Take your Bible and turn this morning to Romans chapter 6. If you were here two weeks ago, where we left off, Paul had essentially set the stage for our pursuing holiness. You'll remember he's been working towards that end all throughout the book of Romans, and that is where he left us and set us up for the text this morning in verses 11 through 14. If there was one subject that we could gain a mastery of, I think perhaps it would be holiness. That it should have a great priority in our life, because understanding holiness would be so very beneficial to all of us. Holiness is so interwoven with the person of who God is, that if you think about the great theologians throughout history, many of them have made the subject of holiness a focus of their ministry and their life's work. Just think of the names Ryle and Sproul and Bridges and Packer, and you will find if you study what they wrote and what their focus was, that they had holiness on their mind. If you understand holiness, you understand more about God, and if you understand holiness, you understand more about His character, and you understand more about His will, and frankly, you understand more about all of His other attributes. If we were to master holiness, we'd have a greater understanding of our sinful condition, and we would understand in a more profound way the work of Christ and why it's necessary that the One who is holy come to save us, to make us holy. If we understood holiness, we would understand glorification and we would understand heaven and eschatology. If we understood holiness, we would understand our sin and we would understand evil for what it genuinely is and looks like in the eyes of God. If we understood holiness, we would understand what we as Christians are pursuing, what our goal is, what we're aiming for, what we're looking towards even in this world. J.C. Ryle in his book called Holiness said this, and I think this is incredibly helpful. He said, quote, "'Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find His mind described in Scripture. It is the habit of agreeing in God's judgment, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word.'" He says this, he who most entirely agrees with God, he is the most holy man. He says, a holy man will follow after purity of heart. He will dread all filthiness and uncleanliness of spirit and seek to avoid all things that might draw him into it. He knows his own heart is like tender and will diligently keep clear of the sparks of temptation. Who, he asks, shall dare to talk of strength when David can fall? There may be a hint to be gleaned from the ceremonial law, he says, under it the man who only touched a bone or a dead body or a grave or a diseased person became at once unclean in the sight of God. And these things were emblems and figures. Few Christians are ever too watchful and too particular about this point. Paul has laid the foundation for your pursuit of holiness. He's established this, setting the stage for you to grow in Christlikeness, for you to be conformed to the image of Christ. Look at what he says in chapter 6, verses 11 through 14. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts. And do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as an instrument of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace." When we came to those first few verses, you'll remember in Romans chapter 6, we really began to see genuine change that was real and drastic in the lives of those who have been transformed by the power of the gospel. And then you'll remember we got to those first five verses, verses 1 through 5, And we saw that the gospel had forever transformed those who were in Christ. And it did so in those three parts, dead to sin, united to Christ, so that you can walk in the newness of life. That is radical transformation that's only possible by this gospel that is the power of God into salvation. Nothing else is able to offer those three things that you see right there in that radical transformation. And then we looked at verses 6 through 10, that gospel transformation also brought two more elements, freedom and life. Freedom for the man that was once enslaved to sin, and life for the man once spiritually dead in Adam. And because your life has been transformed there in that first part of chapter 6, and because it's brought freedom and life, now Paul can speak to you in verses 11 through 14 in a bit of a different way. He can urge you to become what you're capable of becoming. because you are under grace. Things have changed, so he can now say what he's saying right here. He can exhort you to grow because you're finally free, you're finally alive, and you're capable of growing. Previously, this was completely impossible. It'd be like looking at a dead man right here and going, grow, change, something take place with you. It's not going to happen. But all of that has changed because of the power of the gospel. Now Paul is speaking to you in such a way that not only is this possible that you would grow, but it's expected that you would grow. Here he is telling us that the Christian, transformed by the gospel, free and alive, is intentional in their growing in Christ-likeness and pursuing holiness. The Christian transformed by the gospel, free and alive, is active and intentional in their growing in Christlikeness and pursuing holiness. Now think about what he's done if you've been here for weeks. Paul has labored doctrinally, biblically, theologically to get you to this point. He has been clear how we are justified. He has been clear how you are made righteous. He's been clear how you're reconciled to God. And he has been clear how everything