Please remain standing now for the reading of
God's word. It is from Romans chapter 6
verses 12 to 19. Again, Romans chapter 6
verses 12 to 19.
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 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'm 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.
This is the word of the Lord.
Please be seated.
Well, last week, we looked at the first
eleven verses in Romans 6,
and we learned that there's a vital connection
between the death and resurrection of Jesus
and our own death and resurrection.
In other words, we learned that,
when Jesus was raised from the dead
that guaranteed that we also
will be raised from the dead one day.
And the reason for this
is that we are united
to Jesus
by faith.
Now we used to be united to Adam.
Every person
is united to Adam
at conception.
We are united to Adam through ordinary generation.
We come from him physically.
We're born into his household
so we legally
inherit his debt
and the cost of his debt
is death.
This is why everyone dies.
But Paul had taught us in Romans 5
that Jesus is not from Adam's household,
that Jesus
has his own household.
He comes from God.
He was conceived
by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary
and was made man as we confess
every Sunday.
And if he adopts us
by purchasing us, by purchasing
our debt, by paying for it with his
own blood, with his own death,
then we enjoy a new inheritance
because we have
become members
of a new household.
The inheritance in Adam is sin,
condemnation,
and death.
But the inheritance in Jesus
is justification
and grace
and life.
And it is because the Holy Spirit unites
us to Christ
through faith
that Christ's death and resurrection
guarantee our own
future reward.
Last
week, we learned that with his death,
Jesus paid for the guilt of our sin.
And we also learned that because we are
united to Jesus in his death,
a death that was unstained by sin,
our own corruption
was also removed.
We learned that we are like a
corrupt seed that was fused
to the incorruptible
seed of Jesus and buried or planted with
him
and that we are spiritually raised to newness
of life
because of the harvest of his resurrection.
In other words,
Jesus' physical death and resurrection
provide a spiritual
blessing
for us today.
We were spiritually dead,
corrupt in our being, and enslaved to sin
but now our spiritual corruption is gone,
which means that we can walk in newness
of life, we can obey God now.
Sin no longer has dominion
over us.
That's where we left off last week,
which allows us to properly understand
Romans 6 verses 12 to 14 in which
we read,
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.
You see how this makes sense now?
If you are united to Christ,
you are no longer a slave to sin.
So if sin reigns in your body,
it is only because you allow it to.
You let it do that.
You see, when the spirit united you to
Jesus
through your faith,
your sinful nature was crucified
and buried
with Jesus.
By the way, the nursery, I made the
announcement, is in the in the kitchen area
today. So you want to take Luke over
there.
I mean, we're glad for Luke to stay.
Because
of the resurrection of Jesus,
you are spiritually
born again
and able to walk in newness of life.
Therefore,
Paul commands you
to not present your members
to sin as instruments of unrighteousness.
The word translated as instruments is commonly used
by Paul to refer to weapons used in
war.
The image is that of a battle in
which sin tries to usurp the throne in
our heart
using
our own members as weapons for that insurrection.
It is complete betrayal
and it feels that way when we sin,
doesn't it?
It feels like we have betrayed ourselves.
It feels like we have betrayed
God.
So we become discouraged
and we lose heart
and we feel like giving up,
believing that we will never be able to
overcome sin,
that that is a losing battle,
that there is no hope.
We give up on ourselves and we give
up on others and functionally,
we give up on God.
We don't believe his promises.
But Paul reminds you that you are not
under law but under grace.
And grace is not simply a declaration of
forgiveness.
It delivers with it the power
to fight against sin and have victory over
it.
Because you see, being under law means that
you have to perfectly keep the law
to merit justification.
But that's an impossible task for any fallen
human being.
Romans 3 20 states that by the works
of the law, no flesh will be justified.
So under the law,
one only obeys to avoid more wrath.
We don't hate sin. We just hate the
idea of burning.
So under the law,
we are driven by fear.
But in contrast, grace empowers us to obey
because instead of trying to merit justification,
we respond
to the free gift of justification
by faith.
In other words,
God's love
excites our own love toward him.
