SPEAKER_00: Well let me uh let me begin.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, one of my favorite columnists uh is a guy by the name of Nick Kristoff.
SPEAKER_00: He he writes for the New York Times.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you're familiar with Nick, but uh I think the reason I like him so much is that he cares about the least and the last in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And uh he writes about stories that the rest of the world neglects, like uh the suffering in uh sub-Saharan Africa.
SPEAKER_00: He wrote a story about a an adolescent boy who carried his young brother, who was wounded in a war, across a desert on his back.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he writes about the effect of the closure of the USAID on uh AIDS victims in Zambia.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but one of the subjects that he covers most often is sex trafficking in places like Cambodia, that we just saw the Asia's Hope uh uh ministry, where folks, where children uh need to be rescued from uh trafficking.
SPEAKER_00: He he writes about Cambodia, he writes about Thailand, he writes about India, and I just want to read to you from his c one of his columns.
SPEAKER_00: He says, When I write about human trafficking as a modern form of slavery, people sometimes tune out as their eyes glaze over.
SPEAKER_00: So glazed eyes meet Sri Pav.
SPEAKER_00: She's a tough interview because she breaks down as she recalls her life in a Cambodian brothel.
SPEAKER_00: And pretty soon my eyes are welling up too.
SPEAKER_00: Sri Polv's family sold her to a brothel when she was six years old.
SPEAKER_00: She was unaware of sex, but soon found out.
SPEAKER_00: A Western pedophile purchased her virginity and said and she said, so he could rape her.
SPEAKER_00: I was so scared, she recalled, I was crying and asking, why are you doing this to me?
SPEAKER_00: After that, the girl was in huge demand because she was so young.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes she was sold to over 20 customers a night.
SPEAKER_00: She became a slave for three years, but at the age of nine, Saripolv was able to run away from the brothel and outrun the guard.
SPEAKER_00: She found her way to a shelter run by an anti-trafficking activist who herself was prostitute as a child.
SPEAKER_00: In that shelter, she went to school and she has blossomed.
SPEAKER_00: Now at age 19, she can even imagine the possibility of one day having a family.
SPEAKER_00: Have mercy.
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh human trafficking and slavery is not just something that's really far away in places like Thailand or India or in Cambodia.
SPEAKER_00: It's taking place right here in America.
SPEAKER_00: And indeed, right here in Ohio, there was a story not too long ago about some Central American men and teenagers who were uh brought to the United States by a labor trafficker.
SPEAKER_00: They were legally here, uh given temporary work visas by the uh Department of Labor and sent to work at an egg farm in Ohio.
SPEAKER_00: Uh unfortunately, when they got here, they found that the housing was really substandard.
SPEAKER_00: There was no heat, there was no hot water, there was no air conditioning, there was terrible sewage, and they were charged exorbitant rates to live in this substandard housing.
SPEAKER_00: They were also charged to get work boots and work gloves and all the rest.
SPEAKER_00: And because of these exorbitant charges, at the end of the month, they actually were not paid anything, and they were repeatedly not paid.
SPEAKER_00: So they were slaves.
SPEAKER_00: Their uh passports were taken, their uh identification cards were taken, and because of language barriers, they couldn't report it.
SPEAKER_00: Worst of all, these traffickers threatened that if they reported anything, they would hurt their families back in Central America.
SPEAKER_00: Cheap labor, all for the uh reason that uh we Americans like cheap food.
SPEAKER_00: And so people are being trafficked.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul says in the passage that we're gonna look at today that slavery is not just an issue for people who lived a long time ago, or people who live in faraway places, or unfortunate immigrants who are being trafficked in America.
SPEAKER_00: Slavery is an issue for every single human being.
SPEAKER_00: All of us are born into slavery.
SPEAKER_00: And today, as we continue in Romans chapter 6, my message is simply titled, From Slavery to Freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Let's invite God's presence and we'll look at his word together.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we do pray again for Asia's hope.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for that rescuing ministry.
SPEAKER_00: As they work in Cambodia, as they work in Thailand, as they work in India, Lord, we pray that you would give favor and grace to them.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, give us heart for what breaks yours.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, for the things that uh uh you care about, we pray that you'd give us affection.
SPEAKER_00: We pray, Lord, that you'd shape us.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, uh, we pray that we might see you as we hear your word preached.
SPEAKER_00: Speak personally to each one who's here.
SPEAKER_00: You know why they're here, you know how they got here, Lord, you know the concerns of our hearts, Lord, and I pray that you'd speak a personal word to every one of us, even when we're not expecting it in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be reading from Romans chapter 6, beginning in verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible, you can follow along.
SPEAKER_00: There are also outlines in the back, and you can uh follow along in the outline.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul writes, What then shall we sin because we're not under the law, but under grace?
SPEAKER_00: By no means.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, your slaves are the one you obey, whether we are slaves, whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: But thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from the heart, from your heart, the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.
SPEAKER_00: You've been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: I'm using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations.
SPEAKER_00: Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness, leading to holiness.
SPEAKER_00: When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you're now ashamed of?
SPEAKER_00: Those things result in death, but now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: For the wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: But the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now, last week Michael preached on the first half of Romans chapter 6, and you remember that the chapter is introduced by a question, by an objection to the Apostle Paul's gospel of grace.
SPEAKER_00: The objectors say, What shall we say then?
SPEAKER_00: Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase?
SPEAKER_00: Critics listened to Paul's gospel and they said, Paul, too much grace.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if people really embrace what you are saying, then they'll say, it doesn't matter how we live, we are recipients of grace if salvation really is.
SPEAKER_00: By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, then we can do whatever we want and we'll still go to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Why should we change?
SPEAKER_00: Why should we adjust our attitudes towards people of a different race or towards immigrants?
SPEAKER_00: Why should we ever try to be kind to anyone?
SPEAKER_00: Why not be as selfish and mean as possible?
SPEAKER_00: You'll still go to heaven because it's all grace, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, why stop being angry or anxious or anything else?
SPEAKER_00: It's all grace.
SPEAKER_00: We get in anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Just continue to live like hell, and you'll inherit heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That's what people were hearing.
SPEAKER_00: And especially after reading Romans chapter 5, where Paul really pours on the assurance that you are secure, you know, if Christ has declared you to be in the right with himself, then you're okay.
SPEAKER_00: You're safe.
SPEAKER_00: You've got your tickets stamped for heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And so people said, too much, Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Too much.
SPEAKER_00: People are absolutely going to abuse your doctrine of grace, too much assurance, too much, you know, of a picture of the kindness of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We need to turn up the heat a little bit on folks, because otherwise no one will change.
SPEAKER_00: And uh people are certainly going to pervert this message of grace into an excuse to continue in sin.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Apostle Paul responds and says, if you think that, you do not understand what Christian conversion is all about.
SPEAKER_00: Because Christian conversion involves a radical change of masters.
SPEAKER_00: If you think that you can continue as you are and everything is going to be okay, you don't understand conversion.
SPEAKER_00: Conversion is a radical change of masters.
SPEAKER_00: And he uses two different images to respond to the critics, and both images have to do with the radical nature of conversion.
SPEAKER_00: And the first is that when you're converted, you are moving to a different country, taking on different citizenship.
SPEAKER_00: You were under one jurisdiction and now you've moved and now you're under another jurisdiction.
SPEAKER_00: You were under one set of laws, but now you're under a different set of laws.
SPEAKER_00: You had one national identity, but now you have a different national identity.
SPEAKER_00: One government to another.
SPEAKER_00: You wonder sometimes, don't you, why so many self-identified Christians don't in any way look like Christians?
SPEAKER_00: You ever wonder that?
SPEAKER_00: Like these people, like all of these folks claim to be Christians.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's so many Christians in America, and yet you look at the country and go, does this feel like a Christian nation?
SPEAKER_00: Do we act in the world the way a Christian nation would act toward other nations?
SPEAKER_00: You know, are we unusually kind?
SPEAKER_00: Are we unusually forgiving?
SPEAKER_00: Do we refuse to throw our weight around?
SPEAKER_00: Do we speak well about others?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, are we that kind of people that we're just desperate to feed the hungry and care for the weak?
SPEAKER_00: We used to be, but are we now?
SPEAKER_00: We have so many Christians and so many stories of revival, and yet it just doesn't seem like our Christianity is changing anything.
SPEAKER_00: Dallas Willard, the late Christian philosopher, he talked about what the issue was.
SPEAKER_00: He said that that many folks in churches in America have heard a false gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It was a gospel of sin management.
SPEAKER_00: And the gospel of sin management is simply this that you go to church, you stamp your ticket for heaven, and then, as I said, you live like hell.
SPEAKER_00: He said that many folks who have had their tickets stamped have never been trained to live under the rule and reign of God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: The churches don't train us how to live under God's rule.
SPEAKER_00: Christian conversion is more than getting your tickets stamped for heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Christian conversion is tearing up your old identity card.
SPEAKER_00: It's going through a process of naturalization, taking on new citizenship, a new identity, and living under the government of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Christian conversion looks like.
SPEAKER_00: And we reenact that in baptism.
SPEAKER_00: We're different from the time we go under the water and the time we come out of the water.
SPEAKER_00: We change.
SPEAKER_00: Now in verses 15 to 23, he changes the image of radical conversion.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just moving from one government to another, one jurisdiction to another, but from one owner to another, one master to another.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You used to be under one master, but now you're owned by a different master.
SPEAKER_00: You used to be under one lord, but now because you're a Christian, you live under a different Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You used to be controlled and mastered by a wicked master called Capital S Sin.
SPEAKER_00: But now that you are a Christian, you're living under the kindest, most generous, most liberating master you can imagine, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But slavery is a reality that we deny.
SPEAKER_00: You can't understand the cultural context of Paul's remarks here unless you realize that he's writing in the first century in Rome to a society that was dominated by slavery.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Roman world, basically the Mediterranean Sea was a Roman lake in the first century.
SPEAKER_00: It was a Roman lake.
SPEAKER_00: And Rome controlled from Spain all the way across Europe through the Middle East and across North Africa, so that the Mediterranean Sea was just a Roman lake.
SPEAKER_00: And in many communities, about 90% of the people living in those communities were slaves.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the letter to the Romans, if you read Romans 16, he's writing to many folks who themselves were slaves.
SPEAKER_00: And this passage that we just looked at is all about slavery.
SPEAKER_00: Nine times in the NIV, he mentions the word slave in the text that I just read, or enslaved.
SPEAKER_00: Four times he mentions the words obey or obedience.
SPEAKER_00: It's all about slavery.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul is saying, as I mentioned in my introduction, that we are all slaves, not the 90% just the 90% who lived in the Roman Empire, not just those who are being trafficked, that a hundred percent of every man, woman, and child who is born in this world, a hundred percent of us are slaves.
SPEAKER_00: You say, not me.
SPEAKER_00: But then we think about it for a moment and we say, well, what about the things I'm addicted to?
SPEAKER_00: What about my struggles with alcohol?
SPEAKER_00: Or with smoking weed?
SPEAKER_00: Or with gambling or with porn?
SPEAKER_00: What about my activities that I can't not work?
SPEAKER_00: That I work even on vacation.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the sort of person who carries my briefcase to the beach.
SPEAKER_00: I can't not look at my phone.
SPEAKER_00: I always do.
SPEAKER_00: I have, you know, a dozen hours of screen time every day.
SPEAKER_00: I I live with a constant fear that I won't have the approval of somebody.
SPEAKER_00: I have to have other people's approval.
SPEAKER_00: I am enslaved to control.
SPEAKER_00: I control everything.
SPEAKER_00: I control every person.
SPEAKER_00: I control all of my environment.
SPEAKER_00: I must control.
SPEAKER_00: I am a slave to money.
SPEAKER_00: I think about my finances all the time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm dominated by something.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone here say there's nothing in my life that I am habituated to, that I'm dominated by anxiety, anger, nothing at all.
SPEAKER_00: The modern world lives, if you're filling in the outline, this is point three, with a myth of freedom.
SPEAKER_00: We have a myth of freedom.
SPEAKER_00: I read a story years ago about a goldfish who was swimming around in a little goldfish bowl, and the goldfish bowl was on a table, and as the goldfish swam around lap after lap, he looked longingly out at the big wide world and he says, I've got to escape.
SPEAKER_00: I've got to escape this goldfish bowl.
SPEAKER_00: And so he put together an exercise route, you know, regimen, and day after day he practiced jumping.
SPEAKER_00: And he'd rush up to the edge of the bowl and jump, and he got himself stronger and stronger and stronger until he said, Today is the day.
SPEAKER_00: And he swam across the bowl and made a mighty leap and jumped out of the bowl and landed on the carpet where he immediately died.
SPEAKER_00: We live today with the myth that we can somehow break the confines of our creaturliness, of how we were created.
SPEAKER_00: And there is this myth of absolute freedom.
SPEAKER_00: For generations, people believed that the goal of life was to become a good person.
SPEAKER_00: Or the goal of life is to be a responsible person, or to be a hard working person.
SPEAKER_00: People felt good.
SPEAKER_00: They said, well, I'm a hard worker.
SPEAKER_00: At different times and different places, folks said the goal of life is to be a holy person, a godly person.
SPEAKER_00: But you almost never hear anyone today say, My goal in life is to be a responsible human being, a good citizen, a holy person, but a free person.
SPEAKER_00: Millions of times, every single day, through every form of, you know, Netflix video and TikTok and you know movies and and and articles and all of that, we are told that the goal of life is to be set free from whatever constrains you, so that you can be you.
SPEAKER_00: That's the goal.
SPEAKER_00: Complete autonomy so that you can be you.
SPEAKER_00: And the quest for total freedom is not just on the political left where it used to reside, it's also on the political right.
SPEAKER_00: I have a right to bring my gun anywhere I want.
SPEAKER_00: And state legislatures are going, yes, bring your gun everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Into church, into college classrooms, into government buildings, and you have no duty to withdraw or pull back, even if you can easily escape, especially if somebody challenges your manhood.
SPEAKER_00: Well, then it's your responsibility to pull out your gun.
SPEAKER_00: I have a right to be as vile with my words, and it doesn't matter who's around.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if there are children there listening to me, it doesn't matter how offensive my speech is, I can say whatever I want.
SPEAKER_00: And certainly I can say whatever I want behind the anonymity of social media.
SPEAKER_00: Then I can really let it rip.
SPEAKER_00: And I have a right to determine how and when I die and how I express my sexuality in public.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody tells me how I should live.
SPEAKER_00: No one.
SPEAKER_00: Determine the way I want to live.
SPEAKER_00: But autonomy is a myth.
SPEAKER_00: It's a myth.
SPEAKER_00: We're all like goldfish.
SPEAKER_00: We can't escape our creaturliness.
SPEAKER_00: We can't.
SPEAKER_00: We'll kill ourselves by our quest for freedom.
SPEAKER_00: And let me just give you two examples.
SPEAKER_00: You know, this attempt to reach for total freedom.
SPEAKER_00: One is, I don't know if you've been doing any reading over the last 10 years, but there is this move towards polyamory, you know, and uh the idea that we ought to have an open marriage, that that we are not created to be monogamous, and so uh we need to live more consistently with our natures, that we are not wired for monogamy.
SPEAKER_00: And what do we discover?
SPEAKER_00: We discover that all the sociologists say the same thing, that all the data is that jealousy doesn't disappear just because you change your ideology.
SPEAKER_00: You can have all kinds of ideas in your head about the way that we ought to live, and that we're so progressive, and yet we still feel incredible jealousy because neurobiologists tell us that we are hardwired, hardwired for commitment to another person.
SPEAKER_00: And uh jealousy is rooted in our neurobiology.
SPEAKER_00: Polyamorous relationships require unbelievable amounts of negotiation, communication, calendar management, and what is sold as freedom ends up becoming so much bondage.
SPEAKER_00: Because now I've got to manage my partner's emotions and their insecurities, and I gotta manage my emotions and my insecurities, and all the things that used to be so obvious are no longer obvious.
SPEAKER_00: It used to be obvious that really what I need in my life is another person, one other person, who is totally for me no matter what, and that I am totally for them no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: That what I really need in my life is a safe person who I don't have to watch my back, who will always protect me, that I can be absolutely transparent with, I can share my feelings with this other person, and they won't condemn me and they won't shame me, that they can see me as I am, and I can be completely uncovered, and not be humiliated or embarrassed, that one other person in the world will always be there for me, and I will always be there for them.
SPEAKER_00: That's what covenant marriage does.
SPEAKER_00: But we leap for this illusion of freedom and we do the same thing in our sexuality, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: When we attempt to be free from our bodies, what we've been taught over the last few decades that, you know, for the first time in human history, people are separating how they think about their gender from their sex.
SPEAKER_00: And the body is considered to be irrelevant.
SPEAKER_00: That gender is just a psychological condition.
SPEAKER_00: It's something that I think about in my mind, but but I'm not controlled by my body.
SPEAKER_00: It's incidental to who I am.
SPEAKER_00: And so we don't see our bodies as they are, wonderful gifts from God.
SPEAKER_00: The body becomes a hindrance to becoming who I am.
SPEAKER_00: But the fact is that there are givens.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't create myself, I don't make myself, I'm not infinitely malleable.
SPEAKER_00: As Psalm 100 verse 3 says, it is he who has made us, and not we ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: So we can't be completely free as creatures.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get to define ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We're not that plastic.
SPEAKER_00: We're like the goldfish.
SPEAKER_00: We we can't escape the way we breathe and the way we are as given by our Creator.
SPEAKER_00: We inextricably embodied.
SPEAKER_00: And to be a creature is to have a nature that we didn't choose.
SPEAKER_00: Bottom line, we human beings are not God.
SPEAKER_00: There is only one autonomous being in the whole universe.
SPEAKER_00: And that autonomous being, not controlled by anything, who is not controlled by space, not limited by time, not limited by circumstance, there's no power that's, you know, can make God do anything.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one being who's totally free, and that's God.
SPEAKER_00: As Psalm 115 says, our God is in heaven, and he does whatever he pleases, but no one else gets to do that.
SPEAKER_00: No one else gets to do that.
SPEAKER_00: We're not God.
SPEAKER_00: And so there are major problems in pursuing autonomy.
SPEAKER_00: One problem, as I mentioned before, is that we try to live as if there are no givens, no constraints, that we just get to determine everything.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is up for grabs.
SPEAKER_00: But but the fact is that we're not big enough to define ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We need to attach ourselves to something larger than us.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we get addicted.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're constantly, we're so small, and we're constantly attaching ourselves to something larger than ourselves to give us meaning, to give us freedom, to give us a sense of, you know, uh liberation from anxiety, to give us peace.
SPEAKER_00: The simple ethical standard of don't have sex outside of covenant marriage now has been transformed to ethical non-monogamy.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard of that?
SPEAKER_00: Ethical non-monogamy.
SPEAKER_00: It means to not be faithful to your marriage, but to do it in an ethical way.
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: And so how do I not be faithful to my covenant and do it in an ethical way?
SPEAKER_00: Well, well, then I add a whole bunch of other rules.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, I need to disclose, so that's rule one, I need to disclose what I'm doing so I'm utterly transparent.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, I need to gain the consent of my partner.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, they need to have veto power over the other person that I choose.
SPEAKER_00: Number four, I'm not allowed to fall in love with this other person, and they're not allowed to fall in love with me.
SPEAKER_00: Number five, that none of us can get jealous, and on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that simpler than just being committed to one person?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's so freeing.
SPEAKER_00: The second problem with absolute autonomy is not only that there are no givens, the second problem is that freedom is actually a mystery.
SPEAKER_00: If you're filling in your outlines, freedom is a mystery, it's a paradox.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the paradox, here's the mystery of freedom.
SPEAKER_00: And that is that those who say to us that they're liberators are really masking their uh the fact that they are slave masters.
SPEAKER_00: Slave masters disguise themselves as liberators.
SPEAKER_00: That's one side of the coin.
SPEAKER_00: And the other side of the coin is that the one who will offer us true freedom requires that we submit to his mastery.
SPEAKER_00: Let me work both sides of this for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: The apostle Paul, the Apostle Peter put it really well in 2 Peter chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what he wrote.
SPEAKER_00: For they mouth empty, boastful words, and by appealing to the lustful desire of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.
SPEAKER_00: They promise them freedom while they themselves are slaves of depravity, for people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the New Testament's great psychological insights.
SPEAKER_00: We are all slaves, and there are hundreds of slave masters constantly marketing to us freedom.
SPEAKER_00: But they're wearing a mask, they're wolves in sheep's clothing, and what they're doing is enslaving people.
SPEAKER_00: Let me bring this down.
SPEAKER_00: Think about the people in America who we'd say are the most free.
SPEAKER_00: The most free.
SPEAKER_00: They have so much money and so much power that they can basically do whatever they want.
SPEAKER_00: They can eat whatever they want, they can travel wherever they want, they can drink whatever they want, they can wear whatever they want, they can mess up royally, I mean royally screw up.
SPEAKER_00: And somebody will bail them out.
SPEAKER_00: They have, you know, a team of PR people and agents and sycophants who are just wanting to be around this person who is powerful.
SPEAKER_00: And so they always have somebody to clean up their mess no matter what they do.
SPEAKER_00: Think of somebody like that who always has somebody explaining for them the stupidity that they engage in.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about, you know, uh A-list Hollywood people and and and huge rock stars and and politicians and and multi-multi-billionaires.
SPEAKER_00: That, you know, there's articles about them smashing up hotel rooms and and cursing out flight attendants and getting in fights and doing all these rants on social media that are just absolutely insane.
SPEAKER_00: Think about folks like that.
SPEAKER_00: And then say, what if that person was somebody that I personally knew?
SPEAKER_00: Like, like, if they were like in my family, they were a brother or sister or child of yours, or a neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: How would you relate to this free person?
SPEAKER_00: You you would think that, well, first of all, you'd think they were rude and obnoxious, but but then you would say, This person needs real help.
SPEAKER_00: Like, like they need like years of therapy or something because because they're just so wrapped up in some narcissistic cycle.
SPEAKER_00: The apostle Paul says this.
SPEAKER_00: That we're all slaves.
SPEAKER_00: Even those with the power to buy anything they want.
SPEAKER_00: They're slaves.
SPEAKER_00: The self, untethered to something bigger, is always going to not get larger, it's going to shrink down.
SPEAKER_00: When we don't find meaning in something beyond ourselves and our own desires, when we just opt for what we want out of our sinful natures, we find ourselves more and more trapped.
SPEAKER_00: We can't hold it together unless we come under another power.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul says, Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, your slaves are the ones you obey, whether you're slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: The dynamic of slavery that the Apostle Paul talked about 2,000 years ago, addiction specialists talk about today, only with less insight.
SPEAKER_00: But it's the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: We start off free.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the way it works.
SPEAKER_00: We start off free.
SPEAKER_00: And we say, I'm just going to do this thing once.
SPEAKER_00: Just one time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna look at this pornographic image once.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna smoke a little bit of weed this one time.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm just going to go on DraftKings and you know it'll make watching sports so much more exciting.
SPEAKER_00: And well, it's just like, you know, I'll have a little bit of skin in the game, and now I'll be able to watch, you know, and and really root for the team that I bet.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do this once.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna work on vacation.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm just gonna, you know, neglect the Sabbath this week.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do that, you know, and and uh no big deal.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna throw the ice cream cake in the shopping cart one time.
SPEAKER_00: That's not fair, Rich.
SPEAKER_00: That's really not fair.
SPEAKER_00: I like the DraftKings because I'm never on that.
SPEAKER_00: The ice cream cake is just getting a little too personal.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, over a period of time, this thing gets grooved.
SPEAKER_00: The the groove gets deeper and deeper, and it becomes more of a habit.
SPEAKER_00: And then we continue with that habit over a period of time, and it becomes a compulsion.
SPEAKER_00: We can't not do it.
SPEAKER_00: And then that compulsion becomes our identity, it becomes the central organizing principle of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And step by step we're we're formed around this thing, this slavery.
SPEAKER_00: And so let me make a simple point here before I move on, and that is you are never too young to start forming really good habits, and you're never too old to start breaking bad habits.
SPEAKER_00: You're never too young to start forming good habits, to not keep looking at your phone, to not constantly, constantly need screen time.
SPEAKER_00: You're never too young to start tithing to the church some money that you make.
SPEAKER_00: Folks always have this idea when your teens and your early 20s, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I'll start forming good habits when I get married, when I get a job, when I get older, when I buy a house, when I have kids, that's when I'll start forming good habits.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the deal: it doesn't get easier.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who's been in their 30s will say it just gets harder.
SPEAKER_00: Now I got all the complexity of work and kids and house and all these responsibilities.
SPEAKER_00: It's much easier to tithe on$50 than on$50,000.
SPEAKER_00: Trust me.
SPEAKER_00: It becomes harder and harder.
SPEAKER_00: And as I said it, you're never too old to break bad habits.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, those of us who are in their 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s, we don't get a pass on discipleship because now we're old.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, discipleship was something I used to do when I was younger.
SPEAKER_00: But but now that I'm older, well, well, I just get to slide.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have a right to spend all of our money on ourselves just because now we're older, or to be racist, because that's the way I was raised.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of us, until the day we die, are called to discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: We are called every day to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength.
SPEAKER_00: We are called to lay down our lives to Jesus no matter what age we are.
SPEAKER_00: Now I admit, discipleship looks different at 25 than it looks at 75.
SPEAKER_00: But both of us are called to discipleship, to live our lives under the reign and rule of Jesus Christ, regardless of how old we are.
SPEAKER_00: So how do we get free?
SPEAKER_00: Let me wrap this up.
SPEAKER_00: How do we get free?
SPEAKER_00: Really free.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what the Apostle Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: I'm using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations.
SPEAKER_00: Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul says, we're never free of something bigger than us.
SPEAKER_00: We're always a slave of whatever we've grooved out.
SPEAKER_00: That thing becomes the organizing principle of our life, some substance.
SPEAKER_00: Either we're going to yield to something that will bring us into greater and greater slavery, or we're going to yield to Jesus Christ, who will bring us into greater and greater freedom.
SPEAKER_00: As Bob Dylan said, you gotta serve somebody.
SPEAKER_00: So how do we get free?
SPEAKER_00: Freedom is the life that defines us.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read verse 19 again.
SPEAKER_00: I'm using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations, just as you used to.
SPEAKER_00: Offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness, leading to holiness.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that the Apostle Paul is so careful in what he writes.
SPEAKER_00: He said, when I talk about slavery, I don't misunderstand me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about it because of your human limitations.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, when we think about slavery, most of the time he says, don't think that I'm encouraging you to what will dehumanize you, to what will degrade you, to what will break you down.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we often think about slavery, and that's what slavery does.
SPEAKER_00: It dehumanizes us, it destroys us.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says being a slave to God is unlike any other mastery.
SPEAKER_00: Any other substance, any other behavior, any other, any other lord in your life, being a slave of anything else will ultimately destroy you.
SPEAKER_00: It will.
SPEAKER_00: It'll break you down, it'll break your mind down, it'll break your emotions down, it will break you down.
SPEAKER_00: But being a slave of God will ultimately build you up.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than feeling like you're under somebody's thumb and you're being controlled, when you bring yourself under the rule of God, you will find that you suddenly become the person that you've always wanted to be.
SPEAKER_00: That you're you're living the life that you've always wanted.
SPEAKER_00: You're fully alive, you're fully human, you feel like you can breathe.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says this.
SPEAKER_00: If you surrender your life to God, if you take on the yoke of Jesus Christ, you're gonna be increasingly free from vain regrets about your life.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to wake up in the morning just feeling like garbage.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to feel worthless.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to feel constantly guilty about what you did and feel like you're just a loser and a failure.
SPEAKER_00: The issue of slavery is not whether you will or won't be a slave.
SPEAKER_00: We are slaves.
SPEAKER_00: The issue is to what or to whom will you be a slave?
SPEAKER_00: That's the only issue.
SPEAKER_00: Something that tears you down, something that builds you up, something that makes you feel dead at the end of the day, or something that makes you feel fully alive.
SPEAKER_00: So practically, how do we bring ourselves under the rule of God?
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul has talked about grace repeatedly in his message, in the book of Romans.
SPEAKER_00: He's talked about grace.
SPEAKER_00: Grace is not the enemy of effort.
SPEAKER_00: Grace is not the enemy of discipline.
SPEAKER_00: Grace is the enemy of earning.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the enemy of effort.
SPEAKER_00: You are not going to get free of something that has enslaved you if you won't exercise effort.
SPEAKER_00: If you're addicted to something, if you're enslaved to some attitude, to some emotion, to some person, to some behavior, you're not going to get free just because you're getting older.
SPEAKER_00: The thing won't disappear from your life, the thing that weighs you down.
SPEAKER_00: How do we get free?
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul gives us some practical advice.
SPEAKER_00: He says, just as you presented the body, parts of your body as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your body parts as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: You can't get free on your own.
SPEAKER_00: The only way that any of us are going to get free is to have a new Lord, a new master.
SPEAKER_00: And he's so practical, Paul says, the way to get free is not to kind of think your way to it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not to wish your way to it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not by getting different ideas in your head.
SPEAKER_00: It's so practical as it's practical as your body.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the way you get free is to present your body to God.
SPEAKER_00: Your body.
SPEAKER_00: And the parts of your body.
SPEAKER_00: How does that work?
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you how I pray.
SPEAKER_00: Make this personal.
SPEAKER_00: Very often in the morning, when I'm doing my devotions, I sit there and I go through all the parts of my body and I yield them to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I start with my top of my head all the way down to the soles of my feet.
SPEAKER_00: And I say, Lord, here's my eyes.
SPEAKER_00: I surrender what I see to you today.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, cause me to not look at what I shouldn't be looking at, but Lord, help me to see.
SPEAKER_00: Help me to notice what you want me to notice.
SPEAKER_00: Help me to pay attention to where you're calling my vision.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, let me see with your eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my ears.
SPEAKER_00: Let me listen to what I should and not listen to what I shouldn't.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, help me to hear people, really listen.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, help me to say things that are encouraging and not things that will tear people down.
SPEAKER_00: God, take my heart, shape the affections of my heart, cause me to love you more.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, break my heart by what breaks yours.
SPEAKER_00: I know there are so many things that break your heart, God.
SPEAKER_00: Break my heart with what breaks yours.
SPEAKER_00: I go through the parts of my body, do that, friends.
SPEAKER_00: Just run down your body and say, I yield to you, I surrender.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the second thing and the last thing.
SPEAKER_00: And that is that freedom is produced by the spiritual discipline of attending church and being part of a small group.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's something about worship.
SPEAKER_00: We just worship this morning.
SPEAKER_00: There's something about great worship that pulls us outside of ourselves and our little world and pulls us into God's world, where we're yielded to God.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be in spaces where we worship God with our whole heart.
SPEAKER_00: And we need to be in a group where we can be transparent and share who we are and ask for prayer and listen to encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, here's the deal we are slaves.
SPEAKER_00: But God intends for us to live out the freedom that is only found as we surrender to the mastery of Jesus Christ our Lord.