Transcription
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Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6, where the Apostle Paul, we're coming to the end of him answering that question that when you hear grace talked about and you hear about the enormity of grace, the comprehensiveness of grace, the forgiveness of grace, all my sins past, present, and future forgiven, you think in terms of God viewing me as not only being righteous, but being as righteous as Christ because I'm clothed in his righteousness. People can have the question, and I know some listening, you've had that someone, "Oh Christ, John, if you preach grace like that, you preach forgiveness like that, people have no incentive to live a righteous life." That's what they said when they heard Paul talk about grace. If grace is that comprehensive, then why does it matter how I live? Why not just go on sinning?
If you've been with us, you know that Paul imagines that question being asked, probably had it asked of him many times. So in chapter 6, two times you see the question there. Verse one, "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?" And then a similar, but slightly different question, as we saw last time, "Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?" In other words, can we just keep on sinning? Paul gives a short answer, then an expanded answer to that question. The short answer in verse 2 and verse 15: "By no means." In other words, no, no, and double no. We don't sin just because we have grace.
Then Paul gives this explanation. When you come to the end of chapter 6, Paul's going to summarize what he has said. If you haven't listened to the messages or been here, I encourage you to get them because this is a monumental chapter in helping a believer understand not only our relationship to sin, how it's really changed since we've come to Christ, but how to overcome sin. And then Paul summarizes that beginning in verse 22. Let's read: "But now that you've been set free from sin and it becomes slaves of God, the fruit you get, in other words, the byproduct of you and I coming to Christ and saying, 'Now I'm willingly gonna serve God,' the fruit, the produce, the result of that." Notice what he says: "The fruit you get leads to sanctification, and its end is eternal life."
In other words, if a person is genuinely saved, the fruit, the byproduct, the result is going to be sanctification. And sanctification, as we saw, is that process by which God makes us more and more like Christ. In other words, we become more like Christ, we begin to bear fruit where we're holy, or we live a holier life. All of those would be a part of sanctification. The question then is, or maybe the observation is, if you want to know, "Am I really saved?" If you're asking that question, the issue would be, or if you're saying you're saved, the proof of that would be that you are living a holy life, that you are becoming gradually more and more like Christ.
If a person says, "Well, you know, I'm saved," but then there's no progression in their life. I'm not talking about perfection, I'm talking about a progression. Where are you becoming more and more like Jesus gradually over time? You realize you love God more, you you are thinking godly-er more often, in in more ways, you're growing in Christ. If that's not happening in your life, then that should be shocking for anybody who says they're a Christian. If when you look at your life, there's no fruit of holiness, of becoming more like Christ, then you to conclude it's because there's no fruit and you are not saved. Because look at this: "The fruit you get." So when you decide, "I'm gonna serve God, I'm gonna yield myself to him," the fruit you get leads to sanctification. It produces a holiness of life. And watch this, "it's and the end of sanctification is eternal life." In other words, if there is no sanctification, then for you, there is no eternal life. It's a shocking thing to consider. We talked about that deeply last time.
And then Paul adds this, and this is the summary of all that he has said before: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." "The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." I want to take some time, and I want to look at this verse because honestly, in Christian circles, this is one of the, what is known as the Romans Road, the four verses in Romans that you might take somebody down to lead them to Christ. It's one of the spiritual laws, one of the four spiritual laws. "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." And what I, what can happen to us is we can so quickly say it that we think because we have heard it or because we can quote it, that we know it. And that's not necessarily true.
So what I want you to do, the this morning, so I want you to think deeply with me on this verse because I think you'll find it not only fascinating but very, very encouraging. Because as Paul writes his summary at the end of chapter 6, what Paul is doing is Paul is defining for us the difference between sin on the one hand and grace on the other. And he's giving us three areas of difference or distinction. He's going to show us that there are two different masters. He's going to show us that there are two different benefits. And he's going to show us that there are two different destinies. So let's look at it. If you're taking notes, that's the outline for this morning: two different masters, two different benefits, two different destinies.
So let's look first of all at two different masters. Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death." Now, just as a point of clarification, and not to get too technical, of course, I haven't let that bother me at all these last few weeks, so I'm not gonna let it bother me today. When we read that statement, we have a tendency to think of sin as the things we did to get the wage. We haven't insane, you know, that if I sin, then I get a certain wage. And there is a measure of general truth in that, but that's not what this verse is saying. What this verse is saying, and when you look at the context, it becomes clear. Now look at it again: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life." If you take this to mean that when I do sin, I get wages, then in context, you'd have to say it means when I do God, then I get wages. And that doesn't make sense at all.
What it's talking about here is it's talking about two different masters. There is the master sin, and there is the master God. The master sin pays wages. The master God gives gifts. This is consistent with what you see throughout chapter 6. In fact, look at this summary of verses. Verse 16: "You are slaves of the one to whom you obey, either of sin." So remember, sin is personified in Romans 5, Romans 6. It's not only a force, it's almost given like a a person. And Paul says, "When you obey sin, when you make sin your master," verse 17, "you will want slaves of sin." "Sin was your master." Verse 20, "When you were slaves of sin, sin was your master." The idea then is that there are two different masters. Sin is a master. God is a master. And they are totally different.
And every person, as we've seen, there is a dichotomy when it comes to humanity. Romans expresses it in a variety of ways. It all comes down to the same thing. You either have people who are under wrath or they're under grace. You rather either have people who are justified or those who aren't. You either have people who are in Adam or they're in Christ. You either have people who are serving sin or they're serving God. Period. That's it. Two categories of people. And what Paul is saying is, people will either voluntarily serve God or they'll voluntarily serve sin. There's no middle ground. I mean, you think about that. We understand that in terms of sin, because here's where, when I say that, there are some of you who say, "You know, I know somebody's not a Christian. I don't know that they're serving sin." Or you might be sitting here and saying, "You know, I'm not, I'm not a Christian, but I, I don't agree with your statement. I'm serving sins." So let me just explain it to you this right.
What is sin? Sin, we saw the origination of sin in Genesis chapter 1. What was it? God put Adam in the Garden. God said, "Listen, you rule over the earth, you and Eve, you're gonna rule over the whole earth, you're gonna subdue it. I give you charge over everything." In other words, essentially what he did is he said, "Y'all are kings of the whole earth. You can do anything you want." Amazing. He said, "You know, I'm making you a king, and you're gonna rule, but, but I want you to recognize that I'm God, that I'm still God, and I'm gonna ask you to do one thing. You only have to do one thing to recognize that that I'm over you. I'm gonna put a tree over there, and there's all kinds of trees, and they're beautiful, and they all have grapefruit. But there's this one, and don't eat it, because that's how you're gonna honor me. That's how you're gonna prove, show that you know what, God's over me. If he says that, I'm gonna do it." And you'll have to do one thing. What did Adam do? Adam disobeyed God. The root of sin is disobedience to God. Adam said, "You know what, I know you said that, but I'm gonna do what I want to do. I don't really believe it'll hurt me to do it. I know you said it would, but it won't. You said in the day I do it, I'm gonna die, but I'm, I, I think I know as good as you. I don't think I have to listen to you, and I think I'm gonna do what I want to do." That's sin.
Somebody doesn't come to Christ. The Bible says this: "God commands all men everywhere," Roman or Acts chapter 17, "to repent." Person says, "You know, I don't think I want to. I don't think I have to. I don't think it's that important. I don't think I need to. I think I'm a pretty good person. I think God should let me into heaven because I really don't believe it." So that, yeah, I mean, you can say all this stuff, but I just believe you're a good person, you get to go to heaven, and maybe everybody gets to go. You'll follow what I'm saying? It's, "I think what I think, I do what I want." It's disobedience. You're serving sin.
Two masters. Here's the fact: you can't serve two masters. You have to pick one. Jesus said that, Matthew chapter 6, verse 24: "No one can serve two masters." It's impossible. You either are gonna serve God or you're gonna serve sin. Straight up. That's how it works.
So there are two different masters. Second, those masters pay two different benefits. Now look at it. Verse 23: "For the wages..." So benefits could be gifts, benefits could be wages. "The wages of sin." Sin pays wages. "The free gift of God." God gives gifts. That's the contrast there. The master sin pays wages. The master God gives gifts. You say, "Well, what's the difference then?" I think we, we all pretty much understand generically the difference between a wage and a gift. A wage is something you earned. You go to work, and your employer says, "Listen, I need this job done. You do this job, I will compensate you for your time and pay you this amount of money." And when you do the job, then what you deserve to be paid, right? Everybody on that page? Once you do the work, then your employer is indebted to pay you. The company owes you that wage. You deserve that wage. The proof of that is they don't pay you, you take them to court, you get paid, right?
On the other hand, if your employer handed you a your paycheck, you did the job, and now your employer comes to you and says, "You know, listen, you did the job, and and I so appreciate it, and I just want to give you a gift." And so they hand you your check. You'd be like saying, "What? That's not a gift. I earned that. I deserve that. That was my paycheck. Don't be calling that a gift, right?" Well, on the same page, you might be offended if your employer did that. A gift, on the other hand, is something you don't earn. It's something you don't work for. In fact, you can't earn a gift. A gift is a gift, right? A gift is the result of somebody's generosity. It's the result of somebody's kindness. It's the result of somebody's goodness. It's the result of somebody's love. You can't, it's if voluntarily given. You can't take somebody to court because they didn't give you a gift. I mean, you can't, you can't file a lawsuit and say, "It was my birthday, and I didn't get a present. I'm suing you for a present." The judge will throw the case right out of court, right? You don't deserve it. It's a gift.
Now, sin pays wages. God gives gifts. Once you think about that for just a moment. We were created by God not to earn what we get. We were created by God to be loved and to receive gifts from him. But sin entered the world, and sin deceptively desires to master people, to control people, to dominate people. We've been learning that in Romans 5, in Romans 6. I won't review all of that there, but you see it even like in Genesis chapter 4, in verse 7. Remember when Cain kills Abel? This is what God says to Cain. God says, "Sin is crouching at your door, and its desire is to what? Master you." From the beginning, this is, sin wants to to run people. So sinners, the world deceptively seeks to dominate them. Sin is the master. And and here's the way it plays for a lot of people. That the Bible says this: sin is pleasurable. In the book of Hebrews, it says it's pleasurable for a season. Me, because sin comes along and its demands, it's the master, and its demands seem pretty, pretty fun, honestly, for a lot of people. Very pleasant. Because sin comes along and says, "You can do what you want. Lots." Sounds great, doesn't it? It's not hurting anybody. You, you can think what you want. You, you can be free. Oh, don't be restricted. I mean, you know, I hate that Bible thing. You know, that I mean, you know, God, that's that's a superstition. And and honestly, you can be spiritual, you don't have to be religious. And and you know, all roads lead, and you know, just, you know, you can, you, you just be a good person. You need to feel guilty. I mean, that that guilt, that is so yesterday and so last century and so primitive. And you don't need to do that. You just do what you want. In fact, when it, when a person is serving sin, for much of the time, it doesn't even seem like work. It doesn't seem that, just feels, it feels like fun. It feels like freedom. Be careful, because remember, sin wants to master you, and sin is very, very deceptive.
So why does Paul say sin pays wages? Let me give it to you in this way. Couple things about how sin pays the wage. First of all, the Bible says sin pays wages because, just like our work, sin wears us out. You know, you put in a hard day's wage, you come home, you're like, you're like fried. I mean, you're like, "Wow, that was a big day. Yeah, I really worked hard. I'm tired." In the same way, sin over time depletes and drains and exhausts. In fact, when I say overtime, maybe I should just say, period. Sin depletes. It's not necessarily overtime. It's maybe overtime you notice it, but the depletion begins immediately. Every time a person sins, something's lost, something's diminished, something's something's lessened in their life. Every effort with every sin, life is drained from you. Wholeness is diminished in you. Every time you tell a lie, there's less of the truth in you. Every time you give in to sin, like Ben, oh, I know they, but you give in, you let bitterness. What happens is your your diminished. Your experience of life is diminished. Your vitality is diminished. Your wholeness is diminished. We could go on. Every, every time you give in to greed, your contentment is diminished. It's sliced away. Every time you give in to lust, your ability for healthy relationship is diminished. Every time you give in, you steal, or you whatever it is you do, life is diminished.
In fact, the psalmist David, he says this in Psalm chapter 32. He's talking about his life. He says, "The pressure never let up." This is what it was like when sin was, when he was giving into sin. It's like there was a press. And initially, "Oh, hey, the whole thing with Bathsheba seemed like a whole lot of fun until it didn't." And that was like, "How am I gonna clean up this mess? How am I gonna resolve this situation? What, what am I gonna do?" And all of a sudden, he doesn't see his clip. Because see, when a person sins, it diminishes, it drains their wisdom. It drains their eyesight, their ability to see spiritually. He says, "It never let up. All the juices of my life dried up." One translation says, "It was like my my strength was sapped in the heat of day." Sin does. Then you say, "I love summer." I do too. But when you're out in the sun all day, gradually that takes a toll. That's an illustration of how sin works. He says, "In verse 10, many are the woes of the wicked." I mean, he starts saying, "You know what, my life got really, really complicated when sin was my master." That's that's the way it pays its wage. And Isaiah 40:8, in verse 21, and it says it again in Isaiah 57, same thing. "There is no peace," says the Lord, "for the wicked." There's no rest. No turmoil. No peace. No Shalom. No wholeness relationally. No wholeness emotionally. No wholeness spiritually. All of those encompassed in Shalom, in peace, for the wicked.
Sin pays wages because, just like work, sin fatigues us. Second, sin pays wages because we deserve the wages. Sin pays our service of sin. It's, it's just giving us what you sow, you reap, right? If you plant a certain seed, you're gonna reap a certain seed. You're gonna reap. Here's the law of the harvest: you reap in a different season than you sow. You reap in kind as you sow, and you reap more than you sow. So when you sow sin, you're gonna reap. Ultimately, what happens is the wages that it causes, we're gonna see in a moment, that the biggest wage, or maybe the beheading, overall of the wages, is death, eternal separation from God. And we understand that because that's a, because what a person did, they deserve that wage. From this sense, when a person serves sin, a person saying, "You know, I don't want to listen to God. I don't want to listen. I don't want to be bothered with that. I don't really, I'm not worried about God. I don't really, I'm not concerned with God. I don't want to serve God. I don't want to listen to what God says." So God says, "Hey, if that's what you want in this life, why would you want any less in the next? You didn't want anything to do with me in this life. Why would you think, why would you even think you'd want to be around in heaven if you didn't want to listen to God?" Now, what would change in eternity? You wouldn't want to listen to him there. Therefore, it is, it is the culmination of getting of giving a person what they really deserve. They didn't want anything to do with God now. So why would they want anything to do with eternity? Because that's what it's all about, or who it's all about. Sin pays wages, so we deserve the wages. Pays.
But on the other hand, God gives gifts. What do we know about a gift? We didn't deserve it. God just gives gifts. When you serve God, what God does is, God doesn't give us, he doesn't treat us as our sins deserve. But what is, what is grace? Grace is God's preferential treatment. It's his excessive kindness. And how does God choose to manifest that? He chooses to manifest that by gifts. God is an incurably generous gift giver. He loves to give gifts. He's good. The psalmist says, "He is good and he does good." You say, "Well, he gives us the gift of eternal life." And within the gift of eternal life, he gives us all kinds of gifts on top of that. He delights. In fact, the number one, the number one attribute of God in the Bible is the Hebrew word has said. It's loving-kindness. It is God being excessively kind to people. As well as what he wants to do. You know, he wants to show people kindness. He wants to do good to people. He wants to give people gifts. He is an incurable gift giver. If you don't have that view of God, frankly, you don't understand God. Because the Bible is filled with examples of when people look to God, and people serve God, what did God do? He gave gifts. It's just how he rolls. It's just how he thinks. It's just what he does. Sin pays wages. God gives gifts.
