Romans 6:20-23

Coram Deo Reformed Baptist Church iconCoram Deo Reformed Baptist Church

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So we've come to the end of chapter 6. We're in verses 20 and 23, 20 through 23.
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Thank you for coming again on Resurrection Sunday. Let's go ahead and dive in here.
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Starting verse 20, For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
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But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you were now ashamed?
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For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification, and its end, eternal life.
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For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
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Lord. Over the past several weeks, we've gone through chapter 6 and seen the comparison that Paul makes between master and slave and how we once were and how we now are.
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And he ends here in these couple of verses, finishing that off.
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It starts in verse 20, For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
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When we were living in our sinful natural state, when we were going through our daily lives, doing the things that we were doing, we did not take a break from our nature.
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We did not take a break from our sinful desires to do some righteous things.
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Not once did we sit and contemplate or decide to do a righteous thing.
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Now, you may have thought to do things that were right versus wrong, but you didn't do them for God.
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They weren't righteous. This is what Paul is talking about here when he says you were free in regard to righteousness.
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You were free from it. We were fully devoted to sin, completely.
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We were free from all righteousness because we had another master that Paul has been referring to as sin.
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We didn't go about our day concerned with pleasing God. We didn't care.
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Our desires were completely captive to sin. When he means free, he means free, he means free from the ability to see righteousness and unrighteousness, as we do now.
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He then moves on to verse 21. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things from which you are now ashamed?
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For the end of those things is death. That was the fruit, what was gained by our lives before we were saved, out of slavery to sin.
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What did you gain? Paul is saying nothing but shame.
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And since this is the Holy Scripture, God is saying nothing but shame, shame that we now recognize due to the
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Holy Spirit having opened our eyes to our sin. Now you may have felt shame beforehand.
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Maybe you were ashamed that someone found out that you were doing something you weren't supposed to do, so you had an outward shame.
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Or maybe you said something to somebody one time and recognized that maybe you ought not have said it, so you had inward shame about that thing, but not the shame of committing sin.
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Before, we worked and we toiled and we worried consistently. What we were doing was the right decision that would get us to where we wanted to go.
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All that grief and worry and work, and all it gained us was death.
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Till he saw fit in his own time to show us the truth.
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It was as Proverbs 14, 12 says, there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.
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The world continues this individually and culturally, and around the world, this continues.
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It shows warring, scheming, plans to do this and plans to do that, doing all that their master commands of them consistently, doing everything that they can to achieve what they want.
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And how they want to achieve it. And it brings nothing but death.
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It will ultimately bring nothing but death. Ironically, you hear that most of the things that they're doing are for peace.
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One of the worst ideologies the world has ever cooked up was cooked up for peace.
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A peace that can only be given by the very God that they despise.
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Galatians 6 says, in verses 8 and 9, For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the
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Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.
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This is something to remember every day. Read this verse every day if you must.
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It's difficult for us saints as we go through life, constantly battling the flesh, feeling like Jeremiah.
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Why do the pagans get this? And why is this happening?
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Because God wants it to happen. We were talking the other day in our
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Saturday meeting that everyone talks about, we all like to talk about judgment and God's judgment and everything like this, but one of the worst judgments that God can levy on a person or a culture or a people is prosperity.
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To turn them over to their desires. And to them, they prosper.
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I'm thinking I'm a massively rich nation doing whatever they want to do, influencing who they want to influence, and all the while circling the drain.
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And they don't even know it. But all the work of the world leads to one end.
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Death. As I mentioned before, it is
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Resurrection Sunday today, and while we don't change our normal mode of worship as other churches do,
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I do have to point out the wonderful work of God in having us be in this section of Romans today.
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It wasn't planned. Not by me. This is a day that the church sets aside for special remembrance of the
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Lord's victory over death. This is something that we celebrate every day, especially on the
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Lord's Day. But today is a special day that is set aside with special significance.
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All this week we reflect on His entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, all the way to Good Friday, which is the day that we recognize and reflect on Christ's willing sacrifice of Himself on the cross to take the punishment that we deserve.
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Every day this week actually has a title. I don't know if you knew that. I won't go through them all, but it ends today with Resurrection Sunday, the day that Christ Himself showed victory over death and rose from the grave, showing that His sacrifice was sufficient and accepted by the
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Father, He having done this for us, which we could not do ourselves.
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And because of His work and the faith that is given to us, in His work, we can see the significance of this next verse as well.
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But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
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Where before all the worry and toil and troubles that we went through led to nothing but death because it was for ourselves, now the work, the troubles, they lead to our sanctification.
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When we go about our lives, now it is for His purposes. We now recognize that it is for our true benefit.
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The hard work that we do now we do no longer for ourselves, but we do in thanks for what
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He did. The troubles we face we now recognize as being put in our path for our benefit to grow us.
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And our worry is no longer for the things of the world but for how we can best serve
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Him in it. We no longer have to plan and scheme and depend on ourselves
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We have the knowledge and trust in God's plan that He knows what
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He's doing and is for His glory, for our benefit and He wins because He's God and He's sovereign and He controls all things.
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So, rather than worry about worldly things as we go through our lives, we remember what it says in Matthew 6, 19, through 24.
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Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is there your heart will be also.
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As a reminder, the treasure that he is talking about is Christ.
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That's the true treasure. Period. Not gold or silver or jewels.
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It is Christ. The eye is the lamp of the body so if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness if then the light is if then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness.
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No one can serve two masters for either he will hate one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
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You cannot serve God and money. Now in some translations it translates the word money differently but in ESV it says money.
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But this being reminiscent of the fight that we will continue to have for the rest of our lives until he calls us home.
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The struggle with the flesh that we have the pull of sin on our flesh to do the same things that we used to do our resistance to it.
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So as Paul told us before in chapter six remember to present yourselves as proper instruments for God.
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This needs to be part of your everyday devotion as well. Prayer scripture reading scripture memorization but presenting yourself to God as an instrument for his use.
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How can you use me today? As we come to the end of this chapter
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Paul leaves us with this last verse which to be honest is such a magnificent summation of the gospel in a single sentence.
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For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
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Lord. Paul here in this verse describes death as the wages or payment due to those who do the bidding of their master sin.
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As a general pays a soldier or an employer pays an employee you did the work you earned your payment the payment you earned was death.
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It is so very important that you do not forget this part when you are sharing the gospel with people.
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It is forgotten too often. Think about it like this a person goes to the doctor the doctor looks him over comes back with a syringe and tries to poke him with it doesn't say a word doesn't say a word at all what is the person to do?
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What are you doing? What is that? He goes oh it's an antibiotic.
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For what? That's how the church shares the gospel today.
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The vast majority of evangelical evangelism is this Jesus saves from what?
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On a podcast a very popular one not very long ago one of the richest people in the world was on there and they had the opportunity to truly share the gospel with this person and I don't remember it word for word but it basically went like this
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Do you want to be saved by Jesus? Well if he's saving people why not? Saved from what?
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Bad breath? Heart palpitations?
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Not other than that most people are saying well if you accept
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Jesus you'll get things. Health and wealth prosperity like I said before all the things that the devil offered
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Christ in the desert So saved from what?
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From yourselves and from God's wrath From God is the answer to that question
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Jesus and his work on the cross saved us from his own judgment if we do not tell them what they are doing and that it is leading them to death and it is what they justly deserve then how are they ever to recognize the cure for their ailment?
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All of us everyone on this planet everyone in this room deserves death right now that's what we deserve it is what we have earned but in contrast to what
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Paul says in the beginning of this sentence in the middle there is a word now most of the time when we hear this in a conversation it's not necessarily always a good thing well
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I'd love to help you Saturday but well we could afford it but praise
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God that there is a but in the middle of this sentence the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
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Lord that is the cure for what ails you it is the cure for what ails everyone every cultural problem every issue, every political thing every problem with every person in prison and everything else in the world is a symptom of their sin the only cure for it and every other problem in the world is the gospel so as Christians and I'll go off on an aside here the only concern that you should have with people and what they are doing is how can we share the gospel with them not what their political opinion is or what they're doing on Friday those are nice things to know so you can develop relationships but ultimately if they are unsaved the largest thing in the conversation ought to be the gospel because if you're not sharing it with them and you know that they need it you hate them and how much do you hate someone to allow them to walk right into the gates of hell and never warn them that they're going there and most of them will hate you when you do it and that's ok because they hated him and he is the only person that you should be concerned with what he thinks about you he died for you on a cross took your punishment they need to see this and they need to repent that's the other thing that doesn't get shared repentance what is repentance?
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the Greek word is metanoia which just means change your mind this is something that is given it's not something that you can just do of your own volition it is something that is granted true repentance
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Godly sorrow and turning away from sin but the free gift that is given to us eternal life in Jesus those words are important eternal life in Christ Jesus because if it's not in him, there is no eternal life if we are not covered by his righteousness there is no eternal life this is the good news that God by his mercy has come and given away for you and me to be saved from his wrath that we can enjoy freedom from the burden of sin that we can enjoy a lighter yoke in Christ we can enjoy his riches his grace his mercy and they have to know this is not something that can be done later this is urgent when he returns and he will there is disagreement on when and how but we all agree that he will there will be none he returns to judge he returns already victorious but he returns to judge at that point it's too late do not let those you love be standing alone outside of his righteousness when that happens push them to recognize who he is or deny him and those are the only two options that you should give people
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I had a conversation the other day with somebody we stopped to help him after a job and he found out that we have a church here and he asked me a couple questions he's agnostic he thought of Christ as well
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I think he was a good moral teacher I said you can't you cannot do that and he said why?
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I said because he either is who he said he was he's either
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God the Son the Messiah the
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Christ or he's an insane person that deserved what he got because he's a blasphemer those are the two options not good moral teacher that's not one of the options he disallows that from being an option if he was a good moral teacher it wouldn't have caused a ruckus the
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Jews might not have liked him they wouldn't have crucified him but he claimed to be who he truly was so they did crucify him they humiliated him and they hated him so if you don't believe that he's telling the truth you have to think of him the same way or he was telling the truth he is who he said he was and he is your only hope period he took that option away too the idea that there are multiple ways to get into heaven
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I am the way the truth and the life no one comes unto the Father except through me that's an exclusive statement
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I scrolled all the way back up to the top there but all of us including those who need saving we must consider ourselves consider what we have done consider what we deserve for it and also see the grace he has given to us his mercy and a way out of death the gift of Christ and we need to share it and it has to be understood that that gift is
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Christ and Christ alone I'll end with John 4 36