My name is Daniel Thompson. I'm the college pastor here at Mercy Hill. I'm very excited for Scent Weekend next weekend. If you've never been around Mercy Hill during that time, it's going to change your life, whether you know it or not. Like the video mentioned, Pastor J.D.
Greer is going to be here. He's had a massive impact on Pastor Andrew. I mean, if you're here today, he's had a massive impact on you, whether you know it or not. Because it was under his teaching and leadership where our launch team a couple years ago. Was sent out and planted Mercy Hill here in Greensboro, and we've all benefited from that.
But also, I wanna point out in the video, Kinsley is one of my best friends. My wife and I are very close with her. She actually stayed with us and our family before she went overseas. And I remember that process, I remember her wrestling. Through what it might look like to go international and wrestling with that.
And two of the things that it did in our lives is: one, it made us question, it made me ask the question: man, am I all in? Am I willing to go where God has? Has me go? Or am I kind of reserved? Am I wanting to do enough where people don't question my loyalty, but not really be all the way in?
The second thing it did was this: I'll never have to wonder if my kids understand that putting your yes on the table is anything other than the normal Christian life. They've seen that. They see it now that she's back stateside. They know the stories. We prayed for her when she was gone.
And so my kids will grow up understanding that it is not the superhero rock star Christians that go, it's the normal ones. And that's what we want to be.
So I want to encourage you to be at the Nation's Night next weekend, be at St. Weekend, invite some friends. Go all in and say, God, I don't know what this might look like. But I just want to see what you'll do. And trust that God will do something incredible.
We're going to be in Romans chapter 6.
So if you're a copy of Scripture, go ahead and go there. We have missed the past two weeks due to snow. We have not been here in person, and that's been not too great. But what we did, we started our chosen sermon series. Which is going to be absolutely awesome.
We got a few more weeks after this. This is my one chance to preach in this. I'm not going to one of the chapters of the book, but I was thinking, I was like, what is the way if we're going to reach this goal that we've set out of a thousand children impacted by the gospel through chosen ministries, which is adoption, foster care, and families count, you know, the reunification of families, if we're going to see a thousand children impacted by that by the year 2030, It is not going to be because a sermon makes you feel motivated for a week. It is not going to be because a video gives you a couple chuckles and a feel-good feeling. And I've been guilty of that.
You leave and you're like, I'll do anything. And then one bad morning waking up and your neck's a little cra like got a crick in your neck and it's over. And all that motivation is gone. If we want to be sitting here in 2030. Blown away by what God has done.
With thousands of kids. In horrible situations. Chosen. Just like God has chosen us, it's going to be because we understand this: that God builds his family. In one way.
Through bringing people in. And we're only going to live that out once we remember what he's done for us. And that's what we're going to see today. It's Super Bowl Sunday. If you don't know, I've seen a couple jerseys around.
I'm sure there's some at the campuses. Anyone here a Patriots fan? We got a few hands up. There's the door. You guys can leave.
That's good. We're good. My cousin and my uncle, they're from Maine. They're big Patriots people. I gotta pull against them.
I can't do it. But I'm excited. And one thing I love about the Super Bowl, and I love about sports games in general, is I love when they show the crowd. And you know there's going to be some guy in his 50s on the front row, shirt off, body paint. You know, the whole thing, a Seahawk head, right?
And he's going to be doing somebody's taxes the next day. Like, that's, he's going to, he's an accountant. But he's in, he's all in. He's got all the chants. He's got tattoos.
He's got Super Bowl years that he's marked out and tattoos. He is all the way in. He has adopted that, much like come Monday morning. What's going to happen is whoever wins, they're not going to be walking around being like, hey, um... I don't know if you heard, but we won the Super Bowl.
They're not going to be doing that. They're going to be very loud about it. Almost as loud as the Cowboys fans saying they're going to win next year. Like, it's just. I don't make these rules, they just happen.
But that's what happens. Is they've adopted this way of living. They've been brought into this group of people. And so the action is expected. None of us were like, well, you know, I'm going to be shocked if a Seahawk fan claps during the game.
But the same is true for us. And we have been adopted into a family, but a lot of times we struggle to live that out, and we don't understand that just as we've been adopted in, there is a new way of living that comes as a part of that family. And that's our big idea for today: that being adopted into God's family. means we adopt a new way of living as a part of God's family. That's what we're going to see in Romans chapter 6.
