Crushed

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.
Romans 16:20
 
God will soon crush Satan under your feet! What an awesome statement of complete and total victory. I know I can’t wait for the day until Satan and all the evil he has brought about in this world is destroyed and God’s love and grace reign perfectly. We just have to keep holding on right? Waiting for that day and all will be better – Satan will be defeated!  So, hold on, victory is coming.

While this verse is exciting we cannot forget everything else Paul said around it. He made this statement at the end of Romans. A letter written to a church that was arguing quite a bit. Paul reminded them of the reality of their position in Christ, having been set free from sin, no longer slaves to it. They are new people with a new purpose in Jesus. He has spent much of the letter reminding them of what Jesus has done and how in response to that they can and should live a life of obedience to Him.

In fact, leading up to this awesome statement Paul praises them for their obedience and challenges them to continue to do what is right and stay away from doing any wrong. One translation of Romans 16:17 puts it quite strongly, “I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.” So, while we wait for Satan to be crushed under our feet we have a responsibility, not to live in evil, but to live in good.

One of Paul’s biggest messages in Romans is the power available to us through Christ. That we do not have to live in evil, that we are capable of good. I think we often excuse the evil in our lives and convince ourselves we are powerless over it. Which, may be true, right up until we depend on Jesus. The death and resurrection of Jesus has already crushed the hold evil had on us and the sin we lived in. Sure, the temptation to do evil/wrong might still be there, but now we have a power to no longer live in it.

Here is the challenge I take from the closing of Romans. We have a choice in life, to do good or to do evil. There will come a day when Satan will be crushed under our feet and evil totally destroyed. But, until then, thanks to Jesus, we can choose how to live. We can live crushed by sin and evil while we wait for Satan to be defeated, or we can be wise and go ahead and live in victory over it. Jesus has crushed Him already and we have the opportunity to go ahead and live in that final victory today. What will you choose?
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Pastor Matt