Speaker 1: 1st Baptist, baptist El Dorado.
Speaker 1: Will you join me now in listening to our sermon from this week?
Speaker 2: You open your Bibles with me this morning to Romans, chapter 6.
Speaker 2: We'll be in verses 15 through 23 today, as we see the second half of chapter 6 that we began last week.
Speaker 2: Let me pray for us.
Speaker 2: Lord Jesus, thank you so much for your word this time in your word.
Speaker 2: Thank you for our worship leaders that have faithfully led us this morning.
Speaker 2: Thank you for the picture of the gospel that's already been proclaimed through baptism, and thank you for what you're doing in this church in this time.
Speaker 2: We lift this time up to you.
Speaker 2: Would you speak your words by your spirit.
Speaker 2: We ask, in Christ's name, amen.
Speaker 2: I think it's fair today that we live in a world of extremes.
Speaker 2: A world of extremes.
Speaker 2: It seems like everywhere you look, more and more things are pushed to the extreme.
Speaker 2: Examples you think of politicians in 2025.
Speaker 2: There was a day when to be a moderate was actually something many people desired to do and they thought that would get them more of an audience still certainly within their political party, but maybe closer to center.
Speaker 2: Now it kind of feels like a lot of the politicians, on any and every side, that make the most headlines are the furthest extreme.
Speaker 2: You think in sports.
Speaker 2: Think about the coach of your college team, your professional team.
Speaker 2: You've got two options, two extremes.
Speaker 2: You can win the whole thing or you can be looking for a job.
Speaker 2: That's how we define your role and your time as our head coach.
Speaker 2: We live in a world of extremes.
Speaker 2: Now, usually I would tell you and tell myself to be careful going out on the extremes.
Speaker 2: Usually somewhere in the middle is the safe place to be, is the wise place to be, not all the way one way or another.
Speaker 2: And yet there are times where it's important that we see the extremes that exist.
Speaker 2: And there are times Paul wants to show us that we go towards one extreme or the other, one direction or the other, and there is no in between.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what we see this morning.
Speaker 2: And really chapter 6, the second half is really a continuation of the first half.
Speaker 2: If you hear this message this morning and you say, taylor, that really sounds a lot like what you said last week, you're going to have to take it up with Paul, because I was reading Paul this week and it sounded like what he said last week.
Speaker 2: And so he's making this argument throughout Romans 6, that we're going to serve one master master, and it can be the master of sin, or it can be the master of life in Jesus Christ, and Jesus can be our master.
Speaker 2: We've got two options and there is no middle ground.
Speaker 2: What I want us to see first is this you will be a servant of something.
Speaker 2: You will be a servant of something.
Speaker 2: Look with me at verse 15.
Speaker 2: What then?
Speaker 2: Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?
Speaker 2: By no means, just like last week.
Speaker 2: Once again, paul is anticipating the question.
Speaker 2: This sounds almost exactly like what he said in verse 1 last week.
Speaker 2: Last week, he said this what then?
Speaker 2: Shall we continue in sin?
Speaker 2: That grace may abound.
Speaker 2: If God's grace abounds over all sin, then won't that mean, as we talked about last week, won't that mean that more sin equals more grace?
Speaker 2: Paul says by no means.
Speaker 2: That's not how we're to think about it.
Speaker 2: Today, the question is almost the same, slightly more general.
Speaker 2: Well, if, in general, we're not under the law but under grace, can't we just sin, just like last week?
Speaker 2: Doesn't this give us a license to sin?
Speaker 2: And just like last week, I'd say this hopefully none of us would say that out loud.
Speaker 2: Hopefully none of us out loud would look to the Lord and say God, I know how gracious you are, I know your forgiveness is going to be there, and so I'm just going to go ahead and commit this sin, because I know you've got me on the other side.
Speaker 2: Lord willing, all of us in this room would not say those words out loud.
Speaker 2: And yet, just like last week when we talked about it, do we not say it with our actions all the time, anytime we, as believers, walk into willful, intentional sin?
Speaker 2: Is that not us, at least with our actions, saying God can forgive this?
Speaker 2: Is that not us treating grace as a license to sin?
Speaker 2: Paul says by no means are we going to do that?
Speaker 2: Verse 16 do you not know that if you present yourself to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either to sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.
Speaker 2: And there's the two extremes of the day that you can be obedient to sin, which leads to death, or you can be obedient to obedience, which leads to righteousness.
