Romans 6:3-14, "Or 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.

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 [King James, "man"] self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with [margin: "or be rendered powerless", inoperative], 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 lives, 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 [penalty of the law], but under grace."

"Let's open our book of Romans, Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6, we saw last week that we know that we are free from the guilt of sin, and we are free the penalty of sin, but what we wrestle with probably the most in our lives is How, how, can we be free from the power of sin? We struggle with sin in our lives, we struggle with habits that won't break off, with practices that are destroying our lives, destroying our families, destroying our marriages. And how can we have victory? How can we be free from sin's power? Oh it's great to know I'm going to heaven [going to be in the kingdom of heaven as an immortal being, as some believe]. But can I have a little bit of heaven on earth right now? Yes we can. (And we need to have a little bit of cool on earth right now, Vern could you could get the air blowing a little bit, or else they'll think that we're going to hell. [laughter]) If you want to get on the road to freedom from the power of sin, there are some important truths that you need to know and believe regardless of how you feel, or what you're experiencing. We need to know like we saw last week, that we are free in Christ [Messiah], we're freed from the power sin, because we're united to Jesus Christ, and have his life in us. It's not just a legal thing, where I'm credited to be in Christ, but actually I am in Christ, I've been baptized into Christ. And we "baptized" the piece of cloth last week, into that little vat of dye, and when it came out, it came out with the attributes of that dye in it. We are united to Christ Jesus. We are baptized into him. We are one, mystically, miraculously, with Christ. He's just not out there for us, he lives in us-"Christ in you, the hope of glory."

But now the second thing we need to know is that we have died to sin, and that we have a new nature. We have died to sin. Get this. This is all I'm going to talk about today, is that we have died to sin, and we have a new nature. Look at verse 2, he says, the latter part, "How shall we who died to sin still live in it?" How can we who died to sin, still live like we were before we died to sin? He goes on in verses 6, 7 and 8, let's read them (or follow along), "Knowing this, that our old self"-the King James Version says "the old man", our old nature is what he's talking about-"was crucified with him, that our body of sin"-that's the flesh-"might be rendered inoperative, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him." Now verses 11, "Even so"-consider, reckon it to be-"consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." I guess the Lord wants us to get a message. Seventeen times in twenty three verses we are told that "we have died" or "we are dead". You're reading your obituary right now. You've read an obit, you know, and I used to have friends, she lives in northern California, she's ninety-one years old. She'll be ninety-two years old next year. And she used to be reading through the newspaper, and I'd say "Lela, what you readin'?" and she'd say "Oh, right now I'm reading the obituaries to see if my name is in their." [laughter] She says, "When you get to be my age, you never are quite sure, you know." So, I sort of thought that was funny. But you're reading your obituary here, and an obituary usually tells how you were and how you died, and when you died. And sure enough that's what the Scripture tells us right here, is who you were, you were a person in Adam, you were a person under the curse, and you were born little Adams, with little Adams nature in you. And that made you a child of wrath, having Adam's [and Satan's] nature. That nature made you do certain things, you had to do certain things. You had to live a certain way because you were controlled by that nature. But as a result of having being related to Christ, being born again into the family of Jesus Christ, you now have a new nature, a new identity, and a new Master. And we've been freed from the power and control of our old nature. Let me illustrate. When I was growing up, we had several dogs. At one time we even had three poodles. And two of the poodles were really "Fifi" kind of dogs. You know what I mean? They were just Fifi-poodles. No offense to those of you who have those scrawny little things, but we had two of them when I was growing up. But then we had one macho poodle, and his name was Tony with a "y", OK. He was stalky, he was MACHO, as a poodle, you know, and muscular. And I mean, he just didn't fit into the poodle role. And my Mom would take him to the dog wash once in a while, and they would get Tony and he'd go all matted, there'd be sticks in him and little pieces of dirt and everything, boy he smelled, and all of this kind of stuff would be matted into him, his ears would just be matted up. Mom would take him to the dog wash and they would clean him up, and man when he came back you wouldn't even recognize him at all. It was like he was a different person. First of all, they would peel back the fur from his little feet and painted his toenails. And then they primped him all up and poofed up his hair, and gave him a shave, and put powder on him, and perfumed him--and put bows in his hair! [laughter] And I'll never forget how when Tony would walk in the door after one of those times, that he sort of walked curled, his little rear curled around towards his neck, and he walked sort of sideways like he was totally embarrassed, [laughter] and could not believe what had happened to him. It's like "Aah, I don't want anyone to see me!" and he'd run under the couch and he'd just hide. And you could smell wherever he went, you know, the perfume. It was just really amazing the change that occurred to Tony. And then he would have to go outside, and I'll never forget the very first thing that Tony would do, he'd run out into the yard, go out into the grass, find an old doggie doolie and roll in it. [laughter] You see, not matter how much you cleaned up the outside, he still had a dog's nature on the inside. And the world and all it's programs takes you in your messed up state, they paint your toenails, so to speak, they go through an expensive program to trim you up, and primp your hair, and perfume you. And you graduate from the program feeling weird, wondering what's going on, hiding out, and the first doggie doolie you find you go and roll in it, and nothing's changed. The point is, is that we are not that way as Christians. We have been changed from the inside. It's not a change on the outside. That's why it's hard for some of you to believe a change has occurred, because you know you didn't go from a brown-haired person to a blond-haired person. You didn't change visibly. But on the inside, the Bible says you became brand new. The Bible says that your 'Old Man' died, or ladies your 'Old Woman' died, and you're not the same anymore. You don't have an old nature if you're a Christian, anymore. You still have the flesh, which is sort of a residual weird thing that hangs around till we're taken out of these bodies. The flesh is where sin tries to tempt you, and the flesh is the part of you that when you're tempted, wants to sort of go out after that temptation. But you don't have an old nature ruling you anymore. It's clear in the Bible that you have been freed from that. We died to sin once and for all. And how did we die? It's through our old self being crucified with Christ, verse 6, "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with [margin: be rendered powerless], that we should no longer be slaves to sin-because anyone who has died has been freed from sin." And next week we'll talk about the last part of verse 6, about the flesh, the body of sin that has been rendered inoperative. We'll talk about how to get victory over your fleshly desires. But this morning, all I want to talk about is nature. All I want to tell you is that you, if you're a Christian, have a new nature. I was sort of raised with this kind of thinking, that as a Christian, this is the way I was, I had a black dog inside of me-the old nature-and I had a white dog inside of me. And the big battle in my life was I needed to feed the white dog so that it could beat up the black dog, and I could get victory over that black dog, that old black dog in my life. No, the Bible doesn't teach that, and that is wrong. The Bible teaches the black dog was shot and killed at the cross. Amen! And that we just have a white dog now. [Actually as he brings out later, a "white sheep", not a "white dog".] We just have a new nature now, with a flesh problem, yes-but you used to have an old nature and a flesh problem. And that was really bad news. Now we just have a flesh problem, and walking in the Spirit can give you the victory over that. But you don't have an old nature anymore. It died and you were given a new nature in Christ, in Jesus Christ. Because we're in him we have a new nature. He's the firstborn of a new race, "the firstborn of many brethren" the Scripture says [I believe in Hebrews]. The radical change that occurred, because it was invisible, I know, is hard to believe. But I don't want you to live by your feelings, I want you to live by what the Bible says, and then let your feelings get into gear [i.e. as those feelings are now generated by a spiritual reality]. Feelings are weird things. You may say 'Well Mark, I don't feel like I'm a new person, I don't feel like I have a new nature.' Well, tough. You know, once in a while when I wake up, I don't feel like I'm married either. Does that ever happen to you? You wake up in morning, and you think, 'Oh, I'm married.' It's not 'Wonderful bliss!' It's 'oh, I'm married.' [but if your not married, it's 'Oh.I'm single.'] I mean it's, doesn't happen often. [much laughter] But I don't always feel married, you know the romance part, I don't always feel warm fuzzies, and you know, sometimes it's just the everyday 'Hey, I'm married, and I know I'm married.' Why, because of my feelings? No, because it's a legal relationship, and it's a spiritual union. [If you want your marriage to really click, keeping those "warm fuzzies" alive, it can be done. Click on http://www.howmarriageworks.com.] And I have that with my wife. And I know I love her, and I know she lives me, but I don't always feel that, I don't always feel like I'm on cloud nine. Nobody does. But I'm still married. I'm not married by feelings, I was married by a legal act, and by a spiritual union. And the same is true of your relationship in Christ. You're a new creation, not by your feelings, but by a legal act, by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and God accredited you righteous in Christ-and by a spiritual union with Christ. You're a new creation. Now whether you feel it or not it's still true. Your feelings are sort of out to lunch anyway. And so are my feelings. They're weird. Feelings don't know the difference between the truth and a lie. They can't tell the difference between what is true and what is not. What's the last time you watched a scary movie--you know, some suspenseful thing? We watched one the other night, we don't watch very much TV at all, we could probably count three, four hours a month is about all we ever get to watch, we're just so busy. So we decided, let's watch this TV program. And we are so not used to the stimulus of television, you know, and the suspense-we were watching this thing, and 'Uhh!'