The Gift - Romans 6:20-23

1:01They all think that. You know, we still get together. They all look back on those days with fondness. But if you asked any of us, any of the four of us roommates, if you asked any of us to leave our families for a semester so that we could go back to college and relive that experience, you'd get about as quick of a no as possible, right? So yes, we look back on those times with fondness, but no way would we leave our families. Of course not. Why in the world would we do that? Everything has been changed in our life. There's been dramatic changes. We've gotten married. We cling to our wives.

1:39We've had children. We're different people. We have different affections. We love our families. We have different responsibilities. It would be irresponsible to leave our family for a semester and go relive college. Everything has changed. And so it's absurd to even ask the question: would we go back and relive those days for a semester? Well, in an infinitely grander way, infinitely grander way. The same is true about our lives as believers, right? Something dramatic has changed about your life. And when you became a believer, everything changed. You were born again.

2:25In Romans 1 through 3, we saw that every single person who's ever lived, except for Jesus Christ himself, every single person who's lived is a sinner. Every single person is marching toward condemnation, death, and destruction, because all have sinned. But in Romans 3 and 4, we saw that for all of those who believe, for all of those who have faith, for all of those who believe that when Jesus died on the cross, he died for our sins, and he rose again, and he gives life and forgiveness to those who trust in him.

3:00For all of those who believe, they are granted the righteousness of God. They are given this pure and clean righteousness, given it by God to those who believe. And then in Romans 5, we saw, for those who have received this justification by faith, for those who have believed and therefore been forgiven, received this justification, there has been this door that has opened up that is full of immeasurable blessings, access to God as a believer, access to God himself, hope of eternal glory, and more, just abundant blessings that have been poured out on us as believers, those who have received this righteousness of God.

3:52Well, this led into chapter 6, which is where we are. And the question in chapter 6, we've been in chapter 6 for a while now, and the question that comes up over and over and over is, well, if that's true, if we have believed and we have been forgiven, and the more we sin, the more grace abounds to us as we're forgiven more and more, well, then why not sin that grace may abound? If we're going to be forgiven anyways, and if our forgiveness is for the glory of the Lord, why not just keep on sinning?

4:30If we're not under the law but under grace, why not keep on sinning? Well, at the beginning of chapter six, he gave us one answer, and the one answer was that everything has changed in your life. You died and you rose again when you became a believer. So, why would you do the things that belong to that old man that died? Then he goes on to say that when we died with Christ, we were set free from slavery.

5:01Sin used to be our king, it had dominion over us. Sin used to be our slave master. We were slaves of sin and we couldn't escape. No matter how hard we worked, no matter how hard we tried to use our own good deeds to try and earn life, the only thing that we ever earned was death. And the harder we tried, the more death we earned. But as Christians, when we died to sin, we were set free from sin.

5:36And so he says in chapter 6, why in the world would we go back and serve that old master? Yes, grace abounds when we sin, but that doesn't mean we should try and keep on sinning so that grace may abound. Instead, why would we want to go back and serve that old master? Well, this is where we left off. And the last thing he says, Verse 19 is this, I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. So he says he's helping us, right? He's using a word picture for us to help us understand. I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. This is the word picture. For just as you once presented your members, your body parts, your bodies, 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.

6:46The practical application of chapter 6 is that we don't keep on sinning. But it's not because we're afraid of losing our salvation. It's not because we're afraid that we need to earn part of our salvation, that yes, Christ died on the cross to pay for some of it, but we kind of need to earn the rest. No, none of that. Grace does abound for us. And so we avoid sinning because we want to present our bodies to God, to the one who saved us, to our new slave master, the good slave master. We present our bodies to righteousness, slaves of righteousness, slaves to God. In sanctification, in holiness.

7:33That is why we don't keep on sinning. And so, now, in our text today, Paul's going to continue that conversation by giving us the motivation behind that. Why would we want to present our members to God instead of to our old masters? What's the motivation? Why would we want to avoid presenting ourselves to sin? He's spoken in human terms because of our natural limitations. He's helped us understand. He's given us this word picture. And so now he continues that word picture to show us why we would want to obey.

8:09Why do we want to present our bodies to God? And the motivation is this: that your life has dramatically changed if you're a believer. Your life has changed in a huge way. You are different now that you're a believer. Everything is different. Why would you want to go back to what it was before? So, Paul gives two eras in the believer's life in our text today: two eras, two time periods in the believer's life: the era of fake freedom and the era of real freedom. The era of fake freedom and the era of real freedom. That's our outline for today. I want you to follow along in Romans 6, verses 20 through 23. For when you were sent, Slaves of sin.

9:03You were free in regard to righteousness. 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, in 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. Pray with me before we begin. Father, we pray that you would help us understand your word.

10:07Even as believers, we are, as we sang, we're prone to anxious fears when we think about death. We could be full of anxious fears when we think about death. But also as We sing, we know that you won't leave us in the grave. We know that we can trust you. We know that as believers, you have changed us, you have transformed us, we have entered a new era in our lives. We've been set free, we've been granted real freedom.

11:06Father, help us trust you, and as we study these things, help us be convicted this morning where we need to change. Help us be humble before your word. Help us study to learn and apply to our lives. Help us not be arrogant when we come to your text, but help us be humble and accept what you have to teach us. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, the first era in the believer's life was the era of fake freedom. The era of fake freedom, the old era. So, Paul starts in verse 20 by conceding a point. Look at verse 20. He says, For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

11:58I think this is how many of us. When we were unbelievers, that's how we used to think of becoming a Christian. That it was some restriction of our freedom. We'd say things like, I don't want to give up my freedom. I'm not ready to become a Christian yet. I've heard that a lot of people have a lot of fun in college. I'm going to wait till after college, then I'll become a Christian. I'm going to wait till I have kids, then I'll settle down a little bit, shape up, then I'll get serious about following the Lord. I want to live a little bit first. I don't want to give up my freedom. A lot of us have used words like that in our past.

12:42And in reality, Paul says, yes, unbelievers do have a kind of freedom. They are free in regard to righteousness. As they consider themselves in their own minds, they don't have any obligations to be righteous. They are free in regard to righteousness. So you were autonomous, at least in a limited way. You were independent. You were free to do as you please. But it wasn't real freedom. It was fake freedom. We already saw in chapter 6, we already saw that it was fake freedom because. You weren't really free. You were a slave of sin. You thought you were free. But really, you couldn't escape. You had no choice but to sin. You could not serve God. You could not earn favor with God. You were stuck in your sin. So that's one reason why it was fake freedom. But in this text, we see that it's fake freedom because it's that kind of freedom you hear, maybe you've heard something like this. It's that kind of freedom you hear from a teacher when they say something like, oh, yeah, you're free to not do any of the homework in this class. I'm just going to fail you. That's your free choice. You're just going to fail the class. Or it's the kind of freedom that you experience at Alcatraz. You're free to escape at any time. Just don't expect to get very far.

14:25That sounds like freedom, but it's not freedom. It's fake freedom. Because look at verse 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. So yes, you were free in regards to righteousness as an unbeliever. But you were freely earning death, and that's all. The fruit of your labor. was death. The end of your actions was death. So yeah, in your mind, as you set up this fake reality for yourself with your fake freedom, and you thought that that felt like real freedom, you thought that becoming a believer or becoming religious or something like that was some kind of bondage that people enter into.

15:26All of that was fake. The reality is you're stuck in your sin as an unbeliever. You can't get out. You're serving a bad master, and the only thing you're earning with your freedom is more death, and you can't escape from it. Not just physical death, though I'm sure that's included, but I think that when he says death here, it's in parallel to what he says in verse 22, eternal life. So I think he's talking about eternal separation, eternal torment. That's what we were earning with our freedom.

16:02You were on a train where you were free on the train to sin however you wanted, but that train was swiftly heading straight toward terror, straight toward horror and death and condemnation. But now, as a believer, you're ashamed of those things you used to do. You wish you never even did them as a believer. You look back at those lies that you told yourself before, that that was some kind of freedom, that those sins were going to somehow satisfy you for a little while.

16:40You realize now how ridiculous all of that was. You realize how much of a lie that was. When you told yourself you were going to live a little before you became a believer, it only led to actions that you wish you never did, actions that you're sick of now, actions that didn't satisfy you. And so, back to the main point of this text: if this sin, this slave master of sin, was so horrible to you, if you were stuck in that bondage and you couldn't have a way out, if the fruit of those actions, those actions that you were ashamed of, anyways, that you are ashamed of now, if the fruit of those was only death, if the end of those was only death, then why in the world would you go back and serve that old master?

17:39Why would you willingly go back to fake freedom if you've experienced the reality, true freedom, the ability to serve God? And so, Paul drives us to remember the next phase of the Christian life, the current era, the era of real freedom. In verse 22. So in verse 20, he said, when you were slaves of sin. In verse 21, he says, what fruit were you getting at that time? So he's talking about this old era in your life. But in verse 22, he starts with, but now, as a believer, there's been a change. Everything has changed in your life. It's a new era. It's a new epoch in your life.

