Even good things we pursue can drift from their real meaning into empty gestures that change nothing. Sin whispers the same trade—“focus on me and I’ll give you what you want”—yet Paul answers it in Romans 6: do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, but present yourselves to God as those brought from death to life.

Study Questions

The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.

The Ann Jarvis story shows how even the best intentions can drift into empty ritual or outward performance. Where in your own spiritual life do you notice yourself settling for the appearance of faithfulness rather than genuine transformation?
Paul warns against letting sin reign in even one part of your body. How does the image of a hammer blow to one finger affecting the whole hand challenge the idea that you can compartmentalize certain areas as off-limits to God while keeping the rest devoted to Him?
The sermon contrasts living under law with living under grace. How does understanding grace as empowering rather than permissive change the way you approach obedience—and how does it undercut the temptation to keep a personal checklist of accomplishments before God?
We are told that every part of us is a weapon pointed somewhere. What does it look like practically to present each part of your life to God as an instrument of righteousness rather than trying to negotiate which parts He gets?
The sermon suggests that self-righteousness often hides in plain sight—we suppress it, but find subtle ways to make sure others notice our good deeds. How do you recognize that pattern in yourself, and how does resting in God’s grace rather than your own performance begin to dismantle it?

Transcript

This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.

Thank you for listening.

I was reading the history the other day of a woman named Ann Jarvis. Ann Jarvis lived during the time of the Civil War, and she became deeply troubled by the fact that she saw different families that were divided literally by the war—that part of the family be on one side of the border, part on the other, they’d be fighting against each other—and she wanted to do something about it. She thought maybe she could do a little to provide sanitary places for people to stay on both sides, that she could help the family somehow heal on both sides. She proposed that there should be a day named Mother’s Friendship Day that could remind people of the broken relationships that should be restored. After the war, she continued to see the idea of a day focused on mothers that could somehow point to the brokenness in our world as something that would be of use, and so she campaigned for decades to establish a day—not just to celebrate mothers, but really to ground us in mother’s love, that we would be reminded when our sinful brokenness splits us apart that maybe we should stop and love each other instead.

Well, she never got to see anything come of that long term, but when she passed in 1905, her daughter and a couple of years later at the Methodist church in her town, they had the first Mother’s Day service. She wanted everyone to stop, and she was very specific about it—she said, “We’re going to celebrate mothers with the apostrophe before the s.” In other words, a specific mother’s love, the love of your mother that each person should celebrate. Not some universal vague thing that we kind of fail to really act upon, but rather something that would ground us. The service was such a big deal that by next year it moved to New York City. She tried to get Congress to establish it as a national holiday, but Congress said no, because then they’d have to have a Mother’s Law Day too, and they didn’t want to do that.

But a few years later, President Wilson signed a decree establishing Mother’s Day, and there it was. Carnations are often associated with Mother’s Day for an interesting reason—Ann Jarvis, the mother who inspired this, loved them, and so her daughter thought it was a perfect symbol. There’s also some Christian legend around that, that the first carnations came about from the tears of Mary as she watched her son go to the cross, so there had already been this motherly association with them. But everyone who went to that first Mother’s Day service received one. Seems pretty good—a success story, right? Here’s this holiday now, still being celebrated over a century later, with all the flowers and so on.

But it wasn’t really a success in Jarvis’s mind, because what she wanted was for people to stop and appreciate their mothers—to celebrate them, yes, but to do so in a way that would truly change who they were, so that they would actually think about how they had been loved, and therefore be more loving in return. Instead, what happened became the Hallmark Holiday. She hated that. In fact, one of her early supporters sold flowers, and she came to hate the flowers as well, because the flowers ended up becoming a business rather than a celebration of a mother’s love. The carnation, which she had been so excited to have as the symbol of it—because, as her mother had said, as it withers up, it doesn’t lose its petals; it closes in and hugs them, symbolizing secure love—was now a money-making opportunity. She spent her last decades campaigning against the day she had helped create, and her very last year before she passed, she was arrested for disturbing the peace in a protest against Mother’s Day.

I thought about that, and how it seemed like a pretty good focus—celebrate mothers, reminder of the best in your own mother, and hope that that would change you for the rest of the year, tying that into our thankfulness to God’s provision, with it being part of a worship service that it came out of. Tie that all together—sounds really good. But it’s also such a picture of how easily we lose focus, right? Now it’s big business instead of what she envisioned, which was every son taking time to write a handwritten letter celebrating his mother. Now it’s, “Can I buy a big enough box of candy?” which she sourly pointed out—you eat with your mother, and you probably eat more of it than she does.

