Loren Larson - Living Free From Sin (Romans 6:12-18)

And you'll even have to you'll even have time after service to go out and see some of those other shiny kind. But uh we want fireworks in our soul. Somebody shout Amen. Amen. Not to be not demeaning the other, but come back tonight, Brother David Borg will be ministering at six PM. Have you found Romans six?

Look at Romans six and verse twelve, from which we will take our text, verses twelve through eighteen. The Bible reads the Apostle Paul writing to the church at Rome, Let not sin Therefore reign in your mortal body. That ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, But yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God, for sin shall not have dominion over you. For ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

Know you not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. But God be thanked that you were the servants of sin. Could I read that again? But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart. That form of doctrine which was delivered you, being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness.

The Bible clearly states and clearly proclaims here that Christians are going to be held responsible For living free from the power of sin. Let me say that again. And I think I might have just shocked some of you and woke some of you up. The Bible clearly proclaims that Christians are responsible. to take full advantage of all that God has done. And to live free from the dominion of sin. What Christ did for us at Calvary 2,000 years ago.

Gave us the potential of living free from the dominion of sin. I need a little help up in here this morning. What Christ did for us at Calvary two thousand years ago. made possible freedom from the dominion of sin to all those that will believe. So it is our responsibility To appropriate in the right way those things that God has done, and not only to encounter imputed righteousness, which was granted to us the moment. That we said yes to Jesus.

the moment that we became believers, the imputed righteousness of God, the imputed righteousness of Christ, the righteous life of Christ was placed into our account. It was given to us. And that is the foundation of our relationship with God. Everybody get me so far? Amen. But on that foundation now, God holds us responsible. to appropriate the power he has made available to live free from the dominion of sin. One Amen was good.

A thousand would have been better. And I want to minister to you this morning. Evidently a message greatly needed. Living free from sin. Living free from sin. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning, and we thank you, Lord God. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for all that you have accomplished for us at Calvary.

Lord, I'd ask that you would anoint me to minister this morning to help the people to understand the role that they play in living free from the power and the dominion of sin. Lord, our nation. needs a church that is living free from the dominion of sin. Our Families need fathers and mothers living free from the dominion of sin. Lord, sin is the problem. Sin is the issue. The power of sin is the problem.

Issue that faces all of humanity. Help us to understand your resolution, your solution to it all. To grasp it and to hold it in Jesus' name. And everybody said Amen and Amen. Two hundred and thirty-four years ago today. In the city of Philadelphia, the Continental Congress signed for the most part, New York withholding till the july fifteenth, signed the Declaration of Independence. It's a good time to say amen.

But it w waged it raged on for several years following the Declaration of Independence. Just the declaration didn't bring an end to the battle. It declared what we stated we wanted to be as a nation, and then we set out to make it so. Are you following? In God's word, what Christ did for us at Calvary needs to be understood, it needs to be declared, and then it needs to be applied. You're gonna, when we talk about the message of the cross.

You're going to have to move from theology to reality. You're going to have to let the declaration move 18 inches or 12 inches, whatever it is, down from the head to the heart. And when it moves from the head to the heart. And you understand the theology of sanctification, you understand the doctrine of sanctification, you began making declarations like the cross is the answer.

The power of God is available to the cross or through the cross. The only way to live victorious life is an understanding and faith in the cross. You begin to make that declaration. Amen. I hope I'm talking to the right folk this morning. But the declaration itself is not an end to the process. It's the beginning of the process. When Paul writes where we began our text this morning, and I I hope you brought your Bible to church. If you don't come with a Bible, you came naked.

Now don't look around to see who's got clothes on or not, but you need to bring a Bible so you can follow along so that I don't make it up. So that you can see whether or not the things that I'm saying are so. In our verse, chapter 6 and verse 12, Paul says this, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. He's addressing that to Christians. To Christians that say or should understand what he has previously just taught. Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body.

Therefore, based on what I've previously stated, Therefore, there's got to be a reason the therefore is therefore. And the reason that its state is therefore is there is to point the believer back to what was just said. To make sure that we understood what was just said. So if we understood what was just said, then verse 12 has to become a reality in our life. Therefore. If we understand what was proclaimed in Romans 6 1 through 11, therefore.

