Today I am excited to get the honor of speaking with you on God’s gift of freedom for anyone who wants it. Yes, today I would like to share with you my thoughts on the development of our freedoms in the Lord. It seems that freedom in our God comes to us from the Old Testament, and develops further on into the New Testament. Our freedoms along with our individual relationships in the Lord, appear to me to go hand in hand.
With that premise of freedom in mind and in the context of gifts God provides, I would like to share with you my thoughts on the following;
- Freedom from bondage has always been a goal
- The intersection of our freedom and a relationship in God, and how intersection leads to
- The development of Freedom into Faithwalk
- More Gifts of the Spirit
- Understanding what Freedom is not
When I think about my own wants, dreams and hopes, I am led to wonder if what I working towards and for (a better life released from those things that enslave me, a closer walk in the Lord, being a better person, and the freedom to build on those ideas), are not the very same things people have been thinking, working, and praying about for all time?
Indeed, when I struggle with my own fight against my own desires of selfishness, I believe I am not the first and am not alone in sinful distress. In fact, I am led to today’s Call to Worship for reflection that being released from bondage regardless of being a slave to sin, or an outright slave to human bondage are a lot alike. Reading again from Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20;
1 I cried out to God for help;
I cried out to God to hear me.
2 When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands,
and I would not be comforted…
*Cutting in at this point; to make the point that bondage and the good fight to rise above it, notwithstanding it be servitude in chains physical, mental, or spiritually from sin, involve our crying out to our Lord for His enduring, healing, and restorative majesty.
Realizing from the git-go, that I have the freedom regardless of my condition to reach out to our Lord of Hope for deliverance, and a way ahead. That the more I exercise my freedom to call upon my Lord, the stronger my faithwalk becomes, regardless of if we are talking the sin I am enmeshed in, or the very chains of the prison, I might find myself a prisoner of. A faithwalk transcends all boundaries of this dimension of space and time, even the sludge of my all-encompassing sin! Continuing now at verse 11;
… 11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
12 I will consider all your works
and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”
13 Your ways, God, are holy.
What god is as great as our God?
14 You are the God who performs miracles;
you display your power among the peoples.
15 With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.
16 The waters saw you, God,
the waters saw you and writhed;
the very depths were convulsed.
17 The clouds poured down water,
the heavens resounded with thunder;
your arrows flashed back and forth.
18 Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind,
your lightning lit up the world;
the earth trembled and quaked.
19 Your path led through the sea,
your way through the mighty waters,
though your footprints were not seen.
20 You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
The redemption of the children of Israel at the Red Sea, is a watermark in the history of our family, all of God’s people. Our ancestors were not just physically saved at the separation of the Red Sea’s waters, the spiritual baptism of a whole people coming through those waters of salvation, was the action of our Lord bonding, redeeming, and anointing our family to be a blessing to all of the nations of the earth.
When I am struggling with the struggles of life, either forced upon me by others, or self-imposed bands of bondage of my own making, my Lord offers a faithwalk of freedom from all that enslave me. Regardless of if your groans are the mistreatment from others, or your own doing, He is listening…
I am reminded of instruction from the Psalmist pertaining to our groans in life, and God’s agency of relief. Reading from Psalm 102:19-21;
19 “The Lord looked down from his sanctuary on high,
from heaven he viewed the earth,
20 to hear the groans of the prisoners
and release those condemned to death.”
21 So the name of the Lord will be declared in Zion
and his praise in Jerusalem
The new Zion and Jerusalem that reside withing our hearts might just reverberate in the joy of understanding, that regardless your condition, regardless of how you got into your condition, the remedy at hand is all too clear. By calling upon Him, asking Him to be a part of your life, and then building a real relationship in and with your Lord is the beginning of the first day of the rest of your eternity!
It’s as if we get to go back in time and be one of those sitting on the side of the mountain with our Lord instructing us on what real blessings are in this life through the Beatitudes or extreme blessedness, due to our relationship in and with Him. For your own edification please feel free to read the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5-7, and verses 5:3-12 specifically in dealing with things very blessed.
