We'll be in Romans chapter number 6 today. Romans chapter number 6. And the last three messages that I've shared have been about the system of legalism and the issues with that and why that legalism makes us, instead of being sons and daughters, children of Almighty God, it takes children and turns them in to slaves. We go back under a system of slavery. Sometimes when people move away from legalism, they go to the opposite ditch, which is an issue with license. That, okay, I'm saved, I got my ticket punched for heaven, now I can live any way I want to. So, this message and then, Lord willing, next Sunday night, I'll split this into two as we look at two main Scriptures that speak about this issue. If I am saved and I'm on my way to heaven, does that mean that I can live any way that I want to? And we'll break down this as we look into Romans chapter 6. It really provides the answer to these big questions. But first I want to develop some of the questions and cause us to ask these things. Well, maybe it'll go here. This one's going over here. Okay, what kind of God is Jesus? This is a bigger part of the study from my book, Fake Jesus. What kind of God is Jesus? This is the second half of the book. If you'd like to get some copies, we do have some available. But this is the second half of the book that I'm preaching through in these messages. And this is what we're looking at. What kind of God is Jesus? Is he a cool parent, fake Jesus? That's what we're asking about in this message and the next one. Does anything go? And, you know, no doubt after we're talking about legalism, there's a bunch of people who think, well, yeah, we've got to pour it on those legalists. You know, certain groups of Christians are tempted towards legalism, but other groups are tempted to go the opposite direction towards license. I'm saved. I know that my eternity is settled. Now don't bother me. I want to do my own thing. And that's really the mindset that we're addressing in these messages, these two messages today and, Lord willing, next Sunday night. License views Jesus just as like a cool parent. He permits you to do anything and everything you want. You can do whatever you want to, anytime you want to, no consequences, no punishment. Some cool parents even celebrate and they fund the selfish debauchery their kids want to pursue. Oh, you're 14, and you want to go drink beer with all your friends? Here's 50 bucks. Go buy all you want to. In fact, I'll go drive you to the liquor store. Just tell me what to pick out, and I'll go get it for you. That's the concept that we're talking about, the kind of parent, the cool parent, quote unquote, that throws the parties and provides the alcohol and says, yeah, do whatever you want to do, and I'll even fund it for you. Eat whatever you want to eat. Drink whatever you want to drink. Sleep with whoever you want to sleep with. Live with whomever you want to live with. Go wherever you want to go. Do whatever you want to do. Party however you want to party. Eat, drink and be merry. That's the lifestyle that we're talking about. Some people have a spiritual reasoning that says, Well, I asked Jesus to save me and He will forgive my sins and therefore I can live any way I want to and just ask God to forgive me and He will cleanse me, He will forgive me. Will God forgive us of any sins? Yes. But one Bible scholar called it cheap grace, when we are just trampling over the grace of God and turning it into a license to do whatever we want to do. And I hope to help you to see that's not the basis of a loving, relationship with each other. And that's what we really want to counter in these two messages that I share. And so the spiritual reasoning says that, well, I've asked Jesus to save me, I've asked Him to forgive me of my sins, therefore I can live any way that I want to live. And those that live with a license think, doesn't the Bible say that Jesus promises us forgiveness for the sins that we commit? Why can't we just live our lives however we want and then ask Him to forgive us when we sin? And some even take it to a level beyond that saying that Jesus would accept this behavior. Jesus would accept this sin that I'm in. And the Bible clearly condemns it. The Bible clearly says it's a sin, but some have taken it even to that next step and say, no, Jesus, the God of love, would accept this, would accept this sin, would accept this attitude. And there's a lot of modern slogans that we fall for. Consider a couple here. Whatever you decide to do, make sure it makes you happy. We all deserve to be happy. You know, these are positive, encouraging slogans that sometimes we see this kind of stuff on social media. Is this really true, though? Is this really true? I want to come back to this. Just let that question permeate. We all deserve to be happy. Whatever you decide to do, make sure it makes you happy. What about when it hurts someone else in the process? Well, okay, you've got to draw a line there. Well, who gets to draw those lines? Who says that this is right and this is wrong? Who gets to determine those kinds of things? So rooted in this concept is the theological belief that yes, God is love, and love gives me liberty, love gives me a license to do whatever I want to do. And our society that we live in today equates love with acceptance. Love