And my question is this morning, as we read Romans, is that where we are going to find ourself in, or will we find something different? And have you been reading along in Romans the first three chapters, you notice that the idea of God's wrath is present and that there are, in fact, the reality that Edwards is pointing to is found in Romans the seriousness of sin, the reality of judgment.

But is that all there is in Romans? Is that the story Romans is telling, that Paul is writing to the church in Rome. Here's the thing Romans is all about good news. It certainly recognizes our own plight, our own need for rescue. But ultimately, the gospel in Romans is the good news. It is not the story of sinners condemned.

It is the story of salvation offered freely to those caught in sin. It is not the message of how we are sinners in the hands of an angry God, but an invitation for sinners to come to the loving embrace of God's grace. That is the message of Romans. And as we read it today, this passage is all about God's grace, freely given, freely given to sinners like you and me.

It's not what we've earned, it's what God gives. So as we turn to Romans four, we're going to see Paul unpacking that as he turns to one of his favorite places Scripture, the Old Testament. But first, let's open with a word of prayer. Heavenly father, we thank you for your love you have lavished upon us. We thank you for your amazing grace this morning as we come to Your Word, God, we pray that you would illuminate it for us, that we might understand it better, that you might reveal your grace more fully and draw us into your loving arms.

We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Well, if you have your Bibles, please open them up to Romans chapter four. Romans four. And here Paul is turning to the story of Abraham to answer the question, Did Abraham earn his salvation? So will you read along in Romans four starting in verse one? What then shall we say that Abraham, our father, has found according to the flesh?

Did Abraham earn salvation? (Romans 4:1–4)

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what is Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. Paul starts off with, what shall we say here? He's tying in to what he's just talked about.

Right? So if you look back, you'll see Romans three and the stuff that's come before, and then he gets to this transitional phrase and he says, what shall we say? He's saying, I've made a bunch of claims and now let's test them. Are they true? Let's turn to Abraham and see. Here's what his claims were. If you look at verses 21 through 26, that kind of highlights the big point that we are justified by grace through faith, not works.

Now, this was somewhat controversial because think about the religions. In Paul's days, you may not know a lot about Roman religions, but they're not that different from the other religions that you've encountered in the world. You may not have met many first century Jews, but you've read in the Gospels about the Pharisees and the teachers of the law.

Right. What was it that all of these folks had in common? In fact, every religion I think that you're going to find as you go out is that we earn our status with God, our righteousness through our actions now and Paul's days. That meant a lot of sacrifices at the temple to gods and things like that. It also meant doing good works.

It meant the things we do to balance out the scales. Maybe in modern days you've heard about karma, right? Try to do more good than bad. Have you heard that? It's a concept that existed back then. And so this was the big idea, and it even was found with some who read the Old Testament that we earn our place in God's family.

Maybe we don't earn getting in, but we certainly need to work to stay in. That was the idea they had. And so Paul claimed something totally different. He says we are justified not by anything we do, but only by grace. It's a big claim. Can he prove it? What then, shall we say? He asks as he turns to Abraham.

How was Abraham found? Righteous. Because if he was found righteous by his works, well, then Paul might be wrong. But. But if we look at Abraham and we see that he was found righteous before God by grace. Well, then Paul's not making this up. It has been God's plan all along. And so he asks, what shall we say?

And then as we move on to verses 2 to 5, we see this idea of boasting come up, this idea of these paths for justification. And there's really two options. On one hand, we have the option of works. So if you are justified by works so you worked hard and you're justified. Do you have reason to boast? What do you think if you earned it yourself by your work, would that give you a reason to boast?

I think so. After all, that's true before people, isn't it? Now, it might be a little rude if you do this, but if you do a good job and you earn something, you can boast. In fact, if you do a good enough job, you can even boast right in front of people's face. You can show up at work and be like, I'm the best.

They say, well, here's the best. So you know, what can we do, right? When you win the World Cup, you can boast. When you win your next soccer game, you can boast. When you do good at work, you can boast. When you do all your chores really well. Kids, you could boast. The parents may not like it, but you earned it, right?

