Paul have to keep asking?

Should people keep on sinning so that God's grace

would abound? Well, here's what we need to know.

When grace is presented correctly, people often

think it's too good, it's too easy. And that's

because our human reasoning always defaults to

works, to the law, to works, righteousness, deserving

it or earning it with God, a right standing with

God. And here Paul establishes an important principle.

When we believe in Jesus for our salvation, our

relationship with sin is permanently changed.

We have died. If we have died to sin, then we

should not live in sin anymore. This phrase,

have you forgotten, is really a fundamental concept

that every Christian should know. and it's illustrated

through believers' baptism. Have you ever heard

at a baptism, the pastor say, buried with Christ

in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life?

That's what it is. It's an illustration of believers'

baptism, and that's what he's talking about here.

He's like, have you forgotten this concept? The

ancient Greek word for baptized means to immerse

or overwhelm something. So water baptism, Being

baptized into Christ is really a demonstration

or an acting out of a believer's immersion or

identification with Christ in his death and resurrection.

Baptism, therefore, is important because it's

an illustration of a spiritual reality. It does

not make that reality come to pass, but if someone

has not spiritually died and risen with Jesus,

then all the baptisms in the world would not

accomplish it for them. Doesn't matter how many

times you get baptized, if it's not a real reality

for you, because it's just an illustration. It's

just a demonstration of what's happened on the

inside. So something dramatic and life -changing

happens in the life of the believer. not by their

work, you know, just being sprinkled in water

or dunked in water. You can't die and rise again

without it changing your life. And at salvation,

a believer has a real spiritual death and a real

spiritual resurrection with Jesus Christ. Back

to scripture, verse 5. Since we have been united

with him in 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 are no

longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ,

we were set free from the power of sin. So this

phrase here, united with Christ, then it's expressing

a close union with him. and exactly it's exactly

expressing the process by which we graft something

like a graft becomes united with the life of

a tree like if you take one tree clipping you

can graft it on to another tree and that process

you can't view like one without the other like

you see them as one identical tree at that point

when something has been engrafted onto another

tree and it's kind of a demonstration here and

an example of like what it looks like a picture

of what it looks like when we have been engrafted

into christ we are identified with his death

we are grafted into his death and his death becomes

our death we we identify with his death and our

old self our sin nature was crucified then with

Christ. The death of the old man is an established

fact, and it happened spiritually when we identified

with Jesus' death at our salvation. None of us

nailed our old man to the cross. Jesus did that

for us, and we are told to consider it done.

Two other places in the New Testament, Ephesians

4 .22, And Colossians 3 .9 mentioned the old

man and remind us to consider him done away with,

telling us to put off the old man as something

that is dead and gone. So, strictly speaking,

we're not supposed to constantly battle the old

man. We're supposed to consider him dead. Some

Christians focus solely on the crucified life.

But being crucified with Christ is the gateway

to resurrection life. See, his death was our

death. But this also means that his resurrection

was our resurrection. So the life of Christ now

flows through us. Our flesh is the problem in

the battle against sin. And it was trained in

sinful habits by three sources, we see. First,

It was trained by the old man. Before he was

crucified with Christ, the old man trained and

imprinted himself on our flesh. Second, the world

system, in its spirit of rebellion against God,

can have a continuing influence on our flesh.

And then finally, the devil seeks to tempt and

influence our flesh towards sin. So, when we

allow the flesh to be continually influenced

by the old man's habits of the past, the world,

and the devil, the flesh will exert a powerful

pull towards sin. But, if we let the new man

within us influence our mind, will, and emotions,

our soul, then the battle will be less intense.

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. Jesus died unto sin once and death had

no more dominion over him. Those who recognize

their death with Christ unto sin will not have

sin rule over them anymore. struggling with sin

always struggling with sin have not recognized

that they are dead to sin let's pick up in verse

12 do not let sin control the way you live do

not give in to 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 were 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 are no longer

living under the requirements of the law. Instead,

you live under the freedom of God's grace. So

in this text, we see that our slavery to sin

was broken by Christ's death, which was actually

our death because we died with him. And because

of that, we are set free from sin because the

old man died with Jesus on the cross. Now a new

man, a free man lives. Everyone is free to sin,

right? Everyone in the world is free to sin.

But only those who are in Christ are free to

stop sinning. I want to share a story that I

came across during my study. It's a true historical

study, but I believe it goes along with what

we need to understand. In the 14th century, two

brothers fought for the right to rule over a

Ducatum in what is now Belgium. The older brother's

name was Raynaud, but he was commonly called

Crassus as a Latin nickname meaning fat, for

he was horribly obese. After a heated battle,

Raynaud's younger brother Edward led a successful

revolt against him and assumed the title of Duke

over his lands. But instead of killing his older

brother, Raynald, Edward devised a curious imprisonment.

