Christ Life in Us Rom. 6:1-11 The Believer's Reckoning

Well, good morning. Okay, so let's get started here. So here's my guy, and he's reckoning. Even though Jim doesn't like that term, but think of yourself as an old, you guys remember, let's see, you guys know about Christmas Carol, right? Remember Ebenezer Scrooge? He was one of those guys, I think. He was an accountant, right? He was writing stuff down.

So reckoning is all about just being thinking about what you're doing, thinking about where you're at. So the question is, for today, for this lesson, what is reckoning, or what is considering? It's the same Greek word, which you'll look at shortly here, same Greek word, reckoning, considering, counting. So in the Greek, it's this word, logizome, or logizomai. It's to count, to calculate, to put down as true, as fact. So that's why I like that picture of somebody writing it down carefully. I had a good friend, and I'm an engineer by profession, and this guy I had at work, he was just kind of a fanatic.

He liked to, we'd have a problem to solve. We're watching, we've got this problem to solve. He says, well, let's evaluate what we have in our resources. We have all the numbers. We have algebra. We have geometry. We have chemistry. He would just list all these things, all these resources. Now we're ready to tackle the problem. And it's somewhat like this.

What do we have in our wonderful Savior? What do we have that we count upon in the believer's life? That's what reckoning is about. So I like to actually, Newell had an interesting definition, which I thought, reckoning, if you think about it, the whole Christian life is based upon faith. There's no other, God doesn't require anything else of us other than our believing what he has done, trusting what he's done. So faith is at the core of reckoning. And it's basically, if you think about it, that what he asks us in this passage in 611 we're gonna see, he asks us to reckon upon something that into our mind makes no sense.

Like I mentioned before, if you were to walk out in the street and you're gonna say, I died with Christ, I was buried with Christ, I rose with Christ, many people would think, well, he's a bit delusional. But the Bible doesn't say that. It says that's absolutely true of you. That's actually what happened to you. So we're counting upon something that on a face value doesn't seem like it could possibly be real. But it is real. Okay, so let's go on here. So the point is here that reckoning is not wishing something to happen. It's believing something has already happened. You already something has happened to you because of who you are in Christ. The person you are in Christ is what you're to count upon in this reckoning, who you are and what has happened to you. We call that the identification truths. I've been identified with Christ, and we're going to see that again.

Okay, so let's go on. So in approaching the identification truths, And this is from our brother Hal Molloy. It's important to kind of start, like with all of Paul's writing, he starts his first early chapters in his writings are doctrinal chapters, and he presents in those chapters positional truths, things about true of you. And I always like this little picture that came from, I think it's Donald Gray Barnhouse, about seeing yourself.

You know, we look in Ephesians, we're seated with Christ in heavenly places. And once again, that's something that God tells us about ourselves. We think, well, wait a minute, I'm sitting here in this auditorium. I'm not in heavenly places. Well, no, God sees you. He sees you with him seated in the heavenly.

So that's these wonderful group of truths that talk about us as a believer. And so our brother Hal's listed several of these here. And these are ones from the early chapters. I can give you the verses if you're interested in. We're justified by God's grace through faith. We're free from the law. We're redeemed by Christ's blood and death. Circumcised in the heart. We have peace with God. We have access and standing in His grace. God's love is gushed out in our hearts. The Holy Spirit is given to us. He indwells us. We've been reconciled to God. and the superabounding grace where sin abounded.

So that's a list of, and there's probably more, and there's obviously more in all of Paul's writings, but that's kind of the stepping stone. When we start looking at Romans, we look at those first five chapters, and we see all these wonderful truths about ourselves in Christ. Well, then we get into chapter six, and we move into another area, an area called identification truths. And these are truths that are true of us, and what happened to us there on the cross with Christ.

Our brother Verne Peterman would say many times, the cross was a very crowded place. Because the cross, every believer was there with Christ on that cross. Every believer for all time was with Christ on that cross. And that's what's so incredible about what God had to do to save a soul. So every believer was there, and so Romans 1 through 10 lists these wonderful truths about our being there with Christ, a sharing of what happened with him. So we start out with, we died to sin, we died to our sin nature, Adam's nature. We have been baptized, or better placed into, we were placed into Christ's death, Christ's burial, Christ's resurrection, we have Christ's life, incredible.

