Music.

Copy of the scripture with you, I'm going to ask you to open up to Romans chapter 6 this morning.

And we're going to be dealing with, at least in some way, shape,

or form, the entirety of Romans 6.

It's not very long. It's 23 verses.

Paul, it's kind of broken up, in most of our Bibles, it's broken up into two main main sections.

But as we're going to see, those sections essentially are Paul saying the same thing.

He's just saying them in two different ways so that they can be kind of like

understood by maybe two different types of people, right?

You know, so sometimes you have to explain the same thing one way for one group

of people, and you got to find a different way to explain it and teach it to

another group of people so that there's like a comprehensive understanding.

That's kind of what Romans 6 does, right?

It's not a different message. It's just a different way of saying it.

We'll see that in a moment.

But he opens up Romans chapter 6 here with this rhetorical type of question.

The whole thing opens up and it says this. It says, It says, what shall we say then?

Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?

This is not the first time that he's going to say something like this or ask this type of question.

He's going to say it later in verse 15 as well.

But I say that this is a somewhat rhetorical question that Paul asks because

although Paul maybe meant it to be rhetorical, you know, like a rhetorical question

is a question that the answer is already assumed,

but you ask the question in order to make a point about what everyone knows the answer already is.

And so I think Paul obviously meant it to be rhetorical, but here's the thing.

The very reality of rhetorical questions is that they usually address a pervasive

issue, mindset, or belief that exists in reality, right?

That a rhetorical question is asked because there is some issue that is pervasive

or that's happening or that exists in our minds or in the community or whatever.

And I think that what Paul does here in asking this question is he gives himself

an opportunity to address the issue that he sees and that he knows sits sometimes

at the heart of all of us who follow Jesus, okay?

He asked the rhetorical question to kind of like give himself an underhand pitch

to knock it out of the park with the answer.

And that's what Romans chapter six is. It's an opportunity for Paul to ask this

question or to answer this question.

But the reality is, it's not just

a question that Paul deals with here in Romans or for the Roman people.

It is actually a question that I am willing to bet that each one of us has wrestled

with or an idea that each one of us has wrestled with at some point in our walk with Jesus,

no matter if we've been walking with him for five minutes or for the last 40 years.

Because the contemporary version of this question, shall we go on sinning so

that grace may increase?

Greece, the contemporary version of this question is probably most accurately

phrased as like a statement more than a question.

And it's something that our hearts can sometimes get to the point of making

this really illogical conclusion, all right?

Maybe at some point in your life, sometime in your walk with Jesus,

you've come to a point where you've said something internally,

you've felt this sentiment in your heart, but it's gone something like this.

Well, you know, as a follower of Jesus, as a Christian, as a disciple of Jesus,

you know, I know that I shouldn't do that.

I know I shouldn't.

I shouldn't say that thing. I shouldn't have that thought. I shouldn't be in

that relationship. I shouldn't make that decision.

I shouldn't do that thing. I shouldn't do that.

But I really want to.

But I really want to. And we do a really, really good job.

Like, listen, I am the best salesman for my bad decisions.

Decisions like I can talk myself into my bad

decisions like like no one you have ever met

before right I am a fantastic salesman for

my own bad decisions and we regularly normalize rationalize and generalize the

sin of our bad decisions because it's a choice that we want to make even if

we know that we shouldn't and so we get to a place of being like you know yeah

I know No, as a follower of Jesus,

I know I shouldn't do that, but I really want to do that.

So even though I know better, I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to do it anyway.

And I kind of feel bad about it, but really, you know, I mean, it's okay.

Hey, it's okay because in a day or two,

once kind of like the initial thing has worn off, I'll just,

I will go to the Lord and I will ask for forgiveness and it will be fine.

I can continue to do the things that I want to do generally,

even though I know I shouldn't because grace and forgiveness exists.

This is the rhetorical question that Paul is asking.

Shall we go on sinning just so grace can increase?

Shall we continue to do the things of our old self?

Shall we continue to do the things that Christ has put to death on the cross through faith?

Shall we continue to do those things just because there is grace?

Just because there is forgiveness?

And Paul answers his own question.

Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? Verse two,

by no means, by no means we have died to sin.

How can we live in it any longer?

It's almost like Paul asked the question so that he could answer the question

in a definitive type of way.

Like everyone knew the answer, but no one was talking about it.

So Paul's like, let me ask a question that gives me the opportunity to say the answer out loud.

Shall we go on sinning? By no

means. We have died to sin. How could we possibly live in it any longer?

And for us, as well as the Romans, we are given a powerful, powerful reminder in Romans chapter six,

of the power of the gospel to set us free from the power of sin.

To set us free from our bondage to sin,

to set people free with the gospel and into a life of victory from the wages

of sin that Paul says in verse 23 is death,

and the power of sin, which Paul says is slavery.

See, sometimes we get into this mindset that even as we are in Christ,

even as we are living in relationship with Christ,

that we ultimately have no power to resist the temptation of sin.

We are, at the end of the day, I know I'm going to do it anyway,

so I'm just going to go ahead and do it, and then I'm going to ask the Lord for forgiveness.

We throw up our hands as if Paul's words about the gospel are not true.

That the gospel doesn't have the power to free us from sin.

That the gospel does not have the power to let us live in victory over sin and

be a slave not to sin any longer,

but to be a slave instead to righteousness that leads to holiness,

that leads to eternal life.

We willfully adopt an identity of defeat where the gospel continues to communicate that in all things,

especially in our relationship with sin,

Jesus Christ has been victorious.

Victorious, and that by faith we are united with him, not just in life,

but in victory over death and sin.

We are not powerless over sin. We are not powerless over temptation.

We are no longer bound with the chains of sin and death,

but God through Christ has given to us a new identity so that now we may walk

and live in the victory of being set free.

But how many times, listen, how many times do we go back to the old man that

has been set free from sin and we get down on our hands and knees and we're

like giving this guy CPR.

Like, man, we want sin back.

We want to go back to the place place, we want to go back to the place of being

like, yeah, I know that was set.

I know the old man in me has been crucified with Jesus.

I know that the life of sin has been dead in me.

It has been put in the grave. It did not resurrect with Jesus Christ.

Only life came from that.

But I'm going to go back to this old me and I'm going to do CPR on it because, right, I want to.

And it feels good. And there's forgiveness anyway, right?

Paul's answer to this question, shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?

Of course, we read is in verse two. It says, we died to sin.

How can we live in it any longer? There's a really important point.

I want you to see and understand and get up here.

We don't often talk about like, or I guess we do,

but like listen we we

in american christianity we have

an idea that transformation of our

life transformation of our heart and our soul simply comes with more knowledge

right we just need more information we don't actually need the spirit's indwelling

of us to transform us right we don't actually need the work of the Spirit, right?

And the work of pursuing intimate relationship with God, the hard work of pursuing

intimate relationship with God in order to be transformed.

We just need to know more up here. So we read the books and we listen to the podcasts and we watch.

You come to church on a Sunday morning and then you go home and you watch your

favorite preacher online as well.

And then you maybe listen to a podcast tonight as you're going to bed.

You just need more information, right? And information precedes transformation.

Well, Information is important, and yes, knowledge is absolutely important,

but knowledge is not everything. We are not just brains, right?

We are also bodies. We have souls. We have emotions, right?

That God has created us as holistic, complete beings, and that if we do not

attend to our whole selves in the process of transformation,

then we will be just really smart and informed formed deeply,

deeply dark sinners.

Having every bit of theological knowledge up here, but having no application

of it in our lives that brings transformation.

But what Paul is going to say here in Romans chapter 6 is actually,

is like, hey, have you forgot what you know about who you are?

Have you forgotten about what you know about who you are? In this case,

Paul is going to be like, I need you to remember who you are in Jesus.

This whole section in chapter 6 is not Paul saying, this is what's possible if you do X and Y.

This is what's going to happen if you just take these steps.

What Paul is going to say is like, you've already taken the steps.

You've already done the things. somehow, some way, you have forgotten who you

are and you have gone back to operating under the identity of the one who is still in bondage to sin,

who is still chained up in slavery.

But that's not who you are, Paul says, okay?

We died to sin. Is that present, past, or future?

We have died to sin, right? How can we live in any longer?

Paul is talking about a reality that has happened in the past,

something that has already happened.

We have died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? Look at verse 3 and 4.

Don't you know that all of us

who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Right?

We were, therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death in order

that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,

we too may live that same life.

We too may live that same life. Paul is talking here not about the possibility

of what can happen in the future, right? Right?

He's talking about what has already happened in you and I through faith in Jesus.

We have already believed on Jesus.

We have already expressed faith in Jesus for our righteousness,

right? We talked about this last week in Romans chapter 5, right?

That the righteousness of God comes to us through faith in Jesus Christ as a free gift of his grace.

He's talking here not to the hopeful future Christian, although we can hear

that, right? We can hear that voice.

He's talking to those who have already expressed that they have faith in Jesus

to justify them from their sin and make them righteous before God.

And so he's saying to them, do you not remember where you have come from?

Paul is talking about what has already happened.

And because of what has happened, because you have been united with Christ in

his death, because you have been united with Christ in his resurrection to new

life, because this is who you are,

he says this in verse five and six.

If you have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also

be united with him in his resurrection.

For we know, listen.

Are we listening? For we know.

We know it. It's here already. We don't need more information in this case.

We know it. For we know.

For we know that our old self, our old self was crucified with him so that the

body of sin might be done away with,

that we should no longer be slaves to sin.

That we should no longer be slaves to sin. Our old self has been crucified.

It has died with him on the cross.

And so now we know that we have been set free from sin.

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin

might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone

who has died has been freed from sin.

Well, pastor, I don't think you understand. Like I just, like I,

yes, I've accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Yes, I believe on him by faith

for the justification of my soul.

Yes, I have received the righteousness of God and imputed to me through God

as a gift from Jesus Christ.

But like I am powerless against this sin. I am powerless against this.

I cannot help myself. I have to do it. I have to think it. I have to go over

here. I have to be in this relationship.

I have to, have to, have to, have to, have to, have to, have to. You want to.

You want to.

You want to do it.

Because the power of the gospel in the genuine reception of faith through Jesus

Christ has set us free from the power of sin.

Either the power of the gospel is not strong enough to set you free from your sin,

or you just want to and are living a life of continued defeat in saying,

well, I'm powerless against it.

Where all of the witness of the gospel is that no, no, in your unification with

Jesus Christ through faith, the body of sin in your life has been put to death.

You have been united with Jesus, not just in his death, but also in his resurrection.

And that resurrection has put sin to death. And now it gives you victory into new life.

So you can either believe that, right? And all that comes from it,

or we can stand over here and say, yeah, I'm the exception to the gospel rule.

And listen, I'm not trying to be cute or anything like that.

I understand how sometimes it feels as though, though, it feels as though we are, we just like,

I can't have victory over this.

I'll never experience victory over this. I will never be able to escape the

chains of this sin. I will never be able to walk away.

Listen, I understand how that feels.

I do.

Hold on to this for a second, okay? But what Paul is talking about here is he's talking, like we said,

he's talking to the people that have already received the righteousness of God

as a gift from heaven through the justification that comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

He's not saying if you did a few more of these things that this would be true.

What he's doing is he is reminding us and reminding them of their current identity.

Identity, who they are, not what they feel like.

This is who you are, Paul says. He says you have been united with Christ through faith.

Your old self has been put to death. You have been raised to new life in victory over sin.

This is not something that you just feel. This is something that you need to know.

It is not something that you're like, I don't know, maybe I'll be united with Christ.

No, you either are or you are not, right? It is something that you are,

not something that you simply know.

They have been set free from sin. We are united with Christ in his resurrection.

The body of sin in us has been put to death.

They are not, we are no longer the old man, the old person chained by the power

of sin and no longer in control of any of our decisions, enslaved beyond our own volition.

That person has been put to death in Jesus Christ and we have been set free in victory.

And he restates the whole thing in verse 11.

He kind of sums everything up here in Romans 6, verse 11.

He says this, in the same way, count or some versions say reckon or apply or

take, take this reality.

Reality and like, if over here is a reality, he's going to like pick up the

reality and he's going to place it on top of your life, right?

Reckon, count yourself in the same way, right?

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

How many of us living in states of perpetual defeat from our sin would consider

ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Many of us would say that, well, sin is alive in my body and it is warring against

me and I am constantly fighting against it and I can't get victory and I'm always

in a state of love, defeat, right?

It's because we have not rightly applied the identity that we are given through

faith in Jesus Christ to our own selves.

And we willfully and continually walk in an identity of defeat and sin where

the gospel tells us to count yourselves dead to sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

And the reason, one of the reasons that we do that is because we love, we love.

We have a really difficult time operating in life from the basis or the foundation of our identity.

We want to operate our life from the basis or the foundation of our feelings.

From our emotions.

This is especially true, and you've heard me preach on this before,

and I'm going to preach on it again this year.

I'm going to do a series on forgiveness, I think in the late summer, early fall.

We've preached on this before, but it's especially true when we look at something,

for instance, like forgiveness.

We have, like significant hurt has been done to us, right? Someone has sinned against us.

Someone has caused injury in our life.

And we read what the Bible says about forgiveness.

For instance, in Matthew chapter 6, in the Sermon on the Mount,

where Jesus, at the end of the Lord's Prayer, essentially says that if you do

not forgive others when they have sinned against you, what? Your heavenly Father will what?

Not forgive you of your sins. It's like Jesus could not be more crystal clear.

About the dynamic of forgiveness in our lives.

But we stand over here having been deeply hurt, having been deeply injured, right?

Having experienced this emotional, mental, physical, spiritual,

whatever it may be, pain, and we say something like this.

I can't forgive this person because I don't, what?

Feel like it. I don't want to. I don't feel like I am in a place of forgiveness yet.

And what is happening in that situation is like we,

as people who follow Jesus, are now making decisions about things that Jesus

has said clearly, all based upon our feelings. Thank you.

And when we make decisions based upon our feelings, we deny our identity, who we are.

Because when it comes to forgiveness, what is our identity? We are forgiven.

I am not, in the eyes of the Lord, I am not guilty of sin.

I have been justified for my sin through faith in Jesus Christ. I have been forgiven.

My identity now is not one who is dead in sin.

My identity is one who is alive through faith in Jesus Christ,

that I have the righteousness of Jesus Christ myself.

Right? And so what happens now is we must make a decision about how we are going

to walk in our spiritual lives.

Are we going to walk according to how we always feel,

and let our feelings dictate our actions?

Or are we going to walk according to our identity, who we are in Jesus,

and allow our identity and our knowledge and understanding of our identity Determine

now the actions that we take,

We want to wait until we feel like it You want me to give you a little bit of like insight into this?

You're never going to feel like it.

You won't You will never feel Like forgiving someone who has hurt you deeply.

You will never feel like it. So you must make a decision to operate out of your

identity as a forgiven person.

Forgiven people forgive people.

Forgiven people forgive people. That is your identity. I am a forgiven person.

And so since that is my identity, what is the action that proceeds my identity?

Well, I am a forgiven person. So the action that proceeds that is forgiveness.

I will forgive because I have been forgiven. Or you can wait until you feel

like it and you can abandon the identity that Jesus has given you himself.

And this is the same principle that we're dealing with here in Romans chapter

six, is that Paul is gonna say, he's gonna ask that question,

shall we go on sitting so that grace may increase?

By no means, why? Because we have been set free from sin.

We are no longer in chains to it. It is not our identity any longer to be a

people that live in perpetual defeat because of sin in our lives. That's not who we are.

Sin has been put to death. We are united with Christ.

We are now resurrected with Christ into new life.

The body of sin in us has been put to death. That is who we are.

That is our identity. We are no longer in chains, so stop acting like it.

Stop going back and resuscitating the person that Jesus Christ has put to death.

Verse 12 through 14. So if we're in verse 11, and he kind of sums it up,

this whole thing, and he says, in the same way, count yourself dead to sin,

but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

That's the summary of our identity, right?

We have been, we are dead to sin. We are alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Here is where, I'm gonna tell you, all of that we just talked about is the easy part.

This is where it begins to get a little bit more difficult.

Because once we reckon our identity correctly,

once we understand who we are, I have been set free from sin,

the power, and the penalty of sin through Jesus Christ.

The next question is like a okay well then what does that require of me,

what does my identity demand of me if i now know who i am is it enough to just know,

it's not enough to just know it's important to know it's not enough to just know,

Something then, something now must happen.

And you see how Paul kind of does this, he begins to switch the conversation.

He says, okay, you know all this, verses one through 11, now verse 12, therefore,

because you know all this, therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body

so that you obey its evil desires.

Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness,

but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death

to life and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.

You see, he says there's two things that happen here, right? right?

He says the process now becomes twofold.

We understand who we are, so now we must make some decisions about how we're

going to walk in the identity that we have.

What are we going to do?

It really involves two main things.

There are things that we must leave behind in our life, and there are things

that we must pick up in our life.

There are directions that we must stop going, and there is a new direction that

we must go with everything that is in us.

If you look at verse 12, listen to this. Therefore, do not let sin reign in

your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.

Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness.

It requires that we turn from the things that have kept us in the big pot of death,

that has kept us in the grave, that we turn from them as a decision out of our

own volition, based on who we are.

I know who I am.

Therefore, I am going to go this way

and leave behind who I used to be and everything that defined me as I was.

Because of who I am, this is who I am no longer going to be.

Because I am united with Christ, because I have been set free from sin,

because I have been resurrected to new life in victory, I am no longer going

to make the decisions that I made when I was a man walking, a dead man walking.

I am leaving behind my life of sin.

In the big fancy theological world, we call this repentance, right?

We repent.

We say, Lord, thank you for adopting me into your family.

Thank you for uniting me with Christ Jesus by faith.

Thank you for putting to death the sin in my life. Thank you for raising me to new life in him.

I now, Lord, turn from my sin and turn towards you.

You have put my sin to death and I am not going back to it. I am walking away.

I am walking in now a different direction.

But it also involves the decision to be proactively pursuing a life of righteousness.

It is not, you know, it is not just enough to say, okay, I'm going to repent

and turn from my sin, and then I'm going to drift.

I'm going to meander throughout life, hoping that I find, you know,

God's calling for me, God's desire for my righteousness,

God's desire for my holiness, I think eventually if I just wander around long

enough, I'll get to the place where I need to be, right?

We never drift in good directions. You don't, right?

You shove a boat out to sea and you take its rudder away from it,

it's not going to end up in the location that it needs to go, right?

We never drift aimlessly and end up in the right place.

It takes intentionality to get to the place where we need to go.

And this is no different. What does Paul say?

He says, forget, like, do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments

of wickedness, but rather,

Rather, but rather, offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.

Offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.

Well, I can't get free from sin. I can't get free from sin.

I can't get free from sin. It's because you continue to offer yourself as an

instrument of wickedness instead

of offering yourself to the Lord as an instrument of righteousness.

This is a take my entire life and use it, Lord, for your purposes.

How would you use every bit of me?

How would you use every cell in my body, every thought in my mind,

every word that comes out of my mouth, every dollar I have in my bank account,

every minute I have in my day?

How would you leverage absolutely everything that I have for your righteousness and your glory, Lord?

It is to take everything that I have and use it for you.

I give myself fully to you. You see, in the rest of the chapter here,

in chapter 6, Paul says it all over again. Well, what does Paul say in the rest of chapter 6?

He says the same thing, just in different language.

The exact same thing. It's almost like he's talking to a highly educated crowd

over here in verses 1 through 14, and then verses 15 through 23,

he's kind of talking to a more blue-collar crowd.

That's the only way I know how to explain it, right? It's like lots of high

theological language in the first 14 verses, a lot of really basic language

in the second half of the chapter, 15 through 23,

because he uses an analogy that would have been really like applicable to the Romans.

It talks about slavery, right?

Slavery in Roman times was a, it was both different and the same than the extraordinarily

negative understanding that we have of slavery now.

But slavery in the Roman Empire was massive.

In fact, it's been said by some scholars and some archaeologists that anywhere

from a third to a half of the population of the Roman Empire was either current slaves or freed slaves.

And at one time, the Roman government considered making all current slaves wear

the same clothes, the same uniform.

And as they began to crunch the proverbial numbers, They were like,

yeah, we're not going to do that anymore.

And the reason they weren't going to do that is because those in slavery would

then know how numerous they were and how easy it would be to overpower the government.

Like, so yeah, we don't want to bring them, you know, like we don't want to

unify them around anything, right?

But slavery in the Roman Empire would have been something that everyone understood

as part of a cultural sludge, nothing good about it, but existed there.

And so he talks, he uses slavery as an analogy to make his point, right?

Verses 16 and 18, he says this. He says, don't you know, or he starts off in

verse 15 with essentially the same rhetorical question.

What shall we say then? Shall we sin because we are not under law,

but because we are under grace?

By no means, verse 16, don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone

to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey,

Whether you are, listen, whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death,

or you're slaves to obedience, which leads to righteousness.

But thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin,

you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

And you have been set free from sin and have become slaves now to righteousness.

There's a really important point here, right? It's this.

Is that Paul talks here about the escape from slavery to sin and death and the

escape to life in righteousness righteousness being affected primarily by not

just our identity now, right?

But by our obedience to the teaching that has formed us into the people that we are.

Obedience.

Thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you what?

Wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

Now, obedience, the word obedience, the word obey has become somewhat of a like

like cultural obscenity.

What do you mean obey?

We're Americans, okay?

I am the master of my own life.

I am the captain of my own ship.

Listen I march to the beat Of my own drummer No one And nothing Tells me what

to do Or how to do it I am an independent Strong and opinionated Person,

I answer To No one.

It would be, I wish it were less funny because the awkward chuckles are like, well, yeah, duh.

But the reality of scripture, if we take the inverse of what Paul says here,

is like, yeah, we generally live and consistently live in a pattern of slavery

to death because we simply refuse to obey anything anything that is not our own idea for our life.

You can make all the theological gymnastics you want about, like,

why we can't get free of sin, and why we can't move on, and why we can't do

this, and why we can't do that, and really what it ends up coming down to is

that when we have already been transformed by Jesus Christ,

right, when we have been wholeheartedly obey the teaching that's been entrusted to us,

When we live a life of obedience to the word of God and to the spirit of God

in us, we experience victory.

And when we flat out reject the authority of God and we flat out refuse to obey

anything that our own opinions and feelings, we continually walk in slavery to sin and death.

Paul uses the word obedience here twice to describe the pathway to righteousness

and as a way out of slavery from sin and into freedom.

And this is not the only place where the idea of obedience is elevated in the

word of God and elevated in the heart of God over against any other religious

type of performance or system or anything like that.

In fact, when God rejected King Saul as king over Israel, right?

What was the reason that God rejected him?

It's because Saul wanted to create this really extravagant system of offerings

and burnt offerings and sacrifices.

And what the Lord was like, I desire obedience, not your sacrifices.

Keep your religious pomp and circumstance to yourself.

I desire, this is the Lord speaking to Saul. I desire obedience.

This is 1 Samuel 15, verse 22. Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings

and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

1 Samuel 15, 22. Has the Lord as great of a delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

Behold, God says, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen better than the fat of rams.

Paul goes on then to finish up in verses 19 through 22 in saying these things.

He admits, right? I put this in human terms so you guys can understand.

Verse 19. I put this in human terms because you're weak in your natural selves.

Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and

to ever increasing wickedness, so now, make a decision, right?

You are a person of volition, so now.

Offer them in slavery to righteousness that leads to holiness.

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.

But what benefit did you reap at that time from the things that you are now

ashamed of? Those things result in death.

Are you getting a lot of, listen, are you getting a lot of benefit?

Are you getting a lot of benefit right now? In your life, personally,

from the sin that you will not walk away from?

Is it producing a lot of good things for you? Is it leading you to the place you want to go?

Is it exemplifying the identity that you desire to have?

Is it like supporting the things that are most important to you and the things

that God desires for you?

Is it an exercise in obedience to the Lord? or do you know that you're willfully saying no to the Lord?

What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?

Those things result in death.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God,

the benefit that you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life.

The benefit of obedience to the Lord is holiness which results in eternal life.

I'm going to leave you this morning with this prayer We'll try and leave it

up on the screen long enough for you to take a picture of it if you want Maybe

we'll make a slide of it and put it on our socials later today.

This is a covenant prayer of obedience This is a covenant prayer of saying to

the Lord Lord, because of who I am and because of who you have made me to be,

I now offer myself to you as a slave to righteousness,

as a slave to you, Lord.

I empty myself of my own prerogatives and I freely and fully give myself in

obedience to you because, Lord, I know that in obedience to you,

it leads to holiness and eternal life.

Make this your prayer this week.

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, and rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by thee, or laid aside for thee.

Let me be exalted for thee, or brought low for thee. Let me be full, or let me be empty.

Let me have all things or let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, oh, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it.

Thou art mine, and I am thine.

So be it. And the covenant with which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen. Whose will you be?

Will you be your own, which leads to death and destruction?

Or will you be God's, which leads to holiness and eternal life?

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.

And we ask, Lord, that your word would transform us as people who have moved

from death to life, from slavery to sin, slavery to holiness.

Lord, may we live in the reality of our identity and not the reality of our feelings.

Let us obey you fully and heartily in everything that we do in all times. In Jesus' name, amen.