The word sermon is derived from a Latin word sermonem meaning a discourse or a stringing together of words

Trinity 7

The word sermon comes from an old English word sermun, which derived from an old French word sermon, which derived from the Latin word sermonem meaning a discourse or a stringing together of words. This means that a sermon is supposed to be a discourse, preferably on the meaning of a Scriptural text. There are some texts and verses of Scripture that are opaque and require lengthy discourses full of insightful pedagogical illustrations. A poor example occurred last Wednesday evening. Emily and I were putting the kids to bed and Edith requested we sing the old hymn “How Great Thou Art.” When we sang the line “When I the rolling thunder” Edith, who had been lying very still in her bed, sprang to her feet, draped her blanket over her body and started to imitate thunder by jumping up and down on her bed yelling, “Boom, Boom, Boom.” Edith provided a visual discourse on the text we were singing. However, there are other texts and verses of Scripture that require little to no discourse because their meaning is so clear and powerful. Romans 6:23 is one of these verses, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

In this verse, we see two great contrasts: the contrast between death and life and the contrast between a wage and a gift. Anyone who has ever worked one day or one hour or one minute or even one second for somebody else knows what the word “wage” means “a regular payment to an employee in return for his work or service.”[1] The Greek word for wage is opsonia and was a word used to describe the pay a soldier merited for his work. Thus when St. Paul said, “The wages of sin is death” he meant that anyone who has sin as their employer (or in his terms a slave master) will receive death for their wage. Often when we hear “wages of sin” we think that as a result of our sins, death is our wage, now this is true for the Prophet Ezekiel said, “The soul who sins is the one who will die.” (Eze. 18:4) However, this is not quite what St. Paul meant. St. Paul meant that sin is our employer. In other words, we work for sin, we labor for sin, and we are servants or slaves to sin. Therefore, our employer, our master, our owner, sin recompenses our work with death.[2] Furthermore, wages are not paid out in a lump sum, which means that “death is not to be regarded merely as the final payment, but as that which already casts its dark shadow over life, a portent of the deeper darkness to come.”[3] Anyone who has ever labored for sin will receive their rightful wage, a wage that will be meted out regularly throughout their life. This means that we all, for St. Paul already established that all have sinned, work for sin and we all have merited death as our rightful and lawful wage.

The opposite of a wage is a gift. A gift is something given or received without payment[4] thus it is not earned, deserved or merited. Thus when St. Paul said, “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” he meant that life, eternal life, is not a wage we have earned it is a gift from God, specifically a gift that God gives through Jesus Christ. Furthermore, God’s gift of life cannot be dependent upon our work, for that contradicts the meaning of a gift. Thus, when we serve God, we find rest and peace for he has given us a gift and not a wage.

Here is the verdict, the verdict we all must hear. Surprisingly enough it is the title of a Bob Dylan song, “Everybody’s gotta serve somebody.” We can either serve sin and receive our just payment of death, or we can serve God and receive His gift of life. We can either serve sin and work ourselves to death or we can serve God and rest from our labors because we have received his gift of life. We become servants of God by being united to Jesus Christ, who took upon himself our wages for sin when he died upon the cross. We become united to Jesus Christ through baptism, as St. Paul says in Romans 6:3 “all of us who were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” and through faith as St. Paul said in Ephesians 2:8 “It is by grace that you are saved through faith, and this not of ourselves it is that gift of God.” Baptism and faith unite us to Jesus Christ, not because there is anything efficacious in water or in our knowledge or belief but because Baptisms and faith are signs of God’s gift of grace.

“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” If you are wearied from your labors under sin, there is another Master whose burden is easy, whose yoke is light, and who gives gifts rather than wages. His name is Jesus and he has promised to forgive all those confess with their mouths that he and Lord and believe in their hearts that God has indeed raised him from dead. So whom will you serve? It may be sin, or it may be the Lord, whom will you serve.

[2] John Piper, The Free Gift of God is Eternal Life Part 1, http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByScripture/10/40_The_Free_Gift_of_God_is_Eternal_Life_Part_1/

[3] H.W. Heidland, quoted by Everett F. Harrison, The Expositer’s Bible Commetary, “Romans”