No Longer a Slave

It's a blessing for me to be back here. I've spoken here a few times. It's been a little while.

The title of my message today is No Longer a Slave. The text is going to be based on Romans 6. But before I go there, I just want to read two verses from Titus 2, verses 11 and 12. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.

I was raised in an evangelical Christian church culture. And one of the churches that I attended as a youth had the word grace in the title of the church. And it was a doctrine that was esteemed and that was taught very heavily within the church.

And yet, I would say that the version of grace that they taught was not a biblically faithful version. They gave us a proper definition of the word, that it's God's unmerited favor. That's true.

That's what it is. But the way they explained it was like this. They said God's grace is like a blanket that God throws over our sin so that He doesn't see it.

That when He looks at us, He doesn't see our sin. He only sees Jesus. And I don't know if you've heard something similar like this.

Maybe you've heard this taught in churches. And we certainly can take cliches like this and incorporate them into our theology and tend to begin to live according to such teachings. And it sounds right to us, and it sounds good to us because a pastor behind a pulpit told us these things.

But what I would like to say is that that description of grace is wholly misleading. That God's grace is not a blanket that covers our sin so that God doesn't see our sin. What God did to our sin was not cover it.

He punished it in the body of His Son. That's a vast difference. Our sin is not cloaked.

It's not concealed. It's not hidden from His sight. What He did was He completely punished it and atoned for our sin in the death of His Son.

And so the net result of grace is not God's ambivalence to it. The net result of grace is the empowerment to be able to live a life that you and I do not have the capacity to live on our own, that we can't possibly achieve, that we can't possibly experience in our own strength and in our own power. So I'm going to read from Romans 6. And in this chapter, the Apostle Paul gives us two illustrations.

He gives us two metaphors to explain this life that we can have free from sin. The first illustration that he uses is that of baptism, and the second is that of slavery. And we're going to look at both.

But he begins by asking some rhetorical questions. He says, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? Well, in some ways, as a youth, I think I adopted that idea. God's okay with me.

Because of Jesus, He just kind of gives me a hall pass. You know, I get to do what I want to, and it's not really a big deal because I'm saved. That's sort of the message that was communicated.

I don't know if they intentionally meant to communicate it that blatantly, but that's kind of how it came across. It's not a big deal to God. So Paul asks this question, well, you know, if we're saved, you know, should we just keep sinning so that there could just be more and more grace that covers our sins? He says, by no means.

How can we who died to sin still live in it? And then he uses this baptism illustration. 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.

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. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will 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. Now, this baptism illustration is one that is interesting to me. And when I was a young man and I was studying the New Testament and looking at the doctrine of baptism, I found it to be intriguing that this doctrine seems to emerge somewhere in the New Testament.

We see it with John the Baptist, right? Baptizing people in the River Jordan and all the crowds come out and the religious leaders come out. Everybody's curious about this and they're all watching this. But the thing that struck me about, especially what John the Baptist is doing and then what later the disciples, the apostles followed with this tradition of baptism was that the Jewish religious leaders didn't seem to have a problem with it.

And that seemed curious to me because these were the people who lived by the letter of the law. They're the ones who, if anyone was doing something slightly outside the lines, they were gonna have an issue with it. They were gonna raise a concern.

They were gonna blow a trumpet and say, this is not what you're supposed to be doing. And yet they're not really doing that. And so I started to ask myself, is there some sort of a continuity between this New Testament baptism and something in the Old Testament that perhaps I've overlooked, that maybe there's something that they connected with in the Old Testament law that maybe made this new concept of baptism not a completely foreign idea.

And so this is a thesis that I have. And this is what I love about speaking here is because Pastor Steve can correct me on this if I'm wrong. But this is kind of my working thesis.

So I have not been to Israel, the Holy Land. I've not been there. Have you two been there? You have, I thought you had.

So I've only read this in books about archeology. So I have fact checkers here to make sure that I'm correct. But this is what I've read about the archeology in Israel is that they have these chambers for cleansing and washing that are called mikvot.

And that's the plural Hebrew. And that a singular one of these washing chambers is a mikveh. And that they really look very similar to our modern church baptismal chambers.

There's stairs and you go down into water and the person is submersed under the water and they come up on the other side. And there's a freshwater inlet and then an outlet so that there's water that's continually flowing through these chambers. And the idea was connected to the Old Testament law that when someone became ceremonially unclean, they had to go to a priest and they had to go into one of these mikveh.

They had to be submerged under the water and come up out on the other side. Is this all Bible truth so far? Okay, good. All right.

Yes. So what's interesting about John in the River Jordan is that he's the son of a priest. And the River Jordan has an inlet and an outlet.

So everything checks off in terms of the requirements of the law. He's qualified to be able, as the son of the priest, to be able to do these washings. And he's choosing a river as opposed to one of these cleansing basins or chambers.

And so the religious leaders are out and they're watching it because it's a little off the beaten path. It's a little untraditional, but it meets the requirements. It checks the box.

And so people are coming out and Jesus himself goes out, who had no sin, right? But as someone who is obeying the law, you know, if you touched a dead animal or you in some way were contaminated by some sort of external environmental situation that you come in contact with, you would have to be ceremonial cleansed. And Jesus obeyed the law and he fulfilled the law and he was obedient to the teaching of the law. So he goes and he submits to this baptism, even though there's no sin or anything that he needs to deal with, he's being obedient to the requirements of this being cleansed from the external world in which you touch contamination externally.

You can't always help it, right? You go places, you inadvertently end up, you know, stepping on a dead animal and you're like, oh, it ruins my day. Now I gotta go deal with this. And you know, it's a big deal, right? And so John though brings in something interesting with this whole washing thing that he begins to bring in a message of repentance.

And so the focus seems to shift from the contamination being out there, outside of us, external to us, there's the world, if you will, to being something that's going on inside of us. And he's saying you need to repent. And so people are starting to be pricked with this process of, oh, there's something inside of me that's not clean, something inside of me that needs to be dealt with.

And then what's interesting is by the time that we get to the apostles, they're practicing this method of baptism, but the metaphor has changed, the illustration has changed, and the focus has changed so that it's not some sort of external contamination that we've come in contact with that has made us unclean. It's that there is something fundamentally, intrinsically, internally, vile and evil and wicked inside of us. Now, how do you deal with that? You can't simply go into a water chamber, come out on the other side, having your body washed externally and be cleansed from that.

It's too deep. It's embedded. This is something that we're born with.

We inherit this from our father, Adam, and we've lived with it. And then beyond that, many of us embrace it and celebrate it, right? It's just saturated into every aspect of who we are. So the way that the apostles describe the need for baptism is it's not enough for you to simply go into the water and come out clean on the other side.

That's not their illustration. What they say is something kind of like the cancer of sin is so spread throughout our entire being, the only way to fix this problem is not a bathing. It's you're gonna have to go into the water and die and then come out as somebody completely new on the other side.

Not a washing, not a cleansing, an absolute death to the entire person that is saturated with the cancer of sin, embedded throughout the entire being, that person has to die. And the only hope for you is that then you come out as a completely new person. And that's what Paul's describing here in Romans chapter six.

And the reason that we get to have this metamorphosis that happens in this process, this reflected in the symbolism of baptism is because our sin was placed upon Jesus. And Isaiah talks about that, that the iniquity of us all was laid upon him and our sin was punished in his body on the cross and his body died and that sin died with his body in the grave. And then when he resurrects in newness of life, somehow in a transactional way that we have a hard time completely fully understanding or getting our minds around, we die with him and then resurrect into newness of life and we become a new person, a new creature.

The old things have passed away, behold, everything has become new. And so there's something transactional that happens here. Theologians call it substitutionary atonement, that the guilt that we deserve is imputed to Christ and then the righteousness that we don't deserve is imputed to us, that is credited to our account, that he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of Christ.

