Latest / Reformed Thinking / Not Our Own: The Lordship of Christ Over Life and Death (Romans 14:7–8)

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Not Our Own: The Lordship of Christ Over Life and Death (Romans 14:7–8) · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello, and welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  I'm looking at the stack of notes we have for today and I
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  have to be honest, I braced myself a little bit.
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  It's a heavy one. It is.
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  We are diving into a topic that feels like it goes against
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  everything the culture screams at US 24/7.
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  We're looking at Romans chapter 14 verses 7:00 and 8:00.
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  And if the sources are right, this text is going to challenge,
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  I mean, really challenge the way we think about freedom, anxiety
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  and, you know, even death. It is good to be here, and you
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  are right to brace yourself. The text we are analyzing today
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  is it's not a gentle suggestion, it's a collision.
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  It's a collision with the modern worldview.
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  We are looking at sources that argue that what we typically
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  call freedom is actually a trap. A trap and what the Bible calls
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  slavery. That's the only true comfort.
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  That is the hook right there. I mean, that's just completely
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  upside down from how we think. So let's start with the
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  atmosphere we live in, the source material.
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  It describes our current cultural moment as being
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  intoxicated with autonomy. But usually when we think of
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  intoxication, we think of a party, we think of having a good
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  time. True, and it feels like a party
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  at first. Yeah, absolutely feels like
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  liberation. But the sources argue this is a
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  bad kind of drunk. They talk about the exhaustion
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  of self creation and I see this everywhere.
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  You see it everywhere. It's all over the place.
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  The slogans on social media, the ads we see.
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  Be true to yourself, follow your heart, define your own truth.
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  It sounds so empowering on an Instagram post, right?
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  But in reality, is it working for people?
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  That is the question, isn't it? The sociologists, they have a
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  name for this. They call it expressive
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  individualism. Expressive individualism, OK.
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  And the idea is that the highest good in life, the whole purpose
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  of your existence, is to look inside yourself, find your
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  unique special desires, and then express them to the world.
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  You're the main character. You are the main character.
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  You're the captain of your soul. You are the master of your fate.
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  And to the modern year, my year, that sounds great.
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  It sounds like the American dream.
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  No one can tell me what to do. I define my own identity.
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  But here is where the sources just flip the script entirely.
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  If you are the captain of your soul, you never get a day off,
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  right? You're the master of your fate.
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  You are also the one who's responsible for all the storms.
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  Yeah, that's the part they leave.
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  Out they leave that part out. The source material argues that
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  this so-called freedom is actually a crushing job
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  description. Just think about it.
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  If you define your own truth and your own purpose, then the
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  pressure is entirely on you. To sustain it all on you.
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  You have to manufacture your own meaning every single morning
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  when you wake up. It's like being the CEO of a
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  company that is constantly on the verge of bankruptcy and the
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  company is you. Precisely.
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  That is a perfect way to put it. And that leads to anxiety.
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  It leads to this deep gnawing exhaustion because deep down, I
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  think we all know we're not big enough to be our own gods.
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  Why not? We're not strong enough to carry
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  the weight of the world or, you know, even the weight of our own
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  lives. So we have this modern
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  diagnosis. We're all exhausted from trying
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  to be our own gods. The world says self
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  determination is the highest good.
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  But the text we are looking at today, Romans 14, it argues that
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  this is idolatry. It is.
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  It is self worship. And like all idols, it demands
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  sacrifices it can never, ever repay.
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  That is the setup and end of this mess.
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  The apostle Paul steps in with a counterclaim that is frankly
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  shocking. He argues that the problem isn't
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  just that we have bad habits or that we're all stressed out.
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  It goes deeper. The problem is that we have bad
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  worship. We're oriented our lives around
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  the wrong center when the self is the reference point.
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  Everything else, our relationships, our morality, our
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  religion, it just becomes a tool to serve the self.
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  So our mission for this deep dive is to unpack how Paul
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  confronts this, this idol of self worship.
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  But he doesn't do it in a vacuum, right?
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  He's not on the philosophy lecture hall at all.
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  He's doing it in the context of a very real, very divided church
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  in Rome. And we're going to see why.
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  Being the property. And that is a strong word, but
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  it's the word the sources use. It's the biblical word.
