Oh, thank you. I've enjoyed the music tonight. Paul and Kim Vanderwerf ministered to us last.
They're rather new attenders in our church, and that's who they are in case you didn't
recognize them. Thank you, all of you who ministered to music this evening so effectively.
Let's open our Bibles together, Romans chapter 6, as we focus again at two verses that we
covered last week, verses 12 and 13.
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,
but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments
of righteousness to God.
Whatever you may think of his politics, the Reverend Jesse Jackson is a man who is able
to move audiences by his oratory. His ability to turn a phrase, to repartee, is outstanding,
at least among the candidates in his political party. And I was listening to a program the
other night, and they were asking as to why it is that the other candidates are very reticent
to attack his positions or his statements. And there were several reasons given for that,
but among them was the fact that the other is a little scared of what he may say, because
he has the ability to capture something in a phrase and to make it live.
My brother-in-law teaches for a high school in the Cincinnati area. It's in an inner
city part of Cincinnati. And on an occasion several years ago, Jesse Jackson went there
to speak. Now normally when they would have an assembly, the students were not particularly
respectful, did not exactly pay close attention to what the speaker might be saying. But when
Jesse Jackson spoke, they were all ears to hear what he had to say.
The one message that Jesse Jackson communicated that day, and which they repeated back to
him and chanced, which caused the whole auditorium to reverberate, was the little phrase that
maybe you've heard him use on the news occasionally, I am somebody. Except he didn't say it like
that. I am somebody. That's how he would say it. And the students were chanting that back
and forth, I am somebody. I want you to know tonight that as a child of God, as a saint,
one of God's called out ones, you are somebody. You are. You are a new person. You are someone
that you were not before your salvation. Notice how the apostle Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians
chapter 5. Would you turn over there with me? He speaks about his ministry among them.
And he declares to them that even sacrificially he had given himself for them. He says it
is for you. In verse 13. Now in verse 14 he says, for the love of Christ controls us.
That word control is from a verb that means to hold together or to press together. The
idea is confinement or restriction. The apostle Paul is saying that there is something that
sets a boundary around his life. You know when that happens power is created. Some people
think that you can just live the way you want to live. That's power. No, not at all. It's
when there is constriction that there is power. You take water out of a bucket. You can throw
it and get something wet. But you put water into a hose and constrict it. And then you
put a nozzle on the end of the hose and you play with that nozzle. You can get a lot more
power and force out of that water than you can if you throw the water out of a bucket.
Paul is saying here that his life is under restriction and control. There are boundaries
set upon him by the love of Christ. Having concluded this he says that one Christ died
for all. Therefore all died. He is saying here basically the same thing he said back
in Romans. One died for all, therefore all died because we were all identified with Christ
in his death. And he died for all that they who live should no longer live for themselves.
That is, for the advantage of themselves. But rather for him or for his advantage who
died and rose again on their behalf. The person who claims to be saved but who entirely lives
for himself had better question his conversion. Because Jesus Christ died for us and rose
again and we have been identified with him in death, burial and resurrection. So that
we might not any longer live for ourselves. There is a change made in our life. But for
him who died for us and rose again. Therefore from now on he says, we recognize no man according
to the flesh. That is by mere externals. Even though we have known Christ according
to the flesh. Yet now we know him thus no longer. What is he saying here? He is saying
Christ died and rose again. No longer is he as he was before. In his fleshly earthly body
a change has taken place. He has been raised a new person. In the sense that he has a new
body. A glorified body. An eternal body. Unlike the body he lived in during those years upon
the earth. Therefore he says if any man is in Christ. Now that is Paul's phrase isn't
it? For the saved. In Christ. That is our spiritual position. He says if any man is
in Christ. He is a new creature. Just as Jesus Christ is not what he was before when he lived
upon the earth. Oh the same glorious person. The God man yes. But he is different now.
Resurrection has occurred. A glorified body. So he says there is a change in the person
who is in Christ. He is a new creation. He says the old things passed away. With a certain
finality he says that. The old things. The word there is the word our chaos. It is the
word that is the root for our word archaeology. The study of old things. Things that are from
an earlier time. The apostle says that those things from our earlier time before conversion
have passed away with finality. He says behold new things have come. And the result is that
we continue to experience them he says. New things all the time. We are not the same people
that we were before. The new man. The deepest self. The real me. The real you. Is perfectly
righteous as Paul says in Ephesians 4 verse 24. Our new nature now is that it has been
created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. That is what he says about us. We are
created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. That is our real being. Our essential
us is brand new. Something that was not even in existence before now exists because we
are a new creation. Peter joins with this in 2 Peter chapter 1 when he says in verse
4, for by these, talking about God's glory and excellence in verse 3, by these, he God
has granted or bestowed to us his precious and magnificent promises, his very great promises,
in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature. What an amazing statement
that is. It doesn't mean that we have become gods, but it means that we now are partakers
of the very nature and life of God himself by the promises that God has given to us.
Only escaped, he says, the corruption that is in the world by lust. That word corruption
is an interesting word. It refers to a slow rotting process. I think you might agree with
me that the culture in which we live has gotten pretty rotten. That's just the way human
culture is apart from God. He says here that by lust, by strong driving passions, the world
is corrupting. It is rotting. It can have an ugly, stinking picture, but he says that
we, by the grace of God, we have escaped that. We, instead of corrupting, actually now are
partakers of the very nature, the very life of God himself. What an amazing statement.
Because we are saved, that is true of us. We're in Christ. We are new creatures. We
are not what we were before. We are what we were not. Therefore, someone says, are you
saying that a Christian is without sin? Absolutely not. I am not saying that. The capacity to
sin and to choose to sin is still within us. That is clear from the text we have read from
Romans chapter 6. Someone says, what about the sin nature within us? It may be a matter
of semantics or terminology to some, but it seems to me that the word nature in a biblical
context refers to our essential being, what we really are. I think we see that in Ephesians
2-3 when it says, we were by nature children of wrath. That is a statement regarding the
real nature of the sinner, the real essence of him. He is by nature in his essential being,
an identity, a child of wrath. When we understand nature in that, what I think is a biblical
context, we have to understand that we who are saved have a new nature that has been
radically changed from what the old one was. In his book Birthright, David Needham says,
if those who use this terminology, that is sin nature, meant by it that in a general
way, Christians, because they have not yet received the redemption of their bodies, have
a tendency to produce fleshly sinful behavior out of harmony with their innermost being,
I would find no fault with the terminology. But he goes on to say, one's nature is not
simply something a person has, but rather that which a person most deeply is. You see,
there's the distinction, and I agree with what Needham says in that regard.
Now we still have a question. If then my deepest identity, my essential nature is righteous,
then from where does evil originate within me? The answer to that, it originates in sin.
That's what the apostle Paul says. Now let me just review with you what we studied last
week, and that is that the key to victory is in the truth of our identification with
Christ in his death and resurrection, and that we turn the key, as it were, in the door,
and open the door to experience victory by taking three actions, by knowing the truth
of our identity with Christ, by considering it to be true, by calculating it to be actual,
and thirdly, by presenting ourselves to God and our members as instruments of his for
righteousness' sake. Now it's particularly upon the last part of that that I'd like
for us to look tonight as we think about the fact that every person, every one of us submits
himself to a king who reigns over us. It is either sin, which is still in us, or it is
God. Either we yield ourselves to sin or to God. There's really no ground in between
it. It's like a light switch. It's either on or off. Either sin is reigning or God is
reigning. Now let's think for a moment about the reign of sin. The Bible teaches us that
sin as a power, sin as a principle, as a force, operates within our body, that it dominates
our bodies if it's allowed to. The truth of our death with Jesus Christ does not mean
that sin as a power died because it did not. The believer died, but not sin. Sin is still
very much alive within the believer. Keep that in mind. The truth of our identity with
Christ does not mean that sin somehow died. It still lives. The truth of identity is that
I as a believer died and live anew as a new person. But sin lives. It still lives in my
body. Notice that Paul does not say in verse 12,
Do not let sin reign in you. Do you see that? I'm back in Romans 6 by the way. If I lost
you somewhere along the trip. In Romans 6, 12, he does not say, Do not let sin reign
in you. But he says, Do not let sin reign in your mortal body. Notice the distinction
between the personality, the you, who you are, your identity, and your body, your mortal
body. The emphasis here is upon the temporariness of the body. He says, Do not let sin as a
power, as a king, as an authority reign in your mortal body that you should obey its
lusts. Beloved, as long as we are in this body, sin will be seeking to employ our bodies,
to dominate our bodies, and us through our bodies. The apostle Paul sees the redeemed
person as a new creature in Jesus Christ, but as one who still has sin in his body.
Now we see that for example in chapter 7 and verse 18. Just look over there quickly. We'll
cover this later in detail. But just look what he says here. I know that nothing good
dwells in me. That is, says Paul, in my flesh. He's not thinking about him as a person, as
the new Paul, because the Holy Spirit dwells in him. But he is saying there is nothing
good that dwells in me. That is, I mean my flesh. Down in verse 20 he says, If I am doing
the very thing I do not wish, that is sin, I am no longer the one doing it. He says it's
not really me, the new me. I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in
me. Then in verse 23 he says, I see a different law or principle in the members of my body,
waging war against the law of my mind, making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in
my members. Notice where he places sin in its operation. It's in the members of his
body. He says in verse 24, Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of
this death. Now Paul is not saying that the physical body itself is essentially sinful.
That is not what he's saying. But he is saying that sin as a power operates within the body.
Notice what he says in the middle of the verse, We ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting
eagerly for our adoption as sons, i.e. the redemption of our body. In other words, our
bodies have not yet been redeemed. Our bodies are mortal, and sin still operates within
our bodies. We long for that day when our bodies will be redeemed, when Christ comes,
and there will be no more sin operating in us at all. Paul is saying that sin uses the
natural appetites and instincts of our bodies as a means of expressing evil. I mean even
those appetites that are God given, the instincts that God has put within us. Sin seeks to use
those to express itself in its evil. And that desire of sin to do so sets up a battle within
us. Paul describes this in Galatians chapter 5 as a struggle between the flesh and the
spirit. The flesh, I understand, to be that pattern of thought, attitude, and action that
is left over from what we were before as the old man. The old man himself is gone. He's
dead. He no longer exists. But there is a pattern left in me in my personality, in my
humanness. There is still a pattern left in me that the Bible calls the flesh. And sin
seeks to use that old pattern. It seeks to use the appetites and the desires of my body
to dominate me as the new man so that sin is expressed and served. Barnhouse gives a
tremendous illustration of this. If you would just bear with me as I share it with you.
It's a few paragraphs, but it's catching. He says, one day I was visited by a young
man in his 30s who had a personal problem which illustrates the text we're discussing,
the same one we're discussing. He told his story somewhat like this. I work for such
a company and I have a private office. Several months ago my secretary was absent and I had
to use another girl. One day when she brought papers for my perusal she got too close. And
when she leaned over the desk she let her hair trail across my face. I fought it down,
but after all I am a man and toward the end of the day I put my hand on her and she came
right back to be kissed. Even while kissing her I was visualizing my two children running
to meet me and my wife standing at the door. I hated what I was doing, but I kept on. I
had the greatest desire to push her from me, but I kept pulling her to me. My body was
doing one thing and my mind was doing another. When I went home that night I hugged my children
so hard that one of them cried. And when we got him to laughing I told them that it was
because I loved them so much I had tears in my eyes and my wife's eyes were shining.
We all clung together in one of those moments that are indescribable. My wife was supremely
happy because I walked around the house that evening touching familiar things that we had
scrimped to buy expressing my love for the home and for her and before God I was never
more true. Next day the office intrigue began all over again. I was never more miserable
in my life. Before a month had gone by I realized that my lust and my love were in a terrible
battle. When I came home there was everything that I wanted in life. When I went to the
office the machine of my body seemed geared to something terrible that was purely mechanical
and which I wanted to get out of more than any fly ever wanted to get off fly paper.
I heard my wife tell someone that I was becoming more and more a homebody and that all I wanted
to do was stay at home and it is true. I follow her around the house, talk with her in the
kitchen where she is working and watch her as she puts the children to bed. This morning
when I left the house she told me that she thought she was the happiest woman in the
world because I showed so much that I loved her alone. I could hardly talk. In fact tears
came to my eyes when I lifted a lock of her hair to dry them and I said to her, I love
you more than life itself. She cried and I crushed her to me until she screamed and smiled
at the same time. Then I ran off to my train but now what shall I do? That was the story.
Barnhouse continues, with the husband's consent I called the wife to my office and told her
the story. Fear leaped to her eyes but I reassured her. We took a taxi and went to his office.
He was expecting us and I stood by as they embraced and she said, I know, I know, I understand,
it's all right. Then I called the other girl into the office. The scene that followed typified
the mortal struggle between the flesh and the spirit both striving for the mastery of
that body. But the wife was not striving. She knew that the mind, soul, and heart of
her husband had never been away from her. She understood the glandular warfare of his
body and that his lust had sprung to life in response to the lure of strange flesh.
She looked at him with complete understanding and love. The secretary stood there speechless.
I said to her, she knows all about it. She loves him and he loves her completely and
he has never had any thought toward you except one of animal lust. You were never wanted
except physically and you are not wanted at all from now on. Do you understand? I asked
her to wait in the hall while I prayed with the couple. Then I went out and saw the secretary
dabbing her eyes and I talked to her about her need of Jesus Christ.
Well that's something that happened decades ago in Barnhouse's ministry in Philadelphia.
Let me tell you that's as relevant today as it was then. How is it that we can control
sin that is still operating in our bodies seeking to use its natural appetites and instincts?
On the one hand, we have to stop presenting the members of our bodies to sin. That's
what Paul says. He says we need to stop that. Do not go on presenting the members of your
body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. Our bodies with all of their appetites, with
all of their propensities, their powers, their faculties, we must stop presenting to sin.
And folks, we can do that because of the truth that we have looked at in verses 1 through
11 in Romans chapter 6. What I am saying is that sin's reign will be no more active in
me than I allow it to be. Sin is no longer a master any more than I allow it to be a
master in my life. As the apostle says in Romans 8 and verse 13, if by the Spirit you
are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. That's my responsibility.
By the power of the Holy Spirit to put to death what the body wants and what sin is
seeking to use the body to do. No longer, he says, should you present or put at the
disposal of sin your body and its members. Don't let sin use your body any longer as
a weapon against God and against righteousness. But he says on the other hand, present yourself
to God. We have looked at the reign of sin. Let's just think briefly about the reign
of God. Just as sin may dominate us, so may God. Sin produces unrighteousness. God produces
righteousness. The first thing that we must do is to recognize sin as it operates in us
and deal with it. Once we have done that, we need to take a positive step. That positive
step is in the middle of verse 13, present yourselves to God. Notice something. Before
he said in verse 13, yes verse 13, the first part of the verse, he says, do not go on presenting
the members of your body to sin. But now he says, present yourselves to God. You see the
difference? We cannot present ourselves to sin because we as a new self or new selves
are righteous and created in true holiness. We can present the members of our body to
sin. But we can present ourselves, what we really are, as new creatures to God. Present
yourselves, who you are now, to God as those alive from the dead and, he says, your members
as instruments of righteousness to God. As one who is resurrected, only the Christian
is resurrected. As one who is resurrected, you and I can present ourselves and our members
to God. The verb tense here is such that it means once and for all. It doesn't mean that
we're not going to have to come back to this point many times, even in the same day.
But Paul's point seems to be set your flag here. Say, here it is, Lord, this is the decision
I make by faith. I say that I and the members of my body are your servants and I give you
all that I am to produce righteousness. And we set the flag there and if we step back
from that flag at some points, we need to come back to it and recognize that we've
slipped, but reconfirm that the flag is here, that we are God's servants. We are created,
beloved, to serve him. That's why we have died and been raised again that we might not
any longer live for ourselves, but for him and be his servants.
Do you remember where we started in this whole study back in Romans 6? The question was,
how can we, considering who we are, considering the new people that we are in Jesus Christ,
how can people like us continue to live in sin? It's incongruous. It's unthinkable.
It's even reprehensible to consider that because of who we are now in Jesus Christ, that we
should go on presenting ourselves to sin, to serve it. Because we have died to sin.
It's no longer our master. We have been raised to serve a new master, Jesus Christ, and we
should present ourselves to him and let him be our king. So I ask this question, practically
speaking tonight, I mean honestly, in the way that it really is in your life, who is
king? Who is your king? Is it sin that still operates in your body, your mortal body? Oh,
and tonight renounce that activity as being a monstrosity, as being abnormal, as being
freakish, for it is. Because as a new person in Jesus Christ, that is not at all what is
in harmony with who you are. But rather tonight proclaim Jesus Christ as king and lord of
your life. Let's bow together. I wonder if you would just like to respond quietly to
God where you're seated. Pray to him. Talk to him about who's king. And if sin has been
on the throne of your life, reckon with it. Be done with it. And present yourself to God.
And the members of your body, with all of its appetites and its propensities, present
your body to God to serve him to live righteously. Heavenly Father, apply this word to our lives.
Oh, may it be a living word to us this evening personally. And may the living Spirit of God
who inspired these living words cause it to be indelibly written, written upon our hearts.
And may we begin to enter more and more and more into the experience of Romans 6. And
so consider and present ourselves to you as those who have been gloriously raised from
the dead to serve you. In Jesus' name, amen.