Easter 38 Freedom, True of False?

[HKHaugan]

The mindset of 'looking forward' is the way of Jesus, His way and really the only way when you get right down to it. 'Looking forward' is the way of freedom as he defines it by His life, death and Resurrection. His entire mission was always one of freeing us from what the world, the flesh and the devil were doing to imprison us, look beyond the self to Him and what we could become when we let Him lead the way.

OK, so what are the world-flesh-devil's 'prison bars' that keep us from being free? Usually you would expect a diatribe against the lust, greed and pride issues that face us every day. They're very real but not basic. They point to and come from something more subtle, more ingenuous and more deceptive called sin. It's that deep lurking inner spiritual struggle that tells us we don't need anyone but ourselves, our personal ability to diagnose and handle any issue that comes before us. Sin denies spiritual reality, hides its existence in the shadows of pride and fear, refuses to see and believe in God and if such a discussion arises, works the mind and heart to avoid the issue.

Sin's influence is a mindset that says we alone determine our destiny and with common sense and good intentions we can correct any mistake as a momentary lapse of judgment. I know what's best for me and for those around me (tell me we don't feel that every day). We are our own moral judge and jury. Let the world's standards set my goals, go for them and the world is yours. Inside we know there's more to it than that but we won't admit it either to ourselves or others. To do so would concede failure, lack of control and even fear. No, no—no!

Everyone knows and experiences what to them is good and evil. Unfortunately, when it is left to us to determine what good and evil are that's when we are in trouble, real trouble. That's when we become aware that our mistakes are really ours and we can't do anything about them. We can't take them back and redo them. Sin denies there is such a thing as sin. Sin is a denial of morality which it defines as simply a convenient way to get along with others and can change at the whim of any local culture. In fact if I just suspend the idea of belief, faith and trust in some higher unseen authority as important then I have dealt with everything that impedes my being fully human the way I know is best for me. I am my own inner and outer resource. Moral anarchy is sin's goal.

Sin's anxiety antennae are always alert and ready to rationalize any and all thought and behavior. We are consumed with 'getting it right' wherever we are and with whom ever we are involved with. It's all about me, me first, what's best for me. When what's best for me happens, 'well,' that will also be best for everybody else around me. If they don't agree with me, 'well,' just write them off. 'Well,' I'm always right anyway. Self-excuse is the 'well' sin drinks from, the momentary pause that takes a breath for self-justification.

Sin is the heart's prison until the risen Jesus frees us from its power and we begin the process of bending its cell bars and walking out into His freedom, that freedom for which He came to set us free.

Paul nails it when he faces this inner condition which he knows right away is an unseen, spiritual malady. “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death (Rom.7:15-24)?”

When I truly look in the mirror of that statement and say, 'That's me alright!' then and only then can I begin to know that freedom is not what the 'world' promises but the slavery with which it shackles me. Freedom is not doing whatever I want anytime anywhere. Nor is it following 'my bliss,' chasing my dream person or profession and finally being able to say at the end of my life, 'I got it all.' That's the ultimate slavery, the opposite of true freedom, the slavery to self and the fear that motivates it. The end is to find one's self all alone never having fulfilled freedom's real purpose nor found its real meaning and significance. The worst possible ending for one's life is to not have a spiritual, personal and relational identity and know it.

Paul discovered this new freedom. It was not about the Law but the Spirit behind it. It was letting every next moment be in the control of the Holy Spirit. This is what Paul asks when he poses the question, “Who will rescue me from this body of death (Rom.7:24)?” In Christ we always know everything begins and ends in Him. He says it plainly, “I am the Alpha and the Omega (Rev.22:13).”

Paul continues his statement of self awareness and rescue in Romans by saying, “Thanks be to God---through Jesus Christ our Lord!” His foundation as a person had been shaken to the core. His carefully constructed sinful legalism was shattered when he discovered his humanity was infected, spiritually infected, with sin, the inner dis-ease that made him aware of his hate rather than the love for which he was created. He found someone who saved him from himself, Jesus the risen Messiah, the very One he was attacking in his persecution of Jesus' disciples. He found in Jesus he was no longer in control of himself. It was sin that dominated his every thought and action. The risen Jesus confronted him on a highway while he was on his determined mission to eliminate anyone who dared follow Jesus (Acts 9). In a face to face encounter Paul found his new freedom, freedom from self, from sin, from cultural conditioning, from man made traditions, from religion, from fear and pride, from the devil. It was freedom to look forward without being enslaved to the past. In Jesus he found His purpose and mission.

So what was Paul's 'past?' The same as ours. It's living in the expectations we place on ourselves and others and that others place on us. Are we just adjusting our daily lives to the attitudes and opinions of others or free to be what God created us to be? 99% of those expectations have no grounding in God but are built around fear of rejection, of not being successful, of what others think and that deepest of lonely needs, fear of not being right in everything we think and do. That loneliness breeds inner discontent and sets us up for the spirits of fear and pride to be the reins sin uses to keep its bit in our motivation.

This is where we have to ask ourselves the final question about God. Do we have a religion or a relationship? Do we have a system of belief about God or a personal relationship with God? Is it more about being religiously correct or relationally loving? Is it more about being in the 'right church' or letting every next moment and event be an opportunity for a conscious awareness of walking with the Lord Jesus? This is where the experience of freedom in a relationship with the Lord begins. It's a heart freedom, mind freedom and spirit freedom. When you belong to Him you are spiritually free, really free. Until then anything less is slavery to self and the physical body containing it. Ultimately true freedom is a choice between living with the attitude of Christ, looking forward, or living only for the survival of self, fearful of what others think which keeps us defensively looking backward.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal.5:1).”