“Sold as Slaves to Sin”
John 1:29
It doesn’t seem like we hear people talk much about sin anymore.
I know it can be a downer of a subject, and we don’t want to over-dwell on it, but we certainly don’t want to pretend it doesn’t exist.
I know it exists in my heart, in my life.
I know I have many things I need to work out, need to deal with, something that I still need to give to God, or things I have given over to God many times, but I keep taking back.
How about you?
Can you relate?
The past few years have been incredibly unsettling for most of us.
The pandemic has changed a lot of things and many of our habits.
Suddenly people are not going into offices but working from home with a computer and a phone.
I remember thinking we were becoming increasingly “cut off” from one another before the pandemic.
The pandemic sped this up and made us drift apart even more.
Fewer and fewer people are coming to church; not only that, many of the folks coming are coming less often.
I ask people why they haven’t been around, and the story is often the same: “I got out of the habit.”
And I hear that.
It is an easy thing to do.
But just because many of us have gotten out of the habit of coming together to worship God doesn’t mean we have lost the need to do so.
It’s sort of like, just because so many of us don’t talk about sin anymore doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, doesn’t mean it doesn’t sap the joy from our lives, steal our peace and blur our relationship with God and one another.
Sin can be so deceptive that we can be unaware that we are caught in its death grip.
I remember coming to faith and speaking to someone saying, “I had no idea how unhappy I was. I thought I was happy before, but I wasn’t.”
Sin steals our joy.
It steals our humanity.
It can control us if we allow it.
I was having a conversation with another Christian a few years ago, a younger guy, so I’ll give him that.
But he said, “If it weren’t for my fear of going to hell I wouldn’t be a Christian because sin is fun.”
I was like, sin is not fun.
It may disguise itself as fun, but it brings nothing but misery, hurt, broken lives, chaos and I could go on and on and on and name the reason for just about every horrible situation in our world—sin is the reason for it.
That’s not fun!
But it is deceptive and it is part of our nature.
It’s something we must conquer but can’t conquer on our own.
The Apostle Paul expressed this when he wrote in Romans Chapter 7: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do…”
I was speaking with someone not too long ago…
…someone who had lost his wife, children, and so much more to an addiction that he spends just about all his time doing.
He told me, “Sometimes I think to myself, ‘What am I doing?’
I so want to stop, but I can’t.”
And no, we can’t.
We are, indeed, as Paul puts it, “sold as slaves to sin.”
It’s like we don’t feel that we have a choice in what we do.
We can’t help ourselves.
But there is a way out.
Someone has come to help us, to provide us a way out.
And John the Baptist announces His presence in our Gospel Lesson for this morning.
When he sees Jesus coming his way, he says something profound: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
What in the world does he mean by that?
Why does John call Jesus the Lamb of God, and what does that have to do with taking away sin?
For those familiar with the Exodus story, the phrase “Lamb of God” would bring to mind the Passover lamb, whose blood saved the Israelites from death and paved the way for their deliverance from slavery in Egypt.
We can read about it in Exodus Chapter 12.
God instructed each Israelite family to take a lamb, without defect, slaughter it, and then put its blood on the threshold of their homes, slathering it on all the sides of the door to their houses.
And then they were invited to make haste out of that door, out of their slavery in Egypt, and into a newfound freedom where they were on their way to the promised land.
And in doing this, they were born again.
And I use this language because this is what Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John Chapter 3 is all about.
Water and Spirit, that’s the exodus.
Jesus is inviting Nicodemus and us to be born of God born through the blood of Christ, the Passover Lamb shed for you and me on the Cross at Calvary.
God invited the Israelites to leave through a bloody door in Egypt.
Can you think of anything else where you leave in haste through a bloody door?
Without getting too graphic, a newborn child does that right as they enter the world.
And the Rabbis always spoke of the Exodus as a birth canal.
This was Israel’s chance to be born again.
God rescued them from the dark powers of the world.
But now, God’s Lamb brings us out of even older and darker slavery—the slavery to sin.
Jesus is the Word Who was always with God, Who was always God, but Who became flesh and lived among us, because “God so loved the world,” and that includes you, and me, and the neighbor down the street and the boss who yells at you, the bully who berates you and the homeless person begging for food and money.
He is the Lamb of God Who died on the Cross as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Jesus is The Lamb that was slain.
And so, we have sin.
But God in God’s infinite mercy and love we have an escape from sin.
God has created a way out.
And that is through the blood of His Son.
Without it we would have no hope.
And it’s offered to us for free, but it is not cheap.
For it cost Jesus His life.
And in taking up God’s offer of salvation through His Son, we set aside our old lives—in essence, killing the sinful nature—in order to live a Resurrected and new life in Him.
But are we doing it?
What we do after we say: “I do,” to Jesus’ offer of free grace is where the rubber meets the road.
And this is the part I’m not always good at, how about you?
This is where I try to bargain with God about my sin.
This is the part where I can easily get off track, lose my way, wander and leave the Lord I love…
…and even lose track of the fact that I am lost at all.
The Good News is that the Lord never leaves me.
After giving my life to God and following Christ for about eight months, when I was in my teens, I became disoriented and lost my way.
And I went back or tried to return to my old way of life.
Now the problem with this is that I had forgotten who I had been.
What I mean is that I had a picture in my mind of who the “pre-born-again” Ken was, but I was off base.
I had been changed.
I had experienced something that I would never get over and never forget…
…something that had changed my very nature.
And so, I couldn’t go back to who I was before—not really.
Instead, I became an unhappy imitation of my old self…
…a much more self-destructive version.
And I lived like that for 10 years, until, until working in the Rock and Roll Tee-Shirt Shop that I owned in a mall, I took a stand for Christ, and found that He had been standing right there next to me all that time…
…awaiting my return.
Oh, but what needless pain I had suffered during the time between.
And the time I wasted.
But, again, as I said, Christ was still there.
And I grew through that experience, and I moved on.
And I have had many other times in my Christian journey where I have struggled and then found that Jesus was right there waiting for me to get through whatever I needed to get through.
Is there anything you are going through right now, any sin that is seeking to ensnare you, take you captive once again, steal the joy of your salvation and bury the light of God’s life living in you?
Are you living without the joy and the peace of God you once experienced?
If so, Jesus is right here with you.
You can make the decision to turn from your sin and turn back to Christ.
In his book, A Case for Faith, Lee Strobel interviews an old friend of Billy Graham named Chuck Templeton.
Chuck had once walked with Jesus.
He had even been a successful evangelist.
But he had walked away from Jesus 50 years before.
“And how do you assess this Jesus?” asked Strobel, and then he writes, “I wasn’t ready for the response it would evoke.”
“Templeton’s body language softened.
“It was as if he suddenly felt relaxed and comfortable in talking about an old and dear friend.
His voice, which at times had displayed such a sharp and insistent edge, now took on a melancholy and reflective tone.
His guard seemingly down, he spoke in an unhurried pace, almost nostalgically, carefully choosing his words as he talked about Jesus.
“He was,” Templeton began, “the greatest human being who has ever lived.
He was a moral genius.
His ethical sense was unique.
He was the intrinsically wisest person I’ve ever encountered in my life or my readings.
His commitment was total and led to his own death, much to the detriment of the world.
What could one say about him except that this was a form of greatness?”
I was taken aback continues Strobel, “You sound like you really care about him.”
‘Well, yes, he is the most important thing in my life,’ came Templeton’s reply.
“ . . . Everything good I know, everything decent I know, everything pure I know, I learned from Jesus.
He cared for the oppressed and exploited.
There’s no question that he had the highest moral standard, the least duplicity, the greatest compassion, of any human being in history.
There have been many other wonderful people, but Jesus is Jesus….’
That’s when Templeton uttered the words Strobel never expected to hear from him.
“And if I may put it this way,” he said as his voice began to crack, ‘I . . . miss . . . him!”
“With that, tears flooded his eyes.
He turned his head and looked downward, raising his left hand to shield his face. His shoulders bobbed as he wept. . . .
After a few more awkward moments, he waved his hand dismissively.
Finally, quietly but adamantly, he insisted: “Enough of that.”
Do you miss Jesus?
Don’t ignore it.
Don’t say, “Enough of that!” unless it means, “I’m going to return to the One Who loves me and is waiting for me.”
As the Israelites followed God through the desert, they often got lost and off track.
They rebelled.
They didn’t listen.
But God didn’t leave them.
God didn’t give up on them.
And although the first generation didn’t get there, eventually, they made it to the land flowing with milk and honey.
Have you, at one time in your life, walked away from sin and into the arms Christ?
Have you experienced Christ’s love and the Peace of Christ which surpasses all knowledge guarding your heart and mind?
Did it change you?
Since then, have you gotten off track?
Are you off track right now?
If so, Jesus is still here with you.
You can turn from whatever sin is entangling you and turn back to Christ…you really can!
Will you?
Will you pray with me?
Lord,
I remember what it was like to walk with you in freedom and in truth.
I remember the feeling I had when my conscience was free and I was living for You.
And now, I want to turn back to you.
And I thank You that You are here.
You have waited.
You have never left me, just like You said You wouldn’t.
Forgive me for my sin.
Give me strength to turn from my sin and to walk with You again.
Thank you, Lord Jesus.
Amen.
