Month: January 2024

DEPENDENT PRAYING

Luke 18:1-14 NET.

¹ Then Jesus told them a parable to show them they should always pray and not lose heart. ² He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected people. ³ There was also a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ ⁴ For a while he refused, but later on he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor have regard for people, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps on bothering me, I will give her justice, or in the end she will wear me out by her unending pleas.'” ⁶ And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unrighteous judge says! ⁷ Won’t God give justice to his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay long to help them? ⁸ I tell you, he will give them justice speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” ⁹ Jesus also told this parable to some who were confident that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else. ¹⁰ “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself like this: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: extortionists, unrighteous people, adulterers — or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.’ ¹³ The tax collector, however, stood far off and would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, be merciful to me, sinner that I am!’ ¹⁴ I tell you that this man went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

It used to be that the only way we could learn more about our friends was by spending time talking to them. As we conversed, we learned about the things our friends liked. We would also learn what kinds of things made our friends mad or irritated them. Nowadays, we can find out those things without even holding a conversation. All we have to do is scroll through their posts on social media. We can find out their political views, how religious they are, and whether they are pet lovers.

Jesus doesn’t post on social media. If we want to discover what Jesus is all about, we must do it the old-fashioned way. We need to study the Gospels. As we have spent quality time in the Gospels looking for the things that Jesus commanded his followers, some themes keep occurring repeatedly. There are some subjects that Jesus keeps coming back to. One of those subjects is prayer.

We cannot help but conclude that prayer is essential to Jesus. It may or may not seem necessary to us, but for some reason, a strong prayer life is something that Jesus harps on. Prayer keeps showing up as high on the agenda of things that matter to Jesus. We have already looked at several of the commands of Jesus that relate to praying. He has told us to pray secretly so that our Father in the sky will reward us openly. He has told us not to be reluctant to ask for what we need and to keep on asking. He has told us to ask for more harvesters so the gospel can reach more people. We don’t have to worry about whether God wants us to pray. God always wants us to pray.

In today’s text, Jesus is underlining the message he has already given about prayer. Jesus told the disciples a parable to show them they should always pray and not lose heart. That was the parable of the persistent widow. It was very similar to another parable that Jesus gave, recorded seven chapters earlier: the parable of the persistent man who bothered his friend at midnight to get some bread to feed his guests.

Jesus teaches a second parable about prayer in today’s text as well. It involves two publicly praying at the temple: a Pharisee and a tax collector. There is very little new material in this parable too. Jesus had already taught his disciples not to pray for others to see. Otherwise, the public perception of your righteousness would be your only reward. 

But despite the apparent absence of new material in today’s section, I see these two parables giving us significant instruction about prayer. The overall theme is a particular kind of praying. I call it dependent praying. This passage gives us three keys to praying prayers that reach heaven and make a difference here on earth. We can’t choose to use one or two of these keys. All three must be used together, or our prayers will not be dependent.

The first key is persistence.

No surprise here. Luke tells us the reason for Jesus’ instructions. He shows his disciples that they should always pray and not lose heart. The Holy Spirit in the word of God is showing us the same thing. God values the persistent prayer and the persistent pray-er. He wants his children to trust him so much that they keep asking because they refuse to believe he does not care. He wants children who refuse to take no for an answer because they want what God wants and are unwilling to settle for something different.

The God who created our bodies wants them to be whole, not sick or disabled. We see that in Jesus. He didn’t turn those people away when he encountered illness or injury. He healed them. He didn’t give them a seminar to help them heal themselves by increasing their faith. They asked, and Jesus answered. They needed healing, and he gave it to them. Later in this chapter, Jesus meets a blind man as he approaches Jericho. The man will get the attention of Jesus and his disciples by repeatedly crying out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” Jesus will ask this man, “What do you want me to do for you.” The man will say, “Lord, let me see again.” Jesus gave that man what he asked for because he had the faith to ask.

The God who created us wants us to be restored to a right relationship with him. We see that in Jesus. He was parading through Jerich when he suddenly stopped, and nobody knew why. Then Jesus looked up into the sycamore tree. There was Zacchaeus. Being a short man, he couldn’t see over the crowd. But he did not give up. He climbed the tree. Jesus noticed his persistence. He told Zaccheus to come down because he would eat at his house. Later, Jesus said to him that salvation had come to his household. It pays to seek God persistently.

Brothers and sisters, we pray but are tempted to give up too quickly. We lose heart when the prayer is not answered immediately. We are like that fox that tries once for the grapes, and when the first try doesn’t work, we claim that the grapes are sour anyway. God has an answer for us, and it isn’t sour grapes. We have to keep trying. Someday, we will be on display before the universe, and the Lord will tell all of creation, “These are my people. The ones who refused to give up.” These are the children of Jacob, who wrestled all night and would not let go until he received a blessing. These are the children of Jabez, who kept praying for the Lord to enlarge his tent. These are the children of Hannah, whose prayers were so passionate that Eli thought she was drunk. Jesus commands us to pray and keep on praying.

The second key is wisdom.

Remember I said that all of the keys have to be used together. It’s like going to the bank to get something out of a safe deposit box. There is more than one key, which must be used together. The second key is one that logically precedes the first. In other words, persistence without this key is useless.

You can persistently go to the bank and withdraw more and more money until you have nothing left in your account. But if your problem is not financial, the funds will not help. You can read your horoscope daily and get guidance from the stars, but if the stars do not determine your fate, reading your horoscope will not help.

When Penny and I visited our ministry in Thailand, we would walk the streets and notice that in front of every house, there was a shrine to the spirits. Those people persistently worship the wrong god. Their persistence was useless. Jesus warns us that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him.

The second key is wisdom. It recognizes that there is only one solution to our problem, not two, not two thousand. Wisdom knows God is sovereign and seeks him because he is the only deliverance.

In the parable of the persistent widow, the widow got the justice she was after because she recognized that the judge was her only solution. She had no other resources. She had no other options. She had to keep bugging him because he was the only way out of her dilemma.

The third key is humility.

The second parable Jesus tells also contains a key: dependent praying is humble praying. The parable targeted some who were confident that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else.

I was once visiting a man who was terminally ill, and I had come to pray for him. I prayed for God to heal him. Another Christian was visiting the same man, and that man prayed as well. Our prayers were like night and day. That man prayed confidently. I remember feeling embarrassed that I could not pray such a powerful prayer. He seemed to be knocking out the demons of disease everywhere.

The truth is the man eventually died. I don’t know the heart of the other Christian who prayed with me that day. But I do know that his prayer could not be characterized as humble. We may feel humiliated when we come to the throne of grace, begging God to answer our prayers. But the truth is our humility honors God because he is the answer.

The Bible says that we should come boldly to the throne in prayer. Hebrews 4:16 says we should “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” But this confidence is not self-confidence. We always come to God from the standpoint of need. We need his help. We need his grace. His grace is unmerited favor. We cannot help ourselves. If we come to God praying with confidence, that confidence has to be in his love, compassion, and power, not our own.

So, the next time we go to the throne, we should remember to pray dependent prayers. These prayers persist as long as needed to get the answer. They are prayers that recognize that God is the only resource we have. Dependent praying is wise enough to seek the answer from the only One who can give it. There is no plan B. Dependent praying beats the breast and says, “God, be merciful to me, sinner that I am.” Humble prayers reach the throne.

For further study:

Barclay, William. The Gospel of Luke. Edinburgh: Saint Andrew, 1997. Pp. 230-234.

Beyer Douglas. Parables for Christian Living: Seeing Ourselves As Jesus Sees Us–Parables from Luke. Judson Press 1985. pp. 89-95.

Carlozzi Carl G. Pocket Parables. Tyndale House 1985. pp. 92-93.

