Hey, podcast listeners! Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's Word through the most effective media available, like this podcast.
To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv dot org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes.
Now, here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, there is not one of you listening to this message who is free to do whatever you want to do. Oh, you may think you're free; you're not free. We are either slaves of sin and Satan, or we are slaves of righteousness and Jesus Christ.
No man can serve two masters, Jesus said. But we all serve one master. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. In the United States, we're blessed with liberties like freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom to choose our leaders.
Yet the Bible teaches that regardless of one's citizenship, every person is held captive by an unseen master. Today on Pathway to Victory, Doctor Robert Jeffress explores the difference between sin and righteousness. But first, let's take a moment to hear some important ministry updates. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. When we peel away the mask and let people see who we really are, we discover that every man and woman on earth is a slave to something.
We're either a slave to our sinful appetites or a slave to righteousness. Nothing in between. That's the case Paul makes in his letter to the Romans, chapter six, and it's the theme of our study today. But before we begin, I want to tell you about a brand new resource I'd love To place in your hands, it's my latest book, and it's called Divine Invasions. Last week we completed a teaching series on the miracles of God, the ways He still breaks into our ordinary lives with His extraordinary power, and I gathered all of that teaching into this book to show you from Scripture that God is still at work today.
He still provides. He still protects. He still heals. Divine invasions will restore your confidence that God has not gone silent, not in this world and not in your life. It's my thanks for your generous gift to Pathway to Victory, but I have to tell you this is a time-limited offer and it ends this Friday.
So please don't wait. Request your copy while there's still time. David and I will share more details about these resources later on. Right now, let's begin today's study in Romans chapter six. I titled today's message, "Take Me to Your Master." One of my favorite stories comes from my friend Bob Beal, who tells the story about the day he decided to help out a friend by working at the circus with him.
So, Bob said during one of the breaks at the circus, he went over to see where they kept the elephants. He had always been fascinated by elephants, so he walked over there and he started talking with the elephant trainer, who also helped train animals for the Hollywood movies. And Bob asked elephant trainer, "How is it that you're able to stake down these huge ten-ton creatures?" With such a small stake and a little flimsy chain attached to its leg, and the elephant trainer said, "Well, it's real easy when you remember two things about elephants. Number one, they're really not very smart, but secondly, they have great memories. And when these elephants are little, that means about 200 pounds.
When they're baby elephants, we use this stake and chain to hold them in place." And they'll try hundreds of times to break free, and they can never break free. And that's when their memory takes over, when they become these huge twenty thousand pound creatures. Even though with one yank of the leg they could be free, they remember their past defeat, and they don't even try to break loose. You know, that's a picture of the way that many Christians live today. Before we are Christians, before we're saved, we are staked down.
We are prisoners of sin and its death. And no matter how hard we try to break free from sin, we can't break free. But when Christ died on the cross for our sins, and we trust in Him, the chains are gone. We are set free. We no longer have to be prisoners of sin and its consequences.
And yet, many Christians fail to understand that truth. They remember their defeat before they were saved. They figure, why even try to break loose, and they live as though they were still prisoners of sin and death. How can you live as the free person in Christ God created you to be? How can you be free from the consequences of sin and death?
Well, Paul answers that question in the passage we're going to look at today. If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Romans chapter six, and now we come to verse fifteen. The fact is, there are many Christians here today, many of you watching on Pathway to Victory. You are saved, but you feel like you are still a prisoner of your old nature. Why is that?
Why do Christians live defeated lives today? I want to suggest to you there are two mental stakes that hold back every Christian. Two mental stakes that keeps us prisoners of sin. Two wrong thoughts about sin. Stake number one: a misconception about sin is that sin is inevitable for every believer.
Many Christians believe that sin is inevitable, and that leads to a second stake. A second misconception about sin is, and that is, that sin is acceptable for the believer. Sin is never acceptable in the life of a non-Christian or in the life of a Christian, and yet we have a culture that says God accepts sin.
Now, beginning in verse fifteen, Paul shares with us an eternal principle. Look at verse fifteen. What then shall we sin? Because we are not under the law, but under grace. May it never be.
And then in verse sixteen. He explains a very unpopular truth. Look at this in verse sixteen. Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness? What Paul is saying is, do you not know you're a slave to someone?
