March 23, 2025, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
Transcribed by Beluga AI.
All right, dear ones, we’re going through Romans, and we’re in chapter six tonight. So I’m going to read the first 14 verses of Romans chapter six. We’ll take a look at that.
And so here’s what we say.
1 What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace. (Romans 6:1-14, CSB)
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer.
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB)
So in Romans 6, Paul asked this question twice. He asked it in verse 1, and then he asked it again in verse 15. And we’ll get to that next week.
And here’s the question. Well, then, should we sin all the more so that grace will abound or grace will multiply? Now, you have to know where this is coming from. And if you were here and paid attention last week, you do know where it’s coming from.
Paul’s talking about Adam and Christ, the new man, the old man and the new man, the two humanities, as we talked about. And he said that grace overwhelms sin and death.
In Adam all die, but in Christ all are made alive. The gift is bigger than the punishment. The wages of sin is death. But Christ overwhelms that. And the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. It’s a bigger gift.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23, CSB)
And he says, no matter how much sin abounds, grace abounds even more.
And so there’s this idea, and we have this idea in modern Christianity. Well, I’ve given my life to Christ. He’s forgiven all my sins, and so I can just sin all I want. And it doesn’t matter because his grace will abound more and more.
And so Paul is addressing that question. Some would say, since Christ has already done it, I can live life any way I want. I can just sin away, and his grace will just be bigger, and it will take all of it. And Paul answers that question.
He says, should we continue to sin so that grace may multiply?
1 What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? (Romans 6:1, CSB)
And he answers it, absolutely not. He gives an emphatic no. And now he’s going to explain why he says no.
31 Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! On the contrary, we uphold the law. (Romans 3:31, CSB)
I don’t know why I remember this from seminary, but 40 years ago when I went to seminary and we were taking Greek, I remember what this phrase was in the Greek. This absolutely not. Meganoito. Meganoito. And I remember my Greek professor said, this is an emphatic no, this is as strong a language as Paul can use.
Should I go on sinning so that grace would abound? And the CSV places it pretty emphatically, absolutely not. But forgive me for this, but this is what my seminary professor said. He said probably the best English rendering of what that meganoito there means is “Hell, no!”, no, don’t be an idiot.
And then he goes on to explain what he means by that. And he basically says, listen, that old way of life wasn’t getting you anywhere. It was a life of death, and sin wasn’t getting you anywhere. Should you continue to live a life of death?
No. Don’t you know? And then he says, don’t you know in your baptism you died to that life you’re now a part of?
This is what he said in Romans 5. Remember, you’re now a part of a new humanity. you’re not no longer a part of Adam, you’re a part of Christ. You died to Adam, you came alive to Christ.
And that’s one of the Baptism does three things for us, and this is one of them.
That’s why I’m going to tell you a story in a little bit to let you know that the amount of water doesn’t matter, but that the idea. And I’m not a Baptist. I’m not a full-on Baptist. I don’t insist that the only baptism that counts is full immersion. However, it is the best picture. It is the best picture.
And one of the reasons is because of this, alright? When we’re baptized, we die with Christ. We’re buried under the waters. Anybody ever heard that about baptism?
We’re buried with Christ, and then we rise again in newness of life. That’s what baptism does to us. We die with Christ, or we die with Christ, and we rise with Christ.
Just like Christ died, so we die. Just like Christ rose, so we rise. We identify with Christ’s death and resurrection and baptism.
Therefore, that old nature, we died to it. We died to sin. We died to that old Adam way of doing things. That old me-first way of doing things.
That old selfish way of it’s all about me and I’m the center of the universe. We died to that.
Let me tell you two other things that baptism is about. Just while we’re on the subject, baptism is about dying and rising again. The other thing baptism is about is what do you get baptized in? What’s the element you get baptized in? Anybody get baptized in vegetable oil? No. What did you get baptized in? Water.
All right, what does water do? Cleans you. Water cleans you. Right?