Coates Thomas. The Parables for Today. Concordia Pub. House 1971. pp. 41-43.

Kok Joel. Luke: Taking Up the Master’s Mission: A Study Guide. CRC Publications 1997. pp. 34-36.

Olson Rudolph. Parables of the Bible. Valley Press 2000. pp. 58-59.

Schaap Ward B. The Character of the King: Studies in the Parables. Baker Books 1994. pp. 64-74.

Welborn Amy. Parables: Stories of the Kingdom. Loyola Press 2003. pp. 35-37.

THE DISCIPLE’S DUTY

Luke 17:1-10 NET.

¹ Jesus said to his disciples, “Stumbling blocks are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! ² It would be better for him to have a millstone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. ³ Watch yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.⁴ Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to you saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” ⁵ The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” ⁶ So the Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this black mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled out by the roots and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. ⁷ “Would any one of you say to your slave who comes in from the field after plowing or shepherding sheep, ‘Come at once and sit down for a meal’? ⁸ Won’t the master instead say to him, ‘Get my dinner ready, and make yourself ready to serve me while I eat and drink. Then you may eat and drink’? ⁹ He won’t thank the slave because he did what he was told, will he? ¹⁰ So you too, when you have done everything you were commanded to do, should say, ‘We are slaves undeserving of special praise; we have only done what was our duty.'”

Jesus is with a group of his disciples in today’s text. It includes the smaller group of his twelve apostles (mentioned in verse 5). There is no mention of a larger crowd of onlookers. There is no mention of the Pharisees or any other group of opponents. This is an opportunity for Jesus to zero in on those who are genuinely his disciples and to give them marching orders. He’s outlining how these disciples should live. He’s telling them what their duties are if they are going to live under his rule while they wait for his second coming.

That makes today’s text ideal for us as we try to reboot and start our new year out right. We need marching orders, too. We must reflect on how we lived in the past and determine what changes we can make to live like Jesus wants us to. In our hearts, we all want to do that. We get frustrated with ourselves because we have done things that we regret and failed to do things we wanted to do. So, let’s take the words of Jesus in today’s passage as marching orders from our King as we begin this new year.

First, do no harm (1-4).

The first command that appears is for us to watch ourselves (in verse 3). Verse 1 explains what we are to watch for. It says that stumbling blocks are going to come. A stumbling block gets in people’s way and trips them, causing them to fall. Stumbling blocks are not attacks from the outside. They are not going to come from the government. They are not going to come from proponents of another religion. Stumbling blocks are dangerous because they are right here among us. Stumbling blocks will come in every Christian church, school, and home.

The purpose of the stumbling block is to damage the faith of Christians. It is to cause the little ones to stumble. They may be literally little ones – that is, young Christians. Or they may be Christians who are still new to their faith and inexperienced. But stumbling happens when another Christian says something or does something that causes the little one to stop believing and leave the church.

Jesus is telling his disciples that their first responsibility now that they are part of his church is to protect the others they fellowship with. We all know that every true believer has gifts that reproduce their faith in others. Jesus is telling us in today’s text that we also can destroy the faith of others. We need to know that. We must know our capability to do great good and great harm.

Hippocrates, the Greek father of medicine, required the doctors that he trained to pronounce a vow that we now call the Hippocratic oath. The oath was simple: “First, do no harm.” That seems to be what Jesus tells his disciples in today’s text. He tells them that they have the potential to be a blessing in other people’s lives or to destroy them. He tells them to bless and not curse, to help and heal, not disrupt, and devour.

Jesus says it would be better for a believer to have a millstone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of the little ones to sin. He’s not saying this is the punishment for being a stumbling stone. He’s saying that if you are tempted to make other people stumble, it would be better to have yourself drowned before you even get the chance. That is how important it is that we believers watch out for this problem.

Jesus cares about you, and he cares about the Christian brother or sister next to you. He commands us to protect them. Their faith is fragile, and we can damage it without being careful. We can damage them by something we say. A false doctrine coming out of our mouths – a lousy attitude reflected in a Facebook post – people are watching and listening. We can damage them even if we don’t intend to. They are watching our actions, too. Revenge, pride, lust, greed, superstition – any of these sins reflected in our actions can ripple out toward others and cause a tsunami.

But there is one specific act that Jesus highlights in today’s passage. It is the one thing that can cause more stumbling than any other thing in the Christian community. We need to be extra cautious about this thing. It is the lack of forgiveness. Jesus says If our brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. Even if he sins against us seven times a day and seven times returns to us saying, ‘I repent,’ we must forgive him. What Jesus is talking about her is a disruption in a relationship.

We constantly fail Jesus in this matter. Our default activity if someone disappoints us is to break ties with him. We even do it as groups. Churches split. Denominations split. All of Christendom has been divided into a myriad of factions and faiths. This is precisely what Jesus warned us about. We tend to divide rather than unite. Even when we unite, it is in contrast to those with whom we have chosen to divide. We are Protestant, not Catholic. We are Evangelical, not liberal, fundamentalist, or modernist. Maybe some of that history could not have been avoided. But the result is that we display a divided church. A split church harms.

This morning, Jesus’ command for us is, “First, do no harm.” Whatever we say in this life, let it be to build other Christians up, not to tear them down. Whatever we do, let it be an example of authentic Christianity, not the ways of the world. The world is watching – we know. They are watching to see if we are what we say we are. But the church is watching, too. It is a church that is vulnerable. It can be harmed.

Second, trust God’s grace (5-6).

I mentioned that Jesus was speaking to a group of disciples, and the group included the twelve whom he had appointed as apostles. In verse 5, the apostles speak up for the first time. They give Jesus a request. In the context of this passage, it sounds like Luke has taken this part of the conversation from another incident. Many commentators treat verses 5-6 as if they are separate paragraphs.

I don’t think it is necessary to do that. The apostles had just been challenged not to harm the church. I’m sure it occurred to them that they would need some tremendous supernatural, miraculous power to keep them from botching things in the church. With that in mind, it sounds perfectly natural to ask for solid faith.

Jesus could have done that. He could have zapped the apostles with a robust and powerful faith that forever prevented them from making ministry mistakes. But notice how he replied to them. He told them that their faith did not need to be any stronger. He had already called them people of little faith. But here, he told them their little faith was all they needed. They had mustard seed faith, which is all the faith you need. With that tiny faith, they could uproot a mulberry tree. The mulberry tree has big, black, solid roots and is almost impossible to transplant. What Jesus is telling his apostles here is – Don’t worry, you’ve got what it takes.

Everyone in Christian leadership struggles with what the apostles are dealing with here. The needs are significant, and the potential for failure and harm is immense. We all know about prominent church leaders who failed so publicly that it brought disgrace to them and shame to their churches. And that is the tip of the iceberg. For every leader who fails, countless followers are so damaged that their lives are never the same again. This problem is genuine. That is why we should pay close attention to what Jesus tells the apostles. The solution is not another miracle. The faith God gave you when you accepted Christ is enough.

People who have significant responsibilities do not need immense power to succeed. They need the ability to trust in their already given power. They need to learn to trust God’s grace. That big, stubborn mulberry tree does not match your little mustard seed faith. God has already given you solid faith to handle all your responsibilities. You have to trust him and do what he told you.

What is valid for the apostles and their leadership is true for every Christ disciple. You have challenges at work, with your family, in your community. You have political challenges, health issues, mental and psychological problems. You have financial problems. The list goes on and on. When you think about them, you are tempted to despair. Jesus does not deny that the problems exist. He isn’t telling you to pretend that they are not there. He is telling you that they are not a problem to him. He can get you through this. Tomorrow, there will be another set of problems, and he can get you through them, too.

