Pastor Matthew Peters,
High Prairie Bethel Baptist Church.
Are you in bondage to sin? Enslaved by passions within you that you feel you will never be free from? Perhaps struggling with alcoholism. You see the effects it has on your family, and you have seen family members before you be destroyed by its power.
Or you have anger that is only one temper away from killing someone? Perhaps lust that can never be satisfied. Maybe you have hardened your heart to all of this, and you do not let it bother you anymore. You cannot bear with the thought, so you quench it by drinking away the pain, or yelling yourself out of a tough situation rather than facing it head on. All this is a sad result of being “dead in your trespasses and sins.” (Ephesians 2:1).
There is one word that is the solution to all of this. Grace! It is God’s undeserved favour toward those who are in bondage, dead in trespasses and sins.
The story is not over yet. Yet it is not only His favour, but also His power. Power to change a bound person and make them a free one. The power to breathe life into death, and take one from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. All of this because of grace!
Some people have said they believe in Jesus. Yet they are still in as much bondage as before. Or they reject Jesus because they have seen hypocrisy in the church and think, “I do not want to be like that!”
Really, they’re expecting that Christians should be different!
“If they are not, why would I believe in that?” That is a valid question. Indeed, if someone says they are a Christian, it ought to profoundly change their life. But just because there are hypocrites out there, do not use that as an excuse to reject all that God has said. The only person you are hurting is yourself.
If you are in bondage to sin, and see its destructive path before you, I want to bring you freedom. And I know the One who can guarantee that freedom!
Jesus said, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin . . . if the Son (meaning Jesus) sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:34, 36)
This verse shows there is a reason why Christians should be profoundly different. They are those Jesus has come to set free. And if they are not being progressively freed from the sin that is within them, it is hard to understand how they could truly be followers of Jesus.
What can one man’s death 2,000 years ago do about my alcohol addiction? Or drug use? Or enslavement to pornography? Well first, He needed to pay for that sin. God is not a bad judge who lets sin go unpunished. He will punish all sin. But Jesus “bore our sins in His own body on the tree.” (1 Peter 2:24)
Why? Because “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
But there is another reason that is often overlooked, and this is what Peter says: “He Himself (Jesus) bore our sins in His own body on the tree so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” (1 Peter 2: 24)
Here is the point. Jesus died bearing our sin so that we might die to that sin as well. When you die to it, it means you no longer do it. You walk away from it. And now, you live to righteousness. That means you do what is right. Jesus died for this. He rose again from the dead for this.
Now, whoever believes in Him can not only have eternal life in the future, but also experience the power He gives to overcome our passions and bondages. Indeed, He really came to set people free.
The saddest thing is, many people, perhaps yourself being one of them, do not see they are in bondage. They think they have everything under control. They do not realize the power of their sin, nor where that sin is going to take them. Every rapist was once nothing more than a person who experienced sexual desires for another. Every murderer had his first temper. And every sinner began with seemingly “insignificant” sin.
Many people who now suffer eternally in hell once thought that their sin was not so bad. They were not hurting anybody. But they did not realize they were slaves and rebels.
If you are in bondage to sin, call out to Jesus. Realize the price He paid for this sin and trust Him for deliverance.
“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8: 36)
If you are a Christian who is in bondage, recognize that this is precisely what Jesus said He would free you from. Perhaps your relationship is only superficial. You are still here. Call on His name, be willing to leave your secret sins behind, and He will set you free!