If you have a Bible and would like to turn with me, we are in Romans chapter 6. And today we'll be looking at verses 15 through 19. Let us hear God's word. Verse 15, what then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one slaves whom you obey, whether of sin to death or obedience to righteousness. But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness." This is the word of the living God. It is God-breathed. May He speak to us as we hear it. Let's pray. Oh Lord, we thank you for your word. It is powerful, it's living, it's active, and it does surgery upon our hearts. It shows us the way we should go. It brings even a new birth for those who are appointed to that new birth as they hear it. So Lord, we pray that each and every one of us will hear the word as you want us to hear it today. Speak to us, open our ears, open our hearts to it. In Jesus' name, amen. At the beginning of this chapter, Romans 6-1, Paul brought up a very important question And he says, basically, is it fitting for us to continue in sin so that grace may abound? You see, he taught us that we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. And of course, to sin so that grace may abound was unthinkable to Paul. But now in verse 15, he brings up a very similar question. There's a slight difference. He says, what then shall we sin because we're not under law but under grace? Certainly not. And so previous verse to that, he states that the believers not under law. but under grace. And so some people might have thought, well, if I'm not under law, then I guess I don't have to pay any attention to the law, the commandments anymore. And of course, it doesn't mean that at all. What does it mean to not be under the law? Well, last week we saw that it means that for the believer in Christ, it means we're not under the condemnation of the law. We're not under its judgment. And it also means that we're not under the law in the sense that we are not obligated to keep the law as a means of salvation. It's impossible. Christ himself kept the law for us so that we could be saved, justified by his grace. But being saved by grace alone, being justified by faith alone, does not do away with our moral obligation to obey the commandments of God. Not in order to be saved, but because we are saved, we obey. So the law of God is, as we said last week, the rule of life for the Christian. If we love the Lord and we're thankful for His saving grace, then by grace we will be enabled to keep His commandments and do so out of a thankful heart for our salvation. So the person who says he's a Christian yet has no concern whatsoever about keeping God's commandments, is revealing something. That person is revealing that he or she is still a slave to sin. So there are only two alternatives. A person is either a slave to sin or a slave to God. So whose slave are you? Whose slave are you? Every person, as Bob Dylan used to sing, gotta serve somebody, serve something. You will either serve the devil in sin or you will serve God through Jesus Christ. So in this passage, Paul is contrasting these two types of slavery and they are incompatible. As Jesus said, you cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve two masters. So beginning now in verse 16, as we go verse by verse today, Paul writes, do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey, You are that one slave whom you obey. So whose slave are you? Well, it depends on which master you give obedience to. Do you obey sin leading to death or do you give obedience leading to righteousness? Well, as I said, you're either a slave to sin or a slave to God. And sometimes people don't recognize what they are. Jesus was speaking to some Jews in John chapter eight. And he said, you shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. That's a wonderful verse, isn't it? I mean, can you find any fault in that verse? Can you argue with that verse? Well, the scribes and Pharisees did. That made them bristle. And they answered him and said, when they heard that word, make you free, They said, we are Abraham's seed and we're never in bondage to anyone. How do you say, basically they were saying, how dare you say you will be made free? And Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever practices sin is the slave of sin. And those Jews, you see, didn't realize it. They were not willing to admit what Jesus and probably many others at that time could clearly see. And so, you see, when we are not willing to see what we are by nature, slaves to sin, then we're not in a position to be set free. If we're arguing against being set free, we're arguing against the fact that we are slaves, then there's no freedom for us. Jesus said, whoever practices sin is the slave of sin. And that means to practice sin as a lifestyle. It means to give yourself to sin. It means to give yourself over to doing what you want to do. All we like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to our own way. That's what sin is. It's going your own way instead of God's. So it doesn't matter, you can be a Jew or a Gentile, you can be raised in a church or not, but you're born a slave to sin. You can be a covenant child, baptized as an infant, but you're still born as a slave to sin. You are the slave of the one you obey. You go your own way, do your own thing, obey your own impulses, your own desires, then you are a slave to sin. Only those who are born again of the Spirit of God, only those who have a changed heart and trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, right, who is the truth, can be set free. So a person's lifestyle, this is the first thing we'll say, a person's lifestyle is gives them away as to whose slaves they are, whether they're slaves of Christ or slaves of sin. You know, and Jesus tells