Wanted Dead And Alive - [Romans 6]

Over the years I've had quite a few different surgical procedures and operations and things like that.

You've got your gown on, there's all kinds of nurses and doctors and usually an anesthesiologist comes over with a needle full of Versed and then they look at you and they say, here comes the good stuff.

What they mean by good stuff is it knocks you out but it also makes you forget, gives you amnesia.

I'm quite certain that the problem in the Christian life for sanctification, for a holy living is forgetting what you're supposed to remember.

Of course also remembering what you're not supposed to remember, you're supposed to forget.

Let's turn our Bibles to Roman chapter 6 and see what the key to holy living looks like through the inspired apostle

Paul. Maybe the antidote for spiritual Versed. You're going to find this very fascinating passage in Romans chapter 6 when you talk to people today.

How do you get rid of sins? How do you live a sanctified life? You know what most people will say, lay back and let

God. Usually when they say that they pronounce God G -A -W -D but that's another sermon. Just lay back and let

God. Is that really the key to sanctification? Let me put it another way. Would you like to sin less?

Would you like to grumble less? Would you like to rejoice more? Would you like to say no to some of the sins that you dabble with?

I think the answer is yes. So what's the key? Run back to Mosaic law?

Have the Ten Commandments over you again? Is that the key? I don't think Romans 6 is going to say that. Is it try harder?

You know what's wrong with this church? There's just not enough sweat and toil and labor. Work harder.

What is the key to sanctified living? We want to honor the

Lord with our lives. What's the key? And the key is we're going to learn today in Romans chapter 6, one word maybe could summarize everything and it's a hard thing to do.

Maybe that's why so few people do it, one man said. And the answer is think. You've got to think.

What do you mean think? I like to emote. I like entertainment. I like amusement.

Amusement means what? Amuse means to think. You put an alpha in front of it, an

A in front of it, and it means not to think. We live in a culture that thinking isn't to be tolerated because once you start thinking about things,

John Owen said, a pastor has only two problems, persuading unbelievers they are under the dominion of sin and persuading

Christians they are not under the dominion of sin. And that's

Romans chapter 6. What's happened so far in the book of Romans? Hasn't it been exciting so far to see the book of Romans unfold?

Chapter 1, 2, 3, all the way through verse 20 of chapter 3, we're sinful and we don't have any righteousness.

The righteousness which a righteous God reveals doesn't come through what we do.

We don't have the righteousness to get to heaven, market. God is infinitely gracious, but He is inflexibly righteous.

And we just don't saunter on up to God and say, I'm here because of Adam's sin and consequently our own sins.

We need righteousness. Whether you're a legalist, a moralist, a Jew, a Gentile, you need to be saved by the righteousness of God.

Now, God didn't owe anyone righteousness. He didn't owe the angels righteousness, did He? And He didn't give them any righteousness.

But because God is kind, He is gracious, He is loving, He provided a righteousness that people lack.

Chapter 3b, 4 and 5, justification by faith alone, giving people the righteousness that Christ has earned.

Adam, do this and live, he couldn't do it. Jesus, do this and live, and He did. And since He's God, He's got enough righteousness to bestow on all those who believe.

The simple outline in Romans is this, chapters 1, 2, and 3a, sin. Chapters 3b, 4, 5, salvation.

And what comes after salvation? In the Christian living. Once you are justified, what started right then and will continue until you get glorified?

Sanctification. So now we come to sanctification. What does the Bible teach about it?

And here's what Paul's going to say, you used to sin because you had to.

Now you don't have to sin because the power of indwelling sin has been broken, so don't sin anymore.

You had to sin before. Unbelievers only can sin. There's a road, and that road goes into the ditch.

And when they read the Bible, they sin. When they sing, they sin. When they give money to the church, they sin.

When they go to work, they sin. When they provide for their children, they sin. Because without faith in Christ, it's what?

Impossible to please the Lord. Everything's sin. It's the one road. It's just the one way road.

But when God saves you and justifies you and gives you, based on His love and mercy,

Christ's righteousness, then there's a why in the road. And Christian, you don't have to sin.

You don't have to sin. Sin's dominion is broken in your life.

