Yield to Righteousness for Your Sanctification
June 5, 2016 · Romans
Scripture referenced 6 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Romans 6:1-23 main passage read and exposited throughout the sermon
1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer?
3 Or don’t you know that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4 We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection;
6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin.
7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.
8 But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him;
9 knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no more has dominion over him!
10 For the death that he died, he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God.
11 Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
12 Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
13 Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14 For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace.
15 What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be!
16 Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God, that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered.
18 Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness.
19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification.
20 For when you were servants of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21 What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
22 But now, being made free from sin, and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification, and the result of eternal life.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Keep this verse
2 Thessalonians
cited as the source for a chart showing God's plan of salvation through belief in Christ
Keep this verseJohn
mentioned as repeatedly teaching that belief in Christ is the basis for salvation
Keep this verseActs
mentioned as repeatedly teaching that belief in Christ is the basis for salvation
Keep this verseGalatians 5:16
quoted at the close: walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Galatians
described as a quick sketch of Romans covering flesh and spirit, including the phrase oh foolish Galatians
Keep this verseRecap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Pastor Ray opened in Romans 6, finishing the chapter he had started two weeks before. The message centered on one word he kept returning to: yieldedness. What does it look like, in ordinary life, to yield to God rather than to sin?
What was said
The first fourteen verses of Romans 6 had already been covered in prior weeks, but Pastor Ray walked back through them so the second half of the chapter would make sense. The argument there is that Christians have died with Christ, been buried with Him, and raised to walk in newness of life. Because that death has already happened, sin has no claim as master. The indicative facts are settled: believers are not under law but under grace, freed from sin, and made slaves of righteousness.
The passage then raises its question a second time. Chapter six had opened asking whether grace is a license to keep sinning. Verse 15 asks the same thing in slightly different words, and gets the same answer: absolutely not. Paul is writing to people who are already believers, and his point is that being under grace does not dissolve the reality that whoever you obey is the one you serve.
There is only one outright command in the whole section, and Pastor Ray spent time showing why that matters. Almost every verb in Romans 6 is indicative, stating what already is. The single imperative, the one thing commanded, is to present or yield your members as instruments of righteousness. The indicatives describe what God has done; the imperative describes the one thing asked of the believer in response.
Pastor Ray drew the contrast between two outcomes starkly. Yielding to impurity leads only to further lawlessness and, at the end, death. Yielding to righteousness leads to sanctification and, at the end, eternal life. He noted that Paul does not linger on the middle, the human pain along the way. He goes straight to the outcomes: death on one side, eternal life on the other.
To illustrate the war between the two directions, Pastor Ray used what he called the reportedly Cherokee parable of two wolves fighting inside a person, one representing everything that belongs to the flesh and one representing everything that belongs to the spirit. The grandchild asks which wolf wins. The answer: the one you feed. He was candid that his own version of this struggle is straightforward and ordinary, and he said Romans 7, which comes next week, goes right to the heart of why we so often end up feeding the wrong one.
He closed by pointing back to the hymn sung at the start of the service. He had asked the congregation to remember the line "he yielded his life in atonement for sin." Jesus's perfect life, he said, was characterized throughout by yieldedness to the Father's will, and that yieldedness reached its fullest expression in the garden, when Jesus prayed that the cup would pass but added, not my will but yours be done. Out of that death came life, not only for Him but for everyone who believes. The call to yield to righteousness is not passive indifference. It is the same posture Jesus held all the way to the cross.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Pastor Ray talked about sanctification as a process that is not a straight upward line, with real downturns along the way. What does it look like in your own experience when that line dips, and what has helped you recognize it?
- Paul uses the word 'indicative' to describe what is already true of a believer in Christ, and then gives one command: yield. How do you personally feel the tension between what is already true of you spiritually and what your daily choices actually look like?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 6,996 words
0:00
Good morning, everybody. How are you? Good. There's still some folks gathered out in the vestibule. Let's sing em in here.
0:07
Would you, Scott, you wanna come up and sing along? We're gonna sing hymn number 56. To God be the glory. Thank you, Florine for filling in for Judy.
0:25
To God be the glory great things he has done so loved he the world that he gave us his son let the earth hear his voice praise the Lord praise the Lord let the people rejoice oh come to the father great things as his son and given the glory great things he had done great things he has taught us great things he has done and great are rejoicing through Jesus the son but purer and higher and greater will be our wonder our transport when Jesus we see praise the Lord praise the Lord let the earth hear his voice praise the Lord praise the Lord let the people rejoice oh come to the father through Jesus the son and give him the glory great things he Amen.
2:06
Amen. Now, come thou fount of every blessing. Did you, that that first one, did you hear? He yielded his life in atonement for sin. He yielded his life in atonement for sin.
2:15
Remember that, come sermon time, okay? Come now, fount of every blessing. Hymn number 11.
2:20
That's no fair. Yeah. No fair? Come thou fount of every blessing teach me some melodious sonnet sung by blaming tongues above praise his name I'm fixed upon it name of God's redeeming love thou hast brought me to this place and I know thy hand will lead me safely home by thy good grace Jesus sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God he to rescue me from danger and me with his precious blood oh to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be let thy goodness like a fetter by my wandering heart to thee prone to wander lord I feel it prone to leave the God I love here's my heart oh take and seal it seal it for thy courts above Amen. That's a good one, Yeah.
4:19
Alright. Y'all can have a seat. I've got a couple of announcements. Not a whole lot actually but I wanna play through my graduates from this morning. Renzy, you wanna come up and do that?
4:30
Monday nights is back on. So, last Monday night, a lot of y'all know because I saw you on Tuesday night. We decided to have Monday night on Tuesday night last week but instead of having it here in our fellowship hall like we do every other Monday night, we met out at the Bar J and thank you for that. The Turning Point Gala, I think we had a lot more people there this year. Some of that might have come from the notoriety turning point has received in the newspaper lately.
4:54
So, everybody, the supporters were aware and were there and thank you for being there. It's 600 and something people which was great. Good early season number. Yeah. It's great.
5:05
So, Monday nights though is back on. So, meal music and a message here. Carl is preaching from Nehemiah eight. It's good. It's really, really good.
5:13
Connect hours still happening between services and Nancy Traziano has taken the position of preparing that and getting ready and coordinating with that. So, it's been really really good. This morning was fresh. She said, it's hot today. So, everything we have is fruit and really good stuff.
5:28
So, connect hour between services. First B is having a vacation Bible school, June 20 through the twenty fourth and the theme is Surf Shack, the Surf Shack. We still need a few volunteers. So, teens and adults can volunteer in that but it'll be 9AM to twelve noon on June twentieth through twenty fourth. Still can register.
5:51
People have started registering. And if you wanna volunteer, let Krista know. She'd be glad to hear from you. Krista or Dansy. For everything else and there are some other things, it's in the bulletin.
6:02
I have one more thing that I remember right now. In last service, I forgot it but at Rivercrossing at 06:30 on Wednesday evening, We're having a worship gathering. So, River Crossing's band, First B's band for our 09:00 band, our Monday night band and the Presbyterian Church band are all getting together for worship evening on at 06:30 on Wednesday evening at River Crossing. So, we're they're calling it lift up. So, we're going to lift up and gather together and just praise God together.
6:32
For everything else, you can check your bulletin and there are a lot of things in there but if you would, stand up and greet one another. We'll, oh, Renzi. Sorry. Hold on a second. Senior recognition.
6:43
This means high school seniors?
6:45
Yes. High school seniors. High school seniors. So, they all graduated this last week. Most from the public school yesterday.
6:54
But all week long from Journey School and the Community School and Summit High School have been all the graduations happening. So we just want to take a moment to recognize them in the first service. A lot of them are here. Do we have any of the seniors in the house right now? The only one I thought might be here is Rebecca Grauss and I don't see her.
7:09
But that's the case. So we're just gonna go through them real quickly so that you guys know what's happened in the first service as well. And Ray, you have a big green shimmery thing in your hair. Nope, it's the end of a pencil. Alright.
7:21
Here we go. Senior recognition.
7:24
We
7:27
had Eli Kaufman. He is joining the United States Army. Come all or he's joined now. Yes. Awesome.
7:35
And he he'll be heading to Georgia.
7:37
Fort Benning, Georgia in August.
7:39
In August. So, is the nineteenth Delta Unit Cavalry. I said that wrong earlier. He's will be a scout. So, we're very excited about that.
7:49
He's excited about it but that is where Eli will be heading off come August. We also had Morgan Seaton. She's heading to Concordia University. Major, her major is undeclared. We've got Rebecca Grauss, Colorado State University.
8:06
She's gonna be a Ram down there. She's majoring in elementary education. Michael Tarver. He is already heading into the old job force. He's gonna be a mechanic at Troy Diesel.
8:18
He already is there, actually. Then we've also got Reagan Meiring, University of Wyoming, majoring in biology and then applying for medical school. An ambitious one there. University of Wyoming, Sam McMullen, he'll be heading down there as well studying athletic training. Wendy Pearson, she's heading down to the College of Southern Idaho.
8:42
I guess that would just not be down, but one of those directions close by. College of Southern Idaho, she's going to be studying biology, pursuing a future as a laboratory scientist. And Helen Stocker, she's heading to the University of Denver studying psychology and philosophy and then our last wasn't a senior in high school this year. He graduated last year but he did finish a year of Bible school here at the Bible School in Jackson and he's heading to Central Wyoming College next year. Trevor Swink for a degree in fire science and first aid training.
9:15
So we just want to give them a little bit of shine as it was a big part of their life taken care of. Than that, what I'll have you guys do, stand up, greet one another, and these guys will bring you back in song.
10:22
Wonderful words of life also freely given us to heaven beautiful words wonderful words wonderful words of life beautiful words wonderful words wonderful words wonderful beautiful words words words of life
11:32
blessed assurance, hymn number five seventy two. Join us if you want to sing your part. Look it up. Five seventy two. Thank you.
11:44
Okay. That's just a thank you and amen. I thought we hadn't even got to the sermon. Getting amens. This
11:48
is great. Amen.
11:50
Blessed assurance. Hymn five seventy two.
11:53
That's right.
11:54
It is a blessing. Everybody's voice is lifting up, praising our God. Amen? Good to see you all this morning. This is my story this is my song raising my savior all the day long this is my story this is my song praising my savior all the day long perfect submission perfect delight praising my savior this is my story this is my song praising my savior all the day long perfect submission all is at rest I am my savior and I'm watching and waiting looking above filled with his goodness lost in his love this is my story this is my song praising my savior all the day long this is my story this is my song praising my savior all the day long
14:34
Y'all can have a seat. I'm gonna invite the frontline team to come forward. God, do thank you this morning for for the graduates, for those who have been here. A lot of them have been born and raised in this valley and they're going out from here. And God, I pray that you would just give them a sense of your presence with them.
14:56
And would you shine your light through them to those around them wherever they go. And Lord, that's my prayer for every single person that's here, every family that's represented here this morning. Would you take these tithes and offerings we've we're coming now to bring? And would you multiply them, lord, to do your kingdom's work? Would you advance your good gospel in whatever way you see fit.
15:24
God, I pray for our yieldedness as individual Christians but I also pray for our yieldedness as a congregation that we would tune to you. Amen. I just read a little paragraph a minute ago That was about, if 100 pianos were all tuned to the same tune and fork, they'd be much more likely to play together and so God, we pray that we would set our tone based on your tune. In Jesus name, would you bless this offering and extend your kingdom through your willing servants. Amen.
15:56
Amen. Well, for those of you who are who are fresh and new, you're showing up today. It's the first time you've been here. Welcome. Glad that you're here.
16:03
Oh my goodness. We got a lot of cover though today. For you, if you haven't heard the last two weeks messages because what we have been doing for quite a while, almost four years now, we've been going through scripture in the order that made the most sense to me actually. So, we cover the life of Jesus in the book of John first, the life of the early church in the book of Acts next and since then, we've been going in the order that the books of the Bible have been written and we have arrived now up to Romans six. That's where we are.
16:35
We're in Romans six and today, I made the screen blue rather than black to let you know. We've covered this before. Six one through 14, we did last week. Actually, the week before last, we did up through verse four of chapter six. I'm gonna go back over that ground, kinda refresh our memories for those of us who are here but also, I think verses 15 through 23 make a lot more sense if you have the first 14 verses here.
17:00
So, I'm gonna read those. I'll try not to re preach the whole sermon but I will remind you of some things. So, let's do that. Six one through 23. We'll start off like this.
17:10
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? Now, chapter five and chapter four part of it was all about justification by faith. If it really is about faith, if it really is God's grace that saves, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that his grace may increase even more?
17:33
May it never be. Meganoito, very strong. How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ, Jesus, have been baptized into his death. Therefore, we've been buried with him as through baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father so we too might walk in newness of life.
17:59
Now, last week was Memorial Day weekend, anticipating Memorial Day. I spent a lot of time talking about death. Some of y'all and some of the first service stopped me and that's a little bit morbid. Everything was about dead, death, and dying all morning long but we were, it was Memorial Day. We were considering that and I said, during the sermon several times, every one of these death, dead, or dynes has a living component following it.
18:21
There's a balance to it but the death always precedes the life unless a seed falls to the ground. It does not spring back up again. So, look at that. Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism just as Christ was raised. It immediately goes to the life thereafter in every case.
18:40
So, we too might walk in newness of life. For, if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old self or our old man in Greek, our old walking around man, was crucified with him. In order that our body of sin might be done away with or rendered powerless, killed, completely dead so that we would no longer be slaves to sin or enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed completely from sin.
19:21
Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead is never to die again. In fact, y'all remember in scripture, it says that he's seated at the right hand of the father interceding for us right now. In his session as a good Presbyterian might say. Knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead is never to die again. Death no longer is master over him.
19:49
For the death that he died, he died to sin once, once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives unto or toward or in the direction of God. Even so, consider yourselves to be and I said last week that the southern way of saying that and the Greek way of saying that is reckon yourselves. It's an accounting term. Reckon yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to Christ. Alive to God in Christ Jesus, excuse me.
20:17
Therefore, and this is the imperative in this passage. This is a command. Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lust 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 the righteousness of God. Unto God, toward God, and a godward direction.
20:45
For sin shall not be master over you. For you are not under law but under grace. I used this chart last time. I've used it a lot of times. Actually, some of y'all have this drawn in the back of your Bible.
20:57
I've used it so many times. You finally caught, you know, caught onto it with me. So, the process here, I've taken this from second Thessalonians and this is what it says. God chose from the beginning. How we could be saved, how we would be saved, and that is through the work of Christ, through belief in Christ.
21:21
The book of John says it over and over. The book of Acts says over and over. Every single one of the books that we've covered since then says it in some way like this. God chose that Christ would come, live a perfect life, and die, be buried, resurrected, ascend, and is seated at the right hand of the father and that work of Christ is the basis for all justification, all salvation. The gospel witness is the retelling of that story and the offer.
21:53
The very effective call that you can accept this and access the power of God to be saved. Now, when you believe that, one is saved right there. It's an already saved for sure. And I talked last week about binary functions. You are either in the family of God or you are not.
22:15
It is either one or the other. It's not a between. It's either one or the other. I mentioned a few ways that we might refer to ourselves as Christian or saved and then I said, people who are not Christian or saved as we think about it, we tend to call non Christian and unsaved and it's true but they don't actually like those terms very much. We're defining them on our own terms.
22:37
You're either in the family of God or you're not. That's true. But we don't always act like we're in the family just because we're in the family. So, I talked about the process of sanctification. The next three chapters are gonna delve into the sanctification process six, seven, and eight very, very thoroughly.
22:58
So, yes, you're already saved right here but that great mighty day of the Lord when we will ultimately be saved, transformed, caught up with them in the air, is coming. That's future. If you're a believer, you're living in the process of sanctification. Actually, drew it like this last week. It is that hopefully, ever increasing steady, it would be great if it were so steady but you see there are some downturns in this sanctification process too.
23:25
What we're gonna talk about today is yieldedness, yieldedness to God's spirit and we'll get to that in the text but I just wanted to throw that out there. That is, I think, a fairly good timeline for something that's an eternal concept. It's a fairly good timeline for us to think about.
23:44
Why yourself? Why about yourself?
23:48
Can I help?
23:49
No. I help. I don't.
23:53
Don't worry about yourself. Help.
23:55
One more. I don't care. Okay? Look at how when we are out to eat.
24:00
You can help when we get out to eat. You worry about yourself. Probably.
24:06
You want me to help, Ross?
24:07
No. Thank you. No. Thank you.
24:13
What do you want me to do?
24:15
What about yourself?
24:16
What
24:19
about yourself? I'll do this one. So I'm gonna do that. You try. What about yourself?
24:27
Don't die. Go.
24:31
Okay. So, I've used that before. You worry about yourself. Okay. Yeah.
24:37
You worry about yourself. For this message, a lot of times in the past and still today, we hear people use these verses for saying, if you are not ever increasing on that upward line of sanctification, if you are not doing that, you're not saved. That's a hard one. That's a really, really hard one because we all go through easier times and more difficult times in life. There are tribulations and there are trials and if we start looking around from our elevated position and say, they must not be safe because they're acting like XYZ.
25:12
They do this. They do that. You're not safe. You better check and see if you're safe. Question it.
25:17
I don't want for you to question other people's salvation. I want for you to look at yourself. You worry about yourself, Okay? That little girl was saying, you can help me when we get to the restaurant. I cannot get out of this thing by myself.
25:27
I'm not gonna be finding the high chair by myself. You can help me then. But right now, I'm gonna handle this. Okay? If somebody's not ready for you to help and they haven't asked for your help, you're probably not gonna help a whole lot.
25:38
That's just the truth and I find that out in this job when I try to help people who aren't ready to receive the help. Once they're ready, they're ready. So, here we go. There are couple of things I wanna discuss before we get into the text. One of them, in English, we use primarily three moods, grammar nerds.
25:56
Here we are. They are indicative, imperative, and subjunctive. Now, I won't talk about the subjunctive here today. That has to do with more than one person's will or more than one entity's will is involved. But the indicative and the imperative are the two that all of the verbs in this passage are either indicative or imperative.
26:17
In the indicative, it indicates what is. So the speaker or the writer is sure that something is the case and it expresses certainty. Are you with me? The sky is blue. That's indicative.
26:31
Imperative. The speaker desires that something would happen. It is expressing a command. Pick up that pencil. Okay?
26:40
That is a a command. Tell me when I have a green shiny thing behind my ear. Renzy. Thank you. Expressing a command.
26:50
So, in this passage, almost everything in the passage is in indicative but there's one thing that's an imperative and it's a command and I want you to kinda see how it builds up. That's what we're gonna go back to over and over when we do our closing song. It's gonna be basically based on that. So, here we start in Romans six fifteen. I've already read one through 14.
27:10
Six fifteen says, what then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace. That sounds a whole lot like six one. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin?
27:22
So that grace may increase. And in both cases, it's answered this way, Meganoito. May it never be. May that never come to pass. Unthinkable.
27:31
Absolutely not. Uh-uh. Show enough. It's a no. Don't ever go there.
27:37
Are we to continue in sin that grace made crazy? Meganoito. May it never be. Absolutely not. Unthinkable.
27:44
Perish the thought. May it never be. So, the indicative there is this, we're not under law but under grace. Now, this is a letter to Christians and Paul is trusting that they are actually believers in Christ. A lot of times in our churches today, especially people think most of the folks that are here are believers in Jesus and I know that and if you're here and you came along with one of those believers in Jesus so that you get to go to Yellowstone this afternoon, fantastic.
28:08
We're glad you're here but for the most part, most of these indicative things are written to the Christian, the believer in Jesus. We're not under law but under grace. By belief, that grace exist, that God's grace is real. We're under that grace. Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you're slaves of the one whom you obey.
28:37
Either of sin, slave of sin, resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness. Would you agree that that is the way that it is? You're either a slave of sin or you're a slave of obedience. Yeah, wouldn't it be great if you were exactly one of the other? It was just so clear.
28:55
You're you're a slave of sin or you're a slave of obedience. When I mention that sanctification line, yeah, it's binary. It's either off or on but that sanctification process is not nearly so black and white and not nearly so easy to tell. Paul will get on in the text to say, I'm speaking to you in human terms. This is how it works itself out here on this Earth is you can either be a sin, a slave of sin which is resulting in death or a slave of obedience resulting in righteousness and those are the two choices and they are a stark contrast.
29:30
So the indicative there, y'all are enslaved to whomever y'all are obeying. And it's second person plural. That's why I put the y'all. Okay? All of y'all are either enslaved or enslaved to whomever it is that y'all are obeying.
29:46
But thanks be to God that though you were in the past, slaves of sin, you became at some point obedient from the heart to that form of teaching which you were committed. And having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. The having been freed from sin is another one of those places that at the moment of belief, you are forgiven. Completely and utterly forgiven for every sin you've ever committed. Or the ones in the future.
30:20
So, having been freed from sin. At that point, having been freed, you became slaves of righteousness. You are no longer enslaved to sin. He breaks the power of cancelled sin and sets the captive free, the song says. Having been freed from sin, do you always feel like you've been freed from it?
30:39
There are some of us. There are all of us actually. Who don't feel like that sin has been completely cancelled and so there's a struggle there. Paul is speaking in this passage to that struggle. Having been freed from sin, in reality, this is indicative.
30:56
You became slaves of righteousness. So, we're not under law but under grace. Christians, y'all are enslaved though to whomever y'all are obeying. Y'all used to be slaves to sin but y'all became obedient from the heart to the teaching that was entrusted to you. That's probably a divine passive.
31:15
That's probably God entrusted you with his good gospel and you became obedient to it. So, having been freed from sin, you have become slaves to righteousness. That's my own notes. I left that one in there accidentally. I'm speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.
31:36
Now, highlight flesh right there because now, for the next three or four chapters, we're going to see flesh and spirit, flesh and spirit, flesh and spirit. It's going to go back and forth. There's no more stark compare comparison or contrast in all scripture than that of walking in the flesh or walking in the spirit. Remember when we were in Galatians? I said, Galatians is like a quick sketch, you know, five chapters.
32:01
A quick or few chapters. Quick sketch of Romans. Everything that you find in Galatians, you also will find in Romans. It's more passionate. Lots of times sketches are.
32:12
They're all over the place and oh, foolish Galatians is a pretty strong start. You know? I'm speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. This chapter can look a whole lot just like behavior modification, and Paul realizes that. So, he's saying, I'm speaking to you in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.
32:35
Yes, you are. He's already said indicative. Under grace, yes, you are a believer in Jesus. Yes, you are heaven bound. Yes, you are a slave of righteousness but I'm speaking to you like this because that don't always work itself out in your life.
32:53
It will if you yield. I'm speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. So flesh and spirit are gonna be something that he goes on about for chapter six, chapter seven, chapter eight, for sure, and then more throughout the rest of the book. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness resulting only in further lawlessness. Here we have another indicative.
33:24
Just like y'all used to yield to impurity, habitually in the past, imperfect past tense. Just like y'all used to yield to impurity, and then we get to the imperative, the only command in this whole section. So now present or be presenting your members as slaves to righteousness resulting in your sanctification. That's the imperative right here. And a better presenter members for righteousness is a translation.
33:54
It's a good translation. I think yield is an even better translation of that word. To yield. You're going to yield to one or the other of those two things. Either you're going to yield to sin which ends up in death or you're gonna yield to obedience which ends up in your sanctification and on that timeline, eventually, your glorification but your sanctification here on Earth.
34:17
So, yield to righteousness for your sanctification. You're saved the moment you believe, but you're sanctified through the process of your yieldedness. When I said earlier, remember this for the sermon about Jesus. I knew I would forget it. That's why I ask you to remember it.
34:37
He yielded his life and atonement for sin. His yieldedness is the primary feature of Jesus's perfect life. He was always yielded to the will of the spirit, to the will of God. Even in the garden when he said, take this cup from me if there be any other way but not my will but yours be done. That is a yieldedness.
34:58
I will do as you say, lord. So, yield for your sanctification. Y'all remember this parable? I've used it before. In fact, I used it when we're at the same section in Galatians.
