This sermon delves into Romans chapter 6, emphasizing the profound truth that believers have died with Christ and risen to newness of life. It highlights the importance of accepting by faith that our old sinful nature was crucified with Christ on the cross, leading to freedom from sin's power. The message underscores the need for believers to reckon themselves dead to sin and alive to God, allowing the Holy Spirit to make this truth a reality in their lives.

So, let's turn to Romans chapter 6. For me, this has been a very central chapter of scripture that set me on a new direction in my life thirty-six years ago. Because the one verse, in the middle of this chapter, Romans 6, 14, Sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. For many years after I was born again, my sins were forgiven, for sin was master over me. Which is quite amazing to discover, it was a promise that sin would not be master over me. And that that would be the proof that I had really moved over from law to grace. A lot of Christians move over partially, partly under law, partly under grace, like having your foot in two boats, going in different directions, you never get anywhere. So I saw there, when a person comes fully under grace, sin doesn't have mastery over him. We'll come to that in a moment, but I just want to share another verse with you before we get into Romans 6. We know that among Christians there are so many different interpretations of doctrines, different understandings of what a church should be, different understandings of even forgiveness of sins. When you once saved, always saved, or you have endured until the end. Is there such a thing as overcoming sin? And this verse really tells us why there is so much of difference, of opening. John chapter 7, verse 17. Here Jesus said, If anyone is willing to do his will, he shall know the teaching of the doctrine and the words of God, whether I speak for myself, whether this teaching is from God or not, or from man, how to know? Jesus said, deep down in your heart, God sees that you really want to do all of His will, you will know. It's not like other books in the world, you know, like, to understand maths or chemistry or physics or any other subject in the world, you don't have to have a passion or desire to do God's will. You can be a thoroughly immoral person without a good brain, you can study any subject in the world and understand it. And Bible scholars who go to Bible school try to understand the Bible in the same way. So those who have a very clever mind study the scripture like they study chemistry, physics, literature, and you can come to a certain understanding, and it could be 100% wrong. You won't be 100% wrong in chemistry or physics, because then you don't need to use your brain. But when it comes to scripture, there's a part of us that's deeper than our brain. Our brain is a part of our soul. There's a part of us that's deeper than our soul called the spirit, and it's there that we understand the truths of God. Or what the Bible often calls the heart, not the mind. And that's why great scholars in Jesus' time thought he was the devil. They had studied the scriptures. They were not people who worshipped Greek gods or Roman gods who called Jesus the devil. In fact, a Roman centurion said on the cross, hey, this is the Son of God. But the scholars who studied the Bible in the synagogues every week, they couldn't recognize him. So why did all their Bibles turn to Ethan? Exactly the opposite direction. What is the reason? The only reason, they did not want to do God's will. Now, we're not here to judge other people. I don't want to go and tell everyone who disagrees with me in doctrine, hey, you don't want to do God's will, that's why you don't understand. That would be quite arrogant of you. That's not my business. God judges all people. I made this verse to apply to myself, not to judge other people. If somebody defers from me in doctrine, I say, okay, they're not that stupid. I know for myself that I will never, never understand the truth accurately if there's any area in my life where I don't want to do God's will. And for me, after 52 years of studying the Bibles, I'm convinced there's only one book in the whole world that reveals God's will fully, and that's the Scriptures. And the New Testament amplifies what is written in the Old Testament. So, if there's anything in this, particularly in the verse where Jesus spoke, or in the New Testament, which I have a problem with. The reason is, it's not in my mind, it's deep down in my heart. I don't want to do all the will of God, because the will of God goes against the grain of my will. You know, the great conflict in the universe, in the world today, is between man's will and God's will. And the devil is always strengthening us to do our will, and the Holy Spirit comes to do God's will. My will is what the New Testament calls the flesh. When you read the word flesh in the New Testament, sometimes it refers to our body. But very often it refers to our will, our strong self-will, which we're all born with. You see that in a little child as he grows up, how strong his self-will is. And that is one proof that he's a real child of Adam, without any doubt. A strong, stubborn self-will that