Shuffle Text, 1950 Highway 81, Snellville, GA (2026)

07/16/2024

Joab

[DAVID SAID],“TODAY I AM POWERLESS, EVEN THOUGH ANOINTED KING; THESE MEN, THE SONS OF ZERUIAH, ARE TOO VIOLENT FOR ME. THE LORD PAY BACK THE WHO DOES WICKEDLY ACCORDING TO HIS WICKEDNESS!”
2 Samuel 3:39

Joab’s Role
If you’ve read 2 Samuel, you know that it’s mostly the story of David. In fact, this might be all you remember about it. Therefore, I want to bring out a character that’s hiding in the shadows in almost every story. I say hiding in the shadows because this man is the epitome of shady. His name is Joab.

When David first becomes king, he only becomes king over Judah after he wars with Saul’s son, Ishbaal (or Ishbosheth). Right from the beginning, his general is Joab. Joab and his brothers, Abishai and Asahel, are the sons of Zeruiah, David’s sister, so they are his nephews, and David brings them into military leadership. This is important because David’s blindness to family member’s flaws is his second biggest weakness in leadership (other than stealing his soldier’s wife).

Almost every time Joab is mentioned in a passage, he is doing something sketchy—mostly manipulating David and killing people in cold blood. He is the dark side of the great king. Let’s follow the trail of blood.

Abner
As I mentioned, at first David is only the king of Judah and fights wars with Ishbaal. Ishbaal’s general is a man named Abner, who also was Saul’s head general. When it becomes clear that David is going to win, Abner defects to David. Joab tries to tell David that Abner is untrustworthy, but really he’s mad that Abner killed his brother, Asahel, in battle. In Abner’s defense, Abner pleaded with Asahel not to make Abner kill him, but Asahel left him no choice. So after the defection, Joab pulled Abner aside to have a private conversation, and stabbed him in the stomach. Joab kills him for revenge, but not only that, Abner also stands as a threat to Joab’s high position in David’s army. For David, Abner would have made it easier to bring the Benjaminites and those loyal to Saul onto his side, but Joab ruined that.

David, who was known to have people killed for violating his abnormally high sense of idealism and ethics, did not even demote Joab. Why? I can only speculate nepotism.

Bathsheba
Obviously, this one is David’s fault. David sleeps with one of his soldier’s wives, gets her pregnant, and then has the husband killed in battle. But….who’s there to do the dirty work? Joab. He’s the one who puts Uriah on the frontlines and orders everyone else to abandon him to die. To top it off, Joab uses this to manipulate David. When a messenger sends a report of a battle gone badly, Joab has the messenger also report the death of Uriah to keep David from being mad at him.

Joab is loyal to David, does his dirty work, but he also manipulates David and has zero conscience.

Absalom, part 1
Absalom, David’s son, kills his brother Amnon (for good reason), and then runs away. Joab uses a “wise woman” from Tekoa to manipulate David to bring Absalom back. Joke’s on him though, Absalom comes back, is mad that his dad won’t see him, so he petulantly sets Joab’s field on fire to give him an audience with the king. (I deal with this story at length in a Shuffle Text about Psalm 3, if you want to check it out)

Absalom, part 2
Absalom then takes over the throne, runs his dad out of town, and hires a man named Amasa to be his general instead of Joab. Long story short, Absalom’s guys fight David’s guys and get slaughtered. Why? David had a group of mercenary bodyguards called the Cherethites and the Pelethites, led by Benaiah who could handle just about anybody. (Amasa and Benaiah will come up later). Absalom flees, gets his hair stuck in a tree, and despite David’s expressed request that no one harm Absalom, Joab shoves three spears through him. Why three? No idea. Then, Joab has his men finish Absalom off like a piñata.

There’s a telling scene here where an unnamed soldier stands up to Joab. The soldier tells Joab that Absalom is stuck in the tree (still darkly funny, sorry). Joab asks why the soldier didn’t kill him. The soldier reminds him of David’s request. Joab tells the man that he would have given him 10 pieces of silver. The soldier calls him out and says even if you gave me a thousand pieces of silver I wouldn’t have done it, because you would sell me out to David. This dude is my hero. That’s a bold thing to say to your sketchy but scary general.

Amasa
Remember Amasa? Well, after Absalom is defeated, David brings him back into the army. During another rebellion, David checks Amasa’s loyalty and finds it possibly in question (actually, David didn’t seem to think so). Joab uses this opportunity to take Amasa aside (just like Abner) and stab him, too. Wait, there’s more to the story. Amasa, is Joab’s cousin, also David’s nephew (well, great-nephew). And when David returned to power he put Amasa in power instead of Joab in order to consolidate all the people that left him for Absalom. This was another power play, and he killed his own flesh and blood to make it.

It gets weirder. He left Amasa dying in the road, and all the soldiers were confused by the sight. So, Joab dragged him into a field and covered him up, nothing to see here. After that, everyone shrugged their shoulders and followed Joab.

Application
Joab was a selfish jerk who justified himself by claiming he was doing what was best for David even when it violated David’s code of ethics and messed up his ability to lead. David, ever the idealist, nevertheless had a weak spot when it came to family (Joab, Amnon, Absalom, Adonijah), so he never fully dealt with Joab.

We are all tempted, like Joab, to sacrifice morals for practicality, especially if it benefits us. We are all tempted, like David, to overlook the flaws of the people we are sentimental towards and let them abuse others around us. And….

There’s always justice. On his deathbed, David tells his son and successor, Solomon, to deal with Joab because of all his sin and probably because he backed Adonijah against Solomon (David’s son and another usurper like Absalom). Solomon sends in Benaiah to deal with Joab, who kills him in the tabernacle because Joab won’t leave. I told you Benaiah would come back up. He’s the one general that Joab never killed. I wonder why? Probably because Benaiah was known for killing a lion in hand-to-hand combat on a snowy day (see 2 Samuel 23:20, not sure why the weather was important). He was a real warrior instead of schemer.

04/29/2024

1 Corinthians 15:3-8
I PASSED ON TO YOU AS MOST IMPORTANT WHAT I ALSO RECEIVED: CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS IN LINE WITH THE SCRIPTURES, 4 HE WAS BURIED, AND HE ROSE ON THE THIRD DAY IN LINE WITH THE SCRIPTURES. 5 HE APPEARED TO CEPHAS, THEN TO THE TWELVE, 6 AND THEN HE APPEARED TO MORE THAN FIVE HUNDRED BROTHERS AND SISTERS AT ONCE—MOST OF THEM ARE STILL ALIVE TO THIS DAY, THOUGH SOME HAVE DIED. 7 THEN HE APPEARED TO JAMES, THEN TO ALL THE APOSTLES, 8 AND LAST OF ALL HE APPEARED TO ME, AS IF I WERE BORN AT THE WRONG TIME.

Hidden Gem
This passage is formational for the church, but you may not be familiar with it because it’s hiding deep in the book of first Corinthians. First Corinthians is a long letter from Paul to the church in Corinth that covers everything from proper communion to when to speak in tongues to how bad they are and the all-importance of love. In fact, the enormous popularity of chapter 13 (the love chapter) I believe obscures today’s passage. After covering a myriad of topics, Paul is now letting us know what is most important (besides love, which is also most important. They’re both most important. Live in the paradox.).

What You Need to Know
What is the foundation of the Christian faith? It’s that Jesus died for our sins. It’s that he rose from the dead. It’s that both of those things were according to the Scriptures, AND it’s that he appeared to a bunch of people after he rose from the dead. This is it. This is Christianity distilled. Let’s talk about why it matters.

The Cross and Resurrection
It’s probably no surprise that these two make it into the discussion on importance. The cross is important because Jesus died for our sins. However, this means more than we usually give it credit for. Yes, we are guilty of sin, and Christ is the sacrifice for us that forgives us in the eyes of God and lets us have a relationship with God. Also, since it’s according to the Scripture, we need to point out that the Israelites were waiting for a forgiveness of sin because sin put them exile.

They lost the presence of God, their land, their autonomy, and their community. Therefore, forgiveness of sin means not only that we are forgiven, but also that we have a restored experience of the presence of God and sense of community. It’s not just about eternal life or personal experience (though it is that), it’s also about a people connected to each other by the presence of God, just like the Israelites in the Exodus.

The Resurrection is also vastly important. In fact, Paul wrote this whole chapter in order to discuss its importance. It means that Jesus defeated the powers that hold us captive. It means that he defeated death. It means that he is reigning and bringing everything under his power. In short, it is the power of God to put this world back together, and it is our hope of a glorious future that we share in some part now. Amen.

Modern Implications
However, there are two other implications in this passage that need to be addressed so that we can fully understand the faith. I think have been obscured sometimes in our current dialogue.

First, all of this happens “according to the Scriptures.” By Scriptures, Paul means what we call the Old Testament. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. He is the fulfillment of all the sought after promises of the law and the prophets. We cannot understand Jesus if we pull him out of his Jewish context. We cannot unhitch from the Old Testament. Doing so will often leave us with an un-Jewish, individualistic gospel that focuses mostly on the afterlife and our individual spheres of influence, rather the bigger vision of the kingdom putting the whole world back together and calling us into community.

Second, Paul makes a point of telling us about the eyewitnesses to Jesus’ resurrection. This is important because we usually think of religions and other ideologies competing on the merits of their philosophy and morality. However, Christianity is first and foremost a religion around a historical event. We are reckoning with an actual event in history not just a competing set of good ideas. In a world where competing ideologies are creating their own truth, Christianity hangs on the idea that the resurrection either happened or it didn’t…..and if it did, it changed everything.

03/25/2024

The Way, the Truth, and the Life: John 14:6

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:6

This is one of the most famous verses in Scripture, and people have relied on it for different reasons throughout history. Without diminishing other valid understandings of the passage, I want to draw attention to an important understanding that sometimes gets forgotten (not least by me).

Background
First, a little background. In the book of John, Jesus is notorious for giving amazing spiritual insight out of frustration with the person he’s talking to. Thomas is trying to figure out how to literally walk to where God is, and Jesus changes the use of the word to explain that believing in Jesus and walking with Jesus (spiritually) gets you to the Father.

The Truth
A lot of people use this verse to point to Jesus as the absolute truth. This is the Christocentric (Christ at the center) view of our faith that believes that wherever there’s confusion or disagreement with the rest of Scripture, let Jesus clear that up.
We like Jesus as truth. It helps us to understand the world. We may not like his ideas (forgiving enemies and such), but we can mentally assent that his ideas are the best.

The Life
Typically, when people refer to Jesus as the life from this verse, they mean that he offers eternal life after death. This is the great hope beyond suffering and loss that Jesus offers to the world. It could also point to the idea of “abundant life” that Jesus offers—a life in the present without guilt, shame, or purposelessness. Either way, it’s pretty exciting.

The Way
Now we come to the reason I’m writing this (and John Mark Comer brought this to my attention in a recent podcast). Typically, when someone refers to Jesus as the way, they mean the way to heaven after you die. This is understandable given that Jesus is talking about the final kingdom to Thomas and saying that he’s leaving to prepare a place there.

But there’s more nuance here than that. I believe that Jesus is using a play on words to talk about what the disciples should do now. In fact, even eternal life starts now by knowing God (see John 17:3).
Therefore, when Jesus says he is the way, he means that he is the example for how we should live our lives—in love, forgiveness, sacrifice, purity, etc. In fact, the word “way” probably refers to halakhah, which is a rabbinic word for teaching laws—literally, “the way of walking.”

Therefore, when we speak of Jesus as the way, we should speak of him as the ultimate example for how we should live our lives. This is by far the hardest part of Christian discipleship.

Conclusion
We look to Jesus for hope for eternity and truth through the confusion, but once we find it, we commit to living the life he lived. This is the way.

