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SIN / SELF

SIN - We Are Dead

Gary Wright · Sunday, 6 July 2025 · Romans 6:1-11 · 35:08 · 4,456 words

Romans S11 · 6:1-11 Burton

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

Sanctification in Romans 6 shows that because we are united with Christ in his death and resurrection we are set free from sin’s power. The speaker argues that believers can say no to temptation, not by their own strength but through the Holy Spirit and God’s Word. He calls listeners to stop feeding the old self and walk in the new life Christ offers. The message invites anyone still struggling to come to Jesus in faith and trust him to change them step by step.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

tempted 11 sin 52 die 16 dominion 7 died 17 max 4 temptation 7 death 20 baptism 9 set 14 dead 16 lazarus 4

Topics

Sin 13 Baptism 5 Faith 3 Sanctification 2 Grace 2 Death & Resurrection 2 Justification 2 The Holy Spirit 1 Salvation 1 The Law 1 The Gospel 1 Condemnation 1 Prayer 1 Atonement & Sacrifice 1 Freedom 1

Scripture referenced 23

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 6 0:00 Romans 3 0:40 Romans 5 0:40 Romans 6 1:53 Romans 6:1 1:54 Romans 6:1-3 2:03 Romans 5 3:10 Romans 5:3 9:50 Romans 6 10:36 Romans 6:4-5 10:36 Romans 6 13:31 Romans 6:5-7 13:31 Galatians 2:20 16:36 Romans 6:8-9 17:50 2 Corinthians 5:17 18:37 Romans 6:4 21:44 Romans 6:11 22:15 Romans 6:11 22:21 Romans 6:3-10 23:32 Romans 6:11 23:36 Romans 6:12-14 24:59 James 4:7 29:01 Romans 12:2 30:08

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

We've been studying the book of Romans. Today we're going to be in Romans chapter 6.

So I'm just going to give you a basic outline of the book of Romans.

We started off, Paul started off writing in the first three and a half chapters about condemnation.

Like our need for a savior and he left nobody excluded from that.

We all need a savior. We all are sinners and we're all condemned to be separated from God for eternity without that savior.

Then we talked about justification or Paul wrote about justification.

And from the middle of chapter 3 to the end of chapter 5 he talked about that justification comes through faith in Jesus our savior.

And today we're going to talk about another big word called sanctification.

Okay?

And it's...

It's easy...

The definition is to make holy.

Right?

We don't make ourselves holy.

God makes us holy.

But sanctification is a process that the Lord takes us through to grow us to be more like him.

So I like...

Today we're going to talk about now that we know Christ, how ought we live?

Okay?

So let me pray and then we'll jump into this.

Father, thank you for today.

Thank you for those who showed up this morning.

Thank you for those who showed up this morning on a holiday weekend.

So thankful for them.

Lord, just open our hearts up.

Just let us hear your word, Lord.

Move me out of the way.

Penetrates the hearts of all of us, Lord.

And help us to take our next step in serving you, walking with you, whatever that may look like.

We love you, Lord.

And we thank you in Jesus' name.

So if you have your Bibles, I probably...

I don't know if I told you this already.

We're going to be in chapter 6.

We're going to be starting in verse 1.

I highly recommend that you open them up.

And read along with me.

The scripture will also be up on the screen.

But Romans 6, verses 1 through 3.

What shall we say then?

Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

By no means.

I'm going to repeat that.

By no means.

Okay?

How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into...

into his death?

So look, Paul starts off with a question.

A hypothetical or a rhetorical question, if you will.

Right?

I didn't tell you this earlier, but I want to review this too.

He is writing to the church in Rome that he has never visited.

He wants to go there, but he's never been there.

Right?

So he's writing this letter, and he's asking this question,

What shall we say then?

Because he knows that the people are going to say,

Well, can we continue?

Can we continue in sin since we have God's grace?

And in the previous chapter, chapter 5, Paul wrote this.

Now that the law came to increase the trespass,

but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

So he knew that when folks read that in the letter,

they're going to be like,

So does that mean I can go on sinning?

So grace abound more?

So God's glory will be shown more?

Does the gospel give us a license to keep on sinning?

