©2001 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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3/11/01
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Married To Who?
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Romans 6:12-7:6
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3/11/01 Married To Who?
We return this morning
to our study of the 6th chapter of Romans,
and return, too,
to a passage in which Paul plunges into
what is certainly
the most critical and potentially defeating area of
conflict
many Christians ever face.
He deals with the principles
governing the Christian's relationship to sin,
and especially those principles
that provide the foundation
for true freedom from sin in our
lives.
We saw last week,
as we entered this 6th chapter of Romans,
that Paul uses Romans 6, 7, and 8
to share with us
the 4 major changes God brings about in our lives
as a result of the grace
He has poured out upon us through Christ.
At the end of chapter 5
we heard Paul telling us
that through Christ God has now made it
possible for His grace
to bring about true righteousness within
us,
resulting in our eternal life with Him.
Then, having given us that overview,
he goes on to share with us
the 4 changes that take place
in every believer's life
as a result of the grace of God.
And just so we don't forget,
I want to remind us
that these are not changes that should take place in
the Christian's life,
they are changes that have already taken place
in the life of every believer.
They are changes that God Himself
sovereignly accomplishes
in each of our lives
at the time we come to Christ.
Most of us have no idea
any of these changes have taken place.
And, in fact, most of us continue living out our
relationship with God
just as if these changes have not taken place,
and because of that
we also continue living under many of
the same sin weaknesses and addictions
that dominated our lives
prior to our submission to the King.
But Paul wants us to know the truth.
And just to get our minds back into this study,
let me list all four of those changes for us
before we return to the text
and look more closely at the second one
on the list.
When we come to Christ,
He makes 4 remarkable changes in us
and in our relationship to Him.
1. He changes our true identity.
2. He changes our relationship to the moral law of
God.
3. He changes our relationship to sin.
4. He changes our relationship to Christ Himself.
If you were with us last week
you will remember that Paul then begins this
6th chapter
by describing the first of those 4 changes.
He says,
Rom. 6:6-7"... knowing this, that our old
self was crucified with Him, that our body
of sin might be done away with, that we
should no longer be slaves to sin; for he
who has died is freed from sin."
We seldom allow ourselves to think correctly about
ourselves as Christians.
Because we so often continue to focus on the
negatives we see within ourselves,
and because we continue to wrestle with
unresolved questions and struggles in many areas
of our lives,
it is sometimes easy for us to also fail to
accept the reality
of the massive changes that have clearly
taken place within us through Christ.
At the top of that list of changes
is the hunger God has created within us
for a life that honors our Lord.
That hunger exists
for only one reason -
because we have already been recreated by God
at the spirit level of our being.
Maybe just a few examples
will help us better relate to what I want us to see
here.
What are you doing here, anyway?
I mean, really.
For most of you
this is a very precious day away from your work
routine.
There are a thousand neglected duties
or exciting hobbies
that you could be investing this precious time
in.
And yet...
and yet most of you choose to invest
nearly half of nearly every Sunday
to do whatever it is we do here.
Most of the people in our nation
and, in fact in our world,
would rather do anything other than be here.
Some of you here
can easily remember the time
when you could never have imagined
yourself going to church,
much less enjoying it.
And yet here you are,
and glad of it.
Why?
Because something deep within you
has been changed by God Himself.
And how about your relationship to the Bible?
There was a time in your life
when the easiest way for someone to loose
your interest and attention
was for them to start quoting from the
Bible.
And yet now you find that something deep inside
you drinks from the Word.
Passages take on a life,
and a power,
and an authority,
giving you hope and encouragement in a way
you've never experienced before.
Why is that?
And that new sensitivity you now have
to all sorts of things you never even noticed
before -
certain types of evil,
and the sufferings of those around you,
and your concern over troubled relationships
that never bothered you before -
where does that all come from?
It is not because I weekly yell and scream at you
about your sins,
trying to work up
some sort of emotional guilt feelings in you.
It comes from that new heart,
that new spirit,
that new YOU God has already created at
the core of your being.
And even though our practical performance
has not changed nearly as much as we would
like,
when we step back and look honestly
at the type of things our spirit once
longed for,
and the type of things we long for now,
we can see the truth of what Paul is saying -
Rom. 6:6 knowing this, that our old self
was crucified with Him...
Something huge within us has died and been
recreated.
This isn't the whole answer, of course,
but it is the beginning,
the first step in God's reconstructive
program within us -
bringing us to the place
where we can see ourselves at the spirit level
as the new creations we have become in
Christ.
Now, from this point Paul then moves on
to the remaining 3 changes
that bring about practical freedom from sin in
our lives.
They are
the change in our relationship to the moral law of
God,
the change in our relationship to sin,
and the change in our relationship to Christ
Himself.
In the verses that follow
we are going to hear Paul tell us
that through the grace of God
we have been freed from the law,
we have died to sin,
and we have been joined to Christ.
