Sermon Tone Analysis

Select all the text in this box and paste your sermon here... Walking in a New Life

(Romans 6:1-14)

Introduction:

The title of our lesson this morning is . . . .

and we are kind of at a demarcation line in our study in Romans.

When missionaries move to a new country, they attempt to enter that new culture.

They take language classes, spend as much time as they can with the people, and slowly alter the patterns of their life to match those of the new culture.

This is what Paul is talking about in this chapter.

The new believer has entered a new realm of existence and therefore begins the process of changing old habits and patterns to fit the new way of life he or she has chosen.

But here the analogy of the missionary is insufficient, for the believer has also changed citizenship and joined the commonwealth of heaven (Phil 3:20; Eph 2:19).

A different plane of existence.

The believer has experienced justification (been declared not guilty; innocent, and declared righteous by God) and now enters a new life, life of sanctification (the process of being set apart for God via living by the Spirit).

A line of sorts has been crossed.

But we might need to clear up a little misconception: most people believe, or think, that sanctification begins sometime after initial salvation, or justification.

Paul tells us in chapter 6 that it doesn’t.

In actuality, justification is the first moment of sanctification; it launches the process.

In the same way that accepting Jesus as savior begins the process of knowing him as Lord, the gift of justification begins the process of sanctification.

What then is sanctification?

Again it is the process of being set apart for God by the Holy Spirit.

It is God working in our lives making us over into the very image of Jesus.

It is the continual working of His grace within us.

Of course, one of the dangers of preaching grace is that some will misunderstand the truly glorious nature of God’s amazing grace as an excuse to sin with abandon, right?

Much of this is willfully done, I believe.

I believe that as we approach the Christian life all of us, to one degree or another, will use grace as an occasion to indulge our old man, our old sin natures.

And I think we need to be honest about this, that as Christians, we are subject to doing this.

Who among us can honestly say that when being tempted to sin we have not thought to ourselves, Hey, I’m saved.

God will forgive me if I do this.

We don’t need to be lying to others, ourselves, and to God by denying this truth, do we?

But grace does cover our sin, doesn’t it?

The other side of this coin, however, is in denying that we have the strength and power to resist sin.

Amen.

Paul tells us that we, in fact, do have that new life, that new strength, that new power.

Can we truly live a sinless life?

Or does it just not matter whether we sin?

So, what’s the deal?

These are the two extreme ends of the question, right?

How does Paul resolve this seeming contradiction?

Let’s look at our passage.

I. Baptism and New Life (Rom.

6:1-4)

(1 Jesus called the other day to say he was passing through and [wondered if] he could spend a day or two with us.

I said, “Sure.

Love to see you.

When will you hit town?”

I mean, it's Jesus, you know, and it's not every day you get the chance to visit with him.

It's not like it's your in-laws and you have to stop and decide whether the advantages outweigh your having to move to the sleeper sofa.

That's when Jesus told me he was actually at a convenience store out by the interstate.

I must have gotten that Bambi-in-headlights look, because my wife hissed, “What is it?

What's wrong?

Who is that?”

So I covered the receiver and told her Jesus was going to arrive in eight minutes, and she ran out of the room and started giving guidance to the kids in that effective way that Marine drill instructors give guidance to recruits.

My mind was already racing with what needed to be done in the next eight, no seven, minutes so Jesus wouldn't think we were reprobate loser slobs.

I turned off the TV in the den, which was blaring some weird scary movie I'd been half watching.

There was this beautiful vampire with blood dripping from her mouth.

What was I thinking about watching that?

But I could still hear screams from our bedroom, so I turned off the reality show it was tuned to.

There was a chorus line of scantily clad, muscular men dancing away!

What was my wife thinking of?! Then I went to turn off the kids' set out on the sun porch, because I sure didn't want to have to explain what they were watching to Jesus, either, six minutes from now.

My wife had already thinned out the magazines that had been accumulating on the coffee table.

She put Christianity Today on top for a good first impression.

Five minutes to go.

I looked out the front window, but the yard actually looked great thanks to my long, hard work, so I let it go.

I had even missed church last Sunday in order to get it in good shape.

What could I improve in four minutes anyway?

I did notice the mail had come, so I ran out to grab it.

Mostly it was Netflix envelopes and a bunch of catalogs tied into recent purchases, so I stuffed it back in the box.

Jesus doesn't need to get the wrong idea three minutes from now about how much on-line shopping we do.

I ran back in and picked up a bunch of shoes left by the door.

Tried to stuff them in the front closet, but it was overflowing with heavy coats and work coats and snow coats and pretty coats and raincoats and extra coats.

We live in the South for drying out loud; why'd we buy so many coats?

I squeezed the shoes in with two minutes to go.

I plumped up sofa pillows, my wife tossed dishes into the sink, I screamed some more at the kids, and she screamed at the dog.

With one minute left I realized something important: Getting ready for a visit from Jesus is not an eight-minute job.

Then the doorbell rang.

Most of us are familiar with this passage we just read from Romans, aren’t we?

I wonder, though, what believers imagine they are going to judged on when they do meet Jesus?

Paul says we have been raised to newness of life, right?

And that is what we are going to be judged on; to what extent have we been living yielded lives, to what extent we have actually been walking in newness of life.

Look at your Bibles, verses 1-4.

(2 That story of the family meeting Jesus is silly, right?

But I tell you what is even sillier: that we can somehow hide our lifestyles from the One who has given us new life.

It’s dumb, right?

And yet we do it every day, don’t we?

All of us do.

(3 Paul wanted to make sure that all believers understood that grace in no way means we are free to live any old way we want.

Look back at 5:20.

We have to get a grip on grace.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus gives us a clear dynamic of grace, doesn’t He?

The story of the one son asking, and receiving, his inheritance and then squandering it on wine, women, and song is one that resonates with many of us, right?

But some of us, especially those who have long been in the church, are blind to the gracelessness of the older brother.

He bore the responsibility of son-ship out of a grudging obligation, not out of love for his father.

He resented the prodigal; he resented grace.

He had lived a right life, hadn’t he? Obeying the rules, doing the things he was supposed to be doing.

This bum of a brother got a fatted calf and celebration; he got nothing; he felt gypped, swindled Just like the Pharisees that Jesus was preaching to this older brother probably had a long list of rules he obeyed that he vainly imagined made him right with his father.

Where was the love, though?

Where was the filial devotion?

What we have are two different ways of living.

Both of them equally wrong.

Both of them potentially disastrous.

One of them, almost certainly disastrous.

(4 The prodigals can sometimes at least see grace, can’t they?