Our Scripture reading this morning is taken from Romans 5 and 6. We'll begin our reading at Romans 5, verse 18, and read down through Romans 6, verse 14. So, beginning our reading of God's Word, the book of Romans, chapter 5, at verse 18. Let us give careful attention, for this is God's own Word. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Now, the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace might also reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 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 we shall 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. Do not let 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. So far, the reading. Our preparatory form calls us, you remember, unless you've forgotten already, to three elements of self-examination, to consider how sinful we are, to consider what a perfect Savior Jesus is, and to consider how we are to pursue a new life, how we are to live for Him. And it's that third point I want to consider with you a little bit this morning. What does it mean to pursue holiness? What does it mean to live for Christ? What does it mean to be a people seeking sanctification? And Paul here, particularly at the beginning of Romans 6, is turning very determinedly and very directly to that subject. What does it mean to pursue holiness? It's the third major section of this letter to the Romans. The first section was to convince us all that we're sinners. The second section was to convince us all that we can only find redemption from sin by the grace and work of Jesus Christ. And the third section, beginning here at the beginning of chapter 6, is about how we are to pursue holiness as those who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ. He does that because he's a pastor who's concerned about the holiness of his people. He does that in every letter he writes, calling us to be a people who pursue holiness. But he also does it in a special way to the letter to the Romans because there had been critics in the Roman church saying Paul didn't care about holiness. And maybe they would even have quoted his own words back to him, with which he ended Romans chapter 5 when he said, where sin increases, grace does not much more abound. What a wonderful promise. Where sin increases, grace does much more abound. But some people have said, you know what those words really mean, Paul? They mean we ought to sin more, that we can get more grace. And Paul is horrified that anyone should interpret his words in that way. And so he wants to show, beginning in chapter 6, that he's committed to holiness, and he's committed to the way of holiness, and as a faithful pastor, he's showing people what the way to holiness looks like. Now, if you study the history of the church, and I recommend that to all of you, you find there are many strategies in the history of the church recommended on how to pursue holiness. And if we read Paul carefully, we'll see that a lot of those strategies are really not good at all, not biblical at all. There have been some in the history of church who've said, if you don't pursue holiness, you'll lose your salvation. Paul certainly doesn't say that. There have been some who've said, you're only really holy if you achieve perfection. Paul doesn't say that either. There have been some who've said, well, the path to holiness is just try harder. Ministers are inclined to say that. And I would like to go on record as saying you should all try harder. I should too. But that's really not the path of holiness that Paul lays out here. Paul is really striking in what he has to say here. And what he has to say here in the first place about holiness and the pursuit of holiness is the path to holiness begins with this. You have to know who you are. You have to know who you are, and you have to always remember who you are. That's why the Lord's Supper should be such a help to us in pursuing holiness, because the Lord's Supper is about remembering, about remembering what Christ has done for us. We need help to remember. We're forgetful people. Our minds wander. And Paul is saying here, if you really want to pursue holiness, the first critical thing is to know who you are. Know your identity. And Pastor Gordon has been making a point in recent sermons about the critical nature of questions of identity in our time. And so, this is a very timely message from the Apostle Paul. Who are you? How do you define yourself? How do you understand yourself? Who are you? And he makes three points. He is a preacher, after all. He makes three points. And the first point is, you are a people who have died. Maybe that's somewhat surprising. It's certainly surprising how strong His language is. You have died to sin. You have been buried with Christ. You have experienced a death like His. Your old self has been crucified, that the body of sin might be brought to nothing. you're dead. What does he mean by that? What does he mean by that? Sometimes we're so pious we don't pause to ask, what does he mean by that? We nod, but we may not understand. What's the point he's making here? What does it mean to be a people who have died? Well, he's saying in the first place, we are a people who share in Christ's death. We are a people who share in Christ's death. We are united to him in death, Paul says in verse 5. In verse 8 he says, we have died with Christ. When Christ died on the cross in a profound sense, We, His people, died with Him. He died for us. We understand that. But in a profound sense, He died with us. We were with Him. We were on His mind. We were on His heart when He died on the cross. And He died that we might die. Die to the old life. Die to the old self. Die to sin. That's the point that Paul is making here. And the promise is that we only have to die that death once. Verse 10, the death he died to sin, he died once for all. Christ never dies again, you never die again. If