1 Peter 2:16: as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God.
On this 4th of July, American citizens celebrate the day that 13 colonies declared their independence from the rule and reign of the British Empire. This courageous move was documented in a paper famously known as the Declaration of Independence. The wording of this amazing document spells out the reasons why these colonists were taking this huge step. The reasons all center on a restrictive set of policies that limited their abilities to do what they think are right and reasonable.
Coming to faith in Christ is a declaration of liberty and freedom from the slavery to sin. Under the grip of the deathly fruits of sin, we are shackled by guilt, shame, condemnation, fear, anxiety, and a seemingly endless inevitable set of adverse consequences. With the procurement of forgiveness from our sins by our faith in what Jesus did at the Cross, we are liberated and made free from these debilitating consequences. Just as the founding fathers of America declared their right to choose how they should conduct themselves, so does the person who wants to be free from the restrictive reign of sin.
A great lie about sin is we should be free to do what we want – what our flesh tells us will make us happy. Here’s an important question, “What if what our flesh wants isn’t really what is going to make us happy?” If we consider this possibility that our flesh is wrong about what makes us happy, then the alleged freedom of sinful conduct is really an enslavement to conduct that is going to make us unhappy. The freedom we gain upon our faith in Christ is not necessarily just the freedom that allows us to do what we want to do, but this freedom also allows us to choose what we don’t want to do. With the invitation of Christ to deliver us from the harmful habits and bad behaviors that come from sin, we are liberated to move forward in total forgiveness.
Satan may have lost the war for our souls, but he is not giving up on making our lives miserable. He does this by either introducing suffering or tempting our flesh that was crucified with Christ to sin once again – to the vices we once were held captive. An improper teaching of the Christian faith is since we have forgiveness of sins by our faith in Christ, we can keep sinning because we are forgiven. Sin is a big deal – it was the reason Jesus went to the Cross. At a minimum, to keep sinning after coming to faith in Christ is an insult to the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf. More importantly, it may be a signal that our confession of faith was not completely sincere.
The issue we need to consider is whether we want to be slaves to sin or whether we want to be bondservants to the One who freed us from that slavery to sin? A bondservant is someone who voluntarily chooses to be fully submitted to the authority of another. This may sound like slavery, but the difference to the typical definition of slavery is in being a bondservant, we make the choice to follow Jesus. By making this choice, we are declaring a dependence on Jesus to find our freedom. Our dependence on Jesus gives us the liberty of living free from the burdens of sin.
As a country, we sought freedom through independence from the British rule. However, our founding fathers recognized that while we sought independence from tyrannical British rule, our true freedom was going to come from dependence on God. The last sentence of the Declaration of Independence says, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” Freedom is an extraordinary blessing, and it comes at a high cost. The best way to live in freedom is to depend on the One who paid the price for our freedom. If He was good enough to buy us our liberty, shouldn’t He be good enough to preserve our liberty?