Whose Slave Are You? [Hint: You Belong to SOMEONE]
Originally preached in our Mid-Week Recharge Service on April 17, 2024.
Scripture: Romans 6:16-23 NLT:
Don’t you realize that you become (are) the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. 17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. 18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living. 19 Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. 21 And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. 22 But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Takeaways:
Everyone is a slave to something; we must choose whether to serve sin or God.
Choosing sin leads to death, while choosing God leads to righteous living and freedom.
Being in control of our own lives is a misconception; we surrender to the Lord of this earth.
Serving God is a choice that brings life and freedom. Being a slave to God means surrendering our lives completely to His will and trusting that He is a perfect and loving master.
Choosing to be a slave to God leads to righteous living, holiness, and sanctification.
We should serve God with the same passion and dedication that we once served sin.
Being a slave to God leads to eternal life and freedom from the power of sin.
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Full Transcript (Auto-Generated):
Let's open up our Bibles to Romans, chapter 6.
We are proceeding through this incredible book, this letter written by the Apostle Paul to the church in Rome so many years ago. You can tell that the Bible is a God book and not a man book. And the way that you can tell that is because the words that we read in the Word of God are spirit and they are life. They are timeless. And what that means, some books get old. You know, you probably can remember reading a book.
10 years ago. And if you tried to pick up that same book again, there would be some truths that have lasted that would continue on. But many of the things that are written by human authors will fade. They grow old with time. They go out of date. But the Word of God is alive. It is powerful. And the reason we know that is that these words are 2 ,000 years old, written by the hand of men, but by the Spirit of God.
The reason we know it's a God book and not a man book is because when we read these words, when we study them, when we apply them to our lives, they have profound effect on us today in 2024, even though they're 2 ,000 years old or more in the word of God. The word of God is sharper than any two -edged sword. And tonight when you will...
If we will take that seriously, if we will put our trust into what God is speaking to us tonight, I believe that our lives can be changed. Not only do I believe that the Word of God is living and powerful, I believe also that God is big enough to ordain what is going to be preached when.
Adam Dragoon (02:16.334)
That's why I'm not afraid to do expository preaching. And so if you don't know that word, all it means is to take a book like Romans and step by step, verse by verse, section by section, begin preaching through it. I'm not afraid to do that because here's what I know. As we preach through the book of Romans, we're gonna find ourselves here in chapter six, verses 16 to 23. But I am confident that there are people here that God has brought you here.
and that this message is going to speak exactly to something that you're going through today on April 17th, 2024. I've been preaching the gospel long enough to know that God is faithful to arrange His exact Word to meet the need of this exact moment, and He can arrange that. He can order our steps. We will be going through certain seasons of our life that the Word of God...
that I didn't plan this. I couldn't plan it. You know, some weeks I'll preach something else if God puts it on my heart, but I don't plan out exactly every service like some preachers might because I know that God is able to speak. And so don't let me go off on a tangent tonight. We're going to look at Romans chapter 6, and I want to share with you an experience that our family had several years ago.
as we were there in Arizona. And sometimes when we were in Arizona, we like to have some family events. My wife's mother lives there, and her stepfather as well, Russ and Cynda. And a couple of years ago, they went with us, we went with them actually, and we went to a place that we had never been to before in Arizona, and it was a place called Bear -A -Zona. You remember that?
Okay, Bayrezona, what is this place? Well, this place is something called a drive -through wildlife park. Okay, it was pretty interesting. It's up there in northern Arizona, very nice place. And you can pay a fee, and they have basically a nature reserve, and they have collected animals from all around the country and even some from around the world. And they put them into these...
Adam Dragoon (04:41.582)
into these pens essentially, these large reserved areas. And you can drive your vehicle slowly through these areas and as you're driving, you'll look out the window and there's a black bear sitting there, you know, doing whatever black bears do. And look out this side and wow, there's some bison and magnificent large creatures and they're out there chowing on some straw or whatever bison do. And...
and then you can drive through and they have multiple areas in and everybody gets their cameras out and they say don't open the door stay in your vehicle these are wild animals after all and uh... you know as i was thinking about this place barizona the drive -through wildlife park i was thinking about those animals they have a pretty good don't they don't feel bad for animals in zoos
because they are living in the lap of luxury compared to their actually wild counterparts. Most animals in the wild are starving to death, but animals that live in zoos or nature parks like this, they are being taken care of, they have veterinary care. On a daily basis, they are getting their full quota of calories. They are not in want at all. We call them wild animals because you don't want to have a face -to -face confrontation with one.
