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Indeed, you have sung well tonight.

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Now let's open our Bibles together for our study to Romans chapter 6 as we look at the

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last half of this significant chapter.

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I'll begin reading in verse 14 where it says, You are not under law, but under grace.

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What then?

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While we sin because we are not under law, but under grace, may it never be.

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Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are

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slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting

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in righteousness?

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But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the

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heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from

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sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

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I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.

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For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting

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in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting

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in sanctification.

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

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Therefore, what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed?

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For the outcome of those things is death.

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But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derived your benefit resulting

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in sanctification and the outcome, eternal life.

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For the wages of sin is death.

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

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The question that we examine in this paragraph is this, are we free to sin?

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Or have we been freed from the law, now being under grace, in order that we might be free

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to sin?

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The very question causes Paul to recoil in reprehension.

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He says, may it never be, God forbid it should never be so, that we have been freed in order

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that we might sin.

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What we have done is that we have been set free from slavery to one master, we have become

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enslaved to another master.

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Paul doesn't particularly like that analogy of slavery to God and to righteousness.

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In fact, you find in verse 19, the first part of the verse even apologizes for using that

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human kind of an analogy.

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But he says, in the weakness of their flesh he's speaking in a way which they will clearly

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understand.

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Joseph Ton has spoken at our church at least a couple of times in our missions festivals.

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He reminds us of the privileges of political and religious liberty that we so often take

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for granted.

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You will recall he is a pastor who for a number of years served the Lord in Romania, his homeland,

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but he was exiled because he courageously preached the gospel, even under the severe

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restrictions of that communist government.

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Now he is free.

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Now he lives in the United States.

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He is free.

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He is removed from the restrictive laws of Romania.

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But on the other hand, he is not free to live any way that he wants to.

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He is now under another set of laws, the laws of the United States of America.

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There were some people in Paul's day who tried to understand what it meant to be free from

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the law.

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They got confused.

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They thought that it meant that they could live any way they wanted to live.

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Paul is explaining here that indeed we have been set free from the law of God, but that

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freedom from the law does not mean freedom to sin.

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It means that we have been set under a new principle, the principle of grace, and we

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have been enslaved to righteousness and to God.

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My main theme tonight as we look at this paragraph is this, that we should present ourselves

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to God as his servants.

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There are two compelling reasons that we should do that.

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Hopefully you received an outline as you came in, did you?

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If you did, wave them at me so I know that they're out there.

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Well, isn't that pretty?

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You'd think it's Palm Sunday already.

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That's good.

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Okay, you've got the outlines.

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You will notice that is the main thesis, that we should present ourselves to God as his

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servants.

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There are two reasons that we should do that.

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First, because the one whom we serve is our master.

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Secondly, because of the benefit that we receive from serving God.

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Now as we think of the first reason, there are five key words I want you to jot down

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in your outline.

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This will help you follow my thoughts.

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They all start with P. There's going to be a little pea patch here tonight that we're

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planting.

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It's spring, isn't it?

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Possibilities.

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Keyword number one.

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Principle.

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Past.

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And practice.

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If you'll keep those five words before you, I think you can follow me as we work through

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the text before us this evening.

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We need to present ourselves to God as his servants for this reason, because the one

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whom we serve is our master.

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He makes that clear in verse 16.

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He says actually there are only two possibilities, only two masters.

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Either disobedience or obedience.

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Or to put it a different way, either sin or God.

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Notice he says in the middle of verse 16, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either

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of sin, resulting in death, or of obedience, resulting in righteousness.

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So there are only two possibilities.

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We are either enslaved to sin or we are enslaved to righteousness.

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That is, to sin or to God.

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Another way of saying it.

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Now all unsafe people are enslaved to sin.

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All are under sin.

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Paul has already told us that in the book of Romans.

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There is no choice about that.

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Every person outside of faith in Jesus Christ is enslaved to sin.

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Maybe a nice person, maybe a religious person, maybe do some good things, relatively speaking.

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But all who are outside of Jesus Christ are enslaved to sin.

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What about believers?

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Well, believers have been released from that slavery to be enslaved to God.

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But when it comes down to the practice of life, there are some believers who are still

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serving sin, though they are not enslaved to sin anymore.

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They don't have to serve sin, but that is a choice they make.

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And from time to time we all make that decision.

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That's why the Apostle is impressing upon us here, be enslaved to God.

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Serve Him.

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Because He is now your Master.

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Present yourselves to God and the members of your body as instruments of righteousness

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to God.

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Now we can do that, and we should do that, because of our position.

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And what is that position?

