Freedom From Sin

Transcript

GR 1429
05/02/10
Freedom from Sin
Romans 6:5-7
Gil Rugh

We're going to Romans 6 in your Bibles. The work of God's salvation is the most important subject in all the world. It's the most important message that can be delivered. It is the focus of the ministry of the church of Jesus Christ and it is the center of the life of every child of God. Paul has been unfolding God's purposes and plan of salvation summarized as the message of the gospel of God, the good news concerning Jesus Christ and the salvation that He has provided through His death and resurrection. After talking about sin and condemnation Paul moved on to talk about the solution to sin and condemnation and that is justification through faith in Jesus Christ. Through faith in Him we are justified, declared righteous by a holy God, absolved of guilt. That is freedom from the penalty of our sin. But the salvation that brings us freedom from the penalty of sin, justification, also bring freedom from the power of sin. That's what we call the doctrine of sanctification. It's basically living a holy life. God said to His people, you shall be holy for I am holy. And those who now belong to the God who is holy are to manifest holiness in their lives, each life individually and our lives together as we form the church of Jesus Christ.

Paul is talking about the doctrine of sanctification in Romans, beginning in chapter 6. You know when error begins to creep into churches it does it in subtle ways. It doesn't usually begin with a direct attack on the doctrine of justification by faith. It comes a little more subtly. And we feel the pressure since it doesn't seem to be a direct assault and it is somewhat removed from the core doctrine of justification by faith that perhaps there is some help to be gained by the thinking of the world. And this is what has happened when we get into the doctrine of sanctification—how we live the Christian life and in particular, how do we deal with sin that may come up in the life of a Christian. We know the thinking of the world and that is sin is not the issue, rather you have a disease or an addiction, a compulsive behavior. Your conduct has been shaped by things that happened to you in your childhood and so on. And so they develop solutions for that. That's what goes on in much of the counseling of the world.

An article I've had in my file for a number of years and have referred to it before, I keep it there because it is as good and clear as any. It came from a secular news magazine, U.S. News and World Report a number of years ago, entitled “America's Addiction to Addictions” and its subtitle is Behavior: People Are Seeking Help for Everything from Promiscuity to Excessive Shopping. It starts out by talking about a political figure who got into trouble with alcohol and drugs so he immediately entered a treatment program in another state. And this article says, he and his aides were also launching a political and legal strategy to portray his addiction problems as a disease, something beyond his control and thus politically less damaging. Then this article note, it was not that long ago that these kinds of excesses were seen as an evidence of moral corruption rather than medical conditions. The disease model sends a harmful message to abusers, it not only excuses irresponsibility but indoctrinates them with the idea they are helpless and sick.

Then they say about addictions, it starts out as a voluntary act, then becomes reflective and automatic. And they ask the question, can any behavior become reflective and automatic, in effect an addiction? And they then note, addiction sheik is everywhere. You know it is fashionable to have an addiction. Oh yes I'm in counseling, I'm getting counseling. All of a sudden you are sort of absolved from responsibility. And they note, creating a world of addictive diseases may mean creating a world in which anything is excusable. It is in vogue now to call any excessive behavior an addiction. And then they note, and none of the often expensive treatments offered for the alleged behavioral addictions has proved effective.

There are questions asked. Is every problem a disease? It sometimes seems that way. And then they talk about sexual addiction and places that are dealing with that. And they've developed a 12-step program at this one place to deal with it and on it goes. They have a list, this is a list you could make endless, but they have Overeaters Anonymous, these are groups that help you with your addictions. Gay Men's Overeaters Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, Co-Dependence Anonymous, Co-Dependence of Sex Addicts, Batterers Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Debtors Anonymous, Neurotics Anonymous, Women Who Love Too Much, Women Who Love Too Much Lesbian Chapter, Emotions Anonymous, and on it goes.