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  Why being the property of Jesus Christ is actually the only true
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  freedom. It's the paradox of the gospel,
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  isn't it? To the world it sounds like
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  oppression, totally, but to the believer it is the only place of
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  safety. OK, let's get into the context
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  then. We need to set the scene in
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  Rome, specifically what's happening in Romans 14.
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  You know, verses one through 6. The sources describe a lot of
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  friction in this church. What was going on?
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  The Church in Rome was fractured, but it wasn't
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  fractured over the core doctrines of the faith.
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  It wasn't like they were arguing about the deity of Christ or the
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  resurrection. OK, so not the big stuff.
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  Not the first tier issues. They were fighting over what
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  Paul calls disputable matters. Secondary issues.
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  Correct. Specifically, they were arguing
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  about the menu and the calendar. The menu and the calendar.
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  Meat versus vegetables, Holy days versus regular days.
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  Now, on the surface that sounds like they were just arguing
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  about catering, but Paul sees right through the potluck drama
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  to the exact same issue we just talked about.
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  Who is the King? Exactly.
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  Yeah, you had two main factions. Paul identifies them as the weak
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  and the strong. OK, hang on.
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  Paul calls them the weak that feels.
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  I mean, that feels incredibly insulting.
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  If I'm a Jewish believer in the 1st century and I'm sticking to
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  the traditions of my father's and I'm being disciplined about
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  my diet to honor God, I probably feel pretty strong in my faith.
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  You would. So why does the source material
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  and Paul label that as weakness? That is a great catch and you
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  are right, it sounds pejorative. To our ears it sounds like an
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  insult, but the sources point out that Paul isn't talking
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  about weakness of will. OK, he isn't saying they are
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  spineless or lazy. In fact, these people were very
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  disciplined. It takes a lot of willpower to
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  refuse meat at a feast in that culture.
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  For sure. So what's breaking down if it's
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  not their will? It is their conscience that is
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  weak. Think of a weak muscle or a week
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  back. It can't handle heavy lifting.
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  A weak conscience in this theology is one that is easily
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  injured or scandalized by things that aren't actually sinful.
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  They didn't have the strength of faith to believe that Christ had
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  truly and fully ended the ceremonial restrictions.
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  OK, so let's paint the picture. You have the weak, who are
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  primarily Jewish believers. They felt constrained to abstain
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  from meat, probably meat that might have been sacrificed to
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  Roman idols or wasn't kosher. And they felt they had to
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  observe the Jewish holy days. That's right.
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  So for them, eating a pork chop wasn't just lunch.
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  It felt like a betrayal of God's law.
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  Exactly. And their temptation, the sin
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  they were prone to, was judging. They looked at the Gentile
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  Christians eating a ham sandwich and thought, how can they be
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  faithful? They're compromising.
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  They're worldly. They don't take God seriously.
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  And then you have the other group, the strong.
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  The strong These were mostly Gentiles, though Paul includes
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  himself in this group, and they understood the theology of the
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  New Covenant correctly. They knew that Christ is the
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  fulfillment of the law. They knew that a cheeseburger
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  cannot defile you spiritually. So they were right on the
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  theology. They were theologically correct,
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  yes, but their temptation was to despise.
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  That is the word Paul uses. Despise it like to look down on
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  someone with contempt. They look at the Jewish
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  believers and thought, oh, look at those superstitious, immature
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  people. They are so backward.
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  They were treating the weak as annoying impediments to their
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  freedom. It's interesting that the
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  sources point out this friction was really a collision of
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  dispensations. It was.
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  We have to zoom out and look at the timeline of the whole Bible.
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  The source is called this Redemptive History.
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  Think of it like a play with two distinct acts.
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  Act One being the Old Testament. Right.
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  And in Act 1, the Old economy holiness was very touchable.
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  It was physical, it was geographic.
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  If you want to be close to God, you had to go to a specific GPS
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  location, Jerusalem. Right, the temple.
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  The temple. You had to eat specific
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  biological animals and avoid others.
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  You had to wear specific fabrics.
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  An external holiness. Precisely.
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  But then the curtain drops, Christ comes, dies and rises.
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  Act 2 begins and, the sources argue, the weak believers in
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  Rome. We're trying to drag the props
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  from Act one onto the stage of Act 2.
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  They're trying to keep the old rules running when the new
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  reality had already arrived. But the strong, even though they
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  knew Act 2 had started, we're acting like jerks about it.
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  Paul validates the theology of the strong.
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  He agrees that the old ceremonial laws are gone, but he
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  absolutely rebukes their attitude.
