Arise to Freedom

Story

In 2002 there was a kidnapping that made national news in Salt Lake City Utah. It was the kidnapping of 14 year old Elizabeth Smart.

Elizabeth was kidnapped one night from her home by a man by the name of Brian David Mitchell and he was assisted by his wife, Wanda Barzee. The man, Mitchell, met the family when he was hired as a handy man to do work at the house, and he after seeing Elizabeth, he made a plan to take her and he was able to keep her captive for 9 months, before he was caught.

Get this, the police found Elizabeth only 20 miles from her home, in Sandy, Utah.

Mitchell and Barzee would actually take Elizabeth out in public often and would use a veil to cover her face. On one occasion, they were stopped by the police and they were asked if they had seen Elizabeth Smart. And, at that moment, all Elizabeth had to do was say, “That’s me!”, and she would have been freed. But she didn’t say one word, and Mitchell told the police wheat he told everyone when they had her out in public, that the veil was for religious reasons.

If you are intrigued by this story, I learned that Netflix is making a documentary about it. I have never seen it, nor is this considered a recommendation to watch. This is just coincidental information.

Topic

This story is fascinating because it paints a picture for us about how the enemy operates - he wants to hold you in captivity.

You might be thinking to yourself, is this a physical captivity?

And I would say, often times yes, it becomes that.

But it doesn’t begin that way.

It starts as a lie that the enemy seeds in our hearts, that we agree with, and then we start to feed that lie until we have lost control of ourselves in the process.

Need

And today I want you to arise, wake up, to the possibility that you may be held captive at this moment. And the only thing that is keeping you from your freedom is you not saying anything.

Just like Elizabeth simply had to speak up and say to the police man standing in front of her, “I’m Elizabeth Smart.”

You may be dealing with an addiction to drinking, drugs, or pornography.

It could be a relationship with a coworker that although it is not yet physical, has already crossed emotional boundaries.

Perhaps you constantly lie to your spouse.

And I can go on and on, but let me just stop here and say that you could be doing one of the things that I just mentioned, and no one in this church would even know. I wouldn’t know as I greet you on the way in and on the way out.

But until you can speak up about it, you will never be free from your captor.

Arise to Freedom

And today, I want to talk to you about hoe God wants you to Arise to Freedom.

Reading

Luke 4:18–21 NIV

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Text

In our text this morning we are reading about this moment in Jesus’ life when he begins his ministry here on earth.

When you read the gospels we get this fly by of Jesus’ birth, and some of his early years, like when his family had to flee to Egypt to avoid a genocidal King.

Then we see Jesus at 12 years old questioning and debating some of the best religious minds in the Jerusalem temple when his family came to Jerusalem for the yearly passover festival.

Afterwards we hear nothing about Jesus until he’s in line for Baptism Sunday at the Jordan River. His cousin John was doing the baptism, and at the age of 30 he submits to water Baptism and there is this moment when, as he comes up out of the waters where the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove, and the voice of the father speaks over him, “This is my beloved Son whom I love and I am well pleased with him.”

Jesus then goes from the Jordan to the wilderness for a 40 days of fasting.

In my study it was revealed to me that we need to take 21 Days of fasting and make it 40 days of fasting…

In the wilderness Jesus is being formed, and prepared for ministry, but not before an epic encounter and crushing victory of Satan.

When Jesus returns to his home in Nazareth he is on a whole other level, and filled with the power of the Spirit. It is his day to read in the synagogue and he is handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and as he is handed that scroll, he reads this passage that we just read together.

And, like a movie, this moment reaches it’s climax when Jesus hands the scroll back to the attendant and says to the church, “I’m That Guy.”

OK, those weren’t his exact words, but the words that he said meant to tell them that everything that he read was about Him.

So Jesus was saying, “I am that guy.”

And boy did that cause an uproar.

All of Nazareth was talking about it… but because this is before cell phones and social media, this was only a minor moment in a minor town and the rest of the followers of the Judaism scattered throughout the Near East didn’t hear about it.

But here is the big idea - God wants for you to Find Freedom.

If you have not already figured it out by now, last week I preached about Knowing God, and now that I am preaching about Finding Freedom. Can you guess what we are talking about next week? Discover Your Purpose. And the following week? Make a Difference.

These are the four things that we believe God wants for you because it is literally written throughout all of the Bible through different stories, people, and a period of 1,600 years of written record.

[Transition]

Now, going back to our verse and this entire moment for a second.

There are a lot of ways and messages Jesus could have used to announce that he was starting his ministry, and he chose freedom to the captive to be the first.

He didn’t say, I am here so that you can get the bigger bank account.

He didn’t say, I am here so that you could be famous and have a larger influence.

He didn’t say, I am here so that you could be fulfilled through your work.

And he didn’t say, I am here so that you could launch a non-profit and live a life of philanthropy.

Jesus said, “I’m here to proclaim freedom for the prisoners. I’m here to set the captive free.”

Freedom Begins with Friends

So how do we get free according to God’s word?

Truthfully it is not a formula, and the experience of freedom can look very different for different people, but I do want to focus on the three essentials for your freedom.

Freedom Begins with Friends

You’ve heard the saying before, “show me your friends and I will tell you your future.”