What an exchange, what a miracle. And something real happened in that exchange, something legal, something transactional, something ontologically incredible and miraculous, something that again, we have a hard time even putting vocabulary to it, to describe what it's like. So because Christ has been raised from the dead and he'll never die again, this is in verse nine, his death has no longer any dominion over him, we get to live this life, verse 11.

So you must also, this is verse 11, you must also consider yourselves dead to sin. And alive to God in Christ Jesus. Now for those of you who have been baptized, I'm guessing we had very different experiences for probably each person here.

And if we asked you to describe what happened to you after baptism, we could get a lot of different stories. Some of you may have said, that was a complete turning point in my life, everything changed after that. Some of you may have less dramatic stories of your baptism.

You may say that, well, you know, a day later, I woke up, I looked in the mirror and I thought, you look kind of the same. And then maybe a week later, you might have said, I feel kind of the same. You know, did somebody die in that water? Am I really new? Am I really born again? Is the, you know, have the old things really been put under and, you know, have all things become new? Has that happened in my life? I feel like I'm still walking around in this body.

I feel like it's the same body. I feel like it has all the same inclinations that it used to have. It has the same impulses.

It has the same desires. I feel like I'm still capable of sinning. What happened? Did anything actually really genuinely happen? And Paul's argument is yes, fundamentally.

Now again, baptism is representing a reality, right? So if you're an unbeliever and you go get baptized, it will do nothing for you. You'll get wet, that's it. That's all the benefit you get from it.

But truly, if something has changed, if Christ has changed your heart, if you've been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, then this baptism that symbolizes this death, there's something real that happens in this. And so what Paul is saying is that we have to walk in the good of what has transactionally taken place. So he says, you must consider yourselves.

I think maybe the King James says, reckon yourselves. You have to adjust and align your mind to what is propositionally true. You have to adjust your thinking so that you agree with what God says happened, that you agree with God.

It doesn't really matter that much whether you feel all kinds of new or don't feel all kinds of new. What really matters is if you agree with God that something has changed and that Christ has taken the payment for your sin and that you have been declared righteous in God's sight because of Christ, not because of you, but because of Christ. So consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

So there's two parts to it. Not just considering yourself dead to sin, although that's huge, we need to do that. But then as Pastor Steve was saying, consider ourselves alive, alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Verse 12 then says, let not. These are two kind of powerful words, let not. And what they imply is that you and I have some agency in this situation.

We have some choice, that we have some decisions that we get to make in this. Let not, therefore, well, what's the therefore, therefore? Well, it's because Christ has died in our stead. He has delivered us not only from the penalty of sin, but he's delivered us from the power of sin.

We no longer have to walk around in a body of death. We get to walk around in newness of life. And because of the reality of what has happened transactionally, we're supposed to let not sin, therefore, reign in our mortal body.

Did you know that even as a believer who's believed the right propositional doctrines, and you've aligned yourself with the tenets of the Christian faith, you sign the statement of faith at your church, you agree with the confession of faith, whatever the case may be, that you can let sin reign in your mortal body, you can. And make, it says, but Paul says, don't do that. Like we have a choice in this.

We have the ability to not let it, let it not, therefore, reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Your body wants something. It wants what it wants, and what the body wants is it just wants excess most of the time.

It's never satisfied with a little bit of something. You know, it's like, hey, you know, if you're gonna do it, go all in. And that's just how the body is, right? And so Paul says, don't do that.

Don't let it reign over you. Don't let sin reign over this body, and make your body obey the passions of sin. You don't have to.

And then he gets a little more emphatic. Not just let not, do not, okay? Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness. So that's a don't, don't do that.

Don't present the members of our body. That's an active participatory choice that we make to offer the members of our body to sin. I'm available, use me.

Wow, why would we do that to sin? Why would we present ourselves to sin and say, here I am, I have a body, you wanna use it? I'm available. Why would we do that? Having been bought with the precious blood of Christ, why would we do that? But instead, present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. So we should stand before God and say, God, like Isaiah does in Isaiah six, here am I. Send me, use me, right? Present our bodies to God and say, God, I'm yours.

I belong to you, use me. And the devil wants to use us, but we don't have to let him. And God wants to use us.

But what God does is he invites us. He invites us into his work. He wants us to be involved with what he's doing.

He wants to use you, he wants to use me. We have agency in that. We have agency as to whether or not we wanna align ourselves with the kingdom purposes of God and this earth, or whether we wanna align ourselves with the kingdom of darkness.

And give our bodies over to that. And say, here am I, use me. Man, we don't have to live as slaves to sin.

Verse 14, for sin will have no dominion over you. Not sin's always gonna have a little bit of dominion over you. That's not what it says.

I was systematically taught this part in evangelical churches, that well, you know, as Christians, we're just gonna, we're gonna sin every day of our life. We're just gonna keep sinning. You know, we may sin more and more.

Thank God for the grace of God. Have you heard something like that? I have. It's taught from thousands of pulpits across the United States.

And the reason is because, I guess I'd say this here. Most pastors aren't living in any kind of victory. And they're not gonna preach a victory that they don't live in.

And that they have never experienced and don't think is attainable. They won't preach a message of freedom and deliverance from sin when it's not a reality and they've never experienced the good of it. I mean, that's just blunt.

That's just plain. That's why we're not hearing a faithful word taught because most church leaders aren't really living in the good of the gospel. They're not living in the good of what Titus 2 tells us grace came here to do for us, to teach us how to say no to ungodliness and these passions that war against ourselves and to live upright and godly lives in this present age, not in the sweet by and by when we go to heaven now.

You know, and again, I'm not talking about absolute sinless perfection. That's not what I'm speaking to. But there's something that fundamentally changes in you when you are regenerated by the Holy Spirit.

Your inclinations change, your heart changes, your desires change. You no longer want to give yourself over to sin. You wanna give yourself over to Christ.

You wanna say to Christ, use me. And why will sin have no dominion over us? Because we're not under the law, but we're under grace. Some people say, or kind of imply at least infer that holiness is legalism.

And holiness, well, you know, we're not under the law. We're under grace. So we don't wanna emphasize, you know, rule keeping and so forth.

Well, there's a place where that's true. It's all right, you can leave it. It's true to a point that we can add man-made laws and rules and try to live under those.

And that is legalism. We shouldn't do that. We should reject that.

Jesus rejected that. So there is a true legalism and we shouldn't be bound by that. But holiness is not living under the law.

Holiness is living under grace, true grace. So sin doesn't have dominion over us because we're under true grace. So what is the difference between the law and grace? Well, it's probably a lot.

We could have sermons, maybe whole seminars on that, but I'm gonna put it kind of succinctly and say this. The law, which Paul says was good, but it was good for what it was good for. The law showed us God's righteousness, his character, his nature, his holiness, right? That's what the law reflected, the goodness and perfection of God.

So when we look at the law, we have a standard. When we see God's moral law, we go, well, we're nothing like that. That's not what we're like.

So what does the law do us? Well, it shows us the standard of holiness and perfection, but then it kind of leaves us there. That's the bad part about the law. And so Paul says when I was doing okay until I saw the law, and then I like, you know, then something sprung up in me and I died because I was like, I can't do that.

I can't be that. I can't meet that, right? And so the law is good because it shows us the perfection and the holiness of God, but it gives us absolutely no power at all to be able to achieve that, to live that. It just condemns us.

That's all the law does. It just condemns us and it's good. And it's good that it does that, you know, and that's, it's good for what it's good for.

It shows us our need. You can't get saved until you realize you're lost. You know, you gotta get lost first.

And the law is real good at doing that. Law is real good at showing us, man, I'm not good. Like Paul says, in my flesh, there goes no good thing.

You know, until you can rid yourself of self-righteousness, you can't be saved. So you have to come to the end of yourself of thinking that there's something intrinsically good about you and me, that there's nothing good intrinsically about you and me. So up to this point through verse 14, I think this is a really good sermon that we could end here and it would be a good sermon.

