Published: September 3, 2023 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Romans - Part 31 | Scripture: Romans 6:20-23
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with me please to Romans chapter 6 as we close out the chapter and this this session in our working through Paul's letter to the Romans you're looking at verses 20 through 23
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like to read those and ask Aaron Wells if you pray for the ministry of the word Romans chapter 6 beginning in verse 20.
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for when you were slaves of sin you were free in regard to righteousness therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed
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for the outcome of those things is death but now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God you derive your benefit resulting in sanctification and the
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outcome eternal life eternal life for the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our lord let us pray
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Our Father you have granted us this gift of eternal life cannot possibly deserve possibly deserve the one in which we must simply live by
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faith because the wages of our many Deeds is rightly dead
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please help us to be quickened by the ministry of your word this morning to offer ourselves freely to you knowing that you have empowered us that you have made us your sermons of
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righteousness that we are no longer of the kingdom of this world not obligated to serve its passions or the passions of our bodies but we earnestly pray to you for Mercy as we know the strength of the
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of the remaining passions of our flesh we know the war that rages within us that you will later describe in the same
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to pray that you would enable us by the hearing of your word as you quickened us to Faith first by the hearing of your word that you would help us to continue in it and give us strength and nourishment again
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let's look around dying I know that most of those of us gathered here have made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ we've been baptized it's been a fair amount of Our Lives listening to the teaching and preaching
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of God's word reading it reading books about it reading commentaries I dare say that we think our minds to be
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fairly well led by the scripture but I would warn all of us that the influence of the modern era
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especially the influence of the Enlightenment has had more impact on the way we think than we often realize and in particular the notion of the will
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of our choice is one that is vehemently debated among Christians the concept of a free will
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versus the concept of a sovereign God don't know why one would debate that but it has been debated for hundreds of years but since the enlightenment there is a view of the human will
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that is prevalent in our Western culture to the point that we may again not even realize and that is that the will is a neutral instrument in the hands of our
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reason that the will itself is subject to our intellect in other words we we tend to think that we see a situation that presents options
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to us to us we reason over those options we weigh the pros and cons of the choices we might make might make and then we make a choice and we Act
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that is essentially the modern view of the human will it is an instrument mechanically directed by human reason we also are taught that we have the
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power of contrary choice that in the process of examining our options we consider ourselves to be both independent of any exterior Force
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and we consider ourselves autonomous that we are a law unto ourselves within our mind and we make the choices that we
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desire to make human will then is taught as being essentially neutral essentially neutral and it can be directed as either in
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either direction by the operation of reason perhaps one of the favorite verses of the Armenian is from Isaiah come let us
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reason together says the Lord though your sins are as Scarlet they will be white as snow
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you look at it first like that you say see that's there it is there's God himself saying let us reason together of course throughout the entire book of Isaiah you realize that Israel neither will nor can
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reason with God and that is going to build into the the crescendo the the climax of The Suffering servant in Isaiah 53 but we
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like to take these verses and cherry pick them and say you know we have the ability to be convinced of the truth of Christianity or not
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and that has permeated modern evangelism you've all heard of the book probably or the series of book evidence that demands
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a verdict a verdict by Josh McDowell representing a a phase in modern Western evangelism whereby if we could simply prove that the historical events that
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the Bible teaches us actually happened then people will be forced to agree with Christianity and become Christians
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because the mind is simply an instrument of the reason and so evangelism now for a period of time will attack the reason and try to convince people that the flood actually
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happened the creation happened in six literal days that the tomb was empty on the third day if we can prove these things scientifically prove them then will not Sinners have to come to
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God through Jesus Christ no they won't they won't that's because we are working off of a
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faulty definition of the will the version I read The New American Standard Version doesn't really help us here in verse 21 we read therefore what
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benefit were you then deriving in verse 22 but now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God you derive your benefit
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resulting in sanctification the word benefit as if it is something that I have earned through what I have done