He had a room in the castle built around Crassus,

a room with only one door. The door was not locked,

the windows were not barred, and Edward promised

Raynald, that he could regain his land and his

title any time that he wanted to. All he would

have to do is leave the room. The obstacle to

freedom was not in the doors or the windows,

but with Reynold himself. Being grossly overweight,

he could not fit through the door, even though

it was of near -normal size. All Reynold needed

to do, was diet down to a smaller size, then

walk out of the room a free man, with all he

had before his fall. However, his younger brother

kept sending him an assortment of tasty foods,

and Raynald's desire to be free never won out

over his desire to eat. Some would accuse Duke

Edward of being cruel to his older brother. But

he would simply reply, my brother is not a prisoner.

He may leave when he so wills. But Raynald stayed

in that room for 10 years until Edward himself

was killed in battle. Now this story accurately

illustrates the experience of many Christians.

Jesus set them forever free legally. and they

may walk out in that freedom from sin whenever

they choose. But since they keep yielding their

fleshly appetites to the service of sin, they

live a life of defeat, discouragement, and imprisonment.

See, a person can be officially set free, but

still live imprisoned. When a person lives in

prison for years and then is set free, they often

still think and act like a prisoner. The habits

of freedom aren't ingrained in their life yet.

And here, Paul shows how to build the habits

of freedom in the Christian life. First of all,

he says, Parts of our body. I mean... You have

eyes, so don't put them in the service of sin.

You have ears, but don't put them in the service

of sin. David gives us a human example. God used

David's hands to slay Goliath in the cause of

righteousness. But later in David's life, sin

used David's eyes for unrighteousness when he

looked upon sin. Bathsheba someone else's wife

and two he says instead of letting any part of

your body become an instrument of evil to serve

sin instead of that number two give yourselves

completely to God so we need to walk in the freedom

Jesus won for us it isn't enough to take the

weapons away from the service of sin They must

be enlisted in the service of God, in the service

of righteousness. Verse 15. Well then, since

God's grace has set us free from the law, does

that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not.

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.

At first, verse 1 and 15 seem to say the same

thing in most English translations, but if we

take a closer look, they're different. Verse

1 says, should we keep on sinning? And verse

15 says, does that mean we can go on sinning?

You see, verse 1 is talking about continual,

habitual sin. Whereas verse 15 is talking about

occasionally playing around with or dabbling

in sin. But Paul's answer is still the same.

He uses the same phrase here. Of course not.

Paul uses the illustration of slavery to convey

this message. And this kind of reminds me of

the great philosopher, you could say Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan. wrote a song and he said, you're going

to have to serve somebody. It may be the devil,

it might be the Lord, but you're going to have

to serve somebody. And in a lot of ways, that's

true and kind of saying the same thing that Paul

is saying here, right? It's like one way or another,

each one of us are going to serve somebody. And

there's only two options. We serve sin or serve

God. I want you to imagine something. Can you

imagine like having a new job and on the first

day of your new job, you leave work at lunch

and go to your old job and ask your old boss

what he wants you to do? In the same way, this

is like an example of the same thing that we

do sometimes as Christians. We return to our

flesh, our old man. We go back and we're like,

hey, what do you want me to do? We serve our

old self. But no, we're not supposed to even

consider it. It's supposed to be dead to us,

right? It's impossible for a new creation in

Jesus to be comfortable in habitual sin. We should

not just keep returning and sinning, you know,

and being this state of sin all the time. You

know, the state of sin should and can only be

temporary for the Christian. Spurgeon once said

that the grace that does not change my life will

not save my soul. We're supposed to be changed.

The changes may not come all at one time, and

the changes might come might not come to each

area of one's life at the same time, but they

will be there. The changes will be there. They

will be real and they will be increasing as time

goes on. Good illustration would be a caterpillar

to a butterfly. Like once the caterpillar becomes

a butterfly, It no longer crawls around on the

trees and the leaves and in the dirt like it

did when it's a caterpillar. It no longer returns

to that old state. It has become a butterfly.

It's now, its identity is flying, a creature

that flies. And as being a new creature in Christ,

we are supposed to be and live out that resurrected

life. Verse 17, thank God, once you were slaves

of sin, Verse 19. To help you understand all

this. Previously, You let yourselves be slaves

to impurity and lawlessness, which led even deeper

into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be

slaves to righteousness, living so that you will

become holy. When you were slaves to 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 have become slaves to 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. For us to walk in victory

over sin, we must understand and recognize the

fruit of sin. The end product of sin is death,

not fun. I mean, sometimes we see sin for the

enjoyment or for the fun, but the end product

of sin is always death. But the end product of

righteousness. is everlasting life. So in conclusion

of chapter 6, as believers, we've had a change

of ownership. We've moved from being a slave

to sin into being a child of God who willingly

and joyfully serves Him. We resist sin because

sin is no longer our master. freedom. We have

freedom and we have new life in Christ because

he is Lord. Thank you for joining us for Life

Group. Allow God's word to build your faith and

transform your life.