Published: August 27, 2023 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Romans - Part 30 | Scripture: Romans 6:15-19
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this morning we'll be looking at verses 15 through 19. like to read that passage in ask Josiah if you pray for the ministry of the word Romans chapter 6 beginning in verse 15.
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what then what then shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace may it never be do you not know that when you present
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yourself to someone as slaves for obedience you are slaves of the one whom you obey you obey either of sin resulting in death or of
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obedience resulting in righteousness but thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching
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to which you were committed and having been freed from sin you became slaves of righteousness I am speaking in human terms because of
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the weakness of your flesh for just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness resulting in further lawlessness
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so now present your members as slaves to righteousness resulting in sanctification let us pray to your name that you have allowed us to
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gather together we ask that you please guide us in our thoughts and our Focus as we learn and that you would bless the creation of
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your word amen
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very few of us get it the first time whether it's in school as we're learning whether it's in church as we're listening very few of us get it the first time first time and I think this is why one of the major components of education
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is repetition is repetition I think this is why that one of the major components of education is repetition and that is exactly what Paul is doing
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here and we see that immediately when we compare verses 15 and verses 1. but repetition is also something we find throughout scripture it's something we
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should look for that God is repeating the message that he is trying to get through to us because he knows that very few of us get it the first time I think it's safe to say that none of us
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get it the first time and so Peter writes in his first letter he says therefore I shall always be ready to remind you of these things excuse me it's his second letter
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I shall always be ready to remind you of these things even though you know them and have been established in the truth which is present with you and I consider it right so long as I am
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in this Earthly dwelling to stir you up by way of reminder so I guess after a while it may seem like you're hearing the same thing over and over again
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and that's because you are but it's also because that our minds are dull and we are easily diverted from the truth even once learned we do tend to forget it
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so even though Peter's audience knew the truth and it was present with them he considered it right to stir them up by way of reminder this is what Paul is
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doing for us in verse 15 he says what then shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace may it never be
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well if you were outlining this this would be a heading that would correspond to verse one what shall we say then are we to continue in sin that Grace might
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increase may it never be if you do highlight in your Bible you might want to highlight those two and connect them connect them because they do divide what Paul is
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saying to us into sections it's an indication of the importance of a matter a matter that it is being repeated
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fat beginning in verse 3 for example he says all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death verse 6 our old self was
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crucified with him that our body of sin might be made powerless that we should no longer be slaves of sin he's talking and has talked a lot about
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death here the death of Jesus Christ and our death with him and in him he also speaks about life here rising to
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walk in newness of life just as Christ was raised from the dead so also those who are in him shall be raised to walk in newness of Life he's
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making an equation here those who are in Christ are united with him in death their old man has been crucified with him
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those who were in Christ Christ was raised by the power of God so also they are raised from baptism with the power to walk in newness of life
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but Paul's thinking I I imagine as he gets to through verse 14 he's thinking well maybe they didn't quite get it in fact maybe they're thinking still
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that as I said Grace abounds where sin abounds and they might think well let's sin more sin more well now I've just told him that you are no longer under law but under grace well they might be thinking well that's
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great let's keep sinning then since we're no longer under law and Paul says may it never be don't even think such a thought
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because if you think such a thought you are clearly not understanding what it is I'm saying and therefore let me repeat myself and he says in verse 16 the same thing
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he says he says in verse 3 he says do you not know verse 3 do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ
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have been baptized into his death verse 16 do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience you are the slaves of the one
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whom you obey and so he is recapitulating his lesson from the first half of the chapter chapter in the second half of the
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chapter but he is changing his Focus in the first half his focus is very theological this is what God has done for you in Christ Jesus
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in the second half it is very practical this is how we ought to live in light of this truth and of this fact
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Paul himself says to the Galatians in chapter 2 verse 20 he says I have been crucified with Christ so there when I die I'll go to heaven everything's fine
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everything's fine no there's still a life to be lived he says and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me
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and the life which I now live in the flesh wait a minute Paul you just said you no longer live what's going on here well it's the same message there as here
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in Romans he's recognizing two things number one there has been a transfer from Adam to Christ from Death to life from sin to Grace
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that has happened but number two I must still live I must consider myself to be dead and
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crucified to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ so Paul can say in Galatians I no longer live but Christ lives in me and the life
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which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered himself up for me for Paul the issue at stake
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for the believer is not only the transfer from Death To Life but because of that transfer there is another transfer of bondage of
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servitude from bondage to sin to bondage to Grace
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man is that he is not free the Bible does not portray man as free in the sense of modern philosophy or of
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Armenian theology Armenian theology every man is bound by that to which he yields but even though man is in the image of
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God he is not God and must yield to one master or another we like to think ourselves free in this
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country we like to think ourselves as the captain of our souls and the Masters of Our Fate Our Fate if we were to stop and Ponder the things the imponderables the intangibles over
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which we have no control and yet which exercise tremendous influence in our lives starting with our birth and the circumstances of our birth
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we would realize that we are not nearly as free as we think ourselves to be but Freedom itself
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is an illusion in all of human History Society has been divided between slave and free to some extent that is true in our society today
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society today though we no longer have Shadow slavery though we do it's just not legal we have human trafficking we do have human slavery
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there are other things that enslave US economic forces that keep us within a job that we find tedious boring mind-numbing and
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back-breaking but we can't get out generational sins that are passed down from father to son from mother to
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daughter that continue a cycle of corruption that we cannot break there are many forms of enslavement but to Paul there was only two
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his world was just as divided between slave and free as any other generation in fact we read of his Roman citizenship and how that granted Paul Liberties and
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privileges that were not granted to the rest of his countrymen who were merely Jews and not also Roman citizens we've also seen in the Gospel of John that the
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Jews themselves considered themselves to be free men in John 8 when Jesus announced that you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free the Jews answered we are Abraham's
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offspring and have never been enslaved to anyone to anyone now this is a really remarkable thing to say as probably any one of them could have
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looked around and seen at least one Roman soldier nearby they were indeed enslaved but freedom is an illusion and it can be Its Own Worst
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Enemy a few months ago I did in a sermon talk about the concept of freedom and that the greatest danger to our Liberty is our freedom
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because Jesus said he who commits sin is a slave to sin to sin and Paul Echoes that here in verse 16 do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for
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obedience you are slaves of the one whom you obey the legal status within a society of being a free man or a Slave
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often masks the spiritual and moral reality of bondage in every man legal Freedom meaning I am free you
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can't tell me what to do or how to live that legal Freedom leads to moral enslavement we're watching that in our society right
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now the freedoms that we have come to take for granted for granted the freedoms that we have come to enjoy are being used as a cloak of wickedness
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as every man and every woman is now considered free considered free to be whatever he or she or she or they or it or whatever want to be
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freedom without Authority freedom without guidance freedom without any moral strictures whatsoever that is not freedom
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that is bondage bondage to one's own perverted and corrupt heart corrupt heart and that is our society the beginning of the 21st Century
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thus Peter says act as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil but use it as Bond slaves of God
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who said Peter and Paul didn't agree with one another they say the same thing Anders Nygren writes in his commentary on Romans the idea that man could be
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free in the sense that he can be the Lord of his own life is nothing but a shimra to live in service to one power or
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another is a position from which man can never Escape never Escape we are we are free compared to other creatures of
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God's Cosmos God's Cosmos we are not free compared to God we are brought into this world under the Providence of God and we do not choose
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the circumstances of our birth or our development we are born a member of a certain country and not another by no decision
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of Our Own we're not nearly as free as we think
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bondage but bondage but bondage can be freedom and that is what Paul is doing here so much of professing Christianity over the past multiple hundreds of years has
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spent a tremendous amount of his energy defending the concept of the Free Will of man of man even to the point of making God's Sovereign power
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Sovereign power subservient to human free will we demand of God that we be free we demand of God that we be the director of
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Our Own Destiny and that he not interfere with that freedom that he not in any way make us willing in the day of his power
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but rather somehow wait on us to willingly receive him which he knows we will never do Paul teaches that man and Adam is
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enslaved to sin until he is freed by the grace of God Thomas schreider writes to be a slave of sin means that one is
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under its lordship and dominion and unable to extricate himself from its tyranny one view or the other
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is right is right either man is free and in control of his destiny or he is enslaved and in bondage to sin
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and cannot extricate himself from that Paul says thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin you
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became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed and having been freed from sin you became slaves of righteousness
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why would we thank God for something we did on our own if we are able to look at the principles of the gospel and the wonderful life of Jesus his sacrificial death his
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miraculous resurrection and decide in our own minds okay I am going to transfer the chains of my bondage from sin to him
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just like in the South before the war between the states if a slave didn't like his particular Master he would simply transfer his chains from one master to another right
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now slaves don't do that they must be emancipated and thanks be to God that through Jesus Christ we have been emancipated we have
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been freed from the bondage to sin but that doesn't leave us in a vacuum and it doesn't lead us our own Lords and
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Masters we have transferred just as from Adam to Christ you see what Paul's doing here just as from law to Grace just as from
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Death To Life we have transferred our bondage that certificate as it were that shows ownership of our being of our soul has
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been transferred from sin to God to God we are now bound to Grace
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well at this point Paul throws us a curve he gives us the real meaning of freedom
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in verse 19 he admits that he is speaking to us in human terms because of the weakness of our flesh our flesh but he is telling us
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ing the metaphor of slavery though I think it is more than a metaphor he is telling us that we have a new master and he's going to tell us as he closes
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out this chapter we will Lord willing next week go with him he's telling us that we gained no benefit and gain no benefit
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from our previous servitude but now our new servitude will bring us life
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so again keep with the motif that Paul has developed here that transfer motif of this entire Discord we have been transferred from our
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heritage in Adam to our inheritance in Jesus Christ Jesus Christ he says we became obedient now there's that service that subservient attitude
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the idea that people can be saved by Jesus Christ but need not obey him is ludicrous it is heretical is
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Blasphemous it is amazing how many leading evangelicals in our country teach this garbage that Christ can be your savior but it is
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up to you whether he is your lord you will have a lord one way or another either that Lord will be slavery to sin or it will be a bond slave to God
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through Jesus Christ Psalm 110 says I alluded to it earlier that God has made us willing in the day of his power
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that when he exercises the power of regeneration in any Sinner's heart he changes that Sinner's nature to one that has been rebellious
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to one that is now willing the one that has that has denied God and disobeyed his Commandments to one who acknowledges God and now seeks to
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live in The Obedience of faith we became free finally but to what purpose we became free now to reflect the image
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of the one who has freed us reflecting the righteousness of God as his regenerated image bearers
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the greatest Freedom that any human being can experience is to be a bond slave to the Creator who made him to become what he was created to be this is
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the Curve the Curve we're not exchanging bondage for freedom we're exchanging a freedom that was bondage to a bondage that is freedom
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we're exchanging a bondage that we could not Escape not Escape to one that we have no desire to escape a bondage that led to servitude and
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death to one that leads to Joy and life that's this is what Paul is presenting as what God has done in Jesus Christ it's an echo of what Paul writes to the
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Colossians in chapter 3 he says since you have laid aside the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self
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new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him
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in Paul's mind I think as he writes as we can discern it from what he writes he always had the image of the first and last Adam last Adam behind everything he wrote
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his soteriology was creational in other words it wasn't just about each one of us going to heaven when we die but it was about God restoring his
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entire creation entire creation and the epitome of his creation of course is Man Made In His Image but man in his sin marred that image
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still bearing it and yet bearing it in such a way that it is it is even Blasphemous the things that man does within himself and to one another he
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does as the bearer of the Divine image he doesn't do it as an animal if an animal acts irrationally we put it down because it has some disease it is
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rabid perhaps rabid perhaps but we don't pass moral judgment on it
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responsibility but when we read the animals of human history and we see the wars the oppression we see it around us even
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today we pass moral judgment because we know it's wrong how do we know it's wrong because God has said eternity in our hearts the writer of Ecclesiastes says we have
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within us within us not a Divine spark but a Divine image and that image has been marred almost to the point of being unrecognizable but in
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Christ it is being renewed when you think about the process of sanctification think of that passage in Colossians what God is doing is he is
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removing the stain the oxidation the tarnish he is smoothing out the chips he is renewing he's not recreating that image he's renewing it
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and he is making it in the image of the one who has gone before his son our Lord Jesus Christ
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again Andrew Nygren says the situation of a Christian is described very simply by Paul by Paul he is a slave who has changed Masters I don't think that can be denied if one
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reads Paul reads Paul that he sees us when he says in Corinthians to those who are who are enslaved physically that they are slaves to a Master in Corinth he says don't
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worry about that but know yourself to be free in Jesus Christ and he says to the Corinthian Friedman maybe even a master
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who is not a Slave he says well that's good but think on this you are a bond slave to Jesus Christ so Paul
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so Paul maybe we have a hard time understanding Paul because we no longer have that form of slavery of slavery but I think if we were to just consider the lives that people live perhaps even
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the lives that we have lived we have to see that there are powerful forms of slavery with us today and so using that metaphor should not be out of our reach
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we can understand that our freedom As Americans can actually get in the way of our true freedom that we can boast and be proud in our
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freedom as citizens of the United States and then use that freedom as a covering for evil and bring condemnation down upon ourselves upon ourselves or in our freedom we can recognize that
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we are not free and even as Paul says though I am not under law I am under the law of Christ though I am not a bond in bondage to sin
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I am a bond slave to God to God we are in bondage to Grace to Grace we have been freed from a freedom that
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was actually bondage to a bondage that is truly a glorious freedom in Grace and so Paul will say in verse 22 of this
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chapter but now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God you derive your benefit resulting in
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sanctification and the outcome eternal life eternal life let us pray father we ask that you would help us to understand to internalize
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to meditate and then externalize the truth of this transfer that you have brought about in Jesus Christ
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that you have delivered us from the kingdom of darkness you have freed us from the bondage of sin you have transferred us from the heritage of Adam
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into the kingdom of your beloved Son into the inheritance of Jesus Christ and as Paul says into enslavement to you
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through Grace through Grace and father we know you to be a great and glorious master glorious master and so help us to be good servants
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help us to present our members as instruments of righteousness For Your Glory and not as instruments of
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sin for our destruction father we do pray that you would finish what you have promised you would
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finish that you who have begun a good work in us will bring it to Perfection unto the day of Jesus Christ and we ask that we might be good and obedient servants For Your Glory and for
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our good we ask in Jesus name amen please stand for the benediction or doxology from Ephesians chapter 3.
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now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we have ask or think according to the power that works within us to him be the glory in the church and in
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Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever amen