GOD'S GREAT NEWS for MAN'S GREAT PROBLEM - Romans 1-8

One Man Set Free

There are several words in our language that are short but immensely powerful. "Home" is one of those words, as is the word "Peace." "Freedom" is another such word. It was for freedom that many American soldiers have died over the last 225 years. It was for freedom that one young man gave His life on a cross. As Paul wrote in Gal. 5:1: "It was for freedom that Christ set you free ..." Today we will talk about freedom. But let's begin with a simple story of how God set one man free.

Some years ago in France, there was an orphan named Jean who was raised by his sister, who had seven children of her own. When Jean was 17, his brother-in-law died, leaving the labor of providing for the woman and her children on Jean's shoulders. Jean had learned to be a tree-pruner, but his trade did not provide enough income to feed the children. One night, as the hungry children cried to their mother for food and she had none to give them, Jean slipped down to the baker's shop, broke the window, and stole a loaf of bread for the children. The children ate, but the next morning Jean's bloodied hand convicted him, and he was sent to the galleys with an iron collar welded around his neck.

He rowed for four years, then tried to escape. He was caught again, and three years were added to his original sentence. He made another attempt at escape, but was again caught. In the end, he slept on a plank by night and rowed endlessly by day for 19 years, just for stealing a loaf of bread. When he was finally released, hatred had hardened his heart to stone. He was little better than an animal. He was given a yellow ticket which identified him as a convicted thief. Wherever he went, he had to present that ticket to the local police and identify himself. It is sad but true that no town received him. No inn would house him. People turned from him like he was a leper. Even a dog growled him out of a dog house in which he tried to sleep.

But in the village of Digne there lived a good bishop. He had a reputation for having an unlocked door. He received 3,000 francs a year for his work; he gave 2,800 of it to the poor. He was a simple, loving man, whose life belonged to Christ, for the purpose of serving others. Someone directed Jean to knock at the bishop's door.

Jean walked up to the door, found it open, and went inside. He was a large and powerful man, with enormous iron hands and cold eyes. He yelled out, "Look, I am a galley slave. Here is my yellow ticket. It says, 'Five years for robbery and fourteen years for trying to escape. The man is very dangerous.' Now that you know who I am, will you give me a little food and let me sleep in the stable?" The good bishop came in and said, "Sit down and warm yourself. You will take supper with me, and after that sleep in my house." Jean couldn't believe his ears. He assured the bishop he had money to pay for dinner and his lodging. But the bishop said, "You are welcome. This is not my house, but the house of Christ. Your name was known to me before you showed me your yellow ticket. You are my brother." They ate a simple dinner, served on china plates with silver utensils. Taking a beautiful pair of silver candlesticks, the bishop showed Jean to his room for the night.

It was the first real bed Jean had slept in after 19 years sleeping on a plank. Yet he could not sleep. He plotted evil on his bed. In the middle of the night, when he was sure the bishop and his sisters were asleep, Jean awoke and stole the silver utensils they had used at dinner. He fled through the garden, but was caught the next day by five policemen, who brought him back to face the bishop.

When the policemen thrust Jean before him, the bishop looked at Jean with relief. He said, "Oh you are back again! I am glad to see you. I gave you the candlesticks too, which are silver also, and will bring forty francs. Why did you not take them?" Jean and the soldiers were stunned by the bishop's words. The lead policeman said, "This man told us the truth, did he? We thought he had stolen the silver and was running away. So we quickly arrested him." But the bishop replied, "It was a mistake to have him brought back. Let him go. The silver is his. I gave it to him." The officers shrugged and went away.

Jean whispered to the bishop, "Is it true that I am free? I may go?" "Yes," the bishop replied, "but before you go take your candlesticks." Jean trembled in every limb, and took the candlesticks like one in a dream. "Now," said the bishop, "depart in peace, but do not go through the garden, for the front door is always open to you day and night." Jean looked like he would faint, so the bishop took his hand, saying, "Never forget you have promised me you would use the money to become an honest man."

