In Scott Brown's sermon titled 'Living Under Grace,' he explores Romans chapter 6 to explain the concept of living under grace as opposed to living under the law. Brown emphasizes that living under grace involves a transformation where believers are set free from sin and become 'slaves of righteousness.' This transformation is described as a 'double cure,' saving believers from the guilt and power of sin. The sermon outlines five elements of living under grace: fighting sin, presenting oneself to the right master, conforming to the right doctrine, acknowledging destructive freedoms, and bearing fruit to holiness. Brown also stresses the importance of understanding and adhering to biblical doctrine as a guideline for living a sanctified life. Through the metaphor of slavery, he illustrates that believers must present themselves to God and righteousness rather than sin. The sermon calls believers to recognize the destructive nature of sin and pursue a life of holiness, leading to eternal life as a free gift from God.

Please turn with me to Romans chapter 6. May the Lord bless the reading of His Word. Chapter 6, starting in verse 15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?

Certainly not. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves, slaves to obey, you are that one, slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.

For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness and the end everlasting life.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Let's pray. Father God, as we enter into the teaching time this morning, Our deepest prayer is that you will speak clearly through Scott, that you will speak to hearts that are prepared to receive your word. Oh Lord, let there be no distraction. Let the Holy Spirit have full sway in this place. We commit ourselves to the purpose and the saving grace that is the gift through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen. One of the most important things to remember about the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is that God has designed to lead his Church by his Word. She receives her guidance, she receives her counsel, her therapy, her correction, everything comes off of these pages of scripture. So we are in a very precious time to have this book before us now. And of course we're in Romans chapter 6, which shows us what it means to live under grace.

Have you ever thought about that? What does it mean to live under grace? Let's define that. Let's get into some detail about what that means, because I think it's possible that it means different things to different people, but here in this passage we'll see particular aspects of what it means to live by grace. We were saved by grace, absolutely.

We live by grace and we are taken to heaven by grace. And everything that happens in between also is under the ministry of this amazing gift of God called His grace. And what we've seen in chapter 6, this whole chapter, is that God in His grace, He transforms us by giving us a new nature. He gives us a better master, a new master. He gives us a fruitful experience in life toward holiness, and He gives us a joyous eternity.

All of that is here in chapter 6. This was illustrated, I think, beautifully by that great hymn writer, Augustus Toplety. He was on a journey, traveling in a remote area, a mountainous rocky area, and all of a sudden a massive storm broke out, and lightning and thunder and torrential rains were upon him and there he was and he found himself a rock. He was standing on this rock a hundred feet above the ground and over him was another giant rock that jutted out and he was protected in this rock in the midst of this terrible storm. He was sheltered under this giant umbrella and there He wrote the hymn that we sing, Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.

Let the water and the blood from thy wounded side which flowed. And then he says something very strange that I think sums up Romans chapter six. Be of sin, the double cure. Save from wrath and make me pure. Did you ever think about What do you mean by double cure?

What is a double cure? And it's a cure, it's a double cure. Something that cures of two things. Cures of guilt, and it cures of the power of sin. The power of sin has been broken.

There's a malady that needs to be cured and only the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ can break the fever and give us the cure. So that's a double cure. Freedom in the soul from guilt so we can hold our heads up in this day even though we know we've sinned a million times this last week and secondly that he's broken the power of the devil over us by giving us a new nature. And that's this double cure. And we're saved from wrath and made pure.

Well, that has to do with sanctification in this life. And In this amazing song, Rock of Ages, we find, I think, a summary of the doctrine that we come across in Romans chapter 6. OK, so let's talk about the chapter as a whole. I want to go a little bit deeper in this before we move into this text that we just read. The chapter is really divided into two main ideas.

And the first is in 1 through 14, the first half, where we see that the power of sin has been broken. And he says you have to know something. The word know is all over the first half of this chapter. He says here's what you have to know. You've got to know that you were baptized into His death, that you were buried with Him in baptism, that you were crucified with Him, and you were raised up to new life.

Something happened that broke the power of sin. And it cracked the rock and opened up the door so the spring of water could flow into your soul. And you'll never be the same again. Believers change, they do. People who say they're believers and don't change were never believers in the first place.

