WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:15.599 Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:20.480 ! It is wonderful that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:25.679 either by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray for us 00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:32.159 that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself? 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:37.359 The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:42.159 we really, I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the 00:00:42.159 --> 00:00:48.799 Bible, they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will do 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:55.120 what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a non-Christian, 00:00:55.119 --> 00:01:00.320 checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't hesitate to send us 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:05.280 questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the types of things 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:15.920 that you're really struggling with. So God bless. Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would continue 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:22.479 to fall upon us and move deep within our hearts. Father, you know how easy it is for us to be 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:32.320 forgetful of what is true. You know how easily, Father, we drift back to believing myths and lies 00:01:32.320 --> 00:01:39.760 and trusting idols. And we give you thanks and praise that knowing us so perfectly, still you love us, 00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:46.000 and still Jesus died to save us. So we ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would bring the truth of your 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:52.159 Holy Word deep into our hearts, that more and more day by day we might live out of the truth of your 00:01:52.159 --> 00:01:58.719 Word, and that you are our Father in Heaven who loves us. And we ask this in Jesus' name, your Son and our 00:01:58.719 --> 00:02:01.439 Savior. Amen. Please be seated. 00:02:01.439 --> 00:02:13.599 At the eight o'clock service, I almost, I didn't go to the clock to set my timer. I went to the calendar, 00:02:14.240 --> 00:02:20.560 which is really bad if you're looking to the calendar as a timer. It's quite a few years ago now, 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:27.199 but my mother and my father, they decided that they wanted to go to a movie on a summer day, 00:02:27.199 --> 00:02:31.919 a spring day or summer day. I think it was a summer. And my mom looked at the movies and said, 00:02:31.919 --> 00:02:36.560 ah, you know, there's nothing here in particular I feel like seeing today, tonight. Why don't you 00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:42.079 just pick the movie that we're going to go see? So my dad looked at the movies and said, well, 00:02:42.079 --> 00:02:46.560 there's a brand new Will Smith movie and there's a brand new Tom Cruise movie. They both look pretty 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:51.919 good. What do you think? And she said, oh, I really, really like Tom Cruise. Let's go see the Tom 00:02:51.919 --> 00:02:57.039 Cruise movie. So they go to the movie theater. She's standing off to the side. He goes and buys the 00:02:57.039 --> 00:03:02.159 tickets. They go into the theater. They watch all the, you know, the trailers and the credits. And 00:03:02.799 --> 00:03:06.959 halfway through the movie, my mom leans against my dad and says, 00:03:08.479 --> 00:03:14.239 George, I have the same name as my dad. This is the weirdest Tom Cruise movie I've ever seen. 00:03:14.239 --> 00:03:20.159 When's he going to show up? And my dad said, the Tom Cruise movie was sold out. This is the Will Smith 00:03:20.159 --> 00:03:28.240 movie. She went through half the movie thinking it was a completely different movie. No wonder she 00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:34.800 thought it was weird. And Tom Cruise never shows up in the Will Smith classic, I, Robot. I mention this, 00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:37.919 I mention this because 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:45.840 what the Bible text today looks a bit weird. And in some ways it sounds like it's not very helpful. 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:51.439 It's still sort of pursuing. It's the second half of pursuing the question of if you put your faith 00:03:51.439 --> 00:03:56.400 and trust in Jesus, and when you do that, every sin that you've ever done has been dealt with. 00:03:57.360 --> 00:04:02.000 The penalty has been paid. And that not only includes the sins you've done in the past, but the sins you 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:08.080 will do in the future. And the question which obviously can arise is, and why on earth would anybody do 00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:15.280 anything good if that's happened? And so he's still answering that question. And for a lot of us, 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:23.120 we're a little bit unsatisfied if we're honest with the answer that he gives. But I would suggest that 00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:28.879 the answer he gives is actually the answer that we really need, and that the world needs to know and 00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:37.279 understand. And it has to do partially with this idea of what movie is my mom in, and she thinks 00:04:37.279 --> 00:04:43.199 she's in a Tom Cruise movie, but she's really in a Will Smith movie. And what Paul is doing is saying 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:48.560 that we have to understand what story we're in, and not just what story we're in, because everybody lives 00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:55.040 by some type of big story. Even those of you who've been in university over most recent years, and they 00:04:55.040 --> 00:05:03.040 deny the aspect of a big story. The denial of the story is the story. They just don't have the sense 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:08.879 of irony and paradox to realize that they're still caught in a story. It's just like a really boring 00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:14.640 one thing after the other type of story, not a good story. But it's not just that there's a story, 00:05:14.640 --> 00:05:22.240 it's what reality, what is real? Like, are you living out of the real world or not? And that's a 00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:27.040 really, really good thing. We ask people, like, what were you thinking? Like, don't you know that's 00:05:27.040 --> 00:05:34.960 how it works? We want to live in the real world, and that's what this text is addressing first and 00:05:34.960 --> 00:05:41.040 foremost. So if you have your Bibles, turn in them to Romans chapter 6, verses 8 to 14. 