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. Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6. Let's pray
as we begin. We love You, Father, and we're
glad that You are abundantly able to love us in spite of us,
Lord, and effectually able to love us in Jesus Christ, on whom
you placed our guilt and sin, on whom you are satisfied, with
whom you are satisfied in holiness and righteousness. And Lord,
as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, we are
glad that we can entrust ourselves to you, the gracious God, the
Savior. So as we come to Your Word tonight,
Lord, let us do so with fear and trembling, with great trepidation,
to know that we are coming to hear Your words, not just read
a story. We're not just coming to learn
something interesting about a subject or a topic. Father, we are seeing
Your self-revelation to us. We are getting a glimpse into
Your majesty, Your holiness, the measure of Your ineffability,
Father, that we may not know You deeply and perfectly, but
God, forever we shall always be learning who You are. We praise
You for the grace to see and to believe on Jesus Christ, who
took our sins on Himself and gave us His righteousness. Father,
I pray for so many who continue to struggle in their faith, to
struggle to believe, to struggle to see, that you might, by your
Spirit, God, open their eyes and cause them to see. Save them. Birth them anew. And we pray
these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Romans chapter 6. There are so many questions that
Paul brings to the table as we go through this particular chapter. It's almost like the chapter
of questions, and then chapter 7 would also be a chapter of
questions. As a matter of fact, Paul loves
this mindset of continually asking questions. And when we see them,
he always typically answers them very solidly and succinctly,
but sometimes he leaves it open for his readers to consider what
it is that Paul is actually asking or inquiring. And most importantly,
we know that a question of the rhetorical nature is not one
that always is going to be answered, but sometimes just for the thought
of the listener answering the question on their own. So we
have some of these things happening in the book of Romans, but in
chapter 6, we really see Paul answering every single one. And in this section that we were
in last week, If we'll start in verse 5, I'm going to read
down through verse 14 and then I'm going to pick up in verse
11 tonight. So let's start, verse 5 of chapter
6. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His,
we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like
His. We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order
that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we
would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has
been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ,
we believe that we also live with Him. We know that Christ
being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer
has dominion over Him. For the death He died to sin
once for all, but the life He lives, He lives to God, verse
11. So you also must consider yourselves
dead to sin and then alive to God in Jesus Christ. Let no sin
therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members 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 or sin will have no dominion over you since you were not under
law but under grace." And then he starts with his questions,
what then? And then are we to continue in
sin because we are not under the law but under grace? We're
not going to answer this again tonight. Verse 11, we see this
word so. So gives us the outcome, or the
expression of, because these things are true doctrinally,
therefore so this can take place. So now Paul starts to look, and
if you remember what we did last week, and you saw me flipping
my hands back and to over here, when Paul begin to give the comparison. He would say, you know, that
Christ died and then Christ lives, and Christ died and then we died,
and then we live because Christ lives. And so there's this comparison
between what has been put to death and what is alive. And
all of it hinges on what Christ has done by dying, and in so
dying He died to sin, and in so dying we died in Him, and
therefore He is dead to sin, we then also are dead to sin.
And then He's been made alive, He's alive in the flesh, He's
alive in the Spirit, He's alive to God, so therefore we are also
alive to God. And then we get to the so of
verse 11. We saw last week and the week
before that we know these things, we have the knowledge of these
things, we have the learning of these things given to us by
the grace of God, so that we all know the gospel, we know
the truth, and not just with our minds, but we know these
things in our hearts because we've been born of God, and He's
given us faith that we might trust in Christ, not just know
of Christ. So that we know that the truth
of Christ is effectual, that the work of Christ is sufficient,
and that the death and the life of Christ is always powerful
in the life of His church. So then, he says, you must consider
yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let's
talk about that verse 11 for just a few moments. We consider
ourselves dead to sin because we are alive to God in Jesus
Christ. What Paul is doing here is he's
referring to this divine spiritual newness, this new birth, this,
as we hear him say other places, we are new creations in Christ.
Now, we've all heard the dialogue in the last few months and even
if it hasn't been something that we've witnessed, we've had in
our own mind. Well, what does it mean then
to obey the Lord as a Christian? Is it necessary? Yes, it's necessary.
