I've been thinking a lot this
week about when I began, when the Lord first called me by His
grace. And I have thought a lot about
who would be here today, And I have a message for three
groups of people. One, I have a message for Patty
and for Diana. And I have a message for the
brethren here. And I realized that I expected
today we would have folks here that may not have ever heard
me preach or heard the gospel that we believe. And I have a
message for them. And I want to be thorough and
I want to be slow and purposely as clear as I possibly can. And
we're going to have one service this morning. So one message,
so I want to be a little more diligent than I might normally
be. But I'm going to ask you to bear
with me and to look in your Bibles with me and what it is we're
going to see here today. Romans six, verse one begins,
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? Now, from the beginning of this
letter to the Romans, Paul has been declaring through the power
of the Holy Spirit that Christ Jesus the Lord justified the
believer, that He justified all those who believe. and that we
receive the free gift of justification through faith as opposed to any
work that you and I could possibly do. Now, if you'll go back with
me to Romans 1, verse 17, Paul quotes Scripture from the Old
Testament there at the end of verse 17. The verse says, for therein is
the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. He's talking
about the gospel of Christ Jesus. And he says, as it is written,
the just shall live by faith. The just, we're going to see
in a moment, are those who are justified by God. He's just and
He is the justifier. The just shall live. All those
whom God chose in Christ, for whom Christ died, shall be given
eternal life. They shall be brought to faith
in Christ in this life. And the just shall live by faith
through the gift of faith. The sinner receives the free
gift wrought by Christ. by God in Christ and we're justified
not by works the sinner performs but by Christ and the believer
lives by faith in Christ. Now in Romans chapter 2 Paul
makes a very good argument here. In the church at Rome there were
Gentiles and there were Jews and the Jews were Much like all
men are by nature. All men by nature are religious.
Everybody by nature thinks they know God. They think they know
what the Bible says or some don't even care what the Bible says.
They just have their idea and their opinion of how they think
God is. Your opinion and my opinion doesn't
matter. It's about as worth as much as
that dirt out there. It don't matter. What matters
is what God says. So we have to see what he says.
Now these Jews that were there, Paul was making a point that
this work is a hard work that God begins and carries out in
the heart of a sinner, making him to enter into this justified
state and into this eternal life that we have through Christ.
And he makes a great argument. Here in verse 25 of chapter 2,
he says, for circumcision, this is the Jews, those who were circumcised,
verily it profiteth if thou keep the law. But if thou be a breaker
of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision." Now
Paul's not suggesting that they ever could keep the law. That's
not what he's suggesting at all. What he's saying is, if you could,
then the law would be profitable to you. If there had been a law
given which could have given life, righteousness would have
come by the law. But it's not possible. And this
is the point he's making. You'll see it here now, verse
26. Therefore, if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the
law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?
What does all that mean? The uncircumcision means the
Gentile. If a man who's never been circumcised
according to the law, never been under the Mosaic covenant, if
he's never had the law of Moses, if that person keeps the righteousness
of the law, shall he not be counted as a true son of Abraham? Shall he not be truly counted
as a child of God if he keeps the righteousness of the law?
Now look with me in verse 27. and shall not uncircumcision,
which is by nature." He's saying, you are uncircumcised, these
Gentiles, by nature. If they fulfill the law, won't
they judge you who by the letter, who have the letter of the law
and are circumcised, and yet you transgress the law? You're
trying to come in the letter of the law by what you've done.
Now if these who don't have it, if they fulfill the law, don't
they condemn you for not having fulfilled it? If the natural
born sons of Abraham who had the written law of God and circumcision
couldn't fulfill the law by their doings, how on earth could a
Gentile who never had the law of Moses, who was not under obligation
to the Mosaic law, who was outside of the camp of Israel, how could
he possibly fulfill the righteousness of the law? The same way every
sinner saved fulfills the righteousness of the law. By faith in Christ. That's the only way. And that's
the point Paul's making, verse 28. For he is not a Jew which
is one outwardly, Neither is that circumcision which is outward
in the flesh. That doesn't make you, you're
not a true son of Abraham. You're not a true son of God.
You're not a true Jew. You're not a saved person because
of something you've done in your flesh. That's just not how it
is. But, verse 29, He is a Jew. He is a true Jew, a true son
of God, a true son of Abraham, which is one inwardly. And circumcision
is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter,
whose praise is not of men, but of God." Now, turn over to Romans
3. Paul is developing the fact that
we cannot come to God in the law. We cannot come to God by
our deeds, by our works of righteousness, by anything that we have done
ourselves. We can't come to God that way. If you're sitting there right
now, and you hear me saying this, and you're thinking, Well, that
don't line up with what I think. Well, what you think needs to
line up with what God says. Because you're going to come
before Almighty God in about that long. And you're going to
stand before Him, and in that day, He's going to say, didn't
you hear this gospel? Why did you go on in the hardness
of your heart? Listen to it now. Look at Romans chapter 3, verse
20. And I've just given you some
highlights to get to our text. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. For
by the law is the knowledge of sin. Look back at verse 19. We know that what things soever
the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every
mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before
God. That's why it was given. By the law is the knowledge of
sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law, without
your obedience, without your doing under the law, is manifested
and it's witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness
of God, by The faith of Christ. It's by the fidelity of Christ
that God's righteousness is manifest. Everything right here is about
what Christ did. It's about His fidelity, His
faithfulness. Now you're going to enter into
it through faith, but right here we're talking about the faith
of Christ. Now listen. By the faith of Jesus Christ,
it's unto all. The righteousness of God is manifested
unto all, whether you're a Jew or you're a Gentile. That's what
Paul said. And it's upon all, or imputed to all them that believe. And the reason it's that way,
and it has to be that way, is because there is no difference
between a Jew or a Gentile. We all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. That's what sin is. More than
anything that you did when you stole a pack of BBs when you
were six years old, it's when you came short of the glory of
God in your very best works of righteousness. That's sin. And there's no difference between
me standing here right now and what I'm doing right now and
you doing what you're doing right now. There's no difference. We've
come short of the glory of God in ourselves. That's just how
it is. But, look with me now, verse 24, being justified freely. Do you see that? That means you
didn't do anything and I didn't do anything. It's free. Justified
freely by His grace. It's unmerited. It's unearned. It's grace. And it's through
the redemption, the purchase that's in Christ Jesus, whom
God hath set forth a propitiation, a mercy seat, a place of atonement,
a place of reconciliation through faith in His blood. Here's why
God set him forth, to declare his own righteousness for the
remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God.
What does that mean, remission of sins that are passed? Well,
every one of them are passed, aren't they? The ones that you
just thought just now, they're passed right now. Does that mean
that everyone that you do tomorrow is forgiven? Because they're
all past sins when we come into the realization of them. And
then there's sin we don't even realize. And they're all past. Now look, and he did this, verse
26, to declare at this time his righteousness that he might be
just. His law had to be satisfied.
He couldn't show mercy at the expense of his justice. His law
had to be satisfied. And he did it. He's just. And
he's the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. He did it.
He's just and he's the justifier of him that believes in Jesus.
He's all of it. Okay? Now, what does that mean? Verse 27, where is boasting then? It's excluded. By what law? By the law of works? No, but
by the law of faith. That's how it's excluded. Therefore
we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of
the law. Now be sure you get this right
here too, because as deceitful as our old hearts are, We will
turn our act of believing into the work. And we'll start saying,
well, my faith justified me. That's not what justification
by faith is. Justification is not that you
justified yourself by your act of believing. Faith is the gift
God gives to a sinner. And when He gives that faith
to a sinner, it's through faith that we behold, Christ has justified
me. Now either God is just and He's
the justifier, or you're the justifier. It can't be both.
One or the other. And it says right here plainly,
God's the justifier. Christ is the justifier. Faith
receives the justification that's free by God's grace in the blood
of Christ. Alright. Now, do we make, verse
31, do we then make void the law through faith? No. Faith
in Christ is the only way we establish the law. Well, you
ought to go on and try your best to obey the law and obey the
Ten Commandments. If you believe Christ, you have
obeyed them perfectly. Absolutely perfectly. The law
is established. The law of God is established.
There is no sin on your account. And not only that, but You never
even sinned in Adam. You never even sinned a day in
your life. You have perfectly fulfilled
the law of God. You have no sin and you are holy
before God to be accepted of God in Christ Jesus. Is that
taking it too far? If that's not how far your Christ
took it, your Christ is a failure. That's just how it is. That's
how far my Savior took it. I'm perfect in Him. I'm perfect
in Him. And God don't remember my sin
anymore. It's cast behind His back as
far as the east is from the west. Now, Paul has laid this down. And I won't go through this.
I'm going to be short for time if I do. But let me just say,
Paul used Romans chapter 4 to show that the promise to Abraham
that he would be heir of the world was by promise. It wasn't
through the law. And what he says is, Abraham
was a Gentile. Go home and read Romans 4 verse
13 through 16. He was a Gentile. He wasn't circumcised. He wasn't under the Mosaic covenant.
He was a Gentile. And the law didn't come into
430 years later. It didn't come into 430 years
later. Why is that? Verse 14 says, For if they which
are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise
made of none effect. That's why it's by faith, by
grace, and not by the works of the law. All right, Romans 5.
Turn there with me. Romans 5, and I'm going to try
to get through this part because I want to get to Romans 6. I've
got something to show you there. Now, in Romans 5, Paul begins
in verse 12 to show us that we are going to either come before
God in Adam, or we're going to come before God in Christ. And
no middle ground. There is no middle ground. You're
going to come in Adam, trusting in what you've done, and what
you've thought, and something about you. Or you're going to
come in Christ empty-handed, with your mouth shut on the Day
of Judgment, and Christ is going to do all the talking on your
behalf. That's just how it is. Are you going to come there saying,
but, but, but, didn't I, didn't I, didn't I? And God's going
to say, I never knew you. I never have even known you.
Now, here's what he says in verse 12. Wherefore, Romans 5.12, as
by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men, for they all have sin. Now what we're looking at here
is representation. And representation means all
whom Adam represented, this is what happened to them. And all
whom Christ represented, this is what happened for them. This
is what representation is. So you're going to see the word
all here, it means all whom Adam represented, this is what happened.
And all whom Christ represented, this is what happened. Because
it's not left in your hands, it's in God's hands. He doesn't. I don't get to the end of my
message and then turn it around and give it over to you and say,
now, will you just accept Jesus? Will you just please come and
let Him save you? Let Him do something for you?
I don't do that because what I'm preaching to you is the gospel
of God's sovereign and free grace and if He's pleased to give you
faith and arrest you like He did Paul on the road to Damascus
and put you face down in the dirt and bring you to the feet
of Christ to behold Him, Because He loved you from everlasting
and put you in Christ and redeemed you by the blood of Christ, He'll
come in the power of the Holy Spirit through the gospel and
He will bring you to the feet of Christ. And I don't have to
do anything. I'm doing what I'm supposed to
be doing. I'm throwing out the dynamite and staying out of the
way. And He'll do the rest. He'll do the rest. Okay? Now, so he says here that this
is representation, all sin, all sin. Now, there's a parenthesis
there, and I'm not going to go through it because I don't have
time, but he takes us back to Adam in the garden. He says,
before the law came at Sinai, people died from Adam to the
day of Moses. Well, how could that possibly
be if the law wasn't in place? There's no transgression where
there is no law. What he's doing is he's taking
us back to the garden and he's saying, there's where the transgression
was committed in the first representative in Adam. And he takes us back
there to show us that if we're going to be saved, it's going
to be by the second Adam undoing and doing abundantly more than
what the first Adam did. Now, he comes around now to verse
18 and he picks up here after the parentheses and he says,
Therefore, as by the offense of one, judgment came upon all
men to condemnation, all whom Adam represented. Even so, by
the righteousness of one, Christ Jesus, the free gift comes upon
all men unto justification of life, all whom Christ represented. Verse 19 says, For as by one
man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience
of one shall many be made righteous. Do you see the representation
here? As Adam sinned and men died,
so Christ obeyed and men will live by Christ. Moreover, the
law entered. Why did it come in? That the
offense might abound. That when God opens up a sinner's
heart and causes him to behold his sin, that law that He once
put His trust in and His hope in will then say to him, you
are exceedingly sinful and guilty before God. And also that the
grace may abound. Look, that you may behold, where
sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Because sin reigned
under death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto
eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, Paul sets down
clearly that you're not going to be justified by the law. Now
here's what the Pharisee does. Here's what our old carnal Pharisee,
Phariseic nature, this is what we do. Okay. If I can't be justified by the
law, if I can't be justified by the
law, well, then I'm going to go back to the law for my sanctification. If I can't be justified by the
law, then I'll go to the law for my sanctification. No, sir. No, we can't do that. We can't
do that. Up until now, he's been talking
about justification, what Christ has done for sinners. Now he's
going to talk about grace in those whom he's reconciled to
himself in Christ. So, here's what Paul asks in
Romans 6.1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? If the law has nothing to do
with me being justified, and my standing with God, and I'm
righteous, and no sin can be charged to me because I'm in
Christ, and this grace is made manifest and made abundant by
my sin, well then let's just sin more, that grace may abound
more, that God's grace may be seen all the more. Paul said,
God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer
therein? Now I want you to note a key
word here, and it's shall. When God saves, He said, when
I write my everlasting covenant on their heart, I will and they
shall. There's no possibility that it
won't go that way. Because when God says I will
and you shall, when He wills, you shall. That's just how it
is. Notice here too, dead to sin. Every believer is dead to
sin. How are you dead to sin? You're
not dead to sin's influence, you're not dead to sin's presence,
and you're not dead to sin's effects. Your body right now
is dying. Your flesh is dying. And it's going to go to the dust,
and that's the result of what you are by your union with Adam
by that first birth. You can't deny sin still has
influence and presence and effect on you. You can't. You can't
deny that. The guilt of sin and the condemnation of sin is gone. It's put away in Christ. He put
it away. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. Who can 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
that is risen again, who's even at the right hand of God, who
also make the intercession for us. Sin shall not have dominion
over you. This is the third thing. You're
free from the guilt, you're free from the condemnation, but sin,
you've been liberated from sin as a master. If you know God,
if you believe God, you've been freed from sin as your master.
And what I mean by that is, in that new man, in that new nature,
Christ reigns now. Christ is ruling and Christ is
reigning. He is our keeper. He's our life. He's the way that we follow. And He's the truth whereby we
know go this way, go that way. He is. And we follow Him and
we walk in Him. It's called newness of life. And sin shall not have dominion
over you because you're no longer under the law, but you're under
grace. Now, first of all, I want to
look here at this thing of baptism. Listen to verse 3, Romans 6,
3. Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus
Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried
with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also
should walk in newness of life. Now, there's a death and there's
a burial. When Christ died under the justice of God, sin was destroyed. The wages of sin is death. That's
what death, sin, the law demands of the sinner, die. Once you
die, the law says, I got nothing else to say to you. The penalty
has been met. The wages have been paid. It's
over. Well, Christ died and He went
into the grave and when He went into the grave, Every sinner
whom He represented died and went into the grave with Him. Every one of them. Therefore we are buried with
Him by baptism into death. Now I'm not talking about water
baptism yet. I'm just talking about what Christ did when He
died. That's how we were baptized the first time. Then we see here
a resurrection. He didn't remain in the grave.
