Alright, if you take your Bibles
now and turn with me to Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6. Text will be found in verse 12,
13. I was telling Scott I was trying
to find a fancy title and I just couldn't come up with one. So
I'm just going to do the title of the message, just what the
Scripture says. Let not sin reign. Let's read this together. Let
not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, that you should
obey the lust thereof. Neither yield you your members
as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves
unto God. How? As those that are alive
from the dead. and your members as instruments
of righteousness unto God. This morning I want to speak
to you who are believers in Jesus Christ. You who profess faith
in Jesus Christ. I want to speak directly to where
you are at right now. The day I would, by the grace
of God, I pray that this message would be effectual to all the
saints, and that by the grace of God that the Spirit would
get down to where we live. Because that's exactly what this
verse does. It gets down to where faith and practice meet together. Where faith is no longer a hypothetical
or theoretical thing to be discussed. It is a thing to be lived. Faith,
real faith, as it is exercised in the body and lived out in
the world, is here in this text. It's where the rubber meets the
road, friends. It's where real believers really
live. We don't live in this bubble.
where everything's happy and healthy and everybody's going,
everything's going to be swell, that no sin comes in, no heartache,
no pain. No, this meets us right where
we live. And so all of us as believers
in Jesus Christ, when we read this, we understand what this
means. Let not sin therefore reign in
your mortal body. Why is He saying that? Because
we all deal with sin. Every believer in Christ must
deal with this matter of remaining sin. If you say, I don't know what
you're talking about, friends, it's because you're dead and
you don't have any life. John says if we say we have no
sin, what? The truth is not in us. So if
you don't know what I'm talking about, then you're definitely
not a believer in Christ. Because believers in Christ must
and do struggle with sin. We do. This is real. The apostle Paul found this to
be true of himself. Look over the next chapter in
verse 21. Paul said, I find then a law
that when I would do good, what happens? Evil is present with
me. He said, for I delight in the
law of God after the inward man. This is the new man. You who
are believers, you have a new man. And this new man does delight
in what? It delights in the law of God,
it delights in holiness, it delights in righteousness. But what happens? I see another law in my members. What is it doing? It's warring
against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to
the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Look
at that. Wretched man that I am, presently. And then he has, who
shall deliver me, future, from the body of this death? Here's
his answer. I thank God through Jesus Christ.
He's going to deliver me. But then he goes back to his
present situation, verse 25, so then. With the mind, I myself serve
the law of God. He's talking about the new man,
the new nature. But with the flesh, the law of
sin, and then he, if you just left off there, that'd be just
really discouraging, wouldn't it? But then he says immediately
after this, there is therefore now no condemnation. Those are
in Christ Jesus. That's the hope we have, isn't
it? Even though we struggle, even though we must war with
the old man, even though there's a struggle and a conflict with
sin daily, our hope is not in our struggle, is it? I know some
people who struggle with conscience. People who don't know Christ,
they struggle with conscience. They do something guilty and
they don't like it and they try to do right. That's not what
I'm talking about. You see, lost people can struggle
with conscience. We have two opposing natures
inside of us. But our hope is not in the struggle,
is it? Our hope is not even in the victory in the struggle.
