Lesson 22c
Romans 6:12-17 · Courtney Hemenway · Nov 18, 2018
Romans (2018-21), No. 43
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261912597710

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right, we can continue with Lesson 22. We will be done today. We will be done today. So we got through, so it's Roman's class, Lesson 22. And maybe I'll do it. I know it's somewhat frustrating with the time frames that we have, but I would like to do this just because We get so focused many times on specific verses or even words and that kind of stuff, so I always like to try and go for the passage. So I'll quickly read the passages that we're going through, which is Romans chapter 6, verses 12. 12-18, I'll just read it real quickly, just to give the overall context of the verses we're looking at. So, Romans 6, 12-18.

Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you may, so that you obey its lust, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be. Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness? That thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. And having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

So, we're basically starting out in verse 14 now. In question 6. So, how do the last nine words of verse 14 change good conduct? So, verse 14. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. So, I guess the key is, and this is one of those sayings, you're not under law, but under grace.

I go back to, again, that Romans is a foundational book for the Christian. And this is one of the key elements right here. Remember, we've just gone through the early part of Romans 6 about our co-crucifixion. We're wrecking ourselves dead now, alive unto God. This is another very key element, I think, to Christians and Christian growth.

You know, I go back on some of what Ingrid had on some of her, in one of her other Bible studies, and going over some of the teaching leaders there and all that, and just the thought of, you know, the law is not what we should be following. It's holy, it's righteous, it's great. Why shouldn't we be following the law? The Ten Commandments, shouldn't that be on the refrigerator door? Shouldn't that be what we follow and all these laws and all these good laws? It was very difficult to go and discuss some of these things because the vast majority of believers still follow this.

Remember that Alabama judge? Roy Moore, who fought and he got kicked out of being a Supreme Court Justice because he was adamant about having the Ten Commandments in the courthouse. I still remember there was a guy who, I can't remember his name, he was a famous journalist and believer.

Our friend, the driller, knew him and introduced this to him at the National Prayer Breakfast. And I remember he had a thing out there, and it was very enlightening. He said, we should be getting as far away from the Ten Commandments as we can. You know, and it was like, hmm, interesting. But I think he understood, we're not under law now, we're under grace. And it's a real foundational thing. So what I want to do is, what was the law meant to do? Cause sin to abound? Cause what? Sin to abound? Heresy! What? Law to create sin? What was it supposed to do? Anybody else?

Yes. It was like a mirror so that they could see their scent. Ooh, a mirror so they could see their scent. I like that. So, it was a good thing, right? Sure. Crickets. Was it a good thing? Yeah. Yes. Yes? It had a purpose. It had a purpose? I think the operative word there is had. What is that? Past tense? It's a tutor.

Galatians 3.23 and 24, which everybody forgets verse 24. So, foundational. This is again the beginning of this. We are not under law. That just shakes a lot of foundations of Christians. But when you look at what scripture says about it, it's very, very definite what the law was meant to do. Isn't it fulfilled in our mortal bodies? Who fulfilled the law? Christ. How did he do it? How did he do it? He died. He died to it. He fulfilled it and he died. So what does death mean?

Separation. Separation. Are we under that again? No. So, this is really hard for a lot of Christians to get a hold of. They always want to go back to a law base. And I always go to that, if you really want to go back to the law base, who are you following? The devil. No. The old man. The old man. The old man wants to go back because he wants to do something. He wants something to do.

Under the law you had to do stuff. Under grace, are you required to do anything that's merited? No. Are you about ready to explode? Do you have a comment? I can't hear you. I'll speak louder. So, look at some of these verses and then tell me about law and what it was meant to do.

Romans 3.20 For through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Romans 4.15 For the law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there is no violation.

Romans 5.20 The law came in so that transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

Romans 7.5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused of our body to bear fruit for death. So, do you think it was a good thing in verse 14 that we are not under the law now? And we all said, yes, yes, that's a good thing. But go out to 80% of Christian believers now and they want to put you right back under the law. It is incredibly freeing to be under grace and not under law.

I think it was Galatians 5.1. Stand, stand in the liberty, the freedom you have in Christ, in grace. Don't put yourself back under a law system. And when you realize that you want to do something or you want to be put back under a law system, that is the old man, the old flesh. Because the new person in Christ is not under the law. Doesn't need to do anything other than simple faith. So the old man is. The old man is the one who is driving that, wanting you to do something. He's the one under the law. Yeah, well, it's according to the flesh. Now, we'll get to that, actually. So, let me go on here.

