You've Got to Serve Somebody

What a wonderful challenge. My son was saying yesterday they had celebrated his baby's first birthday. He kept lamenting, this is the last first birthday we're going to ever celebrate. So here's a solution. Romans chapter 6. As you know, the purpose of Romans 6 is to show us why justification by faith brings sanctification along with it. We spent weeks looking at the first four chapters of Romans and this glorious truth that putting your faith in Jesus Christ wraps you up in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and you are accepted as his own son, the very son of God. But along with that declaration of righteousness, that justification by faith also comes sanctification, that is the transformation of life, that always accompanies justification.

Justifying faith, the faith that justifies this reaching out and taking hold of Christ by faith always brings with it sanctification. It dethrones sin. As Paul's going to tell us in this text, it enthrones God. It makes war on sin on our hearts and in our bodies. It denies sinless perfection and yet it also denies antinominism. Those are two big words which simply mean it denies this error that says that I can be perfect and never sin in this life. But on the other hand, it also denies this attitude that since I am still sinful and I've been justified by grace through faith alone, then it doesn't matter how I live. Both of those things are untrue and anti-biblical. So let's take a look at Romans chapter 6 beginning in verse 15.

We've mentioned before that this chapter is really divided up in two questions. The first question appears in verse 1, the second question appears in verse 15. Verse 14 verses answering the first question, the rest of the chapter answering the second question. And here is the second question that arises that Paul asks, verse 15, what then shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be. Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness? To thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed.

And having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness resulting in sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what fruit were you then having from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive that as you have your fruit resulting in sanctification and the outcome eternal life for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

In this passage, as we have seen in the first 14 verses, last couple of weeks we've looked at, traced the essence of biblical sanctification to our union with Jesus Christ. This is so important that we understand that the way we are changed in the Christian life is through our union with Jesus Christ. That's the key issue in these, in fact, the next three chapters because we have been united with Jesus Christ, that union produces the most glorious effects in our lives. First of all, as we've seen in the first four and five chapters, it wrapped us up in the righteousness of Christ so that when God looks at Jeff Gleason, he sees Jesus Christ. He sees the righteousness that his son has. Now he sees that righteousness in Jeff and so he receives him as he would receive his own son.

The other part of that union though goes far beyond that as we'll see in just a moment. Notice that this union with Christ dominates these three chapters, chapter 6, verse 1 through chapter 8, verse 17. This is the section of Romans I want, one of the sections I want you to memorize because this is the heart of biblical teaching on the Christian life. You struggling in the Christian life? This is where the Bible speaks to the issues of Christian living. The everyday practical where the cleanliness of theory is ruined by the mess of reality. Where you have to face the issues of life and find out if your faith in this gospel really has any effects in your life. This is where it's taught. But this union is pictured in four ways in this whole section I want to show you just for a moment so we can look at one of them.

First it's pictured as a judicial union. That is like when a woman marries a man and her name is changed. She suddenly has a different standing before the law. When we were united with Christ our standing before God was radically changed and that's what he spoke about in the first 14 verses, a new relationship in life union with Christ. Secondly, it's pictured as a moral union in the passage we're going to look at today. This is a new principle of life and it's enslavement to God. Enslavement to God through Christ. It's coming to understand that we are slaves of God in Christ Jesus. The third way it's used is as a marital union. That's exactly the metaphor that Paul uses in chapter 7, a new freedom in life through this union with Christ that's pictured as a marital union.

We have emancipation from the law because we have been united with Christ like a wife is united with her husband. And then fourth, it is a spiritual union. In chapter 8, the first 17 verses he's going to speak of this new power in the Christian life which is the fact that the spirit of Jesus Christ through our union's crisis come to dwell within us and empower us to live out this relationship with Jesus Christ. This is the flow of his argument. Now we are in this second picture. We have here a moral union with, the union with Christ is pictured as a moral union, a new principle in life and that's what we want to look at this morning. Notice the question we saw is in verse 15 and the question is again, what then shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace.

