There's a sort of anomaly here! There's a paradox here! We're talking about that which is portrayed as freedom — that is actually bondage.

Now let me give you another one. Let me tell you about something that people think is basically bondage, but is actually the key to freedom.

Two paradoxes! That which people regard as freedom that is really bondage, that which is regarded as bondage that is really freedom. Jesus said this one day, "No man can serve two masters." We could all relate to that. One of the worst things that could happen in your job is you don't know who you're accountable to. You don't know who your boss is, and you get conflicting orders, and you don't know who to be loyal too, and you are torn, and it's a disaster. "No man can serve two masters."

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Let us add, however, to that statement of Jesus, this: "No man can serve two masters, but everybody must serve one!" Everybody must serve one, you know why? Because there is no such thing as ultimate freedom! Even the bird that is "free as a bird" is limited to flying in air. Even the fish that is "free to swim the oceans" is limited to water, and even the human being who thinks in terms of freedom, has got to understand that he or she is mastered by one.

"Well," you say, "I'm not! I'm free to do whatever I wish"

Well then, that's good! You are free to do whatever you wish; the only concern you have then is yourself! Let me tell you something. I don't want to insult you, but the "me" that you're free to be is corrupt. Have you got that? The "me" that you're free to be is corrupt. So, the more you are free to be "me," the more you will find yourself locked in by an intrinsic innate selfishness, and that's bondage!

Everybody serves one master! Serving fundamentally corrupt "me" that is very vulnerable and susceptible to a corrupt world around is not the way to freedom.

I'll tell you what the way to freedom is. Instead of being subjected to a basic malevolent mastery, choosing to submit yourself to a benevolent Master, there's the way to freedom! A benevolent Master who can begin to counter that which, in and of itself, is corrupted in your own sinful nature. A benevolent Master who can begin to alert you to the enticing and snaring blandishments of error and emptiness and a corrupt world outside you. A benevolent Master who can impart to you new desires, new longings, new aspirations, new abilities, new empowerments that will begin slowly, relentlessly to roll back the corruption that is within, that will begin to build a bulwark about that which is corrupt without. And slowly but surely will begin to emancipate you into the wonderful freedom not to do what you wish, but the wonderful freedom to desire what you ought, and to give you the ability to do what you should, and therein lies freedom!

The name of this benevolent Master, you've guessed! His Name is Jesus, the One who came and died on a cross for our sins, that we might be freed from the consequences of our sin, and ultimately liberated from the presence of sin, and in the interim through His indwelling presence through the Holy Spirit that we might be emancipated from the power of sin. As He counteracts that inner corruption of the sinful nature, as He builds a bulwark against the corrupting influence from outside, and we begin to discover that freedom isn't about the absence of restraints that will allow me to do what I wish. But I begin to discover that freedom is all about coming under His benevolent mastery in order that I might be free to desire what I should, and have the power to be what I ought to be. It's called freedom!