This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at gracetruth.org and anchoringfaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. But if we look at verse 13 in
Romans chapter 6, start reading with me there. We'll read down
through verse 19. your members to sin as instruments
for unrighteousness. But present yourselves to God
as those who have been brought from death to life, and your
members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will
not have dominion over you, since you were not under law, but under
grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are
not under law but grace? By no means. Do you not know
that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves,
you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which
leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
But thanks be to God that you are who were once slaves have
become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to
which you were committed, and having been set free from sin,
have become slaves of righteousness. I'm speaking in human terms because
of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented
your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to
more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness,
leading to sanctification. And verse 13 is... where we are,
and we've made it down through the end, I guess we made it through
there, but we didn't really talk about it very much last week,
through the end of this, but we did not really put it all
together. So tonight, I want to look at
verse 13 and just pass in to get our minds back in gear. Do
not present. So here's a command that Paul
has given. Do not present your members, your body, your mind,
your thoughts. your life. Do not present your
body, your members as sin, to sin as instruments for unrighteousness.
as weapons to be used for unrighteousness, as things to be done for wickedness. But rather the command then is
to present yourselves to God as those who have been brought
from death to life, and your members, your body, your life,
your heart, your mind, to God as instruments for righteousness.
So here's this command, and we looked at this last week, and
we've looked at this the week before even. What does it look
like to present ourselves to God as righteousness, as instruments
of righteousness. I mean, how can we do that in
the first place? Well, the truth be known, we
cannot. We cannot just come out of our seats and say, you know,
I'm going to present myself to God as an instrument of righteousness,
so here we go God, look at all the good I do. We know that's
not what Paul's talking about because Paul has already shown
that all men are sinful. and that their righteous works
are not righteous at all, except that they be done by faith, and
except they be wrought by the Spirit of God." So when we look
at this, we know that Paul is giving this command in a way
of practice, in a way of discipline, in a way of expression, because
we are dead in Christ, and therefore dead to sin, and now alive with
Christ, and then therefore we are alive to God. So have that
in mind as we go through verse 14. For sin will have no dominion
over you, since you were not under law, but under grace."
Since you were not under law, but under grace. Slaves to righteousness. So when we see what Paul is saying
here, it's very easy for us in our way of thinking, in our good
old day, to say, wow, sin is powerless against me. I will
never sin again. I should never sin again. Bad
things to declare. It's not a bad thing to desire.
But is it realistic? I think Paul posits that it's
impossible. But at the same time, he never
says that it is okay to continue in it. Never should grace give
a license for us to act in rebellion. Never should the work of Jesus
Christ and the escape of the penalty of sin give us the desire
and the ability or the heart to be able to go and run into
sin. Because sin has no dominion over
you. How is it that sin has no dominion over us? Dominion, by
definition, is something that rules, something that is our
head, our master, that which causes us to do all that we do.
Sin no longer has dominion over us. Of course, we know judicially
the debt of sin has been paid through Jesus Christ. We know
judicially that there is no penalty that we must pay for sin. I mean,
after all, did not Christ die? so that we might live? Did Christ
not suffer the guilt of sin that was not His? Did He not experience
the wage of sin that He did not commit? Jesus did not labor unto
sin that He might deserve death, but yet He took it anyway, freely
and willfully, so that the penalty of sin is paid by Jesus Christ. The debt of sin that we owed
eternally to God has been paid in Christ. Therefore, sin, having
no dominion over us because it has been put to death, has no
claim on us, has no claim against us. As we see the illustration
throughout Paul's teaching that where the accuser would come
and call us guilty, the advocate who is Jesus Christ, the righteous
one, would say, no, their sin has been atoned for. Justification
is theirs. The wrath is satisfied. Sin has
no claim, therefore sin cannot demand justice. The law even
cannot demand justice against us, because sin has no dominion
over us. I mean, think about that right
now. That is the outcome in the mind of the believer of the gospel.
