Tuesday, Oct. 9

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In 1979, Rock & Roll legend Bob Dylan shocked the music world by announcing his conversion to Christianity.  Shortly afterward he released his first Gospel album entitled “Slow Train Coming”.  One of the songs on that album was called, “Gotta Serve Somebody,”

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, 

yes indeed You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

I don’t know if Dylan was inspired by the words of the Bible or not, but his song certainly reflects the truth of Romans 6:18. 

You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

This is at first glance, a strange verse.  How can a person become free to become a slave?  What does it mean to be slave to righteousness?  Paul basically says that there are only two kinds of people in the world; those who are slaves to sin or those who are slaves to God/righteousness.  Of course this idea sounds extreme, harsh, even offensive to our ears.  We would all like to believe there is some third option...”I’m not a slave to God, but that doesn’t mean I am slave to sin!  I’m not a slave to anyone or anything!”  

Several years ago I read the book (and later saw the movie) “Invictus”.  This was the story of Nelson Mandela’s great struggle to lead the nation of South Africa in the post-apartheid era.  The word invictus is Latin for “unconquered”, and the title of the book and movie comes from an poem by the same title, written by Ernest Henley in 1875.  The final stanza of this poem reads as follows...

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

These lines represent what many people in our culture believe.  Most people define freedom as doing what I choose, when I choose, how choose, and with whom I choose.  I have even heard people say that getting away from God and religion is the only way to be free.  But the Bible has a very different view of what it means to be free.  In fact, since, at its core, sin is self-centeredness (as Romans 3 shows us), to believe that you are in control of your own life, is the essence of what it means to be a slave to sin. Throughout Romans 6, Paul’s theme is “slavery.” The words slave or enslaved occur eight times in 6:15-23 and in every verse except 15, 21, & 23. Also, the words obedience, obedient, and obey occur four times.  Clearly, the issue here is, whose slave are you? Do you obey sin or God? There are no other options!  

Nobody is truly free, we all serve some kind of spiritual master or masters, we are all offering ourselves to something.  We are all slaves to someone the only question is who?

C. H. Spurgeon once observed, “Free will I have often heard of, but I have never seen it. I have met with will, and plenty of it, but it has either been led captive by sin or held in blessed bonds of grace.” So the choice is not, “Should I give up my freedom so that I can submit to God?” Rather, it is, “Should I serve sin or should I serve God?”  

The amazing irony is that once you make the choice to surrender yourself to God and become His servant, you discover that you have become truly free!  

Have you ever seen a lion in a zoo?  Lions are called the “King of Beasts” and they are magnificent creatures.  However, there is something inherently sad about seeing the King of Beasts being gawked at while lying in a man made enclosure.  The lion was not made to live this way, it was made to roam the African plains, stalking, hunting, etc.  The lion in the zoo is not truly free because it is not living as it was designed by God to live.

The Bible teaches us that true freedom is not the ability to do what you, when you want, rather true freedom is living according to your created purpose.  God created you, He knit you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139), He created you in His image (Genesis 2), and He designed you for a purpose (Ephesians 2).  You can never be free by trying to get away from the one who created you.  The only path to freedom is to surrender yourself to Him and to live according to His purposes for your life.

Jeff Frazier