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And an honor, but especially so here because I know this church, I know the high view of scripture that you have here, and I also know the high view of preaching that you have here. So, it's a special honor to be here this morning in Emmanuel to bring you God's Word.

Please open up your Bibles to Romans 6, verses 1 through 14. Romans 6, 1 through 14. Now, as you're finding the passage, first of all, let me just say: what I have is fall allergies, okay? So, if you hear me maybe cough or have some sniffles, it's allergies.

I do not have the plague. Please do not fear. I'm not going to start a super spreader event, all right? So, I want to get that out of the way. So, if I'm sipping from some water, you'll know why. But also, I want to kind of explain why I chose this passage of scripture this morning.

As the associational director, I do get the opportunity to go to different churches, not only in our association, sometimes outside of our association, and preach. And I always pray that God will lead me to the text that He wants for me to preach to that church, what He wants to say through His Word to that church.

For example, last week I was at a church in our association whose pastor's wife actually has COVID and she's not doing very well, and so they're in a season of discouragement and even, to a certain degree, despair. And so, I preached Psalm 23 because Psalm 23 being a psalm, and I I call the Psalms the medicine cabinet for the soul.

So you go to that medicine cabinet when you need your soul refreshed. And then a few weeks back, I preached at a church that's searching for a pastor right now, and they're really struggling with understanding the importance of expository preaching. So I preached from Nehemiah 8, where Ezra exposits the word, the law, to the people of Israel after they had returned from exile.

And so as I was praying about what God wants me to preach here, I was really struggling. What do I preach in Emmanuel Baptist Church? So I asked Thomas, and he didn't give me a whole lot of guidance other than just saying stay out of the books I'm about to preach.

And so I'm doing that. I'm staying out of where he's at. But then I got to thinking about what this Sunday is on the calendar, on the church calendar, this Sunday. Does anyone know what this Sunday is? Okay, nobody? All right, well, let me give you a hint.

Okay, on this coming Saturday night, there are going to be little bitty hands knocking on doors asking for candy, right? But 503 years ago, on that exact same night, there was a different knock on a very different door. It was the knock of a hammer nailing 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg church, of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

It was the spark that lit the Protestant Reformation. So normally the Sunday prior to Reformation Day, which is a better term for October 31st than Halloween, normally the Sunday before Reformation Day. Day is Reformation Sunday. So, in the church that I pastored for 11 years back in Georgia, every Sunday prior to the Reformation Day, we preached a Reformation sermon.

So, I said, well, what do you know? I'm here on Reformation Sunday. So, I got to thinking about what has really been a focus of mine over the past several years, and that is how important the doctrine of our union with Christ was to the Reformation. The doctrine of our union with Christ really is the hub off of which all the other spokes of the Reformation flow.

The doctrine of our union with Christ is absolutely key. Sinclair Ferguson says union with Christ is the doctrine which lies at the heart of the Christian life and is ultimately related to all the other doctrines. So, when we think about the Reformation, usually we think about justification by faith alone, and we should be thinking about that.

But that comes off of the hub of our union with Christ. This idea of union with Christ, you see it in the scripture when you see the words in him or through him or in Christ, and you see it in Paul's letters, in Paul's epistles alone, over 200 times he refers to our union with Christ in one way or another.

And then in the rest of the New Testament, it's mentioned dozens of times, including Jesus himself, most notably in John 15, where he talks about us abiding in him and his word abiding in us. So, when I say it's the hub, Off of which all the other spokes flow, I mean that.

For example, our election. That's totally dependent upon our union. Ephesians 1:4 says, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him. He chose us what? In Him, union. Our adoption. Galatians 3:26. For in Christ you are all sons of God.

Our regeneration, our new birth, Ephesians 2:5, even when you were dead in your trespasses, he made us alive together with him. There's union again. Our justification, as I just mentioned, Romans 8:1, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are what? In Christ. Our sanctification, which is what we're going to focus on today.

Ephesians 2.10 says, For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. And good works is simply another way of saying sanctification. And then our glorification, Ephesians 2.6, he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So everything about our salvation revolves around this concept of us being united to Christ.