But then he asks, we can boast for the work we've done, but can we boast before God, the creator of the universe? I'm saying a loud no, because there's been some thought put into this when we compare our works to God, what have we earned? He created the universe and we say, look at me. I went to church on Sunday morning.

Look what I've earned. God. Oh, we can't boast before God. Sure, if we compare to people, but to God. And so Abraham can't boast before God, and if so, if if Abraham can't boast before God. And Paul makes that clear here. Right. And maybe he went down the other path, the path of faith, where boasting cannot take place.

And then to see if this is true or not, he turns to Genesis 15 and he reads it, that Abraham was not justified by works. No, it says that he believed, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. It was accounted to him. Here we look at God's account ledger that God has a ledger before us where we see the idea of accounting.

And if we go to the next slide, we'll go ahead and see that. And we've got a few options here. Right. It starts off as we look at Abraham's account ledger that he was unrighteous. That's true for all of us, isn't it? Paul told us in Romans one he talked about sin and ungodliness. He talked about unrighteousness. That is the result of sin in all of us.

Sin. That's the the negative balance in all of our accounts before God. And so let's say that we were to try to put something into that account, to get to get a credit, to get something in for our behalf. Right. And we were to do it through works. So we put in some works. Well, where is our account balance going to stand after we put in our best effort at putting in all of our works?

Still unrighteous. And if you don't believe me, look at Paul himself. No one in this room worked harder than him. He studied the scripture day in, day out. He even went so far as to persecute Christians for their terrible beliefs. But what did all of his work get him? Just more unrighteousness. It got him sin. He got became self righteous, and he turned from God in his effort to earn his own salvation.

But Abraham was different. Abraham believed all Abraham had was faith in God, credited him. He accounted to him. He imputed is the kind of the big word. We'll also see here into Abraham's account. Righteousness. Not because he earned it, because it was freely given. That's what we see in Genesis 15, describing Abraham's righteousness. It was a gracious gift of God.

How did David become righteous? (Romans 4:5–8)

But what about David? Because, you know, there's more than one person in the Old Testament. How did David become righteous? We see this in verses five through eight. But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. That idea that we've just been talking about. Right. Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes, or he gives or accounts.

It's the same word righteousness apart from works. And then he quotes the psalm here blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute, or to credit or account sin.

We have this idea again of wages and gifts. We have two ways to be credited with things from what we've earned, our wages that we can boast about, and that are due us. You say, God, you owe me this because I've worked. Where will that take us? And then we have this idea of free gifts. I love pastor and his children's chat.

He was talking about the the chores that kids do. We talked about dishwashers. Caleb looks really confused. See, it's like, I think, like a few months ago, we're driving down the road and I said, let's just use the dishwasher. And he said, what's that? What's a dishwasher? So, you know, it's that machine that you put the dishes in and you hit the button and it just runs.

Said, oh, I thought that was a drying rack. That's Asian joke. If you've never been to an Asian family, we don't really use dishwashers. And so that one would have made sense to him, Pastor Ernie. But the idea does right that we work and we earn things. That's one option. The other option is gifts. Things freely given. And Paul wants us to know that when it comes to our relationship with God, the gift is where God has chosen to give us righteousness, not through what we've earned, but through what he gives.

Because that's God's gracious character. That's who God is. You see, Paul, Paul points us to David because David gives us the flip side. Abraham was a counted righteous. He had righteousness given into him. But what did David receive? He received forgiveness, paid in full. Blessed are those whose. Did you catch? What he didn't say? Blessed are those who earn forgiveness by following the law.

The David have said that. Would he have enjoyed that blessedness if he was held responsible for every sin in his life, and then tried to make up for it through his works? I don't think so, but that's not what he said. He said, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven.

Because the blessed hope that David had, and he found in Jesus, or he found in God, later exemplified by Jesus, is forgiveness of sins that his sins were paid in full by a gracious God. For us too, when we place our faith in Jesus, our sins are forgiven in full. There, paid in full. Has anybody ever been at a restaurant with someone else?