So, from Wiest it says, many honest souls cannot believe that obedience to God can be secured in any other way than by law. That's prevalent. They say, set a man completely at liberty and you cannot control him. That's what most people feel. But, consider, no human being has ever really been controlled by the principle of law. Do you agree with that?

I thought it was fulfilled in us. Christ fulfilled it. In us. Christ is the one. Now we have in him, not in us, in him. You can't bring it to you. It's positional. He fulfilled the law. He was perfect and he died, separating us from the law. We have new life. Again, nobody has ever been really controlled by the law.

It's always, you're struggling, and all those verses, remember what they're meant to do? Bring out wrath, to excite it, to identify it, to do all these things. That is so contrary to common Christianity right now. That is so different. I think that's one of those challenging things. When we talked to the ladies at the other Bible study, they just couldn't get a hold of that.

Even though you lay out all these verses, and we'll see again, and remember, this is the foundation, this is the beginning of it. You'll see it again in 7, and in Galatians all over the place, that we're not under law, we're under grace. But people hold on to the law, and that's the old man struggling to give himself worth.

Because under grace you don't have to do anything. Just believe. Simple faith. So, I ask this question. Has anyone been saved or been baptized into Christ by the law? No. No. So, right there is the difference. Nobody has come and been saved by the law or placed into Christ by the law. The laws, we're now not under the law, but now what are we under? Grace. Grace. So what is our definition of grace?

You guys have to know this one. Right there. Cheaters! Cheaters! Yeah, it's unlimited and unmerited. Those are blessings Unlimited and unmerited blessings by God, based on what? Our work? Christ. Okay? So, do you have the same unmerited condition under law? No. No, you're always required. If you do this, you get this. If you respond in this way, this will occur. You know what that reminds me of? What? The gerbil cage wheel. They're on that wheel.

Well, it's worse than that. It basically is a system that basically almost encourages sin. It's like, I equate to this when you read some of these verses. What is your first impulse when you see, don't touch, wet paint? first impulse, immediately, your first impulse is, well, that to me is the epitome of what these verses say. There's that elephant.

There are some things too that I think, going back to Bill Gothard. Bill Gothard had a thing like, how many people when you were driving felt sometime that you You wanted to steer off the road or into the traffic or something. And I was like, what? And a lot of these people were like, whoa.

But you want to break the law. And it's this thing that encourages you to sin. And you can see it in a lot of different things. Tell a child anything. Don't touch, it's hot. don't play with the electrical outlet. But don't we all have to learn the lesson? Well, under the law system you learn the consequences of that. So when I was about 10 my mom and dad drove us up to Barker Dam and I remember looking down this huge cliff and I just had this I confess, I've had those too, where I'm up in some place and it's like, you know, it's just, and that's, you know, it's like, don't do it. We had, did we have, did you have something to say? Don't think of a pink hippo. Yes, so what is your first impulse? A pink hippo. Exactly, don't, which means exactly the opposite you're going to do.

Exactly. Right there he is. All of those things perfectly show what these verses say. But now we're under grace. And that's a totally different animal. That is totally different. There is no merit. And that's the key. And that's the thing that you can tell between, I think, the old man and the new man is that the old man is always struggling to do something and wants to be put back under this law system because that gives him worth. But in the new man, there's none of that.

It's by faith. That's how you live your life and we'll see is the motivating factor. So, from Wiest again, walking by the Spirit who indwells us takes for us today the place that observing the things written in the law had with Israel. We serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter. This is grace as a controlling factor. Grace is so dynamic that it can control us to not be under our own efforts under law, to control the sin nature in us. So again, I think the question was, what are the importance of these nine words? One, we're not under law, but two, we're under grace and what that means.

So how do we get out of the law system? How do we get out of it? By faith in Christ. But how do we get out of it? By faith in His cross for us. But what does that mean? Believing that we already are. But there's a... What happens? We've already had this in the first part of Romans 6. I switch places. How do we get there?

Die. Die. It's the only way to get out of the lost system. Dead. I brought this up last time. If you are walking down to death row and you collapse and have a heart attack and die, do they still strap you in the chair? You're free from the law at that point. You died. You're done. You don't have to pay the penalty anymore. You've been separated from the law at that point.

So, same with us, once we die, once we're co-crucified, that's the whole crux of this, is that once we've done that, we've been separated from this entire law system. That was with the flesh and with the old man. Now, we have a new man, and that's under grace.