We have already looked at Jesus’ command about prayer – that we should ask and it will be given to us, seek and we will find, knock and the door will be opened. The apostles had just requested for faith to keep them from being stumbling blocks. Jesus’ answer, in this case, was that they had already been given a faith strong enough for this challenge.

There will be times when all of us face challenges that we will feel inadequate to meet. We will fall on our faces and ask Jesus to increase our faith to meet those challenges. Sometimes he will do that. But sometimes, he will remind us that the grace we have been given is sufficient. We need to trust that grace.

Third, serve humbly (7-10).

In the third section of today’s passage, Jesus is still talking to his apostles. He understands that those in leadership in his church are prone to a particular sin, which can cause many to stumble. That sin is pride. One of the major emphases in the Gospel of Luke is the contrast between how Christians should live and how the Pharisees lived. The Pharisees were proud of their external obedience, prosperity, and prominence.

The apostles had just begged Jesus to give them a strong faith. Jesus had reassured them that they had a faith strong enough already. But he knew what was going on in their minds. He wanted them to trust in God’s grace in their ministries. But he did not want them to become arrogant enough to think they were a higher class of disciples.

That was why Jesus introduced this little parable into the conversation. He started talking about the apostles and their slaves. The apostles did not own any slaves, and Jesus knew that. But, still, Jesus told them that when their slaves came home for dinner, the twelve apostles would not stop what they were doing and make dinner for their slaves!

Why did Jesus say such a thing? Was he endorsing slavery? Nope. Was he promising that the apostles would become so prosperous and powerful that they would each have slaves to do their manual labor? We know that did not happen.

No, the last verse of today’s passage is the key to what Jesus is saying. It says that when the apostles have done everything they were commanded, they should say, “We are slaves undeserving of special praise; we have only done what was our duty.”

The Pharisees believed that a strong faith produced prosperity and prominence. The apostles had just been assured that their faith was strong enough for their challenges. It was not too much of a stretch for the apostles to think that if they kept winning, they would eventually become great people. They would be tempted to allow the yeast of the Pharisees to enter their lives.

Jesus had to teach them how to resist that temptation. Again, Jesus could have zapped the apostles with a supernatural power to resist pride. Instead, he reminded them of their actual status in God’s kingdom. In the kingdom of God, there are no super saints. There is no hierarchy. Even the twelve apostles themselves are merely slaves to the Master.

Disciples must help others, not harm them. We must trust God’s grace for every need and serve humbly our one master. May we do so.

For further study:

Carroll, John T. Luke: A Commentary, 2012. pp. 340-342.

Ellis, E E. The Gospel of Luke. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1981. pp. 207-209.

Evans, Craig A. Luke. Peabody (Mass.: Hendrickson, 1990. pp. 253-255.

Foster, Lewis. Luke. Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard Pub, 1986. pp. 217-219.

Geldenhuys, Norval. Commentary on the Gospel of Luke. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1960. pp. 431-434.

Gooding, David W. According to Luke: A New Exposition of the Third Gospel, 1988. pp. 278-280.

Green, Joel B., and Michael C. McKeever. Luke-acts and New Testament Historiography. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Books, 1994. pp. 610-615.

McCarren, Paul J. A Simple Guide to Luke. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2013. pp. 105-106.

Ringe Sharon H. Luke. 1st ed. Westminster John Knox Press 1995. pp. 218-219.

FREED FROM SIN

Romans 6:15-23 NET.

¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! ¹⁶ Do you not know that if you present yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, ¹⁸ and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. ¹⁹ (I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. ²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness. ²¹ So what benefit did you then reap from those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. ²² But now, freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life. ²³ For the payoff of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Last year, we began a series of studies on what the gospel is all about, based on the writings of the Apostle Paul. We continue that series today as we start out this new year. We should focus on the gospel message because it defines us as Christians. Every believer should be able to explain the gospel. At some point, our non-Christian neighbors, friends, and family members are going to notice that there is something different about us. They will wonder why we don’t react to our problems the way they do to theirs. They will want to know our secret. The gospel is our secret, not a secret that God wants us to keep. He wants us to tell people why we live like we do because he wants them to repent and start living that way, too.