Speaker 2: So which one do we pick?
Speaker 2: It's easy to say the answer out loud.
Speaker 2: It can be a little tougher in the moment.
Speaker 2: But I want to talk about something at the end of this verse before I look at it as a whole, it's interesting.
Speaker 2: At the end he says this that a slave, a servant of obedience that leads to righteousness.
Speaker 2: Now, if you really think about that, does that sound off to us to righteousness?
Speaker 2: Now, if you really think about that, does that sound off to us that I'm a servant of obedience that will lead to my righteousness?
Speaker 2: Now, what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Because it feels like all of Romans has led up to the point to make the point to us that we don't live in a works-based faith kind of economy.
Speaker 2: That's not what our faith with the Lord looks like.
Speaker 2: And so why, all of a sudden, are we serving obedience that will lead to righteousness?
Speaker 2: That sounds like what it's saying is that our obedience will make us righteous.
Speaker 2: So let's take an excursion.
Speaker 2: You've been on a cruise ship before you go to your port.
Speaker 2: You take a quick excursion, you get off the boat, you go snorkel, you go swim with the dolphin, and then you get back on.
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick excursion.
Speaker 2: You get off the boat, you go snorkel, you go swim with the dolphin, and then you get back on.
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick excursion at that word righteousness, and we're going to get back on the boat in a second.
Speaker 2: But as we think about righteousness in the Christian life, I want to talk out of two sides of my mouth, but I believe I'm justified in doing so.
Speaker 2: We can think, the Christian of righteousness in two kinds of ways A positional righteousness and a righteousness that I am still growing into, that I am righteous and I am becoming righteous.
Speaker 2: Think about this Last July you gave me the great privilege outside of being Katie's husband and James and Olivia's father.
Speaker 2: You gave me the greatest privilege of my life to be the senior pastor at First Baptist Church of El Dorado and when that happened, a few things happened very, very quickly, very quickly.
Speaker 2: When that happened, the title senior pastor was put behind my name.
Speaker 2: That instantly the name tag was printed.
Speaker 2: Put behind my name.
Speaker 2: That instantly the name tag was printed Taylor Guerin, senior pastor.
Speaker 2: The business cards were there.
Speaker 2: I got an email address.
Speaker 2: You can go to the website.
Speaker 2: It says senior pastor, you can go.
Speaker 2: You gave me a new kind of access.
Speaker 2: You gave me keys.
Speaker 2: In fact, you gave me more keys than I even know what they go to and every door I have to try all seven of them, about seven times each.
Speaker 2: You gave me an office.
Speaker 2: There's things that come with the positional standing of being senior pastor, and when you called me here, you gave me that title and instantly that standing was achieved.
Speaker 2: Now, why am I saying that?
Speaker 2: Is that just a power trip this morning, you know who's the boss type thing?
Speaker 2: It's not.
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
Speaker 2: There's also a sense in which all the time I've been here and still time that is to come I'm needing to grow into the position of your senior pastor.
Speaker 2: There's dining room tables I've got to get around and you've got to get around mine.
Speaker 2: There's hospital rooms that I've got to sit in with you.
Speaker 2: There's funerals I've got to preach, maybe of your family members.
Speaker 2: There's weddings I need to officiate, maybe of your son and daughter.
Speaker 2: Being a senior pastor is more than just the title.
Speaker 2: It's something you live and grow into.
Speaker 2: So think about this In the Christian life.
Speaker 2: Taking that illustration, our justification in Christ Jesus has made us righteous, and so if you are in Christ Jesus, you are righteous.
Speaker 2: You have that positional standing.
Speaker 2: If you had the name tag and the business card, it would say your name and it would say righteous before the God of the universe.
Speaker 2: And yet, even still.
Speaker 2: That's your positional standing and that cannot and will not change.
Speaker 2: At the same time, here in this life, you and I are continually growing in our righteousness in the here and now.
Speaker 2: Positionally, it's a done deal In Christ, forever righteous In the here and now.
Speaker 2: Sanctification is still ongoing.
Speaker 2: We're still growing more and more in our faith, in our righteousness, growing more into the image of Christ.
Speaker 2: So in verse 16 at the end, when he gives us the second option, that we can be servants of obedience which leads to righteousness, what he's talking about in this moment is this obedience that leads to that continual pursuit of righteousness in our lives, so that we can be a servant of sin which leads to death, or we can be a servant of sin which leads to death, or we can be a servant of obedience that will continually sanctify us through the Holy Spirit and will cause us to look more and more like the Son, jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: And what a gift that is.
Speaker 2: But think about verse 16 again as we get back on the boat here.
Speaker 2: There's no third option.
Speaker 2: Back on the boat here, there's no third option.
Speaker 2: There's no other opportunity.
Speaker 2: You can be a servant of two different things, but there is no third thing, and it's interesting how sometimes we think of freedom that you and I think of.
Speaker 2: The free life of.
Speaker 2: That must mean the absence of serving anything or anyone.
Speaker 2: But I would argue this we find our freedom not by getting no authority, but by finding the right authority.
Speaker 2: We find our freedom by finding the right authority.
Speaker 2: Think about the country we are so blessed to live in.
Speaker 2: We are the land of the free.
Speaker 2: I'm thankful for the freedoms we have.
Speaker 2: We're the most free country in the world.
Speaker 2: Freedom that's just a word that is in our vocabulary, always has been, always will be.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean that we don't have an authority.
Speaker 2: I'm thankful for the authority we have, but we still have an authority.
Speaker 2: If you go 80 miles an hour in a 30 mile an hour zone, you'll learn quickly.
Speaker 2: There is an authority and that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: That's actually a beautiful thing that law and order exist.
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful thing that there is a country that protects our interest and our safety, and so we have freedom.
Speaker 2: In the context of our authority, I think of Luke, chapter 15, where I go all the time.
Speaker 2: Maybe you say too much, but the prodigal son.
Speaker 2: He thought freedom would be found outside the father's house.
Speaker 2: If I can get away from the rules of the father's house, then I will find freedom.
Speaker 2: What did he find?
Speaker 2: In the far country that he was still enslaved?
Speaker 2: He was still a servant of someone, of something, whether it was his money, whether it was his friends, whether it ended up being the pig farmer where he had to live in the pig pen and feed the pigs.
Speaker 2: This was his life.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until he got home when he realized true freedom looks like being a servant of the Father.
Speaker 2: Jesus.
Speaker 2: In Matthew 6, he's talking about money and says this that you and I, we can't serve two masters.
Speaker 2: We'll love one and hate the other, but we can't serve both at the same time.
Speaker 2: Both can't be ultimate in our lives.
Speaker 2: Joshua 24,.
Speaker 2: Towards the end of Joshua, joshua looks at the people of God and gives them two options, and there's no other options.
Speaker 2: You've got to choose this day who you're going to serve.
Speaker 2: If it's going to be the lowercase g gods that you served in Egypt, it is what it is.
Speaker 2: But he says this but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Speaker 2: There are two options and there is no in between.
Speaker 2: We will be a servant of something.
Speaker 2: Will it be sin leads to death, or will it be obedience which leads to righteousness?
Speaker 2: Paul's going to give us a quick answer Verse 17,.
Speaker 2: 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 and, having been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.
Speaker 2: So you're still a servant, but now, because you've been set free from the sin of the past, you are a servant of righteousness.
Speaker 2: You have a new authority.
Speaker 2: You have a new Lord of your life, and the Lord of your life is no longer the sin and death that it used to be, but instead it is Christ Jesus.
Speaker 2: This is really good news for the believer.
Speaker 2: Just like we talked about multiple times last week, if you are in Christ Jesus, you now have a new address, a new zip code.
Speaker 2: You don't live where you used to live.
Speaker 2: You used to live there.
Speaker 2: You used to know the place well, we all did.
Speaker 2: But we don't live there anymore because a new thing has happened, and in Christ Jesus it has happened, and now we are able and empowered not to be obedient to death, because that's the old way, but we can be obedient to Christ Jesus, leading to the life of righteousness.
Speaker 2: But I do want us to see this as we look at 19 through 21.
Speaker 2: You were a servant of sin.
Speaker 2: Paul reminded us that just a verse or two ago.
Speaker 2: But I want to remind us again that you and I do have a past.
Speaker 2: We used to be a servant of sin.
Speaker 2: There's no way around it.
Speaker 2: I don't want to hurt your feelings this morning, but the truth is.
Speaker 2: Outside of Christ, we were a servant of sin.
Speaker 2: We were in rebellion to the God of the universe and serving our sin.
