Of Course Not!

Of Course Not! By Rev. Res Spears Last week, we talked about the fact that grace demands a response. We're going to continue our look at Romans, Chapter 6 today, as we unpack this notion a bit more. We all have a problem, and that problem is sin. The God of the universe created us in His image - to manifest His perfect character in the world. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, chose to rebel against Him, to decide for themselves what was good and what was evil, and we have inherited their sinful nature. And then, because we are all born as sinners, each of us sins. We sin because we are sinners. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, the perfect righteousness we were called to demonstrate as those who are made in the image of God. Our sins and our sinful nature condemn us to eternal separation from God. We who were made to be in perfect union with our perfect and holy Creator are cut off from Him by our sinfulness. The sin of Adam and Eve brought both physical and spiritual death into the world. Now, we look around and see a world that is beautiful. That's because His world still carries the mark of God's creative breath - and His grace - upon it. We see God's grace in the glorious Milky Way spread across the sky on a crisp, clear night. We see it in the shimmering feathers of a hummingbird flitting around the flowers of the garden. We see in snow-covered mountain peaks and in the coral-covered ocean floor. We hear God's grace in the chirp of crickets on a summer's night. We hear it in the twittering of finches calling to one another from the trees. We hear it in the pattering of rain that waters our crops and in the crash of waves along the seashore. We feel God's grace in the cotton of a favorite, well-worn T-shirt. We feel God's grace in the wool of the scarf that keeps us warm on a stroll in the winter. We feel it when we reach out and take the hand of a child or a grandchild. We smell God's grace in fresh-cut grass and in the warm air after a summer rain shower. We smell God's grace in the home where eggs and bacon were served for breakfast. We smell it in the rose that has burst into full bloom and across the field of fresh-dug peanuts. We taste God's grace in the juice of a perfectly ripe pear. We taste God's grace in vegetables straight from the garden. We taste it in that perfect glass of iced tea at the end of a long day of hard work in the yard. We see God's grace at the altar, where a man and a woman become one in marriage; we hear it in the hospital room, where the cry of a newborn baby announces a new family member; we smell it in the smoke of birthday candles just blown out; we taste it in brownies made for the family; we feel it in the loving embrace of a tired mother and father after the children have finally been put to bed; we sense God's grace in the smile of a wife reminding herself why she loves this husband who makes her crazy. God's grace is behind all of this. God's grace gives us the very life and breath that enables us to experience all of the beauty and wonder of His creation. But this world, beautiful as it is, is broken. Things are not the way they are supposed to be. We don't have to look far to know this, even as we acknowledge the beauty and the wonder that continues, by His grace. As we look out into the world, we see anger and strife and hatred and contempt. We see brokenness and addiction and depression and suicide. We see loneliness and poverty. We see injustice and deception and suffering and death. And things don't look much better when we look inside ourselves, because there we see selfishness and bitterness and bigotry and pride, the cracked foundation of sin that has made war against God's grace since the Garden of Eden. But God's love is from everlasting to everlasting. And God's grace is without measure. God's love for the man and woman He created led Him to warn them that eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would bring immediate death. And God's grace led Him to carry that sentence out on the innocent animals that were sacrificed to clothe that rebellious and guilty couple. The innocent took the punishment for the guilty. Blood was shed in the Garden of Eden so that the sins of Adam and Eve could be covered. The same thing would be true for the people of Israel. Each sacrifice of sheep or goats or bulls that they made represented God's gracious choice to accept the life of an innocent creature in exchange for the lives of the guilty sinners who brought the sacrifice for atonement with God. And then, on a cross at Calvary, God poured out His just wrath and His perfect grace. Jesus Christ, God's unique and eternal Son, gave Himself as the perfect Lamb, the ultimate sacrifice. He who knew no sin became sin - he took upon Himself all of the sins of all mankind for all time, and He endured the punishment we all deserve for our sins - so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Our gracious God allowed the sinless Son whom He had loved for all eternity to suffer and die the death of a criminal so that the real criminals - you and me - could be freed from the curse of sin through faith in Him. The innocent died for the guilty. And then, to demonstrate His power over death itself and to show that He considered our sin-debt completely paid, God raised Jesus from the dead, gave Him a glorified body that would never again be subject to suffering or death, and took Him back to heaven. And one day, by God's grace, Jesus will make all things new. There will be a new heaven and a new earth and a new Jerusalem, where we who have followed Jesus Christ in faith will spend eternity with Him and with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, where we will worship our triune God, and where we will spend each day amazed at how much greater God's grace is than it seemed the day before. But God's grace demands a response. If you have never placed your faith in Jesus Christ, then you have not received His righteousness, and that means that you will stand before God one day on your own righteousness, your own works, your own work. Now everyone who does work expects to be paid for that work. You wouldn't work for a boss who told you that he would not pay you your wages. I hear people all the time say that they've lived good lives - they've never killed anyone, they've never stolen things, they're faithful to their spouses - and so they figure they've earned a place in heaven. Maybe you're like them and you think that you've earned your wages, that you've earned a place in heaven because of the work that you've done. Last week, I quoted a Bob Dylan song, and I want to remind you of the refrain today: You gotta serve somebody. The reason I bring that up again today is that wages come FROM somebody. You earn wages because you've done work FOR somebody. And the clear message of the Bible is the same as Bob Dylan's message in that song. Each of us serves somebody. Each of us is obedient to someone. In Romans 6:16, the Apostle Paul puts it this way: Romans 6:16 NASB95 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? You gotta serve somebody, Dylan sang. It might be the devil or it might be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody. You see, sin is the devil's vile contribution to God's perfect creation. Sin is the master Satan put over mankind when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God. Sin is the master we all serve unless we come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Sin is the boss of fallen man. And sin pays wages. In verse 23, Paul writes that the wages of sin is death. If you have never followed Jesus Christ in faith - if you have never admitted that you are a sinner destined for God's righteous and eternal judgment, if you have never prayed that God would save you by His grace through faith in His Son, Jesus - then you have a paycheck coming to you when your physical body dies. You will get what you are owed. You will be paid the wages for your sins, no matter how great or how small. And the wages you are owed by sin is eternal separation from God, eternal suffering in Hell. The Bible uses the word "death" to describe this situation, but Scripture develops the term in such a way as to be clear that this isn't the annihilation of your being. Indeed, Jesus described those who died without placing their faith in Him as existing eternally in a place of great suffering and despair, a place where those who exist there beg for the opportunity to warn their living family members to repent and turn to Him. Hell is real, and it will not be a place where all the godless people gather to party and slap one another on the back for not falling for all that Christian stuff. Hell is a place of eternal torment, where those who have chosen not to place their faith in Christ will continue to curse God even as they suffer for having turned their backs on His grace while they were living. These are the wages of sin. But there's a second part of that verse. Romans 6:23 NASB95 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. We all deserve the wages of sin, but God in his infinite grace offers us a gift, and Paul emphasizes the graciousness of this gift by using the redundant phrase "free gift." This free gift is eternal LIFE in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now just as there is more depth to the biblical concept of death than we normally give to that word, there is more depth to the biblical concept of "eternal life" than simply living forever. When Paul writes of eternal life, he is remembering the words of Jesus in his prayer at the Last Supper, as recorded in the Gospel of John: John 17:3 NASB95 "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. So eternal life is the promise of everlasting communion with God and with His Son, Jesus Christ. Eternal life is a return to the condition that existed when God created Adam and Eve, the condition that was broken when they disobeyed God's commandment. Eternal life is not a matter of playing a harp on a cloud forever. It is a matter of coming to know God more and more through all eternity. And for the believer, for those who have placed their faith in the gracious sacrifice of the innocent for the guilty, that life has already begun. As Paul puts it in verse 18, "having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness." You gotta serve somebody. But if you have placed your faith in Jesus, rather than in your own righteousness, then you now serve God in Christ. You are slaves of righteousness. When you were lost, you served sin and you were free from righteousness. But now that you have been saved, you serve righteousness in God, and you have been freed from sin. The question Paul is answering in this passage sounds a lot like the question we heard him ask last week. Last week's question was this: Since God's grace abounds where sin increases, shouldn't we who are believers continue sinning so that God's grace can shine ever more brightly? What was Paul's answer to that question? May it never be! Of course not! His question in verse 15 sounds similar, but it's slightly different. Since by God's grace we have been rescued from the condemnation that is brought about by His law, then "Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?" The assumption he is addressing here is that if we're not under the law, then it doesn't really matter if we sin. And what's his answer? May it never be! Of course, it matters. Having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness, he says in verse 18. Let's pick up at verse 19, reading now from the NLT. Romans 6:19-22 NLT Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. When we presented ourselves as slaves to sin, we received the wages of sin. But when we present ourselves as slaves to righteousness, we receive the benefit of righteousness by God's grace. That benefit is sanctification - holiness - growing more like Christ, being set apart for God as those who will be with Him in eternity. This passage teaches "truth by way of contrasts. Obedience to sin yields unfruitfulness, shame, and death. Obedience to righteousness results in progressive sanctification and the fullness of eternal life." [Tom Constable, Tom Constable's Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Ro 6:23.] Salvation is by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. It is not dependent upon anything that you or I could ever do. We cannot contribute one thing to our salvation. But sanctification is different. We are called to participate in it. We are called to work on it. We are called to choose holiness. You gotta serve somebody. Grace demands a response. Today, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, choose righteousness, not sin. Choose to follow your true master, not the one from whom you were rescued. And if you have not made that commitment of faith in Christ, then today I put before you a choice: You can ignore His sacrifice on your behalf and accept the wages that you're due. Or you can turn to Jesus, admit that you're a sinner and that you are unable to save yourself, and accept God's free gift of eternal life in Christ. You gotta serve somebody. Who will it be? God showed you His grace at the cross where Jesus died for your sins. How will you respond? Page . Exported from Logos Bible Software, 2:26 AM September 6, 2020.