Free: For What?
Sermon
ACTING ON THE ABSURD
Second Lesson Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost
Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina sits on property that was once a large southern plantation. The land was given to the Roman Catholic Church and they built an abbey and college on the property. The monks found a huge granite stone on that property upon which men, women, and children stood centuries ago and were sold as slaves. The monks took the stone and hollowed out a hole in the top and carried it into the abbey's chapel, where to this day it serves as a baptismal font. The engraving on it reads: "Upon this rock men were once sold into slavery. Now upon this rock, through the waters of baptism, people become free children of God."1
Free children of God! Free! But what does it mean to be a free child of God? It is to this question that Paul addresses himself in chapter 6. In verse 6, he states, "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin" (NIV). No longer slaves to sin - we have been set free! We now have a choice. We now have the ability to say no to sin because there is a power unleashed in us that is greater than sin's control. No longer are we a helpless pawn blown about by every shifting wind. We have Christ's power within us through his victory over sin. Now we can win the victory over sin's control. But beware! Our newfound power of choice brings with it an accompanying responsibility.
We no longer have an excuse! We no longer can affix the blame to anyone or anything else. As Paul states in verse 14, "For sin shall not be your master ..." (NIV). We now have the power to say, "No," to take matters in our own hands and to take responsibility for our own actions. No longer can we blame our environment or our parents or poor potty training. No longer can we hide under the excuse that the government is at fault. Or the church! That's it! It's the church's fault. Or vice versa, the devil made me do it! We no longer can blame anyone! We are at fault! We can only blame ourselves. We sin because we choose to sin. We deny God's ability in us to win the victory over sin. We are responsible for ourselves because God has placed within us his power to choose good over evil. Sin does not have to be our master. We can let his grace reign in us as a free child of God.
Now the question remains, "Free, for what?" What shall we do with this marvelous gift of freedom that God has placed within us because of Christ's victory on the cross? Paul says that we are free not to do certain things. We are free not to be partial Christians. We are free not to hold on to different parts of our lives as if they did not go through the baptismal waters. We remember that in the book of Romans the word "sin" not only includes individual acts of sin but speaks about a general direction for our lives. When we are headed in a direction, we don't go back. That is why Paul is saying, "Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness but rather offer yourselves to God." Part of our bodies? They say during the Middle Ages when a soldier was baptized, often the soldier held his right hand out of the water. He would not allow his right hand to go under the baptismal waters because that soldier knew if that right hand was baptized he could no longer kill.
What kind of baptism would that be if one deliberately and intentionally held back part of oneself from God? A partial Christian? A contradiction in terms! But think a moment! Are there areas of our lives that we are seeking to conceal or withhold from God? Are there rooms in our house that we keep locked and hidden from view? Is there a secret closet? Is there a part of our lives that has not been baptized? What about our pocketbook? Did our wallet get wet? What about our leisure time? Is God the Lord over the books we read, the movies we see, the recreational places we attend? What about our stomach? Do we allow God to help us discipline our appetite for food? What about our appetite for sex? Some seem to think we can divorce our commitment to Christ from our moral ethical decisions. Did we allow our driving habits to be baptized? (Ouch!) Do we allow God's power to operate in us in that we give our families proper respect, energy, and attention? Are there areas where we still want to hold on to old habits and ways? Do we have parts that we held out of the baptismal waters? How would you complete this sentence? Jesus is the Lord of my life except for ____________________!
In Philip Yancey's wonderful book What's So Amazing About Grace, he tells the story of Big Harold. Big Harold was a strong influence in Yancey's young life. Known for his impeccable morals, Big Harold was stern and strict. He used the Bible like a weapon to keep people in line. Harold was obsessed with morality. He often complained about the United States being too permissive, even to the point where he moved to another country to flee from the U.S.A.'s moral self--indulgence. It was in this other country that he found a job censoring books and magazines, much to his legalistic liking. He even started a church where he was the pastor. Again his contempt of permissiveness prevailed as he forbade young people in his church to chew gum, pass notes, or even whisper during the sermon.
