20250629 Romans 6:20-23 The Gift of God (part 2)
The Book of Romans • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 8 viewsNotes
Transcript
Handout
Welcome to Vertical Church
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 - Hebrews 12:18-24
Hebrews 12:18–24 (LSB)
18 For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, 19 and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them… 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, 23 to the festal gathering and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant
Scripture Reading - Romans 6:20-23
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
When a culture considers themselves to be religious but they are far from God, the Lord sends a prophet, not to for foresee but to remind, to call them back.
The classic prophetic call to repentance often involves an invitation, a question, and a promise
1 “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost. 2 “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And delight your soul in richness. 3 “Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that your soul may live; And I will cut an everlasting covenant with you, According to the faithful lovingkindnesses of David.
5 So now, thus says Yahweh of hosts, “Set your heart to consider your ways! 6 “You have sown much, but bring in little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; you drink, but there is not enough to become drunk; you put on clothing, but no one is warm enough; and he who earns, earns wages to put into a bag with holes.”
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
Romans 6 begins with the relationship between sin and grace
3 Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7 for he who has died has been justified from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6 begins with an appeal to consider the grace of God and the death of sin. Romans 6 ends with any appeal to consider the gracious gift of God and the wages of sin.
(1) Freedom that is actually slavery
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.
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.