that Christ has done is ours through faith. And who gives the faith? In Ephesians, Paul tells us that God gives us faith. So if you consider all that Paul has brought to our attention, you understand that this power of the gospel to save and to transform is all of God. that He is the active party, sending His Son so that in salvation, God is undeniably the one who is active. Peace with God, chapter 5, verse 1, is through our Lord Jesus Christ. Love of God is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Justification is by Christ's blood, chapter 5, verse 9. We're reconciled through the death of the Son, chapter 5, verse 10. Christ is the one dying for the ungodly, chapter 5, verse 6. Who's the one that's active in all of that? You're just the beneficiary. Paul is clear that God is the one active in salvation. Our only contribution, as we've noted, is our actively needing to be saved. He even gives us the faith. So that at the end of the day, when we look at salvation, it's all of grace. It is all of grace. And look what happens then when you arrive there in verses 11 through 14. He is speaking to the person that's transformed by the gospel. He is speaking here to the Christian. This is the who that the Apostle is directing his exhortation to. And we must understand that the who is critical in this regard. The exhortation here is meant to call the Christian to be active. We wouldn't be calling the lost person to be active in these ways. It would be frankly impossible, and all they would find is that this is a great frustration in their life, is they failed again and again and again to be directed towards holiness. They first have to be made alive. So he's talking to the Christian and he's exhorting them essentially to further set yourself apart in your devotion to God that you would grow in holiness. call to pursue holiness is going to become increasingly clear in the book of Romans. Why? Because this has always been God's plan for those He saves. Their holiness, their conformity to the image of His Son. You look in Hebrews chapter 12 verse 11, it's that you would yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness. You look in Ephesians 4, 23, it's that you would be renewed in spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which is in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth. In 1 Corinthians 10, 31, that you might glorify God in all that you do. Only a holy person, a person being sanctified is capable of doing that. This is all just this emphasis on your sanctification. Why? Why would this be such a focus of Paul to bring this to your attention? Well, to skip a little bit further ahead to Romans chapter 8. If you look in Romans chapter 8 verse 30, you will find that you have been predestined for salvation. You've been predestined for salvation. But guess what? If you look before that in Romans chapter 8 verse 29, Paul tells you that you have been predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. Not only have you been predestined to be saved, but you've been predestined to be sanctified. And not only have you been predestined to be sanctified, but you've been predestined to be made holy and to look more and more like Christ. This has always been God's plan for God's people. That your thinking and your actions and your speaking and your desires and your life will conform more and more to what you see in Christ. and that this is reflecting an ever-increasing devotion to God, that you'd be set apart for His purposes, not your purposes, that you'd be loving Him with this ever-growing intensity. This is your sanctification. And this means that now, as a Christian, as a believer, as one who has been transformed, who is free in life, now you are active. Now you must be disciplined. Now you must be purposeful, not passive in your sanctification. So the exhortations that Paul is going to give us in these four verses are meant for redeemed people who are united to Christ, who himself is majestic in holiness, who himself is purely devoted to his Father, who is perfectly loving his Father. So guess what? You are united to the holy man. He's the one that saved you. And certainly the Son we're united to, He doesn't grow to look more and more like us. That would be to diminish Him. But thankfully, the transaction that you see within Scripture is one-sided, that we grow in our sanctification to look more and more like Him. And Paul is helping us to do just that very thing with these four exhortations to actively pursue sanctification. If you are a man or woman, Under grace. These are four imperatives that are listed out here. To this point in the book of Romans, Paul has not given you one single solitary imperative. And now he's going to give you four. These are not suggestions or recommendations. He's not even coming alongside of you and encouraging you to do these sorts of things. Think of them instead as this, as urgent instructions of vital significance from a great authority demanding immediate attention and directed towards every one of us who are in Christ, every one of us who are transformed by the gospel, every one of us who are free and alive because you are those that are capable of responding because of the gospel's work in your life. And because of this, and because of responding to this, we'll look at briefly at the end that you're capable of joy and assurance, and great reward because of yielding to these. This is a call to action. This is a call to action if you've been transformed by the gospel of grace. A call to action if you're free and alive. So how does the apostle call us to be active and intentional in our devotion to God and to growing holiness? Well, the first thing is this, that you believe the truth. In verse 11, that you believe the truth. And the truth is this, dead to sin, alive to God. dead to sin, alive to God. And I'm saying here, believe the truth, because He wants you to do those three parts of what we've talked about that you see in faith, that you would know, approve, and that you would act in conformity to what you know and approve. That you don't only know it, that you don't only approve it, but that you act in conformity to it. So look at verse 11, even so, consider, consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. If you look at that very first part there, even so, that takes you back to verse 10, where Paul wrote, for the death that he, namely Christ, died, he died to sin once for all, and we looked at, this isn't Christ's sin, he's sinless, this is for your sin. But he says, but the life that he lives, he lives to God. So in that one verse, we were looking at Christ's death and Christ living to God, and it's no surprise that he's talking about even so now, that you would be dead to sin, that you would be alive to God. This makes sense. This is the one that you're united to. So that if it wasn't for verse 10, there really can't be a verse 11. If Christ doesn't die for your sins, then you can't consider yourself to be dead to sin. If Christ doesn't live and live unto God, as you see in verse 10, you cannot consider yourself to be alive to God in Christ Jesus. This command here that's vital to the Christian that Paul is about to give, it's established firmly upon what Christ has done for the Christian in verse 10 that causes you to be alive. And what is it that's critical to sanctification? What's the decisive first step? What is the very first imperative that he gives you? It's this, consider. Consider yourselves to be dead to sin. So here's the question. Do you know, approve, and act in conformity to your being dead to sin? Christian, do you know and approve and act in conformity to your being dead to sin?" Look at the words, consider. It's the Greek word logizome. It's showed up fourteen times in Romans already. It refers to something that's factual. It simply conveys the result of an object's evaluation, that you would know that result, that you would approve that result, and that you would act in response to that result. Regarding commercial activity, it had to do with evaluating and understanding an object's worth, its value, its gain or its loss. It was also used in the realm of philosophy in a sense of understanding an objective and a non-emotional reasoning about something. This actually comes out in an English word that we use that comes from that word logizomai where we use the word logic, or something as logical. What is common here to both the commercial and the philosophical meaning is that this is coming to an understanding of something as it truly is. This is not wishful thinking about something, but a deliberate and sober judgment that is in this context, as you see with Paul, it's based on the gospel and the gospel's power to work in your life. What Paul is urging the Christian here to be is to be settled upon this decisive first step in your sanctification, your devotion to God, your growing in Christlikeness, and it's this, that you're dead to sin. He is not telling you that it is your Christian duty to go and to die to sin. No, he's reminding you that, in fact, this is now. How could you basically go do what Paul's already said has already happened? You couldn't go do that. He's not telling you, oh, just think this way so that you'll be dead to sin. That's ridiculous, that's not going to happen. He's describing this as a subtle fact. He's also not telling you that all sin in your life has already been eradicated or that the sin that is there still doesn't tempt you or entice you or deceive you. No, but what he is saying is that the power of that sin is broken. and that there's a completely different relationship between you and the sin that's in your life. It sort of goes all the way back to Romans chapter six, verse two, where he asked that question, how shall we who die to sin still live in it? And you wonder, why does he keep bringing this up? Why is he saying the same thing over again here? Why does he have to say this? Why does he have to rephrase this from chapter six, verse two, and now turn it into an exhortation that's vital to your devotion to God? I think the reasons for that could be numerous if we want to be honest about how we're tempted in the way that we think. It could be because there's this devilish temptation that confronts us not to believe this truth that you are legitimately dead to sin. It could be because when we are transformed from in Adam to in Christ, as we've talked about numerous times through all this, there was nothing observable. You were not given a piece of paper. You didn't glow in the morning because you had been changed and converted in this sort of a way. so that you would think of all that and see something and conclude, well now certainly I must be dead to sin. It could be he's telling us this yet again because it's so very difficult to eradicate sin from our life. It can be painful and it can be frustrating and challenging and all that would seem to contradict what Paul is saying here that, Christian, you're in fact dead to sin. And yet Paul is clear. If you are a Christian, this is a fact. This is doctrine. This is reality. Dead to sin, alive to God. John Owens said, there is no death of sin without the death of Christ. There is no death of sin without the death of Christ. And we know Christ died. If you believe Christ died, do you believe that you are dead to sin, Christian? I think the reason that he repeats and he exhorts here is because of the vital importance for you to know this as it regards holiness in your life. And look at this truth, look at the text there. This truth about sin, it really frees you to live. There is an all-important contrast that you're exhorted to, that you're also exhorted to believe in this verse. Dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Do you consider yourself alive to God in Christ Jesus? All of this makes sense here if you understand united to Christ because of what we looked at there in verse 10. He lives to God, why would you not live to God? Alive to God in Christ Jesus, what is that? It means that the object of your life's devotion is completely different than what you once lived for. You once lived for sin. Sin was once your master, and you were eagerly devoted to sin, eager to fuel your pride, your idolatry, and lust spiritually. Spiritually, you were dead in sin, but not to sin. Dead as it had to do with God, yes, in regards to being devoted to Him, to comprehending His will, much less actually subjecting yourself to the will of God. But now, dead to sin, everything is radically changed. You're alive to God. You're devoted to God. You are so alive to God that Paul can say there in 2 Corinthians 5, 14, for the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died, and he died for all, and listen, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf. You once lived for yourself. This is who you were, blinded by sin. You were acting as though you were God. You were living for yourself, devoted to yourself, devoted to all your lust, all your desires, anything you could get to lift you up and to have other people come and serve and worship you. but now you live for God. Now all of that has radically changed. Twice in Galatians, we've looked at this over the last several weeks, he speaks about living to God. He says, for through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And look, the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. Faith is demonstrating this great change that's taking place in your life as you're living to God. The very nature then of sanctification of our pursuing holiness is founded upon your being alive to God, and that is only in Christ Jesus. Alive to God here is a life that's devoted to Him. that was frankly never imaginable for a person who was alive in sin, the very antithesis to holiness. I just wonder as we look at this truth, this doctrinal truth that's founded upon the gospel, do you believe this? Do you believe you are alive to God in Christ Jesus? During our elder meeting this past week, We were talking about whether we truly understand who we are based on what the Scriptures say. You heard this come up during the conference. Do we have a biblical anthropology? Do we have a biblical understanding about who God reveals the truth of who we are to be? Do we believe that we're created in the image of God? Do we believe that He created us distinct from all of the rest of creation? Do we believe that He created us one of two, male or female? Do we believe that we're fearfully and wonderfully made Do we understand then who we are not only just as a human being, but do you understand who you are in Christ? That's what he's getting at here. Not only do you have a biblical anthropology, but do you have a biblical understanding of who you are as a man or woman who is a Christian? Do you believe you're dead to sin? Do you believe you're alive to God? Do you believe you're united to Christ? Do you believe you're changed? Martin Lloyd-Jones said, we are not only to hold before ourselves the fact that we are dead and to sin, we are equally to hold before ourselves this positive truth that we are alive unto God. He said we are in an entirely new relationship with God that is the most staggering thing of all. We are now in a position in which we are in God's favor instead of being under His wrath. We have access to His presence. He is open to us. We have become His children and objects of His love. Christian, if you're going to take that decisive first step in sanctification, in seeing Christ formed in your life, in growing in holiness, you must fervently hold to the truth that Paul is giving you here. You must believe this. As it regards your sin, you simply cannot just conclude, this is who I am. I am, name whatever my sin is. If that is true, if you believe that, you're not redeemed. You're not redeemed. This isn't who you are anymore. You're actually dead to that. No, you are dead to sin, alive to God and Christ. And Paul is urgently instructing you to hold this truth before you constantly. If you are to grow, you have to have this truth before you constantly. So, how does the apostle call us to grow in loving devotion to God? One, you must believe the truth, dead to sin, alive to God. Two, in verse 12, you must resist sin. Resist sin. He says, sin shall not reign. Look at verse 12, therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lust. It's only because of what He just told you, this doctrinal truth, that He's able to tell you what He's telling you here in verse 12. When you are finally alive to God, you can finally see sin in your life. You can see where it remains and you can actually do something about it. that being alive to God has caused you to be able to have new eyes in this regard. And you think about the saint who is maturing in years. Guess what? Even though you look at them and you go, wow, there's this great display of holiness in them, this great display of Christlikeness and sanctification, they're able to look at their life and say, I can