Slavery. It’s not something we think about all that much. But so many people are enslaved … it’s just not funny. Freedom. From where God sits, it’s not so much being able to do what you want, it’s about being set free from the things that are holding you back.

Official figures tell us that there are around 21 million slaves on the earth today. That’s a shock isn’t it? Isn’t slavery a thing of the past? Surely? Well actually, no it’s not. And unofficial figures put it much higher at more like 100 million slaves on the earth today. It’s shocking to think of it but it’s true; there are that many people in slavery.

You might be thinking ‘Surely not.’ But the facts speak for themselves. But let me bring this even close to home. I wonder whether you would consider yourself as someone who to some extent, at least, is a person in slavery, a person in bondage.

Have a listen to this interesting exchange between Jesus and some Jews: God’s own people, men and women who consider themselves to be free. John chapter 8, verses 31-36:

Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you’ll know the truth and the truth will make you free.’

 They answered him, ‘We’re descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying you’ll be made free?’

 Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the Son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you’ll be free indeed.’ 

Perhaps you’ve heard part of that quoted before, that Jesus came to set you free. But it’s interesting how the Jews of the day, in a sense took offence at what Jesus said. “We’re not slaves”, they responded indignantly. “Sure you are”, said Jesus. “You’re slaves to sin and that, that’s what I’ve come to set you free from.” Jesus came to set us – you, me, everyone else who puts their trust in him – free from the slavery to sin that robs us not just of our lives here on this earth, but from a permanent place in the household of God.

I wonder what sin is robbing you, enslaving you, keeping you from being all that you can be, all that God made you to be. Come on, what sin has put you in the shackles of slavery? Because it’s that very sin, that very slavery that Jesus came to set you free from. Is it really worth it, the anger swirling around in your heart, the resentment, the dishonesty, the sexual sin, whatever it is in your life? Whatever your Achilles’ heel happens to be, whatever sin you’re hanging on to, is it really, really worth it?

Would you like to be set free? Because let me tell you, if Jesus sets you free, you’ll be free indeed. A few years after that, Paul the Apostle continued on with this whole metaphor, this whole discussion about slavery. So here’s a question, “Would you rather be a slave in your master’s household, or one of his children?” I mean, come on, wind the clock back to the first century when the Apostle Paul posed that question to his friends in Galatia. Galatians chapter 4, Verses 1-7:

My point is this: heirs as long as they are minors are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property. But they remain under guardian and trustees until the date set by the father.

So it is with us: while we were minors we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

OK, what’s Paul’s point? There was a time when we were acting as minors. Yeah, you know how kids are, they don’t want to listen to their parents, they think they know better. When they become teenagers they roll their eyes in the back of their head when mum or dad tells them to do something. Ha, you’ve been there? Me too. And at that point, children are no better than slaves. They remain under guardianship, under a bunch of rules and regulations. Almost like slaves in a sense. They’re not free. When you’re a child, whether at home or at school, you’re told to do something and you have to do it.

And that’s what religion is all about. It’s about following a bunch of rules that quite simply is not freedom. But then God sent Jesus to redeem us from those rules. The idea of redeeming a slave was to pay a price to his or her master to set them free, to buy them out of their slavery. In a very real sense, that’s exactly what Jesus did. That’s why he’s able to say, “If I set you free, you’ll be free indeed.”

So how many people today believe in Jesus but they aren’t living in the freedom that he purchased for them? I wonder, are you one of those? Are you still trying to follow a bunch of rules, kicking and bucking against them, wondering why you constantly fall short? Or do you wake up each morning, open your eyes and remember in your heart that you are a child of the living God because Jesus set you free?

Because that’s exactly what he did. He set you free from the rules and from your inability to keep those rules. Look, this isn’t some theory lesson; this is real. It’s about the sort of life that you’re living; it’s about how you feel each morning when you wake up. It’s about whether you look forward to the next day with a sense of anticipation or a sense of foreboding. You were made to live in freedom and Jesus came to set you free.

