Romans 6:12-23

William F. Schnell

June 29, 2008

I often run my sermon titles by the staff one last time before they are printed in the bulletin just to see if they are sufficiently appropriate in light of the message I intend to preach.  When I flashed this sermon title at Patti Jaeger, I asked for her first impression.  She looked at the title and read: “’Freedom from Servitude.’  Makes sense to me.”  Freedom from servitude, freedom from bondage, freedom from tyranny all make sense.  But I pointed out that she had misread the title.  It was “Freedom for Servitude.”  That sounds like a contradiction in terms.  Either a person is living in freedom or living in servitude.  However I propose that it is more properly a paradoxical statement—a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true.

We live in “The Land of freedom,” which we are always happy to celebrate on the 4^th of July.  Among all the nations of the world, ours is the most free.  It was founded, in large part, by those seeking religious freedom from a state church which had been imposed upon them.  But the craving for freedom soon extended to economic and political freedom as well.  The government that developed here was not one subjecting the people to the whims of a king or ruling elite, but was rather a government “of the people, by the people and for the people. 

Still, even in “The Land of Freedom,” we are bound by many things.  We are bound by family obligations, work responsibilities, social requirements and the like.  I, for example, did not feel free to sleep in this morning (and neither did you).  Maybe we are not so free in “The Land of Freedom” as we think, or maybe we do not properly understand what freedom really means.  Pope John Paul II said: "Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought."

Some people are not free to do what they ought.  Some voices of Islamic moderation are quieted by threats of violence from Islamic extremists within their own governments.  And so they remain quiet because they do not have the right to do what they ought according to the dictates of conscience.  Americans are free to be moderate Muslims if they wish, or Jewish or Christian or nothing at all.  But once we make our choices, we are bound by the consequences of our choices.

A person who is bound is in bondage.  Therefore freedom is not unbridled license to do whatever we want whenever we want.  Indeed, unbridled license leads to the most brutal bondage of all.  People who freely choose to indulge in the pleasures of heroin, for example, will very quickly find themselves slaves to heroin—and heroin is a harsh, degrading and destructive taskmaster.  This is not the kind of freedom for which our forefathers and mothers gave their lives.  Their hope for their succeeding generations was a more righteous and responsible freedom by which we are bound to observe certain boundaries for the sake of the common good—certain bonds to constrain unbridled license.

Properly understood, freedom is the liberty to choose our servitude.  This is precisely the point Paul is making in our text for this morning as we continue our series of sermons on his letter to the Romans.  He writes: Don’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?  But 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.  You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness (Verses 16-18).

In other words, you have been “Liberated for Servitude”—liberated from sin to serve the cause of righteousness.  Paul’s letter was written to the Christian Church which had been gathered in Rome, the capital city of an expansive empire.  Roman citizens were privileged people.  They had certain rights denied to others in Roman territories, such as the right to vote, stand for civil or public office, hold property and make contracts.  Roman citizens were immune from certain taxes and other legal obligations. 

Roman citizens could not be tortured or whipped, or receive the death penalty for any crime other than treason.  And if they did receive the death penalty for treason, they were killed quickly by beheading rather than slowly upon a cross.  Both Peter and Paul were ultimately convicted of treason and executed—Peter by crucifixion because he was not a Roman citizen, and Paul by beheading because he was a Roman citizen.

The privileged citizens of Rome to whom Paul was writing not only had more privileges than others, they used those privileges to acquire more wealth and indulge in more excesses than the average Joe.  As we have seen, such excesses of the carnal nature can often lead to the most brutal kind of bondage—excesses that have historically involved drug or alcohol abuse, sexual degradation and infidelity, selfish ambition, wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner and the like.  It was the consequences of this brutal bondage to sin that had led many to seek an alternative in the early Christian church at Rome. 

Paul writes: 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.  When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.  What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?  Those things result in death! (Verses 19-21).  When the Romans were free from the control of righteousness, free from the laws God had established for their own good, free to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, what benefit did they reap? 

Ask Amy Winehouse, the pop singer whose hit autobiographical song, Rehab, begins with the following lyrics: “They tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no.”  Amy was in London while the Schnell family was there, but we did not bump into each other because she was in the hospital receiving a diagnosis of early onset emphysema from smoking cigarettes and crack cocaine.  Amy is 24 years old.  She was released from the hospital last Monday and photographed later in the day with a cigarette dangling from her mouth.

And so it goes with the unrestrained indulgence of any carnal passion.  Getting hammered tonight may be fun, but getting a hangover tomorrow is definitely not fun.  That should certainly be, if you will pardon the pun, a sobering omen of what lies ahead for anyone who develops an alcohol problem.  Taken to the extreme such indulgences enslave and destroy us.  Sometimes they also destroy the lives of those who are closest to us.  Ask Amy Winehouse’s father who has made numerous public statements regarding her problems as a desperate way to get through to her. 

But as tough as her situation is, Amy is not beyond the reach of God’s saving grace according to the witness of those who have been liberated from sin to serve another Master.  Paul continues: But 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 (Verse22).  Just like we do not always properly understand freedom, we do not always properly understand slavery. 

Slavery is not always a bad thing.  Slavery can be a very good thing if we are slaves to God.  I guarantee you that the good people from Woods Memorial Church have been slaving away this past week.  They have been sweating in the hot sun and straining under loads of building materials to provide decent and affordable housing for three Portage County families.  They are slaves to God and righteousness.  And guess what?  If their experience is like that of our workcampers, most of them will be back at it next year.  What is more, they will labor at myriad fundraisers and actually pay to go.  Why?

Because of the benefit they reap which far surpasses the price they pay.  Amy Winehouse would do well to put down her cigarette, take up a hammer and join one of these groups for a season.  She would come away a healthier, happier and holier person.  We will let our workcampers witness to the benefits they reap upon their return, so stay tuned for coming attractions.  Hopefully we will be inspired to follow their example and offer ourselves to God’s service as he opens those doors of opportunity to us.

In the meantime, let us celebrate our freedom in Jesus Christ.  Not the freedom to indulge our carnal appetites by doing whatever we want whenever we want.  That is not liberty but license, and it will enslave us and destroy us in the end.  The liberty we celebrate is the right to do what we ought as God gives us light to see it.  This is the freedom for which our founding fathers and mothers paid the supreme sacrifice—just to preserve it for us. 

Let us honor them for it.  Not only by waving the flag or marching in the parade or setting off the fireworks, but most especially by properly exercising our freedom in ways that serve the Author of liberty by serving his other children in need.  We have been “Liberated for Servitude”—set free from our bondage to sin so that we might becomes slaves to God and righteousness, and thereby heirs of a life without limit.