You're Not as Free as You Think // Romans 6:14-23

Let's clap, even for a 30-second video, yes, yes. Guys, good morning, Two Cities Church. We have a big week ahead of us. We have a big week behind us. We just had the weekender. I think I've got some pictures. We had over 100 people here taking their next step. It never gets old for me, very, very exciting. But this week, we've got two big events, okay? And let me just say this, hear me say this, okay? We are not an event-driven church. I will not, by the grace of God, let us become an event-driven church. We're just doing events, events, events, events, events. And we will never do an event that could have been an email, okay? Events exist to equip people in our church, okay, to be stronger, or we might say to be centered and sent. We're bringing in Albert Moeller, who was here last time, he didn't ask anything, yes. Hopefully, look, guys, okay, I have had a man crush on Dr. Moeller for like 20 years, okay, the first time when he came here last time, I was like coaching myself in the parking lot. Don't be too excited when you see him, don't be too excited, don't forget your name. I'll tell you again. So, guys, he's coming back, it's gonna be incredible. Bring your questions, go ahead, bring your questions on technology, okay?

Bring your questions on theology, bring your questions on geopolitical realities. He loves talking about all that stuff, okay? So be here Wednesday night, come with your community group, go to dinner before or after, have a great time. And then men, can I talk to the men for a second, okay? We have our annual men's night, Clayton King is back, talked to him on the phone this week, he said he's gonna be giving a sermon called Men or a Man of Action, so it's gonna be incredible. Speaking of men of action, the Butner Campus, men of Butner, welcome for week two. Can we give them a round of applause? Man of Butner, a Butner, okay, I grew up in Pennsylvania, there's a place called Butler, Butner though, okay? Men of Butner, I wanna say something. You know, I was thinking about this, I was thinking about you guys this morning, and I was thinking about how what the Apostle Paul would do when he couldn't be with people who he loved and wanted to be with is he would write letters. And I want you to know that we're sending a team, we have sent a team, they're with you today. And that's part of the way we say we love you and our desire and able to actually put a campus in Butner is part of our way to say we love you and I hope one day soon to be there and meet you as well. Let's pray for Romans chapter six is what we're gonna be today.

We're launching, if you're new, we're launching series within a larger series for the year. So today we're launching Be Free. And what's interesting is, and I was talking to Pastor Dave about this after this service, there was so much chaos in this last service, we had the nine o'clock. There was like, I'm not gonna get into it, it's like it was, there's several things happened. It's like, I actually think it's spiritual warfare. I think this is a very important message. So I'm ready, let's get ready together in prayer and then we're gonna dive into Romans six. Lord, I wanna take a moment, I wanna pray for every person in here. We show up each week and we're not exactly sure what's gonna happen. What we wanna do today is we wanna understand sin. But more than that, we wanna understand the grace of God. But I pray for a clarity to teach. I pray for a humility among our church to listen and to apply what the Bible says, Lord. We want to be, as Paul will say today, we wanna be set free, but we wanna be set free not just from something, but for something. Would you do it in Jesus' name we ask, amen. Statements are powerful, right? There are certain statements, it's more than just like a sentence. Like a statement can change history, right?

I have a dream for words and we remember them and he repeated them, MLK did, again and again and again. Tear down this wall, right? It's like we can remember those of us who were alive, Reagan saying that. I declare these truths to be self-evident. These are statements, okay? Now there's statements that change history, then there's also statements that change your life, right? Now, it could be something good. I now pronounce you husband and wife. I just did a wedding this week. And it's amazing that in that statement, right? We speak a new reality over this brand new couple. Here's another phrase that'll change your life. It's a boy, okay? Or how many times has your wife or your husband walked in the room or maybe your boss or somebody and said, or your parents and said, we need to talk. Nothing good ever comes after those four words, okay? Ever, okay? Guys, today we're gonna look at a statement that Paul, it's gonna be in chapter six, verse 14. statement is the be free statement. This statement is a declarative statement. It's not a command. I'm going to read it to you in a second. Paul just gave a bunch of commands. He'll give more commands later. You know, like we saw last week, present your members to God,

present yourselves to God. Those were commands. This is a promise. This is a fact. This is an assurance. I'll read it to you. Chapter 6, verse 14, for sin will have no dominion over you. Why? Since you're not under law, but under grace. I'm going to try for the next 40 minutes to unpack this statement, but here's what I need to say, and I need you to listen up, okay? And last time right around here was when it got a little weird in here. Stuff started happening. Some of you are living under a different statement than this statement, and it's a statement somebody else said about you. It might've been your ex, and the statement was, I don't love you. In fact, I settled for you. It might've been your parents. It's so long ago, you're embarrassed to talk about it, and here was the statement, why can't you be more like your brother? Why can't you be more like your sister? Sometimes it's a coach. It's a mentor.

You just don't have what it takes to get to the next level. Sometimes it's a peer, and they say something like, you know what? You're awkward, and you're not that pretty, and everybody's just nice to you because they feel sorry for you. And I know those statements, but it's like, okay, can a statement like that, can somebody live under that? Well, I have done enough pastoral counseling for the last 15 years to know that there are statements that somebody said a long time ago that you're still living under, and I want you to not live under that statement, but I want you to live under what God says about you. Here's what he says. He says, sin will not have dominion over you, verse 14. Okay, we need to talk about the word dominion. I'm guessing you didn't use the word dominion this week. It's kind of a scary word, right? If I walk into an area, I'm like, I'm about to have dominion, right? It's like, what are you about to do? Well, here's what's interesting. We're told sin will not have dominion over you, but guess what's interesting. If you go back to Genesis 1, the first command to humans, the first command to Adam and Eve was to have dominion.

Back when our Multiply series opening sermon, Genesis 1, be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth and have dominion. Here's what dominion means. Use it for your purposes, ultimately God's purposes, but that's what it means, because I'm gonna explain how sin has dominion. Here's what he says. So here's what dominion is. Take the raw materials of creation and reorganize them for human flourishing, for good purposes. And if you've ever wondered, how did we get planes that stay in the air and toilets that flush and cars that drive? You know, and how can I hit a switch and there's electricity and how can I turn on water and it comes out of the sink? The answer is that was man in God's image having dominion. Now, why am I telling you that? Because it says that after Genesis 3, when sin enters the world, sin has dominion over us before we're in Christ. Here's what that means. If you talk to the average person in America today, they think for sure that they're in control of their sin. Right, that's nobody ever, does everybody ever wake up and say, I decided to destroy my life today? No, because sin always takes us further than we wanna go, charges us more than we wanna pay,

keeps us longer than we wanna stay. Here's what Paul's saying. Sin actually uses people for its purposes. And oftentimes, they don't realize till later in life, we'll talk about that later. He says, you're not under the dominion of sin. He says, you are under, and he actually says, sorry. He says, you're not under law, but you're under grace. I wanna talk about law and I wanna talk about grace. Because here's what he says, there's two kingdoms. There's only, by the way, the Bible, if you haven't noticed this, the Bible is binary. There's heaven and there's hell. There's believers and there's unbelievers, okay? We tend to think, oh no, I'm looking for a third option. There is not a third option. There are two kingdoms. It's the kingdom under law or the kingdom under grace. The kingdom under law is later called sin. The kingdom under grace is often called the kingdom of life, the kingdom of Christ. Think about it this way, because I know, here we are, it's like, we haven't had to live in a kingdom for hundreds of years, so how do you understand kingdoms? Think about it this way, operating systems. He's basically saying, you've been under an old operating system called the law. It affected how you lived, how you thought, your heart, all of that. He said, it's time to get a new operating system.

Let me make this real practical. He's like, some of you are still using an Android. Too soon? No, I mean, and it's. Messing up everything. Green bubbles for the rest of us. And he said, you got to get rid of that old operating system. You need a new operating system. See, here's the difference. I mean, by the way, if you haven't noticed, sometimes what I have to do is talk about the same things again and again and again in different ways. So Paul's kind of talked about this already, but let me just say it. Law is an external motivation, right? Law doesn't work long-term. The problem is as soon as your parents tell you not to do something, what do you want to do? Do it. I mean, am I the only one that wants to pull fire alarms? Am I the only one that wants to do this? I've never done that, but I just, every time I see them, I'm like, man, I just, I know I shouldn't pull it, but I kind of want to. Guys, there is a, like the law, Paul says later, the law puts in you the desire often to do the exact opposite, whereas grace is an internal motivation, right? Think about it this way. The law informs, grace transforms.

It's like, think about, you know, you buy some cookie, okay? The law is the nutrition label on the back, which you don't even want to look at, right? You're like, 40% of my sugar for the day, you know? How many carbs are in this? Okay, all it can do is inform. The nutrition label cannot give you the power not to eat the cookie. Grace transforms, the law informs. He said you need to live under grace. Let's talk about what grace is. You know, you've probably heard the acronym. Grace is God's riches at Christ's expense. That's a good, I mean, what we teach kids is important for a reason. That is a good definition of grace. You could say grace is God's goodness toward us, okay? Because of what Christ has done for us. There's different types of grace, did you know that? Part of what we need to do, right, it's 2026, we need to become a little bit more sophisticated in our thinking. You know, is God gracious to everyone? The answer is, well, what type of grace are you talking about? If you're talking about what's called common grace, the answer is yes. Common grace is all the grace God gives to people that doesn't save them. This is health, right?

This is food. I mean, there's Bible verses on this. He makes his sun rise and his rain fall on the just and the unjust. But this isn't talking about living under common grace because everybody lives under God's common grace. That's why everybody doesn't go to hell immediately for the first sin that they commit. He's talking about God's saving and transforming grace, okay? The saving grace of God, okay, is you realize this, the only thing I brought to my sin, sorry, the only thing I brought to my salvation is the sin that made it necessary. And now I understand that the number one way, the primary way, the first and foremost way that I relate to God is by the grace of God. And here's the thing, this works for everybody. You've never had such a great day that you didn't need the grace of God. And you've never had such a bad day that you were outside of the grace of God. That's helpful to know. Let me say it again. You've never had such a good day that you haven't needed the grace of God. And you've never had such a bad day that you were outside the reach of the grace of God. The grace of God doesn't just forgive us, it transforms us, okay? Think of it this way,

the grace of God is not an excuse to sin. It's an empowerment to say no to sin. The grace of God does not give you permission to sin, it gives you power over sin. Think of it this way. When you understand the grace of God, you stop saying I have to and you start saying I get to. That's such a big difference, right? And by the way, it honors God a lot more that I get to than I have to. I mean, I have to go to church, I have to go to community group, I have to read my Bible, I have to share my faith, I have to pray, I have to say no to this tempting sin versus I get to. Just try that in your mind one time. I get to talk to the God of the universe. I get to read God's thoughts for me written down in the book. I get to share the hope of Christ with other people. I get to be a part of a local church with other believers on mission together. That's how I get to. Well, here's what he's gonna say. Okay, and now we're gonna unpack the rest of this chapter. So he goes, okay, if you're under grace and you're not under law, if you're gonna understand these things, he goes, you actually have to understand slavery and freedom. You'll see how this is connected.

Follow me. Look what he says in verse 15. He says, what then, Paul's back to asking questions, are we to sin because we're not under the law but under grace? By no means, may it never be that. Okay, look, then he says this. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anybody, here it is, as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. Verse 17, but thanks be to God... By the way, do you notice that Paul praises God in the middle of writing about being a slave of God? He says, but thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. Okay, so we're going to spend a lot of time talking about freedom and slavery because basically what Paul says is everybody's a slave. Now, Paul's not making a moral judgment on slavery. Here's what he's doing. He's using something everybody understands to talk about something nobody understands. So he's like, I'm going to use this metaphor and analogy of slavery to talk about a couple of things. And by the way, in a few minutes, you'll see this. He goes, at the end, he goes, human language gets in the way. Like, this isn't the best. He kind of says, like, it's hard to describe spiritual realities with human language. But when you talk about, you know, being a slave, if you told the average

American, if you told, you know, modern people, you tell them, like, you know, they're enslaved, they would say, no, I'm not. They would say, I do whatever I want to, whenever I want to, with whoever I want to. I mean, the number... I mean, I don't know if it's the number one, but it's up there. The number one value of Americans. I mean, it has to be autonomy. It has to be the anthem, my body, my choice. It has to be the water we're swimming in as expressive individualism, which is let me find out who I am and share that with others. So much of consumerism is the Burger King mindset, have it your way. I can just...I mean, think about how much freedom we have as consumers. It's almost...imagine that your wife sends you to the grocery store to get toothpaste. Have you ever seen what a toothpaste aisle at a grocery store looks like? Some of you need to visit the toothpaste aisle, okay? But if you go there, well, what brand do I get? Well, what size do I get? Well, what flavor do I get? Do I have sensitive teeth? Does whitening work? Should I be worried about cavities? It's like we have so much choice. So here, we're going to have a deep conversation together, okay? Sunday morning. Here's a question. Do you have free will? This is the kind of thing that like nerdy seminary students debate, you know, at night, but it's actually, you know, when you ask the question,

people feel silly. I feel silly even asking it, right? Because people are going to go, of course, I have free will. I mean, just ask Chad GPT, the average American makes like 30,000 decisions a day, and I went to the school I wanted to and I took the job I wanted to and I married the person I wanted to. Of course, I have free will. Well, here's what the Bible says. The will is not neutral. Your will, we like to think our will is neutral, and I could choose anything. Your will is not neutral, it's bent. Here's the Bible's definition of free will. You have the ability to do what you want. The problem is you won't want the right things. I talk here a lot about a guy named Martin Luther because he's a famous Christian from the 1500s. I mean, he literally started the Protestant Reformation. You know, you probably heard of him. He nailed the 95 theses to the door at Wittenberg. We'll come up sometime if you don't know who he is. He did so many things. Here's what's interesting. At the end of his life, he said, my favorite book and most important book that I wrote was The Bondage of the Will, in which he talks about this idea that the problem with you and the problem with me is we do get to choose what we want, but the problem is we're not going to want the right things. Jonathan Edwards, this other guy, a couple hundred years later, he writes a book called The Freedom of the Will, where he basically says, we have natural ability but not moral ability. So think about it this way.

Imagine a guy or gal is a workaholic. Jonathan Edwards would say, they actually have the natural ability to take a nap. They have the natural ability to say, you know, at 9 o'clock, I should get in my bed, and I should lay down, and I should turn the lights off, and I should fall asleep. He said they would have the natural ability. They wouldn't have the moral ability because, you know, they are greedy, or their identity is found in their productivity, or they're a slave to their boss, or whatever it is. So what I want to talk to you about for a little bit is what the Bible teaches, which is not...here's what the world teaches, freedom from, that's the definition of the world, freedom from constraint. The Bible teaches freedom for Christ. Those are two different mentalities. So think about it this way, over the last 300 years, I always like to do a little history together, over the last 300 years, we have been in a project as the American people to try to get free from more and more constraints. So what was the first constraint that Americans wanted to get free from? The crown, the American Revolution. And that's a good thing, we didn't, you know, wanna be under the crown. What's the second thing that we got free from? The state church, which later became getting free from. Then what's the third thing that we got free from? You can look at the dates on all this. They wanted to be free, not just from the crown and the church, they wanted to be free from tradition. From all the things in the past,

and from all the teachings of the past, and from all the lessons of the past. And then what's the fourth thing that we wanted to be free from? Our families. This is why we live in what's called a first name culture. Nobody even tells you what their last name is anymore because they don't really care because they care about their first name. That's who they are, not their last name, who they're connected to. And then now we're trying to be free from, in like 20 different ways, free from our biology. We're actually trying to be free from our whole bodies. Like let's go into the metaverse and, you know, let's do AI everything, and let's upload our conscience, and let's, you know, do virtual reality, everything. We're trying to be free from constraints. Think about this, the average American, as they grow up, what do they want? I wanna get out of my parents' house, I wanna be free from that, right? And then I wanna actually, not just that, I wanna be free from the place I grew up in, I wanna go live somewhere else, right? People try to be free from all, I wanna be free from work, I wanna somehow find out how to get money without having to work.

And we're always trying to think freedom would come if I would just have less and less constraints. And the Bible actually says, the Exodus narrative is the paradigm. Moses, God tells Moses, and Moses says to Pharaoh, let my people go, that's freedom from sin and slavery. Why? So that they may worship me, that's freedom for. What happens when you become a Christian is God gives you the right desires and helps you to order your fears, and order your affections, and order your priorities so that you can live out your divine design. But look what he says, I'll read it one more time. He says that we're slaves. I wanna talk about this idea of being a slave. He says this, do you not know, I'm gonna read verse 16 again. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves, he's gonna use this word four times, slaves, of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching of which you were committed. And having been set free from sin, you become slaves of righteousness. So we don't like thinking of ourselves as slaves,

but basically Paul goes, there's no middle ground. You're either gonna be a slave to sin or a slave to God. You're not even on the menu to choose yourself. I'll be a slave to myself. No, you can't choose that. It's either God or it's sin. But here's the thing, every time you talk about slavery with people, they think of, I'm not a slave, because people think of slavery as slavery is I'm enslaved to something I hate. And that's certainly a form of slavery, but most people experience slavery like this. I'm enslaved to something I love. Americans are, for the most part, I think, which means you guys and myself, here's four areas we tend to be enslaved to, other people. How many of you, if you're honest, people are big and God is small. And people are living rent-free in your mind. And you care way too much about, you know, you hate to say it out loud, who likes and comments on your social media. You care way too much about the opinion of other people. See, here's what happens. When you're young, we correct you and go, hey, don't give in to pure pressure. Every parent has that conversation. Don't give in to pure pressure. Then when you get older, we say,

please be careful with people pleasing. That's not gonna go well for you. It moves from pure pressure to people pleasing. And then when you end up in counseling, they call it codependence. How much worry, how much fear, how much anxiety is it? Because we are actually enslaved to the opinions of everybody around us. Some of you are still enslaved to what, you know, you're like 40 and you're still enslaved to what your parents think about you. This happens all the time to people. Here's the second one. We're enslaved to our work, our career, our productivity. Why does everybody have a side hustle? It's a new idea. I mean, I've, growing up, I didn't know any parent, anybody, who had a side hustle. I'm not saying it's wrong to have a side hustle. I'm saying everybody has a side hustle. Everybody's got this, we're just working all the time. It's like, oh, mom and dad or mom or dad are going down to the basement again as soon as the kids go to bed and so then they don't connect with each other at night because they both have to do their work for their second job, for their extra whatever. There's no margin, there's no time. Guys, busyness, it's interesting. So busyness, you guys all know this,

but busyness as a badge of honor is a new idea. For most of human history, what you bragged about was not having to work. The elites and the aristocrats, I mean, that's what everybody wanted to be. It's like, they would brag about what they don't do and how little they work and how much they rest, but if you came up to me and I told you anything other than I was busy, you would be concerned about me. If I came up to you, I'm like, I'm actually sleeping nine and a half hours a night, it's great. I've got a fairly easy schedule, it's been actually a very easy week this week, not much on my schedule. You'd be like, well, something's wrong. The average American works 100 more hours a year than the average European, okay? We're enslaved to our side hustles, our productivity, our boss. I mean, the same guy who goes, I don't answer to anybody, wait till he gets a notification from his boss on his phone, he'll answer right away. Here's the third one, comfort and convenience. So interestingly enough, when I got here to Winston 10 years ago, I wanted to know what is, I had never lived here before, so I wanted to know what is the idol in the city of Winston-Salem? Because I had known enough theology to know

that cities have idols. So Boston, think about it, Boston's idol is intellect. MIT's there, Harvard's there, right? New York City's idol is money. DC's idol is power. Miami's idol is looks, vanity. LA's idol is fame. It's like, well, why do people go there? Like, what is that about? So I said, well, you know, Winston-Salem, it's the fifth largest city in North Carolina, but it's smaller, and I wonder what its idol would be. So I went and I asked like everybody on the launch team, a lot of people on the launch team, and I got one answer again and again and again, comfort and convenience. You can have a Whole Foods and a Trader Joe's in a small city with the tiniest Lululemon you'll ever go to in your whole life. But it's there, like everything's 15 minutes away, and it's, you know, after 2020, everything's more expensive, but it's actually fairly affordable, and you can get down to Charlotte Airport in an hour and 20 minutes and fly anywhere you need to. And if you're willing to live 20 minutes outside the city, you can get some land. It's why you see, I mean, a lot of people, they move away for a season, they come back to Winston. Listen, they say there were at least two big moves in making us enslaved to comfort in the last like 50 years.

The first one, air conditioning in every home. So why would you leave? Why would you go outside? Why would you meet your neighbors? Why would you go to a place where you can't control the temperature when you say in a place you can? But here was the second one, that one's more obvious. The second one that really made us lazy. Are you ready for this? 2013, it's not the phone, DoorDash. Do you understand how lazy you have to be to consistently use DoorDash? You're like, yeah, I don't wanna cook, and I don't even wanna pick it up. I don't even wanna go sit somewhere and have someone cook for me. I don't even wanna do that, I don't have time for that. Americans spent $150 billion last year having food delivered to their homes. Guys, comfort, it doesn't feel like a chain of slavery, it feels more like a couch. And we don't do hard things, we don't take risks, we are enslaved to comfort. Finally, we're enslaved to our appetites, obviously. I've talked about that before. Your appetites only, just so you know, your appetites only know two words. The favorite two words for your appetite, now and more. Very straightforward, very simple words, now and more.

Here's what's interesting. When you say this out loud, it's like, is this really true? But it is. Pornography websites get more traffic in a year than Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter combined. There's substance abuse, there's addiction to gambling, I mean, there's all different types of addictions that we're enslaved to. By the way, if I said one of those four and you're like, ha ha, Kyle, you didn't get me, here's the thing I'd say. What you're enslaved to tends to be what you defend against. And I'm not saying that you're not a good defender. So here's a question, what can nobody talk to you about? Is it your work schedule? It's like, ooh, can't touch that. Is it your hobby? Is it your nightly routine with just a little bit too much drinking every night? And it's like, that's an area that as soon as anybody tries to talk to you about it, you get defensive. Why? Because slaves love to defend their masters. So he says, here's what he says though, look here. I already read it to you, but let's look and see it one more time. Verse 17, but thanks be to God that you who were once slaves to sin, this is what happens when you become Christian, you become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching which you were committed and having been set free from sin, you become slaves

of righteousness. So the Bible gives us a counterintuitive answer. It says the way to be set free from sin and being a slave to sin is to be a slave to God. So basically what Paul's saying is there's no option to not be a slave. There's just no, it's not in there, it's not on the menu, there's no third option. And what he's actually teaching is something that we, if we would just think about it for a second, we know, here's what Paul's teaching, and you've heard this before. The only way to true freedom is through mastery. Like in other words, say you're like, I wanna learn the piano, well the piano's complex, it's a bunch of keys and then you say, I don't wanna like, I'm just gonna go up there and just hit whatever keys I wanna hit. It's like, well, none of us will want to listen to that. But if you're like, no, what I need to do is I need to submit myself to a piano teacher, I need to submit myself to sitting, even if I don't want to, even if I wanna go outside and play with my friends, I need to sit for hours a week working on the piano. I have to learn how to read music, all of this is, I have to serve this, I have to come under this, I have to be mastered by it, then master it. And that's how you end up having freedom. Well, he says, basically, God is a good master. See, sin wants to take from you, right? Sin takes from you, that's what, it takes your peace,

right, it takes your youth, it takes your health, it takes your energy, it takes your integrity, you know. God wants to give. And so here's what he says, he says, you became obedient from the heart. So the transformation that happens when you become a believer is you want to obey God now. See, when I use the word obedience, nobody likes the word, it's just like, it's kind of similar. It's like whenever I talk about submission and marriage and men and women and submission, it's like, it's just hard to talk about. Well, that would be specific when I'm talking about marriage. But in general, as soon as we get specific about obedience, people don't like it. They just want to be ethereal. Well, I just love Jesus. I just want to worship the Lord, I want to love Jesus. It's like, well, how about obeying him? Here's what obedience is. Obedience is responsive trust. That's probably one of the most common definitions. Or think about it this way, obedience is faith with its work clothes on. Or how about this one? Obedience is love with instructions. Jesus said, if you love me, you will obey my commandments. How are you doing obeying God? Is there an area of your life where God has been telling you to do something and you know you have been disobeying?

You know, it's the same thing you teach your kids, right? Delayed obedience is disobedience. And he's saying, God is a good master, and there's no option. You're either going to serve sin or you're going to serve him. Paul actually, he goes, okay, I'm done with this section. He goes, actually, it was kind of hard to talk about. Look at verse 19. He says, I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. Paul's like, guys, this is hard to talk about because these concepts, faith, hope, love, it's hard to define them, so I'll use metaphors and analogies. He says this, though, look. I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. Look here. I love what Paul does here. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification. Okay, here's what Paul said. Paul, I told you this last week. Paul gets really practical, so I'll get really practical. Paul said this. Let me summarize that whole passage we just read. Paul said, you used to be really good at sinning. Now get really good at obeying.

Think about it, right? I'm not thinking of any one person in here, okay, but like. Some of you are really good at sinning. And we would never know who you are because you're actually that good. You know, this is like when someone's life blows up, everyone's like, him, her? It's like, they were good at sinning. It takes a lot of energy to get good at sinning. You have to, at its height, you have to live a double life. That's hard. You have to lie a lot, so you have to remember what you have to say, you have to make up things that didn't even happen, that are the opposite of reality, but they have to be, they have to sound true. You have to usually keep it a secret from the people you love for a very long time. It usually involves hiding money as well, if things escalate, so then you have to get creative with how you're going to do that. So maybe you're using cash or something else. Maybe you have a second phone. I mean, people, I'm just telling you, here's what Paul's saying. He's going, you guys, before you were in Christ, and some of you now even in Christ, the amount of energy, commitment, and creativity that you have at being sinful, Paul goes, he's looking at you going,

you have some transferable skills. Isn't that interesting? He's almost like this, he's almost like a football coach who walks by a elementary school playground, and he sees some big fifth grader pushing some kids around, and he goes, future linebacker, there it is. I just need to take that kid and give him, I need to take that energy, take that aggression, and I need to turn it for something good. Here's what Paul's saying, guys, it's not going to be easy to walk with God. It's not going to be easy to read your Bible every day. It's not going to be easy to share your faith. It's not going to be easy to have a prayer life. It's not going to be easy to disciple your kids. It's not going to be easy to love your husband or wife. You're going to need to bring the creativity and the conviction and the consistency that you brought to sin now to obedience. Because here's what he says, he says, here's what happens. You see, he says, I'll read it to you, because I don't want you to miss this. I want you to see it in the text. Look at what he says in verse 16, 19, I'm sorry. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, look here, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness leading to sanctification. Okay, here's what he's basically saying.

In your life, whatever you obey gets momentum. And he's basically like, you know, here's what happens. You know, you start doing bad things, you do more bad things, you do more bad things, you do more bad things. He says, you start doing good things, you can have momentum in the other direction. By the way, what is momentum? I mean, we could give Newton's law, you know, an object doesn't move until acted upon, you know, all that kind of stuff. But if I were to just say, what is actual momentum? If you're like, I want momentum, what does momentum feel like, right? The old joke is, you know, you don't always know when you have momentum, but you know when you don't. Momentum is simply this, the sense that you're winning. So my dad's been a Pirate fan for like 60 years, Pittsburgh Pirates, pray for us. And, you know, he would still every couple of years, if they, you know, if it just looks like they're gonna win a couple games in a row and they maybe have the longest shot to, you know, maybe be the wild card or whatever, he would call me. It's because as soon as you start winning, there is momentum. You need to watch yourself win in an area of your life. You need to watch yourself three or four days in a row, read your Bible.

You need to watch yourself pray. You need to watch yourself go on a prayer walk more days this week than you don't go. And you start having that positive momentum. Now, what hinders momentum? We'll just think of the physical world. What hinders momentum? An object stays in motion unless acted upon. Friction. If you're gonna walk with God, if you're gonna like come to the altar in a few minutes and you're gonna pray and you're gonna say, I'm gonna walk with God. Okay, that's awesome. That's the first step of momentum. But then you're gonna experience so much friction, it might be your spouse because he or she's not on the same page. And they don't want you to change because actually if you change, it's just gonna show the terrible condition that they're in and they would like to stay in their condition and they would like you to stay a dimmer light so that you don't see how bad they are. I mean, that happens all the time. You know, you could be discouraged because you'll make two steps forward but then one step backwards, but that's okay, you're still making progress.

And you know, you didn't do it for three weeks but then you did. And you relapse into something. It's like, okay, there's the grace of God for that. Don't, you could discourage yourself by the way you talk to yourself. Paul goes, it's time. And guys, I think today for some of you, you need a new experience of the grace of God and you need some positive spiritual momentum. Here's what Paul ends. Paul ends like this, he goes, guys, he says, let's think about something together. Let me read you verses 20 to 22. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. So he goes, yeah, you were free when you were a slave to sin, you were free of being righteous. That's about the only thing you're free from. He says, but look at this, here's the question. Paul asks a question none of us want to ask. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? Look here, this phrase is repeated twice. For the end of those things is death. But now that you've been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification. And look here, it's end eternal life. So here's what Paul says.

Paul says, if you need to be motivated, and we do need to be motivated, right? A lot of us struggle with personal motivation. We know what we need to do, we just don't really have the desire or energy to do it. Paul goes, think about where things lead. Paul's like, I want to tell you the one thing your flesh doesn't want to think about, where lying leads. I want to tell you one thing that your algorithm doesn't want you to think about, and advertisers don't want you to think about, and sin doesn't want you to think about, and Satan doesn't want you to think about. He doesn't want you to think about where will this lead across time. And the great lie that we all tend to believe, we all believe a version of this, I can do something, I can do something sinful, I can do something wrong, and it will not lead where it's led for every other person who's ever done this. You know, it's interesting, recently I was watching an interview with a guy named Arthur Brooks. I don't know if you've heard of Arthur Brooks, he's become kind of famous, he's written a lot of books, he's, I don't know that he's a Christian, he's a professor at Harvard. And I was watching this interview, and in the interview he said, there's a quadrant of life that everybody wants to be in

at the end of their life, but very few people get there. And he said, we'll call this quadrant healthy and happy. Maybe an oversimplification, but kind of interesting. He said that, if you started out, and you talked to someone at 15, 20 years old, they might define what that looks like a little bit different, but yeah, happy and healthy, right? And a lot of times for our kids, I want them to be happy and healthy. He said, here's the problem, almost nobody lands there. He said, lots of people, he said, and in fact, after his research and all this, he says, most people, the natural default, the older you get, is to end up unhealthy and or unhappy. He said, every once in a while you'll find somebody, they're an extrovert, they're a party guy, they're the life of the party, he says, they're happy, but nobody wants their life, they're not healthy. He says, and every once in a while, you'll find a very disciplined person, and they're counting their macros, and they're doing their CrossFit, and they're doing whatever else, and he says, and they're healthy, but they're not really happy, and they've cared for their body, and they haven't cared for their soul. He said, you have to have a plan if you're going to be happy, and you're gonna be healthy. Here's what you need to do, you need to think through,

