When I was a child, I was to carry out two very similar chores with two very different goals in mind: both dealt with grass. In the summertime, it was my duty to pull the weeds from the driveway. When pulling weeds, you pull them out at the root so that they do not return. Sometimes a tool would need to be used. I was also responsible for cutting the grass. Provided the grass was not too tall, it would be mulched so it would seed itself. Keep these two illustrations in mind, and at the end of the lesson we will draw application.
In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Paul wrote a letter to the brethren to remind them of the change that had taken place in their lives. Paul discussed various sins to which the Corinthian brethren were privy: “neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (vss. 9-10, ASV). Notice the transition in verse eleven in which Paul wrote, “And such were some of you.” The power that had changed their lives was the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; “For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16).
Realizing that “all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), the brethren at Corinth looked unto the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ to wash them of their sins. As a result of their obedience to the Gospel, they “…were washed, [they] were sanctified, [they] were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).
What does all of this have to do with cutting grass and pulling weeds? The brethren at Corinth had merely cut the grass of sin in their lives, only to find it had returned and flourished! Now they had to use a “tool” to help them pull out this unrighteousness by the root; that “tool” is the Word of God, “the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation” (2 Timothy 3:15). In the driveway of your Christian walk, have you used the Word of God to uproot the unrighteousness in your life or have you merely cut the grass of sin only to find it returning and flourishing in your life?
