A Sanctified Life! – Romans 6:8-23
by Pastor Lee Hemen
November 26, 2006

Whether it’s preschoolers or puppies, a person often finds themselves repeating phrases over and over. You know like, “Come here. Come here! Come HERE!” or “Stop that. Stop that! STOP that!” I thought that this was the case when I overheard a woman an aisle over at WinCo, a local grocery store, repeating, “You really do not need that. You really do not need that. You REALLY do not NEED that!” I came around the corner expecting to see her with a unruly preschooler in her shopping cart and them having a concerted “discussion” about something that the child wanted to have. I was surprised to discover she was alone. She looked up at me sheepishly and confessed, “I am on a diet and I have to remind myself that I do not really need certain things to eat.”

Someone once said that “repetition is good for the soul.” Paul must have adhered to this concept because he is fond of repeating himself concerning certain spiritual truths in the Book of Romans. My mother was kind of like the Apostle Paul in that she often repeated herself as well when she wanted to convey certain concepts and have them stick in our boyish brains. In fact, she would often tell us that it seemed as if my brother and I had “heads full of mush!” Perhaps the Roman Christians had “heads full of mush” as well? Sometimes an important spiritual truth is worth repeating so that you never forget it. The spiritual truth Paul wanted his readers to learn was the fact that they could enjoy a sanctified life right now. Let’s find out how Paul repeats himself concerning this most important spiritual truth…

READ: Romans 6:8-23

The first time Paul repeats himself is to remind us that…

I. Christians are dead to sin (vv. 8-11)!

1. These verses state much the same truth as verses 5-7 and in the same format, beginning with “if.” Those who by faith receive Jesus, are identified with Him, and have died with Him! Remember, we are now “dead to sin.” Paul relates that because this is true, we literally “keep on believing” that we will also live with Him. In fact, our resurrected life with Jesus begins at the moment of regeneration, and it will continue forever with the Lord! “We know” it to be true. Just as “Christ was raised from the dead, and “He cannot die again!” In fact, “death no longer has mastery over” Jesus. Paul writes that the “death (Jesus) died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God!” and so “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus!” This is how Christians are dead to sin.

EXAMPLE: There are those who over the centuries thought that in order to worship the gods you had to sacrifice something living. You supposedly did this to appease the specific deity you worshipped through a gory ritual. The Aztec, Mayans, and Incas all did gory sacrificial rituals to appease their myriad of gods. The sacrifice the Jews were to make had nothing to do with appeasement and everything to do with counting the cost and pointing to Jesus’ future death on the cross for our sins. Sadly there are those who think that you still need to sacrifice Jesus over and over. They forget that the “death He died, He died to sin once for all” and that in “the same way” we are to “count” ourselves “dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus!” However, like I stated last week, this does not mean that sin no longer exists, because it in fact does. Nor does it mean that we will never sin again. Yet we find hope and strength in knowing that just as Jesus died and was resurrected to new life, we are dead to sin and resurrected for new life right now! Yet how are we to attain all this? By sinning more? “No!” Paul would declare. It is through our daily living for God. In reality, we discover that…

The second repetition Paul makes is the fact that…

II. Christians are slaves for righteousness (vv. 12-18)!

1. Paul relates that the attitude of mind that a believer has died to sin must be translated into action in his experience. Paul commanded us to therefore “not let sin reign,” literally “do not let sin continue to reign” as it did before your salvation! It can also be translated, “Stop letting sin reign.” It is your choice. You can decide whether sin will reign in you or not. This is important because when sin reigns in people’s lives and bodies, they obey its evil desires. Sin enslaves (v. 6), making a person subject to his own evil desires rather than his own determined will. Paul reminds us, “Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves 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.” We have to ask ourselves, “Who will be my master in life? Jesus’ grace or my sin?” Paul bluntly asks his readers, “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?” Paul reminds us, “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin…. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness!” Christians are slaves for righteousness!

EXAMPLE: In the movie “Bruce Almighty,” Jim Carey is asked by Morgan Freeman, who is supposed to be God, “What one thing do you want?” Carey replies, “Grace.” It is the name of his girlfriend, but is a perfect example of what every person should want from the Lord. His grace. Carey’s character learns that simply having infinite power does not give you infinite wisdom, compassion, or ability. God’s grace is given to us and we become righteous because of it and not because of anything we do, could do, or may have done. In other words, we cannot earn it. Paul takes it a step further and relates that not only do we immediately enjoy the grace of God when we place our faith in Jesus, but we are then to live in that grace. We are to be slaves for righteousness. There is a very good reason why this is true.

The final truth Paul recaps again for us is that…

III. The result is eternal life in Jesus Christ (vv. 19-23)!

1. It seems almost unnatural for Paul to equate that we can be “slaves to sin” or “slaves to God.” I do not know about you but I know that I can understand that I can be enslaved by evil and have difficulty in living a holy life without God’s grace, but slaves to God’s righteousness? How is that possible? Paul gives us the answer to our dilemma by telling us: “I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.” He uses terminology we can understand! It boils down to our decision to do it or not! In fact, the only harvest or “benefit” (fruit) we had from a life of picking the fruit of sin was “death!” Now, however, we benefit with a life full of the fruit of the Spirit! Like caged sated well-fed animals, unthinking and unconcerned about our state at the time, we are now “set free from” our self-induced duplicity and captivity of sin, and made “slaves to God” which “leads to holiness, and… eternal life.” Why? Paul reminds us that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

EXAMPLE: I learned at an early age that you earn what you put into something. If you try to get by through doing the least amount of work or effort it will eventually show and others will know. Even if you fool yourself into thinking that you have “made it,” others around you will know the truth. David McCasland writes that a story in Colorado newspaper reported that a $1.73 billion highway and mass transit project in Denver was nearing completion on schedule and within the budget. But the story wasn't on the front page. In fact, it was tucked into a sidebar of brief summaries in small type on page 3 of the local news section. If the project had been plagued by fraud, delays, and cost overruns, no doubt it would have been headline news. Paul told the Thessalonica church to “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” Perhaps we should decide that “not to make the news,” is not such a bad motto in life. If we lie, cheat, and steal, that's news. If we live honestly and morally, we can have an unnoticed yet effective spiritual influence on people around us. Trusting Jesus and living a righteous life results in eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Conclusion:

Repetition is good for the soul, and in this instance very good indeed! A sanctified life occurs when Christians are dead to sin, slaves for grace, where the result is eternal life in Jesus Christ!

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