Lesson 22a
Romans 6:12-17 · Courtney Hemenway · Nov 4, 2018
Romans (2018-21), No. 41
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261912462419

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We are on lesson 22. You're a good prayer. Yeah, he is. He don't miss a thing. Just because I talk a lot, I thought you were gonna... Lesson 22 of the Romans class. We are going over the verses, chapter 6, verses 12 through 17. So I'm going to read, I like to kind of go through the whole section. A lot of times we focus just on a word, one section, one thought. And I always like to get the gist of the whole passage that we're looking at. So we'll go ahead and read Romans 6, 12 and through 18. So, Romans 6, beginning in verse 12.

Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body. And I am going to sneeze. No, you ain't. No, I'm not. Okay. I think. And do not go and present the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be.

Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness. But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. And having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness."

Good passage, great passage. Romans 6 is just a reminder too. Well, we'll get into it here in the questions. So let's begin with question 1. What does the word therefore refer back to? So, Romans 12, therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you will obey its lust and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. We'll get to the what's the therefore, this stuff after the therefore, but for the question we're going to look at What is the therefore therefore? What is the general principle when you see in Paul's writing when he says therefore?

He's summing things up. Summing things up? Well it refers back to what was said in the previous passage. Yeah. And it was given away in the question. What does the word therefore refer back to? So the therefore refers back, it comes to a point and it's therefore. So therefore generally means that Paul has laid out a set of facts or conditions that he now explains what the results are or the benefit or the action that results from knowing the facts that he just presented. So, he lays out all this stuff and he tells you all these great facts and then he says, well because of all this, therefore this, either action, benefit, whatever, he lays it all out.

I remember thinking of this one, therefore, I think of this, Bill Gothard years ago, and this has stuck with me, I think I've told you this before, and I am just kind of crazy about this when I hear it on the news or people, especially politicians. But, when somebody says but, I've told you this before, Bill Gothard said this, and this was 38 years ago, 39 years ago, 40 years ago, and it still sticks with me. And I want you to be as crazy about it when you hear it now. If somebody goes, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-but, Bill Gothard said, don't forget everything you said before the but, because what you really mean is this.

And you know, when you think about it, it's like, well, you know, I really didn't mean to do that, you know, but, Just think about that when somebody says, but. It's kind of like therefore here. Whenever I hear the word, oh well, but, I kind of go, well you really didn't mean what you said here. Or, you kind of justified, but you really wanted to do this.

Therefore and but are those two words that when I see them I immediately hear in scripture. Therefore, you always look back to see what Paul was laying out. So, if the principle... It sounds like an excuse. But, yeah, I mean, just think about it when somebody says that, you know, that they lay out this but. Anyway, we digress. It was just therefore and but are those two words, and when I hear it I have immediate reactions. So, if that's the principle, what is therefore referring back to?

Is it Romans 3.21? No, well, sort of, but really it's referring to the first part of 6. I think it's talking about the fact that buried with Christ and we're dead to our old man and you know the whole death, burial, resurrection stuff explained in Romans 6.

Yeah, and I go back to the very beginning of this class I thought that again the fascination that the books of the Bible are not laid out chronologically. They're laid out so more things are revealed As you go through the scriptures, that's why, you know, if you look at the chronology of the epistles of Paul, they're not laid out that way in the Bible. They're laid out differently. And when you look at it, and Newell has that in the back of his book about that, and lays it out.

Well, Romans is the first one. So this is the foundational material. This is the bedrock. This is, you know, as an engineer, if you don't do the foundation right, everything else goes askew. It's the same principle here. All these truths that we're laying out now are the foundation for everything else. If you really don't grasp a hold of these elements, it's very hard to go on, I think, in Paul's other epistles to see what he means if you don't understand this.

Yeah, like I said, I've gone through all those verses, you know, Galatians 2.20, I'll have been crucified, all those things. How do you, you know, Colossians 3 where, you know, I've died and now I'm hid with Christ in God. How does that make sense if you don't understand what's right here?

