Listen and Watch Sermon
Pastor Tom Johnson, June 28, 2020
Back in February, we adopted a cat. He is a three-year-old rescue. The plan was for him to be our pet—for him to adapt to his new surroundings and family. He took his place in our home. It is now his dominion. We’ve adjusted to his rule. We give and receive affection when he allows. We take his swats of correction when we leave home too soon, pet him in the wrong place, try to cross a path he is blocking, or are late in giving him his food. My kids say how much sweeter he is just a few months later. That is an illusion. It’s his relenting tyranny. We have adapted—we have learned how to live with an alpha cat. We are the ones who are well-trained. We are his pets. He is the master.
Thousands of years ago in Genesis chapter 4, Scripture warns us of cats and their desire to prey upon us, subdue us, and control us. God tells Cain, like a cat ready to pounce, “Sin is crouching at the door and its desire is to exercise dominion over you. But you must master it” (Gen 4:7). Good luck with that. Sadly, and not surprisingly, Cain fails to master his resentment and anger. He kills his brother Abel. Cain is a slave to his sinful condition. He obeys the evil that binds him to his envy, anger, and pride. Cain does sin’s bidding. Sin is his master.
In our reading from Romans today, Paul tells us to not let sin exercise dominion in our mortal bodies to make us obey its passions. He asks rhetorically, “Do you not know that when you sin you are presenting yourselves as a slave to sin?” Do you realize that sin is not just the thoughts, words, and deeds? …that is also the power that holds us in bondage? Sin is obedience to our fallen human nature. Sin is slavery to evil. It means perpetrators are also victims; predators are also prey. Don’t be your own worst enemy, Scripture warns. Don’t let yourself be entangled in the chaos, confusion, and destructive forces of sin. Do not be the devil’s pawn in his wicked schemes. Don’t obey sinful urges and desires which lead to destruction.
David warns his son Solomon not to be seduced the lure and deception of sin which is personified as a seductive person: “For [their] lips drip honey, and [their] speech is smoother than oil, but it’s end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. [It leads] down to death; [it] follows the path to Sheol” (Proverbs 5:3-5). When we live as slave to sin, sin owns us. We are not free. We are voluntarily obeying sin’s commands and placing ourselves under its tyranny. And those orders may be coming from our own fallen nature, the devil, or the evil out in the world.
Last week I was walking outside my home when I saw new art on the sidewalk written in colorful chalk. It said, “Happy Juneteenth!” with a beautifully written paragraph underneath. It summarized what happened when a Union General marched troops into Texas to announce the end of slavery. The devastating truth is that many slaves did not know they were emancipated two years prior. Many did not know that the Civil War had ended. But “Truth crushed down will rise again.” They came to know the truth. It set them free. It was two years of living in slavery not knowing that they had been free. Even worse than that, it was 400 years of slavery where both slaves and slave owners were all in bondage to the lie of slavery and the sin of slavery. Slave masters were held captive by their lust for power, greed, and contempt for those they would not see as also bearing the image of God. And even though the laws had changed, many Americans of European descent were still bound to the lie of racial superiority and the hoarding of wealth and power. This is systemic racism or what the Bible calls sin. It is, as Scripture says, not keeping in step with the truth of the Gospel (Gal 2). “Jim Crow” laws held subsequent generations in bondage to generational racism. The civil rights movement up to the present struggles to deal with this systemic and corporate sin.What our Scripture reminds us of is that freedom in Christ is always there. There is freedom for the oppressed. There is freedom for those who perpetuate oppression. God wants us to be free of our insatiable appetite to give in to our sinful desires—no matter the sin—whether it is pride, unbelief, greed, lust for power, resentment, unforgiveness, violence, sexual addiction, substance abuse, lying, deceiving, conniving, envy. Sin wants to rule, control, and subjugate us. It works best when we’re not even aware of our slavery and inability to free ourselves.
With dark humor, Paul says that the crime of sin does pay. But the wage is death. “For the wages of sin is death,” he says, “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It is a free gift because we cannot free ourselves. God calls us to live our lives under the banner of freedom in Christ! He does not lord it over us. He emancipates us. He lavishes us with his free gift—eternal life. That is beautiful redundancy—free gift. Grace, gift, free. It all means God blesses us and liberates us to be the best versions of ourselves by his strength and love. Just a few chapters later in Romans, Paul writes, “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” We are no longer slaves but God’s beloved children. By the cross and empty grave, he has unshackled us from sin. In Christ, we are free to be loved. We are set free to love as God has so beautifully created us to. We are emancipated to live lives of love, righteousness, and joy.
Let us ever walk with Jesus,
Follow His example pure,
Through a world that would deceive us
And to sin our spirits lure.
Onward in His footsteps treading,
Pilgrims here, our home above,
Full of faith and hope and love,
Let us do the Father’s bidding.
Faithful Lord, with me abide;
I shall follow where You guide.
“Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus” (LSB 685, v. 1)
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