LET GO OF THE CLOROX BOTTLE

0:00 God, I thank you for these moments and minutes that we have here together. Moments where we don't just need a lesson with information. We need your truth, which leads to transformation. That's what we pray for today in these moments. What a shame it would be if we left the same way we walked in. God, we desire to be transformed by your word. We ask all these things in your son's name. Everybody said, amen. You can find your seats, maybe hug an OU fan as you do. It's too easy. I'm sorry. There are some moments as a parent that make your heart stop. This was one of those moments for me. At the time, we just had one child. His name is Thunder James Kelly. And it was one of the few times early on that my wife entrusted me to watch this human being that we're responsible for keeping alive by myself for a few hours.

1:02 And my wife is a type A personality, and so she's got all the schedule and all the things listed out on a piece of paper. She's giving me my marching orders before she departs. She's like, he wakes up at this time, takes the bottle at this time, needs some solids at this time, needs tummy time at this time, goes to nap at this time, wakes up at this time. And she didn't say this directly, but from the tone that she was giving, I could tell her real thought was, Sam, don't mess this up. and so I'm like babe I got it I got it everything's gonna be fine famous last words she leaves and within 10 minutes my son is nowhere to be found now I'm not panicking in this moment I think I just continued to do what I was doing I don't remember exactly what it was I was probably washing the dishes because I'm such a servant husband that's besides the point but a few more minutes of silence go by and parents you know silence is way worse than noise because noise indicates a general location in which they are and also tells you they're still alive silence is like I don't know where you are and what's going on and so my parent instincts begin to kick in and I start to search throughout the house and I'm looking through the different rooms and I can't find my son and I'm like oh no this is not good and my heart rate begins to elevate. And finally, I go down into our master. I go down into the bathroom. And to my shock, I see my son sitting on the bathroom floor with a bottle of Clorox, like it's a Capri Sun.

2:33 Thankfully, the cap was still on it. So I just snatched that thing, put it on a shelf where he can't reach it. My first thought was, I am so glad you're not old enough to talk so you can tell mom what happened today. But of course, once I take this from him, what does he do? He loses his mind because dad just took a toy that he found. Little did he know what felt like freedom to him was actually going to be fatal to him. Dad didn't take it because he wanted to ruin his fun. Dad took it because he knew it was fatal. This is the idea that Paul is alluding to in Romans chapter six. He's speaking to Christians who might be tempted to hang on to the Clorox bottle of sin. The things that look fun, the things that at times feel freeing, but at the end of the day actually are fatal.

3:32 But in order to fully comprehend what Paul is doing here in Romans chapter six. We've got to get caught up to speed on what Paul has been doing in Romans chapters one through five. I'm gonna give us a flyover view. He is essentially just outlining the gospel. He starts off with ensuring that everybody understands that we are sinners in need of saving. That there is not one person that has not fallen short of the glory of God through something called sin. He's explaining that the gospel is not good advice on what we do to get to God. It's the good news of what God has done to come down to us. And he is essentially outlining this idea that is so important for us to understand. Salvation is something that is received and not achieved. Salvation is a gift.

4:24 You receive it, you do not achieve it. You don't earn salvation. In fact, if you think you've earned salvation, it's an insult to the cross because you're saying, Jesus, your sacrifice was not enough. It's that and me doing good things. Friends, that's not the gospel. The cross of Jesus Christ is more than enough to take care of your sins past, present, and future. And Paul, in the second half of Romans 6.23, puts it perfectly. He says the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. What do you do with a free gift? Do you earn it? No. If a free gift is being offered, you have two options. You either receive it or you reject it.

5:21 And if you choose to receive it, you receive it through something called faith, which just simply means to fully trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross. And when you receive it, your sin, past, present, and future, fully paid for. There is now nothing that could separate you from the love of God. And Paul in Romans 5.20 says this wild statement. He says, where sin increases, Grace increases all the more. And Romans 6 is an answer to the wheels that might be turning in some people's minds. Like, hang on a second, Paul. If you're saying salvation is received and not achieved, if you're saying that all of my sins have been paid for, past, present, and future, if you're saying where sin increases, God's grace increases all the more, why don't I just keep on sinning?

6:22 In fact, I'll keep on sinning so that God's grace can just be made great in my life. And Paul is like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You've completely misunderstood salvation and grace. What salvation does is it opens your eyes to the sin that you used to view as freedom. You see it for what it actually is, which is fatal. and this is one of the misconceptions of Christianity from people who are outside looking in. They're like, God is just the dad stealing the bottles of fun and freedom for us and he's just the cosmic killjoy in the sky. No, friends, that's not the picture at all. God cares about sin because he cares about you. God cares about sin because he knows where it ultimately leads.

7:23 He cares about sin because he loves you. And when you sin, it's not just that you're breaking the rules, it's that you're actually breaking yourself. Because every sin comes along with a prepackaged consequence, whether you like it or not. In AA, there's a saying that all addictions start off as magical. then become medicinal and end up leaving you miserable. The same is true with sin. There's aspects of sin. Feel magical in the moment. Then they become medicinal. They become a way to cope or escape. And then ultimately, it's going to leave you miserable. Don't believe me? Just keep living in it. You will experience the misery that comes along with sin. sin always over-promises and under-delivers. And often, this is what the enemy does.

8:20 He packages poison in bottles labeled as freedom. I don't know about you, I've never met the human being that's woken up and gone, you want to know what I'm going to do today? Today's the day I'm going to become an alcoholic. You know what I'm going to do this Friday night? This Friday night is going to be the start of my custody battle over my kids. Oh, nobody says that. You want to know what they do? They've taken the bottles that the enemy has laid in front of them that look like freedom and fun. And little do they know it's filled with poison. Which is why Paul tackles this issue head on in Romans chapter 6. verses one through two, and this is what he says in verses one through two. What shall we say then?

9:16 Should we just keep on sinning so that grace can increase all the more? By no means. All caps, exclamation point. He's like, heck to the no. We are those who have died to sin. How could we live it any longer. Paul is answering the question, can a Christian hang on to the Clorox bottle of sin? And Paul's like, why would you even want to? The old you didn't get a tune up. The old you is dead and gone. You are now a new creation in Christ Jesus, and it changes everything about you. And if your method of coming to Christianity and putting your faith in Jesus Christ is the idea that now I just get to do whatever I want because I'm forgiven.

10:09 You've completely misunderstood grace. In fact, you've made a disgrace out of grace. Grace is not a hall pass to sin. Grace is the power over sin. Grace is not the freedom to sin. Grace is freedom from sin. and to be a Christian and to purposefully hang on to sin in your life is like winning the lottery and choosing to live in poverty. It's like being set free from prison and being like, I'm just gonna hang in this cell for a little bit. It's like being healed from cancer completely and walking straight back in the doctor's office to do more chemotherapy. It's not just unwise.

11:04 It's unthinkable. But in order to fully understand that, we have to see sin for what it is. And friends, it's not freedom. It is fatal. And when you come into a knowing relationship with Jesus Christ, friends, you are dead to sin. Paul wants you to know this. You're a new creation in Christ. The old you is gone. The new you has come. There's an amazing story of an early church father whose name is St. Augustine. And if you haven't read his work, I'd encourage you to do it. He's one of the most prolific Christian writers. But before he came into a saving relationship from Jesus Christ, he lived a promiscuous lifestyle. And then he has this moment of conversion where he puts the entirety of his faith in Christ Jesus, receives the righteousness of Christ, and his life just begins to completely change and transform.