So, it's critical that everybody understands this. So, what I want to do is just quickly go back to see what we have learned or the facts that have been revealed in Romans 6, 1 through 11. Because we get up to 11 and so he's given us all these facts and then he says, okay, therefore. So, I just want to kind of do the bullet list, which is an amazing amount of facts that have been revealed in these first 11 verses.

So, in verse 2, how shall we who died to sin still live in it? So we've died to sin. Romans 6. All of us who have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into His death. So we've been baptized. What does that mean? Placed into. We have been placed into Christ. and we've been baptized into his death, so we have been associated with that death. We've been placed into his death, and also the resurrection, and all the other.

So, Romans 6.4, we have been buried with him through baptism into death. So, we are buried with all these truths. We've died to sin, baptized into Christ, baptized into his death, buried with him. 6.4, continuing on, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. So we've talked about the death, now what's the other part? We have newness of life. Very important, and we'll get to that where the reckon yourself dead to sin and alive under God, these are all the same principles that are coming out here.

Romans 6.5, for if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we also will be in the likeness of His resurrection. Man, we've been united to Him, and we'll also be in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him, one of the bedrocks of our identification principles, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so we would no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. So we have been crucified. Critical principle of identification. What? So we would no longer be slaves to sin. Before the crucifixion, our co-crucifixion, we were slaves to sin.

That's the only option you had. Then we get to 8. Now, if we have, or since we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. What an amazing truth! We will live with Him. 6-9. Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again. Death no longer is master of him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. So if Christ is never to die again, where are we? In Him. What does that mean for us? We're in newness of life. Never to die. Never to be separated.

11. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Again, the principle of wrecking yourself dead. We've been crucified. We've been separated. We're no longer slaves. We still have the sin within the flesh, but we don't have to respond to it. Before, that's all you could do. But the other half, which I think is every bit as important, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Wrecking yourself alive to God.

So, Weiss says it this way, in verses 1-10, Paul is presented two main facts. First, the believer stands in a position of a permanent relationship of freedom to the sinful nature and need not obey it. And second, the divine nature is imparted by which he is given both the desire and the power to do God's will. So again, those principles have come out, basically the death and being alive. two critical principles. Newell puts it this way.

This looks back at the first part of chapter 6 in which our death with Christ unto sin has been asserted. Our relationship to sin being now the same as Christ, we have done with it in death and burial. Notice that these present verses of exhortation are built wholly upon the fact that we died with Christ, we reckon ourselves dead because we participated in Christ's death. Therefore, we dare to refuse sin's domination. We owe sin nothing. We are dead to it, justified from it, and living in another sphere.

So those are all the truths that is before the therefore. So Paul is saying, because of all this, that we just went through a whole raft of truths that are just bedrock principles for us as believers. Now, therefore. So because of all these truths, now, what is the benefit? What is the action? What is the result of that? Is now beyond. What is the therefore? Beyond. Therefore, these truths.

So, looking at question two, we'll get into all the truths after the therefore, as we go through these following questions. So question two, we are not allowed to sin to exercise kingly power in our desiring bodies. How do we do that? We have to walk in the spirit. Good, walk in the spirit. That you believe you are in newness of life. Newness of life? We present ourselves to God as being alive from the dead. All good answers?

So Romans 12 becomes, is before Romans 6. Romans 12 is before. Present our bodies. Oh, as living sacrifices. No, these are all, you know, beyond 6. Because at 7 you'll get into, you know, Paul's struggle fleshly. Trying to do it himself. And then you get into 8, which is, therefore there is no condemnation. And your second verse, which I always forget. For the new principle of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the principle of sin and death. Yeah. So, that's kind of, you know, now once Paul realized I can't do it, there's no condemnation.

