Romans 6:20-23 | Slaves to sin; Slaves to God.

Intro

Hey Y’all, y’all good? That’s good.

Sin.

Sin is alluring, sin is inciting, sin is tempting. Sin has a way of drawing us through our out of wack desires. Sin, gives us what we want for a second and then piles on shame and guilt. Sin pulls the rug out from under us, Sin corrupts us and destroys us. Sin is one of our greatest enemies.

Sin uses our desire for meaning and purpose and disorients it so that what ever we do it fades and makes us want to chase the feeling again.

We all have a need to be a part of something bigger that us, all of us are trying to find purpose in this life, sin takes that drive and beats you down with it.

In the late 90’s a show was aired that quickly became a classic that is still aired today. It appealed to both kids and adults. It’s probably the greatest cartoon this broadcasting company ever produced.

I’m talking of course about Spongebob Squarepants.

Spongebob Squarepants, everyone i’d bet is at least familiar with the show.

But it has this one episode that popped in to my mind when I was studying this passage.

There is an episode where Spongebob and his idiot neighbor get reef blowers, and they annoy the fool out of Squidward eventually they destroy his house, but as his house falls, his tv still works? idk. but it has a commercial for basically a gated community for a squids only high society place.

So squidward moves and at first, it is everything he wants

He wakes up in a house that looks exactly like all the others, and says “I think i’ll take my bike today!” and runs in to a long line of people doing the same thing. He goes to the store, finds canned bread, weird, then goes to the park and find a clarinet group to join.

And then they show this montage of him waking up, bike, bread, dance, clarinet. Wake up, bike, bread, dance, clarinet. everyday. goes through that cycle, and at first he has this giant smile on, but slowly the novelty wears off, and the smile starts to fade, the smile droops and becomes a frown.

He got everything that he wanted and it slowly broke him down. In the episode he eventually goes crazy and blows himself up with a reef blower.

Everything he wanted to crazy. The great theologian Jim Carey said it this way.

“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer.”

Sin gives us everything and nothing, sin gives us a hollow shell of happiness. Sin only takes when we think it is giving us something.

So tonight we are in Romans 6, looking at the last few verses of the chapter, Romans 6:20-23 is where we are gonna be tonight.

Who needs a bible?

context

This who chapter is pretty much about our relationship to sin. What do we do with the fact that sin is still around the corner even after we have been saved?

This chapter has the famous verse Rom 6:1-2 “1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

Connecting what we looked at a couple weeks ago with what we are looking at tonight.

A couple weeks ago we looked at why we are all guilty of sin, Adam brought sin in to the world, Christ saves us and makes us whole. Death in Adam, Life in Christ.

Then this chapter starts telling us that since Christ died we also died with him, and were raised with him.

Our old self is gone. We are new creations. We have been given newness of life.

And so this chapter is about what do we do with sin. It shows our relationship to sin. Verse 12, Rom. 6:12 “12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.”

the big point of Romans 6 is that justification, when we are saved, it doesn’t create Christians, followers of Christ, who are don’t care about their sin. It doesn’t create followers of christ who shrug off sin. who are indifferent to sin.

You have heard me say this before, but i’ll say it again and it won’t be the last time cause it is so true, “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.”

Followers of Christ hate sin and do what ever they can to guard themselves from it. And the way to do that is to constantly be in the presence of God. No through our own iron will, but through our weaknesses God is able to work and create faithful followers of him if we know him.

How many of you start to become like the people you are around? Your friend cusses a lot, all the sudden, you’re cussing a lot. your friend eats out all the time and then all the sudden you eat out all the time. You start listenig to the same type of music. you start to look like that person.

You didn’t set out to be like them, you set out to be with them. That’s how is works with Christ. You don’t set out to stop getting drunk by following Christ, you follow Christ and your desires are transformed. the more you know Him, the more you dive deep in to His presence, the more you begin to look like Him, and act like him.

The deeper you know Christ, the more you hate sin, the more you hate your own sin.

So let’s read this together and talk about it.

before we do that, let’s pray for our time in the word tonight.

Pray

Romans 6:20–23 ESV

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 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. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We are all discipled by something.

SO let’s look at this, we see a lot of talk of slaves, and fruit, and wages.

When Paul is writing this, he is trying to convey a specific message to the them. That we are all slaves to something. That we are all discipled by something. We are all slaves to something.

