Landon Coleman
Immanuel Sermon Audio
Not Ashamed: Romans 6:5-14
If you have a Bible you can open to Romans chapter 6. Last week we looked at verse 1, 2, 3, and 4. So we're going to pick up this morning right where we left off. Verse 5 and we're going to work all the way through verse 14. 5 to 14. There's an outline in your bulletin you can track along with the message this morning. We're going to start by reading the Word of God. Romans chapter 6, verse 5, "For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His." We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin once for all but the life He lives He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. 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. For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace. For ever, O Lord, your Word is firmly fixed in the heavens. In our prayer this morning is simple. We ask that you would help us to understand the truths in the passage that we just read. And father by the power of your spirit who lives in us we pray that you would help us to live the truths that we have read this morning in Romans 6. Help us, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. We just want to start this morning with a bit of introduction. I want us to find our footing. I want us to make sure we understand the context of where we're at here in Romans 6. And so I'll just remind you of not all of the ground that we've covered up to this point but of some of the ground we've covered recently. Romans 3 verse 21, if you trace all the way through Romans 5 verse 21, you'll find Paul focusing on justification, justification. Justification deals with the fact that God in His mercy has saved us from sin's penalty. Saved us from sin's penalty. When you think about justification, your mind ought to go to the courtroom. You should think about a legal scene with a judge and maybe a jury and a defendant and a prosecutor and somebody who's on trial. The idea of justification takes place in a courtroom and you and I are the ones who are on trial and the evidence is in Romans 1, 2, and 3, we're guilty. We've all fallen short of God's glory. The wages of sin is death as guilty sinners. What we deserve from God is instant and immediate and eternal death. But God in His mercy, in His grace, has provided a way for guilty sinners to be declared righteous and that provision is in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's only Son, who lived for us and who died for us and who bore the Father's wrath in our place on the cross so that when we put our faith in the Lord Jesus, we are justified. It is we're not made righteous, but we are declared righteous by God the Father on the basis of what Jesus, God the Son, has done as our substitutionary sacrifice at the cross. Romans 3, 21 to 5, 21, justification. When you pick up in Romans 6, 1 and you work all the way through the end of Romans 8, Paul is focusing on our sanctification. And the idea behind sanctification is that we have been saved from sin's power. Now there's an element of sanctification that is an ongoing work. Paul's emphasis, at least so far here in chapter 6, is that as a settled matter of fact, we have been saved from sin's power. We have died to sin. So the idea, as Paul describes sanctification here, is really life and death. In Paul's mind, left to ourselves and our sins, we're dead in our trespasses and sins. But God in His mercy has made us alive together with Christ, and now we are dead to sin. Formerly we were dead in our sin, now we are dead to sin. And we talked about this last week. What Paul means is we are no longer under sin's reign, or its power, or its dominion. Now speaking of last week, we looked at this question in Romans 6, 1 and 2. Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? God is going to justify us, not on the basis of our good works, but only on the basis of what Christ has done for us and the fact that we put our faith in Jesus Christ. So if we're going to be saved by grace through faith, does that mean we can just continue in our sin? And Paul's answer, we saw this last week, is a resounding, it's a very strong no. Absolutely not. We are not going to continue in sin so that grace may abound. And Paul made two points in the passage we looked at last week, verse 1 to verse 4. And they're really the same two points that govern our text this week, it's a continuation of what we looked at last week. Paul says the believer has died to sin and has been raised to walk in newness of life. We're dead to sin and we have been raised to walk in newness of life. So that brings us up to our passage. And I want to say to you that there are two ideas that you need to sort of wrap your arms around if you want to make sense of what Paul is saying in Romans 6, 5, all the way down to verse 14. The first idea is this. Paul insists that believers have been united to Christ by faith, united to Christ by faith. This is the doctrine of union with Christ. If you come on Wednesday nights or adults and our college and our youth, just spend a few weeks back. We spend a Wednesday night talking about what does it mean that we are united to Christ by faith? We are joined to Christ by faith. Essentially what it means is that God in His mercy, when we repent and believe, unites us to His Son in such a way that when the Father looks on us guilty sinners, He sees us through the lens or through the filter of the person in the