35:11
So, it's reportedly Cherokee. Now, the more research, I try to always check the providence of stories before I share em with y'all because like I said, preachers sometimes make things up and I've heard this before. I try to stick really close to what the Bible says and whenever I have a story like this, I'll call it the reportedly Cherokee parable because it's been reported as an Eskimo parable and a Lakota Sioux parable and a lot of different things but the parable is still good anyway. Chief and his grandchild there are sitting there and the chief starts out and says, a fight is going on inside of me. It's a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves.
35:52
One is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego and we might say that's flesh. In this passage, we'll say that that's flesh. The other is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
36:25
We'll call that one spirit. And then the chief says to the grandchild there, the same fight is going on inside of you and inside of every other person too. These two wolves are at war. And then the grandchild as the chief is walking away. Well, which one's going to win?
36:44
Which wolf wins? He goes, the one that you feed. Does that make sense? If you sow unto the flesh, you're going to reap corruption. If you sow unto the spirit, you're going to reap life.
36:58
That's what the passage teaches. That's what it's going. I brought that up because there's a parable of two rays also, okay? So, one of the rays weighs about 25 pounds more than this ray and the other one weighs about 30 pounds less than this ray. My struggle, I'll just say flatly, is I love to eat.
37:18
I just love it. And I love to eat all the stuff that's not good for me. And hence, right now, I'm walking that road. I'm between those two wolves. There's these two rays.
37:27
One of them is a big fat ray and one's a thinner ray. I don't have glandular difficulties. I don't have any real excuse. I like to eat. And so, that'll come up next week.
37:39
Again, I promise this is going to come up next week because we're going to be in Romans seven and Romans seven is all about. So, why is it that the thing I want to do the most is the thing I have the hardest trouble doing? And why is it the thing I don't wanna do at all is the thing I end up doing? It's driving me crazy. Paul had the same struggle.
37:58
If you're honest, you're having the same struggle. I'm trying to be straight up with you. That's mine. And now, all of y'all who bring me pies and cookies and cakes are rethinking yourselves. I'll probably have loads of celery show up this week.
38:14
Organic. Organic celery. I just mentioned it because that's the thing that I that this text and the next really, really resonates with me. I I can see that. And it's a pretty easy example for y'all to see too.
38:27
I'm speaking in human terms. These are the human terms for Ray that work the best because of the weakness of my flesh. For just as I presented my members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness resulting in further lawlessness. You know, the more carbs you eat, the more you want. Did you know that?
38:44
It's not sin. I'm not saying it's sin. But the yieldedness were coming up on here. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness. So, now, be presenting, look at that past tense and then this one is now present and it's better translated because it's a continuous action command.
39:09
So now, be presenting your members as slaves to righteousness resulting in your sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin back there in the past, you were free, completely free in regard to righteousness. Paul says, the greatest human righteousness is like filthy rags before God and you are completely free in as it regarded righteousness before anyway. Honestly, didn't even know what it was and most of the time, if you were concerned about looking right, it wasn't necessarily about being right. It was how I am benefited by what it is that it looks like I'm doing for good.
39:46
For when you are slaves to sin, you're completely free in regard to righteousness. So, here's another indicative. I've run out of space in that other chart. So, here we are. When you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.
39:59
Therefore, think about this. What benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? So think back on your own personal life. You worry about yourself for a minute. Think back.
40:11
Whatever your particular struggle, what is the benefit gained by that indulgence, that sin? What is the is it temporary? Is it lasting? Did it fulfill? What's the benefit?
40:27
And he skips all of the human pain and suffering in the middle of this and goes straight to the outcome of it. He says, the outcome of those things is death. So here we have the benefits and outcomes. He's got impurity and lawlessness just gets you further lawlessness which eventually leads to death. But if you're a slave of righteousness or you are yielded to righteousness, what will come out of it is your sanctification with an extra eye in there.
40:54
The outcome is death. Impurity and lawlessness. Further lawlessness, death. What did all of those things that you're now ashamed of benefit you? And you can answer those questions in your own.
41:07
If you're worried about yourself, you can you can say, yeah. It didn't help. But the end of that stuff is only death. But now, I love that. But now, because that's a change, a big adversity of conjunction.
41:21
Now, things are different than they were. Having been freed from sin, he says again, and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit resulting in sanctification and outcome of that is eternal life. Is there a greater difference in all scripture than this? This is the difference. Those are the results.
41:44
Death and life and it's not just temporary. It's not just passing temporal death. It's eternal life and death. Having been freed. Now, I ask you a few minutes ago, how many of you feel like you've been completely freed?
41:59
And if we're honest, I don't think any of us feel like we're completely freed because we are still living. There is a weakness to our flesh, our walking around man. Having been freed from the power of sin. Having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit result in in sanctification and the outcome of that is eternal life. Keep on thinking about that binary function.
42:25
Yes, I am a believer but in my own experience, I feel like I fall so short. Like, what I have received is so much more than what I've given. You are right. It is. That's true.
42:39
The wages of sin is death and all of us deserve it but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our lord. That's the last statement that he makes in this chapter. The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our lord. Now, the indicatives, we're not under law but grace. Y'all are enslaved to whomever y'all are obeying.
43:09
Y'all used to be slaves to sin but y'all became obedient from the heart to the teaching that was entrusted to you in such a way or so as you have become slaves now to righteousness. Just like y'all used to yield to impurity and then it get that imperative. Yield to righteousness. We have a tendency as non believers to go for sin and self. We have a tendency to do that and as Christians, if we are yielded to the one who indwells us, if we are paying attention to the still small voice of God, if we are listening to his word, he will direct us.
43:48
Amen. And if we will yield to that direction, yield to righteousness, he will sanctify us and day by day, make us more and more into the image of his son. It takes a yieldedness. Now, the text here says, present your members as instruments of righteousness in the New American Standard. Stick with New American Standard because that's what we started Romans in.
44:10
I like yield better. I think it fits the context better. It's definitely the word. It's a better translation but had a guy come running forward after the first service this morning. He said, I like present your members better than yield and I said, I know.
44:24
This whole chapter is about the anti nomian, anti law objection. Well, if it really is about grace, it really is about grace, then, I don't have to do anything. Right. You just have to believe but believing precedes the doing and it's not the other way around and as much as I want to grow spiritually, if I just go, okay, right now, I'm going to grow spiritually. That doesn't mean it's gonna happen.
44:55
He said, but present yourselves as members as active and yielding seems very very passive. It does seem very very passive but you're gonna be yielded to either one or the other. You're going to yield to the obedience of the flesh or yield obedience of the spirit. That war is the one that you feed. The sanctification process.
45:19
In the imperatives of the sanctification process, in this passage, this is what it says. So now, yield to righteousness for your sanctification. All of our upward way here is when we are yielding to righteousness. Now, the downward way is when we start usually, it's when we start yielding to other things outside of God but you know what? God uses both.
45:46
He says it in chapter eight. He frustrates us in chapter seven but he says in chapter eight, he's using all of it for his good but I want you to think that if you're heading on the upward way, it is because you're yielded to what he would have you do. Think of Jesus in the garden. Think of the difficult choice before him knowing that it meant death. And he said, not my will but yours be done and out of that death came life eternal.
46:16
Not just for him but for us. For all who would believe. Yield to righteousness for your sanctification. So, I thought the best song to fit this is have your own way, lord. Would you come up and play that?
46:32
Would y'all stand with me, Scott? If you wanna come up. You worry about yourself, okay? You worry about yourself. I'd like for you to sing this as a prayer if you can.
46:46
We're gonna sing all of the verses. So, have thine own way, lord. Hymn number five ninety one.
49:05
Amen.
49:15
Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Galatians passage. Galatians five sixteen says this, but I say to you, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Feed that good wolf, okay? Walk by the spirit, you'll not gratify the desires of the flesh.
49:34
For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, desires of spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other. Now, next week, we'll go into the next part of that verse in Romans though for the most of chapter seven but I say to you this week, walk in the spirit and you will not struggle as much with gratifying the desires of the flesh. In Jesus name, lord, would you give us the strength and give us the direction as we wait, yielded, and still. In Jesus name, amen.
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