Chapter 6: 1-14

We are all slaves; who is your master?

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? ² Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? ³ Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? ⁴ Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. ⁵ For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶ knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

“⁷ For he who has died has been freed from sin. ⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, ⁹ knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. ¹⁰ For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. ¹¹ Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ¹³ And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.“

How are you doing with the ‘stay at home’ orders? We have some lines here in Southern Ontario, some long, some not so long. Our stores are well-stocked and we have not had any real shortages. Our church as well as many churches are meeting using the Zoom platform, and we find that to be very useful. If you ever want to see some of our messages, you can find them on our FB page at Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church. If you like the page, then you will get all of our messages each week. I love what the Lord is doing in that He is flooding the airwaves with lots of good Bible teaching. There are some that are not so good, and so you have to be discerning. But there is a lot more good stuff out there than there was a few weeks ago.

The idea of socialism has reared its ugly head in the past 50 years or so. It is constantly trying to come into North America and, to some degree, it has. We here in Canada have a government-paid-for health care system that one would argue is a kind of socialism. One of the problems with socialism is that the roles of government and citizen are reversed. In the free market system and under the idea of God-given rights, the idea is that the government serves the people and not the other way around. In socialism, their ideals sound good, but when people realize that no matter how hard you work, you will never get any further than the people who don’t, they stop working; then, everything is broken, and the citizen ends up working for the state; the government. Both freedom and socialism require work; in one, the citizen works to rise up and do better. In socialism, the state works to keep the citizen down.

In our text today, we are going to look at slavery. This is not a loved term in our modern vocabulary. But we are all slaves. If you are a child of God, saved and washed in the blood of Jesus, then you should be a bond slave (a slave out of love for Jesus), to do what is right. If, on the other hand, you are a lost person, then you are a slave to the sin nature in you.

Paul is about to begin to deep-dive into the battle that we have in the flesh each day. A battle that will never be over until we die or Jesus comes to get us. A battle that is so real and so painful it can leave scars in our minds and in our hearts. It is a battle that every born-again person must fight to some degree or the other. Some battles are entrenched in a deep, dark corner of the mind; some are very visible in the flesh. Some of these battles we have learned to mask in piety, and some eventually give in and stop fighting.

1. Slavery to Sin.

What Paul writes about here, is surrender. He says that we are slaves to whatever ‘force’ we surrender our bodies to (verse 13); we are slaves to whom we present our bodies. The obvious observation here is that we have volition, the power to choose. We can live for the Lord in our bodies or we can live for the flesh. There is a school of thought that says that we cannot sin once we have been saved, that we are no longer able to sin. I have seen, on YouTube, preachers that claim to be sinless. Their words are found to be mere lies in the wake of the scriptures.

The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 1:15, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” 

Notice that he writes in the present, I am chief. He could have said that ‘I was chief,’ meaning that, at the point of salvation, he was the chief sinner, but now he does not sin. Instead, Paul, under the superintendence of the Holy Spirit, said I am chief. He was, at the time of the letter to Timothy, still the head of all sinners, in his mind. Further, the Apostle John says this in 1 John 1:8-10,

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

John, again under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, makes it clear that if we say that we are not sinners, then we make God out to be a liar and His word is not in us. In 1,2 and 3 John, the apostle is writing to a local church and addressing saved persons in that church. He is telling the saved persons that they are sinners and need to confess their sins regularly. We are told that every High Priest, except Jesus of course, had to first offer a sacrifice for his own sins, Hebrews 5:3:

“Because of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself, to offer sacrifices for sins.”

You see that the High Priest had to offer sacrifice for his own sins as well. We are all sinners. But even as a sinner, we have the ability since we are born-again to surrender our bodies to sinlessness, even though we will not ever be sinless on this side of eternity. How does one become sinless? We are given some great tools to help us as we live this life. The first is found in 1 Corinthians 10:13:

“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

First of all, you and I are not unique. The devil has not concocted some formula that is unique to you. Every temptation that you face is the same temptation that all men face. Now, there may be different flavors of temptation, but they all fall under one of three categories: the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.

1 John 2:16, “For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.”

We are tempted in one or all of these three ways, and the verse in 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us that each time we are tempted, the Lord will provide a way of escape. So, the devil tempts, and the Lord provides a way out. You and I are required to exercise our volition; we are required to make choices. We are not robots pre-programmed to react. We are humans made in the image of God with free will and the ability to serve the God we want to serve.

And, this leads us to the second way that we can choose not to sin, and that is to resist the devil. In James 4:7, we see this admonition:

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Notice that if we resist the devil, he will flee from us. But before we are able to resist the devil, we must first be submitted to God. One provides the power to do the others. Thus, in the moment of temptation, one has to choose who they would like to be the slave to and of. That choice will determine the actions that follow being tempted.

1. Slave to Righteousness.

The choice is ours to make. We can be slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness. In Jesus, those of us who are saved and who have the Holy Spirit in us can choose our paths. As you know, there are a lot of ‘good’ people in your neighborhood and at work, and they don’t seem to be ‘bad’ sinners. They don’t have Jesus, so what does that mean if they are not sinning? Sadly, it means nothing. You see, no matter how much they don’t sin, their very nature has not been changed. So, the little old grandma who knits scarves for all the homeless people, yet rejects the grace of Jesus, is just a rotten sinner. The devil wants God’s people to fail, and to fail miserably so as to cause scorn on God and His ways.

Remember that if we live right, we glorify God, we let people see the truth about God, and we point people to God.

Matthew 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

We are called to live in such a way, once we are saved in and by Jesus, so that persons who come in contact with us will see God the right way. Are you and I doing that?

Go back and reread James 4:7. We are called to submit ourselves to God first. Paul, writing in Romans, tells us that in verse 13 (b) “but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” James says ‘submit,’ and Paul says ‘present.’ The idea is that you and I have to choose whom to serve. We need to stop trying to run our own lives and submit to God. We are called in the same fashion in Romans 12:1-2, to present our bodies as living sacrifices to God and for Him to change us. The context of James and even here in Romans is that, yes, there is a ‘one-time’ surrender to God, but in the real world and in real life, it is a moment-by-moment decision. You are deciding that you will take on a lifetime of deciding.

If we take an honest look at the apostles, we will see that they struggled with the flesh even as they traveled with Jesus, and even after, as they were building and expanding the Lord’s churches; they did not always make the right decisions. In the overall view of their lives, it is obvious that they were surrendered and had presented their bodies for righteousness in the long run; but, at certain times, they did sin. There are many of our Bible heroes that had flaws; men like Samson, Jacob, David and others were sinful men; and yet, in the overall overview of their lives, they were righteous men.

What is the overall overview of your life? Would you say that in general you are surrendered to God with bouts of sinfulness or that you are surrendered to sin with bouts of righteousness? These are honest questions that we need to ask ourselves. I will confess that I struggle with sin. I have very violent battles with my flesh in the dark recesses of my mind; and sadly, I don’t win them all. I am surrendered to righteousness and I am surrendered to God, and there are times when I am able to resist the devil and he leaves me. Unfortunately, not every time turns out this way and I sin. I confess my sins and beg God for His mercy; He is faithful to me and to all His children who will confess.

Who then is your master, my master? Is it our flesh and the sinfulness that lives in it, or are we surrendered to God and long to live righteous lives daily? Remember Jesus’ words about money or mammon, but they can be applied here as well, Matthew 6:24:

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

God bless you,

Pastor Sean Gooding

Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

Chapter 5:12-21

You Choose; Death in Adam or Life in Jesus

“¹² Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned— ¹³ (For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. ¹⁴ Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. ¹⁵ But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. ¹⁶ And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.

“¹⁷ For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) ¹⁸ Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even  so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. ¹⁹ For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous. ²⁰ Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, ²¹ so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.“

Last week we talked about the wonderful benefits that we have in Jesus. The most amazing benefit is that we are loved by God. Yes, let that sink in; the God who controls the universe, the God who knows my every fault and every sinful thought, loves me. He loves you. He freely showed us His love by sending Jesus to die on the cross for us and to pay for our sins.

1. Sin and its entrance, verse 12

Sin came into the world by one man, Adam. He sinned in Genesis 3 when he took of the forbidden fruit and ate it. This is very important to understand. Eve, the Bible tells us, was deceived (1 Timothy 2:14), but it was Adam who sinned willfully. Adam was not deceived; he knew exactly what he was doing when he took of the fruit from Eve and ate it. He may not have known the fallout that was coming, but he knew what he was doing was wrong. He had been given the commandment from God himself.

Genesis 2: 15-17, “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.'”

Man was given boundaries and the free will to either live within the boundaries or step outside. Man chose to step outside of the boundaries that God set in place. Adam did so, knowing the consequences. God told him he would die. Often, I have heard it said that Adam may not have understood the full extent of the consequences; and at times, have thought that as well. But Adam’s brain was pure, fully functioning, not tainted by sin, and having been made in the image of God; his brain was firing on all cylinders. Adam made the choice to sin. He did so with full knowledge and open-eyes.

How many of us sin the same way today? I do. I am sure that you do too. Sometimes we are caught off guard, and we sin out of a reaction to a stressful situation. But, often, way more often than we or I want to admit, we sin willfully. We sin with the full knowledge of the consequences and with the full knowledge that what we are doing is wrong.

Much like rolling a big rock down a hill, you can push the rock but you can’t always control the damage that is done once you let go of the rock. It did not take very long for Adam and Eve to go from eating a piece of fruit to one of their kids killing the other (Genesis 4:8). Sin is in all of us, and it comes out in one of three ways: The sin of pride, the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh. In this case, Cain killed Abel out of pride. He was upset that God did not accept his gift.

Once again, this was not about ignorance. Cain knew that God was a God who required blood sacrifices. His parents for sure had told them the account of God making coats of skin (Genesis 3:21) to cover their nakedness, and hide their sinful shame. Over the years as they were growing up, Cain and Abel would have seen their father kill animals to offer as sacrifices. But Cain defied God; and when his offering was rejected, he rose up and killed his brother out of jealousy and pride.

One of my dear pastor friends once defined pride as one thinking the rules don’t apply to me. Cain was in this boat; he thought that he could worship God his way and not God’s way. Here is the truth: blood covers sin; that is it. The right kind of blood from the right kind of animal, offered in the right way and with the right attitude and spirit, covers our sins.

In Hebrews 9:19-22 we see this, “For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, ‘This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.’ Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.”

Notice that it was the blood of calves or goats, and with water and hyssop; we know that the animals had to be spotless, no blemishes allowed and no marks allowed. They had to be properly inspected and even killed in a certain way at a certain place, and on and on we can go. But Cain thought he could come his way and God had to accept it. But God is the one who determines how we approach him. We must do it his way to be accepted. Let that sink in how fast sin takes root and manifests itself in us. Adam disobeyed God, but had the sense of shame and sin; he hid from God and tried to cover his shame. Cain, on the other hand, had no sense of shame but that of entitlement and hated those, even his brother, who worshiped God the right way.

It did not take very long for the root of sin to spread and bear its rotten fruit. Look at where we have come as a people. We are more sinful than ever, and we are getting worse. It has become a sport to flaunt our sinful lifestyles and to demand that all accept them. If we mention God’s way or truth, we are called bigots. We are reminded that in a world that tells and honors lies and liars, the truth-tellers are going to be hated. Eventually, like Cain, the liars will rise up and kill the ones doing right.

According to Statista.com, there were 108,541 armed robberies in the US in 2018. That is 297 robberies per day, or about 12 robberies per hour. In the 90 minutes that I have been writing this article, there have been 18 armed robberies in the US. According to the same site, there were 15,505 rapes in California in 2018. That works out to more than 42 rapes per day in California.

The root of sin that we get from our father Adam is rampant and getting worse. We are a sad people; we have made a sport of sin. We have become so accustomed to sin, death and evil that even as Christians we are no longer surprised by it and we are no longer shocked by it. We have grown calloused. Sin eats us up and devours our children; we see them caught up in evil and they are driven to it like moths to flames; we try to warn them but they are willful and defiant and sinful. They are full of pride, unteachable and unafraid of the consequences of sin.

1. Jesus and His entrance

Jesus came into a world that was as sinful as ours. We see the hatred in the people of Israel for the Samaritans, for instance, in John 4. We see that hatred of the truth by the Pharisees, and we see the treatment of people by the Romans. The Roman government was a brutal and deadly government. Its armies conquered and dominated the known world for hundreds of years. Slavery was rampant, wars rampant, poverty rampant and death normal. Many of the Caesars were homosexual, and sexual promiscuity was rampant everywhere. There have been many temples discovered that were simply places for sexual encounters with the priestesses and temple prostitutes.

Robbery and murder were prevalent, and crime required that the Roman government be on the offensive all the time. Jesus came into the time when the religious leaders of the Jews had worn out the people financially; they stole from them, and Jesus had to address that twice when he overthrew their change tables in the Temple. Jesus came in and lived a perfect, sinless life. Like Adam, Jesus too was tempted (Matthew 4). He chose to obey God rather than Satan. But all through his life, he was tempted over and over, and He chose to obey God.

Hebrew 4:14-16, “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Jesus was tempted and He never sinned. Now because of that, He became our perfect substitute. He was able to pay for our sins since He had no sin of his own. God put our sin on Him, and in Him and Him alone we have eternal life. This is the only way of salvation. But there are many Cains still around today. They think that they can come to God any way that they want; they think that God has to accept them as they are and that if He does not, He is some kind of ogre.

Just recently, I saw an interview with a prominent ‘pastor,’ and he was asked by the interviewer if Jesus was the only way to God. He did not answer the question Biblically. He implied that there were many ways to God and that Jesus was only one of them. This man pastors a church of thousands, most of whom it would seem are not saved since they are not taught that Jesus is the only way. This religious leader is just as dangerous as the men that led the Jews in Jesus’ day. They have a form of righteousness but it is their own righteousness and not the righteousness bought for us in and by Jesus. You see, these folks are just modern-day Cains leading modern-day Cains.

But Jesus came and provided enough grace for us all. His blood provided enough power to wash away all of our sins. Like Cain, like anyone else, the choice is up to us. All of the power needed in the blood of Jesus has been provided to wash away and cover our sins eternally. In Adam we got the sin nature, but in Jesus, we have the power to get the righteousness of God in us and once again be in fellowship with God. In Adam, our sins are stacked up against us and there is a constant call for God’s wrath, as he hates sin.

In Jesus, our sins are removed forever and there is a constant call for God to shower us with His grace, His love, His kindness and His peace. What a difference? In Adam, we are kicked out of Paradise. In Jesus, we are welcomed into Paradise. In Adam, we have death and suffering. In Jesus, we have life and healing. In Adam, we have no hope. In Jesus, He is our hope. In Adam, the grave is our enemy. In Jesus, the grave is our victory. Those in Adam can never see Heaven, and those in Jesus can never see Hell. Those in Adam approach the throne of God in their own righteousness; and like Cain, they will be rejected. Those in Adam approach the throne of God in Jesus’ righteousness, they will be accepted.

We have these words of peace in 2 Cor. 5: 17-21, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Are you a new creation in Jesus? Or, are you just the same old man in Adam? The man in Jesus has life forever. The man in Adam is dead already and has no hope to save himself. Choose well. One thief rejected Jesus and died in his sins; the other accepted Jesus and today is alive and well in Heaven. Which thief will you meet one day?

God bless you,

Pastor Sean Gooding

Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca