Living Free From Sin’s Control by Serving a Better Master
Romans 6:16-23
August 6, 2023
Pastor Craig Ledbetter
Bible Baptist Church, Ballincollig, Cork, Ireland
I. Introduction and Review (Romans 6:6,11,13)
A. I am going to keep reminding you of these things because they are a core truth every Christian needs to live free of habitual sinful desires and attitudes and actions!
B. Three Simple Words in this chapter: Know, Reckon and Yield
1. Romans 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
2. Romans 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
3. Romans 6:13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
4. KNOW + RECKON + YIELD = VICTORY OVER SINS!
a. MIND – KNOW that you are now free, …the old man, the old you is crucified, dead and buried, with Christ
b. HEART – RECKON it to be true enough to believe with all your heart
c. BODY – And then YIELD your life to the right way of living, free from sin’s control, and instead, free to do the right things now!
5. You will not be free from sin’s presence, or its pull until you reach heaven…
6. But you can be free from its penalty, and from its POWER over your life, right now, if you have humbled yourself before God and believed that Jesus died for YOUR sins!
C. These three truths, add up to victory over the dominion of ANY sin in your life
1. Smoking – died the moment you were saved!
2. Anger and bitterness – there is the root to most fo your sins
3. Pornography
4. Laziness – THAT is a sin
5. Lying, exaggerating
6. Apathy
7. Heresy
8. Fornication and lust
9. Thievery
10. Drugs
11. All your past
12. Gender Dysphoria
D. All of them are part of a life of service to a wicked and cruel master – the devil!
1. None of that should be controlling your life and emotions and decisions now!
2. What I know is, 99% of people enslaved to their sin don’t WANT to be free from it!
3. And so even Christians live miserable lives as slaves to the very things Christ died to absolutely free you from!
II. Message
A. A Life of Service, But To Who? (Romans 6:16)
1. Romans 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
2. All of us serve, obey, seek to please a higher power
3. The question is, which one is the right one to serve?
B. Yielding Our Rights (Romans 6:16)
1. Romans 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
2. Obsessed with “Rights”
a. Today everyone in the western world is obsessed with their rights. Especially their right to not be offended
b. And yet this generation is losing their rights faster than anything else
c. We truly are in the age of Laodicea, the church of people’s rights
d. Rights are God-given and good things to have
e. But having rights does not make a person happy or free
f. Yielding them to God makes you free – letting God own you!
g. Only when we are yielding to His words, and his will for our lives are we actually TRUSTING God (Proverbs 3:5,6)!
3. Yielding to God
a. Paul speaks about yielding to proper authorities and especially to God in order to live free
b. Most people only yield to popular influences, and to their own lusts
c. Do you want to live in detention centres and prisons? Then keep fighting authorities.
d. Do you want to continue to live addicted to porn and depression and drink and laziness? Keep fighting God!
e. The Gospel says you can enjoy freedom if you would yield what you used to sin with, to God! If you would stop resisting His work in your life!
4. In reality, there are so many things that are reversed
a. Parents obey their children – cursed families
b. Children obeying their friends instead of their parents
c. And husbands living in fear of upsetting their wives and so are unable to obey God
d. Again, I’ll ask, is that how you want to live the rest of your life?
C. Who Are you Obeying? (Romans 6:16) – Yielding to?
1. Romans 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
2. Christianity is not about just, “What do you believe?” but who are you yielding your life to?
3. You actually are servant to whatever you obey
a. If you are obeying sin, it's pull, and it's pleasure, you are serving SIN
b. If you are obeying righteousness, and it's pull, and its pleasure, you are serving God
4. You have to ask yourself four questions:
a. Who Owns Me? Who actually purchased me?
1) Picture in your mind the worst kind of Market – a slave market, full of men and women, whose lives are owned by cruel masters, who only used and abused their lives. That is where you and I are until Jesus came!
2) Now picture someone else, coming to that Market, and spotting YOU on the auction-block and wanting YOU
a) And then picture JESUS going to your cruel owner, and paying off all your debts, and buying you out-right,
b) Not to be another slave
c) But to be in His FAMILY! Sitting at His table, inheriting all His wealth!
d) Now wouldn’t THAT be a great thing if it was true right?
e) Well, IT IS TRUE!
f) 1Corinthians 6:19,20 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
b. Who is worthy of my life? Not my money, or my time, but my LIFE!
1) Who is worthy of trusting with the decisions for your life?
2) Who are you willing to yield control to?
3) Professional soccer players yield their lives to the owner who pays the most money
4) Evidently that is how people decide if they will yield to God… if He will make it so worth their while too!
5) I believe He already has! I know “I” am so blessed!
c. What does a life of service to sin result in?
1) Ah, it starts off so easy, and fun,
2) But leads to uncleanness (feeling dirty), sorrow, hatred and bitterness, and death
3) Guaranteed!
d. And, What does a life of service to righteousness result in?
1) It starts off hard and kind of boring
2) But leads to sanctification (which is the opposite of uncleanness), joy, love, eternal life!
3) Guaranteed!
5. Choose to Yield! Trust God’s will and God’s words!
D. The Battle is Real in Your Mind and Heart!
1. There is still a battle in me when I am tempted
a. I am not free from sin’s temptation
b. I still feel the pull of lust, the temptation of sin
c. 1Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
d. I am just free from its control, its grip, its hold on me
e. And I now have the very help of the Holy Spirit to overcome every temptation
2. We fight a a lot of wrong wars! Wars that have already been won!
a. James 4:1-3 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
3. Sadly, more than ever, believers are giving in and returning to slavery
a. No Christian is immune to the results of wrong choices, or to the pull of sin
b. Unless a Christian knows what they are capable of doing both for evil, or for good, they will be open to losing everything that God has invested in them
c. Example:
1) A 17 year old gets his or her driver’s licence, and then buys their first car, and gets behind the wheel, and then dries down the road...
2) Unless that teenager understands The danger of a wrong choice while driving that car, they will drive the car like it is a toy
3) That's why they make new drivers have people drive with them
d. Galatians 2:4 And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage
1) By false doctrine, deception, desire, and defeated life
e. Galatians 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
f. Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
g. Remember, that you and I are NOT immune to making stupid choices
4. Comforting Truths…
a. The lusts in me that war against the Spirit of God in me and against my new nature cannot prevent me from yielding to God
b. What used to be yielded to (given over to / addicted to) can now be (and should be) yielded to God as instruments and tools of righteousness
1) The money you used to use to fulfil sinful desires…
2) The wasted time can now be invested in soul-winning, teaching the Gospel, discipling, mentoring, raising your family, blessing your wife, honouring your husband, helping your pastor
c. By the way, the word YIELD is very special.
1) It means to let someone else be in charge, to tell you what to do, and how.
2) In other words, Yielding is NOT me deciding to do what I think is the right thing, but letting the Holy Spirit of God and the written Word of God tell me what to do – and I yield to doing it!
E. But God Be Thanked! (Romans 6:17,18)
1. Romans 6:17,18 But God be thanked, that ye WERE the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
2. Romans 6:17 But God be thanked...
3. Paul is expressing a sigh of relief because he knows that the Christian life is not one of slavery, but of servanthood to God
4. God freed us
a. We didn’t free ourselves! God did. Just like when Israel was freed from slavery in Egypt – GOD did it!
b. Romans 6:17 … that ye WERE the servants of sin...
5. Simply because we obeyed the Gospel
a. Romans 6:17 But God be thanked, that ye WERE the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed [YIELDED TO] from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
b. Doctrine is absolute truth based upon what God said
c. Our Freedom is based upon obeying God's word from the heart! Not from the head
6. What we WERE and what we ARE
a. Romans 6:18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
b. Generally, every believer WAS servant of sin – a slave of sinful desires and actions
1) The old you used to serve SIN
2) A slave of the world, of the devil, and of their own fleshly appetites
3) We did what our flesh demanded, what our culture demanded, what the devil demanded
4) The flesh is like a child... "I want this, I want that. I'm hungry. I'm tired. I'm offended. I'm quitting. I, I, I"
5) THAT is the flesh
6) That was our life. We did what our culture told us to do.
7) We did what our bodies wanted us to do
8) And we did what the devil wanted us to do (John 8:44) Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.
c. You now serve righteousness
1) YOU are now freed from sin’s dominion, and grip and power
2) You now ARE servants of righteousness – free to do the right things!
3) Like Garda serve righteous laws, not corrupt politicians!
F. As You Served Sin, Now Serve Righteousness (Romans 6:19,20) – to the same degree
1. Romans 6:19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
2. As you used to yield to temptation... and to the devil... now Yield to Righteousness
3. THAT is the centre-goal of the Christians life
a. Living for God with the same energies and time and even money that you used to live for the devil and the world and yourself!
4. Yielding… (a chosen attitude) – not natural
a. Not doing what you think is right, but yielding to what God says is right
b. That is the difference between humanism and Christianity
c. Humanism says do the right thing but then allows every generation to choose what is the right thing to do
d. Biblical Christianity says do the right thing that is clearly written in the Bible
e. But you may say, “I’ll lose control. I won’t be able to get MY way! My husband will just do as he pleases, and I won’t be able to nag him!”
f. Exactly!
g. But you will gain back a freedom that actually works!
h. And you will have a power that doesn’t come by complaining and nagging and fighting and arguing, ladies
i. And us men will have a greater power than fists and money could ever win!
5. Yield every one of your members
a. God gave you fingers to glorify Him with
b. God gave you a voice to honour Him with – not tear down each other!
c. God gave you a mind to figure out and do great things with, for God’s glory
d. God gave you feet to go into all the world with
e. But you NEVER will do any good with any of your body until you yield all of it!
