©2000 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

2/20/00 If Sin Doesnąt Matter Then Why Does It Matter? Romans 6:15

2/20/00 If Sin Doesn't Matter Then Why Does It Matter?

Last week we completed
      a nearly four month study
            of what it means to be free in Christ.

Throughout much of that study
      we were using Romans 6:11-14 as our guide.

This past week
      as I thought and prayed about where we would go next in our study of God's Word,
            I found myself feeling very much like Pooh Bear
                  that day when he, and Rabbit, and Piglet were lost in the Hundred Acre Woods.

I know that for some of you
      it may have been a few years
            since your Pooh Bear days,
but there is one scene in Winnie the Pooh
      where Rabbit convinces Pooh and Piglet
            that the three of them should take Tigger out into the woods and get him lost,
      and then later rescue him
            with the hopes that the experience
                  will calm Tigger down a bit
                        and keep him from bouncing so much.

Of course it is not Tigger
      who ends up getting lost, though,
            it is Rabbit, and Pooh, and Piglet.

Near the end of the scene
      Pooh and Piglet manage to separate themselves from Rabbit,
            and from his constant chatter,
leaving Pooh and Piglet in the woods,
      alone,
            by themselves.

Piglet is a little frightened,
      being one of the smaller animals, as he is,
      but Pooh takes his hand
            and says, "Now, Piglet, lets go home."

Piglet responds by pointing out
      that they don't know which way home is,
            to which Pooh says,
"I know, but I have several honey pots
      on a shelf in my house,
            and they have been calling to my tummy,
                  but I couldn't hear them properly
                        as long as Rabbit was talking."

And, sure enough, once Pooh's tummy
      has sufficient silence to listen,
            it hears the calls of those honey pots
                  and leads them out of the woods.

Well, there have been some honey pots calling to me as well.
      I wasn't able to hear them properly
            as long as my own voice
                  was finishing up our last study,
but this past week I began to realize
      those pots are lined up on the shelves of the book of Romans.

Having reentered the book of Romans
      through our Freedom series,
            I find, now, that I don't want to leave it.

Everywhere I look in this book
      I see sweetness.

The Book of Romans is a relatively long book by New Testament standards.

And more then that, it is an intense book.

It was written by Paul as his supreme,
      unified doctrinal statement of Christianity.

You may understand what I mean
      when I say it is an intense book
            when you remember that we spent
                  several months on just four verses
                        in the 6th chapter of Romans
and then we didn't really do them justice.

I believe in the near future
       I will bring us back
            to the beginning of the book of Romans
                  and from there we will move through it progressively.

At this point
      I don't know how much of the book we'll end up studying,
            but right now I know it's calling to me.

And for this morning
      I want us to return once again
            to the same passage in Romans 6
                  that we've been studying the past few weeks
and continue on until we complete the thought Paul is presenting.

We've already done so much work together in this passage,
      and it would be a shame
            not to allow Paul to finish what he is saying.

The passage we've been looking at
      is found in Romans 6:11-14.

In verse 11 we saw Paul affirming
      our new identity in Christ.
Rom. 6:11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

From there Paul then moved on in verses 12 and 13
      to tell us about the battleground
            in which we now live out that new identity.

In those verses we heard him talking to us
      about the way in which our mortal bodies
            war against our new identity.

And then last week
      we returned to Romans 6:14
            and heard Paul telling us:
Rom. 6:14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

In that statement we saw Paul telling us
      that when we come to Christ
            and find God taking all of our sin -
all of our moral failures,
      all of our wrong actions,
            and attitudes,
                  and responses,
and placing them all upon Christ,
      so that God literally (2 Cor. 5:21) ... made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him...
when that takes place in our lives,
      at that point our battle for peace with God is ended forever.

There is no such thing
      as a conditional
            or probationary acceptance with God.

Through Christ we now live in perfect union with our God forever.

As a result of the work of Christ for us
      our battle for peace with God
            and our battle against sin in our lives
                  have become two separate
                        and distinct battles.

The one, our battle for peace with God,
      has already been won for us.
Rom. 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...