We were separated from our old man, our body of sin, and this is, I like this picture, taken offline. Remember a couple weeks ago I had the picture of the online, offline things, you know, when you're offline, if you're off the internet, you can't communicate to somebody on the internet. And so we've been taken offline from our sin nature, which is just so wonderful, so it's a blessing. But we can go back online, that's the other side of the coin.

We are free from our sin nature. We need not longer to be slaves of our sin nature. So that's kind of the buildup here. We're working towards 611 here. So now here's the next step we're going to go. A little bit deeper thought here, a little bit deeper dive here for a second.

The group of truths are called positional truths, can also be thought of as birth truths. And I was trying to ask Mike this, and I think I asked Miles as well, I think I know our brother Hal used that term, I think Miles has used that term, Miles the Greater, as Andrew likes to say, Miles Stanford.

That term bursts truths, and what those truths are about, they're still what we call positional truths, but they're things that are true of us the moment we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I mentioned before, most believers don't have hardly any idea about these truths. We mentioned that list I told you just previously.

But those are these wonderful truths we have at the moment we trust in Christ as our Savior. And the focus here is our position in Christ, who we are in Christ. And these are foundational. These are the stepping stone. Once we kind of have these under our belt, so to speak, we can move on to the identification truths. And someone has also kind of characterized these truths, and they call these growth truths.

In 6.1 through 10, they're called truths to grow by, or identification truths. So these are things that as we realize what has happened to us, that we can actually grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we're gonna see 611, it's such a pivotal verse in this whole process.

And our brother Hal mentioned, and others have mentioned, really without coming to realize, if you don't come to realize that you need to count upon these truths or reckon these truths, Your Christian life is going to be less than what it could be. You're not going to grow. You'll be saved, but at least you'll be a mediocre Christian. And I think, unfortunately, many Christians don't make it past understanding that they're saved, they're so thankful they're saved, they don't really see that they can move on from there and live a life that pleases God and is a peaceful life, not a struggle for a Christian life.

Okay, so let's go on. We're marching towards 611 here. Okay, so we've gone through 1-1 positional trues into 5 identification trues. So now we're going to move on to 6-11 through 14. I'm going to cover 11 and then Miles is going to pick up next week and doing 12 through 14 in a couple weeks. He'll be doing 2 weeks of that. So let's zoom in here on 6-11. So 611, and I label this as my kind of title. We have the positional truths, identification truths.

Now, God says, I want you to apply those truths to your life. I want you to hang your hat on those truths. I want you to put those truths in shoe leather. I want those truths to be how you walk. I want them to be your condition. I know we've had people pass through our body and said, All you guys talk about are positional truths. Where's my rules to live by? Where's my thing to live by?

Well, we came to the day, brothers and sisters. We're here. We arrived at the day. 6-11, you have something to do. We're gonna actually ask you to do something today. We're not gonna actually just, you're gonna have to do something today, right? So that's, we've come to that day. Okay. All right. So here's our verse.

Even so, consider or reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." Okay, so our brother Hal has made about five or six statements that seem pretty, you're going to say, boy, he's not wishy-washy. You guys know what wishy-washy is about? Is that just an American term?

He's pretty over, he's gone over, he's gone overboard in 611. Has he gone, has he lost his mind? He's gonna, he's gonna say 611 is about the most important person, most important person, I can't even say that, important verse in the Bible. So here we go. Okay. 611 is foundation for spiritual growth. No 611 in our lives, no growth. All spiritual growth is based on 611. 611 is the first commandment in Romans.

And we're gonna actually see, Miles gets to do more commandments. See, I get to start the commandments, he gets to carry them on. So I do the first commandment, then he comes right behind me with the rest of the commandments. And if you guys love commandments, they're coming, right?

Okay, so okay, one through, you know, 1-1 through 6-10, Paul lays down this position, identification with Christ, and now what does he say? He says, now, make this your practice. You've learned these wonderful things about yourself, make this your practice. And he's gonna show us in 6-11 how to make that our practice. The key to growth is resting on our identification with our Lord Jesus Christ. OK, if that wasn't motivation for enough, so here we go.

I started this last week. This is actually somewhat review. Nobody can come in the door. Lock the doors. OK, so I have three versions of 611. I have the New American Standard, which I edited a slight bit. What's interesting, I found in this verse, this is one of these verses that has a contrast kind of built in. So I'll read it to you, and I'll explain the contrast. Same as last week.

Even so, consider or reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin. Indeed is there in the original, but not translated in this version, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. So the reason I want to point out that indeed in there, there's a built-in contrast. It's saying on the one hand, consider or reckon yourselves dead to sin, but on the other hand, you're alive to God in Christ Jesus.

And the more I looked at this verse, you know, I've been through this, Mike and I, many times, the more I realize it's so critical to have both parts of that verse in view. If you only do the first part, you miss out on the wonderful blessing. He wants you to be there in the second part is where you want to be, right? You want to be alive to God in Christ Jesus. You don't want to be focused on your sins or your sin nature. That's the direction. So you got to have both parts.

Okay, so then Weiss, our brother Weiss has two versions here. He has his traditional version, I'll call it, which is his, called his, I don't want to say amplified his, I can't think of the word he used. Anyway, he tries to bring out the original language, so he renders 611 as follows. Thus also, as for you, so it brings out the present tense, you constantly be taking into account the fact that you are those who are dead with respect to sin, the sin nature, and those who are alive, or living ones, with reference to God in Christ Jesus.

But then he did something pretty remarkable. And since we're fortunate to have all of his writings, he actually had a paraphrase of this same verse. He had his normal translation, and then he had his paraphrase. And the paraphrase, you say, well, why are we going to all this trouble? Why do you keep one on one, keep adding to it? Well, we're trying to get to the core meaning. What is God really saying to us?

I think the paraphrase is really great here. It says, thus also, as for you, constantly be taking into account the fact that you are those who have had the power of sin broken in your lives, and those who have had the divine nature implanted. And you don't quite get that from the two previous versions, but that's there at the core. That's at the core of the idea.

The sin nature is broken in your life. You don't have to be controlled by it any longer. And you now, because of that, you can now have the very life of Christ. If that hadn't happened to you, you could not have that very life of Christ implanted. It never could have happened. You need to have both those things happen to you. And that's what he's asking you to count upon, or reckon upon. Okay, so we're gonna start with the first part. First part says, even so consider yourselves.

So even so looks back to the verse 10 and it says, in the same manner as Christ, in verse 10 it said, Christ died to the sin nature, and because you're in Christ, you died with him. It was done once for all, once for all believers. Christ is living his life to God, and since you're in Christ, you're living your life to God as well. Okay? So even so, in the same manner as Christ, you consider and reckon yourselves.

So what's happening here is that you're remembering, you're counting upon something that God has told you about yourself. Something has happened to you, and you're remembering, and you're counting upon what's happened to you by God's grace. Okay, so I'm going to say this three different ways. You're to reckon yourselves, and I don't want to leave Jim out here. You count as true of yourselves, or you could say you as an accountant with your accountant's hat on, you write it down as true. I'm writing this down. This is what's happened to me. There's no doubt this actually happened to me. And it's present tense, continuous action.

You're doing it 24-7. And it's not to be a burden, it's to be a blessing. You're counting upon this because it frees you from your sin nature. You're realizing that you're free. You keep on reckoning or keep on counting. And then there's the two aspects of that. There's the aspect of being dead to sin and being alive to God. So we're going to use this. on the one hand versus the other hand.

I'm thankful to our brother Brian White. When he came to visit, he brought, in his PowerPoint presentation, he brought a nice little graphic, which I've reused, and Mike reused it as well. It's pretty neat. So we're gonna use that graphic. So here we go.

Here's the dual truths about wrecking your cells, right? So on the one hand, on the one hand, were to reckon ourselves to be dead to the sin, the sin nature, or you could say better, possibly, or literally, you could say, I've been separated from it, my sin nature. So that wonderful truth, I've been separated from my sin nature, but don't stop there. But on the other hand, and this is the wonderful news, I'm separated from my sin nature, But now, to be alive to God in Christ Jesus, or I think even more incredible, we now have received the very life of Christ.