But in reality, these animals are far from wild. In fact, this is one of the great problems when they bring animals into a zoo when they're young. They're trying sometimes to release them back into the wild, but often that doesn't work very well because especially if you capture them young, they don't have the skills or the abilities to hunt and kill and feed themselves. And so they end up living in the zoo for their whole lives, which is not a bad thing for most animals.
And, but so when you, when you, When I'm thinking about these animals, bison, bears, wolves, whatever they are, now you might look at them and they might be thinking to themselves, I've got a lot of freedom. And you know, inside this park, there's a lot of land for them to roam. There's a lot of places for them to go. They've got shady areas and sunny areas and they've got, they've got things to do. They've got, you know, things to keep them busy.
Adam Dragoon (07:07.182)
By the way, they've got cars rolling through every five minutes with tourists pointing cameras at them and that might be entertaining to them. They might think that they have a lot of freedom, but in reality, they are in a cage. They are in a fenced -in area. If they walked in one direction for long enough, they would run into a barrier that they could not escape. And as I was thinking about that, I think...
that that is reality for every person, saved or unsaved. And what we're going to read in our scripture tonight is this very profound truth, that there is no such thing as a truly completely free individual. I want you to ponder this for a second. What Paul, the argument that Paul is about to make is he is going to say, you are a slave. You are either...
slave of sin or you are a slave of God and the profound understanding of this scripture is that you choose. You choose who you're going to be a slave to. In Romans chapter 6, Paul is answering the logical question that comes out of his explanation of his amazing grace in chapter 5. Last week we spoke about the newness of life that Christ gave to us. This week,
We're going to look at how our slavery to God leads to freedom. And I hope that you'll catch this tonight. Romans chapter 6, beginning with verse 16. I'm going to read from the New Living Translation tonight. Don't you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? That is such a profound statement tonight. You become the slave of whatever you choose to obey.
You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. Thank God once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. Now you are free from your slavery to sin and you have become slaves to righteous living. Because of the weakness of your human nature, I'm using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all of this.
Adam Dragoon (09:33.07)
Previously you let yourself be slaves to impurity and lawlessness which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy. When you were slaves to sin you were free from the obligation to do right. And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that ended in eternal doom. But now, verse 22, you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God.
Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. Let's pray. Father, we come by the blood of Jesus. I'm praying God that this scripture would help us tonight, would illuminate some areas in our lives that we can let go of and that we can surrender to you. I'm praying tonight, God, for your blessing on your words spoken tonight.
anoint these lips, God, to speak your word, and anoint the ears to hear what you want to say. We give you glory tonight in Jesus' mighty name. God's people would say, Amen. This message I've titled, Whose Slave Are You? And that is the question we must consider tonight. Let's look firstly at choosing your master. Again, the scripture that we started with, verse 16, you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey.
Now that translation is maybe a little presumptive. In the New King James it says, do you not know that whom you present yourself slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey. It's a little more convoluted in the New King James, but I think probably the translation is more accurate. The word become is not quite accurate to the verb that's there in the Greek.
Instead of saying you become the slave of whatever you choose, probably the better way to say that, you are the slave of whatever you choose to obey. In other words, tonight it's not a process. It's not something that's a 12 -step program. Whatever we choose to obey is the one that we are a slave to. This is a profound truth tonight. Every one of us is gonna make a choice in our life.
Adam Dragoon (11:59.118)
who is our master, who is the one that we serve. Paul says here that each of us have the profound and powerful ability to choose who you serve. Now there is a lie that Paul has to debunk here, and one that has echoed throughout the generations and is more powerful today than perhaps at any other time in human history.
And that is the lie. I am the master of my own destiny. I am the captain of my own ship. I will make the decisions what I do, where I go, who I talk to, what my convictions will be. How many believe that this is something that is pervasive? It's everywhere in our culture. I'm gonna do what I wanna do. I'ma be me. And whatever...
