Our text this afternoon is Romans chapter 6, Romans chapter 6, and with the words of the Lord Jesus in mind that we read in John chapter 8. Let us read now Romans chapter 6 from verse 13. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh, For as ye have yielded your members, servants, to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members, servants, to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then? In those things were off ye are now ashamed. For the end of those things is death. but now being made free from sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness in the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. In society, we expect, and rightly so, a certain standard of behavior from different people according to their station. So very few people would wish to be born, for example, in the British royal family. The scrutiny that they come under, the etiquette that they are required to observe down to very fine matters of detail. But of course behind that is their identity. Who they are is determinative of their behavior, how they are expected to live. And that's really Paul's point in Romans chapter six. He's teaching us about the Christian life. He asks, can a Christian continue to sin because grace abounds? And his answer is a definitive no. To do so is absolutely incompatible with who you are as a Christian. The Christian has died to sin, risen again to new life in Christ. Therefore, you are to live out a life consistent with the implications of your identity. If you have died unto sin, you must go forward to die unto your sin. And if you have been risen again to new life in Jesus Christ, then you were to go forth to live a life unto righteousness. Well, in all this, we've seen that we're dealing with the doctrine of sanctification. And last time, we noted that there are two key elements to sanctification. And the first is the mortification of sin. And Paul deals with that in these verses, that we are to die to sin. And we consider two main things last time. The first is you are to defy sin. You're to deny its reign and its claims to rule over your life. But not only are you to defy it, you are to destroy it. You are to declare war against every instance of sin that you see in your life. You are to ruthlessly put it to death. Well, today we move to the second aspect of sanctification, sometimes called vivification, which simply means that we are to live unto God. We are to live unto righteousness. Well, remember the objection at the beginning of this chapter. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Note how Paul comes back to that objection in verse 15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace, and his answer's the same, God forbid. The idea is intolerable. It would be like Lazarus being resurrected from the dead, walking out of the grave with no thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ to continue living with no respect to Christ's claims of lordship over his life. It's unthinkable, intolerable. Well then, can a Christian rise to newness of life and not live a corresponding life of growing and increasing holiness and conformity to God's law? The answer, God forbid. And so with the Lord's help this afternoon, we take up this theme of sanctification, but now in its aspect of living to God. Living to God. Three main things. First of all, living to God and law. Living to God and law. Look at verse 14. Perhaps one of the most misused and misunderstood verses in scripture. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace. How many times you've encountered a Christian, quote these words, to somehow press upon you the idea that the Christian is freed from obedience to God's law. Well, doesn't Paul say it? We are not under the law, but under grace. Well, let's think about that in the context of Romans chapter six. First of all, what is life under the law? Paul says we're not under the law, therefore it means that it's possible to be under the law. Well, to begin an answer, please note that's not the only thing he says in verse 14. In fact, in the first half of the verse, he says, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace. So to be under the law is intimately connected with being under the dominion of sin. Note that well. Now some say, Paul is talking here about the Mosaic law. You're not under the Mosaic law. Problem with that view is the definite article is not found in this verse. So Paul is essentially saying, ye are not under law, but under grace. Those who will say it's the Mosaic law, they strike up a contrast. They say, no, we're not under the law the way the Old Testament believer was under the law. And they contrast that with the gospel. Hard division. Problem with that is that it would mean that the Old Testament believer who lived under the Mosaic economy was under the law and therefore under the dominion of sin. Do you see that? The thought as a whole in verse 14. It would mean the Old Testament believer was a slave to sin, that he didn't know the power of grace, that he was a complete stranger to the gospel. And none of those things are true. What then does it mean? Well, Paul is here using the term law in the general sense of commandment. You are not under the commandment, the law, which without grace in your life is bondage. You're not under the commanding power of the law as a way to life by which you try to save yourself by. You see, there are certain things that the law can do, and there are many things that the law can't do. What can the law do? Well, it can command, it can demand, It can approve that which is good. It can condemn that which is evil. It can convict of sin. It can even excite sinners to sin. Look at Romans chapter 7 verse 9. Paul is a sinner, very strongly believing that he's keeping the law. But he says in chapter seven verse nine, for I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, mark this, sin revived and I died. The law can do that to an unconverted heart. You understand this. You say to your children, don't touch that, and the child says, oh, what, that? Without the commandment, the child wasn't even thinking about that thing. But the commandment comes, now the eyes of the child is open, and so it is with the sinner. That's why we need to be very careful how we speak at times about certain sins, because we can actually incite people to sin. The law can command, can demand, approve, condemn, convict. even excite sin, but the law cannot deliver us from the bondage of sin, nor can it empower us to the obedience that it demands. Only grace from God can enable this. Therefore, in Paul's argument Life under the law without grace is a life of impotence. The sinner cannot obey the righteous demands of God's law. Or to take it further, in reality, life under the law is actually lawless. Because according to Paul's argument, The one who is under the law is under the dominion of sin, and he is a servant of sin. But let's take it further. That's life under the law, but he says you're not under the law, but you're under grace. So what is life under grace? Life under grace is actually the lawful life. Life under the law is the lawless life. Life under grace is the lawful life. Why? Because the Christian has experienced the power of the grace of God and he understands the place of law in his life. So when Paul speaks here, of being under grace. He's saying, you believers have come under the rain, and you are partaking of all of the resources of God's redeeming grace. You have experienced this. You've experienced what the prophet Ezekiel speaks of, that I will take away the heart of stone, and I will give to you a heart of flesh, and I will make you to walk in my commandments. You've experienced what the prophet Jeremiah speaks of. A new heart will I give unto you and I will write my law upon your heart. That's what it is to be under grace. A new life, a new heart, a new power whereby you were enabled to obey. In terms of Romans 6 verse 13. You were now enabled to yield yourself unto God as those who were alive from the dead. But you see what hasn't changed here? What hasn't changed is the commanding power and content of God's moral law. The law is still commanding you. The difference is you now have the power to offer unto God obedience. You have grace by Christ through the Spirit to live the sanctified life unto holiness. Now, the scale of this is insurmountable. The law and its breadth and its depth, it touches every action and it plums down into our hearts test and try our motives. But Philippians chapter 2, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, is followed by verse 13. Because it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. That's life under grace. The enabling power of God to make you willing and to make you able to do all of his holy will. Well, you see the power of grace enters, enabling you to obey. The question then is, what do I obey? What do I obey? And here we see the power of grace directs us to the place of the law. Paul uses the term sin and righteousness. He keeps using these terms in Romans chapter 6. You will no longer obey sin, but on the other hand, you will obey righteousness. Well, doesn't that beg the question, what is sin? What is righteousness? Sin is lawlessness. Sin is any want of conformity or transgression of the law of God. What is righteousness? Righteousness is conformity unto the law of God. And Paul presses this in verse 15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid! Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness? Brethren, if there is no law, there is no sin. if there is no law, how do I know what righteousness is? It is idiotic to come to Romans chapter six and to simply read verse 14, you are not under the law, and then think the Christian lives some kind of fuzzy feeling, spirit-led Christian life that doesn't have any legal content. No. To make it all the more ridiculous, what does Jeremiah tell us will happen? God will write the law upon your heart. I'm not under the law, I don't have to obey the Ten Commandments. What does the Holy Spirit write upon your heart at conversion? The same law, Jeremiah says, as was written in the tables of stone at Mount Sinai. There isn't even a crack in the door here to antinomianism. Why is it so intolerable to Paul that under grace would be distorted to mean that you can continue in sin and the law has nothing to do with your life? because he understands these things. The power of grace directs the Christian's attention to the place of the law. So if you were to sit here this afternoon and to say, well, I'm under grace, the law of God has got nothing to do with me, I would retort, you're not under grace. A Christian doesn't think like that. A Christian doesn't say, well, I'll take forgiveness and grace from God and never mind obedience. The law has no power to sanctify you, that is true. But the law is the template of righteousness by which you live your life. And the more Christian that you grow in grace, the more your life will look like the law. the more your life will look like the law. And let's go further. The more you continue to grow in grace, your life will look more like the Lord Jesus Christ's life, who perfectly kept the law of God. There's another Achilles heel to this argument. The very fact that you are to be Christ-like, and Christ is the embodiment of obedience to the law, means that of course you're going to obey the law as a Christian. Living unto God is living a life regulated by his most perfect law of righteousness. The Christian says, Oh, how I love thy law. He delights in it. Secondly, Living to God and liberty. Living to God and liberty. So from what we've said here, freedom is a key thought in Paul's mind. When he thinks about the gospel, he thinks about liberty. When he speaks about the Christian life, he speaks of it in terms of the contrast between bondage and liberty. And there's one word that he seems to use here more than any other word, and it's the word slave. He uses it eight times in verse 16 through 22. And when you read these verses, you are left in no doubt whatsoever that all men are slaves. All men are slaves. You all here today are slaves. The question is not whether or not I am a slave. The question is, to whom am I a slave? All men are slaves, but verse 16, who are you a slave to? Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants, that word is slave, servants to obey, his servants or slaves ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness." Whose servant are you? He goes on to speak, first of all, of past bondage. He's already said you were under the dominion of sin, you were under the commanding power of the law, the idea there of dominion and tyranny. But now he continues, verse 17 and 20. He says, here's what you were. And here's what you did. What were you, verse 17, but God be thanked that you were the servants of sin. You were the slaves of sin. What did you do when you were the slaves of sin? Verse 21, what fruit had ye then and those things were off ye and now is she and for the end of those things is death. In your past bondage as a slave to sin, you yielded and presented and surrendered yourself to your lusts and to every temptation. You were the slave of sin. If you consider a horse that had been broken, there you are. Sin has the reins of your life. Sin has the bit in your mouth. Sin has the spurs digging into your side. Sin has the whip that is controlling the whole direction of your life. And as a result, under that dominion, you yielded yourself more and more to its practice. And Paul describes it in verse 19. He says your life was iniquity unto iniquity. Literally, lawlessness unto lawlessness. You were lawless under the law. You lived a life of ever increasing sin. Your unconverted life, driven by your sinful will to use life for your own end, to live it according to your own ways and rejection of God and everything that is holy and good. all the while a slave fooling yourself into thinking you were free. For some of you that's not past bondage. It's present bondage. It's painful to watch, knowing the truth and going out and living a complete slave to your own will. And there's no one here, parent or minister or friend, can break the shackles of that bondage. But maybe today, by the grace of God, the penny might drop. You think you're free. You think you're free. I'm not going to obey the Word of God. I'm going to do what I want and I'll have my own friends and I'll go here and do this and enjoy that. I'm free. No, you're not. You're a slave. You're a slave. May God, by His Spirit, release you, emancipate you from all of this bondage that you have chosen willfully to live under. Past bondage, present freedom. Verse 15. We're under grace. But now look at verse 17. What you were, You were the servants of sin, but verse 18, being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. Then again, verse 22, but now being made free from sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. The Christian has been liberated from his past bondage and brought by the grace of God into present freedom. That's why we read in John chapter 8, when the great emancipator and liberator, Jesus Christ, preaches his own deliverance from the bondage of sin by saying to those in his presence who were in it, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Because the truth will point you to Me. He that believeth on the Son, he shall be free indeed. And the word there means really free, gloriously free, forever free. He shall be free indeed. But what is this freedom? Paul goes on to tell us. And he says, the Christian is one who has been freed to a new slavery. The Christian is one who has been freed to a new slavery. The idea of slavery does not change in this passage. It's the master who changes. Verse 18, being made free from sin. What have you become? You have become the slaves of righteousness. Verse 22, being now made free from sin and become slaves to God, you have your fruit unto holiness and the end of everlasting life. You were the horse and the rein and the bit and the spurs and the whip. We're all in the hand of the dominion of sin But Christ has taken control of that horse. There's a new rider and he's now spurring and directing and guiding the lives of his people onto the good end of righteousness and holiness. This is your life, Christian. You have become the slave of righteousness and of God in Christ. That means that your liberty is not freedom to live as you please. It's freedom to walk according to the commandments of God. It's the freedom to actually surrender yourself to this life of slavery. Remember the word yield that Paul keeps using here. That's your life. A happy yielding unto God. So verse 13, he says, don't yield unto sin, don't surrender to sin, but surrender yourself unto God. To go back to last time when all of these impulses are coming into our minds, send your eyes this way and put your hand to this particular sin. No, everything is different now. For the believer, he's surrendering his mind and his will and his affections and his eyes and his hands and his mouth. He's surrendering every impulse to the command of righteousness with a desire to be in total submission unto God. And verse 19 contrasts it with the former life. He says, when you were a slave unto sin, your life, was a life of inequity unto inequity, ever-increasing sin, brethren. But what now? Even so now yield your members, servants to righteousness unto holiness, ever-increasing holiness in the life of the Christian. Living to God has to do with liberty. But it's not the liberty that many people like to think it is. Every single one of us is a slave. The question is who to? Are you here this afternoon and you're still a miserable slave and servant to your own lusts? Or have you been redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ and brought into the happy slavery? of a life lived unto God and unto righteousness. Remember I said earlier that a Christ-like life is a life through which we yield our member servants to unrighteousness. It's a law-regulated life. Well, this all comes together in Christ himself. Do you remember Psalm 40? No sacrifice or offering didst thou at all desire. What does the prophetic voice say next? Very strange thing. My ears have been bored. What's that a reference to? The Old Testament law, when the slave fulfilled his commission, the period of slavery that he had to render unto his master. And he could go out free. But this slave doesn't want to go out free. He says, I love, I love my master. I will not go out free. And the law says, take him to the door and put his earlobe to the door and pierce his ear, bore it through because he has become your servant forever. Psalm 40. Jesus is the one whose ear has been bored as the slave of the Lord. And what does his life look like? To do thy will, I take delight. O thou, my God, that art, yea, that most holy law of thine I have within my heart. Jesus himself was a slave of righteousness for our salvation. He delivers us from the bondage of sin and he constitutes us to live a life like him. To the service of righteousness on to ever increasing holiness in the fear of the Lord. Living on to God. Thirdly, we've had living on to God and law, living on to God and liberty. But finally, living on to God and life. Verse 20 through 22. For when you were the servants of sin, you were freed from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. Ever increasing righteousness unto holiness. But there are a number of motives here in these verses. The first requires you to look back at your life before grace. And the second requires that you look forward onto the end. The first is the fruit of sin. Do you see how Paul asks? Verse 21, what fruit had ye then and those things were off ye are now ashamed? Cast your minds back, he's saying, to your pre-conversion days. What was the fruit of your life? What was the fruit of your life? Now, there's a debate. What does he mean by fruit? Does he mean good fruit? Well, if he means good fruit, the answer is none. There was no good fruit in my life before Jesus saved me by his grace. My life was barren. But if he's meaning what fruit in the sense of good fruit or bad fruit, which I believe he is meaning, then the answer is the fruit of my life was bad. It was bitter and it was rancid. Be good to ask yourself this question in the present. It's one thing to be able to say, that was my past life, but God has saved me by his mercy. It's another thing to be able to look at your life right now and say, this is my life. This is all I have. I look at the fruit of my life, there's no fruit unto holiness. There's no fruit of the Holy Spirit. It's all unto sin. I'm a slave of righteousness. My life is morally disgusting. And you don't have to be lying in a public street gutter with your sin manifest to the whole world to come to that conclusion. Paul says the fruit was shame. What fruit had ye then? And those things were off ye are now ashamed. You know, you see a fruit tree. Maybe it's an orange tree and you like oranges and you approach that tree and you pick an orange off it and it's rotten and as you put your fingers upon it, the thing just bursts in your hand. Disgusting, rancid, fruit juice all over you. That was your life. You wouldn't think of eating that. You think this is gonna make me sick. Was that not the case for a believer? What fruit had you in those things? We're off, you're not ashamed. Things come into a believer's mind relating to their past. And you want to shut your eyes so that you don't see it. And you turn away from yourself in nauseating shame. You know that's true. I can place myself in former contexts that make me gut sick. Loathe yourself. God is gracious to people in scripture. We heard a sermon on Friday night by Mr. Evans, Rahab the harlot. It's not interesting. She's always called Rahab the harlot. Even when she's redeemed from her sins, she's Rahab the harlot, and yes, that glorifies God. He saves this harlot, but she never gets away from what she once was. And Paul does the same thing. As he's sharing his testimony, he can't forget who he was, who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious, but I obtained mercy. One of the marks of grace in your life is that you will not look back on sin and excuse it. Worse, you will not glory in it or talk of it or laugh about it as if it were no big deal. When I was converted there were was a culture in my homeland of testimonies, and the more sin you'd been involved in, the better was your testimony, and they would have these meetings, and there would be cards produced. I remember sitting listening to a man, and he was talking about how drunk he would get, and he came home, and he fell into a cupboard drunk, and everybody was laughing. I thought, this is bizarre. Utterly bizarre. The fact that we had these things in our lives, if it's true of us, is shameful fruit. The fact that you can remember it is not to glory in it, but to continue to humble yourself before God. Now God be blessed, he forgives all of your iniquities. He washes you clean from all your sins. But one thing God doesn't do when he converts you, he doesn't erase your memory and he doesn't take the scars away. There are those of us sitting here and we're gonna have scars until the day that we die. And we will say like David, my sins and faults of youth. Forget them. I can't forget them. Again, some of you here unconverted need to start being ashamed of yourself now. What's your fruit? Come on, tell us. What's your fruit in your present course of life? Is it good fruit, is it? Is it fruit under righteousness? You know, take your answer to God, humble yourself today and say, no, it's rancid, bitter, disgusting fruit. And we'll pray that God would make you sick of yourself, ashamed of yourself, that you would go to him for mercy and forgiveness. The fruit of sin is shame. Another thing is the fruit of sin is death. Verse 21, what fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are shamed? For the end of those things is death. Death because sin brings separation from God and time. And death because if you're not saved, your sin will bring you to the death of everlasting shame before God. And you'll be sick of your sin then for all eternity. But to the Christian, if there is no holiness in your life, if there is no fruit unto God, though you're not saved by that holiness, you will not see God. Because without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. So this is a really serious matter. We're not playing with a religious philosophy of life here. We're asking, what does the fruit growing on the tree of life tell you about your state before God? Is the fruit of your life death? If there's no good fruit, that's not the same as saying that there's no bad fruit. There's bad fruit in every Christian's life. But if there's no good fruit and if there's no concern to pursue it, you can know the doctrine of holiness and read books about holiness, but if there's no pursuit and fight for holiness, The end of your life is going to be death. The Christian says, there's much that I'm still ashamed of as a Christian. But for all that, I am the delightfully happy slave of Jesus Christ. Is that you? Well, bless God, you've begun to start living unto the Lord. but then we have the fruit of righteousness. You're freed from sin to serve God, not only freed from shame and death, but look at verse 22. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end, everlasting life. The one ends in death, the other ends in life. The fruit of righteousness really is a holy and a happy life in this world and to all eternity. You need to embrace that view of obedience unto God. These people will come and tell you, well, you're not under the law. They haven't come to appreciate the beauty of holiness. The happiness of holiness. That we can enjoy abundant life now, an incorruptible, everlasting life in heaven. Would you see the motive here? Paul's pressing it upon us. You have your fruit unto holiness now. What's the end of that holy life? Everlasting life. not because your holiness earns it, but because Christ has delivered you from the bondage of sin. He has raised you from the dead so that you might walk in holiness of life, that obedience is not your way to obtain eternal life, but it is the way that you walk throughout this world as a Christian with your face set toward heaven. Should we continue in sin? The thought is intolerable. The fruit of sin is death. Should we surrender to righteousness? Absolutely, because the fruit of righteousness is everlasting life. This is the true, holy lust for life that every believer should have. A passion for holiness. People say, I just want to enjoy life. I want to live life to the full. I want to really live. Do you know what the Bible answers those questions with? Really living is a life of communion with God. Living life to the full is yielding your members and your life servants of righteousness unto holiness. Your best life. is living a careful life of obedience according to God's law. That's the man who will have perfect blessedness. All motivated by grace, all empowered by the Holy Spirit, all lived looking unto Jesus who loved us and gave himself for us. At the end of it all, the happy slave says, I am an unprofitable servant, but I'm a really happy one because Christ has freed me from the bondage of sin and liberated me to be a slave of righteousness. So we've looked at these verses over the last number of weeks. I trust you see how it all ties together. Who you are in Christ, affects how you live in this world. You have been redeemed to live a life to God, which is regulated by his law, where liberty is key, but it's the liberty of a new slavery, and your life is to be one that brings forth the fruit of holiness. This is the will of God, brethren, even your sanctification. You are to die more and more to sin, live more and more unto righteousness. It is not perfect sanctification, but it is persevering sanctification. And the end of it all is glorious. This is what you've been raised from the dead for. Therefore, go and die. Go and live. Let's stand for prayer. Our Father in heaven, help us to live unto God. Make us happy servants. We look at our former life and the only fruit that we had there causes us to be ashamed. Lord, as we give ourselves to iniquity, unto iniquity, if we had the same zeal to give ourselves unto righteousness, unto holiness, Lord, help us as Christians to pursue these things the way the worldly man pursues his own lusts. Breathe life into us and strengthen us. Help us to embrace the surrendered life that we would yield ourself to God in all things, with a view to the present and the future, that there's happiness now, and the end is everlasting life. Lord, bless the truth to us, motivate us on the path of obedience, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.