00:05:42.480 --> 00:05:48.800 Romans 6, verses 8 to 14. And I'll read 8, 9, and 10, and then we'll go back and comment on it. 00:05:48.800 --> 00:05:56.560 And it goes like this. Verse 8, now, if we have died with Christ, 00:05:58.079 --> 00:06:04.400 we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, 00:06:04.639 --> 00:06:13.600 will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin, 00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:23.439 once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. So I probably say this, I mean, on one level, 00:06:23.439 --> 00:06:29.439 I say this a lot. On the other hand, it's so important for us to understand that I hope the day 00:06:29.439 --> 00:06:35.760 comes when I go into this first part of my little phrase, and you guys all finish the whole sentence, 00:06:35.759 --> 00:06:43.120 or sentence a half with me. And that's this thing that if Jesus really did rise from the dead, that 00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:49.599 changes everything. If Jesus really did rise from the dead, that changes everything. It means that 00:06:49.599 --> 00:06:57.839 Christianity is true. It means that Jesus' description of God is the true description of God. 00:06:57.839 --> 00:07:04.719 It means there really is a God. It means there really are right and wrong things that are absolute 00:07:04.719 --> 00:07:10.919 and eternal. It means that there really is a God who can hear your prayers and answer them. It means 00:07:10.919 --> 00:07:18.739 that other religions do not have enough truth to be complete and whole. Only those parts of those 00:07:18.739 --> 00:07:25.599 other religions that are conformity with Christianity are true, and the rest is just not correct. And that's 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:31.840 actually, and it means that the real world is a world where the God described by Jesus really, really 00:07:31.840 --> 00:07:40.600 lives, and he's going to come back, and human beings were created. We're not accidents. We're not slaves. 00:07:41.200 --> 00:07:49.320 We're not worthless. All of these things are true. And it means that for us in Ottawa, day by day, 00:07:49.319 --> 00:07:55.879 when we watch Netflix and Amazon Prime, and when we read the Ottawa Citizen or the Globe and Mail, 00:07:56.839 --> 00:08:01.560 and when we listen to Supreme Court rulings, and when we go to the University of Ottawa, 00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:07.719 or hear other academics, or hear Parliament debate, time and time and time again, most of what they say 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:15.000 does not describe the real world. They don't describe the real world. I mean, obviously, 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:20.440 they describe bits and pieces of the world that's real, and you can learn from them in different ways, 00:08:20.440 --> 00:08:26.040 but fundamentally, their whole depiction of the world is a world where there is no God, and there is 00:08:26.040 --> 00:08:32.360 no triune God, and there is no prayer, and there is no miracle, and there is no...and there isn't life 00:08:32.360 --> 00:08:37.820 after death, and if there is life after death, it's not one characterized by Christianity, and so their day by day 00:08:37.820 --> 00:08:43.080 are forming us into understanding the world in a way which actually doesn't match reality. 00:08:44.279 --> 00:08:50.379 And so part of our job in discipleship as Christians, and part of the role of why you have mentors and friends 00:08:50.379 --> 00:08:56.820 and read Christian friends and read Christian books and go to small groups and come to church on Sunday, 00:08:56.960 --> 00:09:02.340 is that it's a time again and again and again, because the world is forming us into a type of 00:09:02.360 --> 00:09:12.360 mold which ultimately isn't the real world. Let me just give you a simple example. Every children's cartoon 00:09:12.360 --> 00:09:17.740 teaches kids that they don't have to pray. 00:09:20.180 --> 00:09:26.060 Like all TVs, basically, all shows that we watch are basically forming us to live in a world where nobody prays. 00:09:26.840 --> 00:09:31.800 Think about it. I mean, you could go on and on and on and on. It just treats you that that's the 00:09:31.799 --> 00:09:37.299 plausible world, and so we need to gather and come under God's word to be reminded about what the real 00:09:37.299 --> 00:09:43.799 world actually is. And so that's what's going on here with Paul. He's coming to the end of a really, 00:09:43.959 --> 00:09:48.339 really big section, and he's just calling us to remember these truths. Like, look at them again. 00:09:49.979 --> 00:09:50.819 Verse 8, 00:09:52.459 --> 00:09:54.759 If we have died with Christ, 00:09:54.759 --> 00:10:00.679 we believe that we will also live with him. And he's talked about this earlier. He's talked about how 00:10:00.679 --> 00:10:06.379 on one level, when you, not on, yeah, like from one point of view, I put my faith and trust in Jesus, 00:10:06.379 --> 00:10:10.340 or I come to realize that I put my faith and trust in Jesus, and that's what I've really done. 00:10:10.840 --> 00:10:16.460 But from God's point of view, he has now taken me and carried me, the real me, 00:10:16.460 --> 00:10:24.980 actually into Christ. And he is not, and when he carries me into Christ, he carries Christ into me. 00:10:25.259 --> 00:10:30.180 And there's other texts that the Holy Spirit is now in me, and then the John text that we just read 00:10:30.180 --> 00:10:36.620 is the Father is now in me. There's this unity, union with, united to the triune God. 00:10:37.500 --> 00:10:42.400 And this is real. Why do we think it's real? Because Jesus really did rise from the dead. 00:10:42.399 --> 00:10:47.360 And so when we put our faith and trust in him, we are actually united with Christ. 