Well, for our lesson this afternoon, I would actually ask you to turn to the book of Romans, Romans 6. Romans 6, 1 through 14. In these topical lessons, we often don't have a particular passage we're looking at, but this is one where this passage is just chock full of everything we want to look at today. Not everything, but wonderful truths here about being dead to sin here in Romans chapter 6. I want you to think a little bit about whether any of these scenarios or these experiences sound familiar. You're dealing with a strong temptation in your life, and you've stumbled again. And after the fact, you think, I can't resist. I have all the right ideas, I'm thinking the right thoughts, and then that moment comes and the urge is so strong, the temptation is so strong, I can't resist. I don't have the power to say no, it's impossible. Maybe you've felt that yourself, or maybe you've heard that from, if you're a parent, you've heard that from your kids, or as an elder, or a mentor, someone that you're shepherding or helping, you've heard this. What do you say in those situations, or is that true? Or maybe it's not the power of a temptation that's so strong for you that's the issue in your mind. Maybe you've been dealing with a sin for so long in your life that you think to yourself, well, no one's going to be perfect in this life. We're not going to be perfected in this life. This has been a part of my life for so long. It's just always going to be a part of my life, and I'm going to keep asking for forgiveness until Jesus comes back, and that's just the way it's going to be. And you've sort of resigned yourself to that sin being a part of your life. Or maybe when you're tempted to sin, you have this thought in the back of your head as you're considering whether to do this thing that's wrong, that says, well, more sin means more grace. Right? More abounding sin means more abounding grace. That's the scenario that Paul addresses here in Romans 6. It's the, the I love sinning, God loves forgiving way of life. May it never be. Right? That's, but that is a thought that goes through our minds sometimes that, well, God loves forgiving. I'll ask for forgiveness afterwards. We're, we have wonderful truths in God's word here we're going to look at together that help in these situations and that should give us hope it should give us tools to in this battle weapons in this battle against those temptations that are so strong tools to help others in their struggle with sin and it all comes down to this concept that in Christ we are now dead to sin and alive to God We talked last time about our union with Christ. This is now a specific outworking of our union with Christ that relates directly to our being human and the power that we have related to sin. So whether we have any power to resist sin, if you remember when we got started, we were looking at these four states of humanity. One of the problems in the state of nature, the state of sin, is that we We're not able not to sin, right? We sin in everything that we do until the Lord gives us the grace and regenerating work of his spirit. But there has been a fundamental change in who you are through your union with Christ and through his death and resurrection that relates to your power relative to sin and sin's power relative to you. And that's what I really want to look at today is does sin have a power over you that you can't shake? that you have no power over, or what is your power related to the choices that you make, either to do right or to do wrong. There's wonderful hope here. I'm going to read Romans 6, 1-14, and I'll tell you how we're going to approach this, and we'll get into studying it together. So this is Romans 6, 1-14. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 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 also must 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. All right, I wanna look today, let's just kind of work our way through this passage in three sections. We're gonna look at the topic of baptism, baptism into Christ's death. Then we're gonna look at the dominion of sin, and then your new ability. Baptism, and then the dominion of sin, and then your new ability, and we'll do some application here at the end. At the beginning here, Paul is talking about our baptism. He mentions our baptism. So we're gonna look at verses one through four here first. He starts off with this hypothetical situation, it was the last one that I mentioned at the beginning, where we think, well, if I sin more, then there's more grace, right? Shall we sin that grace may abound? And what is his response? By no means, right? By no means, so he says no, that's the no part, but then what's his reason? If we've died to sin, how can we live in it? That's his reasoning, is you've already died to sin. Now, you might say, okay, how is that the, I'm still living. I've never died. What do you mean we've died to sin? And that's what he goes on to explain here in this topic where he talks about our baptism. He says that, do you not know, that means you should already know, right? You know, when Paul's talking to these Romans, he's never even been to Rome before this, but he knows that they've been well taught, and he knows they should know this. He says, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were baptized into his death. What does baptism symbolize? What's something that's not related to death that we usually think of with baptism? Washing, right? It is a washing, right? You wash your sins away, right? Rise and be baptized and wash your sins away, right? So we think of it as washing, but that's not the only symbolism of baptism. And often we see scripture talk about an association between our baptism and Christ's death and resurrection. Could someone look up Colossians 2, 11 and 12? Colossians 2, 11 and 12. Susan's got that one. Then somebody else, 1 Corinthians 10, 1 and 2. Otto, 1 Corinthians 10, 1 and 2. 1 Peter 3, 20 and 21. Don, 1 Peter 3, 20 and 21. Mark 10, 37 to 40. Lily, Mark 10, 37 to 40. And then Luke 12, 50. Could you do that one, Ginger? Luke 12, 50. And then Hebrews 9, 13 and 14. Lisa, Hebrews 9, 13 and 14. Okay, Colossians 2, 11 and 12. In him also ye were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body and flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith, in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. Okay, having been buried with him in baptism, and then also being raised with him. So baptism is a symbol, outwardly, is a symbol of death and resurrection. And it's not something that we always think about, I think, especially because we usually do sprinkling. We'll talk about that more here in just a moment. But it is a symbol of death and resurrection. We are buried with him in baptism. And we should be thinking about our baptism that way. I think one of the things that we sometimes miss, I think I've talked about this before maybe, but one of the things that we miss is that that water and baptism is a symbol of death, that water was a symbol of death for people in this time, for Israelites or Hebrews in this time. You can see this in the way that baptism is talked about. 1 Corinthians 10, 1 and 2. Okay, where were they baptized, the Israelites, according to this verse? through the Red Sea, right? The cloud is also mentioned, but they're baptized in the Red Sea. There's no washing going on in the Red Sea. This is not a symbol of cleansing, right? What's happening at the Red Sea? What does the water do after they go through the Red Sea? Destroys the enemy, right? It destroys the Egyptians. Their baptism through the Red Sea was a passing through death, something that should have killed them, and coming out alive, and then you get the vivid picture of what happens when that water does not have that miracle going on, and it destroys the Egyptian army, right? It's a picture of death. So baptism in that case is a passing through death and coming out alive, right? A death and a resurrection. Okay, 1 Peter 3, 20 and 21. Sorry, it's in the middle of a sentence, so yeah, just go. Who formerly were disobedient, when once the divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight souls, were saved through water. there is also an antitype which now saves us, baptism. Not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Okay, so there's slight translation difference there, but in the ESV it says, it talks about Noah and the flood, right? It says, baptism, which corresponds to this? now saves you. We're told that the flood was a kind of a baptism. There wasn't any washing going on at the flood, right? And it was, they were saved through the water, right? They came through the water alive, right? And in fact, it even says that, brought safely through the water. That's part of how we're supposed to think about baptism. You've been brought safely through the water. You've gone through death and come out alive on the other side. To our dear Baptist brothers who say you have to be immersed to be baptized, I would just say, Let's look at the Red Sea and the flood and who got immersed. It wasn't the ones who were saved. So anyway, we shouldn't be too tongue-in-cheek about these things, but we'll talk more about sprinkling here in just a moment. But baptism is a symbol of death here. Water is a symbol of death, and baptism is a symbol of passing through death and coming out alive. Mark 10, 37 to 40 here. Listen to the way Jesus, think about what Jesus is talking about. What is he referring to here when he talks about baptism? And they said to him, grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory. Jesus said to them, do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? And they said to him, we are able. And Jesus said to them, the cup that I drink, you will drink. And with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized. But to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared. Okay, and let's do Luke 12, verse 50 as well. It's a long chapter. Luke 12, verse 50. I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished. What is Jesus referring to here in these two passages? He talks about this baptism that he's going to be baptized with. He's talking about his death. He refers to his death as a baptism. And so we need to think about baptism as a kind of ordeal in one sense. It's a going through something and coming out alive on the other side. A passing through death and then rising again. So again, even as a joke about the immersion question, you know, Baptists argue that you must be immersed for this to be a true baptism because you have to be plunged down into the water and brought back up, right? Burial and resurrection. And I think part of the problem with enforcing that as required for all baptisms is that burial at this time was not done directly straight down into the ground. You went, you were taken into a doorway. to be buried. So the baptism symbolism of burial, it looks very much like a burial to us, to be buried in the water and come back up. But that's, that wouldn't have even just been a one-to-one correlation of the symbol and the reality, the reality of burial and the symbol in baptism, to be immersed and to be raised again. But we, we don't, we don't object to immersion. We just say you don't have to be immersed. And I think actually, it's a really fitting way to be baptized. I think if you have the opportunity, if there's the right setting and time for that kind of thing to happen, it's not convenient, or not just convenient, it's not practical for infants, right, to be immersing them. And many of our baptisms are infant baptisms, or household baptisms. I think we should have that picture in our mind of going down into the water and coming back up, right? Certainly, the baptisms at the time of the very early church, there's debate about exactly how they were done, but there is, in many cases, they were going down into the water in some way. I think there's good evidence they were in the water but not immersed all the way. They would go down in the water and then have water poured over the top of their heads. There's evidence of that. But we should have the sense of going down in the water and coming back up, or at least passing through water. With sprinkling, though, which is our ordinary form for baptism, without being too gruesome, the idea with sprinkling, with blood and water and things like that in the Old Covenant system was, it's as if you were that close to the death. that you got the blood on you, right? You have, you've been sprinkled because you came through death, but you came out alive. And here you are walking around with that sprinkled blood under the old covenant on you, but you're alive, right? You have death on you, but you have come through alive and you have, something has happened to you. And so that sprinkling is supposed to be a picture of an event happening to you where you have died and come through alive again. And we're supposed to think about our baptism that way. And if you have been baptized, you're supposed to think of that as this, this thing where you have been, you have died, something has happened to you fundamentally so that you have died and now you've been raised again. Baptism with water is symbolic of the true inward baptism with the Holy Spirit. We won't get into all of that here today. It's an outward sign of an inward reality. And so our baptism happens, our true inward baptism happens in the moment that we believe, right? And we trust in the Lord. We've been washed by the Spirit. We've died and the Spirit has united us to Christ so that we have been, we have died and risen again. But our baptism is an outward picture of that. And if you've been baptized, you should think of that as a fundamental change to who you are, right? You are not who you used to be. He says in verse four, he says, we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might, and how would you, if you didn't know this passage, how would you finish that sentence? All right, what would you expect? Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might, I would think be raised from the dead, right? My first thought would be, okay, we died with him, he's been raised, now we have been raised with him, therefore we're going to be raised one day. But that's not what it says right here. It says so that we too might walk in newness of life. And so your death by baptism has to do with your relationship with sin in your life. And that's where we wanna go next is the dominion of sin in this next section of verses five through 11. He addresses this whole idea of the dominion of sin. It sends power over us. In verse 6, he says, our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing. That's maybe a harder phrase to understand. The body of sin might be brought to nothing. I think the next phrase clarifies it. So that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. We died with him so that we would not be enslaved to sin anymore. And in verse seven he says, if you've died, for one who has died has been set free from sin. Why would that be the case? If you have died that you are set free from sin. What does he mean by that? Why would that be the case theologically? You're dead, you can't sin anymore. Okay, you're dead, you can't sin anymore. You continue to exist though, right? Robert? Okay, so you're not alive in the world to commit sin in the flesh with the body, and we talked about the body of sin here. This is true. Okay, so if we've died and we've gone to heaven, right, our souls are made perfect, right? We're one of those souls made perfect mentioned in Hebrews. And so we don't sin anymore in heaven. What's the relationship between sin and death? The wages of sin is death. Meaning, as long as you are a sinner and you're still alive, you haven't paid your debt. yet. You're still under the power of sin because you still owe sin. You still owe a debt of death for your sin. And he's saying once you have paid that debt, once you have died, you have been set free. Right, death no longer has dominion over him. We're talking about Christ here. Christ is never gonna die again because the death has already been paid. There's no more death to be paid. He's already paid that debt. And now he's set free from that obligation. He's no longer under that dominion of sin. And really the key verse is there in verse 11. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God. in Christ Jesus. You are dead to sin and alive to God. What do you think he means by dead to sin here? Well, we've changed from a state of always sinning to a state of being able to overcome sin and grace. God has given us grace. He's given us His Spirit. That enables us to be able to overcome sin, not permanently, not always. but it's a change from our other position. Yes, so we were unable, we were enslaved to sin, right? We owed sin. We were under its power and dominion. We couldn't help but sin. We were responsible for it, but we were always sinning then. We have a new power, right? We have a new life because the debt's been paid, and it doesn't have any right to have dominion over us anymore. It used to have you under chains under a life sentence, and you were not going to get out of that prison unless you were under a sheet, right? That's the idea behind it. The wages of sin is death. You were under chains. You were enslaved to sin as long as you had not died yet. But now you have died with Christ. So you are now a person who has died without having died through your union with Christ. And so that when sin tries to tell you that you have to obey, that you can't help but sin, You have this death certificate that you can wave in its face. Say like, no, I'm sorry. Like, you don't have any right to tell me what to do anymore. You don't have any right to have dominion over me anymore because I already died. I've already paid my debt. Not I, but Christ has already paid the debt for me. I've already died with Christ. Sin has no right to have dominion over you anymore. And this is where union with Christ is so critical here, because the evil one is gonna try to isolate you from Christ in your mind. Try to keep Christ over here and you over here, right? He's gonna try to get you to believe or think that his death doesn't really count as your death. And to keep you separate so that you think there's still some kind of a debt to be paid, that you're still under the dominion of the power of Satan and the power of sin, but you are united with Christ. And that's a close union that cannot be separated, right? That God has made happen through his Holy Spirit. And so what's true of Christ is true of you, so his death counts for you. And you could say, I have died, and sin no longer has any right to have dominion over me. It's something mysterious, like we talked about last time, it's something we can't fully wrap our minds around, that we are united to Christ. But it's so important here, it's such good news for us. So this is verse 157. Paul makes an analogy of a spouse that dies. And if the spouse dies, then you're free to remarry someone else. And I think Paul's using that picture between our bondage to sin and righteousness, free from that. We're free. We're free to walk again in some life. Yes, you're right, yeah, so Paul uses that analogy of a marriage where you were bound as long as you were married to that person, but after that person has died, that bond is gone. I think sometimes we just forget what difficult marriages so many of these, especially new believers, were in in that time. The freedom that there was when an unbelieving spouse died to marry a Christian spouse, and what a beautiful thing that was. And that's given as a picture of when you've died, there's a death that's happened, and now you're set free to be united to Christ. You're set free at that point to walk in newness of life. It's through union with Christ that we have died. Okay, so if that's the case then, if we are dead to sin, if our debt's already been paid through our death with Christ, Christ's death for us, then we need to think about, he wants us to think about how we're gonna live our lives then. What responsibility then do we have to struggle against sin? And what can we do? What are we commanded to do? And so we're gonna talk about our new ability here, your new ability in verses 12 to 14. Actually, your responsibility starts in verse 11. What does Paul say, what does he tell us to do? What's the action he tells us to do? Verse 11. Consider yourselves dead to sin. He doesn't say to die to sin. He doesn't say put to death sin, which I mean it's biblical to say put to death the deeds of the flesh. He doesn't say die to sin or put to death sin. The command is to consider yourself dead to sin. So this is a command of thinking. This is something you need to do by thinking, to think about yourself in a proper way, to consider yourself dead to sin because you are dead to sin. So it's a problem, he's trying to combat the problem of being dead to sin through Christ, but then acting like or thinking that really sin has dominion over you. And he's saying the problem is partly in your mind where you need to recognize that you are already dead to sin. And the evil one's gonna try to deceive you and keep you from believing that, but you have to consider yourself. The command here is to consider yourself dead to sin. That's maybe a harder command to fulfill, right? It's not an outward action, right? How do you consider yourself something? And I just, sure, go ahead, Ed. I have an interesting tie-in here, going back to chapter four, where it says, Adam was considered, as Abraham, sorry, Abraham be God, and was considered to be righteous, the same word. Yeah, okay, so back, right when. Sure, reckon to him as righteousness, right? So it's a counting to, it's recognizing a reality that doesn't, we don't see right in front of us, right? Or it's understanding a reality that is true in God's grace, but that maybe doesn't fit with exactly what we're seeing right in front of our faces. And the same way that Abraham's faith was counted to him as righteousness, right? We have to consider ourselves dead to sin, even though we don't always feel like it, because we are in Christ. And so I would just encourage you that some people think that talking to yourself is a sign of insanity, but the Psalms include talking to yourself, right? In Psalm 42, why are you cast down on my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. You're talking to yourself there, right? This is David talking to himself. We have to talk to ourselves sometimes and say, self, my soul, you died. Christ died for you. You have already died to sin. And you need to coach yourself in that sense. Yes. Terry. Right. Reminding yourself of your status in Christ. And this isn't just, you know, I think in modern thinking there's a lot of talk about mantras and you just keep saying mantras until it's real, right? Until it's true. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about realities that are true. You know are true because of the Word of God, but you're reminding yourself of those truths over and over again every day, right? And it may not even be a bad idea for you if you're struggling with a particular struggle with sin. Put up some of those scriptures that would be helpful to you, maybe something here out of Romans 6, and put it up over your mirror or put it up by your bedside so you can tell yourself that this is true every day. And give yourself a time every day, in your lunchbox, whatever it is, a time every day where you tell yourself this is true and you consider yourself dead to sin. James. is that one of the ways the Christian knows they have certainty in salvation is that whenever they do fail the Lord and sin against him, there is that feeling of remorse and wanting to repent and wanting to be right with God. You know, the world is, you know, it's so wrong just to say food is for the stomach and stomach is for the food, don't even worry about it. Right, yeah, so that sign of the conviction for sin is an encouragement about the work of the Holy Spirit in us. And so when we've repented, though, I think the temptation often is people understand repentance really well, but they don't have a sense of any hope that they're going to walk in more newness of life after that. In facing the next temptation, to coach yourself and say, You don't have to say, you don't have to do this, right? You don't have to follow this temptation the next time it comes. So I think I've talked to a lot of people who are, who understand forgiveness, understand repentance, but feel pretty hopeless about ever changing. And I think this is, this is the hope of change here in this, in this passage. You know, 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. And so he goes on. There's another command in verse 12. What's the command in verse 12? Do not let sin reign. Okay, so this is telling sin, like, you don't live here anymore. You don't have any right to tell me what to do. You don't have any right to cause me to obey, right? To obey its passions, right? Don't let it make you obey its passions, because it doesn't have any right to tell you what to do anymore. So when you hear the voice of temptation, it's the voice of someone who was in charge of you. I want to be careful about personifying this too much. The voice of sin and temptation is a voice that used to control you, that used to be in charge of you, that you used to obey, but you don't have to anymore. And it's really hard when you're used to obeying it, when you've been used to following orders from this person, to realize I'm not that person anymore, and I can now say no in a way that I wasn't able to in the past. You have to keep reminding yourself that you're not that person anymore. And this is really where we get to this change in the state of grace, right? We're talking about the states, right? The state of innocence, how we were created, we were able to sin. Then the state of nature, the state of sin, we're not able not to sin. In the state of grace, now we are able not to sin. We are able to say no, not by our own power, only by the grace of God, only by the work of the Holy Spirit. But you can say no to sin now. And I don't know if that, that was revolutionary for me at one point in my life. I was really struggling, my dad brought me to this passage, and it was revolutionary to just say, this next temptation that hits you, you can say no. Because of the work of Christ, because you died and rose with him. Not saying you're gonna be perfect, not saying you're gonna ever reach perfection in this life, but the next time that temptation hits, you have an ability you didn't used to have, and it has no right to control you. You can now say no, you are able not to sin. Now, the day's coming, and we look forward to the day we're not able to sin, right? That's still coming, we're not there yet, we're getting there. But for now, you are able not to sin. And in verse 13, he's saying you now have a choice who to present yourself in service to, right? You can present yourself to sin as instruments for unrighteousness. or to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members as instruments for righteousness. And he's saying you can't do both at the same time, right? You can't be giving your life to sin and also be giving your life to the Lord at the same moment, right? In each of those decisions, when temptation hits you and opportunity to sin, you're either gonna offer your body to sin or you're gonna offer your body to the Lord. And those are the choices that are in front of you that you have now, that you now have. And he gets to this wonderful comfort in verse 14. that sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace. Sin will not have the final say in your life. Sin cannot hold you forever. It is a lie that you will always be in the grip of this sin. And sin do not have any claim on you anymore. And so again, if these are commands to us in scripture, it means that by the spirit, it's within our power to obey these commands. to consider ourselves dead to sin, to not let sin reign in our mortal bodies. As we think about some application here, is it true that we will never attain sinless perfection in this life? Yes. We don't believe in sinless perfection in this life. But is it true that you can't resist that next temptation to sin? No. you can resist the next temptation to sin by God's grace. At each moment of temptation, you've been given the opportunity and the power by the Spirit to choose what is right. And this is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, 13. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. So when you are tempted this week, maybe it's to lose your mind, scream in anger at somebody, or you're tempted to be lazy, or you're tempted to lust, or when you're tempted to take that thing that doesn't belong to you, it's just right there in front of you, and the temptation is so strong, you can, in Christ, because you're dead to sin, you can say no. And what an amazing gift that is from the Lord Jesus Christ. I think sometimes we're so conscious of the big picture, like, well, I'm never gonna be perfect. It's like, okay, yes, that's the forest, but there's still a tree right in front of you, right? And this tree, this is the next temptation that's gonna hit you. And we need to, you have a choice in that situation. Or maybe, as I was talking about at the beginning, maybe instead you have a really deep-seated, long-standing sin issue that you've pretty much given up on. You've said, it's just who I am. Always gonna be, I'm always gonna have a bad temper. That's just who I am. Or I'm always gonna just tell those little lies. I can't help it, it just comes out. I just always do these things. I'm never gonna achieve any victory. Just because what you have tried before hasn't worked, doesn't mean that you are still in slavery to this sin. So face that, even long-standing, long-seated patterns of sin in your life. Bring it to the Lord. Ask him to empower you for the next time, right? There you go. Right. Yeah, Romans 7 is a very vivid picture of grapple, of internal struggle, and some view this as Paul before he was a believer. I think it's very true to our experience of what it feels like in the moment so often, but we have been delivered by Christ. We have been given hope. I think one of the things, last thing in application here, is to encourage you that it's not just the negative. It's not just you don't have to sin anymore. Recognize he talks here about offering your body as instruments for righteousness. And that's a new thing that you weren't able to do before. You can offer yourself in service to the Lord. with this ability that he's given you in Christ, this new life, this walking in newness of life, you can do things for him and taste that sweetness of serving people like Sean was talking about in a way that you weren't able to before. And what a privilege that is. And it's not easy, right? It's so hard so often to sacrifice and serve and help people and do what's right. But in that moment, I hope you sense the taste or you taste the sweetness of serving, of helping, of being able to do something you didn't have the power to do before. You have new life in Christ and he died so that you could have that you could walk in that newness of life That's what you have the opportunity to do in those choices to do right or to do wrong this week Just now first Corinthians 1013 that the No temptation is overtaking you this not comment to me. That's first Corinthians 1013 the other questions I was always understanding that free will was I'm never going to pick the right thing because I'm always going to pick the sin. By the power of the Holy Spirit in us, obviously we're not myself, but the power of the Holy Spirit is causing me to be dead. So it's when we're against death, we're better than free will, we have the power of the Holy Spirit changing us. And we have the power to do that now, which is a wonderful comfort. Otto. Something else I was noticing there in verse 11, when it says you're to consider yourself to be dead to sin and alive to God, is that that really does tie to baptism. And I won't read the whole thing here, but in the larger catechism, question 167 talks about improving your baptism and reminding yourself, especially in times of temptation, of your baptism. When you draw strength from the death and resurrection of Christ, and the war against sin, and you remind yourself of your quickening and grace. And so really what it means to be baptized is to say, yes, I have died to sin. And so it's just kind of a helpful connection there between that first point you were making and also honoring ourselves as dead to sin. Yeah, in moments of temptation to remember your baptism, right? To remember, that's what Terry was saying about Luther, right? I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian, right? Not counting on your water baptism, like that saved you, but saying, I have died and risen again, I have new life, right? And coaching yourself on that, yeah. That's a wonderful reminder from the catechism. Any other questions? Kim? I was just thinking that this assumes that we all know what sin is, and there are Christians who call sin Yep. Yeah, if you're gonna walk in the newness of life, you need to know what newness of life looks like, and that means we still need the law, right? We still need the law of God to tell us this is right and this is wrong, but it's because we love him and we wanna keep his commandments. And so that is, yeah, if you've got this, if this has been undermined, if someone doesn't believe that the law of God is what it says, then you've got trouble. So that is a struggle. Father in heaven, we thank you and praise you for Jesus Christ's death and resurrection for us. We thank you so much for uniting us to him by baptism, by the Holy Spirit, to him, so that we might have died and risen with him, so that we can know that we have died to sin, and that we are walking and living in newness of life by the power of your spirit. Lord, please help us this week. Help us to offer ourselves to you as instruments for righteousness, that you would do great work in this world, great works in this world through us, and serving the people around us and bringing the lost to know the good news of Jesus and that our bodies that were once dedicated to sin would now be dedicated to righteousness in this newness of life that you've given us. Please be with us as we go from here and bring us all safely home and back together again, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.