Because the power of sin was not really broken. They might have made a profession, they might have walked down an aisle or told somebody that they were saved or prayed a sinner's prayer. But there's a difference between that and the power of sin being broken by being buried in baptism by the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a difference in that and actually repenting and then having the life of the Lord Jesus enter your soul. So it's a very positive message in the first half of the chapter that something amazing has happened.

You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Remember how we were talking about that last week? That He's hiding you. He's hiding your soul from the curses of the devil because of His mercy toward you. And He has a veil over you that has protected you forever as a result of what he has done.

And so that's the first half and we talked about this as the rise and the progress of the soul. There is no rise and progress in the soul unless there's conversion, unless there's death, resurrection, repentance. So if there's anybody who's not repented of their sins and acknowledged that they are separated from God by their sins, then you will never change like you can unless if you would receive the Lord Jesus Christ. He will break the power of sin and you will be set free and you can progress, but you will not progress unless you are buried and crucified with the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's the news, that's the good news of the first part of the chapter.

Then now we move into the second part, which I'm going to call living in grace. What does it mean to live under grace? Now that the power of sin has been broken, what do we do? We still recognize that things aren't exactly right here with us. How do we live under grace?

And he defines it, and I've given you Five elements of what it means to live under grace. There is so much more in this passage to get to, but we'll at least maybe get these here. And the first is it means that you're fighting sin. Do you see that? If you have an outline with you.

Secondly, that you present yourself to the right master. Thirdly, that you are conforming from the heart to the doctrine, to the right doctrine. And it's the doctrine of righteousness. And then number four, that you acknowledge the destructive kind of freedom that there is out there for you. All freedom is not good freedom.

And then fifthly that you're bearing fruit to holiness. So here in chapter 6, now let's take a step back again, here's what we see in chapter 6. Justification by faith and sanctification are tied together. They're not two separate things. There's one and the other.

There's not one without the other. Paul talks of justification and sanctification in the same breath. And they're tied. If there's been no crucifixion, there can be no sanctification. And that's the point that he's making okay so let's let's now bury in to this tax verse 15 let's look there first I'd like you to look at verse 15.

We're going to camp on verse 15 for a while because what's in verse 15 is also found throughout the rest of the passage. And so I'm going to cover some of the things from verse 15 that you'll see throughout, but you'll see how this all works. So first of all, what does it mean to live under grace? Well first of all, it means that you're fighting sin. It doesn't mean that you take sin casually.

It doesn't mean that You take the grace of God in vain. No, it means that you fight sin, that you see it, and you declare war against it. And I'm going to try to bring five issues out of this one verse. First of all, that we are fighting sin under grace. The word sin is mentioned in these nine verses eight times The word lawless or lawlessness is mentioned four times The word obey is mentioned three times the word law is mentioned three times The word grace is mentioned one time, and the only time that the term under grace is mentioned is right here in this text.

And so he says, what then? He starts off with this question, two word question. What then? And what does he mean by that? He's saying, well, OK, so the power of sin has been broken.

Well, what then? That you're not under the law, but under grace. What then? What do you do? What are you going to do about that?

Because it matters how you define living under grace. And so he says what then and it's just a similar question that Paul asked at the beginning of verse 6 as well. He does it again. Paul often asks a question and answers it, asks another question and answers it. So at the beginning of 6 he asks a question and answers it.

In the middle of 6 he asks another question and then answers it again. You see the way that Paul is thinking this through, he's trying to lead us in a way of thinking about our justification and then now about our sanctification through the asking of these questions. So what does it mean? He says, what then? And then he gives a scenario.

He says, does it mean shall we sin because we're not under the law but under grace? And he says, certainly not, absolutely not. That's not what I mean. So it's one thing to say what you do mean. Now Paul's saying what I don't mean, okay?

And so the first thing that we see here is that it has to do with fighting sin. Certainly not. And then he's indicating to us here that we should consider our sins. He says, shall we sin? No.

So he's really challenging us to consider our sins. Sin is the greatest problem in your marriage. We've said this many times. Sin is the greatest problem in your heart as a child. As a boy, as a girl growing up, it's your greatest enemy.

Sin is it. You can talk all kinds of psychological terminology and methodology about what to do with your life. But here's the bottom line. It's sin is your problem. It's the sin in every...sin is the problem in every church.

