Where We Are Not Going in 2011

Let me invite you this morning to turn in your Bibles to Romans. Chapter 6. Romans chapter 6. we're continuing in our study, through Romans 5 through 8, which were entitling a journey to the Heart of the Gospel and just trying to gain a better grasp of some very fundamental aspects of, of gospel truth in Romans 5, Romans 6, Romans 7, and Romans 8.

And as we are working our way through this section of Romans, we come this morning to Romans chapter 6, verse 14. And my goal this morning is to try to make our way, from verses 14, through verse 17, maybe we'll start wading into verse 18, just a little bit. But if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be Thinking before you sin. Thinking before you, sin.

JC Ryle wrote a book for young men, and in that book he said this, Believe me, this world is not a world in which we can do well without thinking, and least of all do well in the matter of our souls. Isn't that true? if we're going to be who God wants us to be and make our way successfully from here to glory, then we must be a thinking people and specifically in the context of what we're talking about today, we need to think, think deeply about the matter of sin. And if we're going to be spared from a lot of heartache and a lot of bondage and sin and so forth, then we're going to have to be a thinking people.

Most of the trouble I've gotten into in my own life, and I think many would testify the same in this room, most of the trouble we've gotten into in our lives is the result of not thinking, right? And you might say, well, I've gotten into trouble because I've been wrong thinking. That's true. But normally, no thinking precedes wrong thinking.

We stop thinking gospel truth, and in that vacancy comes wrong thinking. And so wrong thinking, erroneous thinking is normally the result of us ceasing to think intentionally, deliberate gospel truth, and Paul's going to help us with that, especially with the matter of sin. here in Romans 6. a few weeks ago, my son Benjamin and I were reading, a book and we came across a story, about a guy named Robert Ricketts who back in 1985 was 19 years of age.

And a train hit him on the head. A moving train hit his head, causing significant head trauma. He was able very fortunately to survive the accident, but the news report, this guy lived in Bowling Green, Ohio. That's not a reflection on Ohio at all, but the, in the news report about what had happened, they were trying to explain why, how did the train hit this guy's head?

How does that, how does that happen? And either from witnesses on the scene or they heard it from him, the article described that what he was doing was this, Robert Ricketts was trying to see how close to the moving train he could place his head without getting hit. Let me read that again. He was trying to see how close to the moving train he could place his head without getting hit.

Don't do that. Just a word of advice to our young people. If there's plenty of games to play in this world, don't play this game. But I can just imagine the boredom of an individual who's like, what, I think I'm going to try that and see how close I can get my head to this moving train without getting hit.

I bring that up this morning because if, if you were there on the scene, and this guy said, hey, guess what I'm going to go do. I think all of us in that situation would have said, hey, hey, hey, wait a minute, before you do that, can I give you some things to think about, right? Wouldn't, wouldn't that be the kind thing to do? I think most of us, would have tried to help him in some way and given him some things to think about before he did something that dangerous and ultimately that stupid.

Now we look at what he does and we just shake our heads like, man, that's, that's really dumb. But what, we've done exactly that with far higher stakes and with something far more deadly than an earthly train, right? It's with the matter of sin. And we have often tried to see how close we can get to sin without getting captured by that sin, and we've learned many lessons along the way, the hard way.

One of the, the things that I'm really growing to love about Romans 6 is that Paul is coming alongside of us in moments where we might be contemplating sin, and he's like, Hey, can I, can I give you some things to think about that might help you before you go in that direction? If, if you want to frame Romans chapter 6, and what the purpose of this chapter is, is all about, it's very clear in verse 1 and in verse 15. Look what he says in verse one, after teaching us truth about, about God's grace, that we have in our lives by virtue of believing in Jesus, this is a grace that is always ours regardless of our performance.

Paul then says in verse 1 of Romans 6, what shall we say then?

Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? And then he's like, may it never be. And he gives us a number of things to think about. And then, look at what he says in verse 14, for sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

Verse 15, what then shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace. Twice, essentially, Paul is raising this same question. And he spends the entire length of Romans 6 from verse 1 to 23, answering this question for us as believers, now that we're under God's grace, permanently, can we therefore go into sin and everything will be OK? I found my thinking changing personally, this time around and studying Romans chapter 6.

