20250518 Romans 6:4-11 Dead to Sin, Alive to God
The Book of Romans • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Welcome to Vertical Church
42 And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.
We began our church with the desire to fulfill the mandate of this verse. To devote ourselves to what the early church was devoted to.
Devoted to the teaching of the word of God
Devoted to genuine Christian relationships and the fulfilling of commandment of Christ to love the household of faith
Devoted to the proclamation of the gospel through the ordinances of believers baptism and communion
Devoted to the prayers through singing and public prayer
We are Trinitarian - while God is one in essence, He is three in person
We believe in the sovereignty of God
We believe Scripture alone is the Word of God
We believe that the Church is not a building or a denomination but a people - those who are truly in Christ
We are evangelical - we believe that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
We are a Vertical Church - we believe that all true worship and living is Vertical, God directed and for the glory of God alone.
With that in mind, Let us worship God
Call to Worship - Revelation 21:3-4
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain. The first things passed away.”
Scripture Reading - Romans 6:8-11
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Introduction: Dead to Sin, Alive to God Romans 6:4-11
There is a simple truth that must permeate all of our thinking if we truly want to practice biblical Christianity and hold to a biblical theology.
Here’s the truth: Regeneration precedes faith. Simply put, you were not born again because you have faith, you have faith because you were born again, literally born anothen, born from above, supernaturally given a second birth, a spiritual birth, a transformation in which the Lord did a new work of creation in your heart.
Before your salvation you were spiritually dead, you were outside of Christ. But you were made alive by God and the Spirit of God gave you the ability to believe into Christ.
And this morning Paul is going to remind us that we who were spiritually dead are now not only spiritually alive in Christ, we are in union with Christ and we are therefore also dead to sin.
United with Christ
because we are members of His body.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
What does it mean to be dead to sin? This is a confusing concept for many believers.
It does not mean:
We no longer sin
We are sinless
We no longer have sinful thoughts or sinful emotions
We do not need to practice the common means of growing in grace of church attendance, scripture reading, prayer, and observing the ordinances
What does it mean?
In Romans 6 we will see that those who are in Christ through their union with Christ are now free from the penalty of sin and the power of sin. And one day we will be free from the presence of sin.
Let’s dig deeper.
(1) Our union with Christ has transformed us
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, 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; 7 for he who has died has been justified from sin.
We may look the same but we are not the same and this is not something that we do, this is something that we have become, something we are enabled to do.
We now live in the realm of living called “newness of life”
We might walk - when we were spiritually dead we live in the realm of spiritual darkness. But now we have been spiritually enabled, transformed, and our will which was once in bondage to sin has been changed in a way that makes us alive to God’s will. We have been taken from the kingdom of darkness and now we walk in the kingdom of light.
v 5 - For - Paul is making statement about the newness of life
certainly we shall also
our old man - our former human nature
our body of sin done away with - we still have a sinful nature
Romans The Old Man
one of the penalties for murder in some sectors of the ancient world was to tie the murdered, decaying corpse onto the murderer who had to drag it everywhere on his person while it was rotting. Can you imagine anything more ghastly than being tied to a dead body? Some think this is what Paul is speaking of here when he refers to the body of sin. The sin nature we brought into this world is like a putrid, decaying, corrupted corpse, a body of death that we still have to carry around with us until we go to heaven. Even though we have been reborn, even though we have been let out of prison and set free from slavery, we still sin and fall. However, that does not mean we are unchanged. We are changed, and the old man is dying daily. He dies the death by inches, but each day that we live in the grace of God, the new man, which has been raised with Christ, is being strengthened and is growing, and the old man is dying more and more. In a very spiritual way, it died already on the cross, but at the same time it is still kicking and screaming, and we have to deal with it to our life’s end.
The flesh, our sinful nature, is not totally annihilated at conversion; the war goes on.
At the moment I sin I desire the sin more than I desire to please God
But we have been justified from sin - declared righteous, freed from sin - freed from the penalty and power and someday the presence of sin
While it is theoretically possible to resist sin and not give in to sin, in this world we will be bombarded with sin. Do not fall into despair but claim the promise of new life and in reoentance and confession ask the Lord for spiritual strength to resist sin.
(2) Be alive to God by cherishing His Son Jesus
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
The word Now - Paul wants you to do something. If your mother ever said the word Now to you, you know she had an expectation
Notice these truths:
We died with Christ - Christ was our substitute, in our place, he didn’t have to die but he was our imputation
We shall also live with Him - His life is our life
Notice the lifting up of Jesus:
Christ rose from the dead, and he will never die again - death no longer is master over Him.
Anyone who came back to life in the Bible died again
But Jesus’ death was a once for all death because He died to sin
The life He lives, He lives to God
Even so, here’s the application with implications - consider yourself, what does consider mean?
Consider yourself to be - this is what you are, dead to sin
But alive to Gd in Christ Jesus - are you alive to God? What does your heart desire?
Now the Savior who died, who lives and who reigns, grant you joy in labor, peace in troubles, hope in despair, and faithfulness in temptation. Amen.
