Slaves
of Freedom
Luke 4:18
"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,
There is much to be learned
just here in this verse alone not to mention the verses leading up to it and
just after it, we could literally be here all day, but what I want us to focus
on today primarily is just one word freedom and not just the word itself
but what Jesus meant by his use of that word and what type of freedom He offers
us here today.
This is a powerful event Luke
has recorded.
If we look further down in
verse 23 of this same chapter we can read that Jesus had already been in Capernaum
A portion of that verse
states- 'Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.'"
So we can see that Jesus had
already created quite a reputation healing and teaching even though in the text
it would appear as though he had just emerged from his forty days in the
desert.
So it looks like Luke placed
this account here not because of any chronological order but possibly because
it made a perfect kind of title to place here at the start of Jesus’ ministry
because it encapsulates what His ministry
would be about.
This was likely a synagogue
that Jesus frequented as a boy and young adult growing up in Nazareth. At this time in synagogues like this one they would
often invite visiting Rabbi’s to teach but this wasn’t just any Rabbi, this was
a well known hometown boy returning to His local church.
Nazareth at this time is thought to have had a population no
larger than two thousand people and being the son of a carpenter and then being
a carpenter himself Jesus no doubt was well known by many here long before his
ministry began.
Jesus opens the scroll to
this portion of Isaiah that we now understand to prophesy of His first coming
and also His eventual return and He reads it aloud. He then takes His seat,
which was customary for a teacher to do before teaching or expounding on the
text read. He goes on to tell these folks that He’d known all his life, in no
uncertain terms, that He was the Messiah that the prophet Isaiah was speaking
of.
But as I said our focus here
today has to do with this proclamation of “freedom for the captives”
that was prophesied by Isaiah and begins with the coming of Christ into the
world and no doubt continues still today.
So to begin to understand
this proclamation we should ask ourselves “What is freedom” and who are the
“Captives” Christ spoke about?
Well I believe if you were to
ask a Jew at this time in history it’s reasonable to assume that they would
tell you this portion of scripture meant the very real physical release of the
Jewish people from Roman oppression by a conquering Messiah leading an
Israelite army. We here today however know that’s not the case.
Many in this area of ancient Palestine that would be freed and saved by Jesus were “Captive”
to the oppression of the warped use of the law and the lies being hoisted upon
them by the Pharisees, but what does this proclamation mean for us here
today?
What is freedom? As modern
Americans living in an ever growing secularized culture we are again and again
told that freedom is the ability to do whatever we want, however we
want to do it, with whom ever we want, wherever we choose.
We will work where we want, be friends with whom we
want, dress how we want, talk how we want, listen to what music we
want, be entertained how we want, and marry who we want.
I think if you were to walk
up to just about anyone on the street here in America today and ask them what
freedom is their answer would resemble this if not be dead on the same. But is
this real freedom, is this what God intends for us, is this the form of freedom
that Jesus came to give us?
Did Jesus come and live a
sinless life and then die the horrific death of being nailed to a tree paying
the penalty we owe for our fallen sinful nature so that we might be free from
the law to live a life of unlimited self indulgence and self exaltation? So
that we might be free to hoist high up on the ladder of priority our own
personal preferences and pleasures and follow those to our own
ends?
I would submit to you today
that when we look at real freedom, this very real and authentic freedom that
Jesus is proclaiming here in his hometown church it looks very much the
opposite of what our society tells us freedom is, and it is also often this
real freedom that even we who profess to follow Christ reject for our own
lives.
Secular society preaches to
us a steady sermon of individuality and autonomy. We hear phrases like
“Be your own person, be true
to yourself, make your own way, and do it for yourself.” The voices on the
televisions and the radios tell us we must “Find out who we are and in finding
ourselves we will somehow find happiness.”
According to our culture we
hold all our own truths, we alone decide our direction in life, and the best
thing we can do to make ourselves happy and fulfilled is to look inward.
Is it any wonder as we look
out on the current landscape of our society that we see so much depression,
suicide, drug addiction, divorce, violence, and promiscuity?
To hold ourselves to such a
high degree, to think all our answers lye in the truths we ourselves get to
create is nothing more than another delusional form of idol worship. Simply
indulging ourselves and being guided only by our own desires, pleasures, and
preferences leads to another very real form of captivity. One of the many forms
of captivity I believe Jesus comes to set us free from today.
Truth is not something we as created
beings get to create. We can recognize it, we can utilize it and we can adhere
our lives to it but we did not and we do not create it, and the truth is we are
not independent beings at all, quite the opposite we are dependent beings, and
we were created to be dependent beings and going further we were created for a
specific purpose.
So when we live as though we
are an end unto ourselves, as if all the answers and all the truth we’ll ever
need are to be found within ourselves or even found in another fallen sinful
human being, we get sick, we get lost, and we get imprisoned. When we remove God
from the picture and say we’ve been evolved by forces of chance into a being
that is totally self sustaining and completely independent we create a truly
unnatural environment for ourselves.
The idea that we are such
dependant beings is very counter cultural and something we ourselves don’t like
to here but the Word of God makes it abundantly clear.
Colossians 1:16 all things have been created through him and for
him.
Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things
hold together.
These are just a couple out of
the multitude of verses throughout the Bible that tell us that not only did God
create us but he created us for Himself and it tells us that He sustains
our very existence. The action of the atoms and molecules spinning around right
now to create a church pew of solid material for us to sit in is being
sustained through Him. Each breath we take is being given to us, willed to us
by almighty God.
We are created beings created
for a specific purpose and the Word of God tells us what that purpose is over
and over again. These are again only a couple verses out of a multitude that
tell us of our purpose throughout the Old Testament and the New.
Isaiah 43:21
The people I
formed for myself, that they may proclaim my praise.
1 Corinthians 10:31
31 So whether you eat
or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
Here in his letter to the
Corinthians Paul is talking about foods some people abstain from but that
others eat and he instructs us that whatever we may be doing we should do it to
the glory of God. We were created for God not for ourselves, we were created
for His pleasure and purposes not our own, we were created to glorify Him and
be in relationship with Him and that is the freedom Jesus offers us, freedom to
be what we were created to be and do what we were designed to do.
Paul confronts this modern
self fulfilling type of freedom our culture preaches to us earlier in this same
letter.
1 Corinthians 10:23-24
23“I
have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I
have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. 24
No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.
In seeking to do good for
others we glorify our Father.
Have you ever used a knife
for a screwdriver, or a drill for a hammer? You break the tip off the knife
ruining it or you crack the plastic casing on your cordless drill, trying to
use these tools for tasks they are not designed for turns out to be bad news
for us and the tools involved.
Would it be possible to find
an electric drill out in the woods and come to the conclusion that nature with
billions and billions of years had put that drill together? Take a look
sometime at the mechanics and processes of the human cell and you will see
something far more sophisticated and advanced than the simple rudimentary
cordless drill. We have much in common though because we and the drill were
both designed for a specific purpose. Using these specifically designed tools
for uses other than they were designed for always leads to frustration and
brokenness.
Some might here a message
like this and think we’re speaking of following a bunch of rules and denying
ourselves the things we most want to do. But it’s when we have been indwelled
by the Spirit of truth and completely placed ourselves under the joyful
authority of God that what we want to do most is what we were designed to do,
it is then that we experience real freedom.
We talk to Him, pray to Him,
have a deep continuous relationship with Him and what we want most is to be
about His purposes and His work.
When we stop looking inward
and start looking upward we begin to know and thoroughly enjoy what authentic
freedom is. We ask Him where we are to work, where we are to live, and who it
is we are to be. And we begin the struggle Paul spoke much about. We train, we
run, and we strive to abide in the real and authentic freedom the Lord has
graciously provided.
In Galatians 5:1 Paul
tells us
It is for freedom that
Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened
again by a yoke of slavery.
In John 15:5-8 Jesus gives
us a remarkable picture, He says
5“I
am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will
bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6If
you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers;
such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7If
you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will
be done for you. 8This is to my Father’s glory, that you
bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
Jesus came to this planet telling
us He only does that which the Father wills and the purpose of His coming was
to make us one with Him as He is with the Father and once we have tasted of the
joy that is given when we are being made one with the Father through Christ
Jesus we know what true freedom really is, and we begin to see that those who
the Son sets free are free indeed!