Slaves to righteousness

I am going to start with the point by which I want to encourage you today. I encourage you to offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.

In the beginning of Romans 6, Paul is talking about how we are made dead to sin and alive in Christ. Romans 6:1-4 says: "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may have new life."

There you have it, you have new life. With that new life, we are called to be slaves of righteousness.

It is honestly hard for me to put into words how we can do that. I think the best way of describing it to you would be to share the entire passage that Paul wrote about being slaves of righteousness. Romans 6:15-23 says: "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey-whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

I think that one of the coolest things about that passage is the verse that says: "I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness." I love that verse because Paul makes it known that he knows that we are only human and as humans we do have limitations. I think that is super important for lots of people to hear because it is easy to look at the Bible as a book filled with all of these miraculous things that we couldn't really handle or do as humans. Its weird to say that. But it's true. The Bible is filled with so many human examples because nearly every character in the Bible was human.

I know that was wordy today, but I hope that there are things in there that God will use to speak to you this evening, or whenever you read this.