It's going to take eternity, never-ending ages of ages, for the kindness of the grace of God to be lavished on us in full measure.

He will never run out of kindnesses to show you.

How is enslavement to God the only true freedom in all the universe.

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper opens Romans 6 22 to 23 to reveal the profound relationship between our sanctification and ultimate freedom.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on December 17, 2000.

We're going to focus this morning on the three contrasting pairs in verse 23.

The wages of sin is death,

that the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

So the first pair is God and sin.

The second pair is gift and wages, and the third pair is life and death. But before we do that,

let me put it in the big picture of Romans 6 now so that you will see how this verse works.

You remember Paul finished chapters 1 to 5 all about justification by faith, apart from works of the law.

And then he comes at the beginning of chapter 6, and he raises the question,

shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase?

And he answers, no.

How can you who died still live in it?

He repeats the question in verse 15.

Shall we sin because we are under grace and not under law? Answer, no, for sin shall not have dominion over you. So the whole chapter is all about nullifying that wrong conclusion from chapters

one to five. The wrong conclusion would be, oh, if you can get right with God by faith,

then you can live like the devil and it doesn't make any difference. That's the wrong conclusion.

So let's focus on the three contrasting pairs in verse 23.

Sin versus God, that's number one.

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