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(upbeat music) - Welcome to our daily drive time devotions to the book of
Romans. We're starting a look at Romans chapter six today, day one of five days,
looking at this incredible chapter. This is in many ways a look for us at a
third major truth from the book of Romans.

We started out at the very beginning of this study talking about how Romans
tells us that history changes through the truth of God's word. And we talked
about five specific ways that history changes. When we get a hold of five truths
from the book of Romans, you might remember some of these.

In fact, let me just quiz you real quick, see if you can remember. The first
major way that Romans talks about history changing is in Romans chapter one,
verse 18 to 320. History changes when I understand the truth about, do you
remember?

It's the truth about sin. When I get a hold of what God says about sin, my life
history changes and world history changes even when the world gets a hold of
that truth. The second major section of Romans is Romans chapter three, verse 21
to 521.

We just finished looking at that. I understand the truth about salvation is the
focus of that chapter. History changes when I understand the truth about sin,
the truth about salvation.

And now we begin to look at Romans chapters six through eight. History changes
when I understand the truth about sanctification. Sanctification, my growth as a
Christian.

Romans nine to 11, history changes when I understand the truth about God's
sovereignty. And Romans 12 to 16, history changes when I understand the truth
about service. So today we begin to look at sanctification and how our history
can change, our church history can change, our national and world history can
change.

When we understand this truth about sanctification, it's about our growth as
believers. Romans chapter five is about justification, justified by being
declared not guilty. We just finished looking at that.

Romans six to eight is about sanctification. Sanctification is God's process of
making us more like himself, of growth in our lives as believers. The word
sanctified simply means to be set apart.

God has set us apart to be his people. He set us apart to become more like
Christ. A closer look at these chapters we're going to be looking at these next few
weeks together, Romans six to seven, you see that it's really built on Paul's
answers to three objections that people had about faith.

Shall we sin so that grace will increase? Some people were asking, Paul had an
answer. Shall we sin because we're not under the law?

Others were asking, Paul had an answer. Is the law somehow sin? People were
asking and Paul had an answer.

And then in Romans eight, Paul has incredible answers. One of the great chapters
of the entire Bible talks about what it means to live a life that's led by God.
In Romans chapter five, the book of Romans tells us that God frees us from the
penalty of sin.

But in Romans six to eight, we're going to talk about these next few weeks, God
talks about how he frees us from the power of sin. Romans chapter six, the theme
of this great chapter is, well, I'd say it is, how do we win the battle against
sin? Stuart Briscoe titles this chapter, Should Saints Sin?

In chapter six, Paul is dealing with the question, what about the sins of
believers? The whole chapter is devoted to answering that one question. He's
just talked about the grace of God in chapter five.

And he knows that by nature, a question begins to rattle in our minds. If God
forgives me, and I know that he's going to forgive me by his grace, why not just go
ahead and sin? It's not only a logical question, it's a natural question.

This is because sin is fun, isn't it? Come on, you can admit it. Maybe you're
alone, maybe you're with others, but the truth of the matter is sin is fun.

If it wasn't fun, why would we do it? Now, I understand that in the end, it's
not fun. I understand that in the end, it brings destruction.

But when we're sinning at that very moment, it seems like the right thing to do.
It seems like the fun and pleasurable thing to do. We know that sins are bad for
us.

Our mind tells us, and logic tells us, and our experience tells us that sin is
bad for us. But nevertheless, we sin, and we feel attracted to sin. Why do we do
that?

Because there's something in us that thinks it's pleasurable, that decides that
it's fun. Any kind of suggestion that tells us that we can escape the penalty
for our sin and still somehow enjoy the action of sin, it arouses an interest in
people. They begin to think, well, maybe I can still do both, or something like
that.

Very strange way of thinking, but Paul says, you know what, I know human nature.
I know how people think, so let's deal with it. Let's talk about what God has to
say about this.

And he talks about two words, again and again, in this chapter that are the
secret to change. The word death and the word resurrection. We're going to come to
those words again and again and again.

Sanctification in Romans chapter six, this is one of the most important chapters
of the Bible. It's about our growth as Christians. And like everything else we
do in our Christian life, our growth begins with faith, with faith.

There's a lot of things that you can do to grow as a Christian, have a quiet
time, go to church, be a part of a small group. Those things are vital, but they
all have to start. They have to start with faith.

And Romans six tells us how and where to have faith. The doctrine of
sanctification, the truth about our growth, sets the foundation for all that God
wants us to be as believers. One of the missing ingredients in spiritual growth
in many believers' lives is not understanding what God says, the doctrine of
sanctification.