But it is not effectual unto righteousness. It's not effectual
unto salvation. It is something that God has
commanded us and here that God has equipped us to do. Now is
that obedience perfect? Absolutely not. Is it always
on time? No. And therefore we will struggle,
as we've already seen and as we'll also see here, with the
temptation to sin. But it does not mean that we
have to struggle in the giving in to the flesh. We do not have
to struggle with constantly giving in to sin. And this is where
Paul is bringing this argument then to recapitulate the fact
that because we are healed. Verse 15 and on for a couple
of verses he just like restates everything he's done from verses
1 to 11. And then he starts to talk about being a slave. To
righteousness, not a slave. To wickedness. So here we have
a divine spiritual newness, and this divine spiritual newness
is what reigns in us. This is life. In Him was life,
and this life was the light of men. Remember John 1? Jesus is
the light of the world. Jesus is the light of heaven.
In Genesis chapter 1, in the beginning, God said, let there
be light. This light of self-revelation.
God created something to behold Himself. And now we see that
the light of Christ is the beholding of the glory of God in its fullness.
And it's not that I made that up. It's that John, the Gospel
writer, tells us that very clearly. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. He was with God
in the beginning, and He made all things. There was nothing
made that He did not make. In Him was the light of men,
was life, and His life was the light of men. Here we see that
Jesus Christ is God, and He is made known God. Verse 14, come
in the flesh, and then... On down through 15, 16, 17, 18,
we see that Jesus is the light, who is the Lord, who is God,
who is the Son, and who is the Word, and He makes God perfectly
known. The God that cannot be known
apart from Christ now is known. This newness, this life, is what
reigns in us because we are in Christ. Death no longer reigns.
It no longer reigns in the sense of our judgment. We do not wait
for the second death. Yes, our bodies will die, hallelujah. I don't need this old body. I'm
looking forward to the new day and glorification when I'm given
my new body. Now our Preterists, I won't even
say siblings because it's hard to say, but our Preterist friends
might argue that and say there is no resurrection, but I believe
that the gospel is shown so completely with the promise of glorified
bodies that for us to ignore that is for us to pave something
over Paul. thus add to and take away from
the Word of God. But if you see what Paul says
here in verse 11, what does he say? He says, so you also must
consider You must consider yourselves dead. So here's the command. The command is to consider. So
as Paul commands us, therefore as God commands us, he's saying
consider yourselves. So we, as I said last week, we
should look at ourselves in light of the gospel of grace. We should
look at ourselves in light of the death of Christ and in light
of the life of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. So we
look at ourselves this way, that we live in Christ by faith. Therefore by faith we know, and
we can consider what we know, we know that we are no longer
slaves to sin, but we are alive. Now let's just unpack that for
just a moment. Why is it so often that we find people today that
say, I just can't overcome this sin, I just can't get rid of
this sin, I just can't stop this sin. What does that say in comparison
to this. What it says is that Paul is
wrong, Jesus is not right, and that there is something amiss
with the teaching and the doctrine of Scripture that tells us that
we are not a slave to sin. I think what happens is we mistake
the battle over sin as being defeated by it. I don't think
that we're wrong, I think we're just speaking wrongly. Because
we're not promised that we're not going to struggle. We're
not promised that we're not going to be tempted. We're not promised
that we're not going to ever sin. We are promised that when
it arises, it will not reign in us. It will not reign in us
judicially and it will not reign in us spiritually. But by golly,
it feels like it reigns in us physically, doesn't it? I mean,
and that's why I can't understand many people who say that they
live a sinless life. I've had that conversation this
week three times with three different people about someone else telling
them that if they're in Christ, they will never sin again. And
I want to meet these people face-to-face and in private, get them to share. The reason I say private is because
when I get through, it's going to be embarrassing. But I want
them to privately share with me all of the righteousness that
they've mustered just in that day. I want to hear them say
to my ears as a confession of the testimony of the righteousness
of God and the gospel of grace that they have walked perfectly.