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but that's not the word in the Greek at all and some of your English versions hopefully more correctly have fruit the word is the Greek karpan
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everywhere translated everywhere translated fruit as in John 15 I am the vine and you are the branches he who abides in me and I in
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him he Bears much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing you see the will of man is not mechanical it
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is not neutral we're not talking a mechanical outcome of reason and choice but rather but rather the will is an organic product
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of one's natural disposition it's not the result of an act of rational process it's the
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fruit of one's nature and that really is the essence of the Gospel when Jesus says to Nicodemus you must be born again
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because you cannot be convinced into the kingdom and you cannot exercise your will contrary to your nature
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fresh water a thorn bush cannot bring forth figs and so Paul again takes the the big argument here
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argument here showing us that in in the entirety of Romans showing us that that what is needed is not better arguments and it's a it's remarkable how little G or Paul goes into apologetics
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in Acts 17 when he is speaking to the philosophers of Athens on Mars Hill he doesn't prove that the resurrected Resurrection happened
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Resurrection happened he assumes it to be true and by it proves the Judgment of God upon all mankind he's not an apologist because he knows that what is needed is
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not better arguments but what is needed is a changed nature because in Adam Paul says what fruit were you producing
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the fruit of Shame the fruit of death because you were in Adam and that was your nature your nature you could not will otherwise
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because the options available to you were only those that were consonant with your nature in Adam and that is fallen in sin in sin under the domain of death but in Christ
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with a new nature you produce the fruit of sanctification leading to eternal life with this section Paul closes off
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perhaps two concentric circles of what he has been saying this is the first one the center one that matches what he said back in chapter 5 verse 21. where he says that
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has sin reigned in death even so Grace might Reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ Our Lord he's been explaining how that happens
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through our baptism through our Union with Christ in death and in Resurrection to walk in newness of life now he's talking about a concept with which his readers would be very very
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familiar and that is slavery a fundamental integral part of the ancient Mediterranean economy was slavery we know from Paul's letter to
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the Corinthians his first letter he speaks of many of them as being lowly members of society many of them were indeed slaves later in the
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same letter he says if you were born again as a slave don't seek to be free but if that opportunity comes rather take it take it and so there were many slaves in the
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congregations that Paul founded and undoubtedly there were many slaves in the congregation in Rome though Paul did not found that church so what he's talking about here to
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summarize he's not talking about the results of your own works he's talking about the fruit of your nature and so he has an anthropology and a
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definition of the will that is contrary to just about everybody around us in the modern world we don't believe that we're born sinners
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we don't believe that we are incapable of pleasing God apart from regeneration in Jesus Christ in other words the fundamental message of the Gospel is
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fundamentally not believed even in the churches I am my own person I am independent I am autonomous I do what I will
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well even as born again we don't always do as we will as Paul will teach us in the next chapter and as he says in Galatians but how much less can one who is still
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under the reign and realm of death in Adam do anything will anything that is pleasing to God this is really again the fundamental
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Crux between Calvinism and arminianism you must be born again it's not saying that calvinist doesn't say that man does not have free will
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that is a straw man every calvinist I've ever read including John Calvin John Calvin recognizes that every human being has a will in fact we are responsible for the
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choices that we make before God he is our creator and as Paul says in Romans 1 we have no excuse he has made his presence well enough known to every human being that we are without excuse
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in that we do not honor him as God the point of Calvinism is that by your nature you cannot will situation is gone you cannot build your own salvation but
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by your own means and not thoughts and therefore you cannot will it at all your nature must change
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that is regeneration that is Union with Christ and death and rising to walk and newness of life that is a new heart indwelt by the Holy Spirit upon which the laws of God are now written
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now you can Will righteousness but not until that happens it is not salvation by works it is
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entirely by Grace but Paul's argument here in verses 21 and 22 especially verse 21. verse 21. it's it's still as valid today as it was
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in his time but there's there's something about what he says that we're missing in our day he says therefore what fruit were you
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then having from the things of which you are now
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the phenomenon that is current in our day and it's appeared sporadically in history but probably never with as much virulences today and that is the inability to blush