And this principle now starts to manifest itself through the verses, although some are attributed to Israel and some of the... But it starts to... And we start to present it through our body. Yeah, I mean, there are a whole bunch of things. We're to be ambassadors of Christ. We're being conformed to the image of Him. We're being transformed. We're being renewed. All those things will manifest Christ. And that's in our bodies here. The guy needs to make a list of it. Yeah, well there's tremendous, and the things that I've been working on, on faith, all these things I've put together, there's a huge amount of things that are, by faith, if we understand them and believe them, facts, we know the facts through the scripture, but then it's believing them, faith, by faith.

That makes you want to die. What does Paul say? To die is gain. I can get off this planet any time. It's like all the wonders here that we have, a fallen world, all the stress. We're about ready to go through this weird political season and all the craziness and all this. Guess what? Do we have a political season in heaven? Is there any political ads on the mansions? Do we have political signs that say vote for Fred? None of that. We don't have any of that.

We don't have to pay mortgages. We don't have to work for a living and get checks. We don't have to do any of that. The ultimate border security there. We don't need to send the troops to the border. We have no border problems. All those things, do you realize that all that disappears when we step into eternity? No sewer issues. Yeah, I mean, there's just, it's, why do we want to, nobody... No offenses.

Yeah, I mean, there's, why would anybody want to, you know, come back? You know, anybody that goes and steps into an attorney, do you think there's one individual that goes, you know, I kind of liked it, I like playing golf on Saturday. You know, is there anybody in this, you know, that would choose that? Absolutely not, sir.

And the other thing I think you guys have taught me is that God literally is sovereign and people get all worried about it and I kind of mess up that way too I'm thinking oh my goodness if this person gets in the office we're doomed but God's unfolding the end of the world in spite of all the politicians getting what we deserve I get wound up in all the politics. I think it's fun. But the way I do it is I say I equate it to a football game. It's exciting, it's this, but it means absolutely nothing. So all the politics and all that we wind up and we get wound up in, does it really mean anything in the eternal realm? Not a thing. the eternal realm.

Yeah. Nothing. Right. Zippo. It's all grace. We have nothing. So again, it's just nice to be here, but better to be in heaven. Do we have a responsibility here? I think the principle is, yeah, we're being conformed. We're to be salt. We're to be light. We're to be ambassadors.

When he starts to talk about reckoning and presenting and these kinds of things, is that a responsibility that's placed on me as a believer? Do I need to orient myself to the truths that have been given? It's a responsibility on Christ. The facts don't change.

But it's our responsibility to reckon and consider or consider that and if you look at the Greek it's a middle or whatever active. Yeah, or the middle one, where we both... Middle voice. Middle voice. And so, yeah, we have a responsibility to do that. We are to consider...

It doesn't change anything about the fact of who we are in Christ, in that position. It won't change, it won't make a lick of difference as far as the position goes. But from our conditional standpoint, yes, we have a responsibility to reckon ourselves dead and alive unto God. Dead unto sin and alive unto God.

That's our responsibility to do. Now, you know, you can do that or not do that, and then, you know, there's... Consequences if you don't, if you have sin there will be some consequences possibly for your actions. But being aligned with God and realizing that, tremendous benefits. So do I also have a responsibility not to allow sin to be reigning in my mortal body? Do I have that responsibility? I think because you have to reckon yourself, you have to.

If not, he would have removed it completely from us. He's allowed us to have the sinful flesh still. So he's allowed us to have that choice. But I was thinking along that too, that it's not that it's a law, it's more that you're brought to the point where, what he says there, if I've been crucified, and dead to sin, why would I live in it any longer?

It's insane. It doesn't make any sense anymore. It's insane, but we do it anyway. And that's the strangest thing. And that's where I think it comes back to the faith issue. Do I believe this stuff? Am I dead to sin? And a lot of times, yeah, I believe it. Look over here. And I fall away.