wants its own way, that defies its father and mother. We're all born with that. Our religion or our background doesn't make a difference. And if that will is not brought in subjection to God's will, he'll never be spiritual. No matter how many meetings we go to in the morning, how many pictures we attend, or how much of the Bible we think we know, here is the thing. If a man wants to do the whole will of God, not to understand it. A lot of people want to understand Scripture. They listen to messages to understand Scripture. Some people want to listen to messages to preach somewhere else and get some honor. But if a man wants to read God's Word, to do, if anyone is willing to do God's will, he will know. He will understand the truth. I want to share that with all of you. Whichever doctrine of Scripture it is, a small doctrine or a big one, what appears very trivial or what's fundamentally important, the answer is, if you really want to do what God wants you to do and allow God to break your stubborn self-will, you will know the truth clearly. It will be as clear as black and white. I mean, so many truths in Scripture have become to me as clear as black and white. And there's no gray area in the important doctrines anyway. So when I find people disagreeing with me or not holding the same view, I say, Lord, I don't want to judge them. I just want to make sure that I'm seeking to do all of your will. I don't want to live on earth ignorant of what God's will is for me. Jesus came to earth and he said, I have come from heaven only for one purpose. You know that verse is in the previous chapter, John chapter 6. He said in John chapter 6 and verse 38, I have come from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who saved me. I call this the one-line autobiography of Jesus. Jesus is describing his life on earth, his 33 and a half years on earth in one sentence. I have come to deny my own will and do the Father's will. He said, what's all this got to do with Romans chapter 6? Because when it says sin will not master you, what is sin? Here it is, doing my own will. When he says here, I could read it like this, I have come from heaven never to sin. I could read it like that, John 6, 38. I've come from heaven never to sin. That means never to do my own will. Never to speak the way I want to speak to people. Never to answer back someone the way he spoke to me. That's my own will. And it's in provocative situations like that we discover that will of ours has never been broken. We like to be holy enough to get a good testimony before others. We all want that. Everybody in the world wants to appear nice and good to others. But it's quite another thing to want never to do my own will in private, in secret, never to think my own thoughts. The thoughts that give me pleasure. Saying no. Look at what I like to look at. No. I want to do God's will. So doing my own will is the definition of sin. What is the definition of holiness? To do the will of the Father. That's holiness. So when Jesus, what He was saying in the verses, I come from heaven, never to sin, but to be perfectly holy. That's a perfectly accurate paraphrase of this verse. So if that is your will, if anyone wants to do His will, you will understand Romans 6 clearly. You will understand every doctrine in the New Testament clearly. Whether it's what you think is small and unimportant, there's nothing small and unimportant if it's God's will. There may be areas of God's will which we think are not so important. I always say the question is not how big a matter you think it is. The question is who said it. If the person who said it is a very important person, then that is an important commandment. So everything is important if God said it. If God didn't say it, well, then you can have your opinion, and I can have my opinion too. But when God has said something, then there's no quibbling about it. And I feel also there's a great need for honesty here. I feel that a lot of Christians are dishonest. And I'll tell you how. They say the Bible is God's Word. They don't really believe it. And why do I say they don't believe it? They don't study it more than any other book. That proves they don't believe it. If I believe that the most important relationship for me on earth is my relationship with God, more important than my marriage, more important than my relationship with my boss at work, the most important relationship a human being has on earth is a relationship with God. If I believe it, I would want to know everything about how that relationship can be perfect. I mean, you know, when marriage is not working properly, we try to help people to have a better marriage. We like to keep our relationship with our bosses at work okay, because otherwise we lose our jobs. But when it comes to our relationship with God, I find a lot of Christians are very casual. They don't make effort to find out what is it that will please God. If they had that attitude, I would say they would really study the scriptures. Because I believe with all my heart, among all the millions of books in the world, there is only one written by God, through human beings. He wrote it through 40 different human beings. But it was inspired by God. And when people ask me, you know there are