Faith Set Free

Cana - Unhindered – Week 1

Unhindered Kingdom

Series/Sermon Slide

Good morning and welcome to worship on this amazing day that the Lord has made.

It is so good to finally be home. Renee, Evan, and I made it to town Monday and Tuesday after some crazy days of moving.

How many of you have ever used a moving company? How many of you have had a great experience with a moving company? Well… so have we, but not this time, but at least it wasn’t as bad as one move… When we left Hillsboro, the movers were late because they had to bail their driver out of jail. At any rate… all our stuff got here, we got Evan off on his school trip, Renee and I are here, and we are ready to move ahead with all God has for us.

I want to thank you for the great welcome. From the day of the interviews on, we have felt welcomed and made to be a part of this church family again. To those of you that were here 11 years ago – it’s good to see you again, and to those of you that are new, I look forward to getting to know you. I truly fee blessed to stand in this pulpit following Mike Kerzee, before him Stephen Bell, and other great friends in my ministry like Mike Alexander and Connally Dugger. It is an honor to stand before you today as your pastor.

Now, that brings us to today’s topic… my sermon. The first sermon of a ministry has always been a challenge for we pastors, but this one really isn’t my first sermon.

I had to ask myself, do I talk about myself and who I am and what I do/have done?

Do I tell you how it’s going to be with me in charge?

Do I lay down the vision of our ministry together?

Those are all valid topics for a first sermon… but I don’t think I should be the topic of a sermon, I’m really not in charge – God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in charge, and we don’t know each other well enough to define a vision for ministry going into the future, so, what am I to do?

How about we talk about how our faith can be set free as we launch in ministry together?

I have chosen this sermon series as my first sermon series for a reason. Today and the following 4 weeks, we are going to be looking at the idea of being “Unhindered.” What does it imply that our faith is unhindered? What does it look like for our lives to be unhindered? What does it mean for our church to be unhindered?

So, to start, What does unhindered mean?

Unhindered: rampant; unbounded; unbridled; unchecked; unhampered; unrestrained; not held back.

Have you ever been held back? I was thinking about being held back, being hindered, and I had this idea of the anchor on a tug-of-war team. You know the one I’m talking about. Everyone is pulling on the rope, leaning back… but the anchor has the rope wrapped around him. He is pulling, digging in, trying to pull, trying to run, but what is happening? Especially if the team is losing… the anchor is being held back, he is hindered.

Here's another image of being hindered… have you ever been to the horse races? I’ve only been once, but it is fascinating to watch these amazing animals. At the start it’s like they are trapped in the starting gate: muscles tense, snorting, skipping…. They are ready to run but they are hindered. The gate is holding them back… but when they are set free it is a beautiful sight to see them run… it’s like they were released to do what they were created for!

Series Slide

As I look back at this church and the past four years, I would say that we have been being held back. We have been hindered. I’m not trying to be dramatic. I’m not trying to be negative. I’m just stating a fact.

I’m not sure how much more a church can be hindered than to be forced to shut the doors due to a pandemic. Then, to finally feel like you have been set free… to have another major storm – a denominational split… to hit the church. This church, you, have been through a lot in the past 4 years.

But looking beyond the church, what is holding you back now? What is hindering you in your faith? What has you bridled, restrained, bound?

Whatever it is, you are not alone. God has so much more for you. God has so much more for this church. It’s time to live an unhindered life of faith!

Before we go any further, I want us to read our passage today from Acts 28. This is not only the jumping-off point for today’s message, but also the jumping-off point for the entire series. The book of Acts is Luke’s continuation of his Gospel. In the Gospel, we see and hear Jesus preach, but in Acts, we see and hear Jesus preached about and his message spread to the world. We see Jesus revealed to the world. It’s as if our entire world came to Jerusalem for the Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost; then the message of Jesus goes from Jerusalem to the world.

Acts bridges the gap between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. It tells us how the messenger became the center of the message.

The book of Acts starts with Jesus Ascension, the Holy Spirit falling on the Disciples at Pentecost, Peter and John preaching in front of the Sanhedrin and being thrown in Jail, only to miraculously escape. It continues with Philip baptizing an Ethiopian Eunuch, Paul’s conversion, and on and on and on…. It is the story of how our story started in Jerusalem, came to Europe, Africa, and Asia, and finally to you and me. It wraps up with the Apostle Paul in house arrest in Rome awaiting his time to visit Caesar, And this great story ends… or maybe the next phase begins with these words from verses 30-31.

Acts 28:30-31 (NASB)

Now Paul stayed two full years in his own rented lodging and welcomed all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching things about the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered.

<Prayer>

Sermon Slide

After Paul’s 3rdMissionary Journey, he arrives back in Jerusalem around 59 AD where he is arrested and as the Romans were about to flog him, he revealed that he was a Roman Citizen. If you read the account in Acts 20-23, you realize that Paul speaks to them in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Then reveals that he is a Roman citizen by birth meaning that he likely spoke Latin as well. He is arrested on trumped-up charges while preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and sent to Caesarea Maritima where he is to be seen and heard by Felix and Agrippa. Paul is then sent on to Rome since he had requested a hearing before Caesar. He sails to Rome, is shipwrecked, and snake-bit, all the while proclaiming the Gospel of Christ.

He finally arrives in Rome, rents a home, and is placed on house arrest. While he was there, he welcomed anyone and everyone who came to see him to discuss matters of faith.

In other words, he was preaching and teaching just as he learned from Jesus and his followers.

Paul was following the Great Commission and proclaiming the freedom of Christ, freedom from sin and death, and the freedom to live as Christ.

And Paul did this with all openness, unhindered.

I love the way some of the other translations put that final word.

The NIV and NLT both say, “And no one tried to stop him”

The NRSV says, “without hinderance.”

The KJV says, “no man forbidding him.”

The Message Paraphrase says, “his door was always open.”

Though Paul was in chains, he was unhindered. Not only did he preach and teach to any who came to visit him… he also wrote some of the most important letters of the New Testament in the time in Rome. They call these the “Prison Epistles” because Paul wrote Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon while he was under house arrest in Rome.

Here’s part of Paul’s unhindered message to these communities that receive these letters…

Ephesians

● “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” - Ephesians 5:15-17

● Paul is telling them that Adversity is an opportunity. You are not hindered by adversity.

Philippians

● “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” - Phil 1:21

● “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.” - Phil 3:7-9

● These are the words of a man at peace. Content in his identity, though he is in chains, Paul is a free man.

Colossians

● “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” - Colossians 1:13-14

● “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” - Colossians 1:21-22

● God has brought those who were far off to be near through Christ. There is no obstruction or hindrance to the grace of God. Jesus is for everyone, and Jesus is for everywhere.

Philemon

● Paul writes a letter to Philemon on behalf of Onesimus, a runaway slave… now he is free in Christ, a brother in Christ.

● Even though Oneismus deserved punishment, Paul contends for grace and forgiveness.

Oneismus is now Unhindered.

Sermon Slide

What a word!

I can just imagine Luke sitting there, finishing up his writing. Of all the words he could choose…

having written about the birth and life of Jesus, the death, burial and resurrection, writing about the Ascension of Jesus, and the falling of the Holy Spirit on all mankind. After telling the story of the Gospel being spread to the four corners of the world, he ends with this one word…

in the Greek it is pronounced…

Akōlutōs – Unhindered!

Whatever it was that Luke saw in Paul that last time they gathered and visited, that word is what stood out…

A word that, yes, it was the last word of a book… but maybe, just maybe it was the first word of our faith!

You and I are unhindered. We have been set free. The only thing that holds us back is what we allow to hold us back. We can’t allow ourselves to be hindered… like a thoroughbred horse behind the gate…

So, what are you allowing to hinder you, to hold you back, to bridle you?

Is it fear?

Maybe it’s bad habits?

or comparison – keeping up with the Joneses?

Is it ignorance, deciding to just not learn what you need to know?

Could it be laziness?

I could go on and on with the things that can hinder our faith, but it is only because we give these things power over us… but you don’t have to… you have been set free! We have been set free.

Our faith has been unhindered, you and I are set free by the love and grace of Jesus Christ…

We have unhindered forgiveness, we are a part of an unhindered kingdom, we possess the unhindered power of the Holy Spirit, and we can proclaim an unhindered gospel of Jesus Christ.

I guess, if I were trying to lay down a vision for our future together, it would be that we are unhindered. We have been set free for God to work in us and through us to reach this community and the world for Christ.

Invitation…