Problems arose in the early church because of Paul's insistence: You are not under the law, but under grace. v14 and v15. Paul taught that God's grace set believers free from the law. This was a teaching that gave rise to four problems:

(1) Many Jews rejected this teaching outright. They were convinced that the way to please God was by keeping the law. There are many Old Testament Scriptures that support this view.

(2) Certain Gentile believers, including several in Corinth, accepted Paul's teaching and believed it gave them the freedom to do just as they pleased. Their slogan was: "Everything is permissible." 1Cor10v23. See exposition on 1Cor10v14to33.

(3) Some Jewish converts and doubtless a few Gentiles considered it was too easy to rely on God's grace alone and that conduct should still be regulated by law. This is generally the view of those Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons I have encountered on the door step. They do not respond warmly to Paul's claim that salvation is by grace and through faith.

(4) Others, like James the leader of the Jerusalem church, considered Paul's emphasis was wrong. His conviction was that faith without works is dead and by implication Paul should have laid more stress on the latter. James wrote bluntly: A person is justified by what he does and not be faith alone. Jms2v24. No wonder Martin Luther dismissed the letter of James as an epistle of straw!!

I have some reservations about Paul's approach. Some would say that this shows audacity and a lack of respect for Scripture. But I feel it is as well to be honest! So I will detail my difficulties:

(1) Paul never clearly acknowledges that under the Old Covenant there were those who kept the law as well as they could out of a deep regard for God. Such individuals surely recognised God's goodness and mercy. Psalm 23 is a celebration of God's grace.

It doesn't seem appropriate to me to describe Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist, Zechariah, Elizabeth, Simeon, Anna, Cornelius and Lydia as slaves to sin. Cornelius is described like this: He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. Acts10v2. See also Acts10v34. Cornelius still needed to hear about Jesus because he was not perfect but flawed like us all but to describe him as a slave to sin is going too far. See exposition on Cornelius.

(2) Paul addresses the sort of objection James made to his teaching in a far from emphatic or clear way by stressing that beneficiaries of grace should wholeheartedly obey the form of teaching to which they were entrusted.

One can only assume that this was the teaching about kingdom values given by Jesus who it must be remembered gave his disciples the Great Commission that included: teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. Mt28v20.

I find it difficult to understand why Paul could not have said in a straightforward way that the disciples of Jesus must obey what the Master taught.

(3) Perhaps, Paul's apparent reluctance to emphasise that those that love Jesus keep his commandments is because it is possible to be legalistic about the ethical teaching of Christ. Leo Tolstoy the great Russian novelist made a determined effort to live up to the Sermon on the Mount. Philip Yancey writes in, 'Soul Survivor, Tolstoy's desire to reach perfection led him to devise ever new lists of rules. He gave up hunting, tobacco, alcohol and meat. He determined to sell or give away everything superfluous - the piano, the furniture, the carriages - and to treat all people alike, from governors to beggars. He drafted rules for developing the emotional will, rules for developing lofty feelings and eliminating base ones, rules for subordinating the will to the feeling of love. Yet he could never achieve the self-discipline necessary to abide by his own rules. Tolstoy's wife was not impressed. She said, There is so little warmth about him; his kindness does not come from his heart, but merely from his principles.

I have known Christians use Jesus' teaching on praying in private as a reason for not attending the prayer meeting. Many Christians through the centuries have been very legalistic about divorce and marrying divorcees. They overlook the fact that Jesus said divorce (and consequently remarriage) was permissible for unfaithfulness and Paul indicated it was acceptable for desertion.

(4) Finally I am not happy with Paul's description of Christians as slaves to God. He as good as admits the inadequacy of his terminology when he writes: I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. v19.

I think most Christians consider themselves as servants of Jesus. Our service is not a matter of compulsion as it would be if we were slaves, but freely given out of love.

Having written this lengthy introduction which might be tedious to anyone who has read so far, I must affirm that what Paul has written in this passage is helpful because it poses three important questions. These are:

(A) Whom do you serve?

Paul writes: You are slaves to the one you obey. v16. We will either be slaves to sin (whatever keeps us from God) or slaves to God and servants of Jesus Christ. So let us examine what it means to be:

(1) A slave to our sinful inclinations.

There are innumerable possibilities:

(a) We can be enslaved to an addiction or bodily appetite. Sir Roger Scatcherd in Trollope's, 'Dr Thorne,' was a great railway engineer but hopelessly addicted to brandy. His friend, Dr Thorne, tries to persuade the millionaire entrepreneur to give up the drink. Sir Roger replies: "I can do nothing that I would choose to do; be nothing that I would wish to be! What can I do? ..... Where are my friends? Here!" said he, and he dragged a bottle from under his very pillow. "Where are my amusements? Here!" and he brandished the bottle almost in the doctor's face. "Where is my one resource, my one gratification, my only comfort after all my toils? Here doctor; here, here, here!" and, so saying, he replaced his treasure beneath his pillow. Brandy was his master.

For others nicotine is king! There are plenty of people who live from one smoke to the next. Life would be empty without the fags.

Esau was ruled by his appetite to the extent of selling his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup.

(b) We can be obsessed by money. Sadly there are millions whose dream is to win the lottery. Millions and millions of pounds worth of tickets are sold week after week after week.

The Pharisees made all the money they could. Jesus accused them of devouring widow's houses. They exploited vulnerable women for their wealth. When Jesus said: "You cannot serve both God and money. The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at him." Lk16v13and14.

(c) We can define ourselves by success in business or work. For some the business is all; work is all. When I was at Waldringfield speaking at their ladies meeting a visiting young American woman gave her testimony. She spoke at some length about her father. He was very active in the church sitting on various committees. He seemed a very enthusiastic Christian. However, when he lost his high paid, high status job the woman's father went to pieces. He stopped attending church and was plunged into depression. The man measured his worth by the job he did not by the relationship he had with Jesus.

(d) We can be preoccupied with our health. The number one priority for some is to keep fit, retain their youth and postpone death for as long as possible. Theirs is a life of diets and training regimes. Others pamper themselves and have a horror of catching something even to the extent of not visiting the sick in hospital.

(e) we can desire our personal happiness above everything else. This leads men to abandon their wives; children to neglect their parents and church members to forsake their churches. One of the best examples in fiction of a man with no conception of duty is Mr Skimpole in Dicken's, 'Bleak House'. He is a truly obnoxious character. His friends helped him to several openings in life, but to no purpose, for he must confess to two of the oldest infirmities in the world: one was, that he had no idea of time; the other, that he had no idea of money. In consequence of which he never kept an appointment, never could transact any business, and never knew the value of anything! Well! So he had got on in life, and here he was! He was very fond of reading the papers, very fond of making fancy-sketches with a pencil, very fond of nature, very fond of art. All he asked of society was, to let him live. That wasn't much. His wants were few. Give him the papers, conversation, music, mutton, coffee, landscape, fruit in season, a little claret and he asked no more. He was a mere child in the world, but he didn't cry for the moon. He said to the world, "Go your several ways in peace! ..... Only let Harold Skimpole live!"

Harold Skimpole lived by sponging off his friends. He picked his friends carefully and so lived comparatively well - running up debts for others to pay. He lived entirely for himself. His wretched wife and children lived unloved and under nourished in the deepest poverty.

(f) We can strive constantly for recognition. The applause of men is like nectar to our souls. We want to be known men - men of renown and repute - especially in the right circles.

In the days of Jesus the Pharisees prayed on street corners to be seen of men, adored being greeted in the market place and loved the best seats at feasts. They envied those more highly thought of than themselves. It was for envy that the religious elite conspired to have Jesus crucified.

(g) We can thirst for revenge and retaliate against those that hurt us or wrong us. My brother, Philip, fostered for a time a little girl who had been taught by her father to give as good as she got. Unfortunately the sweet looking six year old decided that pre-emptive strikes were the best policy. Woe be tide anyone who picked her up for a cuddle. She would kick, scratch and bite - although not necessarily in that order.

There are folk who harbour resentful thoughts for years and years. Some nurse and nourish their hatred until it all but consumes them.

(h) Allegiance to an ideology, cause or religion can have horrifying consequences. Terrible things happen in the name of an ideology. The Nazis killed millions of Jews and others for the sake of racial purity. Even worse things happen in the name of religion. At the time of Jesus the Jewish religious leaders loved their religion more than they loved God. They insisted on the crucifixion of the Christ because to use their own words: We have a law,and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God. Jn19v7.

(2) A slave to God; a servant of Jesus.

Obedience to Jesus runs entirely counter to the demands of our sinful selves. Let us look at a few examples:

(a) Jesus said: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth. Mt6v19. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. v21.

