Slaves to Sin

Romans 6:1-14

One of the more puzzling doctrines in church history is “Christian perfectionism”, developed by the Methodist societies that came from John Wesley at the end of the 18th century. Later in the middle 1800s with the evangelist Charles Finney, this doctrine became “entire sanctification.”

“Christian perfectionism” and “entire sanctification” refer to a state in the Christian life that results from a second blessing of the Holy Spirit. In this state the Christian is set free from sin; the Christian no longer sins. (As a side note, this seeking of a second blessing from the Holy Spirit was the precursor to the Pentecostal movement which began in the early 1900s.)

There are several million Christians in the US who come from traditions that hold to this doctrine, although it has been modified over the years, and we have had and may have now those in our congregation who come from such a background.

But, as I say, this is to me a very puzzling doctrine. Where is the evidence of this blessing? The history of those who claimed to have reached this exalted state reveals that the sin they said they no longer committed was nevertheless still present. An empirical analysis of Christians seems to indicate that we do indeed continue to sin, with or without a second blessing of the Holy Spirit. Would there be so many church splits if this were not the case? I do not think it is terribly difficult to see the sinfulness of other Christians. I am under no delusions about my own sinfulness.

When this doctrine is defended, the passage we read this morning from Romans is one of the texts used to justify the validity of “entire sanctification.”

In verses 2 to 4 Paul says we have “died to sin” and that we “may live a new life”. In verse 7 Paul writes: “anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”

This language certainly seems to indicate that we can no longer sin but we know that is not what Paul meant. If that were the case, then why would Paul, who wrote these words, write to Timothy and say that he was chief among sinners? Why would Paul write in the next chapter of his letter to the church in Rome:
For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.  20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

It is clear that Paul did not believe we could reach a state where we no longer sinned. In fact, he believed quite the opposite. We will continue to struggle with sin until the day comes when we are delivered from this world and are taken home to be with our Lord.

When Paul wrote that we died with Christ, he meant that it was we who died, not our sin. Sin still lives and must be dealt with.

What is Paul trying to say in this passage? There is too much in these verses for one sermon and when we pick up the series of sermons from Romans in January 2006, we will begin with this same text. This morning I want to talk about what Paul means when he says we are slaves to sin.
For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin

What does it mean to be a slave? A slave is owned by his master. A slave is controlled by his master. A slave does not do what he wants to do, he does what his master tells him to do. A master does not concern himself with what his slave wants, the slave serves the desires of the master. The master is the slave-driver, not the slave-server.

When Paul says we are slaves to sin, he tells us that sin controls us. Sin gives us our orders. We do what sin tells us to do, not what we want to do. It is evident from what Paul wrote in Chapter 7 of Romans that he had personal experience with this. He was not speaking from a vacuum. He knew what it was to struggle with sin that was his master.

How is that we become slaves to sin? How does sin become our master, our slave-driver?

It helps to think of sin as an addiction, like a drug.

We become addicted to some drugs like crack cocaine very quickly, others like marijuana or kif as they call it in Morocco, or nicotine or caffeine take a longer time to create addiction.

The addiction may be mostly physical as with crack cocaine. Someone at a party encourages you to try something you will enjoy and when you smoke it, it delivers “an intensity of pleasure completely outside the normal range of human experience. It offers the most wonderful state of consciousness, and the most intense sense of being alive, the user will ever enjoy.”

The ecstasy of this experience demands another try but the initial euphoria requires more and more of the drug and the initial experience becomes more and more difficult to achieve and the user begins to waste away physically as he or she pursues this feeling.

When you first smoke crack cocaine, you are the master. You choose to smoke it. But then it pulls you in with the pleasure it provides and you smoke again, less because you choose to but because you are pulled to that pleasure you first experienced. As you go on you have less and less choice and crack cocaine becomes the slave-driver and you are driven to steal, cheat, and deceive to get more of the drug.

Addiction is rapid with crack cocain but there are other drugs that are more gradual in their addiction. Nicotine makes many people feel good, even mildly euphoric. It can be stimulating or relaxing. You begin smoking and enjoy the stimulation it provides. Added to this may be the peer pressure or perception that it is cool to smoke and you begin to be a daily smoker.

Although there is still a physical addiction, the habitual part of the addiction is very strong. Habits form with the use of smoking. The feeling of a cigarette between your fingers is a comfortable feeling. The whole process of bringing the cigarette to your lips and inhaling and then exhaling is comfortable. Smoking begins to be associated with a range of other behaviors. A cigarette follows a cup of coffee as it does a meal. When people try to quit smoking, they have difficulty because so many activities are associated with smoking. The addiction is not just the mood swing that occurs but it is also the emotional connection with the drug.

Caffeine is a drug most of us take when we drink or eat  coffee, cola, tea or chocolate and is similar to nicotine in the way we become addicted. Caffeine is a stimulant and when we stop our intake of caffeine we can experience headaches, fatigue or drowsiness. Like nicotine, our addiction to caffeine is part physical and a large part habitual.

Addiction is physical, emotional and it is also psychological.

Eating disorders are an addiction. Anorexia which is starving yourself to make yourself thin, bulimia which is eating a lot of food and then throwing up afterwards, and overeating all have roots in emotional, psychological issues.

Someone may be anorexic because they are trying to gain the approval of their parents or peers who value being thin. Because this desire is rooted in a psychologic need, they can never be thin enough. Children who have controlling parents and are expected to be perfect can associate being thin with being perfect and so they become anorexic.

Bulimia is binge eating followed by vomiting, the use of laxatives, diuretics, or over-exercising. People also experience extreme shame during a binging episode, however vomiting relieves this and may even produce a feeling of euphoria. Many bulimics say that vomiting also gives them a sense of throwing up negative feelings, mostly shame.

Overeating is about eating for emotional reasons including the need to bury overwhelming feelings of pain or fear. Another reason can be the need to become sexually undesirable as in the case of a sexually abused child.

Addictions such as eating disorders are part physical and part habitual, but the largest part is the psychological roots that drive the behavior.

It is helpful to think of sin as an addiction because it helps us to better understand how it is that we become trapped in sin, making sin the slave-driver that controls us. Keep this in mind as I talk about some other additions.

Gambling is an addiction. There is a thrill in risking money and when you win, the euphoria makes it all worthwhile. As the addiction deepens, the amount of money that needs to be risked increases and gamblers will deprive their families of what they need to support their gambling habit. There is a sense of power from beating the system. What gamblers do not recognize is that the elaborate casinos are built from the money that is lost by gamblers. But then they think they are the ones who will beat the system.

Pornography is an addiction. People start reading or watching soft-porn and then the thrill that they get demands that the porn become more explicit. Eventually those who are addicted are no longer able to just watch or read but need to participate. There have been several well-publicized cases of ministers in the US who got caught in this downward spiral and ended up being caught with prostitutes. They were no longer in control and sin was their slave-driver.

Shopping can be an addiction. When you are feeling down, a bit depressed, go to the store and buy something and that will make you feel better. You feel good when you buy something and so you continue to shop to medicate your depression.

For similar reasons people become addicted to shoplifting. There is a thrill of risking and stealing something from a store and whenever there is a period of stress in your life or to satisfy feelings of worthlessness, you shoplift. It is not because of financial need but because of psychological need that most people shoplift.

This is how we become trapped in sin. This is how we become slaves to sin. We make a choice to do something and the physical, or emotional feeling that results or the psychological need that drives us makes us want to do it again. As we continue we develop habits that reinforce our behavior and pretty soon it is almost impossible for us to stop what it is we are doing.

This same pattern can be applied to anger. Someone has a party and you are not invited. You are irritated and you keep thinking of how rude it was for you not to be invited. All your friends were there but not you. The more you think of it the more you are upset. After all you had done so much for her, how could she not invite you? Irritation leads to resentment and you begin to see all the things this woman does that annoy you. You begin to see how hypocritical she is and resentment leads to anger. You can hardly stand to be in the same room with this woman any longer. A slight led to irritation which led to resentment and then to anger and now you have lost control. It feels good to be angry. Anger becomes a tonic that eases your pain. Anger has taken on a life of its own. It controls you. You have become the slave of anger.

Let me end this first part of the sermon with a story of being a slave to sin. When you struggle with sin that has mastery over you, keep this picture in your mind.

Thomas Costain’s history, The Three Edwards, described the life of Raynald III, a fourteenth-century duke in what is now Belgium. Grossly overweight, Raynald was commonly called by his Latin nickname, Crassus, which means “fat.”

After a violent quarrel, Raynald’s younger brother Edward led a successful revolt against him. Edward captured Raynald but did not kill him. Instead, he built a room around Raynald in the Nieuwkerk castle and promised him he could regain his title and property as soon as he was able to leave the room.

This would not have been difficult for most people since the room had several windows and a door of near-normal size, and none was locked or barred. The problem was Raynald’s size. To regain his freedom, he needed to lose weight. But Edward knew his older brother, and each day he sent a variety of delicious foods. Instead of dieting his way out of prison, Raynald grew fatter.

When Duke Edward was accused of cruelty, he had a ready answer: “My brother is not a prisoner. He may leave when he so wills.”

Raynald stayed in that room for ten years and wasn’t released until after Edward died in battle. By then his health was so ruined he died within a year … a prisoner of his own appetite.

Sin traps us and becomes our master. How can we be set free from our enslavement?

All that Raynald had to do to be set free from his imprisonment was to not eat the foods that were brought to him each day. Did someone put a knife to his throat and tell him he had to eat or he would be killed? The only knife that went near his throat was his own and that was used to bring more food to his mouth.

Every day Raynald had a choice. All he had to do was choose a short-term loss for a long-term gain and he was unable to resist. He was a slave to the sin of gluttony.

