ESCAPE-A-SIN
What’s Holding You Back? – Part 2
Romans 6:12-23
July 3, 2005
Introduction:
How do you escape from a date that has gone sour? For most of us here today dating is a distant memory, but most of us can probably remember those social experiments that went bad quickly. The kind where you spend an evening of awkward, if not one-sided, conversation that seems to last for an eternity.
So, again, what are you to do when you find yourself in such a situation? Fake a fainting spell? Food poisoning? A sudden onslaught of the flu?
I have good news for you! Now none of that is necessary thanks to the latest technological advances from Cingular Wireless and Virgin Mobile. Recently both cell phone companies began to offer a new service they are calling “Escape-a-Date.” “Escape-a-Date” is a rescue service for those caught in dates-gone-bad.
You can preprogram your phone to ring at just the right moment to provide you with a way out if you need one. Imagine the unbearable silence of the awkward date being broken by the ringing of your cell phone and receiving an urgent summons so that you have to leave immediately.
Both of these companies offer a variety of scripted calls for just such a situation. Your phone will ring and you will hear a prerecorded message that will script for you what to say to get out of your date. Here is one example: “Oh, I can’t believe this has happened again! How could you? Okay, I’ll be there.” That is the script for your roommate who has lost her keys again and you can’t bear the thought of leaving her locked out on the porch all night while you are out on the town having a “good time.”
There are seven other scripts written to help you get out of awkward dates politely, but quickly. A spokesperson for one of the companies describes the rescue service as a lifestyle accessory for modern people who want their phone to serve them. After all who wants to stay in an uncomfortable situation any longer than necessary? Apparently this service is already becoming quite popular as it is estimated that 10,000 “Escape-a-Date” calls are being generated every month.
We see something like this at work in the sixth chapter of Romans. Paul is writing to the Roman Christians to inform them of a program designed to help them escape the clutches of something far worse than that of a groping Romeo. This morning we are going to take a close look at Romans 6:12-23 in order to learn more about Paul’s “Escape-a-Sin” program. Here are three steps to take in order to Escape-a-Sin:
1. Recognize the seriousness of your situation.
People can get themselves into all kinds of trouble when they fail to recognize the seriousness of the situation in which they find themselves. The full story of what happen to this young girl who disappeared in Aruba may never come out. But by all accounts she willing left the bar with the three men who are now in police custody. Assuming (and that is all I am doing) that they did in fact have something to do with her disappearance, it is apparent that by the time she realized the seriousness of her situation it was already too late – no computer generated fake phone call could help.
Have you ever toyed with sin until you realized it was too late? Paul tells us that we need to recognize the seriousness of our situation. Just how serious is it?
23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
From this verse we learn that the stakes are very high. The wages of sin is death while the free gift of God is eternal life. So we see that we are literally in a spiritual life or death situation. Recognizing the seriousness of this situation is the first step to escaping from sin.
Radio personality Paul Harvey tells the story of how an Eskimo kills a wolf. The account is grisly, yet it offers fresh insight into the consuming, self-destructive nature of sin. “First, the Eskimo coats his knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another layer of blood, and another, until the blade is completely concealed by frozen blood. Next, the hunter fixes his knife in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the source of the scent and discovers the bait, he licks it, tasting the fresh frozen blood. He begins to lick faster, more and more vigorously, lapping the blade until the keen edge is bare. Feverishly now, harder and harder the wolf licks the blade in the arctic night.
So great becomes his craving for blood that the wolf does not notice the razor-sharp sting of the naked blade on his own tongue, nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is being satisfied by his own warm blood. His carnivorous appetite just craves more--until the dawn finds him dead in the snow!”
That is exactly how sin operates. In James 1:14-16 the Bible says, “Each of you is tempted when you are dragged away by your own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters.”
Indeed, don’t be deceived. Recognize the seriousness of your situation. Recognize the seriousness of sin. And then …
2. Evaluate your available options.
Then next step is to evaluate your available options. First, you need to learn what options are available to you. Then you need to evaluate those options to learn which one is the best to go with.
Paul tells us that we ultimately have only two options to choose from and both of them result in us being in slavery to something. Slavery is not something that we like to talk about, but it is something that I will be talking about quite a bit this morning. Because the only choice we have is what we are going to be in slavery to, but we will indeed be in slavery either way.
16Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Paul is saying that no matter which way you choose you will be the slave of the way you choose. Phillip Brooks said, “No man in this world attains to freedom from slavery except by entrance into some higher servitude. There is no such thing as an entirely free man conceivable.”
Bob Dylan captured this idea in his song “Gotta Serve Somebody.” Dylan sang:
You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride,
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side,
You may be workin’ in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair,
You may be somebody’ mistress, may be somebody’s heir.
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed.
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.
In light of this isn’t it interesting how many people put off giving their lives to Christ because they don’t want to give up their freedom to do what they want – their freedom to live their life their own way. They don’t even realize that their so-called freedom is actually slavery to sin. The only freedom they have is found in verse twenty:
20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
The only freedom they had was the freedom from the control of righteousness. In other words they had no righteous control over their lives. In areas of morality they had no control over themselves to make themselves do what was right.
This is a very undesirable freedom to have. This is what frustrated Paul so much in his pre-Christian state that he said in Romans 7:18, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” What kind of hell would it be to have the desire to do what is right, but not have the ability to do it? And they call that freedom?
Clearly if we are going to be in slavery to something we had bettered evaluate our options and see which form of slavery we really want to be in.