We don't obey God to earn his love.
We obey in response
to God's love.
Under the law,
purity
is pursued under the whip of despondency
and despair.
Under grace,
we joyfully pursue piety
under the direction of God's love.
But to succeed,
Paul says that we must surrender
our weapons
to a new commander.
In verse 13, Paul writes that you must
present yourselves to God and your members
to God as instruments or weapons
of righteousness.
So if Christ is your lord,
you can say with Paul in Galatians 2
20, I have been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who live but
Christ who lives in me.
And the life I now live in the
flesh, I live by faith in the son
of God who loved me and gave himself
for me.
So our passage this morning
is not about our justification
but about our sanctification.
It's not about
our post resurrection life.
It's about born again life.
It's not about our future life in heaven.
It's about how we are to live on
earth today.
And the main point this morning is this,
true freedom is found in slavery to Christ.
True freedom
is found in slavery
to Christ. Now, that doesn't sound that great,
does it?
We're Americans.
We value independence.
The struggle against tyranny is part of our
nation's origin story
and so is the wickedness of slavery.
So how can we give any credence
to this proposition that true freedom is found
in slavery
to Christ? Well, that's what Paul teaches in
these verses.
He writes in verse 14 that you are
no longer under law but in the same
breath,
he says you are
under grace.
And to be under anything is to be
in subjection to it.
Look at what Paul writes in verses 15
and 16. 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?
Paul presents here an inescapable dichotomy.
1 is either a slave of sin
which leads to death
or a slave of obedience
which leads to righteousness.
There's no third path.
So what path are you on?
This text invites us to ask that question.
But before we do that,
there are a couple of things I want
you to notice in these verses. 1st,
in verse 15,
the Greek tense behind the question, are we
to sin, refers not to habitual sin but
to the occasional
lapse
in sin.
Yet Paul Paul's answer is an unequivocal,
by no means.
By no means.
The reason for this is that as Jesus
says, a slave cannot serve 2 masters.
To carelessly
serve sin on occasion
is a betrayal of your new master.
This is why Paul in verse 11 had
written, you must consider yourselves
dead to sin and alive to God in
Christ Jesus.
If you are dead to sin,
you cannot occasionally
be alive to God.
One cannot be
mostly dead despite
the princess bride's best efforts to convince us
otherwise.
If you are dead to sin
you can only be alive to God in
Christ Jesus. It is to him that you
owe your allegiance.
And the discipline of your life
ought to manifest your unfailing devotion to your
Lord with growing clarity.
This is why prayer
and bible study
and service to others, especially
service to our brothers and sisters in Christ,
ought to be your regular practice.
These are the disciplines of the soldier of
Christ.
2nd, note the dichotomy
Paul presents
here is between being a slave of sin
which leads to death or a slave of
obedience which leads to righteousness.
So does Paul mean
that we become righteous through our obedience?
Did he previously write in Romans that we
are justified by faith and not by works?
The key to understand this passage is the
metaphor of slavery.
Paul writes that being a slave of obedience
leads to justification
and righteousness.
In other words,
we must not forget that all our blessings
are under the umbrella of union with Christ.
Our union with Christ is what makes us
righteous
which is the same word as justified.
It is what makes us holy.
It is what renews our body and soul
after the image of Jesus.
In other words, it is our justification,
our sanctification, and our glorification that is all
under the umbrella
of union with Christ.
Last week, Paul explained that our union with
Christ,
is
he used the metaphor of explaining our union
with Christ,
that he used the metaphor of planting being
planted with him. It was this agricultural metaphor,
if you will.
This week, we see that he is using
the metaphor of slavery to communicate the very
same thing.
What Paul is saying is that because the
Christian is united to Christ,
because Christ lives in and through the Christian,
the Christian's actions are inexorably
patterned
after Christ's actions.
Like a slave single mindedly
obeying the will of his master,
the Christian does
what Christ does.
And because it is Christ's work that justifies
us,
our obedience will manifest
his righteousness
more
and more.
Thus,
slavery to sin leads to death
because it demonstrates
who our owner is.
It shows that we come from the household
of Adam
whose inheritance is death
But slavery to obedience
leads to righteousness
because it demonstrates that our owner is Christ,
that we are members of his household.
I know that as human beings, we like
to think of ourselves as free,
as having freedom of choice, as having freedom
of the will.
And Paul will address this very,
issue with remarkable clarity, I may add, in
Romans chapter 9.
For now, let me just state
his present implication.
He says that there is only
one truly free being
and it's not you.
God is the only being
who is truly
free.
God is the only being who is truly
free. Everyone else
is somehow contingent.
Everyone else is enslaved
to someone or to something.
Paul writes that your obedience, the ideals that
dictate the pattern of your life,
betray who your master really is.
So who is your master?
Not who is your master here but who
is your master here? Who's your master in
your heart?
Paul says that the true answer to that
question is not in your words
but in your actions, in what you do,
in the way that you live.
Do your actions lead to death?
Do your actions lead to death, to destruction,
to dissension,
to deception,
to derision?
Do these things appear to follow your life?
Or do your actions lead to righteousness,
to restoration,
to reconciliation,
to refreshment,
to rejoicing?
Remember, your good works don't save you
But your good works do give you a
diagnosis for the state of your heart.
So based on your actions, how is your
heart doing?
What report
would your spiritual cardiologist
give you today?
The health of your spiritual heart,
its vigor,
its strength,
its rhythm, is dictated by the one who
is sitting on its throne. It's dictated by
the one who rules it.
And from the moment of conception,
because we proceed from Adam, our hearts are
under the tyranny of sin.
This is why we don't have to teach
our adorable babies to sin.
They figure it out.
They're really good at it.
In fact, we have to work really hard
to teach them not to sin.
75%
of the job description for parents is sanctify
your little angel.
But Paul gives us good news here, doesn't
he? Look at verses 17 18,
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.
The good news that Paul delivers for us
here is that we are no longer slaves
of sin.
However, Paul does not say that we are
now free.
He writes that we are not slaves of
sin but we are slaves of righteousness.
In other words, having been a slave of
sin,
you are now,
not your own master,
rather you now have a new master,
righteousness.
You have been purchased.
Sin no longer owns you.
Your allegiance has changed.
In fact, when Paul writes in verse 17
that you have become obedient from the heart
to the standard of teaching
to which you were committed,
the word translated as committed has the connotation
of changing allegiance.
Your allegiance,
the affections and obligations that govern the pattern
of your life
now rests upon a righteous
standard
of teaching.
Your life used to be governed by a
manual written by sin
but now your heart follows the instructions set
forth
in
this righteous standard,
in the word of God.
This is the standard which now governs
our hearts
according to what Paul writes here.
Amazingly,
though the fallen heart is wicked and corrupt,
this new allegiance that you enjoy
comes from the heart.
How is this possible?
Well, this is because the Holy Spirit has
given you a new heart
and which is precisely what God had promised
in Ezekiel 36
verses 26 and 27
where he writes this,
and I, that is God, and I will
give you a new heart
and a new spirit I will put within
you,
and I will remove the heart of stone
from your flesh
and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my spirit within you
and cause you to walk in my statutes
and be careful to obey
my
rules.
Does the Holy Spirit
is the chief heart surgeon
who performs a heart transplant on you
causing you to walk according to God's statutes
in complete allegiance
to the righteous standard of teaching
that Paul writes about in verse 17.
This standard of teaching
is a reference to the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
Remember that Paul's thesis statement for this letter
of Romans is found in chapter 1 verses
16 17,
which read like this,
for I am not ashamed of the gospel,
for it is the power of God for
salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew
first
and also to the Greek. For in it,
in the gospel,
the righteousness of God is revealed from faith
for faith as it is written,
the righteous
shall live
by faith.
In other words, the reason the Christian is
a slave of righteousness
is that his allegiance
is to the righteousness
that is revealed in the gospel.
And that righteousness that is revealed in the
gospel
is none other
than the person and work of Jesus Christ,
your savior
and Lord.