The Master teaches the vital importance of having a generous spirit. He encourages us to give good measure - heaped up, pressed down and running over.

Sometimes my mother would entertain a small group of old ladies to tea. A quick survey of all the good things on the table, especially the abundance of homemade cakes, showed my mother's commitment to giving good measure.

(b) Jesus encouraged a forgiving spirit. He said, "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also." Mt5v39. "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Mt6v14.

(c) Jesus discourages us from publicising our good works. "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret." Mt6v3. Christians are to have a modest, unassuming and humble spirit.

(d) We are not to worry about ourselves. Jesus said, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life." Mt6v25. Believers are to live in the confidence of the grace of God. Their expectation is: Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Ps23v6.

(e) The Master tells us to be charitable in our judgments, neither censorious nor over severe. "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way as you judge others you will be judged. Mt7v1. John Wesley's father, Samuel, was ultra strict and made the lives of his daughters and parishioners something of a misery. One daughter, Hetty, fell in love with a suitor who was not approved by her parents. She ran away and lived out of wedlock with him – far more scandalous then than now – and returned still unwed and pregnant. The child died early. Her father, Samuel, never forgave her, not even on his deathbed.

(f) Jesus taught the importance of being dutiful. He was against easy divorce. See Mt5v31and32. He was angry with the Pharisees for wriggling out of giving financial assistance to their parents.

So we could go on. Jesus demands of his followers a different spirit from that exhibited by the sinful self. Christians should not approach his teachings in a legalistic way. Instead, we should be strongly motivated to obey Jesus because of our love for him. We love him for what he has done for us. He died that we might be forgiven; he died to make us good. We are helped in our endeavours by Christ's gift of his Spirit.

We may fail many times to live up to the standard Jesus set us. But it is worth remembering one of Jesus' encouraging promises: And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward. Mt10v42. Jesus notes every attempt we make - however small - to live in the way he recommends.

So what are we? Are we a slave to our sinful inclinations OR a servant of Jesus Christ? Where does the balance lie - with our propensity to sin or our willingness to obey Jesus? Do we please ourselves OR do we please Jesus?

(B) What are you like?

Paul describes two types of person:

(1) The slave to sin.

The slave to sin is characterised by:

(a) Freedom from constraint or as Paul puts it: When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.

Unregenerate men and women are free to indulge all the desires of the sinful self although as I have indicated earlier in this series there are checks on their conduct like the law of the land. The Christians are constrained by the love of Christ and should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 2Cor5v15.

(b) Shameful behaviour. Paul asks the Roman Christians to think back to how they were before conversion to Christianity: What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?

It is shameful to:

• Walk out on your wife and children or to abandon your elderly parents. I attended a staff reunion this summer. One of my old colleagues was there aged 93. He has lost his sight and lives in sheltered accommodation. He was a mess - all his clothes were stained and grubby. His daughter lives locally and could without much difficulty ensure that his shirts, jacket and trousers were regularly cleaned. There was no need for him to look so uncared for - scruffier than one of the homeless.

• Harbour grudges and to be sour and vengeful.

• Be greedy; to be mean and stingy. Some years ago I had a teaching colleague famous for his biscuits which he kept concealed in his locker. He was never known to offer anyone a biscuit - they were for his exclusive enjoyment only. Some other members of staff had quite a thing about his biscuits! He was defined by his proprietorial attitude to his hobnobs.

• Be a sex maniac, glutton, alcoholic or drug addict.

• Be like the Pharisees and do things for popular acclaim and to expect special treatment for your accomplishments. Kevin Peterson the England cricketer has brought shame on himself by his mercenary attitude and his desire to pick and choose the matches he plays. Many years ago I read an anecdote about Winston Churchill. He was on a trans-Atlantic crossing. At dinner he was served a steak that was not done to his liking. He called the waitress across and gave her such a dressing down. Churchill seemed to think that a man of his standing should be served a steak to his precise requirements and if he wasn't this justified boorish, bullying treatment of some wretched waitress. Can you imagine Jesus acting in such a way!!!

• Be mean spirited, ungracious and ultra-critical.

(c) Ever increasing wickedness. Paul reminded the Romans further: You used to offer the parts of your body in slavery and impurity and to ever increasing wickedness.

Sadly this only too true of the slaves to sin as these few examples illustrate:

• An obsession for money will progressively possess a person - body, soul and spirit. One of America's most miserly millionaires was John G. Wendel, who died in 1915 at his home in New York City. Seeking to keep their inherited fortune in the family, Wendel and five of his six sisters remained unmarried. He instilled such frugality in his sisters that when the last one died in 1931, it was found that although her estate amounted to more than $100 million, she never had a telephone, electricity, or an automobile. Her only dress was one she had made herself and worn for nearly 25 years.

• When allegiance to an ideology replaces devotion to God it can assume demonic strength. The atrocities perpetrated by German Nazis grew worse and worse. Paul was such a fanatical devotee of the law prior to his conversion that he was breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. Acts9v1. A.V.

• An addiction does not get any less as time progresses. Rather it grows worse and worse so that as the end nears drug addicts will steal from their own family or prostitute themselves for the next fix.

• What an all consuming passion pride can become. The poet Elizabeth Barrett secretly married Robert Browning in 1846. Her parents disapproved of the marriage and disowned her. Elizabeth never gave up on her parents and weekly wrote them a letter from Italy where she lived with her husband. She received no reply. Then after 10 years she received in the mail a large box full of her letters - all unopened. Today those letters are among the most beautiful in classical English literature. Had her parents only read a few of them, their relationship with Elizabeth might have been restored - but a pride that grew rather than lessened with the years kept them from doing so.

(2) The servant of Jesus Christ.

Those that obey Christ out of gratitude, respect and admiration will be:

(a) Progressively set free from sin. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. v18.

Some of the marks of a Christian will be:

• Freedom from addictions.

• No desire for wealth.

• A cheerful, confident approach to life.

• An ability to treat success and failure just the same.

• A willingness to put the needs of others before their own.

• A lack of any need to impress others.

• A tendency to see the best in people.

• An active benevolence.

• Integrity: yes will be yes and no, no.

(b) Holy. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness. v22.

There is nothing automatic about becoming holy. It is the result of obeying Jesus. There is no doubt that Christians will become holy - virtuous - by making a serious, consistent effort out of a deep love and respect for Jesus to do as he says.

Some of the marks of holiness I have seen in my fellow Christians are:

• A generous spirit. My old friend and fellow elder, Edward, loved to hear well of brother Christians and became very uncomfortable when I became critical. Viv, who attends my church, is highly appreciative of the sermons and talks she hears and always thanks the preachers for their ministry.

• A selfless spirit. Dear old Henry was handicapped by Parkinson's disease and crippled by osteoporosis. Whenever I visited him and his wife began to describe his afflictions Henry would say, "It is time to change the subject. I've got a lot to be thankful for."

• A forgiving spirit. I would not claim to be very holy but if I have a virtue this is it!

• A humble spirit. This is revealed by a willingness to do God's work without drawing attention to the fact. There are three men who attend my church, Peter, Roger and Ron, who do the practical jobs that need doing without being asked and without any fuss.

• A thoughtful spirit. Christian ladies have the knack of putting themselves in another's shoes. Birthdays and anniversaries are remembered, cards and flowers sent, phone calls and visits made.

(C) Where are you heading?

There are but two possible destinations: For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are heading for:

(1) Death.

When someone is a slave to sin death occurs on several levels. Take for example addiction to alcohol. It leads to:

(a) The death of human dignity - the loss of self-respect, self-restraint, decency and honesty.

(b) The destruction of relationships. The only relationship the habitual drunk has in the end is with his bottle.

(c) Deadness to God. God has been replaced by a false idol, one destructive of all good.

(d) Eternal death - the ultimate loss. Unsaved, unregenerate sinners are consigned to the darkness - the final oblivion.

(2) Or eternal life.

If we wholeheartedly obey Jesus, if we lovingly adopt his teaching and try to implement it, we shall live as God desires. This is the beginning of eternal life. That is what this passage in Romans teaches: the result of being a slave to God and obedient to Jesus is eternal life.

If we are in Christ Jesus our Lord we share his concerns and priorities - we grow to be like him.

When Jesus returns and we are raised or changed in the twinkling of an eye, we shall be fully like him at last. We will share his nature and be fitted for everlasting fellowship with God our Maker. IT IS A GIFT OF GOD'S GRACE - BUT ALSO THE PRIZE FOR BEING OBEDIENT TO JESUS.