How Justified Ones Should Speak

Well, let me have you, turn in your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6 for our time of study. And God's word. Today, we are, I guess, taking it week by week.

We're, we've studied through Romans 5, we'll begin in Romans 6, today, and who knows, we may end up going all the way through Romans 8 by the time we're done. I believe what we're doing in these chapters is, we're embarking on a journey into the very heart of the gospel. And, this is an adventure into, grace, the, the grace of God, and, this is an amazingly rich section of scripture where we, we're at the flashpoint, the blazing center of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if we're going to be the church God wants us to be, then we have to get this right, not just to avoid error, but also to, to grow richly into everything that God wants us to be as individuals, and as a, church.

And if you want to give a title to what we're going to be talking about this morning, it would be how justified ones should speak. How justified ones should speak. All we're going to do with the time we have this morning is look at verse one of Romans 6 and the first four words of, of, of verse 2. And even at that, we're going to have to trim to get everything in.

How justified one should speak. I read this week that men speak 375 billion words in their lifetime. And that women speak twice as many words. And their lifetime and someone said that's because they have to repeat themselves because men Men don't listen to them the first time.

But we do speak many words throughout our lifetimes and hopefully, the way you spoke before you came to faith in Christ was different than the way that you speak now. And we come to a very interesting moment here at the end of chapter 5, beginning of chapter 6, where Paul basically asked the question, what shall we say then? I just want us to linger on that question today, quite literally, it's what shall we be saying then the word say obviously is the word that means to speak.

So he's addressing the issue of not just our thinking, but in this question, he's addressing the issue of what we're going to say.

In response to all that we have learned about our salvation in Romans 5, what will we say at this point? And he's not just asking the question, what will we say right now at this point of Romans? It's, it's, what are we going to be saying tomorrow and the next day and throughout the rest of our lives? What will we be speaking as believers given The realities that we have been discovering in in Romans 5.

This is, this is an interesting question because just a few, couple chapters ago, we were actually silent as the book of Romans unfolds itself. Look at this Paul in chapters 1 and 2 and the first part of chapter 3 is laying out the reality of sin, and there's a point, points where he deals with objections and And then he responds to those, but by the time he gets to Romans 3:19, nobody's talking. The only voice in the room is the voice of the law. He says in verse 19 of Romans 3.

Now we know that whatever the law speaks, that's the same verb here in Romans 6:1, it speaks the same verb again to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God. because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. So, in Romans chapter 3, verse 19, the law is speaking, and it is speaking so that we would close our mouths and fall silent and essentially put our hand over our mouth and just bow low before God and acknowledging our guilt.

But then Paul through the rest of chapter 3.

begins to unfold the reality of our justification by faith throughout the length of chapter 4. He continues to unfold that and then in Romans 5, he does a beautiful job of unfolding the blissful consequences of our justification. And even goes deeper into explaining to us the glories of the forgiveness and the righteousness and the peace and the love and deliverance from God's wrath that is ours in Christ. And Paul then having done that, we've gone from silence as the law.

none of us can be justified by the works of the law to beginning to unfold our justification, which is the fundamental aspect of the gospel of our salvation. And then he comes at the very end of Romans 5, after unfolding all that and says, what will we speak then? It's time to open our mouths and address the question of what are we going to say. What will we say now that we have been justified through Christ in the ways that we've been learning about?

And with the time that we have this morning, I've got a two point outline, but never fear, my second point has, I think, 8 subpoints. So, but Two ways that is clear to me at this juncture of Romans 6, that Paul believes that justified ones should, be speaking. All right. And the first is, is something that he's, he's already answered this question in part prior to asking the question at this point of Romans 6.

And then the second way that we should be speaking, he goes right into explaining that to us in Romans 6 verse 1 and 2. So how should we be speaking, now that we are justified, the first way that we should be speaking is we should be speaking the praises of God. We should be speaking the praises of, of God. Again, we were all silent in Romans 3, but then as Paul begins to unfold our justification, as he's going through that chapter, he starts opening his mouth and beckoning us to open our mouth and begin to exult in verse 2, he says, we exult in verse 3, we exult in verse 11, we exult.

