7 Verses to Overcome Sin Part One

Aaron Smith:
Hey, we’re Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.

Jennifer Smith:
Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Aaron Smith:
Today, we’re going to share seven battle verses for overcoming any sin.

Aaron Smith:
Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant more than just happily after.

Jennifer Smith:
I’m Jennifer, also known as unveiled wife.

Aaron Smith:
I’m Aaron, also known as husband revolution.

Jennifer Smith:
We have been married for over a decade.

Aaron Smith:
So far, we have four young children.

Jennifer Smith:
We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media.

Aaron Smith:
With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day.

Jennifer Smith:
We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life.

Aaron Smith:
Love.

Jennifer Smith:
And power.

Aaron Smith:
That can only be found by chasing after God.

Jennifer Smith:
Together.

Aaron Smith:
Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God’s will for our life together.

Jennifer Smith:
This is Marriage After God.

Jennifer Smith:
Hey everyone, thanks for joining us this week. Before we jump into anything, Aaron and I would just like to invite you to leave a review. This is just a really great way to get the podcast known by others. It’s how people become familiar with the Marriage After God podcast and how well it’s doing. We just wanted to invite you guys if you have time to leave us a review. You can leave a star rating review or a comment review or both.

Aaron Smith:
Also, we love to give you guys free things. One of those free things that we made for you guys is a date night conversations starter ebook. It’s 52 date nights starter questions. What it does is it allows you on your next date night or the next 52 date nights to have a conversation around a specific topic on growing as a couple toward God’s mission for your life. We want you to get that download for free. It’s datenightconversations.com. That’s datenightconversations.com, completely free.

Aaron Smith:
Go download that resource, and enjoy the next 52 date nights on us. Not the cost of them, just the conversations.

Jennifer Smith:
Speaking of date night, I was having a conversation with a friend recently. She was just talking about her desire to want to build her friendship up with her husband. Immediately, I start thinking of ideas that I can share with her, and I just asked her. I started with date night, and I said, “Do you guys have regular date nights planned?” She was like, “No.” I just want to encourage everyone. You mentioned date night conversation starters.

Jennifer Smith:
I just want to encourage everyone listening right now to be cultivating friendship in marriage. It’s so important. It’s so vital that you guys are getting to know each other, and these conversations starters are a great way to do that because really it’s through the conversation of a husband and wife that they get to know each other and enjoy that experience.

Aaron Smith:
Sometimes, we don’t know how to make those date nights deeper and more meaningful because the monotony of the day and the years and the weeks go by, and sometimes we just need something to help us refocus. All of these questions are focused around spiritual things, what God’s doing, where He’s taking us, what His vision for our life is, where we see God taking us and how we can join Him in what he’s doing. Yes. Again, datenightconversations.com ,you should definitely take advantage of those.

Aaron Smith:
Like Jennifer said, if you’re not having a regular date night or at least having a regular date night on the calendar so that you have them more often, you should definitely put that on the calendar.

Jennifer Smith:
Do it. Prioritize it. If for whatever reason you can’t make it to that date, make sure that you use the conversation starters in bed that night and just still-

Aaron Smith:
Do bed night dates. The topic today is it’s seven battle verses for overcoming any sin. It could sound very pithy like, “Here’s these short little things to just defeat those temptations.” We actually think they’re stronger than that. This isn’t just… They’re not actually single versus.

Jennifer Smith:
I was going to say you’re getting a little bit more than seven because-

Aaron Smith:
Jennifer’s like, “I thought they were supposed to be seven verses. I couldn’t. I had to do the whole chapter,” but we have some verses to use as anchor verses-

Jennifer Smith:
We’re going to highlight.

Aaron Smith:
… to remind you where to go to, but you know what? The word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword. It cuts through the bone and the marrow. It pierces even to the soul. It’s the thing that transforms us and changes us, and so as Christians, there’s nothing more powerful in a Christian’s life than the way… Actually, there’s nothing more powerful in anyone’s life than the word of God. The word of God is what brings faith to people that that invigorates them to crave salvation and then find salvation and then receive salvation.

Aaron Smith:
The word of God does all of that. In the believer’s life, when we lean and meditate on the word of God, it washes our minds. It renews our minds. It helps us think differently, act differently, be different. We want to give you some anchor verses for when you are walking through those times of temptation, because we all are tempted. We’ll talk about that.

