Sermon Tone Analysis

Are we Truly Free? *Rom.**

6:1-18*

EBC   7~/06~/08

 

  If you have been on earth this past weekend you’re likely heard much about freedom.

This is national freedom.

What we want to talk about this morning is personal freedom.

Charles Stanley said it so aptly “even in the land of the free many individuals are held captive by sinful habits and mindsets”.

Personal freedom has to do with a decision to protect the heart, mind and body from evil influences.

Can a person addicted to painkillers be free, can a person bent on revenge be free?

We need to ask ourselves the question – “does this take my focus off God”?

 

/Paul gives us three instructions for attaining freedom:/

/ /

*3-5- *Christ is teaching us about our identification with Christ.

As we were identified with Adam (*Rom.

5:12**,19*) in sin and condemnation, now we are identified with Christ.

Warren Wiersbe- Christian living depends upon Christian learning.

*/After salvation I am now identified with Christ.

I died with Him, I now live in Him./*

I now have a living union with Him.

I have a new relationship concerning sin.

J. Vernon McGee- we are joined today to a living Christ.

In “other words, our sins have already been judged; we are already raised; and we are yonder seated with Christ in the heavenlies”.

My friend, there are only two places for your sins: either they were on Christ when He died for you over nineteen hundred years ago—because you have trusted Him as your Savior—or they are on you today, and judgment is ahead for you.

There is no third place for them.

*I.

Know (6-7)*

* * Knowing this- to have knowledge of.

These are some things we ought to know.

*/This has to do with the mind/*.

A.

We are dead to sin (*2*)

    1.

*/Not serve sin- /*The believer has a new relationship with sin- we don’t have to do it anymore.

2.

John MacArthur- /For a Christian to live out the fullness of his new life in Christ, for him to truly live as the new creation that he is, he must know and believe that he is not what he used to be./

    3.

Understanding who we are in Christ is essential to having a victorious Christian life.

a.

Pulpit Commentary- Our former sin-possessed and sin-dominated personality being now *crucified with* Christ, dead, and done away with we are now no more slaves to sin.

B.

We shouldn’t serve sin (6)We must know that we aren’t under sin’s control and will never be again.

1.

We need to understand that the old man was crucified with Christ.

    2.

/Destroyed- to be made of none effect/.

Paul is not describing an experience that we may have, he is describing a fact.

3.

*Hosea 4:6**- *

 

*II.

Reckon (6:11) /this has to do with the heart/*

*  *A.

Reckon- to add to one’s account.

This simply means to believe what God says in his word is true in your life.

B.

Paul didn’t say to feel that way or to understand it but to simply claim it as truth.

We now have a divine nature.

C.

Warren Wiersbe- Reckoning is a matter of faith that issues in action.

It is like endorsing a check: if we really believe that the money is in the checking account, we will sign our name and collect the money.

1.

*David Needlam- */Birthright: Christian, Do You Know Who You Are?/- Until a believer accepts the truth that Christ has broken the power of sin over his life, he cannot live victoriously, because in his innermost being he does not think it is possible.

He believes that things will go on as normal.

a.

*Phil.

2:13**-* /For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure/.

*III.

Yield (13) /this has to do with the will./*

Yield- to place at one’s disposal.

A literal meaning would be “Do not constantly allow sin to reign in your mortal body so that you are constantly obeying its lusts.

Neither constantly yield your members of your body as weapons [or tools] of unrighteousness to sin; but once and for all yield yourselves to God”. 

  A.

How are we to yield -

    1.

*Rom.**

12:1**- *There must be in the believer’s life that final and complete surrender of the body to Jesus Christ.

a.

Our bodies are God’s tools in this battle.

2.

John MacArthur- In this present life, *sin* will always be a powerful force for the Christian to reckon with.

But it is no longer master, no longer lord, and it can and must be resisted.

The apostle’s admonition to believers, therefore, is for them to *not let sin reign*, because it now has no right to reign.

It now has no power to control a believer unless the believer chooses to *obey its lusts.

*

      a.

*1 Peter 2:9-11**- *

      b.

John MacArthur- God’s will can be active in our lives only as our wills are submissive to His.

      c.

When we yield to Satan our bodies are member of unrighteousness, when we yield to God we are members of righteousness.

God’s will can be active in our lives only as our wills are submissive to Him. 

Ness.

*  *