us, you know, there's a time for us, he says, you know, do not judge unless you be judged. That's another sermon, okay? But there are places where Jesus tells us to judge, to make observations, to discern things, And Jesus, talking about false teachers, he said, you will know them by their fruits. You will discern, you will judge the reality of what they are by their fruits. He said, even so, every good tree brings forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruits, nor can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. It doesn't matter what a person's profession is, if they continue in sin, if that's the fruit of their lives, then they're still under sin. They're in bondage to it. And you see these kinds of warnings all throughout the Bible, but especially in the book of 1 John. I'll just read one verse, 1 John 2 verse 4. It says this, he who says, I have known him, does not keep his commandments is What a liar and the truth is not in I know Jesus I've been born again But I don't keep his commandments. I'm a liar and do not Keep the truth. The truth is not in me. So we'd like to think of freedom, especially in this country Freedom we're all about freedom People on the left say they're about freedom. People on the right want freedom. But we have different ideas of what freedom is. A lot of us think that freedom is just freedom to do and live however I please. Freedom is freedom. Love is love. I can do whatever I please. But no such freedom exists. No such freedom exists. Now, if you've been born again, then you have been set free from bondage to sin, but when you're set free, you're not free to just do whatever you please, are you? No, you don't become your own master. You are now the slave, by faith, you are now the slave of Jesus Christ, your new master. You say, well, I don't like being a slave. Well, you gotta serve somebody. You will serve someone, something. It might as well be Jesus, the only one worthy of our service. In Romans 1, Paul introduced himself this way, Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ. You know, I don't mind being called pastor or minister. I don't like the title reverend as much, but really, you should just call me a slave, a servant of Jesus, if that is indeed what I am. And that's what Paul said about himself. If you are his slave, of course, You desire to and then you do, and not perfectly, you do what he commands. Your life is characterized by obedience leading to righteousness. Verse 17, Paul goes on, but God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. So what kind of obedience does a slave of Christ yield? Obedience from the heart, from the inner man. So a true believer, in other words, an actual slave, and there are many slaves still that exist in our world today, a slave doesn't have to do his work willingly, he just has to do it. But the slave of Christ does God's will because it's his highest joy. It's the thing that he desires to do above all else. As Bishop Cranmer put it, in whose service is perfect freedom. To be a slave of Christ is to be free. So there are some Very moral people, this is a second way in which we can look at this idea, how do we know whose slave we are? We know them by their fruits, Jesus said. That's the outward behavior. But there are some very moral people who, to all appearances, are as good or better than many Christians. So they seem to have good fruit. But there's a very simple way to weed out the moral people who are still slaves to sin. You say, well, how can that be? Well, because it's the inner person that we're talking about here. And so if a person is not trusted in Jesus from the heart as Savior and Lord, has not submitted their lives to them, they are slaves to sin. Now that requires self-examination. You and I cannot do that for others. We simply do not know their hearts. So everyone has to examine themselves to see if they know Jesus Christ and then if there's fruit that follows. But the one who truly has come to know Jesus Christ, Paul says, but God be thanked Though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart." Whenever you hear something like that, and there are many times in the New Testament it says, you were this, but now. That implies that there's this great change that has taken place. So it's not mere external conformity, you see. It is a change of heart and life. And that's the way we know. If we believe in Jesus and there's been that change, then we're no longer slaves to sin. And Paul says, if this is true of us, if this is true of you as a believer, and it is if you know Christ, then God be thanked, God be praised. This is matter for worship and praise of our God. And John Calvin said in his commentary that Paul adds a thanksgiving in here. You see that, again, often in Paul's letters. He will insert a phrase, with thanksgiving, or God be thanked, as it is here. Two reasons that he included this. First, so that we might know that it was not through our own merit or effort that we were released from sin's bondage. You thank God because it's what he did. He set you free. You didn't get yourself free. You didn't break your own chains. None of us did. God did that. So we give God the glory. It was only by his mercy that this happened. And the second reason for this thanksgiving in verse 17 is that we might learn to see how great God's kindness is to us. And that seeing that, that that would be a stimulus to us to hate sin all the more. See, the more we love our God and love Jesus Christ for saving us and bringing us out of that slavery to sin, the more we should hate sin. That was what was enslaving us. That is what would have kept us separated from God for eternity. But from God's kindness and mercy, He broke the chains. So can you give thanks today? Can you give praise to God that He has set you free? Or do you wonder if you are free or not? Have you come to hate sin more and more? So the idea is don't take this great deliverance for granted, but let it be a source of praise and also a source of hatred for sin. Praise to God and hatred of sin. And Paul said, though you were slaves of sin, Yet you obeyed. If you go to 1 Corinthians 6, he lists a number of different sins. And he says, such were some of you, but you've been washed, you've been sanctified, you've been saved. Such were some of you. All of us were sinners and slaves to sin, yet you obeyed. Yet you obeyed. You were a slave of sin, but yet you obeyed. What did you obey? Well, the first thing you obeyed is the gospel itself. And the gospel says, repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn from your sins and put your faith in Jesus. Jesus said, we make disciples. We're to make disciples of all nations. That's when we believe the gospel and then teaching them to observe, to obey everything I've commanded you. So we obey the first command, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. And then we obey every other command that we can find that he's given us in scripture. But notice the way he puts it. He says, you obey that form of doctrine. to which you were delivered. That's a different way of stating it. You were handed over, delivered from something but onto something. And the way he puts it here is to this form of doctrine. That should get our attention right there. But the idea is when a slave changes owners, delivered from one slave over to one master to another master. So Jesus Christ purchased us. He bought us with his own blood. And we are delivered from sin that was our master to Christ, our new master. The Holy Spirit calls us and brings us and delivers us to Christ and to his teaching. Because at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, if you want to build your life on the rock, a rock that will withstand the storms of life, and so on, you build them. Whoever keeps my commandments is the one who builds his life on the rock. So we are delivered over to his teachings, not just him. You can't separate the two. That form of doctrine, that pattern of teaching is another way it's translated. So God reveals this form of doctrine to us obviously in the scriptures themselves. We have the written word of God that is now our authority. You have been handed over to that. And so the Bible, you see, that's how Christ exercises his Lordship over us is by the Word of God. We don't have Christ speaking to us in an audible voice out of thin air today to tell us what to do each day. We have his Word in Scripture. And within the Bible, there is a pattern, a pattern of teaching, a form of doctrine. So the Bible, and that says to me that the Bible is not a collection of random, unrelated sayings and ideas. Scripture has one author, and that's God. It's a unified book, and it does not contradict itself. God doesn't contradict himself, and so when he speaks, he doesn't contradict himself. So there's this perfect order and harmony found in the Word of God. 2 Timothy 1.13, Paul again writes, So in Scripture there's a pattern, and I looked this up, the definition of pattern, there's like ten definitions in Webster's, but The one that fits here is that the word pattern is a discernible coherent system based on the intended interrelationship of component parts. A discernible coherent system based on the intended interrelationship of component parts. So within scripture, there is a discernible system that's based that all the component parts, there's an interrelationship. And that's intended by the author. Now, when we read scripture, we may not recognize that at first, we may read something over here in the Old Testament and then read something new, we may not see the connection. But the more we study the Bible, the more we see the interconnectedness of all the parts. So if you read the Bible and you struggle and you say, I don't really, I can't really see what's, I can't see the big picture. I see these little pieces and, um, but I don't, it doesn't make sense to me. Uh, one thing you can do that I would suggest is read through the Bible. But then also read through the Westminster Shorter Catechism or the Confession of Faith as a companion, as a help, because in those documents you find a summary of that pattern. You see it laid out in an organized way. It's there in the Bible. The writers of the Confession just brought it out for us to see it more readily. delivered over to this form of doctrine, this pattern. And we might expect that Paul would say, well, the form of doctrine has been delivered to us. But he says that we have been delivered to it. Now, both ideas are true. In Jude, Jude mentions the faith once for all that has been delivered to the saints. But here in Romans, we are delivered to the faith, to the doctrines of Scripture. And I think Putting it this way connotes the idea of total commitment to these truths. We are now shackled to the truth. You know, in the old days, a few hundred years ago, in Europe and places like that, before our country was a country, they had Bibles in the pulpits. They didn't have many people to and have a multitude of Bibles on our shelves like we do today. And they would, because there were few Bibles, the pulpit Bible was chained to the pulpit so it wouldn't be stolen. And so think of the Bible as the word of God that you are chained to that Bible. And that Bible is chained to you now as a Christian who is bound to the Lord. You know, we were once bound by the chains of sin and the lies of the world. Right? We continue in sin because we continue believing the lie. That's where true fulfillment is. That's where true happiness is. If I give myself over to this