Serving a New Master, Part 2

Romans to Romans 6. In my seven or eight years of college, during which time I came to know
the Lord about halfway through. The most important class, I think
I tried to do a thorough inventory, one of the most important classes
anyway that I ever took in my entire college career was a class
called Business Communication. And one of the premises in it,
one of the key features of it was Who talks to who with what
authority? And obviously, it was talking
about business and, you know, flowcharts and roles and titles
and those kinds of things. But I have found it to be a crucial
principle, not only in the church, but in all of the little Organizations
of which I’ve been a part who talks to who with what authority
is an absolutely crucial piece of information who calls the
shots, who’s in charge, who answers to who. And it is absolutely
crucial in the Christian life. If you can imagine taking orders
from someone who is not your boss, Someone who does not have
authority over you. Someone who has lost that privilege,
not just partially, but in its entirety. It makes about as much
sense as happens, as has happened to me on countless occasions
in the secular workforce. And you know how this goes. You
are co-workers. Sometimes you’re even trained
the same day. Sometimes you’re even trained long before them.
And yet when they get out there in the trench, they start giving
you orders as if they are your boss. And it makes about as much
sense listening to them who are not in authority. They are not
your superior. They are not your boss. It makes
about as much sense listening to them as it does listening
to the old master sin. That’s exactly what Paul’s talking
about. And he says you need to know
who talks to who with what authority. And the bottom line that Paul
says here is sin is not in charge anymore. You are not to take
orders from him. He is not your master any longer. Turn back to Romans 6. Because in this section, as I
indicated last Lord’s Day, that mirrors, structurally speaking,
that mirrors verses one through fourteen, where there’s a question
and the answer, there’s detail given and then there are applications.
The section here mirrors that precisely. We saw that in the
first section, the question was posed, the answer was given a
reminder that when Christ died, we died with him. And then the
detail that flowed from that, it isn’t so much death that was
in focus as much as it was a life of resurrection that’s in focus,
that we are supposed to live resurrected lives. That’s his
point. Then he went on to talk about that resurrected living
through the remainder of that section. And here the pattern
is the same question. immediate answer, detailed answer
and then application. That’s where we find ourselves
today. Go back into the text. Who talks to who with what authority?
Who is your master? Is sin still calling the shots?
That’s the question that Paul poses. Look at verse 15. The question is posed there.
What then? Shall we sin because we are not
under law? but under grace. We talked about
this at length, where essentially nearing the end of his first
Q&A there in verses 1 through 14, Paul pointed out that we
are no longer under law, but under grace. Paul takes the common
twist of that and says, should we just continue sinning? After
all, we’re no longer under law. Should we just do as we please
because we’re under grace? And the immediate answer is no,
absolutely not. May it never be. Paul gives a more detailed answer
beginning in verse 16, and he does so by reminding us of the
principle of slavery. The principle of slavery. Look
at verse 16. Do you not know that when you
present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience and he
doesn’t give us an option? It doesn’t say if it’s when you
are going to serve a master. When you present yourselves to
someone as slaves for obedience, you are the slaves of the one
whom you obey, and there are only two options. Remember this? We looked at it. There isn’t
a third option that says, you know what? I’ll run my own life.
Thank you. I’ll take a third out. There are only two options,
you are either going to serve sin, that’s what he says at the
end of verse 16, or you’re going to serve. Righteousness. You are the slaves of the one
whom you obey. Either of sin resulting in death
or of obedience resulting in righteousness. It’s one or the
other. Those who do not know Christ
do not have a third option either. They cannot effectively serve
Christ. And so they’re literally locked
in. They only have one master. There’s only one other option.
And it’s sin. And we’ve already studied this,
that all, not only Jews, but those who do not call themselves
or orient from a Jewish perspective, all are under sin. That was Paul’s
point in the first two chapters. They have no choice. Sin is their
master. Sin will call the shots. Sin
is the authority in their lives and they will yield obedience
to him. That’s the answer that Paul provides.
It’s the principle of slavery. And in a sense, it’s shocking.