Sometimes we lose, sometimes we win, but that's not our hope,
is it? Our hope is this, there is therefore
now no condemnation of those who are in Christ Jesus. That's
our hope. But yet we still must and do
struggle with sin. We battle, we long to be rid
of it. Now in this body we deal with this matter of sin, but
we are exhorted here. We are exhorted here. And I want
you to take this for what it is intended. It is out of a heart
of love. This is not, we're not referring,
and I'm going to show you this, we're not referring back to the
law of Moses. That's not how this, let not sin reign and then
I'll send you back to Moses. That's not how this is, what
it means. This is out of a heart of love to you. because sin always
ends in death. Let not sin reign. It is a pleading, isn't it? Let
not sin reign. It is a command, but yet it is
a loving command. It is a loving exhortation. Let
not sin reign in your mortal body. Believers in Christ, we
are here This exhortation. Hearing exhortation about this
matter of sin in our lives, Paul makes no excuse. No excuse. But condemns sin in himself,
doesn't he? We do not want sin. Believers
wish to live without sin, but yet this is the reality of it. You can have all the wishful
thinking you want to be rid of sin. Not in this body you won't
be rid of it. You long to be finished with
this warfare, but you will never be finished with this until you
are dead, or until Christ returns. This is a constant, daily struggle. And if you're at peace, something's
wrong. We're at struggle, we're at warfare
with ourselves. I'm not talking about outside
forces. I'm talking about this inside force. We have the enemy
of Satan and the world, but the worst enemy is self. Why? He's
everywhere you go. He doesn't leave. The old man
is with you. Now, in this struggle against
sin, why are we not to let sin reign in our bodies? Look at
your text. He says this word, therefore. Let not sin, therefore. When you read that word, you
always want to find out Therefore, why do we not let sin reign? Well, we can go back and we can
see what Paul has been teaching us about three things. He's been
teaching about sin. He's been teaching about the
law and grace. Three things here that we must
first understand. In order to not let sin reign,
we first have to know what sin is. Where it comes from. When Paul talks of sin, he begins
where man begins. Where did sin originate? Well,
we know it originated in Adam. In Romans 5, in verse 12, Paul
says, Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world. And
then what's the consequence? What's the result of sin? Death. Death. There was no death. And
sin entered in by one man, and death followed. And so death passed upon all
men, for all had sinned. When Adam sinned, he was a federal
head. He was a representative of all
his race. And when he sinned and died,
all of his people sinned in him. Therefore, all men are born dead
in sin. Nobody teaches us to lie, steal,
cheat, None of that. You don't have to teach any of
that. We know that because that's who we are. We have this nature. Born with it. Scripture says
that we are born, come forth from the womb speaking lies. David said, in sin did my mother
conceive me. We're born to it. Sin is natural to the natural
man. But listen, just so you're aware
of this, you can't just blame Adam for your sin. You know why? Because we do it
willingly. Is there any sin that you don't
do willingly? The natural man loves sin. Jesus
said that they love darkness rather than light because their
deeds are evil. Sin is not just who we are, it's
what we do. It's a product of who we are,
it's what we do. We are sinners, therefore we
sin. And so we sin. Now listen, no
natural man likes the consequence of sin. Got it? If there were
no consequences to sin, how evil would the world be? Men love sin. It's universal. Nobody escapes this. We're born
sinners. Thorn sinners. And also you must
understand that Paul is saying here in these verses that no
one escapes the judgment of God. The justice of God. All sin must
be punished. All sin must be punished. It
didn't matter if you were a Jew under the law or you were a Gentile
and never heard the law. We were all sinners. And God
will and must punish sin. How many times do you hear this?
Well, I'm just being punished for my sin. No, not yet. Punishment for sin is the full
force of God's wrath. God says, I will by no means,
listen to that, no means clear the guilty. God is holy and He
must punish sin. And He will punish sin. So then,
if we say, let not therefore sin, we see sin brings death,
sin brings sorrow, sin brings pain, sin brings grief. And we
say, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. Well, what
then is the remedy? How, then, shall we not allow
sin to reign in our mortal body? Well, then Paul goes and says,
well, now then, let me talk about the law, because that's the first
thing the natural man wants to go to. When he feels guilt for
sin, the first thing he runs to is law. Now, Paul thought himself, at
one time, to escape sin. He did. He thought he was above
sin. If you look in chapter 7, verse
9, look what Paul says. He said, I was alive without
the law once. I thought I was good. I thought
I was above the condemnation of the law. But when the commandment
came, sin revived and I died. Paul, he thought himself to be
without condemnation. In Philippians 3 he said, as
touching the righteousness of the law, I was blameless. But one day the Lord Jesus Christ
came to Paul and He revealed Himself. He showed Himself to
Paul and Paul saw that the law was holy. Not just outward holiness,
but it had to do with the thoughts and intents of the heart. He saw the command of the law
reach down into his soul and saw the motives of his heart.
It judged the motives, not just the actions. And what did Paul
say? Well, when sin revived, when
the commandment stirred up sin, what did he find? I died. He found out the reality of his
condition was death. You lay a dead man and let the
buzzards peel the skin off of him. How much does he feel? Well, he feels none of it because
he's dead. But if you lay a living man and let the buzzards peel
off the skin, he feels it. When God quickens us to life,
we begin to feel that dead nature. We're made to feel our guilt.
