A Lawless Salvation (Part 4)

Turn to Romans chapter 6 and I'm going to read verses 15 through 23 through to the end of that chapter.

Romans chapter 6, starting with verse 15. One of our air conditioners, by the way, was off and that's why it was kind of hot in here initially.

Still a little bit warm. That's why I shed the coat. But it is on now and I think I can start to feel it. I think one of the timers was not working correctly or not set right or something.

Okay, Romans 6, starting with verse 15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but are under grace?

Certainly not. Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?

But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. I, and, excuse me, and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed?

For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness and the end everlasting life.

For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now that's a big chunk of Scripture and a whole lot there.

And, but we're going to make our way through that and probably not hit every detail that we could, obviously could, obviously could draw from this text.

But we do need to understand the basic teaching that Paul is giving us here. Now it's not unlike what we've already been looking at and considering in the first part of this chapter.

In fact, in many respects, though from a little different angle, Paul has already taught many of the things we're going to look at here in the latter part of this chapter.

But I want to begin tonight kind of setting the stage here for our understanding of what Paul is saying here by giving you several scenarios, okay?

And these are fictitious. And so if, you know, I use a name here that of someone present here, I'm not speaking about you, okay?

I don't think we have a Frank in here, but Frank has been a Christian for five years. And though he comes to church, he's not very faithful.

And he doesn't seem very interested in growing in his walk with Christ. And so you observe Frank's life. And it's clear that he is involved in some things that contradict true biblical Christianity.

And when you mention that fact to him, he says, hey, I know I'm going to heaven. Why not live it up until I get there? What do you say to him? You don't need to answer that.

It's a rhetorical question, okay? Susan, any Susans in here? I don't have a Susan that I could remember. That's why I picked some of these names. Susan has been married about 15 years and has been a Christian just about that long.

And she is your best friend. But you've just discovered that Susan is having an affair with another man. When you confront her about that, her reply is, I know it's wrong.

You don't have to tell me that. I know it's sin. But I know God understands. And I know he'll forgive me. What do you say to her? Jack has been...

We do have a Jack. Sorry, Jack. Different Jack. I mean, really different. Jack has been a professing Christian a long time.

And has been in the church a long time. But by his own admission, he's really never grown as a Christian at all. And as a friend, you are concerned.

And you express your concern to Jack. But he says to you, look, I'm going to heaven. And that's the only thing that matters to me. I don't mind taking a back seat up there.

And let the rest of you sit towards the front of the class just so long as I make it. That's all I care about. The rest of it doesn't matter. What do you say to him?

Not this Jack. Okay. Oh, boy. These were not meant to be humorous. You know, not at all.

But rather, of course, they were meant to highlight a way of thinking. And I suppose that I could have dreamed up a few other scenarios that would be very typical and maybe help us understand.

But the point of the matter is, of course, does it really matter how I live? Does it matter? And, I mean, so long as I have trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior, does it really matter that much how I live my life?

And so what does God have to say about this? Well, turning then to the text that I read a moment ago, let's just divide this passage into four parts and see if we can discover the answer.

Now, you know, you are an astute crowd here tonight. Usually that's the case on Sunday night. And you could have answered, you know, any of the questions I've asked thus far.

That is, you could have given an answer to those who, you know, had a certain philosophy of life that certainly was incompatible with Christianity.

You could answer that question. You probably would have no trouble understanding what Paul is going to tell us as he answers this question. But I've divided it into four parts so we can kind of organize Paul's answer in a way that might help us not only confirm some things in our own hearts, but also possibly give us some tools, biblical tools that can be used to share with others, others in our church or maybe others in your family or professing believers and are grappling with some of these things.

All right, the first one is this. And it's found in verse 15. And we can move through that pretty quickly. And it is what I want to call a self-condemning proposal.

All right. Self-condemning proposal. Therefore, excuse me, verse 15. What then? Shall we sin?

Because we're not under law, but under grace. I call this a self-condemning proposal. Now, you'll notice if you've been with us on Sunday nights and I've kind of deviated from our study in Romans a number of times.

So I hope you're, you know, you're keeping up with it. But you will notice that in chapter six, we this is the second time that Paul asks a question. And the two questions are very similar.

As a matter of fact, there are some differences, of course. Little different perspectives, little slant on the same kind of issue. But they're basically the same question.

The first question is found in verse one. And we looked at that a long time ago where he said, what shall we say then? All right. Very similar to how he introduced verse 15.

What then? Or what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? That's the first question that he asks here. And, of course, you know, it's kind of a I don't know if Paul has actually had someone ask this question in his church.

And I suspect that he had someone in the church, someone he administered to someone in in the church to to to that church that he was writing to may have asked this question.

But really is a fictitious person. We would call them an antagonist that is raising a question. But really, it's not a question so much as a proposal.

That is a proposal of what I think I believe. Based on what you said, then, is this what we're to believe? And really, we are to understand this antagonist is saying this is what we should believe.

That, you know, shall we we should just continue in sin so that grace would abound. And he is reacting. This antagonist is reacting to something that Paul said in the previous chapter.

And if you have your Bibles open there, just look a few verses back into chapter five where Paul says, moreover, verse 20, the law entered that the offense might abound.

But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. So that as sin reigned in death, even so, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

And then comes the question. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin? That grace may abound. The second question, which is where we are here tonight in verse 15.

Similar question. What then? Shall we sin because we're not under law but under grace? And again, Paul is anticipating a question from an unknown antagonist out there who is responding to something that Paul has already said.

In fact, you can go back one verse to verse 14. And this is where the question is coming from. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

And then comes the question. Well, we're not under law. We're under grace. Then we can just simply sin. We can disobey the law because we're not under it.

All right. So there are the two questions. And both questions, you'll notice, are answered very quickly. Very, very, with no uncertain terms.

In fact, in the New King James, it's rendered certainly not. Or God forbid, if you have the King James, New American Standard may never be!

Exclamation mark. And the few of you have the ESV, by no means! Exclamation mark. All the same, pretty much the same idea. See, Paul's responding to such a question and he's not being really very polite about it.

In fact, we could make the case he's saying, that's stupid. What a ridiculous notion. Now, just to make sure we understand the philosophy or the, what I'm calling a self-condemning proposal, understand the substance of it.

But this is basically what the antagonist is saying. Does the doctrine of salvation by grace alone, does that give freedom?

Freedom to sin in some unrestrained way? See, Paul has been teaching, huh? May it never be. That's right. That's what Paul says.

It's true. Does the message of grace... Here's the antagonist. Does the message of grace... And that's what we preach, isn't it? That is the message. It's the message of grace.

Does that liberate, then, the believer to sin without restraint? God forbid. That's basically the idea. I mean, listen, Paul.

Paul, you said that where sin abounds, grace abounds. Shall we not then continue in sin and let grace do its abounding? You see the logic that this person, unknown person, is using here?

Of course, using, you know, advantageously because this person is wanting to promote a theology, a philosophy, a way of life, justifying a life of sin.

It's self-condemning, the question is. But Paul did say that, didn't he? Where sin abounds, grace abounds, so we ought to sin more. Let grace abound.

Let's help grace out a little bit here, you know. Or Paul did say, by the way, that we're no longer under the law, but under grace. Isn't that what he said in verse 14? I mean, that is what he said.

And so, we could just do whatever we want to and pay no attention to the law. You say, that's ridiculous. But there are a lot of people who believe that. In Paul's day, certainly, Paul would not be writing what we have here in the text.

And I trust the Holy Spirit. And I don't even have to necessarily consider the Holy Spirit's design in putting this in the Bible. I can also just see that there are many people in our day who have this same philosophy.

Especially in relation to the law. You know, thinking that the law can no longer punish us. Right? Because in Christ, the punishment has been paid for. Right?

It has. And so, since the law has no power to punish us, shall we just go on sinning deliberately? Persistently?

Continuously? Habitually? Habitually living any way we want to live? This is the logic here. Or we could sum it up.

Does grace free us to do that? To live any way we want? And Paul says, no. No. And again, he's not even nice about it. That's utterly absurd.

And it is. All right. So, you see, this is a self-condemning proposal. I know it's in the form of a question. And Paul chooses to put it in the form of a question.

But it represents a very prevalent system of belief in Paul's day within the church. And in ours as well.

Second, after answering the question, Paul then moves to what I would call a self-evident principle. There's a self-condemning proposal. We should just go ahead and sin.

Let grace abound. Go on sin. Because, you know, the law has already been paid for. And then there's this self-evident principle that Paul gives us. Here's the principle. Now, he's answered the question.

And now he's going to explain the answer. And he starts with this principle. And it's self-evident. Anybody ought to know this, basically. And verse 16 is where he gives that to us.

And he says, but, or do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey? You are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness.

This is a principle. And it's a principle that is generally known. It's self-evident. The technical word would be axiomatic.

There's no debate about it. It's just very common, very easy to see, very general. This is the truth. It's self-evident. You don't have to go out and try to find some proof for it. Or, you know, try to find some evidence for this truth.

Like we do with some truths, possibly. Though we don't really have to do that with any of God's truth. But not all of God's truth is just simply self-evident. But this one is.

This one is. And so Paul is stating this truth that's self-evident and this truth that is generally known. In fact, he says, do you not know? That's how he begins verse 16.

Do you not know? And the way he wrote that, really the idea is you should know. You should know this. In fact, I think it's safe to say that Paul is implying this.

I can't believe you don't know this. Anybody would ask such a question. This ridiculous question. The answer to which is no, absolutely not.

And you really, I just can't believe you don't know this truth. And then Paul states the basic truth. This self-evident truth or principle.

To whom you present yourselves slaves to obey. You are that one's slaves whom you obey. There's the simple truth.

Self-evident. It's axiomatic. And everybody knows this or should know it. And by the way, present yourselves here in the text.

At least that's the way it's translated here. I think in the King James it uses the word yield. If I'm not mistaken. It means to, to, it carries the idea of willingness.

A willingness to submit yourself to obey a certain master. All right. And willingly becoming the slave of that master.

But then Paul applies this self-evident principle to the spiritual realm, doesn't he? In verse 16. And it's not that he's saying, now here is the truth that everybody ought to know.

And now I'm going to tell you how that works in the spiritual realm. It's not really separating the two. He's saying that what you know here, you ought to know here as well. That it is self-evident.

That this works in the spiritual realm. In fact, it is more significant that we understand this principle operating in the spiritual realm. More significant to us that we understand how this works.

And everybody should know this. And so let me explain then this self-evident principle that he mentions here. Basically, he's telling us that there are two kingdoms in this world.

Two kingdoms. And there's the kingdom of sin. Whose prince, of course, is Satan. And there's the kingdom of righteousness.

The kingdom of God. There's the kingdom of sin, the kingdom of righteousness. Now, before you came to Christ. Before you were born again.

You lived in the kingdom of sin. Every one of us did. Whether we knew it or not. And it's likely we didn't know it. In our unredeemed, unregenerate state.

We didn't know it. And yet we were all in the kingdom of sin. And under its domain. And you were, in Paul's words.

And not just you, but me as well. We were slaves to sin. Absolute slaves to it. When I say that, I do not mean that we had no power to say no to certain sins.

That's not the idea. It's not just any sin that comes down the pike I had no resistance to. Even those living in the kingdom of sin do say no to sin.

In fact, some are quite moral. But even in their morality, they're in sin. Because they're self-centered. And it's not for righteousness' sake.

It's for their own sake. We're corrupt because of sin. We're all slaves to sin. And that's what Paul is telling us here. You're a slave to sin. And you were, that is.

You did what sin demanded. And you lived according to the lust of your eyes. The Bible tells us. The lust of the flesh. The lust of your heart. Sin was your master.

Your master. And you were a slave to sin. And that's every one of us. That's every one of us. Before we came to Christ.

But now, through the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, you've been transferred out of the kingdom of sin and into the kingdom of God.

And so, now you don't live in the realm of sin any longer in the sense that you're under its dominion. Does that mean we stop sinning?

