I Am Christ's Slave

[0:00] And then take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 6.! Romans chapter 6. And this week we're going to read chapter 6 in its entirety.

[0:14] ! Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?

[0:34] By no means. We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

[0:45] We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

[0:56] If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 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, because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

[1:17] Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over him.

[1:30] The death he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

[1:45] Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.

[2:07] For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace?

[2:19] By no means. 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.

[2:35] 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. You have been set free from sin, and have become slaves to righteousness.

[2:49] 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.

[3:03] When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?

[3:15] Those things result in death. 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.

[3:30] For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let's hear the preaching of God's word.

[3:50] If you're visiting with us, we're in the midst of a study on the believer's identity. It's coming to the Bible to let God tell us what's true about us, and then to live in the light of what he says.

[4:07] Last week we considered our identity as believers as being freed slaves, whereas once we were the slaves of sin, and we did its bidding as our master.

[4:21] The Lord Jesus has set us free, and so we no longer are under the authority and mastery of sin. We don't need to obey him anymore, as we have been set free from his reign.

[4:36] So believer, did you think of yourself then this past week as a freed slave, and when sin came calling, seeking to reassert its authority over you, did you reckon yourself, did you consider yourself to no longer be his slave, and therefore resist and reject his commands to sin, and refuse to offer the parts of your body to serve him as you used to do?

[5:05] Well, this is all foundational to what is sanctification in the believer's life. How do we become holy? Well, it begins with the right understanding of our relationship to sin.

[5:17] We're no longer its slave, and so we no longer serve it as we once did. But being freed from slavery to sin is only half of the teaching of Romans 6, and that's why we had it read again this morning.

[5:34] Indeed, it's only half of the message of the Bible on this matter. The other half of the whole picture is that I am now a slave of God. No longer sin's slave, but now Christ's slave.

[5:50] We see that in verse 18, you have been set free from sin, and have become a slave of righteousness. Verse 22, So we're all slaves.

[6:09] Everybody's a slave to one of two masters. You're either a slave of sin, or a slave of God in Jesus Christ. Now that's the truth, and many sinners deny it.

[6:21] They would say, I'm nobody's slave. I don't answer to anybody. I do whatever I want, when I want, with whomever I want, and I'm no longer going to be governed by my parents, by my upbringing, by religion, by social mores and standards, by the Bible.

[6:41] I am my own boss. But that's what sin, their master, is telling them to say and do.

[6:52] To serve themselves, rather than God. And so they are slaves to sin, even while they are proclaiming their freedom. This is freedom. To be free from anybody telling me anything.

[7:04] That's exactly what sin is telling you, my friend, if that's you. And so, we are slaves, either to sin, or to the Lord Jesus Christ.

[7:17] And if Christ is not your master, then sin is still your master, whether you realize it or not. No one is not a slave. That's what Romans 6 is telling us.

[7:29] There's no one on earth without a master. We're either a slave to sin, or a slave to Christ. Verse 16 says, don't you know that you are slaves to the one whom you obey?

[7:41] Whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or whether you are slaves to obedience, which leads to righteousness. So, whose slave are you?

[7:53] Jesus says, you cannot serve two masters. That's all there are. There's just the two masters. Sin, and Satan, yes, and self. That's all part of sin, slavery, and Jesus Christ.

[8:08] Now, it's not only lost sinners that need to hear this. Remember, Paul is writing to believers, isn't he? To believers at Rome. We need to hear this, believers.

[8:19] This has to do with our identity, of how we think of ourselves, and how we live. It's a truth that many professing Christians in our day have never come to terms with.

[8:32] They think that Jesus has set them free from sin, period. End of sentence. And so they're free, and they celebrate their freedom, and they love verses in the Bible that talk about being free, but they fail to see that no one has ever been set free from slavery to sin without thereby becoming a slave of Jesus Christ.

[8:58] Conversion to Christ does not bring us to some middle ground of total independence from any master, to be absolutely free from the authority of anyone.

[9:11] Now, that's not conversion. Conversion is rather a change of masters, from a slave of sin to a slave of Christ. And this is an important part of our identity, and it has huge implications for how we live, and how we think of ourselves.

[9:27] So I'm inviting you to say together with me, Christian, I am Christ's slave. I am Christ's slave.

[9:40] Now, as soon as we turn to Scripture, we notice that more often than not, the Greek word doulos, which we learned in Greek class, means slave, is often translated servant.

[9:52] Servant. Indeed, it's over a hundred times, and most of the places, it's translated in our English Bibles, servant. Now, the two have many similarities, a servant and a slave, but there's also some important differences that we don't want to overlook.

[10:11] Servants voluntarily worked out a business arrangement with the master. They were something of what we might think of as a hired hand to work for them for so much pay, and servants had rights.

[10:27] But slaves, on the other hand, were owned by their masters. They became the property, the assets of their master. And he could do with them as he pleased, because slaves have no rights.

[10:45] Now, it's understandable that in translating this word doulos into English, the translators would want to avoid the negative connotations of slavery.

[10:58] In other words, they don't want to infer that Christ treats his people as some evil masters treated their slaves, and we can appreciate that concern. Nevertheless, nevertheless, we must not lose this important point being made about our identity, that as slaves of Jesus Christ, we are not our own, but his.

[11:23] And therefore, we exist, not to do our own will, but his. And all this, you see, is bound up in our identity as slaves.

[11:35] Slaves of Jesus Christ. I'm his to do his will. That's an important part of who you are, Christian, and however you want to translate doulos.

[11:49] Don't lose that. If you think of a servant, think of him as one who belongs to the master, and who exists to do his will. Now, all of this is reflected in the title given to Jesus Christ, isn't it?

[12:06] His full title and name is the Lord Jesus Christ. And sometimes I think we just, we've heard it so long, we just think that that's part of his name.

[12:17] But it's not. The Lord is his title. It's who he is. He's the Lord. He's the master. So, so you could put, he is the master, Jesus Christ.

[12:30] He is the Lord, the boss, Jesus Christ. And, and what's the counterpart to a Lord, a master? Just as we have counterparts in other relationships, what's the counterpart to a husband, a wife, counterpart to a person, parent, a child, the counterpart to a master, a Lord, a slave, a slave, a doulos, a servant.

[13:00] And that's what we see often, isn't it? In, in the Ephesians five and Colossians three is the applications of the gospel are given to these various relationships, husbands, wives, children, parents, slaves, and masters.

[13:16] Well, if Jesus is the Lord, Jesus Christ, then he has slaves who serve him. And that's part of the identity of a believer.

[13:31] And that's why the Lord said to some people in his day who were professing to be followers of Jesus. They, they said, you're our Lord. And he says, well, why do you call me Lord, Lord?

[13:44] And do not do the things that I say because a slave obeys his Lord, his master. And you don't obey me.

[13:54] So quit calling me Lord unless you treat me as Lord. Well, when the slave shows up at dawn and the master's giving the orders for the day, he says, I want you to weed the beans and water the corn and feed the cattle and fix the broken down fence.

[14:14] And the slave says, well, let me check my schedule and get back with you and see if I can do that for you. Or, or he says, you know, I, my wife and I are heading to the park and we're going to have a picnic.

[14:25] I should be back around too. And I'll see how much of that I could get done in the rest of the day. Why is that silly to us? Why is that so out of, out of the question?

[14:37] Because we understand the relationship between master and slave. It's not the way the relationship works.

[14:48] The master's will is his schedule for the day, isn't it? The master's will always trumps his will. That's what it means to be a slave. And that's what we are.

[14:59] The slaves of God, the slaves of Jesus Christ. And that self-conscious identity then is to shape the way that we think of ourselves throughout the day and the way that we live our lives.