And the question that Jesus said, you know, somebody came to Jesus
and confessed that same thing. Remember that. Well, a lot of
people came to that. But one particular is the rich
young ruler who came to Jesus and Jesus says, you must be perfect
in the law, you must be holy. And what did he say? Oh, I've
done that. Ever since my youth I've followed these things. So
Jesus does what we should do. Do you love the Lord your God
with all your soul, your heart, your mind, your strength? Yes, he would say, wouldn't he? See, that's how delusional people
get when they really think they love the Lord. Yeah, I love the
Lord. I get up and I do Jesus jumping jacks and I do Father
push-ups and Holy Spirit swirlies and burpees. I mean, you know,
rah, I'm ready. That's not loving the Lord. You mean you don't look in the
mirror every now and then and go, man, I wish this gray hair wasn't, I wish
it wasn't falling out. Man, I wish I had this. You never
lust after the things you see when you drive by the Chevrolet
dealership and you see that $4,000 billion truck with the blacked
out tires. You go, man, I'd love to have
that. Oh, I hate my old truck, my 2016. So old. And you go down the road a little
ways and you go, oh man, I need to put that to death. I don't
need to lust after that truck. That's a sin. You've done it already.
It's done. I mean, what do these people think when they're at
the ball field and they get mad at that bad call and the umpire
says, oh boy, that wasn't a foul ball. And everybody's standing
there and it's like the dude's running around the bases and
your team is losing because the stupid umpire called the wrong
thing. And you go, ah, that's sin. And it's worthy of damnation. Why? Why is it sin? Because you're
frustrated over an idol. Because let's don't pretend like
that that's not idolatry. You say, nothing wrong with it,
we're going to do it. I'm not telling you to go sin, but I'm
just going to tell you that there is no way to love something in
this world that there's not a hidden idolatry with it. I love music. And for years, I played my horns,
and I composed songs, and I led worship, and I did all sorts
of things. And all I'm thinking the whole time is, man, I am
loving God with my music. And you know what I love the
most? Even though I try to avoid it, I really love the most is
when people go, oh my gosh, I just, oh my land. And y'all play that
one. You play that solo on that horn. I'm just like, Jesus, Jesus. It makes me feel good. It strokes
my ego. Kenny G ain't got nothing. Let
me get that mop. I can be Kenny G. I mean, you know, we love
these things. So there's no sinless perfection
in the world. I mean, even my children are
idols. My wife is an idol. That's why I didn't make her
come tonight. I don't want to see her. She's not feeling well. We're to look at ourselves in
this way, that sin is no longer a master over us. We consider
this. We know these things. But we
don't say that we're perfect before Christ, except that Christ
is perfect on our behalf. So that's done, even though Paul
will bring it up again. We'll move through it very quickly,
but I have to reteach it. It's just a way of reminder.
But we also see this consider, and it just happens to be the
word I use, is the next thing that we see in this, we consider
ourselves dead to sin. This produces, because the gospel
produces a conviction. And when I say conviction, conviction
is not a negative thing. Even though we look at it as
a negative thing. You're convicted of the crime or you're convicted
of your sin. Great. But we are convicted. We have a conviction. We have
a strong confidence. We have a strong resolve. We
have a strong mind to say and know that we are indeed dead
to sin and alive in Christ. See, this is why we study the
Scripture. So that we might constantly be
reminded of these things. Sin is dead and because of that
we have the conviction to know that we must no longer excuse
ourselves in the action of it. Let me say that again. Sin is dead and we must no longer
excuse ourselves in the action of it. Isn't that what we like
to do? Isn't that what Paul's arguing
against now? We don't want to say, grace, grace. Oh, it's okay. God knows. Let me just... He
loves me. He's giving me grace. It's okay.
Let me just... Let me just spit all this sin.
Get out of my system. Let me go ahead and sow my sinful oats
and come back to the cross. Just come back to the cross.
Just come back to the cross. Well, that's good theology about
coming back to the cross. But how about we stop spitting
on the cross? We're dead to sin. So what do
we do? We don't excuse ourselves in
the action of it. We put it to death. We put our flesh to death. Why? Because it's dead already.
