FREEDOM FROM BONDAGE: Do what is right for you 8-18-24

FREEDOM FROM BONDAGE: Do what is right for you 8-18-24

 

INTRODUCTION

 

If it feels good, do it.

All roads lead to Rome.

 

Do what is right for you.

 

Misunderstanding about morality

 

It's a true story; only the names have been changed to protect the embarrassed.

 

Little Tommy attended first grade Sunday School faithfully. He loved his teacher, Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith told great Bible stories, and she would always end the story by saying, "And, boys and girls, the MORAL of the story is ..." Little Tommy enjoyed learning about the morals of each Bible story.

 

But when Tommy entered second grade, he moved up to another Sunday School class, taught by Mrs. Jones. She told Bible stories, too, but she never ended them by giving the moral of the story. After a few weeks Tommy's mom asked him how he liked his new Sunday School teacher. Tommy said, "Mrs. Jones is okay. The only problem is that she doesn't have any morals."

 

“Morality is just a fiction used by the herd of inferior human beings to hold back the few superior men.” 

         Friedrich Nietzsche

 

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

           Isaiah 5:20 NIV

 

Morality is important.

 

Let us pray.

 

I.  MORALITY

 

“I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience and morality. …We will train young people before whom the world will tremble. I want young people capable of violence – imperious, relentless and cruel.”

Adolph Hitler posted on a plaque at Auschwitz from a speech to Hitler Youth quoted in Can Man Live Without God by Ravi Zacharias, p. 23.

 

    A.  Morality defined

             1.  Merriam-Webster  

                               morality - noun

                                 mo· ral· i· ty

                                 plural - moralities

 

                                 1a.  a moral discourse, statement, or lesson

                                            ended his lecture with a trite morality

1b.  a literary or other imaginative work teaching a moral lesson

                                          "Aesop's Fables" is famous as a morality.

                                 2a.  a doctrine or system of moral conduct

the basic law which an adequate morality ought to state

                                            — Marjorie Grene

2b.  moralities plural : particular moral principles or rules of conduct

                                            We were all brought up on one of these moralities.

                                            — Psychiatry

                      3.  conformity to ideals of right human conduct

admitted the expediency of the law but questioned its morality

                               4.  moral conduct: VIRTUE

Morality today involves a responsible relationship toward the laws of the natural world.

                                            — P.B. Sears

 

           2.  Dictionary.Cambridge.org

1.  a set of personal or social standards for good or bad behavior and character:

They argued for a new morality based on self-sacrifice and honesty.

                                 2.  the quality of being right, honest or acceptable:

I have to question the morality of forcing poor people to pay for their medical treatment.

 

           3.  Wikipedia

Morality (from Latin moralitas 'manner, character, proper behavior') is the categorization of intentions, decisions and actions into those that are proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong).

 

"Virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone that renders us invincible. These are the tactics we should study. If we lose these, we are conquered, fallen indeed."

           Patrick Henry

 

  B.    Morality in pop-culture

1.  Moral relativism - right and wrong can change depending upon context

           2.  Pragmatism - whatever works for you 

a.  Moral pragmatism - whatever works for you within an ethical framework

b.  Amoral pragmatism - whatever works for you without regard to morals

             3.  Amorality - no moral code

 

II.  RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS

 

“My brothers and I collected Baseball cards as kids and we would play with them. How do you "play" with baseball cards? We would sort through them, divide them into teams, build our own allstar team, and sort out the duplicates for trading in school the next day. My brother was a BIG collector and, being younger, would tell me I could play with them but not these "special" cards that he had. One day I decided to surprize my older brother by putting all his "special" cards into a three ring binder for him. So I carefully cut out the heads of the players from teh card and glued them to lined paper with holes punched in the sides and presented the binder to my brother as a gift.

 

I still can see his face as I showed him what I had done with his "special" or HOLY items. I particularly thought the Hank Aaron rookie card looked good glued to the cheap lined paper. I think it is going on ebay right now for over $100,000 (actually $357,594 in 2012).”

           Steven Wunderink, Sermon Central, July 16, 2007.