I, I used to view the question in verse 1 and the question in verse 15 is an adversarial question that was raised by some opponent of the apostle Paul. You ever been in a classroom setting, maybe there's 30 students in the class, and then there's one student who's maybe got something against the teacher and is always asking dumb. Questions or adversarial questions and the teacher's trying to teach and you're trying to learn from the teacher and the student raises their hand and ask some question, maybe with adversarial intent to trip the teacher up and then you're bemoaning the fact that the teacher has to take class time to answer that particular question.

Well, if that's how you view the question in verse 1 and the question in verse 15, I, I'm thinking that that's probably not the best way to view it.

because Paul gives this question too much respect. He gives the entire length of Romans 6 to answering this question. And I am starting to realize that a key to getting maximum benefit from Romans 6, is that we need to acknowledge that this question is not a question asked by 1 out of 30 in a classroom. This is a question that lies inside of every one of us.

It's a question that we all ask many times and frankly, we often answer this question, wrongly. I think we need to acknowledge this. And that's why Paul is just spending as much time as he's spending trying to address this issue, this question that lies inside the heart of all of us, and that shows up in our experience as believers. Ray Steadman.

was a pastor who died, I think in 1992. Chuck Swinall interned under him, and Chuck Swinall said, Ray Steadman is what I want to be like when I grow up. So he had a tremendous amount of respect for him and And he was a good expositor of the word, and I like the way Ray Steadman, just his honesty and transparency in talking about this very subject. Listen to what he says.

He says sometimes as believers who are under grace, we run up against some especially delicious temptations, and at times we are all confronted with the feeling, why not give in? After all, I'm not going to hell because of this. My salvation rests on Christ and not on me. And actually, God is not going to reject me because of this, for the law does not condemn me any longer.

I am not under law. Law will not condemn me. I can be forgiven. I can be restored.

So why not sin? And the interesting thing is there's a lot of gospel truth on the screen behind me. A lot of gospel truth. But it's gospel truth that is being used in a way that can actually cause a person to be more comfortable with the idea of stepping into sin for a season.

And listen to what Ray Steadman says. He says, I have heard a lot of Christians talk that way. And I have felt the full force of this confrontation in my own experience. Why not give in and enjoy a sin?

We're not under law, but under grace. I'm not going to ask for a raise of hands this morning, but I just want you to stop and ponder. Has anything of that sensibility ever manifested itself in your heart and in your thinking? I think if we're honest, we would say that it has, and Paul wants to really spend a lot of time addressing that issue inside of our hearts.

And the way we're going to frame things this morning, just with the verses that we're able to cover is that Paul is going to give us 3 things to think upon when finding ourselves in a moment like this where we're contemplating sin. Maybe some sin is before us and we're like, man, I wonder if I could do that. And God says no, and I know it would be disobeying him. But I'm under grace, so I can probably do this and then repent later and I can do this.

God's grace will abound to me all the more. I'm still going to be justified. So, If we ever catch ourselves reasoning that way, Paul is going to give us here in these verses 3 things to think upon when contemplating sin. He's already given us a lot to think upon in verses 1 through 13, but he's going to continue adding to the list of things that we should think about when contemplating sin.

I mentioned a few weeks ago, I just want to put this back in front of you again, very briefly. Randy Alcorn in his book, The Purity Principle tells about a conversation he was having with a man who formerly was a leader of a Christian organization, but he lost his ministry because he got involved in sexual immorality. And Randy Alcorn asked this man, after the fact, he says, when you look back with hindsight, What could you have done differently to have prevented what happened?

And Randy Elkhn said this, he paused only for a moment, and then said with haunting pain and precision, if only I had really known, really thought through and weighed what it would cost me and my family and my Lord, I honestly believe I would never have done it.

Notice those words. If I would have really known, really thought through and weighed, I would not have done what I have done. So on the other side of his failure, let's listen to that, just his own admission here and be careful that we think deeply and carefully. On the front side of sin, if we think the way Paul's going to model for us and teach us to, we will not go into sin no matter the temptation.

