Remember Your Chains
TCF Sermon
November 5, 2006
Turn with me this morning to a passage from Psalm 107
Psalms 107:10-16 (NIV) 10 Some sat in darkness and the deepest gloom, prisoners suffering in iron chains, 11 for they had rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High. 12 So he subjected them to bitter labor; they stumbled, and there was no one to help. 13 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. 14 He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains. 15 Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, 16 for he breaks down gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron.
This passage is in the middle of a longer Psalm which historically relates to the Israelites time of captivity in Babylon, as well as God’s deliverance of His people in other contexts in the Old Testament. It illustrates those cycles, or patterns, that are so apparent in the Old Testament. It’s a pattern that reveals much about human nature, and much about our loving and gracious God.
We’ll take a closer look at this cycle in a few minutes. It’s a pattern that puts the lie to the sometimes heard idea that the Old Testament is about God’s wrath and judgment, and the New Testament is about God’s grace and mercy.
Both the New Testament and Old Testament contain much about God’s wrath and judgment. Both the New Testament and Old Testament loudly proclaim God’s grace and mercy.
We’re going to see that as we focus primarily on two passages - one this passage from Psalms - and another from 2 Peter 1 we’ll read here in a moment.
Commentator William McDonald has some helpful things to say about this Psalm. First, he points out the common pattern we see so often in the Old Testament. If we’re honest, we have to admit that, while we see this pattern at work in the Old Testament with the people of Israel as a group, we also see that this pattern is something we as followers of Christ under the New Covenant, just be continually on guard against as well, as individuals.
The great hymnist Robert Robinson knew this. That’s why he wrote in his well-known hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, these lyrics:
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
An unverifiable story of this man’s life goes like this:
One day, he en¬count¬ered a wo¬man who was studying a hymnal, and she asked how he liked the hymn she was humming. In tears, he replied, “Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then.”
So, while we can’t verify this story, though it’s been often told, we can believe it might really be true, because we’ve seen it so clearly illustrated in human nature. We saw it in the news just this past week, when yet another very high profile minister, a guy who graduated in the same graduating class I did from ORU, had a very public fall.
Isn’t it interesting too, that Robinson, in his prayerful hymn, used a word similar to what the Psalmist used. Robinson’s prayer is that God would let His goodness, like a fetter, bind his wandering heart to God.
“Fetter’s” not a word we hear very often now. In fact, about the only way you hear it used these days is to say “unfettered,” which basically means unhindered by anything. But a fetter is a chain. It’s something that serves to restrict or restrain. And it’s used often when talking about slaves.
So we see the Psalmist, who wrote Psalm 107 using the same visual imagery, but in a different context. Whereas Robinson was essentially asking God to chain his heart to God, so the hymn writer wouldn’t wander from God, the Psalmist was recognizing that God is also the one who loosens, who breaks, in fact, another kind of chain - the kind that tends to bind us and restrict us and enslave us – the chains of sin.
This morning’s message is focused on that idea. It’s the idea that we cannot, we should not forget our chains. The title of this message is Remember Your Chains. That’s because all of us, at one time, were bound in chains. Some of us still are, for various reasons, even though we needn’t be, and scripture is full of admonitions to remember things.
How are slaves controlled? How are prisoners controlled or restricted? Often it’s by chains, by restraints of some sort. So, using this visual metaphor of chains this morning, I want us to look at why it’s so important that we not forget, or more positively, that we remember, our chains.
Why is it important to remember our chains?
1. if we remember our chains, in this context this morning, meaning the way it was for each of us to be a slave of sin, to be chained in our behaviors and our attitudes and our sin, we will have a continuing sense of gratitude - gratitude that God’s grace has released us from these chains, and they are in fact gone, and we are no longer enslaved by sin. That sense of gratitude will be a part of our continued growth in Godly character, part of what God uses to mold us and shape us into the image and likeness of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
2. if we remember our chains, we will also remember that so much of the world around us, many of the people in our lives, and in our society, are slaves to sin, they’re encompassed by very real, though invisible chains, that hold them captive to sin. This remembrance should give us more compassion for sinners, and motivate us to share God’s grace with them, and share Jesus as the only “key” to unlocking those chains and setting them free.
So with those two things as our goal to think about this morning, let’s read a New Testament passage that addresses this need to remember where we, as followers of Christ, have come from, to remember our chains.
2 Peter 1:5-9 (NIV) 5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
For the purposes of our time together this morning, we’ll focus on verse 9. Remember that this is written to followers of Christ, and Peter is encouraging these Christians to develop these qualities of faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love. He tells us that if we possess these qualities, and if we’re growing in them, the lives we live for Christ will be effective, fruitful and productive.
But verse 9 adds a caveat to this. If anyone does not exhibit these qualities in his or her life, just as the presence of these things reveals something about their character and their relationship with the Lord, so does their absence.
The absence of these things shows that they are nearsighted - a better translation might be short-sighted. It also shows they are blind. And in the context of what we’re looking at this morning, it also shows they haven’t remembered their chains. They have forgotten where they came from, how far they’ve come, what they’ve been delivered from.
The way Peter says it: “they have forgotten that they’ve been cleansed from their past sins.”
And not remembering our chains is a problem for the two reasons we just looked at:
1.remembering where we came from helps us grow into where we’re going in Christ, and the reverse is true – forgetting keeps us from growing
2.remembering our chains helps us remember that much of the world is still bound in those same kinds of chains.
Of course, the kind of blindness Peter refers to here is spiritual blindness. It’s a blindness to the spiritual realities of the unseen world. It would also clearly include our need to grow in these spiritual qualities.
Nearsighted, or short-sighted, here means: to fix one’s gaze on present and earthly things…
Believers Bible Commentary says:
Shortsightedness here specifies the form of blindness in which man lives (only) for the present rather than the future. He is so occupied with material things that he neglects the spiritual.
The word for nearsighted in the original language is the word from which we derive our English word myopia. While this word in English does refer primarily to the physical eyesight condition of myopia, or nearsightedness, there’s another common understanding when we say someone’s thinking is myopic:
It means: “a lack of foresight or discernment : a narrow view of something, or a lack of discernment or long-range perspective in thinking or planning.”
So, as Peter is trying to do here, let’s apply this thinking and understanding to our spiritual lives, not necessarily to our physical eyes.
If we see with spiritual blinders on, we only see what’s immediately ahead of us. We can’t see the need to develop perseverance. We can’t see the need to develop self-control, or godliness, or brotherly kindness, or love. These are the things that as believers we are supposed to be growing in, by the power of the same Jesus who has broken the chains of sin in our life. We also cannot see our lives in the light of eternity…everything becomes about being happy now.
If we neglect these things, if we fail to recognize the importance of developing these things in our life, we’ve forgotten those chains, and are in danger of backtracking in our spiritual lives. We’re in danger of allowing those chains to bind us once more, even though, as followers of Christ, they no longer have any power to hold us.
So, another way of saying what Peter is saying here is that we need to remember our chains, and that memory is one of the ways that God motivates us and equips us to develop these characteristics of Christ in us.
Sometimes, remembering our chains is hard to do, for a variety of reasons. Some of us have been followers of Christ for a long time. How many of you were saved more than 30 years ago? More than 40? More than 50? How many were saved more than 20 years ago? It’s not unusual that we’d forget what it was like to be lost if we’ve been followers of Christ for 20, 30, 40 or more years. It’s definitely fresher for some of us.
Didn’t we appreciate Brian Dunn’s testimony last week? Most of us can remember when Brian was locked up in heavy spiritual chains. He was bound in sin, bound in destructive behaviors and attitudes. God broke those chains, and now, praise God, Brian is free. Those chains no longer hold him in sin. He can remember those chains maybe better than some of us who had our chains broken decades ago.
But, talking with Brian last week, he admitted that even though it’s only been a few years since his chains were broken, it’s easy for him to forget that he was bound. It’s easy for him to think he’s unchained now because of something he’s done in and of himself.
