Slaves of Righteousness
Romans 6:15-18
15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 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? 17 But 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, 18 and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
I have a friend in Winnipeg who works for the Winnipeg Jets organization, but since he was a kid he has been a Montreal Canadiens fan. He has tickets to Jets games. At those games he wears his Jets jacket, but underneath he wears a Canadiens t-shirt –close to his heart.
Bob Dylan used to sing, “You have gotta serve somebody.” It is a question of loyalty – to be loyal is to be consistent through and through. That is the heart of the point being made in today’s reading. Either we serve sin and death, or we serve righteousness and life. It is not possible to choose some of this and some of that, some of one and some of the other. We are all in on one side or the other.
Sin had us bound, had us enslaved, had us on the track of sin and on the way to death and destruction. A slavery to the teaching that we knew, a slavery to the way of life that we knew. But God in Jesus Christ broke us free from that slavery, and invited us into a different pattern of life, so that we would become slaves of righteousness, slaves of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:29,30) We were caught in a pattern of destructive slavery and we have been saved to serve the Lord of Righteousness. And so we can sing with joy:
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
We were slaves to death; but we have been freed to serve the Lord of life.
PRAYER:
God of grace and mercy, once we were slaves of sin and death, but your have saved us, that we might serve you in obedience of life and hope. We declare our loyalty to you and to you alone. In Jesus’ name. Amen.