That is the question that he is asking. Now this question, something that's important about it is this. This raised because of what he just said in verse 14 and verse 14 Paul said, we are not under law but under grace. And so he asked the question that some would ask, well, since we are not under law, then is it okay to sin? That's interesting. What he does is he asks the question very differently than he does in verse 1. If you look back in verse 1, it says, what then shall we say, are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? The expression there means should we go ahead and live out our lives continually in this sphere of sin? Should we continually sin? Should we live in sin so that grace may abound?

Here the question is different. The question quite literally because of tense changes and the question is quite literally, should we sin on occasion because we are not under law but under grace? If I decide there is something about the law of God is revealed in the scripture that I don't like, is it okay to violate a law once in a while because we are not under law but under grace? You know, you probably had this happen to you where some silly thing like maybe somebody takes a great big piece of banana cream pie and somebody jokingly says, man, that's sinful. And you imagine a person saying, well, I'm not under law but under grace. Well, there's much bigger issues. But if I came to you and said, I've decided that I'm very unhappy in my marriage, I'm going to leave my wife and find me a woman that I can be happy with.

After all, I'm not under law, I'm under grace. That's the question that Paul is posing to us. Is it all right to violate the will of God to sin on occasion because we are not under law but under grace? And now notice his answer. The answers that he gives are threefold and he does this in the first section as well. He gives a very brief answer and then he gives a little fuller answer and then finally he explocates it in regards to their situation. Notice, first of all, he says in verse 15, the last part, it's unthinkable. It's unthinkable. God forbid, that's blasphemous. Since we're under grace and under law, for me to think it's all right to act in a rebellious way against God because I'm not under law but under grace.

Since law is not what regulates my relationship with God but grace, is it okay to violate the will of God? He says it's unthinkable. But then he explains a little further in verse 16, in verse 16 he explains, it's impossible. It's impossible. Why is it impossible? Well notice what he says. Do you not know, aren't you aware of the fact that when you present yourself to someone that slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin. You're either obeying the master, sin, resulting in death or you are obeying righteousness, resulting in life and righteousness. Now what he is getting at here is exactly what Jesus teaches in the Gospels. In fact, why don't you turn with me to Matthew chapter 6 and the Sermon on the Mount.

Notice what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 6. Let me just so that you get the context of what he's talking about because the master that he's referring to here that is in competition with God and it's always the same but it comes in various shades and here it is Maman, it's money, it's wealth. And listen to what Jesus says. He says, do not store up, this is Matthew chapter 6 verse 19, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rusty straw, where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rusty straws, where thieves do not break in or steal for where your treasure is there where your heart be also. In other words, have the right value system, value heaven, more than you value the things on this earth.

And then notice this application, he says, the eye is the lamp of the body. What does that have to do with anything? So this, if my treasure is earthly wealth, it distorts my vision, I can't see the way I ought to see, my spiritual vision is distorted and I won't see spiritual reality the way I need to see it. And so he says the eye is the lamp of the body, so if your eye is clear, your whole body is full of light. If your eye is clear, if you can actually see things as they are, it will control the activities of your whole body. You won't be stumbling over things. But then he says this, but if your eye is bad, if it has wrinkles in it, is the idea. If it has folds in it, so that everything is distorted, like at the funhouse, remember those mirrors, you that are 65 and older, in San Francisco, the funhouse, and all those distorted mirrors, and you could look 10 feet tall, or you could look 2 feet tall and 10 feet wide, well he says here, when your eye is good, when there's no folds, no distortions in your vision, when you see things as they really are, when you value heavenly things, when you love people and use things, that kind of thing, when your vision is right, when you can see properly, he says, your whole body will be full of light, if your eye is bad rather, your whole body will be full of darkness, if then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness.

And then he makes this statement based upon that, listen to this, no one can serve two masters, no one can serve two masters, that's not clear to many of us, because we don't understand what it is to be a master, you've never had a master in this world of yours, we don't have any slaves in this church, I don't think anybody in this church has ever experienced slavery, you've never had a master, a human master that owned you, we're not talking about a boss, we're talking about someone who owns you outright, you belong to that master, and your whole life is to be spent in obeying that master, Jesus says you cannot serve two masters, that's one of those things you can't have to, for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will devote it, be devoted to one and despise the other, why is that?

