Good evening. Let's all stand
together. We'll sing hymn number 485. 485. We praise thee, O God, for the
Son of high love, for Jesus who died and is now gone above. ? Revive us again ? We praise thee, O God ? For thy
spirit of light ? Who has shown us our Savior ? And scattered
our light ? Alleluia, upon the glory ? Alleluia,
amen Revive us again. All glory and praise to the Lamb
that was slain, Who has borne all our sins and has cleansed
every stain. Alleluia, Thine the glory, ? Find the glory, revive us again
? ? Revive us again, fill each heart with thy love ? ? May souls
be rekindled with thy promise ? ? Hallelujah, find the glory,
hallelujah ? Revive us again. Be seated. Sing hymn number 205. 205. Free from the low, happy condition. Jesus hath bled and there is
remission. Cursed by the law and dead by
the fall. Grace hath redeemed us once for
all. Once for all, sinner receiving. Once for all, rather believing. Leaning to the cross, the burden
will fall. Now are we free, there's no condemnation. Jesus provides a perfect salvation. Come unto me, oh, here is sweet
God. Come and he saves us once more. Into the cross the burden will
fall, Christ hath redeemed. ? Children of God, oh, glorious
calling ? ? Surely His grace will keep us from falling ? ?
Fasting from death to life that is cold ? ? Blessed salvation
comes from above ? Christ hath redeemed us once
for all. Romans 6, Romans chapter 6. Start reading at verse 14 to the end
of the chapter. For sin shall not have dominion
over you. For you're not under the law,
but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because
we're not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not that to whom ye yield
yourselves servants to obey? His servants you are to whom
you obey, whether of sin under death or of obedience under righteousness. But God be thanked. that you
were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart
that form of doctrine which was delivered to you. Being then made free from sin,
you became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men,
because of the infirmity of your flesh. And for as you have yielded
your members servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity,
even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto
holiness. For when you were the servants
of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit had you then in those
things were of you now ashamed? For the end of those things is
death. But now, being made free from
sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness
and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Our Father, our gracious, gracious
Father in heaven, how blessed, how holy, how glorious is your
name. You're infinite in righteousness,
infinite in your very person. Never was a time you weren't,
never will be a time when you won't be. You'll always be what
you was, what you are, and what you always will be. And oh Lord,
we know that you're eternal. And God, you gave us eternal
life because that's all you can give us, is what you yourself
have, eternal life. the life that you gave us in
your blessed Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And oh Lord, we bless
you for the grace of God. Bless you for the Holy Spirit
that brings the things of Christ and teaches us and instructs
us and comforts us and upholds us and guides us while we're
in this world. And even prays for us when we
don't know what to pray for. He intercedes for us. And so,
Lord, meet with us tonight. Please bless the saints of God
that's here, and please be merciful and gracious to those who are
not here. Some are not here through your
providence. Others are not here for whatever reason. But, Lord,
we're here, and we've gathered here to worship you and to hear
what you have to say to us tonight. So meet with us for Christ's
sake. Amen. M number 448. 448. 448. There's a sweet and blessed story
of the Christ who came from glory just to rescue me from sin and
misery. He in loving kindness sought
me and from sin and shame has brought me. Hallelujah, Jesus ransomed me. Hallelujah, what a Savior who
can take a poor lost sinner, lift him from my reclaim and
set him free. I will ever tell the story, shouting,
glory, glory, glory. Hallelujah, Jesus ransomed me. From the depth of sin and sadness
to the heights of joy and gladness, Jesus lifted me in mercy, full
and free. With His precious blood, He bought
me. When I knew it not, He sought
me. And in love divine, He ransomed
me. Alleluia, what a singer who can
take a poor lost sinner, lift him from the miry clay and set
him free. I will ever tell the story, shouting
glory, glory, I and I with joy increasing and
with gratitude unceasing, lifted up to be with Christ eternally. I will join the hosts, they're
singing in deep and What a Savior who can take a
poor lost sinner, lift him from the miry clay and set him free. I will ever tell the story, shouting,
glory, glory, glory. Alleluia, Jesus ransomed me. I hope you're in Romans with
me. You know, they started out the
same way in verse one. What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? Down here in verse
14, it says, sin shall not have dominion over you if you're not
under law but under grace. What then? He asked that question
again. What then? Shall we sin? There it was continuing
sin. Now, what he's talking about
is our sanctification, being one with Christ, being one with
Christ. We died with Christ, Christ put
sin away, and death has no more dominion over Him and has no
more dominion over us because we were raised from the dead
in Christ, and we're set apart, our justification and righteousness
and our whole life set apart in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so he's dealing with this idea of the separation of a justified
believer from the GUILT of sin and from the PUNISHMENT of sin.