So 3 things to think upon when contemplating sin. The first thing, when you find yourself in a moment of temptation, sin is in front of you and you're wondering whether you should go that way or not. number 1, the. Think upon grace and the fact that grace is in charge.

Think upon grace and the fact that grace is in charge. All of Romans 6 springs from the doctrine of the grace of God. Look at the very end of Romans 5 and verse 21. Paul says, So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Sin used to be our master. Now grace is the new sheriff in town. And it rules us and it wields its reigning influence over us through righteousness. In other words, through the justification that God has given to us in Christ.

and then beginning in verse one, he talks about the impact that that should have. upon us to lead us away from sin. And now we come to verse 14 of Romans 6. And again, Paul is talking about grace and the fact that it is our master.

He says, for sin, verse 14 shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but you are under grace. The idea is sin. used to be your master. You were underneath sin.

He also says you were underneath the law, which seems like a contradiction, but he's going to explain and resolve that contradiction in Romans 7. The law is good. It's righteous, it's holy. It's good.

It's commands are good, but the law, when it gives us commands and prohibitions and condemnation and judgment if we disobey has an aggravating effect upon the sin that is within us, that is also ruling over us. But what Paul is saying is sin, the law ruled over you. But those have been put aside and now you're under grace, which means grace is not just in your life, it's over you. It reigns over you.

That's why we're wording this first thing to think upon this way, think upon grace, and the fact that grace is, in charge. He says verse 15, what then shall we sin because we're not under law, but under grace, may it never be. I think Paul, if he stopped right there, would just say to us, listen, you're not rightly apprehending grace. If you would ask this question, there's something missing in your understanding of grace.

Paul would point you back to the grace of God and say, look again at this grace, and see it rightly this time, because if you really rightly understand the grace of God, you would not want to go into sin. And so think upon grace, and the fact that grace is in charge., just a few things. What, what is grace? It's unmerited favor, right?

It is the undeserved, ill-deserved favor of God. And favor is simply another way of speaking of the goodness of God. And The generosity, the gracious, generous goodness of God, that God has lavished upon us in spite of our sin. Stop in your moment of temptation, and think upon God's unmerited favor, God's goodness, God's generosity, God's graciousness, in spite of your sin, and then also contemplate the fact that grace is in charge.

A lot of times we tend to think, Or you hear people talking like they've received the grace of God into their lives. But you need to understand that when God's grace moves into someone's life, it doesn't come in to just be a part of their life. It comes to replace the role that sin used to play in a person's life. That's why it says in verse 21, so that as sin used to reign in death, even so grace would reign.

Grace comes into your life, and its intent is radical, and that is to replace the role, whatever role sin is playing in ruling over your life, grace wants to knock sin down and replace its role in your life to where grace is in charge. To allow yourself to be under grace, guys, practically speaking, means to allow yourself to be governed by the good and the gracious heart of God. I'm, I'm going to let my life and the members of my body be fully governed by the goodness of God that He has shown to me through Christ and sending His Son to die on the cross so that through his shed blood, I can have forgiveness and I can have salvation.

I deserve judgment, but instead, God shows me this amazing grace and brings me into relationship with Himself and and gives me His Holy Spirit.

I have eternal life, and I have glory awaiting me in heaven and the redemption of my body and on and on the list can go. God is a good God. God has been exceedingly gracious, kind, and generous to me. And I'm going to be under that grace.

I'm going to think about that grace. And I'm going to let God's goodness, God's generous heart be what governs me. If we allow grace to reign over us in this way, we will find that it doesn't just modify our behavior. If we're thinking about God's grace, celebrating His grace, and letting it govern us, we'll find His grace changing our hearts and actually changing what we desire.

I'm gonna have Timothy Keller and Charles Spurgeon help me out here. And listen to what Timothy Keller says in his book, The Reason for God, on this very subject. He says, when many first hear the distinction between religion and the gospel, they think that it just sounds too easy. Nice deal, they say, they may say.

If that is Christianity, all I have to do is get a personal relationship to God and then do anything I want. Those words, however, can only be spoken on the outside of an experience of radical grace. No one from the inside speaks like that. From the inside, the motivation is all joy.

