Romans 6
King James Version
15 What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.
16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
As we look at these verses this morning, there are many things we could say, and many ways we could go in examining them. But I mainly want to look at Paul’s primary two points he is making.
If you will recall, Paul opened this chapter with a question, and he repeats the same question here at verse 15. And we realize that answering this question is Paul’s main objective in these verses. The question is pretty simple: With the knowledge we have of how great and wonderful and powerful the grace of God is, does that mean we should conclude it is okay for us to go on living in sin?
If the grace of God is so wonderful and so powerful that it can and will cover every sin I have ever committed and every sin I may commit in the future, does that mean I should just live a carefree life of sin? If God’s grace will cover all my sin, should I continue to live a sinful lifestyle? That is the essence of the question Paul is answering here. The answer, in the very shortest way possible, is a very simple no.
It is true that God’s grace is so big, so wonderful, and so powerful that it will indeed cover all your sins—past, present, and future. That is true. The grace of God is that amazing and powerful. But the grace of God is not a license for us to live in sin. The grace of God, ultimately, is a highway out of sin, and it will cover any future sins because our salvation is secured. But that does not make it a license authorizing us to live in sin.
That is Paul’s first and chief point here in this chapter: The grace of God is not a license to live in sin.
With that said, we still have this body of sin. Through chapter 6, and on into chapter 7 and chapter 8, Paul keeps making this distinction between our body and our spirit. You will find he makes this same distinction in his other epistles. God’s redemptive power has been applied to our spirits, but we are still in this mortal body, subject to sin and death. We are in an in-between state—a state where we are still waiting for the transformation of our natural bodies to be like Christ’s body. Until that final transformation occurs, which is the redemption of our bodies, we have to contend with the weaknesses of these mortal bodies.
Paul brings that point home in verse 19. Let me read it again:
19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
We still have infirmity in our flesh. In verse 6, Paul called our bodies a body of sin. In verse 12, he told us not to let sin reign in these mortal bodies. Here in verse 19, he is repeating himself again, urging us to make an effort not to let sin rule our lives. As Christians, who are born again and saved by the blood of Jesus, our lives change. Instead of letting sin have unfettered control of our lives, we now seek to serve righteousness and do what is good.
Bro Jesse sang “Purify My Heart.” That is the cry of the heart of the saved. I want to be purified, and I want to know what that means—not what some man came up with, but what it truly means to be purified and holy. I am thankful I have a Bible so I can know the answer to that.
In verse 22, Paul brings home the second point I want to draw our attention to this morning. Let me read verse 22 again:
22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
Paul tells us something very important here. He is telling us that because we serve God, we have fruit. This fruit is something that comes as a natural result of serving God. This fruit brings holiness. In this one little verse, Paul is telling us that holiness comes through this fruit. This is what I want to spend most of my time talking about this morning.
Because this understanding of holiness is largely lost in the places we have come from. The sad truth is, the majority of people in those places have no idea what true holiness is, and it is because their preachers have no idea what true holiness is. They have all just listened to what men have told them, and very few have actually bothered to open the Bible and let it tell them what holiness is. But that is exactly what Paul is doing here.
Back in verse 17, Paul told us a very important aspect of this true holiness. What did he say in verse 17? He said:
We obeyed from the heart. We obeyed the gospel, the doctrine he has been preaching, from the heart. That is the thing—you have to obey this from the heart. That is one huge difference between a Pharisee and a Christian. True holiness starts from the heart and flows out of a love for God that comes from the heart. Christians are in love with God. Christians do what they do because it is in their heart. If it doesn’t come from the heart, it is worthless. If it doesn’t come from the heart, you are just a whited sepulchre. Your heart is not changed.
When you compel people to follow rules or do things that are not in their heart, you may think you have done some great thing and really changed their lives. But the truth is, you have just made a Pharisee. And that is where we come from, I am afraid. We come from Pharisee factories. Instead of leading people to love Jesus, they compel people to keep long lists of rules that you can’t find in the Bible. Instead of preaching the gospel, they preach legalism. Instead of preaching holiness, they preach legalism. True biblical holiness and legalism are not the same thing. True biblical holiness is a good thing and is something God gives us by the Holy Spirit, not by keeping some list of rules you can’t find in the Bible.
In verse 22, Paul tells us where this holiness comes from:
22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
Paul is clear that our holiness comes from our fruit. In chapter 7, Paul talks about this fruit again. If you want to jump ahead to verse 4, I will read it:
4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
This fruit is what God wants us to bring forth. It is what brings us true holiness. This fruit is not something we have to guess at; it is clearly spelled out in Scripture.
Jesus is the one who told us what this fruit is. Jesus is the one who told us what true holiness is. Very few people ever start with what Jesus said when they try to explain this topic. But let’s recall the words of Jesus.
