-->

^{This is an outline of the message I gave at the Parkrose Nursing Home Service today.}

^{Are you a slave of Sin or of Righteousness?}

^{ROMANS 6}

Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ

6 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ² By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,^[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— ⁷ because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰ The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
¹¹ In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ¹³ Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ¹³ And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

From Slaves of Sin to Slaves of God

¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! ¹⁶ Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? ¹⁷ 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. ¹⁸ And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹ 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.

²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. ²¹ What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. ²² But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Whose Slave are You?

Romans 6 is in my opinion, and that of many others ,one of the most important passages that Christians need to take hold of and understand.

Many of us, if we are of the Evangelical Christian tradition, are quite happy to accept Jesus as our Saviour at the start of our Christian life.

In Church of Christ experience that is usually followed not long after in being baptized by full immersion.

Other denominations do things a bit differently regarding baptism.

When we are born again we are said to be new creations in Christ, the old has been done way with and we enter into newness of life.

Sadly many Christians might have a burst of enthusiasm in their early Christian years and at least give the appearance of living a new life but that often falls away. By falling away I mean falling into sinful habits.

You might wonder at the title of this talk.

Whose slave are you?

That idea conjures up all sorts of things .

Many of us have such pride that we might declare, especially in marriage, something like this.

“do it yourself then, I am not your slave.”

Ray Stedman in his sermon on this passage tells this story:

Rs  “Some years ago in Los Angeles I saw a man walking down the street with a sign on his shoulders. The front of it said, "I'M A SLAVE FOR CHRIST." On the back of it, as he passed, you read, "WHOSE SLAVE ARE YOU?" It is a good question because all of us are slaves to one or the other of these two masters -- sin or righteousness. We have no other choices. By the very nature of our humanity, we are made to serve and to be controlled by forces beyond our power.”

By virtue of living in a place like Parkrose you might say to your self well how can I be a slave to sin in this place?

I can’t get up to much mischief here!

My life is pretty much set  for me and I am under the authority of those looking after me.

The truth is we can still be very much a slave to sin if we still have our tongues working.

Think of this from James chapter 3.

³ When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. ⁴ Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. ⁵ Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. ⁶ The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

⁷ All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, ⁸ but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

⁹ With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. ¹¹ Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? ¹² My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

This passage,Romans 6, talks about our members being slave to sin.

^“12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ¹³ And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”

Our tongue, whether we are out in the wide world or living in care or a residential facility such as this, is the member that is most in need of being curbed and made  obedient to Christ, a slave to Christ.

Here are some thoughts from Ray Stedman on this.

A small but telling poem.

“I said a very naughty word only the other day.
   It was a truly naughty word I had not meant to say.
But then, it was not really lost, when from my lips it flew;
   My little brother picked it up, and now he says it, too.
That is the way sin begins to spread. And part of the slavery is that when you yield yourself to something, and do it two or three times before you wake up to what is going on -- it is getting out of control and going beyond what you wanted -- it becomes difficult to begin to change. Something resists every opportunity you take to try to change. It is hard to go back. A habit has begun that is hard to change.”

Have you seen those cups or tea shirts and a variety of tings that have written on them “What would Jesus say?”

We should learn to make that thought automatic before we say anything.

I am very conscious of when I stand before you that I need to be very careful what I say and teach.

This is also from James 3

“Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. ² We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.”

You know when I was a fairly new Christian, very enthusiastic, and a reasonably new husband I used to sometimes abuse even this passage when in conversation with my wife.

When Lesley would occasionally give me a lecture and tell me off about some failings of mine I thought as a Christian I could quickly fix that by saying

“James 3”

I can tell you that doesn’t work!

I now more graciously accept her reprimands.

I am actually grateful for them as she is usually 100 percent right.

Getting back to Romans 6 Ray Stedman say this.

• “RS  In this chapter we are dealing with a very practical problem, one that every Christian must wrestle with. The problem is stated by the apostle very plainly in the first verse of this chapter: "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?" This whole sixth chapter deals with what happens when a believer sins. We do not like to think that believers do sin; but, unfortunately, we do.”

The apostle Paul says “god forbid!” No absolutely not!

The truth is that even though as new Christians we have entered into a new life by the grace of God, we will not be changed unless we make Jesus Lord.

We are told in our Baptism we have been crucified with Jesus and we rise up out of the water into a new life.

We have entered into His burial and resurrection by way of our Baptism which is both a symbol of the reality of what we have entered into with Jesus but is also the means or the vehicle which seals this transaction.

We hear the phrase “entering the waters of baptism in “obedience to Christ”

As we are told in Acts 2:38 we receive the forgiveness of our sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit at our Baptism..

³⁸ Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹ The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

We ,because of this, can say with the Apostle Paul “It is no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me!”

The secret of the Christian life and saying no to sin and sin’s champion, the devil, is appropriating our position in Christ.

We are to give up our right to ourselves.

Always trying to justify our actions.

The only way we can be justified is through the death burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We are to put on Christ as our clothing of righteousnous.

We exchange our life for His . We become His slave or you might like to use the softer word, servant.

We make sure we maintain that position by walking in the light.

That would be aother whole sermon, what that means.

Simply the light, or revelation of God, in the bible is our guide.

If we do sin remember we are able to confess our sin and repent of it and maintain our relationship with our Lord.

If we let our sin build up sin upon sin we are never going to know the freedom that only Jesus can bring.