Yancey decided that he would pay Big Harold a visit. Big Harold's family met Yancey at the airport, but no Big Harold. "Where's Big Harold?" The faces of embarrassment were evident. Big Harold was not there because he was in prison for running a pornography ring at the very same time he was the stern and autocratic pastor! A porno ring? How in the world could that be? How could one be so strict and stern but yet have one area of one's life so totally unyielded to God - an area of one's life that stood in direct contrast and contradiction to everything else for which one seemingly stood? How could this be?
The prayer group of which I am a member recently studied the Yancey book. One member commented upon Big Harold's hypocrisy, "Big Harold's radical extremism was a defense mechanism to cover up the fact that he felt inferior. He felt that he had never been loved and saw himself as unworthy." Does our group member have a point? Possibly so. Perhaps Big Harold felt so unloved that he lived a fragmented life. His life was so disconnected that he could blot out one area of his life and completely remove it from all the others. God does not want us to be fragmented or partial Christians. He baptized all of us. He put to death the old life completely and raised us to walk in the complete newness of his life. Sin should not be our master. We should not be fragmented or disconnected. Christ has made us whole.
We should not settle for a partial faith or a puny one. That's right! A puny one! We should not settle for one half or part of the Christian life. Fred B. Craddock has stated that one of the biggest faults he hears in sermons today is that they are puny. They are little, thin, and have no size. Can it be true that sometimes little preachers proclaim a puny God restricted to one's own small experience or particular creed? Do we sometimes arrogantly argue as if God is in our back pocket and can operate only under the confines of our experience, theology, denomination, or circle of friends? Is our God too small, our perspective too narrow, our vision exclusive? Do we have a puny faith?
Again Yancey is helpful. He states that often in the churches of his particular background much energy and emphasis were placed upon the length of one's hair, whether one should wear jewelry, or listen to rock music. Never was heard a word about racial injustice, the plight of blacks in the South, or the horrors of the Holocaust. He said that they were too busy measuring the hem length of skirts to say a word about nuclear war or world hunger. If it is true that we perceive a puny God and practice a puny faith, then often we come to church only to express our likes and dislikes, as if our experience is the only way God's activity in the world can be interpreted.
Paul is stating in verse 13 that we have not been brought through the waters of baptism to settle for a partial or puny faith. In verses 16 and 17 he continues to emphasize that we have not been given new life through baptism to recede into the past. "Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey - whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted" (vv. 16--17 NIV). We must not revert to old habits or reach back and drag along that which does not belong to our present Christian experience.
One day Paul Harvey was talking about modern day Russia. He said that the people have no idea what to do with their newfound freedom. Some have romanticized about the old days of Communism and desire to return to their former slavery. Others have no personal discipline or morals and have looted over 30,000 valuable art works. Freedom can be a frightening thing when one does not know how to handle it.
Paul states that God has not saved us to go back into our old life and drag it along like a heavy burden. God has not saved us to possess a partial religion. No! God has saved us to be free children of God. He has saved us to be slaves. Yes! But to be slaves to righteousness and to God. "You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness" (v. 28 NIV).
Bob Dylan used to sing the song "You Gonna Have To Serve Somebody." In his nasal twang he would spout, "It might be the devil, it might be the Lord. But you gonna have to serve somebody." It is true. The only freedom we have is to select the Lord unto which we give our lives. Do we live our lives subject to the slavery of sin or do we live our lives under the Lordship of Christ?
We have been set free. We have been given complete forgiveness. The slate is wiped clean. We have been given the indwelling Holy Spirit's power to say, "No," to sin's control. We now are free children of God, inheritors of the very life of Christ. What are we going to do with our newly found freedom? Free, for what?
Paul explains! "I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever--increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness" (v. 19 NIV). "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" (v. 22 NIV). I think that Paul is saying that there must be an ethical dimension to our faith. Christ must make some kind of difference in our everyday life. I think that he is saying that since we are "weak in our natural selves," we must be free to discipline and equip ourselves to exercise our freedom only to Christ in a way that "leads to holiness." If he is Lord, I am not. What are the essentials that lead me as I follow the Master?
