Freedom in Christ

So, for those that might be joining in the live stream late, or for some of you that may have come in a little late, I want to just reiterate my name's Chris.

Um, I'm a mission group leader in the far-off town of Milford.

My wife and I are members here at uh Sacred Mission, and it's an exciting time for me to be up here.

I don't know if any of you have ever uh listened to a sermon, experienced a sermon, and thought, the Holy Spirit put that word into that pastor because he saw my heart.

That was specifically for me.

And I don't know if any of you ever felt that, but that's me today.

And so I'm not gonna say that um I'm here for me, but that's just kind of the way that it's turning out.

I'm preaching to myself.

I want to make that really clear.

I don't come to you today with the authority of an elder or ordination behind me.

I come uh humbly as a believer that has been saved by the words uh that are expressed in these scriptures, and hopeful that God can use me today to speak to you the way that He has spoken to me so uh powerfully in this past week.

So this is gonna be fun.

Uh just a recap uh where we've been leading up to chapter six, Paul's been explaining um what it means to uh that those of us in Christ have been justified by grace through faith.

And then uh last week, Justin took us through the first half of uh chapter six, uh, the gospel being presented to uh someone, and we realized with the first few verses that someone asks a question, making it very clear that there was a disconnect.

And we saw Paul respond to uh that question, you know, should we just sin because grace abounds?

Should we sin because we have this endless stream of grace for us?

And and Paul said, uh definitely not.

Um and he explained that Christ has accomplished for us um something that's actually made us alive in him as opposed to dead in our trespasses.

And we see him proclaim something over us believers that was so very good to hear, and that in Christ, sin will have no dominion over us anymore.

That we're free from sin, not free to sin, but free from sin.

And today we're gonna continue in that theme, and we're gonna move on to see that we aren't just justified.

We aren't just free from sin, but through the work of Jesus Christ, we're actually changed.

He actually changes us if we really do get it.

If we make this choice, he changes us, and that's called sanctification.

We're gonna get there.

Um, one of my greatest joys is being a dad.

I've got three sons, they're all different.

Um, I'm sure if you have kids, especially if they're little, uh, you know that our first job is to keep them from harming or killing themselves, which they really try to do all the time.

And some of them are better at that than others.

I've got one son that um would look at I-75 as like a real life game of Frogger.

And for the millennials in the crowd, Frogger was a video game a long time ago.

Um and so it's my job as dad on the Median to call him away from the road.

He sees freedom and fun, and I know better.

I know that there's way more freedom on the side of the road where it might seem boring than there is underneath the tire of the truck that he will encounter when he loses that game.

But he doesn't think that.

He doesn't know that.

But it's my job to call him to a freedom and a safety that I know better.

And that's what we're gonna explore today.

Today I wanted to explore the story of a God that wants us to thrive in the freedom that he offers and our tendency to pursue a deadly slavery that masquerades his freedom, even after that father has tenderly and patiently and lovingly and consistently demonstrated the riches of the freedom in himself.

Today we'll see that we all serve a master.

Every single one of us serves a master.

And that the good news is in Christ, as slaves to obedience, which is a concept that we're introduced to this week, um, we're free again from sin, not to it, like we were introduced to last week.

This is our main idea this week.

As slaves to God, we find ultimate freedom in our obedience to him and him alone.

And before we move on, I do want to uh address maybe the elephant in the room.

We're talking about slavery, and I want to I want to kind of dispel any misconceptions that you might uh that might be drawn uh to your spirit by by hearing that.

Um, New Testament slavery is very different than the American concept of slavery that we have.

So New Testament slavery was much more akin to employment, um, uh often to pay debts.

It was often done even voluntarily.

Um, and the goal was to give relief to the slave.

They were given clear instruction, the slave owners were given clear instruction to treat them well, with dignity, and often even as members of the family.

And so uh just to be clear, the Bible's unequivocally opposed to our Americanized concept of slavery.

It's antithetical to the gospel, deserves all of God's wrath.

This is not an affirmation to the concept of slavery that we're familiar with.

So before moving on, I just want to make that really clear so we can talk about slavery and understand it rightly and know that it's not an affirmation to what we abhor.

Um, all right, so let's start with verse 15.

What then?

Are we to sin because we are not under law, but under grace?

So here's this idea again.

Can we just do whatever we want?

Because we're under grace and we don't have to worry about keeping the law?

And Paul answers, by no means.

Other translations say no way.

Other translations say, God forbid it.

And just to real quick, under law and under grace, there's a reason that this is really important.

Um the scriptures say that Jesus was born under law.

And he was born under the law under law because he had to fully conquer the law because we could never do it.

So Jesus came, born under law, fulfilled it perfectly, so that he could defeat it and therefore save us, because we can't do it.

So I just want to point out under law and under grace, it means something.

Moving on, do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

And Paul isn't asking a question so much as he's kind of making a statement.

He's sending a message that whatever you live for, whatever you give yourself over to, that's your master.

This is a real Lord of your life.

And Paul's saying that we have a choice, sin or obedience.

You might hear lots of debate over whether or not free will exists or where free will exists.

And I would say that free will does exist in this instance.

It's a matter of what our choices are motivated by.

Are they made of are they motivated by the truth?

Uh, or are they motivated but motivated by our own desires?

We will serve who we want to serve at the end of the day.

We'll do what we desire the most.

The tough truth for us is we're not saved from temptation, we're saved from the inability to run from it.

See, before we were in Christ, we had no choice but to choose sin.

We were gonna choose sin every time.

But God saved us from that.

He gave us the ability to choose.

We didn't just have the ability on our own.

Before he intervened, we were gonna run towards sin and our demise and the destruction of our families and the destruction of everyone around us, but he stepped in, and now we have a choice.

So we have a choice to make choose sin or obedience.

And this has huge implications.

One way or another, you're gonna give yourself to one.

As we look at the overall scripture, we see a few things.

Being a slave to sin leads to death and impurity, an endless cycle of lawlessness, that's verse 19, leading to shame and ultimately death, that's verse 21.

But conversely, in Christ, as slaves to obedience or righteousness will lead to sanctification, verse 19.

Freedom from sin, with an ultimate home alongside one another, in eternal praise for and in the presence of our Savior.

That's verse 22.

And what's clear is that the individual looking for all this self-serving license with this grace that's been offered just doesn't get it.

See, God's loved us, though we're utterly unlovable.

Not because we've accomplished something, but for what Christ has accomplished on our behalf.

The grace that's been bestowed upon us.

And when we truly get that, when we understand the absolute holiness of our King and the lengths that he took to rescue us, we're then granted a posture of awe.

And when we when we truly marvel at God's holiness, when we get that, we see him and we see ourselves rightly.

This is what causes Moses to remove his shoes and look away.

He encountered God's holiness.

This is what caused Isaiah to fall apart at the seams.

It's been interpreted uh to be completely disintegrated.

He encountered the real holiness of God.

St.

Augustine put it this way.

What is that which gleams through me and smites my heart without wounding it?

I am both a shudder and a glow.

A shudder in so far as I am unlike it, a glow insofar as I am like it.

We see his goodness and kindness and long-suffering for us, and our desire is to serve him and to honor him.

I'll ask you a question that I've been trepidatiously navigating recently myself.

Who is your master?

What's your thing?

From day to day, who are you serving?

And I think if we're honest, we'll have to acknowledge that some of us wander back to that unforgiving master.

Some of us, though fully cared for, fully free in, and fully saved by a good and faithful master, still wander back like a dog to its own vomit, expecting it to give us sustenance, but every time giving us poison.

Paul says it like this in Galatians.

But I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh, for the desire of the flesh is against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, in order to keep you from doing whatever you want.

But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law.

Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are sexual immorality, impurity, indecent behavior, behavior, idolatry, witchcraft, hostility, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these of which I forewarned which I have forewarned you, just or sorry, which I forewarn you just as I have forewarned you, saying, I've we've been over this, but I'm gonna tell you again.

That those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law.

Now, those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Did any of you guys like me stumble into any of those latter tendencies?

Again, I'm preaching to me first and foremost today.

God's given us the Holy Spirit to hold us up and push us forward as we pursue to kill our sin.

But make no mistake, we all know this, we're free to choose, and so often we don't choose well.

And when we continuously choose slavery to sin, it's been said that we're at best a functioning contradiction, and at the very worst, and terrifyingly, not a brother or a sister at all.

And maybe you're in this room and you willfully live in slavery to sin.

Maybe you're here and you have no qualms with living in any one of these snares.

Maybe you justify it, maybe you're in denial over it.

