By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
July 19, 2026
Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship
Romans 8:12–25 (ESV)
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
We are Debtors, Paul tells us. We are all debtors. This is not the best way to start a message, but I think it is important. We live in a culture of success. If you think about the people we look up to culturally there is a common theme. Patrick Mahomes, Elon Musk, The President, or Messi what is something they have in common? Some are great athletes. Some are brilliant. But all of them are what we would call wealthy.
We live in a culture where success equals wealth. Those that have success are measured based on how much wealth they create. There were some great football quarterbacks that never went to the Super Bowl. There were some great quarterbacks that probably never made it to a division 1 NCAA school. Some of them might have been as good as Patrick Mahomes, yet we have never heard of them. What was the difference between the local high school star and Patrick? What is the difference between Messi and the soccer players in our own community? Is it their skill? Sure, skill has something to do with it, and I am not saying that Mahomes or Messi are not skilled players in their sports. I can only wish I had their skill, but there is something more than skill. Someone saw these men play the sport. Someone gave them an opportunity to go to the next level. Someone gave them a chance.
What about Elon and Trump? Their status is a bit different from that of the sports star. Their success is measured differently, but it is very similar. They had an idea. And someone backed their idea. For Elon, the idea was something he and some of his friends came up with. That idea was that there was a new economy emerging, one where the traditional methods of payment were insecure or not available. So they came up with PayPal. This allowed each of us to be able to purchase things online with extra layers of security, so our account numbers were not just out there for everyone to see.
We see these innovations, and we automatically assume that these people were brilliant. And they are brilliant, but I know many brilliant people. I know a man that has invented a windshield wiper blade that will not allow ice to collect on it in the winter. I want that windshield wiper blade, but it is not available. It is a brilliant idea, but his idea is not available to us, where most of us have a PayPal account. The difference is who Elon knew, and who my friend knew.
We have this idea that we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps in our culture. That we are self-made individuals. If we simply work hard we will end up like the soccer star, the football MVP, or the tech giant. What is the reality of this? Have you ever tried to pull yourself up by your bootstraps? It is impossible. And that was what the origin of that saying originally implied. We cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps because we are in the boots. We are physically unable to lift ourselves up in that manner because we are standing in our own boots. If we could do this we could literally fly, or we would have some superhuman ability to defy the laws of gravity. What I am getting at is everyone needs community. We all need others to see in us something of value to invest. Someone needs to see our ability, our brilliance, our worth. They need to see us, and they need to promote our value to others, convincing them that we are worth the chance.
We are all debtors.
How did I become your pastor? I was not the only option available. Several names were considered. Yet my name rose to the top. Is it my greater ability than everyone else? No, it is because someone along the way knew me, and they spoke up. I am here not because I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, I am here because the community wanted me. I do not know what criteria they considered, but I have my position not because of me, but because of everyone else.
This is something we often forget in our society. We like the idea of the self-made individual. And there are some things to that concept that I have not spoken of, but the reality is that none of us are self-made. The store owner might have come up with a great idea, but they would not have a store without their customers. An inventor might create a remarkable device but the only way that device ends up in a store is if that inventor convinces a bank, a manufacture, or investors to join the cause. We would not have iPhones or personal computers if a small computer store did not take a chance on a bunch of nerds working out of their garage to sell their machine in his store.
Paul reminds us, we are debtors. We owe something to someone. We were allowed an opportunity to try, and our current position in life would not have happened without it. We owe someone or many people everything.
We are debtors, Paul says, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. What Paul means by this is that this debt we owe is beyond what we experience within this physical existence. It is a debt that we cannot pay because we do not have the ability to even fathom it. Our bodies are bound to our own perception. We are bound by time and space. Those four dimensions are the only things we have ready access to: time, length, width, and height. We are bound or limited by these things. Yet Paul says that we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. This means that there is something else that we have not been fully aware of that is also working within our lives.
“For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” This previously unknown dimension of existence working within our lives is what Paul calls the Spirit. We are debtors, not to the four dimensions, but to the Spirit.
I know this sounds ridiculous. We do not like these terms, just as we do not like coming to terms with the concept that we cannot pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. These dimensional philosophies seem like they have nothing to do with our lives. And yet they do. When scientists are working with the math surrounding various concepts of physics they cannot make it work without introducing dimensions. No matter how hard they try to explain gravity, which has been part of classical physics from the dawn of physics, when they look at the universe in its magnitude or at the microscopic subatomic level, their theories break down. The only way they can explain these breakdowns is to introduce a new dimensional theory that influences what we are able to observe. Theoretically they have these dimensions, yet we are not capable of observing them directly. At best, we can only observe their influence upon the four dimensions we can observe.
