Title: How’s your Master treating you?
Text: Romans 6:6 - 18
FCF: You will always be a slave to something. Thank God Christ is much kinder Master than Sin.
Point – Even the Founding Fathers knew that there were laws you could never escape. (Anarchy is never a good thing.) The question isn’t “If” we will live under laws, but whose. Christ is a much better master.
Time – Dec of Independence = 5 minutes (as abridged)
Rest of the text = 10 minutes (minus reading the scripture.)
Note: This is a July 4th Sermon, and my first. Since it actually falls on the date, I feel some obligation to make it a bit patriotic.
Note also – When it comes time for the Scripture reading, say:
“I’m actually going to read the scripture in the middle of my sermon. So, instead of the scripture right here, I’d like to read you a little story I came across:
Johnny and his sister Sally were visiting his grandparents on their farm. He was given a slingshot to play with out in the woods. He practiced in the woods, but he could never hit the target. Getting a little discouraged, he headed back for dinner.
As he was walking back he saw Grandma’s pet duck. Just out of impulse, he let the slingshot fly, hit the duck square in the head, and killed it. He was shocked and grieved. In a panic, he hid the dead duck in the wood pile, only to see his sister watching. Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing.
After lunch the next day Grandma said, "Sally, let’s wash the dishes." But Sally said, "Grandma, Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen. Then she whispered to him, "Remember the duck?" So Johnny did the dishes.
Later that day, Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing and Grandma said, "I’m sorry but I need Sally to help make supper." Sally just smiled and said, "Well, that’s all right because Johnny told me he wanted to help. She whispered again, "Remember the duck?"
So Sally went fishing and Johnny stayed to help.
After several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally’s he finally couldn’t stand it any longer.
He came to Grandma and confessed the he had killed the duck.
Grandma knelt down, gave him a hug, and said, "Sweetheart, I know. You see, I was standing at the window and I saw the whole thing. But because I love you, I forgave you. I was just wondering how long you would let Sally make a slave of you."
If you head out of here down Route 50 towards Washington, when you get to 28 and look north, you’ll see Sully Plantation. That house was built by Richard Henry Lee in 1794. Eighteen years earlier, on June 28th, 1776, he put forward a resolution – the first resolution by the Continental Congress that decided we needed to be independent. On July 2nd, that resolution was passed, and another Virginian – the one lived down 29 in Charlottesville, was charged with the duty of writing up the reasoning behind that resolution. Two days after that, on July 4th, the draft document was approved, and beginning in August and lasting for the next three months, 55 men would sign this document.
Many of them hang for this. As they proceeded to sign, one signer joked, “I’m luckier than you. This is surely our own death warrant we sign. But you see, you are far lighter than me. When I hang, I shall fall quickly. But as for you, light as you, you will no doubt merely dangle!”
As each man signed, they no doubt thought back to a year earlier when yet another Virginian, Patrick Henry declared in the Virginia House:
Gentlemen may cry, Peace! Peace! But there is no peace. Is life so dear or peace so sweet that it must be purchased with the chains of slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, Give me liberty, or give me death!
As far as Jefferson was concerned, King George III was an overbearing tyrant, enslaving his colonists to his will. Only 100 years before, when King Charles I behaved the exact same way, his countrymen beheaded him. The eleven years that followed were so bad that country had to beg his son Charles II to come back and be king. Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry – these patriots all knew that “no law” just meant a really just another bad law. So, Lee, Jefferson, and some others got together and decided that it was time to throw off a bad master, and choose a good law. It being July 4th, today, I think it would be appropriate to take a few minutes here and read what Jefferson wrote:
Did you notice, how of the many grievances about which Jefferson wrote, never implied that order itself or even monarchy was bad. Their biggest gripe was that the monarch himself was not enacting laws. He wouldn’t let laws be made; He wouldn’t enforce the laws that were there. It was Jefferson’s contention that King George was merely trying to impose his will as the law. And it was that which was unacceptable.
When we Virginians talk about freedom, we know what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about no law, we’re talking about good law. In declaring independence, they knew they had broken one law, but an even higher law compelled to do so. Remember Jefferson wrote:
It is their right; it is their DUTY to throw off such Government, and to provide guards for their future security.
This Declaration of Independence was not a call to throw off all law. In fact, quite the contrary – the Founding Fathers’ biggest problem with King George was that his law was bad law or no law at all. The whole point of this document was not that monarchy was somehow inherently bad – it was that this particular monarch no longer served their interests.
Well, back in Bible Times, Paul also knew a thing or two about freedom, as well. He realized that you could declare any type of independence you wanted. But, regardless of what you said or did, there were still laws. Laws of Nature you might even call them. I’d prefer to call it God’s law. Paul’s genius, and one resurrected again in 1776, was in realizing that the question wasn’t if you were going to live under laws, but whose. And, what would that law be like. Would it be a kind, beneficent law? Or, would it be the arbitrary law of sin that inevitably leads to death? Everyone realized you had to make a choice. Anarchy isn’t viable. There will always be an order – the goal is too make sure you’re under a good one.
Let’s look at Paul’s Declaration of Independence in Romans 6. I’m going to read verses 6 through 18:
6We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
15What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Do 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? 17But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, 18and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
Paul calls it pretty straight here. If you’re in sin, sin is your master. And he asks a great question: When you were in Sin, what advantage did it gain you?
When Jefferson asked this question about King George, the answer was pretty simple. It meant you couldn’t go over the Appalachian Mountains. It meant you couldn’t trade with anyone but Great Britain; and it meant everywhere you looked, there was another tax.
Sin is the same way. It traps you. It demands total loyalty, and every time you think you’ve paid the price, it demands something more.
So, for Paul, Christ himself was a Declaration of Independence from sin.
If you want to obey the laws of sin, go ahead. It’s your right. Just remember – you’re its slave. You know, even during the Revolution, it’s not as if everybody said “Hey, let’s have our own government.” At the beginning of the war, there were as many loyalists as there were rebels. In fact, if you go down to South Carolina, you’ll find out a battle that occurred in 1780. It was called the Battle of King’s Mountain. In that battle, 186 soldiers loyal to King George died, as compared to 22 rebels. Of that count, only one man was not born in the Colonies.
The people who fought on the side of the British did so because they thought King George was a better master. Indeed, most blacks who fought did so for King George, precisely because he freed slaves. In 1808, he abolished slavery in England altogether. For those people, King George was a hero. They were more than happy to follow his law, because he was good for them.
But I want to get back to Paul. He was asked the question, “How’s your master treating you?” Elsewhere, the Bible admits, Sin is pleasant for season. People who choose sin aren’t irrational idiots. They think they’re getting something out of it.
But here’s the point – Sin is a fickle master. I know; I’ve been there. Just when you think you’ve gotten something, it turns sour. It doesn’t last.
If, on the other hand, you are willing to submit in obedience, you have a kind Master who loves you. Although we didn’t read it, Romans 6:22 & 23 will go on to say:
that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Put another way – if you’re going to be subject to some type of law, you may as well choose a good one.
So, on this Independence Day, I have a question for you. What you are dependent on? As David comes up to play our closing hymn, and as we go to our Heavenly Father in prayer, I want to ask you again – How’s your Master treating you? Are you dependent on Nature’s God, the very author of liberty himself? His free gift, his grace, is that you can become his very son. If you haven’t declared yourself on his side, you can do so today.
And, if you have, how faithful have been to the King you’ve chosen? Which side of the battle are you fighting? Whoever you obey, that’s your Master. If you are trapped in Sin, you’re no better than a Benedict Arnold. But guess what, your Master is kind. He will take you back.
Please, pray with me now.
