Lesson 12: Dead to Sin, Alive to God – 6:1-14
 1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 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 newness of life.
5 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.
6 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.
7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.
8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.
9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him.
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 also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

How can we be dead to sin, as we read in our verses today, when we cannot become perfect while we live in these human bodies? The answer is that we have become alive to God. Let’s go through our verses today to see how this becomes a reality. It is important for us to consider ourselves dead to sin. The Bible tells us this is a battle for our mind, and we need to take an active part in transforming our mind to be like Jesus’.


Romans 12:1-2 and Philippians 2:5 are good examples. We must learn to take every thought captive - 2 Corinthians 10:5. We must identify ourselves so closely with Jesus’ death on the cross that we consider ourselves dead to everything of this world, dead to everything our bodies might want, dead to every temptation that comes our way. This is not easy! We still live in the human body which has needs. We still live in the human world which makes demands on us.

I heard a pastor give the following steps for how we can live without regret, and it applies to how we also can live dead to sin. We must give ourselves to Jesus to be His servant. We might not like the word “slave,” but this is what we must become to be His servant. Being a slave to someone who loves us more than we can even imagine will never be a burden to us. Being dead to sin means we live in a way we are never ashamed. We do nothing or say nothing which we will be ashamed to admit to if someone reminds us of it. We follow only the Holy Spirit for everything we do in our life. This means even those things we know we could handle on our own, we instead turn over leadership and authority to the Holy Spirit. We become willing to suffer for Jesus. This world hates Jesus and all who belong to Him, so we can never expect to be His without also being hated. We must be focused on our mission: being His follower is not about our behavior; it is about our believing and trusting in Him. We must keep our hands and feet clean, meaning we avoid doing things we know will defile us.

Living for Jesus is not about following a set of rules (the 10 Commandments), it is about following Jesus. Following rules is like walking down the street with our eyes on our feet. Following Jesus is like walking on water. Peter only began to sink when he took his eyes off Jesus and looked at his feet (Matthew 14:28-33).

*Are you willing to be Jesus’ slave?