Now perhaps you’re kind of sitting there thinking to yourself, “Well, I don’t feel like a slave.” Sure you don’t. Let me tell you, back before I met Jesus I wouldn’t have used that term about myself: slave, child, under a bunch of rules. Those weren’t ideas that swirled around in my head. But let you tell me what did. It was a sense that I was never good enough.

No matter how well I performed, how well I did at school or at university or at work or in my career, in where I lived, in what I earned, what house I lived in, what car I drove. I always had this nagging sense that I wasn’t good enough. I was trying to live up to something, to impress someone without ever really knowing why.

Have you ever felt that? At the same time, lurking deep down inside somewhere, was the knowledge that I wasn’t good enough for God. That’s what kept me away from him all those years. Just knowing somehow that I wasn’t good enough for God. Now there are people who believe in Jesus, who are living their lives that way.

Trying to impress the world, striving so hard to impress God, to obey the rules. But that’s not the sort of life we should be living. That’s not the freedom that Jesus purchased for us on the cross. He set us free from all that. He put his Holy Spirit in us so that we can wake up every morning, remember who we are, children and heirs of the living God, set free because of Jesus.

You know, I make mistakes every day, so I get up, dust myself off, ask God’s forgiveness through Jesus, move on, and enjoy the freedom that’s mine because my dad in heaven loved me enough to send Jesus his Son to set me free. How about you?

You know sometimes I come to the realisation that really, I’m a bit spiritually thick. Spiritually, I’m something of a slow learner. Maybe that’s why God has to take me through things over and over again, so that finally, I get it, that it’s all about His grace.

A good friend will always tell you the truth. In fact, I love the saying that a friend always stabs you in the front. There are plenty of people out there who will tell you nice things to your face and then go behind your back and whisper things about you, right? You have those people in your life; I have those people in my life. But a true friend is someone who stabs you in the front, someone who tells you how things really are. We don’t always like it, none of us likes criticism, but as you read in Proverbs chapter 27, verse 17:

Just as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

I have just a handful of people who do that for me in my life. I trust them, I know they have a good heart, I know they have my interests at heart. And so when they come to me and they have something difficult to say, as much as I’m like the next person, as much as I don’t really like criticism all that much either, I sit down, I listen, I evaluate and I take to heart what they have to say to me.

That’s the sort of relationship that the Apostle Paul had with the church in Galatia back there in the first century AD. I mean, he loved those guys; he’d been there at the beginning. He’d been the one who told them about the amazing grace of God through Jesus Christ.

But it wasn’t long until some Jewish Christians came along while Paul was away elsewhere, to convince the Galatians that this whole idea of grace was a nonsense. After all, all these freedoms that Paul had taught them about leads to loose living, no, no, go back to the old Jewish law. To circumcision, to tithing, to all the things you have to do to appease God.

After all, in many respects, you look around at all the other religions in the world and they’re all about appeasing one or more Gods. So Paul writes this to them: Galatians chapter 4, verses 8-11:

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. Now however, that you’ve come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits? How can you want to be enslaved to them again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years. I’m afraid that my work for you may have been wasted.

Let me hit you right between the eyes. Is that what you’re doing? Having heard about the grace you have in Jesus Christ, have you returned back to the old ways of following a bunch of rules? Because if you have, the work of Jesus Christ on that cross for you is being wasted. Completely wasted. When you think about it, what the Apostle Paul is trying to do, is to get his friends in Galatia to wake up to the truth.

There is such power in the truth and today I want to share something incredibly important with you about the truth. The truth. You see, in this world, people often don’t want to hear the truth. The truth often is incredibly inconvenient. It cuts across vested interests. We all struggle with the truth; we all want to sweep things under the carpet. The problem is that that doesn’t solve anything. In fact, often it just makes things worse.

When you think about it, Jesus was in the business of telling the truth. He told the religious leaders about the hypocrisy in no uncertain terms. And to common, ordinary folk he spoke about the truth that is all about setting us free. Sounds odd, doesn’t it? Have a listen to the way Jesus puts it. John chapter 8, verse 33:

Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.’