And what we have learned is that in saying this, Paul is essentially responding to the call of worship that is delivered in Psalm 32 and verse 11, where it says, Be glad in the Lord and exalt you righteous ones. And the Greek word exalt there in the Greek translation of the Old Testament is exactly the same word that Paul uses here. Paul says, I'm a righteous one, and I will join that chorus and respond. That call to worship, we exult, we exalt, we exult.

And he doesn't even just say, I exult, although that's included. He's beckoning us. He's like, we exult, right? Let's exalt together.

And 3 times we see this refrain. Guys, if we, if we are truly saved, and then being saved, if we become students of our justification, and we really get it. and understand the mechanics of our justification and what that means that we are, we are declared righteous by God, God will always think of us as forgiven. We are always standing at peace with God in the grace of God all day, every day, good days, bad days, waking or sleeping, solely because Of the performance of Jesus, and it has nothing to do with our performance.

If we believe that and understand it, we will open our mouths and begin to exalt the way that Paul does. It makes a difference. It's like Peter and John said in the book of Acts, we cannot stop speaking. About the things that we have seen and heard, even when they're threatened and told to be silent, he said we can't, we can't stop speaking about these things that we have experienced in Christ.

Let me quote from my buddy, Milton, John Milton, that is. I, I was listening to a lecture a few weeks ago, and the lecturer quoted from delivered this quote from John Milton, and I paused it and typed it out and I really love the way John Milton words this. Listen to what he says. To understand the truth is to be transported into a realm where eternity and mortality intersect and where standards of this material world are sundered by the powerful truth that God reigns in the heavens and all things work after His will.

And in our context, let's take that and apply that to God reigns in the heavens and what does he do with that royal authority? He gives salvation and forgiveness. And so we come to understand this in Romans 5. Now look what he says.

Therefore, what we sing and how we dance will be forever transformed. And if not, woe unto us unbelievers. In the mind of of John Milton, if, if you, if the grace of God has truly made its way into your heart, it will make its way into your tongue. It will change what you sing, and how.

You dance. My question to you this morning is, has the gospel changed what you sing? Has the gospel, having been saved, has it changed what's on your iPod? Or is it all still the same stuff that's on your iPod?

And I'm not saying it's wrong to listen to music written by non-believers if it's celebrating themes that are virtuous and that glorify God and that enhance your enjoyment of God and His image even reflected through an unsafe person who still displays the image of God, though in a marred way. And maybe enjoy celebrating his creation and relationships, there's things out there to be enjoyed. So I'm not saying none of that can be on your iPod, but I'm just saying just, just look at the contents of your, your iPod.

Has the gospel changed what you sing, the songs that you enjoy?

Has it changed the, the, the, the lyrics of what you're singing? when you are in the shower and in your car and when you gather with with other people, the gospel should, the truth of our justification should radically transform what we sing and how we dance, and that's exactly the way it was for Paul. Paul used to sing, as it were, about his own virtue and his own righteousness and his own pedigree and lineage and all. His accomplishments, but Paul then said, what, after encountering Christ's righteousness, he says that's a pile of manure, and he began to sing a different song that was totally about Jesus.

And in Romans 5, look what he's singing about and rejoicing in. And by the way, the word exult means to boast in. Sometimes it's, it has a bad meaning depending on the context. It means to brag or to boast about.

And he says in verse two, we exult in hope for the glory of God. Paul is saying, we're, we're looking ahead to the future, to our future glorification, and we are celebrating, boasting about, we're singing about that, and celebrating that now. In the world of athletics, it's athletes have to be real careful not to celebrate too early, right? We've seen that happen and they get into trouble, but Paul says you don't need to worry about that as a justified one.

If you're justified, you're going to get glorified, guaranteed. Start the celebration now. Thanksgiving season is approaching. as soon as it was time to do that, my wife broke out the Thanksgiving decorations just in anticipation of that, and she'll do the same after Thanksgiving with all the Christmas decorations, and, and we walk in the house and we will be reminded that Christmas is coming, just beginning the celebration of anticipation, and that's the way it is.

