REAL FREEDOM
THE 52 GREATEST STORIES OF THE BIBLE • Sermon • Submitted
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What is the process by which change happens? If you need to see changes in your life, how does that flow from belief in Jesus?
What is the process by which change really happens? If you need to see changes in your life, how does that flow from belief in Jesus?
Paul, in , lays out how faith in Christ concretely leads to changes. It’s succinctly put, in , but it’s entirely taught in , and that’s where we will focus our attention today.
The whole section revolves around the question in verse 1 and verse 15. The question arises from Paul’s teaching about the gospel. In 1–5 of Romans, he lays out the gospel. The gospel has a theme in it that’s unique to all the world religions and all the philosophies of the world … that salvation is received; it’s not achieved. It’s received, not based on your merit, or your goodness, or anything in you at all.
When I first embraced faith, which would be late college or right after college, I had a number of things in my life that needed profound change. Nothing seemed to work until two Christian writers, one from the seventeenth century, John Owen, and one from the twentieth century, John Stott (whom I had just really met) both directed me in their writings to .
When this is teaching is taught a particular question arises. If salvation is sheerly by grace and it has nothing to do with how you live, why not live any way you want? Why would you want to change? Why would this kind of message change you at all?” “It seems to me,” somebody might say, “this message would leave you exactly the way you were.”
Paul, in , lays out how faith in Christ concretely leads to changes, and what the process really consists of. It’s more succinctly put, in , but it’s most fully taught in , and that’s what we’re going to look at.
The whole section, chapters 6–8, revolves around the question you heard posed twice, b in verse 1 and verse 15. You heard it read. The question arises from Paul’s teaching about the gospel. In 1–5 of Romans, he lays out the gospel. The gospel has a theme in it that’s unique to all the world religions and all the philosophies of the world … that salvation is received; it’s not achieved. It’s received, not on the basis of your merit, or your goodness, or anything in you at all. That’s radical.
Paul answers that, and in the process, he gives us three principles for change.
First, you must recognize the shape of your spiritual slavery, you have to realize the scope of your unity with Jesus, and you have to live daily out of your new identity.
Whenever you hear that form of teaching, whenever that gospel teaching is laid out, immediately and inevitably (at first hearing, anyway) a question arises. “Wait a minute! If that’s the case, if salvation is sheerly by grace and it has nothing to do with how you live, why not live any way you want? Why would you want to change? Why would this kind of message change you at all?” “It seems to me,” somebody might say, “this message would leave you exactly the way you were.”
Recognize your spiritual slavery
Paul answers that question. If you understand the gospel, why would you change? How do you change? Why would you even want to change? Paul answers that, and in the process, he gives us three principles which, in my experience, in my pastoral work with people over the years and in my understanding and studying of the Bible, are absolutely crucial. Three keys, three secrets, three principles … I don’t know. I really want you to listen to them.
In
Three keys to real, profound life change. Here’s what they are. You have to recognize the shape of your spiritual slavery, you have to realize the scope of your cosmic unity with Jesus, and you have to live daily out of your new identity. Recognize the shape of your spiritual slavery, realize the breadth and scope of your cosmic unity with Jesus, and live daily out of your new identity.
What then? Are we to 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?
Romans verses 15 and 16, especially verse 16, Paul, after saying, “What, shall we sin that grace may abound? We’re not under law, but under grace?” No. He says, “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?”
verses 15 and 16, especially verse 16, Paul, after saying, “What, shall we sin that grace may abound? We’re not under law, but under grace?” No. He says, “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?”
In the first century, if you were facing an enormous debt, and you didn’t want to be saddled with it the rest of your life, it wasn’t uncommon for a person to actually sell themselves to a particular person for a period of time in order to work off the debt as fast as possible.
Slavery, unity, identity. Let’s look at these three things. By the way, if, when you’re done with this sermon, you say, “I really need more detail,” well, this is the introduction to a series to be continued. Come back! I won’t preach this fully, because it’s an introduction.
Therefore, you offer yourself into bond service. You are selling yourself to settle your debt. The one whom you owe becomes your master and has complete control over your life. Now that wasn’t that surprising to the original readers, but in the second half, after the dash, Paul proceeds to bring this into the spiritual realm.
He says, “Don’t you realize there are only two categories of people in the world? People who are obeying God and people who are spiritually slaves to something else. There’s no other category. There’s no third category. There’s nothing in the middle. There’s no alternative to those two.”
1. Recognize your spiritual slavery
Paul is booting off of the first commandment of the Ten Commandments. In that first commandment, God says, “I am the Lord God. I must be your God. Don’t make anything else, your god.” But notice the first commandment only says there are two categories. You either make God God, or you make something else your god, but there is no third possibility. If you don’t worship the true God, you will make something else a god in your life. There’s no one without a god.
Everybody lives for something. It is that something that gives us significance and security. For some it is a career, for others family, or achievement. It could be personal independence or the need to have people dependent on you. It could be power and influence or human approval. It could be a political cause. It could be money. It could be romance. It could be physical attractiveness.
I’m looking at verses 15 and 16. In verses 15 and 16, especially verse 16, Paul, after saying, “What, shall we sin that grace may abound? We’re not under law, but under grace?” No. He says, “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?”
It could be any number of things, but here’s what Paul is saying. “You’re going to live for something. There’s going to be something that basically makes your life feel like it’s meaningful and makes you feel like you’re worthwhile.” But he says, “Here’s what you don’t seem to know. Whatever that is, it’s a spiritual master. It’s controlling you.”
“How?” you ask. It’s in
Now the first half of verse 16 isn’t as shocking to the original readers as it seems to us. The reason why it seems somewhat shocking to us when he says “offer yourselves as slaves” is because when we read what the Bible says about slavery, we read it through the filter of our own experience of New World slavery and we think of slavery as race-based and for life.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
Paul says, “… let not sin reign in your mortal body to make you obey it passions.” Don’t let sin reign!