. I mean, I found myself, my heart was beating-boom! boom! boom!-and I'm sitting there thinking, this is the way I think, I think "Relax, man". I'm gritting my teeth, you know. [good he wasn't watching that killer-murder suspense thriller Hannibal Lector I think is the name of it, he would have had a heart attack.] "Relax, this is on tomorrow night too, the hero has to live you know, he's not going to die, he's going to live because this is on Monday through Friday at the same time, and they can't write him out of the script. "So, relax guy." And I look over at Leslie and she's breathing heavy, you know, like this. And I said, "Man, are you scared?" And she said, "Yeah, I'm scared too, I can't hardly stand it, can you? You want me to turn the sound off?" "No." And as we're talking, all of a sudden something scary happens, and I go "Oh!" like that. Now, that is a made-believe situation. It's not even a real thing. It's not even real life. But do my feelings know the difference what's true and false, real and not real? No! They just know what input they get and they "React!". Feelings "react!", don't they? And so, you need to understand that you can't base how you're living your Christian life on your feelings, or else you're going to be a basket case. You're going to go around Reacting to everything that happens to you, you know. And you're never going to get on solid ground. I want you on solid ground. Some of you are just spiritually flakey, and it's because you're not on the solid Rock of the Word of God. And you just flit around to whatever blows you, over here this week, and you're blown over here next week, and this wind of doctrine blows you over here. Get on the Word. You're always looking for some new high. 'Well, let's go to that church where they blow on you!' [laughter] 'How do they do that?' It's the garlic, man, the garlic. [lot's of laughter] 'Let's go to that church where they extend their hands, and they pray for you, and you feel this warm presence around you.' 'Let's go to that place where they jump up and down, and they danced around. Let's go there, man, I need a fix.' You need the Word. You need the Word, you need something that isn't just a feeling. You go home, you're going to face that family, you go home you're going to face that wife, you know. [laugher. But some of us have non-believing spouses or families we live with. It's tough at times.] It's not going to do anything for you there. Not a thing for you there. You're going to go back to work on Monday, you need something solid. Feelings evaporate, don't they? Feelings evaporate. But the truth, man, that hangs with us. And that's what I want to see you get anchored on, the truth of God's Word. Now the Bible says you're a new creature in Christ. 2^nd Corinthians 5:17, you know by heart, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Behold the old things are past away, and all things have become new." Literally it could be translated "He or she is a new species." Did you know that that word could be translated that way? The Bible is saying such a radical change has occurred in your life that you are not even the same kind of humanity you were before Christ. There are two kinds of humanity, two kinds of human beings in this world-those who have a new nature in Christ [Messiah] and are a new species, and those who are the old species of Adams race. Somebody put it this way: "These two segments of the human race are at opposite poles, they're basically an antithesis, they're poles apart. They dwell together because they are both members of the family of man. They are of one genus, to use the zoological term, but something has happened to cause them to separate into two species within that genus. And this separation is at a far deeper and more fundamental level than mere genetics. The division is the result of a spiritual transformation, nothing less in fact than rebirth. It is not a symbolic rebirth, like that achieved by ritual in some pagan religions of antiquity and even of today. It is a fundamental change in human nature--so great a change that it amounts to a genuine form of speciation. We become a different species. We indeed remain in the world, but are no longer of the world." That's why you had better get into Christ. You've got to be born again. Because the only ones leaving this earth [or going through the literal transformation into becoming spirit beings, being created with an eternal spirit body at the resurrection to immortality, cf. 1 Corinthians 15:49-54] are the new race, the new race in Christ. You've got to get out of Adam's race, and be born again by putting your faith in Jesus Christ [Yeshua haMeshiach for our Jewish readers]. At that moment you become a new person, you become united to Christ, and your old nature dies. It dies. Before, you were dead spiritually. Now you die to sin, you're old man dies and you become a brand new person. Isn't that what happens when babies are born? I've never seen a baby come out and it's a little old man smoking a cigar. [laughter] A baby is not like a remake of something that's already been, a baby is a brand-new person, a brand-new being that never existed before. And so when you're born again, you become a brand new person that never existed before. You say, 'Well, I don't feel that way." What have I been telling you about feelings? Maybe you don't feel that way because you don't know who you are in Christ. You just really don't know. We need to get a grip on this truth that we are new creations, that we're not the person we were before Christ, that we're brand new, and freed from sin.