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Sermons

"SAY NO TO SLAVE LABOR WAGES!"
EPISTLE SCRIPTURE TEXT:
ROMANS 6:11-23

DAVE RING, PASTOR
LOS ALAMOS 1ST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
SUNDAY MORNING, JULY 12, 2009

SCRIPTURE TEXT: 11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey-whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 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! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. -- (Romans 6:11-23, New International Version)

MESSAGE: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." To begin our message today, I invite you to take out your hymnals for a few moments. I'm not going to try to get you to sing - that's First Light's and Jim Beinke's territory - but we are going to take a look at three hymns and the words of those hymns. First turn to Hymn 333, "I'm Gonna Sing When the Spirit Says Sing." Consider the words thereof - they're simple, clear, repetitive. "I'm gonna sing when the Spirit says sing, I'm gonna sing when the Spirit says sing…" Now turn to Hymn 375, "There Is a Balm in Gilead." "A balm…to heal the sin sick soul." "Don't ever feel discouraged…there is a balm…to make the wounded whole." Simple words -- and powerful encouragement to hold on - healing is coming in Jesus. One more. Turn to Hymn 404, "Every Time I Feel the Spirit." "Yes, every time I feel the Spirit moving in my heart, I will pray." Again - simple, powerful, memorable, repeated words and phrases.

All three of these hymns are African-American spirituals. They're just a sampling of many such to be found in church music today. They were born out of the experience of slavery. They're simple melodies with easy to remember words. Sometimes the rhythms trip up Anglos, but that's our lack. There's some sadness evident in these African-American spirituals - but it's always overcome by hope -- hope in Jesus. In the midst of the cruel experience of slavery, millions of African-Americans placed their hope - in Jesus.

You and I have never, praise God, had the awful experience of living in slavery. We have no real idea of the life-conditions these 18th and 19th century African-Americans faced. Slavery was abolished in our land more than a century ago. Sadly, human slavery is experiencing a contemporary resurgence in some parts of Africa and Asia. But for the most part, we here present have no need to ever fear being forced into slavery.

That being said, it's still possible to become a slave - right here, right now. Satan - the devil, the adversary of both God and man - is looking for slaves. His demon legions are loose on this earth, and they're recruiting daily. They employ a highly effective tool, a tantalizing bait that lures millions into the devil's snare. It's called "sin." Through sin, countless numbers of precious people are actually volunteering - for eternal slavery.

More often than some of you might think, folks in Los Alamos ask me why I don't preach more about the devil and hell and the dangers of damnation. I don't emphasize those things because, frankly, I don't consider them to be at the heart of the gospel. The focus of the gospel is God's love in Jesus Christ. God wants to save you, not condemn you.

That being said, nonetheless Satan, for his part, still desires to fill up hell. He's ultimately headed for defeat at the hands of Jesus, but right now he's still busy at his chosen pursuit - continuously and relentlessly opposing all that is good and right. And, being the subtle adversary that he is, Satan has managed to twist a good idea into bad behavior for a lot of would-be Christians. I know I'm headed for trouble by daring to deal with this, but I'm a Methodist preacher - so I can't sidestep it. That "good idea" which Satan has expertly twisted into something not at all good is "once saved, always saved."

"Once saved, always saved," properly understood, may be correct theology. But improperly applied, it results in lousy behavior. I know hundreds of folks, some of them in my own family and among my closest friends, who think "once saved, always saved" gives them license to sin to the uttermost. "I accepted Jesus back when I was 11 years old, so that means I can be a drunk, smoke crack, cheat on my husband, abuse my kids, break the law, live with my girlfriend without getting married, tell lies by the bushel, even murder people I don't like - and still go to heaven."

Sorry, church people, but if that's really what "once saved, always saved" means, then I'd rather have you worry about the possibility of losing your salvation. For United Methodist theology, while not denying "once saved, always saved," also says, "You shall know them by their fruits." Actually Jesus is the first one who said that - check out Matthew 7:16.

This really isn't a new issue. It's been with the Christian faith from the very outset. If, as Christians believe, salvation is by God's grace alone, then doesn't that free us up to be just as bad as we want to be? The apostle Paul got into this discussion with the first generation of members of the church in Rome. He put it this way, "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!"

Remember now - Paul, in this letter, is addressing himself to "church people," not to the unchurched public. He is warning them that if they persist in sinning they will again become slaves to sin. He is telling them that, in the flesh, they are weaker than they might think. So when they fall -- and sin again becomes their master, they're in serious trouble. For the headmaster of all sin is - guess who - Satan. Paul is worried -- that deliberately, willfully sinful Christians will again become slaves to the devil. If that's not losing your salvation, I don't know what is.

Oh yes, even though I'm a preacher, I fully realize that sin can be highly attractive. Sin, in the short run, can be intensely gratifying. If it weren't, the devil would never successfully tempt anyone. Who'd try sinning if it was painful from the outset? Who'd lie if it didn't gain the liar some temporary advantage over those who tell the truth? Who'd fornicate if it weren't pleasurable? Who'd steal a car if they didn't think they'd get away with it? Sin can be exciting and lots of fun - for a while.
I was out fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. My friend, Mike, and I had anchored his boat in a spot about six miles offshore near a sunken shrimp boat. The old sunken boat should provide shelter for fish of various kinds and sizes, so we expected it to be a good location to put out our lines. Sure enough, we had good luck. We were soon catching all sorts of fish, mostly those we simply threw back but also a few larger speckled trout that we put on ice for later cooking and eating.

Mike had also brought along a couple of heavy-duty poles and lines rigged for shark fishing. I'd never before deliberately fished for sharks, but with the increasing numbers of them reported in the Gulf, plus the alarming increase in the incidence of shark bites in U. S. coastal waters, I figured it wouldn't hurt to remove a few of them from the water. Maybe we'd catch a really big one -- that should be fun.

We caught four relatively small sharks that day. The strange thing I thereby discovered about shark fishing is that it really isn't fun at all. Once you catch a shark, you rapidly wish you hadn't. When a shark is brought out of the water, it instantly becomes a whirling flurry of flashing teeth. Getting the hook out of a shark's mouth is a lost cause. Anything within its flopping, squirming, wriggling reach is going to be bitten -- wood, metal, plastic, fiberglass, flesh. And a shark doesn't cease biting until it's completely dead. The shark fishing fun I had expected to have was transformed into a lot of hard work punctuated by more than one moment of sheer terror. And those were just smaller sharks.

My shark fishing experience clearly reminded me of the consequences of sin in human life. Considered from the outside, sin really seems exciting, attractive, fun. But once you're hooked -- caught in the cycle of sin -- it becomes a very different experience. All sins have consequences; they turn around and bite us. In the long run, sin always hurts. After the initial pleasure of sin is long gone, we have to endure the consequences of sin. At that point, we - too late -- wish we hadn't gotten involved in sin in the first place!

Ultimately, sin has a payoff. And it's not positive, not in the least: "…the wages of sin is death." People of Los Alamos First United Methodist Church: Don't fall for the devil's lure. Say "No" to Satan's brand of slavery. Say "No" to slave labor wages! Rather "…count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus! Amen.

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