If there's no punishment and there's no sin, how can there
be guilt for sin? If Christ put sin away, why would
you be guilty for it? Why would you feel guilty? And
I'll tell you what, And this is because of our union with
Christ. You know, we're set apart by
being joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. We were baptized into
Him, we were raised from the dead by Him, we died to sin in
Him, we reckon ourselves be dead unto sin, we yield ourselves
up to the Lord Jesus Christ, and sin, we don't let sin. We
do not let sin, God's grace will not let us let sin reign in this
mortal body. And so, when we talk about the
verses tonight, it has a practical side and a practical power, and
that's what I want to deal with. He said, let's start in verse
14 and go down through here and see what he has to say. Sin shall
not have dominion over you. That word dominion means reign.
over you. Why won t it have power over
you? Because you re not under law. You re not under law. But
under grace, you re saved by grace. Grace is nothing is more
certain than this truth, sin shall not have dominion, sin
shall not reign over you. How do we know? God promised
it. God promised it. God said sin won t reign over
you. God said there were sin abounded, grace did much more
abound. God said it, you know, and I
tell you what, in God s purpose of grace, God s purpose of the
law was to convince a man of his sin. By the law is the knowledge
of sin, and by the law you can never be justified. No flesh
can be justified in His sight. So God s purpose in grace was
for sin not have dominion over and then because of GRACE we
re not under the law, and the Holy Spirit Himself pledged to
prevent us from having sin reign over us. The death of our Lord
Jesus Christ put sin away, put sin away. He put away its penalty,
and bless His name, He s also put away its power over us. There was a time that sin was
our master, and now we re going to find out that sin s not our
master anymore. And that s what he said here
in verse 15 after he said, What then? Since we re not under law,
but under grace, what then? Now, over here at the before
when he said that, that was dealing with sin as a nature, as a thing
that was personal and that was in ourself, but now he's talking
about shall we sin, continue in sin, shall we sin because
we're not under the law but under grace? Huh? Are we to practice
sin? That's what he's talking about.
Are we going to continue, shall we sin just because we're not
under law? Now I'm, you know, when people
find out how much, how strong you are in the grace of God,
and you believe grace so strongly that they call you lawless. Well,
I tell you something about people that call you lawless. They want
to be lawless, and they'd love to be lawless, but they're afraid
of the law, and I'm not afraid of the law. You know why? Because I'm not under it. It
does not reign over me. It does not tell me to do anything
for justification, for righteousness, for putting away sin. The law
never did anything for me in this world. All it did was condemn
me, condemn me, condemn me, condemn me, found my sin. Paul said,
I didn't even know what sin was. He's a Pharisee. I didn't even
know what sin was until the law said. And you know what got him? Thou shalt not covet. What do
you reckon he has coveted? He was coveting power, prestige,
he was ambitious, he was self-righteous, he hated Christ, and he coveted
everything that a self-righteous man could covet. And God said,
Paul, God come along and said, You're a covetous man. You want
to be somebody. You want to be a Pharisee of
Pharisees. You want to be saved by the law. You want to be kept by the law.
You want to live under the law. He said, now face it. Paul said,
oh, wretched man that I am. Oh my. And I tell you, are we
to practice sin because grace abounds? Now the question is
different. The reason is different. Well,
over the first time we dealt with this, it dealt with the
state of sin. This one here deals with the
act of sin, the sins that we would commit. And let me tell
you why we're not to sin. Why we're not to sin, because
we're not under law. Do you know that most divorces
and most problems that people have in this world is people
laying down the law? putting people under the law.
