Rescued From Habitual Sin

Before people believe in Jesus, they have no choice. They will sin repeatedly.

After conversion, they do have a choice, no longer obligated to commit the sins they committed before. Breaking free from old patterns involves a process called reckoning oneself dead unto sin but alive unto God. Today, what this is all about. From Chicago, we welcome you to The Moody Church Hour, a weekly service of worship and teaching under the ministry of Dr. Erwin Lutzer. Today, Pastor Lutzer continues a series he's calling, Rescued, What God Did to Save Us.

After our worship music, we'll turn to Romans chapter 6 to learn how believers have been rescued from habitual sin. Pastor Lutzer comes now to open our service of worship. I'm so glad that you have joined us today for our worship service, and I want to remind you of what the Apostle Paul said in the book of Philippians, that the day is coming when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And today in worship, we have the opportunity of singing surely one of the great hymns of the Christian Church, Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise. Now, we don't have a thousand, but most of us have at least one, and we're going to use it to the best of our ability to give praise and honor to our Lord. Would you join me as we pray together, and in a moment of silence, give this hour to the Lord.

Would you join me, please? Father, amid all the hurriedness of life, we pause in silence, inviting your presence, inviting the blessed Holy Spirit of God to speak to us, surprise us, not only with great blessing but with deliverance from sin and joy, and the breath of your blessed Holy Spirit as we worship and may it be acceptable through Jesus Christ. Amen. The glory sung by the King through the triumphs of his praise. Jesus, the big man, sounds a bit, and gives us sorrows to eat. This blessing in the Savior's womb is like the belt that bleeds. He breaks the power of cancel sin.

He sets the prison free. Praise God and make the power swing. Praise God and for me. Here in the application of the most important Lord, in the hope of the Savior and in the aim for joy, the gracious Master and my God, assist him to proclaim, to send through all the years of hope the others on high. Give thanks with a grateful heart. Give thanks to the Holy One. Give thanks with a grateful heart. Give thanks to the Holy One. Give thanks with a grateful heart. Give thanks with a grateful heart. And now, let the gifts play light and strong, let the works play light and rich, because the Lord has done for us.

And now, let the gifts play light and strong, let the works play light and rich, because the Lord has done for us. Give thanks with a grateful heart. Give thanks to the Holy One. Give thanks with a grateful heart. Give thanks to the Holy One. Give thanks with a grateful heart. Give thanks with a grateful heart. Give thanks with a grateful heart. And now, let the gifts play light and strong, let the works play light and rich, because the Lord has done for us. And now, let the gifts play light and strong, let the works play light and rich, because the Lord has done for us. Give thanks.

Give thanks. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. Much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. That he should give his only Son, to gain the precious treasure, the wage of gain of searing love. The Father's words his name to name, as wounds which are the chosen one, bring daily sons to glory. The older man above the cross, I sit upon his shoulder, the shaker in my walking pose, all up among the stronger.

It was a sin that held him fair, until it was unharmed. His dying breath has brought me up, I know that it is fair. I've been lost in every dream, no wisdom, I know it's done. But I am lost in Jesus' blood, his death and resurrection.

I should have been from here to you all, I never give an answer. But this time, Lord, with all my heart, His truth shall make my land strong. For it is to be committed to God, I cannot give an answer. But this time, Lord, with all my heart, His truth shall make my land strong. And of sorrows what a name, For the Son of God who came, Good sinners to repay, Hallelujah! God the Savior knows.

There in shame is lovely room, In my place from heaven is room, Seek my garden, make it thine, Hallelujah! God the Savior knows. Guilty art and helplessly, Starless can the cross be, Who was always man in me, Hallelujah! God the Savior knows. Good will of those here tonight, In His faith was His might, Hallelujah! God the Savior knows. When He comes on glorious day, God is handsome, bold to me, When I do His song with me, Hallelujah!

God the Savior knows. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, Ooh, ooh, ooh, Ooh, ooh, ooh, Ooh, ooh, ooh. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, Ooh, ooh, ooh, Ooh, ooh, ooh, Ooh, ooh, Fount of every blessing, turn my heart to sing thy praise.

Streams of mercy never sleep. All more songs on one train. Teach me song ever less on it, some might play me down for many times. Praise be thy gifts of light, day of God's redeeming love. Hither to thy love has blessed me, thou hast brought me to this place. And I know thy hand would bring me, safely home by thy good grace.

Jesus saw us be demonstration, wandering from the fold of God, of God. He to rescue me from danger, caught me with his precious blood. Oh, to praise thou great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be. That I bled my goodness like a feather, and my body hard to be. Grown to wander, Lord, I feel it, proud to be the God I love.

Please, my heart, won't take yet see it, save it for my poor child. My new creation, pure and saltless, let us be. Let us be thy great salvation, perfectly restored in Thee.

Change from glory into glory, till in breath we take our place. Till we cast our crowds before Him, lost in wonder, love, and praise. Let us be thy great salvation, perfectly restored in Thee. Let us be. Prone to wander, Lord, we feel it, prone to leave the God we love. Here's my heart, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.

And then, just as the choir concluded, till we cast our crowns before Thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise. Well, let me begin today with a question. How are you doing in your battle with sin? Did you have some wins this past week? Did you have some losses?

Why did you have those losses? Have you taken time to analyze? And when I talk to you about our battle with sin, I'm not only thinking of the biggies, such as murder, and adultery, and extortion, and perhaps deceit on a huge level. Maybe drug addictions, alcohol addictions, we all know that, and there are some people who perhaps are listening to this message who have done one or several of the sins that I just listed.

But I'm also talking about some of the more respectable sins, such as anger. To what extent did anger get in your way of relationships this past week? What about envy? Do you envy the wicked? Do you envy the rich?

Are you angry with your lot in life? What are those kinds of issues? What about the issue of lust? In the Sunday evening service, a man came to me last week and said, you know, my wife has left me, I'm alone. He said the assaults on my mind and the temptation to go to that computer, he said, are very strong. Yesterday I was with my prayer partners and in the discussion, the confession of the fact that our minds are being assaulted today by sexuality on every hand. And people are losing those battles and not just the men are losing the battle.

Where do we go from here? You know, we are creatures of habit and we develop habits of sin. And we tell ourselves all kinds of lies about how we aren't addicted or we don't have a real big problem. I was thinking about the words of Mark Twain, you remember, who said, of course I can stop smoking. I've done it at least a thousand times. He stopped for maybe an hour at a time.

He can stop whenever he wants to. You know, Dale Moody said that when he was converted, he expected that now his battle with sin would be over, and he said, I discovered that I was actually enlisting myself as a soldier in a new war. The assaults of sin were that strong. This message addresses those issues, but if you're here today and you are simply investigating Christianity, or you are listening to this message because somebody wanted you to and you would rather maybe not, but here you are, or maybe you're listening by way of Internet, radio, whatever other means, would you hang in?

Would you listen? Because even though this message is primarily directed toward us as believers in Christ, it has implications for all. And by the end of the message, I want to include you in it and give you an opportunity to put your faith and trust in a redeemer who actually does deliver people from their sins.

So that's where we're going. Thanks for joining me on the journey. Let me begin with another question, and that is, you know, during the Easter season, we often sing the song, which I happen to like. I've heard a lot of songs and I like the song, Were You There When They Crucified My Lord? So I ask you today, were you there?

I remember as a boy listening to the song and thinking to myself, well, that's kind of silly, actually. No, I wasn't there. Two thousand years ago, Jesus was crucified.

I'm sure that I wasn't there. But then as I began to study the Bible, I discovered that, yes, I was there in the sense that Jesus died for me. And so my sins were laid on him.

In that sense, I was there when my Lord was crucified. And then we take our Bibles and I invite you to do so. And we open them up to the sixth chapter of the Book of Romans. Romans Chapter six, very critical passage of scripture.

And we discover something else. That is not just that we were there because Jesus died for us, but furthermore, God identified us with Jesus. And when he died on that cross, there's a sense in which we died.

Look at the text, for example, in Chapter six of Romans, verse five. For if we have been united with him in death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin for one who has died has been set free from sin. So God put us into Jesus so that Jesus Christ's history becomes our history. And there's another way in which then we were there when they crucified our Lord. So to put it rather clearly, Jesus Christ died for me, sets me free from the penalty of sin, and I died with Jesus Christ, and that sets me free from the power of sin.