Because these masters who have absolute authority over your life are going to be giving you different instructions, and it's impossible for you to have two masters, you can serve God and serve material things, impossible, because what you will end up doing is hating one and loving the other, because they will be giving conflicting commandments, and Jesus says to the young rich ruler who comes to him and says, how can I inherit eternal life, he talks about the commandments, and finally he sees, Jesus knows exactly what the issue is, he loves his wealth more than he loves God, and so he says, go, sell everything you have, give to the poor, come and follow me, what do you do? Because I don't want eternal life like that, I want my riches, he walked away, he couldn't serve two masters, you can't serve two masters, some of you are trying, it's always true in a group like this, it's not that I know that any of you are, but it's true in any Christian group like this, some of us are trying to serve two masters and we're frustrated, it's impossible.

And so Paul says back in Romans 6, it's impossible, impossible for you to serve sin and serve God, and the only way you can commit an act of sin is by serving sin, because sin is a master, he's picturing sin here as a Lord, a principle within that shouts its orders to you through the lusts of the flesh, and he says you can't serve God and serve sin at the same time, it's an impossibility, no one can serve two masters at one time at the same moment, you either have to rebel against God, turn your back on him in order to obey sin, or you have to turn your back on sin in order to obey God, you can't be doing both, very simple principle, but then he gives a third phase of this answer and here he says here's why, it's true, in your case, and he begins to talk to them about the details of their situation.

Bob Dylan wrote a song, got to serve somebody in 1979, I started to call my sermon that but I was a little afraid, I would offend somebody by quoting Zimmerman like that, but he understood something, if you look at the words of the song and that is, it doesn't matter how much power you have, or what you rule over, the fact is you're going to serve somebody, it's either going to be the devil or it's going to be the Lord, but you will serve somebody. And as Paul begins to unveil to them this truth, notice what he does. Down in verses 20 through 22, it's as though he draws a picture of two paths, the path of sin living under the rule of sin and the path of living under the rule of God, and he shows you the differences between these two paths, you're either going to live your life on this path, or you're going to live your life on this path.

And notice the differences. He says that on the path of sin, you were enslaved, we were enslaved to sin. Now he's going to say this is true of all of us without exception, and the only deliverance there is by a new master coming and taking possession of us. We were enslaved to sin, free from righteousness. That is, righteousness had no hold on us, it had no appeal to us. And people told us the right thing to do, it didn't mean a thing. If it didn't fit into our selfish plans, it had no pull whatsoever, it didn't motivate us a bit. That's what you're seeing today on reality TV and everything else is being thrown at you. You're seeing the fact that people don't care about righteousness. They care about fulfilling their own lusts, no matter what they are.

Third, we were fruitless. Not fruit, did you have, then, none is the right answer. And back up a little earlier in the text, he describes what this fruitlessness was, the things that we were ashamed of. He says, you were presenting your members, that is, your human capacities, your mind, your emotions, your body, all of your capacities as a human being. You were presenting your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, impurity and lawlessness. Impurity is what's going on inside of you, and lawlessness is how you carry it out. Fruitless. All of our activity, we hope, I was reading this article the other day about how to retrieve things off a hard drive, if somebody dies, how are you going to get all the information off the hard drive?

And at the end of the article, it said, you know, sometimes it's better not to know certain things about an individual after they die. What's your life when you get to the end of your life? You look back over your life. Is it going to be a life of fruit bearing? Is it going to be a fruitful life? Or is it going to be, as Paul describes their life, fruitless? And then he goes on to say of those things of which you are now ashamed. The things that bring shame, that's what the path of sin brings, shame, that's why we hide so much, shame. And then he says the end. The ultimate destination of this path is death, separation from God and all that has significance. Now look at the other side, the other path he describes in verse 22, and notice the parallel, whereas before we were enslaved to God, he says, now you're freed from sin.

You were enslaved to sin, now you're freed from sin. You were freed from righteousness, now you are enslaved to God. And we'll see, this is a glorious term, this true slavery. And then third, instead of being fruitless, you bore fruit. You begin to bear fruit as you lived out your life as a servant, a slave, a bond slave of God. And then he says in the process, instead of producing shame, it produced sanctification. You know when you go pick a piece of fruit off of a tree, it's an indication that life is flowing through that tree. There's an overflow of life in that tree and you get to reap the benefits of it. Because that's a healthy tree, it has its feeding and good soil and it's getting all that it needs and that life flows through the tree and out of this abundance of life comes a luscious peach that you get to eat.

Is your life there that kind of fruit that produces benefit for others, that delights the heart of God, or instead of fruit, fullness is their fruit, lessness. But then the other part of it is this flow of life, is life flows through me. As life flows through as a believer, what happens is you get changed in the process. That's what he means by sanctification. As you bear fruit, the fruit of the spirit, you get transformed in the process. See the key to growth in the Christian life is the flow of life and that is Jesus says in John 173, this is eternal life that you might know that they might know thee, the only true God in Jesus Christ whom you have sinned. Eternal life is knowing God, living life is living in a relationship with the living God.

You know, we have a group of men that are meeting on every other Wednesday morning going through the disciplines of the Christian life, but something that we keep reiterating and all of us know this, that these disciplines don't produce change. Jesus Christ produces change, the discipline of prayer and fasting and all those kinds of things. Those are so that you can promote in your life a relationship with Christ so that Christ can change you because it is our union with Christ. It is the flow of the life of Christ through me in my everyday life that's going to produce change in me and nothing else will. You can discipline yourself to your blue in the face, it won't change you, only Christ will change you and if the disciplines of the Christian life don't produce a closer walk with Jesus Christ and I'm not going to be changed, I'm just going to become a Pharisee.

And as he, his life flows through me, it changes me. I experience this work of sanctification. There's no shortcut to this. There is no experience that you can have with God where at you come to Him at a moment of time, He zaps you into holiness. It doesn't work and don't trust in that kind of teaching. It's not biblical. Sanctification is a process. It's an event that happens when you come to Christ, you're set apart for God but then it's a process in which you are transformed into the image of Christ as you live your life out in relationship with Him. Relationships is what changes people. Relationship with Christ is what changes people. It's what changes believers. Relationship with Christ and then He says the end result is eternal life.

Notice the comparison. Notice those two paths. If I was a good artist, I would have drawn a path up a mountain and down the mountain and shown you this. But do you see the difference that the one path that's described as being enslaved to sin, free from righteousness, fruitless, filled with shame as I live out my life and ultimately death, separation from God for all eternity? In contrast to the path of sanctification where I'm freed from sin and slaved to God, sharing fruit that pleases God and produces good in the lives of people, sanctification being transformed by it and ultimately experiencing eternal life in its fullness. Now what I'd like to do is look at a couple of implications of this.

First is we were based upon this text. We were all enslaved to sin and sin ruled over us. We need to get that clear in our minds. We were all enslaved and sin ruled over us. You take the gospel to people. You have to understand what you are facing. Jesus said that if you go into a house to deliver somebody out from under the power of the strong man in that house, you first have to bind the strong man and deliver that person out from under their rule. And he was referring in the context to him coming and performing these miracles of deliverance, casting out demons, delivering people from the effects of satanic control in their lives. And he was demonstrating the fact that he had the power to bind the strong man so that people could go free.

And when you take the gospel into this world, you're taking the gospel to people just exactly like you were, enslaved to sin, having sin ruled over your life. Now there's a difference between guilt and enslavement. But is this the liability to punishment that I had for my sins? There was a judgment day coming. I was going to stand before a righteous judge at the great white throne judgment and give an account for all of my sins and I would be judged for my sins. Jesus came and he died for my sins. He paid the full penalty for those sins. And I was declared righteous because of my faith in him. But I still have this problem that not only do I have guilt, but I also have this bondage to the power of sin.

Why can't you stop sinning? You ever have your wife ask you that? Why can't you? Because sin is powerful and you need to deliver her. A lot of people think what Christianity is is turning over new leaf and deciding to live right, spit white and those kinds of things. Do the right thing. Get off drugs and quit drinking and quit carousing and start living right so I can go to heaven. That's not Christianity. Because your sin problem is much worse than that. You're in bondage. Bondage. And there needs to be deliverance from this bondage. We weren't neutral self-determining people in a slave market saying, well, I think I won't be this person's slave, I'll be this person's slave. It doesn't work like that. slave market host people that don't own themselves, somebody else owns them.