Think of what happens when you fall in love. Your love makes you eager for acceptance from the beloved. You ask that person, do, do you want to go out or maybe even will you marry me? And what happens when the answer is yes?

Do you say, great, I'm in now I can act any way I want. Of course not, he says. Now you don't even wait for the object of your affection to directly ask you to do something for them. You anticipate whatever pleases and delights them.

There's no coercion or sense of obligation. Listen to this, guys, this is so huge. Yet your behavior has been radically changed by the mind and the heart of the person you love. Guys, that's the gospel right there.

That's what it means to be under the reign of grace. It means allowing our lives, our thinking, our attitudes, and our choices to be radically reshaped and transformed by the mind and the heart of the one that we love, who is God. In the gospel, God comes to us as unworthy sinners upon believing in Jesus, and says to us, I want you to know that from this moment forward, I will always and forever think of you as forgiven of all of your sins, and as righteous with the righteousness of Jesus.

And I will never, ever, ever think another thought, do another deed, allow anything in your life that is not fully governed by this decision that I'm just making about you.

And I'm going to lavish my favor upon you for all of eternity because of this decision. Being under the reign of grace means becoming so smitten with love for a God who would be this good and this gracious that you allow your life to be radically changed by the mind and the heart of this God. I would also add that anyone who rightly apprehends the grace of God, especially as seen at the foot of the cross, Christ on the cross, anyone who rightly apprehends the grace of God hates sin.

They, they would hate sin.

There's no way to love God and to love God's grace, and to rightly apprehend God's grace and not have a growing hatred. For sin Listen to what Spurgeon says in one of his sermons. It's a lengthy quote, but I've actually chopped it down. It could have been a lot longer.

it'll take a few slides to do this, but I think you'll be blessed by, by what he says here, just listen to the line of thinking, reasoning from God's grace. And allowing that to shape one's perspective on sin. Spurgeon says this, when a man believes in Jesus, the first point that helps him to crucify the flesh, or in other words, to say no to sin, is that he has seen the evil of sin inasmuch as he has seen Jesus, His Lord, die because of it sin. Men think that sin is nothing, but what will sin do?

What will it not do? Sin has been at the bottom of all human sorrows. But the crowning culminating point of sin's villainy was when God Himself came down to earth in human form, pure, perfect, intent on an errand of love, came to work miracles of mercy and redemption. Then sinful man could never rest till he had crucified his incarnate God.

They coined a word when the parliamentary party executed the king in England and called the king's destroyers regicides. And now we must make a word to describe sin. Sin is deocide. Or the murder of God.

Now he says, when a man is made to see that sin in its essence is the murderer of Emmanuel, God with us, he hates sin from that very moment. No, he says, I cannot continue in such evil. If that be the true meaning of every offense against the law of God, that it would put God Himself out of his own world if it could. I cannot bear it.

You see the thinking there? If, if sin is the murderer of my God, Emmanuel, God with us, if that's the true essence of sin, then I, I cannot bear to commit this sin. Anyone rightly perceiving Christ on the cross, seeing what sin did to him, would hate sin for that reason. You cannot love God, you cannot love Jesus, and love the sin that murdered him.

It's impossible. He goes on to say this The believer has also seen in the death of Christ an amazing instance of the great grace of God. For if sin be an attempt to murder God, and it is all that, then how wonderful it is that the creatures who committed this sin were noted. destroyed at once.

How remarkable that God should consider it worth his while to devise a plan for their restoration. And yet he did with matchless skill contrive a way which involved the giving up of his only begotten and well beloved son. Though this was an expense unequaled, yet he, God, did not withdraw from it. He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish but have everlasting life.

And this for a race of men who were the enemies of their good and grace. God, henceforth, says the believer in Christ, I can have nothing to do with sin, since it does despite to so gracious a God, oh, thou a cursed sin to drive thy dagger at the heart of Him who was all grace and mercy. This makes sin to be exceedingly sinful. You see the line of reasoning there, you go to the cross and you see the grace of Jesus Christ.