The Old Testament is all about the promised
Messiah who would one day come
and deliver his people
from the guilt and the curse of sin.
And the New Testament
is all about the promised Messiah who has
come
and delivered his people from the curse and
the guilt of sin.
It is the gospel that captivates
our hearts and guides our steps.
So to be a Christian
is to be a slave of obedience,
which is the same thing as being a
slave of righteousness,
which is the same thing as being a
slave of Christ who is our righteousness.
In fact, the original meaning of the word,
Christian,
is slave of Christ. That's what that word
means.
Christian means slave of Christ. And what I'm
proposing to you is that true freedom is
found in slavery to Christ.
I know this terminology can seem unsavory to
Americans in the 21st century
but don't worry, it was unsavory to Christians
during Paul's time too.
This is why Paul writes in verse 19,
I am speaking in human terms
because of your natural limitations.
For just as once you 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.
Paul almost apologizes
for having to use the imagery of slavery
to help us understand the unbreakable bond between
Christ and his people.
As we bring this sermon to a close
or as we begin to bring this sermon
to a close k. Let me qualify that.
So we begin to bring this sermon to
a close. Let me give you five reasons
why true freedom is found in slavery to
Christ.
1st,
slavery to Christ means that you are delivered
from the bondage of sin.
In Romans 3 verses 9 to 20,
Paul made it clear that no human being
is righteous. No, not one, he wrote.
That under the domain of sin, no one
does good.
That the mind is corrupt so no one
understands.
That the heart is corrupt so no one
seeks after God. That the will is corrupt
so everyone turns away from God.
That the throat,
the tongue and the lips are corrupt so
everyone sins with their speech.
That feet are corrupt so everyone is swift
to shed blood.
That everyone's actions are corrupt, so no one
walks on the path of peace.
That everyone's eyes are corrupt, blind to justice
and without fear of God. All of this
Paul wrote in Romans chapter 3.
And such
were some of you,
Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 6:11.
But
you were washed.
You were sanctified.
You were justified in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of
our God, Paul writes.
Yes. True freedom is found in slavery
to Christ.
The second reason you know that true freedom
is found in slavery to Christ is that
obedience to Christ leads to righteousness.
Your inheritance in the domain of sin was
death.
You were a corrupt seed
planted in cursed soil,
awaiting a harvest of misery.
But in Christ,
your inheritance is to become a tree that
yields its fruit in its season,
a tree whose leaf does not wither,
a tree that enables you and all who
take refuge under your shade
to prosper.
Yes. True freedom for you and for your
loved ones is found in slavery to Christ.
The third reason you know that true freedom
is found in slavery to
Christ is that as a member of Christ's
household,
you can enjoy assurance and rest.
Whereas sin is death's handmaiden
ever serving up her subjects
to be devoured,
Christ is a benevolent master
who invites you to enjoy a seat at
his table,
who anoints your head with oil,
who lavishes you with a cup of overflowing
blessing.
In his
care, your real needs are always met even
when there are struggles.
Your peace is always protected
even when trials come.
Your inheritance is always secure even as the
world
falls apart.
Christ has come to me, all who labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest.
Yes. True freedom is found in slavery to
Christ.
The 4th reason you know that true freedom
is found in slavery to Christ is that
obedience to Christ leads to spiritual maturity.
God made you to be conformed to the
image of God in Jesus Christ.
But under the domain of sin,
you resemble your master, the devil.
That's what Jesus told the Pharisees and the
scribes.
In the house of sin,
your actions are characterized by sexual immorality,
by impurity,
by idolatry,
by superstition,
by strife,
by jealousy,
by fits of anger.
To be enslaved to sin is to be
in chains to death.
But in the house of Jesus,
as you live for him and as he
lives through you,
your actions will increasingly be characterized
by love
and joy
and peace
and patience
and kindness
and goodness
and faithfulness,
and gentleness,
and self control.
In the house of Jesus, prayer will become
your daily practice.
Scripture will become your daily bread.
