GOD'S GREAT NEWS for MAN'S GREAT PROBLEM - Romans 1-8

John's Daily Choices

I have a friend whose life is a testimony to me. His name is John, and he is a Christian man who loves his wife and kids and teaches social studies in a public junior high school. John met Jesus Christ when he was in high school, and he has been a very committed believer for years. But about five years ago, John had to face an area in his life where sin ruled over him. He had to admit he was addicted to pornography. John had done all the right things, had said all the right words, had married the right woman, had fathered children whom he was teaching to pray to the Lord, but all the while he had been enslaved to pornography on the side.

But John faced the sin in his life honestly before God, before his wife and before his friends. He covenanted with a group of men who struggle the same way he does, and he has become a man of prayer and hard choices in dealing with his problem. Think about his life: John is faced every day with a choice when he enters the grocery store. Will he look at the pseudo-pornographic magazines out on the shelves, pretending to be a casual browser when in fact for him that is playing with fire? What about when he goes to the mailbox and the glossy catalogs are there: will he linger while looking over the mail? Only John and the Lord know when he crosses the line. But John has come to know he cannot play with that fire; it is no longer who he is. He used to be a porn addict, and it nearly consumed him and his marriage. But daily he lives like a new man in Jesus Christ, daily choosing not to play with that fire. In that process, John has become a truly loving man in his relationship with his wife. He is also a real innovator as an educator: he constantly puts original historical documents in the students' hands, that they might analyze them for themselves and learn to think for themselves and draw their own conclusions. John has won my respect as a Christian man, as a husband, and as a school teacher, because he lives the victory of the tough daily choices to live and act and think based on who God says he is. His life has become the heroic Christian life of daily choices to present himself and his members available to Jesus Christ alone.

How Our Changed Identity in Christ Becomes Our Victorious Life in Christ

John's life of daily choices portrays for me the practical reality of what it means to live according to my new identity in Christ. When I place my faith in Jesus Christ, my identity is transformed forever. My transformed identity then translates into a whole new set of godly choices and actions. These daily choices and actions in harmony with the indwelling Spirit of God become the victorious life of Christ in me. John lives like who God says he is, a man in Christ who has power in the Spirit of God to make godly choices each day, about how to spend his life and where to direct his eyes.

The last time we studied together, we explored the fact that we have two biographies as Christians: a biography of the sin life that began at our physical birth and ended when that life perished with Christ when we were joined to Him at conversion, and the second biography begun at conversion, marking our birth into eternal life in Jesus Christ. Paul told us in Rom 6:11: "Even so, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." That verse is the first command in Romans, and it is the first step in the Christian life. But it also raises questions: What does it really mean to consider yourself to be alive to God in Christ Jesus? How does this practically work out in my life today? Those are exactly the questions addressed in vs. 12-14, as we let Paul by the Holy Spirit teach us how to apply all of the great truth we have been learning. This is one of the greatest application passages in the whole Bible: it describes the daily process whereby our changed identity in Jesus Christ becomes our victorious life in Jesus Christ. Herein lies the secret to daily victory in Christ.

By Choosing to Obey Your Lusts No Longer: 6:12

Let's read verses 12-14 together. In these three verses, two things stand out. First, Paul's commands leap out at us: one in vs. 12 and two in vs. 13. Suddenly we have gone from having no commands in all of 1:1-6:10, to that first command in 6:11, to having three commands in three verses in 6:12-14!! Clearly, this passage is about applying the great theology we have been learning. I have always believed that good theology is intensely practical. This passage bears that out, making the good theology of Rom. 1:1-6:11 intensely practical in our day-to-day lives. Second, Paul mentions our old nemesis of "sin" in each of these three verses. Combining these two observations tells us where we are going in this passage, and it is great news: we now have the power to choose what to do in regards to sin, and we are commanded to break the rule of sin in our lives!!!! This is remarkable, in light of all the horror of Rom. 1:18-3:20 where man's great problem of sin seemed so intractable that we were left speechless before the court of God, utterly destitute and without hope, flattened under the influence of sin. Then, at the cross of Christ, the power of sin and death was broken. We were united with Christ by faith, having His life and power infused into us. As a result of this, WE NOW HAVE THE POWER TO BREAK THE RULE OF SIN IN THREE WAYS: 1) BY CHOOSING TO OBEY SIN NO LONGER, 2) BY PRESENTING OURSELVES COMPLETELY TO GOD, AND 3) BY LIVING UNDER GRACE. This is the outline for our study in Rom. 6:12-14.

