FBC Daily Devotional – February 7, 2022

Romans 6 and the Christian’s Relationship to Sin

Well, a good Monday morning to you. How are you this fine Monday? Did you have a good weekend? Did you get together with God's people yesterday and worship the Lord together? Our church last evening, there was some times of some fellowship together and I hope those of our church family were able to get with others and just enjoy that fellowship, that time in a few minutes in the Word and some time in prayer together.

Hope it was a good time, a good weekend for you. Well, we begin a new week today and we read in Romans chapter 6 and this passage really challenges one of the modern kind of contemporary church attitudes toward our lifestyle.

I'm not suggesting that this is a dominant attitude, but it it does appear, it does show up. It's an attitude that says, you know, now that I'm a Christian, it doesn't really matter how I live. That, you know, God's law doesn't have anything to say to me.

I don't have to live under any kind of rules and regulations and so I can just live any old way I want to live. Well, it is true that you're not under the law to keep the law, to merit to merit standing before God, to be justified before God.

But having been justified, one of the ways we show our love and gratitude and appreciation for God's grace and his love is to live in a way that pleases him. And how do we know what pleases God? How do we know what he likes?

Well, we know it from what he's revealed to us in his word and he's revealed in his law in the Old Testament, particularly the Decalogue, the moral law, and in the New Testament, the teachings of Christ that expand upon that and and apply it in ways that hadn't been thought of until he came along and expounded it.

And we learn of these things from God's Word and then if we want to please the Lord and live in a way that is pleasing to him, then we will accept that law and we will live under it. Now, the reason I bring that up is because Paul dealt with that issue in the first century in Romans chapter 6.

He's just been talking about God's grace at the end of chapter 5 and he said that the law entered that the offense may abound. In other words, the law showed us just how sinful we were. But then he goes on to say where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.

So that sin reigned in death, the end of verse 21 of chapter 5, he says, even so grace might reign through the righteousness to eternal life to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Well, that brings up the question.

Well, if sin abounds and then grace super abounds to cover that sin, then, he asked the rhetorical question in verse 1 of chapter 6, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Shouldn't we just, you know, go on sinning, living any way we want, not caring about whether or not we sin because after all grace will cover it and grace will super abound over that sin.

Paul answers the question. He says, God forbid, certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? And the fact of the matter is that we have died to sin. That's what Paul goes on to argue here in chapter 6.

We're dead to its control. We're dead to its dominating influence. And for those of us who have died to sin, to continue living in that sin is a contradiction of who we are. And it's a violation of the life that we are called to live.

Holiness and the Call to Be Set Apart

You know, we've been talking in 1 Peter, in fact, just yesterday in the Sunday morning service, we focused on, part of the message focused on this exhortation from 1 Peter 1, 13 to 15, that we are, that as God has called us, as God who is holy has called us, so we should be, we are to be holy because he says, be holy as I am holy.

Well, if that's my standard, then I can't go on living in sin as if it doesn't matter. And God in his grace saved me. And when he saved me, I was crucified with Christ and I then died to sin. Now, that doesn't mean we are not influenced by sin.

Doesn't mean we never sin. We all know better than that. We yield to it much too often on a daily basis. But here's the thing, the believer that wants to please the Lord, that wants to please Christ and please the God who saved him, doesn't want to go on sinning and is constantly fighting against that temptation to sin.

Presenting Our Members to God for Righteousness

And as Romans 6 continues to progress, we get down to verse 13, we constantly engage in this offering of our members. What am I talking about? Well, verse 13, he says, do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin.

That is the members of your body, your eyes, your ears, your hands, your feet, and so forth. Don't present the members of your body as instruments for sin, to do what sin tells you to do, to look where sin tells you to look, to listen to what sin tells you to listen to, go where sin tells you to go, and so forth.

Don't yield your members as instruments of sin. Instead, he says, present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. So, you know, a good thought-filled habit to get into is on a daily basis to present yourself a living sacrifice to God.

So a good prayer would be something like this, Lord, in order to live for you today, to walk with you in a way that pleases you, to work for you diligently, then in order to be the man of God or the woman of God you've called me to be, in order to be holy as you are holy, I present myself to you today.

In all of my being, I yield my heart to you, that you might reign on my heart's throne, and I might love you as I ought to love you and love my neighbor as myself. I yield my hands to you, that I might do today what you have called me to do.

I yield my feet today, that I might go where you would have me to go, to walk in the paths of righteousness. I yield my ears to you, that I might listen to your spirit as he uses the word to direct my paths and to direct my actions.

I yield my eyes to you, that I might keep my eyes fixed on Christ and turn away from anything that would distract me or tempt me in an illicit way. I yield my lips to you, that I might speak the truth in love today.

And I yield my mind to you, that I might set my mind on things above, that I might think about things that are true and lovely and are of good report and praiseworthy and so forth. I'm yielding my instruments to God for righteousness sake.

Living in the Light of Redeeming Grace

So I hope you don't have that attitude that says, well, it doesn't really matter whether or not I sin. I mean, after all, God's grace abounds and covers all my sin. No, we don't want to have that flippant attitude.

If we have been redeemed by the grace of God, then our heart should be filled with a desire to please him rather than ourselves. So our Father, today I pray that we would be yielded to you and all of our members that we might do today that which pleases you, that which gives you honor and glory.

And we pray, use us today. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Well, have a good rest of your Monday. Hope your week gets off to a great start today. Good day.