Free From Sin [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

If he had left it simply with the fact that we are forgiven through Christ's shed blood, then we would be pardoned, but we wouldn't be empowered. And today we begin to see how the gospel of grace empowers us to victorious living. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light.

I am Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series. It's All Right Now from Romans chapters four through seven as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. Now, if you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, we sure want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. And you can contact us at Pastor Alan dot org. That's Pastor Alan dot org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? Beloved child of God in Christ, you aren't simply forgiven of your sins. You are set free from sin. The grace of God in Jesus Christ does not only pardon your sin, the grace of God empowers your victory over sin. We come today into Romans chapter six, where the good news that Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has been building toward now starts reaching this beautiful point of why the grace of God brings victory in the Christian's life and what that means. Some years ago, a family that was new in our church made an appointment, the couple did, man and wife, to come and tell me why they were after many years leaving another church where they'd served and been for a long time in leadership.

And I appreciated that. They wanted me to know the spirit with which they came, not disgruntled or such, but they also wanted to get to have a conversation. So we sat down, and I'll never forget the dear lady, she wept, and she said, I began to just feel so heavy every time I was leaving church with a weight, a burden, a feeling of guilt, and even hopelessness and sadness. I said to her, I said, I'm surprised by that because I thought that your church had an emphasis on grace. In fact, I think that grace is in that church's motto. And she said something I'll never forget. She said, yes, but it's always and only the grace that can forgive my wretched sin. It's never the grace that empowers me to overcome it.

And for us to grasp what the gospel of grace is, Paul is going to show us in the beginning part of Romans 6 what he's eventually going to crescendo with in Romans 8, and that is how grace is so much more than most people realize. When Bennett was young, I wound up coaching his kids' soccer team. I dabbled around trying to help out when friend and elder in our church, Dan Anthony, coached a team, and I assisted him a bit. And then I came back in the background, Dan moved on, and someone else was coaching.

And then I tried to hide the fact that I had played some high school soccer. When they found out I had a little soccer experience and they needed a coach badly, finally I caved in and agreed to coach the team. I actually really like coaching. I think if I weren't a pastoral leader, I could see myself being a coach. I kind of think what a pastoral leader does is sort of just being a pastoral coach.

I just love helping people be all that they're designed to be. And the little team that I inherited was in the kind of lower level soccer league in town. And we didn't have a lot of skill or size or speed. And I think our first season we might have won a game or two. And it got a little better the next season. We did, I think it was my last season, but we did eventually have, we improved. And we also got some other good players. And eventually we had not only a winning season, but one time we had an undefeated season.

It was a lot of fun. But I was just thinking back to that team that lost every game except for one. And I remember one team in particular we had to play that year. And our kids, I mean, they look like little kids. The other team, well, their kids had mustaches.

And we knew they never lost. And our kids are just looking at them like, those guys are twice our size, they're really fast, they're really skilled. Now what does a coach do before a game when you huddle the team together and you're up against such an opponent? I mean, do you say to them, now guys, let's face it, we're going to lose, our opponent is huge, they're fast, they're skilled.

We're not as experienced, we're not as big, we're not as quick, we don't have the same skill. We're definitely going to lose this game. You know, let's just accept the fact. But here's the thing I want you to know.

I'm not going to hold it against you. And at the end of the game, like we always do, we still will have a snack. And we got a good snack today. You're going to really enjoy the snack. And I'll forgive all your poor play.

And just going out there and, you know, run around for a bit. At the end of the game, I don't know, we'll probably get beat 10 to 1. But it's all right.

I'll pardon all of that. And we'll be back at it in practice this week and we'll have another game next week. I mean, on one hand, I mean, if it's a part of me, it's like, yeah, we're going to get beat 10 to 1. But that's not what a coach does because if you simply forecast the defeat and you agree with the defeat, and you think of it that way, then certainly that's what's going to happen. Now, that can't be the way that you coach. You have to find a way to say, yes, the opponent is strong. But guys, we have been putting in the time and your skills have been improving.

And we can do this on any given day. No telling what might happen on the field of play. So let's go out there with a confident attitude and look on yourself not as a victim who is certain to lose. But look on this as all things are possible and you could win this game.

That's the way you have to talk. But I think so often in the Christian life, we have been fed this message and it feels almost like we've been huddled together. OK, Christian team, here you are.

Let's gather it now. The devil's big and he's bad and temptation is strong. And we're sinners.

We're wretched sinners, as a matter of fact. But here's the thing. Even though I know and you know that you're selfish and you're probably going to stay that way, even though I know you're prideful and you puff yourself up and look down on others, it's probably going to stay that way. Even though I know you lust and you have greed and you've got all these problems, it's probably going to stay that way.

