Who Are You Living For?

Every Choice Counts

Let me start with a question.

Have you ever eaten a whole packet of biscuits and then felt a bit... rough?

Nobody forced you.

You chose to.

And that choice had consequences.

Now, that’s a small example. But think bigger.

Think about a surgeon.

She walks into the operating theatre.

Her patient is on the table, trusting her completely.

Every cut she makes – every single one – matters.

There’s no such thing as a casual incision.

We are extraordinary creatures.

We can build cathedrals and write symphonies.

We can perform surgery and send rockets into space.

Human beings are genuinely remarkable.

But that means what we do – and what we don’t do – matters.

Every day, we make choices.

Big ones and tiny ones.

And none of them are neutral.

Here’s what Paul has to say about it.

Romans 6:12-23

Romans 6:12–23 NCV

12 So, do not let sin control your life here on earth so that you do what your sinful self wants to do. 13 Do not offer the parts of your body to serve sin, as things to be used in doing evil. Instead, offer yourselves to God as people who have died and now live. Offer the parts of your body to God to be used in doing good. 14 Sin will not be your master, because you are not under law but under God’s grace. 15 So what should we do? Should we sin because we are under grace and not under law? No! 16 Surely you know that when you give yourselves like slaves to obey someone, then you are really slaves of that person. The person you obey is your master. You can follow sin, which brings spiritual death, or you can obey God, which makes you right with him. 17 In the past you were slaves to sin—sin controlled you. But thank God, you fully obeyed the things that you were taught. 18 You were made free from sin, and now you are slaves to goodness. 19 I use this example because this is hard for you to understand. In the past you offered the parts of your body to be slaves to sin and evil; you lived only for evil. In the same way now you must give yourselves to be slaves of goodness. Then you will live only for God. 20 In the past you were slaves to sin, and goodness did not control you. 21 You did evil things, and now you are ashamed of them. Those things only bring death. 22 But now you are free from sin and have become slaves of God. This brings you a life that is only for God, and this gives you life forever. 23 The payment for sin is death. But God gives us the free gift of life forever in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What we look at

Romans 6:13 NCV

Do not offer the parts of your body to serve sin, as things to be used in doing evil. Instead, offer yourselves to God as people who have died and now live. Offer the parts of your body to God to be used in doing good.

Let’s start right at the top.

Let’s talk about your eyes.

Close them for a second. [Pause.]

Now open them.

Look around the hall.

Without even trying, you’ve already taken in dozens of pieces of information.

Who’s sitting near you.

Whether the person next to you looks happy or a bit fed up.

Your eyes are extraordinary.

They’re working all the time.

But here’s the question Paul is asking us.

What are we doing with them?

This is not a new problem.

It goes right back to the Garden of Eden.

Eve saw that the fruit looked beautiful.

She looked.

She wanted.

She took.

One look changed everything.

And thousands of years later, we’re still doing the same thing.

Think about what happens when you pick up your phone and start scrolling.

You see someone else’s holiday, their house, their seemingly perfect life.

And something happens inside you.

You start to feel like what you have isn’t enough.

Like you’re not enough.

Jesus was very direct about this:

Matthew 6:22–23 NLT

“Your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!

We can become slaves to what we long for.

And it often starts with a look.

What are your hands doing?

I want you to look at your hands for a moment.

Turn them over. Look at your palms.

If you’re sitting near a child, look at their hands next to yours.

Remarkable, aren’t they?

Those hands have made things, fixed things, held things.

But Paul’s question is the same.

What are we doing with them?

Our hands have a habit of becoming very good at looking after number one.

We reach for what we want.

We buy what pleases us.

We build a comfortable life and guard it carefully.

Our hands stay busy – but mostly for ourselves.

There’s a striking moment in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

Lazarus is lying at the gate – hungry, sick, desperate.

The rich man walks past him every single day.

He doesn’t push him away.

He simply does nothing.

His hands never reach out.

That’s not a story about a villain.

It’s a quiet story about a man who was just too comfortable to notice.

And if we’re honest, that story is a bit close to home for most of us.

What are you saying?

Think about the last thing you said to somebody before you came here today.

Maybe it was kind.

Maybe it was a bit sharp because you were running late.

Maybe you said something you’re already quietly wishing you hadn’t.

Words leave us so quickly.

They’re gone before we’ve even thought about them properly.

And yet they have consequences – sometimes for years.

James – the brother of Jesus – says the tongue is like a tiny spark that starts a great forest fire.

Most of us can remember a sentence – just a handful of words – that set something on fire in us.

Words that burned.

A teacher who said you’d never amount to much.

A comment left online, dashed off in thirty seconds, that made someone feel utterly worthless.

And James points out that we use the very same mouth to praise God on a Sunday and tear someone apart on a Monday.

James 3:10 NLT

And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!

He's right. It isn't.

Where are you going?

Have you ever been somewhere and thought – how did I end up here?

Not lost, exactly.

But somewhere you didn’t quite intend to be.

A habit that started with one small step and slowly became somewhere you visit rather more than you should.

Our legs don’t usually take us somewhere wrong in one dramatic leap.

It’s gradual.

One small step, then another.

And then one day you look up and realise you’re somewhere you never intended to go.

The priest and the Levite in the Good Samaritan didn’t do anything dramatic.

They didn’t harm the injured man.

They just walked past.

Their legs took them somewhere else rather than towards a person in need.

Sometimes the most significant thing our legs do is the journey we don’t make.

Offer Yourselves

So here we are.

Eyes, hands, mouths, legs.

Four parts of the body.

Hundreds of decisions every single day.

And if we’re honest – we can probably all think of ways our eyes, our hands, our mouths, and our legs have served something other than God this week.

Something smaller.

Something more selfish.

Paul describes it as slavery.

Not a dramatic, obvious kind – but a quiet one.

Where your eyes drift towards things that leave you empty, your hands stay busy for yourself, your mouth runs ahead of your better judgement, and your legs carry you away from the people who need you.

Piece by piece.

Without always noticing.

But here is the good news. And it really is good news.

Jesus came to break that slavery.

Not to improve us slightly at the edges – but to set us genuinely, completely free.

Through his death and resurrection, we have a new start.

A real one.

The slate wiped clean.

The chains cut.

Romans 6:23 NCV

The payment for sin is death. But God gives us the free gift of life forever in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Whatever you’ve looked at that you shouldn’t.

Whatever your hands have done or failed to do.

Whatever your mouth has said and wishes it hadn’t.

Wherever your legs have taken you – there is forgiveness for all of it.

Full, generous, no-strings forgiveness.

Because of Jesus.

But Paul doesn’t leave us there.

And neither should we.

Freedom is not just away from something – it’s also towards something.

You can offer yourself to sin, or you can offer yourself to God.

And the consequences of each are very different.

Think about what that looks like.

Eyes that notice the person nobody has welcomed yet.

Hands that reach out – that make the casserole, fix the tap, pick up the phone.

A mouth that says sorry and means it, that tells someone today – before it’s too late – “I love you. I’m glad you’re here.”

Legs that show up – that walk towards the person in need rather than past them.

That’s what it means to represent Jesus in the world.

Not perfectly.

Not without stumbling.

But genuinely – with your actual eyes and hands and mouth and legs – making the world around you a little more like the kingdom of God.

That is not a burden.

That is the most meaningful, purposeful, alive way to live.

Prayer

Lord God, thank you that you know us completely – every part of us – and you love us anyway.

Thank you for the freedom we have through Jesus.

For forgiveness that is real and generous.

For the new start available to every person in this room.

We’re honest with you about the ways we’ve offered ourselves to the wrong things.

The things our eyes have chased.

The selfishness of our hands.

The words our mouths have released too quickly.

The journeys our legs have refused to make.

We’re sorry.

And we receive your forgiveness, gratefully.

Help us now to choose differently.

Not in our own strength – but in yours.

Give our eyes the grace to really see people.

Give our hands the courage to reach out.

Give our mouths the wisdom to build up rather than break down.

And give our legs the willingness to show up, to walk towards the people and places that need us.

We offer ourselves to you today – the whole of us.

Use what we give you.

And make us people who bring a little more of your light into the world.

Amen.