The Mastery of Grace

The Mastery of Grace

Romans 6:11–14

There is something deeply embedded in the American imagination: the idea that the truly free person is the person who belongs to himself.

A generation or two ago, that idea was expressed through the self made man and rugged individualism. “Make your own way. Chart your own course. Don’t depend on anybody.” The old version said, “Nobody tells me what to do.”

Today’s version sounds a little different. Instead of the cowboy, our cultural icon might be the influencer. The cowboy said, “Nobody tells me what to do.” The influencer says, “Nobody tells me what to be.”

But both share the same assumption: “I belong to myself. I am sovereign over my own life.”

Romans 6 presents a radically different picture.

The Bible never denies that we make real choices. We do. We make choices for which God holds us accountable. But here is the unsettling question: What determines what we want?

Paul writes in Romans 6:12, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.”

Notice the language. Sin reigns. Passions call. We obey.

Before Christ, we lived in sin like a fish in water. Sin was not merely something around us. It was the environment in which we lived and swam. We chose, but we chose according to our nature.

The shocking part of the gospel is not that God overrides our choices. It is that He changes our wants.

When we are born again, God changes the disposition of our hearts. We have a new Master and new desires, real desires to love and obey Him, even while the desires of the flesh continue to wage war against us.

That is why Paul begins with our identity:

“So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Consider. Some translations use the word “reckon.”

Paul is not telling us to imagine something until it becomes true. He is telling us to recognize what is already true. Because we are united with Christ, His death and resurrection have changed our relationship to sin.

You are dead to sin and alive to God.

You must know who you already are.

Then Paul says, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body.”

Sin is personified as a king issuing commands. But here is the key: sin is no longer the king.

Sin may still shout. It may make demands. It may throw temptations in your path. But it is no longer the reigning monarch. It is a stubborn rebel trying to reclaim a throne that no longer belongs to it.

Sin has lost its throne while retaining a battlefield.

That battle is fought in the daily decisions we make about our bodies. Paul says, “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness.”

The word translated “instruments” can carry the idea of weapons.

Sin wants your eyes, your tongue, your hands, your mind, your sexuality, your appetites, your money. It wants to use them as weapons through which its purposes are accomplished.

Give your tongue to sin and it will tear people down.

Give your eyes to sin and they will feed lust, envy, greed, and discontentment.

Give your mind to sin and it becomes a workshop where resentment is rehearsed, lust is fantasized, offenses are replayed, and self justification is constructed.

But Paul does not merely tell us what not to do.

He says, “Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.”

Do not merely withhold your tongue from sin. Give it to God to encourage, comfort, praise, and speak truth.

Do not merely keep your eyes from lust. Give them to God to see people as image bearers worthy of dignity and love.

Do not merely keep your hands from sin. Give them to God to serve, provide, protect, embrace, and work.

Do not merely run away from temptation. Run toward the people God has called you to love.

How is any of this possible?

Paul answers in verse 14:

“For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”

The law demanded obedience. Grace supplies both the desire and the power to obey.

That is why the gospel is not merely something that happened in your past. Grace does not eliminate your effort. Grace makes your new obedience possible.

God did not simply weaken sin’s grip on you and tell you to try harder. He united you with Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection.

We often measure power by what it can destroy. God demonstrates His power by what He can make alive.

He can break the bondage of the human will. He can change the desires of the heart. He can bring a sinner under a new Master whose commands lead to righteousness and life.

Believer, you are not standing before sin armed merely with determination, good intentions, or willpower.

You stand on the battlefield armed with the resurrection power of God and standing in a victory Christ has already accomplished on your behalf.

Know who you are so you can live for whose you are.

You are a fish in new water, where grace is your new Master.

Swim free in Him.