So that's a, this is again a very foundational thing because how many, you know, I guess the thing we always say is when you go into a bookstore, what do you normally see? Self-help. Self-help. What you can do to get better. And what is that? Is that what we should be doing is how we can help, how we can get out of this? What we can do? to get out of this?

It's all appeals to the old man. It's all to the old man and that's what I'm saying. I think the foundation of this is very critical because if you don't understand that you're always trying to find a new solution. My confession is, before really coming here and understanding the identification truths, I was in that boat. I was in J.I. Packer, knowing God, what you had to do to know God, I would say in a porpoise-driven life, and the prayer of J-Bez, and think of all the different programs that are out there. And there's always a new one coming out. Well, if the first one was the end-all, why do we have 150 new ones? They all fail. And why do they fail?

They're human-based, flesh-based, old man-based. They're not under grace. And that's what, like I said, this is very foundational, this is the beginning of it. You're not under law, you're under grace. Key to the beginning of spiritual growth and maturity is to understand that. Because when you want to do something, that's the old man. It's by faith. I just have a question. Is it enough to be separated from the law? Enough for what? For the Christian to understand that they are separated from the law. Well, I think it's what we've just gone through.

What do we go? Reckon yourself dead. What's the second part? You tell me. Consider yourself alive under God. It's a two-part thing. Yeah, you can be dead, but the other is the recognition of we're alive. What did he do in verse 14 right now? We're not under law. Dead. Now, alive. What? And we're alive under grace. Same thing.

He just laid out two basic principles. Reckon yourself dead and alive under God. Now, reckon yourself not at all. You are not under the law. It's a fact. And then now you're under grace. Same as what he just said. Second question. Oh, you only get one. Okay. Where does faith fit in the principle of law? Probably not really as much faith in law. There is no... It's a... It's merit-based, so it's not faith. It's all merit-based, so there is no faith other than faith in that you think, if I do this, I'm going to get this. But it's all merit-based, what you do.

Now God declares repeatedly that we have been removed from under the principle of law in Christ's death. And now being under grace we bring forth fruit to God. We serve in newness of the spirit, which can only mean that the very spirit of service, which is personal devotion, animates the believer. But we really have no hope for any person's willingness or ability to see the power of this newness of the spirit plan, this love plan of God's, until such a one has seen and believed that he died with Christ, that he was so bad that his entire old man was sent to the cross to be crucified, so that now he is married to another, to him that was raised from the dead, that he may bring forth fruit unto God. foundational. Wrecking yourself dead, alive under God, not under law, under grace now.

Key bedrock principles that have come out here. So again, as we do this, as you go through all of his epistles, we'll expand on this, on these two basic principles. So, seven, does grace have the power to control our behavior as believers? Stunned silence. So let me put it this way. How about these? Is this correct? Is this a great assumption or not? Law is the only way to control conduct. For society, the answer is yes, because every human has a sin nature. Laws are the divine method to keep men alive. The assumption is that the law is the only way to motivate conduct.

Is that correct? Do I need to read it again? Anybody chicken? Anybody brave enough to say that's true or false? Is that true or false? True. I'd say for the unregenerate people they need laws and they need policemen and God provided them. Okay. What about believer, unbeliever, believer? It's only by grace and Christ living with them that gives us the power to be. for him to work through this and do this, right? Okay, how about this one? Grace has no power to motivate or control. True or false? False. Freedom from the law equals freedom to sin. May it never be. May it never be.

Exactly. Paul lays it out very specifically in that. If we're under grace, can I sit like crazy now? It's like, you know, unlimited speed limit. I can go as fast as I want. May it never be. But you can. You're able. Yeah, you're certainly able, but that is not what we are to do. Even though it says grace abounds, where Sanic is, grace abounds all the more, significantly more.

So, when the Saint obeys the instructions laid down in the verses relative to the adjustment to the evil nature and divine nature, Paul says the sinful nature will not exercise lordship over you. And he gives the reason. You are not under law but under grace. To be under law refers to an unsaved person who attempts to live in obedience to the law of God. This is to your question. To be under grace is to be a saved person who has been the subject of the surgical operation in which the power of the sinful nature has been broken and the divine nature implanted. So again, death, life, not under law, under grace now.

We're saying if grace can be a controlling factor in Titus 2, 11 and 12. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age. So grace has that effect. that to deny ungodliness and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age. So grace can motivate. Grace is a motivating factor in conduct. We don't need to be under a law system. Grace is a motivating factor.

