Title: Living The God-Rated Life
Bible Book: Romans 5 : 15-23
Author: David Cook
Subject: Christian Living; Commitment; Dedication; Living for Jesus
Objective:
Introduction
Romans 6:15-23
If I were to question you as to why you wanted to become a Christian, what would you say? Some may say, “To escape the flames of hell,” “To receive forgiveness of all my sins,” “To become a better person,” “To go to heaven when I die.” A pastor friend shared a story with me that was a bit frightening. Evidently a young man went to church one Sunday and asked Jesus Christ into his life as Lord and Savior. The young man then went to an elderly, prestigious man in the community telling of his new found faith in Jesus as his Lord. The prestigious man said, “Son, now that you are Christian, you are free to live any way you want to live.”
The goal of your Christian life is actually to know Jesus Christ in a personal way and to grow in His likeness day by day. Jesus said in John 17.3, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.…” The goal of the Christian life is not to see how near the edge you can live in sin and get away with it, but how much glory you can bring to God for the great change He brought about in your life!
The question is, “Yeah, but how? Now that I’m a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, how do I live out a life that demonstrates the radical change Jesus has brought to me? How can I live the G(od) Rated life in a R-Rated World?
I. There Is A Determination To Sever - Termination
“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slave whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?”
In the first portion of Romans 6, we learned some incredible truths that we must believe. Such truths as, “…buried with Him in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life,” “…united in Christ,” “…freed from sin,” “…reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” “…sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”
Let me encourage you to go deeply into these truths! Don’t skip over it because you may not comprehend it totally. These are some of the extreme benefits God gave you when you placed your faith in the Crucified and Risen Lord Jesus Christ. Do you ever think about what really happened to you when the Lord Jesus Christ came into your life? Sometimes we forget how great a salvation God has given us and we don’t really explore all the marvelous benefits!
For instance, do you identify yourself in the BC mode (Before Christ) or AC mode (After Christ)? The BC me was identified biblically as: dead in sin, condemned, under the wrath of God, no hope, foolish, deceived, lost. The AC me identified biblically - is alive, secure in the love of Christ, near the heart of God, totally forgiven, renewed, light in the Lord, righteous! Knowing Jesus and knowing who you are in Him is going to help you grow stronger in your spiritual life!
Why do we need to be strong? Why do we need to determine to sever the old life? The believer is in a real spiritual war! Every single child of God has three definite enemies. These consist of:
(1) Our Societal Force
(2) Our Sinful Flesh
(3) Our Satanic Foe
Many pastors preach, come to Jesus and your problems will end. That’s not true. The day you gave your heart and life to Jesus was a wonderful day for you! The angels of heaven were rejoicing! This made heaven glad, but the evil one mad! Before you came to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, the enemy had you in his kingdom, now you belong to God’s kingdom!
Have you honestly made the switch? What side did you show allegiance to this week? We are either a slave of sin leading to death or a slave to God leading to holiness and life everlasting! Whose slave are you? There’s the story of the old man standing on the side of the street with the sign around his body. On the front it read, “I’m a slave for Jesus.” On the back it read, “Whose slave are you?”
What Apostle Paul is telling us here is that if we keep putting ourselves in position to do or even listen to those things that are contrary to the will of God, then you are a slave to the thing. (Pornography, Stealing, Lying, Gossiping, Alcohol, Addictions, etc.)
The story goes that two of the young men were standing out by the street waving signs that said, “Change Your Ways, the End is Near”. After a couple dozen cars drove by, one of them said to the other, “Do you think we should have changed the wording of our signs to simply have read, “Turn around, the bridge is out”?
Which road are you going to take? One road leads to death, the other road leads to “righteousness.” Proverbs 14.12, “There is a way that seems right to man, but the end is death.” God’s grace is not a license to live in sin! There are some who preach that because of God’s grace, it doesn’t make any difference to God the way you live. Jude 4, “For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.”
God’s grace does not give you a green light to sin. In fact, it gives you a red light to say no to sin and the power to obey God!
II. There Is A Dedication To The Savior – Transformation
17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.
What does it take to live a G(od)-Rated life in a R-Rated world? We must now put as much emphasis on allowing Jesus to live His life through us as we once allowed sin to live through us! Instead of offering yourselves to sin…offer yourself to God!
Someone once asked the German Christian George Mueller, the secret of his victorious Christian life. He replied: There came a day when George Mueller died, utterly died! No longer did his own desires, preferences, and tastes come first. He knew that from then on Christ must be all in all.
The Christian life is a changed life. Since you have become a brand-new person in Christ Jesus the Apostle Paul writes, “ 5 So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. 6 Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming.[a] 7 You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. 8 But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. 9 Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds.
I want you to listen to this. Origen, a third century Christian father, wrote, “Paul requires the same zeal from the convert as was present in him as a sinner. Once your feet ran to the temples of demons; now they run to the church of God. Once your hands were stretched out to steal what belonged to others; now they are stretched out for you to be generous with what is your own. Once your eyes looked at women or at something which was not yours with lust in them; but now they look at the weak, the poor and the helpless with pity in them. Your ears used to delight in hearing empty talk or in attacking good people; now they have turned to the Word of God, to the exposition of His law and the learning of the knowledge of wisdom. Your tongue, which was accustomed to bad language; cursing and swearing has now turned to praising the Lord at all times; it produces healthy and honest speech, in order to give grace to the hearers and speak the truth to its neighbor.”
What would happen if you exchanged your former life for this new life in Christ today? Knowing that your body belongs totally to the Lord Jesus Christ – would you go where you went this week? Would you walk into that store and purchase a lottery ticket? Would you say what you said to others? How about your thought life? How about the way you viewed people – once with lust, now with love?
Would you click on different web sites? Turning your ears aside from gossip, the putting down of others and now delighting to hear the precious Word of God? What about the music you listen to? Your tongue, once cursing and swearing – now praising the Lord at all times?
This is not something God does for us, rather this is a surrender of our total selves to our Loving Lord. (Illus.) Think about it. Let’s say you are now working for Publix and you used to work for Ingles. You wouldn’t report for duty at Ingles – you report for duty at Publix. You don’t have anything to do with your old boss, rather you aim to honor your new boss!
The Christian life is a life of separation from sin (old boss) unto the Lord Jesus (new boss! Do you think God is going to magically appear to you and put a Keep Away- This Sin Is Hazardous To Your Physical And Spirtual Health sign in front of you to protect you? Warning, This Is God!!! Don't Do It!!!
No, this is going to require maximum effort to yield yourselves to God, just as you would normally yield yourselves to sin! We don’t do this to become a Christian, we do this because we are Christians!
When you stand on the promises of God…you stand against sin! Read 2 Corinthians 6.16-7.1. Perfecting Holiness – What happens when you don’t take care of your yard? It only takes a few days or weeks before the weeds come up and take over! A bed of beautiful flowers, however, takes watering, feeding, and of course, weeding. It does take work to maintain a beautiful garden.
The Christian life takes work too. It requires the commitment of one's whole being to Jesus—body, mind, emotions, and will—to have a life that is wholesome, attractive, uplifting to others, and fulfilling to oneself.
III. There Is A Destination To Settle – Transportation
Can you imagine working for a miserable, cruel, heartless boss, who never did you or anyone else any good and also paid meaningless wages? On top of that this boss made you feel nothing but miserable, dirty, shameful. This is what it’s like when you are living in disobedience to God! “The wages of sin is death…”
How about working for a boss who loves you so much He would give His life for you? Even though the work may be tough and the hours may be long, you would give it your all because you knew your boss loved you and you loved your boss! “The gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.”
There really is victory in Jesus! There’s victory in Jesus unto eternal life, and there’s also victory in Jesus while living in this life. Think about an AA meeting. They don’t say, “If you’ve been drinking for years that’s just your destiny. There’s no hope for you. Once you get addicted to alcohol, you’ll be addicted all your life.” If that were there message, no one would attend for long. What is there message? I’m a former alcoholic. There are times when I want to drink – but I’m learning a new way now. I’ve been sober for 15 years. We can help you get better and free.
This is the message Paul is telling us today! Phillips of Romans 6.22, “But now that you are employed by God, you owe no duty to sin, and you reap the fruit of being made righteous, while at the end of the road there is life for evermore.”
There is no sin that you have to continue to give into anymore. You don’t have to continue letting it drag you further and further down. Why? Because the law of the spirit of life of Jesus Christ has set you free.
Dr. Ray Prithcard says, “If you choose to dwell in sin, if you choose to be defeated, it's because you've chosen to live that way, not because you must live that way."
Saving faith is simply resting all your weight on the Lord Jesus Christ:
Resting all your weight on who He is (His Worth) - Resting all your weight on what He has done (His Work on the Cross) - Resting all your weight on what He has said (His Word).
“I do not work my soul to save, That my Lord hath done.
But I would work like any slave for love of God’s dear Son!”
The head coaches at the University of Georgia and Florida State are Mark Richt and Bobby Bowden. Richt was on the coaching staff of Bobby Bowden and one of the FSU players died. Coach Bowden called the team and coaches together and shared with them how they could be saved. He asked, ‘If that boy had been you, would you be in heaven or hell now?’ Mark Richt said that was the day he received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.”
Closing/Call
It really is possible to live G-Rated in a R-Rated world. There is a determination to sever – is sin holding you down? There is a dedication to the Savior! This is our dedication of our whole lives to Him. There is a destination to settle. Is it settled in your life? Isn’t it time to get out the old and on with the new? Give your heart and life to Jesus today!
*Title idea of sermon from a sermon by Dr. Frank Page (see 1 John 2.15-17, www.pastorlife.com)
