Redeemed

I work with amazing kids. Every Sunday I get to spend a couple hours with these kids who are all in different places all at different schools, all in wildly different situations. Today we opened up the floor for question and answer. Not shockingly the topics of sex, alcohol, tatoos and tobacco dominated most of the Q&A time that we had available. The whole discussion followed these legalistic lines of "Is this a sin? Is that a sin?" It was interesting to see how much this wierd legalism is the filter of all of our thinking.

I suppose I should not use the word "wierd"; as legalism is the way the world is run and the only faith than many have ever been exposed to. It is so easy to understand, so simple and finite. I spent the whole time answering the questions then post-scripting everything with, "But don't get hung up on whether or not such and such is a sin, try to focus on what is going to draw you closer to Jesus." Getting the idea of relationship across to people is hard. Praise the Lord, there are some who see Jesus. There are some who are hungry enough to look for Jesus and not look for that "big cop in the sky" who is somehow annoyed that they may be having fun.

It was after this time that we got to talk about Redemption. It is kind of a big concept for kids of this age. The whole artical that we went through can be found on my teaching website (www.agapestudy.com). But the idea of being redeemed out of something was the major point. What have we been redeemed out from?

Sin - We never have to sin again. We are, in Christ, able to live lives that are fully pleasing to God. We are able to be free from the sins of bitterness, hatred, anger, lust, fear, hopelessness, and the dread of life. We are (by faith in Christ and His sacrifice for us on the cross) free from living a life of concern over the eternal penalties for our disobedience. We are free.

The Law - We are no longer under any system of Law to govern our behavior. As Galatians clearly explains to us, we no longer need to live our lives by these lists of rules and the constantly haunting fear that we may have broken some rule that we didn't know about. We are now being conformed to the person of Jesus Christ by His power, and the power of the rest of the Godhead. We have moved from the childish (rules that tell us what to do) to the adult (having such an intimate relationship with Christ that we want to be conformed to Him and be pleasing to Him in everything that we are and do).

Future Redemption - We will soon be redeemed from these bodies that get sick, get old, wear out and wear thin. As a consequence of being freed and redeemed from these broken bodies we will also be freed from the clamor of the Sin Nature that plagues us still with constant demand and temptation to abide in Sin.

All of this for what? We have been redeemed (God redeemed us) because he wanted us for the objects of His grace, His fellowship and His love. Succinctly: He wants a relationship. Are we so mad in our self-obsession and busyness that we are unable to bask in His love? His love is costly; being worth unspeakably more than most of the activities and actions that fill up most of our days. What would it cost to sit for some time today and realize how very deeply loved we are?

What would it cost not to?