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How many of you long to be free? I think it's in us. We all dream of flying, or just not being confined. Getting my kids into a car seat, you clip it in and they immediately fight you — we don't want to be confined.
Some of the best movies are made about freedom, about someone being let go or set free. When you think of freedom in a movie, what's the first one that comes to mind? Braveheart. And yet some of the best scary movies are made when people are confined. I watched one called Buried — a man wakes up buried alive in a box, his cell phone with no signal. You can feel the panic just thinking about it. The whole movie is about how he gets out.
There's an element in all of us that wants to be free. We don't like to be confined. And I think that also applies to our spirituality. But you have to know that there is an enemy out there working the opposite way — he wants to confine us.
Thankfully, we don't have to suffer through this alone. Our fears, our anxieties, our worries — they don't have to enslave us. We don't have to be trapped. We don't have to be victims. The message today is simply: set free to live free.
Think about the word set. At the start of races we say "get set." In America they say "you're all set" — when the bill has been paid at a restaurant, they say "you're all set," meaning it's done, it's paid for, it's finished.
Jesus said the same words: "It is finished." The last words He spoke on the cross were significant. In Greek, He said tetelestai, from a word meaning "it is finished" — like finishing a race or accomplishing something. But there's something unique about tetelestai: it speaks of something done now that has an effect into the future.
"It is finished." — John 19:30
The past brings results into the future. Today we have celebrated what Jesus did for us on the cross — and we get to celebrate it into the future. Everyone baptized today will continue to celebrate it into the future.
Freedom is not just about being free from chains. It's the ability to live life fully — the life Jesus offers us. Picture yourself in chains with a padlock. Jesus comes and unlocks the padlock when He forgives us through what He did at Easter. The chains fall off. But they can still be around us, still able to trip us up.
One of the things we need to do to live free is to actually shake them off, step out, and walk free. Many of us have been set free by Jesus but are still living confined within these chains. Jesus didn't come just to forgive us — He came to free us. And we have to learn how to deal with the things that still enslave us.
In Growth Track, one of the things they talk about is settling your yesterdays — dealing with the things that trip you up, the things you need to overcome. As one author who helped develop Growth Track puts it:
This struggle is not a heaven or hell issue. The blood of Jesus is already taking care of that. This battle is a quality of life issue — a matter of how we will live out our earthly lives until we get to heaven.
A lot of people worry that the little things they do wrong will keep them out of heaven. No — if you're His, you're going. But this is about the quality of life we get to live this side of eternity. We may never have complete, full freedom here. Thank God that one day we'll be in eternity with Him, where there's no weeping, no tears, no fears. But this side, we can have a better quality of life — free from those little areas that trip us up.
It's that thing you pray about often. That New Year's resolution where you say, "I need to deal with this." It's that thing God gently puts His finger on. He doesn't wave a finger at you saying "you naughty boy" — He just gently rests His finger on something.
If we aren't intentional about those little things, even though we're set free, we can fall back — into fear, into religion, into guilt, into addiction, into comparison, into pride. Social media is a big problem when it comes to comparison. You sit down to eat your chicken nuggets, then someone posts a picture of a lamb dish and a big family naan, and suddenly your meal doesn't look so good anymore.
The enemy would love to keep you distracted, distressed, and depressed. That's his primary focus. But thank God for the Word, which is going to set us free.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery. — Galatians 5:1
From that verse, here are four simple points I'd love for you to remember.
Freedom is an absolute gift. "It is for freedom that Christ came to set us free." He came for that. It's not something we need to earn — it's a gift Jesus won at the cross for us.
So often we think we need to do something. Paul says we're not saved by our good works; we're saved for them. I've got friends too terrified to come to church because they think they'll be struck by lightning as they walk into the foyer. They feel they have to do something, be something.
Imagine if there was a clipboard at the front asking, "What did you do this week? What did you think?" Imagine your name and every thought put up on the screen next week — who would be here? None of us would qualify. It's nothing we need to do. It's a gift.
But many people are saved and still trapped in mindsets, habits, and fears because they haven't fully embraced the gift. We need to open up our arms and receive it. Many of us stand with clutched, white knuckles, not wanting to fully embrace what Jesus has for us.
