Freedom from Habits and Addictions

...to Romans chapter 6. I almost stole a Bible to come up here and do this. I'm not sure if a missionary Bible would work. What language it's actually in, I don't know. Paul's scheme in the book of Romans is to identify the primary issue that we have in our world, and it is the issue of sin. He says everybody in this world has tasted of it, relished it, bathed in it, gloried in it, and practiced it regularly. But it's a big problem to all of us. And he begins to address now how God's remedy for that issue comes to pass. That Christ came and He gave Himself for us, and that the remedy for sin is to have faith, place faith and trust in Christ. And because of our faith in Christ, then we are forgiven. That the works of the law do not free us from the grip or the burden of sin. But it is the trust in Christ, the faith in Christ. And when that comes, then He acquits us of the charges against us. That's all chapter 3, through the end of chapter 3 and chapter 4. And now he turns to a different direction. Paul now starts talking about how this remedy of faith affects us, how it begins to work in our lives. And he's talking about being justified by faith, we have peace with God, and we're acquitted of our sins. Now, after he gets to talking about how Adam, how our death came through Adam, and life came through Christ, this new life comes through Christ. After he focuses on saying this price that Christ paid provides a remedy for us. When he gets to chapter 6, now he starts to open up a whole new subject. He wants to talk about once this issue of sin has been laid to rest, and we have received forgiveness from God, what happens to us? How does this affect us? How does it work in our lives? And verse 1 of chapter 6, he says, "...what shall we say, then, shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? By no means. We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer?" Now, with that statement about the issue that sin no longer grips or holds the life of a person or individual, he begins to describe how we should look at our life freed from sin. Verses 3 and 4, I want to read those. "...or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may have new life." In this statement at the beginning of chapter 6, the rest of chapter 6 explores this statement. What does he mean by this, and what is he trying to get across to us? So verse 5, "...if we have been united with Him in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who has died has been freed from sin." Now, what he's focusing on is developing the idea of this freedom from sin that this act of faith provides for us. He uses the word united here to talk about what happens between ourselves and Christ. So, we've been united with Christ in His death. In some way, the death of Christ is the vehicle through which this freedom from sin comes to us. His death on the cross on our behalf is something that frees us from this sin, something that allows us to be declared innocent of the sin that we've committed. And we, by our act of trust in Him, are joined together, are united with Christ. We are connected to Him. Paul likes to use the phrase, in Christ, and this is one of the ways by which he references that idea. We are now in Christ. We have grown together. We have been merged with Him in His death. He's talking about the death of Christ on the cross. Our faith in Him is the vehicle that allows us to be merged, but what happens to us is when we place our trust in Him, then we are drawn into Christ. So, it's like being immersed in Christ or buried in Christ, surrounded by Christ. Like you would take something and you'd cover it with dough so that it's completely covered. Like you would take something and you'd push it in the middle of it, a pin or something, to stick in something so that it would be absolutely covered. That pin would be covered by what you put it in. He describes this act of transformation as being covered in Christ, joined together with Him, wedded together with Him, blended together with Him. All that is part of the idea that comes by what the word translated here, united with Him. In His death, we are united with Christ. He doesn't mean everybody in the world, but He's talking about those who have placed their trust in Christ, who've had faith in Him. So, the faith in Him combines us with Christ. This language Paul uses throughout his letters to talk about the relationship between the believer and God. We are connected in an inseparable way with Christ. Now, the idea of faith is an important ingredient in seeing what takes place. He doesn't say that every person who comes to the front of the church and says, I give my life to Jesus, is bound to Christ. He doesn't say that every person that's been baptized is bound together with Christ. He's talking about a genuine dependence of faith and trust in Christ. Sometimes I think we're so quick to brand people as having given their life to Christ. Their life may not demonstrate that after it happens, and we should be cautious about this. Because it gives people the false impression that something has taken place in their life that may not have taken place. Paul is talking about here people who have given God their lives without reservation, with no turning back. The kind of commitment that Jesus asked of people who were followers of Him. And this act of surrendering to Him, it causes us to be caught up in the very death of Christ Himself, which was for a sacrifice for us. Now, if we have been united with Him in His death, and you'll notice that he uses the language if. If we've been united with Him in His death, he's talking about not everyone has experienced that. But the person who has trusted Christ and placed their faith in Him should have this experience of being joined together with Christ. If that happens, we will certainly also be united with Him in resurrection. Now, here he talks about the future point of this life with Christ. What happens today is I'm wedded to His death so that His death for me changes my life. His resurrection is a guarantee that in the future, His resurrection will bring me back to life. So the death and resurrection of Christ are the