JC Disciples
Three Gifts to Unwrap
Reading: Romans 6:12-23
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey-whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you whole-heartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When I was in college I knew a man named Mike. When we first met I found out that he had come into town a few weeks earlier, met two women who were roommates, and that they were all living together, but not quite like the old TV sitcom Threes Company.
I have to admit that when I first met Mike, I liked him. He was fun to be around. He always knew the best places in Lubbock to meet women and he seemed to know every woman in any place we went into. He also had a great job and lots of money, money he was willing to spend on his friends. We had a lot of good times.
But there was a darker side to Mike's fun. He was an alcoholic and he used people. On many occasions he would forget his friends and prior commitments if something or someone more interesting came along. Over time we parted ways and I have long since lost track of what happened to Mike.
Mike's life is a dramatic illustration of the phrase being a `slave to sin'. For some of us here today, Mike's story may be very familiar, much like our own. But being a slave to sin is not always so dramatic. It may be a subtle and hidden struggle that we deal with every day.
In our world, it is very easy to live out the kind of life that Luther describes as: `...fearing death more than Christ, loving life more than Christ, and not yet possessing Christ by faith'. Luther goes on to say that `sin still has dominion over such a person and that person is under the Law.' It is easy for us to let sin reign in our lives. We are tempted with comfortable surroundings, situations, and settings.
More than just tempted by these things, we like living in our comfort zones. To maintain our comfort levels we allow ourselves to have aversions to unpleasant situations, to avoid changes in our familiar routines, and to ignore the call of Christ in our lives.
But God has already acted to save us from our slavery to sin. In Romans 6:22 Paul wrote, "But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life." Our release from slavery to sin is based on Christ's action on our behalf. Through Christ's work on the cross sin has been defeated. When we trust in Christ's victory, our sinful natures are rendered powerless. Yes, those sinful natures still exist, and we are still tempted every day. But we are no longer dominated by sin. The power of sin in our lives has been broken by God's power.
Since we have been set free from lives of sin, what kind of life does God now give us?
Through Christ's work on the cross, God exchanges our sinful nature with Christ's nature. God takes away our old sinful nature and gives us Christ's nature in its place. In that exchange we receive three things: eternal life, the righteousness of Christ, and sanctification. Through these gifts, God is actually changing our basic nature. We stop being slaves to sin and become slaves to Christ.
The first gift that comes from God is eternal life. In the Gospels eternal life is not something that happens in the future, it is something that happens as soon as someone believes in Christ. Each Christian receives eternal life when faith takes hold of his or her life. For some, that happens in the waters of baptism; for others, when they are confirmed; and for many adults, when they have a conversion experience. But no matter when it happens, every Christian has eternal life from the moment it happens. Eternal life is ours NOW!
Eternal life makes a difference in our lives even before death. It radically changes our perspective about what happens in the here and now. Eternal life allows the Christian to turn the temptation of sin into a blessing. Luther stated "... the temptation to sin, by its attack, ren-ders the believer's soul all the more chaste. Pride makes it all the more humble. Laziness makes it all the more industrious. Greed makes it all the more generous. Anger makes it all the more gentle. ... In this way temptation turns out to be a great blessing." This happens because Christians see themselves as part of God's eternal kingdom which includes the here and now. God's eternal reign is not waiting on a someday, bye and bye. God's kingdom is already breaking into our world.
The second gift of God that comes to us through Christ is the gift of being made "slaves to righteousness." When we have faith in what Jesus did for us on the cross, we are given a new relationship with God. In this relationship with God, we are forgiven for all of our sins and given a new moral standing because of our union with Jesus. To be a slave to righteousness is to have faith in the fact that you have a true and right relationship with God. When we sin, God is ready to hear us confess our sin and forgive us. We never have to fear God's anger or wrath. The disciple John wrote "If we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
The gift of righteousness does not stop with having a right relationship with God. In this new relationship with God, God will change our ideas, opinions, and relationships with other people. God sees us as righteous and God wants us to live that righteousness. The righteousness that God desires from us is an inner attitude that leads to outer behaviors. Our outer righteousness manifests itself when we act in harmony with God and with other people.
The psalmist wrote about this righteousness in Psalm 112. "Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man. Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice. Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever. He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is secure, he will have no fear; ... . He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor, his righteousness endures forever; his horn will be lifted high in honor." The righteousness God desires in us is graciousness, compassion, generosity, and steadfast trust in God.
God's third gift to us is sanctification. To be sanctified means to be made holy. When we think of the word "holy" we often associate it with our sanctuary, the baptismal font, communion and God Almighty. Holiness is not a word we associate with ourselves. It seems presumptuous to think of ourselves as being holy. After all, we've all heard the remark "He has a holier than thou attitude," and we don't want that remark directed at ourselves.
Even though we may not see ourselves as holy, God gives us the gift of holiness. By giving us holiness, God makes us into something special and sets us aside for God's own purpose. The baptismal font is holy precisely because it is used to carry out God's sacrament of baptism. We don't profane the baptismal font by using it for washing our hands or brushing our teeth in it. The water in the font is ordinary, having no intrinsic value of its own. But because of God's action in the sacrament of baptism, the font becomes holy.
It is no different for each of us. God takes each one of us, as ordinary as we are, and declares us holy. God already sees each of us as holy with a special purpose for God's kingdom. God has given each of us a set of skills, abilities, and personality to be a living example of God's kingdom right where we are at. By the way we live everyday, we demonstrate how we have been set aside by God for God's purpose. By our actions and attitudes we demonstrate to the people around us, that we are God's holy people.
With the gifts of eternal life, righteousness, and holiness, we have received from God everything we need to release us from slavery to sin. As we learn to trust in God through these gifts, we are transformed each and every day into the person that God already sees us as.
I've told you about Mike, the man I knew in college who was trapped in a sinful way of living. Now I would like to tell you about a man who was transformed by God's gifts. Stevie was a famous musician, who also struggled with drug and alcohol abuse. Stevie had accepted Jesus as his savior at an early age, but along the way his struggles carried him away from Jesus. Many years later, Stevie realized that he had messed up his life. At that time he got on his knees and cried out for God's help. A prayer that Stevie wrote was "God...I pray that I be cleansed (and) washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. Born again. I pray that I may be of use to you as you see fit. Help me that I may do my part. Amen."
At some other time, after he had gone through a detoxification program he wrote about how God was working in his life. "Altho I can get confused about life and it's lessons, I can say that I am trying very hard to learn. I can see that I am learning how to care for others and for myself. Slowly sometimes, but surely nevertheless. I can play beautiful music. This is a gift that God has given me and a gift that I do my best to use for good and give it all I have. I am loved by many of God's children for this, and because it does show that I am trying to grow in this life. God saved me among so many and I must accept that he has a purpose for me. If I am good enough for God, I should be good enough for me. Thank you, God!"
Stevie experienced God's gifts of eternal life, righteousness and holiness. Through those gifts God released Stevie from his slavery to sin. By faith Stevie knew that he was both good enough for God and himself. We too have received these same gifts: eternal life, righteousness and holiness. Through these gifts God releases us from our slavery to sin. And by faith, we can know that we are good enough for God's kingdom and to be God's holy people in our world today.