The Newness of Life
Notes
Transcript
So this week, as you can guess, we're going to continue making our way through the book of Romans...
Last week we broke into chapter 6...
and if you recall, we pictured Paul standing in the middle of this room called life, and he was calling all men to stand with him in the middle of that room...
...on faith alone in Christ alone.
And so with the Jewish Nation on his right and the Gentiles on his left, he called men to faith alone.
The Jewish Nation operating under the Law...
Pursuing God through the law:
Going to church every week
Involved in every ministry
Memorizing the Torah, front and back...
The Gentiles - viewed as evil, wicked people by the Jewish Nation.
they didn't have the Law
And so Paul standing between both, calling them all to faith.
The problem with this scenario is that the Jewish Nation would have heard Paul calling them out from under the Law...
And they would have responded by running to Paul...
...and flying right past him to the other side...the other extreme
And they would have joined the Gentiles on the opposite side and said - "Let's continue in sin that grace may abound!"
The gentiles on the other hand would have heard Paul calling men to faith alone...
...they would have seen the Jewish Nation joining them on their side...
...and they would have thought to themselves...
"Paul just affirmed for us where we stand - Let's continue in sin that grace may abound!"
And so this is why chapter 6 begins with verse 1:
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
And God, through Paul, gives us an emphatic "No!"
Paul says "NO"....Paul says - "Come on...come out from under the law and come to faith alone, BUT we're not going to toss GOOD WORKS out the window...
WHY?
Because true faith leads to good works...
Paul then appeals to the effectual nature of Christ's redemptive work to get them to see how they can join him in standing on Faith Alone...
...and how they can live lives of faith
Paul explains that God unites us to Christ's work of redemption, through our faith in Christ
That through faith alone in Christ alone, God unites us to Christ's work of redemption.
Through faith in Christ, His work of redemption becomes our work.
Through faith in Christ, His death becomes our death. ( A death to sin - verse 2)
Through faith in Christ, His resurrection becomes our new life. ( that we might walk in the newness of life - verses 4-5)
And if you recall, last week Paul ended by exhorting us to not let sin reign in our bodies
That we would offer ourselves to God as instruments for righteousness...
And this week, Paul is going to give us reasons why doing so is important...
3 of which we'll focus in on...
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more 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 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.
Where last week Paul called us to walk in newness of life, with the chains of sin now broken...
...this week, Paul is going to explain to us how we can do that, and why it's important....
...How we can walk in the newness of life (walk on the path of righteousness), and why it's important that we do so.
We're going to highlight 3 areas to consider as we walk through this text.
Point 1:
SLIDE: THROUGH FAITH ALONE, IN CHRIST ALONE, GOD APPOINTS US A NEW MASTER
The Newness of Life
The Newness of Life
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
Paul asks the question again here, just as he did in verse 1 of this same chapter...
Shall we just keep sinning since there is no longer any condemnation awaiting us?
Basically saying - If the penalty of sin is removed, why not just keep sinning?
This is the question...
And Paul answers the question by saying that our actions (in word and deed) reveal who our master is.
I hope you remember what we read back in Romans 3:10-18...
Those verses describe an unregenerate person...
They describe all of us, before we received Christ as our Lord and Savior...
10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
Is it any more clear, that before we were redeemed by putting our faith and trust in Christ...
...that we were slaves to sin? With sin as our Master?
In John 8:34, Jesus tells the unbelieving Pharisees:
34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.
And so Christ here uses the analogy of a slave and his master...
...to say that a slave obeys his master because he belongs to him.
Where there's a slave...there's a master.
Paul is saying - If you continue in sin, then you're OBEYING sin, revealing that sin is your master.
16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
See slaves have no will of their own...They are literally in bondage to their Master.
And we talked about it last week:
When sin is our master, we cannot resist it.
Everyone...All of us, before we were justified before God by faith alone in Christ alone, we were all slaves to sin.
Everything we did was sin...
Regardless of what it was...
regardless of how moral it was...
or how good it was.
Everything we did was sin.
23 .... For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
And so for the unbeliever, they're in chains...
All they do is sinful...
When they help the old lady cross the street....sin
When they drive their friend and drop him or her off at the Bible Study.....sin
When they go down to the homeless shelter and pass out food to the poor.....sin
Even when what is done looks to the eye like biblical obedience, all that an unbeliever does...is sin.
Enslaved TO sin...can do nothing BUT sin!
And this is Paul's point!
Our actions (in word and deed) reveal who our master is...
And Paul is saying - if the theme of your life is SIN, then sin is your master.
And so that statement right there may just cause all of us to stop dead in our tracks and say - "Well that's ALARMING!"
"BECAUSE I SIN"
I sin everyday, does that mean sin is my master?
As we will see in the next chapter, (7), Paul understands that as BELIEVERS, we will deal with sin in this life.
But Paul's point so far in our text today is that...
...with this NEW MASTER, appointed to us by God...
we can now pursue OBEYING this NEW MASTER in a way that pleases God.
What is this NEW MASTER?
18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
Through Faith alone, in Christ alone, we become slaves of righteousness.
Righteousness our NEW MASTER.
But we have to be careful....because Paul was careful.
When Paul looked at the Jewish Nation, and he called them out from under the Law...what was he calling them out of?
What was the Law?
How did the Jewish Nation view the Law?
We've talked about this before...
They looked at the Law as an - Obstacle Course.
Where the Law, the obstacle course, called out to them to:
Run over here, and climb over these barriers...
and then run over here, and crawl under this barbed wire...
and then run over here, and scale this tower...
and then shimmy across this rope...
and then jump in the water...
and swim 3 miles...
and then...
And the Jewish Nation looked at this and thought...."If we could only accomplish this feat, God would accept us!"
This is how they viewed the Law...
And so Paul looks at them, and says - No, Come out from under that.
Stop trying to CONFORM externally to the Law...that way leads to death!
Come...Come join me!
Come...Come join me!
What was Paul calling them out of? - - Self Righteousness.
Paul wasn't pleading with them to come out from under the Law because the Law was bad...
He was calling them out because of how THEY approached the Law.
They thought that they could EARN their way to God by doing good things...
That's Self-Righteousness
And Paul was calling them out from under that...
So Paul was calling them out from under A FORM of righteousness...
that they might now be enslaved to another FORM of righteousness...
NOT their own righteousness...but God's righteousness.
Calling them our from under self-righteousness...which leads to death...
That they might be enslaved now to God's righteousness.
And so this is going to lead into our next point...
When God calls us out from under the Law...
When He calls us out from under self-righteousness...
He appoints to us a NEW Master - Righteousness
And a necessary evidence in our lives, that that NEW Master is God's Righteousness and not our own self-righteousness...
is that God gives us something else as well1
our 2nd point...
SLIDE: THROUGH FAITH ALONE, IN CHRIST ALONE, GOD GIVES US NEW AFFECTIONS FOR HIM
The Newness of Life
The Newness of Life
When Paul called the Jewish Nation out from under the Law...
He wasn't trashing the Law.
They had viewed the Law as an obstacle course, where they were trying to conform themselves to it's rules...
External Conformity...
Well we know that that's morality...
And the Bible says that "what morality couldn't do....God did!"
Morality doesn't save you...being good doesn't save you....
Yet this is how the Jewish Nation approached the Law.
So Paul is pleading with them to join him in standing on faith alone in Christ alone...
BECAUSE when we do that...
That obstacle course becomes a....playground.
My KIDS used to LOVE the playground...
Tenley and Tia still do a bit - BUT...they’re getting - OLDER now...
What happens when we get older?
The playground - ITSELF - becomes - a torture chamber
I'm just trying to survive...!
The playground itself is not my delight...
The Jewish Nation pursued FAVOR with God through the law.
Their obedience was not founded on joy in God, but rather out of duty to the Law.
They tried to conform their behavior externally, to the Law...
and so Paul was calling them to be TRANSFORMED on the inside by faith alone in Christ alone.
That they would join Paul on faith alone, and then look back at the Law and say - "ohh...i never saw it that way before!"
And this is what Paul is saying in verse 17...
17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
"obedience from the heart" - this is true faith...
True faith, flowing from NEW AFFECTIONS for God.
As John Piper has said - The Christian life is a fight for joy in God! Christianity is not about "doing good things"...
He is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him!
THEREFORE: Delight in Christ is not optional!
If all i have is a decision FOR Christ, but no delight IN Christ...then I don't have Christ.
If I don't delight in Christ, then I will walk through my life "DOING THINGS" to avoid hell.
I will walk through life going to church every Sunday...to avoid hell.
I will walk through life fasting every other week...to avoid hell.
I will walk through life reading my bible everyday....to avoid hell.
AND i will stand before God one day, and this is how it will play out:
22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Without delight in Christ, I will stand before Him one day....
....and when He says depart from Me...
...I will say, wait a second...."didn't I go to church every Sunday?"
"Didn't I fast every other week?"
"Didn't I read my bible every single day?"
Didn't I...
Didn't I...
Didn't I....???
What am I appealing too? - What I DID?
And HE will look at me and say - "I know exactly what you did...
