← ArchiveSunday, September 6, 2015DateSeptember 6, 2015Speaker—TextRomans 6Passages in this sermonRomans 6:220:40Romans 60:40Ephesians 11:47Philippians 310:44Ephesians 2:812:59John 3:1613:19Romans 5:813:40Romans 10:913:472 Timothy 1:1015:24Romans 11:616:18Romans 1616:25Romans 8:116:36Romans 1:1618:36Romans 6:2323:14Genesis 224:57Acts 4:1227:02John 1427:15TranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00that is excellent singing thank you choir thank you praise team and greg and musicians all goodness gracious and i love that song and uh this has been the music just keeps getting better and better amen or we'd say entrustful gooder and gooder over there because we're rednecks and trustful but0:28anyway uh if you brought your bible turn with me one couple of verses of scripture will be our text today romans chapter 6 this is a very familiar passage for many of us romans chapter 6 verse 22 and 23 we'll look at several verses today but romans chapter 6 verse 22 and 23 will be kind of our launch some of this will be a refresher to some of us in this room as christ followers this0:54will be a refresher a reminder of who we are and how we have eternal life in christ jesus we are wrapping up the grace series g-r-a-c-e uh be uh been working on uh formulating those into chapters and working on that as a project for myself and and uh just uh the lord just kind of put it on a as a title it's all about grace everything is about grace everything that we are is about grace we are1:21here because of grace you know the g we would study that it would be god it all starts with god god stooping down from the halls of heaven and giving us a second opportunity giving us grace that we absolutely do not deserve we do not deserve his grace but he freely gives it to us for those of us that call upon him we are redeemed that he are redeemed by his blood in ephesians chapter 1 we are1:47being redeemed through the blood of jesus christ where there was no shedding of blood there will be no forgiveness of sin grace was given to us because of the redemption of jesus christ at calvary's cross and we are adopted as his children adoption is that we are adopted by the king of kings and the lord of lords we are adopted as children of the king somebody had to come along at the right time and that meaning2:13jesus christ uh in the fullness of time he came by and adopted us as his children and we receive his grace by confession that leads us to a commitment you recall last week confession is that thing that we do when we see our sin like god sees our sin several of you that resonated with you because you came to me saying you were living under the grace and you were speeding in your automobile because you knew that god2:43gave you grace to do such a thing and that's not the truth now you misunderstood that god gives you grace and we can't we can't embellish that grace right grace is the freely gift of god that he gives to us and we confess our sin that leads us to a total commitment if we will deny ourselves and take up that cross and follow him daily follow him meaning we have that commitment once we confess our sins so that3:09leads us to the letter e eternal life this is where we all ought to shout hallelujah i love what romans chapter 6 verse 22 and 23 says but now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves to god now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life for the wages of sin3:34is death but the free gift of god is eternal life through jesus christ our lord now i'm going to give you a message truth before i give you some opening comments before i give you some eternal salvation what god's eternal salvation actually is and some two absolutes the message truth the cross the ground4:01at the cross of jesus christ was incredibly level and those who received christ jesus as savior receive him equally now let me share with you what that means the cross was incredibly level every one of us were guilty even though we weren't there we were guilty if we were there we'd have been guilty of crucifying the4:24lord jesus christ every the cross what there was no hierarchy no ranking there we were all guilty we were all needing a savior we were all needing someone to pay the penalty for our sins as i said in my early statements this is going to be a refresher to some a reminder to some and new words to some of you in this4:48room i believe beyond a shadow of doubt what dr graham says billy graham says that he believes that seventy percent of the new testament church in north america have religion without the relationship with jesus christ they know who jesus is they've heard the words of jesus they've been preached the words of jesus they've actually sung the words of jesus they have actually been in church work for many many years yet they have religion but they don't have a relationship with jesus christ there's not that5:17transformation in their life they want reformation but they don't want to be transformed from the inside out so the cross the ground at the cross of jesus christ was incredibly level and all those those who receive christ jesus as their savior receive him equally eternal life comes from the grace that he freely gives to us let's pray father