Title: Sin in the Flesh
Today’s sermon is going to be a bit unorthodox. I think in order to get as much as possible out of today’s text you’ll have to be willing to see things done a bit out of order. Usually, we look at the passage, parse and break down the original language, the original audience and the theology, and then we seek to find application for our lives today.
Well, I’d as you to bear with me b/c all of those elements will be present, but in preparing this text I was led to present things in a somewhat backwards order.
Do you ever think, (show of hands) as I sometimes do, that we have become de-sensitized to many things in our culture? This is an older statistic, so I would imagine that the numbers are even higher now, but in 1990 there was a report that said the average American child would see over 1500 murders on television by the time they were 12 years old.
Now what makes us de-sensitized? I would argue there are a few factors. The first, and possibly most obvious is a numbers game. The more you see something, the more you talk about something, the more you hear about something, the less reverent you are before it.
When I was about 8 years old I was on a farm in Tennessee with a friend of mine. Now he worked his grandfather’s farm every Saturday for extra money. He’d bail hay, milk the cows, do whatever had to be done. But this particular Saturday was special on the farm. It was the Saturday that the veterinarian was going to be in to check the cattle. So our job was to hop on the three-wheeler and round up the cattle into the pen so they could each be checked by the vet. That was fun. I don’t care where you are from, what type of upbringing you’ve had, but if you have never chased a cow on a three wheeler you are missing out.
What I was not prepared for, because it was totally foreign to me, was what, exactly, would happen to these cows once the vet got to them. Needless to say, for my friend it was totally normal to see a vet with his arm, up to his shoulder, inside the back of a cow. For me, I was absolutely shocked. I’ve never gotten over that.
So the first issue of desensitizing concerns the familiarity we have with it.
But the second reason we are de-sensitized is a bit more subtle, it involves our environment, particularly the people in that environment. If we are surrounded by people who see something as reverent and treat it as such then we will tend to do the same, regardless of how familiar we are with it.
Let me give you and example quickly of this as well. My family every Christmas has a tradition of one of us telling a story about my deceased grandfather, of whom I’ve shared many stories with you. We all know, and anticipate that we will go through this ceremony every year, it doesn’t surprise us, but it is still special and we are still sensitive to it, because all of us hold the memory of my grandfather in high reverence.
Taking the Lord’s Supper is another example of something that many of do with some degree of regularity, and it rarely “surprises” us, yet we still hold it to be special, we are still sensitive to the ceremony because of the reverence we hold for it as a church.
So what does this talk of de-sensitizing have to do with today’s passage?
I would argue that was have become, as believers, de-sensitized to the pure gravity and power of what Paul tells us in verses 2-4. Yes, we are all familiar, particularly after working through Romans since last July, that the law of Spirit has made us free from the Law of sin and death. Yes, we are all familiar that the Law was weak and could not appease God’s wrath, and therefore Christ took sin upon himself, became sin for us, that we might be free. And we are all familiar with the fact that we now, every day as believers have a choice that the non-believer simply does not have: we can choose to walk in the spirit, they are bound to walk in the flesh.
Why are we de-sensitized to this? For the reasons we just discussed. First, we’ve heard it so much, especially lately. Secondly, I think our attitude has become so theological we’ve lost the emotion and power of this thought. We’ve set it in our minds as fact. We speak of it in the same way that we say, “Yes, in the 60’s man did land on the moon.”
And, forgive the pun, but we’ve lost the gravity of how amazing it is that we walked on the moon. We’ve lost reverence for what it means that Christ, who was not just without sin, but was the opposite of sin, became sin, and at the same time we became holy because of it.
(Illustration with Jason and the tattered flannel.)
So as I stand before you, a model of what Christ did for us, what is the application of being wary of de-sensitization? I believe it is two fold:
1. We talked about the first reason for being de-sensitized is how familiar we are with something, right. Okay, show of hand, how many in the congregation have been believers for over five years? Keep your hands up and listen to this charge: When you witness to someone and explain the concept of Christ becoming sin for us, they are hearing it for the first time. Be sensitive to how awe inspiring that can be. (Hands down)
2. The second factor is our own reverence for something will determine how special it is in our lives. Consider the spiritual “coat” that you now wear: perfect, righteous, accepted before God, stained with blood. And also consider the coat, the millions of coats, that Christ bore on the cross, sin to which you personally contributed to, and remember: you were bought at a price. That is something that you should always be sensitive to.