No. What it means is, we are living now in the kingdom of God and we now have a choice as to how we're going to live. We do.

We have a choice. We didn't have that choice before. We were in the kingdom of sin. Now we are in the kingdom of God and we have a choice how we're going to live.

And what is that choice? Well, I like what one commentator, how one commentator put this. He said our problem, I'll just read what he said rather than try to give you the gist of it.

Our problem is that when we read the word slave, we think it means servant. But a servant and a slave are really two different things.

When we use the word servant in English, we mean somebody we hire who works for us, does our bidding, say 30 or 40 hours a week, but then we let them off on the weekends or the evenings and let them off on the weekends and let them have their own time, time on their own.

That's a servant. You work for somebody. You do their bidding, but then you have free time. A slave has no free time.

A slave is indebted to his master 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Paul says then, now that you have come to Jesus Christ, you have the choice to be in the service of God, enslaved, if you will, to God, freely serving him seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

That's our choice. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6, 19 to 20, you're not your own, for you've been bought with a price.

Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, both of which, and I'll add those words, are God's, belong to him. And we choose every day whose slave we are.

We have that choice. Every one of us, we ought to ask that question right now, right here tonight. Whose slave are you?

I ask that of you. Whose slave are you? See, every day, you have two ways you can go. Two ways. You can go towards sin or you can go toward God.

If you go towards sin, you're a slave to sin. If you go toward God, you're a slave to God and of righteousness and there is no middle. There's no middle to this.

You go toward sin or you go toward God. There's no one foot in sin and one foot in righteousness. A lot of Christians think they can live there and they think they are. And if they really are born-again Christians, and many who try to live in that kind of dichotomy dichotomy are really not believers at all.

But some are. And thinking that, you know, I'm kind of in between here, but there is no in between. You have either, you are either a slave to your master Jesus 24-7 or you have chosen to enslave yourself to sin again.

And you cannot live in both kingdoms at the same time. Jesus said, no one can serve two masters. All right, now, whose slave are you? All right, who will stand up and go first?

Thank you, Wes. All right, next one. Okay, Sherry said, I'm with you. And others say, dittos. Really, the reality is that you need to deal with that question every single day.

Every single day. And really, you don't answer that question by merely coming to church on Sunday. That's not your answer. The answer to the question comes by the choices you make during the week and on Sunday too, but every day of the week.

From morning to night, you know, we're, as the old adage goes, we're all angels when we're asleep. But we're not even angels then. We're not angels at all, by the way, but that's a different theology.

Okay. All right, so we're working our way through this portion of chapter six. There's a self-condemning proposal. And we just sin all we want to.

Let grace abound. We're not under law anymore. We just sin. That's a ridiculous proposal. Self-evident principle to whomever you obey, it is to that master you are enslaved and there's no middle ground.

And then third, a self-denying position. And I, I, it's a little awkward, but I want to, I want to explain it's really interesting.

Verses 17 and 18 really now get directly to believers here. Now, he's speaking directly to us here. And before he goes on to explain further this, this thing about being slave to sin or slave to righteousness and the difference between the two, he wants to address who we really are in Christ and why we are who we are.

Verse 17, he says, but God be thanked that though you were, I'm going to emphasize some words along the way here, pay attention.

He says, though you were slaves to sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were committed or delivered.

And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Now, this is really a tremendous two verses and a lot could be said here.

How about we begin with the very first thing he said, God be thanked. Dear people, what he's identifying in these two verses is who we are in Christ.

saved, redeemed, and it's God to be thanked. He's the one to be thanked for that. God be thanked.

Thanked for what? That though you were, you really ought to underline that word were. We'll get back to that in a minute. Were, were, past tense, what?

slaves of sin. You were slaves of sin. That's who you were. Yet, you obeyed from the heart.

Let me go on and come back to the word heart. You obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. Something took place in your heart. Now, remember, it's God we thank.

The salvation that you and I have is something God did. We thank Him because He enabled our hearts to change, to change toward Him.

And we might be able to change our minds, though in an unredeemed state we wouldn't want to necessarily. But only God can change the heart.

