Romans 6 | Grace Reigns- Sin Does Not | Elder Jonathan Moseley [Transcript]

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Title: Grace Reigns- Sin Does Not

Speaker: Elder Jonathan Moseley

Series: Romans Series- The Gospel of God's Righteousness

Location: Fair Haven Primitive Baptist Church | Tifton, GA

Date: August 24, 2025

Bible: Romans 6

Watch Here

In Romans 6 Paul is answering a foolish question that people have always asked when they hear about the freeness of grace: "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" The short answer—God forbid. Once you understand what Christ has done, that answer makes no sense.

Paul points us to baptism as the picture. When we go down into the water, it represents burial with Christ—our old man crucified and put away. When we come up out of the water, it is a picture of resurrection, walking in newness of life. That old man is not the master anymore. Sin is no longer in charge. Grace reigns.

This doesn't mean the battle is over—you will still wrestle with the flesh as long as you live. But you don't belong to sin anymore. You have a new Master, Jesus Christ, and He is worthy of your service. Each day you must reckon yourself dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God. Don't let sin reign. Don't yield your body as an instrument of unrighteousness. Yield yourself instead as one alive from the dead, a servant of righteousness.

Paul reminds us: sin only pays one wage—death. But God's gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The fruit of sin is shame and destruction, but the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, holiness—is the evidence of that new life.

So the gospel does not give us license to sin. It gives us liberty to serve. Christ has bought us, washed us, and made us His own. Now we are called to live like children of the King—sometimes failing, often needing forgiveness, but always under grace, pressing on to walk in newness of life for His glory.

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[Transcript]

Romans 6.

Well, y'all know enough about Romans to know that this is a continuous stream of information, of argument, or presenting information in a very linear fashion, addressing objections that could be raised by those who, not necessarily there reading the letter, but those who have heard about them.

And so there's a lot of information, and it's presented in a very linear fashion.

I cannot re-preach the first five chapters before I start chapter six.

We just don't have time.

We'd be getting the wrap-up done by lunchtime.

So, I'm not going to.

I will just jump in at the end of chapter five, where we have been introduced to the concept of the atonement, of the exchange, about how is it possible that one, Jesus Christ, was able to exchange himself and purchase all of his people at one go.

And Paul, the Apostle Paul through the Holy Spirit, makes it plain how this is a pattern.

This is something that had happened before through Adam as the representative head of all humanity.

He made one choice, one sin, one disobedience, and by that, he had a sentence of death put upon him and all of his descendants, all humanity, all right?

And then in the same token, Jesus, by his life of obedience unto the Father, his righteousness, voluntarily taking our place and paying the price for us, By making that sacrifice to exchange himself, he purchased to himself all of his people.

Not because they were so good, but because God's grace was so good.

Right?

Because Jesus was perfect, and God's love had been put upon us, Jesus gets what he pays for.

And so that sentence of death that had hung over humanity by Adam's disobedience has been replaced by..." You know, that sentence, that was ruling over us, in a sense.

"...has been replaced by a ruling that we now know is ruled by grace, unearned, unmerited favor." So that's how chapter 5 ended.

So that's a brief, brief recap.

So I'll just start reading Verse 18, 5:18, Therefore, as by the offense of one, Adam's disobedience, judgment came upon all men to condemnation.

There was a verdict rendered against him.

Even so, same pattern, by the righteousness of one, Jesus, the free gift came upon all men under the justification of life." So all that Christ was dying for, they became acquitted.

That's a legal term.

Justification.

They were pronounced to be not guilty.

Alright?

Not guilty, innocent, acquitted by His life.

For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, that even as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ.

Adam's transgression occurred before Moses had the law, right?

It was before the law had been given.

The sentence given to him and all of his descendants was death.

Did people die before the law?

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, so we learned that the law, when the law was come, the sin was imputed to people, but before then, sin was still there, death was still reigning, people were still dying, right?

We know that the sentence was there.

And so verse 20 explains, well, what happened when the law came in?

Why was the law given?

Moses got the law so that you could see clearly just how bad sin is, okay?

We know from Romans 1 that all creatures, all humanity, by merely being created by God, knows a couple things.

One, they know that God is.

They know that he is divine and know that he is the creator.

There's a lot of folks who want to argue with that, and the rest of Romans 1 kind of deals with that and why they don't want to think about that.

But God's word says he reveals himself to all of his creatures that he is the God and that he is the creator, and that he has a wrath against ungodliness, which means you're not worshiping him as God.

and against unrighteousness, where you are committing injustice, acts of evil or wickedness against your fellow man or against yourself, right?

By nature, man knows this.

But it's not real sharp.

You can know that to murder somebody deserves death.

Is there any culture across the globe that's ever existed where you could murder somebody or steal somebody and not have some oversight from the people around you?

Everybody agrees that's wrong.

This is why.

However, when you get the law, the law is very sharp.

And in fact, the law is so sharp it even shows you sins when you don't commit them externally.

What's the last commandment of the Ten Commandments?

It's, Thou shalt not covet.

Now, I want you to look at me and tell me if I'm not saying anything, am I coveting?

You can't tell.

But God sure can, right?

To covet, to desire something, to long after it, and to pursue after it, that can be completely done internally.

And it's still wrong, and it's still a sin, and you couldn't have understood that until the law had been given.