Taken as a whole,
and presented in a single statement,
this whole section of Romans,
describing the way in which God shatters
the power of sin in the believer's life,
tells us that this work is accomplished within us
by God creating a new heart within us,
freeing us from the law,
and joining us to Christ
resulting in our dying to the power of sin in our
lives.
Now, what I just did there,
taking those 4 concepts
and reducing them down into a little
four-phrase doctrinal liturgy
is a dangerous thing for me to do.
It is dangerous because it suggests that
these life-changing transformations
that God has already accomplished in our
lives
can be grasped,
and integrated into our lives
by memorizing the concepts intellectually.
And that simply is not true.
If it was,
all of you here this morning
could memorize this section of the notes
and find yourselves living sin-free from
this day forward.
But I have risked doing what I've just done
because I want us to see
that all 4 of these concepts,
all 4 of these changes
are deeply inter-related.
They are not 4 marbles,
they are marble cake.
These are not 4 unrelated changes or principles,
they are 4 truths that intertwine
and flow together into one united whole.
One of the mistakes I believe I have made
as I have attempted to teach these concepts in
the past
is that I have attempted to teach them
in isolation from one another.
I have taught extensively
about our being freed from the law,
but I think I have sometimes failed to
complete the picture.
We are not just freed from the law,
we are freed from the law
so that we can be joined to Christ.
Let me read at least part of this passage for us,
and then we'll see if we can find some handles
that will help us get a better hold on it.
Paul writes:
Rom. 6:14 For sin shall not be master over
you, for you are not under law, but under
grace.
In verse 17 Paul continues:
Rom. 6:17 But thanks be to God that
though you were slaves of sin, you became
obedient from the heart to that form of
teaching to which you were committed,
Rom. 6:18 and having been freed from sin,
you became slaves of righteousness.
Rom. 6:22 But now having been freed
from sin and enslaved to God, you derive
your benefit, resulting in sanctification,
and the outcome, eternal life.
OK, in these verses
Paul outlines those next three changes
that have already taken place in our lives.
1. We are no longer under the moral law of God.
2. We have died or been freed from sin.
3. We have been joined to God Himself.
But those concepts
simply do not register with our minds
when we read them.
They come across as meaningless Bible words
that seem to have no connection with our real
world.
So the next thing Paul does
is to take all three of those concepts
and meld them together
into a remarkable illustration.
He goes on to say:
Rom. 7:1 Or do you not know, brethren
(for I am speaking to those who know the
law), that the law has jurisdiction over a
person as long as he lives?
Rom. 7:2 For the married woman is bound
by law to her husband while he is living;
but if her husband dies, she is released
from the law concerning the husband.
Rom. 7:4 Therefore, my brethren, you also
were made to die to the Law through the
body of Christ, that you might be joined to
another, to Him who was raised from the
dead, that we might bear fruit for God.
Rom. 7:5 For while we were in the flesh,
the sinful passions, which were aroused by
the Law, were at work in the members of
our body to bear fruit for death.
Rom. 7:6 But now we have been released
from the Law, having died to that by which
we were bound, so that we serve in
newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of
the letter.
And those of you who have read The Grace
Exchange
are familiar with my paraphrasing of this
illustration.
Picture a young lady who has been married
only a few months. She entered this marriage
relationship with stars in her eyes and great hopes
for her future. Unfortunately, she did not know her
husband well when they married, and she soon
realizes this is no match made in heaven. Her
husband is a perfectionist with the highest possible
standards. He knows exactly how he wants his
home to operate, and he will settle for nothing less.
Before he leaves for work each morning, he hands
his wife a list of duties he expects her to perform
during the day. The list includes exact details
concerning how she should clean the house, how
she should handle each article of laundry, when she
should have dinner ready, and what he wants on the
menu. When he returns home from work, the first
thing he does is go over each detail on the list to
make certain she has accomplished it correctly. He
never offers a word of praise and, when she fails to
perform perfectly, he is quick to point out her
shortcomings and exhort her to do everything right
the next time.
This nightmare marriage continues for several
years. The wife grows to despise and resent her
husband and to dread each new day she is forced to
live under his unbending authority. She knows she
cannot measure up to his demands, and yet she
cannot escape his rule.
Then one day her husband dies and the young
lady remarries. This time, however, she marries a
very different type of man. Her new husband loves
her deeply and rejoices in his bride. His one goal in
life is to provide the kind of leadership that allows
his wife to grow and develop in every way possible
so that she can know true fulfillment in life. When
he leaves in the morning, he does not give her a list
of duties to perform to his specifications. He simply
wraps his arms around her and gives her a big hug.
He tells her he will miss her while they are apart
and can't wait to see her again. When some project
she has attempted does not turn out well, and he
suddenly sees the fear in her eyes as she anticipates
his anger or condemnation, he puts his arms around
her and says, "My love, listen to me. I did not
marry you for what you could do. I married you
because I love you. You are my greatest joy in life,
and I could not be more pleased with you as my
mate."
