Sunday Sermon Manuscript for June 28

To Whom Will You Give Yourself?

Text: Romans 6:12–23

Introduction — The Deposed King

1. There was once a king in a certain nation. But that king was deposed. He lost the war, he was dragged down from the throne, and a new king took his place. Legally, he is no longer king. There is no longer any duty to bow before him, and no longer any reason to obey his commands.

2. But then a strange thing happens. This deposed king does not leave the palace. He lingers around the old palace grounds. And he still gives orders. "Come here." "Bring me that." "Listen to me." Even more astonishing is that the people still respond to his commands. Though they know he is no longer king, because they had been trained by his voice for so many years, their bodies move first.

3. This is exactly the picture Paul is painting today. Sin is a deposed king. Through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, sin has already been dragged down from the throne. And yet this deposed king still lingers around the palace of our hearts and gives his orders. And we, far too often, let our bodies respond to that voice first.

4. Today's text is a question thrown to us as we stand in exactly that place. Whose voice will you listen to? To whom will you give yourself?

The Path the Text Walks

5. Paul walks through this passage in four steps. First, verses 12 to 14 are a command: "Do not let sin reign." Next, verse 16 is a question: "To whom do you offer yourselves as slaves?" Then verses 17 to 22 are a declaration: "You have already been set free." Finally, verse 23 is the conclusion that compresses everything: "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life."

6. Here is one thing we must grasp first. Paul does not treat sin merely as one person's moral mistake. He portrays sin as a king, as a master, as an employer who works people for wages. Sin is not just something I happened to do by accident; it is, we might say, a personal power that seeks to rule over me.

7. That is why the issue is not "reducing bad behavior a little." The real issue is, "Under whose reign will you live?"

First — Do Not Let Sin Reign (vv. 12–14)

8. Let us read verse 12 together. "Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you do not give in to the desires of the body." (Rom 6:12)

9. The Greek word translated "reign" here is basileuetō (βασιλευέτω). This word comes from basileus (βασιλεύς), meaning "king." So translated literally, it means "to act as king," "to rule as a king." Paul is comparing sin to a king right now.

10. What we must remember here is the tense of the verb. This command is in the present tense. It is not "cut it off once and for all," but "continually, day by day, do not let sin sit on that throne again."

11. This becomes a comfort to us. Paul does not demand that we become perfect all at once. Rather, he assumes that sin is already a deposed king, and that we are not the ones who must fight and defeat sin — there is already One who has won the victory. Remember this, he says.

12. So when we Christians speak of "fighting" in this world, it does not mean a battle to defeat sin, but a battle to remain within the reign of the One who has already won. We are not an army marching out to seize victory; we are a people who live by refusing the voice of the old king, within a victory that has already been proclaimed.

13. To put this another way: remembering that the Lord who is always with us is constantly at our side — what we sometimes describe in special terms of training and practice, like "Walking with Jesus" or a "spiritual journal" — all of this is about how we move out from under the power where the old king, that is, sin, holds sway, and live within the new covenant in Jesus Christ. This is what we call the life of faith.

Second — With What Will You Offer Yourself? (v. 13)

14. So then, how can we remain not under the reign of the old king, but within the grace of the new Lord? Let us read verse 13. "Therefore, do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. Instead, as those who have been brought from death to life, offer yourselves to God, and offer the parts of your body to God as instruments of righteousness." (Rom 6:13)

15. The word translated "offer," "present" here is paristēmi (παρίστημι). This word means "to stand alongside," "to set out for someone to use as they please." It was used when presenting an offering before the altar in sacrifice, and also when a soldier presented himself before his commander in the army. "Here I am. Just give the command." That is paristēmi.

16. And the word translated "instrument" is even more intense: hopla (ὅπλα). This originally means "weapon," "arms." The picture Paul is painting right now is not a peaceful workplace but a battlefield. Our hands, our mouths, our gaze, our time — all of these are "weapons." The question is: into whose camp will you hand these weapons?

17. It is the same hand. With that hand you can tear someone down, and with that hand you can lift someone up. It is the same mouth. With that mouth you can kill a person, and with that mouth you can give a person life. The hand and the mouth remain the same; whose weapon they become decides everything.

18. There is a subtle but decisive difference hidden here. When it says "do not offer" to sin, it is in the present tense. That is, "keep on cutting off that habit." But when it says "offer" to God, it is in the aorist — a once-for-all action: parastēsate (παραστήσατε). That is, "offer yourself decisively, once."

19. This difference reveals the shape of faith. Taking our hands off sin is a daily battle. Just because you cut it off yesterday does not mean it won't come knocking today. But offering myself to God is, we might say, one decisive resolution. "Lord, the master of my life is You." Upon this one resolution, we live out each day.

Third — The Paradox of Freedom and Slavery (vv. 17–19, 22)

20. Let us go to verse 18. "You were set free from sin and became slaves of righteousness." (Rom 6:18) Within this short sentence, two verbs stand side by side: "to be set free" and "to become a slave." In the Greek original, both of these verbs are in the passive voice. That is, I did not set myself free. Nor did I make myself a slave. God pulled me out of sin, and God made me His own. In theology this is sometimes called the "divine passive." The subject is always God.

21. There is a word here we must handle carefully — the word "slave." In Greek, doulos (δοῦλος), that is, a bondservant. This metaphor may sound harsh to those who have passed through the painful history of slavery. Paul seems to have known this too. So in verse 19 he asks for understanding like this: "Because your understanding is weak, I am speaking in human terms." The metaphor is only a metaphor; the heart of the matter lies elsewhere.

22. So what is the heart of it? It is this: a human being does not exist as a completely free person who is no one's slave. We always live serving something. We serve money, or the approval of people, or fear, or an old habit. Even the one who says, "I am a free person bound to no one," is often, in truth, a slave to his own desires.

23. So the gospel does not say, "Serve no one." The gospel says, "Serve the Master who gives you life." If you serve sin, its end is shame. But if you serve God — verse 22 puts it this way — its fruit is holiness (ἁγιασμός, hagiasmos), and its end (telos, τέλος) is eternal life.

24. Up to now I have spoken about sin. We must understand sin as a personal being that seeks to act as king, and where we offer the parts of our body decides whether we remain within sin or whether we can live within the new gospel set free from sin. And I have said that this is something achieved by striving day after day, not something decided once and for all.

25. There are churches and pastors who speak about sin very sensitively. There are those who emphasize only human sinfulness and conclude their message by saying we must therefore fear the God who judges. What I personally find most heartbreaking is when some attack the church — accusing churches that do not dwell on sin of denying the work of God. But making known that sin is sin can be judged by the law, and by the social norms and statutes we know. Up to this point, these are things that come out plainly when we remain merely at the level of "the law" as it stands.

26. But the law's role of exposing sin clearly cannot be the conclusion of the gospel. The gospel goes one step further. The gospel not only exposes sin; it bears witness to God's resolve and zeal to forgive that sin. The gospel does not only condemn the sinner; it receives that sinner. When grace flows into the place where sin has been exposed, forgiving that sin and gathering that person into its arms — only then, we may say, is the gospel completed.

27. Knowing sin is the beginning. Being forgiven and received is the conclusion. The gospel is precisely the declaration of this conclusion to us. This is the good news, the gospel. Remembering this, let us look at the final verse of our text.

Fourth — Wages or Gift? (v. 23)

28. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in our Lord Jesus Christ." (Rom 6:23) Within this single verse, the whole text is compressed. Look closely at two words.

29. First, "wages." In Greek, opsōnia (ὀψώνια). This word originally means "the pay given to a soldier," "the wages received for work done." Sin works us. And precisely, exactly according to the work done, it fills the envelope and presses it into our hand. Sin never shortchanges. It pays out in full. But what is the amount written on that envelope? Death. Paul expresses it as death being what sin owes us — what we have earned by serving sin.

30. In this verse Paul deliberately breaks the symmetry of the sentence. What would you expect to be placed opposite "wages"? By common sense, opposite "wages" should come "reward." The wages of sin is death, but the reward of righteousness is life — this is how it should read to make sense. But Paul does not write it that way.

31. Opposite "wages," Paul places a gift. In Greek, charisma (χάρισμα). This word comes from "grace," that is, charis (χάρις). A gift is not something earned. It is something received freely.

32. This is the secret of the symmetry Paul broke. Eternal life is not a thicker envelope received for working harder. Eternal life is a gift that God simply presses into the hand of one who has never once worked for it. Death is something earned, but life is something received.

33. Here we can confirm the true meaning of the gospel. If the story of sin ends in a dead-end alley where someone waits with a club, that is not the gospel. The end of the story of sin must always be a freely given gift. The law sets us at the edge of a cliff. But the gospel lays the cross between the cliffs, so that we may cross over.

Application — To Whom Will You Give Yourself?

34. Beloved congregation, in the end today's text gathers into one question: To whom will you give yourself? Will you entrust your body to the voice of the deposed old king and follow after him? Or will you give yourself to the Lord who bought you with a price?

35. This application is not some grand resolution. It is taking the very hand you handed over to sin yesterday, and offering it again to God today. As the day ends, it is pausing for a moment and asking this: "Whose weapon did I live as today? In whose camp were my hands, my mouth, my time?"

36. And even if the day we look back on turns out to be a shameful day, we do not despair. Because knowing sin is not the end. Because into that place of shame, grace flows in, forgives us, and receives us again. So we are people who, though we fall every day, rise again every day and live as slaves of righteousness.

37. From the place where we strove to earn wages, to the place where we enjoy the freely given gift. From ears that listened to the voice of the deposed king, to ears that listen to the voice of the true King. That is the life of one who has been set free from sin and become a slave of righteousness.

Closing

38. Today, holding fast to this word, I want us to praise the God who forgives our sin, and to go forward holding fast to the grace of the Lord who, right here in this place, receives us with open arms. Within the eternal life God freely gives, let us say: "Lord, here I am. My hands, my mouth, my time — I offer them to You as instruments of righteousness." With this resolve today, may you and I become people who walk with the Lord throughout this week. I bless you in the name of the Lord.

Amen.