It's the problem in every company. It's the problem in the world. And it's...and fortunately, it's the problem that the Lord Jesus Christ has dealt with and will finally deal with at the end of the age. So you know it's interesting you know when talking about sin we're very good at one part of this discussion, and we're very bad at another part. Like for instance, we're very good about explaining the evils of the culture, right?

About the things of society that are so wrong. We're very good about that. We're also very good about detecting sin in other people. We can have a little sewing circle about other people's sins. We can speak clearly about other people's sins.

I can speak so distinctly about the sins of my children and even some of my friends. But let me tell you something, it's much easier for me to see those sins than it is to see my own sins. It's a lot easier to talk about the sins of the culture and to rail against them and then not even actually be aware of my own sins. So here, the apostle is saying, don't forget your own sins. So let's just take a moment and pause on this for a second.

Think about this now. God has brought us to this place, probably for a lot of different reasons. But let me just present a couple of these reasons. I want to challenge you who are couples in this church, to sit down sometime today and speak together about your sins. And I don't mean telling the other person what their sins are, OK?

But confessing your sins together. That would be a wonderful thing. Sin is your greatest problem in your marriage for sure. You who are children, what are your sins as a son? What are your sins as a daughter?

What are your sins as a member of the human family? These things are really critical. The apostle is saying, living under grace doesn't mean that you forget sin. Absolutely, certainly not. He says it as emphatically as he could possibly say it.

If he was here, he would probably say it with such passion that it would actually get through our thick skulls and our hard hearts. But There are sins that are holding us back. There are sins, there are idols that we're just comfortable holding onto them. We want to hold onto them. We like them.

We like the feel and the shape of them, because we've been used to them all of our lives. Paul is saying, no, no, get rid of those idols, get rid of those sins. These worldly practices might comfort us, but they are destroying us at the same time. So we should be, it should cause us to consider sins that we're clinging to In our lives, this is how you live under grace Living under grace means that you identify the sins of your claims and you say certainly not know Abandon that sin Now, you know, how do you deal with sin anyway? And this just brings us to another point.

The third point observation I want to make, he says that To fight sin means that we have to identify it really. The Apostle John said that sin is lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. So when you think about sin, you have to think about the law. You should not think about sin without thinking about the law, or else you're just going to come up with your own definitions about what's right and what's wrong.

That wouldn't be too good, honestly. We're way too self-serving when we define the terms of what's right and what's wrong. But because sin is lawlessness, we have to go to a reliable source to help us understand what the sin is, so that we know whether we are off course or not. And so he says, Certainly not, meaning you must embrace a standard. And here we find the apostle is constantly slapping upside the head, antinomianism.

On the one hand, he declares the grace of God that's comprehensive. On the other hand, right out of the other side of his mouth, he is slapping around every tendency toward antinomianism, reject lawlessness, rejecting the law. John said sin is lawlessness. So we have to understand that when you read the word sin and you read the word law they are they are connected with it because sin is the absence of the law of God and we referred to this some time ago an author by the name of Jerry Bridges just wrote a new book called respectable sins and he he says that we should be confronting the sins that we tolerate. There are many sins that we just tolerate.

We get used to them. Like I said, they're comfortable to us. We've used them so many times. And we've justified them. We've called them by different names than what they really are.

But there are many respectable sins that are upon us, so this author says we need to identify. So he lists them. Anxiety and frustration, discontentment, unthankfulness, pride, selfishness, lack of self-control, impatience and irritability, anger, judgmentalism, envy, jealousy, sins of the tongue, worldliness. Are any of those part of your life? As I was just reading these things, I was thinking about the hours yesterday between 8 o'clock and noon.

I committed every one of these sins in my household toward my children. There was frustration, there was discontentment, there was selfishness, there was lack of self-control, there was a little bit of irritability. I had to go to somebody in my house and confess my sin of anger and irritability toward them as a result of something happen. So you know here the Apostle is saying certainly not we must fight sin with the right tools and in fighting sin we need to understand that the law, that the law is needed. You know we just finished up this study on mortification of sin by John Owen, this book.

