When I was in my 20’s, I had a friend who invited me to be a part of what they were calling an accountability group at our church.  I didn’t know what an accountability group was, but I went anyway...and on the first day I was handed this card…and on the card there was a title at the top which said, “The Magnificent Seven,” and underneath it was 7 questions. 

The idea is that we would go around the room and ask each other these 7 questions and we were supposed to be open and honest with each other about our answers to help hold each other accountable in these areas. Here’s what the questions were…

1. Have you been with a woman anywhere this past week that might be seen as compromising?

2. Have any of your financial dealings lacked integrity?

3. Have you exposed yourself to any sexually explicit material?

4. Have you spent adequate time in Bible study and prayer?

5. Have you given priority time to your family?

6. Have you fulfilled the mandates of your calling?

7. Have you just lied to me?

So if you weren’t truthful in any of your answers, it was set up to where you would have to lie twice before leaving!  Again, the idea behind the whole group was that these are areas in our lives as men that maybe we tend to struggle with…areas where sin pops up more…and if we knew that we were going to have to answer these questions in front of others each week, then when we were tempted in one of these areas surely, we would be much more likely to choose to not sin. 

And this all sounds good, right?  I mean, it sounds logical…but it didn’t work for me…I mean, even though I knew I was going to have to face these guys after the fact, it didn’t keep me from sinning.  In some ways, it even seemed like I was more tempted to sin in certain areas b/c we were always bringing them up…it was always what I was focusing on…

See, for me, what I began to believe about myself was that these 6 things I was having to account for each week were just part of who I was.  I am a guy so I am going to lust…I am a guy so I guess I am probably not going to spend time with my family…I am a guy so I am probably not going to read my bible.  I believed this was just part of who I was and that I was going to have got to fight really hard to resist these temptations so that I can be more holy, I can be a better person, so I can look more like Christ.

And here’s the deal, the more I talk to others, the more I see that I’m not the only one whose actions lined up with what I thought about myself as a sinner.  For a lot of us, the teaching we’ve had in the church growing up or even as an adult has been about sin management. 

It’s really confusing because we are taught that we need to put our faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins to go to heaven…and we do, but then the moment we accept his forgiveness, is often the moment we start learning that we are a dirty, rotten sinner who needs to start cleaning our life up to look more like Jesus. 

So the whole focus on our lives becomes sin…where is the sin in my life so I can get rid of it?  And for a lot of us the more we focus on sin, the more we find ourselves sinning. 

But my question for you this morning as we continue our summer message series on identity is this, “Are you a sinner? 

This is the way a lot of us in the church describe our identity, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace.”  But is it true? 

Let’s look at what Scripture actually says…

Well, let’s start off just looking at how Paul addresses the people that were in the local churches that he wrote letters too.  Look at

Philippians 1:1…Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons

Ephesians 1:1… Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus

Colossians 1:1…Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints

So it sure seems like if we were to ask the apostle Paul he would say that you are not a sinner saved by grace but rather a saint who sometimes sins. 

Now, you look at those, and maybe you are tempted to think, “Well, he could be addressing them that way b/c these were just great churches…I mean they could have been filled with a bunch of really good people whose actions and good behavior led Paul to start calling them saints.” 

Well, if you are tempted to think that way, I want you to see how he addresses the church at Corinth.  Because this is a messed up church…I mean all throughout the 2 letters Paul wrote to this church he was getting on to them for something…they were acting like anything but saints.  And look how Paul addresses them in 1 Cor. 1:2...

To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling…

So, it sure doesn’t appear to be a title that anyone has earned…it seems to be a title given to those in the church because of another reason…let me show you what that reason is…how Paul could address those in the church as saints…look at Romans 6:2-7…

We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 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. 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. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Listen, there is a lot in this passage here, but here is the first thing that I want you to see, Paul says that when Jesus died on the cross, you died with him. 

He says you have been baptized into his death, you were buried with him, and that the old self was crucified with him. 

Now, who is your old self?  Well, Paul goes on to basically label people into 2 categories…he talks of people as either being IN ADAM or IN CHRIST.  See, Adam of course was the 1st man created, and when he sinned, that sin got applied to every single one of us.  Paul had just explained this in the previous chapter (Romans 5:12)…

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned

So basically, each one of us is born IN ADAM, with a sin nature that leaves us spiritually dead…but what Paul is saying here in Ro. 6 is that if we have put our faith in Jesus for salvation then our old self (the one IN ADAM) has died. 

So now, you are IN CHRIST instead of IN ADAM which means also that the power of sin which was present in you is gone as well…Paul said in v. 6-7

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

In other words, you no longer have a sin nature.  The old you with a sin nature has died with Christ and now you’ve been resurrected with Christ into someone new…

Remember, you are IN CHRIST now…in union with Him, and Jesus does not have a sin nature, so you don’t have a sin nature any longer either.

And this is why Paul can call those in the church saints instead of sinners… because we have been completely forgiven and the power of sin in our lives is gone.

Now, you may be asking the question, “Why then am I still tempted to sin?” And the answer to that question goes back to this picture that we looked at a few weeks ago…

This shows the old self…the one IN ADAM…we have indwelling sin & at the core a sin nature, but when we accept Christ for salvation, we look like this…

So this shows us IN CHRIST and as Paul says, the old self having been crucified and us being raised up w/Christ into someone new, and having been set free from sin.

But notice again where we are set free from sin, at the core of our being… so notice that we still have indwelling sin in our lives, but look where it is:  it’s been removed from our nature, but it is still in our soul and our body…

So you may think in your mind that you want to sin sometimes, and you may feel in your emotions like you want to sin and your body is going to have urges to sin sometimes…and so b/c of this, that is why it is so easy to think that you are just a sinner saved by grace…because we focus on these thoughts in our minds about sinning or these feelings that we have about sinning. 

But we talked a few weeks ago about how this is not where our focus as Christians is to be.  We looked at Col. 3 where Paul says to set your minds and hearts on things above and not on earthly things…

But really, Paul goes on here in Ro. 6 to say something similar to what he did there, but specific to being dead to sin…look at what he goes on to say…

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.

The Greek word that is translated “count” here is a banking term.  In other places it is translated “reckon.”  It is a bookkeeping word. 

It means that you can count on money being in the bank when you go shopping.  You can swipe your debit card b/c there’s money in your checking account. 

Reckoning didn’t put the money there…it was a fact that it was there…but you reckoning it…allows you to swipe your card. 

So what Paul is saying is that it is a fact…it is an eternal truth that you are dead to sin…so consider it then to be true of you in this temporal realm…

Let me put it this way…

Several years ago, when my daughter was much younger she broke her ankle.  And it may or may not have been due to her dad jumping on a newly bought trampoline. But anyway, she broke her ankle and had to be placed in a cast and was pushed around in a wheelchair for 6 weeks…

But when we went back to the doctor, he took the cast off and x-rayed it and told her that it is no longer broken and that it had healed up nicely and that she could start walking on it in a walking boot.  But as soon as we got home and started trying to get her to walk on it, she wouldn’t do it…she was scared to death to put her foot down because of what used to be true about it…it was broken. 

Now, it wasn’t broken any longer…I mean she sat right there and listened to the doctor tell her that it had healed up well and that it is different now…good enough to walk on.  Ava heard the dr tell her this was true, but she hadn’t considered (reckoned) it to be true in her life yet. 

It was true, the doctor looked at it and said it was different than it used to be…but for Ava it was still the same as it used to be, so she kept hopping around on her good foot or being pushed in a wheelchair.  In other words, her actions lined up with what she had reckoned to be true even though it’s not what is in fact the truth.

And you and I do the same thing.  Some of us hear this truth…we see the truth being read to us that we are a different person, that the old us is gone, that sin is dead in our lives…but we don’t reckon it to be true of us b/c we feel differently & what happens is that we get stuck in a constant cycle of sins.

And so you and I have to see the truth about us being a saint and about being set free from the power of sin in our lives, and then we have to reckon it…we have to count it as really being true even when we feel otherwise or think otherwise…Listen to what Dan Stone says in The Rest of the Gospel…

“Our true self is who we are at the spirit level.  At the deepest level of your personhood you are not a sinner.  You are a saint.  You are God’s holy, righteous, blameless child.  You have His nature.  In your deepest personhood, your desires are not in conflict with God’s will.  Your deepest being always wants to do your Father’s will, just as Jesus wanted to do His Father’s will.  This is your eternal, changeless identity.  This is who you are.  That you experience thoughts and feelings and even behavior to the contrary does not change the fact.  Only by accepting this by faith can we begin to experience its reality.”

To accept this by faith means to “reckon it,” to “count it as being true” in your life even when your mind and emotions are telling you otherwise…

Because this is how Satan tries to mess with us.  He knows these things are true about us, but he knows that if he can keep us focused on the sin and our feelings and the times we’ve messed up that he can keep us from living out the reality of our sainthood in Christ.

And this is really what happened to me in that accountability group that I told you I was in…even though this was designed to help me not sin, b/c I thought of myself as a sinner saved by grace and was focusing so much on sin, I continued to sin over and over again. 

But listen, after I began learning about my new identity in Christ as being a saint…Once I learned that the old me died…that the power of sin had been dealt with…once I understood this and reckoned it in my life, all of those sins from those accountability questions seemed to hold a lot less power over me.  I began to act out of who I really was, a saint in Christ.

And this is what I want you to get today as far as your identity is concerned…

If you’ve put your faith in Jesus for salvation, the old you has died…you may not look dead, you may not feel dead, and you may not always act dead, but God says you are dead.  

Are you going to agree with Him (the one who created you) or are you going to go with what you feel?

You are a saint IN CHRIST, this is your identity.  And as you set your heart and mind on things above as Paul says where this is true about you, then it will change the way you act down here.

So stop with all of the sin management.  If you’ve been thinking that your job as a Christian is to focus on all of your sin and trying not to sin with God’s help, just stop. 

Our focus is to be on Christ and what He’s done for us, and who we’ve become in Him and how He now works through us.

In Romans 6, Paul said “the death Christ died, he died to sin ONCE FOR ALL; but the life he lives, he lives to God.”  Jesus is still alive living His life, but where does He now live?  IN YOU! 

He is living His life in you and through you, and so let’s focus on Him and who we are in Him, a saint…and the sinning will take care of itself.