Reality Check: Romans 6:15-18

Introduction: The Question at Hand

In verse 15 we see the question at hand.  Paul has just said that we are not under law but under grace.  Being under law means that the law has the decisive say concerning your fate.  Being under grace means that God’s grace has the decisive say concerning your fate.  Being under grace and not under law means that you are no longer under condemnation, but are a saved person.  You are secure in the grace of God and will be with Him forever in Heaven.  The question is this: if the law no longer has the decisive say concerning our fate, can we not go break the law again and again?  Can we not go live lives of lawlessness? 

Fundamentally, we’re dealing here with the same question we’ve been facing since the beginning of the chapter.  Can a person be a Christian and live in sin?  One might use twisted logic and say that Christians should live in sin so that God’s grace may be more glorified.  Another might say that Christians should live in sin because we are no longer under the law.  Either way, the central issue is this: Can Christians live in sin?

Paul’s answer to this point has been clear.  A Christian is someone who has died to sin.  A Christian is someone who has been set free from sin. 

But Paul, isn’t it possible to be dead to sin and yet still live in it?  Isn’t it possible to live in sin and yet be free from it?  Paul’s answer in these verses is this: If you give yourself to sin, you are a slave to sin.  If you give yourself to sin, you are a slave to sin.

I. A Reality Check: The One You Obey is Your Master

Verse 16 is a reality check.  Read it with me again: “Do you not know what if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?”  Do you now know?  You should know this!  The point that Paul is making is so obvious you might think he doesn’t even need to say it.  But he does need to say it: The one you obey is your master.  That’s the point.  The one you obey is your master.  So if you obey sin, sin is your master.  If you obey righteousness, righteousness is your master.  If you continue to obey sin and its desires, then sin is your master and you are not a servant of Christ.  If you continue to obey righteousness and its desires, then righteousness is your master and you are a servant of Christ. 

This isn’t a perfect illustration, but it makes the point.  Imagine a newly married couple.  The husband really, really wants to get a puppy.  He always had dogs as a child and he loves the idea of having one for himself in the home.  The wife is very reluctant.  Puppies tear things up.  Puppies make messes on the living room carpet.  In the end, however, the husband goes and chooses for himself a little puppy.  Now, in terms of the arrangement, the puppy belongs to the husband.  He’s the one that wanted the puppy and he’s the one who takes care of the puppy.  But imagine that every moment the husband is at home, the puppy stays close to the wife.  When the wife leaves the house for any reason, the puppy goes and lies by the door just waiting for her to come home.  The husband tries to give the puppy commands, but the puppy doesn’t obey him.  But when the wife says “Sit”, the puppy sits.  When the wife says “Come”, the puppy comes and sits in her lap.  Dear friends, who is the real master of that puppy?  Is it the husband or the wife?  For all practical purposes, the wife has become that puppy’s master.

So it is with us. We can say all day that we belong to Christ, but if our heart is constantly hugging sin, eagerly obeying the impulses of sin, and only with some pressure and half-heartedness doing acts of obedience, guess who our true Master is? 

Who we are isn’t determined by our talk.  Who we are is determined by our walk.  I can say I serve sin, but if my life evidences everyday righteous words and deeds, then I do not serve sin.  I can say I serve Christ and righteousness, but if my life evidences every day sinful words and sinful deeds, then I do not serve Christ and righteousness.  A tree is known by its fruit.

So Paul’s answer to the question, “Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?” is this: If you give yourself to sin, you are not under grace.  Grace produces people who serve righteousness.  If you serve sin, you are still sin’s.  Sin doesn’t work on terms of grace, sin works on terms of law.  Sin makes you guilty, and then demands that you be punished.  Sin is a turncoat friend – he lures you into wicked thoughts, words, and deeds, and then turns you in to the judge and says, “Oh Judge, you must destroy such a wicked person.”

Why does Paul need to say something so obvious as, “The one you obey is your master”?  That’s so obvious that even a small child understands it.  Yet our hearts can be so deceitful and our flesh so powerful that our judgment becomes so clouded and confused that we fail to understand the most obvious and basic truths about ourselves.  How is it that people can live in utter sin, knowing that they are living contrary to the will of Christ, and yet call themselves Christians?  What kind of faulty, silly logic must be used for someone to act wickedly day after day after day, and to have no interest in doing Christ’s will, and yet to say, “I’m a Christian”?

Imagine that someone we know is a doctor. Everyone knows he is a doctor.  He goes to his office each day, sees patients, gives diagnoses, writes prescriptions.  He wears medical garments, uses medical tools, and participates in medical discussions.  It is obvious that he is a doctor.  Yet if you ask him, “Are you a doctor?” he will immediately answer, “Of course not! I’m an astronaut.” Though he lives and breathes as a doctor everyday, he thinks that he is an astronaut.  What would we think of such a person?  Would we not think that something has gone wrong in his mind?  Something has drastically distorted his judgment so that though he can function well in this world of ours – he may even be an excellent doctor – yet something is still very screwy inside of him. 

This is how it is with many in our culture.  They live worldly lives.  They live with their boyfriends or girlfriends and engage in fornication.  They ignore the Lord’s Day and treat it as a day for worldly pleasures.  They watch movies or listen to music that ought to disturb them, and instead they enjoy it.  They are worldlings through and through, living in sin, yet if you ask them, “Are you a servant of sin or of Christ?” they would say, “Count me on the side of Christ!  I know I haven’t lived as I ought, but count me as one of His!”  Sin makes us screwy in the brain.  Sin makes us not see the most obvious truths about ourselves.  This verse is a God-given gracious reality check: If you give yourself to the service of sin, sin is your master! 

Let’s bring this closer to home.  Here is why we must be careful about the sinful tendencies in our lives.  If we begin to give ourselves over and over again to sinful desires, they will lead us into more sinful desires.  Our desire for obedience to Christ will wane.  Our desire to be useful to our Savior will begin to dry up.  Our heart and mind will be caught up in sinful habits, and before long we will show by our actions that we are not truly Christ’s.  Sin is still our master, and though we hid it well for a while, it is now obvious to anyone thinking rightly about these things. 

Friends, we cannot play fast and loose with sin.  When those desires come, we must deny them!  And we must cultivate in our hearts every day greater love for God, greater happy submission to God, greater desire to obey eagerly every gracious command He has sent our way.

II. Your Master Determines Your Destiny

There is a second point made in verse 16.  The point is this: Your master determines your destiny.  Look again at verse 16 and consider especially the second half of the verse.  “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.”

So you can give yourself to that master called “Sin”, or you can give yourself to that master called “Obedience”.  Whichever master you choose, you will be led somewhere.  That’s what masters do.  They give orders.  They give directions.  Those directions have consequences.  If you give yourself to the master called “Sin”, the result will be death.  The wages of sin is death.  The wrath of God poured out upon you for eternity – this is eternal death.  That is where sin leads.  If sin is your master, you are being led to a place that ought to frighten you, a place that ought to make you tremble and quake.  How can a person sleep at night when living in the service of sin?  The only way they can sleep is by being ignorant of the hell to which they are headed, or by suppressing all thoughts of that place within themselves.  They can try really, really hard to convince themselves that there is no such place.  But death is coming. 

Think again about our puppy, and how it has become a servant of the wife.  The fate of that puppy now lies in the hands of the wife.  The wife speaks, the puppy obeys, and the puppy experiences the consequences.  If the wife is a good woman, she might bring the puppy to an open park and tell him to run.  The puppy will run and run and have a blast.  But is she is a wicked woman, she might bring the puppy to a major intersection and tell the puppy to go run.  The puppy will run and it will be hit by a car, and it will die. 

Everything depends on the kind of master you serve.  Sin is a terrible master.  Your sinful desires seem so tempting at the moment, they have such a pull on your soul, but they are pulling you into hell itself.  Don’t give yourself to those desires!  Don’t give yourself to sin!

Obedience to Christ is a great master.  Dear Christian, those holy desires within you, given to you by the Holy Spirit – they will not lead you wrong.  The desire to love and to serve and to be patient and to give and to be pure and to stand up for what is right and to strive for excellence in all your work – these are desires that should reign in your life.  Serve these desires.  If you serve holy desires, you are serving Christ!  Where do these desires take you?  Where does this master called “Obedience” take you?  This master takes you into holiness, into righteousness, into Christ-likeness.  Giving yourself to these desires will make you a blessing in this world, a blessing to all around you, a blessing to Christ and His gospel and His cause.  You will be blameless on the last day, and you will go to heaven to be with your Savior forever.

