ALL Christian living is based on doctrine. We live by the faith of Christ. In this sermon we are going to consider the doctrine underlying Paul's teaching in the chapter. We touched on it at the end of the last chapter, but it is good to look at it in great depth.

CHRIST IS LORD.

The doctrine is Christ is Lord. Christ is Lord is an essential truth of the Christian faith. It has been taught in the past that we first receive Christ as our Saviour, and then later we receive him as Lord in our life. The teaching was put over as full surrender to the Lord, and a mark of a higher level of Christian experience. But this is totally wrong Scripturally and experimentally. The Bible makes it clear that if we are saved from our sins, then we are under Christ as our Lord and our God. It is the very essence of saving faith that Christ is our Lord. When Thomas was visited specially by Jesus a week after Jesus had risen, Thomas believed and his response was 'my Lord and my God'. This is to be a Christian.

The truth is that we are not simply saved from our sins and freed from God's wrath against sin and possess the gift of eternal life, but we return to the allegiance to God which is what we were created for. Before Adam sinned he was totally obedient to God. When he sinned he obeyed Satan and ate the forbidden fruit, and placed the whole world under the dominion of Satan. In one the prayers in the Anglican book of Common Prayer there are the words “whose service is perfect freedom”. This is the glorious truth about knowing God through faith in Jesus Christ. We are set free. Jesus said that when the Son (Jesus himself) sets you free you are free indeed. In Matthew 11: 28-30 Jesus said "Come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light." When we served Satan his rule was burdensome and caused us weariness. Sins bondage is to carry a heavy load. Satan is a hard task master, and though he promises freedom it turns out to be slavery. When we trust in Jesus we place ourselves under his yoke. He then rules and guides our life. The picture is of Jesus driving the plough and the Christian under the yoke of the plough. It seems bondage, but his yoke is easy and Christ's rule is gentle.

The purpose of Christ dying and rising again was to save sinners from Satan's dominion and bring us back under Christ's rule and dominion. This is what Paul is teaching in verse 9 - "For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living." In other words that Jesus should claim the authority of God over us which fulfils the purpose for which we were created. The truth of the matter is that total freedom which we so often bang on about is a myth. No human being is free. We either serve Satan or we serve God. Serving Satan is servile bondage, but serving God is freedom because it fulfils the purpose for which we were created.

Paul is reminding the Christians in Rome of this fact, because in remembering this fact we will not be looking at other Christians and either looking down of them or condemning them, but we would be concentrating living unto the Lord and on pleasing the Lord, and we would see other believers motivated in the same way. We would rather be seeking to help our fellow believers in their service to the Lord.

The truth is that we are all answerable to the Lord, and what other Christians may think of us does not matter at all. What matters is the approval of our heavenly Father

LIVING TO THE LORD.

Here is the heart of Christian motivation. In this passage Paul speaks of different Christians interpreting the Christian life, and what it means in different ways; however each one who is seeking to do what is right, whatever the particular expression of that right, is seeking in their actions and living to live to the Lord.

The one who lives in a certain way, lives it as unto the Lord. In the same way another Christian who sees things differently is also living as unto the Lord. The Christian, when he or she is not deliberately sinning and going away from the Lord, is seeking to obey the Lord, and living to please him.

What Paul is seeking to press on our attention is that each Christian is acting sincerely and seeking to live for the Lord, even though the way that living is interpreted and expressed may differ from another believer. We are all at different stages in our spiritual growth, and we are all at different understanding of the truth of God's word, and even if we have not matured as much as we could, God looks at the heart, and where the heart is pure before the Lord, God accepts that service. If by God's grace we have matured more than another, then this is something for humble thanksgiving and worship, and not for looking down on another person who we deem not to have come so far in Christian living as we ourselves. Anyway it may well be that the maturity we claim, may be such as God knows we need, and the maturity of another which we may deem to be weak, may be just the place that God has led our fellow believer because it is the way that is most suitable for his walk in holiness. God is working in each of us what is appropriate and right for our growth in the knowledge of God. In the end what is important is knowing God, and everything else is to this end.

Living to the Lord means that we concentrate on pleasing the Lord, and not looking at other Christians. How the Lord is leading them is not our business. If the other person seeks fellowship, and in that situation of fellowship, issues of service to the Lord come up, we simply share how the Lord is dealing with us without judging the life of the one we are having fellowship with. The Lord's purpose for this other person is not known to us, and is not our concern. This was brought out by Jesus in John 21 when Jesus gave particular attention to Peter and his service, but when Peter asked what Jesus had in store for John, Jesus quietly told him that it was none of his concern. We live for the Lord when we accept every other believer as an equal, and in humility accept the other as better than ourself.

The trouble with many of us, if not all, is we think too much about ourselves, and our image and our standing in the fellowship of believes. Often our actions are governed, not to please the Lord, but to gain preferment in the fellowship, and when we do not get what we are seeking, we begin to look down on others and judge them, specially if they seem to be better accepted and approved than we are. Living to the Lord will save us from this, because then self retires and the Lord is all in all, and the approval of the Lord is all we desire, and we will rejoice in having fellowship with the Lord and pleasing him. Then how the Lord is dealing with others will not bother us except to praise him when we see in others the fruit of the work of the Spirit in their lives.

BELONGING TO THE LORD.

In verse 8 Paul writes "If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord." What Paul is emphasising here is that belonging to the Lord is the Christians paramount concern, and the joy and satisfaction of the Christians life. Nothing else matters. If we have this goal in our mind and heart always, it will save us from the disgusting manifestations of self which is seen in this matter of looking at other believers in a critical manner, and comparing our lives with them, and making unfavourable assessments. It is characteristic of such selfish behaviour that it always dims our enjoyment of the Lord, and cripples our witness, and causes disharmony in the fellowship.

It is a blessing to contemplate what it means to belong to the Lord, and the more we understand this, the things of self will be crowded out in the joy of such belonging to the Lord.

Belonging to the Lord is exceedingly precious. Christ died that we might belong to him, and live in the wonder of his possession of us. Peter expresses this preciousness in 1 Peter 2: 9. - “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” What does it mean to belong to the Lord?

In the first place we are chosen people. Out of all the lump of sinful and fallen humanity, under the wrath of God because of sin, God has chosen us to be his people. This choice was completely sovereign. God did not chose us because we were better in some way than others, nor because he saw any good in us, but simply by his sovereign choice. And look at the glory he bestows upon his chosen. It is beyond any imagining. He chooses us to be a royal priesthood and a holy nation. He bestows upon us the highest privilege of being members of his royal family as sons and daughters, and he makes us into priests, not to offer sacrifices for sin, or be in any sense a mediator, but simply that we may have the privilege of offering to him our praise and thanksgiving for his wondrous grace in saving us before him for ever. To fulfil this high office he makes us into a holy nation. Not only does he justly cancel all the demerit of our sins by punishing them on and in his only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ; but he recreates us to be like him in true righteousness and holiness. In other words, not only is the sentence of death passed on all humanity in Adam reversed, but the life we are restored to possess is pristine in holiness, fitting us to dwell in his presence and glory.

It is our business to have this exalted office in life as a holy priesthood to declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light. There is no greater honour and occupation than to give glory to God and show forth his glory in adoration and praise.