We spent an entire year and we read the mortification of sin you know week by week and we just did the last chapter just this last this last Tuesday and and Owen ends the book with a bang he just blows it blows into in into our souls all these different images to help us understand the purpose of the law and what it's good for, what it's not good for at all. And He likens the law as like a traitor in a city, a traitor in a civil government. And the law smokes him out, shows where he's lurking, shows where the traitors are lurking in the city. He says the law works like this, like a man who has something wrong. And so he goes to the doctor, he goes to a physician, he says, would you tell me what's wrong with me?

And the physician says, Oh my, you're going to die in two hours if you don't do something because it's in your blood. And he says the law is like that. It just goes right to you and tells you what's wrong and that it's dramatic. And something dramatic needs to happen. Of course, it's the blood of Jesus Christ.

He says the law terrifies you, terrifies you. It affrights, he's that great word, affrights the soul and it terrifies you but it doesn't deliver you. It just shows you what's wrong. And then he talks about the law being like a man on a journey. He's traveling and and a great storm comes up and he hides himself in a tree or in a house or something like that and because the law has come like a storm and battered against him, and it scares him so much, he runs for cover, and then the storm, the law, dies down.

He's so convicted of his sin, He hides himself, he repents, he prays, he cries out to God, but then the tumult dies down. The problems from his sin kind of die down. The crisis is over. And then he goes out and just goes on his own way until the next storm comes. And then he does it again and again.

He says what the law does. The law is like a storm that rains on you. Your wife says to you, don't you know that you're doing this to me? And the law is raining down. And then you realize that's true.

But then you just go on your same old way again until it happens again and again and again. Well, that's what the law just keeps coming and reminding us of the problems that are there in our lives. He says that the law is like an arrow that's stuck in your side. And you're there, it's just a wound. Imagine an arrow sticking out of my body and I'm up here before you, you're looking at the arrow that's all you can think about, but I'm completely oblivious to it except for just bugs me every once in a while.

That's the image that he gives and he says you know he says the law the law deprives the soul of self-righteousness it slays the soul but then he says this He says the law is almost like a man in a congregation where the truth is powerfully preached. But it's really like just taking a straw and beating on a diamond. Just beating on a diamond, because the heart is so hard. The law can be like that. The law cannot save us, but it can identify the problems.

It can show us what's wrong. And that's why the apostle Paul said, I beat my body. I beat my body to bring it into submission. Because it needs to be in the submission. There's a government that needs to be applied to our lives if we're going to be living under grace.

So here's another issue that this brings up, number four. It means that it is all God's righteousness and not mine. When you are under law, you're providing your own righteousness. When you're under grace, it's Jesus Christ's righteousness. That's what that's all about.

And when he says in verse 14, for sin shall not be mastered over you, for you are not under law but under grace, That means that it's the blood of Jesus Christ that makes you righteous, not your own. Works that make you righteous. And then just lastly on this first verse, I just want to say that this first verse is really in many ways about hating sin. And in order to hate sin, one has to see the preciousness of God. One has to see the beauty and the perfection and the goodness of the kingdom in order to truly hate sin.

I don't think you can hate sin until you know the love of God. And so until we believe that God is the rewarder of those who seek Him, until we believe that His ways are pleasant ways and all His paths are peace, until we believe that, that God is the most precious in all of life, then we will not hate sin. And so Paul is arguing against a Christianity that has no passion and love for God. It just has intellectual assent. He's arguing against a Christianity that doesn't hate sin and also doesn't love God either.

I love the way that John Piper expressed this. He said this, he says, their Christianity is all truth and no treasure. It's all choices and no cherishing. It's all logic about Christ, but no love for Christ. It's all decision and no delight.

So that's what's on the table here in hating sin. Why? Why in the world? It's not just a decision, it's delight. It's passion for every good thing.

So that's verse 15. Now let's move on. Verse 16, what does it mean to live under grace? Not only does it mean that you fight sin? But secondly, it means that you present yourself to the right master.

I'll look at verse 16 with me. Let's just read it. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves to obey, you are that one slave whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness. So again he opens with a question, don't you know this? And then in these verses the word slave is mentioned eight times in nine verses.

So what is this all about, living under grace? Well, the word slavery figures into it, okay? Don't think that living under grace means that there's no government. Don't think that living under grace means that there's no master. There's always a master.

You've got to serve somebody. You are going to serve somebody. It may be the devil, it may be the Lord, but you've got to serve somebody. There's no other way. And that's exactly what he's saying here.

