LET IT GO!

Romans 6:16 (NIV)

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

The Elephant Mindset/Explain the Rope

Some of you here have believed this lie that sin has a hold on you and no matter how hard you try you will never break free.

Romans 6:16 NIV

Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Why do we do the things we do? Why do we continue to live in this thought process of wanting to be free and yet still living in the bondage of sin?

The University of North Carolina or Michael Jordan University did a study to track the human behavior in relation to social media.

They concluded that the brain in making decisions has 3 steps. The first is called cue. This is the trigger that sets the brain in motion to prompt the behavior. The second is routine. Your brain is set up to respond to the cue and there it placing behavior in action. The last is the reward. Reward is the brain determining if the cycle is worth remembering or not.

What does this have to do with bondage? The problem is that we get into a cycle where it becomes routine. Routines become habits.

"CHAINS OF HABIT ARE TOO

LIGHT TO BE FELT UNTIL THEY

ARE TOO HEAVY TO BE BROKEN”

- WARREN BUFFETT

The problem is that we believed this weird myth that just because we accepted Christ, that nothing has changed. Think about it. Most of us think “We are not good enough to be saved.” “I want to be good but I just can’t be.” “I can’t give this up.”

When we ACCEPT false truths, we ACCEPT bondage

Romans 6:15 (NIV)

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!

The receiving of grace is something that is not only freedom of sin, but also freedom from the conformity of the world. Meaning, once you receive the grace of God and you allow the Holy Spirit to fill you, it should produce only the things that God pleases. Anything other than that is abusing the grace that was given to you by the blood of Jesus.

Romans 6:17–18 (NIV)

But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

Paul refers to slavery since this is a concept that they are all familiar with. Back then, when a master died, another master took ownership making that slave under the authority of the new master.

Romans 6:19 (NIV)

I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.

The transfer of ownership came when Jesus died on the cross and conquered the grave and sin as he said in Matthew 28:18

Matthew 28:18 (NIV)

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

THE ROOT WORD FOR AUTHORITY COMES FROM THE LATIN WORD- AUCTOR - WHICH MEANS AUTHOR.

Author refers to someone that created something. Back in Genesis when God created man, he had authority over him. When sin came into the picture, it separated God from man. God still had authority, but man allowed their own desires to rule their lives.

Romans 6:20–21 (NIV)

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!

I can guarantee that there is not one person here that looks back on their life of sin and thought, “Man, my life before Christ was so awesome.”

Romans 6:22 (NIV)

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

Just like the elephant that doesn’t understand that he has the power to break the bondage of captivity, we forget that we have the same power that rose Christ from the dead living inside of us and are no longer obligated to stay in captivity of sin and shame. We are set free and we are now able to break the strongholds that sin had in our life.

Everyone better amen to that.

Romans 6:23 (NIV)

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We have the opportunity to break the chains of bondage and enter into the glorious service of God the Father. To pursue holiness and righteousness.

Dropping the rope.

As I have been speaking tonight, I asked you all to hang on to a rope. This rope represents the thing that is holding you back. This is the thing that has kept you in bondage. I don’t know what it is, but God does. Tonight, if you’re tired of being held by this thing, this sin, this situation, whatever it is, and you’re ready to break its power on your life, I ask that you let it go! Come up and just put it in the box. If you need to come to the alter and pray then do so. Don’t let something that has lost its authority hold you back from the grace of God.

Let it go….