We say, well that's the way the world is. They don't know. You know what happens, as this is constantly promoted in the world pretty soon believers think there is something to this. You know the way the world looks at it, each area is its own special area that needs treatment. So if you're a compulsive gambler you have to have somebody who counsels with you who has some training in knowing what causes compulsive gambling and how to treat it. Or if your problem is excessive shopping, you have to have somebody who has some understanding of the causes of this problem, other than credit cards and who can counsel you. Maybe your problem is sex and you have to have somebody trained. Pretty soon you get the idea that each of these areas are special areas. The Bible calls them sin and sins. But the world views each one as something that has been developed somehow by a malfunctioning of some kind and takes an expert who can deal with that particular malfunction and has been trained to do so. And so we develop our own system of counseling to help Christians who may have addictions or problems.

A brochure here I stuck in my file, and this is by a Christian organization, that's their claim and led by such a one, and this is to be a person who helps you go back to your childhood and sort through the things that are probably causing the particular problem you are having now. And this organization deals with just one kind of problem Christians are having but have not been able to deal with.

I clipped an article out of a magazine a few years ago, it's a Christian magazine, at least the name has Christian in it. They are reviewing a book and it's a book on helping sexually addicted people and it's entitled, Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction. Well wait a minute, all the reading of my Bible, I never realized that immorality was an addiction that brought wounds you needed to have healed. Does the Bible talk that way, or deal that way? Well that's what this book is about. Published by a company that was noted for publishing Christian books, still limits itself to religious books like that. Reviewed by a Christian in a Christian magazine. And he says concerning this book and its author, this author describes sexual addiction as a sickness involving any type of uncontrollable sexual activity. Uncontrollable sexual activity. And you'll note, it's a sickness involving uncontrollable sexual activity. I wonder how that would have gone down with Nathan the prophet when he came to David. He said, I couldn't help it, I had a sickness, I'm drawn to beautiful women who are naked in a bathtub on the next door roof. I have a sickness, Nathan, could you start a program. All right.

This author asserts that although sexual addiction has existed since the beginning of history, it has been misnamed, mistreated, ignored or completely undiagnosed. Until he wrote his book we haven't really known about sexual immorality. This reviewed, somewhat positive, he says, this author offers no systematic data to support his claim that sexual addiction is widespread. He confuses sexual misconduct with what he calls sexual addiction. We think, there is a little ray of hope. But then he says, despite these weaknesses the book is an important first step in challenging the church to examine issues of sexuality. I think it's the first step to disaster, the last step. But you see the church and churches feel that they are not doing their job if they haven't developed some kind of specialty in being able to deal with these “problems.”

But you know that's what we're dealing with in Romans 6. God says there is not solution and help for these problems except the solution He has provided in the death and resurrection of His Son. I'm not saying a person can't go through a 12-step program and quit being a drunk, I'm saying they haven't solved their basic problem. Or the same with any other sinful activity. But to truly resolve the problem of sin and slavery to sin, which is what we're talking about, sin is enslaving. How you are free from sin and its enslaving power is what Romans 6 is talking about. Now what happens to the church when they begin to adopt the world's model, and so we get counselors who are trained to deal with bulimia, sexual addiction, shopaholics, and so on, we are saying that this particular kind of sinful behavior takes special expertise beyond the Bible. That doesn't mean, we're Christians, we use the Bible.

The same article from the Christian magazine has an advertisement for a treatment center and this person recommending it is a therapist who claims to be a Christian and that this center is Christian. And he says, God wants us to be free. Their program is certainly the best way I know to help my patients get there. Well wait a minute, now you see where we have begun to attack and undermine the scriptural position on these things. God wants us free and I have patients who are not free; therefore, I send them to this particular counseling center that is Christian and their program is the best way I know to help my patients get to freedom. It doesn't matter if you are a teenager or a grandparent, they can help you with a wide range of problems from eating disorders to depression to all kinds of addictions. Life can be happier and fuller.