And being there to die so that you might have salvation, and you see what our sin did. He was crushed from our iniquities. He was pierced through from our transgressions on the cross, and the sin that crushed him and that pierced him, If we rightly apprehend this gracious Christ that was there on the cross on our behalf, we would turn from that scene and look upon sin and hate it with a passionate hatred. Now I'm not saying that if you find yourself having a love for sin in your heart today, that automatically means you're not a believer.

That's not my point. But what I'm saying is believers that are thinking about grace and rightly apprehend God's grace and are seeking to bathe themselves in the reality of God's grace and they live at the foot of the cross and they're seeing these things and looking at these things, they will find developing within them a corresponding proportionate hatred of sin. Amen. And so the challenge is go to the foot of the cross in moments of temptation and think upon grace and the fact that grace is in charge.

Allow your life to be governed by the goodness and the generosity and the mercy of this unbelievably generous and gracious God. Go to grace and think upon grace when you find yourself contemplating sin. There's a second thing to think upon. When you are considering sinning, and that is think upon the fact that obedience is always slavery.

Obedience by its very nature is always slavery. Now Paul's going to talk in a way that we're not accustomed to thinking, but we need to allow our thoughts to be shaped by what Paul, an inspired writer of scripture, is telling us about the choices that we make. In verse 16, look what he says. He says, if you're asking, can I sin now that I'm Under grace, he says, do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting In righteousness.

This is actually pretty radical. Paul is telling us that obedience, it doesn't matter. No person is ever their own master. You are never a master.

Everyone is always a slave of something. You are either a slave of sin or you are a slave to God, two diametrically opposed realities in this universe that are constantly warring against one another, vicious enemies of one another, and Paul is saying that when you make a choice to sin, you become a slave of that sin that you have chosen to obey. we tend to think that, we have freedom to choose, and you might even say, Pastor Milton and I, I'm a free person and I do, I do whatever I want.

No, you don't do whatever you want.

You're a slave to whatever you want. You got wants inside of you and those wants are your master. All of us, including me, I look back over my life, there have been things that I have wanted so badly that would have been utterly destructive to me. I am so glad I never got some of the things that I wanted.

And then there are other things that I wanted really badly that were sinful. And I went after those things and I got them and I profoundly regret it. I was a slave in that moment to what I wanted. When a sin comes to us, essentially, and we end up saying, I will commit the sin, we're not just making a choice to commit the sin, and it's that simple.

No, in that moment, we are basically saying we're contracting. Ourselves out saying, I will in this moment, allow this sin to master me. I will place myself underneath the control and the dominion and the power of this sin, and I will allow it to control me. It is a moment of enslavement.

You're essentially contracting yourself out and contracting yourself underneath that sin, and allowing it to be your master, and you in committing that sin, are being its slave. makes you think differently about. The choices that you make. And by the way, when we do make this decision to Place herself underneath the mastery of a sin in a given moment.

Part of the contract is we are agreeing to receive whatever wages that this sin will insist on paying. To us, and it's part of the contract and it's unavoidable. Now us as believers, there's the wages of sin, which is eternal death, and because we're justified ones we don't receive that. But understand guys, there's many layers of death and dying.

from an earthly standpoint and relationships, there's death to our enjoyment of God and walking and intimacy with Him. There's a dying that can occur on various levels in our human relationships because of sinful choices that we make. There will be wages for sins that we commit even though we as believers may not pay the ultimate wage of eternal damnation as a result. of that.

You think of King David who committed adultery with Bathsheba and then murdered Bathsheba's husband and lived for months in deception and concealment of his sin. he ended up getting forgiven by God for that, and all was then clear between David and God. But a sword, the Bible says, came into David's house as a result of the choices that he made, and David was receiving wages from those sinful choices for the rest of his life as the sword came into his house. traveled through his house, family members died and terrific heartache followed as a whole chain of consequences began to follow and emerge out of just the sinful choice that David made.

And David was bound to receive those earthly wages of his sin, even though between him and God, all was clear. Think about that next time sin comes to you and you're like, man, I am under grace. I can, I can do this and And I'm still under God's grace. I'm still justified.

Paul would say, you need to think about it. In committing this sin, you're not just committing a sin, you're actually enslaving yourself to this sin in this given moment, you're allowing it to be your master, and you are contracting yourself to receive whatever wages the sin wants to pay you. If I this afternoon in a moment of anger lash out at my wife and just verbally say something that's mean or hurtful to her in that moment of anger, I'm basically allowing myself to be governed by anger.

I'm allowing myself to be a slave to the sin of anger, and there's certain wages that I'm going to have to pay as a result of that, right?

I say something to my wife that's mean, and, there's probably a likely response back from her, right? Hopefully, she's in the spirit and responds with grace, but that doesn't always happen. And so whatever response I get from her, if it gets her in the flesh, that's part of the wages that I receive as a result of allowing myself to become a slave to the sin of anger just moments earlier, and then maybe now there's space. Between us and days go by and this stuff is unresolved.

There's a layer of dying that is occurring in the relationship and maybe our kids catch on to that and they observe what is happening, and, and they're affected by that. Those are all just earthly standpoint wages. that come as a result of me in that particular moment on a Sunday afternoon, surrendering myself to enslavement, to the sin of anger. Whatever it may be, the sin of anger, the sin of anxiety, the sin of anxiety's got its own wages that it will pay you the sin of lust.

Sexual immorality, engaging in sexual immorality outside of marriage, making compromises in a premarital relationship. There are wages. There are wages, earthly wages that will be paid, and you must receive those wages. You cannot say no to them.

You can't. contracted yourself out to receive those wages, even though ultimately in eternity, you will not receive the wage of eternal damnation, there are earthly consequences and wages of our choices to enslave ourselves to a particular sin in a given moment. Be careful. About what you contract yourself out to.

And I'll also add this. He says, Do you not know when you present yourself to someone? to someone as slaves of obedience, you are slaves of the one that you obey. You need to realize that sin is powerful, and sin often will conceal the full length of its power until it has lulled you into apathy.

And I've seen this in my own life. I've seen it in counseling that, you dabble in sin and you then reach a point where it's like, I'm feeling bad about this. I wanna, I, I want to leave now. And the sin is like, that's OK, just go.

Let's go. No biggie. I'll be right here. You come back whenever you want, all right?

You can come and go as you please and we're like, wow, that sounds good and And so we're off away from that sin for a while, and then we get seduced back and we find ourselves back in the same place. And when we get up, we feel bad and we want to leave and the sin lets us go. And we come and go for a while, but then there's a point where we come back to that sin, and we dabble in that sin for a while, and then we get up and say, I'm feeling bad. I think I want to leave now.

And the sin rises up. And says you cannot leave now. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. And you will know the full length of my power.

That's called addiction. That's called bondage. And there are even Christian people that are free in Christ from sin, but in choosing to place themselves under sin by the choices they make, they go ahead and sign another contract binding themselves to the very sins that in Christ, they are freed from. And it requires an overwhelming influx of the grace of God for them to be delivered out of those sins that they have allowed themselves to become entrapped by.

Be careful. Be careful about the choices that you make. Do you not know verse 16, that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey. Either of sin, literally into death, and that could be eternal death for those that never believe in Christ.

For those of us that knew no Christ, there are layers of dying that we can often experience as a result of the wages of sin, or of obedience into righteousness. We can make right choices, and there are beautiful consequences from the right choices that, that we make. And tied to that very much is the 3rd thing that Paul would want us to think upon. And that is in your moments of temptation where you're contemplating sin, think back upon your first act of obedience to the gospel.

Think back upon your first act of obedience to the gospel. If you're in a moment of temptation and Paul sees you and you're like just about to go into that sin. And the logic of grace is that, well, I'm still justified. I'm not going to lose my salvation for this.

Paul would say, hey, hey, can, can I help you with something? And one of the things he would say to you is, let's go back to the day that you were converted. Let's go back to that day. Let's revisit that and try to understand and unpack what happened on that day.

Look what he says in verse 17. But thanks be to God, that though you were slaves of sin, so we know whatever he's talking about in verse 17, he's talking about our conversion day because we woke up that morning and we were slaves to sin, sin was our master. But on that day, God visited us in mercy. And he says, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching, to which you were committed.

All right? he's talking about our decision to believe in Jesus on the day that we were saved. That form of teaching that he refers to there is another way of describing the gospel. It's the gospel that came to you on that day of your conversion.