Then, I think of our young people who received Christ at an early age. Now, they were bound in chains, too, but it’s likely they never understood it that way. We have some of our young people here who received Christ when they were four, five or six years old. Because the Word is clear that all have sinned, and because the Word is clear that the unredeemed are slaves to sin, I think it’s safe to say that even a four-year old, who hasn’t received Christ, is in chains.
Sin doesn’t own them any less than it owns the 40-year-old who’s unsaved. We just might not see it as clearly. But, most of us can remember very little about life when we were four, so how can you remember your chains?
So, it’s human nature for us to need these reminders. The first passage of scripture we read, from Psalm 107, illustrates this too.
It illustrates that pattern we talked of earlier – the idea that we’re prone to wander.
Believer’s Bible Commentary notes:
There is a common behavior pattern in the lives of God’s people which can be summarized by two word series:
Sin or Rebellion, followed by Servitude/Retribution, followed by Supplication/Repentance, then the cycle is concluded by Salvation/Restoration.
First of all the people stray from the Lord, walking in disobedience to His Word. Then they suffer the bitter consequences of their backsliding. When they come to themselves, they cry out to the Lord in confession of sin. He then forgives their sin and brings them back into the place of blessing once more. It is the old story of the prodigal son, and surely no story is more familiar, more relevant and true to life.
Two basic facts emerge from the contemplation of this ever-recurring cycle. One is the perpetual proneness of the human heart to wander away from the living God. The other is the seemingly inexhaustible mercy of the Lord in restoring His people when they come to Him in repentance.
Here in Psalm 107, the merciful deliverance of the Lord is presented in four different pictures:
Rescue for those lost in the desert (vv. 4–9).
Rescue for those in prison (vv. 10–16).
Recovery for those who are seriously ill (vv. 17–22).
Deliverance for seamen in a terrible storm (vv. 23–32).
Of course, our focus this morning is on the analogy of rescue for those in prison. Those in prison are in chains.
Matthew Henry says about this part of Psalm 107:
This is a shadow of the sinner’s deliverance from a far worse confinement. The awakened sinner discovers his guilt and misery. Having struggled in vain for deliverance, he finds there is no help for him but in the mercy and grace of God. His sin is forgiven by a merciful God, and his pardon is accompanied by deliverance from the power of sin and Satan, and by the sanctifying and comforting influences of God the Holy Spirit.
These things are in the Word of God to help us remember. They help us remember that we were in chains, enslaved to sin. There’s not a one of us that this isn’t true of, whether we can remember it that way or not.
The apostle Paul, who could recount his credentials for righteousness, came to realize he, too, was bound in chains of sin. He called himself the chief of sinners.
I was a pretty good kid growing up. Never in any real trouble. I’ve never been drunk in my life, I’ve never taken any illegal drugs, I’ve never done anything to grieve my parents.
In fact, one time we were at my parents for Christmas, probably about five or six years ago. We got to telling stories about childhood indiscretions. My mom and dad were telling on themselves. They were telling on my brother and my sister. Lisa saw an opportunity to get some dirt on dad in this rather light moment.
She said to my mom, “What bad stuff did dad do when he was a teenager?” My mom thought a moment, and said, in all honesty, “I really can’t think of anything!” Lisa was so disappointed.
Now, does that mean I wasn’t a slave to sin before I got saved? I got saved when I was 16. Plenty of time to get into trouble, but I never did. But I was no less a slave to sin than anyone who isn’t a follower of Christ. I was in chains and didn’t even know it – but hindsight is 20/20, and I can see now how attitudes and behaviors I had then were not only sin, but how they enslaved me. They were what we’d call little things, but sin nonetheless.
I can see where those chains would have dragged me had they not been broken. I needed someone to break those chains, no less than Brian Dunn did.
His testimony, because of some of the things he did, is certainly more spectacular in some ways than mine. But while we can rejoice that God delivered Brian from his chains, even though while in those chains he did some things he’s not proud of, I can also rejoice that God broke my chains, even as He protected me during those years, when I was just as capable as Brian of getting into bigger trouble than I ever did.
