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If we were to sum up Jesus’ mission in just a few words, we might say that he came to set us free. That’s what he told the folks in the synagogue as he read from the prophet Isaiah’s scroll. He had been sent “to proclaim liberty to the captives” and “let the oppressed go free.” His audience might have thought back to the time when their ancestors were released from captivity or thinking ahead to their own freedom one day from Roman oppression. But Jesus had something much greater in mind. He came to set them, and us, free from sin and death itself, and from everything that prevents us from living an abundant kind of life. In Galatians, Paul says, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.” God wants us to live in freedom. God does not want us to live a buttoned-down, constrained life. We are blessed to live abundantly with our unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I’d like to talk about three specific freedoms God is calling us to today:
The first one, the pain of our past: Life is ultimately too good to spend it dwelling on the missteps or failures of our past. This doesn’t mean that we should forget about our past or pretend that unfortunate things didn’t happen, but if something is still stuck inside us, nagging us or making us feel guilty or unworthy, we need to resolve in our minds to forgive ourselves just as Jesus himself has forgiven us. The grace we attain from the blood of Jesus justifies us. Justification is a meaningful word. Some may say that justification is like getting a pardon, like a president gives out pardons at the end of his term (as we’ve seen in recent weeks). It is not like that. It is better than that. Justification is putting someone back in the position they were in before they committed the offense. In a pardon, the president says the person won't be held accountable for their offense, but he can't justify that person. Justification cleans the slate entirely. We become made new and become acceptable to God by confessing our sins. As we come to the reality of the depth of God’s forgiveness, and the fact that he has blotted out our sins through justification, we can begin to let go of our need to punish ourselves by staying in guilt and shame. We need to resolve to just let those things go! Once we have surrendered our desire to hold on to our transgressions, we build up an inner strength and resilience that enables us to better endure a world that sometimes wants to defeat or devour us. It’s in our surrender that we find the liberation that this gift of freedom provides. The second freedom is the freedom from the pressures of the present, negotiating our daily path in a way that is life giving, not life draining.
Maybe the number one question that those of us in pastoral ministry seem to be asked is, “Why is God letting this happening to me? Why is he putting me through this?” Well, the answer very well could be that God wants us to grow in the Spirit. Everything in life is designed to help us grow up spiritually – the good, the bad, the ugly, the stuff that we bring upon ourselves, and the stuff that other people do to us. God is not the author of evil, but God can bring good out of bad things. Instead of asking, “God, why is this happening to me?” ask, “God, what do you want me to learn from this?” Every situation in life will either make us better or bitter. It is a binary choice. One choice is life giving and liberating. The other is life-draining and enslaving. The third and final freedom is freedom from worries and anxiety about the future. The pathway to achieving this freedom comes from a commitment on our part to abandon our need to control our outcomes. Strong word - abandon. It is defined as “to give up the intent of ever again claiming a right or interest in.”
As we live day-to-day and do the very best we can, we trust that the Lord will work in and through our efforts to accomplish his plan and purpose. In essence, we do our part and we believe that he will do his. Many of us have worries about what the future holds for ourselves and those we love. Will our health hold up through old age? Can we keep the rug from being pulled out from under us financially? Will our kids gain the appreciation for their responsibilities and their faith at some point in their lives? We’d love to be able to control all those things, but we can’t. As we let go of our need to control outcomes in our lives, we are freed from the worry and anxiety that accompany them. You may have heard the story of a little girl who was on travelling on a passenger flight unaccompanied. The mostly comfortable plane ride that she was on began to get rather bumpy. The voice of the captain interrupted in-flight beverage service and asked passengers to make sure their seatbelts were fastened because a storm was ahead. Soon the plane began to roll and pitch like a ship on a wind-whipped ocean. While the rest of the passengers were frantically doing their best to deal with the turbulence, the little girl sat through it all, just reading her book. After the plane landed, she was asked why she had been able to be so calm. She responded, “My daddy is the pilot and he’s taking me home.” Just as the passengers of the plane had no control over whether the plane would land safely, we cannot expect to control all our outcomes. No matter the storms that might lie ahead of us, we can be confident that our pilot can handle them just fine and he will get us home. I guess it can be said that we can best achieve our freedom, be it from the pain of our past, the pressures of the present, or our anxieties about the future, if we develop, and invest in, a permanent and unconditional child-like, loving relationship with Jesus. One of Jesus’ disciples demonstrated that kind of relationship in another section of Luke’s Gospel when he said, “Jesus, I will follow you wherever you go.” Living in faith with a commitment to a personal relationship with Christ moves us from a self-directed life to a Christ-directed life. When Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah, he had come to earth to proclaim freedom. As he said, "If the Son sets you free, you will truly be freed". He was liberating us to enter into relationship with God and to be the kind of people he created us to be. Author Jessica Nicholas said it well when she said, “God wants us to live in the world the way he designed it to be enjoyed. His design has boundaries, yes, but living within these boundaries does not constrict our freedom; it expands it.” As we submit to Christ, the allure of sin loses its power. Christ's power takes over. As we choose to trust and follow Him, our sinful habits, thoughts and attitudes lose their control. Guilt and anxiety dissipate, and peace of mind prevails. Right habits are easier to attain. In the end, in our abandonment of self, we find empowerment. That's freedom — freedom in its truest form! And so we pray, Dear Lord, you are the source of all freedom. Help us to live in the Spirit and abandon our desires to live in the flesh. We confess that we have too frequently been running our own flight pattern without your direction. Please draw us nearer to you. We invite you to direct our steps and make us into the people you have created us to be. Make your plan our plan. This we ask through Christ our Lord. Amen!
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