However, there's a whole nother sermon that starts right after this. And I'm gonna go ahead and do that one too, because this is BOGO Sunday. And you're only a half hour in.

Yeah, yeah. This is buy one, get one. This is two for the price of one.

So we're gonna dive into the second sermon here. So he shifts the illustration from the baptism metaphor to the slavery. And he says, okay, well, let's illustrate it this way.

But he kind of starts out again with these rhetorical questions, sort of the same rhetorical question that he begins the whole chapter with, because what then? Are we to sin because we're not under the 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 the proposition as binary, as there are two choices.

This is not multiple choice. This is yes, no. We will always be living, working, striving, endeavoring to serve the king of heaven or the king of self.

And it is amazing how easy it is to profess faith in Christ and to live and work for the kingdom of self. And to have all of our focus and all of our energy and all of our effort to be all about that. And it expresses itself in so many different ways.

It expresses it in finding our identity in our work. It expresses itself in the way that we treat other people, the way that we, I probably should say, the way we mistreat other people, the way that we have condescending views of others, that we feel like we're all that and nobody else measures up. The people who take the worst brunt of this are usually, it's usually our family, usually our wives, right? Sometimes our children.

Everything's all about us. We're the king of our little castle and our own little kingdom that we're building with our 2.5 acres and our dog and our cat and our two cars in our suburb at the end of the cul-de-sac and just chasing, living the American dream. And we think that's the good life.

And we think that that's, we sometimes even think that that's an indication or an expression of God's pleasure toward us if we can achieve it. That this is God's blessing. God's been good to us.

He's blessed us. See all this, got this good high-paying job and all this materialism. And you know, that doesn't mean that our hearts are right.

It doesn't mean that we have pure hearts. It doesn't mean that we love God. It just means that we're out running the rat race with everybody else.

And we've given ourselves over to it, to making sure that our comfort and our affluence is kind of primary. And that, you know, everything's a means to that, right? Even work is a means to us having money to spend on us, to be able to entertain ourselves, to be able to do the things that we like, to explore our hobbies, to indulge in the things that we want to indulge in. We don't live with this razor focus of, I get to live every minute of my life and take every breath that I take for the glory of God.

That every dime that God blesses me with is ultimately His. I'm a steward of it and I get to steward this for His purposes. There's two kingdoms, right? And there's only room for one on the throne of your life.

It's either King Jesus or it's King you or King me. So easy for us to become slaves to loving and serving ourselves and being caught up in this obedience to our desires, which are ultimately, if they're humanistic, they're ultimately sinful. So ultimately we're slaves to sin itself.

So we're either slaves of sin, which leads to death or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. Verse 17, 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. I'm gonna throw this in parenthetically.

Maybe you have been obedient to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, maybe kind of like I was as a teenager. But maybe the standard of teaching that you were committed to was wrong. And for some of you, this may be the first time in your life that you're actually being exposed to the standard of teaching that conforms to the word of God.

And you're gonna have to learn or make a decision. Do I wanna become obedient from my heart to this standard of teaching? The standard of teaching that says there is a holy God and he expects us to live holy. That might be a new thing for you.

Maybe you're even struggling with it theologically. You know, you're hearing this standard of teaching and you're going, I don't even know if that's right. Because you have all these years of bad evangelical theology that you were raised in and steeped in and maybe some of you even went to Bible college and just got deep fried in it.

And so maybe you're actually being exposed to the standard of teaching that says obedience is the normal Christian life. And you're being exposed to that here and you're going, man, I don't know. I gotta try to get my mind around this, right? Is this right? I'm just gonna suggest to you, the more that you study the scripture, you're gonna find that it's right.

That the fear of God leads us to holiness. Not because as believers we're scared of, oh, we're gonna lose our salvation. No, because if you really understand who Jesus is and what he did for you, you want to live a holy life.

It's the overflow of a heart of gratitude. It's the proper response. That's what Paul talks about in Romans 12.

