One Day You Will Not Struggle to Obey
- Message Excerpt by
- Topic: Christian Hedonism
Audio Transcript
“Thanks be to God that you who once were slaves of sin” — that’s where we start, enslaved. “Thanks be to God, that though you were slaves of sin, you have become obedient from the heart, having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:17–18).
Having a free will means doing what you want to do and not regretting it in a thousand years.
There are only two kinds of people in the world, biblically, slaves of sin and slaves or righteousness. So, what is freedom? Freedom is being so in love with Christ that you do exactly what you want to do, and it accords with his will. Freedom is doing what you want to do, and not regretting it in a thousand years. Freedom is seeing and savoring the supremacy of Christ so intensely, that you are his, totally — that’s freedom.
The more satisfied you are in Jesus, the more free you are. The more you see him the more free you are, the more you savor him, the more free you are. The more you trust him the more free you are.
Freedom is not suspension between good and evil, contained within your sovereign self the wherewithal to be this or that. That is not freedom, and nobody lives there. Freedom is to be so mastered by God, that we become rational suddenly, we become free to know him, love him, delight in him, be satisfied in him — that’s freedom.
I love this: Augustine said, “The struggle between choices, the struggle of choice, good or evil, is a necessary temporary evil, until the day dawns when discernment and delight become one.” That’s the reason I want second coming yesterday. Dying would do the same thing. But that’s God’s business, both of them. But what will happen when you die, if you’re a Christian, is you will no longer ever have to ever struggle. Do you realize there will be no struggle in heaven, to obey? Nobody in heaven will be poised here, or here, or here, or here. We will be all the way slaves of righteousness, and the freest people in the universe, because we will be doing exactly what we love to do, and it will happen to be God’s will. This is freedom.
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