Scholars say that this tale, adapted from Victor Hugo's masterpiece Les Miserables, is based on a true story. Monsignore Miolles of Digne helped a real criminal as Jean was helped. In the novel, Jean Valjean went on to embody a man saved by grace, a man as beloved in his village as the good bishop was in Digne. He saved the lives of at least four men, and raised an orphan girl as his own daughter. From being an isolated convict, he became a loving man with many rich relationships.

Background -- All Under Sin ...

Today we are going to focus on just two verses, Rom. 6:22, 23: "But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." I have been asking the Lord this week about the opening phrase of these verses: "But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God ..." Just what does it mean to be freed from sin? I read four commentaries on Romans to see what others thought, and only one of the four seriously engaged this question. What does it mean to be freed from sin?

To discover what freedom from sin means, we need to understand enslavement under sin. Paul wrote very eloquently about this in Rom. 3:9-20, where he strung the pearls from the Hebrew Scriptures to demonstrate how we are all under sin before we meet Jesus Christ. I want to review briefly what it means to be "all under sin," before we consider our freedom from that bondage.

We learn in Rom. 3:10-18 first that sin absolutely isolates us from God, each seeking his own lonely way like wandering Cain, out of fellowship with God. This alienation from God is seen in 3:10-12: "... There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one." One Hebrew scholar I know even translates the term "useless" in that passage as "relationally dysfunctional." Sin drives us into the wilderness of alienation from God, the creature wilfully cutting himself off from the Creator.

But not only does sin alienate us from God, it alienates us from each other. Paul portrays this for us in 3:13-17: "Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace have they not known." Lies, cutting remarks, bitter speech, bloodshed, violence, and our inability to reconcile is the mark of human beings isolated from one another. Sin drives us into an alien state of isolation. We have no relationship with God, no relationship with a brother, no relationship with a sister. The wages of sin is death by isolation. Being "under sin" means self-imposed solitary confinement.

Even worse, we delude ourselves into thinking this state of isolation and alienation is all there is. One of the marks of enslavement to sin is profound self-delusion. We have no knowledge of God, no knowledge of others, and no knowledge of ourselves. Yet we arrogantly think we are okay, that nothing is wrong, that this is simply the way the world is. But when we are "under sin," many things are terribly wrong. We were created by God to be free, but man is everywhere in chains.

This isolation as the logical result of sin ruling my life became very real to me in the six months or so before I committed my life to Jesus Christ in January 1983. In my growing up years, the times I loved the most were the times when everybody was home: when my older sisters returned from college, and we were all together again, and later when they would return with their husbands and families. I grew up wanting to love God and love others. But the sickness of sin began to spread its deadly coldness into my heart as I grew. Soon I deluded myself that I did not need God, that I was in control of my own life and destiny. My relationships with my parents dwindled into shallow co-existence, where we lived in our house "together all alone." How many families simply exist this way, living isolated and separate lives under the same roof: husband and wife slip into tolerant coping with one another; father does not know his son; mother and daughter can't talk. "Together all alone." That was how things were for me.

I remember becoming so withdrawn the summer before committing my life to Christ that I wouldn't even have normal fun with other people. My Dad took me on a fishing trip to a lake up in Canada, and that week the Hall of Fame pro golfer Tom Watson was at the same lodge we were. One night after dinner, Tom Watson and some of the others decided to play softball. Tom himself invited me to play, but I chose to stay in the cabin by myself. How sick! Sin was having its way with me. I was withdrawing into my own world of isolation, even when surrounded by others with wonderful invitations to have fun. Sin isolates us from one another: man from his God, man from his wife, man from his children, man from his brothers; woman from her God, woman from her husband, woman from her children, woman from her sisters. If you find yourself isolated from someone in your family, at your work, or here at church, ask God to show you the root of sin causing this isolation. Haven't you ever had an argument with your spouse or best friend, and experienced that awful estrangement where you feel isolated and alone? The wages of sin is death by isolation.

This is why Jesus Christ was abandoned by His friends during the darkest moments of His passion. Isaiah contemplated the terrible aloneness of Jesus as the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53:3: "He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief..." He was isolated among men, but He was also alienated from God at the most terrible point of His suffering, when He cried out on the cross, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani ..." He was forsaken of men and forsaken by God, because the wages of sin is death by isolation. He bore our sins ... alone.

