4th Sunday of Pentecost: Servants of Righteousness Priest Seraphim Holland Freedom. The Epistle today mentions freedom. Freedom is a favorite word in our society. So few know what freedom is. The apostle says, ?Being then made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness.¦ [Romans 6:18] Then he says, ?I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh.¦ [Romans 6:19a] He-s speaking of an exalted topic that only can be understood with spiritual knowledge. And the only way to obtain this knowledge is by spiritual struggle; our weak will desiring to do works of righteousness being joined to the powerful will v to the everlasting will of God - to make us capable of doing those things which are righteous. So he-s speaking-now he-s going to give us a way of thinking, sort of a mnemonic device that you should take to heart and use because it is a very useful device. He says, ?As ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.¦ [Romans 6:19b] In other words, just as before you were enslaved to various sins; now consider yourself a slave to righteousness. Just as before v or even, God forgive us, even now perhaps v you are, you have been a slave to a particular way of thinking or doing something, think of yourself now as being required to do works of righteousness. Just as if you had a task master behind you ordering you to do your work. Now he-s speaking in the manner of men because of our infirmity. Actually the only way to understand how the heart is compelled to do righteousness, is to compel yourself, and then you will understand how sweet the Lord is; how beautiful his doctrines are; and how there is nothing more perfect, and more holy, and more fulfilling than to follow God-s law. So he says, ?For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.¦ [Romans 6:20] In other words, you didn-t do righteousness, you did sin. And you-you couldn-t stop yourself. But what Jesus Christ offers us, is the power to become holy. Now he offers us that we would become willingly his servants. Now at the end of the age, those who have been good servants, he will call friends v no longer servants. But as for us in the here-and-now with all of our sins and all of our forgetfulness, and our intrang- intransigence (hard word to say, isn-t it?), we should consider ourselves to be servants. Servants of a benevolent master; not having a choice whether we should do righteousness or not; but our Lord commands it so we do it. ?What fruit did we have in those things,¦ the apostle asks, ?wherein ye are now ashamed?¦ [Romans 6:21a] The things that were unrighteous, they only gave us pleasure for a season; then we were unhappy. ?The end of these things is death.¦ [Romans 6:21b] He-s giving us another idea here, something that we should call to mind often. He-s saying, ?The end of these things is death.¦ In order to be able to think such a thought we must be able to look towards the future; we must be able to see our actions v not in the moment, but after the moment, perhaps even far after the moment, if we think of how unhappy we will be if we commit a sin, we will commit not many sins. Think of your unhappiness after you have fallen into some-something that shames you. Think of your unhappiness about such a thing before you sin. And then you won-t sin. The end of such things is death. We know this. We must learn to live for the future, not to live in the here-and-now, because, after all, aren-t we suppose to be setting our eyes upon the heavenly Jerusalem? Isn-t that supposed to be our goal? Our purpose? To become righteous so that we can be in the presence of God? And not only not be ashamed, but be happy? To be completely free. Imagine being completely free. Not freedom as the world defines it: to do what one chooses; choosing things that actually causes enslavement; but to be completely able to be righteous; to not be touched by any sin; to not have any wavering in our heart towards evil. The church thinks this is very important, because in every service we say, ?deliver us from tribulation, wrath, and necessity;¦ that necessity which is enslavement to unrighteousness. People make excuses for their enslavements all the time. ?Well, I smoke because it a bad habit I picked up and I haven-t been able to break it.¦ ?I-m always so tired so I oversleep.¦ ?You know with all of the impure things all about, I just have so much trouble having pure thoughts.¦ Those are all excuses. When you say such things - or even think such things v you are saying, ?I-m a slave to unrighteousness. My master is the evil one.¦ How can we say such things? We-re slaves to righteousness. Our master is our Lord Jesus Christ who lived a life that he requires us to life. And he made us capable of living such a life. So we must consider ourselves slaves to him. So when it comes time that there is a temptation for you, you have to say ?I don-t-I can-t do that I-m a slave. I don-t deserve to do that; I don-t have any right to do that. My Lord has told me to do the other thing. I-m a slave. I don-t have a right; I only have a right to do righteousness.¦ If you think in such terms, you will be saved from many, many sins. Let freedom be that which is in your heart, brothers and sisters, which allows you to always choose correctly and not to be forced to do that which is unrighteous. That-s the freedom that God offers. That is not the freedom that society offers. Their definition of freedom is that you can indulge in pleasures as you wish. The pleasures have a price. Indeed, even good pleasures have a price. Even the happiness that we will have with God has its price. Our Lord paid that price. We have been bought with a price. So since we have been bought with a price, we are no longer our own. We are not owned by the devil, nor do we own ourselves; our Lord is our Master. So we must do what he tells us to do. And it just so happens that everything he tells us to do v every single thing v is for our welfare so that we will become completely free. All of us have things in our life that we wish we could change v don-t you hate those things? Don-t you just despise that you fall into something again and again? You don-t want to and yet you do. Start thinking of yourself as a slave to righteousness, not as a slave to that thing; you have no right to commit that sin. You have no right to become angry at someone because your Lord said you can not do that. You have no right to have a lustful thought because your Lord said ?He who looks upon a woman to lust after her has committed adultery in his heart.¦ [Matt 5:28] -and adultery is forbidden. You have no right. You do have a right to do works of righteousness. And your Lord has given you a blanket blessing to do righteousness in whatever you do. You need not ask him for permission to do righteousness. But he will check with you; he will require of you works of righteousness. But he allows you to choose in order so that you can learn what true freedom is. Freedom is always to make choices for righteousness, that-s what freedom is. Freedom is to have no regrets, no unhappiness; to be complete, whole, lacking nothing. What a wonderful thing freedom is. And what a terrible thing that this word has been hijacked in our society to mean something it isn-t; to mean slavery and not freedom. You-ve been made free from sin by your baptism. The Lord has bought you with a price; now if we just act like we have bought with a price. And he says, ?-being made free from sin-¦ [Rom 6:22a] That is being made capable of being free from sin. We-re capable of it; don-t let anyone tell you different, including the evil one in your ear. You are capable of being free from sin because the Lord made you such. The Lord bought you with a price and our Lord is a good trader, he doesn-t make foolish purchases. You-ve been bought with a price, so you-re capable of being free from sin. But you must give your will to the Lord and give you-re struggles to the Lord in order to realize this perfect freedom. ?-being made free from sin and become servants to God you have your fruit unto holiness and the end, everlasting life.¦ [Rom 6:22] So the apostle teaches us, as it were, two ways of thinking, two mnemonic devices. One is that when you are presented with the possibility of sin or of righteousness, you say ?I-m a slave to righteousness; I have no right to commit that sin. I-ve been bought with a price; I-ve been made free as regarding sin. There-s nothing compelling me to sin as long as I beg the Lord to help me.¦ And the other is that when you are presented with a sin possibility, to do unrighteousness, you think the end of such things is death. ?And if I endure but for a little while; I will have fruit unto holiness and eternal life.¦ Every sin, every decision in your life, every fork in the road, you should be thinking these things. You have no right to sin. The Lord has told you, you don-t have a right to sin. He-s told you, you must do righteousness, you must follow him, you must desire to be righteous - and he will help you. You-re not a slave anymore, not of unrighteousness, so don-t think of yourself as such. And if you fall into unrighteousness, then beg the Lord to forgive you. Beg him to strengthen your will. Beg him to bring to your mind your sadness in this moment so that in the next moment you will recall it and you won-t fall into sin. This can only be understood by experience. Experience is the great teacher of the soul. The Lord, bit by bit, as we are capable, gives us enlightenment. But he only enlightens those who are struggling, only those who are trying, only those who know their position; and that is that they are slaves of him. Now he is a benevolent master, and he doesn-t require of us anything; but we had best think that we are required. As soon as we turn towards righteousness even a little, he is there to help us. Let us turn to him all the time, so he will help us. We-ve an example of experience in the gospel. When I was thinking about the epistle and the gospel today, I thought I wanted to talk about both of them. Well, I can-t do that exactly but I want to say something about Cornelius, the centurion. He was a Roman. He was officially of a pagan religion. He couldn-t go into the synagogue; he couldn-t say he was a Jew. But he had Jewish sacred writings and he read them and he loved the Jewish nation; and although he was an occupying soldier the Jews loved him, because he loved them. So when he comes into Capernaum, Cornelius meets him and says, ?My servant lies at home sick of the palsy-¦ paralyzed. ?And Jesus says, ?I-ll come and I-ll heal him. [Matt 8:6-7] But Cornelius is a man with experience; Cornelius is a man that knows something about righteousness; he knows something about authority. He says, ?-I-m not worthy that you come under my roof-¦ partially because he-s a pagan and a Jew is not to go into a pagan-s household. It defiles him. ?-only speak the word and my servant shall be healed. For I-m a man under authority and I have soldiers under me, and I say to this soldier -go- and he goes. And another, -do this- and he does it.¦ [Matt 8:8-9] And the inference is, ?I know how to do what I-m told, too.¦ He was a righteous man, so righteous that the Lord said that he had -¦not found so great faith, not in all of Israel.¦ [Matt 8:10b] Now that must have made the Pharisees quite angry don-t you think? Pointing to an occupying soldier - the hated enemy of the army that they hoped that the messiah would annihilate and have their blood flow in the streets v and say that this man is more righteous than all of you put together. Why was he righteous? Why did he have such faith? Because he knew about obedience. He expected those under him to be obedient because he was obedient to those over him. So let us know something about obedience, brothers and sisters; let us know something about authority. Let us realize we are under the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are slaves of righteousness, not unrighteousness. And let us know that if we consider ourselves to be slaves of righteousness - and struggle to be righteous - the end of such things is not death; it-s eternal life. Perfect freedom. Perfect happiness. And God help us. Amen.