If you don't understand this truth, you can easily find yourself falling into
traps. Traps like trying to grow as a Christian based on your own effort, that's
legalism. Or, as Paul deals with here, presuming on God's grace to grow no
matter what you do, that's taking license.

There are hundreds of things that we can do to grow spiritually, but they all
rest on the foundation of faith. And to grow as a Christian, to grow as a
Christian, you must learn to see yourself by faith, to see yourself as God sees
you. So Paul says in Romans six, one and two, "What shall we say then?

"Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? "We died to sin. "How can we
live in it any longer?

" How does the believer deal with sin? Well, we're going to start to deal with that
in these first couple of verses. Paul says, does the believer deal with sin by
continuing to sin so that grace might increase?

He says, by no means, that's a ridiculous thought. He says instead, in Romans
six, two, "We died to sin. " That is one of the most important phrases for your
daily life in Christ in all of the Bible.

We died to sin. What does that mean? Well, it's died, it's past tense.

It's obviously something that's already happened. Not only the way we read it in
English, but the way it's indicated in Greek very strongly says, this is
something that has already happened. So what does it mean that we've died to
sin?

Does it mean that we no longer want to sin? Well, you know that's not true. What
does it mean?

It means that the penalty of sin has been taken care of and the power of sin has
been removed. I may be attracted to sin, but I no longer have to sin. I have a
different choice because of the power of Christ.

In a few days, as we walk through Romans six, we're going to look at verse 10. In
verse 10, the Bible tells us, the death that Jesus died, he died to sin. The key
for understanding what it means for us to die to sin is in understanding what it
meant for Jesus to die to sin.

It says in verse 10 that Jesus died to sin. Now we know that Jesus never sinned.
So this phrase isn't about him deciding to stop sinning or no longer being
tempted to sin and going through with that temptation.

Jesus never sinned. So what does it mean to die to sin? Same thing for us as for
Jesus.

When Jesus died on the cross, he broke the penalty of sin and he broke the power
of sin. Now you and I cannot defeat sin by crucifying ourselves or trying to
resurrect ourselves. We don't have the power to do that.

So we rely on what Jesus did, the fact of the crucifixion of Christ and the fact
of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and what that does in our lives. That's what
we put faith in. Is Paul saying in these verses, when he says we died to sin,
that the Christian can't sin?

Of course not. You know that's not true. You've seen that that's not true by
your experience and the experience of others.

He is saying that a Christian is dead to sin and that as we believe that truth
about ourselves, we may know to sin that we haven't had before. Being dead to
sin doesn't mean you have no response to sin, no temptation to sin. It doesn't
even mean that you can't choose to sin, you can.

What it does mean is that you have a power from God now to change how you
respond to sin by recognizing a new spiritual reality about yourself. It's the
only way to victory. You know why a lot of people can't break a sin pattern in
their lives?

You know why you might not be able to break a sin pattern in your life? You're
trying too hard. And the harder you try, the worse it gets.

You're trying to break the power of sin by your own effort, your own willpower,
can't do it that way. We died to sin. It starts with faith.

You start by trusting in what Jesus has done for us. You need to start trusting
in what Christ has done rather than trying to do it for him. In fact, let's take
a minute to do that right now.

Let's just talk to him about it right now, honestly about our sin. Jesus Christ,
we come to you and we admit it, we're sinners. We've done wrong things,
selfishly.

We've done wrong things, pridefully. We need your forgiveness. And we thank you
that when we first turned to you for forgiveness, or even if we're first turning
to you right now, that you do forgive all of our sin, past, present, and future.

As forgiven people, we want to start to live in a new way. And Lord, we are sorry
for those times when we've tried to make ourselves better by our own human
effort and willpower alone. God, the power to say no to sin is found in what you
did for us on the cross, in the new life that you gave us when you were
resurrected from the dead.

And so right now, in this moment, we ask that you'd help us to begin to see
ourselves in a new way. Not in light of our past sins, not in light of our
future intentions or pride. But God, help us to see ourselves in light of what
Jesus did for us.

He died so that we could live. And we are grateful for that. In Jesus' name,
amen.

If this is your first look in depth at Romans chapter six, I'm sure you're
scratching your head a little bit right now. There are some new truths in this
chapter. As we walk through these five days of a look at this great chapter of
the Bible, I believe at the end of this week that you will be able to see
yourself through new eyes of faith because of the love of Jesus Christ.

Tomorrow, we're going to look together at Romans chapter six, verses three to five.