In Him: Redemption Part 1

Please stand for the reading of God's word.

Today's reading is Exodus 3, verse 7 to 10.

Then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have

heard their cry because of their taskmasters.

I know their sufferance, and I have come down to deliver them out of hand of the Egyptians and

to bring them up out of the land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey

to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites,

and the Jebusites.

And now behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the

oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them.

Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of

Egypt.

New Testament reading this morning is in Colossians, chapter 1,

reading verses 9 through 14.

And so from that day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you

may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing in him, bearing fruit in every good work

and increasing in the knowledge of God.

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and

patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of

the saints in light.

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we

have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

You may be seated.

Good morning.

Over to your Bibles to Ephesians, chapter 1, please.

Ephesians, chapter 1.

Let's go to the word, to the text.

We'll go to the Lord in prayer.

Ephesians, chapter 1, we'll start in verse 3.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every

spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the

foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ,

according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed

us in the beloved.

In him, we have redemption.

Through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he

lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of

his will, according to his purpose, which he has set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of

time to unite all things in him, things in heaven, and things on earth.

In him, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of

him, who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we, who

were the first to hope in Christ, might be to the praise of his glory.

In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him,

were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we

acquire possession of it, which is to the praise of his glory.

Let us pray together.

Oh God in heaven, what a marvelous truth that we have, that we have been so blessed in

the beloved, in Jesus Christ.

Lord, for those who have placed their faith in Jesus, we can lay claim to these promises that all

spiritual blessings are ours in Jesus for his glory, for his good purpose.

God in heaven, may we not, as your people, be hard of hearing now.

May our hearts not be hard to not receive this message, this word, this truth,

with all joy and blessing your name.

It is far too easy for us to come to church with hearts that are so hardened, Lord, and we need the Spirit to

soften it once more.

We know that he's done the work in total and justification and made us right with you, but Lord, we need the

Spirit to make us see these truths and it be beautiful in our

eyes once more, to continue the work of worship to you as we continuously need the work

of the Spirit.

And so we ask for him now.

Lord, again, those who have never received the Spirit, those who have not placed their faith in Jesus, may you even

call them and bring them to repentance now by your great work of effectual calling.

May it be because your word is declared faithfully here and for that, Lord, I desperately need your help.

So please be with the word.

Let your Spirit, Father, apply it to our hearts for the end that we would be holy and that you would be

glorified.

Thank you for being so good to us.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, we have started this study in Ephesians in which we began with verse three being kind of the launching

point of chapter one in which Paul calls us to bless the God and Father of

our Lord Jesus Christ, or if you remember, worship the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

because of what he has done in blessing us in Christ with every

spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

And so we saw that this is kind of like the launching point of really the whole book and our whole lives that

we are called to respond of the blessings found in Christ with our own blessing him

or worshiping him all in light of what he has done or the blessings Jesus has given us.

And so really he lays it out, verses three to this rest of the section

in 14 to 14 in one large sentence, one just mammoth

section laying out and these are all the spiritual blessings we have in Jesus that needs to be the bedrock of

your worshiping the Father in him.

And he goes through them and we see the proper blessings we've already gone over thus far these last

several weeks and that is we have been chosen or predestined for

adoption.

We have been chosen or predestined for adoption.

And we saw that that is an adoption that is away from the family of Satan and to the family

of God.

And we see that the motivation for God to do this is because in love for us because it was according to his

pleasurable will that he has done this.

And notice the contrast of adoption there.

Satan does not love his children.

He did not love you while you were in that state and if you do not have your faith in Jesus and you are

still following Satan, I can tell you he is not doing these things for your good but for your

evil.

We see that we have been adopted or chosen for this adoption and it's motivated for the first time

because the Father has love for his children as opposed to our former father who did not have that

love for his children.

And it was according to his good and pleasurable will whereas Satan not in love for us and

it was a evil or terrible will for his children.

So again we see that the proper blessing that we have is we've been chosen for adoption motivated by a

loving father according to his good pleasurable will for the end or the end what

will come about is the immediate future is our holiness and the

end being the immediate versus the, I'm forgetting the word, the far reaching end would be for his glory.

So again we are chosen for adoption because he loves us and is according to his pleasurable will for the end that we would be

holy and he would be glorified.

And this is what has been said thus far verses one through six.

But we come now to a very, very important addition to these proper blessings that

he's given to us.

Now the motivation of love and his pleasurable will for his glory, for our

holiness, that's gonna remain the same.

Now he's gonna add certain proper blessings.

So we were chosen or predestined as to be adopted and now there's gonna be an added blessing that we're

gonna spend the whole time on today and that is being redeemed or redemption as

an added blessing.

And it's important that we talk about redemption because without redemption there's no adoption.

Without being redeemed we cannot, we are not welcome to the family of God.

We again think of adoption and it's typically a very difficult process.

If you've ever heard of the process or known someone who's gone through the process which most of us know a few.

And it's typically a very difficult process financially in some cases.

It's a heavy burden placed on the parents financially to pay for the process.

And a lot of times the process is difficult as the state makes sure that the parents are fit

to be parents, to take this child that they want to adopt.

And we see that in the adoption that is spiritual though, the spiritual blessing we have, the parents

aren't the problem.

It's not a question of whether or not the parents are fit.

It's a question of whether the children, us, if we're fit to be adopted to God's family.

And the fact of the matter is, is in our natural state we are not fit to be a child of God.

We are not born children of God, we're born children of wrath deserving his anger because of our

sin.

We are not fit to be his child and that's why there needs to be something that comes with adoption that

makes it legal.

And just like adoption in the realm of our society, that process

can be a difficult one to make it legal, to make it a legal adoption.

So spiritually there is a process to make it legal too and that process is called redemption.

We need redemption for adoption to be legal.

And so we can see as we will pan this out here in these verses and as we go

to other verses, we'll see that we are chosen for adoption through redemption.

If you have no redemption, you have no adoption being brought into the loving family

of our God.

You are not welcome to his table as a child if you are not redeemed by Jesus.

So what is redemption?

If someone were to ask you, what does it mean to be redeemed?

What is redemption?

Could you give them a quick one sentence or a paragraph response?

And if you can't as a Christian, you need to get your minds on this, what this means and of course you need to be able to do it in

a way that's filled with worship to your God and if you don't understand it, you're not gonna be able to then use this to

bless our God.

We need to know this important doctrine of redemption, we need to talk about it often and we need to celebrate God in

light of it.

So what is redemption?

To understand it, we must understand the situation that leads up to the need of it, that

makes sense.

To understand redemption, we must understand the situation that caused the need for

redemption.

There was once a man named Miserable who lived in the town of Hard Service.

He was a most depressed and wretched person as was all that belonged to his race and from his

town.

He walked with shackles on his ankles and he worked with chains around his wrists.

His work was a most terrible burden as he had a harsh taskmaster who was the

prince of the place who people called Prince Power Heir.

Each day, Miserable would work under the hot sun with little to drink or eat.

His chains were tight and his body ached as he spent all day digging a large grave that he heard

rumors was marked for him.

Each night as he was trying to get some sleep, a market opened up right outside his window.

The sovereign of the market was the same sovereign of the country whose name was Theos who even Prince Power

Heir reluctantly served.

At this market, there was an exchange in which Miserable could try and be bought from the service of Prince Power

Heir.

One night in tears, Miserable asked Theos, the sovereign of the place, what price he must pay

to be freed from Prince Power Heir's service.

With a stern face, Theos replied with giving him a piece of paper and said with a voice so

frightening, do this and you shall live.

The next day, Miserable was excited to try and do the things on the list given by Theos but the items on the

list he found impossible to do.

What stopped him were his chains about his body and the work demanded of him by Prince Power Heir.

Every night he would ask if his feeble attempts for the day were enough and each night, Theos would

hear his case.

But Prince Power Heir would be quick to remind Theos why Miserable deserved to remain in his own care.

Thus, Theos would always firmly declare no and so he would go to bed in tears with Prince Power Heir still

as his master.

Unable to do the work himself, Miserable decided to employ the help of others.

Each night, a different advocate would come to try and rescue him.

One was named Potpourri, the other's name was Mohammed.

The final one was Liberal but all three failed terribly which in the end didn't really surprise Miserable

as they wore the same chains as Miserable did and looked just as wretched as him.

Later, Miserable found out that they were all under the service of Prince Power Heir as well.

So there's the state of Miserable in a slave condition and as his

taskmaster is Satan.

And Miserable is every one of us in our natural state.

We are all miserable in our natural state.

In our natural state, we all have the Prince of the Power of the Air, we all have Satan as our

taskmaster, as our slave, as our taskmaster, as one who leads us in our

tasks that we are to do.

And that task we are to do is not good for us and what its purpose is is to lead us to our death.

So in our natural state, we are in a most miserable state being enslaved to

Satan and the task he has for us is our death, is your death.

Now that death that we're talking about is a death away from God.

The whole purpose of Satan is to drive you away from God and the way he does it is

sin.

Your sins are your shackles and it keeps you from doing the things you ought to do.

Your sin is the shackle that causes you to lead to death

and what shackles you to it, what causes you to not be able to break free is you have a will that is broken.

You are enslaved to sin because you desire the sin and you can't get away from it because it's your passion to do it.

We are in the most miserable state in our natural state, shackled to sin with our slave

driver being Satan and he holds us in bondage because we desire to do those sins.

Now just in case if you answer to me like the Jews did to Jesus, we

are, well, in our language, Americans and have never been enslaved to anyone.

John 8 .33, only they say sons of Abraham.

We are Americans, we've never been enslaved to anyone.

Of course, beloved, spiritually we're talking about, spiritual blessings that come from Christ because we are spiritually enslaved

to Satan to do his will with a will that is in line with being in

his family, a desire that shackles us to do sin and if you simply say, well, I'll

just stop doing those sins because your will is so depraved and so broken,

you will find yourself needing to do it to get by.

We are enslaved, this is our state.

In the garden, Adam and Eve were free, they were free before sin

with the most pleasurable work to serve God in the garden.

It was the most pleasurable work, a freeing work.

They were, they had the most, I wanna be clear, they were most pleasurable work to serve God in the

garden but when they sinned, their work became hard.

You ever read that, right?

Adam, the cursed, by pain and sweat, he had to work the ground.

Beloved, that is a physical truth of a spiritual reality that our work now that we're in sin is hard

service to Satan.

It is not a pleasurable work because we no longer work for our God but instead we work for our

taskmaster that is Satan.

It is a miserable work for miserable people which is why we are the most miserable people

without Christ.

Now, it can be surprising but you gotta understand that that position that we are in outside

of Jesus that all people are born into is a judgment that God has placed upon his people.

Again, it's not as if God was like, we'll see what happens when they sin but when people decided that I will, when we

decided that we will sin instead of serving the Lord, we'll serve Satan in sin, he placed a judgment,

a wrath on us.

This is a curse given by God.

He gave us up to this sin that we chose at the beginning to be our very

bondage.

Remember Romans 1, 24, 26, 28.

God gave them up to their sin.

For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions and since they did not fit to acknowledge God,

God gave them up to a debased mind.

We see that God gives up people to their sin as a curse placed

upon them.

That word to give up is paradidomi, paradidomi

and it means literally to surrender to someone to another authority and so what God did when we chose

sin in the garden is said, okay, I will give you up to that as Satan, as your authority, as your

taskmaster.

Now the sin that you chose will be your very chains and bondage, I'll give you up to Satan.

Now, why would God allow such a miserable thing?

I mean, couldn't he have made the punishment for sin, the curse for sin just a little bit lighter, just

relaxed a little bit?

No, because God hates sin and his wrath comes down to its fullest.

So it is the most miserable condition when his wrath comes down upon the things that he hates that he cannot be

with.

And we see that even in doing that, there is a purpose that we've already discussed already that I'm

gonna hit again because Paul hits it again.

Look at chapter one, verse seven, in him we have redemption, we already laid out the need for

it but we're still gonna explain what it is of itself proper and we see it's through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses but I want you

to look at it, it's according to the riches of his grace.

So why would he allow the situation to be as bad as it is?

Because it's according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight.

What that means is that what God has determined to be is not willy nilly, we'll just

see how this goes but it's according to perfect wisdom and insight that he

would get the most glory for what happens.

God knows exactly how to receive the greatest glory for what happens in creation, he

wastes not.

And so according to his perfect wisdom and insight, he ordained all to come past including the

cursed state that we find ourselves in because it will give him the glory in the end to the utmost degree.

Say it another way, as bad as it is, when Jesus comes and heals it, he becomes all the

more beautiful.

Why does God give us up to sin?

Why does he do it?

Because he hates sin, he must place wrath upon it and he has ordained it to be this way, he allowed this to happen

so that he would receive the greatest glory in his rich grace

that he lavishes on undeserving people.

It's not like God is rich in grace and he's like, okay, I'll give you some of this wealth.

But he ordained all of it to be a display of the riches of his grace.

This is what our God has done.

God predestined this miserable state in order for his glorious rich grace would

be revealed.

Rich grace lavished on his chosen which enabled adoption is seen in

redemption.

A, and this is what it is proper, a buying us out of the slavery to sin and Satan

so that we can be fit to be his children, to be

free is what redemption means, to be purchased so we can be free from our

enslavement is what redemption is, to be purchased.

To be free, we needed to be purchased.

Who needed to be paid?

See where I'm getting at?

It's about being purchased in order to not be enslaved anymore.

Who needed to be paid for our freedom?

I know the natural inclination is to say Satan, but no, Satan is an employee

of his employer, God.

I know, I know, it's hard for our mind to fathom it all, but Satan

doesn't need to be purchased for our freedom.

God needs to be purchased for our freedom away from our enslavement from Satan.

We see that we need to be purchased.

Who needs to be paid?

We need to be paid God, and what was the payment?

Was it our works?

Was it false religion?

Was it humanistic liberalism?

No, the payment is the perfect payment in which chapter seven, Paul says, in him we have

redemption that is through his blood, the blood of Jesus,

the father determined to be the perfect payment to get us out of our enslavement to sin.

He is the one who decides what is valuable and what isn't, not us, where we say, my

works can get me out, he says, no, it cannot, it's only by the blood of Christ.

It's amazing to see people think, well, I think forgiveness of sins, and I think redemption needs to be according to what

we deem to be valuable.

That never makes sense in any reality.

I remember, I'm gonna talk about the party store again, the corner store, it was in my neighborhood

that we would always walk to growing up in Michigan, and it was just a convenience store or whatever.

And I remember we knew them very well, and I had eight siblings, a second youngest, so I got

picked on a lot and all that fun stuff.

And I remember one of the things that they did, my older brothers, is we rode our bikes to the store, and I had like, I

don't know, I can't remember now, maybe a dollar, and I was trying to figure out what to do with the dollar, and

they told me, you know, you could probably buy the whole store with that dollar.

And so they were like, you should go up and ask the, ask, I forget who was working behind the cashier

at that time, but go and ask for the whole store.

And so me, being young and dumb, you know, I was like 16, I was younger than that, I can't remember what age I was, but I

went up and I said, I'd like to buy the whole store, because I'm thinking, there's a lot of candy in here.

And of course, the cashier just laughed at me.

Because it was up to me, that dollar would be the most valuable for me to buy the store.

But of course, it's up to the person who you're giving the money to, whether or not he's gonna give up the goods, or give you what is

desired.

And so we see that the father is the one who needs to be paid.

And he's the one who decides what's valuable and what's not.

And there is nothing in this world that is valuable, that can secure our freedom from

sin, and bondage to Satan, than the blood of his son.

This is offensive to the world, it's not valuable to them, they scoff at it, but to the father, it is a most precious

thing to him.

Look at what is said in 1 Peter chapter one.

Look at 1 Peter chapter one.

The apostle Peter writes, go to verse 17.

If you call on him as father, if you call on God as father,

who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourself with fear throughout

your time, of exile, knowing that you were ransomed.

Ransom, it's the language of redemption.

You were paid, you were purchased, right?

That ransom price was paid to get you out of slavery.

You were ransomed from the futile ways, or the futile, the useless ways

of sin that you were enslaved to, because your wills were broken, inherited from your fathers.

Not with perishable things were you ransomed, because that's not valuable to God, such as silver or gold.

God doesn't need those things, he doesn't want those things.

But rather, what was valuable to our father?

With the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without

blemish or spot.

God hates sin, and when he sees his son, he says, there is what my

soul and my spirit delights in.

Because he was without blemish, without sin, he delighted in his son.

And so it is the very preciousness of this perfect son being sacrificed, his blood shed

for us, that we are purchased out.

He says in verse 20, he was, that is Jesus, his son, was foreknown before the foundation of

the world, but was made manifest in these last times for your sake.

Who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your

faith and hope are in God.

So we see that the precious blood of Jesus is that ransom price, is the only thing

that was acceptable to our father.

And it was what needed to be shed and what needs to be applied to us for us to be called or brought

out of enslavement to Satan, brought out of that family of Satan and

adopted into the family of God.

If you notice, if you realize, it's an interesting thing to consider, how much blood sacrifice is a

dominant theme, not only in the Old Testament, but in world religions.

Have you ever noticed that?

Blood sacrifices are dominant.

It's a dominant theme that you'll see throughout history.

And we see it's a dominant theme in the Old Testament.

Now, of course, the skeptics, the liberals, they'll say it's because the Israelites got it from the

pagan nations, but that's not the case.

Rather, what we need to see is that God instituted the need for blood at the very

beginning in which all people went forth from this understanding and it's permeated throughout

history.

I mean, look at Genesis 3 .21.

Genesis 3 .21, right out of the gate, after our parents fell, after we fell in Adam,

Genesis 3 .21, what happened as they were leaving the garden?

And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments.

And what was the garments of?

Leaves?

No, that wasn't a good enough covering because that's what Adam did.

Instead, God provided a better covering that he needed and that was garments of skins and clothed

them.

And so in order for it to be a garment of skins, a sacrifice or a killing of the animal had to be, a shedding of the blood had to

happen.

And so there, it's like God is saying that you're not gonna clothe yourself, you need the clothing that I will provide by a sacrifice,

by a blood sacrifice.

And it's very fascinating in chapter four, verse four, we see it again in which Abel brought

of the firstborn of his flock and of the fat portions and the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering.

I'm one of those people to think that he had regard for a blood sacrifice.

I think that's what made Abel sacrifice better than his brothers because his brothers was one of the fruit

of the land.

Abel's was one of a blood sacrifice.

God is placing on the minds of his people and he probably taught Adam that there needs to be blood

in order to cover your sins.

Because he was placing in the psyche of humanity that you need a blood sacrifice, preparing

them for the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.

And again, I think this is why this is in the psyche of all the pagan nations, many of them I should say, throughout

history.

But in our sin, what we do is we pervert the blood sacrifice and we say we need to give a

sacrifice, a blood offering to God because he needs to consume it and eat it and grow from it and be able to survive.

But no, that's never what that was about.

It was about the fact that it was acknowledgement that we need you to provide a blood sacrifice to cover

our iniquities, to bring us out of this world.

To bring us out of this bondage of sin that we're in.

We need the blood of Jesus, for it is the only payment an angry God will

accept and set us free from the bondage of sin he's placed us in as a curse.

Look at Romans three, look at Romans three.

Same language here.

The Apostle Paul, Romans three verse 23, for all have sinned and

we've all fallen short of the glory of God, but yet we're justified by his grace

as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

So we see in order to be justified before God, in order to be declared righteous, we need to

receive it as a gift that is a redemption, that is a redemption that's in Christ.

The purchase, the blood payment.

And notice it says in verse 25, whom God put forward, that is his son as a redemption,

price pay as a ransom, was put forward as a propitiation by his blood

to be received by faith.

So to be a propitiation means that there is an angry God that needs to be satisfied.

There is a God who is angry and to propitiate him means that you satisfy him.

You, again, pay the debt that's owed that makes him angry with you.

And the only way that happens is by the blood that he has offered in his son, Jesus Christ.

Redemption enables us to be right with God.

It purchased us, it purchased, the blood purchases us from enslavement to Satan.

This is what we need.

This is our most terrible position.

The need is for redemption to be purchased out by God.

And this is exactly where Miserable in our story found himself.

He had a need to pay Theos, God, in the market to set himself free.

And his works, false religion, humanistic nonsense didn't work.

So he needed something Theos found valuable instead.

So one night, Miserable had decided to give up trying and he especially stopped asking for

help because all it seemed to do was make Theos angrier, which made Prince Power Heir more zealous to make his

work harder.

At the market that night before Theos, Miserable declared he had nothing to say nor do for he was simply at the mercy

of Theos in his most miserable state.

It was at that statement, though, a most handsome man showed up to the market.

Theos looked upon the man with great delight, which surprised Miserable since he had only seen Theos have a

face of scorn.

Miserable then heard whispers around him that this was Theos' son.

The first thing Miserable noticed was how this man lacked any chains or shackles.

He walked as if he was free and as he passed by Miserable, there were mercy and love in his

eyes and he even made eye contact with Miserable.

There was a sudden hope within Miserable's breasts that perhaps this man could do something about his most terrible

estate.

When the man approached Theos, he spoke a dialect that Miserable did not yet understand.

He believed someone called it grace.

But the man pointed to Miserable, then Theos nodded his head and then nodded his head at

Prince Power Heir.

And what happened next horrified Miserable and it was most unexpected.

Prince Power Heir drew a sword that was created from the biggest factory in town hard service and

he struck a mortal blow to the beautiful man.

Miserable let out a cry and Theos turned away.

Though Miserable had sworn, he saw a tear in his eye.

Miserable turned away to go back to his bed more dejected than ever.

But just as Miserable reached his door, he heard a command from Theos on his throne, go forth.

Miserable turned around and saw a dove named Penuma.

Known to the man, the dove came to the man's dead body and flapped his wings in a

most surprisingly powerful manner given the peaceful stature of the bird.

But the power of his wings was manifested in how the dead man came back to life and found his seat by

Theos himself.

And with a command of the now risen sun, that man Miserable is now mine,

the pile of blood went forth from the blast of the dove's wings to Miserable and even crawled up his entire

body.

The robe of blood Miserable now wore gave him the confidence to once again ask Theos

for his freedom from the service of Prince Power Heir.

When Theos asked, by what payment?

Prince Power Heir began his accusations like before, but was this time harshly interrupted by the sun

himself who yelled, silence!

And with an anger in his eyes that was only matched by the love he had in his eyes for Miserable when he

first entered the market.

The sun was so terrifying with the look of anger in his eyes and power in his breath that all Prince Power Heir could

do is fall down and only whimper his accusations from that moment on.

It is understood by all that even those whimpers will one day be silent at the time

Theos determined.

The sun then looked to Theos and said, the man Miserable who will now be called Mercy -filled is wearing a

robe dipped in my blood.

He wears the payment I provided in my death and resurrection.

Theos then looked at Mercy -filled, no longer was scorned, but he rather looked at him with delight.

It was the same look he gave his son as he entered into the market.

Theos then with joy said, your sin was of a cost you could never pay, but my son's

blood is very precious to me.

So valuable it is to me that I declare to you to be free from Prince Power Heir's service.

Go Mercy -filled, you are now free to go.

Beloved, those who Jesus has procured that redemption, we are told by

God, you are now free.

You may go freely.

And where do we go?

Where is it that we go?

With the payment being made, no longer enslaved to Satan, no longer shackled in sins, where do we go?

Are we libertarians?

And we say, I'll just go in my freedom.

No, that's what led us to be shackled in sin to begin with.

Where do we go?

Well, the story wouldn't end there, would it?

The story would end with Jesus coming down, with the Son coming down and saying, and you're coming to be with

me.