...The problem is you don't KNOW what I did...for you!"
"Therefore...this conversation is over....depart from Me...for I never knew you"
Delight in Christ is NOT optional.
Heaven is NOT full of people who lived their lives trying to avoid hell.
Heaven is FULL of people who lived their lives in LOVE with Jesus Christ...obsessed with Jesus Christ.
There's a difference...
How many of you LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT, WHEN YOUR TOOTH ACHES SO BAD it gives you the WORST headache??
Ok, well then that MUST mean that you all LOVE, LOVE, LOVE going to the dentist!
wait...No? Are you saying that you HATE this particular problem, BUT YET YOU ALSO hate the solution to that problem?
wait...No? Are you saying that you HATE this particular problem, BUT YET YOU ALSO hate the solution to that problem?
Do you see?
You can hate the problem, and that doesn't mean you LOVE the solution.
You can hate the thought of hell all you want, that doesn't make you a lover of Jesus.
And so if you walk through this life without DELIGHTING in Jesus, you WILL stand before Him one day...
and when He says depart from me, you WILL say to Him..."But didn't I do this...Didn't I...Didn't I...?"
And you WILL NOT EVEN BE ABLE to appeal to what Christ did!
Those people in Matthew 7:22-23 said the only thing they COULD say...
When God looked at them and said "DEPART FROM ME"...
...It wasn't even possible for them to say...."But YOU!" "But YOU died for me"...
They couldn't say it!
There were NO affections for Jesus in what He had done for them...
Why?
Because they entered judgment that day UNDER THE LAW...
They entered Judgment that day UNDER SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS...and all they could say was - Didn't I do this? Didn't I....
And God - standing in judgment OVER them says - "Your master in life, while righteousness, was not MY righteousness, but your own SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS...
...You did NOT delight in Me in your life, therefore depart from Me.
Delight in Christ is not optional.
Therefore, the fight for Joy in Christ...is not optional.
Think back to David...David ended up getting into trouble...YES?...
David - adulterer, murderer
And so David...contemplating his own sin before God, cries out to God for the remedy...
What does he say?
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
David knew that the Christian life was a - fight for joy in God.
BECAUSE we deal with sin in this life, the remedy is joy in God.
When our joy in God fades, we sin.
David knew this.
When his joy in God faded, he committed adultery with Bathsheba
When his joy in God faded, he had Uriah (Bathsheba's husband) murdered...
And so for us, from this we hear - Pursue Joy in God...
Through Faith Alone in Christ Alone, God Appoints us a NEW Master - God's Righteousness
and the only way to approach God's Righteousness is due to point 2...
Through Faith Alone in Christ Alone, God Gives Us New Affections for God.
And all of this leads to our 3rd and final point from this text...
SLIDE: THROUGH FAITH ALONE, IN CHRIST ALONE, GOD GIVES US A NEW HOPE
The Newness of Life
The Newness of Life
19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more 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 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.
This chapter 6 of Romans is one that contains great contrasts.
We read of going from:
lawlessness to obedience
from bondage to freedom
and ultimately from death to life
When we read about the state of our condition apart from God...
We can't help but rejoice in the hope that comes through faith.
On the one path we find a bondage to sin, which leads to lawlessness, which leads to death.
And God now, in His mercy, breaks the chain of sin in our lives, enslaves us to His righteousness, which leads to obedience, which leads to sanctification, which leads to eternal life...
And ALL of this blessing realized through faith alone, in Christ alone.
And so when Paul calls all men to join him in standing on faith alone, YES, he's calling all men to lives of suffering...
Calling all men to lives of sacrifice...
But ultimately, he's calling all men to JOY.
The commands of God are not meant to hold us back from the REAL pleasures of this world...
The commands of God are not meant to suppress us...
His commands lead us to TRUE joy...
UNENDING joy...
The Fullness of joy
Is HE your joy?
What a wonderful design this is - Think of this:
You walk through life, seeking Jesus Christ...
Sharing in His sufferings, joyfully embracing suffering
Sacrificially loving those around you like Christ loves you...
Pursuing Christ above all things...
That He would be glorified...
Walking the path of righteousness...
Battling sin in your life...losing some battles to sin, yet knowing that the war has been won...
All the while pressing into the Lord...
Magnifying His name in your life...
AND while HE gets the glory, you get the joy.
you get the joy.
SUMMARY
By Faith in Christ:
God Appoints Us A New Master - God's Righteousness
God Gives Us New Affections For Him
God Gives Us A New Hope
I'd like to close by reading Galatians 4:1-7
1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything,
2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.
3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Let's Pray...