Again, those and other blessings (gifts of the spirit), are just a sampling of more to come from our God’s majesty. Gifts that enable us to overcome all kinds of bondage (physical, political, emotional, mental, and spiritual), and challenges universal.
In fact, Paul understood our battles for freedom in all kinds of settings and circumstances, as illustrated in today’s message reading from Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia. Reading again from Galatians 5:1, 13-25;
1It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery…
*Side Bare; to ask you what do you think the yoke of slavery is in your life. You don’t have to answer out load, I think we battle a lot of the same demons in this life of ours. And many are the battles of our own concoction.
Well, it is for freedom from all of that junk, that Christ has set us free. Does that mean that we all get to play: “and they lived happily ever after” ? No! It means that we began to go down that road of getting up every day and trying our hardest to work on that stuff of our demise, in and with our God, and the deeper my relationship, the more I surrender to His will and game plan, the free er I become! Picking up now at verse 13;
… 13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
**Cutting in Again to Say; I am free, but when I spend my freedom on the selfishness of the moment, I begin to whittle and waist my freedom away. Its almost as if when I act selfishly through fear, greed, or need, I am showing God, and all creation, that I am not able or willing to exorcise the freedom I have. But when I am ready to love my neighbor, God will equip me as I am able to expand my franchise of service in Him!
Now I am beginning to understand that when I make my neighbor my enemy, instead of devouring him, I am destroying myself instead.
Case in point, watch any of a number of political pundits, the rich and famous, or the radically politically ravenous ones who prey upon anyone available. Invariably, these people either self-destruct, or devoir each other…for sport.
Paul continues to show us the way of life in our Lord and His Holy Spirit, by continuing at verse 16;
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
***Side Bar; to say that when I am led by the Spirit, I am anticipating all of the law, because now, I am putting God and other people before my selfish nature. Walking humbly with our God, is not sleep walking but a process of actually getting stronger through understanding who God is, and what I am not. And yet, I am saved.
I am now so grateful for the life before me, that the sin behind me, begins to lose it’s draw on me, because it just doesn’t have the same appeal, satisfaction, or glitz anymore. Its all kind of like growing up!
If there was any doubt about what we are to leave behind, Paul spells out the junk of our past for our future edification, joy, and life in the Spirit. And so, Paul’s (God’s) list of what you are leaving behind, starting at verse 19;
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
*)$@%$!!; I can almost hear my old self say, “so what’s left for me to enjoy?” And my answer to my old self is this; You are free to chose your way in life, and as you indeed did choose some of that junk in the past, and some of it chose you, and some of it you did on auto pilot, non-the-less, you still had and have free choice.
- And how is that working for you?
- How are your relationships?
- How is your health?
- Your emotional condition?
- How is the bank account after indulging in your need and right to be happy, and to be happy right now?
You see, none of that stuff I just read from Paul is freedom, but death. And none of that stuff I thought was so important back then, mean nearly as much to me as living a good life that is real. An existence where my life now has real meaning, and I get to make a difference through serving our Lord. A life where real friendships are not based on what you can get out of the other, but what you can bring to the relationship for someone else’s benefit.
I guess at this point, I am anticipating Paul’s explanation of what the fruit of the Spirit is, so I’ll in true Disciple’s fashion, and stick to the Scripture for an explanation, with Paul speaking for himself. Continuing now at verse 22;
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
As you grow in the spirit, your relationships with God, other people, and yourself becomes deeper and richer. You begin to discover what true freedom is, because you are living it in ever deepened excursions into a new reality. And as you live this new fruit of the Spirit, the unloading of that stuff of your past, frees you for even more joy in this life of the here and now.
My hope and prayer for all of you this week is that you may find this freedom in ever and ever larger portions as you demonstrate to God and yourselves that you now know what to do with the freedom each of us has in Him! May God bless you and keep you as you share this good news to free-up other people, that God places in your lives.
Amen!