Paul says, I'm already celebrating. I've already set up the decorations in my life, and I'm heading for glorification, and I'm celebrating now. We're exulting in this because we're justified once. He says, verse 3, we exult in our tribulations.

We, we talk about our tribulations and, and, and boast about what God is doing in us and through us, even in the midst of our hardships and, and trials. Verse 11, we exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. If you ran into Paul, and asked him how he's doing, he would be boasting often and frequently about God, what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will do. there have been times where, I myself have actually even answered questions in this way, but, but often what I've noticed is, if you ask a believer like how, how are you doing?

How, how are things with you and the Lord? More than half the time, their reply is something like, pretty good. I'm having my devotions. I'm praying, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, and not that that's a bad answer.

but if, if you came to Paul and said, hey, how are things with you and the Lord, Paul would be like, Oh, let me tell you what God is doing. And he would be exulting in God, boasting in God. And what a great example for us as justified ones. We should be exalters, boasters, praisers of God, speaking the praises of God to Him and about Him to other people.

And one of the ways we do this as believers is through song. We're commanded in Colossians and Ephesians to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and we assemble together as believers to join our voices and our hearts in song and essentially what we're often doing is exulting in song in the glories of our salvation. And if I could just take time, I want to give you something from John Wesley. Back in the 1700s, he gave 5 rules for singing.

and you can Google these. I'm not going to give you all 5. I'm just going to give you the 1st 2, because he, he thought that believers need to be instructed in how to speak, in terms of exalting and responding to the glories of their salvation. Let me just read to you the 1st 2 rules and comment briefly on each one.

number 1, sing all, meaning when you gather together as believers, everybody sing. He says, see that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you, and if it is a cross to you, if it's a cross to bear to have to sing, then take it up and you will find a blessing. Amen.

I'm amazed sometimes in talking to some believers who they have this, it's a legitimate desire to be authentic, and in that legitimate desire, what they convey sometimes is if I don't feel like worshiping and singing like in church, for example, then I don't because I don't want to fake it. I want to be authentic. I always marvel at that because I know those same people don't get up in the morning on Monday and say, what, if I don't feel like going to work, I just don't, because I don't want to fake it.

I want to be authentic or with any of the other commands of God, if, if I don't feel like obeying the commands of God, I just don't, because I don't want to fake, fake it.

If God gives me a prohibition, And tells me something not to do. I, I don't abstain from that thing he prohibited unless I feel like abstaining from it because I don't want to fake abstinence from what God has prohibited. You see, in all the other areas of life, they don't really think about that, but then when it comes to worship, somehow they apply that different, standard. And I, I just want to, let me respond to that real briefly.

I remember a number of years ago, Probably like 27 years ago now, I, I ran into a woman at a bus stop in Anderson, South Carolina, who, she'd obviously suffered a stroke and had very limited mobility in her, her right arm and And was not able to walk, but as she was seated there waiting for the bus, I was drawn to her countenance because she had this beauty about her, and I came over and started talking to her, and as we got to talking and I found out that, she professed faith in Christ, but then she said to me, she said, what, young man, what I've learned over the years is that there's 2 times when we should praise the Lord.

And I was like, oh brother, she's probably a part of some cult or whatever. What, what is she gonna say? But I said, well, what are those?

And she said, when you feel like it, and when you don't. Those, those are the two times and, and I've held on to that and I've, I, I've noticed that part of the genius of worship is not only is God glorified, but we get our hearts rearranged when we worship. When we come together on the Lord's Day, for example, and worship as we've done this morning, we're not putting on some show to God. We're not faking anything.

God knows what's going on in our hearts, but we're, we're here not only to glorify God by the worship we render to Him, but when we worship and open our mouths and our hearts in song, we're opening up ourselves to allow God to rearrange our hearts. And there's been a number of times I've come in on a Sunday and my heart is not in worship mode. And maybe I'm discouraged by experiences or circumstances or I'm, I'm discouraged by my own failures and feeling very much unworthy to worship the Lord and, but then just coming and, and, and worshiping, it's almost like our gospel worship is like an escalator.

It's like I get on that escalator and 30 minutes later, it drops me off on a different floor and I'm wondering how did I get here?

