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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Freedom
Has Boundaries Inherent
within us is the deep-seated yearning to be free from all restrictions.
Many of you will recall the youth movement of the 1960's where
young people escaped what they believed to be the tyranny of cultural
constraints. The summer of
1967, for example, was called the Summer of Love.
Sex with whoever and whenever was free from the constraint of
commitment. The Monkees 1966
hit song, "I Wanna Be Free," said it this way.
"I
wanna hold your hand Walk
along the sand Laughing
in the sun Always
having fun Doing
all those things Without
any strings to tie me down I
wanna be free" Biblically
speaking, the concept of individual freedom originated with God, not
with the Monkees or anyone else. Genesis
2:16 and 17 read: "And the LORD
God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;
but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
for when you eat from it you will certainly die.'" One of the first words
God spoke to man were, "You are free," but as the text states,
free within certain boundaries. Desiring
a life of liberation, man chose to step beyond the borders of freedom,
only to find himself enslaved by the consequence of his choice.
Jesus spoke of His brand
of freedom in John 8:36.
"If
the Son sets you free, you really will be free" In context, Jesus
defined freedom in terms of being free from the enslavement of sin.
Once free from sin, Paul said that we are free to serve.
Galatians 5:13 reads: "You, my brothers
and sisters, were called to be free. But
do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another
humbly in love." Today's cultural fight
for freedom has no relevance to Biblical freedom.
Whether it's the social/political right or the left, the end goal
of both sides is to be free to dictate their will. Biblically
speaking, that ends in deadly disaster. Man's
choice to be free, as recorded in Genesis 3, resulted in the death of
Abel, as recorded in Genesis 4. If
you choose to step beyond the boundaries of freedom, you will become
enslaved by the consequence of your choice.
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