BOND SLAVE OF CHRIST
1 Cor. 6:19-20
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: A SURE-FIRE SOLUTION
1. "I could sure do with your help, Steve," Isaac said to his best friend. “All right, so what's your problem?" replied Steve.
2. "Whenever I talk to my wife," replied Isaac, "she never seems to be interested in what I'm saying."
3. "Oh! It's very common for such a thing to happen," said Steve, "but I’ve heard of a sure-fire solution to that problem."
4. "Really! I got to hear this," said Isaac. "What’s this sure-fire solution to getting my wife to listen to me?"
5. "Simple: You talk in your sleep!" replied Steve.
B. THESIS AND TITLE
1. There are those who make it to the end of the Christian race and those that falter and fall away. It’s not a mystery why some make it and some don’t: it’s all about surrender and commitment.
2. The more deeply a person surrenders to Christ and becomes dependent on Him daily, the more likely they are to finish the spiritual race in victory.
3. Today we’re going to look at a term the early Christians used to describe total surrender to the will and purpose of Jesus.
4. The title of this message is “Bond Slave of Christ.”
I. WE ARE TO BE BOND SLAVES, ‘DOULOS’
A. GREATEST IN THE KINGDOM SHOULD BE ‘DOULOS’
42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all (Gr. doulos). 45 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.” Mk. 10:42-45. What’s a ‘doulos’?
B. 7 WORDS FOR SERVANT/SLAVE (in descending order):
1. HUPERETES – subordinate, assistant. (Jn.18:36; Mt.25:58)
2. DIAKONOS – attendant, waiter. (Jn. 12:26; Rom. 16:1)
3. MISTHOTOS – wage worker. (Mk. 1:20)
4. OIKETES – menial domestic.
5. THERAPON – a menial attendant.
6. PAIS – a young slave.
7. DOULOS – bond slave. Possibly chained. Completely owned and dominated by the will of the owner. The doulos is at the bottom.
8. Interestingly, Paul (Rom. 1:1), James (1:1), Jude (1:1), and Peter (II:1:1) all said they were bond slaves, “doulos of Jesus Christ.” Even Jesus made Himself a doulos as our example (John 13: 4-5, 12-17), when He washed His disciple’s feet.
C. WE HUMANS ARE BY NATURE DOULOS
1. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 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 (doulos), being made in human likeness” Phip. 2:3-7. Jesus took on OUR nature as a doulos!
2. It’s part of our nature to “serve” someone, that’s why Joshua said, “choose you this day whom you will serve” (24:15). So the question is not WHETHER we will serve a master, but WHO we will serve!
3. Jesus verified this when He said, “No man can serve 2 masters!” Mt. 6:24.
II. UNTIL JESUS FREES US, WE’RE BOUND
A. MANY PEOPLE WOULD DISAGREE THAT THEY’RE BOUND
1. The Jews told Jesus, “We…have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave (doulos) to sin.” John 8:33-34.
2. Jesus told them they WERE slaves to SIN! We’re chained to it.
B. EXAMPLES OF OUR BONDAGE?
1. Captives of ADDICTIONS. 23.5 million Americans are addicted to alcohol and drugs. And it’s not just the young! An estimated 15 percent of elderly suffer from substance abuse and addiction! [A]
2. Captives of PORNOGRAPHY. 12 to 30 million people have a sexual addiction of some kind. A study done in 2006 of people age 18-49 found that 82% looked at pornographic magazines, 84% viewed pornographic films, and 34% viewed pornography online. [B]
3. Captives of WORKAHOLICS. Studies have found that workaholics display many of the same characteristics as those addicted to drugs or alcohol. 15.7 million people are workaholics! Jesus warned us not to put money/career first. [C]
4. Captives of STRIFE: divorce; estrangement from kids, parents, siblings; trouble on job; domestic violence, etc. Divorce rates since 1960 have risen from 25 to 50% (there’s always strife and trauma with divorce). According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, an estimated 1.3 million American women experience DV each year. [D]
5. Captives of DEPRESSION. An estimated 19 million American adults are living with major depression. [E]
6. Captives of SICKNESS.
a. THE YOUNG: STDs: 19,000,000 new STD infections each year; 65,000,000 living with an incurable STD; 1 OUT OF 4 high school girls has an STD; 85% of our population will contract HPV during their lifetime.
b. reported in 2013 that 3.3 million Americans missed work because of illness monthly. That’s 40 million of the full-time work force in one year. Another 49 million are classified as disabled! That’s nearly 100 million having problems with illness! [F]
7. SECULAR MINDS PERCEIVE IT – our need of liberty
“Men qualify for freedom in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power is put somewhere on will and appetite, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” Edmund Burke
C. WE’RE JUST SCRATCHING THE SURFACE
1. There are countless other manifestations of the sin nature. The Bible says that “ALL HAVE SINNED” Rom. 3:23. The Apostle John said “The whole world is under the control of the evil one” 1 Jn. 5:19. So we all need redemption and deliverance!
2. People can say, “I’ve never been a slave to anyone!” How wrong they are. You don’t have to be in TDCJ to be a prisoner. Many people are prisoners who’ve never been to jail. Jesus told us we’re slaves to sin!
3. Only two alternatives exist: sin as our master or God as our master. Service to one’s ego is the very essence of the slavery to sin, because sin reigns on the thrones of our hearts.
III. WHAT BEING BOUGHT MEANS
A. DOULOS STATUS CONVEYS DUTY
1. 1 Cor. 6:19-20, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”
2. In Corinthians, Paul was exposing sexual immorality. He declared that sex outside marriage was a sacrilegious desecration of the temple of our bodies, and of the Holy Spirit who indwells us.
3. Then Paul pointed out that our doulos status requires us to obey our Master. We should remember we were bond slaves to our sins, under the sentence of divine judgment, and inevitably God was going to have to punish us.
4. But then Jesus became our substitute. Remember how He bared His back to the lash that should have fallen upon you, how He died when it should have been your blood shed.
5. The words “You were bought” implies a purchase, but the words, “with a price” reminds us that it was not for nothing that you were purchased; there was a something inestimably precious paid for you.
6. “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” 1 Pet. 1:18-19.
7. Purchased WITH BLOOD! What a terrible price! How many people in history can say they were ransomed by the blood of someone else?
B. GREAT RANSOMS HAVE BEEN PAID IN HISTORY
1. Richard Coeur de Leon, captured by his treacherous enemy in Europe as he returned from a Crusade in the Holy Land, was thrown into prison. A colossal ransom was demanded for his redemption. The people of England submitted to heavy taxation and paid willingly, and many rich nobles contributed large sums, that their king might be set free. Hence the term—`a king's ransom'—is used to connote a tremendous amount of money.
2. Another Crusader, Sir Grimbald, was captured by the Saracens and held for ransom. The only ransom they would accept was for his wife to cut off her lily-white right hand and send it to them, which she willingly did!
3. But never was a ransom so high as the one that was paid for you: the life & cruel death of the Son of God!
C. JESUS BOUGHT US
1. Have you ever been racked with pain? Then at such times you know to some degree the price the Savior paid. His bodily pains were great.
2. His hands and feet nailed to the wood, and the iron ripping through the tenderest nerves. His spiritual pain was even greater -- He was overwhelmed. The pouring out of blood and water (when pierced) proves His heart had burst.
3. He was deserted by God and driven into the darkness and tempest of divine wrath. But pain alone could not have redeemed us. It was by death that the Savior paid the ransom! Think of the incalculable, infinite price: the Holy One became sin; the Light of the World became darkness, the Ever-Living One became empty, lifeless Death!
4. Q – How many of you will DENY that you were “bought with a price”? Will you confess that you were NOT redeemed on Calvary?
D. OUTCOME: “YOU ARE NOT YOUR OWN…”
1. Your HEART is not your own, but Christ’s whose heart was broken;
2. Your THOUGHTS are not your own, but His who thought of you from the beginning of time;
3. Your TIME is not your own, but the Redeemer’s who sacrificed His time for you;
4. Your ABILITIES and INFLUENCE are not your own, because He surrendered all His so you might be saved.
5. 1. Your PROPERTY is not your own, but His who claims your all as His bond-slave.
IV. WHAT WAS THE PRICE PAID FOR US?
A. WHERE AND HOW HE PAID FOR US
1. Picture the Garden of Gethsemane at the midnight hour: there kneels Immanuel, the Son of God! He groans! He pleads in prayer! He wrestles – as great drops of sweat fall from His head. But it’s not only sweat that pours from Him -- it’s blood, crimson blood; great globs of it are falling to the ground! Q- Can you hear your Savior speaking to you from Gethsemane? “Here I bought you with a price!” Look at His agony in the garden. With what coin did He purchase you at Gethsemane? With the coin of His anguish and bloody sweat.