But this isn't just some abstract theological concept. It's not theoretical. It's very real and it has very practical implications for our lives. Matter of fact, that's my whole point today. If we are going to live the Christian life, Meaning, if we are going to overcome sin and pursue holiness, it's dependent upon our union with Christ.

So that's why I'm in Romans 6, verses 1 through 14 today. So, hopefully, you've already found the passage. I normally, when I preach, have people stand. I know you already stood for a passage earlier, but let's stand again as we read the text I'm going to be preaching from.

Romans 6, beginning in verse 1. We'll read all the way through verse 14. The word of the Lord says, 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 that we will also live with him.

We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has divinity. 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.

Let not 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. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. I thank you that it is all-sufficient. It is infallible. It is inerrant. There is power in your word. But, God, I pray that you'd grant me the grace to preach it rightly and grant all of us in our ears to hear it accurately.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. In the 1960s, there was a Cuban spy named Salvador. He had been sent to Miami by Fidel Castro as a mole to try to infiltrate the Cuban community and try to steal secrets from the United States government. However, upon arriving, this Cuban young man named Salvador began to meet a bunch of other Cubans who were expats.

They had left Cuba. They had fled Castro's regime. And as he met with them and began to learn from them and talk to them, they actually converted him. They converted his loyalties from Castro to being against Castro. And so as a result, he turned himself in to the American government.

Turned himself into the United States government. They offered him asylum. They offered him protection. And they offered him a new identity. Now, the way they made this happen is they mastermind a murder. They made Cuba think, they made Castro think that Salvador had been caught and killed. He had been murdered.

He was dead. So in Castro's mind and in Cuba's mind, Salvador was dead. The death of their spy was final. There was nothing else that he could do. And so now that that death had occurred, Salvador was issued new documents. He was issued a new citizenship. He was issued a new name.

Essentially, he had a new identity and a new life. I believe this story of Salvador is a very apt illustration of what happens to us when we come to Christ and are united to him by faith. That union results in the death of our old man and the birth of a new man.

And with that, we receive a new identity. We receive a new citizenship. Now, obviously, this text, Romans 6, flows out of Romans 5, right? That's pretty obvious. And so I want to give a little bit of context here because back in Romans 5, beginning in verse 12 in particular, the apostle Paul begins to talk about how humanity is broken into two groups.

There are those who are part of the old Adam, and there are those who are part of the new Adam, Jesus Christ. If you are still under the old Adam, you are united to Him. His guilt is your guilt. His sin is your sin. You own that, and you will suffer eternally in hell because of that, if you are still united to the old Adam.

But Jesus came as a new Adam. He perfectly obeyed the Father, perfectly carried out His mandate, and now all who are united to the new Adam are part of the new humanity, have been given a new life, a new identity, and are called to live in a new way.

And so that's what Romans 5 is about, these two atoms. But part of what Romans is dealing with is: where does the law factor into all this? Why then did God give the law? And Romans teaches us that God gave us the law to show us how sinful we were, to show us that we were part of this old Adam.

And so we get to verse 20 of chapter 5, and we read this. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. So sin increased because the law showed us how sinful we were, but grace abounded all the more.

So that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And so that, the way Romans 5 ends, that leads into the rhetorical question that Paul begins Romans 6. With. And that's why Paul says, okay, what shall we say then?

Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? If grace abounds, the more and more we see how sinful we are, well, heck, shouldn't we just continue to sin? So that grace can just continue to flow. And of course, Paul's answer to that is by no means.

And this is a very strong phrase he uses, by no means. No, no, no. The Christian doesn't just go on living in sin. Okay, Paul, well, why not then? And here's the answer Paul gives. And it's not the answer you'll find in most popular devotional Christian literature today.

Here's the answer Paul gives, verse 2. How can we who died to sin still live in it? You see, the answer that many people might give, if you ask that question, why should we not sin in our Christian life? Why should we not go on sinning? The answer many people might give you, or the answer you might find in some of that devotional literature that I just referred to might be this.

Well, you don't sin because you want to reciprocate God's love. You want to love him the way he loved you, and so just reciprocate that. It's a reflection. So that's why you shouldn't sin. Or they might say, you know what? You owe it to God. I mean, look at everything he did for you, so now you should just live for him, sort of a debtor's ethic.

Just live for him. Sort of pay him off. Pay him back for what he did for you. Or some people might say, well, it's just thankfulness. You're just so thankful for what God did for you. You need to show your appreciation. So live for him. Others might say, well, it's really pragmatism.

If you want to have a good life and a peaceful life, you've got to not stop sinning. You've got to stop sinning, so just stop. Have your best life now. Or others may say, well, you stop sinning because you want to just mimic Jesus, WWJD, right? What would Jesus do?

Paul doesn't give any of those answers. When Paul answers the question of why we should no longer sin, he says this: You don't sin because you're dead to it. You don't sin because you are dead to that sin. That's why you don't go on sinning. Now, let me get something out of the way right up at the very beginning here.

Paul is not talking about sinless perfection. Matter of fact, when he says that we are not to live in sin, he's talking about a lifestyle. He's talking about a pattern of living. We all know that we do still struggle with sin. But the point of this passage is this: that Christ has given us the power to overcome sin.

We might still struggle with it, but we struggle with it not because it has any power over us. We struggle with it because we're still waiting for those perfected bodies. But the fact of the matter is, you don't have to sin anymore because you have power over it.

Christ has purchased that power for you. And so, as we go through the text this morning, I want this to be practical. And I really want us to think about our union with Christ and how that affects our living. How does it affect our ability to overcome sin?

Holiness, because really that's what Paul's going to jump into now. This whole idea of you being dead to sin, where does that come from? It comes from our union with Christ. And so, to help us walk through the text, I have three words I'm going to kind of focus on: three words that begin with F.

So, we're going to have straight F's this morning, all right? Three F's, and these are not original to me. I've heard some other people use these before, I'm just packing it into my sermon here this morning. So, here's my first point: To overcome sin and pursue holiness, we must know the facts of our union with Christ.

So, there's the first F. We must know the facts of our union with Christ. Look at verse 3. Do you not know, okay? Do you know the facts? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ were baptized into his death? So, Paul reminds us of what our baptism represents.

And by the way, let me just get this out of the way as well. Paul assumes that the people he's writing to as Christians have been baptized. Okay, he assumes that baptism is a normal part of the Christian life. So, if you're here and you've never followed the Lord Jesus and believers' baptism, that's a simple first step of obedience.

And Paul assumes that his readers have been baptized. Now, when we are immersed into the waters, when we're baptized, it symbolizes that we were immersed into Christ. And that immersion into the water represents burial. Look at verse 4: We were buried there. Therefore, with him by baptism into death.

And that means that his death was our death. When he died, in a very real way, we died as well. He stood in our place and took our death upon himself. This union with Christ is not something theoretical or merely symbolic. This really happened. Jesus really took our death upon himself.

Sometimes we use language, a sort of union-type language, and we don't really mean it as being literal. So, for example, a lot of times we talk about you not being united to our favorite team, right? So, I'm a Cowboys fan, and please do not judge me for that, but I'm a Cowboys fan.

And so, back in the 90s, when they actually won games, when we won the Super Bowl, that next day I was shouting, we won, we won, we won. I didn't win diddly squat. I didn't do nothing, but I was claiming identity with the Cowboys. But in reality, there's no true union there.

I didn't have bruises all over my body the next day. I didn't have a big old fat ring that I would get a few days later as a celebration of winning the Super Bowl. No, I wasn't really united to them, but with Christ, we really are. I know it's mystical and mysterious, but we really are united to Him.

We're not only united to His death, we're also united to His resurrection. So, look at the argument here. We were buried, therefore, with Him by baptism. Into death, in order that, so here's what it's going towards: in order that just as Christ was raised, past tense, from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk present tense in newness of life.

So, because we are united to Christ in his death and his resurrection, we now have power to live a new way. And that's why I say union with Christ is a very practical doctrine. We were united to his resurrection. So, we were saved by being immersed and baptized into Christ.

Our life was hidden in his. The judgment that we should have received, that should have been poured out upon us, was instead poured out upon him. And like Noah, who was in the ark, and he passed through the judgment waters, we by faith are in Christ. And when you get baptized, it symbolizes you passing through those judgment waters.

And when you rise up out of those judgment waters, it symbolizes the truth that you were united to Christ. Death could not hold him. Judgment had no hold over him. He rose from the grave, and we rose with him. We rose with him. And by the way, that's also why mode and timing of baptism are important.

Okay? So if you're here this morning, you're struggling with how you're really supposed to be baptized and when, let me just remind you: this is a Baptist church. Baptism is important. And so, why Paul? So, what Paul is saying here is that the fruit of our being raised with him is that we can now walk in newness of life.

We have a new way of living. The old nature is dead. We have a new heart. We have a new nature that is now able to follow Christ. Before you knew Christ, you weren't able to do any of the things he commands you to do. But now that you're in Christ, you are able to do so because you're united to his resurrection.

So, here are the facts of our union with Christ. So, focusing again on that word facts. Here's fact number one: We really died to sin, and it really no longer has any real power over us. We really died to sin, and it really has no longer any real power over us.

And then, the second fact: we have really been raised with Christ, and we really have real power to live a holy life. We really have real power to live a holy life. 1 Peter 2:24 says, He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

Just as that tyrant, Fidel Castro, lost his power over Salvador, so too that tyrant named sin has lost its power over us, and we are free, and we are empowered to live under a new master. Now, during the years leading up to the Reformation, the Roman church taught that one could achieve.

Union with Christ, the more one walked in holiness. In other words, if you obey and you live in holiness, you will become united to Christ. But the reformers, looking at texts like this one, realized it was completely backwards. The only way you can walk in holiness is if you're first united to Christ.

Union creates holiness, not vice versa. So in verse 5, Paul expands upon these facts. Now, for the next few verses, Paul's just going to kind of repeat himself because he's a good teacher. And good teachers repeat themselves. So in verse 5, it says, For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

So Paul's restating the facts. Our dying with him guarantees that we will rise with him. Now, I want you to notice, though, in verse 5, there's a change in the verb tense. Back in verse 4, our dying with him is expressed in the past tense, but our walking with him is present tense.

We have been raised with him to walk, present tense, in a newness of life. But in verse 5, it seems that the resurrection benefits of our union with him are something in the future. It says we will certainly be united to him. So what gives? Are we united to him now, or is it something in the future?

And I say, Paul's not an idiot. He knows how to use verb tenses. He knows what he's talking about. What he's showing us here. Is the tension of the already not yet. Verse 4 teaches us that we have already been raised with Christ. Therefore, we can right now walk in newness of life.

Your resurrection has already begun with a new heart. That was the first part of you that rose from the grave. But we're not yet there yet. We know that we still live in these broken bodies. So we're waiting for resurrection bodies to join our heart. We're waiting for the not yet.

So we're going to continue to struggle with sin. Even though we have power to overcome it, we're going to continue to struggle, but one day we will attain. Just as Paul's talking about in Philippians 3, he's straining, striving towards attaining that resurrection from the dead. I look forward to the day I no longer have to worry about sin bugging me, and I have that resurrected body that accompanies my resurrected heart.

Union with him in resurrection means that we already now have new birth, but we still look forward to the day that we have resurrected, perfected bodies. Now let's continue. Verse 6. We know, again, Paul's focusing on facts, we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that, so here's the reason, the body of sin might be brought to nothing.

It might be catargeo. It means reduced to a condition of total impotency to disarm it, to put it away, to abolish it. The old sinful man is done away with, and that is a fact, friends. That old, depraved, Wretched, wicked man who always acted according to his fallen nature in constant rebellion against God, that man who I was and who you were is dead.

1 Corinthians 6, verse 9. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Verse 11: And such were some of you. But you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. The person who I was and who you once were was crucified to that cross. Look at verse 6.

So that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. So do you know the facts of your freedom? Do you know the facts that because you've been united to Christ, you're free? You're freed from the power of sin.

You're freed from that slavery. Certainly most of you in here know what Juneteenth is, right? You should know what Juneteenth is. On June 19th, 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, finally, someone saw fit to let the slaves know. Actually, they weren't slaves anymore. They lived that way for two years.

But actually, they were freedmen. They were free. But they needed to know. They needed to know the facts of their freedom so they could pursue their freedom. Friends, you need to know the facts. You are free in Christ. You've been set free. You need to believe that. You can't go on living like you used to live.

You're no longer under that slave owner name sin. Because of that, you are now free to live for God. Now, we get to verse 8. Paul continues to repeat things here. And there's so much more we could say, but I only have, you know, I'm running out of time.

I only have 40 minutes or so to run through this big passage of Scripture. Verse 8. Now, if we have died with Christ, if we have died with Christ, then we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again.

Death no longer has dominion over him. Because of our union with him, it no longer has dominion over us. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. And there's so much more we could say. But for now, let me just simply say this.

These are the facts. These are the facts of your union with Christ. You must know them. John MacArthur, commenting on this passage of Scripture, says, if the believer is to fully live out his new life in Christ, he must begin. By knowing he is not what he used to be.

Once the believer knows the foundational truths about his death, burial, and resurrection with Christ, and his victory over the penalty and the power of sin, he is well on his way to victory in the Christian life. So, to overcome sin and pursue holiness, the first F is that we need to know the facts of our union with Christ.

But now let's get to the second F, and we're going to spend less time on these last two, but here's the second one: and the word is faith. If you want to overcome sin and pursue holiness, we must have faith in the facts of our union with Christ.

In other words, we need to believe in these truths. So, there's only one verse for this section, it's verse 11. So, the Apostle Paul says, So, in light of these facts, so you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. You must consider it, you must believe it.

You must believe these things. So, the question for you this morning is: do you really believe that you've been united to Christ? Do you really believe that his death was your death? Do you really believe that his resurrection is your resurrection? Do you really believe that you are dead to sin and it no longer has power over you?

Do you really believe that you have been raised with Christ, therefore you have a new nature, you can live to God and you can honor him with your life, you have the power to live this verse. Here in verse 11. This is the very first command of this passage of scripture.

In the first 10 verses, we have all these indicatives, all these facts, and here's our first imperative. Matter of fact, interestingly enough, this is the first imperative of the whole book of Romans. This is the first command, the first major command in Romans. The first thing Paul tells us to do in Romans is to believe in our union with Christ.

You must consider. This word means you must reckon or calculate or count. It means that you see things as they really are. In Paul's day, it was an accounting term. It meant posting an amount in a ledger that corresponded factually with what was really there. So go back to the Juneteenth illustration.

The slaves had to actually believe what they were hearing was true. They actually had to believe that Abraham Lincoln's signature on the bottom of that emancipation proclamation was his signature. If these things weren't true, then there was going to be some problems if they tried to do something.

But if these things were true, then they're free. But they got to believe it. So do you believe the facts? Do you have faith in the facts of your union with Christ? If we're going to overcome sin, we must believe in, rest in, trust in, reckon it to be true that we are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

That's how we live, right? We're not only saved by faith, we live by faith. Listen to Galatians 2.20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is 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.

We are saved by faith. We are sanctified by faith. Faith in the facts of the gospel. That's how Paul does things. He gives us doctrine. He gives us facts. He gives us truth. And then he commands that we believe it, that we set our minds on it, that we think about it, that our minds be transformed by it.

And by that means, we take hold of it. Now, this verb consider in Romans 6:11, it's present, imperative, meaning it's something we do continually. All throughout our Christian life, we are to be preaching the gospel to ourselves, reminding ourselves of the facts. Believing in the facts is something we continually do, reckoning or counting it.

It's not claiming a promise, but acting upon a fact. It's not make-believe. It's not getting yourself worked up into some emotional tizzy or pretending something to be true that's not really true. It's believing that what God said he would do, he really did do, and therefore these things are absolutely true.

What God said he would do, he did do, and these things therefore are true. And only when we have faith in the facts can we go to the third F. So here's our third F now. To overcome sin and pursue holiness, we must first know the facts of our union with Christ.

Second, we must have faith. In those facts of our union with Christ. And finally, we must fight by faith in the facts of our union with Christ. With our minds now set on Christ, with faith in the firm foundation of the facts of the gospel, we can now fight.

And that's what Paul calls on us to do in verse 12. Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members as sins, to sin, as instruments for unrighteousness. He's telling us to fight, and that's always the order: gospel facts, faith in those facts, and then we fight for holiness.

If you get it in the reverse order, you're in a heap of trouble. You see, that's what a lot of people try to do. I'm going to fight for holiness, but they don't set their mind on the facts of the gospel. And what that becomes is the word legalism.

And it's exactly what the reformers were fighting against. Because the Roman church had gotten everything backwards and upside down. And by God's grace, these brave men came and turned it right side up. Paul always reminds his readers of the fact that the gospel of the facts of the gospel before he calls on them to fight for holiness.

Let me give you another example: Colossians 3. Colossians 3, verses 1 through 5 says this: If you've been raised with Christ, so there's our union, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ and God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. And only then, after saying all that, he gets to verse 5 where he says, Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you.

Fight sin, therefore, in light of the gospel. Fight sin. Kill sin. Put it to death. It's only when we understand the truths of the gospel that we can truly fight sin. The only way, friends, that you can live the holy life that you're called to live is through union with Christ.

What did Jesus say in John 15? Apart from me, you can do a few things. Apart from me, you can do some good things. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Or in the Steve Doyle version, diddly squat. You can't do anything apart from Christ. So why would you try?

So if you want to live the holy life, you can only live it united to Christ. Therefore, you need to fix your mind on these truths, believe these truths, claim these truths, and then fight for holiness. Now back to our Romans passage, verse 12. Again, let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passion.

Friends, sin is a deposed master. As I said, those slaves, ex-slaves, on June 10th, We were legally freed from their masters. Now, their masters may have continued to harass them and boss them, and they did do that, but not legally. They no longer had any legal ground over those people.

And so, too, we have come out from underneath the jurisdiction of sin. Now, this is a much younger crowd than our first crowd, but when I was a kid, I used to watch Dukes of Hazard. I know these days, Dukes of Hazzard may even be banned on a lot of television stations, but I used to watch Dukes of Hazard.

And I always loved when they were running away from the law. Well, that sounded bad. But anyway, you know how the stories go. They're running away from the law, and a lot of times they'd be heading towards the county line. Now, why were they heading towards the county line?

They were heading towards the county line so they could get into a different jurisdiction. They knew once they crossed that line, Roscoe had no claim over them. Once they crossed that line, they were out from underneath the jurisdiction of boss hog. Well, friends, Jesus has taken you across that line.

You just got to believe it. You're no longer under the boss of sin. You're no longer under its power. And instead, you have now been empowered to live a holy life. Believe that. Take hold of that. It's yours. That's what Paul is calling on us to do in this passage of Scripture.

Now, when we do sin, and we all do still continue to struggle with sin, but when we do sin, we're actually acting contrary to our new nature. That's why sin grieves us. It grieves the Spirit of God, and it grieves us. If you're wondering, Here this morning, you think, oh, Steve, I don't know.

There's a sin I've been struggling with my whole life. I don't know. I don't feel like I have the power to live over, to overcome it. Well, number one, you do have the power because this scripture tells us you have the power. But if you're wondering about whether or not you're saved, because that's really where a lot of people go, Am I really saved?

Because I'm having struggles overcoming the sin. My question is simply this: Has your relationship with that sin changed? Because if you still desire it and you want it and it doesn't bug you, then I'm worried about you. But if it does bug you and you hate it and you want to kill it, then great, you're on the same path I'm on.

And guess what? You have the power to kill it. I'm going to pray for you, you pray for me. Let's kill these things together. Now, when you feel that terrible and powerful temptation coming your way, you don't need to say, I can't help myself or I can't resist it.

The fact of the matter is, as a Christian, you have the power. You need to fix your mind on the facts, the truth, that you have the power to live a godly life. You have everything you need in Christ. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30. And because of Him, referring to God the Father, because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus.

Let me just pause right there. You can't even take any credit for your union with Christ. Because of God, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Everything you need is found in Jesus Christ. Everything you need. But do you believe it?

Believe that your union with Christ means that you are freed and you are now able to fight. You are now able to not sin. Again, this is not sinless perfection, but it's a change in our relationship to sin. And so, if sin is a deposed tyrant, you need not serve him anymore.

Verse 13: Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness. This word instruments here means weapons. Do not let any part of your life be used as a weapon for unrighteousness. Instead, let it be used as a weapon for righteousness. So, this is simply calling on you, calling on all of us to love God and to live for him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Present your body to him as a living sacrifice. So, through our union with Christ, we are now empowered for every bit of our life to be used for his glory. Whether it's brushing your teeth or going to a board meeting, whether it's spending your money on entertainment or spending your money in tithes and offering.

However you live, every bit of your life should be for his glory. Whether we eat, drink, whatever we do, we do it all for the glory of God. That's what it means to present your body as instruments of righteousness. Weapons for his glory. So, friends, like I said, there's a lot more we could say here as we come to a close, but this is how we fight sin.

This is how we pursue holiness. Not by picking ourselves up by our own boots. And getting our act together, but by looking to who we are in Christ, by believing it to be true, and now empowered by who we are in Christ, fighting for holiness. It's grace-enabled, faith-fueled fighting.

Grace-enabled, faith-fueled fighting. Look at verse 14. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under what? Grace. That's the type of fight I want to have, a fight that's fueled by God's grace. The three F's: the facts of our union with Christ, faith in those facts, and then fighting sin by faith in those facts.

So, do you see how practical the doctrine of our union with Christ really is? It's the hub of the gospel. It's the glue that holds all these other great doctrines together, all these other great doctrines that were recovered during the Reformation. Now, I don't know the end of Salvador's story.

What I was able to find didn't tell me the ending of Salvador's story. So, I assume Salvador carried out the rest of his life in the United States, got married, had 2.5 kids or something, and lived a happy life. I don't know. But let's say the story ended this way: that all of a sudden Salvador went over to Miami Beach, jumped in the water, and began to swim back to Cuba.

I think we'd all think that was a pretty foolish thing of Salvador. To do. That'd be a pretty sad ending to that story. But I know too many Christians, friends, who are swimming to Cuba, who have forgotten who they are in Christ and are swimming in a direction, are swimming back to that captor.

They're re-entering that jail cell that was broken open years ago. Friends, you are free, so live it. Live free in the power of Christ. Kill sin and pursue holiness. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word. Father, I know that being a weak and sinful man myself, that I cannot even begin to do credit to your word.

And so, Father, I pray that you take anything that I said today in error and strike it from the memory of anyone in here. And anything I said that was even somewhat aligned with your word, Lord, I pray that you take it and plant it into our hearts and give us the grace we need to apply it practically, to live our lives, to preach the gospel to ourselves so that we can fight sin and we can pursue holiness.

God, I pray for those in here who are believers that you would empower them and strengthen them by reminding them of these great gospel facts. I pray that they wouldn't give in to the lies that. Satan likes to whisper in our ears that we are slaves to a particular sin, that we can't help ourselves, that we just need to give in because that's what everyone else is doing.

Lord, help those in here who are struggling right now to recognize and realize they're free. Their emancipation was secured on the cross in Golgotha 2,000 years ago. And Lord, not only have they been set free from sin, they've also been given power, resurrection power, to live, to live in a way that brings glory and honor to you.

So, God, I pray that you'd encourage the believers here this morning. And if there be anyone here this morning who's not a believer, Father, I pray that you would remind them of the thing I said way back at the beginning, and that is that there's only two, they're united to someone, but there's two different people they can be united to.

They're either united to Christ or united to Adam. And if they haven't come to you, Father, help them see that they are still united to the first Adam, and therefore his guilt and his sin still rests on them, and they need to turn from that sin and turn to Christ so they can experience redemption and forgiveness and freedom for the very first time.

So, Father, I pray that you would turn any straying hearts to you this morning. We pray all this in the precious name of the one to whom we are united, Jesus Christ. Amen.