No matter how much soap you have, if you don’t turn on the water and you just soap up, it’s gross, right? I’m old fashioned. I’ve tried. I went to all the body washes and even at one point, you know, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but, you know, I got a loofah and I’m the least manly of all men. I know. I don’t need a loofah just to add to that, you know, just the name of it sounds bad for a guy. I have a loofah. Guy shouldn’t have loofahs. All right?
I’m just saying it’s not good to have a loofah. So I went back, doggone it, I said, no loofah, no little body wash. And I went back to Costco and I bought myself a big old case of Irish Spring bar soap. But whether you have body wash and Aloofa or Irish Spring bar soap, none of it’s effective without water. I dare you to try. Go home tonight, get in the shower, don’t turn on the water. Take your body wash, put it on the loofah and start spreading it around.
And then get out and try to dry it off. That’s gross. you’ll just be gross, you’ll be slimy, you’ll be just yucky. Or get that bar soap and just start rubbing it on you. But don’t turn on the water, just rub it on you.
Oh, Sophia, the face you’re making, just your imagination is going with that like yuck, yuck. What do we need to activate that cleansing? Good old fashioned water. And that’s what baptism is. you’ve been washed, you’ve been forgiven. So dying and rising with Christ. Baptism, being cleansed, forgiven. Being washed in the water.
Anybody? Fans of Need to Breathe, the band Need to Breathe. Alright, I won’t tell you the song. It’s called Washed in Water. But anyway, it’s about baptism. All right?
Third thing, you are refreshed with the. What else does water do? Water refreshes you when you’re really thirsty. When you’re really parched, you hydrate, you drink water. It’s refreshing. You need to be refreshed. And the refreshing comes by the Holy Spirit. Our lives are refreshed when the Holy Spirit comes into us at our baptism, and we’re hydrated.
I was watching a Pacific Northwest weather channel and a guy definitely Pacific Northwest. I guess it’s going to get a little warm for this time of year, Tuesday and Wednesday. All right. But I. But no, it wasn’t the weather. It was. It was on my weather feed when I went to look at the weather. It said the west coast will be sweltering, sweltering weather. And I looked up Tuesday and Wednesday, 69 and 68. I am sorry. All right. I don’t care how long you’ve lived in Washington.
I don’t care if you come from the North Pole. Nobody ever sweltered at 69 and 68. All right? You don’t swelter. Nobody ever like, oh, I’ve got the vapors. I’m passing out at 68. No, there was no sweltering.
If you want to swelter this summer, don’t stay in Poulsbo. All right? I know when it gets 80, people up here think it’s sweltering. It’s not. You know what we call 80? I grew up in California. 48 years in California. You know, we call 80 there, right? Aiko. February, right? Just 80. It’s like, big deal. 80s.
All right? Sweltering is triple digits. You want to, if you want to swelter, go to, you know, go apply at Grand Canyon University. All right? Go down to Phoenix in July, be 118. I’ll grant you, that’s a swelter.
All right, Isaiah, that’ll be a swelter. That would be weather where you’d be worthy of your short sleeve shirt. Isaiah is what I call Poulsbo man. Actually had a name for it before I ever pastored in Poulsbo. Poulsbo man was the man in the Pacific Northwest. The first day in March, it got over 50 degrees.
You’d see him in the middle of a rainstorm walking into Walmart with a tank top, shorts, and flip flops. That’s Poulsbo man, all right. 50 degrees, he’s sweltering.
But when it’s really hot, you need to be refreshed. It’s one of my favorite old school commercials. I don’t know if anybody remembers this, but it used to be for Lipton iced tea. They would show a sweltering environment, just this hot, hot summer day, and the person was just parched. They would be standing with their back to this crystal blue swimming pool water.
And you’re just like, oh, you got to get in. And then they would show a glass of Lipton iced tea with ice filling the glass and the tea filling the glass and the glass just. You know what glasses do when you swelter, perspiring, you know, all the condensation around the glass. And somebody would take that glass, they would lift it to their lips, and they would drink it. And then in the commercial, they would fall back into the pool.