key ingredients in this chapter that he's talking about. I think I may have been guilty sometimes in the past of using this as a discussion of baptism, and it is an illustration that he uses. But the primary point of this is not baptism and the issue of baptism. The primary point of it is what Christ did on the cross and about His resurrection. This is a discussion about how it is that we become free from the grip and the power of sin. And it is through what Christ Himself has done on the cross. His death sets us free. His resurrection guarantees us life, beginning now and continuing throughout eternity. Verse 6, he says, For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless. And he talks about the old self. He's not talking about age. He's talking about the former self, the self that was there before it was wedded to the death of Christ. Now, he uses this issue of the death of Christ to describe what happens in our lives whenever we give ourselves to Christ. I've lived a life that of self-control, self-determination, and I recognize that this is not what God wants for me. And I renounce the former life of living under my own authority and control. And I now accept God's control over my life as the life in the future for me. In that moment of surrender to Him, something dramatic takes place inside of me. No longer am I in control of my life. Christ is. No longer do I depend on my own resources but on His. No longer do I depend on my wisdom or my choices but His. Now, everything is different. This life in the past is gone. And in that way, it is similar to the death of Christ. It is not that I die because I'm buried in the water. Some people believe that that's what happens. You're buried in the water, your old life is washed away. That's not what he's talking about here. He's talking about the cross of Christ made it possible for us to be able to experience this transformation because Christ paid for our sins. He died in our behalf. That enables us, when we're wedded with Him, to claim His sacrifice for ourselves so that all of our sins are forgiven, all of them are taken away. This is a big issue for a lot of people. I've taken surveys in the past and I'll ask people in a large group, how many of you have trouble forgiving yourself for sins in your past? And well more than half the people in every group I've been in and done that hold up their hand. What Paul wants us to understand is, the victory over our sin-filled life has been forgiven, erased, declared innocent, wiped out. And this is because of what Christ has done on the cross. So His death for us is a key ingredient in what takes place in our own life. The old self is crucified with Christ. In other words, the ability for us to put this old life behind us comes because of what Christ did on the cross. Now here's a very important ingredient that Paul raises. We see around us people consistently who come to church, make professions of faith, but continue to live like they were not under God's control. And it causes us to feel sometimes that the power of salvation is not very powerful. We see sometimes that there are people whose lives have been dramatically changed, but they seem sometimes to be in the minority. And so it causes us to think of people as being too sinful for God to transform. I'm sure you've heard people talk about folks they know as if their transformation would be impossible. They talk about a person as they have been, as what they're going to be. That you can't change the spots on a leopard, or stripes on a tiger, I forget which it is. But it's permanent, doesn't change. And that's true of human nature. But what Paul posits here is the idea that in Christ's death, the power of God is available to transform any human being who lays their lives in the hands of God. So we must not think that because people have professed a trust in Christ and their life does not bear out that change, that the power of God is weak. It's not. When the faith and trust of our life is given to God, we are guaranteed that the power of God is available for the transformation of that person. We are crucified with Him so that the old life that we have no longer controls our behavior. Now, he doesn't mean that the moment that takes place, everything is taken away. Every sin is taken away. It's not what he's talking about. He means that the power of sin to control us is no longer ultimate. While sin may have its hold in our life, it is not the controlling force. The controlling force in our lives, once we yield to God, is God Himself. He controls that. Now, once that's done, the transformation is taking place. Not everything in a person's life is changed, but the transformation is taking place. For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body or the power or the control of sin will be rendered powerless. He means it's no longer the controlling force in our lives. What has controlled us in the past will no longer have to control us in the future. That we should no longer be slaves to sin. What happens to the human being whenever you begin to live your life, you practice sin, you build a pattern of it in your life until it controls your behavior. We call them addiction sometimes. We call them bad habits sometimes. We call them just our human nature sometimes. Those things about us that are so deeply ingrained that they actually define us. So that our lives are actually marked by these qualities. You know people that folks will say, well, that guy's a liar or that guy's a thief or that guy's got a bad temper. All these kind of qualities of sinfulness that mark their lives so much that people actually identify them with those qualities. Now because of the presence of Christ and what He's done on the cross, we are guaranteed to be set free from sin. It no longer has its hold over us. It is because of the work that Christ did on the cross. In verse 8, Paul now begins to define even more what he's talking about. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we'll also live with Him. Once the death has taken place, there is also something else that also happens. We now begin to live under His control, under His authority, a new life is now merged out of this old life that we have. So if the death takes place, remember He's talked about the death and the resurrection. If the death part of Christ takes place and that's really happened, then what will happen in our life is a new life will begin to spring out of that old person that was there. That new life, that new person. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again. When your life is under God's control and is transformed like Christ died and was raised again, He never goes back to die again. We know that this change for us is as real as what happened to Christ. His death, His burial, and then His resurrection. So we know that the life that we used to have is passed away, it's gone. It's no longer the power that controls our future. Death no longer has mastery over that person. He's talking about the power of sin. The sin that bleeds to death. It no longer is the controlling factor in a person's life. The death He died, He died to sin once for all. But the life He lives, He lives to God. Now He's talking about the example that Christ gave. Christ died and He cannot die again. Death had no longer any control over Him. The death He died, He died not to the sin in His own life. But the death He died, He died to remove sin so that sin is no longer an issue. Once for all, but the life He lives, He lives to God. This image of Christ's resurrection, death, burial, and resurrection is an image for us. As we have died to sin, no longer do we live under that control, but we live a life open to God. So God now controls our life and our behavior. So the secret to this new life that Christ gives us is this trust in Him and what Christ has done on the cross, His death, His burial, and His resurrection. In verse 11, in the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Paul's direction for us is to say in your own life you must look at yourself, and no matter how repetitive the temptation to sin is in your life, you must consider yourself free from its power. What happens as we turn our lives over to Christ and He comes in and begins to take control, there are still things that hold on to us. In every one of us, there are remnants of the life that we have led in the past that still hold on. What He tells us is that these things, while they're there, they're going to spring up. They are not going to control you. We had a tree in our backyard, and I don't know what kind of tree it was, but we cut it down. And everywhere the roots went in our yard, these little trees would spring up constantly. I mean, we'd mow them down, and they'd just grow right back up. You mow them down, and the grass would grow two inches, and the little tree would grow five. And you look out the yard where we cut this tree down, and we dug its stump out and filled it in, and there's no sign of the tree. But all around where the roots of that tree was, it just kept springing up. It was annoying to us, still is annoying to us, but the tree is gone. It's something of what life is like when you give yourself to God. You will find yourself over and over again facing the temptations that have ruled your life in the past. But how we're to think of this is that these temptations that come, and even our succumbing to those temptations, are merely temporary events in our life. The power of sin to control us, to dominate us, is not there any longer. What we have is the residue of the sin in our life that keeps springing up. All of us have it. And what Paul is going to talk about through the rest of this is how do we deal with the presence of this residue in our life. The beginning point is to say we do consider ourselves free from the permanent power of sin. You have to believe that the power of God that has started working in your life is going to continue to work. And whenever these outbursts of sin come, we have the power of God to get forgiveness and also to strengthen us in resistance to the temptation that comes with this sin. But the key for us is to believe that God has already defeated that power over our lives. The conclusion, therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desire. Now that's our part. How do we deal with this outburst of sin? We don't let it control us. So we're powerless against it and it keeps coming up. How do we deal with it? We recognize that this is a sin that God has already defeated. The Bible says if you resist sin, it will flee. If you resist Satan, he will flee. So our attack on this issue is to say, I know that this temptation has come to me and I've succumbed to it and I now resist it. I acknowledge that I've yielded to it. I ask you, God, to forgive me for this and give me strength to resist the temptation that Satan gives to me. But you have to have confidence that God's ability is greater than the sin that rides in you. What happens to a lot of us is we get to the place in our spiritual lives where we've improved a little bit and we're willing to live with the sins that are not yet defeated. We don't mind that the little trees have sprung up from the roots of sin in our life. We don't try to eradicate them. What Paul's suggesting is we are not to let sin control our bodies. We are to discipline ourselves. We are to exercise control over our human nature and our physical bodies. The practices in the Christian tradition of the disciplines of fasting, the disciplines of prayer, the disciplines of the Christian life are ways by which we take control of our human nature and our human body, saying, I choose to do these things and not let my human nature or my body control my behavior. See, fasting is really at the heart of it a statement to say, I will be in control of my desires and my passions and my hungers. My passions and my hungers will not drive my life. I will drive those things. That commitment to not let our human nature rule our behavior is a critical one for us. To assert the authority that God has given us over our lives and our bodies gives us confidence that we are moving toward what he wants to do in our lives. So don't let sin reign over your mortal bodies so you obey its evil desires. That's a negative side of this. Do not offer parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness. Do