I mean, that's astounding. So here's my little paraphrase, a little summary of that on the one hand versus the other hand. In our walk, our Christian walk, we are to be continually counting upon being separated from our sin nature, Adam's nature, the nature that makes us sin, but now having the very life of Christ operating in our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. So that's so wonderful. And that's why both are important. In fact, I think Miles Stanford says, if you leave one by the wayside, You're not going to achieve where you want to go.

Okay, I'm dead to sin, but what do I do next? No, I'm now alive to God. Now I can have fellowship with God. I can have a relationship with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Okay, so let's take a little deeper dive into the, on the one hand, being dead to sin, and it's a state of being verb. It's true. and we're separated from our sin nature. So the first statement you can make is that you're dead or separated from our sin nature.

Just repeating that. And it's a permanent thing. You're permanently disconnected from your sin nature. but your sin nature is still there. It sounds like a, you know, well, that doesn't sound like that's a great deal, right? I'm separated, but it's still there. Well, God in his wisdom didn't eradicate our sin nature. He left it there. So take it up with God. Okay, all right. And here's a couple of key points. You're not reckoning that your sin nature is dead. It's not one bit dead.

In fact, if you're any kind of human being, any kind of believer, you realize that's the big struggle you have. Your sin nature shows up when you don't want it to show up. Your reckoning in relationship to your sin nature, that you've been separated, you've been disconnected, you've been taken offline from your sin nature, that's what you'd be about. You're to believe the facts. believe in the facts.

You're not wishing it to be so. You're not saying, well, I wish that sin nature wouldn't bother me anymore. God says, you know, I separated you from it, and I've given you the power. I've given you Christ's life, and you can count upon the fact that you're separated, and you can walk independent of that sin nature. I've given you the power to do that.

And we're going to see an example of that. There's a great verse that shows us that later on here. Okay, so let's carry on. Now on the other hand, part two of this, which you don't want to leave out, you are now alive to God in Christ Jesus. You're to count upon this, reckon upon this. We have received the very life of Christ. We're living ones with respect to God. Our life is only in Christ Jesus. Do you realize, as a believer, the only life you have is in Christ? That's the only life a believer really has. The other life is not you anymore. That's all that you were in Adam. You go back to your sin nature. That's not you anymore. Your life is totally in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who you are.

And Galatians 2.20 tells us that. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So he says here, the divine nature has been imparted with the desire and the power to regulate our lives in accordance with God's word. Just wonderful part, but we need both. I'm no longer connected to my sin nature. I've been separated from that. I'm now alive to God. I have Christ's very life.

Wonderful, wonderful news. Okay, so here comes some questions. I have some from Hal, and I have some from Miles Stanford. Okay, let's take Hal's questions first here. And this, I kind of already answered this question. I kind of made a big deal about this. So is this a positional or conditional statement? Well, I already kind of jumped up and down and said it was conditional two or three times, but I'll just repeat this again.

It's speaking about our Christian walk, our conduct. 611 is the first one to talk about our Christian conduct here. where reckoning on our identification truths will cause us to grow in Jesus Christ and be transformed by the Holy Spirit. A couple of verses, pretty well known, 2 Peter 3.18, but grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And then just a beautiful verse that we spent many, many times on, many wonderful times studying, 2 Corinthians 3.18, But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit. That's like from one state of glory to another state of glory. As we spend time with our Savior, we come to understand Him, we come to know Him, and His life becomes more visible in us.

So last statement here, our death with Christ Our death with Christ and life with Christ are real and to be realized in our practice. And that's what this is all about. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where the Christian life is to be lived out. And it's kind of sad that this is so not understood and not well taught in our Christian circles and Christian churches. It's just such a liberating truth.

