Lesson 13: Slaves to Righteousness – 6:15-23
 15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Our verses for today continue with the thought of being a slave. We have a choice: we can be a slave to sin or we can be a slave to Jesus and His righteousness. Those are our only choices in this life. If we choose to go our own way, we have chosen to be a slave to sin. If we choose to follow another person, we often choose to be a slave to sin, because every person on this earth will at some point lead us away from Jesus. Only choosing to be a slave to Jesus and His righteousness can set us free.


Most of us will, at some time in our life, feel like we are not good enough – not smart enough, not rich enough, not good-looking enough – to be noticed by other people. We go on diets, we exercise, we work hard, all to try to be like someone else. We make ourselves slaves to an ideal we can never reach. All we get in return is shame or fear or guilt because we cannot reach the goal we think the other person has set for us. The result is always death in some way – death of our self-esteem, death of our pride, death of our dreams.

Choosing to be a slave to righteousness, to Jesus, is not like this. We will never be disappointed, we will never be shamed, we will never be cast aside by Jesus. Being a slave to Jesus means we are a slave to someone who loves us enough to die for us. It means that we are a slave to someone who cannot ever do us harm. But it means far more as well; it means we are a slave to someone who can make us everything He created us to be – meaning we can realize complete satisfaction and honor through letting Him change us according to His perfect plan.

How we choose is the difference between life and death. But death is not the end of things as we know them and then nothing; it is an eternal awareness of being without all that God is – love, light, joy, peace, and so on. Eternal life is eternal perfection – perfect joy, perfect peace, perfect completion, perfect love, and we could go on with all that God is.


How can it be that by choosing to be His slave we are set free, as we read in Verse 22? The answer is true and pure love. If I choose to belong to and do all that is asked of me by someone who truly loves me, I know I need never fear that what will be asked will be anything but good for me. He promises to meet my every need (Philippians 4:19), to give me my heart’s desire (Psalm 37:4), turn everything bad into something good for me (Romans 8:28), and give me a share in Jesus’ inheritance in eternity (Romans 8:16-17). That does not nearly name everything He has planned for me! And all He asks of me, as His willing slave, is that I allow Him to use me to make His kingdom (in which I will share) even greater.

*Will you promise Him, with me? – I am Your willing slave, Lord Jesus!