Romans Chapter 6:1-4

How shall we who died to sin live? How can you keep doing this? That's the old life. Maybe you're sitting here going, well, where's the joy?

I'm very frustrated. Well, are you continuing to live in sin? Are you dying to that and living for the Lord?

Are you holding on to that old life? The abundant life is a blessed life, a loving life, a joyful life, a full life. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David Magee. When it comes to walking with Jesus, we can live an incredible and blessed life in Christ or a miserable life in us. Find out how you can choose today as Pastor David continues in Romans 6. For this teaching, have you not read?

Here's David. So we're in Romans Chapter 6, verse 1. It says, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Now, Paul in Romans Chapter 5, if you've been with us, he's explaining how we get saved and what the problem is and this problem of sin and these things. So he's kind of changing gears here because he's been talking about salvation is of grace. And then he says, OK, so if salvation is of grace, then why don't we just go do whatever we want? Why don't we just sin as much as we want? Certainly some folks think like that and some people who under the cloak or whatever of a blanket of eternal security say, well, you know, I'm saved.

I can go do whatever I want to now. But that's really missing the point. See, when you truly understand grace, you understand how that grace was purchased. You understand that Jesus died for your sins.

They were placed upon him. So from a theological sense, every time we mess up, there's another sin placed upon him, if you will. And let's understand, there's kind of two extremes here. There's legalism and there's license. There's legalism, which basically says you have to earn your salvation.

You have to do right to keep it. And certainly that's not a biblical truth that the Bible presents. And then there's license, which is, hey, you know, we're saved by grace.

Let's just go do whatever we want to. Theological term there is antinomianism. Both of those extremes are wrong. See, the Bible is really a book of balance.

And when you get into these extremes, you know, of legalism or license, both of those are wrong. Paul's going to be talking about that. Now, Romans chapter six, verse one in the Amplified says this.

What shall we say to all this? Are we to remain in sin in order that God's grace or favor and mercy may multiply and overflow? Obvious answer to this is absolutely not. Absolutely not. Paul answers the question in verse two and he says, certainly not. God forbid if you're in the King James, may it never be, I think is what another version says.

Certainly not. How shall we who died the sin live any longer in it? Now, this is meaty theological stuff here in the book of Romans. Whether you just got saved considering getting saved or been saved for 30 years, this is great stuff. See, if grace is true, then can we just do whatever we want?

Well, that's the right data, but the wrong conclusion. Now, grace is there and we are saved by grace and forgiven by grace. But again, if grace is true and we know it is and we understand it, it leaves us to love God and begin to hate sin.

The sin that separates us from God, the sin that was cast upon him, the sin that literally killed him. And understand, you know, we're talking about life, we're talking about living. And it's one thing to have eternal life by faith. God gives that to us in a moment that we call justification.

We'll talk more about that in a few minutes, but this justification thing. But it's another thing to begin to live the abundant life through faith. So it's one thing to have eternal life by faith. It's another thing to live the abundant life through faith. Now, what we have to do is we go from this one place of accepting eternal life by faith to begin living the abundant life through faith. And Paul's going to lay this out in chapter 6. The way we live in freedom and power over sin, and this is important stuff.

When you begin to understand that, you know, it's not just to live in Christ, but to begin to understand that Christ is living his life in you and through you, that you begin to exercise this power over sin and begin to stop doing the things that you used to do. And understand, the focus in this chapter is not on sin. Paul talks about sin an awful lot. But understand, friend, when you focus on your sin and your problems, your sin and your problem begin to get bigger.

That's not the answer. A lot of people are focused on the problem, they're focused on the sin, and that doesn't make it any better. It makes it worse because the focus seems to feed on itself. Focus on Jesus, and that's what this chapter is doing.

Focus on Jesus and watch these things start to disappear and get smaller in the rearview mirror as you're headed towards Jesus. But if you're headed towards those things and your focus is on those things, you're going to keep living a struggling life. We want to see in this chapter how we live this abundant life. That's a lot of people, they come to the Lord and they're like, understand, the abundant life is God's design, that's His desire for you. But they're like, well, I'm a Christian and I'm not really seeing that abundant life.

Well, understand, you as a believer have a choice. You've been forgiven of your sins, but now are you going to live for sin? Or are you going to live for God? See, if you live for God, you'll have that abundant life. But if you live for sin, you're going to have that defeated life.

Not only are you not going to have the joy, but you're going to be miserable going between the two. One foot in the world, one foot in Jesus. God desires that you would have the joy and the power of living a surrendered life.

