I would draw your attention back to Romans 6 this morning. Let's, for the sake of time, read verses 5-14. Romans 6, beginning in verse 5, for if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you must also, you also must, excuse me, consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord and our heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, that we have your word. We thank you that you have revealed yourself to us. Lord, that you have revealed yourself to us through the prophets. Lord, who wrote down the words that you would have them to be preserved for us. Lord, we thank you that you spoke to us through Christ. Lord, and we have the record of his life. Lord, we have the record of his death. We have the record of his resurrection. We have the the record of his ascension. And Lord, we thank you for. Giving us the the epistles here that we have in this. That we refer to as the New Testament to. To teach us more about Christ and what his life and his death and his resurrection meant. Lord, we are ever thankful for what our Lord has done for us in giving himself as a substitute to be the propitiation for our sins, that he overcame death, the death that grave could not hold him. Death had no power over him. that he was raised for our justification, that we might be set free from sin, from the power of sin, from the guilt of sin. And then we might live. Our lives to you. Lord, and may that truly be the. We not only the hope, but the goal of our lives to glorify you and enjoy you forever. We think we're so thankful for what you have done in and through our savior and uniting him to us that that these things that He did, these things that He offered up in His own body on Calvary's tree were effective for us. Lord, bless Your Word here this morning. May the Spirit's presence be known. Lord, bless Your Word where it is preached in every pulpit, Lord, in every place. and it might be used effectually by the Spirit to draw others to our Savior, that they might see themselves in need. They might see their sin, Lord, if they're yet strangers to your grace and your mercy, and that the Spirit might cast their eyes upon the Savior. Lord, we thank you and we praise you. It's the name of our Savior we pray and we ask these things, amen. Well, there's a mindset which sometimes shows itself that seems incredibly odd to those of us who are looking at things from an outside perspective. It's a very, very odd thing when we look at it from that, when we're outside the situation. Let me attempt to explain this from a biblical perspective, from a biblical historical illustration of this. The children of Israel had been in Egypt for a few hundred years. You'll recall that when Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, the Lord worked miraculously in the life of Joseph and made provision for him, God's wise providence ordering such things that Joseph would be placed into a position of power, a position of influence within the Egyptian empire under Pharaoh, really directly under Pharaoh. What an amazing story of God's provision. You'll recall that, how that occurred, but after a time, Scripture records for us, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, that there arose another king of Egypt, another king over Egypt, and that king did not know Joseph, didn't know him. The king of Egypt, the Pharaoh, and the people of Egypt began to treat Israel, the people that had come into Egypt to be saved from the famine that was going on, came into Egypt and lived there among the Egyptians and grew, grew in prominence, grew in wealth, all these different things. But then that king arose that didn't know Joseph and the people and the king of Egypt began to treat the Israel Israel, the Jews, with hostility, entering them into slavery, putting them into bondage, controlling them. And that is recorded for us in history, even to the point where they sought to kill the sons of the Jews. And we will recall that's when the whole wonderful story that we learn as kids about Moses occurred. And so we see this, and then God uses Moses then to lead his people to freedom. Once again, God works mightily, powerfully in the lives of Moses and Aaron and in the whole situation there in Egypt to lead his people out of captivity, to lead them through the plagues, through the Passover, that last plague there, even through the Red Sea by just parting it in two. Leading his people out of captivity. And then what happened? Listen to what Exodus records for us. Exodus 16, one through three. They set out from Elam, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elam and Sinai, on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. very soon after they departed. The second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of Israel, excuse me, the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And listen to what the people said. And the people of Israel said to them, would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full. For you have brought us into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. And even later, after sending spies into the Promised Land, into Canaan, and getting a report, what again is shown? Numbers 14, 1 through 4. Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. This is after hearing the report of the giants in the land. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would that we had died in this wilderness? Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to one another, let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt." Stephen, in the New Testament, reciting and recalling what happened here when he was speaking to the Jewish leaders and the Jewish people right before they stoned him, said to them in Acts 7.39, Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt." They'd been set free. They'd been set free. They were no longer physically enslaved, yet their hearts turned back to their bondage. This is crazy. This is insane. We would be right in summarizing what occurred here in those words, would we not? Yet this is often the way this occurs, even so much so that there are terms for these things from a psychological perspective. They call this slavery mentality or bondage mentality. And I think this thinking, this propensity is probably even worse to one who is born into slavery. One who is born while in bondage. This happened in the case of Egypt over time. The generation who knew what it was to live with Joseph. in power had died. They had passed on. And then the generation came that was born under, being subjugated to the Egyptians. They were born in sin. They knew nothing else. This was all they had ever known. But isn't it shocking? to think that once being freed from slavery, they would want to go back to Egypt? Isn't that startling to our minds from an outside perspective, that this would occur? And I can hear you say, well, they were free. What were they thinking? And truly it is a shocking and a disastrous way of thinking that exists when a once enslaved person wants to go back to their slavery, to do and live once again as a slave. But before we stagger too much at the thought, before we're so overcome with disgust and shock at Israel or at any other person or group of people who would exhibit this type of mentality, let me ask you, you who have been set free from sin and sin's bondage, Why then do you keep living as if you would go back? Why do we do this? Why do we keep longing, wanting to go back to those things from which we've been set free? Should we not often be just as bewildered by our own practice as we are by Israel? who would return to the bondage of Egypt, in their hearts, went back to Egypt, said, let's get rid of Moses, let's choose another leader and let's go back. Well, then what's the cure for this madness? Because it truly is madness, is it not? What's the cure for this? Even when we exhibit this in our own lives, The cure is before us here, I believe, in this passage. And we must always remember what Paul is dealing with here in Romans 6. We must always put this before our eyes, that we might live as those who have been freed from bondage. Live as having been freed from bondage, from enslavement. Well, this is what Paul is dealing with here, I think, is the key. And we'll kind of let this cat out of the bag because it will take us a few weeks to get through this. But to be freed from one thing and not to turn back is to be enabled to live for something else. That's the key. To be enabled to live for something else. Well, I pray that we might see some of this here this morning and on through as we look at what Paul is saying. We'll continue with chapter 6 this morning and for a few more weeks, Lord willing. Well, let's look then back and pick up at verse 5 where we left off last week of chapter 6 and this apostle that Paul has written by inspiration of God the Spirit to the church here at Rome. Verse 5 says, "'For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.'" Well, Paul is continuing his thought here about our representation in Christ, that we were joined to him in his death and joined to him in his resurrection. He continues this in our text this morning, and he uses some of that if-then type logic or reasoning here in verse 5. If we have been united to him in his death, then we shall certainly be united to him in his resurrection. There are a few things I want to point out here in this verse this morning. The first I'd like us to see is this word united that Paul uses. It's translated as planted together. If you're using a King James, I believe, I'm not sure about the new King James, but planted together. And in the Geneva, it's grafted with or grafted in. That's the word that is used there, which is the rendering that probably fits best, in my opinion. We just don't use that word much. It's not a modern term that we use for anything except the... in plants, in dealing with plants and making new species of plants and grafting one plant into another. That's really the only way we use this. Maybe in a surgical sense where we take a graft from skin, place it somewhere else so that it becomes living tissue for that area where there was death, right? Powerful imagery if we think about this, but we don't use that word much. I like the way the old Geneva Bible puts it, to be grafted with. But that's probably the best representation here that we are grafted into Christ Jesus, joined into, baptized, to use the word last week, right? Immersed in the person and the work of Jesus Christ. We're joined with him in a death like his. Hodge speaks of this as a matter of necessity because we've been grafted into Christ. As branches, we've been grafted into him. We share in him just as the life and death of the tree renders the life and death of the branches. That's the way this works. If the tree dies, what occurs with the branches? Can the branch live on its own? Can't. If the tree is living, what does the branch have? There's life giving sap flowing to the branches, right? That's the picture here. We talked about this a little bit a few weeks ago. But that's the picture. In his death, we the branches die. In his life, in his resurrection from the dead, in his life, we the branches live. Not only then is it that we've been united to him in death, grafted into his death, but Paul takes on just a little bit of a subtle shift here in what he is saying. We're united to him in a death like his. His death is more