Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.16UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.14UNLIKELY
Fear
0.15UNLIKELY
Joy
0.56LIKELY
Sadness
0.6LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.73LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.15UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.9LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.95LIKELY
Extraversion
0.1UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.53LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.79LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Romans 6:19-23
! Introduction
Mr. and Ms. Chretien, took a wrong path and the consequences were serious.
Mr. Chretien owned an excavation business in Penticton, BC and they had been heading to a trade show in Las Vegas.
They took a wrong turn east of Boise, Idaho, and, trying to find their way back to the highway, ended up on a logging road on the edge of the Humboldt National Forest.
Their van became stuck and they were unable to get out.
After two days, no one came to find them and Mr. Chretien left to go for help.
After 7 weeks, Mrs. Chretien was found, and has recovered, but I don’t believe they have found Mr. Chretien, who likely died in the forest.
When they chose to take the logging road, they didn’t know that they had taken a road that would lead to all the trouble they experienced and to his death.
We are all on a path in life, but we can know exactly where that path leads and whether it leads to life or destruction.
The Bible is very clear about where the path we are on leads.
In Romans 6, Paul asks a question about whether we should continue in sin because we are under grace.
His strong statement that we cannot continue in sin is followed by several arguments which call for those who follow Christ to walk in righteousness.
This morning as we examine Romans 6:19-23, we will examine the two paths which we can be on and be encouraged to live the life lifestyle.
!
I. The Two Paths
The text does not speak of two paths, but of two slaveries.
Yet when the passage asks the question about where these two slaveries lead, then we are talking about the concept of a path.
There are two different ways in which we can live our lives.
We can be slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness.
We can be on the path to death or we can be on the path to life.
So let us examine these two paths or these two slaveries and see where they lead.
!! A. Impurity and Where It Leads
The one path is described in verse 19 in this way, “…you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever increasing wickedness.”
This is the path of sin.
It is the path in which we walk our own way and live in a self centered way.
Along this path is impurity.
As we think of impurity, we may think of sexual impurity, but I think we need to make sure that we don’t limit impurity to this one area.
Impurity refers to that which is mixed.
Last week when I was on the canoe trip with my son and grandsons, we drank water from the lake.
The water is impure; it is not clean enough to drink so we had to purify it.
One time I had gotten water from near the shore and after we had purified it and had used some of it, we noticed that there were particles floating in the water.
Not harmful, but not appetizing either.
So impurity is that which is mixed.
It can be mixed thoughts such as love and hatred towards a person.
It can be mixed motives, such as selflessness and selfishness.
It can be impure words, such as blessing and cursing.
When we look at it that way, slavery to sin is very familiar.
The other word used to describe this path is wickedness.
Some people like to describe things as “wicked awesome” which seems to make wickedness a good thing.
It is not.
Wickedness is that which is evil, that which is harmful and that which destroys.
This is a brief glimpse of the path of sin and the text invites us in verse 21 to consider, “What benefit did you reap at the time from these things…” This question recognizes that the path of sin leads somewhere.
Where does it lead?
I have been on hikes in which the path became narrower and narrower and then became a mere trail barely marked and then deteriorated into a boggy mess?
I kept going because I thought that it would eventually improve, but it never did and I had to turn back.
The path of sin isn’t an improving path.
The text says that wickedness leads to ever increasing wickedness.
This danger is seen particularly in the area of addictions.
It may begin with purchasing one lottery ticket, but in some cases it leads to more and more until gambling becomes an addiction.
It happens when a person feels comfortable with one lie and soon accepts more lies.
It happens when the thrill of the first sin is gone and is followed by greater evil.
In this way, the path of sin is slavery.
A slave is owned by someone.
If we are slaves to sin, then sin owns us and we have no choice but to obey it.
Another consequence of sin is that it results in shame.
Why is it that we want to hide what we do wrong?
It is because we are ashamed of the wrong we have done.
Sin always leads to shame.
In the end, the path of sin leads to death.
The path of death is not always obvious at first, but every sinful act is a little bit of dying.
Every act of sin does not immediately result in death, but every act of sin is a part of a process of dying a little bit.
I have heard cigarettes called coffin nails.
Each cigarette does not kill you, but Health Canada does make a pretty strong statement that smoking has serious health risks.
In a similar way, any individual sin may not kill you, but in the end it will.
Today you may not notice that death is brought closer by how you have sinned, but the path leads there as certainly as night follows day.
Proverbs 9:17, 18 illustrates that path when it says, “Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!
But little do they know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of the grave."
Verse 23 assures us of that truth when it says, “the wages of sin is death.”
John Toews suggests a different translation.
He suggests that it would be better to translate “the provision of sin is death.”
He explains, “Slaves were not paid wages…Slaves are given goods to sustain them.”
“The provisions of the master, sin, are deadly; they are poisonous, and produce death when consumed.”
If we are slaves to sin, the provision, that is, what is given us because of that slavery is terrible, it is death.
!! B. Righteousness and Where It Leads
But there is another path for the people who belong to God and that is the path of righteousness.
Righteousness is doing things right, doing what is good.
This path also leads somewhere.
If we are slaves to righteousness, the place where this will lead is first of all to holiness.
This idea is communicated both in verse 19 and in verse 22. Holiness is the opposite of impurity.
It is being unmixed, being pure.
When a person walks in sin, we never know what their reaction will be or we are afraid that we know exactly what their reaction will be – not good.
When a person consistently walks in righteousness, then we also know what their reaction will be.
We will know what we can expect from them because they walk in holiness.
The more we make righteousness part of our life, the more we learn and grow in holiness.
Since God is holy, becoming holy will make us more like our heavenly Father.
The other place where righteousness leads is to life.
Both verse 22 and 23 tell us that the path of righteousness leads to eternal life.
!
II.
The Path We Have Been Set On
These are the two paths which are available and we as Christ followers have been set on one of these paths path by God.
We have been made slaves to righteousness by God.
How has that happened?
What does it mean to be on that path?
!! A. We Used To Sin
The text indicates that we “were slaves to sin.”
The starting point for every person on earth is that we were on the path we described earlier.
That means that we were on a path of growing wickedness which leads to death.
There is no exception to that reality.
Every person on earth, which includes you and me are on that path.
Romans 3:23 says, “…all have sinned…”
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9