Romans 6:23

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. First the bad news and then the good news. That is the best way to have it. We must realize that we are sinners before we realize that we need a Savior. The most important word in this whole verse is the little word but. But acts like the middle of a see-saw in our verse. The bad news is before the word but, and the good news is after the word but. But the best part of our verse is the very last part: it is all through Jesus Christ, our Lord! Jesus makes everything possible.

Romans 6:20,22

Romans 6:20,22 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. Jesus told us in Matthew 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.  Without realizing it, you are either serving Jesus or Satan. If you do not choose to serve Jesus, you are in rebellion and you are actually choosing to serve Satan. So without choosing Jesus, you are choosing Satan. And you will be the servant of Satan. But if you choose Jesus, you will be the servant of Jesus. You will be the servant of someone; either Satan or Jesus.

Romans 6:13,16

Romans 6:13,16 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 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? When we get ready to eat, we go to the silverware drawer and get out a fork. But does the fork decide if it wants to be used or not? No, that would be silly! We need to be more like that fork that doesn't argue about being used. We should not argue with Jesus about Him using us. We need to let Jesus use us any way that He wishes. Just like the fork doesn’t argue, we shouldn’t argue with Jesus. But how do we know what Jesus wants to do with us? By reading His Word. We have to read the Bible; obey the Bible, and do what Jesus wants us to do.

Romans 6:11

Romans 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The word reckon is used by southern people to mean suppose. Someone says, “I reckon I’ll be there tomorrow.” But that is not what is meant by the reckon in our verse today. In our verse, reckon is an accounting term – it means to put something in one number column or another. It’s like keeping score in Phase 10. When the round is over, you put your score in your column and you put Marmie’s score in Marmie’s column. Our verse says that we need to take ourselves out of the sin column and put ourselves into Jesus Christ’s column. We do not belong in the sin column; we belong to Jesus. We are in His column. But that is something that we must do. Jesus doesn’t make us be in His column; we must put ourselves into His column. Do we hate sin? Do we love Jesus? Then we must act like we hate sin and love Jesus! We must reckon ourselves dead to sin but alive to Jesus Christ!

Romans 6:4

Romans 6:4 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. Baptism is a picture of our new life in Christ. What happened to Jesus Christ at the end of His life? He was crucified and then buried. But what happened on Easter Sunday morning? Jesus arose from the grave and is alive forever more. So when we are baptized, we picture the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. When the preacher puts you under the water, does he keep you under? I hope not! He brings you up, just like Jesus came up out of the grave. So baptism is an illustration to everyone. We go through death, burial, and resurrection in baptism. We are identified with Jesus in His death. So we are buried with Him. But the best part is that we are identified with Jesus in His resurrection when we come up out of the water! And our verse says that we are raised to walk in newness of life! When we are saved and baptized, our lives should be different. We should be more like Christ.

Romans 5:19

Romans 5:19  For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Because of the sin of one man, everyone became a sinner. Who was that man? Adam. But also, by the obedience and sacrifice of one man, many can be made righteous. Who is that second Man? Jesus, the Son of God. Often Jesus has been called the second Adam. We received our sin nature from Adam, and we can receive our new nature of righteousness from Jesus Christ, the Second Adam.