And so when Jesus Christ came to us, he was the one who made the sovereign choice. Our wills were in bondage to the allurements of sin. And he says, notice in verse 20, we were free in regard to righteousness. In other words, it had no power to sway us. The righteous commands of God didn't sway me. Go on the campus here and read the Ten Commandments. Read out in the courtyard and just read the Ten Commandments to these high school students. The few believers that are there will be convicted by it, but the masses will simply laugh. It has no sway over them and it had no sway over you until God brought deliverance through Jesus Christ. Righteousness didn't look attractive or rewarding. Its appeals were powerless to us.

Ten ruled us through its lusts because of our corruption. That is the distortion of our values we saw as sin is the most attractive thing. Much more attractive than righteousness. Just try to produce a reality TV show that's about righteousness. Try it. The Ten Commandments. You know, we've got ten people here who are going to try to live out the Ten Commandments. We're going to fall around with a TV camera and see how righteous they can be. You think that would have any appeal? No way, no appeal because in our lost condition we are enslaved to sin. And notice he confirms this in verse 22 when he talks about our conversion. We were freed from sin and enslaved to God. And then notice the second principle and that is that God is the ultimate deliverer, not you.

God is the ultimate deliverer and yet we have a real but dependent role to fulfill. God must deliver. But we respond to His work, His sovereign work. We must respond in obedience to it. Sanctification, this deliverance that He is talking about in this text, is decisively God's work. God must do it. But then, dependently, it is also our work as we depend upon Him and respond in faith as we talked about last week. That component must be there. We can only grow through faith. God doesn't cause growth simply through His sovereign work apart from our cooperation. It doesn't work that way. In verses 17 and 18, notice that we talked about this last week, God gets credit. He says in verse 17, but thanks be to God.

Not to you, but thanks be to God that your hearts were changed, that you received this gospel from the heart. How did that happen? The work of a sovereign God in bringing regeneration to your heart. Notice it is to this form of teaching. Let me just say one thing about this. And that is that what's important here is this expression, form of teaching, means this body of truth, this gospel message that has content to it. Somebody wrote a parody some years ago, and it was kind of a mocking parody about those who think that doctrine is not important. That all that matters is that you feel loving towards God, and you know that God feels loving towards you. It doesn't matter what you believe. Let's just get together and have a good time and get cold chills.

Well, listen to this song, and so I made this parody in response to that. Just as I am, that will receive, though dogmas, I may never believe, nor height of holiness achieve, oh God, of love, I come. In other words, I don't believe anything. All I have to do is receive the love of God. Sorry. It doesn't work that way. He says this change took place when you were committed, and you were handed over to this form of teaching, this body of truth, the gospel, and its implications. You want to grow in the Christian life. You can't grow without growing in your understanding and application of this body of truth. The Bible is not a collection of commandments. It has commandments in it, but it is a revelation of the truth about God that is revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

It has content to it. And out of that content comes many implications that are so crucial. And notice, he says, you were committed to it. What that means is you were handed over to it. The expression here, and it's in the flow of the context, he's talking about slavery. And this expression that you were handed over to this body of truth, pictures of slave being transformed from one master to another. The old master was the lusts of the flesh if it feels good, certainly do it. You were handed over from that slavery that doesn't feel like slavery when you're in it until you get really bad off over to a different kind of slavery, to this form of teaching, this body of truth, this revelation of God.

It is a transference, and now their lives were being molded by this apostolic teaching, the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness. And notice in verse 22, but having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, notice something. These are passive verbs. It's saying that God does this. Ultimately, we don't free ourselves. We have to be set free by someone stronger than the one who holds us in bondage. God must set us free. This is what happens under grace. And Christ is our righteousness by faith, the grace of God works mylinus. It breaks the power of canceled sin. You see Jesus canceled sin against us. And now we are being set free from that canceled sin. It transforms us through the renewing of our minds.

That's what grace does. And that happens through this body of truth. I can't grow. I can't be transformed apart from this teaching to which I have been committed by God. He writes the law upon our hearts. He gives us a new spirit. He opens our eyes and lets us see the truth of this revelation. And through that process we grow. So becoming a Christian isn't standing in a slave market, freely deciding who slave you're going to be. It is God setting a person free. There is no neutral ground. There are no neutral people. There are enemies of God. And there are those that God has gotten a hold of their heart, opened their eyes, and transformed them into his own servants. Now the third thing I just want to look at is without this deliverance from sin we will not inherit eternal life.

I want this to sink in a second. Without this deliverance from the power of sin in your daily life we will not inherit eternal life. We are struggling to some people. They don't even want you saying this even though that's what the text says. Because they're afraid you're going to undermine the doctrines of grace. I love the doctrines of grace. I am absolutely convinced that God saves for time and eternity. I'm convinced in the perseverance of the saints. Because I'm convinced of the perseverance of the saints I understand what this text is saying. It's saying that the path to eternal life includes a life of obedience to Jesus Christ as His servants. Now there's going to be some struggles, there's going to be some fights, there's going to be some rebellious periods.

There's going to be some running off the path of obedience into the forest of disobedience and knocking your head against the wall. You see that commercial, I don't know what it is. It's some Japanese car, Korean car or something. Everybody in the office got a big bump on their head. Any of you watched too much TV. You saw you seeing this commercial. The big bump on the guy's head and then as the thing begins to unfold, you realize what's happening is as a guy, everybody's going by and looking, this incredible looking car and when they turn around, they bump their head on some things, stick it up on the wall. Everybody's got a knot on their head. That's kind of how it is in the church of Jesus Christ, except we can't see them.

But every one of us are not heads, aren't we? Every one of us have gotten off the path of disobedience, but we discover real quickly and maybe sometimes not as quickly as we ought to, that we want to get back on the path of obedience. If you have this expression, you've got to get into the spout where the glory comes out. That had to do with this mystical concept that God pours out His blessings and you've got to get where those blessings are. People would run here and there trying to experience the blessings of God. Let me tell you where the blessings of God are. They're not in Toronto or in Florida necessarily. They are wherever you are on the path of obedience. It's on the path of obedience that you will experience the blessings of God.

And with this deliverance from sin, with it we will inherit eternal life and without it we will not. I can't say, well I'm justified by faith and therefore I don't need to renounce sin and pursue holiness. It doesn't matter because I'm saved. I've heard people make those kind of stupid comments, I'm just, I mean I'm embarrassed for them. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. That's the words not of a believer, that's the words of an apostate. The believer says, man I'm struggling with sin and I know my capacity to rebalance scares me to death but I know I can do nothing but obey Him. I must live for Him. The person who says I'm saved, forgiven and it doesn't matter how I live because I'm going to heaven anyway.

That person is manifesting evidence through their own lips that they don't know Christ. Because the person who knows Christ says, oh do I struggle? But I'd rather struggle on the path of obedience and experience of blessings of God being trickled out in my life than I would ever want to walk in disobedience and experience the death that's on the path of sin. Eternal life comes to the person whose faith in Christ is real who receives Christ not just as a truth but as a, as John Piper likes to say, not just as a truth but as a treasure. Think about that. Have you received Christ as a treasure? I've known people who've received Christ as a truth, they actually believe the gospel is true, they just never embrace Christ by faith as a treasure.

They never really rested their trust in Jesus Christ as a person, the only person who can save them from their sins. Now let me quickly give you these conclusions. First, a deceptive and insidious master pays the wage of death. Look at verse 23, the last verse in this chapter. Most of you know this verse, this is a familiar verse to almost all of us, but typically we pull it completely out of its context. You'll notice in the flow of the context, he ends this passage by saying, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life. He speaks about the wages of sin. You see, he's picturing sin here as a master. How does this master treat you? This master pays you wages, you obey sin, you will get wages.

You notice God doesn't give wages, God gives gifts. The word wage here is actually from a Greek word that means cooked fish. It meant meager wages, it was the kind of wages that Roman soldiers got. The meager wages of sin is death. This slave driver who is so deceptive, he's like a vampire that has the ability to suck the life blood out of you and at the time he's sucking it out of you, make you feel euphoric. Sin is so deceptive that it makes you feel like you're experiencing life when what you are doing is you are going down a path of death. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Through the one true slavery, what is the one true slavery? There's only one true and good slavery and that slavery is being a bond servant of Jesus Christ.

It's acknowledging the truth that God owns you because he made you and he redeemed you and he owns you. You belong to him and true slavery is when you acknowledge this fact that God created you, Jesus Christ redeemed you, you bowed the knee and service to him and instead of getting wages from this tyrant sin, getting what you deserve at the final judgment, in this slavery, slavery to the living God who created you in such a particular way. The Bible says in the Old Testament in Psalms that he actually shaped you in your mother's womb, in your mother's womb. You imagine that there are so many things we don't see in a person, that we don't appreciate in a person. We have so many flaws and sometimes all we can see is the flaws.

But inside of every person, the Bible says that God shaped you in his image. You're his handy work. And when you bow to this one who created you, who owned you, who redeemed you through the blood of his son, you serve him. Masters don't pay wages to their slaves. They own the slaves and so they owe them nothing. Jesus says when the slave comes in from working in the field, he first goes and prepares the master's meal and then he finally goes and fixes himself something. He says, that's only natural. That's his duty. God owns you. And yet God, though he owes you nothing, gives you the gift, this gray gift of eternal life. In Exodus 21, it gives a law to the mosaic law that if somebody owns you, you got really poor and you had to sell yourself.

And if the person who owns you treated you with such love and kindness that you decided even though you had worked long enough that you could be set free, but you wanted to live your life out as his slave, then this is what you would do. They would take an all and they would drive a hole in your ear in the lobe of your ear and put an earring there. And this earring indicated that you were a voluntary love slave. That is a bond slave to this slave owner because of his love for you and your confidence in him. And you would live out your life like this. Well in the messianic, one of the messianic Psalms, Psalm 40, it speaks, David speaks of himself and ultimately of Christ, he says, thou hast bored my ear.

I am your servant. The glory of the life of Jesus Christ is to see what it's like to live out this good slavery that Paul is talking about here. What's it like to be a slave of God? What's it like to be a servant of God? To live your life as though God has absolute total rights over you and you do everything in obedience to him. What is that like? It's glory. It's absolute glory. The one true master and owner in the universe gives gifts, not wages. That's good news. You see because wages, when you earn wages, it means that you're depleting yourself of something in order to earn something that will restore you. The wages of sin, sin, depletes you. It drains you and the wage for that depletion is eternal death.

But the serving God doesn't deplet you. It fills you up. It energizes you. It blesses you. It's an overflow of joy in God and yet at the end of the day, God gives you this gift of eternal life. How we should hate the master sin and love the master God. Sin was never meant to be master over men. Men were created to be servants of the living God. Augustine said, we were made for you. We were made for you, God. And we will never find what life is all about until we find you. Being a servant of the living God, living your life as his servant. Listen to these words. You may be an ambassador to England or France. You may like the gamble. You may like the dance. You may be the heavyweight champion of the world.

You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls. But you are going to serve somebody. You may be the devil. It may be the Lord that you are going to serve somebody. There's not a person in this room who is not a slave. You're either a slave of sin or you're a slave of God. And to every one of you believers, I want to tell you, stay on the path of obedience. It's where the life is and it's where you'll experience life. Our new life in Christ is described as a new freedom, a new master, a new experience, a new consequence, and ultimately a new destination, eternal life, life. What a glorious truth. Paul says to the Colossians, therefore, as you have received Christ, Jesus the Lord, walk in Him, He's the path, He's the door, and He's the path to eternal life.

Let's stand together in closing prayer. Our Father, we thank You for allowing us to come together in the name of Christ today with Your people. Thank You for the body of Christ. We thank You for our family, the family of God, our brothers and sisters in Christ. We thank You when one member suffers, we all suffer. When one member rejoices, we all rejoice because we are members, one of another. And I pray even today that we would be encouraging to one another, of us Father, to consider how we can encourage and lift up and incite one another to love and good deeds. We pray as we leave this place. We ask You're blessing upon our lives and our ministry for You in this world. Amen. Amen.