12:03 And he's walking down the street one day and he sees a woman who he had been with before he had gotten saved. And the woman sees St. Augustine and says, Augustine, it's me. Come and stay with me for the night. And Augustine looks at her and politely says, oh, no, no, thank you. And she insists and persists just like sin often does. She says, no, no, no, Augustine, it's me. Come and stay with me for the night. And St. Augustine responds and says, I know it's you, but it's not me. That is the beauty of the gospel. The old you is dead and gone. The new you has come in Christ Jesus. which means the greatest mistake you've made in your life no longer defines you.

13:05 Jesus does. And in salvation, you experience three incredible things that are big words that we're going to break down. Justification, which is the removal of sin. Sanctification, which is the power over sin. and glorification, which is sin's presence removed. So let's start with justification. Whenever you see this word, you could simply translate it to this, just as if I've never sinned. When you come into a relationship with Jesus, immediately you are justified. You are seen by God as if you have never sinned in your entire life because you have received the righteous resume of Jesus Christ. And justification is not a gradual process. it is immediate. The moment you put your faith and trust in Jesus, you are justified with Christ, and that is very, very good news. Then you've got sanctification, which is the power over sin.

14:08 This is the process of what it looks like to live this life with Jesus out through the help and the horsepower of the Holy Spirit who comes to dwell with inside of the believer. He now gives you strength and power over sin, that you might live in victory over the sins in your life, that you might become more and more like Jesus, not overnight, but over time. Which is why one of my favorite definitions of a Christian is someone who has a growing level of Christ-likeness in their life. The reason why I love that definition is because it doesn't matter if you've been a Christian for seven days or seven decades. You get to look at yourself instead of looking at others and being like, ah, I'm definitely more of a Christian than that guy. I'm doing way better than them. No, no, no. That's not what Christianity looks like. Christianity looks like this. Am I more like Jesus today than I was last year? Am I living this out better than I was six months ago? And if the answer is no, then you just begin to address those through the help of the Holy Spirit. God, I am powerless over sin in my life, if not for you. So help me gain victory in this area of my life. Last, glorification. This is something that I think we often don't think about as much as we need to. And that is that one day we will be in the presence of God Almighty in our glorified bodies, which means you don't wake up with random lower back pain that you don't know how you got. That sounds awesome. But more than that, you will live in an environment where sin's presence is completely removed. Sin doesn't exist. And that's beautiful because every single problem you face, every single problem you face can be pinpointed back to one thing, and it is sin.

16:11 So we will live in an environment where sin's presence is not even existent, that the pain, the sorrow, the suffering that comes in this life will be removed. No more kids going to an early grave. No more looking at the news and seeing another mass shooting. just healed and whole in the presence of Jesus. And to the Christians in the room, I've got good news for you. This life on earth is the only hell you have to experience. But to the non-Christians, it's the only heaven you get to experience. And let me tell you, it's not a good heaven. So Paul wants you to know, he wants you to know, hey, hey, you're dead to sin. You're dead to it.

17:03 but he doesn't just want you to know it. He wants you to see it. In verses three and four, this is what he says. He says, don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. you get to see that you are dead to sin through something called baptism, which is often referred to as the outward expression of an inward decision, going public with your faith. And when you look at life in general, typically anytime anything major takes place in your life, you do something externally to show it. Like you graduate from high school, you graduate from college, you graduate with the doctorate, you have a graduation ceremony.

17:57 When you get married, you've got the wedding reception, the wedding party, the wedding ceremony. And the external thing is pointing to the greater thing, which is the covenant between one man and one woman for life. That's what baptism is. It's this external expression of the greatest internal decision you could ever make in your entire life. and Paul is literally saying when you are baptized, when you go public with your faith, you are literally identifying with Christ. That when you go under the waters, it is a representation of the death and burial of Christ Jesus and the death and burial of your old life. And when you come up out of those waters, you are identifying with the resurrection of Jesus Christ and friends, the resurrection of your new life.