That's why when we sing Rock of Ages, cleft for me, be of sin the double cure, save me from its guilt, yes, and its power. On the cross, there is a double cure for sinners like us. Now, what the apostle Paul does is he goes through a series of steps and he begins with the first step, which is called knowing. For example, even back in verse 3, do you not know that all of us have been baptized into Christ?

Verse 5, do you not know actually, verse 6, that our old self was crucified with him? There's something that you have to know, and that is that when Jesus died, if you're a believer, you died there too. You say, oh, Pastor Lutzer, I sure don't feel very dead. And if you had seen my secret life this past week, you would know that I'm not dead. I'm not dead to sin. Now, Paul does say that sin isn't dead. We explained this last week, but he says that we are dead to it. And so you say, I don't feel dead.

Well, how do you like this? You're leading somebody to faith in Jesus Christ. You want them to believe the gospel. And then they say, well, you know, I don't feel that Jesus died. I just don't feel that he died on the cross, and you say, oh, you know, spare me. You don't feel that he died.

It's irrelevant how you feel. The fact is that he died. Or somebody else says, I just am going to pray that Jesus would die for me. And you say, well, I don't get that at all.

Don't you get it that it already happened? And no matter how you feel about it, and no matter how you as a believer feel about it, it is as silly to pray that Jesus would die for you as it would be for you to pray that he would crucify you when he died. Equally foolish, because when Jesus died, the Bible says you did too. The power and the obligation you and I have to sin is over. That's what happened when Jesus died on the cross. Now Paul says in Romans chapter 5 that we were in Adam, having to obey all of Adam's dictates and sins. Now we are in Jesus Christ, whole new obligations, and we have no obligation to serve sin. He's talking about the reigning power of sin in our lives. So he says, first of all, you have to get that. Do you have faith to get that? That God made provision on the cross for sin's power in your life to be totally broken.

Or more accurately, he actually broke it on the cross. And then the next step, Paul says, is reckon. As I mentioned last time, I prefer the word reckon to the word consider, though they mean the same thing.

In verse 11, so you must consider yourselves to be dead to sin and alive unto God. Consider it is true. And I pointed out that reckoning doesn't make anything true.

If you have $1,000 in the bank and it's actually there, then you can reckon by writing out a check based on that amount of money. You can reckon it to be true. But you know, it could be true even without you never reckoning it. You never use the money. It's true that you have $1,000, but you never reckon it to be true.

In that sense, it's of no value to you. But on the other hand, you can't create a situation in which you say, I am going to reckon it to be true, and that'll make it true. Like the wife who said to her husband, of course we still have money in the bank. Look at all of the unused checks in our checkbook. You can't create money by reckoning it to be true. But you can reckon something that is indeed true.

Maybe this illustration will help. Many years ago in the lobby of Moody Church after a service, a woman met me and said, you know, I'm living with a guy and we're not married. And she says, I know this is sin and I want to get out of this relationship, but there's no way that he's willing to separate from me. And I said, well, I said, what you need to do is just move out. Take your stuff and move out. She said, it isn't that simple. I own the apartment. All right, I see now that it isn't quite that simple. But I said, don't you understand that your obligations to this man are over? I mean, you own the apartment.

You are standing on conquered territory. He may be bigger than you. He may be much stronger than you.

But that's not the point. Your obligation is over. You are dead to any obligation that you have toward him. But he won't leave. So I suggested, I don't know if this was good advice, but I said, you know, I'd call the police and I'd have them come and I would take that man and take him somewhere else and help him to understand why he should never come back again with a little bit of help from the reliable Chicago police district. That's the way I'd take care of it.

And then I'd get a restraining order against him because you have no obligation to him. See, that's an example of what Jesus did for us. We are standing on conquered territory. We have no obligation to sin. But sin is going to come along and say, oh, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda. You still have obligation to me.

We don't. And you need to understand by faith, by the ministry of the Holy Spirit based on the word that our obligation to the old man, as it is sometimes spoken of, is over. Now, maybe what that woman has to do is to join a support group. And maybe it could be entitled, Young Women Who Want to Get Rid of Men Who Don't Leave Them Alone.

That might be a support group with a lot of attendees. Yeah, I know you're laughing, but the point is, it may be difficult to reckon it because of all this persistence. But the game is over. There's no obligation. Paul says, you no longer now need to let sin reign in your mortal body. For it to reign, you have to let it. For this man to have authority over her, she has to let him because he has no legal ground to stand on at all.

Kick him out, put him out on the street and help him to understand why he shouldn't come back. Now, in the case of the Bible here, the most powerful thing we can do is to believe. You will experience a tremendous amount of spiritual power if you really understand that standing on the conquered territory of Jesus, you have no obligation to sin.

Your passions tell you, yes you do, yes you do, and you say, no I don't, not because you're saying that makes it true, but because it is true. Jesus broke its power. So Paul says this. He says, first of all, you have to know it, then you have to reckon it, and then he says, present yourself to God. And that's in verse 13. He said, until now you have been presenting yourself to unrighteousness, verse 13. He says, verse 12, let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal bodies to make you obey its passions.

You have to let it. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. Sin will not have dominion over you because you're not under law. You're under grace, and grace abounds and has broken the power of sin.

So he says, present. The imagery here is that of worship. Present your bodies, Paul says in chapter 12, a living sacrifice. It means that I now present myself to God.

Why? First of all, because I value God. I value God. In our prayer group yesterday, we were talking about how wonderful it would be if our passion for God were greater than our passion to sin. And when you and I present ourselves to God, what we are saying is, God, you mean more to me than my sin does.

I believe that you are of more value. And by the way, this passion that we develop for God isn't something that comes to us by osmosis while we're asleep. It comes because we're reading the word, we're meeting with the people of God, we are in fellowship with God's people and with him, and our love for God grows and grows and grows until we become passionate lovers of God. That's part of what happens when we present ourselves to God. But also it means not only that we value God, it also means that God owns us. God owns us. After all, we've been purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ, the precious blood of Jesus. Therefore, we are owned by God, aren't we? We're very much owned by God.

We are his privileged possession, the scripture says. So that means I yield myself to God. I yield my eyes to God. And I say, God, these eyes are yours. Help me to turn away from evil. And Jesus said, if your eye offends you, pluck it out and cast it from you. What he's saying is, do whatever you need to do so you don't keep going back into the same sin. I mean, cut off your cable television if you have to.

Do whatever you have to do. Because the temptations are great, there's no obligation, but the old man comes knocking. And so what you do is you present your eyes to God, you present your ears to God, you present your hands to God, your feet to God, wherever they take you, and you say totally, as far as I am concerned, I am an offering to God. I have a pastor friend who said when he was trying to get this across, he actually had one of the ushers bring up an offering plate and he stood in it.

Well, I try that, but you know, our baskets, I don't think they are quite strong enough to be able to hold that, but that would get the point across. What you do then is you yield to God. And then what?

You begin to serve. Now, if you look at your Bibles, as I hope you are doing, you'll notice in verse 15 and following, Paul gives a contrast between being a slave of righteousness and a slave to sin. He uses the expression, the slavery of sin at least five times, depending on how you count them, maybe six, and he uses the same expression as being slaves to righteousness and all the way through from 15 to the end, that's what he's doing.

He's contrasting it. What then are we to sin because we are not under the law, but under grace by no means? Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin which leads to death or of obedience which leads to righteousness? He says, but thanks be to God, you were once slaves to sin, but now you're obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching which you've received and you're obeying righteousness.

A couple of comments. First, when the apostle Paul uses the word slave, he means slave. He doesn't mean servant. If you're somebody's servant, you might be able to leave serving that person and go serve somebody else. Slaves are owned.

And you and I are created to be owned. And what Paul says is either we are going to be slaves of sin or we're going to be slaves of righteousness, we're going to be one or the other. I think that Bob Dylan was absolutely right when he used to sing, you're going to have to serve somebody. It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're going to have to serve somebody. My friend, you're serving somebody today. You say, well, I don't want to serve sin. I don't want to serve God. I just want to serve myself. Well, isn't that sweet? But there is no third category.