Anyway, I'm thankful we can teach it and teach it and keep teaching it. Okay, so let's go on. Some more questions. So, more about realizing the dual aspect of this. So, several things that you think about is you look at reckoning yourself dead from the sin nature and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

You have to know the truths to start with. If you don't know the truths, you can't count upon something you don't know. So knowing is a key part of that. You have to know the truths and believe them. You know them and believe them. Then secondly, there's another aspect of Well, do I believe them enough to just not be on edge about? Do I really trust him that that is really true of him?

And actually, the verse I always really like in the whole area of abiding or trusting or resting, as in John, 15.5, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit. From apart from me you can do nothing. As we abide with Christ, as we hang out with Christ, and that's why I like to look at the definition of abide. It's this Greek word called minnow. It's to be at home with. Literally, our brother Hal would say hang out with.

Just think about this. As you read your Bible, as you interact with the Lord, and study of his word, you're actually understanding how he thinks. How does God think? How does Christ think? You find that in his word. You understand that from his word. That's where that comes from.

So, Louise says here, in John 15, the abiding of the Christian in Christ refers to his maintaining unbroken fellowship with him. He makes his spiritual home in Christ. Okay, now there's a C part to this. So once you know something and you're understanding, you're hanging out and abiding with that, then you put it into your Christian walk. You're depending upon that. And there's several verses that talk about this.

Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him." So I always like to ask, you know, how did you receive Christ? You received him by faith, right? How do you walk? How do you live your Christian life? You walk by faith. You received him by faith, you walk by faith.

And then just another verse, we mentioned this this morning in our class in Galatians, but I say, walk by the Spirit. and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh." And actually, if you look at the original, it says it's impossible. If you're walking by the Spirit, it's impossible for you to carry out the desires of the flesh. Pretty incredible verse. So walking is the idea of your conduct, it's a metaphor for conduct, or how you pass your life or live your life. So you could say, literally, continually conduct your life by means of the Spirit, by means of the Holy Spirit.

All right, so then I found, you know, Miles had a whole chapter, he has a whole book on reckoning, the reckoning that counts. He had one chapter devoted to chapter six, so I just went in there and grabbed a few things out here and there, or Brother Miles Stanford had to say.

So here we go. The purpose of reckoning is that we may abide in Christ, who is our life. So we're reckoning for a purpose, right? So that we can be at home with Christ, in fellowship with him. And that's, he's our life, why shouldn't we be where our life is at?

And this one here is what I was mentioning before. This is the two halves, right? On the one hand versus the other hand. Miles says here, the first half, dead unto sin, is but a stepping stone into the land. If we stop short, we are stranded in the midstream.

True reckoning is to step out firmly and keep on going to be alive in God and Christ Jesus. Then he goes on to say, we have died or been separated from the old Adamic source, but now have been resurrected and now are alive in our source, Jesus Christ. So you see, they have to go together. Once you have been separated and you act upon that, you now are available to spend your time with the Lord Jesus. And this is a cute little, I thought it was neat. Death was a means, life is a goal. Death was a means, life is a goal.

And spiritual growth comes by walking, and as our brother Bob points out a lot, by means of the Holy Spirit. Okay, a couple more here. We cannot rest, and now we're kind of on the rest idea, we cannot rest in our risen Lord until we know we have been positionally released from the Adamic, from Adam through death. Neither can we rest in the process of being experientially released from the domain of the Adamic life until we know and count upon the facts that we are already are loosed positionally. True reckoning has its ultimate emphasis on the life side, that's the part two of that, on the life side of the cross. We count upon having died unto sin in order to count upon our being alive to God. And then lastly, as for the old man, We continually reckon the source to have been crucified so that the old man may be held daily in the place of death. We reckon that the cross crucifies.

Okay, so now I want to kind of switch gears here. So this is a verse that our brother Hal taught 30 years ago. He taught a lot. One of my favorite verses, or verses, It's in James. He did a study for a long time. And he actually did a study on temptation, different kinds of temptation. And if you've been at Holly Hills a long time, you know about the different kinds of temptation. But he did a great job in this verse. But what's cool about this verse, it kind of gives us a practical application of why reckoning is so valuable, why it's such an important thing.

So let's start out. I'm going to give you a couple of different versions of this verse. So I'll read it first, and then we'll look at different versions. Then we'll look at how it's, Not stairstep to heaven, stairstep out of fellowship. Okay, and actually the context of this, let me read it first. James 1, 14, 15.

But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. When lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin. When sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Okay, so this verse actually, if you think about it, it starts off, it kind of assumes that we're walking in fellowship with the Lord, but what happens by the end of this verse, this temptation comes, We're attracted by this temptation, we sin, sin's accomplished, and we die spiritually, so to speak, so we're out of fellowship.

This paints a pretty bleak picture. We go from fellowship to loss of fellowship. Not a good place to be. That's why it's a really instructive verse. So let's look at the verse before to kind of get the context. I want to use a Weiss translation here just to bring out some word meanings here. So here's the verse before.

Just a beautiful verse, James 1.13, let no man say when he is being solicited to sin, and here's just a caveat here, This is the word temptation, the core word, which is actually the word is prazo, I think, in the original.

It's a solicitation to sin. And this verse is going to tell us that God never does that. God never, ever. It's impossible. I'll just read the verse. Let no man say when he's being solicited to sin that by God I'm being solicited to sin. For God is incapable of being solicit to solicit to sin, the source of solicitation being evils. He himself solicits no one." You know, solicitation to sin comes from within us, right? It's our sin nature, it's the world, the flesh, it's all that out there. It doesn't come from God.

So let's look at our verses for today here. Same translation. the Weiss translation, but each one of us being solicited to sin when he's taken in tow, enticed by his own cravings. So this renders this idea of lust, it's this desire. Desire comes up, we have a desire to do something.

And it's not something that is gonna be beneficial to us. Then when the aforementioned craving has conceived, it brings birth to sin, and this sin, when full-grown, brings forth death." Okay. Hopefully that didn't get you too confused here. Okay, let's get back to our verse. So we're going to use Hal's graphic here, coming up here right now.

So here's, I've highlighted tempted, which is this idea of solicitation to sin. I've highlighted carried away, enticed by his own lust. So let's just look at this first little verse 14. But each one is tempted when he's carried away, enticed by his own lust.

So our brother Hal loved to do pictures. He was an engineer, and engineers love pictures. It's just built into our DNA. I don't know what it is. You just gotta draw a picture. I tried a picture for Vaughn. He says, Roger, don't draw me a picture. Just tell me. Don't draw me a picture. Please don't draw a picture. Tell me what you want to tell me. So I learned just to tell her and not to try to draw a picture. But engineers love pictures. So here we go. So he's going to draw you a picture of this verse. Here we go. We start off just as a reminder.

Lust is not necessarily sexual. It can be a craving for anything, right? There could be some good cravings. But in this context, it's not good cravings or good desires. OK. He said, okay, Hal says, I see a stair step here. So I start off, I'm hanging out with Christ, right? Life is good, right? I'm walking with the Lord, life is good.

But what happens, this verse says something happens. Temptation comes along, right? And this desire, this lust, which didn't come from God, comes at me. So here comes this desire or craving, comes at me. So what happens? The verse paints a picture. I'm drawn away. I'm drawn away from abiding in Christ, and I'm lured. It's a temptation. So this is a pivotal point. This is a key pivotal point. So I'm abiding in Christ. I've been the source.

I get some desire comes into my head. I was thinking of trying to think of an example. One of my tough ones is I'm driving along, not so much anymore, I've kind of Finally, trusting the Lord, I'm driving along, and some crazy person cuts me off. I have to slam my brakes on not to hit him, and then somebody else comes along and almost does it again. After a while, you're thinking, I gotta go after those guys, they're crazy.

Is that what I should do? Is that what I should do as a believer? Go out there and try to cut him off? At that point, you have a choice. I'm sitting there, I can either go after him, or what do I do? So let's see here. So here's the decision point. At this point, It's only a temptation. No sin has been committed. I've been tempted. My focus has shifted, right? It looks attractive. Retaliation looks really good. Like, somebody's spoken to you? Well, the first thing back, I'll top him. He said that. I'll do one on top of him to get him back. No? Is that what you should do? No sin's been committed here. And this is the point, which I like to say, this is the point where reckoning comes into view. This is what I'm going to call God's first line of defense. The Broncos are going to need a good line of defense today at the football game. This is the Believer's first line of defense. He's to say, well, wait a minute.

I'm driving along. Lord, I'm dead to them. I could go. I don't want to. Why do I want to go try to do something silly? I don't need to go there. I trust you. I'm safe. Nobody ran into me. I'm trying to use a driving example here. It's okay. I don't need to respond. There's no reason to respond. So you're counting upon the fact that you don't need to respond. You don't need to respond to that enticement to be drawn away.

So I believe that's one of the Christian's primary approaches to temptation in this life, to be drawn away from Christ, to be enticed. And that's where 611 comes into view, where to reckon yourselves dead to sin, separated from your sin nature, I'm alive to God. Isn't it much more valuable to spend my time with God than trying to solve this guy's problem, his erratic driving problem, right?

I can't fix him. Or if your neighbor comes over, that's happened to us where your neighbor comes over and he's upset with you. And he tells you all the things that he doesn't like about you. And you think, well, OK, do I respond back and tell him all the things I don't like about him? Probably not going to help.

So anyway, so that's the decision point. So let's go on. Because the verse doesn't stop there, right? That's verse 14. It says, okay, what if you don't? What if you don't stop there? It says, what if you take the bait? Ah, I just got to get back. I got to have it.

And what's interesting, it uses the pregnancy birth picture. It says you become pregnant. Actually, the word is you become pregnant. And pregnancy is irreversible. Unfortunately, people may terminate their pregnancy, but they cannot reverse it. It's impossible. Sadly to say, the awful thing, they terminate their pregnancy, but it's awful. but they cannot.

So this picture is that there's a birth, and this birth is sin, and this birth leads to death. So that downward spiral from you take the bait, you become pregnant, birth is sin, you sinned, death, you're separated, you're out of fellowship. So at this point, you sinned.

At this point, God is so gracious, he's given us that wonderful verse in 1 John 1.9, that if we agree with Him about our sins, we agree, God, that's sin, I sinned, that He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

But I want to kind of show you here something that I've kind of observed over the years. I'm not sure it's just me, I'm sure many of you may have saw it as well, but I think many Christians, you know, we're very sensitive many times, and we'll be up here on the top half of this before you've actually sinned, And we're almost, we're trying to get ahead of the game almost and say, well, maybe I'll confess. I'll confess that this thought came through my mind.

If you're in that mode, it's going to hurt you mentally. If you're so sensitive that any thought that's not from the Lord, that's a sin, you're going to be you're not going to be well, I don't think. So I would say, I'd recommend to you that you understand this and you say, okay, the thoughts are going to come and go in my mind, all this is going to happen, but if I'm not acting upon that, I haven't sinned. And differentiate between when you sin and not sin.

And I think the Holy Spirit is faithful to do that with you. So I see the game plan is reckoning, most of the time and confessing less of the time. I'm not proposing you keep count of this. Keep track of, I reckon 12 times today and I confess two times today. If you do that, you'll be, you know, they'll be taking you away some time.

But this is good information, just like we learned in the Galatians class. We know about the law and grace, but we're not to be counting it all the time. We're to realize that we have this wonderful life in Christ, and that's where we should be focused on Him, and we've been separated from our sin nature.

So hopefully this distinction between reckoning and confessing was helpful here. So let's just a few final thoughts here from our brother Myles again, Myles Stanford. He says, we must remember that our death unto sin was accomplished at the cross. There at the cross, a believer shared the death of the Lord Jesus. For when we became a believer, life was received in Christ. That is our, that's out of death, the resurrection life. Our experience is, our experience of it, is all that's simply entering by faith into what has happened to us.

And then the last part, which actually came from Miles the Lesser. He pointed this out to me, it was in The Hungry Heart a couple days ago. The Sixth of Romans is not an aspect of the truth, but the foundation of truth upon which every believer must stand if he's to grow mature in the not I, but Christ. And that's what the Christian life is about. It's not about us, it's Christ's life in us. That's to be our focus. All right, let's just pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior, Father. Thank you for our time today. We ask it in his name, amen.