Romans 6:11-12—”So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.”

How intimately the believer’s duties are interwoven with his privileges! Because he is alive to God, he is to renounce sin, since that corrupt thing belongs to his estate of death.
Sin Wants To Reign Over You

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.”

1. Sin has great power. It is in you and will strive to reign.
* Sin remains as an outlaw, hiding away in your nature.
* Sin remains as a plotter, planning your overthrow.
* Sin remains as an enemy, warring against the law of your mind.
* Sin remains as a tyrant, worrying and oppressing the true life.
2. Sin’s field of battle is the body.
* Its wants—hunger, thirst, cold, etc.—may become occasions of sin, by leading to murmuring, envy, covetousness, robbery.
* Its appetites may crave excessive indulgence and, unless continually curbed, will easily lead to evil.
* Its pains and infirmities, through engendering impatience and other faults, may produce sin.
* Its pleasures, also, can readily become incitements to sin.
* Its influence upon the mind and spirit may drag our noble nature down to the groveling materialism of earth.
3. The body is mortal, and we shall be completely delivered from sin when set free from our present material frame, if indeed grace reigns within. Till then we shall find sin lurking in one member or another of “this vile body.”
4. Meanwhile we must not let it reign.
* If it reigned over us, it would be our god. It would prove us to be under death and not alive to God.
* It would cause us unbounded pain and injury if it ruled only for a moment.

Sin is within us, aiming at dominion. This knowledge, together with the fact that we are nevertheless alive to God, should:

* Help our peace, for we perceive that men may be truly the Lord’s, even though sin struggles within them.
* Aid our caution, for our divine life is well worth preserving and needs to be guarded with constant care.
* Draw us to use the means of grace, since in these the Lord meets with us and refreshes our new life.

Let us come to the Table of Communion, and to all other ordinances, as alive to God. In that manner, let us feed on Christ.

Adapted from Charles Spurgeon’s sermon notes.