Die to Live

Continuing our study of the letter to the Romans, we begin the year by carrying on with a very, very powerful teaching. And I want to remind the brothers and sisters, as well as the visitors, what the heart of this letter is. Thus far, we have seen the Apostle Paul show us one thing: man, woman, the human being, cannot save himself; he needs a Savior, and that Savior is Christ Jesus.

In the opening chapters, Paul devotes himself to showing that the unconverted, the Jews who are the people of God—and today we might say Evangelicals or Catholics, or any Christian—no one can be saved by their own works of righteousness. All of us, he says, fall short of the glory of God because we have sinned. No human being can be saved by himself, and that is why God has provided Christ Jesus. Salvation is by what? By grace, by God’s generosity toward us. When a man or woman understands that they are incapable of saving themselves, embraces Christ’s work on the cross of Calvary, and says to the Father, ‘Father, I believe that your Son is the Savior of my life and of humanity, and I confess it with my mouth,’ the Lord says, ‘All right, my child, there is now no condemnation for you; now I justify you.’

And then the Lord credits righteousness to us, credits holiness to us, settles our debts, and we are right with God. That is why the Apostle Paul says later, ‘...There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.’

Why does he say that? Because when you are in Christ, there is no longer any condemnation. Christ canceled, it says, the record of decrees that stood against us on the cross of Calvary. The devil can no longer accuse you. Your works can no longer prevent you from entering the Kingdom of God. God now says to you, ‘I receive you as my child.’ You receive what kind of papers? Adoption papers into the Kingdom of God. Say amen, if only to encourage me a little. Glory to God.

You receive a birth certificate that says, ‘This is a new creation.’ You receive citizenship papers better than those of the United States. You become a citizen of the Kingdom of God through Christ Jesus. And that is what Paul says.

First, he paints a very dark, very gloomy picture. No one can save himself; everyone has sinned. But then he says, ‘You know what? The solution is Christ Jesus.’ Grace, forgiveness, mercy—simply connecting oneself to the blood flowing from the side of Jesus Christ. That is the mystery of the Gospel.

And then Paul elaborates on all of that in different ways: it is by grace. Now in Chapter 6, as the accomplished theologian and highly consistent thinker that he is, he qualifies what he has just said and anticipates a logical error that some may very conveniently make. He, as I would put it, gets ahead of that error and immediately neutralizes it, and Chapter 6 is devoted to pointing out what that error is.

Let us move ahead in Chapter 6 to verse 12. These verses, 12 or 13 through 14, summarize, in a sense, the whole of Chapter 6. It says: ‘...Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey it in its lusts. Nor present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not have dominion over you, since you are not under the law, but under what? Under grace.’

Let us always remember that, brothers and sisters. We are not under the condemnation of the law; rather, we live under the grace of God. Now, do you know what the problem is when that is often said in churches? We always tend to go to extremes. The doctrine of grace is one of the most beautiful doctrines God has given the church. The doctrine of grace takes the pressure off us. The doctrine of grace invites us to rest in God and in the works Christ completed on the cross of Calvary. The doctrine of grace removes that sense of condemnation and insecurity about our eternal salvation and about our depending on the ups and downs of our works and of our humanity, which is so prone to betray us again and again.

The doctrine of grace removes fragility from the doctrine of salvation. But do you know what the error can also be? Very often, we can become so enamored and excited by the idea that I am saved by grace that I forget that God also expects me to live in holiness.

How many say amen to that? And that I must be obedient to God’s commandments. The doctrine of grace does not neutralize the doctrine of holiness. What the doctrine of grace says is this: God saves you freely. Now, once you are saved, he expects you to live in holiness.

That is, God justifies you so that you may sanctify yourself. Some people think that one first has to become sanctified in order to be justified. And there are many churches that go to the opposite extreme and say, ‘You have to live a proper life,’ and everything is law, everything is commandments, everything is, ‘You have to do this; you have to do that; you cannot do this; you cannot do that.’ And people sometimes get the idea that they have to take action so that God will save them, that they have to live well so that God will save them. And the doctrine of grace reverses the order and says, ‘No, you have to be saved and then live well.’ Or it also says, ‘Because you are saved, you must therefore live according to God’s commandments.’

