Allegiance

Romans 6:17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.

Who has your allegiance? When your team isn’t doing so well in the playoffs, if they made it at all, do you still wear their team jersey? Do you watch their game when a competing games offers to be much more exciting and maybe even significant, since your team doesn’t stand a chance?

When your friend gets in trouble, do you stand by their side for more than the initial volley of trouble? Are you there for the long haul? Do you visit them in jail?

I think that too often we as humans have difficulty giving our allegiance and then keeping it focused on the same object over time. We are really good at enthusiastic commitments, but often not so good with the follow through. We have the energy to say “Yes!”, but then our energies get shifted to new and different things very shortly thereafter.

Our text is talking about the deadly battle that has taken place between Jesus and death. Jesus won, by the way. But he did it by yielding himself to the death, rather than by attempting to thwart its deadly fangs. Yielding to death as a way of victory over it. I would have never have thought of it.

And the yielding to death of Jesus is our path through temptation and sin. When we are dead, we no longer feel the pull of sin and temptation in our lives. Dead people can’t yield to sin. And we are dead in Christ!

But we are also alive on the other side of death, just like Jesus is alive after the empty tomb. And just as death has no pull on Jesus, death and all its tentacles have no pull on us. Is that your experience? Do you at times feel the pull of sin and temptation on your life?

That is why our text tells us we must continue in obedience to our new master. Our allegiance has changed. We used to serve sin. Now we serve the Gospel and the Lord of this good news.

We must yield our will to Jesus and His will. Our allegiance has shifted and we must continue to press in closer and more completely to the object of our allegiance. Temporary, transient, illusory wins and failures can’t keep us from hotly pursuing Jesus.

We can’t let the ups and downs of the news cycle determine our mood or the direction of our obedience. We must keep our hands on the plow and our eyes forward. We can’t look at our phones while we drive through life, or we will be weaving through life like a drunk driver. Get rid of the distractions. Stay focused.