I am Free
Independence Sunday • Sermon • Submitted
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· 9 viewsFreedom cost this country many lives. However, God paid the ultimate price sacrificing His Son Christ Jesus. Jesus died so that humankind can know real and lasting freedom. This message explores the theme of freedom as found throughout the Bible.
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Happy Independence Day!!!
Today we celebrate our Declaration of Independence of dated back to July 4, 1776.
That’s the day the Continental Congress declared that the thirteen American colonies were no longer subject to the Britain King George III, and were now united, free, and independent states.
INTRO - What does God says about freedom?
How do we relate when our world differers so much from the world of the Bible?
These are great questions to ask on this day when we celebrate our independence.
Today is a time we celebrate freedom with fireworks and BBQ.
But, the Bible does not mention the 4th of July.
But, the God does tell us a whole lot about freedom.
What lessons, or principles on freedom, does God communicate to us?
We know that to understand the Bible, we must study culture, history, theology, and literature.
Let’s start by opening our Bibles to Romans 8:1-2
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.
This chapter is about freedom. The best freedom is what we have in Christ Jesus.
See that, “Jesus has set you free.”
It’s oaky to shout, “Amen!!!”
God created humankind with the purpose to know, love, worship, and enjoy Him forever.
However, corruption of social, spiritual, economic, and institutional things prevent us from enjoying our creational purpose.
Only God can clean up this sort of corruption.
That happened at the cross of Calvary.
It was at Calvary that:
Jesus won our freedom when He died on the cross and rose from the grave.
Because of Jesus, God’s Spirit today gives believers freedom to follow Jesus and enjoy God’s created purposes for our lives.
As one of our greatest blessings, Jesus followers can join God in freeing other people.
We tell others what Jesus does in our lives as we wait for our full and final freedom when Jesus returns.
Here is our lesson plan for this morning.
1st a biblical summary of freedom
2nd a Bible story of freedom
3rd a breakdown of where we find freedom references in our Bibles
TRANS - Let’s dive into by summarizing our idea of “freedom.”
Summary of Freedom
Summary of Freedom
Do you know Facebook is responsible for 65% of all underaged sex traffic?
Sex slavery is a booming, and evil, business.
Millions of people in our world live in poverty.
Humanity of every age is blessed when hearing the Bible’s stories of liberation from slavery and economic distress.
For example, the Bible speaks of sending someone away to be released, to be freed:
“When you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for six years; then in the seventh he is to leave as a free man without paying anything.
One of the tools I use when counseling with people is asking them to describe their what their live might look like without their problem.
The Bible helps people to imaging the better life God has for all of us.
In this verse:
The same Hebrew word to describe sending away to be free is used to convey the idea of someone innocent of a crime.
The concept is never more real than when we understand Jesus takes our punishment and our place so that God can declare us innocent.
Consider this favorite among verses:
For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Jesus “released” or “loosed” the believer from the bondage of sin as we read in John:
So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.
TRANS - That’s our short summary of freedom.
Now I’d like to share with you a story of freedom.
Story of Freedom
Story of Freedom
In Christ we are free.
I find God’s ongoing act of freeing His people from bondage interesting.
The freedom story runs all through the Bible.
Freedom from enslavement in the OT & freedom in Christ in the NT.
We read about Jewish people who were slaves to the Egyptians.
The book of Exodus tells us God freed them from that bondage in order to worship Him:
Later, Moses and Aaron went in and said to Pharaoh, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival for me in the wilderness.”
The Egyptian bondage was economic, social, and spiritual.
The people were oppressed and kept back from worshiping God.
Then, God intervened on their behalf of the people.
The people were happy, at least for a while.
The people often forgot God.
They wanted more freedom.
They wanted political freedom, freedom from sin, disease, distress, and death.
God made some provision for them:
Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings, and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the territory of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
Still, death hung heavy over the Hebrew people:
What courageous person can live and never see death?
Who can save himself from the power of Sheol?
Selah
The story does not end there.
The exodus and the whole of the OT pointed forward to a time God sends freedom by way Jesus.
The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me
to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free the oppressed,
The NT views Jesus as the new Moses and His death and resurrection as a “new exodus” that saves people from slavery to sin and demands of the law:
and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and has set us free from our sins by his blood,
The only way to real freedom is through Jesus as we again look at this verse in Galatians:
For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Our freedom is not for our pleasure, but for the purpose of loving God and others.
The law and sin only proved our great need for Jesus.
Today we can keep the law, fulfill our purpose, as we seek to bring pleasure to God by His Spirit:
For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
TRANS - Summary and a story, how about now we seriously study some scripture.
Scripture and Freedom
Scripture and Freedom
Words are especially important to people of the Book.
One of our loved Proverbs states:
The words of a person’s mouth are deep waters,
a flowing river, a fountain of wisdom.
In this last point let’s get a glimpse of some of the many ways the Bible states the ideas we understand as free and freedom.
Old Testament
Old Testament
Every seven years was a rest year that began with the sounding of the ram’s horn:
Lexham Theological Wordbook Old Testament
יוֹבֵל (yôbēl). n. Jubilee Year, ram’s horn.
Every 49th year, on the Day of Atonement, a Jubilee was announced for the following year.
Every 50th year was the Jubilee.
Jubilee was the occasion of freedom offered to people in servitude.
The Jubilee marked the end of their time of being a slave or servant to someone else.
The word expresses their release:
שׁלח (šālaḥ). vb. to send away, to free
This verb is the act of sending away. In one form it carries the idea of release.
Once freed, another word that sounds a lot like our “happy” describes them:
Lexham Theological Wordbook חָפְשִׁי
חָפְשִׁי (ḥāpšı̂). adj. free, a freed slave.
The freed are free of their former debt.
ILL - Jennifer and I recently became credit debt free and intend to stay that way!
The Bible has a word for that, also means to be innocent:
נָקָה (nāqâ). vb. to be free, to be without blame, innocent.
Yet, perhaps the best OT Hebrew for today is the word that often translates to liberty:
Lexham Theological Wordbook דְּרוֹר
דְּרוֹר (dĕrôr). n. freedom, liberty.
TRANS - But there is another whole testament. From the OT to the NT what other ways does the Bible say freedom?
New Testament
New Testament
To be set free is a word you may recognize:
Lexham Theological Wordbook ἀπολύω
ἀπολύω (apolyō). vb. to set free, to divorce, to send away.
We like that word. How about the freedom or power to make our own choices:
Lexham Theological Wordbook ἐξουσία
ἐξουσία (exousia). n. power, authority, freedom of choice
I particularly like the word for liberation:
Lexham Theological Wordbook ἐλεύθερος
ἐλεύθερος (eleutheros). n. freedom or liberation.
The Bible has a high frequency of different words that all have a sense of freedom and setting free.
The word apostello, sounds familiar.
It should, its the idea of the Father sending Jesus to do His will:
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, because I came from God and I am here. For I didn’t come on my own, but he sent me.
Its used in another instance by Jesus when He sends the disciples:
As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.
Luke ties a whole bunch of these OT & NT words together, where he quotes Isaiah 58:6 to tell us that Jesus came to proclaim the “sending out” or “freeing” of captives:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me
to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free the oppressed,
TRANS - I summarized freedom, told you a freedom story, and just now noted freedom as a constant theme all through the Bible.
Let’s bring this to a close.
Conclusion
Conclusion
The Bible is focused on freedom because freedom from sin and death was always God’s plan.
Freedom is why the Father sent His Son Jesus.
The big idea of this sermon is that:
The theme of freedom is both OT and NT Christology.
But bigger than this message is the truth that Jesus came, sent by God, to set people free from their sin.
Today is Independence Day.
As a nation we celebrate that we our not governed by a monarchy, buy another country, nation, or ruler.
As a church we celebrate every Lord’s Day that we are not under the power of the evil one.
I hope you will take a moment to thank God for the freedom we have in this country.
More importantly, I hope you will thank God for the freedom He gives His children.
I do have to ask this question, “Are you free?”
That is, “Have you ever asked God to free you?”
I mean, have you asked Jesus to save you from being a slave to wrong choices and to give you freedom over sin?
Do you know for a fact that you are saved?
In a moment I’m going to ask all of us to stand and pray together.
At that time some of us may want to walk down here to the front and pray for our nation today.
We have much to be thankful for and many things we want God to do for the USA.
Those people already know Jesus.
However, maybe you don’t know Jesus and you want to know Him today.
If that sound like you, I want help you truly understand how much God loves you.
You come forward with everyone else, or even if its you alone, don’t be afraid, we’ve all done this at one point or another, and you come talk to me.
Don’t be afraid. I’ll help you.
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