Talk—Phil Jennings
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Look to the Lord for His help.
Our God and Father, we just want to thank you this evening for this time that we could spend just a little time in your Word. And Father, we realize it's very late and the the speaker as well as the hearers are tired. And we pray, Father, that the Spirit would take over in this meeting. We really truly want to understand the value.
Of the Gospel of Christ, we want to understand the value of the work which the Lord Jesus did on the cross.
We want to understand the deliverance that it has brought and how it can set us free. And so, Father, we just ask for special help to night that the Spirit of God would have liberty and that there might be blessing to each soul in the room. We confess our weakness, giving you thanks in Jesus name, Amen.
OK so I've never given a series on Romans before where every meeting that I gave.
Was a new group of people. So it's really individual meetings to individual, individual people and I, I, I'm I'm fine with that because this truth, what whatever part of it we take up each part of it brings deliverance to the soul in one aspect or the other. And so it's all part of the gospel of Christ.
It's the good news that God has been able to bring to us.
Because of the person and the work of the Lord Jesus. And so I'm going to refer back to a verse that I I started with in Exodus.
It's Exodus chapter 13, and I actually gave this verse the very it was one of the very first verses that I gave when we started in Romans, but it's actually the chapter that we're taking up the South this evening, which is going to tie this verse in my own mind.
In with the chapter that we're reading and so when I shared it before it was a little bit probably not well understood so.
Exodus 13 verse 17 And it says, and it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God LED them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt.
But God led the people about through the wilderness, through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea, and the children of Israel went up, harnessed out of the land of Egypt. And so I have enjoyed these verses in connection with.
How?
God would bring us.
Into Deliverance.
Into the liberty of the gospel through our understanding and being able to appreciate and make good in our practical life of the death and resurrection of Christ and our identification to that. How God has brought us into identification with the death and resurrection of Christ.
And in what we can turn to Romans.
Romans 6 Now, because that's that's the chapter we're going to take up, we may read a few verses.
The last few verses of chapter 5, but it's in chapter 6 that we're going to understand our identification with the death and resurrection of Christ, and that is the way God leads us.
In our understanding of the value of the work of Christ and the deliverance that it brings in our life in a practical way. Now I will just very briefly because I I spoke to a young man.
The day before yesterday and he said, Phil, we didn't really, you know, you asked us to raise our hands when when I read that verse about.
David being.
Having a rest from his enemies. And I asked the young people to raise their hands. How many of you would like rest from all your enemies? And a lot of young people raise their hand. And then I found out that they didn't really understand what.
That rest meant what, what, what was I speaking about when I was speaking about rest? And so the young man that spoke to me, we talked about it and he talked about how that some days in his Christian life, he has good days. Some days he has struggles, struggles he didn't mention. And I wouldn't ask him what kind of struggles he had. But I think that each one of us.
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Here in the room we we understand that the Christian life sometimes is.
Filled with.
Struggles so struggles against the flesh, struggles with our thoughts, struggles with people, struggles with maybe being envious, all of those.
Tendencies that we have as.
Children of Adam, which we would love as children of God.
Not to have to struggle with and the way in which we get deliverance from these enemies that.
Are we we find in our lives and we struggle with is through the truths of deliverance that are found in the gospel, and these truths are outlined in the first eight chapters of Romans.
And that's what we're taking up. And so we've already spoken about deliverance from the power of sin. We didn't speak on it very long. We already spoke on how that we have we're justified. God sees us in a condition of abiding righteousness, a condition which can never change before him, and that's deliverance.
The work of Christ the Cross has brought deliverance from the the penalty of our sins.
And now, as we begin in Chapter 5, in the last meeting.
We were talking about deliverance from the power of sin, and that's really kind of what this young man was talking about when he said he had struggles. There's the power of sin, that desire to act in accordance with our fallen nature, the desires, the temptations and how that.
We would all like to be able to walk, you might say, in the liberty where in Christ has set us free. We would like to be able to walk in the value of the work of Christ that he's done for us and delivering us from our enemies. And so I'm going to turn now to Romans chapter 6. The wind keeps blowing my pages.
And we're going to talk about death.
And resurrection.
So the last meeting we spoke about how we are in Christ.
Our brother Matt and I can't remember your last name, but you, you, you've, you've shared with the Saints here how much you enjoy the truth of being in Christ. And I like to compare the two things. We were born in Adam. We had our identification in Adam and we had a fallen nature and we, we, we turned everyone to our own way and we, we did not have a relationship with God.
In that condition, but in order for God to bring us into blessing.
He had to introduce another man. That man was the Lord Jesus Christ, and that man was the one who satisfied God's desires, satisfied God's demands, satisfied God's righteousness, satisfied the need, while the desire of God for obedience. Lord Jesus came into this world and he lived a life which was absolutely.