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  So the root issue wasn't really about the menu.
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  No, not at all. The fight wasn't about meat or
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  days. It was about lordship.
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  It was about the posture of the heart.
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  The sources identify these twin sins despising and judging.
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  Despising and judging. Despising is pride looking down.
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  Judging is censoriousness, looking up and condemning.
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  And both of them stem from the same root.
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  Living to myself, that is. Diagnosis.
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  The strong were eating to themselves, flaunting their
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  liberties to show how smart they were.
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  The weak were abstaining to themselves, using their rules to
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  feel superior and holy. Both sides were making the self
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  the reference point. And Paul's solution isn't to
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  just say hey guys, shake hands and get over it.
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  He doesn't just call for a truce.
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  No, a truce is just a ceasefire. Paul wants peace, and peace only
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  comes when you recenter the conscience under the lordship of
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  Jesus. He has to dethrone the self to
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  solve the argument. Which brings us right to the
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  core text for this discussion. Verse 7 says for none of us
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  lives to himself and none of us dies to himself.
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  Now I was looking through the notes and the sources make a
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  huge deal about the grammar in verse 7.
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  They do. And usually when I see Greek
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  grammar in the notes, my eyes kind of glaze over.
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  Fair. It can be dry if you don't see
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  the point. But they claim that everything
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  hinges on this thing called the dative of advantage.
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  Please tell me this is more interesting than it sounds.
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  It is, I promise. It changes the entire meaning of
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  the sentence because when we hear no one lives to himself, we
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  usually hear a command we hear Stop living for yourself, right?
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  Like a scolding parent, don't be selfish.
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  Exactly. But the date of case here,
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  coupled with the indicative mood it implies A factual
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  impossibility. Paul isn't issuing a command, he
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  is stating a law of physics. A law of spiritual physics.
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  Yes, he's saying none of us does live for himself.
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  So you're telling me it's not a shouldn't, it's a can't?
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  It's a can't. He is arguing that for a
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  Christian, living for your own advantage is an ontological
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  contradiction. The source uses the analogy of a
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  planet. A planet cannot orbit itself.
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  It defies the laws of physics. It has to orbit a star.
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  In the same way a Christian cannot orbit their own ego.
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  It defies the laws of the Spirit.
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  So if you are a Christian, you simply don't live to yourself.
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  But we still struggle with selfishness, obviously.
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  So what does living to self look like when we slip into it?
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  Because I feel like I do that about 10 times a day.
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  Well, functionally it looks like making the self the master of
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  the judge in the final audience. When I live to myself, I treat
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  my preferences as sacred. Not preferences are king.
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  They are. If I'm strong, I turn my liberty
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  into swagger. I say I can do what I want and I
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  don't care how it affects you. And if I am weak?
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  If you are weak, you turn your scruples into tyranny.
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  You say you must do what I do because I am uncomfortable.
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  In both cases, the conscious becomes the final Court of
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  Appeal. If I feel it, it must be right.
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  If I want it, it must be good. The sources mentioned that this
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  verse denies 2 things, self as the goal and self as the limit.
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  Right. First the goal.
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  The world catechizes us. It teaches us day in and day out
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  that life is a closed circle, beginning and ending with me.
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  Self-expression, self actualization, all of it.
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  Scripture just denies this. The goal of life cannot be the
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  self. But then there is the limit.
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  None of us dies to himself. That is a haunting phrase.
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  None of us dies to himself. It is.
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  It destroys the last refuge of privacy.
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  Death is often where we think we are finally alone.
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  We think of death as the one thing that is truly ours.
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  My death. It's the one thing I do by
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  myself, right? But Paul slams that door shut.
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  He says even your death is not a private possession.
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  You did not appoint your first breath and you do not secure
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  your last. It is the ultimate denial of
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  autonomy, even in the one thing that seems most personal, my
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  death. I am not the reference point.
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  The self is not the author of life, and it is not the Lord of
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  death. We are not big enough to hold
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  that kind of authority. So that is the negative.
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  We can't orbit ourselves, but we have to orbit something nature
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  abhors, a vacuum. This leads us to the next
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  section, verse 8A. If we live, we live to the Lord,
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  and if we die, we die to the. Lord, here's the shift.
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  We move from the denial of self to the enthronement of Christ.
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  And the structure of the text itself shows this.
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  The sources point out a chaastic structure.