You don't see unwrapped gifts left over on the 26th of December. So let me ask you: Have you accepted the gift of freedom? Or are you still living with closed hands, not opening your heart to what God wants to give you?
That may sound like a contradiction — I just said it's a gift. But this isn't fighting for the gift; it's protecting it once you have it. It's like a dog with a bone.
We have two little Yorkshire terriers, Charlie and Lacy. Lacy is ferocious with a bone — she'll hang on to it, and she'll even steal Charlie's bone and hide it because she wants both. That's how you fight for your freedom: hang on to it. Don't let the enemy take it away, because he wants to take it away.
The Scripture says "stand firm." That's an active tense. You don't stand firm by staying rigid — you have to pivot, and sometimes you even need to take a step back. When we fight for freedom, sometimes we need to go back to go forward.
You see it throughout the Bible:
We need to go back to the cross regularly. Don't let Easter become a distant memory — it's a daily thing. "Thank You, Lord, for the cross." Go back to your first love.
Even in baptism we see this. John the Baptist prepared the way by taking people back to the Jordan River, saying, "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance." Go back, because you got it wrong, so you can move forward. Years earlier Joshua took the people to that same river before the promised land and said, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things." And what happened at the river? God held back the waters so they could move forward. You see the pattern throughout the Word.
Looking back isn't always a bad thing — we get to see how far God has brought us. But remember, there's also an enemy who wants to pull you back. Don't stay in the past too long. He wants to bring back old thinking, old patterns, legalism, sin, and fear.
The image the Bible uses for this confined thinking is slavery. In Galatians it says, "Do not go back to the yoke of slavery." A yoke was placed over oxen — and over slaves — binding one to another, sometimes with a rope through the nose to pull them along if they didn't obey.
I show that image not to make it emotional, but because this is what the devil wants to do to you. This is how he wants to drag you through life, hanging on to your issues and your thinking, dragging and pulling you as a slave to sin.
The last thing a slave would want is to go back. Yet many people find a strange safety and security in their dark space — you hear of people recommitting crimes to go back to prison because they weren't transitioned well into the world. God does not want us to stay where we were. And we don't have to.
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. — 2 Corinthians 10:3–4
That word stronghold in Greek, ochuroma, comes from a castle — literally, a prisoner trapped in deception, living by a belief that is simply not true.
How many times do we live according to lies in our minds that aren't true? We speak things over ourselves, or we allow other people's words to hold us captive. How many times do we worry about things that never actually happen? First bit of turbulence on an airplane and I'm opening the Bible app, FaceTiming my wife to say goodbye.
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. — 2 Corinthians 10:5
We don't take our thoughts captive into slavery — we take them captive and make them obedient to Jesus and what He says about us. A stronghold is anything that exalts itself in our minds, pretending to be bigger or more powerful than our God. So we constantly remind ourselves of who God is.
The problem with these strongholds is that they become our identity. When we focus on our weaknesses, failures, struggles, and addictions, we reduce ourselves to a new identity. We say things like:
It's only by God's grace that any of us can do anything. When I was at school in an all-boys school, I got up to recite a poem and nothing came out. I was terrified, shaking, forgot the words. My friends were mortified. I thought, "I'm such an idiot." I have my own struggles and issues — yet here I am today preaching to you. Isn't God amazing? Not me.
We should turn those statements around and make them obedient to Christ:
At youth on Friday night I gave three R's for dealing with negative voices:
Satan loves it when we imprison ourselves. As that book puts it:
He wants us to internalize our addictions, so that lies become part of our thinking, preventing us from knowing the truth of our freedom in Christ. Soon his lies are so ingrained that we make excuses and justify giving into temptation again and again, and we get stuck in the cycle. We feel increasingly hopeless. Our lives seem like one big failure, one constant battle without a moment's peace. We become convinced there's no way out.