work of His Son. So what is true for Jesus becomes true for us. And likewise, what was true of us became true for Jesus on the cross. So if you were with us a few Wednesday nights back, I shared these familiar words with you. This is from the book of common prayer, dearly beloved, dearly beloved. We've come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining, joining together. This man and this woman in holy matrimony, the bond in coming in a marriage was established by God in creation, our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by His presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. And it signifies marriage, signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and His church. So one of the things we talked about a few Wednesday nights back is that when we understand union with Christ, we find a number of metaphors in the New Testament to help us make sense of this. One of the metaphors is of vine and branches. Jesus said, "John 15, I am the vine. You are the branches. You have to abide in Him. You have to be connected to Him. You don't want to be separated from Him, but you want to be united to Him." One of the metaphors for union with Christ is that we put on the Lord Jesus. Sort of like you put on your clothes this morning. You put on something and it covers you and it defines you and it says something about you. As believers, we put on the Lord Jesus. So there's a number of different metaphors, but the primary metaphor for union of Christ is marriage. And what the Bible actually says is that in the beginning when God created marriage, He created it with great intentionality to teach us something, not just about marriage, but He created it from the beginning as the union of a man and a woman to teach us something about the union between Christ and His church, where we are united to Him by faith. And our debts become His debts, just like happens in a marriage. Jesus bore our sin debt on the cross. He bore our sin as He suffered on the cross. And His wealth becomes our wealth. His righteousness is given to us as a free gift. It's not our righteousness that earns our way with the Lord, but it's the righteousness of Jesus that is the ground of our justification. So union with Christ, you've got to make sense of this idea that we're united to Jesus. Verse 5, "If we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. His death becomes our death and His resurrection is now in some sense our new life and one day we'll become fully our resurrection as well." So you've got to understand union with Christ. Secondly, for the very first time in Romans, the very, very first time Paul shifts from the indicative mood to the imperative mood and then back to the indicative. And I'm just telling you this is noteworthy in the progress of the book of Romans as we have come thus far. This is the very first time Paul has stopped talking about factual truth and it's the very first time in the book of Romans that he has actually given us a command, an imperative. And you just have to, you've got to make sense of the difference between the indicative and the imperative. Now look, the second time I went to seminary, I had to read a lot of books that fall under the heading church growth, okay? So I know all the great advice from the experts on how you grow a church. And I'm telling you that talking about indicative and imperative moods is not on the list for church growth. This is not a hot button way to just enthrall people and get people really excited. But it is key if you want to make sense of what Paul's actually saying in Romans chapter 6. So I'm just going to give you a few examples, it's going to feel like English in the sixth grade again, indicative and imperative, okay? We'll start easy. The door is shut. That's a fact. The door is shut. That's an indicative statement of fact. If I say to you, shut the door, that's a command. Now we're in the imperative. Easy? Okay, here's another example. That cake is tasty, that's a statement of fact. I like that cake. It's good. I've had it and I can tell you about it. That cake is tasty. Here's an imperative, taste that cake. Now I'm commanding you to do something or you're commanding me to do something. You with me? Okay? Another example. The Dallas Cowboys are terrible. That is an indicative statement of fact. That is reality. They are absolutely terrible, fact, indicative, imperative. Do not make me watch the Cowboys anymore this season. Don't make me do it. We're going to have a men's event next Sunday night, fathers and sons. We're going to watch the Cowboys and it's going to be miserable because statement of fact, indicative, they're terrible. They're terrible, indicative. Don't make me watch them. Imperative. Got it? Okay, let's talk about a biblical example from the book of Philippians. It is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Indicative. Fact. God is at work in the lives of his people so that you will and you work for his good pleasure, imperative built on that fact, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. You see why you need both of those statements. If you want to understand what it means to be a saved person, you need to know that you're called to work not for your salvation, but work out your salvation. What God has worked in to your life, you're called to work out. But as you do that, you have to remember that it's God who's at work in you so that you will and so that you work for his good pleasure. Indicative and imperative. For over five chapters, Paul has only been speaking in the indicative. He's just been given you fact after fact after fact after fact. And now, here in chapter six, he's going to give us imperatives. For the very first time in the book of Romans, he's going to tell us to do some things and to not do some things. For imperatives, we're going to look at them in a minute, but first we have to lay the foundation of the facts and the indicative statements that Paul makes. We have to understand that the commands Paul gives us, it's the first time he gives a command in the book, the commands that he gives us are built on the foundation of the statements of fact that have led us up to this point and that take place in our passage. So we'll start with this truth to know from Romans six. We'll come to truth to live, but we'll start with this, truth to know from Romans six. Number one, the believer has died to sin. It's a statement of fact in Romans six. The believer has died to sin. You used to be dead in your sin, but now that God has made you alive together with Christ, now you are dead to sin. This is what Paul said back last week in verse two, "How can we who died to sin still live in it?" It's what Paul says in verse six of our passage, "We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin for one who has died has been set free from sin." Here's what Paul's saying, "Believers are no longer enslaved to sin and believers are no longer under the power of sin." We're no longer enslaved to sin. We are no longer under the power of sin. Do believers still sin on this side of eternity? Yes. Do we still struggle with the desire to sin? We get to Romans seven, it's going to be clear. We still struggle with that desire, but are we under sin's reign? Are we under its dominion? Are we under its power? Are we enslaved to it? The believer is no longer enslaved to sin, no longer under its power. So there's a man named Thomas Boston. He was a Puritan pastor and author. He lived in the 1600s, 1700s. He read an older work from the three 400s written by a man named Augustine, and he came up with a book. He titled it "The Nature of Human Beings in Our Four-Folds State." He talked about who we are in creation, who we are in Adam, who we are in Jesus, and who we will be in the future. And I just want to share with you what he said about who we are in Adam and who we are in Christ, because I think it's helpful for Paul's point here. He said, "In Adam," we're moving from grammar to Latin. Are you all excited about this? Latin lesson this morning. In Adam, we are non-possain, non-pakare. We're not able not to sin. We're enslaved to it. That's Romans 1, 2, and 3. It's all of us in Adam. We are slaves to sin. We are under its power. All we can do left to ourselves is sin. We can't do any good thing left to ourselves in Adam. But in Christ, we are passe, non-pakare. We are now able to not sin. We're not under its power. We're not under its dominion. We still sin. We still struggle with the desire for sin. We may even live at times as if we are under sin's reign. But this is an indicative statement effect. We have died to sin. We are no longer under its power. We are no longer under its reign. We are no longer under its dominion. The believers died to sin. Number two, the believers been raised to walk in newness of life. So far, this is all that we said last week. Raised to walk in newness of life. Look at verse four from last week. We were buried there for with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Look what Paul says as we pick up in verse eight. If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. So here's what Paul's telling us in a discussion of our walking and newness of life. He's saying that believers live with the hope of eternity. And he's telling us that believers live with the aim of honoring God. It's really important for you to understand this before we get to the imperatives. And there's more imperatives coming. So you've got to get this settled in your mind and in your heart. The Christian who walks in newness of life. The Christian who lives their life in obedience to God. They're not trying to earn God's love or his favor. That's not their motivation. They do live with the hope of eternity. They know that the eternal life that Jesus has poured into our lives, it doesn't just start when you die and go to heaven. But eternal life is a gift that you receive now. If you're a believer, you have this eternal life. And you understand that Jesus is not going to die again. You understand that you're going to live forever in eternity with Jesus. And that hope of eternity changes the way that you live now. And you desire to honor the Lord. You're not trying to earn his favor. You're not trying to work so that he will love you or take you to heaven someday. But you understand all that he's done for you and your desire is to live, to honor God. Number three, the believer no longer lives under the dominion of sin or the condemnation of the old covenant law. Now we've jumped over the imperatives. We'll come back to them. There's one more indicative. One more statement of fact in verse 14. Sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but you're under grace. You're not under law, but under grace. If you're a believer, you don't live under this old covenant system of law. You're not under that law anymore. Paul says you've died to it. You've died to sin. You've died to that law. You are now by grace through faith, adopted into God's family. You don't keep the law to try to earn your way into God's family. You don't keep the law because you're trying to make your way to heaven someday. You live now with the hope of eternity. You live now to honor the Lord, but you understand that you are no longer under law. You're under grace. And I just want to point out to you, verse 14, it's not in the subjective or subjunctive mood. It's not saying, you know, maybe you can weasel out from sin's power or dominion. It's an indicative statement, a fact. This is true for a Christian. Sin will have no dominion over you. You're not under law, but you're under grace. You might live like sin has dominion over you from time to time, but it does not have dominion over you. You're not under law, you're under grace. That's the truth you need to know. It's essentially what we talked about last week. And Paul restates it. He expands on it a little bit. And then as you look at this text, verse 11, 12, 13 are all imperatives, commands. So we want to take a minute to think about the very first commands issued to us in the book of Romans. Truth to live from Romans 6, number one. Believers are called to live out the truth of who they are in Christ. Live out the truth of who you are in Christ, verse 11. You also, Paul says, must consider, and that's the command, consider. It's literally the word to reckon or to count. Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. We've done grammar and we've done Latin. Let's go to old TV shows. How many of you remember the show Dragnet with Joe Friday? Okay, you kind of date yourself. If you raise your hand and you remember the original run Dragnet with Joe Friday. How many of you remember Joe Friday's catchphrase? You remember? Just the facts, ma'am. I don't need your speculation. I don't need your theories. I don't need your sleuthing around. I just need the facts. Now I read something this week 'cause I was looking up Joe Friday and Dragnet. I read, and I don't know if this is true, but I read it on the internet, so I think it probably is true. I read that that catchphrase, just the facts, ma'am, like that is not actually in the first run of Dragnet. That it actually comes in that form from the remake, the motion picture remake with Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks. Now I don't know if that's true, but I read that this week. And it's sort of an example of, you know what? All my speculation and internet theories, they don't matter. Let's just talk about the facts, just the facts. Paul has given you five chapters of facts. He's told you the truth about who God is. He's told you the truth about your sin. He's told you the truth about God's only son, Jesus Christ, his life, his death, his resurrection. He has told you the facts and the truth about how you can be declared righteous. It's not by your own works, but it's by believing the truth of the gospel. It's by putting your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has laid out all the facts for you, who God is, who you are, how you can actually be saved and justified. And here's the very first command in the book of Romans. You need to consider that all of that's true if you're a Christian. And you need to consider the fact that you are dead to sin. No longer dead in sin. You are dead to sin. And you are alive to God in Christ Jesus. You need to live like that's true. You need to allow the facts, gospel truth to actually impact your life. Consider that these things are true. I'll tell you a sad story I read this week, January 2020 in Astoria, Oregon. It was cold, it was winter. It's just a few months before the COVID madness broke out all over the world. And there was a woman named Kathy Boone. She was a homeless woman. She had struggled for several years with mental disorder and some addiction issues. And she just lived a hard life. And she was homeless at the time. And she made it on this cold night in January to a warming station there in the town where she lived in Astoria, Oregon. She made it to the warming station, but she didn't live through the night. She was too cold, her body was too sick. She had gone through too much in life. And she passed away, January 2020 in this warming station for homeless folks in Astoria, Oregon. What she didn't know is that four years earlier, her mother had passed away. 2016 her mom died, nobody knew where Kathy was. They didn't know how to contact her. They didn't know how to reach her. But in 2016, when her mother passed away and no one could reach her because she was homeless and struggling with life, her mom actually left her an inheritance of $84,447. It was hers. Factually hers. It was legally hers. It was her money, almost a million dollars belonged to her. And tragically, she spent the last four years of her life living as if it wasn't. Living as if she had nothing. Living as if she had no resources to draw upon. It's a tragic, tragic story. Of somebody who had a great inheritance, it was factually legally hers and it didn't change anything in her life. That's the first command Paul gives in Romans. He lays out everything that is yours in Christ. And he says this in Romans 6, 11, you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. This is the truth about what God has done for you and you need to consider that it's