Romans 6 You Are a Slave With a Choice

 

Romans 6

You Are a Slave With a Choice

Romans 6:23

For the wages of sin is death,

but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

Through the death of Jesus Christ we find a grace not to spoil us

We find a law not to control us

Through the death of Jesus,

 We find access to God and the purpose for which we were created

In God’s love, we find the desire to obey His commandments

Whose slave are you?

Slave to yourself

Slave to laws

Or, slave to God

Who do you choose to obey?

 

 

 You Are a Slave With a Choice

 

What is sin?

 

Before Christ, you and I lived in our natural selves.

 

We did not know what sins was.

 

We lived life according to what feels good to us.

 

We were slaves to ourselves.

 

Our motto was “the purpose of life is to be happy”.

 

Although we are influenced by our surroundings…

 

Seeking our natural desires

is to be controlled by our environment.

 

Our personality style will also effect how outwardly

or inwardly we seek our natural desires.

 

We seek to find the things in life

that produce personal happiness.

 

 We become a slave to ourselves.

 

Common quotes are…

 

“If it feels good, do it.”

 

“Life is short have an affair.”

 

The question of “what is sin”

to the natural person is focused on

the thing’s others do to effect personal happiness.

 

The problem with living the “natural life”

is that it works against the desires of others.

 

Our answer to our selfishness is “law”.

 

Every group or society makes

laws to protect happiness.

 

Parents have rules to define order

 so there will be peace in the home.

 

Communities and nations write laws

to govern our natural desires.

 

God gave Moses the 10 Commandments

so people see the harm of our natural desires.

 

Although laws with punishment defines wrong doing,

it does not change the natural self

and its pursuit of personal happiness.

 

Beyond the law teaching us how to live,

it changes only things on the outside.

 

Paul in Romans 6 explains

the effects and control of sin.

 

For the “natural self” doing the things that

make us happy can make others feel unhappy

and cause us to focus on the short-term results

and make us very unhappy in the future.

 

God’s grace is not a cover up for our sins

 so we can continue to do

what seems right in our own eyes.

 

What shall we say, then?

Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?

By no means! 

Romans 6:1-2

 

Paul’s second point is the law that teaches us right from wrong,

what sin is and the punishment of sin.

 

Controlling sin by law…

 

What then?

Shall we sin because we are not under law

but under grace? By no means!

Romans 6:15

 

Both grace and law cannot change or remove our sin.

 

Think about the parents who love a child so much

they give them everything they want and

protect that child from all consequences.

 

That grace and love will not keep the child

from doing wrong and may encourage it.

 

The parents who raise up a child under the law,

uses force to control wrong behavior.

 

This force may make things look good on the surface,

 but under the surface is rebellion.

 

Paul never says grace is bad

and never says law is bad.

 

Jesus also pointed out the importance

of grace and the law.

 

So, if grace and the law cannot control sin…

 

What can?

 

Paul says…

 

 I put this in human terms because you

 are weak in your natural selves.

Romans 6:19

 

Paul uses a term humans would be familiar with…

 

 “Slavery”.

 

In our “natural selves”…

 

 We offered our bodies in slavery to impurity

Romans 6:19

 

What benefit did you reap at that time from the things

 you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!

 Romans 6:21

 

What has the power to change us?

 

What has the power to keep us

from doing wrong, from sin?

 

But now that you have been set free from sin

and have become slaves to God,

 the benefit you reap leads to holiness,

and the result is eternal life.

Romans 6:22

 

We will always be slaves…

 

 The choice is what is our master?

 

The only master that can set us free

from our natural desires

that lead to death, is God.

 

Only by becoming a slave to God

can we be free.

 

Paul throughout Romans 6,

 focuses on “death”.

 

The death as a result of our sin.

 

And the result of Jesus Christ’s death.

 

If we unite with Jesus and His death…

 

 We will die to our natural selves.

 

Uniting with Christ is a choice.

 

A choice made in the heart.

 

It is an internal change that has

the power to set us free from sin.

 

“the benefit you reap leads to holiness,

and the result is eternal life”

 

You and I will always be slaves.

 

But we do have a choice as

to what we will be a slave to?

 

When you were slaves to sin,

you were free from the control of righteousness.

Romans 6:20

 

What will you be a slave to…

 

 Your natural selves?

 

Your natural self does not want to be controlled or be a servant of what is right

Freedom to Go, Do, Say, whatever serves you best

 

Slaves to the Law 

 

To be like the pharisees who used 

the law to control outward actions.

 

The law to control the freedom to Go, Do, Say  

 

Or, will you become a slave to God…

 

To go where He wants you to Go.

 

To do what He wants you to Do.

 

 And to say what He wants you to Say?

 

You can only become a slave to God

if you die to yourself.

 

Only then will you become free

to find the happiness and

purpose you were made for.

 

Romans 6:23…

 

For the wages of sin is death,

but the gift of God is eternal life

in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

Through the death of Jesus Christ…

 

 We find a grace not to spoil us.

 

We find a law not to control us.

 

Through the death of Jesus…

 

 We find access to God and

the purpose for which we were created.

In God’s love,

we find the desire to obey His commandments.

 

Whose slave are you?...

 

Slave to yourself?

 

Slave to laws?

 

Or, slave to God?

 

Who do you choose to obey?

 

 

 

Scripture Reading

 

Romans 6 NIV

 

6:1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

 

5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

 

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

 

11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

 

15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey — whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

 

19 I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.