Romans 6:21-23
A couple weeks ago Peter Lee preached and talked about his experience of moving from Seoul, Korea at the age of 15 to South Carolina in the US.
The first year in the States was a very difficult time for my entire family. My older brother likes to call that first seven, eight months as “the dark period.” At first, I thought moving to the U. S. was pretty cool (because I was going to the country of MTV, Madonna, and Michael Jackson who were considered really hot at that time). Of course I didn’t really know what was coming next. We pretty much left behind all of our friendships and significant and supportive relationships, and had to risk making new ones and suffer the incredible feeling of loneliness and isolation. We had to struggle with learning and adapting to a new language and culture. I remember that going out to eat at a restaurant by ourselves was a pretty scary thing. Things as simple as returning items to a store and opening up a banking account became a humiliating experience for us because we didn’t really understand English and how the American society and culture worked, and people were not always as kind to those who couldn’t communicate. We were often viewed as strangers and outsiders in the community mainly because we were different and came from afar.
I was not here that Sunday but Peter sent me the sermon by email and when I read this opening to the sermon, my immediate reaction was, “I wish I had been in South Carolina when Peter came so I could have welcomed him and helped him adjust.”
Part of the intensity of my feeling comes from regret and embarrassment at how I did treat people who were different when I was growing up. I so much wish I could go back and do it all over again.
I am ashamed of how I acted and this leads into the last of the Romans sermons this year. I thought this year in the series of sermons from Romans that we might get to chapter 8 but we have spent the entire time in Romans 6 and I will finish with that today. Next January, when I come back to Romans, we will pick up in chapter 7.
The focus this morning is on the last three verses of this chapter: 21-23
What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 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. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Things you are now ashamed of
I think of fifth grade when I was nine years old. There was a boy named Teddy who had epilepsy. I remember seeing him once lying on the floor in a grand mal seizure with his face purple and the teachers putting an eraser between his teeth.
And I remember him standing against the wall of the school one morning after we had gotten off the bus and were waiting for school to start. I can see the grey stones of the wall, and the tree to his left, and I and some others were standing around him chanting, “Teddy has cooties! Teddy has cooties!”
“Cooties” is an North American slang term for body lice but became generalized into something children would be repulsed by. So children taunting, teasing with a mean intention, would use this word against someone they did not like.
I think about this and am so ashamed of myself. I have wanted to spend some months and try to find him and tell him how sorry I am for the way I acted. I want to find him and tell him how sorry I am I did not come by him, talk with him, find out about him and be his friend.
The truth is that I was fighting so hard just to be accepted myself that I had nothing to give to anyone else.
I talked with a friend who also has a huge regret for the way he treated a girl who had moved into his neighborhood from Germany and who could not speak English. He taunted her and when her father came out to yell at him for the way he was treating his daughter, he told him to learn to speak better English.
I suspect many of us have regrets for the way we treated people in our past. Teddy is not the only one I mistreated. There are others and I desperately wish I could go back and do it all over again.
In my fantasy I go back to my childhood and when I go up in the mountains on my pony to cook a lunch and read, I pull out a Bible and God speaks to me and strengthens me to be his arms and voice to those around me. In my fantasy I am able to be a friend to those who need a friend and I do not worry about what people around me are thinking.
When my oldest daughter Elizabeth was in seventh grade, eleven years old, she was in the cafeteria. The kids ate lunch at assigned tables and at her table there was a girl whose parents were from India. Each day one of the kids were assigned to get a sponge and wipe off the table surface. One day this girl from India was cleaning the table and one of the boys was leading some others in teasing her and mocking her for being different. Elizabeth got mad, took the sponge from the girl, wiped off the table herself and then pushed the sponge in the boy’s face.
I was so delighted when I heard her tell what had happened that day. I was so proud of her for having defended this girl.
What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 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. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Thus far in preaching from Romans 6 I have focused on how our choices affect us. We are confronted with choices all our lives and how we respond to those choices takes us on a path of sin leading to death or a path of righteousness leading to life. But it is not only ourselves who are affected by our choices. Our choices also affect others. Our choices can influence others to step forward to life or to step backwards to sin and death.
A great illustration of this is Tolstoy’s last major novel, Resurrection, written in 1899.
