We're going to be looking at verses 5 through 7, but we'll be reading from 5 through 11 this morning. Sorry, we'll be reading from verse 1 all the way through verse 11. 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 a 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 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 yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we entrust this time to you, asking Lord God that we would be able to redeem this time for our sanctification, for the glorification of your name, for praise and honor and worship that you are due.

We thank you Lord for being patient with us. We thank you for forgiveness in Christ. We pray Father God that your word would convict, renew, strengthen, and encourage, that you would ordain this time for the sake of the growth of your church. We ask Lord the Holy Spirit would give us eager ears, soft hearts, and a willingness Lord God to not only to hear but to apply all that you have.

In Jesus name we pray, Amen. You know one of the most sobering passages in the New Testament, I think it's found in Matthew 7, 21 and on, where it says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven." Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven.

Now that is stated in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, talking about what the kingdom of heaven is going to look like. He's describing to a group of people who are actively participating in the synagogue, in the temple. So the people that he is addressing would be equivalent to people who are raised in the church.

People who are very active in the church. People who are attending Sunday services. It would be equivalent to people, some of them, very active and even proselytizing. Even going out to short term missions. Even leading in small group Bible study. Leading worship. And even pastors. His audience were not pagan worshippers.

They weren't idolaters, at least the way that we would consider idolaters. He goes on even further and he says, verse 23, "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'" I remember the first time as a young Christian reading this passage and it really shook me up.

How am I confident that this is not me? How can I just automatically read this passage and say, "Well, I feel bad for those people." Because Jesus is speaking to church people. Again, church the way we know it has not established at that point, but those are his people.

These are people who are active in synagogue. These are people who have been circumcised, who have been raided, maybe even memorized large chunks of the Torah. And yet he says, "I never knew you. All of that had nothing to do with me." So as I was reading this, how do I know that this isn't talking about me?

As a pastor's kid, I know some of you guys are also PKs, I was raised in a pastor's family and my grandfather was a pastor. So I was very cultured in Christianity. I can't remember a single Sunday that our family did not attend church. I have very fond memories of church when I was very young.

It wasn't until I was maybe in the fifth or sixth grade, I began to notice some of the hypocrisy in the church. Many times, sitting in the back of the car while my parents are coming back from church and they would talk about all the things that they're frustrated in.

So I was able to hear and see all that was going on behind the curtains. You can see like at the church, everybody puts on a good face, but then all the things that people are frustrated with and all the complaints that they have and the human relational issues.

And I would hear all of that from behind the scene. And before I became a Christian, I always wondered why these people come to church if they hate each other that much, because that's what it seems like. They just can't come to agreement and they don't like each other, but then they come and they worship and then they come and they...

I mean, to me, it looks so fake, even as a kid. Why do they come to church? And I remember, even from a young age, thinking to myself that once I turn 18 and I'm independent, I'm not going to church. I couldn't do it before then because my dad was a pastor and it would be very shameful for the pastor's kid to decide not to come to church.

So I thought maybe when I'm old enough and I'm no longer under his roof and I could just leave the church and it would be fine. So I determined, even from a young age, I think as early as fifth grade, I told myself I'm not going to church. This is not me.

I've seen behind the scene, because my dad was a pastor of a large church out in Korea. He was also a pastor of a very small church here, many times. He was also a seminary professor, so he had a lot of connections. And so I've seen a lot of things.

I think many of you who grew up in the church, if I was to ask you some of your experiences, you probably have your own stories. But again, being a pastor's kid, I was privileged to be able to see a lot of things. Of course, there's a lot of non-Christians in the church, and I've seen that.

But that's not where the real things that disturbed me, and maybe it disturbed you. I've seen deacons get into fistfights in the church, and I know I'm giving very extreme cases, and I always wondered to myself why they were in the church. But that's not where it stopped. I've seen elders who are ordained in the church, and then I would go, because that particular elder who got ordained, his child was a good friend of mine, so I would always hang out at their church, at their house after the church.

