The Gospel means freedom from sin

Romans 6:1-10
"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? 4 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 live a new life.
 
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
 
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
 
Baptism
Being baptised in water is an important landmark in the life of someone who chooses to follow Jesus. When someone has become a Christian they have pledged allegiance to Jesus Christ – to his life, his death and his resurrection. That’s what it means when it says “we have been united with Christ”. I have been united with Christ, I am “in” Christ because I have recognised what he has done for me and have identified with him and I have committed my life to imitating him.
 
3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? 4 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 live a new life.
 
Being baptised doesn’t do anything on its own – it’s a symbol of salvation not the actual event (that happened some time ago) – but it does set forth dramatically your personal and vital identification with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
 

Action	Symbol	Identifying
Entering the water	Leaving old life behind, life without Jesus, life controlled by sin, without reference to God	With the holy life Jesus lived
Immersed in water	Death & burial, dying to self, to sin, to the old man	With Jesus’ crucifixion & death
Coming up out of the water	Resurrection to new life, born again, eternal life	With Jesus’ resurrection to a new, eternal, life
Joining with everyone else	United with Him & His church	With Jesus’ family, the body of Christ

 

1. Step into the water
   • We start over here, away from God and his church, doing our own thing. Controlled by sin. What Paul calls living as slaves to sin – sin is our master.
   • We realise that we need to turn around, repent and go toward God if we are to know freedom and forgiveness.
   • We step into the water as a symbol that we are leaving that old way of life behind. We are choosing a new way of life – to follow Jesus. We identify with the way he lived his life – perfect and sinless.
2. Immersion
   • We go under the water as a symbol that we are dying to sin, just as Jesus died for us and was buried. As we identify with his death, his sacrifice for us, we also put to death our “old man”, the person who lived before.
3. We come out of the water
   • As a symbol of resurrection from the dead, we have been given a new life. We identify with Jesus’ resurrection.
4. Welcomed into the family
   • We come out of the water to be welcomed by our church friends, our family as a symbol of being a member of the Jesus’ church, his body on earth. We have chosen to live for His kingdom.

 
When someone obediently chooses to be baptised they take part in a simple sacrament that draws our attention to a spiritual event of huge, eternal, cosmic significance. Another soul saved.
 

1 "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
 
Paul replies to the proposition that we might as well carry on sinning with a very emphatic ,”No”, “No way”, “It shall not come to pass”.
Christianity is not just a self-help club, trying to be nice to people, taking inspiration from a very nice man. The gospel, the good news, the reason these people are being baptised is much more fundamental.
 
The message of the gospel is that:

1. We have all sinned and fallen short of what God designed us for – we are all sinners – to use the old fashioned word. We aren’t sinners because we sin – we sin because we are sinners.
   
   CH Spurgeon story – he was approached by a woman who claimed to have attained sinless perfection. Said she had not sinned for years. Then someone stood heavily on her toe, and "her sinless perfection departed her like the early morning dew".
    
2. There is nothing we can do to bridge that gap between us and God.
3. There is a penalty for sin. We all know it, when someone drives into our car we know that there should be justice to put things right. Our rebellion against God therefore also invokes the need for justice.
4. God has paid the penalty through blood, through the death of Jesus his son. That price is enough, no more needs to be paid. At the cross Jesus took the penalty of sin and broke its power. His resurrection shows that the power of sin was dealt a death-blow at the cross.
5. Forgiveness has been offered – all we can do is to believe in Jesus, identify with his life, death and resurrection.
6. At that point we have died to sin, the old man/woman has died. We have left Egypt and the old slave master and now have a new master, Jesus.

Football transfer: Luiz Suarez going from Liverpool to Arsenal? – Brendan Rodgers to Arsene Wenger. Brendan can’t call him in a couple of weeks and say, pop down to do some training at the academy would you? Luis would say, "Sorry Brendan you are no longer my manager, Arsene is. I listen to his instructions now". There is a new manager to whom he answers.
 
It is a fundamental change that is going on when we decide to follow Jesus. So we have a new master, a new Lord, we no longer need to listen to the old master.

Sometimes we are tempted to take grace for granted. It’s OK, I can listen to the old slave master and do what he says cos God will forgive me. That’s not good enough. Why would you listen to the old slave master? Why would you go back to the old bad habit which has been broken for you?
 
Should we sin? – No
Is it possible not to sin? - Yes
Can we live a sinless life – Yes
Do I know anyone who is sinless? – No
 
But why not start with you, today. Identify with Jesus in his life, death and resurrection. Imitate Jesus in his holiness and righteous living.
 
6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
 
This breaks down into 3 sequential steps:

1. The old self was crucified with him so that …
2. The body ruled by sin may be done away with so that … 
3. We should no longer be slaves to sin

It's helpful to reverse the order to understand it better:
 

1. Freedom from slavery by …
2. Disabling the sinful nature, by …
3. Putting our old self to death 

We start as slaves to sin and God’s plan, his mission, is to forge a way to set us free from being slaves to sin, to find a miraculous way across the Red Sea from captivity to freedom. He doesn’t want us to be slaves to sin.

The only way we can be liberated from this tyranny is by having this self-centred nature, this way of living our lives in sin, having it disabled or defeated. It is not eliminated, as we well know, but it can be deprived of power. It is not our physical body that is the problem but our nature – that’s what needs disabling. The way the slave master gets us to live needs to be defeated.

God wants us to no longer be slaves to sin.
To be set free from this slavery we need to disable the our nature’s tendency to sin.

And how can this be done? By crucifying our old self. This isn’t the “nature”, the “body of sin” we just talked about but our former self, not our current self but our old humanity. We put this to death by identifying with Jesus in his life, death & resurrection. It’s a step of faith.
When the truth of what he has done to rescue us from our sinful state dawns on us and we turn to him in repentance, this is what happens:

1. The old self was crucified with him so that …
2. The body ruled by sin may be done away with so that … 
3. We should no longer be slaves to sin

 
It’s not that we are unable to sin – but that we are now able not to sin.
(We aren’t sinners because we sin – we sin because we are sinners.)


The Gospel means freedom from sin.
So Christians are no longer slaves to sin.
We live in a different country under a different master.
We play for a different club with a new manager.
We were slaves, we are now free.
Our old life has been buried and we are raised to a new life with resurrection power for eternity.
 
So, finally, we can say with Paul, that we identify with Jesus in that
 
10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
 
We have died to sin once for all as we repent and follow him. We are given new life, life that starts today and will one day become eternal life with our God, our redeemer.

A life free from slavery and free to be without sin.
 
The gospel means freedom from sin
 
Is that not exceedingly good news?
Worthy of celebration as these people get baptised.
Worthy of joy and thanksgiving in our lives.
 
Let us die to sin once and for all, let us live life, our new life, to God.