Romans Chapter 6:11-16

The world says there's certain types of behaviors that you're born this way, or you're just like that, or you know, because daddy was an alcoholic, you'll be an alcoholic. That is not the picture that the Bible paints. The Bible says we all have free will, we all have a choice.

The power of God gives us that choice. We have to begin to live the new life and begin to die to the old life. So live the new life, don't live the old life.

Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. As we walk this Christian life, we should be in the process of dying to our old self and living the new one. Pastor David helps us understand how to do just that today as he continues in Romans 6 with his teaching, Power Over a Dead Life.

Here's David. So we're in Romans chapter 6 and we'll pick it up with verse 11. And Paul in Romans chapter 6 is talking about, you know, living and dying and really important things and talking about, you know, being, death is separation.

So let's jump in here. Romans chapter 6, verse 11 says, likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Now let's remember, it's talking about death. Death is separation.

Now when somebody dies, they are separated from us. And so you've got physical death, which is the separation of body and soul. You got spiritual death, which is the separation of a person from God. And so death to sin by definition is being separated from a sinful life. Does that mean you never sin? No, that means there's a desire in your heart, in your life to do better, to live more for the Lord and less for yourself. Now understand that we will be in this struggle till the day we go to be with the Lord. We will struggle with sin till the day we die. Now, and that's because our flesh, our selfish nature is at war with the spiritual man, with the new person we are becoming.

The old person is slowly dying, but they're still at war. And that's the way it'll be. And next chapter, Paul, very spiritual man said, you know what? The things I don't want to do, I end up doing those. The things that I want to do, I end up not doing those.

I don't know. Can anybody in here relate to those words? So there's that, there's that struggle going on.

Now a lot of people go, well, yeah, that struggled. And then that means you're a hypocrite. That doesn't mean you're a hypocrite friend. A lot of people mistakenly think, Oh, well, if you're a Christian and you're struggling and you're going to church, that's a hypocrite.

That's not being a hypocrite. If you're struggling church is the place you're supposed to be. If you're not struggling, you're lying. So, you know, I mean, there's always something going on. There's an issue going on and there will be till the day we go to be with Jesus.

But after that, we won't struggle anymore. Now Paul is saying, reckon yourselves to be dead and deed to sin. This isn't reckon like, you know, we use, I reckon I'll be around directly or something. This is reckoning as an accounting term. Reckon it, figure it out that it's finished.

Reckon in the, in the sense of a reckoning to count it accounting. Not I think so, or maybe the new living translation puts it like this. So you should consider yourselves dead to sin and able to live for the glory of God through Jesus Christ. So we've got the new life and we've got the old life. There's a saying, I'm not the man that I should be, but thank the Lord.

I'm not the man I used to be. See these changes are happening in our life. And the first life lesson here is we should be in the process of dying to the old life and living the new life. We should be in the process of dying to the old life and living the new life. Now here's, what's awesome.

You guys are here today. This is fruit of you living the new life because I know many of you, you know, a couple of years ago, you you'd just be getting home from Saturday night, you know? So, I mean, the fact that you're here, you're in church, you're digging in the word of God, you're worshiping.

That is a huge sign of fruit in your life that you're living the new life and dying to the old. This is an important thing that Paul's presenting here. So verse 12 says, therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lust. Or again, the new living translation.

I'm reading from the New King James and I study in New King James, King James, New Living and a bunch of other versions and also in the originals. But in the New Living translation, it says, do not let sin control the way you live. Do not give in to its lustful desires. So in other words, there's things that your body wants to do that you can't let your body control control what you do.

Because if you do, and many of you are aware of this, you get in a lot of trouble. If you do everything your body wants to do. I mean, I've heard stories and, but no, seriously, you get into all kinds of trouble. Now the savior Jesus wants to lead you away from that and into this newness of life.

And he gives you the power to do that, the power to walk away. And this is saying, wrecking yourself dead to that. In other words, you don't, you know, once a person dies, they don't, they don't drink anymore. They don't, they're not tempted to drink. They're not tempted to smoke dope.