It is that we have freedom in Christ. Not freedom to just live
like wicked people, but we have freedom from the law. Oh, happy
condition! John would say that those who
love the Lord, the law of God is not a burden to them, but
it is a delight. We delight in the understanding
of the law of God. We delight in the following after
the commands of Christ. As Jesus took them and dissected
them into two things, to love the Lord your God with all your
heart and soul and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself
on all the laws, do these two hinge. So that if we are to think
about what we are to do in the model of our Christian life,
it is found there in the Ten Commandments. It is found there
in the moral law. It is found there in the Decalogue.
Sin has no dominion. Therefore, it has no claim, it
can demand no justice, and it can bring no judgment. Sin cannot
cause judgment against us. As we'll see in Romans 8.1, therefore
now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
No matter the sin that we have committed, no matter the sin
that we will commit, if we are in Christ, we will not have condemnation. So therefore, The fact that sin
has no dominion over us gives us the liberty to express and
joyfully understand and comprehend with all the saints what is the
love of God and the depth and the width of it and the power
of it in all, that there is no judgment awaiting us. That way
we can see how the illustrations are shown us in the New Testament,
that we do not run and shirk back in fear, but we come bold
before the throne. We come bold before the judgment
seat of God. We come bold before our Father
in heaven. So sin has no dominion over you. Let's remember that
as we continue. The point then that Paul says,
since that is true, we are to present ourselves to God because
we are not under law but under grace, slaves to righteousness. Since you are not under law,
notice there's no definite article there in your English Bible.
I pray there's not. It should not say the law, but
it says not under law. Paul here is reminding the church
that God is faithful. We are not slaves. We are not
judged. We are not controlled by sin
any longer. It is no longer our master. So
God is faithful and we will not fail in our Presentation to God. Present yourselves to God, he
says, in verse 13. Why? Because you're not master,
you're not ruled by sin. You are not under law, but you
are under grace, slaves to righteousness. So therefore, present yourselves
to God. God, in His faithfulness, has established your righteousness,
and you are able to stand before God, perfect and blameless, because
of the finished work of Jesus. Present yourselves, therefore,
to God. do so also in the sense that we have the knowledge of
this grace, we have the knowledge of this gospel. And we know that
in judgment there is nothing to fear and in life there is
nothing to fear. That when we find ourselves falling
and failing and the flesh tempting us and sin tempting us and we
fall into temptation and we sin against God, it is short-lived
and the account is short because the debt is paid. We do not have
to hide these infractions from our Father because there is no
penalty. from them. This judgment is not
just now with a clear conscience, but it's also throughout the
entirety of our lives and also in the day of judgment when we
are glorified. We are perfect before the Lord,
so therefore we can present ourselves before Him. I mean, think about
how we usually operate in our economy of our mind. when we
are having a good run. I mean, what's your spiritual
run? A day? Three days? Week? Month? Four months? Well, you feel like, man, I just
haven't sinned in a long time. You ever felt like that? Nope,
me either. I'm just giving some people the
benefit of the doubt. Have you ever had, though, a
good run of a particular sin that really causes you discontent
and guilt? And then you look one day and
you say, I have not participated in that sin in some time. Sometimes
we'll see those things, and what we'll find is just a few days
later, it'll hit us straight in the face, just as a way of
reminding us Here it is. It's not gone. It is always present. But let's just imagine for a
moment that we made it one year without any particular rebellious,
willful sin that we could think of. Now, of course, we could
talk to the heart of the matter and know our consciousness and
know our thoughts, but no sin of action, no sin of words, no
sin of grief, anger, frustration, fear, doubt, or anything. What
a wonderful time that might be, though I think it would be weird. And then all of a sudden we find
ourselves falling into a sin, even if it's short-lived, we
fall into one ten-minute moment where we sin against someone
else or against our own conscience or in both situations we sin
against God. If God were in the other room,
is it part of our natural inclination to know we've just rebelled against
the judge of the universe? Should we go in there and hang
out as though nothing's happened? Should we come to God and say,
hey what's up God, how you been? With the aroma of wickedness
still lingering from where we caught it on fire in the next
room. All of us would say no. Because
we would feel guilty in that sense. As if we were doing, or
let's just say, let's do something very benign. We just don't want
to come to church for some reason. We're tired or aggravated or
just, I don't want to deal with it today. And we just sleep in
and the doorbell rings and it's Jesus. But let's be realistic. It's
the pastor or somebody from the church. Our first instinct is
to go, Oh, I don't want to talk to them. I don't want to see
them. So we used to go out, we were
in Savannah. Every week, whoever missed church on Sunday, they
got visited Monday. And there were 50 or 60 of us,
and we'd go in pairs of two, and we'd visit everybody who
did not come. And one particular place, we'd
knock the door, and we're never home on Monday, because they
knew that was the night we came out. And they missed like five
straight Sundays in a row. And so we told our team, I said,
you know what, we're going to catch these people. We're going to go on
Tuesday night. So Tuesday, we drive up in front of the house,
we can see the front door open from here to the railroad track.