And literally, as you watch that commercial, you would go, especially if you were, you know, someplace where people swelter, you would go, ah, that’s baptism. Ah, I’ve died with Christ. I’ve risen with Christ. I’ve been cleansed. And now God fills me with his Holy Spirit.
So shall I go on sinning? No, you’ve been baptized. you’ve died and risen. you’ve been cleansed of that. You have the Holy Spirit. you’re new. So our baptism unites us with Christ in his death. And the Bible is very clear on this.
If we share in his death, we also share in his resurrection. Philippians talks about that. Philippians talks about, if I suffer with him in his death, if I share in his sufferings, then I’ll share in his resurrection.
Galatians talks about that, right? I’ve been crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and 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.
20 I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20, CSB)
We die with Christ. And so we rise with Christ.
And that is the story of the Christian life. We suffer and we die, but we will rise.
And dear ones, we make a big mistake when we think that Jesus comes to make us better. Jesus comes to make us better. I mean, there’s truth in that. I’m not denying that he does make us better, but he doesn’t come to make us better first.
And people think, oh, I got to go to church, I got to get my kids to church to get them some morals, you know, to teach them the right way to live.
And I got to get to church to become a better person. And we all want to get better, but what Jesus comes to do first is not make us better, but kill us.
We come to Jesus to die so that we can rise with him in the newness of life. That old Adam in us, that old me first, that old nature, that old humanity, it doesn’t need to be transformed, it doesn’t need to be fixed. I don’t need to get rid of a few bad habits. I need to die and then come alive in Christ.
Had a friend, and he worked for a construction company, an international construction company, and always worked overseas. So he and his wife were both friends of mine, but they had one of those difficult relationships where he was gone six months of the year. She’d go visit him, and he’d try to come visit her. But, you know, he made a lot of money, and it was important, high-end, big, you know, big construction projects, you know, huge canals and those sorts of things. And he was, you know, a bit of a top, top-notch supervisor.
And you know, he had to be gone all the time. He was also a Navy Seal. He had served in Vietnam as a Navy Seal.
I remember one time, and he’s always going over to foreign countries, right? He’s going over to the Middle East, he’s going down to South America. And so I remember one time I looked at him and I said, Danny, you don’t really work for blah, blah, blah, construction company. I said, you work with the NSA, don’t you? The National Security Agency.
And Danny, I’m assuming this was a joke, but he did it so straight-faced and so serious. He looked at me and he said, if I tell you, I have to kill you. And I got to this day, Danny’s died. To this day, I’m not sure if he was just, you know, I’m pretty sure he was like jerking me around. But there’s part of me is like, maybe, maybe that’s why he’s gone all this time.
So Jesus, I want to come to you. CS Lewis has a great image of this.
He says we invite Jesus into our house because the house of our lives. And he uses the analogy like our lives are like houses. And you know, he just goes, I’ve got a little cracked sidewall and I’ve got a little leaky faucet. I want him to come in and fix those little problems in my life.
So I invite him into my life and sure enough, he fixes those problems. But then he won’t leave. He starts knocking down walls. I didn’t ask for this. He starts doing a complete overhaul, a complete reconstruction.
What’s going on? He’s making a house fit for himself to dwell in.
Jesus, come into my life. If I do, I got to kill you. Okay, you kill that old Adam nature in me. Paul says it this way, right? I die daily.
There’s a part of living the Christian life that involves dying to self on a regular basis. But when we do that, when we share in his death, we share in his resurrection. We come alive to a new life, to a life without sin. Slavery or death were crucified with Christ.
Therefore we’re freed from sin, slavery. Everybody in here still sins. But I got great news for you. You don’t have to anymore. Before you gave your life to Christ, you had to sin. All right, you may be a goody two shoes, but you still had to sin. Alright, some of you in this room, you’re bent as toward being a goody two shoes. What do I mean by that? You like to follow the rules. you’re a good little Christian girl or a good little Christian boy. And you’re, you know, I married one of those, all right?
I married a goody two shoes. She honored her parents, she studied for school. Like what’s up with this girl?
But you know what happens for goody two shoes when they don’t have Christ? They become proud. They become self-righteous, they become religious. They become Pharisees.
Then there are other people. They’re not goody two shoes, they’re rule breakers. They see a sign, Jamie, that says stay off the grass and they go, huh? What are they hiding on that grass? Somebody tells them when they’re a teenager, you know, girls can’t be pilots in the Navy.
Huh, we’ll see about that. They like to break the rules, break the mold. I told you I married a goody two shoes. Not me. She would memorize chapters in her book before she would take a test for school. She was so conscientious about being a good student and her grades. I would show up randomly on days I wasn’t cutting to find out there was a test. It’s like, oh, there’s a test today. Okay, we’ll take it. Rule breakers are rebels. They defy God. They defy the rules. They say my way is better.
In either case, you’re a sinner. you’re going to sin one way or the other, right? you’re going to smoke till you die or you’re going to be proud that you don’t. Either way. But I got great news for you. Once you die with Christ, you don’t have to sin at all anymore. Now probably you still do. Why? Old habits die hard. But here’s the deal. When Christians sin, they’re playing with a dead thing, which is gross when you think about it. It’s gross.
Josh D’Antino Santo told me a story today about what they discovered when he was a kid. In his house, they discovered a snake in the basement. The brothers took a hammer to the snake and bashed its head in and killed it. They brought it upstairs. Mom said, throw that out back, throw that over the fence, out on the back, you know, the back field. So they did it. Then the mom went to work, and she came home from work to find her youngest son on the front porch with the snake going, whoo.
Playing with a dead thing. The other, my niece and nephew, my sister and brother-in-law, they had a well-beloved family pet, a cat. And their kids were really little, and the cat died. Sorry. So the cat died. And they didn’t know how the kids were going to take it. They didn’t know how they were going to tell them. They know that it’s the first beloved pet that dies. Every parent’s got to deal with that. Every kid’s got to deal with that. I said, okay, we got to tell him.
Now, my brother-in-law, he’s a very generous Christian man. But when it comes to personal finances, I think I told you this last week, he is super frugal. He is tight as can be. I mean, I saw him pick up a penny one time in a parking lot, and he squeezed it so hard, the penny. And he groaned, ouch, you’re hurting me.
So he’s just very frugal. So instead of having the cat buried, they took it to the vet.
Instead of having it buried at the vet, he says, well, we’ll just take care of it. And instead of digging a hole in the backyard and burying the pet, he did this. He just went outside to the garbage and threw the cat in the garbage.
Well, unbeknownst to him, until they discovered it, my little 4-year-old niece and 3-year-old nephew, I guess kids rummaged through the garbage. They found the cat, and when they found the kids, they weren’t crying or weeping or wailing over the cat.
They were going meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. They were playing with the dead cat. That’s what Christian. That’s gross, isn’t it? That’s a gross image, right?
That’s what we do when we sin. We’re playing with a dead thing. So don’t do it. It’s stupid, it’s gross. All right, don’t go back to the old habits. They won’t feel any better than they did last time. They didn’t fix you back then, they’re not going to fix you now.
But you actually have power. We’re going to talk about that. To be free from those.
The Bible says that Christ died once for all, but now lives continuously unto God.
Paul says, listen, Christ died, but now he’s been raised and he lives continuously. He’s raised, he ascended. He’s at the right hand of God the Father. He is raised and he lives for God for all eternity.
When Jesus died on the cross, he said it is finished, the debt has been paid. He doesn’t have to die again. Every time you sin, Christ doesn’t have to be re-crucified. It’s done. The work is done. He’s risen. He lives before God.
Sin, Satan, and death have been defeated. The battle has been won. It is over, it’s done. This is just mop-up time. This is just bringing that salvation now to the rest of the earth.
And now we too, because we’re united with him, we too are dead to sin, but now we too are alive to God. We were talking about this. Sometimes if you grow up in a Christian household, you think you missed out.
It’s like all those worldly kids had all the fun. You know, they went to the parties, and they got to experiment with the drugs, and they got to experiment with premarital sex, and they got to break the rules, and they had all the, they went to college and had this wild time, and they had fun.
But those of us who live that can tell you it wasn’t that fun.
It was pretty hard. It was pretty hurtful, and we hurt others, and we got hurt by others, and sometimes put our lives at risk with just stupid, stupid things. But then that’s why Jesus says he’s forgiven much, loves much.
Then you become alive to God, and you realize, oh, I’m not giving up anything but death. I’ve had more fun since I became a Christian than before. I laugh more, I have more joy, I have better friends, I have more love. I was just saying, just, you know, going and visiting my grandkids.
My little 2-year-old granddaughter moves over in her seat and pats the seat next to her and says, kahuna, sit here. Listen, you don’t know joy until your little two-year-old adorable granddaughter pats the seat next to her and says, I want my grandpa to sit next to me. I never had joy like that. That’s just like done, done.
That comes from Christ, that comes from a life built in Christ. That those kinds of relationships and that kind of life has been gifted. When we die with Christ, we become alive to God.
13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. (Romans 6:13, CSB)
And therefore we’re to offer our bodies to God as instruments of righteousness, not offer our bodies to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. What you do with your body counts. It’s not just a spiritual thing. Oh, I gave my life to Jesus, now I can do whatever I want. No, what you do with your body counts.
Listen, the very fact that you’re here tonight says that you’re offering your body to God as tools of righteousness. How are you offering your body?
You got your butt out of your chair or wherever it was, and you came down here, and now you put your butt in a church chair. We have a phrase for that, but it’s an old-fashioned phrase. Pastors have a phrase, it’s called BIP. And so what’s BIP? Buts and pews, butts and chairs, Bic. I don’t know.
But listen, by making the sacrifice, right, you made a sacrifice. Sundays are busy, aren’t they? At the Kagawa family, you go to church once, then you go to church again. It’s busy Sunday, all right?
It’s Sunday night, and it’s raining, and you know it’s cold. And you know you offered your body as a sacrifice unto righteousness.
You do it when you sacrifice. When you sacrifice for somebody else. You do it when you care for the poor. You do it when you, when you live not just unto yourself, but for others. You do it when you worship. You offer your body as a tool of righteousness.
What? You do it when you hit your knees and pray. What you do with your body matters.
He says, don’t offer the parts of your body to sin. Offer them to God as an act of righteousness.
Because next week, we’re going to talk about it. Whatever you offer your body to, you become a slave to. That’s why we have, you know, that’s why most sin is addictive. You know, it starts out by, oh, that was fun, or, that was neat. And then pretty soon, what happens is the pleasure goes down as the need goes up.
When I was addicted to drugs, first time I did.
First time I got high, it was fun. It was like, whoo, I never felt like this before. My troubles went away, and my concerns went away for a while. I ate this dessert, this kind of kettle corn called fiddle faddle. They used to have fiddle faddle. It was kind of like this kettle corn fiddle faddle. This is a particular manifestation of marijuana. It tasted so good. It was awesome. I thought, man, I’m just going to do this again. So I did it again.
And I did it again and again and again. And six years later, the fiddle faddle didn’t taste good. All I knew is I needed it. What had happened? I’d become a slave. I’d become addicted. And the pleasure of the thing was gone, but the need for the thing was controlling. That’s what happens when we offer our bodies to sin. It’s a trick. All right, first time, great. Six years later, slave, offer your bodies as tools of righteousness to God. Here’s the thing with God.
The first time we do it, it might be hard, but the joy and the pleasure increase, and the freedom, the compulsion decreases.
So I no longer do it out of this, like, oh, I better, you know, I know I used to read my Bible. You know, I was taught to read my Bible. When I became a Christian, I used to read my Bible, and I read it this way.
And you’ve probably read your Bible this way. All right. They said at church, I better read my Bible. So I’m going to read my Bible.
I’d read it as fast as I could to get it over with, and then I’d say my prayers as fast as I could to get my quiet time over with. It’s like, there I did it. I was a good religious boy, you know.