That's what the church has come to? How are we different from the world except we sprinkle some Bible verses in and now it's Christian. Back up to John 8:31, Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed in Him, if you continue in My word then you are truly disciples of Mine. If you just profess to believe in Me, or have you truly believed in Me, we'll see. Note this, and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. They are offended. They are Jewish people, descendants of Abraham and they said, we are descendants of Abraham, we have never been anybody's slave. How can you tell us you will make us free? Jesus said to them, truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. That's it. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no not one. That means everyone is enslaved to sin. What's the solution? Verse 36, so if the Son makes you free you will be free indeed. The truth that comes in Jesus Christ and believing that truth concerning Him brings freedom, and He is the only One who can set us free. Down in verse 43, why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word? Why can they not hear His word? He has dealt with that previously, verse 42, God is not their Father. They don't belong to God. Verse 44, you are of your father the devil. You want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie he speaks from his own nature. He is a liar and the father of lies. He who is of God, verse 47, hears the words of God. For this reason you do not hear them because you are not of God. You see the problem with people is sin. The only One who can free them from sin and slavery to sin is Jesus Christ, but people don't want to hear what God has to say about their problem. I would rather think I have a disease, I have an addiction, I'm not responsible. It's something that has happened to me, I need your sympathy.

We recently had a well-known sports figure found to be in all kinds of sexual immorality. The next thing we read about he was in a special addiction center for treatment. That helps take some of the edge off, right? He wasn't totally responsible. I mean, there is something that happened to him that he needs treatment for. I appreciate in one of the sports magazines a person in the same profession as he came to trust Christ a number of years ago and he says, I know the One who can set him free. I think that was a great testimony.

We come to the word of God to find freedom. Come to Romans 6. If we don't we open the door here. Well, we believe in justification by faith but we think there are problems that are too serious, we can't just deal with them with a simple Bible knowledge. The Bible doesn't know any of those kinds of problems. So that's the world's idea. You open the door to the world's idea, it starts out here, it seems that's fairly far out from the center, but it continues to make its way in. Churches today aren't even talking about whether you ought to have counseling programs, it's just a given. Don't you want to help people, as though the word of God wasn't the help they needed. And so you see what they are attacking, the sufficiency of the scripture, the sufficiency of the finished work of Christ.

In Romans 6 Paul tells us that when you place your faith in Jesus Christ you are identified with Christ spiritually by the Holy Spirit in His death, burial and resurrection. So Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin, He was buried and was raised from the dead. When I place my faith in Him, the death of Christ is credited to me. I am declared righteous, provided the righteousness of Christ, forgiven. But I am also identified with Christ not only in His death and burial, but with His resurrection. Verse 4, as we review some of these verses quickly. Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death. That's the baptism of the Spirit, not water baptism. So that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we, too, might walk in newness of life. You'll note, we died with Him and were buried with Him so that we could be raised with Him. What does that mean? Walk in newness of life. Remember how Romans 6 began in verse 1? Are we to continue in sin? How can we continue in sin? What a stupid, foolish question. Are we who have placed our faith in Christ to continue to live in sin? How shall we who died to sin, verse 2, live in it? We died to sin and why did we die to sin? So we could, verse 4, be raised with Christ and thus walk in newness of life. A new life, made new.

For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be in the likeness of His resurrection. Everyone who truly dies with Christ is raised with Christ. Knowing this, that our old self, better our old man. The word anthropos, we get anthropology and so on from this word. Our old man 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. For he who has died is freed from sin. Knowing this that our old man was crucified with Him. Now you remember when Paul wrote this letter to the Romans it did not have verses or chapter divisions, it would be a flowing letter. When you were hearing this letter read or you were reading it, what would you identify? Who is the old man? Knowing this that our old man was crucified with Him. Who is our old man?

Well if we go back to Romans 5:12, through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, so death spread to all men. For all sinned. And he showed how by virtue of the action of Adam sin was imputed to us and the consequences of sin, death. And the old man is all that we were as fallen beings in Adam, corrupted and controlled by sin. That's the old man. The old man dominated and controlled by sin was crucified with Christ. Why? In order that our body of sin might be done away with. Our body of sin, I take it very simply in light of where we are going in the context of chapter 6 he's talking about our body as controlled by sin. We get down to verse 12 he'll say, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, this physical body. Verse 13, don't go on presenting the members of your body as instruments or weapons of unrighteousness. So he's talking about our physical body and what we do with our physical body. Well our old man was crucified with Christ in order that our body under the control and power of sin might be done away with. That doesn't mean the old man, since he was crucified, no longer exists. That creates serious theological problems.

And so our body would no longer be controlled by sin. In order that our body of sin might be done away with. That word translated by our four words, be done away with, katargeo, a Greek word. It means to be rendered inoperative, made powerless, ineffective. So that our body that is controlled by sin might no longer be the situation. Our death with Christ broke the hold and power of sin over us. The impact of that is our bodies are no longer to be under the control of sin. Why? He who has died is freed from sin. That word freed, often translated justification and ties to the fact that in the justification He has provided there is freedom from sin. Sanctification is different than justification but it is not separated from justification. Justification is the act of God in declaring us righteous through faith in Christ. Sanctification is the result of the work of justification, where we have been declared righteous in Christ. Why? Because we have died with Christ and that whole package, we've been raised with Christ to new life, now, to live that new life.

So that our bodies controlled by sin might be done away with so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. You see what it means, we talk about we died with Christ. We are no longer slaves to sin. How do we get into a situation where we're talking with those who profess to be believers in Jesus Christ and they are talking about being enslaved to sin? Or to use the world's word, addicted to sin? Something doesn't fit. I can't help it, I am enslaved to this sin and if I could tell you what happened to me when I was a child, or how I was raised ........ Wait a minute, did you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior? Have you trusted Him? Of course. Well you died. I don't need to hear all the junk about your life before you died because doesn't death take care of it. Is there something we are missing here? Our old man was crucified with Him, verse 6, in order that our body as controlled by sin might be set free from the power of sin. Sin's power over us might be rendered ineffective. Doesn't say the old man doesn't exist anymore, doesn't say sin doesn't exist any more. It says the power of sin to control me has been broken by my death with Christ. I have been freed from sin. That's the process that's happening.

This old man, want to take a moment and look at a couple of other passages of scripture. Paul uses this expression in two other key passages. Turn over to Ephesians 4, and the pattern in Ephesians as in a number of Paul's letters, he starts out by laying the doctrinal foundation and then he will specifically address their conduct or behavior. This will be true in Romans as well when we get to chapter 12. He'll say, therefore I beseech you on the basis of the mercies of God that you present your bodies, and go on to talk about our conduct in areas. In Ephesians 1 he talks about the work of God's salvation, planned for us before the foundation of the world. In Ephesians 2:1 he talked about we were dead in our trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. We were by nature children of wrath, as we've looked at these verses on other occasions. But even when we were dead in our transgressions, verse 5, God made us alive together with Christ. By grace you are saved. So you see that same connection. We were dead in our transgressions, but we were made alive in Christ. How? We died to sin, were made alive to God through Christ.

For by grace you are saved, verse 8, through faith. It's not a result of works. Verse 10, we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works so that we would walk in them. So you see verse 2 talked about how we formerly walked, now as a result of God's saving grace we walk differently. We walk in good works, those things consistent with the character and purposes of God for us.

When you come over to chapter 4 verse 1 Paul implores them, walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility, gentleness, patience, showing tolerance, and on it goes. Come down to verse 17, this I say and affirm together with the Lord that you walk no longer as the Gentiles also walk. So verse 1, walk in a manner worthy; verse 17, walk no longer like the unbelievers walk in the emptiness of their minds, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart. They have become callous, given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. They call that a sexual addiction. God's description is totally different. The church is corrupted when it abandons God's diagnosis and replaces it with the world's diagnosis. And you cannot invite the world into the church, you cannot invite the devil in and not have problems that increase and multiply.

But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard and been taught in Him just as truth. I mean, if you are mired down here maybe you never did learn of the truth that is in Christ. What is it? Verse 22, that in reference to your former manner of life you lay aside the old man, there is our same expression we have in Romans 6. Our old man was crucified with Him. Well in reference to your former manner of life you lay aside the old man. What does it mean? Remember it's our body no longer controlled by sin so I no longer manifest the characteristics of the old man, when sin controlled and enslaved me, dominated my life. All those characteristics are like the old clothes, they are taken off and laid aside. That old man is corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit, and you need to be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man. What are the characteristics of the new man? Remember, you walk in newness of life, Romans 6. We're talking about the same thing. I've been made new in Christ. It's in the likeness of God, created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. So in contrast with what would characterize the old life and how I walked and the control of the old man, the fallen man I was in Adam, described as darkened in understanding, excluded from the life of God, pursuing every kind of impurity with greediness, and so on. Now we put on the new man and his characteristics. Now my life will be characterized by righteousness and holiness. You see how we corrupt the truth of God when we begin to make excuses and say, I know they've trusted the Lord, they're just living like the devil. They're just not walking with the Lord. We corrupt the truth of the word of God and we do a disservice to those we think we're helping. It would be like I'm a surgeon and I'm looking at someone and I see they have a serious disease and I could fix it but I just want to cover it up. Say, I'll put some good makeup on you and we'll comb your hair differently, and we'll put on some different clothes. You're going to look fine. Have I really helped them? I've harmed them and that's what we do as believers. I don't want to tell them they're lost, they say they are saved and I don't want to ......... I have to believe it, don't I? No, I don't, I have to believe the word of God.

So you put on the new man, it is characterized by righteousness and holiness. And so that is the same thing Paul is saying. The old man is crucified, now all that characterized him is to go. My body is no longer to be controlled by sin. I've been set free for a purpose. I've put on the new man, the resurrected man that's now in the image of Christ. The likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness in the truth.

Go to Colossians. Colossians is written about the same time as Ephesians, during Paul's first Roman imprisonment, and it is very similar in content to the letter to the Ephesians in many ways. He starts out in chapter 1 talking about our salvation, to verse 21, and although you were formerly alienated, hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet now he has reconciled you in his fleshly body through death. The physical body of Christ to pay the penalty for our sin. Why did He do this? In order to present you before Him, holy and blameless and beyond reproach. If you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast. That's the evidence that you've truly experienced God's life-changing salvation. You will continue faithfully. But I know people who have made a profession but they haven't continued. How do you know then that they were truly saved?

You see the goal here, that we be presented before God as holy and blameless and beyond reproach. Salvation is just not a fire escape from hell. It not only rescues you and saves you from the penalty of sin, it saves you from the power of sin. And if you haven't been saved from the power of sin, you have never been saved from the penalty of sin.

Come over to Colossians 3. How does it open up? Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ. There is our picture, right? We are identified with Christ, as he said in the passage we just read in chapter 1, in His death. And if you've been raised up with Christ keep seeking the things above. Set your mind on things above, not on things that are on the earth. For you have died, your life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ who is our life is revealed, then you'll be revealed with Him in glory, that time of the glorification of our body in the fullness of our redemption.

Therefore, verse 5, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed which amounts to idolatry. Because of this the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience. Those are unbelievers. They live in the realm of disobedience to God, they will experience His wrath. In them you also once walked when you were living in them. I was the old man living in an old realm, the realm of sin. Now I am a new man, living in a new realm, the realm of righteousness and holiness. Now you also put them all aside, anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive speech. Why? Since you laid aside, verse 9, the old man with its practices and have put on the new one, being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him. Christ made us new, God made us new in Christ. You see the total transformation? We ought to thank the Lord every day. He didn't just save us and leave us where we were. I've taken care of hell, now I hope you make it. He saved us, He rescued us, He set us free and made us new. Do you know what this means? I never sin, if we stopped there I'd be in trouble, my wife would testify. I've been here long enough, you would testify. I never sin because I have to as a believer, because I've been freed. I still sin, but I never have to. Anytime I sin, I lose my temper, you know why I lose my temper if I do? I do because I want to, I want to get it out, I want the satisfaction of blowing off. I can't help it. You know my dad lost his temper, and if you had known my grandfather, he did, too. It's in my genes. Well you're right. My great, great, great, great, great, great, grandfather, I got it from him—Adam. But you know what? I've been set free from that bondage, I don't have to sin. I've been set free from sin. We as believers need to remember that. I never have to sin, there is never an excuse for my sin. I've been set free. Well you don't know ............ I don't need to know, God knows. Did the death with Jesus Christ set you free from sin and sins or not? If it did not, the Bible is not true and we ought to get on with our lives and do the best we can. There is only one salvation the Bible knows, it's a salvation that brings the righteousness of God to a life, it's a salvation that kills the old man and brings the new man. The power of the old is broken and we are made new in Christ.