Verse twelve. Y'all got hot dogs on the brain this morning. I'm trying to get through, but it's difficult. Let not sin reign. That now watch this. In the Greek, that is a prohibitive Imperative. And what that means, prohibitive, means to stop doing something. An imperative is a command. I command you to stop letting sin reign. I command, Paul said, under the power and unction of the Holy Ghost.

Because of what I've just stated, stop letting the sin nature rule and reign in your heart like a king. Now notice this. Good, go ahead. I got something there. Notice this. Paul makes the exhortation to the reader. Can I teach this morning? Is that okay? Paul makes the exhortation, stop letting the sin nature reign to those that understand and have heard what it is that he's just said.

In the great book of Romans, chapters 1 through 3 declare that all men are guilty before God. Four and five basically and there's divisions that are different than this, but they're good overall divisions. Chapters four and five answer the dilemma to all men's guilt and separation from God as a result of sin. And that was that God sent his only begotten son to die on a cross 2,000 years ago. And whosoever believed it. Whosoever believeth. Whosoever, not work, not labor,

Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. God's answer to man's separation from him because of sin that he was born in. All men born in sin. All men, women, boys, girls, born, if you will, separated from God by sin. You don't sin and become a sinner from the very beginning. We sin because we are sinners at heart. And when we recognise that and and realise that we cannot

save ourselves. We cannot extricate ourselves out of the melass of sin, the moray of sin, the horror of sin and destruction. We cry out to God's redemption plan, Jesus the Christ. the Son of the Living God who came from heaven, lived a sinless, perfect life, was born of a virgin, died on Calvary, was buried and the third day rose again. If we believe that that is God's redemption plan, then God immediately imputes righteousness to us. Not later, right then.

Chapters 4 and 5 of Romans says, I'm righteous. Because I have believed. I'm righteous because I have believed. I'm not righteous because of what I do. I'm righteous because of what I believe. I'm not accepted to God because of what I do. I'm accepted by God because of what I believe. I'm not going to heaven because of my works. I'm going to heaven because in whom I have believed.

from imputed righteousness into can I say it this way and you understand it? Daily righteousness. Now it's our job to exhibit daily righteousness. I'm right. Well, Brother Larson, I thought that when we had the message of the cross, we just accepted the message of the cross, and whoop, that was it. When you accept Christ for salvation, that's the beginning. And the only way to continue on in that relationship is the same way that you entered that relationship.

You entered that relationship by faith. You placed your faith in who Christ was and what he did for you at Calvary, even though you didn't understand it. And in a moment, God responded by sending you his grace, and one aspect of his grace is the work of the Holy Spirit. that regenerated you, circumcised you with a circumcision made without hands, wrote your name down in the Lamb's book of life, took up residence within you.

Forgave all sin, past, present, and future, defeated the power of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

that brings grace because if you're working to get grace, you're violating the very principle of what grace is. Unmerited. Unearned. Undeserved.

So that dog won't hunt, that story won't fly, that boat don't float. Now that doesn't mean Now that's okay. to let the ungodly characteristics that are still moving around on the interior of Lauren Larson remain. It's my responsibility. How to allow God's redemption plan to change me into the person that God wants me to become. So when I talk about daily righteousness happening on the foundation of imputed righteousness, I'm really talking about Romans 6. Because Paul asked the question

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Now that we have imputed righteousness by trusting in the cross, is that the end of the story? Is that all there is? Is it all over now? I'm trusting in the cross. I have imputed righteousness. I'm on my way to heaven. Well, yeah, thank God for that. And that never must never must never be another foundation ever created in your heart and mind other than that one regarding righteousness.

But in all of us, there's still things that God wants to change. Okay, this is church. It's good to be real. It's good to be honest. There's things in us that aren't pleasing to the Lord. Things we do, things we say, ways we act, character personalities, character flaws. All of these flaws were created as a result of the fall and the dominion of the sin nature. Now let's talk about that just a minute.

The sin nature is that character bent, that force inside of human beings that bends us towards selfishness and sinfulness. Selfishness and Sinfulness. Sinfulness easily defined that which is contrary to the word of God. Sin nature inherent within every creature born into the human family as a result of Adam and Eve's failure in the garden bends our heart, our soul, and our spirit Towards acts of ungodliness and pathways of selfishness.

Now as a Christian, a lot of those pathways of unrighteousness might have dropped off immediately, but let's talk a minute about selfishness. Let me talk over here. Let's talk a minute about selfishness. How dominated are you about you? Does your life revolve around you? What you want, what you strive for, what you gotta have, what you like? In your house who gets the last piece of pizza? In your house, who controls the clicker for the television?

Well, brother Lars, I got one guy said me. Is there ever a battle over supremacy over anything in your life because you want what you want? And you're unwilling to love your neighbor or even your family as much as you love yourself. This is church. Let's get real, okay? That is a situation that God wants to fix.

That is something that God wants to remedy. And sometimes we don't recognize it because it's not the big five, you know, the drinking, the alcoholism, the adultery, the smoking or the gambling. I I I don't, you know, we're so funny. We kick somebody out for smoking cigarettes. for pumping smoke into their lungs that brings them cancer. And this afternoon we'll have four hot dogs more than we should have. Two bowls of ice cream more than we should have.

And we'll destroy ourselves with the greatest Disease hitting America, heart disease. Honey, it's not cigarette sticks that are killing America. It's bread sticks.

We're all needing fixing. And so Paul would teach us, first of all, how freedom from the sin nature was gained. And that's what Romans 6, 1 through 11 is all about. Every single believer on the planet, if they are truly born again, They've placed their faith in who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. Everyone on the believer, every believer on the planet has been granted what I'm about to say. Freedom from the sin nature. That sin nature that bends us towards selfishness

And sinfulness. It is a corrupting force that twists the heart of man towards ungodly desires and an emphasis on self instead of an emphasis on God and neighbor. And that Power that bends us that way is working in us until the moment that we get saved. Don't you know? The moment that you say yes to Jesus, the power of the sin nature. is broken. Not when you learn the message of the cross. Not when someone explains it to you. It's yours immediately.

It's yours immediately. The problem is we don't know what we have. We don't know how to walk in what we have because teachers and preachers aren't proclaiming what I'm proclaiming to you today. When you're born again, the power of the sin nature, that corrupting force inside of you that bends you towards sinfulness.

Here's what he did. The moment the believing sinner comes to Christ, they're united with Christ. Baptized into Christ, planted into Christ for by one Spirit. Are we all baptized into one body? And the moment that you said yes to Jesus, not only was your sin forgiven, past, present, and future. But the power of the sin nature was broken by means of your union with Christ.

Have you not read that you sit right now, not in nine or uh uh 89, 98, what is it, World Ministry Boulevard, wherever I'm at. You're not sitting in family worship center this morning if you're a believer. You're sitting in heaven in Christ. You're present. Ephesians 2 is his presence. And if it's true that your present is his present, hasn't the word also told us that you will ra rule and reign with him?

So your future is his future because of your union. You become one with him. Your present is his present. Your future is his future. It also means that his past is your past. And when he died at Calvary, you were in him. Paul said it this way, I am crucified with. Right. At the same time that Christ was crucified, I was crucified. The person that I was, dominated by the sin nature, is not rehabilitated, it's eliminated.

Designed by God. This works every time, or God is a liar, and God is not a liar. He can do anything but fail when you're joined together with Christ. The power of the sin nature is broken.

And then early. SUNDAY MORNING! I said he said it was early. The preacher said it was early. Wasn't late. Wasn't late. But it was early. Sunday morning. When he got up out of the tomb. When he got up. Out of death, hell, and the grave. I got up with him because I was in him. I was there when he walked out of the tomb. I was there when he went to the cross. I was there.

I don't have to rely on mental capacity. I don't have to rely on riches. I don't have to rely on religion. I don't have to rely on church. I don't have to rely on work.