I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but in the first century, if you were facing a lifelong debt, an enormous debt, and you didn’t want to be saddled with it the rest of your life, it wasn’t uncommon for a person to actually sell themselves to a particular person for a period of time, for five years, for ten years, in order to work off the debt as fast as possible.
See, there are spiritual masters. You’re going to be a slave to something. Whatever it is you have given yourself to is controlling you through “its passions” Now let’s be really sympathetic to the translators. There’s a Greek word here that is very hard to translate.
Therefore, you offer yourself into bond service. You offer yourself into slavery. But Paul says the problem is you’re getting something, which, of course, is getting rid of the debt. That person is now your master. That person has complete control over your life. Now that wasn’t that surprising to the original readers, but in the second half, after the dash, Paul proceeds to bring this into the spiritual realm.
The word for passion is epithymia. Thymia means desires or drive, but the prefix to the word is epi, making it mean an overdrive or an overdesire.
He says, “Don’t you realize there are only two categories of people in the world? People who are obeying God and are in absolute, unconditional service to God, and people who are spiritually slaves to something else. There’s no other category. There’s no third category. There’s nothing in the middle. There’s no alternative to those two.”
This is not talking about desire for bad things. It’s talking about inordinate desire for good things, and that is how you lose control. There are good things in our life that we have made into ultimate things, and they control our life. They control our life because they are our means of significance and security.
Let me give you three kinds of epi-desires that will show you where your spiritual masters are.
What Paul is doing is booting off of the first commandment of the Ten Commandments. In that first commandment, God says, “I am the Lord God. I must be your God. Don’t make anything else your god.” But notice the first commandment only says there are two categories. You either make God God, or you make something else your god, but there is no third possibility. There is no alternative. You must, if you don’t worship the true God, make something else a god in your life. Even if it’s a “small g” god, there’s no one without a god.
“Now how can that be?” you say. Well, think. This is Paul’s case. Everybody lives for something. What do I mean by that? Well, to live for something means everybody has something that is their main way of significance and their main way of security, their main way to feel valuable, or like their lives are worth anything, or that they have any significance. There’s always something that is the main way you face the difficulties and dangers of life. Something is the main way.
Anger. If something blocks your getting a good thing, you get angry, but if something blocks you getting an ultimate thing, something you’ve based your life on, you get epi-angry. You lose it. You say things, then afterwards … “I don’t know why I said that.” You blow up, or you get incredibly bitter.
B. Fear. If something good in your life is threatened, you’re worried, but if something ultimate in your life is threatened, you’re paralyzed with fear. You absolutely fall apart. You can’t control your anxiety. Are you so anxious you can’t think straight? Is there something that makes you so afraid that you know you’re being driven by it?
Regardless of what your doctrinal beliefs are about religion and so on, something is the main way you get significance and the main way you get security. That could be a career, family, or achievement. It could be personal independence or the need to have people dependent on you. It could be power and influence or human approval. It could be a political cause. It could be money. It could be romance. It could be physical attractiveness.
It could be any number of things, but here’s what Paul is saying. “You’re going to live for something. There’s going to be something that basically makes your life feel like it’s meaningful and makes you feel like you’re worthwhile.” But he says, “Here’s what you don’t seem to know. Whatever that is, it’s a spiritual master. It’s controlling you. You think it’s doing something for you, and it is doing something for you, but you have offered yourself to it. You’ve offered yourself. You’ve given yourself. You’re under its control. You’re being controlled by it. It’s a spiritual master.”
C. Sadness. If you lose something good, you grieve. You weep. It’s terrible. It takes months to get over it. If you lose something that’s ultimate, you want to throw yourself off a bridge. There’s no meaning in life.
“How so?” you ask. Paul’s answer would be … Those of you who have been around me for a while or have heard this teaching before know whenever I’m talking about this subject, there’s a Greek verb somewhere nearby, the same Greek verb. Here it is. It’s in verse 12. He says, “… do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.” Don’t let sin reign!
Martin Luther, in his Large Catechism, expounds the first commandment, “Thou shall have no other gods before me.” In his exposition, he points out the first commandment is the basis for all the other commandments. He says you never do anything else wrong in your life, you don’t get over-angry or over-afraid or over-despondent, you don’t lie, you don’t kill, you don’t steal … you don’t do anything else wrong unless first you’re committing this sin.
If you have an eating disorder, you’ve offered yourself to the god of thinness. At some deep level, your heart has said, “If I have thinness, if I look like that, then I’ll be okay.”
See, there are spiritual masters. You’re going to be a slave to something. Whatever it is you have given yourself to, whatever you’ve offered yourself to, is controlling you through “evil desires.” Now let’s be really sympathetic to the translators. There’s a Greek word here that is very hard to translate.
If you’re a workaholic you’ve offered yourself to the god of money or status or achievement. If you’re in a relationship and you know and everybody knows it’s a bad relationship but you can’t give it up, you’ve made an idol out of male or female affection. You just can’t imagine not being with somebody. These things have you.
In the old King James Bible, it was usually translated “lust of the flesh.” The trouble is, though that’s actually not a bad literal translation, for you and me today, lust of the flesh means sex, and this isn’t talking about sexuality. There’s the word thymia in it, and it means desires or drive, but the prefix to the word is epi, making it mean an overdrive or an overdesire.
Here’s what Paul is saying. Everybody in the world has spiritual masters. No one in the world is free. You think you’re in control. You think you’re your own person, and you’re not. Until you get rid of that illusion, you’ll never make the changes you need to make in your life.
This is not talking about desire for bad things. It’s talking about inordinate desire for good things, and that is how you lose control. There are good things in your life you’ve made into ultimate things, and they control your life, because if they really are your means of significance, or they really are your means of security … You have to have them. You have to have them, and therefore, they control you through inordinate desires.
Do you see his first answer to the question? When a person says, “If it’s all by grace, then why do God’s will? Why not do my own will?” he says, “If you say, ‘Why not live any way I want,’ you are naïve about how the human heart works. If you’re not doing God’s will, if you’re not given wholly to him, you’re absolutely out of control.”
Let me give you three tests. Let me give you three kinds of epi-desires, three kinds of inordinate desires, that will show you where your spiritual masters are.
Everyone’s spiritual masters are different. The first step in any kind of major change is to understand yourself, and you have to recognize your spiritual slavery.
A. Anger. If something blocks your getting a good thing, you get angry, but if something blocks you getting an ultimate thing, something you’ve based your life on, you get epi-angry. You lose it. You say things, then afterwards … “I don’t know why I said that.” You blow up, or you get incredibly bitter.
2. Realize the scope of your unity with Jesus
Are you having trouble forgiving somebody? At the root of it is a spiritual master that’s controlling you through an overdesire for something. Wait a minute. See, you start to say, “Wow. This really starts making me rethink my life.” That’s the point. Let me give you a second test.
If you’re going to get the resources that are yours in Christ, you have to realize the scope of your unity with Jesus. The heart of this passage is in verses 3–5.
B. Fear. If something good in your life is threatened, you’re worried, but if something ultimate in your life is threatened, you’re paralyzed with fear. You absolutely fall apart. You can’t control your anxiety. Are you so anxious you can’t think straight? Is there something that makes you so afraid that you know you’re being driven by it? It’s because some spiritual master, something, is enslaving you and it’s controlling you. It’s directing you.
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Now, first of all, he’s talking about the baptized. Who are the baptized? These are the people who have given their lives to Christ. Baptism is sort of like the wedding ring. It’s one thing to fall in love with somebody. It’s another thing to give your life to the person. It’s one thing to be in love; it’s another thing to commit yourself. That’s the ring. That’s baptism.
Now, first of all, he’s talking about the baptized. What does that mean? It’s just his way of saying the converted. Who are the baptized? These are the people who have given their lives to Christ. Baptism is sort of like the wedding ring. It’s one thing to fall in love with somebody. It’s another thing to give your life to the person. It’s one thing to be in love; it’s another thing to commit yourself. That’s the ring. That’s baptism.
C. Sadness. If you lose something good, you grieve. You weep. It’s terrible. It takes months to get over it. If you lose something that’s ultimate, you want to throw yourself off a bridge. There’s no meaning in life.
Martin Luther, in his Large Catechism (a brilliant piece of work), expounds the first commandment, “Thou shall have no other gods before me.” In his exposition, he points out the first commandment is the basis for all the other commandments. He says you never do anything else wrong in your life, you don’t get over-angry or over-afraid or over-despondent, you don’t lie, you don’t kill, you don’t steal … you don’t do anything else wrong unless first you’re committing this sin.
What is true of these people? They’re united. United is a strange word. It’s a horticultural word, and it means engrafted into the root.
The metaphor teaches that our lives have been inserted into the very roots of his life. What does that mean? Well, look at verse 5. We have been united to the past and the future of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ past is now our past. Jesus’ future is now our future.
Something you’ve set up as an idol in your life … That’s the reason for everything that happens in your life. It’s the underlying factor in everything. If you have an eating disorder, you’ve offered yourself to the god of thinness. At some deep level, your heart has said, “If I have thinness, if I look like that, then I’ll be okay.”
If you’re a workaholic, if you overwork and you know you overwork, you’ve made a covenant. You’ve offered yourself to the god of money or status or achievement. There are very many different ways for that. If you’re in a relationship and you know and everybody knows it’s a bad relationship but you can’t give it up, you’ve made an idol out of male or female affection. You just can’t imagine not being with somebody. These things have you.
First of all, it says we died in him. Our past is his past. What does that mean? In :1-4, he says, “… you have been raised with Christ … where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above … For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
Here’s what Paul is saying. Everybody in the world has spiritual masters. No one in the world is free. You think you’re in control. You think you’re your own person, and you’re not. Until you get rid of that illusion, you’ll never make the changes you need to make in your life.
You died in him. You’re raised in him. You’re seated at the right hand of God in him. What does that mean? Imagine a person who has become rich. How did he or she become rich? He or she became rich through the talent and the hard work.
Do you see his first answer to the question? When a person says, “If it’s all by grace, then why do God’s will? Why not do my own will?” he says, “If you say, ‘Why not live any way I want,’ you are comically, fatally naïve about how the human heart works. If you’re not doing God’s will, if you’re not given wholly to him, you’re absolutely out of control.”
Now they get married. How do all those riches come to the new spouse? Through legal union, by grace. The one person has done everything in order to amass this wealth. The second person just gets married. Legal union.
This text is saying everything Jesus Christ has done is now legally true of you.
Everyone’s shape is different. Everyone’s spiritual masters are different. The first step in any kind of major change is to understand yourself, and you have to recognize the shape of your particular spiritual savior.
The determining factor in your relationship with God is no longer your past, but Christ’s past. The Father sees you as having all the beauty, greatness, and glory of his Son. He sees you as being as free from condemnation for the guilt of your sins as if you had died yourself and already paid the penalty for all your sins.
We’re united to Christ’s past but notice in verse 5 it also says, “we shall certainly be united with him in a a resurrection like this.” Do you see that certainly? It doesn’t say conditionally. “Now if you really live a good life and you come to church you certainly will be …” It doesn’t say anything like that. It says, “You certainly.” Period. There’s an indissoluble connection, the moment you believe, with the future of Jesus Christ. You are already connected to him.
There’s a fascinating Greek word that shows up twice in the Bible. It’s a philosophical term, and the name of the term is paliggenesia. Do you hear the word genesis in there? It actually means the rebirth of the cosmos. It came from Greek philosophy that believed, history was an endless cycle, and the world would get worse and worse and worse, and there would be decay and brokenness.
2. Realize the breadth and scope of your cosmic unity with Jesus
They believed that every so often there would be a purging. A great fire would cleanse and purify everything. It would take away the old and make everything new and fresh again, and history would start all over.
What do we believe as Christians? In , Jesus Christ takes that word and deliberately uses it in the most startling and astonishing way. He says, in
If you’re going to get the resources Christ gives you to change, you have to realize the scope and the breadth of the cosmic unity you have with him. The heart of this passage, this chapter, and the whole three chapters are in verses 3–5. “… don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” Verse 5: “If we have been united with him … in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.”
Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
, “At the paliggenesia …”
Now first of all, who is he talking about? He’s talking about the baptized. What does that mean? It’s just his way of saying the converted. Who are the baptized? These are the people who have given their lives to Christ. Baptism is sort of like the wedding ring. It’s one thing to fall in love with somebody. It’s another thing to give your life to the person. It’s one thing to be in love; it’s another thing to commit yourself. That’s the ring. That’s baptism.
Jesus says there will be one, not many, paliggenesia. There is a single point toward which all of history is flowing, at which everything sad will become untrue. Everything will be purged. Everything will become new, and everything will dance, and everything will be in fullness and wholeness.
Paliggenesia shows up one more time in the Bible, in an even more surprising place. In
So when he talks about baptism, he’s not talking about super-Christians. He’s talking about everybody who has really given their life to Jesus. What is true of these people? Verse 5. They’re united. We are united to him. That word, united, is a strange word, actually. It’s a horticultural word, and it means we’ve been engrafted into the root. Not engrafted up here, even though there are other places in the Bible that talk about that.
he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
, Paul is talking about our personal salvation, and he says Jesus
Paul is talking about our personal salvation, and he says Jesus
The metaphor is trying to say our lives have been inserted into the very roots of his life. What does that mean? Well, look at verse 5. We have been united to the past and the future of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ past is now our past. Jesus’ future is now our future. That’s what it’s saying. Now I have a whole series to unpack this, but just give me a couple of minutes right now.
Guess what the Greek word for rebirth is in this passage? Paliggenesia, and it’s totally inappropriate, because paliggenesia is talking about cosmic rebirth, not personal renewal. If it seems inappropriate then it must be important. Paul is saying the minute you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit comes into your life. Do you understand what that means? The power of the future, an absolute, ultimate, life-giving power that’s someday going to regenerate the entire cosmos comes into your life and begins to work now.
First of all, it says we died in him. Our past is his past. What does that mean? Do you remember I mentioned is another place where Paul goes into this even more succinctly? In , he says, “… you have been raised with Christ … where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above … For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
When someone says, “If it’s all of grace, why live a good life?” Paul says, “You haven’t the slightest idea what’s happened to you? You didn’t just get a get out of jail free card! You didn’t just get a pardon! You were united to everything in Christ’s past and everything in Christ’s future.
You died in him. You’re raised in him. You’re seated at the right hand of God in him. What does that mean? Here’s what it means. Imagine a person who has become rich. How did he or she become rich? He or she became rich through the brilliance and the diligence of effort. Riches came to this person through the brilliance and diligence of their efforts.
When we come to Christ most we come with small ambitions. We want inner peace. We want a little reorientation. We want a little pickup. We want to feel like our lives matter. We want some inspiration. These are small ambitions.
Now they get married. How do all those riches come to the new spouse? Through legal union. By grace. The one person has done everything in order to bring all this wealth and amass this wealth. The second person just gets married. See? Legal union. It’s by grace, just like that. This is telling you … Why is Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father? That’s a place of honor. That’s where you put the prime minister. That’s where you put the returning conquering general.
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, helps us to understand God’s ambition for us. “Imagine yourself as a house. God comes in to rebuild it. At first, you can understand what he’s doing. Getting the drains right, stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on. You know those jobs needed doing, and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The answer is he is throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards … You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage, but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself.
Do you know why he’s at the right hand of the Father? Look at what he has accomplished. Look at his life. Look at the nobility and the goodness and the greatness and the courage of what he has done. The Father looks at the Son and his heart literally bursts with delight. This text is saying everything Jesus Christ has done is now legally true of you.
If we let him, he will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into dazzling, radiant, immortal creatures, pulsating all through with such energy, joy, wisdom, and love as we cannot now imagine. A bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly, though of course on a smaller scale, his own boundless power, delight, and goodness. The process will be long and in parts painful, but that is what we are in for, nothing less.”
The determining factor in your relationship with God is no longer your past, but Christ’s past. The Father dotes on you and accepts you and delights in you and sees you as having all the beauty, greatness, and glory of his Son. He sees you as being as free from condemnation for the guilt of your sins as if you had died yourself and already paid the penalty for all your sins.
Becoming a Christian means union with Christ. So get rid of your low goals. Get rid of all your goals. People so often say, “Well, if I become a Christian, would I have to stop doing that? Will I still be able to do that?”
That’s the first thing. We’re united to Christ’s past. But notice in verse 5 it also says, “we will certainly be united in his resurrection.” Do you see that certainly? It doesn’t say conditionally. “Now if you really live a good life and you come to church and you come to Redeemer and take notes on Tim Keller’s sermons, you certainly will be …” It doesn’t say anything like that. It says, “You certainly.” Period. That means there’s an indissoluble connection, the moment you believe, with the future of Jesus Christ. You are already connected to him.
