Living a Holy Lifestyle: Romans 6:12-23

Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Living a Holy Lifestyle
Romans 6:12-23

INTRODUCTION:
Beethoven may have poisoned himself - inadvertently. That’s what William Walsh, a scientist from Illinois, suggested after studying strands of hair from the body of famous classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Walsh discovered that Beethoven’s body had one hundred times the normal amount of lead. He concluded that Beethoven’s untimely death at the age of fifty-seven was due to lead poisoning.

Beethoven’s lead poisoning may have been due to the mineral spa he went to for relaxation. The very thing he thought was bringing him relief was slowly poisoning him to death.

Spiritual poison is like that. As people engage in practices and embrace ideas that are spiritually poisonous, they think they’re becoming more spiritual. But in reality, they’re gradually being poisoned to eternal death.

THE BACKGROUND - 6:1-11:
Paul had discussed in chapter 5 the fact that we are saved by grace. When Adam sinned, he bought death into the world and the only way mankind can be saved is by the grace of God. Notice in 5:20-21, from one perspective, when God gave Israel the Law of Moses, it caused sin to increase. The more mankind knew what offended God, the more they realized how much they sinned. But, thankfully where sin abounded, grace abounded even more!

And in verse 21, Paul states that grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

But a lot of people seem to think that because we are saved by grace, it doesn’t matter if we sin or not. Apparently that thinking was alive and active in the church in Rome too, because then Paul addresses the question in chapter 6: “Shall we continue in sin that grace may increase?” And he answers his own question with an emphatic no: “May it never be!” The KJV says, “God forbid!”

Why can we not sin so that grace can increase? Because Paul says that we died to sin (6:2). When did that happen? When we were baptized into Christ, we were baptized into His death (6:3). You might notice that the words “died, death, and dead” are used 13 times through the first 11 verses. When we come up out of the waters of baptism, we walk a new “life” (ver. 4), which is in the likeness of His resurrection (ver. 5).

Why can we not sin so that grace can increase? Paul writes in verse 6 that when we were baptized into Christ, the old self was crucified with Him and that old body of sin was done away. That verb means to “abolish” or “to set aside.” God did this for us so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. Paul had said in verse 2 that we died to sin when we were baptized. In verse 7, he says that having died to sin, we are “freed from sin.” That’s why we don’t live in sin so grace can increase! We are freed from sin.

In the next brief paragraph (6:8-11), Paul uses Jesus as the template, the paradigm, the pattern for our motivation to live a holy lifestyle. Christ, once He raised from the dead, will never die again (ver. 9); yeah is no longer “master” over Him. On the cross, Jesus died to sin “once for all;” but He lives for God forever.

In verse 11, Paul gives the first of five commands in this chapter: “Consider yourselves dead to sin.” Why can we not sin so that grace can increase? We are dead to sin. We are separated from it. We should also “consider ourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We live in God; we walk in God; we reign with God.

Having set the stage for our study, let’s now focus on the major points from the last half of Romans 6…

DO NOT LET SIN REIGN IN YOUR MORTAL BODY - 6:12-14:
Verse 12 shows us that it is possible for us to allow sin to reign in our physical bodies. Even if we become Christians, it is still possible for us to live in sin. But Paul says we should not! We should not let sin “reign” in our physical bodies so that we obey the lusts of our physical bodies.

Verse 13 also has a command: “do not present your members of your body for the purpose of sinning, as tools for unrighteousness.” Instead, Paul says, we should present our physical bodies as tools for righteousness for the purposes of and to glorify God.

Just as death was no longer “master” over Jesus (ver. 9), since we have died to sin (ver. 2), Paul says sin should not be “master” over us! Additionally, Paul says that we are not under the Law of Moses; we are under grace.

So instead of grace giving us a license to sin or to live in sin, actually being saved by grace is a motivation to not live in sin!

YOU BECAME OBEDIENT FROM THE HEART - 6:15-19:
Paul repeats his original question from verse 2 in verse 15: “Shall we continue to live in sin because we are not under the Law of Moses but under grace?” Again, he answers his own question emphatically: “May it never be!” “God forbid!”

Why not?

Slavery was a huge part of the Roman Empire and Roman lifestyle. Paul speaks from their everyday experiences: when you present yourself as a slave for obedience, it stands to reason that you are a slave of the one whom you obey. Call this the “Associative Property of Enslavement.” The Associative property is defined as, when more than two numbers are added or multiplied, the result remains the same, irrespective of how they are grouped. So if you are a slave of sin (ver. 16), your life will result in death. If you are a slave of obedience to God, your life will result in righteousness!