But here's the thing, though. Even though we're going to fail at this Christian adventure, just remember this. There's pardon for your sin.

We got a good snack at the end of this thing. In a lot of ways, the message comes across like that. And if Paul had left us with merely the discussion of the predicament of sin, the problem that we all have of separation from God wherein we needed a great rescue, and if he had left it simply with the fact that we are forgiven through Christ's shed blood, then we would be pardoned but we wouldn't be empowered. And today we begin to see how the gospel of grace empowers us to victorious living. This is the culmination of our section of Scripture, Romans 6.14, and it is one of the most hopeful statements that the world has ever heard. To the Christian, God says through Paul's pen, For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Seeing as Jesus Sees. It's the title of Pastor Alan Wright's newest book just released, and it's the giant secret of real transformation. Followers of Christ tend to focus on doing, so we've been told to ask, what would Jesus do? But even our noblest efforts to be more like Jesus ultimately fail for the same reason that pledging to keep the law never works.

There's no gospel power in our self-striving. But what if the secret to personal transformation and victorious living isn't found in doing as much as in seeing? Anyone who has ever had an aha moment or has suddenly discovered the truth of a situation knows that fresh vision changes everything. In his eye-opening new book, Alan Wright invites readers into a new simple spiritual practice, a little breath prayer that can be prayed throughout the day. Jesus, how do you see this?

It's a prayer that the Savior loves to answer because, after all, Christ came to be the light of the world. Clear away confusion, win over the darkness, and open your heart to wonder and joy by getting your copy of the book right away. When you make a gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's new beautiful hardcover book, and as an additional thank you for your support, you'll also receive a free six-week Seeing as Jesus Sees companion video series from Pastor Alan, along with a study guide and a daily reading plan. Let Jesus take you by the hand and show you a whole new perspective for your life.

As you learn how to ask Christ for his eyes, you'll start seeing as Jesus sees, and you're going to love the view. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. In order to get at this amazing, amazing statement, building up through this, we got to go back into Romans 5 and review a little bit so that we can get a running start. There's this imagery Paul is drawing upon of how there was a first Adam, a natural man who sinned, and because we all have been born since Adam in the flesh, according to our legacy from Adam, his sin becomes our sin, we're all born in sin, but that Jesus is like a second Adam. He's God, but he's also human, and so he comes, and unlike Adam, he doesn't sin, and he fulfills all righteousness, and he's perfectly obedient.

And so the gospel picture here is magnificent. It means that we're all born in the first Adam, in the flesh, in the normal way, and we all have sinned. But when you accept Christ, you are, the Bible says, born anew.

You are spiritually reborn, and you're born now into Christ, a second Adam, a new man, a new way of being. And what Paul says in Romans 5, 15 is the free gift of grace is not like the trespass of Adam, for he said, if many died through one man's trespass, the first Adam, much more have the grace of God, and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin, for the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. The reason I'm revisiting this from Romans 5 is because if you don't keep this in mind, then Romans 6 is not going to make sense. So there's a first Adam and a second Adam, and in this way, they're very similar.

Their impact is pervasive. All who are in the first Adam are sinful like the first Adam, but all who are in the second Adam, Christ, become like Christ. And the relationship to sin and to grace and to faith changes. So what he's saying is that they're like each other, but the gift of grace is qualitatively different and better and bigger and more glorious than the qualitative aspect of the sin. So sin that gets imputed to us from the first Adam and righteousness that gets imputed to us from the second Adam, Christ, are not in the same category, is what he's saying. What this means is that there's sin and curse and death that comes under the law, and there's grace and blessing and life. I would look at it like this way, and I can't spend as long as I want to on this, but it means that on the one hand, curse and death from the first Adam are different than the grace of God because that curse and that penalty is deserved for humanity. Yes, we are in the first Adam, and so in a sense, we're born in that sin, but then we all sin.

So we're all deserving a punishment. But the gift of God and Christ is different. It's an undeserved gift. Its nature is different.

It is not related to your merits at all. It's different. It's also different in this sense. The curse that came in through Adam, the curse and that penalty that accompanies that curse, it in Christ is utterly revoked. The curse can be revoked through the gift of Jesus Christ. But what's qualitatively different about the grace of God in Christ is that when you receive the grace of God, the devil cannot revoke it.

Oh, wow. It also means this, that because of sin, curse confines us and death reigns. But through the grace of God, blessing releases life, and we reign with Christ.

This is why the first and second Adam, who are types of one, first Adam is a type of Jesus, but how the gift of God, his grace is so much different and so much better. Think of it this way. Death is the absence of life. When life ends, that's what death is. But life in Christ, shared life in Christ, the grace of God that brings shared life of Christ, is not the absence of something, it's the gaining of something. Life is energy. Life is power.