So, question 8. What is the question? Now, you have to get this one. Somebody has to get this one. This one is like a question with only one answer. So, what is the question in verse 15? Somebody read it and then give me the answer. Romans 6, 15. What then, shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be. So what is the question? Oh, should we sin? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? No. Absolutely not. that I get questioned about several times. We're not under a law system so, Yahtzee! What I've seen about grace is much more about it. If we go back to our grace class, some people forget about our grace class, that may it never be. that you do that, you sin because you're not under the law system, you're under grace.

And we have a whole bunch of principles to live by that he's laid out as a believer. And we'll see this through the epistles that Paul lays out, a lot of principles we are to live by. Not laws, some commandments, but imperatives, logical imperatives. So if you're a believer, you should be like this, logical imperatives.

But, there's principles laid out and you are to be under them, under grace, through faith. So, when some go crazy and say, oh yeah, I'm free, you can't tell me that because I'm not under law, I'm under grace. Again, there are principles that you still have to live under. So, the question is, shall we sin because we're not under law? What's the answer, question nine, what's the answer to the question?

May it never be. And if this isn't emphatic, it's like, you know, no, no, no, no. Don't do this. That is completely wrong. May it never be. Where sin abound, grace did much more of that. We'll get to that. But the question was, now that we're under grace, we're not under law, can't we go crazy? It's best to stay on the law. Well, it's beyond the grace side and I'm a new man. When we're under the law, if we get out from under that, the general perception is that we can go crazy and we're not. We now have the very life of Christ.

So how do we know how we're supposed to live? I gave kind of the answer last time and his head exploded. What are you supposed to do? How do you know about what you're supposed to be like and how you're to manifest your life? the spirit. What do you do?

Yeah, you walk in it, but we have the facts and the tracks and the whatever thing. There's a little switch there. You need to know something first and then. Facts first. But what do you do to know how you live? Read the Bible. But what are you doing on that? I can read the Bible all day long. What are you focusing on? On Him. That's the key. As you focus on Him and know who Christ is, and you read the scripture to know Him, that's who you are. Your very life is in Christ. So the key is to spend time in the Word looking at who Christ is, because that's who you are. And then as you know who you are, as spiritual maturity and growth comes, you begin to manifest that character more and more.

And so when you want to sin under this, no, that's not who I am in Christ. That's not who Christ is. That's not who I am. John 1.9, confessing that's not who I am in Christ. So may it never be is that I now know who I am in Christ. That doesn't even make sense to me to do some of this stuff. As you grow, you become more, that's not who I am in Christ. I don't want to do that. And that's the growth. But you need to understand who it is, this separation. You have to know that as a foundation.

So, the answer again is no, and no indeed. It's further answered in verse 16. Do you not know that when you present yourself to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? So again, the options for life in Romans 6, 16, know you not that you are, if you follow that sinful one, who are you obeying? Christ or the old man? When you sin and you go after that, who are you following? The devil. Your sin. Your sin. Your sinful flesh. Okay? Yeah. So I think here there's a There's a beginning of an understanding to answer your question, well what do I do? And I think what we're told here is about viewing ourselves as servants. So man was never designed to be an independent free agent. He always was to be serving someone or somebody or some system. And the epitome of sin is that I'm free to do what I want. Well, a believer is free to do what he wants. The issue is, like you say, through the studies of work, he wants to be under Christ. That's where he wants to be because he's most comfortable there. This is a better way to say it, I think.

But there is this issue of who's going to control me. The idea that my obeying crisis is something that I'm going to do so that he'll enable me to get along, it's not it. There's a, I don't know if it's a revelation or just a realization, but I must put myself consciously in order for him to control me if I'm going to be free from the law. That's the information that I have. This yielded thing is a really interesting thing because I, as a believer, that's where my choice is. I get to decide who controls me. I don't get to decide to control myself because as soon as I do that, sin has got a hold of me. It's kind of the switch that Hal used to have. Can you serve two masters at the same time? It's only do one.

And so you're either a slave to your old man or you're not a slave anymore, you're being freed from that. Your conscious choice is to not recognize who you are in Christ and go back to the old man and the calling of the old man. And I think as you grow in Christ, that's when you become less and less drawn to the old man, and more and more drawn to who you are in Christ. And that's the spiritual growth and maturity. As you start realizing really who you are in Christ, that's the key.