They see us get out of the car, the door shuts, the blinds shut.
Get up to the door, knock on the door, nothing. Ring the doorbell,
nothing. And the guy that was with me goes, we know you're
in there! Knock on the door. Being funny, I mean. Finally
ring the doorbell and somebody goes, no one's home! And I said, well, when they get
back, tell them the church came by and we miss them. We'll leave
a note. And we just left. We never went
back. We get the hint. Why do we do that? Because there's
a sense of guilt sometimes that we carry with us. We feel guilty. And it's not a bad thing to feel
guilty when we sin. It's a good thing, praise God,
that we know we're convicted of it. But to remain in guilt
to the point that we hide from God in our spiritual sense. I
mean, let's just test ourselves. Do we run to the Scripture when
we find ourselves in sin? Or we feel like, I can't read
the Bible right now. I just sinned. You ever slung
a fit and lost your temper? Where's my Bible? I just gotta
get in my Bible. Sit down with Jesus, get my pen out. Yes, that's
what you should do. You should not not go to the
Bible. You should run to the Bible. You should run to prayer.
But that's not the natural instinct, is it? The natural instinct is
to move the other way. Friends, the Bible says to present
ourselves to God. And that's whether we're walking
in a manner worthy or running like a weird rebellious teenager. We present ourselves to God.
We don't clean up. We don't hide. We don't do like
Adam and Eve and sew clothes for ourselves to cover our guilt
and our nakedness before God. God sees all. He knows all. We are in His face at all times.
And there is no judgment from God our Father because He crushed
Jesus Christ instead of us. So therefore, we can present
ourselves to God. Because God is faithful. He's
prepared us. I like how Paul says it to the
church of Colossae. He says that He's prepared us
for to be an inheritance. To get the inheritance with all
the saints. Go there for a second. Colossians
1. Listen to how he says this. I want to read it verbatim. And so, from the day we heard,
verse 9, Colossians 1, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking
that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will and all
spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy
of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good
work and increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with
all power according to His glorious might, for all endurance and
patience with joy." Now, think about that. for to present ourselves
to God as instruments of righteousness. This is a good picture of how
Paul prays for that to look in our lives. He says, I thank God
And I pray to God and asking Him to what? Fill you with all
the knowledge of His will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding
so that you can walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing
to Him. And here's what it looks like.
Bearing fruit in every good work. Increasing in the knowledge of
God. Being strengthened with all power which belongs to God,
not us. All power. What kind of power?
The power according to His glorious mind. His power. Does God not have the power to
carry us into good works? Does God not have the power?
He had the power to crush His Son that He might present us
holy and blameless. He then has the power then to
permit us and to equip us to present ourselves to Him. But
isn't that what sin does? The smallest temptation causes
the greatest grief. And then we run from God, and
we hide from God, and we move into not a spiritual place, but
into a fleshly place. Lawlessness produces lawlessness
produces lawlessness. So we obey God with our attitudes,
relationally with each other. That's a very common thing. And
then instead of coming to God and presenting ourselves to God
as we are in Christ, with all knowledge that we are righteous
before Him in Christ, we then what? We add into more lawlessness
by not coming and presenting ourselves to God, by not walking
in a manner worthy. We decide, well, I've got to
fix all this, I might as well just jump in the fire. I smell
like smoke, I might as well destroy myself in the flames. Why do
we do that? Because that's what we do. being
strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, with all
endurance. That means we can stand under it. And all patience.
