Independence Day: We Are So Free..But Are We?

Happy Independence and 4th of July!
It is something we just say but I know most of us really do feel blessed for our freedoms in our independent country. But do we take all of them and apply them to our lives? Our freedom to worship God? or freedom of speech? That could preach! What are we doing with our spare time? The time that God has given us is like a gift. Will we either waste away our lives with things that wont count in eternity, or let our lives count and try to take every chance we can to let our lives shine with the light of Jesus?
Are we truly free? Or are we bound by our own chains? Our fear of man? Fear of the unknown? Or just plain laziness and complacency? We are free to be lazy, free to never leave our houses, free to stay bound to our religion or routine and not think twice about using our resources to bless others. Because lets face it, it takes effort and time and lots of thought and maybe even some time to pray about how or who we can reach with those extra few dollars in our pockets or extra few hours we have in our week...its so much easier to let someone else do it and we are free to sit idly by and do that.

But then are we TRULY FREE? Free in Christ? Some things I have been pondering lately are about the life of Paul. The part where he states He is a slave of Christ...Wait! I thought we lived in a free country? I thought we were free to live how we wanted in this great nation! But of course Paul didn't live in our country so maybe our freedoms make us more free than Paul was? Or was Paul or his partners in the faith not talking about freedom in the natural sense? Nearly every one in the letters of the New Testament were called slaves of Christ. Some translations like to soften this word with using "bondservant" but... Paul, Peter, Epaphras, James, Timothy, Jude, and Tychicus all likened themselves as slaves. {And if you do see the word "servant" instead of "slave" in your bible, its the exact same Greek word in the original language.}  Also, in Revelation 1:1 We are all addressed as Christ's slaves. Paul says that he doesnt even own his own life but belongs to Christ. That we were bought with a price - the precious blood of Christ that was shed at Calvary.

I copied a part of a sermon that I could have just re-typed in my own words, but that would take a bit of time so please read and understand more fully what it means to be a "slave of Christ."
From John MacArthur and this website: https://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/80-321/slaves-for-christ

..."Now let’s go into the Greek and Roman world of the New Testament. When we say slave, we have a rather distant somewhat detached historical revulsion to the word slave. If you think that’s a hard word for us to swallow, imagine how hard it was for those living in the midst of slavery to swallow that idea. When a pastor says to me, “How can I talk to my people about being slaves to Christ when they have in their past history the abuses of slavery?” Well if you think that’s hard, how can Jesus and the apostles of the New Testament talk to people living in the midst of a slave-dominated society, ten to twelve million slaves at that very time, about the fact that being a Christian was being a slave to Jesus Christ? There wouldn’t be any distant foggy idea of what that meant, they would know exactly what that meant, precisely what it meant.
Now remember, for Greeks, elevated people, the citizenry, freedom was the pinnacle of life. Personal dignity was attached to freedom, being a douloswas the worst, it was the opposite. Let me tell you about slaves in the Greek/Roman world. They had no freedom. They had no rights. They had no ownership of anything. They had no legal recourse in the courts. They could not give testimony as a witness in a law case. They had no citizenship. They had no possibility of doing what they wanted to do. They weren’t asked, “Say there, Mr. Slave, what would you like to do to be fulfilled?” They weren’t asked, “What do you think your purpose is? Can you dream your dream so I, your master, can fulfill it?” Bizarre. They had no choice about anything. They owned nothing. They couldn’t be citizens and they couldn’t be a part of the army, the military. They were totally dependent on whoever owned them. It doesn’t mean that it didn’t have some benefits. They were provided for, cared for, protected. In many cases, treated kindly, compassionately, loved within families. But to the Greek and the Roman philosophically and socially, freedom was the pinnacle of life. So free men had only scorn for slaves and slaves longed to be free.
By the way, we cannot find in Greek literature, and there’s a lot of religious Greek literature cause they were very religious, they had many gods as we know. Remember Mars Hill, Athens. They had statutes to gods that they didn’t even know, as well as the ones t hey thought they knew. Very, very religious, never in the religious language of that world can there be found the use of the word doulos to describe the relationship between a worshiper and his God. They used philos, friends. They were friends of God, they were not slaves of their deities. That was repugnant to them. That was repulsive to them. They loved freedom.
So the idea of coming along in that world and announcing to people that you must become a slave of Jesus Christ, was just another way to present the message to make it impossible to believe. Nobody is going to line up to become anybody’s slave. Slaves already had enough of slavery. Free men had nothing but disdain for slavery. And yet the New Testament holds back absolutely nothing. We’re called to be slaves. Now the difference between a slave and a servant is obvious...obvious. Servants were hired to work for wages. Servants were hired to work for wages and they could quit. They were paid a wage for a job. Slaves were owned and they could not quit. If they ran away, they were found, arrested, flogged and there’s all kinds of ancient writings about the flogging of slaves and worse, and sometimes...sometimes...many times, crucified publically as a demonstration to the rest of the slaves of what could happen to them if they ran away. One of the great stories of a runaway slave is the book of Philemon in the New Testament, right? In fact, the Apostle Paul encouraged Philemon when...encouraged Onesimus, the runaway slave when he met him, to go back home because that was the right thing to do and he encouraged Philemon to treat him with love, compassion, forgiveness and embrace him.
In spite of this reality of slavery, and because it is so distasteful and has been for so long, the translators of the New Testament have done everything they can to edit it out. I could only wish that if you get the opportunity, find a copy of Goodspeed’s translation. You might find one in a library, it’s not a very popular translation and obviously a translation done by one man lacks some of the richness of one that’s done by a collection of men who can kind of bounce off each other. But you’ll find it very interesting. The Apostle Paul, for example, did not see himself, as one writer puts it, as the great founder of Christianity. He did not see himself that way. He saw himself as the slave of God and he slave of Christ. Let me just help you to see this the best I can, and we’re limited because of the translation of the NAS, but look at Romans 1:1. It’s almost as if the translators choke on the word slave and they just do anything to replace it. So in Romans 1:1 it’s Paul, a bondservant of Christ Jesus. It’s actually the word doulos, a slave of Christ Jesus. That was his formal introduction, a slave of Christ Jesus. Happily so, Philippians chapter 1 verse 1, he includes Timothy, “Paul and Timothy,” and again the NAS is bondservants, the Greek is slaves of Christ Jesus. Back in Galatians chapter 1 and verse 10, Paul says it again, the end of the verse, he says, “If I was trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ.” Now he understood what slavery meant. “I only do what pleases my master.” This is the singular focus of being a slave. You don’t have to please a lot of people, you just please one. That metaphor is critical to understanding our relationship to the Lord. If we’re going to talk about a personal relationship to Christ and to God, then our personal relationship is we are slaves. That’s the best way to define that relationship. And Paul here tells us it means that we only please Him. He says to the Corinthians, “I have as my ambition to be pleasing to Him.”
It came down to this, do what He says and do what pleases Him. It’s that simple. That’s what a slave did. Really only two possibilities, where there was a direct command, you obeyed it. Where there was not a direct command, you found a way to do what would please the master. You obeyed him and you pleased him. In his letter to Titus, again introducing himself in Titus chapter 1, he says, “Paul, a slave of God.” He is a slave of God, he is a slave of Christ. He’s not alone, look at James...James, a slave of God...and I love this...and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is James, the half brother of Jesus. He’s not trying to elevate himself, he doesn’t say, “I’m James the half-brother of Jesus.” He says, “I am James, a slave of God and a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
That, of course, is why over in chapter 4 and verse 13 he says these familiar words, “Come now, you who say today or tomorrow we’ll go in to such-a-such a city, spend a year there, engage in business, make a prophet, yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow, you’re just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, if the Lord wills we shall live and do this, or that.” That’s slave talk. That’s what it means to be subject to an alien will. Jude, the same thing. “Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ.”
Now, when you’re coming to James and Jude and the Apostle Paul and we could include our beloved Peter, 2 Peter 1, Simon Peter, a slave and an apostle of Jesus Christ, you’re talking about the elite. You’re talking about those at the top of the spiritual list and they happily and gladly and joyfully identified themselves as slaves of Christ and slaves of God.
Just a couple of other illustrations. Colossians 1:7 mentions Epaphras and then the NAS says, “Our beloved fellow bondservant.” It is in the Greek our sundoulos, our fellow slave, Epaphras. Further in chapter 4 verse 12, “Epaphras who is one of your number, a slave of Jesus Christ.” They not only were willing to take to themselves the title of being a slave, but they conferred it upon the most noble of other believers.
In 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 24, Paul is writing to Timothy and he’s writing about how pastors ought to conduct themselves and how they ought to minister in the church and serve in the church. And he says, in 2 timothy 2:24, “The Lord’s slave must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged with gentleness, correcting those who are in opposition that perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth.” Here those who teach and lead the church are identified as slaves. This is not some reference to the low-level of believers. What I’m trying to tell you is, the Apostles took this identification to themselves. The most noble authors of the New Testament took this signification to themselves. They conferred it upon the noblest of their brotherhood and they so labeled those who following them would be the leaders of the church. We are slaves of God and slaves of Jesus Christ."....

This sermon goes on to talk about how we are called slaves as well in Revelation 1:1...

He also goes in to describe why its so wonderful to be Christ's slave! We look to Him as Lord of all we are and everything we do! We do nothing without His orders or the intent to please Him! And in this He calls us His sons and daughters, His heirs. He promises an eternal life with Him where there is no more sorrow or pain - where we get to be with Him forever.
But are we willing to set aside our own wills, plans, and hopes for this life on earth? Are we willing to put away our citizenship here and trust that God has a bigger plan for us as our Master? Is He truly the Lord of your life today? We are free, but we are, at the same time, slaves of Christ.


Blessings to you my {sundoulos} fellow slaves...

LB