Four Great Freedoms In Christ Sermon Iv: Freedom From Want Series

FOUR GREAT FREEDOMS IN CHRIST SERMON IV: FREEDOM FROM WANT

If I had to pick one of the many adages that I grew up with - the one that stands out more than the rest - I suppose it would be the admonition from my mother: “Nobody ever gets everything they want.”

It seems that all of us were born into this world with the innate desire to get anything we want. This was the case even before we learned how to combine syllables into words; for example, “dit-um” - for my nephew - meant water. A “grunt” meant we wanted whatever it was that we were pointing to – and if that didn’t work, we pitched a “temper-tantrum!”

Mama told me one time that I needed to get my “w-a-n-t-e-r” fixed. Like most of you, I did not know the meaning of the word “no”. Its meaning became apparent after mama whacked me a few times on the “behind”; and, if that did not work, the “hickory stick” did! Were you ever told to go outside, break off your own “switch” and bring it to mama or daddy?

Where in the name of heaven was the Department of Family and Children’s Services when we needed them? Just kidding, of course!

Today, shamefully, we must have DFACS to protect children from the kind of abuse we never dreamed of when we old timers were growing up; this is not to say that abusive situations did not exist back then; they did. It is to say, sadly, that the flaunting of x-rated stuff on television, the movie screen and magazine racks has thrown society into the gutter of immorality, while “minors” have become victims of twisted minds.

Depraved individuals must never be given the freedom to prey upon the innocent victims of their distorted thinking and damnable “wants”!

God save America from destructive forces that would have us go along with the notion that “if it feels good, do it” or “if I want it, give it to me” – and, “if I don’t get it, I will take it.”

In Christ, we have been set free to flee the selfish desires of evil folks who would use and abuse us for their own personal satisfaction. In America, we are blessed with freedom from the unhealthy “wants” of that element of society that would use and abuse people to satisfy their greed. We must exercise our freedom – in polling booths, courts of law, and prayer closets – in order to combat abuse of any kind.

Now, there is a higher level of “freedom from want” that we have been blessed with. In Christ, we have been set free from selfish desires so that we might become the person God wants us to be, and enjoy the life Christ wants us to live.

God our Father wants us to enjoy freedom from want about basic needs. Christ our Lord wants us to experience freedom from want about anyone who would deprive us of our needs.

King David gave us “a motto to live by” as he began composing the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

In America, for the most part, David’s “motto to live by” has become a reality during the decades following FDR’s mention of the four freedoms that would make America great.

In parts of America and throughout the world, there remains a lot of work to be done to overcome the injustices of poverty that force orphans and widows to scrounge through garbage dumps to find scraps of food.

How can poverty-stricken folks ever arrive at the place where freedom from want applies to them too? When he made his famous Four Freedoms speech in the early 1930s, President Roosevelt ended each of those four freedoms he envisioned for America by adding an all-important phrase: “and everywhere in the world!”

One way for Christians and non-Christians alike to enjoy the blessing of freedom from want is for the “haves” of the world to share with those who “have-not” – not only in America, but, everywhere in the world.

Missionaries tell about “relief” efforts by numerous church and community agencies that are doing all they can to provide the necessities of life in places where the needs are greatest – but there is so much more that can be done - which means that Christians must give what they can and go where they can - according to their ability - to help meet those needs.

As for you and me, limited as we are by our circumstances, we can help just a little - but remember the old saying: “Every little bit helps.”

Paul the apostle wrote what I consider to be the greatest line he ever wrote along the line of “met needs” - when he declared to the Philippians,