Jennifer Smith:
They will always come.

Aaron Smith:
How do we deal with those as believers? Well, we render the word of God, and we let our minds be changed.

Jennifer Smith:
Real quick, Aaron, I just want to jump in and say as we’re going through these verses, of course they’re for you guys listening, and we hope that these anchor verses just really inspire you to defeat sin in your life and help you with that, but we want to encourage you to consider these anchor verses as a way to encourage your spouse.

Aaron Smith:
That’s a good point.

Jennifer Smith:
Think about your spouse when we’re going through these. Maybe even write them out so that when you know that your spouse is struggling with sin or they come to you and confide in you, you have something to give them. You’re equipped to equip them. Hopefully, we can look at this two ways, for ourself but also for our spouse.

Aaron Smith:
I also want to highlight one more thing before we move onto the scriptures is it could feel easy sometimes to think of this in a “legalistic” like, “Oh, we’re not saved by not sinning, because we’re all sinners, and we’re saved by grace, not by works, but by grace so that no man may boast.” I want to remind us that this is not a conversation about how to be saved, that we walk perfectly and we walk holy, and that’s how God’s going to receive us.

Aaron Smith:
No, this is a conversation about, no, the believer is already saved and being sanctified, but it’s through the knowledge of the word of God that we are more and more sanctified, and we walk in more and more holiness. We’ll talk about that. The desire is that we hate our sin more and more the same way god hates our sin, because the sin destroys us, and God wants us to have life and life more abundant, not destruction and death. This is a conversation about how the believer walks strong, how the believer is empowered, how the believer is no longer enslaved to sin the way we once were before Christ.

Jennifer Smith:
But that those temptations still come, and we need to be ready and prepared to overcome it.

Aaron Smith:
Even before we get into our seven main anchor verses, I want to bring up just… I want to talk about the correct perspective on sin in the Christians’ life, because I think I grew up thinking this way. We’ve heard it over and over again. I hope I don’t mess it up, but the idea is like, “Oh, we’re just a sinner saved by grace, which is true.” We are sinners saved by grace.

Jennifer Smith:
But it doesn’t give permission to keep on sinning.

Aaron Smith:
Right. Usually in my own life, I would repeat that in my heart after I’ve sinned and said, “Oh well, you know what? At least, we’re all centers, and I’m just going to keep doing it.” It was wrong thinking. Yes, we were sinners and we have a sin nature, but the spirit of God has defeated that in us and allows us now when we walk in the spirit to not gratify the desires of the flesh. That’s what the Bible teaches us. I want to read 1 John 1. I’m going to read a handful of verses, so bear with me.

Aaron Smith:
! John 1:5-10, and then we’re going to go into the next verse on chapter two, says this, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

Aaron Smith:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.” Then chapter two verse one, it says this, “My little children, I’m writing these things to you so that you may not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.” There’s a ton in this, and it could sound very confusing because it’s saying not sin, and we’re cleanse from all sins, but if we say we don’t have sin, we’re liars.

Aaron Smith:
In reality, this is the crux of the gospel is recognizing first and foremost that we are sinners in need of a savior, that I’m not sinless. A lot of people that don’t receive the gospel because they think, “I’m good enough. I’m not a bad person. I don’t sin like some other people do.” It’s a lie that they believe that they actually don’t need a savior. In the believer’s life, we are constantly reminded like, “Man, I need a savior. I am a sinner. I have these temptations. I have this flesh that’s constantly craving and desiring things that are not of the Lord.”

Aaron Smith:
This is a sober way of thinking about ourselves. If I think even now as we’re walking in [inaudible 00:10:08], but I think like, “No, I’m good. I got it all figured out,” that’s pride, and I’m going to fall. That doesn’t mean, “Oh see, we’re all sinners. I’m just going to keep sitting because look what it says right there, I’m a liar if I say I don’t sin.” That’s not what this is talking about. This is showing that Jesus cleanses us from all of our sins, and that we need to recognize that he has done that because we have sin and are sinners, but he has cleansed us.

Aaron Smith:
Then it says, “My little children, I’m writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” It’s saying, “I want you to know that you don’t have to sin. Even though you have a sin nature, you have a new nature given to you.” Then he says, “But you know what? When we as believers choose to sin, guess what? We have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ.” That is just so awesome. It shows the reality of the Christian walking in a dead flesh towards rejuvenation, towards regeneration in the spirit.