see more of the sin that remains. This is necessary to be alive to God, to see the sin that remains, for Paul to say what he says. Look at the word, therefore. Therefore, what's he doing? He's drawing a conclusion from verse 11. You cannot allow sin to go unopposed in your life. So the second imperative is there. Do not let sin reign. Do not let sin be king. Do not let sin rule. Paul is instructing you here how to apply the doctrine he's just established, and he's exhorting you to put it into practice in your life. He's not just a guy who loves doctrine, talks about doctrine, and never urges you to actually apply it. Do you see what he's saying? Also in this, he's saying that there is some way that a Christian is capable of allowing sin to exercise some kind of rule in your life, even though, even though you're no longer a slave to sin, that's chapter 6 verse 6, and even though you have been freed from sin, that's verse 7. And so he's allowing you to see this reality because he's saying here you just simply can't be passive about sin. You can't let your old master have its way in your life anymore. So the exhortation at its root level is to resist. Look, Paul is very careful also in what he says here. He's not contradicting anything that he's already established his doctrine before. Look at what he says. Do not let sin reign. Where? In your mortal body. All those words are there in the Greek. In your mortal body. In your flesh. Spiritually? you're dead to sin. Physically, your body is still waiting for the completion of redemption, where it will be raised to glory. Tell them this flesh that was very familiar with sin before conversion, guess what? It's still lust, and it still craves. And Paul says, that is what you do if you give sin an inch in your life. Because what does he say? Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lust. That you would obey sin. That you would obey this craving of the body. It would be sort of like if you were a slave without chains. Obeying this old lust. A man who's dead to sin, alive to God, going after what your flesh is yearning after. Paul is bringing to our attention the reality that until we are fully redeemed, and listen when I say that, what we're talking about is redeemed in body, chapter 8 verse 23, Paul's going to get there, and you put on immortality, 1 Corinthians 15, 33, all this with our flesh, until then we'll continue to be subject to the influence of sin. And your response to that as a Christian who is dead to sin, alive to Christ, is that you resist. That you resist sin. That we put on the Lord Jesus Christ, that we make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. That's Romans 13, 14. We'll get there in a couple of years. The desire, though, of your spirit now to be alive to God is that you must prevail over sin in your life. This is what you want as a Christian. This is a God-given desire. So you must fight sin. And to fight it, you have to be watching for it. You have to be aware of your own heart and aware of your heart's tendencies towards sin. You must call what's going on within your life by what the Bible calls it, because sin is deceptive and it doesn't want to be found out. It wants to sort of drop an anchor in your life and stay there. It wants to put down a root in your life and make itself firmly established. And there's all sorts of deceitful ways that sin can attempt to rule in your life. But we cannot let sin reign in any sort of a way. And there's a multitude of ways. We cannot let sin reign either by filling our time with things so that we're sinfully busy, and we also can't let sin reign by checking out completely so that we're selfish and lazy. We can't let sin reign by making decisions based on, well, I'm sure I'm just an introvert or an extrovert, and I form my life around such conclusions, and so I excuse sin. We can't let sin reign in all sorts of creative ways where we call sin, sins of the heart, we call them chemical imbalances or natural tendencies or inherited traits or just the way that I'm hardwired so that we don't actually have to deal with what's going on in our heart. We allow sin to reign by calling lust, attraction, and hatred frustration. We allow it to reign by calling bitterness and resentment, oh, just living and learning or protecting ourselves from being burned again. We allow it to reign by letting the coarse language that flows out of our mouth from a very sinful heart, by excusing it as just a demonstration of masculinity and Christian liberty. But Paul is clear. We cannot let this go unchecked in our lives. It cannot reign in our mortal bodies. We cannot obey sin's lustful desires. But if you're starting to think about all of this and you're thinking about how it relates to you, I think the question we can ask is how do we protect ourselves? How do we identify where there's sin that remains? How can we do that so that we can fight that? Well, I think Psalm 119, verse 33 is incredibly helpful. The psalmist cries out to God there and says, establish my footsteps in your word and do not let any iniquity have dominion over me. The psalmist's desire is to conform his life to the standard of God's revealed Word. And he's also, in that same instance, not only saying, I'm going to expose my life to it, but I'm asking God, I'm pleading to the divine to interact, to show me where sin remains and change my life in this way. But I think we can also fight all of this by actively pursuing God's will. And you see Paul doing this as he instructs Timothy in 2 Timothy 2.2. Flee from youthful lust. And what? Pursue righteousness. Not only just turn from those things, but actively pursue something else. He does the same thing with Titus. He says, deny ungodliness and worldly desires and live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. Why would we fight sin so that it does not reign if we're saved and we're free and we're forgiven? I think it's because we wouldn't understand the danger of sin. There'd be multiple reasons we could connect to this, but one reason is that we just don't understand the danger of sin. I want to give you four dangers of sin that John Owen gives in his book, The Mortification of Sin, just to bring it to your attention, just to remind you of why you must take sin seriously within your own life. John Owen says this, number one, we can be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. that if it's there and it's remaining, it can harden your heart and cause you to grow more and more cold. The second thing that he says, and hang on with this one, he says that we can come under great chastisement, and that's a danger. He says that we will... In his words, that God will visit you with the rod, even though for the Christian, he will pardon and forgive. Listen to what he says. Owen says this, it is not, is it nothing to you? Is it nothing to you that God should kill your child in anger, ruin your estate in anger, break your bones in anger, suffer you to be a scandal and reproach in anger, kill you, destroy you, make you lie down in darkness in anger? Is it nothing to you that he might punish, ruin, and undo others because of your sin? That that ought to be a great reality that's motivating us to exterminate any sin in our life. That if God is angry and decides to punish us because of that sin, He has every right to do so. The third thing he says is that the danger of sin can cause you to lose peace and strength in our days. Peace and strength gone. The fourth thing that he says for the danger of sin is that we can face the danger of eternal destruction. And here he's speaking to those that are so entangled and unresponsive in their sin that there's ultimately no evidence of your participating in grace. He also, in that same book, talks about the evil of sin. And he says, it grieves the Holy Spirit, it wounds the Lord Jesus afresh, it takes away your usefulness. Your usefulness. I think all of that lines up with the very thing the Apostle is giving us here. Sin must not be allowed to reign in a Christian who is being conformed to the image of Christ. Look, the last few years, your physical freedoms, I think, have been tested in numerous ways. And many, including many in here, were bold in their refusal to give up their freedom to tyrants. To be slaves to tyrants. Can you imagine if we had such a passion to refuse to submit to the lust of the flesh? to refuse sin's reign in your life. I think there are many of us who become pacifist in our sanctification. We become weak and timid and spineless when dealing with sins attempting to reign in our mortal bodies. That we would allow sin as a tyrant to reign in our life and to really go unopposed. Imagine if we were as eager in our refusal to entertain our own sin as we were to entertain tyrants. Imagine if we were as passionate to root sin out of our minds and our hearts and our body as we are to root out the evil intent of others and even expose them. Paul's impassioned plea to you is this, do not let sin reign or rule or take up residence. In fact, you're to refuse it. You diligently oppose it. You contest it day after day. You fight it in the depths of your heart. You battle it when it attempts to storm your mind and you resist it when it presents itself to your eyes. And friend, guess what? You can do this because you are alive to God. You are a Christian. And guess what? Because you are alive to God, you want to do this. You want to resist it. Four exhortations to actively pursue holiness. Believe truth, resist sin. Number three, discipline your body. Discipline your body. And he does this in a negative way here. Do not be devoted to sin in the first half of verse 13. To the man or woman of God, he's saying this, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. So the third imperative is this word presenting. King James Version I like says yield. You could also say put at the disposal of. You could also say allow to use. You could also say allow to be of service to. To present what? The members of your body. This can be, yes, what you would think of your limbs, your arms, your legs, but it can also be your eyes and your ears. It can also be your desires that are inside of you. To present the members of your body to what? To sin as instruments of unrighteousness. The man or woman alive to God cannot continue to place yourself at the disposal of your old master. You must stop. If you are paying attention, if you are paying attention, Paul is describing to you how the reign of sin is defeated. Don't allow your body to go to those places that present a temptation to it. Why put yourself in those places? Why would you go to those places in order to relax? Why would you go to those places even if your job requires it? This may require you to get a different job. Where is it that you allow your body to go? Is it the very place you're presenting your body to sin, to be tempted? I just, it's on my heart also thinking about your eyes and your mind as it regards the screens that we have in front of us, and we talk about that so often. You think about video games where you're giving your life up to hours upon hours to something on the screen instead of serving others, instead of growing. What about social media? How many of you have already picked up your phone during the service just to look, did I get a text? Did I get an