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wickedness and lewdness are displayed so publicly today publicly today that we have lost all sense of Shame many writers have noted this that we we don't blush anymore
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I often think what the new heavens and the new Earth will be like and the reason I think that is because God has drawn to himself a people not only from every tongue tribe and Nation
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but from every age in which and through which man has inhabited this Earth which means we will be fellowshipped
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with people who lived hundreds and thousands of years ago and I have a feeling apart from the fact that sin will be eradicated and our eyes
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will see as we are seen I think every older generation will be shocked by every younger one
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I cannot imagine that our brothers and sisters from even a hundred years ago
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would not be shocked by our inability our inability to blush to blush they would be red-faced in shame at the things we walked past without batting an
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arm we have lost the ability to blush to blush our private world has become public the Boudoir is now the boardwalk it has been said by others that our
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society has basically undressed in front of us entertainment has falsified reality
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so much that most folks will video an unfolding tragedy rather than intervene I mean you've seen them you've seen animals attacking people
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falling off Bridges how are you seeing these things because someone is standing there with their phone their phone videotaping it and making it go live
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because it's more important to get followers than it is to intervene we've lost the ability to blush we have no shame
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no shame and there is little difference among professing believers professing believers but to say so to make a comment in today's churches is to be called legalist
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to say you ought not be living that way you ought not be dressing that way you ought not be maybe going to those places or imbibing that form of whatever
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entertainment that's legalism that's legalism and I'm not going to go there because that's not the gospel I'm not the Holy Spirit you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within
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you and yet as I said to begin with do we really not understand how much the spirit of this age has influenced our own thinking
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own thinking and when Paul says what what fruit were you gaining you gaining on the things of which now you are ashamed and think we don't get shamed about much of
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anything anymore anything anymore our society has lost the ability to blush can we still feel shame
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many churches employ the Evangelistic Evangelistic technique called testimonies where notorious Sinners and you really in order to qualify to give a testimony you hadn't been a real sinner okay a bad
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one a drug addict a criminal of some sort um a fornicator or or whatever something really bad so that you could get up and you could tell everybody how bad you
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were and I've heard those I've heard them in private and I've heard them in the public setting of the church and it really is troubling that those who are giving those
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testimonies almost sound proud of what they were and they speak without shame of things that Paul says it is disgraceful even to
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speak of the things which are done by them in secret a lot of good it did you Paul is saying a lot of good it did you when you were
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in Adam in Adam bearing fruit to shame and death a lot of good it did you in other words no good at all
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but that which we are ashamed of we hide right and the fact that through social media and through our own behavior as a society and certainly through our
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apparel as a society what do we hide anymore isn't that indirect proof that we have lost the ability to feel shame we live our lives out on Twitter and
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Facebook and Instagram hiding nothing the rest of us are shouting TMI but we're doing the same thing many of
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us many of you are not I'm not saying this is Universal but it is endemic it is endemic in the modern Evangel Evangel Evangelical Church excuse me
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it is it is the Zeitgeist the spirit of the age that has permeated even Christ's Church
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and so even such a little phrase as this in verse 21 are the things of which you are now ashamed challenges us to ask the question do we hide anything
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that that statement right there actually speaks against the methodology of testimonies in evangelism it is not proper even to discuss the things done
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by them in secret Paul does not do it he merely calls himself the chief of sinners we do not need to know what muck
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what muck the Lord washed off of you in Saving you that is between you and the Lord those are the things of which you are now ashamed I hope
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it's not look at what a terrific sinner I once was but it's rather Lord have mercy on me The Sinner The Sinner that is the right attitude
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and so we don't do testimonies and I wish the churches would stop doing them so what was the fruit of our former nature as Paul says it was shame leading
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to death shame of a corrupted Humanity shame of a prodigal who refuses to return home shame of an image defiled and a beastial man
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as the psalmist says Man Without understanding is as the Beast that perishes and every human being who does not acknowledge his God through his Savior Jesus Christ is a man without
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understanding he is as the Beast that will perish will perish and therein lies the shame one author says the old slavery was a
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plant and there's that organic characteristic of it it was a plant that bore a particular fruit and the fruit was shame leading to death
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but you might think especially those of you who are still very young and who've accepted the Lord at a very young age praise God
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that you really don't have much to be ashamed of ashamed of in terms of what we consider material for good Armenian testimonies I didn't have any of that
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I was not a good boy but there were worse Lots worse enough to make it under the testimony list
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what what do we have to be ashamed of and maybe your pride says well you know it really wasn't all that bad and even if I acknowledge shame I can
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recognize it what people are doing is shameful but I didn't do that for whatever reason I didn't do that and so I don't have that shame but the
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ultimate shame is not a former lewd and wicked life that even your fellow unbelievers kind of sneered at
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the ultimate shame the greatest shame is in gratitude in gratitude toward God toward God we don't really understand how important thankfulness is in our worship of God but it's all through the scripture in in
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fact the the communion that we're going to have today is called the Eucharist which is Thanksgiving we have a Thanksgiving meal this morning of bread and wine
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gratitude is the height of Honor it is the chief shame of all mankind listen to what Paul says in Romans 1 he says even though they knew God
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they did not honor him as God and okay he hasn't even talked about all their sins yet sins yet it's almost as if all the sins he's now going to recount are brought under this one rubric up in verse 21 he says they
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did not honor him as God or give thanks and see under that we all have plenty to be ashamed of
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our ingratitude before we were in Christ was infinite was infinite because God's grace of life was infinite
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and our gratitude after is the heart of our worship and so maybe you weren't as bad as you could have been maybe you weren't as bad
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as those whose testimonies you've heard but you were ungrateful you refuse to give thanks
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and I and again as we're closing up this section and we haven't talked much about gratitude but Paul does in his letters
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and so being thankful you know singing this particular Psalm or that particular spiritual song or I really love that hymn that's not the essence of worship
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the essence of Honor in any relationship is gratitude
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so looking at what Paul does say and he does use an interesting he's using the analogy and the metaphor of slavery although he's using it in a very realistic sense realistic sense he's not you know when you were in Adam
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you were like a slave he doesn't say like he says you were a Slave he's using Exodus language here when you were in Egypt you were a slave to
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pharaoh but when God delivered you through that Red Sea there's that water going down into the Waters of baptism and coming up to walk in newness of life Pharaoh being destroyed in those Waters
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he can no longer pursue you there's the imagery but your freedom is now slavery to God
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and so throughout the Old Testament especially in Leviticus you hear that refrain over and over again I am the Lord your God I am the Lord that brought you out of Egypt I am the Lord your God
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be holy for I your lord am Holy so we've exchanged as we've already looked at we've exchanged bondage
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but he speaks of something here that seems a bit odd I think if you read it carefully he talks about in verse 23 the wages of sin is death
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well here is a an area where our modern history especially of our own country clouds our understanding of the history and the context of Paul's world
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when we think of slavery we tend to think of the chattel slavery of Antebellum South Southern United States we think of bondage in which the person
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is not only property but is entirely under the control of his owner both life and death for labor for which he was not
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compensated well that only represents one type of slavery in the ancient world and that was the slavery of Judah Ben Hur slavery of punishment
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judicial slavery judicial slavery when you are accused of a crime and you are convicted you are made a slave to work in the galleys if you were strong enough otherwise you were simply
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crucified it was a form of execution draining the last bit of Labor they could out of the men condemned to death but that was only one type of slavery
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the economy of the Roman Empire was built upon slavery almost everybody every free Roman had at least one slave even the poorest agrarian family would
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have a maidservant but slavery in those days were not is not like slavery in the South in the United States before the war between the
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states and slaves in those times were not harvested from any particular part of the empire they were very often conquered people
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but they also very often educated and highly literate highly literate and so slaves would become as Joseph was in Egypt they would become the
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administrator of their Master's property Cicero had a very famous slave by the name of tyro Tyro was a very highly educated Greek
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educated Greek who was also used to teach Cicero's children as many slaves were and so slaves in those days yes they belonged to their Master but not in the
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manner that we think of slavery it was a common practice for instance for owners of industrial slaves the slaves that worked in whatever we wouldn't call them