The apostle Paul was an expert at explaining the gospel, and we are fortunate to have his explanations in his letters in the New Testament. Paul said that he was not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16).

Every Christian should know this gospel and be able to explain it. But, more than this, every Christian should be able to live by this gospel of grace. It is one thing to know a fact. It is another thing to live it. We live in some truths even though we cannot fully explain those truths—for example, gravity. Gravity was here among us long before Newton got bopped by the apple. We know more about gravity now, which can be used for our benefit. But we cannot escape gravity without a costly trip to space.

But the gospel is not an automatic law like gravity. The gospel is a message that has to be understood, accepted, believed, and lived. People who are ashamed of the gospel and want to live another way are free to do so. But Paul taught us that the gospel is the power of God for salvation. So, people who choose not to live according to the gospel will not be saved. That makes the gospel message very important. That makes those of us who know the gospel very significant. We know a truth vital for the salvation of ourselves and others.

Jesus once told some Judeans that if they continued to follow his teachings, they would know the truth, and the truth would set them free (John 8:31-32). They didn’t think they were slaves. The truth is everyone is going to be a slave to something. Believing and living the gospel message frees us from sin and enslaves us to God. Today’s text explains the mechanics of that truth.

The question: Is willful sin permissible under God’s grace? (15).

Does God’s grace in Christ license us to sin all we want to? I think that is a fundamental question to ask. It helps us get to the foundation of what grace is. We already know from previous texts in Romans that every one of us was born in sin, and we needed a Savior. Jesus is that Savior. His death on the cross brought us salvation. By putting our faith in Christ, we are justified and declared righteous before God based on God’s grace.

The question Paul brings up here is what it means to be under grace. We know what it means to be under the law. It meant condemnation. It meant never being able to escape sin and its consequences. It meant being born a sinner, living in sin all your life, and dying in sin. The question Paul brings up here is once you are under grace, is sin even a thing anymore? Can we sin now because there is no longer a law to condemn us for sinning?

The answer: No, because grace must be obeyed (16-18).

Grace has not licensed us to sin. Grace has given us a way to escape sin. We were going our way and booked passage on that excellent unsinkable ocean liner called the Titanic. The Titanic is a picture of our self-determination. We boarded, and things were going well until we encountered that iceberg. Then, suddenly, we were sunk in the ocean of sin on our way down to the bottom. God’s grace came along and rescued us from the freezing waters about to take our life.

The question that Paul brings up here is this: Is it okay to jump back into the water? His answer is, “What are you, stupid?” It ain’t going to happen. You don’t jump back into the water because the water was what you had been rescued from. You don’t jump back into sin because sin is what got you into trouble in the first place.

Grace is the lifeboat. That’s why once you enter a life of grace, you have to live that life. Grace must be obeyed. Paul tells the Roman Christians that they had been obeying sin all their lives, and they were all on their way to the second death. Then God’s grace came into their lives, and it rescued them. Having been rescued from sin and its consequences by grace, they voluntarily became enslaved to God’s righteousness. They exchanged one slavery for another.

Grace has freed us from sin and enslaved us to God (16, 22).

In verse 16, Paul says you are slaves to the one you obey. It’s going to be one or the other. Either you are going to be slaves to sin, or you are going to be enslaved to God (verse 22). There is no neutrality. There is no freedom without freedom from sin, and you cannot get free from sin without staying in the lifeboat.

I am not saying we must live sinless lives to get saved. Look at the last five words of today’s text. Those words are “in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The gift of grace that makes salvation possible is not something we can or cannot do. It is what Jesus Christ did for us. If it were not for Jesus, there would be no grace. There would be no rescue. But the question Paul addresses in today’s text is what it looks like to be rescued. He answers that the person Jesus rescued will be forever in debt to the one who pulled him out of the water.

The picture that Paul draws is one of redemption. Someone who is redeemed has been rescued from slavery and then voluntarily sets himself to serving his redeemer. It is exchanging one slavery for another, but there is a big difference between the two slaveries.

Living by grace leads to life; sin leads to death (19-23).

Paul asks the Roman Christians to think back to the time before they became believers in the gospel. He reminded them that they had presented their members (all aspects of their being) to impurity and lawlessness, which led to more and more of the same. They are now ashamed of the things they used to do. But it is more than a shame that they feel. It is a relief. They have been rescued from certain death.

We know that Paul is not saying that the Roman Christians will live forever. He is not saying that death is an illusion. He’s talking about a different kind of death here. Everyone dies and goes to the grave. We die not because of our sins but because of the sins of our ancestors in Eden. God told Adam and Eve that if they disobeyed his prohibition and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. Ever since they did that, all of us surely die. The payoff of that sin is death.

But the Bible tells us that everyone will be raised from that death to face judgment. That is where the gift of God comes in. On judgment day, Jesus will grant eternal life to all who have faith in him. But those who have not been rescued by grace will have to pay the penalty for their sins. That penalty is death. But that death is different from our natural death. Everyone will be raised from natural death to face judgment. But the second death is permanent. From it, there will be no resurrection.

Put another way, there are two inheritances: permanent life and permanent death. How do I know I am going to inherit permanent life instead of permanent death on judgment day? Well, am I in the boat or not? Has God’s grace rescued me, or am I still swimming around in the freezing water of my sin? Have I put my faith in Christ and his finished work on the cross, or am I still trying to live my way?

Paul has told the Roman Christians a hazardous thing. He told them about justification by faith. He told them that everyone who puts their faith in Christ will not inherit the death they deserve but will inherit eternal life instead.

But in today’s text, he explains something significant for all of us. He explains that the grace that saves also sanctifies. The lifeboat that rescues us from sin’s consequences also becomes a lifestyle that imitates God’s holiness. Someone who is saved presents his members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification. Eventually, living in that grace will result in glorification. That is why Paul’s question in today’s text is so absurd. “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” It ain’t going to happen because grace is our way out of sin.

It is suitable for us always to ask ourselves questions like this. We must think about these things at the beginning of this new year. We should ask what kind of life we plan on living. Do we want to jump back into the same old freezing water that was dragging us down to death? Or do we want to take advantage of God’s great grace that he has given us in Christ?

The gospel is more than simply a doctrine to be believed. It is also a life to be lived. It is a slavery to God and his righteousness. It is more than just being grateful for the lifeboat. It is taking that lifeboat and helping others into it. It is dedicating your life to the one who has saved you, and that means committing yourself to doing his will. It is obeying the commands of your coming King – not to get saved, but to get other people saved.

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For further study:

Colenso John William. St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: Newly Translated and Explained from a Missionary Point of View. D. Appleton 1863. pp. 134-137.

Johnson Luke Timothy. Reading Romans: A Literary and Theological Commentary. Crossroad Pub 1997. pp. 109-112.

Jong Paul C. Exegesis on the Book of Romans. I. Hephzibah Pub. House 2006. pp. 346-355.

McGee J. Vernon. Reasoning through Romans. 2nd rev. ed. Thru the Bible Books 1981. pp. 103-107.

Pate C. Marvin. Romans. Baker Books 2013. pp.149-153.

Stott John R. W et al. Reading Romans with John Stott. IVP Connect an Imprint of InterVarsity Press 2016. pp. 103-107.

Westcott Frederick Brooke. St. Paul and Justification: Being an Exposition of the Teaching in the Epistles to Rome and Galatia. Macmillan 1913. pp. 256-261.