And sin will always be there, but this... He was dead, he couldn't
feel it until God revealed Himself. Isn't that true with you and
me? We may have thought ourselves alive in religion once. We may
have done religious deeds and thought ourselves to be alive
under God. But God's commandment came and
sin revived and what? We died. We found ourselves to
be dead in sins and need of life. You see, the law, that's the
purpose of the law, isn't it? The purpose of the law is not
to remedy sin. It is only to expose it. So you
are believers in Christ. When we are saved by the grace
of God and the power of God to feel our guilt and need of Christ,
do we then return back to the law so that sin should not reign? No. Because what is the law going
to do? It's only going to stir it up.
It's only going to magnify the guilt. It's not going to help
you. There is no help in the law to
restrain sin. I'm thinking if you're in a pit and
you can't reach the top, there's no way to get out. And somebody
just stands at the top and says, you need to get out of there. Well, throw me a ladder. No.
You just need to get out of there. That's all the law can do. It
can't throw you a lifeline. It can't make you a ladder. It
can't let you get out. The law can only condemn you.
It can't do anything to help you. The law has no effect on
the soul until he's made alive and then it only exposes sin.
The law is no friend to help the sinner. It only points to
his condemnation. So what then is the help? We're
sinners by birth, sinners by choice, rebels by nature, haters
of God. Yet God in grace reveals our
sin to us, our need of holiness. What then is the help? Here it
is, grace. The grace of God is the only
help for sinners. And I want you to understand
that grace is God's grace. It's God's grace. He alone gives
grace. It is unmerited favor. It cannot
be earned. It is mercy given to those who
are most undeserving of it. Paul said if salvation by grace,
it's no more works. Otherwise, grace don't mean grace. There's a lot of people out there
saying grace, grace, and they really don't mean grace. They
mean work. And so what I'm talking about
is grace without work, without merit. I'll give you an illustration
of grace. There's that man by the pool
of Bethesda. That man, that impotent man,
he could not get up, he could not... He was hoping, his hope
for 38 years was that somebody would come and help him into
the water when that angel touched him. And for 38 years he was
disappointed. And I'll tell you this, he didn't
ask for Christ and he wasn't looking for Christ. He was looking
to himself or looking to man. He was looking for some kind
of miraculous experience. He wasn't looking for Christ.
Yet in grace, Christ came to him and healed him without any
merit. That's exactly how he comes to
us. We are impotent to come to him.
We are not willing to come to Him. We don't want to come to
Him. We want our sin. But in grace, when He reveals
our malady, He then comes to us in saving grace and heals
us of this malady. The objects of God's grace, the
law of God comes in power, exposes our need, and then Christ reveals
Himself. He reveals Himself. That He is
the only Savior for sinners. Do you know that? I'm not asking
if you know it. Have you experienced that? What's the experience? Do you
believe on Him? That's the only evidence that
you've been quickened. It's faith. Faith in Christ. Do you believe on Christ? Do
you trust Him? Do you follow Him? He reveals that He's the only
remedy for sin, and that it's not by works of righteousness
that saves us, but by His grace through the merits of Christ
alone. Is that what you believe? That Jesus Christ came to be
our High Priest. He came to offer sacrifice for
sin. He came to provide righteousness and magnify the law and honor
it by His own obedience. Look at Galatians chapter 2.
Look at Galatians chapter 2. Look at verse 16. Paul says, knowing. You know
this. If you're a believer, I tell you
this, you know this. That a man is not justified by the works
of the law, not in any measure. I told you just a minute ago,
law ain't helping you. It ain't helping you in anything. But
how is a man justified? By the faith, listen, of Jesus
Christ. How are you justified? Are you justified by your faith?
And your faith is the experience of that justification. But your
faith didn't justify you. It was His faith that justified
you. It was His obedience that justified you. It was His death
that atoned for your sins. It was His death that redeemed
you. It was His resurrection that
justified you before God. Even we have believed in Christ.
