Romans 6:22-23
Wednesday Night Prayer and Praise • Sermon • Submitted
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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. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.
I love the way this verse starts out in all 3 translations: “But now...”
It indicates to me that the present state is different than that of the past.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
The Christian is free from the entanglements of sin. Sin enslaves but the opposite is becoming enslaved to the way of the Lord. Enslave means to be held in bondage to.
The emphasis is being free from the chains of sin and becoming completely made whole by being chained to the righteousness of God. If that is the case, what do we do?
The New Living Translation has a phrase that really speaks to me: “Now you do things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life.”
NOW YOU means it is happening. You are doing it. It does not say, NOW YOU OUGHT TO. So we should remove the ought to from our lives and simply DO.
So what do we do? According to the New Living Translation, we do things. What kind of things? We do things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. If we made a list of the things that we did that led to unholiness and condemnation, those things that are the opposite of holiness and eternal life, what would that list look like?
I love the King James Version of this phrase: “Ye have your fruit unto holiness.”
Theological word for this is sanctification. It is the process of becoming holy. The New International Version says “the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”
Fruit and reaping and doing. As a Christian, we are producers. John Lloyd-Jones writes, “ You have your fruit - you have got it! This is true of every Christian. There is no such thing as a Christian who does not bear fruit, you cannot be a Christian without bearing fruit.”
Jesus talked much about fruit in John 15. In fact, He uses the words fruit, more fruit and much fruit, indicating this idea.
Romans 6:23 tells us that when we work in reaping that sown from sin, the wages for our work is death.
Sin robs us of the idea of producing fruit. In fact, sin robes life of its meaning, purpose and fulfillment. Sin promises life but gives death.
So many churches quote this verse and leave off the second part: “but the FREE GIFT of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”
To put this in perspective, the justified becomes sanctified. If you don’t feel sanctified, you probably are not justified. I would invite you to go back to looking at being justified. If you really understand how you are justified, you are going to get a little happy and get sanctified.
This is what you will understand:
Formerly in Bondage Now Freedom
Formerly slaves to sin Now Servants of God
Formerly bad habits Now Holiness
Formerly shame Now Peace of Mind
Formerly death Now LIFE: LIFE EVERLASTING
So as we move forward into 2020. Go forth with these “I” words:
Focus on being intentional on the things of God.
Focus on being interested in drawing closer to God.
Focus on being incredible because of God.
Focus on being intelligent about God.