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Teaching podcast from the Eagle Community Church of Christ in Mont Belvieu, TX.
Hi, everyone. This is John Gunter, and you're listening to the Eagle Community Church of Christ podcast. You've caught us in, I guess this is number 8 of our series called fix your focus. This is a focus a series basically out of Colossians chapter 3, but, for this particular sermon we have come over to Romans 6, and we're still talking about the way we should live. If we have given our lives to Jesus, that ought to mean something.
John:Our faith should have consequences. Again, we hope this helps you. Thanks so much for listening. Come see you sometime. Thank you for being here this morning.
John:Thank you for singing out. It does something to my soul to do that. Great to see so many of you out, as we worship God together. We have been in a series, if you haven't been with us, called, Fix Your Focus. Again, this is a series, hopefully, aiming at us to fix our eyes back on Jesus, to look and to run everything through the lens, not of the lens of the world, or things we might want to do, or things we might want to participate in, but to run everything we do through the lens of Jesus.
John:And I think every week we have started with Colossians 3:1-four. Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Or it should be.
John:When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will also appear with Him in glory. We need to say amen to that every time. Amen. Last week, we talked about the first part of Romans 6. There, Paul is responding to some people who have this kind of warped understanding of what it means to live out the Christian life.
John:He's dealing with some people there who think what would be better is for me to show how gracious God is. We keep talking about the grace and mercy of God. I think it would be better if I just lived a life of sin so that God would show His mercy and that's a help to God. You're welcome, God. It's kind of like, what is it you call me, God's gift to women?
John:Is that correct? Is that not? Okay. Something else. Dreams are weird, aren't they?
John:But it's almost like that, You're welcome, Lord, for what I have done in my sinful ways to show your mercy. That's messed up, isn't it? That's not what we're called to do. When we accept Jesus and accept means, again, pledging our allegiance, being baptized into His name, alright, we are saying what we just read, my life is now going to be hidden in Christ Jesus. But often what we do is not that.
John:Often what we do is we feel the warm and fuzzies for a little bit, and then we start living our own life, don't we? May maybe we didn't make a big decision about that. Maybe I didn't say, well, I'm I'm I'm done with this Jesus stuff, but I make so many small decisions that all of a sudden, I kind of get led down the wrong track. Right? And that's where we find ourselves, and that's why a series like this is so important, again, to run everything we do through the filter, through the lens of Jesus Christ.
John:As I told you, when I went to Mississippi, the name of the same series, we called it Faith with Consequences. If you're living a life right now that has no consequences for your faith, what are you doing? How are you living? Because Jesus calls us to more. Today we're gonna finish up with the second half of Romans chapter 6, starting in verse 15.
John:What then shall we send because we are not under the law, but under grace? Remember who's Paul talking to here? People who thought, well, I'll help God out. But he says, by no means. Let's read that one more time.
John:Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? Church, should you live a sinful life because Jesus has saved you? We had some no's, maybe some confusion. Nobody's sleeping yet. Shall we live a sinful life because Jesus has saved us?
John:Absolutely not. By no means, as Paul says, right there. But they were already doing that right there in his time. And and we just keep kind of pushing that envelope, don't we? Well, how how bad can I live and still be okay?
John:Right? It's that idea we read from scripture again that that our either our consciences have been seared or or we've done so many things so many times that we've lost all sensitivity. And so he says, church, don't live like the Gentiles do because they've lived this life so long that they don't have any sensitivity to it. It doesn't bother them. And that's when it's dangerous, when it never bothers us.
John:When we're just okay with living this way, living in sin, not living the Christian life, not not being the example, being the salt and light, the very image of Christ in the world. We don't walk out this door in a few minutes and put Christ in our pocket and say, well, we'll see you next week, do we? I hope not. But do we live like that? When you go to work this week, do you put your Jesus in your pocket as you go into work?
John:We'll see you at 5 o'clock. There's a way we ought to live and it's not a life of sin. He says, Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves now we may be sensitive to that word, but he's saying you've given your all. Right? They own me now.
John:Christ owns me. My life is now hidden in him. He says, don't you know when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey. You understand that? You don't then decide, no.
John:It's not for me anymore. Right? I'll go, I I pledge my allegiance to you. I will be your slave, Jesus, and then I go do my own thing. That doesn't make any sense.
John:That's what Paul is saying. It doesn't make any sense. He says, whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. You understand that you are picking 1. In the way that you live and the master that you serve, you are making a choice.
John:Is it that I'm going to live a life for obedience, I'm gonna live a life that leads to death. Now if you say it that way, boy, that's an easy decision, isn't it? Anybody signing up for death today? I hope not. Hope you're not saying, well, that doesn't sound so bad.
John:No. But we are making that choice again with the way that we live. Nobody's standing up saying, I I like that death thing. But the way that I live may lead me to that. If I'm not, again, in His Word, understanding the way Jesus would have me live, that could be me.
John:He says in verse 17, But thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves of sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. Do you see where I get that allegiance language? Okay. From the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. We have taught you in such a way you now understand and you have, again, pledged allegiance to Jesus Christ.
John:He says, thanks be to God that that's happened. One thing we don't ever need to do is is put the past so far away that we think we were never living in sin. You ever feel that? Because that's that's all through Scripture. The, the church people start feeling like they're better than everyone else.
John:And start pointing fingers at everyone else. And Paul says it over and over again. He said, such were you. Thanks be to God that it's not you anymore. Anybody got an amen to that today?
John:I don't want to live that life, do you? Because we have those choices. We can choose right now to live a life of sin. Leave this place, can't we? Every time we meet, there's an option.
John:There's a choice. Every day you live your life, there's an option. There's a choice. What are you going to choose? Also, praise be to God that your allegiance is with Christ.
John:Now live that way is what he said. Verse 18, you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I have been set free. I have been set free. Have you been set free?
John:Have you been set free, church? In the church I grew up in, I wasn't sure we could we could have that confidence. We talked about it. We talked about what baptism meant, we talked about what pledging our allegiance to Jesus meant, but we weren't ever sure that could actually be attained. It's almost like we had to repent of our sins and basically get killed right after that.
John:Anybody live like that? Anybody grew up in my church? And it became this this kind of cosmic gamble on whether I was going to heaven or not based on had I just finished up that prayer when I was shot or the heart attack hit me or I don't know what we would have said if somebody would have we had the stairs to our baptistery if someone would have slipped and died there, if they said a cuss word right before, I don't know where we would have stood on there. The last thing he said, I can't repeat. I have my own opinion on that now, but back then, I don't think it had gone the right way.
John:You have been set free from sin, but you can choose to go back into it. You understand that? We had a series over 1st John where we talked about how some of us grew up with this idea that God was just over the book of life just waiting for me to mess up. We kind of thought he was trying to trick us at times too. Like, I just can't I just can't wait till John messes up, stumps his toe, and says that word.
John:I'm gonna wipe I'm gonna wipe him off then. And as we went as we went through it, we understand, but that's not what god is doing at all. God is never doing that. Now, you can choose to walk away from god. You can decide today, I don't want any more of it.
John:I reject god, I reject your gift of grace, and you'll be living a life of sin apart from God, separated from God. Paul is saying, those of you who have accepted Jesus in this way, you've been baptized into his name, you have been set free from sin. Why would you keep staying in it? He says, I'm using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Now, I don't know how they took that.
John:I got told one time, If you only had the capacity to understand this Okay, those are fighting words, I'm sorry. Jesus would have probably dropped the whole turned the other cheek for that one. But he says, I'm just trying to explain it the way you can understand, right? He says, just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity, that was a choice you made. You might not have thought that's what you were doing, but that's what you were doing.
John:You offered yourself because of what you did. You offered yourself as slaves to impurity and to ever increasing wickedness. Again, that sensitivity has been ground off, right? I did a little bit. Well, that's fine.
John:I did a little bit more. That's fine. And then we keep on going. He says, ever increasing wickedness. So wickedness.
John:So now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. And remember, he's talking to church people. He's not talking to, the sinful crowd out there that he just met in the streets. So we got to say, why was he having to say that? Well, because the church wasn't living right.
John:And guess what? If we had the big mirror up here today, we would say, Oh, okay. Some days are good. Some days, I'm not living right. But again, offer yourselves this is a choice you make.
John:You were here. Now you are here. He's saying offer yourselves as as slaves to righteousness, leading to holiness, being set apart for a reason. You ever asked the question, what am I here for? What what am I gonna do?
John:What am I supposed to be here on this earth for? We know the answer, don't we? It's to be the likeness, be the image of Jesus to other people. And if what we're doing is offering ourselves as slaves to sin, that doesn't look like Jesus, does it? So, I'm either offering Jesus or I'm offering something else.
John:That doesn't mean we're going to live perfectly, you understand that. But what we do as Christians is, again, not fall into it, but when we fall, when we fail, when we sin, the Holy Spirit is there to convict us and we turn, right? To make things right. He says, when you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. So you offered yourself fully.
John:Righteousness didn't have anything to do with your life because, well, I I decide to live this way. He says, but what benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Anybody glad social media wasn't around when you were a teenager? Yeah? Uh-huh.
John:Write those stories down, I would like to have them. I may need those in the future. Yeah. He said, What benefit did you reap? And the only thing I would say is I was stupid enough that I learned a lesson.
John:That's all I could say. Not that I gained some benefit from it, like it made me better, but no, I I did something that I I need to learn from it. And that should be our response as Christians. Right? That we we turn, we make those mistakes, and we turn from them.
John:He says, those things result in death. And, again, I might not stand up and say, well, I I choose that. How am I living? He said, but now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of god, the benefit you you reap leads to holiness, and the result is what, church? Anybody up for that?
John:You are far, not near enthusiastic enough about that. Scott was just up here talking about the state of things, and Scott's right. Every generation has thought, boy, this is it. It's bad enough now. Well, look at that.
John:The the result, because of giving yourself to this, slaves to righteousness, which leads to holiness, the result of that is going to live with God forever. Amen? We talked about some of those people that we love that have passed on, and Jesus might have been annoyed by all my questions about that, but I would sure like to ask Him what all that looks like. What age are you? Anybody thought about that?
John:What age are you? You know, if live to 85, do I get the 85 year old body, or is it I feel like I was better at 18, maybe, I don't know. There are a lot of things I like to think about with that. There are loved ones that, have gone before me. I've been into Ancestry the last couple of weeks.
John:Found out that I have got some ballards in my family. Johnny and I are basically cousins now. So if you all hear me calling because, just know. But to think about all those people that have gone before me that I have a tie to, that I remember, I remember all these good things, and I want to go see them and I want to go worship God with them. I want to live with God.
John:If I choose this life, that's where I'll be. That's where you'll be. And we may sing some songs that are repetitive. Holy, holy, holy. But we'll worship God, together with this.
John:In verse 23, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God the gift of god is eternal life in what? Who? The gift comes in the form of Jesus. Do you accept him? Do you accept him?
John:There have been so many goofy discussions about this kind of passage. Well that means I have to work for my salvation, you know? On Christmas, somebody hands you a present. You don't say, I've got to open it now. Do you?
John:I hope you don't. If you don't, if you do that, let me know, so I don't give you a gift, ever. But you accept the gift, right? You decide that is what you want, you will accept it, right? That's not work.
John:That is a free gift. For the wages of sin is, but the gift of God is eternal life. You get to choose. That feels like a very American thing, doesn't it? You have the freedom, you can choose whatever you want.
John:Here's road A, here's road B, one leads to death. Sin and death, one leads to righteousness, holiness, and a free gift from god that is eternal life with him. That's the only question I have for you this morning. Are you gonna accept that one? Would you stand as we read our scripture together?
John:Hebrews 1212 and again, I offer this if you don't, if you're not there this morning, I just ask you don't don't read it aloud. This is a request. This is almost a prayer. Let's throw off the sin that tries to grab at it. Would you read with me?
John:Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of god. If we can do anything for you this morning, we'd love to pray with you, or see you put Christ on in baptism. We're gonna sing an invitation song at this time.