Two Choices

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First Published: 2015/12/14

Two Choices

Key text: Romans 6

Well this is the sixth message in a series on Romans. This is based on chapter 6. I want you to get out your Bibles. Turn to Romans chapter 6. Just put it on your lap. You will need it today. I will have some scripture on the overhead in back of me but actually the majority of it is going to be in your lap their with your own Bible. So please open your Bibles to Romans chapter 6 and we are going to be starting at verse 1 in a moment.

Now today’s message is called Two Choices. And two choices when you think about it Adam and Eve had how many choices about that tree in the middle of the garden? Eat it. Don’t eat. Eat it. Don’t eat. Right. When Noah got onto the ark, all those around who lived near the ark had a choice. What are the choices? Get on. Don’t get on. Get on. Don’t get on. At the second coming of our Lord there are two choices, and by then the choices have been made. What are the choices? Want to go. Don’t want to go. Want to go. Don’t. There have always been two choices. It’s not three choices. Not four. Not two in a half. Not one in a half. Two. So this is called Two Choices.

Now over the past several months I’ve been meeting with a young couple, and I have some more couples to meet with too, who are planning marriage so this is premarital counseling. During my premarital counseling time we got to know each other, and I can see that these two are in love with each other, and devoted to each other. It’s really wonderful. So last Sunday they were married. So they are married in God’s eyes, and they are married in the eyes of the State of California as well, and all those who were in attendance on Sunday. Now that you know that a couple of people got married let me just put this in perspective. What if we learned that the newlyweds are behaving like single people? They are calling up other people, and going out on dates with other people, and sort of doing their own things as if they were single. Wouldn’t we be disappointed? When I say wouldn’t we be disappointed, you guys say yes. Wouldn’t we be disappointed? Yes. That’s what I thought. Yes we would. So the deal of it is when you read chapter 6 verse 1 there is some disappointment there. You ready to read it? Read verse 1 with me. Here we go. What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Should we go on sinning? What is the answer to that? No. Because we are connected. We are married. We have a relationship with our God. These two just got married. They have a relationship with each other. It is ludicrous for us to think, or for them to think, that they will continue to live as single people. Are they single people? No. They are married. We’re married too to the Lord in relationship with God. So should we go on sinning as before? No. Once we are under the power, and oppression, and slavery of sin, now we’re under the joy of grace. Grace from God. That’s what this message is about this morning. And I want to talk to you about how to make good choices.

The first thing we start off with is this. Would you read this with me? No one can serve two masters. Do you believe that? It is absolutely true. The Bible goes on to say Either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve two masters period. So in our case the two choices are am I going to follow me? – will you follow you? – what you want to do – how you want to conduct your life or do we follow Christ and his way. That’s the choice. So we want to know how to make better choices. That’s what this message is about. How do you do it?

Take out your sermon notes everybody out of your bulletin there. Get a piece of paper. Get a pencil. Write down a few notes cause you’ll need some. How do you make better choices? I have two points here actually. This sermon only has two points. Aren’t you glad? You know sometimes less is more. Less is better. So this is the first point. We want to make better choices. Now would you read this with me? Offer yourself as a slave to Christ. Offer yourself as a slave to Christ. Now I’m going to talk about that. I’m going to talk about offering yourselves as slaves to Christ. One thing we want to do this morning is think about whom we are following. This is really where the struggle is at. Do I do what I want to do? Am I the master of my own life or am I really a slave to Christ? See. You offer yourself as a slave to Christ. That is a suggestion. See. The decisions we make are all based upon who is running the show. Have you ever noticed that? If you were working for a boss, who makes the decisions? Did you say the boss? That’s right. Isn’t it true? Basically the boss is running the show. He makes the decisions. So here we’re running the show or we might and so we would be making the decision. If that is true, they are usually selfish, self-centered, and it is all about me. Me, me, me. Me, me, me. And it’s all about whom? Me. But the Bible says no it’s not all about you and me. It’s all about the Lord. It’s all about serving the Lord. Learning a new way. So the first thing we want to do is offer ourselves as a slave to Christ. Now this offering ourselves is on a daily basis. Don’t get me wrong. Remember I use this illustration a lot. I’m married to my wife. I don’t need to ask her will you marry me. Why? I’m already married. So this way you are in Christ’s household. You are in a saved relationship with Christ if you received Christ in your life. If you received Christ in your life, and given your heart to Christ, you’re in. You know what I mean. You are in. You’re coming to the party. And if the party starts today and the Lord came, you’re going. Guaranteed. Not my words. Words of the Bible. So you’re in. So you don’t have to go around and ask the Lord oh Lord am I going to heaven? What’s the answer to that? Of course you are. But even though I am married to my wife I still say things like I love you. Can I do something for you? Can I help you? Give her a kiss. Give her a hug. Why do I do that? To get married to her? No because I’m already married. Here is the thing. Every day you offer yourself to the Lord. You say Lord I’m yours. Now do you do that in order to be saved? No. You’re already saved. Well why do you do that? It’s the same reason I do it to my wife because I love her. I want to emphasize to her how much I love her.