I've got a brand new power source granted to me because of my union with Christ, and now I reckon myself to be dead indeed unto sin. But I'm not just dead. The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. So as my faith remains in what he did, the power, the new source of power, Romans 6 and 4, the newness of life. The newness of life is the new power source. The person of the Holy Spirit raised up in newness of life from a new source of power.

The sin nature broken, the power of the sin nature crushed, not eradicated, the word in Romans 6 and 6 is destroyed. Means to render idle or useless. The sin nature is still available, but it's been unplugged. Its power has been broken, and I've been plugged in. To the power of the Holy Spirit. Which means that there's not anything in me that cannot be changed.

Because the sin nature has been silenced. Alright, I use this illustration. Let me give it to you. I used to build swimming pools for a living. And whenever we had a problem with the swimming pool, we would try to clean it up and fix it. But can you imagine what kind of problems you would have if you had an open sewer line dumping sewage into your swimming pool? You can put as much chemicals as you want to in that thing, it ain't cleaning it up.

Because the sewerage line is open and draining into the pool. Ooh, funky. Well that's a picture of the sin nature, active, open, online, with its corrupting force. The pool is a type of your heart, soul, and spirit. And it corrupts the soul and the spirit as long as it's dumping its sewage that bent toward sin and selfishness into your heart. At Calvary, Jesus reached over and turned off the gate valve.

Why do you think they call it salvation? It's you and I that God's trying to conform into the image of Christ. So the first thing that we need to understand is that the sin nature's power has been broken, the gate valve has been closed as a result of my union with Christ. And now I'm dead to the sin nature and it's affecting me. And I'm alive to God, so now I can begin. Letting God transform me and conform me into the image of Christ. See, now that I understand what he's done, now.

I have been given an ultimatum by God in verse 12. Stop letting the sin nature reign. You see to it that the gate valve doesn't get turned back on. Are we are we good? I know it's Sunday morning, but this is what God gave me, so this what you get. All right. So the exhortation

And it that corrupting force opens up, well you've had a lot of good work done because the Holy Spirit goes to work immediately. But man, when all that junk starts coming in again, you're in trouble. So you've got to see to it. It's your responsibility to make sure that the sin nature isn't activated.

Well, how do I do that? Well let's look at the Bible. It's a good textbook. We're now to my tech. Let not sin therefore reign in your body, that you should obey it in the lust thereof, that's the sin nature, but neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto the sin nature. Your body is to be a tool, a weapon for righteousness. So it's your responsibility not to offer it as a tool to the sin nature.

Jesus silenced the sin nature. It's your responsibility not to offer it back to the sin nature. Well, how do I do that? Well let's look. It says, instead of yielding your members, the parts of your body, as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, yield yourselves unto God. Watch the text now, as those that are alive. From the dead. A very important text because it tells you that you have to yield. Now, the word yield literally means to present yourself.

It's the same word in the Greek language as Romans 12, 1 and 2, where the Bible says that you present yourselves a living sacrifice. But that doesn't make sense because a living sacrifice is a sacrifice, uh i i i it's i there are two words that don't go together, living and sacrifice. A sacrifice is dead. So in both instances where the word yield or present is used, the idea is offering up to God something.

What? Offering up to God something that is alive from the dead. What's alive from the dead? Me. I was crucified with Christ. I was buried with him. I was raised up with him. I'm alive. From the dead. I'm not a vampire. I'm alive from the dead. I died in Christ. And I'm alive today in him. So if I'm to present myself to God.

With that mindset, that means this is how I live free from the impact of the sin nature. Every day I present myself to God as one who understands that I'm alive from the dead. that there's no power in me to overcome the sin nature. that I can't do anything in and of myself to overcome the areas of my heart that need to be changed. And I can't do anything because I am a total dependent. I'm a child in need of a savior. I need him more today than I did on the first day that I was saved.

See, if that's your attitude, you are presenting yourself as a living sacrifice. You're presenting yourself as one that is alive unto God. From the dead. I don't have power to change myself, Lord. I'm trusting exclusively in who you are and what you've done. I'm resting in that. I'm depending in that. I'm presenting myself to that.

So, if you want the sin nature to be constantly shut down, and you want the cleaning process of God to be ongoing, if you want to fulfill the imperative, prohibitive, stop letting the sin nature reign, you've got to daily present yourself to God as one who understands life from the dead. As one who understands Romans six, three through five. You present.