sin, I'm going to feel good. It's going to make me better. No, it doesn't. That's a lie, and you know it. And yet we continue to believe the lies. We were once bound by lies, but now we are bound to the truth. We're happily joined to the truth because we know it sets us free. We know that it's the real thing, the real way to happiness, the real way to joy and fulfillment. It shows us the way of salvation, right? That's the greatest thing. And then it also gives us the pattern for thinking and living our lives in God's universe. Yes, you see, the thing is, this is God's world. And if you want to live in a way that's in harmony with the world that he made, then live in harmony with what he says in his book. The Bible is a harmonious book. If you live your life by this book, then the parts of your life will start to come together as a whole. There's wholeness and harmony in your life if you live by this harmonious book, the Old Testament. I think the concept of the Old Testament is shalom. Shalom means primarily soundness and health, wholeness. It also signifies prosperity. We all want prosperity, but what kind of prosperity? Well, it reminds me of what the Lord said to Joshua. And how do we get that prosperity? Before he led Israel into the promised land, God said to him, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that's written in it. Oh, that sounds, that sounds restrictive. That sounds, that sounds difficult. But God goes on. He says, for then you will make your way prosperous. Then you will have good success. Oh, okay. then yes, the Word of God is the way to prosperity, true prosperity inside of God. Verse 18 in this text in Romans now sums up the position of the Christian. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Remember, there were some who were saying that, you know, Paul's teaching on salvation, that by God's grace alone, that that made people want to encourage people to keep sinning. But you see, what Paul has been teaching us, and what he will continue to teach us in this book, is that grace not only delivers us from the penalty of sin, but it delivers us from the ongoing power of sin. It not only brings forgiveness and cleansing, but it brings us new life and grace to live that new life. And so this is one of those statements, verse 18, that that's just a statement of fact. It's true of all believers. It's not just for some super spiritual Christians. It's for every believer, every believer. And so I don't think I need to remind you again, but I will. It doesn't mean sinless perfection. It doesn't mean that we're free from temptation or free from sin in every single sense of the word. Sin is not eradicated. It simply means we're no longer under the bondage and dominion, the rule of sin. And positively, it means we're slaves of righteousness. Have you thought of yourself in that way? Now when you're justified by faith, you do receive an imputed righteousness. You are declared righteous in God's sight through faith alone. That's a perfect righteousness that makes you acceptable to God, it gets you into heaven. But there's a second type of righteousness that really is different in verse 18. Being a slave to this righteousness has to do with coming under the power, the influence and control righteousness. So to live a life of righteousness, it means that you, yes, live according to the commandments of God, but you do so with the right motives. It's not enough to say, well, I did this and I didn't do that. We do so with a motive of pleasing God and a desire to give him glory. You only do that if you know Jesus Christ. Today we are seeing many conservative intellectuals embrace Christian ethics without embracing Christ. Embrace Christian ethics without embracing Christ. Even some atheists are saying that the ethics or the teachings of Jesus on ethics that they concur with, but they just don't believe in Jesus. I think of Jordan Peterson, who's not an atheist, but He's from Canada, he's a well-known professor of psychology and I admire him for a lot of things because he stands up to the woke stuff that we know all about these days. And his best-selling book in 2018 was called 12 Rules for Life. It even contains a lot of references to the Bible in it. And I've read that book, it's interesting. And he also has a YouTube channel and he teaches courses on books of the Bible, but he basically reads the Bible as a book about morality of good versus evil. He doesn't believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead, and you might pray for Jordan Peterson that he will come to believe in Jesus, but thus far he does not. So his gospel is one of moral improvement, using the Bible as an aid, but the true gospel We know what the gospel is. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried. And on the third day he rose again from the dead according to the scriptures. And putting our faith in Jesus, we are raised from spiritual death. You were once dead in your sins, but you he made alive in Jesus Christ. And so we enter this relationship with God. It's a permanent bond. It's an eternal relationship and it's a loving relationship. We love him because he first loved us. We gladly serve him and have become slaves of righteousness from the heart because to be a slave of righteousness is to be a slave of his goodness and of his good way for our lives. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." And people have scratched their heads about that. But the Scribes and Pharisees were those who were outwardly moral, but inwardly they were still involved in sin. And Jesus one time rebuked them and said, you're like whitewashed tombs. You're all white and clean on the outside, but inside you're full of dead men's bones. That's a problem. That's a problem. So they had righteousness, but it was self-righteousness and it was external righteousness. It wasn't from the heart. Their righteousness, according to John Gill, did not arise from a purified heart or the principles of grace. It was performed, it was not performed sincerely and with a view to the glory of God. but for their own applause and in order to obtain eternal life." You see, all of that is wrong. And I hope you see how and why it's wrong. See, the righteousness of the true Christian is, first of all, from Christ as a gift. It's imputed to us. But then a righteous life is also part of the Christian, and that life is lived unto Christ. So we have righteousness from Christ, and then by grace we live a life of righteousness unto Christ. So the righteous standing is a free gift. Righteous living is also grace-enabled, and we cooperate with that grace, and it comes from the new heart He gives us. Now justification by grace through faith alone, does not lead us to continue in sin. If it did, it wouldn't be real. It wouldn't be the real thing. So Paul says finally in verse 19, he says, I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. And he talks about the fact that he's used this analogy of slavery. And so it's an illustration, and illustrations are good. They're necessary for us to help us understand eternal truths that we might not ordinarily understand. But Paul doesn't want the Romans to be fixated on the illustration or the analogy. Analogies or illustrations serve to point to greater realities and truths. So he gave that analogy to the Romans and to us in order that we might now present ourselves to God and to his righteousness for holiness. Before we came to know Jesus, he says, you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness. A person who lives for their sinful desires is going to continue a downward spiral in their lives. A person who lives for themselves their whole life long, they come to the end of their lives. It's not a pretty picture. It's not a pretty picture. It's a downward spiral. But in Jesus Christ, we start at a very low place. We have to because it's not until we see what we are that we really turn to the Lord. And the Lord meets us there and it's up and up and out from there into the righteousness and holiness that he calls us to. So as we close this morning, I'll ask the same question I asked at the beginning. Whose slave are you? You're either a slave of Christ or a slave of sin. Let me ask the question another way. Whose slave do you want to be? Do you want to keep serving sin? If you are serving sin or would you like to serve Christ? Would you like to be his slave? Well, each of us, as I've said, is born into this world as a slave of sin in order to get out from the tyranny of sin. And it is really a tyranny. People think and the devil has deceived them. People think that they're just doing their own thing, but they're serving sin. They're in bondage to it. So in order to get out from under sin's tyranny, something has to change. It's not a new resolution. It's not more determination or discipline. It's not turning harder. As Jesus said to Nicodemus, who was a teacher of the law, maybe the premier teacher in Judaism of that day, he said, Nicodemus, you. And all others implied, you must be born again. Unless you are born of the spirit of God, you cannot see the kingdom of God, you cannot enter the kingdom of God, you cannot live the righteous life of the kingdom, not even close. Whose slave do you want to be? Well, in order to be a slave of Christ, you must be born again. You must be regenerated. by the Spirit of God. So do you need to be born again this morning? Maybe that's the question that needs to be asked. The church can't give that to you. A preacher cannot bring it about. You yourself cannot make it happen. Any more than you caused your own physical birth, did you have anything to do with being born as a little baby? No. So God alone can give a new heart. And I would suggest to you that you can do two things if you know that you need a new birth. The first thing is you can cry out to God and you can ask him to give you a new heart. The Lord doesn't, you know, he who comes to me, Jesus said, I want to know why I was cast out. And then secondly, go to the word of God, the scriptures. The Apostle Peter said we are born again through the word of God, which lives and abides forever. So if you need the new birth, you need to get into the word. You need to read the Gospel of John. You need to read the New Testament and then go back and read the Old Testament. Because it's through that word that you will receive faith, through that word that you will be born again, if you're going to be born again. So two things, cry out to God for it and then go to the word of God and seek the new birth. Only when you're born again will you be able and willing to live life under the rule of God. Only then will you be set free from the shackles of sin and service to it. Let's pray. Lord, we are grateful today that you have revealed these things in your word Help us, Lord, to apply them to ourselves. Lord, this message has gone forth and now we must respond to it. Lord, for those who are born again, help us to give thanks and praise to God and to hate sin more and more on account of what you've done, setting us free from sin. And for those who are not, Yet, born again, we pray that you might be pleased to give new hearts to those who need them. In Jesus' name, amen. Let us take our hymnals. and turn to number 585 verses 1 through 5. I do remind you, please stay and eat with us. There's going to be plenty of food. It doesn't matter if you brought any food or not. There will be plenty and we'll eat just a few minutes after the service is over. So let's sing the first five verses of Take My Life and Let It Be.