3-8-26 - He Who Has Died Is Freed From Sin

So this morning, we're gonna be, taking a week away from the book of Deuteronomy. We've been working our way as a church through the book of Deuteronomy. But this morning, we have a number of church children, that are going to be baptized this morning, as well as a couple others who are gonna be received into membership, having been baptized as a a new thing. If you've been here for a while, it's a new thing for our church. I don't mean that it's new in the sense that we've never had children baptized or brought into membership before.

But what I mean is that our churches, full of little kids, full of full of little kids, and young families. And as we've anticipated this day, we prayed for for our own children and for, one another's children, God's been merciful to hear our prayers and to answer them. And so we get to celebrate that today. And so this is a day that's that is a celebration. It's a it's an opportunity to revel in God's goodness to us as a congregation and to be reminded of our obligations to the Lord.

Not just our children's obligations and not just the ones who are being baptized or brought into membership, but our obligations. And so we're going to be, studying the issue of baptism this morning. Obedience to the Lord. It's not something we do because we feel like it or because it's convenient. We do it because God commands us that his people ought to be baptized, that they ought to bear on their bodies.

Obligations that come along with baptism, so that you and I, we have a better understanding of what's going on today. To those of us who are baptized, this is meant to be a refresher, a reminder, a call to remembrance for you. If you're not baptized, if you're not a Christian, if you're, unsure about what this all is, if you think it's just a sweet thing that Christians do for the for the pictures and the memories, then I hope to help you realize it's much more than that. I hope you're strengthened by what we discuss and what we see in the word of God this morning. Baptism is a joyous occasion.

And so our text this morning is Romans chapter six verses one through seven. Would you all please stand with me as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. What shall we say then? Into his death.

Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death. So that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, so we too might walk in newness of life. So that we would no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated. Jesus calls his people to do. So what is baptism? It's a it's a ceremony. It's a rite of passage.

It's a testimony of a few things. First, for the recipient, the one being baptized is declaring something about themselves to everyone. Okay? Therefore, baptism is not a private thing. It's not something you do at home in your in your bathtub.

It's not something you do, with your friends in the creek Or at the it's an initiation right into the visible church. Okay? It is connected to and is a prerequisite to coming to the lords. Blurry edges. We don't quite know what a Christian is.

We figure if someone says they're a Christian, then that's good enough. And we don't consider or feel that it's appropriate to define what they mean by that. Though we recognize that there is a a great breadth of understanding of what it means to be a Christian. We're we're we're unsure, unable to say to define what is a Christian? Where is the edge?

Where is the boundary? Where what is in and what is out? And so when you come to something like baptism, something that's that's commanded, some clear edge, some defining feature, minimize it and say, no, well, it's not it's it's it's not as big of a deal. It's something that we do as a as a matter of will or desire. Beginning, that is not how scripture speaks about baptism.

That is not how God views the sign that he's given to his people. He doesn't say, do it if you want. Do you think of your children that way as they relate to your family, as they live in your house, as they come to your dinner table? Do you say, there's food if you want it, but if you don't want it, that's fine. Just go kind of do your own thing.

I realize a lot of dinner tables in America function that way, but that's not how Christian dinner tables ought to function. Right? We ought to come together and say it's now dinner time. Stop your homework. Stop your practicing.

Stop your playing. Come to the table. We're doing a thing as a family now. And because you're a part of the family, you're expected to participate in it. And so baptism is an initiation rite, that's all the churches.

It's described in other ways in scripture, but at a very fundamental level, the church is the family of God. And the boundaries of that family are demonstrated through the waters of baptism. God's story. And I realize some may want to say, well, that's too wooden or that's too rigid or that's too, formulaic. That's that's too, oppressive.

And I would just ask you, well, then where is your boundary? How do you decide who's in and who's out? And how's that work? And where do you find that boundary in scripture? Baptism is the boundary.

It's the gate through which we come into the family of God. It's something that is actually expected of and required of us by the Lord. If God's kingdom is to be built and we're to know who belongs in it,

I

in God's family or not. But I do mean to say it's not less than that. It's not less than that. This is something that we ought to be trained in and expect so that when God in his mercy works in the lives of our friends and neighbors and our children and grandchildren that we have a context to rejoice in the work that he's doing. When children come to the waters of baptism, when members profess their faith and come to the waters of baptism, they're testifying to and demonstrating that God has worked in their life and in their families.

And that's not something that we ought to just pass over. Because it's an it's it's it's a it's a data point. It's a it's a testimony to God's faithfulness, to his promises, to us as parents, and to us as his people. Does baptism guarantee that those that the recipients of it are going to heaven? No.

Actually, it doesn't. And you're like, well, but I thought you just made this really strong case. My shoulders kinda sore from you twisting my arm behind my back about how important it is, and how how defining it is. And now you're telling me that it's not that clear. And I said, yep.

You're right. I'm telling you it's not a guarantee of salvation. It's not a guarantee of salvation. Scripture teaches us not just that if you're baptized then you're saved and everything is is is well with your soul. Scripture teaches us that those who persevere to the end will be saved.

And so baptism is not the the the only defining feature whole rest of our lives to live and demonstrate whether or not we are one of God's children or not. And scripture defines the one who is saved as the one who perseveres to the end. Having begun and having entered through the waters of baptism, they have remained and stayed in God's family until they die. To us. It is not the end of the Christian life.

The it's not the final command to be obeyed, but one of the very first. And so in our church, we have children who've been who are being baptized now upon profession of faith. We also have children in our church who are coming into the, into in being admitted to the Lord's table, being allowed to participate. But they're baptized as infants. So what do those two groups of kids have in common?

What they have in common is that in common is that they have professed their faith in Jesus Christ before the elders of the church and said, these are the things that we believe about ourselves and our own sins, about God and his his holiness, about Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection. They've they've they've demonstrated that they know they're a sinner and that they can't save themselves. Payment that was accepted by the father for their sins and that they are no longer guilty of them. Exhorted and encouraged and will continue to be exhorted and encouraged throughout the rest of their life, just like all the rest of us, to continue to bear out those commitments daily. And so both the children who are being baptized and those who are who are being welcomed into the the, to to the Lord's table having been baptized as an infant are making are testifying to their faith in Jesus Christ.

What else is baptism? It's also a sign not just of what we intend and what we believe. It's also a sign given to us by God of what he's intended and obligated to do for those who are baptized. What does baptism obligate God to God to do? Well, it testifies to the that he will receive us as his children, that he will forgive us for our sins, that he will become a father to us and care for us as long as we live.

It's so much more than, than, a photo op, or an occasion for a family get together. In baptism, God doesn't just say these are the things that you must do. He says through baptism, those who are baptized, these are the things I will do for them. He obligates himself to us. Because the water is special.

We use water in part because we're to image in our minds dirtyness. And baptism is Christian baptism is a ceremonial washing. There were ceremonial washings in the old testament. There are ceremonial washings in other religions and in other cultures. Okay?

It's not exclusive, this idea of being cleansed. But that is what one of the things baptism signifies to us is that we are dirty and that we need to be cleaned. And so we use water for that in our daily lives. And so we use water for that in baptism. It's also a testimony of our death of of death and us being brought from death to life.

Okay? When someone goes into the water, they're dirty with their sins, and they're dead in their relationship to God. That's what is is true about those who are who are who aren't Christians. And as they're baptized, we have this image and this picture of them both being cleaned and raised. Brought from death to life.

So who does that work? Do we do that work? Do your parents do that work? Does the does the recipient do that work? No.

God does that work. If we are dirty, we can't cleanse ourselves. If we are dead in our sins, we can't breathe life into us. That belongs to God alone. In Titus chapter three verses four to seven, it says this, when the kindness of God our savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our savior.

So that being justified

by his grace, we would be made heirs according to the

hope of eternal life. So that being justified by his grace, we we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. And so our cleansing and our quickening quickening is an old word that means brought back to life. Our cleansing and our quickening are singular works of God. We don't participate we we receive it, but we don't contribute to it.

I can't remember who said this is the only maybe it was RC Sproul said, the only thing that we contribute to our to our to our salvation is the is the need of it. I don't know if that was Sproul. Some of you probably can correct me and tell me who said that. But we don't we don't contribute to our cleansing, regeneration. That's something that God does in our hearts by his grace.

And so in Baptism, we receive God's sign of his promise to do that work in us. Not because of our parentage, not because of not because of where we came from, not because we've done well, but simply because of his grace. Now, all of this that I've said has been an answer to the question, what is baptism? There's a lot more I could say. We could spend two or three sermons on what is baptism.

