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3.26.23 Romans 6:15-23 Pastor Sam Porges · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  Romans chapter 6, verses 15 to 23. We're going to continue in our study, and I want to do a little bit of review of what we covered last week, just because what we covered last week ties in so well with what we're covering this morning. And so if you were with us last week, you know that we said we started a new section in the book of Romans, right? In chapters 4 and 5, Paul covers the topic of justification.
• 0:21
  How can I be made right with God? But then in chapter 6, he begins a new section called sanctification. And if you've been here for any amount of time, you know we've got these six banners up here in the back where we've split Romans thematically. And we have now moved to the third banner. And we defined sanctification last week this way. We said sanctification is the process by which a person becomes increasingly Christ-like.
• 0:50
  through cooperation with the Holy Spirit. So justification answers the question, how can I be made right with God? But sanctification answers the question, how can I as a justified person grow in godliness? We said that if we want to grow in godliness, we must cooperate with the Spirit of God working through the Word of God. And any of you who have worked with kids in any capacity know
• 1:19
  That things go easier when your kids cooperate, right? I have a four-month-old son, Hudson. I just tell him, you know, like, Hudson, I'm going to put this onesie on you like we have every day of your four-month life. So just cooperate. I'm going to suck these boogers out of your nose with this weird suction thing. And I know that it's not fun, but you've done it before. And it's way easier if you cooperate, right?
• 1:50
  Cooperation is key. And in the same way, in our relationship with the Lord, when we cooperate with the Lord and we do what he says, our spiritual growth comes so much easier. And so over time, God sanctifies us. He makes us more holy by adjusting us bit by bit to become more like Jesus. Six or seven years ago, I was at this gym.
• 2:17
  doing this certain lift, and I know it doesn't look like it, but I was at this gym, I promise, and we were lifting. And during this lift, I felt something in my shoulder pop. And it was incredibly painful, so I dropped the weight. Couldn't really move my arm much higher than right about here. And so went home and talked with a guy who comes here to this church who works in the chiropractic world, right? And so he started...
• 2:45
  recommending me to just some chiropractors, sending me to the chiropractic office. And it was really interesting because I started going to the chiropractor for a few months because the pain was still occurring. I couldn't lift my arms over my head or really carry any weight higher than this. And so I started seeing these chiropractors and they would do every sort of adjustment on my shoulder. It's like, put your arm here. Let's pop it this way. Let's try to put your arm here. Let's pop it this way. Let's do every, they were flinging this thing all over, trying to get it.
• 3:13
  to work again. But it just wasn't working for a few months until this friend recommended me to this location in Arvada. And in Arvada is where I met this guy named Dr. Allen. If God were to ever call someone to become a chiropractor, it's this guy.
• 3:41
  You walk in and he's immediately joyful. He loves to see you. He's a believer. He loves Jesus. And he is really good at his job. And so after a few months of this not being fixed, I came in and I said, this is how I heard it. This is how they've been trying to adjust it. And he says, oh, I know how to fix it. And I thought, okay. What he did was he said, you're feeling pain here, but the problem is actually a vertebrae right back up here.
• 4:06
  in your back, where your neck meets your upper back. And it's a very difficult adjustment, but because that is out of place, it's pulling everything here. So it's really tense and it's shooting bad nerve signals down into your shoulder. And so I thought, all right. He sat me down, adjusted my neck, and it stopped hurting. And so I started seeing him naturally, right? Week after week after week.
• 4:31
  And now that I'm six, seven years from that point, there is no pain, and this vertebrae sits more correctly through being adjusted over time. And so as I went to see Alan, he began explaining to me his philosophy of chiropractic. He's just talking to you while he's popping things and whatever, and he said a lot of chiropractors have what he called the Hedo philosophy.
• 5:00
  You just hit every dang one, and you're just going to try to pop everything, right? And he said, no, I want to adjust the ones that are out of place so that your body can function how it's supposed to. He says, especially in your spine, when there's a vertebrae that's out of alignment, what it's doing is it's compressing the nerves. And so whatever part of your body that nerve is responsible for is going to not function correctly because you're not adjusted rightly.
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  alignment. And as I kept going to the chiropractor week after week, I learned that sanctification is a lot like going to the chiropractor. When we come to Jesus, our joints are out of place, if you will. We don't walk like the people that God wants us to be. We don't relate to others, our environment, ourselves, or God rightly, and we need God to adjust us.