Most divorces happen because people, they got to be fighting
over who's got the power, who's got the authority. And they end
up being over the law, and they fight over this thing, and who's
got the authority, who's got the power? Well, the law don't
have any power. But why are we not to sin? Because we're not under the law,
but under grace. You know, law, as a principle,
is a covenant of works. It's a covenant of works. THE
LAW COMMANDS US TO DO SOMETHING, BUT IT DOESN'T GIVE US THE ABILITY.
IT COMMANDS US TO BE PERFECT AND TO BE OBEDIENT IN ALL THINGS,
BUT DOES IT GIVE YOU THE ABILITY TO DO IT? DOES IT GIVE YOU THE
ABILITY NOT TO SIN? DOES IT GIVE YOU THE ABILITY
TO HONOR GOD, GLORIFY GOD? YOU KNOW, IT ORDERS US TO DO
THINGS but it cannot give us the ability to do it. It tells
us to walk right, but it don't give us feet to walk. It tells us to be obedient, but
doesn't give us anything but commandments, and here's another
thing. There's three things about being under law. You know, God's
commandment, He orders everybody to be under the law. Everybody's
under the law, and that demands perfect obedience. PERFECT, PERFECT
OBEDIENCE! And I've often said this, if
you started when you was 20 years old, say, let's say you was 20
years old, you send up to you as 20, and then all of a sudden
you decide, I'm going to live right, and you went to the law
and you said, I'm going to keep all 10 of these commandments.
I'm going to keep them PERFECTLY! And if you was to be able to
do that, what are you going to do about those first 20 years?
Cause you got to answer for them. Oh my. So, you know, he, he,
he's commandments orders us to do perfect obedience. And here's
another thing. God will reward us. He'll reward
a man for his perfect obedience. If you're obedient, he'll reward
you. He'll pay you. He'll give you
your wages. If you live right, as people
say, if you live right and you keep that law the way God says
to keep it, He'll reward you for that. And here's the third
thing about under the law. God threatens punishment for
failing to be perfectly obedient. Huh? Oh, if you're not perfectly
obedient to what God says, let you get by. That's why Paul
said, desire. Don't you hear it? Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear
it's perfection? Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear
it's perfection? Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear it's perfection?
Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't
you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't
you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear it's perfection?
Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear it's perfection?
Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear
it's perfection? Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear it's
perfection? Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear it's
perfection? Don't you hear it's perfection? Don't you hear it's
perfection? Don't you hear it I'm graveyard dead. you realize that God, in His
character, in His holiness, and in His righteousness, will be
gracious. God makes us understand that
He will be gracious. He will be gracious. And then,
the second thing about being under grace, God gives the power. God, in grace, He bestows and
He gives to us and inward power to obey Him, to love Him, and
glory, give Him all the glory for everything done to Him. And
under grace, under grace, it does not give anybody, could
not possibly give me my license to sin. And I tell you what,
you don't need a license to do it. You know, you may need a
license to fly a plane, a license to drive a car, a license to
get married, But you don't need a license, you know, heaven will
give you a license, you go ahead and sin. That's what people think. That's what they think and believe
in grace, that don't, they believe in law people. But I tell you
something, God's people are not looking for an excuse to sin,
they're looking for strength to avoid it. We're looking for
grace to keep us from it, keep us from it. You know, that's
why Paul said, the grace we're in, we stand, we stand in grace. And then look what he said, he
protests again, just like he did back up there in verse one
and two. He says, God forbid, are we gonna
sin because we're not under the law? But under grace, are we
gonna sin? God forbid, what a, what, he's
so indignant about it. He just, it bothers him that
people would even think like this, consider something like
that. And then he says again, and he
said the same thing in verse three over, he said, no, you're
not. And now he does the same thing here in verse 16. No, you're
not. Don't you know this? I want you
to know this. No, you not that to who you yield
yourselves to obey. Now you yourself who you are.
who you are as a person, who you are as a person, who you
are, that you use yourselves to obey. His servants, you are
to whom you obey, whoever you obey, you're His servants. And
now look what He says, if you obey sin, you know what's going
to be the end of that? Death! You obey sin? Death! And then if you obey righteousness
and obey Christ and obey the Word of God, then you have OBEDIENCE,
obedience unto righteousness. You yield yourself to sin, you
re going to die. Yield yourself to Christ, you
re going to have righteousness, you re going to have righteousness.
Sin s your master. Yield to sin, sin s your master.
But if God and His will and His Word And Christ and His blessed
person is your master. And you submit to Him unto righteousness. That's what happens, unto righteousness. And you know, I ain't said this
in a long time. I ain't heard nobody say it in
a long time. But the tenor of our lives reveals who our master
is. Now, what do I mean by that?
What we are day in and day out, the tenor of our life. From the
time you get up in the morning, every day you live, the tenor,
how you live. If you send your Master, then
that's going to tell on you, that's going to be the tenor
of your life. But if Christ and His will and His Word and His
Person is your Master, you submit to Him, and His righteousness,
and the tenor of our lives, how we are day in and day out, reveals
who our Master is. And let me ask you, what do you
really enjoy? What do you really enjoy in this
world? Do you enjoy self-will and self-righteousness? Do you
enjoy sin? Or do you enjoy righteousness? Do you enjoy Christ? Do you enjoy
the Gospel? Do you enjoy listening to the
Gospel? Do you enjoy the Word of God?
Do you enjoy Christ and His presence? Do you enjoy the righteousness
of God in Christ? Or do you enjoy sin and rebellion
and worldliness? Whichever one you enjoy, that's
what he said, that'll be your master. That'll be your master. What do you enjoy? Huh? What do you enjoy? Oh my. God help us, God help us to never,
never, never yield to the subtle, and that's what it is, a subtle
temptation. Let us sin, now let me tell you,
let us sin not that grace may abound. but let us sin not BECAUSE
grace abounds. You know, and then look at here
in verse 16, I just dealt with that. Grace enables us, you know,
grace enables us, gives us the power to be under subjection
to righteousness, the righteousness of God in Christ, the righteousness
and this grace destroys the love for sin and our subjection to
sin. And I'll tell you something,
what a slave, and that's what he's talking about, a slave,
you got a master, and you know what a slave will do is determined
by the master he belongs to. If you belong to sin, you're
gonna be a slave, you will be a slave to it. But if you obey
Christ and you submit to Christ, then that's your master. That's
your master. I tell you, you know, when a
man owned a slave, had a bond servant under the law, this is
one of the things they did. If a fella said, you know, it
keeps him for seven years and he's allowed to go out free,
He said, you can go free now. You're free. Go on out there.
But the man says, but oh, I love you, master. You're a good master. You're a delightful master. I
love the way you treat me. I love how you're good to me.
I love being your servant. And so what he does to let him
know that he wants to be one of them, they take him up to
the doorpost, and they take him all, and they punch a hole in
his ear. and punch it through there. And
he said, why does he do that? See that hole? I love my master
and I don't wanna go free. I wanna stay right here with
him. He's so good to me, I'm gonna stay right here. I don't
wanna go out back out there. My master's too good for me.
Why do I wanna leave him? Too good to me, oh my. Then look
what he says here at verse 17. Oh, look at this new master now.
but God be thanked. Oh my, oh my. Listen to this, God be thanked. Thanks be unto God that you were
the servants of sin. There was a time all of us were
servants of sin, but you have obeyed. Look where you obey from,
from the heart. Not from your mind, not from
you having to do it, but from your heart. THAT FORM OF DOCTRINE
WHICH WAS DELIVERED TO YOU. OH, WE WERE THE SERVANTS AGAIN,
BUT FROM THE HEART, FROM THE HEART. SALVATION IS A HEARTWORK. A HEART OBEYS, A HEART THAT'S
OBEDIENT TO THE GOSPEL. A HEART THAT LOVES THE GOSPEL.
AND WHEN YOU FIND THAT WORD DOCTRINE, ALL THAT MEANS IS TEACHING, TEACHING. PEOPLE SAY ALL THE TIME, DON'T
PREACH DOCTRINE. YOU CANNOT NOT PREACH WITHOUT PREACHING DOCTRINE.
You cannot not do it. Everything I'm preaching tonight
is doctrine. It really is. I'm just teaching what the, that's
what the God, that's what it's talking about. And the doctrine
is, he says, you know, you were, but now, oh, God sent the gospel
to you. He sent the word of God to you.
What happened when it come? You obeyed it. I believe that.
I now understand that. I'm more delighted in that. Oh
my. And I tell you what, and that
word FORM is the same thing as a mold, a mold. You know you have a mold that
you put something in. He said what the gospel does
for us and the doctrine of Christ does for us, we put in that mold. And our lives are put in that
mold. And our hearts are put in that
mold. And the gospel that we hear,
the gospel that we obey from our heart, it shapes our lives
into that mold. It shapes our thinking. It shapes
our heart. It shapes our mind. It shapes
our wills. It shapes our understanding.
It shapes everything that we are. It shapes us and molds us,
puts us in this mold, and just keeps shaping us. Now, ain't
that right? You understand what I'm saying?
You know, that gospel comes along and has this mode and puts us
in that mode. And you know what he does? He
just, we just keep hearing it. It just shapes us. The gospel,
you know what the gospel shaped us, huh? Oh, it shapes us, it shapes everything
about us. The way we view ourselves, the
way we view one another, the way we view the world, the way
we view God, the way we view the scriptures, the way we view
sin, all these things have shaped us, this blessed gospel, and
you've obeyed it from the heart, the apostles say. Oh my, and
I tell you what, and then look what he says then, I love this
right here. since you've obeyed and it's
this doctrine which was delivered unto you. Being then made free from sin. What happens after that? You
become servants of righteousness. Oh my, oh. Oh, being made then free. free. You know, He said up here
in Romans 6 and verse 7, listen to this, For he that is dead
is free from sin. Now, that there deals with our
justification. We re dead, our death with Christ
frees us from sin. And over here, he talks about
liberty, being liberated. Here it's liberated. And what
do you liberate it from? The tyrant. What is that tyrant?
Sin. You know, we've been made free
from what? Sin. Sin. You think about that. God made
us free. Free from the law. Oh, happy
condition. Jesus has saved us and gave us
remission, and oh, my! And you were LIBERATED from this
tyrant of sin! And then he says you become servants
of what? Slaves! You got a master! What
IS that master? The Lord Jesus Christ and His
righteous servants of righteousness! We LOVE righteousness! We love
righteousness! delight in God being righteous
and having the righteousness of Christ. You know, no middle
ground here, either you're a servant of one or the other, you're a
servant of sin or you're a servant of righteousness, you're a servant
of death or a servant of righteousness. I want you to keep this and I
want you to look in John chapter 8, I want you to see what our
Master said about this, John chapter 8. Look down in verse 32, John 8,
32. Our Lord said, and you shall
know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Well, this
is the first, see, we just talked about being made free. And that's
what our Lord said, if you know the truth, the truth will set
you free. Now, this is the first thing they said. It's the way
they looked at it. They answered, we're Abraham's seed. We ain't
never been in bondage to any man. Oh, we're, listen. They've got to answer this, you
know. You can't tell us about freedom. We know about freedom.
And oh, listen. We're never in bondage to any
man. How sayest thou you shall be free? Our Lord said unto them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the
servant of sin. And they said, that's what you
fellas are. The servant does not abide in the house forever,
but you know who does? The son does. The son that sets
you free. And the son sets you free, you're
really free. And that's what we're talking
about. We're saved from that awful tyrant of sin, that awful
tyrant of sin. All right, let's go back over
here and look in verse 19 and 20. Oh, we thank God that we were
servants. Now we're free from sin. We're
servants, slaves of Christ, and His righteousness is our servant
now. And he said, I speak after the
manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. for
as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness, and
unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants unto holiness."
Oh my! And what he's saying is, I've
got to talk in familiar human language, familiar human tense.
And why does he say it that? He said, Because of your flesh. Your flesh is weak. And I'll
tell you, everybody that's been saved by the grace of God, everyone
will say, our flesh, what an infirmity it is. Oh, it's an
infirmity. And he said, I'm speaking because
of the weakness of your flesh. I've got to talk in human terms
and remembers for the infirmity of your flesh. And remember,
this is what your flesh did. This is how weak your flesh was. You're a servant of uncleanness
at one time. And now you, and then you went
unto iniquity, to iniquity, unto even more iniquity. Oh, now,
now. Even so, now yield your members. What's your members? That means
everything about us. Our mind, our hearts, our thoughts,
our feelings, our emotions, everything about us. Yield your servants
to righteousness unto holiness. Yield yourselves up to this righteousness. Yield yourself up to the holiness
of God Almighty. And listen to this now in verse
20, For when you were the servants of sin, because of the infirmity
of your flesh, when you WERE the servants of sin, you were
free from righteousness. Oh, nice, you're free from righteousness. When you were slaves to sin,
that's what he's talking about, you were not righteous, You was
free from righteousness. You didn't think about righteousness.
You wasn't looking for righteousness. You had no idea what righteousness
was. All you knew was sin. You didn't
know God's righteous character. You didn't know how sinful you
were. You had no interest in righteousness at all, and no
man can serve two masters. He can't serve sin and righteousness
at the same time. And now look what he said, look
what he says now here in verse 21. Oh, your service to sin,
you were free from righteousness. And that's what we were when
we was, I didn't know, you know, I didn't know what righteousness
was. I thought it's something you
could do with your flesh. And I was a slave to sin until God
set me free, set me free from sin. All right, now listen. What
fruit have you now? He's still speaking after the
manner of men now. He's talking after the manner
of men and the things that you can understand. What fruit had
you then in those things where you're now ashamed? For the end
of those things is death. What fruit did you have from
your past? The things that you did, which
you are now ashamed of, that's what he's talking about. What
fruit had you in those things where you're now ashamed? Oh,
shame? My religious past, of all the
things that I've done, I think my religious past is, I'm more
ashamed of that than anything I'm ashamed of. I'm so ashamed
of my life and religion. I mean, it's bad enough just
to be a rebel when I was young. I rebelled all the days of my
life until God had mercy on me. But oh my, to my religious past,
my self-righteousness, my trying to get right with God and trying
to make peace with God and trying to live a holy life and trying
to pay tithes and trying to get on God's good side for years.
A legalist, a self-righteous man. And oh my, shame, oh my. I'm so ashamed of that. And what
fruit we had when we were sinners. We're all ashamed of it now.
We're ashamed of it. Ashamed of the life we had, the
sin that we committed, the life that we lived. We're ashamed
of it. And oh, no. No, no, boy. But now look what
he says, for the end of those things, the fruit that we had
then, the end of them was death, that's all it could produce.
But now listen to this, and this is one of the things that Paul
said, I'm gonna preach a message on this one time, but now. He
uses this phrase, I don't know how many times, but now. But now, being made free from
sin. Oh, my, being made free from
sin, ah, free, listen to this, and
become servants to who? God, God Himself, and now the
fruit that you bear is holy fruit. and the end of it is not death,
but everlasting life. The goal of it, the end of this
life of being made free from sin is righteousness and holiness
and everlasting life. Oh, my, oh, now, now, oh, look
at us. We re not slaves to sin anymore. We re servants of God. We re
not ashamed of our fruit now. No, no, with love and joy and
peace and faith and meekness and gentleness, goodness, oh,
and eternal life! That's the fruit we have now?
Oh, my! And then, listen to what he says,
and you know, this is a law of God's government in this world,
in this universe. in this universe, a law of God's
government. And look what he says. We're made free from sin,
but he says he's been talking about sin, either slave to sin
or slave to God, a slave to righteousness or slave to your flesh, one or
the other. And he says for the wages of
sin. And I think he's primarily speaking
to believers here. I really do not to the lost.
