We are slaves

Romans 6:15-23 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ 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? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. ¹⁸ You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. ¹⁹ 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. ²⁰ When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. ²¹ What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! ²² 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. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In Texas, June 19th is a holiday called Juneteenth. In many places the date is also referred to as Emancipation Day or Freedom Day. The day is a reminder that on June 19, 1865, the slaves in Texas learned of their emancipation. Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas, with news the war had ended and that the slaves were now free.

Understand, the war was already over and it had been three years since the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by President Lincoln. Unbelievably, these people had remained in the bondage of slavery until they heard the major general’s message. Understandably, with the hearing of the good news, a great many of them believed, rejoiced, and began to live in their newly given freedom.

Sadly, there were those who refused the news and chose to remain with their old masters. How sad it must be for someone to be free and still live in slavery.

Sadly, this is exactly the situation for most of humanity. We all have been born into slavery – the slavery of sin. We are born slaves of Satan. There we remain until the Holy Spirit touches us through the proclamation of freedom and forgiveness won by Jesus Christ. Then through the waters of Baptism, we are reborn and become slaves to another Master – Jesus Christ.

In Romans 6, the apostle Paul uses slavery as an illustration. He writes, “I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves.” If he were writing today he might have written a sentence like this: “I know that this is difficult to understand, so let me put this into familiar terms for you.” He is using picture language to help us understand the spiritual reality of our condition.

Paul writes, “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?” We are by our very nature, slaves to sin, slaves to Satan, slaves to our inborn sinful nature which we call our Old Adam.

Have you ever met this person called your Old Adam? All you have to do is look in the mirror. He is staring right back at you. Your Old Adam is like a frat boy. He is the life of the party. The part that is inside of you that everyone wants to hang out with. Old Adam is a selfish, arrogant, egocentric, gluttonous, drunken, philandering, self-idolizing party animal. If they ever every make a movie about him, they’d probably cast Will Farrell or Charlie Sheen for the part.

Your Old Adam cannot be fixed. He doesn’t respond to education and certainly cannot be made better by mom’s nagging. He is beyond renovation, rehab or repair. Even when he hears the Word of God, he gets it wrong. When your Old Adam hears God’s Law, he tries to justify himself with his own legalisms and loopholes and pious works which aren’t nearly as good as he imagines they are. And when he hears the Gospel, the good news of God’s grace in Jesus for sinners, he turns into a license to sin. That’s why Paul asks, “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?”

You may be able to dress up your Old Adam for Sundays and patch up his manners for polite company, but deep down Old Adam is the frat boy he always was. And his sole aim in life is to serve the law of sin.

Because of the Old Adam that lives and breathes and parties inside of each one of us, we are slaves – slaves to sin, slaves to self, slaves to Satan. Because of our sinful nature, we no longer possess the capability to think without impure thoughts popping into our minds, to speak without hurtful or inappropriate words pouring from our mouths, or to act with proper motives. When sin calls, our nature jumps to serve.

But there is a price to pay for all this sin. We cannot slap God in the face without there being a divine repercussion. We cannot transgress God’s holy will without there being divine punishment. We cannot trespass against God’s perfect commandments without there being divine justice. There is a cost to all of our sin – all our sins of habit, all our sins of choice, all our sins of neglect or willful disobedience. There is a cost … and it is a hefty one!

Scripture is clear: “The wages of sin is death.”

One day every one of us will lie inside our own casket, for death will claim every one of us, for we are all sinners. Paul states it clearly, “You are slaves to sin, which leads to death.” Master sin is going to kill us.

And there is nothing we can do about it.

But there is another who wishes to be our Master. His name is Jesus Christ. Like Juneteenth Day, the war has been won and our emancipation has already been proclaimed. Paul continues, “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”

Sin put you in prison. Sin locked you behind the bars of guilt and shame and deception and fear. Sin made you its slave. Sin did nothing but shackle you to the wall of misery. But Jesus took on human flesh and blood in order to save you from your sinful flesh. He kept all the laws of God you have ever broken. He received the retribution for the times you slapped God in His face. He made a choice in eternity to save you from your sinful choices. He was obedient to the will of His Father for every act of your willful disobedience. He put you right with God after your sin made you right with the devil.

Jesus Christ came and paid your bail. He served your time. He endured God’s wrath. He satisfied the penalty and set you free.

The only ways to legally be set free from the bondage of slavery is by paying a price to the master or by declaration of a person in authority. God did both. Jesus paid the ransom price to buy you back from the devil – not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood (1 Peter 1:18). Then God the Father declared you justified, innocent of any wrongdoing, and free to go – all based on the life, work and death of His Son.

The only way to be set free from the prison of sin is to serve its penalty. Someone has to die, either you or a heaven-sent substitute. You cannot leave prison unless there is a death. But that death has occurred—at Calvary! And when Jesus died, you died to sin’s claim on your life.

Now we serve a new Master. Paul explains, “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God.” Just as there are penalties due for your sin, so there are benefits that come with your freedom. “Now 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.”

Our new Master has placed a New Man inside each of us as Christians. But our New Man and our Old Adam don’t get along. They don’t agree on anything. The battle rages on inside of us. Our Old Adam is weak. Our New Man finds strength in Christ. Our Old Adam obeys the teachings of this world. Our New Man obeys the teachings of Scripture. Our Old Adam wishes to sleep in and worship the pillow god. Our New Man desires the praise and worship of the Triune God. Our Old Adam yearns for decadence and moral decay. Our New Man lives in the holiness and righteousness of Christ.

It may come as a shock to you, but we have no free will of our own in spiritual matters. We are not free to think whatever we want. We are not free to do whatever enters our minds. We are being directed – either by our sinful nature we were born with or by our godly spirit we were given at our baptism.

We are not free. One way or another, we are slaves. That’s why Paul, in essence, is asking in this section of Romans, which slavery do we prefer? Which outcome is more inviting to us? Do you want to be free from God and His Law and its nagging interference in your life and your choices? You can be … as long as this life endures. The evil, to which we are enslaved by nature, earns death. Paul writes, “What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!” The death Paul mentions is something deeper than the grave and more horrible to contemplate. The result of sin and in evil in your life is living without God in your life. And when you live without God in this life … you will live without God in the life to come. That is hell – separation from He who is life.

But the other slavery produces sanctification, which is righteousness and holiness. It is living for God. It is following His will. It is producing fruits of faith. Slavery to sin produces death, but slavery to Christ produces life everlasting which transcends the grave. Being a slave to Christ allows you to be a loving spouse, to be a good parent, to be a strong Christian witness, to be a great teacher, an honest factory worker, a trustworthy banker, to be a good role model. Really, being a slave to Christ allows you to be what Christ has made you to be.

But you cannot have it both ways. You cannot serve two masters. Either you serve sins and Satan, and receive death and hell, or you serve God and righteousness, and receive holiness and life everlasting.

You can accept the freedom that Christ won for you and be His willing slave, or you can walk away from Him and become the slave of death and hell. But one way or another, you are a slave.

Personally, I want to be a slave of my Savior, Jesus Christ. And I believe you do, too. But our flesh wants the other slavery. So the battle wages inside of us. So we must go into combat against ourselves. We drown our Old Adam, our sinful nature, in our baptismal waters. The only problem is that he is a good swimmer. His evil head keeps popping up. So we must daily, drown him again and again in those same baptismal waters. We do that every time we confess our sins and receive God’s absolution. We combat the sin in our life with Christ’s righteousness provided in His saving Word. We resist the strong cravings of our sinful nature by receiving the strength offered in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. We cleanse our minds of the filth of worldly thinking by reading God’s Word daily and applying His words to our lives. We fight the temptation to live for ourselves by fellowshipping with fellow believers who encourage us to remain committed Christians as we gather around Word and Sacrament.

One way or another, we are slaves. The only question is, which slavery do you prefer?

I am as confident as Paul as he writes – and note that he uses the past tense – “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.”

We are slaves serving a new Master! Amen.