And eternal life is not what starts when we die. It's what starts when we trust in Christ. When I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and I put my faith and trust in Him, at that moment, eternal kind of life begins. A life, as Jesus described it, is more abundant. I no longer serve the enemy of my life, but the Redeemer of my life.
I saved her. Every man and woman on Earth stands at a crossroads each day of their lives, facing consequential decisions. Will I choose the path of righteousness that leads to abundant life? or will I go down the road that leads to darkness and death? This is the gift and the burden of free will.
Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindahl teaches from Romans chapter 6. In this passage, Paul strips away all pretense to reveal this stark reality. Our choices have eternal consequences. And the question isn't whether you'll decide. It's what you'll decide.
Romans chapter six is a wonderful. Chapter of Emancipation. We who were once slaves have been freed. The main idea of the first 14 verses is The believer who is in Christ is freed from slavery to sin. That's what the first.
14 verses are all about. The believer in Christ is freed from slavery to sin. You no longer have to say yes to wrong. You are now empowered to say no. But you're not forced.
You're left with a choice. Every waking moment of our lives, we are faced with choices. Do I react negatively, or do I let the Spirit of God give me a positive strength? Do I say yes to what would feed my lust? And greed, or do I say no by the power that lives within me?
Before the cross, there was no choice. Afterwards There is that opportunity.
Now then. The cynic who reads this, who thinks the person who preaches this kind of grace message. Is encouraging people to sin. Rushes to the extreme and says, Why you let people free to live like you've described. You don't give them a list to live by.
You don't. Hammer away at the law that's still over them, you're going to find people are going to just run wild. This heresy. It's called antinomianism. against law.
Against restrictions, against boundaries. We are freed. But love, love for Christ restricts us. restrains us so that we live obedient lives. Knowing that we are free to live disobedient ones.
It's a choice.
So when Paul gets to this fifteenth verse, he moves into that balanced area. He begins with a similar sounding question. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Yeah.
Sin abounding causes grace to superabound Why not sin a lot and let grace super duper abound? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's heresy. In fact, his emotional reaction is: no, no, may it never be. Perish the thought. What a ghastly thought.
What heresy is that?
Now, following this emotional outburst, may it never be. Paul answers rather rationally in 16 through 22. of this section. Look at how it unfolds. It really may look complicated, but it is not at all.
It's just a concentrated series of thoughts.
So you have to concentrate. Look at verse 16. Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves? of the one Uh you obey. If you choose righteousness, you become enslaved to righteousness and all the benefits.
If you choose unrighteousness, you become. Oh, one who initiates all the consequences that follow. If you present yourself to someone as a slave voluntarily, Then the one you choose to be enslaved by will. take over. will be master of you.
It's your choice. See how he puts it, either of sin resulting in death or obedience resulting in righteousness. You say, wait, wait, wait, wait. I've chosen wrong and I didn't die. It's not a physical death.
It's a death-like existence. You enter into a realm of darkness. and sometimes despair if you stay there. You stay there long enough, and divine discipline kicks in to the point where the Lord has to decide whether to leave you on the earth or take you.
So, you have your choice of a death-like existence or a righteous. type life. And now he suddenly bursts into a doxology. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God.
For what? That though you were slaves of sin, that's when we were lost. You became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. That's a preacher's way of saying you believe the gospel. Preachers sometimes take a long time getting to the point.
That whole last half of verse 17 has to do with conversion. Because you believe the gospel that Christ paid the complete penalty for your sins, thanks be to God, you're freed from the enslavement that was once yours. In experience.
Now you have a choice. Before you had none. Verse 18. Take it to its logical conclusion. Having been freed from sins, power is the implied statement, you became slaves of righteousness.
That causes Paul to say, thanks be to God. He says in 19, I'm speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. Notice the words of comparison. Verse 19 continues, just as You presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness.
So now, those are words of comparison, just as so now. Just as you once yielded yourself or presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in more lawlessness, further lawlessness. Present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. It's a big word that means consecration to God, set apart for God's purposes. Verse 20, when you were slaves of sin, You were free in regard to righteousness.
You really didn't have a choice. No righteousness. One man writes it this way: the downward cycle of sin moves from a problem to a faulty, sinful response. thereby causing an additional complicating problem. which is meant by an additional sinful response.
That pattern needs to be reversed by beginning an upward cycle of righteousness. He continues, sinful habits are hard to break, but if they are not broken, they will bind the person ever more tightly, and he is held by the ropes. of his own sin. My phone rang several years ago. A lady had a friend who was a friend of our family who gave her our number, and she called and.
She said, you don't know me. She said, I listened to your radio program. In fact, she said, That's how things turned around for me. She began to cry. She said, I was at the end of my rope, as we describe here.
Uh slaves of impurity. She said I had gone through two abortions. I had abandoned my family. husband and three children. I was at the end and I checked into a cheap motel.
I brought a gun. It was loaded. I put it in my mouth. And she said, all of a sudden, Like a clap the radio alarm kicked on And it was your broadcast. He said, for all I know, some religious fanatic had set that radio alarm to Come on, that religious program.
