Joyfully Obedient Slaves May 7, 2017 Romans 6:15-23 Matt Rawlings

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1 1 Joyfully Obedient Slaves May 7, 2017 Romans 6:15-23 Matt Rawlings Romans 6:15-23 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. 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. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Pray] I have been reading and thinking a lot about slavery in the days prior to and during the American Civil War lately. I can t imagine living life as a slave back then, can you? They had no rights and they were legally classified as less than a person. Slaves then had no right to own property or vote, or go to school, or work or make money, or have families of their own. They were slaves and they could do nothing else. To escape as a slave meant almost certain death. You would be hunted down, tracked and either brought back or killed. To be a slave means you had no choice but to obey your master or face the consequences of punishment, or often horrible brutality or death. It wasn t too long ago either really. My own grandfather knew and had worked with former slaves. I still remember hearing him tell the story of working with freed slaves on a tobacco farm in his early childhood and teen years. He was in his 30 s when thousands of slaves were still alive. In fact, from , as part of the Federal Writers Project of the Work Progress Administration, more than 2,000 first-person accounts of slavery were collected, along with 500 black and white photographs like these [shown on screen] of Sam Jones, Rose Fay, Monroe Brackens and Bill and Ellen Thomas. Some former slaves died as late as For most of us, slavery is something in the distant past. But it was a present reality for the church in Rome that the Apostle Paul wrote to. When Paul began his letter to the Romans, he carefully laid out the fact that everyone whether Jew or Gentile, slave or free, needs the gospel. In the first 5 chapters the letter to the Romans makes it clear that for those in Christ Jesus, we are no longer under the law but under grace. Some used grace as an excuse to sin, claiming that God s grace abounded the more they sinned and Paul pointed out the absurdity of that in the first part of Romans 6. 1

2 2 Now, in the second half of Romans 6, Paul addresses a similar but slightly different response some can have to God s grace and I think many Christians have subtly felt this response personally. The idea is that if Jesus has taken our punishment and we are forgiven, then aren t we free to live as we want? It is the tempting idea that if we only receive grace, then maybe God doesn t take sin too seriously and maybe He will be ok if we give into sin, because we re under grace now He will forgive us. It is like the response of some Christians today who say that grace means we don t have to seek to obey God any longer, that we just rest in God and God just makes us holy. It is true that we rest in God, but if we stop there, then we are ignoring the Scriptures like Ephesians 2:10. Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. The apostle Paul in these verses is saying yes, grace makes us free, but not free to sin. Main Idea: God s grace makes us delightedly free, obedient slaves. F.F. Bruce once said that, to make being under grace an excuse for sinning is a sign that one is not really under grace at all. Paul explains that if we were to willingly go on sinning, we would be presenting ourselves as slaves and not only is there no fruit in following a life of sin, the end of those things is death. So, it is not only scandalous but tragic, if anyone would willingly go back to the old lifestyle of sin. Then, Paul says something that sounds shocking to us today. Paul says, we are all slaves to whatever we obey. It is just a matter of whose slave you are. In verses 15 and 16, the first truth he explains, is that 1. We re either slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness (verses 15-16) Paul uses the metaphor for slavery 8 times in just these 9 verses slavery is clearly the dominant theme. When Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, slavery would have been one of the most relatable illustrations he could have used in their society. Freedom was not a right given to all of society and some historians estimate that somewhere between 40% to 70% of the city of the residents of Rome were slaves or had been slaves. At one point slaves were supposed to dress in a specific style of clothes, but the Roman government dropped it quickly, because the slaves would realize that their numbers were so strong. Freed criminals had more rights than a slave, since a slave had no legal status and wasn t treated as a person. They were considered property and they were prohibited from raising families or owning their own property. They could be whipped, branded, cruelly mistreated, exploited or even killed and their owners would face little to no punishment. When the Christians in the church read Paul s letter, it is likely that a good portion of the church was made up of slaves or if they weren t slaves, everyone would have known a slave or encountered slaves in their daily lives. Today, the image of slavery may seem like it is something in the past and something we can t relate to really. But how we can identify slavery today, is by looking at what we are obedient to, because obedience is the key indicator of slavery. In fact, everyone in this room is a slave. According to the Bible, you are sitting next to a slave right now. You might say, wait a minute, I m not a slave, no one owns me. But Paul, and Jesus 2

3 3 God s Word, the Bible would say really? what do you obey? In John 8:34, Jesus told his own people, Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. Look at me for a moment. Look up here. God says in His Word, that whatever or whomever you are obeying, you are a slave to. The question is only a matter of who you are enslaved to and what kind of slavery it is. Some here give themselves over to an addiction or to lust and are enslaved by it. Some people may be enslaved to what others think of them, while some are enslaved to their jobs or reputation. Some may be enslaved to being in control. Some may be a slave to trying to earn their own righteousness. Some might fiercely deny they have a problem and they are not enslaved like most alcoholics deny being enslaved to drinking and say they can quit anytime but yet, they don t quit. John Calvin once said, the greater the mass of vices anyone is carried under, the more fiercely and bombastically does he extol his freedom. So Paul says, wait a minute before you go acting like it doesn t matter who or what you obey. Don t you know that you are a slave to whomever you obey like a slave? You see, a slave by definition was someone who obeyed the will of their master. Sometimes, people who could not pay their bills, would present themselves to a slave-master, so with the agreement that if the master paid their debt, then they would be an obedient slave. If you obeyed the will of someone like they were your master, you were a slave by definition So, Paul uses this illustration and says, that if you obey someone like a slave, you are a slave whether you are obeying sin or obeying God. People are either under the power of sin, or they submit to God as their Lord. Commentator Douglas Moo says of this verse, Paul wants to make clear that slavery is ultimately not just a legal status but a living experience. The question is not whether we will have a master but what master will we serve? If you are an unbeliever here, you might think that your choice is between living freely for yourself or giving up your freedom to live for God but if you believe this, then you are deceived. If you have not submitted to God as your Master, your choice is instead, should I serve sin, that leads to death or should I serve God that leads to life? So, if you present yourself as if you are a slave to sin and you willingly obey sin, then sin is your master and being a slave of sin leads to death. But being obedient slaves to God leads to righteousness. Paul is saying that if you are seeking to submit to and obey sin, then you are a slave to sin. What or who are you seeking to obey? Christians who are no longer slaves to sin must no longer live as if they are slaves to sin. If we are living under God s grace, it will show in our conduct and it will be evident that God is our master. There is good news here though there is cause for confidence. The confidence we can have as believers in Jesus Christ, is the same confidence that Paul had for the believers in Rome. Look in verses We can see there the second big truth that Paul explains is that 2. We ve been made slaves to righteousness through the gospel (17-18) We aren t slaves to sin any longer. The good news, is that God has carried out a divine rescue mission to redeem you from being under sin and called you to Himself and enabled you to obey 3

4 4 Him from the heart. Thanks be to God that you who used to obey sin and so were slaves to sin, have now become obedient from your heart. Imagine being a prisoner in a deep, dark hole of a dungeon. Isolated, chained and shackled with thick iron. Behind a solid iron door with stone walls all around you. Then imagine that someone came in with a bright light, vanquished all the enemy guards, ripped the door from its hinges and shattered your chains and shackles just by touching them and then told you that you were free to go. You would be inclined to gladly follow your deliverer if he asked you to and promised to protect you with his own life, wouldn t you? No one would have to make you follow and obey him. God has claimed us and delivered us. In His grace, God has broken the shackles that once bound us in the iron grip of sin that we could never get out of on our own. So, now, having been set free, we are glad to follow Jesus in a life of obedience. The call to obedience in these verses, is firmly grounded in what God has done to rescue us in Jesus Christ. When we place our faith in Jesus Christ and commit our lives to Him, we demonstrate that we are no longer slaves to sin. Notice what Paul says you have become obedient to though he says you ve become obedient, or handed over to the standard of teaching to which you were committed. Becoming a Christian is not like joining a club it is a commitment to obey the teaching about Jesus Christ. And in becoming a Christian, you are submitting yourself to Jesus and committing yourself to the standard of teaching about Jesus in the gospel. The standard of teaching Paul is referring to was the teaching of Jesus Christ in the gospel, and embodied in Jesus Christ as the ultimate example, then taught by the apostles it s what we have as the New Testament. It is not a commitment just to be rescued from the power and penalty of sin, although it definitely includes that. It is not a commitment to forgiveness alone, although Jesus died for our forgiveness. To become a Christian is a commitment to follow Jesus and all of the teaching from Him and about Him what we now have as the teaching of the New Testament. So, the question is, what are you committed to? What does your life reveal? Are you seeking to submit to sin are you looking for ways to obey sin? Is sin your master and are you are a slave to sin? Or are you seeking to submit to righteousness and obey God? If so, then God is your master. Not that we are perfect yet. It doesn t mean we never give in to sin because we definitely do. If you are in Christ, you are not yet fully righteous in every way, even though you ve been declared righteous completely. We are not yet who we are called to be but we are in the process of becoming who we ve been called to be in Jesus Christ. So, Paul says thanks be to God that you ve become obedient from the heart, from the core of your being, your core motives and desires, you seek to obey the standard of teaching to which you were committed. Look in verse 18, Paul says, if you are a believer in Jesus and you are seeking to submit your life to Him, then something has objectively happened to you already. It is a fact you have been set free. It isn t something you do or earn God has set you free. 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 4

