Free to Serve
Free to Serve
Matthew 9:35-10:8
35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
1 He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. 7 As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.
Introduction
People today cry out for freedom. This surge for freedom brought down the Berlin wall, reunited Germany, broke up the Soviet Union, and brought the death of communism, the welfare state, and the idea of a big government that does all the planning to save society from its ills.
The struggle for freedom—even spiritual liberty—is not new. Four hundred and seventy-one years ago many Christians in western European countries were waging a struggle for freedom from a huge institutional church that dominated their lives and told them what to believe and do. We call their struggle the Reformation. Martin Luther championed the cause for spiritual freedom made possible by God’s grace in Jesus Christ. In 1520 he wrote The Address to the German Nobility, in which he attacked the church’s exercise of authority over governments. Two months later in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, he attacked the church’s penitential system by which it controlled Christians.
Luther connected freedom with service to one’s neighbor and the extension of God’s kingdom. In November 1520, he published The Freedom of the Christian, in which he applies his evangelical theology of freedom in Christ to the daily Christian life of service. This “tract” echoes the words of Jesus in our text. This morning then we will address freedom—the freedom of the Christian, but also the necessity for service and mission work—under the theme Free to Serve.
Luther states two powerful principles. The first is:
1. A Christian is free, lord of all, subject to none.
A. I can explain this with a remote but obvious point, namely, that you have a twofold nature, an outer and an inner self.
1. I recall visiting a family with a newborn child. All the relatives were gathered around and identified the parts. “He’s got his mom’s nose and his dad’s chin. There is his grandpa’s forehead.” Inside, however, was a unique human spirit, a unique self that was really in bondage and slavery. If nothing intervened from the outside, by the time the child was 21 you would see the world’s agenda, America’s cultural values implanted in his mind and heart. He would be, as St. Paul declares, among the walking, living dead who follow “the ruler of the kingdom of the air,” the devil, and who follow the desires of their own sinful nature (Eph. 2:13).
2. When Jesus proclaims to his followers that “If you hold to my teaching … you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” he gets a reaction from some Jewish followers that they had never been slaves. How could he set them free? Jesus responds by telling the truth: “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin.”
Jesus is talking about the inside. Outwardly the Jewish people did not consider themselves slaves or subjects to anyone (even though they were subject to the occupying Romans). Jesus has them look inside for human bondage.
B. If slavery and bondage to sin and death are inside, how are people set free? Wars? Revolutions? Legislative votes? Of course not! Those are all external. There are three aspects to how people are truly set free.
1. The cause: God sent his Son, Christ Jesus, to take upon himself our human nature. He identifies with us, yet he is without sinful bondage on the inside. Jesus is truly and completely free, yet he freely subjected himself to our sin and death. He became sin for us so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. Thus he puts our bondage to death, yes, puts death itself to death. His work changed God’s attitude toward the whole world. Because of Christ God is reconciled to the world. He forgives us and frees us from the wages and power of sin.
2. The carrier: The word about the cause of freedom, namely, Christ crucified, is the great emancipation proclamation, the means by which the Holy Spirit works to connect people to Christ.
3. The connection: The Holy Spirit works faith in the heart. This faith functions three ways:
a. Faith receives the promise of the Gospel. Faith clings to and holds on to the forgiveness of sins and freedom from bondage to sin and death.
b. Faith also unites a person with Jesus Christ. This union is like a marriage, in which all that belongs to the husband becomes the wife’s, and all that belongs to the wife becomes the husband’s. My wife brought her qualities of organization, determination, and goodwill to the marriage, helping to overcome my qualities of foolishness, stupidity, and the like.
Christ took on all your sin, your lust, your greed, your selfishness, your death, and in exchange, he gives you his life, his wisdom, his peace, his joy, his righteousness, his glory, his power. You abide in Christ, and he abides in you, just like a branch on a vine. As Paul declares, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20). With Jesus living in you, you are a new creation; you are free from sin and death. As Jesus declares, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (v 36).
c. By faith you also exercise the power of freedom, the power of Christ Jesus, the power of being priests and kings and queens of God in the face of adversity, calamity, and life problems. It is not you who does this, but Christ Jesus living in you and through you. In Christ you are a free lord of all, subject to none on earth. Yet Luther also states a second, corresponding principle:
2. A Christian is a dutiful servant of all, subject to all.
While we are united with Christ through faith, we also live in relation to family, to neighbor, to millions of world-class unbelievers, to a great variety of human cultures. It is here that our faith is put to work. We freely become obedient slaves to please God, without thought of gain, in love that is not constrained.
A. A working, active faith makes us slaves in two ways.
1. Slaves of righteousness: Every day you read in the paper about murders and robberies, sexual harassment and child abuse, drunk drivers and drug dealers, about feuding neighbors and family violence. None of this should be found among Christians. We Christians have a much higher standard of ethics and morality. You are not to be conformed to your culture, but to discipline your nature, your values, your habits. By the power of the Holy Spirit, you are transformed into little Christs. Paul encourages you to put off the old self, to put to death falsehood, anger, gossip, envy, and the like, and to offer yourself to God as an instrument of righteousness. “You have been set free from sin,” he says, “and have become slaves to righteousness” (Rom. 6:18).
2. Not only are you slaves to righteousness, but also you are to act as slaves to your neighbors. Here God’s Word directs your free inner self, in whom Christ dwells, to obey voluntarily and joyfully by loving your neighbors and your enemies, praying for those who persecute you, turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, giving your cloak to those who take your coat, putting your spiritual gifts to work for the common good of the local and worldwide body of Christ. Here you are directed to serve freely by financially and prayerfully supporting the work of missionaries who bring the Gospel to many ethnic groups and individuals.
In response to the inquiry “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus spoke the parable of the Good Samaritan, which concludes with the question, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” (Lk. 10:36). The answer: the one who had mercy, the one who proved he was a neighbor by his actions. Jesus then spoke a booming “Go and do likewise.” His words speak to you today. Don’t just talk about being a loving neighbor or being concerned about sending missionaries. Go and do it!
B. Who is capable? Only the free can serve freely. Only those in whom Christ Jesus lives can “go and do likewise.” He covers over sins and gives you his life, his mind, his love, his compassion, his strength.
The good things of God should not only flow into you, but from you to your neighbor as you empty yourself, not abusing your freedom, but taking on the form of a servant to your neighbor, as you cover their sins and failures and pain, and also labor for them as if they were your very own. That is what Christ did for you.
I conclude then that Christians live not in and for themselves, but in and for Christ Jesus, and for their neighbor. You live in Christ through faith, and for your neighbor in love. By faith you are caught up beyond yourself into God, and are freed from sin and death. By love you move out of yourself, toward your neighbor to serve, yet you always remain in God’s love in Christ. Through God’s Son, you are free indeed!