And you went to pay for the check? And the waiter said, that's already been taken care of. Have you ever had that experience? I have, I really enjoy it. It's quite, quite a blessing. And you, you feel bad, but you also feel happy at the same time. You know, I didn't earn this, but that's not exactly what David's talking about.

He's talking about this same idea, but much bigger. Think more that if you were at the hospital and there was a life saving procedure, and there's no way you could afford it, it's not covered by insurance and you don't have the money, and you go up to the desk and you want to plead and beg and just ask for mercy.

And as you arrive at the desk, they say it's been paid in full. That procedure is going to happen. That's closer to the mark, because it's a matter of life and death when it comes to our relationship with God. And when we turn to Jesus in faith, our sins are fully paid by Jesus. They're paid in full. And so we look at Jesus account.

What does God account?

God could count what we've earned. Our sin against us.

But instead, he counts what Jesus has done to us. He doesn't count what we've earned. He counts the gift that God has given. Righteousness in Jesus.

What about us? (Romans 4:4:19–25)

And we'll see that the way this is achieved for Abraham was through faith in God. For David was faith in God. But what about us? What about us? What is our standing before God going to be based on?

And for that, we're going to turn to Romans 419. I'm jumping over several of the verses, and the big idea that I'm kind of skipping over is the idea that Abraham, had this relationship with God before circumcision, before the rules of Judaism, that Abraham represents all people. This is for everyone, Jew and Gentile alike. And then in verse 19, we we continue hearing about David, Abraham's faith and how it applies to us.

And not being weak in faith. He did not consider his own body already dead, since he was about 100 years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb, he, Abraham, did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God and being fully convinced of what he had promised. He was also able to perform, and therefore it was accounted to him for righteousness.

Listen to this. I love these verses. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in him, who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offense and was raised because of our justified vocation.

Abraham was in a difficult situation. He had two things before him. On one hand, he had God's promise to bless him not just with a son, but with more descendants and the stars in the sky. But on the other hand, the reality of his own body, that he was 100 years old, that his wife was barren. How would God keep his promise?

If it was through Abraham, he was as good as dead when it came to having children. But Abraham believed. Did you notice what you believe? He believed in the seed, the descendant that God had promised. And he believed that God could bring life out of death. Isn't that exactly what we're called to believe in as well? In the seed, the promise descendant, Jesus Christ.

And aren't weak two to believe in resurrection from the dead. And he placed his faith and trust in God, and that was accounted to him as righteousness. And then the thing that I just love so much about what Paul does. He's not one of those people who ignores the Old Testament. He says that the Old Testament, this passage in Genesis, it was written not just for his sake, but for us for our sake.

So that we could come to God that the Old Testament promises are made for us today. You see, if Abraham received righteousness by faith, it was written for us, because how can we receive righteousness by faith? And then he shows us where that faith is placed. As we look at Jesus ledger, it drives it home. This is in the final verses here, and it talks about what Jesus did and what it does for us that Jesus died on the cross.

You see that he was delivered up. Why? Because of our offense. That we could be forgiven. Jesus died on the cross so we could be forgiven. And he was raised up for our justification. That is so we could be made right with God. And so when we place our faith in God, who is raised Jesus from the dead, we experience that same justification, that same right relationship with God.

We started with Jonathan Edwards. He was talking about sinners in the hands of an angry God, and he was inviting his congregation to reflect on God's wrath and righteous judgment. But I want you this morning. I want to encourage you to reflect on God's amazing grace, his huge grace that all of us can have a relationship with him through Jesus Christ.

Life can get shaky sometimes, can't it? Amen. And this is not just something that affects a certain age group. Like we've got some young elementary kids in the room. Does life ever get hard, do things? Unexpected happened? Is life get shaky? Sometimes kids? Yes. Y'all have it pretty good. I'm happy. But it does get shaky, doesn't it?

And you may think I'll grow out of that, but what about in retirement? Does life still get shaky in retirement?