email? Maybe I got a call? It's like we're presenting our bodies time and time and time and time again to pick up our phone, to see what it says, to be a slave in this way to something else that's tempting us and drawing us and pulling us away from actual interactions with people face to face. We know the dangers of human pornography. Presenting your body in such a way is an instrument of unrighteousness. allowing that to take place. If you know the danger of sin that we looked at from John Owen, if you know the evil of sin, why would you keep presenting your body to sin? Why would you present to sin what Christ has saved? Why would you yield to sin what Christ has cleansed? After all, Christ's body endured for you to save you, that he was wearied and beaten and scourged and mocked and scorned and crucified. Why would you present your body to sin as an instrument of unrighteousness? In fact, look at what Paul does. This is the fourth imperative here. Number four, to discipline your body. That's the same if you're paying attention from number three, but he's giving you the positive element here. The Christian, alive to God, you're disciplined to not yield your body to sin, but you're actually disciplined to yield it to another. Look at the end of verse 13, but present the very same word. Present yourself to God as those alive from the dead. Your members as instruments of righteousness to God. What's He calling you to do? He's telling you to become who you are capable of becoming because of the gospel. to become who you are capable of becoming because of the gospel. You have a new master, you know that. We ought to reflect that truth in our life. Here, Paul is instructing us to become what we're capable of becoming. We are those that are alive from the dead, and as such, we yield ourselves spiritually, yes, and physically, yes, unto God. Our devotion, our love, our will, our bodies, our mind, our eyes, our ears, our heart, just like the one that we are united to. What did Christ do? Kelly read it in John chapter 19. He devoted everything about Him to the will of His Father. He loved His Father so greatly, He put His life out there because the Father called Him to die for you so that you would be conformed to the image of Him. Present yourself to God in your members as instruments of righteousness. He's instructing you towards holiness. To be set apart, devoted, loving God. This is the very thing Ryle mentioned in that quote that I gave you at the beginning. Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God. The habit of agreeing in God's judgment. Hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word. He who most entirely agrees with God, He is the most holy man. Everything that Paul instructs believers to actively pursue in all of his letters to all the churches, to all the believers in his time, really fits into this general call to actively pursue holiness, to purge sin from your life, to present yourself to God. What's that mean? In devotion and in love, and to your members as instruments of righteousness to God, that you would be in service to Him. Christian, this is the instruction by which you ought to analyze your life. This is the direction we ought to go when we turn from our sin. It is God who is the most worthy object to which we give all of ourselves in devotion and service from our eyes and our ears to our time and our energy and our will and our desires. And look, if you hear all of this and you're thinking, this is just too much, this seems impossible, is this even realistic? He gives you verse 14. For sin shall not be master over you. And He tells you why. For you are not under the law, but under grace. He has already established this. And He just puts it right back there in front of you to encourage you. Not under law, but under grace. This is the truth that frees you to pursue holiness. This is the reality that fuels our sanctification. This is the doctrine that he spent six chapters developing in order to now encourage us to see that all that he exhorted us to here in our pursuit of holiness is actually possible. You are not under law, you are under grace. If we're under the law He's already established, the transgressions, they would just keep increasing. Romans 5.20, snowballing and crushing us. But you're not under grace. And remember back to Romans chapter 5, grace covers this multitude of sins. Grace covers a multitude of sins, but guess what? He's also telling you here it produces holiness in your life. Jerry Ragg, who wrote a book on holiness that the men went through a couple years ago, said this, the same grace that frees the believer from the guilt of sin also frees the believer to be holy. Holiness is impossible without grace, and grace always produces holiness. If you're going to grow in holiness, to see Christ more and more formed in your life, to have success in your fight against sin, to go after all that Paul is giving you here, you have to first be under grace. And when you are, you're finally free, and you're finally alive to obey the One that you love. I told you at the onset that there are so many godly biblical theologians who've made a study of holiness, made it a part of their life's work. In each of those cases, I think you can see where they understood the role of grace as it regarded your growth in Christian holiness. John Murray said this, grace is the sovereign will and power of God coming to expression for the deliverance of men from the servitude of sin. Sinclair Ferguson said this, God's grace transforms us through our union and communion with Christ, and because we're transformed, then we're able to actually grow in holiness. Friend, it's grace