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“The
Power of Obedience”
a sermon by
Thomas L. Jenkins
Text: Romans 6: 12-23
“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, and that you, having been set free from sin, have become
slaves of righteousness.”
Dear Sisters and Brothers, as we heard last Sunday, we are dead to sin
and alive to God. And in
the history and timing of this world, we are living between the first
coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ.
What this means for us is that we almost have two personalities;
the first one is like Adam’s and Eve’s that was manipulated by the
devil to misunderstand and deny God.
Our other personality, that is the very real truth of who we now
are, which we may be very slowly discovering, is like that of Jesus
Christ, who is the truly begotten child of God the Father.
We are being told that sin does not have power over us and that we are
free from sin. What does
this mean? Every Sunday we
confess our sins in unison, and then silently ask God for forgiveness
about what we feel guilty over. Also,
all week, every time we make some kind of mistake or hurt someone, we
ask God for forgiveness.
Therefore, even the teaching that right now in Christ, we are being dead
to sin, not powered by sin, and have actually been set free from sin,
this doesn’t mean that we never sin.
What it does mean is that no matter what sins we have been
involved in, we have already been forgiven through Jesus because of the
heart of our heavenly Father.
I remember, one time in church, experiencing and realizing that when I
was feeling guilty and wrestling with something I would consider some
kind of sin in my life, I would then feel the highest level of joy
during worship. Would that make me want to sin at some level in the
future so I would feel more joy in worship? No.
But it did teach me more about the grace of God.
God’s main love is not to punish us for sin; God’s main love
is to free us from sin so we can know God’s love for us.
When I was in college, I rode from home to the university one time for
24 hours on a train. There
were a group of people sitting near me, talking about Christianity.
I did not talk with them; but, I heard one of them say, “I
would not want to be a Christian because the best thing you can be is
considered a sheep.”
A number of the most gracious and mysterious truths of the good news
from God are such things as the meek shall inherent the earth, leaders
are intelligent servants, and we as believers are slaves.
We are slaves to righteousness. And the reason God gave our
personal freedom to God’s personal freedom is so we will be set apart
from something wanting to destroy us.
What will we be set apart from? There
will be one real separation in our eternal lives.
In Jesus Christ, where our salvation is located, where our souls
are united forever, we are separated and set apart from sin and evil.
We will never be a slave to sin.
Even if we feel like that and think we are being totally
manipulated by sin, that is not our truth.
One confession of sin we may certainly pray is “Gracious God, I am
believing more of the shame that the devil is telling me about myself
than I am the truth that you are telling me, that I have the power of
obedience to your will. I
hear that I am already forgiven. Please
help me believe that.”
Because we live between the first coming of Christ and the second coming
of Christ, we do still experience our old persons like Adam and Eve.
And as God is growing our faith into understanding it better, we
experience joy that is beyond our ability to put words to.
What is the difference between a gift which is free and one that is not?
The concept of “free” is certainly basic to the definition of
gift. However, have you
ever seen someone give another person a gift and have power controlling
rules with it? “I am
giving this to you, but you may not tell anybody I gave it to you.” That is not a free gift.
“The free gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Dear Sisters and Brothers, as how seriously influential sin has been in
our lives at times, and even the questions we still have about it, we
are freed from sin, and we are eternally adopted as children of God the
Father. And God’s
ministry is committed to teaching this to us, all through our lives.
Let us pray…
Amen.
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