Our, our worship has the effect of rearranging our hearts. How many of you have experienced that? Just as you worship God, God is changing and rearranging your heart in the process. You read through the psalter and you find that happening.

There are some psalms that begin on a very negative, discouraging note. But the psalmist begins to worship God and in every case except one, I believe the Psalm that starts off on a discouraging, depressed, maybe angry, questioning, confusing note ends on a much higher note than how it began. So If you feel like worshiping, worship and exult. If you don't, especially worship and exult in the reality of your salvation.

That's rule number 1. Rule number 2 from John Wesley is sing lustily. It's an old word we don't normally speak this way today. Sing with gusto is basically what he's saying.

Sing lustily and with a good courage. For a guy like me, it takes courage to sing aloud. where others can hear, he says, beware of singing. As if you were half dead or half asleep, but lift up your voice with strength, be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of it being heard than when you sing the songs of Satan.

You see people out there today in the world that man, they're so bold, courageous, and singing the songs of Satan. And they don't care that they have no talent at all. And how are we in singing the praises of our God and the glories of our salvation? Chapter 6, verse 1.

What shall we be speaking then? What are we going to do with our tongues and, and our mouths now that we are justified? Well, Paul's already answered one aspect of the answer to that question, and that is that we need to be exulting in God speaking the praises of God. There's a second thing.

That we should be speaking and this is where we'll spend the rest of our time, and that is that we should be speaking our renunciation of sin. We should be speaking our renunciation of sin. I know that's awkwardly worded, but I couldn't. I couldn't think of a better way to convey this.

we should be renouncing sin and actually Paul's instructing us to speak our renunciation of sin. All the passion that we have for God and thankfulness for our salvation. all of that passion gets turned against anything contrary to God. With equal intensity, we renounce, even vocally renounce sin's place in our own lives.

Look what he says in chapter 6, verse 1. What shall we be speaking then? and he says, I'll tell you what to be speaking. Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?

Paul would say, repeat after me, I'm going to teach you some words that you now need to be speaking as a justified one. Get used to this because you're gonna need to say this over and over again. Here it is, verse 2 may it never be. May it never.

memorize these words. And when it comes to the place of sin in your life, when it comes to the question of, will I as a justified one, tarry in sin, will I continue in sin? Will I linger in sin? Paul says, in response to that thought, Your answer should be, may it never be.

This is one of the things that justified ones are supposed to say regarding the place of sin in their life. The truth is, we are asked this question daily, in one way or another, multiple times. As a believer, maybe there is anger and bitterness in your heart against someone for some wrong that they have done against you, and you often find yourself nursing that grievance, and the question you're left with is, shall I continue in anger and bitterness for yet another hour, for yet another day, knowing that God's grace will abound towards me?

Paul says your answer should be almost as it were a spoken, may it never be.

May I not continue in anger or in bitterness. May I continue in lust. for another hour, another day, knowing that God's grace will abound towards me as a justified one. Paul says, you need to say, may it never be.

You've heard of the prayer of Saint Augustine, Lord, give me chastity, but not yet. often, we would say, yeah, I want holiness, but we want it tomorrow. And we, we linger, we tarry in sin. Shall I continue in gossip for another hour, another day?

In order that God's grace may abound, knowing that His grace will abound towards me, may it never be. Shall I continue in slothfulness and laziness for yet another day? May it never be. Shall I continue in discontentedness?

Shall I continue in envy? Shall I continue in pride? Shall I continue hiding in my sin and hiding my sin? From those who need to know it, shall I continue in blame shifting and fault finding?

Guys, whatever the sin issues in your life are, fill in the blank. Shall I linger and tarry in sin as a justified one, knowing that God's grace will abound towards me even while I'm in that sin? Paul says, Here's, here's what you need to be speaking as a justified one. Say the words, may it never be.

Let that be your response. Say no to sin with the same intensity with which you say yes to God. Say no to sin and renounce sin with the same intensity and passion with which you praise the Lord and exult in him, and in the salvation that he's given to you. Now, starting in verse two, after saying, may it never be, Paul's going to take us on a journey, and tell us a number of, of things that we need to know by way of why we should say no to sin.

