Outer Banks Community Church

Text: Romans 6:13-22 (NKJV)

13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall 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? Certainly not! 16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.

“And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.” 1 Timothy 1:14

Intro: Yield - Pull yourself together

Yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot atone for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot make right what is wrong, pure what is impure, holy what is unholy. That is all the sovereign work of God. Have I faith in what Jesus Christ has done? He has made a perfect Atonement, am I in the habit of constantly realizing it? The great need is not to do things, but to believe things. The Redemption of Christ is not an experience, it is the great act of God which He has performed through Christ, and I have to build my faith upon it. If I construct my faith on my experience, I produce that most unscriptural type, an isolated life, my eyes fixed on my own whiteness. Beware of the piety that has no presupposition in the Atonement of the Lord. It is of no use for anything but a sequestered life; it is useless to God and a nuisance to man. Measure every type of experience by our Lord Himself. We cannot do anything pleasing to God unless we deliberately build on the presupposition of the Atonement.

The Atonement of Jesus has to work out in practical, unobtrusive ways in my life. Every time I obey, absolute Deity is on my side, so that the grace of God and natural obedience coincide. Obedience means that I have banked everything on the Atonement, and my obedience is met immediately by the delight of the supernatural grace of God.

Beware of the piety that denies the natural life, it is a fraud. Continually bring yourself to the bar of the Atonement - where is the discernment of the Atonement in this thing, and in that? I wrote this down the other day and quite honestly I forgot where I got this quote! But there was so much truth to what was said. The great need is not to do things, but to believe things. Do you believe that?

Application: Do you really Know God?

“at-one-ment” making at one, ATONEMENT In Christian thought, the act by which God and man are brought together in personal relationship. The term is derived from Anglo-Saxon words meaning “making at one,” hence “at-one-ment.”

God is seen as taking the initiative in man’s salvation; thus atonement is the work of God, who opens the possibility for sinful human beings to receive pardoning grace. For the sinner, who cannot know God, who cannot bridge the gap between himself and God, a “new and living way” is opened up by God.

1. The confusion: vs. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not!

So does that mean we can go on sinning? We cannot allow sin to have control over us! For the Christian in the past we slaves to sin but now through the righteousness of Christ we are slaves to righteousness. We are to live in submission to our new master, Jesus Christ, and not to be entangled again with the sins that characterized the old life, sins which no longer have any claim over them. No longer confused.

2. The correction: vs. 16-18 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

Don’t you realize that whatever you choose to obey becomes your master? You can choose sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God and receive his approval. You have been set free that is the correction; you are no longer controlled by the old nature nor should you allow it to have domain.

3. The challenge: vs. 19-22 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.

We are to yield the members of our body as tools of righteousness. You have fruit to holiness, and to the end, everlasting life. What fruit have you brought for God? Have you pulled yourself together? It is a challenge but the end is everlasting life.

4. The conclusion: vs. 23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

“The wages of sin is death.”

“The free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Pull yourself together you have grace.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9