Man, how do we diagnose though? How do we know if we're living that way? Let me ask you the questions that you need to ask yourself. Does the way we love our spouses look any different than anybody else that's not a believer? Does the way we spend our money look any different?
Does the way we parent look any different. There's the way we talk about people. When they're not around, does it look any different than the rest of the world, than those who haven't been brought into the family of God? Do our schedules look any different? Or is the only thing different what we do for the hour and a half on Sunday?
If we've been adopted into God's family, There's a different way of living. That's what we're going to address today. How and why do we live as adopted people? Like I mentioned, we're going to be in Romans chapter 6. Look at those first 14 verses.
I'm gonna walk through a few at a time. I'm gonna stop. Let me explain because the text kind of jumps around a little bit. It starts off by saying: hey, there's some things you can't do. As an adopted person, there's some things that we ought not do.
Then he gives the reasons we shouldn't do those, and then he tells us what we should do and how we can do it.
So it kind of jumps back and forth, so follow along with me, starting in verse one. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who die to sin still live in it?
Let me give you a bit of background on Romans, where we are right now. In the first five chapters of Romans, Paul has answered some pretty deep theological questions. He's answered questions like: What do we need to be saved? Do we need to be saved? How does God accomplish this salvation?
How is that applied to our lives? These are the massive questions. And now the question is. Do the answers to those questions change anything about how we live? Does it say anything about how we live on Monday through Friday?
Does it change anything about how we parent? And Paul starts off with a resounding yes. And we're going to see what that life change looks like. And this matters because, in those first two verses, Paul anticipates an improper response to our adoption. He anticipates that we're not going to see it.
He anticipates that some of us, on one hand, are going to want a saving Jesus and not a changing Jesus. And on the other hand, some of us believe that Jesus saves us, but it's on us to change us. He understands that for every one mile of road, there's two miles of ditch. And we're prone to fall off on one side of those ditches. And so he begins, before even talking about how he lived this life, he begins by saying, make sure you're not in one of these two ditches.
And so, we're going to say, let me talk to both of those people. Remember, he says, Should we continue sinning that grace may abound? Don't abuse grace. How can we who Die to sin, still live in it. Sin is not yours to deal with anymore.
Let me talk to both of y'all really quickly. First, to the people in here, you might not see sin. I'm a Christian, it's not that big a deal anymore. It's not some massive thing.
Well, every summer in our college ministry, we do something we call SINT Initiative. And one part of that is called City Project. If you're a college student, what we do is you can scan this QR code, fill out interest form, we'll talk to you. We spend the summer here. We go see church plants.
We go international. We do theological teaching. It's incredible. We have over 40 students who are committed to spend the summer with us this year. It's going to be awesome.
If you're interested in hosting students in your home this summer, please email me. We are in desperate need of families who love Christ and want to have college and it's over. Anyway. Every summer we go international. This past summer I went to South Asia.
And right beside where we are is one of the world's largest tiger reserves. There are, you know, you've seen the videos. People want the pack of the little Jeep-looking things and they see tigers walking on the road. That's where we're going to go.
Well, right before we went, A man who was farming had been mauled by a tiger. And we were there, and the kids were around, and we were talking to school kids about it, and they were fully aware of that. They were like, Yeah, it happens. It was just normal living. They were like, hey, you build houses next to tigers, you get attacked by tigers.
We understand that.
Well, I told them, I said, okay, I was teaching on this exact same topic, this new way of living. And I said, okay, what if your friend came to you and said, hey, I found a baby tiger, I'm going to raise it in my house. And their eyes got this big. Their eyes were huge. I said, what's going to happen?
And what would you tell your friend when that tiger grows up? What's it going to do? And one little girl raised her hand on the front row and said, it's going to eat you. That's what she told. That's the exact same thing that Paul is saying here.
He's saying if you treat sin like it's this little non-issue When it grows up, it will devour you. And so, what he's telling us is that grace doesn't excuse sin, it evicts sin. It gets sin out of our life. It removes it as far as possible. It's not okay.
for us as a believer. And we can't see it as this small thing. Not a single person has said, you know what? In four years I'm going to commit adultery. No one does it.
No one starts that on day one. No one holds their baby and says, you know what? I'm going to belittle their identity so much that they're going to have identity crisis when they're 14. No one looks at their friend and says, You know what, starting today, I'm going to sow little seeds and I'm going to make them so angry that I ruin our friendship. It's a baby tiger.