Aaron Smith:
That’s just the reality is there are going to be days in our weakness, in our selfishness, and our pride that we are going to choose to sin. We’re going to talk about this, but I just wanted to first set up the correct perspective for a believer is it’s not just, “I never sin and I’m perfect, holy and you can’t talk to me about sin because I don’t have sin.” It’s also not, “Oh, I’m just a sinner over here, and I’m just going to keep sinning. And I’m enslaved to sin and nothing I can do, but praise God, he’s saved me cause I can’t ever stop sinning.”

Aaron Smith:
It’s neither of those things. It’s, “I understand I have a sin nature, therefore I need to be all the more diligent walking in the spirit and walking towards God because I choose God not sin.” Does that make sense? That’s just the foundation as we go into these other scriptures to help us in this battle against the spirit and the flesh to show us who we are in Christ, what the truth is, and how we can walk in that truth.

Jennifer Smith:
I love that you lay that foundation upfront. I also just want to point out and remind everyone that we have a real enemy who hates us because he’s against… He opposes God.

Aaron Smith:
He opposes the image of God, which is in us.

Jennifer Smith:
He opposes the image of God, and his desire for us is to be disobedient to God, and so he’s going to tempt us. It’s going to happen.

Aaron Smith:
Speaking of temptation, that’s the first verse we’re going to talk about, temptation.

Jennifer Smith:
Let’s get into it.

Aaron Smith:
It’s in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. It says this, “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea.” He’s talking about the Israelites when they’re walking to the wilderness after Egypt. “And all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. And all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness, which is this is just a heavy topic.

Aaron Smith:
What he’s showing is the Israelites after being saved from Egypt, after being saved from pharaoh, after going through the red sea, after the red sea and seeing all of these miracles and God feeding with manna and drinking from the water coming from the rock, some of them still fell. They saw all this power, but he’s going to explain what he’s talking about. Verse six, “Now these things took place as examples for us.” Those things that happened were an example to us Christians today, “that we might not desire evil as they did, that we might not desire evil as they did.”

Aaron Smith:
“Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. We must not indulge in sexual, morality as some of them did, and 23,000 fell on a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.” Now, these things happen to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction.

Aaron Smith:
What Paul is saying is we are to learn from what happened to the Israelites. Now, these things happen to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. We are the ones on whom the end of the ages have come. Jesus has entered into the world.

Aaron Smith:
Hey Marriage After God family, we wanted to take a short moment to let you know about an organization that we believe in and support. Did you know that there are more than four million victims of sex trafficking globally, and 99% of those are women and children? As a Christian and as a father, this truth breaks my heart. What if those were my children? What if that was my wife? Thank God there are Christ-centered organizations out there that are making a difference.

Aaron Smith:
Destiny Rescue is an international-recognized Christian nonprofit organization dedicated to rescuing children trapped in exploitation and the sex trade. Their vision is to rescue the sexually exploited and enslaved, restore the abused, protect the horrible, empower the poor, and be a voice for those who can’t speak up for themselves. They currently work in seven countries around the world, and have celebrated over 4,000 lives rescued from the evils of sex exploitation. Destiny Rescue has operations in Thailand, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, in the Philippines, India, and other locations that remain undisclosed for security purposes.

Aaron Smith:
Since 2011, they’ve been working tirelessly to free children from exploitation around the world. They have helped keep hundreds more from entering the sex trade through the various prevention programs, ensure justice for those who have been wronged and raise awareness to untold numbers. My family supports Destiny Rescue on a monthly basis, and we want to invite you to join us in saving and protecting children from this wicked industry. Visit destinyrescue.org today, and become a monthly partner with us. Thank you.

Aaron Smith:
We’re the ones on whom the end of the ages have come. Jesus has entered into the world, died, rose again. We’re in the church age. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago. This is the season that this is for, what Paul’s talking about. In verse 13, this is the one I want you to focus on. This is the anchor verse from this whole section. It’s 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.” He’s reminding us all these things that the Israelites dealt with.

Aaron Smith:
He’s like, “I don’t want you to do these things because we’re tempted to do these things, grumble, sexual morality, eat and drink and play like the hedonistic lifestyle,” that these are things that we naturally in our flesh desire. He says, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.” Then it says, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.”

Jennifer Smith:
That’s powerful.

