Why Going Back to our Sinful Nature Makes No Sense!
Romans 6:11-14
11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
Have you ever beaten a habit, at least temporarily? You felt so good being free from it. But then for whatever reason you went back to it. This happens all the time, and we might call it insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. We have developed a good habit which makes us happy, only to return to a bad habit that makes us miserable. Well guess what? There is a name for this. It is called our sinful nature. And before we met Christ we were in bondage to sin and could not free ourselves from this sinful nature.
In the last few chapters Paul has laid out how we are made right with God, or what the bible calls "justification". We are made right with God by faith, because our good works were never enough to meet God's perfect standard of righteousness. But God wanting to be in a relationship with us, but still needing to by holy and just, came up with a solution. He sent his only perfect Son into the world to become for us the righteousness we could never earn. This is the Gospel and how we are saved from our sinful nature both here on earth and also why we will go to heaven one day.
Today, in chapter 6, Paul addresses the same thing I mentioned in the first paragraph. He says you have died to sin, so why are you going back to it? Meaning by the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit we are no longer slaves to sin. We are able to obey God out of a new heart cleansed from the bondage to sin. But the Romans like the other early Christians were going back to old sinful ways. Worse yet they were using the justification that if I sin more grace will abound all the more. That logic was a reallly bad rationalization for sin and Paul saw right through it and calls them on it.
So Paul offers a solution in our passage today. He says don't offer any part of your body to sin and became a slave again. You are set free by grace why go back to bondage. He says when you offer a part of your body to sin, it becomes your master. We have all seen this. It can be our mind or our body. We may offer our minds to immoral media or other thought patterns that lead to sin. We may offer our bodies to something harmful to us and it becomes an addiction. And we see the devastating results to us and in our relationships. Or, we dabble in things not of God and our soul is brought into it.
Bottom line is God has set us free by grace. Just as we are forgiven and saved by grace, we all need to stand it, as we said yesterday. God wants us to be free from sin and use that freedom to love and serve others. Think about how much more time and energy you would have to serve God if you gave up that sinful habit. Doesn't this seem logical? If it does don't return to insanity it is not a very good way to live. God wants so much more for us in this life and then eternal life when we die and has given us the power of the Holy Spirit to live a new life!
11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
Have you ever beaten a habit, at least temporarily? You felt so good being free from it. But then for whatever reason you went back to it. This happens all the time, and we might call it insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. We have developed a good habit which makes us happy, only to return to a bad habit that makes us miserable. Well guess what? There is a name for this. It is called our sinful nature. And before we met Christ we were in bondage to sin and could not free ourselves from this sinful nature.
In the last few chapters Paul has laid out how we are made right with God, or what the bible calls "justification". We are made right with God by faith, because our good works were never enough to meet God's perfect standard of righteousness. But God wanting to be in a relationship with us, but still needing to by holy and just, came up with a solution. He sent his only perfect Son into the world to become for us the righteousness we could never earn. This is the Gospel and how we are saved from our sinful nature both here on earth and also why we will go to heaven one day.
Today, in chapter 6, Paul addresses the same thing I mentioned in the first paragraph. He says you have died to sin, so why are you going back to it? Meaning by the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit we are no longer slaves to sin. We are able to obey God out of a new heart cleansed from the bondage to sin. But the Romans like the other early Christians were going back to old sinful ways. Worse yet they were using the justification that if I sin more grace will abound all the more. That logic was a reallly bad rationalization for sin and Paul saw right through it and calls them on it.
So Paul offers a solution in our passage today. He says don't offer any part of your body to sin and became a slave again. You are set free by grace why go back to bondage. He says when you offer a part of your body to sin, it becomes your master. We have all seen this. It can be our mind or our body. We may offer our minds to immoral media or other thought patterns that lead to sin. We may offer our bodies to something harmful to us and it becomes an addiction. And we see the devastating results to us and in our relationships. Or, we dabble in things not of God and our soul is brought into it.
Bottom line is God has set us free by grace. Just as we are forgiven and saved by grace, we all need to stand it, as we said yesterday. God wants us to be free from sin and use that freedom to love and serve others. Think about how much more time and energy you would have to serve God if you gave up that sinful habit. Doesn't this seem logical? If it does don't return to insanity it is not a very good way to live. God wants so much more for us in this life and then eternal life when we die and has given us the power of the Holy Spirit to live a new life!
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