They say if you can remember the 60s you weren’t really there. Well, I don’t know about that. I’m pretty sure I was there and despite how long ago it was there are still things I can remember about it. I guess the thing that most memorable about the 60s for those of you who aren’t as old as I am, was that it was the era of liberation and protest. There were the anti Vietnam war protests, there were protests for women’s lib, there were protests for black rights, workers rights; protests against Apartheid; you name it. And it was all about seeking freedom for all people. The 60s were the years of free love, freedom of choice, freedom to make up your own mind about everything from clothes to morality. And the result was that each generation since has been careful to ensure that their freedoms and rights are preserved at all cost. In fact it wouldn’t be far off the mark to say that freedom, particularly personal freedom, with the right to choose what we will, is the core value of our culture today.
Not that the desire for freedom is anything new of course. It’s always been a fundamental human desire, even need. Even in cultures like those of Bible times, when slavery was a fact of life for many, freedom was longed for.
Yet what we’ve discovered so far in the first 6 chapters of Romans is that ultimately none of us can ever be really free, none of us has a real choice, without Christ. Without Christ we’re told, we’re slaves to sin.
So what does it mean to be a slave? Well, it means no choice. Slaves do what their master tells them. It means no freedom. Slaves go where they’re told, live we’re they’re told, get up, go to bed, work, when they’re told.
But at least there’s a sense in which that sort of slavery is outside their control. People are born into it. They have no say over it. And because they have no choice they can still protest against it, in their minds at least. But what if we actually chose to enter into the slavery of sin. Then it would be even worse.
There’s actually an OT image that Paul may be thinking of when he talks about people presenting themselves to someone as obedient slaves. That’s the image of a slave choosing to remain in slavery to a good master even though he could go free. (Exo 21:2-6 NRSV) "When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. 3If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone. 5But if the slave declares, "I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out a free person," 6then his master shall bring him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him for life."
Now notice that his slavery at first is a limited thing. It lasts for 6 years, then the slave is set free. But if a slave chooses to remain in the service of his master, his slavery is then for life. This may well be what Paul has in mind when he says, in v2, "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?"
Having been rescued from slavery by Christ’s death on the cross, having been set free to obey God, we still have a choice - we can return to the slavery of sin, or we can choose to be slaves of righteousness, i.e. slaves of God. In fact he thanks God that they have become obedient from the heart to the teaching of the gospel. Like the OT slave, they’ve decided that because they love their new master, God, they’ll submit to his authority over them, they’ll become slaves, not of sin, but of righteousness.
But notice that our culture’s belief in the importance of freedom and choice has nothing to do with the reality of being Christ’s followers. In fact it’s at odds with it. We’ll come back to this in a moment, but for now, let’s realise that we 21st century western people have quite a difficulty here. We’re so convinced of the importance of freedom and choice that we don’t want to hear that we’re slaves. We’re so used to being able to go to the supermarket and choose whichever breakfast cereal we like, whichever toothpaste we think will make our teeth the brightest; we’re so used to turning on the TV and being able to choose what to watch and if there’s nothing on TV we can go down to Mick’s Flicks and hire one of the 1000 or so videos he’s got there (plus get 3 weeklies for an extra couple of dollars); we’re so used to that sort of choice that being part of a church, taking part in it’s activities, even worshipping with God’s people each Sunday, becomes just another recreational possibility, rather than a commitment made to the one who rules our lives.
I quite liked this cartoon that Stephen showed us last week.
You see, the problem is just as Peter says as he looks down from his cloud. People are happy to have Jesus living in them, but only as a tenant, not as the landlord.
But we’ll come back to that.
What he’s saying in all this is that there are in fact only 2 choices. Just as last time we saw that there’s a contrast between being dead to sin and alive to Christ, so now we discover that there are two choices for how we’ll live our lives from now on. But neither of them gives us personal freedom. With one choice comes a renewed bondage to sin, with the other comes an imperative to obedience.
But that isn’t to say this is a bad thing. I’m sure you can think of examples of times when you’ve willingly given up your freedom because of the overriding benefits you get by doing so. An obvious example, for some, is marriage. When I got married, I gave up all sorts of freedoms I had before. I can no longer do whatever I like without considering anyone else. Now I need to consult with Di before I make decisions about what I’ll do or where I’ll go. I need to take into account that I have three children who may be affected by decisions I make. When I got married I took on new responsibilities that limited the freedom I could exercise. But you know, that loss of freedom was worth it. The benefits I gained far outweighed the loss. And so it is with us giving up our freedom to serve Christ. Look at what he says: "20When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. 22But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life."
There was a time when we were free from the need to live righteous lives. That’s because at that stage we were slaves of sin. Only sin had any control over what we did. Unfortunately though, when we were slaves to sin, our freedom from the constraints of righteousness had its drawback. The result of that slavery, in the end, was death. Not physical death but spiritual death for eternity. That of course is the fallacy not understood by those champions of liberation who pop up regularly in the media, calling for us to liberalise the moral strictures of our society. We saw it recently with the release of the film "Baise-moi." We were told that people should be free to watch what they like. Someone just this week was complaining that the film was banned because of complaints from people who hadn’t even seen it. Well, I want to know why we would need to watch something of that nature to work out that its content is unacceptable. The sad thing is that the people who champion freedom of this sort never stop to think about where freedom becomes licence, where liberation actually becomes bondage to something far worse. And they certainly don’t stop to think that the freedom to continue in immorality is a sign of slavery to sin which in the end will lead to death.
But for those who are followers of Christ there’s a different scenario altogether. Now we’ve become slaves of righteousness. And the advantage we get from that is sanctification now and eternal life in the future.
So lets think about what he means by sanctification now. This is one of those words you hear from time to time, but would rarely use in normal conversation. Basically, it means to be made holy. We could make up a word, ’holify’ perhaps and it might make more sense. So what does it mean that as a result of becoming slaves to righteousness we’re being made more holy. It sounds a bit like we might start to glow, or that we might start to come out with pious speech all the time. It certainly doesn’t sound like we’ll have more fun does it?
But that’s actually to misunderstand the meaning of holiness. Holiness has the idea of being set apart from what’s unclean or defiled and being dedicated or connected to God. So for example when Moses came near the burning bush, he was told to remove his shoes because the ground he was walking on was holy. It was special because God was there. Things placed in the Temple were holy, because they’d been set apart for use in worshipping God. There was nothing special about them apart from that. It was just that their connection with God made them special. So it is with us as we choose to becomes slaves of righteousness, God comes and dwells within us through his Holy Spirit, and that indwelling of his Spirit gives us a connection to God that makes us different, holy, right now.
Actually, if I can give you a more down-to-earth example, in our kitchen we have a chopping board that’s holy. Well, actually we have a few chopping boards, but there’s one particular one that’s reserved for sweet things, for fruit and bread, and maybe mild cheese. But if you chop up an onion on it you’re in big trouble, because the onion will defile it, make it unsuitable for its primary purpose of chopping up fruit. So we’re set aside by God for his purposes, to do what’s right and good.
And there’s also a sense in which we become holy as we take on the characteristics of God in our lifestyle. So as we live as slaves of righteousness, we begin to live in a way that mimics God’s righteous way of behaving. And so we’re set apart from those around us. We take on a purity of life that pleases God. And the longer we continue on that path, the more we become like God, that is, the more sanctified we become.
So there’s a double sense to this statement that the advantage we get is sanctification and the end is eternal life. We’re sanctified right here and now, by the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit, but at the same time we continue to be sanctified as we live lives of righteousness empowered by the Holy Spirit within us. In fact if you look down the end of today’s passage, to 7:6, you’ll see that that’s how Paul ends this section. He says: "now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit." Our sanctification, our growth in holiness develops through the new life brought about by the Holy Spirit living within us.
But as we’ll discover next week, if you’re here, this doesn’t happen automatically. This is no lay-down misère. Our final sanctification is guaranteed by Jesus’ death and resurrection, but in the meantime our growth in holiness is an ongoing struggle. We need to present ourselves to God each day as his slaves. That’ll mean giving up our rights where they conflict with his interests. It’ll mean being committed to his purposes, to his people, to his programs, not just our own.
This is possible because Jesus death on our behalf has freed us from the bondage of sin and his risen life gives us the freedom to follow him, to do what he wants us to do. But we still have to choose to do it. We still have to fight the battle in the power of the Spirit, but the power of the enemy is broken, the constraint of our sinful bodies has been removed. We’re free again to follow Christ. But that freedom can’t be separated from the constraints of holiness, of righteousness. There’s a paradox here, you see. We are free, yet at the same time we’re slaves. Thomas Cranmer found a beautiful way to describe this paradox when he wrote the service of Morning Prayer. The phrase he came up with was this: "God, whose service is perfect freedom."
This goes back to that idea we found in the passage from Ex 21, where the slave can decide that service of his master is far better than freedom to do whatever he wants. God calls us to give up our freedom, to make him our master, to submit to a new bond of slavery, slavery to righteousness, knowing that obeying God will actually enable us to live the way God originally intended. And in doing that we’ll discover that this new slavery is in fact a new freedom, because it provides us with a life that fits perfectly with God’s plan for us from the beginning. This new slavery means that we’re being made more like God each day, being made Christ-like, being prepared for eternal life. This sort of service is perfect freedom.
So how are you going to respond to this call to present yourselves to God as slaves of righteousness. Are you prepared to give up some of your so-called freedom, in order to be made truly free? Are you prepared to commit all of your life to God? Are you prepared to trust him to give you what is good? Are you prepared to trust him to make you more like him? Here is the advantage for those who commit themselves to God wholeheartedly, as slaves to righteousness: "the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life."
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