And what Paul does in Chapter 6 is try to maintain a balance between the two doctrines. The church’s failure to understand this has led the church of Jesus Christ throughout the centuries to tremendous extremes. I believe that today, in the twenty-first century, part of the problem with many Christian churches that are very merciful and theologically advanced is that the pendulum has swung too far toward grace. Then everything becomes acceptance, love, tolerance, and not mentioning sin very much so that people’s lunch after the service is not spoiled and they do not leave the church, because if they do leave, then they will go to hell.

And so there is a kind of fear of talking about sin because they are afraid that, if they talk about sin, they are neutralizing the doctrine of grace. What God wants is for us to maintain a healthy tension between the two: to understand that our salvation does not depend on our works, but our works express our salvation. Do you understand? The two things are joined together.

Look, for example, let us consider light. Light is energy, and inseparably joined to light is the driving away of darkness; one goes with the other. Light implies driving darkness away. There cannot be light if there is darkness, right? Because wherever there is light, darkness flees. It is the same idea. If you have the light of salvation within you, that means there cannot be darkness that contradicts the presence of the light in you. Many people say, ‘No, I am saved. I am saved by grace,’ but their lives do not reflect it. Their lives are darkness. So the Bible says no.

That is why Paul says that faith without works is dead. It is not that he was saying works are what justify faith or make it possible. But he is saying that wherever there is true faith in God and in the word of God, if there is no action that demonstrates that faith, then there is a lie there. For example, he says you cannot say to a person who is hungry and naked, ‘Brother, I love you very much. God bless you. I am going to pray for you,’ while you have fifty dollars in your pocket and do not give him even ten pesos to buy a meal and a coat, or whatever, right?

He says, ‘No, if you have love, your love will overflow into action, because love is not something that simply exists in theory. Love manifests itself in some way.’ And that is true.

So you have to bless that person with mercy, with action, covering him, providing for him, showing him love. It is the same with grace. If God has saved you, if God has touched you, if God has infused his Spirit into you and you are now a child of God, it is not possible for you then to live practicing sin and enslaved to it.

Now, he is not saying that you must live an absolutely perfect life, because no one can live such a life. But he is saying, ‘Your life cannot reflect a pattern of sin. Your life cannot reflect a hardened conscience that sins without restraint and feels no pain, fear, or anguish over that sin. Rather, your life must reflect loyalty to the holiness the Gospel requires.’

And that is why Paul, in Chapter 6—look at how he begins by saying: ‘...What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound?’

That word continue is very revealing, because it means, ‘Shall we remain in sin, live in sin, persistently practice sin, let sin define us?’ That is the idea of continuing.

So that grace may abound: why is he asking that question? Wherever you see the word then, it generally means that he is referring to something said earlier.

Look at what verse 20 of Chapter 5 says; look there for a moment. It says, ‘...But the law came in so that sin might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more.’

Paul is saying something here that is absolutely essential for us to understand. It is one of the elements repeated several times throughout the Bible, and it is this: Why did God provide the Jewish law if he knew that the Jews would ultimately prove incapable of living according to the law, as indeed happened? He had to exile them; he had to remove them from their land because they were incapable of living according to his commandments.

What mattered to God, brothers and sisters, was not—by the way, it was not as though God was surprised one day and said, ‘Goodness, these people, this nation that I raised up—I expected them to obey me, and what a surprise it is to discover that they are misbehaving.’ No. God had—remember that God’s plan is an eternal plan, from eternity to eternity. Nothing takes God by surprise. Everything that has happened in history, God has planned and anticipated. God established the law to establish what I call a legal precedent for all humanity.

He took Israel as a microcosm of humanity. Israel was like a representative of all humanity, just as Christ is the Son of Man who represents all humanity in his sacrifice on the cross. And when Christ died on the cross, all humanity was dying with him—listen to me on this. In what sense? In the sense that he was bearing in his body the entire death of all men who deserved death because of their sin. He bore it on the cross. I believe that potentially, in potentiality—and I hope the theologians here, such as Dr. Edwin Villafañe and Gregory, will not accuse me over this afterward—but we could say, and I am not going to insist too strongly on this, that in a judicial, potential sense, on the cross Christ was potentially bearing all the sins of humanity—present, past, and future—because he was the Son of Man, and he represented the death of a humanity that deserved to die.

Now, Israel, in that judicial sense, I believe, exemplifies humanity, and God was creating a universal, judicial precedent through his dealings with this people. He gave them the best possible conditions: his word, his Spirit dwelling within them; he raised them up as a people. And then he established a host of commandments, laws, precepts, and moral principles and told them—or said to himself—‘Now let us see whether they are capable, as a microcosm of humanity, of living according to those principles.’ And evidently they could not. He knew they would not be able to, because he was already thinking ahead to the future, when by grace he would forgive humanity.

And this people whom he raised up under the best conditions and to whom he provided every opportunity to live according to his commandments failed completely. And by extension, then, he could say, ‘Now no one can say that they can live according to my commandments. All have sinned; all fall short of the glory of God.’

God is a being who thinks judicially, legally. He established a legal, judicial precedent through Israel and prepared something so that he could then do what? So that he could save all humanity according to grace.

Allow me—I have said something very serious, and now I am going to substantiate it well, since I do not want you to think that I am showing off as a theologian here. Look, for example, let us see; I am trying to find some passages here that can help me explain this better. Let us go to verse 29 of Chapter 11 of Romans.

It says, ‘...For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you also were once disobedient to God, but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so these also have now been disobedient, so that through the mercy granted to you, they too may receive mercy. For God subjected everyone to disobedience. For what purpose? So that he might have mercy on everyone.’

And look, when Paul begins to think—and there are other verses—when Paul begins to think about how complex God’s saving plan has been, about all the things God has done throughout history, and how he has arranged things so as to bring the human race to a dead end, where they would have to admit it, let their arms fall to their sides, and say, “Surely, I cannot save myself by my own deeds.”

When Paul contemplates the complexity of God’s plan of salvation, verse 33 leads him to marvel and make a declaration of amazement, and he says:

“...Oh, the depth of the riches, of the wisdom of God, and of the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways.”

In other words, that God would come up with such a complex judicial plan in order to do one thing at the end of it all, and that was to show his grace and his mercy.

One of the things Paul traces throughout the entire book of Romans is that idea, and we also see it in the Book of Ephesians. Everything God does throughout humanity is simply for his glory. He has arranged all things so that it will be evident that he is the one who saves, not man.

Remember that I have said that God’s greatest controversy is this matter of man taking the glory and not giving it to him. So, through the law, God arranged things to show that it is by grace and not by works. God developed a great number of commandments and said to humanity through Israel, “Let’s see whether you can live by them.”

The law, Paul says, is simply a device; it is a method, an instrument that God has used to point out sin. I was saying to the brothers and sisters this morning: think of a STOP sign on a street. Think for a moment about a street where there is no STOP sign, and you travel down that street every day, and since there is no STOP sign, you simply go through that intersection and there is no problem. But one day, the city decides to put up a STOP sign, and you, as happy and carefree as can be, keep driving, do not see the STOP sign, drive past it, and there is a police officer right behind you, immediately sounding his siren.

How many of you know what I am talking about? You do not have to raise your hand. And you say to the police officer, “Well, I’m sorry, officer; I didn’t see the sign. I’ve always driven through here, and I never saw a sign.” The police officer says, “No, wait a moment. From the time that sign was put up and you failed to obey it, you have been breaking the law.”

The Bible says that where there is no law, there is no sin. And God used the law, brothers and sisters, to establish transgression. The law was not God’s ultimate purpose for saving humanity, because he knew that they would not be able to do it. The law was simply an intermediate step, and God gave the Jews and the human race STOP signs everywhere. You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not eat this; you shall keep the Sabbath; this, that, and the other. And everywhere he put hundreds of STOP signs, and who can say that at some point in life they have not run a STOP sign? Always. We have all done it.

And Paul says, “That is the law’s only function: to show humanity that they cannot save themselves.” And then he can present himself as the great Savior, the one who rescues humanity on his white horse and says to them, “I know that you cannot do it by yourselves. Now enter into the grace that I have prepared through my Son Jesus. That is the work.”

Now, notice that. It says here that when sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. What happened? When man was already lost in his sins, as Ephesians says, then God’s grace was poured out abundantly upon humanity. The rain of blessing and forgiveness that fell upon humanity was far greater than the number of sins humanity had committed.

The second Adam—notice why Christ is called the second Adam. It was as though the human race were represented in him, just as the first Adam represented the first human race, and through the sin of one man, the entire race, because he exemplified the race, was cursed. Now, through the obedience of the other, the second Adam, humanity was potentially blessed, but with a greater abundance of blessing than the curse that came through Adam. That is in Chapter 5. Read it, and give glory to God for that blessing that is in Christ Jesus.