A gem dealer was strolling the aisles at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show when he noticed a blue-violet stone the size and shape of a potato. He looked it over, then, as calmly as possible, asked the vendor, “You want $15 for this?” The vendor, realizing the rock wasn’t as pretty as others in the bin, quickly lowered the price to $10 hoping to make a sale before the man lost interest. The man quickly took him up on his offer.
The stone has since been certified as a 1,905-carat natural star sapphire, about 800 carats larger than the largest stone of its kind previously known. It was appraised at $2.28 million.
This vendor missed out on the sale of lifetime by virtually giving away a product of immense value all because he didn’t bother to appraise its worth – he didn’t bother to evaluate it. Let us not make the same careless mistake in our lives.
Let’s take a moment right now to evaluate the two options before us all. Let’s look at which choice has the better benefits.
Option A: Slavery to Sin
20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
Let’s look at both the short-term and long-term payoffs of each of these choices. The short-term payoff for slavery to sin is shame. The only benefit your reap in this lifetime is shame for all the things you’ve done wrong. Shame because you have tried on your own to do what is right from time to time, but you have always failed.
And the long-term payoff for slavery to sin is death. Not just physical death – we all die – but spiritual death. Spiritual death is eternal separation from God and his blessings in a place the Bible calls hell.
So far I would say that this option is not looking too favorable, but let’s check our other option before we rush to judgment.
Option B: Slavery to God
22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
Again let’s look at both the short-term and the long-term payoffs. The short-term payoff for slavery to God is holiness. What is holiness? The Message puts it this way: “A whole, healed, put-together life right now.” Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to have a whole, healed, put-together life right now? Holiness means that God has forgiven me for the sins I have committed and has cleansed me from the defilement that I got from committing those sins.
It is kind of like when you were a kid and you didn’t listen to your mother when she told you not to go out and play in the mud puddle. Not only did you disobey your mom, but you also got really dirty in the process. So you not only needed your mother’s forgiveness, but you also needed her to help clean you up.
That is a picture of what God is willing to do for us if we will become his slaves. The apostle John put it this way in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” So far this looks like an incredible deal, but this is only the short-term payoff.
The long-term payoff for slavery to God is eternal life. Again this doesn’t mean that you will never die. We will all die one day. It means that when you die your spirit will go right on living only instead of living inside of your body it will then be living in the presence of God in heaven. Then one day when God has had enough of this world he is going to send Jesus back to earth. When Jesus comes back he is going to raise your old dead body and transform it into a glorious new body that will never know death, disease or disability. At that time your spirit – the real you – will be reunited with your new body and you will live forever on a completely transformed earth – a sinless paradise. And you thought the short-term payoff alone sounded good! This isn’t merely good news. This is the greatest news ever told!
Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God with all of these amazing benefits included, why in the world would you want to go back? Now that you have evaluated the options and found that it is no contest – there is no comparison – slavery to God is clearly infinitely more beneficial than slavery to sin and self, what do you do?
3. Take decisive action.
General Stonewall Jackson’s army once found itself on one side of a river when it needed to be on the other side. After telling his engineers to plan and build a bridge so the army could cross, he called his wagon master in to tell him that it was urgent the wagon train cross the river as soon as possible. The wagon master started gathering all the logs, rocks and fence rails he could find and built a bridge. Long before daylight General Jackson was told by his wagon master all the wagons and artillery had crossed the river. General Jackson asked where are the engineers and what are they doing? The wagon master’s only reply was that they were in their tent drawing up plans for a bridge.
When the Lord comes back you don’t want him to find you in your tent still drawing up plans for all of the good that you intend to do some day.
In order to Escape-a-Sin you must (1) recognize the seriousness of your situation; (2) evaluate your available resources; and (3) take decisive action.
19Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.
In this verse Paul tells us that we should now serve God just as we used to serve sin. We should now serve God will all of the passion and enthusiasm we used to serve sin with. We should now be as totally devoted to God as we used to be to ourselves.
This decisive action is really a decisive decision – a decision to give myself wholly to God. Paul says to offer yourself as a slave to righteousness. That means that you have a choice. You can choose which kind of slavery you will be in. And because you have the freedom to choose you will be responsible for your choice – you will be held accountable for the decision you make.
12Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires…14For sin shall no longer be your master…
Did you get that? Paul said don’t let sin reign. That means that if sin is reigning in your life it is only because you are letting it reign – it is only because you are allowing it to be your master.
13…offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.
You only have two options this morning as a Christian. You can choose to go back to your old way of life – back to slavery to sin and the things of which you are now ashamed. Or you can make a complete surrender of your life to the lordship and leadership of Jesus Christ.
Conclusion:
Offer every part of your life to him. Sell out completely for Jesus. Don’t hold anything back. Have you been holding something back? Offer it to him this morning. Don’t give sin a foothold from which to reign and rule in your life a moment longer. When you make this full surrender to God it will lead you into holiness. That means that you will find the power to live a holy life – a life that is pleasing to God.
You know when you buy toys for your kids or grandkids often times on the package in fine print are these words: “Batteries not included.” Do you know what that means? It means that you get the toy, but the power to make it work is not included.
That is not the kind of gift that God gives. God’s gift of holiness includes the power of the fullness of the Holy Spirit – the power to make it work.
*All Scripture references are from the TNIV unless otherwise noted.
**Please email me if you use this message or a revision of it. Thank you!
steveamanda8297@hotmail.com
Sources:
Everett F. Harrison, Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 10, “Romans.”
Homiletics, “Escape-a-Date,” May-June 2005.
