Dead to Sin

Introduction

Last week, we concluded chapter 5 with the conclusion that no matter how great our sinfulness, God’s grace is greater. I don’t know about you but I can sometimes struggle with wallowing in my shame over failures, words said I regret, things I wished I’d done differently. I read books about men like AW Tozer, Spurgeon or Hudson Taylor and I think, I am nothing compared to men like that. My failures and weaknesses are insurmountable, but yet God’s grace is greater. God’s grace overcomes all those failures. God’s grace washes away all those failures. And we need to know that truth. We need to rest in that truth, but it brings up a logical question. If God’s grace washes away all those failures and if God is made to look so good by my failures then why not just continue to live in sin?

You might think that that is a crazy question. Why would I do more bad things because of the good that someone has shown me in my life and yet people have lived like this. You may have heard of a man by the name of Rasputin. Rasputin was a Russian cultic preacher who left his family to go into ministry when he had a vision of Mary. He eventually became the spiritual advisor of the Romanav family who ruled Russia at the time. Rasputin was a mystic and a faith healer. But central to Rasputin’s teaching was that we should free ourselves from the temptation to sin by engaging in sin until it lost its power over us. Basically, if you have a problem with drugs keep taking more drugs until you stop wanting it any more. But it was a view of God’s grace that excused sin in our lives.

Rasputin was an oddity and maybe you can’t relate to that kind of thinking but let me give you two more examples of why believing God’s grace is greater than my sin could lead someone to live an evil life.

Consider a child who never gets any attention from their parents. One day they hit their sister and notice that Mom and Dad suddenly are noticing them. That child grows up acting out in different ways just hoping that they will get some more attention. So their desire for more grace (their parents attention) causes them to do wrong (sin).

Here is another example. Imagine a child who grows up in a home where the parents accept everything they ever do and never correct them. That child grows up to be spoiled and just does whatever they want to. This lack of impulse control because of a home that never corrects wrong, leads to a life of uncontrolled passions.

Both examples show ways that an overcoming grace model of parenting could go awry. Paul asks the Question Should we continue to sin so that we can receive more grace. Vs 2 gives us the obvious answer: God forbid. May it never be so. This conclusion according to Paul is ridiculous, absurd. The rest of the chapter is going to focus on two reasons why the believer should not sin even though he knows God’s grace has cleansed and forgiven him already.

Those two reasons are:

We are dead to sin

We are servants of righteousness

This morning we are going to unpack the first reason found in vs 2. Over the next couple weeks we will be breaking up the first paragraph which goes through vs 14 into smaller sections to make sure we fully understand what Paul is saying, but today, I want to talk about what it means to be dead to sin. We are going to ask three questions.

What does it mean to be dead to sin?

Romans 6:2 “God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”

A. dead- What does it mean to be dead? A lot of people have a lot of differing opinions on what it means to be dead. When we think of something dead, we often think of something unresponsive. If I am walking through an alley way and come across a dead rat and I kick it with my foot, I would expect that it would not get up and look at me. It doesn’t feel my kick and it is unresponsive, but is that the way that Paul is using dead?

Death carries a deeper more root meaning than unresponsive. Death means separation. This is why we can use the phrase You are dead to me. We do not mean that they can’t respond or even that they don’t have any life in them, but that we have nothing to do with them anymore. This might be closer to what Paul is saying.

If Paul meant that you are unresponsive then it would be logical to conclude that a Christian can never sin. When sin comes knocking on the Christians door, he doesn’t answer because he’s dead to it, but more than that. If this is the meaning then a Christian can’t answer. That is clearly not Paul’s meaning here. If it was Paul’s meaning then he would not tell us in vs 12 not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies. That implies we could let it reign. He wouldn’t tell us in vs 13 not to yield our bodies as servants to sin. Consider also common Christian experience. If you can say that you are a Christian this morning would you say Amen with me. Now out of those who said Amen; how many of you sinned this past week. The bible is consistent with our Christian experience that death does not mean unresponsive to sin.

B. to sin- So what does it mean to be dead to sin? We have already seen that it doesn’t mean that there is no sin in a believers life. It could also mean that we are just dead to the consequences of sin, but this does not motive sinless living. If I know that I’ll get away with whatever I do, then I am more likely to continue does whatever I want unless someone gives me another motivation not to. Being dead to sin here doesn’t speak merely of being separated from the presence of sin or even the consequences of sin. Being dead to sin means that sins power over me is broken.

Look at how many times the language of power is used in this chapter:

that henceforth we should not serve sin

freed from sin

death hath no more dominion

sin reign

yield vs 13

sin shall not have dominion vs 14

yield vs 16

free from sin vs 18

servants of sin vs 20

free from sin vs 22

You see in the believer the sin nature remains, but its power over us is broken. John Wesley commenting on this passage said sin remains though it does not reign. This is why in Romans 8:13 “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”

In this passage notice who is said to have died. It isn’t sin that has died but the believer has died to sin.

Its kinda like breaking up with a boyfriend who refuses to believe its really over. You know its over and you do everything you can to stay away from him, but he just keeps on popping up trying to win you back. This is the truth of Romans chapter 6, we do not have to give in to the temptation to sin because the Christian is dead to its power over us. It has no right to control us. so when a Christian goes back to sin, it is our wrong choice. Its like that girl feeling guilty for making her ex boyfriend feel bad so every now and then she goes out on a date with him just to keep him happy. She just needs to say its over and walk away.

How are we dead to sin?

Vs 3-10 are going to give us more detail about how this happens and I’ll go into more detail in the next few messages, but just to give a summary. How is it that you died to sin? You obviously didn’t really die. You also probably didn’t write sin a break up letter and yet every Christian is said to be dead to sin. The answer ties us back to what Paul was talking about in the last chapter.

Because you are no longer in Adam, but in Christ you are dead to sin and do not have to sin. The next few verses tell us that we are baptised into his death. Because we are in Christ, when he died on the cross for our sins, we died to sin. The power of sin was broken. It is like our marriage contract with sin was ripped to shreds in that moment.

Romans 6:4 “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

Jesus death has a vital connection to us. What he did 2000 years ago impacts our lives today. In him, we died just like in our salvation we didn’t do anything to earn it; so our sanctification is accomplished because of what Jesus did on the cross. Let’s be honest. On our own would we really have ever been able to stop sinning. How many times have we tried and we failed. but in Jesus Christ that power over us was broken.

How should I live because of this truth?

The simple answer to this question is that we should not live in sin. Romans 6:2 “God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” Christian, there is a strong motivation not to sin. We aren’t under its power any more, we aren’t married to sin anymore; we are free from its hold on us. The only reason we would continue to sin is because we really don’t believe that. Sin only has the power over you that you give it.

Sin is like an abusive husband. He tells you that if you leave him your life will come to an end. He monitors all your spending. He makes you think you are crazy so you won’t trust you own inhibitions. He guilts you into doing what he wants. When he abuses you he makes you feel like its your fault; so you never escape his grasp. but in Jesus Christ we have gotten into the car and driven away. We have been rescued by someone who infinitely loves us and only treats us with goodness and kindness. And the only hold he has on us is the one we let him have.

So for the Christian, the grace of God is not an excuse to sin. When we choose to sin, its because we have let that old abuser back into our lives. The goodness and kindness of God in forgiving us, justifying us, restoring peace with God, accepting us, giving us unrestricted access to himself and loving us doesn’t encourage going back to our past life. Rather, his grace pushes us forward to want to please Him because of how good he has been to us.

Conclusion

Paul asks how can we live like that any longer? Maybe today, that is the question we should be asking ourselves. Why would I want to live that that any more? Why would I want to go back to living with that old abuser?

If you have felt stuck, the first place to start in getting victory over your sin is to remember. I am going to give you two things to remember that if you truly meditate on them will help you resist temptation. It will still be a battle, but victory is available to you.

Remember the grace of God- all of chapter 5 has been a discussion of the grace of God in our lives. What has God done because of his love for you?

Remember that you are not a slave to sin- chapter 6 tells us that we are dead to the power of sin. It has no more power than what we give it.

so what does that look like:

Let’s say you have been tempted to feel insecure about yourself. You have allowed that insecurity to cause you to lash out at people, to twist their words and actions into a perceived hurt and have become bitter over it. Here they come again and they are offering help and you feel like it is an attack against you. In that moment, you have a decision to believe by faith the things we have talked about today. You can stop and say inside why am I getting so defensive about this? I know that God loves me, he has accepted me because of what Christ did and I also know that God shows me that love through the love and support of other Christians. And the second thought you should have is I do not have to be stuck in this cycle of bitterness. God has given me everything I need to overcome. This bitterness has no more power than what I give it today. I can choose to respond differently right now.

This is what I am going to ask during this invitation. If you have felt like you have been in a trap, like you can’t escape. I am going to ask you to come forward during the invitation and talk to the Lord. Talk to him about these two things: his grace in your life and your freedom from sins bondage. Then I would encourage you to come talk to me if you need help.