Freedom In Discipline | Sermon 11/27/2022

2 Peter 1:1-11

The Christian life is a life of freedom, but it is also a life of slavery.

Jesus states,

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” (Matt 6:24)

We are told that we were once slaves to sin, but now are slaves to Christ which we were purchased through the blood of Jesus, 1 Cor 6:20.

In the life of Jesus poured out on the cross, his blood was the payment for the redemption of His people.

We were redeemed from a debt that we could not afford with our own life or blood.

Therefore when we were dead in our sins, our slavery was to sin. Our nature was defiled, and the wrath of God was kindled against our very being.

Now Christ, being the Creator of the Universe sought out His people and ransomed them from the pit.

Job 33:28

“He has redeemed my soul from going down into the pit, and my life shall look upon the light.’”

We are therefore not our own (1 Cor 6:19), we do not belong to ourselves, we are not the truth to ourselves, we are not a law unto ourselves. We belong to Christ. Our lives, like Job states are now to look upon the light. Our lives should reflect that in which we dwell.

1 John 1:6-7

“If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

This is where we sit, people redeemed - purchased by blood of Christ on the precipice of a post-Christian culture.

Do we live as Christians thinking that the answers to our many problems lie within culture? That the many self-help gurus and life-coaches out there will bring about the change in our lives that we have been searching for?

As we look down into the pit of Neo-Paganism, Socialism, Agnosticism and Atheistm are we deliberating a jump into the slavery of Post-Modernism?

If that is you, you are no longer on the precipice you have jumped head first into the self-help, selfish culture of post-modernism; leaving behind your first love, Jesus-Christ. - Mark 5 (soils)

Let me digress and let me be clear, there can never be a post-Christian culture - All Culture is governed and judged by Christ.

You cannot take Christ off His throne BUT You can play pretend.

Thus all forms of piety, knowledge, and virtues apart from God are just that.

They are the whims of men, playing pretend and they cannot bring about the positive reformation of the world. Instead as counterfeit ethics and virtues they only bring about the destruction of society and the inevitable hate of our own neighbors.

We live in a world of playing pretend, girls can be boys, 2 + 2 can be whatever you want, inflation and recession is the sign of moral governmental progress by the redistribution of wealth through theft, the origin of our species is that of a highly evolved protoplasm. In all honesty, when all things are meaningless people have no choice but to play pretend in order to occupy their minds from deliberating their inevitable death.

We as Christians are to not play pretend, we are truth seekers, and we are called to live a life in devotion to God. For the Mercy and Grace of God, our Master brings about a knowledge of Jesus that allows us by His Spirit to walk in the newness of life.

The mercy of our Master allows us to live with virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection and finally in totality, love.

In effect these attributes are a reflection of the Character of God and they bring about a change in world, through Christians putting off the old- and putting on the new who is renewed in the image and likeness of their Creator (Ephesians 4:22-24).

However, due to the inaction of Christian discipline, we as Christians have become stagnant in our faith and the culture is now suffering because of it. Not only that but we think that answers to what is spiritually ailing us lie within popular, and that playing pretend is the answer.

You Christian cannot serve Two Masters.

One is real, and all others are Counterfeit.

And the mercy of the wicked is cruel, spiritually dead people in all their self-help ways, cannot bring about the spiritual reality that can only be realized through faith in God.

There is a way that seems right to a man but the ends thereof are the ways of death.

But this begs the question, how are we as Christians to be actively obedient in our faith?

In what way does Slavery to Christ mean our freedom in Discipline?

The answer is to be living a Christian life, a life that reflects that of our Saviour and King Jesus Christ.

We must submit ourselves to God’s word and discipline ourselves to grow in the knowledge of Jesus for in Him is the prerequisite to all that is excellent and honorable in character and deed.

Understand that the world needs less of you and more of Christ