No Longer Slaves//Bethel Music
To understand being a slave to sin, you first have to understand what it was like before sin. “So God created humankind in his image…” (Genesis 1:27) We lived in perfect harmony with God, but then “sin” came along and we disobeyed God. Eyes were opened to the good of the world, but also the evil.. This allowed humankind to understand the wants and desires of everything including those that went against the Will of God. At this point, humans were faced with temptations of worldly desire.
“I'm no longer a slave to fear
I am a child of God”
To be completely honest, we never become totally “free”. You are free from sin, not free from Him, you are NOT free from the judgment of God. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under Grace? By no means! … You are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness” (Romans 6:15-17)
“I am surrounded
By the arms of the father
I am surrounded
By songs of deliverance
We've been liberated
From our bondage
We're the sons and the daughters
Let us sing our freedom”
We are slaves in a sense, that one day we will gain freedom. Freedom from our dead, physical bodies. The more we do in this life with our physical bodies to glorify Him, the more we are rewarded after we are free from our body. “Each will be repaid in accordance to what they have done” (Romans 2:6)
“I'm no longer a slave to fear
I am a child of God”
I was listening to someone a lot smarter than me explain what Christianity is like. Imagine you’re walking in a mall with two floors connected by an escalator. This escalator is representative of your faith life. One thing though… there’s only one escalator… and it goes down… you’re on the bottom floor. In order to fully mature in your faith, you have to make it to the top. You take that first step and in one instant you realize that if you stop at any point in your journey to the top, you’ll fall backwards. The biggest thing to deal with is, you seem to fall faster than you climb. You always have to be moving forward in your faith. Always moving toward Jesus. Always striving to reach the top… or the “pinnacle” of your faith.
But here’s another cool thing to think about. Jesus told a parable (Matthew 20:1-16) about workers in a vineyard. Some worked all day, and some worked for an hour. All of them got paid the same. Jesus is telling us that it does not matter how high or how low you are on the escalator. As long as you are on it, and not watching from the bottom floor, He will see you from the top floor and accept your efforts and you will be paid equally with a place in heaven.
Genesis 1:27 “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
Romans 6:15-17 “What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted,”
Romans 2:6 “For he will repay according to each one’s deeds:”
Matthew 20:1-16 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
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