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Slaves to Christ
By mwilhite | September 19, 2008
Normally I have not been posting my sermon texts on my blog. I now have them online for audio download, but I have felt this one needs to be out there for reading and comment purposes. This topic has been a major burden on my heart lately and I wanted to share it with you. Feel free to comment as you see fit. I’m curious to see what others have to say about this issue.
You can also listen to the mp3 audio of this message here:
http://www.michaelwilhite.net/media/08242008am.mp3
Enjoy!!
SLAVES TO CHRIST
Series: Biblical Stewardship
Limestone Baptist Church, Bedford, IN
Rev. Michael Wilhite
August 24, 2008 at 10:30am
Selected Scriptures w/ emphasis on Colossians 3:24
OPENING THOUGHTS
· OPEN IN PRAYER.
· For the past two weeks we have been looking at the topic of stewardship. We’ve been specifically looking at what the Bible says about how we are to handle our finances and how we are to give. I had planned on going further into this subject, but this week I have felt like I don’t want to beat a dead horse. So today I want to conclude our series by going deeper into what it means to be a steward. It is my prayer that this will tie some loose ends up in your mind.
· We know that 1 Corinthians 4:2 says this:
2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.
· We’ve been talking about money and giving these past two weeks. But Biblical stewardship is about far more than just money. It is all about how you live your life. We’ discussed finances because it is such a need in our society today, but there is much more that could be discussed.
· For example, we could talk about your use of time. Are you redeeming the time like you should be? We could talk about your spiritual gifts and whether or not you are active in using them. We could talk about how and when you evangelize people. Are you being found trustworthy to share your faith as Christ commands?
· Being a steward is far more than just how we handle our money. Being a good steward means that we recognize that our lives do not belong to us anymore. As a Christian, we are living for something and someone far greater than us.
· No rather than talking about money again, I want to wrap up this mini-series this morning by focusing on the most important foundational principle that must underlie our stewardship. If you don’t get this down, you will have problems in every area of your Christian life – finances and everything else included.
· Now if I were to ask you what the most basic and most important of all creeds we have as a Christian, what would you answer me? If I told you to sum it up in just three words, what would it be? What three words would accurately and most importantly describe who we are as Christians and why we exist as Limestone Baptist Church? What three simple words would you choose out of everything in the Bible to sum up the entire message of the Bible?
· Well if you haven’t figured out yet just what the most important three words in Christianity are, then let me tell you. It is really simple, yet very profound. And you’ve no doubt said them before: JESUS IS LORD! In those three words, we have the summation of God’s plan for His church.
· Take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Colossians 3:24
24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.
· This to me is one of the richest verses in all of the New Testament. In it, we have a good definition of how we relate to Jesus. We have defined for us in this one verse Jesus’ part of our relationship to Him and our part of our relationship to Him. And that brings me to the two points that I want to make for you this morning.
JESUS IS LORD
· First point: Jesus is Lord. We’ve all heard this and we all know this, but what does it really mean to us? Let’s explore that in a fairly good degree of depth before we move on to our second and main point this morning.
· Most people who think about relating to Christ think of Him as their Savior. And I think they do so for good reason. We know that Christ is the Savior of the world. There is no salvation outside of Him. And the modern evangelical church has gone to great lengths to ensure that we know that as our Savior, we have a personal relationship with Him.
· Now you’ve probably noticed that I don’t talk about that much. It’s not that I’m against the concept by any means, but I think the wording is too vague. I mean, what does it really mean that someone can have a personal relationship with Christ anyway?
· After all, the devil himself has a very personal relationship with Christ and it is not a good one! In fact, every single person on this earth already has a personal relationship with Christ. We will all stand before His judgment seat to account for what we have done. We all relate to Him personally – some of us for the good and some for the bad.
· Certainly Jesus is our Savior, but He is so much more than just that. In fact, the only way that Jesus becomes your personal Savior is whenever you bow down to Him and acknowledge Him as Lord of your life. Apart from your submitting to His Lordship, you cannot be saved.
· Do you realize that Jesus is called Savior only 24 times in the New Testament? That’s all. It’s enough mind you, but that’s it. Now compare that with the number of times Lord is used. In the original Greek, there are two words for Lord: kurios and despotes. Combined, these two words are used 758 times in the New Testament alone.
· Do you see the point that God places far more emphasis on Christ as Lord than He does Christ as Savior? So if that is really the case, we should then examine just what it means that Christ is Lord. Just what is a Lord anyway?
