And we may say, “That doesn’t sound too good. Who wants to be a slave?”

And we could think of it that way. For when we think of the slaves in the ancient world we know that slaves were usually prisoners of war who were brought down to the market and auctioned off. Sometimes they were prisoners of war. Sometimes they were people who offered themselves to slavery. These people were usually in such debt that they could not pay their debts, they had no collateral left, all they could do was to work off their debt and so they offered themselves up as slaves. So these people are auctioned off to whoever wanted to buy them to help in the fields, the factories, and the homes. After a slave was purchased their ear was pierced and a ring was placed there. IT was inscribed with the name of the master. And from that day forward they were known as the servant of or the slave of …so and so.

A slave was then taken to the house and she or he had to work doing everything that he was told to do. They were the first to get up and the last to go to bed. A slave lived for one thing and one thing alone, a slave lived for his or her master.

And we say, “Exactly! That doesn’t sound good at all!”

Ah, but consider the alternative. This is what Scripture is always trying to get us to us do, consider the alternative.

It is all laid out for us in Romans 6:15-23. Here Paul is writing to the Roman Christians about the question of sin and grace. The question is if I am saved by grace that is forgiven freely by faith in Jesus Christ then why not sin. If we are free from trying and striving to please God through the law then why not live as we please – after all God will forgive us.

This is the question he states in verse 15. “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” And he answers, “By no means!” And what follows is a rational description of your life and mine. Paul will talk about how we are slaves to God. And through this he speaks of the alternative:

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. 19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:15-23 (NIV)

If you are in God’s Kingdom then you are slaves to God, that is your role. That may not sound too attractive to you at first, but consider the alternative. For if you are not a slave to God then you are a slave to sin, to impurity and ever increasing wickedness. You and I are slaves to the one who you obey and if it is not God you are obeying then it is sin you are obeying.

The truth is you are either a slave… or you are a slave.

“Hey!” you may say, “what about Frank Sinatra, he wasn’t anybody’s slave. 'Old Blue Eyes' used to sing, “I did it may way!” He wasn’t a slave to anybody, he called his own shots, he controlled his own life.”

And thousands of people think that way. They think they are calling the shots, they think they are giving the orders – they were free.

No, no, no. The trust is if you’re not living life God’s way then you are a slave to sin. There is no other alternative. There is no third way. There is no middle ground. You are either a slave to sin or a slave to God.

So consider carefully the alternative. Let’s think about the pay.

Slaves to sin? What is the pay?

Paul makes it clear, - verse 16 – sin leads to death

Again in verse 21 – the things you are now ashamed of lead to death and again very clearly in verse 23 “the wages of sin is death.”

So what is the wages if you are slave to sin? It is death.

So you can imagine that you are going to see the tax man and you have your T4 slip with you and he says to you,

“I see that you are under the employment of sin?”

“Yes I have been all my life.”

“Well what is the wage you have received?”

“My wages? It is death.”

“That is your wage?”

“Yes I have received death. That is the payment I have received for following sin. And that is the only payment that I could receive from sin it is always death. And I have experienced death in all areas. I have experienced death in my relationships as I have followed ways that are immoral and selfish. I have experienced death in my body as I got snared in destructive habits that I could not break. And I have experienced death in my soul as I have turned my back on God and have fell short of the standards that he has set. That is pretty much all I have ever received from my master, sin. All I have received from that master is death. That is all I have to fill out on my T4 slip."

“Well,” says the tax man, “Wasn’t there any good thing that you could do?”

And we have to say, “No”. This is what Paul says he says in verse 20, “When you were slaves to sin you were free from the control of righteousness.” When you were slaves to sin you were free from that which is good and holy and Godly because the master that I obeyed is sin and Satan and self. And I could not do that which is righteous because that is not in my master’s plan.

And just like in the physical world you cannot serve two masters so in the spiritual world you cannot serve two masters. You must serve the one who owns you. And sin was the one who owned us and the wages there are death.

But! But thanks be to God” Paul says in verse 17, “Thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin you whole heartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You’ve been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”

We used to be slaves to sin, but no longer. Now we are slaves to God.

We are? Yes. How did that happen? Well, you woke up one morning you and you said to yourself, “The wages I’m getting from my owner are lousy. All I’m getting is death. I have to look for a new master.”

And so you looked to Jesus. And you say to Jesus, “I want You to be my King and my Master.”

And Jesus says, “Good come and be My servant.”

But what about those wages that were due for the sin we committed? And Jesus says, “I will pay them.” And He lays down his life for our sin. The death we were to receive Jesus receives. He dies in our place. He receives the wages.

And so we read in Colossians 1:13,14 - “He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Jesus has redeemed us; Jesus has purchased us. So now we have a new owner, a new Lord and we are no longer slaves to sin but slaves to Him.

But that still sound restrictive. NO! Now you have a freedom that you never had before.

We do? Yes! Now you have the freedom to do what is right, pure and holy. For that is what your master wants from you. That’s what we sing about when we talk about Christian freedom. We are now free to do the good which we were not able to do before.

So now we go to the taxman we take our T4 slip with us. And he looks at our T4 slip and he says, “I see you are now under new employment?”

”Yes. I now belong mind body and soul to Jesus Christ. I am his slave.”

He says, “I see here where it speaks of what you earned this year, that you have left it blank.”

“Yes I haven’t earned a thing.”

“Well how do you live?”

And you say, “Eternally.”

“Well how can you live if you haven’t earned anything?”

“The truth is sir, I haven’t earned anything but I have received everything. You see my old master – sin – I earned all that. I earned death. But here in the new kingdom with my new owner. Everything is free. Everything has been given to me. And I haven’t earned a thing. I’ve been given eternal life. Everything I have received from my new master I have been given. I have been given hope. I’ve been given joy. I’ve been given peace. I’ve been given life – eternal life all free."

You and I are now slaves to God. What is the application of this then? Two applications.

We are not a slave to Satan and sin. We are now slave to God. So this means that when Satan comes to us and whispers in our ear – “You are free to sin. You can go ahead and be involved in that immorality. You can go ahead and cheat on your wife. You can go ahead and cheat on your husband. You can go ahead and look at that pornography. You can go ahead and take part in those addictive behaviors that are destructive. You can gossip if you want. You have grace.”

When that happens we need to understand that we are slaves to God and not Satan. And when he comes and suggests any of those things we can say, “You don’t own me. I belong to a new master. And I offer my mind, my soul and body to Him. I offer my time, my relationships, my money, all that I am and all that I have to Him. It all belongs to Him and not to you any longer. And I don’t have to follow in your way any more. I am now free to do that which is holy and pure and just and godly. That which I could not do under your rule I can do now.”

We are free to do that which is righteous says Scripture.

We need to understand that we don’t need to get free – we need to understand that we are free and to stand in the freedom that Jesus Christ has given to us. And to say to Satan I do not need to be part of that evil habit any longer because Jesus Christ has bought me and won my freedom to do that which is good.

I don’t want to make light of addictive behaviours – they can be difficult to be free of. But part of the journey in understanding our freedom from addictive behaviors is understanding that we have been set free from them in Jesus Christ.

Second application. We are slaves to God and we can think of that in a spiritual, non-practical way. Listen it needs to be worked out practically. And in Matthew 20 Jesus makes it clear how we can demonstrate our slavery to God in a very practical way.

Jesus says, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:26-28)

My friends, you and I are slaves to God and that works itself out practically by serving one another. We serve one another because we are slaves to God. We serve our non-Christian friends and relatives because we are slaves to God. We serve our enemies because we are slaves to God. He is our owner and that is what He calls us to. We are servants. So very practically that means that when someone is in need we give. When someone needs a listening ear, even it be at 3 in the morning we are there. When someone slanders and hurts us we forgive. That is what it means to be slave to God; it works itself out practically serving others.

What is our role in the Kingdom of God? It is servanthood. Is that a bad thing? No. Restrictive? No, we are free. Remember that old ruler, he just brought death. But now we have experienced life to the full as a free gift from God our master. And because we serve God we seek to serve one another.