Now check this out. We did the wedding. Married this young couple last weekend. They went on a honeymoon. Guess what they are still doing? Kissing and hugging. Are you surprised? I mean they are kissing and hugging. I mean they are already married. Why should they kiss and hug? Why should they? I don’t know. Is it a good thing? See. So what I’m talking about your relationship and my relationship with the Lord is on that basis. I say every morning Lord Jesus come into my life. I want to give you my life. You come on in here. I want to follow you today. Not me. If I do it, I know what is going to happen. It’s going to go south. Sometimes it goes south anyway because I try to take back the leadership I gave to the Lord early in the morning. See. So the first thing you do is offer yourself as a slave. How many of you would offer yourself as a slave? Not enough hands. Come on. Get them up. Hands, hands, hands. Some of you don’t want to be slaves maybe because you don’t know what a slave is. I’ll tell you about a slave in just a minute. Would you read this please? Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey. Stop right there. You are a slave to the one that you do what? Obey. Keep going. Whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? Romans 6:16 (NIV) Now the deal about this scripture and why it is so important is that Paul is writing to people at a time when there was slavery everywhere. Almost everybody had a slave. Even sometimes slaves had slaves. So I mean that was really everybody knew about slavery.

Now George Knight in his book on the book of Romans talks about this. He says you know that if you hire someone to come into your home let’s say you have someone to help you with chores, or gardening, or someone who is doing something for you in your home usually there is a time. Be here at this time 9 o’clock in the morning and then they go home at 4 o’clock or whenever they say to go home. So there is a start time and an end time. That is employment today. When you talked about slavery in the 1st century, the employment is no such thing. You actually belong to the person – you were actually and compared to a piece of furniture – that the person that owned you as slave actually had complete overview of you and could do anything they wanted to including take your life. It’s pretty horrible. See if someone in today’s world works for you they go home at – they come to work at 9 and go home at 3. I don’t know. I’m just making up times. They go home. When they go home, the time belongs to them. Right. They can do anything they want to. They can go work out at the gym, watch TV, practice classical music, do whatever they want to do. A slave in the 1st century had no free time. All of his or her time belonged to the master. I want to emphasis this. 24/7 belonged to the master so when Paul says here and talks about being a slave to Christ, he is talking about not 9 to 7 – you know 9 in the morning until 3. He’s not talking about 8 to 5 or 6 to 6. He is talking about 24/7. You give yourself to the Lord. It’s like I gave myself to my wife. It is completely all the time. It’s not like I can go home and say okay honey well I’m not married any more. I’m going to see what church lady wants to take me out. Is that going to work with Ginny? I’m going to get beat up. You’ll see me with black and blue stuff. I don’t even want to do that. Even if I thought I could and I don’t even want to. See what I mean. So we belong to the Lord. How often? All the time. It’s 24/7. We’re slaves to the Lord.

Now it says that really and truly the way you know who is running your show is dependent upon who you obey; you or the Lord. Who is making the choices in your life? What agenda are you following? What’s your life like? What little ditties are you doing when no one sees especially the pastor. Don’t tell the pastor. Hey forget about me. All things are known by God. See. So what Paul is talking about today is you know we want to belong to the Lord. We want to be a slave to the Lord. All the time full time to him and it is a good thing. Check it out. Look at this. Down about the middle of this verse on the screen it says whether you are slaves to sin, see that there. And it gives us a little bit of an understanding of the outcome of sin or the outcome of obedience to Christ. This is cause and effect now. And it says whether you are slaves to sin, and what does sin lead to? Death. It is not talking about what will happen to people as they get older or get in an accident. We know what death is. This is not talking about that. This is talking about eternal death. This is talking about the death that a person dies and there is no resurrection which leads to death or obedience which leads to righteousness. Check it out. In the Bible it usually has point counter point. So when it says leads to death, we would expect the next line to say or obedience which leads to life. Right. Death. Life. Right. But instead it says which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. The deal about righteousness is is that it is a good way to live. Righteousness is simply right with God and right with people. That’s all.