You're coming to be with my family.

You're coming to share with my family.

At the table, the feast is here for you.

We don't just go freely into our sin or freely in our own way, but the door has been opened for us to

serve our God once more.

In other words, we are enabled to be adopted into the family of our God.

This is what redemption does for you.

It doesn't enable freedom to sin, but instead it brings you into a relationship with the

Father in which he is your God, he is your Father.

Jesus is your elder brother, and he brings you into conformity to his image.

This is what Jesus has done on the cross.

This is why we sing of the blood so much and we'll do it in eternity.

This has purchased my freedom away from a bondage to sin.

And there are people before me who is still in bondage to sin.

You are still in deception, thinking that this is good for me, this is my life, when it is you

bearing your own grave.

Do you know that there is a redemption laid up for you that Jesus has already accomplished?

Wouldn't you turn away from the sins that you are so convinced is your life and go to this

Jesus?

Wouldn't you then see that this opens up a whole door of adoption into his family that you are

then enabled to live for him?

This is the freedom of the Christian, that when we're faced with the sins that once shackled us, we

say, well, I'm no longer part of that family.

I'm not gonna let this identify me anymore, but instead I've been given the power of Christ to

overcome this sin.

This is the great blessing, the spiritual blessing that we have received

in Jesus, that we have been called from eternity past to be adopted through

redemption of his blood.

This is our life now.

So to finish this as application, look at 1 Corinthians and

meditate on this later on.

1 Corinthians chapter six.

Now the

context is sexual immorality.

And Paul is calling on them to turn away from it.

But the application is numerous.

The reason why sexual immorality is so prevalent is because it really works on our wayward desires.

That sexual pleasure really works on the deviant desires of our flesh that

shackles us.

And so it's not just, although the context is sexual immorality, but it's anything that is a passion that is

not faithful or not submissive to God.

And what does Paul say, chapter six, verse 17?

He says, but he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit

with him.

Flee from sexual immorality.

Flee from sin.

Flee from disobedience to your God that you once were enslaved to.

Flee from sexual immorality.

Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexual immoral person sins against his own body.

And here's the main point here in verse 19.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from

God?

You are not your own.

Rather, you were bought with a price, so therefore glorify God in your body.

That's what needs to be dominant in your mind, O Christians.

When you are confronted with the leftovers of sin, you would remind yourself, I am not my own.

I've been ransomed by Jesus Christ.

I am his now, and because of that reality, I am to glorify God with my body.

That needs to be what holds you, because if it's just moralism, if it's just do better so I

can make God happier, it will get you nowhere.

It might get you a little bit cleaned up, but you'll just get messier in some other way.

The point is that this is a bedrock doctrine, that since I've been bought with a price, I'm not my

own, instead I am the Lord's.

And so I shall serve him with all of my body, with all of my passions, with all of my desires.

It is submitted to the Lord Jesus Christ now.

Blessed be his name for this great redemption he's given to his people.

Let us pray.

Father in heaven, who are we that you would be so kind to

us to consider our miserable state?

Lord, we're enslaved to sin, to Satan.

We did this of our own desire.

Lord, we convinced ourselves if I just sin in this way, it would be better for me.

But in your kindness, Lord, you have preordained a plan to send your son, send your son to be the ransom price

needed to bring us out of that state.

Lord, how can we as your people hear this and not be excited to bless the

father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing that is in

Christ Jesus in the heavenly places?

Lord, awaken our souls to worship you in light of that and the way that manifests itself is for the near end

that we would be holy, that we would reject the passions of the flesh by the work of

Jesus so that the glorious grace of Christ would be

extolled to its fullest and completest in all wisdom and understanding.

Lord, let this be our purpose in life.

Let this be what we wake up wanting to do.

And let this be how we show ourselves throughout the day that I am the Lord's now and I shall glorify him

with my body.

God in heaven, help us for we are even being justified.

We're in desperate need of the spirit each day of our lives.

So let us look to him for help for he loves his people.

Praise be to your name for this great blessing.

May you be glorified.

In Jesus' name, amen.