We're putting off that which is dead. And I know this is a
terrible thing to consider, but it's what Paul uses. In our body,
if our flesh is dead, in a spiritual sense, why do we want to hang
on to that which is dead and decaying? We're no longer slaves
to sin, but we're alive in Christ. This conviction teaches us that
we can and should have the mindset that we are enabled to put it
to death. Because why? We are alive to
God. Now, this is where I could really
just lose track and chase rabbits, and I could preach three or four
weeks, but I'm not expositing the totality of reading of Romans. We're reading Romans, and we're
trying to do it not in 20 years, but in two or less. I'm in a
hurry, but I know that we want to get the crux of this because
I want to get... I think I'm going to do Hebrews again. So when we think about being
alive to God, and we consider what that might mean, because
we've been told by Paul to consider it, to think about it, where
we are positionally with Christ, where we are spiritually with
Christ, we're to consider it. That means we're to think about
it, we're to look at it, we're to constantly have it on the
forefront of our mind. It should be the heartbeat of
our soul. In answering a question yesterday
in our theology class, I was asked about prayer. And I just
explained my prayer life to the class, and they all looked like
I was on drugs, because that's sort of how I feel when I pray.
But my prayer life is a continual thing. You know how you're at
the supermarket, or you're in the drive-thru to get you a soda
or something, and you're on the phone with somebody, and there's
somebody else in the car with you. So you're on the phone with
somebody, you pull up, you say, hold on a minute, and they don't
hear you say that. They don't hear you say, hold on. And then
you say, yeah, number two. And I'd like a large diet soda
with that. That'd be great. And do you want
anything? He goes, what? Who are you talking? What are
you talking? What do I want? Ooh. And they're talking. They're
all confused. And the person over there thinks you're talking
to the guy on the phone. So they're not telling the person on that.
That's fine. Drive around. No, I have more. What? I mean,
it's just a confusion. That's what my prayer life feels
like. It's constant. It's constant. With all the interaction
of life, with all the interaction of the world, I'm sitting over
here, it's like I'm trying to conduct four orchestras in three
different genres in two different locations. One through live television,
and they all have to be on the same beat so I can keep them
straight. My prayer life is a continual hodgepodge of near schizophrenia.
Now when I can get down and get into prayer, great. But then
it's my mind and the two or three voices that are in there that
are fighting against what I want to hear, so I pray out loud. So if any of y'all ever see me,
and I put my earbud in sometimes when I'm driving so people don't
think I'm crazy. Oh, he's just on the phone. Man, he's really
being respectful to whoever he's speaking with. You're so holy
and wonderful and awesome. That better be his wife, I'm
telling her. But it's that way. Our life is
that we're praying without ceasing. We're moving from one thought
to a prayer. We're moving from one observation.
It's like walking into the room and, hey, how you doing? It's
good. I'm glad you're back. All right. Well, I love you and everything's good.
And you're praying for people at the same time. I had to function
that way this past Lord's Day, and then on the same page, I
begin to feel really deep burden. And I'm trying to pray, I'm trying
to preach, and I'm feeling burdened. And I'm going, oh Lord, I'm going
to lose my thought. You know what's wrong with that?
Nothing. Because we're not professional preachers here. We're people. So if I ever have to just stop,
maybe I've just lost my mind. Because I'm burdened to pray.
What's the point of that? We're alive to God. God is alive
in us. We live with God constantly.
We don't just live with God like the Reformers would say, Quorum
Deo, in the face of God. Him looking at us like we would
watch an aquarium. He's in the water with us. He
is the water around us. And He's the life force in us. And I use those words very cautiously.
I'm not trying to be New Agey. And just soundbite. Our church
would fill up if I preached that stuff. We're alive to God. Where do
you get all that hubbub from? Jesus is our life. Do we not
sing that song? Where do we get that contextually?
It is not I who live, but Christ who lives within me. I live this
life by faith in the one who loves me and gave himself for
me. Christ is alive. I, James Tiffins,
is dead. And the sin of me is dead because
Christ killed it. It was on the cross. My sin was
nailed to Jesus. The record of wrongs, my guilt,
my record. My criminality, all of it is
nailed to the cross of Christ and it is nailed to the cross
in His flesh whereby He tore down the wall of hostility so
that I could be at peace with God and God would call me His
friend. We see these things to the writing
of the Corinthians, to the Galatians, and of course to the church of
Ephesus, Ephesians 1, even as He chose us in Him before the
foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless
before Him. We're alive to God because God
has elected us in Christ that we might be holy and blameless
for Him. So therefore, our sin has been put to death that we
might be counted as righteous. Ephesians 1.7 compels us, controls us is what
the word should say. The love of Christ controls us
because we have concluded this. We have been convicted of this.
We are able to consider this. We have the knowledge of this.
