Expound: Romans 6-7 - Part B

Who is your master?

Who are you serving? What is your master passion? You can tell who your master is by finding out what your master passion is. What is it you love to do more than anything else?

What do you gravitate toward more than anything else? And it always eventually gets down to this issue. Who owns you? Who really owns you? If you think about it, we're all serving someone or something.

So who's really in control of your life? Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares why it's better for you to be a slave of Christ than a slave of anything or anyone else. Right now, we want to tell you about a resource that will encourage you even more in your faith. Trials, Temptation, and the Tongue. Those are the mega themes of three booklets from Lenya Heitzig that we're making available this month at connectwithskip.com.

Here's Lenya with more on this bundle. In Don't Tempt Me, I hand you the keys to unlock the thoughts, circumstances, and fears that can cause you to give in to temptation. And in Speak No Evil, I encourage you to avoid setting fires with your words and instead use them to bring showers of blessing. Lenya Heitzig's booklets, Don't Tempt Me, Speak No Evil, and Happy Trials, provides help, hope, and encouragement in dealing with life's challenges. This bundle of three booklets are yours for a gift of $20 or more to help keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air. Get yours when you give today by calling 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer.

That's connectwithskip.com slash offer. Now, we're in Romans chapter six as we join Skip Heitzig for today's message. You know, there's a song I remember hearing it as a new believer, but I come to find out it was written really in 1922. It's sort of an old hymn, but it gets re-released in every generation. Lauren Daigle just did a beautiful cut of it. It's, turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

I think this, that sort of captures this idea of giving yourself, presenting yourself as instruments, as members for God to use. I remember hearing a story about a little girl who was being tucked in to bed at night, and it was successful. The little girl went to sleep. A couple hours later, mom heard a thud on her daughter's bedroom floor, followed by a huge wail, a cry. She had fallen out of bed.

Mom rushed in, picked up her daughter, comforted her, and tucked her back in bed and said, sweetheart, why is it you fell out of bed? And she said, I don't know, mommy, but I think I stayed too close to where I got in. I find that's our problem. We're in Christ, but we stay right on the edge. We want to live on the edge, man. We want to stay close to the border. No, no, move in closer to the heart of Christ.

Get away from the borderlands. Go deep in. And the deeper you go in, you do that by presenting yourself to God.

Lord, I'm yours to use. What then? Verse 15.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Since we're not governed by the law anymore, we're dead to that. That's over. Shall we continue in sin because we're not under law?

Same idea. Certainly not. No way, Jose, God forbid. 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 of obedience to righteousness? The Jewish rabbis had an idea, a saying about the law, the Torah, the commandment of God.

They referred to the law as a siyag, and a siyag is the Hebrew word for offense. It's offense that God has given us to protect us. And so if you say, we're not under the law, you're calling for the fence to be removed, Paul. You're saying there's no protection.

There's no parameters. God has given us the siyag, the protection, the fence. And so if you take it away, we're just gonna we're just gonna perform lawlessness. Paul says, God forbid, do you not know that to whom you present yourselves as slaves to obey, you are that one slaves whom you obey? Paul would say this to those who would say that. He would say the best fence is a decision that you make that leads to a destiny that you undertake. You make a choice, you make a decision to present yourself to God. When you do that over and over, it leads to a destiny. You become a slave of that.

We understand what slavery is like, especially if you have struggled with addictions. You make a choice. Choice leads to another choice, to another choice, to another choice, to another choice. Pretty soon you have something that is routinely set up.

It's your go-to response. You can become addicted to a number of things. You can become addicted to your phone, as I fear so many have.

If that screen isn't in front of them, anyway, I'll get off of that. So what happens in any form of addiction after you make a choice and a series of choices, those choices become easier to make, resistance becomes harder, and pretty soon you find yourself powerless. Jesus even talked about this. He said, don't you know that whoever you commit yourself to, you become a slave of that person? That person's slaves or that thing's slaves you are. So the idea is who is your master?

Who are you serving? What is your master passion? You can tell who your master is by finding out what your master passion is. What is it you love to do more than anything else?

What do you gravitate toward more than anything else? And it always eventually gets down to this issue. Who owns you? Who really owns you? Who's calling the shots? You say, well, I am. Not a good choice. The heart is deceitfully wicked above all else.

Who can know it? That old little saying is so true. Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.

So the best fence, the best parameters in your life is to make a decision that leads to a destiny. I'm his slave. He's my master.

He calls the shots. But, verse 17, God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine or teaching, truth, to which you were delivered. And being set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. That is, righteous living is what you lived to do.

That's the idea. Righteous living, a righteous lifestyle, is what you lived to do. You woke up in the morning after you were saved. Lord, how can I please you today? I'm addicted to pleasing you.

I'm addicted to blessing your heart by obeying your commands. I speak, verse 19, in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

Pretty straightforward. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit, then, did you have in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 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. For the wages of sin is death.

But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Satan always pays his slaves. He always pays his servants. If you work for him, he'll never miss payday.

Guarantee he'll pay up. But in contrast to that, God wants to give you a gift, not give you what you deserve. You see, sin will pay you what you deserve. The wages of sin is death. That's what you deserve. It's only fair. Payday's here.

Here you go. You get paid death. God is willing to give you what you don't deserve.

Wages of sin is death. But the gift of God, what you don't deserve, is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The first, we do deserve.

The second, the gift we don't deserve. Now, having said all that, it's one thing to know all these wonderful truths. It's one thing to say, you know what, I'm supposing that. I'm going to logismy that.

I'm going to reckon that to be so. And I'm going to do my best to resist temptation and present myself to God. All that's great. And yes, we should.

Those are important steps. However, don't think that this is some little formula that when you walk out of here, life's now going to be perfect. You still have to live with you.

Yeah, I know. See, I still have to live with me. Wherever I go, I take myself with me.

So all of that baggage from the past, those habits, those things I'm used to, the way of thinking and doing that comes from the old manner of life, comes with me. That battle never ends. That flesh and spirit battle in Galatians that we talked about last week and continue to talk about this week goes with us. But Paul wants to make a further point here. So I said, Tuck, verse 14 in your mind, so go back to verse 14. It says, For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law but under grace. Then in verse 15 to the end of the chapter, he takes a little bit of a detour and gives a parenthetical statement.

The parenthetical statement is back, is over. Now he goes right back to the principle that he was getting at in chapter 6, verse 14, and that is that the law doesn't have its grip on us any longer. We're dead also to the law.

So notice in verse 1, Do you not know, brethren, for I speak to those who know the law, that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then, if while her husband lives, she marries another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. So she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. Now, the intention of this text that I just read is not to go through marriage and divorce.

Too many Christians get sidetracked on that. That's simply an illustration to form a point about the law in general, or law in general. And marriage is an illustration. Slavery was an illustration he just used in the previous chapter. He uses another illustration of marriage. It's a pretty straightforward one. While a husband is alive and a gal is married to her husband, if he dies, she's free to remarry. If he's not dead, but she marries somebody else, it's like, wait a minute, you just committed adultery.

You can't do that. It's a pretty plain, straightforward analogy. Marriage binds a person. Here's the point that Paul is making.

Death ends a person's responsibility to the law. Right? Make sense? So let's say somebody is speeding. Let's get this illustration. You leave church tonight, you do 100 miles an hour on the freeway.

You get pulled over, you get a ticket. You take your ticket, but within this week, God forbid, you die. We get a phone call, will you do the funeral of Calvary?

Sure, we'll do it. So the day comes from your funeral. They will your casket down to the front.

Casket is open. People can come by and say, yep, that's you. Let's say I walk up and I happen to have a copy of your ticket.

And I look down at you in the casket and I go, you know what? You haven't paid your ticket. Don't think you can get out of this, God forbid. You still owe this ticket. Does he owe the ticket?

Why? He's dead, exactly. Death ends moral responsibility to law. Every legal system recognizes that. So in a marriage, if the husband dies, she's free to remarry. She's free from the law.

Right? Okay. Death ends responsibility. We died in Christ.

That's Paul's point. We died in Christ. We identify with Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. Just as Jesus died, he died for all who believe in him.

If you believe in him, his death means your relationship to the law is over. That's the idea that Paul is making here. Your identification with Christ. Now, I want to unravel something because the Bible does sort of mix its metaphors and confuse some of us. So let me explain this a little bit.

Let me backtrack a little bit. When you were born into this world, you were born alive. Obviously, right?

Obviously, because you're here. It was a live birth. It was a successful birth.

Here you are. You're all grown up. Though you were born and alive physically, you were dead spiritually the moment you were born. In conception, you were already dead spiritually.

Paul says that in Ephesians 2. And you he has made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins. You were D.O.A. born. You were dead on arrival. So you were physically alive, spiritually dead.

Okay. You gave your life to Christ. The moment you gave your life to Christ, you were alive to God, but dead now to sin. Dead to the past life. Dead to the law. Make sense?

So think of it this way. In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul said, may God sanctify you completely and may your whole body, soul, and spirit be preserved blameless. There Paul talks about the three parts of a human. Body, soul, and spirit.

When you were born, you were born physically your body. You had a soul. That's your consciousness.

That's your ability to make decisions into reason. That's your soul. But your spirit was dead, dormant, because of what Adam did.

By one man, sin entered the world and death through sin, death spread to all. So you were born body, soul, and spirit. Your body was on top ruling, dictating everything. Baby says, I want this, I want that.

You know, cries for whatever need it has, right? And that behavior persists through a lifetime until it is curbed by all sorts of social pressures, etc., family pressures. But your body is on top. Your mind is under it. So you have the mind of the flesh, Paul calls it. The mind of the flesh. Your spirit's dormant.

As soon as you come to God, you come to Christ, you give your life to Jesus Christ, it gets flipped. Now you are as God intended. You are spirit, soul, and body. Yes, you still have a body. Yes, you still have a soul. But now you have the mind of the spirit. The spirit is in control, even though the flesh still is around and fights the spirit and and vies for the control of the mind.

That's where the battlefield is fought. So you're born physically alive, spiritually dead. You come to God, you're spiritually alive, but you're dead to the past, dead to sin, dead to the law. That's the metaphor.

I wanted to unravel that because it gets a little mystifying. You're dead to what? Not alive to what? So, do you not know, brethren, verse one, for I speak to those who know the law, that the law is dominion over a man as long as he lives? For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then, if while her husband lives, she marries another, she will be called an adulteress. If her husband dies, she is free from the law so that she is no adulteress, even though she has married another man. Okay, the illustration's done.

Here's the application. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ. That is Jesus' death on the cross. That you may be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. In most legal systems, there is the law of double jeopardy.

You can't be tried for the same crime and sentenced for it twice. So, if you died in Christ and your death sentence was on him, you can't stand in judgment for your own sin in the future. That's the law in most systems of jurisprudence, as well as in God's. You died in Christ. You're alive because of the resurrection that you should bear fruit to God. For when we were in the flesh, flesh meaning the living in the old nature according to the dictates of the flesh, the old you, the old manner of life under Adam, for when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. He's describing you before salvation. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. The proof that you are dead to the old and alive to Christ is by the fruit. That's what he says here in verse 4, that you should bear fruit to God. Jesus in John 15, go home and read that. Don't do it now, but go home and read John 15. Write that little note.

Look it up later. Jesus talked about abiding in him, that the branch abides in the vine, that the branch has a constant, close, living connection with the branch, and in so doing there's fruit bearing that takes place. And he talks about bearing fruit, bearing much more fruit, bearing much fruit. And that's God's intention for our lives, to bear fruit. Jesus said some 30, some 60, some 100 fold. You can bear as much fruit as you want, as you want. That control is in your decision making.

It is. And of course God has, God will add to that. He'll send trials to prune you so that you bear more fruit. But the decisions that we make on a daily basis and the choices that we make during those trials will determine what kind of fruit we're going to bear. But his intention is that we bear fruit to him.

Okay, I don't want to lose this. Yes, he's making an analogy about being married. But just get the weight of this in verse 4. It says that you may be married to another, even to him who was raised from the dead. The analogy is marriage. Okay, but just for a moment think of yourself as being married to Jesus.

So here's what I want to get at. You know, there are lots of analogies the New Testament uses about our relationship with God. And they're put there so that we have an understanding of him. We're called the sheep. He's called the good shepherd. We're called the body of Christ. Jesus is the head of the body. That's the relationship. We are called children of God.

He is the heavenly father. All sorts of different analogies to portray their relationship. But I got to tell you, there's none more precious than the idea of intimacy as portrayed by a marriage relationship. We're the bride of Christ.

We're married to him. That speaks of intimacy. It speaks of the kind of intimacy that I think God wants us not only to enjoy but to portray. If you read Ephesians about the husband and wife, husbands love your wives, wives submit to your husband, he talks about marriage being a horizontal microcosm of a vertical relationship we have with God. We have a relationship with God.

The best portrait of that, Paul says, is in a marriage relationship on earth. That wraps up Skip Heitzig's message from the series Expound Romans. Right now we want to let you know about a special opportunity you have to pursue biblical studies in a way that works with your schedule. It's never too late to start taking classes in biblical studies. Here's Calvary College student Timothy. Calvary College was an answer to prayer for me.

I was at a point in my life where I longed for more of God and his word. Calvary College was the next step in that direction. An education from Calvary College will impact your spiritual life for the rest of your life. Apply now at calvarychurchcollege.com. The Bible is full of God's promises to you.

And since he is faithful, you don't have to fear because you can know that he will carry out those promises. You can help share the promises found in scripture with even more listeners by giving a gift today to keep these encouraging messages going out. Just call 800-922-1888 to give now. That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Thank you. Come back tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares how you can still live in victory despite our inherent sin nature. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.