This week on Things Unseen, I've been talking about some of the passages in Scripture

that have shaped my own Christian life. And I've said before I want to encourage you,

not only to think about the particular verses that have influenced me, but to take some

time this week, maybe over the weekend, to think about passages that have shaped your own

life. It's a wonderful exercise, and it helps us to see how God's work has been at work

in us, as Paul puts it in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2.

I almost hesitate to mention the fourth passage today, because it's got 14 verses in it,

and it's not the easiest passage to understand. And I think not many of us read it and immediately

think, yes, I've got it. I'm not going to read the passage, but it's in Romans chapter

6 verses 1 through 14. And I first became conscious of its importance in a book someone

gave me when I think I was 16.

The book actually taught what used to be called the Higher Life, and one element in its

teaching which appealed to these verses in Romans 6 was that there was a new level of

sanctification possible, and it could be experienced by a particular act of faith. I read and re-read

the book, but to be honest, I just didn't get it. I felt as though I was being asked to

leap onto the top of a table from a standing start, and so I put the book to one side.

But a year or so later, when I was in my first year at university, I had an address that

touched on Romans 6, and I remember thinking, I've got to give more serious attention to

studying this passage, and so I did. To tell the truth, I don't think I've preached

on it all that often, considering how important it's been in my own life, but the truth it

teaches has been like background music in my life ever since I was a late teenager.

So what's the big deal in Romans 6? Well, just that it is a big deal. The great Welsh

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