2nd Midweek Lent: Date: March 9, 2022
– Sermon Text: Romans 6:6-13
THEME: The Old Man Is Crucified with Christ.
( Pastor Theodore Barthels )
Sermon: Read Sermon
Hymns: 153; 144; 175; 551:1,2
Sermon
St. Paul’s Lutheran Church
2100 16th Street SW
Austin, MN 55912-1749
Pastor Ted Barthels
Sermon preached on
March 9, 2022
2nd Midweek Lent
Passion Lessons: In the Upper Room – part 2.
Responsive Reading: Psalm 32
Hymns: 153; 144; 175; 551:1,2
Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Sermon Text: Romans 6:6-13
“Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” (NKJV)
This is the Word of God.
Sanctify us, oh Lord, through Your truth. Your Word is truth. Amen.
In Christ Jesus, our Crucified Savior, dear fellow Redeemed:
INTRO: Paul preached Christ Crucified. —
As we meditate upon the sufferings and death of Jesus, it is not our goal to examine the gruesome details, so that we feel sorry for Jesus and the excruciating pain He experienced. Without doubt it was gruesome and it was excruciating, but when we read the Passion History, the gospels do not dwell on gruesome, but rather direct us to see the spiritual blessings Jesus secured for us. We are led to mourn our sin rather than His death. It is important for us to grow in our understanding of the spiritual impact of Jesus’ sufferings and death, that we might grow in faith, and in sanctified living to the praise and glory of our God.
This is how Paul presents Christ in his epistles. Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth: “2 For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2) And so we are led by the Holy Spirit to find strength of faith and life through Paul’s presentation of Christ’s Passion. This evening we are led by the Spirit of God to a great and important truth:
THEME: The Old Man Is Crucified with Christ.
We begin of course at the cross of Christ.
I. Jesus Died Once for All.
In our text we read, “10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all.” (v.10) This is a great and important truth presented in such a few words. Jesus died on the cross. Why? Because of sin. Whose sin? The sins of the world: ALL the sins of ALL the world for ALL time! We tend to think of death as being natural. Indeed, that is what the devil wants us to believe. That is what is taught in our schools, in our magazines, in our national parks, in all the world as part of the origins of the universe. Death entered into the world because of sin, not evolution. Death passed upon all men because of all have sinned. Jesus came into the world to deliver us from death, AND the power of the devil, who by his deception of Adam and Eve made us all sinful by nature, and all by nature slaves of sin. Because of the Old Man, (our sinful nature) everything we do is tainted by sin. “The carnal mind (or natural mind) is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Romans 8:7-8)
So, then it is an absolute truth that Jesus died because of our sins. He died for the sins of the world. We confess, Jesus was crucified and died for us, for our sins. This truth progresses the thought concerning our redemption not just a little, but a great deal, for now we confess the truth that Jesus died in our place to PAY the penalty of our sin. And He did it once and for ALL! Again, that means ALL people for ALL time, for ALL the world!
We share in Jesus’ death. It is often said that God looks upon Jesus’ death as our death. We need to understand this correctly. It is not just a matter of the way someone looks at what Jesus accomplished in His death, it is the truth of what Jesus accomplished for you and me in His crucifixion. Because He was our substitute on the cross, His death counts as our death. We share in His death. Remember death exists because of sin. When Jesus took our sin to the cross He took our death in Himself to the cross.
The power and benefit of this truth comes to us through faith so that we possess this blessing:
II. The Old Man Is Crucified with Christ!
What does that mean? “The Old Man” is a Scriptural term indicating our sinful nature. As we already stated, we were born sinful, and so incapable of pleasing God. Oh, outwardly one may do things that look good, but if the heart is wrong then there is no good in the things that we do. When we do things to our own glory, or even to the greater glory of mankind, then it still proceeds from a sinful heart and falls under this judgement of God, “The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God. 3 They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.” (Psalm 14:1-2)
That is the Old Man, but the Spirit of God has created a new Man within us “the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:24)
The Old Man is crucified with Christ because Jesus was crucified and died for us, as our substitute. His death is OUR DEATH! This changes everything right now while we live here on this earth.
Our text makes a major point about sin enslaving those who live in sin. And then another important point by reminding everyone that people are slaves only as long as they are alive. We have had enough lessons in the history of slavery in our own country to know that slavery was cruel, often extremely cruel. Out of this came a tradition of some spiritual songs sung by American slaves expressing the hope of finally being delivered from slavery to glory through death.
That is what Paul is teaching us regarding the Jesus’ crucifixion. He died, and we died with Him, that is our Old Man, our sinful man died with Jesus. We are freed from slavery to sin.
We still struggle with sin every day. That only demonstrates how much we need this lesson. Sin is not something that the child of God, the disciple of Jesus, just understands is inevitable and so acceptable in our lives. As children of God according to the New Man within us, we abhor the sin in our lives. We confess with Paul: “I find then a law, (or a principle) that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. … O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:21,24)
Yes, the victory over our sinful flesh is found in the truth that we share in Jesus’ crucifixion, and so we also share in the power of a new life in Jesus’ resurrection. By the power of Jesus’ crucifixion worked in our heart by the Holy Spirit we are enabled to say “NO!” to sin, and “YES!” to righteousness, as we glorify Christ in our lives.
Paul’s ultimate point is that this is more than a theoretical truth. This is to be taken into our daily lives.
III. Don’t present your body parts as instruments of sin.
Consider the Spirit’s instruction in our text: “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” (v. 11-13)
This is a very pragmatic truth. When we sin, yes, it begins within the heart and mind, but sin then plays itself out in our actions with the parts of our bodies. Think of how strongly the Lord Jesus expresses this truth in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.” (Matthew 5:27-29) The cause for sin is not in your eye, or in your hand which Jesus also mentioned. Jesus was most certainly not endorsing self-mutilation of any sort. He was expressing the danger of allowing sin to play itself out in our lives through our bodily members.
James warns against the sins of the tongue. “But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.”
(James 3:8-10)
Just think how often our feet take us into the way of temptation like when Peter walked into the courtyard of the High Priest’s palace. He had no business being there. He walked in the way of temptation, and Peter fell into grievous sin. We too might walk right into the arena where the devil may have his way with us. Paul is telling us that when we find ourselves tempted to sin, pull back, don’t allow our eyes, or hands or tongue or feet to serve sin instead of righteousness. When it begins to happen, when it BEGINS to happen it should jar us into the spiritual sensibility of the New Man and we pull back. “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” (2 Timothy 2:19)
We pull back because by the grace of God we share in Jesus’ death, and the Old Man has been crucified with Him so that we are no longer slaves to sin. We will no longer “let sin reign in (our) mortal bod(ies), that (we) should obey it in its lusts.” (v.12) We shall “present (ourselves) to God as being alive from the dead, and (our) members as instruments of righteousness to God.” (v.13)
AMEN.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.