It shows how we lose the true status, how we drift from the real meaning of even the good things we pursue. That’s what Paul’s talking about as we turn to the next part of Romans chapter 6. If you’d like to turn there with me, let’s pray tonight that as we think about how we do lose focus, that God would help us not to lose focus on Him. Would you pray with me, please?

Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for the love that You show us. Thank you that even as our love can wane, can get distracted, and can lose focus, Lord, Your love never loses focus. Would you help us to hold on to that, and to live according to it? We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.

So, we’re going to start at verse 12 tonight. Romans chapter 6, verse 12: Paul writes, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires.” Here’s what sin says to us: sin says, “Focus on me and I will give you what you want. Just focus on me, and I’ll give you what I want.” Whatever it is you want, sin promises that you’re going to get it, right? “Give the box of candy, spend some time with mom, and eat the candy,” right? I want the box of candy. Sin says, that’s how you should approach everything. And sin says that about how we relate to God, too. We’ll give him candy and appreciation, a nice box of heart candy. “I love you, God,” we say, but then, “God, I really want all of the raspberry cream-filled ones.” Yeah, those are good.

And so, we pull back and we take out the raspberry ones and we hand God a partially empty box of candy. Then we think, well, those peanut butter cups in there look pretty good, too. The problem is, when we try to withhold a bit from God, we end up withholding a lot from God, and we end up giving God something that is insulting. If you give your mom or you got some other ladies who have meant a great deal to you in your life some boxes of candy, and they all have your favorites already picked out, does that really communicate what you want it to? No, of course not.

Yet, somehow we think with God, “Well, if I give God a little bit of myself, that’s good enough,” right? I have a lot of things to give myself, too. I can’t give it all to you, God. I mean, for crying out loud, there’s a lot to do in life. And God says, “No, I want all of you.” And by that, he doesn’t mean he wants us to say, “Never leave this building,” right? Oh, okay, I’ll just lock myself in. I’ll chain myself to the chair and never leave the building. No, what he means is that whatever we are doing, wherever we are, whatever we are thinking about, he wants us to be placing that before him too. Everything about our lives, he wants us to see as something we should be giving to him.

And we try to do that—we say, “Well, some parts of me just don’t matter that much to God, right?” And Paul says, “No, God wants every part of you. He purchased from sin every part of you, saved you from that sin. Every part of you should be given to him.” Don’t give it to sin. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. When we start to give part of our body to sin, it determines what our whole body does. You think about it: you’re opening the mail, not electronic mail but old-fashioned paper mail. And I know many of us have experienced a paper cut—when you get that paper cut, it’s really hard for a moment to think about anything but that paper cut. If it keeps stinging, it distracts you, and you start making mistakes because your finger hurts—a tiny cut on one finger. You might say, “That’s just one finger,” but then slam a hammer on that finger. Are you thinking of anything else at that moment? No.

And yet, we think we can slam the hammer of sin on one finger and say, “But the rest of my fingers—my whole hand—are for you, God. I’m just doing this one finger.” That’s a fool’s game. What’s the other person going to say? They say, “You’re not going to be able to do what I’ve called you to do with any of you if you aren’t giving all of you.”

Now, this might sound like we’re just talking about doing good works—it’s all about us obeying laws. But take a look at verse 14—let’s skip down a few verses. Paul says, “Sin shall not be your master because you are not under law but under grace.” Hmm. Isn’t that odd? Paul says, “Quit sinning,” and then he adds, “by the way, you’re not under law.” How does that work? What he’s talking about is our love of being self-righteous. We often, as much as we like to rebel against laws, also really like laws. And how often is it that, say, you become a Christian or decide to rededicate your life to Christ and try to live more for him, you ask, “What is it I need to do?” Maybe you even ask someone, “What do I need to do here?” That’s not a bad question, but what we often mean is, just give me a list of ten things, and I’ll do them.

The convenience of those lists is that they affirm us on the things we can focus on. Now, there are ten things, and we go ahead and drop hammers on those toes—those aren’t the ten things we’re focused on. No problem. They give us an excuse. That’s the problem with law. We can’t fulfill all of God’s law. We cannot do everything that’s righteous before him. And yet, we say, “But I did these ten things; I’m not cutting my fingers with any envelopes at all, and so I’m doing okay.” God says, “But there’s more to you than that.” Legalism gives us the opportunity to try to find shortcuts—“God didn’t explicitly say I can’t do this, therefore I can do it,” or “I’ve already done x, y, and z, so God can’t expect me to always be doing stuff for him.”

