By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
June 28,2026
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Romans 6:12–23 (ESV)
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 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. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The past few weeks we have been speaking of the law, wrath, sin, and righteousness. When we read the letters of Paul, we can often have a bit of whiplash over these topics. Paul will speak of how beneficial the law is in one breath and then in the next he will speak of how the law brings condemnation and the wrath of God. When reading the letters of Paul, context is extremely important. When he condemns the law is he condemning the teachings of God found in scripture, or is he condemning the interpretation of the law provided by the religious teachers? When he speaks of the joys of not being bound by or to the law does he mean that it is best not to even regard scripture, or does he does he mean we are focused on something that is beyond?
The last time I spoke we discussed righteousness and justification. Justification is to be declared right. The declaration only means one thing, that whatever is being justified is not going to be held against the individual. In the state of Missouri, and I am not saying I agree with this, but in the state of Missouri the use of cannabis is justified. They have allowed for the licensing of individuals to sell, and for people to purchase this previous illegal substance. It is justified in Missouri, but it does not mean that it is right. If the Drug Enforcement Agency had a desire to, they could come to Missouri and prosecute anyone that was partaking of that substance.
The fact is that justification does not make something right, it only means that it will not be held against you. You have been declared right. This only goes so far. I can get a warning from the officer when I am stopped for driving too fast, this does not give me permission to drive any speed I want it just means it is not going to be held against me. What will happen if I continue to speed down the road? They will look at the record and see that I had been declared right previously, but I have continued that behavior. And if I continue this behavior I will face stricter discipline.
Being justified is similar to this. Jesus does stand with us. Jesus declares us justified before God. He stand with and for us declaring us to be righteous, but are we standing with Him? Are we participating in his life and righteousness?
This is where Paul is with today’s passage. He says, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to may you obey its passions. 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 you members to God as instruments of righteousness.”
Sin is missing the mark. The word translated here as sin, has religious and secular meanings and both are used within scripture. In the religious sense, it is a transgression of the religious ideals. In the secular sense it means weakness. Often weakness even in the religious sense fits, but in this particular passage it is a transgression. Not only is it a transgression, but it is a personified transgression. Which means we purposefully participated. What is this sin of which Paul speaks of?
We are justified as righteous. Righteousness is doing right by another. Doing right by God, as well as doing right by those around us. Paul goes as far as saying that if this is your focus, if every aspect of your being is focused on doing right by others, there is no law that can condemn you.
In this case, when Paul says let not sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Paul is speaking of how we are interacting with those around us. Are we using our body, our work, our finances to provide for our passions, or are we using all that is available to us to provide for or do right toward our neighbors.
This might be a perspective that we have not considered when we read through this passage. The sin not the action in and of itself but the intention or the reasoning is the focus. Why we are doing what we are doing. Are we using what we have available to us to encourage or discourage. Are we using what we have available to us fulfill our own passions or inspire hope to someone who has nothing?
The intention or the reasoning is where our sin resides. Paul then speaks of being instruments. The term translated as instrument is to implement, or to enact. Are we using the things available to us to enact unrighteousness or are we using these things to enact righteousness?
This is where discernment is paramount. We can justify anything in our own minds. We have justified nearly everything. I have listened to many justifications from the individuals I caught shoplifting when I worked in retail security. It seems like such a little thing when Walmart and Target are such big corporations that make millions of dollars a year. It seems justifiable because we are only stealing from the big guys, but each store makes an accounting of each item. One package of razors might not seem like much, but a store must sell twelve packages to replace the one. This all adds up, when I left my security management position I was in a store that lost five hundred thousand dollars. Each person on our bench had a justification, but those justifications prevented us from hiring sixteen people. Those justifications prevented our store from giving the current employees the raises they deserved because the store had to purchase the items individuals justified taking.
They became instruments of unrighteousness, they began to obey their own passions instead of looking at the larger picture. One store. One package of razor blades, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and eventually the store is forced to close. President Obama used to speak about food deserts during his term of office. I remember the discussions surrounding this. Those deserts exist for this reason, and it is a great concern. A store no matter how much they want to stay in business cannot remain open if they lose inventory at a rate above seven percent. What one person justifies as being right for them to do snowballs to the point entire neighborhoods struggle not only to afford food, but to get to a store that will sell it. The stores that would hire your neighbors no longer exists, and everyone suffers. We suffer because we did not do right for each other.
Instruments of righteousness or unrighteousness. When we obey our passions, we submit ourselves to unrighteousness. There are times when our passions are fine, but we need to use discernment. And often we need to ask questions that make us uncomfortable, especially if it involves what we think we deserve or something we feel someone else does not deserve. If our focus is not centered on ourselves but instead if we are focused on doing right by others in all that we do, we are instruments of hope. We beacons of the love of Christ?
Those that claim faith, those that have entrusted their lives to Christ, are not driven by sin. Those that have put on the life and lifestyle of Christ pursue to live into the justification they have received. Not because we want to earn our salvation but by God’s grace we have been declared righteous. We are righteous, because Jesus is righteous. He lived a life perfectly doing right by others. He stands up for us, and we follow his ways.