18:24Verse 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. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit that you get leads to sanctification, in its end, eternal life. So if you're a believer today, then you have been set free from that ruthless taskmaster. This change has already happened in your life. It wasn't something you could have done. No matter how hard you earned, you couldn't have earned your way out of it. You couldn't have paid off that taskmaster by doing deeds of righteousness. There was no way. If you were going to be brought out of that, it was because you were set free from that by someone else.

19:26And you were. You were set free from sin. But even more glorious. The text says that you were made a slave of God. You were transitioned in your slavery from serving a wicked master to serving the best master, to serving the almighty Creator. Now, let's be clear: the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

20:03That's Acts 17, verse 24 and 25. Nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. So God doesn't need us. We're not slaves of God because he needs us. We don't serve God because he needs us. We don't serve God because it's some bargain we made with him. I don't know if you've heard language like that before. We can't pretend like we have some deal with God to go to church a certain number of times or to give a certain amount of money as part of our salvation. We're not made right with God by doing some favor for him. Ephesians says, For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. It's Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9.

20:56So in no way does our service To the Lord, add any kind of salvation credit to our account. God does not need us, God does not need anything. He doesn't need to make a deal with us that if we serve Him, He'll save us. And yet, verse 22 is clear. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, He's saying that we have, in reality, as believers, we have been transferred over to become slaves of God. That's who we serve now. Not because He needs us, but because that's what He's called us to. We've changed paths, and on this path, there's a much better end. This path is leading towards the fruit of life, not death. It says, The fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

22:09So you can see the parallel structure in this, right? The outline that I said was that this is two eras of the Christian's life. Well, it could have just as easily been two fruits or two ends. That word for fruit is the literal word for fruit, like a grape. But they used it figuratively, just like we do. Of our labor, right? What you worked for, the cause and effect relationship. That word for end is also something that's familiar to us, right? It's kind of that end goal, the maturity of something you've been working towards, the maturity of some decision you made, the end result.

22:49But the word I wanted to focus on was that word sanctification. So he said, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. So the fruit of real freedom leads to sanctification. And that sanctification leads to life instead of death. But we need to pause and talk about that sanctification for just a minute because it sounds like, it sounds like he could be saying something like this. When we work as slaves of God, it leads to further progress in our sanctification, which earns us eternal life.

23:43The fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. That's what it sounds like. It sounds like it's saying, work as slaves of God, earn the fruit of your labor, and that will make you become more and more holy. When you become perfectly holy, whether in this life or the next life, then you'll get eternal life. But I think that would be a big misunderstanding of this verse. It's a confusion of this verse. And I think that this is more confusing for the student of systematic theology than it is for the student of the scriptures.

24:20I think this is more confusing for the student of systematic theology than it is for the student of the scriptures, because I think the student of the scriptures knows that when he sees the word sanctification, that usually the scriptures are talking about something that happened to you when you became a believer, that you were sanctified, just like you were justified. When you became a believer, when you trusted in God for salvation, you were changed instantly from unholy to holy, perfect, 100% pure. This is something that happened in reality in the heavens. That there is no more unrighteousness that's credited to your account. So you are totally 100% sanctified. The student of the Old Testament for sure knows this, right? That's the definition of holiness. It's the same word, sanctification, holiness. That's the definition that we always use: you're being set apart.

25:18But this is confusing because usually in systematic theology, when we use the word sanctification, and maybe you've heard this before, usually they use the word to. Describe this progressive kind of ongoing growth of the believer. It's not a wrong use of the word. There should be growth and knowledge, growth and godly character in a believer. And so, usually, when the systematics theologian uses the word sanctification, he means this progressive, ongoing growth and maturity. I don't think it's wrong to use that, but what I think we need to challenge ourselves to do is when we see the word sanctification in scripture, we need to let our knee-jerk reaction be to assume that it's talking about that one-time event that happened to you as a believer, that you were changed, that you were made holy. And so, day by day, we try and live a set-apart sanctified life to match that reality.

26:17And the reason why I think it's important here is because of what we said earlier: the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. I think you get into some tricky interpretations there if you're assuming that that is your progressive growth in the faith, that that's what's leading to your eternal life. Right? What would he mean by saying that the end of sanctification is eternal life? Isn't eternal life something that's promised to us the moment that we become a believer?

26:51So, I don't think Paul is describing two pathways that we're kind of progressively moving back and forth on. I don't think that when we serve our old master, we Earn a little bit of death. And when we serve our new master, we earn a little bit of life. And we're kind of hoping that the life is going to outweigh the death by the end of our life. No. I think he's saying when you became a believer, there was this forever transfer from one path to another.

27:18You can't go back. You've switched paths because the path you were on only led to condemnation. But you switched paths, you transferred trains, you were permanently sanctified, set apart, moved over, set apart as God's own and completely washed white, 100% holy in God's eyes. This is what leads to your eternal life, life that has begun for you already. So Paul is not talking about the possibility of earning life in any way. He's not talking about earning a wage of freedom. He's saying when you became a believer, you experienced that true freedom right away. You moved from one state to another. You've entered into a new era. You're no longer living in the era of your life where you had fake freedom. If you're a believer, you have moved to the era of your life where you have real freedom, where you can really serve the Lord. So don't go back and do the things that belonged to fake freedom. That's his challenge. For us, so are we to sin because we're not under law, but under grace? By no means. Everything is different now. You've been completely changed. You've been set apart.

28:50In the last verse of this chapter, we have a summary of what has come before: that you used to earn a wage. You used to earn a wage, and the wage was death. But since you found true freedom as a believer in Christ, you have been granted a free gift. Look at verse 23. For the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Such a celebration for the believer, isn't it? For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

29:42We have received a free gift, the greatest gift, life with God forever to infinity, eternal life. We used to try. To earn life, maybe through religious works or through not being as bad as our neighbor or something like that. We used to try and earn life, but the only wage that we could earn was more death. We were slaves to sin. So the life needed to be given to us. And it was all who believe receive the righteousness of God, receive that eternal life.

30:42But, of course, I know that there are some of you who are still trying to earn your wage. There are some of you who are still trying to pretend like you're good enough to make up for your own sins, like you're good enough to stand before the Lord of glory, the Lord of holiness, the Lord of perfection, and claim that you weren't a bad enough sinner. There are some of you who are still trying to earn your wage, but all you can earn is death.

31:15Whether you're eight or you're eighty, all you can earn is death. It doesn't matter how generous you are to the poor. It doesn't matter how many verses you memorized in truth and grace. It doesn't matter how many times you've come to church, you can only earn eternal death. That's the only thing you can earn for yourself. But the free gift is ready for you to receive. You can't earn it. But God offers it to you through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

31:51You know, in my flesh, I am greatly, greatly afraid of heights. In fact, it's so bad that I am afraid of heights on behalf of others. If someone else gets close to a railing or like close to a cliffside, I just am horrified inside. And one summer, my roommates and I, those same roommates I told you about earlier, we traveled to Big Bend, and we heard about this cutout, this natural cutout in the rock, and they called it the window. And it sounded really cool, so we hiked over to see it, and it was really cool. It was beautiful. You look out this window, and you can see all these hills. I don't know if you call them mountains, but they're at least pretty. You look out the window, and it's gorgeous. But right on the other side of that window was a cliff, and I did not want to go anywhere near the window, but my roommates did. And they crawled out all the way to the edge. They stuck their head over the cliff. And I was furious. You know, I was just horrified. I huffed and puffed and turned around and walked back to camp. And the same thing happened a few years ago with my own family. My wife and my mother-in-law and I were on top of a mountain, and they were like 10 or 20 feet from the edge. And even that was enough to just make me turn around. I couldn't be with them anymore. You know, I lost my temper and stomped off.

33:29Well, why am I telling you this? Maybe you already guessed. I'm telling you this because we're all on the edge. We are about to plunge into eternity. We're about to plunge into infinity when we die. And the edge is slippery. We don't have the footing that we think we do. We don't have the security that we think we do. Our life is so fragile. Our life is a vapor. The right response to that is horror. It is terror if you're an unbeliever.

34:18If you haven't trusted in Jesus Christ and asked God for forgiveness, you shouldn't feel security. You should feel terror. I. Feel horror for you. You don't have firm footing. You're about to free fall into eternity. There's a being that knows more about your sin and your sinful heart and your sinful thoughts, knows more about the depths of your sin than even you do. And it's that being that you're about to stand before, naked and exposed, all of your sins on display, ready to be judged, ready to be condemned for all eternity.

35:13You're about to get paid, but your wages aren't good. You've only earned one wage: eternal death, eternal torment. But there is a free gift that you can have. There's a free gift from God. Not something that you can earn, something that has to be given to you through Jesus Christ. This gift is eternal life, life with God, forgiveness, holiness, the ability to stand. Before God with confidence, knowing that you've been washed white, all your sins have been cleansed.