And I remember attending the ordination meeting, and then afterwards, he would invite all of his friends, and they had a big drinking party at the house. And I remember just watching that, just sitting and watching that, thinking, "What is going on here?" But that's not where it ends. I remember even after I became a pastor, as a young pastor at a church and watching an older pastor constantly angry that he wasn't respected in the church, and I remember him getting into a fight with somebody because he said that he was the number two at church.

There was about six or seven pastors, and we had the head pastor, and then he was the number two at the church, and so that number two parking space was his. First one was the senior pastor, and he can't challenge that, but the second one was his, so anybody that parked there, he would come in huffing and puffing, "Who parked there?" And he would demand, and I remember watching, it wasn't just that incident, I was just watching, thinking, "How did that man get ordained?" One of the things that disturbed me the most was when I had an opportunity to chauffeur around a nationally known speaker, and again, he's in a Korean church, and so he was invited to speak at my father's church, and I was assigned the job to pick him up and take him to church, and whatever he needed, I became the chauffeur.

By that time, I was already a young pastor, and so I volunteered to do it, and I thought it'd be great to spend some time with a nationally known speaker, and so the whole time that I was with him, I heard, again, behind the scene with him, arguing with the elders of the church about how he was so disappointed that they didn't give him the best room, that they gave him a cheaper room, because again, the church at that time was a very small church, and that he deserved to be in the embassy suite, and he talked about how demanded that the offering that was collected during the revival was his, because he's the reason why people came, so whatever the offering that they gave, it belonged to him, so I'm driving him around, I'm hearing this all the time, you know, in the background, I'm thinking, wow, this is a man that's going around speaking all over the country, and all over these churches, and I sat through all of his preaching, he's a great preacher, great preacher, after he would speak, he would invite people to come, he would lay hands on them, people would be in tears, people would be in tears thanking him for his sermons, and me the whole time thinking like, wow, that's the guy, nobody knows what's going on behind the scene, and I began to think to myself, I wonder how much of Christianity is that, you know, we've created this facade, we've created this religious institution, where if we play the part and do the right things, and yet behind the curtain, behind the curtain, we're no more transformed than the world, in fact, it's probably even worse, because we're faking it, we're pretending to be righteous, and yet behind the curtains, we're no different, now why am I sharing all of this, because the concern that the readers of Paul's letter had with Paul, saying, salvation is by justification, by faith, by grace alone, so some of them were thinking, if that's what salvation is, don't you think that's going to lead to lawlessness, if you're saying that all law does is reveal sin, but it has no way of saving you, wouldn't that cause a bunch of people to just say, one saved always saved, it doesn't matter what you do, because it's not what I did, but what he did, I mean, people are just using these cliches to cover over their sin, and to be honest, let's be honest, it does superficially, if you tell a group of people, what you do doesn't matter, wouldn't that create some of this stuff, the honest answer, we have to be honest with ourselves, if we're not careful, it does, when you're not preaching the full gospel, and you're only preaching superficially, that if you wave your hands, and if you feel something inside, that you've been saved for eternity, so from that moment on, whatever sin that you are allowed to continue to harbor in your life, it doesn't matter, because you're saved, because we're saved by grace, and grace alone, Paul is saying, by no means, by no means, absolutely not, not only does it not lead to licentiousness, not only does it not lead to lawlessness, it actually leads to a transformed life, that looks nothing like this world, so the question is, how come that's not what we see, what is actually happening, is Paul just laying out a bunch of theories, that doesn't actually work, or is he actually telling us, that this is what true life looks like, and obviously, that's where Paul's case that he's making, he's talking about the latter, see, what Paul says here is, an individual who has genuinely repented, genuinely repented, genuinely been justified by faith, and by grace alone, the very first thing that happens is he is united with Christ, remember we talked about that, he uses the term baptism, you know, last week we talked about that, baptism in our mind is talking about this religious ceremony, but the word itself means to be immersed, that our salvation is described as an intimate union with Christ, and that's why the Bible describes our relationship with him as a bride, we are the bride, and he is the groom, so any of you who've been married, or been to a wedding ceremony, you know, one of the traditions that they have, is you have two lights that are flickering, until they're ready, and after they make the vow, they come, what do they do, they turn off those lights, and then they turn one on, meaning, it is no longer two people, but they become one, so from that moment on, you have to think like one person, you're going to share the same money, you're going to share the same time, you're going to share the same space, imagine if you came in, they never turned off that light, and said we're going to stay individual, we're going to be in the house, but we're not really going to be united on paper for tax purposes, but they're not truly united, the Bible says an individual who has repented of his sins, and was forgiven, was justified by faith and grace alone, we have become the bride of Christ, in fact, the illustration goes even further, we have become the temple of the Holy Spirit, this is where he dwells, he goes even further than that, and he calls us the body of Christ, that he is the head, and just like I can never say, you know, that's my hand, that has nothing to do with me, the hand, my feet, every part of my body parts, are also mine, so when the Bible describes all of us, members of the body of Christ, it's talking about this intimate union with Christ, not just a momentary union, not just a holding of hands, we have been immersed with Christ, in fact, the Bible describes our immersion as so intimate, that we are to smell like Christ, you're probably thinking in your head, what does it say, you're supposed to smell like Christ, you ever see a couple who's been married for a long time, they actually begin to smell alike, because they eat the same food, you know, they sleep on the same bed, your clothes are washed by the same soap, and so if you've been married for a long time, you start to actually smell alike, right, good and bad, right, depending, well the Bible says that we have been united with Christ in such a way, in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 15, it says, we are the aroma of Christ, we are the smell of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, that our union with Christ is so intense, so complete, that we actually become the smell of Christ wherever we go, so in this union, Paul says, the first thing that happens in this union is we die, we are baptized into his death, you know what's interesting in verse 4, that Paul, to make sure that you understand this illustration of death, he goes even further, he doesn't just say you died with Christ, he says we were buried therefore with him in baptism, we were buried with him, just in case that you thought that the death was just kind of a side thing that just happened, he said he wants to make sure that no, you didn't just die, you were buried, if any of you have ever participated, and I'm not talking about just going to a funeral, but you have to prepare the funeral, you have to get the casket, you have to make sure that the cemetery, the burial site was ready, and you have to pay for all of that, if any of you had to participate in all of that, I think some of you guys may know what I'm talking about, when my father passed away, me and my brothers obviously had to prepare all of that, and it definitely is a business, you know, they're trying to comfort you, and the people who are in this business, the mortuary, the cemeteries, and all of this, but they want to, you know, say hey, this is the last thing you want to do for your father, you want to make sure you want to spend $300 on a piece of trash, versus this $7000, you know what I mean, and you feel guilty, like this is the last thing I'm doing for my father, you know, but one thing that really disturbed me was that when we were getting all this ready, and they had this extra charge, and it's at the burial site, and they say, if you don't pay extra $700, you have to leave your father's casket on top of that stand, and go home.