After John Jefferson robbed a Krispy Kreme Doughnut store in Kingsport, Tennessee, in 1999, he bought dope. But he couldn’t enjoy it because he was plagued with guilt. Months later, even after moving to Kansas, the guilt remained. So Jefferson decided to confess.

Jefferson called Detective David Cole of the Kingsport Police Department and identified himself as the robber. “I couldn’t take it anymore,” Jefferson said in an interview. “I was sick and tired of the way I was living. I didn’t want to die in a crack house, and I didn’t want to smoke crack anymore.”

After pleading guilty, Jefferson served a six-year sentence. Upon his release, he tried several times to return to the Krispy Kreme store and repay the money he had stolen, but he kept turning around before he could get there. Finally, Jefferson called David Cole again and asked him to accompany him to the store. Though he had stolen $300, Jefferson returned $400 to the robbery victim, who asked him to donate the money to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

“I felt like a million bucks when I walked out of that place,” Jefferson said.

That man was trying to “obey from the heart” the gospel message about repentance and restitution…

But, Paul writes in excitement in verse 17, by the grace of God they have been presented the Gospel of Christ, which brings salvation (1:16) and they have been obedient to it! So that at one time, they were slaves of sin, but they obeyed - notice where it starts: in the heart - from the heart the forms or pattern of teaching to which they had committed themselves - the pattern of the Gospel message. This is a reference back to 6:3-4 and to everything that is involved in becoming a Christian.

In other words, the “Gospel pattern” said to “believe.” And you believed.
The “Gospel pattern” said to “repent.” And you repented.
The “Gospel pattern” said to “confess your faith in Christ.” And you confessed.
The “Gospel pattern” said to “be immersed in water for the forgiveness of sins.” And you were immersed in water for the forgiveness of sins.

“You obeyed that pattern, from your heart; you were committed to it,” Paul tells the Christians in Rome.

Obeying the pattern (ver. 17) freed them from sin (ver. 18). Now, he says they are “slaves of righteousness.” Why can’t we live in sin so that grace can abound? Because we are not slaves of sin anymore; we are slaves of righteousness.

Paul tells them that he is really simplifying things, speaking in terms of “slavery” because their flesh is weak and they were having a difficult time grasping the nature of a holy lifestyle.

So Paul summarizes his message in verse 19, the Christians were non-Christians at one time. They were slaves to sin; they were not dead to sin. So they presented their physical bodies as slaves to an impure lifestyle and they gave themselves to practicing things that did not have God’s authority - that’s the definition of “lawlessness.” This lifestyle led them to even more “lawlessness.” After all, if you don’t care what God thinks, what’s going to stop you from following the lusts of your heart?

So Paul gives us the last command in verse 19: Present your members as slaves to righteousness. Serve God in righteousness; live a righteous life. Do what God says to do; the way God says to do it; for the reason God says to do it. That’s how you glorify God. And the result will be “sanctification.” The result will be “holiness.” The result will be that you are separated from a sinful world, even as you live in a sinful world, but you will be in the kingdom of God’s beloved Son!

ENSLAVED TO GOD, YOU DERIVE YOUR BENEFIT: ETERNAL LIFE - 6:20-23:
In this last paragraph, Paul summarizes what he has said up to this point…

When we were not Christians, we were “slaves of sin.” When we were slaves of sin, we were “free” in regard to righteousness. A person who is not a Christian is shackled to sin; he or she is not shackled to Christ (ver. 20).

So Paul asks them this sobering question in verse 21: What benefit did you get from practicing things that you are now ashamed of? Why can’t we live in sin so that grace can about? Because the sinful lifestyle bring shame, that’s why! Shame to us and shame to our Savior. The outcome of that lifestyle is death: separation from God and Christ and all things holy.

But once we became Christians, having been freed from sin (ver. 22) and enslaved to God - or enslaved to Jesus Christ - here is what we benefit: sanctification (as he said in verse 19) and eternal life.

The payment or reward or outcome of a sinful lifestyle is death - eternal separation from God. The payment or reward or outcome of living a righteous life in Jesus Christ, which is God’s gracious gift to us, is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Master.

Take home message: Don’t live in sin; continue obeying from the heart so that your reward will be eternal life.