Grace, Fruit, and Free Gifts

This morning I just want to encourage you with some Scripture. This Fall we are studying through the book of Romans for Youth Group. As I was reading and studying through some of it this week, I was just hit by the simplicity of this passage and I want to share it as an encouragement and challenge:

“What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” – Romans 6:15-23

We reap the choices that we sow. We experience the negative or positive outcomes of every decision we make.

Let us today accept the free gift of God through Jesus Christ, believe in Him, and begin reaping the fruit that leads to eternal life! There is literally nothing in the world that can bring as much satisfaction, fulfillment, joy, or belonging as being a child of God and following His way every day.

Watch out for that tree!

When I was younger, there was a movie (I’m not sure how popular it was?), called “George of the Jungle.” I’ve seen it numerous times, and it really is a silly movie. There is this guy who doesn’t really fit into normal society and normal, person-to-person interactions and relationships because he was basically raised by wild animals.

He is similar to Tarzan, but in the movie he is brought back to civilization by the first girl he sees whom he just happens to fallen in love with (but that’s a different part of the story). When he is in the jungle, he swings from vines but he constantly has this problem of running into trees. Even in the theme song, they warn George multiple times to “Watch out for that tree!”

I was reading Proverbs 29:25 and the comparison to George of the Jungle struck me. Here is the verse:

“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.”

Our “tree” is the fear of man. We fear what people will think of and say about us. We worry about our popularity and about just getting along through life without too much difficulty or push back from the people we go to school with or work with. I think too often we, me included, put more effort into just getting through life without too much difficulty than living for the LORD.

The fear of man lays a snare; it lays a trap. “Watch out for that trap!” Living in fear of people is just slavery to popular opinion. This is far from the abundant life, the joyful, Spirit-filled and Spirit-empowered life we are offered through Jesus Christ.

Why is there a lack of Christian leaders? Why do too many Christian leaders and pastors and churches look more like the world than Christ? Why do so many first think of what someone else will think and then think about what God thinks? Why do we live in a rather powerless form of Christianity?

I could be wrong, and I could be oversimplifying the issue, but I think a large part of the problem is that we have fallen into the snare of the fear of man. Here is my challenge: “Watch out for that trap!” Don’t be afraid of people, but trust in the LORD. Put your faith in Jesus Christ. Trust and surrender to Him.

After all, the Bible says in the second half of the verse in Romans 8:31, “… If God is for us, who can be against us?” God is for those who are His. You have an opportunity to become a child of God (John 1:9-13). Why not take Him up on the offer?