Wanna discover your freedom in Christ? Then listen in as Mike Stone and Kevin Smith talk about it today on Grace Coach. How you doing, Mike? I'm doing good. Good to see you.
Good to see you too, buddy. And we're going to dive right in today. We're gonna back up and read previous verse. Alright. So Romans five twenty says, the law was added so that the trespass might increase.
But where sin increased, grace increased all the more. So that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our lord. Wow. That is pretty concise and to the point. There's no beating around the bush there.
Yeah. Kevin, I think Romans five twenty is 1 of the most shocking verses for Christians to hear. Shocking? Why do you say shocking? Well, the law was brought in so that trespass might increase?
He says that twice in the same verse, but where sin and trespass increased, grace increased all the more. So it's like, are you serious? The law was brought in that my pastor is preaching to me so that my sin might increase. Oh, boy. Now yeah.
Now I I I think pastors, a lot of them, not all of them, but plenty of them, are distorting this. They don't understand why the law was brought in so that trespass might increase. And so it's really important. You can't be up in the pulpit trying to keep Christians from sinning. That can't be the message.
That's not why the law was brought in to keep Christians from sinning. The law was brought in to make us conscious of sin. Yes. Yes. To make you aware of the high bar of god's requirements, which is literally perfection.
Which is the impossible bar to jump over. When James two ten says whoever keeps the law yet stumbles at just 1 is guilty of breaking all of it. Yeah. You can't be up in the pulpit teaching people that the law was brought in to keep us Christians from sinning. That is distorting.
That's exactly what second Peter three fifteen and sixteen says. You wanna read that, Kevin? Sure. Second Peter chapter 3 verses fifteen and sixteen says, bear in mind that our lord's patience means salvation. Just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom God gave him, he writes the same way in all his letters.
Speaking in them of these matters. His letters can say contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort as they do the other scriptures to their own destruction. Wow. Peter's laying it out there, man. Yeah.
Well, he's he's lifting his brother Paul here because people back then and people today are distorting the Scriptures. Yeah. When you talk about that the law is used to keep us from sinning and every message is like read out of the Old Covenant and trying to to to tell the members who are sitting there dying to hear a great message. This is how you stop your behaviors. You need to be more obedient.
You need to follow God's commandments. Well, most Christians can't even list the 10 commandments, let alone follow them. Let's list the other 613, addendums to the law. Exactly. And here's the key.
Romans three twenty is the key. Now we're keeping this in context. Right? We're we're reading Romans three twenty. We're reading Romans five twenty.
We're gonna read Romans six fifteen to 23. But Romans three twenty to me is the key to understand what the purpose of the law is, and it says, therefore, no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by the works of the law. Rather, through the law, we become conscious of our sin. Yes. And when you become conscious of your sin, then you will turn to a savior.
If you're not aware that you are without any hope, that unless you there's I hate just keep on referring to Bob George, but he would he would always say, a lot of Christians just put a bandage on their sin and go on their merry way. You know? They don't they don't see the utter hopelessness that they are in. And until you see that you are utterly hopeless, you trying to like you're saying about many pastors preaching, stop singing and so on and so forth in whatever way, shape, or form, 10 step program you wanna do. You're trying to maintain or gain access to God through your works, and it's not a works based relationship.
It's a grace based relationship. And only until you receive that gift by realizing that you're hopeless, that it's ever gonna make any sense to you. That's so true. And and god gave the law out of love to show people their need for Christ, just like you're saying. Yes.
And if you use the law incorrectly, you're distorting the scriptures. You're ignorant. You're unstable as second Peter three fifteen and sixteen says. I mean, just looking at Jesus in his sermon on the mount, I mean, he was burying people under the law. If you wanna try to obey the law, cut off your hand, pluck out your eyes.
Nobody says that for real. Nobody says go do that this day, but that's what Jesus was saying saying, okay. If you wanna try to live under the law, you have to do what you have to do. And when you sin, you have to cut off your hand, pluck out your eye. And he was just bearing under the law.
People do not get that these days. They do not. And in Matthew five forty eight, be perfect. Yes. I am perfect.
Yes. Therefore, is your heavenly father is perfect. Yeah. Just like you said, he was trying to bury the Jews under their own law. Out of love, god gave the law, but if you use it incorrectly, you're just distorting the scriptures.
Yes. You are. Hey. Let's let's jump into our scriptures for today, in Romans six fifteen through 23. Well, let's, you wanna start in verse 14 just as a little background there?
Just to Sure. Connect. Verse 14 connects well with 15. Alright. So Romans chapter six four verse 14 says, for sin shall not be your master because you're not under the law, but under grace.
And I'm gonna continue on to verse 15. What then shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? By no means. Do you not know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to whom you obey, whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. There's a lot of contrast here that Paul's putting out there.
Yeah. That's right. The reason why sin is not our master, Kevin, is because what we're just talking about, we are not under the law. Because when you're under the law Right. Another disastrous thing about being under the law is that sin is your master.
Yeah. Because the law says do not commit adultery. That just brings on all of the adulterous thoughts in your head if you're using that to not be adulterous in your thinking. Right. We we need to understand that you need to walk in the spirit, and you won't satisfy the desires of the flesh.
That's how we stop our sinful patterns, is by walking in the spirit. Yes. So to the spirit. So to the spirit. And the law does just the opposite.
It arouses our sinful nature. So he's talking about a slave in six fifteen and a master. And that's why it's so important to read what you read first six fourteen, for sin shall no longer be your master because you are no longer under the law. And so this is a question in Romans six fifteen that someone will ask, and they'll say, well, then shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Again, not understanding the purpose of the law.
You will ask this question. Shall we go on sinning? Yeah. And he says, no. Again, by no means.
Why would you want to do that? It's permissible, but it's not profitable. So then he goes on to say, don't you know when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you're slaves to the 1 you obey, whether you're slaves to sin, which leads to death, or slaves to righteousness? So, yeah, just like you're saying, if we can give in to those desires, but we'll be a slave to them, and it won't be profitable. It's gonna be ugly.
It brings on depression, you know, and anger and fear. And the only way out is to walk in the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. That's the only way out of a sinful lifestyle. Yeah. The spirit is living in each Christian believer, child of God, leading them into all truth.
In every situation, there is a way out. God has made a way out for us. We don't have to live under that bondage. And I know people will push back on this. Oh, yeah.
You know, friends and family that I know, oh, that's just so simple. It's harder than that. I've got mental problems. You're gonna be accused of what we're saying here that we're no longer under the law by legalists, and they'll say to you that you're just giving people a license to sin by taking away the law. Yeah.
Not understanding, again, the purpose of the law is to lead you to Christ. Yeah. You've got 2 you're preaching too much grace there, Mike. Too much grace. Can't be doing that.
People are just gonna be sitting with the storm. So in Romans six nineteen to 23, I'm gonna read, I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. That's kind of what he just said in in Peter that these things are hard to understand. You Yeah. We have some human limitations.
You really gotta let the spirit of God teach you this. Just as you used to offer yourself as slaves to impurity and ever increasing wickedness, so now offer yourself as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. When you offer yourself as a slave to righteousness, you're offering yourself as a slave to the the truth of the Word of God, that you're right with God by faith, Your faith alone. And now when we offer ourselves to that, it's a beautiful thing. We could see us living above our circumstances and instead of being buried by them all the time.
When we, you know, walk in that truth that God has made us righteous. Right. And when did he make you righteous, Mike? Yeah. When we put our faith in Christ, and the righteous 1, Jesus, came to live inside of us.
Right. It was a good day. The the best day of your life. Yeah. Back to '20, it says, when you were slaves to sin now that's when you were back under the law.
Right. You were slave to sin. When you were under the law, you were free from the control of righteousness. That's because you were under the law. Yeah.
That's all past tense. Past tense. And look what he says in '21. What benefit did you reap at the time from those things you're now ashamed of? Those things result in death.
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slave to God, because you're no longer under the law, you've been set free from sin. It's not that you don't sin. It's that you're been set free from the power of sin. Christ has made a way for us to be free in him. I mean, it's it's it's a a renewing of the mind.
Yes. Daily daily renewing of the mind. A daily even not just renewing of the mind, but, you know, understanding god's plan more clearly. You know, just as Peter said, this stuff is hard to Paul writes this stuff that's hard to explain. You you can't just read the bible and just, oh, it makes perfectly clear sense to me.
No. You and I, we meditate on this. We study this. We we we let it just seek into us, and and god may give us a little nugget here and there of the just the depth, but it's really not only just the depth of the understanding, but it's the practical living this stuff out in our lives. That's right.
That to me is the gold for what we're doing. Ultimately, you know, being face to face with God 1 day, but in the here and now, if I I just look at my life and and just what my life would be like if I didn't know Christ. There are a lot of people that are in sad shape and that sin just like it says, what benefit did you reap for that time from the things you're not ashamed of? Exactly. I mean, there's a world of hurting people out there that are just in the bondage of sin, and that's what we want to say, people.
Just make your way to the foot of the cross, receive the grace of Jesus Christ, and just turn your life over to him. It will be the best decision you've ever made in your life. Yeah. And that's, I just wanna finish reading twenty two and twenty three. Yeah.
Please do. Because, yeah, that's that's where it all leads to, eternal life. It says, but now you have been set free from sin. You're no longer under the law. You have become slaves of God, and the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
Amen. Because that's where the law, the purpose of the law is pointing you to Jesus and eternal life. If we would just let the law do its work really as a non Christian, because once you become a Christian, you're no longer under the law, and so you don't need the law anymore. You wouldn't know it by what we hear today, but we're done with the law. And there there is where the power of sin has been taken away.
Verse 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. So Paul just keeps saying the same thing over and over. I guess he has to because it's hard to understand. You know, I open up this, podcast with saying there's a lot of contrast, and this is 1 of them that Paul concludes this chapter with. Slaves to sin and slaves to God.
And everybody knows the history of America. Everybody knows that slavery is, got so many bad connotations and so many people have been hurt and just a terrible, mark on our his nation's history and and our in the world's history. I mean, America was not the only country in slavery. But if you can make this extreme contrast, this is a spiritual slavery. Because when you're in slavery to sin, it's not slavery that we know of.
It's a it's a slavery to an addiction. It's a slavery to greed. It's a slavery to jealousy, envy. You name the 7 deadly sins. It is a slavery.
And what this is offering everyone who chooses to receive it is to become a slave to the greatest master, the most perfect master in all of creation, and that is God. And it is it's a joyful slavery. It's a incredible contrast from all the bad stuff that has happened to a contrast of a joyful slavery. I mean, slaves, I don't know if how much you know about slavery, but at 1, people could buy themselves out of slavery, and they could choose to live in the house that they grew up in and were slave, but they weren't a owned slave. They were freed slave.
And I don't know a ton about it, but I know that's a concept of slavery. And it's this is what we're saying. You can, you know, be a slave to god and and be a joyful slave. It's the great greatest thing. Yeah.
No. For sure. And and the whole key again to get to that place is to realize you're no longer under the law after you've come to Christ and you're born again. Amen. I just hope anyone listening today holds on to that.
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