Andrew Fountain - New Life in the Spirit -Rom 6

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Sermon notes - New Life in the Spirit (Rom 6)

The New Design

  • Anyone here remember vinyl records?
    • How record players once worked, 100 years ago (example of grater & chopstick)
  • Story of my Grandad: built factory in London, England to manufacture electrical items
    • head engineer found a new design. It used “electricity”
    • Volume and quality were astounding, so tried it out on the factory roof
    • Immediately a call from a local pub—it’s amazing, can we buy one?
      • Talked to his engineer and they set up a production line
    • Requests started flooding in
  • Two patterns:
    • the old, which used only it’s own mechanical power
    • the future design, which relied on a power supply and worked entirely differently
  • Just as we now have the old mechanical world, and the new electrically powered world
    • Paul talks about two worlds, the old physical world, powered by laws of nature
    • The new world, or “kingdom” that is powered by the Holy Spirit
  • Most of our problems as Christians are related to not understanding the two worlds we live in
  • We are born into the physical world
    • The old creation
    • Descendents of Adam
    • antagonistic towards God
    • unable to defeat sin in our lives
    • under the condemnation of the law
  • But Jesus was also born into this world
    • He triumphed over temptation
    • He kept all the law perfectly
    • He took on himself the condemnation his people deserved by dying for them
    • God raised him up, the first of a new race of beings
  • Jesus resurrection was not just him coming back to life
    • This was a bigger event than even the creation of the world
    • Jesus’s new body was the first evidence of an entire new creation
      • One day we will all have bodies like his
      • There will be a whole new universe without sin
  • Jesus saved us by uniting us with him
    • in his death
      • so that our sin was punished on the cross
    • and then in his resurrection
      • so that we are part of the new creation
      • which at present is just like a seed in our hearts

Romans 6:5-14

  1. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection.
  2. We know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
  3. (For someone who has died has been freed from sin.)
  4. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
  5. We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die again; death no longer is his master.
  6. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.
  7. So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
  8. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires,
  9. and do not present the members of your body to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and the members of your body to God as instruments to be used for righteousness.
  10. For sin will not be your master, because you are not under law but under grace.

based on NET Bible



Romans 6:5-14

Old Creation New Creation
5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection.
6 We know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
7 (For someone who has died has been freed from sin.)
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
he is never going to die again; death no longer is his master. 9 We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead,
10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11 So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, 13 and do not present the members of your body to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and the members of your body to God as instruments to be used for righteousness.
14 For sin will not be your master, because you are not under law but under grace.

based on NET Bible


  • Go through and point out comparison
  • Our problem as Christians is that we are living in both worlds at the same time.
  • I want to address two issues here this morning:
    1. Freedom from sin being our master
    2. Not under law but under grace

2. No longer slaves to sin

  • Were slaves to sin —now freedom to serve God [Romans 6:8–13]
  • Examples:
    • Larry’s goldfish

3. No longer under the law

  • Under law or under grace—

Rom 7:5–6 The New Life of the Spirit

  1. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful desires, aroused by the law, were active in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
  2. But now we have been released from the law, because we have died to what controlled us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit and not under the old written code.
  • The master & the maid
  • The employee & the partner
    • steal from the till
    • go home early
    • long lunch breaks
    • help himself to company stationary
    • surf the internet instead of working
    • rude and unhelpful to customers
  • The need for the Spirit
    • Just as my grandfather helped to re-define music reproduction…
    • This new relationship is through him

Romans 8:13–16

  1. …but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.
  2. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.
  3. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.”
  4. The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are God’s children.
  • The tape recorder, playing in the background of our minds
    • I’m useless, I’m going to mess up again
    • I know what I’m like
    • That is a lie! Speak the truth to yourself! You are a new creation in Christ Jesus

Romans 7:6

“But now we have been released from the law,
because we have died to what controlled us,
so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit
and not under the old written code.”

Updated on 2015-09-13 by Andrew Fountain