No Longer a Slave to Sin
John 8:34-36, “Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Growing up, your parents go to church, you go to church. You don’t think much about it, you just follow your parents. You go to service, you yawn, you squirm, and then you go home. At some point, however, the time comes for you to choose for yourself.
Is this truly what I believe in, and why?
One of the many things my pastor has urged our congregation to do is to understand why we’re saved. When it comes down to it, it’s more than a “feeling,” and more than saying, “I know that I know.”
It has to be when the waves of life crash against the shore, the enemy attempts to tell you who you are, and the world tries to lure you into who you should be. It goes beyond emotions; it’s supernatural and divine.
Understanding my stance on the Word and standing on it hasn’t always proven easy. It can’t be because my mom believes, or because my pastor said so. It has to be personal, conscious, deliberate…
We live in a culture where the Bible is less than our ultimate guiding force, than it is a loose recommendation. We cherry-pick what fits right for us and lightly toss a blanket over (or just completely remove) what doesn’t fit our image of who we think God is.
Well, who is God?
David said, “The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.” (Psalms 103:8)
Moses said, “He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright he is!” (Deuteronomy 32:4)
The seraphim declare,“‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies! The whole earth is filled with his glory!’” (Isaiah 6:3)
And that doesn't even cover a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of who God is.
Despite this, we’ll choose the “parts” of God that make us feel good and throw away what doesn’t.
God is love…God is peace…we like that.
When His righteousness, holiness, and justice enter the chat, though…we resist.
Can we see God’s loving kindness without reverencing His absolute holiness? It would surely give us a skewed spiritual perception. I’ve found that our expectations of who God should be stunt us from seeing and experiencing who God truly is—and the freedom that comes from that illumination.
Let’s discuss Jesus, the Prince of Peace, and the Israelites.
In Matthew 10:34, Jesus says, 'Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.'
Wait, a sword? The Prince of Peace wielding a weapon of division?
Jesus wasn't negating His identity as the bringer of true, lasting peace. Instead, he was shattering the false peace the Israelites had envisioned. They wanted a political Messiah, a powerful figure who would overthrow the Roman oppressors and establish a comfortable, sovereign nation.
Their peace was tied to earthly power and the absence of external conflict. But that wasn’t Jesus’ primary purpose, and that’s why many abandoned Him. And we do too when the reality of who Jesus is doesn’t match up with who we created Him to be in our minds.
Here’s a question for all of us: Is that disappointment and misplaced anger on Jesus for being who He is, or on us for suppressing/ignoring/overlooking who Jesus clearly states He is, for the sake of our comfort (Romans 1:18-20)?
God is love. True. God is peace. True.
And (Not but) he does not compromise His Word for anyone. I mean, literally no one. He doesn’t lower His standards just because we lower ours. (2 Timothy 2:13). He is faithful to His Word.
Before we were, His Word is. After we are, His Word will still be. As it says in Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”
That means that in today’s world, with so many thoughts, opinions, and ideologies on who we are, who we should be, who we want to be, who God is, one has to give. And it’s not God’s Word.
Times have certainly changed. Does that mean the Word does too? Is the Word influenced by culture? I don’t think so. Throughout the Bible, we see Jesus constantly battling the religiously hypocritical and legalistic culture of His time.
If the Word shifted and adjusted because of the culture, then Jesus wouldn’t be Jesus, and we’d have no firm foundation. Instead, we shift because of the Word. The Word doesn’t change, but we do…from the inside out as a result of it.
Because the truth sets you free (John 8:32), which leads me to the title of this blog post.
When we think of slavery, so many gruesome, horrendous pictures come to mind. Through images, documentaries, and stories throughout history, we’ve become aware of the picture of physical slavery (which probably doesn’t even scratch the surface of what they truly went through).
Have you ever considered what that looks like in the spiritual? I hadn’t always until I found myself in that space. Without freedom, bound in chains, endless torment, dark misery…death. Or let me say it like this: no peace, no joy, no comfort, lost, living with no direction or purpose. Maybe right now in your own life, you find yourself experiencing this.
If so, here’s what I can tell you…
In Christ alone, is where true freedom lies. It says so in Romans 6:1-7: “We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin.”
Think about the dynamic between slave and master. It is exactly that. There is a distance. There is a line drawn. There is no kinship. Before Christ, we find ourselves as slaves floating in the world, not attached to the body…the family of Christ. Everything changes when we accept Christ into our lives.
We are adopted (Ephesians 1:5); we are made a permanent member of the body. Just as a son is a reflection of his Father, we too have been called to be reflection of Jesus: “So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image,” (2 Corinthians 3:18)
I was a slave to my ideologies, beliefs, and expectations of God. I was a slave to my own selfish and lustful passions and desires. The chains were tightened around my soul. When God freed me, He freed me from my prison. He freed me from my idea of “truth” and replaced it with His Word.
It’s not a confinement but a comfort to know that God doesn’t change. His love doesn’t change…His promise doesn’t change. Of course, that also means His standards for us don’t change—and they shouldn’t, no matter our feelings, our biases, even our experiences. Don’t worry, I’m speaking directly to myself as well.
Hebrews 13:8 says it best: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
I hear many things about Jesus that have nothing to do with Jesus more than it does the one perceiving Jesus. I’ve been in that boat too. For myself, I realized it was because Jesus was holding me to a standard I didn’t want to uphold. It was “too much.” I just wanted to be free to “be me.”
(I was miserable, and the life I was living certainly wasn’t worth it.)
It wasn’t until I surrendered and sat down with a willing heart to understand that God’s established order was never to keep us “confined,” but to keep us connected. The moment Adam and Eve took part in the fruit, they became disconnected. People might say, “Well, why couldn’t God just give them everything?” And that’s our issue…we want it all with no constraints or restraints, not understanding it will lead us to our death. I’m not talking physically, I’m talking spiritually.
So, what does it mean to no longer be a slave?
It means being free from the personal prison you found yourself in. It means being free from the false peace that we’re “just fine.” It means embracing our sonship, as the song says, no longer being a slave to fear, because you are a child of God.
It also means bearing the responsibility and choosing to reflect the Father who has chosen you, whom you love.
Like you…
I’m still learning and growing.
I’m still digging deep to understand why I do everything that I do.
I’m still trusting God day by day.
If there is one thing I can say for sure, it’s that I love Jesus. I love Him because He first loved me. I love Him because He knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I love Him because He saved me from the deepest darkest depths of who I was, and gave me a second, third, and fourth chance at a new life in Him (1 John 4:19, Psalms 139:13-14).
I love Him because He is.
The Lord has never once given up on me. He has never left me alone. It’s because of God that I exist. That’s why God's Word is not a restriction to me…it is my restoration.
The journey has truly just begun. There’s so much life to live and so much to glean and learn. As Paul says, I press to reach the end of the race (Philippians 4:13), refusing to conform to the patterns of this world, no matter how sweet, enticing, or warm they sound (Romans 12:1-2).
To all of us who say we love the Lord:
May we all come to know God’s good and pleasing and perfect will for us.
May we choose to remain faithful to His word
May we choose to remain in His unchanging, uncompromising Truth.
May we all steadfastly declare, “Your eternal word, O Lord, stands firm in heaven” (Psalms 119:89).
For we are no longer slaves to sin.