And so, think of it like a scale, all right?

So if I've got a big pile of rocks over here, okay, it's a pile of rocks.

How much?

Well, if you put it on a scale, you get real precise.

You can know exactly how much it is.

Maybe a different illustration.

Y'all know those things our government built to blow up whole cities, right?

Comic bombs, right?

The first ones, they were a really big deal, right?

They still are a big deal, but they're scary, right?

Wiped out two cities in Japan.

Do you know that compared to today, those are very small, okay?

Now if I were to just look at one, big boom.

I look at another one from back then, the World War II version, to a modern one, I look at it, big boom.

I don't have any precision with that, but they have measurements to tell you how many kilotons or however, this measurements in tons of TNT, so you see how big that explosion is.

That's kind of what the law is.

You and I can look at it and go, big move, whereas this is giving you more information.

You show how big, how bad.

And so the law told you how bad sin was, lest you got confused and think, well, I'm good enough.

We're not.

All right.

Couldn't be.

All right.

Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound so that the law is there.

And now you can see plainly how big sin is.

But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.

So now that you know from the law how bad sin is, then you can appreciate what an impact grace had in covering that sin.

So, sin reigned unto death.

That was before by Adam.

Sin is reigning unto death.

Even so, might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ.

That's how Romans 5 is in.

So we're picking up in Romans 6.

So, when Paul makes that statement, grace is now reigning, He is then going to address, what is the worst possible takeaway that you could have?

Have you ever talked to somebody and you say something, you think it's plain, and then they go to the absolute most ludicrous and stupid thing that you could possibly take away?

Well, if you say that, then surely you mean, and just insert lunacy here, you ever had that?

It's really frustrating to talk to somebody like that.

Well, Paul is anticipating a very dumb response.

And in fact, he's going to anticipate this dumb response three different times.

He's already addressed it once.

And the response is, well, if you say that the law doesn't reign anymore and that grace is reigning, well, shall we just continue to sin?

What shall we say then?

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

Well, Paul, you just said that grace is abounding because the law came and we got to see how big and bad sin is.

And well, if we just keep sinning, grace will be bigger.

That's a dumb thing to say, all right?

I don't know how more polite to say it.

But Paul is gonna address this charge head on.

Now it's said he's already addressed this once because if you go back to Romans 3, he was saying about as between men and God.

If you took a poll and 100% of humanity said something's true and God said it's not true, who wins?

God, every sin, right?

100% of the time, right?

This is not a popular vote.

There's not a majority rule.

And so he's saying that, you know, even when we tell distruths, when we tell lies, it shows how righteous God is that he doesn't.

And so, somebody would take a dumb question from that.

Well, if the truth of God hath abounded more through my lie, why am I judged a sinner?

And not, as we be slanderously reported, this is Romans 3, 8.

And not, as we be slanderously reported, and some affirm that we say, let us do evil that good may come.

So again, this is that same idea of, well, if God looks even better by my sin, well, let's just keep sinning so he looks better.

And the answer in all of these is no, no way, God forbid, the person who said that, whose damnation is just, that's not theoretical.

There were people teaching to object to the teaching of Christ, saying, well, if that's true, then you could just sin all over you want.

And they're telling you, just keep on sinning, right?

And that charge is still around today.

When you teach the doctrines of grace, that Jesus Christ is the sole author of your salvation, it's nothing that you did.

It's not because suddenly you've figured out how to live a perfect life and Jesus now loves you.

And you're able to maintain that and you're never going to lose it.

It's not on you, right?

Your obedience before you knew what He did, and your obedience after doesn't change His work.

And so some people will look at that and say with the most ludicrous reaction to it is, well, if that's true, if it's not of my stuff that I'm doing, either before or after, then I just live any old way I want to.

I'll sin all the same because Jesus died for me anyway.

That's a sorry attitude, and that's contrary to Scripture.

That's contrary to what Paul's teaching here on three different times.

He's going to have to address this three times in this letter of, shall we then continue to sin?

There's a heart issue then if you're looking for excuses to continue to sin.

So, what shall we say then?

Shall we continue in sin?

So, I'm back in Romans 6, verse 1.

That grace may abound.

Alright?

The short answer, God forbid.

Now, that's a strange language.

You and I don't talk that way, but it's...

No.

And it's the strongest no you can imagine.

God forbid you should even say that, much less affirm it to be true.

Should you continue in sin that grace should abound?

No.

Right?

You now know what Jesus has done.

The answer is not to sin more.

Okay?

God forbid.

And then he asks a rhetorical question.

Rhetorical.

He's not expecting an answer, but he's teeing up an explanation for why this is so.

How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?

Now, this is the first time he's used this expression, dead to sin.

That's a strange expression.

And so he's going to explain it.

What does that mean?

So the question is, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?

Well, we got to understand, well, what does it mean to be dead to sin?

Okay, he is going to explain that by using a picture found in baptism, okay?

So that's where he's gonna go.

I want to, for a second, break out of this thread and go look at the ordinance of baptism so we can understand, so we can be on the same page of what he's talking about.

So I'll read verse three, and then we'll go to Matthew 28, 18.

So verse three says, know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death.

Alright, so our topic is going to be on baptism.

The purpose is to answer this question of what does it mean to be dead in sins, dead to sins, not dead in sins, that's a distinction.

So I want you to go to Matthew 28, 18 through 20.

Alright, this is referred to as the Great Commission.

Jesus is about to, is giving some instructions to the 11 apostles.

So, Matthew 28, 18, Jesus came, spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Why do you start with that?

That's an authority statement.

Does Jesus Christ have the authority?

Absolutely!

What power has been reserved that someone else has that Jesus doesn't have?

None.

All right, so you're going, you're hearing it straight from the big boss, all right?

This is not the manager just passing down, I've got all authority in heaven and earth.

Because I have all authority, verse 19, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever commanded you.

and lo, look, I am with you always, even under the end of the world." All right.

I've got the authority.

I'm giving you instructions to go and go do three things, and I'm going to be with you in it.

Teach all nations, right?

Baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Teaching them to observe all things which I have commanded you.

And so the pattern there is go teach, right?

To preach is to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, to herald it, right?

Can I tell you everything that you could possibly know about Jesus and about the Word of God before you're baptized?

No, right?

You're gonna spend the rest of your life trying to figure that out.

But it's teach, so going and learning of Christ, being baptized, and then spending the rest of your life learning and trying to apply it, all right?

So it's not a, let me figure it all out, and then I'll get baptized.

It's a, I've heard, Let me obey, because he's given a command here, right?

This is not a suggestion, right?

To his followers, the command is, be baptized, right?

And then learn, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, right?

So that's your pattern.

Teach, baptize, teach, right?

The command is from Jesus.

He has authority, and he's gonna be with you, right?

This is a good thing.

Does it explain what it means?

No, it's just a command to do it, right?

This is to the teachers.

You go teach, and you baptize, and then you teach some more, okay?

Let's go to Acts 9.

We're going to learn a little bit more.

Acts 9.

This is the interaction between Philip, the evangelist.

It's not Acts 9.

It's Acts 8.

I wrote the wrong chapter.

Acts 8, Philip is told by the Holy Spirit to go join himself to a particular individual in a chariot, all right?

That's the equivalent today is you see a car running by, you go run alongside of it and ask, hey, you know what you're reading?

Do you understand?

Because this guy is from Ethiopia, I believe, and he has traveled all the way to Jerusalem to worship.

All right, so he already knows about Jehovah God.

He knows about the God of the Jews.

He's gone to the temple.

He spent his time there, and now he's on his way home, and he's reading in Isaiah, and he doesn't understand what he was reading.

And so this guy comes running alongside, says, hey, you understand what you're reading?

He says, how can I unless some man teach me?

And so Philip hops up in the carriage, and commences to teach him and preach unto him Jesus, starting at the very chapter that he's reading.

Alright?

We want to talk about an open door.

The Lord just, you know, opened the door and put him in.

Well, he had to run, but alright.

So, in verse 35, Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.

And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water.

And the eunuch said, See, here's water.

What doth hinder me to be baptized, right?

Philip, in however long they're in this chariot ride, has had the opportunity to take someone who's already heard about God, right, to explain about the Son of God, the one who's come, the one who came and suffered and died and rose again, and who commanded all those that believe that that to be true should be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.

You know he talked about baptism because why would Philip, why would the eunuch suggest that if he hadn't heard about it?

And he says, well look!

Here's water!

What would hinder me?

What would stop me?" What does Philip say?

He says, "...if thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest." And the eunuch answered and said, "...I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." Does the eunuch have it all figured out?

No!

He's had one sermon, probably compact, probably had a lot of information in there, One, he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and he commanded the chariot to stand still.

They both went down.

They went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip.

All right.

You think the eunuch would have some liquid refreshment as they're traveling along?

Probably so.

He probably had access to a little bit of water, right?

If this was a matter of just a sprinkling, get a cup, splash it on his face.

No, this was a body of water, right?

Do you know what the word baptize means?

Why do we submerge, right?

Baptize means to overwhelm, to make fully wet.

And so when you've got the word, it means to make fully wet, are you following that picture and pattern when you just do a little spritz?

We want to do everything that we do as close as we can to Scripture.

So here you see two men, both went into the water, and both came out wet.

One more wet than the other.

But what did he do?

He believed.

He believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

So again, he doesn't have all of the information about Jesus yet, but he's got the good core of it.

Jesus Christ is God, is the Son of God.

And we could go a little farther, and we could look at other examples.

But let's go back to Romans, and let's try to unpack, well, what does this mean?

Why do we do this, right?

Jesus doesn't have to give us an explanation, right?

All authority is given to Him.

He can command it, and we ought to do it.

Fair enough?

Amen?

Yeah.

But, in His Word, He explains what this is for.

What is this, right?

This is a picture for something.

This is a symbol for something, and so we've got to understand it.

So, Romans 6, verse 3.

Again, the question is, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

The answer is, God forbid.

How shall we that are dead to sins, and that's what we're trying to understand, dead to sin, live any longer then?

All right, verse 3.

Know ye not, all right, Let me rephrase that.

Don't you understand?

Don't you understand that so many of us, as we're baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death?

I'm not talking to the world at large right now.

I'm talking to followers of Jesus Christ who have been baptized.

He says we have been baptized into something.

This symbol has a meaning and it says it's into His death.

Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in the newness of life." All right.

When you go down into the water, all right, often we lay folks back, right?

Doesn't really say the manner you can do it, but I kind of like that.

How much breathing do you do under the water?

Hopefully none, it doesn't work well, right?

Right?

This is a picture for the tomb, for the grave.

When Jesus came down off that cross and he was put into that tomb, where that body stayed for less than three days, right?

Just three days and three nights, however long exactly, the hours that was, that body was dead.

We know that his spirit was with the Lord.

We know that Jesus is the eternal God.

His spirit could not be killed, but that body was dead.

And when we go into that grave, watery grave, it's the picture of being associated with that death.

There's no breathing in the grave.

There's no breathing under the water.

Now, if we stop there, Would that be a real good picture of Jesus's entire scenario, circumstance, right?

Did he stay in the grave?

No, and that's why we don't keep you under the water indefinitely.

You come back up the same way that he was resurrected.

The other half of that symbol is coming up out of the water so that you can then walk in newness of life.

Now, when you get wet, does anything fundamentally change about what Jesus has already done for you?

No.

Does anything fundamentally change about the natures that are within you?

No, right?

You still will have to battle against sin the rest of your life.

But now you have publicly, just like the unit, you publicly confessed, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, right?

To the world, it's now open and public that you are associating yourself with him, and you're associating yourself with his death, right?

Because if his death applies to you, what does that mean?

It means your sins are paid for.

That life that you lived of only pursuing sin, that that is now something that has been put to death, right?

In symbol, in a fashion, right?

And so you now have this opportunity to come up and rise in newness of life.

Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death." So we get the other half of the picture, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, right?

Even so, we also should walk in the newness of life, right?

The concept of the new birth, right?

God gives you a new heart.

He puts his Holy Spirit within you.

Something that was only pursuing sin now has a desire to serve God.

You can't manufacture that desire on your own.

If you have any desire to serve God, it's because God's given it to you.

Can anybody see that happening in your heart?

No.

But this is one of the outward manifestations where you're publicly professing that, that they can then see something's different about this individual.

OK?

So because there's something different in our inside, and we're doing this publicly, even so, we should walk in newness of life.

Should.

Right?

Does should mean you always will?

No.

Right?

And that's a reality that some teachers get confused.

That, okay, I am now following Christ And they think, well, I won't sin anymore.

Or I've somehow got it all figured out.

Or that I'll never say the wrong thing or even sin in my mind or in my heart.

That's not reality.

If that's the standard that you think you can live up to, you're going to be disappointed.

It is a battle, but what you get to know now is that you have been freed from sin being the master over you, where you could not defeat him, could not say no in individual circumstances.

So we should.

So there is an element here of your choices.

We love to talk about Jesus's grace.

It's the big picture, right?

His unearned, unmerited, freely given love and grace, not because of your choices.

But because He has done that, and because He's given you life, and you have now publicly professed that He is the Son of God, and you're starting to follow Him, you now have some choices to make.

You have some individual personal responsibility and you should walk in newness of life, right?

And again, this is contrast to the stupid question of, well, should we just keep sinning so that grace abounds?

No, right?

You don't intentionally sin after you know what Christ has done, right?

That's not what you should be structuring your life as, all right?

And unfortunately, there's some folks who take a distorted version of Scripture and says, well, Christ has done it all, so I can just do whatever I want.

It doesn't matter, right?

There's nothing binding on to it.

No!

You're a child of the King.

He bought you, He cleaned you up, He put you into His family.

You should act.

like a child of the king, right?

It's not gonna get you into his family.

You're already there.

It's not gonna kick you out of his family, right?

He knew what you were.

He loves you anyway, but for his glory and your obedience, we should, okay?

All right.

Four, if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, again, symbol, likeness, type, we've been planted together in the likeness of his death, going down into the water, we shall also in the likeness of his resurrection, right?

The coming up, right?

You wanna have both pictures in your life, right?

The going into the water in baptism, that's kind of a one and done, right?

There's a death, and then there's out of the water, the rest of your life is the other half of that symbol.

Right?

It's the, alright, now I'm walking in newness of life as Christ walks.

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him.

Okay.

He says we know this.

This is something that we know.

That our old man is crucified.

Old man.

Old.

Antique.

Worn out.

Worse for the wearer.

Alright, that's the description of who we were By nature, thanks to old Adam, right?

From the moment we're conceived, we are sinners by nature.

That's what we know.

Do you have choice then?

Yeah, you can choose any sin you want.

But when there's something new, right?

When God does a work in you to give you a new heart, a new life, there's a new creature in there, and that creature is created unto good works.

That's the purpose you're created in, all right?

That new life, that's described as the new man.

We have, our old man is crucified with him.

Why?

That the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

That we're destroyed.

Render entirely idle, to deprive of force, influence, or power.

This is a symbol, outwardly, that shows what God has already done inwardly.

Sin is no longer the dominant force master in your life.

Something greater and stronger now exists.

And so it's like that old man was crucified with Christ and put to death.

That old man still exists, and we're gonna deal with that in this chapter, and particularly in the next chapter, of how you have to grapple with that reality.

But the question here is, should you just voluntarily and continually sin at will, or should you strive to walk in newness of life?

All right?

So, the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

All right, so here's a fact.

He that is dead is freed from sin.

That's a strange thing, right?

So if you're dead, are you going to sin anymore?

No.

Okay.

Well, in this picture, that old man who used to be in charge, right?

He's been crucified in the grave there.

He's being put to death, right?

He's not the master anymore.

If you go to Job 3 and 19, you don't have to turn there.

is lamenting his life.

He's lost 10 children.

They've all been killed.

He's lost all of his cattle, all of his sheep.

He's lost his health.

He is in terrible shape.

His wife is like, what are you still alive for?

Just go ahead and curse God and die.

It is a bad, bad, I mean, you thought you've had a bad day.

It's worse, all right?

And he desires death at this point, right?

He is just craving it.

Let me just have an escape.

And in the midst of that, in 3 and 19, he says, there the servant is free from his master, right?

One who was a slave, the master can't follow him after death, right?

That's the picture.

He's free, he's made true, right?

And so in that picture, we're being taught that what used to be our master of sin is no longer our master.

That person, that old man has been put to death and so it has been made free, all right?

For he that is dead is free from sin.

if we be dead with Christ." So again, we're talking to believers here.

If you be dead with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him.

We're not talking symbols anymore.

We're talking reality.

that if we have a part in Jesus's death, right, if he died for us, if that old man has been killed by Jesus and given us new life, then we also believe that he's gonna come back and we will live with him both Our spirit, when we die here, will immediately be with Him.

Yes.

But also, when He comes back, our bodies will be resurrected.

Right?

The same way that He had a glorified body coming out of the tomb, we will get glorified bodies for forever.

So we will live Him, because we know, Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more.

Right?

Is Christ ever going to die again?

No!

Absolutely not!

If you look, let's see if I can find it real quick.

It's in Revelation.

It's Revelation 1.

This is how Jesus identified himself to the Apostle John.

Yeah, Revelation 118.

Fear not, I am the first and the last.

I am he that liveth and was dead.

and behold, I am alive forevermore, amen.

All right, when you and I say amen, this kind of has a hope, Lord, let that be so.

When Jesus says amen, it is so, all right?

and I have the keys of hell and the grave." Alright?

So, this is Jesus Christ being raised from the dead, His resurrection.

He will die no more.

Death hath no more dominion over Him.

Right?

Can death come after Jesus again?

No!

In fact, it says, I've got the keys to hell and death, to the grave.

Right?

Jesus has that.

That's the one that we are trusting to give us the life, right?

The eternal life, right?

For in that he died once, he died unto sin.

For that he died, he died unto sin once.

But in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

Why did Jesus allow himself to die?

He allowed himself to die because of our sin, right?

That sin being put away and the resurrection, he now lives exclusively unto God.

There's no more sin that he has to deal with, right?

There's no death that has reign over him.

He is living unto God.

He's our pattern, right?

So from baptism of starting your walk with Him, publicly professing, He's my Lord, and then coming up out of the grave, and now I get to walk unto God for the rest of my life.

Sin's not my master anymore.

I don't have to fear death, right?

The sentence of death doesn't hang over us, as in eternal death.

Will we die before the Lord comes back?

Maybe.

I don't know when He gets to come back.

If He comes back today, that'd be great!

Right?

We don't have to worry about, well, I didn't get to do so-and-so, or I didn't get to finish the barn, or whatever.

It doesn't matter!

It'll be so much better.

We will live with Him by His Word.

Therefore as He died, He died unto sin once, but as He liveth, He liveth unto God.

So verse 11 says, likewise, alright, so in this manner, reckon, alright, you reckon, you know the Bible was Southern, right?

You reckon, Think about it, esteem it, count it, put it in inventory, put it in the way that you think.

I want you to reckon yourselves also to be dead, indeed, undecently.

So this pattern, I want you to think about it as that reality.

As if you have truly been put to death to sin, and now you are alive unto God.

How?

Because you're so good?

No.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

His work, right?

He gets all the credit, and now you have an opportunity to serve unto life.

Now, the idea of reckoning and thinking, this is your perspective, alright?

This does not mean you will never battle sin again, but you need to have the perspective and the reality that sin isn't in charge.

Jesus is in charge.

He is your master now.

So, let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body.

So, if scripture tells you to reckon, That's something that you can do, right?

This is my perspective.

This is something I can think about.

I can change my perspective.

Sometimes we look at a sin and say, well, I just can't defeat this one.

Is that true?

No, because you're saying this thing is more powerful than I am, and the one that I work for said it's not, right?

There's grace over me.

It is not over me.

Let not let.

Is that something within your control?

Yeah, let is.

When scripture says to let, that means this is something in your court, Tiger.

All right.

You've got the ball.

Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body.

All right.

To let it reign means to allow sin to be in charge.

All right.

Who should be in charge of your life?

Right.

You should be looking to the author and finisher of your faith, which is Jesus Christ.

He should be the one in charge.

Can you get confused in your perspective and act like sin reigns?

You sure can.

Let it not, right?

Don't let it.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body.

Because what happens?

That ye should obey it in the lust thereof.

To obey, you're submitting to it.

If you're acting like it's in charge and you're submitting to it, then you're making it in charge.

But it's not really.

Not by rights, not anymore.

Verse 13, neither yield, all right, this is the third thing that's within your court.

So what are you reckoning, your perspective?

Letting not reign?

Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.

So one is reckoning the big picture.

Another is let not it rain.

And so who's in charge, remembering who's in charge and not in charge.

The other is taking your physical body parts, right, and not surrendering them as tools for unrighteousness.

right, whether it's your hands, whether it's your mouth, whether it's your ears, whether it's your feet, whether it's any part of your body, right, not just surrendering and saying, well, here you go, right, I just, I can't, right, this is too hard for me, or I really like this, right, this is, no.

The idea is that you have some control over your body, right, and what you yield to.

Yield means to surrender, to put into someone else's service.

Boys.

Lord of the Rings, right?

A couple little hobbits.

They offer themselves to some great kings, right?

They surrender their service.

After that, the kings can tell them what to do, right?

That's the idea with your body there.

Don't yield it to sin to be instruments of unrighteousness, right?

There is an element of self-control that you are given in the new birth, right?

You have the ability from any sin that the Lord gives you a door of escape, right?

You ever get on a plane and what do they tell you?

Here's your emergency exit, right?

Why do you need those?

Because sometimes you need to get out of that plane, right?

Same thing with sin.

Whatever the sin is, as a new creature, God gives you an emergency exit.

You may feel like, I am pinned in here and there's no way to get out of this particular thing.

Look for the exit.

Right?

Sometimes it's who you're around.

You don't need to be around him.

Sometimes it's things you're doing you don't need to be doing.

Right?

But look for the exit.

He gives you one for each.

So don't act like you have to yield because it's in charge.

You're not.

Neither yield yourself members as instruments of unrighteousness.

Well, what should you do?

Again, thinking about that picture.

That old man has gone in the grave.

He's dead.

You're now walking in newness of life trying to look like Christ.

Well, what did Christ do?

He yielded himself unto God.

All that he did, all that he said, all that he walked, he was doing the Father's will.

Isn't that a good pattern for what we should strive to?

Yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead.

If we went out to the graveyard and somebody came up from the grave, would you expect them to act a little different than when they went in?

I sure would!

If they just went back to the same old garbage they were doing beforehand, something's wrong with this, right?

Well, that's the picture there.

When you come out of that grave in the baptism, you should expect, and others should expect, there to be a difference in how you conduct yourself, right?

Yield yourself as one that's alive from the dead, and your members yield them as instruments righteousness unto God.

Instruments, tools, right?

You use tools to do things, right?

So if you use your body as a tool to accomplish righteousness, who are you serving?

God, right?

As opposed to using your tools to accomplish unrighteousness where you're serving sin.

One was the pattern of the old, the other was the pattern of the new.

So again, it all goes back to that initial question, well, shall we just continue to sin?

God forbid, how can we that are dead to sin continue to live there?

It doesn't make any sense.

The pattern doesn't follow.

So as an argumentative Christian, he says, you're being an idiot.

Look at what we do with the baptism, how that old guy is put to death, and now we're alive to walk in newness of life as Christ.

We want to follow his pattern.

Verse 14.

Four, reason, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace.

Right?

Under the law, you got to see that your sins were terrible.

Right?

And you got to see that, you know, whatever the law was saying, well, don't do that.

You're like, oh, I'd really like to do that.

Right?

The sins were there.

You're not under its dominion anymore.

That master has been taken away.

You now have a new master, which is the master of grace.

God, by his grace, has chosen you, bought you, paid for you, cleaned for you, and now you get an opportunity to serve him for however many moments the rest of your life exists.

We're here today.

We may not make it to lunch.

Tomorrow's not promised, right?

You get today to serve the Lord.

That's it!

This moment, and however many more He gives you, you are under this authority of grace.

That's not a death sentence, right?

The reign of sin and the law was like walking around with a portable guillotine, right?

You deserve death, right?

The wages of a single sin is death.

And so you know at some point it's coming.

But this, you know that that sentence has been paid for, and you've been taken out of that guillotine, and now you get to walk in a way to glorify the one who's freed you.

Okay?

All right.

So, Insert second stupid question.

Well, if we're, you know, not under the law but under grace, what then?

Shall we sin?

Because we're not under the law but under grace?

And again, some people are going to take this.

Well, we're not under the law anymore, and so we're under grace.

Well, does that mean we can sin?

Right?

We're just looking for ways to do the wrong thing.

And the answer again is, God forbid!

No!

No, no, no, no, no!

Right?

Fine enough?

Verse 16, know you not.

Don't you understand that to whom you yield yourself, this is in your choices, right?

We're not talking the big picture.

I'm talking in your day to day.

To whom you yield yourself as servants to obey, you're their servant, right?

Whether they have the right to be your master or not, when you choose to obey, you make them your master for at least that moment.

You have two choices, to obey sin, whether of sin unto death, right?

That's the end result of sin.

There's nothing good, there's no pot at the end of that rainbow.

Or of obedience, serving God, unto righteousness.

Those are your two choices, right?

When I wake up today, whose servant am I going to be?

Knowing what Christ has done, am I going to serve unrighteousness and sin, which the wage of that is just death, or am I gonna serve righteousness, right?

obedience of God's will unto righteousness.

Right?

Verse 17, But God, but God be thanked.

Right?

He's the only one who gets credit for what we're about to describe.

There's a change, right?

That ye were the servants of sin.

You were, past tense.

There was a time in your life when all you could do was sin.

Sin was your master.

It ruled over you, and you probably enjoyed it.