One essential in our spiritual discipline is Bible study. Good Bible study sets before us all of the Bible, not just the parts we prefer. You may remember that Thomas Jefferson went through his Bible and cut out all the parts he did not like! I think that God wants us to read his word in almost a naive way, as if we had never read it before or we don't know what it says before we read it. We are to sit before God's word as it becomes a mirror that convicts us of any sin and self--centeredness. We look into all of his Word to find God's will for our lives. We do not look into God's Word searching for proof--texts often taken out of context, to prop up our own beliefs, or to sanction what we have already decided to do, then boastfully brag, "God told me to do this!" Sitting before God's Word can bring the power of conviction and guidance. That's why we need the discipline of daily Bible study.
It also is true that the more I learn about God's Word, the more I realize how little I know. I realize I do not have the corner on God or the truth. Disciplined study of God's Word helps to keep suppressed my pride, arrogance, and judgmentalism. I wonder if Big Harold ever said, "I don't know?"
We also need the discipline of prayer. When we listen as well as speak in prayer, God keeps us humble. As one has said, "It is hard to have your nose in the air when you are bowed on your knees." In prayer we are reminded that we have nothing of which we can boast, and the only cure for our condition of sin is his grace. We realize that we cannot live life in our own power and must have his.
Elizabeth O'Connor related the story of two men who rode to work together in a car pool. Each day one would ask the other to let him off at a house of worship on the way home. Finally, the driver asked, "What do you do when you go into that church?" The other responded, "I look at him. He looks at me." In the true discipline of prayer, I see him for what he is. In the true discipline of prayer, I see myself for what I am and somewhat of what I can become."
We not only need the discipline of prayer, we must have the discipline of private and corporate worship. It is in worship that we are reminded of the majesty, the expanse, and the breadth of God. Pushed aside are our petty concepts of a puny God who is narrow and confined to our experiences, whims, and prejudices. We come to worship and are bowled over by a God who is bigger than our minds can conceive. We hear of a God who explodes the universe into being, out of nothing, with the mere sound of his voice! Bam! Nothing is too great for this great God. This is a God of all the peoples of all the earth - not just our people, or the people we like, or the people who like us. This is a God who not only freed the Israelites from Egypt but also the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir (Amos 9:7). He is a God who seeks to love all the peoples of the earth. His reason for selecting me as his child is to love me and send me to show his love to everyone who knows it not. He sends all of us as missionaries to the entire world because his son died for everyone. This is not a puny God.
When we wade through the waters of baptism, we not only acquire a new discipline, we receive a new direction. Our lives are on a different course, headed toward a different goal. That new direction is nothing less than toward the goal of Christ--likeness. Our ambition now is to exemplify the servanthood role of Jesus himself. Harold Warlick, in his book The Human Condition In Biblical Perspective, quotes Henry Ward Beecher, "Religion means work; religion means work in a dirty world; religion means peril; blows given, blows taken as well ... The world is to be cleaned by somebody; and you are not a child of God if you are ashamed to scour and scrub."2 We are again born and baptized for a new discipline and a new direction to be like Jesus and to take on his servant mentality. We are again born and baptized to assume a new destiny. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (v. 23 NIV).
Michael Hargrove tells the story of a life--changing experience while waiting to pick up a friend in the Portland, Oregon, airport. As he was waiting, he noticed a man coming toward him carrying two light bags. The man stopped to greet his family. The man motioned to his youngest son (maybe six years old) as he laid down his bags. Mike Hargrove said that this man literally took up this six--year--old boy, put him in his arms, squeezed him tightly, and kissed him and told him how much he loved him. He then sat the six year old down and gazed into the eyes of his oldest son (about nine or ten), and while cupping his son's face in his hands said, "I love you very much, Zach, and I've missed you."
