The Devil Has a Plan - 5
The Devil Has a Plan • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Victory over sin
Victory over sin
The last 4 weeks we have been in this series and talking about sin and the depths and intricacies of what Satan wants for us.
Today were going to wrap up this series on sin, with hopes it leads you to conquering sin.
We talked about 3 different specific sins that you have mentioned that you struggle with.
Isolation, Idolatry, and Lust.
honestly in our world today, I think these basically encapsulate most if not all the sins you deal with to some degree at least. There may be some outliers but this is most of them.
We talked about 7 steps to killing sin, does anyone remember them?
Know the stumbling block, Walk by the spirit, Renew your mind, Take off the old and bring in the new, engage in community accountability, flee temptation, practice confession and repentance
These things are pretty standard and required for us to truly conquer sin and to follow Jesus. why? because you can’t follow Jesus and follow the world at the same time. They cannot reign in your life together.
Following Jesus in our world has turned very much into a religion in our world. And here is the thing, religion is not good. Religion is described in the Oxford dictionary as a “Particular system of Faith”
You me I and we need to learn to HATE Religion. religion is not good it is bad. It is a set of rules and rituals that are followed to a T.
Jesus himself went against religion over and over again when he would battle the pharisees. The pharisees were masters of religion, the rules and regulations. But they were so religious they missed the messiah that they KNEW was coming.
This is exactly why we can’t get caught up in the religion. We have to see the messiah and the works he has.
Paul writes a letter to a group of people in Rome, and he was writing to address certain church issues.
In this letter Paul has to remind these people of the true salvation and the meaning of what Jesus did for us, taking on our sin.
These people, namely the Jewish leaders and pharisees were of the opinion that Pauls new gospel was “allowing” sin. They thought it to be a new easy believes type of religion where as long as you sin its okay because jesus already forgave it.
Lets Read Romans 6 together
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Paul here says we can’t just live in this sin. That is not what is allowed. By us being saved and baptized as a proclamation of faith, our sin should die with the old self.
AS Christ was buried, we were buried too.
Paul is not saying that because we are saved that sin no longer happens. What he is saying is the will and drive into sin is dead.
He goes onto explain more...
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Here is our victory over sin. While we still are sinners, we have been redeemed and forgiven. That is NOT allowing of sin, if you are truly saved and have been born again, sin should be something ”disgusting" to you. It should not be desired, and if it is… Well, you may need to talk to someone about what salvation is. SIN SHOULD BECOME SHAME
Our old self was crucified on the cross when we follow Jesus. If we do not choose to, it is not crucified. WE are still the load bearers of our sin.
If you have been saved, and Jesus did die for your sin, then you are no longer susceptible to death. Death does not have dominion over you because Christ has already resurrected you to salvation.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 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. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
If this is the case, if salvation has come to me and I am a follower of Christ, then I can not straddle the line. I can’t play footsies with the devil and be saved. you are not an instrument for unrighteousness, and neither is your feet or hands .
Sin will have NO dominion over you. you are NOT under the law of sin you have been given grace.
Grace is getting something you do not deserve. We are receiving life that we are unable to receive, without God. and that is eternal life.
Paul here tells us that God has already accomplished this, and now we have a responsibility to obedience.
Yes, temptation and desire of sin will happen, but they cannot gain control of you.
But I want to keep going. if you look in your bibles, that whole last section, v 1-14 was titled :Dead to sin, alive to God.
there is a break here and this section is called “slaves to righteousness”
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 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? 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, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
Are we to sin, since we are under grace?
BY NO MEANS
We are not slaves to God because of this. Many people don’t want to follow Jesus and be a Christian because they think that its a whole bunch of rules and cannot and do nots
that is the furthest thing from the truth, following Jesus is following freedom.
Some of you in this room right now have grown up in church and you are thinking “absolutely not, this stuff is a rule book and there is no freedom”
freedom is, doing what I want, how can the bible and being a follower of Jesus be freedom if I can’t drink, can’t smoke, can’t have sex, can’t even lust.
Not that you “WANT” to, but those things are directly spoken of as spiritual no-nos
Let me ask a question...
How many of you have sinned?
How many of you have felt guilty or bad because of a sin?
any sin, one of them, multiple, all?
