Psalm 2:1-6

We live in a world that is by nature hostile to God and Jesus Christ. At an even deeper level, the world is hostile to good. By that, I mean that the world does not mind if people do good, but if people point out evil, they are hated. We find proof of this in totalitarian countries where free speech is feared and where criticism is silenced. We find this in our unwritten rules we provide, "No one should rat out another person." We make telling the truth about bad behavior as a worse sin than the behavior, whatever it might be.

What is at the core of this attitude towards having our evil exposed? I know that many of you would say, "This is embarrassing..." and you would be right. But can we change if we don't know what is wrong, if we get away with doing something evil? Underlying this hostility to God and to Jesus Christ is a resistance to change. But I would go a step further. Underlying hostility to God and Jesus and truth and righteousness and all that go with it is a misguided point of view.

This view can be stated in this way: True freedom in my life is when I can do what I want, say what I want, believe what I want without anyone else telling me what to do.

We find this in Psalm 2. We looked at the first two verses last week.

Ps 2:1-6 "1 Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One.”

This is a good question. Why do nations conspire, peoples plot, kings take a stand and rulers unite against the Lord and against his Anointed One. Why does this happen? The core is found in verse 3.

3 "Let us break their chains," they say, "and throw off their fetters."

The people who are in the world believe that if anyone tells them what to do or how to do it, they are enslaving themselves by agreeing to follow the Lord.

On Facebook, I found this group entitled "Religious groups telling me not to do something makes me want to do it more."

One person replied this way, "Anytime I see a group or some guy on TV telling me not to go see a recent movie because it is immoral and or blasphemous, the movie all of a sudden sounds better than it had before, and it increases my odds of wanting to go see it."

To which someone replied, "Its true. The best movies seems to be the ones disapproved of by the church lol. Also they tell you about all these rules that, as a teen its just too hard to keep them all. I mean, I want to get out and have some fun while I still can!?"

Rules, God, Jesus, the church are all chains, fetters, that stop people from having fun, thinking, living the way they want. That is the message that we hear over and over again.

Bill Whitten, a father who has a gay child, tells us in TV commercial, "Everyone should be allowed to live the way they want to live."

Freedom for people in our world is to view God and Jesus as beings that chain and fetter them.

This comes into the church. People will read the Bible and then say this. "God will understand my lie." Or, "God knows that I need the money more than the person I just took it from." Or, "God understands why I can't forgive." We take what the Bible teaches clearly and then, when it is convenient for us, we throw it out.

I don't know how many people, men and women, have come into my office for marriage and said, "No matter what the church teaches, I am not going to be a submissive wife." Now I will tell you that the Bible says in at least three places, "Wives, be submissive to your own husbands..." I didn't write it. I know that most people I meet can tell me in negative terms what it doesn't mean. They will say, "If submission means to do whatever my husband says or to put up with abuse, that will never happen." But what they haven't done is any serious study that says in a positive way, "This is what the Bible teaches and this is what God wants us to do."

At it's core is the desire to be in control. There is also the view that following the Bible brings chains and fetters.

So in the church and outside are people who believe that if they are in control of their own lives, they will be happier, freer and live a better life than if they live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

This is the core element in the spiritual battle that we discussed last week: Do we live our way or God's way? Who is in control?

Some of you have faced this in business. You know what it takes to succeed. But some new worker comes in and they want to do the work their way, not the way that you want it done. You have worked to get team together, to get everyone on board and this new person comes up and goes in their own direction. You now face a control issue.

Or for those of you who love sports, you have a team member who wants to play the game their way and not the coaches way. They think they are right, but they disrupt the whole team. It is, incidently, one of the factors that make Bill Bellicheck of the New England Patriots so successful. Players on his team play the game his way and his way is pretty successful.

So God says to us, "I created you. I love you. I am telling you that the path to freedom is to live life my way." To which we can say, "I trust you, God. I trust you, Jesus. And then go out and live as he would have you live.

The song-writer put it well. "Living for Jesus a life that is true. Trying to please Him in all that I do..." This describes the person who has surrendered himself to God.

What I have found is this: When I live God's way, I live the best way. What I thought were chains and fetters were guardrails on the road of life, they kept me safe, they helped me in hard times, they moved me forward in the right direction.

We live in a world where people have a disdain for Jesus and for holy things. They see the teachings of the Bible as chains and fetters.

How are we to respond to this world in which we live?

1. Live differently. Don't treat God's word as a burden. Embrace it and find the joy in it. Don't go half-way, go all the way with Jesus. You will find that you have different values, different goals, different priorities. But dare to be different.

2. Live lovingly. We are not in a fight with the people who are around us, we are in a fight with the ideas that these people hold. Treat everyone with respect. Love your neighbor, your brother and your enemy. Don't fall into the trap of "tit for tat." Get above the fray. Be strong. Live differently and pour out the love on those with whom you disagree.

3. Live knowledgably. Do you struggle with passages in the Bible? Use this struggle as the impetus for further Bible study. There are issues in life and positions that are taken in the Bible that I do not fully understand. I do believe that the Bible is a whole, that it is inspired and that God never does what is wrong. In reading the Bible, I am biased in this regard. I believe that God has answers for some of the questions. I will trust God to give me the answers that I need. I will trust God to take care of the questions that are not answered. But I will hit my Bible to find those answers. I will ask others, read what they have to say, learn from the Bible, from the church, from others until I am at peace.

Trust God.