7-6-08 Freedom!
We’ve just celebrated a national holiday and I find it interesting that most of us don’t call the holiday by it’s name. Most of us call the holiday by the date – the 4th of July. That’s interesting isn’t it? What is the holiday’s real name? Independence day. When you hear the word “Independence” what comes to mind? Freedom – freedom of speech; freedom of religion – freedom. When I think of the word “Freedom” or “Liberty”, which is another name for freedom, I think of such things as: The Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, and the Declaration of Independence. There’s a famous phrase from the Declaration of Independence that says, “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Liberty . . . Freedom . . . When it’s threatened as it was in WWII, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and more recently in the twin towers bombing, there’s something within us that gets really upset – angry. When are freedom is at stake we are ready to fight. We’re willing to go to war. We’re willing to die for the sake of freedom, aren’t we?
Anybody here ever been to the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC or the Vietnam Veteran’s War Memorial? There are hundreds of thousands of men and women all around the world who were and are willing to fight and die for their freedom. Some have fought bravely and died. Others have fought bravely and lived. All have fought for . . . freedom.
Some fought for their country’s freedom and their own freedom, some have fought for people’s freedom that they did not know as in Iraq. Freedom . . . Freedom . . . Freedom, it’s a powerful thing. People are willing to fight for it. People are willing to die for it.
I find that when my freedom is restricted in even small ways that I get frustrated and upset. When I’m in a traffic jam and I can’t go anywhere. My freedom to move is restricted. I can’t do what I want. I get upset. A child who has done something wrong and is punished by a “Time out” where he or she has to sit still in one spot for a period of time. Their freedom is taken away for the time being. It’s a powerful detourant.
Now, one of the ways to wrap our minds around the idea of freedom is to think about it’s opposite. What’s the opposite of freedom? Slavery. Captivity. Oppression. Control. Domination. Do we like these things? NO! We fight against these things don’t we. We fight against them because we were not created for them. Inside, we know these things are wrong. We were created for freedom . . . but what exactly is freedom?
Freedom is something that I thought that I always understood, but now I realize how little I know, because as I read my Bible, I find that I understand one kind of freedom – the kind of freedom that we’ve been talking about – the fourth of July – Independence Day, the Statue of Liberty – that kind of freedom, but there’s another kind of freedom that I have been ignorant of most of my life.
Paul introduces us to this freedom as he writes to the church in Rome, as he’s trying to help them understand freedom – but freedom in a different kind of way than what I’m accustomed to. He says:
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. Romans 6:20
Look at the two underlined words? Paul is talking about this idea of freedom and he’s contrasting it with the idea of slavery and he saying that people are slaves to sin. We use that word “sin” a lot, so let me just nail down what we’re talking about.
Sin is anything that we do that is apart from God’s will and God’s design for us. Sin is when I do something that God didn’t create me for. Sin is something that isn’t good for me; it won’t ever bless me or those around me; sin can only hurt me.
See if this helps. There is a road out in front of the middle school. The road is a good road. It was paved with good intentions – no pun intended. The creator of the road was good and had good intentions. There were certain rules that the creator of the road put into place to keep it a good road for people to drive.
There are stop signs at the end of the road and at cross streets. There are yellow lines that designate one side of the road from the other. There are solid yellow lines where we are told not to pass and dotted lines where we can pass with caution. There is a speed limit that keeps both the driver and the kids that play near the road safe.
The road is good and it has good rules so that everyone stays good – so that life is good, right? But the fact of the matter is that every driver still has freedom to choose how they are going to drive on that good road. Now, if I am to be a good driver, I need to drive on the right side of the road, and I need to stop at the stop signs and drive the speed limit – I need to obey the rules of road – the rules of goodness in order for everything to stay good. But I have freedom to do whatever I want.
If I freely choose to drive through a stop sign at 90 miles per hour, that’s my choice, but bad things will happen. If I freely chose to pass on a double yellow line enough times, bad things will happen – not just to me, but to those who are riding with me and those who I hit.