By the way, I want to tell you something. Now sin whenever I talk about sin today, and this is really the basic definition of sin, many of you have heard me say this before and I’m going to say it again, sin really is not loving God. Sin is not loving people as yourself. That is sin. That is what it is. It’s about the condition of the heart. It’s not an action. It could be an action but all actions follow what is going on in the heart. Isn’t that true? So when I talk about sin and following sin, that is talking about not loving God and not loving people as yourself. See. So we want to stay away from that stuff. We want to love God. Amen! Okay give me a couple more amens huh. Amen. We do. I know you do. We want to love the Lord.

When I thought about checking out this sermon and I’m thinking about it, and praying about the sermon, praying about you guys, thinking about this, I’m thinking what causes people not to follow the Lord. Why would somebody not follow the Lord 24/7? Why would they do that? Turn to your neighbor and say why would people not follow the Lord? You’ve got some ideas. I bet some ideas are coming right now. Why would people not follow the Lord? One thing that came into my heart and mind about this is this – see before I was a Christian the thing that motivated me was me and so what I wanted to do, what I wanted sort of to be, or to have, or to enjoy. I thought if somebody else is in charge of my life, they won’t be able to give me what I want. So I’m going to be in charge of my life and I will get what I want. So often times people go I don’t want to be a Christian because maybe God won’t give me or give me that or this you know. So people – check it out – isn’t it true in our society – people are trying to get their needs met through a lot of things. Stuff that kills them. Stuff that hurts them. Stuff that ruins lives and ruins families.

Did you see that thing on television where they talked about – I may have this drug wrong so please correct me but it is a drug that when a person takes it or sniffs it, it really does a number on the person’s face, and it begins to age the person. They begin to lose their teeth and it is sort of destructive. I’m sorry I can’t give you more detail on it but see me afterwards and maybe you can correct me. This one I’m thinking about they showed a before and after picture of a person and it was just totally destructive. But you know that is the way sin – remember sin not loving God; doing your own thing, sin always disguises itself not of something ugly, something bad. Sin always disguises itself as something you want to have. You want it because we think it meets a need. It meets a need and then once sin has you boom. Remember the story of Pinocchio and all the boys wanted to drink some beer. They got in there and drank some beer and it looked like so much fun and it’s a carnival. Hey we’ll tip a few. What did they turn into? That’s right. They turned into donkeys. Cause and effect. That’s a good illustration isn’t it. You remembered that one.

So the picture that Paul is writing about is we’re giving ourselves as slaves to Christ. Just like you give yourself in marriage to another person. It’s forever – ever and ever. You don’t stop it. This is something that goes on and on. A relationship is fed and we don’t promote relationships, married relationships, where people go out on dates. They ask their wife out on a date. The wife fixes herself up. They have a good time together. We promote that. That’s good. Isn’t it? You guys going on dates out there? Huh? Want a little date night going on. Keep the romance going. Keep the thing happening. Me and Ginny go on a date once in a while. You ask Ginny. She will tell you. So the first thing is we have choices. The first choice is who is going to be in charge of your life? You going to be or is Christ going to be? You choose. And the first one is we want to offer ourselves as a slave to the Lord.

Here is the second one now. Point two. Last point. Would you read this with me? Live unresponsive to sin but responsive to God. So it says live unresponsive to what? Sin. Now what is sin again? Not loving God. Not loving people as yourself. We want to get away from that. We want to love God and we want to love people. See. We want to live unresponsive to sin but responsive to God. Here is a scripture that goes with it. Would you read this with me please? In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:11 (NIV) So in the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. That’s how we have to say it. We have died to sin. What is sin again? Not loving God. Not loving people. We’re dying to that. So we are living to loving God and loving others. It is the greatest commandment.

