In the sermon titled 'When You are Dead to Sin and Alive to God,' Jason Dohm explores Romans 6:8-14, emphasizing the believer's transition from being dead to sin to being alive to God through Jesus Christ. This transformation is not based on feelings or personal performance but is rooted in Christ's death and resurrection. The sermon stresses that believers should not allow sin to reign in their bodies and should offer themselves as instruments of righteousness. Dohm highlights the role of God's grace, which not only saves but also sanctifies and keeps believers, ensuring that sin does not have dominion over them. He encourages believers to live in the freedom bought by Christ's sacrifice, presenting their whole selves as offerings to God, and emboldens them to fight against sin with vigor. The sermon concludes with an appeal for believers to continuously dedicate their lives to serving God.

Romans 6, 8 through 14. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all.

But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lusts and do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. Father, it's hard to think of more glorious truths that impact us.

God, may these be more than just nice words on a page today. May these be life-changing, position-changing for people who don't know you. Would you bring the dead to life? Would you destroy works of darkness today? Would you sever strongholds and sin?

Would you demonstrate that your grace is more powerful than sin and death? Thank you that you conquered death, that death no longer has dominion over you. And for those of us who are in you no longer has dominion over us. Lord awaken us to these truths may these be so life-changing truths for us today. Please empower Jason through your Holy Spirit to preach with such power.

Spirit we pray you would just perform surgery on us. Do great things in our midst to glorify your name. Amen. The title of the sermon this morning is, When You Are Dead to Sin and Alive to God. So, Paul has been making the argument the whole chapter that this is the state of the believer.

Dead to sin and alive to God. Now he's graduating us to what then? When you are dead to sin and when you are alive to God, what then? Paul is taking us there in today's text. Paul has been establishing the truth of the status of the believer.

A status not based on feelings. You might feel your status sometimes, you might not feel it at other times. Never mind. It's not based on performance. You might be performing well sometimes, not performing well at other times.

Never mind. It's not based on anything else. It is exclusively based on the person and work of the object of faith, Jesus Christ. The status of the believer depends on who Jesus is and what he has done for anyone and everyone who will entrust themselves to him. Period.

Amen. There's no more to be said about the status of the believer. He is rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ and nothing else. The person who trusts in Jesus Christ was born in Adam, we all were, but no longer is the believer in Adam. Now the believer is in Christ and because the believer is in Christ he or she has died to sin and is alive to God.

And so that ends us at this exhortation in verse 11, which is the verse right before the text that I'm preaching on. Look again at verse 11. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves, know that you know that you know, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord." So this is not the power of positive thinking, this is not manifesting, This is not making something a reality by wanting it to be true. This is to live in the light of what is true. There's such a tremendous difference in those things.

Paul begs you to believe that these things are at the actual realities of the believer and then to live accordingly as we said over and over again in the book of Ephesians to become what you are. You are it. Now trust that God has made you everything that he says you are. Live in the light of that. That's really where we are in Romans chapter 6.

Let's ask God to help us. God, I pray that these truths would settle down deep in our hearts. That We would reckon them to be true because you have said that they are true. You have said it. That we would know, that we know, that we know that Believers in Jesus Christ are dead to sin and are alive to God.

Not because of anything that has been historically true about us, But because of everything that is true of your son, has been true, is true, will forever be true of your son. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, three verses. Let's just look at them independently.

That's an easy way to subdivide. Hopefully your finger is still in Romans chapter 6. Follow along as I reread verse 12 and then we'll talk about it. Romans chapter 6 verse 12, Paul writes, Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lusts. Here Paul commands us to not let sin reign.

If you're filling in blanks on the handout, sin fills in the blanks. Do not let sin reign. It is a command. He begins by saying, Therefore, because of all that he just said about the unity of the believer with the believer's head, family head, head of the race, Jesus Christ, because of your unity in His death, because of your unity in His resurrection, because of that, don't let sin reign in your mortal body. Now, who is this to?

It is to believers in Rome. I just want to remind you of who Paul addresses the letter to in chapter 1 verse 7. Just listen to chapter 1 verse 7. To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So who is Paul writing to?

He is writing to people who are loved by God. Who are the recipients of the love of God who are called to be saints. Saints just means one who is set apart. These are the people in Rome who God has called to be set apart to Himself. God set apart this group of people in Rome to Himself.

He said, You're mine, and He laid His hands on them and made them His. They weren't His, but He determined that they would be His and so He made them His. And He poured out His grace on them and He made peace with them. This is who Paul is writing to. Paul is teaching that when that description fits you, you're loved by God, God set you apart to Himself, you're the recipient of His grace, He has made peace with you, even though you're a sinner, if all that fits you, sin can only reign in your body if you let it.

That you don't have to let it. That you shouldn't let it. That you must not let it. Listen to John Murray. John Murray says this, To say to the slave who has not been emancipated or who has not been set free, Do not behave as a slave is to mock his enslavement.

Enslavement. But to say to the same slave who has been set free is the necessary appeal to put into effect the privileges and rights of his liberation. So in this case the sequence is, sin does not have the dominion, therefore do not allow it to reign. Deliverance from the dominion of sin is both the basis of and the incentive to the fulfillment of the exhortation, let not sin reign." So what's John Murray saying here? It's saying it's really cruel to say to a slave in his slavery, don't act like a slave.

How am I not to act like a slave? I am a slave. How dare you say that to a slave? How cruel of you to say that to a slave. But to a slave who's been set free, don't lose sight of your privileges.

Don't lose sight of your rights. You're not a slave anymore. You've been set free. So, live free is not only not cruel, you have a sound basis for it. You have the incentive to tell them to live free.

You didn't get set free to live like a slave anymore, you've been set free to live free. Amen to that. The Bible does teach the believer that the world, the flesh, and the devil is against you. Does the Bible teach that? You bet it does.

The Bible does not teach the believer that any of those can control you. The Bible does not teach that any of those, the world, the flesh, or the devil, is your master. You better not be your master. Are there remaining corruptions? Absolutely.

Don't you feel them every day? Do those remaining corruptions have any claim to dominate you, to subjugate you, to rule over you? Absolutely not. This is what Paul is teaching. So believer, don't you ever say, the devil made me do it.

Oh, he'll make you many offers. He'll suggest that You enter into many things that dishonor God. That's true. But do not let sin reign. The world will make you many offers, that's true.

It will make many suggestions. The things that would dishonor God. But do not let sin reign. The flesh will make many offers. Anybody's flesh make them offers?

Things that dishonor God? Paul says, if you're really a believer, the power of sin has been broken in your life, you died with Christ, you are alive to God, do not let sin reign. The flesh, this is what Paul is speaking of when he talks about your mortal body. The mortal body is simply this body of yours, Peter calls it a tent. It's this temporary dwelling It's this temporary dwelling for life on earth, which is subject to death.

A mortal body, subject to mortality, subject to death. Been raised to life spiritually, but the bodily resurrection has not been accomplished in the believer yet. The bodily resurrection is future. So here, you're stuck in this temporary dwelling, this tent. There are remaining corruptions and the suggestions will be made to you.

Suggestions that dishonor the Lord. I listened to 1 Corinthians 15, 54. This is the resurrection chapter. So it's Paul talking about the bodily resurrection. And this is close to the end of the chapter.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 54, So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, he's describing the bodily resurrection, this corruptible, this body with remaining corruptions has put on incorruption, no longer subject to corruption, no longer having remaining corruptions. All those remaining corruptions have been purged in the bodily resurrection. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. So Paul takes these things and he puts them side by side. You're in a corruptible body that is mortal.

Remaining corruptions subject to death. In the bodily resurrection you're going to put on the incorruptible, no longer subject in any way to remaining corruptions. There are no remaining corruptions. Godspeed the day. And immortality, no longer subject to death.

Death is swallowed up in victory. The mortal body of the believer is still quite demanding. Still making demands every day. It was very used to getting its way. It was very used to demanding obedience and having its demands obeyed.

True? Of the unregenerate person, the unbelieving person, the mortal body, makes demands and you obey its demands. Don't think about this wrong. This isn't meaning you're doing the most outwardly corrupt thing. Sometimes the demand that it makes is for respectability.