We have come to the right standing and the foundation on the rock
of this on which we stand and our gaze is affixed and our feet
are cemented on this. That one has died for all, therefore
all have died and He died for all. Those who live might no
longer, listen, live for themselves, but for Him they might live for
their who for their sake died and was raised, you see. This
is what Paul teaches holistically throughout all of his writings. consider ourselves alive to God.
How? By His divine power. Peter makes
that very clear. I think it's 2 Peter 1 that His
divine power is all that we need for life and godliness. Paul, Colossians 3, if then you
have been raised with Christ, you might say, well, how does
that look? What's it look like? Here's what I think it looks
like. Therefore, now that you have been raised with Christ,
seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated. Christ
is alive. He is above. So we look to Him. We seek the things that are above.
Seated where? At the right hand of God. Why
is that always reiterated to us? Because it is the guarantee
of our hope. The authority of Christ to finish
the work of redemption is encompassed in His authority to be at the
right hand of God. And the fullness of the essence
and the glory of God in all of His person and being is exemplified
and personified and pictured in Jesus, reflected through Christ. Not as an image-bearer, but as
an essence-bearer. All that God is, Christ is. All
the prerogatives of God Christ possesses. All of the authority
of God Christ yields. All authority in heaven and earth
given to Jesus Christ. He is at the right hand of God.
Then Paul commands in Colossians 3, Set your minds on things that
are above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you,
beloved, have died. See, think about that. Let's
put that in perspective. Let's put it in our own form,
in our own terms. You have died. If I have died,
you know what I don't have to do this weekend? Cut grass. If I've died, I don't have to
cut. I don't care if my bahia grass gets 35 inches high. I don't care because I'm not
here. I won't even know. If I have died, I'm not going
to worry about the mortgage in 12 days when it comes due again.
I'm not going to worry about it. I'm not going to worry about
it. We've been calling it a mortgage
because after you die, you still owe it. I'm not going to worry about
what I'm going to eat if I'm dead. I'm not going to worry
about anything for all of my earthly trials and troubles are
gone. They're gone. For you have died, Paul says,
and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who
is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in
glory. So we live this life hidden with
Christ, in Christ, which is hidden with God, who Christ now is seated
next to, God the Father, with all authority. And so all that
we are in this life is to be affixed upon His place and His
power and His position. and His promises. It just comes
too simply. We're alive. So what in the world
do we do by spending so much time considering the life that
we live and the power that we don't have and the struggle that
we can't overcome except that Christ is our victor? Why do
we spend so much time focused on these things instead of just
standing with a joyful smile and going, it doesn't matter? Easier said than done. I've eaten very little today,
time, and I've just had a bad sinus headache. But I can tell
you this, I might eat a loaf of bread when church is over,
because I burn a good 6 to 800 calories in an hour of teaching
for some reason. I run about 115, 125 beats per
minute when I preach. I don't know why. Resting heart
rate's at 60, 55. It's just the way it is. If I could preach all day, I'd
dry up to nothing and die happy. Never have to spend another dollar
on food. We consider the meal of our lives
as something that must be replenished, but yet when it comes to spiritual
necessity, we think we can just go for days. And that doesn't
make any sense to me, but yet I will do it. It doesn't make
any sense to you, yet we will do the same. We must consider
ourselves alive to God, and in doing so, in the practice and
the habit and the discipline of that which will sustain us
and fill us, we must come to the table of the morsel of glory,
which is the Word of God. We must eat of Christ, and He
is our sustenance. How beautifully this goes together
with what we're learning on Sundays. It blows my mind. And I don't
know if it's just coincidental in the path, but we're in chapter
6, and I know we're going to trail way past the chapters in
Romans that we are in John, but the theology is so perfectly
aligned. And because this is true, and
because we know that we put our mind on the things of eternity,
the things that are upward, the things that are Christward, the
things that are divine, We then know that the second part of
this verse here says that sin will not reign in our mortal
bodies. We use the word sovereign. A sovereign is one who reigns
fully, completely, over all things and every aspect of all things.
There is in the idea of the definition of sovereign, there is no way
for someone to even usurp or plot a coup against a true sovereign. So we know then that the kings
of history have never been sovereign, though their decrees may have
established in their own minds a vision of grandeur, they all
have been deposed, even if it is by disease. They're not sovereign. God, however, is sovereign. And
in that same way that sovereign illustrates reign, as a matter
of fact, the word reign is the second part of sovereign, Sin,
before God saved us in Christ, sin reigned in our mortal bodies.
