14. “Why Would You Want to Serve Sin?” (Romans 6)

About a month or so ago, I was at a soccer training thing for my son, Liam, and while he was training I was chatting with some of the other dads that I’ve gotten to know pretty well over the last two years.  We were talking about work and the stress of work.   One of the dads works for a larger company and he was describing what I would guess some of you in this room have experienced and perhaps even now experience in your work.  He described this intense and stressful culture at work where there is the expectation that every year is going to be better than the previous year.  Maybe there was a particularly good year and sales went up 5% or 10% or even more.  But then there’s the expectation that next year you’re going to hit an even bigger number, right?  And you’re going to just keep doing this, right? Year in and year out exponentially growing more and more, despite market conditions and the economy.  And what he described experiencing at his current company was very similar to the previous companies he’s worked for.  Extremely high expectations.  Work is a grind.  It’s non-stop. It’s emails late in the evening that you’re expected to answer and more on weekends.  And he spoke specifically about an older guy at his work, a man who has a vast amount of company and product knowledge, but who hasn’t quite hit his numbers in every way more recently.  This guy is probably going to get let go.  And so then we were discussing how this way of doing business contributes to a culture where people are constantly moving jobs.  Why should they show any loyalty to a particular company if the company doesn’t have any loyalty to them?  It’s like people have become machines, cogs in the bigger machine that must keep growing and growing and grinding out results regardless of how it affects the well-being of people, or the culture of a company.  

Now I want you to imagine being in a work environment like that, and then you land a new job.  And from that first day on the job, you sense something different.  They still care about products and doing well, but this is a place of work where people are treated like people.  People are honored and valued for what they bring and the gifts they have to share.  Those with longstanding knowledge and experience are honored for the wisdom they bring, not just whether they hit their numbers.  You have a boss at this new job just like the last one, but this boss seems different.  She seems to genuinely care for you.  As you complete your first week and then month at the new job, the sense you have is that this is a place where people are honored, invested in, where their gifts are utilized for good.  And maybe you even think that this is not a place to jump from, this is the kind of place to spend your whole career.   Why would I want to leave a place like this?

Our text this morning would have us ask, “What do you want to do with your life?”  Whom do you want to serve? What do you want to give yourself to?  Because you must do something with your life, you must serve someone, you must give yourself: your mind, your body, your time, your effort.  But who or what do you want to give it to?  This passage is about an antithesis, and either/or.   Consider what we just read and some of the repeated themes and words: slave/slavery, obey/obedience, set free and freedom, presenting yourself and your body, fruit and outcomes.  These things will play out in your life in one of two directions.  You can give yourself to God and be a slave to God (which Paul himself says isn’t a perfect metaphor because giving yourself to God in certain ways is not like being a slave.)  Nevertheless, giving yourself to God does involve obedience, presenting yourself, and gives a certain kind of freedom, and produces a certain kind of fruit.  Alternatively, you can give yourself to sin, you can be a slave of Sin.  That also involves obedience and presenting yourself.  It yields a different, warped freedom, “freedom” in quotation marks, and produces different fruit and a different outcome. But it is an antithesis, an Either/OR. Not both and not something else.  It’s one or the other.  

Look with me at verse 15, where we read this question, “What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?” to which Paul responds, “By no means! May it never be! Absolutely not!”  That question is very similar to the question from last week in verse 1 of chapter 6, where Paul asks, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?”  Let’s remember where we were last week.  This passage really builds off last week and last week’s sermon. Remember, Paul has said in Romans that the person who believes in Jesus exists in this realm where grace abounds and grace is king.  They no longer relate to God under the covenant made with Moses.  They are not “under law,” they are under grace and belong to Jesus.  And that is amazing and that is incredibly freeing.  But does that mean we are free from any moral obligation?  Does that mean that there is nothing outside of us that can tell us what is good and how to live?  Does that mean that what God has told us in his word, in the Bible, is no longer relevant or important to follow?  Let me remind you of where we were last week so you can see how this passage continues Paul’s argument against this line of reasoning.

Last week Geoff gave a few examples of how we see this very question playing itself out in our culture.  The first example was a recent study where 65% of Americans who identify as evangelical Christians cohabitate or lived together before getting married, if they got married at all.  And if you remember Geoff referenced a discussion on Reddit about whether living together and being sexually active before marriage was a good thing or not for Christians to do.  In other words, does the Biblical sex ethic really matter?  And one post, really capturing the spirit of our age stated: “Determine for yourself what is right.  Do not let these religious legalists think for you; you can’t let other people’s opinions rule you.  We are not under the law (Read the book of Romans).” We’re not under law.  It’s not really important what some external rule says, you need to figure out what’s right for you.  

The other example Geoff gave was about regularly attending church and being part of a church.  This is clearly taught in the Bible.  There’s no way you can even do what the New Testament calls you to do if you don’t participate in a local church and gather together for worship.  And yet in a recent study, again of those identifying as Christians, fewer than half attended church regularly, the main reason given for this choice was that they practice their faith in other ways.   So we come back to the question from last week.  Does God really care whether we follow his instructions given in the bible?  Haven’t we been forgiven by God and doesn’t he love us anyway?  Do we really need to be concerned about sin?  Does it really matter? 

Listen to how Paul responds in Verse 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?”

So in Verse 15, Paul raises the question, do we need to be concerned about sin?  After all we live in the place where grace abounds, where we are under grace not under law.  But the question in verse 16 he asks exposes a faulty assumption. Don’t you know Paul says, you have to serve somebody?  You will obey something or someone.  You will give yourself to something.  And the only two options are God or sin.  

Wait….Wait, you say, I serve myself; I obey myself;  I do what I want.  I’m free.  You think you’re free. I get it, how could you not, you do what you want.  But even that is tricky because you want contradicting things.  Let’s take a typical college student, for example.  You want to do well at school.  Why would you go to university and spend all this time and money if you didn’t.  But you also want to have a good time; you want friends, you want to enjoy your college years.  And let’s just say you end up at the University of Delaware, where I did campus ministry.  University of Delaware or UD as it’s called, is a school that one of the years I was there was named the #1 party school in America.  And all this is important, because as much as we think we are just free individuals choosing whatever we want, we struggle sometimes to appreciate how much we’re shaped by our culture, by the people around us and what they say, think, and what they value.  

So you go off to UD ready to enjoy your college years and do well in your engineering program.  But immediately there is tension. First, the engineering program is hard.  Second, the vast majority of people are getting drunk and partying five or more times a week and all day on the weekends.  So just serve yourself and your desires.  Which ones?  But what do I really want?  Do I want friends?  Sure.  Do I want to be accepted?  Yes, deeply.  Do I want to jell well with my floor and roommates?  Of course.  Do you want people to think you’re lame?  NO!  Do I want to succeed and do well in my classes?  YES! 

It’s not so easy to just serve myself, because if we’re honest, we are conflicted all the time.  Which “me” do I serve? Sometimes I get angry and I want to take that out on others, but that hurts people I care about.  Sometimes my desires would pull me into things that would lead to my own destruction.  You think you’re free, Paul asks?  Don’t you understand?  You must serve and obey; you must have some master.  

That can be God or it can be sin.  

Is it really that simple?  Don’t be so binary.  it’s not that simple.  It really is if God is the creator who made you.  If you truly were made for God, then you can either come to find your rest in him, knowing him, sustained by his power, listening to him and being restored into his image OR you can turn from the goal of your existence.  You can turn from the love and glory of the one you were made to know, but then like a plant kept in utter darkness, you will shrivel up, you will die.  Remember, sin in the Bible is not just acts you do, like bad or evil things, it’s more than that… it is a lifestyle; it is a way of life.  It is a way of life that fails to be what a human being is meant to be.  It is a way of life that seeks to do life on one’s own terms, by one’s own wisdom, in one’s own strength.  And it is not only acts, and it is not only a lifestyle, but it is a power that enslaves, keeping you stuck, keeping you in shame, pulling and leading you away from life toward death. It is a power that pulls you more and more away from the true you, who you’re really meant to be and from the God you were made for.  Sin is a ruthless master who will ruin you, dehumanize you, and take your life.  Should we sin?  Absolutely not!   Why would you want to?  And from here, in the rest of this passage, Paul argues, roughly following two lines of reasoning why a believer in Jesus must not give themselves to sin.

Verses 17-19:  Remember what happened when you believed! 

Verses 20-23:  Remember where slavery to sin was taking you! 

Remember what happened when you believed 

Do you remember what happened when you believed the gospel, the good news about Jesus? He’s talking to Christians and he’s saying “Remember you were a slave of sin.”  Verse 19 says you used to present your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness.  But verse 17 says “Thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart.”  

Someone who is a real Christian, is a person who has received Jesus. They have obeyed the gospel and trusted in Christ.  In the depths of their being, the control center of their life, biblically what Paul calls the heart. This person has turned from sin and has received Jesus, the resurrected Lord, as their king.  Notice the somewhat awkward ending of verse 17, “you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart – to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.”

If you’re a Christian, you’ve already from the heart become obedient to a content, to teaching.  It’s like Paul is specifically highlighting that if you’re a Christian, you’ve already submitted yourself to a block of teaching, to instruction, to a reality outside of yourself.  When you repent, that is turn from sin to God, when you are converted, you come under a new master.  And now as one who has been set free from one master, sin and slavery to sin, you’ve come under the yoke, the rule, of a new master.  A slave of Christ who is learning the way of true life, righteousness, what is truly good and right.  You see, Paul says, remember what happened when you believed and now live in light of that.   

Think about parents who have their first child.  Many of you know what this is like.  All of a sudden you are a parent.  You have a child.  And I can only speak from the male side of things, but one day you weren’t a parent, you didn’t have a child, and then all of a sudden you do.  And then the hospital and doctors do this crazy thing where they send you home with a new life to care for.  And there can be this thing that many people experience where it’s like.  Whoa! I’m a parent now, I have this life to care for.  Speaking as a dad, I might not even feel like a whole different person, but my status is completely different now, and there’s a whole new way of life, and good responsibilities, but responsibilities nonetheless.  And once I’m a dad, I can’t resist that reality, I can’t pretend like it hasn’t happened.  If I did, there would be some pretty devastating consequences.  No, something has changed and now I need to grow into that new status.  

A Christian, Paul says, previously was a slave of sin, but has obeyed the gospel and come under the Lordship of Jesus.  You have a new master.  Follow him.  Obey him.  Learn from him.  Grow into who you’re really meant to be in him.  Remember, Paul says, what happened when you believed.  But also… 

Remember where slavery to sin was taking you.

Rom. 6:20 says, “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.” 

When you were slaves of sin you were free in a sense.  You were free like a fish free from water.  This freedom was a freedom contrary to your nature.  It was a freedom from order so that you could live disordered.  When you were a slave of sin you were free from righteousness.  

Verse 21, “But (don’t you remember what that produced in your life) …. what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed?”

Being a slave to sin led to a way of life that was not good, that was contrary to God and his purposes for your life.  Think back and remember.  Those are things you’re now ashamed of, they are not good.  The end of that way of life was death. 

Now consider where God is taking you:

Verse 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.” 

Rather than a death spiral where sin and being a slave to sin leads to a dehumanized life of shame and regret and brokenness leading to death and separation from God forever, NOW you’ve been set free to belong to God, to have God as your Lord and master.  And now there’s new fruit, good fruit.  And now there is a new path and a new destination being made like Jesus and life with God forever.  

Verse 23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

You can work and spend yourself and your body and your effort serving sin and working for sin, and what will you get from the blood, sweat, and tears?  You will receive death.  OR you can receive God’s gift to you of life through Jesus.  

Paul, you will remember, was a man steeped in the OT and the story of Israel.  When he writes about slavery, I think a narrative that is in his mind is the story of Israel being freed from slavery in Egypt and being led by God ultimately into the promised land where God would dwell with his people. You may remember that there’s a point in that narrative, in the book of Numbers, where something so crazy happens.  Some of the people want to go back to Egypt.  They are tired of Moses, they are tired of the journey, and they want to go back to Egypt.  They want to go back to slavery.  And they say crazy things like, “it was better for us in slavery” or “remember the food in slavery and how good it was, and it didn’t cost us anything.”  They say things like this completely mis-remembering that in Egypt, they were slaves.  In Egypt life was harsh and their masters were brutal.  In Egypt they killed our children.”  Go back to Egypt?  That’s insane!   But that’s like trying to go back to sin.  Why would you want to serve sin?  Why would you give that fire any oxygen to breathe in your life?

There are only two directions you can move.  You can move toward God, receiving his grace and mercy and growing up into Jesus or we can move toward sin and death.  The Christian life begins when we repent, when we turn from sin and turn to God who has given himself to us in Christ, that we might have life and salvation in Jesus, that we might belong to him.  

But the whole of the Christian life is one of ongoing repentance. Sometimes we might be running or leaping forward, sometimes we are barely moving but we are faced in the right direction.  But we cannot turn back.  “Why would you want to serve sin,” Paul would ask.  

Life as a Christian is this ongoing dynamic where we are again and again turning to God, seeking his grace and his help.  It is again and again taking hold of Jesus.  This is what we are about to do in a few minutes as we come to the table.  When we come to this table, God in the bread and the wine, gives us Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Here’s the thing we must soberly remember as we’re doing this: We cannot take hold of Jesus if we are unwilling to let go of sin.  We cannot move toward Jesus if we are holding onto sin and intentionally moving away from him at the very same time.  If you are clinging to sin in your life, if you are unwilling to turn from it, you should not come forward this morning.  

But if you want help, if you know Jesus is better than your sin and you want to turn to him and you want his grace and mercy and you want his power to live and do life as one who belongs to him, then come forward with joy, knowing he is leading you.