Alba 10-3-2021
THE GIFT IS BETTER THAN THE WAGES
Romans 6:23
Sin. There is that word again. It dogs us, it tempts us, and it uses us and tears us down. It is like a virus that doesn't go away. Sin is the virus that has infected the whole human race – there is no human cure for it and there is no vaccine.
There is trouble in this world. As the old saying goes, "It doesn’t take a rocket scientist" to figure out that something is desperately wrong with the human race. And it is called sin.
Sin is much like a dandelion, you can fight it your whole life and it tends to spring up again and again. Sin also works like the plant, Kudzu. So what is Kudzu?
It is a vine that when left uncontrolled will eventually grow over almost any fixed object in its proximity including other vegetation. Kudzu, over a period of several years will kill trees by blocking the sunlight.
It is native to Japan and southeast China. It was first introduced to the United States during the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 where it was touted as a great ornamental plant for its sweet-smelling blooms and sturdy vines.
And as an example of the wisdom of our government entities, from the 1930s through the 1950s, the United States Soil Conservation Service promoted it as a great tool for soil erosion control and was planted in abundance throughout the south.
Little did they know that kudzu is quite a killer, overtaking and growing over anything in its path. It grows up to a foot per day.
It is known as "Mile-a-minute" and "The vine that ate the South".
This creeping, climbing perennial vine terrorizes native plants all over the southeastern United States, and is making its way into the Midwest, Northeast, and even Oregon.
Kudzu grows out of control quickly and out-competes everything from native grasses to fully mature trees.
Kudzu looks innocent enough but the invasive plant easily overtakes not only trees, but also abandoned homes and telephone poles causing a loss of plants, insects and animals.
They say that over time, these effects of habitat loss can lead to species extinctions and a loss of overall biodiversity. To control the plant the vines have to be cut near the ground and then carefully treated with one of a variety of herbicides.
They also say that the best way to deal with Kudzu and other invasive plants is to prevent them from spreading or they will kill everything in their path. The same thing is true about sin.
The problem is that sin looks innocent enough, but it also kills. Romans 6:23 says it, For the wages of sin is death.
But there's another problem. Sin is fun... for a season. Sin is always fun for a season. And sin is like eating a potato chip. You can't eat just one. One sin leads to another sin! Sin is addictive.
But eventually “the wages of sin is death.”
A wage is something that is earned. It is a payment for services rendered. Think about what it would be like the next time you went into work to get paid, the boss told you that he had decided not to pay you for the past month.
You would demand your pay because you had earned that money! It is what is owed to you. You earned your wages and expect to receive them.
My dad told be about something that happened when he was a teenager. He and his father worked with the haying crew.
It was back long enough ago when horses pulled the wagons and the hay bails had to be picked up and thrown onto the wagon by hand. It was hard work, and dad worked as hard as anyone.
He told me that when it came time to be paid, his father went to pick up the money, and my dad didn't get any. He was treated very unfairly. It changed him and made him very cautious about money after that.
When my father died, he had some savings about which my mother had no knowledge. He just didn't trust others in that area of his life. He had been treated wrongly! It was unfair that he did not receive the fruit of his labor. And he didn't want it to happen again.
How would you feel? How would you feel if you had worked at something and expected to be paid for your work. But then someone else took what was supposed to be yours?
The Word of God says that because of our sin, we have earned punishment. “The wages of sin is death.”
Those are wages I would just as soon that someone else would take instead of me. And that is just what Jesus did.
When He went to the cross, in His death He took the punishment that each one of us deserve. We have earned it, but He took it. And I say, “Praise the Lord!”
Now it’s possible that a person may sit there think, “I’m really not that bad. I’ve never killed anyone or cheated on my wife. I believe in God. I try to help people. So I don't deserve punishment.”
Of course, that ignores what it says in Galatians 3:22, the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, (NLT)
I think I can rightly assume that those of you in this room today are Christians, or what God’s Word calls the saints of God. Perhaps a danger of being in Christ for many years is that we can picture ourselves with bright and shinning halos.
By that I mean we can look at other sinners, or those whose sin is different than our own as terrible people, and perhaps even spiritually inferior to ourselves.
Yes, I know that we are fine church-going people, but we should not forget that “all have sinned” includes us as well.
So it is also possible that a person may be honest with themselves about wrongs committed and admit that, “Yes, I'm a sinner. But I have figured out a way to beat the system.”
Like the story told about Jorge Rodriquez
He was new to our country and didn't speak English. He had no lawyer the day he appeared in court for hitting a parked car while driving drunk. He went before the judge with what he thought was his “trump card.”
Rodriquez approached the bench and handed the judge a “Get Out of Jail Free” card from the game of Monopoly. He had believed someone who had told him that this card was all he needed.
I wonder if the scene on Judgment Day is not going to be all that different. Many want to change sin by calling it something else: Mistake, shortcoming, personality flaw, misunderstanding, moment of weakness, etc.
And some want to change it by reducing it, excusing the “little sins.”
But you can not find “little sin” in the Bible. All sin will destroy the individual and the society. One little leak can sink a boat, sin will eventually destroy the person.
And the wages that sin pays is death. The word “wages” comes from the Roman military describing the food rations that a soldier would receive each day.
So the point Paul is making here is that there is a daily wage that accompanies our sin. Every time we choose to sin we die a little bit.
But there is also the sense that, like most wages paid today, the payout does not happen until the work is done. So we are warned that a payday is coming for those outside of Christ.
Thankfully, Romans 6:23 does not end with the words the wages of sin is death. It continues with the promise we all need, saying that yes, death is the punishment for sin, “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Like all gifts, they must be purchased. The Lord Jesus purchased the gift for us by going to the cross.
Colossians 2:14 tells us that Jesus took our sins and they were nailed to the cross. All that was against us was taken out of the way.
He took on all our sins – every bad word, every evil thought, deed or action – He took it all. All the lies, all the stealing, all the adultery, all the fornication, all the idolatry, all the greed, all the shaming and the shunning.
He took everything that looked like, felt like and smelled like sin, and He took it all upon Himself. Isaiah 53:4-5 promised it would happen saying,
“Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,” Then in verse six it says, “the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
Taking our punishment was His gift to us. It is a gift because we don't deserve what He did for us.
In this world we might be able to earn quite a few things. By the sweat of our brow we might be able to earn a job, earn the wages to buy a house and a car.
We might be able to earn enough to pay for groceries and put a little aside for retirement. But all of that is earth bound. We don’t have the means to earn salvation. There are no heaven dollar bills that we can earn and go up to the LORD and buy our salvation.
It is a gift... a gift that is much better than the wages we earn in this life. It is free to us, but it cost Jesus greatly.
I referred earlier to sin as a virus. What kind of cure is powerful enough to neutralize the adverse effects of the poison released by the Sin virus? How are an antibodies produced?
Here's an example. Consider how the antigen is produced to fight snake venom. The venom from the snake is obtained and injected to the host animal.
When the uninfected host is injected the venom it’s pure blood forms the antivenom to fight the snake’s venom. The blood from the animal is drawn out and the produced antibodies are separated then concentrated and injected into the infected person.
Let’s unlock the principle here. An uninfected, pure host has to be injected with the venom of sin and the host’s blood which contains the antidote needs to be drawn out.
What do you think would be the status of the host when all this happens? Think of the sacrifice of the sinless host. II Corinthians 5:21 says, For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Isn’t this the exact thing that happened on the cross? Jesus lived a perfectly holy life in obedience to God and all His commandments.
He died as God’s chosen sacrifice to take away the sins of mankind. Our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to counteract the deadly poison of sin. By His blood we are made whole.
There’s no one else who can cover your sins with His own blood except Jesus. There’s no one else to go to but Jesus Christ.
Thank God there is a Savior. The Bible says there is one mediator between God and men and that’s the man Christ Jesus. There is no one else that can get us to heaven but Him.
There is no second name to be found under heaven among men whereby we may be saved.
So there is a gift, and we all need it. But what are we going to do with it? The first thing we do is to receive it. A gift does no good unless we receive it.
If I have a gift for you but you never receive it, it does you no good. If you have a gift for me, but I never receive it, it does me no good.
Scripture shows that those who receive the gift of salvation are those who have placed their faith in Jesus, repented of their sins, confessed that faith to others and are buried with Christ in baptism.
But once we have received the gift, there is still a question. What have we done with it? How have we used it? This is one gift that we should all be celebrating and praising God for everyday!
One path of life is earned, the wages of sin brings death; the other way is a gift...eternal life. The gift is definitely better!
CONCLUSION:
When Calvin Coolidge was still vice-president under President Warren G. Harding, there was a day when Coolidge was presiding over the Senate. During a heated argument, one senator angrily told another to go “straight to hell.”
The offended senator complained to Coolidge as presiding officer, and Coolidge looked up from the book he had been leafing through while listening to the debate and wittily replied.
“I’ve looked through the rule book,” he said, “You don’t have to go.”
Jesus didn’t go to the cross so we could have a Bible, attend church or be nice. Jesus went to the cross because we chose to sin. Because we sinned, we were destined for Hell.
But Jesus made a way, like Calvin Coolidge said, "You don’t have to go." It is because of the gift of eternal life that is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
