What does it mean to be under the dominion of sin?

Watch the complete sermon here: https://www.bridges.church/messages/patience-self-control-proverbs-25-28/

Hi, friends. Thanks for joining us today. Here’s our question. What does it mean to be or to live under the dominion of sin? And I get that question from romans 6:9-14, which says, we know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again, and death no longer has dominion over him for the death he died.

He died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. So you, too, also believer, 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. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but instead present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness.

And then verse 14 of romans six is the key verse there sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace. So again, what does it mean to be or to live under the dominion of sin? And this question comes up on the heels of my message from this last Sunday where we were talking. We’re continuing about talking about the fruit of God’s spirit and what it produces within us. And we looked at patience and self control, and we talked about how it is difficult to fight the urge to be impatient or to just do something with a lack of self control.

It’s difficult to fight that on your own and in your own willpower. And so we looked at Titus two, verse eleven and twelve. It says that the grace of God has appeared, meaning Jesus came into the world, and the grace of God teaches us as believers to now say no to ungodliness, basically, to say no to the things that we used to absolutely say yes to. So we can now avoid the things that we’re supposed to avoid and do the things that God calls us to do. Because when you become a believer, the Holy Spirit comes to live within you, and you now have that sense of resistance so that you no longer have to be under the dominion of sin.

In this context, the dominion of sin is speaking about total, absolute rule. So we, prior to becoming believers, used to be under the total, absolute rule of sin. We had no choice. We were obligated to do whatever our old sin nature, the flesh, is what the Bible calls it, prompted us to do. But as a believer, you now have a check in your spirit, because that Holy Spirit is.

And the grace of God is teaching us to say no again to the things we used to say no to. Well, now, how does that happen? This verse is talking about how just as Jesus overcame and is free from sin and death and made alive to God. This idea, though there’s a fancy word that we often use in Christian circles called justification. This is speaking about justification.

The doctrine of justification basically says that we come to, through God’s grace, inherit Jesus perfect record. We get to inherit his freedom over sin, and he took on our evil record, and we took on his perfect record. That’s what it means to be justified. So just as Jesus is free from sin, so we, too, who are in Christ and have the Holy Spirit living within us, are also free from sin. So we are no longer obligated to do what our flesh wants to do.

So how do I know if I’m under the dominion of sin? Because here’s some good news, bad news. The good news is that the Holy Spirit is within us. The bad news is that even after becoming a believer, our old sin nature, the flesh, keeps warring within us. We know this.

So to be under the dominion of sin does not mean that the sin isn’t there. Or, excuse me, to not be under the dominion of sin does not mean that the sin isn’t there anymore. And it doesn’t mean that you’re not under the influence of it, but it just means that you’re not under the mastery of it, the total, absolute rule of it, because you are in Christ. So how do we know if we are under the dominion of sin? A person is under the dominion of sin when they don’t know that they are under the dominion of sin.

What I mean is this, that if a person comes to the realization, wow, I’m really being controlled by my pride right now, then you’re not under the dominion of your pride. You actually are. The Holy Spirit is prompting you to find a way out. It’s the moment that you begin to say, no, my pride isn’t a problem for me. I’m not under the control of it.

I’m not under the control of my selfishness or whatever that is, then you are absolutely under the dominion of that. But God, through his word, is reminding us of the freedom friends that we have in Christ so we can keep practicing the skills of patience and self control. And of course, we will still fall. We still will sin, even after coming to faith. And the good news of one John tells us is that when we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, and that’s Jesus himself.

He advocates for us. And if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and he pulls us back out so that we are no longer doing the old way of life, but we are putting on the new self day by day by his grace. Well, I hope that this is helpful to you. I know it has been for me. Thanks so much for joining us today.