20250622 Romans 6:20-23 The Gift of God

Welcome to Vertical Church

Acts 2:42 LSB

42 And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.

We began our church with the desire to fulfill the mandate of this verse. To devote ourselves to what the early church was devoted to.

Devoted to the teaching of the word of God

Devoted to genuine Christian relationships and the fulfilling of commandment of Christ to love the household of faith

Devoted to the proclamation of the gospel through the ordinances of believers baptism and communion

Devoted to the prayers through singing and public prayer

The 5 Solas - God alone is our source of Salvation

We believe Scripture alone is the Word of God

We believe that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

WE believe that live and exist for the glory of God alone

We are called Vertical Church - we believe that all true worship and living is Vertical, God directed and God focused

With that in mind, Let us worship God

Call to Worship - Psalm 100

Psalm 100 LSB

A Psalm of Thanksgiving. 1 Make a loud shout to Yahweh, all the earth. 2 Serve Yahweh with gladness; Come before Him with joyful songs. 3 Know that Yahweh, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. 4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. 5 For Yahweh is good; His lovingkindness endures forever And His faithfulness, generation unto generation.

Scripture Reading - Romans 6:20-23

Romans 6:20–23 LSB

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore what benefit were you then having from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit, leading to sanctification, and the end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Introduction: The Gift of God Romans 6:20-23

We live in a quasi Christian culture of extremes. The UMC is so convinced that God is "all love" that they boldly proclaim from their pulpits that God overlooks what the Bible calls sin. But then there are churches who preach a God of vengeance, wrath, and hatred. In Romans, Paul presents biblical love and biblical wrath. And he does it by using a three letter word: BUT. Romans 6:20-23. Freedom that was actually slavery. Slavery that is actually freedom. Certain death that becomes eternal life.

In this study, our focus is upon Romans 6:20-23, and it brings to and end the sixth chapter of Romans. To remind you, Paul has been painting a contrast between what we once were before salvation, and what we are now in Christ. What we once were was a slave of sin. Our mind, affections, and even will was in bondage to sin. We were held captive to obey our old, cruel master, sin. But when we were born again, the miracle of regeneration brought about an extraordinary change in our life. In that moment, we were liberated from our slavery to sin and were immediately transferred into a new slavery with a new Master, the Lord Jesus Christ.

(1) Freedom that is actually slavery

Romans 6:19 LSB

19 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 to lawlessness, leading to further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.

Romans 6:20–21 LSB

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore what benefit were you then having from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

We did not have any righteousness. When we were under slavery to the dominion of sin, we were completely free from righteousness.

In human terms - What made John Calvin, the theologian of the Holy Spirit unique in may ways is not justification by faith. Calvin and Martin Luther, and Augustine, and San Tomas Aquinas and Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield believe in the total sovereignty of God and taught that it is the Holy Spirit who gives us the ability to believe through being born from above. You must be born again.

What is interesting about Calvin in his writings is that he taught preaching from both the divine perspective and the human perspective.

The divine perspective: It is God alone who regenerates the heart and who calls us from death to life

In human terms: We must preach from the perspective of the eternal decision, come to Christ, surrender to Christ, forsake sin

(2) Slavery that is actually freedom

Romans 6:22 (LSB)

22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit, leading to sanctification, and the end, eternal life.

Freedom from sin means freedom for righteousness, freedom for eternal life.

When Paul says you have been “freed from sin,” he does not mean that we have been freed from all practice of sin. You and I still sin. Paul means that we have been freed from the reign, dominion, and mastery that sin once possessed over our lives. We have been set free from the rule of sin in our lives.

enslaved TO God

This is important to know because there is a dangerous teaching today called the ‘non-Lordship position’ that believes you can be freed from your slavery to sin when you become a Christian, yet not at the same time become a slave of Jesus Christ. In other words, you can believe in Jesus as Savior, yet not submit to Him as Lord. Their thinking is that when you are converted to Jesus Christ, you can still live however you want without having to obey Him. Then, at some point down the road, perhaps five or ten years later, you might get to a point of dedicating your life to Christ. That is when you get serious about God and decide to recognize Jesus as Lord of your life. At last, you finally submit your life to Him and only then become His slave. It is as if this is a second work of grace, a second level of commitment to Jesus Christ. However, this position is completely erroneous when weighed against the clear teaching of Scripture. There are many passages that refute this incorrect view of Christianity, and Romans 6:20-22 is one of them. The moment you are converted to Christ, you are released from one slavery and immediately ushered into a new slavery, that of being a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the previous study, we asked, “Whose slave are you?,” because everyone is a slave to one of two masters, either of sin or of Christ.

(3) Certain death that becomes eternal life

Romans 6:22–23 (LSB)

22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit, leading to sanctification, and the end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Having been freed from sin - you did not free yourself

You are enslaved to God - from cruel slavery to loving slavery

You have your benefit - karpos - fruit - figurative - the natural result of what has been done - results of an action

Sanctification - being made holy from new birth to death

Justification to sanctification to glorification - eternal security, perseverance of the saints - we are eternally preserved by the Spirit of God

The more we sin, the more we earn, and what we earn is death. There is always a payoff. Remember what God said: “ ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19). If we are slaves to sin, we earn demerits; we earn wrath. If God did not pay what we earn, he would be unjust. “The wages of sin is death.”

In stark contrast to that is the good news, the gift of God. Wages are something we earn; a gift is something we cannot possibly earn. Wages are something we merit; the gift, on the other hand, is free. It is gratuitous. The wages of sin is death; the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. All the way through this section Paul has been dealing with contrasts: slavery to sin versus slavery to righteousness; wages of death versus the gift of eternal life. We now have experienced grace.

G. C. Berkouwer once said, “The essence of Christian theology is grace, and the essence of Christian ethics is gratitude.” What draws us to obedience and righteousness is not duty but love. It is gratitude. Once we have received this grace of eternal life in Jesus Christ, we should be willing to crawl over broken glass to honor and praise him for that grace.

In human terms -

Receive the gift of eternal life

why do we sin? because I want to sin. Why do I not sin? because I choose not to.

Now Yahweh, Maker of heaven and earth, the keeper of Israel, your keeper, go before you in your darkness, stand beside you in your fears, and hold you up in your sorrows until Jesus comes. Amen.