Believers who are “M.A.D.”
“A Life of Freedom”
Isaiah 61:1-2
* Three weeks ago I began this series of messages with one prayer, hope, aim, goal, and desire; to help each of us become (or be) people who are indeed “Making a Difference.” What happens inside the four walls of this building, the four walls of your home, and the four walls of your heart determines if you and I will be ‘difference makers’ in our community. Candidly, to ‘make a difference’ we must ‘be different.’ Furthermore, if we are to ‘make a difference’ because ‘we are different’ then, I submit, they must be a difference in how we connect with our Lord. This morning, consider the text we have already read. Isaiah writes the words that Jesus would read some 700 years later (Luke 4) and then say, “Today this text is fulfilled.” Jesus has been ‘anointed and sent’ to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners.
* Freedom. What comes to your mind when you hear this word? Most of us think of the USA and our civil freedoms. In fact, the 21st Century American culture is so enamored with these that we have concluded we are deserving & are due these precious rights and freedoms. Sadly, few believers today think of their life in Jesus as a life of freedom. As an aside, if we don’t clearly see our lives as ‘free in Christ’ what would make the one outside of Christ desire to join in? Do you truly think that people are looking for some way to live a life of bondage? Certainly not, and that is not Jesus’ mission.
* How long (if ever) has it been since you considered your life as a believer a life of freedom? Yet, Christ same to set us FREE! Paul understood this & wrote to the Galatians saying, “Christ has liberated us into FREEDOM!” Paul knew about ‘freedom’ versus ‘bondage’ because he had lived like a Pharisee until he met Jesus on the Damascus road. He knew what it was to be released from trying to work his way to heaven. Now his work was to call others to this same freedom which he has discovered. Peter understood freedom he writes, “Live as FREE people.” We are called to be free.
* Rick Stanley is a name known among the evangelical community. Rick is an evangelist who is considered to be the half-brother of Elvis Pressley. At the time of Elvis’ death, Rick was Elvis’ aid & hooked on drugs, alcohol, and generally lived a rough life. Rick’s testimony is that he felt trapped in all those things and needed relief, release, and freedom. When he met Jesus, HIS TESTIMONY is that God immediately delivered Him from drugs, alcohol, and partying. Though it wasn’t like Rick’s story, I remember when God changed me from the inside out. Personally, God released me from some things which had haunted me for years. Guess what? I have no desire to go back to what or where I was because it was personal bondage.
* Here is the bottom line: God’s redeemed people (you and me) are placed in this world by our Lord to ‘make a difference.’ We have been called from darkness to light, from death to life, and from bondage to freedom. Walk with me through God’s word & let discover this life of FREEDOM! I begin in our text to see;
1. The Declaration of Freedom – In 1776, a rag-tag group of men who had settled a new world wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence. They proclaimed their liberty for all to hear see and know. The text says that our Lord came to “proclaim liberty to the captives.” To proclaim is to announce, call out, and make it known. The framers of the Declaration of Independence ordered that hundreds of copies be made so that the message could be proclaimed, announced, and made known. This is exactly what our Lord, Christ did when came to earth. He began by proclaiming that the “Kingdom of Heaven is near, so repent.” He proclaimed the message of the Kingdom which is the availability of liberty for all. The word liberty is the word which was used for the Year of Jubilee. To understand the year of Jubilee requires we know about the statues and ordinances of God. Let’s make this simple, understandable, and short. God created the earth in 6 days and rested on the 7th which He termed the ‘Sabbath.’ The word Sabbath means a cessation from exertion, repose, or a rest. This is what is meant by a professor or minister taking a ‘sabbatical.’ To know this takes us to Leviticus 25 where God lays forth the “Sabbath years.” In this agricultural culture, God gave the limitations which probably was the forerunner of ‘crop-rotation’ except God said you can farm the land for 6 years and on the 7th the land must be given rest, thus the Sabbath year. Then, at the end 7 Sabbath years (49 years), on the 10 day of the seventh month trumpet blew loudly to announce (proclaim) the YEAR OF JUBILEE. During the year of Jubilee, there was rest for the land, reversion of land to the family, and release of the slaves. Historians tell us that the Year of Jubilee tended to abolish poverty, slavery, overwork, and loss of birth right. Can you imagine that slave who was worked until JUBILEE? Can you imagine what it was like? Well, we should be able to because you and I were a slave to sin with no hope of freedom until our “Jubilee in Jesus.”
2. The Demonstration of freedom – When Jubilee came and liberty was granted to the slaves and freedom to the prisoners it was a HIGH TIME of Celebration! Can you imagine what the slaves who desired to be free were like? I can! It’s kind of like when I was a teenage & was given a task to do at the house before I could go and play ball. The closer the time came to completion the more excited I became. In fact, I remember as a 12 year old running out of the house shouting and singing, “I’m free!” “Freedom for the prisoners” literally pictures an opening of the jail house door for release.
* Did you realize that when Jesus comes into a life it is like being released from Jail? If we actually feel this way, then why do we act like the Christian life is a life of bondage with all of the ‘you can’t’ or ‘you better not.’ Consider how we come across to the people we encounter. You’re at a party (Yes, even Jesus went to parties) and someone offers you a drink—and not the soda variety. Do you get your righteous voice in gear and rebuke them for their indiscretion? Do you sound a little ‘holier than thou’ about your beliefs? Or do you kindly say something like, “No thanks. I used to drink but have just lost the desire.” I offer this truth: how we respond tends to say much about who we are. Does our change speak of our ‘freedom’ to walk away or our ‘bondage’ to have to? To be set free from anything invokes an action, an appreciation, and even an answer for your life.
* Jesus came to the captives, the prisoners, and the oppressed that He could proclaim their liberty and open the gates of the prisons in which they are held. The personal question of today is; what am I held captive to and a prisoner of? Or what am I oppressed by? In school, anytime we would think a test was going to be very hard, we pleaded with our teachers to make the test ‘multiple-choice.’ The multiple choice test offered us several answers for the question and we could pick from the list to determine the correct answer. Paul gives us a list of choices that could have a hold on us. We find them in Galatians 5. (Read Gal 5:16ff) Any or all of these can hold us captive until we make a decision to become free.
3. The Decision for freedom – In Acts 16 when the prison doors were opened for Paul and Silas, they didn’t attempt an escape but rather saved the guard from a physical death at His own hand. But they didn’t stop there. The guard had seen their demeanor, heard their singing, saw their response to their circumstances, and his heart melted. Although the guard had them under lock and key, their lives conveyed the freedom in Christ they enjoyed. So, the guard asked, “What must I do to become free like you?” I know the words were, “What must I do to be saved?” but what the guard desired was what Paul and Silas conveyed, a sense of freedom, confidence, and yes, faith. Their answer to his query was, ‘You want what we have you must do what we have done, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and set free.” The Bible tells us that we believe in our hearts so He can control our thoughts and we trust Him with our lives so that He can guide our steps, our actions, and yes, our reactions.
Consider this question; how many of us honestly think that we are free is Christ? Before answering think about why you don’t do the things you used to do. Is it because you know that our Lord would be displeased or is it that you have been freed from the desire to do that which is displeasing to the Lord and not best for you. One is bondage while the other is freedom. For you see, if we don’t do something only because we are told NOT TO, it doesn’t really project freedom. What do they see in us?
