7th Sunday after Trinity + Romans 6:19-23 & Mark 8:1-9

Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Sin makes a lot of promises. Riches and wealth offer the promise of a comfortable life. Lusts, whether sexual lusts or the lust for a full belly, promise personal fulfillment in the satisfaction of every bodily desire. The world offers a good reputation, sometimes fame, but always acceptance, to those who go along with its thinking and promote its doctrines, from evolution to the syncretic doctrine that all religions and lifestyles are equally valid. Go along with these, promote them, nod your head in assent to them and everyone will heartily accept you. Sin makes all sorts of promises. Look no further to the Devil’s temptation in Matthew 4. “The devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me” (Matthew 4:8-9). Follow the devil. Serve your sinful inclinations. Willfully present your bodily members and mind as slaves and servants of unrighteousness and the entire world can be yours.

But sin’s promises are empty. They don’t lead to fulfillment, comfort, or satisfaction. Fulling the lusts and desires of the body don’t satisfy lusts but only ignites them further. Pursuing riches doesn’t gain security but more insecurity over the thought of losing those riches. Parroting the doctrines of the world may gain you acceptance among sinful men, but the end of those doctrines is destruction. Serving sin, willfully yielding to temptation, only enslaves a person to sin. Jesus says in John 8:34, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.” St. Paul says similarly in today’s epistle lesson, “For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.” When we present our members as slaves of sins, meaning, when we yield to temptation and willfully walk into uncleanness and lawlessness it only leads us into more lawlessness and sin. People think, wrongfully so, that they can sin a little and it won’t hurt them. But sin always grows into more and more sin. The fruit of sin isn’t comfort, satisfaction, or security. The end result of willful sin is everlasting death. Death is the wage that slaves of sin earn for themselves by serving sin with their bodily members each day.

But you have entered the kingdom of God through Holy Baptism, of which we heard last Sunday. Christ has washed your sins away in water combined with His Word. In Baptism He entered into a covenant of grace with you to always be your God and Father, so that you might daily live in repentance and faith, believing God’s Word that He has adopted you as His dear child. Jesus said that “whoever commits sin is a slave of sin, and a slave does not abide in the house forever.” But then He says immediately, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:34-36). So in Holy Baptism you are freed from the servitude of sin. Through faith in the gospel, your sins are forgiven, Christ’s righteousness clothes you, and you are free indeed so that the wages which you had previous earned as a slave of sin are cancelled. “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26), and as sons, will abide in God’s house forever. “For the wages of sins is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Paul says. Sin earns is dread wages in the end. But faith receives God’s gifts, which is the forgiveness of every sin, freedom from sin, and everlasting life as a son of God.

Consider today’s appointed Gospel lesson. This great multitude flocked to Jesus to hear the Word of God. They listened intently as He preached the kingdom of God, the righteousness of faith, the forgiveness of sins through faith and not works, and the promise of everlasting life to all who believe in Him and flee to Him for mercy. These people forsook the things of this life and continued with Jesus for three days! Because they forsook the things of this world they had nothing to eat, for the Lord had led them into the wilderness. These aren’t those who willfully frolic in their sins. They’re not those who want to serve sin and lawlessness in their bodies and minds. They hunger and thirst for righteousness. What does Jesus do for such people who continue with Him, forsaking the things of this life? He has compassion on them. He meets their bodily need. He gives them more than they need, so much that there are seven large baskets of leftover fragments. This is a picture of how Christ treats those who continue with Him, who hear His word in faith and continue in His Word and doctrine. He won’t let them starve because by faith they are sons of God.

This promise is for you as well. Your Lord will take care of your bodily needs. He won’t let you starve. He will always take care of His faithful ones, those whom He has baptized and who continue with Him in faith. He has forgiven your sins. He has released you from the slavery of sin, for “if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). But He hasn’t set you free so that you can be your own master. If you were your own master then you’d immediately go back to serving sin because of your sinful nature. He takes you from being a slave of sin, purchases you and wins with His precious, innocent blood, and He makes you a slave of God who pursues God’s will, even as Chris the only-begotten Son of God pursued His Father’s will. So St. Paul says, “But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.” You’re either a slave to sin or a slave to God. The one whom you serve with the members of your body and your mind, whoever it is you pursue with single-minded devotion, is your master, either sin or the true God. Sin is served by giving into temptation willfully and wallowing in it like a pig in the mud. God is served by hearing the Word, by prayer, by daily repentance and faith, by receiving the sacrament if you’re able, and by striving against sin and striving for holiness according to the Ten Commandments. Slavery to sin seeks ways to fulfills lusts and desires. Slavery to God strives to suppress and extinguish those desires with the power of the Holy Spirit, who works in our hearts through God’s Word.

The end of this slavery to God? Everlasting life in the eternal bliss of heaven. This is all yours by sheer grace and the free gift of God, received by faith. The wages of serving sin is everlasting death. St. Paul places these two slaveries before our eyes today so that we might recognize them each day of our lives. Though we are freed from the slavery of sin and its wages, our flesh is continually tempted to run back to our former master. So we pray in the Collect, “put away from us all hurtful things and give us those things which be profitable for us.” Take away the things in our sins which hurt us, preserve us from the temptations that threaten us, and give us that which is for our eternal good: faith in Christ, constancy in prayer, and hearts to hear and believe God’s Word. Sin promises everything but only earns death. Christ promises everything and provides all things to those who continue with Him as Sons of God through faith and slaves to righteousness.

The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.