A number of times, Jesus makes the point that he comes to set us free. And the place where you find that freedom is in the truth. In hearing his word, knowing his word, and taking it into our hearts as the truth.

Here’s the thing: you and I, we’re masters of self delusion. We’re all too ready to criticise others, come on, we are. But we want to cut ourselves plenty of slack, we want to make excuses for ourselves when deep down we know that what we’re thinking or saying or doing is wrong.

And when we get into that guilt trap then all of a sudden we find ourselves caught up in that whole cycle again of feeling unworthy. So we peddle harder to do better and there you have it, there you have it, you’re living a life trying to appease God by following a bunch of rules. Jesus died a gruesome death on the cross so that you and I wouldn’t have to do that. Jesus paid the price of all of our sins and mistakes. Colossians chapter 1, verses 13-14:

He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption: the forgiveness of sins. 

I receive so many emails from people around the world who watch or listen to the programs that we produce here at Christianityworks. And one of the most common things I hear over and over again is that people don’t feel that they’re forgiven. They’re not experiencing God’s forgiveness and so they can’t forgive themselves for the things that they’ve done wrong. What an incredible burden to carry around all your life. And it’s that burden that Jesus came to set you free from. That’s the truth, but the question is, “How do we actually lay hold of that freedom?”

Well, as well as the word of God, there’s the Spirit of God. Freedom is such a precious thing. I talk about it a lot because so many people are caught up in the yoke of slavery. Slavery to their old ways, slavery to their sins, slavery to the things of this world, slavery to the expectations of success, slavery to that sense that I’m just not good enough and what’s more I never will be, slavery to well, just about anything. And yes the truth is important. That’s why Jesus said that if we continue in his word, if we believe what he says, that we will know the truth and that truth will set us free.

There you have it: freedom, great. But have you ever read those words in the Bible and thought to yourself, “Well, I see the words on the page, I can read them, I can even repeat them over and over again, but somehow they’re not real for me. They’re not penetrating my heart. I want to be free, I want to believe but it’s just not happening.” Have you ever felt that? Well, you would be alone. The Apostle Paul was writing to his friends in Corinth this one time about this very thing. People, he said were getting caught up in the letter of the law but they weren’t experiencing what God was doing for them. 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 17-18:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces see the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

Where do you find freedom? In the Spirit of God, in the Holy Spirit who is given to each person who believes in Jesus. Listen up, if you believe in Jesus then the Holy Spirit dwells in you. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there, right there in you, is freedom.

Father God, I pray that your Holy Spirit would bring that freedom to life in each one of us. Lord we know the theory but we long, we hunger, we yearn to experience your freedom. Dear Holy Spirit, make that sense of freedom real in our lives. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

I’m believing with all my heart that God is about to do a mighty work in you. A work of freedom, a work of revealing to you, deep in your heart of hearts, the freedom that you have in Christ. Freedom isn’t a concept, it’s not a theory, it’s a reality. Jesus died to purchase that freedom for you. He rose again so that you can live out that freedom in your new life in him.

Freedom is a great concept. But I’m not all that much into concepts, unless they make an impact for good in my life and yours. So the thing that I want to discover is how … how can you and I actually live the life of freedom? Really!

Okay, so Jesus came to set the captives free, that’s what he said of himself. Luke chapter 4, verses 18-19:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. To let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. 

Hey, that sounds a lot like freedom to me. That’s the promise that Jesus holds out to you and to me. It’s great, but a lot of people who believe in him don’t experience that kind of freedom. So, either he was lying when he said that – I give that option a fairly low probability – or those people are doing something wrong, a much higher probability you’d have to say.

There’s a battle going on inside each one of us between living for Jesus and living for ourselves. You and I are essentially pretty selfish individuals and, if you’re anything like me, we have a propensity to go wondering off, living our lives for ourselves rather than for Jesus.

It’s almost as though we’ve been given freedom but we decide to head straight back into a prison again so compelling is this desire of ours to botch up our lives, that we need some help. Fortunately, that’s no surprise to God and it’s something that he’s already given us in the form of the Holy Spirit. Galatians chapter 5, verses 16-17:

Live by the Spirit I say and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to prevent you from doing what you want. 

There’s the battle between what the Holy Spirit would do in our lives and what we would do of our own accord. And here’s what I’ve discovered: the things that I want to do end up robbing me of the freedom that Jesus wants to give, the freedom in fact that he’s already given me. And let’s face it, those things by and large, are not good things. Galatians chapter 5, verses 19 and 21:

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissentions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I’m warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Not a very salubrious list is it? I mean come on, God only tells us not to do the things that are going to hurt us. The things that are going to rob us of the freedom that Christ came to bring us. Listen to the Holy Spirit and he’ll keep you away from those things. He just will.

Do you know what I’ve noticed? The more I make a point of spending some quiet time with Jesus each and every day, the easier it is to avoid sin.

Most days, first thing in the morning – I’m a morning person you see, I always have been – I just spend a quiet half an hour or so with the door of my study closed and my Bible open. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. Now, often there are things on my mind: stresses, pressures, this isn’t going quite the way I’d like, there’s a struggle in a relationship over there, whatever.

It can get you down can’t it? The burden, the load, the pressure, and when you’re carrying that sort of stuff around you start behaving badly. You do, you get cranky, you get agitated, resentful. There’s bitterness in your heart perhaps. And man, on those days the devil is going to have an absolute field day with you.

But somehow in that quiet time with Jesus, he stills my heart. Invariably I end up walking away and starting my day with an incredible peace with this joy in my heart. And it’s much, much harder for the devil to attack me and to tempt me. Have you experienced that too? You see I think that what’s going on there is that the Holy Spirit is doing his work in us. Lifting God’s word off the page, etching it into our hearts so that it becomes part of who we are. And that, that bears fruit in your life as opposed to the rubbish that you and I are prone to carry on with. Paul goes on in Galatians chapter 5, verses 22-25 by contrast he says:

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. There is no law against such things and those belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

That fruit of God’s goodness just naturally grows out of those times with the Lord each day. I think, I think that’s what it is to walk in the Spirit. Look, I’ve tried doing it the other way, just racing off and doing it all by myself. But each and every time the devil trips me up. Each and every time he robs me of my peace and my joy. Each and every time I end up bound up in my old sinful ways again instead of living out the freedom that Jesus died and rose again to give me.

Jesus didn’t just do the whole cross and empty tomb thing for us 2000 years ago, he also sent his Spirit to live in us to make those things real, to make the freedom real. The question you have to ask yourself is, “Why do we imagine that we can go it alone?” Why do we rush into our day and try to do things in our own strength when we know, I mean, we know 100% that we’re going to fall flat on our faces. That the devil is going to attack us from every direction because he knows that our flesh is weak. Why do we do that? I don’t know but we do. People do it over and over again and then they wonder why they’re not experiencing the freedom that Jesus promised.

Think of it like this: you have electrical power running to your house. The Government or the electricity company have gone to a lot of trouble to string the power cables, to put up the generation plant, to supply the power to your house. But when you come home at night and it’s dark, you don’t switch the lights on. You bump into walls and doors, you complain about the darkness, it’s cold but you don’t switch the heater on. You complain about the fact that not only is it dark but it’s cold as well.

Okay, I get it, it’s a bit of a crazy example, but that’s my point. Because that’s exactly what so many people do. They believe in Jesus. God went to a whole bunch of trouble, not to mention pain and suffering, to set us free from the darkness and to give us the power to live our lives for him today. But we don’t want to tap into that power, we don’t, as it were, switch it on. We live dark, cold lives and then we wonder why it’s not working so well. Jesus said a few things about the Holy Spirit. One of them, John chapter 16, verse 13 was:

The Spirit will guide us into all truth.

