In his sermon 'Under Grace,' Pastor Steve Hopkins, speaking at Burnet Bible Church, examines Romans 6:13-18, focusing on the transition from justification to sanctification for believers. He emphasizes that while justification by faith alone is foundational, sanctification involves living out the truth of being dead to sin and alive in Christ. Believers must not lose sight of their justification in Christ's righteousness to progress in sanctification. Pastor Hopkins warns against letting sin regain dominion, drawing an analogy to the Israelites' escape from Egypt, and stresses that believers, now under grace, are freed from the law's demands and sin's bondage. Through Christ's resurrection, believers are empowered by the Holy Spirit to resist temptation and live righteously. While sin's remnants persist, the reign of sin has been broken, and believers are called to live as freed people, enlisting their bodies as instruments of righteousness. The sermon concludes with gratitude to God for this transformation, acknowledging that it is through His grace and power that believers are set free from the tyranny of sin and enabled to serve Him.

Welcome back to Burnet Bible Church. Join us this week as Pastor Hopkins continues his sermon series through the Book of Romans. You would open your Bibles once again to the book of Romans. We'll be in the sixth chapter once again and picking up with verses 13 through 18. 13 will actually be in review.

But before we begin, before we stand and read, I wanted to say something that's concerning where we're at in Romans right now. Because we spent all this time, the Apostle Paul is just hammering justification by faith. You aren't saved by your works. You aren't justified in the sight of God, you know, by the keeping of the law. No one's going to be justified in God's sight.

On and on and on and on. He's driving this home. Now we're in, we're not talking about justification. We're talking about sanctification. And as we go week by week looking at sanctification, which we need to look at, there's this danger.

There's this danger. We have to be careful that we don't, when we come to this place where we're seeing the Apostle Paul say, do this, don't do this, do this, don't do this, that no one begins to have their ground of their justification slip out from under their feet, so to speak. So no one will ever progress in the process of their sanctification, that's growth and holiness, who loses sight of the ground of their justification. Just think about it from a pictorial standpoint, whatever. If someone's walking and they lose sight of the ground beneath their feet, they're more likely to stumble, they're more likely to fall.

We never need to lose sight of the ground of our justification before God, which is Christ's righteousness imputed to us. And so with that, let's stand for the reading of the Word of the Lord, and we will begin reading together verses 13 through 18. Let's read together. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, His servants you are to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. But God be thanked that you were the servants of sin, but you have Obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you, being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness." Let's pray.

Father, high above the whole world, we pray that your name, O God, might be hallowed in this time as we seek you by your Word. We pray your kingdom might prosper in the hearts and souls of all those you have gathered here today, all those you've regenerated and sanctified by your Spirit. We pray, God, that your will might be done, Lord, in this place, just as your will is done in heaven, and that Christ might be more fully formed in us as we open your Word and seek your face, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's be seated.

So, in our last session, we saw the importance of reckoning or considering ourselves to be in reality what we are in union with Christ and His death and resurrection. Did everybody get that? We are to reckon ourselves or to consider ourselves to be that which we are, dead unto sin and alive unto God. We went into quite a bit of detail about that. Dead to sins, condemning and enslaving power, and alive unto God to walk in the resurrection life that we have in Christ.

And we saw The importance not only of reckoning ourselves to be what we are and who we are in Christ and union with Christ in His death and resurrection as new creatures in Christ raised from spiritual death to spiritual life, but also the importance of living like it. And that's where the apostle is at now. This is where we're at. Seeing these things are true concerning you, the apostle says, don't only reckon these things to be true concerning you, but live like these things are true concerning you, because they are true concerning you. You're dead to sin, you have died to sin, and you have been raised with Christ.

The reign of sin has been broken. You are no longer a slave to sin. You are no longer in bondage to sin. That's where you were in the unregenerate state, but it's not where you are now. You're no longer a slave to sin.

Of course, it doesn't mean you no longer sin, but you're no longer in bondage to sin. You no longer practice sin. You no longer live in sin as you did before you were converted to Christ." Now he's saying, you're no longer a slave to sin, live like it. Live like freed men and women. Live like the freed men and women that you are.

I said in our last session, Regrettably, we all still sin. We still have the remnants of corruption within us, and we still sin. But we're no longer in a state of slavery to sin. We're no longer in a state of slavery to sin. We who have been raised from spiritual death to spiritual life are no longer under compulsion to sin as slaves as we were in the unregenerate state.