This world says whatever the preacher says, whatever the politicians say, doesn't matter because at the end of the day, I'm the one who decides. I'll decide. That is a lie tonight. It is a lie that we tell ourselves to think that we have more control than we actually do. Can I tell you, people who desire to be in control of every situation end up being very frustrated people.
If you are one of those control freaks, I will pray for you. I will pray for your spouse, and I will pray for your children. Because in the end of the day, what do you really have control over? Not a whole lot. You have control over who you choose to serve. That's the choice. The lie that says, I'm my own man, I'm my own woman, I don't serve God, I don't serve the devil, I serve me.
Well, those of you who might be old enough to remember when Bob Dylan was saved for about two years, he wrote a song. And that song is, you're gonna have to serve somebody. It might be the devil, it might be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody. I was torturing my children, making them listen to that song before the service tonight. The truth is that you have a master, and that master is not you. You are either,
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serving God or you are serving sin. That is the reality. And if you think that that is not true, then you have swallowed the lie and you have believed something that is far from truth. The reality is that when you say, I'm the captain of this ship, I'm making the decisions, I'm in control, the reality is that by taking control of our own lives, we surrender it.
to the Lord of this earth, that we become sons of the father of this world. That is the devil. Patrick Henry was famous for exclaiming, give me liberty or give me death. But you know what that's turned into in 2024? It's become libertinism, not liberty. That means freedom to do whatever my carnal desires want to. It's not freedom from tyranny, it's freedom to do
anything that I want, any carnal thought that passes through my head, that is what the liberty that we fought so hard to gain has become. It's become libertinism. And so, Paul begins to show us then what are the effects of choosing sin as our master. What are the effects of that? What is the consequence of refusing to choose to follow Jesus if we don't do that?
Our scripture is very clear, verse 16, you can be a slave to sin, which leads to death. Everybody say the word death. Choosing to be a slave of sin will always lead to death. Verse 19, previously you let yourself be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Paul has explained this at great length in chapters one and two.
and partially chapter three where he described that drain circling down into death and destruction, that's what sin leads to. When we choose to serve sin, it leads deeper and darker into sin. Verse 20, when you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. He is saying here that when we were outside of Christ,
Adam Dragoon (16:51.086)
when we were not repentant, when we were not born again, then, A, if you're going to be hot, be hot. If you're going to be cold, be cold. I have a lot more respect for somebody who says, I am not a Christian, I am not a believer, I don't believe the Bible, and I'm going to live how I want to live. I have far more respect for that person than the person who says, you know what, I am a believer, I'm a Jesus follower, I'll go to church on Sunday.
but I can live however I want to. That's called lukewarmness, and Jesus said, I will spew that out of my mouth. I would much rather you be hot or cold than to be lukewarm. And that's what the point Paul is making here. He said, when you are a slave to sin, you're free from the obligation to do right. You don't have to do what God says if you're a slave of sin because you will receive exactly that penalty which...
leads to, and that is death. Verse 21, what is the result of being a slave to sin? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that will end in eternal doom. And finally, verse 23, the wages of sin is death. If you have a job, you know about wages. Wages are your just return for your labor, right? What happens if you don't get a paycheck at the end of the week?
That's fighting words. Excuse me? What am I not gonna get? Not gonna get my wages? No, no, that's not gonna happen. That's when lawsuits start, right? Wages are the just reward for your labor. And Paul says the wages of sin, the just consequence of sin is death. It makes sense. This is what God does to the sinner. He brings the wages of death. But the profound...
truth about this scripture is the power of your choice. I can choose tonight. I can choose. I will make a choice and every one of you makes your choice whether to follow Jesus or not. It is a profound choice. It is what God said. He said, I set before you today life and death and oh that you would choose life. But the thing is you don't have to.
Adam Dragoon (19:17.518)
God will not twist anybody's arm to choosing life. God will not twist your arm. He does not kick down the door. He doesn't force his way into anyone's life. He allows you to choose. He gives an invitation. God does not push anybody into heaven. He draws. He invites. He is a gentleman. He says, come and follow me. He doesn't say, do my will or else. He gives us a choice, just like in the garden.
He gave them a choice. He said, this whole garden is yours. You can have all the fruit you want, but one tree, this one belongs to me and don't touch this tree. And you have the choice. And when the time came for the temptation, God did not rush down there. He didn't send angels to jump in the way and push them away. No, he let them make a choice, didn't he? And the same is true for your life. He will not force you.
He will not stomp on your will. We serve a God who loves you enough to let you choose. Husbands, would it work if you said to your wife, honey, you are going to love me now? That doesn't work, does it? Love is a choice, true love. See, if you force someone,
to love you, that's not love, that's bondage. True love is a choice. It's an invitation to decision. And the same is true of God. He does not force anyone. He leaves us with a choice. You have the choice tonight. Every person in this world has the choice to follow Jesus or not, and that is the choice. When we choose not to follow Jesus, you might, somebody might say, well,
I don't want to make that decision. Let's put that off till tomorrow. You know, it's not that I don't want to serve Jesus. It's just that I have a lot of other things going on in my life. Not to choose is to choose. When we choose to not follow Jesus, tell this to your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, your family members. When you choose to not follow Jesus, that means you are choosing the opposite direction.
Adam Dragoon (21:47.31)
It is a choice to not follow Jesus, which means I'm going to follow sin. I'm going to be a slave to sin and to the enemy. So the logical conclusion then, the opposite is also true. When we do choose to follow Jesus, that's us here in the house tonight. When we choose to follow Jesus, then there is also, it means that that's a choice. I am not following the ways of sin.
I'm not following the ways of the world. I'm not following my flesh. I'm not following the devil and his will for my life. And we have to make sure that we keep those lines clear tonight. We cannot have some kind of in -between path of either choosing Jesus or not choosing Jesus, which means being a slave of sin. There is no third middle option here. There is no...
I want to choose Jesus, but I still want to hang on to a few of these things over here. That does not exist. That path is not available to us. To choose Jesus means I'm turning away from my flesh. It means I'm turning away from the ways of this world. I'm turning away from the devil and his will for my life. I am turning to God. It's an interesting factoid from history.
You know, the Romans, when they were in power, when they had the greatest superpower on the earth of their time, they were masters of torture and killing people. You didn't want to mess with the Romans, right? They were bad at a lot of things, but one thing they were good at is hurting people and killing people. That's why we're confident that when Jesus went to the cross, that he was completely dead.
He wasn't 50 % dead. He wasn't 90 % dead. He was all the way dead, and they made sure by stabbing him with a spear, right? Like they were confident Jesus died and we have confidence. The Romans were good at killing people. Well, another thing they were good at doing is torturing people. And one way that they would do that is that when they would bring people captive, the story goes that,
Adam Dragoon (24:14.382)
If there was some enemy that they wanted to really severely punish, they would take them and join a captive live person, and they would join them face to face with a dead body. Imagine this. They would tie a dead body to a living person. And so they would attach by the arms, by the neck, by the waist, by the legs. And so imagine that.
you'd be walking around every day with a dead corpse staring at your face. And that's how they would torture somebody. And it wouldn't be long until that death, that constant rotting corpse immediately in your face, that it wouldn't be long until that death spread to the living. And it was a death sentence. It caused people to be overwhelmed by the power of death.
One man, one historian described this cruel punishment. He said, That is a picture of our lives if we choose to be a slave of sin. We might have for a few years on this planet, we might have some semblance of life.
We can live, we can make decisions, we can buy a house, we can work a job. But there is a corpse attached to those who are outside of Christ. And that corpse is going to bring death. That corpse, only repentance, only when we choose, I am choosing to serve Jesus, can that old corpse be cut away from us. And we can serve Christ in freedom. It's your choice tonight. What do you choose?
You're going to have to serve somebody. And so secondly, I want to look then at embracing our new slavery. Now, I know that there's a lot of baggage attached to that word, slavery, here in the United States because of our history with slavery. But I don't want you to get hung up on the term slavery because when the Bible, this is a Bible word, when Paul says, I am a slave of God.
Adam Dragoon (26:35.63)
That is exactly the same word, but it doesn't have all the same baggage in the original language that we do here today. But I want to say to you that we shouldn't be afraid to say, I am a slave of God. Why? Well, because the baggage of slavery in our nation, thank God that we've come a long way since slavery, but obviously we still have some way to go. But I want to say tonight, the problem with slavery in the world, and by the way,
There are more slaves in the world today than at any other point in human history. There are still slaves all over the continent of Africa, Asia, and many other places. There are slaves all around the world. Slavery is a human problem. And the problem with slavery is that even in the best of conditions, the master of the slave is a sinner. And that master will inevitably, whenever you give someone power, they will abuse that power.
Is that correct? And that's why it came to such a point, even in our nation, that we had to fight a civil war over this problem. And we had to bring the 13th Amendment to outlaw it. Because slavery, when it comes to one person being a slave of another person, it always ends up really, really bad. But the reason tonight why can Paul say,
I'm a slave of Christ or I'm a slave to God. The reason that we can say that tonight is because God is not a human being. God is perfect and God does not abuse his servants. God does not abuse us when we surrender our lives to him. So that's why we shouldn't get caught up with that word because when we say a prayer, God, I surrender my life completely and totally to your will.
God is the only one who is able to receive your life and to do well. It means that your life as a slave of God is far better than your so -called freedom in the world. Because when we are slaves of God, He is able to set us free to do His will. Now listen, verse 19 says, previously you let yourself be slaves to impurity and lawlessness.
Adam Dragoon (29:01.582)
which leads ever deeper into sin. Now, you must give yourself to be slaves to righteous living so that you'll become holy. Remember what I said, you make a choice. Either I'm gonna be a slave of sin, which leads to death, or I'm gonna be a slave to God, which means righteous living, holiness, sanctification, purity. That's what it leads to. Now listen, there are very few things that are repeated.
in all four gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, four gospel accounts, right? There's only one miracle that's repeated in all four, and that is the miracle feeding of the 5 ,000, the stories told in all four gospels. And when I looked up the scripture tonight, I was amazed to find that this saying of Jesus is one of the few sayings that is repeated in all four. Are you ready for this? If it's repeated four times by four eyewitness accounts, that means it must be pretty important.
Matthew 16, 25, whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Mark 8, 35, whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. Almost exact. Luke 9, 24, whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. And finally, John 12,
Verse 25, he who loves his life will lose it and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Same saying of Jesus in all four gospel accounts. The question is, do you believe that? Do you believe what Jesus said is true? If I love my life, if I try to hang on to my life, if I try to hang on to control,
If I try desperately to do all the things I want to do, then I'm going to lose that control. But if I lose my life for the sake of Christ, for the sake of the gospel, then that means God will give it back to me. It's the picture of Moses. Oh, I love this story. Moses had a mother. Her name was Jochebed. What a beautiful story it is. In the time when Pharaoh was destroying all the little boys of the children of Israel,
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all those who were two years old and younger. And when Moses was born and he was something special about him, the Bible says that she noticed there was something radiant about this boy and she says, I must save him. And at a very young age, still a baby, she made up her mind, the only way I'm going to save this baby is to put him into a little basket and release him into the waters of the Nile River. She had no idea what was going to happen next.
She had no idea how it was going to play out. All she knew was it is safer for my baby to be in the Nile River, full of all kinds of swamp creatures, safer for my baby to be there than to be here in my home where the soldiers are going from house to house and slaying all the little boys. She had to let go of that life. And you know how God rewarded that. The story goes that floating down the river is this little basket with a baby in it and the daughter of Pharaoh is there.
taking a bath, and she sees that, she receives that baby, takes him as her own, and then the next amazing thing is that the sister of Moses was running down the side of the river at the same time watching what would happen, and she sees the Pharaoh's daughter pick up the baby, and she goes and she shouts, do you need a nurse to take care of that child? You need a babysitter? I got one this weekend. She'll work for free. And the daughter of Pharaoh says, yes, I need that.
She obviously is going to need somebody to feed the baby, to clean the baby, to take care of it. Listen, Pharaoh's daughter, she's probably a busy lady. She wants to keep the baby, but she needs help. And Sister of Moses has just the lady in mind. She goes back home and says, you're not going to believe what happened. You're not going to believe it. Moses was received by the daughter of Pharaoh, and she needs a nurse. Guess who is qualified? And so you see the illustration.
She was willing to let go of that life, and only in that way was she able to receive him. And thank God, because it is in that time that the rabbis teach that while Moses was still a baby, while he was still a young boy, that Yockebed began to train him in the ways of his people. And that's why when he grows up and becomes 40 years old, he looks out and he sees the Egyptian guards abusing the people, and something rises up in him. Where did that come from?
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came from Jochebed when he was a just a boy. She put something into him that all the training of Egypt could not take out. Maybe that's another sermon. If you want to save your life, you've got to let go of it. This is the same message as last week. Wherever you want to find a new newness of life, you've got to give a funeral, right? In the same way, wherever you want to find,
Christ, you've got to give up yourself. Now then, I want to make this point very quickly tonight. I believe that as followers of Jesus, instead of followers of sin, as slaves of God, instead of slaves of sin, I believe, I don't know about you, but my conviction is I want to serve Jesus with at least as much passion as I served my sin.
and shame on you if that's not your conviction. If we come into the kingdom and we want to give half the same effort that we used to give to the world, but that is the reality for many Christians today. When it comes to their time, oh, you know, I got time for one service on Sunday, Pastor. That's it. No more. Other than that, you know, I'm serving the world. When you were a sinner, you only served your sin for two hours a week?? I don't think so. You served your sin
with dedication. You served your flesh on a daily basis and you were willing to give all hours of the night to your sin. And then pastor says, we got another church service on Sunday. And we say, oh, why? I already did my two hours, right? Our abilities. We used to serve sin. Our money. Pastor Campbell, you know, he says when he was a sinner, he would get his paycheck and he would spend it all.
on alcohol. Thank God, I never had that privilege, that wonderful expectation, but you know that's probably not a very, we were at the baseball game the other night and you know the guy coming down the aisle saying, cold beer! And some guy behind us says, I'll take one. And he says, how much is that can of beer? $14 .50. One can of beer. And guess what? He's passing them out like candy. All day long.
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And then the pastor says, we need to raise an offering. This church always ask him for my money. Right? And if we serve, if we used to serve sin with greater efficiency, with greater effectiveness, with greater passion, with greater zeal, then we serve Jesus? That's a problem in my humble opinion. We ought to be servants of God. Why? As we close tonight, when we choose to be slaves of God,
The first reason why we would make that choice is because, as mentioned already, it's the only way to not be a slave of sin. It's the only way, it's the only escape. But that's not the only reason why we would make this decision. There's more. What Paul says in verse 22, now you do those things that lead to holiness. So reason number two to be a slave of God is that it leads to righteous living.
Now some people think of righteous living as boring, you know, little house on the prairie, you know, fundamentalism, Puritanism, that's backwards, that's, but I want to tell you something, righteous living is exciting. It's exciting, why? Because you get to be who God made you to be. You get to live in his freedom. Being a slave of God doesn't lead to anything else except a life of holiness.
Did you hear what I said? When you get saved, this is the path that you are traveling on. It is the path toward holiness. You say, pastor, that's a high bar. That's a really far away expectation, because I know who I am, right? We know that we're not perfect, that God is still working on us in many areas of our life. But the reason we aim for perfection is because if I'm striving for that, you know what?
I might not be perfect today, but I'm different than I was yesterday. And the path of following Jesus leads us to righteous living. I can tell by the fruits. Jesus said, you'll know a person by their fruit. How do they act? How do they talk? What decisions do they make? What do they do when nobody's looking? That's the real fruit. That's the mark. And you might not be perfected yet. None of us are. But we are on a path that leads to holiness.
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Romans 8 verse 30, having chosen them, he called them to come to him. Having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory. God is doing a work in you. That's a good place to say amen. It is his work to sanctify and purify his bride, the church, that he might present to himself a bride spotless and clean. That's his work, and we've got to participate with him.
The third reason is that it leads to eternal life. Being a slave of God turns into righteous living, turns into eternal life. And that's a pretty nice promise, isn't it? It means that we don't need to experience annihilation and destruction that sin does. Romans 8 verse 2, because you belong to him, the power of the life -giving spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.
2 Corinthians 3, 17, for the Lord is the Spirit and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, there is liberty. Galatians 5, 13, you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters, but don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. Paul is making this point. You choose. You choose who your master is. It's only one of two options.