There is something beyond us that influences life, and without this we will die, but if we have it we live.
I have been asked on multiple occasions to prove the existence of God. I have tried to study this most of my adult life. There is an entire field of study dedicated to this, it is theology. If you break that word down it literally means the study of God, or the science of God. Just like biology is the study of life, or the science of life. When the first universities began in Europe theology was the highest of the sciences, but this has changed. It has changed because we do not have the right tools to study God as we would physics or biology. When we interact with God we cannot apply the same methods, because God does not respond in clear systematic measurable ways. God is unpredictable, those that believe can see places where God has influenced things, but it is like the effects of gravity on time, the math does not always work.
I cannot prescribe certain number of prayers to obtain healing or some other desired result and with absolute certainty know that it will happen. This has been tried, and many have stopped believing because they did not receive what they fervently prayed for. They are debtors to the flesh. They are bound to the flesh. They are looking only to time and space for their assurance. But we are not debtors to the flesh, but the spirit. When we come to God in relationship with Christ, we enter into a different plain of existence, one where time and space are no longer the limits. We live differently.
We live differently. We live in space and time, but we belong with God. We explain this as being a citizen of heaven. And we do not always know what that means. For some it means that we will have a place in heaven when we no longer live. But that is not the fullness of the term. Jesus did not come preaching that the Kingdom of God is there at the end of you life, he taught that the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That means it is right here all around us. We will not only live in that different plain later, we live in it now. And we have that existence because someone looked at us and thought we had value. Someone looked at us and thought sure they may not be much now, but they have potential.
God so loved the world, the Gospel of John says, that God gave his one unique son. The only being in the universe like it, to save the world. That whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. Some might say that this is open to everyone, because it says whoever believes. Some others say that it was predestined from the beginning of time who would be saved. We argue about these things because we cannot directly observe that plain of existence. All we have is scripture, our experiences, and the church. That is theology. We look at those things, we study them, we develop theories, and we come out with traditions of faith. There is something interesting about these traditions, what do they do with the one unique son, Jesus?
Jesus is central to our faith. It is Jesus who made himself a little lower than the angels to be made into the likeness of man. It is Jesus, God wrapped in human flesh. It is Jesus, and only Jesus, that can bridge that gap between God and humanity. Why we might ask. Because only God can make that path.
When God created heaven and earth, and placed our first parents into the garden, he created us in his image. We lived in the plains of temporal and spiritual existence. We have tried to understand what this might mean. Some have said that we have intelligence, but if intelligence was the only factor involved are children full image bears? Our thoughts on this challenge our social beliefs, because how we answer these questions determine how we live our lives. What does it mean to live be created in the image of God? I cannot give you a definitive answer, but from observing scripture, experience, and the church I believe that image is the capacity to exist in a temporal and spiritual plains.
But that capacity became fractured. We have these spiritual experiences but they seem disconnected. They happen in an instant and for the rest of our lives we seek them out only to find ourselves grasping at wind. Yet we have that capacity. A longing to be fulfilled. We seek to fill it with education and knowledge. We seek to fill it with substances that seem to provide spiritual experiences, and as we seek these things out we find that they trap us addiction. We even seek out the spiritual through experiences. This thrill seeking behavior leads us to climb mountains, dive off cliffs into the water, or even seek out adulterous and lustful activities. We do this because we want to feel alive.
That is an interesting phrase, feel alive. We have a longing to feel alive, and yet when we engage the feeling is fleeting at best, and usually we feel less alive after. This is what Paul is speaking of when he says, “we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die.” The ways of the flesh, give a false spiritual experience, and it costs us.
We can get all the degrees a university offers, but it only helps us if we use that degree properly. We can have all the money in the world and still feel empty. We can enjoy the occasional drink but when we use that substance to provide the strength for us to cope with life we will find ourselves addicted. If we seek to find our worth in the arms of a lover we often find that things will change over time. There needs to be more. We need a different dimension to make sense of it all.
“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”.