What do the Proverbs talk about? You know, you get a pig, and you rub that pig, and you clean that pig, and you,

I don't know, you could probably put some special oil of olay on that pig. And what does the pig do?

The pig goes right back into the mud, gunk, returns, wallowing its own mire.

What else does the Bible use for a vivid picture? And if you're a young kid, like I see a couple kids right there, one looking at me right now, sometimes dogs have a tummy ache.

Dogs throw up. And you better pick up that dog, because if you don't pick up that dog, that dog's going to take a couple sniffs, and he's going to look around, and that dog's going to do what to that throw up, young man?

He's going to return to his own vomit. Two biblical pictures, the pig and the mire and the dog and its vomit.

And because salvation is so great, Paul is going to try to tell the

Christians, dear Christians, don't go back to sin, because it's like a dog going back to its own vomit.

A dog has to go back. You can just tell it's in them, but we don't have to go back.

There are sins that enslave unbelievers, that because of what Jesus Christ has done can be broken.

If you say to yourself, I struggle with pornography, I struggle with bitterness, I struggle with lack of forgiveness,

I struggle with all these things as a Christian, friends, there's hope for you. You don't have to do the same things you've always done.

And what's the key? Try harder, more accountability. Here's the key, think.

That's the key. It's all about thinking. The Westminster Larger Catechism says, wherein do justification and sanctification differ?

Answer, although sanctification be inseparably joined with justification, yet they differ in that God in justification imputes the righteousness of Christ, chapter 3, 4, and 5 we've learned about.

In sanctification, His Spirit infuses grace and enables to the exercise thereof.

In the former justification, sin is pardoned. In the other sanctification, it is subdued.

Our outline for Romans chapter 6 this morning is basically two key questions. He asks a lot of questions, but there's two key questions.

One is found in verse 1 and the other is found in verse 15. Two key questions that Paul provides the answers for that if you understand this, this is the normative

Christian life. This is how Christians deal with their lives. This is how Christians say no to sin and yes to righteousness.

It's a hard chapter in the sense that you've got to think. That's funny, a chapter on thinking is about you have to use your thinking cap.

But I think if you'll try to think through it and ask the Lord to help you, you're going to see that grace motivates.

Here's the argument. You mean to tell me that based on nothing that I did, nothing that I earned, before I was born

God decided all this, and then in time Jesus earned my salvation. It's credited to my account.

My sins were credited to Jesus' account. It all worked because God raised Him from the dead. It's all work done by God, the immutable

God, the faithful God. He doesn't undo what He does. There's nothing I can do to lose my salvation because I couldn't earn my salvation.

You mean God graciously graced me, so you know what, that kind of living, that kind of thinking, that kind of salvation is going to produce a bunch of licentious people.

Tell everybody they're forgiven based on the work of another and you can't undo your salvation. I'll show you a bunch of people who are going to run around like crazy people, but Paul's going to teach us in Romans 6 today that it's the opposite.

Grace motivates you. Christian, do what you please. Now the question is, what pleases you?

What pleases the Christian? So two key questions followed by answers, as Paul uses imagery of baptism, of slavery in chapter 7, even of marriage.

James Boyce says of this passage, to understand Romans 6 is the key to understand how to live a holy life.

How to live a holy life. Two key questions. First key question is found in verse 1.

He ties it together with Romans 5 with the first question, which isn't the key. What shall we say then?

Now here comes the key question that will help us please the Lord in response to His great grace at Calvary.

Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? Philip's prayer paraphrase says, shall we sin to our heart's content and see how far we can exploit the grace of God?

If everything is by grace alone, then probably that kind of doctrine is going to motivate people to sin.

Furthermore, look at verse 21 of the last chapter. So that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our

Lord. Verse 20 it even says, where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. I get it.

God likes to forgive. I like to sin. And as one author said, the world is admirably arranged.

It's God's job. That's His business. But friends, Paul is going to teach us justification by faith alone is never a license to sin.

It teaches you liberation from sin. Voltaire said

God will forgive. It's His business. No. What does a father or mother do after he or she has been sinned against by her parents?

Grants sin and grants forgiveness. Does that child think if he's thinking rightly or she's thinking rightly, oh,

I got dad's forgiveness on this one. I'm just going to go do it some more. No. Justification by faith leads to holiness, not to sin.

