Romans 10-10, For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. What if he said, With the hands one earns salvation?
He never says that. The Bible never teaches that. Our decision to believe the gospel brings permanent results, provided it is more than an intellectual thing, it is from the heart. Obedience functions as the only tangible expression of faith. How else can you see faith? Romans chapter 6 is where Pastor Rick will be teaching from today on this edition of Cross Reference Radio. Aaron did not restrain them.
You don't want that. Anyway, then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp and said, Whoever is on the Lord's side, come to me. You can bet Aaron came too. You see what he did? He doesn't say, Aaron, are you crazy?
What are you talking about? He just threw it in. He saw more to Aaron than that sin. And if Moses can see it, so can God.
We can stay on that story a while, but I think the points are made. And so verse 16 now, Romans 6, 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? Now, again, he's on a spiritual level, not itemizing sin. He knows the answer, of course, that there's a vast difference between a P.O.W. and a traitor.
Both of them are on the enemy's side physically, but not on the inside. This is given to us in Ezekiel chapter one. This is Ezekiel that receives these great visions of God. He's a priest in Israel. He's taken into captivity in the Babylon. He doesn't want to be there. He's not a traitor against his country. He's a prisoner. And it's the same for Daniel, who arrived there before him.
They were prisoners, but they were not traitors. That's the believer's life. And so whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness, there's no third choice. Verse 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. He doesn't say, Well, now that you're all perfect people because you've come to Christ, what's the point of writing to you about this conflict, this dichotomy? No, he's trying to help them because he knows some of them are being slammed by guilt and I can't stop. Well, there wasn't so much sin in those days because there were no automobiles. Sin really didn't kick in until we started driving.
When self-driving cars come along, you'll still be just as much a sinner. God honors sincerity, not insincerity. He does not honor dishonesty.
He doesn't wink at it. Yet, sincerity enough is not enough. There must be action. The heart's quest for God. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for God, for they shall be filled. When?
When will I be filled? Well, when I leave this life for sure. But he said Jeremiah points this out to a people who are very dishonest and you will seek me. He's talking about when God finally gets to have a people who want him and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29, 13. See, perseverance belongs to obedience.
Satan doesn't want you to know that. He doesn't want you to know that the law of perseverance overcomes the law of failure. Luke 22, verse 28.
But you are those, Jesus said to his apostles, who have continued with me in my trials. So the differences lie in this life, in salvation, and it includes these things. Disobedience in the heart versus obedience in the heart. Slavery, an enslaved mind, not interested in what God says, versus freedom, a savior influenced mind. Yeah, it's a battle for the mind.
It always has been since Eden. One of the differences between the salvation and those who don't have it is the fruitless life versus the fruitful life. Eternal death versus eternal life.
There are differences. And you can't get to the good side of these things if you are determined to not accept the terms of salvation, which we call the gospel. So he says here, but God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, that's the old nature, a slave is actually under complete control of their master. Those who are willful servants in this life without Christ are slaves of sin.
And that's why he's making this distinction. Once you were slaves of sin, now you're not. But now you still sin.
That does not necessarily mean you are its slave. Now some of you might just, you know, you'll be calling on this the next time you sin and you feel disgusted with yourself. You feel unworthy and all those things that come with it. Yeah, it's because of your relationship with Christ. And the grace of Christ is there and you persevere because if you don't, if you say, look, I just can't do this.
I quit. Well, you're not persevering. You've played into Satan's hands and you've become a willing victim. Second Timothy, chapter two, that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will. Those are the ones that have their minds that the battle for the mind is not one for Christ.
It is loss. And again, since Eden, it has been a battle for the mind, for the soul. He also says here in verse 17, yet you. That is another distinction and it reinforces the believer's sense of belonging to Christ. He says, but you, but you, you're different. In spite of your fallen nature, you're different. And the distinction is in either the lordship of Christ or outside of his lordship. And he says, you've obeyed from the heart.
That's the new nature. Eager for God's truth, eager for his fellowship, eager for his companionship, looking forward to heaven. Well, you won't be a sinner anymore. Romans 10 10. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. What if he said with the hands one earns salvation?
He never says that. The Bible never teaches that. Our decision to believe the gospel brings permanent results, provided it is more than an intellectual thing. It is from the heart. Obedience functions as the only tangible expression of faith. How else can you see faith? Well, you can hear someone tell you about it, but obedience demonstrates it. Even the quest to obey, because you could not have that quest to obey Christ without Christ, without him being in your heart. And we can demonstrate our obedience by where we stand, which I read from Exodus a moment ago. And Moses said all those Exodus 32 verse 25. Then Moses stood at the entrance of the camp and said, whoever is on the Lord's side, come to me. Well, I'm there. I'm on the Lord's side.
I know many, if not all of you are, too. Your failures, let them teach you, but do not let them enslave you. Do not let them terrorize you to the point where you are petrified and you can't move. Then you'll be fruitless. You'll be hammered.
You'll be tossed to and fro. A person that is desperate is not living the faith life. You know, the person that tells everybody, runs over here, asks for advice, runs over here, asks for more advice, it's the same thing as anybody they can get until everybody's now avoiding them. Because they're not trusting the Lord. I'm not wrong.
There's nothing wrong with asking for advice and sharing something. But it does not mean that we can just be reckless and careless with this and just cave in as though we were in a state of desperation. John 15, 27, and you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning and there again Jesus points to perseverance. The saved persevere out of obedience.
Why else would you? Why would you persevere with Christ in this life unless it was for obedience or maybe greed? There are those that teach, you know, you just hang in there and God's going to make you rich kind of a thing. You just give the church more money and God will give you more money.
Well that of course is one of the distortions that exist and that's on them. But that is never what is taught in scripture. Jesus speaking to a church said, because you have kept my command to persevere.
So it's a command. I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world. How those who say the church goes through the tribulation, I don't understand how they twist the scripture to not mean that we're not going to go through the tribulation and there it is. We'll go through tribulation in the world, you'll have a lot of tribulation Jesus said, be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. But the great tribulation such as the world has never known?
And those who say, well we're going through it now. Well where's Antichrist? Because he's the one that brings that tribulation. Anyway, he says that I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the entire world to test those who dwell on the earth. You are going to escape that.
But what's the key ingredients there? Well they kept his word and they persevered. And when you see an old timer, a Christian that's been around for a while, and then later in years they start getting goofy, it's because they've left the fundamental teaching. It's not magic.
It's not who I sure hope that doesn't happen to be. Then stick to the fundamentals. Stick to the basics of the word. Don't get so caught up in what you've learned that you think you can be more merciful than Christ. That you can be nicer to sinners than Jesus can be nicer to sinners. There's that whole thing with the seeker friendly church nonsense.
That one on the list of fads that I've seen come and go based on poor doctrine, that was one of the big ones. Seeker friendly, don't tell them they're sinners. They might repent.
Tell them they're wonderful. No, a seeker friendly church says, listen, thus says the Lord. God is looking to save the world, but those who come to him only will benefit from that.
So he writes here, now this is nice, well it's all nice, but you'll like this one I think. That form of doctrine to which you were delivered, I'm on verse 17 at the bottom of the verse. That Greek word for formed has to do with a mold, a dye, that you would pour molten metal into. And it would take on that shape. And the believer is the molten metal poured into that form.
The doctrine is the form. We're poured into this. And the outcome is that we're one with it. That we would call it Christ's likeness. And we are handed over to this.
It says to which you were delivered. 1 Corinthians 15, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, and in which you stand. There it is, back to Moses again.
Where do you stand? That's positional salvation. It's based on where I stand, not my failures. If God says, well, I'm going to add up your failures on this side and your non-failures on this side, and if you have less failures than victories, then you can come into heaven. Then again, heaven would be a lonely place.
Nobody would get in. But that's not what he does. He says, where do you stand? I stand at the cross. I stand at the empty tomb. I stand in Christ Jesus. Verse 18, and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Wait a minute.
Wait, I thought they were slaves of sin. See, you got to keep up with this language. It does not always feel like I've made the switch. It does not always feel like I'm being righteous. Then I would have pride, right? Look at me. Hey, did you see that? See how righteous I am?
It doesn't work that way. Faith knows better, and it knows better than feelings. My hatred for sin, again, because it is an offense to Christ, verifies this. So positionally, again, where I stand because of Christ, I am free from the doom of sin. You might say, you know, you're kind of repeating yourself.
Yeah, I am. Why is that? Because it's something that sinners seem to keep forgetting and become legalistic or lawless instead of balancing it and understanding that the proof that I belong to Christ is my perseverance against sin. Because of my love for him, primarily. Also because sin is harmful, of course.
That's why he has prohibited it. But after this life, we jettison sin. As, you know, the space shuttle jettisoned those fuel tanks. You just get rid of that stuff as you're going up.
I'm in an aerodynamic mood. Verse 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. The trick to, verse by verse, a trick or what makes it a little tricky, that's what I want, in verse by verse, is as you're reading the verse, you want to make your comments before you forget them. And so the verse becomes a competitor with your own ideas of what the verse is saying.
And a rookie, of course, will... of which I am. Anyway, Paul says to make his point, I speak in human terms. He's encouraging them to redirect their behavior now. Well, what should he do, knowing that we're saddled with sin? Romans 12, 1, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Well, the Old Testament sacrifices were dead sacrifices.
It'd bring it up, it would be alive, but then you'd have to kill it and then offer it. Well, the believer's life should be presented to the Lord as a living sacrifice, dead to self, alive to Christ. Now, the Lord will ask some of his children to die for him, but he asks all of his children to live for him, to bring glory to him.
And thus the conflict is on. And so the next time you mess up and Satan comes, you know, making you feel you're not a Christian, what do you call yourself, what do you think, you know, this is what I'm preaching. You say, well, right now I'm not going through a struggle with my salvation, right now I'm struggling with faith and fear and anxiety and other things like that. This is the foundation to overcoming those things, your stance in Christ, to be able to say, yeah, but I side with Christ.
I will trust him. If you cannot demonstrate a resolve when it comes to your salvation, how are you going to do it in faith for problems? They're connected. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to sin. Verse 20, our carnal nature, that bottom feeder was happy to be a slave of disobedience.
And it's still that way. But you were freed in regard to righteousness. Well, before Christ, we did not care about his classifications. We might not have liked certain things that are sin, but again, they weren't linked to Christ.
We were essentially asleep on the Titanic. But when we come to Christ, all that changes. Because we were no good to him before then, now we have this tremendous opportunity, especially if you belong to a good church, you have such opportunity. And there are so many places in this world that can really use a good church, but it's so hard to establish one. It's so hard to keep it going. There's so much opposition from other Christians. It's very difficult.
But it is doable and it is worth it. And you should know that. Because how else would you know that? Unless you were involved in ministry long term. The problem with Paul, writing to Philemon, he didn't know that Philemon, just because he was a believer, he didn't know if he'd do the right thing.
He wasn't sure that that thing would blow up in his face. It's the same today. You go tell a Christian, listen, you know, we don't do something like that in the church. It's a policy. You don't know if they're going to go off on you. Because they do. And they're going to stick it to you also. Well, we're all in this mess together.
Can't be too hard on them. But at the same time, you can't yield. And so the next time you find yourself saying, why aren't there more good churches?
Well, that's part of the reason. Well anyway, if you were free in regard to, you were free in regard to righteousness, you weren't under the conviction of the law. The prodigal son was free from the laws of his father's house when he went away from his father's house. But his broken life well pictures what Paul is speaking of here.
He was unsuccessful enough in life to crave home, to go back to his father. Esau was too successful in life to crave God. And that spirit was transferred to his descendants.
And God picks up on that through the prophet Malachi. And speaking about that attitude, he says Esau, Jacob I've loved, Esau I've hated. Jacob sought the Lord in spite of it. And there's another example of the flesh and the spirit, that dichotomy within. Jacob wanted God, but he was up to no good a lot of times. He was still in the flesh. And yet, the spirit was alive. In verse 21, what fruit did you have when in the things of which you are now ashamed, for the end of those things is death?
Well Peter put it this way, your aimless conduct. Verse 21 again, what fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? Which points to the fact that they are saved. They are ashamed of that old life. They hate that sin.
And that is where the shame comes in. Lot's wife was not so. And that's why Jesus said, remember Lot's wife. She looked back at Sodom with longing eyes. She disobeyed a simple commandment.
And she perished. And so Jesus said, don't forget that teaching. Live like you've learned something from your Bible.
It will benefit you. When the prodigal son came home, he didn't expect anything. He certainly didn't expect how his father received him. But he had nothing. Luke chapter 15 verse 16, and no one gave him anything when he was out in the world. He got nothing of any value to his father. And that's true of us. As you're in the world, you will get nothing of any value to your father from the world.
Well, you can learn things for sure. But they have to be filtered through Christ. And so we move on for the end of those things is death.
Verse 22, but now having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, the end, everlasting life. Again, he's speaking to them as though they're believers because they are. And he's not chastising them. He's not rebuking them even a little bit. He's just laying it out. Because he understands that if Christians don't realize how powerful the salvation is that Christ has given us, then they're going to be relatively useless. Or they're going to be a problem at some point. If you don't have that blessed assurance, how can you transfer it?
How can you share it? How can you stand in the faith if you're unsure of where you stand? Because you've done something wrong and your theology doesn't help you through it. Bible learning theology is supposed to show up in your life, especially when there's pressure. That would be in the face of sickness, the death of loved ones, ministry. You can just keep adding to that list. It is under pressure that we find out what is on the inside. And others have gone before us and they have done well.
They've done very well. So Paul, again, treats them as free slaves from sin, but slaves of Christ. Again, Jesus, John chapter 8, verse 36. Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.
Oh, no, I don't believe that. I just committed a sin that I hate. Yeah, but what did Jesus say?
How can you ever get the upper hand if you don't believe these things? So the true believer's heart is delighted to be enslaved under these terms nonetheless. Free and yet potentially fruitful as opposed to free from Christ and fruitless. Verse 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Well, there's a payday for sinners. They don't believe that and that's why they remain sinners, many of them. These are poor rewards for a wasted life. And so when the one that has rejected the truth of Christ dies, they get nothing, nothing to show for this life. It's all judgment. And that there's an attitude that goes with the unbeliever that says, well, so far so good.
I've made it this far this way, I'll make it all the way. Which is like a person falling from a skyscraper, so far so good. Well, they hit the ground. These parallels, these illustrations are fair pickings to make points. That's why Paul says, I speak to you in human terms. I'm making these illustrations so you can get them. That's why Jesus gave parables.
I'm almost done. Peter talks about the wages of unrighteousness in 2 Peter. He writes in the second chapter, but these like natural brute beasts, these who are opposed to the gospel, will utterly perish in their own corruption and will receive the wages of unrighteousness.
As those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime, they're unbridled that is, there are spots and blemishes forsaking the right way and have gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. Although things do count, none can earn eternal life. That is our message. It is the gift freely given to those according to the prerogative of God. And I close with this verse, 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 10.
Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. It wouldn't be the gospel if my failures could make it bad news. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.
We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast, too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website, you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio, so make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today, but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick will be back next time in the book of Romans here on Cross-Reference Radio.