So he's saying you are the slave of the one you present yourself to. You are the slave of the one you present yourself to. Now, that means that if you present yourself to a certain book, you're a slave to that book. That means if you look at a certain program, you're a slave to that program. Whatever you present your eyes or your ears or your mind to.

You think of the internet sites that you go to. You are a slave and I am a slave to those sites that I go to. Think about that for a minute. I mean, that is absolutely remarkable. He's saying that what you present your body to, you become a slave to.

Now that can be both good or bad, can it? If you present yourself to God, if you present yourself to every good thing, then it's a wonderful thing. But if you present yourself to falsehood or something defiling, then it's very bad news. And so he says, you are a slave to the one whom you present yourself. Think of the songs that you listen to.

When you listen to a song, you are a slave of that song. You're presenting your ears to that song. You know, We are image bearers. We have to be very careful with what we do with these vessels. Because we're always pouring something into these vessels.

Always. We never cease. We must be so careful with what we pour in. Because we become a slave to those whom we present our bodies to. Hands, eyes, ears, mouth, feet, everything, our body.

You know, This is why the Lord Jesus said that a student, when he's well taught, will become like his teacher. Because if you present yourself to a teacher, you'll become like him. You'll become a slave in some ways. You know, presenting yourself to wicked teachers is something that should be highly considered. Because whoever you present your body to, your eyes, your ears, your being, will have a dramatic effect on you.

What does the Bible say about education? What's the biblical doctrine of education? This is one thing that you should speak of when you talk about the biblical doctrine of education. Because who you present your eyes and your ears and your body to, you'll become a slave to them. And that has to do with education.

When Eve was in the garden, she presented her mind to the thoughts of the devil. The Bible opens with a study of education. Did not God say it was all about education? Who is going to be, who is going to rule in the marketplace of ideas? Who will be listened to?

That's what this is all about here. And so, we should be very careful here about who we present our bodies to. By the way, let me just say this now. We have already covered this issue of presenting your body. We've actually covered it a couple of times in the study in Romans.

And we're covering it again here. But guess what? We're not done. Because Paul repeats this more times. So we're going to keep talking.

In fact, actually, you might even hear me say the exact same things that I just said. But please don't despise it, because Paul is repeating himself here. And we should allow him to do that. And then we should allow us, who are teaching, to repeat it as well. So I just want to guarantee you, we are going to go back to this subject again later on, because Paul brings it up.

So Paul here is addressing this issue of mastery and slavery. And Now he says here that we are slaves of one or two autocratic regimes. You see what they are? He identifies them with two words, sin and obedience. Those are the two regimes.

You are either under the autocratic rulership of sin or obedience to God. That's the way that he states it here. And it's interesting that because of these two regimes, what that means is that when we were justified by faith, there was inaugurated a war. War was made between these two masters. And it's a war against the flesh.

The bondage has been broken, there's been a jailbreak from the prison of the devil, and then what does the devil do? Well, the devil tempts, The devil does a number of things with us, because he desires to continue some level of bondage. The bondage from sin has been broken, but that's not the end of the story. He does still desire to kill and steal and destroy. And so there's a war that's broken out because of this jailbreak that's happened.

When you've been broken out of prison, that doesn't mean the devil leaves you alone. He continues on. And that's what he's saying here, is that there are two ruling masters, sin and obedience. Those are the two regimes that he puts before us here in this verse and then also there are two two completely different ends one One is death and the other leads to righteousness. Two different ends, death and righteousness.

You're thinking you're listening to the Lord Jesus again. There are two roads. There are two masters. You can't serve both. You can only serve one of them.

This is just reminiscent of what the Lord Jesus has already taught us. You can be a slave to righteousness, verse 18, do you see that? A slave to righteousness or a slave to God, verse 22. Those are the two masters that are involved here. Now let's just camp on this idea of slavery for a minute, because there are obviously are some aspects of slavery that don't apply in Paul's illustration here.

Does this mean that every image of slavery in your mind applies here? No. No. Is it the slavery of the 17th and 18th centuries in Britain and America that... Is that the kind of imagery that he's talking about?