She said, I heard music. Then I heard your voice. She said, we've never met, probably never will. She lived in another state. She said, I pull the gun out of my mouth.
And she said, I I listened. And I realized that I had nothing in front of me but death. And I Dropped to my knees by the bed and Trusted Christ. Isn't that great? She said, There are days to this day I can still taste the steel in my mouth.
Put a chill up my back.
Now, I tell you those stories so you will understand. This life that becomes a deathlike existence leads ultimately Only to that. There's no way out. We'll get to that in verse 23, but before we do, There's good news. Verse 20.
When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. That's the past. That's back before Christ. Therefore, What benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you were now ashamed? The answer is none.
There were no benefits. For the outcome of all of that is death. It's an existence that's like death. It's dark, it's despairing. But now, this is one of those great turning points.
But now, but now, having been freed from sin, he's back to his favorite word, freed from sin's clutches, freed from the power. And now, enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in. A life of consecration. Not a life that surrounds continued downward spiral, but now an upward Experience, the outcome of which is eternal life. And eternal life is not what starts when we die.
It's what starts when we trust in Christ. Not a great thought. When I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and I put my faith and trust in Him, at that moment, eternal kind of life begins. A life, as Jesus described it, is more abundant. And the Master changes within me.
I no longer serve the the enemy of my life, but The Redeemer of my life. My savior. Shortly after he wrote this song, Lornell Harris accompanied us on one of our conferences. I forget where it was or when it was, seemed like it was in the late 90s. I love Lornell's beautiful lyrical tenor voice.
Here's this. Grown man standing well over six feet tall that can hit notes only a soprano is made to hit. He can still do it. Marvelous voice. He taught us a song he had just composed.
I give all my service to you. I give all my service to you, no matter the cost. or what others do. I give all my service to you. Then he said, it's simple.
We began to sing it with him. He said, we'll just change the word service to... Family. I give all my family. I give all my faith.
family to you, no matter the cost or what others do. I give all my family. He said. What other words? And someone in the audience said, future.
Well, that's good, he said. I give all my future to you. We could have been there three days, naming all the things we would give. And he ended with: he said, this is the top, this is the end. worship.
I give all of my worship to you. No matter the cost or what others do, Give all my worship. To you. That's consecration. That's being enslaved to the right master.
Paul is a master at putting what I call a zinger. on a section of scripture. If you ever played in a band. You know that many of the marches end with what's called a stinger. Pop.
Right at the end. Pup, you do one final little staccato note and it's done. This is a a stinger at the end of Chapter 6. We've used it all our lives for evangelistic purposes, but it's in a context written to the believer. This is really a verse for the believer.
For the wages of sin. Is death. See, now you understand what that means. The wages of sin is death. I got this thought as I was preparing.
Sin pays an awful wage. Its retirement program is even worse. Its pension plan is dreadful. It's an awful wage. It's a death-like existence, and as a believer, you can live it.
And no one will know you belong to the Savior because you made that choice. Paul says, please, no, no, don't go there. Don't go there. Call sin what it is. Don't give it any other name.
It's death. Charles Spurgeon calls this a golden sentence of truth worthy to be written across the sky. The wages of sin is death. Remember that when you hold that remote in your hand and you're traveling and you're watching television alone late at night. Remember that when you're on the internet.
And no one else is in the room. And the blinds are drawn and the door is closed. Remember that. Remember it. Remember that when you have the opportunity to pilfer from the purse.
And no one will know. At least not for now. And you can line your pocket with someone else's. Money. Remember that when you're tempted to take advantage of the credit card.
that someone else pays. The wages of sinning like that. will ultimately lead to a death-like existence. Back in 1973, Carl Menninger wrote a book called Whatever Became of Sin. Isn't that a great title for a book?
Where'd it go? Sin became at some point along the line crime. A crime turned into a symptom. And a symptom became a sickness. Oh, what a shame.
He killed his wife, but he's sick. They killed his wife because he's a sinner. Anna Russell back in the 1960s took her jab at those who tried to. Yeah. pawn off the word sin and Keep us from feeling responsible.
Had a little fun with the lyrics. It went like this. I went to my psychiatrist to be psychoanalyzed. Find out why I killed the cat and blacked my husband's eyes. He laid me on a downy couch to see what he would find, and this is what he dredged up from my subconscious mind.
When I was one, my mommy hid my dolly in the trunk, and so it follows naturally that I'm always drunk. When I was two, I saw my father kiss the maid one day, and that's why I suffer now from kleptominiae. At three, I felt ambivalence toward my brothers, and so it follows naturally I poison all my lovers.
Now I'm happy Having learned the lessons this has taught, that everything I do that's wrong is someone else's. Fault. There's a great Greek word for that. Hogwash. Everything you do that's wrong is your.
Fault. And my. Formed. When we try to Come to that realization, guess what? We take responsibility.
We don't hide behind any other curtain or any other excuse. We go to the source, and it happens to be a damn in nature. Through one man, sin entered into the world and death. Through sin.
So death. Spread to all, for all have sinned. That's the best part of Verse 23, but the Free gift of God. Thanks be to God. is eternal kind of life.