Even though there is hope that Paul provides that there is a
better kind of slavery, He’s already hinted at it at the end
of verse 16, that there is another master. There is another option
to sin. It begins to give that detail
in verse 17, look again, but thanks be to God. Paul immediately
issues forth praise that there is another option. That we’re
not locked in. That it isn’t a hopeless situation. That though you were slaves of
sin, and that is the question of the hour, is where are you
now? Is it a has-been? Is it something
that’s been taken care of? Can you truly say, I was a slave
of sin? This is where we left off last
week. Though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient. And we know because we know the
gospel, we’ve been through it. We know that you didn’t just
become on your own doing obedient. God wooed you to himself. He
wooed you to repentance. He brought you to Christ and
he gave you the grace to be obedient. Thanks be to God that though
you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart. It was
a genuine repentance. It was genuine restoration of
life and heart and soul. You became obedient from the
heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed.
We talked about this last week, this is the totality of the New
Testament doctrine. That when we come to faith in
Christ, it’s not just faith and then we go on living as we want
to live, but it’s faith and obedience. He is Savior and Lord. And when
we come to Christ, we place our faith. We are granted the righteousness
of Christ in heaven and we pursue the righteousness of Christ on
earth. The whole passage, the whole
section, From chapter 6 all the way through chapter 8 is all
about this process, the big word that we call sanctification.
It is the pursuit of practical righteousness. It is the pursuit
of a changed life. It is the pursuit of a new master
and yielding to him in obedience. You became obedient from the
heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed.
And having been freed from sin, What a glorious truth. Then we
no longer have to listen to Him. He’s no longer our master. He’s
not our boss. He’s not even our co-worker.
We don’t have to sit with Him. We don’t have to eat with Him.
We don’t have to converse with Him. We don’t have to yield to
Him. He doesn’t know what He’s talking
about. He doesn’t know what’s best for us. He doesn’t know
what God’s law says and does not say. He’s not our boss. He’s not our master. And as a
result, Paul says, you became slaves of righteousness. Those thoughts that Paul weaves
in there, the very thought of slavery itself. It’s a little hard to swallow,
isn’t it, for the Christian? Even when you begin to talk about
being a slave to obedience. Not exactly how we put it in
our gospel presentations, is it? I would like you to become
a slave to obedience. Try that in the African-American
community. It would be a tough sell. As I indicated last week, one
of the blights on our country is slavery. For Paul to talk about becoming
a slave to obedience and a slave to righteousness That’s a tough
sell. And you know what? Paul knew
it. Paul knew it. Paul knew what he was doing here.
Paul knew what he was doing when he talked about becoming a slave,
changing masters and becoming a slave now to obedience, whereas
we were enslaved to sin and self. To become enslaved instead, to
begin to listen to a new master called obedience and righteousness.
That’s exactly what Paul intended to do. And Paul begins to explain
himself. If you would, this is where we
pick up. In our consideration of verses
15 through 23, look at verse 19 and we’ll take it in a running
start and then we’ll come back and add some thoughts to it. Paul says, In reflection of what he has
said, you became obedient to that form of teaching. You became
slaves of righteousness. Paul says, 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 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 of which you are now ashamed?
But 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. Paul knew that what he had said
had ruffled feathers. They had slavery. Slavery was
already an institution and had been for thousands of years.
In fact, it is not just a blight on America. It is a blight on
humanity that there has always been the institution of slavery,
even down to our current day. And so Paul uses an image that
he knew He knew he would get mileage from immediately. We’ve
talked in the institute and talking about preaching and teaching
and working towards teaching the truth. The difficulty, the
inherent difficulty of grasping an appropriate illustration.
A lot of times you have to check yourself even as you’re working
through the sermon itself. Does this illustration illustrate
what I want it to? Paul knew exactly what he wanted
to say. This was under the direction
of the Holy Spirit. And even as he offers an almost
apology here, Paul knew what he was doing. Paul used an image
that would run full its course. and completely communicate what
he intended to say to the people in Rome. Look at verse 19. He says, I’m speaking in human
terms. Paul basically says that, look,
I’m using this phrase. And I will use this phrase, even
though, as it were, a pseudo-apology here, because I’m using common
language. Not inappropriate or vulgar or
gutter language at all, but he’s using an illustration that is
so basic to the community that everyone would know exactly who
he was talking about and what he was talking about. As one
said, it’s difficult to put divine principles and truths into terms
that finite human minds can comprehend. That’s what Paul was up against.
