Our Identity

Text Facing Argument - The majority of the passage establishes our unity with Christ, our being born again and raised to newness of life. Therefore present yourselves in this way. The sermon should establish our identity in Jesus by His grace

HBI: Dead to sin and alive in Christ. We are dead to our old self through Jesus sacrificial death on the cross. We now have new life in Him through His resurrection.

United with Christ, we die to sin and live for God.

Gospel connection - Because we are dead to sin we can be alive in Christ

Intro

Paul Geidel Jr. was born on April 21, 1894, in Hartford, Connecticut. His father, a saloon keeper and alcoholic, died when Paul was five. His mother, overwhelmed, placed him in an orphanage at age seven. He left school at 14 after the seventh grade and drifted through low-paying hotel jobs in Hartford and New York City. By 15 he was already drinking heavily.

On the night of July 26, 1911, the 17-year-old Geidel, who had briefly worked as a bellhop at the Iroquois Hotel on West 44th Street in Manhattan, entered the room of 73-year-old wealthy broker William H. Jackson. He attempted to rob him and used a chloroform-soaked rag to silence him. Jackson died of suffocation. Geidel escaped with only a few dollars. He was arrested within about 15 hours and quickly convicted of second-degree murder. On September 5, 1911, he was sentenced to 20 years to life and sent to Sing Sing the next day.

In 1926, after roughly 15 years in prison and while approaching possible early release for good behavior, doctors declared him legally insane. He was transferred to Dannemora State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he remained for nearly 46 years. In 1972 he was moved to the Fishkill Correctional Facility, a lower-security prison better suited for elderly inmates.

By the early 1970s Geidel had become something of a quiet fixture. Prison staff occasionally took him out for small treats such as baseball games. He had no living family and no connections in the outside world. In August 1974, at age 80 and after 63 years behind bars, the parole board granted him release. Geidel refused it. He told officials he could not survive outside. One reported quote is: “I can’t make it out there. They treat me well here.” Prison had become the only home he knew.

He stayed another six years. On May 7, 1980, at age 86, he finally walked out of Fishkill after serving 68 years and 245 days — at the time the longest prison sentence in U.S. history that ended in release. He asked reporters for “no publicity.” He lived the remaining years of his life in a nursing home in Beacon, New York, and died on May 1, 1987, at age 93.

The walls are familiar. The routine is all he knows. Then one day the warden walks in, unlocks the door, and says, “You’re free. The sentence is paid. Walk out.”

The man stares at the open door. He takes a step… then stops. He sits back down on the thin mattress. The hallway outside feels too big. The light is too bright. The old cell, for all its misery, is what he knows. So he stays.

Legally he is free. The door is wide open. The debt is paid. Yet he continues to live as a prisoner because the old life still feels safer than the new one.

That is exactly the tension Paul addresses in Romans 6.

Through our union with Christ we have already died to the old life of sin. The sentence is paid. The door is open. We are alive to God. Yet many of us still sit in the old cell—continuing in patterns of sin—not because we have to, but because the old life still feels familiar.

Through faith we have been united with Christ and brought into God’s family. The old life of slavery to sin has been crucified with Him — the cage door is open. Yet many of us still sit in the cage because it feels familiar. Because we now belong to Christ and His family, we are called to step out and live as those who are truly alive to God.

this is what Paul is trying to get accross here - United with Christ, we die to sin and live for God.

1-2 We have died to sin

Many people use this passage to defend Baptism and the way that we do it, I have done that as well, but that is not the main point of the passage here. What we learn is that things have changed. as followers of Jesus we have been released from the penalty of sin. The cage has been opened now what will you do with it.

Romans 6:1–2 CSB

What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

The passage starts wit hthese two verses asking a question and answering, this is the main point of the passage, what is our identity, or where are we finding our identity.

We have gone through a dramatic change as a follower of Jesus. We have gone from death to life. but the question asked is shall we continue to sin so that Grace may be multiplied.

We have the True premise which is you cannot out-sin God's grace. This is something that we need to know, we need to rest secure in, but at the same time we can take it a little to far. It can bring us to a false conclusion

False conclusion = let us go on sinning to show God's grace. The two questions of vv. 1-2 are answered in the following: a.  Can we continue in the realm of sin? (answered in vv. 1-14). b.  Can we even allow for one sin? (answered in vv. 15-23).

But we do not often hear this promise but rather I think the struggle is remaining in sin even though we have been set free by the grace of God. The idea of remaining in sin so grace may abound would be an extreme but the norm I usually see in most people is the comfort of sin.

Not deliberately trying to “make grace abound,” But staying in sin because it feels normal, familiar, or less effortful than walking in the new life. Change is to hard, I can not do this so I am going to remain in the comfort of my sin. Like the criminal who did not want ot leave jail, even when he was set free. It was all he knew, and he also knew that leaving the jail would be hard to do, probably harder then the norm of incarceration. It ios to hard to change therefore I will stay as I am.

So then one question we need to ask ourselves is

Application - Is sin still trapping you

If you are a follower of Jesus, you have been freed from the penalty of sin, but then why do we sometimes act like we have not died to sin? Sometimes it is easier to remain in what has become the normalcy of sin. instead of realizing that we have been freed from the penalty of it and walking in freedom. We have died to sin. But maybe you are still in the cage of sin, maybe you do not see that it is a cage but are so used to it you think it is fine. Maybe you think the grace of God will be extended to you when you turn to him before you die.

You have died to sin, the cage door is open. walk in freedom.

3-11 We are united with Christ

we walk in freedom because we learn next that we have been united with Christ, or at least we can be united with Christ. What we are going to see is an illustration of baptism to see how we are united with Him. We have learned that we have diedi to self, what that means, what we have to keep in mind is that the old self is still there but no longer has the right to tell us what to do, it has been rendered useless. The old self is still lurking in the background, that old sin nature is trying to win again but through the blood of Jesus on the cross has been rendered void.

Romans 6:3–4 CSB

Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.

We go through a dramatic change, going from death to life. That in itself is a miracle.

The fact that lives can be changed so drastically is amazing and one of the biggest miracles of all and I think we sometimes forget that.

But what about baptism?

this is in reference to water baptism though a clear exposition of baptism is not the point here nor is it the theme of the passage.

This passage as we have seen is not primarily about baptism. It is not the main idea of the passage but it adds a confusing element to this passage. I have had it explained to me this way. This passage is not meant to be an exposition of baptism. But rather it is in reference to baptism. Think of it like a way to illustrate a point you are trying to make. But why?

As we see this passages main argument is our death to sin and life in Christ, and what better way to illustrate that then the act of believers baptism. all the examples of salvation we have in the bible in the early church except for a few the bible are silent on, where baptised. The 12 disciples, some of them where baptised under John at least. We assume they would have been. The theif on the cross had a pretty good excuse to not be baptised.

But when you get into the book of Acts, people gave their lives to the Lord and where baptized, all ages excvept for babies. They did not do a 6 month long intensive course like some do now. I have a sit down chat with people who want to get baptized to see if they know what they are doing, and I want to make sure they are connecvted to a local church where they can grow. So this is something they all would have understood, a way to understand the subject as they looked back on their own baptism by immersion.

Baptism rather functions as an example of the conversion experience as a whole. It is the instrument by which we are put into relationship with the death and burial and resurrection of Christ.

It starts out by knowing that as followers of Jesus we have identified with Jesus in His death, burial and resurrection. We have died to sin, we have been raised to new life in Christ and like Christ we will be raised again with new bodies to go be with Him someday.

Romans 6:5–11 CSB

For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, since a person who has died is freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

In this section verse 6 is key to understand what is going on here.

Romans 6:6 CSB

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin,

Remember, the old self, the body of sin is to be done away with. What was before is no more, it has died. But what does this mean for us?

We still have within us the old nature, but our whole self is being transformed. It id easy enough to go back to the old self. Our true identity is in Christ. We need to remember who you are in Christ.

Sin does still happen but that is not as it should be.

We are under new ownership

We are new creatures in Christ.  Body of sin = sin nature/ the whole body controlled by sin, made powerless, impotent, so that we are no longer under the authority/control of sin as a ruling influence. past act of old self being put away, now new selves;

That means that this is something already accomplished at salvation.

If we are already under new ownership then what this means is that even now we Live with Christ, but also we will one day live with Him as well. Our old self is gone, behold all things have become new. We are now under Christ, we serve Him alone. This is our new identity.

12-14 - We Live for God

Because of this we live for God. This is a result of being united with Christ.

Romans 6:12–14 CSB

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.

11-13.  This is the response needed based on the previous truth.  Knowing the truth of our identification with the work of Christ, the believer is to calculate/apply the results of His work to the practice of their lives.  Verse 11 = mental assent to the truth. 

Vv. 12-13 = the act of the will in giving.  Come to this inescapable conclusion that this refers to you and sin is not the master! 14. Grace, not law, is your operating principle; yet grace has obligations; you are under orders

so we go back to the nbeginning, shall we continue to sin so that grace may increase? or shall we remain in sin because it is all we know and do not know what to do? The reality is that we are dead to sin and alive in Christ.

What this means for us is that

Because we are dead to sin we can be alive in Christ

This is the application here at the end to the question how do we escape the cage of sin, by presenting ourselves to God. Sin no longer rules over us because we are alive in Christ. Your identity has been transformed from a citizen of sin to a citizen of heaven.

The end of this passage tells us that we will no longer be ruled by sin because now we live under grace. By grace we have been forgiven, by Grace we live and by grace we will be resurected to be with Jesus. Under grace, the believer is united to the risen Christ and empowered by a new Master. If this is the case then we daily, minute by minute sometimes present ourselves on our knees to God and rest in the new identity we have as forgiven children of God. Sin no longer has dominion over us.

They are the logical outworking of the new identity. Because the old life has been crucified and we are now alive to God, we refuse to hand the controls of our bodies back to the former tyrant.

the door is open, the sentence is paid, the new life is already given. Verses 12–14 simply say, “Then walk out and live as free people.”