Absolutely comprehensively not. He's not bringing out all that all of that imagery, all this all these terrible thoughts that we have about slavery. It's not that kind of slavery at all. In fact, the Lord Jesus makes this very plain. He says, no longer do I call you slaves, I call you friends.

So obviously every aspect of our image of slavery isn't included here. Because I call you friends. He says a slave does not know what his master is doing but I've called you friends for all things that I have heard, heard from my father, I have made known to you. So in this slavery, it's actually a lovely kind of slavery. It's the slavery of a good shepherd.

It's the slavery of an almighty God who is protective of his children. It's a slavery where the master speaks to the servant. The master tells the servant what he's doing. It's a loving kind of slavery. It's not the kind of slavery that comes to your mind when you hear the word slavery.

And so some aspects do not apply. But what does matter, and what is perfectly clear, is that you are presenting your body to one master or another in this life of sanctification. And it matters. Okay, so not only do we need to think about presenting ourselves to the right master. If we're going to live under grace, we need to do the third thing here.

We need to conform to the right doctrine, the right doctrine of righteousness, verses 17 through 19. Now there are a number of things happening in 17 to 19. I want to just zero in on what's happening here in this section and try to make sense out of it. First of all, it begins with thanksgiving. In 19, Paul is giving thanks.

And he says, first I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. He says that in 1 8. Now he does it again. He thanks him in chapter 1 and now in verse 17 he thanks, he gives thanks again. But God be thanked that though you were slaves to sin you obeyed from the heart." So here there's thanksgiving to God for this salvation that's come to the people in Rome.

And so this is, you know, this is encouragement. This is Paul just giving thanks for being set free from sin, and that there was slavery, but now there's freedom among his people. We can do that now. We can do that right this second, to just give thanks that God has set us free. Think about that for a minute.

Think about how different life is now than when you were under that terrible master. Of course, you do hear the voice of that terrible master and you sometimes obey him, but his power over you has been broken and you're different today. You might not be as different as you want to be today and you might have a list of things that you think really need to be addressed in your life, but give thanks. Let's just take time this morning to give thanks for our salvation. You know, we are not perfect, but we have had the power of sin broken.

And it really is a blessing. How lovely it is to have had progress over the years and that God has restored many things that we destroyed. Isn't that amazing that He would do that for us? He takes those years in futility and you know it took us a long time to dig that hole. But He's filling it back in.

And He's making it possible. If you had not been saved, you would not be filling that hole back in again. But God is healing you. He's taking care of us through His shepherding. So Paul gives thanks for this freedom from slavery.

And then in verse 17, there's an extremely clear definition of what it means to be a believer. Let's look at this. Because this is one of the clearest definitions of a Christian. If you know somebody who is not a Christian and you want to explain it to them, here's one place to go. Though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which you were delivered." That's what it means to be a believer, right there.

And what is the change? You obeyed, you were set free, and you became a slave of righteousness, and you presented your members not to unclean this anymore. That's what happened. That's the definition of a believer right there. And then notice what happened.

It was a form of doctrine that you came to. It was a form of doctrine. People don't like to use the word doctrine. It's sort of a dirty word. Well, you know what?

It's not a dirty word. It's a beautiful word. And there's no salvation without understanding that there is a form of doctrine that's involved. We're not saved and then everything is just off to the winds with no definition. There's particular doctrine, there's particular teaching that we come under as a result of our salvation.

First of all, notice this, he says it's a form of doctrine, a form. Now he uses an interesting word, the word tupas, and It means to strike, like striking the image of a coin, where a die comes down on a soft medium on a coin and hits it, strikes it, and makes the impression. If you have a coin in your pocket, you can see exactly how this works, where the medium has to be softer than the die and the die comes down and makes an impression that's there that's that's the form there's a form of doctrine it's distinct it's not up for grabs It's really well defined with lines and words in the impression that's made. So we obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine. So We're forming ourselves to that doctrine.

We're not becoming more like ourselves. We're not finding ourselves. We're finding God. We're finding doctrine. We're being struck, you know, like with a die, to a form of doctrine.

We're not free to go create ourselves. You know, create your best life now or whenever, but no, don't do that at all. It's not your life, it's his life formed in you, upon you, for you. That's what he's talking about here. And the doctrine is a teaching.

It's instruction. It's something that was delivered and narrated, commanded, written. That's what doctrine is. Didache is the word that he uses here and it was from slavery that we were delivered to the form of doctrine. You see that?

From slavery to the form of doctrine. You understand How that, you know, when we were saved, we weren't just released and made free. We were brought over to a form of life and doctrine. Hey, This is the responsibility of every father in a household and a mother to bring the form of doctrine into that household. So that every person doesn't do what's right in his own eyes.

Absolutely not. No. But that the form of doctrine, the doctrine of God, is demonstrated in the household. That's what our homes are all about. Could you give me a drink of water?

So this salvation has to do with the transferring of formation, right, from the slave, the bad slave owner, to the form of doctrine. That's why doctrine is really important Oh, you know what we? Well, we want to talk about this later, but let me just give you a thumbnail sketch of this Last year we wanted to engage our families in reading two things outside of the Bible. One was a missionary biography, John G. Peyton, a missionary to the New Hebrides in the 1850s and 60s and 70s.

And we wanted to read John Owen's Mortification of Sin to get the doctrine of sin and sanctification clear in our minds. That was last year. This year, we're going to encourage the families to read the biography of David Brainerd, who was a missionary to the Indians in the 1840s. And he died in Jonathan Edwards' home, and Jonathan Edwards picked up his diary and wrote his biography out of it. It's a beautiful story.

You know it's a story of a brother who is given to depression, ups and downs spiritually, but it's a picture of the struggle that we're all in. And so we selected that to be read. And then we're going to continue our studies in scripture through the book of Romans and then on. You've seen the plan that we've got mapped out, you know, for another four years ahead of us. It's a form of why are we doing this?

Because there's a form of doctrine. There's a, we don't want to be like ourselves, we don't want to let every individual in the family to create the family life. It needs to be created in heaven. And it's up to the to the leaders of that household, fathers and mothers, to assure that the form of doctrine is biblical. So that's what he's speaking of here in this passage of scripture.

In verse 19, look at this. You presented your members as slaves to uncleanness. What does uncleanness mean? Without the law. That's what it means.

It means without the law. That form, that lawless form is disastrous. You know, there are people today in the church who think that being under grace means that you're now free from everything except for the thoughts of your own conscience. That is so wrong! That is false doctrine.

That's a false gospel. That's not the gospel of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Living under grace means that you're not formed to your own doctrine anymore. But you're formed to that doctrine that was delivered to you by Almighty God. Doctrine is so important in a church and in a home and in a heart because we desire to be our own people.

We want to create our own life, but that never does us well. We always find sorrows and suffering and bruises from that. And so we should just understand, no, no, let's treasure God's form and let's devalue our own and go there toward Him in all that. You know, how important is doctrine? Let me just give you an illustration doctrine Bible doctrine was the most important thing that ever happened in the history of our nation.

In the 1500s we had the Reformation. In the 1600s and 1700s we had the Puritans who rose up and they defined what the Bible said about government, what the Bible said about the family, what the Bible said about justification by faith, what the Bible said about work, what the Bible said about government, everything. And They laid out these biblical definitions that had been lost for so long under the domination of the Catholic Church where nobody was able to read their Bibles. So what happened? It was transported to America.

What happened in the 1770s and the 1780s in the world two things happened there was the French Revolution and there was the American Revolution the French Revolution was a despicable bloodbath that rejected every Bible doctrine what happened in America It was a different kind of revolution. People call it the Presbyterian's Parsons Rebellion. That's what they called it. Well, what happened in America that was different than what happened in France? What happened in America is in 1740, the great awakening broke out.

And Bible doctrine was spread throughout the colonies. And households were being raised up in the training and the admonition of the Lord. So that when the pressure and the stress came, We didn't have a French Revolution. We did not have Lady Guillotine. No, we did not have her.

She was a work of the devil. We had something completely different. It was because Bible doctrine had invaded the hearts. The form of doctrine had come to this nation. And so we did not have the French Revolution here, we had the American Revolution.

And doctrine matters. The form of doctrine in your home, in your heart, in your government, in your business is everything. It's where the war is won and lost. Okay. Number four, what does it mean to be under grace?

It means acknowledging that there's a destructive kind of freedom. Verse 20 and 21. For when you were slaves to sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. That means when you're a slave to sin, that means you do whatever you want. Righteousness, the righteous demands of God are out of the picture, you don't care.