What I can tell you is you're in danger in it.

R.

C.

Sproul said it like this in his book, The Holiness of God.

We call things holy when they are not holy, committing the sin of idolatry.

We give to common things the respect, awe, worship, and adoration that belong only to God, to worship the creature instead of the creator.

And this is our story.

We choose the bondage of slavery to sin over the freedom of slavery to God.

And the difference between the unbeliever and the believer is in the response to their sin.

The believer, having been regenerated and convinced that their sin, convinced of their convicted of their sin, will repent.

Calling upon the grace that they've been gifted that has freed them from the shackles of shame and damnation, the latter will ignore the truth, forsake fellowship with believers, and run from their call to holiness.

And if this is you, I want you to know we we care about you.

We want to pray with you.

We want you to ask questions.

We have elders here that would love to be an encouragement to you.

Let's look at verse 19 through 21.

For just as you presented the parts of your body as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting to fur in further unlawful, further lawlessness, so now present your body's parts as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

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

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

For the outcome of those things is death.

See, slavery to impurity is a vicious cycle of sin.

And it leads to our demise.

Alistair Begg's a pastor in Cleveland, and he put it like this: sin, it pays wages, and the wages are death, and it's a warning that we ought heed.

Um I've I've heard it explained kind of like this: this this resentment of where we're we feel stuck in the slavery to God as opposed to slavery to sin.

If you picture a fish in a fish tank, and it's circling this fish tank, seeing all the freedom of people walking around, and it's shaking its fist or fin at God, saying, How dare you keep me confined?

How dare you keep me enslaved?

Not knowing it's the love of that God that keeps it safe where it won't suffocate and die.

Some of us are resentful to a God that loves us, that He won't call us to end our very souls in a freedom that's actually slavery.

And what we're talking about is often referred to as a paradox.

We ultimately have freedom as a slave.

But here's the truth you're either a believer that you say you are and joyful in your slavery to righteousness, or you're not a Christian and a dreadful slave to sin.

I love how it says members and parts of yourselves in this translation.

Because the Bible's pretty clear.

Are your eyes a slave to that which will destroy you?

The Bible says, remove them.

Do anything it takes.

Do you put your hands to the work of building a kingdom to yourself or perverting God's good gift of sex?

Or of committing violence against your family or your kids?

Does your tongue profess a faith in Jesus but curse your brothers at the same time?

Or spew lies?

Because you've got fear of man issues, or you want to avoid conflict?

Do your feet reflect laziness and sloth, rather the hard work that you've been called to.

What Paul's saying is stop being a slave to sin, submitting your literal body to the rebellious cause of Satan.

We have to kill it.

And it's not a small killing calling.

It's not to be dismissed, this creeping serpent of temptation.

It needs to be seen as the mortal enemy that it is.

By God's grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, we're called to crush the head of that snake every day until Christ comes and does it once and for all.

And so in the psychology department at the time, uh this was 2003, so shortly after uh 9-11, um, we were a part of this, uh, we got a government contract to pay for what was called vigilance testing.

And so I got extra credit by sitting in a room uh with a window watching volunt college volunteers that were that had to sit and watch a screen for three hours without stopping.

And their job was to watch a screen and find changes in the blips on the screen.

And the reason for this was because the government wanted to know how much can we expect from our air traffic controllers?

We've got problems with planes running into buildings.

We need to ask the most of them, but we can't push them too far because then they might miss something.

And so my job was to watch them.

Who knows what they were doing the night before?

Who knows why the government decided to trust college students to be vigilant?

Um, but they did.

Um, and I can tell you the only thing more boring than sitting and watching a blip on a screen for three hours is sitting in a room watching through a window as someone watches a blip on a screen for three hours.

But the call was to vigilance.

And some of us just aren't being vigilant every day.

And we must.

We must be vigilant because that deceiver is creeping every day.

Some of us are sleeping while Satan is destroying our families.

Some of us are sleeping as Satan destroys us.

Some of us keep going back to a sin that we know will hurt us.

Maybe it's camouflaged with something else, maybe we convince ourselves that it'll be different.

Uh, I don't know if any of you have heard uh the fable of the scorpion and the frog.

Um but it goes something like this there there's a scorpion on the side of a stream, and he encounters a frog, and and he said, I if you if you wouldn't mind, I'd like a ride to the other side of the stream.

