Notes of Faith March 29, 2026
Pastor’s Pen Pulpit
February 3, 2002
Series: Romans Chapter 6
“THE GIFT OF GOD”
Romans 6:19-23
I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.
But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul has just presented the fact that believers are no longer slaves to sin. By faith in Jesus Christ we are now slaves to God.
He now assures them that he is speaking in simple human terms for their understanding and ours. He reminds us that in our unsaved state we presented the members of our bodies as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness! Now in our new servanthood we are to present our members as slaves to righteousness resulting in a life set apart to God.
When we served sin, we had no part with righteousness. He now asks a very logical question. Were we deriving any benefit from those things of which we are now ashamed – for those things lead to death?
He follows up with another logical statement. Since we have been liberated from sin and are now enslaved to God, we derive blessed benefits that lead to a life set apart to God with the outcome eternal life! Sin has wages which separate us from God but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Praise Him, hallelujah!
But one question! How do we plug into eternal life today? Paul tells us it is through sanctification. Let’s break this down a little. Colossians 3:1-3 clarifies this for us. Since we have been raised with Christ and seated with Him at the right hand of God, we are to keep on seeking the things above. We are to actively set our minds on things above and not on earthly pleasures. The reason takes us back to Romans 6. We have died and our life is hidden with Christ in God.
Beloved, where are we setting our minds these days? Are we tangled up in the lure of the world or are we actively seeking the things that please our Lord? Let’s work on that aspect.
Love to you all,
Pastor Charles Covington
Rom 12:1-2
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
True love is sacrificial. It is a giving up of one’s desires for the desires of another. This could not be more true than in our relationship with God. He loved us when we were His enemy and gave His Son who became a sacrifice for us. He gave His sinless life yet taking on all the sin of mankind, to pay the price for our redemption to God, a debt we could not pay. We were condemned and could only expect the wrath of God were it not for the sacrifice of Jesus! Believe in Him, love Him, worship Him!
John 14:15
"If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
John 15:10-11
"If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. 11 "These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
Let us take up our cross daily, follow Jesus, sacrifice ourselves in obedience to God’s commandments that we might grow spiritually, sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others, that they might know Christ and grow in Him to maturity, sacrifice ourselves, forsaking the temptations and lusts of this world that we might be rewarded with an eternal inheritance from God that is beyond our imagination!
Pastor Dale