He’s trying to show them how liberated they have become. We celebrated in our own nation’s
history the Emancipation Proclamation when the slaves were freed. In
a very real way, Paul is trying to communicate to believers their
own emancipation proclamation that they were indeed liberated
from a master, a cruel master. So the analogy of masters and
slaves was for their own sake, it was because of their humanness
that Paul dips down to use an illustration that would be acceptable
to them. And it isn’t the first and only
place that Paul almost apologizes for doing so in Galatians. The
book of Galatians, chapter three, verse 15, Paul says, Brethren,
I speak in terms of human relations. I’m going to put the cookies
on the lower shelf is essentially what he says. I’m going to keep
it simple here. I speak in terms of human relations,
even though it is only a man’s covenant, yet when it has been
ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it. He
talks in the term of the marketplace. In 1 Corinthians 13, pardon me,
15, 32. Paul says, if from human motives
I fought with wild beasts and he does the same thing here,
he says, let me bring this spiritual principle down and put it in
human terms. And so it’s essentially very
nearly an apology, rather, for the harshness of this imagery,
this imagery of slavery. As one said, or paraphrased, paraphrased Paul to say, I am
using a human analogy or mode of speech to help the weakness
of your understanding. Another effectively paraphrased
it in these terms when he said, I speak in accordance with the
human fleshly nature and the relationship of men. So Paul. Wants to communicate to the Romans.
And he wants them to see that slavery is a good image, it’s
a good image for this transfer of power, this change of masters. One pastor said it this way,
the institution of slavery is the medium through which Paul
expresses the truth. In using this analogy, drawn
from the sphere of human relations, he speaks after the manner of
men. After all, the new life in Christ
is not slavery as it exists among men. We don’t speak of ourselves
being enslaved as Christians. But the institution of slavery
does serve to set forth the totality of our commitment to God, doesn’t
it? It sets forth the totality of
our commitment to God in that emancipation from the bondage
of sin, which union with Christ involves. We were set free. We were set free from one master
unto another. We weren’t just set free to wander
the country and do as we please. We were set free to mastery to
Christ, to serve him, to emulate him, to please him. Paul says,
I did it because of the weakness of your flesh, not their physical
flesh. That it was on account of the
dullness of their spiritual understanding, the fact that having been tainted
with sin, they couldn’t quite grasp. We find it difficult to
grasp all that Paul has said because the difficulty of our
flesh. Paul says, look, sin is not your master anymore. And
I’ll come very close, he says, to apologizing for using that
illustration, but it’s an appropriate one at that. Look at verse 19
again. I am speaking in human terms because
of the weakness of your flesh for just as and here’s his illustration,
right? He’s going to bring two things
alongside of one another, and he already has. He’s, in a sense,
rekindling this illustration just as you presented yourselves,
your members rather, as slaves to impurity and lawlessness.
resulting in further lawlessness. So, in other words, he pictures
this ever spiraling downward slide of a sinful life. This impurity and lawlessness,
let’s pause and consider that first of all. And he says that
that’s what you presented your life to. And this is again, this
is all the language of slavery. And whether it’s, as we said
last week, a bell or a gong or an intercom system, the slave
is summoned into the master’s chamber. He shows up and he presents
himself for service. He’s there to do his master’s
bidding and look at who we used to obey. You presented your members. That is your body in all of its
faculty, your mind, your hands, your eyes, your affections, everything
about you. You presented your members as
slaves to impurity and lawlessness. Now, this won’t surprise any
of you, will it? Won’t surprise me. We stood at
the beck and call of the master’s sin for the purpose of impurity
and lawlessness of doing exactly what we really wanted, which
is exactly what our master so eagerly dictated. The first of these two particular
words, impurity and lawlessness, just talks about craving evil
for evil’s sake. Doing sin for sin’s sake. And loving it while we’re doing
it. That second speaks of a lack of holy restraint. Knowing that it’s wrong. Hating
that there’s even an utterance that it could be wrong. This
is what leads us to hate and detest God. If we do not know
Christ, we hate God’s law. We hate the fact that he hates
our sin. This word impurity, the first
word, as one said, reflects upon the corruption and defilement
to which we were dedicated. We lived our lives with gusto
in the pleasure of impurity, living according to impurity. As one said, these two words
express the same thing under different aspects. Sin subjectively
considered is pollution, a defilement of the soul. With regard, however,
to its relationship to the law of God, it is lawlessness. What is unlawful, what fails
in conformity to the law, and that was our life. Romans 124, which verse we’ve
already studied in full. Therefore, God gave them over
in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. That their bodies
would be dishonored among them. That was us. We know these two terms well. This was our master. This was
our life. This is who we were. Romans 4,
7, which Paul said later, blessed are those whose lawless deeds
have been forgiven. That was us. No wonder Paul uses these words,
because they very accurately describe the characteristics
of our life outside of Christ. Before we knew Christ, it was
a life of impurity and lawlessness. And throughout the entire context
of this section, The whole form of sin is personified as the
master over a slave. Paul says, look, you remember
your former life. You lived a life dedicated. You were a good slave. You were
the best there is. Dedicated to a life of impurity
and lawlessness. And it only led to more lawlessness. Whenever you felt convicted,
you found a new way to cover over your conscience. Until which
time you could hardly stand it. Look again at the verse. Because
there’s hope. He says, just as you, and even
in those words, there’s hope. Remember, I said there are two
masters, and just as we submitted to one, we must submit to the
other. 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. And Paul doesn’t back away from
the illustration for one minute. In fact, he reinvigorates it.
Doubles down on this illustration of slavery to God. Here, slavery
to righteousness. Present your members. He reinvigorates
that illustration too, doesn’t he? That part of the illustration,
that part of the imagery. Whether we use a bell or a gong
or the intercom system, we summon the slave. He shows up to do
his master’s bidding. That’s what he says. Present
your members. Show up. Be ready to do what
God would have you to do. Present yourselves as slaves
to righteousness. What Paul does here is begin
this process of giving the charge. He’s given us the detail. He’s
given us the answer. He asked the question. He gave
us the simple answer. He gave us the detailed answer.
Now he’s giving us the charge. He’s telling us exactly what
we’re supposed to do. Show up. Yield yourselves, submit
yourselves to a new master, because the old one is no longer in charge. We are to be now engaged in the
great work of submitting our lives to the influence of the
Lord Jesus and to the revealed righteousness that God has provided
That is the sanctification in which we’re called to participate. We’re called to yield our members
as instruments of righteousness. Remember. This isn’t a new concept,
it isn’t unique to this passage, nor to the Apostle Paul, Peter
said it. Peter said in 1 Peter 1, 2, according
to the foreknowledge of God, the Father, by the sanctifying
work of the Spirit, it’s the Spirit who does the work. Because
the Lord, pardon me, to obey Jesus Christ, be sprinkled with
his blood, may grace and peace be yours to the fullest measure.
We have to show up. We have to yield ourselves to
the sanctification of the Spirit. We have to pursue righteousness. Second Thessalonians, Paul wrote
about it in two thirteen, he says, we should always give thanks
to God for you, brethren, be loved by the Lord, because God
has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification. By the spirit and faith and the
truth, that’s the whole purpose of our salvation. is to pursue
this practical righteousness in this world, in the here and
now, and to be a changed people, really changed and changed by
God. So, apology or not, Paul returns
and reinvigorates the illustration. Charles Hodge said the slave
is bound to serve his master. The obedience of the believer
to God is no less certain The one is slavery because the obedience
is independent of the will and coerced. In fact, the masters
of our own country would often use a whip to coerce the slave. A good slave would willingly
obey in time, but many times they had to be trained and flat
out coerced. But this slavery is of a different
kind, and Hodge continues, and he says, the other is a slavery
of perfect freedom, because it is rendered from the heart and
with full consent of the will, yet both are a slavery. So far
as the certainty of obedience is concerned, we are called people
to obedience. We’re not called to our own will.
We’re not called to our own way. We’re not called to our own agenda.
We are called to obey Heavenly Father. What does it produce? Sanctification. The very subject at hand in this
entire chapter So now present your members as slaves to righteousness,
resulting in sanctification that just like sin led to more sin,
now righteousness leads to more and more righteousness. And what
saint among us doesn’t believe in their heart and know by God’s
own grace that they are more like Christ today than the day
they were saved? They have grown in grace. Some
more slowly than others, there’s no doubt. Some less faithfully
than others, there’s no doubt that all of us, by God’s drawing
and design and by the powerful working of God in our lives,
we have grown in grace. We have become more Christ-like.
We are more along the road of sanctification than when we first
put a foot upon it. This is the goal in mind. This
is the goal in view when the command is issued, present yourselves
as slaves to righteousness. This is what God has in mind.
And it points to God’s work in the life of the Christian. This
slavery, this slavery, as Paul points to as a slavery to righteousness. which points out the absolute
dedication we have as Christians. The goal that we have in view
is a holiness of life. It’s a holiness of lifestyle. It’s a holiness of speech and behavior. As one pastor said, no one stands
still morally and spiritually. Did you get that? No one stays
static. No one stands in one place morally
or spiritually. If you are outside of Christ,
it is a life of degeneration. It will get worse and worse and
worse and you will die and you will die in your sin. If you
do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and for the believer, just the
opposite ought to be true. He says this. No one stands still
morally and spiritually. Just as unbelievers progress
from sinfulness to greater sinfulness, a believer who is not growing
in righteousness, though never falling altogether out of righteousness,
he will slip further and further back into sin. I remember realizing one time
I had started a little business, putting my way through seminary.
I’d started this little business and I thought I’ll come up with
10 accounts and 10 will be good. And I realized 10 wasn’t good
that I had to grow and 11 and 12 and 13. And I realized I had
to keep growing, grow or die. That’s the motto. And that’s
the motto for the Christian, isn’t it? Shouldn’t it be grow
or die? We’re either growing in grace,
growing in Christ-likeness, or we are beginning the process,
just like in our physical bodies, of atrophy. And spiritual atrophy
is far more ugly than anything in the physical world. Grow or die. That’s the absurdity of slavery to sin. That’s what Paul says when you
were slaves of sin. Look at verse 20. He points to
this simple proof and he gives two. First of all, he points
to the absurdity, the absolute absurdity of slavery to sin. And look at it when you were
slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Well,
that sounds kind of good, doesn’t it? Therefore, what benefit were
you deriving from the things in which you are now ashamed
for the outcome of those things is death? Let’s take that for
a moment. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regards
to righteousness. You were slaves of sin, that
is the characterization of our lives, isn’t it? Before we knew
Christ, we couldn’t get out if we wanted to. How many things
did we want to quit, try to quit? Hate. We hated it and we couldn’t
quit it. Hated the way that we spoke.
Hated the people that we hung out with. Hated the things that
we did. Hated the things that we saw. We hated it. We were
absolutely locked in because we were slaves. We had to obey. We had to do those things. Tony
Evans said one time, sinners sin. That is their job description. That pretty much sums it up. The basic thought of this verse
is that You cannot be both a slave to
sin and a slave to righteousness. And in our life outside of Christ,
we could not be a slave to righteousness. It was absolutely impossible.
We were a slave to sin. One pastor said it this way,
to be slaves of sin means to be enemies of righteousness.
How’s that sound? To be enemies of righteousness,
to be enemies of sin means to be a friend of righteousness.
To be devoted to both sin and righteousness at the same time
is impossible. That’s his point. When you were
slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What
on earth does that mean? It means that righteousness had
no designs on you. It had nothing to say to you.
Righteousness was not your master and you did not have to obey. One summarized it capably in
this way, said you were free, you were independent of its demands,
you were devoted in the service of the opposite master sin. You
felt no obligation to be righteous. You enjoyed your liberty and
sin without restraint. You were free with respect to
it, both to its mercy and to its claim. See, righteousness
has no power over the unbeliever. We can’t call on believers to
righteousness or to righteous living, can’t appeal to them
to a righteous standard and expect them to do it. Service of those outside of Christ
is rendered to a completely different master. They did not. They could not, just like we
could not serve that master. One pastor capably put it this
way. He said these outside of Christ, they have no connection
to righteousness. It can make no demands on them
since they possess neither the desire nor the ability to meet
its requirements. They are controlled, pardon me,
controlled and ruled by sin, the master whom they are bound
to serve. They have no responsibility to
righteousness because they are powerless to meet its standards
and demands. That sums it up, doesn’t it?
