into his mouth is what he eats. He can let it be known when he needs a change, but even
that can be delayed beyond what he would choose. But as one grows into childhood, more choices
are possible. You can begin to choose whether you want a hamburger or a fish sandwich at
McDonald's when you go out, and if you want ketchup on those french fries. And as one
gets into adolescence, even more choices are possible. You can choose who you want to date
or if you want to date. And then you hit adulthood. Adulthood demands choices. Choices as to whether
to be married or single. The choice to whom to be married, whether to have children, where
to live, what kind of a car you're going to drive, what job you're going to hold down,
how you're going to use your day, how you're going to spend your money, where you will
eat lunch, whether you're going to be on a diet, the kind of toothpaste you want to use,
whether it's Coke or Pepsi, whether you want to wear the red tie or the brown one, what
you're going to read, what you're going to watch, what you're going to hear. Adulthood
demands choices. One measurement of maturity is the kind of choices which one makes. Life
seems to be, at least for adults, a series, almost an endless series of choices. Some
are very little. Some are very big. Some choices are easy. Others are hard. Some are insignificant.
Yet others are life-changing. And the choices that you and I make play some part in our
becoming distinctively who we are. Now, of course, genetics have something to do with
that, as does the environment that one lives in. The choices are crucial. The accumulated
choices, more than any other factor, eventually forge your character. Character does not develop
overnight, but slowly, almost imperceptibly. It's almost like that tree in your front yard.
At night you don't go out with your lawn chair and sit in the front yard to wash and grow,
do you? But if you get out the picture album, you're able to see how over the last five
years or ten years that tree has grown and you hadn't realized it. Character grows like
a river deepens. Almost imperceptibly, the bed is washed away by erosion. The most important
things about you are determined by choices that you make. What you believe is true is
a choice you make. What you consider to be important is up to you. Who your friends are
going to be, what your lifestyle will entail, and pre-eminently, above all, whether you
will repent and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. These are the choices of life.
We are given the ability to make choices by God. Unlike the animals who make limited choices
based on instinct or training, humans choose based on the use of their God-given ability
to think and to feel. Our will acts in conjunction with our intellect and our emotions. The intellect
may be misinformed or it may be ignorant. The emotions may be healthy or perhaps tragically
scarred. They both are affected by sin which indwells us, as is our will affected by sin.
But the fact is that we may choose, and we are responsible for the choices that we make.
As we continue to make choices in life, we form patterns or habits. They may be good
or they may be bad. Sometimes we hear that bad habits cannot be changed if we allowed
a trickle to become a stream and allow that stream to become a river. We are told that
the power of that pattern becomes unchangeable and irresistible. I have good news for you
if you are one who struggles with a stubborn habit, and there are a few of us that don't.
You can choose to say no to your actions that displease God. You can. Would you open your
Bible please to Romans chapter 6. I am using as our text today verses 12 through 14 of
Romans 6. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey its
lusts. And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness.
These are negative commands and the assumption in the verb is that they were in fact in the
process of doing what he tells them not to do. Maybe you can identify with that. He goes
on to say, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members
as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be mastered over you. For you
are not under law, but under grace. Let me tell you that's good news. Because the law
cannot liberate one from sin. It can only point out the sin. It can only exacerbate
it. It can only stimulate it. But grace delivers from sin. Because you and I are under grace,
sin is not mastered over us. You and I can choose to say no to our actions that displease
God. I want first of all to talk about the basis for that statement that I am making.
We see it right here in Romans chapter 6. Paul says, do not go on doing this, but do
this. Therefore, it begins that way. Therefore, that points to what has gone before in this
chapter and that is the basis for his statement. Verses 1 through 11 give you the basis for
saying no to those actions and attitudes in your life and mind that displease the Lord.
Simply put, our union with Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection gives us the ability
to say no. Now please understand that I am speaking of Christians. I am not speaking
of those who are seekers after God. I would hope that you might find him by faith and
be able to join us in this liberty. It certainly is not speaking of those who have no use for
God in their lives, but I am speaking of those who have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as
Savior. Those of us who have trusted in him have been joined together with him in a vital
life union so that we, it can be said, died with Jesus Christ on the cross, we were buried
with him in the grave, and we rose again with him from the tomb. The old man that we were
in Adam, which was in fact enslaved to sin, died. It died in Jesus Christ when he died
on the cross. The picture here is of a cold death, a cold crucifixion, so that when Jesus
was nailed to that tree, you and I as the old man in Adam were nailed there with him.
And when he was put into that grave, you and I were put there with him. So that it can
be said, as we have said earlier this summer in the message focused on this one point,
what happened to Jesus happened to you, though you were not even born yet. The old man that
we were in Adam died, and the new man, the new man that we are in Jesus Christ through
faith in him, rose with Christ so that there was a co-resurrection. When he came out of
that tomb alive from the dead, you and I came out with him in God's mind so that today you
are not what you were and you are what you were not. A tremendous radical change has
been made in who you are, Christian. You are not what you were before, and what you are
today you were not before. You are a new person in Jesus Christ, freed from your former slavery
to sin. Sin is no longer your master. Sin still does dwell in you. Paul describes it
in chapter 7 as being in your flesh. And it still seeks to enforce its former relationship
on you. It will still seek to be your master, and you may allow it to if you choose to do
so, but the fact is that you can choose not to do so. You can choose to obey sin, but
what a tragedy to do that, to go back to the old slave master. For you have a new master
who is Jesus Christ, how much better to obey him? You and I can choose to obey Christ because
of our union with him. You say, all of that sounds wonderful, but how do I experience
that in my reality, in my everyday life? Let's talk about the means of doing that. The means
I want to talk about this morning are fourfold. I hope that you will take note of them. How
is it that I can apply in my life today and tomorrow and Tuesday and every day this truth
of my union with Jesus Christ, which is the basis by which I can say no to sin? The first
means involves an act of faith. An act of faith. It is an act of faith on your part.
Verse 11 of this chapter says, even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to
God in Christ Jesus. This is an act of faith on your part. To reckon it to be true, to
consider it an actual fact, it's more than a theory, but it's true. It is an act of your
faith to say, I have died to sin in Jesus Christ and I am alive to God to serve him.
He tells us in our text, present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your
members as instruments of righteousness to God. This is a step of faith on your part
to do it. To get out of bed in the morning and to bring through your mind is the very
first conscious act of your day, I am dead to sin and alive to God and God I present
myself and my members to you today as your instruments. So what are the members? Well
they're the members of the body, our mind, our hands, our eyes, but more than that, he's
talking about everything that we are. He's talking about our imagination. Have you thought
about giving your imagination to God as his instrument? He's talking about all of the
potential that God has placed within us. He's including our spiritual gifts. He's also talking
about our natural abilities that we have. He says, present yourselves as a total package
to God. I challenge you to take that step of faith every morning. If you begin your
day that way, it will change the course of the day for you and it will begin to steer
you away from those old habits and patterns that seem to be a snare to you spiritually.
There's a second means that it's important for us to understand and that is the power
of the spirit. To clearly see this, we could see it in chapter 8 of Romans, but let's go
to Galatians chapter 5 verse 16.
But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Walk
by the Spirit. You will not carry out the desire of the flesh. The habits and patterns
in our lives spring from sin still operating in our flesh. In that part of us that is not
redeemed, that part of our person that has not been redeemed and never will be the flesh,
sin still operates in that part of you and me. The fact is that the Holy Spirit is our
enabler so that we can deny what sin operating in our flesh wants us to do. The Holy Spirit
enables us to overcome the flesh or in the language of Romans to put to death the deeds
of the body. The Holy Spirit is not merely given to the spiritually mature. It's amazing
how many people have that idea. It is those who are along the pathway somewhere who receive
the Holy Spirit, not at all. At the very moment of conversion one receives the Holy Spirit
to make us mature, not because we are mature. He is in us to enable us from day one as a
Christian. He is the power of God within us. If you and I are going to say no to those
actions and attitudes that displease God, we must have the power of the Spirit of God
operating in us. It is one thing in our part to say I will today say no to sin and yes
to God, but it's another thing then to allow the Holy Spirit to reinforce that step of
faith, to give strength to that decision, that choice on your part, and he will do it.
If you consciously depend upon him. And so in the morning as you get up and as you present
yourself to God, yield yourself to the Holy Spirit and say Spirit of God who indwells
me, I allow you to strengthen me today that I might say no to sin and yes to God. The
first means is an act of faith that's your responsibility in mind. The second means is
the power of the Spirit. The third means is the word of God. The word of God, we have
sung a hymn just before the message based on Psalm 119. How shall a young man keep
his way pure? By keeping it according to the word of God, says the psalmist. How do you
keep your way pure in a world like ours? By listening to the word of God and to the wisdom
that he gives us. How shall a young man cleanse his way by the word of God? Thy word have
I hid in my heart, said the psalmist. Thy word have I treasured, is the real thought.
Thy word have I set apart as precious in my heart that I might not sin against thee. When
I was a kid I learned a little statement that has stuck with me all through the years. I
wrote it in front of one of the first Bibles I had. My pastor said this, this book will
keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this book. Many of you have heard that before.
It is true. One of the means that God gives to us to say no to sin and yes to God is this
book. When you and I treasure it and we hide it away in our hearts, it has the power to
renew our minds and to cleanse our minds. Some of us in our past have allowed our minds
to dwell on things that now we regret deeply. For it allowed patterns to be established
in our thoughts. It allowed habitual thought patterns to become grounded in us and we struggle
with them. To some degree we will always struggle with those because we allowed them into our
minds and we can't simply erase part of our minds like we erase a cassette tape. But the
word of God can renew our minds so that those old thought patterns can be displaced in having
any power. That's the principle. The principle not of the erasure but of displacement. So
that those things that once dominated us dominate us less because the word of God is treasured
in our hearts. We treasure the word of God when we read it of course but to really treasure
it in the sense that we are talking about now means to go especially to those portions
that deal with the habits of my life. Those scriptures that deal with the patterns that
I want to displace and to concentrate and to focus and to meditate upon those texts.
To hide it in our hearts by memorization and meditation. I've heard some people say, well
I don't like those old thoughts and I am just going to determine in my mind not to think
them anymore. That is sincerely said but it doesn't work because when we make that determination
what we actually end up doing is reinforcing those bad thought patterns. When we say I
am not going to think about that anymore that becomes reinforced and underscored in our
minds. It doesn't work. We have to think about something positive and powerful and
cleansing and renewing if we really want to see that displaced. What we need to think
about is what God says. If you really want to say no to sin in your life then this book
has to come on to the front burner of your life. It has to be a part of your everyday
and not just in a casual reading of it but really meditating on it. Taking time to see
what God is saying to you. What God wants you to learn and apply to your life out of
this. The Word of God. And he gives us a fourth means. This is perhaps the hardest one for
most of us. As hard as it is to find time to make time to be in the Word of God. As
difficult as it is to consciously yield to the Holy Spirit and to get up in the morning
and present ourselves to God as an act of faith. This fourth one is really tough. The
fourth means is the support of fellowship. If there is an entrenched pattern or habit
in your life that is displeasing God and you truly want to say no to that. You can do it.
It will involve opening yourself up to someone or someones who love you and who trust you
and who will help you by supporting you. I think the Paul touches on this thought in
1 Thessalonians the fifth chapter. He says, and we urge you brethren, admonish the unruly,
encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with all men. A list of different
kinds of folks there who need different strokes. But I want you to notice that he says encourage
the faint hearted. I don't know about you but I can become faint hearted in my struggle
with sin. He says help the weak. I don't know about you but there are times when I feel
very weak in my struggle against sin in me. And I need someone who will come alongside
me and who will encourage me and help me. There are some people like that in my life
and I thank God for them. Do you have someone like that? Do you have at least one other
person who is a Christian who knows the struggle that you are facing right now today and who
is praying for you and who if he or she sees you this afternoon or tomorrow will come up
beside you and perhaps put the arm around you and say how's it going? To encourage you?
To lift you up? These are the means that God gives us. If we are serious about applying
our union with Jesus Christ and saying no to sin and yes to God, these are the means
that God provided means by which we may practice that in our lives. They are means that I hope
every one of us will begin to put into place. What will happen when you and I do that? I'd
like to talk briefly about the result. Because you may think that once you begin practicing
these four means very sincerely in your life, you may think that somehow out of a sudden
temptation is over. Praise God from here on to heaven there is no more problem with sin.
Oh I wish that were true. Not for your sake only, but for this guy's sake. But it's not
true. It's not true. What is the result of learning to put into place these means that
we've talked about? The first result is you will still face temptation. One thing that
we need to learn is the difference between temptation and sin. Some of us have consciences
that are so sensitive that the moment we are tempted we feel guilty and we've not even
done anything wrong yet. And because we're always facing temptation, we're always feeling
guilty needlessly. It is not sin to be tempted folks. Jesus was tempted but he never sinned.
I'm of course not encouraging you to play with temptation. For to do that is to sin.
But what I am saying that often you and I cannot help the first thought that hits our
minds. Whether it be a thought of covetousness or a thought of saying something we ought
not or an initial temptation to strike out of anger with that first lustful thought that
hits us because of our eye gait and something we saw or something we heard. When that first
one hits us, that's temptation. And that is the moment that we need to recognize it for
what it is and be done with it. And say no, I'm not going to proceed any further that
way. That's sin if I do. It's the second thought. It's acting out what we're tempted to say
for to do in anger that becomes sin. Understand that the most godly, saintly Christian faces
temptation every day that he lives. You can go off to a monastery somewhere on Mount Sinai
and meditate the rest of your life on scripture or ancient scrolls or whatever they meditate
on over there. But I'll tell you something, you can't escape temptation because sin still
dwells in you, that is in your flesh. And it seeks to enforce its old pattern of slavery
on you. And it will until the day that you either die and go to be with Jesus or you're
raptured and changed until you are free from it. At that point, no more temptation. But
you will be tempted. Don't be discouraged by that. Don't be discouraged by temptations.
Understand that that's part of being human as we are in our sinful condition in this
world. Do not be discouraged by temptation, but don't play with it either. Don't allow
it to have a place in your life. Don't give it the second thought. So often it's like
a piece of candy that we put in our mouths. Instead of realizing what it is, we kind of
like the taste of it and it seems sort of sweet and so we begin to roll it around in
our mouths and we play with it in our minds. It's sin. But when we realize that we have
touched temptation, then at that moment we are responsible to choose to say, no, I will
not think that way. No, I will not respond that way. That will not please God. No, I
will not allow that pattern any longer to be established in my mind. No to sin and God,
I give myself to you. There's a second result and it's a wonderful result. For as you put
these means to practice in your life, you will experience a gradual overthrow of old
patterns and the establishment of new ones. I am not today guaranteeing you victory the
very moment that you put these means into your life, victory without any relapse. I
cannot guarantee that to you. But I can guarantee you that if you keep practicing these means
and when you fail, that you confess it to God and then begin practicing the means again,
that you will see the gradual establishment of new victorious patterns in your life. But
I should also say this, that your goal in all of this is beyond just having victory
over sin. It's beyond that. Your real goal is to establish a positive, fruitful life
which glorifies God and reflects Jesus Christ. That's the positive goal in all of this.
The bottom line is this, you can choose to refuse. When a luring opportunity comes, when
the old habit knocks and it asks permission for another round, you can say no to it. But
you won't. You won't unless before that moment you've prepared yourself. Unless you've
determined in advance the refusal and you've armed yourself by the four choices involving
an act of faith, choosing to present yourself as alive to God as his servant, choosing to
yield yourself to the power of the Holy Spirit so that he can enable your decision to say
no, choosing to treasure the word of God in your heart so that it can renew your mind
and cleanse you, choosing to seek out the support of others in a fellowship, transparently
asking them to stand with you unless you have made those four choices in advance and prepared
yourself the next time around when sin knocks on the door. What you will do is open the
door as they come in. So won't you right now, at this moment, choose in advance to say no
when sin does come? Won't you determine at this moment to begin putting these four choices
into your life actively so that you can displace the old and experience the new? You and I
can say no to those actions and attitudes in our lives that displease God. And we can
say yes to a Christ-filled life. But it's our choice. Oh, God, help us to make the right
one. Let's bow together.
Father, how glad I am today for the liberty that the children of God enjoy. Enjoy because
of our death with Christ to sin and our resurrection with him to walk in newness of life. And yet
I confess, as do all of us who are honest, that often we don't walk in newness of life
but in oldness of life. And there are areas of battle and struggle that each of us face,
and you know what they are. I pray that you, by the Spirit, would write this message in
our hearts and enable us to put it to practice in our lives. Our heads are bowed, our eyes
are closed. I wonder if in your heart right now you could isolate at least one area of
struggle in your life, perhaps an area where you have struggled for a long time, an area
where long-time choices have formed habit and pattern, perhaps an area where you have
all but given up ever experiencing the freedom of Christ.
I want you to know, Christian friend, that Jesus loves you, and he loves you despite
that pattern. But he loves you so much he wants you free from it, and he's provided
for it. I want to ask you if right now you will say to him, Jesus, I want to choose obedience
and to seek to put into my life these means that you've provided that I might know that
freedom you've provided. If that is your choice, to say yes to him and notice then,
I want to ask you to lift your hand in a physical gesture to God saying, God, that is my decision.
Many, many hands praise God. Is there no pattern to deal with? Is there no struggle? But if
there is, Jesus will show you the way. God is faithful, and with the temptation, he will
provide the way of escape that you might be able to bear it. Lord Jesus, I pray that there
will be nothing between us and you so that your blessed face may be seen and the joy
of your fellowship every day experienced. Amen.