than us just being baptized into his death. It's also emblematic to us. It serves as a pattern for us. in that we have shared by representation in his death, we also have what comes from that death that is shared. And we'll get to more of this more so next week, but I just want you to keep that in the back of your mind, that there is a subtle shift in what Paul is saying about the death of Christ here, that we are joined with him in a death like his. and in a resurrection like his. And like I said, we'll get to that. I'd also like to point out what Paul says here, we shall certainly be. He doesn't say we might, he doesn't say there's this possibility of, or the possibility exists, but there's certainty here in this. For if, he says, or we might rightly say for the one who truly believes, for the one who has been granted faith, who has been granted regeneration, we might say since. Since we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united to him in a resurrection like his. Now we'll get to the heart of this in a bit, but truly it is more than just the fact that we will one day be resurrected. That's true, that's a fact. That is in the future for us. As children of God, we will, these old bodies which have been put in the grave, which have decayed, gone back to the dust, will be resurrected. But there's something about this that is now. Something about this that is in our lives now and to Paul's readers in their life when they were reading this. Something that isn't future, though that will be the case for believers in the future. There is something here and now as well in the likeness of his resurrection. Let me point out, maybe by way of a little bit of foreshadowing, if I can just for a moment, what Paul is dealing with at this current juncture where he is in chapter 6, is not just what is to come when Christ returns. He is dealing with the now. He's dealing with the now. He's dealing with what began as a question in verse 1. when he said, What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin, that grace may abound? This is the present question, this is not a future question. So Paul is explaining what is relevant, not just to the future, but also to the present. And it is in the present that we are united to Christ, not just in the future. We are now, if we are believers, presently grafted with Jesus Christ. I hope this is not something that is confusing to you. I hope I'm able to make this clear as we continue, if it is. But think about these verses that we have in Scripture. Listen to 2 Corinthians 4, verses 7 through 10. It's a very familiar passage to us. It's one that we read often. I hope that we think about often. I know that I do. This is one of the passages that comes to mind often when I'm in the midst of some sort of trial or some sort of hardship. This is always the passage. I'll never forget when Mark Webb preached from this passage years and years ago to our church. But the passage reads, beginning in verse seven of 2 Corinthians 4, but we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. We're perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed. Listen to this language then that Paul uses, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus. so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. Now, what bodies are these? Are these the glorified bodies that will one day rise from the grave at Christ's second coming? Is that what this is? We'll look down at the next verse. Paul tells us, verse 11, for we who live, for we who live, are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake so that the life of Jesus, and this blows my mind right here, I'm not ashamed to admit this, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. This is a present day reality for believers who still live in this mortal clothes, if you will, in this mortal body, in the flesh that's still decaying. That the life of Christ, the life of Jesus may be manifested in these bodies. In Colossians 3.1, Paul says, if then you have been raised with Christ, seek things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Is this the future raising of our bodies from the grave that Paul is talking about there in Colossians? Paul says to those who have not yet gone to their graves, you have been raised. You have been raised. Do you see this? There is something now in which we are grafted into, that we are joined with, that we are united with, not just his death, but also his resurrection. And it pertains to the question that Paul puts forward there in verse one, about do we continue in sin that death may abound, excuse me, that grace may abound? Something now. Well, let's go on to Romans 6, 6. Paul says, we know, we know. He isn't just saying that we hope or even that we conclude by logic or by reason that this is the case. He says we know. This is an experiential knowledge here. One of the things I love about the Puritans is they're pondering, they're thinking about experiential faith. The experience of working out what Scripture declares to us. They knew it. They knew it by experience, not by logic. They knew it. And this is what Paul is talking about here, the insurance ad for farmers. I kind of chuckle to myself every time I hear it, because I think of it in terms of scripture. We know a thing or two, they say, because we've seen a thing or two. They've experienced it, right? They know something because they've lived it. Our old self, Paul says, we know our old self was crucified with Christ for the purpose that the body of sin might be brought to nothing. He says our old self, the body of sin, and what he means by that here is that the man that had his representation in the first Adam, that's the old man. the one born into the kingdom of darkness, the one conceived in sin, all that we were before we were cut out of the Adam tree and placed into the Christ tree. That's what the old man is. That's what the body of sin is that Paul is talking about here. All that we were before we were born again spiritually. All that we were born of the physical seed of mankind before we were born of the spiritual seed by the Spirit. All that we were as children of the flesh before we were made children of the Spirit. That's this old man. That's the body of sin. Paul says we know that self. That old man was crucified with Christ so that the old self might be brought to nothing, that the new life might not be enslaved to sin. That one, our old self, had to be crucified. It was incapable of being brought into the kingdom of God. It was full of sin. It was enslaved to sin. Guilt. debt, the object of God's just and righteous wrath. The wrath was upon the old man. Well, the old self, Paul says, was nailed to the cross. Look at what he says here. It was crucified with Christ. The old man was crucified with Christ. We know this, Paul says. How do we know this? How do we know this? Well, can't you see, believer, if you have been born again, there is something in you that hates the sin that you once loved. Is that not true in your life if you're a believer? It isn't that sin is eradicated. It's not what Paul, Paul makes that very clear later. It's not that sin has been done away with. It's been eradicated from your life. There is still temptation. They're still struggling. They're still stumbling. They're still falling into temptation and falling into sin. And yes, that is true to our shame. And we will not be free of that. We have no sinless perfection here on earth. We will suffer from these remainders of indwelling sin till the day we do receive our glorified bodies or we're put in the ground awaiting that day. That's not what Paul is saying here. But there's something different about our life now. Something different that we experience. You're no longer enslaved to sin. There is a loathing of sin. There is a hatred for sin, a righteous hatred for sin. There is repentance from sin. These things did not exist in the old man. They weren't there. Now, you might get caught in something, and you get ashamed because you were caught in something. You might have something that harms someone else because of your sinful actions, and there may be a little bit of regret for that, but there's no sorrow over sin. There's no repentance. Repentance goes far beyond just being sorry even about it. These types of reactions to sin that is the reality of the life of the believer in the new man that has been united with Christ in his death and resurrection. These things that we just talked about here did not exist when enslaved to sin, when we were under the dominion, the power, the rule of sin in our lives. It's all we knew. We knew nothing else. But now there is something else that battles against that sin. Even the will has changed. Even the will. See, that's our problem. In reality is the will. Our will is sinful in the old man. We will not come to Christ. Because we don't want Christ. We want our sin. Our will itself is in bondage. Before the will was bound to sinful desires, selfish wants, fleshly appetites. Now there's something that wars against that. And if there is not, then you need to do some soul searching. You need to examine yourself. You need to make your calling and election sure. Because if there is not this reaction to sin that should exist in the new man, as opposed to the old, you may still be enslaved to sin. You may have never really truly been regenerated. Paul says we know We know by experience, experientially we understand that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be put to nothing so that we no longer would be enslaved to sin. Christ tells us in Matthew, does he not? Matthew 6, that we can't serve two masters. You can't do it. You're going to love the one and hate the other. You're going to be devoted to one and despise the other. You can't serve. He uses God and money there. But you can't serve two masters. You can't be enslaved to sin and be enslaved to righteousness. It's an impossibility, Christ says. Can't have it that way. It doesn't work that way. So if the old man's been crucified, we have a different master now. We're under a different rule. We're in a new dominion. Ephesians 4. Verse 20 through 24, Paul is correcting some errors here. And he says, but that is not the way you learned Christ, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off the old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt, corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. He is saying, put off the old self. It was crucified. It was crucified with Christ. That's what you once were. In your former manner of living, corrupt, enslaved to sin, put on the new which is raised with Christ. Raised to what he says here in verse 4 of Romans 6, to walk in newness of life. This is the new creation, the new creature that we talked about last week. Walk in that way. Well, Paul puts it then quite bluntly in verse 7. For the one who has died has been set free from sin. I don't think we can put it any simpler than this. So the question then is, have you died in Christ Jesus? For the one who has died has been set free from sin. So the question is, have you died? Has the old self been crucified? Is the old man nailed to the cross and has the old man perished through Jesus Christ? Have you been set free from sin? If you have, you're no longer a slave of sin. Sin is no longer your master. It has no power over you. were to mortify it and put it to death daily, as it has already been