let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable5:42in your sight god as we unpack your word these familiar verses that we know too often we read them we quote them even sometimes we don't even realize that they're just coming out of our mouths because they've been riveted into our brains but maybe maybe they're not riveted into our soul and god i pray today if there's one here today lord one if there's one here today lord that does not know6:10you as their personal savior lord today is the day of salvation for them god i pray that they understand your marvelous matchless grace father that you so freely give to us your amazing grace god and i pray i pray father that they set aside their religious belief and receive you as their personal savior and lord6:39and began a brand new journey regardless of how long they've been in church work regardless of how long they have been around church things regardless of how old they are lord i pray today if they do not know you as their savior father i pray that today is a day of salvation and lord i pray as we unpack your word7:02today you do your work in this place we give you all the praise and all the glory and all the honor in jesus name we pray and the church said amen i began to think about the unsaved that come into a worship gathering like this i started thinking about the unsaved people that come into a worship gathering7:27like this they really have no connection to righteousness they can sing about righteousness they can even talk about righteousness they can even say the word righteous but they have really no connection with righteousness and we as the saved believer of christ we can make no demands of them since they possess neither the desire nor the ability to meet the requirements of the righteous7:51they are controlled and ruled by sin we have to be dead honest about this they're controlled by the master of the world they are controlled by and bound to serve him and since they have no responsibility to righteousness because they are powerless to meet its standards or its demands now you think wow that's8:14very negative that is very discouraging well i'm going to get to some encouraging words in a moment so hang on i want us to understand that from the foundational structure here today if you're here today and you have religion without the relationship if you cannot say for sure that you are born of god then you are what we considered a lost person separated from the love of god now in new testament contemporary models around the8:43country we don't want to talk about that because it seems to be negative well folks let me tell you something the blood wasn't very positive of jesus christ was it it was positive in the fact that it shed for my sins and your sins and we receive him by his grace you see lost people don't need to be reformed they need to be transformed they need to be transformed from the inside of their heart inside of their life9:09out but most people most lost people don't believe that their lives need reforming much less transforming you see we have learned how to do church so well we've learned how to act in church so well we've learned how to hold the hymnal so long or stand and sing the praises so much but we don't have a regenerated heart we walk away from this place where we do our hour for god and we mark it off on our record system9:39that we went to church yet we walk away from this place not regenerated not transformed by the renewing of his word the world is full of decent honest law-abiding helpful and generous people that are going to bust hell wide open10:06they're going to die without jesus christ because they think they're so religious and they think they've got everything they're honest they actually even give money now you say wow this is very negative well i told you in a moment i want to get to some positive news but i got to make you understand that we have a lot of people sitting in the church buildings in america today that are going to bust hell wide open because they have religion without the relationship they are slaved to sin is what the apostle paul calls he describes his own works10:36in philippians chapter 3 as religious compromises he says that his own that it's like filthy rags it's like rubbish or even goes on to make a more stern statement in some translations it's dung folks let me tell you something i'm not going to stand before the lord and he says i never knew you10:58i decided long ago that i was going to evaluate my life and i want to make doggone sure that i knew jesus christ as my personal savior lord so i want you to die today in the next few moments to really take a deep evaluation are you truly born of god or are you born of bethel baptist church11:21are you truly saved by his grace or is your name written on the church role and not on heaven's role it is time for us to have a a healthy evaluation of who we are in christ in our position before a holy god in salvation god not only frees us from the sin of the ultimate penalty but frees us from the presence of tyranny11:38freed from sin does not mean that we the believer can no longer have the capability to sin but we are always guilty of our sin we always feel bad when we do sin i think sometimes we want to whitewash it and say well