Embracing Godliness

Thanks for watching! In Romans chapter 6, we come
into a new major section of Paul’s letter. And from the outset,
as you know, of our study, what we call a flyover of this incredible
book, I suggested to you that there are five major sections
to this epistle. Sin, salvation, sanctification,
sovereignty, and service. Thus far, we have looked only
at two of those, sin in chapters 1 through 320, salvation in 321
through 521. And so here in chapter 6, we
come into a new and important subject called sanctification. And Paul’s discussion of this
subject courses all the way down through the end of chapter 8.
In its most basic sense, sanctification refers to being consecrated,
set apart, made holy. And so it speaks of a work of
God, but that sense refers more to God’s initial act of saving
the sinner. setting them apart for his own
purposes. And we already know that we are
justified, sanctified, set apart for a holy use by an act of God
declaring us righteous because of our faith in Jesus Christ.
That’s what we’ve been considering for the last several weeks. But
once God moves in our life to save us, sanctifying us, setting
us apart for himself, we call that positional sanctification. But sanctification, as Paul is
discussing it in 6, 7, and 8, refers to something entirely
different. The sanctification of which Paul
speaks here pertains to the process in which the believer is progressively,
that is, little by little, made more and more like Christ. So, positional sanctification
and progressive sanctification. Unlike justification, which takes
place instantaneously, sanctification is a lifelong process. And if
you don’t believe me, men, just ask your wives. That’s why the process is known
as progressive sanctification, because we find ourselves to
be in process. And truly, both aspects of this
work, that initial positional sanctification and progressive
sanctification, are crucial. We cannot have one without the
other. One cannot even begin to experience
holiness, progressive sanctification, without having been saved. And
the converse is true as well. A person who is truly saved will
become more and more conformed to the image of Christ. He will
be in the process of being progressively sanctified. So the first thing
that we should note about this idea of progressive sanctification
is that it is for believers. Since it’s God’s process of making
the believer in Christ more and more like Christ, sanctification
is a matter that concerns Christians and Christians only. God doesn’t
begin the work of sanctification in a person until they are saved. Just as salvation is for sinners,
sanctification is for the saved. And this is important to note
because the natural inclination of humanity is to try and straighten
their lives out. even before they’re saved, to
earn their salvation, perhaps, or at least contribute to their
salvation by pursuing some kind of reform of life. That is to upend the process.
And that’s why I said that this section is for believers, Christians,
those who are already saved. We’re not saved, indeed we cannot
be saved by our personal holiness or righteousness or good works.
Salvation comes first. than sanctification. I think
we’ve established that fact, and with that little explanation,
let’s look to Romans 6 in its entirety to hear what Paul has
to say, at least at this particular chapter, about the subject of
sanctification. Romans chapter 6, we begin in
verse 1. What should we say then? Are
we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never
be, how shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of
us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized
into his death? Therefore, we have been buried
with him through baptism into death in order that as Christ
was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we
too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united
with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also
be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old self
was crucified with him, that our body of sin might be done
away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin, for
he who has died is freed from sin. Now, if we have died with
Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that
Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again.
Death is no longer master over him. For the death that he died,
he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives, he
lives to God. Even so, consider yourselves
to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore,
do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should
obey its lusts, 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, where sin shall not be
master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because
we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be. 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. 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,
and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I’m speaking in human terms because
of the weakness of your flesh, For just as you presented your
members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in
further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness,
resulting in sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin,
you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore, what benefit were
you then deriving from the things which you are now ashamed? For
the outcome of those things is death. But now, having been freed
from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting
in sanctification and the outcome eternal life. For the wages of
sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus, our Lord. Here’s another chapter that is
relatively easy to outline. There are two portions, two sections,
if you will, verses 1 through 14, and then verses 15 through
23. And in those two sections, Paul
is providing two monumental illustrations about this matter of sanctification. In the first section, verses
1 through 14, he employs a very sobering illustration of death
and life. And in the second section, 15
through 23, he uses a delicate metaphor of masters and slaves. Both of these sections flow from
Paul’s effort to answer some very pertinent questions. And
in both cases, he answers strongly in the negative. May it never
be. But though the answers to both
questions are the same, The questions that Paul is posing and answering
are very different. All week long, I wrestled with
whether to review that first section, death and life, or that
second section, masters and slaves. And I really wrestled death and
life, masters and slaves, to the point that I muddied the
waters with my own wrestling, masters and death, life and slaves,
It’s about where things were, and so in the end, my answer
wasn’t either or, but yes. An overview of the entire chapter. And I’d like to do a more general
overview of the entirety of Romans 6, where Paul is really encouraging
believers to embrace godliness, to vigorously pursue sanctification. And as I said, Paul accomplishes
this by employing two distinct illustrations. Let’s look at
the first of these, beginning in verse one. The Christian’s
pursuit of sanctification, that’s the subject, if you will. And
the first illustration that Paul presents is a representation,
an illustration of death and life. First of all, he gives
us this image. this illustration in verses 1
through 7. And Paul initiates this first
section with a key question. Are we to continue in sin that
grace might increase? That might seem like a bizarre
question to us, but why does Paul ask such a question? And
for this we have only to look to the immediately preceding
chapter, and there, Paul, if you just glance just over your
shoulder a bit to verses 20 and 21 of chapter 5, there, the apostle,
as you might recall, is dealing with the means of salvation.
