By grace I'm saved, grace free
and boundless. Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor. We
are located at 4137 Todd's Road, two miles outside of Manowar
Boulevard. Sunday morning Bible class at 9.45 a.m. Sunday services
are at 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Wednesday services
at 7 p.m. I'd like to speak this morning
on the subject yielding to God. Yielding to God. I'd like to read the 13th verse
of Romans chapter 6. Paul said, 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 yield yourselves to
God and this word yield is found five times in this sixth chapter
of Romans. Yield to God. And this word is
a very interesting word. It's translated by numerous words
in the King James New Testament. The word is translated by the
word provide yourself to God or present yourself to God or
bring yourself to God or come to God, or give yourself to God,
soul and body, or show yourself to God, or stand before God. This word yield is translated
by all those different words that gives us some idea of what
it means. When Paul was making an appeal
to the Romans to give themselves completely to him. He said, present
your bodies a living sacrifice. And that word present is the
word yield. Yield your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Now, what led him to say, yield
yourselves to God? Look what he says in verse 12. Let not sin, therefore, reign
in your mortal body, that you should obey it, and the lusts
thereof. Neither yield ye your members
as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves
unto God." Now, something that a believer has to deal with every
day is his sin. You know, God could have made
it to where we didn't sin anymore after he saved us, but he hasn't
done that. If I'm a believer, I still have
the old man, and I still sin, and I hate my sin. What do I
do about my sin? How do I deal with my sin? Well,
this passage of Scripture tells us how a believer is to deal
with his sin. He says in verse 12, let not
sin therefore reign. in your mortal, dying body, that
you should obey it in the lust thereof. Let not sin reign in
your body. If it reigns, that means it has
dominion. That means it has control. You
obey its commands. Now Paul says, let not sin therefore
reign in your mortal body. Now, the therefore refers to
what he had said previously. So let's look up in verse 11.
He says, Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through our Lord
Jesus Christ. Let not sin therefore reign in
your mortal body, because you're dead to sin. Let not sin reign. Now, what does it mean to be
dead to sin? Paul says to every believer,
reckon yourselves, consider yourself to be dead indeed to sin. Now, if God says to me to reckon
myself to be dead indeed to sin, there's only one reason why God
would say that. Because I am, in fact, dead to sin. Sin has nothing to say to me. It has no more jurisdiction over
me than the law has over a dead man. The law has nothing to say
to a dead man. How can that be? I don't feel
dead to sin, yet God says in his word to reckon yourself to
be dead indeed to sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. How can that be? It's because of what Christ did
on the cross. You see, when he died, I died
to sin. The law now has nothing to say
to me. The law has been satisfied. I
died to sin. He literally, actually, really
put away my sin. That's what he did on the cross.
My sin became his. The scripture says, "...who his
own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." My sin
became his. So as he became guilty of it,
And the reason he died, he died because he was guilty. My sin
became his. He suffered the wrath of God
as the sin bearer, and he put away sin. When he was raised
from the dead, that means my sin was gone. You see, when he
was raised, it's because he satisfied all that God requires. God is
just. Somebody says, is God really
going to punish sin? Yes, he is. He couldn't be God if he
didn't do that. God is just. But he gave his
son. as a substitute for sinners.
He gave His Son as a substitute for all who need Him. He gave
His Son and He put away sin. And now sin has nothing to say
to me. Reckon yourselves to be dead
indeed to sin. That means I have no sin. I'm
dead to it. Alive unto God through our Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, I want to ask you a question.
Is the gospel of Jesus Christ enough to make you dead to sin? What he did on the cross, that
is the gospel. What he did on the cross, is
that enough to make you to where sin has nothing to say to you?
