Romans 6:12-14 ( NKJV )
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, 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 not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
We have been identified with the death burial and resurrection of Jesus. The first step to walking in righteousness is to accept that as the reality of our lives. Yesterday we learned that we need to “reckon” or consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. This has a twofold application. On the one hand, when temptation comes, we need to attack it with the fact that dead people can’t be tempted. On the other hand we are not only dead to sin but alive to God. This gives us access to the power of God to overcome anything in our lives that hinders our walk in the power of righteousness.
Today I want to begin to discuss the third step Paul presents in Romans 6. Once we have done our reckoning we then need to cooperate with what we have reckoned. Paul tells us how. Do not let sin reign in your mortal body. How do we do that? By presenting or yielding our bodies as instruments of righteousness to God and not instruments of sin.
Now it may seem that we have done all this talking about grace and righteousness by faith alone only to find ourselves right back at the law. If it is up to us to make sure sin is not reigning in our bodies, isn’t that law. Doesn’t that mean we are really not right unless we change our behavior? No. There are two differences between Romans 6 and a righteousness based in law.
First, a law based righteousness requires that you keep the law to be right with God. Paul is saying that we can be free because we are already under Grace. We behave as we should because we already are righteous. I am not creating righteousness, I am responding to it. Why is this difference so important? Because the law approach depends on us, the grace approach depends on God. I am already in right standing with Him so I am free to live above sin with the knowledge that if I should fail it will not make God declare me unrighteous.
Second, Paul is not talking about resisting sin at all. He is talking about yielding to God. This is a totally different thing. When we are resisting sin, sin is our focus. Paul is saying that the focus of our righteous walk should be yielding our members to God. Overcoming sin is a natural by product of that.
The old King James version uses the word “yield” as opposed to “present” which is used in the New King James. Both are good words. When you present something to another you are transferring ownership. If I present my members, my body, to God I no longer own them. I think the word yield might carry a stronger picture. To yield implies we are giving up. We are surrendering to God. It also means we are giving what is due. God has purchased your body with the blood of Jesus. We need to give him his due.
In either case we are to make our focus allowing God to have control over our body as well as our soul. One of the issues with this thinking is the human tendency to believe we are in control. In the rest of this chapter Paul gives us an insight we need to heed. We will be controlled by one thing or the other. If we don’t yield to God and righteousness we automatically yield to sin. It is interesting to me that people who most loudly proclaim their independence are often the most controlled by one sin or another. So I ask you, Who or what is in Charge of your life.
Tomorrow; how to yield to God.
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