Aaron Smith:
That’s a pretty strong statement because a lot of believers, “I believe this. In my own sexual addictions and struggles and sin, I actually believed I couldn’t get out from the temptation.”

Jennifer Smith:
That part where it says, He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability,” I think there’s a lot of people, and I’ve thought this way. Like you said, you’ve thought this way that it is bigger than you.

Aaron Smith:
You have no control.

Jennifer Smith:
That you have no control over it, but-

Aaron Smith:
It’s stronger than you, but this says the contrary. It says God is faithful. First of all, God is faithful.

Jennifer Smith:
God is faithful.

Aaron Smith:
He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, He will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Meaning, not give in to the temptation. We’re all tempted by many various things, and none of those temptations are uncommon. They’re all common to man. He just told us the Israelites fell because of these temptations, and they gave in to them. He says, “Not with you, you believers, you Holy Spirit filled people, God’s going to give you a way of escape every single time.” This actually just real quick a side note, this verse gets a lot taken out of context a lot.

Aaron Smith:
People say, “God will never give you more than you can handle.” That’s actually not what the Bible says, because there’s plenty of things that you can just read stories in the Bible that are like, Well, how did they handle that?” That are so overwhelming, so insane, but this says no temptation will overwhelm you, that you will be able to overcome any temptation with the way of escape that the Lord provides for you every single time. Now, remember, the context I gave with 1 John, when we choose to sin, we have advocate with the father.

Aaron Smith:
I don’t want to be here to make anyone feel condemned. We’re going to talk about condemnation a little bit, but I do want to remind us that this is truth. For those=.

Jennifer Smith:
When those lies come when you are being tempted, when those lies come that you hear those things-

Aaron Smith:
You can’t beat this.

Jennifer Smith:
… you can’t beat this.

Aaron Smith:
Just give in.

Jennifer Smith:
You’re going to give in anyways. Eventually, you will. You got to you got to be able to fight those with this truth.

Aaron Smith:
I want to go into one more topic on temptation. I actually used to give into sin because I would believe this lie that the enemy would speak to me is, “Well, you’ve already been tempted. You already have these thoughts. You already want this. You might as well just finish. You might as well just fulfill. You might as well just go all the way.”

Jennifer Smith:
It’s like you’ve already sinned just thinking about it.

Aaron Smith:
Just thinking about it and desiring it, because the temptation is you won’t… Nothing’s tempting that you don’t already desire. The world tells us that that temptation comes from within our own desires. I would feel convicted already. Like, “Oh , the fact that I don’t want this and then everything’s raging in my body because I want something that’s sinful.”

Jennifer Smith:
You might as well just follow through.

Aaron Smith:
Then the enemy is like, “Well you already like… You might as well. You already feel guilty,” but that was not… The temptation is not the sinner. This is what I want to break a lie, and I know a lot of people probably feel this way. Temptation’s not sin. God doesn’t tempt us. It says in James 1:13, “Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself temps no one.” God never tempts us, but with every temptation, he gives us a way of escape.

Aaron Smith:
He doesn’t do the tempting, but he gives us a way of escape.

Jennifer Smith:
What a good God.

Aaron Smith:
I know. Secondly, also, He believes in us to escape, not just like, “Well, you failed again. Sucks for you.” He gives us the wave escape and believes we will and can because of the Holy spirit in us. Then the other part I love about this, Hebrews 4:15, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every way or in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.” Guess who that’s talking about?

Jennifer Smith:
Jesus.

Aaron Smith:
Yes. He was tempted in every way, so if temptation is sin, then Jesus is a sinner, and He’s not, but he was tempted in every way, and yet without sin. Brothers, sisters, we can be tempted and not sin. I can have a temptation for something that’s not of God, and I can in that moment actually walk in the spirit and choose not to fulfill that craving. It’s actually, if you think about fasting from food, that’s the most natural craving a body has. You actually have to eat to survive. The Bible even says like, Well, we can control that also.”

Aaron Smith:
Actually, the spiritual practice of fasting is controlling your flesh saying, “Flesh, I know you’re hungry, and you’re so hungry that my stomach hurts, but no, I’m going to choose to do something contrary to what my flesh wants.” That’s actually what self-control is called. That’s what self-control is. Couple things, temptation’s not sin. Every temptation, God will provide a way of escape. Every single time for the believer, 100% of the time, this is truth.