That leads us to a third thing I want you to notice. There are two different destinies. Now look at it. Romans chapter 6 and verse 23: "For the wages of sin..." Sin's a master. Sin pays wages. God's a master. He gives gifts. "For the wages of sin is death." What is it all lead to? Death. "But the free gift of God is eternal life." All of sin's benefits are summed up as eternal death. All of God's benefits are summed up as eternal life.
Now look at it. Verse 23: "The wages of sin is death." And we saw in chapter 5, so I'm going to take a long time, but I think it merits repeating. We're talking death. What are we talking about? Talking about death. And the three aspects of death. First of all, there's physical death. And we are all going to die. The Bible says, "It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment." And why do we die? We talked about this in Romans chapter 5, verse 12. "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man..." And what was that? How did it come? Through one man's disobedience. "...and death through sin, all of us subjected to death because we were all sinners." And again, every human being is a sinner from the moment of conception, not from the moment they sin. When they sin, it only proves they were a sinner. But even babies die, sadly, tragically, which proves they were a sinner from the point of conception. They, they, when a baby dies, it's, it's part of the human condition. So the wages of sin is death. We all die physically.
There's also spiritual death. And we looked at that. What is spiritual death? It's separation from God. It's being dead to God. So you remember Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, "We were dead in our trespasses and sins." Every human being is born dead to God. You're not alive to God. You're not aware of God. You, you, well, I can remember one time I felt the presence of God. You, at times, can't escape the fact that there is a God. But in terms of being alive internally to him, because your spirit's alive to him, everybody is dead spiritually. And it's when we put our faith in Christ, we become alive to God. Everybody with me so far?
And then there is eternal death. And what is eternal death? It's physical separation from the living, it's separation from the living and from God forever. That's what eternal death is. Separation from the living and from God forever. And the place where people reside who are eternally dead is hell. Jesus gives us five very devastating, shocking, horrific descriptions of it. Let me just give them to you real quick. Number one: darkness. Hell's a place of outer darkness. It's dark because God is light, and in him is the light of life and love and all everything. But when you have an absence of God, all you have is pitch-black darkness. So in hell, it's not going to be you and all your friends having some party. It's gonna be you alone in outer darkness. If you're in hell, no one, I'm not, you won't, you won't see anything. There'll be nothing that makes life worth living.
Number two: it's a place of weeping. There will be crying. There will be weeping. There will be mourning over the the sorrow, the loneliness, the pain of it, the, you know, all of that. All that weeping might imply and more will be a part of hell.
Number three: there will be gnashing of teeth. You know what's that? Well, it could be anger at God. Remember in, in Acts chapter 7, when they stoned Stephen, they were gnashing their teeth at him. They're so angry at what he was saying. So it could be anger at God. You're not gonna love God in hell. You're gonna be angry at God that you're there. It may also be that gritting of the teeth that says, "It didn't have to be this way." As you're reminded for all eternity of the fact you didn't have to be there, but you had a choice, then you could have made that choice, but you didn't.
Number four: fire and torment and anguish. In this flame, Jesus describes that. It tells the story of a rich man who, who is in hell, and he's, he's in anguish in the flame. It is flaming. It is hot.
And number five: it is eternal. In Mark chapter 9, he compares it to the valley of Hinnom. Gehenna is the term used in Jesus' day, where there was the garbage dump of Jerusalem, and constantly smoldering, and the fire never goes out, and the worm never dies. There's maggots. And so the idea is, it just is simply continual, forever.