Self is still at the center of its demands, but its demands can be very respectable because self always wants to be respectable, or most people. This is still corruption. So the mortal body, very used to getting its way, demanding obedience and having its demands obeyed. Now there's new life, there's death to sin and alive to God. When a person ceases to be in Adam and is now in Christ by faith, you now have the power to say, Shut up!

You're not my king! Children, your parents don't want you saying shut up. They will authorize it in this one very limited case. It is an ugly thing to say usually. But to these remaining inclinations towards ungodliness, your parents will allow you to say, shut up.

You cannot command my obedience. You are not my king. I have a king. The heart of stone has been removed, has been replaced with a heart of flesh. You are indwelt by the almighty spirit of God, not coming and going, but living inside you, dwelling inside you.

And you have the power to disobey your remaining corruptions. You didn't used to have power to disobey your corruptions. But now you have the power to say, I won't obey you, you're not my king. And that's what you should say. Even though they're still clamoring to be served every day, sometimes every hour of every day, sometimes every minute of every hour, they're clamoring to be obeyed.

You do not have to obey them if you're a believer and indwelt by the almighty Holy Spirit, with a heart of flesh where there used to be a heart of stone. You are united with Christ in the likeness of His death. You are united with Christ in the likeness of His resurrection. You can and you should walk in newness of life. That's the whole argument of Romans chapter 6.

You can walk in newness of life. You should. Why? Because you're united with him in his death, you're dead to sin. You're united with him in the likeness of his resurrection.

You're alive to God. You don't have to serve those cravings anymore. Doesn't mean you'll never have cravings. He's saying, do not let it rain. It's not your king.

Verse 13. Back in Romans 6, moving on to the next verse. Follow along as I reread verse 13. And, do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin. But present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God." In verse 13, Paul is speaking to us about the presentation of your members.

Presenting your members. Members fills in the blank if you're taking notes that way. There is a do not here and a do here. Do not present your members as instruments of righteousness to sin. Instead do present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

In each case, you're offering up your members. The Greek being translated to members here literally means parts of the body. Do not offer up your body parts to be a tool or an instrument of something. So it's that kind of instrument. It's not a musical instrument.

It's instrument in the sense of being a tool for the accomplishment of some work. A tool to accomplish a work. But that isn't the termination point. What is accomplished with the help of the tool isn't the termination point. That offering of your members as a tool is ultimately to something beyond, either to sin or to God.

So sin is the termination point, or God is the termination point. So something is being advanced by your members, something is being advanced by your body parts, either unrighteousness or righteousness. And something is being served by your members, either sin or God. Believing friend, You are free. How are you free?

Because Jesus came and lived and died for sinners. That's how you're free. Now, What will you advance with your freedom? What or who will you serve with your freedom? Will you advance unrighteousness and serve sin with your freedom, with your blood-bought freedom?

Or will you advance righteousness and serve God with your blood-bought freedom? Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6 verse 20. So same author, Paul, different letter. 1 Corinthians 6 verse 20. He says, you were bought at a price.

Now stop, think about the price. You were bought at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." He bought your body and your spirit with a price. The price was the blood of His Son. So they belong to Him.

So they belong to him. It is your body, your members, the physical parts of your body, these members. It is your eyes and ears and mouth and hands and feet. But it's more than that. Our text says, present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead.

Your body, but not just your body. Your self is more than just your body. It's your whole self. It's your body and spirit which belong to God, because he paid a price to have them as his own. Listen to what Peter says in 1 Peter 2.24.

It's not the whole verse, it's the beginning of the verse. 1 Peter 2.24, Peter and Paul sharing like doctrine. Peter says this, he's speaking of Jesus. Jesus, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness. When Jesus bore the sins of believers in his own body on the tree, just what he's been talking about in Romans chapter 6, our death being Jesus' death descends.

When He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, we died to sins, and now We might live for righteousness. We can live for righteousness. We should live for righteousness. He bought us the potential, the possibility to live for righteousness. Present yourself to God as being alive from the dead.

Paul is saying that, Peter is saying that. Offer up yourself as being alive from the dead. Why should you do that believer? Because you're alive from the dead. Because it is your actual state and the actual reality.

You are alive from the dead. So live for righteousness unto God. To God. The termination point is serving God. This is what it means to be holy.

To be set apart to God. God says you're mine and lays claim to you. Set apart for God. All your plans now become irrelevant. God, what do you want?

What would please you? You bought me with the blood of your son. What would please you to do with this life that you've ransomed? We sing songs about this all the time. I'm glad we do.

It is a literal offering to God. Present your members as tools, instruments For righteousness to God. It's a literal offering to God. This is sort of the first shot across the bow for Romans chapter 12. Present yourselves as living sacrifices.

I won't steal the thunder for that now, but Paul is already starting down that track. Now verse 14. Romans 6 verse 14. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace." So don't offer yourself up to unrighteousness, your members as tools for unrighteous ends to sin, serving sin, but offer up your members as tools of righteousness to God, as an offering to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace." Here, Paul sets before us the reality of the believer.

Reality fills in the blank. Paul ends this section with the final word truth. The truth that is the final word on this matter. What matter? What he started in verse 1.

So just look back, chapter 6 verse 1, where did all this start? He asks a question, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? What shall we say? From all the doctrine that He's been laying out about salvation?

By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. What should we say about that? That we should continue in sin, that grace may abound? Here's his final word before you can see in your Bible. Next week we're going to start with another question.

So he's wrapping up his response on this question. This is the final word on that question. Should the believer continue in sin so that grace would abound? What is the truth that rules the day on this matter? Sin shall not have dominion over the believer.

This is a promise, not a command, not an exhortation. Shall not. This is the reality of the believer. Period. Amen.

If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, sin shall not have dominion over you. For everyone who is no longer in Adam but is now in Christ, the law no longer has the final word. Grace has the final word. We're talking about offering up your members as instruments of righteousness to God. The law has no power to make you righteous.

It only has the power to expose you as unrighteous. Paul is getting ready to teach that it actually awakens, the law actually awakens and stimulates unrighteousness in us. It has no life giving power, it only has life taking power. The wages of sin is death and the law lines up to pay you your wages for your law breaking. But God's grace can cleanse away your unrighteousness and make you righteous.

God's grace can erase the death penalty and give you life, everlasting life. So in the end, it is exactly the opposite of what the despisers of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone predicted. So the despisers of this great doctrine, this foundational doctrine of scripture, that salvation is only by grace alone. It is only a gift. It is only through faith alone.

It only comes by trusting. It is only in Christ alone that the object of trust must not be anything else but only Jesus Christ, that these people who despise that core doctrine of scripture make a prediction. They predict that if you have no more part in your salvation than simple trust in Jesus Christ, that if salvation is exclusively rooted in grace, you'll use that as a license to go on sinning. That's their prediction. If you don't have any more to do with your salvation than just simple trust in Jesus Christ is all outside of you, and that the single foundation stone for your foundation is God's grace, you'll take advantage of that and you'll just exploit it.

Use it as a license to go on sinning. That's their prediction. But what did these despisers forget? Oh, they forgot something. That grace is God's grace.

That grace isn't some separate, disembodied, one-time influence, but it's actually the action of God who has determined to do something and the action is just the reflection that God owns that determination. Not one time, but for all time, God owns that determination. That's what they forgot. That when God gives saving grace, He always continues to give keeping grace. Are you with me?

When God gives saving grace, When he saves the sinner, he always continues to give keeping grace. He undertakes not only the salvation of the believer, but the sanctification of the believer, the progress of the believer, the continuation of the believer. He owns this as much as this, and this as much as this. He does not own salvation more than he owns the keeping of the believer, or the keeping of the believer more than he owns the salvation of the believer, he owns them both completely. Listen to Ezekiel 36.

Listen to Ezekiel 36, 25-27. Just listen. Think about the bearing this has on this. Ezekiel 36, 25-27. God says, then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean.

I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Translation, I'll save you. Now 26. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them. The grace of God is for saving and the grace of God is for keeping. The grace of God is for saving Sinners and the grace of God is for sanctifying sinners, giving them progress, leading them into progress. Consider this verse from a song we sing, All I Have is Christ. I'm going to give you the whole verse.

But, as I ran my hellbound race, indifferent to the cost, you looked upon my helpless state and led me to the cross. And I beheld God's love displayed. You suffered in my place. You bore the wrath reserved for me. Now all I know is grace." I confess, for a long time that last line was a real struggle for me.

