The Truth About Spiritual Warfare
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The Truth About Spiritual Warfare
The Truth About Spiritual Warfare
11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
Main Proposition:
Statement of Doctrine or Application
Paul goes deeper into our battle with sin. The war on sin as well as our outlook on our new life in Christ
Intro:
Statement of proposition
Paul is restating what he just wrote in verses 1-10 that as someone who is dead in their sin means that this person is not under control of their sinful nature
This person has been pulled out of the darkness of the world
Before someone is internally baptized into Christ they are slaves to the world and what the world offers. To some people this may not sound like a bad thing.
You may be like “Michael, there are a lot of cool things in this world like Tesla’s, PS4’s and High Top Jordan 1’s.” I want those things
That is fine as long as that does not define who you are. As long as you are not sacrificing your life with Christ because you want to please the world
We cannot make idols out of worldly riches
Paul is trying to show us that we no longer have to be held down by the world and sin’s tyrannical reign over our lives
Some of you may be saying wait a second, Why cannot I not have the world and God?
Other texts that support
44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
What does this verse show us? What does this verse tell us?
It gives us a very accurate condition of what a believer is like, the state of someone at the time of their conversion.
It is at this moment that we are spiritually free. It is at this moment that we fully trust in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
BUT we are still wearing some of our sinful clothes of our old sinful life.
They do not come off immediately much like Lazarus and for believer’s we are still tempted to put on those clothes from time to time.
It is the continual battle with sin and satan that Paul is going into in
Why does this matter?
As we continue our talk into sanctification I want to point out that as we are sanctified more and more and move further away from the world our lives are not going to get easier.
I don’t want to make it sound like we are going to be able to cruise at some point in our journey with Christ. We can never cruise and I pray that you will never get to the point where you think that you will be able to hit the cruise control button on your sanctification journey.
Main Point #1: The Presence of Christ’s work is still with us
Statement
11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Prove:
Verse 11:
As we remember what Paul had said in Romans 6:10 “10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.”
So if Christ died for sin he did for YOUR sin. (If you are His sheep) and as Paul described in verses 1-10 we are to die to sin just as Christ for our sins and when we rise we are alive in Christ. It is a complete shift in our life.
You must not think of yourself as being alive to yourself, you do not live for yourself, you do not live to please the world any longer all of that stopped the second you were raised from your spiritual death by our Lord and Savior. It is now at this time that we must live for Christ, We must be willing to stand strong in the name of Jesus. Not to hide, not to run away when things get tough, but to stand strong in the name of Jesus Christ.
This is where we see Christ’s work still with us. It is only possible to be alive in Christ because of the work that Christ did on the cross and his resurrection and ascension. He is alive. As believer’s we must realize that.
Verse 12:
Because of that work from Christ and being made alive to God in Christ we must not let the worldly passions lead the way in your life.
As believer’s we must not let those passions control our lives, we must not obey the natural bodies passions and wants.
Nothing good will come from natural passions.
Paul continues to build his case. We are dead to sin, we are alive in Christ and because we are alive in Christ we must not obey the passions of this world.
What we need to realize is that Satan is not going to just let us go and we are 100% free from wordly temptations.
Satan can never take away a true believer from God, BUT he can make it tough, hard, tempting to fall into sin
It is at those moments of struggle that you must remember and realize that we are made new in Christ, We are able to battle those hard times, those temptations and times of slip ups. We are no longer a slave to ourselves, but to Christ.
Verse 13:
13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
Paul uses the word “members” in verse 13 as in our eyes, ears, minds, tongue etc.
Now we get to some practical expression by what we do with our bodies. We get into our bodies and what they can do for good as well as evil.
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
The mind: What you do with your mind with determine what you are as a Christian
If you fill your mind with secular culture you will remain sinful and secular
The eyes and tongue:
Just like the mind our eyes and ears will receive ideas and impressions
Many man and women WILL FALL to lust of the eyes. The way the secular world is set up, with having 24/7 access to everything visually imaginable, the way people dress, language that is used.
Our hands and feet:
Determine where we go and what we do
11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
Do your feet take you to places where you will openly practice sin?
Are they taking you to places where you will not grow in a godly manner.
We know what it looks like when someone is living in ungodliness and unrighteousness.
We see lust of the eyes, sin from our tongue and other parts of our physical body. We will always have this as the weak point of our sanctification because we still do not have our resurrection bodies.
BUT because we are now alive in Christ we have a higher standard than others. We must act in a manner that glorifies God and Christ as the sovereign leaders as they are.
Verse 14:
14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
What have we been describing over the last few verses tonight? We’re describing warfare. Spiritual warfare that is a constant battle everyday.
It is an ongoing battle.
Illustrations:
Feeding the secular world v. God
i.e. my past music choices
Apply or Confront
We must train ourselves to be strong in Christ. Every single day. As believer’s we have weapons to train with: Our Bible, Prayer, fellowship.
What happens when you stop training for something? You lose strength, endurance, pace.
What is the quality of your training? Is it intentional? Is it with purpose and heart? OR is it just a checklist to say you did it so your parents will get off your back? Only you can answer that.
Do not offer parts of your body to sin, but offer yourselves to God as someone who has been brought from death to life and use your body as instruments for God’s righteousness and glory.
Main Point #2: We are either dead to sin or dead to Christ
Statement
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Prove
Verse 15-16:
Here is something that is hard for most people to grasp and understand and that is the fact that there is no such thing as being absolute freedom for anyone.
There is only one being that is 100% free and that is God.
But all other are either enslaved to something or to someone
My question to you is who or what are you serving? That is something I want you to ask yourself.
Here we see Paul with another question and answer. If we are not under law, but grace can I continue to want to sin? Paul uses the same answer that we saw earlier in this chapter with an emphatic “By no means!”
There are four reasons why you cannot serve your sin and Christ:
Sin is slavery
If we are delivered from something than it would not be smart to go back to something that kept us in bondage
We don’t usually look at sin as bondage or having dominion, but that is what it is. It will continue to keep you weighed down, away from your loved ones, away from God, hidden in the dark.
Sin leads to death
We see Paul use this term in verses 16, 21, 23. “The wage of sin is death”
We see it in Genesis 2:17 What happened? Adam disobeyed God and everybody from Adam onward physically died as well as spiritually died.
You will experience eternal death if you do not
Christian’s have been delivered from sin’s slavery
Christ’s true elect have been redeemed (To be bought out of slavery to sin)
Jesus paid the price of our redemption by His death. He paid the ultimate cost for us. By his blood.
No true Christian, No true sheep of Christ can say wait a minute I still want to be a slave to my sin. You cannot turn to that sinful living!
The same work that delivered Christians from sin also makes them slaves to Christ which is true freedom.
Two thing happened when you are called dead to sin and alive in Christ. The first is that we are no longer slaves to sin and the second we became slaves to Christ. We are now able to taste true freedom in Christ.
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Do you abide in the word of God? Do you truly follow Christ as your Lord and Savior?
If you don’t abide in the word you are NOT free. You cannot fool Christ. He is the ultimate perfect judge. You know if you are still a slave to sin
Illustrations
Apply or Confront
Main Point #3: The Obedience of Faith
Statement
17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
Prove
Here Paul is leading us with Obedience to faith
There are three elements when talking about faith:
Intellectual
We must believe in something and that something is the Gospel
Emotional
The Content of the Gospel much touch you personally
Commitment
We must personally give ourselves to Jesus
If obedience is not present than we have not truly given ourself to Christ
Lets look at some of the chief names in the OT and the level of importance that obedience plays
The first is Joshua
7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.
Obedience was the chief characteristic of this man.
He did from the very beginning to the very end. His whole life was marked by obedience
In Hebrews 11 The author states four times the obedience of Abraham and Paul has gone into detail earlier in this Epistle about Abraham’s obedience.
That does not mean that these men were perfect and never slipped up
We all know Abraham’s story, but not one person can say that he was not obedient to God. Not perfect. But obedient.
Nobody was ever perfect, but at the end of the day he stayed true to God’s promises.
One could argue that the peak of Abraham’s obedience peaked when he was told to sacrifice his son Isaac
Abraham showed incredible faith here because he knew that if God had asked him to sacrifice his son and his son had not yet had any children than he would raise Isaac from the dead. Abraham truly believed that.
There is no getting around it. You either obey sin which will lead to death or we have been freed from sin to serve God. There is no other option.
Lastly, in verse 19 we see the bottom line of this passage
Who will you serve? What road will you take.
Do we truly believe what we just read in this passage?
If we understood it and believed it would we sin as frequently? Would we take sin lightly? We would be as eager to cover it up?
13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
The point is that you can ONLY be on one of two roads. There is no other choice. Sin or Christ? Death or life?
You are either going to walk in the progression of wickedness or the progression of sanctification and Christ.
Illustrations
Apply or Confront
It is easy to appear on one road in certain places, times, but it all is going to come back to your heart and your commitment to obey the Lord Jesus Christ
You are going to have friends that will appear to be on the narrow road, but like the parable of the sower, the vine and the branch only time will tell.
Finish the race.
If someone as the likes of Allistar Begg can fall 50ish years into ministry. We all need to pray that God’s sovereign providence will allow us to finish the race
Application:
The key to overcoming sin is by our realization that all of the above facts about Christ are 100% true
Christ died for our sins and because of that we died in our sin
Christ rose in righteousness so we live in Christ’s righteousness
We can defeat our sin because of the power in which Christ has given us through his atonement for our sins.
When you go to a secular function go to a Christian function also. Fill your heart and body with things that will help you grow through Christ
When you do go to a secular function do so as a witness by word and action of our Lord Jesus Christ
In order to be strong in your faith you need to train your spiritual muscles. You need to be in God’s word intentionally, you need to be in prayer consistently, you need to be in fellowship with other believers.
Romans 6:11-19 Discussion Questions:
1. Why is it impossible to be slaves to sin and also slaves to Christ?
2. Why is obedience so important when it comes to faith?
3. What is the importance of what Paul brought up according to our physical bodies and sin? (Our mind, eyes tongue, etc) using them for righteousness versus sin.
4. What did you learn from Romans 6:11-19 this week that will help you further glorify God and enjoy Him forever?