There is not one of you here today. There is not one of you watching or listening to this message who is free to do whatever you want to do. Oh, you may think you're free. You're not free. We're all slaves to something and to someone.
It's not a question of if we're somebody's slave. The only question is whose slave are we? We are either slaves of sin and Satan. Or we are slaves of righteousness and Jesus Christ. No man can serve two masters, but we all serve one master.
The non-Christian is a slave of sin and of Satan. But when we become a Christian. We choose a new master. We choose a new way of life, and that's what Paul talks about in verses 17 to 18. The past reality of what happened to us when we became a Christian.
Look at verse 17. But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. And having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Why is it that we should not choose sin? Many Christians, many of us, every day choose sin.
Why should we not choose sin? Beginning in verse nineteen, Paul gives us three reasons why we should not live as slaves to sin. Number one, he says, sin characterizes the old nature, not the new nature. Disobedience to God characterizes the old nature, not the new nature. Look at what has happened to us when we were saved.
Verse two says we died to sin. Verse three says we were baptized into Jesus' death. Verse four says we were buried with Him. Verse eighteen says we have been set free from sin. If all of these things are true, if we have been freed from sin, why would we go back and live under sin?
Sin is a characterization of our old nature, not our new nature. Secondly, sin leads to slavery, not to freedom. That's why we shouldn't choose sin. You know, God said to Adam and Eve, "You can eat of any tree. You're free to eat of any tree, except this one tree." But how did Satan twist that?
Satan twisted that and said, "You know what? God is a cosmic killjoy." He's trying to restrict your happiness. He has something wonderful over here. He doesn't want you to experience that, and that's why he's telling you don't do this. Why not disobey God and experience true freedom?
And there are many people who follow that same line of Satan today. They think God is a God who just hates anything good and pleasurable and happiness, and that's why He gives us all these restrictions.
Somebody once said, "All sin is basically contempt for God." When you violate God's laws, what you're really saying is, "God, I don't trust what you're saying. I think you're trying to withhold something good from me, and so I want to experience freedom." But the truth is, sin doesn't lead to freedom; it leads to slavery. Look at verse 19. I'm speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
Notice that phrase in here: lawlessness results in further lawlessness. You know what he's saying there. Sin is habit forming. Don't think you're going to just sin once and be done with it. Don't think, well, I'm involved in pornography right now, or I'm involved in this drug addiction, or I'm involved in this secret relationship.
Either in person or by texting, and I can get out of it any way, anytime I want to. I'm free. I'm going to do this just until I get to the edge of sin, and then I'm going to break it off. Doesn't work that way. Sin is habit for me.
Solomon said it this way in Proverbs five verse twenty two. He said, "His own iniquities will capture the wicked, and he will be held." By the cord of his sin. Let me show you exactly what Solomon was saying about sin and what it does to us. I've got this flimsy piece of string that I could break with one yank if I wanted to. Not very strong at all.
If I wrap it around my hand once, can it hold me, restrain me? No, break free easily. It's an innocent-looking piece of string. But you know, if I wrap it around once, it's easy to break free. But I wrap it around a second time; it's harder, and a third time, it's harder, and a fourth time, and a fifth time, and a sixth time, and on and on and on until I can't break free, no matter how hard I try.
It's the same way with sin. Lawlessness produces further lawlessness. Sin is habit forming, but so is righteousness. Did you know habits can work for you or they can work against you? But they're powerful either way.
The best quote I came across this week was, "Habits eat willpower for breakfast." Doesn't matter how much willpower you have; eventually, your habits will take over. It's habits that count. They can work against you and sin, but they can also work for you, and that's why in verse nineteen he's saying, "Go ahead and present the members of your bodies as slaves to righteousness." You notice how many times the Scripture tells us to practice righteousness. He uses the word "practice" for a reason. Just like the more a golfer practices his swing, it becomes a way of hitting for him.
It's the same way with righteousness. The first time you say no to sin and yes to God, oh, it seems so hard. It seems so hard. But the second time you do it, it's easier. The third time you do it, it's easier.