00:10:47.959 --> 00:10:52.519 And it's because we are united with Christ that we can say that the death that I deserve, 00:10:52.699 --> 00:10:58.679 Jesus died in my place. And the resurrection and grace and mercy that I don't deserve, 00:10:58.799 --> 00:11:06.559 we receive because I am united with Christ. And Christ, when he did this, died on the cross for us. 00:11:06.559 --> 00:11:11.639 And Christ, when he accepted this offer for me to come into him and him to come into me, 00:11:11.639 --> 00:11:17.439 I mean, he knew every bad thing there is to know about me until he said yes. And he said, 00:11:17.519 --> 00:11:24.240 that's exactly why I've come, is that you can now be made right with God. And that's just true. 00:11:25.679 --> 00:11:31.799 So again, if we have died with Christ, in a sense it's since, right? Since, another way to put if, 00:11:31.799 --> 00:11:37.899 is like a bit of a question to make you think, but we have died with Christ. We believe that we will 00:11:37.899 --> 00:11:43.439 also live with him. That's how I should think about myself, that I have died with Christ and I'm living 00:11:43.779 --> 00:11:51.179 with him into the future. And then it goes on in verse 9, we know that Christ, being raised from the 00:11:51.179 --> 00:11:59.439 dead, will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. And this word dominion is going 00:11:59.440 --> 00:12:04.280 to return a couple of times. I don't know if it still is, somebody can tell me later, is Canada 00:12:04.280 --> 00:12:07.720 still called the Dominion of Canada? I don't know if they ever got rid of that. It still is called 00:12:07.720 --> 00:12:13.920 the Dominion of Canada? If I'm not mistaken, you know, this church was planted in 1865 and the first 00:12:13.920 --> 00:12:19.840 building was built in 1867. And several of the Fathers of Confederation were part of that founding 00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:27.300 congregation. And I believe that the Father of Confederation, that God can it be called the 00:12:27.300 --> 00:12:33.000 Dominion, based on Psalm 72, I think it is, and other biblical teaching. I think he was part of the 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:40.740 founding congregation of this church, actually. And the Dominion idea is this idea that you are 00:12:40.740 --> 00:12:49.120 part of a realm under a rule, a ruler. And so what the text is saying is we know, verse 9, that Christ, 00:12:49.120 --> 00:12:56.399 because he's been raised from the dead, he'll never die again. And that death no longer has dominion 00:12:56.399 --> 00:13:02.740 over him. And the implication is that on one hand, you and I live under the dominion, the rule, 00:13:03.200 --> 00:13:09.019 the reign of death. We are part of the culture of death, so to speak. Death reigns, it sets the 00:13:09.019 --> 00:13:15.299 criteria at different levels for us. It's under our power. And so the picture is that God, the Son of 00:13:15.299 --> 00:13:20.859 God left his glory and splendor and entered into this dominion of death. It's also called the dominion 00:13:20.859 --> 00:13:28.639 of sin. And he came into this, but he came into this to reclaim the entire universe for the God 00:13:28.639 --> 00:13:35.399 who created the entire universe. He came to completely and utterly reclaim it to defeat death, 00:13:35.719 --> 00:13:41.419 to defeat sin. And so he tastes all there is to taste of death. And part of the reason we know that is 00:13:41.419 --> 00:13:46.539 he didn't just sort of die on the cross for 30 seconds and then open his eyes again. Three days 00:13:46.539 --> 00:13:53.979 in the tomb, he's dead, dead, dead, dead. All the stories emphasize it. And he rises from the grave. 00:13:54.279 --> 00:13:59.399 And now he is risen. He's on the other side of death. He's defeated death. He will never die again. 00:14:00.259 --> 00:14:05.919 Death no longer has dominion over him. And on one level, the way that I am to understand my death, 00:14:05.919 --> 00:14:11.959 when that time comes, if I have a moment that I can think about it, is to use that imagery, 00:14:12.139 --> 00:14:18.919 on one hand, I fall asleep. And the moment I fall asleep, I awake with Christ. 00:14:21.919 --> 00:14:28.839 That's how I am to understand my physical death, that I have been resurrected. And the final word 00:14:28.840 --> 00:14:38.480 about me will not be worms, but will be the resurrected body with Christ. And then it says, 00:14:39.019 --> 00:14:47.800 for the death he died, verse 10, the death he died, he died to sin. And once, sorry, for the death he died, 00:14:47.920 --> 00:14:52.160 he died to sin. Doesn't that have a sort of a neat rhythm? For the death he died, he died to sin. 00:14:52.159 --> 00:14:59.439 In other words, he came towards sin. He came here specifically to die. He came here specifically 00:14:59.439 --> 00:15:05.679 to die, to deal with sin. And he did this once for all. Doesn't do it over and over and over and over 00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:15.919 and over again. But, and in the original language, you can't actually make the but too bold and too big 00:15:15.919 --> 00:15:23.740 in font to emphasize the huge contrast. He came towards sin, and he died to defeat sin. He did it 00:15:23.740 --> 00:15:30.399 once for all. But, you know what means that next is way more important. The life he lives, he lives to 00:15:30.399 --> 00:15:37.620 God. He lives towards God, oriented towards God. And these are fundamental truths. And if you think 00:15:37.620 --> 00:15:42.319 about the fact that I, when I put my faith and trust, when you put your faith and trust in Christ, 00:15:42.320 --> 00:15:49.940 he really takes you, he brings you into himself. In some ways, he brings you into the divine light of, 00:15:50.080 --> 00:15:56.660 life of the Trinity. And, and, and, and, and these things are fundamentally true. And it means if, 00:15:56.700 --> 00:16:03.180 if Christ's resurrection was so he could live towards God, and he could live, like live, 00:16:03.580 --> 00:16:11.800 that's the fundamental word written over us, is live, be alive, know you're alive, live, 00:16:11.799 --> 00:16:19.919 live. God wants you to live. That, that, that's the fundamental call of the gospel. He wants you to 00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:30.279 live. These are all these profound truths. Now, verse 11 is very, very interesting. And, and so, 00:16:30.419 --> 00:16:35.079 first of all, I think, so here, here's one of the problems I have when I try to get to the point where 00:16:35.080 --> 00:16:41.340 I can talk about my Christian belief with my friends who are outside the Christian faith. 