Because you're not guilty. Remember, the law was not made
for a righteous man, but for the lawless. Now, in Christ,
I'm righteous. The law has nothing to say to
me. I am dead indeed to sin, and
alive to God through my Lord Jesus Christ. I have a real and
true and living relationship with the living God, where I
can say, I am my Beloved's, and He is mine. Now, you reckon yourselves
to be dead indeed unto sin. but alive unto God through our
Lord Jesus Christ. Believe that. Believe that. If
you're a believer, you have every reason to believe it. You're
commanded to believe it. Now, let's go on reading. Verse
11, Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but
alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin
therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it
in the lust thereof. In light of the fact that you
are dead to sin, do not let sin reign, have dominion over you
where you obey its commands. You see, the gospel of Christ,
the gospel of His grace does not in any way make sin okay. It doesn't encourage sin. Paul
said at the beginning of this chapter, what shall we say then?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How can we that are dead to sin
live any longer therein? The gospel does not make sin
okay or excusable. Grace is not a license to sin
in any way. And look what he says in verse
13. He says, neither yield ye your members as instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin. Your body, your arms, Your legs,
your hands, your feet, your eyes, your ears, your tongue. Don't
yield those members as instruments to sin. Don't present yourself
to sin and say, here I am. That's what yielding means. It
means to present yourself. He says, don't present, don't
yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but
yield yourselves unto God. Present yourselves unto God. It's not something that you can
do to keep from sinning. It's you just present yourself
to God. It's not that you say, I'm not
going to sin anymore. I'm saying no to sin. Yield yourselves to
God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as
instruments of unrighteousness. Don't yield yourself to sin.
Yield yourselves to God. I think of that scripture, present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service, yield yourselves to God as those
that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments
of righteousness unto God. And here's why we can do this.
Verse 14. This is one of my favorite verses in the scripture. 4. Sin
shall not have dominion over you. It doesn't say, maybe it
won't, It doesn't say it shouldn't have dominion over you. It says
sin shall not have dominion over you. And here's why. For you
are not under the law, but under grace. Now, if you're under law,
sin has complete dominion over you, complete control over you. You're blinded by your sin. But
if you're under grace, this is the promise. Sin shall not have
dominion over you. Now, somebody may be thinking,
It sure seems that sin has a whole lot of power over me. Seems like
I wouldn't sin the way I do if it didn't. It seems that sin
has a lot of power over me. Now, I'm speaking to the believer
now. If you're a believer, there was a time when you didn't feel
that way. You didn't see sin as having
dominion over you. You thought you could stop sinning
whenever you wanted to. And you just didn't look at things
in that light. But you do now. Why is that? Well, I can answer that question.
It's because sin doesn't have dominion over you anymore. When
you thought sin wasn't... When you believed that you were
not under the dominion of sin, that's when you were under the
dominion of sin. You were under its complete control. You were
blinded and you couldn't see anything. But now you see. You see, grace has done something
for you. You're not under law, but you
are under grace. And this is a promise of grace.
Sin shall not have dominion over you. That's a promise because
you're not under law, but under grace. Now, what does it mean
to be under law? That means some part of your
salvation is dependent upon something you do. That's law. It works. Some part of your salvation is
in some way dependent upon what you do. Now, if any part of your
salvation or my salvation is dependent upon something we need
to do in order to make it work, we are under law and we will
not be saved. There's no salvation in law.
All the law does is expose our sins. We can't keep it. All it
does is expose how bad we are. And as a matter of fact, the
scripture says the strength of sin is the law. The strength
of sin is the law. It's not our evil nature. It's
the law. All the law does is expose sin. You take the Ten
Commandments. I love God's holy law, but I
haven't kept one commandment one time in myself. Not once.
The law is the strength of sin. All the law does is expose sin,
and you're dead in sins if you're under the law. But here's the
promise. We're not under law. This is the promise to every
believer. This is why sin will not have dominion. You're not
under law, but you're under grace. Oh, I love that word, grace.
It just sounds good coming out. The grace of God. The unmerited
favor of God. Now, my mortgage payment, it's
due at the first of the month. But I'm given a 15-day grace
period where it's not late during that time. The believer is under
an eternal grace period, an eternal unmerited favor period. I'm always under grace. That means grace is over me. The grace of God, every aspect
of salvation is by the free grace of God. God's grace is God giving
you what you do not deserve. Every aspect of salvation is
by grace. God chose me by His grace. He
elected me before time began, and it was called the election
of grace in the scripture. He justified me by His grace. By a gracious act of His, He
made it to where I'm actually just before Him, not guilty.
He redeemed me by His grace. He paid for all my sins. He put
them all away. He regenerated me by His grace.
He gave me a new nature. A nature that was not there before.
The new birth. This is the work of God's grace.
He preserves me by His grace. He keeps me by His grace. And
when I stand before Him, perfectly conformed to the image of His
Son, oh, I'm going to be shouting, the grace of God did this. Oh,
the grace of God. You're not under law, but you
are under grace. What a blessed promise. Now,
how do we respond to this? Verse 14, sin shall not have
dominion over you. For you're not under the law,
but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we're not
under the law but under grace? God forbid. Now, how do we respond
to this? You're not under law, but you're
under complete free grace. How do you respond to this? Do
you say, well, that gives me an excuse to sin. Let's go ahead
and have a Mardi Gras. Have a good time. I mean, salvation
by grace. Let's go ahead and sin all we
want. Is that your response? You know, I don't know how many
times I've, in preaching the gospel, or talking to people,
they've said, if I believed what you did, I'd sin without control. If I really believed it was all
of grace and my works had nothing to do with my salvation, I'd
just sin all I want if I believed something like that. You know,
a believer won't. A goat may, but a believer won't.
That's not a believer's response to the grace of God. They say,
love's so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my
all. I believe that I'd sin all I
want. Listen, I sin a whole lot more than I want. I want to not
sin. I want to honor my Redeemer.
I want to walk and talk and think in a way that honors and glorifies
Him. Now, a believer is not going
to look at the grace of God as a license to sin. You know, a
lot of religious people are scared to death of grace because if
they really believe that way, they would sin without restraint. But a believer won't. A believer
will never have that response. What should we say then? Shall
we sin because we're not under the law but under grace? He says,
God forbid. Perish the thought. Verse 16,
Know ye not that to whom you yield yourselves servants to
obey, his servants you are to whom you obey, whether of sin
unto death or of obedience unto righteousness? Now, whoever you
present yourself to, you're a slave to. If you present yourselves
to God, if you say with David, order my steps in thy word, and
let not any iniquity have dominion over me. Well, he won't. You're
a servant of God. If you present yourself to sin,
here I am. Use me. You're a slave of sin. Now, verse 17, he says, but God
be thanked. He gives God the credit for this,
of course, it's a gift of His grace. God be thanked that you
were the slaves of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that
form of doctrine which was delivered you. Now, you were, before God
saved you, you were slaves to sin under its complete dominion.
The reason you couldn't see it is because you were blinded by
it. But when you were delivered by the doctrine which is according
to godliness, the doctrine of the gospel, the doctrine of Christ,
that's the doctrine that we've received in our heart, the truth
of the gospel, it's delivered us, it's set us free. You were
servants of sin, but you've obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine
which was delivered you, being, verse 18, being then made free
from sin, you became the slaves of righteousness. Now, when Jesus
Christ the Lord died, every believer was made free from sin. If the Son shall make you free,
you're free indeed. Paul said, stand fast in the
liberty and the freedom wherewith Christ hath made you free. And
don't be entangled again in that yoke of bondage. Now, here's
the freedom that I have, that every believer has. I owe nothing. I have no sin for which to be
condemned, and I get to do whatever I want to do. That's what freedom
is. It's to not owe anything, and
it's to get to do what you want to do. I owe God nothing in terms
of my sin, because I'm perfectly righteous before God. And I'm
doing what I want to do. I am serving the Lord. I'm walking
with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what I want to do. Now,
a lot of people's religion is a very unhappy thing because
they're not really doing what they want to do. And they don't
get to do what they really want to do. But it's not that way
with a believer. Oh, there's joy in walking with the Lord. I've been made free. I've been
made free by the gospel. And I'm doing what I want to
do. And I'll tell you this, when I sin, That old nature, when
it sins, my new nature, I hate it. I hate it. What I do, I hate, Paul said.
And what I want to do, I don't do. The new nature hates that.
And Paul said, it's no more I that do it, but the sin that dwelleth
in me. Oh, that evil nature that we're longing to get rid of.
Every believer wants to be without sin in their experience. Perfectly
conformed to the image of Christ. And every believer has been made
free from sin, and they're slaves of righteousness, slaves of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, he says in verse 19, I speak
after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh,
talking about this slave. Situation he said this is something
we can understand I'm speaking in human terms because of the
weakness of our flesh for as you have yielded your members
servants to uncleanness and Iniquity to iniquity even so now yield
ye present your members servants to righteousness unto true holiness
present yourself in that sense for when you were the slaves
of sin you were free from righteousness you didn't know what it meant
and What fruit had ye then in those things wherever ye are
now shamed? For the end of those things is death, but now being
made free from sin through the gospel. And ye become slaves,
servants to God, and ye have fruit unto holiness, and the
end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Now I'm going to give an illustration from the Old Testament
that will tell us what it means to yield to God. This is what
I want to do. I want to present myself. I want
to yield myself to God. Now it's found in Isaiah chapter
6, beginning in verse 1. Isaiah says, In the year the
king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting on a throne,
high and lifted up. And his train filled the temple.
Now there's great significance to the year the king Uzziah died. Uzziah was a great king, and
he became lifted up with pride, and he thought he could come
into God's presence without a priest. And God turned him into a leper
when he did it. And he had to run out of the
temple, and he died a leper. And Isaiah saw at that time that
God is holy. You can only come into His presence
through the Lord Jesus Christ. You can't just come on your own.
Isaiah was, I mean, Uzziah was driven away and turned into a
leper when he did. Now, Isaiah said, in the year King Uzziah
died, I saw the Lord. I saw Him in His holiness. I
saw Him in His majesty. I saw Him in His unapproachableness.
And he says, the train filled the temple, above it stood the
seraphims, each one had six wings. With Thwain he covered his face,
feeling like God was too holy for him to look on. And with
Thwain he covered his feet, he was ashamed of his walk. And
with Thwain he did fly, ready for obedience. And one cried
unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,
the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door
moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled
with smoke. Now what a vision! And look what
Isaiah says, Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone. I'm cut off. Woe is me. I think it's interesting if you
look in Isaiah chapter 5, five times he says, Woe unto them.
Woe unto them. Woe unto them! Now, after seeing
the Lord, he says, Woe is me! For I am undone. cut off, because I'm a man of
unclean lips. Everything I say is dirty, because
of who says it. I don't care if it's a good thing
in and of itself. If it comes out of my heart, that makes it
unclean, because of my own uncleanness and my own sinfulness. Then said
I, woe is me, I'm undone, because I'm a man of unclean lips, and
I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes
have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Now, when Isaiah was
brought to see this about himself. Then we read in verse 6, then,
not before then, but then flew one of the seraphims unto me,
having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken from tongs,
with tongs from off the altar, the coal for the burnt sacrifice. Now Isaiah is ready to hear the
gospel. You see, you can only hear the
gospel as a sinner. As long as it's woe to them,
you can't really hear the gospel, but when all of a sudden it's
woe unto me, now you're ready to hear the good news. Now you're
ready to hear the sacrifice of Christ and what he accomplished,
what he was actually doing on the cross. Then flew one of the
seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had
taken with the tongs from off the altar, and he laid it upon
my mouth. Those blistering lips became
blistered lips. He laid it upon my mouth, and
said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken
away, and thy sin is purged." Now, if you're an evil sinner,
and then you find out your iniquity has been taken away, your sin
is purged away, that's good news. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
did on the cross. And I heard the voice of the
Lord saying, now after the gospel was applied to his heart, his
sin was taken away. His sin was purged. Also, I heard
the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send? And who will
go for us? And this is very interesting.
He says, whom will I send? He's not looking for volunteers.
He said, whom will I send? But then next he says, Whose
wish is to go forth? Who wants to do this? Who desires
this? Now, the Lord's great army is
an army that's nothing but drafted people, and yet every one of
them are volunteers. He said, who shall I send? That's
God's draft. But he says, who will go for
me? That is God's volunteer. Now, here is yielding yourself
to God. Look at Isaiah's response. God says, who will go forth?
And who shall we send? And Isaiah said, here am I. Send me. He presented himself
to God. Here am I. Not, here's what I'll
do. I'll quit this and I'll start
doing that. No. Here am I. Send me. And that is yielding yourself
to God. Oh, may the Lord give us grace
to do just that. Lord, here am I. I'm not making
promises about what I'm going to do or what I'm not going to
do. I know enough about the flesh to know that I'm too weak to
do anything like that. Any promise I make, I'll break.
I think that promise keepers, no, promise breakers is what
we are. Lord, here I am. Totally depended upon your grace.
Totally depended upon your mercy. Totally depended upon thy son.
Here am I. Send me to do whatever you have
me to do. Somebody once said if God commissioned
two angels to do something for him, one to sweep streets and
the other to rule an empire, they'd do it with equal zeal,
not caring which job they had. Here am I. If he calls me to
do it, whatever he calls is fine. Here am I. Send me. Now we have this message on CD,
DVD. Call the church, write, and we'll
send you a copy. This is Todd Tiber, praying God
will be pleased to make Himself known to you. Amen. My grace,
I'm safe, grace free and boundless. You have been listening to a
message by our pastor Todd Nyberg.