And here's the key. With joy, verse 12, giving thanks
to the Father. Here is what we're seeing. This
is what I wanted to get to. Giving thanks to the Father,
Colossians 1.12, who has qualified you. The Father has qualified you.
The Father has qualified you to what? To share in the inheritance
of the saints in light. You see? So we present ourselves
to God because we are qualified to share in the inheritance with
the saints, with light, in the light of Christ. God has qualified. How has He done that? How has
He done that? When He's done that, He has delivered
us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom
of His beloved Son, in whom the Son, in whom we have redemption,
the forgiveness of sins. That's how He's qualified us.
We are forgiven. We are redeemed. Christ has paid
for us by His blood. That's how I stopped this last
week. Christ bled in His temptation,
ergo we do not have to bleed. And if we did, we'd never be
able to stop bleeding in our suffering. and we are forgiven. So we are presentable to God,
therefore we are to present our members to God, our bodies, our
lives, our thoughts. Romans 12 really paints the greatest
picture as it culminates here, the work of God here, the work
of the flesh. The work of the flesh, the work of the flesh,
what does it do? Dies. We're dead. Oh, but God is alive,
and Christ is alive, and we are alive in Christ. So then, therefore,
we present ourselves to God, and sin has no dominion over
us, because God is faithful, He has redeemed us, He has transferred
us into the light of His Son, and we are forgiven. So we are
under, not law, but grace. So that we are now in practice,
We're back to Romans 6. We are in practice, in discipline,
in the doing. Present yourselves. We're presenting.
Here I am. Ta-da! See? Here's what I'm going
to do, Lord. I'm going to do it this way.
Here's what I'm going to say. I'm going to say this, not what's
on my mind. I'm going to go here, not where
I'm being tempted to go, etc. We're going to do, in practice,
For no other reason that we know the knowledge of grace and we
know the power of grace. For no other reason. We're not under law, but under
grace. We're going to walk in that way imperfectly in practice. What does that look like? It's
everywhere. There's not one Pauline epistle that doesn't have a list
of things that we should put to death. Sexual immorality, smart aleckness,
sarcasm, anger, pride, arrogance, hostility, selfishness, foul
language, disobedience to parents. Paul talks about Timothy in Colossians. Put it away! Stop! We strive
to that end because of the knowledge of grace that God has given us
as a gift, that faith as a gift, that we trust in the sufficiency
of Christ. We are not alive to sin any longer
because God has declared us that way and Christ has paid for the
way for that truth. And that brings me to this reality
that God is truthful. You know what? Faith in Christ
really represents that we believe God is truthful. And we believe
that God's truth is effectual. And we believe that God's effectual
plan of redemption has a causality to it. The effect that it has
on us is that we are really not seen through the eyes of God
as wicked any longer. What then? Verse 15. It's okay. Great. Sin has no dominion over
me. It's all paid. It has no claim.
There's no justice to come my way. There's no judgment to come
my way. So I can present myself to God as an instrument for righteousness
because I'm not under law, but I'm under grace. Therefore I'm
a slave to righteousness. What then? He asks the question
again. Are we to sin because we are
not under law, but under grace? By no means. Let's unpack that
for a second. I mean, under law. Not under
the law, but under law. This is the moral law. And if
we can compartmentalize it in that sense, it's sort of like
the covenant of works. You do this and you live. If you obey
me, Adam, you live. If you don't, you will die. You
will die. And Adam tells Eve, and Eve is
deceived, and here we are. Here we are, all under the plan
of God's sovereignty. Why? So that He would receive
glory for His grace in the redemption of His people. And there's nothing
greater than that. The moral law is a covenant of
works. We are no longer under it. I want you to think about
the law in that sense when Paul says, under law, as if the law
sits atop of us like a tombstone, like a slab. under it. We're judged under it. We're
killed under it. The letter kills. It doesn't
mean that we don't strive to obey it. It doesn't mean that. Paul doesn't
say, we're not under law, so just live like you want. That's
the very point of chapter 6. We're not going to say it. We
just do what we want to do. Or do anything the world says is
okay. We're still going to be commanded to follow the law. Not all of it, but just the Decalogue,
just the moral law, the Ten Commandments, just the two laws that Jesus
says. We're called to obey those, and
as saints, we can, but not perfectly, and not unto righteousness. And
we'll see that in a moment. The Old Testament saints, a lot
of people say, well, they were under the law. No, they were, but they
were not under law in the context of their hope. They were under
the grace of God, with the hope of their Savior, one day coming,
Messiah, and rescuing them from the penalty of the law. The Old
Testament saints, so then in that covenant, were not under
law, they were under grace. though they had the full law.
And the believer is not under law, nor under the law unto condemnation,
nor is he under the law unto justification." That means that
we don't obey the law for fear of death, for we all have already
sinned and fall short of the glory of God because of our federal
head, Adam. And we also do not obey the law
so that we might be right before God and thus earn something. are justification. Those who
either trust in their works for justification, or those who trust
in their works as evidence of their justification, or those
who boast in their ability to obey God by faith in order to
present themselves righteous before God, are under the control
and the dominion of sin, and the works that they produce are
dead works. So therefore, they are still under law. It's confusing, but over the
next three, tonight and two more weeks, I hope it'll have a better
picture for us. We're not under this in our lives
or our minds. Therefore we have a clean conscience
because of the blood of Christ. Hebrews chapter 9. For if the
blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons
with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh,
how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience
from dead works to serving the living God. See, what Paul tells
us there in Hebrews 9 is the same thing he's telling these
Romans here, is that those who continue to try to satisfy God
in any way unto life with obedience are failing to see the reality
and the efficacy of grace. and that grace is so perfect
in what it does, there is no reason, listen to what I'm saying
and don't throw me away, I'm not an antinomian, there is no
reason for obedience in that picture. But because we are by
grace saved to the uttermost and Christ has satisfied all
the requirements of God's justice, and the covenant that God has
made with His people to save them through Christ's blood.
Therefore, the product of that purposes that we are no longer
then slaves to sin, but slaves to righteousness, so that we
can offer ourselves and our desires to the glory of God. Because we are not under law,
we are under grace. This means to remind us that
God has satisfied, He has satisfied the conditions of election. God,
let me say that again, has satisfied the conditions of election. God
has satisfied the conditions of justification. God has satisfied
the conditions of forgiveness. So the promise of grace is fulfilled
in Christ who satisfied all of the conditions on our behalf. And as I said last week, I will
say again, therefore now we live in an intimate place with God
because of Jesus Christ. We have intimacy with God. We
are friends with God. We are the object of God's affection
because of what Christ did to satisfy the conditions of all
of these things. Christ has done them. And we are united with Christ,
therefore we are united with God, therefore we are dead to
sin. So in a nutshell, Paul's saying,
so because this is true for you and there's nothing you can do
to change it because God is faithful and able to save to the uttermost,
live like a king's kid. Why don't you? You're a child of the king. You
have the full inheritance. You've been qualified for all the glorious
things that are promised and are yours automatically already
in Jesus Christ like we saw in Ephesians 1. Live like it. Swap that way. I mean, that's
as simple as this is. And it's very hard to piece it
out because Paul just pounds it. That's it. Live like you belong
to Christ. Don't prove anything to Him.
Don't strive to make Him happier and say, look at me. But you
belong to Him. His eye is already there. So
live like it. Live like it. You're a child
of grace. Here's Paul's favorite way of
putting it. You're a child of the promise. You're a child of the
promise. You're dead to sin. You have
a new nature, and that nature is righteousness. And it's not
yours, it's alien. You realize that? Our righteousness
is an alien righteousness. It's not ours. It's Christ's. It's from the outside. Not from
the inside. It's that it's Christ's righteousness,
it's ours. So we live desiring to put away
evil, to run from temptation, to reject worldliness, and run
to Christ. God then works in us in this
state of grace. He works in us because we are
under grace. And what He purposes and what
He declares is good before Him. He can cause us to walk in it.