[15:11] I'm his. And I'm here to do his will, whatever that is. Turn with me to first Corinthians chapter six.

[15:23] Let's see how this identity of being slaves of God, slaves to Jesus Christ, is meant to affect our living.

[15:35] First Corinthians six. You know that Corinth was sin city of the ancient world, famous for its sexual immorality. And yet even here, the Lord Jesus Christ saved a people for himself, washed them in his own blood, cleansed them, gave them his Holy Spirit, added them to his church.

[15:56] And so here they are, these slaved sinners. Many of them had lived in sexual immorality all their lives up to that point. And so they're facing the same temptations to sin.

[16:09] They remained all around them. And on top of that, some false teachers of Christianity, we're telling them that what you do with your body really isn't important to God.

[16:22] It's just your spirit. That's, that's the part that God's interested in. But your body, it's just a shell. It's not part of the real, that's not the real you anyway. So, so what you do with your body, it really doesn't matter.

[16:36] And their view of freedom was everything is permissible. So how does the Apostle Paul, in writing to this church, with these people having, still being tempted to sexual immorality, and having these false teachers tell them what they do in their body isn't important.

[16:53] How's he going to counter that? How's he going to reinforce his command to flee sexual immorality in verse 18? Well, he does it by reminding them of what they ought to know, their identity, who they are, as temples of God, and as slaves of God.

[17:10] Look at verses 19 and 20. We see both of these identities. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?

[17:24] Don't you know who you are? You are a temple. That's your identity. A temple of the living God. But then, he goes on.

[17:36] And, he says, you are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body. Now, though the word slave is not used here, he's clearly referring to their identity as slaves of God.

[17:52] You are not your own. You were bought at a price. That language takes us right onto the auction block in the slave market.

[18:02] And once the slave is auctioned off, and someone has bought that slave, he becomes the property of his master. He was no longer his own to do what he wanted.

[18:15] He was no longer some other master's slave to do what he wanted. He now belonged to another and existed to do that master's will. You're not your own.

[18:27] You were bought at a price. Believer, this is you. This is you. Slave of sin on the auction block. Jesus Christ was there that day at the slave market of sin.

[18:40] He was there to purchase men for God from every tribe and nation and language and tongue. And the price to purchase you was his own life, his life for you, for your life.

[18:54] For you know that it was not with perishable things, such as silver or gold, that you were redeemed from your empty way of life, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish or spot.

[19:09] And so Jesus was slain, and with his blood he purchased you for God. You became his slave. No longer sin's slave.

[19:19] Now his, bought with his own blood. And as his slave, then you realize you exist to serve him. To do his will.

[19:33] And at the price that he paid, that purchase includes your body, because that's part of who you are. That's part of the real you. As much as your spirit, your body, spirit, spirit, person.

[19:45] And he purchased you, body and soul, by his blood. So, you are to honor God with your body. That's how he ends this chapter.

[19:59] What am I to do with my sexuality? I have these desires within. I have temptations without. What should I do? I'm confused.

[20:14] Well, as God's slave, you want to know one thing. What does my master want me to do with my body? Because it's not mine. It's his. He bought it. And therefore, I'm to honor him with it.

[20:26] You see how our identity as slaves of Christ, if we're really thinking of ourselves as such, how it transforms and shapes our lives. Even in this very critical area that our culture is awash in, as to what we do about gender and sexuality, and what we do with our bodies.

[20:47] Oh, it's all very cleared up, isn't it? If we understand our relationship as slave to Jesus, I'm his. This body's his. What does he want done with it?

[21:00] Flee sexual immorality. So, this is the identity of the people of God. We're slaves. Servants of God. And it's seen throughout the Old Testament, New Testament.

[21:14] God refers to Abraham as my servant, Abraham. Abraham. Moses, my servant is dead. Joshua is called the Lord's servant. Remember what God said to Satan. Have you seen my servant, Job?

[21:29] My servant, Elijah. On and on we could go. And it's not just a few elite saints. Just some of these higher end saints were servants of God.