They were free with regards to righteousness, they couldn’t
do righteousness that they tried. Look at verse 21. And what an appropriate question,
and if it doesn’t bring tears to your eyes, it should bring
them to your heart. When he says, therefore, what benefit? What
benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you
are now ashamed? And you think back to your old life. You think
back to all the resources that you wasted and all the opportunity
that you squandered, all the people you hurt, the God you
offended with your deeds. What good was it? All the so-called
fun you had, all the alcohol you soaked up and the drugs and
whatever else. All the so-called friends and
so-called love that you had, what good was it? You know, literally here when
he says, what benefit were you deriving? You know what the word
is? Fruit. Where’s the fruit? Of your previous
lifestyle, what benefit, what fruit did you bear from that? That word is often used in that sense to talk about a benefit
or some happy outcome. As one pastor
said, the only fruit accruing from the service of sin was the
things which will now fill you with shame. We don’t even want
to talk about it, do we? We certainly don’t want to account
and recount our lives outside of Christ. And you’re wrong if
you do. Believers are ashamed of their
past life, he says, so far as they are from endeavoring to
excuse it, that on the contrary, they feel ashamed of it themselves. They call to mind the remembrance
of their own disgrace, that being thus ashamed, they may be more
truly and more readily humbled before God. In other words, he
says, if you hate your sin and you hate that old life, just
the mere thought of it makes you to yield in your heart and
mind and to bow your knee and to cry out for the grace of God
to be changed. To move forward, to glorify God
in this new life, It’s powerful motivation. First, Peter echoed it when he
said. Peter said this in Chapter four,
therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves
also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh
has ceased from sin. Doesn’t mean that sin won’t present
itself. It means that sin isn’t your
master anymore. So as to live the rest of the
time in the flesh, no longer for the lusts of men, but for
the will of God. What a clarion call that is for
the believer. For the time, listen to this
people, for the time already past, that life that you live,
that you’re now ashamed of, enough is enough. The time already passed
is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the
Gentiles. What is that? Having pursued
a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking
parties, abominable idolatries, in all this they are surprised
that you do not run with them into the same excess of dissipation
and they malign you. They’re not your friends. The fruit that we have from our
slavery to sin, it basically speaks of these evil deeds and
evil habits, evil people that we knew, evil things that we
did. And it all brings what fruit? The only fruit it brings is shame.
We are utterly ashamed. This is what always baffles me
when I hear somebody giving a so-called testimony. And they go into all
the sordid details of their life with kind of a twinkle in their
eye and a sly little grin. They’re boasting. That’s what
it is. They’re boasting of their sinfulness.
We cannot speak of that old life without being utterly ashamed,
because that is what put Christ on the cross. No wonder one pastor passionately
said one of the marks of true salvation There’s a sense of
being ashamed of one’s life before coming to Christ. Whether the
previous life was marked by sordid immorality or great propriety. Did you hear what he says? Even
if you were the best guy in town, outside of Christ, you were vile
in God’s eyes. Whether the previous life was
marked by sordid immorality or great propriety, heinous crimes
or sacrificial service to others, extreme selfishness or extreme
generosity. It is a life about which the
true believer can be nothing but ashamed. Otherwise, you don’t need Christ.
No matter how it may appear before the world, the life apart from
God is a life apart from righteousness. We’re ashamed. And we ought to
be, we must be. If we desire the righteousness
of Christ, we have to let go completely of any idea that anything
that we ever did was righteous. Lest we try and drag that to
the very throne room of God as some kind of a calling card,
as some kind of an avenue of boasting. No, as one Puritan said, as soon
as the godly begin to be enlightened by the spirit of Christ and the
preaching of the gospel, they freely acknowledge that the whole
of their past life, which they lived without Christ, is worthy
of condemnation. Our motives were false, our deeds
were false. He says, so far are they from
trying to excuse it. They are, in fact, ashamed of
it themselves. They continually bear the disgrace
in mind so that the shame of it can make them more truly and
willingly humble before God. That’s what we need is humility
before God. And a simple recognition of our sinfulness before him
and the fruit that that bore. Nothing but shame, nothing but
shame. And so Paul says, in essence,
his first illustration is that is absolutely absurd to be enslaved
to sin. The absurdity of slavery to sin,
but he also gives another illustration in closing. It is the glory of
slavery to God. Look at verse 22. But now, having
been freed from sin and enslaved to God, Paul will back away from
this illustration for a moment. 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. Verse 22 is a special verse to
me. When I first became a Christian,
this is one of the first verses. This is my method of memorizing. I’d write it on a three by five
card and I’d carry it until the thing literally disintegrated.
Sometimes the laundry helped that process, but. This was a
very special verse to me, verse 22. But now, having been freed
from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting
in sanctification of the outcome eternal life. What great news.
