“Spiritual Death & Life and the Practice of Sin”

Five Sermons on Romans 6 – Part 4: “Our Members and the Practice of Sin”

TEXT:  Romans 6:15-19

REVIEW

1.  Sin shall not have dominion over you.  If you are in Christ, God is your master.  You are not stuck in sin.

2.  You are not under law but under grace.  The Christian is saved by grace, not by law.  If the law of God was our only way of dealing with God, and we had no understanding of the workings of God’s mercy, we truly would be stuck in sin.  We have a tendency to think that with a little more law, we can get rid of sin.  Paul here says it does not work that way.  If you are under law, and you violate the law, then you are condemned by the law and stuck in sin.  But we are not in that situation, since the penalty of the law has been paid for us through the death of Christ.  We are under grace.  But what does it mean to be under grace?  Does it mean that you don’t care at all about the God who gave His life for you?  Of course not!

TODAY’S PASSAGE:

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.

1.  Sin, Law, and Grace

            Sin is rebellion against God.  We know about sin because of God’s Law.  As Paul said earlier in this book, God’s Law brings to us the knowledge of sin.  Sin is a violation of the relationship we are to have with God.  Like the prodigal son in Luke 15, we insist on our way now, and we leave the embrace of God’s home, seeking for some other way to get what we want.  We refuse the patience of relationship with God, and demand our inheritance immediately.  Why would anyone do that?  We do it because we do not trust God to be our delight.

            When we reject God, I am not sure we always understand what we are doing.  We get ourselves stuck in some slavish mess, and we have to be brought to our senses.  We have to remember our Father’s love for us, and come home again. 

            You were made to be a servant of someone or something.  We all were.  When you present yourself continually to someone as his servant, then you end up being that person or thing’s slave.  If you are always serving sin as your master, then you are on the pathway that leads to death.  When we serve God from the heart, then something new has been born in us.  God himself has been planted in us, and God’s good fruit comes forth from this great gift of grace.

            Paul says in verse 17 that you were slaves of sin.  But not anymore.  Why?  You heard the doctrines of grace through Jesus Christ, and you obeyed by believing from the heart the truth that was presented to you.  You were set free from the dominion of sin.  You are now a servant of God.

This idea of the servanthood of the Christian is a very powerful weapon in the fight against sin.  We began considering that last week.  This morning we need to consider a related matter that Paul addresses here and in earlier verses.  Servanthood is not just a label that we use to cover a life of sloppy rebellion.  We are to be servants of God, and this requires some specifics.  We are to present the members of our bodies to God as an expression of true servanthood. 

You are not merely owned by the Lord in general.  Each and every part that comprises that mystery called “you” has been claimed and renewed by Jesus Christ.  You cannot be a servant of God, but then insist that your right eye or your right hand will not serve Him.  Jesus is not just interested in some small religious center of your brain or your emotions.  He demands and claims all of you.  True grace does not compartmentalize or minimize the claims of God on your life.  True grace surrenders all.

2.  Slaves of Uncleanness

The Bible uses the word that is here translated “members” in two ways.  First it is used to mean bodily parts – your eyes, your hands, your tongue.  The second use is our participation together as parts of one body – the body of Christ, in which we are to consider ourselves as united together, though we each may have different functions.  It is the first use – bodily parts – that is most clearly in view here.  Our bodily parts stand for certain capacities.  When we speak of our eyes we mean seeing, and when we refer to the problem of the tongue we mean talking.

            Paul says in verse 19 that “you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness.”  If you are in Christ you are to consider this as a thing of the past.  This was the way that you were.  Whether you were aware of it or not, you were serving sin as your master.  In your service of sin you used your bodily parts.  He speaks here of our members as slaves of “uncleanness.”  We were created by God to be clean and holy in His sight, and to be using all of our capacities consistently in His service.  But when sin was our master, those capacities served uncleanness. 

            This is described as a progressive reality.  We got deeper and deeper into the muck of sin.  As we violated the law of God we moved further along the pathway of lawlessness.

3.  Slaves of Righteousness

But now, if you are united with Christ and servants of Him, you are to use all of your capacities consistently in His service.  Therefore, “present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.”  This is also a progressive reality.  As you move further down the pathway of serving the Lord it leads more and more to a life of holiness.  By the way, if you have been moving in the wrong direction for a stretch now, I invite you to turn around, come to your senses, and come back home to your heavenly Father.

            Christ has led the way for us in this.  His was a completely sanctified and disciplined life of integrity.  In this He was a perfect imitator of His heavenly Father.  Did you ever wonder why the Bible presents God as having eyes, ears, and other bodily parts that we have?  We know that God is a Spirit, but we read that “the eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry” (Psalm 34:15).  God is showing us something here of His complete commitment to His goals, and Christ was the perfect fulfillment of that commitment.

            As imitators of Christ, we are not to think of our bodily parts as somehow still under the control of some evil force, leaving us as helpless victims of our wandering eyes, gossiping tongues, or wasted minds.  It is not accurate for you to somehow think that while “you” belong to the Lord, the parts that make up this “you” are still hopelessly stuck as slaves to sin.  All that is “you” – your ambitions, your meditations, your scholarship, your art, your hopes, your words, your plans for this day, your principles, and of course your eyes, your hands, and your tongue – all that is “you” is united to the Lord Jesus Christ.  When you present yourself to Him as His servant, you bring all your members with you.

APPLICATION:

Years ago I was given a small pamphlet entitled “My Heart Christ’s Home.”   The point of the tract was that Christ wanted all of me, and not just some part.  I was not to hold back some room of the house from His loving renovation project.  There is an integrity of the Christian life that is spoken of in our text this morning.  You can’t be a Christian in some part of your heart, but then decide that your body is stuck in bed or engaged in other pursuits when it is time to worship Him.  You can’t be a Christian privately in your heart, but then surrender your ambitions to worldly goals with no real thought to the Lord’s plan for your life.  You can’t be a Christian in your own eyes, but then use your mouth to trash the ones that you are supposed to be building up in love.

Where does that leave all of us?  If we say that we have the perfect integrity of bodily consistency then we deceive ourselves, and we have to go back to the confession of sin for this morning.  “We know our transgressions, and our sin is ever before us…. Create in us clean hearts, O God.”  We should feel the discrepancy this morning between God’s Word and our practice.  But what are we to do about it?  The answer for us now is not to resign from our profession of faith.  The answer is to pick up the weapons of warfare that Christ has given to us, and to fight the good fight against sin in the perfect strength of the Head of the body, the Lord Jesus Christ.  The answer is to see that every part of you does belong to Jesus, and then to present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

            This morning I want to ask you all to do this not only as individuals, but together as the body of Christ at this local church.  For you are members of one body.  Remember that there are two meanings to the word that is translated here “members.”  That’s why those who profess faith before the elders of the church, together with their children, are called “members” of the church.  Your commitment to a life of greater Christian integrity is not only important for you as an individual.  It is also vital to the other members of the family, and to all of us here who are members together of the body of Christ.  Let the power of the full integrity of our great Redeemer rule in all of your members.