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  They walk me through the sandwich.
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  The text is built like a sandwich.
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  The source is called a chaastic structure, which is just a fancy
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  way of saying mirrors itself. So the top slice of bread is
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  living, the bottom slice of bread is dying.
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  Those are the outer edges of our existence.
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  It's the beginning and the end of our life here.
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  Right, but the meat, the cheese, the good stuff right in the
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  middle of the sandwich. That is the phrase to the Lord.
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  Paul literally structures the sentence so that Jesus is
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  trapped between your life and your death.
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  You cannot get from one to the other without going through Him.
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  So visually to the Lord is the center of gravity precisely.
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  Whether you are in the active phase of living or the passive
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  experience of dying, the center is Christ.
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  He is the Son and we are the planet.
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  Everything we do is held in orbit by His gravitational pull.
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  Let's talk about living to the Lord.
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  We saw that the date of of advantage means for the benefit
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  of. So what does it mean to eat a
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  meal to the Lord? It means every decision is
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  weighed by his reference point. It reorients ordinary things.
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  If I am eating meat, I'm not just satisfying an appetite, I
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  am giving thanks to the king who provided it right.
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  If I am abstaining, I'm not just following a rule, I am
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  disciplining myself to honor the king.
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  Everything gets recentered on him.
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  This changes the definition of freedom, doesn't it?
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  Completely. In the modern world, freedom is
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  the ability to do whatever you want without consequence.
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  It's self rule. The absence of restraint.
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  Right. But in the Christian view,
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  freedom is the liberty to obey Christ gladly, without fear.
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  It is not the right to do what you want, it is the power to do
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  what you ought. That is a distinct difference.
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  It is the freedom from the tyranny of self so that you can
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  be free to serve the true master.
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  And then we have dying to the Lord.
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  We need to spend some time here because the source material gets
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  very dense with comfort on this point.
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  The sources describe death as the last frontier of human fear,
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  and I think most people, even believers, have this subtle fear
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  that death is a chaotic accident.
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  Like if I get hit by a bus, did God look away for a second?
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  What? Is the terror of autonomy, isn't
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  it? If we are the masters of our
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  faith, then an accidental death is a failure of management.
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  It's on you. Yeah, but the sources connect
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  this to the Westminster Confession, specifically Chapter
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  5 on Providence. Providence.
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  That is a heavy theological word.
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  Break it down for us in this context.
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  It affirms that God governs all creatures, actions and things.
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  All of them. That means my death is a decreed
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  event. It is timed by the owner.
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  It is not an accident. It is not a tragedy in the sense
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  that it is outside of God's control.
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  That changes the way we look at the hospital room, It changes
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  the way we look at a car crash. It changes everything.
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  We do not die the whim of cancer.
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  We do not die because of a drunk driver.
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  Ultimately, those are secondary causes, yes, and they matter.
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  They're real. But the primary cause is the
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  appointment set by the Lord. The sources use the phrase to
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  the Lord regarding death. Does that mean our death is
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  actually a service, An act of service?
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  Yes, that is the stunning part. If we die to Him, it means even
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  our dying is an act of worship. It's the final act of obedience.
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  We are offering our life back to the One who gave it, so we are
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  safe in His hands. Even as the body fails.
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  He hasn't lost us. He's not surprised.
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  He is not surprised. He is simply calling us home.
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  This leads us to the summit of the argument, the climax of it
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  all, verse 8B. So then, whether we live or
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  whether we die, we are the Lords.
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  This is the anchor, and here's where the text drops a bomb.
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  The Greek changes from the date of case to the genitive of
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  possession. Which translates to.
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  It literally translates to we are the property of the Lord.
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  OK, I have to be honest that that word property makes my skin
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  crawl a little. In 2026, talking about humans as
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  property, that brings up some very dark history.
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  We think of chattel slavery. We think of human trafficking.
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  It does, and the sources don't shy away from that discomfort.
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  They acknowledge that our modern ears hear slavery and think of
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  the American stout. We think of oppression and
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  abuse. Right.
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  But Paul is writing this while looking at Roman slavery, and he
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  is flipping the metaphor run its head to offer comfort.
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  How on earth is being property a comfort?
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  Well, we have to look at the historical and political
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  context. The sources bring up the term
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  curious, the Greek word for Lord in the 1st century.
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  Who claimed to be curious, Caesar.
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  Caesar, the Roman emperor, claimed to be the Lord holding
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  the power of life and death over his subjects.
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  So when Paul writes to the church in Rome right under
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  Caesar's nose and says no, Jesus is curious, we are his property,
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  he's being incredibly subversive.
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  He is saying our allegiance belongs to Jesus alone, not the
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  state, and not our own will. Right.
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  And the basis of this ownership is found in the very next verse,
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  verse 9. Christ died and lived again that
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  he might be Lord. It is the concept of purchase
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  redemption. You were bought with a price
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  that verse. That's the one.
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  In the ancient world, if you bought a slave, you own their
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  labor, their time and their life.
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  But here is the beauty of it, the sources argue.
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  This isn't harsh, It is hope, because in that culture if you
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  are a slave, who is responsible for your food.
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  The master. Who is responsible for your
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  shelter? The master.
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  Who is responsible for your protection?
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  The master. If you are a free man, you have
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  to hustle. You have to secure your own
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  existence. If you are property, the owner
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  is responsible for your upkeep. That turns the whole idea of
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  slavery on its head. We think of slavery as
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  oppression, but Paul is framing it as security.
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  It is the security of being owned by a good king, a king who
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  loves you. If I am his property, he is not
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  going to lose me. He is not going to misplace me.
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  He protects his investment. An investment he paid for with
• 18:38
  his own blood. Right.
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  That's a high price. He is not going to walk away
• 18:41
  from that investment. This doctrine of ownership isn't
• 18:43
  just for comfort, though. It's also a weapon.
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  The sources list for specific errors for doctrinal messes that
• 18:51
  this truth cleans up. We need to walk through these
• 18:55
  because I think we see them in the church every Sunday.
• 18:58
  The first one is legalism. Legalism is a constant threat.
• 19:03
  The forces define it as adding human rules to God's law.
• 19:07
  Give us an example. What does this look like today?
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  It looks like someone saying real Christians don't drink
• 19:12
  alcohol or real Christians must homeschool their kids, or real
• 19:16
  Christians vote for this specific party.
• 19:18
  Anytime we add a you must with the Bible doesn't.
• 19:20
  And the person saying it usually feels very righteous.
• 19:23
  They do. But why does the doctrine of we
• 19:25
  are the Lord's refute this? Because the legalist is acting
• 19:29
  like a Lord. He is manufacturing laws for a
• 19:32
  household that isn't his. If I look at you and say you
• 19:35
  must obey my preference, I am claiming ownership over your
• 19:37
  conscience. But Paul says he is the Lord's.
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  I don't have the authority to bind the conscience of another
• 19:42
  Christian where God is less than free.
• 19:44
  It's a jurisdictional violation. You're stepping onto the King's
• 19:47
  property and trying to put up your own keep off the grass
• 19:50
  signs. Exactly.
• 19:51
  It's usurpation. It's sitting on Christ's throne.
• 19:53
  Then on the other side of the road you have antinomianism or
• 19:57
  license. This is the error of the strong.
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  This is the guy who says I'm saved by grace so I can do.
• 20:03
  Whatever I want beer and Bible, baby.
• 20:06
  The Cage stage Calvinist who wants to shock everyone with
• 20:10
  their freedom. Right.
• 20:11
  They use freedom to enthrone desire.
• 20:13
  They say I am free so I can do what I please.
• 20:17
  But flaunting your liberty, especially if it hurts a brother
• 20:19
  or a sister, is just another form of living to self.
• 20:23
  And the Westminster Confession has something to say about this
• 20:26
  too, regarding the conscience. Yes, chapter 20 on Christian
• 20:29
  liberty says God alone is Lord of the conscience.
• 20:32
  That frees us from the doctrines of men, but it binds us to the
• 20:36
  moral law of God. It is what we call the third use
• 20:38
  of the law. We obey not to get saved, but
• 20:42
  because we are owned. Freedom isn't the license to
• 20:45
  sin, it is the freedom to serve. If you use your freedom to sin,
• 20:50
  you are just serving a different master, your own appetite.
• 20:54
  Then there is moralism. This is a subtle 1.
• 20:56
  I feel like this is the default setting for a lot of modern
• 21:00
  evangelicalism. It is very subtle.
• 21:02
  Moralism tries to achieve unity through niceness or, you know,
• 21:06
  conflict resolution techniques, he says.
• 21:08
  Can't we all just get along? Let's just be polite.