You remember going over this, this thing of compulsion. We've been set free by Christ from our bondage to sin. In whom the Son sits free is free indeed, John 8.36 tells us. But we who are in Christ Jesus have been set free by the power of the Holy Spirit to serve the living God. You've been set free.

It's a reality. It's not a suggestion. It's not even a, it's not a command here. It's just saying you've been set free from your bondage to sin. We who are in Christ have been set free by the power of the Holy Spirit to serve the living God.

We are no longer, as Dr. Sproul puts it, still back in the graveyard of spiritual death. We quote him a lot, don't we? Still back in the graveyard of spiritual death. We really have been set free by the power of the Holy Spirit." When we were in the regions of death, when we were still back in the cemetery of being dead in trespasses and sins, we were slaves to sin and thus under compulsion to sin.

That's all we could do. That's all anyone does in the unregenerate state. Everything is either done without the right motive or with an outright evil motive. But Jesus delivered us from our bondage to sin, from our slavery to sin. He broke our chains of sin slavery so that we now are no longer under compulsion to sin.

So as we review, when I say that we are who are in Christ are no longer under compulsion to sin as we were in the unregenerate state before we were saved. I'm saying that we're no longer dealing with a force that is irresistible. In the unregenerate state, before we're born again, before we're in Christ, before we're dead with Christ, raised with Christ, before we're saved, before we're justified in the sight of God, we were dealing with a force that was irresistible. Now, in the regenerate state, we're not under compulsion to sin. We can resist temptation, and we also must resist temptation.

I said last week, you know, The only reason that people in the unregenerate state don't sin is because it may benefit them in some way to not sin. They go on and do whatever they want to do and they live in sin, but if it benefits them, if it's going to injure my estate, I'm not going to sin. If it's going to injure my relationship, I'm not going to sin. Whatever benefits me, they're driven by whatever benefits me. It gives to people or what have you, but there's this thought of how does that benefit me?

How do people look at me? How do people consider me? That's the way we act in the unregenerate state. In the regenerate state, in the state of being born again, of being saved by God, we are no longer dealing with irresistible force, we're no longer chained to sin slavery, We're no longer under compulsion to sin. We're no longer irresistibly compelled to sin We can actually choose to obey God now.

We have the Holy Spirit living within us We have the indwelling spirit of God living within us and we have now ability that we didn't have before We now have ability to choose to obey God. Whereas before, in the unregenerate state, we didn't have the power or the ability to choose God. First, God has to do something to change us and change our will and give us a new will before we act according and can act according to that new will. We can actually choose to obey God, whereas in the unregenerate state, our will was in bondage to sin. I said in the last session, the apostle personifies sin here.

He speaks of sin as though it were a person. He speaks of sin as though it were a master, a ruler, a king, exercising his reign over us. And he's saying, for those in Christ, Jesus has overthrown sin's reign. He overthrew sin's reign when He raised us from the tomb of the spiritually dead, we were born again from above by the operation of the Holy Spirit and that dictatorship of sin that ruled us before our conversion and compelled our obedience no longer has that power to do so. You can resist temptation.

You can resist the devil. You can, by the power of the Spirit indwelling you, obey God, where before all you could do was disobey God. Jesus overthrew the dictatorship of sin that before our conversion compelled our obedience. It's no longer the case with those who have been born from above. We've been made alive, raised from the dead, given new hearts, given new wills and new desires, and set free from the willing chains of servitude by which we were bound.

Therefore, that is for this reason, we heard the apostle Paul saying, let not sin reign as it did before. Don't let it reign in your life as it did when you were not saved. Don't let sin reign in your life anyway. Don't let it reign in your marriage. Don't let it reign in your behavior with your wife, your children, your children, your brothers and sisters, others in the church, anyone in the world.

Don't let sin reign as it used to reign. You're no longer under compulsion to sin. You don't have to obey it and it's dictates. You can now obey God. You have the Holy Spirit of God indwelling you.

You have grace operating in your life. You now have ability to resist temptation and to live the way that God wants you to live. Don't let sin therefore reign as though it were still your ruler or king or master. It's not you have a new master. That's the way it was when you were under sin's dominion.

It was your ruler. It was your king. It was your master. And you its willing servant when you were living in the unregenerate state. But sin can no longer dictate you and command your obedience.

Chains of moral inability that once bound you have been cut. Moral inability. That's where we were in the unregenerate state. Moral inability. And These chains have been cut.

We now have moral ability. Those have been cut and are falling from off our wrists and the shackles from off our feet. And the apostle Paul has been teaching that that's a fact. You can now disobey sin's commands by the power of the Holy Spirit of God who indwells you and works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. You can now have victories over sin.

