Inland Empire: Riverside
Free From the Reign Of Sin - Audio
It's an honor to be able to share with you today, and it's a humbling experience. I appreciate so much the Los Angeles Church and all of the work that you've done all over the world, all of the people that you have sent out from here, and the churches that you support and are a great example for, I just want you to know what an honor it is to share with you today. I appreciate and admire so much the leadership of this church, and you have been a great inspiration to me. I'm here today to encourage you with the fact that you are free. That you are free from the reign of sin in your life. You may not feel like you're free. You may be have not experienced freedom. You may not believe it. You may be struggling so much that you can't even imagine being free. But for all of you who have been baptized in the name of Jesus, I am here to encourage you with the fact that you indeed are free from the reign of sin in your life. Like the song says, "Our chains are gone. We've been set free. My God, my Savior, has pardoned me." We're going to be reading from Romans 6 in our study today, but before we read, I wanted to share a story, and I'm going to introduce this scripture so bear with me, but I want to share a story with you that illustrates what we're going to be talking about today. July 31st, 1838, on the island of Jamaica, 10,000 slaves were gathered together for a praise time. They were celebrating the new Emancimation Proclamation Act that would abolish slavery on the island of Jamaica, and what they did when they gathered together, they built an immense coffin, and into that coffin they placed whips, branding iron, chains, fatters of all kinds, slave garments, and all the things that represented the terrible slavery system that was now coming to a welcome end, and at the stroke of midnight, they all started shouting out, "The monster is dead. The monster is dead. Let us bury him." Then they screwed the lid down on that coffin, lowered it into a huge grave and covered it. And that night, 10,000 voices grew hoarse from shouting and crying with joy, but there's a tragic side to this true story. While many rejoiced in their new liberty and freedom, there were some slaves in the remote areas of that island that did not know that they had been legally set free. Their former masters successfully kept the news from them for as long as they could. By law, they had been declared free men and did not have to live as slaves any longer. However, ignorance of the truth kept them in bondage. You know, if this happened today, we would be indignant. Probably as Americans and those from the Americas, one of the things that we despise the most is slavery, human trafficking, sex slavery, the trafficking of little children. Perhaps there's nothing that we're more ashamed of in our history than slavery. And yet, there are many in our audience today with no reason that are in, that are slaves to sin. There are many slaves here today. Too many disciples live defeated lives, and it's not necessary for us to live a defeated life. Some of them particularly want to talk to those of you who feel like you're living a defeated life. I was with a group of leaders, a short time ago in Miami, and we were talking about how to split our small groups, we had some small groups that weren't very small. They were more like churches than small groups. And I was going through and saying, "Well, why can't this guy lead a group? Why can't that guy lead a group?" And their response kept coming back, "Well, this guy's addicted to internet porn. This guy's addicted to something else." And you know, I was talking to a youth leader in our fellowship, and he was telling me how, it's like becoming the norm for so many of our teenagers to be addicted to internet porn. And I'm not doing a sermon on internet porn. But how many of us are enslaved by that or by bitterness or by anger or by fear of what people think or by worry or by the love of money or gluttony or the fear of death? Hebrews 2 says, "We do not even have to be slaves to the fear of death." And so I'm here for you to know today that Jesus has issued an Emancipation Proclamation. Our sins have been buried in the coffin. The monster is dead. Your experience may tell you he's not, but God's word that we're going to read in just a minute says it is. Your culture may tell you that he's not dead, but God's word says that sins reign in your life is dead. Your brothers and sisters may even not tell you that it's dead, but God's word tells you that it's dead. We are all recovering addicts. Jesus said everyone who sins is a slave to sin. And some of our sins are socially unacceptable, and so we put those people in groups. But all of us need a group. All of us need to own up and admit to what we're enslaved to and we need each other to not be enslaved, but let it be clear we can recover. We do not need to be trapped and we do not need to be stuck. We need faith in how the word of God teaches us to overcome sin. Do you believe