From Valley to Victory, Part 8

Thanks for joining Dr. Michael Yusef for Leading the Way. Listen with me to this episode of Leading the Way Audio.

King George V, who is the grandfather of the Queen Elizabeth. Something he used to say to his sons, My boys, remember who you are. My boys, remember who you are. But I can tell you in a far, far, far, far more important truth that we the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ must remind ourselves not only daily but moment by moment of who we are.

We are. We have been learning throughout the series of messages from Romans that our salvation is a gift from God. That our justification is a gift of God.

Our redemption is God's indescribable gift to every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our adoption into the royal family of God is undeserved and unmerited. But once we are adopted, once we have taken on this new family name, once we have been robed with the robe of righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, once we are identified as members of the royal family of King Jesus, once we are called princess and princesses, once we've done that, we need to constantly remind ourselves on a moment by moment basis of who we are. That we need to constantly remind ourselves how to live as royals. We need to know how to behave as royals.

We need to understand how our lives must reflect that new family name. We need to learn how to bring honor and not dishonor to the king who graciously adopted us as sons and daughters. When the king graciously and gratuitously adopted you and you could not do anything to get it, the only thing that is required is for us to bow the knee and say thank you. To bow the knee and do thank you. Most of you say, well I know how to say thank you, how do I do thank you?

I'm glad you asked because I want to tell you. It is Romans chapter 6, please turn to it with me, where the apostle Paul tells us how to do thank you. Verse 1, Romans chapter 6.

What shall we say then? Shall we live or shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? Absolutely not. That's really the literal translation.

Absolutely not. Jude, the half brother of Jesus, says in verse 4 in his letter, For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men who change the grace of God into license for immorality and deny Christ Jesus our only sovereign and Lord. Beloved, there is a world of difference between occasionally failing and occasionally falling in sin and deliberately and willfully and intentionally living in sin as an established pattern and then rationalize it or explain it. That deliberate, willful, intentional living and sin and then being rationalized is impossible, listen to me, it is impossible for the believer.

Why? Two reasons and they come straight from this chapter, Romans chapter 6. In verses 1 to 14 is that the first reason is that those who have been liberated from the grasp of sin do not long to go back to that slavery. And secondly, verses 15 to 23, he says those who are liberated believers, they joyfully and thankfully and delightfully surrender to the new found master, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of righteousness.

Let's look at these very quickly. First reason, we need to understand what Paul is not saying. Paul is not saying that we are incapable of sin, that is not what he's saying.

Don't fall in that trap. For John tells us in chapter 1 verse 8, for if we claim that we are without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we what? Oh yes, we're more than capable of sinning. But the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is no longer under the compulsion and the terror of sin, not anymore. The believer no longer beautifully obeys sin like they used to before Christ. The believer is no longer helpless to say no to sin.

No in a million no's because we are saved. The Holy Spirit that moment came into our lives and sealed the believer and he gave us a new power to be able to say no to sin. I want you to imagine in your mind's eyes two fields next to each other and they're separated by a fence. Just think about it, two fields. One field is owned by Satan and right next to that a field is owned by the Lord Jesus Christ. The two fields, as I said, separated by a fence. Before you're saved, before I was saved, we worked and lived in Satan's field, the field that he owns.

We were totally under his control. But when you're saved, you moved fields. You went from Satan's field, you went next door to Christ's field. Your new master is so loving, he's so kind, he's so gracious. Your new master has your best interest at heart and you are totally loved by this wonderful new master.

But here's what happens. The former slave master, Satan, is forever looking over the fence and beckoning you. Come over, come back. He's forever cajoling you to return. He's forever tricking you into coming back.

He's forever saying, this time I'm going to pay you good. But the genuine believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, who have moved from Satan's field into Jesus's field, they know that from time to time they may forget all of the pain and the shame and the guilt and the agony of the former slave master. They may forget the misery and the tears that he brought about in our lives. They forget the agony that was caused by that former master and so they occasionally might jump the fence. Oh, occasionally they might fall for his deception.

But I want you to remember, remember this. Satan has no power to keep you there. Only a power to entice you. The alert believer of course is going to say to him, Satan, buzz off. That's a big theological word. You need to learn it.

It will help you. I have nothing to say to you. Get out of here. The Bible said in James chapter 4 verse 7, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Can you say it together? Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Call upon the name of new master and say to him, help and he will come to your aid immediately. Verse 5, if you have been united with him like this in his death, you will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. Praise God. Praise God.

What does that mean? It means that when you accept the gift of faith and salvation in some spiritual way, in some indescribable way, in some unimaginable way, you have been transplanted 2,000 years in history and there on the cross you died with Christ but then you also rose with him from the grave on that first Easter Sunday morning. Isn't that amazing?

Isn't that amazing? Beloved, listen to me. It is self-contradiction for a believer who has died to sin continuously live in sin. One would have to use some very perverted logic to argue that deliberately living in sin can somehow bring you more of God's grace.

It's a perverted logic and yet so many young preachers are preaching this stuff. I am painfully aware of the fact that when a believer stops his time with Christ on a daily basis, intimacy with him and with his word and fellowshipping with him, I'm aware of that. When that stops, you're opening yourself up to all sorts of trouble. I am painfully aware that when some people get so worn out of Satan's temptation, beckoning to come to his field, I am painfully aware that some just give up and they go to the other side. But what we all must learn is that when that happens, you need to immediately run back and come back to Christ's field. Don't hang out in Satan's field. Don't wait until you feel again the pain of the scourging on your back. Ah, but here's the worst thing that any believer can do.

Listen to me, and some do. The worst thing you could do is you put one foot in Satan's field and the other foot in Christ's field. Look at verses 10 and 11, Romans chapter 6. The death he died, he died to sin once and for all, but the life he lives, he lived to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Verse 12, therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies so that you obey its evil desires. Verse 13, verse 13 is an amazing, the picture in verse 13 is that of a deposed dictator. Think with me, a deposed dictator, which is sin. Sin is a merciless dictator. He's deposed.

Don't be intimidated by sin anymore because he's a deposed dictator. Now many of you know that the first 19 years of my life, I lived under dictatorship. There were so many informants for the government. There were everywhere, we did not know, they were in the schools, they were in the sports arena, they were in public life everywhere, like a Gestapo type, but they were plainclothes informant. Whenever we talked about, even in our homes, whenever we talked about the government, we kind of brought our voices so low, almost into a whisper.

We used to say, walls have ears, walls have ears. We were terrified of the dictator. Fast forward in the late 60s when I went to Australia, my very first friend is a wonderful young man and we were in the restaurant. We were having a cup of coffee and we were talking and I started talking about the government and I looked around and I lowered my voice to a whisper and he looked at me with utter surprise and he said, Michael, you're no longer in Egypt. You're no longer in Egypt.

Even though I've been out for several months, I thought I was still under that rule of that dictatorship. Beloved, you are not under the dictatorship of sinning and Satan anymore. From that moment, the Lord taught me some incredible spiritual lesson. That in the Lord Jesus Christ, sin has lost its grasp unless I allow it to. Sin is a deposed dictator that no longer has power over the believer. And you can defeat sin. And that's my second point from this chapter, this great chapter. You can defeat sin by joyfully surrendering to your new master Jesus.

This loving, benevolent, generous, gracious Lord. Look at verse 15 all the way to 23. And in order to understand this particular passage, you have to understand the context where the Romans have lived.

Of course, we are blessed by the word of God, but don't ever forget that when the writers were writing these epistles particularly, they were writing them to certain groups of people and there are certain cultural contexts, certain legal and surrounding things that we need to understand in order to get the full benefit and the full knowledge of what it means. Because way before the apostle Paul was born, way before he was born, the Roman Senate legislated a law. And the law goes something like this. If a free-born man is born free, he could not be enslaved. Like all laws, people found loopholes.

That law basically began to be systematically abused by people. Let me explain to you what I mean. He's a free-born person, run out of money, needs some money, so they found a rich guy. So what they do, they come and said, you can buy me as a slave and I can serve you for the rest of my life.

Really? Yeah, but you're free-born. Yeah, but I'm personally allowing you to buy me as a slave, so it gives you money.

When he takes the money and uses the money, then he brings a group of friends who would come to the owner and say, uh-uh, you're breaking the law. This man is born free. And the law said you can never enslave somebody who's born free, so what the guy does, he loses the money and loses the slave. Especially in a culture, in an empire, that the economy was built, the whole economy was built on slavery. So you can imagine the havoc that this was causing to this empire. So shortly before the birth of the apostle Paul, the Roman Senate saw the problem and they tried to solve it. Paul, at the time, announced and said, whoever sells himself, even though he may be a free person, but if you sell yourself voluntarily into slavery, you stay in slavery.

Because it was destroying the country. Bottom line, once you sell yourself into slavery, you stay a slave forever. And so when Paul said to the Romans here in chapter 6, verse 16 particularly, you are slaves to the one whom you obey. He was saying that you cannot live as both in the freedom of Christ and in the bondage to sin all at the same time.

