Have you ever read, or have seen the movie adaptation of Alice in Wonderland? A very interesting, if not very bizarre story. A little girl follows a white rabbit down the rabbit hole, into a wonderland of insanity. One of my favorite interactions is between Alice and Cheshire Cat. Alice is trying to find her way, and the Cat tells her you can go this way, be those people are mad, or you can go that way, in which case, those people are mad too.
Take a listen to their conversation.
“'But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.
“'Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
"How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.
"You must be,’ said the Cat, 'or you wouldn’t have come here.’”
I love this interaction, because it summons up the plight of humanity. We’re all mad down here. Or to put in a modern way, we’re all insane. Many of you have heard the quote attributed to Albert Einstein about insanity. Where the quote goes as, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Today, I want to share with you the legal definition of insanity. To be legally insane is to have, “mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior.”
That is the legal definition of insanity, and I have to tell you that if you have ever had children, you know what it means to be both around insanity, and to enter into yourself. Uncontrollable impulsive behavior? That’s just life with kids. One kid says, “He hit me!” The other kid responds, “No I didn’t” And then you as the parent say, “I saw you hit your sister. Why did you do that?” “I don’t know,” he shrugs.
And the insanity goes on, and on, and on. We’re all mad down here is right.
We see the madness, the insanity of our world all around us. Why do we spend money when we don’t have? Why do we hurt the people that love us the most? Why are wars waged with people thousands of miles away from each other?
It’s because we’re all mad, we’re all insane.
And why is this? Why are we insane? Why do we do insane things, like hurt ourselves and the people around us? Especially when that hurt doesn’t bring us any long term peace and joy?
Listen to what Paul, the writer of most of the New Testament says, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing (Romans 7:15, 18b-19).”
Doesn’t that sound a little insane? And this is us, right? Why do I keep hurting the people I love? Why do I keep falling back into the same bad habits? It’s because you and I are mad, just like everyone else in this world. But the madness doesn’t have to continue. It does not have to over take us, because as we’ll discover today, the victory that Jesus achieved through the cross and resurrection can break the madness of our lives.
So if you have your Bibles we’re going to be going through three chapters of the Book of Romans. Starting where we left off from last week in Roman’s sixth chapter, and the fifth verse. Last week we ended Easter Sunday with this passage from Romans chapter 6 verse 5, where Paul says, “5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.”
This is extremely important to understand, because we’ll becoming back to this idea again and again this morning. Because the escape from the madness is rooted in these words: “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.”
Now, we’re not going to read every part of these three chapters, because I want us to get an overall understanding of what is being said here.
Let’s start with the victory that Paul is talking about in verse 8.
“8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
“11 In the same way, count 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 evil desires.”
Jesus’ victory has two results that come out of it. First, death no longer has power. In verse 9 Pauls says, “death no longer has mastery over him.” The power of death has been broken. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian Church he grabs a Scripture verse from the book of Hosea and says this, “‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ 56 The sting of death is sin…”
Our sin holds death over us. Death is the unnatural ending to our lives. This is why is scares so many people. This is why throughout human history people tried to appease death. This is why we have sought to live longer, by any means we could.
Death is a constant, that’s why it’s so hard to lose a loved one, and that feeling of loss increases exponentially when there is no hope of an afterlife.
Death holds power over us, and the reason it does, is because of our own sin. But what happens when the power of death is broken? When sin has been defeated on the cross?
Sin and death no longer have mastery, they no longer hold power. I have watched many Christians face death with the attitude of, let’s get it over with, I want to be with my Jesus. One lady I knew named Mary, told her family to stop praying for her so that she could go to heaven.
Jesus beat sin on the cross, and when he raised from the dead, he beat death as well.
But we can know this and still struggle with insanity. In fact, that insane quote from Paul that I read to you earlier comes in chapter 7 verse 15 of Romans, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
Then in the second half of verse 18 and into 19 he says, “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”
Even though sin was defeated on the cross, even though death was defeated at the resurrection, you and I still return again and again to sin’s chains. Paul says in chapter 6 verse 16, “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?”