what are the decisions that I'm making? What is the influence that this is going to have? In a decade, two decades, three decades, I mean, think, do you still want to be struggling? Say you're, I don't know, 31 years old in here today. You're most likely, unless you die, you're gonna be 55 one day. It's like, you know, think about it this way, like, do you want to be a grandma and a grandpa, and still struggling with exactly what you're struggling with, the way that you're struggling with it? No, you wouldn't. Here's a question you can ask for yourself, too, in an area of your life. Would I want my kids to have my marriage? Would I want my kids to prioritize work like I have, or I love my kids, would I tell them they don't need to work that much? See, all this started with a declarative statement. Sin won't have dominion over you. You're not under the law, but you're under grace, but you know the reason that statement can be so declarative over us? It's because of another declarative statement. That Jesus made on the cross. Maybe the shortest declarative statement in the Bible, three words, it is finished. What is Jesus saying? Here's at least part of what he's saying. When he says, it is finished, he's saying,

I already lived under the law. Jesus Christ shows up and he lives under the law for 33 years. That's why he had to be a baby, and a kid, and an adolescent, and an adult. He had to live under the law through every stage of life, perfectly obeying it. So he was under the law in the sense that he was under its commands and he obeyed it, but then when he went to. The cross, he went under the curse of the law, under the penalty of the law. And he experienced the wrath of God for us. And that's why at the end, he says, it is finished. Notice he didn't say, I am finished. Because he rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and he's still saving, he's still discipling, he's still redeeming, he's still breaking chains, breaking bondage. So here's what I want to invite you to. I want to invite you across this room. I think there's three types of people in this room, at least, across our campuses and in this room. I think some of you are enslaved. And it might be something as silly as you are enslaved to what your mother thinks about you, even though you're 37 years old. You're enslaved to the opinions of others. Some of you, you're enslaved to comfort. You haven't done something hard or risky in a decade. And I just want to invite you to come forward and pray. Say, God, the option isn't, am I going to be enslaved? The option is, am I going to be enslaved to the opinions of others, to sin?

Lord, I want to be enslaved to a good master God. Others of you think you're free. Some of you, there's an arrogance about you. And the people who think they're most free often are the people whose sin is having dominion in your life in ways that it may not show up for another decade. But what does Paul say at the end? For the wages of sin is death. Here's what that means. Sin always pays. It doesn't always pay on time. It doesn't always pay immediately. But it means that you will, if you do not repent, you will get what you deserve for all your sin. But finally, you know, here's the last thing I want to say. There's a group of you who are spiritually numb. That's what sin does to us. Christian, if you're in here and you are spiritually numb, Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. In some of you, you used to worship God, and you used to raise your hands, and you used to feel it in your heart. And now, you sing the songs and you don't even believe it. And you pray the prayers, and they hit the ceiling, and they come back, and you read the Bible, and it just feels like an old book, and it doesn't feel alive anymore. And maybe at least one of the reasons is there's been some areas of your life that you need to get right with God today. And I just want to invite you all across this room to come forward. Part of the momentum, the positive spiritual momentum, sometimes is making a decision one time. Some of you, I really believe, really.

You're like, I'm so excited for you. You're like one decision away from momentum beginning to happen in your life. It's always hardest at first. You got to tell one person about your struggle. You got to take one next step to get connected to community, right? You need to make one decision, and I'm excited for you. Let's pray together. Lord, there's so many different ways that we should respond. Last week, we talked about presenting our bodies, Lord. Lord, I pray that every person in here would live under the grace of God, that every person would desire to obey. Lord, that we would have that responsive trust, Lord, that you would set us free from sin for righteousness, for worship, for the good of others, Lord. There are so many good deeds to be done. There are so many people to be reached. There are so many missionaries to be sent. There are so many prayers to be prayed. There are just so many disciples to be made, Lord. Would you do it? Would you do it in us, through us, and beyond us? We ask this in Jesus' name. Please stand, please sing, please come forward. Lord, I pray that every person in here would live under the grace of God, that every person would desire to obey. Lord, that we would have that responsive trust, Lord, that you would set us free from sin for righteousness, for worship, for the good of others, Lord. There are so many good deeds to be done. There are so many prayers to be made.

Would you do it? Would you set us free from sin for righteousness, for worship, for the good of others, Lord? We ask this in Jesus' name.