[21:40] No. The Bible says in Psalm 135 and verse 14, that all of God's people are his servants. And not only are they his servants, they are aware of it.

[21:53] We see that Nehemiah, when he's talking to God in prayer, he refers to himself, I am your servant, O Lord. Joshua does the same.

[22:04] David too is aware of his identity. Remember Samuel, speak Lord, your servant is listening. David is aware of his identity. I am your servant.

[22:15] Psalm 119, 125. Psalm 116, 16. O Lord, truly, I am your servant. You have freed me from my chains.

[22:26] You see the relationship? You've set me free from servitude over here. And I am now your servant. No longer the servant of sin. Now your servant.

[22:39] That's their self-conscious identity. It's how they thought of themselves in relation to God. Not the only way, but it's one of the ways they saw themselves. We saw they saw themselves as sheep under the good shepherd.

[22:52] We're seeing that our identity is multifaceted, but they also thought of themselves as servants under this master, God himself. And it's the same in the New Testament.

[23:04] The apostle John, close friend of Jesus Christ. One of the inner three. The one who laid on his bosom at the last supper. Yet when he comes to write the book of Revelation, he calls himself God's servant.

[23:21] And he calls all the believers that he's writing to his servants. Then there's James. He was a half-brother of Jesus. Grew up in the same home as Jesus.

[23:34] He could have boasted in that near relationship to Jesus, but instead when he writes the epistle of James, he says, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[23:47] Not, not, not my half-brother Jesus, a servant of the Lord, the master, Jesus Christ. So this is the identity, you see, of the believer.

[24:00] A servant of the master, a slave of the master. Paul, too, opens this very letter of Romans. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, a doulos, a slave of Jesus Christ.

[24:16] Now, when did Paul become a servant of this Lord, Jesus Christ? He wasn't born that way. Remember, he spent some of his best years persecuting Jesus Christ, trying to wipe his name off the face of the earth, trying to kill his followers and destroy the church of Jesus Christ.

[24:43] And it was as he was going to Damascus in Syria, taking his campaign of persecution to a foreign land, that as he neared Damascus, he met this Lord Jesus, resurrected from the dead, and a bright light from heaven struck him to the ground.

[25:05] And when he came to realize that it was Jesus of Nazareth who identified himself to him, and that it was Jesus who he was persecuting, right there on the spot, from the ground, he looks up and says, what would you have me to do, Lord?

[25:23] Lord? Master? What would you have me to do? Now, that's the disposition given to any sinner who is regenerated by the Spirit of God.

[25:36] It brings a man from doing his own thing, which is really doing sin's thing, to wanting to do what the Lord Jesus wants. That's where Paul became a slave of Jesus Christ.

[25:51] He was converted. His master was changed from sin to the Lord Jesus. And as slaves and servants of this Lord, we realize we're here to obey him.

[26:11] And so, the assignment that his Lord gave him that day, he says to Paul, I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you.

[26:29] And so, Paul was called, wasn't he, and given the assignment. Okay, you're my servant now. I want you to go spend and be spent in declaring the gospel.

[26:40] I want you to tell everybody about me. I want you to suffer many things as a herald, a preacher of my gospel, that just as you used to persecute those who preach Christ, now you will become a preacher and be persecuted for preaching my gospel.

[27:03] And right there, Paul understands the relationship. Slave to master. He gives himself up to the Lord's will.

[27:17] He didn't consult his own will, his own plan. Let's see if that fits with my plan for my life. None of that at all. It was, the master has spoken. His will is clear.

[27:29] I'm all in. I'm his slave. He says in Acts 20 and 24, I consider my life worth nothing to me if only I may finish the race and complete the task that the Lord Jesus has given me.

[27:45] What was that task? It was the task given him on the day of his conversion. The task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace. How did he live his life? My life doesn't count for anything if it's not for this.

