Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. I'm glad you could join us for
our program today. For the last few weeks, I've
been preaching through the book of Romans chapter 6, and I want
to conclude that today with this subject, the heart of faith. The heart of faith. The Apostle
Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has been talking about
the believer's union with Christ. And I've spoken about that much
because the foundation, the ground of salvation, all of salvation,
all of its blessings, all of its benefits, even unto final
glory, is all founded upon a sinner's union with Christ. Eternally,
before the foundation of the world, in electing grace, God
chose a people, gave them to Christ. Christ is their representative. Christ is their surety. All of
their sins were charged to Him. He became accountable, responsible
for the debt of their sins. their union with Christ as he
is their substitute, the substitute who came to this earth and was
made, as the scripture says, likened to his brethren without
sin. And that speaks of his incarnation. John spoke of it, the Apostle
John spoke of it this way in John 1.14, the Word was made
flesh and dwelt among us. Over in the book of Isaiah chapter
9 and verse 6, unto us a child is born, that's the humanity
of Christ. unto us a son is given. That's
the deity of Christ. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. And I love Matthew chapter 1
and verse 21 and 23 where it talks about the angel speaking
to Joseph about Mary, telling him not to put her away. And
then he told Joseph, he said, the child's name, his name shall
be called Jesus. That's the New Testament equivalent
of Yeshua, Joshua, which means salvation. Or Jehovah is salvation. His name shall be called Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. And then His
name shall be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God
with us. So as the substitute of his people,
the substitute of God's elect, the substitute of his church,
the redeemed ones, the called out ones, the church which he
purchased with his own blood, as the substitute for his sheep,
the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. And that's who
he died for, not all without exception, but his sheep. He
substituted Himself. He obeyed the law and was obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross. And in that substitutionary
work, He satisfied the justice of God. He put away the sins
of His people. He paid their debt in full. And
He established a righteousness. that enables God to be both a
just God and a Savior, both a righteous judge as well as a loving Father.
And that's the heart of the gospel. That's the righteousness of God
revealed in the gospel. For Christ is the end of the
law, for righteousness to everyone that believeth. And so Christ,
that's the union with Christ. Now, based upon that, a true
believer, one who has been brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
and to repentance of sin, repentance of dead works, repentance of
idolatry, one who's been given a new heart, that's the heart
of faith, a new spirit, new life within, one in whom the Holy
Spirit indwells permanently, it can be said of them in Romans
6, 14, for sin shall not have dominion over you. For you're
not under the law, but under grace. And I dealt with that
last week, but just think about it now. The dominion of sin.
He says sin shall not have dominion over you. Well, what does that
mean? Well, that doesn't mean that
a believer is one who never sins. We still sin. It doesn't mean
that a believer is free from the influence of sin. free from the contamination of
sin. Listen, to be out from under
the dominion of sin means that we can no longer be condemned
for sin. For who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather,
is risen again, righteousness established, who is seated at
the right hand of whoever lives to make intercession for us.
He's seated at the right hand of the Father ever living to
make intercession for us. that's pleading the merits of
His blood and righteousness. We're not under the dominion
of sin in the sense that we're not deceived by sin that kept
us in unbelief. I love that passage In the book
of 2 Corinthians chapter 4 where it talks about Satan's main goal,
verse 3 says, But if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that
are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds
of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel
should shine into their hearts. That's the devil's work, you
see. Satan, listen, people are so confused, they so misunderstand
the works of Satan. Satan doesn't mind if you get
religion, if you join a church, or anything like that as far
as religious ceremonies. As long as he can keep you deceived,
ignorant, or in opposition to the gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace in Christ Jesus. And there in 2 Corinthians 4,
6 when he describes what happens within a believer by the power
of the Holy Spirit, he says, God who commanded the light to
shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give unto us
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. You see, that's salvation, that's
the new birth. That's salvation as applied spiritually
to a sinner by the Holy Spirit. So we're not under law. To be
under the law is to be under the curse. To be under the law
is to be condemned. We're under grace, we who know
Christ. And grace reigns through righteousness.
God will not charge me with my sins because He charged them
to Christ. And if He won't charge me with
sin, that means He charges me with righteousness and I cannot
be condemned. So verse 15 says, what then? Now, what do we say about that? What is our conclusion? How are
we to react against such glorious truths? Shall we sin because
we're not under the law but under grace? God forbid. Do you see that? Now Paul had
already dealt with that. He started off in Romans 6 talking
about what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? And unbelievers react to the
truth of the magnitude and majesty and depth of God's grace to save
His people from all sin, the worst sins, the depth of sin.
Remember He said back up in verse 20 of chapter 5, where sin abounded. That it means literally overflowing
me like a flood. Grace, death, much more abound. Do you know, now listen to what
I'm saying. Do you know that a person who refuses to come
to Christ for salvation because that person thinks he is too
sinful to be saved, that is just as much unbelief and self-righteousness
as the same as a person who thinks that they're saved by their works.
You say, oh, God can't save me, I'm too sinful. No, no, no. You
don't believe God. You don't believe Christ. You
don't believe, as Paul wrote, that He is able, Christ is able,
to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him. I'm
telling you, there's no way that a sinner can out-sin the grace
of God. You say, well, where's there
any hope for such a sinner? Same hope for any of us. That's
the grace of God in Christ. He died for my sins. How many
sins? A multitude of sins. I can't
count them. David said in his prayer, forgive
me of my secret sins. Those are sins that I don't even
know I've committed. Sins of commission. Sins of omission. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth
us from all sin. That's not all without exception
now. That's His people. All who are brought to faith
in Jesus Christ. So shall we sin that grace may
mount? No. Verse 16, now look at Romans
6, verse 16. Know you not that to whom you
yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to
whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto
righteousness. In other words, if your attitude
towards sin, if you claim to be a believer, you claim to be
a child of God, If your attitude towards sin is just, well, it
doesn't matter what I do, well, you're a servant of sin. And
that's a servant of sin unto death. That's an unbeliever. That's a person who has not been
born again by the Spirit of God. And you could go all the way
back under all the realms of salvation. That person was, listen,
a person who thinks that way, and who continues that way unto
death and dies in unbelief, they're not God's elect. They never were
chosen of God. How do you know that? Because
they died in unbelief. God's elect will not die in unbelief. They'll be brought to faith in
Christ. A person who thinks that way was never redeemed by the
blood of Christ. Where Christ paid the price,
there's going to be life. There's going to be a new birth.
There's going to be faith. There's going to be repentance.
There's going to be the obedience of faith. That's the fruit of
Christ's death. You see, my obedience, my warfare
against the flesh, my determinations and efforts to serve God do not
put away my sins. They don't cleanse me. and do
not make me righteous before God. Christ does. He's already
done that. It's the blood of Christ that
cleanses me from all sin. It's His righteousness imputed,
accounted, charged to me that justifies me before God. My efforts
to obey, my warfare against the flesh, my determinations to do
right, that's the fruit of what Christ already accomplished.
Not the cause, not the ground, not the condition, but the fruit. And that's why I can walk in
newness of spirit, seeking to obey God, not motivated by legalism,
legal fear of punishment. Mercenary promises of earned
reward. You think you're earning your
rewards in heaven, my friend? You've got another thing coming,
if you read the scripture. God doesn't owe you anything.
He doesn't owe me anything. He owes all things to Himself. And that's the way of the Word.
But He says, God forbid. Now, to be the obedience unto
righteousness, is not obedience that makes me
righteous. Now, how do I know that? The
context of grace. Listen, it's already been established
here in all these inspired words what makes a sinner righteous.
It's not by works. He'd already said that. Romans
3, there's none righteous, no, not one. Romans 3, 19, those
who are under whatsoever the law saith, it saith to them who
are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all
the world become guilty before God. So therefore, by deeds of
law shall no flesh be justified. So the obedience unto righteousness
is the obedience of faith. It's the obedience of a sinner
saved by grace, made righteous by God's grace in Christ who
is serving Christ because he's already saved and secure for
glory. Now look at verse 17. Now here
we come to the heart of faith. But God bethanked that you were
the servants of sin but you have obeyed from the heart that form
of doctrine which was delivered you. Verse 18, being then made
free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. Now,
do you see what that's saying? First of all, verse 17, he says,
but God be thanked that you were the servants of sin, but you've
obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered
you. To be a servant of sin is an unbeliever. Do you understand
that? A person who walks in this life,
either in a moral way, in a religious way, in a determined way, in
a sincere way, trying to be the best person he can be, without
Christ, without believing in Christ, without serving Christ
for the glory of God, that person is still a servant of sin. Now, that goes against our natural
grain, our natural way of thinking. And it does. And that's why the
natural man, you know, the scripture in 1 Corinthians 2.14 says, the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
neither can he know them. Are they spiritually discerned?
Spiritual discernment is a right way of thinking and judging based
on God's Word. So I'm telling you, when I preach
to you, I'm telling you what God's Word says. Now, that's
not what we naturally think. In order for us to submit and
believe God's Word, we have to be brought there by the Holy
Spirit. Over in John chapter three, in
verse 19, the Lord told Nicodemus this. Nicodemus was a religious
man. He said, this is the condemnation,
that light is come into the world and men loved darkness and hated
the light because their deeds were evil. Now what deeds is
he talking about? Well, it's not things that we
naturally recognize as sinful, but it's the things that are
sinful in God's sight that have to be exposed by the light of
the glory of God in Christ Jesus. Think about, I often refer to
Matthew chapter 7, verses 21 through 23. Well, verse 22, where
those stood before the Lord at judgment and said, Lord, haven't
we prophesied in your name? Haven't we cast out demons? Haven't
we done many wonderful works? Well, those are things naturally
we think are acceptable to God. But my friend, they're not acceptable.
if one believes that they make up his righteousness before God.
If that's what you believe saves you, your works, your efforts,
or makes you righteous, it's sin in God's sight because it's
a denial of his glory, it's a denial of Christ, it's a sinner boasting
in his works. You understand that? So a servant
of sin is a person who's an unbeliever, unregenerate. But he says, but
God bethink that you were the servants of sin, that's your
past. You're still sinners saved by grace, that's what he say,
but you were in unbelief. But you have obeyed from the
heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Now the heart
in scripture is not just the emotions. Many people today,
and for whatever reason, I won't go into, they judge the sincerity
or the purity or the trueness of the heart by emotions. Many people in religion judge
the presence and power of the Holy Spirit by emotions. But
that's not so. That's not the biblical way.
The heart in the scripture is the mind, the affections, and
the will. It's the whole person, it's the
inner man, Paul called it. It's the very fiber of your being,
that which makes you tick. That which motivates you, inspires
you, drives you. Now the heart of the natural
man is evil, the scripture says. Even the religious natural man.
even the most dedicated people, whose heart has not been regenerated
by the Holy Spirit. You see, we talk about the three
hours of salvation, ruined by the fall, redeemed by the blood,
and regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Those three go together. Those
who fell in Adam were ruined by the fall. Those who are saved
by the cross of Christ are redeemed by the blood. And those who are
born again by the Holy Spirit are regenerated by the Spirit.
Over in Ezekiel chapter 36, the prophet Ezekiel tells the people
of God that the brightness of the future that is coming with
the coming of Jesus Christ in the new covenant has with it
the regenerating power of the Spirit to give a sinner a new
heart. And that's what we need. That's
why Christ told Nicodemus, you must be born again or you cannot
see or enter the kingdom of heaven. The heart. Must the new heart
must be given and that's what he's talking about here You've
obeyed from the heart. How are you going to obey from
the heart by your own free will? Absolutely not You didn't know
listen if you claim to believe the gospel and follow Jesus Christ
I'm gonna tell you something it was not because you rose above
the rest of humanity and cooperated with God Those who truly believe
the gospel have been brought that way by the power of the
Spirit in regeneration, given to a new heart. And John said
in John 1, he said, it's not of the will of the flesh, nor
the will of man, but of God. So he says, you've obeyed from
the heart. That's the mind, the affection, there's knowledge
given. But it's not just knowledge in the head, it's knowledge that
is written on the heart. where God the Holy Spirit convinces
a sinner of sin and of righteousness and of judgment and brings that
sinner to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and repentance of dead
works. And he says that form of doctrine.