But there's always a way out. If the devil can distract you, he can rob you of your purpose and effectiveness. His sole purpose is to steal, kill, and destroy.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. — John 10:10
The Message puts it as "a better life than you ever dreamed of." We started asking, "Does anyone dream of flying?" This is what Jesus wants for us — a better life than we ever dreamed of. And we need the Word to help us.
Worship is powerful. When we make God bigger, it's amazing how our issues become smaller. Some of you have dealt with the most horrific things — I have no idea what you carry. But when we focus on God and make Him bigger, celebrating Him, it's amazing what happens.
One of the Hebrew words for praise is halal — where we get "hallelujah." Do you know what it means? Joyfully excited: to celebrate, to rave, to sing, to shout, to be madly in love with God.
I'm quite conservative by nature. But I've seen how excited we get at football and rugby games — when England scores a goal. God is so much more exciting than any sport. So why not be joyfully excited about Him?
There's a powerful story where Jesus is with Simon the Pharisee, who judges Him because a woman is touching Jesus' feet, worshiping Him and crying. Jesus tells a story about two people forgiven their debts — one owed 500 pieces of silver, the other 50. Who was more grateful? The one forgiven more.
Her many sins have been forgiven — as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little. — Luke 7:47
When we begin to understand what Jesus has done for us at the cross, we cannot help but worship Him. The problem sometimes is that we don't know how to worship because we don't grasp what He did. If a stranger walked up and thanked you profusely, you'd be confused — "What did I do?" Many Christians stand in worship confused about what Jesus did for them. But when we understand it, we say, "God, thank You so much. I'm so grateful."
The depth of your worship will always match the depth of your freedom. The woman at Jesus' feet knew the depth of her forgiveness. Ironically, it was Simon — self-righteous and Pharisaical — who actually needed more forgiveness.
How selfish it would be to keep freedom just for ourselves. It has always been God's heart to share.
Even at Easter, we have lamb — and Jesus is called the Lamb of God, echoing the Passover meal from thousands of years earlier. There was one rule about that lamb: there could be no leftovers. Share it with everybody. Bring your neighbors over. Don't just keep it for yourself.
And the very first thing Jesus said when He began His ministry — as the last thing He said was significant, so was the first. He stood up in the synagogue and quoted Isaiah:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. — Luke 4:18–19
Twice He speaks of freedom and proclaiming it — the word proclaim means to tell, to share. Jesus' mission wasn't just personal freedom for us; it was to proclaim freedom to others.
When we walk in freedom, we naturally start setting others free — from shame, religion, addiction, and fear. We're called to be freedom bringers, hope carriers.
Think of a lighthouse. It doesn't exist for itself; it helps others find their way to safety. There's a famous, beautiful lighthouse in Durban — but it's not just for looks. It's a working lighthouse guiding ships into the harbor. We don't become Christians just for looks — putting on nice clothes on Sunday, smiling, drinking coffee, singing songs. We are freedom bringers and hope carriers. When you walk out these doors today, bring it to your family, bring it to your city.
Freedom isn't just an idea — it's a lifestyle. It's Jesus' gift. It's our responsibility to protect it, to fight for it, to celebrate it, and to share it.
Father, thank You so much for freedom. It really is worth celebrating. We're so grateful. Let it not end as the service ends — as we go out these doors, we will continue to celebrate the freedom You've given us, and it will be contagious to the world around us. When times get difficult and we don't feel free, help us fight for it. Thank You that You're on our side, the winning side.
If you want to receive the gift of freedom today, and be set free from things, quietly say in your heart: "Lord, come and set me free. I'm done, because You said it was done. I'm done dealing with these fears, these anxieties, these worries, these struggles. I want to move forward in freedom."
And if you're here today — maybe visiting, maybe new to church — and there's something going on in your heart, you've been doing life on your own and you need to pray this prayer:
Dear Jesus, from today I commit my life fully to You. Come and set me free. Lord, I'm sorry for my past. I take responsibility. Forgive me for hurting You and hurting others. Take away the guilt, the shame, the brokenness. Thank You for dying for me so that I could have freedom today. From today, as I walk forward in life, fighting and holding on to my freedom, I place You as Lord of my life. I need You to lead me. Show me the way. I'm excited about this adventure with You, in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.
