Christian Foundations (12): Victory over Sin (3)

JESUS CHRIST Himself is our FOUNDATION both for salvation, and for our daily life (1Corinthians 3:11). Jesus said: “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a SLAVE of SIN... if the Son sets you FREE (from SIN), you will be FREE indeed” (John 8:34,36). The the New Birth, He has already set our spirit free from sin, through His indwelling Spirit (1Corinthians 3:16, 2Corinthians 3:17, 5:17,21). However, we still have the sin-nature in our flesh to deal with. “The spirit indeed is willing (to do God’s will), but the FLESH is WEAK” (Matthew 26:41). “The WEAKNESS of the FLESH (to do God's will)” (Romans 6:19) is due to “SIN in the FLESH” (Romans 8:3). Pastor Derek goes verse by verse through Romans 6:2 - 8:14 to expound God's wonderful revelation of how we can walk in victory over sin. When we were baptised into Christ, we were united with Chris's death and resurrection, so that our old spirit man was crucified with Christ, and our reborn spirit (the New Man) has been resurrected with Christ, and so it consists of the resurrection life of Christ, which has overcome sin (Romans 6:3-6), so as we live out from our spirit we experience victory: “Reckon yourselves (in your spirit) to be DEAD indeed to SIN, but ALIVE to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:11). In this way, the BODY of SIN (the sin-nature in our flesh) might be done away with (dethroned and neutralised), that we should no longer be slaves of sin" (Romans 6:6). We have a choice now, to walk in the Spirit or in the flesh: “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members (of your body) as instruments of righteousness to God” (Romans 6:12-13). When we live by Christ's life in us, we will "serve God in the NEWNESS of the SPIRIT, and not in the oldness of the letter”(Romans 7:6). By walking in the Spirit we overcome sin in the flesh: “for the LAW of the SPIRIT of LIFE in Christ Jesus has made me FREE from the LAW of SIN and DEATH” (Romans 8:2).