In light of God's mercy, if you really see what he's done for you, how can you not give your body as a holy and living sacrifice? That's the least you can do. That's your reasonable act of worship. That is just the overflow of a grateful heart.

I think sometimes we've heard bits and pieces of the gospel so often we become immune to what it actually is. And we just lose the beauty and the power of it. We don't allow it to pierce our heart anymore.

We hear it and it bounces right off of us. Verse 18, and having been set free from sin, having become slaves of righteousness. Now I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.

I think he's saying, I'm trying to give you an illustration. I'm giving you like a human illustration so you have something to connect it to. Just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Sanctification is cleansing, it's being set apart, it is holiness, it's living a pure life, living a clean life. And that's what being submitted to becoming slaves of this new owner, righteousness of Christ, buys for us. I just wanna give a kind of, Paul says he uses human illustration to help us understand it.

I wanna give a little bit of a parallel that we find in American history. And I know all illustrations have their flaws and no illustration is perfect, but I think this can help us maybe just to kind of get our mind around it a little bit. So according to the 1860 US Census, there were four million African slaves in America.

In September 22 of 1862, Abraham Lincoln issued the initial Emancipation Proclamation with the stipulation that it would go into effect on January 1st, 1863, if the Confederate States did not surrender. On January 1st, 1863, they had not surrendered. So he signed the final Emancipation Proclamation.

What was the net result of the legal transaction of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in its practical reality? Okay, four million American African slaves. Only 20,000 of them went free that day. Something had happened, something had been declared.

There was a legal transaction that had taken place and only 20,000 of the four million walked in the freedom. April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia, effectively ending the war in the Eastern Theater. April 26, just like a few weeks later, 1865, Johnston's surrender at Bennett Place in North Carolina marked the largest surrender of Confederate forces during the war.

Couple months later in June, June 19, 1865, the last slaves in the Confederacy were freed, now celebrated as Juneteenth. April 6, 1866, this is like a year later after the surrenders, the rebellion was declared over in all the states except for Texas, because they're Texas. And then on August 20 of 1866, this is like a full year after the war has ended, President Johnson issues a proclamation officially declaring the war at an end.

So we have six years that goes by where there's stages of different people who are walking in the good of what has been legally provided for them. I came across this interview with a man who had been raised as a slave in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and I liked his name, his name was Israel Jackson. I was like, what a great name.

And he had been raised on the plantation with his mother and father, he was raised as a slave, and he remembers the day, so this is 1936 when the interview happens, he's an elderly man, and he remembers the day when someone came and declared to all the slaves on the plantation that President Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation and they all got to go free. And he said that some people walked off the plantation, they walked into newness of life. But he said, my mother kept working and my father didn't leave.

It had been declared, it had happened, they had the ability to go free, but they didn't believe in the reality of what was declared to them. And what I would suggest to you is that you will never live above your faith, your trust, your belief in what God says is true. So when God says, you used to be slaves to sin and you had an obligation to your flesh to live that way, but now you don't because you've been bought with a price, therefore glorify God with your body.

When he says that to you and he declares to you that something transactional has happened, you've been emancipated, you've been set free. You can leave the plantation. Your former slave owner has no rights to you anymore.

He can yell at you, he can intimidate you, he can tell you you belong to me and that you'll never go free, but he has no legal right. You have every legal right to leave, to walk off the plantation, to kiss it goodbye and never see it again. You don't have to go back, you don't have to work for him, you're not a slave anymore.

But some people never walk away because they doubt the proclamation. And maybe in human terms, people said, man, I don't know about this Lincoln guy. I don't know if I can trust, maybe he doesn't have the power to come through with what he's declared.

Okay, we could say that's a fair argument, right, on human level, but dare we say that about God? Dare we say that God doesn't have the power, that he doesn't have the authority to make good on what he paid for with the blood of Christ who will never die again? You'll only live up to what you actually believe about the gospel. So the question is, do you actually believe it in your heart and have you obeyed it from your heart or are you just giving mental assent to it? Because somebody could come up to these slaves and say, you know what, you're free, you can go. And they go, yep, I know, I've heard it.