This is a huge principle: your master determines your destiny!

III. Thanks be to God!

Now, in verses 17-18 we see that Paul is not saying here that the church in Rome is made up of a bunch of hypocrites.  That is, Paul is not suggesting that these Christians in Rome are in fact not Christians at all, but servants of sin.  Paul has never met most of these Christians.  He’s never been to Rome at this point in his life.  He has plans to head that way, and that is part of this letter is being written, but he hasn’t been there yet.  He does, however, know some members of this church, such as Priscilla and Aquila whom he met in Corinth and respects highly.  The reports that have come to Paul about the church in Rome have been encouraging.  Paul says in chapter 1 that the faith of these Romans Christians was being proclaimed throughout the world.  So Paul has every reason to have confidence that these are true believers.  To make this clear, and to give glory to God for what has happened in their lives, he writes verses 17-18:

“But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”

God has done a work in the lives of these Romans – they are no longer giving themselves to sin, but are now slaves of righteousness!  They have become obedient from the heart. 

There are three truths that are plainly stated in these verses concerning being a slave of righteousness.  These are truths concerning the Christian life and our service to Jesus.  These truths have to do with our obedience to Jesus.

The first is this: Obedience to Jesus in a Christian is obedience to the standard of teaching to which we were committed.  Do you see that?  Paul does not say in this verse, “Thanks be to God, you are obedient to Jesus!”  He could have said it that way.  He said it differently.  He said, “Thanks be to God, you are obedient to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.”

What is this standard of teaching?  The teaching here refers to all of that teaching that had come to these Christians from God.  This would include the Old Testament Scriptures.  This would include the teaching of the apostles.  In the moment of being born again, God changed their hearts and committed these men and women to Christ.  To be committed to Christ is to be committed to God’s Word.  Notice here that it ultimately wasn’t the Romans who did the committing.  When they were baptized in the name of Jesus, they certainly were professing their faith and committing themselves to believe and obey God’s Word.  But the most important committing was done God.  When He changed their hearts by the gospel, it was He who committed them to His teaching.  That is why Paul says, “…the standard of teaching to which you were committed.” 

But there is more going on here than just obedience to the Word of God.  When God changed their hearts, He caused them to be committed not just to the teaching, but to the standard of teaching.  This word could be translated as “form” or “pattern”.  It isn’t merely that we are committed to the Word of God.  We are committed to the very nature and pattern of that righteousness taught in the Word of God.  Jesus Himself is the form, the pattern, the standard.  Every word of the teaching of God is meant to point us towards Christ-likeness.  Every word is meant to point us to the righteousness of Jesus.  The Pharisees were committed to the letter of the law.  But they were far from being committed to true righteousness.  Christians are those who have been delivered into a love for God’s Word and a love for the righteousness and Christ-likeness to which His Word points.  Calvin says about this word “standard”: “It seems to me to denote the formed image or impress of that righteousness which Christ engraves on our hearts: and this corresponds with the prescribed rule of law, according to which all our actions ought to be framed, so that they deviate not either to the right or to the left hand.” 

The second truth in these verses is that obedience to Jesus in a Christian is obedience from the heart.  This is what makes Christians different from hypocrites.  We do not give ourselves to Christ outwardly while giving ourselves to sin inwardly.  Those still enslaved to sin might come to church and sing and pray and even serve.  But inwardly their hearts are full of pride and self-conceit.  They want others to notice their good works.  They want others to speak highly of them and give them their due.  The person they are in private is someone very different from the person they are in public.

Or, maybe they are like David Brainerd.  David Brainerd was the great missionary to the Native Americans of New England.  Jonathan Edwards published his diary and God used Brainerd’s diary to spark the Modern Missions Movement.  There are untold numbers of Christians around the world have come to know the gospel because of people who were stirred to give their life to missions because of David Brainerd’s example and words.

But David Brainerd didn’t start out this way.  He started out his life as a young man with all of the trappings of religion, but not the heart.  Anyone of us would have looked at Brainerd and said, “Surely that man is a Christian.”  He had grown up in a very strict home that took Christianity very seriously.  This was a family committed to the Word, committed to prayer, committed to church involvement.  As a young man, Brainerd’s life had all the outward evidences of belonging to Jesus.  But he was not being obedient from the heart.  His heart still served sin, and it was pride and a desire to earn God’s approval that motivated him.  His life was still about serving self for the sake and glory of self.  Brainerd looked back on his life as a 19 and 20 year old young man and said that his religion was very careful and serious, but there was no grace in it.  He said, “All my good frames were but self-righteousness, not bottomed on a desire for the glory of God…There was no more goodness in my praying than there would be in my paddling with my hands in the water…because [my prayers] were not performed from any love or regard to God…I never once prayed for the glory of God…I never once intended His honor and glory…I had never once acted for God in all my devotions…I never had any regard in them to the glory of God.”  Isaiah talked about people who would honor God with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him.  This was true of Brainerd, and God graciously began to show this to him.  Perhaps there is someone in here who needs to come to this realization. 

Now, listen as Brainerd describes what happened to him when he was 21.  Listen to the change in heart that is evident.  It was just before sunset.  Brainerd had been depressed:

“As I was walking in a dark thick grave, “unspeakable glory” seemed to open to the view and apprehension of my soul…It was a new inward apprehension or view that I had of God; such as I never had before, nor anything that I had the least remembrance of it.  So that I stood still and wondered and admired…I had now no particular apprehension of any one person of the Trinity, either the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, but it appeared to be divine glory and splendor that I then beheld.  And my soul “rejoiced with joy unspeakable” to see such a God, such a gloriously divine being, and I was inwardly pleased and satisfied that he should be God over all forever and ever.  My souls was captivated and delighted with the excellency, the loveliness, and the greatness and other perfections of God that I was even swallowed up in Him, at least to that degree that I had no thought, as I remember at first, about my own salvation or scarce that there was such a creature as I…Thus the Lord, I trust, brought me to a hearty desire to exalt Him, to set Him on the throne and to “seek first his kingdom,” [that is], principally and ultimately to aim at His honor and glory as the King and sovereign of the universe, which is the foundation of the religion of Jesus…I felt myself in a new world.”

Suddenly, life lived for himself became life lived unto God.  There was real faith and repentance.  In many ways, David Brainerd’s life did not change externally.  He used to pray and read the Bible.  He used to be faithful in church.  He used to live and act as a Christian.  Now, he was doing the very same things.  Outwardly, not much changed.  But everything had changed!  You see, true Christian obedience to Jesus is obedience from the heart.  Giving yourself in service to righteousness means giving yourself willing, submissively, happily, for God’s glory.  Have you experienced this fundamental change in your life?  Do you know this kind of life?  I pray that we are all growing in this, learning to live more and more in happy submission to God rather than in the desires of sin.

The third truth in these verses is that obedience to Jesus in a Christian is a gift of God’s grace.  What Paul is describing here is real salvation, purchased at the cross of Christ.  What Jesus did two thousand years ago has real effects right here, right now in the lives of Christians.  They are dead to sin, and though they fall into sin time and again, it is not their desire to serve sin.  They are giving themselves each day to the service of God.  This is all because of God’s grace.  He purposed this salvation.  He designed it.  He brought His Son to the cross.  It is He who gave His Son the power to give new life to all He wills.  If you love Christ and are living for His glory, praise God!  He has done this miracle in your life; give Him the glory!

Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song,

The joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue;

Thy free grace alone, from the first to the last,

Hath won my affections and bound my soul fast.

So, let us not be deceived.  We have either died to sin and now serve Christ, or we have not died to sin and we still give ourselves to it.  If we are Christians, let us deny sinful desires, and let us give ourselves happily in submission to the God who loves us everyday.  Amen.

The Resurrected Life: The Christian's Offense - Romans 6:12-14

Easter Sunday and the Resurrected Life

There is a definite resurrection connection in these verses.  In fact, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead has been part and parcel of all that we have been talking about in Romans 6:1-14.  Here is the connection: Jesus rose from the dead so that His people would rise from the dead spiritually.  Jesus’ resurrection of the dead was the confirmation that His work on the cross was sufficient, and that His people would be counted right in the eyes of God and brought to new life.  A dead Jesus cannot send the Holy Spirit into people’s lives and open their eyes and change their hearts.  A risen Jesus means that the work of atonement has been finished and He has all authority to reach into human hearts and make them alive again!  Could it be that there are any here this morning who have not experienced this resurrection?  Could it be that you are still dead in your sins and trespasses, dead to God, dead to salvation, dead to true living, and you need to be made alive?

