Slaves to Righteousness

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Christ is the Christ and has acquired redemption from sin and death for this very purpose that the Holy Spirit should change our Old Adam into a new man, that we are to be dead unto sin and live unto righteousness, as Paul teaches Romans 6, and that we are to begin this change and increase in this new life here and consummate it hereafter.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546), German reformer

“Sanctification grows out of faith in Jesus Christ. Remember holiness is a flower, not a root; it is not sanctification that saves, but salvation that sanctifies.”

~Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), British preacher

“He breaks the power of cancelled sin, He sets the prisoner free; His blood can make the foulest clean, His blood availed for me.”

~“O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” Charles Wesley (1707-1788), British hymn writer

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”

~Matthew 6:24 (ESV)

“You must always be at it while you live; do not take a day off from this work; always be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

~John Owen (1616-1683), British theologian

SERMON PASSAGE

Romans 6:12-23 (ESV)

12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.