Now we have a little garden at home. Got flowers, trees, fruit and we have a grapevine. It goes on an arbor like this. It’s really flourishing now. There are actually two vines that we’re growing and they come up like that. And so we usually just take the hose and put it down there and water, do a little trench around you know water the vine. What we found out though was when you water dirt, what usually comes up? Weeds. So we’re watering a large area and we notice that all these weeds start coming up in our garden. So I said you know what we have to be unresponsive to those weeds. So I fixed up a little drip system right at the base of both of the vines. So the water is delivered right where it needs it. So days pass. Days pass. The ground around it around the vines begin to dry up because I was being unresponsive to the weeds. Guess what happened to the weeds in a few days as the sun came out/got hotter? They turned yellow and they died. So when I talk about in the same way count yourselves dead to sin, we need to stop watering those areas of our lives that we allow. Have you ever said oh you know when you see my mom you know she has a little temper. She is really a good person. She loves Jesus but when you go in, if she says a couple of things, don’t worry about it. Did I say anything? So when we talk about turn off the faucet, turn off the water, to those areas of our life we know we still hang on to. It’s the bad temper. It’s the unforgiving heart. It’s being rude or condescending to other people. It’s being prejudiced against other people groups. It’s withholding love and kindness from people you should be loving and kind to. We’ve got to turn off the water. We don’t want to water. We want to be unresponsive to that. And when you are, same thing will happen to those actions that happen to the weeds in my garden. Unresponsive. No watering. They die. Folks as you’re preaching – preaching is hard you guys so I think these things up it’s the best I can do for you. I know it’s a struggle. Pastor you don’t know. I got my temper from my mother and I got it from my mother-in-law. Well it doesn’t matter where you got it from. Give it back. Don’t water it.

Now let’s look at our Bibles again. We’re reading from Romans chapter 6. Now we’re going to look at verse 5. Would you read verse 5 with me? Here it goes. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. Now I’m using this scripture because it is a wonderful scripture that talks about our relationship to God. And it says, If you have been united with him see with him like this in his death now what that is talking about is the word graft. You know that they can actually take a healthy branch off a tree, take it over to another tree, and graft it into the trunk of the tree. Right. Some of you may have tried that. They do this with fruit trees and different things. When it is done properly, the branch receives the sap and the nourishment from the roots and system from that healthy tree. The branch actually begins to grow and flourish even though it is grafted in. Guess what? We are the branches. Right. And Christ is the vine. Basically the Bible is saying you are being grafted into the tree. You are in the tree. You are now part of the tree and that tree is Christ the Lord. See. That’s why it is 24/7. See once a branch is grafted in it can’t say to the tree hey guys can I have a little break. I’m going to unplug here and go out. I also noticed something that when branches are trimmed off of trees what happens? They begin to shrivel up. They begin to turn and they die. We don’t want to do that. See. We want to be united with Christ and spliced into him.

Now I want to tell you something. Listen. As I’m preaching this sermon, I don’t want anybody to leave here thinking oh man I can’t do one thing wrong. I’m 24/7 into Christ and Christ is in my life. Wow! I can’t even do this. Yes you can. Because I want to tell you what Paul is not talking about. Paul is not talking about your occasional misdeed. We all know we fall down once in a while. Right. Don’t we? We make mistakes. The Bible says if you say you have no sin you make God a liar. You don’t want to do that. See. What Paul is talking about is not about the occasional misdeed but the direction of your life. What direction you going? Where is your life heading? What decisions are you making right now that will led you to a particular goal or destination. See. The Bible is saying look it start now. Make the destination little by little – your goals – in the direction of Christ. See. You’re going to fall down but when you fall down, what do you do? You get up. You say Lord forgive me and 1 John 1:9 says If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness that’s why these are here in the Bible. But this about the trend of your life. What direction is your life going? What direction is my life going? See. That’s what this Bible is talking about. It started off should we continue in sin that grace may abound? What is the answer to that? No. We need a correction and that is what this chapter 6 of Romans is about.

Now this is what we want to read now. This one has to do with baptism. We’re going to be having a baptism pretty soon. If you have not been baptized, do not leave here without talking to me about this. You need to be baptized. The reason you need to be baptized you go well pastor I haven’t had 24 studies. I don’t care. Do you know Jesus? That’s the main thing. We can teach you about your faith. You’re going to learn about your faith. You need to read the Bible. But the starting point is baptism. That’s when you go publicly and say you know what I’m going to be a Christian. Will you fall down after that? What’s the answer? Yes you will. Will we help pick you up? What’s the answer? Yes. But you’re on your route. You’re on the way. But don’t say to yourself you know when I clean up my life, when I get a little better, you know when I stop doing those bad things, then I’m going to talk to you pastor but you know – hey don’t do that. That’s what the devil wants you to think. You need to do it today and talk to me today. By the way, here’s my pitch, by the way, look in the pew right in front of you, those long cards right there. It says welcome. Everybody take one of those cards out. Take a look at them. Because if you’re not baptized, I want you to write your name on it and say, pastor I want to talk to you about being baptized because it is a starting point. It’s not the end game. See. Don’t get me wrong. You receive Christ in your life. That’s where you start and then you move forward and you grow and you’re grafted into the vine.