Yes, it does, it does. And all throughout life, there are moments where it gets tough. There are moments where it gets difficult. There are moments when it is shaky. And I had. A literal experience of that. Not too long ago, I was driving down the road in my truck, and right as I got up to 55mph, suddenly everything started shaking all over the place, so I had to slow down.

I took it into the shop. My CV axles had gone bad, so it's in the shop most of the week and I go to pick it up, I think. Yes, it's fixed. I turned the key check engine light pops on, not vibrating anymore, but another day, another problem. And you know what's great about cars is when the check engine light goes off, when something breaks, usually mechanics can fix that.

They can figure out what's going on and fix it. But that's not true for all of life, is it? Sometimes it's not so easy to diagnose. Sometimes it's not so easy to fix that. Sometimes when life gets shaky, it can be challenging to to go through. How do we have peace in those moments? Because after all, there are no warranties to replace broken relationships.

There are no diagnostic codes when the world around us just feels like it doesn't make sense. And so as our lives get shaky, how do we have peace? Because the Bible talks about peace a lot. Do you know what Jesus said? He said, peace I leave with you my peace. I give to you. Paul often talked about peace right into the Philippians.

He said, do not be anxious about anything. And when he was writing to the Thessalonians, he said, May the Lord of peace himself give you peace. Listen when always. And how in every way. That's a promise with peace. But how do we get them? How do we live in that peace? How do we experience that peace in the midst of a shaky world, a fallen world marred by sin?

If you're struggling with that this morning, if you're showing up and you're saying amen to all of this, you know that. Yes, that that's how the world is it. It's it's shaky and I would like peace. How can I get it? I have good news first that we can have peace, that peace is possible. And second, that you're not alone and struggling.

That when Paul wrote to the church in Rome, he also wanted them to have peace because they also struggled with having peace. And so as we turn to Romans chapter five this morning, we're going to see how Paul answers, how we can have peace in the middle of this story. But before we go to God's Word, let's open with a word of prayer.

Heavenly father, we thank you for your love and your peace this morning. We may have troubled minds, distracted minds, so many things to focus on. Some of those are problems, but others are good things. But it's difficult to sit still and listen to your word. And so we pray, God, that your Holy Spirit is at work, calming our minds, opening our hearts to you.

We pray that as we turn to you, we can understand your word better this morning, that we can live it out more faithfully in our lives. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Well, it seemed like an ordinary day for Christian when she went into work at the bank that morning. Clocked in and started working. She's expecting it to be like any other. She was going to help the customers when they arrive, do the stuff, have lunch, go back to work, and then clock out 5:00 or whenever. As usual, seemed like an ordinary day until the man burst in the bank, armed to the teeth, yelling at everybody to get down.

It was a bank robbery. I see somebody who works at a bank is saying, I do not like this story. Don't worry, this is an incredibly famous bank robbery. And I think all of you have probably heard of it. Maybe you haven't recognized it yet just from the name Kristen right now. Why is this bank robbery so famous?

It's not famous. Thank goodness for our bank workers in the house. It's not famous because any of the hostages were hurt. The four hostages were held captive for six days. Can you imagine that? Six days held captive in a bank as the robber is are negotiating with the police now? It wasn't famous because it was so tragic. It wasn't famous because it was such a wonderful plan.

You know, the type of thing they make movies about Ocean's 11 or something very complicated. Fancy bank robbery. Nothing like that. It was a rather, poorly planned bank robbery that did not turn out well. And it wasn't famous because the robbers got away with a great score. They took all this money and they left the bank. They were arrested and went to jail.

So why was this bank robbery so famous? Why am I so certain you have heard of it?

Because these four bank workers in Stockholm, Sweden, sided with their captors. Instead of wanting to be rescued, they were on the robber side. And even after they were set free, even after they weren't being held in the bank anymore, did you know that some of them went and visited and maintained a relationship with those robbers?

This shocked the psychologists. It shocked the people in Sweden, but around the world they said, why is this happening? They came up with a name for it, the Stockholm Syndrome. Right? It was surprising. Why would anyone ever want to go back to captivity?