Perfectly satisfying.
To the heart of God, and it's in Him that God has chosen to bring about a new race of mankind, and it's you and I as believers on the Lord Jesus Christ are in Christ.
And so.
Umm, let's just say that that's kind of introduced in the last part of Chapter 5, and that's the subject that we had in our last meeting. Now we're going to take up the question of.
Well, let's just start in Genesis. I mean in Romans chapter 6. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? In order to get that context, we're going to have to back up to the last verse.
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Of the 5th chapter, That as sin hath reigned unto death, Even so might grace.
Reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
You know it was through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross that God could come out.
In On the Principle of Grace.
And bring this to us, so it says, reign through righteousness unto eternal life. Each one of us here that have put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ possess eternal life.
And it was through the cross that God could offer us eternal life because He dealt with our sins in a righteous manner. God has not sacrificed His character in order to bring us into blessing on the principle of grace. You and I have favor before God because God has come out in His grace.
And brought us into this place.
Of eternal blessing and we have eternal life, but it's not something that we earned. It's not something that we were able to.
We don't deserve it, we don't merit it. It's because of who God is. We we we use that expression in one of our meetings. It's it's the blessing that has come to us is based upon who God is, not who or what we are before God. And so the verse before that says more over the law entered that sin.
That the offense might abound. I just want to just quickly make the point that the purpose of the law was that sin might abound.
If we could have found favor with God, it would have been through the law and we would have merited salvation. We would have we would have deserved being given eternal life. But the law when it when, when the law was presented.
All it could do was make sin abound. It just showed us how sinful we were, and that's the principle we're going to get back to as we go on.
So you and I just to.
Establish the ground on which we are before God. We're on the ground of grace. We're on the ground of the fact that God has come out to us in blessing because of His heart of love towards us.
And he provided a way in for, for the for the satisfaction of the demands of sin which he had, he provided away through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And so the ground on which we stand is grace, okay?
Let's go on to chapter 6. Now what shall we say? Shall we then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
The question we have as our subject tonight is deliverance from the power of sin.
We're on the ground of grace. We've established that we're on the ground of grace.
And the question that it's asked here is because we're on the ground of grace, are we going to continue to to conduct ourselves and our are we going to continue to act in the nature, the sin nature that we have?
Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
Let's just go on. I'm just not real clear tonight. So I like the idea here that God doesn't ask us to answer that question. If we answered that question based upon our experience, daily experience, we might say, well, sometimes I continue in sin.
And sometimes I don't. But here the the the question is answered for us. The question the the answer is, shall we continue in our sin nature?
Shall we continue to allow that nature to continue to bear fruit, its fruit unto sin and death?
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The question is answered no, God forbid, and here's the reason.
How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? You know, when the children of Israel went through the Red Sea, they went.
We know that the the Red Sea had dried up. OK, it was the Lord Jesus who dried up the Red Sea for us.
But it's a picture as the children of Israel went through the Red Sea, it was a picture of them going through the waters of judgment and.
Then rising again on the They went into death in the Red Sea, and then they rose up the other side. God sees us the same way. And so it says, How shall ye that are dead to sin?
Live any longer therein God sees us in our atom nature as dead.
How shall ye that are dead to sin live any longer?
They're in Know ye not? And here's the here's the beautiful.
The beautiful illustration that the Lord gives us to help us to understand our condition. Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? So He gives us a picture so that we can He can help us understand how He sees us.
You know, we had a baptism the other day.
Tom Hubert and Tim.
Hebert Hebert and Tim Sibo and then another young boy were baptized. And so they they went that they, they went down into the water. They were submerged into the water and it's a picture of going down into death with the Lord Jesus. And then they rose again out of the water and they rose in newness of life.
Well, that is how.
God sees you and me.
In Adam we go down into the water of judgment, We take everything. You might say that we were an atom. We go down into the water, and we rise again. And so the next verse tells us. Therefore we are buried with Him. By baptism into death we are buried with Him.
Now I'm going to I'm going to give an illustration of this.
Really kind of struggling with my thoughts tonight, but I'm going to give you an illustration of this. Two weeks ago, on my way out here, I was asked to baptize a father and a daughter and.
So I, I, I texted ahead of time and I asked the people, is there a lake or a stream or a river that we might be able to baptize this?
This older gentleman and this young lady and they that he text. I got a text back and they said no, we're going to baptize them in the bathtub, they said.
The streams and rivers are dirty and I said OK, that's fine.
And so I got there and we had this baptism and you know, I really like, I think when I saw.
Tom. When I saw John baptized Tom, when I saw him go completely under the water and disappear, I felt like that was a beautiful picture of baptism. That's what we each need to get an understanding of.
