Who ARE You?

Once again, this week, I want to thank Tracy for filling in at the piano in Andy’s absence. I hope you all recognize that it’s hard and even stressful for her to do this, because he’s a professional musician, and she’s not.

This gives me a good opportunity to say that we’re always open to having others participate in our music ministry.

If you’ve been hiding the fact that you can play an instrument — the piano, the guitar, percussion, whatever — or if you sing reasonably well and would like to help lead the worship music, we’d be glad to have you join the rotation.

Just come and talk to me or to Amy when she’s back, and we’ll figure out a way to get you involved.

And all this gives me a chance to tell you something about myself that you might not have known: I can play the piano.

Well, I USED to be able to play the piano. I took piano lessons for six years when I was a kid. My teacher, Mrs. Gluck, said I was very talented.

Of course, we paid for my lessons by the week, so she had a vested interest in keeping me engaged. Telling me I wasn’t very good might have caused me to stop the lessons and, therefore, put an end to her weekly checks. So, maybe THAT’S why she said I was talented.

Anyway, I clearly remember the incident that ended my piano career. I was about 10 years old, and my school was having a talent show.

The Robert Redford/Paul Newman movie, The Sting, had been released a couple of years earlier, and the Scott Joplin song, “The Entertainer,” had become very popular because of the movie. It’s a great ragtime piano song, and I learned it for my talent.

Now, the talent show was held in the huge sanctuary of what used to be Bethany Baptist Church in Portsmouth. There were something like 700 seats — including a large balcony space. And every single seat was filled — or at least it seemed like that to my 10-year-old eyes.

When my name was announced, I walked over to the piano and sat down. When the crowd got quiet, I began playing. I’d barely gotten started — just 15 seconds or so into the song — when I flubbed it in a big way. Badly enough that the only thing I could think to do was to start over.

I remember glowing red with embarrassment. My whole head felt like it was burning. And in my memory, I was sobbing at the keyboard. I don’t know if that part really happened, but that’s how I remember it, so the scars from that night are clearly very real.

After that, I gave up the piano completely. I HATED that feeling of failure in front of everybody. But the truth is that I hated something else about the piano even more, and I’d hated it for a long time.

Wanna guess what it was that I hated? PRACTICE. My parents had to beg, plead, cajole, and even threaten in order to get me to practice each day.

Listen, I wanted to be able to PLAY the piano, but I wasn’t really interested in doing the work that was necessary to make that happen, at least not on a consistent basis.

So, I appreciate the work it takes Tracy — not to mention Andy — to do what they do here on Sundays. It doesn’t just magically happen. There’s a lot of work involved.

Looking back on my own experience with the piano, I think the problem for 10-year-old me was that I never really believed that I could BE a great pianist, and I wasn’t willing to put in the work needed to just be decent at it.

My dislike for practicing the piano was just a manifestation of the fact that I didn’t really SEE myself as a pianist. (Last night, Annette said — and I quote — “It’s because of your squat, stubby little fingers.” Whatever.)

Anyway, I hope you remember that what we BELIEVE shapes what we DO.

Now as we begin this mini-series on Romans, chapter 6, to conclude our larger series, “Sin, According to the Experts,” we’re going to hear the Apostle Paul remind us of what we WERE before turning to Jesus in faith.

He’ll also remind us of what we’ve BECOME by God’s grace, through our faith in Jesus.

And as we move through this powerful chapter on the believer’s relationship to sin, we’ll see that when we truly recognize who we are in Christ Jesus — when we understand and apply this truth to our lives — we gain great power over the sins that still tempt us from day to day.

Every one of us here today is an expert at sin, just like the long line of people we’ve studied during the past several weeks from both the Old and New Testaments.

Every one of us loves sin, or we wouldn’t keep going back to it. Every one of us loves the idea of having authority over ourselves, rather than submitting to GOD’S authority over us.

But for each person here who’s been blessed with salvation through faith in Jesus, things have changed. And it’s important for us to KNOW that within the core of our being in order for us to begin to have victory over our sins.

Today, we’re going to take a look at the first seven verses of chapter 6. You’ll find them on your handouts, or you can turn to Romans, chapter 6, in your Bible and follow along. Let’s read them together now.

Romans 6:1–7 NASB95

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been 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 self 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 is freed from sin.

Now, remember that in the previous chapters, Paul talked about how the Law God had given to Moses was intended to show the people of Israel just how sinful they were and how desperate they were for GOD’S righteousness.

To be restored to the relationship with Him for which we were all created, they needed to turn to Him in faith — they needed to trust HIM for their salvation — just as Abraham had done.

But instead of fearing God — instead of treating HIM with reverence and worshiping HIM — they feared the Law. They placed their trust in their own righteousness, in their own keeping of the Law.

And in many cases, they found themselves perversely tempted to do the very things the Law forbade them from doing. They saw the Wet Paint sign and just had to touch the wall to see if it was true.

Now, if any one of us were God, we’d probably have struck everybody dead because of this. After all, sin is rebellion against God.

But God is gracious. And what Paul says back in chapter 5 is that “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”

In fact, God’s grace abounded to the very cross, where His unique and eternal Son, Jesus Christ, took upon Himself the sins of all mankind — and their just punishment — so that all who trust in HIM for salvation would be saved.

At the cross of Jesus, we see God’s grace SUPER-abounding as Jesus won the victory over sin through His sacrificial death.

And at the empty tomb three days later, we see Him victorious over the curse our sin brought upon the world — the curse of death itself.

And none of this was because we deserved any of it. None of it was because we’ve done — or ever COULD do — anything to earn it. ALL of it is because of God’s boundless grace.

So, Paul starts this passage with the question that naturally arises: “Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?”

If God’s grace SUPER-abounds where sin abounds, then why shouldn’t we just keep sinning so God can show MORE grace? Is God’s grace a free pass for us to commit more sin?

Well, no. Or, in the Spears translation, of course not, you idiots. But why not?

Because if you’ve turned to Jesus in faith — if you’ve trusted that His sacrificial death at the cross, for you and in your place, provided the only way for you to be saved and reconciled to God — then you are DEAD to sin.

Death separates. When we lose a loved one or a pet, we’re separated from them. Wherever they might be right now, they’re no longer with us. We still have memories of them, but they are no longer part of our lives.

And for believers, this same concept holds true in regard to sin — or at least it should. When we die to sin, we’re taken from its control.

Sin hasn’t died to us; we still remember it, and we still see evidence of its influence in our lives. But our death to sin in Christ takes us from out of its realm and places us in HIS.

And all of this takes place because we have been identified with Christ through baptism. Now, I’m not saying here that baptism has any power to save. We are saved BY grace alone, THROUGH faith alone, IN Christ alone, and FOR the glory of God alone.

But the early Church wouldn’t have imagined a person coming to saving faith in Christ Jesus WITHOUT then being baptized, because it represents one of the first acts of obedience for a new believer.

So, Paul’s using baptism in verses 3 and 4 to represent the whole package of salvation. And in speaking of our baptism into Christ Jesus, he shows us how it presents a symbolic physical picture of the true spiritual reality we experience when we trust in Jesus for salvation.

In baptism, we’re baptized into His death. We’re lowered into the water as He was lowered into the grave. And then, as He was raised from the dead, so we, too, are raised from the water into new life in Him.

Typically, when I do baptisms, I describe this as I perform the baptism: Usually I say something like this: “buried with Christ in the likeness of His death and now raised with Christ in the likeness of His resurrection to newness of life.”

And the idea in both the physical act of baptism and the symbolic picture Paul paints here is that we followers of Jesus are now IDENTIFIED with Him.

In fact, that has always been one of the purposes of physical baptism. It’s a way for the new believer to proclaim to the Church and even the world at large that he’s a follower of Jesus, a Christian, a CHRIST-ian.

And, especially since Jesus Himself commanded baptism for new believers, that should certainly be the normative experience for His followers. We give our hearts to Him in faith, and then we’re baptized in a public proclamation of our new identity in Him.

But even if you haven’t been physically baptized as a true follower of Jesus, what Paul talks about in this passage is still true for you because of your position IN Christ.

ALL of us who turned to Him in faith have been, as Paul puts it in verse 6, CRUCIFIED with Him.

The old self has been put to death in Christ. We’ve died to our old way of life. We’ve died to all the old identities that defined us.

In Galatians, chapter 2, Paul puts it this way:

Galatians 2:20 NASB95

20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

I love this verse, because it takes ME out of the equation. MY life, with all its lusts and corruption and rebellion, ended the moment I trusted in Jesus. When I gave my life to HIM, he took up residence in my body in the person of His Holy Spirit.

And now the true life I have within this body is HIS life, which I have by faith in Him.

This is newness of life. This is resurrection life. This is life lived in light of the resurrection of Him who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

And it’s a result of God’s glory and grace.

In Ephesians, chapter 2, Paul says we were all dead in our trespasses before coming to faith in Jesus.

What can dead things do? Nothing! We couldn’t save ourselves through good works or religious devotion or anything else, any more than a dead man can raise himself from the dead.

Picture a heart attack victim whose heart has stopped beating. Only by the intervention of some outside force -- someone doing CPR or using a defibrillator, for example -- can that person be brought back to life.

That’s what God does to us spiritually when we place our faith in Jesus and His finished work at the cross. In God’s grace and His glory — His power — He gives LIFE to what was dead.

And this life we have IN Christ isn’t like the old life we had as those dead in our trespasses, as those who were spiritually dead, as those cut off from God because of our sin.

In fact, the word that’s translated as “newness” in verse 4 has the sense of something that’s unprecedented, something of a new kind, something that’s unheard of. We are, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, new CREATURES!

This isn’t just “God among us,” as the people of Old Testament Israel experienced Him.

For them, God was present in the Holy of Holies, that innermost room of the temple, where only the high priest could go and only once a year. He dwelt AMONG them in the temple in Jerusalem, but He was still apart from them there.

This isn’t even “God WITH us,” as the people of Jesus’ time experienced Him. Immanuel, God-WITH-Us, was such a life-changing experience for those who followed Him in faith. But even that experience paled in comparison to what we have as His followers today.

For us, the experience is something unprecedented. We have God IN us in the person of the Holy Spirit, given to dwell within each believer when he or she turns their lives over to Jesus.

HE is now the life within us, having done away with — the sense of it in the Greek is having wiped out — our body of sin.

Those bodies of sin we had before we turned to Jesus in faith were slaves to sin. We were under sin’s authority. In our selfishness and rebellion, we were directed by sin and served sin.

We could disobey it and do the occasional good things, but we were still under its power and still deserving of the wages it paid: death.

But now, having DIED to sin, we’ve been freed. Having been crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, and raised with Christ, we who’ve placed our faith in Him are now freed from sin’s authority and power over us. We’ve been released.

It’s interesting to look at the Greek word, dikaioo, that’s translated as “freed” in verse 7. It’s actually a legal term, and it’s connected to the Greek word for justification.

Dikaioo means “to render a favorable verdict,” “to vindicate.” To dikaioo someone means to release them from claims that are no longer to be considered valid.

So, we who have died to sin through our identification with Christ have been vindicated in Christ Jesus. We’ve been released from sin’s claim on us, because it’s no longer a valid claim.

Sin no longer has a claim on us, because we are now claimed by JESUS.

But the truth is that we often STILL live as if we belong to sin. The truth is that we often STILL live as if we’re slaves to sin, as if we’re under sin’s authority, as if we’re still SERVING sin and working for its wages. We often STILL live as if we’re dead men (and women) walking.

That’s why it’s so important for we followers of Jesus to understand and fully internalize this radically new thing — this unprecedented thing that’s unlike anything else ever before — that we’ve experienced in salvation.

Instead of sin having power over US, we now have power over SIN, because we have within us the Spirit of God Himself.

In dying to sin through our identity with Christ Jesus, we’ve not just been released from sin — we’ve also been claimed by Jesus.

We’ll talk more about this and what it means for how we should live as those ALIVE in Christ. But this week, I want to encourage you who’ve placed your faith in Jesus to think about what it means to be identified with Christ, to be called CHRIST-ians.

This week, I want to encourage you to think about what it must feel like to be released from slavery. Think about what it must feel like when a prisoner receives a full pardon for his crimes. Think about what it must feel like for the person who died on the operating table to be brought back to life.

These are all pictures of what took place for you when God counted your faith as righteousness. And when we realize what’s been done for us — when we realize who we really ARE now because of it, we can live differently than we lived before.

But if you’ve never turned your life over to Jesus in faith that He alone can save you, then you’re still a slave to sin.

If you’ve never trusted that the sinless Son of God took upon Himself your sins and their just punishment at the cross, providing the only way for you to be pardoned for your sins against God, then you’re still condemned by God.

If you’ve never turned to Jesus in faith that He is who He said He is and that He’ll do what He said He will do, then you’re still dead in your trespasses.

Jesus offers you newness of life. He promises to make you something entirely new, something completely different. He wants to make you what you were always meant to be.

At some point in their lives, everybody wonders about the meaning of it all. Everybody wonders about their purpose here on earth.

Let me tell you today: THIS is your purpose — to be transformed through faith in Jesus, to be made new, to be released from your body of sin and claimed by the Savior who died so that you can LIVE. By the one who rose again so you could have ETERNAL life.

On Jesus’ cross at Calvary, God poured out His righteous wrath for your sins and mine upon His sinless Son. But He also poured out His super-abundant grace upon us all.

He could’ve left us condemned in our sins. He could’ve exiled us all to hell — eternally separated from His presence — for our rebellion against Him. Instead, in Christ Jesus, He said, “Come to Me, and let me make My home in you.”

Will you accept His gracious invitation today? Will you repent from your sins today and trust in Jesus?

Freedom from the chains of sin awaits. True power — the chain-breaking, death-overcoming power of God within you — is the promise for all who turn to Him in their weakness.

New life in HIM is the reward for allowing your body of sin to be crucified with Him. And eternal life — life forever in fellowship with Him who MADE you for that — is the great hope that will give everything else meaning.

Jesus is calling you today. Will you answer Him?