That's the one you want to follow. That's the one that is important. Yes? I was thinking, one of the, part of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. So how would you explain that? Well, what is, and who's the one doing it? Christ in me. Who are we talking about in that? The Spirit. The Spirit. The Spirit is the one that exercises the control.

So, and the fruit being all of those things, but self-control is one of those, but that's His job. It's to provide the self-control in us. That's the fruit of it. When we walk with Him, we walk in the Spirit, are we exercising, will He exercise control, self-control on us? If that's a fruit of the Spirit? Yes. We are exercised thereby. Well, if we're walking, and the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. So, if we're walking in the Spirit, are we choosing things that are of the old man? No, the control would be, we're focused on Christ.

And that's where the joy, peace, all those, the other parts of the fruit of the Spirit are. I would say, too, right here, there's a tendency sometimes to think, well, I have a new law, and the law is that I've got to be moving that switch, that I'm the determiner here, which I am, but the walking in the Spirit is not my saying, well, I'm moving the switch over to the Spirit side today, or maybe not. The deal is, who do I yield myself to? That's the deal. It's a continuous thing, but there's an understanding there that if you walk in the spirit of waves, and then you start to come out and walk in the flesh, it begins to be increasingly abhorrent to you to do that.

Well, that's why I think, even though you don't like this, but these are emotional things, joy, peace. So as you walk in them, you have that peace. And when you return back, you lose that peace and the joy and all that stuff. And so you realize as you grow and you walk, there is more peace, joy and rest in walking with the Spirit. As you turn back and go back, you don't have that. And I think as you get further in your walk, I think you start to understand that.

It just doesn't feel right. The spirit isn't giving me that joy, peace, love, all those things. I think you'll suddenly realize that. In the process, I've learned enough about the tenets and principles of grace that I like them. They do motivate me. They do keep me track.

You know, and the other thing, it still falls back to this bedrock principle. Weaken yourself dead and align unto God. It still goes back to this principle that we just learned. And I was wondering if the key there isn't you don't walk in the Spirit to make it so. You walk in the Spirit because you believe that it's already who you are. That goes back to faith. You believe it.

That's the overlying thing in grace, is faith. If you don't believe it, are you going to do it? Do we put on Christ? Put on Christ? Yeah, I mean, it's I think that reckoning yourself aligned unto God. That we are in Christ. I think of it as that there is a mortuary. It's not like a crown or a robe. It's a life. Remember that. It's not just a covering. It's a life.

Kind of piggybacking off what Mike is saying, I think it's interesting where you're going with that because we sometimes think that our will sits in a neutral spot and we decide, hey, today I'm going to choose to walk by the same nature and tomorrow I might choose to walk by the Spirit. And so I'm going to sit back and kind of analyze the situation and make a decision at some point as to what I'm going to do. But there's no neutrality of the will. It's always yielded somewhere, either to the sin nature or to the new nature. And that just brings an interesting perspective on, you know, oftentimes I think as believers we think we're kind of floating in between the two. You know, it's kind of like, I really haven't made a decision yet, so it's not my reality today until I actually where I'm tempted, or I'm frustrated, or maybe I need the Lord because of something, and now I have to get out of the neutral and get it in dry, right?

One or the other. But there's no neutrality there, and it's also interesting, you've been talking a lot about motivation, and that on the sin nature side, on the law side, all of that motivation is based on avoiding condemnation. I want to avoid getting a spanking. I do not want to undergo some kind of condemnation because the coppery fist, there's going to be consequences. So that's my motivation.

And then like you said, you've been talking about spending time with the Lord through His Word, and under the grace side of things, that entire motivation is based on the thankfulness of what He has said is true of us. And we talk about in our house just this attitude of gratitude. That is grace. That attitude is an extension of recognizing who you are, and under that grace system, It's all gratitude.

It's all thankfulness. And it does motivate in an entirely different way from the contrast of, I'm going to get in trouble, which is law, right? Yeah. It doesn't motivate that way. No. But you're not neutral. You're always being motivated by one of those two sources, right?

And I go back to, and I want to lay that out, one of the verses I really like, 2 Peter 3, 18. Grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. They go hand in hand. grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ. So grow in grace, understand that principle, the reigning principle which we live in right now, that's the operating system we live in right now as believers. But then grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because again, the key is you know who Christ is, you know who you are. And when you're floating down the road, you begin to manifest Him in everything you do. It becomes the flavor of your life. It's because you know who you are in Christ. And it doesn't fit when you do something. That's not who I am in Christ. So grow in the grace and knowledge that go together. Okay, quickly, 10, as I see Brian heading out to ring the bell.

