The First Commandment in Romans (Romans 6:1-14) | Louis Azuma

Speaker 2: if your teacher didn't grade your homework, would you still do it?

If you, have you ever been in a class like that or if you knew your teacher wasn't

gonna, oh, she doesn't grade the homework, I'm not gonna bother doing it right.

If my teacher doesn't, doesn't grade this.

No point.

Right.

I knew a guy, um, he was in a class where his professor wouldn't read his essays

and so he just started putting random stuff in the middle of his essays just

to see if a professor would read it.

Never, never got caught.

He would just put random sentences.

You just start like in the middle of page three, just like.

Whatever.

I love chocolate ice cream, or this class is the worst class ever, and

just put random stuff in there and professor had ever read the essay.

So anyway, but the whole point, right?

If your teacher doesn't do your homework, you wouldn't do or

doesn't grade your homework.

You wouldn't do it because the consequences are gone, right?

You can't, you're not gonna, you're not gonna lose points for it.

You're not gonna fail the class.

You're not gonna, you know, get in trouble with your parents

because the teacher isn't great.

It doesn't matter, right?

Um, what I found with school is that once the consequences get removed.

You find out if you really like something or if you don't.

Right?

Because in school, the teachers force you to do things by grading them, right?

Because there's consequences.

If I don't get, uh, an A on this class, or I don't, don't do well

on this test then, or I don't turn my homework in, then my grade's

bad and I have consequences, right?

You get grounded, you don't graduate, and then nothing happens with your

life apparently if you don't graduate.

So things like that, right?

There's consequences and when those consequences happen, you're like,

oh, um, those force me to do work.

Then if the consequences go away, would you still do the work?

Well, you would if you really liked it.

But if you don't like it, no consequences.

You're not gonna do it.

Right?

That's what school taught me.

School taught me.

If there's no consequences and I don't like it, I won't do it.

But if there's no consequences and I do like it, I'll make time for it.

Right?

You make time for a lot of really interesting and sometimes

really dumb things, right?

Because you like them, you enjoy them, so you're like, oh,

I'm gonna make time for this.

Even though if you didn't do it, nothing bad would happen.

But because you like it, you're like, oh yeah, I'll do that.

So once you remove the consequences, it shows you whether you really like

something or don't like something.

And that's a question that we're running into here in the book of Romans.

A question that a lot of people have about God's grace.

What we learned about so far in Romans is that everyone's

guilty of their sin, right?

Romans one, we all are under God's wrath.

He, um, is righteous.

It's he's good for him to actually oppose us and our sin because

we're rebelling against him.

We're breaking his rules.

We're all guilty.

That's what Romans two and three say.

All of us fall short of God's perfect standard.

None of us are good enough to make it to heaven on our own.

We're all guilty before God.

But then we see Romans three, Romans four.

We talked about Abraham, right, and his faith.

And we saw that God justifies people by faith, not because of what we

do, but because of what Jesus did.

And so nothing that we do contributes to our righteousness before God.

That's what we call justification by faith, right?

Not by works.

And a lot of people that causes them this question, well, if God doesn't, if God's

just gonna forgive all my sin, right?

If all my sin just goes away, why not just keep sinning, right?

If, if God's gonna forgive me anyway, I could just keep sinning.

If God's gonna forgive me anyway, what's the big deal?

Does God really even care anymore about my sin?

That's the question you might have.

That's a question a lot of people have about Christianity.

They say, well, what's the point then?

If God's just gonna justify you because of Jesus, then you can

just do whatever you want, right?

God's gonna forgive you.

That's what a lot of people say, and that's what a lot of

people ask about the gospel.

But what I want you to see with that idea of if the consequences

are gone, it shows you whether you really like something or not.

If you're okay with your sin, if you're okay with going

on and, and disobeying God.

If you're okay with rejecting God, if you're okay with loving other things

more than God, if you're okay with not ever talking to God, if you're okay

with living as if God didn't exist, just because, well now there's no more

consequences for my sin that shows you you really don't love God, right?

If the only thing that gets you to do things for God is, well,

I might go to Hell if I don't.

That's like you doing homework just because, oh, I might fail the class.

