{"id":22983,"date":"2022-09-08T22:00:17","date_gmt":"2022-09-09T05:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/romans-6_1-11-copy\/"},"modified":"2022-08-15T12:15:48","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T19:15:48","slug":"romans-6_12-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/romans-6_12-23\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m Under New Management"},"content":{"rendered":"

Romans 6:12-23 Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Romans 6:12-23.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Romans 6:12-13 (ESV)<\/strong>
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 12-13:\u00a0 In Romans 6:1-11 Paul was saying that we don\u2019t want to use God\u2019s grace as an excuse to go back to sinning because our very reason for believing in Jesus was that we could experience a new life in Jesus.\u00a0 With that in mind, Paul says in verse 12, \u201cdon\u2019t let sin therefore reign in your body\u201d (v12), for we are under new management, Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Jesus has dethroned sin as the master of our lives.\u00a0 So instead of offering ourselves to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, we want to offer ourselves to God as instruments for righteousness.\u00a0 In other words, we\u2019re not living for sin anymore, but we\u2019re living for God.<\/p>\n

Romans 6:14 (ESV)<\/strong>
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 14:\u00a0 What does the first half of this verse have to do with the second half?\u00a0 What does \u201csin having no dominion over you\u201d have to do with you and me not being \u201cunder law but under grace\u201d?\u00a0 \u00a0When you\u2019re living under law, i.e. when you put your hope in your own ability to keep God\u2019s commands, that\u2019s when sin can really start to have dominion over you.\u00a0 That\u2019s because sin and living under law have one thing in common:\u00a0 they are both at their root self-centered.\u00a0 But when you live under grace (that is, when you live remember that it is only because of Jesus Christ and His undeserved kindness that we are saved) the focus is not on yourself but on God, and thus you give God, rather than sin, room to reign in your life.<\/p>\n

Romans 6:15-16 (ESV)<\/strong>
\n15\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
\n16\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 15-16:\u00a0 Here Paul gives another reason why we don\u2019t want to use God\u2019s grace as an excuse to keep on sinning (the first reason we summarized with verses 12-13):\u00a0 by continuing to sin, we are effectively offering ourselves as slaves to sin, when in fact we belong to God.<\/p>\n

Let me put it this way.\u00a0 Remember that slavery in Paul\u2019s time was a form of employment.\u00a0\u00a0If I am working for a certain boss, it would be wrong for me to secretly go and work for my boss’ competitor even while my own boss is paying me to work.\u00a0 In the same way, as a Christian, your boss is God, God’s competitor is Satan and both God and Satan are in the business of gaining souls.\u00a0 God and Satan are competitors, enemies in fact.\u00a0 How wrong would it be for me as a Christian (whose boss is God) to simultaneously work for my boss’ competitor, Satan.\u00a0 But that’s exactly what I do when I go on sinning deliberately. \u00a0 That’s another reason why we should not go on sinning intentionally even if we know that God is forgiving: \u00a0If you go on sinning intentionally, you’re betraying your boss.<\/p>\n

Also, by the words \u201cwhich leads to death\u201d in verse 16, Paul is alluding to a third reason why we should not treat God\u2019s grace as an excuse to sin more.\u00a0 We\u2019ll cover that third reason when we look at verses 19-23 below.<\/p>\n

Romans 6:17-18 (ESV)<\/strong>
\n17\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
\n18\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 17-18:\u00a0 Verse 17 tells us that when we trust in Jesus we undergo a change of heart such that deep down we really do want to please God.\u00a0 We have, in the words of verse 17, \u201cbecome obedient from the heart\u201d.\u00a0 In addition to a change of heart, we also undergo a change of employment where we are no longer legally under sin\u2019s control; rather we serve a new boss, who is Jesus, our righteousness, and thus we are now \u201cslaves of righteousness\u201d (v18).<\/p>\n

Romans 6:19-23 (ESV)<\/strong>
\n19\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
\n20\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
\n21\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
\n22\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
\n23\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 19-23:\u00a0 Here Paul gives us a third reason why we don\u2019t want to treat God\u2019s grace as an excuse to keep on sinning: it\u2019s because of what persistent sinning turns us into.\u00a0 When we treat God\u2019s grace as an excuse to sin, we become controlled by lawlessness (that is, a calloused heart where we live as if there is no law) (v19), shame (v21) and death (\u201cfor the wages of sin is death\u201d \u2013 v23).\u00a0 But when we offer ourselves to God as His servants, the fruit we bear is the opposite: we experience \u201csanctification\u201d (v22) (i.e. we become more like Christ in our values, our perspective, our character and our conduct) and \u201ceternal life\u201d (v23).\u00a0 The fact is that continuing to sin versus offering ourselves to God will lead to two very different destinies and destinations.<\/p>\n

Father, thank You that I am under new management now.\u00a0 I\u2019m done serving my old employer, sin.\u00a0 I\u2019m retained full-time to work for Jesus, my righteousness.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Romans 6:12-23.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Romans 6:12-13 (ESV)
\n12\u00a0\u00a0Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
\n13\u00a0\u00a0Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.<\/p>\n

On verses 12-13:\u00a0 In Romans 6:1-11 Paul was saying that we don\u2019t want to use God\u2019s grace as an excuse to go back to sinning because our very reason for believing in Jesus was that we could experience a new life in Jesus.\u00a0 With that in mind, Paul says in verse 12, \u201cdon\u2019t let sin therefore reign in your body\u201d (v12), for we are under new management, Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Jesus has dethroned sin as the master of our lives.\u00a0 So instead of offering ourselves to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, we want to offer ourselves to God as instruments for righteousness.\u00a0 In other words, we\u2019re not living for sin anymore, but we\u2019re living for God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22983"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22987,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22983\/revisions\/22987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}