really true. You need to live the truth of who you are in Christ. Here's the second imperative. Believers are called to not live in sin, even though sin lives in us. Do not live in sin, even though sin still lives in us. First part of Romans, justification, Paul's talking about how God has saved us from sin's penalty. You've been saved from sin's penalty. Now Paul is talking about 6, 7, and 8, how we have been saved from sin's power. Doesn't have dominion over us, it doesn't reign over us. Eventually, the believer will be saved not only from sin's penalty and not only from its power, but also from its presence. When we're with the Lord and we experience glorification. But right now, we're in Romans 6 and 7 and Paul's about to be very, very honest about indwelling sin and his struggle with sin and this idea that you have to put sin to death in your life. You have to fight it, you have to kill it. It wants to destroy you. It wants to enslave you even though you're not under its power. It wants to exercise its dominion over you. And what Paul is telling us here is that we are called to not live in sin, even as sin lives in us. Look at verse 12, "Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions." We'll see in the rest of 6 and 7, indwelling sin is still with us. Paul says, "Second imperative in the book, don't let it reign." You're not under its power. You're not under its reign. You're not under its dominion. So don't let it reign. You have died to it. Why would you continue to submit to it? June 6, 1944, D-Day, the Allied Forces stormed the beaches of Normandy. They won what proved to be a decisive victory in the war effort in Europe. V.E. Day, May 8, 1945. That's the day that the Allied Forces formally actually accepted the unconditional surrender of Germany. And they celebrated victory in Europe day. And I would just note that it came many months after D-Day, this decisive victory was won. But the actual day of victory came later, May 8, 1945. It's hard for you and I to imagine that after D-Day and all the way up to V.E. Day, that there were Allied POWs being kept in prison camps and concentration camps, right? This decisive victory had been won, but the formal end of the war had not yet come. And there were men still suffering in these camps, suffering greatly. And you can only imagine. I'm not sure any of us can imagine the relief that would have washed over you if you were in one of those camps and you knew that D-Day had happened. But then somebody came and said, it's really over now. It's over. They've surrendered, unconditional surrender. And you are free to go. You are no longer under the power or the authority of the people running this camp. It would have been a remarkable feeling. You can imagine the folly of the prisoner, the captive, who was told, you have been set free from this cruel master and who then said, well, I think I'll stay. I kind of like it here. I'm comfortable. I know where my bunk's at and I have my routine. And I've kind of grown accustomed to things here. You would say, why would you want to stay under this dominion, under this rain, under this power, under this oppression? Why would you want to stay here? No one would want to stay there. And yet the believer who lives in sin, who allows sin, verse 12, to have dominion and rain in their life is effectively saying, no, I think I'll just stay where I'm at. Understand that I've been set free. Understand that I don't have to submit to these horrible things in my life anymore. But I think that I'll just stay right where I'm at. And Paul says, verse 12, let not sin, therefore, rain in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. You don't have to obey it. You're not under its power. So why would you allow it to rain? Indwelling sin lives in us, but we don't have to live in sin. How would you know if you're doing that? I'm just going to ask you for a minute just to be reflective, maybe self-aware, maybe ask the Lord to help you see things in your life. I'm asking you just for a minute not to worry about the person sitting next to you, not to worry about someone else in the room and not to say, oh, I hope they're listening to this part. Not to judge whether or not someone else you know is living under the dominion and the power of sin, but just to think maybe if you and you claim the name of Christ or living under the dominion of sin, how would you know whether or not you're just content to let sin rain in your life? Maybe ask this question. Are there habitual sins in my life, sins that I know about, sins that I tolerate, sins that I justify, sins where I am knowingly and intentionally submitting the members of my body to sin and unrighteousness? OK, we're not talking about our ongoing struggle with indwelling sin here. We're talking about areas of your life that are clear and black and white. You know what's right. You know what's wrong. You claim the name of Jesus, but you intentionally, continually, habitually with no remorse, continue to submit to these things. Paul talks about the members of your body here, your eyes, the things that you watch, your ears in your tongue, the things that you listen to and the things that you speak. Are there areas where you say, I'm submitting my ears and my tongue to sin and unrighteousness? What about not just your tongue, but maybe your thumbs as you text? Maybe verbally, you have a great clamp on your tongue, but maybe it all comes out in