Sermon manuscript:
One of the worst feelings in the world is to know that
something bad is going to happen and there isn’t anything you can do about it.
The diagnosis has been made; it’s terminal. The loan did not get reapproved;
you’re bankrupt. The affair has been made known; the marriage is over. Such
circumstances enslave a person. Nothing can be done. If only we could be set
free!
But maybe we can be set free. That slavery is so awful. We
shouldn’t submit to it. If we stand up and fight, maybe we can get out of it.
So the terminal disease is fought against. Try this, try that, maybe, just
maybe! Maybe we can get another mortgage on the house. Maybe I can lie about
the affair. We want so badly to be back in control. We do not want to be at the
beck and call of our circumstances. We want everything to be at our beck and call. We want to be in
charge.
But, as Solomon says, this is all vanity. It is all chasing
after the wind. Maybe we can defeat one disease, but another is sure to come
that we won’t be able to defeat. Maybe we can keep our money for now, but
eventually somebody else is going to get it. There isn’t anything that we can
do to make our plans permanent.
Paul says in Romans chapter 8 that creation has been
subjected to vanity, to futility. That is to say that creation has been
subjected to an inevitable nothingness. He says, furthermore, that creation is
enslaved to corruption. Corruption is a pretty flexible word. Lots of things
can be corrupt. The thought that lies behind it is rotting and rottenness. Dead
things rot. We are enslaved to this, and there isn’t anything that you can do about it.
The key word is “you.” There isn’t anything you can do about it. You are enslaved by
forces much more powerful than you. God, however, is free. Paul, in this
portion of Romans 8 that I’ve just referenced, says that God is the one who has
subjected creation to futility in hope. He says that creation has been enslaved
to corruption in order to be set free. He says that there is such a thing as
the glorious freedom of the children of God. That means that there is such a
thing as being a child of God. The children of God have a glorious freedom. This
is the same thing that Paul says in our reading, Galatians 5:1: “It is for
freedom that Christ has set us free.”
Everybody knows that being free is better than being a
slave. Being free means that you are not bound and shackled. Could there be any
greater and more grievous shackles than those inevitable ones whereby our
bodies will decompose with death? The best than anybody dares to hope for is to
push back the inevitability of death—forestall those shackles. Nobody dares to
break those bonds because it is believed to be impossible. This is precisely
what Paul is talking about, however, in Romans 8. Creation has been enslaved to
corruption in order to be set free with the glorious freedom of the children of
God, who will be raised incorruptible.
The children of God are those who have been baptized into
Christ, clothed with Christ, as we heard last week. Christ’s status as the Son
of God is given to those who have been baptized. Christ’s victory over death is
given to those who have been baptized. Christ’s resurrection is promised to everyone
who dies in Christ. The inevitability of death is no longer inevitable. Death
is swallowed up in victory. This is a glorious, unheard-of freedom. The chains
of death cannot bind us.
Speaking of chains, though, you are maybe familiar with how
Paul speaks in his letters written closer to the end of his life. He refers to
himself as “being in chains.” Paul ends up being a prisoner for Christ. He is
arrested and goes to Rome to stand trial. Eventually he is sentenced to death.
How can Paul speak of freedom when Paul ends up in chains, is imprisoned, and
sentenced to death? When this happened did Paul change his mind about his
Gospel? In our reading today he says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us
free.” But Paul ends up in chains.
Paul did not change his mind. You don’t have to take my word
for it. You can read him for yourself with his little letter to the Philippians—often
called the epistle of joy. It was written in chains. He did not see his freedom
as being restricted by those chains. He could see that his more complete and
glorious freedom was drawing near with his impending death. He is not sad, but
encourages us to rejoice in the Lord always. Again, he says, “Rejoice!” Paul is
looking forward to being with the Lord, which is better than anything this life
might offer—no matter how good this life might be. So Paul’s freedom is not
taken away by chains or death. Paul’s circumstances made it so that he could
not do whatever he wanted, but Paul’s freedom was not a matter of being able to
do whatever he might like.
That’s important. Understanding that Christian freedom is
not a matter of doing whatever a person might like is very important for us to
grasp, otherwise we won’t understand what Paul means by freedom. The way that
we understand the word “freedom” is different than the way that the Bible
understands “freedom.”
For us freedom is understood as the ability to do whatever
we want. If we want to work at one job we can do that. If we want to change and
do another job, we can do that. If there’s something that we don’t like about
our life, we might have the freedom to change it. The thing that usually
restricts our freedom for changing our life for the better is lacking power. We
might not have the resources to compel other people to do things for us. If we
ain’t got the money, honey, they ain’t got the time. Everybody understands that
the more money a person has, the more freedom he or she has to do whatever he
or she wants. More money means more willfulness.
According to the Bible’s way of thinking, however, doing
whatever you want is not freedom but slavery. It’s basically the opposite of
how we naturally think of such things. Doing whatever you want is slavery to
one’s own passions and desires. Your desires are like a slave-driver, like a
master. Your desires say to you, “Do this!” As a slave to those desires, you
obey your master. You yourselves know full well that it is quite different when
it comes to doing good. We all have experienced knowing that we are supposed to
do something that’s good and right, but don’t do it. That shows that we are not
as free as we imagine. If we would spontaneously, gladly and joyously do good
for others, including our enemies, then I would admit that we are free.
However, since we are obedient to evil and incapable of freely doing good, we
are slaves when we are doing what we want.
In our epistle reading, Paul says that the Spirit keeps us
from doing the things that we want. The desires of the flesh are opposed to the
Spirit, and the Spirit is against the flesh. They are opposed to each other, so
that we do not do what we want. Paul’s list of the works of the flesh—sexual
immorality, impurity, hatred, anger, jealousy, drunkenness, and so on—are all
things voluntarily done. We want pleasure, power, entertainment, and so on, and
we are willing to do what needs to be done in order to attain such things.
People imagine that doing what you want is freedom. It is actually slavery.
The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, leads us into a very
different kind of freedom with very different fruit. The freedom given by the
Holy Spirit is not an absolute freedom—beholden to no one but one’s self. The
glorious freedom of the children of God is not an absolute freedom. Absolute
freedom is what the serpent offered to Adam and Eve in the Garden, and it
turned out to be a lie. The devil said that they would know the difference
between good and evil and would be like God. That is to say, Adam and Eve were
offered the freedom to do whatever they wanted. That turned out not to be a
freedom, but a horrible bondage. From that point onward they and their
descendants were slaves to their desires, incapable of denying themselves and freely
doing what is good.
So the freedom that the Holy Spirit works is not the freedom
to do whatever we want. It is the freedom of being a child of God. God is the
one who is known to be in control rather than us Christians. God being in
control means that goodness is bound to come for his beloved children, even if
we are in very bad circumstances. The circumstances might look so bad that it
looks like there’s nothing that we can do about it.
I began today by saying that it’s about the worst feeling in
the world when something bad is going to happen and there isn’t anything we can
do about it. Jesus knows what that feels like. Think of how Jesus prayed in the
garden just before he was arrested. Three times he prayed, “Father, if it is
possible, let this cup pass from me.” Jesus could see that something bad—something
worse than bad—was coming at him. Could it possibly be changed? But he also
added, “Not my will, but yours be done.”
This should help us understand the kind of freedom that we
have as the children of God. God’s own beloved Son, Jesus Christ, was put
through the wringer. It is not as though the Christian life is an amusement
park ride. Nor is it the case that we determine for ourselves what should
happen in our lives as though we knew perfectly well what is good and what is
evil. Instead it is the case that God is the one who is in control. The freedom
that we have is to embrace this will of God, knowing that all things have to
work together for the good of those who love him.
God being in control is very, very good. We know the will of
God towards us sinners in Jesus Christ. God sent his Son to redeem, to forgive,
to reconcile all people to himself. The Scriptures say that it is God’s will
that all people should come to the knowledge of the truth and to be saved. God
is for us in Jesus Christ. God being for us is so extensive that we are even
called his beloved children. What greater words or ideas could possibly be used
to describe God’s loving will towards us? He did not spare his own perfectly
lovable Son, but gave him up for us all. How can he not also graciously give us
all things? The glorious freedom of the children of God is knowing that God is
for us. He who has begun a good work in us will bring it to completion on the
day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
On the other hand, however, this also means that we are not God. Folks assume that they
know this already. Nobody goes around saying he or she is God, but within us
all is our flesh. There is no more deeply felt desire of our flesh than that we
should be God. We want to be in control of our own lives. We want to be able to
decide for ourselves everything that might happen to us. We want to believe
that we can do anything if only we try hard enough, and, especially, if we are
rich enough.
This is no good, though, which we should be able to see if
we are only honest enough with ourselves to admit it. We are not free in and of
ourselves. No amount of effort can set us free from the inevitability of death.
There’s a good chance that eventually something is going to come along which we
won’t be able to do anything about: the diagnosis, the bank statement, the
angry letter. Then what? Try harder? Give me a break! That’s like saying to the
slave: “Work harder.” Working harder won’t set the person free.
Paul, on the other hand, has a very different message. He
says at the beginning of our reading, “It is for freedom that Christ has set
us free.” Christ has set you free. He has defeated every power that is
greater than yourself that you can never in a million years conquer. The reason
why Christ has set you free is for freedom. Christ wants you to enjoy the peace
of knowing that God is for you. God forgives you. You are a child of God. God
will eventually bring you to himself.
Since you are not God, you certainly cannot dictate to him
how you want everything to go. You are foolish; God is wise. He knows best how
to bring you to himself. He knows how to keep you from unbelief and despair.
That probably means that life isn’t going to be one big amusement park ride.
Our enemies—sin, death, demons, the devil, our own flesh, and so on—our enemies
are so dreadful and powerful that life can’t be one big amusement park ride.
But God is in control, and God is for you in Jesus Christ.
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