Passions- Self-Sabotage and Slavery
Passions, Self-Sabotage, and Slavery
Romans 6:15-23
I. INTRO:
· The following incident won the runner-up prize in the 1999 Darwin Awards and serves as a good warning about what we attach ourselves to:
· A Vermont native, Ronald Demuth, was touring the Eagle’s Rock African Safari in Africa. Mr. Demuth went overboard to show them one of America’s many marvels.
· Apparently, Mr. Demuth wanted to demonstrate just how good "Crazy Glue" was, so he covered the palms of his hands with the adhesive, and jokingly placed them on the rear end of a passing rhino.
· The rhino became aware of its being involuntarily stuck to Mr. Demuth, it began to panic and ran around the petting area wildly making Mr. Demuth an unintended passenger.
· Unfortunately "Sally” had been very constipated. They had “just given her a laxative and some depressants to relax her bowels, when Mr. Demuth played his juvenile prank," said James Douglass, caretaker.
· As for Demuth, it took a team of medics and zoo caretakers’ to remove his hands from her buttocks. First, the animal had to be captured and calmed down. However, during this process the laxatives began to take hold and Mr. Demuth was repeatedly showered with over 30 gallons of rhino diarrhea.
· Three people with shovels worked to keep an air passage open for Mr. Demuth. We were able to tranquilize her and apply a solvent to remove his hands from her rear," said Douglass. "I don’t think he’ll be playing with Crazy Glue for a while."
· What in the world was Mr. Demuth thinking???
· However, we should think about all the times in our lives when we may have "attached" ourselves to some big, powerful passion of ours rather than God Himself. The results are just as disastrous.
· What are your great passions? What do you love to do, maybe even to excess?
II. Slaves to the one you obey (passions or God)
· Listen to what the Bible says about becoming enslaved to our passions.
A. READ ROMANS 6:15-23
B. The Question vs.15
1. To them, the idea of no longer being under law but under grace was tantamount to being free of all moral restraint.
C. Putting the Case: You’re slaves to who you obey
· Paul’s responds, NO, the truth is that we are slaves to the one we obey. If we do not obey or Jesus, then we are obeying our passions.
· It is axiomatic that if I give myself as a slave, I am a slave to that master, else I’m no slave
· It should be just as self-evident that no human being can be the slave of two different masters. “No one can serve two masters,” Jesus declared; “for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt. 6:24).
ILLUSTRATION
· Lion, Witch, & Wardrobe: seduced by the Witche’s “Turkish Delight.”
D. Your Pattern of Behavior reveals your master
1. Patterns
· “I can quit anytime I want” Yeah right! We say it because we have a sense others doubt it, and with reason.
· Our pattern of behavior reveals our true master.
· There are really two basic patterns.
2. Self-serving pattern
· If we are seeking to fulfill ourselves, looking for the plan for life that we feel will be most satisfying, we are following our passions instead of Jesus.
· We may do some good things, but our obedience is to self and thus sin.
· Our pattern of behavior reveals that we are our own master.
· We need, though, to hear this from Eph. 2:1-3, As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.
· Sin brings satanic control, because every sin serves the purposes of “the prince of the power of the air.”
· Although the natural, freedom-seeking, rebellious mind recoils at the truth, no human being is his own master.
3. Jesus-serving pattern
· 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
· By definition Jesus is not our master if we do not have a pattern of obedience to Him.
· “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; … The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; …
III. Ever more deeply enslaved
· Many times when we are pursuing our own passions we want desperately to escape the unpleasant and destructive consequences of our sins, but this doesn’t change the more fundamental fact that we do not want to relinquish the cherished sins themselves. Rather we continue to pursue them.
· It’s bad enough to realize that a pattern of sin indicates that we are not really enslaved to sin, but that slavery will deepen as we pursue our passions.
· The NIV’s “Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness…” misses the idiomatic “lawlessness to lawlessness” vs. “righteousness unto holiness”
· As I understand it, much of the original language here gives a sense that is difficult to translate in English, and in the process something is lost. It is like a construction in Spanish. Voy pecando or voy obediendole.
IV.The Nature of Slavery to sin (self-sabotage)
· “Imaginary sin is romantic and varied; but as we act on it real evil becomes more and more gloomy, monotonous, barren, and boring. – adapted quote from Jewish scholar, Simone Weil
· Although sin promises satisfaction, it instead brings misery, frustration, and hopelessness.
· The growing frustration and hopelessness leads finally to eternal frustration and hopelessness; DEATH!
V. The Nature of Slavery to God
· Imaginary good is boring; but as we act on it real good becomes more and more, fresh, marvelous, intoxicating.
· Although obedience to God means losing control of our own life, it actually yields freedom, growing holiness and joy.
· Gal. 5:22-23 The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
· This growing freedom, holiness and joy leads finally to perfect holiness and ETERNAL LIFE!