Now I love the Bible. It’s words of life to me. And then I’ll be sitting in my room, and I’ll say, come, Holy Spirit. And all of a sudden, this presence will fill the room. I’ll be like, this is better than anything I know.
You could be a slave to sin, or you could be a slave to God. One is life and health and peace and joy, and the other is desperation and death and sadness. And it all starts with where we offer our bodies. What do we do with this tent that we live in? Sin shall not be our master anymore, for we are not under the law, but we are empowered by grace.
What does that mean? God gave the law to Israel, but the law never changed anybody’s behavior. I already talked about this.
There’s two kinds of responses to the law. One is this kind of rigorous, legalistic obedience. But it doesn’t make us more loving. It doesn’t make us more kind. It simply makes us more proud. How many of you have met mean Christians, right? They carry big Bibles and they know they can quote Scripture, usually the King James version. And you don’t want to introduce your friends to those people because they’re just mean. Well, why are they mean? Because they’re under the law. They think the whole thing is about do’s and don’ts.
And the law does not change a heart. The law was written to reveal sin, all right? The law shows us that we need God.
Would the world be better if everybody followed the Ten Commandments? Sure, but not if they did it self-righteously and meanly and persecuted people who struggled to follow the Ten Commandments. It doesn’t change our hearts.
And for many people who can’t, you know, who don’t have the capacity to be. To kind of follow the rules, they just get condemned because it’s like, I can’t do it.
You know, Jesus comes along.
13 Do not murder. (Exodus 20:13, CSB)
First of all, you have the Ten Commandments, right? Thou shall not murder. Well, I’ve never murdered. Jesus comes along and says, well, don’t hold anger in your heart. I’ve held anger in my heart. All right? I don’t know if any of you, any of you ever held anger in your heart, really.
You know, somebody does something to you, and it’s like, ugh, all right, you’re married. Ever hold anger in your heart? If you’re married, don’t nod your heads too much. Aiko, Ats or don’t look at each other. We won’t tell.
Stevin’s not here. All right. I bet Sean’s never done anything to hack you off where you just kind of held anger in your heart for a little while, you know. Just, you know, Jacob was probably just glowingly easy to live with growing up. Never held any anger in your heart. Jesus says that’s murder. Oh, my gosh.
Never committed adultery. Never committed adultery. Never cheated on Jill. Never cheated on Jill. Not only that, didn’t fornicate before I knew her. I’m a one woman man. My whole life just been with one woman. Never cheated on her.
Feel pretty proud about that. Then Jesus comes along and says, have you ever lusted in your heart? Shut up, Jesus. Why are you messing with me like that?
See, the law can’t make me better. You can either make me self-righteous or just feel condemned. But he says, sin will no longer be your master. Why? you’re no longer under the law. you’re now empowered by grace.
What does that mean? He’s actually planted his life and his character in us.
So now there’s a power that lives in me that is more powerful than the power of sin. And that power is released in me not by trying really, really hard to be really, really good. That power is released in me based on the depth of my loving relationship with him.
And he says, when that is released in you, it’s like a tree. We read Psalm 1:1, that fruit begins to grow on. And here’s the fruit of living with Christ, of living in a loving relationship with God through his Son, Jesus Christ.
He puts his life in you, in the person of the Holy Spirit. And he says, then the Holy Spirit grows these characteristics in your life: love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.
You notice there’s no don’ts there. There’s no don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t do this. It’s simply, I will give you love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.
That doesn’t mean we should do the don’ts. It simply means when we’re filled with those things, we won’t do the don’ts.
In Galatians 5:16, he says, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of a sinful nature.
16 I say, then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16, CSB)
It doesn’t say, get your act together and stop gratifying the desires of the sinful nature. And then God will give you his spirit.
That’s the religious view. If you earn it, God will give you his spirit. No, if you walk in the free gift of His Spirit, God will give you freedom from the sinful nature and grow in you the character of Christ.
