The Giver of Life

Good morning, welcome to New Horizon. Please open your Bibles to Romans 6.

Read Romans 6:20–23- “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 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. 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. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Pray.

1. Slaves of sin.

What does it mean to be a sinner?

How would you answer such a question? We make poor decisions?

Notice how Paul speaks of being an unrepentant sinner.

Slaves of sin.

Not merely sinners- Under the influence of sin.

Enslaved to it.

Defined by sin.

We see our identity differently. Who we are takes a hit.

No escape from it.

Try as we might.

We do what it wants us to do.

Z- I hate sin. I hate that I am a sinner.

Free in regard to righteousness.

Righteousness- Right living in the sight of God, rather than in the sight of man.

Tied closely to wisdom.

Proverbs with Tiny- doing the difficult work of showing her that Scripture’s wisdom is so different and vastly better than worldly wisdom.

When enslaved to sin, we have no real desire to pursue a life of righteousness, or wisdom. So we find ourselves shaped by what goes on around us.

Martin Manser- “In all stages of life there is a bondage and a liberty. Bound like slaved so ‘immorality and lawlessness,’ the pagan was at liberty in relation to righteousness, ie freed from the duty to do right.”

We would do well to notice that we were enslaved, and that such enslavement had dire consequences on the way that we lived our lives.

The last point to make here is that Paul notes that the Romans were ashamed of their former lives.

Romans 6:21- “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.”

Answer is either bad fruit or no fruit.

We don’t like contemplating our lives of sin. Paul invites his readers to consider the emptiness of such a life.

Living the right and godly life requires often looking back to what we were.

But he doesn’t stop here.

2. The wages of sin is death.

The end of the path of a life of sin-enslavement- death.

Not only physical death, as we see from the expulsion from the garden of Eden.

Genesis 2:16–17- “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”

Man dies as a result of the existence of sin and our guilt with sin.

Also, spiritual, eternal death.

Cut off from the mercy and forgiveness of God.

This means we are cut off from the very source of eternal spiritual life.

Wages- that which is deserved for our work/lives.

Paul says that we are enslaved to sin, and that we earn our wages through such a life.

We like to know what is coming. Thinking ahead, planning for our reward.

We do a disservice to ourselves and others when we neglect such a question, whether in our own lives or in the lives of those around us.

3. The free gift of God.

Paul lays out the contrast so that we can once again be reminded of the good life in Jesus Christ.

The good news requires the bad.

We go from wages to gifts.

From that which is deserved to that which is undeserved.

We often think ourselves to deserve much in this life.

We forget that the life we live apart from Christ has earned us worse than nothing.

Grace Grace Grace.

John Murray- “When wages are in operation our lot is death, inescapably and in its ultimate expression. When the free gift of God is in operation our lot is life, eternal and indestructible. How totally alien to such contrasts is the importation of merit in any form or degree into the method of salvation.”

It is foreign to Scripture to claim any deserving of salvation, through our character, our works, our accomplishments, etc.

Our text reminds us that we rely entirely on the goodness and grace of God.

4. Eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The life enslaved to sin leads to the end of death, so what about the life that is devoted to right living in Jesus?

The highest end possible- that of eternal life.

Eternal right life- Life as it’s meant to be lived. Love for God and fellowship with Him that we have been craving.

A John 15 life- Abiding in Christ.

Psalm 42:1–3- “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, ‘Where is your God?’”

There is nothing higher at which to aim our lives.

What do you seek to attain in this life?

Jesus is central to everything here.

Here is who we see in the manger- Jesus Christ, born to bring life.

Charles Wesley- “Mild He lays His glory by, Born that man no more may die; Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth.”

Jesus makes possible eternal life.

By His coming, living, dying and resurrecting, real, eternal life is made possible for us.

Jesus is the source of eternal life.

Nothing else. No morality, no actions, no goodness.

As we recognize ourselves as sinners, enslaved to sin, and set free, this is where our confidence and assurance rests.

5. Slaves of God.

What becomes of us? Set free from one master to be enslaved to another.

Language that we don’t like, but we need to consider it a bit more.

We oftentimes willingly enslave ourselves to things, even if we don’t use that sort of language.

We put ourselves under control of things that we don’t mind having control over us.

Crazy diet.

We find ourselves and our lives shaped by that to which we are enslaved.

Are we willing to be slaves to God?

Psalm 84:10- “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.”

Rather do the work of God in the presence of God than live a ‘successful’ life apart from Him.

Robert Yarbrough- “Being God’s slave at its worse beats a life of deluded self-mastery.”

Difficulty in living such a life. We don’t very much enjoy being mastered.

So we must keep a watchful eye.

The Valley of Vision- “O how desirable, how profitable to the Christian life is a spirit of holy watchfulness and godly jealousy over myself when my soul is afraid of nothing except grieving and offending thee, the blessed God, my Father and friend, whom I then love and long to please, rather than be happy in myself.”

This should be our prayer- Help me to find happiness and purpose in YOU, rather than in ME.

6. A different Christmas season.

Whole passage is a reminder of how far the Christian has come.

This contrast is always to be set in our minds.

Seems like sometimes at Christmas, we want to go back.

Slaves to worldly thinking, free from righteousness.

If the ultimate end of the life of a Christian is eternal life, fully sanctified and made clean, shouldn’t Christmas be a season in which we re-calibrate our aim?

Reminder- You have life. Get up out of bed and live.

What sort of life are we seeking to live this season?

Look to the example of Jesus- the One who laid down His life, not only in His sacrificial death, but in the way He served others.

Worship the one who gives life.

We celebrate with joy, like the shepherds of Luke 2:20- “And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”