5 5 To be set free from slavery meant that you would receive all the rights of a Roman citizen. You would become a person legally and enjoy all of the freedoms that every other normal Roman citizen would have After surrender, I can remember the negroes were so happy, recalled Hamp Santee, who had been enslaved in Mississippi. They just rang bells, blowed horns and shouted like they were crazy. Then they brought a brand new rope, and cut it up into little pieces and they gave everyone a little piece. And whenever they look at the rope they should remember that they were free from bondage. To Lafayette Price of Morgan County, Ala., the jubilation of emancipation meant that I m free as a frog because a frog had freedom to jump when [and where] he please. Anyone who was a slave would know what a joy it would be to be set free from the oppression of slavery and would long to be treated as a full person, not having to obey their master. Paul uses this kind of language and says thanks be to God that He set you free from sin. You are no longer a slave to sin. Sin is no longer your master you don t have to obey sin! When God set you free, He transferred you from the kingdom of darkness to his own kingdom of light. Now we are free to live for God as He originally intended for us to live loving and serving Him in righteousness. John 8:31-36 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free 34 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. So now, you are indeed free to become servants or slaves of righteousness. It is only by doing God s will and thus knowing His truth that we can be free indeed. This is why, without paradox, Christian freedom is at the same time a kind of slavery. Being bound to God and his will enables the person to become free to be what God wants that person to be. As a Puritan confession of faith puts it, The liberty which Christ has purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their yielding obedience unto Him, not out of slavish fear, but a child-like love, and willing mind. Douglas Moo So, Paul says, God has set you free, to be slaves to righteousness. You are objectively God s slaves now if you are a Christian this morning. And the third truth we see, is that to live as God s slaves, means that 3. We must present our members as slaves to righteousness (19) 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. We are naturally limited, so Paul uses an illustration to convey what he wants to explain, even then though, the illustration of being God s slave is difficult. You see, for a modern American, we bristle at the idea of being a slave. But being a slave of God is not like the kind of slavery that they would have known or that we think of when images of slaves on a South Carolina plantation prior to the civil war come to mind. We are slaves to God now, but the key differences are that there is no fear, no abuse, no punishment, no degradation or imprisonment for us anymore. What it means is that we get to 5

