Good morning. We’ll continue our study of Romans today, and we’ll finish Romans 6. I’d like to back up and read a few verses that go into the second half of Romans 6. We’ll begin with verse 13.
Neither yield your members instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God, as alive from among the dead,
and your members, instruments of righteousness to God.
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.
Verse 15:
What then? Should we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Far be the thought.
Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves bondmen for obedience, ye are bondmen to him whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
Thanks be to God that ye were bondmen of sin, but ye obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which ye were instructed.
Now, having got your freedom from sin, ye have become bondmen of righteousness.
I speak humanly on account of the weakness of your flesh; for even as ye have yielded your members in bondage to uncleanness and to lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now yield your members in bondage to righteousness unto holiness, or sanctification—the same word.
For when ye were bondmen of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
What fruit, therefore, had ye then in the things of which ye are now ashamed? For the end of them is death.
But now, having got your freedom from sin, having become bondmen to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, or sanctification, and the end, eternal life.
For the wages of sin is death;
but the act of favor of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Let’s have a word of prayer.
Lord, we are so grateful for Your Word. If we didn’t have Your Word, we don’t know where we would be. The psalmist made it so clear:
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
And light unto my path.
And they are not just words of direction and keeping us from falling. They are actually words of life, eternal life, and power. We say again, “You alone have the words of eternal life.” You alone can speak into our very lives and show us how great Your deliverance is and how wonderful our life is with You.
So, we’re asking You to quicken us all today. We know we all have deficiencies: the speaker, and how we’re asking for boldness to speak as we ought to speak the mystery; the hearers, how often our ears can be stopped up with many voices and many distractions. We’re asking for ears to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Oh Lord, today we are gathered in Your presence before Your Word, and we say, like Samuel did, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.” In Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, I’m going to give a real short introduction. I know you find that impossible to believe. Jack is shaking with an augmented yes, nodding his head.
Last time, we dealt with the foundation of sanctification. This is Romans 6:1-14. Now, a couple people, including my wife, said, “But you talked about verse 15. Why did you say?” And Shirley, bless her heart, who transcribes the messages, sent me a nice email and said, “I have included verse 15.”
So I want you to know people were listening, contrary to what some believe.
Now, we were talking about understanding Romans 6 in light of what was said in Romans before. Romans 1-5 deals with justification. It is our position in Christ. We are accounted righteous.
Now, don’t make the mistake that you think you are righteous through justification. You are accounted righteous. You are given a righteousness not your own. Imputed righteousness is the Bible word that many people struggle with. What does imputed mean? You have been imputed a righteousness that is not your own, but is His; and yet, nevertheless, God sees you in Christ Jesus as completely righteous, completely justified, and completely reconciled to Himself.
That’s Romans 1-5. Romans 6-8 deals with sanctification. Now, many believers don’t understand the process of sanctification. Sanctification, in fact, means being made holy.
Now, it is something different. A work is being done in us to transform us into the very image of the Lord Jesus and conform us to the image of God’s only begotten Son. That is the work of sanctification. That is the primary work of the Holy Spirit.
But the only way sanctification is possible is because of the Lord’s life in us. It is not us. I think you’ll see that pretty quickly.
So today we are continuing to deal with this matter of sanctification. I would like to call this message:
You’ll get what that means in a minute. Now, that’s my introduction. Now, Jack, I think I need an apology. No, I’m only kidding. Shortest introduction I’ve ever given.
Now let’s look at several things:
First of all, we have to understand grace. You have to understand this: grace is the essential secret of sanctification. Without grace, it is impossible for you to be sanctified.
Can you imagine being made holy? First of all, it is impossible for you. It is impossible for me. But it is not impossible for God, because it is through grace. We’ll get into that in just a moment.
The second thing we want to look at is that Paul continues in this thought of the response of yielding. There is a difference between justification and sanctification. In justification, you are only required to believe. When you believe, as Abraham believed, you are accounted righteous. But when it comes to sanctification, you are required to cooperate. That’s the hard part, right? That’s the hard part.
You are required to yield, and we’ll get into that. Paul spends a large amount of time in this chapter, particularly as we go into the second half, but also in verses 13 and 14, on the importance of yielding.
Third, we are all bondmen. You may think you are free, but in the end, we are all bondmen, or bond slaves. We’ll get into that.
