Proud Grandparants

 

Will it be Grace or Sin?

Rom 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life. (Net Bible)

Are we to remain in sin that grace may increase? I will bet your answer is of course not. No way does grace give license to sin. We have a clear obligation to stop sinning don’t we? We are Christians after all. We are about the job of putting to death the deeds of the flesh are we not? I take it you then agree with Paul’s, “Absolutely not!” No way should we continue to sin so that grace might increase period. But what does Paul mean when he continues with “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” Let me ask you. How can you live in sin if you have died to sin? You see Paul believes that to ask the question “are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase?” is absolutely absurd in face of what God has accomplished and provided to us.

For a moment let’s assume that I have an obligation to drive within the speed limit. The law sets the limit and sets out penalties for violating those limits. I am caught speeding and I get a ticket. I owe a fine and it is a big one. Before I pay the fine I die. Lucky me! What power does the law have over me? Now that I am dead it has no power at all. The courts don’t collect fines from dead men. How silly is that? If I was sentenced to death for a murder and I die before they put me in the electric chair, will they then try to electrocute me. No, you say. Absurd, you say. Paul agrees.

What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase? Paul is saying what an absurd question. You are dead. The law can no longer reach you and where there is no law, there is no sin. It is as though by some gracious act of Congress all the laws are set aside because you are in some way dead while still walking this earth. No Congress would be that gracious, but we can dream a little can’t we?

We have died those of us who have accepted God’s gracious gift of His Son. When we were baptized into Christ we were baptized into His death. We died and were reborn, not of the law, but of the Spirit into a new life, a life free from sin and free from the law that judges that sin. It was God’s grace that put us in this state of sinlessness and it is His grace that maintains us in that state where there is no longer any condemnation by God toward us. Sin cannot increase because it is grace that has put an end to the power of sin in our lives. “1John 3:9 Everyone who has been fathered by God does not practice sin, because God’s seed resides in him, and thus he is not able to sin, because he has been fathered by God.” (Net Bible)

Much of the time we Christians are not living the life Christ has provided for us. We walk in constant fear about every deed done, or not done. We judge our acts, are they worthy or not. We constantly plead with God to accept our behavior, or to forgive it. We hedge our life with rules and expectations, with activities and with obligations. We do our disciplines with a futile hope that we are pleasing to God and what does it get us? Certainly not more grace. Much of the time we feel that God has abandoned us. Our lives feel empty and futile. Where is the joy? Our joy has gotten swallowed by the curse of the law that we insist on living under. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Paul thinks such a state is absurd in the face of God’s grace through the Cross.

We read these verses and we get it backwards. Grace trumps sin every time. It is a done deal. When we read those verses as a challenge to stop sinning we deny God’s grace that has already put an end to the principle of sin in us. We are dead folks. We can’t get any deader as far as God is concerned. We died when Christ died and we died when we allowed Him to enter into our very being joining His life to ours. “It is no longer I who lives but Christ lives in me…” Do you get that? My actions, my thoughts, my life is directed by Christ Himself, not me. I may feel like I am in charge, but I am not. My flesh falls back on its old habits and I know that, and I also know that those habits have no lasting effect over my life. I am directed by God’s spirit and no longer by Satan’s. Grace has truly set me free from the life I lived before of sin and death.

Paul thinks us absurd when we confuse our life in Christ with the old life under the influence of Satan. He thinks our confusion about sin and grace is silly in the face of the real death we have experienced.

We are truly free of the law, we died. Let us live by God’s Spirit. Do the things you do and enjoy them. Live life knowing, that what you do and who you are, cannot be separated from Jesus Himself expressing Himself through you. You are dead to the law and the sin it empowers. You are alive in Christ and His Spirit that fulfills the law in you. Know the joy that only grace can bring.

I am an American.

I am an American. What a simple statement. I was born in the USA. I happened to be born white. I grew up in a Christian home and accepted Jesus into my life around forty years ago. I grew up in Louisville, KY at a time when segregation was the norm. In college I joined with the NAACP demonstrations knowing intuitively that fellow human beings should not be treated the way I personally witnessed every day. I grew up a Democrat. Members of my extended family served in Congress, or ran for Governor of the State. I grew up having a sense that the environment was something to be honored and protected. Our family would talk "politics" regularly around the dinner table. Dad had an opportunity to buy a business. Mother would keep the books and they struggled to keep the business going despite literally flood and fire. They kept my brother and I well fed, schooled, clothed and loved. Yes I was born in the USA. I am an American. I was drafted into the Army after college. I met my wife while I served my two years as a "soldier". I had a good career as a chemist working for the Defense department for 35 years. We were blessed to have our own two boys. Yes I am an American. I grew up in a time where we learned our history and admired our founding fathers. Being an American meant something to me. It meant hope and opportunity and hard work and positive change in people's lives. It meant defending our freedom from the communist threat that was ever present and very real. My parents knew war. I was born in 1940 an ominous time to be an American, a time when the American way of life was defended with the blood of its men and women. I was born in the USA, what a blessing.

Times have changed and not for the better. In my seventy years I have seen the devastating effects of simple decisions our country has made. As a society we have rejected the sanctity of life, we have moved faith from our daily discourse and we have rejected the founding principles that have made this country unique in this world. Environmentalism has become a cult that rejects truth for a narrative that is both arrogant and simply wrong. We live in a post modern world and we see that expressed most vividly by the Democratic Party. This is not the America I knew growing up. Our values are changing and not for the better. Over the years I have moved away from my Democratic roots. That move has been correlated to the Democratic Party's move away from our Christian heritage and our principles established by our founding fathers. I am a conservative pure and simple. Someone has said that you don't know what freedom is until you have lost it. We are losing our freedom.

I woke up one day and it was gone. I no longer made decisions for myself and my family; I had a new consultant looking out for me. That consultant was my Government. No longer could I speak publicly about my faith in Jesus. My Government told me that I was being intolerant with such speech. I spoke out for the unborn and lamented the loss of life by abortion. I tried to have a dialogue about the sanctity of life, but my Government said that I was being oppressive to women's rights and that I was intolerant. I spoke out when I saw that the global warming science was not science, but propaganda. I spoke out against its intent to control the world's economy. My Government called me a denier and accused me of being closed minded, not a scientist at all. My Government insisted that consensus would rule, not common sense. I spoke out against "Health Care Reform" and my Government called it "hate speech" and I was accused of being a raciest and I was accused of fomenting acts of violence. My Government made those accusations because I dared oppose them with common sense objections and rational argument. I joined the Tea Party to express my frustration with This Government and I was called a "Tea Bagger" a sexual slur by my Government and accused of fomenting racial hatred and violence. My Government will now decide the degree of medical care I get. I will be taxed to the hilt so that I no longer control my income; the Government does that for me. My Dad's business will fail because of the tax burdens placed on it. I will have to rely on Government for my personal well being. That is not the Government our Founders envisioned. My way of life will be forever changed by an oppressive out of control Government and it will all be done for my best interest. Thank you very much, but I reject that form of Governmental intrusiveness to the core. I grew up in America and I know better.

The truth is mightier than the sword and I know that because I grew up free in America. My weapon is prayer something my present Government will never understand at least as it stands today. I grew up in an America practicing my faith and I will practice that faith to my last dying breath. The Government will never take that away from me. I reach out to a God who is over all and who is all powerful to protect and to preserve each and every one of us who call upon His name. This new America, this new hope and change cannot stand. It is doomed to failure. It will destroy lives, it is doing that even now, and it will destroy what I know as America. That is its intent. I will do what I can to slow that process, perhaps stop that process. I will speak out no matter what my Government says I am a, bigot, homophobe, tea bagger, raciest, denier, Bible clinger, war monger and more. What profound lies.

I will call upon the Lord who is my strength and my shield. Ours will not be violent opposition to tyranny it will be a spiritual one. I know the end of the story. It isn't pretty, but God does win in the end. In Christ we have already won. We live in a new world. It will be a stormy one. We are headed toward economic and social unrest that we have never experienced before. Inflation is coming. Unemployment will increase. The dollar may collapse. People will struggle to keep food on the table and to keep their families safe. Is that too bleak a picture? It doesn't have to happen, but we need to stand up against what is happening to our country before it degenerates to something like anarchy. The window of opportunity is closing fast. If you value your freedom, if you hold fast to what it is to be an American then pray. The America I was born in may not be the America I die in. For now prayer is our mightiest weapon. Pray!