Freed from Satan’s Tyranny

Introduction

Merry Christmas everyone. You know, this is not only a busy time of year for most of us, but this is also a dense season in the Church’s liturgical calendar. There are so many points of emphasis during this season that it is difficult to fully appreciate all that is intended for us.

In our Advent series this year, we’ve focused more intently on Christ’s human nature and all that it says to us. We’ve also acknowledged the pain that this season can bring, as our reality and our desires simply don’t line up. Jesus, we’ve seen, fulfills the long-promised redemptive plan of God to save his people by taking on our nature so that we might be with him and like him.

But there is another side to Christmas, one that is right in front of us, but often goes missed and unacknowledged by us. Sin, darkness, the forces of Satan and his power over death; these too are central themes to this season.

This morning we’ve sung familiar carols which ask Jesus to set us free from Satan’s tyranny; to deliver us from all our fears and sins. Have you ever paused to consider why we sing about these things at Christmas time?

You’re likely familiar with the genre of apocalyptic and dystopian media - film, tv shows, books. These days it feels like nearly half the content on our screens envisions a not-to-distant future where all that we know has been destroyed.

Films like The Day After Tomorrow or Don’t Look Up play on the ignorance of mankind and our unwillingness to prevent natural disasters. Other movies, like the Terminator, envision a world where the machines of our own creation overthrow our hubris. 28 Days Later and the Walking Dead picture a world where a virus could turn us into hungry cannibals who will indiscriminately destroy everything in our path. Stories like The Hunger Games, Planet of the Apes, or Ready Player One portray a dystopian future where mankind is its own worst enemy. The Road, a story about a father and son after a nuclear holocaust, reveals the evil in our hearts when society has been burned to a crisp.

I’ve recently been reading a graphic novel titled The Last Ronin. It’s about the Ninja Turtles, ok? And you don’t need to know much about the Turtles to understand the premise of the book. Four mutant turtle brothers, with a mutant rat named Splinter for a father figure, are locked in this lifelong struggle against Shredder and the Foot Clan. In almost every portrayal, the Turtles is lighthearted and comedic. Not in this one. This is a story where the Shredder won. He’s killed Splinter. He’s killed three of the turtles. The last one standing is an old, angry Michaelangelo, now bent on vengeance and destruction.

It’s awesome.

Why do stories like this resonate with us? Why are we entertained by new stories that play on our worst fears of death and destruction? Why do we want to see our favorite heroes struggle against death and sadness? Because you and I want a story that makes sense of the darkness. We want to feel as if our sorrow, our suffering, our fears, are understood. That’s what these stories do. The confirm our worst fears: the world is a dark place. Humanity is capable of great evil. We’re not wrong in believing so.

But what these stories can’t do is free us from our fear and dread. They don’t change anything. They can’t give us hope. They don’t show us how we might find life and freedom.

But Jesus does. This too is Christmas. This is why we sing these carols year after year. Hebrews 2 brings these ideas to light as we discover that in becoming fully human, Jesus not only makes sense of our darkness, but he defeats it by freeing us from the bondage that sin, death, and the devil have over us.

Jesus is really human.

Let’s look at the text together. The first thing I want you to see is how the author stresses for us that Jesus is really, truly, fully human.

I want you to take the end of verse 11 and the beginning of verse 14 together. He is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters… Since the children share in flesh and blood, he likewise partook of the same things.

I don’t know if I have a favorite passage in the Bible, but if I did, it would probably be these two verses. They have been such a comfort to me in my darkest moments.

Here’s where I hope our Advent series has been transformative for you. When you read verse 14, that Christ partook of the same things, I want you to remember this Advent series. Jesus fully embraced humanity by embedding himself into the histories and lineage of real people. He embraced our ordinariness, our limitations, our creatureliness, and he called these things good. He grew in wisdom, stature, and obedience, teaching us to embrace our sanctification with patience and grace. He imaged humanity for us and went ahead of us, so that we might know the glory that awaits us.

Our passage takes this a step further. Because its not just that Jesus takes on the fullness of human nature, but he lives the fullness of human experience under the curse of sin and death. Look at the language used in verse 14-18. The Devil. Death. Temptation. Fear. He experiences and confronts our darkness in order to free us from it.

The incarnation validates our experiences of sin and sorrow. Here we see the depth of Christ’s initiating love for us. When he enters our darkness and confronts it, he doesn’t do so with a condescending attitude. He’s not frowning on us wondering when we’ll get our act together.

He’s not ashamed. He’ll do whatever he takes. Even if it means becoming like us, being tempted with us, and dying for us. He’ll do it.

He confronts our darkness.

John chapter 1 speaks of Jesus as the light who has entered the world to shine in the darkness. But the darkness of this world is not an abstract, impersonal force. The Scriptures reveal to us that the evil in our world is intentional, deliberate, designed. There is a real kingdom of darkness and at its head is one who is called Satan, the Devil. It is the power of this devil, Hebrews says, that we need to be set free from.

What do we know about this Devil? You have an extended quote in your worship guide from a theologian named Herman Bavinck that I won’t read, but I’ll summarize. The Scriptures, especially the New Testament, reveal to us that there is a kingdom of darkness, of evil spirits, that is the opposition to all that belongs to Christ. At the head of this kingdom is Satan, who is called by various names and characteristics. He is the devil, Satan, the enemy, the accuser, the evil one, Beelzebul. He is the prince of demons, the prince of the power of the air, the god of this world, the great dragon, the ancient serpent. In his power are demons, evil and unclean spirits, and the force of death.

Satan and his kingdom are thoroughly corrupt. They are always and everywhere the adversaries of God; they seek the ruin of the church and Christ’s kingdom, they are deceivers, liars, accusers of God’s children. Sin is their natural state. Their destiny is destruction.

And you and I live and walk our days among them. Satan his forces of darkness are active in seeking our ruin.

I don’t think I really need to convince anyone this is the case. If you think about it, the presence of a personal, dominating darkness in the world makes sense out of our experience. Bad vibes hardly explain the wickedness and suffering we face. If we drop the cynicism and skepticism for a moment, we’ll realize, this makes a lot of sense. A dark being whose power is death; who enslaves humanity in fear and corruption, that tracks.

I think what is a bigger barrier for most of us is taking seriously our part in Satan’s work. The kingdom of darkness is not a them problem; it’s not only out there. What Hebrews is teaching us is that the kingdom of Satan is also an in here problem that we need to be saved from. Apart from Christ, we are residents of the kingdom darkness, slaves to sin and fear, subject to the power of death. And we are helpless to overcome it.

Hear the words of the Apostle John:

English Standard Version (Chapter 3)

8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. Now, qualification, and this is important: John is speaking of unrepentant, repetitive sin. The Christian who strives after righteousness and confronts their sin is not principally in view here. I’m going to say more on that in a moment.

I do want to pause and consider what this teaches us about sin and the fallen human condition. Sin is not only a matter of between us and our neighbors, or between us and God. There is another player here. Sin is an offense against our neighbor and against our God; it could also be described as doing the devil’s work for him.

And it is his work, his tyranny, that Jesus has come in the flesh to set us free from.

I recently finished Timothy Egan’s book A Fever in the Heartland which is the history of the rise and fall of the KKK in Indiana and here in our city. It’s a tragic book about the way Satan’s Kingdom of Darkness advanced right here through the KKK and one of its leaders in the 1920s named DC Stephenson. Stephenson, who lived right next door in Irvington, was a man who amassed untold power for himself such that no one would touch him. He was able to do unspeakable evil. Worse, he was able to influence hundreds of thousands of followers to support his agenda. Men, women, children, pastors, lined up behind this man to spread poison and death across our city and our state. The effects of their devastation still has present consequences to this day.

We look at all of that death and darkness and want to explain it on very human terms. And while we are absolutely responsible for our actions, behind the sin and death all around us we need to see a very real tyranny at work in this world. You and I are caught up in that. We need to be set free from it. That’s what Jesus came to do. To destroy the devil’s work and to set us free.

I want you to think about an acorn. What do you see? A small seed. But inside this small seed lies an ocean of wood. What happens when this acorn is planted in the right condition? It grows into a large tree. So inside one acorn is a large, enormously large, tree, all stuffed up. But not only that, on that tree will grow thousands of other acorns, and each acorn is another tree, which means inside each acorn is not only a tee but a thousand other trees. One acorn has the power to cover the entire world in an ocean of wood. That’s how much power is in there.

This is what sin is like inside the human heart. Satan loves to plant us in soil that gives birth to a toxic, polluted forrest of sin and death. Satan loves to take our sinful potential and see if flourish. That’s what it means to be under his power and to live in his kingdom.

I know we have some people with us this morning and you’re not really quite sure yet what you make of Jesus. First, really thankful you’re spending New Years Eve with us. And I want to acknowledge that a message about sin and Satan probably isn’t something you would consider to be a motivating speech for the New Year. Let me just offer a couple thoughts for you though as you think these things through.