00:16:42.720 --> 00:16:46.960 The problem I have is that if I was to say, well, no, no, like, I mean, a lot of Christians, 00:16:47.240 --> 00:16:52.740 people who say they're Christians on, on surveys, not really Christians. Like, I, I really, I take the 00:16:52.740 --> 00:16:57.620 things very true. I, I believe these things fundamentally true. I'm, I'm in a sense, conservative 00:16:57.620 --> 00:17:03.220 or orthodox. And the problem I have is that as soon as you say words like that to people outside the 00:17:03.220 --> 00:17:08.700 Christian faith, what happens is they think of, if you're Jewish, they think of the orthodox, 00:17:08.839 --> 00:17:14.740 super orthodox Jewish people. And if they're, if they're Muslim, they think of the super orthodox 00:17:14.740 --> 00:17:20.460 Muslim people. And if they're, you know, if they're Buddhist, they think, or Hindus, they think of monks 00:17:20.460 --> 00:17:26.720 and, and vows and, and celibacy and, and a life that's very, very constricted and having to look 00:17:26.720 --> 00:17:32.220 weird. And I, I don't know. And, and, and even because Christianity keeps falling away from the 00:17:32.220 --> 00:17:37.519 gospel into religion, they, if they're Christian, they might even think, oh, okay, like real Christians 00:17:37.519 --> 00:17:45.460 are like contemplative monks or nuns who live wearing weird clothes way out just praying all the time 00:17:45.460 --> 00:17:50.059 and, and basically having no fun. And, and I don't know how to communicate to them that that's 00:17:50.059 --> 00:17:57.960 not what being, belonging to Christ means. And, and part of it is, it'd be a bit of a shock to 00:17:57.960 --> 00:18:02.440 understand that here Paul is mainly saying to people that they, they need to understand that if 00:18:02.440 --> 00:18:07.100 they put their faith and trust in Christ and union with him, they, they actually died with him, but 00:18:07.100 --> 00:18:14.980 they're, he, Christ lives. And that's what God wants, is you to live, to be alive, to live. 00:18:15.519 --> 00:18:20.360 Now, I, I mention all of this because it fits with the second thing, is people on the outside of the 00:18:20.360 --> 00:18:24.420 Christian faith, they tend to think that if you're serious about religion or whatever, and they would 00:18:24.420 --> 00:18:30.339 just include me in that, that means that I, I learn a whole pile of new rules. And the more serious you 00:18:30.339 --> 00:18:35.000 about being Christian is the longer the list of rules are. You know, so an unserious Christian, you know, 00:18:35.039 --> 00:18:41.380 maybe it's just one school, a screen of rules, but if you get really into it, there's like 153 00:18:41.380 --> 00:18:48.420 screens of rules, you know, because that's what real, real religious people are. But that's not 00:18:48.420 --> 00:18:52.300 what the gospel is talking about at all. In fact, we're going to see at verse 14 that that's actually 00:18:52.299 --> 00:19:00.960 completely and massively rejected. I'm saying all of this because we've now gone to chapter 6, 00:19:01.039 --> 00:19:09.119 verse 10 in the book of Romans, and verse 11 is very, very, very, very, very unique. Add a few more 00:19:09.119 --> 00:19:19.839 various. You know why? It's the first command in the book of Romans. The very first, or more 00:19:19.839 --> 00:19:25.599 technically, the first imperative. There are no imperatives in the book of Romans up until this 00:19:25.599 --> 00:19:31.379 moment. And it's the very, very first one. So what do you think the very first one is? Well, look, 00:19:31.659 --> 00:19:37.220 it's very interesting. It's all about how to think. And this is also very interesting because, 00:19:38.099 --> 00:19:42.720 you know, the general way that people in our culture think about religion and spirituality is 00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:49.059 that as religion goes up, thinking goes down. You know, as you become more spiritual, you believe more 00:19:49.059 --> 00:19:56.019 nonsense. And it goes down. But the whole text is about what's the real world. And in fact, the whole 00:19:56.019 --> 00:20:01.000 book of Romans is evidence for the reality that Jesus really did rise from the dead. It's part of 00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:07.200 the evidence for it. If you treat it like Molly Werther did or others have done as just a historical 00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:12.819 document, not as a sacred text, it's evidence for the resurrection. And so what's the very first command? 00:20:12.819 --> 00:20:27.159 Look at verse 11. It is, so or therefore, you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God 00:20:27.159 --> 00:20:40.439 in Christ Jesus. So what's the first command? Consider. Think. Remember. Ponder. Retain. Consider. 00:20:40.440 --> 00:20:47.279 Consider. That's the very, very first command. Consider. And it's really, really an interesting 00:20:47.279 --> 00:20:52.860 word because, you know, consider can be done by people with low IQs and very high IQs. It can be 00:20:52.860 --> 00:20:56.820 done by children. I mean, we, parents will say to their children, like, think of the consequences, 00:20:57.039 --> 00:21:02.400 like, consider what you're about to do. You know, we say that to a five-year-old or a 12-year-old, 00:21:02.400 --> 00:21:08.759 you know? And it's a very, very interesting word. And that's the very first command. Consider. 00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:17.220 And what am I supposed to consider? I am supposed to consider that if the Bible is describing the true 00:21:17.220 --> 00:21:26.540 world, then how I need to consider myself is that I am dead to sin. The word is very interesting because 00:21:26.539 --> 00:21:31.639 it doesn't say just start thinking about how you're going to die to sin, how to start dying to sin. 00:21:32.639 --> 00:21:42.319 It isn't a process word. It's a reality word. Not because I am perfect. I am not, I am a sinful man. 00:21:44.819 --> 00:21:49.119 But I stand before you as one because I put my faith and trust in Christ. 