• 5:59
  So that we can clearly receive the signals of his word and his spirit in our lives. And God is so patient. He's so kind and he's so caring that he's willing to consistently make adjustments in your life and in my life over time. So that our end result is spiritual health. But what he calls us to do is to cooperate. He calls us to cooperate. Last week.
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  In Romans chapter 6, verses 1 to 14, I introduced this loophole question idea that characterizes much of Romans chapter 6 and 7. And in this section of the book, Paul addresses some issues before they're ever voiced. And so we saw in chapter 6, verse 1, the first loophole question, right? Should we, as the people of God, continue to just walk in sin so that God's grace may abound? This question showed a desire to embrace justification.
• 6:58
  while evading sanctification. I want to embrace God's forgiveness, but then I just want to live however I want. I don't want to live a righteous, holy life. It's like a Christian living loophole, right? And so we received an adjustment in our thinking by studying our union with Christ.
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  He says, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. Why? Because you've been united with Christ in his death and in his resurrection. It makes no sense if your old self has been crucified with Christ to continue living in sin because your new self in Christ has been raised. It's alive and it's well. And so we received that adjustment last week. We're going to receive another adjustment, if you will, this week in verses 15 to 23 with our second loophole question.
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  And so, if you are able, with Bibles in hand, let's stand in honor of God's word. And I'm going to read verses 15 to 23. It says this,
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  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, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I'm 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. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
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  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. 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. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Father, we do ask this morning that through your word and by your spirit,
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  You would cause us to understand that we are to walk in righteousness as your people, not in sin. You are deserving of our everything this morning. Show us that in the text. Be glorified, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Well, we learned last week that each loophole question in Romans 6 and 7 arises from something.
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  That precedes the passage. And so in chapter 6, verse 1, the idea that preceded the question was in chapter 5, verse 20, where he says, And then we get to chapter 6, verse 1. So if God's grace abounds all the more, shall I continue sinning to display how gracious God is? He says, by no means. And this second question arises out of verse 14, which we concluded with last week. Look at verse 14 in your Bibles.
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  He says, for sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace. And then verse 15, what then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means. And so the response we're going to see this morning is that Paul continues the thought of unity with Christ, but this time he describes the Christian life as servitude to righteousness.
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  Now, this question in verse 15 and the question we saw last week in verse 1 display a false logic. We saw last week that the false logic which bridged chapter 5 verse 20 to chapter 6 verse 1 is that sin may continue to freely reign in the life of the believer because it displays the grace of God. And here the false logic from verse 14 to verse 15 says that sinful acts don't really matter in the life of a Christian because Christians aren't under the law.
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  They're under grace. This line of thought says that law acts as accountability. Now, we would agree with that, right? Law acts as an accountability against evil. But it says that because law is an accountability and Christians aren't under the Old Testament mosaic law as a covenant anymore, then Christians are free from accountability.
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  Right? There's no check against our sin. There's nothing keeping record of our wrongdoings. And Paul's response here in verse 15 is identical to that of verse 2. He says, by no means. God forbid. Living in the grace of the new covenant does not mean that all moral restraints are cast off or that the morality established in the Mosaic law is nullified. In fact, Christians, more than anyone else,
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  should display by their lives the heart of the law in the Old Testament. This is what we've been covering in the Sermon on the Mount, if you've been coming on Wednesday nights. When Jesus came, he didn't throw out the Old Testament law. He said, I've come to fulfill it. I've come to make it more fully known. And what he does is he gets at the heart of the law and then calls citizens of the kingdom of heaven to display that righteousness in their lives, to get at the heart.
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  Last week I quoted one man who said this, justification has inescapable moral implications. Justification has inescapable moral implications. Your salvation has a moral bearing on your life. It's not forgiveness without holiness. Justification must lead to sanctification. The Mosaic Law had ethical norms to follow, but so does living under grace.
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  The MO, if you will, of living under grace is righteousness. Instead of responding to this loophole question by fleshing out our identification with Christ in his death and in his resurrection, Paul states that the lifestyle of a Christian, and really if you think about it, the lifestyle of every person, proves which master he or she truly belongs to. Look at verse 16 with me. He says,
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  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. Every person, Paul says, serves one of two masters, God or Satan, sin or righteousness. It's not possible, he says, to serve both, nor does he give us a third.
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  option. No one is masterless. Everyone serves something. The adjustment to the false logic on display here is that if God really is your God, you will obey him. You can claim that God is your God, but if you're not obeying him, then he's not your God. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
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  What does he say? Lawlessness. Notice, this passage is not meant to scare us with some vague idea of spiritual defection. No, Jesus says to these people, you don't obey the will of God.