It becomes your nature, your natural default reaction. Sin doesn't lead to freedom; it leads to slavery. The third reason not to choose sin is: look at this. Sin results in death, not life. It results in death, not life.
Look at verse twenty-one. Therefore, what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? You know what he's saying. Before you go back into that old way of living, ask yourself: Was it really that great? What benefit did I really have?
What was life like before I came to Christ? Do I really want to go back to that way of living? What benefit is there for the outcome of those things is death? And then verse twenty-three: for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now I bet that verse is familiar to you, isn't it? We all memorize that verse to use in sharing with non Christians. For the wages of sin is death, we say, and death means eternal separation from God. And therefore, if you don't trust in Christ as your Savior, you're going to hell. And so we use that in a witnessing way, don't we?
And that's okay to do so, but that's not the primary meaning of this verse. This verse is not written to non Christians. It's written to Christians. What he's saying to Christians who are in danger of going back to their old way of living, he said, "Before you make that choice, consider the consequences. The wages of sin is death." Now, that word "wage" is a Greek term that was used to refer to the daily rations a Roman soldier would receive for his service.
In the same way, when Paul is describing the consequences of sin, he's not saying, "Well, if you keep on sinning, in eternity, God's going to pour out all of the consequences on you." No, you don't have to wait until you die to experience the consequences of sin. Just as our Romans' wages came daily, so does the consequences of sin for those who choose sin. The wages, the consequences of choosing to disobey God in our life, is death. That is the destruction of everything important to us. Choosing sin, choosing unrighteousness, results in the destruction of those things we value.
Choosing gluttony, for example, results in the death, the destruction of our bodies. Choosing lust, pornography, immoral relationships destroys our marriage. Choosing to express anger in words destroys people around us, either through our words or through violence. Choosing laziness destroys our God-given dreams in life. The wages, the consequences of sin is death.
Sin sin destroys everything important to us, including our eternal soul. And that's why he says it makes no sense to choose sin. Sin results in death, not in life. The dramatist and Late poet Oscar Wilde expressed the downward spiral of sin in his life and the destruction that it brought.
Now, remember, Oscar Wilde was not a Christian, but listen to what he said at the end of his life: "The gods have given me almost everything, but I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in search of a new sensation." What paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. I grew careless of the lives of other people. I took pleasure where it pleased me and passed on, and I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber. One has someday to cry aloud from the housetop.
To get this, I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and I did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me, and I ended in horrible disgrace. That is the slavery, the death that is always the result of choosing sin. Why should we choose life and obedience to God?
Look at what He says. He tells us about the benefits of the choice of righteousness, beginning in verse twenty-two. But now, having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification and the outcome of eternal life. For the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When you decide whether you're going to serve sin or righteousness, understand two things about righteousness or obedience to God. First of all, jot this down. Paul says obedience to God is profitable. That's what he says in verse 22. He said you derive your benefit from serving God.
What is the benefit of righteousness? It is eternal life. The free gift of God is eternal life. Listen to this: eternal life is not just a quantity of life that starts the moment you croak or die. You're not supposed to say croak, are you?
It's die.
Okay, that's not when eternal life begins. Eternal life begins right now. It's not a quantity of life. It is a quality of living. Eternal life means the ultimate fulfillment of your every God given dream and goal in life.
That's the outcome of righteousness. Fulfillment in your marriage, fulfillment with your children, fulfillment in your vocation. That's what eternal life is all about. Light yourself in the Lord, and He'll do what give you the desires of your heart. Obedience to God is profitable, he says.
In John eight verses thirty-one to thirty-two, Jesus said, "If you abide in my word, and then you are truly disciples of mine, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you what? Free, free to achieve everything God has placed in your heart. Obedience to God is profitable. But secondly, notice he says, obedience to God is possible." When God tells us to choose obedience, He's not asking us to do something that is impossible for us to do. He says, "You already have that ability.
The same power that raised Jesus from the dead has given you new life and the freedom to say no to sin." Listen to me. You don't need some second experience as a Christian. You don't need some spiritual upgrade to a first class relationship with God. When you become a Christian, you get everything you need to live this kind of wonderful life. In Second Peter one three, the apostle says, "Seeing that God's divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence." Did you get that?
God has granted to you everything you need for a godly life. That's why it's possible for us to choose righteousness rather than unrighteousness. I want you to imagine for just a moment that you're searching for a job, and two offers come your way. One employer offers you two hundred thousand dollars a year, four weeks paid vacation, and pre medical coverage. That's employer number one.
Employer number two offers you eight dollars an hour, no paid vacation, and if you get sick, too bad—you're on your own.
Now, which employer would you choose to work for? What Paul has been saying to us is, we get to choose whom we're going to serve, whom we're going to work for. We can serve sin, and its master, Satan. Or we can serve righteousness and Jesus Christ. Satan or Jesus, whom will we serve?
Paul says, "Before you make that choice, consider the benefits that each master offers." What is Satan offering you today? What are the wages he's offering you? Very clear. His wages, his payment, is death. The destruction of everything meaningful to you, including your eternal soul.
The other possibility, Jesus Christ says, "I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly." Why would any person in his right mind choose to serve Satan rather than Jesus Christ? For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. There's nothing fuzzy about these two options. God has been very clear in His Word, and as your radio pastor and friend, I'm urging you to make the right choice today. Even at this moment, I know that men and women all over our country and the world are making this life-changing decision to follow Jesus as their Master and Lord.
And when you give to Pathway to Victory, you've played a significant role in making this possible. God used your gift as a channel to pierce the darkness with the light of His Word. We have ample evidence. Recently, I heard from a woman who said, "Dr. Jeffress, I haven't been to church in a long time, but I've been listening to you on the radio.
Today, I felt God speaking to me. I am ready to commit myself to God and trust Him through all my trials. Thank you so much." This is the outcome of your gifts to Pathway to Victory. You are truly making a difference when you partner with us. And today, when you give a generous gift, I'll be pleased to send you my brand new book, Divine Invasions.
In it, I'll show you from Scripture that God still breaks into our ordinary lives with His extraordinary power. It's my way of saying thanks for your partnership, along with a set of eight Divine Invasions. Encouragement cards to keep these truths close, but this offer ends Friday.
So get in touch with us today while there's still time. Here's David to tell you more. You're invited to request a hardcover copy of Dr. Jeffress's brand new book, Divine Invasions, when you give a generous gift to support the Ministry of Pathway to Victory. Just call eight six six nine nine nine two nine six five, visit ptv dot org, or text ptv to seven eight eight zero zero.
And when your gift is one hundred dollars or more, we'll also send you, in addition to the book, this month's teaching series on audio and. Video disc, along with the companion study guide. To request these resources, call eight six six nine nine nine two nine six five, or make your request online at ptv dot org. You could always write to us if you'd like. PO Box two twenty three six zero nine Dallas Texas seven five two two two.
That's PO Box two twenty three six zero nine Dallas Texas seven five two two two. I'm David J. Mullins.
Well, we've learned that Christians are no longer enslaved to sin, but how do we continue to cope with the constant presence of sin all around us? Dr. Jeffress addresses that important topic next time. Hear a message called "Uncivil War." That's Thursday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr.
Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. What if your next vacation changed the way you read your Bible forever? Join me for nine nights sailing the Mediterranean, with every detail taken care of. When you stand where Paul stood, your Bible comes alive in ways it never has before. Sail with us on the pathway to victory journeys of Paul cruise May twenty twenty seven, and ask about our optional Athens pre extension.
Call eight eight eight two eight zero six seven four seven, or visit ptv dot org. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word.
To become a Pathway Partner, go to p. tv. dot org slash donate, or you can follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Oh, and one last thing before we go, don't forget to reserve your spot on the twenty twenty seven Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise.
Now you've heard me and Dr. Jeffers talk about this Bible conference at sea and cabins.
Well, they're going quickly. Just picture yourself aboard the beautiful Celebrity Infinity sailing round trip. From Athens, now each day you'll gather for biblical teaching, worship, and fellowship, and then you'll step ashore to stand where Paul stood in Ephesus, and walk the streets of Thessaloniki, where his letters still speak to the church today. Nine unforgettable nights with more biblical destinations along the way. Every meal prepared, every detail taken care of, plus the joy of traveling with like-minded believers.
There's also an optional pre-cruise extension in Athens. To book your spot, go to ptv.org.