Speaker 2: And don't underestimate sin, don't sell it short.
Speaker 2: I think of Ephesians 2, another passage I bring up often.
Speaker 2: What does Paul say?
Speaker 2: That you were dead in your trespasses and sins.
Speaker 2: I think of Ezekiel, chapter 37.
Speaker 2: God is showing Ezekiel the people of God and what they look like in this moment, giving a vision of who the people of God are.
Speaker 2: And he shows Ezekiel in this vision, the people of God.
Speaker 2: And what does he see?
Speaker 2: He sees a valley of dry bones.
Speaker 2: There's no life.
Speaker 2: God asked the question can these bones live?
Speaker 2: Bones live?
Speaker 2: Ezekiel knows that only the Lord is the one that can make these live.
Speaker 2: They are dead in their sins.
Speaker 2: No small fix will do it.
Speaker 2: You can't give an antibiotic and a steroid to a corpse.
Speaker 2: It's got to be resurrection.
Speaker 2: And in this vision, the Lord knows.
Speaker 2: The Lord is able.
Speaker 2: And what does the Lord do?
Speaker 2: He brings life.
Speaker 2: Don't underestimate our sin Verse 19, I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.
Speaker 2: Thank you, paul, for that.
Speaker 2: 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 Verse 20.
Speaker 2: For when you were slaves of sin not if you were, but when you were, we all were you were free in regard to righteousness.
Speaker 2: But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed?
Speaker 2: For the end of those things is death In the world you used to live in in the old way, the sinful life.
Speaker 2: Paul asks a haunting question about our past.
Speaker 2: What fruit were you getting from those things of which you are now ashamed?
Speaker 2: Of the things from our past that?
Speaker 2: We look back on our lives before Christ and obviously many of us as Christians have sinned greatly but we look at our past and there are things of which we are ashamed of.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this question how do we reckon with the reality of our past?
Speaker 2: How do you reckon with the reality of your past, of sin in your past?
Speaker 2: How do you reckon with those times in life when you have maybe not walked closely with Jesus?
Speaker 2: How do you move along in this life of these things, like Paul says, of which you are ashamed?
Speaker 2: My question are the bricks evil?
Speaker 2: That was the title of an article I read a couple weeks ago in the New York Times.
Speaker 2: Are the bricks evil?
Speaker 2: It was an interesting article and what it was talking about is this a beautiful village like picturesque, unbelievable village in Berlin.
Speaker 2: Many families lived here.
Speaker 2: It's everything you want to see.
Speaker 2: It's like a magazine village families, little children running around.
Speaker 2: We'd probably all move there tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Here's the problem, though Everyone who lives there doesn't know how to deal with the fact that they live there, because when this beautiful village was built, it was built for leaders within the Nazi regime, for them and their families to live in this utopia, while devastating evils are carried out elsewhere.
Speaker 2: And that's the question families ask are the bricks evil?
Speaker 2: How do we reckon with a past?
Speaker 2: Put that illustration aside for a moment, because obviously that lives in its own compartment.
Speaker 2: But for all of us trying to reckon with the past, you read any biography of any individual, unless it's someone that's just writing for the sake of showing someone as an absolute saint.
Speaker 2: Any biography you read, what you're going to find is that even the best among us, our greatest leaders, our greatest heroes, our greatest men and women, we're very flawed.
Speaker 2: You go to Scripture itself.
Speaker 2: You see the heroes of the faith, and I praise God for the heroes of the faith.
Speaker 2: I praise God for these individuals in scripture that give us such a beautiful picture of what a faithful life looks like.
Speaker 2: But then you also see portraits of these individuals that they're not as proud of.
Speaker 2: You see even the best among us, of Abraham and Moses and David, and certainly our author here, paul.
Speaker 2: My goodness, how does he reckon with this past?
Speaker 2: You see these things that they would look with Paul, that.
Speaker 2: What fruit was I gaining from those things of which I was so ashamed?
Speaker 2: And so, as we think about the past of even our own lives, how do we reckon with it?
Speaker 2: How do we live in light of a past of which we are ashamed?
Speaker 2: Verse 22 tells us but now another conjunction.
Speaker 2: But now you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God.
Speaker 2: The fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end eternal life.
Speaker 2: How do we reckon with the past?
Speaker 2: Let me give you the point.
Speaker 2: You are now a servant of Christ.
Speaker 2: If I hadn't done it right, then I was going to forget it.
Speaker 2: You are now a servant of Christ.
Speaker 2: And so, in this, how do you reckon with the past?
Speaker 2: You tell yourself the truth.
Speaker 2: You tell yourself the truth of the situation, the truth of verse 22,.
Speaker 2: But now that you have been set free from sin, you become slaves of God.
Speaker 2: The fruit you get leads to sanctification.
Speaker 2: It's in eternal life.
Speaker 2: You preach to yourself that truth.
Speaker 2: Hear this.
Speaker 2: Even when you don't exactly feel that truth, you let the facts of the situation weigh out, even over a certain feeling, in a situation, even when it might feel like, lord, have I sinned too much?
Speaker 2: Lord, could you really forgive me?
Speaker 2: Lord, could you really call me a child of God?
Speaker 2: You run to God's word.
Speaker 2: You preach that over yourself, that even when I don't feel my best and even when it feels like my sin is just too much, I run to the word of God.
Speaker 2: And I see those words, but now that I have a new standing, that the facts now speak louder than even my feelings at times, that in Christ our life now gets properly oriented.
Speaker 2: I love the story of Martin Luther, you know, 500 years ago, and he talks of a night when the accuser, the evil one.
Speaker 2: It just felt like he was on his case and he just felt like in the night that the evil one was just reminding him of all of his past sin, all of his past sin, and it felt like he just kept bringing his past sin to his mind.
Speaker 2: And finally Martin Luther, as only he could, just yells out into the night to the evil one.
Speaker 2: He says this I know all of that sin.
Speaker 2: And then he says this in fact, I know even some sin that you didn't name.
Speaker 2: Glorious thought, my sin, not in part, but the whole.
Speaker 2: Where is it?
Speaker 2: It's nailed to the cross.
Speaker 2: I bear it no more.
Speaker 2: Praise the Lord, oh my soul, for the believer.
Speaker 2: Will you let the fact that you are justified, that you are forgiven, would you let the fact speak louder than maybe even the feelings that the evil one wants to come at you with when the accuser comes to you to accuse you?
Speaker 2: Would you let the facts of life in Christ Jesus, that you are forgiven, would you let that speak louder?
Speaker 2: That you are now a servant of Christ?
Speaker 2: Verse 23,.
Speaker 2: For the wages of sin is death.
Speaker 2: What do you get for sin?
Speaker 2: From the very beginning, genesis, chapter 3, death.
Speaker 2: Man and woman cast out of the garden.
Speaker 2: Spiritually death separated from the communion they had with God.
Speaker 2: Certainly, death entered the world.
Speaker 2: They would one day die.
Speaker 2: So the wages of sin is death.
Speaker 2: Nothing has changed.
Speaker 2: What we get for our sin is death.
Speaker 2: But look at this but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Speaker 2: Is there such thing as a free gift?
Speaker 2: Does that really happen?
Speaker 2: Hgtv every year gives away the HGTV Dream Home.
Speaker 2: You've seen this the HGTV Dream Home.
Speaker 2: They've been doing about 25 years and it's just this beautiful property somewhere, unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I mean, they furnish it so beautifully and every year someone's name gets chosen and they get the HGTV Dream Home In 2023,.
Speaker 2: Just one example a lady from South Carolina won the HGTV Dream Home, a $2.7 million property in Morrison, colorado.
Speaker 2: What a joy that is that this lady from South Carolina now has this beautiful, again almost $3 million property.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you who was equally as excited as the lady from South Carolina is the US government and the friends at the IRS, because that $2.7 million property is now taxable income.
Speaker 2: And so for this lady to step foot in her free dream home, it was $900,000 to the federal government.
Speaker 2: It was $120,000 to the state of South Carolina and $20,000 to the federal government.
Speaker 2: It was $120,000 to the state of South Carolina and $20,000 to the state of Colorado.
Speaker 2: So she was about $900,000 just to get her free dream home.
Speaker 2: Is there really such thing as a free gift?
Speaker 2: Is there really such thing as a gift where, quite literally, no strings are attached?
Speaker 2: I'll tell you this this morning there is one.
Speaker 2: There may be only one, but there is one that the free gift of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Speaker 2: If you want proof, there are no strings attached.
Speaker 2: You and I are so unable of even handling any strings that are attached.
Speaker 2: You and I are so unworthy of this gift.
Speaker 2: The second strings were attached, we'd fall apart of this gift.
Speaker 2: The second strings were attached, we'd fall apart.
Speaker 2: In fact, if anything I've said it before we come into as recipients of this gift, we come in the negative.
Speaker 2: My sin already puts this behind.
Speaker 2: I don't deserve this gift.
Speaker 2: And yet the free gift that has been given that is the fact of the situation, of your situation, the free gift of God it's eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Speaker 2: But let's say one other thing and anticipate the objection.
Speaker 2: Well, taylor, you call it a free gift, but what we've talked about now is a life of obedience, that, once we have the gospel, we are called to be obedient.
Speaker 2: We are called to do good works for the sake of Christ.
Speaker 2: In response, now, aren't some of those good works?
Speaker 2: Isn't that way?
Speaker 2: Maybe back pay, we could call it, maybe just paying God back for all that he has done for us?
Speaker 2: Again, we've got to structure how we view our obedience.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 2: When my son James comes into the living room and he asks me Dad, it's a nice day, not today, but on a nice day he says it's a nice day, could we go to the playscape?
Speaker 2: That conversation has happened before.
Speaker 2: Could we go to the playscape?
Speaker 2: And let's say it's a good time to go, we're going to go.
Speaker 2: And I look at them and I say this let's do it.
Speaker 2: I say this I say run to your room, get your shoes on and meet me at the front door.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 2: That command I just gave him to go get his shoes, does that sound more like duty or delight?
Speaker 2: Does that sound like rule or regulation?
Speaker 2: Or does that sound like a delight that leads to absolute freedom and joy and time with his imperfect earthly father?
Speaker 2: When the Lord gives us from his word these beautiful words of life for how to live and how to grow, and how to grow in our sanctification in him, we sometimes think of duty, I have to, I must, I better, I think everything changes when we think of it in terms of delight.
Speaker 2: I get to, I desire, because my perfect heavenly father has given me all things in Christ Jesus, the free gift that I could not, cannot, will not ever be able to repay, and out of a love and obedience for him.
Speaker 2: You know what I want to do.
Speaker 2: I want to follow.
Speaker 2: That's the life in Christ Jesus, the life that has moved from being a slave to sin to a slave of righteousness, a servant of obedience leading to sanctification, knowing that, at the end of all things, life is ours in Christ Jesus, not just now, but for eternity.
Speaker 2: Believer, what would it look like today To move from duty to delight, to spend time getting to know the Lord in his word, not because you have to but because you get to to, but because you get to by loving someone, helping someone, serving someone who certainly can't do anything in return for you.
Speaker 2: Not because you have to, but because you get to by praying for that individual and let that individual know you're praying for them, not because you have to, because you get to by serving.
Speaker 2: This is not some shameless plug.
Speaker 2: This is real.
Speaker 2: By serving at VBS next week, not because you have to, but because you get to, by praying for VBS next week, not because you have to, but because you get to, but reorienting everything in your life Because I don't have to obey so that I can earn my way.
Speaker 2: I get to love and serve and obey and it is my delight.
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 2: Because the fact is this that in Christ Jesus I have moved from death to life.
Speaker 2: And maybe for the unbeliever in the room, if today is the day you want to get to know Christ Jesus, I'd love to introduce him to you.
Speaker 2: Maybe you want to join this church family?
Speaker 2: I'd love for that to happen.
Speaker 2: But however you need to respond.
Speaker 2: I'll be right down front in a moment, if I can pray over you in any way.
Speaker 2: But however you'd respond, I ask that you do that in just a moment.
Speaker 2: Let me pray for us.
Speaker 2: Lord Jesus, thank you, thank you for your word, thank you that we no longer have to be slaves of sin because we now are servants of you.
Speaker 2: And so, lord, teach us more and more what that means.
Speaker 2: Teach us more and more what it means to serve you, to love you, to love others.
Speaker 2: Well, not out of duty, but out of delight.
Speaker 2: Not out of a have to but a get to, a desire to Lord.
Speaker 2: Teach us what that looks like, day by day, to follow your commands for your glory.
Speaker 2: And, lord, if there is one, if there is more that now needs to respond, I pray that they would do it.
Speaker 2: I pray this in Christ's name Amen.
Speaker 2: Would you stand now as we worship together?