Now there's the manifestation of that justification. Have you
believed in Christ? You don't know you're justified
until you what? Believe on Christ. Which is by the power of God,
the Holy Spirit. That we might be justified by
the faith of Christ. See, my faith in Christ is that
the faith of Christ justified me. And not by the works of the law
shall no flesh be justified. We, by grace, have been given
faith in Christ. And through the faith of Christ
we are justified before God and have spiritual life and peace
with God, Paul, in Romans 5, verse 1, therefore being justified
by faith, the faith of Christ, having experienced it by faith
in Christ, we have peace with God. Peace with God. And this brings us to the end
of chapter 5. He says, "...that as sin hath
reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." Grace. Grace is how
we're saved. Not law, but grace. And when
Christ died for our sins, how many sins did He die for? How many sins were atoned? All of them. That's what justified
means. It means you are innocent. And that was all by grace. So,
whereas sin did reign, now what reigns? Grace. Grace reigns,
reigns supreme over everything. Grace, grace, grace is sprinkled
all over you. Forgiveness of sins is constant,
perpetual cleansing of sin. And the salvation is not by your
works, it's not by your deeds, it's all of grace. If I'm going
to make it to heaven, it will be by the grace of God alone. Which brings us now to chapter
6, where Paul deals with how it is that a believer who is
given new life, made new a creation in Christ, how we are not to
live after the rudiments of the law or sin or flesh or after
the world. And this question follows the
statement, since grace reigns, reigns supreme, this is then
the question that will be asked. Look at verse 1. What shall we
say then? If you are saved by the grace
of God, chosen by grace, redeemed by grace, called by grace, kept
by grace, cleansed by grace, here's the answer. What shall
we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? David committed a great sin.
David was a man after God's own heart. He was a believer in Christ
just like you and me. He committed a great sin. He committed adultery
with another man's wife. He willfully, intentionally did
that. Then when he was caught, when
he couldn't get out of it, he tried to hide it by having her
husband murdered. Now then, I don't think of a
greater illustration of a man's sin than that. Believer's sin. When David was exposed, when
David was exposed by the Word of God, he repented. Did he not? He said, I have sinned against
the Lord. And what was the answer of Nathan?
When he confessed his sin, what was Nathan's answer? It was one
of grace, wasn't it? He said, the Lord hath already
put away thy sin. The Lord hath already put thy
sin on Christ. The Lord hath already charged
it to Christ and put it away. Now then, let me ask you this.
Did that empower David to go and do more sin? That's what
Paul's asking. He's saying, look, is grace a
license to more sin? The answer is, if you understand
grace, no. God forbid you should think such
a thing. Why, Paul? Why should we not
think so? If sin abounds and grace is much
more, wouldn't it glorify God more if I was a bigger sinner?
No. Listen. How shall we, who are
quickened by the Spirit of God, that are dead to sin... Listen
to that word. You are dead to sin. How can
you live any longer in sin? What does it mean to be dead
to sin? Well, first of all, justified persons are dead to sin and that
it is never imputed or you're condemned by it. Sin is never
charged to you, nor will you ever be condemned by it. Why?
You're dead. When Christ died, you died. How
then could God ever charge you who are dead to sin with sin? Why? It's paid for. Think of
it this way, if a man committed murder, went to the gas chamber
and died, would they take his body and put it back in the gas
chamber? It'd be foolish, wouldn't it? He's already paid. He's already
dead. That's how God reckons us, already
dead. So we are dead to sin in that
matter. It cannot be charged. But we are also dead because
we are dead to sin. It is no longer the course of
our life. Sin is no longer a pleasure. It is loathsome to the nature
of the believer, the new nature. It is loathsome to the nature
of the believer. It's no longer a pleasure. It's
an enemy and not a friend. And sin no longer, it means that
sin no longer reigns in the believer. I didn't say exists. It does. But it does not have dominion
over them. It does not have the complete
rule that it once had. One time there was only one nature,
and it ruled supreme. But now there is a new nature
that rules. And that nature, the other nature,
is put down. It is not gone, it is put down. It doesn't have dominion that
it once had. And because we are dead to sin,
we seek to mortify it. To live in sin is to live after
the dictates of the corrupt nature. It is to give up oneself to sin. When sin is in their life, they
delight in it, they make it their business, and the whole course
of their life is sinful. Now, those who are dead to sin
cannot do that. Listen to me. The believer cannot
live in sin. I did not say the believer cannot
sin. The believer does sin. Matter
of fact, everything we do is mixed with sin. We confess that. But I'm talking about a willful
giving over to the bent of sin in the nature. The believer cannot
do this. Why? He has a new nature that
will not allow it. He has the Spirit of God in him
that will not allow it. David lived a year and a half
in that sin. But there was a time that God
said, that's enough. And that's what he does with
all of his people. Every believer may sin, and we do sin. Otherwise, why would we be given
this exhortation if we didn't? We're given this exhortation
because we can. But yet I know this, that God
will not allow it to maintain the believer's life, live in
the contrary to God. Look at verse 3 in chapter 6.
