Studies From Romans

Lesson #7: What do you Serve (Romans 6:1-23)

 In this lesson we are going to look at being a servant to either sin or righteousness. Whether you realize it or not, everyone is a servant to one or the other. In this passage we will see both the fruit of serving sin and righteousness as well as some steps that we can use to avoid being a servant of sin.

Everyone serves something:

 In this passage Paul makes it clear that you can either serve sin or righteousness. In verse 19 we see that it is natural for man to serve sin because of the infirmity of his flesh. The key to serving something is authority. Sin is doing wrong in the eyes of God and righteousness is doing right in the eyes of God. Either way God is the authority. Because of the infirmity of the flesh, we struggle with authority but something is always ruling over us, it is either sin or righteousness.

The fruit of our service:

 According to this passage we see that there is fruit or a reward that comes from serving sin or righteousness. These are given below:

1)  The fruit of sin is death (verses 21,23)

• Sin always brings forth death (James 1:14-15). The problem is that it is not always automatic therefore man thinks he is getting away with it, note (Ecclesiastes 8:11).

2)  The fruit of righteousness is holiness and eternal life (verses 22-23)

• You cannot go wrong serving righteousness, who does not want holiness and eternal life?

Steps to avoid serving sin:

 1)  Salvation (verse 5-14)

• First you must be saved and in the body of Christ to be dead to sin. We are no longer subject to the law but under grace, however this is not a license to sin as Paul shows us in the passage.

2)  Knowledge (verse 5-12)

• After we are saved, we need to learn that in Christ we are dead to sin. Therefore, we do not have to serve sin.
• Note how the word “knowing” is found in both verse 6 and 9. Then in verse 11 we must count ourselves as dead. This will help us in saying no to sin.

3)  Yield to the right thing (verse 13)

• With the knowledge mentioned above then it becomes a choice of which one do we yield to the lust of the flesh and sin or righteousness. Yielding means giving way to something else or letting it have preeminence in our lives. As stated above we are going to serve one of the other, so we must learn to yield our members to serve righteousness instead of sin.

Studies From Romans

Lesson #7: What do you Serve (Romans 6:1-23)

Handout

1)  What are the two things that we see in our passage that you can serve?

2)  What is a good verse in the passage showing that everyone serves something?

3)  What are the results of serving sin?

4)  What are the results of serving righteousness?

5)  What are some ways found in the passage that help us to not serve sin?