A couple weeks ago I spoke at a church in a little village outside of Nakuru, Kenya about freedom from sin. I think the message is so relavent that I wanted to share it with everyone back home as well. Below are my message notes. I hope this can be a blessing to you.
So we’ll start at the beginning before we knew Christ. Because of our human nature, we are all sinners and in John 8:34 Jesus tells us that everyone who commits a sin is a slave to sin. And 2 Peter 2:19 says that if anything has power over us, we are a slave to it. Before Christ came into our lives, we were held in bondage to sin.
But then the Good News! If we continue reading from John 8:34-36 we can see God’s response. Jesus, The Son, has completely freed us from all of our sin.
Now if we turn to Galatians, we get instruction for what to do with this freedom. Please read Galatians 5:1.Jesus Christ lived, died, and was resurrected in order so that we might be free. So why would we take on a yoke of slavery? Skip down to Galatians 5:13. Christ does not give us freedom so we can live selfishly because that would just be slavery to our passions. But he allows us to live in the way of heaven, which is love. 1 Peter 2:16 reinforces this message. Don’t use your freedom to cover up evil, but in your freedom be a servant to Christ who has set you free.
So, we were once slaves to sin, but when we trusted in Jesus as our Savior, he set us free. But if we choose to continue walking in sin, we are enslaving ourselves to it once again. I’d like to make this a little clearer with a mental image. Imagine that you are in a prison. It is dark and cold. You’ve been trapped there your entire life, there is no way out, and you feel completely hopeless. Then Jesus comes along and breaks down the door! Light streams in to the prison and you can feel some of the warmth coming in from outside. You look out the door and you see a beautiful wide open field. You have a choice. You can remain in the prison things are comfortable or you can walk through the open door into freedom.
We have freedom to run out of the prison into marvelous light!!! But we've been trapped in the cages of sin and death for so long. The world outside is so big and free that it can be terrifying. We don't really know what is out there, so we step back into our prison cells and we give ourselves over to sin once again. There may be sins that are hard or even scary to give up, but in Christ we are no longer tied to them. The Son has set us free. The door is open, Jesus set us free. So know this: sometimes even after we accept Christ, certain sins can take hold of us that seem so powerful and enslaving: sins of the mind like greedy, selfish, or self-centered thinking, envy, and judgment or sins of idolatry where we are turning to something other than God to find our comfort, joy, or hope . We can feel trapped in the sin. We can feel hopeless, like there is no way for us to overcome it. So we give in to it, accepting that in our human nature we will always have sin in our lives. Let me repeat, brothers and sisters, that you are free. Christ set you free. You may be in a prison of sin, but the door is open and if you follow Jesus, you can find your way out it.
Now let me make it clear that you are covered in grace. Jesus paid for all your sins, past, present, future. So we do not need to be afraid of these sins keeping us from salvation. We are covered in unending grace. While these sins don't affect our salvation which is sealed by the Holy Spirit, they do keep us from living the life that God intends for us. It is really for our benefit that we turn away from these sins because they are enslaving us.
Please read Galatians 4:8-10. Do not be burdened by a life of slavery when you are free! God does not want us to hide in our prisons of death! He doesn't want us to return to sin because He has something better for us out in that open field, out in the light. Something SO much better. He has a beautiful path laid out for us that he wants us to walk in. He wants us to trust Him and take His hand as we step out of the prison. He knows that it can be hard to do, but once we leave our prisons of sin, we will experience life, joy, peace, and freedom. So how do we take that step out of the prison of sin? We must depend on Jesus to not just break down the door for us, but to take our hands, pull us up, and lead us out. We must continually rely on Jesus for our strength. How do we do this?
Well first, we need to repent for our sins. Repentance means that we agree with God that what we are doing is wrong, we are apologizing for not following His will for us, and we are asking Him to help us change. Then call on the Lord for freedom. Pray and cry out to Him because He wants to lift you out of this bondage. Please read Psalm 118:5.
Not only do we need to pray, but we need to read the Word. Romans 12:2 instructs us to be transformed through the renewing of our minds. We renew our minds by filling them with God’s Truth Meditate on it. Fill your hearts and minds with Scripture. Jesus used Scripture to combat temptations from Satan and He instructed His disciples to abide in the Word. The Bible contains powerful words of Truth. Psalm 119:11 says that if we store God’s Word in our minds that we will not sin. The Bible is a powerful Book!
God didn’t just leave us with His Word, but He left us with each other who have His Spirit inside of us. God instructs us to fellowship with one another and to build each other up in faith. James 5:16 instructs us to confess our sins to one another so that we can pray for each other. Because of our unity in Christ, we can share our struggles with a fellow brother or sister and they can join with us to keep us accountable and to fight for us in prayer. I think often we like to hide our sin from others. We want to appear like we are perfect, strong Christians because that’s how we view others. We are afraid of judgment. But 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us that no temptation has overcome us that is not common to man. Chances are that if you open up, you will find out that others struggle with a similar sin. So I encourage you to be vulnerable with one another.
We are no longer slaves, but sons and daughters of God. Please read Galatians 4:7.Our status as children of God should impact us in a radical way. Think about it. You are royalty. God is the Holy King of Kings and you are His child. Is your behavior reflecting that status? Are you walking in this title?
So here are a few questions I want you to ponder. I encourage you to spend some time in a quiet place praying and asking these questions:
What are you a slave to? Are you being burdened once again by slavery to sin?
Are you living a life controlled by self, sin, or the Spirit? Which master will you choose?
Finally, what are you going to walk in freedom from right now?
2 Corinthians 3:17 says "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!!! If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, then the Holy Spirit lives inside you. There is freedom for you right here, right now, wherever you are at.
There’s a song about this freedom that has recently become a favorite of mine that I would like to share with you all, so I've added it to the bottom of this page.
Freedom has been something that has been on my heart for the past couple months. If you're interested, I wrote a blog about freedom in India that you can check out here. I also wrote a blog about what God has been teaching me in Kenya and a lot of it had to do with what God did through me delivering this message. You can check out that blog here.