In the Emergent State, people don't have victories over sin. You know why? What's that sign that hangs over all the churches? It doesn't matter whether they're Catholic or whether they're Protestant churches or Baptists or whatever methods, they have this sign, celebrate recovery. It's new religion that's gripped, that's gripped this country, that's gripped the people who profess to believe in Christ in this country.

You go from one slavery to another slavery. I was enslaved to this, now I'm enslaved to the group. Now I'm enslaved to their doctrine, but never set free. Never set free. Jesus Christ sets us free from bondage to sin.

He doesn't enslave us to a set of principles whereby we attempt to recover the rest of our lives. You can have victories over sin, and we've seen it. We're going to get to more of that in just a moment. We look at 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and what we used to be, some of us used to be, the apostle Paul says, but we can now have victories over sin, something we couldn't have in the unregenerate state before Christ saved us and set us free. Apostle Paul has been saying, let not sin therefore reign as if you were still under its iron-fisted dominion, because you're not.

You're dead to the absolute power of the former dictatorial regime that demanded your obedience. You're dead to that and you're alive in Christ and thus alive to God with moral ability to obey God whereas before all you could do was disobey. Before in the state in which we were born, all we could do was sin. But we who are in union with Christ by faith have been born again and are now alive to God with divine power working within us to assist us. Now by God's grace we can do things like resist the devil, refuse to yield our service to sin.

Not that we always will. No, Paul's not saying that. We will not always choose now to obey God. That's not what Paul's saying, but we can fight against sin. We can do battle by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We can see progress in our sanctification. We can experience victories as we cooperate with the Spirit who indwells us in wars against the flesh, against the remnants of the corruption of our nature that is still within us. I said in our last session something and I want to explain it further so that no one goes away thinking something that's not so. We talked about our mortal bodies. Look at chapter 6 where the Apostle Paul says, reckon yourselves in verse 11 to be dead indeed into sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ.

Verse 12, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies. And I want to clarify something so that no one goes away thinking that our mortal bodies are the location of sin. Did anybody come away with that, thinking that maybe that's the residence of sin or the location of sin? Until the day we die, we're going to be battling. Every one of us who are in Christ are going to be battling on three fronts, The flesh, the world, the devil.

The world, the flesh, and the devil. They're all going to be fighting on those three fronts. You're fighting a three-front war. You will continue to fight that three-front war till the day that you die. If you're truly Christian, you're going to have the world continually attempting to allure you into its sinful things.

Right? You're going to be continually enticed by the evil one, by the devil. You're going to have to deal with lusts and evil desires that come from within in a word, the flesh. But listen to this, okay? So, you have two words that are sometimes misconstrued, misunderstood in Scripture.

You have the words the flesh, and then you have the words the body, and sometimes they're translated one way, sometimes another way. The flesh in Greek is sarx, S-A-R-X, and that most often refers to, and in our passage here refers to in the language of New Testament writers, indwelling sin. You're still going to be dealing with indwelling sin. The body, on the other hand, the soma in Greek, most often refers to our physical or mortal bodies. Our physical bodies are not the location or resonance of sin, the flesh is.

Matter is not inherently evil. The physical world is not inherently evil. You had the the Gnostics, you know, that set the soul against the body. Remember one of the early Christian heresies. Your bodies are evil, the soul is good, the war is between the body and the soul.

Not what Paul is saying. Our bodies are made up of matter. Matter is not inherently evil. Our battle is not without bodies. Our battle is with the flesh With indwelling sin our battle is with indwelling sin the remnants of corruption in our nature that continues to remain and exist In those who are born again But the Christian now has the indwelling spirit.

We're actually indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and the spirit wars against the flesh against indwelling sin. The war that rages within us after we're born again. Remember, there's no war before that. Nobody's fighting against sin in the unregenerate state. There's no battle, they just yield to it.

They give way to what they can get away with, whatever benefits them, whatever works best for them. They sin to this degree or that degree, and if it starts to impair their estate or can affect them negatively in some way, well, I won't do this or I won't do that, but it's never a thing between them and God. The war that rages within the regenerate person is not one of the soul against the body, but of the Spirit who indwells us against the flesh. It is God working in us both to will and to do with His good pleasure against the remnants of corruption that remain within us. That's why I said in our last session, Paul is not saying here, let sin not be, because you're going to have sin and dwelling sin and corruption to deal with till the day you die.