It takes God coming and changing your heart for you can see how vile sin and disobedience of God is.

So, you were the servants of God, past tense, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you.

So, he's writing to a people, right?

These are not just theory.

There's people in Rome.

He's never been there in person.

He's heard about them.

Their faith has gone abroad.

He's never had a chance to teach them in person, so he's teaching really heavy stuff from afar at this point, you were servants of sin, right?

Is that common to Christians?

Yeah, to all of us!

Right?

That's where we all start.

Servants of sin.

And then there's a change in the heart, and from that change, and that's only by God's work, then you can obey, have a desire to obey, and actually obey from the heart, the form of doctrine which is delivered to you.

So, the instruction that you've now received, and he's saying, you know, what you've been taught thus far, and he's obviously filling in a lot of gaps, Right?

What you heard thus far about Jesus, you've obeyed.

Right?

That's a good thing.

Had some of them in Rome already been baptized?

Yeah, because you're saying, we, right, we were baptized in it.

What you knew, you've obeyed from the heart.

How were you able to do that?

But God bethanked.

Right?

It's because God did it.

He has changed you and given you a new desire.

He's made you free from being a servant exclusively a slave to sin.

So, Does that just mean you don't have mastery anymore?

Nope.

Verse 18 says, Being then made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness.

God plucked you out of this role over here as a servant of sin and said, You are my servant.

I bought you.

I paid for you.

You are now a servant of righteousness.

You are created a new creature, created with a purpose unto good works.

Good works glorify Him.

Don't get confused.

Your good works didn't make him like you.

Your good works didn't deliver you from hell.

Your good works didn't cause any of what God did.

That all preceded you, right?

His love was before, let there be light, and it doesn't stop, and His Son coming in the world and effecting the Father's will to freely deliver all of His people by paying the wrath.

He did all that on His own, knowing that we were sinners.

And then at some point in our life, when He reveals to us that we are sinners, He gives us that new heart, and now we have a desire to serve Him, and then to go forward in obedience, that's when the good works come in.

Because you're doing what He created you to do.

This new creature, this new man, that thing that is within you, that will never die.

Right?

That soul, that spirit, whatever you want to describe it as, goes to be with glory upon this death, and then it will be given a glorified body.

It has eternal life already.

Okay?

That's what you're serving, a servant of righteousness.

All right.

But Paul recognizes we're talking to men, right?

Are we weak?

Incredibly, right?

We are weak.

And so he says, I speak after the man of the men because of the infirmity, the weakness of your flesh.

He said, I wouldn't have to tell you not to yield yourself unto sin and to yield yourself unto righteousness unless you're gonna have to constantly be making this decision over and over and over and over again, right?

This is a daily occurrence, all right?

You have that which is within you, right, this old man, this old flesh, who still enjoys sinning and doing the wrong thing, and that's who you've got to battle against.

What we're learning here is that he's no longer in charge.

He's not the dominant force, unless you let him.

Okay?

speak after the infirmity of your flesh, excuse me, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh.

For as ye have yielded your members, servants, to uncleanness and to iniquity." That's what you did before, right?

Those unholy actions, unrighteousness, wickedness, right?

to iniquity unto iniquity, right?

Because whenever you're getting into sin, what does it inevitably follow, right?

Sin leads to more sin, which leads to more sin, right?

He says, that was what you were before you had yielded yourself.

Even so, yield yourself, members, servants, to righteousness, unto holiness, unto purity, right?

The more you conform your life to look more like Christ's, the more you obey, the more good works you do, God's perspective of you does not get any better.

Can I say that, right?

That measure of obedience is not the test between heaven and hell, right?

He looks at you as righteous or unrighteous solely based on the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

He sees you as righteous by Jesus' work.

That's what made you justified or acquitted or justification, however you want to say that.

It's His blood that God sees you through as righteous.

But now that He sees you as righteous and you see you as righteous, then you have choices each day.

Do I try to reflect the righteousness that He's given me, that He's put upon me, right, as a mirror, right?

We can reflect light, right?

We want to reflect the light of Jesus Christ in our life by doing things that please Him.

That's what we're talking about here.

We were yielding ourselves unto sin and unto iniquity, now yield yourself, your body, your members, all of it, to righteousness, unto holiness.

And that word holiness elsewhere is translated as sanctification, right?

You want to use your life, use your body in a way that's holy, right?

Does that make sense?

For when ye were servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness." This is statement of fact.

Before God did that work in your heart, you were exclusively the servant of sin, right?

That was it.

That was your mastery.

You didn't have the option for serving righteousness.

It says you were free from it.

But now, He's made you free from sin.

For when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness.

Oh, sorry, before we get there, He says, what fruit was produced, right?

Fruit is something that comes out of that conduct, from that action.

What fruit was produced, what fruit had ye, and those things were of you are now ashamed.

So all those sins of the flesh, all the lusts of your body and the desires of your mind and your pride of your heart, all those things that you were doing that now you can see are wrong and wrongful.

He says, what was produced by that?

And he tells you, for the end of those things is death, right?

Is that a good thing?

No, right?

There's nothing good that comes from sinning.

Now, if you read over in Proverbs, like we did Sunday night, there's an expression, I think in Proverbs 20, if you can find it, but it says the bread of deceit is sweet, but afterwards it's like gravel in the mouth.

I don't know if you ever had a rock get in your mouth and you chomped down on it, particularly caviar or something.

Oh my goodness, that hurts.

Now imagine you had a mouthful of gravel.

Think that'll feel good?

That was terrible, right?

That's the idea of sin.

Okay, it may taste like a donut on the front end, but the end is going to be like your mouth is full of gravel.

It's awful.

It's terrible.

The end result is bad all the time.

So, what fruit have ye in those things which are now ashamed?

For the end of those things is death.

But, let's look at the counterpoint.

Where are we now?

But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and to the end everlasting life.

All right.

What was produced by the wicked and sinful conduct wasn't good, wasn't pleasant.

Now as you're serving God and righteousness, there's good things that are produced.

Go to Galatians, Galatians 5.

right before Ephesians.

You've heard this.

I'm gonna read it.

Galatians 5 and verse 22 and 23.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, or self-control, against such there is no law.

This is not a laundry list of personal characteristics that you need to go and just gather.

If you are yielding yourself As a tool, as an instrument of God's righteousness, there are things that are going to be produced, right?

These things are produced out of the Spirit.

As you are serving God in righteousness, guess what?

You will find that you have more love.

You will find that you have more joy.

You will find that you have more peace.

Long-suffering, that's patience.

Pitting up with other sinners, right?

Are you a sinner?

Yes.

Do you need patience to put up with other sinners?

Yes.

And they need patience to put up with you.

This is part of the grace that He gives us in the church.

Gentleness, goodness, faith.

Faith can grow.

It's a good thing.

The more you're serving God in righteousness, you can expect more fruit to be produced.

Meekness, mild, and temperance, self-control.

These are things that grow out of the Spirit that's within you.

But as you're exercising the righteousness and serving God and yielding Him in obedience, you can expect more of these things to grow.

All right.

This is what we want.

This is one of the things we can can look for.

So we're talking about in Romans about and holiness.

All right.

All right.

but now being made free from sin and become servants of God, you have your fruit unto holiness." Right?

These are things that are holy.

These things are good.

These are pure.

There's no law that prohibits any of those things.

These are things you would like, right?

Yielding yourself unto God and righteousness produces these things.

To the end, what's the end result, right?

The end result of sin is death, right?

The end result of this, everlasting life, that's pretty good, right?

And so a lot of this is about taking your perspective, seeing why am I serving sin?

Why am I allowing myself?

Is it really in charge?

No.

Do I have the ability not to yield to it, to say no?

Yeah, I have that ability.

Can I intentionally yield to God?

Yes.

Is what's produced by that choice better to serve God?

Yeah, every time.

So verse 23 ends with, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.

Wages of sin is death.

You know what God told Adam back in the garden when he disobeyed?

Well, He told him beforehand in the command that if the day you eat thereof you shall die, right?

And then when he did eat, He said, you shall die.

You will go back to the dust.

And you had this reign of death that hung over humanity's head until Christ has come and revealed that that has been taken.

That's been paid for.

That death sentence was paid for by Him.

And now you are blessed to live under a reign of grace, unearned, unmerited favor, this unending love, how do you then respond?

Do you continue to act in rebellion to God?

No, right?

There's no good reason to do it.

Or do you strive to obey Him?

And again, we're going to get into chapter 7 next week, but you will see that Paul has to grapple with the desire to do good, and yet failing.

And the desire to stop doing wrong, and yet failing.

And so don't feel like you've got to have it all figured out and that you're going to get perfect at any time in this life.

You won't!

We're all sinners in need of that daily grace, but don't use it as an excuse to say, well, there's nothing I can do, right?

There's no improvement, there's no help, there's no nothing, right?

No.

This is the truth that we operate under.

So, again, the big question was, well, should we continue in sin that grace may abound?

No.

Look at the picture of baptism, right?

We had that eunuch who heard about Jesus, he believed that he was the Son of God, and he saw some water that was deep enough to get wet in, he says, hey, what doth hinder me?

You believe with all your heart.

Say, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

If you have not yet publicly confessed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, right, to believe that this is true and announce it, and then have followed him in obedience to his command to be baptized, you need to do that, right?

It's not coming from me.

I'm just telling you what the boss says.

Alright?

And then from that, after you go through that, you know, kind of shameful experience, right?

Is it a real pretty experience to get your hair wet and get all...

No, right?

Is death messy?

Yeah, it is.

And that's the picture.

You're going down there, dying that old man, and showing publicly, I'm associated with this man.

That Jesus Christ is alive.

He's the Son of God.

His work was for me, too.

And now I have an opportunity, as I'm coming out of the water in the rest of the days that He gives me, to serve Him in obedience.

Right?

Will you fail some days?

Yes, you will.

Confess your faults to your Lord.

He will forgive you for Jesus' sake.

And get up the next day and go again.

Right?

This is whom we serve.

Is he worthy of your best?

Yeah, absolutely!

Jesus Christ is worthy.

Thank y'all for your good attention.

This transcript was automatically generated by SermonAudio and has been edited using AI software to adjust only the formatting for readability. If there is any difference between the words spoken by the speaker and text, it is inadvertent and the video should be relied upon.

Elder Jonathan Moseley is the Pastor of Fair Haven Primitive Baptist Church located in Tifton, GA.