Grace Thoughts

Tim Kelley: Hello friends, welcome to Grace Thoughts, the radio ministry of Grace Connection Church with Pastor Tim Kelly. Grace Thoughts has been dedicated to preaching the clear gospel of grace for over 20 years. Here is Pastor Kelly.

Tim Kelley: We'll be looking a lot of different places in the Bible today. We'll have the verses on the screen, but we're going to be jumping all over the scriptures today on purpose because we want you to see what the Bible speaks about this word that we've looked at last week and will look for the next couple weeks called *doulos*.

In most of your English Bibles, I should say many of the English Bibles, it's it's translated servant. Sometimes it's translated slave. Sometimes I don't quite understand it's translated servant over here and slave over here, but it's the same Greek word, *doulos*. And so in translation, you want to look at what does this word really mean and and just sort of translate it consistently. English has had a difficult time doing that.

And like we talked about the last series we did on Discovering God, to get the most out of this, certain passages of this especially, to get the most out of this, to read it in the English, it was written in Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. So to read it in the English, sometimes you will lose some of the word meanings obviously, but sometimes you definitely lose some of the cultural setting of the scriptures.

And and what some of the words mean and how it was framed 2,000 years ago in the biblical culture. That's not today's culture, is it? I mean, today's language is very different than even a few hundred years ago. If you were to read the first King James Bible, you couldn't read it. It would be like a foreign language to you, though it was English. It was just you can make out maybe every fourth or fifth word. That's how much English has evolved.

So the same with every language. So in order to frame this again in the setting is very important. Understanding that when we talk about *doulos*, slavery, being a servant to Jesus Christ, that was normal. Jesus doesn't condone slavery. He doesn't denounce slavery. He just sort of treats it as normal. This was normal culture back then.

People owned slaves. Good people and bad people owned slaves. Now slavery today has a lot of politics wrapped around it, a lot of political correctness, but back then it was very accepted in every culture. And again, it wasn't taught by Jesus in a way of, it was more important for him not to change culture, but to change human hearts.

That's what he was after. He wasn't political per se. He would let the political dynasties come and go, rise themselves up and fall flat on their face. I'm here to do the same thing in my life on earth and for the thousand years, thousands of years following me is to change human lives one by one. That's my mission to redeem mankind, put my Holy Spirit in them, to change the human race one person by one person.

He was apolitical in a sense. Not that he couldn't tell you what was going on, but he had a bigger picture to what was going on. He knew governments would come and go, but man's heart and soul would always need salvation. And in whatever government they were in, whatever culture they were part of, they would always need salvation. And that was the mission of Christ.

John MacArthur said this in in his book entitled Slavery. It's actually a very good book he writes about the history of this word and everything. He says, "A slave's life was one of complete surrender, submission, and service to the master." The people of Jesus' day would have immediately recognized the parallel.

And when he talked about a servant or a slave, again, used 124 times as a description of God's people. That's best on my understanding, the number one designation given God's people is this word *doulos*. 124 times, and even more than that with some of its various forms. Recognize the parallel. "Christ's invitation to follow him was an invitation to the same kind of life."

Now, like we do with every message, before I read the scriptures, I don't want you to leave and say, "Wow, that was a good message." Well, I do want you to say that. But that's not the purpose. The purpose is to leave you with something. The purpose is not for me to deliver something. It's for you to take something away with you between your walk with God and your relationship with God.

And that's what's important to me because that's how it happens to me. When I read the scriptures or when I hear the word being preached and I listen to preaching every day, I I I quiet my heart and I ask the Lord, "What do you want me to receive from this today? Convict me, inspire me, comfort me, whatever it is, but what do you want me to pull away from this today?"

So when we talk about the slave's life that I titled the message, and we talk about this word *doulos* and the full orb of what it means, which we'll be showing that in one minute here, how does that work for you? How does that apply to your life? What can you pull from that and apply it to your family, your private life, your your being a a wife or a husband, a businessman, an employee, a boss, a father, a mother?

How do how does this work for me? Because I believe the Lord will show you, and especially I think the last five to seven minutes of the message to me, it'll be the most important five to seven minutes of the whole thing because I think they're going to leave you with some some things to reflect on. Matthew 20, verse 27. "And whoever wants to be the first among you must become your what? Slave, *doulos*."

Now here's New Living Translation, same translation. Matthew 25:21, "The master was full of praise." This is the parable of the servants. "Well done, my good and faithful servant." That's *doulos* too. So you could translate, I mean we just five chapters later, the the the writer translator just used that word *doulos* as servant, and and then in 27, verse 27 of chapter 20, he uses it slave.

"You have been faithful in handling the small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let's celebrate together." "The servant/slave who has received the two bags of silver came forward and said, 'Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest. I have earned two more.'" "The master said, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant. You must have been faithful in handling the small amount, so now I'll give you many more responsibilities. Let's celebrate together.'"

Now, it's not hard to just translate slave across the board if you really embrace what slavery meant in the day. And what servanthood meant in the day. Servanthood in our sense would have maybe a more current day application, how we would see this playing out, but really in biblical slavery it all makes sense.

The first parallel between this, I have five of them, biblical Christianity and first century slavery, is there was exclusive ownership. This was not a hired employee that could go and come as they pleased. The slave was a possession. The slave had no rights. They were bought. They were owned.

Like you own an automobile, they owned a slave. Like you own your home, they would own a slave or slaves plural. Let me read you some verses here to show you what I mean. Revelation 5:9, "They sang a new song with these words. You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it, for you are slaughtered," and it's talking about Jesus, "and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and nation and people."

So talking about Christ, "Your blood has ransomed." Now, you know what the word ransom means? It means to be bought. It's very similar to how we use it ransom in the English. It means to be bought back. So what were we bought back from? Slavery. Well, you said we were slaves. Well, that's another message. Slavery to sin, Romans 6. We were bought back from slavery to sin and to becoming a slave of Christ.

So we were bought back. We're no longer owned by sin. And again, that's going to be next week's message for me, we'll talk about that. Colossians, I'm sorry, Titus 2, verse 14. "Who gave himself," talking about Jesus, "to redeem us, buy us back, from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people." Look what it says there. "For his own possession." He owns us. He bought us to own us who are zealous for good works.

Galatians 5, verse 24. Again, a lot of verses today. "And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh." Those who what? Belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh in passions and desires. Colossians 4, verse 1. "Masters, treat your bondservants." Is that word we used last week a little bit. Same word, *doulos*. "Justly and fairly." He's giving wisdom to earthly slave owners.

"Knowing that your you also have a master." Because you're a slave of Christ, says to the church in heaven. So we see this exclusive ownership here. Sometimes the master would rename his slave or give him his own name. Revelation 2, verse 17. "Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he's saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious, I'll give some of the manna that has been hidden away in heaven. And I'll give you each one a white stone."

There's a lot of symbolism here that's not relevant to what we're trying to get across today. "On that stone will be engraved," watch this, "a new name that no one understands except the one who receives it." It will be a new way of identifying us with him. It will point to a new level of intimacy. 22:4 Revelation, "We receive Christ's name," again, pointing to an eternal possession. So the first point is we have exclusive ownership, we are owned.

Second point is this, complete submission. The slave will have no will of their own and was always available to meet the master's needs. There was complete submission. There was no outside agenda. They had to come under the but to come under the master's headship. I'm talking to a slave back then, what do you want, what do you want to do with your life? I want to serve my master.

"Well, tell me what's important to you." What's important to my master. "Well, tell me what you, where your values lie." I have the same values as my master. "How do you think of yourself?" I don't, I think of my master. His his master was his identity. Are we seeing how this segues over and parallels over to our Christian life? His master was my identity.

Was his identity. What he wanted, what the master wanted. His passion was the master's passion. His values were the master's values. His priorities were the master's priorities. He had no life. His life was absolutely submitted unto and under the master. "Well, Pastor, that's sort of austere, isn't it?"

Seems like it. I mean, let's reiterate one point from last week and then we'll see how this message ends. The master could be cruel or he could be kind. The master could have his own interest at heart or have the interest of the slaves. In our case, as Christian slaves under the mastership of Jesus Christ, we are his passion.

This is the beautiful part. We are his life. We are his love. We are his interest. We are his values. We are his priorities. See, our master is different than an earthly master. He's not selfish. He's selfless. And he gives and doesn't take. First Corinthians 16, verse 9. "Don't you realize that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to God? You do not belong to yourself."

Verse 20. "For God bought you with a high price and you," what was that? His blood. We saw that in Revelation 5. "So you must honor God with your body." Okay? Verse 21 of 2 Timothy chapter 2. "If you keep yourself pure, you'll be a special utensil for honorable use. Your life will be clean and you'll be ready for the master to use you in every good work." In other words, if you're a slave, I'm doing everything in my life to be prepared to be used by the master.

So this is really a question of Lordship. Unfortunately, many believers sometimes never really face the decision of Christ's Lordship in their life. They're not even really aware of it. I believe there's two two decisions. We got dizzy spell there. Got to eat. There's salvation. The day I asked Jesus Christ to be my savior, I make that decision. And then there's a second decision, I believe we make throughout our lives, the decision of Lordship.

And I and again, I think I think we make that throughout our lives. I thought I made that decision right the moment I got saved. I said, "Yeah, I got saved and and I I God I want what you want. I'm going where you want me to go. I'm all about you." And started studying the book, and went to Bible college and and I did good for six months or so.

Then I realized there was a lot of stuff in my life that I really hadn't given over to God. And you know what? 30 years later, he still show me that stuff. I mean, not as much as some of you, but just kidding with you. So this illumination of Christ's Lordship, I think goes on through our lifetimes as God shows us areas of our life. But I do want to bring this to a point that there is a second decision to be made.