crucified in Christ." It's already been crucified. And we daily are to put these remainders of indwelling sin to death as the old man has already been crucified and is dead. And it was, as we will soon read here, through the one time, once for all death of Jesus Christ. One time. Old man is crucified one time. And in our daily practical living, we are to mortify the remainders of that old man. We still have a master. We just have a different master. It's not sin that is our master. Verse 18 of this chapter that we'll get to soon shows us that we are slaves in the new man to something else. We're slaves to righteousness, not to sin. Let me ask you, do you remind yourself of this daily? That you are no longer slaves of sin. That you're slaves of righteousness. Is this your daily waking thought? All that I was by nature, all that I was by my first birth has been nailed to the cross and it has been crucified there on Calvary with my Savior. I am free from the power and the enslavement of sin. I have the privilege then of serving my new master. I have a new Lord. Wouldn't that make a difference in our lives if this was an ever-present reality in our minds? Would this not fill us with strength and energy of vigor to battle the remainders of indwelling sin? Would it not cause us to think of our Savior suffering and dying for our freedom from sin? Would it not cause us to hate our sin instead of desiring it? Would the groans of the cross, would the stripes upon his back and the sight of his pierced hands and his pierced side and his thorn-pierced brow, the drops of blood from his disfigured face, and his struggle to breathe as he is hanging upon a cross, with the glimpses of anguish that go far beyond the physical pain that existed, with the anguish of the cross in the Father forsaking Him because He was bearing our own sins upon His body on that tree. with the knowledge that it was our sin that put him there, so that we might be free from the power and the enslavement of sin, would that not have an effect on us? Would it not cause in us, if we could see this as we should see this every waking moment, would it not cause us to have a holy hatred for sin? Sin is no longer your master. Our Lord has cried out upon the cross, it is finished, and He died. The old man died with Him. Your old man was crucified there if you are in Christ Jesus. How can we entertain then the thought of sin? much less the thought that we might continue in sin, that grace might abound. " Well, have you been set free? Do you understand this? Do you know this? As Paul is saying, we know. The one who has died has been set free. A miracle has been performed for you if you are His in His death. A miraculous work has been performed. He's led us, the captives, out of captivity. He has placed His pillar of cloud and fire before us. He's triumphed, he's crushed our former master. He's opened the sea for us, if you will, and caused us to pass on dry land and the whole host of our enemies come forward and he crushes them beneath the waves. That's where the old man is. And then we travel through this fallen wilderness world and he gives us water from the rock. We hunger and he provides us manna. Would we then cry out to return once again back from whence we came? May the one united to Christ, grafted into him, cry out, Lord, may that never be the case with me. May it never be the case. Lead me on, Lord, to the promised land. Lord, give me a sight of you that would not cause me in fear to say, in our hearts, we want to go back to Egypt. Let me not falter, strengthen me, cause me to stand, cause me to move in the direction that you would have me to go and not for a moment turn my eyes back to what I once was and to what I once loved and where I once lived. Well, as I was studying, I figured there was no way we would make it down to where I wanted to go through verse 11. But as we finish out here, we'll finish with verse 8, I think. This will give us a glimpse of what I believe is the power to overcome or to cure the madness we began by speaking about this morning. We talked about this slave mentality or this bondage mentality that we saw from the record of Scripture regarding Israel. Paul says here in verse 8, Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. This is the beginning of what I believe Paul is trying to get us to see here in revealing to us that the Christian, the one united to Christ, the one set free from sin, and the one who has no desire to continue to live as if they were still enslaved to it, there is something here for them. He hinted at it at verse 4, when he said, we too might walk in newness of life. And he will continue with this argument down through verse 10 and 11. In 10 where he states in Christ's death, when he died, he died to sin. And the life he lives, he lives to God. I look forward to covering that part next week. And then on down through verse 11 where he says, so you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God. Do you see how I say there's something emblematic in what occurred in the death and the resurrection of Christ that is to be lived in our newness of life, in the new man. But we will end here in verse eight this morning. Here is more in verse 8 of Paul's certainty of what has taken place in our union with Christ, in our union with our Lord, this second Adam, this last Adam that we dealt with, our representative. If or since we have died with Christ, past tense, we believe, we know, we have this sure and certain faith. And this is all faith, right? If we go back to where we have come from in Romans, the just or the righteous shall live by what? By faith. This is all through the instrumentality of faith, the gift of faith, not of ourselves, it's