And the frog's like, You must think I'm a dummy.

Because you're you're just gonna sting me and you're gonna kill me.

And the scorpion said, I that would be foolish, because if I sting you, you'll die, and then I'll drown too.

That makes no sense.

The frog's like, okay, that that does make sense.

So halfway through the ride, the frog feels the stinging pain of the scorpion's tail piercing his back.

And as they both fall under the water, the frog said, Why would you do this?

The scorpion said, It's I'm a scorpion, that's what I do.

Some of us are returning to a Satan that knows he's dying, it's gonna try to pull us down with him.

That's what he does.

That we can that we convince ourselves that it'll be different is deception.

Let's not gloss over the end of verse 19 because it's it's our literal lifeline, that we have an alternative to living under the suffocation of sin, and that we can cling to a better master.

We can give ourselves over to the service of Him and be sanctified.

It says, now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

And take notice that presenting ourselves as slaves to righteousness, if we're in Christ, is not optional.

It's a command.

It says, present your members.

Some of us want all the forgiveness and none of the obedience.

And if that's you, I'm terribly concerned for you.

Jesus said, if you love him, you'll obey his command.

And our highest calling is to love him with all of ourselves.

Take an inventory today, friends.

Before everyone came in, we prayed that the Holy Spirit would move powerfully through here.

And if you feel a tug in your gut, please don't.

Ignore that.

Take an inventory today.

Audit your standing before a holy God that loves you.

Let's remember that in Christ we can choose this, but we don't earn it.

We've been given the gift of righteousness in Christ, which then allows us to put that sin to death in our lives.

We have a new master.

And this life, and this is a life and service to him.

It allows us to enjoy sanctification, which is the process of daily being made more like him.

Free from the bounds of sin and thriving in Christ.

This is not always fun.

It sounds great to be changed to be more like Jesus.

Sometimes that comes after tremendous brokenness.

In case you need a reminder, Paul's shown us that we've been justified or made at peace with God.

We're reconciled and able to enjoy intimacy with Him.

And now we get to look forward to sanctification as He keeps us near and changes us.

And I just want to juxtapose justification and sanctification just so we're clear on what they are.

So justification is right standing with God.

It's a legal standing before God.

It's achieved one time forever.

It's entirely accomplished by God.

We don't justify ourselves.

It's perfectly manifest in this life.

We get all the justification now.

And it's uniform across all believers.

I'm not saved more than you are, and you're not saved more than I am.

We're all justified fully.

And then sanctification is growing in likeness to God.

It's an internal condition as followers of God.

And it's a continuous process through our lives.

It's accomplished as we labor alongside God.

This is where we play a part.

It's not fully manifest here, it's fully manifest in our next life with Him.

And it's greater in some than in others.

And the big question here is: do you want to be holy?

This is the pursuit if we're to be slaves to God.

A diligent pursuit of holiness.

Do you desire sanctification in your life?

Or are you complacent?

F.F.

Bruce is a biblical scholar and he said it this way: those who have been justified are now being sanctified.

Those who have no experience of present sanctification have no reason to suppose that they've been justified.

So that's you.

If you don't desire sanctification, if you don't desire to be made holy, dig into that.

Be honest about it.

Dig into that.

Let's go on to verses 22 and 23.

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.

We've been set free.

The J.B.

Phillips summary is a translation that said it like this: We've been released from the service of sin and entered the service of righteousness.

We no longer punch a time card for Satan.

At the cross, we weren't just forgiven of our sin, but we were set free from our sin.

We can chase after holiness all the days of our lives because of Christ's finished work on our behalf with the reward of eternal life.

And that's a tremendous amount of good news.

This is where it all this good news takes us.

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.

That obedience part is where we can play a part.

But notice that it says obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

And this is so encouraging because it's actually a promise of change.

It's not a question.

As slaves of righteousness, we are promised to become more like him.

Look with me.

Thanks be to God.

God's accomplished this for us.

He did a work.

And while we're to contend vigorously for holiness in our lives, we aren't responsible for and capable of achieving it on our own.

I pointed out to the standard of teaching to which we're committed.

It's God's word.

This is the good news of the gospel that we've heard.

It's now illuminated a previously dead soul within us.

And this word standard, it actually means like a mold or a form.

We've been committed to the form or the mold, which is the teachings in God's word.

And what we'll see is we come out looking like God's word by God's grace.