Well let’s just take the Greek word kurios. Despotes is only used 10 times and is a synonym. So then what does kurios mean? Thayer defines it like so:
1) he to whom a person or thing belongs, about which he has power of deciding; master, lord
1a) the possessor and disposer of a thing
1a1) the owner; one who has control of the person, the master
1b) is a title of honour expressive of respect and reverence, with which slaves greet their master
1c) this title is given to: God, the Messiah
· To sum that up in a nutshell, kurios was originally a slavery term and it meant to have absolute power and control over slaves. Now the New Testament goes to great length to show us that Jesus is Lord. You see it here in Colossians 3. In Philippians 2:11, we see that one day everyone will bow down and worship Christ and say that “Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
· Now that is to say, one day everyone who has ever lived will bow down and will be forced to acknowledge Christ’s absolute sovereignty over the entire universe and all that is in it.
· To put it another way, Christ asks His disciples in Luke 6:46
46 And why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I say?
· Right there you have the clearest picture of Christ as Lord in the New Testament. How can we call Christ our Lord if we are not willing to follow His commands to us?
· Now let me just state the obvious here. You can’t be a Lord unless you have slaves. Otherwise you are no Lord at all. Or to state it another way, Christ cannot be Lord of no one. Christ cannot be Lord if He does not have followers that are singly devoted to Him.
WE ARE HIS SLAVES
· And that brings me to my second point that I want to make this morning. Not only is Jesus Lord, but we are His slaves. If you are still in Colossians 3, look with me once again at verse 24.
24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.
· Now if you are wondering where in this verse it talks about our being a slave of Christ, I would not be surprised. The modern church has done everything it possibly can to eradicate this precious truth. Slavery is not a shining moment in US history by any means. It has left a mark on our culture and it’s not something we really want to think about.
· Nonetheless, the Bible uses it as an analogy for the Christian life. What your Bible reads in English here is not what God actually says in His precious Word. In Greek, there are at least six distinct words for ‘servant’ and the wording used here is not one of them.
· The word used here is doulos and it means slave. Here is how Thayer defines doulos for us:
1a) a slave
1b) metaphorically, one who gives himself up to another’s will and those whose service is used by Christ in extending and advancing his cause among men
1c) devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests
· Notice that there is nothing about servant in there. There is a very key difference. You see, a servant could come and goes as he pleased. When you go to work, you are a servant to your boss. It is totally voluntary. No one is making you stay there. If you don’t like your boss, you can get another job.
· A slave had no choice. If a slave didn’t like his owner, it was just tough luck for him. Let me give you four characteristics of a slave and I think that will help you see the difference.
1. Exclusive Ownership. Slaves were viewed as property. They were owned by their Master. They couldn’t rebel and leave. If they did, they faced death. As such, they had no rights. They could not sue. They had no legal rights whatsoever. They were totally at the mercy of their owner.
2. Complete & Constant Availability & Obedience. They were always ready to do what their Master asked of them. That was their life. They were ready and willing because they had to be.
3. Subject to an Alien Will. That is to say, they did not decide what to do on their own. What the Master said to them was the final word. If they chose not to do it, they faced death. They had no will of their own and they could do nothing except that which their Master would allow.
4. Complete Dependence for Everything. They had no job of their own. They were provided for and taken care of exclusively by their Master. All food and clothing was provided for by that Master. They depended on him for everything they ever needed to survive.
· Now compare that to a mere servant. You can serve and go home at the end of the day and not be a slave at all. But a slave was always a slave. A slave did service for his master, but it was forced service.
· Now let’s take that principle back and apply it our text from Colossians. Though almost all English Bibles say ‘serve’ here, let me read to you what God’s Word actually says in the original.
24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ to whom you are enslaved.
· Many people don’t like to think about that because it evokes negative thoughts. We don’t want to be thought of as a slave of the Lord. After all, we’d much prefer to be called children of God and leave it at that, right? But let us not confuse our analogies. One is as important as is the other.
· It is true that we are adopted sons and daughters of Christ if we have come to follow Him. We are His children. We have been made friends with God, right? But nonetheless, we are still slaves. In John 15, Jesus has this to say in verse 14.
14 You are My friends, if you do what I command you.
· So you want to think of yourself as Jesus’ friend? Well you are, if you willing to submit to His Lordship and be His slave. For He goes on to say in verse 15:
15 No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.
· The implication here is that we are no longer merely slaves. It doesn’t mean that we aren’t slaves, for remember that we are His friends if we obey Him. But now we are more than slaves, we are friends at the same time as being a slave to Him.
· In the ancient world, there were different types of slaves a master would have. Some slaves were the lowest of the low and never knew their master other than what he said to do. Some, however, became close friends with their masters and were appointed heads of the estate while the master was away.
· In a sense, that is what we are to Christ. We are still slaves to Him, but we are so much more. We are friends. He has chosen to let us in on His divine plan of reconciliation.
· We are slaves of Christ. This theme literally permeates all of the New Testament. For example, I bet you have heard Jesus say before that no one can serve two masters, right? The problem is, however, that’s not what Jesus actually said.
· Matthew 6:24 actually reads:
24 No one can be enslaved to two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot be enslaved to both God and money.
· The wording that you can’t serve two master is just silly. Actually, yes you can. If you have more than one job, you do serve more than one master. This only makes sense when you understand the word here is slave. A slave can’t have two sovereigns in charge of him. He cannot submit to two absolute rules at the same time.
· In that sense, God says something about us. We cannot be a slave to God and to something else. When Jesus said to follow Him, that means we have to pick up our cross and go after Him, leaving all the world behind. We can’t go totally after God and still hold on to sinful passions.
· This teaching so permeates the New Testament. In Romans 1:1, Paul introduces himself as a slave of Christ. Then in Galatians 1:10 and Philippians 1:1, he calls himself a slave of Christ. He does the same in Titus 1:1. And Paul is not the only one who does this.
· James says the same about himself in James 1:1, as does Jude in Jude 1. Peter does the same in 2 Peter 1:1. The point I want you to see is that all of the apostles considered themselves as slaves to Christ.
· Now think about that for a moment. Here in America, some don’t want to be called a slave of Christ because of a stigma of slavery from four or five generations ago. What do you think about the apostles? They had it going on in front of their very eyes! It is estimated that there were some 10 million slaves in the Roman world alone. And we balk at a stigma from a couple hundred years ago?
· Now if we are honest, it is pretty easy to understand why some people don’t want anything to do with this slave talk. People really don’t want to give up everything to come to Christ and if you eliminate the idea of being a slave, that sure makes the Gospel a lot easier to believe.
· But think for a minute how hard it was for the apostles to preach the Gospel. They were living in a world filled with slavery and were calling people to become slaves to Christ. They were telling the Jews that they killed their Messiah, which is to them a stumbling block. They were telling the Gentiles they needed to submit to a God who was calling them to be His slave. That was foolishness to them.
· Does that sound like something easy to believe? And yet the church flourished those first years. People came to Christ by the thousands on some days. That’s what happens when the church preaches the real Gospel unashamedly instead of watering it down!
· But is that what you hear in evangelical Christianity today? You don’t hear many preachers telling people that if they want to be saved that they must be willing to give up everything they have, deny every selfish and sinful desire they have, take up their cross and be willing to die for their faith and become a slave to Christ.
· When we invite people to come to Christ, do we say things like: I would like to invite you to become a slave of Jesus Christ. I would like to invite you to give up your independence, give up your freedom, submit yourself to an alien will, abandon all your rights, be owned by, controlled by the Lord.
· People really don’t want to hear that. But all throughout the Gospels, that’s what Jesus told them they had to do. To Nicodemus, Jesus told him he had to give up his Pharisaical religion and be born from above. That’s not something he could do on his own! It is totally the work of the Holy Spirit.
· To the woman at the well, Jesus exposed her wicked lifestyle and when she was thoroughly broken in spirit, she came to Christ. To the rich young ruler, Jesus said that because of his arrogance in thinking he was blameless before the Law of God he would have to sell all of his possessions and give the money away to the poor and then follow Him.
· Now we could go on and on in how Jesus told people the hard truth they needed to hear, but you get the idea. Just read through the Gospels and you’ll see that Christ’s message was not an easy one to swallow. If anyone wanted to come follow Him, they had to count the cost.
· Despite how people may not want to think of themselves as slaves to Christ, that’s what any true Christian is. This is not an optional thing to consider. This is not something that is up for debate.
· Consider some more verses with me. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says:
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
· Sound familiar to what we have been saying? That is slave language. You are not your own. You don’t have the right to control your life. You are only a steward of the time and resources that God has given to you. You were bought at a price – bought with the precious blood of Christ.
· Or how about the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6? When we pray “not my will, but Your will be done”, that is slave talk. We are saying that a will other than my own is the deciding factor in my life. That’s a Lord/slave relationship.
· Or how about “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength”? Does that sound like complete and constant availability to you? That’s slave language.
· I really am convinced that the best analogy for the Christian life is that of a slave. After all, we have the most beneficent, loving and kind Master that anyone could have. He calls us His friend. He even adopts us as His sons. Why would we not want to willingly submit our lives to Him as His slaves to do His bidding?
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
· So what do we do with all of this knowledge? Just exactly what does this imply for how we live our lives? Allow me just a few more moments to give you some practical application for your life.
· I think there is a great temptation among some people to think that this is all well and good, but it’s just not for them. This is for the super-Christians. You know, those who are real spiritual and who have the time it takes to do this, but not for them.
· If that is what you are thinking this morning, I want to correct that thinking for you. Turn with me one last time to Luke 17. I want you to hear what Jesus has to say about this very issue. Luke 17:10 says:
10 So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’
· Did you catch that? Being a slave to Christ is not something for the super-spiritual. It’s not something to boast about as a source of great pride that separates you from the weaker believers. No, that’s not it at all. In fact, when you submit to Christ as your Lord and you obey Him as an obedient slave, you are only doing that which you ought to be doing.
· In other words, you are only doing the bare minimum that Christ asks of you. There is nothing super-spiritual about this at all. It is something that is expected of any and every true believer. There is no such thing as a true Christian that wants Him to be Savior, but refuses Him as Lord.
· Jesus Himself said that anyone who would come after Him for salvation must deny themselves. It is the end of the road for your old way of living when you come to Christ. There will be a true heart change in anyone who is a true believer and if you don’t have a true heart change, you aren’t saved!
· So what should our attitude as a slave of Christ be then, you ask? Peter gives us some great insight into that. 1 Peter 2:16 tells us this:
16 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as slaves of God.
· Don’t flaunt around your liberty and say that you are going to live your life how you want to live it. Don’t use your freedom in Christ from sin as a license for sin! Instead, use that freedom to be a slave of God.
· In other words, instead of begrudgingly submitting to the will of Christ, you should be more than happy to do that which pleases God. And indeed any true Christian should have more than enough reason to submit to Christ their everything if for no other reason than the redemption He has provided them!
· The Bible is abundantly clear. The Gospel is clear. Come to Christ. Come follow after Him. The very idea of following after Christ means that you are submitting your life to Him as Lord.
· And by the way, you are going to be a slave to someone. If you refuse to be a slave of Christ, then you will be a slave of the devil. You only have two options. And being that Christ allows us to be His slave and gives us an inheritance that lavishes riches on us forever and ever for our unmitigated joy, who wouldn’t want to be a slave of Christ?
· Jesus’ words in John 3:21 are so powerful and so true.
21 He who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.
· What do your deeds say of you, beloved? Do they say that you love the light? Do they show that you run towards the truth of God’s Word? Do they show that you are a slave of Christ? Or do they show that you are a slave to the devil and are his child?
· Heed Jesus’ words this morning: come to Christ, come follow Him, deny yourself, take up your cross, give up your independence, submit to His will, abandon all your rights and become His slave.
· LET’S PRAY.
Topics: Sermons |
September 21st, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Brother,
Excellent sermon and one in which I am in much agreement. I too have this issue as one that weighs on my heart not only for my congregation but even for myself. I hope this is O.K., but I’d like to one portion (of many) where I dealt with this in my book.
Southern Baptists believe “Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace. Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour.”
The requisite spiritual conditions for personal salvation are repentance of sin and faith in Christ as Lord and Savior (Mark 1:15). Repentance is a gift of God
unto the soul whereby a person is made aware of the sin and convicted of its personal damage and enmity unto God in the light of His holiness (Acts 2:38, 3:19, 5:31; 2 Corinthians 7:1-11). Biblically, repentance is valid when by conscience a man turns in mind, heart and action from sin towards God through a distinct change of character. In repentance a man shall have formally loved sin and now finds a righteous indignation to flee from it in the fear of God (Acts 9:35). Tertullian, an early church theologian, elaborates on the character of the repentant heart. “For what I say is this, that the repentance which, being shown us and commanded
us through God’s grace, recalls us to grace with the Lord, when once learned and undertaken by us ought never afterward to be cancelled by repetition of sin … For if the ground on which you had repented of having sinned
was that you had begun to fear the Lord, why have you preferred to rescind what you did for fear’s sake, except because you have ceased to fear? … Now, that man does despise Him, who, after attaining by His help to an understanding of things good and evil, offers an affront to his own understanding— that is, to God’s gift—by resuming what he understood ought to be shunned: he rejects the Giver in abandoning the gift; he denies the Benefactor in nor honouring the benefit. How can he be pleasing to Him, whose gift is displeasing to himself?”
Faith is biblically described as a gift of God wherein the soul by conviction places complete confidence in Jesus as Savior and commitment to Jesus as Lord. The soul of faith sees Christ as the only Lord and Savior who is “true and, hence, worthy of being trusted”13 (Luke 10:27, Galatians 2:20, 1 Peter 3:18). Biblically, repentance and faith can be likened to the two sides of the salvation
coin, there being no true repentance apart from faith or true faith apart from repentance14 (Matthew 4:17, Acts 3:19, 16:31; Romans 10:9). Any theological construct that presumes salvation by faith and good works or faith without repentance has no biblical ground upon which to stand15 (Luke 9:23). Furthermore, the Bible knows no understanding of salvation wherein Christ can be
received as Savior but not Lord; such makes Christ a God to be believed but not followed (Luke 6:46). Christ has no intention to save a soul lest that soul be one
that takes Him as Lord and turns from that for which He died. John Stott states “Jesus never concealed the fact that his religion included a demand as well as an
offer. Indeed, the demand was as total as the offer was free. If he offered men his salvation, he also demanded their submission. He gave no encouragement whatsoever to thoughtless applicants for discipleship. He brought no pressure to bear on any inquirer. He sent irresponsible enthusiasts empty away … The Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict, half-built towersthe
ruins of those who began to build and were unable to finish. For thousands of people still ignore Christ’s warning and undertake to follow him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of doing so. The result is the great
scandal of Christendom today, so-called ‘nominal Christianity’ … In countries to which Christian civilization has spread, large numbers of people have covered themselves with a decent, but thin, veneer of Christianity. They have allowed themselves to become somewhat involved; enough to be respectable but not enough to be uncomfortable. Their religion is a great soft cushion. It protects them from the hard unpleasantness of life, while changing its place and shape to suit their convenience.”
It is disturbing how many Christians give testimony to the contrary stating that they received Christ at a certain age as Savior and a later age as Lord believing they were saved all along. John Gilmore states the effects of this theology in the church by stating “Most of congregationalism’s flaws are the result of refusing to acknowledge Jesus’ Lordship as propounded in the New Testament … The organizational chart of original congregationalism that had Christ and His Word over all is
reversed in many churches today. In such churches, instead of the Word of God being taken as the standard, the individual is elevated to be the standard. Defense of this approach, of the elevation of the individual, is that it is the American way. However, in God’s Church, the elevation of the individual is the nemesis of true Christianity.”
We do well to examine whether we preach, teach and call men to Christ as the living Lord or a distant relict of religion (Isaiah 48:1). Jesus is entirely more than
a crutch for this week’s trials, a pleasant thought at funeral homes or a mysterious force that can somehow help people with financial debt. All these things Jesus can
and will overcome for His people, but He will do it as Lord or not at all. As sure as one cannot be saved lest by repentance and faith, one cannot receive the life
and power of Christ unless He is received both as Lord and Savior.
Blessings,
TJ
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Brother,
This was actually an issue that was born out of a concern for my own walk with Christ. I had heard something on this topic from MacArthur that sort of whet my whistle and left me hungering for more of this. So I began to study it out as a theme in the New Testament for my personal devotions. I really felt like my walk at that time was not stagnant, but slowing down a bit and I really needed something to spur me on. I really got a lot out of this study and felt the need to share that with Limestone. Some of our best sermons, I think anyway, come from what matters most to us.
Leave all the book excerpts on here that you want. That is an excellent chapter, by the way. I love that quote from Stott. I agree with you that evangelicalism has gone far away from the Biblical Gospel. What reigns supreme now is my own authority and that has got to go. Anytime we think of ourselves more highly than God, we are headed down a path that leads to perdition. May God have mercy on this Laodicean age we live in.
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:46 am
I am seaching for some idea to write in my blog… somehow come to your blog. best of luck. Eugene