2. Follow Him on His way of shame and sorrow till you see
Him at what’s called Gabbatha, the pavement. See how they bind His hands, and handcuff Him to the whipping-post. Look! Down, over and over, come the cruel Roman whips. They tear His flesh and make deep lacerations on His blessed body. The blood gushes forth in streams, while trickles from His forehead, where the crown of thorns pierced Him, join to swell the purple stream. From beneath the scourges He speaks to you with His loving voice, soft and low, “My child, it is here I bought you with a price.” At Gabbatha He paid for YOU the coin of lacerations, contusions, and flowing blood.
3. But follow Him to the cross where His doom awaits. His hands and feet gushed blood as the nail parted His flesh and seared His nerves. At last He could struggle no longer as His heart literally ruptured as He bore all our sins. And there, before the soldier pierced His side with the spear, He whispers to you and to me, “It was here I bought you with a price.” He paid Justice the price – to the last ounce of torment, to the last drop of blood.
B. JESUS’ RIGHT TO COMMAND OUR OBEDIENCE
1. Oh! By Gethsemane, by Gabbatha, and by Golgotha Jesus paid the highest price to purchase our salvation. Will we now tell Him He has no right to us? That we owe Him nothing in return? He says to us this morning – “DOES ALL I DID MEAN NOTHING TO YOU?”
2. I plead with you, brothers and sisters, to remember that you were “bought with a price,” and “are not your own!” I lay this choice before you: you either were or you weren’t bought.
3. If you were, then it’s time to serve your master Jesus, to serve His people and work for His kingdom, and let His passion be our animating passion! May we be a doulos He will be proud of!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: “Owned by a God”
1. The Greeks had a method of freeing a slave so that he could never be made a slave again. This became their only was of freeing slaves (see Delphic inscriptions).
2. When the Greeks freed a slave, they did it by selling him to the god Apollo. Once you were owned by a god, you could never be enslaved again by humans!
3. The document of manumission contained the words “for freedom.” No one could enslave him again, as he was the property of the god.” (Vine’s, “free,” p.131; Kittle, I:124-125).
4. What an awesome revelation! We’ve been bought by Christ and should never be enslaved again because we’ve been bought by God! (Paul used the Greek word for manumission in Gal. 5:13; “For you, brethren, were called ‘for freedom.’”).
B. ILLUS.: BOUGHT TO BE FREED
1. Two men bid for a young girl. The refined man outbid the surly one. The girl was shoved to her new owner – defiant, hateful. She expected the worst.
2. The look on her face changed to amazement and confusion. Her new owner was ripping up the papers of her ownership. The owner finally said with a smile, “You’re free. I bought you to free you.”
3. She stared at him. Finally she cast herself at his feet and said, “Oh master, since you’re that good, I’ll love and serve you for life!” [Knights, p. 235]
4. That’s what Jesus did for us – He bought us to free us!
C. THE CALL: “SLAVE FOR LIFE”
1. In Exodus 21:2-6, when a Hebrew slave reached the end of the maximum 7 years of service, he could, if he/she wanted, ask their master to become a “slave for life.”
2. He would then go with his master before the judges, get his ear pierced with an awl, and he would become his master’s slave for life.
3. I believe God allowed this practice to challenge us to go beyond shallow commitment to deep and lasting surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ.
4. How many would like to dedicate yourselves this morning to be a DOULOS, a BOND-SLAVE of Christ? If you’d like to do that, then come join me at the front. Prayer.
[Part of this message is from Charles Spurgeon’s sermon on 1 Cor. 6:20, “Bought with a Price.” Other sources are mentioned below.]
[A] drugfree.org/.../new-data-show-millions-of-americans-with-alcohol-and-drug][ americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-guide/addiction-statistics/
[B] www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/182473.php
“Fight the new drug”
[C] huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/07/workaholic-bad
www.cheat sheet.com › Money & Career
[D] http://time.com/3313343/ray-rice-black-women-domestic-violence/
[E] https://www.webmd.com /depression/default.htm
[F] Thinkprogress.org; serviceandinclusion.org/index.php?page=basic