Is basically what they're asking,

or what he's asking here in this hypothetical question.

And listen, this is a question that we still struggle with today.

Can we keep on sinning once we're saved?

And I'm going to tell you, I struggled with this as a kid growing up in church.

I was always told, you know, we're sinners even after we're saved.

So my thought was, I could do this.

I could do what I'm tempted to do and just be forgiven for it.

And honestly, unfortunately, this lasted until I was an adult.

Until I really learned the truth for myself.

And maybe that's where you're at.

I know many people, some in my family, claim to be followers of Christ.

I know many people, some in my family, claim to be followers of Christ.

But you can't see that in their life, right?

Now, I'm not saying believers don't sin.

I mean, all of us sin from time to time.

But what Paul's talking about here is like habitual sin.

Sin that we choose to do.

Sin that we're like an addiction or something that we know is wrong,

but we choose to do it anyways.

That's what he's saying.

Can we continue doing this?

And this is his answer.

By no means, right?

And I like to say it this way.

Myself, absolutely not, right?

That's what I heard at work a lot of times.

That's why I know that phrase.

I asked to do something.

Absolutely not, right?

But look, it's okay for us to be messed up when we come to Jesus.

Matter of fact, Jesus wants us to come to him messed up.

But once we come to Jesus, it's not okay to stay that way, right?

We need to let Jesus change us, sanctify us,

make us holy, right?

So Paul asked two more questions.

Paul is big on questions, and I love it,

because he uses these questions.

He knows this is what people are going to be thinking,

and he uses it just to get right to the point.

But he uses these two questions to answer the first.

The first question he asks is,

how can we who died to sin still live in it?

Okay?

Back in the 80s, there was this movie I love.

It was called The Princess Bride.

I love the movie.

And honestly, Jim and I were talking about it this past couple weeks.

But in one part of the movie, the hero, his name is Wesley,

he's being tortured.

And they have him hooked up to this machine that sucks years out of his life.

And at first, they suck one year out, right?

And it's very painful.

But later on, they suck.

50 years out of his life.

And it actually kills him.

He's dead.

But his friend, his name is Indigo Montoya.

And if you know the movie, my name is Indigo Montoya.

You killed my father, prepared to die.

I don't know.

I love that phrase, right?

But anyways, Indigo, he takes Wesley to this guy.

The guy's name is Miracle Max.

Takes him there.

Miracle Max takes a look at him, raises his arm up, and drops it a couple times.

And he said, the good news is this.

He's just mostly dead.

He's not all dead, right?

So anyways, they have some kind of pill that they give him, and he comes back to life, right?

I love the movie, but that's just Hollywood, right?

Because when we die, guess what?

It is permanent.

There's no life left.

And when a person dies to sin, it's no different.

They are not mostly dead to sin.

They're dead to sin, the scripture says.

MacArthur, John MacArthur says this.

A person who truly died to sin cannot possibly live in it.

Death and life are incompatible, whether it's physical death or this.

Paul, in our passage, there's 14 verses in our passage today.

15 times he uses the words, die, died, dead.

This is an important thing.

We are dead to sin, and we can't live in it, all right?

Now, I gave you a lot of information after the first question.

There's a second question he asked to answer, and it says this.

He says this.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

There's a word in this passage that's really important,

that you really need to understand, and it's the word, no.

It's mentioned three times in these five verses.

And from verses three, actually seven, from three to ten, it's mentioned three times.

And when Paul says, you know, he's saying, this is the truth.

He's teaching biblical doctrine.

He's not saying, like, it's a feeling.

He's saying, this is the truth.

This is a fact.

So when he says, do you not know, it is a fact.

And he uses baptism as an illustration.

And he starts talking about that in the next couple of verses.

He says, in verses four and five in Romans 6, he says,

We were buried, therefore, in him, Jesus, 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.

The word baptism means to immerse or submerge, okay?

And the reason for baptism is identity.

Identity, like when we are baptized in water, what are we saying?

I always tell the students that I worked with that it's like putting on a sports jersey that says,

I'm on Team Jesus, right?

And that's what baptism is.

We're commanded to do it, but it's really putting our identity in Christ.

