Freedom…….
Yesterday I spent time reviewing a Rokeach Value Survey with a young lady. She arranged its 18 terminal values and 18 instrumental values in prioritized order and we set about exploring what her choices revealed about her understanding of herself, her desires, and her choices. It revealed some woundedness in a couple of areas in which she had allowed the opinions of others to squelch aspects of herself as a child. We discussed ways to restore those aspects in her current adult life in a way that could bring a sense of restored wholeness and joy. It was an instructional and hope-giving exercise.
One value that was prioritized highly after suffering years of spiritual, physical, emotional, educational, and financial oppression was a longing for freedom. Freedom in Christ actually entails two aspects. We are free FROM oppression, compulsion, obligation, and victimhood. But we are also free TO walk a path that is defined by personal choices, responsibility, self respect, and healthy boundaries, overcoming the burdens borne in oppression. We get to define freedom by the values and lifestyle we choose to embrace and not just by what we have thrown off or cast aside.
Hebrews 12:1 (NASB)
“Therefore, since we also have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let’s rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with endurance the race that is set before us.”
In Luke 11:24-26 Jesus has just cast out a demon from a mute man who begins to speak. The Pharisees question him and say he has done this in the name of Beelzebul and demand a sign of his authority. Jesus uses their own logic to tie their hands:
17 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them: “Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. 18 If Satanbis divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebul. 19 Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. (the demons themselves)20 But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
21 “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe.22 But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up his plunder. (In whom or what is one’s trust and protection fully vested??)
23 “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
24 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25 When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26 Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”
I have viewed this as being like a relapse that occurs because, while one has allowed his soul to be emptied and made clean, he has failed to secure it by filling his soul with something more substantial, true, trustworthy, virtuous, and eternal….. the character, strength, and person of Christ.
Then Jesus, after an interruption, continues:
27 As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.”
28 He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”
Hearing the good news of Christ provides the promise and hope that he is with us and for us.
29 As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.30 For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation. 31 The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the people of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom; and now something greater than Solomon is here. 32 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and now something greater than Jonah is here.”
Jesus condemns the mere listening and hoping in his presence. We must obey God’s Word and move forward in the freedom and hope hearing offers. He goes further and says that two witnesses are standing ready to condemn those who were merely hearers of the word. He condemns the wickedness of those who seek wisdom without embracing and living it and those who hear the Word of God but fail to repent and embrace righteousness after doing so.
Freedom from our past, from our demons, from our bondage entails both casting off the constraints of the enslaver ( hear, repent, and cast off ), which leaves our souls empty and swept clean. But it also demands that we take hold of the course set before us and run with endurance, persevering as we embrace the strength of Christ who shares in it and abides in us.
If one only casts off chains and does not begin to live into the freedom to become Christ’s new creation, the enemy returns again…… and again, until all our strength is gone, our defenses demolished, our own foolish understanding revealed as worthless, and we stand naked, defeated by our own lack of wisdom in looking behind us instead of running forward according to the path offered by God.
Just as Lot’s wife did in looking behind while fleeing Sodom and Gomorrah, whether longingly or wistfully or with desire to see God’s wrath upon one’s enemies. Or as Lot himself and his daughters did in choosing an easier, quicker path to safety in the plains town of Zoar defined by Lot’s own preferred choice instead of obedience to God’s messengers to flee to the mountains. Then Lot and his daughters had to flee from Zoar and continue to the mountains where they had first been told to go. The daughters looked to the ways of the world for their provision and protection and deceived their father…..
Things just don’t get any better for us, no matter how we want to flee trouble, if we keep making wrong decisions out of disobedience to the Word of God.
The whole of the Gospel is this…. we can be saved from the bondage that enslaves us. We can be given new life. That is the justifying grace of the Savior for us, the first half of the Gospel. But we must also embrace the sanctifying grace of God’s Word to fill and reform our liberated souls, the second half of the Gospel, or we will forever be fleeing the torment of the past enslaver or will be destroyed by our unwillingness to live into our freedom to obey by taking the path offered.