But once the, the failing the homework, right?

Your life's not being graded anymore because you're

forgiven, you're under grace.

You're not under the law anymore.

Your life's not being graded anymore.

By God, you're, you're forgiven, you're righteous.

And if you say, well, that's fine, I'll just keep sinning.

It shows you that you don't really love God that much.

Maybe you might not even love him at all because the only thing that

motivated you was the consequences.

So if, if you're looking for.

If you're, if you say you're a Christian, you're saying, well, how

much can I sin and still be a Christian?

Or how much can I get away with and still say, saved?

You're asking the wrong question.

What you're showing about yourself is you don't really love God that much.

Maybe you might not even love him at all.

'cause what you're trying to do is, is keep your sin and just

take the consequences away.

You don't actually love what you're living for.

You don't love God.

If there's no struggle against your sin in your life, if you're just out there and

you say, yeah, I'm a Christian, but my sin is just, it's here and I'm okay with it.

It doesn't bother me.

It doesn't bother me that I disobey God.

It doesn't bother me that I gossip.

It doesn't bother me that I have impure thoughts.

It doesn't bother me that I'm selfish.

That's showing you, you.

You don't really love God.

You're okay with your sin.

A real Christian is.

Not just getting rid of their sin because there's consequences.

They're getting rid of their sin because they actually love God.

And that's what we're gonna see here in Romans six.

We're gonna, our points are gonna be questions.

They're gonna be questions to ask yourself, am I following Jesus because

I want to, or am I just trying to follow Jesus because I have to, because

my parents are making me or because I think it's the right thing to do?

Am I following Jesus because I want to, because of who I am?

I love Jesus.

Am I following Jesus?

Just because all the outside forces, my parents, my friends, my church

is just making me do it right.

My life's being graded, so I feel like I have to do it.

That's what these questions are going to help us figure out.

Alright, so we're actually gonna start, um, not at the

beginning of this paragraph.

We're gonna start at the bottom of the paragraph here.

So open your Bibles to Romans chapter six, and instead of starting in verse one,

we're actually gonna start here in verse.

13.

Okay.

This is gonna be a little different than what we normally do.

We're gonna start in verse 13.

So what's happening here in verse 13 is Paul, the writer of this letter

of Romans, he's, he gives, uh, don't do this, but instead do that.

A lot of times in the Bible you'll see a command.

It says, don't do this.

Instead do this.

Here's what he says, don't present your members.

That means like your body, right?

Your arms, your thoughts, your decisions.

Don't give those to sin.

As an instrument, like a, a weapon.

That word could be translated weapon.

Um, don't give your members your, your, your body yourself to sin as

a weapon for unrighteousness, for bad things, but present yourself.

Give yourself to God as people who have been brought from death to life and

your members, your body, parts to God, goddess instruments for righteousness

as weapons for righteousness.

So what what's happening here is.

We're seeing that people are always giving themselves to someone

like that word present, right?

Like a present is a gift, right?

Like Master Uwe said the present is a, today is a gift.

That's why it's called the present, right?

Um, that's what Master Uwe told me, right?

Present.

You're, you're always giving yourself as a gift to something.

Remember, last week we talked about how sin is like a, a power.

We talked about sin is reigning.

Over people.

And then when Jesus came, he breaks the reign, the ruling power of sin and death.

So you're either giving yourself to sin to do whatever it wants with

you, or you're giving yourself to God to do whatever he wants with you.

So those are your only two options.

You're either giving yourself to your sinful desires or

you're giving yourself to God.

That's what people do.

We're always giving ourself to serve someone.

So the first question I want you to ask yourself tonight

is, what am I giving myself to?

What am I giving myself to?

Am I giving myself to sin?

Am I following my sinful desires?

Am I saying, Hey sin, here's all my thoughts.

Think about whatever you want with my thoughts.

Here's all of my feelings.

Feel whatever you want with my feelings.

Here's all of my decisions.

Do whatever you want through my decisions.

You're either doing that or you're, you're doing the opposite and

you're, you're going to God and you're saying, God, here's my body.

Do whatever you want with my words.

Do whatever you want with my thoughts.

