Slavery & Freedom (Romans 6:12-23, Deuteronomy 6:4-14)
Rev. David Huffman, March 9, 2025Part of the Series On Romans series, preached at a Sunday Morning service
Slaves can find it difficult to accept freedom when they are liberated, especially if slavery is all they have ever known. We are born in Adam as slaves to sin. In Christ, our union with Adam is broken and we have died to sin and have been made alive to God. Even so, there is still a battle with sin. We must not allow sin to rule our lives. Our justification is all of God; it is monergistic. Our sanctification is synergistic; we must cooperate with the Holy Spirit that dwells within us. Thus we work out our sanctification in fear and trembling (Philippians 2: 12) with God who is at work in us. Paul exhorts us to live the new life, since sin no longer has dominion over us. However, we are not in a state of complete sinlessness. The apostle John reminds us that if we say we are without sin, we are not in truth (1 John 1: 8).
Sin now repulses us, and we grieve over besetting sin. Pleasure in sin is a lie. We must use our bodies for holy purposes, since they are instruments of righteousness. As we surrender to God, He is glorified and is at work in our lives. We are no longer under the covenant of works, rather under the covenant of grace. We are freed from the tyranny of the law, instead the law becomes a rule of life, a way to please God.
The law is now our friend, in which we take delight (Psalm 19). We develop a passion for righteousness and holiness. We become slaves to righteousness instead of sin. Everyone is a slave to something. If to sin, death is the result. If to righteousness, servanthood to God is the result. We can’t be neither or both. Who is your master? Apart from God, there is only restlessness and frustration. We can’t be a Christian and be a slave to sin. You are free from the dominion of sin; don’t live as if you are not. Act as a bondservant of the One who set you free.
| Earlier: | Same day: | Later: |
|---|---|---|
| « All Things New | None | Freed From the Law » |
Romans 6:12–23 (Listen)
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 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. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 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? 17 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, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. 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.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(ESV)
Deuteronomy 6:4–14 (Listen)
4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
10 “And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, 12 then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 13 It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you—
(ESV)