Calculators, Microwaves, and God’s Grace!
Romans 6:1-14
A secondary school recently banned students from carrying bags in its corridors. The Head Teacher said carrying bags was a health and safety risk. Students were told they must carry their books and equipment in their hands. Under no circumstances, where they to carry them in a bag. One student decided to test this by carrying his books around school in his MICROWAVE!  It seems many of us always want to test the boundaries.
Pau, in writing to the Church in Rome, had defined what he meant by God's grace in such lavish terms.  So much so, people were starting to test its boundaries. If, because of what Christ has done, God forgives and accepts every time everyone who receives Christ, does that meant we can do whatever we like? Can we carry a microwave full of negative actions and still receive God's grace? YES. God’s grace is lavish, abundant, generous…
We have learnt to test adverts that seem too good to be true.  A local pizza co advertised “all pizzas, all sizes, all toppings” £5.99. That sound amazing BUT… There was an Asterix. Tiny. But there. The offer did not apply to a whole of toppings...  The offer sounded good BUT the small print... It was a limited, a conditional offer. So, not all, just some… Paul says God’s grace is an “all”, not “some” offer. It is genuinely unlimited unconditional. It is not ‘Yes but..’ There is no small print. No Asterix.
In fact, you don’t even have to pay the reduced price.  It’s not just that you don’t have to pay, it’s that you cannot pay. You and I don’t have the means – we’re broke, spiritually bankrupt. It’s not that the offer is free - without cost ie cheap. It’s that it is priceless, so valuable it is impossible to put a number to it. BUT someone else has already paid the bill.  There is NOTHING else to pay.
Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones famously said:
“If our preaching of the Good News doesn’t leave people to ask, “Shall we go on sinning, so grace may increase?”, we haven’t preached the Gospel.”
If our telling of the Good News doesn’t leave people to ask, “Shall we go on sinning, so grace may increase?”, we haven’t spoken accurately of the Good News. The Gospel – the Good News – of Jesus is lavish, abundant….
Too many Christians hear and accept the Good News of Romans chapter five but then drift into trying to live righteously BY LAW of chapter six, Saved by grace but then live by law/ works. 
Paul is clear:
“By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Romans 6:2
We have died to sin because, being in Christ, our death became His death. Death is final. Once you are clinically dead, you are dead. End of. Christ died, crucified. End of. Just as Isaiah predicted, “He bore our sins and inequities.” When we accept Christ, we accept His death. It’s as if our broken, incomplete, and fallen lives were crucified with Christ. Dead is dead. We are then raised to life. There is no resurrection without death.
Baptism is important to us here at Chester Road Baptist Church. In baptism we role play what Christ has DONE and what we too who are ‘in Christ’ have DONE.
“Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  Romans 6:3-4
Paul then says, “Count yourselves dead to sin”
“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”   Romans 6:11
He was using an accounting term, that traders would have readily understood. It was classic double-entry accounting has a debit column and a credit column.  A debit entry can only be in the debit column, a credit entry can only be in the debit column. When I worked at Coutts & Co bank it was drilled in to me that for every debit slip, there had to be a credit slip (and vice versa). When you look at your Bank Statement, you are either in credit or you are in debit/ overdrawn. You can’t be both at the same time – it’s one or the other.
Paul says it’s the same in God’s economy. There are two columns: ‘dead to sin’ & ‘alive to Christ’.  We are either in one column or the other. When we become a Christian we are moved from ‘dead to sin’ to ‘alive to Christ’.   We were once… But now we are… This isn’t based on feelings but a clear transaction. Something HAS happened. 
Hence, verse 10: “The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.”
But there are times when we don’t feel very Christian – we don’t feel saved or ‘in Christ’. A voice inside our head then tells us it has power over us. Does God really love you?  Are you really a Christian? But you’re not good enough for God? Then we can be deluded into thinking we should do better to please God, to make Him love us more or make him want to forgive us. Or, dafter still, to improve ourselves to the point that we no longer need God’s grace, God’s forgiveness in the first place. 
We need to rely more on facts than feelings. The fact is, Christ has died for our sin and old way of living once and for all. We must count ourselves ‘dead to sin’. Picture ourselves in the ‘dead to sin’ column.
A cash debit cannot decide it feels more like it belongs in the other column. It can’t be worn down by doubts: maybe I’m not good enough to be a credit… It is what it is. Until someone with authority completes a transaction. From every debit there must be a credit. Christ is THAT credit. Your account has received a Christ-injection, a Christ-boost. You were in debit. Now, because of Christ, you are in credit. Whether you feel this or not is irrelevant. So, count yourselves ‘dead to sin’ and ‘alive to Christ’. Count yourselves dead to sin and ALIVE TO CHRIST.
Yes, there are right and wrong ways to live. Things that bring joy to God, and other things that cause Him to grieve.
It’s like the 10 Commandments. It’s more in the tine. Not. you shall not... More, you will not (need to) because I..

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DannyBrierley@ChesterRoadBaptist.org.uk