And, and how to go about saying no to sin. So we're going to learn a lot in Romans 6, but all I want to do this morning with the time we have I want to go back into Romans 5. Because in the mind of Paul, he's going to tell us more things in Romans 6 about saying no to sin and why and how. But the way Paul words this indicates that he actually believes he's said enough already in Romans 5 to give us every reason and motivation to say no to sin.

Look at this chapter 6, verse 1. What shall we say then? That word then is the word therefore. Therefore, in light of everything we've been learning about our salvation in Romans chapter 5, therefore, what shall we say?

Shall we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? And his answer is may it never be, and he'll tell us additional reasons why, but Paul has actually communicated volumes to us in Romans chapter 5 alone to where even if we didn't read Romans 6, there would be enough in Romans 5 to leave us amply motivated. to say may it never be to the place of sin in our lives. So here's the subpoints, guys.

I want us to just look at some reasons that we should renounce sin, reasons that are actually derived from what we've already seen in Romans 6, just this verse and And a half and what we see in Romans 5. Some reasons that we should renounce sin. Let's go through these. We won't have a lot of time with each one of these, but, let's cover as many as we can.

Some reasons we should say no to sin, letter A, because we can. Because we can. Why do we as believers say no to sin? Because we can say no to sin.

This is actually an amazing thing. an amazing moment that we arrive at. Shall we continue in sin? Before we were saved, we had to continue in sin, bound by the guilt of sin and the condemnation of sin.

There was nothing we could do to get out from underneath that. We were enslaved to various lusts and pleasures. Paul indicates in Titus chapter 3. We had to sin.

We could not say no to sin. Or maybe we could, but we couldn't stop ultimately. committing sin. But now that we're justified, shall we linger and tarry and sin that grace may abound?

No, and you are free now to say no to sin. Because you can We learned at the very end of Romans 5:21 that as sin used to reign as king, even so now grace reigns. See, sin is not king anymore in our lives and It cannot make us do what it wants us to do. We are not subjects of sin.

Its power has been broken in our lives and therefore we do not have to ever commit a sin. We are no longer slaves to sin. We are now under the reign of grace. The reign of sin has been broken, and so now we can actually say, may it never be.

To sin. Now none of us does this perfectly, and for that the reign of grace is there to take us to the cross and to speak the forgiveness of God to us for when we fall short, but technically, theologically we are in a position in Christ to say no to sin. And we have the power to abstain from sin. So why should we say no to sin?

Well, letter A, because we can. Letter B. Because sin is by its very definition, a willful missing of the mark that God has set for us. Paul uses the word sin a number of times in Romans 5.

And the, the word that is translated sin in Romans 5 and throughout the New Testament is a word that literally has the idea of missing the mark. How many of you have heard the word sin described in that way, missing the mark? I would totally affirm that that is part of the literal idea of that term in an archery context. The only thing I would want us to be careful about and notice on the screen it says a willful missing of the mark.

Sin is not, we're looking at the bull's eye, the target God has given us, and we're like, I sure want to hit that bull's eye. So I'm going to do my best and we aim and try to hit the bull's eye and it just falls short, or we miss the target altogether or we miss the bull's eye. And therefore we need Christ. That's not the biblical picture.

The biblical picture is God gives us the target, as it were, and we say, I don't like that target. I don't want anything to do with that. I'm not even going to aim for that. I'm going to make my own targets here and I'm going to aim for these, and we hit the bull's eye on these other targets, all the other things that we pursue after.

So we're way missing the mark because we're not even aiming for the mark that God has set for us. I love what this one writer says about this word sin and its literal meaning. He says rather than aiming carefully at God's target, we turn our backs and shoot arrows everywhere else, wanting to please ourselves. We ignore the true bull's eye and set our affections on seductive targets that cannot satisfy, sanctify, or save.

We are not primarily target missers. We are self-centered, false target worshippers. That's the essence of sin. As we worship ourselves in the place of God, and we worship others and other things in the place of God, and we aim for targets that are different.

Than the target that God puts before us. And as a justified one, if all we did was read Romans 5, we would still be able to say, Shall I continue in sin that grace may abound? May it never be. why?