Look at what your Bible says everybody in chapter 6. Look at verse 3 and 4. Would you read verse 3 with me? Here we go. Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Keep reading. 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 live a new life. There it is. By the way, do you see where it says we too may live a new live? That means you get a new life. We hear this all the time. We hear this a lot – get a life. Don’t we hear that. You may say that to some of the kids that are still at home. Hey why don’t you get a life you know what I’m saying. You may say that to somebody. When you say get a life, you mean – what do you mean? It means you know begin to move ahead. Get a direction. Get a goal. Walk in that path. It could mean a lot of things. But here the promise of God is in terms of baptism that when a person is baptized, they begin a new life. This is the life with quality. There are two ways that the Bible can say life. It can say you’re alive. You’re breathing. You’re taking water. You’re eating. You can say that. It’s called biosis or the Bible can say talk about life in terms of zoe. Now when it talks about zoe it’s talking about not eating, and drinking, and breathing, and walking. It’s talking about how you conduct your life. How you life see and what happens when you live you know and how you interact with people, how you feel about yourself. That is what this is talking about. You too may have a new zoe. A real life. A real point at which you now exist and it brings joy to your heart and joy to those around you.

Quickly I want you to look over verses 12 to 14. Chapter 6 verses 12-14. Look what it says in verses 12-14. It says Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Because you are the slave to the one you obey. We already read that right. So we don’t want to go the sin route. Verse 13 says, Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, that is to not love God or not love people whether it is verbally, physically, emotionally or as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life. That’s the real life. That’s the life that matters and has substance. And offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. Now do you see the word instruments. Everybody look in verse 13. The last few words of verse 13 it says offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. That word is also translated weapons of righteousness. So there is a choice here. You can be a weapon of wickedness or you can be a weapon of righteousness. Isn’t that amazing! You! By the way, every single one of you are individual to God, loved by God, needed by God just as you are. Be glad of who you are and what God made you because you want to be an instrument of righteousness in God’s hands. Then it finishes in verse 14 says, For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. You are saved by the grace of God. Not by something you do or don’t do. You know you don’t qualify to save yourself and I don’t either. If we stood before the Lord, we would not pass but we have a Savior Christ the Lord who stands up in our place and we serve that master. We don’t want to be grafted in.

Okay here is the last word. Now some of you might be thinking oh pastor I can’t be baptized because I’m too old. I’m too young. I can’t float. I’d drop. I’d sink. I can’t swim. I can’t breath. I’m afraid. I’m not afraid. Peace. Joy. Yes. No. Whatever you know. You’ve got a million reasons. But one of the reasons is you feel weak. You feel like to yourself you say you know if I get baptized Pastor Mitch is my pastor he is so nosy. He asks all kinds of questions. He looks you in the eye. I don’t know if I can really do this you know and so you feel weak. You feel like I don’t think I can do this even if I got baptized. Sounds good. But I don’t know about the follow up. If you’re feeling weak and if you’re feeling like you can’t make it, guess what? You qualify to be baptized because weakness is where the Lord wants us. We want to be weak because the Bible says when you’re weak, then you are strong. Is that true? Would you read this with me? I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. Romans 1:16 (NIV) In other words, this salvation I’m talking about is for all people, all time, and it is the power of God that you get, that you receive, that you embrace. It’s pretty good. This is the dynamic right here. The dynamic of God. The power of God that you embrace because you’re weak. So am I. Question is what are we going to do today? Will we serve the Lord? Will we make right choices? I want you to do that. Let’s pray together.

Questionnaire:

Two Choices

Romans 6

7 June 2008

No one can serve two masters. Matthew 6:24 (NIV)

Offer yourself as a to Christ.

Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey-- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? Romans 6:16 (NIV)

Live to sin but responsive to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:11 (NIV)

Read: Romans 6:3-4

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. Romans 1:16 (NIV)

Answer: