The Apostle Paul is continuing
through this letter to not only encourage the people of God in
the ministry of the gospel and in the walk of faith by reminding
them of the glorious truths of the gospel. These are fundamental
truths. Elementary truths. Now, when
I say elementary, I don't mean that they're necessarily simple
in the sense of impossible to understand, but impossible to
receive apart from the Spirit of God. And in his attempt to
make things plain, he makes this statement. Look at verse 19.
He says, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity
of your flesh. And really what that is, and
this should not insult any of us, but none of us like to be
talked down to. I don't, you don't. And so what
Paul is saying here is he's, I'm simplifying this and giving
you illustrations because we're talking about such grand and
deep spiritual truths. And we are children of God. Sometimes
God has to condescend to put things in, in language that children
can understand. Now that doesn't mean physical
child. He's talking about the children
of God. And so when he talks about his, just like he says,
now look, this is not complicated. Whoever you serve, that's your
master. Now you can tweak it, you can
complicate it, you can make excuses for it, but if the Lord is your
master, that's who you're gonna serve. And if you yourself in
your flesh is your master, you're gonna serve yourself. So it's
either self-serve or serving God. Now that's plain and simple.
And don't complicate it up. So he said, I'm speaking to you
after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh.
You know how we are. We know ourselves. And so that's
what he's saying. He's talking down to us not in
the sense of condescension, but in the way of simplifying truth
for our understanding. Let's just put it that way. Here
it is. Let's just lay it out there. If Christ is your master,
you serve him. If something else is your master,
you serve them. Now, what does that boil down
to? We'll look at verse 19. He says,
for as you have yielded, submitted your members, now the members
has to do with our physical, our minds, our bodies, you know,
what we do, what we don't do, all that. You have yielded your
members, servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity. Now, what's he talking about
there? He's talking about unbelievers. He's talking about the unregenerate.
Now, he's talking about what the Bible calls in 1 Corinthians
2.14, the natural man. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God. Neither can he know that. Now
you have to understand, I always emphasize this because this is
another way we can say, well, I'm speaking to you in the manner
of him. People, when they go to verses
like this a lot of times, they relegate these verses to the
openly immoral and irreligious segment of society. All right,
servants of sin, iniquity unto iniquity. He's talking about
any fallen, ruined human being who has not been born again by
the Spirit and not been brought to faith in Christ. They can
be religious, they can be highly moral in the eyes of men, they
can be the pillars of society. But if they're not in Christ,
if they're not washed in his blood, if they're not clothed
in his righteousness, if they're not following him and yielding
to him, if they're not submitted to him, and if they don't see
that he is their only righteousness before God, it's all servants
of uncleanness and iniquity that just bears more iniquity. They
may be sitting in a church somewhere, listening to a message on the
edge of their seat, but they're not hearing the gospel and they're
not believing the gospel. You understand that. See, that
puts it in context. That covers the openly immoral
and irreligious, all who don't believe the gospel, all who have
not been brought to faith. So in all of the natural desires
that can be attributed to sinful men and women, unbelieving men
and women, this pertains to them. For as you have yet, now he's
talking about believers here before they were regenerated.
He said, as you have yielded your members, servants to uncleanness
and to iniquity unto iniquity. Even so now, he says, yield your
members, submit your members, servants to righteousness unto
holiness. Now, what's he talking about?
Well, he's not talking about man's efforts to work his way
into righteousness and holiness. He's not talking about man's
works aimed at attaining or maintaining salvation because that would
be a false religion. That would fall into the category
of the natural man, of servants of uncleanness, iniquity unto
iniquity. What he's talking about here
is those who have been brought to faith in Christ. To be a servant
of righteousness is to be a servant of Christ. That means to look
to Him as the author and finisher of our faith. It means to see
Him as the one upon whom all of my salvation is conditioned,
and He fulfilled all those conditions, and my soul is committed to Him. My whole salvation is committed
to Him. It's not in my hands. It's not on my shoulders. It's
not according to my walk. It's all in Him. but now I am
to serve him as motivated by grace, love, and gratitude. And
that's what he's talking about. And when he says servants under
righteousness, righteousness can only be found in Christ.
And I serve him who is my righteousness. I stand before God in him who
is my righteousness. And unto holiness, what he's
simply saying there is that kind of service is what separates
you from the unregenerate, unbelieving world. Now, somebody says, well,
doesn't that mean that we're supposed to be good people? Well,
we're described to be good people, but that's not what sets us apart. There's unbelievers who are striving
right now to be good people. Do you believe that? I do, I
know it's so. There are unbelievers, there
are atheists who are right now striving to be good people. Now
granted, they don't know the standard of goodness from God,
Their standard is way low. But what he's talking about when
he says servants of righteousness unto holiness, he's talking about
the kind of service that separates a Christian from the unbelieving
world. The kind of service that distinguishes
a true Christian from the world. And what kind of service is that?
It's not our outward acts of morality. It's our faith in Christ. If I were to ask you what's the
one thing that sets us apart from all the world, you know
what the main thing is? It's our gospel. It's what we
believe. Now, does that mean that it doesn't
matter how we live or what we do? No, it doesn't mean that
at all. But if I strive to be a better father, and that's what
I should do, or a better husband, or a better pastor, I should
strive to do that. But that doesn't distinguish
me from the unbelieving world, because there are unbelievers
doing the same thing. Now granted, it's for the wrong reason and
based on the wrong motive, but you can't see that. The only
way you can know that is how? By the gospel that I preach. And I always go back to Matthew
5.16 on this, you know, where he said, let your light so shine
before men that they may see your good works and glorify your
Father which is in heaven. And you know, in false religion,
what I always thought that meant was I'd rather see a sermon than
hear one. In other words, you're the only
Bible that some people read. That's not what it means at all.
The light is not our character and conduct. Now true, our character
and conduct can sometime be inconsistent with our faith and our claim
of faith. That's true. But the light is
Christ, the gospel. And the light tells people that
don't look at me, Look to God. Glorify God. Look to Christ for
salvation. Salvation is not by my works.
It's by the work of Christ. That's what the light says. Let
your light so shine. Preach the gospel. Witness the
gospel. The one thing we don't want people
to do is to have confidence in ourselves. We want them to look
to Christ. And so that's what he's talking
about. So this is what separates the believer, the true Christian
from unregenerate humanity. So he says in verse 20, he says,
for when you were the servants of sin, now that's when you were
unbelievers. You see, we're no longer servants
of sin in this sense. Now that doesn't mean we've stopped
sinning now. as some would say. Doesn't mean
we no longer sin. Doesn't mean that we still don't
have sinful thoughts, sinful goals even, sinful motives sometimes. We have a warfare within on those
issues. But we're not servants of sin
in the sense that we no longer believe that salvation is conditioned
on us. or based upon our works, or trying
to establish our own righteousness before God. Remember what Paul
said in Galatians 2? He said, if righteousness come
by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Now you think about
that. You see, if I'm striving to earn
my way into God's favor, or if I'm striving to make myself good
enough in order for God to save me or to bless me or to accept
me, then I'm a living, breathing testimony against Christ, claiming
that he died in vain. Because why did Christ die? He died to establish all of that
for his people by the grace of God. So what are we, sinners
saved by grace? So when we say you were the servants
of sin, he's talking about when you were unregenerate, when you
didn't see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and
he says at that time you were free from righteousness. In other
words, or some translations say free to righteousness. In other
words, any service to righteousness was voided then. That's what
that means. You thought you were doing good.
You weren't doing good at all. You thought you were serving
righteousness, a righteous cause, but you weren't serving righteousness
or a righteous cause at all. All you were serving was self-righteousness,
ungodliness, but you didn't recognize it. Now why is it we don't recognize
it? Again, the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them. They're spiritually discerned.
It's because I didn't have eyes to see what I see now. Didn't
have ears to hear what I hear now. And that's the whole thing. You know, the gospel message
is a hated message for this very reason. You look at people today
who are religious, but they don't know the true gospel. And you
tell them their deeds are evil. It's their servants of sin, not
righteousness. They're free from righteousness.
They don't have a righteous cause, not in God's eyes. And when you
tell them that, you say it's fruit unto death. It's evil deeds. That's what brings out the offense
of the cross and the hatred of the world. Light is coming to
the world. Men love darkness and hate the
light. What is it about darkness that
people love? It's the darkness that cloaks
in their minds these evil deeds, this iniquity unto iniquity.
Could you imagine the horror of those who stood before the
Lord in Matthew 7 to hear him say, depart from me, you that
work iniquity. And people will speculate on
that, but they need not. The context just rings out about
what that's about. That's like, well, they just
weren't sincere. Well, are you? Are you sincere? And how sincere
do you have to be? What level of sincerity must
I achieve in order to not hear him say that? If that's it, you
ought to be worried. You ought to be worried tonight.
What is the context talking about there in Matthew 7? Well, there's
a narrow way and there's a broad way. Which way are you on? What is that narrow way that
leads unto life? That's Christ. I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. That's the narrow way. It's the
way of the cross. It's the way of his blood. It's
the way of his righteousness imputed to us. That's what it
is. Any other way is the broad road.
And so whatever those people who were claiming, well, we preached
in your name, they were on the broad road. They weren't pleading
the merits of Christ. They were pleading what they
thought God had enabled them to do. And that's just as, that's
iniquity unto iniquity. That's free from righteousness.
That shows they have no righteousness before God. But what is our hope? It's Christ crucified and raised
from the dead. That's my only hope. How about
you? All right, look at verse 21. He says, what fruit had you then
in those things whereof you are now ashamed? For the end of those
things is death. Now think about that. He's talking
about this. When I was a servant of sin,
Right, not knowing Christ, not being submitted to His righteousness,
there were things that I did that I wasn't ashamed of at all.
I could sit here and tell you about a lot of them, but my whole
life basically covered there. Wasn't ashamed of it at all.
Trying to do good, trying to work my way, trying to earn my
way. It's like I heard a fella on
the internet the other day talking about holiness. And they go to
that Hebrews 12 passage. What is that, Hebrews 12, 11,
I think, or something. I preached on it a couple, several
weeks ago. But it talks about follow peace
with all men and holiness without which no man will see the Lord.
And he put holiness in this vein. He says, well, we're put in a
position, he says, of acceptance before God by faith in Christ. But after that, you better be
doing good works. Why? Because without holiness,
no man will see the Lord. Now is that the kind of holiness
that the writer of Hebrews is talking about there? If it is,
we're all in bad shape. What was that holiness without
which no man? It's what distinguishes us. It's
what separates us from the world. It's our gospel. And what he's
saying there is follow, be peaceful with everybody, but don't compromise
that which separates you and distinguishes you from the unbelieving
world. Don't compromise the gospel. Don't compromise your standing
in Christ based on his righteousness alone. That's what he means.
Well, the things that we used to be so proud of, or the things
that we used to take our assurance from, when we see the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ, we now become ashamed of those
things. And you know what that's called?
It's called repentance. And I always go, look at Philippians
3. This is where I always go, because this is such a glaring
example of what Paul's talking about there. When I was in unbelief,
when I was unregenerate, what fruit had I in those things of
which I'm now ashamed? I've repented of my dead works
and my idolatry. And here's what Paul said in
verse seven of Philippians three. Listen to it. He says, but what
things were gained to me. Now what is he talking about?
He's talking about his religious activities, his morality, Even
his sincerity. Those things that I used to think
recommended me to God. Those things that I used to think
God was pleased with. Those things I highly esteemed. Remember in Luke 16, 15, that
which is highly esteemed before men is an abomination to God.
Those things that I thought contributed to my right standing with God
or my acceptance with God. That's what Paul's talking about.
He lists them up there in verses four through six. And they're
all religious. He says in verse seven, but what
things were gained to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Now I'm ashamed of them. Now
I see that the things that I boasted in and that I gloried in and
that I hoped in, now I've repented of them. Well, what brought you
to such a revelation, to such a realization, Paul? Well, look
at verse eight. Yea, doubtless, I count all things but loss for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for
whom I've suffered the loss of all things and do count them
but done that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having
mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which
is through the faith or the faithfulness of Christ, the righteousness
which is of God by faith. He saw God. revealed to Paul
his depravity, his sinfulness. That's what he's done to you,
isn't it? I'm only a sinner saved by grace. That's all I'll ever
be, a sinner saved by grace. I don't have anything to brag
about or boast in in myself. God forbid that I should glory,
save in the cross, his blood, his righteousness, And that's
what he's shown. He's shown us God's holiness
and justice, his majesty, that if God were to ever judge me
based upon my best efforts to serve him, it would be eternal
damnation. Lord, if thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities, who would stand? He's shown us the glory of the
person and work of Christ. And when I see the glory of Christ
and what he accomplished, to save his people from their sins,
anything that comes from me or anything I've been able to do,
put it on the loss column. Count it all but done for Christ.
And that's what he's saying back here in Romans 6, verse 21. Well, what fruit had you then
in those things? You are now shamed, for the end
of those things are death. Look at verse five of chapter
seven, right across the page. For when we were in the flesh,
when we were unregenerate, when we were in unbelief, the motions,
the passions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members
to bring forth what? Fruit unto death. Somebody said you can look at
that in two realms as far as natural man is concerned. Some
look at the law and there's just out and out rebellion. I'm not
gonna do that, I'm gonna break it, that kind of thing, criminals
and society. Most people don't look at it
like that. They look at it, well, I better try to keep the Ten
Commandments, I better try to do this, I've gotta do that in
order to be saved. Well, what fruit did you have
there? What's fruit unto death? The only thing that's gonna lead
to life is righteousness. Look on verse 22 of chapter six. But now I've been made free from
sin. Now how have I been made free from sin? Sin can no longer
condemn me. And sin can no longer deceive
me to the point of keeping me from looking to and resting in
Christ. That's how I've been free from
sin. You understand that? I've been justified. I have a
sin cannot be accounted, charged to me. I have a righteousness
that answers the demands of God's law and justice. And then, spiritually,
I've been regenerated. I've been born again. I've been
brought to faith in Christ. God, the Holy Spirit, has given
me a new heart, a new knowledge. I'm not free from sin in the
sense that I've stopped sinning. That's impossible. Because I
can tell you right now, nothing I've done or ever done will measure
up to the perfection of righteousness that's found only in Christ,
and anything less than that is iniquity. So I'm not free from
sin in that sense. But I'm free from sin in the
sense that it can no longer condemn me, and it can no longer deceive
me to the point of keeping me from looking to Christ as he's
revealed by the Spirit through the gospel. I believe in him. And that's it. So now being made
free from sin and become servants to God, following Christ, resting
in Christ, you have your fruit unto holiness. This is fruit
that is distinct and separated from the fruit unto death, you
see. Again, that's what this holiness
is about. It's that which separates us and distinguishes us from
the unbelieving world. All that they produce is fruit
unto death. We bring forth fruit unto God. And you can see that in verse
four of Romans seven, look over there. He says, wherefore my
brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ, that's our state before God in Christ, that you should
be married to another and to him who is raised from the dead
that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Christ is the vine,
we're the branches. The life comes from the vine.
We don't produce fruit, we bear it. And it's the fruit of faith
and repentance and obedience motivated by grace. And he says
in verse 22 of chapter six, you have your fruit unto holiness
and the end everlasting life. Well, why is that? In other words,
does that mean I'm gaining or earning life? No, look at verse
23. For the wages of sin is death.
If God gave me a wage, What would it be? It'd be death. But the
gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, you
know, when I was growing up in false religion, Romans 6.23 was
one of our little, what we called the Roman road. We'd start with
Romans 3.23 for all sin and come straight, and the wages of sin.
And it has always amazed me that all that time, I never really
took the time to read and study the verses that lie in between
Romans 3.23 and Romans 6.23. Now, I know it takes the Spirit
of God to reveal those things to us, doesn't it? To open our
hearts and our minds and bring us to that. But here's the thing
about it. What does he show us here? He
shows us that the fruit that he's talking about The separation
that he's talking about, the distinction that he's talking
about is all wrapped up in our view of and our value of and
our glorying in Christ and what he's accomplished to save us
from our sins eternally. That we might be separated from
the world and have everlasting life all based upon his merits
alone. And that's what this is all about.
That's the whole issue of gospel holiness and gospel righteousness,
isn't it? Okay.