They're not tempted to have sex. They're, they're dead. And Paul saying, you know what? Reckon yourselves dead to these things because something's going to reign in you. And it's either going to be sin or it's going to be Jesus. Now the Lord gives us the power to follow him, but he didn't. That doesn't mean he made us like all robots and people get confused. They go, well, if God loves us so much, why did he allow us to choose sin? God gave us free will.

We're the ones that chose sin, not God. That fruit is not his, but, but ours, you know, we, Ashley, he was my daughter when, uh, when she was little, she had to have this one little doll and this little doll, you know, you, you pulled the string on it, you know, and, and it said, I love you, you know, about like that, because this is a couple of years ago, but you know, you pull the string. I love you. I love you. That doll never did much for me.

You know, I mean, some of you are glad that I'm saying that, but yeah. Why? Because you just pulled the string and it said, I love you. I love you. I love you. But when my daughter comes up to me and says, Hey daddy of her own free will of her own free choosing comes up and he said, Hey daddy, I love you.

Just wanted to tell you, man, that just melts my heart. Why? Because she makes the decision. She has a free will. She has a choice.

She makes the decision to tell me she loves me. So if we were all just robots and we turned to God, that wouldn't be honoring the God. That wouldn't be pleasing the God. But when we have the free will and the choice and we do things like come to fellowship on a Sunday morning and worship God, that's very meaningful because it's our choice.

So something's going to be ruling in your life. Either sin is going to be ruling and if sin is ruling, then Jesus is not, or Jesus is going to be ruling. And sin is not verse 13 and do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but presents, present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. So present yourself to God, quit yielding to sin and yield to the Holy spirit. Now the Holy spirit again, will give you the strength. We'll give you the strength. We'll give you the power to live for the Lord, but he won't force you to do that.

You have to make the decision. Now the new nature to go back to the old nature would it, you're going backwards. It's violating that new nature of you will, but the spirit will lead you to present ourselves to God alive from the dead. Your life, you have the decision and God and God will allow you to make decisions. And you can use your hands, your mind, all these things for the glory of God and yield to God.

And you can use them for other things. Now understand, according to this passage, we all have free will in the behaviors that we engage in. So let's understand that the world says there's certain types of behaviors that you're born this way, or you're just like that, or, you know, because daddy was an alcoholic, you'll be an alcoholic.

And once you're an alcoholic, you're always been alcoholic. That is not the picture that the Bible paints. Bible says we all have free will. We all have a choice. The power of God gives us that choice.

So let's understand that. So again, we have to begin to live the new life and begin to die to the old life. So the life lessons kind of like the last one, live the new life. Don't live the old life, live the new life.

Don't live the old life. What is part of the new life? Well, being here today, part of the new life, worshiping God, part of the new life, getting active in the church, part of the new life, having devotions, part of the new life, having prayer time, part of the new life. Now there's a lot of ways to live the old life.

And many of you are aware of that. And, and, and Jesus has given us this new life. In other words, when Jesus was raised from the dead, he didn't come out of the tomb and walk around for a few days and go, Hey, you know what? I want to go back in the tomb and just kind of see what it feels like. He doesn't do that.

Why? Because he's living the new life. He physically died on that cross and he's walking away from that and living the new life. And so it's tempting sometimes to go back, but friend, you can't go back. If you've ever tried to go back, it didn't work because listen, here's the thing.

Once you are saved, you're born again. You can't be a successful sinner anymore. You can't really enjoy it anymore. The way you used to enjoy it. Not that you used to get that much of a kick out of it to begin with. Now, when we look back at the old life, you know, it happens. We had this little thing with the way we look back at our history and we kind of began to allow those painful things to fade. And we remember the good memories, the good times, quote unquote.

Let me, I'll get a little more literal. You remember the good time you had at the keg party. You didn't, you don't remember the next day, what that day was like with your headache and talking to John and everything.

Okay. And over time you forget the pain of that. That's the old life. Let it go.

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That's 877-458-5508. Cross the Bridge Every Day with David McGee and find hope along life's journey. Now let's return to our study. Verse 14, percent shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. It's a great verse. You're not under law, you're under grace. Now does that mean we're not under law? We don't have to do anything the Bible talks about?