Look at our world right now, look at social media. You are being feed a worldview everyday. There are so many different points of view on socials that we can’t even make sense of it.

You are being Catechized.

Along time ago, the church had what we called a catechism, namely the catholics and the anglicans, their kids would learn through the catechism, they would be catechized. It was a call and response question and answer that taught you the core doctrines and beliefs for the church. Through learning the questions and the answers, you learned what christianity taught.

most people couldn’t read so this was how they learned the beliefs of Christianity.

We don’t do that anymore, we try to catechize in different ways but for so long we have never had to compete. You open your phone, you are hit with all sorts of ideas. You have slowly been catechized by the prevailing worldview of the world, and we don’t even notice it.

And so this produces two things, you either buy in to the worldview or social media, everything is focused on you, everything is about you trying to stay safe, everything is a war. everything is you centered, making us also narcissist

Or you don’t buy in to the prevailing world view, but you become cynical of all humanity, becoming a nihilist.

Social media unhinged makes us all nihilist or narcissists. But what neither of us can do is discern what is truth. We are force fed what we want to be truth, what ever you want the algorithm gives it to you.

At the end of the day, outrage is what drives social media. Outrage gets clicks and views, outrage sells. Further polarizing us, further alienating us. Making us the most connected people in all history but also the most lonely people in all of history.

“for you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.”

We are all discipled by something. When you are a slave to sin it’s all you can do. the word for slave there “doulos” means slave, will is bound to sin. Sin owns you. Sin dictates to you. Sin guides you. Sin takes you almost to where you want to go, but at the last second.

Paul here is putting in to words his theology of sin, basically you are not free, your will is bound to sin. So that even if you wanted to you couldn’t you were free in regard to righteousness.

Slavery through out history has basically meant, you owned someone, in Rome there were slaves everywhere, it was part of the society. Every slave had a master, only one. Not two, one master. One person owned them, they couldn’t do anything apart from what that master wanted them to do.

It is by the grace of God, that He chooses us, before we choose Him, because apart form Him we could do nothing. We would keep choosing sin.

Who works with kids in here on Sunday morning? Can you tell which kids get disciplined at home and which kids don’t? Don’t say any names, but how does that kids act? Not great. It follows up to here as well, us adults can tell.

Why would the kid not act right if he doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions? It might be easier on the parents right now, but they are not being set up for life.

That is us with sin. We would keep sinning if it wasn’t for the grace of God.

How’d that turn out?

So now Paul is asking them a question, how did that turn out?

How did letting sin run wild turn out for you? How did trying to do it on your own work out? How did it go getting everything you thought you wanted?

He asks them, what fruit were you getting? You were doing these thing that you are now ashamed of, what fruit were you getting? None that bring life?

Look at our lives. Look at your life. what fruit are you getting?

the fruits of the spirit are Love Joy Peace Patience Goodness Kindness Faithfulness Gentleness and Self-Control. Sin doesn’t bring those. Those fruits sustain us. The fruits sin brings don’t sustain us.

Fruit is good for you, an apple a day, _______ keeps the doctor away. Fruit has nutrients. Fruit enhances things. The fruits of the spirit sustain us. We are sustained by the Love of the spirit, sustained by the peace of the spirit, Joy, faithfulness, self control, all of them of the spirit sustain us.

Sin doesn’t sustain us. It might give you moment of joy, or a moment of peace, but it fades, joy turns to hopelessness, peace fades to stress.

Sin is like junk food, it might taste awesome, but it doesn’t feed or sustain, the sugar crash comes. If all you eat is junk for you life, you will die young. Go a week where all you eat is your favorite candy. See if you don’t feel awful.

Sin’s fruits lead to death.

So what sort of fruit are you producing, what sort of fruit is in your life?

IS there love, or is there hate, is there peace or is it constant drama? Are you someone who can’t help but wade in to drama, you gotta be in it? Do you get angry all the time? Are you able to control yourself is there any self discipline?

Ask your self what fruit is in your life? Answer that question this week, examine your life. What does it look like? Ask the Lord to show you.

And then Paul says, but since you have been set free from sin, now you should only concern yourself with righteousness, of being in the presence, carrying out the will of the father.

We cannot take sin lightly

So then we get to one of the more famous verse in this chapter. Rom. 6:23

Romans 6:23 ESV

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So this sums up the whole chapter, these are our two options. Life or Death?

no biggie, just eternity in the balance.

Look at how Paul phrases it, for the wages of sin is death. Death is something you earn in this life, death is something you deserve because of sin.

i love how the message translation phrases this is reads: “Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death.”

This is what Paul is saying.

Think of sin as a job, who has a job, imagine you work for that job for years. and when you come to the end, when you go to retire. You get nothing for it. Happy Retirement and you die. You are separated from God forever.

Sin is burdensome, sin is weighty. Sin weighs you down, it slowly crushes you under it weight.

Paul is saying if you work your whole life apart from God, your reward is death, you have earned death. It was all for nothing. But the free gift of God is eternal life. You don’t work for it it is given to you if you follow. See the difference in work and following? Working means toiling away, following means you are going somewhere.

Make your life on this earth count. Do not take sin lightly.

Who are you going to follow? Who is going to be in charge? Are you going to chase after things that don’t matter and do not sustain?

Are you going to be indifferent to sin?

Accept that God has a better way for us, don’t spend your life chasing this world, chasing after things that will fade away.

This world is searching for something, this world is searching for purpose, and they way it goes about it is though stuff, material things, money, power, everything but the blood Christ.

John Piper has this illustration about ultimate worth, and i’m gonna borrow it cause it just fits, and will make us think.

This is a true story.

Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards were killed in Cameroon. Both missionaries.

Ruby Eliason—over 80, single all her life, a nurse. Poured her life out for one thing: to make Jesus Christ known among the sick and the poor in the hardest and most unreached places.

Laura Edwards, a medical doctor in the Twin Cities, and in her retirement, partnering up with Ruby. [She was] also pushing 80, and going from village to village in Cameroon. The brakes give way, over a cliff they go, and they’re dead instantly. Sad.

This is from a new article, about two different people.

Bob and Penny . . . took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball, and collect shells.

Now which one of those things is tragic?

Two 80 year old on mission fly off a cliff to their deaths in a third world country. or Two people live out their lives collecting shells?

Who do you want to be when you stand before God?

When God asks you, what’d you do with the time I gave you? Do you really want to be like, “I found some super cool shells!” I tried to get everything out of this life that i could.

Who are we going to be?

Sin brings suffering to this world, those in Christ have the remedy for suffering.

We can join in the mission of restoration and redemption of the world.

We cannot take sin lightly.

This world is searching for the answer to suffering. And it is looking in all the wrong places. Look at twitter, the absolute worse thing you can do on that website is offend someone, or oppress someone. Oppression is a bad thing, injustice is a bad thing, poverty is a bad thing. The world is really good at calling out bad things and wanting to fix it. But it is super bad at actually trying to fix it.

no amount changes in language, no amount of changes in policy, no amount of changes in Presidents, nothing is going to fix the root of the problem, that sin breaks people and breaks the world. Nothing we can do on our own can fix the worlds problems.

the reason is, we make terrible gods. I’d make an awful god, you’d make an awful god. Pastor randy would make a terrible god. and right now our world is trying to play God.

But we are not a people without hope. We have the Gospel, we have the good news. As followers of Christ we cannot take sin lightly, and we must be the salt and the light in this world. Pointing to the one who is a perfect God. Pointing to Christ.

P2Christ

So let me ask you this question. Who are you going to follow. In your own life who is calling the shots? Are you solely in charge? If you are, know that that is going to crash and burn.

Then ask your self what fruit in your life do you need to cultivate, do you need to water and grow, and which fruits do you need to dig up and throw away.

This is what I want for you, not that you would stop sinning and trying to act better, but that you would make a step towards following in the footsteps of Christ. That you would this week come sit next to him, come be in the presence of the Lord.

That is where redemption happens, that is where life change happens. I can tell you all the stats and plead with you to try and live better, but ultimately it doesn’t work. But what I can do is ask you to follow better, is that you would daily get up and try to know Christ deeper. If you do that, you will start to look like him, your bad habits will subside.

Trying to take the care of your sin first then coming to Christ is backwards, come to Christ and he will take care of your sin.

I you know that you need to follow him better, if thats you find a friend and pray with them while we sing ti next song. you need that community.

If you have never followed Christ in your life, he is calling you to know Him, He is calling you to know that you don’t have to work for salvation in this life, but that you only need to follow him.

Christ meets us where we are and never leaves us there.

Y’all pray with me.