Slaves to Something
Slaves to Something by Rev. L. John Gable
April 15, 2018
On Easter Sunday morning, now two weeks ago, even as we celebrated the glorious Good News of Christ risen from the dead to new life, so we also looked at the 6th chapter of Romans where Paul writes of our dying and rising to new life as well, by faith in Jesus Christ our Lord. Paul writes, “For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we will certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His” (6:5). He died so that we might live! Paul uses the analogy of baptism to illustrate our going down into the water as creatures of sin and being raised up again as new creations “to walk in the newness of life!” It is a beautiful image of what God has done for us in Christ, both in His death and in His resurrection.
If you recall I used the story of watching adults being baptized in the Jordan River dressed in long white linen baptismal gowns which they would save and later use as their burial shrouds; as well as the story of Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Russian author, who as a young man was arrested for being a revolutionary and sentenced to death by firing squad. But it turned out to be a mock execution as the soldiers only used blanks; yet that was Dostoevsky’s conversion experience, the turning point in his life, as he died without actually having to die and so experienced a virtual resurrection. If you were not with us on Easter Sunday I will encourage you to read or listen to that message, because it leads us to our teaching this morning from Romans 6.
The question Paul asked then and continues to ask in this lesson is the “So what?” question. What difference does what Jesus did have to do with the way I live my life today? It is the same question we heard our friends answer last week in our “Can I Get a Witness?” service. We read, “What then? Should we sin because we are no longer under the law but under grace?” Paul answers, “Of course not, because now we are new creations in Christ. We have been given the opportunity to live a new life in a new way!” But then he asks the question each of us must wrestle with today. “Do you not know…(that) you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” The new life we have in Christ is not an “anything goes, do as you please” kind of freedom because grace will cover it. No, we are all slaves to something, and we must now decide what that something will be: either to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. The decision is ours, but we need to be clear in understanding, it is one or the other of these; there is no middle ground.
“Who teaches you?” writes Dallas Willard. “Whose disciple are you? Honestly. One thing is sure: you are somebody’s disciple. You learned how to live from somebody else. There are no exceptions to this rule, for human beings are just the kind of creatures that have to learn and keep learning from others as to how to live.” So, as you enter in to this new life, who are you going to follow? What kind of person are you going to become? What kind of life will you choose to live from this moment on? Will you embrace the new life which God offers to you by submitting to the Lordship of Christ, or will you fall back in to your old patterns of behavior? It must be one or the other. There is no neutral ground; we cannot be masters and mistresses of our own destinies. One way or another we are all slaves to something.
Paul uses “slave” language throughout this teaching which is admittedly difficult for us to hear given our history as a nation, but he does so for good reason. Let me try to explain what he means, so that we can better apply this teaching. The Greek word is “doulos”, which is translated in our Scriptures as either “slave” or “servant”; Paul’s intention here is the harder word “slave.” When we think of a “servant” we think of one who has entered in to an agreement with a master or employer to work certain hours for a certain wage. During those hours, say 8:00 am-5:00 pm, it is reasonable to suggest that the servant should do whatever the master or employer asks or demands, within reason; but then after hours the servant is free to do whatever he/she pleases, on their own time. During their working hours they “belong” to their master, if you will; but in their free time they “belong” to themselves. Servanthood is a voluntary, at will, kind of relationship, and that is often how we think of our relationship with Christ. I will give Him some of my time, attention, devotion, but then save some back for myself. In effect, I will do as I please, even as I profess to “belonging” to Christ.
I heard a story once about knights who were baptized before going out to battle during the time of the Crusades. As they would enter the river they would hold their sword hands, the arms they used to wield their weapons, out of the water, so that their fighting would not be part of their Christian faith and they could do whatever they needed to do in their work. I wonder if we attempt to do something similar? We give our “all” to Jesus, but then hold a good part back for ourselves.
But that is not at all what Paul is talking about here. A “slave”, on the other
hand does not have that freedom of choice to do as they please; has no time for him or herself; there is no holding back. Every single moment of their life is devoted to their master. Quite literally, as a slave, he/she “belongs” to another, and Paul writes here that the same is true for you and me today. We are all “slaves” to something: either to sin, which leads to death, or to Christ, which leads to righteousness, and we get to decide which it will be, each of us. To whom will we submit? From whom will we take instruction? Whose disciple are we going to be? What kind of life are we going to live from this moment on?
I have mentioned before that when I was in seminary I spent one year of required field education working at a maximum security prison in Philadelphia. It was an eye-opening experience for me and one on which I continue to reflect with surprising frequency, even now over 35 years later. One of the biggest challenges for the inmates I met with then, and I know continues to be for parolees today, is the issue of recidivism, of returning again to the prison system once they have been released. The issue at the time of their release is, what kind of life am I going to live now? Am I going to see this as a chance to start over, to live a new life, in a new way, or am I going to go back to the same behaviors, the same lifestyle, the same relationships I had before that got me into trouble in the first place? That essentially is the question each of us must answer as we enter in to new life by faith in Christ, what kind of life am I going to live now? Am I going to follow the path of sin which leads to death or of Christ which leads to new life? Again, the decision is ours to make, always ours.
Of course, when we think rationally we answer, “I’m going to follow Christ, of course! What kind of fool would I have to be to choose otherwise?” But do we in actuality? Honestly?
In our Old Testament lesson this morning the prophet Jeremiah speaks for a frustrated and heartbroken God who says, “What wrong did your ancestors find in Me that they went far from Me, and went after worthless things and became worthless themselves?…Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But My people have changed their glory for something that does not profit…They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns, that can hold no water.” What kind of fool would make that kind of decision, to turn from the Living God to things that are not gods at all?
Does this sound at all familiar? What are the gods of this age, the gods of our own making, the gods which we follow and desire to satisfy, which are not gods at all? Money, pride, popularity, power, ambition, status, self, body image, safety, security, need I go on? What kind of fools are we to turn our backs on the One who leads us to new life in order to chase after idols of our own making that lead to death? We are all of us slaves to something, what will it be, and where will it lead us? This is the question each of us must ask whenever we face a new decision, when given a choice where will each path take me? Is it leading me more and more or less and less in to the becoming the person I want to be, that God wants me to be? Follow any of our decisions to their logical conclusion and then ask yourself, “Is that where I want to end up? If so, follow it; if not, turn and walk another way.
This is the two-way path scenario that Paul lays out for us here. We can either follow the path of sin and disobedience which leads to death or the path of obedience to the Lordship of Christ which leads to righteousness and new life? These are the only options we are given; it is one or the other; there is no middle ground. Like the first century believers who were asked, “Who is your Lord, Christ or Caesar”? So we are faced with the same decision today. As Jesus rightly teaches, “No one can serve two masters!”
Admittedly, Paul makes it sound like once we make the decision, one way or the other, there is no turning back, no wandering from the path, which we know in our own experience is not the case, about that we will talk in more detail in a couple of weeks, but he does make a clear cut distinction here as to what the journey looks like and where it will eventually lead us.
The decision to live for ourselves results in sin which leads to death. The decision to follow Christ leads to righteous (which we have defined as “being in a right relationship with God”) and sanctification, which is another great theological word which needs to be unpacked. Sanctification comes from the Greek word for being “set apart or made holy”, but the way Paul uses it here, it is not a completed act, but one that is on-going, continually in process. So, our righteousness or justification is a one-time, completed act, accomplished when we put our trust in Christ; but our sanctification, our growing in holiness, is an on-going act, the working out of our own salvation. The one time decision we make when we claim that “Jesus is Lord!”, then demands us to remake that same decision each and every day, in each and every new situation, from that moment on. Today I am going to be Christ’s man or woman. Today I am going to live like a disciple of Jesus Christ. That first decision to follow Jesus starts us on the “long road of obedience in the same direction which is our sanctification.” And how do we stay on that road? By the very practices that are woven in to the Christian life: regular worship, study of God’s Word, prayer, service, fellowship and the like. These are the practices which lead us and sustain us on the path of our sanctification, of our becoming more and more like Jesus.
Let me close in the same way Paul closes this section of his teaching. Perhaps we are familiar with this last verse, 6:23, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” In many ways this verse is a good summation of the Gospel message, but unfortunately it has often been used as kind of a blunt instrument when trying to share the Gospel with non-believers, almost as a way of trying to scare them in to the Kingdom, which I personally never favor. The Good News is too good to mis-use in that way.
But in context it is a good summation to all that Paul has been teaching us in these first six chapters of Romans. The point he is making is this. A “wage” is something we have earned, something we have worked for, something we have done, something we deserve for our labors. And, as we been learning from Paul all along, if we try to earn our own salvation, or work our way into God’s good favor, we always fall short. Our first and perhaps greatest sin is thinking we can be our own saviors and do it on our own, and if we take that path we get what we deserve, the wages for even our best efforts, only leads to death. “But here then is the Good News, (in contrast to that) the free gift of God, (that is the grace of God, not what we have done but what God has done for us) BUT the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Friends, we are all slaves to something. We are slaves to that which we obey; either to sin which leads to death, or to the Lordship of Jesus Christ which leads to eternal life. We cannot serve two masters.
Knowing the end result of each, the decision is ours to make, always ours. Amen.