[27:56] Doing what the master told me to do. Completing that task. Well, we catch up with Paul as an old man. In Acts chapter 27, he's an old man on board a ship heading for Rome where Paul's going to stand before Caesar on trial.

[28:16] And you remember how they got caught in this storm that threatened to sink them for many days on end. And when we hear Paul speak, we find he's a man that's still clear on his identity.

[28:30] Who are you, Paul? He's right smack on. There were 276 on board that day. Most of them were rough soldiers, sailors, and criminals.

[28:44] Not your church type. And yet, when Paul stood up and identified himself to that group of men, he spoke of God whose I am and whom I serve.

[29:05] God, whose I am. I'm his slave. I belong to you. I'm not my own. I'm his. I'm his. And whom I serve. And because I'm his, you see, I serve him.

[29:17] I do what he says. That's who I am. You won't understand anything about my life and going around and doing what I've been doing or what I'm doing here today unless you know who I am.

[29:29] I am God's slave. I'm his. And I serve him. Well, it's beautiful to see a believer who understands their identity as the servant of Jesus Christ.

[29:48] It's how he thinks of himself. And that's how Paul's life was lived. Just to read the list of things he suffered for Jesus Christ.

[30:01] You say, why would anybody live like that? Well, he says, that's because I'm his and I do what he says. End of story. It was very clear to the Apostle Paul.

[30:16] Why would anyone sacrifice so much in service to Christ? Well, he tells us, because this Lord has loved me and given himself for me. He's died for me.

[30:28] So I'm his. He's purchased me. I'm his to serve. Jesus, Master, whose I am, purchase thine alone to be by thy blood, O spotless lamb.

[30:40] Shed so willingly for me. Let my heart be all thine own. Let me live to thee alone. Paul knew his identity and it shaped his life.

[30:53] We go over to Luke chapter 1, a very familiar story. And we see the angel Gabriel sent by God with a difficult assignment, this time to a young Galilean virgin named Mary.

[31:07] And she's betrothed to be married to a carpenter, Joseph. And the message, the assignment that is hers from the Lord of Heaven is that as a virgin she is to conceive a child by the power of the Holy Spirit without any man involved.

[31:27] And she's to give birth to a son and she's to name him Jesus. And he will be called the Son of the Most High and he'll be a great king and he'll have a kingdom that will last forever. What an assignment for a young teenage girl.

[31:45] How would you respond if you were her? Gabriel, perhaps you could come back in a year or two after Joseph and I are married.

[31:56] You see, the timing of the whole thing is just very inconvenient for me right now. It's too problematic. People would talk if I suddenly became pregnant as a single young lady.

[32:08] And my dear Joseph, how would I ever convince him? He wouldn't want me anymore. I'd stand to lose him in everything I've ever dreamed about as to a married life with him.

[32:21] All my plans for my life dashed and then no one would want me. I'm sorry, Gabriel. It's just too costly. I'm going to have to pass on this one. See if you can find someone else.

[32:35] It's ludicrous, isn't it? If she'd have said that, we'd have understood her because that's the way we think, don't we? We think about us. What will this mean for me?

[32:48] Then what is there that is stronger than one's own self-interest? Well, it's knowing who you are as a slave to God.

[32:59] What's strong enough to counter our own self-will? The answer's found in her response to Gabriel in verse 38 of Luke 1. Notice her view of herself.

[33:12] She says, I am the Lord's slave. His doulos, his servant, slave. May it be to me as you have said.

[33:25] How is she thinking of herself? What's her self-conscious identity that day when out of nowhere she's given an assignment from heaven? He's the Lord and I'm his slave to do what he says.

[33:42] You see how her identity shaped her thinking and shaped her living? Since I'm the Lord's slave, may it be unto me as you have said. She sweetly submits to the Lord.

[33:52] That's what slaves do. They don't choose which of the Lord's assignments they accept. Which of his commands they'll obey? Her body's not her own to decide what will or will not happen to it.