Aaron Smith:
Jesus can sympathize with us because he’s been tempted every way, but without sin.

Jennifer Smith:
When that verse in Corinthians really started helping you as you held onto that as an anchor of truth in your heart, can you share some examples of ways of escape that God provided for you just to give our listeners an idea of what those ways might look like? I’m sure it’ll look different for everyone in every situation, but to keep their eyes open, what [crosstalk 00:22:43].

Aaron Smith:
I would say for me specifically, and I know a lot of men that probably might and maybe even women with the whole pornography thing. Oftentimes, it’s my non self-control of my mind and actions, so I’m not thinking through everything, which allowed me to “stumble upon things often,” more often than I should have. In considering this verse, I’m thinking about it and praying about it and saying, “Okay, Lord, show me the ways out.” I actually became more and more sensitive to hearing the spirit say, “You know why you’re about to click on that.”

Aaron Smith:
I’m like, “Yeah, I do.”

Jennifer Smith:
Yelling to the spirit before you even get?

Aaron Smith:
Before getting to that spot of feeling so uncontrollable, before activating all of those things in me that make me desire that. Actually, it’s gets more and more sensitive. It used to be so dull, because I wasn’t practicing or listening or thinking about the truth at all. I just believed the lie that, “Oh, I’m just going to…” That it was that much easier for me to choose to sin every single time, because I’m like, “Oh, I was just doing my normal thing. And it came out of nowhere.” When in reality, I wasn’t being aware. I wasn’t being self-controlled.

Aaron Smith:
I know the things that I do that are going to somehow someway in a roundabout way show me what I want to see. The Holy spirit in just considering this started revealing to me like, “No, you know what you’re doing. Oh, you want to click on that? You’re choosing that.”

Jennifer Smith:
That’s really good. One of the first things that I thought of when I asked you that question about a way of escape is this happened to me. I don’t know if it’s happened to you or anyone listening, but you’re being tempted. You’re at that point where you’re deciding whether or not you’re going to move forward and sin, and the phone rings. It’s a friend or family member. Someone’s trying to get ahold of you, and they don’t know what you’re in the middle of wrestling with.

Aaron Smith:
To be

Jennifer Smith:
They have their own agenda

Jennifer Smith:
… but they love you and they… I feel like there’s been many times where that was my way of escape. I saw it just as that. It was a gift. That’s just one way that I’ve seen a way of escape. I don’t know if there’s any more that we can give our listeners to be aware of.

Aaron Smith:
Well, for me, there’s often been times, there’s something I should be doing, but instead, I’m choosing sin or being tempted, but oftentimes, it’ll come to my mind like, “Oh, I should be doing this other thing.” I could choose in that moment like, “I’m just going to go do that other thing or do what Joseph did when Potiphar’s wife-“

Jennifer Smith:
Run.

Aaron Smith:
Just run.

Jennifer Smith:
Just get up and go.

Aaron Smith:
Get up and go outside and sit in the front yard from whatever that temptations is.

Jennifer Smith:
That’s a good one.

Aaron Smith:
Pick up the phone and call somebody like, “Hey, what’s going on? I’m just-

Jennifer Smith:
Oftentimes, the way of escape is the door. Go out your front door. Just leave.

Aaron Smith:
I feel like there’s just got to be… Going back to my original point is believing this to be true in the first place, and then in those temptations, earnestly looking for the way out because the Lord’s going to… He’s going to prompt your heart. He’s going to prick your spirit and say, “You know you don’t want to do this, or that’s not who you are, or you know what you’re about to do. Just recognize that you’re choosing this. That means you’re choosing to go against me.” That’s what the spirits reminded me. It’s makes it harder and harder and harder and harder to choose those sins over and over and over again.

Jennifer Smith:
When the Lord prompts your heart in that way to guide you, and you choose Him over sin, you become even more sensitive to Him, but what happens when you-

Aaron Smith:
Keep going the other way.

Jennifer Smith:
… keep going the other way?

Aaron Smith:
You do what I did, and you believe the lie, and you see your conscience, which the word-

Jennifer Smith:
Your heart gets hard.

Aaron Smith:
Yep.

Jennifer Smith:
That’s God.

