are you owned?
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by who?
by who?
last week we talked about closing the gap. ultimately it meant we are to be very close with the Lord.
and I also talked about freedom. the freedom we now have as Christians.
when we speak about freedom, we are talking about freedom from the power of sin and death that the law imposed on us and we are free of that because of the work Christ did on the cross.
the repercussions of the cross stretched much farther than freedom for us though. What did His work do for us..... today, may we discover just how far.
starting this message, I asked a question. are we owned? is there one that owns us or are we are own? do we belong to ourselves. let’s take a look at this a little deeper.
Our country especially likes to create the idea for us that we are free and no one owns us. land of the free, home of the brave. and scripture does support that we are free.
36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Jesus is clearly telling us that we are free. but free from what and free for what?
in this text we have a scene where Jesus is speaking to the Jewish leaders about who He was and who His Father was...... some Jews believed in Him at that time and He told them that if they abide in His word, they would be His disciples, and they would know the truth, and the truth would set them free. the freedom would be from sin....... specifically sin and death. it was destroyed by Jesus on the cross.
this is the freedom. from being under the power and curse of sin and what sin leads to. we are talking about freedom from the power of sin and death that the law imposed on us after sin entered the world and we are free of that because of the work Christ did on the cross.
So really it was sin that had power over us. we were owned by sin. Paul tells us in ....
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
He says slaves to sin or and they had no dealings with righteousness because you weren’t living with any righteousness....they were owned by sin, and we have been too!
ouch! Paul says just prior to that in verse 17.
17 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,
We see a change in Christians..... not being a slave to sin, but a change in their life....a heart change. a desire to follow God and not to sin. Only God could do that kind of heart change. we were hopeless, but God changed everything for us.
and it leads us to the actual change that took place. See, we are in a way, slaves to something, always. we are connected to an authority somewhere. this authority is what we look to. when we were slaves to sin, we looked to our own selfishness. it ruled us. we could only do what it desired.
that is why there is no way to God in our own self because in our unbelieving, sinful state, we don’t even want God. we would never want God. Because it would be God take us away from our evil desires, our lovely sin that we cherish so much. He would be working against us.... God, would be the enemy to us. We see this in the world today..... people thinking if they came to God, He would make them change..... or they think God wants them to fix themselves before they come to Him. it always stops them from coming. that is their barrier to not come to Him. But we know that God is not like that. God loved us where we were at......and that Love changed us.
Did God know that we were in sin???
So it is God that changes us. and causes us to desire Him.
look at
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
Romans
trapped, bound by sin, in a worthless state. impossible to get away!
this is what sin equaled for us.
sin equaled spiritual death for us like we were dead in the bottom of the ocean. Could you swim up if you are dead?
We needed another to come, take us out and revive us. we were completely helpless to save ourselves. this is part of the thought-line of what Calvin's idea of total depravity was all about. the idea that we did nothing for our salvation. I believe that he was right on this point and scripture supports that when it says we were dead in our sins and trespasses.
let me tell you....
there are some that believe we help God in some way with their salvation.....and keep their salvation or lose our salvation by their choice!
yes, there are those that think that way. that may be a deeper discussion for another day..... but scripture is clear that we were dead in our trespasses and dead means dead. how can someone spiritually dead be of any help??
we can conclude that we did nothing for our salvation and we can then give all the glory to our Lord Jesus! amen!
Through Jesus, God came through on His promise. He brought us from death to spiritual life. With the blood of Christ, He redeemed us....... or in other words He bought us. Redemption is where this “Bought back” concept comes from. to redeem means to buy back.
So, God redeems us, buys us..... it would go to say that instead of sin having ownership over us, God has ownership over us now, yes? I know in our country, this is probably not looked at in a positive light. It has been drilled into us that we are free, so we want to see ourselves as free. not owned.
but wait..... if we realize we are owned by someone or something always......then, maybe then…we can come to grips with the Lord having ownership over us and we can actually rest and rejoice in it.
He is good. He is always good. and He wants the best for you and I. even better for us than we want for ourselves! really!
if you are not a believer, this ownership may come as a shock to you....
if, being a believer, you have never thought this way about the Lord, that the Lord has ownership over you, this may take a while to set in. if you have looked at your Christian life this way for very long, you understand these next verses very well and agree with them completely. speak loud and clear about us being bought with a price.
22 For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ.
23 You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.
1 Cor 7:2
Paul is directing them to look to the Lord now for everything. to be wrapped up in the Lord and not in men....or people.
the difference is a spiritual vs physical perspective. we can certainly be under authority here on earth in the physical but ultimately who are we under?
if we are under the Lord spiritually, if we realize it is the Father that is giving us all we need for life, then we serve the Lord as we live in the physical world. under our boss at work? we will work as if you are working for the Lord, Paul says in
it is actually an incredible relief when we discover this truth that we are not our own. we were bought with a price.
Col
listen to 1 Cor 6:19-20
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
1 Cor
20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
you and I, if we are Christians, if we are believers if Christ, and what He has done on the cross, what He has done to you and I, giving us spiritual life, from the dead!....... we gladly give our lives over to His rule, His way, His leadership, His authority. we would still be spiritually dead otherwise......
these verses speak so much of the ability and motivation for our Christian behavior and lifestyle. the Holy Spirit of God is within these bodies, given to us from God, and we now have the opportunity to give glory to God, an opportunity that we never had before when we lived in continual disobedience to Him. Now we can walk how He wants us to.
to live this way, we must practice our faith. Practice is an action word.
would you like to practice you faith right now? try this...
there are verses that guide us in our Christian life. verses like . listen to how we are guided to deal with our thought life.
5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
1 Cor
23 You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.
this text speaks of Paul defending his ministry to some in the Corinthians church. Paul separates out the spiritual from the physical and points to the heart of the matter. God. Christ. anything that doesn’t line up with God is cast down in others arguments and discussions as well as their own thoughts. Paul allowed his mind, and every thought to be exposed to Christ, evaluated by Christ, and discerned by Christ. this way, his thought life would be what God wanted, not what Paul’s flesh wanted. Why could Paul walk with such a mighty conviction, with such powerful grace and truth? He allowed God in, in to everywhere. the very thing you can do. I can do.
22 For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ.
How are you doing with that? listen to how the old commentators spoke about this...
AMBROSIASTER: Someone who has been bought does not have the power to make decisions, but the person who bought him does. And because we were bought for a very high price, we ought to serve our master all the more, so that the offense from which he has bought our release may not turn us back over to death.
Bray, G. L. (Ed.). (1999). 1–2 Corinthians (p. 58). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
CHRYSOSTOM: What is Paul trying to prove when he says that we are not our own? He wants to secure us against sin and against following the improper desires of the mind. We have many improper desires, but we must constrain them, and we can do so. If we could not, there would be no point in exhorting us like this. Paul does not say that we are under compulsion but that we have been bought—and bought with a great price, reminding us of the way in which our salvation was obtained.
Bray, G. L. (Ed.). (1999). 1–2 Corinthians (p. 58). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Was there a price paid for you?
how much did it cost to redeem you?
who redeemed you?
who bought you?
who owns you?
now, live the rest of your life knowing this, reminding each other of this and bringing glory to our great God with the time that we have left on earth. Amen!