[34:05] It belongs to the Master. Her life is not hers to plan out and to cling to her plan and to ensure that she gets out of life what she wants.

[34:16] No, it belongs to the Master. I'm his. I am your slave. May it be to me according to your word. Young ladies, do you know whose you are and whom you serve?

[34:35] Do you know whose body that is? Oh, what a precious thing we see in this young teenage girl. She knows who she is and it controls her life, shapes her life.

[34:48] If we ever are halting and refusing any of the Lord's commands, if we're ever complaining about any of his afflictions that he sends, we've either not understood our identity as his slaves or we've not yet humbled ourselves and submitted to him as our Master.

[35:07] One more example. And now we just turn to the one and only perfect example. One who perfectly understood his identity and never had one single moment, one second of his life lived out of touch with this identity.

[35:28] He was the Lord's servant and he always acted like it. Of course, I speak of the eternal Son of God, the Messiah, who is referred to in Isaiah as the servant of the Lord.

[35:41] The New Testament refers to him as his servant Jesus, God's servant Jesus. This servant succeeds where we have failed as servants.

[35:53] Isaiah 42, 1, the Lord Jehovah God speaks, here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight. I will put my spirit in him and he will bring justice to the nations.

[36:08] Chapter 49 and verse 6, the Lord speaks directly to his servant son saying, it's too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and to bring back those of Israel I have kept.

[36:21] I will make you to be a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth. We see what a cosmic plan, what a cosmic assignment the Lord God has for his servant Jesus to bring salvation to the ends of the earth.

[36:41] In chapter 52 of Isaiah and on into chapter 53 it becomes plain that this salvation that's to come to the ends of the world would come through the sufferings of this servant of the Lord.

[36:56] It would come by him being stricken, smitten, and afflicted. It would come by him being pierced for their transgressions, punished for their peace, wounded for their healing.

[37:06] and it would be by the Lord God himself crushing his servant and causing him to suffer and making his life a guilt offering.

[37:18] It's in that way that the will of the Lord God would prosper in his hand. How will this will, this plan of the Lord to bring salvation to the ends, how will that plan prosper?

[37:31] How will it succeed? It will succeed in the hand of the servant because he always does what his father told him to do. And so he puts the business in his hand and indeed he has brought this great plan of salvation to the ends of the earth.

[37:55] And he's brought it to Bremen and we've been saved by this great servant of the Lord obeying his God because he's the servant and that's what servants do.

[38:10] What a servant of the Lord. This is the servant of the Lord. The servant par excellence. The servant without parallel. How perfectly he understood and embraced his identity as the Lord's servant and carried out his plan.

[38:28] I think one of the most interesting passages in scripture is a passage that tells us what Jesus was saying.

[38:39] The Son of God was saying as he came into the world. As he entered this world through the virgin birth. It's a unique period in history. As Jesus is coming into the world, he was speaking.

[38:54] Did you know that? And we have the record in our Bibles of what he was saying. That alone proves that this book is supernatural. Who would know what Jesus was saying as he came into the world?

[39:09] Well, God knows and he inspires the writer to the Hebrews to tell us in chapter 10 what this servant said to his father as he was coming on this mission into the world via the virgin birth.

[39:23] He says to his father, sacrifice and offering you did not desire. You weren't after more animal sacrifices like we've had for hundreds of years.

[39:34] No, a body you prepared for me. A body. How central is the body in serving God?

[39:46] We've seen it. Romans chapter 6. You Romans offer the parts of your body to God as instruments of righteousness to serve him. You Corinthians, your body is his.

[39:59] He bought it. It doesn't belong to you. So honor God with your body. Mary, will you offer your body to bring the Messiah into the world though at great cost to yourself?

[40:11] Yes, I am your servant. Her body offered up to the Lord to serve his will. And now servant of Jehovah. Will you receive a body prepared for you?

[40:26] Will you receive this body, a body in which to suffer and die for the salvation of repentant sinners? And the servant speaks as he comes into the world and he says, here I am.

