Do you know that if you have placed your faith and trust in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the one who died on the cross to pay for your sins, you can look at sin in your life and say with confidence, I am dead to that, I don’t have to sin. The Gospel, the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection is powerful, and it needs to effect how we think about sin. Not that I can try to beat it or be stronger than it, but that I am dead to it because of Jesus.
In our Adult Bible Fellowship Ministry at Faith Church in Lafayette we are studying through Romans chapters 6, 7, and 8 and seeking to live with a gospel focus.
Paul is communicating to the believers at Rome who need to focus on the gospel (Romans 1:1,16), both in how they remind themselves of the truths of the Gospel so that it impacts the way they live and also so that they participate in spreading the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ dying on the cross for the forgiveness of sins. The Gospel message is that a person can’t work their way to heaven by good works or by being a good person, they need God’s grace and mercy.
Paul’s point in Chapter 6 is that grace does not give one license to sin and live however you want. Instead as we think about God’s grace toward us in Christ, we need to think about how we are united to Christ in His death, so we realize we have died to sin based on our relationship with Christ. That means that sin does not hold the same power over a person once they have received the grace of God in Christ Jesus by admitting their need to be forgiven of their sins and placing their trust in Jesus’ work on the cross. This free gift changes everything. (Romans 6:23)
The power of the Gospel is that, if a person has been freed from sin, they can now live for God, not to earn salvation, but because of salvation. That is why Paul says in 6:11, “Consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We need to consider this, we need to think about what it means to be dead to sin, so that the Gospel motivates us to live for Jesus instead of allowing ourselves to be controlled by sin.
Check out this video that illustrates how we often think about sin, and how we should think about sin based on the freeing power of the Gospel.
My guess is each of us can make a list of things we need to say, “I am dead to that” and then think about what it means to be alive to God instead of giving into our old way of handling things. So weather you get frustrated with a coworker’s work ethic, get short tempered with your kids not obeying, or you are easily angered by your spouse’s actions…list out those sins of pride, anger, bitterness and apply the Gospel to those things and say, “I am dead to that because Jesus died for me.”
- If you have never trusted Jesus as your personal savior, then I would encourage you to place your faith and trust is Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross as your only hope of salvation, so that you can experience the freedom in Christ to live for God.
- If you are a follower of Christ who has been given the gift of eternal life… how are you doing thinking about your sin as something you are dead to, something that does not hold power over you?
How does living with a Gospel focus help you in your daily life? Feel free to share how God’s grace frees you to live for Him.