I grew up in an area of the country, dubbed “the Bible belt,” with people who attended local churches with a doctrine that was misunderstood by most of their members’ kids.  As a teen, I remember one conversation I had specifically with one of my friends who like to party hardy with harsh consequences.  My heart ached for her (and others).  It confused me that she did things that I was taught inappropriate for a believer who wanted to follow in Jesus’ ways.  So, one day, I asked her; “Why do you do things that do not match what we say we believe?”  She was a good friend and we are still friends today! 

She was rather flippant but very assured as a teen as she responded; “I was saved and baptized into my church so I am good forever no matter what I do now.”  “I can do what I want because once saved, always saved—eternal security.”  That pretty much ended our conversation but left me further confused—until I read Paul’s explanation in this passage. 

Romans 6, The Message

When Death Becomes Life

^1-3 So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we’ve left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn’t you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!

^3-5 That’s what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we’re going in our new grace-sovereign country.

^6-11 Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer captive to sin’s demands! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did.

^12-14 That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.

What Is True Freedom?

^15-18 So, since we’re out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we’re free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it’s your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you’ve let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you’ve started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!

¹⁹ I’m using this freedom language because it’s easy to picture. You can readily recall, can’t you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God’s freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?

^20-21 As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn’t have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you’re proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.

^22-23 But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Today, decades later, some people come on any given Sunday to church, impressed with the love of Jesus and His believing people.  Church is a nice place to be treated well as opposed to other places of business.  We say we believe Jesus, too.  Good!  But we keep on doing what we did before we said it. To say I believe without allow Jesus to change our minds and transform our behaviors is like being stuck in shifting sand or like treading water in a lake with no dock in sight.  We aren’t going anywhere!

Many throw up their hands in exasperation when prompted to take next steps in growing in God’s love and His ways when it becomes too hard to let go of habitual behaviors for God’s best.  The common phrase these days is “I’m just a hot mess, but Jesus loves me, praise God.”  This is treading water.  We sink or we can swim! 

Stay with me…Yes, we’re all a mess in need of a Savior.  Paul tells us clearly, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23. Yes, Jesus loves us just the way we are, but He also loves us enough not to leave us in the mess we created.  Jesus forgives with power to change.  Jesus takes us farther and higher in His Kingdom of God thinking where our views change as we begin to see life from God’s point of view.  We no longer enjoy the mess but enjoy the goodness of God!  We want to be where He is!

As we move from the mess and offer our whole selves to God, we notice that the way we lived (behaviors) before accepting Jesus begins to transform.  Passions change within us while compassion for others is enhanced.  We begin to look less at ourselves, catering to our own self-interests, our needs and wants, and yes, our mess and begin to look at how we can help others in their need of a Savior. In other words, when Jesus is not only our Savior but is becoming Lord of our lives—everything about us changes! 

Our mess becomes our message of redemption!  We no longer live as a mess or in the mess; we live redeemed and free from the mess!  Our messy lives are no longer our “boast;” our only boast is Jesus!  He is the rescue from the mess.  Jesus’ work on a cruel cross redeemed us set us free from the mess!   

We are not perfect and Paul speaks of our imperfections but he is also telling us we cannot use our imperfections as an excuse to keep on sinning.  Admit, sometimes we take pride in our mess.  But it seems that we diminish the great and excruciating sacrifice of Jesus–our sins nailed on that cross through His flesh—when we keep on doing what he saved us from in the first place!

Will we be ever be perfect?  Not in this life, but do we give up?  No, because we are preparing for when Jesus comes back to take us home for eternity.  We keep on striving to be and do what He says because we love Him back and His ways are always best! 

We discover that the more we lean on Jesus as Lord of our whole being, changing from the inside out, He helps us when we do fall back into the same mess or some other mess.  We also notice that we see sin more readily.  Because of previous experiences, we know that by His power we can get up and run from it.  Each time we fall we are quicker to call on His name, and allow Him to pull us up and out with much quicker speed—knowing that He will.

What is eternal—

His unfailing and unchanging love— “nothing can separate us from His love” Romans 8:35-39

The inhabitance of His Holy Spirit living in us with power equaling the resurrection power that raised Jesus from death to life everlasting!  This same power works in all believers who are becoming devoted disciples as they leave the mess, seeking to be transformed by Jesus as Lord.

Jesus’ aggressive forgiveness called grace that sets us right with God.  We are not perfect but we are perfectly forgiven.

Jesus’ removal of all sins, “as far as the east is from the west,” when we call on His Name and ask for His forgiveness.  Our security is in Jesus alone—our rescue from sin.  “Go and sin no more” Jesus told the woman caught in a mess.  Jesus compassionately lifted her up, forgave her without condemnation, and gave her hope of a better life to live in His Name, set right with God. 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  John 3:16-17

There’s more to come from Paul…but we are getting a much clearer picture of what it means to live to please God because of His love in us. 

Pause to pray.  Thank God for Jesus, His Plan of redeeming us from the messiness of sin.  Do I really believe in Jesus or just impressed with Jesus?  Reflect on the excuses we make, and ask forgiveness for them.  Ask God to help by His wisdom as our love for Him grows. 

Lord,

Cleanse my heart, renew my mind, transform my behaviors, refresh my soul with your new mercies, and restore the joy and peace of you in me and me in you.  Daily and forever.  I love you with all that is in me.

In Jesus Name, Amen