various proofs people use to prove that the Bible is God's word. I myself have used such proofs in my younger days about the variety of people who are all united, there is no contradiction, and archaeological discoveries and all this. But today, I have one proof that it's God's word. It's changed my life for 50 years. I mean, that's wonderful. So, I've read other books too, but it's not in the same category. So, if we really believe that the Bible is God's word, we would study it a lot more than we do. We'd read it a lot more. Not at the neglect of our earthly duties or responsibilities, but we would find time for it. I remember a brother in a church back home in Bangalore, in India, he said, Brother Jack, I'm so busy, I don't have time to read the Bible. I said, you'll never find time, you've got to make time for it. And I said, I'll improve it to you. Maybe you're very busy at your work. Supposing your little child is sick in Moscow, seriously sick, would you find time to visit her? Visit your child? How would you suddenly find time? For something that did not exist until your child, I mean a problem that didn't exist until your child got sick, you need to not travel all the way to the hospital every day. How do you find that extra two hours in a day? Because that is a priority. So why is it you don't find time to read the scriptures, even twenty minutes? It's not a priority. Let's be honest about it. It is not a priority. I can live my life without it, even though Jesus said man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from God's mouth. That's the only way we can really live. What you call life without knowing God's word is existence, not living. Most human beings exist. You can write on their tombstones, he existed. He didn't really live. Because how to live? Jesus said man should live by every word that proceeds from God's mouth. That's the only thing you can call life. The rest is just mere existence, like the animals exist. So, human beings exist. He existed for ninety years. He didn't live. If you want to say a person lived, it's from the time he began to take God's word seriously. I believe that. Man shall live by every word that proceeds from God's mouth. So, with that sort of introduction, let's go to Romans 6. See, right after Romans chapter 5, he's dealing with our fast. The problem of guilt, which any sincere human being would acknowledge. He has a conscience. Even if I've killed that conscience from childhood in so many ways, like all of us have done. A child's conscience is very sensitive. A three-year-old can never tell you a lie with a straight face. It's impossible. His face itself betrays how many I'm telling a lie. But by the time that child is eighteen or nineteen years old, he can tell you a lie with a straight face. In such a convincing way that you believe it. Because he's killed his conscience so much. And we've all done it. We've killed our conscience by sinning in so many ways that sin doesn't seem to cause us pain. You know, like, I compare it to the hardening of the soles of our feet. If you touch a little baby's feet with a little pin, it reacts immediately. But if you touch the soles of our feet with a pin, it doesn't bother us so much. It doesn't become hard. And our conscience is something like that. What troubled us once doesn't trouble us now. And, but even in spite of that, every person has a still little flicker of that flame called conscience. Even after many years of trying to pour water on it and quenching it. He still, he knows that he's guilty. When I witness to a non-Christian in India, I only start, not from the point of religion, I say, with God there's no religion. Look at a baby, I said. Look at a baby who's born in a hospital. Can you tell me which one is a Hindu and which one is a Muslim, which one is an atheist? No. They're all the same. So that's how I start witnessing. Can't you hear it? You and I are the same. I mean, as we grow up, our parents give us different religious beliefs, but we're the same. We grow up committing sin. And God doesn't look at us as Hindus and Muslims and Christians. He looks at us as sinners. We're all the same. And His greatest need is to be saved from this sin. And religion doesn't help us. That's how I meet Him on the cross. So the first five chapters of Romans are really laying that foundation. Starting out by proving that there are worldly sinners, Romans chapter one, religious sinners, Romans chapter two, and as David says in chapter three, there's no difference. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So just turning back to Romans 3.23 for a moment. Romans 3.23 is to me the clearest definition of sin in the whole Bible. There are many, many verses that talk about sin, but Romans 3.23 is to me the clearest and most complete definition of sin in the whole Bible. What is sin? Sin is coming short of the glory of God. Man was created to live at the level of God's glory. And anything in your life that's less than that standard is sin. We can have different definitions of sin. You go to a gang of murderers and they don't even think murder is sin. Immoral men don't think adultery is sin. Maybe we're a little better than them. But there are certain things we don't consider sin either. The Bible's accepted God standard says anything that comes short of the glory of God is sin. John 1.14 says the glory of God was seen in Jesus Christ. So that's the standard. Anything that I cannot do in fellowship with Christ is sin. Anything. If I can speak to a person in a way I would not speak if Jesus Christ was standing here, then my way of speaking is sinful. However much I may justify it. If I speak to my wife at home in a way in which I would not speak if Christ was standing right there between us, however much I may justify my speech to my wife, it is sinful. See, when I see sin like this, then I see what a terrible thing it is, and how people have been sinning so many times a day without even calling it sin. And I say it's like getting thorns in your feet without even knowing that thorns have got into your feet. People have got leprosy, by the way, I don't know whether you know that. When people have leprosy, they get leprosy in the soles of their feet, they have no sensation. They can have ten thorns in their feet as they walk around barefoot during the day, and they don't even know it. You and I thankfully, one thorn gets in, we know it immediately, we pull it out. But that poor leper can have ten thorns in his feet. That's why people deal with leprosy. Patients, teach them, before you go to bed, examine your feet, the soles of your feet, to see whether they are stuck there, a nail perhaps. You and I don't need that. You don't need to check the soles of your feet every day. It could be got sensation. So anything that comes short of Christ-likeness is sin. And if I don't accept that standard, I'm never going to know what it means when it says sin will not master you. Maybe you're a slave to anger, and one day you get victory over anger, and you don't get angry anymore, and you say, boy, I made it. No, you haven't made it. You made it, maybe you got victory in one area. Anything that comes short of the glory of God is sin. Anything that I cannot do in fellowship with Christ is sin. Any thought that I can think, which I cannot think if Jesus is examining my thought right now, that's sin. If I can sit at a computer and watch or read something, which I couldn't do if Jesus was sitting in a chair beside me, that's sin. The way I behave or the way I handle money, if I wouldn't handle it that way when Jesus is around, it's sin. So Romans 3.23 is the clearest definition of sin in Scripture. Now we come to Romans 6.1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin? That grace might increase? Because He's previously said in Romans 5.21 that when sin, as sin reigns bringing death, grace will reign bringing righteousness. Because where sin increased, which Romans 5.20, grace increased more. That means there is no sin that cannot be forgiven by the blood of Christ, by the grace of God. No sin. Every sin can be forgiven by the grace of God. And when Jesus spoke about the unforgivable sin, about sinning against the Holy Spirit, that's referring to resisting the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Now if you resist the conviction of the Holy Spirit, how can you forgive your sin? But other than that, every sin can be forgiven. Whatever it is. And so we can say about all the other sins, the only sin that won't be forgiven is the one you don't confess. I mean, if you confess our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us. Or, if you put the blame on somebody else for your sin, that sin won't be forgiven. That's why I always tell people, if there is the slightest doubt, take the blame yourself. Because that can be forgiven. But if you blame, like Adam blamed his wife. You blame your wife for something, that sin won't be forgiven either. But if I say, Lord, that's my fault, forgive me. It can be forgiven. It's so crazy to blame other people and to live with sin unforgiven in my life. I might as well say, Lord, it was my fault, forgive me. Even if there was 99% fault in the other person, that was 1% fault with me. In every broken human relationship, remember, never is the blame 100% on one side. The only relationship where the fault was 100% on one side was in the relationship between God and man. There the fault was entirely man. Zero with God. But in all other human relationships, wherever there is a problem, wherever there is sin, even if 99% of the fault is with the other person, there is at least a 1% fault with me. Let me acknowledge that. I can be forgiven. So, when sin is forgiven so easily, all I have to do is confess. Because Christ paid for all my sins on the cross. Past, present and future. It's all covered on the cross. What should I say then? Hey, this forgiveness is so easy. It wasn't like that under the law. You go back to the book of Leviticus and read about what they had to do when they committed sin. They had to bring a goat or a sheep, sacrifice it. How much does a goat cost? I don't know. Let's say $100. I mean, if you had to pay $100 every time you committed a sin to get rid of it, you'd stop sinning pretty quickly. You might even get to pay $100 to get rid of your sin every time you did it. I tell you, we take sin very seriously. But, and that's why in the Old Testament, even a command like, We shall not take the name of the Lord your God in