Another, Acts chapter 1, verse 8 is that:

When the Holy Spirit comes upon us, we will receive power. 

Gee, truth and power. Truth, isn’t that what Jesus said would set us free? Knowing the truth. Power, isn’t that what enables us to walk in that freedom? If this is getting under your skin just a little bit, then good. Because I know that God is calling you back to him today. Back to those quiet times each day, back to that intimate fellowship. Back to that place where He will fill you with his truth and his power. That’s how to lay hold of the freedom, that’s it.

There are so many things that will rob us of our freedom. And right up there, at the top of the list, is our enemy the devil. Because he knows that if he can make your freedom evaporate, chances are, he can drag you away from Jesus.

This probably isn’t going to be any shock to you, but your enemy the devil does not want you to be experiencing the freedom that Jesus came to bring you. Now, let’s not get confused about this; he’s happy for you know about that freedom in a vague sort of way. He’s even happy for you to see other people living in God’s freedom. That’s not a bad thing from his perspective. But he definitely, definitely does not want you experiencing God’s freedom.

Because, you see, here’s the thing: if freedom, God’s freedom is something out there, something that’s a great theory, something that preachers preach about, something that a handful of super Christians out there can maybe have, but something that is quite simply completely and utterly unattainable for you, then he knows he has you.

And let me tell you, there are a lot of so called Christians in that very boat. They know about freedom, they’ve seen others apparently living in freedom but it just doesn’t seem as though it’s ever going to happen in their lives. 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 8:

Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around looking for someone to devour.  

It’s a powerful picture isn’t it? And deliberately so. In the book of Job we’re told in Job chapter 1, verse 7 that:

The Lord said to Satan, ‘Where have you come from?’ And Satan answered the Lord ‘From going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down in it.’

So there he is, prowling around, walking up and down, just waiting to attack someone who is weak in their faith. Someone who doubts the promises of God, someone who’s come to the conclusion that the freedom they’ve heard about probably isn’t for them, it’s just never going to happen. Just like the lions in the wild, he’ll pick on the weakest victim and take them down to devour them. But, and this is a bit but, this is what God says about that. 1 John chapter 3, verse 8:

The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.

So when you feel powerless, when you feel weak, when you feel as though the devil is on your case, man, have I got some good news for you today? This Jesus in whom you believe is right there next to you, in fact in you, to destroy the works of the devil on your behalf. In your weakness, in your doubt, in your failings, all you need to do is to turn to him, to ask him, to look at him and he will, he will send the devil packing. He will breathe his freedom into your heart by his Spirit. He will stand for you, he will protect you. It’s just what Jesus does.

I have some good news for you today. You need never, ever, ever be afraid of the devil. To be sure though there’s a battle going on in the spiritual realm for your soul. Jesus came to save you and the devil wants to snatch that gift of eternal life, that gift of grace, that gift of freedom right out of your hands. And it’s absolutely true, there is a battle going on. This is how Jesus puts it: John chapter 10, verse 10 he says:

The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly. 

Someone asked me once, “What does it mean to have an abundant life?” Well, let me first say that the word Jesus used there literally means super abundant, it’s just that we don’t have an English equivalent for that. Suffice to say, it’s a really strong word, it’s a word that’s really over the top. So the question should be, “What does it mean to have a super abundant life?” It’s a life of freedom. If you read the rest of the parable in that chapter, Jesus talks about his sheep being able to come in and go out in safety, in protection, in freedom. John chapter 10, verse 9:

I am the gate; whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.

See that’s a great picture. It’s a picture of that abundant life. It’s a picture of freedom and safety to come in and to go out and to find pasture. But this battle Jesus is talking about in-between the thief and the true shepherd, it isn’t a battle of two equal and opposite forces, one of evil, one of good, don’t for one moment imagine that. Jesus goes on to make the point. He’s not some hired hand who runs away at the first sign of trouble. No, John chapter 10, verse 11 he says:

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.  

And so he did. He died and rose again to set you free. We go looking for freedom in all sorts of different places. Sometimes we let the devil lead us by the nose, being tempered into this or that. Sin always tarts itself up to look good, otherwise it wouldn’t be tempting. But Jesus, Jesus is the true shepherd and his sheep know his voice. I’m certain you can hear him speak as I share his words with you today.

And because he is the good shepherd, because he laid down his life for you, because he was raised again to give you a new life, you need never, ever fear the devil. Your freedom is secure. That’s the good news.

Maybe that’s still a bit difficult for you to believe. Now, let’s think about it this way. Let’s imagine that God loves you every bit as much as he tells you. After all, the evidence for that is pretty strong. John chapter 3, verse 16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

If that’s true, do you think he’d allow the devil to rob you of the freedom that Jesus purchased for you on that cross? Do you image for one moment that God would allow that incredible act of sacrificial love to go to waste? There are people who believe in Jesus with all their hearts and yet they’re afraid that something they’ve done or something they might do one day will rob them of their freedom.

Come on, you hadn’t found yourself wondering at some point, “I wonder if I’m in, or not. You know, I wonder if God’s forgiven me, I wonder if when I finally stand before him I’ll pass the judgement.” And can I tell you, the devil loves that. Because if he can get a toehold in your mind, he’ll work away to undermine your faith. And truly that’s why I believe God has brought us together today. Because he’s not going to allow that to happen.

Jesus said that if you continue in my word you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. So let’s do a bit of continuing, a bit of knowing, to set you free from any doubt. Romans chapter 8, verses 31-39:

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did even withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?

Who will bring any charge against God’s elected? It is God who justifies. Who is going to condemn? It is Christ Jesus who died, yes who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor anything present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything, in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Hey, that is powerful stuff isn’t it? Nothing whatsoever can separate you from the love of God in Christ. That means your freedom, your salvation, are absolutely secure.

Freedom, which is what we’ve been chatting about over these last couple of weeks, is a great concept. But it’s more than just a concept. God’s freedom is meant to make a real difference in your life.

It’s amazing, just over my lifetime, how many changes have taken place as oppressive regimes have fallen. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the Soviet Union came apart in 1991, Apartheid ended in South Africa in 1994. Of course there are still plenty of oppressive regimes around the world. There are still more than enough conflicts and wars but there has been a lot of change, even in my short lifetime. And hopefully, we’ll see a lot more.

The good change happens when countries move from oppression towards freedom. When instead of looking after a privileged few through oppressive power structures, governments and leaders start to look after their people.

The bottom line is that you and I were created to be free, to be equal, to be able to live out who we’ve been made to be. Of course, within the rule of law but then without that, there can be no real freedom. And yet as individuals we all too often squander that freedom. We all too often throw it away through our own tyranny, our own selfishness, our own tendency to want to look after ourselves at the cost of everyone else.

The Apostle Paul makes an interesting, almost blindingly glimpsingly obvious point about freedom. Galatians chapter 5, verse 1, he says:

For freedom, Christ has set you free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

 In other words, wake up. Get a revelation; this isn’t just talk, this thing about freedom. There’s a point. God actually wants you to be free. Jesus put it slightly differently in John chapter 8, verse 36, he says:

So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

I love that, free indeed. Really, truly free from the slavery of sin. This is every bit as amazing as the Berlin Wall coming down, as the Soviet Union and communism coming to an end, as Apartheid coming to an end. Even more so, because this freedom is available to every last human being on planet earth.

You can be a prisoner in a dungeon on death row, as in fact the Apostle Paul was when he wrote many of the books of the New Testament, and still be free indeed. You can be in the middle of the worse imaginable circumstances of your life and yet, in Christ still be free indeed.

This is not just a theory lesson. It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. He means for you to be free, free indeed, free from the sin that has ravaged your life. Free from the shackles of bondage. And given the price he was prepared to pay for your freedom with all my heart, I believe that he doesn’t want you to settle for anything less in your life than being free indeed. But exactly what does that look like?