00:21:49.119 --> 00:21:58.439 I have died to sin. Like, I'm dead to it. I died with Christ. And the other thing I need to consider 00:21:58.439 --> 00:22:11.759 is that I am alive to God. That God sees me as alive. That I am born again. My destiny is not only to 00:22:11.759 --> 00:22:19.000 live right now, but that the eternal life that is given to me will only increase. It will only 00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:26.240 clothe me more and penetrate me more. And that the fundamental way for me to understand myself is 00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:33.319 that when Christ died on the cross and I put my faith and trust in him many years later, that was my 00:22:33.319 --> 00:22:41.599 death. I am both standing before you as a dead man to sin and as a man who's alive to God. 00:22:41.599 --> 00:22:46.919 That's what I'm to consider. That's what I'm to think about. 00:22:48.819 --> 00:22:53.879 I have to confess to you folks, you know, this is one of the things I, you know, I don't tell, 00:22:53.939 --> 00:22:59.379 one of the things I tell guys and gals when I'm helping them to understand how to teach the Bible 00:22:59.379 --> 00:23:05.339 is I say, you need to always make sure that the Bible says something to you. 00:23:05.339 --> 00:23:11.139 If you just go to prepare your talk as to, okay, I'm looking for cool things to say to all these 00:23:11.139 --> 00:23:15.879 people and oh, I, boy, I, that person, oh, I, that's what that person means. If you do that, 00:23:15.959 --> 00:23:21.000 your sermons will suck. Now, by the way, you might end up having a mega church with 25,000 people, 00:23:21.459 --> 00:23:27.699 but it's, you need to all know. And so every week, pray for me that the scripture always addresses me. 00:23:27.720 --> 00:23:31.919 And sometimes it addresses me in ways that are way too personal for me to share with you. 00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:38.480 It would be inappropriate sharing, you know, because it really goes at maybe a sin in my life or, 00:23:38.580 --> 00:23:42.360 you know, envy or unforgiveness or something like that, that it just wouldn't be appropriate for 00:23:42.360 --> 00:23:47.620 me to share. But gosh, I have to realize I, I so needed to be reminded about this piece in Romans 00:23:47.620 --> 00:23:51.779 because I'd completely not thought about this enough. I don't consider this truth enough in my 00:23:51.779 --> 00:24:01.259 own life. I really don't. I really need to. Now, just to be fair, the, the, the Bible text does go on 00:24:01.259 --> 00:24:08.779 and give you two other basic commands. So this is the first one. And the, the first, the, and 00:24:08.779 --> 00:24:15.200 it's going to give you two more commands. And one of them is going to be a don't, and one of them is 00:24:15.200 --> 00:24:20.379 going to be a do. And so the first command, it could really be described, the next command could 00:24:20.380 --> 00:24:27.640 really be described as, described as don't let and don't do. And that's in verses 12 through 13. 00:24:29.220 --> 00:24:36.720 So, but the beginning one, it all, the first command to consider is what is permeating all of the rest 00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:44.560 and all of the rest of the book. And it's to consider the real world. Consider what God has done for you 00:24:44.559 --> 00:24:51.139 and in you and is doing for you when you put your faith and trust in Christ. The next is don't let 00:24:51.139 --> 00:25:01.779 and don't do, verse 12. Let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. 00:25:03.099 --> 00:25:10.519 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness. Now, we'll just sort of pause 00:25:10.519 --> 00:25:18.480 there and try to explain a little bit what this, what this means. So the first thing is, don't let 00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:25.859 it reign in you. By the way, when it says that obey its passions, it's really interesting. 00:25:27.259 --> 00:25:31.519 If you look there again at verse 12, if it's up on the screen, obey its passions. One of the way, 00:25:31.639 --> 00:25:35.900 one of the things here which is really interesting is the Bible isn't saying that passions are wrong. 00:25:35.900 --> 00:25:44.120 We're not Buddhists. What it says is that there are passions that are connected to sin, 00:25:44.320 --> 00:25:50.340 but it implies that there's other passions which are good. I mean, it's a good thing to have a passion 00:25:50.340 --> 00:25:57.160 for justice, a passion for compassion, a passion for generosity, a passion for beauty, a passion for 00:25:57.160 --> 00:26:03.200 truth. The Bible's not saying don't have any passions, just warning you. And this idea of don't let 00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:12.019 sin reign. Don't let, don't sort of allow, realize that because you have lived all of your life and 00:26:12.019 --> 00:26:16.860 you're surrounded in a culture which is ultimately, whether it's understood as sin reigning or death 00:26:16.860 --> 00:26:22.680 reigning or whatever it is, it's constantly trying to form you in its mold. Christ has reigned, 00:26:22.920 --> 00:26:28.019 it now is the one who reigns over you. He's the one that you look to for direction. He's the one that 00:26:28.019 --> 00:26:33.639 you need to obey. Don't go back to allowing this to happen. Now, just a couple of illustrations. 00:26:33.940 --> 00:26:37.759 By the way, this is really hard. I'm not saying it's interest. It's easy. And you have to take this 00:26:37.759 --> 00:26:43.759 the right way. I'm not saying that this example is, is that, that he's, he's the devil. I think 00:26:43.759 --> 00:26:49.700 here in the church, the only one who could maybe appreciate this is Andrew and Lisa. But the church 00:26:49.700 --> 00:26:55.019 that we're part of, for many years we were called a different thing, had basically come to almost 00:26:55.019 --> 00:26:59.160 death. They only had like 25 people in church. And then there's a guy who came to the church by the 00:26:59.160 --> 00:27:04.420 name of Kent Doe. And he built the church up to about a hundred people. And in some, he was, he was a 00:27:04.420 --> 00:27:10.460 very charismatic figure in the psychological sense, not in a spiritual sense. And he almost like cast a 00:27:10.460 --> 00:27:14.779 spell on the congregation. Like, I'm not making this up. One of the things that happened when I came to 00:27:14.779 --> 00:27:19.779 the congregation, and I had my first meeting with the treasurer before my first business meeting, 00:27:19.779 --> 00:27:26.579 and I had been part of a national board that had a, a really smart chartered accountant type who could 00:27:26.579 --> 00:27:32.019 make, because he could do depreciation and appreciation things, could make like, it looked like we had lots 00:27:32.019 --> 00:27:38.139 of money. And I just never understood it. And I said to him, I said to the treasurer, I said, I don't 00:27:38.139 --> 00:27:43.279 understand complicated financial reports like this. And he said, no, no, it's a very simple one. And I said, 00:27:43.279 --> 00:27:50.680 well, what's this figure here? And there's a figure of a debt that we had that we'd inappropriately and 00:27:50.680 --> 00:27:56.839 inappropriately and slightly illegally borrowed money from a trust fund. And the amount of money 00:27:56.839 --> 00:28:04.579 that we'd borrowed, I'm not making this up, was twice our annual income. So it would be as if I 00:28:04.579 --> 00:28:13.259 managed to convince you folks over four or five years, if we had the reserves, to take $900,000 in debt. 00:28:13.279 --> 00:28:18.599 Right? And this is the congregation told me they were spectacularly financially helpful. So anyway, 00:28:18.660 --> 00:28:22.379 that's the type of guy. He had, he had really good things about him, but he had these weird things 00:28:22.379 --> 00:28:28.079 about him. And the congregation was almost in, like, he almost like had them under a spell, right? 00:28:28.579 --> 00:28:34.420 And so I'm not making this up. For the first two years that I was here as the rector, I would 00:28:34.420 --> 00:28:41.139 regularly hear in the council meetings, people say to the council, oh, by the way, with this plan, 00:28:41.140 --> 00:28:49.200 I ran it by Kent, and he thinks it's a good idea. And I'm sitting there thinking, like, Kent's been gone 00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:53.540 three and a half years at this point in time. He's still thinking he can run the church, and they're 00:28:53.540 --> 00:28:57.240 all still letting him run the church. Now, you hear that, and you think, well, that's a terrible thing 00:28:57.240 --> 00:29:01.900 that the church did back in those days. But that's, in a sense, what the Bible is saying. Why do you keep 00:29:01.900 --> 00:29:09.560 going back as if sin is going to be the one running your life? Now, obviously, there's going to be 00:29:09.560 --> 00:29:14.440 things you can say about that. You can say, but I, you know, I, you know, like, like, why, why is it 00:29:14.440 --> 00:29:18.920 that people keep going back to porn? Well, you know, because, you know, when I'm in it, it numbs my 00:29:18.920 --> 00:29:24.600 feelings. I can't imagine a life without porn, and those feelings of power that I have, and all of that 00:29:24.599 --> 00:29:31.259 type of thing. But as we all know, that porn just ruins you, right? It just ruins you, messes you up, 00:29:31.439 --> 00:29:39.679 messes your relationships up with, with the, the other sex. And, but why do you keep going back? 00:29:40.359 --> 00:29:44.019 Like, if you have that thing that you can't feel that there's going to be any comfort apart from that, 00:29:44.019 --> 00:29:52.379 well, like, don't let that, don't let sin run your life. Like, don't let it. And then the second 00:29:52.380 --> 00:29:56.540 aspect is, is a connected thing. Look, look again at, at the beginning of verse 13. 00:29:57.040 --> 00:30:02.420 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness. Now, a couple of things which 00:30:02.420 --> 00:30:06.520 is really interesting about that. First of all, so now it's saying, like, the first one is don't let 00:30:06.520 --> 00:30:12.500 this happen. The second one is don't show up and, and immediately go asking, asking for advice. 00:30:12.640 --> 00:30:17.640 You know, like, it would be like the council. Like, it's one thing if, if, if, if, if that, the former 00:30:17.640 --> 00:30:21.840 rector kept calling people and telling them what to do. It's another thing if they call him up. 00:30:23.080 --> 00:30:29.460 Like, why are you doing that? Why are you doing that? And, and that's, and, and, and the word 00:30:29.460 --> 00:30:34.720 members here is just basically all the little bits and pieces that make you, you. There's sort of a 00:30:34.720 --> 00:30:39.260 balance here in the language, the original language, that there's a you, but there's bits and pieces of 00:30:39.260 --> 00:30:44.540 you, right? There's your sexuality, your, you know, your financial acumen, your, there's, you're obviously 00:30:44.540 --> 00:30:51.580 your body. And don't present all the bits and pieces of you. Ready, and, and the word instruments is 00:30:51.579 --> 00:30:58.319 really cool word. It can also be translated as tools. The other thing can be translated as weapons. 00:31:00.559 --> 00:31:09.779 Don't, don't come with the bits and pieces of you to sin, to be weaponized, or to become a tool of it. 00:31:10.119 --> 00:31:15.299 And, and the whole thing about righteousness versus sin, which sounds really corny to a lot of people, 00:31:15.299 --> 00:31:20.099 but it's really good language. The thing which unites the two of them is that they're both language, 00:31:20.099 --> 00:31:27.039 they're both words that emphasize relationship. So sin is, I mean, there's other types of words like 00:31:27.039 --> 00:31:33.359 transgression, etc., which sound like you're just disobeying a standard. Sin emphasizes the personal 00:31:33.359 --> 00:31:41.579 rejection of God. And righteousness emphasizes the being right in relationship with God. 00:31:41.579 --> 00:31:48.519 And so that's what the text is saying. So the first command, if it's true that Jesus rose from the dead, 00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:55.539 if when you were united with him, you're, you've now died that death, sin has been defeated, the end of 00:31:55.539 --> 00:31:59.539 your story is not sin and death, the end of your story is alive to God and made right with him. 00:32:00.059 --> 00:32:02.779 That, and you need to think about that, and think about that, and think about that, and think about that, 00:32:02.819 --> 00:32:06.799 and consider it, and consider it, and consider it. And the, and that's part of the reason why you have 00:32:06.799 --> 00:32:12.440 small groups and, and church is to help remember these things, to live in the real world. The second 00:32:12.440 --> 00:32:17.299 thing is, you know, in a sense, when sin calls you up to tell you how to reign, don't answer it. 00:32:18.279 --> 00:32:22.759 And definitely don't turn around and walk towards and say, by the way, sin, I need some advice about 00:32:22.759 --> 00:32:28.419 