All right, turn with me if you
would to Romans chapter six. Romans chapter six, we will be
picking up with verse 12 today. So let's read from verse 12 to
verse 22. Let not sin, therefore, reign
in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust thereof. Neither yield ye your members
as instruments of righteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves
unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members
as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have
dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under
grace. What then? Shall we sin because
we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye 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. But God be thanked that you were
the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that
form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from
sin, you became the servants of righteousness. I speak after
the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as you have yielded your
members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity,
even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto
holiness. For when you were the servants
of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit had you then in those
things whereof you are now shamed? For the end of those things is
death. But now being made free from sin and become servants
to God, you have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting
life. And we'll save verse 23 for our
message here in just a moment. Now, does any of that make you
scratch your head wondering what exactly is he saying? Is he really saying that he is
free from sin? Verse 18, he said, being then
made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness.
All we have to do is read Romans 7. We are getting to Romans 7. Lord willing, the next time we're
here, we will be in Romans 7. And we're going to see the answer
is absolutely not. He's not saying that at all.
He said at the end of chapter 7, verse 14, he said, I am carnal. sold under sin. In my flesh,
I'm not rid of it. I'm sold to it. You know, not
many people know that. They just don't. They just don't. They don't know that. Here, God's
apostle who wrote half of the holy word of God, he said, I
am sold to sin. I'm carnal. and I'm absolutely
sold to it. Well, if that's the case, then
what is he saying at the end of chapter six? It's actually something very
simple, not simple to do, but simple to understand. I wanna
give an illustration and I believe this is gonna help clarify these
verses for us. Paul has now spent chapters establishing
the fact that our salvation is in no way dependent on our obedience
to the law. All right, let me repeat that
statement. The apostle Paul has spent chapters, we've been reading
through them at the end of chapter two and chapter three and chapter
four and chapter five. He has established the fact that
our salvation is in no way dependent on our obedience to the law. Not before God quickens us. Not after God quickens us. That's a bold statement. That's
a bold thought, not before God saves us and not after God saves
us. Great error happens whenever
we get in our minds that in order for God to save us, we're going
to have to start obeying the law. And then in order, once
God does save us, in order for us to stay saved, we're going
to have to then start obeying the law. All right, not before,
not after. Start to finish, we are justified
by faith in Christ without the deeds of the law. Paul said in Romans 10, my heart
breaks for those who have a zeal for God, but not according to
knowledge, because they are going about trying to establish their
own righteousness, not realizing that Christ has already established
all the righteousness that is going to be established. He's
the only one capable of establishing a righteousness before God. Paul
told the Philippians, he said, everything that I've ever done
to try to establish my own righteousness, meaning what that means is everything
I've ever done to try to please God and make God happy with me
and make him want to have me. Everything I've ever done, Paul
said, I count it all dung. It's all worthless. It's all
worthless. And that's what he said there
in Philippians 3. I now realize I don't have my own righteousness.
The only righteousness I have is the righteousness of Christ.
It's everything that he has done to make God happy with me and
want to have me. That's the only righteousness
I have. Paul told the Galatians, And this is so true. I'm so glad
this is in the scripture. He told the Galatians, if it
was possible for righteousness to come to us by our obedience
to the law, if that was possible, then Christ died in vain. If
we could fix it, if we could do enough, be good enough and
obedient enough to earn our own perfection and earn our own redemption,
then that was a wasted death. Our deeds are not what brought
life to us. No man or woman is made to be
a child of God by doing obedient deeds. All right, now here's
the illustration that I want to give to us. How absurd would it be for me
to right now at this age, say to my children, this is what it's gonna take
for you to be my child. If you will decide to have life
come to you, and if you will spend your time
in the womb, all right, if you'll put in your time, pay your dues,
put in your time, And if you will go to a hospital and find
a doctor to deliver you. And think about how this relates
to spiritual matters. Okay. You're going to need to
seek and find your own deliverer. Then after you find a deliverer
and after you get yourself delivered, because that's what people go
around saying, I got saved. All right, after you go find
you a deliverer and get yourself delivered, if you will then go
to the records department and fill out a certificate of birth,
put your name on it and put Gabe and Hannah Stoniker on it. If
you'll do all that, then you can be my children. How absurd
would that be? Absolutely absurd. Life has already
come to them. They've already spent their time
in the womb. They've already been delivered. The certificate was signed a
long time ago. They were not made to be our
children by obeying the commandments that we give to them. They were
made to be our children by a finished work that was done to them and
for them without any involvement of them at all, none whatsoever. Life was given to them. Their
being was formed. A deliverer was supplied. The
certificate was signed. And then in, in due time, they
were just notified of it. All right. We just down the road
told them, you are our children and they believe it. Okay. They believe it. They are both children of faith. They are children in faith. They are children by faith. They
completely believe it. Dr. Walsh delivered Isabella
and Dr. Keely delivered Sophie. Never
have those two girls gone and tracked those two doctors down
to see if they could prove whether or not we are their parents.