[40:40] Here I am. He presents himself as every servant does. Here I am. I'm yours. It's written about me in the scroll. I have come to do your will.

[40:52] Oh my God, your law is within my heart. I'm yours and I'm here to do your will. So he received that body and in that body he suffered and in that body he obeyed and in that body he bled and died and in that body he rose again for our salvation.

[41:14] But it came from one who understood his role as the servant of the Lord. And so he came he who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant.

[41:33] Dulos slave. He didn't come as a king he came as a slave as a servant and being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even death on a cross.

[41:51] He came as a servant he was here as a servant not to do his own will but to do the will of him who sent him and that identity as a servant meant that he served God his father by always doing whatever pleased him no matter the cost to himself in every situation he always humbled himself and obeyed.

[42:15] Even the command to be damned on the cross in the place of his sinful people he was obedient unto the death of the cross. What a servant. And though the very contemplation of doing that made him sweat drops of blood his response was not my will but yours be done.

[42:36] It's not for the slave to decide his will it's it's for the master and you are the master in this relationship and may your will be done. That was the motto and heartbeat of this servant of the Lord and even so servants of Christ.

[42:54] When he leads you by providence into paths you'd rather avoid at any cost. The servant bows the servant submits to his master's will not my will but yours be done.

[43:11] And when he leads you by his commandments into ways that cut across your desires the servant recalls his identity. I am your servant. And it's not for servants to determine what they will and will not do.

[43:25] That's your role. And so they submit to the master. Not my will but yours be done. Whether something to do or something to suffer the master's will is all that counts to the faithful servant.

[43:38] servant. But there's more. Because this suffering servant of the Lord not only served his father but he served us poor sinners.

[43:51] For even the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. You've heard of ransoms when someone's kidnapped and held hostage, held in bondage.

[44:05] what it takes to free them is the payment of a ransom price. And that's the word here. The ransom is the price paid to set someone free.

[44:20] And here the ransom price is his life for ours. This servant of the Lord saves us by serving us.

[44:36] No wonder his servants serve him gladly. The Lord of glory serving us poor sinners. What wondrous love is this, oh my soul.

[44:52] We mentioned last week that the legal status of American slaves was changed from slave to free by the executive order of President Lincoln.

[45:03] he simply gave a proclamation. He spoke and people who were slaves, their legal status became free. The sheer authority of his office made it so.

[45:24] But no executive order of the King of Kings could set you free from your slavery to sin. the Son of God could not sit on his throne and say, I declare from this point on, they are free from their sins.

[45:38] They are now our servants. That would take the eternal Son of God becoming a man, taking a body, a body in which he could suffer and die and shed his blood.

[45:51] That's what it would take. To pay the price to set you free. To bear the dreadful curse in your place. To receive your wages of sin.

[46:03] What you had coming for serving sin, which was death. He takes those wages and pays them himself. The shedding of his own life's blood is the ransom to set you free.

[46:14] Nothing less would do and nothing more is needed. Jesus bringing salvation to the ends of the world and in paying the price to set you free from sin, he thereby purchased you for God to be God's slave.

[46:32] There's enough merit in the perfect obedience of this suffering servant to justify every sinner who will renounce any idea of goodness of their own to justify themselves before God, to make themselves right with God, who will renounce that and come to this Jesus, this emancipating, freeing Jesus and say, Lord Jesus, it's only your obedience and blood that can set me free.

[46:57] I make you all my trust. So this salvation comes to sinners through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is a loving master that you can trust.

[47:11] You can safely trust yourself into his hand. He's both master and servant. He's the Lord, the Lord of glory, and yet he is the suffering servant of the Lord.

[47:26] Don't you love serving a master who knows what it is to serve? Wife, don't you just love serving a husband who knows what it is to serve you?