01/24/2024

Christ in Us, Us in Christ (A paradox)

Colossians 1:27- God wanted to make the glorious riches of this secret plan known among the Gentiles, which is Christ living in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 2:6- So live in Christ Jesus the Lord in the same way you received him.

Intro
These are some of the most important verses in the Bible. A lot of ink (or data) can and has been spilled to understand these verses. I’m not going to try to explain exactly what each means and how it relates to the gospel and systematic theology. At least not today.
Instead, I want to use these two verses to give an idea of how we should think about our lives throughout each day.

Our Power
First, Christ in us. Paul calls it a “mystery” which is translated here as “secret plan.” That’s because a mystery in Greek is not a problem to be solved like Sherlock, it’s a truth that has to be revealed. You can’t learn it without God telling you—in this case, through Scripture.

Jews were waiting for the presence of God to return to the temple. The secret plan revealed here is that the presence returned in Jesus and now lives in us.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist the background details.

What I want you to take away from this today is that you can be transformed into the person God called you to be because God lives in you and is doing the work.

So spend a few moments today and every day recognizing the power living in you and calling on Jesus to guide you through the day—loving your neighbor and focusing on what’s important.

Future Glory
This verse also means that the presence of the Spirit in you is the down payment that you have a place in heaven, in the final kingdom, when God’s realm takes over Earth’s realm. You have the assurance of your salvation.

It’s Not About You
But I also included this second verse because it presents a paradox, a seeming contradiction. The second verse says that rather than focusing on Christ in us, we should live in Christ.
I like this because if we focus only one what God is doing in us, we might think the story is just about us. However, we are called into God’s story. We play a small role in a drama that began before we were born and will continue after we die.

Keep this focus so that you’re more worried about what God wants to do in the world instead of your smaller concerns. It also means that if you don’t finish something, God can raise up others to do finish it. You’re not alone. Everything doesn’t depend on you, and we’re not the focus of the universe.

Conclusion
So let the Spirit of God transform you in your day to day life to carry out the mission that’s a part of a story much bigger than us.

01/08/2024

Colossians 1:3-5 The Hope of Heaven
We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you. 4 We’ve done this since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all God’s people. 5 You have this faith and love because of the hope reserved for you in heaven. You previously heard about this hope through the true message, the good news,
Colossians 1:3-5 CEB

Paul is Excited
Paul’s friend Epaphras told him about these awesome Colossians. Epaphras (how come nobody is using Epaphras as a baby name?) preached the gospel to them, and they responded with faith and love.

They believed that the cross and the resurrection marked Jesus as the Jewish messiah and King of the World, come to set everything right. And now they trust Jesus with their lives. That is their faith.

And they demonstrate love by letting the Spirit of God change them into the people he calls them to be, who love God and neighbor. That’s the Christian life—lives of faith and love.

Hope of Heaven
But he says that this faith and love come from the hope reserved for them in heaven. Popular Christianity has taught me that the hope of heaven is that I go to heaven when I die. Looney Tunes taught me that heaven is located in cumulus clouds, and I’ll get wings and a harp. It’s true that we will be with God in eternal bliss when we die, but it’s more than that.

It’s not just a ticket out of this terrible place. It’s a hope of something that allows us to live a bizarre life of enemy-love, generosity, self-sacrifice, and kindness, no matter what we face in the world.

The hope of heaven is a hope that one Jesus will return and put this world back together. “Set the world to rights,” as N.T. Wright often says. And we live in a strange time between Jesus’ resurrection that fills us with power to bring healing into this world, and the second resurrection that completes the job.

Our hope is that the work that God is doing in us will carry us through this life that can sometimes be confusing, cruel, disappointing, and painful. Our hope is that even though we may see people succeeding by stepping on others, our faithfulness and love will matter. Our hope is that whatever goes wrong, God will heal it, carry us through it, and transform it—in this life or the next.

Live in that hope. Meditate on that hope. Let it transform you, bearing fruit of faith and love. “And these three remain: faith, hope, and love” (1 Corinthians 13:13. It’s clear Paul likes these three things.)