Know you not that as many as are baptized into Jesus are baptized
into His death? Therefore, if you are buried
with Him in baptism into death, that like as Christ raised from
the dead by the glory of the Father, even so should we walk
in newness of life. The ordinance of baptism is a
picture, isn't it? It's a picture of what we were
really baptized in. When we are brought into the
water, we confess that we were in Christ when He died. When
Christ was submerged under the wrath and judgment of God, we
were in Him. like Noah that was in the ark. The ark was consumed by or bombarded
by the judgment of God. And Noah was in the ark. Even
so, were we in Christ when he died and he endured the wrath
of God for us. And when he rose again from the
dead, notice this, he was given a glorified body. a glorified
body. He rose in newness. There was
no more sin to condemn Him. And now He sits on the throne
doing the will of God. And Paul said, that's what you
do. That's what you and I are to
do. Walk in newness of life. You are made new creatures. Walk
that way. What is it to walk in newness
of life? It is to live for the glory of God. In everything we do, Paul said,
do all for the glory of God. Now, then take everything you
do and measure it by that. Is this for the glory of God?
Is this glorifying to God? Well, if it is, walk in it. Is
this glorifying to God? No. Don't. I mean, I want to
make it plain, make it simple. I don't want to complicate things.
There's no shades of gray here. Does it glorify God? Then do
it. If it doesn't, don't. Walk in
newness of life. Walk for the glory of God. Look
at verse 9. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth
no more, death hath no more dominion over him. Isn't that right? Why? For that he died, he died
once to sin. But in that he liveth, he liveth
unto God likewise. Reckon yourselves indeed dead
to sin, but what? alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. We are to live our lives unto
God, which God by grace and power gave it through faith in Christ,
and we are not to live unto ourselves. And it says, let not sin reign.
What are you doing? Don't live unto yourselves. Don't
live after the glory or the passions of the flesh, the lust of the
flesh. Don't live after what you want. Live completely after
what God desires. What God reveals is good. Paul
said, I was crucified. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless,
right now, I live. I live by the power and grace
of God. I live. I'm a living creature. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. Who's sustaining this life? It's
Christ. And the life I now live, presently in the flesh, I live
by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself
for me. See, I no longer see the law
as my master, but Christ. Christ is my master. Christ is
my King. Christ is my God. This is what
it is to walk after the do-ness of life. This is what it is to
be raised from the dead. It is to walk after Him. It is
to serve Him. It is to believe on Him. Therefore,
Paul exhorts us because of God's great power and grace in the
new birth. Here it is. Let not sin reign. Seeing what you are by nature. Seeing there's no help in the
law. Seeing that you are saved by
grace. How is it that you should walk? Friends, we were saved from sin,
not to sin. So then our job, our family,
our friends, our joys, our sorrows are to be only for the glory
of God. Paul says in Ephesians 5, that
you were sometimes darkness, but now you're what? You're light. In the Lord. That's where the
light comes from, isn't it? Your life, your faith, your hope,
your joy come from the Lord. So then how are you to walk as
children of light? I like that saying, Paul said,
Who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou, thou hast
not received? Now, if you received it by grace, then why aren't
you acting like it? Why don't you walk how you received it?