I'm impressed. But there's no third category. You say you're serving self. The essence of sin is self. You've just voted to become a servant of sin. That's what you have done. Now, let's look at these two phrases. The servant of sin. What does that look like? Those of you who struggle with cocaine addictions, alcohol addictions, sexual addictions of any kind, you understand this phrase very, very well.

Very well. Because you know right well that ultimately you aren't in charge. You can swear it off. You can say this is the last time. You can obey your conscience and say never again. But it will happen again.

Why? Because slaves don't tell their masters what to do. Slave doesn't wake up in the morning and say to his master, now, master, today I think we're going to do this.

Uh-uh. The slave wakes up and says to his master, who is sin, what do you want me to do today and how can I get by and manage the consequences? That's what the slave master says. And sin is always a bad idea. Notice what the apostle Paul says here. He says, and I'm in verse 19 actually, for just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness. Sin isn't static. It leads to more lawlessness.

You begin that direction. It'll always demand more. It'll always come back with more ferocity and power. It will always be there and it will always increase. That's why if you never want to become an alcoholic, you say one thing I never want to do as an alcoholic, I never want to do illegal drugs, I have some good advice for you, never once touch the stuff. And I can tell you from personal experience that works. You'll be able to walk through a store and see all of those shelves of alcohol and there'll be absolutely nothing within you that will say I need this stuff.

It is best for you to simply say no from the beginning, because once it gets its stronghold, then it demands more and more and more. Lawlessness, Paul says, leads to more lawlessness. Now you say, well, you know, I'm not into those sins, but what about anger, self-will, envy?

All those increase in power as well until you become as miserable to live with as your wife says you are. I thought I'd just throw that in as we're going along the road here. You see, there is really no safe sin. And you and I think that we can manage the consequences but sin. And what is its ultimate destination?

What is its ultimate destination? There in verse 23 we have it. The wages of sin is death. Now the free gift of God, thankfully, is eternal life, but the wages of sin is death. In other words, you're getting your wages and its death.

It's not just physical death, which all of us participate in, but it's a spiritual death and a moral death. And for some who don't know the Lord, it is an eternal death, horrid, horrid future. So that's the wages of sin.

Do you see how sin really falls under the category of false advertising? Oh, this is the way to happiness. Think of what we can do if you get into these sins.

Oh, yeah? In the end, it leads to death. And even those pleasures that are sinful, what does the Bible say? He who is in pleasure is dead, even while he lives.

And that's why people need drugs and alcohol just to deaden the pain of an empty life. The wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life. So having looked at the slavery to sin, what about the slavery to righteousness, the slavery to God? When we become slaves of God, now we're talking about the freedom, finally, to be what God created you to be, the freedom to live with a clear conscience, the freedom to be able to say, I'm walking in what my created status is all about, the freedom to be able to listen to a song as we had today, how great thou art, and to be able to know that that great God belongs to me. And I rejoice in the privilege of being his slave.

Because to be a slave of God is to live a delightful, joyful, meaningful, eternal existence. Can you get it better than that? I don't think so.

I don't think so. It's a delightful kind of slavery. You know, the bottom line that the Apostle Paul talks about here is the fact that in Jesus, and I want you to get this today, in Jesus Christ, the power of sin for believers has been broken. It has been broken. You must believe it if you believe it and apply it. And some of you say, yeah, but, you know, I've tried to get rid of this sin so long.

I understand that. But can you believe this? That in Jesus, you died to all obligations to continue along those sinful habits. Your obligations are over. There's a story that D.L.

Moody, who founded this church way back in 1864, liked to tell. Apparently, the president of the United States, on one occasion, said to the president or the leader of the prison commissions, I want to hand out five pardons to a prison, evidently in Ohio, in Ohio. And I want the warden to award these pardons to the inmate who has the best example of conduct for six months.

But don't tell the inmates. I don't want them to just behave because they want to get a pardon. I just want them to be observed by the leadership, and then you choose who it is that gets the pardon. And so the day came to hand out the pardons.

