Following Our Failures.

4 - Prayer: Assurance https://skitguys.com/videos/a-clean-slate

Romans 6:12–23 NIV

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Introduction: 1. For Christians, the subject of failure deals with sin, salvation, holiness, ethics, and what the Christian life looks like. Is the Christian life just one of constant failure? Are we helpless sinners who will never make progress? Aren’t we supposed to be perfect? We are saved from something (damnation), but are we saved for something (sanctification)?

21 - Everyone Fails.

"To err is human, to forgive divine" a quote from Alexander Pope's poem An Essay on Criticism

We have all kinds of failures.

A misspelled word on a text message. - Not really a sin, but can cause problems.

To matters of clumsiness - tripping down the stairs, forgetting to do something - These may be errors of our make-up realizations that we are not omniscient, all powerful, etc… - Reminds me of the E3.

To Sins - acts of rebellion against our God.

Ommission, and Commission

“We sin, because we are sinners”

Today the passage is focused on sin, but also how we are free from sin, but the principles can apply some to the other kinds of errors we might make.

C.S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters, vividly describes Satan's strategy: He gets Christians to become preoccupied with their failures: from then on, the battle is won. - Ewrin Lutzer, Failure: The Back Door to Success.

22 - How Can We Fail Forward?

1. Jim Joseph says that failing forward “basically means that it’s okay to fail as long as you learn from your mistakes.” He adds, “Failing and learning shouldn’t be one-offs or isolated incidents. They should weave together in a constant stream of learning that builds and rewards as we move forward. That way, we can improve and eventually succeed more often than we fail” (Jim Joseph, “4 Ways I Fail Forward on a Daily Basis and Why You Should Do the Same,” Entrepreneur, November 8, 2017, https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/303509). In this view, stumbling blocks can become stepping-stones.

In Baseball I learned that it is a game of Failure especially as a batter - In the pros if you win only 30% of the time you are really good.

In Baseball I learned to accept failure and often to use it for my advantage. The Sacrifice Bunt, The Sacrifice Fly, hitting to the opposite field.

In Golf I am learning how to play around my tendancies.

- Michael Jordan stated, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed” (https://www.forbes.com/quotes/11194/).

An Assistant of Thomas Edison once tried to console the inventor over the failure to achieve in a series of experiments what he had set out to find: "It's too bad," he said, "to do all that work without results." "Oh," said Mr. Edison, "we have lots of results. We know seven hundred things that won't work."

Christians may be free from sin, but they do still sin. But there is hope in Jesus for the messy walk. “The participle construction ‘everyone who (practices) sins’ is in the present tense, which implies a continual habit of sinning rather than an occasional lapse” (Merrill C. Tenney, “John,” in John & Acts, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary 9 [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981], 95). Likewise, Paul tells believers to “let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions” (Romans 6:12). This doesn’t mean that one will never sin again, but that a believer is not a slave to sin and does not have a lifestyle that is bound to sinning.

So how in this passage does Paul encourage us to Fail Forward?

23 - We Fail Forward When We Follow His Favor.

4 Things involved in being mastered by Jesus vs. Sin.

1. Romans 6 deals with two questions: “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” (v. 1) and “Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?” (v. 15). Paul is striving to show that God’s grace and forgiveness do not give us a license to sin; God does care about our moral character. Robert Mounce clarifies the rhetorical questioning of sin and grace in chapter 6, saying, “The text does not say that sin dies to the believer; it is the believer who has died to sin. Origen, the most influential theologian of the ante-Nicene period, described death to sin in this way: ‘To obey the cravings of sin is to be alive to sin; but not to obey the cravings of sin or succumb to its will, this is to die to sin.’ Sin continues in force in its attempt to dominate the life and conduct of the believer. But the believer has been baptized into Christ, and that means to have been baptized into Christ’s death as well. Christ’s death for sin becomes our death to sin” (Robert H. Mounce, Romans, The New American Commentary 27 [Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1995], Logos).

1. Know your weaknesses - How Does Sin try to Master you, promise you fulfillment? Quote from God to Cain.

24 -

Genesis 4:7 LEB

If you do well will I not accept you? But if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. And its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

25 - 2. Remind yourself of the Gospel - Freedom, and Forgiveness

Interview of Kirk Cameron with Doug Wilson - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG6u9t4zn0U

- Hand cuff illustration

3. Offer yourself to Jesus - Everyone has to serve someone

Bob Dylan - Everyone Must Serve Someone.

1. Describing the tension of sin and holiness in the Christian life, Paul declares, “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” (Romans 6:17–18). “Paul appeals first of all to a fact familiar to all—namely, that whatever one submits to becomes his master. … Here Paul arrives at the full answer to the question raised in v. 15. To be set free from obligation to serve sin means entrance upon the service of righteousness” (Everett F. Harrison, “Romans,” in Romans through Galatians, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary 10 [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976], 73).

Two Ditches Tim Keller

Ditch 1: We are free to do what we want - anything goes - We have to self-justify ourselves then.

Ditch 2: Legalism (obeying the laws to earn favor with God.

The road between those two ditches are Loving Your Lord. The Lord has freed you, and you find pleasure in living for the best he has for you.

4. Ask the Holy Spirit to Fill You. - Comes later in Romans.

This is in one sense a recognition of our weakness, it is the Holy Spirit who is the one who really grows us and empowers us - We are called to Keep in step with the Holy Spirit - This re-orients us towards the positive that God wants to do in our lives. Fruit of the Spirit.

5. Do what Jesus and the Holy Spirit want you to do.

Conclusion: