Three Faith Words To Victory: Romans Series #16

How many victorious Christians do you know? We know that we’re saved by grace, and we thank God for this. There’s absolutely nothing we can do to save ourselves or to help save ourselves. We’re saved by the grace of God. If you come to God as a prince, you’ll go away a beggar, but if you come to God as a beggar, you’ll go away as a prince. 

Now we’re not saved by works of any kind. Good deeds cannot save us. Does that mean, however, that it makes no difference how we live? In Romans chapter 6:1 we read, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” That is, if we’re saved by grace, shall we sin more so that grace will be all the richer? The Apostle Paul answers the question with, “God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” God saves us by grace, but the way God saves us by grace is to make us dead to sin. 

There are three key words in Romans Chapter six. In verse six, note the word, “knowing.” We learn, “knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him.” 

In verse eleven, “reckon” is the key word. In verse thirteen, we read, “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of righteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God.” The third key word is, “yield.” The three key words are, knowing, reckoning and yielding. 

The first word, know – that deals with fact. The second word, calculate – that deals with faith. The third word, yield – that deals with function. We are going to learn how to put fact, faith and function together. When we understand the fact, we put our faith in that fact, and then we yield to it and begin to live victoriously. 

I. Our Facts Of Identification 

I write about our identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Think of the word identification. There is a fact, and that fact is your identification with the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Romans 6:10 we read, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him.” With who? With Jesus. “. . . that the body of sin [that’s the old man) might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” 

Before we were saved, we were slaves, servants, of sin. But he says that our old man, that old slave, was crucified with Jesus. We read, “For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dies no more; death has no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he lives, he lives unto God.”

The Apostle Paul gives us facts. We’re talking about something we should know, and what we should know is our identification with the Lord Jesus Christ. 

When Jesus died on the cross, you died with Him because He died for you. He died as your substitute. He took you to the cross, and on the cross when He died you died. His death had your name on it. 

A. The Penalty Of Sin

In verse six, we read, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him.” Note, “with him.” Now, when He died on the cross, He not only died to take away your sin, He died to take away your sin, but yourself was nailed to the cross. Your sin, that deals with sin’s penalty. When He took you to the cross, that deals with sin’s power. Now you died on that cross. He died for you, and therefore you died with Him.

Two thousand years ago when Christ went to Calvary, you went there also. When Jesus died, he was there. When Jesus died, you were there. And on that cross, we died with Him. He died for us. We died with Him. We need to be identified with His death.

When you die with Christ, what power does the law have to condemn you? None. You’re dead. What power does Satan have over your life? None. Before we were slaves to sin, but we died, and so our old master has absolutely no more power over us. You see when, when He died for us, that deals with sin’s penalty, but when we died with Him, that deals with sin’s power. The law has no more power over us, and Satan has no more power over us. 

B. The Pollution Of Sin

Furthermore, not only did we die with Him, but we were also buried with Him. In Romans 6:3, we read, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him.” 

We are buried with Him. Not only did I die with Him, His death had my name on it, but His burial had my name on it. Did you know that the burial of Jesus Christ is part of the Gospel? In I Corinthians 15:3-4, we read, “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried.” 

He was buried. You say, “What does the burial have to do with the Gospel?” Well, what do you do when somebody dies? You bury them, because the body, the corpse, will decay will take place. Thus, we take the dead body and we bury it. 

When Jesus died, He dealt with the power of sin over us. We no longer sin’s slave. He dealt with the penalty of sin – the law can do nothing to me anymore. He also deals with the pollution of my past sin. 

The stench, all of the pollution, all of the rottenness, all of the decay of the old man – it is buried in the grave of God’s forgetfulness. Not only did He take you and remove you from the power of sin, and not only did He remove you from the penalty of sin, but by His death and burial, He removed you of the pollution of sin! You have been buried with the Lord Jesus Christ and, and you don’t need to be haunted any more by the ghost of guilt. 

C. The Power Over Sin

Not only did He die for us, we died with Him; not only was He buried for us, and we’re buried with Him. Yet, he was raised! We read, “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” 

We are raised with Him. What incredible power brought Jesus from that grave! And did you know that that power is available to us today? The power that raised up Jesus Christ? That’s the reason the Apostle Paul said, “Oh, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection.”

Did you know that the very resurrection power that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead is available to you today? When He died, we died with Him. When He was buried, we were buried. When He rose, we arose. That is a fact! 

The above is the reason we have baptism. Baptism doesn’t make it so. It shows that it is so. That’s the reason we baptize by immersion, because biblical baptism is by immersion, not by sprinkling. 

In Romans 6:4 we read, “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” 

The  baptistery is a liquid tomb. When you go under the water, that pictures a burial. The old man is gone. When you come up out of the water, that pictures a resurrection. I’m raised to walk in newness of life.

It is a death, a burial, and a resurrection. It does not make it so, it only shows it. It has to happen in your heart before it ever happens out there. Baptism is the outward expression of the inward reality. Don’t you think the devil would love to remove that picture from the church? I believe he would, of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for this is the Gospel. Baptism shows how that Christ died for our sins, how that He was buried, how that He was raised again the third day.

When Jesus died, I died. When He was buried, I was buried. When He came up, I came up. Not a resurrection someday. I’m already now walking in resurrection life. There will be a resurrection someday. Yet, you don’t get eternal life when you die, you get eternal life when you believe. The moment you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that moment you have eternal life.

II. Our Faith Of Inspiration 

We read in Romans 6:11, “Likewise reckon (calculate) yourselves, calculate also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.”

We read, “calculate.” It’s a bookkeeping term. You are to calculate on this fact. You are to count on a settled fact. This fact is not based upon feelings. 

You may say, “If I am dead, buried, and raised, how come I feel the way I feel?” The devil has pulled the wool over your eyes. It means nothing if we know a settled fact but do not act on it. How do we act upon this fact? You count on it as an act of faith. Now reckoning is not just closing your eyes and pretending, but faith is acting on what you know to be true.

Now you already know how to reckon if you’re saved. We do a great job in calculating the fact that He died for our sins. We usually say, “My sins are paid for and I am forgiven.” However, we need to reckon or learn how to calculate that we died with Him. Yet, this is where most Christians are weak. We have the idea of substitution, but we are weak on the idea of identification that we died with Him. 

With virtual reality technology you mind can be convinced that you are at a particular location or doing specific things. Yet, in reality you are not there and you are not doing these certain things. We can get something in our mind, and our mind tells us something is true when it’s not true at all, and sometimes when there is something true we fail to believe that it is true. The truth of the matter is that you have been dead for 2,000 years. It is time for us to have a funeral! It is time for us to count on it or act according to our faith on this powerful truth. 

The word, “crucified” is in the aorist tense. It means that crucified is a once and for all happening. The word, “reckon” or “calculate” is in the present tense. In other words, we calculate it every day and turn it into faith and action. We are dead to sin and to Satan’s slavery over us!

III. Our Function Of Impartation

The third word is, “yield” and that word is emancipation. We have identification, appropriation and emancipation. We must put our faith in the fact and our function to fulfill. 

In Romans 6:12-13,  we read, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.  Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield yourselves unto God.” 

We must yield. Look in verse 16: “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey.” 

Paul writes in verse nineteen, “I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and unto iniquity; so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.” 

Imputed righteousness becomes practical righteousness when you begin to cooperate with God, and you yield your life. When temptation comes yield yourself to God. We normally don’t want to yield.

Just simply say, “Here I am, Lord. I make myself available to You. I just yield.” When temptation comes; there’s only one thing to do. There’s only one thing you will do, and that’s yield. Either you’ll yield to the temptation, or you’ll yield to God. Remember the old nature is dead. We have been buried with Christ. We have been raised with Christ. Resurrection power is available to us. Count on it. Say to yourself, “God, I yield myself to You!” I guarantee you on the Word of God it will happen.

Satan doesn’t want you to learn this. And he’ll try to tell you, “You don’t have any right to do this. You don’t have any power to do this. You are so weak, you’re going down. I’ve got you just where I want you. You’ve always done this, and you still will.” 

The devil will also begin to lie to you. The devil will tell you, “You can’t have victory. You can’t live in victory. Get your hands off of that truth.” You say, “Devil, it’s mine, and I’m taking it” I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I don’t have to let that dirty devil rule over me! 

We read in verse 12, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey it to the lusts thereof.” You don’t have to do it! You have resurrection power. “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” 

President Abraham Lincoln helped to set the slaves free, but unfortunately, many slaves continued to stay on the plantation. Do you know why? Some slaves never got the word. They didn’t know it. Other slaves knew it, but they just couldn’t take it in. They just could not really believe it. And other slaves heard it and knew it, but they were still intimidated by their old master, and they just continued to yield. 

You have to know it; that’s a fact. You have to reckon on it; that’s faith. And you have to yield to it; that’s function. We need to say, “Satan, I don’t belong to you anymore. You’re not my master anymore. The old man is dead and crucified. You are a new man in Jesus.” We need to begin putting this fact and faith into a function and move forward. 

What is the first word? Know. What’s the second word? Reckon or calculate. What’s the third word? Yield. Identification, appropriation, emancipation.

 

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