Download Week of Prayer and Fasting Romans 6:1

Week of Prayer and Fasting
Romans 6:1-14
Ethan Welch
**Community Group encouragement and application…
WELCOME
Good morning // My name is Ethan // If you have a Bible…
**Christmas for the City total…
INTRO
**Week of Prayer and Fasting…
 Monday – Friday // Night of Prayer and Worship // 5-Day Challenge
PRAYER
TEXT—Romans 6:1-14
[1] What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
**Context
 Free grace…
 False dichotomy of heavy on grace means light on holiness…
 We want to be both heavy on grace and heavy on holiness…
**Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18)…
Sin is anything and everything contrary to the will of God.
**Pre-suppositional Apologetic—we all have a concept of sin, even if we don’t call it that…we
all have a measure for something that is inconsistent with human flourishing…the only way to
get out of it is if you are a pure naturalist…
**Illustration—God isn’t a angry dictator in heaven…he’s a loving father…
Sin is destruction masked in delight.
**Sin isn’t just bad things we do…sin is a poison that wreaks havoc on our soul…it’s a poison
that requires an antidote…it’s a cancer that requires surgery…
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
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Proverbs 14:12
My mind is tellin' me no but my body, my body's tellin' me yes.1
**Illustration—Austin Powers and Fembots
**Genesis 3…our original parents believed the lie that sin would be delightful and for their
good…
[2] By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
**By no means! ...some translations, “God forbid!”
**The concept is preposterous and unthinkable for the Christian…
To live in sin is antithetical to following Jesus.
**If you are someone who carelessly engages in sin, then you have an inadequate view of what
sin is at all…
[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.
**The cross was not just dramatic theater…it was effectual…
 The cross was necessary in order to set us free from the dominion of sin in our
lives…grace gives us a new life…
**Effectual is a unique word…either define it and run with it or get rid of it…
[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.
R. Kelly, Bump n’ Grind,
https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tatgusbwx526jjy3h4aarhajps4?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium
=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics&u=0#
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**Consider…λογίζομαιd: to keep records of commercial accounts, involving both debits and
credits.2
The degree that the gospel is powerful in your life is directly tied to the degree that you
remember it.
**Illustration—Timothy Henry Gray, homeless man who died without realizing he was supposed
to receive an inheritance from his deceased aunt, Huguette Clark, who had a $300 million dollar
estate…3
**You must determine whether your body will be a tool for sin or a tool for righteousness.
FASTING APPLICATION
**The ways in which we get dominated by things other than Christ…
 Food
 Work
 Internet and Technology
 Social Media
 Entertainment
 Appearance and Body Image
The weakness of our hunger for God is not because he is unsavory, but because we keep
ourselves stuffed with “other things.” Perhaps, then, the denial of our stomach’s appetite for
food might express, or even increase, our soul’s appetite for God.4
John Piper
**WEEK OF PRAYER AND FASTING CARD
What is Prayer?
Prayer is face-to-face communion with God through which we talk and listen to God, both
privately and publicly.
What is Fasting?
Fasting is the reorientation of our hearts away from earthly realities in order to redirect them
toward heavenly realities.
5-Day Fasting Challenge
Practice at least one type of fasting for the next 5 days (beginning Sunday at sunset and ending
on Friday at sunset). When your desire and appetite arises, use that moment and space to redirect
your desire to God through prayer and Scripture reading and community.
2
Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains
(electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 582). New York: United Bible Societies.
3
http://abcnews.go.com/US/homeless-nephew-millionaire-heiress-died-standing-inherit-19/story?id=18102186
4
John Piper, A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer (Crossway: IL, 2013), 13.
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Types of Fasting
 Food Fast - fasting from all foods and only partaking liquids
 Meal Fast - fasting from foods for a specific meal each day
 Social Media Fast - fasting from all social media platforms
 Internet Fast - fasting from all internet
 Technology Fast - fasting from phones, computers, television for 5 days or part of
 Hobby Fast - fasting from games and recreation and shopping and hobbies
 Image Fast - fasting from certain forms of dress, jewelry and makeup…working out in
the gym…accessories…
 Career Fast - fasting from work and vocation
Our seasons of fasting and prayer at the Tabernacle have been high days indeed; never has
Heaven’s gate stood wider; never have our hearts been nearer the central Glory.5
Charles Spurgeon
CONCLUSION
The Message
So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If
we’ve left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or
didn’t you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism.
When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the
water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land! ...Could it be any
clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sinmiserable life—no longer at sin’s every beck and call! …When Jesus died, he took sin down with
him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead
language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every
word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. …That means you must not
give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run
little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and
full-time…into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not
living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.6
PRAYER
5
Quoted in Richard Foster, The Celebration of Discipline (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 48.
Peterson, E. H. (2005). The Message: the Bible in contemporary language (Ro 6). Colorado Springs, CO:
NavPress.
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