Paul says again and again that the richness of the plan of salvation through grace is far greater than the curse of living without Christ Jesus. We enter into God’s blessing. So, although there was sin, although the law served to point out all the sin that existed in humanity, God’s grace was much more abundant.

Now, what happens? There are twisted minds out there that were saying, “Wow, let me see: if, when sin abounds, grace abounds all the more, then let’s sin more so there will be more grace.” How convenient! Right?

There were people who thought that way or who could think that way. Or there are others who would say, “Well, since it is by grace, then that means that what I do does not matter.” And there are people who have fallen into that error, people who are very God-fearing and very learned in the study of the Word, who say that if you are saved, you will be dragged in headfirst. They become so radical—and this is a contradiction that cannot be resolved in hyper-developed Calvinism—because there are many theologies that teach that if you are saved, you cannot be lost; once you have accepted Christ, and if God wants to save you, he will shove you headlong, as we Dominicans say, into heaven, even if you do not want to go, because he decreed it.

To me, that is an error, because there is always this matter of that call, that inescapable call, that yes, salvation is by grace, but with God’s help you must live a life that demonstrates that you truly are saved. And you cannot cling to the fact that it is by grace and therefore go on sinning. I believe there are many evangelicals who make that mistake, and we live careless lives, brothers and sisters. And perhaps here among us there may be some who are so conscious of the aspect of grace that we forget that God expects us to live in holiness, to live in surrender to the Lord.

Could someone turn it down a little bit? Your earphone may be a little bit too high. Would you lower it a tiny little bit? I’m just hearing some translation. Can you lower it, Sharon, just a tiny little bit? Just a little bit so that we can... Okay, great! Just, whoever—I am so sensitive to sound many times that... maybe I’m the only one here. But thank you; forgive me for clarifying that... Anyway.

Again, brothers and sisters, let us be careful not to grow careless. God is calling his people to be more careful than ever. The devil has been unleashed upon humanity as never before. Satan has been given power in this culture as never before to snatch away lives. The power of sin in the twenty-first century, I believe, is far more searing than at any other time in history, even in the Roman or Greek Empire or even when the world lived in paganism. Because it is tremendously sophisticated sin. It is sin accompanied by the power of reason, which can resist and deconstruct God and dismantle him, and turn God into an electrochemical impulse in the brain.

Nowadays, man has acquired a capacity to explain everything and reduce everything to the electrical, the chemical, and the biological, so that he can even make God himself vanish and can justify his sin in terrible ways.

Nowadays, we have rational, philosophical, theological demons that have penetrated humanity. And nowadays it is more dangerous than ever to walk in the world. Jesus said that in the last days things would become so difficult that God would shorten the days of the great tribulation because otherwise no one would be saved, brothers and sisters. God would shorten those days of sin.

And it is true: nowadays we must entrust ourselves and our children every day to the mercy and protection of God, because there are lions out there that want to kill, steal, and destroy the soul. And unless we live sober and vigilant lives, we are not going to win the battle.

The Word says, “...be sober and watchful, because your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

The Word also says, “...work out your salvation”—how?—“with fear and trembling.”

And that same passage says it elsewhere—right there, in that very passage, it is talking about how God is the one who does the work and this, that, and the other—and it says, “...therefore, work out your salvation.”

There is a contradiction there that is part of what we are talking about here. God wants us to lose what is called in English the “baby fat,” the innocence that we so often have as Christians. And I believe there are many people who come to church each day and every Sunday but do not understand how serious it is to walk in the Gospel, and that it is a matter of sobriety, of being careful about how we walk before God, of being careful about the openings we give to Satan’s tempting, destructive work.

If there are areas in your life that are open to the enemy’s attack—if there are areas of your life, your conduct, your thought life, your behavior, your relationships with others, whatever it may be, secret practices that we have—I beg you in the name of the Lord: close those doors as soon as you can. Because we have an enemy who never forgets any debt and who can often wait days and days, and even years of sinful practices, before one day drawing profit, with interest, from those areas.

And the Apostle Paul says, “Do not allow it; do not persist in sin, even though you have received grace from God.”

Let us go back to verse 12; I am coming in for a landing now. Let us go back to verse 12 in Chapter 6. I believe we can better understand what it says here in verse 12 of Chapter 6: “...therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its lusts...”

There is an important word here, “reign,” and another word, “obey.” The person who submits to sin, the person who practices sin, makes sin his king and becomes a slave to sin. The devil makes great use of a very large trap that he continually sets for us, and that is believing that if I simply slip away once in a while, or commit a little sin here and something there, I can live with impunity. The Lord says that when we sin and practice sin, sooner or later sin ends up possessing us, lording it over us.

And God says: you are free. Christ has set you free. Do not let sin—do not let anything—lord it over you except Christ Jesus and God. Every human being has one of two beings to serve: either they serve God or they serve Satan; either they are slaves of Jesus Christ or they are slaves of the devil; either they are slaves of righteousness or they are slaves of iniquity.

And God says to us, which of those two kingdoms do you want to serve? Evidently, the Christian is called to submit to the Kingdom of God, to the Spirit of God. Let us be careful. I believe that one of the problems with this culture is precisely that many people are bound. We are bound to so many things. The problem, for example, with the homosexual world is precisely that they entered that world, practiced the sin, and when they have wanted to leave, they realize that they cannot, and then they say, “See, I can’t. So that means it is something genetic. I was born this way.” Why? Because it is easier for you to say that than to struggle against sin. A moment comes when you say, that’s it; if I submit myself to this struggle, I am going to die, so I had better accept it and immerse myself in it.

And that is why, for them, the idea that a person can leave homosexuality—wherever the term “ex-homosexual” is mentioned, these people react like a horse that has been jabbed with a spur. Why? Because that tells them that what they are living is a lie. They need to believe that this is what they are, because they are enslaved. So when there is someone who has freed himself from it through his struggle and whatever else, that contradicts their idea. Why? Because sin is often so addictive, brothers and sisters, that when we want to get out of it, we discover that we are trapped inside it.

That is why I tell young people, for example: young people, if you have, for example, visited a website—and I say this because it is something that is affecting young people so much—the Internet, for example, pornography is destroying young people on the Internet; it is destroying men too, and women are becoming more addicted to it every day. If you have never done it, do not try it, because you can become trapped in it. If you have never engaged in any sinful behavior involving improper practices, then it is better not to do it even once. If you have not tried a marijuana cigarette or a stronger drug, do not do it, because many times you become trapped, and then sin reigns over your life, establishes itself, takes possession of you. And if you are involved in it, do not submit to it; do not stop fighting. Seek help; talk with someone you can trust. Expose yourself in an appropriate way. Talk with a pastor, talk with a mature person, and force yourself to come out of hiding.

One of the most powerful things for breaking the trap of sin is to expose oneself, to bring it into the light in some way and talk about it. That is why Paul says, “...confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed.”

One of the strongest ways to break the trap is to humble yourself. How humiliating it is to say, “I have sinned,” before another human being! But that is the beginning of healing: living transparent lives and seeking help from God. Praying, confessing, crying out to the Lord.

Brother, let me tell you something: the only thing God looks for, I believe, is inner conflict so that he can cover us with his grace. When there is inner conflict and a person is struggling and desiring to please God, for that person there is no condemnation, I would say.

Look, what God does not want is a person who keeps sinning and sinning and feels no compunction, feels no pain, feels no repentance, and is not trying everything possible with the help of the Holy Spirit. But if you want to please God, mercy and grace will be there with you always, working with you, helping you, carrying you forward. In other words, do not give up the fight.

Many are battling different things. God says, “Son, daughter, what I want is for you to seek me, for you to trust, for you to acknowledge your sin, for you to take refuge in my grace, for you to seek help, for you to speak to others, for you to seek the resources that are in my kingdom, and I will be with you. And in that battle I will glorify myself. In that struggle I will instill in you the things I need to instill.

The Apostle Paul struggled with things within himself whose nature we do not know. He says that God sent him a messenger of the devil to humble him, and three times he came before the Father saying, “Lord, deliver me from this,” and what was the Father’s answer? My grace is sufficient for you. Why? Because my power is made perfect in weakness.

He meant to tell him, “Look, I am not going to take that away from you even though you want me to, because my grace is at work in it.” So if you have a battle in your life, I am telling you that, paradoxically, that battle is an indication that God is at work in you.

Now, that does not mean you should practice it for that reason, but I am simply telling you that there is mercy, there is blessing, there is hope, and one day the Lord will give you complete victory. The important thing is that you do not give up the battle, do not take your hand from the plow, do not surrender to sin, do not persist in sin. Even in that, God is also glorifying himself.

“...Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, nor present your members to sin as instruments of iniquity.”

Which members? My hands, my eyes, my mind, my body, every part of my being. The word present, “paristemi,” is a very profound word that you will find later in Chapter 12, where it says, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, as a living sacrifice.”

The idea of presenting is like handing over; it is like when a child is presented to God and consecrated to him for his use and under his lordship. That is what we do with our children. And Paul uses that same concept here, that of presenting our life. He says, “Do not hand over your being, do not hand over your body, do not hand over your mind to do things that are iniquitous.”

Brothers and sisters, our life, our body, our mind, and our resources must be consecrated to pleasing the Lord, bringing glory to the Lord, blessing humanity, and pleasing the God who has rescued us. And we have to say, “My body, my life—I am not going to surrender them to the devil. I am not going to submit my life to sinful purposes, because I am a temple of the Holy Spirit.”

What does Paul say, for example, about having relations with prostitutes, as was done in the century in which he lived, with sacred prostitutes and all of that? He says, “You are a temple of the Holy Spirit; your condition is that of an exalted being, of being an angel here on earth, of being an instrument of righteousness. How, then, are you going to bring a negative energy into your body that will cause the Holy Spirit to live alongside sin within you? Our condition, rather, is that of beings who must be used for the glory of God; therefore, we cannot allow our body to be used for anything contrary to what God wants.”

“...but present yourselves to God as those alive from among the dead, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness.”

Why? “...because sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under what? Under grace.”

That word “have dominion” is the same word used for Christ, “ecurios,” the Lord; “ureguei” is the Greek word translated here as “have dominion.”

In other words, brothers and sisters, we have only one Lord: Christ Jesus. The only Lord to whom you must submit and whom you must not resist is Christ Jesus. To every other lord that demands your submission, you must say, “Not here; I serve Christ Jesus.”

Any area of your life that is contrary to the values of the Kingdom of God, any area of your life that contradicts or denies Christ’s lordship in your life—identify it and resist it in the name of Jesus.

Look at how Paul—and I will finish with this—says, “...I will not be mastered...,” First Corinthians, Chapter 6, verse 12:

He says, “...all things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial. All things are lawful for me, but what? But I will not be mastered by anything.”

In other words, do not allow yourself to be mastered by anything in your life that denies the Kingdom of God. And at this point I realize that I have used many illustrations in the area of sexual morality, but let me tell you that this idea of not allowing sin to reign in us applies to every dimension of life. Money, for example, must not reign in the heart of a Christian human being, particularly a Christian—no one, but especially the Christian.... If money occupies the center of our life and we are willing to sacrifice the Kingdom of God for money, to sacrifice the values of the Kingdom of God for money, then money is our king.

If I submit, for example, to a foul and obscene mouth that is always using bad language, then I have submitted to malicious speech. If I am a resentful person and harbor a grudge that I will not let go, and whoever wrongs me pays for it, and I am always judging people through resentment and through the law, criticizing others and all of that, then this contradicts the principle of grace, forgiveness, mercy, and love belonging to the Kingdom of God. Therefore, I am submitting to a sinful principle called resentment, called judgment. And I have to say, “I am not going to allow myself to be subjected to any of those things, because I am free in Christ Jesus.”

Brothers and sisters, let no one say that there is something you are doing, or that I am doing, that we cannot break free from. Everything sinful within us can be brought under the discipline of the Holy Spirit. Say amen to that.

Look at what it says. I am going to find one last passage here that I want to share with you about that very point. Well, you know, it says, “No temptation has overtaken us that is impossible to resist, but God, together with the temptation, provides what? The way out.”

Whatever kind of struggle any of us may have, let us not say, “I cannot break free from that.” No, no. “I was born this way, this is the way I am, and that is that....” No, brother, Christ Jesus has set you free from all bondage. That is why we Christians must aspire to live powerful lives, lives of continual transformation. Whatever it may be, the Lord can overcome it in your life. Whatever the problem, do not say, for example, “I am a depressive person, I suffer from depression, and I am going to die this way after living my whole life like this.” Christ can break the power of depression in your life, because it contradicts the abundant life he has commanded you to live.

Do not say, “I am a person who cannot talk to anyone because I get nervous, and I am no good at witnessing to people.” No, in Christ Jesus you are more than a conqueror; you can do all things through Christ Jesus.

I believe Paul is saying that no negative, sinful principle that contradicts the Kingdom of God should enslave us—nothing, nothing in this world—because we are free in Christ Jesus. And since we are free and have been made a little lower than the angels, how can we submit to the devil or to sin or to anything that contradicts the exalted condition in which we live?

Brothers and sisters, it is an invitation this year not to allow ourselves to live mediocre lives, lives subjected to indolence, to saying that I cannot do this, that I cannot go to church. So many people make good resolutions at the beginning of the year: I want to be a woman of God; I want to bless my congregation; I am going to take a discipleship class; I am going to serve in the church; I am going to help with something in the Kingdom of God. And then two or three months pass, and fatigue, lack of time, work, a failure, or a problem comes along, and we return once again to a mediocre life.

And Paul says, “...do not let sin reign in your mortal body.” Instead, make your members members of righteousness; live positive lives, lives that reflect the glory of God within you. Do not lend your life to anything that contradicts the exalted condition God has made possible in you through grace by means of Christ Jesus. Live a victorious life, a superabundant life, a conquering life. Present your members as instruments of righteousness. Amen.

Let us stand this afternoon. Read that passage, because it has so, so, so much to teach us. God has told us this afternoon, “My grace is simply a starting point so that you may live a holy and powerful life that reflects the values that characterize me.

“My grace is not a license to sin. My grace is a platform so that you, freed from condemnation and uncertainty, may have enough energy and confidence to undertake bold things permitted to no other human being; so that you may conceive lofty visions of a moral, ethical, triumphant life; so that you may dare to aspire to the best within yourself; so that you may not live crawling along at ground level, but soar through the heights like the eagle I have made you to be.

“My grace is intended to allow you to enter into the enjoyment of everything I have for you, not so that you may lie down and sleep and live a minimal life. Quite the contrary, I expect you to live life to the fullest, a life that honors my Son, honors my Kingdom, honors my word, and tells the world, ‘This person is living on a level that is not possible for a human being.’ Therefore, there must be something supernatural there in him or her. And then that people who live at that height because they have been set free by the grace of God will be contagious, irresistible. People will want to come where we are because they will see Christ’s liberating power through us. That is the great struggle of this generation, brothers and sisters: to live up to the Gospel, to live up to the Christ who paid the price.”

And I want to live at that height. I ask the Lord, “Help me, Father,” and I want to have companions like you in that battle as well. Amen.

Let us be a church characterized by ethical men and women, men and women of integrity, men and women who fight the good fight each day. When we get up, we immediately put on the armor and return to the fight. And if we fail during the course of the day, we repent, confess sin, go before the Father, receive healing, take up the sword in our hand again, and press on until one day he finally takes the sword from us and says, “Okay, now enter into my rest.” Amen. In the meantime, do not give up the fight. And that would be the title of this sermon: “Do Not Give Up the Fight.” Keep going, keep going in faith. Do not submit to anything. Do not surrender to anything. Do not admit defeat in anything, because the Christ whom God has caused to dwell within you is more powerful than any inertia the universe may bring into your life.

Father, we surrender ourselves to you once again. We confess that you have called us to live lofty lives, exalted lives, Lord, and we need you. But this afternoon, Lord, we say, “We will not stop striving. We will not use cheap excuses. We will not hide behind your grace. Rather, having been set free by you, we will live lives that exemplify the highest values of the Kingdom of God, that honor Christ Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and that also honor your incredibly complex and eternal plan, which you have devised to save this humanity and bring it to its point of culmination, which is Christ Jesus and salvation through his work.

“And one day, Lord, we are so thankful that you will take all the threads of human history and of the universe and unite them all in your Son Jesus Christ, and you will make him, in effect, the pinnacle, the unifying element of all creation, of the entire universe, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

“Thank you, Father, because we are part of that incredibly complex fabric you are weaving, and we have entered into your plan. We bless your people, Father. Allow us to be a church that brings joy to your heart, that brings gladness to your wounded Father’s heart because of this creation that has betrayed you so greatly, Lord. We want to be different. We want to please you, so come, Holy Spirit. Come and help us. Give us strength today. Renew our strength in that regard; in the name of Jesus we ask it. Amen. Amen.”