Sermon Tone Analysis

The sixth chapter of Romans, along with the fifth, moves us deeper into this central part of Romans and the application of what it means to be justified by faith in Christ.

Paul started out this letter to the Romans by proclaiming that he is not ashamed of the gospel (Rom 1:16), that he is eager to proclaim it more and more not only to those who haven’t ever heard it but also to those who have heard it and are quite familiar with it.

He is eager to proclaim it because he sees that it is the power of God for salvation.

Salvation.Many people today, hearing this word, tend to think of it in a limited sense of determining one’s destiny after death, but we should understand it much more holistically.

It applies not only to what comes after life but to this life, to this world that God has made and to this world that God has come to redeem in Jesus Christ.

If God is giving to us through the gospel his power for salvation, then this is good news for everyone and for everything.

It is good news not just when you are old and on your death bed; it is good news for everyone, however young or old.

The gospel is the power of God for salvation, so that there is hope for real change in our world and in our relationships.

Everything that we see that is broken, God has come to redeem and restore—to make the world the way it was always meant to be.

Now the Bible unashamedly says that the root problem that needs to be resolved in order for salvation to be realized is the problem of sin.

But again, we must not think of sin as just the great moral wrongs.

Here in Romans 6, we are encouraged to see sin as a dominant power over all creation.

And the incontrovertible evidence that sin dominants is death.

Death is the undeniable evidence of sin’s strength.

Romans 6 is a chapter devoted to the question of the Christian’s relationship to sin.

Having been justified, vindicated from sin’s condemnation, all by grace, entirely as a gift, does this mean that nothing is to be done to address sin’s power?

We saw last week that the way in which we are justified and so freed from sin’s penalty is by our union with Christ so that his own victory over sin means that we, too, are victorious over sin.

Christ died not only to free us from sin’s penalty but also to free us from sin’s power.

We who have died with Christ, verse 7 says, have been set free from sin.

So, to be a Christian means not only that sin can no longer condemn us; it also means that sin need no longer control us.

We do not have to obey it.

Now in verse 11, where we ended last week, we can see that Paul has moved from the indicative to the imperative.

He has told us what is true about us in our union with Christ in relation to sin, but now he urges his readers to appropriate this truth into their daily lives.

Knowing who we are in Christ, we are encouraged to resist the power of sin.

We are to fight against sin with a superior power, while serving a greater master, and expecting better fruit.

Superior Power

First, in verses 12 to 14, Christians are encouraged to fight against the power of sin, not in order to dethrone it, but because it has already been dethroned.

Christians fight sin like victors, not like rebels.

We possess a superior power than the power that sin yields over us.

Encouragement to Fight

Verse 12 is a command: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.”

But this command is not to be overwhelming to any Christian.

It is a command of encouragement since it comes only after we have been reminded, in verse 5, that we have been united with Christ in his triumphant death and the invincible power of his resurrection.

In this union with Christ, the Christian has died to sin as a prevailing power.

So, the command goes like this: since sin has no power over you, don’t let it overpower you.

It is a command, but not a command you are powerless to keep.

But it is a command.

It requires action on the part of the Christian.

What is expected of us?

What must we do?

We must fight sin.

We must watch for it and refuse to give it any entry.

It must not be allowed to take command in our mortal bodies.

In view here is not so much specific kinds of sins that we commit with our bodies.

Rather, Paul wants to point out that the Christian already has the upper hand over sin even though we live in mortal bodies.

We know that when we are raised from the dead, bodily, on the last day, we will be raised immortal, incorruptible (1 Cor 15:53-55).

And on that day, it will be impossible for sin to take root.

Its very presence will be obliterated.

But we are still in our mortal bodies and therefore susceptible to sin’s intrusion.

And yet, the power of that future resurrection has already come to us through our union with Christ.

So, we must fight against sin like the victors we are in Christ.

We must not let it rule over us, making us “obey its passions.”

Defense and Offense

How are we to fight sin?

How are we to keep it from reigning over us?

Temptation to sin you cannot prevent, but the command of verse 12 assumes that the Christian has the power to say, “No!” to sinful passions and desires.

Now, whatever you think of sin, or even however you might define it, consider that the ability to control desire, to not give in to every temptation or urge, is something that is a common quest for humanity.

The Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote that a person is not free “by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.”[1]

All kinds of secular and religious self-help manuals are created for this kind of fight.

I just got a free book sent to me from a well-known pastor about how to make or break any habit in 30 days.

Call it breaking a bad habit if you want, but it is sin as a power over us that we are really dealing with here.

So we need a distinctively Christian way to fight it.

Verse 13 gives us the Christian way.

“Do 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.”

The twice repeated verb present tells us that we need both a defensive as well as an offensive strategy in our fight.

Defensively, you have to identify where it is that sin is getting in.

If you are giving into porn, you need a filter and accountability software on your computer.

If you are binge-watching Netflix, you need to cancel your subscription today.

If you are raging on social media, or you are doom scrolling to see who else is, you need to quit Twitter or Facebook or Instagram.

These are common sense strategies even if they aren’t easy.

But they also aren’t distinctively Christian, which is why the second verb present is given.

It’s not enough to know what notto do.

We need to know what we should do instead.

We need an offensive strategy.

The Christian fights sin not just by resisting, but by resting.

Sin has no chance where God is cherished.

It is in our union with Christ that we find a stronger power not just to say “no” to sin but to say “yes” to that which truly satisfies.

We are to present ourselves to God, “as those who have been brought back from death to life.”

Only in our identity as sharing in the resurrected power of Christ can we find a superior power to the allure of sin.

The Resurrection Power of Grace

The point is that it is only in Christ that we can prevail in this fight and not just hold our ground, shifting from one sinful impulse to another.

We have a new ground in which to stand that is altogether different from anything else we can be offered.

In Christ we now can live a new quality of life.[2] In Christ we have a power that is altogether different than any popular or religious theory could ever give us.

What is this greater power?

It is the power of resurrection.

It is the power of a new creation that has already dawned upon you if you are in Christ.

You can play defense against sin all day long, but until you know the offensive power of presenting yourself to God “as those who have been brought from death to life,” you will not stand a chance against sin.

You may curb its uglier effects to some degree.

You may be able to dress it up, make it more socially acceptable.

You may be able to break a really bad habit, like laziness for example, but what good will that do if in its place you simply develop the more celebrated sin of being a workaholic, which is euphemized today as busyness?

Verse 14 says something astounding about this fight against sin.

The reason why the Christian fights like a victor over sin, the reason why “sin will have no dominion over” us is not because we’ve mastered David Allen’s Getting Things Done, but because we “are not under law but under grace.”

The power of resurrection is the power of grace.

It is the only power greater than sin.

Because where sin increases, we were told in Romans 5:20, grace abounds all the more.

A Greater Master

In verses 15 through 19, we find a second aspect to the way we as Christians fight sin.

We fight sin as victors, yes, because the power of sin has been broken.

But fight we must, because we are under a new and greater master.

Under Law and Under Grace