For a moment I would like you to imagine that you have been stranded out in the middle of a forested wilderness hundreds of miles away from the nearest town. You had been hired to deliver a large package by airplane, but along the way your plane broke down and you had to make an emergency landing on a remote lake. With nightfall rapidly approaching you start searching for something to make a fire, so you begin to gather a stack of dry wood to last through the night.
As your airplane wasn’t really designed to carry much in the way of cargo, the only things inside were a couple emergency flares and a few tools. And that package. Unable to locate some kind of paper to start your fire, you decide to open that package to see if you can find any, but nothing could have prepared you for what you saw next. Inside that package in neat bricks was the largest amount of money that you had ever seen. Hundreds of thousands, probably millions of dollars. Rather reluctantly you take a couple of those bills and kindle your fire.
Now here is a question for you: after your fire had been started, would you make certain that you kept that fire going, or would you let it burn out, just because you know that you have a whole package full of more dollar bills to start the fire again?
This question, while written differently, is similar to the question that Paul asked in Romans 6. Verses 1-4 say,
Romans 6:1-4 “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
That box of money was someone else’s, and while they most likely wouldn’t mind letting you use some of it to start a fire (considering your predicament), wouldn’t you feel rather ashamed of yourself if you continuously went to grab another handful of bills each time you let the fire burn out? Just to start that same fire again?
Even though the grace and mercy of the Lord are unending, God’s grace is nothing to be taken for granted. Your forgiveness came at a price, which Jesus paid with His blood. Even though we ourselves didn’t have to do anything to obtain that offer of mercy and forgiveness, Jesus did, and it is only because of His love that we have the opportunity at a another chance.
We have grace, and liberty, but it is not free pass to go out and continue sinning. If you receive forgiveness, only to go right back and commit that same sin again, then the forgiveness that you received didn’t really profit you then, did it?
One sin, two sins, a thousand sins– a sin is a sin regardless of how many they are. Jesus died to free you from your sins. Knowing this, why would you continue to live in sin after you had been forgiven? Forgiveness is given so that we have the opportunity to overcome our sins and do things the right way, not so that we can continue on sinning.
When we come before God and take Holy Communion, we need to do it in the remembrance of what Christ did, and understand the importance of what Communion is.
1 Corinthians 11:26-29 “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.
Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.”
Freedom from sin, not freedom to sin. Never forget that.
In Christ,
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 