How are we saved? And he’s identified it numerous
times there, that we are justified by faith. Paul’s point here is
that just as sin and death came into the world through one man,
Adam, so righteousness and life came into the world also by one
man, Jesus Christ. Salvation was not by means of
law keeping. It was only as a free gift by
God’s grace. And so Paul says, look at verse
20 if you would, Paul says in conclusion there in verse 20,
that where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. His point
is that no matter how bad it was, grace superseded all of
our sin and overcame it thoroughly. That prompts Paul to ask an obvious
question. If grace supersedes even the
depths of humanity’s sin, ought we sin in order to multiply God’s
grace? And Paul vehemently replies,
may it never be. That’s the bottom line, but to
that he adds, how shall we who died to sin still live in it? As we enter into chapter six
in the subject of sanctification, the younger believer may wonder,
when, Paul, was it exactly that I died to sin? And to this Paul issues what
is greatly misunderstood and a misapplied statement that all
of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized
into his death. And it’s that word baptism. We
hear that word baptism and we immediately think of the right,
R-I-T-E, of water baptism. And I’ll just say it very simply,
there is no water in this passage. He’s not talking about water
baptism. Water baptism becomes a wonderful
illustration of this, but Paul isn’t talking about the symbol. He’s talking about the real thing.
The word baptism means to immerse, to plunge, used at the Lord’s
table. It was used to dip. Well, Paul isn’t talking about
water baptism, he’s talking about being immersed into Christ Jesus
himself. And that the believer immersed
into Christ Jesus himself, then is called upon to proclaim Christ
and to enter into the rite of water baptism as a symbol of
that real thing. But here in Romans 6, Paul is
talking about the real thing. He’s talking about being immersed
into Christ, and when that happened, when we placed our faith in Jesus
Christ for salvation, we died to sin. That’s the image of water
baptism. We died to sin in order to walk
in newness of life. We died to sin in order to live
to Christ. Glance, if you would, at verse
5 where Paul begins to, he moves to underscore this with a fuller
explanation in verses 5 through 7. By faith, he says, we were
joined to Christ in his death. We didn’t literally die with
Christ, but by faith we aligned ourselves with Christ and his
death was, in a sense, our death. And if that’s so, then we will
enjoy the same kind of resurrection with him. Look there again at
verse five, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of his
resurrection. We weren’t literally dead, but
we are in a likeness to Christ’s resurrection raised. As Jesus
was raised, his people will be raised. And then Paul, watch
this, he provides the reason for this great confidence that
he has. It’s because of the work that
God has already done in his and in every believer’s life. He
expresses it this way in verse 6, knowing this. It speaks of
an utter confidence in facts. Knowing this, and you could almost
insert a colon there because everything in the rest of six
and seven is part of that knowledge base that Paul has. Knowing this,
that our old self was crucified with him. That our body of sin
might be done away with. This is the great work of mortification
of our sin that God accomplished in applying Christ’s redemption
to us. He exposed our sin, he brought
us to repentance, and it’s pictured as being crucified with him,
doing away with our body of sin. And the great goal of this purging,
look at the last line of verse six, that we should no longer
be slaves to sin. Now that image Paul is gonna
seize upon and build upon in the latter half of this book,
but it’s a liberation. this salvation that we enter.
It’s an emancipation from the bondage of sin. Paul pictures
that as slavery. It’s an illustration that he
will take up momentarily. Look, if you would, please, again
at verse seven. For he who has died is freed
from sin. God’s purpose in this is to liberate
the sinner from the bondage of sin for good. the spiritual liberation. And so Paul, his call to the
pursuit of sanctification begins by introducing this image of
death to sin. It’s a powerful image. But the idea of death has such
a finality to it, and the Christian might not think much beyond that. This is what Paul speaks to in
verses 8 through 11. He wants to reshape the Christian’s
mindset. And so we have not only the image
of death to sin, but the mindset of death to sin. We find this
in verses 8 through 11. So the apostle, again, he’s calling
upon his readers, Christian believers, to embrace godliness by thinking
of in terms of death, death to sin, death with Christ, baptized
into his death, crucified with him. That’s a powerful image. And in order to make this image
practical, Paul knows that he needs to change the mindset of
the people to whom he’s writing, including us. And so he waxes
very cerebral here in verses 8 through 11. It’s a very logical
paragraph. Verse 8 basically presents an
if-then proposition. It’s a piece of reasoning. He
says, if we have died with Christ, Then we believe that we shall
live with him. This is what Paul suggested at
least in verse 2. How shall we who died to sin
still live in it? Remember that little phrase?
baptized into Christ, verse three, buried with him through baptism
into death, verse four. This is Paul’s clear and unequivocal
position that when a person comes to faith in Jesus Christ, he
or she dies. Not literally, but they die to
themselves, they die to their old lives. So Paul concludes
with this logical statement, if we have died with Christ,
we believe that we shall live with him. It’s a logical conclusion. And this is a confidence that
Paul has here, that just as Jesus died and was buried, so will
we. We will be raised to live with
him, and Paul says it this way in verse 6. that we shall also
be in the likeness of his resurrection, that is, alive from the dead. Would you glance at verse 9,
because Paul still here is holding to this intellectual approach,
very logical reasoning. And in verse 9, he calls upon
his readers, knowledge. You know this, he says. Knowing
that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die
again, death is no longer master over him. This, too, is a well-considered
logical support to our own eternal life. And Christ’s resurrection
is a foundational Christian truth. And he says, having been raised,
he says that Jesus is never to die again. Jesus has conquered
death and he will live eternally. And if Jesus Christ is never
to die again, having been raised from the dead, then as Christian
believers, we too will live eternally. That’s Paul’s argument. And the
support for this argument there in verses 10 and 11, that the
death that Christ died, he died to sin once for all. Jesus never
sinned, not in his entire life. But as a man, he experienced
the pressures, the temptations of sin. Tempted as we are, yet
without sin, Hebrews 4.15. But having died to sin, sin lost
its power, lost its voice over Christ. And his death to sin
not only emancipated himself from sin and death, it emancipated
his believers as well. His victory was ours. That’s
only part of the story. Not only did Jesus die to sin,
he lives. He lives to God. He lives for
God’s glory. He lives as a victor over sin
and death. And that’s what Paul wants us
to embrace. That’s the foundation for thinking differently about
life. And it leads to an exhortation,
a command, if you will, in verse 11. Even so, consider yourselves. Pause there in mid-sentence because
that already captures the significance of this paragraph. Paul’s desire
to change our mindset about sin. That’s what he’s driving towards.
And the imperative verb that Paul uses here is logizimae,
to think, to reason, to consider. You see, it’s one thing to grasp
this image of death to sin. It’s quite another to adopt a
mindset of death to sin. And that’s what Paul is urging
when he says, consider yourselves, change your thinking, And in
full, verse 11, Paul says, consider yourselves to be dead to sin,
but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Change your thinking. Consider
who you are in Christ, he urges. The process of sanctification
includes the Christian’s mindset that seeks to close the door
on sin. considering us dead, and opening
the door to a life of holiness, alive to God in Christ Jesus,
he says. Well, that brings us to a fuller
application of this principle of death to sin. We might have
the mindset, but Paul’s gonna drive the point home here in
verses 12 through 14. He’s given us the image of death
to sin. He’s encouraged us to a mindset
of death to sin. Now he wants to make application
of death to sin. He does this in 12 through 14.
The apostle is given a direct command already that as believers
we are to change our mindset about sin, consider ourselves
dead to sin but alive to God. And so here in the concluding
verses of this illustrative section, he provides some very practical
advice for the Christian. What does this death to sin look
like in practical terms? And for this, he uses a fresh
command in verse 12. Do not let sin reign in your
mortal body. That’s a fascinating image that
Paul uses here. It personifies sin and paints
him as an angry little tyrant, right? With a squeaky, irritating
little voice. It’s like a king on his throne
with absolute authority, and he’s used to calling the shots.
