This morning we’re continuing our look together at Romans chapters 6 to 8.  Our focus - looking at these chapters - our focus is on the choices that we make in life.  To help us get thinking about making choices I thought we’d start off with some multiple guess questions.  How many of you saw part or all of the inauguration on Tuesday?

#1 - What president was the first to be inaugurated in Washington D.C.?

A. John Adams
B. Thomas Jefferson
C. James Madison
D. George Washington

Final answer?  Answer is B - Thomas Jefferson

#2 - Which president’s inaugural was the first to be covered by telegraph?

A. William Harrison
B. Abraham Lincoln
C. James Polk
D. Ulysses Grant

Final answer?  Answer C - James Polk

#3 - Which president gave the shortest inaugural address?

A. Calvin Coolidge
B. George Washington
C. Martin Van Buren
D. John Adams

Final answer?  Answer B - George Washington - at his second inauguration - 135 words - lasted 2 minutes.  President Obama’s lasted how long?  19 minutes.

#4 - Which president had the first inaugural parade?

A. Thomas Jefferson
B. James Madison
C. John Quincy Adams
D. Millard Fillmore

Final answer?  Answer B - James Madison

Last one - #5 - Which president was the oldest to be inaugurated?

A. William Harrison
B. Warren Harding
C. John Kennedy
D. Ronald Reagan

Final answer?  Answer D - Ronald Reagan - 69 years old.

Every day we’re confronted with a plethora of choices.  Some choices are seemingly not so serious.  Some choices have life changing implications.  Some are no-brainers.  Some require a lot of deep consideration.

Behind every choice we make is one basic bottom line choice.  Which is what?   The choice to turn away from God - spinning off into our own ideas and efforts at things.  Or,  the choice to turn towards God - to seek Him - to trust Him with our lives and circumstances - to turn towards God and all that He has for us in life.  Here in Romans chapters 6 to 8 we’re looking at how that basic bottom line choice works out in the real time of where we live our lives.

If you’re not already there - please turn to with me to Romans 6 - starting at verse 15.  Romans 6 - verse 15:  What then?  Are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace?  By no means!

Grace is what?  God’s undeserved favor towards us.

God - sends Jesus to the cross to die for us.  Because God - who is grace - demonstrates His graciousness - by doing what we could never earn or measure up to or do for ourselves - no matter how many righteous and holy things we could do.

Jesus dies in place of us dying - and paying the penalty for our own sin.  Jesus dies for us - not because we’re some super righteous or holy people.  Jesus dies for us even while we were in rebellion against God - us living in the stench of our own sin - not even seeking God.  God dies in our place to establish the means by which our sins are forgiven and our relationship with Him can be restored.

Are we together on that?  Grace is God’s undeserved favor towards us. 

We have a choice of how to respond to God’s grace - to turn away from God and His grace - or to turn towards God and His grace.

In the verses we looked at last Sunday - chapter 6 - verses 1 to 14 - Paul wrote about our need to realize how gracious God has been to us.  A realization based on the facts of Who Jesus is and what He’s done - what experience in our lives because of God’s grace poured out on us.  When we let all that sink into the core of who we are - that realization should make the choice of turning towards God a no brainer.  Why would we ever choose not to turn towards God?

Paul writes - to choose to go on sinning - after having experienced God’s grace - poured out on us - making the choice to turn away from God’s grace - makes no sense.  Its like an animal rights advocate working in a slaughterhouse.  Paul writes, “By no means!”  In the Greek its more emphatic:  “May it never be!”  “WRONG!”  “Bad choice.”   

And yet - if we’re honest with ourselves - the reality is - even though we know that God is gracious to us - the reality is that we do go on sinning.  Every day of our lives we stumble around in sin.  “May it never be” - often times is.  Let’s be honest together.

Coming to verses 15 to 23 - Paul is going to focus on living what we know to be true about God’s grace.  He’s going to give us three reasons to choose God and His grace that are kind of like getting hit over the head with a 2X4 of reality.

As we look at these you’ll see that they focus on the extremes of sin and the awesomeness of grace.  Point being that these reasons should jog us out of our complacency with sin - to realize the seriousness of what we’re allowing into our lives - to make the choice of turning towards God a no brainer in the day to day way we’re living our lives.

Verse 16 - reason number one - to choose to live turning towards God and His grace.  Reason number one:  Sin Enslaves.  Try that together.  “Sin enslaves.”

Verse 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? 

Let’s pause and make sure we’re all together.

“To present” is the Greek verb “paristemi” which means “to present.”   To place ourselves in front of someone - front and center - ready for duty.  Our members are our hands, feet, tongues, ears - our body parts - and even deeper - the core of who we are.

Putting that together - “presenting our members” is physically bringing everything that we are - bringing ourselves each day of our lives - offering ourselves to someone or something - to do - to live out - whatever that person or thing wills for us.

 “We know” is the Greek verb “oida” - meaning knowing something because we’ve studied it.  It’s a Dragnet moment.  “Just the facts mam.”  Its reality 101.

Bottom line:  It is an incontrovertible self-evident reality - if we choose to present ourselves to anyone or anything as obedient slaves - we become slaves of that person or that thing.

Let’s go on - verse 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 - meaning your favorable response to the gospel - and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.  I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations - because of where we live our lives - For just as you once presented your members - daily showing up for duty - as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Think with me about the extremes here of sin and grace.

“impurity” - in Greek is a word that means ceremonially unclean.  Serving ham at a synagogue pot luck.  Its so outrageously far away from God’s standard of what’s useful to Him - what’s holy and clean before God - so full of sin - that its impure.  Impure - ungodly - unholy - complete separate from God.

“lawlessness” - in Greek has the idea of living without respect for authority.  The ungodly trinity of me, myself, and I.  I’m the final authority for how I choose to live my life.  Life is all about me.

Which - Paul writes - leads to more lawlessness.  The example of which is all around us - a society focused on self and coming apart at the seams. 

Have you seen Ben Hur?  Do you remember the scene when Charlton Heston - falsely imprisoned for the murder of a Roman official - Charlton Heston is assigned as a slave - a rower - on a Roman war ship.  Its a death sentence.

Imagine this ship - there’s a long room - with 45 rows of men chained to oars - chained to the ship.  If the ship goes down - they drown.  270 men forced to row in forced obedience to the captain.  At the front of the room is a man seated behind a large drum - beating the cadence - boom - boom - boom.  The men row to the cadence.

Next to the drummer is the commander of the fleet - Quintus Arius.  At a whim - he give the command: “Battle Speed.”  The cadence quickens - boom - boom - boom - boom.  The rowers strain at the oars.  Minutes go by.

Then the command:  “Attack Speed.”  The cadence is faster.  Men begin to collapse - whips are flayed on naked backs - the men row on struggling to keep up.

Then the command:  “Ramming Speed.”  The cadence is impossible.  Men collapse - others are chained in their place. Whips crack.  Its brutal - inhuman.  The cadence continues - forced obedience.

Finally “Water skiing speed.”

Finally - mercifully - the command, “Rest Oars.”

Do you remember the words of Quintus Arius - the commander of the fleet - words of encouragement to these condemned slaves?  “You are all condemned men.  We keep you alive to serve this ship.  So row well... and live.”

The day you stop rowing you’re dead.  You’re fish chow.  The only purpose for the slave to be live is to serve the ship.  Endlessly rowing to the beat of that drum - day after day.  Whatever life there was before being captured or imprisoned - whatever life there was apart from being a slave - from serving that ship - no longer matters.  No longer exists.  It becomes impossible to imagine anything else.  Existence is all about serving that ship.

That’s slavery.  When we sin - even little sins - when we choose to present who we are to sin - when we choose to live in what is separate from God - to live focused on our own self-will - Paul writes - we place ourselves under that kind of bondage.

Its a self-evident incontrovertible fact of life.  If we choose to present ourselves to anyone or anything as obedient slaves - we become slaves of that person or that thing.  So it is with sin.

Sin deludes us into thinking that we’re in control.  That we can play at sin - giving in to our little indulgences - and still remain in control of our lives.  So sin entices us.  Sin becomes attractive - familiar.  The more we sin the more we long for more sin.  Still thinking we’re in control.  So sin always binds us in ways we aren’t even aware of.

Try to imagine life without sin.  Some sins seem so much a part of us - our language or thoughts or what we expose ourselves to - how we view ourselves or others - some sins are so familiar that we don’t even realize we’re sinning.  We’re so captivated - bound - in our sin.

Let’s be honest.  Most of us don’t think in those kinds of extremes.  Which is why we need Paul’s 2X4 of reality.  Because while our brain may not go there.  That extreme exists - very much a part of every act of our sin.

Sin enslaves.  Grace sets free.  Try that with me.  “Sin enslaves.  Grace sets free.”

Paul writes in verse 19:  For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members - make the choice to present yourselves - as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Sanctification - meaning God changing us - enabling us to live life with Him - to live life the way life should lived.  

Do you know who this man is?  Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  A man - who from first hand experience - introduced us to the horrors - the dehumanizing - soviet prison camps of Siberia.

Just before a photographer took a picture of Alexander Solzhenitsyn - a photograph that appeared in the 50th Anniversary of Life Magazine - the photographer asked Solzhenitsyn what he liked about America.  Solzhenitsyn pressed his hand against his breast - sighed deeply - lifted his head towards the heaven - and answered:  “Because you can be free.” (1)  

You ever get tired of winter?  The cold.  The rain.  The fog.  The bare trees.  Just the general gloominess of it.  Those of you that’ve lived in the mid-west - ever get tired of snow?  Sometimes - in the dead of winter - it seems like winter is all there is - all there ever was - all there ever will be.  Narnia with 100 years of winter under bondage to the White Witch.

Then spring hits.  Buds and flowers.  Warmth that penetrates.  Getting dried out.  It just feels good.

Smokers giving up cigarettes and realizing just devastating all that was to their bodies.  How much money was wasted on what was killing them.  Giving up drugs and realizing how devastating they are to the mind.  To begin to live outside of the fog - the need - the deception.

Sin tells us we can’t be free.  You will always be bound to the crud of your past.  Always trapped.  Always condemned.  Which is a lie. 

When we choose to present our members - ourselves - as slaves of righteousness - we experience something totally different - spring - a freeing change in our lives where we begin to realize just how deluded - how bound - we were to sin.  We begin to realize how different - how incredible it is to live life in God’s grace - the extreme of the freedom God graciously offers us.

Sin enslaves.  Grace sets free.  Paul’s second reason for choosing grace - verse 20 - Sin Shames.  Try that together.  “Sin shames.”

Verse 20:  For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.  You didn’t have to live righteous. 

Ever think that?  Before I became a Christian I could sin all I wanted to.  Couldn’t of cared less about God and all His boundaries on our lives.   All His expectations.  Life was easier without God.  Now I gotta live righteous.

Verse 21:  But what fruit - what benefit - were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed?  For the end of those things is death.

Natalie Dylan - age 22 - of San Diego - is auctioning off her virginity through the Moonlite Bunny Ranch - a legal brothel - in Nevada.  Want to take a guess as to how much her top bid is at so far?  Top bid so far is $3.8 million from 39 year old Australian.

Miss Dylan says, “I feel people should be pro-choice with their body, and I'm not hurting anyone.  It really comes down to a moral and religious argument, and this doesn't go against my religion or my morals.  There's no right or wrong to this.” (2)

What does it matter if I’m having sex with some guy or woman or both?  Why does it matter if we’re married or if we’re just living together?  What does it matter what I watch in the privacy of my own home.  Or, what thoughts I’ve got floating around in my head?  All that’s a private thing.

If you think that sin is just a private thing that we just do by ourselves - or with consenting adults - look around - even here.  There is person after person in this room - including myself - that will tell you from experience that sin never happens in isolation.  It always has an effect way beyond what we’d like to believe.  And if you don’t believe us - look around Merced and see the brokenness.

I read this poem in a sermon by Ray Steadman.

I said a very naughty word only the other day.
It was a truly naughty word I had not meant to say.
But then, it was not really lost, when from my lips it flew;
My little brother picked it up, and now he says it, too. (3)

Sin never happens in isolation.

That’s why individual greed can lead to a world-wide economic meltdown - the seeds of which are evident in Bodie right out here in north Merced.

Sin never happens in isolation.

That’s why marriages are coming apart.  That’s why children are having babies.  Why men are having babies with different women - and children are growing up without their fathers.  Why whole communities are trapped in devastating downwards spirals of morality and poverty.  Pornography is why little girls are kidnapped off America’s streets and sold into slavery as objects of lust - or worse.

Sin never happens in isolation.

That’s why we’re barraged with leaders who have fallen from grace.  Why people scoff at the hypocrisy of the church.

Sin is why so many bear scars on their minds and bodies - and carry around wounds.

What benefit do we get - what is the wonderful admirable fruit produced by our sin?  Shame - disgrace - dishonor - devastation.

Paul writes in Galatians 6:  “Do not be deceived:  God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.  For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption - a putrefying mess.  (Galatians 6:7,8a)

Put simply:  What goes around - what?  Comes around.  And it ain’t pretty.

Sin shames.  Grace produces fruit.  Try that, “Sin shames.  Grace produces fruit.”  Good fruit.  Godly fruit of great benefit.

Paul goes on in Galatians 6:  “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”  (Galatians 6:8)

Graciously - God is honest with us about the extreme devastation of sin.  And God graciously offers us an extreme choice.

Far greater than anything else in life is the privilege of serving God.  Of living life so that when we’re done we’ll know that we’ve done everything God has asked of us.  We’ve lived as God’s man or women in our home and community.  Been the Godly father and husband - mother and wife - that He’s called us to be.  We’ve remained faithful to His purposes for our lives.

So many people get to the end of their lives - look back - and see only what was fruitless.  Facing the end they try vainly to somehow leave a legacy - to find purpose in what was so empty.

Want to make a difference in life?  To have your life count for something beside adding to the purification of this world?  Choose to present your members to God and watch the extreme awesomeness of what God the Holy Spirit will do in you and through you.

Sin enslaves.  Grace sets free.  Sin shames.  Grace produces fruit.  Paul’s third reason for choosing grace:  Sin Kills.  Say that with me, “Sin kills.”

Verse 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.  For the wages of sin is - what? death, but the free gift of God is - what? eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Two trajectories.  Eternal death and eternal life.  Eternal death is forever without God - forever torment - punishment - forever in an extremely nasty - don’t ever go there - place.

Eternal life is forever with God .  All the crud of this world will be no more.  Forever experiencing an extreme awesomeness that we can’t begin to get a grip on now.  Forever dwelling with God in a - not to be missed - place.

When we take up residence in the park with placards - when they close the casket lid and throw 6 feet of dirt on top of us - things tend to get a little dark.  Haven’t actually experienced that first hand.  But, its not hard to imagine

At death - the outcome - our trajectory - up or down - has already been decided by the choice we’ve made in life to trust Jesus as our Savior.  If we haven’t trusted Jesus as our Savior - what we earn by our sin - what we get paid for our sin - is eternal death.  But, if we’ve trusted Jesus as our Savior we know we have eternal life with God.

Are we together on that?

Sin Kills.  Grace gives life.  Try that.  “Sin kills.  Grace gives life.”

When we choose to sin - even as bound for heaven believers - we’re choosing to cling onto those things that lead to death.  Sin is self-destructive behavior.  When we choose to present ourselves to God - to cling on to Him - we live in the life that Jesus offers us now - and goes forever.

Sin enslaves.  Sin shames.  Sin kills.  But - grace sets us free.  Grace produces real fruit in our lives.  Grace is life - now and forever.

Anyone know who this is?  Back in 1979 - Bob Dylan released his Christian album - “Slow Train Coming.”  One of the songs on that album is really the bottom line of what Paul is getting at.

You may be an ambassador to England or France,
You might like to gamble, you might like to dance,
You might be the heavyweight champion of the world,
You might be a socialite with a long string of pearls.

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a preacher preaching spiritual pride,
Might be a city councilman taking bribes on the side,
You may be working in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair,
You may be somebody’s mistress, you may be somebody’s heir.

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk,
Might like to drink whisky, might like to drink milk,
You might be sleeping on the floor, or sleeping in a king-size bed,
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.   Yes, indeed.

You’re gonna have to serve somebody.
It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord.
But, you’re gonna have to serve somebody. (4)

If we know that God is gracious - and He is - may we choose to live what we know.

_______________
1. Harry Benson, Their Own Choice, Life Magazine, Fall 1986
2. CNN.com, Elizabeth Landau, What Is Virginity Worth Today? 01.22.09
3. Ray Stedman, Whose Slave Are You?  Sermon on Romans 6:15-23
4. Bob Dylan, Gotta Serve Somebody, from Slow Train Coming, 08.20.1079