And what did He do? How did He change that? He poured us into the mold of the gospel. This is really incredible. Several commentators have drawn this from the text.

He said, you obeyed from the heart that form, that form and it's the word that means a mold.

Mold, not moldy. Some of us are that too. But a mold that you pour, you know, a substance in for it to harden. Whether it's, you know, a mold that you're making some kind of sculpture with or whatever it might be or some kind of wax mold or ceramic mold or whatever.

It's the mold and in a sense we're poured into it and that mold is the gospel. It's the gospel. The doctrine to which you were committed or delivered or in keeping with the analogy here, poured into.

God did something in our hearts. Thanks be to him that he poured us into the mold of the gospel.

And so when we're popped out of that mold, now our lives are living sculptures or pictures of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's really an incredible way to word this and it's difficult for us to maybe see that in the English because we lose it. But in this translation, he does use the word form, the form of that doctrine to which you were delivered, you were committed, you were poured into, fit into.

And this is all the work of God. It's what he did in our lives. And so how then, and we could just go ahead and just make this statement, how then could we possibly think that our lives should exhibit anything other than the righteousness of Christ?

When our lives have been literally poured into the gospel so that we are now living pictures and sculptures and representations of the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Honoring him and glorifying him and and so therefore everything we do and all the decisions we make our lifestyle and this is all about this is the point our lifestyle should be absolutely consistent with the very righteousness of Christ.

Christ. He said there and having been set free from sin and that's what salvation does not set free in the sense that we are no longer capable of sinning we certainly are or that we no longer struggle with it and no longer tempted by it and no longer you know succumb to the temptation we do but we have been delivered from the condemnation of sin and the absolute power of sin over our lives we have been freed from that master but then notice what he says you became you ought to underline that word became became slaves of righteousness now put in contrast those two words were slaves of sin became slaves of righteousness there's quite a difference between those two concepts those two ideas we were in the sense of this was our reality we didn't become this we've always been this slaves of sin and it is a reality that belongs to every human being everyone all of us everyone in the world today every human that has ever lived apart from

Christ we were slaves to sin that's our condition our reality we were that but we became something else thanks be to God we became slaves of righteousness that's why I call this the self-denying position that we're in we have we can credit ourselves we cannot credit ourselves now where we go from here we have some say in it God has given us the freedom a lot of people talk about free will there is free will after we our wills are freed and we are free to obey him or we're free to disobey him and we do that often as well so we do participate in this we do make choices but verses 17 and 18 are really talking about who we are our position and we give God the thanks for it that he in our hearts he changed our hearts and in a very picturesque way poured our very souls into the mold of his gracious gospel we exhibit the truths of that gospel we were as everyone was some still are many still are slaves to sin and

God snatched us out of that condition by his grace and by pouring us into the gospel changing our hearts we have become new people something brand new how can we then just go on sinning as we did before how could we even entertain the thought that we're free and so therefore we can live any way we want how could we ever succumb to even some degree of that to say well I know this is wrong but I'll repent of it later God will forgive me somehow we find some in a hellish way some freedom in our own thinking to sin because we know God will forgive us and he loves us and we're saved and because we're Baptists we can never lose that salvation which I'm a little tongue in cheek there I believe we can't lose our salvation not because

I'm a Baptist but because that's what the Bible teaches but you understand what I'm saying we can come up with all sorts of rational kind of thinking that really in comparison to scripture is irrational and that's why Paul says absurd absurd then one more a self revealing practice there is God salvation that we we have nothing to do with our regeneration our salvation is God's work part from us part from any merit part from any work part from any anything deserved not even now I mean certainly not now or when we were saved or anything that God might foresee out in the future he didn't save us according to any merit of our own that's why Paul said God be thanked!

He He He And even a Christian can choose that direction for a time.

Do not believe that a Christian can just live constantly in lawlessness and have any warrant to believe that he or she is a Christian.

But we can have seasons of lawlessness. We can choose that. Or the practice of righteousness. Lawlessness, on the one hand, exhibits the slavery to sin.

And what goes along with that? Corruption and ultimately death. On the other hand, the practice of righteousness reveals a slavery to righteousness.

And as a result, sanctification. And ultimately, life. Life eternal.

Though the life eternal is something we have right now. But we realize it out in the future. Fully. Those are the two. The practices that reveal.

That reveal whose slave we are. Look at how he lays this out before us. And we'll go through this quickly because we're out of time.

But he said, I speak there in verse 19. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. And that's just simply Paul saying. I've used this analogy of this slavery.

This whole idea of masters of slavery. Because, you know, you're just boneheaded and you just can't get it any other way. So I've got to use this picture here. Wow. But let's go on.

For just as you presented. Important to notice that that's past tense. You presented your members as slaves of uncleanness.

This is who you once were. You presented the members that is every part of your body. From your eyes to ears to mouth to hands to feet. And every part of it.

You presented your members as slaves of impurity or uncleanness. Sin. And of lawlessness. That is disobedient to God's laws.

Leading to more lawlessness. You know, that is the nature of sin, isn't it? It's not just one little sin, you know.

One sin leads to another and another and another. Like the little ditty goes. Who is it that knocks at my heart's door? Just a little sin. Come in, I said.

And soon all hell was in. So, you know, that's the nature of sin. The corruption of it. And so it begins with the sin.

And this is who we once were. And that's why I said a moment ago that as unredeemed people, you know, godless unbelievers, they can and do choose every day about sin.

Now they're going more and more into corruption. Into sin. But sin leads to more sin. And lawlessness to more lawlessness. And it is a vicious kind of progression of things in our lives spiritually.

This is who you were once. Now I was saved when I was eight years old and I thank God for that. You know, I can't imagine.

You know, what if I was saved at 30? A lot more opportunity to get further down the road of sin and to commit more and more sin. And that is the nature, the journey of sin in the unredeemed.

Lawlessness. Leading to more lawlessness. So, and then I'll skip the next part because we'll come back to it. We're talking about lawlessness. In verse 24, when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

What does that mean? It means you were free from that slavery. Well, in a sense that technically, literally is what it means. It means you had no connection with righteousness.

There wasn't anything in your life prior to Christ that was good and moral and righteous in God's sight. You say, well, lost people do a lot of good moral things.

Yeah, but they're unrighteousness to God. I mean, can you think of a verse that defines that? As filthy rags.

I'm sorry, you know, that doesn't set well with most people, you know, especially lost people. That the good things they do to God is like a filthy rag.

Now, that does not mean that people shouldn't be encouraged to do good things. In a society, we ought to have laws to encourage people to do good things, even though they're unbelievers.

And it's good in the sense of how we function and operate in a civil world. And we ought to encourage people to do the moral thing and the right thing, certainly.

But we're talking about the eternal ramifications. And all those good things, quote, good things, really are just filthy rags to God. And so that's what a sinner is.

Free from or not connected in any way. Completely separated from anything that's righteous. What fruit, he said in verse 21, what fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed?

That's a pretty important statement. Some of you who were saved maybe as a teenager or maybe as a young adult, maybe even later in life.

And your testimony might be, you know, that I really did sow all those wild oats when I was a kid. Did a lot of things that I'm ashamed of now.

And so how, I mean, think about that as a definition of the things a lost person does. They're shameful, shameful things.

For the end of those things is death. And then he kind of sums that up in verse 23. For the wages of sin is death. But then how about the practice of righteousness?

Whereas you presented in the past tense your members to as slaves of uncleanness. His admonition here.

So now. Present and keep on presenting your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

Not shamefulness. As with the center, but for holiness. And what we do now, we ought to deliberately do. We are to present all the members of our body.

Hands, feet, and mouth, and eyes, and ears, and mind, and heart, and all these things. We're to be presenting them as instruments of righteousness.

For holiness. As slaves of righteousness for holiness. And then he says. Verse 22. But now.

You have been set free from sin. And having become slaves of God. You have your fruit to holiness. And the end. Everlasting life.

For. He says. The gift of God. Verse 23. Is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Our Lord.

Our Lord. All right. So. Self-revealing practice. The practice of your life. Reveals. Who your master is.

Thank you.