Daily Bread Romans 6
Daily Bread Romans 6
12 Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. 13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. 14 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.
15 Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! 16 Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. 17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. 18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.
Observation:
It would be easy to reason that since God’s grace increases when our sin increases, that we should sin more so God can dole out more grace. Paul corrects that argument in verse 1 by reasoning that since we have died to sin, we cannot continue to live in it. Part of the imagery of baptism is just as Christ overcame sin by his death on the cross, we too have died and been raised to newness of life. This is where the symbolism of immersion is so powerful. As one comes up out of the waters of baptism, the old is gone and the new is here.
And if this is the reality of one’s baptism, dying to an old way of living and be raised to a new way of life, why would anyone return to a life where sinful living becomes one’s master again. Paul uses the imagery of a slave who has received their freedom. Why would they want to return to slavery again after they have been set free?
In essence this is what a Christian is doing when they return to a sinful lifestyle after being set free by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Of course since God has left us our free will, we can choose to return to a life of slavery. And nowhere is this more apparent than how we use our bodies. Paul recognizes the weakness of our mortal bodies and how easy sin can present itself through the wrongful use of our bodies. (ie. sexual immorality, gluttony, addiction, laziness, vanity among other ways our bodies can be used in a way contrary to what God desires)
Paul turns the argument on its head and says since we have become free through Christ, we can use this same freedom to become slaves to do the right thing instead of using our freedom for self indulgence.
Application:
Christian freedom is a powerful aspect of the grace we have in Christ. The power of this grace we have in Christ is that we are free to obey God rather than obey our fallen nature. So many people miss this life changing truth, which Paul has captured so poignantly. It is amazing how much he gets our human tendency to distort the grace of God.
Unfortunately in the Church we don’t always preach this message as passionately and clearly as we should. There are many who still think that have to do enough good things to earn God’s love. They never hear the message of freedom. They never hear that death comes through life. They never hear that one must lose their life before they truly find it.
So many hold on to things that they think are giving them life, when they are only robbing them of the abundant life Jesus came to give(John 10:10) So many think being a Christian is boring or restrictive, when Jesus came to set us free to become all that we were originally meant to be. Romans 6:23 sums it up perfectly, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” The eternal life (Dallas Willard calls it the eternal kind of life) begins as soon as we receive this grace and are set free from the power of sin and use our freedom to serve God and others.
Prayer: God we have all seen the results of living a life driven by our sinful nature. But you have offered us freedom through what Jesus has done for us on the cross. Help us to use our freedom to serve you and truly find our life rather than losing it in self indulgence. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
12 Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. 13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. 14 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.
15 Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! 16 Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. 17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. 18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.
Observation:
It would be easy to reason that since God’s grace increases when our sin increases, that we should sin more so God can dole out more grace. Paul corrects that argument in verse 1 by reasoning that since we have died to sin, we cannot continue to live in it. Part of the imagery of baptism is just as Christ overcame sin by his death on the cross, we too have died and been raised to newness of life. This is where the symbolism of immersion is so powerful. As one comes up out of the waters of baptism, the old is gone and the new is here.
And if this is the reality of one’s baptism, dying to an old way of living and be raised to a new way of life, why would anyone return to a life where sinful living becomes one’s master again. Paul uses the imagery of a slave who has received their freedom. Why would they want to return to slavery again after they have been set free?
In essence this is what a Christian is doing when they return to a sinful lifestyle after being set free by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Of course since God has left us our free will, we can choose to return to a life of slavery. And nowhere is this more apparent than how we use our bodies. Paul recognizes the weakness of our mortal bodies and how easy sin can present itself through the wrongful use of our bodies. (ie. sexual immorality, gluttony, addiction, laziness, vanity among other ways our bodies can be used in a way contrary to what God desires)
Paul turns the argument on its head and says since we have become free through Christ, we can use this same freedom to become slaves to do the right thing instead of using our freedom for self indulgence.
Application:
Christian freedom is a powerful aspect of the grace we have in Christ. The power of this grace we have in Christ is that we are free to obey God rather than obey our fallen nature. So many people miss this life changing truth, which Paul has captured so poignantly. It is amazing how much he gets our human tendency to distort the grace of God.
Unfortunately in the Church we don’t always preach this message as passionately and clearly as we should. There are many who still think that have to do enough good things to earn God’s love. They never hear the message of freedom. They never hear that death comes through life. They never hear that one must lose their life before they truly find it.
So many hold on to things that they think are giving them life, when they are only robbing them of the abundant life Jesus came to give(John 10:10) So many think being a Christian is boring or restrictive, when Jesus came to set us free to become all that we were originally meant to be. Romans 6:23 sums it up perfectly, “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” The eternal life (Dallas Willard calls it the eternal kind of life) begins as soon as we receive this grace and are set free from the power of sin and use our freedom to serve God and others.
Prayer: God we have all seen the results of living a life driven by our sinful nature. But you have offered us freedom through what Jesus has done for us on the cross. Help us to use our freedom to serve you and truly find our life rather than losing it in self indulgence. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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