Help with Being Holy: Bad Slavery, Good Slavery

Romans
Written By Steve Estes

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Romans 6:15-23
July 24, 2022

Sermon Outline

1. Everyone is a slave to either righteousness or sin

  • We tend to think, "I'm my own person"

  • Experience confirms we are slaves

  • Scripture teaches we are slaves

2. In your pre-Christian life, sin was a terrible slave master

  • Slavery to sin led to shame

  • Slavery to sin leads to death

  • Sin inevitably leads to more sin

3. Righteousness is a wonderful slave master

  • Noteworthy contrast between the two slaveries

4. Applications

  • If your life basically ignores God, why would you be confident of eternal life?

  • If righteousness feels like drudgery, you may not be a Christian

  • If you are a slave of God...

Benediction

Revelation 22:3: No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his slaves will serve him. They will see his face.

Revelation 22:21: he grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen.

Steve Estes

Steve Estes has been senior pastor at Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, Pennsylvania, for over thirty-five years. 

Steve’s books and other writings began with his longtime friendship with Joni Eareckson Tada. As teenagers, they grappled with why God allowed Joni’s paralysis in a swimming accident in the Chesapeake Bay. Steve left for college . . . they kept in touch . . . she liked the style of his letters. When her 1976 autobiography Joni spawned thousands of reader responses, she asked Steve to join her in crafting a follow-up. The result was A Step Further in 1978.

Later, Wycliffe Bible Translators commissioned Steve to write the biography of former college friend Chet Bitterman, a Wycliffe linguist who was kidnapped and murdered by political terrorists in Colombia in 1981. Other books and articles followed, including When God Weeps (with Joni) and A Better December (a giveaway book for non-Christian friends at Christmas.)

Steve was educated at Westminster Theological Seminary, Columbia Bible College and Jerusalem University College in Israel. He has taught homiletics at Westminster and is a board member of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation.

But Steve would say his most significant life achievement was persuading college classmate Verna Stoltzfus to marry him in 1974.  They now have eight children and more grandchildren than can fit in a van.

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Being Mindful of the Wonder of the Gospel
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Help with Being Holy: Death to Sin (Part B)