So we're put into a mold and we come out looking more like God.

That's a miracle.

We not only hear the good news, we hold fast to it.

This news that through the obedience established in our hearts for us, then allows us to be obedient in practice.

We can honor this master that has justified us, that has rescued us and reconciled us and is now sanctifying us.

Charles Spurgeon said it this way: If Christ has died for me, ungodly as I am, without strength as I am, then I can no longer live in sin, but must arouse myself to love and serve Him, Him who has redeemed me.

I cannot trifle with the evil that killed my best friend.

I must be holy for his sake.

How can I live in sin when he has died to save me from it?

I'll circle back to some challenging questions that I alluded to earlier and say again.

I'm asking these of myself.

I'm preaching to myself first.

Friends in Christ, do your actions contradict your profession of faith?

Paul's going to encourage us if they do, or if that's you.

He's going to encourage us in the next chapter when he opines his confusion.

Why does he constantly do the things that he hates as opposed to not doing, or as opposed to doing the things that he wants to do?

Why do I constantly keep making the same mistakes?

Why do I not do those things that mean the most to me?

This is where it gets fun.

I want to confess to you that that's been part of my story.

That I've allowed fear of man, desire to avoid conflict, desire to serve myself, be selfish, just to be far less than honest at times.

It's caused me devastation in my ministry, in my marriage.

It's been the gate by which the devil has ensnared me to forget whose I am and who I am, and that's where traditionally I've stopped.

I focus on the destruction that it causes to my life, but fail to dig deeper to acknowledge that what I'm doing is shaming the name of my master.

It's not just about the destruction that I cause to myself or the hurt that I caused to people that matters.

But what I'm doing is choosing a different master.

I'm preaching to myself today.

I'm here with really good news for me and for you.

That there's restoration at the feet of Jesus right now.

Know that you don't feel that though you might feel like a slave to sin, you are a slave to righteousness in Christ.

Take heart that though we have glory to look forward to beyond this life, in this life, or beyond this life, in the here and now, in the here and now, he's done miraculous things to change you.

Cling to that and be reminded that he is never referred to you as a slave, but as his new creation, his workmanship, and one that's saved from condemnation.

This is our gospel conviction today.

In Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, the chains that once bound us to sin have been broken once and for all.

If you're outside of Christ, uh, if you're woefully enslaved to a life in sin that these scriptures have enlightened you on, and which a Holy Spirit is actively convicting you of, there's salvation for you and true freedom.

Verse 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

As slaves to sin, we get exactly what we've earned: a wage.

And praise God that as slaves of righteousness through Christ, we get precisely the opposite of what we deserve: the free gift of eternal life to come and the immeasurable joy of freedom now.

So, what do we do with all this?

I've got three things that come to mind.

Through abiding faith in Christ, let us surrender fully to him as our true and better master.

Rest in his goodness.

Rest in his promise.

Rest in his provision.

Second, as the Holy Spirit has empowered us, wage war on the sin in our lives.

And my pattern has been, like I alluded to before, sin and then cowardice, and then shame over the destruction I've caused, and then a determination to do better.

And that fails.

How can I hate it?

How can I kill it?

It's never been a reliance on the Holy Spirit to kill the sin that's inside of me.

It's been my determination.

It's been called grace-driven effort, which is what I've needed for a long time.

And it's different than I feel bad for what I've done.

But it's more I've dishonored the one whom I serve.

The one true and faithful master, the one who's justified and reconciled into sanctifying me.

We have to wage war on our sin.

This grace-driven effort ought to be violent.

Some of us, me, we've been treating Satan not like he's out to destroy our families, but like some pest or nuisance that we can manage.

And finally, out of love for our Holy Father, let us choose righteousness through obedience.

Let us stand in awe of his holiness.

Let us see him rightly and ourselves rightly, and then be compelled and enabled by the Holy Spirit to choose righteousness every day.

As we've been justified, reconciled, and are being sanctified in Christ, let us wage war on our sin and live in fullness as slaves to righteousness.

If you think you can manage your sin, you are deceived.

God has done a great work.

And some of us treat this Holy Spirit like this car that we have with a perfectly capable engine and transmission to propel us where we ought to go.

We have that.

Yet we drill holes in the bottom of our car and we flintstone it along to our own power.

You will tire.

But we're invited to thrive in our liberation today.

For God's good name and our good.