You're either a slave of sin or you're a slave of God. It seems like a simple choice. Why would anyone choose to be a slave of sin? And yet, every day, people are going to hell. Millions of people going to hell because they've chosen by not choosing Jesus, they've made up their mind. The wages of sin is death, verse 23, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
It's a gift. That means we can't earn it. We only can receive it by faith. And I want to challenge every person here. There are places in your life God is working on you. God is, he is asking us every day to become more and more like him, to be made in his image. And the way that we do that is by giving up more of ourselves. It's the prayer of John the Baptist. Oh, that I might decrease so that he might increase.
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There is less and less evidence of sinful Adam Dragoon and more and more evidence of Christ. We want the world to see Jesus in us. That's the goal tonight. Let's bow our heads and close our eyes as we bring this service to an end. Whose slave are you?
Now before we close this service, it would be a crime for me to take such a gospel -centered scripture and not give an opportunity for people to get their heart right with God. In this moment, right now, it's possible someone's here who's not right with God, who despite outward appearances and despite habits of life, sometimes we have habits which deny the reality of what's happening inside.
It's possible to be a church member and still be a slave of sin. It's possible to go to church on Sunday and still be a slave of sin. It's possible to know scripture. It's possible to pray. It's possible to even witness to people and still be a slave of sin. Jesus said there will be many on that day who say, Lord, Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty?
many mighty works in your name. And what will he say? I never knew you, workers of iniquity. And even despite a life of doing some works for the Lord, still possible to be a slave of sin. I want to ask you for just a moment to consider the condition of your own heart right now for a moment. Ask this question, whose slave am I? It's one or the other.
not both. Say well I want to be a slave to God, good. Are you still a slave to sin? The only way to be free from death and hell is through the free gift of salvation that Paul throws in at the end there. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. He made it possible. God loves sinners. He sent his only son to die for us.
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so that whoever would believe on him would not perish but have everlasting life. And maybe you're here and you say, Pastor, I'm not sure the condition of my heart. I'm not sure if I'm truly a slave of God. I still have the power of sin at work in my life and I desperately need Jesus to set me free tonight. I want to pray with you. If someone's here this evening, you're being honest before the Lord, I need to get my heart right. I need to turn from my sin. I need to cut off that old corpse that's attached to me.
That body of death that is corrupting my life on a daily basis, leading me to a devil's hell. I want to cut that old corpse away and trust in Jesus. If that's you tonight, I want to pray with you, unsaved or backslidden. Would you get your heart right tonight before this service is over? If someone's here, you want to lift up your hand. I see that hand. Someone else, God's speaking to you. God's leading you. This is not a manipulation.
This is simply responding to the Spirit of God. Is there anyone else? Quickly, lift up your hand. Pastor, pray for me. I need what you're talking about. Maybe backslidden in your heart. It's possible for us to slip and slide back into old habits and old ways and old lifestyles. It is possible, like the children of Israel, to become re -entangled with the ways of the flesh. Is that you tonight? As we hold this out one more moment.
need to get your heart right, rededicate your heart to the Lord, is that you, can I pray with you? Anyone else quickly with uplifted hands, honest hearts, would you lift up your hand so I can see it? I want to pray with you. Amen. And you lifted up your hand, my man, would you come? We're going to pray, we're going to believe God. God's going to help us tonight. Thank you.
Oh church, we want to open up this altar for prayer, a simple message tonight. A simple but profound. Listen, we are all going to make a choice in every area of your life. Your mind, your heart, your money, your talents, your abilities, in every area we make a choice of who we're going to serve. Don't believe the lie of the enemy that you're in control, because you're not. He's in control. God is in control or he's not. And if God is not in control of your life,
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than somebody else is. I want to encourage you now, we're going to open up this altar for prayer. Let's make a space here at this altar and declare ourselves dependent upon God. Would you come forward as we pray for a few moments here at this altar? This is a place where we do what Christ commanded, where we lose our life for the sake of finding eternal life. We lose control over ourselves so that He can take control.
If God's speaking to you, don't miss this opportunity here at this altar. Let's come and let's do some business with God right now here at this altar. This is going to set somebody free tonight. Everybody has a choice to make. And I want to, I just want to remind you that when it comes to other people, okay, as believers, right, you've made up your mind, hopefully everybody here, we've made up our mind, I choose to follow Jesus. He is my God.
