Let's go ahead and turn this
morning back to Romans 6. We're going to begin verse 12
in our Bible study here, pick up where we left off previous
study in the book of Romans. First of all, I want to say a
couple of things concerning some of the things that Paul has been
writing here concerning law and grace. One of the main things
that he keeps bringing up is these objections that he brings
up concerning how religious people, when graces explain so plain
and so clear, they have an objection that's brought up. Well, if we're gonna be saved, by grace
alone, the way you explain it, Paul, if we're justified by Christ
alone, not by our obedience to the law in any way, then we might
as well go ahead and send the more that grace may abound. And he says, God forbid, every
time. And so I want everybody to understand,
and all the believers understand this, that by believing that
we're justified by Christ alone, saved by grace, unmerited favor,
not based on anything that we do or that we might be unable
to do, that that does not affect our
lives in a negative way and that we begin living immoral lives
and because salvation is not based on what we do or don't
do, It's contrary to that. It promotes, when you see this,
it promotes within the believer love and gratitude toward what
Christ has done for you. And it doesn't cause us to want
to sin the more. But anyway, I wanted to say that
as we begin the message this morning. Before we do begin with
verse 12 of Romans 6, where we left off in our previous study,
let's go back to Romans 6 verse 11. Here, we're able to see why Paul
gives the admonition to let not sin therefore reign in your mortal
body. Now, in verse 11 of Romans 6,
it says, likewise, or in the same manner, The same manner
as previously talked about concerning Christ and His obedience unto
death, His dying to sin, likewise reckon ye also yourselves to
be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Even so, likewise, or in the
same manner, the same way, that Christ died unto sin, reckon
or count ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin. However Christ
died unto sin, we who are in Christ, who died with him, are
also dead unto sin. The penalty for sin is death. Christ died unto sin's penalty
and power to condemn. not for sins he committed, but
for sins that were charged to him, the sins of his elect, those
that God give him from eternity. Our sins were imputed to him,
sin therefore cannot be imputed to us. Look at 2 Corinthians
5, 19 through 21, where it reads, to wit, that
God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing
their trespasses, their sins unto them, and hath committed
unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you
and cry instead, be you reconciled to God. For he, for God hath
made him Christ, to be sin for us who knew no sin, Christ who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him. Sin cannot be charged where justice
is satisfied, and Christ satisfied justice completely for us. Again, we're not yet dead to
sin's presence, influence, and contamination within us, but
we are dead to sin's power to condemn us unto an eternal death. One day we will be dead to sin
in every way, even within ourselves when we're glorified. This is
a certainty because of God's grace in Christ, but it is not
yet a reality. Our death unto sin here, as we're
reading it here, our death unto sin here is a present reality
in Christ. We are dead to sin and it's power
to condemn us because Christ, our representative and substitute,
has already taken on the suffering and the death in our place. Because
of this established fact, we are alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. We have spiritual life imparted
by the Holy Spirit who brought us to conviction of sin and to
faith toward Christ. This new life in Christ must
be the sheer consequence, the fruit and effect of what Christ
accomplished back at the cross. This new life in Christ is what
the apostle was referring to in Philippians 3, 3, where he
says, for we are the circumcision, the true circumcision, which
worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh. Now let's go ahead and begin
our study this morning with verse 12. Verse 12 reads, let not sin
therefore, because of what we've talked about previously in verse
11, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you
should obey it in the lust thereof. What is it to let not sin therefore
reign in your mortal body? The previous verse 11 states
that we should reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed,
understand. but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. The only way that a believer
cannot let sin reign in our lives is to continually remember that
we are indeed dead to sin by the body of Christ. He has suffered
the full penalty for sin by the shedding of his blood. And he
did it not as a private person, but as our substitute and representative
for our people. The only sinners who are able
to not let sin reign in our mortal body are those for whom Christ
died, and God the Holy Spirit is called by the gospel. Not
just any gospel, but the gospel that reveals Christ and His imputed
righteousness as the only ground and basis for our justification
before Holy God. These are the ones that have
been slain by God's law and have been shown that there is no way
that they could have ever been saved by their law keeping. God
reveals to them that sin that deceives, deceives us all by
nature. We were deceived all our lives
until God, until God intervenes by his Holy Spirit. The sin of
thinking, the sin that deceives, He reveals to us the sin of thinking
that there's something that we can do to contribute toward our
salvation. Until God does this work in his
elect, sin continues to reign in our mortal body, but God regenerates
and converts the sinner. Sin will not reign in their mortal
body when he does that. We will see ourselves as dead
to sin and alive unto God by Jesus Christ our Lord. This will
create within the believer the right motive to obey God and
to avoid sin in our lives, seeing that we're dead to sin by the
body of Christ, what he did at the cross. God enabled believers
to do this by continually causing them to look to Christ for all
of salvation, and don't look to yourselves. We know that this
old fleshly body is dead because of sin. When Christ died, we
died. We died in Him. When He rose,
we rose in Him. And we're even now sitting at
the right hand of the Father in Him. We have no confidence
in anything that proceeds from this soul, flesh, and the body.