For the wages of sin is death. This is why I said you're made
free from it. The wages of sin is death. Wages are what is earned. But look what he says, but the
gift of God. Eternal life and the life that
we have now is God's free grace. God's free gift. And oh my, what
a blessed, blessed master. Instead of paying us off with
judgment and hell and all the things that we deserve, why does
He turn around and gives us? Gives us grace. Why does He give
us eternal life? How does He do it? Through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Oh, he gives us atonement, he
gives us grace, he gives us justification through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now let me give you three things that I hope will encourage you.
I hope it'll encourage you. First of all, the promise that
God made. He said, sin shall not have dominion
over you. It won't, you know why? Because
you're not under law, you're under grace. Look at what God
did to destroy sin. That's why you're not under,
you're under grace. Look what God did to destroy
sin. And everything that was against
us, what Christ did to put everything that was against us out of the
way. God made him to be sin. Who knew no sin? God took Christ,
and when Christ died on that cross, He put away every possible
kind of sin, every thought of sin, every act of sin, everything
that everybody ever thought about. Christ put it away once and for
all. So we're not under the law, under
grace. That's a promise. Sin won't have
dominion over it. And I tell you what, then look
at what He provides us. You know why? God promised us.
Look what He did to put sin away. And then He provided us. Look
what He did. You're under grace. You're under grace. What's wrong
with that? Over here you're under the law.
It just beats and beats and beats. You get over here under grace
and the love of Christ and the grace of Christ and the spirit
of Christ and the word of God embraces you. Makes you feel
loved, makes you feel good, makes you thankful. Oh, you're talking
about what a blessed, blessed motive not to sin. What a blessed,
blessed motive to live to the glory of God. What a blessed,
blessed motive to bring forth fruit under Christ's glory. Grace,
grace, grace, grace. Yeah, you know, you remember
when I told you about and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, they went
into the interpreter's house after he'd come back down off
the mountain and went through the slob's spot and the straight
gate and he was out traveling. They went into the interpreter's
house. He was going to take and start interpreting everything.
Well, he went in there and there was a big fire in the fireplace.
Well, there was a fellow standing there with water and just kept
pouring water on that fire, kept pouring water on that fire. But
that fire would not go out. It would never go out. And oh
my, this world pours water on us. Sin pours water on us. Flesh pours water on us. But
there was another man behind. And he just kept pouring on,
kept pouring on. That's why Christ does right.
Satan comes along, and this old flesh comes along and throws
water on us. But there's Christ. He keeps going on and on. And the fire will never go out.
You know why? Because we're under grace. It
ain't never going out. And then look at the position.
Look at the position we have. Oh, the promise, the provision
he made for us in the position. He said, Oh, at verse 23, the
gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's where we are in Christ
Jesus our Lord. Oh my. And I tell you, he said
the same thing in verse 21 of chapter five. Look at that. I'm
going to show you some things about what we have in Christ
and our position in Christ. Grace reigns through righteousness,
listen to this, unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Oh my. Look at the last verse
in chapter 7, talking about our position in
Christ, in Christ Jesus. Look what he says here. I thank
God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Huh? I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Everything's in Christ. And then
look what he says here in verse 39 of chapter 8. That's what
we're talking about. Everything, our position is in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Look what he said here in verse
8, 39 of chapter 8. height, depth, or any other creature
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, listen
to this, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's our position,
no matter where you're at, no matter what you're going through,
in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's another message, that's
another message altogether. Our Father, in the blessed name
of our Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for your grace. Oh, Lord,
thank you for your grace. Thank you that you brought the
doctrine to us. You brought the truth of Christ
to us. You brought the righteousness of Christ to us. You brought
us out from under that awful bondage of penalty and guilt
and power of sin and set us free in Christ. set us free from sin. Sin don't have any power over
us, don't reign over us, don't have dominion over us. Grace
reigns right now. And it reigns through righteousness,
not just because it's grace, but it reigns through righteousness,
the very righteousness of our Lord Jesus himself. God bless
these dear saints as they go their way and meet their needs
for Christ's sake. Amen. Amen.