Even though we're growing in Christ's likeness, you're still going to be fighting on that front, the front of the flesh, so to speak. So he's not saying let sin not be as though you can completely eradicate sin from your life. That's not going to take place until these corruptibles this corruptible puts on incorruptibility at the resurrection Not until glory, but he says not to let sin reign don't let it rain Because the reign of sin the dominion of sin has been broken by Christ. That's a reality for you That is something that has actually happened past tense for you. He broke the dominion of sin for you So that you have been set free from the enslavement to sin and enabled to obey God Understanding this the Apostle says let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body as it did before when you were made alive in Christ.

Now yield yourselves to God as those that are alive from the dead." That is, enlist yourself, give yourself wholly over to God and enlist your members, here he's talking about the members of the body, Soma, your mortal bodies, in the service of God as instruments of righteousness. Enlist your members, the members of your body, in the service of God as instruments or weapons of righteousness." Later on, he's going to be talking about something completely different. He's going to get away from just the body and all the faculties of body and soul where there is still the remnants of corruption. Here he's talking about the body. Sin reigns in the bodies of those who have never been changed by God.

Just pick up a newspaper someday. Just look at the news. It reigns. It's acted out in the body. And the regenerate, on the other hand, sends rain has been dethroned.

And those who have never been changed by God send rains in their bodies. But in the regenerate, sins rain has been dethroned. It's been overthrown. But it still, listen to this, it still wants to enslave you and reign over you, enslave us and reign over us as it did before we were freed from its dominion. Does everybody get that?

Sin still wants to reign over you. It's still going to exert its power to try to bring you back into captivity to sin. It wants, it's been dethroned, but it wants to get back as the ruler and king and in the place of dominion in your life. And Paul's saying, don't let that happen. And I want you to just think about this analogy.

My son Titus, during our sermon review last Sunday evening, said, Dad, that sounds like what the children of Israel went through after they were delivered from slavery in Egypt, after they were freed from their bondage. What happened after they were freed from their bondage? God frees them from their bondage, right? They take off, they're in the desert, they're heading towards the Red Sea, and all of a sudden Pharaoh goes, let's go back and get them. And he starts chasing them.

He starts going after them again. After they were delivered from their slavery in Egypt, after they were freed from their bondage by God, Pharaoh went after them and tried to enslave them again." Bingo. I mean, that's it. And I thought that's exactly right. But just like, think about the analogy going forward, just like the armies of Egypt were unable to reassert their dominion over the children of Israel, sin shall not have dominion over the people of God." Our bondage to sin is over and we have been set free to serve God.

Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies that you should obey it and its lust thereof. Now, they yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin. Don't yield. Don't surrender. You're no longer under compulsion to do that.

You're alive from the dead. Rather, on the other hand, surrender yourself, your whole self, and all your members to the service of God. Enlist them in the service of God as those that are alive from the dead because you are in fact alive from the dead. You died with Christ, you were raised with Christ, you're in union with Christ by faith and his death and his resurrection. Sin shall not have dominion over you.

You've been raised to walk in newness of life and that's a guarantee. Think about it. Sin shall not have dominion over you. You've been raised to walk in newness of life, and that's a guarantee. Think about it.

Sin shall not have dominion over you, verse 14. Sin shall not have dominion over you. That's a guarantee. It's not a command. It's not saying, don't let sin have dominion over you.

He said that earlier, let not sin therefore reign. That's a command. Here, it's a promise. The fact that sin shall not have dominion over us is a guarantee. It is a promise.

Its dominion over us has been broken and we who are in Christ can never be brought back to Egypt and absolute bondage to sin ever again. You're never going to be brought back into absolute bondage to sin ever again. It is an impossibility. The true believer is not going back to Egypt. We're now under grace.

We're no longer under the law. We're no longer ruled by the law's rigorous demand for perfect obedience in order to be justified in God's sight. That's what it means to not be under the law. We're not ruled by that any longer. We're not under that heavy burden of the law's rigorous demand for perfect obedience in order to be justified in God's sight.

No, we're justified freely by the righteousness of Christ who kept the law perfectly in our place and died for our sins and rose again the third day and his righteousness is imputed to everyone. It's declared to the accounts of everyone who believes. We're no longer under the law's rigorous demand for perfect obedience in order to be justified in God's sight and neither are we subject to the curse of the law for breaking the least command. We were in the unregenerate state and those who were in the unregenerate state remain under the curse. You're under the law, you got to keep every bit of the law, every least command of the law without any infringement whatsoever, or you're done for.

You're under condemnation, and you're going to pay for it all. The Christian is under grace. Calvin comments here, we're no longer subject to the law as requiring perfect righteousness and pronouncing death on all who deviate from it in the least part." Why is that? That's a close quote. Jesus kept the law perfectly for us in our place, and He bore the penalty of our transgressions of the law, the curse of the law itself.

We're no longer the subjects of sin or its consequence, death, eternal. We're under grace and union with Christ, counted legally righteous in God's sight and thus positionally safe, you're in a position of safety and eternally secure. When I'm preaching on the streets in Burnet at the intersection there at Walgreens on Wednesdays, I come back to this all the time. You're not safe if you're outside of Christ. You're not safe.

Our God is a dangerous God. You don't want to meet Him apart from the covering of Christ's perfect righteousness. You don't want to meet Him in your dead, in your trespasses and sins. You don't want to be clothed in your sin to stand before Him. You want to be clothed in the perfect righteousness of his Son, positionally safe.

That's what it means to be saved. You're safe. You're not going to endure the wrath of God as the unregenerate are for all eternity. You're eternally secure. God forbid that we should ever willingly return to Egypt and say, oh, please put the chains back on our wrists.

No. The unregenerable course, on the other hand, remain under the law. They remain under its demand for a perfect righteousness. They remain under its curse. They're subject to the dominion of sin and they're subject to the consequences of sin, which is death eternal.

And they remain the servants of sin unless they're set free by God. They never got out of Egypt. They never got out of Egypt. Do you not understand, he says in verse 16, that to whom you yield your self-service to obey his servants you are, whom you obey. Jesus said in John 8.34, whoever practices sin is the servant of sin.

He shows himself to be the servant of sin. You're still a slave of sin. Why? Because you practice it. You live in it.

You don't fight it. There's no war going on within you. The Spirit against the flesh, the flesh against the Spirit. There's no war going on inside of you. You just yield.

Just give way. It's just your life. You've never been changed, you know? I know in my Reformation Heritage Bible says, those committed to serving sin are the servants of sin. If you're still committed to serving sin, it's because you're a servant of sin, and that leads to death and it's full of sins.

The justified man, on the other hand, is set free from the tyranny of sin." Close quote. Again, Calvin writes, if we sin, that is, if we go back to a life of practicing sin, we go back to Egypt, We give ourselves up to the service of sin. If we do that, you know, if we sin, well then we show ourselves to be slaves of sin, still to be in the bondage to sin. But the faithful, on the contrary, have been redeemed from the tyranny of sin that they may serve Christ. It's therefore impossible for them to remain bound to sin.

If you be servants of sin, then of course sin has the dominion. Sin, we just read, doesn't have dominion over God's people, but sin still has dominion over you if you're still in bondage to sin. Well, how do I know if I'm in bondage to sin? You're still in slavery to sin. There's never been a change.

There's never been an old you and a new you. What you once were, you still are. But the regenerate, God has saved them, and when He saved them, He changed them. They made them new creatures in Christ Jesus. Behold, old things are passed away and passing away, and all things are becoming new.

And they're becoming new. You're not only a new creature in Christ. Anyone hear Paul Washer's sermon where he talks about regeneration and he talks about the difference between the unregenerate husband in his home and the regenerate husband in his home. Such a good analogy. Where he talks about, he says, you know, it's snowing one day and he's trying to get out to go to work and he's tripping over stuff and everything's in his way and he's all frustrated and everything and he just gets to the door.

He's got a meeting, he's got to be there, you know, and his wife says, honey, can you take out the trash? He's just about to, he's like, I'm late, you know, and he starts screaming at her and he's upset with her and he's, you know, all the, all this stuff and, and can't you tell, you know, can't you see I'm late for, for work? Don't you, can't you, you know, see that I need your help and not your whatever commands or whatever and he runs out the door runs out the door he gets in his car and he drives off to work and he feels completely justified in what he did. The difference is when a man is regenerated, it's snowing, he's out there and he's in his house, same circumstances are taking place, he's tripping over things, trying to get out the door, he's late, you know, and he's got to get there for a meeting, He's trying to get out the door, he's late, you know, and he's got to get there for a meeting. He's trying to get out the door and his wife says, honey, can you take out the trash at the very last minute?

And he does the exact same thing. He does the exact same thing. But when he gets in his car and he takes off and heads to work, it's like a dagger through his heart. God convicts him. God convicts him.

That's wrong. And as soon as he can get on the phone, he calls his wife and says, I'm sorry, please forgive me. The difference between the unregenerate man and the regenerate man in the same circumstances. He's not perfect, but he has a heart now that has been changed by God. He's not going to act the same way that He acted before.

Those committed to serving sin, again, are the servants of sin. If you're the servants of sin, sin has a dominion. Then as we get closer to the close here, God be thanked, the apostle Paul says. This is such an important part. If you underline anything in your Bibles, please underline this in verse 17.

God be thanked. God be thanked. God be thanked. This isn't just something that's just passing, just kind of throwing it out there. He's saying the ground of, yes, of your justification is God and the work that He's done for you in Christ, but guess what?

The ground of your sanctification, you need to be thanking God. If God has caused you to grow in holiness. If you were once the servants of sin, but now you have obeyed from the heart, that is you've obeyed the gospel, you believe on Christ, you've turned from your sins, you are growing in Christ-likeness, God be thanked. God be thanked. That you were once the servants of sin, but now you've become the servants of righteousness.

God be thanked because it was his work in you. He's the one who freed you from sin's power under the law to condemn you, and freed you from its power to enslave you and rule over you. Thanks be to God, it says in some versions. That though you were the servants of sin, you're no longer the servants of sin unto death, but of obedience unto righteousness. God be thanked that you believe from the heart, which is obedience to the gospel.

If God is to be thanked, that means it's all of grace and the gift of God. Again, when I preach on the streets, I'll commonly go to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 9, where the apostle Paul says, speaking to the people in the Church of Corinth, do you not understand, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? He's going to make this line, you know, draw a line in the sand, that he catalogs this list of horrible sins that Christians in Corinth were practicing before their conversion and defined their lives. And he goes to tell them that it's impossible for those who practice these things to also be on their way to heaven, despite their profession of faith. Something that Christians in America today also need to hear.

And I typically go there because Verse 18, which follows, he says, such were some of you. Same thing the apostles saying here. You used to be this, but now you're this. This used to be you, and now this is you. This used to be your life, but it's not your life any longer.

You're now something different than what you were before. You were an Adam now you're in Christ You were living for your flesh and for sin But now you're living for God and trying to serve him you were once we're living in the filthiness of your sins But now you've been washed you're sanctified you've been set apart into God you've been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and that by a powerful work of the Holy Spirit upon your souls. In a word, you've been saved. There's a difference now in people that are saved and those who are not. The evidence of your life is that you've been changed by God.

Some of you used to practice these things, but that's not the case anymore. You used to be fornicators, he lists, fornicators, from the word pornea, from which we get the modern English word pornography. You used to be porno guys, but you're not anymore. You used to be fornicators. You used to be idolaters, worshipers of false gods.

You used to be adulterers living in lust and adultery. You used to be effeminate. He goes through this list. You used to be thieves. You used to be People who coveted their neighbor's stuff.

You used to be drunkards. You used to be revilers. That is those who use abusive language towards others You used to be that but you're not anymore Such were some of you in the unregenerate state in which you were born. But you've been washed, you've been cleansed, you've been justified, and you're now not what you once were. God changed you, and that's what Paul is saying in verse 17 of our text this morning.

God be thanked. Your version might say, thanks be to God, thanks be to God, that you were the servants of sin, but you aren't anymore. That's what you used to be, but it's not who you are in Christ. Being made free from the bondage of sin, God be thanked who freed you, you became the servants of righteousness. God be thanked you're no longer what you once were and who you once were.

God be thanked because He's the one who delivered you from these things. Praise be to God, He says as we close, you were made free from sin, freed from sin's power to condemn you under the law, as well as its power to enslave you to obey its dictates. Thanks be to God, because it's God who made you free by the merciful grace of Almighty God, by the resurrecting power of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. You were raised from the graveyard of spiritual death and made alive in God, Son, Jesus Christ. You were given this gift of faith to believe, justified in the sight of God.

The imputation of Christ's righteousness to your account has been accomplished. You were set free from your bondage to sin. Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. God be praised. Let's end with that.

Father, we do want to thank you God and praise you Lord that we who are under grace are no longer under, that we're not under the rigorous demands of the law to obey in every point or be eternally condemned. We thank you for the freedom that we have in Christ that we were made free from the penalty of sin and made free from the bondage of sin to enslave us. We praise you and thank you God. And we ask you Father, God, that you would now as we approach the Lord's table, God, you would help us to examine ourselves to see if we'd be in the faith and to see if there's any way in us Lord that we need to repent of before we eat of that bread, drink of that cup, showing Jesus died for us. Amen.