Under New Management

This morning, immediately after this service we will be baptizing _5__ people.

I believe it is beneficial to

not only read the Bible’s explanation of the significance of water baptism,

and to understand how this should impact our lives,

but then to witness a water baptism to remind ourselves of what we have read and heard.

That we are a people under new management.

READ: Romans 6:1–11

There are 3 things I would like us to remember as wee witness the water baptism of these 5 folks:

THE ISSUE OF SIN (6:1, 2)

Water baptism declares the end of slavery to sin and the flesh.

The old management of sin and the flesh screamed that they called all the shots.

THEY determined our priorities.

THEY made the money decisions.

THEY told who we could and could not be with in relationships

THEY told us what to do and when to do it.

But, when we turned our back on the dictatorship of sin and the flesh…

When we repented of our sins and surrendered to Jesus.

We surrendered to new management.

Now Jesus directs our life.

Water baptism is an outward symbol of an inward work.

NOT something we have done, but what Jesus has done and is doing inside us.

It is like the sign on the front of some business that says: Under New Management

Since we are under new management what does sin have to say about how we live our lives?

The answer should be NOTHING!

Romans 6:1—asks the question, “Do we continue” to obey sin’s demands.

The answer is an emphatic: NO!

Water baptism, ours or seeing someone else’s, reminds us of this relationship to sin.

Or more accurately, how that Jesus has given us victory over sin.

As verse 2 asks a rhetorical question us: How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

The obvious answer is: “We don’t.”

Romans 6:10 (LSB) For the death that [Jesus] died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

Romans 6:11–12 (GNB) In the same way you are to think of yourselves as dead, so far as sin is concerned, but living in fellowship with God through Christ Jesus. 12 Sin must no longer rule in your mortal bodies, so that you obey the desires of your natural self.

Romans 6:14 “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

Paul was asking, “Shall we continue to habitually, intentionally, and willfully sin in order to have the same relationship with our sinful nature that we had before our salvation?

Paul answers the question with the words “God forbid.”

These words are not in the Greek text.

They are paraphrased by the translators.

The Greek word me {may} means “perish the thought.”

It is a strong idiom of repudiation and conveys a sense of outrage.

If our forgiveness is guaranteed, do we have freedom to sin as we want.

The answer is “No!”

God’s forgiveness does not make sin less serious.

Sin is so serious that it led to the death of God’s only begotten son.

The question Paul is asking makes it clear that Paul understood justification to be a declaration of righteousness.

It did not make a person good.

It declared him good.

Paul acknowledges that a person will still sin even though he is justified.

Why did Paul say, “God forbid or may it never be so!” He explains this answer in the rest of the chapter.

Paul says, “How shall we who have died to sin, live any longer.” What does he mean? When Christ died on the cross, He died as our substitute. He died FOR us and in our place. He also died AS our representative, as us. When He died, we died. Our sin was upon Him. All in Christ are seen by God as having died to sin. That is our position in Jesus Christ.

Galatians 2:20—I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Because Christ took our place and died for us, does that make us sinless?

The answer is “No!”

Death to sin is separation from its power, not extinction.

When a person is born again, he has a new power to say “No” to sin, but many times will not use his new power.

We are under new management “in Christ.”

The sin nature that once ruled over us before our salvation no longer has power or authority to dictate our lives unless we give that old nature power and consent to its control.

Yes, our sin nature is still within us.

There is a difference, however, now that we are saved.

We have a choice in the matter in doing that which is right or wrong.

We have power to say “No” to wrong.

For us to continue in habitual, persistent sin, as we were before we were saved, would mock the grace of God and what He did for us.

It would be like rescuing a prisoner of war from an enemy prison camp, and then the freed prisoner returns to the prison from which he was delivered to live in bondage.

Such an action would mock those who rescued him. This is what the Christian does to God when he lives in wickedness.

Shall we continue in sin?

* You cannot do this. You are under new management. You are united in Christ. You have a new nature that loves righteousness and hates sin.

If you are truly saved, you have the Holy Spirit indwelling you to help you battle temptation.

The Holy Spirit helps you to say “No!” to sin. You cannot persist in sinful, wicked living often or indefinitely. The Holy Spirit would be grieved, your conscience would be guilty, and you would be miserable. God uses suffering and chastisement also to change your course and lifestyle.

If you are not bothered by sinful living or not chastened, it is time for a spiritual checkup.

You need to ask yourself, “Am I truly born again?”

If holiness never starts in your life, you can conclude that justification never started either in your life.

* 2 Corinthians 5:17—Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Shall we continue in sin? You cannot do this.

* You need not do this. Sin’s dominion is broken in your life. You have the power to say “No!”

* You must not do this. You must not let sin dominate your life.

Are you under new management. Is Christ your Lord?

We are dead to sin, but do we believe it?

We must believe we are no longer under the compulsion of sin.

If the Christian sins, he does it because he chooses to do so.

You and I don’t have to though, because we are under new management.

OUR IDENTIFICATION WITH CHRIST (6:3–5)

Secondly, not only are we freed from the old management of sin and the flesh, but under new management we now have new identities.

Romans 6:3-5 “Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,”

Ignorance is a key factor in spiritual failure.

Paul asks, “Do you not know? …”

Paul uses the word “know” three times in verse 1, 6, 9.

Paul wants us to understand something.

Christian living depends upon Christian learning.

If the Devil can keep us ignorant, he can keep us impotent.

So, what are we to know?

First we need to understand that we are baptized into the death of Jesus Christ.

The word “baptized” is the Greek word baptizo.

It means “to immerse.”

It also carries the idea of “identification.”

We were identified with the Lord when we were saved.

We are reconciled in fellowship with Him and are not identified with sin anymore.

When God looks at us, we are considered dead in the person of Christ.

We died in Christ because our sins were upon Him and He was OUR substitute.

As Christ arose from the grave, we too are to spiritually arise and walk in newness of life.

We are new creatures in Christ.

We are in union with Jesus Christ.

The power of our flesh, our sin nature is broken and a new nature lives within us.… the person of the Holy Spirit.

We have gone from being a lost sinner to a saint of God.

Romans 6:6 “knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;”

Our old man or sinful nature is crucified with Him.

The word “old” means “old in point of use; worn out; useless; fit for the scrap pile.”

It describes our lives before we were saved.

We are not a made-over old life.

We have a new life in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our old nature is crucified with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed.

When we are saved, the body of sin, our sinful nature is rendered or put out of business.

What has taken place inwardly in us is to be demonstrated outwardly by being baptized by immersion.

Baptism identifies the Christian with the Lord.

It is an outward picture of what has taken place inwardly.

The immersion in the water is a picture of death.

When the person is brought up out of the water, it is a picture of resurrection and that the believer is a new creature in Christ. Baptism is a picture and an act of obedience to God’s command. When a person does not follow the Lord in baptism, he is disobeying God’s command to do so. Baptism does not save a person; it is not required for salvation; neither does it cleanse a person of any sin.

The Christian is to “walk in newness of life” for he is a new creature.

This word “newness” means “newness in quality and character.”

We have a new source of spiritual energy given to us by God, enabling us to live for Him.

Sin characterized our old life.

Righteousness is to characterize our new life in Christ.

We have been planted together with Christ in His death and resurrection.

As Christ arose from the grave, so shall we.

Because we have a new source of spiritual energy, and are one in Christ, we do not need to live in sin.

We have power to resist temptation.

God wants us to know this important truth.

We are new creatures.

1. We have a new heart and a new spirit.

* Ezekiel 36:26—A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

2. We have a new song.

* Psalm 40:3—And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.

3. We have a new name.

* Revelation 2:17—He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.

THE IMPOTENCE OF DEATH 6:8–10

Finally, not only is sin’s dominion over our lives shattered.

But so too is death’s dominion.

Jesus conquered death and we will too, for we are in Him.

Christ will never die again.

He has conquered death and it will never again have mastery over Him.

He is alive forever more.

Romans 6:11 “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

We are to “reckon” ourselves dead to sin.

We are to accept and believe that God’s Word is true and to act upon the facts of His Word.

When we reckon ourselves as dead, we respond to temptation as a dead man.

At the cross, God made adequate provision for all sinners.

Sin has been dealt with and its power has been broken.

We are to act upon this truth.

Whatever power we need to resist temptation is available to us.

If we fail, it is not God’s fault, it’s ours.

WE chose to sin.

God help us all to count ourselves alive in Christ and under new management.

The management of Christ.

If we fail to die to our fleshly desires, those desires will shackle us and lead to our downfall.

Thomas Costain’s history, THE THREE EDWARDS, described the life of Raynald III, a fourteenth-century duke in what is now Belgium.

Grossly overweight, Raynald was commonly called by his Latin nickname, Crassus, which means “fat.”

After a violent quarrel, Raynald’s younger brother Edward led a successful revolt against him.

Edward captured Raynald but did not kill him.

Instead, he built a room around Raynald in the Nieuwkerk castle and promised him he could regain his title and property as soon as he was able to leave the room.

This would not have been difficult for most people since the room had several windows and a door of near-normal size, and none was locked or barred.

The problem was Raynald’s size.

To regain his freedom, he needed to lose weight.

But Edward knew his older brother, and each day he sent a variety of delicious foods.

Instead of dieting his way out of prison, Raynald grew fatter.

Do we eat to live or live to eat?

Raynald epitomized the “live to eat” side of that question.

When Duke Edward was accused of cruelty, he had a ready answer:

“My brother is not a prisoner. He may leave when he so wills.”

Raynald stayed in that room for ten years and wasn’t released until after Edward died in battle.

By then his health was so ruined he died within a year … a prisoner of his own appetite.

LIVING IN FREEDOM

Are we a prisoner of our fleshly desires?

As a Christian, we don’t have to be because we are under new management.