Pastor in Las Vegas said he got a phone call, a fellow said, I'm coming to Vegas and I want to know what time your church services are. And the pastor said, well, that is really commendable because most people who come to Las Vegas are not interested in church. And he said, oh, get the wrong impression, Pastor, I said, I'm coming there for the booze and the women and the gambling and if I figure that after I, if I do as much party in the time as I'm intending to do, when I said I'm going to need a little church. So that's a question before us, is that what church is all about? Is that what it's there for, is the grace and forgiveness of God and how it basically gives us carte blanche to go for it, to live as carnaly, and as we might want because after all, if we're made right by grace, if the lavish love of God, the righteousness of God is given to us and that's what makes us right with God, have right standing with God, we contribute what? Nothing. For you're saved by grace, what, loan and faith, a loan, and we contribute nothing. If that's the case, if God does it all, is grace really an open door to licentiousness and to doing whatever we please and however we want. I mean, after all, you haven't been in ministry for six months, if you haven't had somebody come up to you and say, as the man did who was engaging embarking on an adulterous relationship and a fair, leaving his wife and when told it was wrong, he said, I know it's wrong, but I'm going to do it anyway because I'm a child of God and I don't live under law, I live under grace, is grace the open door then does God and His love and His lavish care for children, produce children who are spoiled so that they really defy their father and do whatever they want or it doesn't produce a children who are responsive and obedient, healthy and whole, which does it? Which is it? That's where we're going. Take your sermon out line and the first point is this, so actually the two points of the sermon are this is that we are in every way in a relationship of obligation to God first because we are His servants, we are His slaves, we are bonded over to Him, that's the first point, the second point is because we're married to Him, through service and through marriage, the answer is this, in every way, we are under obligation in every way, our lives ought to reflect holiness and righteousness, so what's point one in your sermon out line, yes, we are enslaved to God because we're enslaved to God and ought to manifest Himself in our lives. That doesn't sound like a very attractive image that when you become a Christian, then you're a slave to God. I mean, who wants to be a slave? No wonder the vast majority of people don't want to be Christians, after all they'd rather be free, but that's a total misunderstanding. Because when you become a Christian, you don't move from freedom to slavery. You move from slavery to slavery, okay? Everybody is a slave. Everybody is bound to something, that's the first point in your outline. Everybody is a slave to something, that's what verse 16 says, now what are we slaves to? We're slaves to whatever controls us, whatever we're passionate about, whatever is at the center of our life, whatever we give up our money for, whatever we think about when we lay in bed at night, whatever we turn to when life is difficult or hard, that's what we're enslaved to. If you don't think you're a slave to something, give me 10 minutes with your checkbook. And I'll tell you, what is the controlling passion in your life? Give me five or 10 minutes with your family, that's all I have to do. So what is it that, you know, what do they read about, what do they use their spare time for, what is their life control, by what would they give them a lot of things in their life, but there's something that they'd never depart from, they'd never give up, what's that? And we'll be getting at that slavery, won't we? We'll be getting at what they're controlling, passion, is Martin Lloyd Jones wrote, he said, many folks say, I'm not religious, but everybody's religious. Your religion is what you rely on, it's what you live for, it's what you hope for, your God is that's what you give yourself, your time, your attention, your greatest thought, your money, you live for, it's the thing that keeps you going, it's what you turn to and life gets hard. Everybody has a religion, the question is, what religion do you have? So it's not a question of being, I am free. Why would I want to give up that freedom to become a Christian? No, the question is, you're enslaved, and in fact, you're in slavery to yourself if you are not in slavery to God. Everybody is in slavery. How many people are, their passion is, is appearance, because they're very, you know, needy of approval. And so it's very important what people think about them. So they're always working on their health and their appearance and their clothing. It really matters to them. And I love, I love the teen culture that says, we are, we are free. We are not going to look like our parents, because we are free. We make our own decisions, we're, we're not conforming to, and then you go into a place where there's a bunch of teens and what do you see? They all look alike, right? They've all conformed. See everybody's a slavery to some, and people who are driven by approval, then they're what their car looks like, and what their house looks like. All these things are very important. People who are driven to find their, their meaning and success, well, they're workaholics and driven and, and how much money they make, and how successful and what position and what title. And we see that all these things captivate us and make us enslave. I think of the, the woman who was in counseling. She had been to a number of therapists, she was a kleptomaniac, she, she stole habitually everywhere, and the counselor felt like they just weren't getting anywhere past the surface. And so finally she turned and said, Mary, are you a Christian? And Mary said, you know, I'm not very religious, but I am a very, very good person. And so if there isn't God, I feel like I'm in good shape. And the counselor's, God, just dropped, she's incredulous. She said, Mary, you spent thousands of dollars. You spent years now going to people and telling them your problems. You are humiliated before your entire family for the number of times you've been arrested. You are addicted to stealing. You are banned from every store in the downtown area of our town. Everyone knows you. Everyone when they see you says that's Mary, the thief, and they sneer at you and they look at you. And you're saying you're telling me you're a very good person? You really believe that? Mary's faced a kind of action and she said, like you're suggesting that there's something wrong with me deeper than the symptom of stealing? The counselor's head. I'm not suggesting that I'm telling you there's something deeply wrong with you. And do you know why I know? Because there's something deeply wrong with me. Your symptoms are different than mine, but there's something deeply wrong with every one of us. And only the power of Jesus Christ who came into this world because we were deeply messed up and took all that crud onto himself can transform our lives. And you know what this young girl said? I've been to therapist, epithelist, epithelist, epithelist. And every one of them told me my problem was I didn't love myself enough. She said, how can I love myself when I look inside myself and I see all this corruption, but nobody ever had the guts to look at me in the face and say, you're broken. And you need to be fixed and you're broken at the very depths of your being. And that very day began a process in which Mary met her maker and was reconciled to him. That's always the beginning of release from slavery, to self and to sin and to degradation when we can say, I'm a slave. I am captured in the vortex of selfishness and self-centeredness and sin and I need help. That's the beginning. The question isn't, are you free or are you a slave? You are bound over to something is what you're bound over to giving you life or is it staffing the very life out of you? That's the only question. Secondly, conversion then is a change of ownership. You don't go from being free to being a slave. No, you move your being bonded over to a new owner, Jesus Christ. You see the old way was the wide way of the Bible. So there is a wide way. It looks like the way to go. It looks attractive. I mean, live for yourself. Do what you want. What could sound better than that? If you have an appetite, if you haven't heard, kill it. That's the wide way in the Bible says it ultimately leads where. Death, destruction. This is the way it's going. But conversion happens when a person says, I'm not okay. And the way I'm going is destroying me. It's staffing the very life out of me. There's a narrow way. And that's the way in which a person says, I'm going to go all the way back and realize that what Adam said in the garden was wrong. Adam decided that God wasn't good, that God couldn't be trusted. And he would seize the reins of his own life. But I'm going to believe that God is good, that he's the best caretaker for my soul. He's the shepherd of my life. And I'm going to become his slave, his bond servant, and submit myself to him. Now, is that generally an easy process for people? Is generally an easy process for a fish to get hooked and brought into the boat? Generally, fish tend to resist that, don't they? They'll just sort of freely leap in. They tend to fight. And it's a good thing to remember, by the way, that the only blood in the water is the fish. It's not the fishermen. And so God, when he calls you, and he hooks you, and he starts to draw you, you may fight this new owner, and you may resist it, and you may rebel, and pull back, and pull back. And that could go on for years. But do be reminded, the only blood in the water is yours. God's not troubled in this process. Think of Paul. He's on the roads of Damascus. And suddenly, the sky explodes with light, and he's driven to the ground. And a voice rings from heaven, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Saul, when are you going to stop kicking against the goats? You know what the goats were? There were sharp points at the ox cart, so that the ox wouldn't kick the cart to pieces. And when he kicked back, it hit these sharp points, and the ox wouldn't kick anymore. Didn't take, I mean, even oxen would learn, that you stop kicking the goats. And God looked down at Saul, because when are you going to be as smart as an ox? When are you going to get it, pal, that it doesn't serve you well to resist me? Come into the fold. Come into my team. Join my team. Submit yourself and later in the Bible, we say, Paul describes himself as what? I, Paul, am a bond servant. I am the slave of Jesus Christ. Think of Jacob. Jacob is utterly useless to God, right? Jacob is a schemer, and a liar, and a conniver, and a devious. And everything he gets in his life, he gets with chicainery, he is just a, he's God's person. He's the one God's going to use, and he's worthless. And so God comes in the middle of the night while Jacob sleeps in the wilderness, and what does he do? He kicks the tar out of him. That's what God does. Comes down in the middle of the night, and pounds, Jacob breaks his hip, right? And Jacob's never well after that. He limps, but he's now in God's army, broken, dependent, serving, Jacob's life is transformed from that very moment. This is conversion. This is when our prideful, willful, stupid, ignorant, ox-like spirit is broken by God. And he says, come, come trust me. Come submit yourself to me. Let me be the potter. You be the clay. But I want to tell you something. It is a Christianity. Listen to what I'm saying. Christianity is a profound slavery. It is an ownership by God of our life that extends to all of our life. He is Lord. We are not. And I'm willing to bet that for most people, they don't have that basic concept. In other words, I'm convinced that what most people believe is that they are Lord and Jesus is their slave. They wouldn't say that. Nobody would stand up and say that. Nobody would profess that to be that we just act that way because we know we need him. We need service. We can't make it through this life without Jesus and we get in a hard spot. We call him, Jesus, come here and help me. And if he doesn't come, you know what we get ticked because when we call him, we paid him good money Sunday after Sunday. He is supposed to be available when I ring him up. Where is he? Where is God when I need him? How come I prayed? How come I did this? God didn't do this. I can't believe this is happening to me. I'm the greatest of spirit that is what? I am Lord. I run the world. I know what's best and God had better show up and take care of my needs when I call him and I need him. But what good is it having him around anyway? Let me say something. That spirit is rampant in our midst. The whole different thing to say, God, you're Lord, whatever you call me, wherever you call me to go, whatever ever happens in my life, I submit to it because I trust you because you're God. You're Lord. I'm not boss. I don't run this field. I love Jesus going into the city of Jerusalem to die. He has no place for the last supper. He has no home in which to host it. He has no donkey to make his way into the city. So he sends his disciples ahead to procure those things and when they go up to the owner, they don't just snatch it and walk away. They walk up to the owner of these items and what do they say? The Lord has need of this. That's it. This is just raw, naked, brute authority of God. The Lord has need of this because he's God. He made it his and whatever he wants to requisition it, he may well do that and he might do that in your life. When the Lord decides that he would like to glorify himself through your cancer, then he may do that. He may do whatever he pleases whenever he wants to because he's Lord and we're not and let me tell you something. It's a beautiful thing when people realize that and they submit to it and they say have done on the way, Lord, have done on the way, your Lord and your King and your boss and I am not. It is a terrible thing because I see so many Christians who still get up every morning. They would believe all the doctrines of the faith that could spout the apostles' creed. They believe Jesus is who he said he was. They believe it all, they profess it all but when they get up in the morning, the bent of their day is to ask, what kind of recreation am I going to have, what kind of fun things am I going to do, how am I going to use this day for me? Really scenario thought, the sense that I am in the service of the master, this is the direction of my whole life is his glory and his honor. I think that sometimes it involves in recruiting pastors to come and it's amazing I tell folks today anymore, sometimes you can have pastors say, well, I'm not going to work somewhere where there's not a Christian school for my kids and I'm not going to work somewhere where the salaries and I'll take care of my family so that my wife doesn't have to work and I'm not going somewhere where there's an amall and there better be a gap in that mall because my kids really like gap and if the climate isn't right and housing isn't affordable and all of this and all those things are there then you know what is amazing I feel called my God there, whatever happened to go where you want me to go dear Lord, I'll do what you want me to do, I don't set terms with you God, I don't set the terms, you set the terms, you're the boss, I show up for work, that my friend is freedom, that my friend will set you free, to be free like that, I think the old lady in Miami who got shut out of her house or door closed behind her when she went out to get some mail so she thought well the back door's open I'll go in that way she went around the side of the house and the gate was locked and the chain went fence so she was in her 80s but she decided to climb the fence problem was she got halfway over one leg was off the ground on one side the other leg was off the ground on the other side and she could never get off the fence so the neighbors came and saw her there straddling the fence pathetic you know the worst possible life there is is people who are just like that spiritually acknowledging all the truth of Christianity and yet still unrelinquished still hanging on to sovereignty over their own lives and this kind of straddling the fence mode it is the most uncomfortable posture you can imagine the point is that if you want freedom and you want fruit and you want joy it's in slavery to Jesus Christ only slavery to God sets you free look at verse 21 what benefit were you deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed what Paul asking when you were slaves to sin was it really good no it was death you know it would be so great to not be a Christian to not have God to answer to I mean forget to 10 commandments you want to have sexual relations you have sexual relations you want to drink till you're you know snockered you go for it you want to have you just want to do whatever you want you want to spend your money in yourself you want to let your tongue say whatever you want to say I mean you just want to live totally just do whatever you please that would be the life to be utterly free I want to ask you something you believe that you believe that to be free of God really brings someone joy and peace and I'm speaking to every middle schooler and every high schooler and every college student here you really believe that to be free of the constraints of your heavenly father free from his law free from his direction and moving out to do whatever you please that that really is life that's really cool that's really great that will really produce for you I'm going to tell you the fruit of it is death look at the human it look at the relativism of our world that makes our universities and our high school just wasteland because no teacher can stand up and say that's the truth kids that's the truth learn it and live by it if you don't live by it you're on the roads and death because that's the truth nobody can say that anymore nobody can say that Jesus Christ said I am the way and the truth and there is no truth apart from me and my word nobody can say that anymore what we believe today is there is no truth there's no way that anybody can know the truth and can authoritatively stand up and say this is right and this is wrong Becky Pippert in fact said she was invited to give a talk on the topic of vice and virtue as she said a woman in the audience objected very strongly when she said that vice is such as pride or envy debase and destroy our humanity but virtues like compassion and humility strengthen us and make up better this woman with a look of horror said don't you see when you say that you're suggesting that some things are wrong and then other things are right she said personally I of course prefer to be compassionate but I don't think that I can impose that on anyone else so Becky said I see according to your approach some people like pepperoni on their pizza and our think child abuse is wrong other people like sausage on their pizza and and enjoy child abuse either ones are totally valid option and the woman you know sputtered a little bit and she said that well child abuse is not correct under any circumstances but we just have to be careful not to be intolerant and Becky said you are intolerant you just said that child abuse is wrong it's always wrong you're intolerant of child abuse why won't you say that something's wrong and it's always wrong and the woman said because I've been taught to be educated means that you'll always have to be open-minded and Becky looked at her and said and I've been taught that the trouble with being too open-minded is that your brains fall out we tell you something there is truth and if you believe any other it'll destroy your life Nietzsche said God is dead he is irrelevant he began a whole movement the philosophical or runner of the third Reich in 1887 he went insane and he never recovered he died 13 years later in utter darkness the sexual revolution that's it right no parents no societal mores do whatever you please and that is going to bring joy and peace and I mean it's the repressive rules of Victorian society that have made life so rotten right there are whole continents now ravaged by AIDS aren't there it is considered by the United States a security council to be the number one potential destabilizing issue in the entire world the rampant spread of AIDS this is the fruit of saying God we really can do this better homosexuals are nine times more likely to commit suicide than heterosexual that's a tragedy somebody said try this it's gay it will make you happy go and be what your impulses leave you to go and be go down that road and there's death I think of a man who said I'm an atheist I I'm not going to follow anyone else's rules anyone else's letter anyone else's dictates I believe however I please I'm certainly not going to consult with my father in heaven before I make decisions in my life somebody asked you raise your kids that way he said absolutely give him lots of love and total freedom they're free to choose and do whatever they want they said the next time they saw this man he was at the funeral it was at the funeral of his 18-year-old daughter beautiful talented young lady went to college and died of a drug overdose she said when she saw this man she never she'd never seen such a grief stricken space and when she embraced him he pulled away and there were tears running down his face and he said what the heck good is freedom if it just leads you to the grave good questions separate yourself from God and you will die and worst of all usually you won't die as quickly as that girl you'll die of slow death slow death of deterioration because we were made to know him and so slavery and submission to God is where the fruit and where the life comes in when I can say God you are my all and all you're the ultimate good and I trust you in submitting to your ways and your values and and and your person in a relationship with you it's what my heart is always long for what I've always I needed you you know I think of the I think of the man I weighed 460 pounds and he called up his pastor and said I need help I nothing I've tried to work the pastor said put on your tennis shoes be it your door at 7 a.m. in the morning 7 a.m. the doorbell rang and the guy opened the door and there was a very petite cute thing out there and she said down pastor says if you can catch me you can kiss me and she took off running and this big guy lumbered out he got to the end of the driveway and he about had a heart attack but this went on for two years I mean he chased her all over town he like went from 460 down under 200 pounds and in fact one day he got just where he almost caught her next day was going to be the day so that next morning he was up early got his tennis shoes on he was all excited the doorbell rang he's hung it open and there was a 320 pound woman standing there and she said pastor says if I can catch you I can kiss you now you're going to have to help me with this application but if you say to a 400 pound man stop eating get a hold yourself practice a little self control how buddy I mean stop appealing to your appetites just stop it start exercising get out there and start running how successful will that be you have to offer him something more attractive than the choices he's already making it's it's the expulsive power of a new affection it's it's something that that that begins to appear to us as being as the Bible says the law of the Lord is sweeter than what honey becomes honey in our mouth to know God to have God a couple times a year in the last couple years I've learned something about fasting and when you go without food for days something amazing happens you get hungry and when you get hungry you don't say to yourself you know what I really need is a cheeseburger you know what I say to myself my hunger is a reminder that what I really need is a relationship with my maker Jesus stood at with a Samaritan woman at the well and he hadn't had anything to eat and his disciples went in town to get food and when they came back out with the food they said to him we've got food now here it is for you and he said I'm not interested and he said to themselves did somebody out we didn't need I don't understand and Jesus said my food is to do what my food is to do the will of the one who sent me that's my food that's my drink that's the substance of my life it's to be yielded to him in relationship to have that's what ultimately satisfies me apart from that there is no satisfaction and boy I'd like to say that face to face to every middle school or every high school or every college student in this room
because there's a world out there that wants to fool you and tell you the opposite sitting at the dinner table the other night one of my children said and I don't even know how serious they were but it still gave my heart a charge they said I want to spend my life ministering to inner city children and I thought he who seeks to save his life loses it all I've got to have this close I've got to have this car I've got to have this I've got to have that I've got to have this I've got to have that the the mindset of there's all this stuff I want to have and that's where life is if I can only get the next thing then I'll have more life and somebody was expressing the key to having life is giving it away the one who loses his life will what find it you'll find it I remember sixteen seventeen years old standing on a roof in West Virginia rebuilding the homes of impoverished Appalachian folk on a mission trip from Miami up a well-to-do middle class suburban kid standing in the middle of nowhere sweat pouring off my face sun on my head in the middle of the summer when my friends were at the beach and I had tarps in my knees and saying this is what I was made for this is what I was made for to pour out my life for the glory of my God and for other people I have never felt so alive I have never felt so enriched when you die you become alive when you become a slave to Jesus you become alive like you've never been there are people in this room who think you're alive and you don't have a clue because you've never stood there and said brand me own me make me your God it isn't about me it's about you and I'm reporting for duty I'm available
that's the last point too if the last point is just a repeat of what we've already said in a more tender way Paul says are we under any obligation now that we're because of grace yes because we're slaves but also because we're married to God he he says that marriage is a binding obligation until death you know how that goes I mean if a woman is married to a man she's obligated to him but if a man dies she's free to remarry so marriage is binding until death death sets you free to marry another if you like and so Paul says what a death has taken place and death has freed us to take a new husband we were once married to what to sin and to sell and to unrighteousness and to rebellion but there's been a death Christ died and in Christ we died and so we're free to take a new husband and that husband is Jesus and here's a here's the Bible says I don't know Bay God because I'm afraid I don't know Bay God because he might cast me off I'll Bay God because he is my husband and because I am bound by the cords of love he loves me it's a relationship of allegiance I am the one from Jesus loves and you want to read a scandalous part of the Bible you just start reading like at verse four of chapter seven where there's direct parallel made between the the passion and freedom and release an intimacy and communion of a sexual intercourse and that takes place in marriage and it's compared to our relationship with God look what it says therefore my brethren you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ that you might be joined to another what do you think being alluded to here to him who was raised from the dead that we might bear what fruit the fruit of of of intimate relationship we might bear children for our God that our God will come to us as the husband and we as a wife will receive him and we will submit to his love we will receive his love and it will bear fruit and what will that fruit be lives of holiness and righteousness and obedience in response to his great love for us it's a beautiful picture of God coming as our husband and we receiving his love we say some of that may just give you the willies but I'd suggest that you spend a lifetime understanding what it means that God is the lover of your soul who intends to ravish you with his love until you are so taken with his tender mercy and care for you that out of you come submissive love and obedience in response so holiness why why do we seek holiness because we delight in pleasing our husband you don't get married and say you know what my spouse is committed to me they said in sickness and in health and plenty and a one you know they're never going to leave me they're committed to me so I'm gonna go run around I'm gonna go to the night clubs I'm gonna go do whatever I want because after all they've made this commitment to me so I'm free that's not the way it works is it you say I've given my heart I made a vow of love and so my relationship with God is the same he is common he has loved me and I've responded in kind why do Christians obey not because the law is our master and we have to but because Jesus is our husband and we want to that was what was so beautiful a month ago at the end of our if we build it campaign people did not bring their money and gifts forward in this church that day because they believe God would love them if they did they did it because they knew he loved them because they were taken with his love and so freely they were responding to it I love the old apocryphal story of a man standing at the slave block in New Ireland Jackson Square and on the block is a attractive fair skinned woman hardly clothes men gathered around leering at her and bidding soaring up and in an outrageous price one man purchases to this young girl and she is filled with fury and hate and anger and as he grabs her by the arm to lead her away she pulls away and she says I won't go with you I won't serve you I won't do what you want you've wasted your money and you've wasted your time and the man says young young lady I didn't buy you to use you I bought you to set you free and her hold the meaner chain and she said then take me home take me home with you will you this day realize that Jesus Christ on the cross bought you to set you free and are you willing to stay to stay my Lord and my God take me home I'm your take your worship order will you as the praise team comes and leads us I pray that this closing words might be for for you a an offering of yourself that Lord it's for your glory we sing you praises my life is to magnify your holy name I want to give my you know I offer my heart my life all that we are all that we have we offer it up to you let's stand and sing it together