Romans 6:16 (part 4)

...or of obedience, which leads to righteousness   Romans 6:16 ESV part 4

In this post, we will continue looking at what it means to be obedient slaves to the one we serve, and the fact that how we spend our time, energy, and resources reveals who or what we are presenting ourselves to as willing servants, obedient slaves. This will finish up verse 16, and as we move forward, Paul will shed even more light on this topic.

Here is verse 16 in its entirety:

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone 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? 

In the previous posts, we have discussed this idea that what we do reveals who we are. Verse 16 is also very clear that who we serve, we serve willingly...we are never forced by God to be lost, sinful creatures. We are lost sinful creatures because, as Paul says, we present ourselves as obedient slaves.

In the last post, we saw that one option is to present ourselves as obedient slaves to sin, which leads to death. In this post, we will look at the other option.
     - side note - we also looked at the fact that there are only two options. There is no middle ground or neutral area. We are either slaves of sin, or as we will look at now, slaves of obedience. By default, refusing obedience makes us slaves to sin, and being set free from sin makes us slaves of obedience.

Here is what we see Paul saying in regards to obedience here in verse 16:  The other option is to present yourselves as obedient slaves to obedience, which leads to righteousness.

This is very interesting, this idea of obedient slaves of obedience - so much is revealed about what it means to be a child of God. The Greek words translated obedient and obedience both imply submission to authority . As lost people, we willingly submit to sinful lusts and desires, they are what drives every thing that we do.

As God's children, the change that has taken place in our heart is made evident by the fact that we willingly submit to a new Master - God. Our submission to God is made evident through our submission to Him. (though we continue to hang on to areas of pride, and God continually reveals areas in which we need to submit, the ultimate desire of the heart is submission)

So, when Paul says we are obedient slaves of obedience, he is telling us as God's children that the thing we are to be controlled by, the thing that is supposed to guide our every decision, the thing that we are to be submissive to, is obedience/submission to God. If this is true (and God said it so it is!) we can know this:

as God's children, we are to be in constant pursuit of obedience to Him

If we are not pursuing obedience and submission to God continuously, we in gross disobedience. We like to say, "I'm a Christian" and then justify why we don't do what the bible commands us to do. Things like "Seek first the kingdom of God" - "Draw close to God" - "Be holy" - "Put to death what is earthly in you" - or whatever else challenges us as Christians. We like to gray the lines when it comes to verses like this because the standard set by God is so perfect and unattainable. But, as His children, we are to be driven by a desire to submit and obey. Keep this in mind for a minute while we look at some Scripture.

It's so interesting that the reason Satan was cast from heaven was pride. Pride is the opposite of submission, and pride is the driving reason behind why, as lost people, we do not choose God. We refuse to submit to an ultimate authority. This reveals the power of God, that He can take us as prideful, self-centered, arrogant people and make us obedient (submissive) from the heart - as Paul will discuss in greater detail in the following verses.

Look at these verses:

And he said to them, "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, "What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?"  Mathew 8:26,27

But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, "What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him."  Mark 1:25-27 

In the two passages above, we see the authority of God through Jesus on display.  The elements of the earth conform to His authority. The spiritual realm, including the demons who hate Him, conform to His authority. The difference is, they don't do this willingly...the elements of the earth can't be willing, and the demons hate God, yet they must conform to the authority of the Creator.

Back to the statement we looked at above: as His children, we are to be driven by a desire to submit and obey. When we obey things God says, but don't willingly pursue obedience to Him and His entire Word, in all areas of our life, we are revealing that we are submissive to God as the One who is more powerful than us, and maybe to a degree as our Father, BUT we are not submitting to obedience as the driving factor in all that we do. Obedient to obedience speaks of submission to the greatest degree.

Analogy:
If a parent tells their child to go to their room, and the child does it knowing that if they don't the parent has the ability to physically carry them to their room, the child is obeying simply because the parent is stronger than them, not because they want to.

If a parent tells their child to go to their room, and they do it because they want to do what their parent says, because of the love between them, their desire to obey their parent is driving their act of obedience...this is being obedient to obedience.

The analogy is weak, I hope it sheds light on how we are to be living as God's children!

As humans, God is our creator, and we ultimately conform to His authority. However, Paul tells us that, as His children, we are to recognize and acknowledge the authority of our Creator, and follow Him in submission, fighting against the pride and self-centered attitudes of the flesh that want everything to be about us.

Let's look at some Scripture that commands our obedience to Christ - and solidifies the command to be obedient to obedience, willingly submitting to God through obedience in all areas of our life.

But Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than men.  Acts 5:29

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ  2 Corinthians 10:5

(Jesus Christ)...through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations  Romans 1:5

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart  1 Peter 1:22

according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.  
1 Peter 1:2


and probably the most powerful example of being obedient to obedience...Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our perfect example...also was obedient:

Although He was a son, He learned obedience through what he suffered.

How are we living as God's children? Are we obedient to obedience? Are we willingly submitting to all of God's Word, in every area of our lives? Are we pursuing obedience to God through submission to Him? Are we allowing obedience to God be the thing that drives all that we do? 

Or...are we 'kind of' obedient? Is obedience to God something that we do when it is convenient? Do we try to live a 'moral' life, go to church on Sunday, and give some of our money to those in need - and consider ourselves 'obedient'? 

My friend, I think we all find ourselves in the second description more than we would like - we are sinful creatures...but this is not what we should be OK with. We need to discipline ourselves to pursue God by submitting to Him....how can we do this? We need to allow obedience to God to become the thing that drives us, not in an effort to gain a reward, but out of love for Him as our Father! We need to desire being obedient to obedience! 

To me, this sounds so hard at times. How do I make myself desire being obedient to obedience all the time. I get frustrated when I screw up, when I get distracted, when I totally flip flop my priorities...and God reminds me of these promises:
Draw close to God, and He will draw close to you. James 4:8
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13
It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Galatians 2:20

       ...and SO MANY more!

The greatest thing about being obedient to obedience is this: submission to God is not about working hard to achieve something, it's all about letting go! The world will run itself into the ground attempting to achieve something...in it's obedience to the lusts of the flesh. We are so blessed! We have been called to a relationship that is all about being released from the curse of work! We can lay it all at the throne of God, and He will draw close to us, strengthen us, bless us, and ultimately, work through us for HIS GLORY!!!!

Romans 6:16 (part 3)

...either of sin, which leads to death  Romans 16:6 ESV part 3

In the last two posts, we looked at what it means to be obedient slaves to the one we serve, and the fact that how we spend our time, energy, and resources reveals who or what we are presenting ourselves to as willing servants, obedient slaves.

Spiritually, there are only two options. We looked earlier at Mathew 6:24, where Jesus explains to His disciples that we cannot serve two masters - we can only serve one fully. What we do reveals the state of our heart, and ultimately the master we serve. As we move forward here in verse 16, Paul lays out the two possibilities we have. We will look a little closer at the first one today:

"you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin.."

One master we can choose to serve is sin. Sin is powerful - it binds and condemns us as lost souls. It distorts our perspective and causes us to hate God in favor of the flesh. There are many verses that speak to the power of sin and the effects it has in the lives of those that it controls. Some of these we have looked at before, but I want to refresh our memory:

At the beginning of Romans, Paul explained that sinfulness and darkness is what we as humans want, and God gave us over to the desires of our heart and mind.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves   Romans 1:24

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.  Romans 1:28

Paul again reveals our desire as lost souls to pursue the lusts of the flesh in Ephesians:


And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.   Eph 2:1-3

We see a divide here...man desiring things that are in opposition to a Holy God - man pursuing the satisfaction and gratification of the flesh over the glory of God. The flesh, and it's sinful desires, are a result of the fall, and reveal what man truly wants in his lost state. The desires of the flesh are detailed in many places. The following verses describe the desires of the flesh that resulted in God giving us over to a corrupt heart and debased mind:

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.   Galatians 5:19-21

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.  Colossians 3:5-8

For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God

2 Timothy 3:2-4

This verse in 1 John describes the very real, very serious divide that is being described...a divide with eternal consequences:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions--is not from the Father but is from the world.  And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.   1 John 2:15-17

Before we looked at these verses, I said that sin is powerful, it binds and condemns us. After reading these verses, we can see the reason sin is so powerful. The power of sin lies in the fact that it aligns perfectly with our desires in our lost state. We hate the light and love the darkness, as Jesus explained to us in John 3:19-21:

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

By definition, sin means 'to fall short, to miss the mark' - in the Bible this means anything that falls short or misses the mark of glorifying, or revealing, God...which includes everything desrcribed in the verses above, and so much more (the more we see the holiness of God in His Word, the more we recognize the selfish, prideful, sinful motives behind most of what we do)
To be a willing servant, an obedient slave to sin, an option Paul has given here in Romans, is (as I mentioned previously) to embrace our pursuit and love for the sinfulness of the flesh rather than the glory of God.

We can't sugar coat the fact that, while we are lost, while we pursue the desires of the flesh and oppose God, we do so willingly. We are under bondage to sin, there is no doubt, but these are chains of bondage we willingly pursue. No one, including God, forces us to submit to this condemnation.

We also can't miss what Paul says about those who choose to be and remain obedient slaves to sin...this will lead to death...eternal death. We are spiritually and eternally condemned in our sinfulness, and this will not change if we remain under the bondage that is sin. We will experience temporary judgement throughout our earthly life, and ultimately an eternal judgement, which will be the full wrath of a Holy God, forever.

We need to check ourselves...as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13:5 -

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?--unless indeed you fail to meet the test!

If we have faith that Jesus Christ is our Savior, this will be evident in the change we have experienced in our life, and will be revealed in our love for God - which should play out in how we think and how we live. We can be confident that this faith is sufficient - because it is! However, we must constantly be looking at ourselves in the light of the verses we have looked at, to ensure that how we are living is revealing a heart that loves God rather than sin. Those who are saved will renew their confidence through this testing, those that aren't should  realize they remain obedient slaves of sin, willing servants of evil - opposed to God.

For those who are saved, who are no longer willing servants of sin, we cannot become complacent. Sin is still a very real, ever present danger. Sin in the life of a believer constantly hinders our relationship with God. This effects our adversely in so many ways - and causes us to not reveal God in a way that He ought to be revealed. It's crucial that we be in constant prayer for God to reveal any and all sin in our lives - for wisdom to recognize the sin and strength to purge it from our lives.

Paul speaks to us as God's children on this matter in Romans 6:13:

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

To the children of God - as we worship our Father today (and everyday) let's ask Him to reveal the sin our lives. Let's pursue holiness. Lets test ourselves to be sure we are in the faith, and to allow God to build our confidence in His Son as our Savior, as He strengthens our faith. Let's pray for strength and wisdom to not present ourselves as instruments of sin, but rather instruments for righteousness!

To those who aren't sure which master they are serving - take a moment and examine yourself. What are the desires of your heart and mind?  Is the glory of God, that is God being revealed in fullness, your main priority in all that you do? Do you recognize and accept that Jesus died for yours sins, and that you can be set free from the bondage of that sin...have you accepted Jesus as that Sacrifice on your behalf? Have you experienced a change in your life, a change that resulted in new desires - a desire for the light and disdain for darkness? If you answered Yes to these questions, Praise God - you are not a servant of sin but a child of Light!

To those who are not saved - be very aware...Paul has made it painfully clear that you are willing servants of disobedience, willing partakers in the sinful lusts of the flesh, the evil pursuits of the world. It may not seem scary, the mind is a powerful tool of deceit when in submission to such powerful forces of evil, but the Bible remains true whether you recognize it or not. You are servants of a master who has no alternative ending other than eternal death and condemnation.
        --- Yet, there is still hope! God's hand of grace is still extended! All is not lost! If you accept Jesus as  the Savior, if you accept the forgiveness of sins that is offered through His perfect sacrifice, and come to Him in submission, you will no longer be obedient slaves of sin, but a child of God - cloaked in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God!

As you read these last paragraphs, if you feel a need for prayer, email me: agerber1983@outlook.com, or message me on facebook..

If you find yourself in the first category, I would love to pray for God to help you grow as His child! If you find yourself in the second category, I would love to pray for God to give you clarity resulting in confidence or conviction, or both - we all need both of these in order to grow. If you find yourself in the third category, I would love to pray for you to feel God's calling to come to the Light, to enter into a relationship with Him that is defined by amazing grace, unending mercy, unconditional love, indescribable peace, and abundant joy!