Baptized means freed to serve righteousness

Sermon for Trinity 7

Romans 6:19-23 + Mark 8:1-9

Jesus’ miracle of the Feeding of the Four Thousand puts the grace and goodness of God on display—not just His grace toward sinful mankind in general, in that He wants to give away free salvation to everyone, and freely gave His Son into death so that all might be saved, but, in particular, this miracle account highlights God’s love and compassion toward those who acknowledge His grace, toward those who love Him, who follow Him because He is good and gracious, who care what He has to say. Those crowds in our Gospel had spent days away from their homes, had followed Jesus out into the wilderness, not to see spectacular signs and wonders, like the time when He fed the 5,000, but just to be near Him, and to be taught by Him. And, as a result, they witnessed how God, in His grace, takes care of His own and rewards their devotion. It’s a little illustration of what Jesus said to His disciples, Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, will receive a hundred times as much, and will inherit eternal life. Those of you who are members of this little church are members here precisely because you were willing to give up some earthly things for the sake of Jesus’ name. And you can count on God to take special care of you because of it, as long as you remain faithful to His Word above all things.

Today, let’s focus on the effects God’s grace is intended to have on the recipients of it, combined with the promise of what we will receive in the end. For that, we turn to the Epistle from the end of Romans 6.

Now, last week, we read the first part of Romans 6, about how Baptism tied us to Christ, to His death and burial. And there are two ways in which that’s true. First, by being tied to Christ’s death through Baptism, combined, of course, with faith, we get credit for having died the death we deserved because of our sins. It’s as if we ourselves had paid the price, because Christ paid the price for us, and we’re united to Him in Holy Baptism. But here’s the other way in which we’re united to His death. Just as Christ died to sin, so those who are tied to His death are to consider themselves dead to sin, as in, no longer wanting to have anything to do with it. We’re dead to it! And just as Christ was raised to a new and everlasting life, so we who are tied to His death are to live, every day, a new and holy life. That was the message in last week’s Epistle from the first verses of Romans 6. Baptism has freed you, not to go on sinning, but to serve God in righteousness.

Paul continues the thought into today’s reading from the end of Romans 6. God’s grace and goodness in sending His Son to die for our sins hasn’t only brought people to faith in Christ. God’s grace transforms believers into new people. St. Paul speaks to those new people in today’s Epistle and gives us some necessary guidance for our new life. He uses the analogy of slavery or servitude—a slavery to sin, on the one hand, and a slavery to righteousness on the other. And the apostle himself admits that it’s not a perfect analogy, although what it teaches is perfectly true. I am speaking in human terms, he says, because of the weakness of your flesh. In other words, I’m using the example of slavery because that’s all you’re familiar with; it is (or it certainly was, at Paul’s time) a common practice in the world. It doesn’t perfectly reflect what the new life in Christ is supposed to look like. But there is a comparison to be made. And so the apostle makes it.

As you presented your members (that is, the members of your body) as slaves to uncleanness and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness (that is, before you were baptized into Christ, before you were called to repentance and faith), so now (now that you have tasted the grace of God and have been baptized into Christ and have been called to a new Christian life) present your members as “slaves” to righteousness leading to holiness. It’s a graphic image, presenting your members, your hands, your feet, and everything else, to serve uncleanness as a slave. “Here, sin! Here, lawlessness! Here, uncleanness! I present myself to you! I am in your service!” That’s a good description of the life of the unbeliever. Not that anyone consciously says such a thing. But if you’re not born again of water and the Spirit, you’re not living for God. You’re living for yourself, and, maybe, for your made-up gods. Worshiping a god that is not the true God is uncleanness. Not caring about hearing and learning the Word of God—that’s uncleanness. Cheating, lying, stealing, committing sexual immorality or violence, insulting others, putting other people down, those are acts of lawlessness. We see the most crass examples of it in the news every day, and in the churches where God’s name is blasphemed by their blatantly false teachings. But Paul isn’t only talking about the worst of the worst in the pagan world or among the false Christians. He’s talking about all the Christians in Rome before they became Christians.

Now that you’re Christians, he says, the opposite should be true. Present your members as slaves to righteousness, which leads to holiness as opposed to uncleanness. “Here, righteousness! Here, Lord! I now present myself to You! I am now in Your service! Here I am, to do what is right today, even if it’s hard, even if my sinful flesh rebels against it. Here I am, O righteousness, as your willing slave, to turn away from everything evil, everything ugly, everything disobedient, everything self-serving. Lead me, O God, in the ways of righteousness, and goodness, and love! I am Yours to command! Not my will, but Yours be done!” That’s presenting your members as slaves to righteousness.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. Before your conversion, when you obeyed your sinful desires, when you gave into temptation easily, when you worked for sin, you were free, all right. Free to live in filth. Free to degrade your bodies. Free to carouse with the rest of the damned and with the detestable demons. The world thinks of those things as freedom, but in reality, it’s slavery to sin. The only thing you’re free from, as an unbeliever, is righteousness, free from what is good and right, free from being in communion with your Creator, who is goodness itself and who always does what is right.

What fruit did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. What fruit, what benefit did you really have when you were living free from righteousness, when you were serving sin as its slave? It may have felt good for a moment. You may have gotten ahead in earthly ways. But now that you know God, now that you know Christ, now that, as Christians, you see sin for what it really is, now you’re ashamed of your sinful behavior, not proud of it. Now you know that living like that, living a life that’s separated from God, is not only useless. It ends in death. And here, Paul is obviously not just talking about physical death, which Christians also experience. He’s talking about eternal death and separation from God. He’s talking about a resurrection to condemnation and spending eternity with the devil, in a lake of burning fire. That’s what the slavery of sin leads to.

But now—now that you have been freed from sin and made slaves to God, you have your fruit leading to holiness, and the end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Paul loves to use that little phrase, “but now,” marking a sharp contrast between the way things were before you came to know Christ, and after. Before, the Law condemned you as a lawbreaker, which you were. But now, you have been justified through faith in Christ Jesus. Before, you were unclean before God. But now, you have been washed clean in Holy Baptism. Before, you lived as slaves of sin, and were about to receive sin’s wages, which is death. But now, you have been set free from sin—both from its guilt and also from its control. Now, you are free from sin and free to live a life that truly pleases God, not because it’s perfectly righteous, but because you, dear Christians, have been made perfectly righteous in God’s sight through Christ, and He now gladly accepts the good things you do, as you seek to live for Him, not in order to save yourself, but in order to give thanks to God for the goodness and mercy He has showered down upon you in Christ Jesus, our Lord, who gave away food to the four thousand in the wilderness after they followed Him faithfully, and who will give away eternal life and glory to all who follow Him still. Amen.