Grace produces the confidence that we are in Christ alive forever,
never to feel the sting of death due to our disobedience, which
is always before us. Christ has taken possession not
just of our guilt, but because He took possession of our guilt
and God the Father poured out His judgment and justice upon
Christ to satisfy the conditions of election. Guess what? We now
have been taken by Christ. Christ has taken possession of
us. We belong to Him. And because
we belong to Him, our hearts and our minds belong to Him.
Paul says this in many ways throughout all of his writing. One way in
which he says to the Philippians, have this mind among you which
is yours in Christ Jesus. You think Paul's just trying
to teach us some kind of weird stuff? No, he's just very matter-of-fact
saying, hey, you've got the mind of Christ. Just have it. Have
humility. So this covenant of grace is
sealed and it cannot be changed, it cannot be eradicated, it cannot
be rejected because it is sealed by the blood of Christ, the righteous
one. It is done. It cannot fail. Jesus took our
guilt, He bled, He died, He came to life, and now we live. We
live. Therefore, let us not give our
bodies to wickedness, but let us give our bodies and our lives
to righteousness. So should we continue to sin?
By no means. I'm going to say something right here that can
separate me from a lot of people, so be it. But the moral law is
not thrown away. Whoever had the idea that when
Jesus says, I came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it, meant
He threw it away anyway, has lost their mind. The rule of
law is something that the church should see as the rule of life. Let me say that again. I was
trying to figure out how I want to say it. The rule of law, and that's probably
bad. I don't even know. I haven't
even thought that through. I'm just popping it out here.
But the Ten Commandments, the two commandments, should be the rule of life for
the believer. How we relate to each other should be seen How
we love each other should be seen. How we speak to each other,
how our hearts are guarded, and how we know when we're doing
and living in the flesh is shown to us through the Ten Commandments,
shown to us through the Law of God, which is a display of His
righteousness, according to Paul in Romans 3. Don't we want to
know what righteousness looks like? And how we relate to God is found
there. It is our rule of life. It is
the rule of life for the regenerate. And we are free from the Law,
not so that we can just ignore it, so that we can embrace it,
so that we can love Christ and His righteousness as the Law,
as the Ten Commandments show the picture of our Christ. Not just the picture of His holiness,
but the picture of His human righteousness as well. That He
fulfilled all of that fully in every breath for thirty-four
years. and eternally." We are free from the law and
that we are no longer in fear of its condemnation because of
our failed obedience. We are free from the law because
we are not judged by the law. Paul has already established
this. For the righteousness of God was manifested apart from
the law, though the law and the prophets gave witness to it. What does it say? The righteousness
of God is manifested through what? Through Christ. God put forth Christ as propitiation. The righteousness of God is seen
in the crushing of Jesus because He is the just and the justifier
of all who believe. He forgave and forbade judgment
on every believer from Adam today. and Christ sealed and paid for
it. So we are free from the obligation
to fulfill our justification by the obedience of the law,
and we are, as I've already said, we are free from the fear of
its condemnation because of our failed obedience to the law.
That's what it means to be free. Not free to sin, that's stupid.
Free to live. Free to live freely, intimately
with God through Jesus Christ. It is impossible to fulfill our
justification through obedience. It is impossible to prove our
justification through obedience. Because all that we do, though
we will do, is imperfect. Paul continues this argument
in verse 16, 17, 18. See if I can get through this.
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient
slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of
sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to
righteousness? Now there are some crackheads,
sorry to say it that way, that have said that that word righteousness
there should be translated justification. That word righteousness there
is not justification. And he says, don't you know?
Do you not know? This is not special revelation. This is general knowledge that
all men know this truth. All men know that if there's
a slave that obeys his master, he's a slave to that master. Your slaves are the one you present
yourself to service to every day. You're the slave of the
one for whom you dress for every morning. You're either available for this
master or you're available for that master. Which master? You've
got to be available to one master. And Paul is saying, don't be
available to sin because it's no longer our master. Christ
is our master. So, we're available for sin and
death or obedience and life. Not both. A slave doesn't live
for himself. No one lives for himself. People
say, well, I'm free to do what I want to do. And I can live
for myself and I'm free in that. No, you're not. You're a slave
to sin. A slave doesn't live for himself.
