This sermon series we’re dealing with discipleship. As true believers, as those who are saved by grace (for it was not from anything we have done or earned), how are we to live? This is the whole point of discipleship, learning to follow Jesus, to walk in his steps, to be like the master.
Romans 8:29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren
We are to conform to the image of God’s only begotten Son, Jesus. So what does conforming to the image of Jesus looks like? Are we not all made in the image of God? Yes, we were made in God’s image, but sin had a devesting effect on us and we no long resemble our maker.
But considering what God has done for us, the death of Jesus, through which we have the forgiveness of sin, and his resurrection which gives us our hope, this ought to be the basis and stimulus for how we should live for Him.
Cheap grace is a misnomer. It is a contradiction in terms when we consider it in human terms. It was God’s grace freely given by which we are saved from sin. It was costly in life of Jesus. But for us the opportunity was given to be free from the penalties of sin and to live for Him. In the un-regenerated mind, it is costly to us because we have to give up the life of sin.
All of Chapter 6 of Romans deals with this. It is summed up in the last verse of this chapter:
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This verse forms the bases of the message today. We will be dealing with which master we will serve: in verse God. We will deal with the outcome of that service: death verses eternal life. And we will deal with how that outcome is reached: a “wage” earned versus a gift received. [1]
You see, it is all about who we serve. We, who have accepted the free gift from God through Jesus, no longer have that choice of whom we serve, we have been given over to God.
Romans 6:5–23
Many of you (aging hippies) may remember that Rock’n Roll classic singer, Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan wrote a song in 1979 that would appear on His “Slow Train A Coming” album. The song is aptly appropriate for the section of Romans we are examining today: “You Gotta Serve Somebody”. The lyrics begin with:
You may be an ambassador to England or France,
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls,
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes,
Indeed you're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord,
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.
Now, I am not so sure if the Apostle Paul would have liked Dylan’s music, but I believe he certainly would have agreed with the lyrics of this song as he came write to Romans chapter 6. [2]
This morning, we are looking at the big picture of Romans chapter 6. The question is, for whom or what are we serving? Is it sin or righteousness? The Sunday School answer is, “Of course we are serving righteousness, we are serving God.” Let us be clear about righteousness. We are to live righteous lives, not in order to earn salvation, but because we are saved. We need to realize that we could do no righteous or good act in the eyes of God, apart from God’s Holy Spirit being righteous through us. The word tells us the our righteous acts are nothing more than filthy rags in his sight. All we are capable of in and of ourselves is unrighteousness, no matter how good it may appear to us.
Isaiah 64:6a For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;
And Jesus said:
Mark 10:18b No one is good except God alone.
Only when we have been saved, possessing the Holy Spirit, are we capable of any doing any good (in the eyes of God). That is the picture given to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Romans 6:10–11 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
We, who are truly saved, are dead to sin, we have been made alive to God and for God through Jesus.
Romans 6:12–13 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
“Therefore” an important word because Paul is drawing a conclusion to the fact he just mentioned and is now making an application. Paul explains, we are no longer a slave to sin but to God. We are no longer to have any part of sin. Sin does not reign over us or in us. We should have no part of, nor be an instrument or a tool for sin, but rather for righteousness.
Romans 6:14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
The Law is only needed for law-breakers. I would not need to have rules in my house if my kids always did the right thing. We are free to do right, to serve God freely. Rules or the Law have no hold over us. If we are following Jesus, there is no need for the Law, we are under His grace. But now Paul repeats what he said back in verses 1-2:
Romans 6:15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
Now consider the argument Paul makes, he reminds them, “Do you not know? This ought to be second nature. They were taught this before.
Romans 6:16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
We are slaves to the one we obey. As Bob Dylan sang, we all have to serve someone. Who are we serving? Who do we obey? The one we obey rules over us.
Now here we begin to see what it is to us. If we obey sin, and that will result in death. But being obedient to God, and the result is in our righteousness.
When we habitually “offer” ourselves to someone, we become a slave of that to which we offer ourselves. Sin, then, is a serious matter. Though set free from it, we can in effect become its slaves again if we give ourselves to it. [3]
Here is a fact in the world in which we live. Not to be a servant of God, not to be slave to righteousness, means we are slave to sin. There is no middle ground. Slavery to sin and slavery to righteousness are mutually exclusive. Its either one or the other.
Romans 6:17–18 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
We “were” -past tense- slaves to sin. That was who we were. But when we came to Jesus, When God’s holy spirit changed our heart, we should have become “obedient from the heart.” We were “committed” (handed over-CSB; entrusted-NIV). We have been given over to God, why do we serve anything or anyone else? Not obeying God, not being obedient to Him is being rebellious towards God. But we are no longer the slave of sin, we are no longer owned by sin. We belong to God, to Him only do we serve.
Romans 6:19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
Now Paul makes an understatement here. Obeying sin just leads to more sin, more lawlessness, more impurity. But obeying God, being a slave to righteousness, leads to our sanctification, our being made holy, our being conformed to the image of Jesus. So what are the outcomes of to whom or what we obey?
Romans 6:20–21 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.
Here is the second time death is mentioned. When we serve sin, we bring on death, death spiritually, and many cases, death physically. For most Christians, the sin they once participated in, they would be ashamed if they were caught in them now.
But what are the benefits of serving God, being a slave to righteousness?
Romans 6:22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.
Our obedience results in our being made holy, preparing us for eternal life with him.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
With the free gift of eternal life from God through Jesus, why would we ever want to go back to sin and death. Yes sin can look enticing, and the pleasures of sin are only for a moment, but with the sin, comes death. Life with and for God is for eternity.
We are in a lifelong struggle transferring from one state of slavery to another. There are eternal implications that ensue from that transfer.
Quoting from Douglas Moo, “Paul does not call on people to wage a war against sin with the hope that God will take their side and win the war for them. Throughout his teaching—and, indeed, throughout the Bible—God takes the initiative. In grace, he acts to help his people, and he asks them to respond…. Christians are called to “become what they are.” [4]
This is much more than a call to moral life style as a Christian. Indeed, we cannot adequately do so without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but we also do so through the disciple (or the discipleship) of immersing ourselves in reading and study of Scripture, participating in worship and devoting ourselves in prayer. Done rightly, our lives should reflect these things.
I’m still becoming more and more daily what God has called me to be. We are called to be conforming to the image of Jesus. We resemble whom we serve. Is it sin or Jesus? As each day that passes, are you looking more like Jesus?
[1] Douglas J. Moo, Romans, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 212.
[2] www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/you-gotta-serve-somebody-christopher-arch-sermon-on-slavery-256273
[3] Douglas J. Moo, 210.
[4] Douglas J. Moo, 214–215.