• 21:11
  Let's not talk about doctrine because it divides.
• 21:13
  It prioritizes the relationship over the truth.
• 21:16
  But Paul doesn't ground unity in etiquette, he grounds it in
• 21:19
  ownership. We don't stop fighting because
• 21:21
  we're nice people. We stop fighting because we are
• 21:23
  fellow slaves of the same mass. I treat you well not because you
• 21:26
  are likable, but because you belong to the king.
• 21:29
  If I kick the King's dog, I have a problem with the king.
• 21:31
  That is a helpful image. I am not being nice to you for
• 21:34
  your sake. I am respecting the owner.
• 21:36
  Correct. Your dignity is derived from
• 21:38
  your owner. Finally, subjectivism.
• 21:40
  God told me I feel LED. This is huge in our culture.
• 21:44
  We tend to elevate our intuition to the level of prophecy.
• 21:49
  I feel like God is saying I should break up with my spouse
• 21:51
  or I feel led to leave this church because the vibes are
• 21:54
  off. What is wrong with feelings?
• 21:57
  I mean, shouldn't we feel something in our faith?
• 22:00
  Feelings are fine as a response to truth, but they are terrible
• 22:02
  masters. The sources argued that
• 22:05
  sincerity does not equal authority.
• 22:08
  Just because you feel something deeply doesn't mean it is
• 22:11
  binding, right? If we are the Lords, then his
• 22:15
  objective word rules, not my fluctuating emotional
• 22:18
  temperature. If the master has written down
• 22:20
  spanning orders, I don't get to override them because I have a
• 22:23
  hunch. Precisely.
• 22:25
  We must be ruled by Scripture, the objective word of the owner,
• 22:28
  not the subjective whims of our hearts.
• 22:30
  This brings us to the practical application.
• 22:32
  We've talked about the theology, but what does this look like on
• 22:35
  a Tuesday morning? Let's break this down for
• 22:37
  different people listening. Start with the Weary St.
• 22:39
  This is the person I mentioned at the beginning, the person
• 22:42
  crushed by the burden of autonomy.
• 22:45
  If you are that person, if you feel like you have to hold your
• 22:47
  whole world together, manage your image to cure your future,
• 22:50
  the doctrine of ownership is the best news you will hear all
• 22:53
  week. Why?
• 22:55
  Why is that such good news? Because the burden of self
• 22:57
  sustainment is removed. You are not a freelancer, you
• 23:01
  are staff. The master feeds and clothes his
• 23:05
  property. The sources use a tough phrase
• 23:06
  here. Anxiety is functional atheism.
• 23:09
  It is a punch in the gut, but it is accurate.
• 23:12
  When we are anxious, we are acting as if God doesn't exist
• 23:15
  or doesn't care. We are acting as if the outcome
• 23:18
  depends 100% on us. Right, but if you are property,
• 23:22
  you can sleep at night because he's awake.
• 23:24
  You don't have to be the Messiah of your own life.
• 23:27
  He already is. Now let's talk about the youth.
• 23:29
  We touched on identity earlier. This is probably the biggest
• 23:32
  topic for anyone under 25, right?
• 23:34
  Now it is young people are under immense pressure to invent
• 23:37
  themselves. They have to curate a digital
• 23:40
  avatar to find their gender, to find their purpose, build their
• 23:42
  brand. It is an exhausting performance.
• 23:46
  It's the burden of the bio. You have to write your own bio
• 23:49
  line for the world. Exactly.
• 23:50
  And the gospel comes in and says stop.
• 23:54
  You don't have to create yourself.
• 23:56
  You already have a master. Your identity is safe in his
• 23:59
  hands. You don't need to discover who
• 24:01
  you are, you need to discover who's you are.
• 24:04
  That's a huge relief. It takes the pressure off.
• 24:06
  You could just be a faithful servant and let him handle the
• 24:08
  identity. What about the church leaders?
• 24:11
  The sources have a specific word for office bearers, elders and
• 24:14
  deacons. This is crucial for church
• 24:16
  health. It is so easy for a pastor or an
• 24:19
  elder to start thinking, this is my church, these are my people.
• 24:23
  I built this. Empire building, right?
• 24:25
  But Romans 14.8 says no, they are the Lords.
• 24:28
  Elders are under shepherds, they are attending another's
• 24:31
  property. That should make them very
• 24:33
  careful and very humble. They will give an account to the
• 24:36
  owner for how they treated his sheep.