He is my King, Him alone do I serve. If you make up your mind. But here's the problem. Not everybody makes that same choice. And sometimes we can get angry, or we can get upset, or we can grow frustrated with people who are not making that same choice. Even when you've explained it to them, even when they understand it, even when they know the gospel clearly, and they still choose to turn away. That can be very frustrating.
And even in church, there is a clear divide between people who have chosen to give up their lives and follow Jesus and do his will and go all in 100%. And I'm going to serve Jesus with passion and fire and zeal for the kingdom. But then there's a there's another group, right? And we are encouraging and we are praying and we are rebuking sometimes and we are manipulating even sometimes.
And here's what I want to say about that tonight. If God gives people the choice, you need to let people choose. Sometimes it means bad consequences. I just want to encourage you, don't be frustrated at somebody else's decision to make their choice. And that can be painful sometimes because they're people we care about. They're children. They're fellow members of our congregation. And sometimes the answer is not
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more encouragement. The answer is, if you're going to be a slave of sin, then just go sin. Paul said, there's somebody in your congregation who's committing great sin. You need to release them to go sin. You need to allow the devil to have his way. Put them out of that congregation so it doesn't spread. I was reflecting on the story of the prodigal son, and I often wondered about the father of that prodigal son.
When the prodigal came and demanded his inheritance, remember this story? Give me my inheritance. And you know what the father did? He did not resist him. So you have it. You know what that was? In the end, it was an act of love because it accelerated the prodigal son's descent into sin. It made it faster instead of slower. Isn't that amazing? The father did not stop him from going to the far country.
but he was there to receive him when he came back. And that's the part that we've got to have in our hearts. Listen, I can't make other people's choices for them. I can't, I can't, my convictions are not the same as your convictions, but I can be willing to receive you when you're ready to serve Jesus, when you're ready to make up your mind. Okay, we're going to pray together. Let's lift up our hands tonight. I believe God is moving. God is speaking tonight. Let's say this prayer together. Say, God in heaven, I've made up my mind.
I will no longer be a slave of sin. I choose today to be a slave of God. No conditions, no reservations. My life is yours. I hold nothing back. It belongs to you. I am bought and paid for. My life has been purchased by the blood of Jesus and I recognize I do not own my life.
But you own me. You are a good Father. You are a righteous Master. I can trust my life in your hands. And I surrender totally and completely to your will for my life. I hold nothing back. My past, my present, my future belongs to you. My mind, my heart, my will.
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belongs to you. My money, my possessions, everything I hold dear belongs to you and I leave it in your hands. Help me tonight in Jesus name. Amen. Let's give him praise tonight. God we thank you. Oh we thank you God. We thank you God. We praise you. Oh Jesus hallelujah help us tonight.
Oh God, if we want to lose our life, we got to hang on. We're going to hang on to it. But if we want to keep our life for eternity, we got to be willing to let go. I remember when I was a new convert, there was a evangelist who came through and he described it like this. He said, some people come to God and they have a contract and say, I promise to serve God as long as I've got a nice house.
As long as my wife is nice to me, as long as I've got no problems, as long as there's money in the bank, and we have a bunch of conditions. I'll serve God if, signed Adam Dragoon. And we try to put that into the hands of Jesus. How many know that doesn't work? That doesn't work. That's not true submission. You know what true submission looks like? I promise to serve God and leave the conditions blank. Signed.
Adam Dragoon. You know why? Because we can trust him. He is big enough to take care of us. He is smart enough. I'm going to figure it out already. When you do life your way, it doesn't really work out too well. But when you serve him, when you follow him, he is the master of our lives. He keeps, you know, he keeps the sun and the moon and the stars all moving in perfection. So finely tuned that we can predict...
The next solar eclipse with certainty will happen in the next whatever it is, 40 years, whatever they said. And we can predict it because exactly the time and the movement of the sun and the moon and the stars and the earth and it's twirling at exactly this and we can predict it because God keeps it together. If he can hold the universe, then he can hold your life and you can trust him. We're gonna close in prayer tonight. I pray that this message would encourage you.
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You're going to be a slave to somebody and you choose. You choose tonight.