Who is your Master?

We are all slave to someone or something?

Paul addresses in the beginning in Romans that we have all sinned and the penalty of sin is death. Sin leads to shame and death. Then lays down the work of Christ that we are dead to sin and alive in Christ.

Matthew 6:24

English Standard Version Chapter 6

24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Romans 6:15

English Standard Version Chapter 6

Slaves to Righteousness

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.

Paul lays out

Grace is not a license to sin!

Why - Read verse 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?

You can’t be slaves to both sin and God

Why the term slavery

Rome is about 48 percent slaves.

Slavery is evil. Paul is condoning slavery

All times of slavery to today

Some people even choose themselves to what to be slaves to:

Alcohol

Drugs

Pornography

Are phones (Media, News, Social apps. )

Man on Sanamoica Boardwalk

Front I am a slave to Jesus

back - Whos slave are you

We are all slaves to somebody

antonomous - it is a lie

you are deceiving yourself

Two groups of people

The legalists - Jewish believers - hyper focused on the law

Antinomions - Grace you can do anything

Bob Dylan

You may be an ambassador to England or France You may like to gamble, you might like to dance You may be the heavyweight champion of the world You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed You're gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you're gonna have to serve somebody

John Lennon

Wrote a song - Serve yourself

We don’t see that we serve anyone - Independent

Joshua 24:15 “And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.””

Ephesians 2:1-3 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

3. Who are Lord is determines the fruit we produce.

Fruits of the Spirit

Galatians 5:22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,”