Now, you're either going to present yourself to God as one who is alive from the dead, or you're going to present yourself to God as one who can do the work. That's the only two places there are. You're a servant to whomsoever you present yourself. Are you presenting yourself as a person that's trusting exclusively in the cross, as one who's been crucified, the power of sin broken? As someone who's now depending upon a new power source alive from the dead, or are you depending on what you do?

how you perform. how well you perform, how often you perform.

Because if you're not presenting yourself to God daily from a heart that's been humbled by the knowledge of your inadequacy, Then pride and arrogance presents God with someone who says, I can do it. I'm good enough, I'm strong enough, thank you, Jesus, that I'm not as other men are. Hello? You are just like everyone else on the planet.

The only thing is, you're not smart enough to recognize how weak you are, how helpless you are. Your pride and your arrogance has brought you into religious Self-righteousness that says, because I pray, because I read, because I'm disciplined, because I do all the things right, God than those people over there with the dirty swimming pool. Problem is all our swimming pools are dirty.

And all of them need to be cleaned up. So all of them have only one process. And that is to present yourself by faith to God as one that is alive from the dead. Because sin, the sin nature literally, shall not have dominion over you, won't rule in your heart like a king, because you're not under law. But because you're under grace. Now the principles of under grace, and I gotta hurry here in teaching, the principles of being under grace are really simple.

And I came up with a little formula a few years ago, and it's gone through a few transitions over the years, but basically it says this The government of grace, a system of set spiritual laws, is this. First of all, you have to have a focus. You focus on who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. You study the Bible and you learn who he is and you learn what he's done.

And if you'll be honest about who he is and what he's done and that'll be your focus, you're going to come up with the right object of faith, which is Christ's finished work. When you study the Bible, the Bible points to Jesus. And Jesus did what we needed to have done so that we could have a relationship with God. So under grace

I present myself as one alive from the dead. I'm trusting in who God is, what God has done in Christ. I know who Jesus is. I know what he's done. The object of my faith is his finished work because he said it is finished. I learned that from studying with the right focus, and when I'm trusting in what he said was finished, now the power source of the Holy Spirit, the newness of life. The new source of life begins to roll in me, and the end result is sin shall not have dominion over me.

The sin nature remains dormant and the cleanup process in my heart is ongoing. Sin shall not have dominion over me. But if I turn it around and I become under the government of law, once again my focus is upon what I do. It's law, rules, routines, regimens. If my focus is on that, then the object of my faith is my performance. How well did I do it? How often did I do it? Did I do it enough?

And the problem with that is that silences the work of the Holy Spirit and the power source becomes you self. And the end result of that is inconsistency and failure. Oh, you'll do okay sometimes. That's what messes us up. We think that because we got eight out of ten Because we did good for three weeks and messed up for two weeks, we're three is better than two. Inconsistency is not what God wants. Deliverance is what God wants for us.

You're either all grace and faith, which is the mold that God has granted us. Find any other mold in the scripture, any other form of doctrine. Find it. Show it to me. I'll believe it. There is none. This is it. He didn't say fasting would set you free from sin. He didn't say 40 days would set you free from sin. He didn't say prayer would set you free from sin. All those things really have a legitimate scriptural usage. And we need to practice them.

But my trust is in what Jesus did for me at Calvary in regard to closing down the power of the sin nature and the cleaning up of my heart. My faith is in Jesus and what he has done. Because if I submit myself to law, I become a servant to law. I'm running through the passage now as fast as I can, because I only have seven minutes.

I become and whoever I yield myself to, whoever I present myself to, that's whose servant I am. The problem with the law, it shows me morality, but gives me no power to be moral. The Ten Commandments are a ministry of condemnation, not a ministry of power. Faith and grace also shows me the moral code of God written on the inner tablets of my heart. But now under grace I have a new power source that creates in me a desire to obey the moral code and the power of God to fulfill it.