texts and posts and social media and all the rest. What about your mind? You spend time using your mind to the brain that God gave you, this member of your body and your head. Do you spend time using it to justify, to excuse, to rationalize sin, to find ways to get away with sin? The Christian who has put their faith in the Lord Jesus and who has been justified and freed not only from sin's penalty, but its power and who continues to submit the members of their body to sin for unrighteousness is no different than the person who said on V-E Day and none said it that I know of. I think I'll just stay. I've been set free, and I think I'll just stay. Third and fourth, they go together. Believers are called to refrain from certain actions and activities, and believers are called to pursue certain actions and activities. This verse 13, "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 from righteousness." You see, there's a negative and a positive command. Don't do this. Don't submit your members to sin and unrighteousness, but do submit yourself to God for righteousness. It's my experience that often Christians think about sanctification only in the "do not" category or the "thou shalt not" category. And many Christians live with this idea. If I could just stop doing certain things, I'd be pretty good. Sometimes people tell me that just in honest conversation. They'll say, I've got this one thing in my life. If I could just stop doing this one thing, if I could just not do it, I feel like I'd be well on my way. Thou shalt not. Somebody sent me a video from X, Twitter this week, and it was a fundamentalist preacher in the United States saying, "Don't grow facial hair." If you want to be godly, don't grow facial hair. That's the key. Grow facial hair, I don't know what he was pulling this from, but it was a funny clip. He was serious. Don't do this, you'll be godly. I knew some old-timers in Kentucky who used to repeat the adage, "I don't drink or smoke or go with girls who do." So I'm just not going to do those bad things, and as long as I don't do those bad things, I'll be well on my way. Don't do this. Don't do that. Paul says, "Don't," he says, "Thou shalt not." He says to the Christian, the person who has been justified, not the person who's looking to find a way to heaven, but the person who has received the gift of eternal life. He says, "Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness." But I can just tell you from personal experience, from the truth of Scripture, and from talking with many people, it's awful hard to stop doing bad things if you also don't start doing good things. It's awful hard to stop presenting your members to sin and unrighteousness while not presenting your members to God for righteousness. That's why the New Testament talks about sanctification in terms of taking off and putting on. There are certain things you have to take off, and there are certain things you have to put on. That's why Paul in Romans is described to us the path of the believer, and he said, "First, you have to repent, you have to turn, you have to stop, you have to move in a new direction, you have to change your mind, and then you've got to walk in newness of life." Again, he's not describing how you can be saved. He's describing the life of a person that God has saved. I'll just ask you to stop and think about these things for a minute. Paul has laid out truth that you need to know. Christianity, inescapably, is a thinking religion. It involves your mind. It requires you to know certain things. Do you know these things in Romans 6? Not just in Romans 6, but do you know these things that we've been talking about up to this point in Romans? I mean, it's five plus chapters of just facts, truth, gospel realities. Paul wants you to know these things. Do you know these things? And secondly, are you considering that these things are actually true and allowing them to change your life? It's impossible to live out what you don't know. It's impossible. You have to know these things before you can live these things. But it's entirely possible to know these things and to not live them. Truth to know and truth to live. Father, we're grateful for your Word. We're thankful for the book of Romans where you have said so many true things to us about you and our sin in your Son, Jesus. Father, you've said things to us that are true about how we can be saved, how our sins can be forgiven. And Father, as we prayed at the outset of this sermon, we pray at the end that you would help us to know these things and to understand these things. Father, we also pray that you would help us to live these things. As we think about these commands issued by Paul, not to let sin rain because it doesn't rain. To consider that we're really dead to sin and alive in Christ. To not present our members to sin and unrighteousness, but to present them to you. For righteousness. Father, we ask that you would help us, help us to know these truths, help us to live these truths. And Father, as your people, before we leave this morning, we want to take a moment to sing truth about who you are and all that you've done to save us. So Lord, as we lift our voices and sing these truths, we pray that they would sink deep into our hearts, that they would change us, that we would actually leave this place considering that these things are true. Help us Lord. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.