Do whatever you want, God with my feelings.

I wanna feel the way you want me to feel.

I don't wanna feel the way I want me to feel.

I don't wanna give myself to my sinful desires.

I wanna give myself to your desires, God, what you want from me.

What I want you to ask yourself is what am I, what am I doing?

Am I giving myself to sin or am I giving myself to God?

'cause you're giving yourself to one or the other.

Those are your only two options.

You're always giving yourself over to someone.

Everything you do is almost promoting one thing or the other thing I want you to

think about, almost like everything you do is voting either for God or against God.

Almost, almost like you're casting a vote, right?

I'm gonna either vote for God, God is great, or I'm gonna vote.

God.

Isn't that important?

God isn't worth my time.

God isn't trustworthy.

Every time you decide something, that's what you're doing.

You're voting either for God or against God.

And so I want you to ask yourself, what do I do?

What does my life look like?

Am I someone who's voting for God or am I someone who's voting for myself?

Who am I giving myself to?

The way this passage is gonna describe people is probably a way you've

never really thought about before.

Um, but we see it here in verse 14 when we continue reading.

It says, sin will have no dominion over you.

Dominion, right?

Think of the word dominate, right?

Um, dominion.

It has power control over you.

So he says, don't let it do that.

Since you're not under the law of under Grace, we talked

about this last week, right?

Um, grace has power and um, that power is what frees you from the power of sin.

So, um, the point here is sin is trying to dominate people and sometimes it's

successful and sometimes it's not.

What you give yourself to is a big part of that.

Am I giving myself to sin and being dominated by sin or am I giving

myself to God and being, being.

Following him, right?

Is he ruling me or am I letting my sin rule me?

Because here, so to help you kind of picture this, um, I didn't come

up with this, but here's like a kind of a illustration or like a

word picture of how this works.

Okay?

So I want you to imagine that you're like a fortress, okay?

So you're like a fortress or a city.

Um, and in that city there's a throne.

And on that throne.

Is either God or sin.

They're, one of them is ruling, one of them is reigning, one of 'em

is in control, dominating, right?

Um, so God is obviously the rightful ruler, and sin is like a rebel, like a,

who came over and, and conquered the city.

Now,

in this city, there's um, you can call 'em generals, you can call 'em governors,

you can call 'em whatever you want.

Um, and these are your desires, and they serve whoever is on the throne.

So whoever's on the throne, they're in control of these generals and they tell

the generals, Hey, you should do this.

You should do this, you should do this.

And so these generals, these desires, they make things happen.

They're, they're the things that run the city in your life.

Your desires are the things that run your life.

You always do whatever you want.

You ever thought about that?

You always do exactly what you want to do, even if you don't think

you want to, don't wanna do it.

Right.

Even if you're like, oh, I really don't wanna do my homework, but I did it anyway.

Well, you did your homework because you didn't want to suffer the

consequences of not doing your homework.

So really you wanted to do your homework because you wanted to not get punished

for not doing your homework, right?

So you, you always do what you really want to do.

'cause if you really wanted to do it, you would do it.

If you really didn't wanna do it, you wouldn't do it.

So you always do what you want, kinda like, like working out, right?

Um, you don't necessarily like the process of working out, but you like

the results of working out, so you think it's worth it so you do it

right, or practicing your instrument.

Whatever.

Right.

You, you do the practice, the thing you don't like to do the thing you want

because that's what you really want.

So you're okay with doing the thing, the mini thing.

You don't want to get to the big thing you want, right?

Anyway, all I have to say, your desires rule, so there's the throne, there's

the, the generals, the desires that, that make everything happen and these desires.

Control what we called.

Remember our, um, instruments, the weapons, so your desires, um, they

control your, your, these instruments, your weapons, which is like your body,

your thoughts, your decisions, right?

You, those are always under the control of what you want, right?

Your body is under the control of what you want.

Your thoughts are under the control of what you want.

Your actions are under control of what you want.

And so these, um.

Desires can make these weapons in the city serve either God or serve sin.

Okay.

Does this make sense?

It's okay if it doesn't.

You can shake your head and say, no, it doesn't make sense.

Please explain it better.