with validation. Any kind of lifestyle is supposed to go. Don't tell anybody that they're wrong. If you tell somebody that they're wrong about anything, you are giving hate speech. You hate them. You're not for them. Now we need to ask ourselves a big question here. Is it possible to genuinely love somebody and disagree with them at the same time? Especially when it comes to issues of morality and identity and these kinds of hot-button issues that we see in our culture today. Is it possible to genuinely love them and warn them at the same time? Let me give you a little illustration of this. Is it unloving to warn other people? And a knee-jerk reaction of our society is to say no. But here's a helpful illustration. So you and your friends are going to a wedding. You're sitting in the passenger seat of the car and you're driving to this wedding. And you've been planning, you've been anticipating this for a long time. Your best friend is driving the car. You're on your way. You know, it's a nice, hot summer day, you got a convertible, the top is down, the windows are down, everything is just, the air's blowing, and you got the radio cranked up and listening to some great tunes, and you're going down the road, having a good time, and you know the way to get to the wedding, and your friend that's driving hasn't been there, they're sort of relying on you, and you realize, we're going the wrong way. So what do you do? You just continue to enjoy the music, crank it up even louder and say, we're having such a good time. I don't want to spoil this party. This is so much fun. Live in the moment. Enjoy this time. Don't speak up. I've got to be silent. Yeah, they're going the wrong way. We may miss the wedding. We may not make it to the destination. But we're having such a good time. Let's just live in the moment. We're happy right now. Let's go back to those slogans. We all deserve to be happy. You're so happy right now. Make sure it makes you happy. We're being happy. We're enjoying this happiness. And we're having a great time heading the wrong direction. What would be the most loving thing to do in that scenario? If you want to make it to the wedding, and that's the goal, that's the destination, would it be more loving to warn them and say, hey, we missed our turn several miles back, we need to turn around, we've got to do a U-turn and go back, we're heading the wrong direction? Or would it be more loving just to be silent, just to say, you know what, they're having such a fun time driving the car, they're having such a fun time listening to this song and enjoying the beautiful weather, I'm just going to be quiet. You don't want to be a killjoy. But you're never going to make it on time to that wedding unless you say something. So I submit to you the most loving decision that you can make in that moment is to lovingly warn them that you're heading the wrong direction. And by the time your friend realizes that you're going the wrong way, it could be too late for them to turn around in time to make it to the wedding. And what you're doing by remaining silent is just delaying the inevitable by not warning them. Eventually that's going to come up. Eventually the tunes are going to run out, it's going to start getting dark, it's going to start cooling off, and your friends are going to start scratching their head wondering, Where are we? Oh yeah, we missed our turn about five hours ago, but we were having such a good time, I didn't want to spoil the fun. What? You didn't warn me five hours ago? You mean we've got to drive back the wrong direction for five hours to get back to the right turn? We're going to miss the wedding. How are they going to feel at that point? They're going to be frustrated. They're going to be upset with you because you didn't warn them. You didn't tell them the truth that you had in your heart and you understood it. And they will eventually realize that they made this serious mistake and they will be upset with you that you allowed them to go the wrong way and to miss the wedding. And so, I hope that through this simple illustration you realize that it is loving to tell someone they're heading in the wrong direction. Yes, we do it gently. Yes, we do it with respect as Scripture tells us. And we know that Jesus illustrated that as well in His own life. He lovingly and respectfully warned people when they were spiritually and morally wrong with God. We can't learn if we ever are wrong. You know, there were times that I got an answer wrong on a math test or a science test. And when I got it wrong, that helped me to see what I missed, where I was in error, so I could correct it, so I could learn something. Oftentimes, learning involves being wrong, moving from a state of ignorance or error to what is right, what is true. So your friend's driving the wrong way because they didn't know where they were going. They needed to know they were wrong. so they can learn the right way. So with this in mind, we're returning to our bigger question, does true love equal license? Does true love give me a license to do whatever I want to do? Should I just pursue happiness at all costs? Is it possible to say that we love Jesus while we're pursuing sinful pleasures according to our own desires? Is Jesus just like a cool parent that says, hey, I want you to come to heaven when you die, just live any way you want, do whatever you want to do, anytime, anywhere you want to do it. No consequences, no punishment. And so, here's these big questions that we're asking ourselves. And we're going to go to Romans 6 and find the answers to these questions that I've been raising in an introduction here. And there's three main answers that we see that Paul gives us in the form of questions. He asks the questions and then he answers the questions for us. And so, if this is an issue that you're struggling with and God through the Holy Spirit is really speaking to your heart about this, I encourage you, dwell in Romans chapter 6 and really think through it. We're going to walk through it today, but spend extra time there this week thinking about these truths out of these Scriptures. And so we're going to see these three important questions. Question number one comes from Romans 6 verse 1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? In other words, should I continue living in sin so that I can get more of God's grace? If I keep living in sin and ask God to forgive me, then He keeps giving me more and more and more grace. Is that the right attitude? He answers his question in the strongest way possible in verse 2. It's the strongest negation that he could have given it. Absolutely no. He says it this way, God forbid, God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? So legalism takes children and makes them slaves, but what we see here with license, it takes people who are alive and brings them back under death. It takes people who are actually free and brings them back under bondage, under slavery again. Should I continue in sin so that I get more of God's grace? Absolutely not. God forbid, as we see now. The next few verses are going to really unpack that for us. I'm not going to take the time to read through every single verse. I want to highlight a couple. as we go through this important passage of Scripture. But this is the big question from this section that Paul is addressing right here. What does it mean to be dead to sin? It says that we are dead to sin. Notice what it says here in verse 4, Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we also should walk in newness of life. We have a new life when we accept Christ. And He has given us a new nature within our hearts, within ourselves, and we can walk in that vibrant, new, eternal life. Why do we want to go back to the dead works of the flesh? What does it mean to be dead to sin? So just like physical death is not the end of our existence, just like physical death is not an extinction from existence, it's rather a separation. And that's what spiritual death is. We know that as Christians living in this world, we're not separated from sin. Romans chapter 7, Paul talks about the good I want to do, I don't do, and the evil that's with me presently. I understand that there's this wrestling match. He develops that in Romans chapter 7. Yes, we wrestle with the flesh. And as he gets into Romans 8, he says in verse 1, "...there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." When you're walking in the Spirit, you're walking in close communion with the Lord. You're wanting to walk in relationship with the Lord every day that we live. And so we have this wrestling match. It's not that we never sin, but as Christians we develop this leaning on the Holy Spirit, dependency upon the Holy Spirit to help us walk through every day of our lives. One Bible scholar said it this way, death to sin is separation from sin's power. It's not the extinction of sin. Being dead to sin means being set free from sin. That's a good thought. It's being set free from sin. We don't have to be a slave to sin. When we come to Christ and we accept His offer of forgiveness for our sins and the salvation of our souls, we're no longer under the bondage of our sins. And so if we are dead to sin at salvation, we're set free from the penalty that our sin carries with it. Notice what it says back in chapter 6 and verse number 7. For he that is dead is freed from sin. That's a great verse, isn't it? He that is dead is freed from sin. You don't have to be a slave to those things. Yes, there is a struggle against the flesh. Yes, there can be sins that can try to dominate our lives. But we are set free from that when we put our faith and trust in Jesus. We have this relationship with Him that we can draw close to Him. He can cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. And He wants us to experience this radical freedom through Christ Jesus. Notice what it says there, drop down to verse 11. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. We're alive in Christ. So to use God's grace as just a license to do whatever we want and to sin any way we want to is to return back to a dead way of living. And we're nullifying the grace of God when we do that. And we trample on the cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus died for our sins. It was our sins that put Him on the cross. That's the reason that we have Christmas in the first place, is because He came to this world to set us free from the bondage of our sin, and when we receive Him as Savior, then we turn and say, I want to go back to my old sins, I want to go back to my old life, I want to go back to the things that I was doing before. We're saying, So what He came, so what the cross, so what His blood? And we're just trampling over all of that. Why would we exchange glorious freedom and life and vibrant health and grace with the deadness of sin and the consequences that will come as a result of that? Notice what it says in verse 14. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. And we are free in Christ. He has given us glorious freedom. And we can experience that. We're going to go on to his second question. Shall we sin? Verse 15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? In other words, can we just go on sinning because we're under grace and we're not under the law, therefore we don't have to keep the law, we don't have to pay attention to any of those things anymore. We're under grace, we're not under the law. Pastor Brad likes to joke about his driving habits. I drive under grace, not under the law. You go like, you know, way over the speed limit down the interstate. I'm under grace, I'm not under the law. Does that mean that we're excused from those things? Now, I had three messages on legalism. I won't rehash any of that. But I'm not saying we ought to go in that direction. But what does Paul say here? You are not under the law, but you're under grace. Verse 15, what then? Shall we sin because we're not under the law but under grace? God forbid. It's that strong negation again. God forbid. No way, shape, or form should we do that. Should we go back to that way of life. We can experience this freedom that God has given us from the bondage of sin. So this fake, cool parent, fake Jesus is exposed in the next verse. Verse number 16 there in your Bibles. Know you not that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, His servants you are to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. You see, there's consequences for which way we go. If we're choosing to chase after sin, we're choosing a pathway that's going to lead to consequences, to death. And that's what he's talking about, the consequences in this life. That's what he uses that word death to represent. Consequences of our sinful choices that we make. He said you can follow the Lord in obedience, and experience righteousness and experience joy. And Brother Roy was just testifying this morning about his time of worship, one-on-one with the Lord, and how that filled his heart with joy and how it has impacted his whole day and has transformed him even early this morning and blessed his entire day. As a result, he chose to obey the Lord in righteousness and God is blessing him. What if he chose to disobey the Lord and to turn away from Him? There are consequences to that. And God lets us feel the natural consequences of our sinful choices, even for Christian people. And God is not an abusive overlord. He's not maniacally up in heaven saying, I can't wait to see when Josh steps out of bounds that I can hit him with a thunderbolt and strike him with lightning and everything else. No, that's not God's heart. God corrects us like a loving parent would correct their children. Would I be loving? if I let Allison and Christian run and play in a busy street. Right after church, they're begging me, oh, we want to go pass ball down close to Bojangles. Okay, help yourself. If it gets out in the four lane, don't worry about it. Just run across. Everybody will stop, you know. Old Airport Road isn't that busy. Yeah, right. You know, this time of year, everybody's trying to get to Walmart and trying to get that Christmas present and everything else. That would be so foolish of me to permit them to follow their heart in that manner. And God does the same thing. He corrects us. He warns us. Just like with Adam and Eve. If you go back to Genesis 1, we won't turn there, but just think of it in your mind for the sake of an illustration. You know, where were they after they partook of the fruit? They were embarrassed. They were ashamed. They felt this load of guilt come over them. They were hiding. And how did God respond? With lightnings and thunderbolts and saying, you wicked people, I knew I should have never created you and destroyed the human race. No, obviously we're here today. Something else happened. He came calling to them. And isn't that a beautiful picture of Christmas? That even when we were dead in our sins that Christ came to us In the fullness of time, Galatians 4.4 tells us that God came into this world born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive the adoption of sons. God wants us to be in His family forever. And He wants us to experience this freedom. That's why He came the first time to set us free. God doesn't just overlook our sins as if it's no big deal. He didn't overlook Adam and Eve's sins. He came calling to them, offering them a lifeline of hope to get out of that mess that they had made for their own selves. They didn't blame God. They didn't say, God, You made us do this. God, we hate You. Why did You do this to us? They knew. that they had sinned, and they knew that their sin had put a wedge between them and God, had put separation between that closeness of relationship between them and God. And God came calling them, came offering forgiveness, but there were real world consequences that they still had to deal with, the natural consequences of their sinful