you belong to him, the great death is over. The great death to sin is over because you have died to sin. and this means Paul makes clear that because we have died sin is no longer our master sin is no longer our lord sin is no longer our king he uses all those phrases in here we have a new master we have a new lord we have a new king because of the work of Jesus Christ, and we've died to our old master. That's an essential characteristic of slavery, isn't it? That a slave belongs to a master only as long as a slave is alive. Slavery was such a horror in many places and in many times, the most a slave could hope for was to die and be free. And Paul really is thinking about that and saying that's what's true of you as the people of Jesus Christ. You've died to your old master. You've died to your old ruler because you're united to Christ. You're set free. Verse 6 says that very explicitly. You are no longer enslaved to sin. sin is not in control of you. That's a bold claim, isn't it? It's a bold declaration. But Paul says, you need to know that. You need to begin there. You don't belong to sin because you've died to sin and have a new master. Our catechism captures that brilliantly, doesn't it, right at the beginning? I am not my own, but belong, body and soul, and life and in death, to my faithful Savior. I've died to the old life. I've died to the old self. Death no longer has dominion, verse 9. So there's our identity. We are a people who are dead. But there's nothing but rejoicing in this death, in this deliverance from bondage. And that leads on to consider baptism in relation to that death. Paul refers to baptism here very centrally. And he says, if you want to know who you are as someone who has died to sin, think about your baptism. Now, in our baptismal forms, we stress baptism as washing, which is important and one of the themes of the New Testament about baptism. But there's another theme about baptism that Paul is highlighting here, and that is that the water of baptism not only expresses washing from sin, But the water of baptism also expresses dying to sin, because the water of baptism is the water of drowning and dying. And that's a theme that we find in the New Testament. Several places in 1 Peter chapter 3, Peter compares baptism to Noah and the flood. And you will remember that the waters of the flood in Noah's day were dangerous indeed and killed most people. But baptism expressed going through the water and coming out alive. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul talks about the water of baptism in a similar way. Moses at the Red Sea, the Red Sea opened up so that the people of God could pass through, but then closed up to drown Pharaoh and all his hosts. And what is being said here by Paul in Romans is that when you think about your baptism, when you think about your identity, think about how you went into the water and died there with Christ. It's a symbol. It's an expression. It reminds us of who we are. Our identity is as a baptized people who died to the old life, and we'll see He shortly rose to the new life. You know, it's interesting, in some cultures, one of the hardest parts of communicating Christianity was to encourage new believers to be baptized, because the surrounding culture understood that Christian baptism was a marker of separation from the old life to a new life. And they could let you believe anything you wanted, but they didn't want you to experience that marker of change and separation. And Paul is saying here, if you really want to know yourself, you need to know yourself in terms of that marker which expresses that we have died with Christ, and if we've died with Christ, then we are raised with Christ. That's the second thing he wants us to know. We are dead to sin, and we are alive in Christ. That's at the very heart of the good news, isn't it? We are alive in Christ. When Christ rose, We rose with him. As when Christ died, we died with him, so when he arose, we arose with him. Paul says we are united to his resurrection. The life of power and glory and newness that Jesus experienced in his resurrection is now our life, Paul says. And if you want to pursue holiness, you have to know not only that you died to sin, but that you are alive in Christ, a life that will last forever. Christ will never die again. That's easy to see, isn't it? The resurrected Christ will never die again. It maybe is harder to see that we in Him will never die either. The life He gives us can never be extinguished because we have life forever in Him. And our baptism shows us that as well. As we come out of the water of baptism, it's a coming to life. Just as Noah came out of the ark, and just as Moses passed through the Red Sea to life beyond. Life in a new world, life in a promised land. That's what we experience as well. We are alive in Christ. And then we come to verse 11 of our text, where Paul says, Romans 6, 11, So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ. I think for most preachers, the hardest part of any section of the Bible to preach is a section without imperatives, without commands, without telling people what to do. We like to tell people what to do. But Paul in Romans 6 verse 10 does not have a single imperative. He doesn't have a single command for you or me. And he doesn't have a command until verse 11. And that command is the simple one we've been talking about. So consider yourself. Think of yourself. Count yourself. Reckon yourself as dead to sin and alive to Christ. The first command about holiness is how you think. Think of yourself as dead to sin and alive to Christ. So this pursuit of holiness stuff is easy, right? Just think. Think of yourself as dead. Think of yourself as alive. We're done. But I warn you, this is a three-point sermon, not a two-point sermon. And Paul doesn't want to diminish for a minute anything he's said. We cannot pursue holiness unless we think correctly about ourselves as to who we are and to whom we belong. But point three says, so if you're dead to sin, and if you're alive to Christ, then live. Live out who you are. live out who you are. Be who you are. If you're dead to sin, live as one dead to sin. If you're alive to Christ, live as one alive to Christ. Well, that was easy. No, Paul doesn't say it's easy, but he does say, if you know yourself to be dead and you know yourself to be alive, then walk in the newness of that life. That has to be always foundational. And then whatever struggle we face, whatever difficulty we have, we can orient ourselves rightly to how we move forward. If we know what sin is, we know we're not to walk that way. If we know what life in Christ is, we know that's the way to walk. Now, he doesn't imply that it's always easy. It's certainly not automatic. There can be terrible struggles in the Christian life, and I think that's what he develops in Romans chapter 7. I believe most of us as Christians have experienced that internal struggle and warfare, the good that I would, that I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do. That's the struggle that can take place in the Christian heart. If there weren't that struggle, we wouldn't have to have a prayer of confession every Sunday morning. We could come and say, Lord, I'm thankful I was perfect last week. But those of us who have family and friends can never say that, because even if we don't see it, they can. No, there can be intense struggle. There can be times when we think we're drowning in sin. And Paul says, if you think you're drowning in sin, if you think that sin is controlling you, If you think you don't have any self-determination left, the first thing to do is to say, I am dead to sin, and I'm alive to Christ. And in that struggle, then, He will be with us to deliver us, to help us, to encourage us. And Paul goes on in this text when he's talking about how we're to live, how we're to struggle. To make a very important distinction that he uses throughout chapter 6, 7, and 8. To help us understand the dynamics of this struggle in our lives. And I think the essence here is this. There is who we are essentially at the core of our being and who we still are peripherally as he talks about our body and our members. Now, he's not saying that sin dwells in our body physically, but he says, I think, that the body is a good example of what's going on in Christian experience in the struggle against sin. What is true of our bodies? Well, unless you're quite young, as many of you are, we know that our bodies are getting old and they're getting weaker and they're heading towards death. But that reality in our body does not tell the story of who we really are. Who we really are are people who have been made alive in Christ and will never die. So the body doesn't tell the real truth. The real truth is that in our hearts, in our souls, in our core, we belong to Jesus. And although the body of death, the members, the externals, the periphery of us may still want to lead us astray into sin and may have great power in the passions of our lives to lead us towards sin. The pursuit of holiness is that whenever we look at sin and the struggle against sin and the temptation of sin, we say, that's not who I am. It may be what I want to do, but it's not who I am. I want to walk in the newness of life that Jesus Christ has won for me when he died to sin and rose to life. So if you're struggling against sin, don't lose heart. But remember who you are. Remember what Christ has done for you, what he's made of you, what he's doing in you. And walk in the newness of life. And there's a wonderful promise here. A wonderful promise. The promise is that sin shall not have the mastery over you. Sin can never win the battle if you belong to Jesus. Or maybe I should put it better. Sin may win some battles, but it will never win the war. Sin will not have dominion over you, Paul says. Now, the word dominion is related to the word for lordship. Sin will not have dominion over you because sin is not your Lord. You have another Lord. You have Jesus as your Lord. And Jesus will be victorious. This is the theme that Paul develops in Romans 8, particularly at the conclusion of Romans 8. What shall separate us from the love of God? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing in all creation. not even my own continuing sinfulness can separate me from the love of God because I've died to sin and I'm alive in Christ and by His Spirit I'm walking in the newness of life and however great the struggle I will find the victory in Jesus Christ my Savior. So go ahead, try harder. That's a good thing. but the better thing is to know who you are. Always start with who you are. Start with who Christ has made you to be. Start with what Christ has done for you, and then you'll walk in the newness of life, and whatever the struggle, you'll be able to say at the end, sin has no dominion over me. For where sin increased, grace did much more about. May that be true of every one of us. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord our God, how thankful we are for a Savior. How thankful we are that He has done for us what we could never do for ourselves. How thankful we are that He has rescued us from our old master, sin and death, and he has made us alive in him. And how we do pray, O Lord, that we would always think rightly of ourselves, not of our goodness, but of our life from him. And help us then to walk in the newness of life to his praise, to his glory. And particularly for those, O Lord, who may be in the midst of most serious struggle with sin. Help them to remember that they are his, that they are Christians, that he will not let them go as they belong to him. And give us joy then to come and to remember all the work of the Savior for us at his own table tonight. For we pray in Jesus' name, amen.