All I know is grace. And It's hard not to see that and sing that through the cheap grace lens. Grace isn't cheap, it's purchased by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when God gives it to save, He gives it to keep. And the song's right.

My recoiling from it is wrong. You just have to understand it in the right way. All the believer knows is grace, even when I sin, especially when I sin. God doesn't recoil from me, doesn't withdraw from me when I sin. If I persist, He may very well bring discipline into my life to bring me back.

Isn't that God's grace? That is a special manifestation of His unearned, undeserved favor that he wouldn't let you just drift off forever but that he would bring discipline into the life of the believer to bring them back. That is grace. All the believer knows is grace. Discipline is grace.

Discipline is grace. If you are a real Christian, sin shall not have dominion over you. Sin might win some battles, but it can never win the war. Jesus has won the war on behalf of believers. You might divert into sin for a time, God will bring you back.

I've been brought back so many times, Sometimes they were pleasant paths, sometimes they were very unpleasant paths, but it was always His grace to bring me back. Sin shall not have dominion over the believer because God has undertaken to give and keep giving his unearned undeserved favor. It wasn't earned or deserved the day he saved you And it's not earned or deserved any day afterwards, but He has determined what He's going to do. And He is determined to make a people the objects of His grace. And He's going to do it!

So, like your salvation is rooted only in who Jesus is and what He has done, your continuation in the faith is rooted in God's promise that sin shall not have dominion over you. That is promise. It is not command. It shall not. Why?

Because God is faithful. Because God is almighty. You like what Paul is teaching here? I really like what Paul is teaching here. Such an encouragement to my soul.

Three applications. One, unbeliever, come out of your slavery to sin. You are a pitiful creature indeed. You can do nothing but serve yourself, love yourself, slavishly serve when your mortal body says jump, you have to say how high. You love to say how high.

Come out. Why would you live as a slave when you can live as a free man, as a free woman? Jesus Christ has made a way. His blood brings out of slavery. I pray, if you're an unbeliever and you're hearing this, I pray that one day soon, God will make you so tired of your slavery.

Would make it so obvious to you that the thing that you love to do that you also hate to do, that It would become the bitterest taste. It would become so obvious to you, your powerlessness, your slavery to these things that have no benefit for you at all. Come out of your slavery. Come out of your slavery. Number two, believer.

You can live free. You can live free. Some of us have lived with besetting sins, cultivated secret pet sins for so long that it seems like we Can't live free if you're a believer, that's not true Let Paul re-center you on truth forget what it feels like and believe God in his word. You can live free. You should live free.

You must live free. He did not shed His blood for you to re-enslave yourself and offer your members to unrighteousness and sin. The only way to honor a blood-spilling Savior is to live free. Listen. Paul is emboldening us against sin.

And I'm finding it invigorating. I want to be emboldened against sin. I want to know that God has said I can live free. To make me not put up with things in my life that I put up with for far too long. To attack with vigor sin in my life knowing that I can and should and must live free.

It's the only way that I can honor a blood spilling Savior. I hope we're tired enough of putting up with these besetting sins, these secret pet sins that Paul will embolden us to attack them with a vigor that we haven't had for the longest time. May it be so. Number three, and finally, believer. Offer your eyes to him.

Offer your ears to him. Offer your mind to him. Offer your hands to him. Offer your feet to him. Whatever your eyes see, let it be an offering to him.

Whatever your ears hear, let it be an offering to him Whatever your mouth says Let it be an offering to him whatever your mind dwells on let it be an offering to him. Whatever your mind dwells on, let it be an offering to him. Whatever your hands do, let it be an offering to him. Wherever your feet take you, Let it be an offering to Him wherever your feet take you. Let it be an offering to Him.

And then do it again tomorrow. And then do it again the next day. And then do it again the next day. We do this over and over and over and over again. We should wake up in the morning and say, God, here I am, all my body parts, my whole self.

Let it be consecrated to you today. God, embolden us against sin. God, in boldness against sin. Forgive for those of us who are really in Christ. Forgive us for putting up with besetting sins.

For hiding pet sins. God cause us to be so sick of them today. Thank you for these truths that do embolden us against sin, that embolden us to serve you wholeheartedly. Pray that you would help us to do it. In Jesus' name, Amen.