Many look at this term, abba, and liken it to Daddy. This idea originated because it is one of the first words a child is able to say in that language. So a toddler will cry out Abba, just as our children cry out daddy. But this idea tends to fall short because adults will continue to say abba, where in our language we tend to look down on adults calling their father’s daddy. What scholars have concluded is that it is a form of intimacy but more likely refers to my father, or my dad. It is personal, formal, as well as endearing. It is respectful as well as intimate. In English, we do not have an adequate word, nor did Greek which is why Paul used the Aramaic form. I do not know if this is the same in Swahili or not. What Paul is getting at is we are no longer dead and disconnected from the spiritual life, instead we so connected that we can speak about it in intimate familial terms.
“We are children of God, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.” Paul says, “Provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” This is the debt we have. We do not enter into the realm of God on our own, or by our own terms. Our entry into the kingdom of heaven is provided to us by someone else. That being hold the terms and conditions of our debt. We might be able to negotiate to some degree, but ultimately we must submit to their authority.
If we do not submit we do not have a relationship. If you need a loan for business you do not have the authority to change the terms. You might be able to slide something by some, but usually they have teams of lawyers that are looking over every word. If you want the loan you comply with their terms. And when you comply you are in debt to them. You are bound by a legal contract to repay that debt. The same is with Christ. We do not get to make the terms, Christ set the terms and those terms are belief.
This belief is not merely an acknowledgment that God exists, but it is the entrusting our complete lives to Christ. It is devoting yourself, not to rules, but to the relationship.
When we are in a relationship, the thoughts are no longer self-centered, instead we look for the mutual good. We cook what our children will eat, because we need to eat. We often go where our spouse wants to go because we want them to be happy. And hopefully they do the same. Our thoughts, our actions will change not because they must, but we want the other people within our relationship to succeed as much or more than ourselves.
Albert wants to help the family by starting a lawn mowing business. What do I do? I help him. Does it benefit me, maybe or maybe not. But what I do know is that it provides an opportunity for us to extend our relationship. I can teach him differently. He takes on more responsibilities. And in the process we both grow. This change in relationship comes with its own challenges. Albert wants to mow, but his potential clients live farther from us than we can drive the mower. We need a trailer. My dad, also in a relationship wants to help so he offered a trailer, but the trailer was old. We hooked it up to the pickup and immediately alarms began going off. The trailer had bad wires. We spent our entire vacation fixing something that we did not realize would be necessary. We did this not because it was a benefit to us personally, but because we want to encourage someone else. This extends more and more. And soon we have troubles and blessings from all sides. And we begin to wonder is it worth it?
The answer is yes. In Christ, it is worth it. In Christ, we are not bound by what we can sense in the dimensions of time and space. In Christ, we are spliced back into the fullness of the Spiritual life. We suffer because we are all wired differently, but once we are connected to the same source things begin to change. Our minds change, our emotions become tuned, our desires become directed. And our suffering with Christ becomes a joy instead of something we avoid. We change because there is something more. We have hope beyond what the world can sense.
We groan today because we only get a glimpse, only a taste, but we know there is more. All creation knows there is more. That is why we seek the thrill, the education, and the various other things we seek to fill the voids. We groan because creation is cut off from the source, and only in Christ can we bring it back. And we bring it back by living within that relationship Christ has with us. We love God with all that we have available, and then we love our neighbor. We live with and in Christ, and as the spirit saturates us, it splashes out as we interact with those around us. And they begin to wonder what we have. Why we can be content, and joyful even though we do not have the things this world thinks successful people have.
We are all debtors. Not one of us is self-made. Not one of us is complete in ourselves. We need each other, and we need the source of all life, through whom all things were and are created. We need people to see us and encourage us. We need someone to give us a chance, and we need someone to challenge our understanding. We need, but what we need the most is life. Not merely feeling alive, we need life, and purpose. We need to become the beings that God created us to be. Image bearers, living in time and space as well as with God on his plain of existence.
Jesus came to us, reconnecting God to man, and he lifts us back to God, connecting man to God. May that connection define our lives now and forever.
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church July 19, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Romans 8:12–25 (ESV) So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you…
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church July 5, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Hebrews 12:1–3, 12-17 (ESV) 1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings…
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church June 28,2026 Click to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Romans 6:12–23 (ESV) Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but…
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By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
July 5, 2026
Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship
Hebrews 12:1–3, 12-17 (ESV)
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. 14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; 16 that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
Query 6
From the Faith and Practice of Evangelical Friends Church Mid America Yearly Meeting.
Do you consistently practice Jesus’ spirit and teaching of love and goodwill to all people?