Life is joy. Life in Christ. And it is to say, and this is so important and powerful, I wish I could spend more time on this, but it is to say that under the first Adam, when he sinned, what happened was he went from being innocent, he'd never sinned, to being guilty.

So it was a loss of innocence, and it means that Adam was in a condition in which at any moment before he'd sinned, he could sin and lose his relationship with God. But we are in a much better position, Paul has been describing to us in the first five chapters, because we are in Christ justified. We're made righteous. We're reckoned righteous. So we were never innocent.

We were always guilty. But now that we've been justified, we can't lose our relationship with God. So the gift is not like the trespass.

It's better qualitatively. And the other thing we have to look back in Romans 5 in order to understand Romans 6, again to review, is Romans 5, 20, the law came in to increase the trespass. But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

So this is a strange statement. So that, verse 21, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness. So literally this says that law came alongside of sin. Sin was already here.

Way before Moses got the Ten Commandments, right? It always was sin. Sin since the time of Adam. I mean, Cain killed Abel, and I mean, the world was so sinful, God almost wiped it out with a flood, because only one righteous man knows. Sin has been here. And then God, as an increase of the revelation of His nature and the true destiny of humanity, He revealed Himself further by giving the law through Moses, which included the Ten Commandments and all these other liturgical laws. So the law came in alongside of sin, he said. And when it did, he says that the sin increased.

Well, what he really means here is that in the first place, the sin was exposed that people didn't even realize they weren't even thinking about it. It's sort of like saying, whatever you do right now, do not think about a pink polka-dotted elephant. Don't think about a pink polka-dotted elephant. Don't think about it being pink. Don't think about what an elephant would look like if it was pink. Don't think about what color the polka dots are. Don't think about a pink polka-dotted elephant. Well, everybody always thought of, now you've thought about a pink polka-dotted elephant.

And there wasn't a chance, one in a trillion, that you would have come into church or be watching on your screen right now and ever have thought of a pink polka-dotted elephant. But now that I brought the law, don't do it. It exposed and it increased. And there's something like that that's happened with the law. It is to say that God made us to be in His image and like Him and yet we fell and there was so much that was wrong that when God brought the law, it just exposed it. I mean, I can think of an example of the law, the Sabbath, which is one of the Ten Commandments to absorb the Sabbath. Well, the Sabbath is the greatest command of all time. I mean, it should be the command we just love because the Sabbath says on the seventh day, because we're in the image of God, we should be like God. And He rested. God's not just all about work. God's about relationship. So on the Sabbath day, nobody work. Everybody relax.

Enjoy your friends, enjoy your family feast. Alan Wright, our good news message free from sin. It's from the series It's All Right Now from Romans chapters four through seven.

And I encourage you to stay with us. Pastor Alan is back here in the studio sharing his parting good news thought for the day in just a moment. Seeing as Jesus sees, it's the title of Pastor Alan Wright's newest book just released.

And it's the giant secret of real transformation. Followers of Christ tend to focus on doing. So we've been told to ask, what would Jesus do? But even our noblest efforts to be more like Jesus ultimately fail for the same reason that pledging to keep the law never works.

There's no gospel power in our self-striving. But what if the secret to personal transformation and victorious living isn't found in doing as much as in seeing? Anyone who has ever had an aha moment or has suddenly discovered the truth of a situation knows that fresh vision changes everything. In his eye-opening new book, Alan Wright invites readers into a new simple spiritual practice.

A little breath prayer that can be prayed throughout the day. Jesus, how do you see this? It's a prayer that the Savior loves to answer because after all, Christ came to be the light of the world. Clear away confusion, win over the darkness, and open your heart to wonder and joy by getting your copy of the book right away. When you make a gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's new beautiful hardcover book. And as an additional thank you for your support, you'll also receive a free six-week Seeing as Jesus Sees companion video series from Pastor Alan, along with a study guide and a daily reading plan. Let Jesus take you by the hand and show you a whole new perspective for your life.

As you learn how to ask Christ for his eyes, you'll start seeing as Jesus sees, and you're going to love the view. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Back here now sitting with Pastor Alan and our parting good news thought for the day. This one is free from sin.

We're just kicking off this teaching, and we'll place a bookmark and pick back up next time. But what's your closing thought for us, Pastor Alan? Back here, Romans 6.14 again, for sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace.

Wow. Christian, hear this again. Sin will have no dominion over you. And I just think that word alone, just that it's possible that the sin that has seemingly beset you for a long time, God says will not have dominion over you, brings the possibility that you can escape its clutches. Free from sin.

That's my prayer for you in Jesus' name. Thanks for listening today. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching, delivered right to your email inbox, free. Find out more about these and other resources at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.