Paul uses this imagery twice in Romans 5, as we saw, speaking
of death, reigning. Here it pictures sin as dictating,
directing, demanding, calling the shots of our life. And what this dictator is demanding
is a strict obedience to what Paul refers plainly here as lusts,
illicit desires. We tend to think of lust as pertaining
only to sexual sin, but you can have a lust for money, you can
have a lust for power. And you certainly can have a
lust for illicit things, including sexual desires. But Paul says,
stop allowing this little dictator to bully you into sinning. Do not let sin reign. There’s
a second command here in verse 13, two of them, as a matter
of fact. Because Paul states that both negatively and positively
here, glance at verse 13, 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. Paul is still
thinking of sin as that deposed tyrant, but the picture he paints
here is the person who gets up out of bed and rushes to submit
to this evil king. Stop it, Paul says. Do not go
on presenting the members of your body to sin. By members here, Paul is pointing
to the entirety of our physical bodies, our eyes, our ears, our
hands, our minds, any part of our physical frame that is inclined
and capable of sinning. And so when we present our members
for sinful use, we yield ourselves. as tools, weapons, what Paul
calls here instruments of unrighteousness. That’s what we do when we yield
to this taskmaster sin. Paul says, stop doing this. If
we want to pursue sanctification, if we want to embrace godliness,
stop yielding to this tyrant. Instead, he says, employing the
same verb, and now in the positive, present yourselves to God. Get
out of bed and present yourselves to God as a new saved person. Stand before God and avail yourself
to Him for His use, not this irritating little tyrant. Paul
refers to the primary illustration of this section, present yourselves,
he says, as those alive from the dead. We died with Christ,
now we have been raised with Christ to walk in newness of
life. Live, if you will, as resurrected
people, Paul says. If God has saved you, if you
have died with Christ and you’ve been raised with him to walk
in newness of life, then live accordingly. Yielding yourselves,
members, now your entire physical frame as instruments of righteousness. Isn’t that an incredible picture?
You’re a weapon in God’s hands. There’s a second illustration
here in Romans 6, as promised. We want to consider that second
illustration as well. In Paul’s encouragement to pursue
sanctification, he not only provides this representation of death
and life—that’s his initial illustration—but with regard to embracing holiness,
he advances an illustration of masters and slaves. If I may, please draw your attention
to the second portion of this chapter, the illustration
of masters and slaves, which begins there in verse 15. And
the first thing that Paul wants to do is just talk about how
this whole system works. I would call it the function
of obedience and slavery. How does the slave system work? That’s what Paul tells us. And
just like in the first illustration, that of death and life, this
second illustration is prompted by the question in verse 15,
what then? You almost can feel it coming. And Paul is seizing
upon a question that would be naturally flooding the people’s
minds to whom he’s writing. Shall we sin because we’re not
under law but under grace? We cannot possibly earn our salvation
by law keeping. And since we’re no longer under
law, we may live and do as we please, right? God’s grace will
cover it. This is the foolish potential
conclusion suggested by Paul’s encouragement in verse 14. You’re
not under law but under grace. That’s where he’s getting this
idea. But what Paul was saying there
in verse 14 is that the law identified sin, the law demanded adherence, but it offered no practical help,
and no one ever in the history of humanity has ever lived up
to the law. No one has ever earned their
salvation by law-keeping. Only God, by His grace, can provide
the means to live as God would have us to live. Christian is
not only saved by grace, he or she is equipped and empowered
by that same grace to overcome the wiles and the pressures of
sin. And as such, the Christian is
not under law, but under grace. But there are some, Paul knows,
who hear that statement and may come to the errant conclusion
that this frees us up to live however we please. So Paul crafts
this conclusion into a question. Shall we sin because we’re not
under law but under grace? He knows how the human mind works.
And that ridiculous question elicits the same answer that
Paul provided in the first ridiculous question in verse one. May it
never be. But rather than simply allowing
that firm answer to stand, Paul launches into his second and
remarkable illustration regarding sanctification. This one involves
the image of masters and slaves. Paul’s not speaking condescendingly
to his readers here. When he begins a discussion of
slavery, he’s playing upon what his readers understand. They
know about this horrible system. They saw it every day in the
Roman world. And the first thing that he calls
his readers to remember is the function of obedience and slavery. Glance at verse 16, if you would.
Do you not know? Of course they do. Do you not
know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience,
you are slaves of the one whom you obey? This is the principle
of slavery. This is how it works. The slave
comes before his master, he stands and presents himself for service,
and he had better do so because it’s probably a life-or-death
proposition. The slave has no freedom. This is not something, a situation
for which he clocks in and clocks out. He has no choice. He is
only to present himself for service. That’s what a slave is and does. He’s a slave 24-7. This is his
life. He serves whenever the master
demands it. He’s a slave and his overarching
duty is that of obedience. It’s not like the master makes
suggestions to this, I know how you might spend your afternoon.
This person is not the property and servant of any man, only
that of his master. You know who the master is by
how the slave responds to him. He presents himself for obedience,
and when commanded, he obeys. That’s Paul’s illustration. It’s
that simple, but that’s how illustration works. But Paul isn’t referring
to the literal system of slavery that was prevalent in his and
any other evil day. He’s already personified sin
as an evil tyrant back in 12 and 13. Here he personifies both
sin and obedience as masters. He’s referring to the Christian
pictured under a similar system. You are the slaves of the one
whom you obey, either sin or obedience. And yes, those are
the only two options. If you were to walk into a marketplace
in first century Roman world, You might be able to observe
and identify who were slaves among the population there in
the marketplace. You might know who a slave was,
but you don’t know whose slave he is. But suddenly a master comes into
the marketplace and barks out an order, a command, and everything
comes into focus. You would instantly know whose
slave belonged to that master because of the one who obeyed.
In other words, Paul says here to Christians, whose commands you obey, that
identifies your master. If you engage in sin, you’re
following the dictates of your master, sin. And he, sin, is
your master. You are under bondage and dominion
to him. But if you’re obedient to God
and to his word, you are under his mastery, that is, the Lord’s. He, not sin, is your master. The Christian’s heart desire
is to obey his new and loving master, his Lord. Simple as that. But these two masteries, as you
can see, have consequences. The master sin leads only to
death, Paul says. Obedience leads to, that is,
results in life. Paul doesn’t back away from this
subject of slavery as uncomfortable as it was. Instead, he leans
into it for the purpose of his lesson, embracing godliness,
pursuing sanctification, and it reminds us that submitting
to sin is slavery. And having set forth his use
of this image, Verses 15 and 16, he advances to show the connection
of morality and slavery in verse 17 and 18. The function of obedience
and slavery, and now the connection of morality and slavery. Here
in verse 17, glance at it if you would, Paul reminds his readers
that they were no longer under the mastery of sin. It’s a deeply
thankworthy thing for Paul. And Paul acknowledges, thanks
be to God, he says, because they were, they had been, as we all
had been, slaves of sin. We were under bondage. We had
no freedom. But this was no longer the case.
And right there, when Paul says, you were, He intimates that this
is no longer the case. You were slaves of sin, but no
longer. In time and by God’s grace of
salvation, these believers had come to a place of obedience,
not from a place of a rigid adherence to the law, but from the heart,
from a love for the one who first loved us, who sent his own son
to die, even while we were yet sinners. It’s the Christian’s
love for God that leads to this new desire to please and obey
Him. And sticking with this metaphor,
Paul says, look at verse 18, that having been freed from sin,
you became slaves of righteousness. You’re still a slave. You still
have a master. Yet it’s a beautiful arrangement.
The word picture he paints is of a daring and forceful rescue
from sin’s domain, where those who are imprisoned are suddenly
freed, emancipated, liberated from a life of sin. But it’s
a fascinating turn, you have to admit. Instead of being completely
emancipated and set free to live and do as they please, the Christian comes willingly
under another master. You became slaves of righteousness,
Paul says. And under this new and reasonable,
loving master, the believer desires to obey by embracing godliness,
pursuing righteousness, by yielding to God in this work of sanctification. And he or she does so by the
moment-by-moment attitude and acts of submission. We confess
our sin, we call down for God’s grace, we apply his word to our
lives. This is Paul’s third focus in
verses 19 through 23. Not only the function of obedience
and slavery, the connection of morality and slavery, but finally
the submission to masters and slavery. Paul knows that slavery
is a difficult subject, hard illustration to break into, It’s
a wretched and ungodly system. It allows these so-called masters
to cruelly occupy a place that was never intended for mere men.