Anticipate that you will not be able to anticipate the magnitude of the changes. They’re way beyond anything you could ever dare ask or think. Furthermore, understand that your mind open enough, alive enough, and frankly, spiritually smart enough to know what it is you need.
3. Live daily out of your new identity
What does this mean? Well, there’s a fascinating Greek word that shows up twice in the Bible. It’s a philosophical term, and the name of the term is paliggenesia. Do you hear the word genesis in there? It actually means the rebirth of the cosmos. It came from Stoic philosophy that believed, of course, history was an endless cycle, and the world would get worse and worse and worse, and there would be decay and brokenness.
Every so often, the Stoics believed, there would be a purging, and a great fire would come and cleanse and purify everything and take away the old and make everything new and fresh again, and history would start all over. That was the view of the Stoics. Endless cycles of paliggenesia. Birth and rebirth and rebirth and rebirth.
Look at
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
Our old self is your former self, your old identity, was crucified! It’s a past tense. It’s perfect. It’s done. Your old self, your former self is gone. When you become a Christian, you’re not the same person. Your old identity is gone. You have a new identity.
Well, what do we believe as Christians? Here’s what we believe. In , Jesus Christ takes that word and deliberately uses it in the most startling and astonishing way. He says, in 19:28, “At the paliggenesia …” It’s usually translated, “At the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, everyone who has lost houses or brothers or sisters or fathers or mothers or children or fields for my sake will receive 100 times as much and eternal life. For many who were first will be last, and the last will be first.”
Our old self is our former self, our old identity, was crucified! It’s in the perfect past tense meaning it’s done. Your old self, your former self is gone. When you become a Christian, you’re not the same person. Your old identity is gone. You have a new identity.
Jesus says there will be a paliggenesia, but one. “… the …” There is a single point toward which all of history is flowing, at which everything sad will become untrue. Everything will be purged. Everything will become new, and everything will dance, and everything will be in fullness and wholeness.
“… in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing.” Now that doesn’t mean your physical body is sinful. He’s saying your body under the reign of your spiritual masters. Paul is using your body as a way of talking about the way you actually live in the world, your actions, your decisions. Through your new identity, you have the ability to break the reign of your old spiritual masters in how you actually live.
Look now at
What fire is strong enough, what power is life-giving enough to do such a thing? The answer is when Jesus Christ puts forth his royal power, when the Son of man sits on his glorious throne in the future, the entire world is going to be purged. Everything will be reborn. Cosmic rebirth. Everything sad will come untrue. History itself will be changed. Isn’t that amazing?
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
, though the identity is the secret. It doesn’t happen automatically.
Understanding our identity is the secret but this doesn’t happen automatically.
You are dead to sin. You are alive to God, but you have to treat yourself as dead to sin and alive to God. You have to remind yourself of who you are.
What’s more amazing? That word shows up one more time in the Bible, in an even more surprising place. In , Paul is talking about our personal salvation, and he says Jesus “… saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but … through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” Do you know what that word, rebirth, is? It’s the word paliggenesia, and it’s totally inappropriate, at least at first glance, because paliggenesia is talking about cosmic rebirth, not personal renewal.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
says,
But do you know what Paul is saying? Paul is saying the minute you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit comes into your life. We understand, right? Now do you understand what this is saying? The power of the future, the power of that future transcendent order, that absolute, ultimate, life-giving power that’s someday going to regenerate the entire cosmos comes into your life and begins to work now.
says,
Therefore, when we say, “If it’s all of grace, why live a good life?” Paul says, “You haven’t the slightest idea what’s happened to you, have you? You didn’t just get a get out of jail free card! You didn’t just get a pardon! You were united to everything in Christ’s past and everything in Christ’s future.
Translation; you have all the necessary resources for change, you lack nothing. If you are not changing its deployment issue not a resource issue. Spiritual resources must be deployed. They don’t happen automatically.
If you ever fail to live as you should, if you ever fail to change, you’re not remembering who you really are. You’ve forgotten who you are in Jesus. That’s the point. That’s the key.
Do you know what this means? When I came to Christ, when you come to Christ, when anybody comes to Christ, we come with the most unbelievably small ambitions. We want inner peace. We want a little reorientation. We want a little pickup. We want to feel like our lives matter. We want some inspiration. But boy, oh boy, there’s a lot more to it than that.
Let me close with three.
For Kathy and me, this passage out of Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis, has been a life-shaping quote. Listen. Lewis says something like, “Imagine yourself as a house. God comes in to rebuild it. At first, you can understand what he’s doing. Getting the drains right, stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on. You know those jobs needed doing, and so you are not surprised.
But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The answer is he is throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards … You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage, but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself.
1. How does that work?
If we let him, he will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into dazzling, radiant, immortal creatures, pulsating all through with such energy, joy, wisdom, and love as we cannot now imagine. A bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly, though of course on a smaller scale, his own boundless power, delight, and goodness. The process will be long and in parts painful, but that is what we are in for, nothing less.”
Saint Augustine, had a problem with self-control, as it related to women, prior to his conversion. One day he was walking along, and one of his old mistresses showed up. She was one of the people he was particularly attracted to, and she wanted to pull him off into a fling.
So she starts to try to invite him up to her place. He says, very kindly, “Thank you very much. It was so good to see you, but no.” As he walks away she says to him, “Augustine, it is I!” Augustine turned around and smiled and said, “Yes, I know. But it is not I.”
If becoming a Christian means union with Christ, I suggest two things. Get rid of your low goals. Get rid of all your goals. Get rid of your low goals and get rid of your your goals. Hmm? Get rid of your low goals. People so often say, “Well, if I become a Christian, would I have to stop doing that? Will I still be able to do that?”