We're showing people what's happened on the inside,

and we're showing that publicly in this demonstration of water baptism.

But what Paul's talking about here is what actually happens inside of us

when we put faith in Jesus, and that is this.

The Holy Spirit moves into us.

The Holy Spirit moves into our lives.

We're baptized by the Holy Spirit.

The water baptism is showing what the Spirit's already done.

And when we trust in Jesus in faith, the Holy Spirit moves in.

He identifies us with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

So the instant we put our faith in Jesus, we're moved from condemnation.

That means we're sinners who are hopeless,

without a Savior.

But when we put our faith in Jesus, we're moved from condemnation to justification,

which means just as if I've never sinned.

We've been forgiven, and we've been transformed from Adam.

Last week, the last chapter talked about being under the reign of Adam,

being under the sinful nature.

We're transformed from that to justification, just as if I've never sinned.

And since we're...

Since we're identified with Christ, everything that happens here,

what happened to Christ, happens to us, okay?

So when he dies, when we put faith in Jesus, we die.

And let's talk about that for a second.

First, let's read the passage.

Verses 5 and 7 in chapter 6 of Romans.

It says,

For if we have been united with him, Jesus,

in a death like his,

we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

We know, there's our word again,

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 would no longer be enslaved to sin.

For one who has died has been set free

from sin.

Since we are identified with Jesus

in the baptism of the Holy Spirit,

we are united with him in death.

That don't mean we actually die.

It means that we die to our old self.

Sinful self is crucified when we put our faith in Jesus.

The nature of sin that we inherited from Adam,

it's still there.

But the passage says that it's been brought to nothing.

Like we were slaves to this nature.

But now that we've died to our old self through faith in Jesus,

that nature, that slave master has been brought to nothing.

I have a bunch of cordless drills,

and they're awesome when you have a charged battery.

But as soon as the battery dies and you don't have a charger to charge it,

the thing is,

you can't tighten the screw like this, right?

That's the same thing here.

We have the nature of sin,

but through Christ and through the Holy Spirit living in us,

it's brought to nothing.

We're no longer slaves to sin.

We've been set free from sin.

And what does that mean?

That means when we are tempted by sin,

can say no.

We don't have to go there.

We're not a slave to it.

Temptation can be rough.

But we're not slaves to sin.

I know a lot of times when I was growing up,

I was taught that Jesus forgives sin.

But sometimes I didn't really grasp the idea

that I can say no to that sin

because I have the Spirit living in me.

Galatians 2.20, I love this passage.

Paul also wrote this.

He says,

I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer.

I who live,

but Christ who lives in me.

Paul says the first thing

when he's talking about baptism,

we died to ourself like Christ died on the cross.

Like we were crucified.

Our sin was crucified.

But Paul also talks about,

he talks about death a lot.

But in this passage,

he also talks about lives

or lives, life and alive.

Jesus didn't stay dead.

And we don't stay dead either.

We rise up into this newness of life he talked about.

Not only did we die to our old self,

but we're resurrected into this new life.

That should be good news.

That's good news right there.

And Paul writes about that in the next couple of verses.

Romans 6, 8 and 9 says,

Now if we have died with Christ,

we believe that we will also live with him.

Here's our word again.

We know that Christ being raised from the dead

will never die again.

Death no longer has dominion over him.

For the death he lived,

he lived to sin.

Or the death he died,

he died to sin.

Once for all.

But the life he lives,

he lives to God.

Okay?

Believers have died to our old self.

We're no longer slaves.

We've been resurrected into this

new life with Christ.

2 Corinthians 5, 17

tells us the same thing.

It says,

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,

he or she is a new creation.

The old is passed away

and the new has come.

We have a new life.

And we know that, Paul says.

We know that.

He says we know that death no longer

has dominion over Jesus.

Here's the cool thing.

Death no longer has dominion

over us believers either.

If we're believers,

we're going to die physically,

but we're going to spend eternity with God.

And here's the cool thing.

Death means separation from God.

That's one of the things it means.

But that separation from God

is no longer there.

When we're in this world

and we have faith in Jesus,

we have freedom to go to the cross

or go to God

and talk to Him.