Sin is like not paying attention to the rules of the road. When I sin, there are consequences. When I don’t live according to God’s will and God’s rules of the road – the way God created me and the entire universe to function, then I live in sin – I live outside of God’s goodness and my life will not go well. My marriage will not go well.
Creation and everything that we were created for was created Good – and not just good but very good. But in order for us to be truly free, God had to give us the ability to choose both good and evil. The road that we drive on is a good road, but we can choose to drive on that road in good ways – ways that bless us and others – a way with good consequences, or we can drive on the road in bad ways – ways that our outside of the way the road was created and with that there are bad consequences – things that will not bless me and those around me.
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. Romans 6:20
We are free to choose sin, but it will control us by the consequences that come out of it.
We’ve been talking about marriage, so let’s use that as an example. If I treat my wife as an equal, and I show her love by giving hugging and kissing her, telling her that I love her, giving her gifts, listening and valuing her opinion, sacrificing my needs for her, then what kind of a marriage am I probably going to have. Yeah, a good one. Why? Because I am choosing to love my wife in a way that God created me to live.
Now, let’s take the flip side. If I do not treat my wife as an equal – I get a bigger allowance than she does. If I don’t give her freedom, but instead control her, if I don’t tell her that I love her, and we regularly get into fights were we call each other names, mock one another, and generally put each other down, then what kind of a marriage will I have? Yeah, a bad one, because I am not living by the rules of the road; I’m not living by the rules of the universe; I’m not living how God created me to be.
God created us for freedom, but we have a choice on how we live. We can live according to God’s will and according to his design, and according to his goodness, or we can live in ways that are contrary to his will. Paul says,
When you were slaves to sin (When we choose to sin or drive outside the rules), you were free from the control of righteousness. Romans 6:20
When we sin, that is, when we live outside of God’s will, we become slaves to that way of living. We said that slavery was the opposite of freedom and we said that in slavery people are oppressed, they are held captive, they are controlled and we said that we don’t like those things. We said that we are willing to fight against those things. But here’s the deal. We understand physical freedom, but we don’t understand spiritual freedom – freedom of the heart. Our hearts are enslaved or free depending on how we choose to live.
Paul says that thought we may be free on the outside – we have physical freedom, our hearts are enslaved on the inside. I live in a free country, and so I’m under the illusion that I am a free man, but I am oftentimes controlled not by goodness, but by evil, and because I’m under the illusion that I’m free, I do not fight against the sin that is inside me.
Is it right if I ignore the rule of the road pass on a double yellow line or run a stop sign, get in a terrible wreck, just barely live, have injuries that will never fully heal and then ask God how he could have ever allowed such terrible things to happen to me. God, how could you allow such horrible things to happen to me if you’re a good God? Is that a good question? No, my freedom to choose, and the choices that I made ended up controlling what I could do the rest of my life. I become enslaved by the free actions that I choose. Does that make sense?
Paul says that I’m free from the control of righteousness. I’m free from the consequences of doing good, of doing the right thing.
When we sin, we become slaves to sin and slaves to that which we were not created for. When we sin, we become slaves to ways of living that will never lead us toward God’s created goodness. When we sin, we become slaves to ways that will oppress us and control us. When we sin, we freely choose to allow bad ways of living to control us. When we sin, we freely allow ways of living that will never give us the life that our innermost being craves.
Anybody want to take a guess at what the number one sin is? Yeah, we try to be God. We try to take the place of god. Not fully worshipping God. Deciding that I know what’s best. Not talking to God and asking him what’s best? Not really wanting God’s will to be done, but rather, in my heart of hearts – If I was really true to myself, I want my will to be done, not God’s. Not reading his word and understanding what he knows is best. Ok, so let’s continue to follow Paul’s line of thinking.
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness – bad things are happening – things that you were never created for. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! Sin results in death
Paul doesn’t mean a physical death. He means that you and I face a spiritual death – a death of the heart – a death of our innermost being; Our innermost being will never find peace, joy, love – our inner most being will never find contentment and fulfillment that we were created for. God created us to have abundant life – good life, but when we freely choose to sin, the inner part of us becomes enslaved and dies.
The wages of sin is death (Roman’s 6:23). Sin kills the inside of us. Sin controls us. Sin enslaves us. Sin robs us of our freedom.
God knew this. God knew that sin kills, and as he looked down from heaven he saw the heart of every human being was enslaved to sin. People were no longer free as he created them. And because of his great love he vowed to do something about it.
God came down from heaven in the person of Jesus and he came to set the captives free. He came to provide freedom for all those who have been enslaved by sin. God was willing to do anything in order to restore our freedom. God created us and God loves us and he was willing to die so that you and I might live. He was willing to die for your freedom and mine. He was willing to sacrifice everything, including his life, so that we might be able to be free. Not just physically free, but spiritually and emotionally free.
Jesus, in his first sermon said, The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19 (NIV)
That term “Year of the Lord’s favor” is referring to the year of Jubilee where every 50 years those who were to poor to even feed their families would sell themselves into slavery to pay for their debt. Every 50 years, the year of Jubilee all debts were cancelled and all slaves were to go free. Jesus came to proclaim the year of Jubilee the year that all would be free, but not physically as was normally the custom, but Jesus came to set us free from the sin that controls us.
We are willing to fight for our freedom. We are willing to give up our lives in order that we might keep our physical freedom, because we know in our heart of hearts that it’s not worth living if we’re not free.
God knew something that we didn’t. He knew that even though we are physically free, we are enslaved and oppressed and controlled by sin. God looks down from Heaven and he says, you were intended for so . .much . .more. Accept my free gift of salvation. Accept my free gift of love, because I created you to be with me and only I can restore you. Only I can redeem you. Only I can make you truly free.
God says, “Come to me. Choose me. Follow me. Love me. And if you do this, something great happens.
Paul continues, But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, Who are you slaves to? the benefit you reap leads to holiness – you are set apart from sin – set apart from everything that you weren’t created for, and the result is not death, but eternal life. Romans 6:20-22 NIV
We are called to be slaves to God, because when we do that, we find true freedom.
Jesus, when asked by his disciples to teach them how to pray, said, Our Father, who is in heaven, holy is your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. . .”
We become slaves to God when we say, God, may your will be done. Not mine. God, I’m going to trust you. God you are so much smarter than I am. God, I’m going to trust you. God you’re holy. You’re set apart from all this sin and all this mess and all this brokenness. God you can see the world from a much higher place than I can. God, your will be done. God, you are the king I am your subject. God, I want to enslave myself to you, because I know that you won’t abuse your power, and I know that you will provide for me better than I can provide for myself.
When we become slaves to God, we find that freedom never tasted so sweet. I don’t know about you, but I resist becoming a slave to God, because then I have to give up control and say, Your will be done, and become a slave to God, that means that I am no longer in control. But what I’ve found is that when I’m in control, when I get to choose, I choose things that end up controlling me and robbing me of abundant life. But when I give my control over to God, I find that I’ve never been more free.
When we give our life to God, we are no longer held captive by the power of sin, because of Jesus’ death on the cross. When we ask God to forgive our sins, God enters our life and through his wisdom and his power, he slowly, over time, cuts us free from our sinful ways of living that control, dominate, and oppress us and those around us.
If you’ve never asked God to become his slave, then you are enslaved by sin and it controls you and oppressed you and it keeps you from being all who God created you to be.
Jesus said, If you cling to your life, you will lose it – you will be enslaved by your sin; but if you give up your life for me – by a slave to God, you will find it. Matthew 10:39 (NLT)
The greatest commandments in all of scripture are to Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
Why, because when we become slaves to God, we find true freedom; we find who we were created to be; we are freed from being slaves to sin. It’s worth fighting for. It’s worth giving your life for. Jesus gave his life so that we can have freedom. He calls us to follow him and give up our will and say, “God, may your will be done, and may your kingdom come.”
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