How Loyal Are You to Your Toothpaste?

It’s overwhelming, trying to pick the right toothpaste. I stand in the dental hygiene aisle, and in front of me is a wall of 100 different toothpastes. But which one do I want, Colgate, Aquafresh, Crest, and then there's always generic? As I stand there trying to decide, someone will normally stroll by and grab their box of toothpaste off the shelf and continue on their way, as if it wasn’t a hard decision.

Perhaps it wasn’t such a hard decision because it is the same toothpaste they have been buying for years. In my marketing classes, the people that buy the same product regardless of sales and such, are what marketers call brand loyalists. And these are exactly the people you want to be buying your product.

Brand loyalists aren’t going to be swayed by new promotions from other brands because they are dedicated to their brand of toothpaste. It is a part of who they are, they identify with it. Ask them, “Would you ever buy anything else?” And I bet they would respond, “By no means!”

Wait a minute, isn’t that the phrase we heard earlier in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Before I try to connect these phrases together, I want you to understand how I understand Paul's letters.

Most times, I find these letters are always trying to clarify and redirect new Christians and experienced Christians on how we should be acting and serving others as followers of Christ.

Paul is sort of like a brand manager for the Christian faith.

So imagine this letter from Paul to the Romans this morning as response to his brand. In his letter, Paul is responding to a somewhat smartalic question about the Christian faith, “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” It looks as if the Roman individual who posed this question in the first place has found a little loophole in the system. Their thought is why not increase our sinning nature, so that more of God’s grace will abound.

They understand that God’s grace will always prevail over sin, so why stop sinning. The reality is we are human, we make mistakes, we will unfortunately hurt each other because we aren’t perfect.

Plus, this sounds a little sneaky right?

So how does Paul the brand manager respond to this question of sin, baptism. In Greek the word baptism means to go under or to put. Knowing this Paul purposely uses baptism to convey two purposes. The first purpose is to invoke a reminder of the physical act of baptism, which at the time was a full body submersion under water, which all Christians even today can relate to.

The second purpose is to highlight our faith in Christ. Through our faith alone, we share a unity with Christ to carry on his teachings and serve as Christ would. Through our commitment to faith in Christ we are to act as the body of Christ in this world. And baptism is to remind us and unite us to this dedication to love God and to serve others.

As Christians this is essentially our brand identity. Which explains Paul’s exclamation of “by no means!” should we increase our sin so God’s grace may abound. This would ruin our brand identity, and what we should actually striving for is to love more and serve more. With a good brand identity, always comes a strong brand loyalty. For me, there are two aspects to this particular brand loyalty. The first aspect is the loyalty we share to our brand. This is the same sort of loyalty concept like buying same toothpaste for years.

If we individually aren’t trying to stay loyal and attempting to act like Christ figures in this world, then we aren’t keeping up our own brand identity, which means we won’t have any brand loyalty. The second aspect to this loyalty is not only are we dedicated to keeping our brand identity, but we are also dedicated to keep loyalty to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.

We all serve God in so many different ways. Which makes each of us a different part of the body of Christ. In different groups this differentiation can lead to separation and lack of unity. But as Christians we work hard against that problem because that’s not what we are called to do. We are called to work with each other, for each, in order to best serve others. Even though we are many parts, we continually strive to serve as one body of Christ.

Although we may not always succeed in loving or serving others, in our hearts we are assured that God’s grace is with us. And following Paul the brand manager’s advice, by no means should we ever increase our sinning because we would lose our brand identity.

Unlike toothpaste brand loyalty, our loyalty to Christ and each other, allows us to truly act as the one body of Christ creating an everlasting loyalty to ourselves and others.