11/01/2023

Revelation 8:1-4: Purified Prayers
8 1When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
2 And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.
3 Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. 4 The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand.

Prayers of the Saints
I’ve been in a lot of prayer meetings at different churches and in different traditions. A common theme is this reference to Revelation where the prayers of the people are referred to as incense. In this passage, it says incense is the with the prayers, but in Revelation 5 it says that the incense is the prayers.

When these passages are mentioned at prayer meetings, it usually goes like this. Keep praying. Your prayers are incense. When you pray, God likes the way your prayers smell. He’ll smell your beautiful, aromatic prayers and go do something awesome.

What Does Incense Do?
That’s pretty motivating to keep praying, but I recently heard an episode of the Holy Post podcast where Kaitlyn Schiess gave an alternate explanation that’s more in line with the full context of the passages. I did some digging and found others that agree with her, including famed Chinese pastor Watchman Nee. Here goes.

The incense needed to be burned in order to offer the good smell. Burning incense in the temple was a purification ritual. Between Revelation 5 and Revelation 8, the incense catches fire. Also, between Revelation 5 and Revelation 8, Jesus shows up to change the spiritual realm. In other words, Jesus set our prayers on fire with his death and resurrection, purifying them and making them effective.

Purifying Our Prayers
This is the most revolutionary part of the interpretation. By Jesus’ blood and the power of his resurrection, our prayers are purified. That’s amazing because I’ve prayed some dumb prayers. I prayed for a lot of girlfriends in middle school. I’ve prayed for the outcome of many football games. I’ve prayed for money and cars and for my kid to just go to sleep. I’m sure I’ve prayed against my enemies like David does in the Psalms.

So the idea that God will take my less than noble prayers and use them for his kingdom is a big comfort and really lowers the stakes for wanting to pray. I can approach God, with good motives or not so good motives and the God will use my prayers to change me and change the world. No more pressure to be perfect before I start praying.

This lines up well with some the ideas in Romans 8:26-27 if you’re still not convinced.

Conclusion
So to be clear, I now interpret the prayers of the saints as burning incense to be the effect of Jesus on our spiritual life. When we pray, regardless of how well, God will change us. And if he doesn’t like our prayers, he’ll do something better than what we asked for in the world.

So yes, we should keep praying because our prayers smell good (relax, it’s a metaphor), but also, we should keep praying to change our hearts and world.

10/22/2023

Found another sermon to typo in my manuscript tonight. Worship must lead to transformed livers. I mean, that’ll preach.

10/16/2023

Philippians 4:13: I can deal with all things
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” -Phil. 4:13

The Football Verse
Many people are familiar with this verse because it has served as inspiration to millions of athletes and entrepreneurs who are trying hard things. Whatever you want to do, you can do it because Christ will give you strength. But what if what you want to do is stupid, physically impossible, unethical, or just not what God wants? Will you still have Christ’s superpower? This verse never seemed to help me play “the floor is lava” in college. Sometimes you just can’t make it from the couch to the kitchen counter.

This is not to knock Tim Tebow and others who have promoted this verse. In fact, when he wore it on his eye black during one of his many championships (championships, as a UGA fan, that hurt me to recall), Philippians 4:13 briefly became the most searched term on Google. Whatever makes people read the Bible.

While I think this use is at best a little too narrow and at worst a complete misunderstanding, I still think it needs to be one of the most memorized verses in the Bible—for a completely different reason.

Paul’s Imprisonment
When Paul writes these words, he writes them to the church at Philippi while he’s in prison. In the letter, he shares how the life of Christ leads us to self-sacrifice, to pressing on to perfection, to focusing on the good in life and letting God deal with our anxieties. Then, he comes to this verse.

Recession Proof
He’s thanking the Philippians for their generosity, but also making sure they don’t feel guilted by his comment. In fact, he doesn’t need anything. He’s learned to be content with having a lot. He’s learned to be content with being poor. He’s learned to be content with hardship. Implicit in this paragraph is that he’s even learned to be content with being in prison.

What’s his secret? He can do all things through Christ who strengthens him. A more direct translation from the Greek might be this: I have strength in all things through him who strengthens me. This sounds even more like a football verse, so let me show you the CEB version that I think really gets at the heart of it.

“I can endure all these things through the power of the one who gives me strength.” -Phil. 4:13, CEB

Dealing with Anxiety, Hardship, and Grief
In other words, whatever he faces in this life, Christ will see him through. Whether it’s fear of the future (c.f., 4:6), pain of loss, or trouble in the present, Christ will give a peace that transcends understanding. There’s no promise that you’ll win the football game. There’s no promise that your business venture will work out. There’s no promise that you’ll be saved from the trials and heartache of this life. But there is a promise that God will carry you and strengthen you in the midst of it.

09/08/2023

Microsoft word does not approve of my word choice for my sermon. It has no suggestions for me. It’s given up. Can you guess what the word is? (It’s not political)

08/16/2023

Christ Came For Everyone

Romans 5:6-11
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

It's for Everyone
I recently read a secular history of Christianity (Dominion by Tom Holland, not that Tom Holland, if you’re interested) that pinned the growth of Christianity in the Roman world on its universal appeal. You didn’t have to be rich. You didn’t have to be Roman. You didn’t have to be male. You didn’t have to be educated or claim some secret knowledge. Everyone could be part of the group. This, of course, made those that wielded religion as a political weapon really nervous. How could they keep the populace in line with Paul saying things like, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female. You are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 5:28)? In other words, Christians were claiming there was no natural hierarchy.

Moral Hierarchy?
This passage tells us that there’s no distinction on moral grounds either. Christianity isn’t just for the upstanding citizens. In fact, Jesus preferred the most broken people. Earlier in Romans, Paul tells us that nobody is righteous. Now, he tells us that we don’t even have to clean ourselves up before coming to Jesus. He didn’t die for the few sins you haven’t yet gotten rid of. The gift of salvation is available while you still have blood on your hands, before anyone notices a difference, or even before anyone believes you can change.

It's God’s Problem
Jesus died for you whether you think you’re capable of following him or not. When Paul says we are saved through his life, the word “save” doesn’t just mean not going to hell. It also means a rescue from a life of sin. It’s God’s power that will change you. You just have to seek it. If you’re too weak to seek, you just have to ask for the strength to ask for the strength.

God wants to transform you into a person that shares his love with the world, and he’s willing to do all the heavy lifting. In fact, Jesus has already done the heavy lifting, paid the bill, and empowered you. Now we can just walk in it. We’ll keep stumbling along, but he returns again and again to pick us up.

Live in the Spirit
Now Paul is clear in Romans 6 and 8 that those in Christ don’t stay in their sin, but God doesn’t just sit around watching to see if we’ll be different. He leads us every step of the way—through prayer, through his word, through community, and through the Spirit changing us in ways we didn’t even know to ask for.

It’s for Everyone
If you’re wondering if this is a life you can have, it is. The fact that it’s for literally everyone is what has been drawing people for the last 2000 years. You are no exception. Jesus died for you at your worst, and he can turn you into his best- even if you think you should have figured it out by now.

08/12/2023

Sometimes faith is hard

08/09/2023

Just Keep Swimming
Romans 6:1-11

6 SO WHAT ARE WE GOING TO SAY? SHOULD WE CONTINUE SINNING SO GRACE WILL MULTIPLY? 2 ABSOLUTELY NOT! ALL OF US DIED TO SIN. HOW CAN WE STILL LIVE IN IT? 3 OR DON’T YOU KNOW THAT ALL WHO WERE BAPTIZED INTO CHRIST JESUS WERE BAPTIZED INTO HIS DEATH? 4 THEREFORE, WE WERE BURIED TOGETHER WITH HIM THROUGH BAPTISM INTO HIS DEATH, SO THAT JUST AS CHRIST WAS RAISED FROM THE DEAD THROUGH THE GLORY OF THE FATHER, WE TOO CAN WALK IN NEWNESS OF LIFE. 5 IF WE WERE UNITED TOGETHER IN A DEATH LIKE HIS, WE WILL ALSO BE UNITED TOGETHER IN A RESURRECTION LIKE HIS. 6 THIS IS WHAT WE KNOW: THE PERSON THAT WE USED TO BE WAS CRUCIFIED WITH HIM IN ORDER TO GET RID OF THE CO**SE THAT HAD BEEN CONTROLLED BY SIN. THAT WAY WE WOULDN’T BE SLAVES TO SIN ANYMORE, 7 BECAUSE A PERSON WHO HAS DIED HAS BEEN FREED FROM SIN’S POWER. 8 BUT IF WE DIED WITH CHRIST, WE HAVE FAITH THAT WE WILL ALSO LIVE WITH HIM. 9 WE KNOW THAT CHRIST HAS BEEN RAISED FROM THE DEAD AND HE WILL NEVER DIE AGAIN. DEATH NO LONGER HAS POWER OVER HIM. 10 HE DIED TO SIN ONCE AND FOR ALL WITH HIS DEATH, BUT HE LIVES FOR GOD WITH HIS LIFE. 11 IN THE SAME WAY, YOU ALSO SHOULD CONSIDER YOURSELVES DEAD TO SIN BUT ALIVE FOR GOD IN CHRIST JESUS.

SWIMMING LESSONS
Have you ever taught a toddler to swim? Me neither. I don’t really know how, so I have tried to get experts to do this. I mean, I know how to swim, just not how to teach it. Anyways, when my daughters were toddlers, we signed them up for swim lessons. They figured it out and could make there way across the pool correctly and buoyantly. Then, the next time we went to a pool, they would undo all of their learning, begin a frantic but stationary doggy paddle, gasp for air, and get great exercise. Then we would spend the rest of the pool time with a life jacket or them holding on to my arm for dear life. So back to lessons again the next summer.

They knew how to swim. They knew what it felt like to swim. They knew it was better, but it’s not comfortable. It’s not what they’re used to, so they went back to the old way. That’s the way we are sometimes about our bad habits, relationship skills, and toxic thoughts. (Now they swim great, even did swim team this year, but stick with the metaphor)

FLAWLESS LOGIC
In our passage today, Paul has finished explaining the grace offered us in Christ for forgiveness of sins and renewed relationship with God. Now in this passage, he attacks a bizarre but interesting logic that has cropped up around Christianity (and that Paul has apparently been accused of). Here’s the logic:
If God saved me from my sins by grace (free gift), and if this grace gives God glory….Then, the more sin that God forgives, the more glory he gets, right? Therefore, the more I sin, the more I’m forgiven, and the more glorified God is. So my goal in life should be to sin AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE so that God’s mercy can be celebrated. Foolproof, right?

To say it another way, if I celebrate God because he forgave 100 sins, then I can REALLY celebrate God if he forgives 10000 sins. So I should sin more so that I have more to celebrate. I’ll be a better worshiper. So go nuts.

NEW IDENTITY
But Paul says that to accept salvation doesn’t just wipe the slate clean. It’s not just forgiveness for past and future sins (it is that, but not just that). It also does something to you. To accept Jesus’ death for your life is to accept your own death to sin. You are dead to the things Jesus died for. That is the meaning of your baptism.

When Christ died on the cross, evil and sin did their worst to kill Jesus, so when Jesus rose from the dead, he broke any power that sin and death can have on you. We were not just “sinners,” we were slaves to sin. And now that Jesus has broken that power, or to stick the slave metaphor, when he bought us out of slavery, sin no longer has power over us. That is of course, unless you let it have power over you.

So, just as we died to sin in the cross, we are raised to new life in the resurrection. We are now new creations, new people living by new power, able to live the life God called us into. Therefore, we don’t walk back to the old life to get more forgiveness, we walk into the new life to see how much better it is than our former sin.

We don’t celebrate swim coaches because they keep us from drowning every lesson. We celebrate them because they taught us to swim. You can swim now. Start swimming.

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