And you don't think it's a big deal until it devours you and it consumes you. What Paul is saying is, grace does not allow sin like that to hang around us, it gets it out of the way. It evicts it, but I'm not even saying that. The other group of people in this room are like, you're right. I'm a horrible person.
I'm adopted into God's family, and I've got to be better. And you just got this overwhelming sense of shame, even just saying that. That you're like, I try hard, dude. I really do. I try to live out this thing that you're telling me.
And what I want to tell you is this: you're probably in that other group that think it's on you to clean it up. The story in scripture that I think paints this perfect picture is the story of Lazarus. He was one of Jesus' friends. He dies. Jesus goes and brings him out of the tomb.
And the first thing that Jesus says... Isn't praise God. He says, take off the grave clothes. Because they're not for you anymore. But so many Christians live this way.
You're like, but I deserve to have, I was dead. I deserve to wear these. You don't know how bad I was? The shame, the guilt, no, no. He can bring back to life, but I need to wear these.
And I've been guilty of that. Let me ask you this, brothers and sisters. You're members of my family, the family of God that I've been brought into. Let me ask you this question, I have to ask myself. What sins do you live like Jesus hasn't died for yet?
When you go about your life. He's died for all of these, but this one. This one, I gotta fix it. I gotta do better. It's all on me.
What Paul is saying is at nearly the same rate that abusing grace Will stop you from living into your adopted life. Refusing grace will do the same thing. Both of those. One mile of road, two miles, we can't fall off either way. We have to make sure.
That's what you need to share with your community group this week. You need to tell them, man, I belittle sin. I don't think it's that big of a deal. Or, man, I think it's all on me. You need to bring it before the group and confess it.
If you didn't get to jump in a group, you need to jump in Discovery Group and begin walking this out in your life. The Bible gives us guardrails. It's called community. It's called other believers. If you don't want to fall in the ditch, get guardrails.
Jump in your group. That's what Paul wants to see here. that we see and approach sin completely differently. as a result of our adoption. He starts by telling us the wrong responses, and now he's going to tell us why they are the wrong response.
Look at verse 3. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Our union with Christ, our salvation as signified by our baptism.
is the basis for how we approach our entire lives.
Some of you are like, Daniel, I get it. I've been to church. You're saved. That's a big deal. That's a massive deal.
And the reason I want to say this is this. In my own life, there have been a lot of things that I say with my mouth that I get that I live like I don't get. And so I want to take a moment. And before we say, I understand that, let's kind of let this preach to our souls for a moment. And hear this for the believers in the room.
Paul said that the thought of being baptized into Christ And living your old life is unfathomable. Not that you don't struggle with sin. Not that you don't wrestle with it. But being okay with it is unacceptable. You know, we're going to have baptism this weekend at all of our campuses.
We're going to see people, and what they're saying with their baptism is this: that their old self has died with Christ, and they've been raised to walk in a new life only found in Him. We say baptism is an outward expression of an inward spiritual reality. In Galatians 3, Paul kind of talks about that spiritual reality. Look what he says. He says, For as many of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, nor slave nor free, nor male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus, and if you are a Christ, Then you are Abraham's offspring. Heirs according to promise. Any other identity you have, it moves out of the way, it submits to, it becomes secondary. To your identity as an adopted son or daughter, as an heir with Christ.
Why does this matter? Because there are so many Christians who have been changed by the gospel, but don't live like they've been changed by the gospel. There are so many of us here. That have received an identity in Christ, and instead of it superseding, it's competing with the other identities in our life. And it's that wrestling.
That's not me saying you're a good or bad Christian. I'm saying that you say you're a good or bad Christian. Based on what you do, you don't see yourself, like he says in Galatians 3, as an heir according to the promise. What Paul is getting at is that if you understand, if we understand the identity change that took place when we were saved, then the life change that is supposed to follow would be so much easier to live out. If you understood that identity change.
That you are being adopted into a new family, and as part of that new family, there's a new way of living. You know, my wife is from Illinois. I'm from South Carolina, the better Carolina. And She is from Illinois. And we pray for her.
No. But one of the things I've learned is that she's learned this as being a part of our family now. that when I'm around her family and I make my plate. My mother-in-law and father-in-law, lovingly, they're like, You don't have anything green, you don't have any veggies on your plate. I'm like, Do you not see the mac and cheese?
