If you have your Bibles tonight, please open to the book of Romans in chapter 6. Our verses are Romans 6, verses 15 through 19. If you don't have a Bible with you, please feel free to use the Bible in the pew rack in front of you. And you can find the passage for tonight on page 943 of our pew Bibles. Romans 6, verses 15 through 19. Hear the word of our Lord. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law, but under grace? By no means. 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? 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. And having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I'm 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. Thus far the reading of the Word of God. Would you please pray with me? Our Father in heaven, we we give you thanks for your living word. We pray that. You would help us by your Holy Spirit. To discern and understand these words. And I pray, oh Lord, that you would help us. To love having our knee bowed to you. We thank you for our Savior, Jesus Christ. Now we pray that you would teach us and draw our hearts near to you. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, it's been a few weeks since we've been in the Book of Romans. We've had a wonderful time with the holiday season and some different kind of evening services. So it's been great, but I'm really happy to be back in the Book of Romans But if you're a little bit like me, you might need a little bit of a refresher as to what's going on in this passage where we are in Romans 6. You may remember the Apostle Paul has laid out the gospel of Jesus Christ in the initial chapters of this book. And now in chapter six has turned to answering objections that he anticipates that the people who will hear and read and receive the gospel message, he's anticipating objections that will be raised. And we saw last time, as we looked at the beginning of Romans 6, that there's a question of, okay, I love hearing about the grace of Jesus Christ. Isn't it wonderful? But if my salvation is all of grace, does that mean then that I can go on sinning? And that's again the question here. In verses 1 through 14 of chapter 6, Paul simply lays out, in answering this question initially, he lays out the facts. He says, if you are in Christ, you have died to sin. That's a fact about who you are and what has happened to you. And you have been raised in Christ. If you are a Christian, This is a truth about you. It's not something to achieve. It is true of you. Now, of course, this does not mean that Christians somehow stop sinning altogether. Paul will go on, as we'll see, especially in the next chapter, talking about the troubles of remaining sins. A sin that's still in your heart. That a believer must be continually fighting against. But here we need to see, and the point that's being made in chapter 6 is that the Christian life, though, even though there is remaining sin and we have ongoing battle with sin and so on, we no longer continue in sin. Yes, we might sin, but we repent and we come back to Christ, but we don't keep on living in sin. Just as a dead man cannot continue to live, a Christian cannot continue to sin. The Christian has died to sin and has been raised to new life in Jesus Christ. You are dead to sin if you are a Christian, and alive to God. That's what the Apostle Paul has been arguing, and showing us, and teaching us. And you might think, you know, you tell me something once and I get it. But as we come to v. 15, we realize maybe people in the ancient world are a lot more like us than we realize. I need to hear some things more than once before I fully grasp it, before I fully understand. Look with me at v. 15. Paul raises another objection. He says, what then? Are we to sin because we are not under law, but under grace? By no means. Now in a way, he's asking essentially the same question that he raises in verse 1. But here, this question is actually in response to the previous verse, verse 14, where Paul lays out for us that sin will have no dominion over you, Christian, since you are not under law, but under grace. So Paul is anticipating people who are going to hear this gospel message preached to them, And they're going to come to this conclusion, okay, I am saved by faith alone and Christ alone. He alone brings me to God alone. If that's all true, if it's all of Christ, if it's all His work, why then do I need to bother with the law of God at all? What does the law of God have to do with me? And indeed, the gospel does teach us that God deals with sinners graciously, doesn't he? And with mercy. But what we need to see tonight, that even though that is true, there is no sense in which the gospel overthrows or nullifies the law. So if you know about the New Covenant, We've been studying covenant theology in my Sunday school class, and when you are introduced to the New Covenant, you actually see it introduced to you in the Old Testament, in particular in Jeremiah. God tells us in Jeremiah 31, He says, of the New Covenant, of the time in which Christ comes and the Gospel goes forth to the nations, He says, God says, I will put my law within them. And I will write it on their hearts. So John says, I will take the law. He doesn't say I'll throw it away. But actually, I'm going to put it on the hearts of my people. I'm going to engrave it on the hearts of my people. This question of, OK, if I'm saved by the grace of Jesus Christ, do I really have to Do I have to care about the Old Testament? Do I have to care about the law of God? That's not merely a first century question. It's not merely a question of Jewish folks in Rome 2,000 years ago. It's something that we also struggle with today. There are many people who will say because of the grace of Jesus Christ, because of Jesus, I don't have anything to do. I don't need to have anything to do with God's