Because I can say that. And also let her be, because sin by its very nature is a willful turning away from God and the target that he sets before me and aiming after a target of my own choosing. And this God who's lavished such grace and salvation upon me, who has made me His friend. Why, why would I want to turn away from what he puts before me and go after something of my own making.

So justified ones would know just from Romans 5 that I, I don't want to tarry in sin, knowing what sin by its very definition is. I want what God wants. That's what I want to shoot for. Another reason that we can and should say no to sin and renounce it even verbally is because sin at its core is hostility against God.

Sin at its core is hostility against God. We see this indicated in Romans 5:10. when we were in sin, and under its condemnation and its guilt, when we were in sin, prior to God in love saving us, it says in Romans 5:10, we were enemies. We were enemies and that word enemies has the literal idea of we were hostile ones, we were hateful.

Against God we may have said that we loved God, but we didn't love the true God. We loved a God of our own making. You talk to people now who don't know Christ they're like, Yeah, I love God. Well, tell me about the God you love.

Well, it just so happens the God they love fits beautifully with all of their preconceived notions and preferences. So of course they love the God of their own making who is simply a mirror image of Themselves. The Jesus seminar people can go through the gospels and root out 80% of what Jesus said and leave only 20% and eliminate all the miracles. And when they're done, they can say, man, we love Jesus.

But the Jesus they're left with is a mirror image of their own ideology and of their own selves. But the true God, the unchanging God, the holy God who created us and to whom we are accountable, deep down, sin at its very core is an act of hostility against God. Paul affirms this in Romans 8:7. He says the mind set on the flesh is hostility against God.

This is from a very similar root here. It's hostility. It's hatefulness against God. This word hostility speaks of personal animosity, hatred, dislike, and opposition that is specifically directed against God.

If somehow you could take sin and, and put it under a microscope, what you would see inside of it. Is hostility against God. This is a harsh view of sin. Most of us don't see our sin this way.

Even David, when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband, what God said to David through Nathan the prophet? He says, You have despised me. You have hated me. I take what you have done very personally.

This is an act of hatred against me. Now that's a harsh view of sin. We would have never really believed such a harsh view of sin if it were not for the cross, right? Because what the cross reveals is that our sin is hostility against God.

When God came into this world and lived in all perfection and beauty in front of us. We killed him. And in that central act of human history, sin overplayed its hand and revealed itself for what it really is. It's the murder of God.

It's an act of hostility against God. We overplayed our hand and exposed ourselves for what we really are. We in our sin are murderers. We are murderers of God.

And so here we are now, we've been forgiven of our sins and we're justified once, and this God has moved towards us in love and and Christ suffered in our place and bore our sins in His body and, and we're now friends of God, and God gives us His Holy Spirit and the Spirit each day is pouring out God's love inside of our hearts, just searching out the depths of the love of God and just dumping that in our hearts in the center of our of our being, and we're enjoying this peace, this grace, this friendship with God.

And just from that alone, if we never read Romans 6 beyond verse 2, we would go, why, why would I want to commit an act of hostility? Against God. May it never be, may it never be.

There's a 4th reason that we should Can and should say no to sin, and that is because sin renders us weak and sickly. If all we did was read Romans 5, we already know enough to know that sin renders us weak and sickly. In Romans 5:6, Paul describes us as being helpless, and the Greek word that is translated helpless is the Greek word that in other passages is translated as sick or weak. It means to be without strength.

It means to be suffering from a debilitating condition which often someone who's severely sick is. suffering from. And at the very least, we would just observe that this is just the way it is with sin, that when sin entered the human race, it rendered all of us weak and sickly, so much so that we could not save ourselves or contribute one iota to our salvation, and we required Jesus Christ to come and to do it all and to bring healing. In our lives.

This is affirmed elsewhere in Jeremiah 17:9. The heart of man is deceitful above all else, and it's desperately sick. It's sick. Who can know it?

Where did this sickness come from? It comes from sin. The psalmist David is looking back, on his season of sin as he committed adultery with Bathsheba, tried to hide it, ended up murdering her husband, and just holding that in and refusing to confess and repent of that sin. And after that season of his life was over, he's journaling about what his experience was in that season of sin, and he says this When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.

