AtomChoose slavery to righteousness
Romans 6: 12-23
12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13 No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, 18 and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.
20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Any idea who wrote the following as we enter into Romans 6 today?
“Congratulations, today’s your day.
You’re off to great places. You’re off and away.
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
“You’re on your own, And you know what you know.
And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go.”
These rhythmic words of advice come from Dr. Seuss: “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”
It’s up to us, says Dr. Seuss. The world is ours and we are free to choose what kind of life we will have. He even provides a warning:
“You’ll look up and down streets. Look’ em over with care.
About some you will say, ‘I don’t choose to go there.’”
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
You’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street.”
I wish this were true, don’t you? (Representative Weiner sure wishes it were true!!!)
I wish we only went places our brains told us to go: I wish that we always made rational choices. Yet we know…we don’t . Too often, we mess up and go the wrong ways. Theologically, we confess our bondage to sin and our inability to free ourselves…we confess we are both saint and sinner…Thus, in fairness to Dr.Suess…this does come later in his book:
I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true
that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.
You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch.
Life is about choices. That’s where we begin today.
Professional speaker Phillip Wexler notes that the human being is the only creature on earth that is not the prisoner of its programming, but is the master of it. Birds are programmed to fly south in the winter. They don’t suddenly decide that because of the bad economy they had better stay home this year.
Beavers build dams. Fish swim in schools. Only humans can choose to build a dam or to go back to school. We have the power to decide, to choose. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we always make good decisions.
Life is about choices. That’s where Paul’s writings to the Romans take us today.
One way to approach this is the way we did at our Worship Team rehearsal on Wednesday evening. There, as we prepared to lead worship, we pondered with one another the question:
Who/what “Drives the bus” of your life…most of the time??
And then we continued by suggesting, in Paul’s words to the Romans:
Your answer is also the answer to: Who/what are you a slave to…most of the time?
Really…deep down…Who/What are the driving factors behind what you do, what you say, how you think, behave, choices…
From where/who/what come the powerful desires, cravings, and inner intentions of our lives?
These are the questions, and thought, behind Paul’s writings today…
Paul writes, “You are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness (and life)”.
David Lose, Professor at Luther Seminary, reminds us about this Roman’s passage:
The question is therefore not whether you will follow something (or someone), but what (or who) you will follow. (and he was referencing Rep. Weiner and others!!)
Will you follow your passions or self control?
Will you follow ambition or honor?
Will you follow the promises you made or believe yourself exempt from those requirements?
He reminds us:
“It’s not a question of whether, but of what, and Paul urges Christians to be slaves: not of unrighteousness – which is doing whatever you want regardless of the consequences to others – but to righteousness, a life in service to others and to God.”
On Wednesday, the worship team conversation then went to the ways that the 8th commandment, a commandment of righteousness, is taking an incredible beating in our day.
Now you ask…let’s think…what is the 8th commandment? (This was part of Weds worship team devotions also!!!...and could be stretched to be part of the Gospel of hospitality…welcoming…)
Luther’s 8th commandment explanation is:
We are to fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain his actions in the kindest way (even if that neighbor is _______…and each gets to fill in this blank…even name a politician!!)
And, the comments moved into, how easy it has become, with a click of a button, to simply forward something to others that we know is not true…yet, we do it!!
Last night, as I was wrapping this sermon up, I received an email…about one of our politicians (Obama)…and the subject line told me…here’s another…and I wondered:
What Luther, Paul, and Jesus himself would say about what gets forwarded with the click of a button…oftentimes without much thought at all…that is seeking to destroy someone? Thus, let’s ask again…
Who/what are we slaves to in our world? In all things…
Is it that which leads to life, or that which leads to death?
Listen again to Romans 6…as it speaks of choosing…which is interesting. We often think of slaves as not having a choice…Paul suggests slaves DO HAVE a choice. To quote Brett Blair:
Paul’s point is that we’re always going to be a slave to something or someone. We’ll either be a slave to sin or a “[slave] to righteousness”. It’s an interesting metaphor, given the fact that slaves traditionally don’t get to choose who will be their master. The master chooses them. And, Paul would say that God does indeed choose us by his grace revealed in Jesus’ death and resurrection, but we can choose whether to live into the promise of our baptism and give our full obedience and attention to God or choose to remain in the realm of sin, whose ultimate product and outcome is death.
Let’s go back to our email conversation. And let’s be reminded, when we receive those emails begging us to forward them to others…
Every time we have the opportunity to click about our politicians, co-workers, neighbor, boss, spouse, parent, child: we have a choice to make: whether to live into the promise of our baptism…or live in the realm of sin. Luther would say:
Slaves of sin will seek to destroy, to cut down, to bring death…
Slaves of righteousness…will seek to put the best construction on the other…
and bring life
THREE points from Romans 6 so far today:
1. We are slaves…that is a given…all of us are slaves to one thing or another!!
It’s not a question of WHETHER we are slaves…but to WHOM or WHAT…
2. We have a choice to whom/what we are slaves…
Beavers build dams. Fish swim in schools. Only humans decide to build a dam or to go back to school. We have the power to decide…the power of choice!
3. It’s up to us to put some effort into our choosing…and not just default to “whatever”!
(Recognizing Paul’s also writing, “The things I don’t want to do I do, the things I do want to do I don’t…wretched man that I am, who can separate me from this bondage to death! Thanks be to God…we have the fourth point…which is…)
The FOURTH POINT from Romans 6 isn’t in our passage for today: it comes earlier in chapter 6.
God has given to us the freedom in Christ and His power and strength to strive for things that make us slaves of righteousness and bring happiness and eternal blessings.
This is His promise to us…that we, who have died to sin in our baptism need no longer be slaves to that sin because Jesus has set us free to be slaves of righteousness. We’ve been buried with him through baptism into death so that we might live a new life!! (Romans 6: 1-4 language!!)
So, people of God, the Romans question of the day remains:
Who/What are you slaves to in your lives…most of the time?
Without question, we know it’s a both/and, because we are saint and sinner at the same time.
That being said, let’s ask, in a very practical way: (have handouts ready for each at this time!)
What is ONE act of obedience to God that would lead to righteousness (to a friend, partner, children, parents, work, spouse, congregation, country, honor, commitment to the poor, whatever) that you could, with God’s help, choose to do Today and THIS WEEK…that you know would lead to LIFE…for them and for you?
And…you would like the support of God and the congregation to live into.? One act that would help you move from slavery to sin into slavery to righteousness? One action that we could pray for….FOR YOU today??
Pray about this…Write it down on the slip of paper handed to you earlier…ask a brother/sister in Christ to encourage you…look at it often this week. Pray to God asking for his help to do it!!
The choice is put squarely to us by St. Paul. He writes, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The choice couldn’t be any plainer than that.
Or, as Dr. Seuss puts it,
“Congratulations, today’s your day. You’re off to great places. You’re off and away.
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
And Paul would add, With God’s help, and the help of HIS people, you can indeed! Amen!!
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