While this was happening, a baby girl (about a year old) was squirming excitedly in her mother's arms. She never took her eyes off her father. The father then took her into his arms and said, "Hi, baby girl." He kissed her face all over and held her close to his chest while rocking her from side to side. After a few moments, he handed his daughter to his oldest son and declared, "I've saved the best for last!" Mike Hargrove said that he proceeded to give his wife the longest, most passionate kiss he had ever seen displayed in public, and then he silently mouthed, "I love you so much!" He said that they stared into each other's eyes with big smiles and held hands. They reminded Mike Hargrove of newlyweds.
As Mike Hargrove was watching this wonderful display of unconditional love, he found himself thinking out loud. He was surprised to hear his own voice ask, "Wow! How long have you two been married?" The man said, "Been married twelve years." Mike Hargrove then asked, "How long have you been away?" "Two whole days!" Mike was stunned. He thought by the intensity of the greeting he had been gone for several weeks. Mike Hargrove said almost offhandedly, "I hope my marriage is still that passionate after twelve years!"
Mike said the man stopped smiling, looked him straight in the eye, and said, "Don't hope, friend ... decide." And with that the man smiled again, took Mike Hargrove's hand, and said, "God bless you," and the man and his family walked away. The person for whom Mike had been waiting joined him and said, "What are you looking at?" Mike Hargrove said, "My future!"3
Dr. Stephen Brown relates the following story. When Abraham Lincoln went to the slave market once, he was moved with compassion to place a bid on a young black girl. He won the bid and walked away with his "property." There was a sullen, angry expression on the black girl's face, because she felt that here was another white man who had bought her and would abuse her. As they walked away from the slave block, Lincoln told the girl, "You are free."
"What does that mean?" she demanded.
"It means, you are free."
"Does it mean that I can be what I want to be?" she asked.
"Yes," replied Lincoln, "you can be what you want to be."
"Does it mean I can say what I want to say?" she asked, her anger softening.
"Yes," Lincoln answered, "you can say what you want to say."
"Does it mean," she went on, "that I can go where I want to go?"
"Yes, you can go where you want to go."
"Then," said the girl, "I will go with you."
We are free to follow Christ!
____________
1. Robert A. Beringer, Something's Coming ... Something Great (Lima: CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 1992), p. 68.
2. Harold C. Warlick, Jr., The Human Condition In Biblical Perspective (Lima: CSS Publishing Co., Inc., 1998), p. 167.
3. Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, A 5th Portion Of Chicken Soup For The Soul (Deerfield Beach, Florida: Health Communications, Inc., 1998), p. 72.
Free children of God! Free! But what does it mean to be a free child of God? It is to this question that Paul addresses himself in chapter 6. In verse 6, he states, "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin" (NIV). No longer slaves to sin - we have been set free! We now have a choice. We now have the ability to say no to sin because there is a power unleashed in us that is greater than sin's control. No longer are we a helpless pawn blown about by every shifting wind. We have Christ's power within us through his victory over sin. Now we can win the victory over sin's control. But beware! Our newfound power of choice brings with it an accompanying responsibility.
We no longer have an excuse! We no longer can affix the blame to anyone or anything else. As Paul states in verse 14, "For sin shall not be your master ..." (NIV). We now have the power to say, "No," to take matters in our own hands and to take responsibility for our own actions. No longer can we blame our environment or our parents or poor potty training. No longer can we hide under the excuse that the government is at fault. Or the church! That's it! It's the church's fault. Or vice versa, the devil made me do it! We no longer can blame anyone! We are at fault! We can only blame ourselves. We sin because we choose to sin. We deny God's ability in us to win the victory over sin. We are responsible for ourselves because God has placed within us his power to choose good over evil. Sin does not have to be our master. We can let his grace reign in us as a free child of God.
Now the question remains, "Free, for what?" What shall we do with this marvelous gift of freedom that God has placed within us because of Christ's victory on the cross? Paul says that we are free not to do certain things. We are free not to be partial Christians. We are free not to hold on to different parts of our lives as if they did not go through the baptismal waters. We remember that in the book of Romans the word "sin" not only includes individual acts of sin but speaks about a general direction for our lives. When we are headed in a direction, we don't go back. That is why Paul is saying, "Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness but rather offer yourselves to God." Part of our bodies? They say during the Middle Ages when a soldier was baptized, often the soldier held his right hand out of the water. He would not allow his right hand to go under the baptismal waters because that soldier knew if that right hand was baptized he could no longer kill.
What kind of baptism would that be if one deliberately and intentionally held back part of oneself from God? A partial Christian? A contradiction in terms! But think a moment! Are there areas of our lives that we are seeking to conceal or withhold from God? Are there rooms in our house that we keep locked and hidden from view? Is there a secret closet? Is there a part of our lives that has not been baptized? What about our pocketbook? Did our wallet get wet? What about our leisure time? Is God the Lord over the books we read, the movies we see, the recreational places we attend? What about our stomach? Do we allow God to help us discipline our appetite for food? What about our appetite for sex? Some seem to think we can divorce our commitment to Christ from our moral ethical decisions. Did we allow our driving habits to be baptized? (Ouch!) Do we allow God's power to operate in us in that we give our families proper respect, energy, and attention? Are there areas where we still want to hold on to old habits and ways? Do we have parts that we held out of the baptismal waters? How would you complete this sentence? Jesus is the Lord of my life except for ____________________!
In Philip Yancey's wonderful book What's So Amazing About Grace, he tells the story of Big Harold. Big Harold was a strong influence in Yancey's young life. Known for his impeccable morals, Big Harold was stern and strict. He used the Bible like a weapon to keep people in line. Harold was obsessed with morality. He often complained about the United States being too permissive, even to the point where he moved to another country to flee from the U.S.A.'s moral self--indulgence. It was in this other country that he found a job censoring books and magazines, much to his legalistic liking. He even started a church where he was the pastor. Again his contempt of permissiveness prevailed as he forbade young people in his church to chew gum, pass notes, or even whisper during the sermon.
Yancey decided that he would pay Big Harold a visit. Big Harold's family met Yancey at the airport, but no Big Harold. "Where's Big Harold?" The faces of embarrassment were evident. Big Harold was not there because he was in prison for running a pornography ring at the very same time he was the stern and autocratic pastor! A porno ring? How in the world could that be? How could one be so strict and stern but yet have one area of one's life so totally unyielded to God - an area of one's life that stood in direct contrast and contradiction to everything else for which one seemingly stood? How could this be?
The prayer group of which I am a member recently studied the Yancey book. One member commented upon Big Harold's hypocrisy, "Big Harold's radical extremism was a defense mechanism to cover up the fact that he felt inferior. He felt that he had never been loved and saw himself as unworthy." Does our group member have a point? Possibly so. Perhaps Big Harold felt so unloved that he lived a fragmented life. His life was so disconnected that he could blot out one area of his life and completely remove it from all the others. God does not want us to be fragmented or partial Christians. He baptized all of us. He put to death the old life completely and raised us to walk in the complete newness of his life. Sin should not be our master. We should not be fragmented or disconnected. Christ has made us whole.
We should not settle for a partial faith or a puny one. That's right! A puny one! We should not settle for one half or part of the Christian life. Fred B. Craddock has stated that one of the biggest faults he hears in sermons today is that they are puny. They are little, thin, and have no size. Can it be true that sometimes little preachers proclaim a puny God restricted to one's own small experience or particular creed? Do we sometimes arrogantly argue as if God is in our back pocket and can operate only under the confines of our experience, theology, denomination, or circle of friends? Is our God too small, our perspective too narrow, our vision exclusive? Do we have a puny faith?
Again Yancey is helpful. He states that often in the churches of his particular background much energy and emphasis were placed upon the length of one's hair, whether one should wear jewelry, or listen to rock music. Never was heard a word about racial injustice, the plight of blacks in the South, or the horrors of the Holocaust. He said that they were too busy measuring the hem length of skirts to say a word about nuclear war or world hunger. If it is true that we perceive a puny God and practice a puny faith, then often we come to church only to express our likes and dislikes, as if our experience is the only way God's activity in the world can be interpreted.
Paul is stating in verse 13 that we have not been brought through the waters of baptism to settle for a partial or puny faith. In verses 16 and 17 he continues to emphasize that we have not been given new life through baptism to recede into the past. "Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey - whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted" (vv. 16--17 NIV). We must not revert to old habits or reach back and drag along that which does not belong to our present Christian experience.
One day Paul Harvey was talking about modern day Russia. He said that the people have no idea what to do with their newfound freedom. Some have romanticized about the old days of Communism and desire to return to their former slavery. Others have no personal discipline or morals and have looted over 30,000 valuable art works. Freedom can be a frightening thing when one does not know how to handle it.
Paul states that God has not saved us to go back into our old life and drag it along like a heavy burden. God has not saved us to possess a partial religion. No! God has saved us to be free children of God. He has saved us to be slaves. Yes! But to be slaves to righteousness and to God. "You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness" (v. 28 NIV).
Bob Dylan used to sing the song "You Gonna Have To Serve Somebody." In his nasal twang he would spout, "It might be the devil, it might be the Lord. But you gonna have to serve somebody." It is true. The only freedom we have is to select the Lord unto which we give our lives. Do we live our lives subject to the slavery of sin or do we live our lives under the Lordship of Christ?
We have been set free. We have been given complete forgiveness. The slate is wiped clean. We have been given the indwelling Holy Spirit's power to say, "No," to sin's control. We now are free children of God, inheritors of the very life of Christ. What are we going to do with our newly found freedom? Free, for what?
Paul explains! "I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever--increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness" (v. 19 NIV). "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" (v. 22 NIV). I think that Paul is saying that there must be an ethical dimension to our faith. Christ must make some kind of difference in our everyday life. I think that he is saying that since we are "weak in our natural selves," we must be free to discipline and equip ourselves to exercise our freedom only to Christ in a way that "leads to holiness." If he is Lord, I am not. What are the essentials that lead me as I follow the Master?
One essential in our spiritual discipline is Bible study. Good Bible study sets before us all of the Bible, not just the parts we prefer. You may remember that Thomas Jefferson went through his Bible and cut out all the parts he did not like! I think that God wants us to read his word in almost a naive way, as if we had never read it before or we don't know what it says before we read it. We are to sit before God's word as it becomes a mirror that convicts us of any sin and self--centeredness. We look into all of his Word to find God's will for our lives. We do not look into God's Word searching for proof--texts often taken out of context, to prop up our own beliefs, or to sanction what we have already decided to do, then boastfully brag, "God told me to do this!" Sitting before God's Word can bring the power of conviction and guidance. That's why we need the discipline of daily Bible study.
It also is true that the more I learn about God's Word, the more I realize how little I know. I realize I do not have the corner on God or the truth. Disciplined study of God's Word helps to keep suppressed my pride, arrogance, and judgmentalism. I wonder if Big Harold ever said, "I don't know?"
We also need the discipline of prayer. When we listen as well as speak in prayer, God keeps us humble. As one has said, "It is hard to have your nose in the air when you are bowed on your knees." In prayer we are reminded that we have nothing of which we can boast, and the only cure for our condition of sin is his grace. We realize that we cannot live life in our own power and must have his.
Elizabeth O'Connor related the story of two men who rode to work together in a car pool. Each day one would ask the other to let him off at a house of worship on the way home. Finally, the driver asked, "What do you do when you go into that church?" The other responded, "I look at him. He looks at me." In the true discipline of prayer, I see him for what he is. In the true discipline of prayer, I see myself for what I am and somewhat of what I can become."
We not only need the discipline of prayer, we must have the discipline of private and corporate worship. It is in worship that we are reminded of the majesty, the expanse, and the breadth of God. Pushed aside are our petty concepts of a puny God who is narrow and confined to our experiences, whims, and prejudices. We come to worship and are bowled over by a God who is bigger than our minds can conceive. We hear of a God who explodes the universe into being, out of nothing, with the mere sound of his voice! Bam! Nothing is too great for this great God. This is a God of all the peoples of all the earth - not just our people, or the people we like, or the people who like us. This is a God who not only freed the Israelites from Egypt but also the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir (Amos 9:7). He is a God who seeks to love all the peoples of the earth. His reason for selecting me as his child is to love me and send me to show his love to everyone who knows it not. He sends all of us as missionaries to the entire world because his son died for everyone. This is not a puny God.
When we wade through the waters of baptism, we not only acquire a new discipline, we receive a new direction. Our lives are on a different course, headed toward a different goal. That new direction is nothing less than toward the goal of Christ--likeness. Our ambition now is to exemplify the servanthood role of Jesus himself. Harold Warlick, in his book The Human Condition In Biblical Perspective, quotes Henry Ward Beecher, "Religion means work; religion means work in a dirty world; religion means peril; blows given, blows taken as well ... The world is to be cleaned by somebody; and you are not a child of God if you are ashamed to scour and scrub."2 We are again born and baptized for a new discipline and a new direction to be like Jesus and to take on his servant mentality. We are again born and baptized to assume a new destiny. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (v. 23 NIV).
Michael Hargrove tells the story of a life--changing experience while waiting to pick up a friend in the Portland, Oregon, airport. As he was waiting, he noticed a man coming toward him carrying two light bags. The man stopped to greet his family. The man motioned to his youngest son (maybe six years old) as he laid down his bags. Mike Hargrove said that this man literally took up this six--year--old boy, put him in his arms, squeezed him tightly, and kissed him and told him how much he loved him. He then sat the six year old down and gazed into the eyes of his oldest son (about nine or ten), and while cupping his son's face in his hands said, "I love you very much, Zach, and I've missed you."
While this was happening, a baby girl (about a year old) was squirming excitedly in her mother's arms. She never took her eyes off her father. The father then took her into his arms and said, "Hi, baby girl." He kissed her face all over and held her close to his chest while rocking her from side to side. After a few moments, he handed his daughter to his oldest son and declared, "I've saved the best for last!" Mike Hargrove said that he proceeded to give his wife the longest, most passionate kiss he had ever seen displayed in public, and then he silently mouthed, "I love you so much!" He said that they stared into each other's eyes with big smiles and held hands. They reminded Mike Hargrove of newlyweds.
As Mike Hargrove was watching this wonderful display of unconditional love, he found himself thinking out loud. He was surprised to hear his own voice ask, "Wow! How long have you two been married?" The man said, "Been married twelve years." Mike Hargrove then asked, "How long have you been away?" "Two whole days!" Mike was stunned. He thought by the intensity of the greeting he had been gone for several weeks. Mike Hargrove said almost offhandedly, "I hope my marriage is still that passionate after twelve years!"
Mike said the man stopped smiling, looked him straight in the eye, and said, "Don't hope, friend ... decide." And with that the man smiled again, took Mike Hargrove's hand, and said, "God bless you," and the man and his family walked away. The person for whom Mike had been waiting joined him and said, "What are you looking at?" Mike Hargrove said, "My future!"3
Dr. Stephen Brown relates the following story. When Abraham Lincoln went to the slave market once, he was moved with compassion to place a bid on a young black girl. He won the bid and walked away with his "property." There was a sullen, angry expression on the black girl's face, because she felt that here was another white man who had bought her and would abuse her. As they walked away from the slave block, Lincoln told the girl, "You are free."
"What does that mean?" she demanded.
"It means, you are free."
"Does it mean that I can be what I want to be?" she asked.
"Yes," replied Lincoln, "you can be what you want to be."
"Does it mean I can say what I want to say?" she asked, her anger softening.
"Yes," Lincoln answered, "you can say what you want to say."
"Does it mean," she went on, "that I can go where I want to go?"
"Yes, you can go where you want to go."
"Then," said the girl, "I will go with you."
We are free to follow Christ!
____________
1. Robert A. Beringer, Something's Coming ... Something Great (Lima: CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 1992), p. 68.
2. Harold C. Warlick, Jr., The Human Condition In Biblical Perspective (Lima: CSS Publishing Co., Inc., 1998), p. 167.
3. Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, A 5th Portion Of Chicken Soup For The Soul (Deerfield Beach, Florida: Health Communications, Inc., 1998), p. 72.