As the novel begins, Dmitry is a nobleman living at the home of his aunt in the country. He is attracted to a maid, Katusha, working in the house who has fallen in love with him. The night before he is to leave to enter the army, he seduces her. She resists because she is pure in heart but then he forces himself on her. He leaves the next morning and enters into his army life.
When the novel picks up his story many years later, he is living in Moscow, drinking and gambling. He is set to be engaged to a wealthy woman but he has to break off his relationship with his mistress before he can do so.
He is summoned to serve on a jury where a prostitute is on trial for theft and murder. As he sits on the jury, he recognizes the prostitute and realizes that she is Katusha, the young woman he loved as a boy.
A few months after he left her, it became apparent that she was pregnant and the aunt threw her out of the house for being indecent. She left, had a miscarriage and then found employment in another home. Because of her reputation, the owner of the house forced her to have sex with him and a pattern was set that eventually led her to being a prostitute in Moscow.
In the trial she is found not guilty of theft and if she administered the poison, she did so unknowingly. But because of the incompetence of her lawyer, the sentence is wrongly recorded and she is sentenced to hard labor in Siberia.
Dmitry’s conscience is stricken and he undergoes a spiritual transformation; he becomes a Christian, and the rest of the novel is about him trying to rescue Katusha who has so hardened her heart to protect herself from the pain of her life that she will not allow him in.
This is a great novel and I highly recommend you read it. But do you see how Dmitry’s choice on his last night at his aunt’s home set in motion a destructive pattern for Katusha? In the novel you see how much he agonizes over the wrong choice he made as a youth.
Can you see how different her life could have been if he had made a righteous choice?
When we come to a choice in life, we carry the responsibility to make a choice that is good for us but also for others around us who are affected by our decisions.
Let me give you an example from literature of a good choice that led to righteousness. In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, Jean Valjean is a released prisoner who is desperate. He is refused help by person after person, village after village. No one offers him food or work. Finally he comes to a little village and is told to go to the home of Bishop Bienvenu. The Bishop has a choice. Will he welcome Jean Valjean in and risk what this stranger might do to him or will he do what everyone else has done and choose to be safe and keep him outside? Bishop Bienvenu welcomes him in, feeds him and gives him a bed for the night. But that night Jean Valjean wakes up, steals the silver and flees.
The next day the police bring Valjean to the Bishop. They caught him with the silver and have come to ask the bishop if it is true what Valjean had said, that the Bishop had given him the silver. Here the Bishop has another choice. He is justified in having Jean Valjean convicted of theft and sent back to prison. But he makes a grace-filled choice.
“Ah! here you are!” [the Bishop] exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean. “I am glad to see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?”
The police are stunned and release Jean Valjean who is more stunned.
Jean Valjean was like a man on the point of fainting.
The Bishop drew near to him, and said in a low voice:–
“Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money in becoming an honest man.”
Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of ever having promised anything, remained speechless. The Bishop had emphasized the words when he uttered them. He resumed with solemnity:–
“Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.”
This act of kindness set Jean Valjean on a path of righteousness and the rest of the book reveals the many ways in which his kindnesses also made a positive difference in the lives of those with whom he interacted.
Bishop Bienvenu made a grace-filled choice and the consequence of his choice was that many people, not just Jean Valjean, were blessed and drawn to righteousness.
You need to know that you carry the responsibility of making good choices in life, not just for your sake but for the sake of others around you. What you do in life does affect others. What you do affects others positively or negatively, it depends on the choices you make.
I am certain you can think of people in your life who positively and negatively affected you. Perhaps it was a teacher who said something to you or believed you had more ability than you thought. Perhaps it was a teacher who said something cruel to you and you have never forgotten the humiliation of that moment.
There may have been someone in your life who was making bad choices and influenced you to follow their example. Perhaps you were the one who chose wrong and others followed in your path.
There may have been someone who spoke to you and affirmed you and said how impressed they were with a school project you did or with your work in a Scouting group.
It is not just the big things we do that affect others.
One of the most famous biographies was written by the Scotsman James Boswell about the author of the first English dictionary, Dr. Johnson. Both Boswell himself and Dr. Johnson referred to the fact that Boswell frequently mentioned a day he had gone fishing with his father and how much it had meant to him. Years later, the father’s diary was found. That day had little written in it, only six words. “Went fishing with son. Wasted day.”