And I said, if you want them to come and actually lower that into the grave, and then have the dirt pouring ceremony, that will cost you extra $700. So I'm like, what? Who would feel comfortable just leaving? Because it's not complete. Now obviously, you know, your logic is going to tell you, of course they're going to bury him.

But in our mind, it's not closed. Emotionally, it's not complete until he's actually in the ground, and we have to pour dirt on it. And they say, well, it's just their policy, it's $700 extra. Well, they're going to do it, but if they do it when you're there, it's $700.

If they do it after you leave, you don't have to pay the $700. I was like, oh my gosh. I was about to like, what is wrong with you? And then, we were kind of going back and forth, and then one of the guys who was working at Mortuary, he does this for a living, and he said, hey, hey, pull this aside.

You don't have to do that. And he pulled this aside and says, just get a bunch of $20 bills, maybe about five of them, and see the workers, those guys who are just standing around, and they're waiting for us to leave. Just slip them $20 each before it starts, and say, hey, do you mind when we're done, can you just kind of come and just lower it for us?

And they said, instead of doing it at $700, you give them $100 and you do it. So being Korean, I did it. So I went around and slipped all the money, and then so they came and did it. It's like, yes, suckers. I saved $600. But any of you who participated in that whole process, it's kind of like, yeah, you don't feel, even though his life is no longer in that body, it's in the casket, but you don't feel like it's absolutely complete until it is buried.