The abundant life begins when you start to understand that you need to surrender to God. How shall we who died to sin live? Why can't you keep doing this? That's the old life. Maybe you're sitting here going, well, where's the joy?

I'm very frustrated. Well, are you continuing to live in sin? Are you dying to that and living for the Lord?

Are you holding on to that old life? The abundant life was a blessed life, a loving life, a joyful life, a full life. I don't know anybody listening that that doesn't appeal to a loving life, a joyful life, a blessed life, serving life, a giving life, a loving life, a full life.

If that sounds good to you, let's understand from this passage of how we engage in this. First life lesson here is we can live an incredible and blessed life in Christ or a miserable one in us. We can live an incredible and blessed life in Christ or a miserable life in us. The Bible encourages us to love God and love people. And what I found is that there's kind of a scale that you love God as much as you hate sin. If you don't hate sin, then you probably don't love God. See, as you love God, you begin to hate your sin.

Why? Because it's the sin that crucified him, that he paid for, that crushed him on the cross. And you begin to throw that off. If we say that we love God and we don't hate sin, there's a problem, friend. And we should be, we talked about this before, but, you know, we're awfully bothered by the sins of other people.

And we don't seem to be that bothered by ours. We need to reverse that. We need to be more bothered by our sins, not condemned, convicted.

I'll explain in a second. We need to be more bothered by our sins and less bothered by other people's sins. See, there's conviction and condemnation. When you mess up, when you sin, you go, oh, well, I need to ask God to forgiveness, can't wait to go to church. Condemnation's like, well, I'm so beat up, I messed up anyway, I really don't want to go to church. Condemnation drives you away from God.

Conviction pulls you to God. Let's understand we're going to be talking about sin and its power over us or God's power over us. Listen, understand that there is within man, I believe, there is this three part trinity, if you will, within man, in the sense that there's spirit, soul, and body. In the garden before the fall, the spirit came first and then the soul and then the body. And what happened when Adam fell is that those roles got reversed. And after the fall, it became body, soul, spirit. In other words, as we all fell into sin, then the body was making all the decisions, really, if you will.

It was kind of the driving force. Now, after you're born again, guess what? Reverts back. Just like it was in the garden, the spirit is top dog. We should be spirit led, spirit driven by the Holy Spirit, then the soul and then the body. Thank you for listening to Cross the Bridge with David Magee. We'll return to David's teaching in just a moment. The tragedy in Benghazi, the bombings in Boston, and the current unrest in Egypt are all vivid accounts of terrorism. Each time an event like this occurs, it often causes us to respond with fear. But it doesn't have to, because God knows your future and you can too. With David Magee's teaching entitled, Know Your Future, Be Immune to Terrorism, you'll come to understand the realities of radical Islam while rejoicing in God's promises for your future.

Don't allow fear to consume your life. Instead, find hope with this month's special offer, Know Your Future, Be Immune to Terrorism. Know Your Future is available as a CD or DVD and is our gift to you when you call today with a donation to Cross the Bridge Ministries. It's because of your continued faithful support that we're able to broadcast across the nation with the life-changing Word of God.

To help support Cross the Bridge and receive your CD or DVD copy of Know Your Future, call 877-458-5508 or go online to crossthebridge.com. Now let's return to Pastor David's verse-by-verse teaching in the book of Romans. Look at verse 3, Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

This is interesting. It's going to be several of these do you not know or knowing this kind of thing. Do you not know? Do you not know? See, somehow we're expected to know these things.

We're supposed to know these things. Understand, a lot of Christians, a lot of believers, they act like knowing the Bible is an option. As a matter of fact, there's teachers out there, supposedly Christian Bible teachers, that will tell you the Bible is no longer really relevant. It doesn't really speak to the issues of today. One popular teacher said the time for expositional teaching is long past.

I have to strongly disagree. The reason is the things that Paul was dealing with, we're still dealing with these issues of life and death and sin and spirit. And so we need to get to know our Bibles because when you get to know the Bible, you get to know the author. God has expressed himself in this book very explicitly. And so we need to be aware of the Bible.

We need to be reading the Bible. Now, friend, if you're here or if you're listening and you really don't know a lot about the Bible, well, first of all, understand that sadly enough, many platforms and many pulpits today don't really teach the Bible. They grab a verse here and a verse there. That's called a topical teaching. And they teach like that where what we do here is expositional teaching. We're going through the Bible because, you know, I want to help you to understand the Bible.

I want to be your partner explaining the Bible. And so this will help you to know. And so then when Paul says, do you not know?

You can say, oh, I got you, Paul. I know this. I've read this passage. I've studied it with Pastor David. And apparently Jesus also had an expectation that people would know the Bible.

Let's look at these cross references here. Matthew chapter 12, verse three, but he's speaking to Jesus, but he said to them, have you not read what David did when he was hungry? He and those who were with him.

Matthew 12, five says, or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath, the priest in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? Matthew chapter 19, verse four, again, Jesus. And he answered and said to them, have you not read that he who made them at the beginning, made them male and female? Matthew 22, 31, 32, but concerning of the resurrection of the dead again, Jesus speaking. Have you not read what was spoken to you by God saying, I'm the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, God of Jacob.

God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Four times Jesus said, have you not read? There was an expectation Jesus, God had towards people that they would read the book. Apparently Jesus expected them to know the Bible. Also, there was an expectation that they were doing the Bible, but we'll talk about that later.

But it's interesting today that so little expositional teaching goes on. One of the best things I can do for you in order to bless you is to give you a love for the word of God and to impart that to you and to teach you and walk you through this Bible. Because you simply cannot read the Bible with an open heart and being open to God's spirit and it not change your life. This Bible has changed so many lives, even in this place.

I want to be your partner. I'm telling you, I will walk you through the word. So that brings us to this life lesson. Knowing the Bible is one of the keys to doing the Bible. Knowing the Bible is one of the keys to doing the Bible. See, a lot of times, Christianity, we think, well, you know, Christianity is about no, no, no. Well, it's not.

It's more about no, no, no. The Bible. Because as you know the Bible, this trickle down thing starts to happen. If you're reading it with an open mind and with God's spirit. And understand, God wants to communicate this word to you. He's going to help you according to, in the Gospel of John, ask for the spirit to come and help and reveal it to you.

And the Holy Spirit will come. And not only is it head knowledge, because if you stop there, friend, you're not really doing the Bible. But if you're really knowing the Bible, it begins to trickle down to your heart and you start to live this stuff out.

Bible study should lead to Bible doing. Now, the first time you were born, you were really baptized into Adam, if you will. You were baptized into Adam.

Part of the last chapter spoke about that. You were baptized really into the way of sin and death. The moment you were born the first time, you started dying day by day. As you come to know Jesus, you're saved and you're born again. And then you're baptized. We don't believe in baptismal re-degeneration is to say that you're saved by baptism. You're saved by grace and by faith. And you should be baptized.

We'll talk more about that in a moment. See, when you were born again and baptized into Jesus, well, friend, that's the day you really started living. Your first birth is when you really started dying. The second birth being born again is when you really started living. In the beginning, when you were baptized into Adam, you started dying. And you started living a life that will never last.

Not for any of us, friend. When you were born again, baptized into Jesus, that's when you really started living. And you began living a life that will never end.

Awesome stuff. Verse four. Therefore, we were buried with him. Most versions, capital H, just speaking of Jesus. Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism and to death. That just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we also should walk in newness of life.

Ah, this is great stuff. Old life, new life, baptism. What are we doing? What does it all mean?

Let me help. Old life, new life. How do we become stronger in the new life?

Well, imagine if you will, you have two dogs in front of you. One is the old life. One is the new life. How do you feed the dog the new life? Well, going to church, that's feeding the new life. It's feeding this dog. Reading your Bible, it's feeding that dog. Devotions, feeding that dog. Studying the Bible, feeding that dog. Fellowshiping with other believers, feeding that dog.

What happens after you feed this dog? That old life begins to die off and starve to death. The thing is, a lot of us feed the old life.

We, I don't know, watch maybe movies or shows. Maybe legalistic, but you're watching stuff that feeds in the old life. Maybe visiting websites feed into the old life. Having conversations feed into the old life.

Having friendships that feed into the old life. And the old life begins to be stronger. The new life begins to starve to death as we fall out of fellowship. Don't read our Bibles. Don't pray. We're not in devotions. We don't have personal devotions.

We're not in fellowship with other believers. We're feeding that old life, and the new life begins to starve. So friend, feed the new life. Feed the new man, the new woman. 2 Corinthians 5 17. Awesome.

Awesome. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's in the creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

That old stuff is gone. Let it go, friend. Don't, don't keep clinging to that. Don't keep reminding yourself of that. One of the interesting phrases that the enemy, the adversary of our soul, Satan, who's a very real being, is labeled the accuser of the brethren.

And he always seems to be coming up and reminding us of our past. But you can't be worshiping God. You did this. You can't be singing praises. You did that. But you can't be serving God. You used to be like this.

Hmm. Try this little strategy. Next time the enemy comes and reminds you of your past, remind him of his future. Book of Revelation. Doesn't end up so well for him.

Goes well for us. So let's understand when it comes to living for God, God gives us the motive, which is love. God gives us the power, which is his spirit. God gives us the knowledge, which is his word. And God gives us the grace to follow him and live a new life.

This is an incredible exchange that happens. And again, it says that we're baptized into death. The word here is baptisma.

It literally means immersion. I know some people sprinkle and, you know, if the person comes to a belief in Jesus before they're baptized, I believe in baptism by immersion, okay? But some people baptize infants and we don't practice that. We practice what we call believer's baptism. And be honest, I was sprinkled as an infant, but I had not yet made a decision for Jesus.

I had not decided I would be identified with Jesus and buried with him. And understand we talk about baptism by immersion. Literally baptisma means immersion to be immersed in. And of course we see that Jesus came out of the water. Matthew chapter three, verse 16 says after his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. So Jesus came up out of the water.

What do we know? Well, if he came up out of the water, guess what? He must have been in the water. You can't come out of something you're not in.

So he came up out of the water. And it's identified with burial. Let me ask you a question. When we bury somebody, do we leave them above the ground? Sprinkle a little bit of dirt on them?

No. I have some funerals I've done. The loved ones place some of the dirt. But the loved one is underground.

So this picture of burial is underground. Keep in mind, baptism is a symbol. It's not necessary for salvation.

But if you believe in Jesus, you've asked him to forgive you of your sins, you should be baptized. Imagine, well, I'm married. This ring here is a symbol of my marriage to my wife. You know, if I said, okay, honey, we're married, but you know, I really, I'm not into symbols. So I'm going to take this off. I'm going out tonight.

I'm going to be gone for a little while. Well, my wife is going to say, you know, I'm a little uncomfortable with you not being into symbols because this symbol represents the relationship. Well, friend, the baptism is a symbol that represents the relationship. And I have a real problem with somebody who says, Jesus, thank you for dying for me. I accept your forgiveness from my sins and you're Lord and savior of my life, but I'm not going to listen to anything you say about being baptized.

Friend, don't do that. So speaking of being baptized into his death, well, pastor, I still sin. What's up with that? Imagine if you've ever seen any of those old horror movies, they had this little thing called a zombie and the zombie wasn't really alive. The walking dead, they called them.

And they really look horrible. And, um, these zombies are walking around even though they're dead. If we're dead to sin, whenever you sin, guess what? You're kind of being a zombie. You really want to do that? You really want to look like a zombie? Or you can walk in the newness of life and the freedom from those things. Which do you want to do? You want to be a zombie or you want to walk in the newness of life? The answer's easy.

You want to walk in the newness of life. Let's understand some of these terms. And we've talked about these before. Let's talk about them again. Three terms of salvation, if you will, are important because a couple of them are mentioned. Actually, all three of them are mentioned in the book of Romans. Number one is being justified. That's just as if I never did it.

It's both an accounting and a legal term. I was saved. The moment I came to Jesus and asked him to forgive me, he forgave me. I was saved. This day, this time, I was saved. If you hear this today and you don't yet know Jesus as your Savior, we'll give you the opportunity for the day is done.

And if you're listening, you'll have that opportunity as well. And it'll be done. So being justified is an act. Being sanctified, another term of salvation, is being set apart.

Set apart for a special use, if you will. Being sanctified is in us. We are being sanctified. It is an ongoing work that will continue until we're glorified. And glorified is when we get the new body. And that is, I will be saved. So being justified is an act. Being sanctified is a work. Being glorified is a promise. It's a promise. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe You died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe You were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for You all of my days. In Jesus' name, amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If this was your first time praying that prayer with Pastor David, we would love to hear from you. You can call us toll-free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. Also, if you've been blessed by Cross the Bridge Ministries, would you consider supporting us with a financial gift? When you call with your gift, make sure to ask them about this month's special offer, entitled Know Your Future, Be Immune to Terrorism.

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That's 877-458-5508. Or go online to crossthebridge.com. While there, take a moment to sign up for David's free email devotional or browse our large library of teachings. Again, our website is crossthebridge.com. Thank you for listening, and we hope you'll join us again next time as we continue to Cross the Bridge.