Scripture tells us that if you fall against one of the laws, you have forsaken the whole entire law.
How? lets say I am building a house. what does a house have? a floor, walls, a roof, doors, windows, etc.
Well if I do not put that roof on. is that a house? not effectively.
if you fall short of one piece of the law, you fall short to all
and remind me, what was the law in place for?
TO SHOW US OUR SIN.
Basically to be a mirror of the fact that we cannot succeed.
Jesus says this
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”
Truth sets free,
these people dont get it though, they think how can we be free when I wasn’t even a slave?
and his response is if you are under sin, sin is your master.
I think that can be pretty relatable. some of you may be struggling with a certain sin today, and that sin is 100% your master. you cant seem to not do it, whenever it comes about, no matter if you hate it or not.
But Jesus takes away the sin, and if Jesus takes it away it has NO hold over you.
Jesus here gives us some points into what freedom looks like.
Abiding in his word, makes you a disciple.
If you are in practice of sin, you are a slave to sin
A slave does not get to stay in the house, whose house? the lords
we cant be a disciple who follows gods word and practices sin.
If I am a slave to a sin, I am no follower of Jesus.
let me make it clear though, perfection will not happen in this world.
Slave is a good word for sin, because it describes a choke hold. something you aren’t able to get rid of for a time, then return to.
If you are a slave, you are always a slave until you are free.
there is no “kinda good, kinda bad”
To be a follower of Jesus, the slave is removed.
Does the salve eventually fall into sin one time? Yea. is that okay? no. But it is forgiven by grace, through faith in Jesus.
Righteousness sets us free. Righteousness defeats death.
Paul talks about his struggles against sin in the next chapter and remember, Paul is writing this in response to the idea that people are saying that his gospel allows sin.
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.
He struggles, he doesn’t get why he still makes mistakes. He does the sin, the very thing he hates.
He is human, he has struggles and hardships and sin. But it doesn’t ALLOW for it.
So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Paul here is not saying he is not responsible, this can be misunderstood. Paul is saying, guys. This stuff is hard, its serious and it has power. He is making the point that we cannot underestimate our sinful nature,
But the gospel is presented across these chapters.
Chapter six told us all about sin, how it is not good and we can’t fall into it. 7 highlights the impossibilities of us avoiding sin entirely but being a slave to sin, with grace from God taht redeems us and chapter 8 is the life Christ brings us.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
God did what the flesh could not do. He sent his son, to a fleshful state in which sin and death live. and he condemned the sin, he beat the sin, and he became living hope of our defeat over sin.
Jesus’s humanity is our Godliness.
If you are of flesh, then you will set your mind on things of the flesh.
If you are of the spirit. You will set your mind on things of the spirit.
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
We are alive in the spirit, with victory over death.
The last few weeks we have talked about this sin and this idea that the devil does have a plan, but God’s plan is stronger. If you are obedient. the problem for us is that the plan we are responsive to is Satan's, naturally.
If you follow no god, you follow Satan.
And if that's you, life might seem easy because SATAN DOES NOT ATTACK WHERE HE HAS NO OPPONENT.
This talk of following Jesus might seem hard and unnecessary because your life is so good and you have it figured out and no one condemns you or opposes you.
The Lord will return with Judgement.
And if you are a believer, or claim to be and do not show fruit or faithfulness in your pursuit of following Jesus, let me remind you taht NOT ALL WHO SAY LORD LORD WILL ENTER THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEM.
A GOOD TREE MUST PRODUCE FRUIT.
If you are not following Jesus, fighting the good fight and living in the ways he would call you, wake up, before it is too late. Satan has you, he doesn’t plan to make it easy for you to walk.
those who play sports, is it easy to walk in to your locker room and just tell coach that you are the starter? does that work?
those of you who play in the band or art, do you walk to the teacher and say you will be the solo or the highest exhibit. NO.
you work, you fight and claw for the production that allows you to be the starter or main exhibit. to get the higher pay grade and check number. You have to earn it in this world.
Jesus makes salvation more accessible than ever, considering it was once impossible.
Our choice becomes this. Will you fight the fight to follow him, or will you be lazy and take the easy road which leads to death and destruction.