So the first result of Jesus’ victory, is that death and sin no longer has power, because Jesus broke it through the cross and resurrection. But, we give it back power in our lives by returning to the sinful things. We can put ourselves back into the chains of sin, but even when we do, it still has no power because of what Jesus did.
The second result of Jesus’ victory is this, we are free from sin’s power today. in verse 11 of chapter 6, Paul states, “11 In the same way, count 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 evil desires.”
And it’s here that we tend to miss something in our Christian walk, we tend to focus on heaven, on the here-after. We sing songs like, I’ll Fly Away, and When We All Get to Heaven. None of which are bad, but they speak to our tendency to think that this defeat of sin and death happens when we pass into the next life. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“11 In the same way, count 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 evil desires.”
Jesus’ victory broke the power of sin and death in your life today. If you accept that you’re a sinner. Meaning, you recognize that you have failed to meet God’s perfect standard. That you have broken his perfect rule. If you have recognized that by breaking God’s perfection, even in the smallest spot, by telling a lie, or holding onto anger towards someone. If you recognize that, then you have accept that you’re a sinner. Then, you have to accept what Jesus’ did on your behalf on the cross. If you’re a sinner, then death can take you. Your death’s because a sinner cannot enter into heaven. A sinner cannot be with God. So God himself came to earth, and died in the place of every sinner. That’s why we started in verse 5 of chapter 6. Because, as Paul says, “5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.”
By accepting what Jesus did on our behalf on the cross, we are united with him there. All the sin in our lives. The past sin we did, the sin we are doing now, and the sin we will commit in the future, every last one was defeated on the cross. And the power and the control it has on us was broken right there and then.
And when we accept these two realities, the victory that Jesus won on the cross and through the resurrection, is our victory too.
And that victory is in the here and now. That’s why Paul says in verse 12 of chapter 6, “12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.”
And in a few verse down from that in verse 17, Paul states this, “17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”
And this is where we come back to our insanity definition. Remember, insanity is: “mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior.”
The fantasy that we return to is that sin still has power over us. That’s untrue, sin’s power was broken on the cross. The reality is that Jesus’ victory over sin, is ours as well. And we no longer have to be out of control and impulsive in our behavior, meaning we no longer haver to sin, because Jesus now has the control.
But how, how do we stop being mad? How do we stop living by the sin that we have known for so long? That’s the question. How can we live in Jesus’ victory daily, and not have sin hold power over us?
In the next two weeks we’re going to cover both the inner struggle of thoughts and feelings, and the outer struggle of interacting with this world.
But I’m not going to leave you on a cliff hanger. Because I believe that there is one thing that we need to do before we get into dealing with the inner and outer struggles, and that’s what Paul writes starting in chapter 7 verse 24, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
This is what we need to be able to say every time sin wants to take back control. “I am a sinner, but it is Jesus who broke sin’s control. So sin no longer controls me, Jesus does.”
We need to be able to internalize the victory that Jesus won. Recognizing that we do not hold the power over sin, Jesus does. We need to begin to start recognizing that, I need Jesus, not just to save me, but to live through me. This is why Paul ends his thoughts like this in verse 12 of chapter 8, “12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
We need to realize we cannot beat sin. We did not beat it on the cross apart from Jesus, and we cannot overcome it in our daily lives apart from Jesus.
When we recognize and begin to live this reality out, the madness lesses, because Jesus is returning sanity to us, by his Spirit living through us.
So this is my challenge for you this week, to make the follow words a prayer: “I am a sinner, but Jesus broke sin’s control. Jesus live through me.”
Write it down on a piece of paper and keep that paper with you, and when sin comes to take control, take the paper out, repeat the words, and then go to God in prayer asking him for the strength to over come sin in your life.
And next week, we’ll continue looking into Romans, to see some concrete applications to overcome sin.
Now when sin coms knocking at your mind, and your heart, may you recognize your inability to be the victor, and trust God to bring victory into your life. Amen
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