BIG Idea: Everyone serves something — sin that leads to death, or God who leads to life.
Application: Grace doesn’t free you to live however you want; it frees you to live the life you were created for — a life of obedience, righteousness, and true freedom.
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Every single one of us is
Romans 6:15-18 (NLT)
15 Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! 16 Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. 17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. 18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.
“Freedom is not just freedom from sin, but also freedom for specific lifestyles and tasks that God has called a person to. In particular, it is freedom to serve God. Christian freedom does not entail freedom from any and all sorts of obligations or obedience, freedom to be merely self-indulgent and then presume on the mercies of God. To the contrary, says Paul in v.16, when the audience became Christians they off —Ben Witherington IIIered themselves as slaves to God, and this necessarily entails obedience.”
Grace
Romans 6:19-21 (NLT)
19 Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.
20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. 21 And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom.
Sin looks like freedom but leaves you
‘Once your feet ran to the temples of demons; now they run to the church of God. Once they ran to spill blood; now they run to set it free. Once your hands were stretched out to steal what belonged to others; now they are stretched out for you to be generous with what is your own. Once your eyes looked at women or at something which was not yours with lust in them; but now they look at the poor, the weak and the helpless with pity in them. Your ears used to delight in hearing empty talk or in attacking good people; now they have turned to hearing the Word of God, to the exposition of the law and to the learning of the knowledge of wisdom. Your tongue, which was accustomed to bad language, cursing and swearing, has now turned to praising the Lord at all times; it produces healthy and honest speech, in order to give grace to the hearers and —Origen of Alexandria speak the truth to its neighbor.’
God calls you out of shame into a life of
Romans 6:22-23 (NLT)
22 But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
You don’t work for
Matthew 6:33 (NLT)
33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
Matthew 5:20 (NLT)
20 “But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven!