Romans 6:1-14 From the grave of disobedience to the life and freedom of obedience.

Intro

Recently spent times with the Epistles Romans and Galations which give a panoramic view of all of Paul’s minsitry.

Galatians early work (passionate, immature, firery) Romans later work (more confident, more mature)

Galatians Slide

Either laughed or didnt… Funny but shows that Paul’s letter were written to real churches with Christians who were wrestling with the message of the Gospel and what it meant to follow Jesus.

So we turn today to Romans (Summarise Epistle to church in Rome)

Let me introduce you to this little chap

Bexley Slide x 2 “because why not, look at him”

Very intelligent dog, very easy to train: Ring bell to go out, drops things we dont want him to have in his mouth.

But he quickly worked two things out. One that he can ring bells to get what he wants (funny illustration) and secondly that if he purposely picked something up and showed us he had it he would get a treat.

He uses something taught and abuses that relationship. Secondly he had come to the logical conclusion that bad behaviour will always be met with reward and that more bad behaviour means more reward ultimatly.

This is what Paul is worried will happen in the Roman Church.

It’s a logical conclusion, but only if you hear the Gospel and don’t live the Gospel but it is a flawed and human logic to the truth of the Gospel and the call of God’s Grace.

That’s why Grace is dangerous to a world who have not fully heard the words of the Gospel and allowed themselves to be shaped by it.

Skewed Gospel

Letter written to Church in Rome that was divided at the time between Jewish Christians (back in to church after expulsion) and non-jewish Christians.

He wanted to unify them in the Gospel, sound doctrine, so wrote his longest explanantion of the Gospel. Yet he knows he has to make absolutely clear to them what it is that they should understand and leave no room for deviation and further division.

Paul knows that his message thats in Romans 5:20 “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,” that this is in danger of being misappropriated…permission slip to sin more so more grace will flow.

Paul asks the hypothetical question Romans 6:1 “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?”

If the answer to it is “Yes” then nothing has changed in the believers life. Sin and death in that reality still rule.

The sacrifice on the cross is a foolishness that bears no wisdom. We remain trapped in the grip of sin, in an eternal tug of war between our own frail mortality and our eternal salvation, between our sinful nature and our call to rightoesness through him who dies for our sins.

To constantly give in to sin is to constantly refuse the true call of the Gospel, to shed our call to be disciples…how can we follow him into the love of the other and spread the Gospel to all corners of the earth if we ourselves don’t fully understand the Gospel.

If we are to be the light to the darkness of the world, then this skewed understanding of the salvation of the Gospel makes us flickering bulbs.

Disobedience and Sin

But there is a danger that we become blind to sin. Perhaps we think of sin in the headline sins - sexual immorality, extortionate greed, murder.

Yet we are all sinful by nature. That is not to say we all work to evil aims, it simply speaks of how sin has permeated our very being and we need to be aware of that. We need to have the veil taken off our eyes, our ignorance healed so that we can see this truth.

It entered our make-up in that moment of original sin. That moment where our relationship with God, and also to each other was broken. That moment when Eve listened to the serpent, Adam listened to Eve and no one listened to God. A simple moment of disobedience.

A moment that bought shame (Nakedness) and it bought blame (Adam blames eve, eve blames the serpent).

Sin is small, and it goes unnoticed by the majority of the world. Its the smallness of sin that leads us ever more astray.

“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Sin is the small disobediences to God’s word, the small disobedience that makes us think that we are alive yet we are faller deeper in to its grave.

We are called to die to sin, to not be its slave any longer. To seek rightousnous through Christ, be baptised with him. Die his death that leads to resurection. To follow his absolute obedience.

Disobedience = Slavery and Death, Obedience = Freedom and life

And there is something of that as we journey through this season of lent. To follow his obedience, to journey from death to resurection and know we are truly free. “Who the son sets free…”

Romans 6:6 “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—”

New life in obedience

We were cast out from the obundance and beauty of Eden into exile. In exile our sin continued, as we know from scripture we see the constant cycle of coming close to God and falling away from God.

We became slowly trapped in our own disobedience, Israel found itself once more in exile. Cast out from the good land provided by God. Cast out because of its failure is obedience. Cast out because they could not keep Torah - the book of law, cut off and dead because of their disobedience.

Think of it this way - we began to build a wall around ourselves, every disobedience adding another brick, slowly we built our own prison cell. The longer we built that cell and spent time within it we began to forget that there was more outside that cell. We forgot the goodness and beauty that was beyond the walls. We began to believe that cell we had made was the entirety of all things.

Then one came, the one who kept Torah perfectly, the one who entered the prison cell with us and said firstly look up you are in prison, but the quickly showed us his escape plan.

Illustration of Shawshank Redemption (Andy Escaping, cross isntead of poster) Escape route out. We have a choice stay where we think it is safe, and ignorance is bliss or take that moment of decision and follow him. So taking on some of his image and rightoueness.

We find new life through him, we once more are being led back into his God’s presence, able to stand in front of him washed of our shame and freed from blame. Free.

Conclusion

If you feel convicted this morning, if there is somthing that you feel ashamed about or need to confess…I know I need to…then don’t worry you are here, surrounded by other like you, but YOU ARE HERE, you know Jesus and he wants to wash your feet clean again. Let him. Your eyes are open, your on the escape route out of prison. We may stumble but so long as we look to Jesus to pick us up then you have eternal life in him.

I gave 2 thing up for lent - firstly alcohol, I broke that within 5 days ironically at a ministers conference. Secondly I gave up sinning and I broke that within an hour. But I constantly come back to the father in obedience. My eyes are open, so are yours.

We dont sin with a permission slip to sin, we sin because we fight our sinful nature…but we know and humbly accept we are frail and falibles creatures.

Dog lead analogy: Back to my dog, he is obedient. The moment I know he sees me as his master and the provider of all things in his life (love) is not when he is leashed to me but when I free him on a walk and he comes back, when he looks up to check where I am, when he walks beside me untethered. There is no greater joy then seeing something you love running in freedom and enjoying life.

That is a picture of our relationship with God, through his son Jesus.

PRAY