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  You're a worker of lawlessness. And so although your life may have been filled with many dramatic works and many people may regard you as very spiritual, I don't know you. In John 14, 15, Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. The apostle John writes, this is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie.
• 15:43
  and we do not practice the truth. And then one chapter later, he says, By this we may know that we are in him. Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. Our obedience proves our master. Paul likens obedience, whether it's to sin or to righteousness, as slavery or servitude. And as he did in verses 12 to 14, which we studied last week, he presents to us a choice.
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  either to present ourselves to unrighteousness or to righteousness. We can choose to live under the harsh slave master of sin, but he says the sequel to that story is death. On the other hand, we can choose to submit ourselves to righteousness. We can choose to submit ourselves to God, because as we'll see in the following verses, the sequel to that story is eternal life. One is a legitimate way to live the Christian life. The other is...
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  Now this does not mean that Christians never struggle with sin. This is the whole point of Romans 6 and 7. Paul is teaching us how to struggle with sin as a people who have been made right with God. But this does mean that the life of a believer should generally be characterized by righteousness. Francis Schaeffer, who was an apologist 60 years ago, he said this, There's an overwhelming difference between failing to be perfect and letting sin reign in your life.
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  There is an overwhelming difference between failing to be perfect and letting sin reign in your life. In the process of sanctification, what you and I are aiming for is not perfection, but progress. We're not aiming for perfection or progress, but progress. The question we should occasionally ask ourselves is not, what are all the ways that I'm imperfect? Because I'm willing to bet that you know the ways that you're imperfect.
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  I know the ways that I'm imperfect. Probably not all of them, but a lot of them. And if all we ever think is, man, I'm so imperfect, I'm so bad, not only first is that self-centered, it's self-absorbed because all you're doing is thinking about yourself, but also you're not living in the victory that God has for you. You're not living as a conqueror even though that's what you are. So the question we ask ourselves is not, what are all the ways I'm imperfect? The question we ask ourselves is, am I making progress toward Jesus?
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  Am I closer to Jesus than I was a year ago? Am I closer to him than I was two years ago? All of us with our various backgrounds, with the various things we struggle with, are coming to Jesus from different areas, right? But the question is, are we making progress toward him? The only way to make progress in your spiritual life is to submit yourself like a servant to righteousness.
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  And Paul expounds on this idea in the following verses. And so in your Bibles, look at verse 17 with me. He says, Paul rejoices that they who were once enslaved to sin have been transformed by the gospel and set free from sin.
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  Now, is anyone else in this room this morning grateful to have been transformed by the gospel and then set free from your sin? Yes. There's a verse I read last week in our study. It's verse 7, right? And I read it slowly, but Paul just says this, for one who has died has been set free from sin. Can I get an amen from all the people who have died with Christ today? Yes, our old selves are dead with him. Our new selves are alive.
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  We have been freed. But this freedom doesn't result in a people with no master. No, Christians have transferred from one master to another. They've been set free from the tyrant of sin, and they enter into the service of a benevolent new master, righteousness. Paul makes clear that this change in obedience is not external behavior modification.
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  but a change of obedience that originates in the heart. Again, he says in this verse 17, thanks be to God that you have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you are committed. Jonathan Edwards, who is considered by many to be the most brilliant theologian in America's history, would put it this way. He says, in Christ, we're given a new appetite for righteousness.
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  Before coming to Christ, he says all of us are like lions and righteousness to us is like vegetables, right? Now, can a lion eat vegetables, technically? Sure. Is it going to? No. Why? It doesn't have an appetite for vegetables. It doesn't want to eat that. That's what we're like before we come to Christ. Like the things of God just don't taste good to me.
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  And we may play religious games. We may put up a religious facade so that everyone likes us because we're so religious and so moral, but in our hearts, we don't actually love God, and God sees that. We don't have an appetite for righteousness. But now, as the people of God, we hunger and we thirst for righteousness because the Spirit has caused us to be born again and given us a new appetite. This is what Jonathan Edwards would call religious affections.
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  If you've heard that phrase or maybe read that book, he's given us religious affections. We care about the things of God. We want to walk in obedience to the Lord. We are, as Peter says in 2 Peter 1, partakers of the divine nature who are free to obey God. And this morning, I wonder if the gospel has transformed your heart, if the Holy Spirit has given you this appetite.
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  I wonder if you have religious affections in you, if you actually care for the things of God, or if you're merely trying to change your behavior, hoping that that change will seep its way into your heart, all the while knowing that it's not going to. Have you been transformed by the gospel? It's like those chiropractors trying to fix this shoulder instead of fixing the source of the problem. I didn't need this fixed. I needed this fixed so that this could be healthy in the same way. When we transfer from the master of sin,
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  to the new master of righteousness god begins to work that change from the inside he begins to work it from our hearts and so have you transferred masters or are you still enslaved to your sin because if you are today can be the day that that changes god will ask for everything he requires everything but you can be free from your sin in verse 19 paul
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  acknowledges the limitations of this analogy that he's using of slavery to righteousness. He says this, Now that phrase, I'm speaking in human terms, right, is for him to say,
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  Like at some point, this analogy of servitude or slavery breaks down. And honestly, especially for us Americans, who often take our understanding and maybe our mental images of the transatlantic slave trade with all of its horrors, and we project that onto the biblical mention of slavery. Those two are not the same. And neither one is good.
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  But Paul's point here is to say, the analogy breaks down, but I'm using it to get a point across, which is that righteousness demands everything. God's call to be sanctified demands total allegiance, total obedience, and total accountability. At one time, the Romans had presented themselves wholeheartedly to the service of lawlessness, which he says only led to more lawlessness.
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  The Apostle John echoes this idea in 1 John 3, verse 4, where he says everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is, what does he say? Sin is lawlessness. Now here's something interesting I find about this passage. In verse 19, Paul uses that word lawlessness twice. Lawlessness leading to more lawlessness. The reason I find that interesting is because this whole argument he's addressing is all about living lawlessly.
• 25:23
  living as if there are no constraints, living as if there are no rules. This is verse 15. Shall we continue to sin because we're not under law? It's like here, Paul is saying, look at your former life before Christ. You already lived as if you weren't under any law. And look where that got you. Your lawlessness, your bad idea of freedom only led to more lawlessness. Your sin birthed sin.
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  and that sin gave birth to more sin, and that sin gave birth to more sin. Now, however, he says, present yourselves to righteousness. Now, there's two words I want you to catch in verse 19, okay? He says, I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations for, what are the next two words? What is it? For just as you once presented yourselves to sin, now present yourselves to righteousness.
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  He's saying present yourself to righteousness with the same commitment, the same enthusiasm, the same obedience you once gave to sin. If they once devoted everything to their pursuit of their own sin, which is a brutal tyrant, how much more should they now devote everything in their lives to the pursuit of righteousness? Who is not a brutal tyrant? Who is a loving Lord? Sin promises satisfaction but causes emptiness. Sin promises delight.
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  but it nurtures depression. It promises life, but delivers death. Righteousness, on the other hand, promises satisfaction. It promises delight. It promises life, and it delivers. Righteousness is such a better master than sin.
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  And when we compare the life that is dominated by sin with the life that is dominated by righteousness, why would we ever choose the life that is dominated by sin? Why would we ever go back to that? It only makes sense that Christians would more enthusiastically serve the Lord than how they once served sin.
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  The unbelieving world in which we live thinks of the master of righteousness or God as master as this burdensome, joy-stealing God who wants to withhold good from you. But we Christians know that although we may be called slaves of God, we are the freest people on earth. Look at how Eugene Peterson describes this. Freedom is on everyone's lips.
• 28:35
  Freedom is announced and celebrated, but not many feel or act free. Evidence? We live in a nation of complainers and a society of addicts. Everywhere we turn, we hear complaints. I can't spend my money the way I want. I can't spend my time the way I want. I can't be myself. I'm under the control of others all the time. And everywhere we meet the addicts. Addiction to alcohol and drugs, to compulsive work habits, and to obsessive consumptions.
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  We trade masters, we stay enslaved. The Christian is a person who recognizes that our real problem is not in achieving freedom, but in learning service under a better master. The Christian realizes that every relationship that excludes God becomes oppressive. Recognizing and realizing that, we urgently want to live under the mastery of God. The people of God know that no one is masterless.
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  Everyone serves something. And if you really want to be free, if you really want to have joy, you really want to have life, live under the mastery of God. Under the tutelage of righteousness, we learn the ways of grace. And God adjusts us one joint at a time to become more like Jesus.
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  Paul concludes his argument by comparing the fruit that our sinful lives once bore with the fruit we now produce as Christians. Look with me at verse 20. He says,
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  eternal life. As former slaves of sin, Paul says we were once free in regard to righteousness. Now, this does not mean that sinners who don't believe in God are not held accountable for their unrighteousness, but simply that at one point, we didn't consider righteousness our master, and so we lived accordingly. We didn't obey. And I don't know how it is for you, but when you think back on your life before you met Christ, when you think back on
• 31:06
  The time when you didn't consider God your master. When you were free from all God's rules and all his limitations. Are you proud of the things that your life produced? I know for me, when I look back on the times before I submitted my life to the Lord, when I think on the things I was involved in, the memories produce embarrassment and shame, not pride. The fruit of my life at the time was rotten.
• 31:45
  It was displeasing to God. It was hurtful not only to myself, but also to others. The sin in which I once walked produced death. And not just death in the final, eschatological sense, but death in all its present forms. Now, however, that you've surrendered to God, consider what God produces in you. Love, joy, peace.
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  patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and things like these. This fruit is fresh. It's a blessing to others and to God. By obeying our master righteousness, we get to experience eternal life, and not just eternal life in the final eschatological sense, but life in all its forms now. The fruit of righteousness is so superior to the fruit,
• 32:50
  of sin why wouldn't we choose the fruit of righteousness why wouldn't we choose to walk in that jesus in the sermon on the mount if you've been coming on wednesday nights has said this exact same thing it's funny one of our elders here john said a week ago i said there's a lot of overlap between what we're studying on sundays and what we're studying on wednesdays matthew 5 and then romans 6. and i thought yeah that's true jesus tells the crowds
• 33:25
  In the Sermon on the Mount, if you build your life on my words, when the storm comes, you'll be stable. But if you don't, when the storm comes, you're going to crumble. And we see this. It's so evident. Think about the life that's dominated by love, joy, peace, patience, the whole thing, right? When the storm of life comes, there's a stability there. But think about the life that is dominated by anger, lust, promise-breaking, revenge, and hate.
• 33:55
  That life is a mess, right? Choose the better fruit, he says. Or as Jesus said to Martha, right? Mary has chosen the better portion to sit and listen at my feet. Choose the better portion. Our study comes to an end with this well-known verse, which we are encouraging you guys to memorize along with us. All these verses we are memorizing over the course of the year on the Roman's road. But it's a verse that's well-known to us. It's verse 23. He says,
• 34:28
  No other verse contains more contrast. Paul contrasts God against sin, a gift against wages, eternal life against death. He says that the death that our sin earns is a wage. It's a paycheck for work done. On the other hand,
• 35:01
  God doesn't give us what we deserve. He's not giving you your wage. God doesn't write the paycheck that we deserve because of our sin, but rather God loves to give gifts. And the gift he has given you and the gift he's given me is nothing less than eternal life. And through whom does that gift come? Only through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
• 35:34
  What a fitting way to end chapter 6, right, with this succinct little gospel presentation in verse 23. We've learned so far that in our struggle against sin, God is with us every step of the way. He's giving us every resource we need to submit to righteousness and fight the fight against sin. And so this morning, if you're thinking,
• 35:53
  I want to follow the master righteousness. I don't want to follow the tyrant of sin anymore. I want to cooperate with God and grow in godliness. Then here's the question I would encourage you to think about. What adjustments does God want to make in your life today? And how can you cooperate with him? What small changes is he making in your life to make you into the person that he wants you to be?
• 36:26
  The Christians in Rome needed these adjustments, and so do we. And again, God is not expecting you to be perfect today, but he does want you to cooperate with him. He does want to see progress in our lives as we work with him. Sometimes the changes he calls us to make are hard. They hurt. But we can trust that God will take those changes and lead us into spiritual health. And so when you hear that voice of your old master,
• 36:56
  beckoning you to come back into his service. Take a moment to remember all the damage that he caused in your life, all the damage that sin does, and then remember the great blessing that God has in store for you as we submit ourselves to righteousness. Instead of obeying sin's siren call, listen for that still, small voice of the Spirit bringing to mind scriptures.
• 37:26
  bringing to mind the words of Jesus and leading you into holiness and obey that one instead, what you'll find is that you're far more blessed living under the mastery of God than under the tyranny of Satan. Because when we do that, instead of sin, we get God. Instead of wages, we get a gift. And instead of death, we get eternal life. All through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Let me pray.
• 38:00
  Father, we are grateful this morning that you have an abundance of grace toward us. Every time we look to the heavens, we can expect to receive mercy from you. You don't leave us to fight sin on our own. You are with us every step of the way. You are working in us as we seek to work out our salvation. You are nearer than we often recognize.
• 38:37
  of the hurtfulness that sin has caused in our lives, the damage he's done. Remind us of the goodness of righteousness, the blessing that you give us when we cooperate with you. We give you all the glory, all in the name of your son, Jesus. Amen.