Paul used the slavery analogy in Romans 6:
4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin.
Paul said we should no longer be slaves to sin – or bound by sin’s chains. Peter said that when we are not growing in Christlikeness, we have forgotten that we’ve been cleansed. If we put the two ideas together, we might say we, as followers of Christ, are no longer slaves to sin, but we act like we still are slaves, if we’re not growing in Christ. We act like we’re still in chains. We live like we’re still in chains.
We don’t have to, says Paul. In Romans 6:6, he tells us that our old self, the one in slavery, the one chained in sin, was crucified in Christ, and is now dead. Because it’s dead, it has no power to hold us any longer. These chains of sin around us have been broken.
So, one message we can come away with looking at the passage in 2 Peter is this:
Remember where we were, remember what we were saved from, remember our chains, and that memory will spur us on, motivate us, to move on with God, to grow in Christ, to grow in Christian character, in a way that’s visible to us and to others. It will be a testimony to others, and a testimony to us, that we’re not in chains anymore, that we’re free from sin.
What’s more, we shouldn’t ever forget where we’ve come from, because when we do, we might just allow the enemy of our souls, who loves seeing human beings in spiritual chains, to slip the chains back onto ourselves. Even though they’ve been broken, we can allow the chains of sin, without even thinking of them, to bind us again. That’s an important reason to remember our chains.
Finally, when we remember where we came from, the sense of gratitude that memory should bring us, not only helps us grow in Christ as a thankful response, but gives us an attitude of compassion for the world around us, rather than an attitude of simple disgust for the sinners in the world. Because the world around us is definitely locked up in chains.
How many times do you find yourself shaking your heads in disbelief when you hear about some crime, or when you hear about some sin that’s not even a crime, but is clearly a sin. Is our attitude disgust? Do we find ourselves slipping into the thought-pattern that says this person is disgusting, rather than thinking that here’s a person bound up in chains, enslaved to sin, and unable to do anything about it apart from God?
The level of discourse in our culture indicates that there are many followers of Christ who have slipped into this kind of thinking. I have to confess that I must keep a guard on my thoughts, lest I slip into this attitude of disgust with people who sin.
Doctors who do abortions. People who use illegal drugs. Pastors who fall into sexual sin. African warlords responsible for genocide. Drivers who drive drunk and kill an innocent person. Parents who abuse their children. Each one of these, and any of dozens of other examples we could give, are in the same situation each of you were in, I was in, before we asked Jesus to break our chains, to free us from sin and death.
It’s not in scripture, but it’s a worthy phrase anyway. “There but for the grace of God go I.” There, but for having my chains broken, I could have gone. But thanks be to God, if I did go there when I was bound in chains of sin, I don’t have to anymore. And I can walk in newness of life, free from the chains that held me, before the love of God broke through.
So this morning, let’s remember our chains. Let’s remember that if we are followers of Christ, our chains are gone. Because they’re gone, we can grow in all the Christian qualities that Peter wrote of. Yes, our human nature is prone to wander, but if we remember our chains, we’ll remember that we don’t want to go back there, we don’t want to be bound again, and it will help remind us of how far we’ve come.
And let’s also remember our chains as we look at the world around us. We live in a sin-sick world, and it’s sin-sick because our neighbors are in chains. They cannot break those chains anymore than we could. Only the saving grace of Jesus can break those chains.
Let’s minister that grace to them with love and compassion, knowing that it’s the only way, and they’re prisoners of sin.
These are the things I want us to consider this morning as we close.
I’ve asked Heather to come and sing a song called – surprise! Remember Your Chains. As she comes, and then sings this song, consider this morning how you should respond. Are you growing in the things Peter wrote of? If not, is it because you don’t remember your chains? Or are you disgusted at the sin-sick world around us, to the point where you really have a hard time relating to sinners? If so, is it because you don’t remember your chains, and forget how far God has brought you?
Respond as the Lord would lead you, as Heather sings – you can come to the altar, or pray where you’re seated, or stand, but let’s respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit this morning, as we remember our chains.
Pray