We walk in the spirit, look into Christ, the author and finisher
of our salvation. Now in Romans 13, it reads, neither
yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin,
but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from
the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness
unto God. Do not submit or give in to those
fleshly, selfish, and unlawful desires so as to allow your members,
those mental faculties that you have, to be used as tools or
weapons of unrighteousness to sin. We, as sinners saved by
the grace of God, must continually fight those doubts and fears
that are brought up against us by Satan and by our own sinful
nature. Submit your whole selves unto
God. As Romans 12, 1 says, I beseech
you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you
present your bodies to live in sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable service. As it says in verse
13, as those that are alive from the dead. Or because you're saved
by God's grace and you're already righteous in Christ. Don't allow
those sinful doubts to control your mind. That's unrighteousness
and it's sin. Look to Christ. He already made
an end of sin and it is this time He's on the right hand of
the Father making intercession for us. Be thankful that Christ
has accomplished all things necessary for your eternal salvation. By
this motive of grace and love for what Christ has already done
for us, submit all your members. as instruments of righteousness
unto God. Honor God by believing and trusting
in Christ alone for all of salvation. This is our reasonable service.
Romans 6.14 reads, for sin, for sin shall not have dominion over
you, because you're dead to sin. For you are not under the law,
You're not under the law as a means of salvation, working out your
salvation, or any other way. You're under grace. You're saved
by grace, unmerited favor from God. The first part of this verse,
for sin shall not have dominion over you. God will not allow
sin to totally dominate the lives of his people without bringing
them to godly sorrow over sin and true repentance in the realm
of his grace, mercy, and love in Christ. He may let us go our
own way for a short period of time as he did King David with
his great sin, but he will always bring us back to himself. Also,
sin will not make an end of us because Christ has already made
an end of sin. Already. Christ conquered sin
and His cross death, and each successive generation, the Holy
Spirit brings God's elect to see, by faith, what Christ has
done for them in the person and work of Christ alone. The sin
of thinking that we can influence God in our salvation is uncovered
at that time when God converts us. We then repent of ever thinking
that salvation depended on us in any way. The next phrase,
for you are not under the law. Believers in Christ are not under
the penalty of God's law because of sin. Christ had suffered a
penalty for us and saved us from all our sins. Believers are not
constrained by the law in the sense that we're motivated by
legal threats and fears of punishment for sin. Why are not believers
legally forced to obey the law for life? Well, it's because
we're not under the law, but we're under grace. Believers
are secure from all condemnation because of Christ. Believers
are also motivated to obey God and fight sin by grace, love,
and gratitude. If you are a believer, this means
that all of your salvation from eternity past to final glorification
and beyond is conditioned solely upon Christ, your mediator and
your surety. This is why sin shall not have
dominion over you. All who are justified by Christ
cannot be brought under God's wrath because Christ has taken
on the wrath of God and your place is your substitute. When
we talk about sin, we all know even unregenerate sinners that
lying, murder, and stealing, they're all sin. What we don't
know by nature is that self-righteousness and religious pride is also sin. And these principles, these principles
are stirred up within the sinner, stirred up when they think that
they got to keep the law for salvation. Look at Romans 10,
one through four. Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. This is
Paul speaking. about his brethren according
to the flesh, the nation Israel. For I bear them record, they
have a zeal of God. They're going about to obey the
law and do everything they can and abstain from everything they
can in order to inherit eternal life. But they're doing it not
according to knowledge. for they being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believe. You see, sin had total dominion
over those that Paul was speaking about in these verses that we
just read. They were ignorant of Christ's
righteousness and they were going about to establish one of their
own. I'll give you an example of how
sin had dominion over me all of my life before God saved
me. I could see what the Apostle Paul says in Philippians 3, 6,
touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless. I was
religious as they come. I quit my job. I quit my job
so I wouldn't have to work on the Sabbath, and at that time
it was Saturday to me. I went door to door selling religious
books and literature. I was a deacon and an elder in
the religion that I belonged to. I taught Bible class. I was
going about to obey God's law outwardly. I appeared righteous
unto men. I went to church at least three
times a week. I gave my tithes and offerings. I visited the
sick. I read my Bible. I prayed. I
sent my children to a religious school. For a short period of
time, I even became a vegetarian. And there's nothing wrong with
being a vegetarian if you have the right motive for that and
if it's for health reasons and dietary reasons, but not because
you think that God is gonna damn you or is gonna reward you for
doing or not doing something like this. I sold all my guns
and I used for hunting. I sold my boat and motor and
gave all the proceeds to the church. All of this, all of this,
Going about to obey God's law as I thought, and man's law outwardly,
outwardly I appeared righteous unto men. One might say, well,
how does this relate to sin having dominion over you? You were living
an outward moral life. Well, this is how all of that
time sin had dominion over me. You see, all of that time I was
ignorant of the righteousness of Christ as the only ground
and basis for a sinner's salvation. I didn't see and believe that
God was as holy as He is, and that He requires perfection,
not the best you can do, but perfection, not only in outward
deed, but in inward thought, that even though outwardly I
appeared righteous unto men, inwardly, just like the whited
sepulchre that Christ spoke of in Matthew 23. I was full of
dead men's bones. Look at Matthew 23, verse 27,
28. Christ speaking to the Pharisee,
woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like
unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward,
but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so, you outward appear righteous
unto men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. You might say, aren't you being
a little hard on yourself? on these matters. No, I'm just
showing you how evil and how wicked all that was in the sight
of God. Well, all the while I thought
it was good and it was righteous in God's sight. Folks, all of
that time I was under the dominion of sin. I thank God that he stopped
this poor sinners in his tracks and brought me from darkness
to light and reveal Christ to me and his righteousness alone
imputed as my only hope and ground of salvation, causing me to enter
into Christ's rest and saying, as Paul said back in Philippians
3 in verse 7 and 8, but what things were gained to me, those
I counted lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all
things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do
count them but done, that I may win Christ. As long as you're
going about to establish a righteousness of your own, still ignorant of
God's righteousness in Christ, no matter how moral, how religious,
how sincere you are, friends, you're under the dominion of
sin. You might be outwardly speaking as moral as they come. But if
you're ignorant of a salvation that's conditioned and based
entirely outside of yourself and on the blood and righteousness
of Christ alone, sin has total control of your life if you're
ignorant of this fact. In verse 15, it says, what then? Because we're saved by grace
alone, we're not under the law. What then shall we sin? Because
we're not under the law, but under grace, God forbid. Believers who have come to see
that they are not under law but under grace, they understand
that Christ has satisfied law and justice on their behalf.
They see that they do not owe a debt to God's law and justice,
that Christ, their surety, has paid that debt in full. They
cease going about to establish a righteousness of their own
and have fled to Christ for refuge. Sin no longer has dominion over
them. They see the glorious truth of God's grace toward us in Christ. They see that God's law cannot
condemn those that are justified in Christ. Then and only then,
then and only then can they be motivated to obey God in the
right way, which is being motivated by grace and gratitude. As you
see what Christ has accomplished for you as your representative
and substitute, Do you want to fight sin in your life this morning? Then look to Christ. He's already
fought the battle of sin and won it for all he represented. Then this verse closes with God
forbid or perish the thought of a believer desiring to commit
sin because he knows that he's not under the law, but under
grace. Now in verse 16, our final verse that we'll deal with this
morning, Reads, 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 obedience unto
righteousness. I'm going to jump ahead a little
bit in order to speak on this verse here. Let's look at Romans
6, verses 17 and 18. It reads, but God be thanked
that you were servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the
heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you. Being then
made free from sin, you became servants of righteousness. Prior
to God regenerating his elect, we were all servants of sin and
under the dominion of sin. Most people automatically go
to immoral acts. or telling little white lies
when they think of being a servant of sin. And those things are
sin, but those things are all products of a selfish, sinful
nature that all men are born with, a nature inherited from
our father Adam, a nature or principle that is full of self-righteousness
and religious pride. What did Adam do? What did Adam
do when he knew that God had discovered his sin of disobedience? He selfishly made himself a fig
leaf apron, fig leaf covering, in an attempt to hide his sin. When I think of being a servant
of sin, I think of all that time before God revealed grace to
me. I did not know the true and living God. I worshiped the God
of my imagination. a God that would save me if I
would just straighten up my act and start living right. And the living right standard
that you might have, it changes from according to what religion
you're in or how you're raised up by your mom and daddy. It says here that you were servants
of sin though. Then it says, but you have obeyed
from the heart that form of doctrine which delivered you. This speaks
of God calling his elect by the preaching of the gospel, which
is that form of doctrine which would deliver you. The gospel
of how God saves sinners based on the imputed righteousness
of Christ and that alone. God in time and each successive
generation delivers this gospel message to that sinner. And God, the Holy Spirit, regenerates
the sinner and causes that sinner to believe the gospel and flee
to Christ alone for all of salvation. The sinner will then, and only
then, obey from the heart that form of doctrine that was delivered
to you, the gospel. This is when God's elect, his
sheep, all those that God the Father give Christ in eternity,
and that Christ redeemed at the cross, this is when the elect
of God became free from sin in their own mind, conscience, and
experience. It says in Romans 6, 18, being
then made free from sin, you became servants of righteousness.
When God brings us from darkness to light, when he opens our blind
eyes and reveals himself to his elect, we're then made free from
sin, that sin that deceives us. and kept us going about to establish
a righteousness of our own all our lives up until then. We then
became servants of righteousness. When God performs this miraculous
work of grace in the hearts of His elect, they're able to serve
Him in obedience under righteousness. As it says in verse 16, they
are then able to behold God as He is, a just God and a Savior,
a God a God that is right and that he's just when he saves
sinners based on the blood and righteousness of Christ alone. In closing, the only way to fight
sin, whether outward sin or inward sin, or the sin of unbelief,
is to see that Christ has already made an end of sin by the shedding
of his blood on the cross of Calvary. He has redeemed us. Those who are in Christ do not
owe a debt to God's law and His justice. Christ has paid the
debt. We're not under law, we're under
grace. What love, what mercy, and what a great God we do worship. Amen.