November 22, 2009

Speaker, Mr. Jim Stein

6:00 pm Worship Service

Covenant Christian Reformed Church,

Winnipeg, Canada

Call to Worship: Psalm 63:1-4

¹ O God, you are my God, I seek you,

my soul thirsts for you;

my flesh faints for you,

as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

² So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,

beholding your power and glory.

³ Because your steadfast love is better than life,

my lips will praise you.

⁴ So I will bless you as long as I live;

I will lift up my hands and call on your name.

Opening Prayer

Hymn: 430 - We Sing the Mighty Power of God (Tune 378)

Greeting

Confession of Faith - Our World Belongs to God # 6 p.1021

Hymn: 291 - May the Mind of Christ, My Saviour

Prayer

Scripture: Romans 8:1-17

Sermon: What is freedom – general idea? Is there an appropriate response to freedom? (Are responsibility and obligation a part of freedom?) Can we be spiritually free as Christians? What are we freed from? Donald Bloesch Freedom for Obedience

Prayer

Hymn: 486 - Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Offering: Jews for Jesus

God's Blessing

Hymn: 405 - I Serve a Risen Savior

Romans 8:1-17

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ²For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. ³For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ⁵For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, ⁸and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

¹²So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—¹³for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. ¹⁵For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

Freedom and The Christian

John 8:31-36

Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; ³²and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” ³³They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”

³⁴Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. ³⁵The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. ³⁶So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Acts 13:38,39

Let it be known to you therefore, my brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you; ³⁹by this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

Romans 5:15-17

Galatians 1:3-5

³Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, ⁴who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, ⁵to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Galatians 5:1

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

1 Peter 2:15-17

For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish. ¹⁶As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. ¹⁷Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

Romans 6:1,6,11

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ²By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?

⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷For whoever has died is freed from sin. ¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Comments: Jacques Ellul The Ethics of Freedom

“From the very first, then, it seems that freedom is the necessary condition and situation if man is to be the carrier of revelation among other men.”

“The link between bondage and fear on the one side, freedom and confidence on the other, is noted by Paul when he says in Romand8:15: ‘Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear…’”

“It is a terrible thought that the church has often used fear and constraint in all their different forms, that it has crushed man with anxiety, when the key to the whole law is the freedom which God himself to live without fear or worry.”

“In reality, freedom does not exist at all if the Christian does not live it out.” … “You are free and therefore be free; dare to be what basically and essentially you are.”

Herman Ridderbos: Paul: An Outline Of His Theology

“… liberty is described as the power and the principle of the whole Christian life and stands in contrast to the discord and impotence of the life that is under the law.”