Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Pentecost   •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  1:09:16
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What is freedom for

It seems that as Christians, as Americans, but more as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven we have forgotten what our Christian freedom is for.
We have invoked that we don’t have to do anything to be saved. We’re free from the Old Testament Law and that all the smells and bells of church are unnecessary. All we need is a personal relationship with God. We’re free from all that EXTRA stuff.
The Psalmist clarifies for us:
Psalm 54:6 ESV
With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you; I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good.
Freedom is meant to drive us back into communion and service with the church, not separate us from it.
Look at Jesus - Lord of Heaven and Earth. Nobody on earth has permission to tell Jesus what to do and yet what does He teach?
Mark 9:31 ESV
for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”
Jesus articulates that in His freedom He is bound and determined to be bound and delivered. This is a far cry from our picture of leadership today.
I’ve preached in a variety of places and in more than a few settings the congregation sits in a type of amphitheater. What I like about this is that the Pastor is technically then the lowest person in the room by elevation and everyone else looks down on them.
If we look at all of our strife and division in the world today it is because we each think we know what is best. Pastors are often the most guilty of this. Thinking we know better. Christians of all stature know this all to well.
James 4:1 ESV
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
For the greek savvy among us - The word passions here is not the word of the Pascal lamb- the suffering lamb of Christ. The word for passion here? Hedon.
The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament ἡδονή, φιλήδονος

In the NT ἡδονή represents one of the many forces which belong to the world of unsanctified carnality, which strive against the work of God and His Spirit and which drag man back again into the kingdom of evil.

How much of our world’s problems and our own problems are of our own making? How much strife is born of hedonism?
I believe it is Hedonism that brings the disciples to their poorly timed conversation. They are concerned with stature because with stature comes power and maybe even freedom!
The gospel however works through the inverse.
Mark 9:35 ESV
And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
The greatest must become least. The bible, and as such- CHRIST- is incredibly concerned with the poor, the wounded, those in low estate.
In Mark 9 The whiplash is astounding. Jesus is telling the disciples how He will die in order to rise and all they are concerned with is who will rise above the rest.
Then you get this almost out of sequence saying of the Christ:
Mark 9:37 ESV
“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”
In a world that is absolutely consumed by success Jesus says, welcome a child. This really is quite an astounding call. Children have not done anything. They haven’t accomplished a thing- the word for child here denote a child younger than puberty. They can’t even reproduce. All they can do is take - receive.
I know of a divorced guy who has two children and pays $400 a month in child support. I thought -that is the least expensive Child I’ve ever seen.
Having children is extravagantly expensive in every measure. A whole world is toppled so that an individual who cannot even speak is allowed to snooze. True story- when Paul was 3 days old - in a fit of delirium and all of us not sleeping I spent $289 plus $80 for one day shipping for a bassinet that was guaranteed to help our child sleep.
Here’s the thing though- I did it for me.
Christ did it for you. The Son of Man, Jesus Christ was handed over to you and I, that we may behold God in all of His glory. Not just His death but also His resurrection.
The exquisite grace of God is that Jesus suffered at the hands of men that our own wrath is satisfied and God remains victorious.
Church, the resurrection of Christ is triumph of God over our hedonism. One of our deepest desires is to be seen as accomplished, and in Christ the triumph of God is handed over to you.
This is an incredibly important proposition.
James 4:10 ESV
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Luther said a Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.
Your freedom, your victory is for service, for the good of your neighbor- even the smallest and least of us. This the testimony of Christ.
Amen.
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