Jason Yates: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free

万得福

Tomorrow is Resurrection Day. I hope that however this message finds you, you are able to rejoice in the freedom we have in Christ as we celebrate His resurrection.

You see, Jesus, the Son of God the Father, was fully God, yet destined as a man to fully accept the human condition. The moving events in the Garden of Gethsemane dramatically and poignantly revealed Christ’s human nature.

He was about to endure the ultimate sacrifice for the salvation of the world. Death, with all its brutal force and fury, stared directly at Him and the imminence of death caused Him intense sorrow and pain.

He found Himself in a moment of decision. In Jesus’ agony, He prayed to His Father, “yet not what I will, but what thou wilt.”

Jesus profoundly understood the purpose for his suffering. And Paul said it so well in Galatians chapter 5 verse 1: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free,”

Freedom. Christ did not begrudgingly go to the cross, he went purposefully – for freedom. And in doing so He set us free from the penalty and power of sin.

As Christians, we value freedom because Christ valued freedom.

And as Christians living in the United States of America, how uniquely blessed are we that our Founding Fathers understood this. They established this great new experiment so that each of us could live freely.

We live in a nation that bestows upon each human a set of unalienable rights given to us by our Creator in recognition of the dignity and worth of each human life. This worth is common to all humankind but is uniquely recognized in our nation.

And it is the recognition of the worth and dignity of each person that Paul in his letter to the Galatians gives us the paradox of freedom - that our freedom leads us to service - a service freely chosen to love God and love others.

Paul is calling out that even though we live in freedom, we don’t live for ourselves. We live as Jesus did repeating the words he said in the garden, “yet not what I will, but what thou wilt”,

Paul gives us two instructions in the freedom paradox. First, Stand firm. He’s saying to us, don’t live for yourself, but stand firm in service to God our Father. When we choose freedom in Him, we choose to stand for His ways above our ways. No one can bring light into the world except those that have the light. The light is truth, and we must stand for it.

Paul’s second instruction is maybe even harder. He says: For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

It’s tough to do. No doubt.

We live among many who are lost and without Christ, and we are seeing the corruption of our beloved institutions, threats to traditional family structure, the denial of personhood of the unborn, and attacks on our Christian beliefs. Let’s face it, it’s a hard hill to climb to love others who don’t seem that lovable.

Yes, this is tough, but this is the paradox of freedom. When we accept the wonderful gift of salvation and the freedom that comes with it, we also accept the paradox of freedom to stand strong for him and to put our faith into action, and love others.

Because Christ set us free, we are free to give ourselves back in service to His purposes - which is exactly what many of our country’s first citizens did. They used their freedom selflessly.

We hope you’ll do the same. I’d encourage you to ask the Lord in prayer how he is calling you to use your gifts to make Christ and his grace known and to stand boldly for Him so that others may see that there is something truly different about the Christian life.