But it's a fair question. Are we to continue that sin in sin that grace might abound?

Listen to Lloyd -Jones. And here's what he's going to say. If you don't preach the real gospel, nobody will ever ask that question.

If you preach a gospel that says, do good, try hard, get baptized, stay at it, keep going, no one would ever say, shall we continue in sin that grace might abound?

Because you can't keep doing that because that's how you get saved.

Put on the flip side, listen to Lloyd -Jones, the true preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it.

There's no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel than this, that some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this, that because you're saved by grace alone, it doesn't matter at all what you do.

If a man preaches justification by works, no one would ever raise the question. If you want to be Christians and if you want to go to heaven, stop sinning, be good, do good works, reconcile yourselves to God, Lloyd -Jones says, obviously, a man who preaches in that strain would never be liable to this misunderstanding.

Lloyd -Jones then says, I would say to all preachers, by the way, if you like to evangelize, I say this to you as well.

If your preaching of salvation has not been misunderstood, then you better examine your sermons again and you had better make sure that you're really preaching salvation as offered in the

New Testament to the ungodly, to the sinner, to those who are dead in trespasses and sins and to those who are enemies of God.

There's a kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation. Verse 2, take a look at what the passage says.

By no means, no, it's inadmissible. You can't do this. How can we who died to sin still live in it?

God forbid, 10 times in Romans, may it never be, may it never be, God forbid.

J .B. Phillips translates this, I wish I could have an English accent, it'd sound better. What a ghastly thought.

After all that God has done in chapter 3, 4, and 5, our response to salvation, our response to Jesus on the cross, our response to the resurrected

Christ, yeah, I'll just keep on sinning. No.

Now, it's interesting here, what does the text say? How can we who died to sin still live in it?

You can learn a lot if you look at the sun and the moon and the stars, but you can't figure this out unless you have this text.

At Calvary, God reckoned that you died, if you're a Christian, you died with Jesus.

By divine accounting, by divine reckoning, when you, when Jesus died at Calvary, you died at Calvary.

And you go, I don't feel, I didn't feel it, wasn't born. By divine reckoning, when

Jesus died at Calvary, you died at Calvary. Sin's claim on Jesus is done after He died.

Sin's claim on you was done because you died in Him. This is the union of the Christian with Christ. No legal claim on Jesus anymore at Calvary because He said it is finished.

No legal claim on you now if you're a Christian because it is finished. You're dead to it. You can't live in sin, can you, if you're dead to it?

And this is the theme of chapter 6. Verse 2, died to sin. Verse 3, into His death.

Verse 4, into death. Verse 5, of His death. Verse 6, crucified. Verse 7, died.

Verse 8, died. Verse 11, dead. Verse 13, dead. He's not saying you can never sin with sinless perfection.

He's saying you have no more domination of sin in your life. I could put it very simply if you're younger.

You now can say no to sin. Say, you know what? I like that sin. I still struggle with that sin.

Here's the good news. You could say no to it. Thoughts of the mind, heart, hands, body, you can say no.

Before you were a Christian, you couldn't say no. Now you get to say no. And here's the sad part. Here's our shameful part as humans.

Christians don't sin because they have to. They sin because you don't have to sin.

Domination of sin is taken care of. Many people will teach that at Calvary, rightly so, the penalty of sin is taken care of.

In heaven, there's no presence of sin. But for the Christian based on Romans 3, 4, and 5, the power of sin is broken.

I mean, what does it take? When a collections person comes knocking at the door of someone who's died, what claim does a collection agent have on a dead person?

And then he explains the new identity the believer has as he or she has died to sin, verses 3 and 4.

By the way, there's the word baptism you'll see. And even though we'll have a baptism or two tonight, there are waterless baptisms in the

Bible. Jesus was going to baptize with Holy Spirit and fire, John the

Baptist said. We're baptized into the body of Christ, Romans 1 Corinthians 12. There are waterless baptisms.

1 Corinthians 10, baptized into Moses, identified with, associated with, immersed into.

This is a waterless baptism here, verse 3. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ, placed into Christ, union with Christ, were baptized into His death?

See, He just explained to me what He said in verse 2. We were buried therefore with Him. Because if you die, then you're buried.

By baptism into death, in order that, why? Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the

Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Here's the analogy of baptism.