You received it by grace, you received it by mercy. Should
we not walk as children of mercy? Children of love? Children of
compassion? Children of grace? Children of
glory? Children of eternal life? God's put a new man in charge,
hasn't He? Therefore, you can see our text.
Let not sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey the
lust thereof. This is an exhortation that sin
should not reign in the mortal body. Sin can then reign, can't
it? If you're exhorted to let it
not reign, then it can. And at times, we do. But I know this, for a true believer,
it cannot have dominion. That's why Paul says in verse
14, sin shall not have dominion. Though it can for a time reign,
I know this, it will not have dominion. David, like I said, for a short
time was allowed. And sin did reign over him. Until
what? Until the Word of God came again
in power, and then what? it proved this point, sin did
not have dominion over him. It would not allow him to go
on in that. In other words, we will never
leave faith in Christ. That's the hope, isn't it? We
will never leave faith in Christ, but will by His grace and power
overcome sin. We will confess it, We will confess our weakness
and His strength, and He will always forgive us our sins. Now
that's comforting, isn't it? In this struggle that you have
with the flesh, isn't it always comforting to know that sin will
not have dominion over you? Isn't it comforting to know that
when we sin, if we confess our sin, if we repent, if we turn
from our sin, and then by faith turn to Christ, listen, we have
forgiveness of sin. And listen, I always enjoy this.
When you feel the guilt of your sin, you confess your sin to
God. You know what? That He forgave you even before
you even confessed it. This is comforting to know in
this struggle that we will overcome sin. That we do, by the power
of God, always overcome it. It will not have dominion over
us. And so we as believers have to
battle sin in this life. We do fall into sin, but we have
this assurance that sin shall not have total dominion because
we are not under the law, but under grace. And grace will keep
us. Grace will restore us when we
fall so that we should not be lost. But this exhortation in
this place is given as a warning. A warning. Let not sin reign.
Why? Because sin brings reproach. Not just upon your person, not
just upon yourself, but upon the gospel. Sin brings reproach
upon the church of God. That's what David was chastened,
not so much for the sin that just surrounded his family, but
because it gave cause of the enemies of God to blaspheme. So this is a warning to us. Sin
has consequences. I was reading this story. I'll
get through this real quick. There was a community, it had
a little town, and it had a sharp curve right before you get into
that town. Drivers that didn't know it,
at night time, they were just running right off of this cliff. And they got a city council together
and they said, well, you know, why don't we just, some people
said, why don't we just put an ambulance service right down
there at the bottom of the cliff? So when the car crashes, we'll
be able to get them to the hospital quickly. But a wiser man said,
why don't we just put up a fence? So that they don't go over the
cliff to begin with. We're not going to debate this
Christian sin. Scriptures are full of it. Claim to be without
sin is because you're without Christ. Apostle John, he urges
his children, he said, my little children, sin not. Sin not. Why? It's devastating. It's destructive. The pleasure
it promises, it never brings. Sin not. But listen, when you sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. But although sin is abundant
and grace abounds, Jesus did not intend to use this as an
excuse for sin. Grace is never an excuse for
sin. Have you ever found that in Scripture? Paul said, use not your liberty
as an occasion to the flesh. He not only provides forgiveness,
He also gives us power to keep from sin. Don't tell me when you sin, I
couldn't help it. If you can't help it, there's
a reason you can't help it, because you're dead. If you're dead,
you surely can't help it. If you're alive, what's your
excuse? What's my excuse? What's my excuse? There is no
excuse. I wanted it and I did it. This is the barrier here. Let
not sin reign in your mortal body. Why? Because it's dangerous,
friends. I'll give you another little
illustration and then I'll tell you how. we're not to let sin. How is it that we could not let
sin reign in our mortal body? Let me give you an illustration
of this. There was an Indian hunting a wolf, a great wolf.