And it's still, you know, it is our active participation in this. And I think it's still the faith. Faith is the underlying, again, the bedrock. And you look at all the stuff, like I said, I've been studying faith, and it's everywhere. That's everything that's related to it. From our salvation, you've been saved by grace through faith. You believe it, what the facts are. Everything is related to faith.

Because if you don't believe it, are you going to do it? But it's already been done. But there's things like this, whether you reckon it or not, does that change the fact? No. It doesn't at all. It may in our condition, you know, I choose sin and I shoot somebody. There could be consequences of that. But it doesn't change my position on the fact that I have been crucified with Christ and now placed into Him.

What I was going to say is Like I'm listening to them, Pavel Riches, the Christ series. And like, Bernal says stuff like, so you have to try to be a really good person. You know, you know you're supposed to be a good guy. Are you supposed to just pull up your bootstraps and just do everything in your power to be good? Because it's not you. You can't be good. Only Christ can look through you. And I believe it, but it's confusing because It's sort of like if you're tempted to do something, it's just, you know what I'm saying?

Let's put it this way. How did Paul do in chapter 7? Pulling himself up by the bootstraps. How did he do? He failed miserably. And when you think about who Paul is, he spent, what, three years in the desert with the Lord? Personal times. And he can't beat his own sin by his own efforts.

How are we doing? We already are good. Yeah, positionally. It's when we take our eyes off Christ, or we don't believe the truths he says about us, and we're dead to sin and all these different things, that's when we conditionally wander away. Yeah, and I really think that in 6.1-10, we're told about how to live a life of freedom from sin.

I think Weiss called it, what term did he use, but I call it the mechanics of what God did to get us free. But I don't get to live in that freedom unless I reckon and do the things that he's telling me to do, which is I must believe him. And I can't believe him with doubt. I want to be free, and this is the pathway to being free. freedom from sin but alive unto God. I want to live the life that he is talking about free in Christ. Not from the standpoint that I must know all the little nuances, but I do know this mechanical process that God went through to free me from sin. So I trust him about that. I believe him.

And if he says, okay, I want you to just present your body to me, you present your members to me, you reckon you do these things, They're not in order to get, but they are in order to live in the life that's already mine. I can't live in it by being passive, and I can't live in it by being aggressively active legally. I can't do it either way. I just have to trust him when he tells me. And if I do, I get to live in that life. If I don't, as we said, you end up mediocre. That's how we grow.

Well, see, that's what I, you know, my other thing that the Lord is beating me up on, is sovereignty of God and His love for us. In sovereignty, does He allow me to dance to the music occasionally? Sure. That's a hard concept, but He does. And it's for His purposes, which is, okay, wander here, have that work out for you.

And it's to draw us back to Him. and our dependency upon him, all these things, he's working for our growth. So that's where he becomes experiential? I think in a walk, again, he uses all things. I go back to the all things. And that can be in blessings or trials or anything. And that's to do it for his purposes, which is ultimately for us to have fellowship with him and to glorify him. So all that he does, he brings us to the mighty shoulders. Well, in my own life when I do that, it's like he draws me back and I realize I'm not who I am. That's the first time I'm online. I'm not acting as who I am in Christ. Stupid. Insane.

He's the one doing it all. He's the one working in me. He's the one convincing and convicting me of all these truths. I think he's also the one that's convincing and convicting us that he's able to do what he's done. You know, there's one, and it's a song, and I kind of am thinking about this. It's about, it's the same power, it's the same power that we look and like what the apostles did, and you know, the same spirit, and these miracles, and some of these things, and the same power that saved me, the same spirit, is the one that indwells me. Go figure that one.

You know, it isn't, was it, have we got the discount variety version? It's kind of worn off after a few thousand years. That spirit's really kind of old. It's not quite as active as it was. No, it's the same spirit. Think about that one. Same one working in you today is the one that worked a thousand years ago. One that had miracles that were doing things. Same one in you.

And that's like, do we really understand that? Again, by faith, do we understand that? Some of the gifts have disappeared, some of those things, but I think he still performs miracles. Positionally we can. That's what service is, right? What's that? I don't understand the question. You were talking about I can still go back and listen to the music. I think what happens there vis-a-vis the spirit, you begin to realize, I'm in bondage to this. This is not something that I can just jump in and jump out of. If I go back and listen to the music, it's got me by the throat. But God's Word has given me the information for me to be totally free from that, and I can say no, but I spent time in it. yesterday, and I didn't like it. For the first time in my life, I didn't like it. I wanted to be free from it. And God says, okay, here's how you do it.

Well, I think it's the growth. Originally, I think there's that initial conversion and everything is just spiritual. And then reality hits. And then you kind of go through, why am I doing this? Am I really saved? All the doubts and all the different things.

But that's to draw you back to Him. And then as you grow in this and your faith grows, then it's not as appealing. You may do it, but it's less. And then the next time, why? No. And ultimately he's working that out in you, that desire that's fleshly, he works it out of you.

I think Mike's talking about unbiblical faith. Well, I'm talking about this, you know, you can read these verses and you can read the reckoning and the presenting part and you can think well that's all well and good for some guy who went to seminary or somebody who's farther down the road than me.

But really it's pretty simple that every one of us who walk in the flesh, we're in bondage today. And I think the Spirit has to teach us that this is not a free will issue. This is a bondage issue. And I want to be free. Now the best way to teach me in jail, and so that I could say, I don't want to be here. This is ridiculous. I'm subject to my sin nature.

And then God comes along and says, well, no, you're not anymore. I took care of it, and here's how I did it, and here's what I want. If you want to live free, then you reckon that I did it, and you trust me. You just give me your life, give me your members, and you will live free. And I go, well, that's better than this other thing.

And I think that's where you get, you know, Not that, you know, it's where rest and peace and all those things come. If you're struggling and, you know, doing this, is that, you know, the world does not offer rest or peace. So if you're not resting, you know, it's still based on you need to know the facts, you need to know all that, the Holy Spirit working in you and all that. But a lot of times you don't have the rest and when you're struggling. And when you do have rest in what He's told you about Him, and as you live that life out, there is peace, there is rest. He promised us that. There's all of them. Yeah, I mean there's all of them.

Well, what is the fruit of the spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience. Guess what? If you're walking in the spirit, what is manifest or in your life? Love, joy, peace, all those things. Remember, it's singular, so it should be all of those. All right, going on. Well, this question about kingly power.

From verse 11, even so consider yourselves dead to sin but alive to God. So, what is the first condition or first item in that? What are you supposed to do? Reckon yourself dead. Reckon yourself dead. So what does reckon mean? We've gone through this bit. I think you hit it a little bit last week. So what does reckon mean? Count it. Count it as true. Count it means reckon, count, compute, take into account. So take into account, realize, check off the box. I go out there and I count the numbers and what am I counting? I'm counting that I'm dead to sin. Personal. Reckoning is personal. Personal. Well, and again, that's where we're talking about are you participating in it? Yes, you are. It's not just God acting on you. It's you reckoning what God is doing or doing in your life. So that's the middle voice. And actually, that's right. Logismia, which is the word reckoning, is in the present tense. So that means it's continuous. It ain't a one and done. It's continuous.

And then the middle voice, we participate in it, and then it's imperative, which is a fact or reality. I got to learn these voices. You know, Winnie had a thing and I carried it all around. I actually have it on a PDF in here that she put together with that. It was very good. And I carried it around and it's tattered. Do you want to share it with us or what?

Well, I can. I'll print them out. How are you supposed to be ignorant? I will print them out. I can even after. Today's the trifecta day, which I've got there. leading singing and then we're having fellowship meals. I'll bring it next week. Great. I can do that. And it really does help. But then you need to have the translation where you can see all the Greek tenses and voices.