And lastly, the fourth thing we want to look at this morning is that we have only two paths. You know my fascination with the twos in the Scriptures. I’ve gone over that again and again: the two trees in the garden, the two gardens—in creation and in Gethsemane—the two options.
The only options we have as believers are these: you can either, as Romans 12 says, be conformed to this world, or you can be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And as Romans 8 says, you can be conformed to the very image of the Lord Jesus. Only two options.
So I’m fascinated with this matter of twos when it comes to the Word. We have only two paths, and I’ll get into that.
Grace, the essential secret of sanctification.
Last time we read verses 1 and 15. I’ll read them again. They are very important, because you see what Paul begins with in the first section, and you see what he begins with in the second section that begins in verse 15.
It says in Romans 6:1:
What then shall we say?
Should we continue in sin that grace may abound?
That’s the first thing. And then, when you look at a similar question in verse 15—this is the second part of Romans 6 on sanctification:
What then? Should we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Far be the thought.
They are almost identical questions, right? And there certainly is an identical response. These are actually erroneous thoughts, because the whole point of sanctification is not continuing in sin, but being delivered from the power of sin and walking in newness of life.
Sanctification is walking in the life of the Lord Jesus. And this is why we have to understand the importance of grace. It would be impossible for us.
In the first section, Romans 6:1-14, all of our issues are resolved in our union with Christ—all of our issues. That is why Romans 6:1-14, in particular, has to deal with us being fully identified with Christ in baptism.
His death was your death. Many Christians don’t know this. I know when Jack and I were sharing in Pakistan, many believers had never heard this good news. But you were actually included, two thousand years ago, in His death on the cross.
That’s a miracle. But God was able to do it because you were in Adam, and He took all of Adam’s race and put all of Adam’s race into the Lord Jesus, who went to that cross and died. This is a fact. This is a settled fact. You were included in that moment.
So you can say, like Brother Nee said when he saw it by revelation, “I’m dead. I’m a dead man. I died with Christ.” And when He was put in that grave, you were put in that grave.
Then something happened. Not only did He die, and you died with Him; He was buried in that tomb, and you were buried with Him. And not only that, think of the glory of God. He raised us.
The old man—Adam, our unregenerated self in Adam—was done away with completely at that cross when you had your part with Him in death and burial. But something marvelous happened. We were raised in newness of life. We were raised in newness of life.
And now, because of that, we can walk in newness of life, which is an explanation of sanctification. You get it. I think you get it.
All of that first question and the response, “Far be the thought,” were resolved at Calvary and in the three days following Calvary.
The second part has to do with the second question and sanctification:
What then? Should we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? Far be the thought.
This has to do with the ongoing process of sanctification. This has to do with being made holy. We have to understand this. God did not want you just to be saved and delivered from your sins—your sins being taken, as somebody, I think, prayed, “as far as the east is from the west.”
God wanted a people who are not only saved, but a people who are sanctified, who are like Him. And when He sees us at the end, it is going to be that same reaction Adam had when his bride was presented to him—Eve. The Lord is going to see us, and He is going to say to us, “Bone of My bone, and flesh of My flesh,” because we will be made like Him.
That’s sanctification. Now, is everybody still with me? I don’t want to—if you say no, I’m going to go back and do more. So you should say yes. Hint, hint. Okay? Amen, brother. There you go.
These two are eternal facts, inviolable facts. They can’t be changed. All of this process is based on fact. It is a fact you were in Christ in His death. It is a fact you were in Christ in His burial. It is a fact you were in Christ in His resurrection.
We have to live in the facts. I think so often we as believers live in our feelings. I know I have a bad habit. I’m trying—you, well, go ahead. That was a softball. You were saying, “You have lots of bad habits, brother.” I was waiting for someone to be a little quicker in reaction.
But I have a bad habit to often say, “I feel. I feel.” Believers are often saying, “I feel.” You know, the first word out of their mouth when they give a testimony is, “Well, I feel.” When they are sharing the Word of God: “Well, I feel the Word of God is saying this.”
Brothers and sisters, how we need to live in the eternal facts. That is the most important thing. Paul is saying, if you are going to live a sanctified life, you must live in the eternal fact of what has already taken place. It’s yours. It’s true. It can’t be changed.