how to deal with this situation, right? I'm feeling lonely, I'm feeling depressed, I'm feeling shame, 00:32:28.559 --> 00:32:36.279 I'm, you know, what do I do? Don't, don't come and ask its advice. And then the, the third command 00:32:36.279 --> 00:32:43.519 is that there's something to pursue, that it's not just don't, I mean, there is the consider, 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:49.059 which is a something to pursue, and there's not just the don't, but there is a do. Look at the 00:32:49.059 --> 00:32:56.899 second half of verse 13, and it goes like this, but, and this is a word that, as I said before, 00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:05.399 it could be also translated as a big emphasis on it, but present yourselves to God as those who have 00:33:05.400 --> 00:33:13.800 been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments or tools or weapons for making 00:33:13.800 --> 00:33:21.600 yourself and the world right with God. I mean, now when it, this, this word righteousness now, 00:33:21.680 --> 00:33:28.140 then it's a, it's a huge word. It means to be, you're, to, to work in your company, your office, 00:33:28.140 --> 00:33:35.500 in a way that there is harmony, that there's peace, that there's creativity, that there's thriving, 00:33:35.840 --> 00:33:41.320 that there's blessing, that there's, the world is right with God. You're trying to, to do things in 00:33:41.320 --> 00:33:48.200 such a way, it's, it's not just a, a, a Christian thing. This word righteousness and presenting yourself 00:33:48.200 --> 00:33:56.420 to God is cosmic, it's historical, it's political, it's social, it's aesthetic. It's, that's this huge 00:33:56.420 --> 00:34:02.620 calling. You see, when you give your life to Christ, the thing is, you don't enter into a small, narrow 00:34:02.620 --> 00:34:10.980 crack or crevice. Most of us, our God is too small, but when we give our lives to Christ, and as these 00:34:10.980 --> 00:34:21.559 truths become more real to us, our world explodes. It's galaxy shaping. It's true and good and beautiful 00:34:21.559 --> 00:34:29.940 in creation, in, in gardens, in businesses, in classrooms, in marriages, and in families, and 00:34:29.940 --> 00:34:35.000 that's what we're now trying to present ourselves to God. And remember, and we present ourselves to 00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:40.739 God not as a miserable worm, not as a complete and utter failure, not as one who is completely and 00:34:40.739 --> 00:34:46.320 utterly hopeless, not as one who is completely and utterly weighed down to shame, although those might be 00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:51.740 the things that you are thinking and feeling, but you are to remember before God. How is it that it puts 00:34:51.740 --> 00:34:59.780 it? I come to you, Father, now as one who has been brought from death to life by you. 00:35:02.240 --> 00:35:06.760 And you know, Father, how bad I, this week I has. Maybe today is going to be the first day you've prayed 00:35:06.760 --> 00:35:13.400 in a week or two weeks or three, and you might be saying, God, I have had, boy, I mean, if I was, I, 00:35:13.400 --> 00:35:18.519 I, the things I've done and the things I, good things I failed to do, I can't even begin to list them. 00:35:19.740 --> 00:35:26.880 But you knew all that when you took me into yourself and I, Christ died my death for me. So I stand 00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:34.720 before you, Father, once again, pledging my allegiance, making myself available to you. 00:35:34.719 --> 00:35:42.239 And I stand before you as one who has passed from death to life, not because of the virtues of my 00:35:42.239 --> 00:35:48.099 life, but because of what Christ has done for you. But he wants us to stand before him as one who's 00:35:48.099 --> 00:35:57.319 passed from death to life. The problems with legalistic churches is they want to make you feel 00:35:57.319 --> 00:36:04.519 like garbage. And it sounds profoundly spiritual, but it doesn't line up with what the Bible is telling us. 00:36:04.719 --> 00:36:10.179 I'm not saying you should never feel guilt. We need to feel guilt. We do wrong things. I do wrong 00:36:10.179 --> 00:36:18.359 things. Sort of trying to wrap this all up. It's so, I want to say one other thing. You know, 00:36:18.379 --> 00:36:23.099 when we understand here that we're making ourselves present to God and that this is huge and universe 00:36:23.099 --> 00:36:29.579 shaping, one of the problems we have is, so if you're like me, I think, George, maybe, so I'm telling 00:36:29.579 --> 00:36:35.880 you that this is what I'm like. George, I do a lot of sin. And, you know, there's some sins that I've 00:36:35.880 --> 00:36:39.960 struggled with for a long time, and partly this text, and I'm going to talk about more in a moment, 00:36:40.099 --> 00:36:47.719 is it's telling us not to surrender to sin. It's probably hard to remember the sins I used to always 00:36:47.719 --> 00:36:53.219 struggle with, which I now have had some type of victory over, but I know they're there. But we sort of 00:36:53.219 --> 00:36:58.000 wonder why isn't the Christian life simpler and dealing with sin simpler? And it's really, 00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:03.159 we think of the whole issue as if we're playing checkers with a six-year-old. 00:37:05.360 --> 00:37:08.860 Now, by the way, most of us could probably beat most six-year-olds in checkers. 00:37:10.460 --> 00:37:15.059 And by the way, if you boast that you're great at checkers because you can beat six-year-olds, 00:37:15.199 --> 00:37:16.079 you have a problem. 00:37:20.619 --> 00:37:27.539 By the way, my wife would always let the kids win, but she would play her hardest to make sure I didn't 00:37:27.539 --> 00:37:38.800 win. And it's just fine. That's part of what makes her adorable, as far as I'm concerned. But anyway, 00:37:40.480 --> 00:37:45.219 why was I saying this? Oh yeah, so we tend to think of why isn't like getting better in life and doing 00:37:45.219 --> 00:37:49.440 few bad things? Why isn't it sort of like playing chess checkers against a six-year-old? But what we 00:37:49.440 --> 00:37:54.380 don't understand is this, God is playing a different game. I looked online to see what the most complicated 00:37:54.380 --> 00:38:01.260 game is, and there is a debate online between the ancient Chinese game called Go and chess. 