Come back to Romans 6:6, that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body as controlled by sin might be rendered inoperative so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ we believe we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead is never to die again, death is no longer master over Him, for the death that He died He died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives he lives to God. You see the parallel. When Christ was born into the human race He was a man, He came to deal with sin. He Himself never committed sin but He came to bear our sins in His body on the cross, pay sin for us. He came to die and as a human being death had power over Him. And He died on the cross at the hands of sinful men. You know what when He was resurrected from the dead? He no longer has to deal with sin, it's been dealt with. He no longer has to face death, it's been dealt with. You what he is saying in our identification with Him? The power of sin has been dealt with, even the power of death has been dealt with and some day we will have glorified bodies like He has.

So now we live as those set free, resurrected with Christ, anticipating the ultimate glorification of the body. That's what it means when the old man is crucified. The body is not under the control of sin now. You know this is liberating. We are set free in Christ and we praise the Lord and we can talk with people and they say, I'm struggling with ...... And I can't get free. I want to take them back and say, I don't minimize that the devil attacks believers, the old man is still there wanting to assert himself. Sin does not reside in this physical body. Important you understand this. There are some people who say in verse 6 that our old man was crucified and so he doesn't exist any longer. So where is sin? Well it's in this body. That's not biblical. Sin comes out of the heart of the man, not out of his fingers. His fingers carry out the desires of his heart, Mark 7. All kinds of sin comes from the heart of a man. It's the heart, Jeremiah said, that is desperately wicked above all things. When it says the old man is crucified it doesn't mean he doesn't exist any longer.

Come over to Galatians. Paul is talking about the freedom that we receive in Jesus Christ. You must understand that you are saved by grace through faith. That's how justification came to your life. That salvation also provides for your sanctification and your life lived. So Galatians 5 begins, it was for freedom that Christ set us free. They talk about this freedom. You know the reason people want to mix things up, keeping the Mosaic Law as in the context here, They bring the ideas of the world in and look like we're doing things that the world would respect and admire and acknowledge. The end of verse 11, if you do these things then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished. We have a counseling program to help those that are addicted in this area and we have trained counselors. That sounds more acceptable to the world than to tell them we take people to the word of God and show them that they are enslaved to sin, separated from the eternal God and under condemnation on their way to hell. But Jesus Christ died on the cross, was buried and was raised from the dead so they can be forgiven and have the power of sin broken in their lives. Well you can be a respected counselor in the world, claim to be a believer and not have to deal with that offense.

Verse 13, you were called to freedom, brethren, only you don't let your freedom become an opportunity for sinning. We were set free from the power of sin not so we could sin again, but so we were free now to serve God. That's the point of our freedom. So you walk by the Spirit, verse 16, you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. Interesting, Paul is laying the foundation in Romans 6 of our death with Christ and resurrection with Christ, but he won't talk about the ministry of the Holy Spirit and His enabling power until we get to Romans 8.

Now what does it mean, the deeds of the flesh. Look at verse 19, the deeds of the flesh are evident, they are the same as the old man. Immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing. And that's just a little list. It's things like these, and I want to forewarn you, those who practice such things are not going to inherit the kingdom of God. You are on your way to hell, basically is what he is saying. You won't be part of the kingdom Christ established, which will be a kingdom for all believers, ultimately. You practice these things, you're not going to heaven, you're lost. You read the list and it is a diverse list. We think if we can get people to stop being immoral we'd help them. What about the envying? The strife, the jealousy, the outbursts of anger? Now we have anger management. And you read this person, and sometimes they are in sports or something, well-known figure and they are having trouble so he has to go to an anger management class. The church isn't in the business of helping people learn to control sinful behavior, we are in the business of giving the message that sets them free from the control of sinful behavior. There is a major difference and when we blur that difference we begin to corrupt and ultimately destroy the message or our salvation.

Come down to verse 24, now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. What's the solution for the flesh? It's the same as the solution for the old man—crucify him. That's why I say the crucifixion of the old man doesn't mean he ceases to exist, otherwise the flesh also ceases to exist. What it means when he is crucified is its power over us has been broken. It may want to assert itself again, we'll talk about that as we move further along in Romans 6.

Come down to Galatians 6. You know we face the same pressure, maybe a little different set of circumstances, those who wanted to keep the Law and promote the keeping of the Law did it for a reason as we already noted earlier. Look at verse 12, those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised simply so they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. We want to be careful that we don't mute the message in its clarity. The problem people have is sin. The only solution to their sin is the only Savior, Jesus Christ. There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. If the Son shall set you free, you will be free indeed. If He does not set you free, you will never be free. Those are the only options. We don't want to fuzz it over and think we can pick up some of the world' terminology and make ourselves a little more agreeable with the world and perhaps have openings. Yes, have openings for the world, the flesh and the devil to come in and corrupt the church and destroy the purity of God's word. We've come down here for verse 14, but may it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. The old man, the flesh, the world all taken care of in my identification with Christ.

What about the devil? One more passage and we're done. Hebrews 2:14, therefore since the children share in flesh and blood He Himself likewise partook of the same, Christ became a man. That through death. Here we are back, everything comes back to His death. You see where we keep coming back to ? You want to deal with the old man and the power of sin, it takes death, the death of Christ; the flesh and its characteristics, it takes the death of Christ; the world and all that is in the world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life, taken care of in the death of Christ. What about the devil? He became a human being that through death He might render powerless. Remember that word back in Romans 6, that our body of sin might be done away with. I said that's katargeo, be done away with. That's the same word as we have rendered powerless here, katargeo. That he might be rendered powerless, he who had the power of death, that is the devil, and might free those ensnared to the devil and death. You want to be free, free from the power of your fallen state in Adam and sin's control in your life, and the world in its influence and hold and control over you and the devil's sovereignty over your life? All taken care of at one time in one event. There is a total, complete cure, that is the salvation that is found in Jesus Christ.

That's why we as a church must stand firm, unshakably opposed to any and all philosophies and ideas that imply that we have an incomplete salvation. And there are people struggling with problems and want to be free, want to deal with them so much and we have to help them. So that's why we train counselors with the world's way of doing it. We don't help them, we make ourselves feel better because we have a certain approval of the world. And we play down the offense of the cross . We have to tell them there is no other answer. What do you do to help people who are struggling with sexual addiction? I take them to the word of God and show them that the only freedom there is, is the freedom provided in Jesus Christ. And it's a free gift given to all who will believe in Him and He breaks the control and power and hold of sin over them. And that includes all the manifestations of sin and sins because you see it goes back to one source. It's out of the heart of man proceed all these things, Jesus said in Mark 7.

What are we going to do with the old man? He will have to be crucified. The flesh? Have to be crucified. The world? Have to be crucified. The power the devil has over me? Takes crucifixion. In it all we are set free. Aren't you glad you have a salvation that not only enables you to be justified, declared righteous by a holy God, but also provided for you to be set free from what you were? It makes you new so that you might live a life pleasing to God.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for your salvation, a salvation so wonderful and awesome that Your Son would come to this earth, take to Himself humanity, die on the cross, be raised from the dead so that we might receive the gift of freedom and life through faith in Him. Lord, freedom from the control and power and domination of the world, the flesh and the devil. True freedom, now enabled to live, the freedom of serving you, of living in righteousness, in holiness, truth. Lord, I pray for any who are here who don't know that freedom. Perhaps have made a profession of faith, perhaps have been baptized here at this church. But Lord in honesty before you they don't know freedom. May they consider carefully their relationship to you and the freedom you provide in Jesus Christ. May we rejoice to live in that freedom of serving you every day. We pray in Christ's name, amen.