Gradually, as this frightened, fearful young
lady responds to her new husband's loving care and
leadership, she finds herself growing in her desire
to please him and be the best marriage partner she
can be.
Now, through this remarkable word picture given to
us by Paul,
He takes these 3 crucial changes
that God has already performed in our lives
and he shows us how they relate to one
another.
Through the grace of God
our lives have been altered as profoundly
as if our marriage partner had died
and we remarried someone
who is the exact opposite of our first
marriage partner.
Paul is telling us in this passage
that every one of us enters this world
locked under the oppressive authority
of the moral law of God.
Even if we do not have exposure
to the written Ten Commandments,
every one of us still has those
Commandments etched into our moral core.
That law is the absolute moral tyrant
under which we must conduct our lives.
It can do only two things:
1. I demands obedience from us.
2. It condemns us when we fail.
Like that first husband,
we hate it,
we fight against it,
we play all sorts of mental games with it,
but in the end it is always there,
demanding and condemning.
As we've seen,
the union between that moral law etched into our
being,
and that spirit within us that is in rebellion
against God
is a disastrous, raging battle
that repeatedly drives us into self
destructive behavior
just to prove to ourselves
that we are in control of our own lives.
Several weeks ago
one of the Anchorage TV news programs
ran an interview with a high school girl
asking her response to the school district's
health curriculum supporting
sexual abstinence before marriage.
The program was pointing out
the loss of self-respect,
the risk of teenage-pregnancy,
and the potentially deadly risk of
sexually transmitted diseases that always
accompanies teens who are sexually active.
When the interviewer asked the student's response
to the teaching she said,
"As soon as they tell you not to do it
it just makes you want to do it all the more!"
But in this section of Romans
Paul tells us that God delivers us
from this horrible trap
first of all by creating a new heart within us,
and then by replacing the moral law
with the Person of Jesus Christ.
The problem we so often encounter
in our thinking about Christian living
is that our concept of Christ is so distorted,
so twisted
that, by the time we get done dealing
with the concept,
in our minds there is no practical
difference between living under the authority of the
law
and living under the authority of
Christ.
By the time our religious world gets done with the
whole thing,
the only difference is that
before we came to Christ
we lived under a massive block of stone
upon which are etched the moral
commandments of God,
and after we come to Christ
we live under the demanding authority of Christ
Himself
who stands towering over us
with a scowl on His face,
the stone tablets in one hand,
and a megaphone in the other
to be sure we can hear Him
as He reads the commandments to us.
There is no more critical
or more intense battle raging in God's creation
than Satan's battle to separate
our understanding of God
from the historical Person of Jesus
Christ.
As long as Satan can keep us creating
mental images of our Creator
that are not consistent with Christ
he has won the only battle he needs to
win.
Let me state it the other way around.
When God entered into a human body
and stepped into this physical world
in the person of Jesus Christ
He was saying to all of us,
"This is who your God is.
This is what I am like.
To understand Me,
and how I relate to you,
you need only, and must only
look to Jesus Christ."
And of course, Christ Himself
said it far better than I ever could.
John 10:30 "I and the Father are one."
and again,
John 14:9 ... He who has seen Me has seen
the Father...
All of which is to say
that the only way we will ever begin to
appreciate what Paul is saying here in Romans
is if we will allow ourselves
to look closely at who Christ really is
and how He really relates to us.
There is a reason why
nearly one half of the entire New Testament
is dedicated to 4 historical records
of the life of Christ on this earth.
Those four documents
provide us with the perfect window
through which we can see our God clearly.
And if, this day, we could interview the Apostle
Peter,
and ask him how Christ brought about
such profound changes in his life,
this is what I believe he would say
in response to that question.
"Most of all this man, this Jesus, became my
friend, a friend who knew me fully and loved me
completely just the way I was. Certainly His
friendship produced profound changes in my life.
But they were not changes I attempted to paste on in
order to be "good disciples of the great Teacher".
They were changes that gradually infiltrated my life
the more I relaxed in His unconditional love and
acceptance.
I sometimes think the greatest gift the Master
ever gave me was His permission to be myself. It
was a gift He gave me most of all through all the
things I never heard Him say. I look back over an
endless stream of stupid things I said and did
during the months I spent with Him. Yet not once
did I ever hear Him say, "Peter, you're such a
fool!", or "Peter, you blew it again!", or "Peter,
just once would you try thinking before you
speak!", or "Peter, I've had it with your endless
egotistical stupidity - get out of here!". Amazingly,
he seemed well content to have me forever
blundering along at His side, knowing the only
thing that would transform my life was the
discovery that even my worst failures would never
separate me from my Master's love."
That is what Paul is talking about
when he tells us we have been freed from the
Law
and joined to Christ.
That is the Christ we have been joined to.
That is our God.
And that is life with Him through the grace
He seeks to pour out into our lives.