Teaching the spiritual reality of believer's union with Christ. What's He go on to say in verse 5?

How are we free from sin's tyranny is the question. Here's Paul's answer. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His by divine reckoning, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.

This is Christian's sure victory over sin. A resurrection to a new kind of life.

The old you is gone. Freed from sin's tyranny.

Powerless. Look at verse 6. We know that our old self was crucified. By the way, aren't you glad it doesn't say your old hands were crucified?

Your old mouth was crucified. Your old will was crucified. Your old emotions were crucified. No, everything. That old you...

I'm positive, if you met the old... I mean, maybe some of you don't like me that much now even, but if you would have met the old

Mike, you would have said, praise the Lord, that guy's gone.

And frankly, I'm glad I was gone too. That whole old self, the disposition and tendency, everything, the person himself, gone, was crucified with Him.

Again, this is all divine accounting, divine reckoning. This is how God sees it. You're to see things like God does.

That the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For the one who has died has been set free from sin.

No claim over that person anymore. Why go on living like you used to? You show me a person that says,

I'm a Christian and I still live like I used to, then what do we say? A, may it never be, and B, you ought to ask yourself the question, are you really a

Christian? Christ was crucified for the purpose of destroying sin and freeing

His people, so how can you live in it anymore? Yes, we sin, not because we have to, but because we want to.

Augustine had four categories of sinful people, or potential sin. Before the fall,

Adam, was, Augustine said, able to sin. After the fall,

Augustine said, Adam was not able not to sin. In heaven, you're not able to sin.

And on earth, Romans 6 teaches, you're able not to sin.

Now when you sing this song, would you start thinking of Romans 6, Charles Wesley's hymn?

He breaks the power of canceled sin and sets the prisoner free.

If you're a Christian, you don't have to yield to the things that you yielded to before.

Holds nothing over you. Speaking of Augustine, remember he was a profligate and a sinner and was with all kinds of loose ladies.

And he got saved by the grace of God reading Romans 13, by the way. And there was a woman who was a prostitute and she saw

Augustine. And she said, Augustine, Augustine, it is I. It is I.

And he thought, I'm sure, about the truths of Romans 6. And then he ran like Joseph would run.

Sometimes it's just good to run, by the way, guys. You just run, ladies. And he ran and he ran away shouting, it is not

I, it is not I. Because that old person was dead. Now here's the thing,

Christian. You probably think you sin more now than you did when you were an unbeliever. Why is that?

Shouldn't Christians sin less? Right, the slogan is Christians aren't sin less, they just sin less and less.

But before you were a Christian, you didn't know who God was. You didn't know His holiness and His transcendence and how great

He was. You didn't know the Word and what He required in His Word. Yeah, you knew the big sins and adultery and stuff like that and murder, hatred.

But it is a sign of maturity where you say, you know what, I think I'm sinning less in one sense, but I think

I'm sinning more because I just see God's holiness in who He is. Paul just keeps adding, v.

8 and 9, now if we've 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. Can't go back to an old life of sin and Adam.

V. 10, for the death He died, He died to sin once for all. But the life He lives, He lives to God.

How many people like Rock of Ages by Top Lady, the song? I love it. How many times have you thought about the lyric, be for sin the double cure?

What do you mean the double cure? Be for sin the double cure. What's the double cure for sin?

Saved from wrath and made me sure, no longer the penalty of sin, Romans 3, v. 4 and 5, and no longer the power of sin,

Romans 6. And here we come to this verse, v. 11, so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Now here's where we get to thinking, right here. Just think about maybe some sin you struggle with and now, what's your plan of attack?

How do I get done with this sin? Maybe I have an accountability person. Maybe I get some block on the internet.

Maybe I have to call my friend. Maybe I have to pray more. Maybe I have to study more. Maybe I have a slogan, no devotions, no breakfast.

Maybe I go to summer camp. Maybe I go to Awana and be a leader. Maybe I serve more. I don't want a sin like this.

What do I do? Answer? Think.

Yeah, but that's hard. And we live in a culture that minimizes thinking. I just drive past worship centers every single night and everybody in my neighborhood and everywhere else, it seems like the worship center is controlled by a big blue orb and it's bright and it's full of lights and everybody sits around and they're huddled in front of the blue orb getting instructions for what to do in the big blue orb -ville land.