 

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

       Ephesians 4:22-24 NIV

 

A.  Righteousness

                   1.  Moral commitment

           2.  Conformity to Christian standards

 

    B.  Holiness

1.  Set apart for a higher moral standard - “You have heard it said . . .” from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.

                    2.  Purity - imputed and practical

              3.  Freedom from sin - theological and real

 

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

        Galatians 5:13-21 NIV

 

"There is a story about a schoolboy who was asked what he thought God was like. He replied that, as far as he could make out, God was "The sort of person who is always snooping round to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it." And I am afraid that is the sort of idea that the word Morality raises in a good many people's minds: something that interferes, something that stops you having a good time. In reality, moral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine. That is why these rules at first seem to be constantly interfering with our natural inclinations. When you are being taught how to use any machine, the instructor keeps on saying, "No, don't do it like that," because, of course, there are all sorts of things that look all right and seem to you the natural way of treating the machine, but do not really work."

           C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Simon and Shuster, 1996.

 

III.  CHRISTIAN MORALITY

 

“Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.””

        Matthew 22:34-40 NIV

 

          A.  Love

                      1.  Love of God

 

““The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’”

           Mark 12:29-30 NIV

 

                      2.  Love of neighbor

 

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

          Romans 13:8-10 NIV

 

     B.  Sources of Christian morality

              1.  Scripture

                      2.  The Holy Spirit

                      3.  The Gospel law

                 4.  Natural law - a moral compass

 

     C.  Societal laws

 

Richard Halverson, present chaplain of the United States Senate, wrote:

 

“To be sure, men will abuse and misuse the institution of the State just as man because of sin has abused and misused every other institution in history including the Church of Jesus Christ, but this does not mean that the institution is bad or that it should be forsaken. It simply means that men are sinners and rebels in God’s world, and this is the way they behave with good institutions. As a matter of fact, it is because of this very sin that there must be human government to maintain order in history until the final and ultimate rule of Jesus Christ is established. Human government is better than anarchy, and the Christian must recognize the “divine right” of the State”. 

Richard Halversen, Prologue to Prison (Los Angeles: Cowman Publishers, 1964), p. 223.

 

The former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was an unusual politician in that she understood the limits of government and called for its renewal by people able to live a life of true faith. Addressing the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, she said, “The truths of the Judaic-Christian tradition are infinitely precious, not only, as I believe, because they are true, but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone can lead to that peace … for which we all long.… There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves. Political structures, state institutions, collective ideals are not enough. We parliamentarians can legislate for the rule of law. You, the church, can teach the life of faith.” 

Charles Colson, with Ellen Santilli Vaughn, Against the Night: Living in the New Dark Ages (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant Publications, 1989), p. 120.

 

                   1.  Moral obligation to follow the ruling authorities

                   2.  Moral obligation to stand up to the ruling authorities

 

CONCLUSION

 

Free from the Creator, we destroy His creation.
Free from the King, we operate in tyranny.
Free from the Giver, we drown in both waste AND want.
Free from the Father, we live in rebellion and irreverence.
Free from the Judge, we deem what is right in our own eyes and cruelly enforce it.

 

We are a nation of abolitionists.
We have abolished good and God but kept His glory for ourselves.

We abolished sin and made everything acceptable.
Abolished all the absolutes–truth, lie, good, bad, right, or wrong. We have created a society where “anything goes.” And believe me, IT WILL ALL GO.

           Hey Salty Lady, The Abolition of Absolution, thefishAtlanta.com, 9/25/23. 

 

Morality.  Christian morality.  Righteousness and holiness.   

 

INVITATION

 

It is our custom to offer an "invitation" following the preaching of the Word.  You may want to follow Jesus.  You may want to proclaim your faith.  You may want to repent (stop doing ungodly things and start doing Godly things).  Perhaps you want to be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins     and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Possibly, if you have already responded to God’s call in these ways, you would like to become a member of Kenwood Church.  If you have been moved by the Holy Spirit to make a decision in your life, you can come forward now.  If you would like, I would be honored to speak with you following the service about what God is doing in your life.