And for those who are slaves, it robs them of their freedom
and dignity. And so Paul seeks to explain
why it is that he would use such an illustration. because of the
weakness of their flesh, he says. It’s their inability to grasp
this difficult concept of sanctification. So he has to express these things
in a way that they can understand them. And it’s for this reason
that he places the idea of sin and godliness into an illustration
of masters and slaves. Whereas we were in utter bondage
to sin, now we are fully devoted liberated, freed to obey God
in righteousness. This is what Paul begins to explain
in the middle of verse 19. Glance there if you would. Prior
to their salvation, they had presented themselves, stood and
stood themselves before their master. They had presented themselves
as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness. This idea of presenting
oneselves is brought forward from verse 13, as we saw, and
here Paul refers to sin as impurity and lawlessness. Not only the
inward and unashamed craving for evil, but the outward and
unrestrained practice of it. Impurity. lawlessness and that
just begets more lawlessness Paul says that that’s where we
were as sinners but now but now as we note at the end of verse
19 Paul implores present yourselves as slaves to righteousness resulting
in sanctification no longer is sin your master now it’s righteousness
that you are to obey And in order to motivate them, motivate us,
to a greater obedience to this new master, righteousness, Paul
has us to look back to our old life. You really want to go back
there? You really would go back and
submit yourself to that old master? Look at verses 20 and 21. He
points up that when you were slaves of sin, you were free
in regard to righteousness. You had no righteousness. You
couldn’t pursue righteousness. You didn’t do one righteous act. Righteous was no master to you
then. You were devoted entirely to
another master, sin. But to what end? And Paul poses
it as a question, when sin was your master, what part did you
get from it? What was the advantage to you
as a sinner? What benefit did you derive from
your sin? Especially since, as Paul adds,
these sinful attitudes and behaviors were things of which we’re now
ashamed. One of the sure signs of salvation
is shame over the things we once loved. Things that were displeasing
to God and slowly bringing us ever closer to eternal destruction. We loved them. And now we look
back on those things with shame. There is forgiveness for these
things, but we cannot forget them. And even a passing recollection
of them brings to the believer a humble regret. What a happy
reality is ours as Christians. We have a new master. In this,
Paul says believers are to rejoice, verse 22. But now, what beautiful
words these are, but now. What wonderful things they communicate. that whereas we were dead in
our trespasses and sins, now we have been redeemed. Redeemed,
forgiven, and alive forevermore. But now, Paul says, having been
freed from sin, recalling that liberation that he first mentioned
in verse 18, we have been brought under a new master. In verse 18, Paul said that we
became slaves of righteousness. Here in verse 20, speaking of
that same wonderful transaction, Paul says that we became enslaved
to God. What a glorious change of masters
this was. Unlike our former sinful life,
now we do enjoy a positive benefit. We got nothing out of our old
life. nothing but shame, but now this sanctification, Paul
says, issues forth in eternal life. Paul underscores this with
one final argument. Look at verse 21, if you would.
How is it, Paul says, that we come to have such a marvelous
benefit as eternal life, Paul explains the wages of sin is
death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus,
our Lord. Sin brings death. We know that
by now. We’ve been reminded of it for
weeks. Through one man, Adam, sin entered the world and death
through sin. Romans 5, 12. We are slaves of
sin resulting in death, verse 16 of this chapter. We know that
sin brings death. A life of sin brings nothing
but misery in this life, ultimately issuing forth in our eternal
death. This is God’s justice for sin. The sinner deserves nothing more.
But the opposite of that woeful sentence is a glorious promise,
a free gift. extended to us by God, secured
for us by his Son, Christ Jesus our Lord. It’s the gift of eternal
life. Would you humble yourself before
him? Our merciful King, we pause and
we bow before you. And Lord, we know that a lifetime
of reform A lifetime of trying to pursue and apply sanctification
to our lives would be like a thin and ugly veneer over a sinful
heart within. Lord, only you can change the
sinner into a child of God, justified before you, saved. Lord God,
We thank you for so many of us here this morning that you have
done the work of grace, you have done the work of salvation, and
the same God that begins the work of salvation begins the
work of sanctification. We thank you. We can see this
in our lives. We can look back and see how
you worked and crafted and brought us to repentance for sin and
granted us the grace to change. Lord, we know. We know our own
hearts. We know that we still have need
of this grace. We know that we still have need
of this progressive sanctification. Lord God, no amount of self-reform will ever earn salvation. Salvation is only by faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ, but that is what embarks the saved sinner
on a life of sanctification. And we plead for any in our midst
who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ in this regard, we plead
with you that you would have your way with them, that you
would bring them to repentance for sin, bring them into a positional
sanctification, save them and change them, we pray. And then
and only then, Would you embark them on a life of sanctification? Lord, we thank you for your grace
and your goodness. We thank you for the riches of
your word. We ask your blessing on our day. In Jesus’ name, amen.