I'm not against TV. I'm not against watching TV. Have a slogan. Here's the

Abenroth slogan. Do what you want to do after you've done what you're supposed to do. You work, then there's rest.

I'm all for rest. I like rest. I'm going to rest on Wednesday. Nothing wrong with TV.

It's a box of circuits. But there's everything wrong with not thinking. And I'm just telling you, we live in a culture where people want to emote.

You can't even say, what are you thinking these days? Because the right way to ask the question in our society, how do you feel?

I just like to feel things. I like to relate. I'm about community. Matter of fact, I'm about authentic community that's really relevant.

I'm after your thinking. If I was really mean and no compromise radio style, I'd go, no wonder your life is so messed up.

So let's go back to the Bible. There's grace to be found. But this isn't a radio show now, is it? I could say it this way in a nice way.

If you struggle with sin, Christian, all the legalistic things and running back to the

Ten Commandments and doing anything you want, how's it working for you? You say, it's working pretty well.

Well, then I'll appeal to you. There's a better way. There's a better way. And Paul says in 1

Corinthians, excuse me, we spent like five years of my life in 1 Corinthians. Paul says in Romans 6 .11,

consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Now, here's the great news. 148 verses so far.

And he hasn't told you to do one thing. This is the first command in the book of Romans.

The very first time he tells you to do anything. We like to -do lists, don't we? How's your to -do list doing?

I have a little piece of Post -it on my desk in my study. And I just have it.

It says, to -believe list. Because I know believing is more important than doing because believing will affect my doing.

Paul is saying this, when you struggle with sin, you just need to take an hour of your life and say, I'm just going to sit and contemplate the truths of Romans about I don't have any righteousness and God by His free and infinite and glorious mercy has granted to me

His Son who died as only Son on Calvary. What happened there? What He's done for me?

How He considers me dead with Christ and alive with Christ and I don't have to sin and I want to please

Him. And that's the cure for holy living. It's a present tense verb.

First verb imperative in all of the book of Romans. Boy said, a holy life comes from knowing.

Knowing you can't go back. Knowing you've died to sin and been made alive to God.

Oh, you know what? I'm glad you let me out of jail. I've been paroled and now

I get to go. Free man. Who would ever, if they'd been free from jail, go back to prison?

That's what Paul is saying. Can't. I wonder if Satan attacks the mind.

I had a kid once. Well, I still have a kid. But one time one of my kids did something wrong and sinful and I said, you know, when the kids are little, parents, here's a quick parenting seminar.

Don't say to your kids, why did you do that? When Adam sinned in the garden, God didn't say why you did.

He knows why you did because all sin stems from unbelief and then leads to lawlessness and immorality. God just said,

Adam, what did you do? When your little kids sin, forget the whys. What did you do?

Kids get older though, it's good to know what they're thinking. You could ask them, why did you do it? And I asked this particular kid one time, why did you sin?

And that kid was guilty. And that kid said, I wasn't thinking right, daddy.

Oh, you should've used an adverb there in thinking right. You're not thinking rightly, you mean? I didn't say any of that. I was so happy that the kid,

A, admitted it and said, I wasn't thinking rightly. And that kid was rescued from a paddling that day.

True, I wasn't thinking rightly.

John Bunyan said, sin is the dare of God's justice, the rape of His mercy, the jeer of His patience, the slight of His power, and the contempt of His love.

Just sit and think for one hour this week before you get in the car and crank up the music, crank on a sermon, crank on how to get rich and famous.

Put in the eye buds. Just take a good long walk for an hour and just consider what

God has done for you freely. It'll change the way you live.

Think to yourself, I'm dead to sin and I'm alive to God, verse 11, in Christ Jesus.

Friends, what does this tell you about those people who put on seminars for quick fixes? You come, you're struggling with something in your life, you come to our church and we'll fix it on the weekend retreat.

You're struggling with something? You need the second blessing is what you need and come up. You need to be slain in the spirit. That's what you need.

Friends, those things are all unbiblical. They're all pragmatic. None of them work and none of them relate to Romans 6 .11.

There's no quick fix. It is a present tense. Keep on calculating.

Lloyd -Jones says, consider and keep constantly before you this truth about yourself. I've got to count this as true.

By God's divine reckoning, I'm dead to that old life. I'm alive to God.

I'm a new creature in Christ Jesus. Old is gone, new has come. Is there anything else I should do or think about,

Paul? Verse 12, I've got to keep doing the commandments.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Let sin reign.

Thomas Watson said, be killing sin or it's going to be killing you. Yeah, there is a responsibility.

There is a duty. And then he uses decisive language here. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

That second word present there, it's decisive. When I officiate a wedding, you had to take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, better for worse, sickness and health, forsaking all others.

I do commit myself to God's holy ordinance of marriage. And then they say, I will. That's that word here.

When you go to the military and they install you into the military, I don't know what they do. They ordain you in the military.

I don't know the words. What do they call it? Pardon me? Induct you in the military.

Thank you. Where were you last service? It's a decisive act with consequences.

Present yourself to God. Because the gospel is true.

Present your members as instruments for righteousness. Verse 14, for sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace.

Christians aren't lawless when the New Testament gives us a command. We're under the law of Christ. But law was given to make us see our sins.

Now we've seen our sins. We don't run back as we've seen in Galatians chapter three today to the tutor. 10 commandments are a ministry of death.

Second Corinthians chapter three. No allegiance to the law anymore.

No, please God, by the law. Couldn't do it. And then the second key question comes up in verse 15.

Second key question. So Christians are equipped to understand sanctification. What then?

Are we to sin because we're not under law, but under grace? By no means.

Now the first several verses, talk in present tense, ongoing. Verse 11, it's the same thing.

Here, this is Eris. This is probably an isolated act. Paul, you know what? I guess maybe

I can sin because I'm not under law, but under grace. So can I maybe just sin like one time, isolated act?

Is that permissible? No, and here's what Paul's going to say. When you're free from the law, you're never in a

DMZ. You're never in a neutral zone. You're never in neutral. You're either a slave to sin or you're a slave to God.

Being freed from the power and dominion of sin does not mean you're free from following a holy

God. You're free to serve him for the first time in your life. Verse 16, do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, your slaves are the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, as the old man, or obedience, which leads to righteousness.

Can't serve two masters, but everyone has a master. Verse 17, but thanks be to God.

Christians who's stuck in sin, Christian who would love to stop a certain sin in their lives, thanks be to God.

Get your eyes onto your thinking of the Scriptures that you who were once slaves of sin, you had to have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching, to Bible teaching, to the doctrine of the

Bible to which you were committed. And having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

The great theologian Bob Dylan said, you got to serve somebody.

Everybody's a good theologian, right? No? Everybody's a theologian. Because of the

Spirit of God's work, we obey from the heart. We used to sin from the heart. Believers are free from this.

I have a question for you. Well, let's just keep going. Verse 19, this is kind of interesting.

All this talk about slavery, Paul's like, you know what, I kind of almost want to apologize a little bit because the relationship a child has with a father that a person has with the triune

God, maybe slavery's pushing it a little bit. So here's what he says. I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.

Using slavery is probably inadequate, but this is probably the only thing you can understand, Romans. I speak in this manner so you can just get it.

For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, what does sin give?

The judgment of sin is more sin. So now we present your members as slaves to righteousness. And what's the reward of righteousness?

Sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you're set free in regard to righteousness and vice versa. And by the way,

I have a question for you. How'd that work out? If you're an unbeliever today, how's it working out for you?

Now there's a time people can live far away from God and live as an unbeliever and they just have the time of their lives, but actually that's even a greater judgment of God.

Because built into the system and the fabric of the world is, when you kick against the goads of God and you will not bow your knee before the risen

Savior Jesus Christ, life is hard. Let me put this burr under your saddle.

The way of the transgressor is hard. How's it working for you?

Look back at your life. I was saved when I was 29 years old. What was the fruit of my 29 years in rebellion to God?

Free from God's worship and enslaved to sin. How'd that work out for me?

And I could tell you all the ways it didn't work out for me. Christian, how's it working out for you now?

That you're a Christian going to heaven based on Christ's work. How's that working for you?

Well, let's take a look at the passage because it says exactly that. There's a pay scale for sin.

It's not too good. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you're now ashamed?

By the way, that's my life right there. That's probably your life. As an unbeliever, we're ashamed of our lives.

That's why it does no good to just get up and give people a big flowing testimony of how just great you were in your sins.

It's just shameful to talk about. How's that working out for you, unbeliever?

For the end of those things is death. Even if things work out well in this life, you're going to die and then stand before God.

And the time for His infinite grace will be over and you will experience His inflexible righteousness. But there's fruit for Christians too that Christ has earned for us.

He's empowered us to do. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get, the fruit you get freely, sovereignly as a gift, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and in its end, heaven, eternal life, all earned for by the work of another.

That's good fruit. And then it says in verse 23, this is military language by the way, the word wage is what you would give a military person for his salary as this is a wage.

And that word free gift is what a soldier would get above and beyond his daily pay when you would ransack a place and get all the spoil and the treasures.

And then maybe a good general, a generous general would say, I'm just going to give you some special bounty, special booty, special treasure.

That's the word free gift here. Military language. For the wages of sin is death.

And then Spurgeon called this next section in a Christian proverb, a golden sentence, a statement of true worth to be written across the sky.

Go to the beach on Memorial Day, sky riding. Sky riding in the sky.

What do you see in the sky? Drink Red Bull. Okay, I guess.

The free gift of God is eternal life. That's what you get.

If somebody gave you such a great gift, then how do you treat them? How do you treat their son? How do you respond?

That's the point. And you're able to obey. You have the Spirit of God dwelling in you.

All because of what Jesus did. Friends, every

Christian struggles with sin. Paul's solution is to stop and think.

What do they teach kids? Maybe if you're on fire or maybe it's a nuclear bomb or something, stop, drop, and roll.

Do they teach kids that? Is that when they're on fire? I was once on fire and I was trying to just put out the fire and I could not think of that slogan, stop, drop, and roll.

Just like trying to put the fire out. I need to stop, drop, and roll. The Christian, what do you do?

So you know what? Paul wants me to know that one day

I died. They asked George Mueller that question, what is the key to your holy living? George Mueller.

He said, the key to my holy living is one day George Mueller died. That old person is dead.

Why run back to that old life? On the cross, Jesus was crucified for you and on the cross, you were crucified with him.

So they asked Luther, hey, reformer, justification by faith alone, now you can live the way you please, right?

And Luther said, that's true, live the way you please. Now what pleases you? I think he stole it from Augustine.

Augustine said, justification by faith alone leads to this maxim, love God and do as you please.

It's all because of what Jesus did. The focus is back to Calvary. The focus is thinking.

I love the story of Moffat Gantry in one of his sermons. Said not many months ago, in England there was a village in which an old saint was lying, dying.

Over 80 years, she had been a saint on the pilgrimage to Zion, to heaven. And there was a

Anglican priest from the Church of England came to her because she was in his parish. And he was one of those priests who believed that you could find no access to God in heaven unless the priest unlocked the gate.

Madam, I'm coming to you today to grant you absolution. This is so classic.

She said, what's that? I've come to forgive your sins.

And he put his hand over like this and she looked out at them and she said, you are an imposter.

The one who has forgiven my sins has nail prints in his hands, you have none. In light of what he's done for us, if you think about your sin, you'll run from it.

Because by divine reckoning, you're dead to your old self and alive to God. Lord God in heaven, we are thankful that we have a risen savior today,

Jesus Christ, the Lord. Where the law can only bring death and conviction of sin, even though it's good and holy law, the problem lies with us.

And so, you did not let history run its course. Before there was a history, before there was time, you decided in your great counsel, eternal counsel, that your son, the one you love, by the spirit's power would come and rescue your bride, the elect.

And we're thankful you don't lose one. And when you save someone by justification, by Christ's blood, you're saved to the uttermost.

And Father, I pray for the Christian today that they'll have time to think and to consider and to mull over these thoughts.

What a great God. Grant these dear people joy, love, the fruit of the spirit as they do.

And Father, I pray if there's someone here today who's not a Christian, I pray that you would let them see for once and for all the fruitlessness of their life of shame.

And I pray that you wouldn't let them get any rest or any sleep until they rest in the finished work of Christ Jesus by faith alone.