This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to our daily drive time devotions to the book of Romans. We are in day
four of our look through Romans chapter six. As we've looked through this
chapter, I'm sure that for some of you, some of what we've looked at in this
chapter is like wading in spiritually deep water.

And I want to just say to you, it's worth it. It's worth it. I know that some of
what we've talked about may even have your mind swimming a little bit, but it's
worth the swim.

It gets you somewhere. And as we've looked at this chapter, just to mix
metaphors here, it's sort of like getting a little bit of a tough piece of meat.
You can get lots of nutrition out of it, but you've got to chew on some of these
truths for a while.

And if it's the first time you've encountered some of these truths about us
being dead in Christ because of his crucifixion, but alive in Christ because of
his resurrection and the new nature and the old nature, study God's word and let
it soak into your life because it's essential for understanding how we grow in
Christ. It is vital to understand this doctrine of sanctification of our growth
in Christ because it is easy to fool yourself when it comes to the issue of
Christian growth. Christian growth is not about doing things.

Christian growth is not based on how many meetings of church you attend per
week. Some people who attend a lot of church meetings haven't grown much as a
Christian. Other people don't attend a lot of church meetings.

They seem to really have a handle on spiritual growth and understanding of
Jesus. Spiritual growth is not related even to how many verses you've memorized
or how many books of the Bible you've read. It's not even related to how many
iPod Bible studies you've listened to this week.

It's not even a matter of how many minutes you spend in Bible study each week or
in your quiet time. Now if that's confusing to you, I would say to you that all
these things are important to your spiritual growth. These are all things that
can produce growth in our lives as believers.

But it's easy to fool yourself into thinking that just because you're involved
in growth producing activities, that must mean you're growing. You can be like a
guy who attends a health club and watches everyone else work out and then pats
himself on the back for his involvement in exercise. He even rewards himself
with a donut on the way home because he went and he watched other people
exercise.

The doctrine of our growth, of sanctification, reminds us that being more like
Jesus Christ is not a matter simply of checking off items on a spiritual to-do
list. Quiet time, check. Bible verse memorized, check.

Went to church, check. What makes the difference is our faith in Christ as we do
these things. And yesterday we talked about we need to have faith in what we
believe.

We need to have faith in what we choose. We talked about seeing ourselves,
counting ourselves in a new way because of Christ. And then Romans chapter 6
verses 12 to 14 talks about you and I needing to offer ourselves in a new way, a
different way, in order to change, in order to see ourselves like Jesus sees us.

Romans 6, 12 to 14, "Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that
you should obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as
instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have
been brought from death to life. And offer the parts of your body to him as
instruments of righteousness.

For sin shall not be your master because you are not under law but under grace.
" How do you break the reign of sin? How do you break the mastery of sin in your
life?

Well, Paul here reminds us through the power of the Spirit that we do it by
giving an offering. But he's not talking about giving an offering in church as
important as that is and the Bible does talk about doing that in other places.
He's talking about giving an offering of ourselves.

"Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its
evil desires. Don't offer the parts of your body to sin, but offer them as
something given to God because you've been brought from death to life. " Now the
Bible says what's to be offered?

The parts of my body. That's very practical. What parts of my body need to be
offered to God?

All of them. That includes my hands, that includes my feet, that includes my
mind, my mouth, my sex organs, my eyes, my stomach, my ears. All that God has
put into this human body by which I interact with this world.

All that God has put into this human body by which I can choose to sin in my
interactions with this world or I can choose to express faith in my interactions
with this world. All of those I offer to God on a daily basis. These verses
remind us that our choice is about what we choose to do every day.

I can either take these hands and feet and eyes and mouth that God has given me
and I can offer them as an instrument of wickedness. Wickedness is all about
selfishness. Some of the most wicked people in the world are also some of the
most impressive people in the world.

Wickedness and evil are words that sometimes we think only have to do with the
lower part of life, but they also have to do many times with those who are most
honored. The reason the honor comes is because their ego is so inflated and
that's a wicked thing. The most wicked thing in the Bible is attributing to
myself what only God can do, acting like I did it when really God did it.

I can offer what I have as an instrument of wickedness or I can offer it as an
instrument of righteousness. That's my choice and I can make that choice every
day. Now it's interesting in this verse, the command not to offer yourself to
sin is in the present tense in the Greek language, while the command to offer
yourself to God is in what's called the heiress tense.

One means that you don't go on doing this continually, the present tense. Don't
continually go on offering yourself to sin. The other means that you decide to
do something from now on permanently.

Make a permanent decision and then live that out day by day. Make a commitment.
From now on, this is who I'm going to be.