We have a relationship with Him.

And when we die physically,

we still are going to die physically,

but when we die physically,

immediately we're going to be

in heaven with God.

And we're going to be there with Him

Listen, we have,

through Jesus,

we have dominion over death too.

In His death that He died,

like in the Old Testament,

they had to make sacrifices.

They had to make sacrifices

over and over again

for their sin.

And all of that was just a picture of Christ.

But here's the thing about Jesus' death

and His shedding of blood.

He was the perfect Lamb.

And He only has to die once.

Look, Hebrews tells us this.

He, Jesus,

has no need,

like those high priests

that made the offerings all the time,

to offer sacrifices daily.

First for His own sins

and then for those of the people.

So the priest had to make

a sacrifice for their sins

and then for the rest of the Israelite people.

But since,

since Jesus did this

once for all,

when He was offered up,

He's the perfect sacrifice

that we never have to have

a sacrifice again.

All we need is faith

that He died for our sins.

And just as Christ

like our scripture says,

we should do the same

once we have this new life.

That's what it's all about.

Living for Him.

Paul said we walk in this newness of life.

And that's what we're talking about here.

that I want you to think about

is, okay, we know this stuff is true.

How do we do this?

How do we know,

or how do we take this information

and apply it to our lives?

And apply it, okay?

And Paul goes on in verse 11

and he begins to talk about this.

In verse 11 he says,

so you also must consider

yourself dead to sin

and alive to God

in Christ Jesus.

Okay?

He says, consider yourself,

consider, this is an important word,

consider yourselves dead

to sin and alive with Christ.

The word consider,

in other translations it's

the word reckon.

And my family's from the south.

It's not the same word.

Like my family might say something like,

I reckon it might rain today, right?

That's not what it is.

It's not a maybe thing.

The word consider or reckon

means to believe what God says

to be true with confidence.

Okay?

That's the kind of confidence

that will change our actions.

So Paul says,

he's urging us,

to have faith

in what we know to be true,

verses 3 through 10.

And have faith in that.

That's what verse 11 is.

Have faith in that.

Jesus, and I want you to understand this,

Jesus didn't just forgive us

when he died on the cross.

Like I thought when I was a kid.

He set us free

from sin as well.

He set us free.

He did that because he wants us

to serve him.

Why did he set the Israelite?

He set the Israelites free

from bondage in Egypt

because he wanted them to serve him.

Read Genesis or Exodus.

It's all through there.

He wanted the Israelites to serve him

when he set them free.

It's no different for us.

He set us free to serve him,

to be holy like he is holy,

the scripture says.

We're never going to be perfect like him

until we get the glory.

But we strive for that.

Right?

Because we know the truth.

So try to follow me here.

Paul says,

we know these things are true.

We died to ourselves.

We're in this new life.

We have faith that that really happened.

The next thing he's going to talk about is

how do we live in it?

How do we live in this truth?

And Paul speaks of that

in the last two verses here.

Verses 12 and 14.

He says,

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 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.

Paul uses another word

that's important here.

He uses the word grace.

He uses the word present.

In some translations,

it uses the word yield.

We have this information.

We have faith that it's true.

And now we yield to that truth.

He says,

don't give in to these passions

and temptations.

Don't let it reign

like a king would reign on a throne.

Don't let these things reign.

Put God on the throne in your life.

Because we've been set free from sin

to walk in newness of life.

Sin has no dominion.

And I love this part.

Sin has no dominion over us

because we're not under the law.

We're under grace.

And what's the difference?

Look, God gave the law

because it shows his standards to us.

This is my perfect standard

that I want you to live by.

We can try.

And the Israelites tried and failed.

But he knew we couldn't live up to it.

Because why?

It's external law.

Trying to please God

under our own power.

But grace is different.

Grace is this internal relationship.

It's set us free

from the power of sin.

Not in our own strength.

But in the strength of God

through the Holy Spirit living in us.

It's not our own strength.

We can rely on him in this.

We can rely on him.

And you may be here this morning.

And be thinking,

Gary, hey, I understand this is true.

And I have faith.

But why do I struggle with sin so bad?

Why do I struggle so bad?