It ruled us. It was our king. That's what's
crazy and it's something that I try to teach my children when
they start nyan-nyan at each other. You do not have to act
this way. You don't have to act this way.
You are not required to be in this conversation. You are able
to stop your anger, your mouth, your frustration by just being
quiet. No, I can't. No, you can't. Like
I said last week, you can't once you invite it in and let it poke
you in the eye. But when you see that coming,
the discipline of eating of that which is eternal is the power
of Christ in us through which we are sustained in mortifying
our flesh, putting it to death. Sin will not reign in your mortal
bodies means that we will not obey its passions. Isn't that
what he says? Let no sin therefore reign in
your mortal bodies. He didn't just make the statement sin is
not reigning. He says let not sin. So what does that supply us with?
The teaching that we can say no. Is it easy? If it was easy, we
wouldn't even be here tonight. If putting to death the flesh
was easy, I would not have a role as a teacher. We would not need
our Bibles, we'd take a couple of year Bible classes, we'd get
all the data we needed, and we'd be a really good society. But it's not easy. It will not
reign in us, we are not to let it reign in us. And Paul explained
how and what he means by that in just a minute when he talks
about members. So we can put to death the flesh because we
have died in the flesh with Jesus Christ. It is not by us that
we do this, it is by Christ that we do this. Now no time have
I said that this is your assurance, have I? No. And I've already
made that clear, what is our assurance? Our assurance is not
even our boldness, our assurance is not even our hope, our assurance
is not even our faith. Because, oh my goodness, I don't
know about you, but my faith can wane in a few minutes, much
less a few days, months, or years. Believe it or not, I mean, even
today I thought, what am I doing? What am I doing with my life?
That was a 90 second crisis. You ever had a 90 second crisis?
What am I doing, my Lord? What am I doing? And I am leading
these people down a rabbit trail of nonsense. No, I'm not. Christ, You are full for me. You are my satisfaction. Lord, You have established all
Your rule and every step of my life is in Your hands. I'm good. What causes that stuff? Nothing
causes it. It's just our flesh. It's just the tap on the shoulder,
the old mythological devil on the right side, angel on the
left, or whatever, and they're just whispering in our ears.
It's our flesh being tempted. It's what we are. It's what we
do when we're tired physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially,
relationally, parentally, or whatever else we might say, leave.
When we're exhausted, we're like, oh no, this train needs to stop. I quit. Now then, when we compound on
that, because what happens? We find ourselves starving in
the flesh. The flesh wants to feel. The flesh wants to experience.
The flesh wants some satisfaction. The flesh wants to taste, oh,
the sweetness of that fruit of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. How awesome would that fruit be? Could I just get
a bite? And we take the bite, and the
only pleasant thing that comes from that are the sound waves
of the crispness of the skin of that fruit biting into our
teeth. For by the time the sweetness
of that wickedness flows into the taste buds of our spiritual
tongue, we are guilty. And there's nothing we can do
but die. Why not recognize and consider
that we are dead already in Christ so now we can put to death the
flesh? However, this putting to death
is war, it is a fight, it is hard, it is not permanent. I
may fight today and tonight and I may be on fire for truth and
Christ is so alive in me, but I could walk out of this building
and be reminded of what I left before I came. I could be reminded
of what still sits on the shelf of my calendar that I do not
want to face tomorrow. I could be reminded of the weakness
of my own temptation. It is a war. It is a all-out
war. And there is no ceasing in the
fight. But Christ is our life, you see. Let's sing that at the end tonight. Romans 7-14, for we know that
the law is spiritual. Paul says, but I am of the flesh,
sold under sin, for I do not understand my own actions, for
I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.