Through Jesus. Christ. We have the two Pauls living with us right now. It's great having their families in our home. Loving getting to know them.
The Swindahl Hotel is open. And so we're enjoying getting to know them. And one of them We call them P U and P M. Just kidding, we call them Paul and Paul. One of the Pauls woke up early the other morning, came down for coffee, and I looked at him and smiled.
I said, How are you doing? He's up to it, Chris. Yeah. How'd you sleep? He said, I slept great.
And I said. A clear conscience really pays off, doesn't it? And he laughed and said it does. It helps your sleep. It's a part of eternal kind of life.
It helps you digest your food. It helps you be kind to those who aren't. eternal kind of life. causes you at the office. to encourage the person who can't find their way out.
Keeps you from judging. But if you're enslaved. You're not living that kind of life. Got it? Grace says You're free to choose.
God says, choose me. The old nature says. Take me back. Love on me. It brings me to a couple of simple little conclusions here.
First, it's possible to be free. and yet choose slavery. I know Christians who have done that. It's possible to be free and yet choose slavery. I know a dear pastor who fell.
In another state, um Just very recently in Tragically, his response was Well, you know. God understands God's a God of grace. That's it. Stop. You made a bad choice.
Made a bad series of choices. Face it. Address it. Trust God to lift you through it. It's possible to be free and yet Choose slavery.
And as long as he tells himself that's what grace is about, he's enslaved. To a lie. There's another response, and this is from the lost person. It's possible to be enslaved and yet think you're free. You who do not know the Lord Jesus are quite likely living with yourself in that manner of.
Thinking. Hey man, I'm free. Hey. I never had it so good. Wow, this is living.
But is it good enough to get you through death? When you get the report from the dock, and it's a bad report, and he says it's terminal. Is it good enough to get you through there? It isn't. And that's when slavery pays its worst wage.
I'd like us to bow our heads. Just for a few moments, just sit right there quietly. Whose slave are you? I had a friend following one of our services say to me, I think we ought to call the series on Romans. in your face.
Yeah. This is kind of in your face today. But you know, I've found that decisions are never made, good decisions, if you don't just traffic in truth exactly as it is. The good news, the good message is that The Lord God who made you loves you. He's never abandoned you.
He's never a walked away from you. You're on his heart day and night. But your choices have been foolish and sometimes downright stupid. And that's created a distance that will never be bridged. Until you come to the cross.
And that's where Christ opened The Door of Hope. Nothing for you to buy, nothing for you to pay, nothing for you to do, nothing for you to stop, nothing for you to start. Nothing for you to promise. You have a gift. given to you in Christ.
Take it. Take it. Thank him for it. Our Father, we pause following a very meaningful time of worship. Where we have sung our songs to you.
Holy Holy, holy. Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord. To thee. All hail the power. Of Jesus' name.
There's no other one to whom we would sing those words. You are our master. We are enslaved to you. happily, voluntarily. Our hearts ache for friends who are not there.
For loved ones who have never trusted your son, are those who have and have now run wild. We pray that the hounds of heaven will follow them. and lead them back. to a relationship with you. Convince them, Lord, of your love and compassion.
and your forgiveness.
So they might know life in you. instead of a death-like existence. In the name of Jesus who has freed us. We pray. Everyone said.
Amen. This is Insight for Living, and Chuck Swindahl titled today's message with a question. Whose slave are you? The title was inspired from our study in Romans chapter six. Aren't you glad that as followers of Jesus Christ we are no longer slaves to sin?
If you're ready to dig deeper into the Book of Romans on your own, our creative team has gathered a collection of helpful study tools for you.
So take advantage of this special bundle. First, we'd like to send you the Searching the Scriptures Bible Study for Romans. Because of the size and scope of Paul's letter, this spiral-bound workbook comes in two volumes, and Volume 1 is available right now. The bundle also includes Chuck's entire commentary on Romans from the Living Insights commentary collection. And third, the bundle includes the audio messages for Volume 1 of Chuck's teaching series on Romans.
You can check out this special bundle of resources by going to insight.org/slash offer. or call us at 800-772-8888. But that's not all. If you're looking for an uplifting book, something that fills your mind with soul-satisfying truth, We highly recommend a brand new book from Chuck. It's called looking in all the right directions.
This exclusive book, available only through Insight for Living, features the final five sermons Chuck delivered to the congregation that he shepherded for more than 25 years. To purchase a copy of Looking in All the Right Directions, call us at 800-772-8888. and that our team would like to extend a profound thanks to our monthly companions. A monthly companion is a loyal monthly supporter, someone who provides strength and stability to Insight for Living Ministries. And you can become part of this family of friends right now by going online and following the simple instructions.
Plus, when you become a monthly companion today, we're pleased to send you a special gift offer. You can find all the details at insight.org slash monthly companion. Ever feel like you're the only one to struggle with sin? I'm Bill Meyer. Chuck Swindahl describes a Bible hero that struggled too.
Tuesday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Whose Slave Are You?, was copyrighted in 2007, 2010, and 2025, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2025 by Charles R. Swindahl, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.