Never. I don't think they've ever even
seen their birth certificates. To my knowledge, they've never
even seen their birth certificate. We just notified them. We revealed
it to them. We told them and they believed
it. They look to us. They follow
us. They rely on us. They live with
us. They believe it. They just totally
believe it. It's totally on faith. Everything
they do is by faith. All right, now with that established,
establishing the fact that children don't earn being children. Their
place in the family is provided for them and freely given to
them. Once children, always children. Even humanly speaking, okay,
if we disown them and kick them out of our house, they're still
our children. Still, you cannot biologically
undo the fact that they are our children, truthfully, rightfully.
All right, so with that established, let's ask this question. And
this is what Paul is saying in Romans 6. Our actions don't determine
whether or not we're children. So here's the question. Do our
actions matter? Do our actions matter? Nothing
that my children do or don't do will ever determine whether
or not they are my children. But does what they do and don't
do matter? Does it matter? Absolutely it
does. The apostle Paul said in verse
one of chapter six, what shall we say then? Shall we continue
in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. God forbid this idea
that it doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter what you
don't do. It doesn't matter how you act.
It doesn't matter what you are. God is sovereign. We're not saved
by good works. We're saved by grace. He saves
sinners anyway. That's all I am. That's all I
can ever be. We're not gonna be able to lose
our salvation. So what does it matter? What difference does
it make? All of us are children, all right? The Lord has given some children,
but all of us are children. Humanly speaking, what difference
does it make how children act toward their parents. What difference
does it make what they do or don't do, how they are in obedience
or disobedience to the word of their parents? It makes all the
difference in the child's world. It makes all the difference in
the world. It's the difference in praise and punishment. It's
the difference in a smile and a frown. It's the difference
in you are free to go or you're grounded to stay. Our Lord's dealings with us,
the tone and the communication of our relationship, it's directly
related to our obedience to him. We are never going to be able
to fulfill one commandment of His perfectly. All those things
we just read, let me go ahead and tell us all, we can't do
it. You know, He's saying, stop doing
this and start doing that, and that's what Romans 7 is about
to tell us. We are never gonna be able to keep one commandment
perfectly, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't try. All right,
now, with that being said, Let's read these verses again, knowing
that we can't fulfill them perfectly, knowing that these commandments
are not the deciding factor of our salvation. God the Father,
God the Son, God the Spirit decided that before the foundation of
the world. But let's read these with the heart and the desire
as God's children to strive to obey what he has to say to us.
I want to learn of him, and I know you do too. We want to learn
of him. We want to grow a little bit
more into his image. We will not be fully in his likeness
until we awake with him. But Lord, let us grow. Let us
grow toward you. So Romans 6 verse 12, it says,
let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should
obey it in the lust thereof. Don't just sit back and allow
it to reign in you. Don't just bow to it as being
a master over you. There was a man who, who I used
to know a long time ago and, um, As far as I know, he hasn't in
decades had a heart to worship God, but he claimed to at one
time, a long time ago, and that poor fella got himself into more
trouble. This was a 50-something-year-old man, and his answer all the time
was, well, I'm just a sinner. All I can do is sin, and he went
on about his way and did it again. That's not wise. It's just not
wise. Verse 13, he said, neither yield
ye your members as instruments of righteousness unto sin. Fight
against and resist these things of the flesh reigning over you
and fight against and resist willingly giving yourselves to
it. Verse 13 goes on to say, but yield yourselves unto God
as those that are alive from the dead and your members as
instruments of righteousness unto God. Here's an example of
that. The old man of the flesh wants to get angry and lash out. The new man, he wants to forgive
and make peace. That's the difference in the
old man and the new man. The old man wants to be easily offended. Wants to be. People are just
so easily offended. You just offended me. The new
man doesn't want to be offended at all. He says, what have I
to be offended about? Look at how I've treated others.