Anticipate that you will not be able to anticipate the magnitude of the changes that, when they begin to come, you’ll be so grateful for. But they’re way beyond anything you could ever dare ask or think. Nor, when you’re getting started, is your mind open enough, alive enough, and frankly, spiritually smart enough to know what it is you need.
What does that mean? Here’s what he’s saying. “I used to be the kind of person who had to have … I was driven. It was a spiritual master, but I have a new master. To the degree I think of who I am in him, and what he thinks of me, I don’t need the same things I used to need.”
This is how you change. You could say, “I used to be the kind of person who crumbled under criticism because I had to have always perfect approval. I used to be a kind of person who couldn’t break up, but now I’m free to do what’s really best for me and that other person. I’m someone else in Jesus.” That’s how it works.
2. Why does it seem to take so long?
3. Live daily out of your new identity
Let’s be honest about the fact that there are an awful lot of people who have received Jesus, and they have this new identity. They understand this, and yet the years go by and the years go by and they’re not changing, or, should I say, we’re not changing. You’re not changing. Why does it take so long?
Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who pastored in London during the mid-20th century, preached through the book of Romans in 119 sermons. He uses an illustration that helps us to better understand our slowness of change.
He basically says, “Imagine a country in which one group of people has, for centuries, enslaved another group of people. Therefore, whenever a member of the enslaved group would, in the street, meet a member of the oppressing group, the member of the oppressing group could order that other person around to do anything. If the person didn’t obey, the member of the oppressing group could have him beaten or killed. He had the right. He had the power. He could do it. Then a good king comes into power, and he decrees emancipation for all the slaves, and he sets up his soldiers and police in every town, and puts his judges in place, and they’re free! But,” the illustration goes on, “do you think that’s all it takes?” He says, “The reality is whenever a member of the enslaved group, having been enslaved all their lives, having been enslaved for centuries, would meet a member of the oppressing group, they would tremble and quake. When the members of the oppressing group would still order around the members of the enslaved group and tell them what to do and say, ‘Go here,’ and ‘Go there,’ they did it. Now the member of the oppressing group didn’t have the power, really, to do that anymore, and if they had stood up, they couldn’t have done a thing. Yet over and over and over again, the members of the enslaved group continued to act like slaves, because although their status had really changed, the reality had really changed, and they truly were free, they hadn’t grasped it. They hadn’t realized it. They couldn’t live according to it. They remained as slaves.”
Two verses that tell you about that are right here. Verse 6: “… 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 …” Our old self … That’s your former self, your old identity, crucified! It’s a past tense. It’s perfect. It’s done. Your old self, your former self is gone. When you become a Christian, you’re not the same person. Your old identity is gone. You have a new identity.
“… so that …” It’s out of this identity. “… that the body of sin might be done away with.” Now that doesn’t mean your physical body is sinful. What he’s trying to say is your body under the reign of your spiritual masters. Do you see the rest of this sentence? It means your life, your actions. Paul is using your body as a way of talking about the way you actually live in the world, your actions, your decisions. Through your new identity, you have the ability to break the reign of your old spiritual masters in how you actually live. That’s what verse 6 is saying.
Lloyd-Jones ends his illustration by saying, “Every Christian in this room is in that condition. It’s the only reason you do anything wrong.” It’s the only reason you cannot change. It’s the only reason you are still all wrapped up and absorbed in epi-fears and epi-anger and epi-discouragement all the time, and why you can’t break your habits.
But verse 11 says, though the identity is the secret … Look at verse 11. It doesn’t happen automatically. “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin …” You are dead to sin. You are alive to God, but you have to treat yourself as dead to sin and alive to God. You have to remind yourself of who you are.
You don’t know who you are. You have a real status change. It’s really there. It’s not just in your mind. It’s not just symbolic. It really happened, and yet you don’t know who you are. That’s why it takes so long. It took long for that group; it’s going to take long for us.
Verse 12 says, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.” That simply means on the one hand, if you’re not changing in the ways you need to change, you don’t lack any resources if you’re a Christian. You have them all. You have everything you need.
3. Why is that so hard?
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
On the other hand, they need to be deployed. They don’t happen automatically. If you ever fail to live as you should, if you ever fail to change, you’re not remembering who you really are. You’re not conscious of who you really are. You’ve forgotten who you are in Jesus. That’s the point. That’s the key.
Let me close with three questions which, of course, I’ll unravel over the next few weeks. As soon as you hear that, here are three questions. How does that work? Why does it take so long? Why is that so hard?
Now the form of teaching is the first part of Romans. It’s the gospel, and it says, “You used to be slaves of sin, but the gospel set your heart on fire.” In the end, going through a little set of steps with a counselor or with a pastor is still not really the secret.
Now the form of teaching is the first part of Romans. It’s the gospel, and it says, “You used to be slaves of sin, but the gospel set your heart on fire.” In the end, going through a little set of steps with a counselor or with a pastor is still not really the secret.
Here’s why. Years ago, in the beginning of time, according to the Bible, the serpent said to Adam and Eve, “If you utterly offer yourself to God, if you do whatever he says unconditionally, if you obey him completely, he will abuse you.” All of us sons of Adam and daughters of Eve have had that lie come down into our hearts. It’s still there. It says, “Offer yourselves to God,” and there’s a part of our hearts that says, “He will abuse us like all the other masters.”
See, when we’re living for career, or living for love, or when we’re living for these things, we don’t feel like we’re enslaved, but when the idea of giving or offering ourselves to God unconditionally, where we have to do whatever he says … that feels terrible, so we say, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it. How are we going to break that? The answer is the gospel. What Jesus did has to enflame the heart.
A movie released in 1999 may help us to understand how the gospel enflames our heart. The movie is called Three Seasons. The movie is set in the 1970’s post war Vietnam. It consist of four vignettes. One of them is about a cyclo driver, a bicycle rickshaw, named Hai. He’s poor, impoverished, and he loves Lan, a beautiful prostitute.
1. How does that work?
Lan is trying to sleep her way out of the life she hates. She hates the life of poverty. She hates her dirty life. She longs for the life of the people who live in those elegant hotels where she works. Though her work is done in the hotel room she’s never allowed to stay overnight.
She dreams of someday leaving the world of poverty and getting into that world, the world of the people who are able to live there. However, her plan is not working. The more she gives herself to her work in order to get out of her poverty, the more she’s being brutalized and the more she’s being enslaved.
Some of you know one of my favorite examples of this is Augustine. Saint Augustine, to put it mildly, before he was a Christian, had a problem with sexual self-control, but after he became a Christian, one day he was walking along, and one of his old mistresses showed up. She came after him. You know, she was one of the people he was particularly attracted to, and she wanted to pull him off into a fling, which, in those days, would have lasted for several weeks.
One day Hai enters a cyclo race and, to his surprise, wins the grand prize. Now he has a bunch of money! He takes this large sum of money and blows it. He rents a room in this elegant hotel overnight and he pays Lan’s fee, and says, “I want to see you in that room tonight.” Lan shows up expecting work and to her surprise Hai says “I didn’t purchase you for that reason.”
So she starts to try to invite him up to her place and attack, attract, and attach to him. He says, very kindly and very nicely and very courteously, “Thank you very much. Thank you. That’s great. Thank you. Glad to see you, but no. No, thank you.” He starts to walk away. Suddenly it occurs to her, “Maybe he didn’t really recognize me.” She turned to him and said, “Augustine, it is I!” Augustine turned around and smiled and said, “Yes, I know. But it is not I.” See, she said, “It’s me, Augustine!” and he said, “Yeah, I know, but it’s not me.”
He has only purchased her a place as an actual guest in the normal world she dreams of joining, and he asks only permission to watch her fall asleep in it. Slowly, comfortably, she falls asleep, and he’s gone by the morning, having demanded nothing from her except the chance to fulfill her desire to belong.
What does that mean? Here’s what he’s saying. “I used to be a person who had to have female affection. That’s the reason I was in relationships, no matter how destructive they were to you or to me. They were never about love. They were about me and about using you to fill the black hole, which never was filled.
I used to be the kind of person who had to have … I was driven. It was a spiritual master, but I have a new master. To the degree I think of who I am in him, and what he thinks of me, I don’t need this. I am free to love. I don’t need, anymore, the same things I used to need.” That’s what he’s saying.
But something snaps in her. She finds she can’t go back to her old job. Having experienced for the first time someone who used his power to serve her rather than use her, she gets a new sense of her own dignity. She’s not the same person. She’s changed by the transforming grace of selfless love.”
You can fill in the blank. This is how you change. You could say, “I used to be the kind of person who crumbled under criticism because I had to have always perfect approval. I used to be a kind of person who couldn’t break up, but now I’m free to do what’s really best for me and that other person. I’m someone else in Jesus.” That’s how it works.
Now Jesus Christ had all the power in the world, and he looks down at us and sees us trapped in things we think are going to free us, but they’re enslaving us. What does he do? says he emptied himself and became a servant. says, “I came not to be served,” he says, “but to serve and to give my life a ransom for many.” , says he took off his outer garment and he girded himself as a servant in order to wash our feet.
What does this mean? He laid aside the infinities and the immensities of his being and he purchased, not just at the cost of money, but at the cost of his life, a room in the only place our hearts can rest, his Father’s house. He denied himself to love us. If Lan was transformed by the knowledge of his selfless love, how much more will we be able to say, like Augustine, to all the spiritual masters and all the spiritual mistresses out there, “It’s not me”?
Now why wouldn’t you want to offer yourself to the only Master in the universe who has offered himself for you? He has offered himself, absolutely, utterly! Trust him then! Give yourself to your career? Your career is never going to die for you! Your career is never going to offer itself for you! If you don’t fulfill its dictates, it will punish you all of your life. Give yourself to him. Give yourself to the one master who became a servant, and you’ll know what Thomas Cranmer in the old prayer book said: His service alone is perfect freedom. Let’s pray.
2. Why does it seem to take so long?
Let’s be honest about the fact that there are an awful lot of people who have received Jesus, and they have this new identity. They understand this, and yet the years go by and the years go by and they’re not changing, or, should I say, we’re not changing. You’re not changing. Why does it take so long?
Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who, in his 50s and 60s preached in London, preached a long series on . At the heart of his series, to understand what is talking about, he used an illustration. It’s a fascinating illustration. He basically says, “Imagine a country in which one group of people has, for centuries, enslaved another group of people.” It’s not very hard for Americans to imagine that, even though the illustration doesn’t completely fit. Listen.
“Imagine a place where one group has enslaved, for centuries, another group. Therefore, whenever a member of the enslaved group would, in the street, meet a member of the oppressing group, the member of the oppressing group could order that other person around to do anything. If the person didn’t obey, the member of the oppressing group could have him beaten or killed. He had the right. He had the power. He could do it.
Then a good king comes into power, and he decrees emancipation for all the slaves, and he sets up his soldiers and police in every town, and puts his judges in place, and they’re free! But,” the illustration goes on, “do you think that’s all it takes?” He says, “The reality is whenever a member of the enslaved group, having been enslaved all their lives, having been enslaved for centuries, would meet a member of the oppressing group, they would tremble and quake. When the members of the oppressing group would still order around the members of the enslaved group and tell them what to do and say, ‘Go here,’ and ‘Go there,’ they did it.
Now the member of the oppressing group didn’t have the power, really, to do that anymore, and if they had stood up, they couldn’t have done a thing. Yet over and over and over again, the members of the enslaved group continued to act like slaves, because although their status had really changed, the reality had really changed, and they truly were free, they hadn’t grasped it. They hadn’t realized it. They couldn’t live according to it. They remained as slaves.”
Lloyd-Jones ends his illustration by saying, “Every Christian in this room is in that condition. It’s the only reason you do anything wrong.” It’s the only reason you cannot change. It’s the only reason you are still all wrapped up and absorbed in epi-fears and epi-anger and epi-discouragement all the time, and why you can’t break your habits.
You don’t know who you are. You have a real status change. It’s really there. It’s not just in your mind. It’s not just symbolic. It really happened, and yet you don’t know who you are. That’s why it takes so long. It took long for that group; it’s going to take long for us. You say, “Well, I know, but do you know what? I’ve even heard that illustration, because I’ve been here for 15 years, and I’ve heard you even say that, and I’m still not changing like I should.” One more question, and one more answer.
3. Why is that so hard?
In verse 17, it says you were slaves of sin, “But thanks be to God … you wholeheartedly obey the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.” Now the form of teaching is the first part of Romans. It’s the gospel, and it says, “You used to be slaves of sin, but the gospel set your heart on fire.” In the end, going through a little set of steps with a counselor or with a pastor is still not really the secret.
Here’s why. Years ago, in the beginning of time, according to the Bible, the serpent said to Adam and Eve, “If you utterly offer yourself to God, if you do whatever he says unconditionally, if you obey him completely, he will abuse you.” All of us sons of Adam and daughters of Eve have had that lie come down into our hearts. It’s still there. It says, “Offer yourselves to God,” and there’s a part of our hearts that says, “He will abuse us like all the other masters.”
See, when we’re living for career, or living for love, or when we’re living for these things, we don’t feel like we’re enslaved, but when the idea of giving or offering ourselves to God unconditionally, where we have to do whatever he says … Anything in the Bible, we have to say it, or we have no more freedom.
That feels terrible, so we say, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” We’re afraid to do it, so we live in our kind of illusion of independence when we’re actually slaves instead of going into what looks to us like slavery, which is actually the freedom of service to God. How are we going to break that? The answer is the gospel. What Jesus did has to enflame the heart.
I recently read an essay about a movie which I haven’t seen, but I’d like to, now that I’ve read the essay. It was a movie about Vietnam right after the Vietnam War, in the 70s. It’s a movie called Three Seasons, and it has four vignettes in it. One of them is about a cyclo driver, a bicycle rickshaw, named Hai. He’s poor, impoverished, and he loves Lan, a beautiful prostitute.
Now both Hai and Lan have completely unfulfilled desires because Hai can’t afford Lan and Lan, as a prostitute, is trying to sleep her way out of the life she hates. She hates the life of poverty. She hates the dirty life she’s in, and she longs to be able to go to the clean, beautiful life of the people who live in those elegant hotels where she has to come and do tricks for her customers. But she has to leave because she’s never allowed to stay overnight.
She dreams of someday leaving the world of poverty and getting into that world, the world of the hotel, the world of the people who are able to live there, but it’s not working, because the more she gives herself to prostitution in order to get out of her poverty, the more she’s being brutalized and the more she’s being enslaved. Then Hai enters a cyclo race and, to his surprise, wins the grand prize. Now he has a bunch of money! Because he has a bunch of money, maybe his life can change.
But guess what he does? He blows it all on one thing. He rents a room in this elegant hotel overnight and he pays Lan’s fee, and says, “I want to see you in that room tonight.” All the money! Okay, well, he’s going to get his heart’s desire, right? So all the viewers are expecting this steamy cinematic love scene, of course. After all, it’s a Sundance Film Festival movie. There’s going to be a lot of sex in it, so we’re all expecting it. Lan is expecting it too, but then to everybody’s shock, they get there and he says, “I don’t want to have sex with you.”
The essay goes something like this. “He has only purchased her a place as an actual guest in the normal world she dreams of joining, and he asks only permission to watch her fall asleep in it. Slowly, comfortably, she falls asleep, and he’s gone by the morning, having demanded nothing from her except the chance to fulfill her desire to belong.
But something snaps in her. She finds she can’t go back to her old job of prostitution. Having experienced for the first time someone who used his power to serve her rather than use her, she gets a new sense of her own dignity. She’s not the same person. She’s changed by the transforming grace of selfless love.”
Now Jesus Christ had all the power in the world, and he looks down at us and sees us trapped in things we think are going to free us, but they’re enslaving us. What does he do? says he emptied himself and became a servant. says, “I came not to be served,” he says, “but to serve and to give my life a ransom for many.” , says he took off his outer garment and he girded himself as a servant in order to wash our feet.
What does this mean? He laid aside the infinities and the immensities of his being and he purchased, not just at the cost of money, but at the cost of his life, a room in the only place our hearts can rest, his Father’s house. He denied himself to love us. If Lan was transformed by the knowledge of his selfless love, how much more will we be able to say, like Augustine, to all the spiritual masters and all the spiritual mistresses out there, “It’s not me”?
Now why wouldn’t you want to offer yourself to the only Master in the universe who has offered himself for you? He has offered himself, absolutely, utterly! Trust him then! Give yourself to your career? Your career is never going to die for you! Your career is never going to offer itself for you! If you don’t fulfill its dictates, it will punish you all of your life. Give yourself to him. Give yourself to the one master who became a servant, and you’ll know what Thomas Cranmer in the old prayer book said: His service alone is perfect freedom. Let’s pray.
We thank you, Father, for this overview of how we can change and what true freedom is. We ask that you would help us to apply it to our hearts with your Holy Spirit. We ask it through Jesus. In his name we pray, amen.
Keller, T. J. (2013). The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive. New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church.