The freedom that Jesus purchased for you and me on that cross is something that we can never earn for ourselves. Now many Christians know that in their heads but only a few live out that truth in their hearts. I want to come back for a moment to one of my favourite verses about freedom in the Bible: Galatians chapter 5, verse 6:

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. The only thing that counts is faith working through love.

In other words, no other rules in the old rule book, in this case the rule of circumcision, count for anything. The only thing that counts in the kingdom of God is your faith working through love.

Now there’s a powerful truth here about actually living out the freedom that we have in Jesus Christ. There is an incredibly powerful truth here about how to lay hold of this freedom, how to experience this freedom first hand in our lives.

The first part is faith. Now, I’m a simple guy and you know what, God’s word says that Jesus died for me and because of that I am set free from my sin and because of that I have the gift of eternal life. I’m going to believe in Jesus for my salvation. I am going to believe in Jesus for my freedom. And I am going to believe, just as the Bible tells me to, that these are the free gift from God through the sacrifice of Jesus full stop, end of story, I believe. How about you?

But then, then God wants us to put that faith to work in love. And the sort of love he’s talking about here is sacrificial, unconditional love. The very sort of love that Jesus showed towards you and me on that cross, agape love.

Look, without work and exercise, your muscles are going to waste away. If you sit there on the couch, you’ll just become weaker and weaker. And without works faith is dead unless we take our faith out for a walk. Unless we exercise our faith in sacrificial, unconditional love, it becomes empty, hollow, dead. I think you know what I’m talking about here.

What does freedom look like? How do we lay hold of God’s freedom? By having faith in what God says and by living out that faith day by day, by showing the same unconditional, sacrificial love that Jesus showed towards us on that cross. It’s by living that sort of a life that you experience freedom. A sense of freedom that we’re all so desperately looking for comes when we surrender our lives to God, believing in him, trusting in him and working out that faith by loving others in him.

Rules? Nah, the only thing that counts is faith working through love. And when we live like that, other people’s failings and weaknesses will no longer rob us of our freedom.

All too often we set out at the beginning of a day with all good intentions of living in God’s joy and God’s peace, living in the freedom that Jesus came to give us. After all, as the Apostle Paul writes, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. That’s why God sent Jesus to give us that freedom. But then it’s almost as though the devil deliberately wants to rob you of your sense of freedom.

Someone comes along and argues with you, to fight with you, to be angry with you, to stab you in the back, right? And it’s like in an instant your sense of freedom, your peace, your joy, they just disappear. In an instant you go from living in victory to being a victim. Freedom, great, what happened to that? But God had an answer to that. He has a solution for that because He doesn’t want anyone or anything robbing you of your freedom. Again, the Apostle Paul, Galatians chapter 6, verses 1 and 9:

My friends if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time if we don’t give up.

Did you catch that? Instead of adopting a victim mentality, instead of going on the back foot, get out there on the front foot by exercising your faith through unconditional love. Look, when they came to arrest Jesus, when they tried him, beat him, spat on him. When they nailed him to a cross, not at any point in that process did he adopt a victim mentality. He knew what he was about; he knew what he was called to, to save us through sacrificial, unconditional love. In fact, at one point he even said in John chapter 10, verse 18:

No-one takes my life from me but I lay it down of my own accord. You see I have the power to lay it down and I have the power to take it up again. I have received this command from my father. 

There is freedom of choice; there is faith working through sacrificial love. So when people come against you, don’t throw in the towel, don’t become the victim, don’t grow weary in doing what is right, don’t let them rob you of your victory and your peace, your joy and your freedom. Don’t grow weary of doing what is right. Love them, create them, admonish them, sure, but do it in love.

Whenever you have the opportunity, show unconditional, sacrificial love. Will it hurt some days? Absolutely, going to the cross always hurts but you will reap that harvest at harvest time. That’s freedom.