Jesus is a Savior who will not ask of you to do anything that he wasn’t first willing to do himself. To turn from sin and temptation, to suffer, to battle against Satan, to experience death, in all these things and more, he willingly did in the fullness of human nature so that you might know the character and love of God. In his willingness to become fully human, to experience everything that we experience - this is how you know that this message of turning from sin and the devil and trusting in Christ, this is not a message of condemnation or shame.

What is on offer to you is hope in darkness, freedom from that which enslaves you, life where there is only death, forgiveness where you are crushed by guilt, acceptance where you are withering in shame. Maybe there is more to this Jesus than you’ve given him credit for, and maybe you have a deeper need for what he offers then you’ve first realized.

What if 2024 were a year that began for you in new found freedom, hope, and life? What if, today, Jesus became your savior, priest, and friend? Jesus knows your heart, and if you want to give it to him, don’t hold back. Be free. Ask him to bring light into your darkness, to set you free from Satan’s tyranny. I promise you he’ll do it. And I promise you this is a place where you don’t have to do that alone.

He destroys our enemy.

So Darkness is real. Sin is real. Death is real. But here’s where Christmas meets us in the darkness.

Satan’s power is real, but limited. God, not Satan, is the Creator and ruler of all that is seen and unseen. Satan has power over death in his kingdom of darkness, but what a small kingdom it is when compared with the kingdom of God. His power is not absolute. Nor does he have power over life; our lives are not in his hands but God’s. Our God is not passive in leaving us subject to death, but the eternal Son of God has entered into the fullness of our humanity,

The New International Version Chapter 2

he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Jesus took on the fulness of human nature to fight the battles we couldn’t win and to destroy our great enemy that would hold us in slavery all our lives. Through death and resurrection, Jesus has disarmed our enemy and freed us from his influence.

In Luke 11, Jesus used the language of invading Satan’s house and taking away the armor which gave him strength.

Paul said it this way:

The New International Version Chapter 2

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

This is the sweetest reversal, the most beautiful redemption. The cross, an instrument designed to shame the crucified, becomes the source of shame for Satan and his forces. Through death and resurrection, Satan’s power over death has been undone. If death could not hold Jesus, it will not hold his brothers and sisters down either. Jesus now has power in us where Satan once ruled.

So John went on to say this in Chapter 4:

1 John 4:4 NIV

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

When we believe in Jesus we are in a real way set free from sin and death; Satan is commanded to loosen his grip over us. We are no longer residents of Satan’s kingdom but God’s. The resurrection power of Christ has freed us from Satan’s tyranny, and that same power now dwells in us.

Just think about that for a moment. Christ in you is power to say no to darkness and yes to light; to turn away from sin and yes to righteousness; to say no to Satan and yes to our Father in heaven. Isn’t that the greatest comfort? The greatest source of courage? Of compassion? Of humility? Don’t you want that for your neighbors, for the people you love, for our city?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy. Satan still prowls like a lion. Don’t I know that sin and temptation is a struggle. Jesus isn’t promising us easy. He suffered when tempted. He is promising us freedom and life; he is promising us that he’ll keep the children safe in him as we continue fighting fear and temptation. He is promising to know us, be with us, to draw us near to God until we see him face to face.

The result of the incarnation.

That’s what it means for Jesus to be our perfect, faithful, merciful priest. He knows us. He’s experienced what we experienced. He’s faced our darkness. He knows temptation. He’s look the Devil square and the face and said, “No more.”

And on the other side of that victory, he’s gone ahead as our pioneer who has been made perfectly fit to be our priest through what he experienced. He was made ready to be a priest, merciful and faithful, chosen from among the people, to represent us and bring us close to God.

Because Christ was fully human, he can break any of us and each of us free from the power of Satan, sin, and death. He can save us completely. He can bring us close to God. He will always do it. Later in Hebrews 7 it says Jesus lives to intercede for us as our priest. Even now, that is what he does for us as we read these words.

Friends take heart in the courage and comfort of our victorious, merciful, and faithful high priest. In all of our despair, weariness, temptations, and fear, Jesus knows us. He gets us. He intercedes for us. He strengthens us. He’s not ashamed of us. He silences the accuser and releases our fears. He brings us, weak, feeble, and sinful, into the presence of God and before the throne of grace. Right now, that’s what he’s doing.

There is no surer evidence of Christ’s commitment to you than his work right now as your priest who brings you close to God. That’s Christmas. Fully human to defeat our fears, to free us from sin and death. God with us so we can be with God.