A Slave's Torment - Good and Evil [Sermon]

Annapolis, Maryland, USA

May 2018

Romans 16:19 Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.

1. The Choice in Slavery

v. 18. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites… (NASB)

Slave: A person who serves whether he likes it or not, without a choice in the matter, because he is subject to an alien will – the will of his owner.

οἰκέτης (oiketeys) - stress on the relation with outside society; δοῦλος (doulos) - stress on the slave’s dependence on his lord Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 261.

Ephesians 2:3 we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Romans 8:15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (ESV)

Romans 6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? (ESV)

Relationship between God and Man:

Friends

Creator – creature

Savior – redeemed

Bridegroom – bride

Father - child

Master - slave

Ephesians 6:6

not by way of eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. (NASB)

2. At the Table of Good and Evil

“Who is good?”

Mark 10:18 No one is good except God alone.

Romans 3:10 “None is righteous, no, not one;

John 10:30 I and the Father are one.

Galatians 5:22-25

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself. He is beginning, so to speak, to "inject" His kind of life and thought, His Zoe, into you; beginning to turn the tin soldier into a live man. CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

3. Innocent of Evil

2 Peter 2:7-8 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard)

#slavery #good #evil #knowledge

Photo by Zulmaury Saavedra on Unsplash