There's plenty of vegetable right there. She has learned that mac and cheese is a vegetable and it is God's grace to us. But there are things when you join a family that you have to learn. It's okay that you don't know them right away. It's not okay to stay that you don't know them.
And so that's what Paul is getting at. He talks about what has changed. Right here, starting in verse 5. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him, in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing.
so that we no longer be enslaved to sin, for one who has died has been set free from sin.
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we also will live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin. Once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.
You know, I mentioned a minute ago and we see it here. That our being united with Christ is the foundation, it's the basis for why Paul says we ought to live differently. That we adopt the way of living that's true to our family. And most of the time, when someone mentions being united with Christ, we think of the positive associations, which are right. You know, co-heirs with Christ.
Children of God, etc., those good things. And Paul definitely does that. But when you look at verse 5, What is the first way he says that we're united with Christ? United with him in his what? In his death.
In his death. And it's important that we see that. It's important that he points that out. You can circle that. He says, unite with him in his death, and we'll be unite with him in his resurrection.
That's what baptism is saying. That who you were before you knew Christ has died. It's not a metaphor, not a simile, not an analogy, not an onomatopoeia. You can pick any figure of speech. It's not that.
It is exactly what has happened. And this new life you've received, united with God, is united with the God who gave you that new life. It is in him. Think about it like this. Baptism is both your funeral and your wedding.
It's not the moment. That the old self died. That was when you were saved. It's not the moment you were united with Christ. That's when you were saved and brought him.
But it is the moment that the body of believers who have said, we're gonna help you live this out, declare the death of the old man. and celebrate the life of the new man. That's what baptism is. And we have to see it that way. And that changes us.
That changes everything that we do. It's a declaration. Verse 6 to 10 outlines this. Your old self is crucified, and we're set free from sin. But I want you to notice how he talks about sin in verse 9.
I don't want you to think of sin as like, it was our enemy. And God beat our enemy. That's not what he says. He says it was our Lord. And it had dominion over us.
And they lorded over us before our new life in Christ. I don't know about you guys, I grew up in a family. who, when mom and dad picked a show, you didn't get to go grab the remote and change the channel. They didn't do that. I know my parents are both going to hear this, so it is true.
They both have very different tastes, though. My mom had one of two channels. She's a good southern woman.
So she had some type of home makeover show. You know, Property Brothers, Extreme Rookover, Home Edition, Fixer Upper, one of those. Or like any church going. Bible-loving, Jesus-loving Southern woman, she had a show about violent murders. Um I don't know why every family, and you guys know it, you have someone who relaxes the true crime.
I don't get it. I didn't know if I was walking in a Chipping Joanne or Ted Bundy. I didn't know. Which one is it? That's not for you.
That's for a therapist to figure out one day.
Okay. All right. Excuse me. But my dad, on the other hand, He had very different tastes. He was either watching TV land, Gunsmoke, Bananza, Andy Griffiths show, one of those, watching all the same episodes, laughing at every joke.
I get it. Or he's watching the history channel with some random military war thing, something. I don't know. And half the time he's asleep, he tried to change his hand on he pops up and says, I was watching that. And then that's what it is.
But I remember watching that a lot of times, and it gave me a love for it. And one of the stories I always liked was the story of Julius Caesar, his rise to power, and his eventual coup that they led on the Senate floor where they killed him. That whole story is just crazy. Shakespeare kind of wrote a play about all that stuff. It's very important.
That's the picture. That Paul paints of your salvation. That it is a violent government overthrow of your soul. That the kingdom you are living in is no longer ruling over you. If you see it, it was the bad guy that God beat, and he was like, This is my buddy, you were part of the enemy.
And you've been brought into this family now. And understanding that changes a lot about us. And let me be honest with you, I've understood that. I know that in my head, I know it in my heart.
Some of you are like, I understand that I've been brought from this life to another one. Let me ask you a question, I have to ask myself. If I know. That that has been true. If I know that sin lorded over me and now Christ lords over me, let me ask myself this.
If sin is dethroned in my life, why do I keep treating it like royalty? Why do I go back to it for affirmation? Why is gossiping the only thing that fills my soul and makes me feel better when I've had a bad day? Why is what I look at on the internet? Why does that give me a sense of control?
Why does drinking a little too much release the pains and bring me joy in my life? Also, on the other side, why is submitting to my new lordship difficult? Why is the thought of committing to a community group so absurd? Because none of that's my uncomfortable. Why is serving?
That's my time. How could I give that away? I couldn't go to a nation's night. God would never ask me to go anywhere. It's my life.
Why is that so difficult for us? Why is submitting to our old ruler? Why does that sometimes seem easier? Why do we struggle against this? If we've been adopted into God's family through the blood of Christ, move from the domain of sin and death to the domain of light in Christ.
Then why do we continue? To struggle. To live like we've been adopted into God's family.
Well, I'm gonna be honest with you guys. I'm gonna try to be as transparent as I can. This question. has caused me in times of my life to doubt my salvation. Man, to doubt God's goodness in my life, to doubt God's faithfulness.
I don't know if anybody here or anybody on our campus feels the same way. If you're like, man, I've been there. I know I'm saved. I think I am, but man, I just can't shake. Living this way.
This thing, I just can't seem to get it.
Well, the Bible gives us three pretty clear ways and reasons that we struggle against sin, and it's important to know them so that we can go fight against them and walk them out. The first is this, as one, we have deceitful hearts. You know, in Jeremiah 17, he says, The heart is deceitfully wicked, who can know it. Then, even after. The new covenant, even after Christ's death.
In Romans 7, Paul says, the things I don't want to do, I do, and the things I do, I don't want to do. But he says it's not me doing them, it's the sin that's still within me. You know, that's why we hate the phrase, follow your hearts. No, submit your heart to the Lordship of Christ. But the second thing we see is this.
Is that there are dangerous temptations? That's been how it's been since the beginning. Genesis 3. The temptation is what led Adam and Eve into sin. That didn't leave when we got saved.
Peter says it in 1 Peter 5.8. He says that do you not know that the enemy is prowling around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may what? Devour. Whom he may devour. There's an enemy out there.
And I think those two, if I'm being honest, most of you, if you've been around church a little bit, you kind of understand that. You understand there's an enemy, you understand there's temptation, and you understand our hearts are prone to wander to that temptation. I think this third one might be the thing for a lot of us. Yeah, we miss. And it's this.
It's delayed repentance. Proverbs 28 says, whoever conceals his transgression will not prosper. But he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. That's true. Of God in the Old Testament is true of God in the New.
It's the same God, it's the same truths. First John 19. He says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When is the last time in group or to other believers you didn't give them the confession that would make them stop asking questions? You didn't give them the confession that would make them think you were a good person, but you said, To the depths of my soul.
These are the sins I need to confess. I'm not going to delay anymore. Because when we delay repentance, what we do is we allow ourselves to try to walk back into that domain of darkness that we used to live under. And that's why we continue to struggle against it.
So this week, I don't know. If you're here and you're breathing, I know you got sin to confess. Find a brother or sister in Christ, a community group, a discovery group, and jump in and say, this part of me wants to live in that old kingdom. And I don't want it to anymore. These are the lingering realities.
Of the old kingdom, the family that we used to be a part of, but since we were adopted, we will ultimately live fully as members of that new family. But in the meantime, That old self is gonna go down kicking and screaming. You cut the head off the snake, the body still wiggles for a bit. It doesn't mean you're not in the family. But man, that stuff's got it, it's trying to work itself out, and we have to submit it down.
But how do we overcome it? If we understand those wrong responses. We understand why we shouldn't do them. We understand why we struggle not to do them. Then, how do we live into our adoption?
What part of our sanctification has God called us to play? When verses 11 through 14, Paul kind of outlines how we can live out this public adoption. Verse 11.
So, you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments of righteousness, I mean, of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. and your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you.
since you are not under the law, but under grace. He says, consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God. Parents, I know, I don't have to ask, so you don't have to raise your hand. I know you have loved school being canceled in the past two weeks. I know it.
I know you've loved it. You've loved just being trapped inside.
So much, I think Pastor Andrew's calling the school districts and saying, keep them home again. He's excited for you guys, so he loves it. But we got little kids. We got a three-year-old and a one-year-old. And my wife and I were like, what can we do?
What's something? And they play out snow for 30 minutes, they're beat red. What can we do? We're like, we'll show them one of our favorite movies. One of our favorite movies, both of ours, is Princess Diaries.
If you've ever seen it, it's a great movie. Not Princess Bride, Princess Diaries, electric movie. Ann Hathaway. I'll give you the plot really quick. She is a high school, American high schooler.
She is a normal girl, and she finds out when she's in high school that she's actually a princess from some foreign country that her mom hid from her, obviously. And the whole movie, the spool in the plot, is that she just learns how to live out this life as a princess. Everything about her changes. the way she walks, her comments, the way she thinks about herself, all these things. That's not the point.
The point is this. When did she become royal? When she was born. But she didn't begin to live like it until she considered herself that way. Christians, so many of us.
are free and part of God's royal family. And don't consider yourself that way. And that is the reason that we struggle to live out this faith he's called us to live. Look at what Paul says. He says, Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ.
How you think of and how you view yourself in Christ will determine how you live out your faith. It's as simple as that.
So many believers, and I imagine many of you, you view yourselves by how well you're struggling against sin. Not by your victory over it, but how well you're fighting against it.
Some of you came in here today exhausted. You've come to church for the past while And today you're exhausted. Because you think you are a good son or daughter in Christ, that you're a good member of the family, by how many good days you can stack on top of each other. That's four days of not looking at that. That's four days of reading my Bible.
That's three days of prayer. I'm good. You mess up, you feel worthless. You feel worthless. Let me tell you this, those of you in the room who are this way, and most of us will be there at some point.
Your struggle isn't your identity. Your Savior is. Your identity is not how well you can fight sin. It's not how well you stack up against other people. It's not how many books of the Bible you read near.
All those things are great things. To not live out sin. You don't want to live out sin. You don't want to do the things that you see other people do that are sinning. Those are awesome things.
But if those are the foundation for your identity, when you don't do them and you won't, you will feel worthless. You'll feel worthless. And you'll either leave or you'll put on a good front and pretend. And that is not the way God has called us to live as a part of his family. If we continue to view ourselves, our lives, through how well we're struggling, This whole freedom in Christ thing that people talk about, it's going to seem unattainable to you.
It's going to seem impossible. It's not something you're going to be able to experience because you're not fighting. You have to remember this: you're not fighting to become free, you're fighting because you are free. And that's important. I've heard a pastor say this, and it helps me so much, so much.
It's something, a lot of us live in something I call the miserable middle. And it looks good from the outside. Let me say that. The reason it's hard to see is it looks so good from the outside. On this side, You've got this life of rampant sin.
You've got this life of just debauchery, of sexual morality, of all these horrible things. And then you got this side. Of the, if you know George Mueller, the deep abiding love with Christ, that I want to wake up in the morning and commune with my best friend, the God who lives within me. That type of faith. And a lot of us live right here.
Not partaking in the sin of the world. But not experiencing the fullness of God. Let me tell you something. Let me go really quick. Your soul.
was meant to be set ablaze. It was meant to be pumped up. It was meant to be wooed. by the God of the universe. Tell me this.
This blows my mind. Do you imagine a world? where the God of the universe sent his son, stepped out of heaven. Lived the life of a good son of God, perfect and unblemished, but died a traitor's death so that the traitors could be treated like sons. And he would rise again and offer to adopt us into that family so that we could have hearts that were apathetic and ungrace-filled.
No way. No way! And if you think that, your heart has been so hardened because you've been trying for so long to do it on your own. You gotta stop today. If you want any hope of living this life out, if you want any hope of saying, I want out of the miserable middle, and I want that, I want to wake up in the morning with the joy of meeting with my Savior.
That only happens when you abide with Christ. And you can only abide with Christ when you consider yourself dead to sin and alive in Him. That's what Paul's getting at here. And we're going to see very quickly what the next thing is. It's that identity begins.
And it leads to action. It's always that way. Identity is in action. Look at verse 13. Do not present your members, your body, to sin, but present your members, your whole self.
to God as an instrument of righteousness. There is a seen visible. you know, almost ability to touch. way of living. that comes with this new life in Christ.
Not a way that we can judge other people or present to other people that we've got it all together. But the way that we can look at our own life. And say, is my life aligning with this thing? What we see here, there really only are two options. There's submitting instrument to unrighteousness, submitting as an instrument to righteousness.
So how do we split those up? You know, I mentioned my dad, the random history shows, I love history now. I love it. I love every second of it. I love little stories.
There was one, another Overthrow Brothers. I have an older brother, so I always like when brothers fight. And the younger brother over to the older brother. It was in Belgium. The man's name was Crassus, the older brother.
His name was Reynold, but his younger brother called him Crassus. And I'm like, oh, is that a little nickname, a little fun, you know, like Bubba in Belgium? I don't know, like brother, whatever you call him. I look up, what does Crassus mean? It means fat.
So he called him fat. Um and apparently he was morbidly obese, he was a massive guy, like beyond big. And when he overthrew him, the younger brother said, You can still experience all your freedom. You can still have your place as royal. You can still walk and do whatever you want in life.
All you got to do is leave your room. And his brother had built him a special room, no door, he could walk out whenever he wanted. But the door was like this wide. Classic younger brother, am I right? It's always like this one.
All Raynaud had to do. Was cut back on his eating and not give in to his temptation desires. He died in that room. His brother kept giving him food and he couldn't say no. He kept giving him sweets and he couldn't say no.
That's a tragedy for him. How much more for us? When the Bible says freedom is right here. If you would just walk out this life, say no to sin. And live as an instrument of righteousness.
And some of us. We are dying locked in that room saying yes to the sins that we should say no to. This is what you need to see. is that your actions align with what you love. Feed righteousness and starve sin.
Why do you think we have Acts 2 filo? Why do we think we say gather, group, give, go? We don't do it because we think it makes you a Christian. We do it because we understand that as Christians, when we do these things, we begin to love them more and more. If you're sitting there and you see that video at the beginning of the service, you're like, I would love to feel that way, then go on a short-term trip.
And you will. I would love to be passionate about chosen. Then give and you will. I would love to have friends like that. Sign up for Discovery Group, and you will.
Because, why? Your birth certificate as a believer, if you're a follower of Jesus in this room, it says chosen. And your DNA, your spiritual DNA has been forever altered. and you begin to live out this life, you begin to love that life. Daniel, I don't know if I love those.
And you're saying your actions align with what you love. What if I don't love it? The great thing about it is Love also follows what you do. You begin doing those things, you begin loving those things. I don't know if I can go to the nations.
I don't really have a heart for the nations. It's hardwired in your spiritual DNA. Go to it. You might not go to the nations. But you might play your role in sending people there.
You might not go to the nations, but you might begin praying every day. You might not go, but your children might. You might not go. And like my great-grandmother was the only believer in my family. And now there's multiple of us.
What is it? You don't know the impact that saying yes to God now will have. But if you're a part of this family, you're called to live that out today. That's what you're called to do. I want to apply by this.
I'm going to read verse 14 and I'm going to apply it to two groups of people, and that'll be our time today. It says for sin will have no dominion over you. since you are not under the law, but under grace. You know, this is a declaration, a truth for us that Paul is saying to everyone here who's a follower of Jesus. That those who are adopted into God's family sin will have no dominion over you.
We mentioned there's a new way of living that comes, and I really, I know I can talk in such a way that makes it think. That myself and everybody here I think are just horrible people. Right, I don't think that I genuinely don't. I actually believe that the vast majority of people here and at our campuses, I really do believe that most of us want to live out the life God has called us to live. I really believe that.
I believe that with everything in me.
So how do we live out this truth? In these 14 verses, he kind of concludes this whole thing by saying, sin won't reign in your life. It may seem like it does in the moment, but it doesn't.
So how do we live into it? You know, Paul tells us at the end of this section of Romans. Romans 6 through 8 is really a whole section. Let's look at what he says in Romans 8 and follow me. And let me tie a bow on this and we'll be good.
In verse 15 of Romans chapter 8, he says, For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. But you have received the spirit of adoption. As sons by whom we cry. Abba father. We just spent 30 minutes seeing how Paul begins this section at the beginning of chapter 6.
that your adoption comes with a new way of living and those cannot be separated. you being brought in and you having a new way of living are always linked. And then we see that it concludes Romans 8 with what we just read, and those two things. Scream this important gospel truth. That if you want to live out your adoption, you have to remember your adoption story.
If you want to live it out, You've got to remember what God did for you. You want to have a changed life? Remember what it took to bring you from life to death. You want to stop abusing grace? Remember your adoption.
You want to stop trying so hard to prove yourself and prove your worth? Remember your adoption. You want to feel confident and boldness confessing sin that it doesn't have shame on you anymore? Remember your adoption. You want to be a church.
that the triad looks at. And it is blown away by the impact they've made on thousands of kids in dire circumstances, not to make ourselves look good. But because we understand that's what God has done with us. Before any sermon will get us there. Remember our adoption.
If thousands of individuals here and at the campuses If thousands of us Remember what God did on our behalf. It will not sound crazy to go do it on behalf of others. It won't happen. You know, Paul says that we cry Abba Father when we enter God's family. that we enter as helpless children.
That same heart. That heart of helplessness. It's really what we have to continue doing. This passage, Romans chapter 6, it should remind us of our salvation. I'm going to tell you, as I wrote this sermon, I I I I'm being sorry, I had to put my laptop away.
Because my eyes, you know, classic guy, I wasn't crying, but they were misty, you know, so I pushed the laptop away. And my picture of my brain. It snapped. I was in the third row. I'm in the first row, third chair, metal chairs.
Just south of Talladega, Alabama. Small room that smelled like middle school boys. No deodorant and taco meat. You know, just disgusting. A man named Roger Gladwell sat up here, and it felt like I was the only person in the room.
And he outlined the gospel that I'd heard a thousand times. And he outlined it in such a way. That for the first time, I believe for me to be brought into God's family, the only rightful member of his family had to be treated like he wasn't a part of it. And he offered me to be a part of it. And I'd heard that before.
For the first time, these two feelings became ever so present: this utter helplessness. And there's inexpressible joy at the exact same time. There is no video that will get you to live out your adoption story, but remembering that will. Because he has saved you. He has brought you into his family.
So building your family that way, building our church family that way is exactly normal. It's not crazy. It's not wild. It's right. It's right.
The baptisms today. They should cause you to remember your own salvation at every campus, every person at Mercy Hill. You should remember it. And if you haven't. If you can't remember the last time you've seen a baptism and been moved, if you can't remember the last time you read the gospel and have been moved, The issue is not with the Bible.
It's that you have probably stacked years and years of self-sufficiency on top of each other. And you'd repent of it right now.
So let me ask this question, to both believers and unbelievers alike. That'll be our time for today. What is causing you not to remember your adoption? What is causing you? Is it those months and years of self-sufficiency?
Is it a deceitful heart, a falling into temptation, a lack of repentance? I'd be hard-pressed to believe that there's a soul in here who doesn't have something that needs to be repented of that we have delayed in. We're gonna have baptism in a minute. I'm gonna invite people to come down front and pray. I want to be a picture of celebrating and declaring that the old man has died and the new life in Christ, while also people are praying and walking out that new life.
I want to see the gospel on display. I want to start today. I want to be in 2030 and I want to see it happen. You want to see it happen. That's why I can say it to you.
Because I know that's where we are. But I know some of you in here. You can't remember your adoption because it hasn't happened yet. Because you're not a part of God's family. Because you haven't been brought from death to life.
I'm going to ask you today. Is today the day of salvation for you? Is the day you go from the domain of sin and darkness, the domain of death, to the domain of life and Christ. Not because you've done anything to earn it. Not because you're a good person.
Not because you followed other rules. But because you feel that feeling of, I'm helpless. But man, I am joyful. Those only meet at the cross. They only meet at the cross.
So I'm gonna ask: if you haven't been baptized believer or new believer, I'm gonna ask you to go talk to somebody. You come down front and pray, you grab a friend. If you don't have a friend that's a believer, tap somebody and say, Are you a Christian? Come pray with me. If they don't, fill out a report.
We don't have reports, but fill one out and we'll talk to them. But for the believers in the room, will you come at our campus? Will you show up to Nations Night? We say, God, I don't know what you will do in my life, but I know you want to do something in my life. Your soul was meant to be set on fire.
Is it? Let's pray. I asked today. The Lord is we approach sent weekend as we Spend this time that, God, we would take a few moments. to remember our own adoption story.
That we understand there's no One sermon, there's no... Clever saying that's going to get us to 2030, seeing a thousand children impacted by the gospel through chosen. But what you've done for on the cross will. What you've done on our behalf.
So God, as we see baptisms at all of our campuses, we see People declaring What has been done on their behalf? That God, we'd remember our own and we would take steps and put our yes on the table and say, God, I don't know where you'd have me. But God, I'm okay with wherever it is. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
Mm-hmm.