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A couple of phrases describe it.

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He says, you are not under law, but under grace.

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What He means here is that we are not related to God on the basis, because of the principle

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of law, that is keeping rules and regulations telling us to do this or not to do that.

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We are not related to God on the basis of law keeping.

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But He says that we are related to God on the basis of grace, that is God's unmerited

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favor toward us.

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We have been freed from the demands and the penalty that come with the law.

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The law indeed did make demands of us, which we could not fulfill, because we were sinners.

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As one poem says, quoted by Kenneth Wiest, do this and live, the law commands, but gives

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me neither feet nor hands.

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A better word the gospel brings, it bids me fly and gives me wings.

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We have been freed, praise God, from the law with its demands and its penalty for those

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who fail to keep the demands.

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We are related to God on the basis of grace, and because of that, we now are able to present

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ourselves to God as His servants.

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There's another phrase that He uses here to describe our position.

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Not only are we related to God on the basis of grace, but He says furthermore that we

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are freed from sin.

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We see that in verse 7.

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He who has died, that is with Christ, is freed from sin.

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We see the very same phrase used in verse 18 in our text.

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Having been freed from sin.

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And again in verse 22, but now having been freed from sin.

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And in verse 11, a similar thought.

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Consider yourselves dead to sin.

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Our freedom came through death with Christ, that's the point.

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I can now present myself as a servant to the Lord because I have been freed from my old

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master.

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Sin no longer has dominion over me.

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I have died to sin.

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I have been resurrected.

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Free, so that now I can give myself freely to the Lord.

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That brings us to our third key word, principle.

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There's a certain principle that's involved in the reasoning that Paul uses, that principle's

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in verse 16.

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It is that we become slaves of the one that we obey.

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And he makes it clear that we obey either sin or obedience.

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That is sin or God, one or the other.

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Not both, not both at the same time, but one or the other.

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Just as Jesus said, you cannot serve God and mammon or money.

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He said you cannot serve two masters.

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So Paul is saying, when it comes right down to it, you and I cannot serve sin and God

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at the same time.

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We cannot have our arm around both of them and claim both as our sweethearts.

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One or the other is the one that we're serving.

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That's the principle.

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Now the past, verses 17 and 18, he points back to an event that took place.

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He says, thanks be to God.

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Paul loves that phrase and he uses it here because God is the one who makes all of this

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possible he's going to talk about.

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Thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart.

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Paul is saying that sometime at one point in our past, we became obedient, not superficially

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but from deep within us.

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From the heart, there was a heart obedience that went forth from us.

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You became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching.

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What's that mean?

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The gospel?

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That body of truth about Jesus Christ?

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That doctrine of him?

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He says you became heart obedient to the gospel truth to which you were committed.

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Of course he does not say to which you committed yourself.

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But he says to which you were committed.

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It's passive.

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I think that's significant.

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Literally he says to which you were handed over.

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The idea is here a total commitment took place at that point.

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To which he says you were handed over having been freed from sin.

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That's passive also, not active.

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You didn't free yourself.

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He says you were freed.

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Someone, something acted upon you and accomplished this.

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And you became slaves of righteousness or you were enslaved to righteousness.

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Again it's passive.

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I believe that what Paul is emphasizing here is the sovereign work of God in his grace

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saving us.

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He's pointing back to salvation.

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That moment when we often say we found the Lord or we accepted Christ.

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Now there may not be anything wrong with those phrases but what Paul is saying here is that

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the emphasis is on what God did.

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And someone has said the emphasis is on the wrong syllable in the way that we often say

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it.

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Let's get it on the right syllable and that is that God is the one who saved us.

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He is the one who totally handed us over, freed us from sin, and enslaved us to himself.

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And so he is pointing to the past when we became obedient, not merely compliant.

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We didn't simply allow ourselves to be molded into some shape as though we were a piece

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of metal being beaten down and we were compliant to this mold.

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But he says that there was a radical thing that took place.

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We became obedient from the heart.

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And here I return to that phrase that something profound happened to us that moment that we

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trusted Christ.

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Something profound happened.

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We from the inside were made new people.

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We are what we were not.

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We've been freed from sin and we have become slaves of righteousness.

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Donald Gray Barnhouse used to tell the story of a fisherman named Old John.

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Let me share it with you.

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He said, years ago in Scotland there was a fisherman called Old John who was bound by

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strong drink.

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He took the money earned from his catch and spent it on liquor while his wife and children

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suffered.

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They lived in a hovel at the end of a fishing village and eked out an existence in extreme

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poverty.

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But Old John came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.

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After that he brought all his money home and gave it to his wife.

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He worked steadily and soon there were new clothes, plenty of food and coal for the fire.

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After a few weeks of this transformed existence, the wife said, John, if you're going to keep

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on like this, we should move into a better house.

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Right, said John, I shall go and see the landlord at once.

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Made his way through the town to the landlord and asked to rent a certain house.

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The landlord said, I would never rent a good house to you, Old John.

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How do you say that, asked John, you don't know me at all.

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Of course I know you, said the landlord.

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You're drunken, Old John, the fisherman.

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You're mistaken, said John, you have never seen me before.

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Old John is dead.

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I am New John, a new creature in Christ Jesus.

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And he poured out a handful of coins before the astonished landlord and soon New John

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was living in a new house.

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That's what Paul is pointing back to, when that transformation took place, when we no

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longer were the old creatures we were, but all things became new in Jesus Christ.

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And what we were before, that old man was put to death.

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It was crucified with Christ.

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We were buried and then raised again as a new man with a new identity, a transformed

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inner being, able now to present ourselves to God as his servants.

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And so in verse 19 he says, after his initial apology for using these kinds of terms regarding

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our serving God, he says, for just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity

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and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness.

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He's pointing again to the past.

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He's saying before you presented your abilities, the members of your body, you presented your

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potential, all about you, you presented as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness.

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And it only led to degeneration, more lawlessness.

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You know the lie that sin tells is that if you serve it, it will satisfy you.

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Sin says if you will do this, you will be happy.

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It says if you will do what I tell you to do, you will be fulfilled in life.

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Don't you believe it for a moment.

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You present yourself to sin, it would only bring forth more lawlessness and degeneration

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in your life.

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Sin never satisfies.

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Young people, write that in your heart.

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You may be tempted to serve sin and sin says to you, do this, follow the crowd, get involved

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in this, and you will be accepted.

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You will be a part of the group.

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You will be happy.

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You will have the things you want.

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Don't believe it for a moment.

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Sin lies, it deceives.

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But he says just as we once presented ourselves to sin, so now, now the things are different

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because of what's happened.

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Now, present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

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That's the practice of our lives.

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That's what he wants.

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Presenting ourselves as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

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Not degeneration, not decay, not wasting away, but rather God setting us apart, God building

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us, God making us.

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That's what sanctification is.

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It's God putting together.

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It's God building up.

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It's God growing.

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It's God transforming.

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And he says that when you and I present all that we have and all that we are to God, that

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that's the result when we're slaves to righteousness.

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Does it pay to serve God?

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Does it pay to serve righteousness in your life?

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Yes, there may be those who will think you're a little out of touch with the culture around

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you.

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There may be those who will think that you're not quite with it, but in the end, you are

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going to be the benefactor.

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Now that really brings us to the second reason that we ought to present ourselves to God.

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It's the benefit we receive.

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Verses 20 through 23.

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He speaks first about the benefit of service to sin.

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And the answer really is implied here.

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It's none.

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He says, when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness, therefore

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what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed?

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For the outcome of those things is death.

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He says there was no benefit, there was no advantage, there was no fruit in your life

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when you serve sin.

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Indeed, the situation of one who's enslaved to sin is described by three phrases here.

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First of all, freed from righteousness, in verse 20.

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When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

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There was no righteousness in your life or in your standing before God.

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Righteousness just was not a term that could be applied to you.

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You were free from that, sad freedom, but that was the case.

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Verse 21, he says the benefit of sin might be described in terms like this, ashamed.

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Things of which you are now ashamed.

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Guilt, shame.

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That's what we get from sin.

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Guilt and shame that clouds the life, depresses the life, that darkens.

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All of us can testify to the truthfulness of what Paul says here.

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We can look back in our lives when we serve sin.

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Those are the things of which we're now ashamed.

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And he says finally, the outcome of those things is death.

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Again, he says in verse 23, the wages of sin is death.

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What does sin pay?

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It pays death.

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That's the outcome of it.

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No benefit, no benefit, no advantage.

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But it does give death.

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The word wage that Paul uses here was a word that was used of a Roman soldier's pay.

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Now Roman soldiers were not paid regular wages like our soldiers today.

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But they lived for the most part on booty from their warfare and from selling prisoners

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to slave merchants.

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That's basically how they supported themselves.

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But soldiers did receive solarium from the Roman government.

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That was salt money.

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It was called solarium.

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It was enough to buy the salt that they needed.

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And obssonium, literally fish rations.

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It was just what they needed to eke out a living, to be able to exist.

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If they wanted something more than that, they had to take the booty from their warfare or

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sell prisoners as slaves.

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The Roman government was committed only to those two things.

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Now Paul uses the word here for fish ration.

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He says if you make sin your king, your sovereign, remember he talked about that earlier in this

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chapter, verse 12, do not let sin reign.

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That is to exercise its kingly power in your mortal body.

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He says if we choose to serve sin, the result of that is going to be sin will pay us a wage.

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That wage is death.

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Now for the one who is enslaved to sin, the unsaved person, that death certainly includes

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hell.

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It is separation from God in a permanent state or condition forever.

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Just as this life is lived separated from God, so when one dies separated from God,

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that separation becomes a permanent condition of the soul forever.

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One must suffer in the fires of hell.

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The wages of sin is death.

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But not just that kind of death.

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There's also death in one's present experience.

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What one experiences in life, no benefit, but only decay, only degeneration.

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Someone might foolishly say, oh sure, yeah I know a person who's not a Christian, and

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you ought to see all that he has.

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He has a nice home, he has a fancy car, he has vacations that he can take, he has a lot

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of things.

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But if he says sin doesn't pay, hey, he hasn't gotten to the final payday.

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You see that's part of the deceitfulness of sin.

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It kind of strings a person along until bam, it's too late.

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It's too late.

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I got word this morning, just after, this afternoon rather, just after we got home from

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church that an uncle of mine, a brother to my mother, died this morning.

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He was a man who was a good man in many ways.

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He was in military service, retired as a military officer years ago, was in charge of the industries

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and the state prison system in Kansas later, retired from that, able to travel, enjoyed

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that, had a lot of what this life can offer, but he didn't have Christ.

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When the pastor of the church in Kansas where I grew up went to visit him a few weeks ago

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to talk to him about his soul, his wife would hardly let a word get in edgewise.

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She would not let the subject come close to spiritual things.

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You've seen people like that.

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My uncle knew he had cancer and he knew he was dying.

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He was scared.

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He was scared.

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At one point the pastor asked my uncle if he could pray with him before he left.

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Just, can I have prayer with you?

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He said no.

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I don't want prayer.

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Now I cannot say tonight where he is.

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I know that he heard the gospel.

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He has said in services where I've preached.

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He has heard it from my mother.

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But tonight I fear for his soul.

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And as much as I know, he slipped into a Christless eternity this morning.

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Now my friend, that is the true outcome of being enslaved to sin.

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And for that, there is no remedy ever.

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Thank God that those of us who have trusted Jesus Christ do not have to anticipate that

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outcome.

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We have already passed from death to life.

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How foolish then, that having been freed from death and freed from the mastery of sin, that

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we should waste our lives continuing to serve sin.

384
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:46,220
Why should we waste ourselves playing with sin when there's no advantage in serving sin?

385
00:29:46,220 --> 00:29:47,720
There's no benefit in it.

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You say is there a benefit in serving God?

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Oh yes, look at the text.

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What is our benefit of service to God?

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00:29:55,640 --> 00:30:00,200
Well he's already said that it's righteousness, which means good works, it's virtue in the

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00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:02,520
life.

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00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:11,640
He specifically mentions sanctification, verse 22, as he did back in verse 19.

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Holiness, the changing of the mind, the heart, by the transforming work of the Holy Spirit

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so that we become more and more like Jesus Christ.

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00:30:25,020 --> 00:30:28,360
Is that something that's beneficial?

395
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:30,800
To find yourself becoming more like Jesus?

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00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:33,720
Of course it is.

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Then he says eternal life.

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He says the outcome, eternal life.

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The free gift of God is eternal life.

400
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:43,320
Is he talking about heaven?

401
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:47,160
Yes, yes, heaven's in view here.

402
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:58,120
With Christ forever, the glorious state of being with the Lord, eternal life, and to

403
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:04,480
emphasize the fact that it's not the result of our serving God, he says it's the free

404
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:07,200
gift of God.

405
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:11,240
Don't get mixed up on this, it's not that we get eternal life because we choose to serve

406
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:16,560
God instead of sin.

407
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:20,040
The outcome of it all is eternal life, but it's a gift of grace.

408
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:25,600
He says the free gift of God is eternal life.

409
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:28,240
This word again, free gift, is the word charisma.

410
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:30,040
It's the grace gift.

411
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:33,240
It's the word so frequently used in the New Testament.

412
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:40,160
Interestingly it too was used of soldiers and the pay that was given to soldiers.

413
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:45,440
Charisma was a bounty which was given to soldiers on special occasions and it had nothing to

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00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:49,880
do at all with what they did in their military service.

415
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:51,780
It was just a bounty given to them.

416
00:31:51,780 --> 00:31:56,000
It was a bonus, so to speak.

417
00:31:56,000 --> 00:32:01,840
Here Paul takes that term charisma, free gift, the grace gift, and he says it's eternal life

418
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:05,760
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

419
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:12,760
Heaven is in view here, but also the present experience of walking with God.

420
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:17,560
Eternal life is not just then, it's now.

421
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:23,960
It's a quality of life that you and I can experience as we walk with God.

422
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:27,000
Let me just quote from Barnhouse briefly again.

423
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:31,180
He says putting the two parts of this text together, we see the contrast.

424
00:32:31,180 --> 00:32:38,960
As part of the rations of death, an unbeliever's mind is filled with unsatisfied questioning.

425
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:44,160
The believer's mind with the quiet satisfaction of knowing.

426
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:49,600
The unbeliever continues to question his ultimate destiny, so he spends out theories of his

427
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:50,600
origin.

428
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:57,600
On the other hand, the believer, because he has received the grace gift of eternal life,

429
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:04,120
rests in the fact that he was created by God for a purpose, and that in Christ he has come

430
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:06,960
into the accomplishment of that purpose.

431
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:09,960
The unbeliever is going he knows not where.

432
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:13,900
The believer has arrived, and he knows where.

433
00:33:13,900 --> 00:33:18,080
The unbeliever is ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth, and

434
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:20,720
thus he's uneasy.

435
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:26,960
Countless believers witness to the wonderful release which accompanies salvation and the

436
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:32,200
inflow of eternal life.

437
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:36,960
Why is it that we should serve God, present ourselves to him?

438
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:44,520
First of all, it is because the one that we serve is our master.

439
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:47,320
Our master is God, let's serve him.

440
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:52,720
And secondly, because of the benefit that we have in serving Jesus Christ.

441
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:59,360
The benefit that is given to us is a free gift of grace.

442
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:04,400
There are two reasons given to us that are strong, they are compelling, they are forceful,

443
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:10,200
as to why we should no longer go on presenting our body and its members, its powers, its

444
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:14,720
faculties, our potentials, all of that to sin.

445
00:34:14,720 --> 00:34:19,720
But why we should rather present ourselves to God.

446
00:34:19,720 --> 00:34:27,360
All of us can testify to the sad results of obeying sin as a Christian.

447
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:34,480
It works into our lives misery and frustration and guilt, and can ultimately bring the chastisement

448
00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:36,800
of God.

449
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:42,400
Sin has only one goal in the Christian, it can't take us to hell, but it can destroy

450
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:45,200
us here.

451
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:49,600
It can absolutely wreck our lives here, and it will.

452
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:50,920
So why serve it?

453
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,280
Hey, we've been set free from sin.

454
00:34:54,280 --> 00:35:01,520
So let's not go on serving sin, but let's present ourselves to God and our members as

455
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:07,520
weapons of righteousness for God.

456
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:10,120
Let's pray.

457
00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:18,280
Father, thank you for setting us free from sin's mastery.

458
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:25,800
And tonight we would not go on subjecting our bodies to the miserable domination of

459
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:27,520
sin.

460
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:38,880
But wherein we have allowed sin to reign as a sovereign, forgive us.

461
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:40,800
We repent of that.

462
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:48,200
And all that we are and have we present to you tonight afresh.

463
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:53,920
And Lord, may that be a heart's decision that we make every morning as we start the

464
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:56,680
day.

465
00:35:56,680 --> 00:36:07,280
And then as we go through the day, as we find that once more sin has usurped the throne

466
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:12,880
and we have submitted ourselves to it, may we confess that and come back to present ourselves

467
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:14,360
afresh to you.

468
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:19,200
Lord, don't let us go on day after day serving sin.

469
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:22,560
I pray that will be true of the junior hires here.

470
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:27,680
I pray that every senior hire will obey what this says, that every college student and

471
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:33,040
career single with the particular pressures and temptation that come upon them, that all

472
00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:38,880
of us moms and dads and grandpas and grandpas and every one of us tonight who know Jesus

473
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:46,480
Christ and who have been freed from slavery to sin, would now give ourselves freely and

474
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:48,700
slavery to you.

475
00:36:48,700 --> 00:36:56,380
Thank you for the benefit you give us, for the promise, the assurance, the free gift

476
00:36:56,380 --> 00:36:58,400
of eternal life.

477
00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:03,520
In Jesus' name, amen.