And that's the imagery that is used by Paul, and he said, not only have we been crucified, Jesus was buried and the tomb was shut. It was complete. The death was absolutely final, and that's the description that he uses. When we were united with Christ, we were complete. We have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer us who live. See, that discussion that we have constantly, what should I do with my life, is a very unfruitful discussion. In fact, we would go even further and say it is an unbiblical discussion. Because the Bible says we have been crucified with Christ, and yet we're constantly concerned about what should I do with my life.

That's just like saying, you know what, the Bible says I'm crucified, but I'm going to live like this if I'm not. And then we wonder why we're so frustrated. See, what Paul is describing is what happened. See, when somebody repents, he didn't just repent and say, you know what, I repent of certain events, certain things that I did in my life.

The repentance is that I was wrong about all of this. I repented of my life, what I thought was good, what I thought was rest, what I thought was hope, what I thought was insurance, all of that was wrong. And we repented of it. And we were crucified. And we became new creatures.

What exactly happened? He goes on in verse 6, and he says, "We know that our old self was crucified," number one, "with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing," number two, "so that we should no longer be enslaved to sin," number three. He said three specific things happened when we were buried with him in baptism.

One is that our old self was crucified with him. He's not just talking about a certain aspect of your life. He's not talking about just your career. He said our old self, everything that I was before I met Christ was also crucified and buried. I became a completely new creation.

Again, Ephesians 4, 20, it says, "But that is not the way you learned Christ, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your old former manner of life." Whatever it was that we held onto before we met Christ was no longer relevant.

In fact, some of the things that we held onto, we're thinking that somehow we can use that for the glory of God, sometimes become the greatest hindrance. Sometimes those of you who are smart with position, with honor and money, and we think that we know that can naturally translate into greater work for the kingdom of God, but those are the things sometimes that causes the greatest stumbling in your life, because it's your source of pride, thinking that somehow you're going to add.

So the very first thing that happens when we meet Christ and when we're genuinely justified by faith and by grace is all that I was prior to meeting Christ dies and is buried with Christ. There was nothing to salvage. There's nothing to salvage. And he creates a very new creation.

As Christ is resurrected in his new life, we are resurrected along with him in a new life. It is being in between, holding onto the past and wanting the future that is causing the frustration. Again, in Colossians 3, 9-10, he said, "Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices, and you have put on the new self." You notice here that Paul is not telling them that this is what you do?

He said, "Do not realize that this is what happened." He's talking about indicative. He's talking about theology. He's saying, "This is what happened to you." When two people get married, during the pronouncement, we always read a passage in Mark 10, 7 and 8. We said, "For this reason, man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh so that they are no longer two, but one." We call that leaving and cleaving.

Again, illustrated by the two candles. The representative of the two families come, and they will light the candle, and they will sit down, and then after the vows, they will go and blow off the candles, and they will unite to one. So in order for the one candle to be lit, the other two had to be turned off.

We call that leaving and cleaving. So when we are united with Christ, the Bible says what happened is you left your old life. Whatever it is that you were united to before you met Christ is no longer relevant, nothing to salvage, and you have now brought into this situation a newness.

You know, some of you guys who are cat lovers, before you met Christ, cat was your love. Or before you met your husband or wife or whoever, right? But if your husband or wife is allergic to a cat, you have a decision to make. You have a decision to make.

Do I love this cat more than my husband? Do I love this more than my wife? Or say, "Well, I want both." Well, you can't have both. Because your husband can't be in the same room as that cat. As long as that cat is in the house, the husband is going to be miserable, and not just momentarily, for the rest of his life.

So you have a decision to make. You choose between the cat or your husband, or future husband. Or say, "You know, I don't want him. I love my cat better," and just walk away. Live with your cat. But you cannot do both. See, what Jesus is describing is when the gospel of Jesus Christ was proclaimed, and your eyes became open, the reason why you confessed and was forgiven is because you saw that and said, "I want that more than the cat." I don't know why I loved the cat in the first place.

All that cat does is take my money, poops on the floor. I mean, it's not loyal. It constantly runs. I don't know why I was so hooked on that cat in the first place. I want Jesus. That's why you repented. That's why we turned away from sin, and we embraced Christ.

So what Paul is saying, he's going to get to the imperative. He's going to say, "Therefore, this is what you ought to do." But before he gets to the "therefore," he's trying to explain why true salvation does not lead to lawlessness. True repentance does not lead to licentiousness. In fact, it leads to greater life in Christ.

When the two people became married, all of the Old Testament is to teach that God cannot be in the presence of sin. That was the whole teaching in the Old Testament, the whole point of the tabernacle, even with His own chosen people. He said, "If I go with these stiff-necked people, I may become angry and destroy all of them." And any of them, even the high priest that approaches God, had to make these elaborate sacrifices to cover him temporarily so that he would not be destroyed by the holiness of God.

We come to the New Testament, and he says, "No, that holiness now makes His dwelling in us." And so an individual who repents of his sin and is united with Christ can no longer allow the sin to live with them. Does a cat every once in a while jump into the room?

Yeah. Does somebody else who loves cats and have a cat with them all the time happen to come over to your house every once in a while? Yeah. But that cat can't live with you. That cat cannot be your pet. That's what he's describing when he says when somebody has genuinely repented, they have repented from their old way of life.

The old self has been put off, and they put on the new self. The body of sin, he says, secondly, that it may be brought to nothing. NASB says the body of sin might be done away with completely. King James says that the body of sin may be destroyed, but the literal translation, literal understanding of this in the Greek dictionary says this.

It means to render inactive, idle, useless, and ineffective. I know some of you guys may be sitting here thinking like, "Hmm, that's not how it feels." When we read Romans chapter 7, it says, "What I want to do, I don't do. What I don't want to do, I keep on doing.

Oh, what a wretched man I am, and I feel like that's me." But here it says it's rendered useless, ineffective. How come I don't feel it? Let me give you an example of what Paul means here as an indicative, as what happened to us. I had a friend who came to the United States in his mid to late junior high school from Korea, and he lived in K-town, so you don't have to speak English in K-town.

So for 10 years, he's going to Korean Bible studies, singing Korean songs, and doing everything Korean, and even after 10 years, we would go to a restaurant, and he just would not order. He would say, "Peter, you order." I mean, his English, in my opinion, was good, but he just refused to speak.

And he never let go of his Korean citizenship. He had every intent, all of his family, friends, everybody he knew was in the United States, but he never forfeited his citizenship, because U.S. allows dual citizenship. So he always allowed it, and then in his late 20s, he happened to revisit Korea, and then when he got there, he got caught on the way out, because Korea has mandatory military service.

And usually between the age of 18 and mid-20s, they get drafted, they're in there for two to three years, depending. And so on the way out, he got caught, and he was forced into the military, Korean military. And so in his late 20s, he became a private, and he had a hard time, because he had 18, 19, 20-year-olds yelling at him.

And that's hard for any culture, but in Korean culture, it's impossible, you know what I mean? That's the hierarchy that Korean culture has, and he was miserable, because these guys were seven, eight years younger than him, ordering him to get out of bed, doing this. He was miserable. And even after he came out of the military, he just was so difficult, he just couldn't adjust to America, and then he ended up just settling down, and had kids there, and he just ended up going back, because it was easier for him to stay over there.

And the Bible describes our position before God. And he says that sin no longer has any dominion over us. He says that our citizenship in the old life has been canceled. And in Colossians 1, 13-14, it says, "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin." We're trying so hard to have dual citizenship, and we want to hold on to our old form of life and have Christ too, and then that's causing all kinds of frustrations in your life.

Thinking that if you can somehow tweak this and tweak that, and if we do this, and not recognizing, the core of the problem is you can't have dual citizenship in the kingdom. And again, Paul's not talking about imperatives here, he's going to challenge them, "Therefore now you ought to do this." But right now, he's just describing, "This is what happened." If you are a genuine believer, if you genuinely repented and have been renewed, you are a new creation.

Not just theoretically, not just theologically, but this happened. The longer you look back and hold on to that, the more frustrated your life will be. He says ultimately, the final reason why he says what happened in our union with Christ and his death is to our old self to be crucified, the body of sin to be brought to nothing, ineffective in our lives, and its ultimate accomplishment is to set us free.

To set us free. In Romans 6, verse 14, "For sin will have no dominion over you." You have no dominion over you. John 8, verse 34, "Jesus answered them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin, everyone who continues sin, everyone who allows this cat to be their pet in their home, commits sin, is a slave to sin.

The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever.'" You notice what he said? If you're still enslaved to sin, you won't remain forever. Isn't that what it says in 1 John? They left because they were never really of us. Slaves who are pretending will come and live in the house for a period to benefit.

But if he's not a son, that's not his house. So therefore they will remain for a period, but eventually they will get out of the house. "Only the son will remain forever." And then he says, "So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed." So our first act of union with Christ is being united with Him in death and burial.

We're done. Our old self before we met Christ is done. That is no longer us. He didn't just cancel our sins. Imagine if somebody committed a horrendous crime and he comes to the judge and he says, "You know what? Instead of him being beaten, I will be beaten." And then the judge gets beaten and then the guy just walks out.

Now how many times do we hear that illustration and we say, "Wow, Jesus did that for us." Imagine if you're the guy who got beaten. This guy perpetrated, came into your house, beat your kids and beat your wife. He went to the court and then the judge says, "I will take the beating." And then he just walked out.

How many of you will praise the judge? That judge is so gracious. He's so loving. How many of you would think that? Most of you will think that's unjust. How can that guy get away with that? But that's not what happened. We often celebrate the judge being beaten and this sinner, exactly the way he is, now he walks away to do it again.

That's not the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ says that man, the judge gets the beating, that man dies. And he's buried with that judge. And he's resurrected as a new person. So the person who walks out is not the same person. It's not that same sinner. It's not the same guy who's going to go out and perpetrate the same sins.

And that's why Paul says, "When there is genuine justification by faith and by grace alone, it's because that guy has died." That's why it doesn't lead to licentiousness. He has been set free. See, a man who has opened his eyes to see the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ has changed.

Not just theoretically, not just theologically, not just positionally, but in reality has changed. The Bible says that the law came to do what? To make sin utterly sinful. And we use that to describe a theological position. But imagine in plain terms what that means. That the law came to make sin hideous, grotesque, ugly, horrendous.

The law came to show you that the sin that separated you from God, how ugly and hideous it is. And that's why when the Bible describes a man who claims to have opened his eyes and returned back to his old way of life, what does that describe? Returning back to vomit.

Second Peter 2.19, 2.20, "For if after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness, than after knowing it, turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them." What the true proverb says has happened to them, "The dog returns to its vomit, and the soul, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire." That's a pretty vivid picture of somebody who's backslidden.

He says a man who returns to his vomit, like a dog. See, a dog returns to his vomit because the dog doesn't see the vomit as vomit. Dogs, he sees it as food. As grotesque as it is, we can't blame the dog because the dog doesn't know any difference.

See, but when the law came and revealed that the very things that we considered food, the very things that we looked at and said, "Wow, I wish I had some of that," and we envied and coveted and slandered, cut corners and sent to get. He said now it's revealed as vomit.

So an individual who has seen the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ and then now looks at the world and sees the grotesqueness of the sin that it's under the dominion of, can no longer return back to its vomit. Isaiah, my youngest, when he was a little baby, he was a very good sleeper.

Very good sleeper. So after about a year, year and a half, once he went to sleep, I mean he rarely woke up in the middle of the night. Our other kids had issues, but Isaiah, once he went to sleep, and sometimes we were worried because he would never wake up, even when he was really sick.

I remember one time I went into his room and he vomited. And I don't know when it happened, but he vomited all over his bed. All over him. He had stale vomit on his hair, his face, neck, I mean everywhere. I wish I took a picture of it so I can show you, because words cannot do us justice.

And I walked in, I could immediately smell. I walked in, and wow, he's sleeping late today, so we were really happy. We walked in and he was just lying comfortably in his vomit. Obviously he walked in and immediately, you know, I was like, oh my gosh, you know, as they're coming in here, pick them up, clean them up, change them up, you know, change everything and put new things in, you know.

He vomited and then whatever was bothering in his stomach, just, okay, it's over, let's go back to sleep. He won't do that now. He won't do that now because he knows the grotesqueness of vomit, so if he vomits, I'm sure he'll get up. You won't do that. If you vomited, you're not going to lay there.

See, that's how it's described. See, the law came to make sin utterly sinful. So if your eyes have truly been opened and you repented of this vomit that we were chasing after, what Paul is saying is a man or a woman who has genuinely repented of his sin does not return back to that vomit.

In fact, it causes us to want more of Christ. That's the evidence of true salvation. That's the evidence that you've actually really seen the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that's why when we are freed, he's not simply saying, "Hey, you're free. The penalty of sin is gone." No, you're free.

You're free from the dominion of sin. You're free from the power of sin so that you can pursue Christ freely. The very thing that's going to give you life, now you're free to pursue it. We've repented. As a reminder, we talk about the Ten Commandments. We repented of worshiping the false god.

We repented of worshiping God in our own image. We've repented of using the Lord's God, God's name in vain, invoking our will for his will. We've repented of breaking the Sabbath by seeking rest in anywhere else but God. We repented of dishonoring parents that God has given us to teach us how to honor him.

We repented of murder that we harbored in our heart because we allowed and harbored hatred in our heart to those around us. We repented of adultery, allowing the lust to take and nest in our minds and in our lives. We repented of slandering our neighbors because we've been offended by them.

And we've repented of the coveting and envying that repeats this whole cycle. See, if we've repented of these things, if that's what actually happened, if you've truly been justified by faith, yes, that dirty cat may once in a while enter into your home. It may cause you to cough.

But if you open that door and you allow it to live, it's either the cat or your husband. Again, up to this point, Paul is not saying you ought to do this. This is a description of what has happened to you, what has happened to me. We are no longer creatures of the night.

We're creatures of the day. This is why we don't see possums during the day. You guys are confused. Let's pray and end it right here. Possums don't walk around during the night because they don't function during the day. I mean, at night, they don't function during the day. So every once in a while, you may run into a possum.

But if you see a possum during the day, it is absolutely jacked and confused. It will look at you kind of like, "What is going on?" And it's going to look for some corner, some garage, somewhere where he can find darkness. Usually during the day, they're hanging upside down on their tails.

If you see a possum during the day, something has horribly gone wrong with his life. So his tail just didn't function. His friends were joking around with him. He was sick. Something went wrong. So in a possum, you see possum during the day, he is frantically looking for darkness.

But we're exactly the opposite. God created us to function in the light. So if you happen to wake up, if you happen to be on a camping trip and everything's dark and you don't have your flashlight and you have to go to the bathroom at three in the morning, you're probably sitting there thinking like, "Can I hold this till morning?" That's probably what you're thinking, right?

Because you don't want to trick out in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom where you can't see, you don't have a flashlight, "Am I going to make it back? Am I going to pee on myself?" You got all these thoughts in your head and you're probably thinking, "Is it bad enough do I need to wake up?" Why not?

Because you're not meant to function at night. So you're going to wait until the light, the sun comes up so you can function. So if you've been transformed and your old self is dead, see, a slave will see the light and look for a hole. That's why they don't like teaching of the gospel.

That's why when the Bible is taught and the light is turned on, they don't like it. But if you're a creature of the day and your old self has been crucified and now God made you a light, the darkness is very uncomfortable. Yeah, sometimes you may sit and vomit, sometimes it may splash on you, but the reaction that you have, this is so filthy dirty, you want to hurry up and get it off of you because now you know it's dirty.

And that's what causes a Christian to run to God and ask for forgiveness because you don't like the feeling of vomit on you. If anyone is in Christ, if anyone is genuinely in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, was crucified, was buried with Christ. Behold, the new has come.

We're going to get to the imperatives next week. Let's pray.