Rom. 6:12 begins with the solemn command: "Therefore, do not continue to let sin reign in your mortal bodies." This command is the landslide achievement of Christ in us. The very fact that we as human beings now have the power to choose not to let sin reign in our lives is utterly fantastic. Our relationship to sin has changed fundamentally, because our identity in Christ has changed us fundamentally. We have died with Him His death to our sin, and have now His resurrection power available to us that we will choose not to sin.

But what is the "sin" whose reign we are to break? Sin is that inner attitude of self-sufficiency telling God "I Don't Need You." It is our unchallenged response of selfishness, our "what's in it for me?" question as we face moral choices. It is a profound self-centeredness in all our relationships, activities, hopes and dreams. Sin is the heart and by-product of the old self; as such it is interested only in the old self, and how comfortable that old self can be made to feel. Sin had us programmed before Christ so that all our choices were for the good of the old self alone.

Now suddenly Paul has solemnly commanded us not to continue to let sin reign in our mortal bodies. Since sin reigned supreme in our lives before Christ, how can we break its iron rule? To see how to break its iron rule, we have to understand how sin rules over us. To determine how to remove sin's foot from our neck, we have to first ask, how does sin rule over us? The answer to that question is found in the last phrase of verse 12: we let sin reign over us when we obey its lusts. The verb "obey" here actually means "to listen to, to obey." What are the whispers of sin we listen to and obey?

I think there are three primary ways sin gets a grip on us. First, sin controls me through my desires: my desire to take, to possess someone or something for myself. This is the predatory sense of sin. Samson seeing the nameless Philistine woman from Timnah in Judges 14, and grunting to his parents, "Get her for me, for she looks good to me" is the primal grunt of lust in the Bible. Second, sin controls me through my fears: my fear of loss that causes me to hold onto things for myself. This is the controlling sense of sin: when I fear loss of comfort or control or loved ones, I try to control everything in my life to hedge against that loss. This is the fear that caused the ten spies to speak out against entering the promised land in Numbers 13, 14: life in the dreary wilderness with the daily ration of manna was at least controllable, while in the land there be giants. Third, sin controls me through my ego: the neverending quest to make sure my self is getting the credit I think it deserves. James and John spent three years with Jesus and still asked near the end of that time if they could be on his right and left hand when His kingdom came in, that their place in history would be assured.

And each of these three sins comes to us with a little whisper. My desires whisper, "Don't you want that?" A woman can look at a thin body in a magazine, and want that body for herself, while a man can look at that same body and want it to satisfy himself. Fear comes with a different whisper: "What if? ..." Fear paralyzes our minds with endless "what if?" scenarios that paint a doomsday reality in our minds, obscuring the real world we live in. What if this job doesn't work out, what if my dreams become nightmares, what if I lose him or her? The whisper of "what if?" can motivate us to try to control our lives so that the "what if" never happens. Finally, the whisper to the ego is more like, "What about me?" Where is my acclaim, where is my rightful due? Doesn't anyone notice and appreciate all the hard work I do?

The reality is we have been tuned to the frequency of sin all our lives, listening to these and other whispers and getting our focus off of God and onto ourselves. So, how does Paul want us to stop listening? The answer comes when we consider who can actually hear those whispers. We each hear it, but does our Pastor hear that whisper of lust? No. Does our best friend sitting next to us in church hear that voice? No. We hear it ... but so does the indwelling Spirit of God. You and I are never alone when we hear the whisper of sin ... our Jesus Christ is always there, and He always hears. Now, since there are two distinct persons, your inner spiritual self and the Holy Spirit of God, who hear the whisper of sin, one of them must have the power to refuse to obey sin. Otherwise, Paul's command here would be impossible to follow. Therefore, the way we break the rule of sin is by breaking the pattern of listening to and obeying the whisper of sin. We do this by introducing each thought to the One inside us who can easily overcome it. The Spirit of God in us hears the whisper of sin, and He is eagerly waiting for a nod from us to rebuke the whisper of sin and silence it.