Do you support every Christian movement to do away with war and preparation for war?
Do you endeavor to make clear to all whom you can influence and especially our own youth, that war is utterly un-Christian and cannot be reconciled with the spirit of Christ?
Romans 7:15–25 (ESV)
15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
War Within
We have been speaking of righteousness, the law, sin, justification, and sanctification over the past few weeks. I do not know if you have learned anything worthwhile, but for me this has been a period of examine in my personal spiritual life. As I have read through the writings found in Paul’s letters to the churches, I have also revisited the Sermon Jesus gave while on the mount and on the plain. I have revisited what the commandments, words of wisdom, or teachings God gave to Moses when Israel was encamped at Sinai. And while I considered these things against my current experience, I have come to a great conclusion. Life is difficult.
I do not want to sound cliché or simple with those words. We as a church gained a sense of purpose or mission together when I first came to Willow Creek. I would love to say that it emerged out of good leadership, but no. It came because I as a new pastor, and us as a meeting needed to know who we are and what we needed to do to move our meeting into the future. We sat on that topic for months. We shared, considered, prayed, argued, and laughed together as we devised a simple statement that we felt explained who we are and what we want to do. That statement is: Loving God, Embracing the Holy Spirit, and Living the love of Christ with others.
I love that purpose statement. I love the depth of its simplicity. I love that it captures the teachings of Christ and the wisdom of God as taught throughout scripture from the beginning to the end. I love it because I have seen those words in the very rhythm of life that Jesus lived. I see those words in the heart-wrenching pleas that Paul writes to his friends across the Mediterranean world. It is a call to worship, prayer, and ministry.
I have contemplated those words over the past few months. And I wonder, is this still our calling, our mission? Is our point of existence as a community of faith still driven by those words, or have those words been replaced with something else?
This is one of the reasons I love the discipline of considering the Queries within our Faith and Practice. When I was younger I did not even know what these were, I learned about them when I began exploring the possibility of becoming a pastor and actually read the Faith and Practice. And when I saw that the Faith and Practice said we needed to read them every year and answer them, I thought it was one of the most ridiculous things I had heard. Why should we read a bunch of weirdly worded questions that have yes or no answers. But then I eventually became a pastor. It did not take long before I recognized that the core of our faith depends on the questions we ask, the questions we allow ourselves to ask, and the honesty we give when we try to provide an answer.
Twenty-three years ago as I became a pastor I began to fall in love with the queries. They are not God breathed scripture because they are written by people like you or I, but they facilitate contemplation. The ones we have in our faith and practice were first written shortly after the civil war in America, during a time of expansion, healing, and hope. We as a culture had just endured one of the largest struggles we had ever had to endure, a struggle that defined who we as a nation would be in the future. And when our spiritual ancestors gathered in Richmond, Indiana they too were struggling to determine who or what the Religious Society of Friends would be. Friends from around the world came to gather, and we made our Declaration of Faith. The majority of Yearly Meetings accepted this Unifying document, some opposed because they said it sounded too much like a creed and as Friends we do not make creeds.
Those that started our Yearly Meeting, held to that Unified Discipline of what was once called the Five Years Meeting, and would eventually be renamed Friends United Meeting. And one of the things that they included in that first unify document was the queries. Queries have been used since the time of Fox, and each yearly meeting has their own queries. Some have several and some have very few. The queries in our Faith and Practice have come to us from that first Unified Discipline with very few changes. I mention this is because these are the same questions that were being asked of Friends since the 19th century. They were questions asked of Friends that had participated in the Underground Railroad and of Friends that had aligned themselves with the other side of the debate. It was asked of Friends that had fled to the West to avoid conflict and those that had endured the hardships of war along the boarders of the North and South.
Do you consistently practice Jesus’ spirit and teaching of love and goodwill to all people?
Do you support every Christian movement to do away with war and preparation for war?
Do you endeavor to make clear to all whom you can influence and especially our own youth, that war is utterly un-Christian and cannot be reconciled with the spirit of Christ?
I include this query today, because I do think we need to re-examine things of faith. We need to ask ourselves if the faith we claim is the faith we live. But I think it speaks to something deeper. It speaks about the war within each of us.
“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So no it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.”
Paul looks at himself, he sees within himself that there is a war waging. He yearns to be righteous, he longs to do right in the eyes of God or to be justified in his own efforts. But he finds himself failing every time he turns around. This passage although it is one of the most difficult to read for me because it is almost a tongue twister, is one that I often find myself thinking about. And it has been one that has been on repeat for several weeks.
