Who is your Master?

English Standard Version Chapter 6

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.

Its like having a new teacher!

-I remember when I was in high school I we went through I can’t remember how many Spanish teachers. I had maybe five or six spanish teachers over the years. It seemed just about the time you got used to ones teaching style they would quit and another would start. One of them though Mrs Brunner came in and said I don’t care how you were taught before but now you will learn my way. Some of my peers pushed back against her but her answer was always the same your old teacher and the old way arent here anymore now you have me. Although she was rough around the edges I learned more under her than any others. Our Christian walk really should be the same, we are a new creature we are no longer slaves to the old sinnful nature but we are now free in our obedience in Christ.

-Last week we Paul brought up the question of Continuing in sin, and the problems with that, today we are looking at deciding who our master will be. so lets read

English Standard Version Chapter 6

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.

Looking back again,

What is a question we can ask out of

English Standard Version Chapter 6

14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

vs 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

-What exactly does dominion mean?

-Did sin have dominion over me before or does it still?

-What does it mean to not be under the law?

-What is the difference between the law and grace?

-Does this give us freedom to sin?

Vs 15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!

-Ok Paul is going back to his point counter point style of writing. We makes a statement in vs 14 then spends the next several clarifying so that he would not be misunderstood.

-What then is a rhetorical statement meant to transition from a statement about law and grace to the explanation of which without would have certianly raised objections.

-This really is much like last week in the way Paul starts his explanation in both would raise questions regarding our freedom to sin.

-Here it is again my no Means! Holman translates it -slide- Absolutely Not!

Vs 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?

-We are going to look at this in 3 parts

Slide- First “Do you not know”

-Again Paul’s rhetorical question. this basically is him saying this is common sense guys everyone should know this.

Slide- that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey

-Lets first look at the word “present” Word Bible Commentary says it means to give control of yourself. it has the idea that you are submitting to that thing or person you become a slave as we will see here in a moment.

-What Paul is saying here we become slaves of whoever or whatever we are obedient to.

-If you put your love into video games what happens we start to build our schedule around video games or sports or put anything in there. We become slaves to that thing and the older you get the more things you get enslaved to and we don’t realize it.

Slide- either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

-Really guys you aren’t enslaved to multiple things there are really only 2 choices you are either a slave to sin or of obedience.

-Sins lead to really eternal death and separation from God

-Righteousness leads to eternal life and an eternal relationship with God, obedience is forensic justification. it is the evidence of justification

Vs17-18 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.

-First of Paul here tells us who our true gratitude should be directed to. It is God who did the work .

-To major major points here to Christian theology that I want you to get.

First. We were slaves to sin everyone of us, not just the really bad people that we can think of, everyone. Thanks be to God that He paid the blood debt for our sin and purchased us so that we may be slaves to His righteousness and be commited to His teaching because we are now His slaves. You see we could never become slaves of of rigtheousness ourselves because we had no means of paying for our own release.

Secondly, If we are slaves of God then we are committed to be obedient to Him not out of compulsion but out of a love and desire to please Him. If obedience is not even on your radar of life then you need to check and see who is your master.

VS 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of you 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.

-First Paul explains that he is speaking in words that we can understand, He is speaking plainly, why ? well its because of their natural limitations! We all have them This goes hand in hand with Hebrews, how many remember the writer of Hebrews suddenly stopping mid thought in to say wait I can’t even teach you the deep things because we are stuck on the basics.

-Paul here reminds us that we once used our bodies for sin which lead to what? More sin! Now he is calling us to lead a life of righteousness and just as before if we lead a life of obedience it leads to more obedience. This is the sanctification process in a nut shell.

Vs 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

-Before you were saved you had no obligation to righteousness because it was not your master. You see we don’t like to hear and think about being slaves today. We don’t like the idea of something owning us but the fact is we are owned by something.

VS. 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.

-This is a reminder to those who are saved, what did you accomplish under your previous master that you are not now ashamed of? We know that also that those things lead to death.

-Remember sin is only pleasurable for a very short time, and the end result is always destruction and hurt pain

VS 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.

-Again we have been bought with a price freed from sin to become slaves of God, now the fruit we produce leads to sanctification and eternal life.

-One thing I will add here is that we must not deceive ourselves into thinking that we are doing good works in order in an attempt to gain access to heaven. Good works flow from a heart of obedience to the standard of teaching which is what we see back in vs 17

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

-This perfectly summarizes this entire chapter and clarifies

-lets look at the clarification and that is that salvation is a free gift, there are no works to be done before hand

-the summary is this that Grace is superior to sin because sin leads to death. I will add also that as we get into the coming chapters and because Paul has mentioned it briefly is the superiority of Grace over the law. Why is that? Even though the law shows us what sin is, it does not have the ability to save us if anything it condemns us all the more.

English Standard Version Chapter 6

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.

Sin does not have to be you master, are you tired of leave a destructive defeated life? The problem is we have no way to pay our ransom within ourselves we need something else an outside source. That source the only source capable is Jesus Christ and His work on the cross. Now how do we obtain it well if you are seeking it there you will find it. Yes God is sovereign, yes it is He who gives us the faith to believe but if you are seeking He has given you that, those that don’t care aren’t listening have been sitting in here wondering when this will be over so they can go back to their master they aren’t seeking. So how do we find it, we cry out realizing that we are born sinners born slaves to another master, and that that master displeases God and we can not pay our ransom in and of ourselves as we fall on our knees and cry out save this wretched sinner who has done wicked things in your eyes forgive me! If you do this and in your heart become obedient to the standard of teaching which God will reveal to you through His word. You see I would be doing you a huge disservice if I stopped there because really that is only half of what we are commanded to do, Share the gospel then make disciples. Guys its not enough to just say a simple pray and return to the life you were living, for once you pray that salvation prayer there is no turning back you have been made a new creature, but the awesome things is God does not leave us to flounder about unguided we have three great tools. You have those that have gone before you, you have the word of God to guide you, and you have the HS to seal you to the day you go home. What an awesome gift we have and what a wonderful faithful Master we now serve I leave you with this