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I am fond of saying that bond-servants of Christ enjoy
enormous freedom. We are free from the
opinions and expectations of others, even—or especially—of ourselves. That is truly, wonderfully, Good News. But as we have been reminded by our
celebrations of Memorial Day and more recently, the Fourth of July, freedom
comes at a price. Generations of
Americans have made incredible sacrifices to win us the freedoms we enjoy in
this country.
To be sure, our freedom in Christ was purchased by Christ’s
blood on our behalf. It is not possible
to overestimate the importance and significance of this truth. We are no longer cursed, no longer under the
doom of a penalty that we cannot pay.
But that doesn’t mean that we do not participate in the cost of our
freedom. If we are to fully realize our
freedom in Christ and use it for His purposes and His glory, we must cede
control to our Master. It seems like a contradiction
in terms, but bond-servants of Christ are only as free as they are
surrendered: If we are to enjoy the
freedom from the pressures of performance and success and more significantly,
freedom from self-rule, we must give up our desire for mastery over our own
lives.
This concept is a hard sell in today’s culture. It is widely said that rugged individualism
built this country. Success is defined
by performance, which in turn is measured by how well we compare and compete
with others. Measuring up and looking
good are often more valued than a character of conviction and integrity.
Christians are no more immune to cultural norms than anyone
else. But! We get to make a choice. We can go along with our culture and pursue
ephemeral success and even more fleeting pleasure, or we can recognize that
Christ is a better master of our lives than we are. As bond-servants of Christ, we place not only
our allegiance our all of who we are in Christ’s arms.
We return to the matter of control. Bond-servants of Christ have elected to claim
Christ as their master. As we seek to live
as bond-servants, there are three stages of relinquishing control. The first is to recognize and acknowledge
that we have no control. Even some
non-believers get this far, though they often deny it. We live as sinners in a sinful world; this is
truly terrifying. It is easy to want,
sometimes desperately, to muster ways of protecting ourselves against the
limitless threats of living in a fallen world.
The fatal flaw with this approach—and I’ve spent years trying it—is that
it can never work. We are simply not
capable of controlling ourselves, let alone our world and those in it. The choice before us is not whether to
control or not, but whether we will recognize that we cannot control. God is God and we are not. God controls and we do not.
The second stage is to accept
that we have no control. At this point
we are definitely heading into the territory of Christianity. Rather than denying our lack of control or
fighting to regain it, a bond-servant of Christ accepts it. Indeed, a lack of control, though often
uncomfortable, is irrelevant to a bond-servant of Christ. Our Master has control, and that reality overrides
our discomfort. And by accepting that
our lives are not under our control, we are better able to focus on our
Master’s business and take joy in participating in His kingdom’s work.
Finally, we can rejoice
that we have no control. As we come to
know our Master more and more deeply, we are able to more fully appreciate His
power and goodness, mercy and grace. We
can appreciate the truth that our Master is a wiser, gentler, and more gracious
master of our lives than we could ever be.
The desire to control our lives becomes less tempting, less appealing as
we taste and see that the Lord is a gloriously good Master. As we recognize that control is a burden that
only the sovereign Lord of the universe can bear, we can walk before Him in
freedom and delight.