So, how do we break the rule of sin in our lives? We break it by one crucial step of faith: a nod to the Spirit within, saying, "THANK YOU FOR HANDLING THIS, LORD!" We are only able to obey Paul's command by the power of the Spirit, by taking every thought captive to Him and letting Him manhandle the thought. So, rather than taking on sin by ourselves and getting crushed by it, we introduce each thought to the Spirit whenever sin whispers to us. When sin calls you on your inner phone, thankfully refer the call to your Manager.

When that inner whisper of sin asks "Don't you want that?," next time we can turn to the Lord and ask Him, "Lord, DO I want that?" The next time the fear floods in with the "what if?" scenarios, we can say, "Lord, thanks for holding my future in Your hand." And the next time sin whispers, "What about me?" we can turn to the Lord and say, "Lord, how do You want to use me in this?" In private conversation with the Spirit, the Spirit will short-circuit the suggestion of sin by helping you see yourself for who you really are in Christ, and by helping you to see life the way it really is, over and against the fantasy world painted in our minds by sin. The minute we ask the Spirit to process the sin, the fantasy world vanishes, the real world becomes more clear, and we break the spell of sin. Then we begin to realize the deeper reality: all we really want is Him, the reality of Him living in me. All the "what if?" scenarios melt into His sovereign goodness. All my worries about me get lost as I find Him. Wanting or worrying about anything else is accepting a cheap substitute for Jesus Christ.

I have heard it said that there are three "Gs" a man needs to be aware of as lusts in his life: Girls, Gold and Glory. But in the end, all three of those "Gs" are poor substitutes for the one "G" the man really wants deep inside: God.

A young man named George discovered this real satisfaction with God alone after following a circuitous route of sin and slavery. George was the son of a tax collector, and a born thief. His father caught him stealing some of the money from his tax collections when he was ten, and when he went for confirmation in a church at 14, he only gave the pastor one twelfth of the amount his father had given him to pay the pastor. When he was fifteen, his father left the country for a while, but George continued his father's tax collecting on the sly, telling people to make up their back payments and pocketing the money for himself to take a grand trip he called his "six days of sin." When those six days were over and his money was exhausted, George moved into an expensive hotel, and stayed for a week on credit before leaving during the night before the day he was supposed to pay. He did this again at another hotel, but was caught by police. He spent 24 days in jail. After his father bailed him out and disciplined him, George entered school for the ministry, studying over 12 hours a day. But his drinking and sleeping around continued. He even forged letters from his father and the parents of some other students so he and some friends could have a wild holiday weekend in Switzerland. On the trip, George carried the purse and stole from his friends. Back at divinity school, one of George's traveling buddies was stricken with remorse, so he confessed his sins and went to a home Bible study. George went with him. George felt entirely out of place, and apologized for being there. But the host welcomed him warmly. A hymn was sung, then a chapter from the Bible was read. Then the group prayed, and during that prayer young George felt an inward joy and peace springing up in him. On the way home that night, George told his friend, "All our former pleasures are as nothing compared to what we experienced tonight."

Christ had touched George's heart that night, and he was utterly changed. He moved to England, and founded five homes for orphans that sheltered 2,000 children. He became known during his lifetime as a man of great faith, who by prayer alone raised over millions of dollars to fund the orphanages. Before Christ, his hands had stolen from everyone, including his own father and his best friends. By the power of the Spirit of Christ, he became a man who wouldn't even ask for money, but was given huge sums by God while his hands were folded in prayer. George Muller of Bristol had become a man who presented himself totally available to God, a man whose hands were folded in prayer rather than grabbing for money. And all his former sins and lusts were as nothing compared to experiencing peace with God.

So, giving the sin to Him, and in relationship with Him interpreting sin for what it is, not only frees us from the foggy spell of sin, but it gives us the substance of which the sinful lust was only a shadowy counterfeit: it gives us Himself. Now that we are in Christ, all we truly want at the deepest level is Him. Our victory in Christ is Christ Himself, the reality of Him in me and I in Him.

By Presenting Ourselves Completely to God: 6:13

But there is more to this great passage. Rom. 6:13 has become one of my favorite verses, because of what it says about who I am now in Christ. It redefines for us our relationship to sin, revealing the true meaning of our new identity in Christ.

First, Paul begins this verse with a command in almost exactly the same form as the command of verse 12. He tells us "Do not continue to present your members of your body to sin as weapons of unrighteousness ..." The command here means "to put at one's disposal, to present." The word could be used in a military sense, in other words, "show up for full-time duty to your commanding officer." Members here are also used in a miliatry sense, as "weapons," weapons that can either be used for mass destruction of others, or to build others up. Basically, this is a command to stop putting ourselves in situations where we fall prey to lust and get involved in sin. Do not make your members, such as your hands, feet, tongue, mind, etc. available to sin, but make yourself and your members available to God.

The key idea to note is that these "members of your body" are YOUR members ... the question is how are you going to use them? Who are they going to be given to, for whose use? They will be used by someone or something, either by our living God unto eternal life, or by sin unto destruction. They will be used, but the command is ours to choose who will use them, and there are only two choices: sin or God.

The first option is to present your members to sin. This is the option we have known the longest, the default choice: to present our members to sin as weapons in the hand of sin unto unrighteousness. Without knowing Christ, there is only one option: serve under sin, the tyrant, and do the deeds of destruction. But when we become identified with Christ, even though we have been fighting in sin's army and opposing God, we have a brand new ruler whose army we can willingly join. Our new option is to present ourselves to God as His soldiers. As He leads us, we always experience victory and freedom. We present our members to Him to be used by Him in the process of loving people and expressing His words and service to them through our spiritual gifts, for the glory of God and for the good of others. Thus, the "weapons" of our human capital can either be weapons of death and mass destruction, or weapons of life like the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.

Consider your own tongue in this, as a "weapon." In your life, is your tongue employed by sin unto unrighteousness, or is it used by God to encourage and build up? Do you employ your tongue by holding it still to pray and talk to God, or does it wag wildly in talking to everyone before talking to God? How do you speak to your family when others aren't around to hear? Do you gossip behind someone's back, rather than praying and confronting them to their face? Does your tongue bring blessing and encouragement to others, or does it bring cursing and discouragement? Proverbs 18:21a tells us, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue ..." Does your tongue bring life or death?

Jill English's school is doing something very creative this year in teaching the students the power of the tongue. They liken our words to "silver boxes" that can be given as gifts to others, encouraging them and building them up. Jill taught this to our Kids' Time, then gave each of us silver candies wrapped up like little boxes, with an encouraging word taped on the bottom. None of us who were there that day will forget that gift of the silver box. Are your words like silver boxes, gifts of encouragement, or silver daggers plunged below the third rib? I have studied many things in the Bible, but the most convicting study I have ever done is on the awful power of the tongue. In the hands of sin, it rages like a firestorm, consuming reputations. In the hands of God, it proclaims the gospel of peace, healing souls.

Now we come to the point of contrast in this passage. Up to now in vs. 12 and 13, we have two commands, both in the negative, i.e. "Don't Do This..." But thanks be to God that Christianity is not a religion of "Don't, Don't Don't." The "Don'ts" have some force and power to be sure, as we follow them by the Spirit, but the "Do's" are much more positive and exciting. Paul begins this great contrast with that little word I love so much: "BUT!!" In other words, whereas before we have heard what not to do, now Paul is going to tell us what we can positively do to break the rule of sin in our lives. What can we do?

Paul's ringing answer is to PRESENT YOURSELVES TO GOD AS THOSE ALIVE FROM THE DEAD. This is strikingly simple: it means we are to present all of ourselves, everything about who we are, to God. Nothing is to be withheld from Him. We are alive for one reason alone: to be the vehicle for His divine life. He alone is our life: all that we are and all that we have must be made fully available to Him. The only possible response to all that God has given us is to give all of ourselves back to Him. We enjoy Christ's resurrection not to return to an old life that is dead, but to let Him live His new life through us from now on. We are not our own any more: we have died to that. We are His forevermore: we are alive only to Him. The only way the Christian life works is all the way: He gave all of Himself, now He simply asks us to give all of ourselves back to Him. What makes the Christian life difficult is when we withhold parts of ourselves from Him.

There is no surer antidote to sin than presenting yourself wholeheartedly to God in Christ. In most of our battles against sin, sin becomes our focus. Then we are surprised when the sin is impossible to overcome. But victory over sin is found in desiring Christ alone. He is Himself our victory. When I focus solely on Him and make everything I am and own and have available to Him, sin fades into the background. It never completely disappears in this life, but in this way we enter into Christ's victory over sin more and more. The Christian life is not a lifelong battle against sin. The Christian life is just that: Christ's life in me, and me in Christ seeking Him first in all things. All the most mature Christians I have known have been entranced with Jesus Christ, so focused on Him that focusing on sin or anything else in this world was a distraction from Him.

Let not your focus be on overcoming sin, or overcoming Satan, or Christianizing this nation, or praying against territorial spirits, or having victory over your flesh ... let your focus and heart's passion be to know Christ and to let Him be completely at home in you that He may live out His vital life through you!! Then in finding Christ Himself, you will find victory in Him.

I want to tell you about another friend I know who has found victory in Christ. Her name is Dana, and Dana is a brilliant Christian woman who works for the Hoover Institution, the famous conservative thinktank at Stanford. Dana has been a Christian for about twenty years, but about seven years ago she went through a period of terrible darkness. For three years, Dana was plagued with insomnia. Sometimes she would not sleep for four or five nights in a row. Sometimes she would exist for months getting only two or three desperate hours of sleep a night. And during that time, fears rushed upon her like an enemy army, coming at her in wave after wave, assaulting her day and night. She had been prone to fear anyway, and with the loss of sleep went much of her strength to resist all the "what if?" scenarios. In fact, it got so bad during one stretch of sleeplessness that Dana faced her ultimate fear: "What if I'm losing my mind? What if I go mad?" Think of that: an intelligent woman facing her fear of losing it -- losing her mind and thus losing any sense of control. But at that most awful moment, she made a choice to give herself and her deepest fears to Christ: she told the Lord, "Lord, even if I go crazy, You will be there. You will be with me. You will hold me, no matter how long it takes You to carry me home to You." And at that deepest place of pain in her life, God brought her opportunities to use her spiritual gift of teaching. She was asked to teach seminar after seminar on how to handle depression, how to live under suffering, how to live fruitfully as a single woman. She made herself and her gifts available even when she was utterly exhausted and spent, but God used her. She didn't focus on her fears and give into sin, she focused on Christ and found Him adequate, even in the darkness of impending madness. After about three years, the insomnia went away, and Dana continued living in daily victory in Christ.

But there is a little key in Rom. 6:13 to how all this works. The key is knowing our identity in Christ, and then presenting our new and true selves to God as those alive from the dead in Christ. The little key is the word "yourselves" in vs. 13. I can choose to present my members (my tongue, my mind, my hands, my feet, etc.) to either in or God, but I can only present MYSELF, the true me in my new identity in Christ, to God. The true me belongs and issues from my God alone: I can only present myself to Him. The key to living in victory is living in harmony with my God-given identity: being in thought, word and deed all that God says I am in Christ. Herein lies real victory over sin: being in sin, doing sin, enjoying sin, running to sin is JUST NOT WHO WE ARE ANY MORE. Sin has lost its flavor for us: before it tasted sweet, but now it tastes sour, because our constitution has changed fundamentally. We are no longer defined by sin nor the desire to sin: we are defined by our Christ.