But of course, if you've been reading this scriptures, you see that that is human nature.

After all, that captivity can leave a mark, and it left a mark on those bank workers, but it leaves a mark on all of us. Think about the people of Israel when they were rescued from slavery in Egypt. They've been slaves for 400 years. They cried out for freedom. And as soon as they got into the wilderness, what did they do?

Grumbled, complained. It would have been better to die in Egypt. Well, at least in Egypt we had food to eat. Different than just this manna we're getting every day.

They wanted to go back to slavery.

And what about us? After being set free from slavery to sin, aren't we tempted to go back to that sin that has enslaved us?

But God calls us to live a new story that salvation is not remaining in sin. It is starting a new story, living for God, not going back to our slavery.

That's exactly what Paul speaks about in Romans chapter six. As we turn there to see how Paul shares with us how we can live a new story in Christ, we will see exactly that the call to live in Jesus.

But before we turn to Scripture, let's open with the word of prayer.

Heavenly father, we we confess that we do sin, that we do turn back to sin even after all the grace you have shown us. Lord, we confess our sin and we again turn to you in grace. God, we pray that you open our eyes to the ways that we have turned from you. We pray that you open our eyes to the meaning of your Word as we study it this morning, and we pray that you open our eyes to how you would lead us and use us for your glory.

We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.

A New Story Cannot Stay the Same (Romans 6:1)

Please take your Bible and open it up to Romans chapter six. And if you don't have a Bible with you, there should be some and the pew racks in front of you the black books. And we'll be in Romans six, and we're going to be looking at the the first 14 verses together this morning. We're going to start with Romans six one.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

Paul is coming in with a hard hitting question. Isn't he?

He says, what shall we say? This is an expression that he has used earlier. It's There's two big phrases Paul uses after he makes a theological point. One is therefore, therefore. So you'll say, God has done this.

Therefore we can have this attitude. We can think that. But another one is, what shall we say then previously he said, what shall we say? Then Abraham found out, right? It's what shall we say that Scripture says about this theology? But this time he takes an implication of what he's been saying about God's grace. And he says, what shall we say then?

Shall we live in sin?

You see, Paul has been talking about three things law, sin, and grace. As we look back to what he's been talking about, we see those three ideas law, sin, and grace.

Here's the idea that he's sharing with us that the law increases sin, but that sin increases grace. In fact, he's just talked about this a few verses earlier and chapter five, verse 20. So whenever you see therefore, or what shall we say, you need to look a little bit back to see what he's been talking about.

And here's what he said.

He said, moreover, the law, the law entered that the offense sin and the punishment of sin might abound, that it might be there more might be more of it. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.

Do you get the picture?

The idea is this that we have sinned against God and the law rather than eradicating sin. It revealed more ways that we fall short of what God calls us to think about Paul's life. Right? He had the law and he tried to follow it. But all that did for Paul was point out all of his weaknesses. In fact, he sinned using the law against others.

And so his sin grew. But when he was forgiven because of how big his sin was, God's grace was even bigger.

This is true for all of us. When we realize the reality of our sin, we realize how much we truly need God's grace.

But Paul notices that his audience may have noticed a, I don't know, a pushback, a challenge, an issue that comes up if we are saved by grace and not works, if the law does not stop sin, but it grows sin. And if grace is the answer, when sin grows more, what is stopping us from sinning?

You see, there is a huge challenge. Isn't grace risky?

Isn't grace risky?

I don't know if you've ever, thought about the classroom and the importance of discipline, but imagine. And sometimes we see the fruits of this. In reality, when you take out discipline and there's no opportunity for discipline, what is to help things stay in line? They're going to go out of control, aren't they?

So what happens when we're saved by grace and not by our works?

Well, wouldn't that just be a license to keep sinning? In fact, you could even stand on the high ground. Well, you know what? The more I sin, the more grace God's giving. Look what a good thing I'm doing.