And you heard it, you looked at it, you thought about it, and you obeyed the gospel, you became obedient from the heart to the gospel. Now, many people. Don't normally associate obedience with the gospel. It's normally the word, believe in the gospel.

And Pastor Milton, we're not saved by obedience, are we? we're, we just believe the gospel and we're saved. It's belief, right? Yeah, but you need to understand that belief is obedience.

Understand that the gospel is not just a piece of information that God gives to us. At the end, at the climax of the gospel is a command from God that says believe, that's an imperative. When Paul said to the Philippian jailer, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you'll be saved, that, that word believe is a command, it's an imperative. And a person can obey or disobey that command to believe in Jesus.

And when a person says, God has commanded me to believe in His Son for salvation. I will believe in His Son as God has commanded me to that person and that moment is engaging in the very first act of obedience in his life that is truly pleasing to God. Just let me throw this at you real quick. We see this language from Paul in Romans 1:5 preaching the gospel, to bring about the obedience of faith.

The obedience of faith. In other words, by having faith, they're obeying. in Romans 16:26, he speaks of the mystery of the gospel that has been made known to all the nations leading to the obedience of faith. In other words, when people have faith and they believe in the gospel, they're actually obeying God's command to believe.

And 1 Peter 4:17, 2 Thessalonians 1:8, Paul and Peter speak of those who do not obey. The gospel. So we need to actually grow comfortable with associating obedience with the gospel. And to me, it all ties together when we understand that when God commands us to believe in a Son, that's a command.

And a person can hear that command and say, I don't believe, I won't believe, I don't need to believe, I can get to heaven my own way. That person is disobeying that command to believe. Am I making sense? OK.

So Paul talking about our conversion day, is saying that on that day, you were a slave of sin, sin was your master, you were in bondage to sin, but something really wonderful happened on that day. And that is by the grace of God, you became obedient from the heart to the gospel. Go back to that verse, look at what he says. And by the way, who gets credit for that act of obedience on our conversion day?

We pat ourselves on our back and go, I obeyed God, and I got saved as a result. Now, look at verse 17, thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. So if Paul's right next to a sinner who for the first time is obeying God's command to believe.

Paul looks at God and says, thank you, God. And the person might be, well, wait a minute, I just did it. And Paul's like, no, yeah, you did it. But God's the one who wrought that in you.

Thanks be to God. That though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which literally you were delivered. Yeah, the gospel was delivered to you. But literally the languages you on that day by the Spirit of God were handed over to the gospel.

God lifted you up and handed you over to the gospel message. This is the work of God. It's a God wrought obedience in our heart, the obedience of faith when we decided we would obey God's command. To believe in His Son.

Now I want to make sure that we get this right, because here's essentially the logic of Paul. Let me just read this to you to make sure we get this right. What he's trying to convey, amongst other things is this salvation has come to you as a result of your God wrought act of obedience on the day of your conversion, when you obeyed God's command to believe in his Son. The reason you are saved is because on that day, you rebelled against sin and did the obedient thing to God.

In an act of wonderful defiance, you revolted against your sin master, and chose obedience to God. Does it make sense then that a life of salvation that was born out of your rebellion against sin, and obedience to God is now to be characterized by rebellion against God? and obedience to sin. Paul would be like, what are you thinking?

This doesn't make sense. Guys, the day of your conversion was a day of revolt. You rebelled, you hated sin, you were tired of it, you were fed up with sin, and the wages that sin was paying you. And on that day when the gospel came to you, sin was saying, don't believe, don't believe, don't believe, and you disobeyed sin and rebelled against it.

And you obeyed God. And Paul has just said, whoever you obey, you make yourself a slave of that. So on that day of conversion and that act of obedience, you were surrendering yourself to slavery to God. That's why he says in verse 18, and having then been freed from sin, you became a slave.

To righteousness. The last thing I want you to think about this morning is this. Let me see if I can say it this way. Go back to the day that you place your faith in Jesus, the day of your conversion.

And on that day, you basically had a choice. Do I continue in bondage to sin and all the wages that it's paying me, the wages of death, Or do I choose to obey God's command to believe in His Son. So over here, you have God holding this choice out in front of you, and God saying, I need you to believe in my Son, believe in my Son, God's giving you this command. Now go back to that moment where you had that choice.

To believe in a son was your first act of obedience, didn't require a lot. You may have been sitting down when you did it. It's probably the simplest thing you've ever done in your entire life. And you were like, OK, God, I surrender, and I will believe in Jesus as my Lord and Savior.

Now let me ask you, How much good have you found inside of that one choice? How much good, how much blessing has come into your life as a result of that one choice that you made? as a result of that one choice, there's freedom from sin, there's justification, you have peace with God, access to God, constant grace, you're always under His favor. You can stand in God's presence, you have joy, God is perpetually doing good to you.

You have friendship with God, intimacy with God, deliverance from the wrath of God, from eternal judgment in the lake of fire. you are bound for heaven. Christ is preparing a place for you in heaven, and you're gonna live in heaven with God forever and ever. And enjoyment of Him.

We have relationships with one another. We can be a part of the church, on and on the list can go of all the blessings and all the goodness that have come to us straight from the heart of God as a result of that one act of obedience on the day of our conversion. You probably had no clue of all the good that God had for you inside that one choice. And God would even say the degree to which you've tasted it now.

You've not tasted anything yet. There's so much more. Your eyes have not seen, your ears have not heard. It hasn't even entered into your heart, the things that are coming down the road that I have laid aside for those who love me and have given their lives to me, and all of that blessing, that whole universe of blessing is inside that one act.

Of obedience. Now this afternoon something's going to happen and you're going to be faced with a choice between do I sin. Or do I do the obedient thing? I just want you to go back to the day of your conversion.

And realize how much blessing was inside of that one obedient choice to believe in Jesus Christ, and then come back to your present moment of temptation. And I want you to imagine God holding that godly choice in front of you to do the right thing. And don't just look at the choice as he says, I need you to do this. I need you to obey me.

You need to look away from that choice and look up into his countenance and see the eagerness in the heart of God, and that his eyes are dancing with delight and anticipation of all the blessing that he wants to lavish upon you, if you would but choose the right thing. And you don't even have to accept that by faith. Hardly all you need to do is go back to your day of conversion. And know the truth of the bounty of the heart of God that lies inside of every godly choice that God wants us to make.

Well, there are many more things that Paul is going to want us to think upon. as we continue through the chapter, but here's 3 things that Paul gives to us this morning to think upon when we find ourselves confronted by sin. Let me ask you to bow your heads this morning. We need to be a people who think deeply upon grace and allow ourselves to be placed under its dominion, allowing ourselves to be governed by the grace of God.

We need to be a people who understands the whole economy of sin and the way it works and that we, we don't just choose what we want and we can come and go and we're the master of our fate making all these choices. No, we are. By the choices we make, we're choosing to be a slave. To either God or to sin.

And throughout the rest of this day and this week, what, what slavery choices are you going to make? And on the day of our conversion, we, we rebelled against sin. Don't ever forget that. You rebelled.

You did the opposite of what sin wanted. And you said, no, I'm going to obey God. I'm gonna, I'm going to believe in his son. And an eternity of blessing has come to you as a result of that.

And it's the same God who lies behind every good choice that awaits you from this point on. With his eyes dancing with delight and anticipation of all the good that he desires to bring your way. May we think on these things. Whenever we're contemplating sin.

We're going to take up an offering in just a moment. We would encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to give, but let's pray together and ask His blessing upon us and upon this offering. Lord, we thank you for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes, he became poor so that we Through his poverty might be made rich. What unbelievable grace you have displayed towards us, Lord.

And we see what sin did to you. We, we hate sin as a result of that. Lord, we want to make right choices, but we know that we need to renew our minds. You've given us ample truth to renew our minds with this morning.

Help us to think deeply on these things and to take ownership of these thoughts and to make them our own. We also thank you for the opportunity to give back to you of what you have blessed us with materially and we ask that you would take this, this offering, every penny that's given, Lord, and do much with it for the glory of Jesus, and do much with us, Lord, because we give ourselves to you also in this offering, do much with us to glorify your name. And we do all these things and say these things and ask these things in Jesus' name.