Whom do you serve? – Romans 6:15-23
There are many distinguishing
differences between the outlook that Christianity presses upon us and the
outlook that our culture presses upon us, but one of the big ones is how each
perspective looks at death, and how that informs the decisions we make before
we die. Thus, the perspective of the
secularist is that we should grab as much security and comfort and fun in this
world as we can, because this is the only thing of which we can be sure. They argue that it is silly to spend our
lives preparing for some unknown future which may or may not transpire. Furthermore, the veil that scientism has
placed over the eyes of many keeps a lot of people from even considering
anything that a scientist cannot measure.
And that means that for a larger and larger group of people, it is a
waste of time to consider the eternal and the things of God. Whereas there used to be a presumption in
favor of Biblical truth, now there is a presumption against it. And so many of our friends are oblivious to
the realities of heaven and hell.
How can we argue for the urgency
of the eternal? There are several ways
we can do this. One way is to argue for
the Biblical position using philosophical arguments. There is a place for that. And I think it is an important place, given
the presumption in favor of the naturalistic perspective of our age. But I would also offer two other
considerations to our generation.
The first is the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead. This is not
something that occurred in secret, or merely in the minds of his followers, but
something that occurred in the context of our space-time universe in first
century Palestine. It is not from any
historical considerations that people deny the resurrection, but purely from
prejudice and philosophical presuppositions.
I have argued, and many others have argued, that the best explanation
for the evidence that we have is that Jesus Christ actually rose from the dead. It is the best explanation for the empty
tomb, for the post-mortem appearances of Jesus to his disciples, and for the
emergence of the church in the very place where Jesus ministered and lived and
died. And if it is true that Jesus rose
from the dead, and then ascended to heaven, and then went, in his words, to
prepare a place in heaven for his disciples, then we have very good reasons to
believe not only in the age to come, but also that the only way to enjoy
eternal life in the age to come is through Jesus Christ.
The other way to argue for the
urgency of the age to come is for those of us who are Christian to live that
way, to live in light of the reality of heaven and hell, in light of the joys
of eternal life in God’s presence and the terrors of the eternal death away
from the presence of God in hell. If
those who are not Christian look at those of us who are Christian and see that
we live no differently from them, then we have given the lie to our profession
of faith. If we are living as if the
present is the most important, then was kind of message is that going to give
to our neighbors? There is only one
thing it can possibly say, namely, that our profession of faith is phony. The only way our philosophy is going to make
any difference in the lives of others is when it has first made a difference in
our own lives first.
And I think one way for us to get
there is to pay attention to the words of our text. The overall emphasis of the apostle’s message
here is that we need to pay attention to the wages that sin and righteousness
pay to those who serve sin or righteousness.
The whole passage is bookended with this point. In verse 16 we are asked to consider what sin
and obedience lead to. Sin leads to
death and obedience to righteousness. We
should not think that death here just means the termination of our physical
existence, but also to what follows our physical death. One of the reasons we know this is that in
verse 23, Paul contrasts death with eternal life. Death here is death in its ultimate
expression; namely, the death of body and soul in hell (cf. Matt. 10:28). In the same way, “righteousness” in verse 16
is not just a reference to right living in the here and now, but to the hope
that righteousness brings with it – the life in the age to come (Gal.
5:5).
And then in verse 21-23, Paul
comes back to this. “The end of those things
[the fruit of shameful living] is death” (21).
On the other hand, the fruit of obedience to God “leads to
sanctification and its end, eternal life” (22).
The conclusion: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God
is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (23).
In other words, we should
consider our lives from the perspective of eternity, and that should affect the
way we look at things, and the way we make decisions and the way we prioritize
our lives. That doesn’t mean, of course,
that we don’t take other things into consideration. The Bible doesn’t look well on those who give
up living life in this world in order to become religious hobos (2 Thess.
3:6-12). But it does mean that we live
the kind of life that says to everyone around us that eternity in the presence
of God is the primary and overarching consideration.