I want to do this. I want to do that. I want, but why do I want? Are my desires being driven by faith? Are my desires filled with ideologies? Do I want this because of some selfish desire? Am I just wanting to justify my own sin?
Paul says, “Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.” This is one of those places where it seems like Paul cannot decide if he like the law or not. This is why I have made such an effort to explain that the commandments of God are not merely the do’s and don’ts of faith, but they are the teachings, or the wisdom of God. They are lessons and conversation starters. Paul has noticed that he wants to do one thing, but seems to do the thing that he does not want to do instead. The teachings of God in scripture do not necessarily provide all the answers to every problem we will ever face, but it does give us a framework of how to think, and directs us to asking better questions.
I want to please my wife, I want to give her everything her heart desires. But somewhere in the course of our conversations I thought I heard that she did not care what we ate, so I purchased McDonald’s. Then I purchased it again because in my mind I know where McDonald’s is located in this city I do not know. Then I do it again. She keeps saying she does not care yet each meal it seems like she does. I know I am not pleasing her and now after twenty-three years, she still thinks the only thing I want to eat is McDonald’s when the truth is I did not know where any other restaurants were in Winnipeg. Scripture does not tell us exactly what to do in this situation, yet it does tell us other things, things like “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3-4).
Was I being vain, or conceited? No, but I was not taking into account that my desires and those of my spouse might be different. I grew up on a dirt farm in the middle of nowhere, you ate what you ate and you were grateful, where she grew up in Kansas City where there are options available. We came from different cultures, different experiences, different understandings. And the first few days of our marriage, we were caught in a dilemma.
This early marital spat may not seem similar to the geopolitical crises we face, but every relationship is similar. What do we do when resolving a conflict with a spouse, and how do we resolve a conflict with someone outside? If we treat those closest to us with violence, eventually when pushed too far we will respond to others with violence. Our families and the local meeting or church is a training ground for geopolitics.
Paul tells us when we begin to pursue our desires, but the results of this are not what we imagined we need to take a step back and re-examine what we are doing, and why. We need to ask different questions, see where we might have made an erroneous assumption. Go back to the teachings of God, study the scriptures and let them speak to you.
Paul continues to say after this, “So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” This is the picture of a person that is in that process of sanctification, or theosis. The desire is to do good, yet there are aspects within us that have not been fully entrusted to God. So often we as disciples and friends of Christ seek to follow him, but we have spiritual boarder-line disorder. We want to do something great, but we sabotage ourselves.
Some might say that Paul is excusing sin in this statement. That he is proposing a dualistic philosophy like the teachings of Plato. This is not what he is saying. There is a dualistic aspect, sure, but he does not excuse our actions. We are responsible for what we do in our flesh, because that is who we. We are flesh as well as spirit, they are not separate, but they are a combined whole. Just as Jesus is fully God and fully man, we are spirit and flesh, but our spirit is disconnected from God our life giver. We have no spiritual nourishment because our sin dams the flow, leaving our souls stagnate toxic swamps.
We have a desire to do good, to be righteous, yet without the flowing waters of the Spirit we are stuck in the mud. Paul says, “For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” I am stuck. I can only go so far. I am throwing my weight forward and back but instead of proceeding, I am sinking deeper. I get off balance and fall. My shoes are pulled off and now I am covered from head to toe in the muck. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
I want to stop here for a moment. Some will say that Paul is saying that you cannot be moral without Christ. This is not the case. We can be good people socially and culturally. I can be faithful to my spouse, not kill anyone, and pay for everything I want and need just fine with or without Christ. We can be seen as good. But our self morality will only go so far. Remember the story of the Rich Young Ruler that came to Jesus asking what he must do to enter the kingdom. Jesus told him to keep the commandments, and the man responded that he had done this since childhood. Jesus then told him that there was one more thing, he must sell all that he had, give it to the poor, and follow him. That man walked away.
He was moral. He was good. He had done everything right in the eyes of his society. But he was missing one thing. He was doing all of those things for himself. He was working for his justification, but we do not hold the power to declare righteousness. Only those outside of ourselves have that power, the one with whom we have a relationship.
