Liberty To The Captives

Last week Doug shared how God calls us to proclaim good news to the poor. This is what Jesus was anointed to proclaim. The Good news was His own death and resurrection. Victory over death and sin. As Jesus proclaimed this with His own life, so we are called to proclaim it as we live in Him.

But the Good News - The Gospel - is powerless if we think it was only a thing that happened in Jesus’ life. Is it good news to know that Jesus was victorious over death and sin but not allow that same victory in our own lives? And what if we tell someone the Good News of Jesus but don’t call them to repent and follow Jesus?

This is the question we will address today. I pray it is encouraging to you, and effective in clarifying our purpose.

Pray

Luke 4:18–19 ESV

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Today we will be focusing on Jesus’ imperative to proclaim liberty the the captives.

I wan’t to observe something about us, something about the lost, and something about God.

Prisoners Don’t Proclaim Freedom.

I’m imagining one prisoner telling another prisoner to follow me to freedom!

Dude! We’re all running around the same prison cell!

The first thing we need to realize about Jesus’ purpose to proclaim liberty to the captives is that captivity is slavery to sin.

John 8:34 ESV

34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

The word for ‘practices’ here means to make or create. So don’t think practice as in doing again and again and again. It’s more having ever sinned, you and I are slaves to sin. Outside of the perfect covering of Christ, a solitary sin makes us slaves. All of us in the same boat. But the passage continues.

John 8:35–36 ESV

35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

In Christ we are no longer slaves to sin. If we were, how could we proclaim freedom? Paul says...

Romans 6:16–23 NIV

16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. 19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The voice of freedom comes from one who has been set free. If we are to have an effective voice to share the message of hope to the lost, we must take seriously living according to the Spirit of Righteousness, not in our sinfulness.

Romans 8:12–13 NIV

12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

I pray we all but to death the desires of the flesh and walk in the Spirit.

Prisoners Of Sin Don’t Know They’re Slaves.

I’ve already heard in this building someone say to me “Have you found Jesus? I didn’t know He was lost.”

I know the terrible affront that is to the holy God and creator of all things. But that lost sole heard the gospel, but it didn’t mean anything to him. When all someone knows is chains, captivity is normal. The gospel is something to sneer at.

1 Corinthians 1:18 ESV

18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Part of proclaiming liberty to the captives is revealing to them the bondage they are in. Our results will be poor when we don’t have a connection.

If a stranger walked up to you in the grocery store and said “Let me tell you why you are wrong.” they wouldn’t get very far. But if that same person came to you and said, “Hey, I’d hate for you to get sick. I see that package of meat you just grabbed expired three days ago.” we would see their concern and head their words.

Sharing the Gospel without showing love first often leaves people bound in sin offended rather than convicted. If we are to proclaim liberty, let’s let lead with care and concern.

God Breaths Life

How can a dead man receive the gift of life? How can someone who seethes hate be transformed into love? How can the lost be saved?

There are two answers. They are both true. And they are both opposite. We call this a contradiction. God calls it His plan.

The first answer to the question is “But God”

But God

When all the world was lost to sin and flood and judgement was on the whole earth… “But God remembered Noah and all the beast and all the livestock”

When Joseph was hated, and sold, and given up for lost and all the evil in his brothers harts were intended for him, “but God meant if for good.”

When the Psalmist in Psalm 49 sees the iniquity and evil of every man destroying each other, he says Psalm 49 7-8 “7 Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, 8 for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice,” Then how shall we be saved? Psalm 49:15 “15 But God will ransom my soul from the power of the grave, for he will receive me. Selah”

Almost in direct response, the Pharisees ask, Mark 2:7 “7 “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”” So Jesus affirmed His identity by not only forgiving sin, but also healing the paralyzed man. “Take up your bed and walk!”

So Jesus in both a man and God who walked among us. His love and His answer to our problem of deadness is found in Rom 5 8 “8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

And when Jesus paid that price for all our sin, dining on the cross, Acts 13:30 “30 But God raised him from the dead,”

And so when God calls out to one who is dead, like Lazarus, the poser is in God’s hand’s Eph 2 4-5 “4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—”

God will do it. The living water, the breath of life. We were but a valley of dry bones when God found us. It is HE who breathed life into us. His power, and only His power.

… But for some reason, only God knows, He chooses to work through us. No one reading Ezekiel would say Ezekiel raised an army from piles of dry bones. But God chooses to use him.

Ezekiel 37:1–6 ESV

1 The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. 2 And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. 3 And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

God will cause the flesh and sinews and breath to return to the dry bones. But Ezekiel is delegated the responsibility to proclaim it. This is our second answer.

We Must Declare

Ezekiel was to declare the Word of the Lord to dry bones. And so are we to declare the word of the Lord to the valleys of dry bones around us.

1 Corinthians 15:1–5 ESV

1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Paul preached. But the salvation was o the Lord. What is that salvation? That Jesus died and rose again.

Have you ever wondered you pedigree of faith? There was an faithful believer who shared the gospel with you, one who brought you to the Lord. The same for that person, and the one who brought them to faith. On and on.

I suppose we are twelve tribes. Maybe, if we had God’s vision of history, we could all trace our faith back to one of the 12 apostles. That’s entertaining to think about.

But a much more profound question: who will count YOU in their lineage of faith? Who will have heard the words of salvation from you, been given the opportunity to receive God’s free gift of salvation and turned from death to life because you declared what God has done for you?

We don’t need to know the whole of scripture to be able to share. We need to know those five words, and know our own story.

The five words? “Jesus died and rose again”

And your story: “I once was dead, but now I live!”

May we pray to find opportunities to declare the “but God” power to breath life into dead bodies.

May we pray that those who hear find freedom that breaks the chains of their captivity.

May we pray that we are not bound by our fear, not bound by sin we refuse to part with, not bound by lies that say we are unable, unqualified, unusable.

If God used a lying, stuttering, murderer in Moses to declare freedom to the captives, He can use me and you!