The last couple weeks we have been talking about Jesus and his ministry. For who would the son of God himself step down out of the heavens for? It was for the poor, the abused, and the victims of sin. And why would he step out of heaven? To bring the message of the coming kingdom of heaven. The righting of everything that had become so wrong. But Jesus primary purpose in his presence was not simply for being here or for speaking. In fact Jesus’ ministry was quite short and his immediate impact can come under some criticism. At one point in time all of Jesus’ disciples abandoned him save the twelve. Then at the end even they ran and hid, unwilling to stand by his side. On top of that Jesus was crucified. According to our measure of success Jesus was a miserable failure. He did not leave behind a large following and he died a criminal’s death. If we are to proclaim the purpose of Jesus’ coming to this earth simply for preaching, teaching, and healing then the kingdom of heaven came and then it left. But Jesus ministry was in fact not for the point of teaching, preaching, and healing but his ministry was for the purpose of preparing a few to preach, teach, and heal. Jesus did not come to minister, but he came to bring the Kingdom.
Now if we remember, the primary characteristic in regards to the kingdom of heaven is freedom. It is freedom from sin, freedom from oppression, freedom from suffering. The primary and in fact the only oppressor in this world is sin. All other suffering and pain can be derived from the affects of the curse of sin upon humanity and creation. Romans 1:28-32 reads;
28 ¶ And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
The story of Israel goes round and round and round. If you read the old testament you might come to the realization that God is extremely patient. Israel is chosen by God as his own. Now note they are not forced or coerced, but chosen, and they in turn chose God. So God provides for them, rescues them, gives them a land of their own. He makes them great. Then things are going well and the people forget about God, their father. Now that they have gotten the blessing, they don’t need him anymore, so they cast him aside. Then things get terrible again so they cry out to God. God hears their cries and despite their having broken the covenant and God having every right not to come and restore them, He does it anyway proclaiming his love and protection. Then things get comfortable again and they abandon God again and round and round. God takes them back every time and every time they leave him again. So eventually in the story of Israel God says that he will no longer rescue them. Enough is enough. These are the direct consequences of their choices. They made foolish choices and now because of that they are being oppressed again. But God says this time you must experience the consequences for yourself. No get out of jail free card this time. As it says in Romans God gave them up to a debased mind. God did not give them a debased mind, but rather he allowed the results of their own actions to come to fruition. A debased mind is the result of sin. Remember we talked about last week, sin is not simply something we perform but it is an active force that performs us. And so as sin works it corrupts us, turns us into something we were not designed to ever be. The result of sin is slavery and death. We become held in bondage to sin that we cannot escape. As Paul describes it in Romans, sin has taken something meant for good, something meant to be a guide and a compass and turned it into a measure of condemnation for humanity. Sin, according to Paul, has taken the law and made it a binding force on our lives enslaving us. If the primary characteristic of the kingdom is freedom, then the bonds of slavery to sin and law must be broken through Christ in order for him to truly have brought forth the kingdom of heaven. Turn to Romans 7:1-6
Romans 7:1-6 Or do you not know, brothers--for I am speaking to those who know the law--that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. 4 ¶ Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
Our relationship to God is like a marriage, bound together, in intimate relationship that cannot be broken. When Abraham made a covenant with God he consummated this marriage to the creator. But what Israel did, as we see in the prophets, is they played the whore. As it says in Hosea, they prefered to go after lovers less wild. They sought out a marriage with something less than God. They created a new covenant. A marriage to law and sin. But this marriage was not like the marriage to God. Sin is not kind, it is not caring, it is not loving. Most importantly it is not free. In the marriage to sin and law the world stepped into an abusive and oppressive relationship in which it was outside of their power to escape from. The only way to escape the law of marriage was through death, something we were unable to accomplish on our own. So Jesus in order to bring the kingdom of heaven about must experience the death that would release from our marriage to sin and provide us with the freedom available in the kingdom of heaven. Therefore Jesus went to the cross and he died for the forgiveness of sins. But not just for the forgiveness of sins but for our sins and for our mistakes and for our lacking. God unable to continue to abandon us to a debased mind said enough is enough. God was filled with such great love that he sent his son to release us. To set us free from our own self made chains. Romans 5:6-11 reads;
Romans 5:6-11 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Even here Paul is amazed at the love of God. God loves us so much that he died for us not after we cried out asking for his help, pleading to return to the one who loves us, but while we were still enjoying our sin. But more than that. I love verse 10 where it says that we were reconciled to God while still enemies of God. While we perceived God as our enemy he stepped out and died in order to set us free. The relationship we were meant to be in, the one we chose in the beginning has now been restored. Jesus has justified us again to God, he has made us clean through his sacrifice. Christ came for the purpose of reconciliation and redemption. But this can only happen when we untie ourselves with Christ. When we are spiritually united in death with Christ we are made anew. As it says in Romans 6:6,”We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” When believe in Christ and we cast our hopes and love upon him we are crucified alongside him. We unite ourselves in his death. If we are united in the death of Christ then that means we are free from the abusive marriage to sin. We are no longer slaves to sin.
This is what Christ came for. God loved his children so much that he could not bear to be apart from them. The barrier must go. His children cannot be lost. Justice must be forsaken for love. The kingdom of heaven is the release from sin and the reconciliation to God. Christ came to set us free and to justify us again. He came so that we could be with him again. No price was too high. God does not give up on his children. He will even contradict his own just decisions for the sake of his own. In the peak of our deprevation, in our lowest moment God stepped down and spoke softly to us. As it says of the God’s bride Israel in Hosea. She left him pursuing any other she could get ahold of. But in her worst state, at the peak of her unfaithfulness, when the sting of the slap in the face of God was the strongest Hosea 2:14 reads, “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” And verse 19 and 20, “I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.”
Christ through his death has set us free. But he did not set us free simply to become slaves to something else. He gave us a choice. We have become a new creation. We have a fresh start. Everything we have done in the past is gone. We haven’t separated ourselves from God, we haven’t been abandoned to a debased mind. But we all know where we have been. We know our old selves. In fact we know them quite well. We know the choices that our old selves made. We know sin and we know it well. We know the results of sin, and they aren’t pretty. We know the abusive relationship we were engaged in. We know the hopelessness, and suffering. Knowing the path that was laid behind us, the one we have finally escaped from will we choose to walk the same road again? Galatians 5:1 reads, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” We are free from being slaves of sin for the moment. Loving God and living according to the new creation accomplished in our uniting in the death of Christ is not a one time action. God loves us and he does not force us. He does not make us love him, but he desires that we would. Being in love with God and being faithful to him is a choice. We must choose to be faithful everyday, lest we return to our past marriage with sin.
Christ came to this world out of the abundance and his love and mercy for the victims of sin. He came for the poor, oppressed, and weak. For those who suffer under the dominion of sin. He came bearing a message. The good news is that the kingdom of God is here. The coming of that kingdom was accomplished in his death, overcoming the power of sin and law and releasing us from our slavery. Christ went to the cross in order that we might be free. Will allow the mercy and grace of God to speak tenderly to us or will we return to the path that already brought us to destruction once? What will we do now that we are free?
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