Christ Life In Us Romans 6:21-22 Freed from Sin and Bond Slaves to God

Well, good morning. So today, actually, we have two more Sundays in Chapter 6. And then we'll move on to Chapter 7. So I borrowed a picture from Mike. Freedom from sin, but bond slaves to God. So there's quite a contrast. The verses that were read, Paul goes through this contrast between being a slave to sin, really the sin nature, versus being a slave to God or a bond slave to God. That comes up over and over and over again in these verses. But I'd like to just kind of backtrack for a second. I kind of thought about, I'm sure Miles will do a few of these too, but in chapter 6, The sin problem is presented in Chapter 6.

Paul presents a sin problem that every person on this planet has. We all have a sin problem because we're all descendants of Adam, right? There's not one person that didn't come from Adam. If you didn't come from Adam, then you're not a human being. So anyway, we all have a sin problem, but Chapter 6 kind of shows the negative side of that, and then it shows God's solution for that. So let's look at the negative side first. So man's condition due to sin.

So I just kind of have these statements. I'll look through each of the verses. There's 23 verses in chapter six. So each verse kind of has a statement. So it starts off with, shall we continue in sin? That question is asked. And the question is certainly not.

It says we're slaves to sin, and we are. Sin reigns as king for the unbeliever. Presenting our members to sin, to the sin nature, that's in view. Sin has mastery over us. Slaves to sin, resulting in death. And then basically, if you're a slave to sin, you have no righteousness, or the term is used, you're free of righteousness. And lastly, the wages of sin is death. But on the positive side, Christ's death provided victory over sin.

We have died. Christ died and we died with him. We died to sin, to the sin nature. It says we died and we're dead to sin. We're separated. Then it says we're freed from sin. The sin nature is in view for this entire chapter. The sin nature is Adam's nature, that we inherited from him, that every human being has. And then it has some commands. Stop letting sin.

We only can do that based upon the fact that we have died to sin. Once we have died to sin, we have the ability to stop letting it reign. Then we're to stop letting sin be master over us. These are only possible based upon what Christ accomplished on the cross and our death with Him. It says then we're slaves to righteousness. And then we're enslaved to God. Then finally, in 23, it says eternal life in Christ Jesus. So quite a contrast in chapter 6. Man's condition is presented and God's solution is presented.

And we've been going through this for several months now, many months. Okay, so let's get into kind of review. Let's look at a short review of 17 through 22. I'm using Macaulay's general outline for this, but I kind of rethought this a little bit. So the first section I kind of relabeled.

After looking at it, the first section, 17 through 18, I would call it the believer's position because it talks about the fact that you were Before salvation you were slaves of sin, but what happened is you became slaves of righteousness, just like what's read. You were slaves of sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

So that's the believer's position. So then, and actually what's being pointed out, this is a transformation that's happened. Paul points out this transformation that took place. And if you look carefully, he's showing us God's grace here. God's grace is to be shown forth in these verses, that we were this and now we're that. That's God's grace being shown in these verses. Then 19-20, I would call the believer's condition.

It said in time past, before you're a believer, you present your members to slave to impurity and then lawlessness and so on, that kind of downward spiral. Now, you present your members to slave to righteousness. Once again, this marvelous contrast between we were this and now we're that. We're now presenting our members to slave to righteousness.

And then the third one, the third one is a tough one. Macaulay labeled it the believers benefits, but I would say looking at a little bit more. This is just more More conditional information based in our position, so it says the contrast here is the things which you were ashamed resulting in death Versus the things resulting in sanctification and the outcome eternal life, so that's what we're going to focus on 21 through 22 today all right, so let's Let's, so here's the verses for, I'll just re-read these verses for today. You have to kind of go back, to set the stage for 21 and 22, you have to go back to 20, verse 20.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regards to righteousness. You know, kind of a flip, you know, you have to kind of think a little bit about, you're free, you have, basically you have no righteousness, right? You were free of righteousness.

And then he's gonna say, based upon that fact, He's going to say, how did that help you? If you have no righteousness, what kind of life are you going to have? This translation uses the words benefit or fruit. What kind of fruit or benefits are you going to have if you have no righteousness? It's not going to be too good, right?

He wants you to think back to when you were an unbeliever. That's why in your handout I put in In Ephesians 2, 1 through 3, it talks about before we were a believer. So verse 21 says, therefore, what benefit or fruit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.

But now, here's a wonderful, but now in contrast, having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit or fruit resulting in sanctification. and the outcome eternal life. Okay, so let's look here for a second. Let's just look at verse 20 to start with here. Okay, so here we go.

For when you were slaves of sin, So speaking of the believer's past life, you were in that state, you were in past times in that state, the idea that you were continually in that state prior to salvation. You had no choice. The unbeliever has no choice. He may think he has a choice, but he really has no choice. And the word due loss is used for a slave. He was a due loss to his sin nature. It says you were free in regards to righteousness. Same verb again, you were, you were free, you had no righteousness. Freedom from restraint or obligation is a word for free. No relationship to righteousness.

And this first comment occurred to me, this is all of man's efforts, all of man's deeds, according to God, are filthy rags. All of man's righteous deeds are like filthy garments. So that's the message that starts off 21 and 22. So then we go to 21. Therefore, given the lack of God's righteousness, he's going to paint a picture for us. He's going to show us where we're at. We're free to righteousness. We have no righteousness.

And it says, what fruit were you having then? So the idea is that Think back to when you were an unbeliever. And he's going to talk about being ashamed of that, which we'll talk to shortly here. But he's going to think back to that. Could you really produce anything that would profit you? Can you, as an unbeliever, in God's world, in God's, He created you, He died for you, can you create something of yourself to merit his favor. And you can't. You basically cannot do that. So that's it.

Therefore, what fruit were you having then? And it's a word, actually fruit's used here in an interesting way. Typically the word is used in a couple different ways. The obvious way, it's the fruit of a tree, which is not the case here. A close second would be the works or deeds like the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, et cetera. I don't think that's being used here. This is more of what advantage or what profit.

So, did it make you a better person before you were saved? You couldn't, having no righteousness, you couldn't produce anything that gave you any merit before God. You were having, you were continually having no fruit in past times. Therefore, you were a slave of the sin nature and you were disconnected from God's righteousness with no fruit, no benefit. So you were in a sorry situation, right? Okay, so let's go on. So now he's going to present a picture here of over which things you are now ashamed.

So I was, I read through J. Vernon McGee's little, you know, he has a, you know, through the Bible in five years. And he talked about people being ashamed of their life before they were a believer. And he talked about his ministry was in the late 60s and 70s, which is about when I was like Courtney and Mike and I. We were all young people at that time. So he talks about the hippies. And he says, well, the hippies, when they came to Christ, They were very ashamed of their previous lifestyle. They said, look what I did. I was immoral. I was out there day and night taking drugs, doing all kinds of crazy. Look how awful life I was leading. They were ashamed of their previous life. That wasn't quite me.

The only example I can think of, not only example, the example that comes to mind is that in that time period, I liked music, maybe like all our kids did. So I liked to listen to all the stuff that I hate now, but all the hard rock, right? And I had lots of money. I was a young engineer with lots of money and lots of time. I hadn't met Bonnie yet, so I hadn't gotten straightened out.

So I would buy LPs, long playing records, you know those things. And you put them on this turntable, it goes around and around. You put the thing on there and if it doesn't skip, you can listen to music. I'd buy about one a week. With my income, I could afford to buy one. And at that time, they were pretty pricey with my salary. I could buy one a week.

By the time I became a believer, we'll fast forward many, many years, I looked at this boxes and boxes of albums and I said, you know, that's garbage, that's worthless. I threw them all in the trash. And my youngest son Ryan said, Dad, do you realize what you threw away? You threw away, you could have made a fortune on those.

I had the Beatles white album. I had all the top ones. I had all the best of the best. There was nothing I didn't buy. I threw it all away. I said, I don't want this garbage. I threw it all away. So I can relate to that being ashamed. Do I need all that? You know, all that craziness. Okay, I kind of got carried away here a bit. But anyway, let's go on. The things in context are the false fruits. They were false fruits, right? Those record albums were false fruits. So he's in contrast here, constantly doing contrast.