What is the difference between masters and servants? When is a pastor and the others a preacher? Wow, I don't even know how to answer that one. What does a master do? Gives orders. What does a servant do? Obeys them. So, the cross says you don't have to present yourself to sin nature anymore. There are no in-betweens.

So again, the master and the servant now. So again, can we have two masters at one time? No. You can't serve two masters at the same time. What would happen if you served two masters at the same time? What would be a logical problem with that? Why? What would happen if you had two masters?

You can't do both. Yeah, what if one says go left and the other one says go right? What do you do? You're a servant to both, right? You head forward. You can't. And if you're a servant to one or the other, you have to obey the master. So you can't serve both because there's inevitably that conflict. So you only serve one master. Let's see here. So again, the concept again is that you can only serve one master at a time. And if you're a servant, you're obeying one master.

And again, are we serving the sinful flesh as our master or Christ in righteousness? The two masters, you have that ability to be under either one. And what did we get when we got the co-crucified life? What did we get with that? Freedom. Freedom from that master. We've got freedom from that. We do not have to obey that master. So now we have a new master, Christ. That's the one we serve. Alright,

11. There are two results in verse 16. What are they? Verse 16 says, Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? So, what are the two results?

Death and life. Death and life. You present ourselves to sin, the sin nature, or present ourselves to God? Life and death. Reckon yourself dead or reckon yourself alive? Guess what? That same principle keeps rolling through this whole section. Life and death. Okay?

Newell puts it this way, although we cannot free ourselves or change our own spiritual condition, the great fact of human responsibility is plainly written here. God, who would have all men to be saved, is always ready to have them present themselves to Him, and it is by means of the gospel that we do so, whether to take our place as sinners in the first instance, or after we have believed, when we present ourselves to Him and our members as instruments of righteousness." So he was willing, going to the cross, Christ, and now he's willing as we present ourselves to Him. And we will get to question 12.

What does it mean, but God be thanked that you were slaves of the evil of teaching into which you were handed over? What does that mean? We can read it in verse 17, but thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. And having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

I think it's interesting in that verse that the phraseology is that we were handed over to a teaching. The teaching wasn't handed over to us. We were handed over to it. Which is interesting. So the teachings of grace we have been handed over to, which eliminates this idea that, well, I get to decide. No, I was handed over to this teaching. From God's perspective, that's where I am and where I belong. Well, I think we go back into, in Romans 5, we were baptized into Christ, and the last part of 5 is what? What is the reigning principle now? It's grace.

We've been placed into this. Handed over to. Placed into. So it's now a different situation that we have been placed into, which is really good. We don't have to earn it. We don't have to do anything. We've been placed into this system of grace. That's why I keep pounding on this thing about God's in control and what? He has an eternal love for us. He's placed us into this grace system. Above all, that is a demonstration of love that is indescribable. that we've been placed into Christ, into this operating system of grace by which we have unlimited blessings. Unlimited blessings. Do you feel that way? Do you understand that you've been, and we see in Ephesians, that we've been blessed in the heavenlies with all spiritual blessings? Not a bad place to be. Not a bad thing.

So again, the thought again that we've been placed into this system of grace. What a great place that is. JD will be up next week. Let's close. Heavenly Father, we thank you again for the scripture that you have left with us, the incredible truths as we realize that this isn't the graduate level class of who we are in Christ. This is the bedrock. This is who we start out, that we have reckoned ourselves dead and alive unto you.

And what that means, and the great separation that happened as we are co-crucified with Christ, and what that means right now that we have been separated from the old man, we do not have to serve that master. And that is such a freeing situation that we now don't have to serve him. We can freely, under grace, serve you. and to be obedient to you under the operating system of grace, which is not merited. There's nothing we can do.

Everything was accomplished on the cross, and we thank you for that, that now we live in this incredible system of grace that is unlimited and unmerited blessings. And we thank you for that, that we've been placed into that, handed over to, and what that means to us on a daily basis. And let each and every one of us just focus on your son through your word and just to become just engrossed in who Christ is and Again, just that that overwhelming understanding that we have been placed into Christ and as we study Christ That's who we are and we thank you for that We do thank you again just for this time to study your word now as we go into the next service We just pray for burn as it brings us the word and yet just prepare hearts to receive it. We thank you in Jesus name Amen