We see the resurrection connection in verse 4.  Look at verse 4 with me: “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.”  Do you see the connection?  Jesus rose from the dead.  Jesus experienced new life after His death.  Now, because of His saving work, we who are His people also experience new life. 

Look at verse 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.”  You cannot separate the death and the resurrection of Jesus.  They absolutely go together.  Therefore, you cannot separate the death and resurrection of Christ’s people.  Those who believe on Jesus have died to sin, and that death to sin absolutely, 100%, with all certainty must lead to new way of living.  Friends, Christians are new creations.  The old has passed away, the new has come.  Those who claim to be Christians because they prayed a prayer or walked an aisle or were baptized, but their lives haven’t changed, are deceived. 

Look at verses 9-11: “We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.  For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.  So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”  Do you see?  Christ doesn’t die and rise again over and over and over again.  He died once for all, and He rose once for all.  Thus, the death to sin that He brings into our lives is once for all.  The new life He gives is once for all.  There is no losing your salvation here.  There is no going back into your old life.  This is why baptism is a picture of burial – there is a complete separation between your old way of life and your new way of life – a true Christian will never go back.

So you see the resurrection connection.  Jesus rose again that His people would live in newness of life.

Verses 12-14

So then we get to verse 12.  “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.”  We see our enemy: sin.  Sin used to reign over us.  We were dead to God because sin ruled our hearts.  Yet now that Christ has opened our eyes and shown us how vile sin is, sin has lost its rule.  Our heart belongs to another.  No more do we live for self and sin; we live for Christ and His glory.  Christ has taken the throne of our hearts.  He is the One we want to serve.

Sin is angry.  Sin wants its throne back.  It is fatally wounded and shall not prevail, but it is still dangerous, and it is attacking the Christian each and every day.  Our enemy is sin.  Its desire is to reign over us again.  And it has allies.  There are desires in us that sin wants to harness to bring us back into a life of wickedness.  Sin wants to turn your hunger into gluttony.  He wants to turn your weariness into laziness.  He wants to turn your physical longings into sexual immorality.  He wants to turn your ambition into self-centered pride.  Sin wants to do you harm, and wants to harm others through you. 

So what does the resurrected life look like?  What does it mean to live as one who has been made new in this life?  The resurrected life is a fight.  It is a war on sin.  We cannot ignore sin; it is powerful and will destroy us.  Be killing sin or it will be killing you!

So, how do we fight?  How do join Christ in this work of causing sin to lay dead at our feet?  Last week we saw the Christian’s defense.  It’s in the first part of verse 13: “Do not present your members to sin as instruments [weapons!] for unrighteousness…”

Sin wants to use the desires within you to make you do unrighteous things.  But in order to do that, you must consent to give your body to these desires.  That word members refers to the various parts of your body, whether it be your mind and emotions or your hands and your feet.  It is you who must choose to open your mouth and allow your tongue to be used to say that evil thing.  You may have the desire to overeat and be a glutton, but you won’t actually overeat unless you give your hands and your mouth to the service of that desire.  You may have the desire to look at what you should not look at, but that desire will go nowhere unless you actually give your eyes to do that very thing.  So the Christian’s defense is self-denial.  The Christian’s defense is learning to say no to wicked desires when they come.  Sometimes it even means denying yourself things that are good, but things that you know might lead to sin.  The Christian’s defense is self-denial.

Self-denial is only possible if we have cultivated self-control.  We cannot live in the impulses of the moment.  Rather, we must learn to live thoughtfully, carefully, with sober-minds.  Our pace of life must be a bit slower than everyone else’s.  We don’t just speak; we think before we speak.  We don’t just act; we think before we act.  We don’t just make decisions; we take time to pray and consider what we are doing.  We tell the desires within us to hush up for a moment so that we can consider the wisdom of what we want to do.

It’s like going into a store.  You have a budget.  You want to be a good steward of the monies God has entrusted to you.  You know what you came to buy.  Yet all of a sudden something jumps out at you.  You have to have it!  Yes, it isn’t in the budget.  Yes, it is a want, and not a need.  But you feel like you need it.  The desire to have this thing is screaming within you.  If you live on impulse, you will be a poor steward of your money, and your hands will pull the item off the shelf, and put it in the cart.  Your feet will take you to the checkout aisle.  Your hands will pull out your wallet, take the money, and pay for the item.  24 hours later you will be thinking, “Why did I do that?  Why did I waste money on this thing when there are so many other important ways that money could have been spent?”  Things could have been different had you refused to grab the item off the shelf until you had taken time to think about you were doing.  Maybe you should have followed the 24 hour rule – give it 24 hours before you make major purchase.  Living thoughtfully, carefully – this is how you cultivate self-control and self-denial.  This is how your spare yourself from many sins and much misery.

The Christian’s Offense: Happy Submission

But we must not stop with the Christian’s defense.  Even more important is the Christian’s offense.  Here is what we must do in order to kill sin in our lives.  Here is the plan of attack that we have.  Here is our slingshot and five smooth stones through which Christ will give us the victory over that Goliath of sin and temptation.  Look at the second part of verse 13: “…but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments [weapons!] for righteousness.”

The end of verse 13 is so clear.  Instead of giving parts of your body to the service of wicked desires, leading you into sin, give the parts of your body to God leading to righteousness.  Remember, that word instruments is better translated as weapons.  That is how it is usually translated in other places in the New Testament.  So according to this verse, you can either present the parts of your body to sin on the side of unrighteousness, or you can present the parts of your body to God on the side of righteousness.  Either way, you will be a weapon in this war.  There is a war going on between God and sin, righteousness and unrighteousness, light and darkness.  The way you live on Sunday afternoon and Monday and Tuesday will either influence people towards sin or towards God.  You are a weapon in this war – your body parts are weapons in this war.  Your tongue will either cause your family members to love Christ more and resent Christ more.  Your actions will either urge people towards the ways of God or towards the ways of sin.  When desires within you try to lead you into the service of sin, you must practice self-denial.  That’s defense!  But then you must do the opposite.  You must give your tongue and your mind and your emotions and your eyes and your ears and your hands and your stomach and your sex organs and your feet to God to be used for His glory.  That’s offense!  How do we defeat sin?  By giving ourselves to the service of the glory of God.  Every day, in every calling on our lives, we live for His honor! 

Take my life, and let it be

Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;

Take my hands and let them move

At the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet and let them be

Swift and beautiful for Thee;

Take my voice and let me sing

Always, only for my King.

Take my silver and my gold,

Not a mite would I withhold;

Take my moments and my days,

Let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my will and make it Thine,

It shall be no longer mine;

Take my heart, it is Thine own,

It shall be Thy royal throne.

What is the Christian’s offense?  It is happy submission to God.  Our defense is self-denial, learning to say no the desires of the flesh.  Our offense is submitting ourselves happily to God, to live completely and always in every moment for His honor.

The middle of verse 13 is so important.  We would expect Paul to say, “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present your members to God as instruments for righteousness.”  Don’t give the parts of your body over to the service of sin, but to the service of God.  But Paul adds something smack in the middle of the verse.  Instead of going straight to “Give the parts of your body to God”, he says something else first: “present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life…”  In other words, presenting your eyes and your arms and your feet to God begins by presenting yourself to God.  Not just your body, but all that you are, body and soul!  If God does not have your heart, He will not have your hands and feet.  Each and every day we must be those who present ourselves to God afresh.  “I am yours.  Every part of me.  My very soul belongs to You.  You are my God, I am your child, and I will serve You today.” 

Notice how we are to present ourselves to God.  We are to do so in faith, believing what God has said about us.  We are to present ourselves to God each day as those who have died to sin and come alive.  We are to come before God each and every day with thanksgiving and praise, humility and gratitude.  Thank You, thank You, thank You, my God!  I once was blind, but now I see. I once lived in sin; you have made me alive.  I don’t have to serve sin any longer.  You gave your Son for me!  O God, I am yours!”  Giving yourself to God anew each and every day by fresh repentance and fresh faith is key to the Christian’s offense.  Living before God each and every day with the knowledge of who you are and what He has done for you is key.  “I am alive!  The Spirit of God within me is working to make my holy.  Because of Him, I can see victory over sin and be used mightily for kingdom purposes today.  I will love my spouse.  I will speak kindly to my children.  I will obey my boss.  I will hold my tongue.  I will be patient.  I will speak of Christ to others.  I will strive for excellence in all that I have been called to do.  I will pray and meditate on the Word.  I will be useful to the kingdom of God this day.  I will do all this, so help me God, because I know that I am alive and it is He working in me to will and to do for His good purpose.”

Happy submission – here is the Christian’s offense against sin.

The Christian’s Confidence: Victory is Ours

Here is the paradox of the Christian life: our life of Christian warfare against sin is at the same time a life of peace that passes understanding.  Our lifetime of battles is also a lifetime of deep happiness and joy.  Why?  Because we approach this battle the way David did Goliath – with the confidence that the victory is ours.  We trust not in ourselves, but in our God who has already guaranteed the outcome.  We’ve seen the Christian’s enemy: sin.  We’ve seen our enemy’s desire: to reign.  We’ve seen our enemy’s allies: our desires.  We’ve seen the Christian’s defense: self-denial.  We’ve seen the Christian’s offense: happy submission.  But there is one more thing left to see: the Christian’s confidence.  Dear Christian, see it in verse 14 and rejoice: “For sin will have no dominion over you…”   Let me say this again: “Sin will have no dominion over you.”

If you are in here and Christ does not have your heart, this does not apply to you.  You are not following Him.  You are not loving Him.  Your patterns of life are not being dictated by Him.  Therefore, sin does have dominion over you. 

But for those in here who used to be like that, but are like that no more, this verse is for you.  We are the ones who by God’s grace heard the gospel, and the Holy Spirit changed our hearts.  We came to see the glory of Christ and we began to love Him – really love Him.  Now we hate sin.  We hate it in ourselves.  We still fall into it, but we are so ashamed and so long for the day when it will be truly gone.  We fight.  We are trying to learn self-denial.  We are trying to learn happy submission.  We are still children in this battle, so much to learn, so far to grow.  But dear friends, this promise stands true for all who know and love Jesus: Sin will have no dominion over you.  The victory is yours, because the victory does not ultimately depend on you.  It is Christ who guaranteed the victory two thousand years ago.  It is Christ who is working in you by the Holy Spirit, and sin is no match for Him.  Do not despair!  Yes, you’ve lost some battles.  Maybe you’ve lost many, many battles.  Maybe you keep losing the same battle.  Friend, do not despair.  Do not become paralyzed by guilt and shame.  Go to Jesus Christ, remember the salvation you have in Him, get on your feet and fight again.  Victory is coming!

Here is why it’s all true.  Here is why you can have this confidence.  Here is the great thing that has happened that has changed everything.  It’s the last words of verse 14: “You are not under law but under grace.”

You are not under law means that it is no longer the law that has the decisive word concerning our fate.  It is no longer the law that determines our eternal destiny.  Don’t think Mosaic Law here.  It is true that we are not under that law given to national Israel, but that’s not what is in view here.  The Mosaic Law was a gracious law.  It gave authoritative commands to Israel, but it also provided sacrifices and atonement for sins.  If a person trusted in the LORD God, then that person would live a life of obedience, and when he or she sinned, there was atonement for this sins.  The Mosaic Law was not “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect”.  The Mosaic Law was “Trust God and show your faith in obedience.” 

No, the kind of law that Paul is speaking of here is the kind that many tried to make the Mosaic Law be.  It’s the way people by nature try to be under law.  They want the final word concerning their destines to depend upon their works.  They want to be good enough.  They want to earn their way to heaven by being better than so and so, or at least having more good deeds than wicked deeds.  They don’t want grace, they want law.  They want to be self-righteous. 

Maybe that’s you in here this morning.  Your plan of being right with God is simply this: try and live a decent life.  Surely if you live a decent life, on the last day, the law will determine you to be a good person and let you into heaven.  But friend, that is not true.  Your sin runs deeper than your realize, and is more heinous than your realize.  What’s more if you choose to have the law determine your final destiny, then you need to know that the law requires more than decency – it requires perfection! 

Jesus Christ was born under the law, and He was the only Person in history for whom that was not bad news.  For Jesus, living a perfect life, being under the law meant that the law found Him worthy of heaven.  But for every other person in the world, being under the law is terrible news.  We are under its curse, because we have not been perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect. 

Yet dear Christian, by the grace of God you have believed on Jesus Christ.  You are no longer under the law.  The law no longer has the final say in your fate.  God’s grace in Jesus Christ has become determinative concerning you.  Let your sins stack up against you all they will, God’s grace has satisfied the law’s demands in Jesus Christ – you are under grace!  God’s grace, not your works, has determined your future.  Praise God!

Now listen carefully: here is why sin will not have dominion over you, dear Christian.  God is treating you graciously, and not as you deserve.  The law demands that those who sin be under the wrath of God, and being under the wrath of God means being given over to sin.  Remember when Adam fell in the Garden?  The result was that he and mankind were given over to sin.  Remember Romans 1?  Because humanity rejected God, God gave them over to dishonorable passions.  The law demands that God not bless sinners but curse them, and to be cursed means to be given over to sin and its consequences.  If you were under law, then God would be treating you as you deserve, and the result of your sins would be you being given over to more sins and more sins and more sins until you enter into hell to face the consequences.  But dear Christian, because of what Jesus did in His life, death, and resurrection, you are not under law, but grace.  God is not treating you as you deserve, but He is treating you with love and compassion and mercy.  He is protecting you from the dominion of sin as a Shepherd protects His sheep or a Father protects His children.  Because you are under grace, sin will never have dominion.  So be strong and courageous.  Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.  Trust Him.  Live in His love.  Prefer Him above all else.  May Christ be the center of your heart, your all in all.  Sin doesn’t stand a chance. 

Of course, it is very likely that there are some in here who do not love Jesus as their all in all.  Jesus is some far off notion, not a living Savior with whom you walk and talk each day.  You don’t know what it is to live every day in the comfort of His love.  Instead, you still serve sin.  You still serve self.  You live the way you want to live and do the things  you want to do with little regard for what Christ would have you do. 

Dear friend, if that is you, then you are spiritually dead.  And you need to be raised from the dead.  This is something only God can do, and He does not owe it to you to do this.  But I am praying that even now He might be doing that in your soul.  Is there any guilt over sin rising up within you?  Is there any longing for a different way of life?  Have you tasted at all the reality that you are a wicked sinner, but that Christ is a great Savior, and through Him your life can be forever changed?  Dear friend, run to Christ in your soul!  Trust Him.  Give yourself to Him.  If you still aren’t sure about all these things, pray to Jesus and ask His help.  Read the Bible for yourself.  Come to me or folks in this room and ask them your questions.  Keep coming to church so that you can learn more.  If there comes a point when you see your need for Jesus and your need to follow Him for the rest of your life, I pray that you will do so.  Show it by being baptized in His name and being counted among His people through church membership. 

Oh Father, raise people from the dead here this morning.  Help us who are alive to fight well in light your amazing grace.  Let’s pray.

The Resurrected Life: The Christian's Defense (Romans 6:12-14)

Easter Sunday and the Resurrected Life

There is a definite resurrection connection in these verses.  In fact, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead has been part and parcel of all that we have been talking about in Romans 6:1-14.  Here is the connection: Jesus rose from the dead so that His people would rise from the dead spiritually.  Jesus’ resurrection of the dead was the confirmation that His work on the cross was sufficient, and that His people would be counted right in the eyes of God and brought to new life.  A dead Jesus cannot send the Holy Spirit into people’s lives and open their eyes and change their hearts.  A risen Jesus means that the work of atonement has been finished and He has all authority to reach into human hearts and make them alive again!  Could it be that there are any here this morning who have not experienced this resurrection?  Could it be that you are still dead in your sins and trespasses, dead to God, dead to salvation, dead to true living, and you need to be made alive?

We see the resurrection connection in verse 4.  Look at verse 4 with me: “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.”  Do you see the connection?  Jesus rose from the dead.  Jesus experienced new life after His death.  Now, because of His saving work, we who are His people also experience new life. 

Look at verse 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.”  You cannot separate the death and the resurrection of Jesus.  They absolutely go together.  Therefore, you cannot separate the death and resurrection of Christ’s people.  Those who believe on Jesus have died to sin, and that death to sin absolutely, 100%, with all certainty must lead to new way of living.  Friends, Christians are new creations.  The old has passed away, the new has come.  Those who claim to be Christians because they prayed a prayer or walked an aisle or were baptized, but their lives haven’t changed, are deceived. 

Look at verses 9-11: “We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.  For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.  So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”  Do you see?  Christ doesn’t die and rise again over and over and over again.  He died once for all, and He rose once for all.  Thus, the death to sin that He brings into our lives is once for all.  The new life He gives is once for all.  There is no losing your salvation here.  There is no going back into your old life.  This is why baptism is a picture of burial – there is a complete separation between your old way of life and your new way of life – a true Christian will never go back.

So you see the resurrection connection.  Jesus rose again that His people would live in newness of life.

Verses 12-14

So then we get to verse 12.  “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.”  We see our enemy: sin.  Sin used to reign over us.  We were dead to God because sin ruled our hearts.  Yet now that Christ has opened our eyes and shown us how vile sin is, sin has lost its rule.  Our heart belongs to another.  No more do we live for self and sin; we live for Christ and His glory.  Christ has taken the throne of our hearts.  He is the One we want to serve.

Sin is angry.  Sin wants its throne back.  It is fatally wounded and shall not prevail, but it is still dangerous, and it is attacking the Christian each and every day.  Our enemy is sin.  Its desire is to reign over us again.  And it has allies.  There are desires in us that sin wants to harness to bring us back into a life of wickedness.  Sin wants to turn your hunger into gluttony.  He wants to turn your weariness into laziness.  He wants to turn your physical longings into sexual immorality.  He wants to turn your ambition into self-centered pride.  Sin wants to do you harm, and wants to harm others through you. 

So what does the resurrected life look like?  What does it mean to live as one who has been made new in this life?  The resurrected life is a fight.  It is a war on sin.  We cannot ignore sin; it is powerful and will destroy us.  Be killing sin or it will be killing you!

So, how do we fight?  How do join Christ in this work of causing sin to lay dead at our feet?  Last week we saw the Christian’s defense.  It’s in the first part of verse 13: “Do not present your members to sin as instruments [weapons!] for unrighteousness…”

Sin wants to use the desires within you to make you do unrighteous things.  But in order to do that, you must consent to give your body to these desires.  That word members refers to the various parts of your body, whether it be your mind and emotions or your hands and your feet.  It is you who must choose to open your mouth and allow your tongue to be used to say that evil thing.  You may have the desire to overeat and be a glutton, but you won’t actually overeat unless you give your hands and your mouth to the service of that desire.  You may have the desire to look at what you should not look at, but that desire will go nowhere unless you actually give your eyes to do that very thing.  So the Christian’s defense is self-denial.  The Christian’s defense is learning to say no to wicked desires when they come.  Sometimes it even means denying yourself things that are good, but things that you know might lead to sin.  The Christian’s defense is self-denial.

Self-denial is only possible if we have cultivated self-control.  We cannot live in the impulses of the moment.  Rather, we must learn to live thoughtfully, carefully, with sober-minds.  Our pace of life must be a bit slower than everyone else’s.  We don’t just speak; we think before we speak.  We don’t just act; we think before we act.  We don’t just make decisions; we take time to pray and consider what we are doing.  We tell the desires within us to hush up for a moment so that we can consider the wisdom of what we want to do.

It’s like going into a store.  You have a budget.  You want to be a good steward of the monies God has entrusted to you.  You know what you came to buy.  Yet all of a sudden something jumps out at you.  You have to have it!  Yes, it isn’t in the budget.  Yes, it is a want, and not a need.  But you feel like you need it.  The desire to have this thing is screaming within you.  If you live on impulse, you will be a poor steward of your money, and your hands will pull the item off the shelf, and put it in the cart.  Your feet will take you to the checkout aisle.  Your hands will pull out your wallet, take the money, and pay for the item.  24 hours later you will be thinking, “Why did I do that?  Why did I waste money on this thing when there are so many other important ways that money could have been spent?”  Things could have been different had you refused to grab the item off the shelf until you had taken time to think about you were doing.  Maybe you should have followed the 24 hour rule – give it 24 hours before you make major purchase.  Living thoughtfully, carefully – this is how you cultivate self-control and self-denial.  This is how your spare yourself from many sins and much misery.

The Christian’s Offense: Happy Submission

But we must not stop with the Christian’s defense.  Even more important is the Christian’s offense.  Here is what we must do in order to kill sin in our lives.  Here is the plan of attack that we have.  Here is our slingshot and five smooth stones through which Christ will give us the victory over that Goliath of sin and temptation.  Look at the second part of verse 13: “…but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments [weapons!] for righteousness.”

The end of verse 13 is so clear.  Instead of giving parts of your body to the service of wicked desires, leading you into sin, give the parts of your body to God leading to righteousness.  Remember, that word instruments is better translated as weapons.  That is how it is usually translated in other places in the New Testament.  So according to this verse, you can either present the parts of your body to sin on the side of unrighteousness, or you can present the parts of your body to God on the side of righteousness.  Either way, you will be a weapon in this war.  There is a war going on between God and sin, righteousness and unrighteousness, light and darkness.  The way you live on Sunday afternoon and Monday and Tuesday will either influence people towards sin or towards God.  You are a weapon in this war – your body parts are weapons in this war.  Your tongue will either cause your family members to love Christ more and resent Christ more.  Your actions will either urge people towards the ways of God or towards the ways of sin.  When desires within you try to lead you into the service of sin, you must practice self-denial.  That’s defense!  But then you must do the opposite.  You must give your tongue and your mind and your emotions and your eyes and your ears and your hands and your stomach and your sex organs and your feet to God to be used for His glory.  That’s offense!  How do we defeat sin?  By giving ourselves to the service of the glory of God.  Every day, in every calling on our lives, we live for His honor! 

Take my life, and let it be

Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;

Take my hands and let them move

At the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet and let them be

Swift and beautiful for Thee;

Take my voice and let me sing

Always, only for my King.

Take my silver and my gold,

Not a mite would I withhold;

Take my moments and my days,

Let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my will and make it Thine,

It shall be no longer mine;

Take my heart, it is Thine own,

It shall be Thy royal throne.

What is the Christian’s offense?  It is happy submission to God.  Our defense is self-denial, learning to say no the desires of the flesh.  Our offense is submitting ourselves happily to God, to live completely and always in every moment for His honor.

The middle of verse 13 is so important.  We would expect Paul to say, “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present your members to God as instruments for righteousness.”  Don’t give the parts of your body over to the service of sin, but to the service of God.  But Paul adds something smack in the middle of the verse.  Instead of going straight to “Give the parts of your body to God”, he says something else first: “present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life…”  In other words, presenting your eyes and your arms and your feet to God begins by presenting yourself to God.  Not just your body, but all that you are, body and soul!  If God does not have your heart, He will not have your hands and feet.  Each and every day we must be those who present ourselves to God afresh.  “I am yours.  Every part of me.  My very soul belongs to You.  You are my God, I am your child, and I will serve You today.” 

Notice how we are to present ourselves to God.  We are to do so in faith, believing what God has said about us.  We are to present ourselves to God each day as those who have died to sin and come alive.  We are to come before God each and every day with thanksgiving and praise, humility and gratitude.  Thank You, thank You, thank You, my God!  I once was blind, but now I see. I once lived in sin; you have made me alive.  I don’t have to serve sin any longer.  You gave your Son for me!  O God, I am yours!”  Giving yourself to God anew each and every day by fresh repentance and fresh faith is key to the Christian’s offense.  Living before God each and every day with the knowledge of who you are and what He has done for you is key.  “I am alive!  The Spirit of God within me is working to make my holy.  Because of Him, I can see victory over sin and be used mightily for kingdom purposes today.  I will love my spouse.  I will speak kindly to my children.  I will obey my boss.  I will hold my tongue.  I will be patient.  I will speak of Christ to others.  I will strive for excellence in all that I have been called to do.  I will pray and meditate on the Word.  I will be useful to the kingdom of God this day.  I will do all this, so help me God, because I know that I am alive and it is He working in me to will and to do for His good purpose.”

Happy submission – here is the Christian’s offense against sin.

The Christian’s Confidence: Victory is Ours

Here is the paradox of the Christian life: our life of Christian warfare against sin is at the same time a life of peace that passes understanding.  Our lifetime of battles is also a lifetime of deep happiness and joy.  Why?  Because we approach this battle the way David did Goliath – with the confidence that the victory is ours.  We trust not in ourselves, but in our God who has already guaranteed the outcome.  We’ve seen the Christian’s enemy: sin.  We’ve seen our enemy’s desire: to reign.  We’ve seen our enemy’s allies: our desires.  We’ve seen the Christian’s defense: self-denial.  We’ve seen the Christian’s offense: happy submission.  But there is one more thing left to see: the Christian’s confidence.  Dear Christian, see it in verse 14 and rejoice: “For sin will have no dominion over you…”   Let me say this again: “Sin will have no dominion over you.”

If you are in here and Christ does not have your heart, this does not apply to you.  You are not following Him.  You are not loving Him.  Your patterns of life are not being dictated by Him.  Therefore, sin does have dominion over you. 

But for those in here who used to be like that, but are like that no more, this verse is for you.  We are the ones who by God’s grace heard the gospel, and the Holy Spirit changed our hearts.  We came to see the glory of Christ and we began to love Him – really love Him.  Now we hate sin.  We hate it in ourselves.  We still fall into it, but we are so ashamed and so long for the day when it will be truly gone.  We fight.  We are trying to learn self-denial.  We are trying to learn happy submission.  We are still children in this battle, so much to learn, so far to grow.  But dear friends, this promise stands true for all who know and love Jesus: Sin will have no dominion over you.  The victory is yours, because the victory does not ultimately depend on you.  It is Christ who guaranteed the victory two thousand years ago.  It is Christ who is working in you by the Holy Spirit, and sin is no match for Him.  Do not despair!  Yes, you’ve lost some battles.  Maybe you’ve lost many, many battles.  Maybe you keep losing the same battle.  Friend, do not despair.  Do not become paralyzed by guilt and shame.  Go to Jesus Christ, remember the salvation you have in Him, get on your feet and fight again.  Victory is coming!

Here is why it’s all true.  Here is why you can have this confidence.  Here is the great thing that has happened that has changed everything.  It’s the last words of verse 14: “You are not under law but under grace.”

You are not under law means that it is no longer the law that has the decisive word concerning our fate.  It is no longer the law that determines our eternal destiny.  Don’t think Mosaic Law here.  It is true that we are not under that law given to national Israel, but that’s not what is in view here.  The Mosaic Law was a gracious law.  It gave authoritative commands to Israel, but it also provided sacrifices and atonement for sins.  If a person trusted in the LORD God, then that person would live a life of obedience, and when he or she sinned, there was atonement for this sins.  The Mosaic Law was not “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect”.  The Mosaic Law was “Trust God and show your faith in obedience.” 

No, the kind of law that Paul is speaking of here is the kind that many tried to make the Mosaic Law be.  It’s the way people by nature try to be under law.  They want the final word concerning their destines to depend upon their works.  They want to be good enough.  They want to earn their way to heaven by being better than so and so, or at least having more good deeds than wicked deeds.  They don’t want grace, they want law.  They want to be self-righteous. 

Maybe that’s you in here this morning.  Your plan of being right with God is simply this: try and live a decent life.  Surely if you live a decent life, on the last day, the law will determine you to be a good person and let you into heaven.  But friend, that is not true.  Your sin runs deeper than your realize, and is more heinous than your realize.  What’s more if you choose to have the law determine your final destiny, then you need to know that the law requires more than decency – it requires perfection! 

Jesus Christ was born under the law, and He was the only Person in history for whom that was not bad news.  For Jesus, living a perfect life, being under the law meant that the law found Him worthy of heaven.  But for every other person in the world, being under the law is terrible news.  We are under its curse, because we have not been perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect. 

Yet dear Christian, by the grace of God you have believed on Jesus Christ.  You are no longer under the law.  The law no longer has the final say in your fate.  God’s grace in Jesus Christ has become determinative concerning you.  Let your sins stack up against you all they will, God’s grace has satisfied the law’s demands in Jesus Christ – you are under grace!  God’s grace, not your works, has determined your future.  Praise God!

Now listen carefully: here is why sin will not have dominion over you, dear Christian.  God is treating you graciously, and not as you deserve.  The law demands that those who sin be under the wrath of God, and being under the wrath of God means being given over to sin.  Remember when Adam fell in the Garden?  The result was that he and mankind were given over to sin.  Remember Romans 1?  Because humanity rejected God, God gave them over to dishonorable passions.  The law demands that God not bless sinners but curse them, and to be cursed means to be given over to sin and its consequences.  If you were under law, then God would be treating you as you deserve, and the result of your sins would be you being given over to more sins and more sins and more sins until you enter into hell to face the consequences.  But dear Christian, because of what Jesus did in His life, death, and resurrection, you are not under law, but grace.  God is not treating you as you deserve, but He is treating you with love and compassion and mercy.  He is protecting you from the dominion of sin as a Shepherd protects His sheep or a Father protects His children.  Because you are under grace, sin will never have dominion.  So be strong and courageous.  Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.  Trust Him.  Live in His love.  Prefer Him above all else.  May Christ be the center of your heart, your all in all.  Sin doesn’t stand a chance. 

Of course, it is very likely that there are some in here who do not love Jesus as their all in all.  Jesus is some far off notion, not a living Savior with whom you walk and talk each day.  You don’t know what it is to live every day in the comfort of His love.  Instead, you still serve sin.  You still serve self.  You live the way you want to live and do the things  you want to do with little regard for what Christ would have you do. 

Dear friend, if that is you, then you are spiritually dead.  And you need to be raised from the dead.  This is something only God can do, and He does not owe it to you to do this.  But I am praying that even now He might be doing that in your soul.  Is there any guilt over sin rising up within you?  Is there any longing for a different way of life?  Have you tasted at all the reality that you are a wicked sinner, but that Christ is a great Savior, and through Him your life can be forever changed?  Dear friend, run to Christ in your soul!  Trust Him.  Give yourself to Him.  If you still aren’t sure about all these things, pray to Jesus and ask His help.  Read the Bible for yourself.  Come to me or folks in this room and ask them your questions.  Keep coming to church so that you can learn more.  If there comes a point when you see your need for Jesus and your need to follow Him for the rest of your life, I pray that you will do so.  Show it by being baptized in His name and being counted among His people through church membership. 

Oh Father, raise people from the dead here this morning.  Help us who are alive to fight well in light your amazing grace.  Let’s pray.

The Resurrected Life: The Christian's Defense (Romans 6:12-14)

We’re thinking about the resurrected life.  Christians are people who have been resurrected.  We were once dead to God and alive to sin.  We hated God, were hostile to God, rejected God.  We loved sin, lived in sin, gave ourselves to sin.  But now, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, all that has changed.  We have not died to sin and come alive to God.  We’ve seen sin for what it really is, a terrible master that wants to destroy us.  We have turned from sin, given our allegiance to a new Lord, a better Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Friends, Jesus lived and died that we could be justified, and He desired that we be justified so that we would be sanctified.  That is, God’s desire was to make us holy.  But holiness is a blessing, and He would be unjust to give such a blessing to criminals like us.  So Jesus lived and died as our representative so that when we believe on Him we are no longer criminals, but children of God.  It is now good and right for God to give us this gift of holiness.  Justification was us being changed from criminals against God to children of God.  Sanctification is God’s work throughout our lives of giving us victory over sin and bringing us more and more into the character of Jesus.

The goal of all this is that at the end of all things we will enter Heaven and be with God forever.  We will be like Him in His perfect character.  It will all be because of what Christ accomplished for us, and what Christ did within us.  Salvation is all of grace, and in heaven we will see the awesome salvation we have been given and the glorious God with whom we will dwell forever and we will praise Him forever and ever. 

In light of this, how should we now live?  If death to sin and walking in holiness is what Christ has done, is doing, and will do in us, then what is our role to play?  The answer is found in verses 12-14.  Christ is going to accomplish His purpose of making us holy, but He is going to do it through our hearts and our minds and our wills.  We have a role to play.  We too are to share the mission of Jesus for our lives.  We too are to be working to see sin defeated and righteousness flourishing in our everyday lives.  Therefore, Paul gives us this command in verse 12: “Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.”

