Romans 6:1-4 “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Today's episode talks about how important it is that we accept that we are dead to sin. It also talks about what it means to live in newness of life. It ends with talking about how important grace is! Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Dead To Sin
Romans 6:1-4 “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
The other day I talked about how our sins are not remembered. Once you have confessed your sins, God forgets about them. He isn’t keeping a long list of all of our sins. List keeping and score keeping is something we do, not God. The episode called Your Sins Are Not Remembered talks about how we are saints who sometimes sin and not sinners who sometimes get it right. If you haven’t listened to that episode I encourage you to go back and listen to it. The information in the episode is information I learned in my class and I thought it was a great new way to look at ourselves and sin.
Today I want to look at where in scripture it talks about us being dead to sin. There may be several places, but I picked this one to start with. The beginning of this verse is actually said in response to Romans 5:20 which ends with, “but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” Romans 5:20 is saying the greater the sin the greater God’s grace. Then this verse picks up asking if we should continue to sin so that we can have more grace. Then the verse says, by no means! Yes, where there is sin, there is grace, but we don’t need to sin to receive grace. God’s grace is always available to us.
The next line says, “How can we who died to sin go on living it it?” Jesus took our sins to the cross and gave His life so that we could be free from them. This verse is asking us how can we go on sinning when we have been freed from them? This is something a lot of us have a hard time wrapping our heads around. It is something easy to say, “Jesus died for our sins.” It is a lot harder to actually believe that He died for our sins. It might be easy for us to believe it for our friends, and family. But believing that He died our sins, yours and mine, is sometimes harder than we would think. We like to hold onto our sins. We like to let them define us. This isn’t what God wants for us. He doesn’t want us to hold onto them and He doesn’t want us to define ourselves by our sins. What He wants is for us to repent and turn back to Him. He wants us to forget about them just as He does.
The next few lines say, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” This is pretty remarkable. I like how this part says, “we too might walk in the newness of life.” How many of us want to live in a newness of life? I looked up what this phrase means to try and give you, and myself, a better understanding of this phrase. I found an article titled “Walking in Newness of Life.” (Click Here) for article. Here is what she said about this particular verse:
“To walk in newness of life requires us to abandon our judgmentalism and to do God’s justice rather than continuing in our self-serving habits (Rom. 6:12–13). As instruments of God’s justice, believers act in ways through which the life-giving power of God’s grace builds up people and communities in Christ. This is far more active than merely refraining from bad behavior. Our calling is to become instruments of justice and reconciliation, working to root out the effects of sin in a troubled world.”
This definitely sounds like something I would love to do. I would love to abandon being judgmental and do God’s justice rather than continuing my self-serving habits. The articles talks about how we need to change the way we think. Everything I seem to be learning about and reading about lately is all focused on a renewal of the mind. In our class they keep talking about the old saying, “What would Jesus do.” They say we shouldn’t be as focused on what Jesus would do, we should be more focused on “What would Jesus think.” Jesus did not have self-serving habits. He put others first, always. If we could start to think more like Jesus we would see the world in a whole new light. Imagine if you tried to see people how Jesus sees people. He doesn’t get annoyed when people ask questions, unless it is the Pharisees who are just trying to trap him. He doesn’t brush people off because He is too busy, He makes time for them. He doesn’t get really upset if His plans don’t go the way He thought they would, he adapts.
We can say to ourselves that it was easier for Jesus because He is fully God as well as fully human. However, He didn’t use his divinity while He was on earth. He only used the power He received from the Holy Spirit and then He left us with that power when He went to join His father. We have the same power Jesus used. However, we won’t ever be able to fully use and rely on that power if we don’t have a renewal of our mind. We need to walk in newness of life and that requires us to think like Jesus did. When you are in your car and you are dealing with bad drivers, think to yourself, what would Jesus think of this driver? When you are out and about and you see homeless people on the streets, think to yourself, what would Jesus think of this person? If we tried to think like Jesus thinks in all situations, it would not only change our thoughts, it would change our actions as well.
For instance, before thinking like Jesus thinks, we might see a person in need and just pass them by for one reason or another. I am sure we could come up with plenty of justifications as to why we can’t help them. However, if we see them and think of them as Jesus would, we would stop and see how we could help them. Another example is our motivation behind our actions. If we see a homeless person, we may give money because we feel guilty if we don’t. However, if we think of that person like Jesus does then we would give money, food, gift card, or whatever we do because we love that person and we want to help them.
The article I mentioned above said, “As instruments of God’s justice, believers act in ways through which the life-giving power of God’s grace builds up people and communities in Christ. This is far more active than merely refraining from bad behavior. Our calling is to become instruments of justice and reconciliation, working to root out the effects of sin in a troubled world.” This newness in life is not just saying I will not longer sin, or do any bad behaviors. It is going beyond that. I like how the author put it “believers act in ways through which the life-giving power of God’s grace builds up people and communities in Christ.” I think grace is so important. Jesus definitely offered so much grace. I think if we lead our lives with grace and love in the forefront of our minds in every interaction we had, our lives would be transformed and so would those around us.
I love the saying “sprinkle kindness like confetti.” What if we did the same with grace. I think we worry if we offer people grace, we are saying what they are doing is ok. If we look at all the interactions Jesus had with sinners, He offered love and grace. The woman caught in adultery, did He condemn her? Did He look at her disapprovingly so she knew what she did was wrong? Did He tell her what she did was wrong, so she would know? No, He gave her love and grace. Why do we think it is our job to judge others? Jesus was truly the only one with the power to judge and He didn’t. If He could offer so much love and grace, why do we think we need to judge and condemn? I challenge you, the next time you want to judge or condemn, or politely point out someone’s shortcomings, stop and ask yourself, “What would Jesus think?” Then, instead of doing what you want to do, offer them love and grace. You can affirm someone without agreeing with them. You can offer someone love and grace and still not approve of what they are doing. Jesus didn’t approve of what the woman was doing and yet he still gave her grace. It is not our job to judge and it is not our job to fix everyone. Both of those jobs belong to God. Our job is just to pass God’s love and grace onto everyone we meet. One last thing, I know we think we are helping when we are mentioning how our loved ones are falling short of living up to God’s expectations. We are pointing out what they are doing wrong so they can change, I get it. However, I just ask you to think about how you would feel. Would you be more open to talking to someone and to hearing what they had to say if they were showering you with love and grace, or judgement and correction?
Dear heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to think like Jesus thinks. Renew our minds so we can live in the newness of life Jesus earned for us. Lord, I feel you want us to lead with love and grace, please help us to do that. Please help change the way we think. Anytime we have the desire to judge or to condemn please remind us to offer grace and love instead. Lord, we can’t do any of this without you, help us to remember that. Help us to lean into you when we are struggling. Help us to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to not only guide our actions, but our thoughts too. We love you Lord, you are so amazing. You have give us so much at great costs to you and we want you to do know we are so grateful. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me in this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I would like you to all consider doing a witness for the podcast. Testimony is how we build up faith and we all play a part in that. As you can see from the various witnesses we have had so far, everyone has a story. It can be as simple as God helping you pass a test, or get a job, to God working some miracle in your life. It doesn’t matter what your story is, it will help build the faith of others when they see God working in our everyday lives. Just think about it and if you feel called to do and aren’t sure how, let me know, I would be happy to help. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I. Have a blessed day!