But no one's doing that, so great.

Alright.

Um, you don't have to nod by the way, if, if you don't, if something's confusing,

please look confused, shake your head.

That's helpful to me.

If I know you're confused, that will help me.

Okay?

Anyway.

Um.

So you are so God's on the throne, right?

Or sin is on the throne.

And then there's these generals, these desires that run the city and

those desires control these weapons.

And the weapons can be used either for God or against God.

So, um, and those weapons are like your actions, your thoughts,

your body, all that stuff.

Okay?

Now how do you know?

What desires are calling the shots in your life?

What generals are in control of your life, of your city?

Well, you, you asked the question of our point.

What am I giving myself to?

Because you give yourself to whatever you want, right?

Just, just evaluate yourself.

Think about what do I do?

What do I think about, what do I feel?

How do I feel about these things?

That's what you're giving yourself to.

Your desires will show you.

What you really love and what you don't love and what your desires do is

they take control of your actions, the weapons in your city, and they use them.

And so you look at your life and you say, how is my life being used?

Is my life being used to vote for God or vote against God?

Does my life make God look good?

Or does it make God look boring?

Does my life make God look uninteresting or not worth it?

Right?

If you're, if you're anxious all the time, maybe it's your life

is making God look untrustworthy.

If you, um, are really angry all the time, maybe your life

looks like God isn't in control.

If you are always looking to make yourself happy with video games or watching

things on online or whatever, maybe your life is saying God isn't good enough.

I need all these other things to make me happy.

Your desires show you what's really important in your life,

so.

When you ask yourself, what am I giving myself to, right?

Who's on the throne of my life?

Your desires serve whoever's on the throne.

What you want is a product of who's controlling your life.

And so if you aren't a Christian, sin is on the throne of your life,

and so all your desires are sinful desires, and so your sinful desires

these sinful generals in your city.

They're just running around telling you what to do.

You're a slave to sin Your body, your thoughts are enslaved to sin.

So when we talked about that option of either sin is

dominating you or not, right?

If you are an unbeliever, if you're not a Christian here, you're really not free.

You're not free from God doing whatever you want, living however you wanna live.

Your sinful desires are telling you what to do.

You're almost, in a sense, you're almost like an animal because you

have no control over what you want.

Your heart is sinful and just taking you wherever it wants you to go, right?

Your sinful desires are just ordering you around, telling you

to do exactly whatever you want.

You're, you're not free.

You're stuck.

You're enslaved to your sinful desires.

And the only way for someone if sins on the phone of their life to.

To get free from that slavery of, of those generals, right?

Ordering them around those sinful desires is they need God to

come in and take over the city.

They need something to happen to them.

They need God to come in and take over the sinful, de the sinful

city and change those generals and, and make them godly desires.

You need new.

God Godly desires.

I need desires from God.

I don't just need to start reading the Bible more.

I don't just need to pray more.

I don't just need to start going to church or start paying

attention better in the sermons.

I don't just need to memorize books of the Bible.

You need God to come in and and take over your life.

And maybe that's not a way you've thought about how salvation works,

but that's the picture we're seeing here is you're either a slave to sin

or you are under God's management.

Either sin is on the throne or God is on the throne, and that's

where your desires come from.

So the second question I want you to ask is, who controls my desires?

Who controls what I want?

Are my desires controlled by sin or are they controlled by God?

What's the biggest influence on what you want?

Is it, I want whatever I want?

Right?

Because we talked about.

How that's actually you saying, God, I don't want you, I want me.

Right?

So that's sin.

Rejecting God who controls my desires.

Let's look at verse 12.

I know we're going backward here, but verse 12 says, don't let

sin reign in your body, right?

Don't let sin be on the throne of your city to make you obey its passion.

So sin right has these sinful desires, these passions, these generals

that control and make you obey.

Sin is reigning sins in control.

If you're an unbeliever and it's making you do whatever it wants you to do,

right, whatever you want to do, your sinful desires, you just carry 'em out.

So who's on the throne of your city?

Who's on the throne of your heart?

Is it sin or is it God?

Those are your only two options.

If you say me, that's, that's probably means your sin is in control.