I can stand here and say I am a good father, and a good husband. I can claim to be a good pastor, or a good employee. But who can actually declare those things? My sons are the only ones that can declare me a good parent. My wife is the only one that can declare me a good husband. My supervisor is the one that declares my effectiveness on the job. And the church is the one that can declare my value as a minister. I cannot do this on my own, I cannot do this because I only see my own self. If I am doing everything according to my self-interest I will somewhere along the line cause harm to someone. I will cause harm because I am incapable to consider every aspect.
Our nation celebrated its 250th anniversary this year. Many of us look at those founding patriots as giants, they were the mighty men of old, that stood against tyranny. These men of old forged a new nation claiming these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and have certain unalienable rights endowed by our creator to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I love my country. I read those words and when I hear those words it still fans the flame of patriotism in my heart. We look at those men we see them as great, but they were not perfect. The men that held the self-evident truths of equality, enslaved others they denied the unalienable rights of fellow humans by denying them their own life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. These men were moral in their historical context, but the context has changed.
They failed just as we fail. They, like Paul, and like us cry out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” We cry out, because we want to do good, but evil emerges. We want to live at peace with our families, our friends, our communities yet somewhere along the way we will do something that is focused on our own self-interest that will cause harm in some manner to someone else.
We cannot live a completely moral life, because our flesh gets in the way. We can justify our actions and remain in good standing socially, yet we know or someone knows, we have the capacity to be wretched.
“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”
I want to do good. I want to be righteous. I want to be someone consistently practicing Jesus’ spirit and teaching of love and goodwill to all people. Yet, sometimes people are really annoying. I want to support every Christian movement to do away with war and the preparation for war, yet there are people that do not agree with me. I want to tell everyone that the use of violence is un-Christian and cannot be reconciled, yet there is part of me that knows that I am very capable of justifying violence because I cannot think of a way around it. But my human justifications do not change the truth.
Every human life is sacred, because every human life is created in the image of God. And God so loved every human within the world that he gave his one unique son to die for us, that who soever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. We are loved. We are loved by God the creator of all things visible and invisible. We were created in the Image of God, meaning we have the capacity of physical and spiritual life. But do we recognize it. Do we recognize it in ourselves and do we recognize it in the person we currently see as an enemy?
There is much more that I want to say. Things I feel like I need to say. But I want us to again consider our query. And look at the things we are doing. Examine them in prayer, and in humility. Are we as a community recognizing the sin we have caused against others that might cause them to act in violence against us? Are we seeing the life situations that people around us are living in that might lead them to believe that there is no other way except violence? Are we actively pursuing the things that will alleviate tension, or are we throwing fuel on a fire? “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Let us renew our purpose and vision as a community to become a people Loving God, embracing the Holy Spirit and Living the love of Christ with others.
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church June 14, 2026 Click Here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Romans 5:1–8 (ESV) 1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also…
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church June 07, 2026 Click here to join our meeting for worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Romans 4:13–25 (ESV) 13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through…
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church May 31, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili 2 Corinthians 13:11–14 (ESV) 11 Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace…
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By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
June 28,2026
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Romans 6:12–23 (ESV)
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. 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.
The past few weeks we have been speaking of the law, wrath, sin, and righteousness. When we read the letters of Paul, we can often have a bit of whiplash over these topics. Paul will speak of how beneficial the law is in one breath and then in the next he will speak of how the law brings condemnation and the wrath of God. When reading the letters of Paul, context is extremely important. When he condemns the law is he condemning the teachings of God found in scripture, or is he condemning the interpretation of the law provided by the religious teachers? When he speaks of the joys of not being bound by or to the law does he mean that it is best not to even regard scripture, or does he does he mean we are focused on something that is beyond?
The last time I spoke we discussed righteousness and justification. Justification is to be declared right. The declaration only means one thing, that whatever is being justified is not going to be held against the individual. In the state of Missouri, and I am not saying I agree with this, but in the state of Missouri the use of cannabis is justified. They have allowed for the licensing of individuals to sell, and for people to purchase this previous illegal substance. It is justified in Missouri, but it does not mean that it is right. If the Drug Enforcement Agency had a desire to, they could come to Missouri and prosecute anyone that was partaking of that substance.
The fact is that justification does not make something right, it only means that it will not be held against you. You have been declared right. This only goes so far. I can get a warning from the officer when I am stopped for driving too fast, this does not give me permission to drive any speed I want it just means it is not going to be held against me. What will happen if I continue to speed down the road? They will look at the record and see that I had been declared right previously, but I have continued that behavior. And if I continue this behavior I will face stricter discipline.
Being justified is similar to this. Jesus does stand with us. Jesus declares us justified before God. He stand with and for us declaring us to be righteous, but are we standing with Him? Are we participating in his life and righteousness?
This is where Paul is with today’s passage. He says, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to may you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and you members to God as instruments of righteousness.”
Sin is missing the mark. The word translated here as sin, has religious and secular meanings and both are used within scripture. In the religious sense, it is a transgression of the religious ideals. In the secular sense it means weakness. Often weakness even in the religious sense fits, but in this particular passage it is a transgression. Not only is it a transgression, but it is a personified transgression. Which means we purposefully participated. What is this sin of which Paul speaks of?
We are justified as righteous. Righteousness is doing right by another. Doing right by God, as well as doing right by those around us. Paul goes as far as saying that if this is your focus, if every aspect of your being is focused on doing right by others, there is no law that can condemn you.
In this case, when Paul says let not sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Paul is speaking of how we are interacting with those around us. Are we using our body, our work, our finances to provide for our passions, or are we using all that is available to us to provide for or do right toward our neighbors.
This might be a perspective that we have not considered when we read through this passage. The sin not the action in and of itself but the intention or the reasoning is the focus. Why we are doing what we are doing. Are we using what we have available to us to encourage or discourage. Are we using what we have available to us fulfill our own passions or inspire hope to someone who has nothing?
The intention or the reasoning is where our sin resides. Paul then speaks of being instruments. The term translated as instrument is to implement, or to enact. Are we using the things available to us to enact unrighteousness or are we using these things to enact righteousness?
This is where discernment is paramount. We can justify anything in our own minds. We have justified nearly everything. I have listened to many justifications from the individuals I caught shoplifting when I worked in retail security. It seems like such a little thing when Walmart and Target are such big corporations that make millions of dollars a year. It seems justifiable because we are only stealing from the big guys, but each store makes an accounting of each item. One package of razors might not seem like much, but a store must sell twelve packages to replace the one. This all adds up, when I left my security management position I was in a store that lost five hundred thousand dollars. Each person on our bench had a justification, but those justifications prevented us from hiring sixteen people. Those justifications prevented our store from giving the current employees the raises they deserved because the store had to purchase the items individuals justified taking.
They became instruments of unrighteousness, they began to obey their own passions instead of looking at the larger picture. One store. One package of razor blades, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and eventually the store is forced to close. President Obama used to speak about food deserts during his term of office. I remember the discussions surrounding this. Those deserts exist for this reason, and it is a great concern. A store no matter how much they want to stay in business cannot remain open if they lose inventory at a rate above seven percent. What one person justifies as being right for them to do snowballs to the point entire neighborhoods struggle not only to afford food, but to get to a store that will sell it. The stores that would hire your neighbors no longer exists, and everyone suffers. We suffer because we did not do right for each other.
Instruments of righteousness or unrighteousness. When we obey our passions, we submit ourselves to unrighteousness. There are times when our passions are fine, but we need to use discernment. And often we need to ask questions that make us uncomfortable, especially if it involves what we think we deserve or something we feel someone else does not deserve. If our focus is not centered on ourselves but instead if we are focused on doing right by others in all that we do, we are instruments of hope. We beacons of the love of Christ?
Those that claim faith, those that have entrusted their lives to Christ, are not driven by sin. Those that have put on the life and lifestyle of Christ pursue to live into the justification they have received. Not because we want to earn our salvation but by God’s grace we have been declared righteous. We are righteous, because Jesus is righteous. He lived a life perfectly doing right by others. He stands up for us, and we follow his ways.
This is where things get a bit interesting. We have been declared righteous through faith in Jesus. How then should we live? Even Jesus has said all sin is forgiven even blasphemies, but one blaspheming the Holy Spirit. If all is forgiven, if everything has been declared right we are freed from those wages of sin. We are no longer held accountable for them. But one thing remains. What does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit?
If you were like me growing up, this was something you were concerned about. I was concerned with committing that one unforgivable sin, I was also concerned with being left behind, but we do not have enough time to discuss all my spiritual trauma. Paul, however, gives us an understanding of what that unforgivable sin is. Paul illuminates, what it means to blaspheme the Holy Spirit.
“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?”
We are all slaves Paul says. This disturbed me as I was studying this week. In the Rome during the earliest era of the church it is said that nearly one out of two people were slaves. Half of their population were slaves. The slavery was different than what we read about in American history, there were basically two types of slavery. Either the person was conquered in battle and their enslavement was part of the spoils of war. Or people would enter slavery to pay off a debt.
I sat to think about these things in reference to this passage. Half of the Roman population were potentially enslaved. Enslaved because they were an enemy, or enslaved because they were in debt. In that culture it was justified to deny human dignity because you were stronger or had greater wealth. In that culture it was right to enslave, to shame, and to belittle someone simply because you were more privileged. Is this doing right by others?
Half the population was a slave. Half of those that listened to this letter being read in that early gathering of Christians owned slaves, and the other half was enslaved. I mention this because it seems extreme. When I read it in the Bible Dictionary I own, I nearly did not believe it. I still find it a bit high to be possible, but as I sat contemplating this I began to realize the dualistic aspect of the statements. You are either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. They lived in this dualistic culture of slave and free, yet Paul is saying to them, you are all slaves. And Paul is right, each of them was and is a slave, you are either a slave to Caesar or a slave of one of Caesar’s appointed leaders. You are all subject to some overlord that demands allegiance.
There are two masters, one that are focused on selfish passions. This master demands that you focus only on yourself, or only on those like you. This master is the master of power, privilege, and wealth. This is the master of war and injustice. They are the powers, the principalities, and the flesh. This master is sin, because it is not seeking doing right for those around them they are seeking only what they can get for themselves.
We can turn on the news and see the results of this, because this is the only thing the news reports. The masters of injustice want us to blame the immigrant, the person with student loan debt, the victims of invasion. The masters of injustice want us to continue to fuel the fires of racism, or to deny that effects of unjust racial practices still affect people today. The master unrighteousness are the rulers of this world, it is the kingdoms of men. Of which Jesus said, “the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, but that is not so among you.”
Paul says there are two masters. The first was the master of sin which leads to unrighteousness and death, but the second is of obedience, which leads to righteousness. This second master encourages us to use our gifts and abilities to do right for those around you.
“You 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.” When we stand with Jesus, when we accept his justification and begin to clothe ourselves in his way of life, we no longer look for our own passions and greed. Instead we listen to his teachings and look to become instruments of good for others.
Those in Christ are not looking for blessings for themselves, they are more concerned with blessing others. They no longer look to how they can have power and influence, they instead look to how they can empower and encourage those around them. If you have wealth you are not seeking only to gain more, you are seeking opportunities to use what you have available to you to advance the kingdom or the influence of God within your community.
What does this look like? Those that live in sin, justified their actions to take what is not theirs because they wanted or needed it. The result of that theft leads to the closure of stores within a neighborhood. What would submission to righteousness look like? This could take on many forms. You could open a store in an impoverished neighborhood. There have been stores like this opened knowing full well that it is likely that they will have a great deal of theft, so they ask only that their customers pay what they can. Maybe we hand out gift cards, maybe we start food pantries. There are many ways to live in submission to righteousness. You can even open a for-profit store with the intention of giving jobs to people that need employment. It is not the action itself that is important it is only that your goal is to do right for those around you, as a way of expressing your love and thanksgiving to the grace God has provided to us through Jesus.
Those justified by Christ, have Jesus standing with and for us. He declares us righteous and those that accept that grace turn away from the master of sin, and take on a new life. We move away from the life of sin, the life of self-indulgence and greed and seek to become more like Jesus. This is what Paul calls sanctification. There are many expressions of what this is and there are many names for it. Some call it discipleship, the Eastern Orthodox call it Theosis. We in the west do not like that term because it sound like we are seeking to become God, but it means to be formed into God’s likeness, to partake in the divine nature. The idea of sanctification or perfection according to Wesley is a lifelong process where we become more like Jesus.
When we become submitted to God we acknowledge that his ways, his teaching, his law is greater than our own. We acknowledge that we do not know how to do right by others, and we need the grace and guidance that He offers. Day by day we submit and draw closer. But it requires that we submit each day. Every day we must turn back to God because it is so easy to walk away from the one that stands for us. Every day we submit, and every day Jesus declares us justified. He stands with and for us, but do we stand with him? Are we willing to submit to his lordship or are we submitting to a different master? Are we looking for the good of our neighbor or are we justifying our own actions at the expense of others? “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Where do you stand.
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church May 24, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili 1 Corinthians 12:3–13 (ESV) 3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one…
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church May 10, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili 1 Peter 3:13–22 (ESV) 13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for…
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church May 03, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili 1 Peter 2:2–10 (ESV) 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have…
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