The old second president of the United States, John Adams, said—you may not be a fan of founding fathers in this culture, but I still am to a certain degree—“Facts are stubborn things.” It’s one of the most famous quotes. Every lawyer knows this quote. Everybody who goes to law school—I often hear them stand up in their closing arguments and say, “Facts are stubborn things.”
You’ve heard the facts, but do you stand in the facts? Do you believe the facts? Only then will you be sanctified.
And Adams went on to say, “And whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” Isn’t that a good word? How that applies to Romans 6.
Regardless of what you feel, regardless of what you think, you can’t alter the state of divine facts. They are true. They remain true. They will always be true.
And what we are called to do in that first part of Romans 6 is to reckon them true. Now, I had somebody come up to me the other day—I don’t know if he was a northerner—and he talked on the first part. He said, “I don’t get this thing, reckon.”
They think it is just our Southern dialect. Anytime we have an intention to do anything, we say, “Well, I reckon I’ll do it.” You know, that’s us. You can tell by my Southern drawl. By the way, translators love it. They know I talk slow, so they can easily have time.
But we need to reckon. It means it has been put into your account. It’s there. Go look at it. It won’t ever be taken out of your account. It’s an accounting word. You can ask our two accounting brothers, Mac and John. They’ll tell you, “It’s in your account.”
Amen. Amen. Can I hear an amen? Well, thank you.
Brothers and sisters, how important this is, and how important we need to see this. In both the first verse and the fifteenth verse, you notice he turns this matter to grace. Therefore, grace is the essential secret of sanctification. You cannot be sanctified without grace.
The first question was, “Will we continue in sin?” The second question tells us, “Should we sin?” Now, a lot of your versions, I think, say, “Continue to sin.” This is the practice of being sanctified. Are we going to continue in this state? That’s what the questions are.
And if we continue in this state, it is contrary to all the work that God wants to do in His people. In the end, He is looking for changed people, not just saved people—a changed people.
And so we discover in both cases that the first one says, “that grace may abound,” and the second verse says, “we are not under law, but under grace.” How thankful I am that Paul put that statement in Romans 6.
Do you know, many Christians think of the Christian life as a life of rules. If we keep these divine rules, if we follow these divine rules, then we can be seen as a Christian. But Paul didn’t see it that way. Paul very clearly saw the Christian life as a life of grace—grace upon grace.
We are not under law. The reason we can be sanctified is that we are not under a law that only demands and can never equip. It can only command you to do something, but it can never aid you in doing anything. But grace is different.
Grace gives you the life of Another: the life of the Lord Jesus. And when that grace is in you, that different life, that divine life, then you are able to walk as a Christian and be conformed to His image.
Well, I think you probably get this. I love Romans 10:4. It’s one of my favorite verses in Romans:
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
Isn’t that wonderful? People—I don’t—you know my problem I always have with people that like to go back and live under the law, particularly Gentiles. Gentile, let me just warn you: never were you intended to go back and live under the law as a Gentile. The law was not for you. But grace is for you.
Have you discovered the grace of God? Have you discovered the power of the grace of God? It is able to take those people who were ruined sinners before and transform them into a people of holiness. It’s a miracle. But it is the power of grace, and that is the secret of sanctification. Grace makes sanctification possible.
If anyone could have been sanctified by the law, I will tell you, it was the apostle Paul. He could have been sanctified by the law. Look, I will read to you a verse in Acts. You are probably familiar with this verse: Acts 22:3.
This was the apostle’s own testimony in his defense.
Let me see if that’s—ah, I mean, 22. I can’t even—Acts 22:3. That looks better to me.
Paul says in his defense:
I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated according to the exactness of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, as ye are all this day.
Notice Luke’s deliberate word. If you read the book of Luke, he wrote with method. He talks about exactness. Now, here Luke pens, “according to the exactness of the law.” He came short in nothing, at least outwardly, according to the law.
When you look in Philippians 3, he called himself a Pharisee of Pharisees. Notice how precise Paul is in the Word of God. I love the precision of the Word of God. He didn’t say, “I’m a Pharisee”—you know, one who is an expert of the law, someone whom you look up to when it comes to the law, one who is revered, one who knows the law and is supposed to live the law, by the way.
But he said, “I’m a Pharisee of Pharisees.” That distinguished him even more. It’s like that old idiom we use: “He’s a man among men.” Have you heard that idiom? Yeah, somebody’s still awake. Thank you for at least responding, William.
He was a Pharisee among the Pharisees. He stood out. He said in Philippians 3, “I was blameless according to the law.” Can you imagine being blameless according to the law? How unbelievable.
Yet this man could never be sanctified by the law. We know what happened on the Damascus road. This man, who had an outward holiness in some respect according to the law—or the law’s interpretation—had no inward holiness.
If you don’t believe me, please read Romans 7. You’ll see what Paul discovered of his ability to keep the law. It’s very graphic. It’s one of the most graphic chapters in the whole epistle of Romans.
But on the road to Damascus, something happened. He discovered the secret of grace. This man of the law, this expert, this one educated at the feet of Gamaliel—the highest, in that day, of educators—he discovered grace. And grace changed his life.
Grace transformed him. Remember, he was out pursuing—he uses the word in his own testimony—he ravaged the church. It didn’t matter: men, women, children. They all went to prison, and many were killed. His aim was to destroy the church.
And on that road to Damascus, you know, the noonday light, light as the noonday sun, knocked him off his steed. The Lord spoke to him directly, and He said:
Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute Me?
Now, I can understand his confusion. “I’m not persecuting You. It’s Your followers I have a beef with.” But he learned a secret: you touch the Lord, and you touch His people. That is a divine fact that will never change.
And immediately he said, “What shall I do, Lord?” Here is one who met the God of grace and was transformed.
Now, how do we know that? He is the apostle to the church. He wrote thirteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament. Now, if my math is correct, that’s almost fifty percent. He wrote half of the New Testament regarding books, okay?
And in every one of the books, he starts his greeting with the grace of God. Read it. How precious it is. This man of the law was forever changed.
But then, when you look, it is even more wonderful. At the end of every one of those thirteen books, he ends his conclusion with the grace of God. You ought to notice that when you are studying the Word. This master of the law became a recipient of the grace of God that could sanctify. It became his new secret, and it should be our secret.
Is this your testimony? Remember what Paul said to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 15:10. This is one of the most wonderful verses on grace in the whole Bible. You should memorize it:
But by God’s grace I am what I am;
and His grace, which was towards me, has not been in vain.
Isn’t that marvelous? I hope that is our testimony at the end: “Lord, Your grace to us has not been in vain.”
And then he said something even more remarkable:
But I labored more abundantly than they all.
Now, what does that mean? It simply means he cooperated with the grace of God. That’s what we need to do.
This is a whole lesson on grace in just this one verse. And then he ended:
Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
How marvelous that statement is. How precise the Word of God is. “Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” Now, is that your testimony?
Do you choose to be one who is still under law and not under grace? You will regret it one day, if not already, when you find out how absolutely impossible it is for you to please God by your own efforts, through rules, even if they are divine rules.
I think the biggest mistake the children of Israel made was when Moses came down from that mountain with those tablets of stone engraved by the finger of God, and he told them of the commandments. They said in their zeal, “All that You have commanded us, we will do.”
How terrible. They didn’t just say it once. They said it at least twice. How wrong that is.
The secret—the absolute, essential secret—of sanctification is grace.
Now, the second thing: there needs to be a response. You can’t just say, “Grace, God’s grace, grace that is greater than all my sin,” and sing that wonderful hymn over and over and never respond to the grace of God.
Romans 6 is begging you for a response. It is only as we respond that something happens and we are transformed from what we are into what He wants us to be. That is the secret of sanctification.
I shared last time about the importance of the response of yielding in regard to the divine facts. But now I want to share with you the importance of response in regard to being wholly sanctified. That is where Paul goes.
We mentioned last time two responses: the eternal facts—we have talked about that—and then the second response, yielding. Yield, or yielding, I think, is five times in these verses. It has to be important to the apostle Paul, and it is absolutely important to you.
Now, if you don’t think yielding is important, the next time you are on the highway and you see that big triangular yellow sign, I suggest you just go right through it. Ignore it. And even do it on the interstate. Cross all four lanes. You’ll discover the importance of yielding in a big hurry. Hopefully, we are not doing a memorial service.
Do you understand? Yielding is absolutely important. We have to yield to the grace of God. We have to make it our own. We have to give ourselves to the grace of God. And that is what this second thing says.
Now, there are two words when he comes to these responses. The first one, having to do with the facts that happened when we died with Christ, were buried with Christ, and were raised with Christ, is this word “knowing” in Romans 6:6:
Knowing this.
That is objective. Very clear. Brother Darby was very precise about this. He said this is objective knowledge. We have already talked about the facts. We have already talked about John Adams. I won’t talk about it anymore.
But when it comes to Romans 6:9 and Romans 6:16, and you see these words, “know” or “knowing,” it is a whole different thing. This is the actual experience. This is conscious knowledge.
You understand the difference? One is objective knowledge. It is true whether you want to believe it or not. The other is conscious knowledge. Conscious knowledge might often be referred to as subjective knowledge. It is knowledge that you gain in your own experience. It is in your life; you realize this.
So the second part of yielding has to do with that “knowing” and “know.” That is our experience of sanctification. You enter into it. You have to know it. If you don’t know it, you won’t be sanctified.
I think that is one of the clearest things I can say to you. Romans 6:6 says, “knowing this”—objective knowledge. Romans 6:9 and Romans 6:16 say “knowing” and “know”—that subjective, conscious knowledge: the knowledge of being sanctified with Christ in your experience, daily experience.
I hope that is clear. And for these to happen, there must be a yielding. If you don’t yield, it will never happen. If you wonder at the end why you were not conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus, and why something was not done in you, that holiness might become part of your living experience, there is a good chance you missed this word: yield.
I hope I don’t offend too many. I’m going to include myself. My problem is I tend to be too passive. I think Christians tend to be too passive.
Yield. It is not a passive word. Yield is an active word.
Can you imagine if a policeman comes up to you and you are running from him, and he says, “Yield, or I’ll shoot”? I think your choice would be different. Maybe you would make a different choice, at least in that moment. Here is Lenny, the policeman. I suppose if you said that to me with your gun pulled, Lenny, I would fall on my knees and beg for mercy.
Yielding. Yielding. How important it is. Are you willing to yield? Are you willing to give yourself to this work, that an eternal work may be done in you? I think this is so important, so very important.
In Romans 6:19, I want you to look at verse 19:
I speak humanly on account of the weakness of your flesh; for even as ye have yielded your members in bondage to uncleanness and to lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now yield your members in bondage to righteousness unto holiness.
Now, W. E. Vine, in his Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words—by the way, I think I mentioned this before, it is a book you ought to have in your library. Most of us, all of us probably, are not Greek scholars. To get into the intricacies of the original biblical languages can end up being a diversion.
But sometimes there is something you must know from the original languages that is important. You can gain it with the help of those who have labored in that field, and they are, in my opinion, experts in that field.
So Vine said this word “holiness” and “sanctification” are identical. They are the same words. In the ten places it is translated in the New Testament, five times it is translated “holiness,” and five times it is translated “sanctification.”
Now, you know my fondness for the Darby Bible, and I’m reading from it. He uses “holiness.” I wish he had used “sanctification.” But the New American Standard Bible has “sanctification.” That’s good. Young’s Literal Translation has “sanctification” in both of these areas.
If you look carefully, there are a number of English translations. I often look in Bible Hub and go down through the English translations to get the difference in words. A number—maybe half that are listed, maybe not quite half—all have this “sanctification.”
That’s very important. We need to see clearly what the subject is. Sometimes we can miss it by reading in our version, “unto holiness.” It is “unto sanctification.”
That phrase, “unto,” is twice. You see it in verse 19 that we just read. You see it in verse 22. It is a very important phrase. It is “unto holiness,” or “unto sanctification,” on both occasions.
Now, this proves to us that sanctification is an ongoing process. It is not a one-time event. Believing in the Lord and being saved is a one-time event. When you believe in the Lord Jesus, when you repent, you are in fact saved.
One time. You know, other people tell stories. I actually heard this story because I was saved in a little Assemblies of God chapel. This pastor there was a dear brother in the Lord—I love Worth Johnson. I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for Worth Johnson.
He knew Elvis Presley very well, and he said he had been at more altar calls when Elvis Presley came up and cried out to God with tears to be saved again.
You can only be saved once. Once saved, always saved. You can never lose your salvation. You may think you can lose it. I know there are proponents of holiness—this same word—that say you can lose your salvation. I think you can lose your sanctification, but I don’t think you can lose your salvation.
Do you understand the difference? How clear the Word of God is. This is an active process. How we need to walk in the Lord.
This is what Paul meant when he said in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “But I labored more abundantly than they all.” Here is one who cooperated with the grace of God.
So Romans 6:13 tells us:
Neither yield your members instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God, as alive from among the dead, and your members instruments of righteousness unto God.
Look at verse 16:
Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves bondmen for obedience, ye are bondmen to him whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
Look at verse 19:
I speak humanly, on account of the weakness of your flesh; for even as ye have yielded your members in bondage to uncleanness and to lawlessness unto lawlessness—this is a fact, by the way; this is who we were—so now yield your members in bondage to righteousness unto holiness.
This is the only way we can be sanctified. May the Lord help us. May the Lord bring us into this important response. I’ll say a stronger word: this vital response of daily yielding to the Lord.
If you don’t daily yield to the Lord—it is an ongoing thing—then He is not able to transform you. Let me put it this way. David, this is stronger. Maybe this is clearer.
You can prevent Him from doing His work. Did you know that? He is the only One who can do the work of sanctification in you through the Holy Spirit. He is the only One who can do it, but you can prevent Him from doing that work.
How do we prevent Him? We refuse to yield. We refuse to bow. We refuse to say:
Lord, take my life, and let it be
wholly consecrated to Thee.
I’ll tell you a little illustration about yielding. This is important. Through yielding, you will get stronger in the Lord.
I spent a whole career—fifty years—as a structural engineer. Many people say it is a terribly boring career. I actually liked it. Linda thinks I’m crazy. She may be right.
But think about it. I designed over—a thousand, I lost track of them—steel structures. And the beauty of steel is its power to yield. That’s the one beauty.
If you don’t want to be a structural engineer, don’t. But if you want to listen to me for a moment, the beauty of steel is that it is ductile. That means it bends before it breaks. It yields.
There is a wonderful thing. If you look at the stress-strain curve—and now I know I’m losing you—the stress-strain curve of steel under load, and the stress that happens, it goes up to a yield point. That is what we engineers call it: the yield point.
There it yields, and it loses some of its natural strength at that point. But then a miracle happens. That yield curve goes up and continues up, and it gets stronger and stronger until it becomes its ultimate strength. There it fails.
Do you understand that? Yielding produces strength in the Lord. That is why we do it.
I think this is at least clear to me, if not to you. We are all bondmen.
The next thing Paul talks about is that he reveals all mankind are bondmen. In other words, let me be direct: all are slaves.
When Jack and I have ministered to those in Pakistan, and we have been studying these words together, they know something about true slavery. We look at the conditions, and we are talking about going there in October, or early September—late September.
Those conditions of slavery that they live under are almost unspeakable. You want to see the houses they live in, in those brickyards? I don’t think you can call them a house. It has four walls and a tin roof in that blazing-hot sun, a dirt floor, and the whole family is in there.
They spend all day a slave, without any prospect of freedom—a slave making bricks by hand, just like Exodus, in the boiling sun. It is so boiling that he looked at my fair-haired, blonde hair, blue eyes, German complexion, and looked at Jack, who is relatively light like me, and said, “Don’t want you to come in the middle of the year. You will roast.”
But these people know bondage. Do you know all of us are bondmen?
The Jews that believed said to the Lord Jesus, “We have never been bound to any man.” The Lord corrected them. They said, “We are sons of Abraham,” in such pride. “We are sons of Abraham. We have never been bound to any man.”
And the Lord was abundantly clear to them that they were in bondage. They were in bondage to sin. But He said a great secret:
He whom the Son sets free is free indeed.
There is only one moment in your life, as a Christian—or a person in this world, by the way—that you are free. It is when Christ sets you free. You are completely free. You are completely free.
As a matter of fact, I’m really going to press the edge, and probably one of the brothers will correct me, but you could totally live for yourself—a free man or free woman. Many Christians do it. They live for themselves. It is all about themselves.
But Paul, in this matter of sanctification, understood the importance of being a bond slave. Now, a bond slave is a love slave.
A bond slave isn’t like those folks in Pakistan who have this debt that they can never repay, even though there is a promise that every week, or whenever they get their wages, part of it is going to pay their debt.
But if they go to the taskmaster and say, “How is my debt doing?” they will say, “Oh, right, blah, blah, blah.” They can’t explain it, really, probably. They will never get out of bondage.
But we who are saved in the Lord are absolutely free. But the context of Romans 6 is different. It is not about you being free. It is about you being a bondman.
Are you willing, knowing that you are free as a Christian, to become a bondman of the Lord?
Do you remember the apostle Paul’s first use of the word “bondman,” or “bond slave,” whatever your version says? He first used it in the introduction of this book, in Romans 1:1. He described himself as “Paul, bondman of Jesus Christ.”
Thirty-four times in his thirteen epistles, he describes the importance of bondmen and bondwomen. And here in Romans 6 is one of the clearest. You were once bondmen to sin and lawlessness, the things of which you are now ashamed, it says in Romans 6.
But the call to you and to me in sanctification is to be a bondman of Jesus Christ. Are you willing? Are you willing to be a bondman of Jesus Christ?
I think this is an amazing thing that we need to understand. If you look at Romans 6, Romans 7, and Romans 8, which deal with sanctification, you will notice a very important conclusion in all three of those chapters.
You will notice all three end with “Jesus Christ our Lord.” Is He Lord of our life? Is He our true Master?
I don’t believe we will ever be fully sanctified—wholly sanctified, as 1 Thessalonians 5, I think it is, says—unless Jesus is Lord of our life.
I hear people say, “Jesus is my friend.” He is indeed your friend. I’ve heard people—I don’t like it—say, “Jesus is my buddy.” I cringe at those words.
But so few believers say, “Jesus is Lord.” This is what it means. We are to willingly be bondmen for the Lord Jesus. You’ll never regret that choice.
Again and again, he says, “You were a bondman of this, but now you are a bondman of God, bondman of the Lord Jesus.” Are you willing to be a bondman?
It reminds me of that story in Deuteronomy 15 about the servant, the bond slave. You probably know that story in Exodus 21. It is a repeat of the story.
It says in Exodus 21:5-6:
But if the bondman shall say distinctly, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go free;
then his master shall bring him before the judges, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost;
and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl,
and he shall be his bondman forever.
You know, I think this is maybe one of the first examples of pierced ears.
But if the bondman shall say distinctly, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go free,” then the master shall bring him before the judges and bring him to the door or to the doorpost. His master shall bore his ear through with an awl. And listen to what it says: “He shall be his bondman forever.”
This is what the Lord is looking for. This is what is necessary for sanctification. Oh, that we would be such a people. This is the essential response for sanctification.
Anyone—I’ll say it again—who makes this choice will never regret it.
Well, the last thing: let’s look at the fact that we have only two paths. In the end, every human being has only two choices and two paths.
Look at Romans 6:13 again:
Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God as alive from among the dead, and your members instruments of righteousness to God.
Look at verse 19 again:
I speak humanly on account of the weakness of your flesh; for even as ye have yielded your members in bondage to uncleanness and to lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now yield your members in bondage to righteousness unto holiness.
First choice. This is a choice every one of us today needs to consider. What will be your choice?
God sets you free. You could be like this slave. You could say, “I love my Master. I will not go free.”
There is one person in this room—and I’m not going to point them out—but almost every time they pray, they say, “You are such a loving Master.” Do we know that? Do we know that?
This is the secret of sanctification. This is the path we need to consider. I think of a wonderful hymn, Frances Havergal’s hymn, “I Love, I Love My Master.” I don’t know how many of you know that, but it says in the first verse:
I love, I love my Master,
I will not go free.
How that should be us. How much more than this Jewish master, how much more lovely, how much more gracious, how much more compassionate is our Lord?
Oh, dear saints, hear Paul’s appeal. It is very great.
And then we see a word in here of obedience in verse 16. Now, that is a word we don’t like. Kids don’t like it. Listen, we’ve had teenagers. I understand teenagers. I’m not picking on any teenagers. Most of you are out of the room.
But sometimes obedience is the issue. Now, I’m not going to leave teenagers alone. I think more often with adults, because we think we are adults and we think we are in charge, obedience is the issue.
Do we follow, as it says, that teaching we have heard from the heart and obey? There is a unique phrase. It only occurs in the book of Romans. You should notice it. It is in Romans 1:5, and it is in Romans 16:26, if I am remembering right.
It is “the obedience of faith.” Very important phrase. It only occurs in Romans. Do we know the obedience of faith? If we do, it will change our life. May the Lord bring us into it.
Who will choose to obey sin and unrighteousness? That is one path. Or God in Christ? That is the second path. There are only two choices in life.
May the Lord help us so that we don’t think we have endless choices. You may have endless choices in the minor things of life, but in the major thing of life—which is serving God, being His people, being sanctified wholly—you have two choices.
One path leads to death. It makes it very clear. That path leads to death.
Now, if you are saved, you won’t live an eternal death. You won’t go through the great white throne. You are exempt from that. But you will suffer great loss.
And when you go before the judgment seat of Christ and He asks you what you did with those graces that He made available to you—unspeakable graces—you will suffer loss. And I would suggest that is in the kingdom, not in eternity.
Well, two choices and two paths. Which path will you choose?
William R. Newell said in his commentary on Romans, speaking of that sin unto death, speaking of this last verse:
For the wages of sin is death;
but the act of favor of God, eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.
He said, “For sin, which they had served, was a terrible paymaster.” Sin’s wages was death. He went on to say, “What hellish wages.”
He went on to quote, I think—I wrote it down, I can’t remember—from Job 18, a phrase speaking of death: “the king of terrors.”
That is one path, where we choose that path. Remember, Romans 6:23 is in the context of sanctification, not salvation.
What path will you choose? We are at a fork in the road, and there is a path to eternal life and eternal blessing, and there is a path to death or loss.
As a believer, when you face this matter of sanctification, which way will you choose? This, to me, is sanctification.
Thank God, we are not under law, but we are under grace. It wouldn’t be possible without it. Thank God, how we need to respond by yielding. Are you willing to yield?
Thank God, we need to give ourselves to this benevolent Master as bond slaves forever. It is only then that you will discover the riches of Christ.
Only two choices. Only two paths. Make the wise choice that leads to eternal life, and choose the right path. This is sanctification.
You think of that word in Deuteronomy: “I have set two paths before you: life or death.” You remember that? That is a sobering, sobering thought.
Well, I’ll tell you a quick testimony and end.
I used to have a problem. I don’t mind telling you this story. Maybe this is the first time, the only time, I have told it. I had a problem with this thought of absolute surrender.
You know that wonderful hymn, number 603 in Christ in Song, “I Surrender All.” I couldn’t sing it. I couldn’t sing it. The words would get caught in my throat as a choking man. Brother, you’d have to get your tool out.
I often, at many altar calls in those early days, heard this call to absolute surrender, and my head would hang. I stopped singing.
Then one day I read Brother Andrew Murray’s book, Absolute Surrender, and it set me free. I had confessed to the Lord, “I can’t do this. I could never surrender absolutely to You. That word’s not in my vocabulary. I don’t even want to,” I thought.
I remember one time going to Brother Kong—I’ve told you this story—and I said, “Brother Kong, what do you think?” And he said, “Ask the Lord and say, ‘I’m willing to be willing.’”
I opened that little book. It stayed on my bookshelf for years. I opened it, and I read about absolute surrender, and I discovered a grace to surrender.
The secret of sanctification.
I always thought, by the way, Brother Murray is a little bit of a legalist. I’m sorry, Brother Murray. I’ll apologize to you when I see you face to face. But he follows in that absolute surrender.
It was an eye-opening experience when he said, “It is impossible for man, but it is possible with God.” I was free. I was free.
Now, if you want to sing that song, I’ll sing that song with you.
How the Lord is looking for ones who are willing to make the choice of absolute surrender. This is Romans 6.
Father, we commit these thoughts to You and ask You, by Your mercy and by Your grace, to speak into our spirit where no man can, but the Holy Spirit.
We ask You to make real what we need to hear as Christians. We want to be those who are wholly sanctified, and we know left to ourselves we will run, and left to ourselves we will refuse. But it is possible through the grace of God, by Your life in us.
And I want to tell You again, and ask You for these dear brothers and sisters, that this would not just be a few in this room, not just a few in the Christian life, but it would be many who can say, “I surrender all.”
This we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Therefore, since we have been justified…