But I'm gonna leave it there, and I'm gonna move on to the second question, which is, what are the obligations of baptism? And now we come to our text, Roman six, reasons with us about living in sin and how our baptism and how being tied to Jesus Christ and his death and his resurrection should inform our daily life. If we were to summarize this passage and say, what what are the obligations of baptism? What do we what what obligations does Roman six teach us with regard to our baptism? It's simply this, that those who are baptized ought to live a holy life.

It is that simple if we distill it down. God defines for us what a holy life is. And we understand that it is not the sort of life that we naturally lead. Morning and go, I'm going to do holy things today. My heart is inclined toward them.

That's where where my my my mind is at, and I'm willing to sacrifice all of the the corrupt and easy things that are are right next to me for righteousness sake. How many of us go to bed at night thinking, I'm gonna I'm gonna exercise. I'm gonna be healthy. I'm gonna get up early on time. I'm gonna drink enough water.

Whatever the silly thing you wanna do for your body is, Get up late. So I don't have time. You really do settle back into whatever the habit is, whatever the natural thing is. Right? And that's that's instructive to us about how we work.

Trauma. But when we wake up in the morning, that is not what comes naturally to us. It's what scripture repeatedly repeatedly argues to us and reasons to us as to what how we ought to live. Our hearts and our affections are not naturally bent toward God, even in the life of a Christian. They are beginning through the process of sanctification to be changed.

Battle to live a holy life, to do simple things, like to get up and to read our biables. To pray.

To pray,

to be honest, to avert our eyes, to fight our fears. Obedience is not natural to us. A holy life does not, come without without pursuit. Obedience. How how what should we say then?

Are we to continue and sin so that grace may increase? Isn't that what you think in the morning? We don't think about it in terms of what shall we say? I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it twice as good tomorrow.

I didn't read my Bible today. I'll read twice as much tomorrow. I'll read four times as much

the next day. I'll read the whole Old Testament in a weekend. Yeah. I'll read four times as much the next day. I'll read the

whole Old Testament in a weekend. Yeah. I'll read four times as much the next day. I'll read the whole Old Testament in a way. No, you won't.

No, you don't. No, you don't. And it's we don't work. Righteousness, obedience, is not something that our hearts naturally agree with. And there's a funny thing about obedience and living a holy life.

We often think that obedience is is a function of our agreement with the thing required. But it's not. You don't have to agree with something to be obedient. It's not required of you at all. It's good if you agree, but it's not required.

You see with with parents interacting with their children today is built on this this fallacy, this this lie, that the kid has to agree with what they're being told to do to do. Well, honey, I want you to do this because it's good for you. Well, what if the kid doesn't agree it's good for them? Then they don't have to do it? Largely, yeah.

That's about how it works. We don't think we can require our kids to do things they don't agree with, whether that's going to bed, or eating, or taking a shower, or stopping screaming, or hitting, or whatever it is they're doing. We want to reason with them and explain it all to them so that they will agree and therefore obey. But scripture doesn't address obedience that way. Paul doesn't doesn't say, here, you ought to agree.

The main, trajectory or arc of this passage is one of, of, I would say, one of shame. He's pointing out the way we think and he's going. Isn't that pretty shameful? That you would think that that that Jesus you be that your baptism and you being tied united with Jesus Christ in his death wouldn't affect the way you live? Ought to affect the way you live.

It ought to govern the way you live. The problem is that we often don't agree or we think that obedience is not, expedience. It's not practical. But obedience is not does not require your agreement. Obedience does not have to be make sense or be practical in your way of thinking.

Obedience in turn is actually an act of faith. It's something you do because it's required of you. So think of it this way, in your own life, sit under the preaching of God's word and you're convicted, you have a choice to make. Will you let the time pass where you're convicted? And by conviction, I mean simply that that something is has has gotten through your defenses and into your heart and your like, I didn't I did something wrong.

I didn't honor the Lord in this. Whatever it was. Often that's what we wait for it to do, is we just wait for that, that sense of, of conviction to just kind of fade. And we settle back into our formal way of life with no change. Or that conviction is meant to be a catalyst to change us.

So what do you often do when you're convicted? Maybe it's during sermons, maybe it's during bible reading, maybe it's when your spouse points out your sins, or your parents do, or your children do, or your employers do, or your employees do. Minimize it. We ignore it. We just kind of sit there and wait for the storm to pass.