choice. They were driven out of the garden. That was one of the consequences. God listed off several other consequences that they had to face because of their sinful choice. And just because God forgives us doesn't mean we won't have to deal with some of the consequences that come for our sinful choices. You know, I could give you several testimonies of people that I know that could illustrate this point, but one of my friends I think is a good illustration of this. He had spent years doing drugs and hard drugs and everything else to begin to wreck his body. He went to jail. He got right with God, praise God for that, and got saved, born again, living with the Lord. The doctors told him, you'll never ever be able to have kids. Well, guess what? He's got a beautiful daughter. He and his wife, they got married after he got out of jail. And later on, about a year or so later, they found out they were pregnant. God blessed them. And God is still blessing them. They're still faithful in church, faithful to the Lord, walking with God. His life is forever changed. But He's still dealing with some of the consequences of His choices that He made before He was saved, when He was living in sin. He's still got some health issues. He's still got some of those consequences, some of the legal issues that He has to deal with going forward. Those things stick with you for years. And so God can change us, yes. but there still may be those consequences to our sin. That's the importance that we're talking about. God doesn't want you to go down that pathway. God doesn't want you to have to live with regret, live with shame, live with guilt, and experience the consequences to these things. He wants you to experience the freedom and the joy and the vibrant life that He has come to give us. Yes, He can forgive us like He forgave Adam and Eve, but He doesn't want us to go down that road to begin with. You know, I don't want my kids to have to learn the hard way. I don't want my kids to have to experience all these things and the consequences to their sin. I want to try to protect them and guide them and warn them and shepherd them in the right direction around these things. And that's the way God does for us. What are some of these consequences that we're talking about? That's Paul's third and final question that he gives us here at the end in verse number 21. What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed? He says, what's the fruit? The consequences are this fruit. So what's the product? What's the produce of your life? What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is what? What does the word say? The end of those things is death. That's the consequences. But now, being made free from sin and become the servants of God, you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. What a contrast this is. That's what God wants us to experience, this freedom, this everlasting life. Eternal life is so much more than a quantity of time. Eternal life is a quality of life that we can experience with God right here, right now. What does the very next verse say? For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. A verse that many people have memorized in Sunday school and in vacation Bible school, Romans 6.23. But I think reading it in this context helps us to have a different understanding, a greater depth of understanding of what this verse really means. The consequences of sin is death. But the gift of God, this free gift that He extends to all of us is eternal life. through Jesus Christ our Lord. So we see that sin produces shame and sin always ends in death. But grace produces holiness and it ends in everlasting life. The payment for sin is death, but God's gracious gift, and that's what we're celebrating at Christmas, this gift that He gives to each one of us is eternal life. and on the cover of the bullets, and call Him Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. That's why He came. Matthew 1.21 is that verse that's quoted on the cover of the bullets. And that's why He came to set us free, to pay the price that we could never pay so that we could be set free to enjoy vibrant life with Him forever and forever and forever. eternal life. If we continue in our license to sin, we've just fallen for this fake Jesus, this cool parent fake Jesus. We have devalued grace. We've cheapened grace. We've misunderstood God's view of sin and God's view of love. Just like an apple tree produces apples, just like an olive tree produces olives, so too our lives are naturally producing fruit of some kind. So this is the question we've got to ask ourselves. What kind of fruit is my life producing? Is it the wages of sin? The consequences of sin? Or is it eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord? What fruit is your life known by? And we need to make these things right with God. You know, I want to come back in the next message to this analogy, but I want to end with it today just in short form. I'll develop it further next Sunday night, Lord willing. But, you know, thinking about our relationship with God, I find it helpful to talk about my relationship, my marriage with Amanda. It was in June of 2009. Next June will be 15 years ago. It's crazy that we've been married 15 years. But right here on this stage in this church is where we said our wedding vows and pledged our love to each other. And we went up into the gym and had a great meal and time of reception and all those things and then left for the honeymoon. What if we came back from the honeymoon We're getting into the regular routine and the first month goes by and it's like you know what this has been fun But I'm going to go date some other people and you know I'm going to check out some other people And you know I still want to stay married. I like this relationship that we have I'm not talking about divorce I'm not talking about separation, but you know I want to be happy and whatever you do. You know be sure it makes you happy, right? We all deserve to be happy Amanda. I deserve to be happy and you know it was happy when we were in Florida on her honeymoon It was a great time. We had a great week together, but there's other things I think will make me happy whatever you decide to do make sure it makes you happy see this is what I'm living my life by and And so that means, you know, I may be with you this month, I may be with somebody else next month, I may see you next, you know, how long is she going to put up with that, you know? I wouldn't be standing here before you today, you'd be visiting me at the cemetery, I'm sure, if I lived my life that way. And you other married men will say amen to that because we know that's not a love-based relationship. If I really love her, I'm not going to be focused on what makes me happy. I'm going to be focused on what makes her happy because love is not centered on me. Love is focused outward on the other, whether it be to God, or whether it be to the other around us. And so people use manipulation to change the definition of love. If you really loved me, you would let me do whatever I want to do. That's manipulation. You're not trying to really love that person. You're trying to manipulate them to get them to do what you want them to do. You don't really care about them. You're not caring about hurting their feelings. I wouldn't be caring about how I trampled on Amanda's love. And we can treat God that way. And we have this love-based relationship with God. And He wants us to experience this intimacy with Him. Not some weird, mystical, romantic, religious sense. I'm not saying that. But just a closeness of relationship with Him through His Word, through prayer, through walking with Him. every single day through choosing to love Him, through choosing to obey Him, instead of choosing to chase after sin. And I hope that this helps you to understand how egregious it is when we say, you know what, yes, thank you for marrying me, Amanda, but I'm going to go chase after other lovers. Yes, thank you God for saving my soul, thank you for giving me a home with you in heaven, but I'm going to chase after other things. And I don't care about church, I don't care about what you say God. I don't care about your morality. I don't care about your word. I don't care about communicating with you through prayer, through your word. I just want to do my own thing, live my life my way. I want to do what makes me happy. I want to choose to do whatever I want to do. And God, I expect You to bless my life and this and that and the other. No, no, no, no, no. That's not a love-based relationship with Almighty God. And so I want to come back, Lord willing, next week and unpack this a little bit further as we look into Galatians 5 and find some more answers. But let's come back to that question. Is the fruit of my life producing the wages of sin or eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord? Let's look to the Lord in the time of prayer. I thank you for how you've challenged my heart over the years through understanding these concepts. And I pray that as the word goes forth to all of us who are gathered here this morning, whether it be in person or those who are joining us online, that you would speak to our hearts. Help us to think deeply about these things. I know this is, we're going into some deep subjects. And we had to think hard today about these things. And we're asking ourselves some hard questions. But Lord, I pray that we would allow our introspection to go Godward. That we wouldn't get caught up in our own minds, our own hearts, but that we would go to You and say, Lord, speak to my heart clearly. Show me the sin that may be in my heart that's driven a wedge in this relationship between me and You. If I've turned away from you to pursue other lovers, to use that analogy, Lord, would you reveal that to us through the Holy Spirit? Would you make that clear to each one of us? I pray for any who may be here today or watching online that they're not saved. This message was geared more towards the saved, but it also applies to those who are unsaved, that they are still living in their sins. They've never experienced your forgiveness of sin. I pray that today would be that day that they call upon you. and they turn to you as the Savior of their life. Yes, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I pray that they would simply receive that gift today as it's extended to them by Almighty God. And I pray for us who are followers of Jesus that we would be completely devoted to you. Don't let the allurements of this world drive us away from you. Pull our attention. away from you father in Jesus name we pray.