i don't feel too bad about it12:00i'm just an old sinner saved by grace well yes you are but if you don't feel guilty and bad about your sin maybe just maybe you truly do not have jesus christ into your life i would rather be a hundred years old in this room and stand up and say i'm lost without jesus they let my pride take me to hell but there are going to be some people that we stand at their coffin12:29and we talk about how great they were and how nice they were and how many things they did for the church yet we're not going to be able to tell us of their testimony of their faith in jesus christ you see the cross the ground was level and we were equally in need of his marvelous grace ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 9 is a very familiar passage we baptists love to12:59spout this one out out of our hearts for by grace you've been saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of god not as a result of works lest any man should boast sometimes we want to do a lot of nice things so that we can check it off our record system that we are saved by his grace yet we have never truly invited jesus christ into our life john chapter 3 verse 16 one of the most familiar passages of scripture in all the word of god for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have life13:29and life everlasting you see we're saved by his grace but god did paid the penalty for our sins romans 5 8 says but god demonstrated his own love towards us and while we were yet sinners christ paid the penalty christ died for us i want you to look with me to romans chapter 10 verse 9 you'll know this if you've been around church long enough maybe you can even cross even quote this but it says that13:54if we confess or you confess with your mouth that jesus is lord and believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead you shall be say it with me saved now i'm saying folks should you today we need to evaluate our own personal walk with lord jesus christ today we need to evaluate are we truly saved by his grace the gospel is the good news that what god's grace promised sinners and how we can14:23achieve eternal life through the redemption of our sin confessing our sin through the shed blood of jesus christ john piper the great writer and the pastor of bethlehem baptist church actually pastor emeritus now it said this grace is the free blessing of god that flows from his heart to the guilty undeserved sinner every one of us including this baptist preacher we deserve hell for our very own we deserve it14:48we were born in sin we've been living in sin we are sin every ounce of our being is sin but the only reason that we can say that we are going to spend eternity in heaven with jesus christ is that we confess that sin and we receive that free gift his grace his mercy into our lives that we did not deserve and we get to spend all of eternity i love what the apostle paul wrote to his young disciple15:17timothy in second timothy chapter 1 verse 10 he says god's grace has been manifested through his appearing of our savior jesus christ who abolished death and brought life into immortality through to light through the gospel the reason the gospel brings eternal life to light is that it makes crystal clear why eternal light is possible eternal life is possible through the death and burial and resurrection of15:44the lord savior jesus christ and that is what eternal life means so now with that said i want to give you three things that god's eternal salvation is number one god's eternal salvation is opposite of human initiative or merit it's opposite of humanist initiative or merit now the apostle paul16:06in romans chapter 11 verse 6 he is driving home the point that he's already made in chapter 3 chapter 4 and chapter 5 if you haven't read the book of romans 16 chapters i challenge you to begin your own reading of the book of romans it is phenomenal and once you get to chapter 8 you're going to be16:31oh goodness gracious thank you so much for the deliverance of god because john romans chapter 8 verse 1 says there is there now no condemnation for those say it with me who are in christ jesus but he goes on to say in romans chapter 11 verse 6 look what he says but if it is by grace it is no longer on the basis of works otherwise grace is no longer grace folks let me tell you something with god's eternal16:55salvation is opposite of any human initiative or human merit we can not do enough good things to receive his grace if that be the case then we could earn our way to heaven amen because a lot of you folks are doing a lot of neat things out there i mean you're doing a lot of good stuff you're writing a lot of17:22big checks and we are so thankful for that keep them coming amen we're doing a lot of good things but good things without eternal security without eternal life will be good things and they will burn up in the end church let me tell you something god's eternal salvation is opposite of human initiative or merit secondly god's eternal salvation is completely free there's not enough things we can do to earn it17:52aren't you glad we can earn it if we can earn it means we could lose it it was given to us freely by god's and god gave it to us for all of eternity for by grace