law. It's a word some of you have probably heard before. Word antinomianism. It's a word that means against the law. You know, I remember the first time I've heard that word. And it wasn't in seminary. And it wasn't actually in church. If I did hear it in church before this time, it just washed over me at that point. I was actually an undergrad student at a secular college non-Christian professor reading a novel by an author named D.H. Lawrence. And the professor said that D.H. Lawrence, this author, was an antinomian. Do you know what that is? I'm looking around at my classmates, and none of us have ever heard this word, and we have no idea what he's talking about. And so this professor explains it, and actually, for a non-believer, he explains it quite well. He's saying, well, he believes in God. He's a Christian, but he doesn't live according to the law. He thinks the laws of the Old Testament have no bearing upon his life today. Now, you may have read D. H. Lawrence books. Some of his books have been adapted to the screen, and I don't recommend any of them to you. So just skip on by. Because I remember when I was taught that in that class, and we were reading this book, and I was reading this book, and I was hearing this, and I was thinking, this guy, this author is saying that he's a Christian. And yes, there are references to the Bible and Scripture. So he knows his Bible. And yet, even then, For I was a very young Christian. Even then, I could read what he was writing and I said, there is no way in the world this man loves God. It is impossible for what he writes, what he is promoting, for this man to really love God. Whether he calls himself a Christian or not, even I, as new as I was to the faith, as little as I knew, could tell, could sniff it out. He doesn't really care about God. He only cares about himself. What I perceived then, without really understanding it at the time, is that obedience to the law of God is actually the great marker of the person who is united to Jesus Christ. If you want to know if somebody is a Christian, if somebody is united to Jesus Christ, you're going to see it. in their obedience to God's law. Doesn't mean they're perfect. Doesn't mean they don't mess up and don't sin. But there's definitely a striving towards God's law. So if the obedience to God's law is missing, I think that the new birth is absent in that person. Because when you're born again in Christ, as Jeremiah 31 says, the law of God is written on your hearts. And your delights turn away from the things of this world and toward God and who He is. And you start to love the things that God loves. And so that's what the Apostle Paul is addressing in our verses tonight. And so to answer this objection, shall we continue in, since we're not under law, but under grace, are we to sin? And he answers this objection by giving an illustration that his readers would have recognized right away. And they would have understood the point that he's making. And so to illustrate the gospel here, Paul is taking us to the slave market. And he's using this illustration because at verse 19 he tells us that I have to picture the gospel this way for you because you're limited in your understanding. I have to make it as clear as possible. It really is simple. So let's not overthink this, but I'm going to give you this illustration so that you can understand how the gospel works and changes our lives. And so with that, I want to show us three points here in these verses of what Paul is showing us in this illustration. For every person in this world, You have, there are, well, this verse tells us there are two masters in this world. There are two masters. And there are two kinds of service. And then thirdly, there are two wages. So I want us to consider the two masters that Paul speaks about here in these verses in 16 and in verse 19. First, look at verse 16. Paul gives us one master, the first master, who has two names. Look at verse 16. He says, 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? Let's stop there. So first he says, the first master that you are either that you are serving, the first master, you're either serving this master or the other master, the first name given to him is Sin. We have a name for this master, Sin. Now if you jump down to verse 19, he says, for just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity. So now this master has a second name given to him. And that wicked master is also known as impurity. So we have two names describing this Master. Sin and impurity. What is impurity? Impurity is living a life outside of the commandments to God. So that's the first Master. Now there's a second Master in these verses that Paul gives to us. Again, back to verse 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 you are slaves to obedience, which leads to righteousness. You hear the name of the second master here. Slaves to obedience. Obedience. And now in verse 18, having been set free from sin, having become slaves of righteousness, slaves of righteousness. In verse 19, it repeats this phrase, slaves to righteousness. We have the second name for the second master is righteousness. So the second master, we have two names given in these verses, obedience and righteousness. And I'm skipping ahead, but the verse 22 tells us that ultimately, Verse 22 says, but now you have been set free from sin, and have become slaves of God. Slaves of God. So ultimately, we know the second master, obedience, righteousness, really this is speaking of God as the second master. So there are two masters presented to us in these verses. One is sin, and the other master is God. And the question is this, which of these two is your master? There's not a third one out there. You are a slave either to sin or you are a slave to God. That's what it boils down to. The answer to this question is what it boils down for you tonight. Who is your Master? Now the question may be, well, how can I know? How can I know which one I serve? You might have that question. Some of you may be certain, I know it's sin. I know. And some of you may be convinced, I know I serve my God. And yet some of you may say, I'm not really sure tonight, Ben. How can I know? Well, when you ask this question, who is my master, is it sin or is it God? Consider your life. Consider how you live. Who is it that you take orders from? Who directs your life? Which master are you seeking to please? Because you are seeking to please one or the other. It's interesting. You can be in the church and you can have the appearance of Christianity and be serving Master Sin the entire time. Jesus Himself speaks to this in the Gospel of Luke. He says, Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? He's saying you can have all the appearance and call Jesus Lord, and yet if you don't have obedience, he says, I'm not going to know you. You don't belong to me. Your actions, the life you live will speak to the reality. Of your heart will speak to the reality of your master, and there will be many people in your life who will say very impressive things. But God knows the heart. God knows the heart. I was reading a blog recently written by a friend of this church, Reverend Stephen Dancer, who's the pastor at Solihull Presbyterian Church in England. And he was reviewing a book that he read in the past year, a biography of Charles Hodge. And he was talking about a sermon that Charles Hodge gave at the beginning of one of the semesters at Princeton Divinity School. And as Hodge was giving this sermon, he was remembering the founders of Princeton Seminary, men like Samuel Miller. And he talked about the godliness and the goodness of those men, and he contrasted those men with people he knew in his day. And listen to what he says. This is Charles Hodge. He says, It often happens, however, that men are very pious without being very good. Their religion expends itself in devotional feelings and service, while the evil passions of their nature remain unsubdued. It was not so with our fathers. They were as good as they were pious." You see, we can be taken in by people who have all the appearance of piety. Who have great success in ministry. And yet Hodge says, such a person can still not have goodness in their heart. And goodness comes from closeness to Christ. To having your knee bent to God, your Master. And Jesus Himself says it is by your fruit that you will be known. So examine your life. Is there love and joy? Peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. Are these fruit blossoming? Are you seeing even just little tiny buds of these things in your life? Well, who is your master? So there's two masters, but there's also, we see in these verses, there are two kinds of service. Because these two different masters demand two different types of service. If your master is sin, you will continue in sin. What is sin? Sin is any lack of conformity to or transgression of the law of God. Sin is rebellion. Sin is a denial or ignoring of the commands of God. And sometimes we can look at our lives and it can be easy to identify sin because there are certain sins that just, they just pop out and they're vile and they're awful and it hurts a lot of people and it's obvious. And yet there are other times where sin is sometimes not so obvious, isn't it? We can disguise our sin and say, well, I was doing this in good service and ultimately it led to a good thing or what have you. And we wear these rose-colored glasses when we examine our own lives. If everybody knew what I was going through, then of course they would understand why I did that. And we can find ourselves calling something that is evil, good. What is at the heart of it? What is sin? Well, you know a life that is living under the master sin and not under master God because such a life does not at its heart seek to honor Christ at all. To think and to act and to make plans with no thoughts of giving praise and glory to the Savior Jesus Christ. We're in that time of year, January, first week or so of January. We make plans for 2023. We have our resolutions. We have our goals for the year. Is the honor of Christ anywhere in your thoughts when you're making your plans for this coming year? Do you pursue your ambitions? Without any thought. As to whether or not what you're doing will bring honor to the Lord. Will show you what kind of service. You're providing by our fruits, we will be known. However, if God is your master, then your life, your service will look different. Look again in verse 16. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, your slaves are the one whom you obey, either of sin which leads to death, or of obedience which leads to righteousness? How are the slaves of God characterized here? They're characterized by their obedience. Obedience to what? Obedience to God. And you begin to understand that the life being enslaved to God as our Master, it's a way of life. It's a life that is shaped by the revealed will of God, by the law and commands of God. It is an obedience to the One that we recognize, He loved me first. An obedience to the great Lover of my soul. Obedience to the One who gave His only begotten Beloved Son in order to deliver me from an eternity in hell. And then you look at verse 17 and this thought of obedience to righteousness is further developed. He says in verse 17, but thanks be to God that you who once were slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed. You know, when we think about the preaching and the idea of the gospel, we share the gospel, we speak the gospel, we preach the gospel, we think of the gospel as something that's been given to us and it's been entrusted to us so that we can share with others. And of course, it's absolutely and certainly true But there's a sense in which that idea in verse 17 is kind of flipped upside down. And that actually it is us, the believer, who is entrusted to the gospel, not the gospel entrusted to us. We are entrusted to the gospel. Look at verse 17. At the end of verse 17, it tells us that we have been committed or we have been delivered to the teachings of God. In the Greek, the language here is very interesting. It's sort of a picture here. There's an idea that, like a mold, we're put into a mold, like you would pour something, plaster or what have you, into a mold that then will give it shape and definition. And so if you are in Christ, if you are a believer in Christ, then you have been poured into the mold of God's word, poured into the mold of God's teaching. Your life has been poured into the mold of the gospel. You used to be a slave to sin. But now you've been poured into the mold of God's teachings. And in this room, we have all sorts of differences. We have all sorts of personalities. There's so many different things that maybe none of us are a match for each other whatsoever. And yet for each believer in this room, our lives are going to be shaped by the same scripture, by the same gospel. We will have a gospel shaped life which will show forth The Master who has rescued you out of slavery to sin. So we learn about God. The doctrines of God. The teachings of God. They mold us and they shape us according to the Gospel. And so we obey God's Word from our hearts. Because we've been shaped to the Gospel. And this is what we see in the Christian life, isn't it? To be molded in the image of Jesus Christ. You all know that, don't you? That's the end goal, isn't it, for our lives? That we be made more like Jesus. That what you're going through, the difficulties and so on, God is using those difficulties to make you more like Christ. He is conforming us into the image. God is conforming us into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. And so we see that the Gospel has this definite shape and the believer is being poured into that shape. So we have two kinds of service, which brings us finally to the two different wages we have here. Again, back in verse 16, we see that the wages of master sin is death. You are either slaves to sin, which leads to death. And when you see this word death here, it's not speaking simply of the physical death that you will die. But I think it's speaking of the ultimate eternal separation from God. You see, Master Sin will promise you the world. But ultimately, he will pay you with hell. That's the reward Master Sin gives to his slaves. But look at the other master, God. What does he pay those who serve him? Verse 16, he gives righteousness. Verse 19, he gives sanctification. And ultimately, as again we'll see next week in verse 23, he gives eternal life. What is eternal life? It's fellowship, communion with God forever and ever. These are the wages of the servant, of the slave of God. So when you have this picture of the slave market here, and you're a slave either of sin or of God, and you see how that sort of is filled out in these verses, don't you see how incoherent it is to even suggest that the Christian ought to go on sinning without regard to God's law? Because it's God's law that we're molded to, to be shaped according to. And the thing is, one of these two masters is your master. You may not be thinking about it in those terms, but you're not as free as you think you are. You have a master, and it's either sin or it's God. And one of these two services is your service, and one of these two wages is your reward. Hell or eternal life with God. So who is your master? How do you live your life? Do you live your life lawlessly? Paul would tell us, you can't be a Christian if you do. Because if God is really your master, then your life will show that you are a slave to righteousness. What is righteousness? God tells us, He says, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not take the Lord's name in vain. You shall honor the Sabbath day and so on. You know the law of God. Of course, this takes effort. Verse 19, Paul says we are to present our members as a slave to righteousness leading to sanctification. I mean, if you've been united with Christ, then God is your master. And so you do have to live a life of service to him. But boiling it all down, the important question tonight is, who is your master? And if you can't answer that question for yourself, ask your friends, the people close to you. Does my life honor God in any way? What you see of my heart, does it give honor to the Savior, Jesus Christ? What does your life say? I want us to remember as we conclude here, the whole question, this whole objection is in response to the point made in verse 14. You are not under law, but under grace. Remember, the Christian is under grace. What does grace do? Grace orders things the way they're supposed to be, right? Grace puts God where He belongs. Grace puts us where we belong. But when grace does that, what happens? Though we are called slaves here, we are yet, in Christ, brought higher than we could ever possibly achieve for ourselves. Not by, it doesn't give us a ladder that we are to climb, but it unites us to the Savior, Jesus Christ, who already sits at the right hand of God. And he brings us close to him. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the love that you have for us, and we thank you for the grace that is given to us through your life, death, resurrection. And Lord, I pray that you would help us to love your grace. In loving your grace, I pray that you would help us to love you. And we pray, O Lord, that you would work in us, that we would be molded and shaped more and more, day by day, into the image of you, our Savior. And it's in your name we pray tonight. Amen.