Look at how I've treated my God. Paul is saying, because we're
children, fight that old man in the flesh. Just fight him,
desire and strive to put on more of that new man that's gonna
live with Christ forever. Verse 14, for sin shall not have
dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under
grace. That old man of the flesh is going to lay down in death
one day. We're going to be rid of him.
Let's strive to start being rid of him right now. For you're
not under the law, but under grace. That's the illustration
we just gave. We're not children by works. We're children by grace.
Every time that statement is made, this question follows. You will see this question over
and over again, all right? Verse 15, what then? Shall we sin because we're not
under the law but under grace? God forbid. God's people do not see his grace
as a license to sin. They just don't. They see it
as the only remedy to be rid of it. His grace is the only
thing that will truly eternally rid me of it. Verse 16, know
ye 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. What that means is if we love
and relish and live for sin, and we know this flesh does,
But that new man feels guilty about it. And if there's no guilt
in it, if there's nothing in here that desires to be rid of
it, if deep down our true inner desire is to go deeper and deeper
and deeper into it, then that ought to tell us whose servant
we are. I mean, if we just really do love it, live for it, no remorse,
just we're the servants of sin. But if we absolutely hate what
we see in ourselves, if the guilt of what we are just sinks us
into an utter depression, just hating the fact that we don't
see what we want to see in ourselves. Paul said, I haven't arrived
yet. All of God's people say that. Oh, I haven't arrived yet. If we are begging God to one
day soon completely rid the presence of all sin away from us, the
chief one being self-righteousness. Self-righteousness, if that's
our deep inner desire, then that ought to tell us whose servant
we are. We are the servants of Christ and His righteousness. Verse 17, but God be thanked
that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from
the heart that form of doctrine, which was delivered you. How
do God's people obey the doctrine that has been delivered to them? In Christ. In Christ. God puts us in Christ and Christ
obeys it for us. And in Him, everything that He
does, we do. As He is, so are we. Verse 18 says, being then made
free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. Why are we free from sin? Because
Christ is. That's the whole reason. As He
is, so are we. Verse 19 says, I speak after the manner of men,
because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as you have yielded
your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity,
even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto
holiness. For when you were the servants
of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit had you then in those
things whereof you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is
death, but now being made free from sin and become servants
to God, you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting
life. He's saying when you were the
servants of sin, you had no desire for righteousness, totally free
from it. You fought against it, you were
at war with it, But he's saying now that you are the servants
of God, God has given you the ability to have no more desire for sin. A desire
that longs to be rid of sin. And even though that old man
is still here, go to war with him. Absolutely
go to war with him. Fight against, and the wording
of scripture is strive to kill, mortify. Kill the fruit of sin
and strive for, nurture and desire the fruit of righteousness. Here's
the fruit of righteousness. Love. Joy. Don't you love joy? Isn't joy
so much more wonderful than contention and strife and anger and faith? That's a fruit of the Spirit,
fruit of righteousness. Peace, isn't it so wonderful
when there's peace? Don't you love coming into a
place where peace is? Meekness, that describes one
of God's congregations. It's a meek place. Gentleness. long-suffering, patience, goodness,
all of these things. In Christ, God has given us that
fruit. And verse 22 goes on to say,
in the end, in addition to all that, everlasting life. Gift
after gift after gift. So let's strive to put these
gifts on. Because we have been made to
be children, may God give us that ability to act like his
children. All right, you're dismissed.