With in connection with our death, burial and resurrection with Christ. You know when I.
I when I did this baptism for this this family here I am got about 8 inches of water in a bathtub and I got this great big guy probably, I don't know, probably about Kevin's, Kevin's size. And I could not with for all I tried, I couldn't make the guy disappear.
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I mean, I was. I was actually.
Pushing him down into this bathtub, trying to get him to, you know, like I saw TomTom completely disappeared. There wasn't any sign of Tom. And it was a beautiful picture of burial.
And that's what you and I need. I couldn't even bury the little girl in the bathtub. I don't even know if she got completely wet. But I know she was baptized because we pronounced in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. I know that was a public confession that they belonged to the Lord Jesus and they were being associated with His death.
And his resurrection, but.
The burial as we have here in chapter 4 and verse four, I believe is extremely important because we need to see the end of what we are in Adam.
We need to see the end. We just need to see the end of what we are in Adam in order for us to be able to go on in the realization and the reality of us being in Christ, risen with Him.
We need to see the end of ourselves.
And so.
I I love this picture of baptism because that's what God wants us to see.
We go down into the water of judgment.
And we identify ourselves with the judgment of God for our sins.
The Lord Jesus bore that judgment. But we see ourselves under those waters of judgment. We see that God judged what we were in Adam. Not only did He judge our sins at the cross, but He, as as Brother Bills told us the other day, the cross put our sins away.
But the.
What is it, Brother Bill?
Look, sends away the death of Christ, puts our put, puts me away. So it's my identification in Adam that God is looking for me to see as myself as dead. And so are we going to continue in sin? Are we going to continue in that sin nature?
When God sees us as dead.
We need to see ourselves as God sees us.
You know, if we judge the truth of God by our experience.
We will see ourselves dead sometimes and not dead other times. God wants us to walk by faith, and He wants us. He wants us to see ourselves as He sees us all the time. So how shall ye that are dead to sin live any longer therein?
Let's go on. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. You know when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, how many of our sins were on Him?
When he rose from the dead, how many of our sins were on him?
The question of our sins. He had had our sins laid on Him on the cross.
And he died under the penalty of sin. But when he rose, the sin question was completely settled.
When you and I rise, as it were, in newness of life, when we live in the reality and the enjoyment of newness of life, the sin question is settled. We see.
That we see our sins, as it were, in the judgment of them, as fully taken care of. For if we have been planted together in verse five in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness.
Of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. So again, this isn't really taking up the question of our sins, it's taking up the question of our nature and God.
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Says knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him.
That the body of sin might be destroyed, that we should henceforth have.
Should not serve sin.
You know the world.
The world crucified the Lord Jesus.
They gave him a cross of shame.
But God identifies us with that cross.
You and I, that which we are in the old man.
He, God, identifies us with that crucifixion.
And we need to, we need to realize that everything we were in Adam.
God has crucified.
Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin.
He that is dead is freed from sin.
You know what I'm going to do, I'm going to share. I'm going to ask a question because I, you know, I've, I've never had a situation like this where my thoughts just are. And I don't know if it's if, if it's the time of night or if the spirit just doesn't have liberty in my soul. But I'm going to share one verse because I'm not going to prolong this. I'm going to ask us a question. I want, I want us each to think about something.
There's a verse here.
That says in verse 14. Let's just go to verse 14.
For sin shall not have dominion over you.
Sin shall not have dominion over you.
Are there times in life where it seems like sin has the power of sin is still active and it still has dominion over you? There are in my there are, there are times in my life, there have been many times in my life where it says, it says here sin shall not have dominion over you.
But I didn't read the whole verse, did I?
For a year, not under the law.
For ye are not under the law. You know we would love for sin to not have dominion over us.
But.
If we are under law in our lives, we are.
Trying to.
Present righteousness to God in the flesh.
Sin will have dominion over us.
I just want to leave this again. I, I'm, you know what? I'm not. I'm, I'm just not.
Feeling at all liberty tonight and I apologize.
It's, it's just something that I don't know if it's late and I, I, I just can't have, I can't keep my thoughts together. But the Lord, the Lord knows, sorry, but the Lord knows why, why this meeting has gone the way it has.
And so I I've I've been meditating on this quite a bit and the Lord just hasn't brought the thoughts together.
So I'm going to I'm going to close with a word of prayer.
Father, we just want to come to Thee tonight, and we thank you for your goodness. We thank You that even when these truths do not, do not flow and when the Spirit of God seems as though He's not able to bring these things out.
Father, we just want to thank you that they're just as true as when they they can flow out. And so we we just pray for each one of these young people.
We're sorry that these things have not been presented in a way that could be encouraging to them.
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But we accept this from you and we know that you do all things well, and so we give you thanks in Jesus name, Amen.