So what is the second? So we're to reckon ourselves, dead under sin, and then what's the other one? alive unto God. So, we put it this way, there is always a change for the good in a new convert's life, but if he does not understand this inner change and adjust himself properly to it, he lives, and this is what Mike was saying, a mediocre Christian life. Again, still in Christ, but it's a mediocre life. And the adjustment Paul speaks of in verses 11-13, namely, that which the believer must do if he expects the best results from the inner change God wrought in him. Here Paul is exhorting the saints that in their endeavor to live a life in accordance with the Word of God, they should take into account the fact that, and basically all those things we've read, that they're dead to sin, they've been disengaged from the evil nature, that it has no power over them anymore, and they are scot-free from it and can say point-blank no to it.

So, what does it mean to consider yourself alive to God? We're dead to sin, but what does it mean to be alive to God? It means to much more. We're new creatures and we have established a never-ending fellowship with God. I mean, we can fall short, but we can restore fellowship and just have a real true relationship with Him, fellowship. So what did it say in verse 4?

So that Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we might walk in newness of life. Okay? And then also in five, so we would be united with Him, so we would also be in the likeness of His resurrection. Okay? And then, now if we've died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him. These are all, remember this is after therefore, so we know these things. Therefore, we know we live with Him, so we know we're united to Him.

He's never to die again. Now we're wrecking ourselves alive to God. So we have newness of life. Therefore, we have newness of life because of all these truths. Sometimes you look at this and think, well, I now have the forces with me, which means that I can draw upon this energy to live this life anytime. We're Jedi.

That you're this resurrected person in Christ and this new life gives you two really important things. One is it gives you the desire to do it. And the second thing is that life has the power to carry out your desire. You're able to. I can't carry it out even if I have the force with me. I can't do it because I'm in the middle of it. It's exactly what Paul struggled with. It's the life of Christ. It has to be.

So it can be done through me if I trust him. You know, and that's kind of the hard thing, and it's that concept, is it the force within me? Well, it's a spiritual force in me, it is, but it's based on the facts that are presented, and he's the one who just convinces us of that. It's not like, although there were things and I think there are miracles that still happen and things like that that can happen, but the real gist of it, and we've gone through the Holy Spirit, it's really that convincing us this truth. You have been united with He's not a force, he's a person. Yeah, it's a person convincing you.

It's like somebody whispering in your ear, no, that's not who you are. Do you realize you did the same? Do you realize that when you're looking over here? I think it's not this Jedi warrior, but it's just that inner convincing, especially as you grow spiritually. I think that voice gets louder and louder that says, that's not who you are, you idiot.

I mean, gently in a loving way. That's not who you are. Why are you doing that? It's insane to do it. Why am I choosing that over who I am in Christ? That's where I think the spirit really is there. Why are you doing that? What are you doing? Are you walking by faith in me? Okay, yes?

It's the much mores. That's your topic today, the much mores. The much mores are back in chapter five. They all go together. Therefore, yeah, everything goes back. Okay, we will start on question three next week, so let's close. We thank you for these truths and we realize just these bedrock principles that you've laid out for us in chapter 6 of Romans, all these truths about us and just how Just incredible they are, how wonderful they are, and how true they are of us. And we thank you that these are all true of us who have realized who your son is and is putting their faith and trust in your son.

These are all true of us right now, not waiting for it, not in time. These are all truths that are right now. That gives us great peace and joy and all those things that are the fruit of the Spirit. Because as we recognize or consider or reckon upon these truths, we have that joy, peace, love, all those things that are the fruit of the Spirit. We have those as we realize these truths and are convinced and convicted. by the Holy Spirit of these truths.

We thank you for that. We thank you for just your constant and just never-ending love and intimacy with each one of us. And we just rest on the fact that we give, again, the peace and rest that only can come through you, not through the world or anything the world offers that you provide this. And we just thank you. We thank you for this time. And again, we just pray for Vern as he gives a message in the next meeting. And again, prepare our hearts to receive it. And we thank you for all these things in Jesus' name.