And all of the prisoners gathered. And the commissioner of prisons stood up and said, today, I have five pardons in my hand. Whoever gets these pardons will leave the prison today and be free. You can change your clothes, and you can be out of here.

The rest of you, of course, will stay. Pardons to be offered. He opens the sheet of paper and says, Reuben Johnson, Reuben Johnson. The chaplain sees Reuben sitting on the front row and says, hey, Reuben, he's talking about you. Reuben kind of looks behind himself, wondering if there's another Reuben Johnson here. Finally, Reuben has the nerve to go up and take his pardon. He sits down. He holds his head in his hand, and he begins to weep.

The other four pardons also were handed out. Then the warden stands up and says, time to go back to your cells. And guess what Reuben does? He stands up, and he begins walking back to his cell. And the chaplain says, hey, Reuben, you don't belong in that line.

Let's review. When Jesus died on the cross for me, he broke the penalty of sin. When I died with Jesus, he broke the power of sin. My dear brother, my dear sister, you don't have to be in that line. You belong outside of that prison.

Yes, indeed, maybe you have to begin to attend men's fraternity. You have to connect with other believers so that that sin that has had such a great part in your life can be broken. But ultimately, the breaking has taken place on the cross because you are standing on conquered territory as a Christian, and you can say no. Let not, therefore, sin reign in your mortal bodies that you should fulfill its lusts, it says.

It's an impossible command. But what God commands, he also gives the grace and the strength to do. No matter how difficult it is, why, we are under no obligation, no obligation to serve sin. When you look at this passage, you know that Paul uses a big word as he gets near the end. He uses the word sanctification. He says in verse 29, but now that you've been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification. Its end is eternal life.

Boy, is that good news. The word sanctification means to be made like unto Jesus, which is really God's big agenda. In your life, you say, I always thought that God's big agenda in my life was to serve here or there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'll come. The big agenda is the inner part of you to become like Christ. That's what's sanctification.

Now, here's my point. Justification to be declared righteous happens in a point of time. The free gift of eternal life, the chapter, ends through Jesus Christ. And there are some of you who are listening right now who have to say, Jesus, I've received that free gift of eternal life. I come to Christ as I am with my sin and my need and my brokenness and my mess. But I do come to Jesus for eternal life.

And it is a free gift to those who believe. Yesterday evening, I spoke at a fundraising event for a very fine Christian school here in Chicago. And a man came to me later and told about attending Moody Church many, many years ago. And he said that I was leading a small group.

Of course, I don't remember this. But he said that he was there. And he was an unbeliever. And he was a very angry person, very angry, angry at everything. And he said that he listened to the gospel. And he said, you put a seed in my heart that we never, ever did go back to your church. Five years later, I believed on Jesus. And he said, Jesus just took all the anger away.

Now, he was standing next to his wife when he said it. So I believe that what he was saying was true. It is a free gift to those who believe. If God's speaking to you right now, if God is overcoming your stubbornness and you see that you need Christ, believe on him and be saved. And then what you'll discover later is this message that you've just heard that may have been puzzling in spots. It'll all come together. And you'll say, well, now I get it. I not only experienced the fact that Jesus died for me, but I died with him.

And now I'm on a lifelong journey of sanctification, of learning to walk free, because I no longer am to be in that line. Would you believe? Would you trust? Do we take him at his word? Do we act on it? Let's pray together. Father, we ask in Jesus' name that the words that you have written, we know that they are true words, but help us to believe them and to act on them.

Set your people free. Oh, God, we pray. We've read in your word that we need not serve sin. We say no to that terrible, terrible master. And we gladly say we are servants of God.

Sign us up. For those who have never trusted Christ, may they do so even now. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's all stand as we sing together. Amen. I'm alive, Lord. The Spirit is within me. He comes to my life, Lord. Amen. On today's Moody Church Hour, Dr. Erwin Lutzer spoke on Rescued from Habitual Sin, the last in a 12-part series on Rescued, What God Did to Save Us, taken from the book of Romans.

We hope our look into Romans chapters 1 through 6 has given you new insight into the wonder of your salvation. We are so grateful to all who support The Moody Church Hour. And during this month, we have a special opportunity. Every gift you send will be doubled thanks to a matching gift fund.

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