This is where things get a bit interesting. We have been declared righteous through faith in Jesus. How then should we live? Even Jesus has said all sin is forgiven even blasphemies, but one blaspheming the Holy Spirit. If all is forgiven, if everything has been declared right we are freed from those wages of sin. We are no longer held accountable for them. But one thing remains. What does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit?
If you were like me growing up, this was something you were concerned about. I was concerned with committing that one unforgivable sin, I was also concerned with being left behind, but we do not have enough time to discuss all my spiritual trauma. Paul, however, gives us an understanding of what that unforgivable sin is. Paul illuminates, what it means to blaspheme the Holy Spirit.
“What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?”
We are all slaves Paul says. This disturbed me as I was studying this week. In the Rome during the earliest era of the church it is said that nearly one out of two people were slaves. Half of their population were slaves. The slavery was different than what we read about in American history, there were basically two types of slavery. Either the person was conquered in battle and their enslavement was part of the spoils of war. Or people would enter slavery to pay off a debt.
I sat to think about these things in reference to this passage. Half of the Roman population were potentially enslaved. Enslaved because they were an enemy, or enslaved because they were in debt. In that culture it was justified to deny human dignity because you were stronger or had greater wealth. In that culture it was right to enslave, to shame, and to belittle someone simply because you were more privileged. Is this doing right by others?
Half the population was a slave. Half of those that listened to this letter being read in that early gathering of Christians owned slaves, and the other half was enslaved. I mention this because it seems extreme. When I read it in the Bible Dictionary I own, I nearly did not believe it. I still find it a bit high to be possible, but as I sat contemplating this I began to realize the dualistic aspect of the statements. You are either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. They lived in this dualistic culture of slave and free, yet Paul is saying to them, you are all slaves. And Paul is right, each of them was and is a slave, you are either a slave to Caesar or a slave of one of Caesar’s appointed leaders. You are all subject to some overlord that demands allegiance.
There are two masters, one that are focused on selfish passions. This master demands that you focus only on yourself, or only on those like you. This master is the master of power, privilege, and wealth. This is the master of war and injustice. They are the powers, the principalities, and the flesh. This master is sin, because it is not seeking doing right for those around them they are seeking only what they can get for themselves.
We can turn on the news and see the results of this, because this is the only thing the news reports. The masters of injustice want us to blame the immigrant, the person with student loan debt, the victims of invasion. The masters of injustice want us to continue to fuel the fires of racism, or to deny that effects of unjust racial practices still affect people today. The master unrighteousness are the rulers of this world, it is the kingdoms of men. Of which Jesus said, “the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, but that is not so among you.”
Paul says there are two masters. The first was the master of sin which leads to unrighteousness and death, but the second is of obedience, which leads to righteousness. This second master encourages us to use our gifts and abilities to do right for those around you.
“You were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” When we stand with Jesus, when we accept his justification and begin to clothe ourselves in his way of life, we no longer look for our own passions and greed. Instead we listen to his teachings and look to become instruments of good for others.
Those in Christ are not looking for blessings for themselves, they are more concerned with blessing others. They no longer look to how they can have power and influence, they instead look to how they can empower and encourage those around them. If you have wealth you are not seeking only to gain more, you are seeking opportunities to use what you have available to you to advance the kingdom or the influence of God within your community.
What does this look like? Those that live in sin, justified their actions to take what is not theirs because they wanted or needed it. The result of that theft leads to the closure of stores within a neighborhood. What would submission to righteousness look like? This could take on many forms. You could open a store in an impoverished neighborhood. There have been stores like this opened knowing full well that it is likely that they will have a great deal of theft, so they ask only that their customers pay what they can. Maybe we hand out gift cards, maybe we start food pantries. There are many ways to live in submission to righteousness. You can even open a for-profit store with the intention of giving jobs to people that need employment. It is not the action itself that is important it is only that your goal is to do right for those around you, as a way of expressing your love and thanksgiving to the grace God has provided to us through Jesus.
Those justified by Christ, have Jesus standing with and for us. He declares us righteous and those that accept that grace turn away from the master of sin, and take on a new life. We move away from the life of sin, the life of self-indulgence and greed and seek to become more like Jesus. This is what Paul calls sanctification. There are many expressions of what this is and there are many names for it. Some call it discipleship, the Eastern Orthodox call it Theosis. We in the west do not like that term because it sound like we are seeking to become God, but it means to be formed into God’s likeness, to partake in the divine nature. The idea of sanctification or perfection according to Wesley is a lifelong process where we become more like Jesus.
When we become submitted to God we acknowledge that his ways, his teaching, his law is greater than our own. We acknowledge that we do not know how to do right by others, and we need the grace and guidance that He offers. Day by day we submit and draw closer. But it requires that we submit each day. Every day we must turn back to God because it is so easy to walk away from the one that stands for us. Every day we submit, and every day Jesus declares us justified. He stands with and for us, but do we stand with him? Are we willing to submit to his lordship or are we submitting to a different master? Are we looking for the good of our neighbor or are we justifying our own actions at the expense of others? “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Where do you stand.
Previous Messages:
Spiritual Family
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church July 19, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Romans 8:12–25 (ESV) So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you…
War Within
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church July 5, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Hebrews 12:1–3, 12-17 (ESV) 1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings…
He Stands With Us
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church June 14, 2026 Click Here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Romans 5:1–8 (ESV) 1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also…
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