Class Lesson March 26, 2017

TEN BAD HABITS

(Any you would be happy to leave behind?)

1. Snacking non-stop, even when not hungry.
2. Spending too much time on the couch watching TV.
3. Overspending your way into debt.
4. Eating too much fast food.
5. Getting sunburned a few times every summer.
6. Behavior that leaves you angry, worried, or stressed all of the time.
7. Skipping breakfast.
8. Drinking too much alcohol.
9. Smoking cigarettes.
10. Overusing pain killers and sedatives.

THE BIBLE MEETS LIFE 

I’ve been married for over 35 years, and that’s been plenty of time for me to mess up. I mean really mess up. When I do make mistakes, I apologize and ask my wife to forgive me. Of course she forgives me, but there’s more to it than that. She wants more than an apology. She wants my assurance that I’m not going to repeat the stupid thing I did in the first place. She wants repentance. 

The term repentance literally means to “turn around” or “to change direction.” Repentance is that U-turn in life when you realize you’re headed in the wrong direction and you turn around to head back the way you should be going. 

The Christian life is a life of repentance, but that repentance is so much more than just being sorry for what we’ve done! Seeking forgiveness is only the beginning. Christ has far more in store for us than a repeating cycle of failure and apology, followed by more failure and apology.

Christ gives us more than just forgiveness for sin. He gives us victory over sin.

And in Romans 6, Paul wrote about the difference.

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

Romans 6:4-7 

4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin. 

Baptism by immersion is important. We value it not because it’s necessary for salvation, but because it symbolically expresses the deepest meaning of our salvation. In baptism, we are symbolically buried with Christ. Just as Christ died and was buried, we also “die” and are buried in at least two ways: 

• We “die” because we recognize the penalty of our sinfulness. As Paul will point out later in this chapter, “The wages of sin is death” (v. 23). 

• We “die” because we give ourselves totally to Christ. We place all our dreams, our hopes, and our plans on the altar before Him, dying to ourselves (see Luke 9:23). 

Paul made an insightful application of these truths in verse 7: “A person who has died is freed from sin.” In other words, the wages of sin is death, but we have died with Christ; therefore, we are free from sin’s debt. 

Dead people don’t pay bills. Dead people also don’t respond to outward stimuli. In the same way, followers of Christ no longer respond to the pressure of temptation. We are now dead in Christ, and the enticements of temptation have no effect on us. Dying, however, is just the first step.

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Romans 6:8-11 

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 

Christ calls us not only to die to our old lives, but also to live fully for Him in our new lives. Just as we’re buried with Christ in our baptism, we’re raised to our new life in Him. This new life in Christ is modeled on His new life after His resurrection from the tomb. Death is a major consequence of sin, but in Christ we are free from death! 

In a sense, Paul repeated himself throughout this section, which is what good teachers often do. Paul desired for this incredible truth to sink in: that Christ died once and for all, covering by His sacrifice the sin debt every human owes. His death made our life possible, and His gift of life is richer and deeper than we could imagine. 

Because of Christ’s death and subsequent resurrection, “he lives to God.” Absolutely everything in Christ’s life is God-focused. Jesus is the complete victor over our sin and over death, so He now lives in constant, unbroken fellowship with God the Father. 

And here’s the best news: thanks to Jesus, we can also live in unbroken fellowship with God, as well. 

Unfortunately, we often find it hard to live like Jesus. In Christ, we’re dead to sin, but sin doesn’t always seem dead to us! 

When Paul told us to “consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus,” he used a legal and business term. To “consider” is simply to deal with the facts. An accountant doesn’t balance a spreadsheet as she wishes; she considers the numbers in front of her and renders a truthful “bottom line” based on those numbers.

The bottom line for disciples of Jesus is that we’re dead to sin but alive to God in Christ. Those are the facts. Therefore, sin no longer has any authority over our lives. Sin can’t make us do anything. We no longer have to be trapped in this endless cycle of guilt and shame, of promising to do better only to fail again. We are free!

Romans 6:12-14 

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace. 

All of this begs an important question: why do we still sin? The answer is that knowing we’re dead to sin and living like it are two different things. 

In verses 12-13, Paul instructed us on how to act on the knowledge that we are dead to sin. He was essentially saying, “Quit choosing to sin!” We’re not to let any part of ourselves—our bodies, our minds, or our hearts—harbor desires for things that are not of God. 

Paul wrote this partly to correct a false teaching in the early church that totally separated the body from the spirit. According to these false teachers, only the spiritual life was important; the body didn’t matter. Consequently, if a person was really spiritual, then he could do whatever he wanted to do in his physical body without affecting his spirituality.

In today’s world, a lot of Christians still live that way. For instance, many people try to justify viewing pornography by saying: “I’m not hurting anyone. No one will ever know. This is my little private sin.” That just isn’t so. Sin’s effects and consequences are both incremental and deadly: 

• What the eyes see, the mind remembers. 

• What the mind remembers, the heart desires. 

• What we desire becomes what we do. 

• What we do determines who we are. 

Sin, no matter how private we think it may be, always has public consequences. And sin—no matter how “small” we convince ourselves it is—affects our relationship with God. For this reason, Paul said we are not to offer any parts of our bodies or our lives for sin’s use. 

Instead, Paul instructed us to “offer yourselves to God and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.” As we daily surrender ourselves to Christ, He not only gives us the power to overcome temptation; He also continually works in us to heal our desires. He makes us more like Himself. 

Of course, we’re called to do more than avoiding sin as we make our way through life, which is why Christ offers us more than forgiveness. Christ died not only for our forgiveness, but also for our freedom— freedom from condemnation, from our past, from our sins. We’re now free to love, forgive, and serve as He did. We’re free to have His joy. 

Christ has so much in store for your life. Make sure you get it all!

LIVE IT OUT

Through Christ, we have victory over sin. How will that be evident in your life this week? Consider taking one of these steps: 

• Confess. Give your sin to Christ—no matter how small you consider it. Acknowledge that Christ is your Lord and Master, and choose to live in victory in Him. 

• Remove. Evaluate your life for habits, routines, or relationships that pull you into sin. Create a plan for removing them or limiting their power over you. 

• Team up. Partner with another believer and support each other in saying “no” to sin and “yes” to Jesus. Make a practical plan to connect regularly and remind each other that sin is no longer the master; Jesus is. 

We’re all going to make mistakes as followers of Christ. We’re all going to struggle against the corruption of sin until we see Him face-to-face. Yet we’re no longer defined by that struggle. We are victorious over sin because we ultimately belong to Jesus.

Teacher Notes

Victory Over Sin

How do we live victoriously in the “in between”?

1. John is given a revelation that Jesus Christ has final victory over all. ​

2. The centurion shows us that when we come to Jesus, who has final victory over everything, in faith, we can have hope.

3. Today we explore how through Jesus, we can have victory over sin even in the “in between”. Now our lesson wanted you to think about habits you have been happy to leave behind. Like Snacking, spending too much time on the couch watching TV, Overspending, eating too much fast food, Drinking too much alcohol, Smoking, Overusing pain killers and sedatives.

Donald Trump said future generations will have a better chance of being successful and living happy lives if they are encouraged to live a straight-edged lifestyle. He urged parents to steer their children away from booze and drugs and to lead by example. President Trump said he has never had a drink of alcohol and he drilled a simple message into his children’s heads at an early age. He said. “‘No drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes.’” Mr. Trump shared the story of his elder brother, Fred, who was an alcoholic. Before succumbing from alcoholism at age 42, he warned Mr. Trump never to drink. Mr. Trump said his brother’s death had a major impact on his life. Mr. Trump struck a lighter note, saying he does have some other bad habits, and “You don’t want to know what they are.” Anyway…his advice is: The best way to stop a bad habit is to never begin one.

But here is the reality, we all have sinned and our discussion today is how we break the problem of sin in our lives.

It’s one thing to ask for forgiveness, but is that really victory?

Christ gives us more than just forgiveness for sin. He gives us victory over sin.

In Romans 6, Paul writes about the difference between forgiveness for sin and victory over sin.

What would most people like to change about their lives?

• Where they live, their jobs, the team they root for would win, to be better people, earning power, an ability to handle life better, to provide a better life for their kids, to get health back, to be younger.

Today we study Paul’s explanation of how believers’ lives can be changed for the better.

It’s important to know how Paul viewed SIN. Paul did not conceive of sin as an action or attitude contrary to God’s will. He personified it: Sin is a king (5:21; 6:12), slave-owner (6:6), is dead or alive (7:8). Sin is an external power alien to man’s true nature as God intended it. It is an enemy that has invaded man, has occupied his flesh, and holds him captive (7:23). The world apart from Christ is under sin’s control (3:9). Christ’s work was to attack sin on its own ground and defeat it (8:3). The man in Christ enters into this victory and is delivered from sin’s tyranny (6:18; 7:24). It is obvious from Paul’s arguments in chapters 6-8 that the Christian is not made morally perfect at conversion. 

We learn that, Sin is no longer my master, Jesus is.

I. New Life Romans 6:3-7 (NIV) 

3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin- 7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Listen for comments on baptism.

What does baptism have to do with this New Life? 

• Baptism by immersion is important. We value it not because it’s necessary for salvation, but because it symbolically expresses the deepest meaning of our salvation.

• It shows that we have given our lives to Christ. It is an act of obedience to Jesus.

What does baptism by immersion symbolize? 

• Baptism is a twofold symbol. a. It symbolizes the death and resurrection of Jesus. And b. It shows that we have died to our old sinful ways, and have been raised to new life in Christ. The word baptism means to be immersed. If we are baptized into Christ’s death, we are immersed in His experience of death. Paul also says here that we also died to sin – (crucified with Christ.) It’s a picture of what has taken place spiritually in the life of the believer. Death and burial of the old way of life. Coming up out of the water symbolized resurrection to new life with Christ. If we think of our old, sinful life as dead and buried, we have a powerful motive to resist sin. We can consciously choose to treat the desires and temptations of the old nature as if they were dead. We “die” because we give ourselves totally to Christ. We place all our dreams, our hopes, and our plans on the altar before Him, dying to ourselves (see Luke 9:23). Paul made an insightful application of these truths in verse 7: “A person who has died is freed from sin.” In other words, the wages of sin is death, but we have died with Christ; therefore, we are free from sin’s debt. Dead people don’t pay bills. Dead people also don’t respond to outward stimuli. In the same way, followers of Christ no longer respond to the pressure of temptation. We are now dead in Christ, and the enticements of temptation have no effect on us. Dying, however, is just the first step. Union with Christ demands a corresponding moral change and new moral life.

In what ways, do we become slaves to sin?

• We become slaves to sin by choosing to continue in it. Paul found the idea absurd and unconscionable that anyone would think it was okay to continue in sin so that they could experience more of God’s grace. The person who has died to sin could not possibly have a desire to live in sin.

Points: Jesus freed us from the slavery of sin. 

Baptism by immersion is a symbol of our having died to sin, been buried with Christ, and raised to live a new kind of life in Him. Because we have died to sin in Christ, we can be certain we shall be raised to eternal life in Him. Sin no longer has dominion over those who are united with Christ in Hid death. We have been set free from sin’s dominance.

II. New Nature Romans 6:8-11 (NIV)

Listen for ways out of the traps in our lives.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

What kinds of choices, behaviors, and thoughts tend to trap people today?

• Substance abuse, pornography, worry, anxiety, abuse by a spouse

What does it mean to consider ourselves dead to sin?

• Just as Jesus died for your sins once and for all, you died to sin once and for all when you gave your life to Jesus. When the devil tries to tempt you, remind yourself that you have died to sin, and the person you once were no longer exists. We are not only dead to sin, but we also have new life in Jesus. Your new life is not something you live in your own strength, but in the power of the risen Christ. He enables you to resist temptation.

What does it mean to be alive to God in Christ Jesus?

• Christ calls us not only to die to our old lives, but also to live fully for Him in our new lives. Just as we’re buried with Christ in our baptism, we’re raised to our new life in Him. Because of Christ’s death and subsequent resurrection, “He lives to God.” Absolutely everything in Christ’s life is God-focused. Jesus is the complete victor over our sin and over death, so He now lives in constant, unbroken fellowship with God the Father. When Paul told us to “consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus,” he used a legal and business term. To “consider” is simply to deal with the facts. Uniting with Christ in His death will change the future of our lives. 

There is no place for a person who says, “Jesus is my Savior, but He isn’t my Lord.” There are two and only two masters and you must choose.

Points: Jesus makes us spiritually alive.

We identify with the death and resurrection of Christ in that we died unto sin to be raised to live a new life in Him. By His resurrection, Christ defeated death. Christ died once for all but now lives forever.

III. New Freedom Romans 6:12-14 (NIV)

Listen for a change of attitude.

Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

How can we not let sin reign in our lives?

• You have a new Master. Sin will try to regain its throne, but now you have the power to resist. Your new Master helps you to resist temptation. You can overcome sin by presenting yourself to God. You must recognize that you cannot live the Christian life in your own strength and power. When you yield yourself to God, His power can work through you.

In what practical sense is sin no longer the master of a Christian even though he or she might still commit specific sins? 

• Do not continue to willfully reject God’s ways.
• Do not habitually choose attitudes or actions of sin.
• May be tempted but, in God’s strength, able to reject that temptation.
• Recall Martin Luther’s comment, “You can’t stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.”

Points: Our lives reflect who we are in Christ.

We are challenged to live as under the rule of God and to refuse to allow sin to dominate us. As those who are alive in Christ, we are to offer ourselves completely to His righteous service. Sin can no longer have complete control of us because we are under the sin-destroying power of God’s grace. 

LIVE IT OUT

Knowing we’re dead to sin and living like it are two different things.

How do we win over sin? 

• Paul is essentially saying, “Quit choosing to sin!” 
• Give yourself as a slave to righteousness (6:19).
• Remember your shameful spiritual past as a slave of sin (6:20-21).
• Keep in mind your blessed spiritual present as a slave of God (6:22). Use the Holy Spirit, Word of God, Prayer, and the Church as God-given resources to have victory over sin in the in between.
• Look forward to your glorious spiritual future: eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (6:23).

Struggling with the same sin?

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The most important thing is to live a life that is pleasing to God.

Close: I think of the words of Jim Elliot, who was a modern-day martyr of the faith, put to death as he tried to bring the gospel to a tribe in Ecuador known at the time as the Aucas. Jim was lanced through with a spear, and wrapped around that spear was one of the gospel tracts he and missionary pilot Nate Saint had dropped over their village from the air. In his journal Jim Elliot had written, “I seek not a long life but a full one like Yours, Lord Jesus.” We think that length of life is the ultimate goal. And yes, it’s good to live long. But what is more important is to live right, to do what is right before God. What is more important is to live a life that is pleasing to Him.

Looking forward to seeing you this Sunday! 

In His Love, 

David & Susan