In Matthew 13, Jesus used parables to describe fruit, specifically in terms of 30, 60, and 100-fold. This is what God looks for at harvest; the fruitless are burned up.
So Jesus is the one who tells us how important the fruit is, and he does that in parables in Matthew 13. Where we come from, we were told that the fruit was how much you understood deep revelations and mysteries of the Bible, which is, of course, totally mistaken. They completely gut these scriptures’ true meaning to justify their false beliefs about being the elite of God. But what this fruit is, Jesus Christ told us plainly.
In John 15, we can turn there and read what Jesus says the fruit is:
John 15
King James Version
15 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth
forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
I will stop reading there. But that is pretty simple and straightforward. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit. As my Father loved me, I have loved you. Continue in my love. That is simple. When we continue in his love, we are being fruitful. It’s that simple. We are called upon to love like Jesus loved. That is the fruit of the Spirit.
And in verse 4, Jesus told us something that is also very important. We cannot bring this fruit forth on our own. This fruit comes from abiding in him, and him abiding in us. This fruit is the fruit of the Spirit; it is holy fruit from the Holy Spirit.
Like Paul said in Romans, we have our fruit unto holiness.
I have a few more passages to read to you.
Turn over to Galatians with me, chapter 5.
Galatians 5
King James Version
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Jesus’ blood sanctified us. The Holy Spirit makes us holy. And the holy fruit from the Holy Spirit is holy.
Paul here has an understanding of what Jesus taught. He understands the nature of the fruit of the Spirit. And all of these things flow out of love, ultimately: joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, temperance. Love is what makes all this work. Love for God and love for our neighbors. That is why in Romans, Paul says, we obeyed from the heart. It came from love.
And Paul is not the only one who understands it this way. Go to Second Peter. He will tell us the same thing as Paul and Jesus.
2 Peter 1
King James Version
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
And what are all those things? This is the fruit of the Spirit.
If this has come into our life, look what Peter says in verse 8:
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:
11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
I just love how Peter puts verse 11. If we do this, we are going to make it. Not saved by our works, but there is an assurance in these things. These things are a witness to us, in a sense.
And oftentimes, we’ve been told all kinds of crazy nonsense we need to make it. I could talk for hours about crazy nonsense men have told me I need to make it to heaven.
But Peter here is telling us, if you’ve got the fruit of the Spirit, you’re gonna be fine. Do you have the love of God in your heart? You are going to be fine. You are going to make it. Do you have the fruit of the Spirit? You are going to make it. Don’t worry about all this crazy nonsense people tell you you need. You have Jesus. You have the love of God. You are growing. You are going to make it.
You want proof you have the Holy Spirit? The fruit of the Spirit is proof you can look at. The love of God in your heart. If I have that, it gives me confidence that an entrance will be ministered unto me abundantly, to the everlasting kingdom.
This fruit of the Spirit represents the life God wants me to live as a Christian. If I want to know what God is concerned about being in my life once I am saved, it is the fruit of the Spirit. That is what he is most concerned that I have in my life. And when it comes to holiness, that is what I am concerned in pursuing, because I have read my Bible and I know true holiness comes from the fruit of the Holy Spirit in my life.
Let me get one more passage to put with this.
Colossians 3
King James Version
1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Notice here in verse 4 that Paul is using the same language as in Romans chapter 6. He is putting the ultimate fulfillment of all this in our lives off into the future. On the day when Christ appears, and when we are finally transformed to be like him, there is an aspect in which we will never be totally perfect, we will never be completely free from the influence of sin. Not until we experience that final change—the redemption of our bodies.
In this life, we give our best and we do our best, but we know, until we appear in glory with Christ, our best is never going to be ultimate perfection. And in the meantime, we bear the fruit, and we are like Jesus in whatever small way the Holy Spirit enables us to be like him. We strive to be like him as best we can.
Jump down to verse 12 of chapter 3:
12 Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
Amen. Let me finish by reading verse 22 again from Romans 6:
22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
If you want to live a holy life, then live a fruitful life. Let the love of God grow in your heart. Let it grow into patience, and peace, and joy, and temperance, and humbleness, and all those things. If you have those things in your heart, then you have true holiness—the kind Paul is talking about here in verse 22.
We are called to live a life modeled after the life Jesus lived. He was our perfect example, and we seek to be like him, to show the same love and the same divine nature he showed. And one day, when he appears, we shall be like him.
Amen.
Let me close in prayer.
Thank you for your word. Help us to grow more like Jesus. As we abide in Christ, let the fruit of the Spirit grow in our hearts and our lives. Jesus said this is how people will know we are his disciples, because we love like he loved. Lord, let your love grow in our hearts and bring forth all manner of fruit so that we may glorify you.
In Jesus’ name, and for his sake.
Amen.