That does not mean, however,
      that our battle against sin is also in the past.

In fact, our union with Christ
      actually intensifies our battles against evil,
            both the evil within ourselves,
                  and the evil within the world around us.

It intensifies those battles
      because we now live with a tension
            between our righteous inner spirit
                  and the unrighteousness that continues to reside
      both within our mortal bodies
            and throughout the world around us.

In our discussion time last week
      I made some comments about
            the degree to which sin responses
                  continue to flow from our flesh.

I've mentioned several times in recent weeks
      my own realization that,
            even after more than 30 years of learning and growing
                  in my Christian life,
most of my initial responses in life
      tend to be flesh-based responses
            that do not reflect the truth
                  or the reality of who my God is.

That is not a confession, folks,
      it is a simple statement of reality.

Having totally trained every emotional response,
      and every reasoning process,
            and having accumulated our entire information base prior to our submission to Christ
      under the leadership of an inner spirit
            that believed our Creator
either wasn't there,
      or didn't care about us,
            or could not be trusted,
all of those responses and reasoning processes
      continue to provide the daily backdrop to each of our lives.

But that is not where Paul's message to us stops.

Because now, in Christ,
      for the first time in our lives,
            though our flesh responses will continue to harass us,
                  they no longer need to enslave us.

Now, because of the life of Christ within us,
      we can (Rom. 6:13) stop presenting the members of our bodies to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; ...and we can now present ourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness to God.

In other words,
      now, when some response pops up
            in my mind or my emotions,
and my flesh tells me,
"Larry, you must have that in order for your needs to be met.",

or my flesh tells me,
"Larry, you're in this by yourself,
      and your only resource is your own abilities,
            and your only hope is you...",

or whatever other lies
      my flesh may fling at me,
now in Christ
      I can take those lies,
            bring them out into the light of Christ,
and destroy their mastery over me
      by exposing them to the truth.

That learning process
      forms the heart of Christian growth.

And before we go any farther with Paul's comments in this passage,
      if I could offer you one essential anchor in this growth process,
            it would be this -

Never allow yourself to focus
      on the flesh responses that you see coming out of yourself at times.

Focus, rather, on how you choose to handle those responses.

Satan will attempt to convince you
      that your true identity is determined
            by the responses of you flesh.

His voice will say to you,
"True Christians would never have such responses,
      or such impulses,
            or such fears,
                  or such anxieties.
Obviously there is something deeply flawed in your Christian life."

Our God, on the other hand,
      calls us to focus
            not on the flesh responses,
but rather upon working with Him
      in learning how to handle those responses when they occur.

OK, now I want us to step back into Paul's reasoning processes
      as he moves on here in Romans 6.

The last thing we heard him say to us was this:
Rom. 6:14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Because our union with God
      and our acceptance by God
            is now based
not upon our moral conduct
      but rather upon Christ's death
            in our place for our sins,
therefore sin no longer has the power to determine our destiny.

And I want you to listen carefully
      to what I'm going to say here right now.

I know we've reached that point in our time together
      when some of you are drifting a little.

I understand that.

In fact,
      if I didn't have to keep talking,
            and you weren't all staring at me right now,
                  there are times when I would drift, too.

But this right now is not one of those times.


I want to be sure you are hearing correctly
      what I am saying right now.

You see,
      when Paul tells us that the Christian
            is now no longer under the law
                  but under grace,
and when he tells us that
      because we have now become eternally justified before God
            simply through our faith in Christ,
and now posses an eternal,
      and irrevocable peace with God through Christ,
he is telling us that our behavior,
      our conduct can never again separate us from our God.

And I think perhaps my saying that
      has just made some of you feel very uncomfortable,
            because in saying it
                  I am yanking out
                        and throwing away
the greatest single motivation the flesh will ever have for improving our moral conduct.

If we remove the fear
      of God's judgement,
            and rejection,
                  and wrath,
                        and condemnation,
then why does it matter
      how we act?

This past week Sandee and I
      happened to tune into the last half
            of a PBS Frontline program
                  dealing with attacks on homosexuals in our society.