We spent all our time last week on this command. We saw our enemy: sin.  We saw our enemy’s desire: to reign over us.  We saw our enemy’s allies: the sinful desires within us.  This command is a call to fight.  It is a call to do battle.  The resurrected life, until the day we enter Heaven, is a life of war.  Sin has lost its place on the throne of our hearts, and it wants its throne back!  Sin is practicing guerilla warfare in your life, using this desire and then a different desire and then another to enslave you again and cause you to rebel against your new king Jesus.  You must fight back. 

Now, this might seem very discouraging.  Is Paul telling us that when we come to Jesus and receive salvation, the rest of our life is to be spent in battle?  Every moment of every day, we are to be engaged in a difficult, painful conflict with temptations, seeking to triumph over them.  Each and every day we wake up in the morning and battle is on from the moment our eyes open.  There is the temptation to stay in the bed.  There is the temptation to think unholy thoughts.  There is the temptation to be a poor steward of your time and money.  There is the temptation to be cold towards your spouse or angry towards your children.  There is the temptation to be judgmental towards that friend of yours.  There is the temptation to speak ill of the boss, or to despair about your circumstances, or to be anxious about tomorrow.  You must fight hour after hour, minute after minute, second after second, and your only respite is when you are asleep.  Is this the abundant life Christ promised?  I can hear someone saying, if this is what it means to be a Christian, I’m not sure I want to be one. 

Allow me to give three responses to that.  Here is my first response: Why are you surprised?  What did you think being a Christian meant?  Surely you did not think that being a Christian meant being at peace with temptation and sin?  What did Jesus say about following Him?  Didn’t He say, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24)?  The cross was an instrument of death.  It was an instrument of pain.  Jesus says that a life of following Him is a life of cross-bearing. 

Here is my second response: The cross-bearing is temporary.  The battle with sin is temporary.  This life of constant conflict with temptation and sin is temporary.  The war will end, and if you are Christ’s, you will be victorious.  People thought that World War I was the war to end all wars.  They believed that after World War I, there would never be war again.  They were wrong.  But friend, your battle with sin really is the war to end all wars.  If you are Christ’s, sin has already been fatally wounded, and the decisive battle has already been fought.  The rest of your life on earth you are fighting an enemy that is dying but angry.  Yet at the end of your life or when Jesus comes back, whichever is first, sin will lie dead at your feet.  Your war will be over, and there will never be war again.  Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and the battle He is fighting in you and through you will be the one that secures peace for you for all eternity.  So set your mind on the day that is coming.  Set your mind on everlasting life.  Set your mind on the New Heavens and the New Earth.  Remembering that this day of eternal peace is coming, fight!  Fight with all your might!

My third response to this person who doesn’t want to be a Christian if the Christian life – the resurrected life – is a life of warfare is this: understand the nature of this warfare.  The fact is, the warfare of the Christian life is the battle to be more satisfied in Jesus than in sin.  The warfare of the Christian life is the fight to find more rest and contentment and peace in the service of Christ than in anything else.  In other words, you don’t fight sin with guns and swords.  You fight sin by following Jesus into green pastures.  He leads you beside still waters.  Even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you do not fear.  This is a strange war we fight – we win this war by resting.  We win this war by being at peace.  We win this war by being content in Christ.  There is real rest and peace and joy for the Christian in this life.  These come as our faith grows, and the more these things are developed in us, the more sin and its desires are nailed to a cross and defeated.

The Christian’s Defense: Self-Denial

Let me show you how Paul describes the fight of the resurrected life.  Here is how our Lord Jesus, through His apostle Paul, teaches us to fight.  In verse 13 our Savior gives us both a word about defense and a word about offense.  This is our focus this morning.  I want us to dwell on verse 13 and I want us to see first the Christian’s defense, and then the Christian’s offense. 

The Christian’s defense is explained at the beginning of verse 13: “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness…”  So our enemy is sin.  Sin is using these sinful desires that are still within us to try and regain its dominion.  So here is how you must defend yourself against sin.  You must not allow your members to be given over to sin as instruments of unrighteousness.

Everybody look at that word members.  That word refers to the parts of your physical being.  It refers to your mind.  It refers to your eyes.  It refers to your ears.  It refers to your tongue.  It refers to your hands.  It refers to your stomach.  It refers to your sex organs.  It refers to your feet.  Sin seeks to take the physical desires that you experience and harness them to lead you away form Jesus back into a life of sin. 

Remember this from last week?  The desire to rest and sleep is a good desire.  But sin wants to use it to make you a sluggard.  The desire to exert energy and be productive is a good desire.  Sin wants to use it to make you be productive in wickedness rather than for righteousness.  Sin wants your desire for food, your desire for intimacy, your desire for entertainment, your desire for sport, your desire for music, each and every one of them to pull you back into its clutches. 

Everybody look at that word instruments.  This is huge.  Listen to John 18:3: “So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons” (John 18:3 emphasis added).  That word weapons is the word translated instruments here.  Listen to Romans 13:12: “The night is far gone; the day is at hand.  So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:12 emphasis added).  That word armor is our word here translated as instruments.  In 2^nd Corinthians 6:7 we read of weapons of righteousness, and that word weapons is our word.  In 2^nd Corinthians 10:4 we read of the weapons of our warfare”.  Friends, in every other place where this word is used it refers to warfare.  In almost every other place it is used, the translators translate it as weapons.  That is what it ought to say here. 

I have a commentary in my office written by a man I highly respect.  His note in his commentary about this word says this: “[This word] can denote any tool or implement, and in the plural it is often used of weapons.  Many take it in this sense here, but nothing in the context indicates warfare, so perhaps it is better to see it as instruments…”  I was floored when I read that comment.  We should translate this word as instruments, and not weapons, because nothing in the context indicates warfare.  Nothing in the context indicates warfare?  “Let not sin therefore reign” doesn’t sound like warfare?  How are going to keep sin from reigning – by simply asking sin nicely to leave us alone?  Of course it indicates warfare.  Verse 14: “For sin will have no dominion over you…”  That’s what sin wants – dominion.  Friends, everything in this passage is about warfare.  Sin does not want to use the parts of your body simply as tools – it wants to use the parts of your body as weapons. 

This isn’t just about you.  Now that you call yourself a follower of Jesus Christ, there is a sense in which you can be even more useful to sin.  If sin can dupe you into coming back into its dominion, then you become a weapon by which sin can dishonor the name of Jesus and cause many to be hardened against the gospel.  I think about this as a gospel preacher.  How many people have been turned away from the gospel and have continued in a life of wickedness because a pastor they respected was caught in adultery?  Sin took a good desire – the desire for intimacy – and used it to woo a pastor in the bed of woman who was not his wife, and the kingdom of darkness had a great victory. 

Think about your tongue.  Of all the parts of your body, this one is the most dangerous.  If given over to sin, this is a weapon that can do untold damage to the glory of Christ and the gospel and the good of souls.  James 3:5: “So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.  How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!”  Dear friend, if there is one part of you that sin wants to use as a weapon to do you harm, others harm, the glory of Christ harm – it is your tongue! 

So, what is the Christian’s defense against sin?  When these desires erupt within us, we must not give the parts of our body over to those desires.  Do you see that word present?  Because we are still in this life, even as Christians, wicked desires will well up within us.  Sometimes they may be very subtle, gently wooing us.  Other times they may be screaming within us.  But the goal is always the same.  These desires want you to give some part of you to the fulfillment of that desire.  “Did you hear what that person said to you?  You know how hurt you are!  You know how in this moment anger and even hatred is trying to get a hold of your heart.  Give your tongue to this desire as a weapon.  Rebuke that person.  Insult that person.  Get your revenge!”

The message here is that when those desires well up, pleading with us to give our bodies to their service, we must say no.  We must deny those desires.  Here is the Christian’s defense in a word – a hyphenated word: self-denial.  The Christian life is a life of denying your own flesh the pleasures it seeks.  “Come on, just one more cookie, surely one more wouldn’t hurt?”  “Come on, do you see how attractive she is?  Do you see how she is flirting with you?  Nobody will find out.”  “Come on, it’s a party!  You’re supposed to get drunk at these.  What’s the big deal?”  “Come on, what’s the big deal about missing church tonight.  You know if you go the whole family will have to rush through supper and things are going to be crazy.  It’s not worth that.”  “Come on, this song is awesome.  Sure the lyrics are awful and you’ll have those words in your head all day, but the music is great!”  Friends, we must practice self-denial.  We must cultivate in ourselves the ability to control our tongues, control our minds, control our eyes, control our bodies.  We must be able to say, “No.” 