your name. One of the Ten Commandments. The name of the Lord is Jehovah. Do you know that till today, nobody knows the correct pronunciation of that? Because in the Hebrew language, it's YHWH. They don't have any vowels in between those consonants. So, YHWH, people have assumed it's Jehovah. It could be Yahweh. Nobody knows. You know why? Because people dared not speak that name. The Jews would never use that name. Because they were afraid, perhaps I might take it in danger. They were pretty serious about obeying that commandment. Almost as serious as a lot of Christians are about obeying other commandments in the New Testament. I find that the average Jewish person has far more God-fearing than the average Christian. That's why you can't imagine a Jewish leader falling into adultery, like Christian pastors falling into. Yeah, you want a pure God. But Christians don't have it. That's the reason why sin is so rampant, even among Christian leaders. They were very particular about paying their tithes. And Christians, our commandment is not to pay our tithes. Our commandment is to be free from the love of money. Their commandment is to pay 10%. Our commandment is to be free from the love of money. But I don't find Christians so eager to be free from the love of money as those Jewish people were to be free from their tithes. I'm just giving you a couple of examples of how our attitude to sin has become very casual because forgiveness is so cheap. It's cheap for us, but it wasn't cheap for Christ to hang on the cross. When talking to little children about forgiveness of sins, I often explain it like this. I said, if all the people in the world were good, and you were the only little bad boy or girl in the whole world, you were the only one, and you did wrong once, that's what made you wrong. Jesus would still come from heaven and die for you. But one sin committed by one person, the only person who would do a sin on the whole world, Christ would still be forgiven. So I see that, you know, Christ's death wasn't cheap for him. For us, it's cheap in the sense of, not cheap, but it's easy to confess and say, Lord, I believe. And when we have that attitude, we come to verse 1 of Romans 6. So what shall we say? We can continue to sin, right? Because forgiveness is so cheap. Grace is going to increase, we want grace to increase. But he says, how can you ever do that? God forbid, may it never be! He says, how can you die to sin, and live in it again? And this is the truth which many Christians have not understood. That Christ, when he died on the cross, not only forgave our sin, but we died with him. Now this is a little difficult for our minds to understand. But let me begin by showing you a verse in Ephesians 1. In Ephesians 1, in verse 4, it says, God chose us in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. God chose us in Christ, before the foundation of the world, not to take us to heaven. It's a completely wrong understanding Christians have, that God chose us to go to heaven. There's not a single verse in the Bible that says, God chose us to go to heaven. And I'm telling you honestly, heaven is not the goal of my life. It used to be in my younger days, when I didn't know the Bible. But as I come to know scripture, my goal in life is not heaven. My goal in life is to do the will of God, before I leave this earth. And my goal in life, when I leave this earth, is to be with Jesus, wherever he is. That's heaven. But not the pearly gates, and the golden streets. No, it's this way. He chose us, not to go to heaven. He chose us to be holy. He chose us to be blameless. And when I see, oh Lord, this is what he chose me for. It's like, you know, if you take a new job, and go to work in an office, first day, or you go to the boss and say, what am I supposed to do? You don't just go there and do whatever you like. They didn't employ you to do whatever you like. They employed you to do a particular task in that office. So I'm chosen by God, and say, Lord, what did you choose me for? I chose you to be holy. I chose you to live a blameless life on this earth. Have you understood that? I mean, you may do certain things in that office, but if you don't know the main task for which you are given, you'll be sad. So what is my main task on earth? To be holy and blameless. That's what he chose me for. That's what I'm employed in this office for. And he did that before the foundation of the world, he chose me, because with God, there's no such thing as time. He doesn't discover something one day which he did not know yesterday. I mean, you and I are like that. We learned something today which we didn't know yesterday. We learned something today from scripture which we didn't know this morning. But with God, there's nothing he doesn't know. He knows the end from the beginning. Everything that's going to happen right up to the end of time, God already knew that before he created Adam. So that's why it says before the foundation of the world, before Genesis 1 verse 1, Ephesians 1 verse 4 comes, before Genesis 1 verse 1, that means I was in God's mind before Genesis 1 verse 1. That's all it means. And he chose me in Christ. So, I was in Christ, in God's mind, before the world was created. So let me use an illustration. Supposing, supposing this is me and this is Christ. I was in Christ, this paper, inside the Bible, in Christ, before the foundation of the world. I mean, the heavens and the earth are still to be created, Genesis 1. We haven't come to Genesis 1 yet. This is before Genesis 1. Here's me, inside Christ. Before, before there were any angels, before there were any heaven and earth. I'm here to know that, bring such security into my own life. I'm not just a digit or a number floating around in this world. I'm a very important person because I was chosen by God before the foundation of the world. It gives me a sense of worth. And, finally we read that Jesus came to earth 2000, I mean 2000, many thousands of years after Adam. And here, I was in Christ, don't forget. And when Christ died on the cross, who was there? Me. I was there in Him. He died, I died. I wasn't even born, but I was in God's mind. I was a pig. So in Christ I died, there's me there, in Christ, there it is. When He rose from the dead, there's me there, rose from the dead. When He ascended up to heaven, there's me there. That's why it goes on to say in Ephesians 2, He has seated us, Ephesians 2 says, with Him in the heavenly places after raising us up with Him. So that is the truth in Romans 6. How did I die to sin? Because I was in Christ. And Christ was crucified for my sin on the cross. My sins were placed on Him, He took the punishment, but me, I was in Him. I was in Him. You say, I don't understand. I'll tell you. If you want to do His will, you'll understand it. If you really want to do His will, I've seen people in India who can't even read or write English, to understand it. You don't need to be educated, but you must have the desire to do His will. If you don't have the desire to do His will, any amount of my explanation will not make it clear to you. It will be blind, and ignorant. But if you desire to do His will, you'll understand it clearly. We who died to sin, something happened on that cross that God put me into Christ and finished with sin. And then He explains in Romans 6, verse 3 onwards. Don't you know this is what baptism is all about? I was baptized as a little baby by my parents in what's called the Syrian Orthodox Church in India. Very similar to the Roman Catholic Church. They called it baptism. It wasn't baptism at all. Baptism in the Greek means immersion. I wasn't immersed. First of all, baptism is something a person has to choose himself. You can't force a person to choose himself. So, when I was finally born again when I was 19 and a half, I had a struggle with this. I said, I was already baptized as a baby. Why do I need to be baptized again? Till I read Scripture and discovered that wasn't baptism at all. This was on priests called baptism. It wasn't according to Scripture. And I studied this and I said, hey, baptism is a testimony that I died with Christ and I was buried. I was buried in the ground. That's why we had to go under the water and coming out of the water I'm testifying, I was raised up with Christ too, not just buried. So he says here, verse 3, don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death? What were you testifying to when you went into the waters of that who came out? Maybe you didn't understand it. Romans 6 was not written that time. But they obeyed. So baptism is a step of obedience. I mean, even if you don't understand it, if you've obeyed, that's fine. Now you can understand it. It is testifying that I have died and I've been buried with Christ to what? To sin. And to the world. And now I have risen with Christ to live for the things he lived for. So this old man I'm testifying to his burial in baptism. Therefore we have been buried, verse 4, with him through baptism into death. That is, Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father so we might walk in newness of life. So the testimony I have when I come out of the waters of baptism is now I'm a new person. And it's a very interesting phrase that you read here in verse 4. Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father or God raised Christ from the dead. Do you know there's not a single verse in the New Testament that says Jesus Christ raised himself from the dead? He had the power to do it. He said that clearly in John chapter 10. John chapter 10, verse 18. Jesus says, verse 17, for this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from me. I lay down it on my own initiative. He says nobody kidnapped me, forced me to be killed. Not even the Roman soldiers. He said to Peter, I can call 72,000 angels from heaven right now to fight for me. I'll be free. I can save myself from crucifixion but I lay down on my own initiative because I have the power or authority to lay down my life and listen to this, I have the power to raise myself up again. But he never used it. He would not do anything on his own. So never in the Bible does it say that Jesus raised himself from the dead. He did not. It always says God, the Father raised Christ from the dead. Christ gave himself to death. God raised him from the dead. And that is the picture in baptism. You know in baptism you stand there in the water and submit to somebody else to push you down. He raises you up. You don't come up yourself. He lifts you up. It's a very beautiful picture that God does the raising up. I do the submitting and God raises me up. So there is no compulsion. God doesn't force us to give up sin. It's your choice. I submit to that man to immerse me in the water. And I say I am willing to die. I accept it. And it goes on to say in Romans 6, 5 if we have been united in the likeness of his death we will certainly be in the likeness of his resurrection. So if you are unable to walk in newness of life like it says in Romans 4 we were buried in baptism so that we might come out to walk in newness of life or in a new way and you find it's not true in your life you are walking in the oldness of Adam or the oldness of the letter of the law not the newness of life in Christ there must be a reason. And the reason is you are not accepted in that place of being united with Christ in his death. That's why you still lose your temper. That's why you are still a slave to lusts where money is such a big thing. You think you are rich because you have much money and you think you are poor because you don't have much money. These are all ideas that you have because you haven't died with Christ. Because if, it says here in verse 5, if you have really accepted that position in death in Christ you will certainly without a doubt be in his resurrection life as well. So if you haven't experienced that resurrection life it means you haven't gone down to death. However much you may imagine you have you haven't really gone down to death. Knowing this, verse 6, and that's something we must know, that our old man was crucified with him. What is the old man? The old man is the mind that wanted to sin. We all had it. We all had a mind that wants to sin. It's like an old unfaithful servant whose house called my heart. An unfaithful servant who always opened the door when the lust of the flesh came knocking saying, hey I'd like to watch some pornography now. I'd like to get angry at that fellow right now. I'd like to tell a lie right now that I'll get some benefit from it. I'd just like to be a little lazy now and forget about spiritual things. And this old servant said sure, come right in. And all these lusts come in and pollute us and defile us. That's the old man. The mind that wanted to sin. That agreed with the lusts in my flesh. The old man is not the lusts in the flesh. The lusts in the flesh are like a gang of robbers who want to come inside my house. The old man is this unfaithful servant who opens the door. That old man has been killed by Christ. When I accept Christ what potentially happens is that that old man is killed. I accept it. Just like I accepted Christ dying for my sins on the cross. But you may say if that happened then why isn't it true in my life? Nothing happens until you accept it by faith. For example, when did you get forgiveness of your sins? You may say well about 10 years ago. But that's not when Christ died for your sins. Christ died for your sins 2,000 years ago. When did you experience that forgiveness when you accepted it by faith? Even though it was taken care of 2,000 years ago it became real in your life only when you accepted it by faith. Christ died for the sins of the world the Bible says, 1 John chapter 2. But why is it so many people's sins are not forgiven? Even though Christ died for their sins. Lack of faith. The old man of all believers was put to death with Christ on the cross. Why isn't it true in the lives of most believers? They haven't accepted it by faith. Same reason. Nothing becomes true in our life until we accept it by faith. I often use the example of the blind men who came to Jesus. They said Lord we want our eyes to be open. The Lord said before I do that for you tell me this, do you believe I can do it for you? And if one man says, I'm not so sure he would have gone home blind. Or if they had said I think you can open one eye. He would have gone home with one eye open. Because the principle is according to your faith you don't need it. You believe your eyes can't be open they won't be open. You believe only one eye can be open the Lord said I believe both eyes can be open according to your faith. You believe that your sins can be forgiven through Christ's death on the cross according to your faith. But you don't believe the other eye can be open that you can have victory over sin. Then you won't have victory but you'll get forgiveness. You're like a blind man with one eye open. So why is it many people have not experienced the old man dying on the cross. They haven't accepted it by faith. They believe that their sins were put on Christ on the cross but they don't believe their old man was crucified with Christ on the cross. They accept half the gospel and they get the benefit of that half. Their sins are definitely forgiven but they're still defeated by sin. Because they haven't accepted that our old man was done away with on the cross. And the whole purpose is that we might no longer be slaves to sin. So the way of God delivering us from sin's power is not by our determination and making new decisions and all that. It's he who has died is freed from sin. You're saying this fellow is dead now it's impossible for him to sin anymore. Because he's dead. If you tie him up he might break free one day but if you kill him he can't sin anymore. That's why he's saying if we have died with Christ we should also live with him. So therefore because knowing that Christ can never be put to death again in that the death he died where can he die to sin once for all for the life that he lives he lives to God. Even so listen to this how shall we make this real in our life consider yourself to be dead to sin for the life of God and if we're automatic that means what God did automatically becomes true in our life then the whole world will be forgiven too. Because Christ died for the sins of the world but it's not automatic. Maybe 5% of people in the world have their sins forgiven that's my guess. I don't think it's more than that. How is it Jesus died for 100% of people and only 5% of people have their sins forgiven? Because it's not automatic. Even though Christ died for the sins of the world, it's only 5% who believe and receive. Yeah, no, I want that money. I believe it. And I turn from my sin and I accept it. Now, using the same logic, now you have this small group of believers, this 5% group. In this small group of believers, how is it only about 5% overcome sin? Same reason. They don't believe. They don't accept that my old man finished with Christ on the cross. I have to now reckon myself dead to sin. How do you get free from the guilt of sin? How do you get free? You believe God's Word. You never saw Christ dying on the cross. You believe God's Word. All your sins, He paid the price. And what a relief it is to be free from guilt. He says, I don't remember your sins anymore. You believe it? Then you're free from that heaviness. In the same way, you would believe that your old man, God, condemned him to death on the cross. He cannot be repaired, you know, like a useless automobile. You repair it, you repair it. It cannot be repaired anymore. God says, your old man is condemned. It's used. It's used for nothing. Finished. I accept that position, Lord. And I reckon myself to be dead to sin. That means I, to use my imagination, I think of myself as a dead person. Somebody called me the devil, so I'm dead. That's what he said, it doesn't bother me. I mean, that man's face doesn't change if you call him the devil. If you praise him and say, hey, I think you're a great prophet, his face doesn't change either. He's unaffected by praise or criticism because he's dead. He's not going to get all excited if some pretty girl walks by him. He's dead. He's not going to get excited by somebody offering him a million dollars. He's dead. I have died to sin. It doesn't mean I'm completely dead because I'm alive to God. But in one realm I'm dead, in another realm I'm alive. See, like physical death. Physical death is not seizing of existence. It's moving from one place to another. For example, if you leave the United States and you leave California and go and live in New York. As far as California is concerned, you're dead. You're not here. You're alive in New York, but you're dead in California. That means nothing in California bothers you anymore. You're living over there. That is death when a man dies. He doesn't live in the world anymore. He's gone to heaven or hell. He hasn't ceased to exist. He's just changed his location. The accurate description of when you say somebody died is he's moved on from here, gone to some other place. He took a flight, went somewhere else. That's death, really. So, there's the same thing here. Inwardly, as you have died to this world. But I'm still alive. I'm alive in another place. Like this guy who went from California to New York. I'm alive before God now. If I accept that position and seek to reckon myself, it will become true in my life. The Holy Spirit will make it real. Why does God ask us to do it? Because God never forces anyone to do anything. Everything must be voluntary. God doesn't even force people to go to heaven. Think of the thousands of people who have died in the last 24 hours in the world. God never forced any of them to go to heaven. Make your choice. Go where you like. But He sent Adam and Eve. He didn't force them not to sin. If you want to sin, sin. And even after we receive Christ as our Savior, God doesn't force us to obey all His commandments. You do what you like. It's complete freedom. And because He gives us complete freedom, He has to get us to yield our will if He has to do anything for us. If He did it without my exercising my will, I'd become a robot. God doesn't want robots any more than we want robots in our smallest children. We want children with a free will. God wants children with a free will who choose to obey and who choose to receive His forgiveness. Who choose to accept the fact that their old man is dying. And when we consider ourselves like this, I Lord, I accept my position in Christ as dead, and I will not allow, Romans 6, 12, sin to reign in my mortal body, that I obey its lusts. In other words, now I will not, verse 13, present myself, my body for unrighteousness, where I present myself to God for righteousness. Then it says, because sin will not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. So we see that the whole purpose of the grace of God is to bring us to this place, where sins are utterly forgiven.