All men are slaves to something, one's own flesh. Though he may
think that he's satisfying his own flesh, he's actually a slave
to evil, and he will feel the recompense of justice and righteousness
in the day of judgment. It is evil that he serves, not
himself. And we know by our own lives,
but also by those who testify, that there is no way in this
life that any person living for themselves and satisfying their
flesh No matter how good and holy or righteous it might be
in the world's ways, or how lucidiousness and wicked it might be in the
world's ways, it's never satisfying. See, our works, we work unto
the wage of our labor. Paul is saying we can work unto
death or we can work unto life. All men have the first as a guarantee,
death. But some, some, have the hope
and the certainty of the second, which is life. Christ, listen
to this, Christ has earned the wage of obedience. Did you hear
that? Christ has earned the wage of
obedience and we get that payment. Our labor cannot produce life,
no obedience in any human. can produce life. So to Christ,
who worked on our behalf and gave us His wage, we are to serve
up our lives as a slave. Obedience cannot be unto justification.
Following the commands of Christ as a believer is congruent with
our new nature. And what is our new nature? Righteousness.
Following these commands as a believer is congruent with our new nature
and our new discipline. We want to be a slave for Christ.
That's called obedience. That's called obedience. And
I have to finish 17, 18. It's one thought. I mean, it's
just closing this out. But if I don't do 17 tonight,
we'll leave here going, OK, I need a reminder. How do I do this
again? But thanks be to God. that you were once slaves of
sin, who once slaves have become obedient from the heart to the
standard of teaching which you were committed and walking. God is the author of it all. We believe in monergistic, not
meeting God and working together with God, synergistic. but monogistic,
the movement of the power of all of our salvation, faith,
and everything is all of God. So is all the works. How many times do we have to
see that? Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 through 10. It says
there in 9 and 10, For we are God's workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus to do good works, which we must figure out on our
own and walk in them. No, it doesn't say that. It says,
which He prepared beforehand. And then in John 3, at the tail
end of the discourse with Nicodemus, says, This is the judgment, Jesus
says, that the light has come to the world, but people love
the darkness rather than the light because their works are
evil. Nicodemus, you don't love the
light because your works are evil. Teaching the Bible, praying,
sacrificing, serving others, being benevolent, being kind,
doing everything for the sake of the temple worship and worshiping
Yahweh and doing all of that is evil. Your works are evil,
but all who come to the light do so, so that it may be clearly
seen that their works have been carried out by God. God is the author of it all.
We thank Him. We trust in Him to work these
things in us because we belong to Him. We have been bought by
Christ. We were once slaves to sin, but
now we are slaves to righteousness. We are obedient from the heart. Obeying the commands of Scripture
for the regenerate person comes from a loving heart who loves
his Redeemer, you see. not from a fearful heart who
fears his judge." We love Christ? Of course we do. Why? Because
He first loved us. So therefore, why would we want
to do anything except express gratitude and
love to Him? We cannot do that perfectly,
but that is who we are. That is who we are. We love in
the heart and we love in the mind because we are free in Christ
to do so. We are free to follow His commands
by grace, by faith. And I know a lot of people, and
I'm working through this mindset, but I believe that there is an
obligation for me as a child of God in my love to run after
Christ in my discipline. But I know that it is only by
God's grace and His power, by the Spirit, that I will do these
things. So where is the discipline for
me? What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to measure
my day? That's why I used that extrapolated
example so poorly earlier about when we do something wrong, we
don't really want to face the people we've offended. We hide.