the Bible has the answers? I want you to take this simple message over the next few minutes to heart. God's way works. And Romans 6, 7, and 8 talks about how we can be holy, not only how we can be justified and how we can be secure in our salvation, but our position before God is holy, but also the practice in our lives can be holy. The past is powerless. It does not have to determine our future. And we have promised victory that many have only dreamed of, and that's possible. Romans 6, we're going to begin reading in verse 5. Romans 6 verse 5, "Bible says, 'If we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life He lived, He lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. You know in this text here, there are three components to be free. Number one, to be free, we need to have the knowledge that we can be free. We need to have the belief that we can be free. We need to have the will that we can be free. The knowledge that the old self is died. The belief that by God's power, it needs to go beyond knowledge and we can put it into practice. And then the will to put ourselves at God's disposal. You know the Bible talks about here in verse 13 about instruments of wickedness. And I want you to think about belief, knowledge and will as not instruments, but weapons. You know when somebody breaks into your house or starting to break in and you're at the door, you don't say, "Hey, I've got an instrument." That's not going to deter them. I'm here with my toothbrush. You say, "I've got a weapon." What we need, I like translation weapons to me, is a lot better. We need the weapon of knowledge, belief and will, first of all, the weapon of knowledge. So in Romans chapter 6, four times it talks about what we need to know. Talks about it in verse 3, we need to know that those of us baptized into Jesus were baptized into his death. In verse 6 it says, "We need to know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with." In verse 9 it says, "We need to know that since Christ was raised from the dead, death no longer has mastery over him." And in verse 6 it talks about it says, "Don't you know that when you offer yourself to someone to obey him his slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey." You see, how many times do we see the word "no"? Bible is saying here, "We need to know we are dead to sin." This word "slave" doulos, the only way this type of slave could be free was when he died. But you see the Bible says in verse 6 the old self was crucified. We need to know today that this thinking, "I can't help myself." That's no longer true, that the temptation is more than I can bear. That's not true. But so many times we don't even know that it's possible that we don't have to let sin reign in our lives. Hosea 4 verse 6, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Isaiah 1 verse 3 says, "Israel does not know. My people do not understand." We need to know today that we do not have to be in bondage to our past. Our past does not have to determine our future, regardless of how long we may have been slaves to sin, regardless of how strong that pole may seem in our lives. The word of God says that sin for the Christian, it's dead, it's been killed, and we don't need to live in the past. Yesterday is history, tomorrow's a mystery, today's a gift. That's why it's called the present. You don't have to give into the program responses that perhaps you've given into for years. You don't have to go back into slavery when you're under pressure, like the Israelites did in Numbers 14, when they didn't have the faith and they wanted to go back to Egypt. It doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to fear death. Jesus gave us the end of death as the end, and we didn't know that we can overcome. You know, I was thinking about this, I don't even try to dunk a basketball anymore. I used to try, and I even did it a few times when I was a lot younger, but I don't even try because I've given up. One thing is disciples, we need to know, we can dunk this basketball. Insane wants to keep us in the dark, but the penalty's been paid, and the power's been broken. Sin has been deprived of its controlling influence. The monster is dead, the monster is dead, my chains are gone, I've been set free. So we need knowledge, we also need belief. You know, he says in verse 11, "In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." You know, this is deeper than knowing, it's kind of like Abraham. This is faith in action. In spite of obstacles, in spite of circumstances, you see, belief, it's in our heart, it's not just knowing that this is possible, this is when we take the step of faith and not only know it's possible, but we're going to take a step and really go for it. It's faith in action, in spite of obstacles in circumstance. Abraham, even when God told him he was going to have a son in his old age, his faith did not waver. He was fully persuaded. You know, I think about it like this, you know, after the Super Bowl, they have the, they go to the winning locker room, and