It isn’t just saying no to wicked desires.  It is saying no to good desires that we know could do us harm.  The desire to spend time with a good friend is not wicked.  But you know that your friend wants you to go to the bar with him, or to the casino, or to the club.  Therefore, you must deny even a good desire in order to keep sin away.

The desire for sleep is good.  But you know that you ought to pray.  Your family needs your prayers.  Your brothers and sisters in Christ need you interceding for them.  So you must deny yourself sleep for just a little while longer so that you can pray.

Excursus: Self-Control

Self-denial is our defense.  Self-denial includes as its essential ingredient self-control.  If you haven’t learned to control your mind, your tongue, your hand, your feet, but have lived your whole life just giving in to whatever urge hits you in the moment, self-denial will be impossible to you.  This is why self-control is such an essential virtue to cultivate.  You should work for it, and you should pray for it.  Pray for Christ to bless your efforts in becoming self-controlled – if He doesn’t give you this, you will live a life of sin and will prove yourself not to be a true Christian.

This is an excursus in the sermon.  I want to take a few moments to impress upon us how essential self-control is to the Christian life.  This is implied in our verse.  “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness” implies that you must have control over your body.  The next part of the verse says, “…but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.”  Again, this is absolutely impossible without self-control.  You can’t present any part of you to God that you don’t have control over.  It’s like in the Old Testament, when a man was to offer a lamb to God as a sacrifice.  He cannot offer the lamb if he cannot catch it.  If the lamb is running wild, this way and that, then the man can’t catch it to offer it up.  So also, you cannot prevent your tongue from becoming a weapon of sin if you don’t control it.  The same is true with the rest of your body, including your mind and emotions.

How dangerous is an uncontrolled part of your body?  It will send you to hell!  It will cause you to give yourself to the dominion of sin.  You will prove yourself not to be a true child of God by that uncontrolled part of your body.  What did Jesus say?  Matthew 5:29-30: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.  For it is better that you lose of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.  And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut if off and throw it away.  For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”  In other words, if you can’t keep a part of your body from giving into sin, you’d be better off to cut if off then to let it lead you to hell!  That’s how important self-control is.  Heaven and hell are at stake.  The way to know that you are dead to sin and alive to Christ is to prove it in your life through self-control and self-denial. 

Listen to Pastor Al Martin speaking to those who call themselves Christians but refuse to live this life of self-denial: “Are you taking every step necessary to stop feeding your lust?  In God’s name, why, why, why?  Will you sit through another service and stand by a sign post that points you away from hell and the wrath of God, and points to heaven and life and forgiveness and hug death to your breast?  Oh, the madness!  You are a vile, filthy, helpless, hell-deserving, wretched son or daughter of Adam.  You know nothing of  true repentance and there of true and saving faith.  Or you just occasionally have a little whimper in the closet when your conscience gets so active that you can’t live with it, and you whimper and cry and ask God for a little help and then you go right back with your hand and your eyeball firmly attached.  Oh yes, once in a while you will take a dull parry knife and scratch your hand and occasionally scratch around your eyeballs, but you haven’t begun to cut off and pluck out.  You better listen to the words of Jesus, “Not everyone who says Lord, Lord shall enter, but he that does the will of my Father in heaven.”  “If ye by the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh ye shall live; if ye live after the flesh, you’ll die.””

Friends, that is what is at stake here, and that is why we must take self-denial seriously.  There can be no self-denial without self-control. 

When Paul wrote to Titus, he explained to Titus some of what he should be teaching to the various members of the churches on the island of Crete.  He started out by telling Titus to what to teach the older men: “Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness” (Titus 2:2).   Then he told Titus what to teach the older ladies: “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine” (Titus 2:3a).   Again, there is this emphasis on self-control.  What about the younger ladies?  Paul says concerning the older ladies, “They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled” (Titus 2:3b-5).  So older men are to be self-controlled, older women are to be self-controlled, and younger women are to be trained through the teaching older women how to be self-controlled.  What about young men?  There are so many things Paul could have told Titus to teach the young men.  Yet, instead of a list, Paul chose only one thing – one thing! – to stress for Titus to teach them.  “Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled” (2:6).

Here is an essential ingredient of the Christian life – without self-control, you cannot follow Jesus.  You cannot give to Jesus what you do not control.  In fact, Proverbs 25:28 says that “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.”  Here is a city that has been so ravaged that it now lies defenseless and vulnerable.  Even its weakest enemies will easily come into the city and do great harm.  A person without self-control lies open and vulnerable.  Even the weakest desires will lead that person into sin.  This person will leave a wake of misery and strife and dishonor to Christ in every relationship and every activity of his life because he’s defenseless to the desires sin is using to hold dominion over his life.

Listen to Matthew Henry comment on Titus 2:6.  He really helps us understand what it means to be self-controlled.  He says, ““Here is the duty of young men.”  As we have seen, this is not just important for young men, but for young ladies, and for older ladies, and for older men.  We all must have self-control.  Yet, speaking of young men, Henry says, “They are apt to be eager and hot, thoughtless and precipitant; therefore they must be earnestly called upon and exhorted to be considerate, not rash…”  There is something in young men, and indeed in all of us, that makes us tend to act rashly and thoughtlessly, under the pressure of the moment.  We feel a desire?  We go with it!  So we all must be earnestly called upon to learn what it is to be considerate.  We must learn what it is to take time and think before we act.  We must learn to consider what we will say before we say it.  We must learn not to act on impulse, but to take a moment and ask, “Is this a good impulse?  Is this impulse something that will glorify God?  What will be the consequences of me acting on this impulse?”  Preachers need to call on God’s people to be thoughtful and considerate, not rash with their thoughts, words, and deeds.  But it isn’t just preachers who need to sound this call.  We need each other to help one another in this effort.  Husbands need to help wives, and wives need to help husbands.  Parents need to help their children.  Friends need to help one another.  We as brothers and sisters in Christ need to regularly be saying to one another, “Let’s take some time and pray before you make that decision.  Let’s think about that.”  We need to model even in our conversations together what it is to speak carefully, and not recklessly.  We need to model for one another thoughtful living.

Henry goes on to say that we must learn to be “advisable and submissive, not willful and head-strong”.  Self-control means being willing to listen to others.  It means being willing to hear the counsel of others.  It means being willing to submit to others.  Children, listen up!  When dad or mom tells you not to speak that way, or not to do something, learn to listen and obey.  It will save your life when you are older if you have developed the habit of saying no to yourself out of obedience to mom and died.  Later in life you won’t have mom and dad there to tell you yes or no.  You’ll only have you.  If you haven’t trained your mind and tongue and eyes and body to submit to mom and dad’s rules, you can bet your mind and tongue and eyes and body won’t submit to you.  Teaching yourself how to be submissive to others will help you learn how to submit to yourself, and not to be carried away by foolish desires.

Henry says that to be self-controlled we must be “humble and mild, not haughty and proud; for there are more young people ruined by pride than by any other sin.  The young should be grave and solid in their deportment and manners, joining the seriousness of age with the liveliness and vigor of youth. This will make even those younger years to pass to good purpose, and yield matter of comfortable reflection when the evil days come; it will be preventive of much sin and sorrow, and lay the foundation for doing and enjoying much good. Such shall not mourn at the last, but have peace and comfort in death, and after it a glorious crown of life.”

Think about that!  How many of you who are older in here wish that you could have had the wisdom and self-control you have now when you were younger!  How much good you could have done, and how much sin and pain could have been avoided if you had been as cautious and sober-minded when you were young as you are now.  It is a strange thing that when are younger and have the most energy and can do the most in this world we are also the most rash and least thoughtful and self-controlled.  Young people in this room, be you 5 or 35, listen up.  Learn now how to be self-controlled, thoughtful, careful, not taken away by your emotions or desires!  Learn now and there is no limit to the good that Christ might be done in you.  And oh the pain and misery you will be spared because you learned this lesson young.

Dear church, here is our defense against sin.  We must cultivate self-control.  We must cultivate thoughtful, careful living.  When those desires spring up in us that would lead us into sin, we must deny them.  Full of the love of Jesus, living in light of all that He has done for us, let us say “No!” to those desires.  Let us give ourselves completely to the service of our King who leads us into paths of joy and peace.