What great news for the Christian. We don’t have to yield ourselves
to the old master anymore. We don’t have to bear his fruit. We don’t have to live a life
that is sinful and displeasing to God. We have been freed from
sin. And we have been freed from sin when he says, having been
freed from sin, he points backwards to the entire discussion of Romans
321 and following all the way down to Romans 521. That freedom exists in our faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ and nothing else. There is no other
freedom from sin. Having been freed from sin and
enslaved to God, as I said, he won’t back away for a minute
on this. illustration. He had previously said that we
were slaves to obedience and slaves to righteousness. Now
he pulls out all the stops and he says, let me tell you who
is your master. Let me tell you who to listen
to. Who talks to who with what authority? God is your master
now. Sin is not your master. He’s
not even a coworker. He’s not a friend. He’s not somebody
who calls the shots. Why are you listening to him
is what Paul says. Having been freed from sin and
enslaved to God, you derive your benefit and they are rich, uses
the same word, it’s fruit. Just like Paul uses in many other
places, the fruit of the spirit in Galatians and elsewhere. In a sense, what you have in
this verse, I didn’t know how good it was when I just thought
I’d come across a great verse. Listen to how one characterized
this verse. We have in this verse remarkable
for its depth and comprehensiveness, a miniature sketch of the entire
history of a redeemed man beginning with his bondage to sin while
in a state of nature and ending with the award of life eternal.
What a rich description. Verse 23, for the wages of sin
is death. This is an echo of everything
that Paul has said to this point. This is really a capstone to
the entire book of Romans thus far. The wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Note this in closing. Paul, no
doubt, says the wages of sin is death. It’s as if the slave
shows up for payday, right? He had been summoned. He was
called to a task. He did the task and he did it
well, didn’t we? We sinned with gusto. We sinned thoroughly. And we’re
ashamed because of it. We showed up for our payday.
And we discovered that the wages of sin is death. But by the grace
of God. We have found a new master, but
this new master doesn’t have a payday. In fact, he gives us
our remuneration, he gives us our gifts up front. He doesn’t
ask us to live a life of righteousness and then receive it. He gives
us the gift up front. Look at the end of verse twenty
three, the free gift. Of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus, our Lord, and that’s the only. Blessing that is even spoken
of in this passage. As one pastor said, the reason
why death is the result of sin is that sin deserves death. Death
is due injustice and the same obligation and justice that sin
should be followed by death as that laborer should receive his
wages just as it would be unjust and wrong to defraud the laborer.
So it would be unjust to allow sin to go unpunished, but the
free gift of God. Is the eternal life in Christ
Jesus, our Lord, the free gift of God. It is not earned. It is simply received. By a sinner
who is tired of taking orders from sin. Tired of realizing that the payment
is nothing but death itself. tired of realizing that there
is no gain to the activities that are being ordered upon him.
No gain for all of the sin and all of the so-called fun. No
gain. No blessing. No fruit. But the life of the Christian has a blessing beyond compare
at the outset. And the grace of God to walk
and to live a new and different life A life to which we’re called
as Christians. Who talks to who? With what authority? Who’s your master? Let’s pray. Oh, merciful God, we humble ourselves
at your feet. And Lord, we know that just as
you have drawn us by your grace, So, too, there are others in
our midst who must be tired of listening
to this cruel master of sin. And father, we pray that this
today might be the day of liberation for them. That they would be
set free, that they would know that they don’t have to obey
him any longer. That they can place their faith
in a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, the only one who can help them.
They can rise and live and walk in newness of life, obeying a
new master with a new end. Enjoying from the outset the
righteousness of Christ. God grant us that grace among
us today. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray. Amen. I will sing of my Redeemer, and
His wondrous love to me. On the thrones He suffered, from
the curses that He brings. Sing, O sing of my Redeemer,
With His blood, He purchased me. On the cross, He sealed my
bond. Take the debt and make me free. I will tell the wonder story. And oh, I long to stay to save
this fountain of mercy the ransom freely gave. Strain, O strain, of my Redeemer,
with His blood He purchased me. On the cross He spilled my pride,
He’s a dead and waning man. We’re going to sing the third
and fourth verse together and then the closing chorus. I will
praise my dear Redeemer. He has triumphed in our old town. How the victory given over sin
and death in heaven I will sing of my Redeemer and His heavenly
love to me. God with Him to be. Sing, O sing of our Redeemer,
With His blood He purchased me. On the cross He filled my pardon,
He would never leave me be.