weekly sermon
3-16-08
What Is Free Will?
We
have come here week after week with message after message studying the true word
of God and how it relates to our lives. This past week the message was about
something that many folks are confused about, being a doer and not only a hearer
of the word. This week I wanted to talk about something else that many of us may
find confusing.
Let me first start by telling you something I heard a comedian talk about awhile
back. He told a story about a man that had a vicious dog that would run and jump
on a fence just at the right time in order to scare the comedian to death. He
was sure that the dog found this hilarious. The owner of the dog, one day took
down the fence and installed an invisible fence, the kind that shocks the dog
when he gets close to the invisible fence. Well the dog would have to be trained
and the comedian was more that willing to help train this dog. He would step
into the yard and when the dog would run towards him then he would step back
across the fence and the dog would be shocked. Well the comedian thought in his
mind that this was too funny, just as the dog found it funny when he would
attack the real fence and scare the comedian. He asked the owner what the fence
had cost him. He told him that the fence was around a thousand dollars. The
comedian said well why did you not just buy an invisible dog. Think about it he
said, if you told me I have a vicious dog that will attack you if you come into
my yard and I asked you where it was, you would just have to say, thats all you
need to know. Well after the dog had been shocked repeatedly, during the
training, the relationship between the dog and the comedian diminished. The
comedian could walk anywhere on the man's property and the dog was like 'go
ahead do what you want, he shocks me everywhere I go'. Needless to say it really
killed the demeanor of the dog.
Now I tell this story for several reasons. How does my mind work that I can take
this to a Biblical sense? Well there are many things I see in this little story
that reminds me of what our relationship with God should be like. Notice what
word I used here, "relationship". Keep in mind here that God, although, being
the almighty authority, wants more than anything else to have a relationship and
not just be a figure that demands that you abide by His laws. If we look at this
deeper, I want us to see how I am trying to reference this. It would be like
life as when you were a child with your parents. Parents are, or should be for
the most part, the heads of the house that lays down rules for their children to
live by. Keeping this in mind, it is hard for children to have a relationship
per say with their parents on any other basis than a child/parent relationship.
Believe it or not parents really do want to have a more in depth relationship
with their children. This is also the case with God and man. God is like our
parent in the sense that He has laws that we are to abide by in our growth with
Him. God also wants that relationship of a friend/friend as well as our parent
type figure. We know this to be a true fact because God sent His only son to
bridge that gap between the two types of relationship. Originally God was our
parent type figure. When God sent Jesus to earth in the flesh that was His way
of creating the relationship He really wanted to have with us from the
beginning.
How does this last paragraph relate to the first? Well the dog in paragraph one
had a relationship with it's owner where the owner was the authority over the
dog and the dog more like the child abiding by his rules in the fence. And just
like the dog, as a child when we are reprimanded our demeanor diminishes a
little. If we were reprimanded repeatedly over and over, then our demeanor would
diminish just as the demeanor of the dog. The dog was shocked so much, just to
get it trained, that it no longer had the type of relationship that was intense
between it and the comedian. The owner of the dog could not see what type of
effect this type of treatment was having on the dog until it was too late.
Fortunately God could see in advance that He would need a deeper relationship
with man so that it was not just a constant "shock". This would keep our
relationship with God as it should be.
Second thing I noticed is the boundaries of the dog. The dog was first put into
a backyard with a chain link fence. The fence was taken down and the invisible
fence was installed. This also set boundaries for the dog. Boundaries had to be
set for the dog. Boundaries also had to be set for us when we were children so
that we could grow into respectable acting adults. God also sets boundaries for
us as adults to keep us in line with the way we, as Christians, are suppose to
act. Listen close, this is where the free will part comes in. God gives us
boundaries to abide by but also gives us the will to make our own decisions and
perform our own actions. We have to know that we are held accountable for our
actions and that it is our minds boundaries that keep us doing right instead of
wrong. Remember, though, that if for some reason we do step out of our
boundaries, backsliding away, we can always come back to God. If you have ever
heard stories about dogs that have been lost, left behind, or even dropped off
far away from it's home it somehow finds it's way back home. The same also holds
true for us. If for some reason we stray away from God, we can always find our
way back home.
Now you may be asking yourself, how could this be confusing to anyone? You hear
folks talk all the time about, how could God allow a child to suffer, how could
God allow war, or things like that. If God kept things like that in boundaries
then it would take the free will away from man. I know that you can say to
yourself that a suffering child was not caused by our free will. War was not
caused by our free will. Let us look at Ephesians 2:2, "Wherein in time past ye
walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:"
This is Satan himself. Satan is the prince of the power of the air. So from this
knowledge we can see that suffering, hatred, wars, or things of this nature are
controlled by the power of the air being Satan. Now you can see where the
confusion comes from. Folks like to blame things that happen on God. This is a
ploy devised by Satan to make man have hatred in their hearts for God. Satan
will do anything it takes to make man have hatred for God. This is where the
confusion comes into play. Most blame God when in fact it is Satan that controls
the problems in this world.
Do not be "shocked" into obedience that will eventually diminish your demeanor
with God. Relish in a relationship with Him that will cause you to see the deep
love that He has for His children. God gives us free will to choose what we do
with our lives, where to work, who to marry, how many, if any, kids to have,
things such as that. This also means that God gives you the free will to either
accept Him or deny Him. This is done by say a simple little prayer.
Dear Lord, take over my life and forgive me of my sins, and give me the gift of
everlasting life. Amen.
If you have said this simple prayer, then we believe that you have received
salvation. We would love to rejoice with you, so please drop us a note, in our
link, to let us know and confess Jesus before man, so that we may send you a few
things that we hope will help you in your new Christian walk.
With Love in Christ,
Pastor Stone