Well, Kevin, I do that sometimes, but I’m not perfect in it.
Join the club. Hospital for sinners, not a hotel for saints. This ain’t the place the perfect people come to hang out.
This is the place where people come who are in the process of growing in love with Jesus. Because we’ve died to that old nature. We’re alive to the new.
And it’s like getting comfortable in our new set of clothes, getting comfortable in our new environment, understanding what it means to walk in this relationship.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, (Galatians 5:22, CSB)
So day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, love, joy, peace, patience,
7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir. (Galatians 4:7, CSB)
goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control grow in our lives.
And we’re no longer slaves to sin, but we’re free and abundant children of God. And, dear ones, we don’t get excited enough about this. This is good news. This is good news. You don’t have to be the old stinker you once were.
When I used to. Man, I had a foul mouth.
When I was in high school, before I met Christ, I cussed and I swore, and it was bad. I had a friend who was on the high school football team.
Now, if you’re on a high school football team, that’s like being in the Navy, right? They always say cuss like a sailor. All right, I cussed worse than a sailor.
I had a friend who was on the varsity football team, and he was ashamed at how I talked. Like, come on, Clancey, you effing. Really talk effing bad. You know? That’s how he would talk.
And I talked worse than him. And I gave my life to Christ. And I remember it was like two weeks after I gave my life to Christ. I remember I completely had stopped cussing.
And it wasn’t that I said, boy, now that I’m a Christian, I’m going to stop cussing. All it was, as I started digging into that relationship, God said, I’ll lift this out of your life.
And I really. I didn’t say any cuss words after that until I had children.
And then I had to learn all over again because sometimes kids do stuff and you just got to go, what that? I don’t know. Anybody else? No. You never cussed, Jamie? No. I don’t want to know. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t want to know.
All I know is that Jesus puts his life in us. And it is so good. It is so good. It’s not just. Again. It’s not just that when we die, we get to go to the good place. That’s not the point.
The point is when we’re baptized and we die to our old self, the author, the creator, the lover who makes all of life worth living comes into our life. So where else could we spend eternity if we spend it with him? Because wherever he is, that’s the good place. That’s the good place.
He said, I’m changing everything. I’m bringing a New Covenant. And this New Covenant starts with the forgiveness of sins. You come to me, you get a clean slate. In fact, you get a clean slate every morning.
The book of Lamentations prophesies this.
He says, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, O God.
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.(Lamentations 3:22-23, CSB)
Every morning you get to start fresh with Jesus. No condemnation, no guilt, no shame, forgiveness, mercy, and love. And he says, here’s how I want. I want you to feed that life. Right? We talked about that. We talked about, you know, being refreshed by His Holy Spirit.
So now we read our Bibles, but not out of religion.
Not because we have to read our Bibles, because they told us that in church. We read our Bibles because in them we hear the beautiful voice of God.
We say our prayers. Not because they told us we have to have a quiet time and say our prayers or we’ll go to hell. We say our prayers because in our prayers we encounter a real living God who transforms us and changes us and answers our prayers.
And we come to the communion table. Why?
Not because we’re told this is another religious hoop or ritual you have to go through, but because Jesus himself invites us and it’s his table.
Who wouldn’t want to have dinner with Jesus? Who wouldn’t want to come and say, I’ll take your food. He offers it to us. The food of the New Covenant. Forgiveness of sins, eternal life. Him, the real prize. Father, Son, Holy Spirit forever.
And I pray as we come to this table, we not only remember what he did for us, but just like when we read the Bible, we not only learn from the stories, we actually encounter the author of the story.
So Jesus, as we come to the table tonight and take this simple meal of bread and fruit of the vine, we pray that we would encounter you and we’d walk out of this building more like you than we walked in. Because we’ve died to the old way, and we’re alive to the new.
And you live in us. Thank you for great gifts that are too. The words thank you don’t say it enough.
We could sing a song that says, I love you, I love you, I love you 40 times. And it’s not enough. But we want to say it one more time as we come to this table. Thank you. And feed us with the life of Christ.
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