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Romans chapter 6. This morning we will be looking specifically at verses 15 through 19. But it directly ties into verses 12 and following. So we'll read from verse 12 through verse 19. Hear now God's perfect word. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. But then, shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves to obey, you are the one slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.
Prayer for Illumination
In the reading of God's word there, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Father, you have given us your word and we thank you for it. Lord, we pray that in the preaching of it, it may be clearly given the sense of what it means But also, Lord, that Your Spirit would be moving in our hearts that we might live out Your Word. Father, we pray that You would please teach us during this time together. And we plead with You, God, from my own mouth that You would keep me from sinful thoughts and speech. I pray for Your people, whether children or old, And everybody in between, Lord, I pray that they might question whether these things that are being said from your word are true, whether they accord with the rest of the scriptures or not. Lord, and where there are sinful things, I pray that they might even challenge even me on that. But Lord, if things offend us, though they're true, we pray you might teach us obedience. Repentance. Give us life and strength. Direction. And even hope. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, last week we spent a great deal of time talking about that last final verse in the paragraph, verse 14.
Sermon
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. And I was a little bit concerned as I was going, and I was going to preach that passage to you, because I thought, you know, some people might think that I'm an antinomian. Antinomian, anti, against, nomos, is law. So I think he's just a lawless, anti-law type person. Doesn't he know you have to be on top of sin? And I was like, man, I really hope people don't take it away from that, but... I'm encouraged because Paul anticipated that same objection. And today we're going to deal with that objection.
What does it mean that you are not under law but under grace? What does that mean for how you live your life? What does that mean for how you interact with the God of the universe? And interact with each other? And I hope that by the time you go home this morning you are encouraged not to live your life for sin. But to live your life for God. I hope that you walk out encouraged today that you get to live your life for God and His glory.
And we'll do that in four different steps. The first point will be that shall, it's just a question, shall I keep sinning since I'm under grace and not law? Secondly, we'll look at the statement, I am a servant to whom I obey. Thirdly, I'm going to encourage you to thank God for delivering you. And fourth, lastly, I'm going to call you to present your whole self as a slave to righteousness. Present your whole self as a slave to righteousness. So first, as we look at this encouragement to live our lives to God, look with me at verse 15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not condemned, or we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not. This is not the first time Paul has said that phrase, certainly not, in Romans chapter six.
He said it in verse one. Paul likes this. He likes to say, okay, so is this really the conclusion? He's anticipating the people coming to him and saying, well, hold on, if you're saying that, doesn't that lead to this? And Paul says, get that thought out of your mind. Don't ever let it come about. Meganoita. Don't let it be. God forbid you would have that type of corrupt thought. That's not what I'm saying. So what is he saying?
Right, if you're not under law, but under grace, does that mean that you can keep on sinning? No. No. Too much focus on grace does not produce lawlessness. Paul's desire to speak of the grace of God is not trying to encourage us towards slothful, sinful living. Maybe some people will say, well, if God is just as gracious, maybe he's just giving people a free pass to sin. Isn't that just going to encourage people to sin more? And again, Paul's answer is no, certainly not.
No, no, no, no. I remember reading, I was Reading this pastoral theology book one time, and the guy was saying he was a youth pastor. And as he was writing something on the whiteboard for that Wednesday night's youth lesson, he wrote verse 14 on the board. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. And he literally put the period And one of the ladies, one of the moms of these rambunctious teenagers walked in with the dessert for that Wednesday night youth group, and she said, they don't need that verse, they need a quick kick in the butt with law.
And he just said, that's, she missed the point. That's actually Paul's whole point. If the law is your life, all you get is kicked in the teeth. All you get is guilt, guilt, guilt, shame. You didn't obey enough. Why aren't you good enough? You didn't... Man, have you ever read the Westminster Larger Catechism? Or the Shorter Catechism on what's required or what's forbidden in the Ten Commandments? No wonder why they ask at the very end, can anybody perfectly keep the law of God?
No, we sin against it every single day and thought we're indeed. We mess up. Because we're naturally children of Adam. We don't think correctly, we don't speak correctly, we don't live correctly, we don't do correctly. There's good things we ought to do and we do not do. There's stuff that we ought not to do and yet we willingly do it. So do we just get away with it? Is that what this is saying? Is this just encouraging that lawless living? Well, let me ask you. Switch the metaphors here a little bit. Maybe there's a person in your life that you willingly followed.
I remember I had a swim coach. Man, if that guy told me that I needed to swim this distance and this amount of time, even though I didn't want to do it, I would do what? I knew needed to be done because he was the one who knew me and knew the sport better than I did. He was the one who literally took an athlete to the Olympics in swimming. And so whatever that guy told me to do, even though sometimes it was even at a swim meet and I didn't want to do it, like, okay, this guy, I thought he was cruel. He had me swim the longest race you can possibly swim in a swim meet.