Aaron Smith:
It’s harder for you to hear the what the spirit’s saying to you. Let’s go on to number two. This the opposite of a lie. A lot of these are the fixing of lies that we believe about sin. For the believer, I actually believed that I was still a slave to sin even though I was saved. I actually believe I was still a slave, that I had no power over it, that this thing in my life was in control, and it’s a complete lie. Listen to this. Romans 6.

Jennifer Smith:
The whole chap?

Aaron Smith:
Unfortunately, yes. Not unfortunately, this is a good chapter. Romans 6, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means, how can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might walk in newness of life, for if we have been United with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”

Aaron Smith:
“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.” That’s one anchor verse you should grab. That’s an extra one, but verse six, so verse seven says this, “For one who has died has been set free from sin.” Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we also live with Him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. 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.”

Aaron Smith:
“So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal bodies to make you obey its passions.” That’s what I did. I let it reign in my body, and it made me obey it. “Do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness for sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under the law but under grace.”

Aaron Smith:
“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…” Verses 16 and 17 are your anchor verses for this section. “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 are 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.”

Aaron Smith:
“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, as Christians, 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 the time from the things of which you are now ashamed, for the end of those things is death?”

Aaron Smith:
“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.”

Jennifer Smith:
Man, that’s so good. I’m glad you read the whole thing.

Aaron Smith:
I know. I could have pulled the one verse out, but the-

Jennifer Smith:
No way.

Aaron Smith:
… whole context of that, he’s saying, he’s like, “Christ died to sin for all, and we are raised with Him.” Here’s the lie I want a break. You are not a slave to sin. You were once a slave to sin but are now a slave to righteousness. That’s a simple one. Just go back to Romans 6, and meditate on Romans 6 because it is true for the believer that we newness, newness of life. The life that Christ was raised to have, we get in our mortal bodies.

Jennifer Smith:
Just because that was such a big chunk, do you want to go over 17 and 18? It’s Romans 6:17-18 that are the anchor verses.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah. It’s this, it says, “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 are committed.” First of all, a part of this is adhering to the standard of teaching in our heart so that we read the word, and we say, “Oh, this is true. I believe it.” We just know salvation works. We believe what God said. If God wrote this, which He did, I believe it.

Aaron Smith:
“But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves to sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you are committed and having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness.”

Jennifer Smith:
Not once in the future when you are set free.

Aaron Smith:
Nope, we are set free.

Jennifer Smith:
I remember you giving a picture a while ago. I don’t know if we’ve shared on the podcast, but you always associated your sin and how you dealt with it as being like a lion in a cage, except that when you realized being a Christian meant that the cage is open, but you still were just sitting inside the cage.

Aaron Smith:
Well, where there once was a cage, there is no cage. A good example of this, and you can probably look up stories of how this works. People have used it a lot in different analogies, but the way circus people would train elephants when they were babies so that they wouldn’t run away, and because once they’re huge, you can’t control them.

Jennifer Smith:
It’s a big animal.

Aaron Smith:
It’s a big animal. When their babies, they would tie a little tiny string around its leg, tied to a tent peg, and it can’t get free from that because it’s so small. As it got bigger, the string would get smaller. It would get longer. Eventually it’s large enough and there’s no string, and all there is is a tent peg, but the elephant thinks it’s still tied to the tent peg because it was always tied to the tent peg. That’s how I lived. I actually thought I was still tied to the tent peg. I thought I was still in prison, but what Jesus did on the cross and what He gave me through His spirit blew up the prison.

Aaron Smith:
I’m literally sitting there flooded with light, and the bonds on my wrists are gone. I’m sitting there on the ground like, “Oh, well, it was me. I wish I could be free,” and I was free. I just had to get up and walk. That’s our encouragement is you’re not a slave to sin. If you think you are, you’re believing a lie.

Jennifer Smith:
Hey everyone, we just wanted to take a minute and just let you know that this episode went a lot longer than we thought it would, but we’re actually really encouraged by that, and we hope you are too. What we’re going to do is continue this series next week. This will be a two=part episode. We’re really excited about that, and we hope that you would join us for that. If your spouse wasn’t able to join us on this first half, we just want to encourage you to set time aside next week to listen with them.

Jennifer Smith:
We think that would be a really great opportunity for you guys to finish up these battle verses, and go over them together. We just wanted to let you know that this was a unique situation for us, but we’re excited to dig into the last few anchor verses with you next week.

Aaron Smith:
Did you enjoy today’s show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you’re interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at mar