In the course of the program
      they interviewed homosexuals,
            and their friends and family members,
                  and several church leaders as well.

And repeatedly throughout the program
      one of the major motivations presented
            for avoiding homosexuality
                  was the fear of damnation,
the fear of God's eternal rejection
      for those caught in the homosexual lifestyle.

In fact, at one point they interviewed
      a man serving a life sentence in prison
            because he had brutally murdered
                  another man whom he claimed
                        had made homosexual advances to him.

And in the interview
      the murderer said he knew he had been forgiven by God
            and would be going to heaven
                  because he had confessed his sin
and asked God for forgiveness,
but he also knew
      the man he'd murdered
            was burning in hell
                  because he was a homosexual.

Clearly, to nearly everyone interviewed on that show,
      the threat of the wrath of God
            was viewed as a powerful, positive deterrent to immoral behavior.

But what if we were to say to the person caught in homosexuality,
      or to the person living in adultery,
            or to the person who is stealing from his employer,
or to the person who is cheating on his tax return,
      "In Christ your moral conduct will never again separate you from your God."

How do you think they would respond?

I think they would say,
      "Well, then, if that's true I might as well just keep on doing what I'm doing."

And before you think I am misquoting Paul,
      or misinterpreting what it means
            to no longer be under the law,
let me read the next thing Paul himself says in Romans 6:15.

He says,
Rom. 6:15 ¶ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?...

What then? If my performance
      as measured by the moral law of God
            truly can never again separate me from my God,
                  then what difference does it make
                        whether or not I keep on sinning?

And there are two huge things I want us to see here:

1st, we have not correctly heard
      the true message of the grace of God
            until this appears to be a logical, reasonable question.

The world of man-made religion
      is founded upon perpetuating the threat of God's rejection onto the believer
            for fear that the removal of that threat
                  would result in the believer
                        plunging back into his or her old sin patterns.

And most of what is presented
      as the grace of God within the Christian world
            is a subtle but powerful mingling
                  of law and grace to where the Christian is presented
      either an offer of a second chance,
            or else the offer of a leash mentality.

The offer of the second chance
      is the offer in which our past life is based upon the death of Christ,
            and our new life is then based upon our performance.

We are permitted to enter into a relationship with God
      through faith in the death of Christ
            for our past sins,
but we now maintain a good standing with God
      through achieving an acceptable level of performance.

Or else we are offered a kind of leash mentality.

When we take our dog, Pepper, for a walk
      we have to keep him on a leash
            because he has terrible doggy social skills,
      and when he sees another dog,
            no matter how big or mean it is,
                  he charges it full speed,
determined to make it run.

We yell and scream and coax
      and it makes no difference.

And without our placing him on a leash
      one day he will die
            because some huge beast
will turn on him and snap his little neck.

There is a kind of leash "grace" presented within the Christian world.

It is a grace that suggests
      that there is a limited sphere of sins
            in which God allows us to run.
We can have occasional impure thoughts,
      and cheat a little,
            and lie a little,
but there is an end to that leash,
      and if we slip our leash
            and enter into certain deadly sins
                  there is no longer any hope for us.

It's a kind of limited sphere of grace,
      again designed to encourage the Christian to limit his immoral behavior.

Neither the second chance
      nor the leash mentality are consistent with true Christianity.

Only the true message
      correctly heard will lead us to the point where we say,
Rom. 6:15 ¶ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?

2. And the second thing I want us to notice in this verse
      is that in those areas in which
            our flesh is still under the mastery of sin,
      this is the first place of refuge
            to which our flesh will flee.

We will look at ourselves,
      and see in ourselves
            what we believe to be inalterable sin patterns.

We will hear the message of the grace of God,
      and our flesh will respond by saying,
"Well, then, it doesn't matter. I will continue to sin because I am not under the law, but under grace."

But that is not were Paul stops.
You see, I didn't read for us
      the entire 15th verse.
The entire verse reads:
Rom. 6:15 ¶ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!

And from there Paul goes on
      to lay out for us the reasons for breaking the power of sin in our lives,
            given the fact in Christ
                  our behavior will never again separate us from our God.

And we'll move on to those verses next week.