Guy came and read it to me. Well, why are you still here? Why are you still doing this? Why are you still living like this? Well, you know, I don't know, it's just, it's what I know. It's what I'm comfortable with.

It's what I'm familiar with. It's been my life, you know. You're only gonna live up to what you actually believe in your heart is true.

Do you believe in your heart that you're no longer a slave? Do you believe that you have been declared righteous? You've been set free and you have been given by the power of the Holy Spirit, everything you need that pertains to life and godliness. That His Spirit will empower you to live the life of obedience that you've never been able to live before because you were trying to obey in your flesh. You can't do that.

We are never going to be the solution to our sin problem. You can never be strong enough in your flesh to overcome your flesh. It's not about that.

It's about complete, absolute surrender to Christ and to the work of the Holy Spirit. All right, verse 20. 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? What was the benefit? What's been the benefit of enjoying sin? When you stack it up and you say, okay, the net benefit of me selling myself over to being a slave of sin was I gained, fill in the blank.

What was the benefit? It says, for the end of those things is death. It's the death to your relationship with and fellowship with Christ. It's the death of your effectiveness in your ministry.

It's the death of relationships, particularly marriages. What benefit? How has it helped you? Why do you want to hold on to it? It's death. That's what it leads to.

That's the fruit of it. It's like working on a fruit farm. And at the end of the year, you get to harvest a big old heap of death.

That's the fruit of that labor. Paul says, why? Why do it? You don't have to. Why stay on the plantation of sin and work for a slave master who's gonna reward you with a harvest of death.

Death to anything good in your life. Why do it? Why stay? Why keep working on the plantation? Are the wages good? No. What is the slave's wages? In this case, slave's wages is death.

That's what the slave gets. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you get, this is what you can receive, is sanctification, a set-apart life for God, and its end is eternal life. In other words, you get the best kind of life now, living in holiness and in relationship with the Lord and getting to experience fellowship one with another.

That's that first John. We walk in the light as he's in the light. We get to experience fellowship one with another.

You actually can experience a sweet kind of fellowship with the body of Christ when you're not hiding, when you're not concealing, when it's open, when it's out. You're not having to be guarded and hope people don't find out. You actually get the best version of this life, this set-apart life, but you also get the glory of eternal life in heaven.

That's the fruit of choosing to be with Christ. When you compare it, why? Why would we choose the life of death, of alienation, of hiding, of depression, of, I don't have to sell this. You know what I'm talking about.

Why would we choose it? Verse 23, for the wages of sin is death, but, here's the hopeful part, the free gift of God. What is that? That's grace, real grace, transformative grace. Grace that changes who you are, that changes your heart, that changes your desires, that changes your inclinations, and empowers you to live in a way that you can't live apart from it.

Are you willing to exchange living in your flesh as a slave to sin for the grace of God that empowers you to become the person he wants you to be? That's the opportunity, that's what's being offered, and it's already been provided for 2,000 years ago on a cross of wood. You don't have to earn it, you don't have to work for it, you have to walk off the plantation, that's what you have to do. You have to believe God when he says you're no longer a slave to sin, you are a slave to righteousness, live in the good of it, walk in the good of it.

The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let me pray. Holy God, we thank you for your word.

Your word contains everything that we need to live a life that pleases you. Help us live in the good of it. Lord, help us to just receive everything that you have bought and paid for with the blood of Jesus.

Teach us how to walk in that holiness. Teach us how to respond out of a heart of love. We've been slaves to fear, we've been slaves to our passions, we've been slaves to sin, God, teach us to live in the good of the gospel.

Teach us to live in the grace that you have provided through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I just pray for these men, Lord. I pray that you would do in and through them what they don't have the power to do in and through themselves and give them the faith to believe that your word is true, that they would be willing to say that the devil and everyone else is a liar and that God is true and believe the good of the gospel.

I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.