There is a lot of talk and honestly, a lot of confusion around the word “freedom” today. Freedom is a word that the New Testament speaks of fairly often, so it seems like a good place to start this study is with Jesus. The first passage we are going to look at is an excerpt from a longer conversation Jesus had with certain Jewish leaders. They seemed to feel that they were already free, they also had come to believe that they had never been enslaved, largely it seems, because of their heritage. They already considered themselves to be a part of the elect of Israel since they were “sons” of Abraham. But Jesus saw the situation quite differently.

Jesus answered them,

Jesus was unconcerned with politics and physical heritage as he spoke of freedom, the freedom he was talking about was freedom from the tyranny and slavery of sin. Those who sin are slaves - slaves are not sons - but the true Son can set you free. And if the Son sets you free you will be truly free. The freedom Jesus spoke of existed both in this life and eternally. He was discussing a freedom from their own evil desires and the bondage that comes from living as slaves to these desires.

He was also hinting very strongly in this passage that freedom from sin changes a persons status from slave to son, and so makes that person an eternal heir and a true member of God’s family. A slave in that culture was not a member of the family only sons are heirs.

Our freedom then is a freedom from our sinful desires where our actions are not dictated by the relentless desires of our lower nature. True freedom is escaping all of that, and being free to live as “sons” in Christ.

If such frequent use of the word “sons” is jarring to you, relax. The New Testament was not written to sooth modern sensibilities it was written to address the audience of its day. We are all sons in Christ because he is The Son. We all share in His status in the family and we are now all heirs with him. In the ancient world daughters were not the heirs, sons were. Son was a status in the family not just a description of biological sex. We are now all heirs in Christ we are all sons in Christ. And we are all, whether male or female, the “bride of Christ”. So females are sons and males are brides don’t get triggered, but understand why these terms were used.

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord,

This passage is from Paul who is reminding his readers not to be, once again, taken captive and enslaved. But here the slavery is a more specific form of slavery than the sin that Jesus broadly described in our first passage. The slavery Paul warns of is submitting to philosophy and lies, serving ideas based on human tradition and the so called “elemental spirits of the world”. These are all things that flow, not from Christ, or His Spirit, but from the world and its “zeitgeist” for lack of a better word.

The question for modern students of Paul’s words must be, what is the current spirit of the age? What philosophies, lies, and human traditions are trying to enslave us now? What ideas are simply not of Christ? This last question is where things get very odd in our current world.

Today even Jesus is often re-imagined and re-created to fit whatever odd idea is in vogue at the moment. One of the things that I think describe the current spirit of the world as well as any is the obsession to redefine, re-imagine, and re-identify everything until nothing has any meaning at all. Ironically even the word nothing has been redefined such that scientists can make the claim that everything came from nothing, although by nothing they mean a quantum vacuum which in fact is not - nothing. So here we sit in a world where each person is imprisoned in a jail of their own definitions unable to even talk to our neighbors because they are locked in prisons of their own.

Every person while seeking personal freedom is enslaving themselves in the prison of their own desires and isolating themselves from every other person on earth. The desire for personal “freedom” has in fact created a self-imposed solitary confinement.

These self-centered desires for freedom are the essence of the sin Jesus was describing in the first passage. Ironically, in trying to find a freedom of our own we lose the very thing that we seek. We can’t set ourselves free, when we try all we find is anarchy and violence. The book of Judges ends with the phrase, “and every man did what was right in his own eyes”. The next thing you see in the history of Israel is a nation begging for a king, the anarchy and violence had become too much. When they were told that a human monarchy would lead to oppression they cried, “we don’t care! give us a king!”.

Ever since the garden of Eden the devil has been trying to convince us that what we want and don’t have is more desirable than what God has provided for us. We need to reject this urge and turn back to God. And Jesus is the way that God has provided for our return. The road to freedom is Jesus. He is the way, He is the truth that frees us from the lies of the current spirit of the age. And He is the life we seek to create but so often fail to embrace.

For you were called to freedom, brothers.

This week let’s encourage each other to walk in the freedom that only Jesus can give. It’s also the Lenten season, so instead of giving up sugar or something, let’s give up our selfish desires and take the opportunities God gives us to help and to bless those around us. As we forget about our own self-serving freedoms may we all find true freedom in giving ourselves for each other. Because when we walk that self-sacrificial road of the cross we will find we are not walking alone but with Jesus and with everyone else that follows Him. And we will at last be truly free.

Have a Great Week!