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factories today but they were at least commercial establishments that produced some type of like clay pottery or something like that industrial slaves to
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let them work independently collecting from them a fixed rent and allowing them to keep for themselves whatever they earned in addition
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world were able to purchase their freedom and so we have another class of people in the ancient Roman world called freed men who were once slaves
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slaves would rise up into powerful positions in augustus's government and then afterwards then afterwards so again slavery yes it is bondage they didn't have a free will they couldn't
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just simply go on vacation they couldn't change their jobs but they did get a form of wages and so what Paul is talking about is is
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not nonsense the slavery of his day allows him to speak of slavery and wages in the same Passage and so what we're reading here
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in these closing verses of chapter six we're reading the summary account of life in Adam and and as a summary account Paul is going back again closing a
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circle he's going back to chapter four where he talks about wages he's closing with the same concept here he's saying in a sense all of us are
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earning wages earning wages those of us in Adam we are slaves to sin and the wages that we are earning by our ungratefulness to God
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and by our rebellious actions and attitudes and thoughts is shameful is shameful and it leads only to death
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but as with our transfer from Adam to Jesus Christ The Exchange here in verse 23 is not an even one and hopefully you've noticed that when you've read through Romans 5 and he says just as in one man's sin entered the
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world so also in one man life enters the world you realize that is not an even exchange the one is judicial and righteous
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and righteous Adam sinned Adam sinned and he was justly condemned he had been warned and he ignored that warning sin entered into the human race but
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every one of us by our own operation of our will have sinned we have not only been ungrateful to God for the life that he has given us we have actively disobeyed his commands
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and so what we get in death is what we earn it's what we deserve but Paul says the free gift
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and he actually uses the word Charisma as in charismatic he doesn't use the word Charis which is a gift that we might give Evangeline for
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her birthday or Samuel he uses a an intensified word to indicate that that this gift is not deserved by you because of the passing of 365 days since the last Karis we gave
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you it isn't deserved by you at all it is a free gift there's no occasion for it there's no merit that draws it out there's no boasting in it as if it
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was something that you did and earned but rather it is a free gift of God's grace
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he wrote in Chapter 4 verses 5 4 and 5. now to the one who works his wage is not reckoned as a favor but as what is due but to the one who does not work
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but believes in him who justifies the ungodly his faith is reckoned as righteousness when you receive your paycheck at the end of a week or the end of two
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weeks or the end of the month however often you get prayed paid you do not fall down on your knees and kiss your boss's feet thank you master no
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those wages are due you you have performed labor for the company and this is your just compensation
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but that's not how Grace works and honestly when we think about the free gift of eternal life that God has given us in Jesus Christ we ought to fall down and kiss the Master's feet
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upon what God has done for us and certainly communion is the time to do that it is also the time to think at least briefly of the fruit
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of which you are now ashamed a lot of good that did you living in Adam living in sin a lot of good that did you
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but a lot of good God has done you there is no room for merit or boasting nothing but the free gift of God's grace but there's also no shame and no fear
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anymore there's no shame because our righteousness is not tarnished by our actions it is the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ he who knew no sin
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became sin that we might be the righteousness of God in him and there is no fear because though we may physically die death has been
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defeated we have been given the guarantee of his resurrection and the down payment of his holy spirit to know that though we die yet in my body I will see my redeemer I
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will be raised there's nothing left but thankfulness
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gratitude appreciation to The God Who has saved us through faith in Jesus Christ let us pray
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but father we do pray that we might learn to cultivate gratitude that there wouldn't be a day or even an hour that goes by that we do not think how grateful we are
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for who you are and for what you have done for us in Jesus Christ we pray that that attitude might overflow into our attitudes with one
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another that we would honor through thankfulness that we would be grateful that we would appreciate your Providence and your blessings and even through
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trials we have been taught that as a father disciplines the some Son whom he loves so our heavenly father disciplines us and we can be grateful
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knowing that we are not illegitimate children but that what you are doing in our lives will bring forth a peaceful fruit of
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righteousness we pray that by the working of your Holy Spirit we might indeed bear fruit that remains and fruit that gives Glory and Honor to our Lord Jesus Christ in whose name we
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I've asked John and Adam to help with the elements this morning