[47:41] That's the kind of master we serve. A master who leads by example. A master who died for his servants. Who would not serve him? We've seen today that you're either a slave of sin or a servant of Jesus Christ, this wonderful Lord.

[48:00] And being a slave of Christ is not the identity of just a few super saints who want to go the extra mile in their discipleship and really make Jesus the Lord of their life.

[48:10] No, there's nothing of that in the Bible. This is the identity of every believer. To be a Christian is to be a slave of Jesus Christ. To be freed from sin is to become a slave of Christ.

[48:24] So is that you? Have you become his willing slave to serve him? If not right now, wherever you're at, right there, just repent of your rebellion.

[48:36] You've resisted this kind master and put all your trust in him to atone for all your rebelliousness and he will save you. He died to set sinners free.

[48:49] To make them his own. But if you do own Jesus as your Lord, you say, yes, he is my master. Well, do you think of yourself that way? In the past week, the past month, the past year, how often do you think of yourself as the slave of Jesus?

[49:09] I am your servant. servant. Is it shaping the way you live? Is it shaping your decisions during the day? Is it shaping your responses to difficult providences that he brings to you?

[49:23] Here's your assignment. Suffer this. Here's your assignment. Obey that. Is it changing your reaction to that? Simply because you know who you are. You're his slave.

[49:36] Here to please not yourself, but your master. let's make this aspect of our identity in Christ our focus this week. As we go from basic different aspects of our identity, I'm trusting that we'll make it a focus that week and we'll pray over it, we'll remind ourselves often of it, that after living in that reality for a week, that then when we move on to the next aspect of our identity, something of that will still be there.

[50:06] I'm still savoring the fact that I am a sheep in Jesus' fold. What a precious reality. But now, I also want to so focus this week upon this reality that I am a slave of Jesus Christ.

[50:20] Put it on your bathroom mirror. Put it on your lunchbox, out by the sink, in your car, and just bombard yourself with this identity from God's word this week.

[50:36] asking God to put it in deeper into your mind, to write it on your heart, to shape your life. As you rise each morning, ask your master, what would you have me to do, Lord?

[50:48] What would you have me to do today? I've got these ten things I want to do, but I put it on the altar. What would you have me to do today? Who would you have me see and talk to?

[51:01] What would you have me to be up to today? offer your body. Offer the parts of your body to him. Lord, take this body today.

[51:13] Take my lips, take my eyes, take my hands, take my feet, take me where you want me to go. Help me to say what you want me to say. I'm yours. With Mary, I'm your servant, Lord.

[51:28] Can you present yourself before his word each morning with her words? I'm your servant, Lord. May it be to me according to your word.

[51:39] Whatever your word says, may that be my reality today. Something to do, something to suffer for you. The kingdom of God is a wonderful kingdom.

[51:59] The king is wonderful. It had its type in the Old Testament of the kingdom of Israel. And I think the case could be made that the kingdom came to its greatest splendor and glory under Solomon, King Solomon.

[52:17] And the queen of Sheba heard all about the glory of Solomon's kingdom. She made a long journey to come and to see for herself whether that was really the case.

[52:27] Could it be as good as the rumors have been made? And she came and she saw. She says to King Solomon, the report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true.

[52:42] But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half has been told me. In wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard.

[52:54] How happy are your men. How happy are your servants who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom.

[53:04] Here's this great queen of Sheba, a country of vast gold reserves and she's made this journey and there she sees Solomon in all of his splendor and she's envying the position of the servants of Solomon who get to spend their life in the presence of this wise, good king.

[53:29] The Bible says a greater than Solomon is here with a far greater kingdom and it is your happiness, it is your privilege to be a servant of this master.

[53:47] Come back next week and I'll show you why that is. He's unlike any master in the way he treats his servants. Let's make a fitting response to him as we close our service with number 494, Jesus, master whose I am.

[54:08] It's again reminding us of our place under this gracious master and we offer ourselves up to him. Do this even while we sing.

[54:19] Let's stand and sing 494. for Amen.