6 6 have a new Master, that loves us completely now. Now, we get to be who we were originally created to be before any sin a people for God s own possession, that we might delight in and fully enjoy and glorify Him. Now, how we enjoy God more and more, is by becoming who God has made us to be. Paul describes this process in the second half of verse 19, For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. Either sin is our master or righteousness is our master there are no other options. At one time, we presented our members as willing slaves to impurity and lawlessness, that lead to even more lawlessness. We willingly presented our minds, our will, our emotions and our physical bodies as slaves to sin. We couldn t do otherwise. He continues to explain that in the same way, now we must actively present our members our minds, our wills, our emotions - as slaves to righteousness. The idea of submitting yourself in obedience to God, like a slave isn t popular. Calling Christians to present ourselves as slaves to righteousness won t make a mega-church. It means that we must deliberately submit our will to God s in every area of life. Now, let me be clear, this is not legalism but it also isn t license to do whatever we want. The gospel frees us to be able to submit ourselves obediently to God something we could never do before. We will either be a slave to sin or slaves to God. Or maybe something worse, we can be God s slave that pulls away from Him and is lured by the lies of sin, becoming voluntarily enslaved in a sense. But God is commanding us to realize the temptation and realize what is happening, realize the danger of letting sin trap you in more and more impurity and lawlessness and instead to willingly submit to God, living our lives seeking to obey Him. As we willingly obey righteousness like this, it leads to our ongoing sanctification. Committing to live in obedience to God, out of love for Him, leads to being more and more God-centered and more able to say no to the things of the world and the lusts of the flesh. We don t sanctify ourselves, but as we present ourselves to obey the righteous teaching of the New Testament, God sanctifies us and we grow in the process of becoming who we ve already been declared to be. Ultimately, we can be sure that because we are being sanctified, it is evidence that God will completely sanctify us in Him in eternity. Paul is being careful here though, so that any command is grounded in who Christ already has made us to be in Him. So, both right before and after the command, he explains what is indicative of us what is true about us. In verse 20, notice, he uses the past tense again and says, When you were slaves of sin. This is no longer true of us. But, when we were slaves to sin, we weren t obligated to obey righteousness it wasn t our master so in that sense, we were free in regard to righteousness. We had to obey our old master of sin and we could only obey our own master of sin. 6

7 7 But where did that lead you, Paul says? He asks, But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? You see, the final truth is that we will receive fruit as slaves. Either the fruit of death or the fruits that God gives. Verses explain that 4. We get fruit as slaves (20-23) When we were sinning willfully, we didn t get any good fruit from those things what we got in reward was shame. The result of sin is shame and death ultimately. There might have been temporary pleasure or escape or we may have gained worldly wealth or prestige or power, but there was no real, good, lasting fruit that we gained. The end of all those sins we once did was only death. No matter the temporary fruit, the end result was to be rewarded with death, so what was the point? So, why in the world would we want to go back to the things we were enslaved to, if all they get us is death? 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. The good news, is that believers in Jesus Christ, have objectively been set free from sin and we don t have to obey sin as our master anymore. Imagine being a slave to an evil taskmaster, in a dark and stormy land. Your master beats and whips you every day. He treats you cruelly, he only takes from you. He abuses you continually and uses you in horrible ways. Eventually he kills everyone you know, so that you are certain that your only fate is death. But imagine that one day, you look through a hole in the tall wall that keeps you enslaved, and on the other side you see a wonderful land, filled with beautiful colors, where the sun shines brightly. The master adopts those slaves as his children. Even if they don t understand the master, they know he is good and they trust him completely. The master of those slaves is always and only benevolent and always and only gives to them for their ultimate good and at the end of their lives, they are resurrected and they live forever, ruling together with him in His kingdom. There would be no reason for anyone in that good kingdom to ever want to go back to their old master. Paul says, your old life of sin lead to death. But God has set you free to be His slave now, living in His kingdom, under His gracious rule. And as John Chrysostom said, slavery to God is better than any freedom. Now, as you have been made slaves of God and obey righteousness, God promises lots of good fruit, that leads to a harvest of righteousness. In my own experience, there is nothing like the local church body to create an environment for working out sanctification. The best crucible for refining godly living, is in the fires of a close Christian community in a local church. What a privilege though, that we get to help each other be made more like Jesus, as fellow, imperfect people being made holy step by step. I take comfort in knowing that somehow using my obedience, God promises to actually make us like Jesus, even if only incrementally for now but it will eventually lead to our complete righteousness with God at our Lord s return. The fruit you get leads to eternal life in the end. Why is that? Paul says, because, or for, For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 7

8 8 The word for wages here was often used for the payment a soldier would get for their duty to their ruler. So as a soldier of sin, when you obey sin, you earn the wage of death. The end result of being submitted to sin as a slave, is death. Former slave, Katie Rowe told the story of how she would never forget the fay she was set free: That morning we all go to the cotton field early, and then a house [slave] come out from old Mistress on a horse and say she want the overseer to come into town, and he leave and go in. After while the old horn blow up at the overseer s house, and we all stop and listen, cause it the wrong time of day for the horn. We start chopping again, and there go the horn again. The lead row [slave] holler Hold up! And we all stop again. We better go on in. That our horn, he holler at the head [slave], and the head [slave] think so too, but he say he afraid we catch the devil from the overseer if we quit without him there, and the lead row man say maybe he back from town and blowing the horn himself, so we line up and go in. When we get to the quarters we see all the old ones and the children up in the overseer s yard, so we go on up there. The overseer setting on the end of the gallery with a paper in his hand, and when we all come up he say come and stand close to the gallery. Den he call off everybody s name and see we all there. Setting on the gallery in a hide-bottom chair was a man we never see before. He had on a big broad black hat like the Yankees wore but it didn t have no yellow string on it like most the Yankees had, and he was in store clothes that wasn t homespun or jeans, and they was black. His hair was plumb gray and so was his beard, and it come way down here on his chest, but he didn t look like he was very old, cause his face was kind of flashy and healthy looking. I think we all be sold off in a bunch, and I notice some kind of smiling, and I think they sure glad of it. The man say, You darkies know what day dis is? He talk kind, and smile. We all don t know of course, and we just stand there and grin. Pretty soon he ask again and the head man say, No, we don t know. Well this the fourth day of June, and this is 1865, and I want you all to member the date, cause you always going member the day. Today you is free, Just like I is, and Mr. Saunders and your Mistress and all us white people, the man say. I come to tell you, he say, and I wants to be sure you all understand, cause you don t have to get up and go by the horn no more. You is your own bosses now, and you don t have to have no passes to go and come. We never did have no passes, no how, but we knowed lots of other [slaves] on other plantations got them. I want to bless you and hope you always is happy, and tell you got all the right and life that any white people got, the man say, and den he get on his horse and ride off. We all just watch him go on down the road, and den we go up to Mr. Saunders and ask him 8

9 9 what he want us to do. He just grunt and say do like we dam please, he reckon, but get off that place to do it, unless any of us wants to stay and make the crop for half of what we make. None of us know where to go, so we all stay, and he split up the fields and show us which part we got to work in, and we go on like we was, and make the crop and get it in, but there ain t no more horn after that day. Some the [slaves] lazy and don t get in the field early, and they get it took away from em, but they plead around and get it back and work better the rest of that year. But we all gets fooled on that first go-out! When the crop all in we don t get half! Old Mistress sick in town, and the overseer was still on the place and he charge us half the crop for the quarters and the mules and tools and grub! Although it was entirely unjust, because they were rightly owed fair pay for all of their past years of work in slavery, that kind of result was almost expected. They got a wage. But as slaves of God, the contrast is wonderful. We don t get the wages we deserve. We don t get paid on the basis of our working. God doesn t pay us all that we deserve from years of slavery. The reality is, you cannot fully obey the command that we are given. Even if we did completely obey God somehow, the wages wouldn t be eternal life because we would have done just what we should have. But, do you know what, the news we have about Jesus Christ, should make us rejoice and whoop and holler, and jump up and down, and get excited about as freed slaves. We can only earn death. We can t do this life perfectly like we should. But, Jesus has obeyed completely for us and in our place, so now, the free gift we receive is based on His rewards, that He earned. He did everything required of us. He perfectly obeyed. He was the true and perfect slave of righteousness. He joyfully fulfilled all that God called Him to do. You know what else? Jesus broke through our tomb. He broke through our chains. He broke the bonds of sin and death. We don t get what we deserve! Instead, we get far more we get paid what Jesus deserved! Eternal life isn t earned it is a free gift. Ours is the story of slaves made free to be God s slaves. That is the delight! Wow we are delightedly free to love and serve God, completely by God s grace that is why this is good news! But, gladly, the free gift of God, is not anything we earn through our obedience the free gift of eternal life we receive, is by faith and through our union with Christ Jesus, our Lord ; our Master Redeeming Grace Church. This transcribed message has been lightly edited and formatted for the Website. No attempt has been made, however, to alter the basic extemporaneous delivery style, or to produce a grammatically accurate, publication-ready manuscript conforming to an established style template. 9