And worship will become your joy
and your anchor. Yes. True freedom is found
in slavery to Christ.
The 5th reason you know that true freedom
is found in slavery to Christ
is that in Christ, your hopes rest
on eternal promises,
not on fleeting, worldly passions.
In the domain of sin,
success is measured in material possessions
that decay
or in accomplishments that are forgotten
or in prestige
that fades
or in opinions that are fickle,
or in popularity
popularity that is prone to treachery.
To live for these things is to build
a house
on a foundation of sand
and to close on a mortgage whose interest
is measured in anxiety,
and to pay for a house
whose value always depreciates.
But in the domain of Christ, your inheritance
is imperishable,
undefiled,
and unfading.
And it is kept in heaven for you
by God himself
who, together with Christ and with the Holy
Spirit, hold you, seal you.
And nothing and no one can snatch you
away from that safe place.
Yes, true freedom is found in slavery to
Christ. This is why Paul urges you, in
verse 19, to present your members as slaves
of righteousness,
leading to sanctification
because to be united with Christ is to
become like him
and to experience fullness of joy.
Perhaps the idea of being, of freedom being
found in slavery to Christ is repulsive to
your senses.
But when you realize that Jesus is the
source of life,
of pleasure,
of peace, and of joy,
then the offense will begin to fade away
and you want to be bound
to that Lord.
This is how Paul understood things. In fact,
this is how Paul viewed his own identity.
Look at how Paul introduces himself in verse
1 of his letter to the Romans.
He writes, Paul,
a servant, that is to say, a slave,
same word Paul, a slave
of Christ Jesus,
called to be an apostle, set apart for
the gospel of God.
Saul of Tarsus,
as Paul was primarily known before coming to
Christ,
enjoyed all the freedoms and privileges
of being a citizen of Rome.
He was a brilliant rabbinical student,
enjoying the prestige of learning under the renowned
1st century rabbi, Gamaliel.
He was a zealous man, zealous for God's
law as he understood it anyway,
proudly persecuting Christians
and even presiding over the stoning of Stephen,
the first Christian martyr.
He was proud of this.
As a Hebrew of Hebrews
from the tribe of Benjamin,
Saul of Tarsus considered himself to be free,
a slave to no one.
But his cloak of righteousness
hid a slave to sin.
He was then chased to death
whose inheritance
he would experience and taste soon, if he
was not delivered.
That is,
until he met his Lord Jesus Christ. So
rather, until Christ sovereignly
met him.
Changed his heart.
Changed his mission. And yes, change his Lord.
Under Paul's new call, Paul tells us in
2nd Corinthians 11
that he endured numerous hardships
including imprisonments,
beatings,
being near death multiple times as a result
of these beatings,
receiving the Jewish punishment of 39 lashes
on 5 occasions,
Being beaten with rods 3 times,
stoned once,
shipwrecked
3 times,
spending a day night adrift at sea,
facing dangers from rivers,
from robbers,
from his own people,
from Gentiles.
Facing dangers in the city, in the wilderness,
at sea.
He also mentions enduring toil,
hardship,
sleepless nights,
hunger,
thirst,
cold, and exposure alongside the daily
pressure and worries
of pastoral care for God's people.
Ultimately,
Paul will use his freedom
as a Roman citizen to demand a trial
before Caesar in Rome.
And the reason he does this is because
he longs for the opportunity to preach the
gospel in Rome. So even if he has
to be taken in chains, he will do
that. He demands it.
That's what he uses his citizenship
for.
And in Rome, Paul will preach the gospel.
He preaches Christ and presents his members as
instruments of righteousness,
as weapons
in in the spiritual battle that Christ, our
general, is calling us to engage in.
So when Paul was beheaded by the sword,
he received a crown of glory
whose radiance still shines before us.
Don't fear the chains of Christ.
They lead to life eternal.
In those chains, God took Paul to Rome
proving that
Rome
and this world did not own him.
In those chains, Paul and countless others have
found true freedom
because the chains that bind us to Christ
are forged
in the ever burning fire
of God's love.
Let's pray.