• 24:39
  You don't beat the King's sheep. And finally, let's go back to
• 24:41
  the dying. The sources speak of the chilly
• 24:44
  waters of death. We will all face it, and when we
• 24:46
  do, if we are, the Lord's death is just a transfer of location.
• 24:51
  We move from the outer courts to the inner sanctuary, but the
• 24:55
  ownership doesn't change. It's.
• 24:56
  Stable, the ownership of Christ is the one reality that death
• 25:00
  cannot sever. That is a rock solid hope.
• 25:03
  Now before we close, I want to touch on how this theology
• 25:06
  shapes our worship. Because we don't just learn this
• 25:08
  with our heads, we practice it on Sunday.
• 25:11
  The sources suggest that a reformed liturgy should reflect
• 25:14
  this creator creature distinction.
• 25:16
  It should. The whole service is a rehearsal
• 25:18
  of this truth. Take the call to worship.
• 25:21
  Psalm 100 is a classic example. It is He who made us and we are
• 25:24
  his. We start the service by
• 25:26
  acknowledging we are not self created, we are owned.
• 25:30
  We set the baseline reality right at the beginning of the
• 25:32
  service. And the confession of sin.
• 25:34
  It's not just about listing the bad things we did this week.
• 25:37
  No, it is about confessing functional autonomy.
• 25:40
  We should confess the times this week that we make decisions
• 25:43
  without consulting the king, the times we acted as if we were the
• 25:46
  center of the universe. That is the root sin.
• 25:49
  And the sacraments, specifically the Lord's Supper.
• 25:52
  The sources call it the meal of the owned.
• 25:55
  It is the family table, but it is also the visible seal of the
• 25:59
  purchase price. When we see the bread and the
• 26:01
  wine, we see the cost of our redemption.
• 26:04
  This is my body broken for you. Exactly.
• 26:08
  And there's a practice called fencing the table, warning
• 26:11
  people before they partake. It sounds harsh to modern ears,
• 26:14
  but it's actually about protection.
• 26:15
  It warns the autonomous those who refuse to bow the knee that
• 26:20
  this meal isn't for them. Right.
• 26:22
  You can't eat at the King's table if you are in rebellion
• 26:24
  against the king. But it welcomes the weak.
• 26:27
  Yes, it welcomes the believer who struggles, who doubts, who
• 26:30
  feels unworthy, but who knows they belong to the host.
• 26:33
  It is a feast for those who admit they are not their own.
• 26:36
  So as we wrap up, let's summarize the paradox to the
• 26:39
  world. Slavery to Christ sounds like
• 26:42
  oppression. It sounds like losing yourself.
• 26:44
  But to the believer, it is the only true freedom because you
• 26:47
  were made to be ruled. You will serve something.
• 26:49
  You will serve your ego, your appetites, the culture, or you
• 26:53
  will serve Christ. As Bob Dylan said, you're going
• 26:55
  to have to serve somebody. He was right and the choices
• 26:59
  between a tyrant who hates you, which is the devil or your own
• 27:02
  sinful flesh, and a king who died for you.
• 27:05
  It's not a hard choice when you see it clearly.
• 27:07
  Let's leave our listeners with the final image from the
• 27:09
  sources, the judgement seat. Imagine standing before God at
• 27:14
  the end of time. If you live to yourself, you die
• 27:17
  to yourself. You stand there as an unclaimed
• 27:20
  orphan. Unclaimed.
• 27:22
  You have no advocate, no owner to step forward and say he is
• 27:25
  with me. You bear the weight of your own
• 27:28
  sins because you insisted on being your own master.
• 27:31
  That is a terrifying thought, standing there completely alone.
• 27:34
  But if you are the Lords, you wake up in the next World and
• 27:38
  you were still safely in his hand.
• 27:39
  The owner claimed you. He steps forward and says,
• 27:41
  Father, this one's mine. I bought him.
• 27:44
  That is the difference between internal ruin and eternal life.
• 27:47
  It is. The whole thing hinges on that.
• 27:49
  So the final question for everyone listening is simply
• 27:51
  this Whose are you not? Who are you?
• 27:54
  But whose are you? That is the only question that
• 27:56
  matters in the end. Thank you for joining us on this
• 27:58
  deep dive into reformed thinking.
• 28:01
  We hope this conversation helps you rest in the comfort of being
• 28:04
  owned by the King.