Right.

And it's the same thing we see here in these two verses here in the middle.

Um,

so our old self was crucified with Jesus in order that the body of sin might

be brought to nothing, um, so that we might no longer be enslaved to sin.

So we'll talk about this part later, but right here, um,

everyone starts out like this.

This is the default setting.

We talked about this the last couple weeks, right?

Romans five.

Everyone starts out under the power of sin.

Everyone's born wanting to sin.

Everyone's born with sinful desires in control of their life.

And so if this doesn't happen to you, if, if God doesn't come in and take over

your city, this is, you're not neutral.

And then, oh, well, I grew up in church, so God was in control of

my life, but then now I'm really starting to not want God anymore.

Actually, you started out enslaved to sin and you probably just hung around

church people and kind of enjoyed it 'cause your friends were there and then

now sin is actually saying, guess what?

I've actually been in control this whole time.

That's probably what's happening.

So everyone starts out enslaved to sin.

Everyone needs to be set free from sin.

The default setting starts out, sin is on the throne, so God has to come in and

and do something to free you from that.

The reason Christians are free from sin is not because Christians are good people.

It's not because Christians try really hard.

It's not because Christians read the Bible a lot.

It's not because Christians have good parents.

It's because God came in and did something.

God took over the city.

That's why Christians are free from sin because God came in

and did something about it.

Someone else is on the throne, right?

Jesus came in and and killed sin.

He put it to death, right?

And so if you are a Christian, you're not enslaved to sin anymore

because your desires changed there.

There's new generals in the city now, and so then they take the

weapons of your life, right?

Your body, your thoughts, your emotions, your your decisions.

They take those weapons and instead of using them against

God, they use them for God.

So you're whoever's on the throne of your life, right?

God comes in and he takes over and he puts in new desires in your heart.

That's what changes you.

That's why Christians live differently than before.

It's not because they tried really hard.

You do have to try really hard, but you try really hard because you have these

new desires that came from God, right?

The Holy Spirit comes in and changes what you want.

The fancy word for that is regeneration.

You're born again.

So that's why if you're a Christian, sin isn't in charge of you anymore.

So if you feel like you're stuck in a sin.

That feeling isn't true

because sins dead.

God kicked him out.

God killed him, right?

He's not on the throne of your life anymore.

So if you're a Christian, you are free from sin right past tense.

This is why grammar in the Bible matters, right?

Whoever for the one who has died has been set free from sin, not will be

set free from sin, not is starting to become set free from sin is has been.

Past tense.

It's already done, right?

So if you're a Christian, you feel like, man, I'm really stuck in this sin.

I can't beat this sin.

I can't stop watching that.

I can't stop thinking about this.

I can't stop feeling this way.

It's not true.

It's not true.

And that's the first step in killing sin is admitting that, you know what?

This sin doesn't control me the way I feel doesn't control me.

Mm-hmm.

The way I feel isn't in charge of my life anymore.

God is in charge of my life now.

Sin isn't in charge of Christians anymore.

So why do Christians still sin then?

Right?

Maybe that's the question you're thinking.

Why do Christians still sin if sin isn't in charge of Christian's life?

I know plenty of Christians and they sin.

So what's up with that?

Well,

if you're a Christian, uh, remember this verse from verse 12.

Let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal body.

So Paul is telling Christians, he's saying, Hey, don't let sin take back over.

Your, your desires anymore, right?

Sin is gonna come and try, try to come back into the city and

take control of, of the generals.

These generals, the desires can be turned against God.

God stays on the throne.

But in a Christian's life, sin can come back and, and try to turn

the generals into double agents.

In your city, God still runs the city.

You're still a Christian.

But what happens when you sin is.

Your desires get captured by sin, and instead of using their weapons

for God, they use 'em against God.

But this time, God's not outside the city.

He's inside the city, right?

So every time a Christian sins, they're willingly allowing, right?

They don't have to.

They're free.

They're willingly allowing a desire to be captured by sin.

Your willingly desire, you're willingly allowing your desire to be captured.

By sin.

Think about it like this, right?

Um, you have a good desire to rest, right?

God made you as a limited human being.

You have to sleep, you have to eat right, you have limits.

You need to rest.

Good desire to rest, right?

It's a good thing sin can come capture that desire in a Christian and turn it

into an evil desire to be lazy, right?

So now instead of that desire serving God, that desire, serving sin,

it's, it's become a double agent.

That general has turned against God.

God's still the throne, but Christian being lazy means, hey, the desire

to rest has been hijacked, double agent ified to rebel against God.

So good desire gets captured by sin, and now it's using the weapons of your body,

your emotions against God to be lazy.

Right.

That's kind of how that works.

So the point here is that sin is, if you're a Christian, sin is trying to

convince you that you're still a slave.

Sin is trying to convince you, Hey, you're actually not free.

You're stuck, right?

You're hopeless.

You can't actually stop being anxious.

You can't actually stop thinking impure thoughts.

You can't actually stop being angry and impatient.

That's just who you are.

That's just how you're made.

You're stuck.

Sin is is telling that to you all the time.

All the time.

That's why verse 11 says, you must consider yourself

dead to sin and alive to God.

This is really interesting.

So basically what happens, we're going backward, but one verses

one through 10 are just a bunch of like information in theology.

This right here is the first command Paul has given in the entire book of Romans.

The first command Paul gives after six chapters is, Hey.

Believe what I just told you.

Why does he, why, why does he have to say it?

Right?

You think if Paul just wrote, Hey, here's all this information, he,

he kind of expects you to do this.

He kinda expects you to believe it, right?

But he thinks it's so important.

He makes this the first time.

He tells you to do something in this whole letter.

Hey, you need to believe this.

You really need to believe this.

You're not a slave descend anymore.

Who you are is changed.

You don't have to keep thinking those anxious thoughts.

You don't have to keep saying those unkind words.

You're not stuck in that anymore,

and that's because of Jesus.

He came in and conquered your city, and we'll talk about more

about how to do that next week.

Next week we're gonna look at just 11 to 14.

How does it look like?

What do I do to consider myself the dissent?

How do I present myself to God as a, uh, for righteousness and not for unright?

We'll talk about all that next week.

The specifics.

This is more of how do people work?

Well, we have desires and they're either serving sin or they're serving God.

The only way to get those desires to serve God is for God to come in and

do something to take over my city and change my desires to serve him.

And how that happens is that we get connected to Jesus, right?

So we look at verses five through seven here, okay,

being connected to Jesus, United with Jesus.

Or maybe the Christian needs is in Christ, right?

Is how this change happens.

How does God come in and take over the city?

How does he do that?

How do I get free from all my sinful desires?

Well, right here we have been united with him connected, right?

That's what it means to be in Christ.

I'm united with him.

Something happened to me, right when I became a Christian, something happened.

We, me and Jesus, we got, we got stuff together somehow, right?

Not literally, obviously, but we got united and there's specifically some

things that I got connected to Jesus in.

Okay.

First thing is his death.

I got connected to Jesus' death.

And the picture of this is water baptism.

Right?

That's how you visualize it.

So think about when someone gets baptized, they go down into the

water, it's like they died, right?

What's that supposed to symbolize?

Why do we do that?

Why do, why have Christians done this for 2000 years?

Because what they're showing is, hey, the old you, the, the you, that's

enslaved to sin, that you's dead.

He's gone.

She's, she's dead.

She doesn't exist anymore.

Not enslaved to sin anymore.

That's what we mean when you say We died with Christ.

United, with Jesus in his death, and then also we're united

with him in his resurrection.

That's why you come back up outta the water, right?

That's why they don't just leave you down there to die.

You come back up out of the water because it shows us that now the new me is alive.

Old me's dead.

New me is alive.

And that's what these verses explain, right?

If you're dead, you're free.

The old you's dead.

You're free from sin.

You're not enslaved to sin anymore, right?

If you, if, if a slave dies, are they still enslaved?

No.

Right?

So old you is dead.

New you is alive.

And that's because of your connection to Jesus.

'cause it happened to Jesus.

And so it happens to you spiritually, right?

Your, your old you is dead new.

You is alive.

So the third question to ask yourself is, well, why do I keep

sending over and over, right?

Why do I not love God very much?

Well, I want you to ask yourself, have I been connected to Jesus?

Has God really come in and taken over my city?

Right?

Because if you find yourself thinking, man, I, I just don't love God very much.

I just don't have any righteous desires in my life.

I don't get excited about singing the God.

I don't get excited about reading the Bible.

I don't enjoy sharing the gospel with people.

Maybe it's because your desires are still under the control of sin,

because sin iss on the throne, not God.

So we start, right, evaluate your life.

What?

Who am I giving myself to?

Well, maybe the reason you're giving yourself over to sin all

the time is because your desires are still under the control of sin.

Because sin is on the throne of your life.

You're not connected to Jesus.

Your old self is still your yourself.

Currently, there's no new you.

There's just the old you.

And maybe that's because you've never been connected to Jesus and

that's how this passage starts.

Should we go on sinning?

That Grace May abound, right?

Increase.

Should I keep sinning?

Because it doesn't matter anymore, right?

If God forgives people and God loves to forgive people, shouldn't

I just keep letting him forgive me.

Shouldn't I just keep, if God's so excited about forgiving me,

shouldn't I just let him do that?

If I sin more, there's more grace, right?

This is why you don't keep sinning just because the consequences

of sin are gone, right?

Like we talked about in the beginning, this is why you still do your homework,

even though there's no consequences for not doing the homework right?

Even though your homework's not graded, you still do it as a Christian, even

though your life's not graded, you still live for God because you're different.

Who you are is fundamentally different.

You're dead to.

Right.

When someone's dead to you, you don't keep talking to them.

Right.

You know, when someone, like you said, you know, you have that like fight

in fourth grade on the playground and you're like, you're dead to me.

You know, like, you probably did sin in fourth grade.

Hopefully you didn't.

But the point is, you're dead to sin you and sin cut off no more

relationship instead, right?

You died with Jesus.

That's what this phrase baptized into Christ Jesus means.

Um, the word baptized, it just kind of means like, think of like dunked dipped.

Right.

Um, I always think of like, so it's just weird.

I always eat chicken nuggets with a fork.

Um, because chicken nuggets are like, 'cause chicken strips are

way better than chicken nuggets.

One, there's more chicken, right?

Obviously you can, you can weigh it way more chicken in the chicken strip.

Like if you go to Chick-fil-A, should I get the chicken

strips or the chicken nuggets?

Obviously the chicken strips because one more chicken, two more dips.

Per chicken, right?

Chicken nugget.

You get like one dip and it's super awkward and sometimes you drop the

nugget in the sauce, you know, and you can't get it out and it gets all

your fingers and it's really messy.

And anyway, that's why I eat it with a fork 'cause I don't

wanna deal with that, right?

Chicken strips way better.

You get like three dips per strip.

Way more.

Way more.

Anyway, all that to say, I think of a chicken nugget

when I think of this passage.

I want my chicken nugget fully covered in the sauce, right?

That's why I use the fork.

I don't want half the chicken nugget covered in the sauce.

I want the whole chicken nugget covered in the sauce.

When you think of being baptized now, you're always

gonna think of chicken nuggets.

Hopefully for better or for worse, you're placed into Christ Jesus, right?

Jesus is right.

The the ketchup or the ranch or whatever, and you are the chicken nugget.

Or Chick-fil-A sauce.

There you go.

Cane sauce is better, but that's fine.

Um, one time I tried putting cane sauce on a Chick-fil-A

sandwich, which sounds amazing.

Not good.

No, it just mentally threw me for a loop 'cause it was like I was expecting

Chick-fil-A sauce and it just didn't work.

One time also, I ate, um, a double double from inn out with fries from McDonald's.

Because I was like, that's good, that's good.

That's good.

I was like, this has gotta be, this is the best fries in the world and

the best hamburger in the world.

So also didn't go very well.

No, no, no, no, no.

Because my mind associates the chicken, the, the, the fries of inn

out with the double, double, you know, like the more like potatoey fries,

the real potatoes, not like the, or lab grown potatoes from McDonald's.

Right.

Anyway, I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore.

Sorry for your small group time leaders.

That's my fault.

Um, we're talking about chicken nuggets.

We're talking about Chick-fil-A.

You saw chicken nugget being baptized.

That's what we're talking about.

So this isn't talking about, probably not talking about water baptism here.

Right?

Probably not talking about wire basket we're talking about.

Because if, if I just said, oh, um, do you know that all of us who've

been dunked, you say into what?

Into water, into Christ.

So when you think baptized, don't necessarily think of into water.

Like the sermon this Sunday from Pastor pj, he talked about baptism saves you,

but not really water baptism, but like actually getting saved is what saves you.

So, um, all of us who are baptized into Christ, we're baptized into death.

We're placed into Christ.

We're united to Christ.

We're connected.

We, that's the whole point.

Um,

this changes who you are.

Old Jews dead, new you's alive.

That's what happens when you get connected to Christ.

That's what it means to be in Christ.

Old me is gone.

New me is here, right?

Uh, two Corinthians five 17.

But you hold anyone is in Christ.

He's a new creation.

Old has passed away.

The newest come right.

Some of you probably should had that verse memorized.

Um, sorry, that was the inside joke for one person in the room.

That's okay.

Um, that happens.

Sorry, Weston.

Um, anyway, so some of you.

When, when you become a Christian, you, you get changed.

Old you's gone, new year's life, you're not enslaved to sin anymore.

Who you are changes.

So what you want changes.

That's the point I'm getting at.

Who you are changes.

So the things you want are different.

Um, I don't know if you've ever heard of athletes that have like

an alter ego or like some athletes, they do this when they compete.

Um, to get themselves like in the zone for sports.

They'll like come up with a fake personality to help them

be better at their sport.

So this one guy, um, his name is Brian Dawkins.

He was a safety for the Eagles, um, one of the like coolest

football players ever in history.

So.

This guy, he'd come outta the tunnel and like crawl on the ground

and like yell and all this smoke and look super cool and scary.

And he would like bark and uh, he would like knock people out.

Right?

Very scary dude.

If you just met him, like normally super nice, super calm, super

friendly, um, religious guy like.

Not this guy, right?

Not this dude.

Um, but the point is, is he, he does, he called himself weapon X.

That was like his alter ego.

Um, and his, his point was to get into this mindset of I'm a,

I'm a safety, I'm gonna get, go out here and kill people, right?

Because he's normally a nice guy.

So to do this kind of thing would be very unnatural for him.

Right.

Think of like if my wife decided to play football, right?

Which she wouldn't 'cause she's smart.

Um, but think about like what Shea would have to do to get

into like this zone, right?

The whole point is like who she is has to change for her to change, right?

She'd have to like put on, so the whole point is this guy is putting

on this alternate identity to help him do the things he wants to do.

Right.

When you become a Christian, it changes who you are.

And so instead of being right before you're a Christian, maybe

you, you're gossiping and then you become a Christian and it changes.

You change, and so what you want changes instead of wanting to use your words

to tear people down, now you want to use your words to build people up.

Right because of who you are changed.

You didn't just try really hard, say, I need to stop gossiping.

I'm gonna start encouraging who you are changed.

And that's why that changed.

So if you don't see any change in your life, maybe it's because you

aren't connected to Jesus, maybe it's 'cause you, you've never had a

relationship with God in the first place.

So these three questions hopefully are helpful for you to, um, evaluate.

Why, why do I keep sinning?

Why am I not very excited about God?

I want you to ask yourself, am I, am I really a different person or

am I just the same person trying really hard to do the right thing?

Because the only way you become a Christian is if God changes you.

So let's pray and we'll talk about this more in small groups.

God, we're grateful that we don't have to save ourselves, uh, because we can't.

So I pray that if anyone here is feeling the, uh, pressure.

Of trying to escape slavery to sin by their own effort that they

would finally admit that they can't, they can't be good enough.

Um, they can't try hard enough.

Um, but rather they need to trust you to change them.

And so I pray that that would even happen tonight.

There'd be people here who would, um, realize that they need you and

they need you to, to come in and, and take over their life and change them.

We pray this in Jesus name.

Amen