Paul is noticing that when you talk about salvation by grace, not by works, that we have this risk of saying that sin doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you do, because what you do is not what saves you.

Isn't grace risky? That's the question Paul is asking. What shall we say about grace? Should we keep on sinning?

But then he goes to give us an answer. He's going to tell us that no, we can not say the same. He tells us a new story begins with Christ and following Christ. We are not to remain where we were, but we are called to something more.

A New Story Begins with Christ (Romans 6:2–7)

Let us continue as we read verses two through seven, he answers the question.

Certainly not how shall we, who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death, therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, even so, we should also walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.

Paul asks, shall we continue sinning?

He didn't really need to answer this. It was a rhetorical question. The answer is obviously no when you phrase it like that. Right? Well, shall we keep sinning? Of course not.

But just to be clear, he says, certainly not. Certainly not.

We can't keep sinning because God's grace has freed us from sin. It is freed us from being captives to sin. In fact, we are called to be dead to sin. We are called to be dead to our old man, our old self that was captive to sin.

Notice the language that the Bible uses about sin. It doesn't say that we take a time out from sin. It doesn't say that we break up with sin.

What does it say we die to sin. We die to sin.

Now can a dead man challenges eviction, right? No.

When you die to sin, it is a permanent cut off. There's no reason to continue to live in it that we have died to sin.

And then Paul gives us a lesson from baptism. He talks about how we are baptized into Jesus, and he uses the very phrases that we use in baptism.

And so as we pull up this next slide, we will see kind of two images going down and going up right now I'm going to encourage you, if you're here this morning and if you have been baptized, I encourage you to reflect on your baptism. Just as Paul is calling the church to reflect on their baptism, to reflect on the words that were spoken. The meaning of it may be to remember that moment where you gave your life to Christ, to remember that baptism.

And if you're here this morning and you've never been baptized, or maybe you were baptized, as an infant. But this picture that we see here was not something you experience. If you've never been baptized, I would invite you to experience that. Now, you don't have to wait if you've given your life to Christ, if you believed in him, speak with me after the service today and we'd be glad to have you baptized.

But consider the words of baptism. And we say this every time we do a baptism.

As you're going under the water, we say, buried with Christ in baptism.

It comes from this passage right now, the idea that Paul is making crystal clear is that we are joining Jesus in death and baptism, and we're experiencing the power of his death on the cross.

But we are also, in a sense, dying. Not physically, of course. Right. We're not dying physically in baptism. We are dying, we might say spiritually to our old self.

We are dying to sin. We are dying to the power of sin in our lives and the the sin that controls our body. We're saying, I am dying to that, but we don't stay under the water.

Aren't you glad of that?

This is an important picture in baptism. You only stay down for what would you say 25 seconds past earning?

No, I'm just kidding. It's like half a second, you know, you just go under the water and then you come back up.

We don't remain under the water. We are raised.

So we say buried with Christ in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life, that when we are saved, we are not saved. So that we remain in the old life.

We are saved so that we are raised into new life, that God is gloriously raised. Jesus from the dead. But that's not the end of it.

God is gloriously raising us, not just in the future when he returns and we're raised to new bodies. That's true. But he's raising us to new life today, that we can live for God in our lives, that the power of sin doesn't control us, that we are raised to actually walk in new life from the moment that we have received Christ.

That baptism is a picture of that very thing. It's a physical picture of a true change that has taken place in our hearts, where we have died to sin and we have been raised with Christ to walk in newness of life.

As we continue, Paul is going to expound on this idea, showing how a new story leads to new living.

A New Story Leads to New Living (Romans 6:8–14)

Let's continue in verses eight through 11.

Where if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God.

Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, that you should obey it in its lusts, and do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

For sin shall have no dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace.

He's come full circle, right? Shall we sin so that grace will abound? We know he's made such a strong case about why we shouldn't sin, and he comes back to grace again.

Paul calls us to identify with Christ, to be united with Christ, to identify with who Christ is, the natural way.

What we've read about in Romans earlier is that by nature, we all identify with Adam. Do you remember how Adam sinned? And as he sinned, death came into the world?

Well, since Adam's time, sin and death have reigned. All humans have sinned, and all humans have experienced death. Sin and death have reign since Adam. As we are in Adam, we are held captive to sin and to the power of death.

But now, believer, as believers, we have a choice not to be an Adam in our old self, but to be in Christ, to be united with Christ, to identify with Christ, to identify with Christ's death on the cross. That just as Jesus died once for all, we too can die to sin.

Jesus death is to defeat sin, and our death to our old self is for the purpose of sin and our life also being defeated. That Jesus lived a perfect life and died in our place. He he paid the debt we couldn't pay.

And yet, as we are united in him, we find not only that our sin is forgiven, but that it loses its power and grip on us, not because of us, but because of Jesus and His power.

Now what does it mean to die? To sin?

It means to say no to it. It means to. Not put our desires, our lusts, as it says, our desires for thing which are wrong, which are sinful, to put those as Lord in our life, but instead to put that part of our self to death, and instead choose Christ.

We're not just identifying with his death, we're identifying with his life. That just as Jesus was raised from the dead, we too are raised to life. It's the same idea that we saw in baptism. And he's continuing to say that if Christ has been risen from the dead, we too can rise in Christ.

And so with this picture, we all have a choice. And the question is who will you serve?

And the choices start between the two serving sin or serving God.

Until Christ's return, we are all in our fallen bodies and our bodies. Impulses are still there.

We continue to rely on God's grace, but we have a choice each day. Who will we serve? Will we serve sin or will we serve the Lord?

And Paul makes it clear kind of what these action steps are to be in verse 13 tells us one thing not to do, and two things we should do.

He says, do not present your members. That means your body parts right, like all the different parts of your body. Do not present your members as instruments for unrighteousness.

So first, when sin calls you to duty, don't report.

When sin calls you to use your hands for the wrong things, to use your eyes for the wrong things, to use your ears for the wrong thing. You don't have to report. You're no longer in sin's chain of command. You can say no.

That's step one. Say no to sin. Don't report to sin.

But second, he doesn't stop there. He doesn't doesn't just say, don't do this. He says instead, do this.

Do not present your members as instruments for unrighteousness, but do this instead. Present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead.

So offer yourselves to God as a life.

Do you remember Lazarus? Jesus raised him from the dead. And what did Jesus shout into the tomb? Lazarus. Come forth, Lazarus, come forth!

He was to come to Jesus and present himself alive before Jesus. And what did he say to Lazarus about those burial clothes? Keep them on. Take them off.

Present yourself alive before Jesus.

That's what we are called to do. To present ourselves alive before Jesus.

And what about our bodies? What about our members? What about our actions? Listen to this third thing he says.

So you said, present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness of God.

He's saying, offer your bodies for God, not for sin, for God.

Think about it. Think about the members of your body, your hands. Use them for God. It was such a blessing. Today I got to see this all over the place. I walked into the lobby. What did I see? I saw our children passing out bulletins with their hands. We started the music and Hillary walks up and uses her hands to beautifully direct the ensemble.

As we're singing, we're following along to Chris, wonderfully using his hands to guide us. There are so many ways to use our hands for God's glory. Present your hands to him.

What about your feet to go where God would take you? We had Chaperons go with the youth on a trip to down the river just yesterday. God can use our feet to take us where he would have us.

What about our mouths? We can speak to God's glory, lifting up praises to him, singing out to him as you did so wonderfully today, sharing God's love and grace and mercy through our words with others. Sharing the good news of the gospel.

What about our ears? We can listen for God's voice. We can listen to God.

What about our eyes? We can look and see others with the grace and love that God has as well.

Present your members for God.

And so it's tempting, of course, for all of us to be like those bank workers and to to go back to our captors, to be like the people of Israel, to long for those days in Egypt, in captivity, it's tempting for us to turn back to sin, but Christ calls us to something far grander and better, to give our lives to him and to live a new story in the power of Jesus Christ.