that frees us from the curse of the law. Grace enables us to live for Christ. Grace rouses our desire for holiness, and grace positions and propels us toward the image of Christ being formed in us. Ryle again in Holiness said this, he said, quote, "'True holiness, we surely ought to remember, does not consist merely of inward sensations and impressions. It is much more than tears and sighs and bodily excitement, and a quickened pulse, and a passionate feeling of attachment to our favorite preacher and our own religious party, and a readiness to quarrel with everyone who does not agree with us.'" Okay, it's not that, what is it? Ryle says it is something of the image of Christ, which can be seen and observed by others in our private life and habits and character and doings. Friends, this is how I pray that our church grows. That we would grow in holiness, devoted to the one that saved us. That this is priority number one for fellowship church law book. Growing in Christ-likeness. No matter how many people fill the seats here or anything like that. Who cares about that? Our focus on growth is this. That we would grow in sanctification. That we would look more and more like Christ. That holiness would grow and develop. Why? Because in this way the church is made glorious. That's Ephesians 5, 26 and 27. that He might sanctify and cleanse her by the washing of the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, but holy and without blemish." This ought to be what we're praying for. This ought to be our desire, our desire number one for Fellowship Church Law Book. Why? This is the will of God. Everybody, we've said this multiple times if you've been paying attention throughout the years. Everybody, what's the will of God? What's the will of God for my life? I'll tell you what it is because He tells you what it is. 1 Thessalonians 4.3, for this is the will of God, your sanctification, done. What does he say? That is, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel and sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God. Why would that be different? Because you do know God, and He saved you for this purpose. I pray that we would actively grow. How? How Paul tells us, believe the truth, resist sin, be disciplined. This is possible, this is real. Why? Because you're under grace. And with this comes joy, great joy, where you see that you're clothed in the garments of salvation, Isaiah 61.10, there's joy that's found in that. With this comes assurance, that you see the work of salvation in your life, as grace is producing real fruit. There ought to be joy when you see fruit in your life and in the life of others. And all this comes with reward, that you're growing in Christ's likeness. This has great reward, that He will actually do what He says that He will do. He is growing you and you can see it in this life, but that He will do what He promises that He will do, where He says He will transform our lowly body in conformity with His glorious body. Do you believe that? That is incredible reward that we can scarce imagine. He says that there is an inheritance among all who are sanctified. There is reward, there is an inheritance, and perhaps most of all, this great reward of being in His presence where there is fullness of joy, Psalm 16 verse 11. What greater joy than to be in conformity with His Son in such a profound way where we demonstrate and reflect holiness to glorify our God. Great reward. Close with this. All these men so concerned with holiness. May our prayer be the same as Robert Murray McShane, who prayed this, Lord, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner can be. Is that your desire? It's possible you're dead to sin, you're alive to God in Christ, you're under grace. Father, we come before you and it is our humble plea that you would do what you're capable of doing and that you would make us as holy as a pardon center possibly can be. Father, that you would form Christ in us in this way, that you would let the fruit of righteousness be evident in our life. In times of comfort and ease and in times where it's incredibly difficult, let us be found fruitful. That is a demonstration of your work. And as you've been active to save us, Lord, I pray that you'd give us a desire, a passion, an intensity to pursue holiness. Lord, would you work in our hearts in such a way? And would you work in the heart of the person who came this morning who doesn't know the goodness and power of the gospel, who's lost in their sins and transgressions, who's tried to change their life and has come up with no success over and over and over, who is dead in their sin and trespasses? Lord, would you show them that the gospel is able to actually transform people, that Christ dying on the cross that Christ dying on the cross is enough to forgive them of all of their sins, and that this is a demonstration of your grace that saves us and transforms us, causing us to be holy, and that this is a desire that you put in our heart and you free us to be holy in this way. Lord, let that be the heart of our church as a group of people who want to see Christ formed and who are coming alongside one another, encouraging, calling out sin where necessary, discipling, all in order to see Christ formed in us. And all of it's possible because we're under grace. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your grace that is something that we do not deserve, but that we can see hints of, evidences of, if we look all the way back in eternity past, where you predestined us for this purpose. You've always been gracious. May we respond to that this morning as we praise your great name. In Christ's name, amen.