18:53 that you have been snatched out of the grip of death and sin and brought into newness of life through Christ Jesus. That is amazing news. And all throughout the New Testament, you see this phrase. They believed and they were baptized. They believed and they were baptized. They believed and they were baptized. They believed and they were baptized. What does that tell us? Two very important things. Number one, baptism takes place after you have made the personal decision to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. and number two, it almost always happens immediately. And here's what I'm fascinated by as a pastor, the amount of people who have made the decision to put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ and the amount of people who are like, I'm gonna wait on baptism.

19:37 I'm just gonna take a little time and just figure some stuff out. And I kind of equate it to like, if you won the lottery and it was a billion dollars and it came in the form of a check to your house, I don't think there'd be a single human being that would be like, I'm going to wait to catch this. I just need to process this a little bit. No, you'd be hiring a SWAT team to take you straight to the bank and take that next step to get that thing cashed. But hear me for a second. A billion dollars, life-changing money. I mean, your life completely changed in an instant, right? but for you how long does it change your life? 80 years if you're lucky and you take ice baths? 80 years, 80 years, putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ changes your eternity. So friends, why would you wait to go on display that your eternity has been changed by Christ Jesus? If you have made that decision to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, Do not wait.

20:53 Let the world know you have been snatched from the grip of death and brought into life everlasting through Christ Jesus. Paul wants you to know that you're dead to sin. He wants you to see that you're dead to sin, and he wants you to live like you're dead to sin. There's a process where you begin to live it out. In Romans 6, 11 through 13, this is what he says. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. There it is again. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Don't offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. this is the reminder that we have a part to play, that we get to, not have to, we get to live this out on a daily basis. He says, don't offer yourself up to sin, offer yourself up to God.

22:06 And this isn't always easy. This is where you step into the battle, because when you commit your life to Jesus Christ, make no mistake, there is an enemy, and his thesis statement is he wants to kill, steal, and destroy. That's what he wants to do in your life, and he is desperate, desperate, desperate, and planning and looking to get a foothold in your life. So you've stepped into a battle here, which is why Paul says, don't offer yourself up to sin, offer yourself up to God, and it's always going to be a wrestle. We're going to talk about that more next week in Romans 7, but don't offer yourself to sin, offer yourself to God. There's a high school football coach in Florida and he walked into his weight room one day and he was pretty angry at what he saw. He was angry because the season previous, they were the favorites to win the state championship. They got knocked out in the second round of the playoffs and all the juniors gathered the rest of the team that are going to be returning next year. They gathered each other up and said, next year is our year. We're winning states, no exception. We're going to put in the work.

23:10 So three weeks before the next season starts, the coach walks into the weight room and he sees half of his team kind of messing around with each other. Some dude doing like bicep curls with 15 pound dumbbells, taking selfies of himself. And another kid just like doing some pull-ups. And he walks into the center of his weight room and says, do you remember the conversation you had? Second round of playoffs last year after the game ended. you wanted to win a state championship. Here's the problem. You think state championships are won on Friday nights under the lights. They're not. They're won on the early mornings in the weight room, lifting heavy weight when you don't want to, lowering your base, sticking some extra plates on the barbell, and doing some heavy deadlifts so that when you hit someone in a game, you can hit them into heaven.

24:01 And then he said this line. He said, here's the problem with the young men in this room and people all over the world. Everyone wants to be strong. No one wants to be sore. Friends, that's not just a football problem. That's a spiritual problem. Everybody wants the spiritual strength, the joy, peace, and purpose that comes along with following Christ. Not as many people enjoy the process. Obedience when it's uncomfortable. Dying to yourself daily. Offering yourself not to sin, but to God. And here's what that leads to. It leads to many people having one foot in with the world and one foot in with God. I'm just going to hang out in the middle because this whole sanctification thing is a little challenging. And here's what happens. You've got too much of the world to fully enjoy God and too much of God to fully enjoy the world. Make a choice.