We really, when we say we’re going to follow the law, are not truly understanding the damage sin does. We don’t see how sin is like a bunch of hammers—worse than hammers, like anvils—being dropped on our feet and our fingers. Because in the moment, it doesn’t feel like it. It feels pretty good, promising, secure, right? And the pain—well, we think we can delay that later. Thank you very much. We think, “Okay, God, I did these ten steps to better living. Now I’m a good person, right?” But God asks, “Where are those raspberry truffles?” They’re not there. We love the legal shortcut. It wasn’t even on the top ten list, because they don’t take raspberry truffles. So, we say, “Well, I’ve done enough good; I’m okay.” And we love that because we love to affirm ourselves, love our self-righteousness. We might hate it in others, but we love it in ourselves, when we can say, “Look at all the good I’ve done.” Maybe we even suppress it, so that we don’t say it outright, but we find ways to make sure people notice all the good things we’ve done. At the very least, we want God to grade us on a curve—like, “You know, I’m performing above average.” We want God to say, “Well, no one’s scoring 100, so you’ve got a 75—that’s basically 100. Great! Congratulations!”

But God doesn’t want us doing that. He doesn’t call us to find the lawful shortcut. He calls us to find Him. If I say “the Enabling Act,” many of you will know what I’m referring to—it has an ominous name, rightfully so. The Enabling Act was passed in the mid-1930s in Germany. It was meant to relieve the pain and suffering of the nation and the people by eliminating essentially the legislative power and locating it all in the chancellor, Adolf Hitler. Leading up to the passing of the Enabling Act, there was lively debate among the German people about the Nazi party—whether to accept it or reject it. Some thought it would really relieve suffering. Others thought, “This gives me the creeps; there’s something wrong with it.” Some opposition groups, like the Communist Party, were simply arrested as Nazis gained power, so they couldn’t vote. That was a convenient way to suppress dissent.

There were other groups, like the Center Party—conservative Catholics who wanted a faithful, traditional society aligned with the Pope and doing what was right. They didn’t like the Nazis because they saw that the Nazis weren’t doing what was right. But in the February election just before the Enabling Act, they only got 11% of the vote. They had some presence in parliament but not enough to stop the Nazis. They saw what happened to the more extreme opposition and thought, “Maybe we can make a deal.” So, they made a deal with the Nazis: “We know you want to pass this Enabling Act. We have hesitations, but we’ll vote for it if you promise that we can continue as a party and that you’ll come to good terms with Rome so Catholics can live freely in Germany.” They did, and three months later, they were dissolved. They thought they were protecting themselves but actually enabled their own demise.

This was all done legally under the laws of Germany at the time. Lawful, but wrong. They saw the legality, but ignored the morality. It would have been better to resist. It might have been different if they had. Legality doesn’t equal righteousness—what they did was wrong. That’s what happens every time we embrace legalism. When we say, “Just give me some rules to follow,” we’re not really understanding the damage sin causes. Sin is like anvils dropping on our feet or our fingers, and just trying to contain it or regulate it only makes it worse.

If we leave our old nature in charge, just controlling it with rules, everything we do becomes a weapon. Take a look at verse 13: “Do not present the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.” That word for instrument is actually the word for weapon. When we say, “This finger here, this one is going to do whatever it wants,” we’re leaving a weapon firing. Paul says, “You’re leaving one weapon firing. Don’t you realize that?” You don’t need every finger doing something evil or sinful. If any of them are firing, they all are. So, when we say, “I’ll just control who I am,” we’re fooling ourselves. The truth is, we need all of us for what God has called us to do.

And so, we think, “I just need to check off the list,” but every time we do that, we’re pretending that everything else isn’t happening. We look at others, and they’re still doing these things—they’re still on the list. And we wonder, “What about those things that aren’t on my list?” Sometimes, even when we’re trying to do good, moral, God-honoring things—trying to establish a holiday that honors something good—we can succeed outwardly. One historian said that if Mother’s Day hadn’t become so commercialized, it probably wouldn’t still be around, because it was just one of many holidays. There was temperance Sunday, children’s Sunday, but they didn’t sell cards, flowers, candies—they didn’t book restaurants for them. We don’t even know what day they are.

Sin can make failures look like successes. I’m not condemning anyone for buying flowers or celebrating Mother’s Day in the usual ways. But the danger is that it can become a way to avoid what truly matters. For example, you send a bouquet of flowers, but you don’t actually talk to your mother or call her. You check the box. The card arrives, the flowers are ordered, and you say, “I did it.” But you haven’t truly done it.

We focus on whether we’re moral enough, on appearances rather than reality. It’s so easy to condemn others—we see how they fall short of God’s standard. But what we don’t see is how we don’t either, because we’re focused on our list and what we’re doing—“I’m okay, I’ve got it under control.” When we do that, we’re actually letting sin reign, even when we seem to be doing good.

Here’s the good news: It’s not up to you. It’s not up to me. As sin promises, “Come follow me, and I’ll give you everything you want,” God also says, “Follow me, and I will give you the strength you need.” Going back to verse 13: “Do not present the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.” For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law but under grace.

When Paul says we’re under grace, he’s not saying “don’t worry about sin.” It’s not a free pass. It’s a call to stop trying to live in your own strength. God’s grace is sufficient. He has something better for us—training us to be more like Him. Titus 2 reminds us: “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to everyone. It instructs us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live sensible, upright, and godly lives in the present age.”

The first point is that God saves us—that is the starting point, and we need to remember His love, which will never fail us. If you turn to Jesus, he won’t say, “Let me see your checklist or your progress.” No. If you belong to Jesus, you belong. You’re not a probationary member trying to get in; you’re already His. The question is, are you going to accept the adventure He has for you? Because He’s going to train you, change you, transform you.

When Paul says we are under grace, it’s not about doing less, but about doing everything in Him and not in ourselves. That way, we can’t take the credit, and we don’t fall into the trap of comparing ourselves—“I’m doing okay; everyone else is worse.” Instead, grace teaches us: “I don’t have it all under control. I am a mess. But I am loved by God, and I have a purpose.”

If every part of us is a weapon, the question is: is it pointing in the right direction? Because there’s a war out there—spiritual warfare, sin. Are we facing the right way? God says, “Let me turn you.” It’s not that we become useless or unneeded; no, He wants to use us. He calls us to be instruments in His hands—but for righteousness, not for sin.

And so, present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. Your members—your body, your actions—are tools for righteousness. It’s fascinating when I think about Ann Jarvis—because she does sound like the DIY success story: a woman on a mission, dedicated to honoring her mother, to blessing others, to perhaps decreasing war and suffering. But where did she end? Discouraged. She didn’t need to be. Looking at her vision versus what it became—the commercialization, the profit, the emptiness—she was tempted to give up. But she could have gone deeper, instead of abandoning what was beautiful about her symbol, the carnation, representing her feelings of love and embracing in her heart.

Leo’s going to help me here. We actually have some carnations, and ladies, you’ll receive one as a thank you for the ways you show love. And when you look at that carnation, I want you to do what Anna did—think you need to get it right. But instead, when you look at it, think of the one who always embraced you more deeply than anyone—Jesus. He went to the cross and died for us, and in that death, He embraced us more fully than words could say.

When we truly recognize that love, it changes everything. It allows us to show God’s love more freely—better than we could on our own—because now it’s about Him, not about us. It’s not about whether I did enough or whether I got things right; it’s about the love of God that sent His Son to die for me. The petals don’t fall—they embrace. They draw me in.

And as I am drawn in, I can love others. Not by trying harder, but by resting in His love. Our greatest successes often turn into failures like Anna’s—she worked hard her whole life, but she was left discouraged. But it’s not that we shouldn’t do things—my advice would not be to abandon your efforts. Rather, keep pointing people to God. Keep encouraging them to root themselves in His love more than anything else.

God challenges us: understand what truly makes the right things right. It’s not about completing a checklist or achieving success today. It’s about belonging to Him. Because Jesus makes us rightful, fully His. He lets us do good things—sometimes in our strength, often in His—and it can get messed up. But when we do things in Him, they’re right, and they last.

May we be a people who show the love of the one who embraced us with the greatest love—so that a hurting world will know there is a love they can always depend on, a love found in our God. Would you pray with me, please?

Father, help us when we struggle. Sometimes we have righteous intentions, good plans, and yet, when we try to do things on our own, they fall short. Help us to stop looking to ourselves and instead look to You—because You are the One who makes everything right and good. Would You help us to cling to You in every part of our lives? When we’re racing ahead, trying to make it right on our own, turn us back to You. When we’re holding on tightly to what’s ours and trying to control it, let us give that over to You. In everything, we ask You to help us recognize that we are no longer under the reign of sin—that in grace, You give us the freedom to do what You’ve called us to do.

We pray this in Jesus’ precious name.