What's unnatural to us is to repent and to in turn obey. To do things that God requires of us that are scary to us, costly to us, distasteful to us. What do you do? And what what things in your life are marked not by your agreement with scriptures command, but by your submission to scriptures command? But by your submission to scriptures command, what do you do?

Because God says so. Even though you don't agree with it. Your flesh when I say that, I mean your flesh, your heart. You're not sitting here going, yes, I think that's good, and I want to do that. Is there an area of our lives where we do what God requires of us because he requires it of us?

That's holy living. It's being disciplined to do what God requires even when we don't want to. Take baptism as an example. Do you get baptized because you want to? For some of us, the answer was, yeah.

I thought it was awesome. It was so exciting. It was great. Do you know that there are people who don't get baptized because they're afraid of getting up in front of people? They just put it off, and their church tells them to put it off, or doesn't tell them that it's that it's inappropriate to put it off.

They just say this is just something between you and God, and you do it when you're ready and when you feel like it. Do you know that that's disobedience? That's actual disobedience. Your faith in Jesus Christ and you take hold of his promises to you and and own them. Well, I don't like being up in front of people.

Someone can't do it. That's disobedience. Baptism is not a thing that where where it's presented to you as, do you want to do it? What if you live in a culture, culture, or in a nation, or in a family, where if you got baptized, it would mean financial ruin for you? Or if it meant that your life would be threatened?

What would you do then? That you converted from Islam to Christianity, where it's actually costly to get baptized, like your life may well be in danger. Do we just say, well, then baptisms? Do you have to worry about that? Don't we'll just don't worry about that.

No. I don't think that's what scripture teaches us to do. See, but they're gonna die and there's they're gonna lose all this stuff and I go, yes, if that is what happens, does not script or teach us that he who wants to save his life must lose it. But when it comes down to our own lives and and the personal cost to us, we go, obedience is completely negotiable. To us, we go, obedience is completely negotiable.

It's completely dependent on my agreement with what is being with what the outcome of it will be. Increase? May it never be? How shall we, who died to sin, still live in it? And you might think, I haven't died to sin.

The pastor is trying to convince me I haven't died to sin. And there's a sense in which you haven't died to sin. And Paul's arguing with somewhat rhetorically here where he's saying, you have died to sin because Jesus paid for your sins. His life. And so in that regard, you are dead to sin.

Why then? How then shall we who die die to sin still live in it? And then he argues about baptism. He uses our baptisms as a lever to to to compel us Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? Do you think baptism at Paul's time was a costly thing for Christians?

Know with regard to church history, it's a very costly thing to do, especially if you were a Jew. Because they understood something that we've sort of covered over, which is that through baptism, you are allying yourself with Jesus Christ in a way and setting his his authority as supreme in your life and your allegiance to him above all else. And that is seen as offensive to everyone else, especially to the Pharisees. That would have been very offensive to them. He's coming and they'd say things like, he's coming to upset our whole way of life.

Well, we'll just baptize later when it's not costly. No. John said things like, you brood of vipers. Who worn beautifully the wrath of come? There was cost associated with baptism.

And so when Paul argues here, do you not know that all of us who've been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? He's not saying that there was no cost to their baptisms. And yet, they submitted themselves to it as an act of faith. We've been buried with him, says Paul. Those who are baptized are buried with Jesus Christ through baptism into death?

What does it mean to have been buried with him through baptism into death? It means this, Jesus death was a payment that our sins required. There is no other way for you to have peace with God than to have your sins forgiven through Jesus Christ. Jesus says of himself, I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.

And to come to the father through him means to go with him down into death and out through out to resurrection. There is no other way. There's no other way. And so Paul says, we've been baptized into his through we we've been buried with him through baptism into death. He is saying to us, that death that he that he'd offered, his life that he gave as a sacrifice, you're united with him in that.

He paid for your sins. What now are your obligations having been joined to him in his death? Acceptable to his father, the one to whom you and I were indebted to. And because God the father accepted the sacrifice of his son as payment for yours and my sins, why then should we carry on incurring more debt? This is how Paul argues.

He says, if Jesus died to pay for your sins, why do you go back and why do you continue in it? Consider yourselves dead to sin. And you're like, well, I don't want Our debts were cleared through the death of Jesus Christ. We have been bound to him in that work if we are Christians. And we testified to that reality through the waters of baptism.

Therefore, we are no longer to be slaves to sin. We are free from guilt from sin's guilt, but also from its power. And I fear that too many Christians don't believe that. They believe they're free from the guilt of sin, but then they come right back to the beginning and say, well, we can live how we want because all of our sins are paid for. And yet they don't value the the the the the the preciousness of the payment.

It doesn't move them. It doesn't constrain them. It doesn't compel them. They just carry on living how they've always lived. How can you, who've been been buried with him through baptism into death, continue

to sin.

That's what it means to be baptized into his death, to be joined with him in putting to death sin and its effects. So we too might walk in newness of life. This is the holiness that his death and his resurrection were meant to accomplish in our lives. And so to be baptized into his death is not to be baptized into misery and left there, but to be raised up out of that into a newness of life, to walk in in newness of life. And so as I said earlier, baptism doesn't just depict a a dirty dead sinner.

But having gone through it, it now testifies to and represents a clean and living Christian, who having been cleansed and made alive, now ought to live does. Because that's what being freed from sin, frees you to do. I'll tell you this. There are times when, when, when obeying God's word is scary because of the consequences of it, but there are never times where obeying God's word leads to you feeling guilty afterwards. That's how Christians ought to reason and think in their minds.

Some people have said that that courage is not the absence of the fear of fear. It's the continuing to do what is right in the face of fear. Outworking of your agreement with what's required of you. It's not an outworking of the the temporal benefits of doing what God

faith.

And God's the only one who's calling you to do that. We are students of God's word and love one another, we do that for for each other. But we're to live by faith, doing what God requires of us. Even if we can't work out the calculus as to how that's gonna be any of any benefit to us. But to those of you who've who've lived lived and and practiced what I've just described in your life, can you not testify to God having been merciful to you when you acted by faith?

Giving you peace, giving you comfort, giving you the desires of your heart, partly through through changing the desires of your heart, but mostly through conforming you to his will. So baptism depicts not just a death, but a rebirth, a new creation. Our union with Christ is not limited to his death, but also to his resurrection. We have hope, And baptism testifies to this reality that when we come up out of the water clean and alive, so to speak, we testify to Jesus victory over the grave and our hope of the same. And so baptism doesn't just signify something about the past, the payment for our sins.

It signifies something about the future, our hope of eternal life. And so we walk in holiness, in in newness of life. Scripture tells us, old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come. That's what we're testifying to and acknowledging and and claiming for ourselves when we come to the waters of baptism, when we witness others coming to the waters of baptism.

We're testifying to the truthfulness and the vitality of of what we've just observed. It ought to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. It ought to make you excited. It ought to be sort of intimidating and exciting at the same time. Paul concludes his argument knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done away with.

So that we no longer be slaves to sin. So all of these phrases are having to do with the past. He ends with this. For he who has died, he's freed from sin. It's not baptism that frees us from sins from our sins.

It's Jesus death as a payment for our sins that satisfies the wrath of God against us and his victory over the grave through his resurrection. But in baptism, we testify to his death and raresorrection and our hope in that those things being true of us. And that is our hope. That his death will will satisfy has satisfied God's wrath against us, and that his resurrection will will carry us to glory. And so it's very sweet when we have baptisms because we get to remember these things.

It's sort of like coming to a wedding. Right? You come to a wedding and you're reminded of your own vows and your own commitments and the spring of your love with your spouse. It's a sweet time and it's but it's also there's also some friction in there where you're like, well, it's not quite how it's supposed to be. Just but I wanted to be.

You come to a funeral and you're reminded of your mortality. That that that we don't live here forever. And some of us some people don't live here for long. And it's meant to be a reminder and a goad to consider your own mortality and to make your peace with God. And so when you come to baptism, you're reminded of something, like at a marriage or at a funeral.

That Jesus died for the sins of his people and that it was acceptable to his father. And that those who are dirty and dead are now clean and alive. That's what Paul's arguing for here. That's what we're about to witness and participate in. So I'll say one final thing to to us knowing that most of us are reformed and kind of stuffy.

It's a happy time. Okay? It's serious. It's serious in the sense that I that I've just preached about. But this is a happy time.

You are free to be happy. You are free to smile. You are free to hoot and holler. You are free to clap. Okay?

God is not pleased by your suppression of your emotions. It's a Right. The only caution I'll add to you is to is is this. This is a worship service and this is we are testifying to and and rejoicing and celebrating the work that God has done. Celebration and your gratitude ought to be directed at God.

Alright? Let's pray.