you've been saved through faith and that not of yourselves and here's the key it is the free gift i have friends who believe that they can lose their18:15salvation how discouraging is that that just discourages me first of all it's not found in scripture so they don't have any backing or proof to that you can't lose your salvation you can't lose what was freely given to you because you can't earn your salvation romans chapter 1 verse 16 notice what it says paul this launches into this beautiful diatribe back it up to verse 14 he says i am under obligation both to18:44the greeks and to the barbarians to the wise and to the foolish he just kind of encompasses everything doesn't he he just says i'm a bond servant and i'm i'm under obligation for thus my part i am eager to preach the gospel to you who are also in rome for i am not ashamed of the gospel and everybody wants to say whoo he's not ashamed of the gospel don't they don't say oh i love what paul says for it is a power of god for salvation to every one elect and not elect amen dwight moody great pastor in chicago church said19:12this lord save the elect and then save some more amen i'm like him because it says for everyone who believes to the jews first and to the greeks folks let me tell you something it is free for anyone who will confess their religious sin confess it and say lord jesus today i receive you as my personal savior19:41lord so god's eternal salvation is opposite opposite of human initiative or merit and god's eternal salvation is completely free and thirdly god's eternal salvation delivers from enslavement to sin to this to the sole purpose or for the sole purpose to become enslaved to him now i want you to go back to20:06romans chapter 6 and we started with verse 22 but i want you to back up to verse 20 i want you to notice what the apostle paul is saying as he launches into this beautiful beautiful passage and when we're verse 20 and when you were slaves to sin you were free to regard to righteousness there there therefore20:27what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed for the outcome of those things is death folks let me tell you something when we are enslaved to our religious belief we are slave to our denominational affiliation we are slave to our our our baptist heritage we are enslaved to sin now20:54you say wait a minute did you say all those are sin no if it's separate from god yes but if it's connected to god it's not but some of us are so entrenched folks i want to tell you something i've been southern baptist nine months before i was born my mom and dad were southern baptist so i grew up when in the southern baptist church over there trustful pretty good church i grew up there i've been a21:23church member my whole life but i became a christ follower when i was 17 years old my name was written in first baptist church role yes i was in the choir youth choir ra's wanted to be in ga's i wanted to be in all that stuff i mean i was written in all those roles sunday school all the way down i mean everything you could be grew up in that environment brad on the other hand did not grow up in that type of21:50environment and god reached down and saved me at 17 not sure what date it was for him but he reached down and gave him the same grace but you see some of us have been grown up have grown up in that heritage that we think well because we're southern baptist oh we're a presbyterian oh we're methodist folks let me tell you something we're enchained enslaved to a denominational thought pattern and not enslaved and then chained to christ jesus so god's eternal salvation is opposite of human22:20initiative and merit god's eternal salvation is completely free for anyone who calls upon the name of the lord believe on the name of the lord and thou shall be say it with me saved so god's eternal salvation delivers us from enslavement to sin for the sole purpose to be enslaved to him it's not22:42jesus and it's jesus or nothing amen so it brings me to my encouraging words there are two absolutes that we must decide today do you have spiritual death that is earned23:00or do you have spiritual life that is freely given spiritual death when you unpack romans chapter 6 verse 23 it clearly says for the wages of sin is death now let me stop right there i want to ask you a23:24question i want you to be honest with me i know some of you are not in the workforce yet but some of you are and some of you retired and you're still earning right how many of you earned any income this week whatsoever any income you might not have gotten paid this week or may go get paid next week or23:50whenever you did the power company didn't pay y'all okay i'll make sure that we turned our lights on bro i just want to make sure you get paid you know we all earned that because of the job that we did or we performed a task or we did something maybe you're a babysitter and you earned some income that way we earned that's called a wage because of our sin we have earned our spot in hell separated from god's24:12love for all of eternity the wages of sin is death the word but b-e-b-u-t what does that mean that is a conjunction word right what does it do english teachers ties two thoughts together is right ties two thoughts together cancels out one to the other ties two thoughts together the wages of24:37sin is death but the gift of god is eternal life through jesus christ it's free you see we cancel out death because of the earning of death because of the earning of that spot in hell we earned the spot all the way back to genesis 2 when yes eve thank you very much when we earned that spot all the way down through generations but the gift of god is eternal life through jesus christ our lord25:06you see spiritual death is earned spiritual life is free salvation cannot be earned by works or human goodness salvation cannot be earned by religious rituals salvation cannot be baptized you can't be pushed under that water a hundred times and get saved all you will do is get wet a lot25:32some of you say well i've been baptized in the church great hallelujah so thrilled for you have you been baptized in the blood of jesus christ yet see salvation cannot be earned anything that man could do if a person wants what he deserves eternal death god will give him that privilege god will give him as25:56a just wage if you want to die and spend eternity in hell separated from the love of god you have that right to do so you can reject god secondly if a person wants what he does not deserve eternal life eternal life god offers that to him as well but as a free gift the source of which is christ jesus our26:25lord now church gather in here close to me i want you to pay close attention paul writing to ro in the romans church in romans chapter 6 this climactic ending of this chapter he says something so beautiful jesus christ is the only way from sin to righteousness from damnation to salvation from eternal death to eternal life for the wages of sin is death but the gift of god is eternal life26:54through jesus christ peter after pentecost he stood before the sanhedrin in acts chapter 4 verse 12 listen to what he says there is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved jesus said it best himself in the upper room discourse he said it in john27:15chapter 14 he says i am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father except by me it does not matter what football team you pull forward on saturday if you're lost without jesus on sunday you die you will spend eternity in heaven separated from the love of god you will spend eternity separated from your love of god27:40it matters not who you pull for on friday night it matters only when you stand before the lord are you truly born of him when he says i'm the way the truth and life no one comes to the father except through him so it's the spiritual eternal death is earned spiritual eternal life28:04is given freely didric bonheifer one of the great writers in the 20th century he wrote a phenomenal book challenge every person to go out and buy a copy if you can find it it's called the cost of discipleship it's one of the best books to transform my life next to the word of god he wrote in there about cheap grace we have a lot of cheap grace out there i call it the church of easy believism you can act the way you want to act live the way you want to28:35live just come on in and tip god and go on about your business you say wow that's awful harsh it's a reality and it's happening they're popping up all over the country the church of easy believism bonheifer said it best cheap grace is grace without discipleship grace without the cross grace without jesus christ folks would to god that we be a church that stands before the lord one day and say we will29:05not cheapen the marvelous amazing grace of our lord and savior jesus christ jesus christ is not looking for people who want to add him to their sin list he's not looking for us to add our fire insurance jesus christ is not looking for people who want to apply his high moral standards to our unregenerate lives he's not looking for those who not only want to outward of reformation but we don't even want an infer inward29:35improvement in our lives jesus christ is calling to himself those who are willing to be inwardly transformed by the renewing of his word who desires an eternal entirely new nature to their life to create us to create us to be more like him he's calling us to himself to those that are willing to exchange our own sinful lives for his holy lifestyle he's calling us those those of us to who are willing to30:04die with him or to be raised with him and who are willing to relinquish slavery to the sin of this world to slavery of his righteousness and his holiness folks and when we come to jesus christ we can only come one way that's on his terms not ours i want to come but god i want to have my own lifestyle as well30:27i'm sorry it doesn't work that way it's not jesus plus something else it's jesus and only jesus so we must come we must come under his terms his changes our destiny from eternal death to eternal life eternal life comes from the grace that our savior so freely gives30:55you say dan that was a very stern sermon thank you i'm glad i'm glad it was pointed because occasionally we need to be reminded that cheap grace is being preached and taught around the world and his grace is not cheap because he paid the penalty31:21for that grace for that grace let's pray you31:43youMore sermons on Romans →
