Terms and Conditions
Perhaps you have seen it lately scrolling through your Facebook page. It looks a little something like this:
Notice: Facebook Meta is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you do not publish a statement at least once, it will be technically understood that you are allowing the use of your photos, as well as the information contained in your profile status updates. I HEREBY STATE THAT I DO NOT GIVE MY PERMISSION TO USE ANY OF MY PERSONAL DATA OR PHOTOS.
A notice like this one has been going around since 2012. You may have posted it yourself…after all, better safe than sorry right? Here is the thing. It does nothing. In fact, it can’t do anything ever. Why? Because when you created your social media account at the very beginning you clicked on the box labeled “accept” on the terms and conditions page. You cannot retroactively negate the privacy or copyright terms you agreed to when you created the account, you can’t change or disagree any new privacy or copyright terms instituted by Facebook, simply by posting a contrary legal notice on their Facebook walls. Best you can do is close your account or talk to a higher power at Facebook to negotiate better terms. The first costs you your social existence, and the second is near impossible, as you are not important enough to influence Facebook.
What does this have to do with Christianity? You live under God’s terms and conditions as well. God has set a code of conduct and established who owns what and what you are accountable to from the very beginning to the very end of your existence. No matter what you do, what you post, what you publicly declare, what right you insist you have, or what ownership or control you claim to assert…you can’t change the terms and conditions you entered this world under.
From the very beginning God said the wage of sin is death.
From the very beginning God defined sin as being in rebellion of His rules.
I sin, you sin, we sin.
Some of that sin I even debate with God over.
“That’s so old fashioned.” “It’s just a little sin.” “I didn’t agree to that.” “You’re not in control”
No matter what you declare, you can’t change the terms and conditions. So where does that leave you?
You can live in the denial that the terms and conditions apply to you. Which…incidentally…is another sin.
Or you can take the second option. You can go to the higher power. Thankfully God loves you more than the Facebook board of directors. God sent His Son not to change the terms and conditions, but to fulfill them on your behalf.
With these thoughts in mind, I want you to read Romans 8. Here is a good start:
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus[d] from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Living changed by an unchanging God,
-Pastor Dan