The older I get, the more I have seen that statement become true.

If you want to live free from the things that are holding you captive, you need to start by assessing everyone in your circle.

You cannot have people in your circle that do not want to see you free.

You have to be intentional about getting around people who are at a place that you are trying to get to.

Proverbs 13:20 NIV

Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.

I think we could even insert the word “free” into that verse and it would be just as true. Walk with the free and you too will become free.

When you come to the knowledge of God and you are aware of the things that you need to be free from, it should demand of you to determine who in your life will becoming with you into your future.

Now, in case you are wondering how this fits with what I said last week about having unsaved friends. I am not saying that you sever every relationship now that you have come to faith, but I am saying that you need to identify the ones that will pull you backwards and you need to consider how much access and influence that person has over your life.

And, here’s the key, what you don’t do is leave that friend and live in isolation, but what you do is leave that friend and the right friend that is going to walk with you into freedom.

Look at what God’s word says about freedom.

1 John 1:9 NIV

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

God’s word tells us that we can come to our father and confess our sins to him and he is going to forgive us from the unrighteousness in our lives.

That’s pretty straight forward, and I believe most of us believe and understand that.

But here’s where I see a lot of Christians get hung up.

James 5:16 NIV

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

This means, we go to God for forgiveness, but we go to each other for healing.

[Segue]

And this is the segue to the next essential for you to experience freedom.

Bad Habits Hide in the Dark

The truth is, many of us will go to God for forgiveness, and then we’ll mess up and so we come back to him again, and then we do it again, and then we do it again… but if you want to break the cycle you need to have people in your life that you can confess your sins to so that you have people praying for you, checking in on you, challenging you, and walking with you until you are healed.

I’ve seen it time and time again when people are having to confront their sins with other people that they finally feel the challenge to make a change.

You need those kind of people in your life.

Every single one of you.

We all do.

[Transition]

We must also become people who other can confess their sins with.

I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve seen men wreck their families simply because they felt like they had no one to talk to. They felt as though there was no place to talk to another man about the things he was doing and hiding from his family.

Listen my friend, if you keep telling yourself, “I got this under control,” you don’t.

Your inability to speak up is much like Elizabeth Smart’s inability to speak up.

Listen, your freedom is on the other side of your confession.

[Next Step]

Before I end this sermon I need to tell you what we do about this here at Lighthouse.

Next month we begin our next semester of Connect Groups.

Our hope for you is to bring people into your life that are going to journey with you as you heal and find freedom from the things that hold you captive.

Let me give you some Pastoral truths about this:

Everyone isn’t going to journey with the Pastor. God places you in community who can do for you what your Pastor cannot do for you.

Most people who need counsel are not in a Connect Group. There are so many things that get discipled in a Connect Group, and therefore the need to come to the leadership gets smaller and smaller.

It will likely take time to find your people; but don’t give up!

Last year we had 32 groups meet throughout the year, and that is awesome. But because we have grown, we need more. So I’ve asked our team to give us a next step - tap the seat back in front of you if you are interested in leading a group next month so that we can get you more information and train you up to lead next month.

We aren’t looking for ability - we are looking for availability.

Be Filled With the Holy Spirit (Conclusion)

The last essential to experiencing freedom is to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit begins to fill your life, it is going to start searching your heart and exposing the things that you’ve kept hidden. The way the Holy Spirit works is it brings these things into the light. If bad habits hide in the dark, then the Holy Spirit drags these things into the light so that you can deal with them.

God can’t heal what you will not reveal.

Some of you are here and you’ve received Christ, but you have never been baptized with the Holy Spirit.

I talk about this in my book that I wrote, but my theology is that when we receive Jesus into our lives, and as we commit to following Him, the Holy Spirit comes and takes up residence in our hearts. He’s guiding us into truth. He’s teaching us. He’s counseling us.

But there is something we see, particularly in the Book of Acts, when people are baptized with the Holy Spirit. It’s often accompanied by speaking in other tongues, but not always. It is a moment when the Holy Spirit doesn’t just meet you, but he takes over you. You feel things inside here that you cannot explain. The bitterness you once had is gone because you’ve been baptized with the Holy Spirit. Things that were messing with your mind are suddenly gone because you’ve been baptized with the Holy Spirit. You sometimes can’t pray in your own words, so the Holy Spirit makes intercession for you.

And I believe this is a next step for many of you. You need to be baptized with the Holy Spirit and have a deeper experience with God so that you can be free from the entanglements, habits, and the addictions of this world.

And for some of you, who have had this experience, I’d say to you make sure that this wasn’t just a one time experience with God, but something you come back to again and again.

Soak in the presence of God and sit at his feet, just like Mary did when Jesus came to her home.

Call

If you want to begin experiencing freedom today, I’m going to challenge you to take your next step… for some of you, that is to come down to this altar and confess some things to the Lord. For others, you’ve had your share of confession, but now it’s time to start talking to other people. You need a connect group. You may even need to speak with one of our Pastors. But you need to start speaking up and telling someone who you are and what you are dealing with. And others, you need to come down to this altar and seek God. It’s been a while since you’ve had an altar call where you poured our your heart to Jesus and you allowed him to do some heart work in your life today.