We don't hide. Quit hiding from the grace of
God. We cannot escape it. It's ours. Let our minds be renewed. Let us run to Christ. How do we do that? In prayer
and in the Word, and in fellowship with each other. Friends, I know
it is hard to be here Wednesdays. It is difficult. It's difficult
for all of us. It's difficult for me to be here
Wednesdays. I'm exhausted today. Very exhausted. But supernaturally,
in the discipline of assembly, God lifts us out of the mire
of temptation in our flesh and places us, even though it may
be temporal, maybe, even though it is temporarily, for a moment, we have a taste
of grace. Because we're listening, we're
hearing, we're learning, being reminded, and we have it. Thank
God that we trust in Him and His work because He purchased
us and He's given us now the standard of teaching in His Word. Look what it says there, "...by
the standard of teaching to which you were committed, the standard
of teaching here, the grace of God has given to us the gospel." The Spirit of God, the grace
of God has given us the Spirit. The grace of God has given us
the grace which is ours in Christ Jesus in order to, what does
Paul say? I pray that you may stand with all endurance and
patience in the knowledge of God the Father who has qualified
you to receive the inheritance. Because
you've been snatched out of the darkness and thrown into the
light of Christ. Because you're forgiven and you're
redeemed. He's bought you. Wow! What else? could be happening
in life that is much more glorious than that. You know what it'd
be like, and this would be a terrible example? I mean, none of us are
destitute, but if we went home and it was a certified check
for one million dollars taped to our front door, I don't know
that we would have much complaining for the next few days, would
we? It would change our attitudes. I'm not kidding. As it should. Wow, I'm out of debt and look
at the people I can help. Look what I could do with this.
My goodness. Why is it that the gospel and
the Son of God dying and setting us free from the penalty of the
law is not much more glorious than a million-dollar check? See, that could bring great conviction,
couldn't it? I'm just a terrible Christian. I don't love Jesus
more than a million-dollar check. Yes, you do. But that million-dollar
check, oh, so satisfies the flesh for a few days. A few days? Man, I'd be happy for a month.
No, you wouldn't. You put it in the bank, and then the IRS
wants 60% of it. And you had nothing, and now
you've got $400,000, and you're still griping. Man, I ain't got
but $400,000. We'll never be satisfied in the
temporality of what we see in this life, but we can always
be satisfied, even if brief moments throughout every day, in the
riches of His glory, which is the gospel of grace. And the Law, the Ten Commandments,
the Scripture, the things that were taught by the apostles and
by Jesus in the New Testament, are for our joy because it is
to remind us of the righteousness of God and the love of God. And
when we walk in a manner worthy and we follow after Christ, it's
like taking that check to the bank and going, put this in my
checking account, please. And if any of you are like me,
you've got a few banks you'd like to go put a few hundred thousand
dollars in and then ten days later take it out. Oh, I'm sorry, I changed my mind.
I'm going to go over here." And that's haughty and petty. But you know what I'm talking
about. Back to the sublime. The standard of teaching to which
you were committed You know who you are, and you know what God
has done for you, and you know the grace through which you are
saved. You know the power of God to secure your righteousness.
You are righteous before God, so rejoice in it, and walk in
thankfulness. Be disciplined to the things
that you have learned, to stay in them, and be reminded of the
power of Christ in you, which is life, not death and sin. And He closes, "...and having
been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness."
We're slaves. Now I want you to understand,
being a slave doesn't mean that we like everything that we're
called to task on. But we do it. The difference in following what
Paul is teaching here, being a slave to someone else, is that
we've been given life. Versus, on our own terms, being
slaved to sin, we get what is due us, which is death. Here,
we have. This commitment in life is not
a complete removal of the temptation of life or a sinless perfection,
but is the full hope that our lives, in every breath, in every
heartbeat, with every thought of the mind, can be fully devoted
to God. by the grace of God. And thus
we are devoted to the working of what is good, righteousness,
what Paul calls righteousness, that which is good. It's right
before God, that's what it means, right before God. It's not a
positional righteousness, it's just a righteous thing. Because
of what Christ has done, walk in this way because this is your
master. Let's pray. Oh Lord, the recapitulations
of Paul, Father, just blow my mind. There's so many ways of
going and running parallel with all the other writings and taking
months and months and months, but Father, by the grace that
You've given us, by Your Spirit, Father, You'll help us to see.
You'll help us to see and learn and know what it is You've called
us to. The primary reality of what you're
teaching us in this letter is that the work of redemption is
all of you and nothing we do pre or post your work will do
anything to change your satisfaction with us. And our hope is not
in these things, but fully in Christ. Lord, work in us to will
and work by your good pleasure all that you've prepared before
us, no matter how temporal they may be in season, and how imperfect
they may be in life. Father, we trust in You. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening.
We hope that this message has encouraged you in the faith.
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