And this is not an excuse for Paul,
but it's a reason all the more to fight, to put to death those
things that step us up and trip us up, as the writer of Hebrews
would say. In our fight against sin, we have never shed our blood,
he says. Never shed our blood. But Christ
has. Christ has. Oh, what glory would
it be for our enemies to take us and whip us and accuse us
and mock us and pull the skin from our bodies, parade us naked
down the streets and judicially offer us up to die in the place
of a murderer. And oh, what glory would it be
as they nailed our bodies to the cross and watched us bleed
if we were just to come off that thing in all majesty and just
breathe fire upon my enemies that they might see and feel
the mighty wrath of my sovereignty. Now see, that'd be a cool story. Oh, what temptation must have
been in the Christ as He had all authority that just with
His command the world could have vanished before Him. He could
have started with the glory that He had before and that everything
would be subject to His rule. What kind of temptation is that? But He stood not on that hope. He stood on the hope of the glory
of His dying. the glory of His death, the glory
of the cross, that He looked past the suffering to the glory
that was His, that through the redemption of His people, without
any hope outside of Him, He would be given the name that is above
all names, which was rightly Him before He ever became a man. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus has fought against sin
and temptation, but He has shed His blood. And in His blood we
are free. I've wasted all that time, haven't
I? Verse 13. It's not wasted, but
you know what I mean. Out of the love of God, And with
the Spirit of power we see this command, do not present your
members to sin as instruments, weapons, things to be used 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. Verse 14, for sin will have no
dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace.
I can already feel I might have to do 14 next week. Verse 13,
we have not reason, we have not reason, we have no reason to
present ourselves to evil. Have no reason to. We have no
reason to condition our lives to center around the desires
of our flesh. We have no reason to expose ourselves to these
temptations and offer a place at the table for our flesh. We
have no reasons. to present ourselves as instruments
for unrighteousness. He's saying, do not do this.
Do not offer your bodies. Do not offer your minds. Do not
submit to the sinful desires of the flesh. Paul is saying,
stop. Stop submitting to the flesh. Stop submitting to the flesh. Because sin is unrighteousness
and we are not unrighteousness. We are righteous. in Christ. Presenting our bodies to sin
as if we have signed up in its service and it becomes our master
and we its soldier. That's what Paul is illustrating
here in his language. And when we give ourselves to
the service of sin as a master, we do what is contrary to the
goodness of Christ and to the holiness that is our lot through
imputation. We have no reason to do so. But as we see here, it is not
just the negative command of do not present, but it says the
positive command of but present yourselves to God. Present yourselves to God. We
present ourselves to God and we have the power to present
ourselves to God because we can come bold before the throne of
grace. We can say to God, hey, daddy. And he looks at us and says,
my job. No matter how wicked our lives
might have been or how moral they may have been, we are guilty
equally before Him. And in that same way, how much
more abundantly righteous are we when we are clothed with Christ
as our sanctification, as our wisdom, and as our righteousness.
We present ourselves to God because of Christ, who is our righteousness.
Because of Christ, who is our propitiation. Because of Christ,
who is our death-bearer, our penalty-bearer. because of Christ
who is our life. And we don't just present ourselves
to God, just say, here I am, do with what you will, I hope
it's good. We present ourselves to God in
this context as instruments of righteousness. We do not serve
sin as our master. We serve Christ as our master.
We serve righteousness as our master, which is what the rest
of this chapter is talking about. This is the segue in order to
understand this connection. instruments of righteousness.
That means we live for Him and we live for His glory. It's all
bound in these commands that whatever you do in word or in
deed, do for the glory of Christ. Do everything you do for the
glory of Christ, for the name of Christ. Whatever you eat,
whatever you drink, The simplest things of life to the most extravagant
things that we might accomplish. We do for the glory of Christ.
And it does not earn us favor. It does not make us more righteous.
It does not sanctify us in any way. But we do it because God
loves us and we there in turn love Him. We live for Him. And we live by faith through
His Word or by His Word through faith, however you want to flip
that. We believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ as effectual
for our salvation and as effectual for our victory. And we believe
and we consider, back to that command, we consider. This is how we see ourselves
as we really are in Christ. Let us not consider how we see
ourselves in the trueness of our dead flesh, but let us consider
that we have been called the righteous ones of God. The righteousness
of God. So we see ourselves as we really
are in Christ, and we focus on these things, and we walk in
this manner, and we press in this way. Therefore we are those
who have been brought out of death into life, so then live
as though this is true. That's what Paul's saying. John
would say the same thing, but he's more myopic in his focus. He's more dealing with love and
affection. Paul's generally dealing with
things. We know that if we sin, we have
an advocate. We do not lose footing with God.
We do not lose our status as righteous. We do not lose our
sanctification. We do not lose ground because
there's no ground to gain by faith. Fully sanctified in Jesus
Christ and all of this life as we mortify the flesh and as we
struggle in our, quote, obedience. And I say quote because obedience
implies perfection and I have never been able to do that. I
can obey for a little bit, but a little bit of obedience does
not count as obedience. So I just, I like, language is
bothering me in that, so I like to give that caveat. Because God has an undying and
eternal love for us, we are motivated in this manner to continue to
walk in a manner worthy of the call that God has given us, effectually
because of His love for us. Paul says in Ephesians 2, because
of the great love with which God has for us, we are His and
we are alive. So then, We live in this motivation,
not out of fear, but out of love, by faith. God loves us. Christ
loved us and gave himself for us. So therefore, it is not I
who live, but I have been crucified with Christ. I stand because
Christ stands. And I stand on His righteousness,
so therefore as I see the temptation of my flesh which is dead, I
put it to death by faith and focus on that which is eternal.
I focus on that which is Christ that my life might emulate to
some small reflection, the perfection that I am looking forward to
in my glorification. We are able to stand. in victory
because Christ has finished the work. He is our hope. He is the Word that enables us,
Ephesians 6, to put on the full armor of God and take it up that
we may be able, listen, to withstand in the evil day and having done
all to stand firm. You see what we see there? It
is not going to be easy. The closest thing I can think
about is three situations in my life. One is the hurricane
we had the year before last. You just wait. And the wind blows
and you just wait. And you're like, any minute now,
the house is going to go to Toto Land or whatever, the Widders
of Oz, whatever that place is. Any day now, any minute, you
sit there and you're like, okay, Lord, I'm trusting in you. What
was that? Did the roof come off? I mean, you just wait, and the winds
blow. Another time is when we were
in the midst of a class five tornado that had just wrecked
an entire town, and we're a half a mile away, and on the CB radio
at midnight or late, somebody says, there's another touchdown,
there's another touchdown, move off this freeway, and we've been
sitting there for two hours. And I just jumped, I just jumped
into the ditch. I know I messed my alignment
up, messed up the ground effects kit on my minivan that Toyota
just spun out of there. And you know, here it is, the
swagging wagon luxury Toyota. What is that thing I had? I can't
remember what it's called. Starts going the other way, Robin goes, what
are you doing? I said, if I'm going to die from a class 5 tornado, it's
going to catch me. There's nothing you can do. What are you going
to do? It comes down on top of you,
just going to keep driving? And you're going to go airborne.
I mean, there's nothing you can do. And then the only other time that
I've really felt so helpless is when I was engaged in this
situation where gunfire started. I'm thinking, oh my goodness. I mean, what do you do? You just
sit still. You just wait. But you do all. You're doing what you can do.
And guess what? It's ineffectual because Christ
has done all that's necessary for your sanctification, for
your righteousness, for your justification. But in the putting
to death the flesh, it is that intense. And it's not what we can do in
our power, it's the fact that we trust in the power of Christ
and His Word, and we are able then in that discipline to put
to death those things that can overpower us at times, but they
will never overcome us because we are dead in the flesh. That's why, let me put this plug
in there, that's why church discipline is necessary because those who
are overcome by their sin have to be removed from the fellowship
that those who are truly in Christ are unable to put it to death
and come back. Those who never do put it to
death are considered unregenerate. But we don't measure that day
by day, do we? Church discipline is the measure of that. And then
that's all up to God anyway. It's not for us to make judgment.
God makes judgment. And all in all, as we see, and
I'll deal with this verse next week. For sin will have, verse
14, no dominion over you since you are not under law but under
grace. And I will say it this way, that
grace produces a mortality of sin in our lives And it looks like this, that
we love God because He first loved us. Because the alternative
is that the law and its adherence will kill us. We will be guilty.
But in grace, we live. But that is not an excuse to
continue in sin, so we put our sin to death in its practice. And that's the argument we have
thus far with Romans 6. Let's pray. We love You, Father. We praise You for Your mercy
and Your grace and us understanding these truths. And I pray that
as we leave this place, Lord, that we would be mindful of what
is necessary. Lord, what was necessary for
our salvation. And Father, that we would never
lose sight of that as what is necessary in our mortification
of sin. Lord, we praise You for Your
love. In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening.
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