The things you were ashamed of, being ashamed of oneself. And so why were they shameful? In my case, this context kind of paints them as maybe being sinful, but you could argue whatever faith, whatever is not a faith is sin. So you could argue in that context, you know, whatever faith is, so these fruits were, you know, there's no benefit in sin. Okay, you were totally occupied with the things that you are now ashamed of in your past life. Okay, let's go on.

So it says, so what's the result of all these great things that you had before you were an unbeliever, while you were an unbeliever? They resulted in death. The result here means an end, can mean final, ultimate fate of those things which are, we are now ashamed. So the core idea in death is separation. You've been separated, you've been separated from God. And that's really the meaning of death, your separation from God. which is an awful thing. Sin has only one product, death, separation from God. And that's why I quoted Ephesians, you are dead in your trespasses and sins. And it goes on to describe your previous life.

And then Matthew, this verse always kind of has struck me, is the fact that when Jesus was talking to his disciples, he said, follow me. And he looks out at the crowd, apparently he says, and let the dead, all those people out there, let the dead bury their dead. Kind of a testimony to where men are at outside of Christ.

Okay, so now, this is kind of the linchpin. This is the key verse of this passage in my mind. So here's a wonderful contrast. We're gonna start out with, but now. But now in contrast, in contrast to those things you were ashamed of that ultimately led to death, this verse is gonna tell us about the wonderful contrast.

So I did my usual thing. I look for the, in this verse, what is the main verb and subject and main verb? And the main subject and verb are, you are having. So you can connect everything else to that. So let's do that. You are having, and with the verb tense, present tense, you're continuously having.

You're having your fruit, which sounds a little strange, you're having your fruit or your benefit, and why are you able to have this fruit or benefit? This is godly fruit and godly benefit. It's because you have been freed, you've been freed from sin, from the sin nature, and that was an event, salvation. And then part two of that, and you have been enslaved to God. That's another event. Both those events happen at the same time. That's called salvation.

If you look back to Romans 6.11, that's kind of what 6.11 says, right? Dead to sin and alive to God. Another kind of restatement of that, you have been freed from sin and have been enslaved to God. So based upon that, you're having fruit, and here's what's happening when you're having fruit, resulting in, Sanctification, which I, in some ways I wish they never had that word in scripture. I think it totally can mess your mind up a bit, but it's basically the Christian life. It's a Christian life, and we'll talk more about that in a second. And the consummation of the Christian life is ultimately life eternal.

So what I saw here, I said, well, wait a minute. This is looking at the three aspects of sanctification. Actually, Bob talked a little bit this morning about this, or three aspects of salvation. They kind of mirror each other. The initial part, You have the positional part, having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, that's the positional part. The conditional part, you're being sanctified, you're made in the likeness of Christ day by day as you walk by faith. Then ultimately, ultimate sanctification is you have eternal life.

So I kind of found in this verse that little picture. It took a while for me to kind of realize that, but I think that's what's being said here. So now we're gonna go a little bit deeper here. But now, in contrast to the things that you were ashamed of, first you have been freed from sin, made free, delivered from sin. This is the event of salvation. It's in the passive voice, so you didn't do this on yourself, right? Your part was to exercise faith. You believed in what Christ had done for you.

God did it, and John 8.36 says, so if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. God the Son has made us free when you believe the gospel. You've been freed, having been freed from the sin nature.

Sin nature is mentioned 16 times. If you're careful, you look through chapter six, it's mentioned 16 times. What makes it hard is they don't have the definite article there many times. They don't translate that there, but it is there in the original Greek. And then we see the phrase, freed from sin or died to sin, and that's mentioned six times. So I thought it would be worthwhile just to go through that briefly.

So this chart, we kind of done this already a little bit at the beginning, but we start off with, may it never be, how shall we who died to sin still live in it? 6.7 says, for he who has died to sin, for he who has died is freed from sin. For the death that he died, he died to thee sin, once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God. Then 611, even so consider yourself to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

And 618, having been freed from sin, you become slaves of righteousness. Then lastly, our verse today, but now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit resulting in sanctification and the outcome, eternal life. Okay, so we've been freed from sin and enslaved to God.

Enslaved to God, again, is this word doulos, a bondservant, to make a slave of. Again, he's constantly comparing pre-salvation with salvation. This is the event of salvation here, and God did it. A parallel verse, 618 having been freed from sin you became slaves of righteousness and Then another verse very much like that You are slaves the one whom you obey either a sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness So as we mentioned last week, you know We have a master. We either have sin, the sin nature as our master, or we have God himself. We have the Lord Jesus Christ as our master. Man always has a master. It's either sin or it's the Lord Jesus Christ. And I want the Lord Jesus Christ, and we all do as well.

Okay, let's carry on here. You're having, this is the main verb, subject and main verb, you're having, continuously having and present. So this is continuously going on right now in every believer's life. And as Margaret likes this, this is your or you all, y'all, y'all, y'all hear that y'all? Okay, you all are having. you know, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's concerning you. You're all having. So what's into this first kind of assumed you're having fruit.

It doesn't say go out and The believer is to be having this fruit, and in this context, I believe, it's benefit, it's more like every believer, whether he realizes it or not, and I could just list a few things here. Every believer, I think Chafer did it, the riches of God's grace, we're seated with Christ in the heavenly, it's sort of your resume. Every believer, in this context, fruit means that, I think.

It doesn't mean so much that you're walking in the Spirit, it means that you have this resume. Christ died for you, you're free, you're his child, you've been born again, you've been identified with Christ, all the whole list. There's 33, at least 33 and a lot more. That's your benefit you have by knowing Christ. So I think that's what he's saying here.

And then again, I kind of go back, I kind of went through the, so it's the advantage or profit he's talking about here. And here's a couple verses in Philippians, two in Philippians. To use fruit in this context, but if I'm to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me, I don't know which to choose. And then 4.17 says, not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit or fruit which increases to your account.

Okay, so let's kind of, all right, resulting in or unto sanctification. So sanctification at its core meaning is the idea of being set apart or the state of being set apart. In the Old Testament, you know, God had men set apart, he had vessels set apart. Many things happened, he would set them apart for a purpose. Well, the believer has been set apart for a purpose too, to glorify him. As Hagmas, This particular version of this word, there are several other versions. This occurs ten times.

And another verse that brings us out, Because God is chosen from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in truth. So sanctification, that's the Christian life. That's how you're living out this life in Christ. So the core idea is separation. And then I found a couple of things from Chafer that were kind of interesting talking about conditional sanctification depends upon yieldedness.

You know, you think of the verse in Romans 12.1, present your body a living sacrifice, and so on. And then separation, realizing that you're dead to sin. Then he has Christian growth. But I wanted to read you one thing here before we quite get to the end here. Chafer had something which I really liked.

I should have built a chart for it, but he has a section here that talks about the believer's sanctification that comes from God. You can take the verses, there are about 31 verses that talk about sanctification. You can kind of group them into categories. So he has the category that talks about the believer's sanctification in terms of our union with Christ, the believer's sanctification in terms of the word of God, the believer's sanctification by the blood of Christ, by the body of Christ, by the Spirit, and by faith. And there's a lot more to be said about that, but you know, sanctification is not to be a confusing term. It's meant to tell you this is how the Christian life is to be lived, is to live by faith in what God has done for you, and you're walking in that truth.

Okay. So the last part of this is The consummation. The consummation is this word teleos. It means the end, result, ultimate fate. So the V here is a particular consummation. It's not just any consummation. This is a particular one and this verse you can almost draw an equal sign between consummation and the rest of the verse. The consummation is eternal life.

This is a climatic outcome of all believers, and just a beautiful verse here in Romans 5.21, so that as sin, another tremendous contrast, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Almost sums up the entire thing I've been talking about today. So that as sin reigned in death, we saw that, You were ashamed of that, that you were ashamed of your former life. Sin was reigning then. Even so, grace, God's grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Okay.

All right, well, I'm gonna cop out here easily for today. I usually have something else more to say. So next week, we're only gonna have one verse, but I'm sure Miles will speak for more than just one verse. We're gonna have one verse, and here's the one verse.

It's the last verse of the chapter. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Incredible, incredible verse. Lots to be said about this verse, and actually, Like I mentioned, many see this as a summary of the entire chapter of Romans chapter 6. The entire chapter can be summarized by this verse. So, all right.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have. Lord, thank you that those things that we were ashamed of in the past, that we thought were worthless, a waste of time, Lord, you knew that in advance. You drew us. And we responded by faith to your calling us, Lord, and we thank you so much, in Christ's name.