25:01 What is it? Are you in or are you out? There's no middle ground when it comes to Jesus. It's the story of a man who had a dream, and he wakes up in this dream, and he's in a green pasture with a river that's running down it. And to his surprise, Jesus is standing in this beautiful pasture. And the pasture is cut off by a fence. He can't see what's on the other side of the fence. He can just see that the devil's there. And the devil looks at him in the dream and says, hey, everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of this fence. Everything you've ever wanted. You just have to choose me and hop over the fence. And so the man in this dream is kind of like addressing the situation, like green pastor, Jesus. I mean, I should probably choose him, but he said everything I ever wanted. So he takes some time to think, and then he smiles, and he walks up to the fence, climbs on top of the fence, sits down on the fence and looks at both of them and says, I choose both.

26:06 I choose the fence. Then in the dream, it goes pitch black. He descends and when he hits the ground, the devil grabs him by the shoulders and says, I finally got you. He looks at the devil and goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. I didn't choose you, I chose the fence. the devil looked at him and said, yeah, but what you didn't realize is I own the fence. If you're sitting on the fence in your faith, you should know who owns that fence.

26:40 Jesus is either Lord of all or he's not Lord at all. So maybe one of the best things we could all do today is take an honest look at places and spaces where we might be sitting on the fence. Now, does that mean that we live a perfect, sinless life and we never make a mistake again? Absolutely not. It just means that when you make a mistake, and you will make them, you know where to run to. Because of the grace of God, instead of from making a mistake and having to hide from God, you get to run towards him. Because forgiveness, when you go to God, you're not asking for forgiveness. You're receiving the forgiveness that has already been extended from the cross. And so the gospel says, instead of, man, I messed up. I got to run away from dad.

27:34 Dad's going to kill me. The gospel says, I messed up. I got to go talk to dad. And when you do, you're not met with an angry fist like, you did it again, bro? No. You're met with grace and forgiveness and the power to have victory over your sin. Romans 6, 14, Paul concludes with this final idea.

28:06 He says, for sin shall no longer be your master because you are not under the law but under grace. If you're in Christ Jesus, I've got great news for you. you can stop chugging the Clorox bottle. Sin isn't your master anymore. Christ is. But don't mistake that language. He's your master. He is your Lord. And here's what's so amazing to me. Because in a world where so many people use their power to abuse people and get what they want, Christ Jesus, the most powerful being in the universe is known and unknown because I don't know, he made them all. He uses his power to do what? To serve you and me that we might receive what we most desperately need, salvation, which is found in him, in him alone.

29:12 Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death. Friends, that's what you earned, that's what I earned. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So I need you to hear me today. I don't know what your concept of Christianity has been, but it's not a matter of good outweighing your bad. If it is, we're all in trouble.

29:41 It's a matter of life and death. And if you want life, it's found in a person. And his name is Jesus. And he offers life. Hear me. He offers life unimaginable. Where you can live no longer a slave to the things that are killing you. But a slave to righteousness. where Jesus Christ is your master.

30:15 So can I encourage you today to let go of the Clorox bottle, to see it for what it is. It's not freedom. It's not fun. It's fatal. Paul wants you to know you're dead to sin. You need to know that. You, you, you are dead to sin. He wants you to see it through baptism. If you haven't gotten baptized, do not wait anymore. You've won the cosmic lottery, except it's not just a chance. It's a gift being extended that you can receive. And he wants you to live like you're dead to sin. Let's bow for prayer.

31:02 If you're in this room and you haven't received that gift that is freely being offered to you and me today, receive that gift. It's the greatest decision you could ever make in your life. Just simply say this, Jesus, today I admit that I'm a sinner in need of a Savior. I believe you are who you said you are, that you died on a cross for my sin and three days later rose again from the grave. Today I choose to follow you, to live like you, to live out a life that shows that I am dead to sin. God, I pray for all of us that we would know it, that we would see it, and we would live like it. We ask all these things in your son's name. Everybody say amen.