a gift of God. But we believe, Paul says, that we will also live with him in his living. We will live with him in his living. And once again, we know that we will one day live bodily in the presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. There is no doubt about this. John 14, 3 says, Christ speaking here, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also. We will one day bodily be in the presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 4 verses 16 and 17 says, For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So we will always be with the Lord. Now, I hope I'm alive when this happens. Wouldn't you love to see this with your own eyes? Revelation 22, 3-5 says, No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will worship Him. They will see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. And night will be no more, they will need no light or lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. We're going to be forever with the Lord. There's no doubt about that, that we will live with Him. Paul said in Philippians 1.23, I am hard-pressed between the two. My desire is to depart to be with who? With Christ. For that is far better. Revelation 7, 15-17 says, Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more. The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd." This is the case for all eternity. We will be with Him in His living. Colossians 3, 4 lastly says, when Christ who is your life appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory. We will bodily be with Him in glory. There's no doubt that this is a great future reality for the people of God. One that we should eagerly await and watch for, anticipate, be ready for with glad hearts. There's no doubt about that. But though there is a certainty of this ahead, the truth is that we live with Him now. We live with Him now. This is not Paul looking forward to and saying, we will one day live. But this is Paul sharing with us the certainty of this being true as a result of Christ's living. This living is already here. Not in fullness, but it's already here. The reality of this is already present. The Spirit of Christ indwells us. We are living. In Christ and with Christ, free from the bondage of sin, we are living now. We have an interest in Christ's death being united to Him. We have an interest in Christ's life being united to Him. This is what Paul is getting at in Galatians 2.20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. In the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. This is not in the future that Paul lives. But Christ is currently living, and Paul is united to that living Christ, and Paul is living by the faith of the Son of God, and it is Christ living in him before he ever leaves this tent. This is the nature of our union with Christ. This is being grafted into the tree. When grafting occurs, when the branch is united to the tree, it is drawing its life from the tree. We're grafted in. It's not yet what it one day will be when it's brought to glorious flower, but even now the branch is drawing its life from the vine, from the tree. And in our union, as we previously stated, maybe last week, we don't just get one aspect of Christ. We don't just get His death and we don't get His living. We get it all in our union with Christ. He's not withholding anything from us. We get His life, we get His death, we get His resurrection from the death, and we even get His ascension. We're seated with Him right now in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, Paul says, right? In Ephesians? So as we conclude this morning, I just want to encourage you to think about all of this as it regards our standing now in Christ Jesus, in our union to Him, that we have been freed from our sin, from our slavery to sin, and how that should be a constraining and a restraining influence upon us as we now live in Christ. And if there's anybody listening that's still enslaved to sin, I would have you consider where that enslavement leads. Where does it lead? Because in your enslavement to sin, with sin as your master, you will receive all the penalties that accompany that bondage. All of them. Just as when we now have been taken out of that, we've been led out of captivity into Christ, we receive all the benefits. We receive all of the benefits of our enslavement to righteousness. Not our own works, but all the benefits of being united to the one who is righteous, the one who is holy. But if you're still enslaved to sin, you're still in the old man, you still get everything, but they're not benefits. They're penalties. Leading to eternal death. And I would urge you to pray that God would send His Spirit to show you Christ and what He has done. And to show you how you might be joined to Him in His life and in His death. That you might be freed from your bondage to sin, that the old man in which you now live would be nailed to the cross of Christ. be freed from the bondage, and receive all the benefits of the union with Christ. Well, may God work in us to do what is pleasing to Him. We'll get into this more next week. But to lead us in the truth as Scripture declares it to us, and to lead us in the way of righteousness, in this newness of life, in our slavery to righteousness. that we might be blessed to return next week and to continue to see what it is that Paul is dealing with here, the truth that he's putting before us, the doctrine that he is putting before us, and that we might see how it is that Christ's death and life might be a pattern for our living since we've been joined to him in those things. and how that his dying to sin and living to God might be the great goal of even our lives here and now. Let's pray.