If you were with us in the last broadcast, you know that we were talking about the fact that we died to sin and now walk in newness of life. Going back to Romans today, we are going to look at that a little more closely and the spiritual life that we now have. One of our great riches and treasures is: we are alive spiritually. Prior to salvation we were dead spiritually. Now we are alive in Christ.
Romans 6:11 says, “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Earlier in this chapter he is talking about the fact that we have died to sin. That does not mean sin has been eradicated or that we don’t sin. It means we are no longer under its dominance, mastery, and power. We are no longer its slave. We have died to that. Now he goes on and says that you consider yourself dead to sin but also consider yourself alive to God. So, as new creatures in Christ we have life. We have new life, and we have that new life in Christ Jesus. He tells us to consider this. This is an act of faith. When we look at our own lives, we realize we are certainly not totally dead to sin in a practical sense. We still struggle with that. We are to, by faith, believe that sin no longer need dominate our lives and that we are under the mastery of Jesus Christ.
Romans 6:12-14 says, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” Paul fleshes this out for us. First, we are to stop letting sin reign in our body. That implies that sin is still around and our task as new creatures in Christ, those who are spiritually alive in the Lord, are to not allow sin to reign in our body. Sin no longer has the privilege of being our master, but we can invite sin to come in and reign over us and that is what he is warning about here. Even though we no longer are slaves to sin, we can invite it in and allow it to have power over our lives. Second, our physical parts, eyes, mind/thinking, tongue/speech, hands/the things we do, and so forth should not be presented to sin. It no longer has any dibs in our life. Third, instead of presenting your body parts of our mind, heart, hand, and tongue as instruments of sin, present them as instruments of righteousness to God. Allow God to use those things in your life as instruments of righteousness. He starts by saying to present yourself to God. Before you present the instruments to God, the body parts to God, you present yourself to God first . . .