He was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father. And
when He arose, all those for whom He represented as the second
representative were raised with Him to newness of life. So their sins are put away and
they're raised. Is there any possibility now
that because of God's holiness and His holy character is at
stake here, is there any possibility now that Christ has done that,
He's going to turn it over into my fickle will and my fickle
hands and my fickle foolish ways to uphold His holiness and depend
on me to take the first step so Christ can take the next step?
If I can take one step, why don't I just take them all? I need
God to do it all from start to finish. Now, water baptism. We're going to go out here and
we're going to baptize Patty and Diana. And what they're confessing
in baptism is they're identifying themselves with Christ. That
when He died, they died. And when He was buried, they
were buried. And they're going to manifest
that when they go under the water into the grave. And then they're
going to manifest and bear witness that when He rose, they rose
to newness of life in Him. And they're going to manifest
that by coming up out of the grave. And they're saying loud
and clear, I am raised anew to newness of life in Christ and
I'm under a new master now. And I'm walking in newness of
life. I'm walking in the Spirit. I'm
following after the Spirit. I'm walking after the Spirit.
I'm seeking those things which are above, not things which are
on the earth anymore. The other night we were on our
way home from service and the Lord does everything for a purpose.
And we ran into the corner. and there was a deer, a doe deer,
grown doe deer standing there, and she had a fawn. Now, I grew
up in the country and I had some deer. I raised some deer from
a bottle, fed them with a bottle and raised them until they were
grown. And I've seen some fawns before, but I've never seen a
fawn this small. I think this deer was just born. I mean, just born. Now that groan
deer saw us around that corner and we stopped. There was no
traffic, we're out on a country road, and that groan deer jumped
across the road and took off, left the farm. And the fawn turned
to go back across where they came from, opposite of where
the big deer went, and its leg just gave out on it. And it just,
first the front leg fell down, and then the back leg, and then
the leg, you know, and it just curled up, and that was it. It
wasn't going anywhere else, wasn't even gonna try to go anywhere
else. Right there in that oncoming traffic lane, laying right there,
it couldn't go anywhere. Now, let me ask you something. The Lord says here that we should
walk in newness of life. In that old fleshly nature of
yours, you've been at it for a long time. You're a full-grown
sinner. You've had plenty of time to
sin and rebel and got real good at it. You know every trick there
is about it and know just how to do it. You're just like that
grown deer that's strong and vibrant and able to run across
the road and sin. But in that new man that's created
in righteousness and true holiness by God the Holy Spirit, you're
like that thorn. These babes in Christ are like
that thorn that can't hardly take a step. And they just collapse
right there. What's going to happen? How are
you going to get out of danger? How are you going to walk in
newness of life? Well, you're a babe in Christ.
Patty and Diana, you're a babe in Christ. And you're in that
Body of flesh. How is that babe in Christ going
to walk in newness of life when that old flesh is so strong and
so vibrant and knows every trick that is in the book that's cunning
and deceitful and deceivable above all else? How are you going
to walk in newness of spirit? How will you justify? By Christ. That's how you're going to walk
in newness of spirit. By Christ. Now let me show you that, Romans
6, verse 4. Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into
death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness
of life. Here is where the line is drawn
dividing the Pharisee from the child of God. The Pharisee agreed
with me right up to the point that we're justified by Christ.
Now he gets right here, he's going to turn that focus from
Christ back to your flesh about this walking in the newness of
life. That's not what Paul's doing here. Not what Paul's doing
here at all. Let me show you. It says here,
we're buried with him by baptism into death. that like as Christ
was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even
so we also should walk in newness of life. Don't let that word
should confuse you. It might be better translated
shall. It really would. We shall walk in newness of life.
And let me show you why. How was Christ raised up from
the dead by the glory of the Father? It was by the power of God, by
the Spirit of holiness, God the Father raised Christ. And Christ
raised Himself, we read in Romans 1, declaring that He is the Son
of God. Look back there, Romans 1, verse 3. Romans 1 verse 3, "...concerning
His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of
David according to the flesh, and declared the Son of God with
power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection
from the dead." Now, we too are raised to newness of life. And
our text says back there in Romans 6, 4, we are buried with Christ
in the same way that we were buried with Him, that like as
Christ was raised from the dead by the Father, even so also shall
we walk in newness of life. This is how we're going to walk
in newness of life. Turn to 2 Corinthians 13. 2 Corinthians 13. How was our Lord crucified? He
was crucified in the flesh. Verse 4, 2 Corinthians 13, 4. For though He was crucified through
weakness, through the flesh, yet He liveth by the power of
God. Our text says, in like manner,
even so also shall we walk in newness of life. Now look at
the next verse. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live
with Him, by the power of God towards you. Now Paul is sitting
there defending how that he is a preacher of the Gospel and
how he could have the power to preach the Gospel to them in
the face of so many enemies, but the same applies for you,
believer. This is how you're going to walk in newness of life,
by the power of God. It's not going to be By your
own power. It's not going to be by you going
back. We don't start out and say, okay, we're justified by
Christ. Now when we get to sanctification and newness of life, then we
turn around and look back at the Law of Sinai. No, no. We
look at Christ for justification and we look at Christ for sanctification.