That's a bad kind of freedom. To be free in regard to righteousness is no freedom at all. That's to put yourself under a terrible slavery again. Just think about that for a minute think about your think about your own families you know extended families when sin runs in a family what happens disappointment suicide divorce bankruptcy terrible things happen because sin gets let's run in families there's a certain freedom who wants to be free from righteousness does it freedom from righteousness means age freedom from righteousness means depression freedom from righteousness means so many things that are bad and so there's a we need to acknowledge there's a destructive kind of freedom out there. And then he says, what fruit did you have in all that?

What fruit was there? I think that's an amazing question. He presents this question so powerfully. I just... It really stops me in my tracks.

What fruit did you have then in the things of which you're now ashamed. What was the... How good did all that unrighteousness do you? Did it help you at all? No way.

Unrighteousness is a bad deal. Unrighteousness is from the devil. And the devil always punishes his own children. And so, you know, why would we want to continue in sin knowing what sin accomplishes? This freedom from God is a wrong freedom.

We need God, we need His government. And then the last point on what does it mean to live under grace. It means bearing fruit to holiness, verses 22 to 23. But now having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God you have your fruit to holiness and the end everlasting life for the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life so he's talking about bearing bearing fruit to holiness is connected with living under grace. There are two fruits here, death and holiness.

Those are the two results of these two masters. Death and holiness. And then there are two results, death and eternal life. Two fruits, death and holiness, two results, death and eternal life, Verse 23. And then there are two different kinds of masters.

And this is such a revealing aspect of this text. Two different kinds of masters. One pays wages and the other gives gifts. This is amazing. This reveals the heart of the matter.

Who is God? Who are these masters? Well one of them, the wages of sin is death. It can easily be translated as rations. You know, when you are a servant of that wrong master, you get rations.

You get whatever rations he wants to give you. He'll give you wages. He'll pay you for being his servant. But he'll pay you in his own way. He'll pay you for his own motivations.

He'll dangle. He'll play with you and throw you a bone. He'll give you your ration. Would you like your ration today for serving me? And he does.

He does give his rations. There's such a thing called the passing pleasures of sin, but they're just rations. You know, anybody who's been in the military has particular visceral responses when they hear the term K ration or C ration. Well you know what it's just nothing different than the devil's rations. They're totally inadequate.

They're not all that they could be. They are something. They are enough to get you on to the next day. But they're nothing like the home-cooked meal of your sweet wife with the aroma filling the house. Rations are nothing like gifts.

And this Master gives you rations, and He pays you something, but He pays you what He wants, He pays you when He wants, and He pays you inadequately. But the other master gives gifts. The free gift of God is eternal life. They are gifts, not rations. They are adequate.

They are eternal. They take care of everything. There's no lack in them at all. They're beautiful. They're tasteful.

They're nourishing. They bring joy. They make the eyes brighten. They are gifts. And they are free.

This is so beautifully illustrated. In the words of Jesus toward his disciples on his last night before the crucifixion. Here's what he said, And the glory which you gave me I have given them, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me." There are wages and there are gifts in this life. And so there is a way to live under grace. It's very clear.

Living under grace doesn't mean that you throw out every biblical proposition and go live according to your conscience. That's not what living under grace is all about. It's about fighting against sin, verse 15. It's about presenting yourself to the right master, verse 16. It's about conforming from the heart to the doctrine of righteousness, verses 17 to 19.

It's about acknowledging the destructive kind of freedom that's out there for all of us. And it's about bearing the fruit of holiness and not receiving rations in this life. Becoming a malnourished, pinched, truncated individual, but receive the full measure of the nourishment of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the shepherd of the sheep. And this is what Augustus Toppola meant when he wrote in the midst of that great storm and it brought him to that great doctrine, Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood from thy wounded side which flowed be of sin the double cure.

Save from wrath and make me pure. So God has given this to us that we would be transformed, having received a new nature, having a better master, having a fruitful experience in this life, and a joyous eternity under this nourishing, cherishing ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ toward all of us, His people. So that in the ages to come, He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Jesus Christ. Would you pray with me? We worship you now, oh wonderful shepherd.

May all these things be in us and increasing. In Jesus' name, Amen.