then they go to the losing locker room. I'd ever understood why they go to the losing locker room after the Super Bowl. But you know, what does your life look like? The winning locker room or the losing locker room? You know, belief is, I've won, I've defeated this, and I can do it. We must envision ourselves this way for the rest of our lives. Even though there's a component of doubt, you act. See, it's the opposite of hypocrisy. That's acting like something we're not. What we're talking about is being what we already are. For brothers and sisters, I ask you, do you know, do you believe, do you really believe that you can break the dominion of sin in your life? You are in Christ. You know, you never hear anybody say he's in Buddha, or he's in Muhammad, or he's in Confucius, or he's in Joseph Smith. They'll say that because those guys can't do this. They say you're in Christ. You were baptized in Christ. It's on the mustard seed of faith. And then lastly, we need to have the will. Bible says in verse 13, do not let, or in verse 12, do not let sin reign in your mortal body. Do not let it. It's our responsibility. Do not let sin reign. You know, Paul said, I beat my body, I make it my slave. There is a component of this that we have to go for it. We have to step out on faith, and she's not going to happen to us. Some people think God's going to do everything, and there's no commands to God in the Bible. All the commands are to us. You know, I read a story, a true story about a man named King Reynold III from Belgium. And he, he was a king, he had a brother, and they got in a violent quarrel. And his brother conquered him, but his brother didn't kill him. His brother put him in a room. And this guy was, Reynold was known by his Latin nickname, cresis, which means fat. So his brother put him in a room where the doors and the windows were just slightly smaller. And he didn't have any bars on these doors or windows. And yet what he did, every day he would sin, Reynold, a lot of delicacies. A lot of food. And he knew that Reynold would never get out of the room because he would gorge himself. And Reynold never got out of the room until his brother was killed in battle and they let him out, and then he died because he had abused his body so much. So I think many of us, we don't, we don't put into practice, we're indulging ourselves. So let me tell you, over indulgence anywhere is a threat to righteousness everywhere. You can't compartmentalize your sin. You can't say, well, I'm really kind, but I like internet porn. You can't say, well, I struggle with anger, but at least I evangelize, you can't do that. It threatens us. We have to live our lives in the promotion of righteousness. That's what Jesus says here, or what Paul says here. He says, offer the parts of your body not to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. You see, an offering in the Old Testament was everything. It wasn't just your hands, it wasn't just your feet, it wasn't just your head. You had to give the whole body. And we need to throw ourselves wholeheartedly and full-time into serving God. We need to go about doing good. We need to feed good. Ignor is good. Cultivate good. You know, Jesus, after he watched the disciples' feet in John 13 and verse 17, he said, now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. In other words, you've just seen me serve on the night before I'm going to die. You've just seen me serve. Now, you'll be blessed if you do these things. If we serve the poor, if we serve the lost, if we serve our brothers and sisters, it helps break the dominion, the reign of sin, in our lives. When Barbara and I landed at the airport yesterday, we got a call from Sao Paulo, Brazil that one of our dear friends had died in Sao Paulo. She was an 80-year-old lady named Donna Fida. And I remember her. She was baptized in our Bible talk about 20 years ago, and it kept up with us and served us and loved us, and she, to me, epitomized, giving herself wholeheartedly to God. Her husband was not faithful to her and mistreated her and did not live with her for most of the time. And yet, when she became a disciple, she kept on loving him. She kept on serving him. He became sick and went to the hospital. She went to visit him in the hospital. She would bring him food. She would serve him. She would encourage the people from the church to go see him. You see, she offered herself to God as an instrument of righteousness. A few days before he died, he was so impressed by her dedication to God that it led him to faith. We got a call today and at her viewing, legions of people are coming out to see her because she had that kind of heart. So brothers and sisters, I want you to know today, you are free from the reign of sin in your life. Your chains are gone, you've been set free, your God and your Savior has pardoned you. Let us live by the power of God, the victorious and blessed life he's created us to live. [BLANK_AUDIO]
John Porter's lesson from the 2013 LAICC Congregational Service at the Citizens Bank Arena