00:38:01.880 --> 00:38:07.300 So whatever one you think is more difficult, God is not just playing multi-dimensional chess, 00:38:08.300 --> 00:38:13.720 and he's not just playing three-dimensional chess, but given how many dimensions it makes a human being, 00:38:13.820 --> 00:38:17.460 he's maybe playing 12-dimension chess or Go. 00:38:17.460 --> 00:38:26.320 And we don't know the game he's playing, and so we don't know why he sacrificed that pawn, 00:38:27.480 --> 00:38:33.240 which is so important in our lives, and why this particular sin is just so hard for us. 00:38:33.860 --> 00:38:42.099 But God isn't just trying to get us to be a little bit better at moral things. He's fitting you and me 00:38:42.099 --> 00:38:52.659 to live with him for all eternity. He's fitting us to bear an eternal weight of glory. 00:38:52.659 --> 00:38:56.359 That's the game he's playing. 00:38:59.119 --> 00:39:05.319 Have to finish the text. The text ends with hope. There's the truth. Consider the truth. 00:39:08.319 --> 00:39:15.219 Consider the truth. That's the first command. Don't let and don't do. Do this. Show up to God. By the way, 00:39:15.219 --> 00:39:20.399 how this could work practically is one of the things you can... Oh, no. And then the third thing, 00:39:21.139 --> 00:39:27.639 the way it all ends, is with more truth, but truth which is hopeful, to live in hope. God wants you and 00:39:27.639 --> 00:39:33.919 me to live in hope, because Jesus really has died. He really did rise from the dead. Sin really was 00:39:33.919 --> 00:39:40.439 defeated. We really will appear before God with resurrected bodies. That's the truth. And look how it 00:39:40.440 --> 00:39:48.220 ends in verse 14. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace. 00:39:49.079 --> 00:39:55.079 I'm going to talk about that more. But what it's saying here is that sin is diminishing in you, 00:39:55.139 --> 00:40:01.500 and sin has already lost, and it will be finally viewed as being completely gone. And what I am, 00:40:01.559 --> 00:40:08.960 in fact, under is under the dominion of grace, and grace will win. It is winning, and it will win. 00:40:08.960 --> 00:40:17.500 This is a text of hope today, and every step along the way until we appear before God, is that grace wins. 00:40:20.619 --> 00:40:33.639 Grace wins. And this isn't to make me presumptuous and lazy, but it means, you know what? I had a really 00:40:33.639 --> 00:40:38.859 bad day. I did a lot of things I shouldn't have done yesterday. I thought a lot of things I shouldn't 00:40:38.859 --> 00:40:46.359 have thought, and I didn't do the things I should. But Father, I ask your forgiveness for these things, 00:40:46.460 --> 00:40:53.460 and I ask that you would help me to amend my life and to live a life which is more godly. And you know 00:40:53.460 --> 00:41:00.440 what? It's worth it to pray that prayer every day, because I'm moving in the direction of the real world. 00:41:00.440 --> 00:41:08.740 You see, promises like this aren't to make us lazy, but to say, you see that? Hear that promise? It's 00:41:08.740 --> 00:41:14.280 worth it. It's worth it. Keep it up. Keep doing it. And the fact that you have to do that all the time 00:41:14.280 --> 00:41:21.900 means God knows how hard it is. It's worth it. Keep doing it. Press on. And the whole thing about this 00:41:21.900 --> 00:41:29.599 text is all of the yous are plural. So if this text was written, I mean, in heaven, we'll all probably 00:41:29.599 --> 00:41:36.259 speak with Irish accents. I'm just joking. But if the Irish were to translate this, the word you would 00:41:36.259 --> 00:41:43.319 be yous, because Irish has the plural for the singular you, yous. And it's yous all the way 00:41:43.319 --> 00:41:48.279 through it. This is something for me personally and for us together and us as a church to manage. 00:41:48.280 --> 00:41:49.940 Please stand. 00:41:49.940 --> 00:41:55.720 Bow our heads in prayer. 00:41:58.599 --> 00:42:05.220 Father, we give you thanks and praise that you sent Jesus to be our Savior, God, the Son of God, 00:42:05.340 --> 00:42:11.980 taking on our human nature. Jesus, perfect God and perfect man, one person, one Savior. We thank you 00:42:11.980 --> 00:42:18.599 for his life of perfect obedience. We thank you for his triumph over death. We thank you that he dealt 00:42:18.599 --> 00:42:24.440 with the sin that besets human beings. We thank you that when we put our faith and trust in him, 00:42:24.920 --> 00:42:31.719 that our sins are washed away and done away, that we are born again, that we have died with Christ, 00:42:31.819 --> 00:42:36.219 and that we are living with him, and we will live with him. And we give you thanks and praise that the 00:42:36.219 --> 00:42:42.019 final word about each one of us is going to be because we are in Christ is welcome. And we give you 00:42:42.019 --> 00:42:48.279 thanks and praise that you are preparing us to bear and to show forth an eternal weight of glory. 00:42:48.599 --> 00:42:53.199 And that you are at work in our lives. And we give you thanks and praise for these. And we ask, 00:42:53.480 --> 00:42:59.539 Father, that you help us to consider, help us to think and remind each other and pray in these ways 00:42:59.539 --> 00:43:05.219 for each other. And help us, Father, not to show up to do those wrong things, to have more victory 00:43:05.219 --> 00:43:11.019 in saying no. And help us, Father, to pursue and time and time and time again to say, Father, 00:43:11.079 --> 00:43:15.639 I go into this situation. Help me to live knowing that Christ is King, 00:43:15.639 --> 00:43:20.839 and that he is the king in my life, and that you are the king over all creation. And Father, 00:43:20.920 --> 00:43:24.759 help us to walk towards that. And we ask these things in the name of Jesus, 00:43:25.199 --> 00:43:27.699 your Son, and our Savior. Amen. 00:43:27.639 --> 00:43:27.859 Amen. 00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:28.519 00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:28.519 00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:28.519 00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:28.519 00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:28.519 00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:28.519 00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:28.519 00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:28.519 00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:28.519 00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:28.519 00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:28.519