And it will affect the way we
look at things. We will see things
differently from those who don’t adopt the perspective of the gospel. Notice what Paul says in verse 21: “But what
fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now
ashamed? For the end of those things is
death.” They are “now ashamed.” That means they were once not ashamed of
those things. In other words, when they
were unconverted to Christ, they never gave a second thought to the way they
lived. But then Christ invaded their
life and their outlook changed, and now they are ashamed of those things. Why?
What changed their minds? Paul
indicates what it was that changed their perspective: “For the end of those
things is death.” Whereas they probably
once thought they way they lived was living life to its fullest, now they saw
those patterns of behavior as draped with death, not necessarily physical
death, but spiritual separation from God in this life leading to eternal
separation from God in the age to come.
Knowing that the wages of sin is
death means that we don’t judge sin’s value from the limited viewpoint of this
present existence. We don’t do something
just because it feels good or avoid it because it leads to consequences that
are bad for us in the here and now. In
fact, doing something that is forbidden in God’s word may feel really good at
first. We might even describe it as
feeling alive, or as living life to its fullest, or becoming what we were
always meant to be. But ultimately, we
flee from sin not because of what it does or does not do in the present, but
because of what it leads to – namely death.
Sin leads to an irreversible end, a terrifyingly irreversible end. Everything we might gain in this world by
living in opposition to God’s word will never make up for the judgment that is
to come. Our Lord himself said that it
is better to lose your life in this world in order to gain the next rather than
gain this world and lose the next. “For
what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mk.
8:36).
But for us it’s not just a matter
of trying to avoid a very terrible end.
It’s also a matter of seeking what is ultimately good for us – eternally
so. The Christian is not drawn on merely
by fear. The greatest motivator for the
believer is the love of God and the joy that is set before us in Christ. For eternal life is not just interminable,
endless existence. It is “the free gift
of God . . . in Christ Jesus our Lord” (23).
God does not give bad gifts. He
does not give gifts that we end up regretting.
For God does not just give us something – he gives us himself. It is the free gift of God in the
sense not only that God is the giver but also that he is the gift. And since it is given to us in Christ Jesus,
we know that this gift is for our eternal and never-ending joy. In fact, our Lord himself described it in
terms of glory – “The glory that you have given me I have given to them,
that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may
become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them
even as you loved me. Father, I desire
that they also, whom you have give me, may be with me where I am, to see my
glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the
world” (Jn. 17:22-24).
Now how does this tie back into
the argument that the apostle is making in this epistle at this point? He asks a question in verse 15 that is
basically a restatement of the question in verse 1: “What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law
but under grace? By no means!” It’s the same question but restated in
different terms. His answer is again the
same, but this time instead of making the theological point of union with
Christ and its implications, he draws from the analogy of slavery. Though he recognizes that the analogy falls
short (“I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations,”
ver. 19), he also clearly believes that this analogy communicates something
clearly that he wants to get across.
What is it?
He is speaking to the reality
that everyone serves someone or something.
Slavery is inevitable. You are
either going to serve sin or you are going to serve Christ. There is no third option. We are not neutral. Now that doesn’t mean that those who are
enslaved to sin are as bad as they can get.
In fact, you can be a very moral person in this state. You can be a social conservative. You can be a theological conservative (the
devil is, after all). The difference
between someone who serves Christ and someone who doesn’t is that if you serve
Christ you are not living for yourself but for his glory and his fellowship. You are not standing under your own authority
but under the authority of Christ.
A Christian is someone who serves
Christ. This was the apostle’s favorite
designation of himself (Rom. 1:1; Acts 27:28).
Again, it is not a complete picture, because the service of Christ
involves no compulsion of will. Serving
our Lord is more a matter of delight than it is one of duty (1 Jn. 5:3). Furthermore, it involves no bondage of any
kind (Rom. 8:15-17; Matt. 11:28-30).
Every slave of Christ is also a son or daughter of God, with an eternal
inheritance. We are richer than Croesus
ever thought of being.
But Paul still uses this term to
describe the relationship of the believer to God. For our lives are circumscribed by God’s
will, not our own (2 Cor. 5:15). God is
the rightful possessor of our souls.
What does it mean to serve
Christ? We need to be careful here. It does not imply any insufficiency on the
part of God (cf. Acts 17:25). God is not
a master who gets slaves because he can’t do the work himself. We are allowed to serve him for our sakes,
for our glory and joy. Rather, it means
to live in such a way that Christ stands as the ultimate authority in our
lives. He calls the shots, not you. We live for his honor, not our own.
Now what the apostle is arguing
is that the Christian cannot go on living in sin because you cannot separate
slavery to sin from the wages which sin pays.
If you serve sin, then you will reap its wages, which is death. On the other hand, those whose life are
characterized by obedience will inherit eternal life.
Of course, I think it is
important to notice the distinction that Paul makes here. Whereas he denotes death as the wages due to
sin, he does not talk about eternal life that way. Rather, eternal life is a gift. We can never merit eternal life. It comes to us by grace and grace alone.
But the point is that obedience
leads inevitably to the hope of righteousness and sin leads inevitably to
death. So it is wrong-headed to argue
that because we are under grace and not under law that we no longer need to
worry about the sin in our lives. Grace
does not give us an excuse for sin.
Grace does not mean that we can live any way we want to. Grace doesn’t because what grace does is to
put us in the service of Christ. Grace
creates in us a clean heart, one which willingly submits to the Lordship of
Jesus over our lives. Paul does not
reason from grace to libertinism. He
does not say that because we are saved by grace, therefore a person can sin
with impunity. He doesn’t argue that a
person can be saved by grace and then go on living in sin. He argues exactly the opposite.
At the same time, neither does he
argue that we should serve Christ because of all the good it will do for us in
the present moment. He does not say,
“Serve Jesus, because if you trust in him you will have good health, a happy
marriage, obedient and successful children, and a full bank account.” There is no health, wealth, and prosperity
doctrine here. Rather, he argues that we
should keep our eyes on the prize set before us. But what a prize it is!
This being the case, we ought to desire
the service of Christ above all things. How
do we do that? For the reality is that,
as much as we might know that it is right to delight and desire the service of
Christ above all things, even as believers, we wrestle against the desires of
the flesh which go in the opposite direction.
So how do we get there? I think
the text suggests the following three points.
Turn to God and trust in his grace
The first point is that the life
of obedience to which we are called is a life of faith in the power of
Christ. It is not first of all a matter
of will power, but a matter of trusting in the grace that God gives. The reality is that we do not come to God on
our own in the first place. Paul makes
this very clear, as we pointed out last time, when he thanks God, not the
believers, for their conversion to Christ (17).
And then in verse 18, he describes their conversion to Christ in two
phrases using passive verbs. In other
words, the actor in this verse is not the Christian but God: “and, having been
set free from sin, [you] have become slaves of righteousness.” The believer does not set himself free from
sin; God does this. It is the work of
the grace of God in the heart.
But we should not think that
though the Christian life is begun by the grace of God that it is continued by
the believer acting on his or her own.
It is begun and continued in the strength that Christ gives. Why is it that Paul prays that the Ephesian
readers should be strengthened by might by God’s Spirit in the inner man? (Eph.
3:16). It is because we need the power
of the Spirit to live out the life of service to Christ. How do we not gratify the desires of the
flesh? It is by walking by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16). We live by the Spirit and are called to keep
in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:26).
What does this look like
practically? I think practically it
means that our lives are lived bathed in prayer. If there is any way that faith becomes
concrete, it does so through prayer.
Those who pray not indicate that they are relying upon someone other
than God for their source of strength, wisdom, and guidance. It is no coincidence that “serve the Lord” in
Rom. 12:11 is followed by “be constant in prayer” in verse 12.
I know that I am repeating myself
from last week, but I don’t think this can be emphasized enough. To be totally honest, one of the things I
struggle with the most in my life is remaining constant in prayer. It is because I have the problem of thinking
that I have things under control. But
the reality is that I don’t. Too often I
skimp on prayer because I don’t adequately grasp the depth of my need of Christ
and his power and guidance in my life.
We probably all could use more of a prayerful perspective in life.
Obey God’s word
The second point is that,
although it is true that we must first and foremost trust in the grace of God
and can do nothing without it, that doesn’t mean we don’t do anything. Note what Paul also says here in verse 17:
“But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become
obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were
committed.” Although once again we see
the evidence of God’s sovereign grace in the lives of the Roman Christians, for
he is the one who committed them to the standard of teaching, yet the fact that
it is a standard of teaching, to which they obeyed, indicates
that God’s grace is not an excuse for passive Christianity. God’s word does not come to us to be merely
listened to. His doctrines don’t
confront us to be merely considered but to be acted upon. And we are the ones who are to do the acting. And we act appropriately when we obey his
word.
Of course, this means that our
lives not only reflect a priority for prayer, but also for the word of God in
the Bible. By the way, I love the
picture that is suggested here in verse 17.
It suggests the supremacy of God’s word in their lives. John Murray comments that “they were handed
over to the gospel pattern. This
indicates that their devotion to the gospel was one of total commitment and
that this commitment is not one of their option but is that to which they are
subjected.”[1]
Another distinction between
Biblical Christianity and the spirit of our generation is the place of
authority. Under whose authority do you
stand? Our generation refuses to stand
under any authority. They want to be
autonomous. Any suggestion that we are
to surrender to the authority of the Bible (or any other external authority) is
taken to be war-cry against our own freedom, which is taken to be the highest
virtue to be pursued. They are right, of
course, because it does mean the end of freedom from God’s authority (20). However, they are wrong in thinking that
personal autonomy means freedom in any true sense. Freedom from God means slavery to sin. It means slavery to fallen reason and slavery
to fallen passions. It means slavery to
a course of life that will inevitably end in death. But the slavery to God which of course means
that we willingly stand under his word is a slavery that brings life in the
fullest sense. If you want to be truly
free, you will submit to the truth of the word of Christ (Jn. 8:32).
Don’t loiter in the pursuit of
holiness
The last point I want to make
comes from something Paul says in verse 19: “I am speaking in human terms,
because of your natural limitations. For
just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness
leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to
righteousness leading to sanctification.”
The point here is that sin in the life doesn’t just run on idle. If you are enslaved to the sins in your life,
they are taking you somewhere. And the
place they are taking you is to more and more lawlessness and godlessness. Sin hardens the heart. It blinds the eyes. It makes it harder and harder to go
back. It puts roadblocks in your
life. It creates consequences that you
will end up having to live with no matter how much you change later on.
On the other hand, when you
commit yourself to a life of righteousness, based on God’s will for you in his
word, this will lead inevitably to a sanctified life. Do you know what that means? It doesn’t mean life in drab. It doesn’t mean no more smiles. It doesn’t mean you wear black and point your
fingers at everyone who is different from you.
That’s what a lot of people think sanctification means. Rather, it means a life that is consecrated
to God, and which has God’s blessing upon it.
Here is how Paul put it to
Timothy: “Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver
but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from
what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy,
useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work” (2 Tim.
2:20-21). I cannot think of a more noble
or desirable description of the sanctified person than that. Do you want a life that is honorable, one
that is truly useful – even in the light of eternity? Then pursue sanctification with all your
might.
The encouraging thing here is
that if we commit to this, we can expect growth in grace. It will probably be slow, but don’t let that
discourage you. Keep keeping on, and you
can expect God’s blessing upon your life.
For if you are set apart for God, then you can be sure that his
blessings will be set apart for you.
So let us serve Christ. Let us take Paul’s description of himself for
our own. Speaking of God, he said,
“Whose I am and whom I serve.” Who do
you serve? To whom do you belong? My friend, Christ is the very best of
masters. And there is only one other:
sin. You will either serve Christ or
your lust. One leads to eternal life,
the other to death. May the Lord bring
all of us in glad submission to his wonderful word.
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