He's all. And that's what the Lord says
to us. If we be dead with Him, we'll live with Him. Paul said
in Galatians 2.20, he said, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless
I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. In the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave Himself for me. He said, I began that way in
the Spirit. I'm not going to be made perfect now by turning
to my flesh. I'm going to be made perfect
the same way. Now, sometimes people will offset. They'll say,
well, you talk about the free grace of God all the time. What
about following after holiness? Well, if you think those are
two different things, then you're mistaken. Because when we follow
after holiness, we're following after the God of all grace. We're
following after Christ Jesus, our sanctifier. That's who we're
following after. Many times what men say when
they say, well you talk about grace, what about following after
holiness? They're putting the focus on their following after.
On what they're doing. They're following after and not
Christ who is our holiness. And that's what true holiness
is. It's being made more and more conformed to Him. Not to
our doing, not to our way, not to our It will have some effect
on us, but it's Him. It's Him. And if we turn the
other way, we're going to find ourselves opening up the door
to sin and self-righteousness, thinking we've done something.
Now, read on with me, Romans 6, verse 5. He gives us a because
now. Because, verse 5, 4, if we have
been planted together in the likeness of Christ's death, We
shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with him. that the body of sin
might be, it's just like that other word, it is destroyed.
That henceforth we should not serve sin, we shall not serve
sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin. Now that word freed
there means justified. But look what he's saying, verse
8, now if we be dead with Christ, if we're justified from sin by
the death of Christ, we believe we also shall live with Him. We're going to walk in newness
of life by the power of the resurrected Christ living in us. Do you see
what I'm getting at there? Paul's talking about, he's talking
about justification and sanctification which is vitally connected. Of
God are ye in Christ, who of God is made unto us wisdom and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption. The moment I
turn from Christ back to Sinai is the moment I turn from Christ
to myself. And that's the moment that I'm
right back in sin and rebellion against God. That's not sanctification. But that emphasis is so much
by the Pharisee illegally. He's going to put it on the law
and on your doing. That's not what Paul's doing
here. He's saying here's all your motivation. Here's the power
and the might and the strength by which you're going to walk
in this newness of life. For he that is dead is freed
from sin. Now verse 9, knowing that Christ being raised from
the dead, dieth no more. Death hath no more dominion over
him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that
he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Now just as Christ dieth no more,
in this new creation, in the new birth, in the new man, It
dies no more. The old man is perishing, but
the new man is renewed day by day. Just as death has no more
dominion over Christ, dominion is power. It's reign. Death has
no more dominion over you who believe. And it's all because
Christ died unto sin, and by that one offering, He put the
guilt and the condemnation of sin away. And when He takes up
residence in the soul, brethren, As Brother Henry used to say,
you're under new management then. You're not under the master of
sin anymore. You're under the rule of Christ
now. You're under the rule of Christ. He's not going to allow
you to fall. He's not going to allow you,
you may stumble, to teach you that He's holding you. But He's
not going to allow you to perish. No man's able to pluck them out
of my hand, God said. Now, I like this word, reckon.
You know why I like it? because it means I count it to
be so. Just count on it to be so. And
the reason I like that is because, let me ask you, brethren, if
you look at yourself, is there ever a time when you feel like,
well, I'm not a slave to sin anymore. I'm the master of myself
now. You ever feel like that? Oh,
God says in those times when you're going through the harshest,
deepest, coldest winter of sin, and you feel like you don't belong
to God, you don't know God, you have no idea who God is, He said,
Don't look at yourself in that time anymore to try to find assurance. Then you look to yourself to
try to justify yourself or sanctify yourself. Just count it to be
so, that as He is, you are. That's faith. Faith enters into
Baca's veil. And faith says, Lord, though
you slay me, I'll trust you. I don't even know the heavens
are brass to me, Lord, but I trust You. You said it so, and I reckon
it to be so. Now, here's the sure Word of
God, and this is the love of Christ that constrains us, that
motivates us. It's Christ reigning and Him
reigning in us. So here's the foundation now
where Paul exhorts the brethren to godliness. Now look here at
verse 12. Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, that
ye shall obey it in the lust thereof. Neither yield ye your
members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves
unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members
as instruments of righteousness unto God." And he always comes
back to this guarantee, to this reign of grace as our only hope,
our only motivation. Verse 14, For sin shall not have
dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under
grace. I don't know about you brethren, but when I hear Christ
tell me, just present your body to God. Have you been able to
subdue your flesh yet? Have you been able to mortify
your deeds yet? I tell you the day you'll be
able to mortify your flesh by your own power is the day you
can stop yourself from having the flu by your own power. Can
you do that? Have you been able to stop yourself
from catching a cold by your own power? Walk up and down the
shelves at the drug store and see how many drugs there are
to try to stop it. And you can't stop it. Well,
he said, but here's what you can do. Just yield your body
to God and say, God, I'm yours. Stop this. And you know that's
what scripture says, that's how we mortify the deeds of the flesh.
That's how they're mortified. It's just presenting yourself
to God. And He'll stop it. He'll mortify it. He gonna eradicate
it? No. What He's going to do is
He's going to give you a fresh view of Christ, and He's going
to remind you again and again. Reckon yourself to be dead indeed
unto sin, and alive unto God. Don't let that flesh drag you
down. Don't let your sinful ways turn
you from Me. And you'll walk a little while
in Him, and you'll rejoice, and you'll be thankful, and then
I'll tell you what you're going to run into first. You're going to be out here.
You're going to get baptized. You're going to walk away from here. And for
about the next week, you're going to walk around on cloud nine
thinking, oh, it's going to be good now. Everything's going
to be good now. And we go through those mountains. And we get a
little too high. And God gives us some space to
get back down in that valley. And he brings us back to just,
Lord, help me. And he reminds us again, reckon
yourself to be dead indeed unto sin and alive to God. And it's going to be that way.
You think the peace has started. The peace in that inner man has
started. The peace in that inner man has started where you know
I have eternal life in Christ Jesus my Lord. No sin can be
laid to my account. It's God that just died for me.
Christ died for me. He's risen again. He's at the
right hand of the Father. He's making intercession for
me. I'm His. I can't be lost. He's going to
keep me. Sin shall not have dominion over
me. And then that old flesh, that
old man in you is going to from this day on, from the day the
battle has begun that you beheld Christ, now you actually see
what you are. Now you actually take knowledge
of your sin. Now you actually see it in yourself
continually all the time. The Lord said the plowing of
the wicked is an abomination in His sight. I go out and work
in my, I've been trying to build a rock wall out front of my house
and tear down what's there and build a new rock wall and landscape
it. God said, that's sin enough to send you to hell a thousand
times. Everything I do sin. And I see it in myself. I see
it in me now. And the warfare, it's a war. It rages. I don't want to be
like I am. This man who said, let not sin
therefore reign in your mortal body is the same one. One chapter
away in Romans 7 it says, With the Spirit, I serve the law of
God, but I see another law in my members warring against the
law of my mind and bringing me in captivity to sin. The same
man that said that. How could he on one hand say,
don't let sin reign in your mortal bodies, and on the other hand
say, I see the law of sin and death in my members and it brings
me into captivity? Because right after he said that,
you know what he did? He said, I yield my members unto
righteousness. I yield myself, present my body,
a living sacrifice to God. He said, who shall deliver me
from the body of this death? I thank God through Christ Jesus
my Lord. That's who's going to deliver
you, every time. This thing of sanctification
is not, and of growing in holiness, this thought occurred to me.
You don't ever get any more separated from God than you are when you're
born in Adam the first time. You're a sinner. But what you
do is, as you go in life and all your experiences in life,
you learn how to sin more. You learn how to make it look
like righteousness. You learn how to make some kind
of pretense of righteousness so everybody else thinks you're
righteous when in fact you're just sinful as the devil. You
learn all about that. Well, you don't get any more
holy, any more justified, any more sanctified than you are
in Christ Jesus the Lord. But when you grow in grace, in
faith, in knowledge of Him, through these things I'm talking to you
about, you grow to realize more and more that your strength's
not in you, it's not in your obedience, it's not in anything
you do in this flesh. It is all in Christ. It's all
in Christ. And so you grow into the knowledge
that, okay, last time I turned around and tried to take these
matters into my own hands and fix things. So this time, I'm
just going to trust God from the beginning on this thing.
And you'll grow a little more and a little more and a little
more to where You continually realize, I can't do anything
by myself. I can't fix it. Lord, it's in
your hands. And that's growing in holiness.
That's following after holiness. Now you turn to this flesh, you
go the other way and start looking at things you've done and think,
well now, I don't drink, smoke, chew, as Don says, hang out with
girls that do. Then you've turned right back
to the law. Then you've turned right back to the flesh. And
it's just as sinful, if not more sinful in the face before God,
than if you went out and was laying in the gutter drunk. Because
you count the blood of righteousness a vain thing. You count the blood
of righteousness as unable to make you holy before God and
righteous before God. His holy person. You know that
priest went into the tabernacle? He didn't just go in there and
make atonement for the people. He went in there with a golden
breastplate that said, holiness unto the Lord. And my Lord entered
into glory and He not only made me the righteousness of God in
Him, but He wears the breastplate that says, holiness unto the
Lord. And when God hears my prayers, He hears Christ Jesus' holiness
unto the Lord. And everything that I do, everything
I say, everything you who know Him and trust Him, everything
you do, everything you say is holiness unto the Lord because
of your sanctifier. Do you see that? Alright, now
I'm going to skip over all this and just get down here to what
I want you to see now. Verse 7, there, he that is freed
from sin, that's just speaking of the result of Christ's death
and the word freed means justified. Now look down at verse 18. being then made free from sin.
This is talking about the result of believing from the heart.
This is liberty from the dominion of sin. One's talking about justification,
one's talking about sanctification. That's what one's talking about,
liberty in the court of God's justice, and one's talking about
sin's not going to have dominion over you anymore. Now, whenever
Paul gives this illustration here, verse 19. I speak after
the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh.
You've yielded your members' servants to uncleanness and to
iniquity. Even so now, yield your members'
servants to righteousness and to holiness. For when you were
the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. This
word free he keeps using here means you were at liberty. But
the end of those things was death, but now you're made free from
sin. You've been liberated from it, become servants to God, you
have your fruit unto holiness. And the end thereof is everlasting
life. For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God, it's eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. It's not earned at any point, at any point. In my mind, it goes on through
Romans 7, and I don't have time to go through all that, but I
do want to give you the other illustration. He said there,
you were a slave to sin. You were under its power and
its dominion, and all you could do was what your master made
you do. He said, now Christ is your master. Christ is the master. Yield yourself to Him. Now he
turns around and he gives an illustration here in chapter
7 of verse 1 of marriage. And he says, know ye not, brethren,
For I speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath
dominion over a man as long as he liveth. For the woman which
hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as
he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she's
loosed from the law of her husband. So then if while her husband
liveth, she be married to another man, she's an adulteress for
her husband. But if her husband be dead, she's
free from the law so that she's no adulteress, though she be
married to another man. Now here's what he's saying there.
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by
the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another. You have
every legal... People are here, you talk about
you're not under the law. Oh, you can't tell somebody they're not
under the law? Scott, I'm going to use you and Christine. If
Scott died, y'all would say, Clay, you're off your rocker
to insist that Christine is obligated to honor Scott. She's free from
him. She's absolutely free from him.
And you'd say, Clay, you're crazy. She don't have any obligations
to him by law anymore, whatsoever. Well, the man who stands up and
says, don't let anybody tell you you're not obligated to keep
the law. He's flying in the face of what God says in His Word.
Does that mean I'm without law? No, it means I'm married to Christ
and I'm following Christ now. I've told you the illustration
before. My father used to make me those lists of chores to do
and when he was not there, I would look at that list and try to
go through that list and it was always too big a list. I never
could get it done. And he did that on purpose so
I'd always be busy. But when he came home, He went
to doing the work. And I put the list aside and
started following Him personally. And Him showing me and teaching
me and working with me and showing me the things to do. That's what
God's saying. You're free from the law now.
We don't serve God in the letter anymore. Now we're following
Christ. And He's teaching us and correcting us and guiding
us and leading us in the heart. And we're following Him. And
if you notice here, When folks get married, they bring forth
children, don't they? Now, does a woman have the power to produce
children or does that come from a man? You who know biology,
does a woman have the power to produce the fruit or does the
man produce the fruit? The man produces the fruit. Well,
who's going to produce the fruit when you're married to Christ?
Your husband, Christ. And there's going to be fruit
produced in you. And it's going to be born of you. And it's going
to come forth from you. Because there's no possibility
it won't. Because it's of your husband. But when you were sinned,
and you try to bring forth fruit by your flesh and your doing,
it's just like a woman without a man trying to bring forth fruit.
It ain't going to happen. It's just not going to happen.
That's why he says here, You become dead to the law by the
body of Christ, that you should bring forth fruit. But then he
says in verse 5, when we were in the flesh, the motions of
sin which were by the law did work in our members to bring
forth fruit unto death. It was all dead. There was no fruit. Alright. Here's my application for you.
To you two. Just to you two. I want to give you four things.
He says, yield your bodies to Christ. Yield your members to
righteousness and holiness as those that are alive to God,
living with God, walking in newness with God. Make use of the means
of grace. God's given you this Word. Read
it. Stay in it. This is how God's
going to speak to you. Read it. Stay in it. Diana emailed
me and asked me my opinion on something the other day. What's
the first thing I told you? My opinion don't matter. Here's
what God says about it. That's what matters. Stay in
this word and be much in prayer. Be much in prayer. Pray always. When Christ washed you, That
laver, before you could go into that holiest of holies, they
had to go in to offer a sacrifice. They had to wash in that laver.
And then they were washed in that laver. They were washed
clean and could have access to enter in. Hebrews 10 says, draw
near with a new heart, having your bodies washed with pure
water. He's that way in. We have acceptance
with God by prayer. We can go to Him now and He'll
hear us. Go to Him. Go to Him constantly. Call me anytime you want to.
Write me an email and ask me a question anytime you want to.
But don't let me come between you and God. Go to Him. Go to
your Savior. And then, be much in worship. Don't neglect worshiping Christ. He's seen fit to raise a place
for the gospel to be preached. Be there. So often, I hear folks
will say, you know, pray for me, this and that's going on,
or they have a question about something, they're wrestling
with something, struggling with it, and I pray for them. And God will
give me something, and I feel like God's given me this just
for that person. I would never get up and say,
this is just for you, Michelle, or this is just for you, Melinda,
or anything like that. I just get up and preach what
He's given me. But it's so sad when you get up to preach, and
the one that you just think, this is just the thing that's
going to help them, and they're not there. They're not there. Well, the second thing, cultivate
the fellowship of believers. Evil companions corrupt good
manners. If you cultivate the fellowship
of people who love God, it'll help you to walk with God. That's
right. I confess to you, I didn't do
this. I didn't have anybody to tell
me what you're being told. And I lived in a place where
there was no young people in the congregation. And I didn't,
I thought I was too, too smart and I was too much of a smart
aleck to hang around with the kids that was there. I want to
be around my people. And I walked around with my people
who didn't know God, who was religious and self-righteous
and haughty and arrogant. And all I did was I was like
Lot, I was vexed continually. By God's grace, He put me in
a place where there was folks that wanted to be together, they
wanted to fellowship together, they wanted to eat together,
they wanted to dine together, they wanted to see each other
during the week, and I was able to do that. And it made me able to share with one another
what you go through. God put believers together to
help one another. And then thirdly, you help one
another by confessing your faults to one another. Now listen to
me. I don't care about knowing any
sin of yours and neither does anybody else in here care about
knowing any sin of yours. That's not what he's talking
about. He's talking about confess to one another your utter weakness. Talk to others about how that
potential to sin is there with you all the time and how weak
you are. The proud, the arrogant, Don't ever talk about anything
like that. They got no knee, they strong, they never gonna
fall. They're dead as a hammer as where
they stand. How can you fall when you're flat as you can go?
But the person who knows God, knows he's weak in the flesh,
knows he can't do anything in his flesh, and that person when
he talks to his brethren, talk about their weakness. They talk
about how fragile this life is. And time and time again, when
I talk to you all, when I talk to friends from other states
and things, we talk about not particular sins, we just talk
about how this life is a vapor, how our flesh is undependable,
how this heart is deceitful. And it encourages one that all
our hope. I'd say one thing to one of my
brethren and he'll turn around and tell me about how Christ
won't let us fall. And that person will turn around
and say something to you about the weakness of their flesh and
you'll remind them about how Christ won't let us fall. And
that's how God purposed it that way. He said He supplies whatever
joint needs by yoking us together and fitly framing us together
so that we all get what we need by His grace working through
us. And here's the fourth thing. Always look to Christ. Don't
ever let anybody tell you you're obligated to the law of Moses. Because that person that tells
you that is trying to turn you from Christ to something you
can do in your flesh. Do not ever let anyone turn your
eye from Christ Jesus the Lord. If you behold Christ Jesus the
Lord and you walk in Christ Jesus the Lord, Trust Christ Jesus
the Lord. You have perfectly fulfilled
the law of God. You have perfectly fulfilled
it. And I guarantee you, if you took those law restraints off
of those people who have to be yoked by the Sabbath day in order
to come to a place and worship, if you said, you don't have to
anymore, you'd find out a great number of them wouldn't do it
anymore. They just wouldn't do it anymore. You are here, not
because you've been constrained to be here, because you want
to be here. Look to Christ. Follow Christ.
Seek Christ continually. Continually. Well, then I've
got something else. I have something for those brethren
here. What can you do for these two? There's a song I like that a
friend of mine wrote. It's not a gospel song, but it's
a good song, and I like these words. I think it's poetical. He said, tonight I'm down to
the wire, striking matches in vain. There's a whole lot of
smoke, but no fire, because I've got a heart full of rain. When you begin, in the faith,
you're so weak, you're so tender, and because of this flesh, you're
so full of rain, and there's a lot of smoke sometimes, and
not a whole lot of fire, just a lot of smoke. But our Lord
quenched not the smoking flax, He didn't break the bruised rig.
He gathered the lambs and carried them in his bustle. Ever tending to them, ever keeping
them, ever keeping them safe. You take that fire that you're
trying to light when it's all wet and it's damp all around
you and you're out there trying to light it. Just a lot of smoke,
a lot of smoke. You'll be tending to these young
ones and trying to teach them and trying to encourage them
and they'll say things and just smoke. Just smoke. They'll come to you and say,
I got this doctrine and I understand it now. And they'll begin to
tell you about it and it's just smoke. Just a lot of smoke. But then
you start seeing that smoke, and that smoke means there's
some kind of, there's some fire there. There's something there.
And you cup your hands around it, and you protect it from the
wind, you protect it from the elements around you, and you
keep it. Just protect it. Protect it. And I've got the goods on you. Because I've seen how you deal
with Elisabeth. I watched her come in here as
a little baby. And oh boy, y'all just act like
sugar wouldn't melt in her mouth. Y'all just hugging on her, protecting
her, and carrying her around, and loving her, and doting over
her. So I know how you treat a newborn
baby. I've seen it. That's how you treat a newborn
baby in Christ. You love them. Paul said, he
told the Thessalonians, he said, we were tender with you like
a nurse cherisheth her children. That's it, isn't it? Well, I've got to...