My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. There have been times in my life where I've allowed a sin to just lock onto me and And get a hold of me and I could, I could see it, just, I could feel it having a weakening effect upon me as a husband and me as a father, just sucking and draining the life, the vitality away from me as a pastor, as a husband, as a father, and, and as a man of God. and then there have been times where I've gone through a spell where, where, I was, I would say that I was in sin and I wasn't really, I wasn't conscious that, man, I'm feeling sickly spiritually, my vitality is being drained away.

But what happens is, God in His grace moves me away from that sin.

I repent and now I'm walking with Him in the fullness that's in Christ. And then I look back and go, man, how did I live through that? I, I had no life in me compared to what I have now. How many of you would say that's happened to you?

Once you're walking in true wellness and fullness, you then look back and go, you say what David said, you realize how weak and sickly you really were. As a result of the sin that was in your life. And so again, if all we did was read Romans 5, we would, we shall I tarry in sin that has a weakening, sickening effect upon people, the human race. May, may it never be.

Most of us, well, I don't want to say most of us, there are people that I know that are germophobes. they're washing their hands and they're extremely careful about food they eat and And I'm not going to knock any of that. I think there's probably plenty of good reason to be extremely careful, but are we, are we as careful about sin? That has a detrimental, a weakening, sickening effect upon us and being the men and women that we can be and that God wants us to be.

There's a, fifth reason we can and should say no to sin and just renounce it, just speak that renunciation of sin in our lives, and that is because sin brings forth death and condemnation. Sin brings forth death and condemnation. We learned in Romans 5:16 that judgment arose from the one transgression resulting in condemnation, verse 17 by the transgression of the one, death reigned. And so sin is an ugly thing that that breeds death and it breeds condemnation.

And so as justified ones we don't want anything to do with that. Now let me qualify. I'm not saying as a justified one we don't want to sin because if we do, we're going to experience death and condemnation. No, we're freed from that.

But What I'm saying is we look at sin. And we see what it was doing to us, and we see what it's doing to people all around us. We see that sin is really an enemy that brings death, not just sickness and weakness. It actually brings death and it brings condemnation and so we grow to hate sin.

As justified ones, we now see sin in its proper light, and we despise it. We hate it. It's a bringer of sickness and weakness and death and condemnation. And even when we see sin in, in the lives of other people, we, we cannot rejoice in that.

This affects even the entertainment choices that we make. That, one of the things that God has sensitized me to over the years, and I, I came to it unfortunately, rather slowly, is that I cannot in good conscience, pay money to be entertained by people who don't know Jesus that are saying and doing things in that form of entertainment that they're going to be damned for if they don't repent. How can I pay money and say, man, that's, that's hilarious. Make more of these kinds of movies and for me as a believer, if I'm truly operating by the law of love, I'm thinking far more deeply than does this affect me.

I'm thinking about my actions affecting those that are acting in ways that are ultimately contributing to their death and their damnation, and I cannot allow myself to be entertained. By people doing and saying things that they're going to be damned for if they don't repent. Sin is a bringer. of weakness and sickness and death and And condemnation.

And so we now see it in its proper light and it's like, shall I linger in sin that grace may abound? Well, based on what I've read in Romans 5 may it never be. I hate it. There's another reason we can and should say no to sin, and that is because sin, our sin profoundly affects other people.

Our sin profoundly affects other people. You don't have to be a genius to pick this up in Romans 5, right? Romans 5:12 Through one man's sin entered into the world, and death through sin, death spread to all men. verse 15, by the transgression of the one, many died.

Verse 18, through the transgression there resulted condemnation to all men. Verse 19, through the one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. Man, it's just a piece of fruit that Adam decided to eat in disobedience to God, and billions of people. are born into death and under condemnation as a result of that.

What staggering consequences and what a profound effect. That his choice has had upon other people. We see this theme throughout Scripture. Aiken stole from some of the spoils after the victory in Jericho and hid it under his tent.

And, and when the Israelites went into battle against AI after that, there were some Israelites who died as a result of what Aiken had done, and those people who died had no knowledge of what Aiken had done. And when Aiken confessed his sin, he was stoned. His wife was stoned, his children were stoned, his whole family was stoned. They were affected by his choice.

God says in the 10 Commandments, you need to worship me and me only. I'm a jealous God. I will visit your iniquities upon the 3rd and the 4th generation. Your grandchildren and great grandchildren will be affected by the choices that you make.

In 1 Corinthians 5, don't a little 1, Len's the whole lump of dough. The Corinthians were entertaining sin in their midst, and not rebuking it and rooting it out, and Paul's like, this is, this affects the rest of the body. Our sin has a profound effect upon other people. We need to think about, about this.

Let, let's hasten on to the last point, because we're out of time, and that is that A final reason that we can and should renounce sin in terms of its place in our lives is because sin, even in its thought form, is horrible. Sin, even in the form of thought, is something that we should view as horrible. We actually learned this in Romans 6. What shall we say then?

Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? Paul is merely uttering a thought, the thought of continuing in sin. And in verse 2, the response is, May it never be. Paul is saying no to the thought of sin.

He's renouncing the thought of sin. In fact, one commentator suggests that we could translate the beginning of verse two by saying, perish the thought, this idea of continuing in sin that God's grace may abound. That's just a thought. May it never be, meaning not only may it never be a reality in my life, but may I not even be guilty of entertaining this thought.

I renounce even this thought of sin. One commentator says there are thoughts and reasonings which are so abominable that the Christian mind instinctively turns from them and refuses even to think them. We need to declare war on sin, even on a thought level in our lives. why that is.

Because you look at all the evils that are done in our world today and then trace them back, all of those evils that are done and all the harm and damage they do at one point existed merely as a thought. In somebody's mind. Think of the Holocaust. Listen to what one writer says.

6 million Jews were exterminated by what began as a single idea in a man's head. From that seed evolved a grand project in which trains ran on time, ovens were built, jobs were filled, a continent nearly fell all from one evil idea. I love what Randy Alcorn has done to protect him from the sin of adultery, for example, is he, he will, when that thought comes into his mind and maybe he's just entertaining thoughts or tempted to entertain thoughts, he has a list. He's written out like 20 consequences of committing that sin, and, and what we need to do is realize that even the thought of sin and its thought form.

Just, just imagine being able to cut into that and look inside of just the thought, what we would find is a whole universe of evil. That if allowed to be acted upon and fully played out, there's a whole universe of evil, of consequences and so forth that begin to play out. And he's learned to do that when the thought comes, he, he looks at what that would look like acted out and imagines the consequences and sitting down and confessing to his wife and the hurt on her face. And confessing to his children and the betrayal of their trust, the hurt on their face, the loss of confidence and respect for him, and on and on.

He's got a list of a number of things, and what he's doing is he's taking a thought and he's seeing the whole universe of evil inside that thought. And then after playing that out on his mind, he comes back to the thought and essentially says, I hate you. I hate you for all the evil that you contain. Our thoughts can sprout into actions.

In fact, all of our evil actions are merely the sprouting of a thought. And Paul says, perish the thought. We should be saying perish, not just the commission of sin, but the entertainment of the thought. Of sin may it never be that I even entertain.

With enjoyment, the thought Of sin. May I declare war on this and renounce it, even verbally renounce it. Not on simply on the action level but on the thought. Level as well.

Let me ask you to bow your heads this morning. If you're like me, you would say, I, I don't think this way all the time, and This is actually very convicting. Well, what? That's why it's important for you to understand your justification.

God's grace abounds towards you as a believer in Jesus. Drink that grace in. Drink it in. There is forgiveness.

There's grace. It has nothing to do with your performance. All because of what Jesus has done. Get that right.

And receive God's grace and forgiveness that is yours. But then also appreciate the fact that it's like we learned last week, when God's grace comes into your life, it comes to reign. And one of the things that begins to tell you to do is to say yes to the worship of God and say no to sin. And will we let that grace reign?

In our lives Let's pray together Father, we thank you for For your grace. And for the salvation, the forgiveness that it brings. We thank you also, Lord, for what your grace teaches us, how to live, how to be towards you. And how to renounce and say no to sin.

May we be a people that say no to sin as passionately as we say yes to you.