6. Yield to a life of holiness
a. What do you think Paul means when he says, yield to holiness?
b. You probably think it means being like a Monk, or a Nun
c. What is means is to live clean, and godly, to do the right things
d. Where you seek to live free from spot or wrinkle
7. You used to not care about living godly
a. Romans 6:20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. Didn’t care about righteousness, or doing the right things
b. Example:
1) Someone gives you a brand new white shirt, and then you spill some small drips of spaghetti sauce on it
2) Those few spots would upset you, and you would normally want to go and wash them out as fast as you can
3) The same was when we served sin - we worried about spots of cleanness. We were embarrassed if somebody thought we were not singing like them, drinking like them, smoking like them, controlling our language. If someone gave us a gospel tract and our friends saw us reading that leaflet, we would throw it away as if it was on fire, because we did not serve righteousness, we were serving our friends!
8. That’s why you should care now!
G. The Fruit of Our Old Lives (Romans 6:21,22) - Shame
1. Romans 6:21,22 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
2. Paul is talking plain, like a parent and a pastor does
3. He asks a very important question
4. What satisfaction, or advantage did your sinful life give you?
a. Drinking and drunkenness
1) What did it help you with in college? How has it helped your marriage?
2) How much did you use to spend on a Friday and Saturday drinking? Drugging?
b. Heroin, hash, cigarettes, pornography, gambling?
c. How much of your time did you used to give to pleasing your friends, and satisfying your own lusts?
1) Having “casual” sex – fornication – how has that helped out your marriage?
2) Adultery? Wow! How did that ever help anyone out?
d. Did any of that ever do any lasting good for you?
e. EVERY smoker I have ever met always looked 20 years older than they really were
f. Every heroin addict stole from and abused their own family to feed their habit lifestyle
g. Oh you may hear of so and so who won 10,000 in EuroMillions, but they are the exception. The rest blew their holiday money, food money
h. You may hear how so and so happily lives with their partner…
i. But the majority of Christian people are ashamed of 99% of their sinful past, for good reason
j. Because it was filthy, it was wrong, it was selfish, it was destructive, and not God-honouring, and it always led to troubles, diseases, and death
5. Bearing Fruit
a. Paul uses the analogy of bearing fruit to create another contrast between serving sin and serving God. Either way, we will bear fruit—but what kind of fruit do we want to bear?
b. What kind of fruit do you want to produce with your life? Fruit that leads to death or fruit that leads to eternal life?
H. The Gospel Summary (Romans 6:23) – The Entire Gospel in a single verse
1. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
2. Sin Earns Death
a. Sin, no matter how small an amount, leads to death
b. Example: If you're driving your car on a highway, you can turn sharply off the road and into the ditch. Or you could let the car slowly drift off the road into the ditch. It doesn't matter whether you are aggressively going into the ditch or gently going into the ditch... You will still end up in the ditch!
c. That is clear Bible truth!
1) James 1:14,15 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
2) More than just physical death
3) But a death that never ends! Eternal death – not annihilation
4) Separation from God, under the wrath of God for your sin
d. This is the reason for the Gospel, and this is the reason why Christians live a godly lifestyle!
1) Because sin still kills life
2) And godliness enjoys it! (Romans 14:17) For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
3. The gift of God is eternal LIFE
a. We can be forgiven all sin – past, present and future!
b. And instead of an eternity, seperated from God for ever and ever in hell
c. Any sinner can receive life that never ends!
1) Eternal life begins the moment you believe
2) NOT when you get to heaven
d. That’s why Paul is telling us to “Live like you will never die!”
4. Remember, Eternal life was given at Christ’s expense!
a. Not your or my best efforts, good works, religious deeds
b. My forgiveness, and eternal life was personally paid for by Jesus Christ
III. Conclusion - Why Should We Care?
A. Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
B. Christ broke the power of sin’s control over you
1. Every believer in this room should be very ashamed of their past, and very very afraid of being tricked into going back into the sins that used to enslave them!
2. Why would a free man want to live in prison???
C. All He asks is for you to remember that, and live like you are free!
1. God gave you fingers to glorify Him with
2. God gave you talents to bless Him with
3. God gave you a voice to honour Him with – not tear down each other!
4. God gave you a mind to figure out and do great things with, for God’s glory
5. God gave you feet to go into all the world with
6. God gave you health, a job, a family, time to make a difference in this world
7. What are you going to do with yourself now?
D. Consider long-term consequences of our decisions – especially the eternal consequences!
1. In this Scripture, Paul appeals to believers NOT to return to their old lives, and he offers these words as motivation to fight the urge to re-enslave ourselves to the pleasures of sin.
2. Paul forces us to consider what “wages” we will receive for our devotion.
a. A life devoted to serving God will enjoy eternal life now. This life won’t be easy, but we have the promise that being a servant to God will sanctify us and make us more like Him.
b. The alternative is death—death is the “reward” for a life of sin.
c. God challenges us to invest in a life that will pay priceless dividends
d. If you neglect so great salvation, you will remain a slave to the things you wish you could be free from! And in the end, pay for all your sins with your own life.
e. I choose to yield!