Too many people claim to be victims and say they are not responsible for their behavior. But we are responsible for our actions and despite the difficulties we faced growing up, we have choices. We can always choose. We always have choices.

We can choose to break the habits that keep us enslaved to sin.

I’ve talked before about my time in business when I traveled a lot. I stayed in many hotels and I got in the habit of going into the room and turning on the TV. I had books to read but I would watch the TV and when a program ended I would decide it was time to sleep but instead I would switch through the channels and find something else to watch and before I knew it, it was 2 in the morning. I was disgusted with my weakness and so I resolved before I went on a trip that I would not turn on the TV at all, not even to watch the news. I set out for my trip and when I went in my room that night, I sat down and read a book and that whole week, I did not watch TV. I came home feeling triumphant. I had taught my flesh that it was not the master. I was not a slave to my desires. I was able to conquer them. The next week I was able to go on a trip and watch just the news and then turn off the TV because now I was the master.

Notice two parts to how I broke my addiction to TV. First I decided before hand what I would do and not do. If your problem is gambling and you go to your computer to gamble online, then first of all take the bookmark to that site and delete it. Then resolve before you turn on the computer that you will not go to the gambling sites. If your problem is overeating, take a small bowl and determine ahead of time that you will eat only what you can put in that small bowl. One small bowl for breakfast, two for lunch and one for supper. Decide ahead of time what you will do.

It is important to consider what are the habits that surround your addiction and then anticipate what you will do and decide before you do something associated with your addiction that you will not give in to your addiction.

The second part of this story is that I cut off completely what I was doing as a way of teaching my flesh that it was not in control.

I find this helpful when I am unable to control myself with what I eat. When I find myself in this state, I determine to fast for one, two or three days. After I have done this, I am able to say no to food and my addiction to coke also is gone. We need to remind our flesh from time to time that it is not our master. We need to demonstrate that we are in control of our flesh.

We can choose to break the habits that have formed around our addiction and we can choose to break the power of sin by choosing to have accountability. If your problem is with going to pornographic sites or gambling sites on the internet, you can sign up for a service that lets friends you choose to see every site you visit. If you visit a site you don’t want to visit, not only will you know but your friends will know as well.

If you make a promise not to do something to yourself and you do it anyway, you will feel disappointed with yourself. But if you tell others you resolve not to do something and you meet with them every week or two and you know they will ask you about your activities, knowing that you will have to confess what you have done will help you resist the behavior that is addictive.

Accountability brings the shame of addiction into the light and public shame is a powerful motivator to resist your addiction.

We can break the power of sin over us by choosing to go for counseling. If the root of your addictive behavior is psychological, then going for counseling will help you break the power of the addiction. It is difficult to resist an eating disorder without getting at the roots of what is causing the disorder. Counseling is sometimes a necessary prerequisite to being set free from the power of an addiction and it is a choice. You can ignore the root problem you have or choose to deal with it.

At the end of this part of Romans Paul has a line that is at first glance and even perhaps second and third glance a bit puzzling.
For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Sin shall not be our master because we are not under the law, but under grace. How does being under grace help free us from sin which enslaves us?

When you approach your addiction to sin with the law there is no room to maneuver. There is no forgiveness. The law is broken and that is all there is to it.

But under grace there is forgiveness. When we sin we are forgiven and there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. We do not stand condemned but we stand forgiven. Our salvation is not removed from us because we sin and so when we struggle with an addiction to sin, we have the comfort and encouragement that the Holy Spirit is working in us to help us break our addiction.

This does not mean we can do whatever we like. Paul began this section by quoting the question that was asked of him, “Why not sin so grace will abound,” and as I pointed out last week that is not an option for a Christian. When we have died with Christ, we cannot willfully and deliberately sin because we have died to our own self-interest.

Paul concludes this section by saying that on the contrary, grace discourages sin. Grace that gives us God’s love, mercy and acceptance is a much more powerful motivator than the law which brings fear, guilt and judgement. Grace allows room for failure and growth, while the law accepts nothing short of perfection.

If you are struggling with an addiction to sin, I want you to take hope in the grace that is offered you. God loves you regardless of your behavior. As a Christian you are no longer under condemnation. Jesus has taken your sin on himself. He has taken not only the sin of your past but also the sin of your present and future.

Let this awareness of being loved give you strength to make choices that need to be made. Analyze your addiction. What are the habits that have formed that make your sin addictive? Choose to break those habits. Choose to confess your sin to someone else and have them hold you accountable for your actions in the future. Choose to go for counseling if that is a root of your addiction.

You have died with Christ and have been raised to new life with him.

In 1526, William Tyndale concluded his preface to the book of Romans with this quote that I put in the bulletin (I’ll read this in more modern English):
Now go to, reader … Remember that Christ made not this atonement,
that you should anger God again; neither died he for your sins,
that you should live still in them; neither did he cleanse you,
that you should return (as a swine) unto your old puddle again;
but that you should be a new creature
and live a new life after the will of God and not of the flesh.

May God give you the grace to live a new life this day and into your future.