Sixth Sunday after Trinity (2025)

Romans 6:3-11

What a wonderful passage that reminds us of the hope and comfort we have received through God’s grace, and how we are united with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. People wonder why we value and extol baptism so highly and it is because of Passages like this that we wish the world to know what God has done for us, as He unites us with the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Death of Man

The wages of sin is death.

This passage is well known for it points back to the fall of mankind and that at the time of the garden we were able to enjoy paradise, without fear of illness, disease, and ultimately death. We were uncorrupted and enjoyed a state that we long to see even in the best of times here one earth. But because of our sin, we have brought all temporal and eternal punishment upon ourselves.

The first five chapters build to this.

This epistle is a wonderful gift that God has given us by the Holy Spirit as the faith is laid out and explained to us plainly. Quite often we have trouble pulling together the many parts of Christianity, but this is laid out in wonderful simplicity moving from the corruption in the world to the hope that we have in the Gospel, and what God has done for us. As we come to this point, the question must be addressed.

What good has sin given you?

Our minds go the fleeting moments of pleasure that we have received from them, but invariably there are lasting consequences. How many have regretted drinking the night before only to find out in the morning that they should have stopped. How many have chased their lust to their own destruction? Sin tastes sweet at the beginning but it ends up being a bitter poison when it comes to fruition. Consider...

The Effects of Sin

Satan promised freedom, but he lied.

You will be like God, knowing good and evil. How crafty, we can be like him. Which means we can do what we want, and make decisions about what is right and wrong. However, Satan knew that evil was to be avoided and would bring punishment, and once we tasted of evil, we found ourselves enslaved to the corruption, and firmly trapped in his kingdom of darkness.

Satan wrapped us in chains.

These chains are heavy, made of a material that we lack the strength, the power to break, with a lock that we cannot pick, and that we cannot shake ourselves free from. This is why Jesus himself says, that whoever sins is a slave to sin, and if the wages of sin is death, then we are slaves working only to accomplish our own destruction and we cannot stop it.

You cannot free yourself.

You might say, well certainly I don’t sin like those others, I keep my hands free from further evil, look at all the good I do. Men try to justify themselves by the outer things, but God looks at the heart, He knows your thoughts. The world says, well who can stop their thoughts, who prevent a curse word from slipping from their lips, who can stop their eyes from wandering every now and then? These are all signs of what sits in our sinful hearts. For all of these phrases are ways by which we justify our sin, and think that they don’t need to be addressed, because on the outside we look good, but the Law demands, that you stop all these things under threat of punishment, you are to bring your thoughts, your lips and your eyes into perfect conformity. If you don’t believe you are a slave to sin, then do that and fulfill the Law.

The reason that we do not understand the strength of those chains is that we have not opposed our sin in earnest, but have hearts that are half sincere in our confession, and then come up to the altar and take the blood of Christ without intending to oppose our sinfulness. If you oppose your sins, and fight against them and try to overcome them, then you will see how terrible is your condition.

Christ Overcame Death

Jesus joined us in death.

This is the surprising thing about Christianity that still shocks an unbelieving world. For if sin is that terrible, if the punishment is that terrible, death is that thing which we fear, which we flee from, that state which renders all men equal from kings to the lowest slave, and shows that none of us are immune, and yet, Jesus went into the tomb ahead of us. He entered that valley of the shadow of death on Good Friday as He bore your sin, your suffering, and your death in his flesh, and then

Jesus was raised for you.

For it wasn’t enough that entered that valley of the shadow of death, for if he remained in that valley or hadn’t returned then what hope could we have of salvation. We would be in the exact same state the world had been before the coming of Christ, but after being dead for 3 days, He was raised by the Father, and came out that He might guide us through to paradise, and promise to bring us through it as well. He was dead, spear piercing his heart dead, there was not misdiagnosis, no one trying to keep him alive. They made sure he was dead.

He has broken the chains.

of death. Threw them off and walked out of his grave 3 days later. Did what none of us could do, there was no on there trying to start his heart, or resuscitate him. He had taken down from the cross, wrapped in linens and laid in a tomb. He overthrew the powers of sin, death, and hell itself and showed that it has no power over him. After all of that it seems strange that what He has given to us a bit of water and words to say. Because

What Good is Baptism?

On the outside it just looks like we put a bit of water on the head of a Christian and that’s it. The world looks at that, and says what is the point of this?

Baptism unites us with Jesus.

That makes incredibly precious for all Christians. But the on the outside it appears so ordinary, so simple, so plain, that we can understand in part Naaman the leper who was asked to wash in the jordan to be cleansed of his leprosy, and Elisha told to go bathe 7 times. Think about what the world treats as great or worthy of salvation. The world reasons well shouldn’t you have to be worthy? You have to do something great like make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, stand where Jesus had been crucified, dedicate your entire life to serving the poor, or at least part of it. Instead, we get this beautiful picture of being saved by grace alone. For in Baptism,

God places you in Jesus’ tomb.

It doesn’t matter how young or old you might. For to be baptized doesn’t depend upon you, it depends upon God who promised salvation to those who are born again by the water and the spirit. For it’s not the water that saves, it is the Word of God attached to the water that saves us. That’s why Baptism now saves you, for whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved, because there is God’s promise to cover you with the death of Jesus, that you might rise to everlasting life. Which means

You are freed from Satan.

The chains he had placed on you that he would have used to drag us down into hell with him are snapped. For Jesus has overcome death and the grave, and whoever has been baptized has been buried with Christ, and will rise with Him. Not on Easter morning, but the day when he returns in glory and power and might. So treasure your baptism always, for God looked down from heaven on that day and called you His own dear child. So

What Now?

Should you keep on sinning?

By no means! It brought death, guilt, shame, and all manner of suffering and misery into the world. It enslaved you and held you captive in chains that you were unable to break and would have dragged you down into hell if it had not been for Christ.

What good has sin or evil done?

Jokingly some will say, well its fun, or it was enjoyable and it probably that way in the moment, but sin has a way of catching up with ya. like any other addiction, if it started as pure misery there would be no danger, but fleeting pleasures ensnare soul now, that you perish eternally.

Why throw away Jesus’ gift?

But that’s what we do, when we take everything that Christ has given and suffered for us, and then just cast it to the side. Asking to be slaves once again. Put it in those terms in your mind. What would you sell your freedoms as a citizen to become a slave? Imagine telling that to veteran, you risked your life, watched friends die, but I’m going to sell my freedoms, because what you secured isn’t worth it. If you wouldn’t say that to a soldier who fought for your citizenship and freedoms in our country, then why would you say that to Christ who suffered that you might be a citizen of heaven?

So my brothers and sisters in Christ, consider your sins, no matter what they might be, lust, greed, gluttony, gossip, slander, cursing, or swearing. Why allow Satan to continue having dominion over you when Christ has set you free? Why hand to Satan the very tools he has used to hurt and harm your neighbor, when Jesus redeemed you from sin? Why perish? For if you have been baptized, you have been raised with Christ, and you have a place in His kingdom, so when sin tempts you, remember that Christ died to set you free, because He loves you, and there’s no greater love than that a man lays down his life for his friends. In Jesus name. Amen.