36:08You can have the security of knowing that even though you're still on the edge of infinity, even though your life is about to pass quicker than you can imagine, even though you're on the edge of eternity, you can still confidently trust in Him. You can confidently trust that He'll protect you, that He's the resurrection and the life, that God will save you from judgment. Listen to me: what you might be experiencing now as an unbeliever, it might feel like freedom, but it's not freedom, it's fake freedom.

36:54You might be free in regard to righteousness, but for what purpose? So that you can just march toward hell and jump off the cliffs into eternity? God offers you real freedom, freedom, and confidence, and hope, and joy, perfect holiness. Not because you become perfect in this life. Nobody would claim that. Only a hypocrite would claim that, and nobody in this church believes that. We're not claiming that Christians are perfect. But you become holy because God washes you. He forgives you. He washes you white as snow. He gives you that free gift of eternal life. So, do you want to trade in that terror and the horror and the death? Do you want to trade that in for a different end?

37:49Trade it in for eternal life and holiness. Well, do it today. Believe in the Lord Jesus. Ask God for forgiveness. Repent of your sins. You are on the edge of infinity. Your life is a vapor. So come to Him. But, Christians, Emmanuel Baptist Church, this text is for you. This text is for believers. Romans 6 is talking to believers. So, what's the application for us, for those of us who have already believed, those who have already come to the Lord? Well, I'm sure there are many applications that you could think of, but just to list a few, we can remember to rest. If we know that we have not earned in any way eternal life, and we can never earn anything to add on to eternity, if eternal life has been given to us, then we can rest knowing that it has already been granted to us.

38:54We can stop trying to earn a wage, we can rest. We can also remember to rejoice and be grateful. It's an understatement, right? We can never be joyful enough or grateful enough for what God has done, what God has accomplished in our life, giving us what we don't deserve. We can remember to be gracious and generous as we copy the character of God. We want to copy, if he's been so generous to us, we want to copy his character and be generous to others. If he's been so gracious to us, we want to copy his character and be forgiving to others. There's no way we could forgive as much as God has forgiven us.

39:38But I think the main application for us as believers is the same application that has been this entire chapter. Maybe this is getting repetitive to you. But the main application for us is how do we win the battle of the mind as we fight against sin? What do we tell ourselves? If we know that we're saved by grace, if we know that no matter how much we sin, grace will still abound. Well, how do we fight against real temptations? Why not just keep sinning as a believer?

40:28What's stopping us? I think we see in our text today that the answer is that our memory is stopping us. Our memory is stopping us. We remember who we were, that sin was our king. Sin was our slave master. Why would we want to go back to that? We remember what has happened to us. You died. You rose again with Christ. You were born again, risen to new life and freedom. You remember what you are now as you fight against sin. You remember what you are now. You're free. You're God's child. You're a slave of the good master.

41:21Sin has no dominion over you any longer. You do not need to serve sin. You're under grace. You're forgiven. Everything is different for you. There's been a dramatic and unalterable change. You can't go back. Everything is different. And so we remember. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 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.

41:57But 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. So, Christians, leave your shame behind. Rejoice in your sanctification and your holiness. Rejoice in the eternal life that you've been granted and serve God instead of your old master. Let's pray. Father, we're so grateful that these things have been accomplished in our life. What an undeserved privilege. What an amazing grace. What an astounding reality that we have been changed, that everything is different, that we've been granted true freedom to serve a good master, that we've been forgiven and made holy, completely sanctified.

43:05Father, help us remember, help us choose. In light of these realities, help us choose to sin no longer, to not get stuck in these patterns of sin where we lie to ourselves and say that it's okay because grace will abound. Help us instead long to live in a way that's pleasing to you. Help us long to live in a way that shows gratitude and joy. Father, I pray for any of those in this room or watching, I pray, Father, that there is anyone who is still trying to earn their wage, who is still living a life that is foolishly chasing after trying to earn a wage of goodness and life. I pray that you would expose to them that they can only earn death by their own deeds. I pray that you would show them that they are dust. I pray that you would show them that the end of their life is right around the corner, that they're hanging on the edge and the edge is slippery.

44:29I pray, Father, that you would show them that the only thing they've earned with their deeds is death, and that they need you. They need your forgiveness. They need the cross of Christ. They need the sacrifice that pays for sins. They need forgiveness. They need to come to you. We pray, Father, that you would save and cause people to be born again. As believers, remember our own salvation, our own forgiveness, our own purity. Remember that we are washed white as snow, and therefore live in light of that. Help us live in light of that.

45:20In Jesus' name, amen.