Whom shall you serve?
“Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (Romans 6:16)
As I studied this passage from Romans this week, a song came to mind. You may know that Bob Dylan became a Christian in the late 1970’s. He released an album in 1979 called Slow Train Coming. The first song, and first single released from that album, is called Serve Somebody. The refrain goes like this:
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes
Indeed you're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.
Much of what we do may not seem to be serving anyone. Taking a shower, brushing your teeth, and eating your breakfast don’t seem to have weighty moral principles attached to them. But, all that we do moves in one direction or another.
In elementary school we did an experiment where we took a paper bag and cut a hole in it. Then we put a small plant in the bag. The idea was to show how plants grow towards the light. When we set our hearts on Christ, it’s like that. We grow towards His light. His light is life itself. And we know that without His light, we will die.
And once we know Jesus, that distinction between the light and the dark is really between Christ and anything else. Like Dylan said, Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, But you're gonna have to serve somebody. And most often the choice is between serving Christ and serving ourselves. The choice seems clear, and on that larger scale we hope and pray it is.
In practice, I wish it were that simple! But it’s usually muddied by the complexities of our circumstances day-to-day and muddied by the vacillations of our hearts. There is the constant tug to serve primarily ourselves. When we do that, whose side are we on? The question comes down to good vs. evil. It is typically subtle and incremental, but it is always there.
Remember that this passage comes after Paul has already written about salvation. We are saved by grace through faith. Paul is now teaching about Christian living, which is to say the hole has been cut in the bag and this is how we grow toward the light. Plants just do it. We have the capacity to choose not to do it at any point. Paul is saying that’s crazy, why would anyone who sees the light not consistently move towards it? But we do fail. We do struggle. And so what we are describing here is sanctification, which is the disinfection of our hearts.
This is most evident in addictions. When someone is addicted to alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, then they are stuck in a mode of choosing that demon over everything. I said demon because what happens is demonic, a very clear illustration of how evil works. The addiction will take every strength the person has and use it to further destroy them.
If you have a lot of money, you can cover up a lot of your problems and failures and dive deeper into the disease. If you’re very nice looking and have a winsome, engaging personality, you can mask the problems better and dive deeper into the disease. If you’re highly intelligent and really good at what you do, you can mask your problems better and dive deeper into the disease. If you have a loving family, they may indulge your problems, covering them up for the sake of keeping the peace today, and thereby enable you to dive deeper into your disease.
Left to its devices, the addiction uses every strength to destroy family, friendships, career, finances, and health. It ruins everything until the person either turns away from it or dies.
Now contrast that with how God’s grace and love work on us. God will make use of every strength, of course, every talent, every gift, every bright idea and good effort. And the astounding thing is how God will turn our weaknesses into strengths and weave our failures into his victory over sin and death. We grow to the light.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
This ties in directly with the call Jesus lays upon his disciples to share His Gospel.
“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” (Matthew 10:40)
We are all called to that same mission – to be agents of Christ’s truth and love. We don’t wait until we are perfect; we don’t have to be perfect. We don’t wait until we fully understand everything; we never will. The issue is in which direction are we growing and can God use us to help others grow towards his light.
Don’t think of the “reward of the righteous” as an end point, a status to be reached. The reward of the righteous is knowing that we are in the right struggle. No matter how down and difficult and painful life is, no matter the heartaches and tragedies we see or endure or the accidents we suffer, we are growing in the right direction. Even for the mistakes we make willfully, we can repent, receive forgiveness and remain in the right struggle.
And who wouldn’t want that? Who wouldn’t want to share that? Our authority to proclaim life and joy and peace and love and conviction and forgiveness and healing come straight from God to Jesus to us through the witness of the Apostles. If we can help each other grow toward the light of Christ, being obedient to Him from the heart, then we will be in the right struggle together and reap the reward of righteousness.
AMEN