And he could not confront the wolf directly. He was too powerful,
too powerful. So he advised this genius thing. He took his knife, took his blade,
and he put it in ice. And ice formed around the blade,
and he poured blood on top of the blade, and he stuck it in
the ground. The wolf began to smell the blood and he came to
the blade and he began to lick the ice. After a time his tongue
began to be numb and yet he enjoyed the blood so much he kept licking
until he got to the blade and the blade kept cutting his own
tongue and he kept licking until he bled to death. You want a
picture of sin, that's it. Sin always leads to death. Now listen, isn't that what the
Scripture says? When sin is conceived, it bringeth
forth what? Death. Death. How many times have we sinned
all the while draining our own lifeblood? Thinking it to be
a pleasure. Only destroying ourselves. Be careful, believers, and let
not sin reign in your mortal body. Remember what Joseph said
when he was confronted with sin. How can I do such a thing to
God? How are we to do this? We don't deny the power of our
old nature, do you? Do you deny the power of it? Do you mock at it? No. It's a real battle. What's the
remedy? Go to Galatians chapter 5. Go
to Galatians chapter 5. I'll close with this. How? How
are we to not let sin reign in our mortal body? Galatians chapter
5. Look at verse 16. This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the
lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. These are contrary
one to another, so you cannot do what you would." So, what
is the remedy? Walk in the Spirit. And you shall not, what? Fulfill the lust of the flesh.
It's not going to get rid of the lust of the flesh, is it?
No, he's saying, look, you're going to war a warfare here. They're always contrary one to
another. The lust of the flesh and the
spirit will always be at odds. But the remedy is plain. Walk
in the spirit. What is it to walk in the spirit? It is simply to obey the law
of Christ. That's what it means to walk
in the Spirit. What does the Spirit do? When Christ said the
Spirit would come, He would do what? He would testify of me. He would testify of me. What is this law of Christ? I'm
not sending you back to the law of Moses. Remember, the law of
Moses can't help you in this. It's the law of Christ that sustains
us in this. What is the law of Christ? Simply
this. Go to 1 John. Go to 1 John chapter
3. 1 John chapter 3 and look at
verse 23. You can read the law of Christ.
1 John chapter 3 and verse 23.
And this is His command. His law. What's the first one? that you should believe on the
name of His Son, Jesus Christ. Law number one. If you want to
not fulfill the lust of the flesh, what must you do? You must rest
completely on Christ. You must set your affection,
set your eyes by faith on what He has done, what He's accomplished,
what it took to remove your sin. It took the death of the Son
of God to remove your sin. And then seeing Him, what are
you going to do? Look at the next thing. Love one another. Do you love Him? If you believe Him, you love
Him. And if you love Him, listen to me, you will not fulfill the
lust of the flesh. Now listen, you can say, I love
Him, and fulfill the lust of the flesh. But what are you not
really doing? You're not really believing. And I'll tell you this, if I
love you, I won't fulfill the lust of my flesh. Love one another. Love one another. How? As he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments
dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth
in us by the Spirit which he hath given us. See, there's the
walking in the Spirit. It is obeying his commands. Of what? Faith and love. Faith
and love. And by these things, listen,
you will not yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness.
Why? Because you love Him. Listen,
if you do this, I'm not going to sin because I love you. I wouldn't hold to that. If you say, I won't sin because
I love Him, then you understand that that's the power that restrains
us. Isn't what Paul said in, I believe,
2 Corinthians chapter 5? It is the love of Christ that
constrains us. It is the view of His love for
us that constrains us. And it is that love then that
is generated in us toward Him that keeps us, sustains us. From what? Doing what we want
to. Now I know you want to sin. That's the old man. It never
stops. But there is a new man that desires nothing but to obey,
to love, to serve. And so what's the exhortation?
Don't let sin reign. Don't let sin reign. What's the remedy? Walk in the
Spirit. And you will not fulfill the
lust of the flesh. That's a promise, isn't it? Is
that not a promise? And listen, the reason you don't
do it is because you don't believe it. If you believed it, you'd do it.
May God give us such faith to walk in the Spirit. To honor
Him with our lives. Isn't that just reasonable? It is if you know what He's done
for you. It's reasonable. God, help us in this. Gracious
Father, dismiss us with Your blessing. Help us in this matter,
in this struggle we face constantly with sin. God, help us to keep our eyes
fixed upon Jesus Christ. Set our affection on Him. Give
us grace to love one another and serve one another. We should
lay aside envy and malice and all types of sin, Father, that
we should glorify Thee. through faith and love in Christ.
I pray these things in His name. Amen.