Certainly the great tragedy of the novel The Scarlet Letter comes when Hester's sin of adultery identified who she was because she was forced to wear the scarlet "A" on her clothes always. She became "Hester the Adulteress," as if that one act defined forever who she was. How often the same is true of us in our own minds!! I know a woman who was scared to death to tell Blythe and me that she was getting a divorce, as though we were going to make her wear a scarlet "D" on her clothes. So often, when we think about ourselves, we think something like "I was a good person, until I slept with him. Then I had the abortion ... what a sinner I am." Or, we might say "I am such a sinner ... I just can't get beyond this problem I have with lust. I am so lustful." Now, the great news of what Paul says here is that WE ARE IDENTIFIED WITH CHRIST AND WE ARE ALIVE TO GOD. We are "sinners" no more. We are "in Christ" and are dead to sin forevermore. Sin only has the power over us we let it have, and we let it have power when we get confused about who we are. You are not the young Christian girl who slept with five guys and thus you are tainted: you are a young Christian woman alive to God and dead to sin in Christ Jesus. You are not a young Christian man who is lustful, as though that should be appended to your name: you are a young Christian man alive to God and dead to sin in Christ Jesus. Never let anyone, including the devil or yourself, make you believe you are identified by your sin. NO, NO, NO! YOU ARE IDENTIFIED WITH YOUR CHRIST IN HIS LIFE TO GOD!! Just let Him live that life through you!!

Thus, we find victory in Christ by letting Him manhandle sin as it whispers in our ears, finding Him to be the reality sin only promises in shadow. And we find victory by letting Him define our identity and presenting our whole selves and all our members to God as one made alive in Jesus Christ, being in word, thought and deed all that God says we are in Christ. But there is one more secret.

By Knowing We Are Under Grace, Not Under the Law: 6:14

When we come to Rom. 6:14, I feel almost a need to remove my shoes from off my feet, for here we stand on holy ground. This verse contains two parts: a golden promise: "Sin shall not be master over you ..." and a proclamation more freeing than the Emancipation Proclamation: "for you are not under law, but under grace."

The promise that sin shall not be master over you transfixed a young GI one night during World War II. Here is a quote from that man, who later became a famous pastor: "I will never forget how, as a young man in the service during World War II, I was on watch one night, reading the Book of Romans. This verse leaped out of the pages at me. I remember how the Spirit made it come alive, and I saw the great promise that all the things I was struggling with as a young man would ultimately be mastered -- not because I was so smart, but because God was teaching me and leading me into victory. I remember walking the floor, my heart just boiling over with praise and thanksgiving to God. I walked in a cloud of glory, rejoicing in this great promise: 'Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.' Looking back across these more than thirty years since that night, I can see that God has broken the grip of the things that mastered me then. Other problems have come in, with which I still struggle. But the promise remains: 'Sin shall not have dominion over you. You are not under law, but under grace.'"

But what does it mean that we are no longer under law, but under grace? Being under grace means that a greater authority, a greater principle, has superceded the rule of sin through the law. I am in Christ under the reign of grace. I live under a higher principle now. Just this week, our whole family flew to California. We flew three different flights going out there, and three different flights coming home. And each time, my favorite part of the flight is the take-off. What happens in the take-off is magical: the old law of gravity which keeps me trapped in a two-dimensional world is superceded by the delicate workings of four combined forces: thrust, lift, drag and gravity. When that plane combines enough thrust and lift to countermand the drag and gravity, I take-off. It is scary and wonderful: I have no real control, but I know I am going to a better and larger place. I become airborne and live in a three-dimensional world. The "law" in 6:14 is like the law of gravity that keeps me down, limited on the earth in only two dimensions. Grace is the delicate balance of my indwelling Christ, faith, rest and fulfilled law by the Spirit that lifts me toward heaven and sets me free to fly. Law doesn't disappear, it just is fulfilled and must submit under a greater force, that of grace. Living under grace is living in a whole new dimension that breaks the power of sin reigning through law, just as the plane defies gravity and soars through the air.

There is a point in each Christian's life where our Christian life truly takes off. That taking off point is when we understand the daily joy of living under grace. The other night, I was talking with Blythe and some friends about grace. Each of us shared a story. When I think of living under grace, I think about the first time I felt God's grace very palpably. I was a believer six months old in the Lord, and my first six months had been an exercise in pure frustration. I had given myself wholly to Him, withholding nothing. I had joined a Christian fellowship that was headed in the wrong direction, so I got out. I was alone, seeking some direction, angry with myself and with God. I was utterly frustrated. But then I went to a lunch with a pastor who loved the Lord, who listened to all my troubles, and who simply loved me and invited me to walk with him. That man didn't condemn me, he didn't counsel me, he extended God's kindness and grace to me. It was so refreshing! It was my first taste of living under grace.

Then one of us shared about being reminded of living under grace while she prays. You know what it is like when you are supposed to be praying, but your mind strays to thoughts and worries, and soon you find five minutes have passed by without any prayer at all. You wake up, and your first thought is self-condemnation: why do I always stray when I pray? And we tell the Lord we are sorry. But this woman shared something different: when that happens now, rather than condemning herself, the Lord reminds her just to be thankful He called her back to Himself. It's as though he says, "Don't focus on the sin and beat yourself, let's you and I talk." That is living under grace.

One woman then shared about how when she misses a quiet time now, she doesn't so much get under the guilt of missing the time or the routine, she misses the Lord Himself. She misses her Lord. That too is living under grace. And I noticed as we shared together, we ended up marveling in the kindness of God in meeting us where we are, in loving us without condition, in constantly showing us kindness. We all ended up with deep thankfulness and praising how "the kindness of God leads us to repentance." There is nothing so sweet as living under grace.

There is a little woman I read about recently who exemplifies a long life of living under grace. Her name is Mabel. Here is how Mabel is described by Thomas Schmidt in the book Straight & Narrow?, pg. 177, 178: "I knew an old woman once who took twenty-eight years to die, blind, deformed by cancerous tumors, bedridden and alone in a state institution. I visited Mabel for three years, amazed at her selfless and thankful spirit, and I learned what sustained her. She prayed and sang hymns. That was it -- virtually non-stop, as far as I could tell. Once I asked her what she thought about all day. It was almost twenty years ago, but I remember the moment vividly -- the stench of the room, the moaning of her vegetable roommate in the background and the long pause before the words came, slowly and garbled -- but deliberate -- from her twisted mouth: 'I think about my Jesus. I think about how good he has been to me.' And then she started to sing: 'Jesus is all the world to me, my life, my soul, my all; He is my strength from day to day; without Him I would fall.' Ten thousand days in a row ... Ten million waking minutes. She didn't fall." If that's not daily living in victory, I don't know what is!

She didn't fall. That is ultimately what living under grace means: we will never fall, no matter what. Whether it be the sickness Mabel suffered under, whether we fail miserably at our jobs, whether our family breaks apart, whether we give into sin, there is a safety net for us: the safety net of God's grace, undergirding us, so we never fall.

Here is a poem entitled Under Grace that describes this daily victory in His grace:

Knowing God's kindness, not afraid of His condemnation
Knowing God's loyal love, not afraid of His conditional approval
Knowing God as approachable Father, not as frowning Judge
Knowing God is a good giver, not a withholder
Knowing God sees Christ in me, not me without Christ
Knowing God assures me I'm His, not keeping me guessing
Knowing God always leads me in His triumph in Christ, beyond defeat
Knowing God is sovereign, resting in His sovereign goodness
Knowing God knows all, so I don't have to know-it-all
Knowing God says I'm in process, ever improving, from now to eternity.

Conclusion: Take My Life, and Let It Be!

So, we have considered Paul's commands and promises, his exhortations and proclamations in Rom. 6:12-14, and we have met four heroes of daily victory in Christ: John and George, Dana and Mabel. May we choose to live in daily victory in Christ like them. I want to close by singing one of my favorite hymns, Take My Life, and Let It Be:

Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee;
Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love,
at the impulse of thy love.

Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee;
Take my voice and let me sing always, only, for my King,
always, only, for my King.

Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold;
Take my moments and my days, let them flow in ceaseless praise,
let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Take my will and make it thine, it shall be no longer mine;
take my heart, it is thine own, it shall be thy royal throne,
it shall be thy royal throne.

Amen!

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