Killing The Flesh

Romans 6:1-5, “What then 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 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.”

Humanity has two problems: sin and sins. Sin is not the sins we commit but the sin which becomes like a spider and keeps making spider webs. Sins are the web, sin is the spider. You don’t get this sin by sinning; you get it at birth. The only way this sin leaves you is by death.

The blood of Jesus Christ takes care of the sins. However, we still have a problem because the sin continues to make sins and we keep coming to Christ to be cleansed. This was the struggle outlined by Apostle Paul in Romans 7, where he said it even dwelt within him. Christians are good at cleaning away the spider’s webs in their lives but they don’t deal with the spider producing the webs.

I want to tell you about what the blood and the cross do. The cross provided the blood of Jesus Christ. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from sins but the cross of Jesus removes the sin.

The Blood

Jesus Christ shed His blood for the remission of sins, meaning to cleanse us from our sins. The blood does three things. The blood of Jesus clears our record with God. God needed the blood first to satisfy the righteous demands of His justice. That is why God doesn’t remember your sins anymore because Jesus cleared them away. They are gone from record.

You can have forgiveness from sin and peace with God yet not have peace within yourself. Most people never struggled with guilt until they got saved. When we were lost, our consciences were so dead that we didn’t feel any remorse about what we did. But when you get saved and your conscience awakens, it is so sensitive and judges you so that you no longer can enjoy sin. The reason Christians do not enjoy sinning is because your conscience is quickened.

The second thing the blood does is cleanses our conscience. I’m not talking about forgiving yourself but applying God’s forgiveness to yourself. Then, when you are at peace with God and peace with yourself, the devil comes from the outside using the memories of your past to attack you. That is when you use the blood of Jesus to conquer the accuser. When the devil rushes in like a flood, the Lord raises a standard against him. That standard is the blood of the Lamb, (Revelation 12:11-12).

The blood of Jesus Christ is precious and holy. Once Jesus Christ touches your life, even if you were a prostitute, pimp, had abortion, committed adultery, practice homosexuality, were addicted to anything or you were confused about your gender for a season, He died for you and His blood can cleanse you from everything. There is no amount of meditation, charity or inward looking that can remove the weight of sin. We must deal with sin by the blood of Jesus.

Your sweat and effort are unnecessary because there is blood to cover you. You cannot outdo God. You cannot earn your salvation. It is unnecessary. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can clear your record of sins, cleanse your conscience and give you a weapon to fight against the voice of the enemy which rises against you.

The Cross

The Cross deals with the sin. Fasting does not kill the flesh; it suppresses it. The Cross kills the flesh. Fasting is not powerful enough to end the flesh.

Deliverance from sin is more Biblical than victory over sin. This means you cannot become stronger than it, you can only get deliverance from it. God does not give you power over sin. He kills sin in your life and that is the only way you can be free from it. So, you don’t get victory over it, you get deliverance from it. Why then do you try to fight it as if you could overpower it?

Deliverance from demons doesn’t mean deliverance from sin. What removes demons is deliverance – them being cast out in the name of Jesus Christ. What removes sin is death. Secretly, many Christians look forward to the day they will die so all their problems with sin can be over. However, instead of looking forward to our death, we can look backwards to Jesus’. That’s why Romans says we died with Him. The blood was in the past. Jesus shed His blood once and for all for all sins – even the ones you will commit in the future.

Jesus’ death was two things: substitutionary and inclusive. It was substitutionary, meaning He died for you and me. Jesus’ death was also inclusive, meaning we died with Him. His substitutionary death is where the blood clears my record of sins, cleanses my conscience and gives me a weapon to fight the accuser. Jesus’ inclusive death, means you died with Him. Therefore, the sin/flesh is gone.

Living A Holy Life

There are four things I’m going to share with you that you need to do with this revelation to see change in your holiness. This is the Biblical way of living a holy life.

• Know

The first thing you have to do to apply the Cross of Christ to your life is know, (Romans 6:3). You must know that your old man is already dead and buried with Christ. You do not get clean by owning soap; you have to apply it. Even though Christ died on the Cross, you can still live in guilt if you do not know and apply the blood. This is why the Bible says, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” – John 8:32. The condition was not having but knowing. You can have the truth within your hands and not know it.

Romans 6:6, “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.”

• Reckon/Consider

Romans 6:11, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

This means you have to view and think of yourself not as someone who has the flesh. Mental gymnastics are what New Age teaches. That says if you think it, you will be it but New Age never leads anyone to new life. New Age practices do not work. Only Jesus Christ gives us new life.

• Present Ourselves

Romans 6:13, “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.”

We offer our bodies: our hands, eyes, mouth – everything to Jesus to serve Him from this moment forwards. It is no longer a matter of your trying but surrendering your body to Jesus. However, the mistake Christians make is they think it starts with surrender – it starts with death.

• Walk By The Spirit

When you were born, the flesh lived inside you as Paul says in Romans 7:17. In Romans 8, Apostle Paul talks about the Holy Spirit dwelling in Christians. When Jesus Christ came on earth, He ended the race of Adam and started a new race. This is why we have to be born again in order to enter Christ’s new redeemed humanity.

1 Corinthians 15:45, “Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from Heaven.”

The Last Adam

Jesus is the last Adam. We do not need to die and go to Heaven to experience transformation. Jesus came and set the Kingdom of God on the earth by being the last Adam and the second Man, meaning He created a brand-new race. When Adam started his race, everyone born in Adam got flesh dwelling in them. In Jesus’ new race, instead of giving you the principle of sin, He gives you a person to live inside you named the Holy Spirit. That is why every Christian has the Spirit dwelling inside of them. To live a holy life is easy if you stop trying yourself and let the Holy Spirit do whatever He needs to do.

The Gospel is this: Jesus died for your sins, you died with Him – your sin died with Him. You do not rise or fall to the level of your feelings but of your knowledge. That is why the Bible says we know, we consider, we present ourselves and we walk by the Spirit. Something else dwells in us now as Christians, which changes us into His likeness. The children of God are led by the Spirit of God.

This is why Jesus Christ only gives us two ordinances to observe. The first is the Holy Communion, so that we understand the power of the blood. The second is baptism, by which we remember we died with Him, were buried with Jesus and rose again with Him. Your identity is not in your body, gender, your degree, achievements, bank account or what someone else said about you. Your identity is in Jesus Christ. You are part of His body now.

Sermon By Vladimir Savchuk; Blog By Edward Gardiner

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