Now, Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death." Physical death, spiritual death, made permanent. And what is now eternal death? You're physically dead, and you're spiritually dead forever, and you're in a place called hell. But that's what sin pays.
"But the free gift of God is eternal life." All those who serve God, we don't earn anything. You and I could never earn eternal life. We don't deserve eternal life. Eternal life is a gift. It's a gift from God. What is it? What is it like? We get some sense of it from the scripture, but, but what I want you to see is its first and foremost a gift. One of the things that Jesus tells us in John chapter 17: "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." In other words, a part of God's gift is it continued revelation of himself to us. You know, one of the things that's going to be amazing about heaven is, and we get a taste of it in this life, how many of you would agree that you met God, you came to know Christ, and as you have walked with him, you know him more and more and more, right? He has continued to reveal himself to you, right? When you get to heaven, a part of the gift of God is going to be the revelation of himself in ways that that we are unable to process, comprehend, understand, or express this side of heaven. As every day we get up, and God reveals himself in a new way, in a wonderful way, in an exciting way. Eternal life is the Christian continually receiving gifts from God forever. I don't know what you've ever thought of that or not, but God, the incurable giver of gifts, is going to continually give gifts.
"The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life." That's his gift. And what is eternal life? It's God giving gifts. Can I just tell you this? There will never be a time when God isn't giving gifts in heaven. Revelation chapter 21, it says this: "He who was seated on the throne says, 'I am making everything new.'" You know what that means? Everything is new continually in heaven. Something about humanity, we like new things. I mean, you get, yeah, I mean, it could be a new phone, it could be, you know, new earbuds, it could be a new job, it could be, you rent a new house, it could be, there's something about new. We just, that's part of us being made in the image of God, honestly. In heaven, everything will constantly, continually be new. I mean, if you think you're gonna get bored in heaven, I mean, you just have no, you have, you have very little understanding of the creative capacity of a loving God who likes to give gifts. And one of the things people do when you give gifts, you kind of think, "What would the person like? What could they use? What could they need? What would they be interested?" And God, who knows us better than we know ourselves, is gonna constantly be giving gifts and doing new things continually, all the time. New, new, new, new, new, new. You said, "Well, I don't, I don't really need big gifts." Hey, I'll take them. But no, let me tell you what you will want. The gifts you will want them. And there's never going to be a time God's gonna run out of gifts.
Now, I know as I'm saying this, there's some of you, and because your concept of God has been, has you've, you've been either taught or you have somehow come to believe of God as austere, God is a stern, you know, "Save you, what more do you want?" You don't mean, honestly, that's how some of you God you. And you struggle with the idea of other people being blessed because you don't understand the source of the blessing, God, and God's heart to bless. And and I'm just saying that one of the things that you want to, you want to understand about God is God is incurably, continually generous. In fact, James, in James chapter 5, he says, "If you lack wisdom, like ask of God, who does what? Generously gives." He's like, "Oh, you want wisdom? Let me give you a lot." It's the nature of God to be generous. It's the nature of God to give gifts. He led captivity captive and he gave gifts in his train. In other words, as he was, as he was rolling on up to heaven, he was passing out gifts. Like, "I can't wait for y'all to get here! Here, you want this? You want this? You want this? You want this?" I mean, he's an incredibly generous giver of gifts.
Fact, look at this in, in Ephesians, because this is beautiful. "Long before he laid down Earth's foundations, he had us in mind." Before the earth was created, the worlds were formed, God was thinking of you. You know what the psalmist says? Psalmist says in Psalm 139, "How precious are your thoughts about me? They are beyond numbering." God thinks about you more than you could ever count. And that's only possible because he is the infinite God. And so he has an infinite number of thoughts about you. And when he's thinking about you, he's got this heart to bless you. He's got this heart to reveal himself to you. He's got this heart to do good to you. He's got, listen, I mean, this is all over the scripture. Isaiah 30 and verse 18: "I'm gonna get sidetracked here, but yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you. He rises to show you compassion." God is looking for an opportunity to be gracious to you. Do you have that revelation of God? Do you have that understanding of God that God loves you so much that God is this father who dotes on you, who wants to to be close to you, who wants to shower his love on you? I mean, do you have that kind of revelation of a gracious and a loving God? Listen, is that the whole story about God? No, but it's a story that is so often untold about him.
And long before the world was formed, he was thinking about you. He was planning for your creation and your salvation and your glorification. He was thinking, "Okay, I'm gonna create this world, and then Laurie, I'm gonna create her, and then I'm gonna work to see her get saved, and then when she gets saved, she's gonna be growing in me until finally she goes to heaven, and she's gonna be glorified, and then, oh, wow, wait till she sees what I have for her." And that's multiplied in the life of every single person who's ever lived and come to know Jesus. God is plenty. I mean, watch this. He's settled on us as the focus of his love. Do you understand what eternal life is? That you become, you're focusing on God, and God is like, "That is so awesome, because now I'm free to to show that my love and who I am, and you're the focus of his love." To be made whole and holy by his love. That idea of wholeness is that he undoes the damage of sin. He undoes the damage of death that set in because of sin. And every one of us, it's, it's like if you could rewind the tape on a tornado and and put everything back like it was, only better. If it's like that's what his power does in our life. It just, it reverses the curse. It rewinds the tape. Long, long ago, he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. He said, "You know what, I want him, and I want her, and I want him, and I want her. My man, I want them to be a part of the family." What pleasure he took in planning this. Now, are, are you ready for this? He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving. Coming to Christ is just the beginning. It's the beginning of knowing him. It's the beginning of experiencing him. It's the beginning of life with him. It's the beginning. And and you and I have no idea the things he has prepared for those who love him. "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the mind of man what God has prepared for those who love him." You have no idea. He's a gracious, gift-giving God who wants to show you his goodness.
"The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life." This is in the scripture, Ephesians chapter 2. Now, God has us right where he wants us. You get saved, and God's like, "Yes, they're right where I want them. They can know me now, and I can know them, and they can draw close to me, and I can draw close to them. And there's no longer the the chasm created by sin, and there's no longer that darkness, but now there's light. And they have a heart and a mind to know me and to comprehend me." And that's only going to get greater and greater. And so as they grow in me, I can do more in them. I can reveal more of myself to them. And finally, they're going to be in heaven. And when they're in heaven, oh my goodness, there'll be nothing that will diminish their comprehension of me. And with all, he has us right where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us. Well, know what heaven's gonna be like? Your highness, afraid I'm gonna get bored. I don't like playing the harp. God knows you better than that. He is going to shower gift after gift after gift that will reveal who he is, that will be useful to you in your experience of him and of that place called heaven. And after 10,000 years of one gift after another, and one revelation after another, he will not have begun in the least to exhaust the infinite supply of all that he wants to do, and the infinite expression of all that he is, or the infinite growth in our knowledge of all of that. In heaven, there will never be a time when God is not giving new gifts to his people.
Before I close, and once you notice one last thing about this verse, I pray you never ever read this the same again. "The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life." How? In Christ. We've seen that before, heavily. In Christ. Jesus our Lord. Musicians can come. How can sinners like you and me receive eternal life? How can we avoid the wages of sin and receive God's gift of eternal life? How do we keep from getting the judgment we deserve and position ourselves where we can get in on God's lavish gift-giving? The answer is in Christ Jesus our Lord. You have to be in Christ. That's what happens when you are justified. Remember, you're in Christ, your sins forgiven, clothed in his righteousness, operating out of faith, not your own. How do you get in Christ? One last verse. Romans 10, verse 13: "For everyone, every anyone, at anytime, anywhere, who calls..." Not who thinks, not who imagines, not who says, "Well, I hope," or "Well, that would be great." Who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Anyone. Have you called?
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If not, you're missing out on the most wonderful thing in all of creation, indeed, in all of time and eternity. "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
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