Unleashing the Power of Grace: Overcoming Sin and Embracing the Gospel

Welcome to the City Light Church podcast. Thanks for joining us today, as we look into God's word and discover the hope and truth that he has for us. If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us at citylightnyc.com, that's citylightnyc.com. Pastor Boyan Jansik and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds. As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are deeply loved by God, that you are surrounded by His grace, and that He has a real hope and a future for you. Well, we had a great Easter last Sunday, didn't we? It's just awesome. And we had, prior to Easter, concluded going through the entire book of Ephesians, and the first service I said, our six-part series in Ephesians, but it was more like an eight or nine-part series, I forget now. Because some chapters took a little longer than others. But we went through all of Ephesians, and I want to start a new series, should be three-part, but who knows? On Romans 6, 7, and 8, because every believer, because we're living under this new covenant of grace, every believer should be an expert at the new covenant and an expert at what grace is. Since that's the system that we're living under now, we're no longer under the old covenant of the law, we're under the new covenant of grace, yet it's said that so many believers don't fully understand the new covenant of grace and how it operates. And then consequently, we should really be good at the person of Jesus, because the two are forever linked together. Jesus and grace go hand in hand. John said the law was given, it was this thing that was given by Moses, but grace and truth came in the person of Jesus Christ. So when you know Jesus and you know His grace, that's when you come alive as a believer. That's when it really starts clicking and popping for you, and you see your prayers being answered, and you're filled with the life of God, and you're living the victorious life that God called you to live. So we're going to do Romans 6, 7, and 8, and then we're going to go into the entire book of Galatians. There's no better way to understand grace than studying the book of Galatians and realizing that there was even 2,000 years ago this war, this tension between people being seduced and trying to go back under the law, when God has set us free and put us under the covenant of grace. And then in the summer where we normally read one book in our life groups, throughout the year every group has their own book, but in the summer we all camp around one book, it's going to be a book on grace, because we need to be strong in that, don't we? Amen. So we're going to begin Romans 6 today, but because the Apostle Paul didn't give us the courtesy of listing verses and chapters, we're going to begin in Romans 5 to see what he was talking about. That was a joke. You know, it didn't come with the little numbers, it was just one long letter. So we've got to finish Romans 5, just the last few verses which will bring us into what Paul was talking about in Romans 6. Are you ready? Oh, when you get this, it's going to make all the difference in the world to you. I remember when I was in college, I played Romans 6 over and over again. I had that old 90s boom box, and I had these CDs. I've gotten at the Christian bookstore over on a, you know, by Penn Station. I don't even know if they're around anymore, but these were pre-Ecommerce days. You wanted to get something here to go in person and get it, and it was this Alexander score B, the entire old and new testament on CD. And so in his strong PBSC baritone, he would go through Romans 6, an auto replay over and over and over again. I just knew, I knew there was something powerful in Romans 6 that I just wasn't getting. I could tell that every verse was pregnant with revelation. But I wasn't quite catching it. And so I know that repetition breeds revelation, so I would sleep at night with it going over and over and over again, and then during the day I would read it. And then sometime in the late 90s I stumbled upon this old six tape series on Romans 6, and as I began listening and studying it, I changed my life forever, forever. So we're going to do a deep dive today. But let's look at the close of Romans 5. For as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners talking about Adam, and how when he rebelled against the God and the garden sin entered into this world. So also by one man's obedience, talking about who the scriptures call the final Adam, Jesus. So also by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous. Righteousness means right standing with God. You're pronounced not guilty. You have free access into the presence of God. There's no hindrances. There's no obstacles. Your sin has been taken out of the way, and now you have peace with God. Isn't that awesome? That's why the gospel is good news. You have peace with your maker, and you've been given this free gift of righteousness, of right standing with God. Verse 20. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound. What does that mean? Well, without the law, the law of Moses, that is, people didn't know what sin was, and the purpose of the law was to expose us. It was to show us up. It was to show us that we needed a savior, because we had no ability in and of ourselves to keep God's law. So in Galatians Paul says the law was our tutor to teach us. How did it teach us? Well, we look at the Hebrews as an example, and we realize they just kept tripping over themselves. They couldn't fulfill God's righteous standard. The Bible says that the strength of sin is the law. Let me just stop right there. Just to clarify now, and I've said this before, but this constantly bears repeating, there is a difference between the old covenant and the new covenant, and it's not just the blank sheet of white paper in your Bible. It's a completely different system under the old covenant system, and that's what a covenant is, a system of order, a dispensation. You had to endeavor to be approved unto God based on your behavior and based on your works, and you never could be. You talk about getting frustrated. It's very, very frustrating. And that's why the new covenant is called a better covenant. In fact, the Bible says if the old covenant was perfect, there'd be no need for a new. The new covenant is different. The new covenant is the covenant of grace. You no longer endeavor to be approved unto God based on your own behavior. You already are approved unto God forever based on what Jesus has already done. Amen? That's like the fundamentals of grace. This is something we have to carry in our spirit every day and remind ourselves every day of. The law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Amen. In fact, if you look in the Greek, it can be translated where sin abounds, grace, super abounds. That's a good news. So that as sin rained in death, even so grace might rain through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And that's the close of Romans 5 and now we get into Romans 6, which we'll be studying today. So the Apostle Paul was the great apostle of grace. He's the one who got this revelation. He went over to Jerusalem to check on it. The world had never seen anything like grace before. No global religion, philosophy, school of thought, ever, ever had anything that even resembled this canopy of grace that were under. This canopy of grace, by the way, which was bought, purchased, and ratified with Jesus' own blood. And he begins Romans 6 by asking this question, which is a good question to ask after he says, hey, where sin abounds, grace does super abound, grace abounds even more. Because if you're not walking with the Lord and your heart hasn't been transformed and your mind hasn't been renewed, then that can easily be misinterpreted to mean, well, cool. I'll just sin more and get even more grace. If grace abounds even more, where sin abounds, well, I'll just crank up my sin level to get even more grace, right? By the way, this is what people said about Paul. And the great pastor, Martin Lloyd Jones of Westminster Abbey in the 1950s, he even put it this way. He said, you're not preaching grace correctly unless people accuse you of antinomianism. Antinomianism is a complete disregard for God's law, a complete disregard for God's rules. In other words, grace is so out of the box, it's so scandalous, it's so powerful that people should even wonder when they first hear it, as this guy lost his mind. And is he just encouraging everybody to just cast off all restraint with zero consequences? And Paul was accused of the same thing. In fact, if you read the pistols of Peter, Peter says, hey, be careful with Paul's writings. Because evil men with twisted hearts turn it and perverted to their writings of Paul, to their own destruction. Peter was talking about Paul's revelation of grace, because he can be turned, he can be twisted. So that's why he begins Romans 6-1 with a question that every single person here has had, including myself. Well then, if grace superabounds were sinned abounds, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin? That grace may abound? Good question. The question everybody has, and it's too afraid to ask. Any answers? Certainly not, which can also be translated, perish the thought, or God forbid. Certainly not. How shall we who die to sin live any longer in it? Now, when reading the New Testament, that's the first time we read this. And Paul, he states it as a past tense event, that we die to sin. Well, when did that happen? What does that look like? In the next verse, verse 3 says, or do you not know, kind of hinting at that we should know this, that this is a basic foundational and fundamental truth of the gospel. Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? And please just keep that verse up there. The Apostle Paul is not talking about water baptism here. This is where people often get confused, because they see the word baptism immediately, they get the image of somebody going underneath the water. No, the word baptized means to immerse. Baptized means immersed. Paul is saying, you have been immersed into Christ Jesus. When, when Jesus walked this earth, He was representative man. And even though you and I weren't born yet in the mind of God, you were in Jesus. And when Jesus died on the cross, your sin nature died there with Him on the cross. And when you got saved, when you confessed Jesus as your Lord and turned your back on the things of this world, that's when you appropriated that past tense fact by faith. Ooh, trippy. Or do you not know that as many of us as were immersed into Christ Jesus were immersed into His death? So what is water baptism then? Water baptism is a physical outward show of what happened there. And that's why baptism is so important. It's you demonstrating in a physical way to yourself, to the world, with witnesses that you believe this happened 2,000 years ago. And this is why the Apostle Paul was able to say, I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ, live with me. So one of the foundations of this gospel of grace is that you died. Your old nature, your sin nature, it died there, was put to death on the cross. Next verse please. Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death. We were immersed with Him when He was dying on the cross, we were there. That just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in unis of life. Verse 5. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, the word united means planted, we were united together in His death. But hey, if you get this, I'm getting somewhere with this. I understand right now it's technical and it's deep. And if you've never heard this stuff before, you may be on overload already. I get it. But grab ahold of this, because this is life changing, life transforming stuff. You were co-crucified with Him. You were crucified together with Him. That Greek word for united, it's like if I were to hold up a piece of cardboard with a black marker and draw a vertical line. And then I would draw another line, I wouldn't draw it beneath it, I wouldn't draw it above it, I wouldn't draw it next to it, I wouldn't even draw it really, really close next to it, I would draw it right over it. When you look at the cross of Jesus, don't see someone else up there, see your sin nature. You're old you, in Him, put to death on that cross. In fact, it also calls on what do you call that, the two branches, I'm just grafting, that when you take a branch and you graft another branch to it and that it all becomes one branch or one tree, that's what He's saying happened to you with Jesus on the cross. You were united together with Him in the likeness of His death and also in His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man, the old man is the sin nature, it's the part of you that's against God, it's the part of you that wants to do wrong, it's the part of you that's rebelling against God. He's saying this already happened, this isn't something you're trying to accomplish, this has already happened, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin, for He who has died has been freed from sin. Go to a cemetery, around dead people, there's not much sin happening. This is why this is so important, it's so important, listen, because God has called us to holiness. The freedom that we have in Jesus, the life that we have in Jesus, we only experience that to its fullest, when we're free from the bondage of sin, free from the addictions, I'm not talking about substances or drugs only, sin is an addiction, it's an addiction that makes you sick, it's an addiction that kills you, it'll kill you in so many ways physically, emotionally, it'll rob you of your ambition, it'll crush your dreams, it'll make you a slave. And the Christian life is one where we're free of that, there's just one problem, most of the time we're taught wrong on how to be free, we're taught that we really really need to get our act together, we're taught that through a lot of willpower, and a lot of self-discipline, and a lot of work, and all of the onus is on us, over and over and over again. And that's the old covenant of God's law, under the new covenant of God's grace, he lives his life through you, and you yield to the truth that you have already been crucified with Christ. And this whole, I know this is so strange right now, again, Christianity is a very, very bizarre, peculiar and strange faith, this does not make sense to the carnal mind, what makes sense to the carnal mind is a wagging finger, scolding, rebuking, me coming up with a membership manual, the size of the old yellow pages, and telling you exactly what the demands are on you. That makes sense, but this, you can only grasp with the born-again spirit and revelation from the Holy Spirit, and it actually produces true genuine real holiness, and not that religious garbage and the pride that comes from it when you try to do it yourself. We're called to live under grace, not under the law. Paul said, Paul said, walk in the spirit, and you won't fulfill the desires of the flesh. What does walking in the spirit mean? I was told that walking in the spirit means reading your Bible every day, praying every day, giving, witnessing, all great things, but that's not walking in the spirit. That's a fruit of walking in the spirit. What's walking in the spirit? Walking in the spirit is walking under the new covenant of his grace. Whenever you hear Paul say that, he's actually comparing and contrasting the new covenant with the old covenant. The old covenant is a religious bondage, and so many Christians are trying to do new covenant Christianity with an old covenant mind. The old covenant is just picture a hamster on that wheel. Forever caught up in the sin, repentant cycle, this guilt, shame, and condemnation cycle, that's so exhausting. That's why Jesus said, to the religious, he said this, come unto me, all you who labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. My new covenant, yoke, is easy, and my burden is light. That's what walking in the spirit is. If you look at it the old way, how religion teaches it to you, walk in the spirit, do these things, and then you won't fulfill the desires of the flesh. That's like saying, be skinny, and you won't be fat. Huh? No, you yield to the Holy Spirit, you consider yourself and your old nature crucified with Christ by faith, and then he comes and from the inside out, religion once, behavior modification, Jesus gives you heart transformation. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus, and it's really amazing how no one has to teach you the law. We as humans are born this way. In fact, when we get to Galatians, Paul calls it the ABCs of the universe. Every person, from whatever continent, whatever remote island, whatever their culture or tribe, they're all legalists at heart. That was the original sin of man, by the way. The tree of life was the tree of Jesus, the tree of grace. What did man do? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That's the law. And we're born this way, and no one has to teach it to us. Just yesterday, our kids who are in a Christian environment, and a Christian environment where we try to emulate grace, receiving God's grace, grace amongst each other. We pray every day, and they're hearing the word of God every day. And let me tell you what happened. And this is not how Victor was raised, but let me tell you what would happen. We drive it in the car, and our daughter, Vivian. Am I right in sharing this? She's going to watch the YouTube one day and be like, Dad, I was in kids' church, and you were sharing my business. She's four years old. And I've told her over and over again, don't put the windows down. Sometimes we've got to take the... I got to take the child's safety lock, because my wife wants to put her window down. And then she puts... I said, don't put the window down, and definitely don't stick your hands out of the window. And then it was really hot yesterday, and we just were driving, and had the windows down, and I look into the river mirror, and I see her doing that thing. And I was like, aww. And because it's such a danger, I mean, this was in jazzy, that this happened. Cars were like millimeters away from you, whizzing by, and you know, she sticks her hand out. So I said, sweetie, I love you. But because I've said this so many times, and now you've disobeyed, I'm going to have to punish. And her punishment, by the way, was no iPad for the day. Terrible, I know. And then Victor, who's eight, begins engaging me on this whole punishment thing. And he says, well, God, does God punish us? And I said, well, the Bible says he chastises us. He disciplines us. He child trains us. And then he said, okay, well, how does he do that? Is it like me, like I'm riding my bike, and then all of a sudden I fall down, and is that God punishing me? And I just said, wah, we didn't raise him this way. We didn't train him this way. But isn't it amazing how the human mind, when it's not saturated in the gospel of grace, that's where it goes. So I asked him, I said, well, imagine if you were doing something wrong, and you were riding your bike, and I just whacked you off of it. Would I be a good dad in doing that? He went, no. No, I'd be an abusive dad. Yet we ascribe abusive characteristics to our heavenly father, who's infinitely more loving, and more kind, and more compassionate than an earthly father. And so I taught him the Lord he disciplines us. He child trains us. 90% of the time, that's with his word. That's all you need. It's a rebuke from the Lord, which even then, it's for your own good, and even that is coated and tempered with his grace and his love. You're doing something that your spirit is resisting, you're born again, new creation spirit, it thirsts for God, it loves God, it thirsts for holiness, and it'll meet, it's allergic to sin, and he'll then come inside with your spirit. Because his Holy Spirit is inside of your spirit, and have you ever gone to do something wrong, and you just, that's the Lord disciplining you. 90% of the time, that's all that's necessary. When the Bible says he child trains you, that means a little, on the booty, just a little. Now he causes the ceiling to come crashing and on you. What lesson is learned from that? The Lord loved me so much, He disciplined me by killing me. No! But this is the ABCs of the universe, and this is how people think. What verse are we on? 8. He died, He died to sin, once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives to God. And now the Apostle Paul, He presents this eternal truth, and He presents the answer to anyone asking, how can I be freed from sin? My assumption here, because I know my people, and I know the church we have, my assumption here is that we have Christians here, with a new spirit, who have been born again, and that you don't have an appetite for sin. Yes, you may fall, yes, you're tempted, but let me just do this survey, just to make sure my assumption is correct. If you could hit a button right now, which would guarantee you'd never ever sin again, how many of you would just slap that button right away without thinking twice? Amen. Really, the Bible loves, God loves you through His Word, but it doesn't regard our feelings, it's His truth, and it's subjective, it's subject only to Him. But yet more and more, this has always been the case with mankind, but more and more, people gauge everything by how they feel about it. Oh, this doesn't feel like it's right, well, the reason it doesn't feel like it's right, is because your mind has been perverted by culture and the lies that are out there, and now it doesn't feel right, well, our feelings are subject to outside forces, but God's Word is never changing. So, that's not what verse we were on, what verse were we on? Verse 11. This is the key. Let me see verse 10. Good Lord, let me see verse 9. Let me see verse 12. Verse 11. The key. Yes, there it is, okay. Sometimes that happens because actually I have two screens up here that I read from, one of the current verse and one of the next verse, so I can be in the present in the future at the same time. And then I give a few examples, and so again, my assumption, and it's correct, that when you serve the Lord, you don't want to sin. But yet, and this is just reality, Christians find themselves sometimes in bondage to sin or in a pattern of sin, and this is why also so many Christians, I want to say so many, it's not really so many, but it's just way more than I would like to see. It breaks my heart, they forsake the Lord, or they stop coming to church because they don't know how to break free from sin, and then they're constantly under shame, under guilt. I mean, they just feel like Lord, I keep disappointing you, what's the point of even trying, and so they then just leave. And that's not Christianity, that's not what He wants for you. We are not supposed to be like a walking civil war. We're not supposed to have schizophrenic Christianity, and when we get to Romans 7, the Apostle Paul, he gives that example of schizophrenic Christianity, he says, the things that I want to do, I don't do, and the things that I don't want to do, I keep on doing, and a lot of Christians are like, yeah, that's me, yeah, I'm like the Apostle Paul. No, that's not, he's giving an example of a Christian trying to live the new covenant Christian life while still being under an old covenant legalistic mindset, and that produces confusion, and that schizophrenic Christianity was like, I want to go left, but it's pulling me right, then I want to go right, who am I, what am I doing here? That's not God's will, what a terrible, terrible way to live, what a terrible religion Christianity would be if that's what its essence was. So there's freedom. How does one break the cycle of sin? How does one progress in holiness? Again, it's not through sweating, it's not through laboring, it's not from trying really hard, listen, it's not from coming up to the altar and beating the altar and wailing. You know, there are people, for example, there's sex, there's groups in the Philippines where they will beat their own flesh because they recognize the flesh is bad, but they actually beat their own body because of the shame and condemnation they feel like they're doing a service to God. Because they hate the sin that is in them, not knowing that that sin, their old sinful nature was already past tense, co-crucified with Jesus. Amen. So what is, what is the answer? Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be indeed, excuse me, dead indeed to sin. That's an accounting term, which means put it down that it's so. So the answer, and this is, people are going to be like, no, it's too easy and it's going to fly over their head, the answer is in believing this and putting it down that it's so. Believing what? That your sin nature was crucified with Jesus. I'm going to give you an example of Joe. Joe recently got saved. Joe's every man, he doesn't really exist, Joe's not here. This is Joe. He got invited by one of you to church. He kind of felt like he wanted to just check out the claims of Christianity. He came one time, enjoyed it, liked worship, never heard of sounds like our worship team. He heard the preaching of the word, he liked it, came back again. Same thing, liked it even more. Third time came again, he gave his life to Jesus. Then we have baptisms in May, Joe gets baptized. And now he has a new spirit, and that spirit thirsts after right living, it thirsts after walking with the Lord. And he realizes there's a lot of areas in his life that have to change, right? Joe's been completely immersed in the world and the culture of this world. He's been brainwashed by the spirit of this world and he's looking at his life and it's a mess. And now he needs to break free. Well, how does he break free? He might even look at everything he has to change in his life and get overwhelmed and Satan whispers in his ear. You're never going to do this. It's too much. He might as well quit now. Quit now before you let your own self down. What is the answer for Joe? The answer for Joe is to buy faith, believe and say out loud that he's been crucified with Christ, to reckon himself already dead to sin, to put it down that it's so. So Joe is going through life and he feels his old life calling. He feels the pull of the world and he stops and he says, father, I thank you that in Jesus, my sin nature has been crucified. I put it down that it's so. I reckon myself dead indeed to sin. And he says that again and again and even he falls, he says it again and he believes it all the more. And he doesn't give in to that satanic voice that says you're a failure, you're a loser and God doesn't love you anymore, but he appropriates the word of God and he believes in his heart. Even if I fail, while the Lord is working out, holiness in me, I believe that I have been made perfect. I believe that he loves me. I believe that there's nothing I can do that will cause him to take one drop of his love away. This is why the preaching of the cross is essential. This is why the Apostle Paul said the gospel is the power of God. Amen. Hallelujah. Reck in yourselves to be dead indeed to sin. Did I already talk about how the difference between justification and sanctification? Okay. Justification means you're pronounced not guilty. Every altar call you've ever heard, you're told believe in Jesus, well every good altar call you've ever heard, believe in Jesus and trust in the righteousness of Christ. And when you do, you're pronounced justified. That means the gavel, kankankank, you're declared not guilty. And that's how, by faith, you don't have to work for it, right? You don't have to earn it. But then there's this other process called sanctification. That's the process of you being made holy and you changing your behavior. Now that's often presented as really, really dependent on you, isn't it? Justification comes by faith, sanctification, whew, you're going to really have to work hard for it. In fact, we've heard that. We've heard salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you everything you have. That's a half truth. The reality is the gospel truth is that sanctification is by faith just as much as justification is by faith. You don't have to keep beating your head against the wall. For some of you, if you've been struggling in sin, your greatest problem is nobody told you you died. You need to reckon it. You need to put it down. You need to celebrate that. You need to imagine it, meditate on it, picture Jesus walking this earth, never ever sinning. Picture the beauty that even before you were born, God knew you, God outside of time, and He saw you in representative man. He saw you in Jesus. And when Jesus went to the cross, He saw you. And your old nature, your sin nature died there with Him. You might ask right now if that sounds wonderful pastor, but why do I still get tempted? Why do I still want to do it? If my sin nature was crucified with Him, why do I think the things I think? Great question. Because the Bible says that your mind hasn't been saved yet. Your mind is in the process of being saved. And that's why we're called to renew our minds. Paul said you are transformed by the renewing of your mind. He also said be transformed in the spirit of your mind. If your mind has been in the world and your mind has feasted on the lives of this world, it's going to want to do bad. And don't you feel condemned about that? But that's when you need to recite the gospel truths. Hallelujah. We can think all sorts of things. In fact, we do think all sorts of things. Imagine if every single one of us had a 2x2 LED screen on our forehead that flashed everything we thought. We'd go around with a paper bag over our heads. Thoughts come. You can't keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair. And so don't be embarrassed or condemned by thoughts you may have. But you go back to the truth of the gospel. I have been crucified with Christ. My sin nature died there. And allow the word of God to renew your mind. Listen, I'm presenting this because it's a core of the gospel, but please just understand. Christianity is not a giant battlefield where you're waging war against sin. That's how religion presents it. That is, there's nothing appetizing about that. It's just not the gospel. Christianity is about a vibrant living relationship with Jesus. And because of what he's done, you get to be free from death. You get to be free from sin. You get to not have the sin will bring destruction in your life. And you get to be free from that. And the beauty is that under the new covenant, he's not putting all the emphasis on you. The responsibility for you is to simply wreck in yourself dead indeed to sin. And then yield if you're dead, die already. Yield. Yield and let God be God and let the Lord be the Lord and let the Holy Spirit come and live through you. Amen. Will you fall? Yeah. Will you stumble sometimes? Yes. But over time, grace will. It will. It must. Grace is an empowerment against sin and failure. It will have an outworking as long as you keep clinging to Jesus and not lose the mental fight of being disgusted with your own self. Hallelujah. His love is amazing. His love is wonderful. Hallelujah. Likewise, you also wreck in yourselves. Just say this. I'm dead. I reckon my sin nature is dead. Yeah. And now you have the new life in Jesus. I reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin but alive to God and Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body. That you should obey it in its lust. That's an interesting statement right there. Don't let sin reign in your mortal body. He explains a little bit more in the next verse, what he means by not letting sin reign in your mortal body. He says, and don't present your members. Your members are your body parts. Your eyes, your ears, your nose, your mouth, your hands that you touch with. He says, don't present your members. Don't expose them. Don't present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin. But present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members, your body parts as instruments of righteousness to God. So he's saying, past tense, your sin nature has been nailed there with him. You've been declared not guilty. You've been given righteousness right standing with God. He calls you perfect. He has perfected you with his own blood. He receives you. He accepts you. Now let there be an outworking of that. And while you're letting there be an outworking, don't be in an environment and don't have a posture where you're giving your members access your body parts, your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands. You're removing yourself from that environment. Are you hearing me? Verse 14, Mario has entered the building. For sin, excuse me, go back to verse 13. For sin, verse 14, thank you. For sin shall not have dominion over you. For you are not under law but under grace. So there's, again, there's preachers that are definitely afraid of this message. They think if you preach grace, people are just going to cast off all restraint and lose their mind. And the exact opposite is true. I once was overseas in Eastern Europe and I preached in this church where the pastor was heavy on the law. Heavy, heavy, heavy. I was a guest minister. I did an alter call where they, for whatever reason, began to confess their sins to me. Like what's your prayer request that they confess their sins? It doesn't happen here in the state so much. But in that church, and it was some of the wildest, most heinous, darkest stuff I've ever heard in ministry, person after person after person. And I realized when you, when you're under the law, that's what's going to spring up. Sin won't have dominion over you. Why will sin not have dominion over you? Because you have an angry pastor who makes you feel guilty every Sunday and tells you what you should and shouldn't do? Is that why sin won't have dominion over you? No, sin won't have dominion over you because you're under grace. And when you understand grace and understand his blood, understand this new system that we're under, the dispensation of grace, sin will lose its power. You can switch that around to say, sin will have dominion over you because you're under the law and not under grace. So grace is the answer. But people, it also depends on who's teaching it. People mishear or people treat grace like I've heard one guy say he was engaging in something he shouldn't have been, he said, but there's grace for that. I'm like, if there's grace for that, that's going to change your behavior for the good. You're talking about grace like it's some spiritual WD-40 that you just spray over the squeaky parts of your life. Like grace is just going, God going, boys will be boys, you know, I'll just, I'll just smear some of my grace over that and turn a blind eye. That's not grace. Hallelujah. For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace. Verse 15, what then shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? He brings that point up several times now because he knows how people will think. Certainly not. Do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey and there's that term again, who you present yourself? In other words, what's your spiritual posture? To whom you present yourself slaves to obey, you are that one slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness. But God be thanked. Verse 17, that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine. That form of teaching to which you were delivered and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I'm a slave of righteousness. How about you? If you get tempted, say this out loud. I'm a slave of righteousness. And look, there's different sins and although you could say sin is sin, that's true. Sin is sin. But different sins have different strengths, different hooks, different consequences. Are you hearing what I'm saying? Different consequences. Some sins you believe in grace and they just dissipate and you're done. Others, it may take time. But as it takes time, realize several things. Realize you've been crucified with Christ, your sin nature is dead. Realize that you're loved no matter what. Realize that he's not disappointed in you, he doesn't get tired of you. And don't you get disappointed and tired of yourself? Amen. And realize that you're not fighting a war, but the war has been won. And the only battle is in the arena of faith. And walk with him. And you know, but I keep falling. The righteous man falls down seven times. Each time gets back up again. Hallelujah. And he will have his way in you. I'm not where I need to be experientially right now. I'm not where I need to be, but thank God I'm not where I used to be. Just lift up your hand. Amen. He's taking you from glory to glory. He's working on you. He's making you better. Hallelujah. And while you're working progress, enjoy yourself the way he enjoys you. Amen. Amen. And by the way, you will be a slave to something. I know we like to feel that we're not a slave to anything or anyone, but the Bible says you're either slave of sin or slave of righteousness. You're either slave of Satan or slave of God. This is why Paul begins so many new testament letters by saying, I call a bond servant of the Lord. A slave and chains of love willfully what is a bond servant someone who willfully willingly attaches himself to the master and you say, I don't want to be a slave. There's different kinds of slaves. You're going to be one choose which one. You could be that you could be that slave that's covered in soot coming out of a coal mine. You got the black lung. The owners have been cracking their whips. That's a slave of unrighteousness, a slave of sin, a slave of Satan. Or you can be the kind of servant who's in a 50,000 square foot mansion. You're wearing a nice dress or a nice suit. You got a silver platter and your master is the Lord Jesus Christ who's only loving and always kind and always good. Pick your master. Pick your master. Amen. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Verse 19, Paul says, this is deep stuff. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. I give weird examples using my own family because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members, your body parts as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness. So now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness worship team. Come on up. And this is a great question that you should always ask yourself, what fruit? What fruit did you have in the things of which you were now ashamed? Isn't that a good question? For the end of those things is death. When you're walking with the Lord and you're in his word, you don't reminisce about the bad old days when you were in sin. You don't thirst after the old life because your mind isn't blinded and so you're not thinking, that was really a good time. Because reality is when you ask yourself, what fruit did I have in those things? You go nothing. It produced death. It killed me. It took my joy, it took my ambition, it took my vigor, it took my life right out of my cells. What fruit did I have? No fruit, temporary pleasure and then pay day. For the end of those things is death, verse 22. But now having been set free from sin, another thing that you can say out loud, even if you're struggling in sin. Let me just ask, are you digging this message? Okay, just making sure. It's awfully quiet in here. I feel like this is everyone, what people think about but no one wants to talk about. You know, very rarely do I get people who ask me, hey, pastor, I got these sin issues, how can I be set free? It actually very rarely happens. I think as most people are embarrassed because the devil lies to them and tells them they're the only one that has that question and it's everyone. We all want to see the Lord's holiness worked out. How does that happen by faith, by believing and saying out loud that your sin nature was crucified with him? You can also say this out loud. I have been set free from sin. I gave this extreme example and now that we're online, I just know the days coming where someone's going to take the 10 second clip and say here's what Pastor Boehren's all about. You know, but I use this extreme example. Let's just use an extreme example. Someone someone someone smoking crack addicted to crack. The hands are shaking. They got the pipe. They gave their life to Jesus, but their mind isn't renewed and they're physically addicted now and they're taking the pipe and putting it to their mouth and they should say I have been free from sin and believe it and they can think and believe it and put that pipe to their lips and inhale. I'm not telling people to do I'm not telling people to do this. I'm using an extreme example to drive a point home that no matter what you're going through, no matter how deep the sin out loud, you need to confess the truth of God's word that you have been set free from sin and you say it and you believe it over and over again. And you know in your heart that he loves you, he loves you, he loves you and he's working in you. No matter what your head is telling you, no matter how much sin is riding you and lying to you. And you say I've been crucified with Christ. I no longer live with Christ, even as you're struggling with that sin. Yes, even that especially then, it's evening. If you're doing good, it's easy to say this. I had a good day pastor. I was in the Word. I was praying, feeling good, worshiping. I've been set free from sin. Okay. Say it when it's ugly. It's no less true when you're going through the temptation. Amen. But now having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness and the end everlasting life for the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Hallelujah. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. I'd like every head bowed, every eye closed. We're going to say a confession based on the truth of God's Word together. All together, say it out loud in the name of Jesus. I have been delivered from sin. My old sin nature was crucified with Jesus. I am under grace. The Bible says sin shall not have dominion over me. Because I'm not under the law, but I'm under grace. Jesus loves me. He accepts me and he calls me approved. His power is at work in me. He's changing me. He's transforming me. I'm no longer a slave of sin, but I'm a slave of righteousness. Amen. Oh, shout a big hallelujah. Amen. Amen.