Freed from Sin, Enslaved to God: God's Curious Recipe of Real Freedom

So, what does it mean to be freed from sin? Paul's phrase has two parts to it at the beginning of vs. 22: "But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God..." In other words, the very thing that sets us free from sin is enslavement to God! Our conversion by faith in Jesus Christ, our change in identity that occurs when we believe in our Christ of the cross, immediately places us in eternal relationship with our God. We chose to be enslaved to Him, to offer ourselves as bond-slaves, making ourselves available to Him by a voluntary choice of lifelong obedience. Enslavement to sin isolated us from God, making us walk away from Him; freedom from sin comes paradoxically in our enslavement to God, where we turn toward Him to walk into an eternal relationship with Him. This is the throughly shocking aspect of "enslavement" to God: it is enslavement unto freedom, an eternal relationship with God that nullifies forever the death by isolation caused by sin. We are now free, free to relate with God, free to begin anew in a new life with Him!!

In the musical version of Les Miserables, Jean Valjean sings the song of his conversion in the lonely town square, facing the bishop's door. This song paints his new freedom in very moving terms. He sings, "For I had come to hate the world. This world that always hated me! Take an eye for an eye. Turn your heart into stone. This is all I have lived for. This is all I have known. One word from him and I'd be back beneath the lash, upon the rack. Instead, he offers me my freedom. I feel my shame inside me like a knife. He told me that I have a soul. How does he know? What spirit comes to move my life? Is there another way to go? I am reaching, but I fall, and the night is closing in, and I stare into the void -- to the whirlpool of my sin. I'll escape now from the world, from the world of Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean is nothing now. Another story must begin!" Freedom from sin, within a new eternal relationship with God, brings a truly new story!

Certainly the best news about being freed from sin is entering an eternal relationship with God. Having a restored and everlasting relationship with God is the deepest yearning of every human heart. As St. Augustine said, "Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee..." Entering an eternal relationship with God is the only way we can be truly successful in this life, if we take "success" to mean the realization of the purpose for which we were made. When a car operates well and achieves 150,000 miles of service to its owner, the car succeeds in the purpose for which it was made. When a man or woman goes through life alone without God, they are unfulfilled, and unsuccessful. They are empty vessels who never get filled, never find satisfaction, never find ultimate success. They do not realize the purpose for which they are made, but die in isolated meaninglessness. But the person who has God living in them by the indwelling Holy Spirit is fulfilled, becoming immediately and ultimately successful. He has become what he was created to be; she has fulfilled her Creator's purpose. Freedom from sin through eternal relationship with God thus becomes freedom to succeed. Real success comes no other way.

But the next best news about being freed from sin is that we have a whole new beginning. This is the magic of the baptism of the Holy Spirit: we are rendered dead to sin and alive to God. A new biography begins to be written. The stranglehold of sin is broken; the iron collar is cut off; the armored door of our isolation cell is thrown open, never to be closed again. We walk out of that prison, indwelled by our God and in eternal relationship with Him, into an absolutely new life.

In this new life, since we are freed from sin, we are free indeed from the ongoing guilt and condemnation caused by sin. Sin is always self-deluding: before Christ, sin deluded us into thinking we had no sin, that we were okay, basically good people. Once that sham is revealed in the light of Christ's cross, and we become Christians, another delusion slowly takes shape. It is a far uglier lie. This lie deludes us into believing we are still under sin, that we are not really new creatures in Christ, that sin still controls us, that our lives are still victimized by past sins we have committed or ugly sins committed against us. This is where sin takes our new awareness of sin and buries us under the weight of it. Before sin seemed insignificant; now it seems all-significant and all-powerful. But this lie too is dispelled by the light of the cross. Yes our sin was terrible and enslaving, but Jesus paid it all. All our sins have been covered. Thus, freedom from sin means real freedom from it: freedom from the load of our guilt, freedom from an ongoing sense of condemnation, freedom to begin relating to God even though we still sin, because our relationship is based on the completed work of Christ's cross and the free grace we receive from Him. God's grace is greater than our sin, and it is by grace that we relate to God eternally in real freedom from sin.

Real freedom from sin also means having a balanced view of our sin: it is not non-existent, otherwise Christ would have died needlessly; nor does it overwhelm us, otherwise Christ's death was ineffective as an atoning sacrifice. Our past, present and future sins have all been entirely paid for. We are no longer identified by our sin, because we chose to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ. I may and do sin, but I am forgiven and sin no longer defines who I am. I am not a SINNER any more, I am now and forever a SON. I am a PRINCE in the royal family of God. And no sin I ever commit will change my identity, nor demote me from my royal status. We are now freed from sin, to relate with God forever as redeemed and adopted sons and daughters, princes and princesses in the royal house of heaven.

But living in this dark world, we so easily forget who we are. We feel the iron rule of sin all around us. This week has been particularly dark for one of our sweet sisters in our church. In dark weeks like this, freedom from sin seems like a sham, and our identity as princes and princesses in Christ seems like a vanishing dream. But then God sends us those little reminders, those notes or words that remind us HE IS IN US, making us shine like princes and princesses, though we may not see it. Our sister received a letter from a young daughter in another city. Let me quote from this letter: "Dear Precious Mom: ... I really don't know how you've found the strength to keep fighting. I have more respect for you than any other human on the face of this earth. I'm not just saying this -- you are my hero and mentor and even though I think its impossible I want to be exactly like you with your courage and faith. You have been the earthly one that has kept this family going. ... We are every little thing we are, because of you. We saw Jesus in you!" What a reminder from the Lord about who our sister really is: a princess in the royal family of God in whom shines Jesus Christ. Our gracious God did not want her to forget who she is during the darkness, so He sent her a reminder of her royalty.

In the end, freedom from sin means living every hour according to my new identity in Christ, as a worthy son or daughter, as a prince or a princess. And when I come to know that my God says I am nobility, I yearn to act nobly. And I act nobly by letting Him live through me, giving Him all of myself without reservation. I am thus free to offer myself wholeheartedly to God. That is the essence of our lives in Christ. Now, where is sin in that picture? I AM FREE FROM IT. SIN IS NOTHING MORE THAN A DISTRACTION. I know who I am in Christ, and I know He wants all of my life to be available to Him as His obedient bond-slave. He wants all of my life so that everything I am shines with the love of Christ, with no shadow caused by sin. Jesus Christ is my life. He is my all in all. And in Him I am totally free. Free to love God forever, which is the deepest desire in my heart now that I know Him. But, as we will learn in the rest of Rom. 6:22, I discover that being free from sin also means I am free to relate in a healthy way with others, and even with myself.

Free to Bear Fruit in Relationships

Paul continues in Rom. 6:22 to tell us, "But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life." More accurately, the last half of this passage should read, "you have your fruit unto increased holiness, and the end [is] eternal life."

Just what is the fruit of freedom from sin and enslavement to God? It is the fruit of the Spirit living in us. Paul lists this fruit for us in Gal. 5:22, 23: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." Although Paul lists nine qualities, he uses those nine qualities to describe one singular fruit of the Spirit, just as here in Rom. 6:22 there is one singular fruit of freedom from sin. That one singular fruit is the life and character of Jesus Christ, the One who personified love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

But if we look at that fruit carefully, we see how these nine qualities govern three primary relationships in our lives. Our primary relationship as Christians is our relationship with God, and we love Him because He first loved us; we experience peace because we now have peace with God; and He has Himself become our joy. Thus, the fruit we now experience is the freedom to have a vibrant, loving, joyful relationship with our God through faith in Jesus Christ. The first three qualities of the fruit of the Spirit germinate within us because of our relationship with God.

The next three qualities are produced in us through our relationships with others. By allowing the character of Christ in us to flow through us, we find ourselves demonstrating patience toward others, and doing acts of kindness and goodness to the benefit of others.

The final three qualities take the longest time to ripen in us, because they have to do with our relationship with ourselves. Faithfulness comes when by crucifying the flightiness of my flesh I am found faithful at my post in Jesus Christ. Gentleness comes when the strength of my flesh is restrained by the Spirit, that I respond with graciousness not with growling. And self-control is the final achievement of the Spirit within me, controlling the self unto complete usefulness in the hands of God.

Thus, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of freedom from sin and enslavement to God, brings freedom to relate to God in a healthy way (in love, in peace, with joy), freedom to relate to others in a healthy way (with patience, kindness and goodness), and freedom to understand myself and master myself in all godliness (through faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control).

Whereas before sin shut down all relationships, bringing death by isolation, freedom from sin means I am free to experience healthy and right relationships, with my God first, with others second, and even with myself. Whereras when I was under sin, much was terribly wrong relationally, now with my newfound freedom from sin and enslavement to God, I am freed and indeed empowered to enter into healthy relationships on all sides of my life, with literally everyone I meet. Before, sin rendered me "relationally dysfunctional;" now that I am free from sin in Jesus Christ, God brings healthy relationships into my life at every turn!

I rejoice to report the truth of this in my own life!! When I look back to that summer of the missed softball game with Tom Watson, I think about how much my life has changed since then. I can safely say that at that time in my life, I had not even one healthy relationship. I had one juvenile friendship, my Dad and I went fishing, but every one of my relationships was made shallow by the depths of my own selfishness and relational dysfunctionality. I was a lonely young man. But some six months later I chose to follow Jesus Christ and be identified with Him. Jesus Christ came into my life, and I was no longer alone. My eternal relationship with God had begun. Eighteen months later, God gave me my wonderful wife, and our marriage gets better and better with every passing year! Then eleven and a half months after we were married, God gave us the gift of our first child. Then God gave us the gift of our second child. Then we received the gift of our third child. Then our fourth gift-child came. Four years ago, our fifth child came as a gift!! Beyond all this, God has given me a new depth of relationship with both of my parents. And beyond that, God has given me literally hundreds of mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters in Christ I have known and loved over the years at PBC and now here in our church!! The drama of my life has changed from a sad soliloquy in the shadows of an empty stage to a live show with a castful of honest relationships!!

This thought came home to me one night when Blythe and I were getting dinner ready. I was setting the table, so I went to the cupboard and counted out seven plates. As I counted those seven plates, the thought hit me: every night at our house is a party!! With seven people, every dinner becomes a dinner party!!! That curious thought stirred me. I put the plates down, put my hands on the bottom shelf of that cupboard, leaned my head against my hands, and prayed to thank God with all my heart: all my life I loved it when everyone was home, when there were many and good relationships. I had yearned for that as a child, lost it completely as a young man going my own way in sin, but in knowing Jesus Christ and watching Him fill my empty life with relationships, He has satisfied my longings. He has filled my heart with Himself, and my home with sweet relationships I value far more than silver and gold. Freedom from sin means freedom to receive healthy relationships as free gifts from God, satisfying our deepest longings.

Final Result: Eternal Life

At the end of Rom. 6:22, we see the result of this: "... and the end, eternal life." This is a quizzical phrase: the end ... eternal life. Isn't eternal life by definition life with no end? Yes. The term "end" here is telos, which can also mean culmination, completion, final achievement. In this case, the crowning fruit of freedom from sin and enslavement to God is eternal life. Eternal life is best defined by Jesus Himself in John 17:3: "And this is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." The highest height, the greatest glory, the crowning and everlasting blessing of freedom from sin and enslavement to God is knowing our God, the only true God, and our sweet Jesus Christ whom God sent to save us. Knowing Him is the telos, the highest goal; nothing could be greater.

One day two English professors were walking together in the sunshine. Both were Christians, and one of them had been put in the place of choosing Christ above his own career aspirations. This dear, unknown scholar had essentially forfeited all opportunity at academic advancement by clashing with church leaders in his denomination over the doctrine of grace. The two men were talking about this titanic struggle, but the man who had stood his ground had no regrets. He said this toward the end of the conversation: "But it doesn't matter, for I have known God and they haven't." That remark was almost spoken as an aside, a parenthetical reflection on the great debate. But that comment stuck with the other professor, setting him thinking. Knowing God is our highest goal, far greater than mere career advancement. This man's conviction set J. I. Packer thinking, and the result was Packer's influential book Knowing God.

Paul says this is the highest goal in the content of his prayer for the Ephesian saints in Eph. 1:15-19a: "For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you, and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe." Knowing Him is the summit of human experience, meant to be our eternal enjoyment.

So, what does freed from sin and enslaved to God mean? It means we are freed from the isolation caused by sin, alienating us from God, others and even ourselves. By being enslaved to God, we are in rich, eternal relationship with our God whom we know both now and forever, Father in heaven, Son in glory, and Spirit in us. We are given the gift of healthy relationships with others, and we even have the opportunity to know ourselves, to know and live by our new identity in Jesus Christ. Eternal life cancels out forever sin's death by isolation. Instead, we have life abundantly, in right relationship with God, with others, and with ourselves.

Only Two Worlds, Only Two Choices

As we close down our study, I want to look at Paul's conclusion to Romans chapter six, in Rom. 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus." May this dualism be branded on our hearts and minds forever!!

In the end, the wages of sin is death by isolation. Cain is the icon of man in sin in the Bible. He was angry at God, we have no record of relationship with his parents, and he murdered his own brother over a religious dispute. Cain sinned, and as a result of his sin he was cursed to wander in a wilderness all alone. Cain's sentence? Death by isolation.

This makes me think of my boyhood best friend, about whom I've shared before. We were like brothers. We met in kindergarten, were in third grade class together, studied together almost every school night in seventh, eight, ninth and tenth grade, we sang in the same choirs for years, sat on student governments together, roomed together for three years in college. But a few months after I chose to follow Jesus Christ, he chose to reject Him and walk his own way. Our paths that had been so close started to diverge. He was my best man in my wedding, and I remember him reaching his hands to clasp mine at that golden moment when I saw Blythe coming down the aisle, looking like an angel more beautiful than any woman I had ever seen. He now works as a doctor in a hospital in Denver, usually averaging 100 hour work weeks. He is not married, and he lives alone. We have drifted apart now, probably because we have become so different and our divergent paths are leading us to different destinies. I love my friend Andy, but I fear his death by isolation.

I remember one night in our dorm room, as Andy lay upon the upper bunk and I lay in the lower bunk. Andy asked, "Dorm, what are you afraid of most?" I thought quickly, coming up with a forgettable answer. Then I asked him the same question: "Andy, what are you afraid of most?" His answer I will never forget: "Being all alone." I weep that my friend's greatest fear has become his only companion.

I weep because it doesn't have to be this way!!! His Creator God, the God of the Universe, the God of shepherdless sheep, stands waiting and waiting and waiting for him. My good God stands ready to freely give the greatest gift ever given, the free gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That gift is Himself. It is God coming to relate to His man, woman, boy and girl, that He might be known by us and we might learn we are known by Him. It is the perfect gift of the right relationship for which our heart yearns at the deepest level, and once that hub relationship is in place, a thousand spoke relationships fan out all around our lives, enriching our lives far beyond the imagining of the richest men and women in our world. There is a richness of eternal relationship that is only available through faith in Jesus Christ. It is only available as a freely given gift of grace: it cannot be bought, it cannot be attained, it cannot be manipulated, it cannot be taken. It can only be received by faith, because the Possessor and Good Giver of eternal life has decreed it to be a gift received only by faith in Jesus Christ.

Conclusion: Choose You This Day Whom You Will Serve!!

So, how does this practically work out in the Monday to Saturday world? How do we go from death to life? It begins when each of us, like the Prodigal, "comes to himself." Even better, when we come to the end of ourselves. We say to ourselves, "I hate this! I cannot fix this one!" At that moment: PRAY!! You will then see that mysterious power of Christ at work.

We have spoken of many things today, but they all boil down to this simple statement: "The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord." May we take a moment of silence, to ponder these things, to pray, to talk with God. May no one pass through another hour still under the sentence of death by isolation. Instead, may each and every one of us open ourselves to receive forgiveness of sin and this freedom from sin, that we might have Christ live in us and have our good God begin to give us the free gifts of many healthy relationships!

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