June 26 sermon

Text: Romans 6:12-23
Preached June 26 at Gol


Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

“In Holy Baptism our gracious heavenly Father liberates us from sin and death by joining us to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are born children of a fallen humanity; in the waters of Baptism we are reborn children of God and inheritors of eternal life. By water and the Holy Spirit we are made members of the Church which is the body of Christ. As we live with him and with his people, we grow in faith, love, and obedience to the will of God.”

Perhaps you recognize these words from the church’s liturgy for Holy Baptism. I do realize we are not baptizing anyone today, but Martin Luther was keenly aware that baptism must continue throughout our lives, and these words point to that truth: “As we live with him and with his people, we grow in faith, love, and obedience to the will of God.”

The apostle Paul has a lot to say about obedience in our second reading as well, doesn’t he? And it relates back to the reality of our baptism. In the verses just before our reading, Paul reminds us that, as children of God, we have been “brought from death to life”: “Therefore we have been buried with [Christ] by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

We are set free by our baptism into Christ. We are set free from the burden of fulfilling the law, which we can never do. We are set free from the responsibility of making ourselves acceptable to God, which we can never do. We are set free from the task of earning God’s favor, which we can never do.

This freedom we have as God’s people in Christ is a different type of freedom from what we might have in mind. Sometimes we understand freedom as the ability to do whatever we want, to follow our own desires, to live with no rules and no consequences. We can point to any number of politicians, actors, athletes, and others who seem to think they should be able to indulge their every whim regardless of the effect on their families, colleagues, and reputations.

But that is not how real freedom works, is it? We wouldn’t be free to live in safety if there were no laws to keep others from assaulting us whenever we irritate them. We wouldn’t be free to drive in safety if there were no laws keeping order on the roads. We wouldn’t be free to speak our minds or elect our leaders or enjoy our many other rights if it weren’t for the devoted people who have risked—and even sacrificed—their lives to protect those rights.

Freedom is not the same as self-indulgence. Freedom in Christ, in particular, is never self-centered. Instead, it is about the submission of our own will to God’s will. Jesus prayed in the garden as he faced his death: “not my will, but yours be done.” And he taught us to pray likewise: “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Paul reminds us that we are free from sin, free from the law, freed by grace: “For sin will have no dominion over you,” he says, “since you are not under law but under grace.” Grace frees us from the grip of sin, but grace does not pave the way for a future of comfortable, self-absorbed lounging. We are freed from slavery to sin, and we are freed for obedience to God. Grace is God’s gift to us, the gift of forgiveness and eternal life. Grace is also a gift to our neighbor, as we are freed to serve others in obedience to God’s will.

Paul understands that we are always slaves. The question is not whether we will be enslaved, but to what or to whom we will be enslaved. Will we be slaves of sin or will we be slaves of God? Will we be “instruments of wickedness” or will we be “instruments of righteousness”?

We know all too well, of course, that, even as God’s beloved children, we continue to sin. We confessed just a few minutes ago that we are “captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.” We know the reality Paul describes later in Romans when he says, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” We do not stop sinning even after God claims us as his people through Christ.

But, even though we remain sinful, we are no longer defined solely by that sin. We are, at the same time, fully righteous in God’s eyes, and that is what ultimately defines us. I have heard this explained by comparison to recovery from an addiction. A recovering addict will be the first to tell you they were enslaved by their addiction, and that reality can never be forgotten. But, once they are in recovery, the addiction no longer rules their lives in the same way. So you might say they are both addicted and recovering.

Just so, though we remain entirely sinful, we are also entirely righteous, and this righteousness comes not from us or our work, but from Christ. It is conferred on us in our baptism, when we are clothed with Christ, so that, when God looks at us, he no longer sees our sin. Instead, he sees only Christ and his righteousness, given to each of us.

So how can we continue to live in sin when our sinful selves have been crucified with Christ, drowned in the waters of baptism? Sin may be ever-present, but it no longer rules over us, and it does not have the final word. We were baptized into Christ’s death in order to share in his resurrected life.

And what does resurrected life look like? It looks like the Spirit working in and through us, drowning our sinful desires each day and creating us anew. It looks like the Spirit setting us free to follow God’s will obediently. It looks like abiding in Christ, being rooted in God’s word and fed at his table, so that the Spirit can shape our lives in conformity to Christ.

So, as God’s people, we are no longer “instruments of wickedness,” enslaved to sin. Instead, we become “instruments of righteousness,” enslaved to God. The righteousness of Christ, God’s free gift to us, bears fruit in our lives in the form of love for our neighbor.

Even the most basic of care is a visible fruit of righteousness. Consider our gospel reading, in which Jesus talks about giving a cup of cold water to one who thirsts. Such simple acts of love and charity are signs of the Spirit working in and through us.

I once gave a glass of water to a maintenance worker who was fixing the door of my seminary apartment on a hot day. He was so grateful that you’d have thought I’d given him a pile of money. It must have just been exactly what he needed at the moment.

Last week, I was on a mission trip with several young people. My work group spent most of the week weeding and painting and moving heavy furniture. The work wasn’t glamorous, but it was what needed to be done, and it was appreciated.

God’s grace through Christ makes us righteous, and righteousness bears fruit in acts of love and service like these. Christ intruded into our human lives to confront us with the ultimate picture of love and obedience. And Christ continues to intrude into each of our lives to confront us in the form of neighbors who need our care.

As God’s children, set free in Christ from our bondage to sin, we “become obedient from the heart” as “instruments of righteousness,” allowing God to work through us for the sake of a world in need.

And the end result of this righteousness is eternal life, instead of the death that comes from sin. If we will be enslaved to something—and we will—shouldn’t we be slaves to the master who gives us life? Lucky for us, God has set us free from slavery to sin and its wages of death. Through Christ, he has claimed us instead as slaves of righteousness and inheritors of eternal life.

So we live confident in the promise that nothing—not sin or law, not life or death, not anything else in all creation—can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, through whose power we serve, and in whose risen life we share eternally.

Thanks be to God! Amen.