A little thing in the father’s life had a very significant effect on his son.
We don’t know what has happened to most of the people we affected positively and negatively in our life. We do know the positive and negative affect others have had on us.
Accept this responsibility and build your life so you can bring good into the lives of those who cross your path. Put effort into developing your Christian character, not just so you will be blessed but so that others will be blessed through you and brought along on the path you are following.
In II Peter 1:3, Peter wrote about what we need to make good choices in life:
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
What Peter is saying in this passage is that God has given us everything we need as we move forward in our journey through life to experience the peace of God as we walk with him. He has given us everything we need to escape the traps the world has for us. He has given us everything we need to make good choices that will affect us and those around us.
So Peter says:
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
I don’t play video games. I used to but they are getting so complicated and consume so much time I don’t want to get hooked into them. But I know how they work, or at least how they used to work You set off on a path and need to pick up things you pass, a key or sword or lamp, things that will come in useful as you need to jump over something or get past some obstacle as you continue in the game.
Pick up the things in life you need to walk on the path of righteousness and influence others to do the same. Know that God will use your good choices in the lives of others in your life.
I have sometimes helped someone carry their luggage up the stairs at the train station in Rabat. How does God use that act of kindness? I have no idea. But can you imagine someone telling you one day that there was a time when she was so tired and discouraged and then a stranger helped her with her luggage. That night in a dream God spoke to her and told her that it had been his servant who had helped her and this encouraged her to open her heart to him.
We have no idea how our acts of generosity and kindness are used in the lives of others, but we do know that God is at work and takes our acts of service and uses them for his purposes.
I imagine that one of the great joys of heaven will be learning how God used us and others in the lives of his followers.
I talked in the beginning of the sermon about Teddy who suffered from epilepsy. What would I say to Teddy if he were here today?
What do I have to say for you if you were not the one who abused others but were yourself the one who was abused?
You too have to choose well. The fact that life has been unkind to you is not an excuse for you to choose poorly. You are also on a path and are responsible for the choices you make. It does not help to sit in a corner and talk about how difficult your life has been and how unfair people have been to you. Yes, that is true and God will deal with those who were unjust, cruel and unfair to you. But God is sufficient for you. God is able to help you get over the hurts of your past.
In Romans 5:3-5 Paul wrote:
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
A major stumbling block for many of us is how we deal with suffering. You suffer because someone was unkind to you. Life is not fair. Life is often times cruel. You are suffering but what will you do about it? What choice will you make?
You can choose the path of bitterness and hardness of heart or you can persevere in your faith that God loves you and is guiding you to a world where there is no unkindness, no cruelty, no injustice. Perseverance can develop your character and the strength of your Christian character can give you hope.
The heart of God grieves for those who suffer and the those who take on the heart of God for this world grieve for the suffering as well. But God is at work in our lives and he is at work in the heart of those who suffer. In our relationship with God we have been given everything we need to step past the suffering and to persevere in our faith that leads to hope.
I would tell Teddy and I tell you who suffer, to unburden yourself and allow God to bring healing and hope into your life.
I’d like to end the sermon this morning with some time in prayer. I would imagine that God has brought memories to your mind in the course of this sermon. If there are memories of which you are ashamed, people you hurt, abused, led astray, bring them to mind, see their face, remember the situation and then pray for them. Ask God to forgive you for how you acted. Ask God to bring his blessing into their lives. You may have been a negative influence in their lives, you may have caused great pain, but God is able to heal and work miracles in our lives. Pray for these people. One by one, specifically and individually, as they come to your mind, pray for them.
Prayer
And now you may remember situations in which someone abused you, ridiculed you, humiliated you, hurt you. Pray for them. Noone is beyond the reach of God’s arm. Oftentimes it is because people have been hurt themselves that they hurt others. Reach out in your prayer to these people who hurt you. Picture them, picture the situation and pray for God to bring his love and healing touch into their lives.
Prayer
Now remember those who have been a blessing in your life and have encouraged you to seek God, to use the talents God has given you. Thank God for the people he has used to bring healing in your life. Ask for God to bless these people.
Prayer
And finally, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the people in your life to whom he wants you to reach out. Who are the people in your life God wants you to befriend and to encourage. Ask God to help you find the ways he wants you to work with him in his ministry among the people in your life.