And my first response would be this.

And I think about myself as a young man,

again, in the church.

When we're tempted

and we want to do something,

even though we know

that it's not something God wants us to do.

But guess what?

And I'm not,

I'm not trying to put rules on you, right?

I still want you to know we're under grace.

But when we know that God's telling us not to do it,

it's so fun.

And I really want to.

Is it really going to hurt?

And God's going to forgive me anyways.

Grace is going to abound.

Guess what we're doing when we do that?

We're giving life back to our old self.

Miracle Max in The Princess Bride.

Wesley came in, he's dead.

What does Miracle Max do?

He takes some bellows

and he starts pumping air into his lungs, right?

That's what we're doing

when we give in to temptation

and we choose to go our way

instead of God's way.

James 4, 7 says,

Submit yourselves, therefore, to God.

Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

We're tempted and we all are

just because we know Jesus

doesn't mean we're not going to be tempted.

Matter of fact, I think sometimes we're tempted more.

I just want to give you some helpful things.

When we're tempted,

we need to follow Jesus' example in the wilderness.

How did he stand up to,

what did he use to stand up under temptation?

He used God's word.

And that's what Paul's talking about

when he says, you know.

When we know God's word,

we can use that when we feel tempted.

Like there was times where I felt tempted

in my life and I would quote,

you are not your own,

you were bought with a price, right?

And that really helped me.

But Romans 12, 2 really hits this.

It says, do not be conformed to this world,

but be transformed by the renewal of your mind

that by testing you may discern

what is the will of God.

What is good and acceptable and perfect.

How do we transform our minds?

That is our biggest defense in temptation.

When we're tempted,

a lot of times it's because we are walking

in the ways of the world

and we're thinking in the ways of the world.

But what does scripture say?

Set your minds on things above,

not on things that are on earth.

This is what Paul's talking about

when he says, consider.

Look, we know the scripture.

Set your mind on that.

Put your faith in God.

Trust him.

And lastly, live that out.

Live out that faith.

We trust God and we move forward.

And one other thing I want to share with you

is we're not doing this walk with Christ alone.

When we're tempted,

what's the first thing we should do?

Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane

before he went to the cross.

He was praying and he asked his disciples,

pray with him.

This is what he said to them.

Watch and pray that you

may not enter into temptation.

You need to go to the one

who gives us the strength.

We're not in this alone.

And guess what?

Look around in here.

There are believers all over in here

that would love to come beside you

when you're struggling.

The scripture says that we're to build one another up.

That's what we're here for, church.

Each other.

Look, we can overcome temptation.

Sometimes it seems so impossible.

But it's possible.

With God.

Share one other thing.

And I'm not telling you this is the okay to sin.

When I really became a follower of Christ,

there were some things that I had in my life

that I struggled with

that took longer to overcome

than some other things.

And there were times where I wanted to give up

because I felt like I keep going back to this.

But I want you to remember what Jesus said

when he called Lazarus.

It was a guy named Lazarus who died.

He had been dead for four days.

And Jesus raised him from the dead.

He said, Lazarus, come out.

Lazarus came out and he had the grave clothes

all wrapped around him.

And he said, those often set him free.

Right?

But here's the truth.

When we come to Jesus, we're set free.

But some of that stuff, some of those grave clothes,

some of those things are still holding on

and they're hard to overcome.

And Jesus is working in our lives.

And he'll work one thing after another.

But some of them take long.

And I'm not telling you it's okay to stay there.

But I'm saying it's okay to keep moving forward

and keep trusting the Lord in that.

Here came some of the things that I thought were impossible

through these things.

And that's why I'm sharing.

But listen, if we want to overcome,

it starts with our relationship with the Lord.

We're all under this condemnation.

We're all under sin and we need a savior.

And if you don't know him,

you're not going to have him.

You don't have the strength, right?

We need to come to him in faith,

understanding that we're sinners

and that he's our only hope.

And we need to come to him for justification,

just as if I've never sinned.

And when we do that,

he will begin to transform our lives in sanctification.

One thing at a time.

And guess what?

God's still transforming my life.

It'll never end until I get to heaven.

There is hope in Jesus.