You can't do it. Something's got to give. Beloved, every human being on the face of the earth either have Satan for their master or Jesus for their master.

Did you get that? That's basically the two choices. There's no third. Either enslavement to sin and Satan or to the righteousness of Jesus. No wonder Jesus said in 624 of Matthew, no one, no one can serve two masters.

And no one here would disagree with me that those days of slavery were horrible days and thank God they're gone. But I want to tell you that the spiritual slavery is live and well. The issue is this, which master will you choose to serve? Verses 21 and 22, Paul contrasts two types of slaveries. And he asks, which one do you honestly, as you evaluate the benefits of each one of those two, slavery to Satan or serve slavery to Christ, which one you choose? Verse 21, slavery to sin produces unbearable guilt here and now and eternal separation from God forever. Ah, but verse 22, slavery to the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ gives you freedom from guilt, freedom from sin here and now and guarantees you eternal life with Christ forever. Verse 23, Paul draws the ultimate contrast between the two slaveries. That is the ultimate. He contrasts, the wages of sin is death, but the gift. You got that? The wages, the gift.

Say it with me. The wages, the gift. See the contrast? The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Sin, my beloved friends, pays wages.

Did you get that? From sin you get paid what you deserve, you get paid judgment, but God gives you a free gift. He gives you what you don't deserve. Again, wages is contrasted with a gift. Wages, gift. Wages refers to the rations that were given to soldiers.

Wages refers to the very meagre pocket money that a slave would receive from his master. But the gift, the charismatic indicates an abundance of blessings, blessings beyond your ability to even comprehend or fully understand. The Romans who were reading this letter initially understood the difference between the wages and the gift. And I have no doubt they all became Pentecostals and began to shout when they read this.

I am absolutely convinced. Wages versus a gift. Oh my goodness, this is not a comparison. They knew all about the wages because millions and millions and millions of slaves in Rome were receiving these meagre wages. As I told you, the economy of the entire empire was built on slavery. And Paul uses this to remind every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, while by birth we've inherited Adam's slavery to sin, but by grace we've been set free. Bondage to sin yields shame and guilt and ultimate judgment, but the bondage to Christ, on the other hand, yields precious fruits of growing in grace. Remember what I said earlier in the very beginning of the message about King George V. He used to tell his boys, remember who you are. Say it with me. Remember who you are.

Well, one did and became a king, the father of Queen Elizabeth, and the other did not and for the rest of his life endured rejection, misery, alienation for the rest of his life. Oh, how much more important it is in the spiritual realm. Remember who you are. Remember who you are. Remember you are a member of the royal family of King Jesus. Remember you belong to the family of God. Remember your family's reputation. Remember your family's good name.

Remember that you have the very blood of Christ going through your veins, because now you belong to the royal family, the royal family of God. Thank you for joining pastor, author, and international evangelist, Dr. Michael Youssef, for Leading the Way. Learn more about him and how Leading the Way is reaching people with the gospel across six continents in 28 languages at ltw.org.

Now, as this episode comes to a close, allow me to mention something I know you'll want to make a note of. The Leading the Way store at ltw.org has free items. And one that I really hope you'll consider making your own is a free digital download. It's called Jesus in Every Book of the Bible. You know, a lot of Christians steer clear of the Old Testament because they don't really understand that every word, every detail in the Old Testament is part of God's redemption plan, pointing people, pointing generations to the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus in Every Book of the Bible looks a little closer at God's plan of redemption and reveals his loving kindness in the very first pages of Genesis to and through the New Testament. Okay, you're interested, so here's how you can download Jesus in Every Book of the Bible today. Step one, visit ltw.org. Step two, click on Store right there at the top of the page. Step three, look for Digital Resources right there in the menu. Again, ltw.org, then click on Store, then Digital Resources. Now, in addition to free downloads, you can also sign up for a free monthly magazine, My Journal. Get a free daily eDevotional, find podcasts, and much more. ltw.org.

Well, that's it for today. Please do join Dr. Michael Yousef anytime for Leading the Way. And do remember that you can always reach out to us. We're right here at 866-626-4356. And you can write to us, send us your prayer request, or send a gift to Leading the Way, Post Office, Box 20100, Atlanta, Georgia, 30325. Once again, our mailing address, Post Office, Box 20100, Atlanta, Georgia, 30325. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Yousef, passionately proclaiming uncompromising truth around the world.