not allow yourself to be caught in situations where you're doing things that you know are something God doesn't want you to do. Resist temptation. Stay away from those places and those circumstances in which you'd be drawn in to doing the same things that you've done in the past. It limits on yourself to be outside of those areas that would be a temptation to you. So you do not offer yourself as instruments of wickedness. And instead of offering them as instruments of wickedness, we offer them as instruments to God. Now here's a good principle about how sin is controlled in our lives. Most of the time when we think of something in our lives that is wrong, we think of removing it. But what Paul is describing is replacing it. So that if you have a sin that's a problem to you, you not only try to get rid of it, like for example, you have problems gossiping or telling stories about people, you say, okay, I'm going to make a promise to do is every time that temptation comes to me, I'm not going to let my mouth be controlled by that spirit. Instead I'm going to make sure that when the temptation comes, I only say good things, positive things. So instead of hurting, I am helping. So I'm looking in my life at the things that I see that are wrong with me. What are the opposite of those things? Whenever I'm tempted to do the things that I know have been problems in my life, I move over to the other side and I say, what does God say is the right quality to do in place of this? And then I replace it. Instead of getting angry, he says, if we get angry with people, we sin. But he said to return good for evil and to pray for people who hurt us. So when I'm hurt and I'm really angry and I want to say something bad to someone or say something bad about them, instead I stop and I say something good about, or I pray for them for something good to come to them. All the things that Jesus taught us about how to do are counter active to the things that Satan tells us to do. So you stop those things that are controlling your life and replace them with something else that God has told us is the fitting response to the circumstance. So you offer yourself to God as those who've been brought back, who've been brought from death to life. So you say to God, you have taken the power of sin away from me. I no longer want it to rule my life. And this part of me still holds on. And what I do is I give that to you. And I ask you to place in me the words of life, the instruments of righteousness instead of the instruments of wickedness. Rather offer yourself to God as those who've been brought from death to life and offer your parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. The transformation of our lives begins by God removing the power of sin as the ultimate authority of our lives. Now the struggle starts. Sometimes it's called sanctification, sometimes it's called discipleship, a lot of different names for it. But it's a process of growing to be more and more like Christ. What Paul is going to talk about later in chapter 8 as being conformed to the image of Christ. So the things in your life that you know God does not want, you ought to be careful of the list of those. Know those. Be aware of them. And then you look for those things that are God's substitute for those, the remedies for those. So that whenever they rear up in your life, you say to God, take this away from me. And instead you replace it with behavior, lifestyle, and thinking that God has given us. Verse 14, for sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but you are under grace. Paul closes this section by saying, the victory that you have won by the death of Christ on the cross is that you will no longer be controlled or mastered by sin. This is God's intention in all of our lives. The power of God is greater than any sin that your life holds. There's not anything inside of any of us that cannot be defeated by the power of God. Claiming the victory that God has given us, and depending on the discipline that He gives us. And you have to ask that for God. Give me the discipline to do what I know I should do. The discipline to say, I'm not going to do what Satan has tempted me to do. I will replace it by doing what God has told me is the right thing to do. Develops that process of godliness in our lives. The transforming power of God. Would you bow your heads please for a moment to pray. I want to ask you to reflect on whether or not you believe that the sin that's in your life really is under God's power. All of us have those things in our life that linger. Do you feel that those things that you need to get rid of out of your life are more powerful than God? This is where you have to begin. I do believe, Father, that you can change me. It might be a good thing for you to sit down and list some of the things in your own life that you're not happy about, about your own character and nature. And beside each of those, write down what God would want in place of those. So whenever you find yourself tempted by one of these areas of living, you would know what to ask God to do in place of it. And then there is that element of your will. Give me, Lord, a passion to be righteous and holy. That I would hate this list of things I've written and love the list of remedies you've given me. Sometimes it's not within our strength to change our will, but it is within God's strength to do so. He can cause us to hate the things we used to love, and love the things that we used to hate. That comes by the transformation of our minds, reading the Bible, getting to know what God is like, living with the presence of the Spirit in your life. And day by day, He is changing us to be like Himself. We know, Father, that your great plan for the world was that our lives would be lived in front of this world changed. That they might see in us those qualities that would make them want to know you as we know you. Give us confidence that sin will no longer control our lives. Give us discipline that we will not yield our bodies, our minds, our hearts to the power of sin, but instead yield them to you. That we might know the experience of dying to sin. In the name of Christ, I ask this, amen. Amen.