“So what fruit was produced then from the things you are now ashamed of? The outcome of those things is death. But now, since you have been set free from sin and have become enslaved to God, you have your fruit, which results in sanctification—and the outcome is eternal life!” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When Dr. Phil was doing his regular, daytime talk show, one of the lines he became famous for was a simple question: How’s that working for you? People would come to him with complaints about their lives, and he would lead them to tell him about the things they were doing. What were their patterns? What kind of choices were they making? Then he would ask his question: How’s that working for you? His point was that the outcomes we experience in life are the result of the choices we make. The path we are walking determines the destination to which we are heading. Paul would seem to agree. Let’s look at what he says next.

One of the biggest challenges that new believers can face is the shame of past sin. The shame of past sin is one of the biggest hurdles a person considering whether or not to make a commitment to Christ has to overcome. Fortunately, this is where the good news of the Gospel comes rushing into the foreground. In Christ, all of those things have been covered. His sacrificial death paid the price for anything and everything you might have done in the past.

That thing you are really ashamed that you did that one time when you knew you shouldn’t have said yes, but you did anyway, and then nothing really happened afterward, but you have carried with you ever since the knowledge that you shouldn’t have done it…Jesus covered that. How about when you blew up that relationship because of pride? You made all sorts of other excuses both to others and to yourself for why it ended, but you know deep down that it was your pride that did the deed, and you have secretly hated yourself for it for years. Jesus covered that too.

Everybody carries shame for something they did in the past. It’s an unfortunately common part of the human experience. That’s the effect of sin in our lives. Sin causes shame. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit God told them not to eat the very first thing they did was to cover up because they knew they were naked. They hid from each other and they hid from God. (And then the man threw the woman straight under the bus, and the woman trotted out the “devil made me do it” line for the first time in history.) They were ashamed of what they had done.

Paul has been talking about our enslavement to sin for several verses now. He’s talked about the death that sin brings (more on that next week). He’s talked about the importance of our leaning into righteousness when once we are in Christ and made new. Here, as he prepares to land with both feet on the real end of sin he asks a really uncomfortable question: “So what fruit was produced then from the things you are now ashamed of?”

When you were not following Jesus and sin was your master, how did that work for you? For some folks, they are exceedingly aware of just how broken their lives are. They’ve gotten into the kind of sin that is publicly messy. There is just no avoiding the conclusion that sin has not been good for them. Some folks’ experience of sin wasn’t publicly messy, but relationally so. They didn’t do anything that someone looking in from the outside might immediately identify as obviously wrong. In fact, they have friends who will quickly insist to them that it’s really all the other person’s fault. But they know deep down they sacrificed that relationship on the altar of work or self image or social media or just pride.

Still, there are not a small number of folks whose prisons have been pretty comfortable, all things considered. They have what just about any external observer would acknowledge is a good life. Sure, there are some relationships that aren’t fully what they wish they were. There are topics they can’t talk about with a few people who should otherwise be really close to them. But they have a job they enjoy. Their relationship with their kids is pretty good. They are still in love with their spouse. They have a few friends who are close. The economy has been relatively good to them. What more could they want? What is sin to them?

Honestly, this is the most dangerous kind of sin. Many if not most of these folks live in cultural contexts that have been foundationally shaped by the church such that they can live with a basically Christian morality and enjoy the fruits of such a lifestyle without ever giving credence to the worldview that it came from. They can – and generally do – successfully convince themselves that sin isn’t even a thing, imagining absent any real evidence that the things they believe to be moral norms just developed naturally over time among the more enlightened members of society, all the while entirely blind to the fact that those moral norms wouldn’t be moral norms without Christianity.

Theirs is the sin of unbelief. Sure there is pride and arrogance mixed in there. Often there is a subtle vindictiveness. Those who opt to boldly walk the path of full-blown atheism but who don’t have a high enough status to ride on the atheist speaking circuit often wind up becoming little more than internet trolls who occasionally fire silly pots shots at Christians to make themselves feel better about their atheism, but who otherwise live in an online echo chamber that keeps them comfortably convinced of the rightness and righteousness of their path. Many, though not all, of these have been shaped by a bad church experience in the past (which is a whole other topic for another day), which serves as a good reminder of why getting the church right is so critically important.

The shame here will come eventually. But the more they insulate themselves on their path, the further down the line they push that reckoning; the further they stave off the realization that “the outcome of those things is death.” The sometimes difficult challenge for believers is to accept that Jesus was right: it’s not worth it to throw pearls before swine. They’ll just trample them, ignorantly unaware of the value of the things they are so casually crushing. If after a few attempts at feeding the real food of the Gospel you find yourself only getting rejected and cursed, brush the dust off of your feet and move on. There is a judge who will settle all things one day, but that person is not you, so don’t burden yourself with trying to play that role.

The better path is what Paul reminds us of in v. 22: “But now, since you have been set free from sin and have become enslaved to God [he’s still using that human analogy], you have your fruit, which results in sanctification – and the outcome is eternal life.” Set free from sin as we are in Christ, and committed to walking His path through this life, we can simply enjoy the fruit that comes from such a lifestyle. That lifestyle leads to our becoming more and more like Jesus.

Indeed, we become like what we worship. When you worship a God who is good and kind and compassionate and loving and just and generous and gentle and merciful and honest and patient and so on and so forth, eventually, you come to reflect those things in your own life. Well, a person who reflects those kinds of characteristics tends to receive and enjoy the results of that. When you are constantly patient with the people around you, they’ll tend to be more patient with you. When you are known as a person of compassion, others will show you that same care when you are in need. When you are generous and kind, that tends to come back.

So, what winds up happening is that you create this cycle of blessing where you love others and they love you back. You become more like Christ, which results in your experiencing the fruits of righteousness, which pushes you even further in the direction of Jesus and His character. That’s where real life is found. Extend this out over the course of a lifetime, and you get a taste of what life in God’s eternal kingdom will be like. Now, this doesn’t mean that the world is always going to appreciate such efforts on your part. Jesus experienced plenty of hatred from the world. If you look like Him, you eventually will too. But Jesus overcame the world. And if you stick with Him, you’ll share in that total victory, including His eternal life.

The deeds of darkness that once defined your life weren’t leading you anywhere good. The path of Christ, though often harder to walk than the variety of others available, leads only to good ends. Stick with it. You’ll be glad that you did.