From now on, now after you make that decision, then you live that out in daily
life. I think that's a great distinction because you can't wait until you get
into a situation to decide whether you're going to follow a temptation. You have
to decide in advance to do the right thing.

It's like taking a test. If you're going to take a test, you've got to study for
the test in advance. You can't just show up for the test and hope you do well.

When it comes to the matter of integrity or holiness in our lives, it means
deciding in advance. And here's the decision we make in advance. I'm going to
offer the parts of my body to God.

When temptation comes, and it will, it will. Jesus was tempted. He never sinned,
but he was tempted, so we certainly will be.

When temptation comes, remember two things. You are free to say no, and you are
free to say yes. Remember both of those things.

You are free to say no to the temptation by saying yes to God. How do you say no
to temptation? How do you not offer the parts of your body to wickedness, to
selfishness, to ego, to pride?

The only way to do that is by choosing the alternative, offering the parts of
your body to God. How do you make the right choice? This verse tells us you
offer yourself to God.

Verse 13, the key is yielding or giving yourself to God's will. You yield
yourself to God. You might be driving as you're listening to this.

When you see a red light, you're driving, what do you do? You stop. When you see
a green light, you go.

What do you do when you happen every once in a while to come across a yield
sign? I have noticed in driving that yield signs are often very confusing for us
as Americans. We have a tough time yielding.

So we see a yield sign, and we try to beat the person we might have to yield to.
We see a yield sign, and we try to figure out how we can ignore the yield sign.
Yield simply means the other person has the right of way.

And you and I are to yield ourselves to God, to offer ourselves to God, to
realize God's will has the right of way in my life. Not because he's going to
ruin my life, but because he knows what's best for my life. Because when I live
for him, that brings the most joy to my life.

You offer yourself to God. That's how you make the right choice. How do you make
the right choice?

You offer yourself as one brought from death to life, brought to a new life
because of Jesus Christ. Not as one hoping that you'll be brought to new life,
not as even one looking forward someday to being brought to new life when you
get to heaven. But somebody who's depending already on what Jesus has done for
you.

Jesus died for me. He has given me new life. That's how you offer yourself to
God.

What I'm saying is you see yourself in a new way because of what Jesus Christ
has done for you through eyes of faith, and not simply through eyes of, "Well,
what did I do yesterday? " If we did that, we'd all be on a downward slope where
to look instead to God and see ourselves as he sees us through the eyes of
Christ. Offer yourself to God.

Offer yourself as one brought from death to life. And offer yourself as one not
under law, but under grace, but under God's grace. Under law, you're always
looking for a new rule.

Some rule that can help me to live a better life, or some rule that can help me
to get a better advantage, or some rule that can help me to have more pleasure
or have a more pleasing day. Under grace, you're not looking for a new rule.
You're living out a new life.

We're going to talk about that one a lot more in the next couple chapters of
Romans. Grace is the power to live a new life because of Jesus Christ.
Temptations are going to come into your life this week.

Temptations are going to come today. When they do, determine right now, decide
in advance to think, "I'm going to say no by saying yes. " Look for a way, when
the temptation comes, look for a way to instead offer yourself to God.

That will steam Satan every time. When he sends a temptation to try to ruin you,
and instead of letting it ruin you, not only do you have the faith to say no,
but you also decide to say yes to God? That is a way, that is a way to not only
avoid evil, but that's a way to defeat evil.

This week, you might even read once again in Matthew or Mark or Luke or John,
any of the four gospels, the story of Jesus' resurrection. As you read it, as
you read it, remember the fact that it's also your story. It's personal.

Jesus died for you. Jesus was resurrected for you, so you could experience His
new life. As we pray today, let's just take a minute to talk to God honestly
about our temptations.

Jesus, you see that we're tempted, and you understand our temptations. The book
of Hebrews tells us that you understand because you were tempted in all ways as
we are. You never sinned, but you were tempted.

Lord, you see and you understand, and Lord, you see those times when we've
decided to say yes to temptation rather than yes to you, and you forgive us if
we've trusted in Christ and what He's done for us on the cross, but Lord, we
want to live a new life. We don't want to offer the parts of our body to
wickedness, to pride, to ego, to do what we want done in life. We want to offer
ourselves to you.

And so today, just today, one day at a time, we pray that when the temptation
comes, He'd remind us that we don't have to say yes to the temptation. We can
say no to the temptation by saying yes to you. Instead of depending on
ourselves, help us to depend on you.

And when the victory comes, help us to give glory to you. Thank you for
forgiving us. Thank you for giving us a new life in Christ.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Tomorrow we're going to finish our look at Romans
chapter 6, one of the most important sections of this chapter, Romans chapter 6,
verses 15 to 23.