The Story of God’s Explosive Grace

Romans The believer’s position in Christ Romans The believer’s call to become in his or her experience what they are in their heavenly position

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Romans 6 Paul asks a rhetorical question. May it never be loosely translates into, “Are you crazy man!”

Grace to something base Satan is a master at taking God’s gifts and turning them upside down into a means of sin and darkness

 Sin: Missing the mark whether by deed or thought, of that which is consistent with God’s character and brings Him glory  Grace: God knowing that mankind’s ability to reverse the effects of sin was futile, sent His Son to Calvary to pay for those sins and offers salvation freely to any who believe in Christ.  Baptized: The act whereby Christ places the new believer into the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation.

 Death:Simply means separation. Three deaths are spoken of in the Bible, physical death, spiritual death, and the eternal death.  Resurrection:Christ’s raising from the dead after three days.  Law:Various types of rules that God has given His people to live by. These rules where never a road map for salvation but a means to show man he could never make it without help from God.  Eternal life:To know and be known by God intimately forever.

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 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.

5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 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 would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,

9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Whatever happened to Jesus on the cross happened also to you if you are a son of God

19 “For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. 20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 21 “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.” Galatians 2

Baptism, the key to the believer’s new union with Christ

Hint: There is not a drop of water in Romans 6

Water baptism declares to the world in a simple one act play the grandeur of the what happened when you received Christ. The Lord baptized you into the Holy Spirit and made you part of the body of Christ.

Wrapping up the first eleven verses… Our union with Christ through our baptism into the Holy Spirit is the key not only for our salvation, but also for our sanctification

Why the Believer Does Not Have to Sin Anymore Or, from our position in Christ to our experience in life

No offense teacher, but all this talk about sin is a downer. Why can’t we talk about having a positive attitude, grabbing everything God meant us to have, or our best life now? Until the believer gets that it is sin that robs us of our joy, meaning, happiness, and closeness with God and others, he or she will be wandering in the wilderness of life like the Jews did for forty years. That is, constantly moving in a circle and never really getting anywhere.

1. Selfishness (pride the opposite of humility) 2. Anger over not getting what you believe you deserve 3. A lack of gratitude 4. Hedging your bet. Living like Christianity might be true, so just doing enough for God to get by. 5. Rejecting your call to be a servant 6. Causing dissention rather than unity 7. Complaining 8. Sins of omission (not doing right things) 9. A preoccupation or fear of loosing your financial security rather than risking it all for God 10. Getting your way at any cost.

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!

16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.

22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Breaking all eleven verses into bite size…

(12)The word “therefore of in (12) takes verses 1-11 and concludes that the call of the believer is to dethrone sin from one’s life. (13)But neutrality is not enough, we are not just to be moral people, but instruments in God’s hands of righteousness. (14)The reasoning for this is the logic of grace. If grace is true, then it is incongruent that the believer would act otherwise.

(15)How should the Christian respond to the natural inclination of using grace’s benefits to actually sin more? The answer: Never! Never! Never! (16)Now for the reasoning for the “Never!” One way or another, all humans are slaves either of sin or God. Sin has damning effects, obedience to God has eternal blessings. It is after all an easy choice.

We are all slaves to either sin or God. One is the way of death, the other the way of life. 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” John 8

(17)But for those who have trusted Christ, we thank God that in the past we were sin’s slave but from our heart we became obedient by trusting Christ and then being declared righteous by God. (18)And now sin’s chains are gone, and we are now slaves of doing that which pleases God. (19)Paul has been speaking on a first grade spiritual level because of everyone’s low spiritual I.Q. That is why the illustration of slavery was used. We are to use the energies once used in pursuing sin to now pursue holiness which is has the same meaning as sanctification.

(20)In your time as an unbeliever, you were a salve to sin and didn’t have a connection to righteousness. (21)Do the math, those past sins brought shame and death. (22)But now as a new creature in Christ, it is worth saying again that you are unchained to sin and now chained to our Lord. This brings forth both a holiness of life and eternal life.

(23)For living a life rejecting God’s lordship so that you can continue to pursue sin has a exorbitant cost associated with it, the cost is that of being eternally trapped in a dark hole away from God. But on the other hand, this free grace-based gift of salvation yields forever and ever being with your heavenly Father known and loved by Him and that will never end.