So law, I see the moral code. I have no power to complete it. Under grace, I see the moral code of God written in the tablet of my heart. God working in me creates a desire in me to be free from anything in me that's ungodly. And then God's grace in me works in me the power to rise above anything in me that's ungodly. I'm submitting myself. I'm a servant. To faith and grace. And this is your job. You see to it.

That the sin nature doesn't reign. Because in Romans 7, Paul says that if we transfer our faith from the cross to any other action, and become a servant to law, place ourselves under law again, the end result is the gate valve is opened up. When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

Paul learned that when he offered himself up to law, that action of faithlessness in the cross opened up the power of the sin nature, which started dumping corruption into the If you're trusting in anything other than Christ, you're in this horrible situation. To where you're trusting in law and you have opened up the gate valve, and you wonder why you can't get rid of some things in your heart.

It's not because you're not saved. It's not because you're not truly born again. It's because you're operating under law and not under grace. You're trusting in what you can do and not in what Christ does. You have one job to see to it that the sin nature is Doesn't gain dominion again that it stays quieted in the position that Christ gave you when you were born again. That's your job. Your job is to present yourself daily to the grace of God. Dependent like a child upon all that He's provided.

to plant within you the knowledge of right and wrong, a desire to do the right thing, and back it up with the power to do the right thing. Now we're talking supernatural Christianity. Now we're talking reality. Now we're talking the only way that it can get done. It's your job. It's your responsibility to see to it that the sin nature isn't opened up again. It's your job, because you have to choose what to believe in.

You have to choose what to rely on. You have to understand what God has done and daily rely on it and nothing else, or you open up the gate valve of the sin nature And the corruption is worked into your heart. And now all the good stuff that God has started gets lost in the horror of a new bent of ungodliness. And you're born again. You're saved. You're just violating spiritual laws that cause you great misery and harm. God allows that to happen so that you'll see that law is not the way.

That the only way is by faith and grace.

Look at what he said, and I'm closing. Singers, musicians come. Look at what he said. Verse 17. But God be thanked. That you were the servants of sin. But you have obeyed from the heart. That form of doctrine which was delivered unto you. Listen, are you obeying from the heart that form of doctrine that Paul preached? Are you obeying, listen, are you obeying? Are you approaching your walk with God just the way I described it today or not?

If you are, then your heart is going to be continuously cleansed. There'll be less and less ungodliness as time goes by. Not perfection, but direction. And one day, when the trump of God sounds, whatever's left in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, will be transformed into immortality and perfection.

Meanwhile, I'm on the road to letting the sin nature be silenced, thanks to the Calvary, the power of the Holy Spirit changing me, thanks to Calvary, the moving and operation of the Holy Spirit in me, thanks to Calvary. And I have obeyed from the heart. with all that I am. Man, when I first saw Hannah, she's sitting over a cute wave at me, dear. I'm gonna embarrass you. All right, are you? That's my wife. When I asked her to marry me I'm telling you what, I was nervous.

Because with all my heart I felt that's the one. That's the right one. God, that's a good one. And so with all of my heart, with all of my heart. With all of my heart, I said, Would you be my wife? And she said, Hmm no Thank God she said yes. But man, I meant that with all of my heart with everything that I want I didn't want anything else, didn't want anybody else, didn't want There was no hesitation in me. I had made up my mind. This is what I this with all of my heart. No reservations.

No second choice in the background. Well if she don't, well then we go to choice number two. Like the pastor's wife I laughed at a few weeks ago I was in, I won't say the city, but she said when I first got saved, I hid my drugs underneath the bed just in case it didn't take. And sure enough, a few weeks later, the toilet got them all. Thank God. But she committed to Jesus with all her heart. And you've got to commit to this being alive from the dead with all of your heart.

With all of your heart you have obeyed, you've heeded, you've listened, you've agreed to this as the means of righteousness. Nothing in reserve, no regrets, no holding back. This is it. The cross, the cross, the cross, what Jesus did. I have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine. And you know what Paul said the end result was? You are now servants of righteousness.

servants of righteousness because you have obeyed with all of your mind. No reservation. No, well, I kind of like what Brother Swaggert preaches, and I like a little of this over here too.

And I get up in humility and depend more than ever before.