You believe from the heart that form of doctrine. Well, what
was that form of doctrine? Well, that word form is like
an identifying mark. It's like a stamp. You've heard
of people who are skillful in tool and die. No, the die is
cast. So it's an indelible mark that
identifies those who have a regenerate heart. What Paul called in Romans
2, 28 and 29, the circumcised heart. The cutting away the filth
of the flesh. And you've obeyed from the heart
that form of doctrine. What was that form of doctrine?
It's the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the gospel wherein
His person is revealed, the truth, who Jesus Christ is. He's God
in human flesh. It's the gospel that reveals
the work of Christ, His redemptive work, that is summarized in that
phrase, the righteousness of God. A person who's obeyed from
the heart stops considering themselves saved, kept saved, recommended
to God by their works. Their works will not make them
righteous. but they look to Christ for all righteousness. He's the
only one who recommends me unto God. And he says that form of
doctrine which was delivered to you. Now, the way it's translated
in the King James is a little different than the original.
But what's said here is true, which was delivered to you, which
was preached to you. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. It's the power of God and the salvation to everyone
that believe it. To the Jew first, the Greek also,
for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. It
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching. If we were to read
that phrase literally, here's the way it would go. From the
original Greek. It would say you've obeyed from
the heart that form of doctrine which where to you were delivered. In other words, this is something
that God brings his elect people to. He brings them under the
preaching of the gospel. The Holy Spirit regenerates them
and they obey from the heart. And look at verse 18, he says,
being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. You were a servant of sin, following
the lust of the flesh, whether in religion or in immorality.
He says, you were unbelievers, but you've been made free from
sin. Now that word free there means liberated. You've been
liberated. Back over in verse seven, he
says, for he that is dead is freed from sin. The word freed
there means justified. Justified refers to the legal
realm of salvation. My sins were put away. Righteousness
was established and imputed to me. because of what Christ accomplished
in my place as my substitute and surety. That was a legal
transaction between God the Father and God the Son, Christ on the
behalf of his people. Liberation in verse 18 refers
to the spiritual realm of salvation. That's the work of the Holy Spirit
in a sinner to bring him to faith in Christ, the heart of faith.
regeneration, conversion, bringing to faith and repentance. The
legal realm of salvation being justified in Christ, being made
righteous by him, his righteousness imputed, is the ground of salvation. The spiritual realm of salvation,
being liberated by the Holy Spirit, is the fruit of what Christ accomplished. You see the difference? Now,
What Christ did on the cross alone makes me righteous before
God. What the Holy Spirit does in
me does not make me righteous before God legally. But what
the Holy Spirit does in me makes me cling to Christ and plead
Him as my only righteousness before God. And that's what it
is to be a servant of righteousness. It's to be a servant of God,
a servant of Jesus Christ, a willing, loving, bond slave of Jesus Christ. Serving Him not in order to pay
a debt, but serving Him because the debt's already been paid.
You see that? Serving Him not in order to attain
or even maintain salvation, but serving Him because He attained
it and He secures it. unto glory, serving him not to
earn my blessings and my rewards, but serving him because I'm blessed
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. You understand that? Now he says
in verse 19, He says, I speak after the manner of men because
of the infirmity of your flesh. What does he mean by that? Well,
he explains it. For as you have yielded your members, servants
to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield
your members, servants to righteousness and the holiest. So Paul's saying,
I'm telling you these things to motivate you by grace to be
obedient servants. For when you were servants of
sin, you were free from righteousness. When you were in unbelief, you
had no righteousness in your conscience. But now you're made
free in Jesus Christ. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia, 3-1-7-0-7. contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.