Slaves or free?
by Pastor Stephen Abraham
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For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).
Dry July, devotion to a sport, dietary regimes, physical exercise – modern people are beholden to all kinds of self-imposed rules and regulations. We voluntarily subjugate ourselves to them for personal, social or ethical reasons. Many people don’t even realise they do it and accept it as normal behaviour.
Are you morally obliged to have the cricket playing on the TV every moment during summer? No! Do you have to be vegan/pescatarian/flexitarian? Not at all! Are you morally obliged to attend that Zumba class every Thursday? Of course not!
Now, none of these things is a sin. None of them is evil. In fact, they all contribute positively to many people’s lives. Are they life or death? The answer is no; they are a choice. Are some people slaves to these choices? (That’s a genuinely open question I’ll leave with you to ponder!)
Not all sin is a choice. To coin a phrase from the Maybelline makeup advertisement from the 1990s, ‘Maybe she’s born with it!’ To quote the Formula of Concord, ‘original sin is not a sin that [a person] commits; it inheres in the nature’. The confession of sins in ‘The Service – Alternative Form’ puts it this way: ‘We confess that we are born in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves’. But does that mean we are slaves to sin? By no means! ‘For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace’ (Romans 6:14).
It’s powerful to think on that point. Sin is no longer our master – Jesus is! Are we still going to sin and need God’s forgiveness? Of course! But even that highlights that sin is no longer in charge because his forgiveness is freely available. And yes, it’s important that we realise we have freedom. We can still make a real mess of things in our relationships with each other and God. Do we have to fight to avoid this? You bet! Do we need to hold each other accountable? Yes, we do. But our new Master is at work in our lives right now, leading up to eternal life with him, minus the sin!
Lord Jesus, we confess that we are born in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. But we rejoice that we are no longer slaves to sin – you are our Master. Forgive us, renew us and lead us this day. In your name, we pray, Amen.
Stephen Abraham is a retired Lutheran pastor and musician who served as a school pastor and church planter in Mawson Lakes, South Australia. Stephen retired early due to a spinal injury, leaving him largely housebound with chronic pain (documented by Lutheran Media on its Messages of Hope YouTube channel in 2014). When Stephen can, he still preaches, takes school chapels and serves his local church. He also writes and records personal songs, worship songs and Christian meditations, which he shares on his YouTube channel (youtube.com/StephenAbrahamMusic).
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