That's not what it means. It means you now have the freedom to begin to do the things the Bible talks about. In light of the cross, nothing can have power over you unless you give it power. Now you can give things power over your life, but Jesus is, and Paul is saying here that you know what? You can be free. You can be free because you're not under law. You're under the grace.

You're under the grace of God. And that's amazing. You know, some people come out of real areas of strongholds and bondage, and yet there's part of them that thinks, well, yeah, maybe I want to go back. I want to see what that was like. I want to see what it is like to do this or do that and the other. But you know what that's really like? It's kind of like being set free from chains and then say, you know what? I just want one more time.

I just want to see what this is like just to see what this feels like. I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want you to do that anymore. You know, I don't feel the inclination to get in a casket to see what it feels like to lay down in it and have somebody close the lid over me.

I don't feel the need to do that. You know why? Because there's death in that. Friend, a lot of the things that we used to be involved with, there's death in those things. Let them go. Let them go because here's the thing. If you don't die to those things, those things will kill you.

They will kill you. Verse 15, what then shall we send because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not. So whenever you start talking about grace, people who are very religious go, no, no, no, you can't talk about grace. Because once you start talking about grace, people will just go and live however they want to live.

No, no, no, no. When you understand grace and the price that grace was purchased at, you're not then free to live however you want to live. You become free to live how he wants you to live. There's a big difference as we're under grace. And this is a, the theological term is antinomianism, which is, Hey, let's all go do whatever because we're under grace. No, no, no, because we're under grace. We can now live for the Lord. I understand we can't live the Christian life before we become a Christian in our own strength. Once we become a Christian, we cannot live the Christian life in our own strength.

You can't do it. Well, how do we do it? We yield to the spirit or you have the decision not to yield to the spirit, but God tells us in Corinthians 10, 13, he's going to give us a way out of every situation. Now, whether we take it or not is up to us, but he's going to offer that solution. And we have the opportunity to yield to that. And so then it's not under law.

It's not because, well, there's a certain set of rules that we have to live under. It's grace. It's love. Well, Jesus, since you did this for me, I want to love you.

I want to serve you. Now, some of us have seen that transformation firsthand in our own life because maybe you grew up and you went to church, but you didn't have a relationship with Jesus. And going to church was just like a form of torture to you.

I mean, that's the kind of way I grew up. As soon as I was able to make the decision not to go, I said not to go. Well, I didn't see what it meant. I didn't understand the Lord. I didn't know the Lord. And so many of you tell me, you know what? You now look forward to going to church. I want you to understand what you're saying when you say that. God is doing such things in my life that something I didn't used to care about or didn't value at all now has become not only important to me, but exciting to me.

I mean, that's a, that's a big deal. John chapter 14, verse 15, Jesus says, if you love me, obey my commandments. I want you to notice the order. He doesn't say, Hey, obey my commandments and then love me. That's not what he said. He says, if you love me, you'll obey my commandments. But a lot of us try to get that backwards. Well, I'll obey his commandments and then I'll love him.

No, no, no. It's not, you know, when, when I tell people, I talk to them about my savior, about my Lord, I say, you know, I'm not religious. I have a relationship with the Lord. I love God. So I do things that are pleasing to him, but keep in mind, if you love him, obey his commandments. And you know what?

Let me ask you a question. Which one will sacrifice more, the law or love? Love always will. Love is what drives a mother to throw herself in front of the child right before the moment of impact in a car wreck. That's love.

Love will cause people to go to foreign countries and foreign lands to tell people about Jesus. Sometimes lose loved ones in the process. That's love. That's love. So we have these decisions and there's really, there's really three choices. Break them down. Live by the law, live by the flesh, live under grace, live by the law.

That means obeying the 10 commandments and trying to please God according to the works of the law. Yeah. Good luck on that one, man.

Email me, let me know how that goes. It's not going to go well. Why? Because the law points out how sinful we are. The second one, live by the flesh. Now a lot of us think, well, this is, this is real freedom. You know, the people that I watch on TV and stuff, they're living according to the flesh. They got all sorts of money and whatever. They got to be happy. They're not happy. They're not happy. They're living by the flesh, but they're not happy. In other words, there's something in us that thinks if we could just do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted to do it, then we would be happy. No, you wouldn't.

No, you wouldn't. True joy comes by living under grace. This is the way to live. That's the way to die too, is living and dying under grace. Verse 16. Do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey, you are that one slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness. In other words, you're going to serve.

No, Bob Dylan said it well. You're going to serve somebody. You are going to serve somebody. Verse 16 in new living translation says this. Don't you realize that whatever you choose to obey becomes your master.

You can choose sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God and receive his approval. So you're going to serve something. You're going to serve somebody. Everybody is serving somebody.

Everybody is serving someone. So understand you have a choice as a Christian on who you're going to serve. You're either going to serve the Lord or you're going to serve your selfishness and your sinful desires.

God sets this choice before us and he says, okay, which one will you do? Of course we think, well, we serve ourselves. That's where real happiness and contentment are. It's not.

It's really not. See, we think, well, I'll be happy when this happens. I'll be happy if that happens. You know, for me, the best thing that could happen in my life is I got some of those things to figure out the contentment didn't lie in those things. See, we think, well, if I had more money, if I had a different car, different house, different spouse, different kids, you know, whatever. That's not going to be happy for you. You're not going to find true joy in that.

True joy comes and not in living for yourself, but in living for the Lord. That money thing, a lot of us think, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. If I just had more money, no, you'd just spend more. And then, you know, if you get enough, then you got to, you're fearful about who's going to take it and how you're going to lose it and how you're going to keep it and that whole, it's just an endless thing. And there's a saying that when we're young, we spend our health to get wealth.

And when we're older, we spend our wealth to get health. Deuteronomy 13, 19 says this, I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you that I've set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose a life that both you and your descendants may live. Now when it's broken down to this, it's a, it's a much easier decision in it. It's like, okay, life, death, blessing, cursing. Well, this is a tough one. Life, death, blessing, cursing, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It's really an easy decision when it's broken down like that.

And it is really broken down like that. Living for the Lord. He promises not just a better life here, but he promises eternal life. But if you go your own way, at least the destruction and new living translation in that versus today, I've given you the choice between life and death between blessings and cursings. I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make all that you would choose life that you and your descendants might live.

So we should choose life. And notice the phrase again, in verse 16, it pops up again. Do you not know? Don't you know, don't you know these things? And so there's a certain expectation.

We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. There was a certain expectation with Jesus. When he was talking to people, he would say, have you not read this?

Have you not read that? There was an expectation that people knew the Bible. It's kind of interesting landscape that we find ourselves in today because I, you know, I actually hear other pastors say, well, you know, we, we, we were past the point of really focusing on the scriptures that verse by verse teaching is no longer relevant to the world today.

Okay. That's really disturbing to me because you understand what that's really saying is that a pastor saying, you know, what I have to say is more important than what this book says. And friend, once you open that window, you can't get a shut anymore. And really it's, it's the old elevation of humanism against the biblical truth that we saw really in the, in the reformation, that people died to reinforce biblical truth. Why?

Because man, they gotten so caught up in religion. So he says, do you not know? So we need to know this book.

Why? Because the freedoms that we can understand and have are in this book. Jesus said, look, if you're my disciples, you'll know the truth and then you'll be set free. So we need to know this book, get to know the word of God. And that's, I want to partner with you to teach you the truth of this book.

Why? Because it's made such a radical and a revolutionary change in my life that I know it can and well in yours. And so we're kind of walking this road together so that we can know these things. Cause once you know these things that will lead you to a more blessed life, a better life, a sacrifice life, but the joy of the Lord in these things. So again, look at the, look at these choices, one choice, spirit, blessing and freedom and life. The other choice is flesh, sin, bondage, and death. But understand when you choose sin, that's what you're choosing. When you choose God's way, you're choosing freedom. You're choosing life. 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. Know where you heard about our broadcast. If you enjoyed today's teaching and would like to hear more, we welcome you to join us Sunday mornings at 9 and 1115, as well as Thursday evenings at 7 p.m. at The Bridge in Kernersville. The Bridge offers contemporary worship, engaging fellowship, and David McGee's verse-by-verse teaching.

We'd love to have you join us. For more information and directions, visit us at aboutthebridge.com. Hi, my name is Pastor David McGee with Cross the Bridge Ministries. I want to encourage you to become a bridge builder.

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