We called it the mile swim. And I said, coach, why'd you put me in that? I'm horrible at that race. I'm good at short stuff. He said, because for you, you need a workout, and you don't need a race. Oh, come on, coach. And yet, at the beginning of the race, I was on the blocks. Take your marks. And for the next forever, I was swimming. Why? Because I trusted my coach.
The Lord isn't beating you down with the law. to beat you into submission, that at some point, finally, then you'll be able to follow Him. No, the Lord has proven Himself as gracious, as kind, compassionate, doing everything necessary for your eternal well-being, and you get to follow after Him. Maybe you're like, well, I'm not sure that actually applies to the Lord. I want to just give you an example here of how the Lord interacts with us.
We're interacting with somebody particular. Have you ever thought about Peter before? And you read through the Gospel of Luke, and there's this really challenging part of Peter's denial of Jesus. Three times, Peter denies Jesus, and it's this escalation. No, I don't know him. No, I'm not one of his disciples. The last time, it's he swears on God's name that he's not one of his disciples. And Luke says, and the Lord looked at him. And Peter was cut to the heart.
Jesus had spent his entire three years of training up Peter, teaching him, and even at sometimes rebuking him, right? Jesus didn't hold back sometimes, right? Get behind me, Satan, when Peter was trying to teach Jesus not to do something. But yet, After the resurrection, when Jesus is back, and he's walking along the way with Peter, how does Jesus interact with Peter?
Does he give him long lectures on the ninth commandment about not bearing false testimony? Does he browbeat him and tell him he's worthy to be condemned to hell forever because he broke the third commandment, taking God's name in vain when he swore that he didn't know Jesus? No, how did Jesus, how did our Lord interact with Peter? With a swift kick in the butt of law? Or with the piercing questions of grace? Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me?
He was cut to the heart and grieved. You know that I love you. And he said, good. Feed my lambs. God deals with us graciously. That's what type of Lord he is. He doesn't gloss over our sin. He doesn't act like it didn't exist. But nor is he going to come down with a heavy whip on his children. So do we have a license of sin? Because God is gracious? May it never be.
No. No, because Jesus is our Lord and our life is hidden in Christ. And so we don't want to walk in a way that's contrary, against the way of Jesus. We want to walk like Jesus. And so our second point, following from that, is I am a servant to whom I obey. Look with me at verse 16. I am a servant to whom I obey.
It's just Paul's common sense here, right? Do you not know, by the way, that's a rhetorical question, they know. Do you all not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are the one slaves whom you obey? But what's Paul's common sense question here? You all know this, right?
Who's slave are you? Are you the slave of the person you don't listen to, or the slave of the person you do listen to? You're a slave of the person you listen to. Who calls the shots? Who gives the commands? Whose voice do you hear and go, all right, I'm going to go do that?
Well, he says you can either be a slave to sin, leading to or resulting in death, or of obedience leading to righteousness. You only have two choices. Paul is only giving us two choices. The Holy Spirit, speaking through Paul, is only giving us two choices. Either you obey sin, or you obey God. Either you're gonna be obedient under righteousness, or you're gonna be obedient to sin and it's gonna lead to death.
It's your choice. It's your choice. So who are you a slave to? Who do you present yourself to obey? This entire idea ties into verses 12 and 13. It's actually the exact same type of language here. In verse 12 when it says that you should obey its lust and do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourself to God.
Whose muster are you showing up for? I talked about last time in the military. You show up in the morning to muster. You present yourself to your commanding officers. Who are you going to serve? When the sun rose up this morning, whose camp did you go to? Did you go to the camp of sin or did you go to the camp of the Lord? Who are you willingly showing up to serve and obey?
If we're slaves to sin, what's the result? I mean, it's right there in the text, look. You are that one slave whom you obey, whether of sin..." And what does sin lead to? Death. Sin leading to death. Make no doubt about it. That's where sin goes. That's where sin always goes. It always results in death. Now there's a perverse thing about this. And Satan would love to do nothing more than trick you in this. Because that death is delayed. The consequence of sin isn't always immediate.
But yet there's gonna come a day when every single one of us will have a final date chiseled on a piece of stone outside. We're gonna get buried. We're gonna die. We came from dust and to dust we're gonna go. Unless Jesus comes back, you and me, all of us will be worm food someday.
And that's a result of sin. But in our flesh, and our culture, and our thinking, but maybe the consequence isn't right now. Or even one of the kings of Israel sins, and God says that the kingdom's gonna go awry, and he goes, well, at least it's not gonna happen in my life. How often do we do that with sin in our lives? How often do we justify sin? Well, I may get caught, but I may not. But you know that eventually you're going to live with that guilt and shame as long as that thing remains a secret in your life. Now there's a weird thing here in the grammar I just want to talk about for a second in the very last part of verse 16.
We talk about being slaves to sin leading to death or you would expect that this idea of being slaves of something would be slaves to God which leads to obedience which leads to righteousness. But here the idea of being obedient of obedience is being used as what some grammarians call a metonym. It's this obedience is being said, you're obeying God. Okay, so we're obeying God. And what does that lead to? Righteousness. Now this is a beautiful thing, right?
Because Paul has spent the first five chapters of the book of Romans telling you that you can't save yourself by your righteousness. You cannot save yourself by your righteousness. Because none are righteous, no, not one. Not one seeks after the Lord.
If you want to doubt that, if you want to say, well, maybe I do have a little bit of righteousness, just thumb back a few pages of Romans chapter three, look at the first about 20 verses, you can be crushed there, and then come back and go, you're right, I'm not righteous. So what's he talking about here? How does obedience lead to righteousness? Because your life must be hidden in Christ. God gives you, declares you righteous. He gives you the righteousness of Jesus. And now because the Spirit's living in you, now what do you get to do?
Keep on sinning? Do you see the disconnect there? Okay, so let's practice this train of thought. You're not righteous, step number one. God gives you righteousness, step number two. God declares you righteous, justification, step number three, so you get to live to sin. Doesn't compute. May it never be. No, now you get to live righteously. You've been declared righteous, you've been given Jesus' righteousness, so now what do you do with the pattern of your life? You obey.
Because you love God. and you live a righteous life. And so point three is thank God for delivering you. Thank God for delivering you. Look with me at verses 17 and 18. But to God be thanked, that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. You were delivered. This is a passive. It is God done did this to you. God delivered you and you obeyed with faith. God spoke the words of life and you believed. on the back of your handouts. This is just something I found fun.
Got this from, the image itself is from Wikipedia, but it's a first century relief out of marble. I don't normally do a lot of word or picture type thingies, but this was a fun one where most historians for about 200 years believe this picture On the back is the freeing of two slaves. So they have a felt cap, both of these slaves have felt caps, and you see the person, the toga, handing over, and it's somebody paying for their freedom. Paul's using this imagery because it is imagery in the era he's living in, the Roman era. Being slaves to someone, 70% of the Roman world at this point was most likely, was a slave or had been a slave at one point.
Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God that He brought you a system of doctrine, a teaching. Doctrine just means teaching. He gave you a type of teaching. Thanks be to God that He told you about sin. Thanks be to God that He brought you the good news that you were a slave to sin. That you are under the tyranny of the old Adam. Thanks be to God for that type of teaching. That uncomfortable teaching that all of our sexual immorality, and bitterness, and jealousy, and clamoring, and drunkenness, and hate, and deceit, and all those other things in Romans chapter 1 and 2. Thanks be to God that He told us about who we were. Thank God that this teaching that we have received is about Himself.
That He is a God of righteousness. Thanks be to God that He told us about His justice. Thanks be to God that He told us that He judges the secret inclinations of our hearts. Thanks be to God that He told us about His anger for sin. And thanks be to God that He told us about His grace.
Thanks be to God that He gave us the good news that even while we were yet sinners, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us. Thanks be to God that he told us in this doctrine and in this good news teaching that we could be justified, declared righteous. Thanks be to God that he told us that he sent his own son to give up his own life for us as a remission for our own sins. Thanks be to God that he's taught us that we are no longer his enemies but his friends. Thanks be to God that he has given us his body of teaching that He declares us from sin and death and gives us righteousness. Thanks be to God that though we were those who deserved death, instead we get eternal life. And thanks be to God that we're not just left to wallow in the misery of our sin, but He's given us our risen Lord Jesus and our life is hidden in Jesus. And thanks be to God that we get to live our lives to righteousness in Jesus. Thanks be to God. Paul's theology leads to doxology. Paul thinks about God, studies God, learns about God, teaches about God, and it leads him to thanking God.
That's my question. Will legalism ever do that for you? Will the law ever bring you to say, thank God for the grace He has shown me in Jesus? No. No, it'll lead you to be the publican, or to be the Pharisee's prayer. Legalism will lead you to, thank God I'm not like that guy.
But the grace of God is the one that brings us to our knees and says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And you find grace. Thank God that the reign of sin and death has ended. Thank God that grace comes through righteousness and our lives changed forever because Jesus is alive. I thank God that you and I are no longer slaves to sin.
That we don't have to hide in the shadows. We don't have to whitewash over the failings of our lives. But when we sin, we can face it as it is, and we can actually repent. We can be grieved, and we can hate that sin, and we can turn from it, and we can turn to God, and live our lives for God's glory.
And so our final point here is that you are called to present your whole self as a slave to righteousness. Present your whole self as a slave to righteousness. Look with me at verse 19, our final verse of the passage. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness, leading to more lewdness or lawlessness, So now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.
Paul, a number of commentaries here actually say he almost has to apologize for using the slavery image. When he says, I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. He's saying, I'm sorry to even put this into slavery type language. I have to use this analogy because we're weak in our understanding of the fullness of this. But why would he even apologize like this, right?
Why would he say, like, I'm humanly speaking about this stuff? I think it's inherently, there's a guy named Cranfield, I think he's really helpful on this, is because slavery comes inherently with ideas of injustice, humiliation, degradation, and grief. When you talk about being a slave to someone, it automatically comes with a whole bunch of baggage.
And Paul's not saying all that baggage comes along with it. He's saying you have a glorious freedom. This is an analogy, but don't push it too far. Right? Because you can lose all your hope and your freedom in Christ. Christian, your relationship to God and to righteousness is a glorious freedom. You used to present yourself as members You used to present your members, the physical parts of your body as slaves to sin.
You don't have to do that anymore. You don't have to use your tongue like a sword to tear people down and to cut them. You don't have to use your mind to harbor bitterness and hatred towards people. You don't have to use your hands for brawling or for stealing. but instead you can heal and you can work with your hands and you can give to those who are in need. God has given you so many talents and parts of your body and parts of your life that now you get to use it for what was once just sin leading to lawlessness and that lawlessness going even to more lawlessness. Now you get to use your entire body.
Your ears, your eyes, your mouth, your brain, your heart, your feet, your strength for God's glory. This is the heart of what God told his people in Deuteronomy chapter 6. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your me'odecha, all your strength, all your variness. You get to use your whole being. body and soul to live your life for God's righteousness. That leads to sanctification. That leads to holiness. That leads to you looking more and more like Jesus.
And I bet there's someone, if you thought long enough, if I asked, is there someone in your life that you looked up to that was more holy than you are? Is there somebody who influenced you in the church or in your family or in your workplace? Somebody in your life that really seemed like they actually followed Jesus? And they were an encouragement to you as you saw their striving for righteousness and their holy way of living. Who is that person in your life?
Let me just encourage you. You can be like that. You have the freedom by the power of the Spirit being engrafted into Jesus Christ to live a righteous and holy life. Not because you're getting beaten down by sin. No, you believe the righteousness that's contained in the law. The things that the Lord loves. And you can love him and follow after him. You can seek and strive after righteousness.
Not slavishly, but because you are free in Christ. So brothers and sisters, who are you serving? Have you purpose in your heart? I am going to serve the Lord. There's a reason why. Maybe all you ladies, you like to go to Hobby Lobby. Or maybe not all you ladies. Maybe there's a bunch of you ladies who like to go to Hobby Lobby. And you've gotten the stencils or you've gotten the plaque, right? And you put it over your sink or you put it over somewhere in your kitchen. It's almost always in the kitchen. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Why would Joshua say that? It was a charge, and I'm giving you the same charge today, right? All the people, he tells them, right? You get to choose. If you're gonna go serve Baal, if you're gonna go serve the idols, just go ahead and go serve them, right? If you're gonna go and be a slave to sin, leading in lawlessness that produces more lawlessness, and that's gonna lead to death, go ahead and do it. But my question is, do you have the freedom in Christ to say, you know what? Let the world do whatever the world is gonna do. I'm gonna follow Jesus. I'm gonna live my life for His glory. I'm gonna put to death sin in my own life. And I'm gonna put on the fruits of the Spirit. I'm gonna rest in Christ. Because that's my blessing. Who will you serve today? I wanna encourage you. I told you I wanted you to walk out of these doors encouraged. I wanna encourage you to live your life for Christ. Walk worthy of the calling that you have been given.
Closing Prayer
You have freedom in Jesus. You're not a slave to sin. Your life is hidden in our resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. Glorify him with every part of your life. Let's pray. God, we thank you. You are a gracious and kind and loving, compassionate God. You see our sinfulness. and you've done something about it. Lord, we don't want to obey our lawless hearts. We want to obey you. Thank you, God, that you know we're gonna struggle with this. Thank you that you are gracious and understanding, God. Help us to walk in righteousness. Turn our hearts to behold your glory, desire to bring you glory with our whole lives. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen.