Romans 6:15-7:6; Nobody's Free

Jason Sterling April 12, 2026 Faith Presbyterian Church Birmingham, AL

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Transcript

Freedom Culture Versus Real Slavery

Grace Changes Your Master

Sin Grows By Small Choices

Fruit Reveals Who You Obey

Marriage Picture And Death Ends The Law

New Belonging Produces New Fruit

The Law Reframed By Love

SPEAKER_00 0:23

If you have a copy of the Bible, turn with me. Romans chapter 6. Romans 6. We're going to start in verse 15 this morning. If you look in front of you, you should see a pew Bible. You can use one of those as well. It helps give you a little context. And as you know, if you've been around a while, I think the context is really important. And so that's available to you as well this morning. We've been working our way through the book of Romans. And last week we camped out on Easter on the first half of Romans chapter 6. And Paul essentially is asking the question in Romans 6, do you know who you are? And the answer was stunning. He says, if you are a Christian, you are dead to sin and alive in Christ, not striving towards that that is who you are right now because of what Jesus has done. This week, you're going to see it's going to feel and sound very similar to the question Paul asked last week, but last week was a question about identity. This week it's about allegiance, not who you are, but who do you belong to? With that in mind, let's read. This is God's word. I'll read and then we'll pray together. Let's read. What then are we to sin because we're not under the law but under grace? By no means. 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. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of the teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 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. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regards to righteousness. 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. 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. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now down to chapter seven. Or do you not know, brothers? For I am speaking to those who know the law, that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives. For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man, she's not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit for death, but now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the written code. This is God's word. Let's pray and ask him to help us this morning. Please bow with me. Father, one of the roles of the Spirit is to help us understand. And so, Holy Spirit, I am asking that you would come into this room through the preaching of your word, that you would help me to communicate clearly, and that you would help us all to understand. Take this word, put it inside of our hearts, bring clarity, teach us, correct us, comfort us, confront us, but more than anything, show us the goodness and glory of Jesus, and may we be captivated by him so that we live differently. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Freedom is the one thing that everybody wants, especially in America and in the West. It's the thing that you vote for, it's the thing that we fight for, pay for, and post about. We want to live how we want. We want to love who we want. We want to use our sexuality how we want. Answer to nobody. That's the dream. No master, no rules, no obligations, just you living life on your own terms. Here's the problem with that. That's what people want, but no one actually lives that way. Not even close. I mean, think about the person who can't put their phone down, the person who's addicted to a pattern that they cannot break, the person who's built their entire life around pleasing other people and what other people think, the person who chases success so hard that they can never slow down, not even if they try or want to. They might think that they are free. My question to you is, are they? They are not, they are enslaved. And Paul has just told his readers, look at verse 14, that they're no longer under the law, but they're under grace. Finally, freedom. Well, not so fast. Because immediately the question comes if we're not under law anymore, then that means we can do whatever we want. And Paul's answer to that question is he doesn't go where you think he's going to go. He doesn't drive you back to rule keeping. He doesn't lecture you on you need to buckle down and you just need to try harder. No, he instead he gives you two pictures. And he takes you first to the slave market in the Roman culture, and then he takes you chapter seven to a wedding. Two completely different images, same truth, two points this morning. Number one, masters. I had two. And marriage, masters and marriage. And what Paul says this morning is either going to confront you or comfort you, depending on what you think freedom actually means. So let's look at our first heading, masters. Look at verse 15. What then? Let's read it again. Are we to sin because we're not under law, but now under grace? Remember that's a very similar question that Paul has already asked back in chapter 6, verse 1. Same issue, different angle. If we're no longer under the law as a system to save us, the question is, are we obligated at all to it? Let me phrase it another way. Do we have to obey the Ten Commandments anymore then? Or even another way, can we do whatever we want? Paul's answer is the same. By no means. Why? Because being a Christian, being under grace, doesn't mean that you're free from having a master. This is the whole sermon, if you're wanting his entire argument. Grace doesn't make you masterless, it actually changes which master you serve. And that's Paul's entire argument for this passage that he works out starting in verse 16. When you offer yourselves to someone to obey them as slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey. In the Roman world, a person who was in poverty could volunteer themselves to be a slave in exchange for food and shelter. It was something that you chose. But the moment that you offered yourself, you didn't get to set the terms anymore. The master set the terms. And that's what Paul is saying is exactly our situation. Everyone's offering themselves to something, everyone has a bottom line, something that they're ultimately living for, serving and obeying. And that has become your master, whether you call it that or not. You are being controlled by the thing that you give yourself to. So you have two options. Be enslaved to sin, which leads to death, enslaved to God, enslaved to obedience, which leads to righteousness. There is no neutral ground. And the argument and the point is if a Christian is wondering if they can sin because they're under grace, then they do not understand at all the enslaving nature of sin. They the question itself reveals misunderstanding because you think that you're asking about freedom, but you're actually asking permission to enter into slavery with something. Think about it this way: all of us have had this experience with our cell phones. You pick it up and you say, I'm gonna just check this one thing. And that one thing turns into a lot of things. And 30 minutes later, you're still scrolling. It started out as a useful tool, then something that we start reaching for without even thinking about it, and we reach for it instinctively, and it becomes the thing that you cannot put down. No one sets out saying, I'm going to let this device control my life and be my master. But it happens. One small decision at a time. The master you never name still masters you. That's what Paul's getting at. You don't have to call something master for it to master you. The question is not whether you have a master, everyone has a master. The question is which one? That's the first movement of the passage. And I'm let's try I'm trying to make this clear because it's there's a lot going on here. The first movement is Paul's telling us the problem and he's diagnosing us. And now he looks at verses 17 and 18, what's changed for Christians. So look at that with me. Paul makes a point here that cuts right to the argument in the heart of the license to sin question. He says, You used to be slaves to sin. And you didn't choose that. That's something uh you didn't choose. You were born into it. It was your default condition. But then something happened to you. The gospel happened to you. And he says, you obeyed it from the heart. And that that matters that from the heart, that phrase, because Paul's not describing someone who just agrees with Christianity or the ideas or just attends church every now and again. No, he's describing someone whose deepest motivations have actually shifted, whose love has changed. What they lived for has changed. And this is why grace is not a license, because grace doesn't just, this is what he's getting at, change your legal standing before God. It actually changes you. And if you genuinely belong to Christ, you're not the same person who belonged to the old master. Second movement. And then he moves in to show you the development of both of those slaveries to righteousness and to sin. And verse 19, present your members. And what he's getting at there is every faculty that you have that can act in the world. So your tongue and your hands, in your eyes, in your words, and your sexuality and your mind. His point is totality. And the same complete investment of yourself that you once poured into sin, he says, now pour that in and towards righteousness. And then he shows us where following the road to righteousness or following the road to sin, where each of those lead. And this is important, neither of them stand still. Every time you act on a sinful purpose, that action is shaping your character. We all know this, so that it becomes easier for you to do that again. Your conscience becomes seared. He says, more lawlessness. I love the New International Version here, says, leading to ever-increasing wickedness. Sin doesn't stay the size that it starts. Every act of deception makes the next one easier. Every indulgence reshapes you so that the next one actually demands more. And then before you know it, you end up in a place that you never thought you would be. Did you jump there? No. It's a slow slide. One choice at a time. And slavery to righteousness builds in the other direction. He uses the word sanctification. And again, not trying to be fancy. That's a Bible word and a really important Bible word that every Christian should know. Sanctification means and it's the process of you becoming holy. You're not just declared forgiven, you're genuinely made different so that your character over time is shaped more and more into the image of God. And so, how do you know which master you're serving? Well, look at verses 20 through 23. Paul says, look at the fruit. Look at the fruit of your life. And he answers verse 15, and he answers the question, Shall we sin because we are under grace? And notice he says, look at the fruit. What actual outcome did you get from the things that you're now ashamed of? Let me rephrase that. What did your sin actually deliver? Not what did your sin promise? Because sin promises a lot. What did your sin actually produce? If you're enslaved to approval, it produces self-pity, fragility, envy, perhaps. If you're enslaved to success, produces drivenness and exhaustion and fear. Your fruit exposes your master. Grace doesn't change sin's nature. This is what Paul's getting at. The trajectory's still fixed. Sin always leads to death, it always has, it always will. And if you think that you can manage it comfortably in the middle, then we're naive. Because look at verse 23. That's the last movement. The wages of sin is death. Not a surprise, not an overreaction. Exactly what was earned. Sin is the master who never cheats you, who always pays on time in full every single time. But God is not a master who pays. God is a master who gives. The gift of God, look at it, is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord, not wages, not what you've earned, a gift secured entirely by someone else's work. Here's the gospel. You don't get what you paid for, you get what he paid for. So our first point, you have a master. The only question is which one? Your master is shaping you right now towards life or towards death. We have another image, the image of marriage that Paul uses here. Why do we need another picture? Well, because not everyone in here is struggling with license to sin. Not everyone is running towards sin. Maybe this morning you're exhausted from trying to outrun the law. You don't use grace as a license. Maybe you're using grace as a performance review. And so Paul gives us a second image in order to speak to us and to our hearts, those who are looking to grace for performance review. And he does it in chapter 7. He changes the picture here to a wedding. Look at verse 1. That's the bedrock principle. Do you not know that the law is binding on a person as long as he lives? The bedrock principle for this six verses here: death changes your relationship with the law. You cannot take a dead man to court. The moment they die, the law's claim ends. And then he illustrates that. Look at verses two and three with marriage. A married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive. But if the husband dies, she's released. That word literally means the marriage is abolished. So if she marries another man while her husband is alive, she's an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she's completely free to remarry. No stigma, no accusation. That law of the first marriage has no more claim on her. Now, Paul is not giving us a comprehensive theology of marriage and divorce. That's not his point. He has one focused point, and it's this the only thing that can fully and finally break the binding authority of the law over you, over a person, is death. And what we need to understand. Is that every human being entered this world married? Romans 5. Married to the law. That's what it means to be born in Adam. And that relationship in marriage is a nightmare. It is not a good marriage. Why? Because we can't keep up. You can never please and completely uh fulfill the law's demands. It takes more and more so that we just start learning to live around the law and we start keeping the rules that we're good at and avoiding the ones that we aren't. And you stay just close enough to feel religious and just far enough to avoid being crushed by it. And it's not just for religious people, that is all of us who are born into this world before we meet Jesus. It's exhausting, it's never-ending. And we don't need to try harder. We need a death. Look at verse 4. You died to the law through the body of Christ so that you might belong to another, so that you might be married to another who was raised from the dead. You also died. That is the hinge. That's what he's been building toward since chapter 7, verse 1. The principle of death abolishes the law's claim, the illustration of the wife released by her husband's death. Now the application is to you. You died through the body of Christ. Union with Christ, because you were united to him. When Jesus went to the cross, we went with him. When he died, we died with him. The old marriage to the law, to condemnation, to the demands that never satisfy, that is over. Abolished. So now we're freed from one marriage to another. Not because you've escaped, but because he paid. So that now you died to the law so that you could now be wed to Christ. Verse 6. But now. You should uh pep up because it is good news indeed. Those two words change everything. Everything before this is who we were, everything after this is who we are now. The old marriage produced death. The new marriage produces life and fruit for God. What does that actually look like? I heard a story in the past couple of weeks about a Christian improv group, improv comedy. Is there anything more terrifying? I mean, you think about that. I mean, I can barely get my mind around this. You walk out on a stage with no script, no lines, and you perform in front of thousands of people. And someone interviewed this leader of this group and said, How in the world do you do this? How do you deal with the fear? How do you deal with the pressure? And he responded and said, Well, I'm a Christian. And Jesus died for me on the cross. And that means that he has done all the important things. And so I'm free. And so I just go have fun. Think about that. He doesn't have to prove himself. He can mess up, not crushed by failure. Why? Because Jesus has already done all the important things. That's what fruit for God looks like. Not grinding performance, but joy and freedom flowing from security, not flowing from anxiety. And it's the gospel order. We talk about it a lot, but we can never forget it because the reversal changes everything. In the new marriage, it's reversed. You belong first, then you bear fruit. It's not perform to be accepted. It is you are accepted, therefore you bear fruit. And the fruit is completely different. It's not forced compliance of fear, it's an overflow. It's a natural overflow of love and joy and peace and all the fruit of the spirit. It's an overflow and it forms you into Jesus' character because you belong to him. But what about the law? The law is not dead because your new husband wrote it. He fulfilled it. And now, in the safety of belonging to him, the law no longer functions as a condemning master. It is actually a picture of life. It's a picture of how life works best. It's a picture of what love looks like in practice. And think about marriage and what marriage actually does to you. If you go from single to being married, there is duty. But in a good marriage, that loss of freedom doesn't feel like loss at all, does it? It feels like life. Because the love and intimacy of the obligation to lay down your life and to serve becomes a joy. Because you love Jesus and because you love him and he's your husband, it becomes a joy, and your life gets shaped by the desires of the person that you love. That's what Paul is describing. Not obey because the law is our master, or because we have to, we obey because we have a new husband. But because we have Jesus and we want to because we're so in love with him. And so does the Christian ignore the moral law? By no means. Not at all. We look at it as an expression of God's desire. He loves honesty and purity and generosity and truth and integrity and kindness. And get this he gives us a wedding gift called the Holy Spirit that he gives to every person that belongs to him that makes it possible to live for him. Not by trying harder, not by returning and going back to rule keeping, but living in the reality of what is already true. Maybe you've seen it, watched it, read it, watched it on Broadway. Javert confronts Jean Valjean as he's released from prison. Can you remember what he says? He says, You will always be prisoner 24601. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, that number owns you. That is the voice of the law. You are in debt, you are condemned. I will never release you. And for those who have never trusted in Christ, that voice is telling the truth. But now, Jesus. And that claim is abolished, and Christ says, it is finished. You belong to me now. Nobody's free. But there is a master worth belonging to. And he's good. And he's kind and his joke is easy, and his name is Jesus, and he gave everything to make you his. Will you come to him this morning? That's an invitation. Let's pray. Father, thank you. You gave everything so that we could be married to you. Would you forgive us now for the ways that we drift back to our old masters thinking that they offer something? Remind us, Holy Spirit, that they only deliver death. And Holy Spirit, make what is true of us actually true in us. I pray that we would not live as slaves to sin, but as people who are free and who belong to another. Work out your character in our church and in us. In Jesus' name. Amen.