Free – by grace

Andreas Latossek

Church at the train station, Frankenberg, July 26, 2023

Free – by grace

Maybe you just found yourself at some point in this play.

There are people, things or addictions that bind you and you wish to get rid of them. You want to break old structures because you feel them restrict you and you feel an inner longing for freedom.

Free is the name of our new service series, where we want to get on the track of this freedom in the next few weeks.

• We will look at how we can leave old baggage behind us and become free for a new life, but also trace the danger of becoming unfree again.
• We’re going to talk about freedom from fear and freedom through forgiveness.
• We will also talk about how there are limits to freedom where there is a „too free“.
• And today, a brief introduction is about how we can actually experience freedom.
• Free – by grace, that’s the theme today.

But before we talk about that, I want to think about the concept of freedom with you first.

1. What do we mean by freedom?

Freedom is very important to us humans. While I was preaching, I got mail from my bank, advertising a card for global freedom from payments, then another letter for a loan for more financial freedom, and finally, on the Internet, an advertising banner for health freedom insurance, which is more complete It’s nonsense, because it doesn’t keep me healthy, it’s just that I’m better insured against possible damage.

But all on the same day.

Article 2 of our Basic Law states: Everyone has the right to free development of their personality and: Personal freedom is inviolable.

Freedom is not a matter of course. Those who are in prison feel it.

As Germans, we have lived for decades, separated by a wall. In many countries I do not have the freedom to live my faith freely. In the West, we’ve been very spoiled when it comes to freedom, but times are changing.

We didn’t have all the freedoms during the lockdown either, so maybe we felt something of what it means to be restricted. Right now we are being deprived of the freedom to choose our own heating system, and despite freedom of expression, tolerance and diversity, it is better not to express some opinions, otherwise a tolerant shitstorm can be expected immediately.

If you have small children then you will discover in some places:

They are also striving for freedom:

• Freedom to paint all over the wallpaper.
• Freedom to no longer be fed but to eat yourself, with hands and feet.
• Freedom to eat Nutella all day long, even if they don’t always get that wish.

And then there are sometimes protests when children are restricted in their freedom.

Children get older and in puberty we break out of old structures that we inherited from our parents, teachers, in the community or wherever. We try to find our own way and to realize ourselves with our desires.

We want financial freedom, professional freedom, freedom to pursue our hobbies, freedom to travel, freedom to be single or in a relationship, freedom to break up a relationship, freedom to choose our own gender identity, freedom living out our sexuality without limits, freedom from all dependencies.

The 1960s were classic, when many people started not to take parents and teachers seriously. I don’t want anyone to say anything to me.

We seek unlimited self-development, realization, arbitrariness in hope, and that is our deep longing behind it, to find fulfillment in it.

However, we notice that we quickly reach our limits with this kind of freedom.

Not everyone in this world has opportunities like we do in the west.

• Some don’t even have the ability to choose what to eat in the morning simply because they don’t have anything.
• We are limited by our finances.
• Some feel painfully that they are reaching their limits because they do not have certain abilities as a person.
• Anyone who works comes up against certain limits in their daily routine.
• At some point we notice that we are reaching certain limits with our body because it can no longer cope with everything and we notice that our longing for a fulfilling life is becoming difficult.

We also reach our limits in cooperation.

• Women are free to have a baby or not, but the unborn is not free to live because it simply has no voice.
• When I break up, I deprive the other of their freedom to stay with me and see us reconcile and deepen our relationship.

In general, many of my decisions affect not only myself but also others, and where I live at the expense of others, I deprive him of his freedom or they deprive me. But my own decisions also rob me of my freedoms, because often when I choose one path, I close the door to another. Here, too, it becomes difficult with our longing for a fulfilled life.

Freedom can also lead to addictions.

I have the freedom to choose to consume pornography, alcohol, drugs, or anything else, but then I find myself not having the freedom to choose to quit.

A Silesian folk song from the 19th century says: Thoughts are free: who can guess them, they fly past like nocturnal shadows, no one can know them, no hunter can shoot them. It stays that way, the thoughts are free

But then we realize how influenced and impressionable we are in our thoughts by our parents, our teachers, the media and others, depending on what we listen to. Are we really free?

And finally we feel that our inner drivers are not as free as we would like, our inner emptiness, the search for fulfilment, for recognition, maybe fears, bitterness, which we might not feel that way about some people make a good decision.

Yes, we are not masters of ourselves either, sometimes we cannot control our own feelings and thoughts as much as we would like.

Do you know this question that one sometimes asks oneself: What got into me there? And then there is no yoga, no meditation, no New Age, where it is about finding peace in yourself, discovering the infinite resources in yourself and then experiencing inner freedom. That is simply a lie.

Which brings me to the second point:

2 . What does God mean by freedom?

In the video earlier we got a glimpse of how God actually intended life to be:

That we experience fulfillment in our relationship with him. God creates man in his own image, as his counterpart. He places it in a beautiful, diverse and huge garden. He gives him gifts. He gives him an assignment and thus a purpose to cultivate and preserve the garden.

And he, as the Bible describes it, comes into this garden to walk with man.

But God also gives man the freedom to break out of this relationship and this garden. He loves people so much that he gives them this freedom, because they want to be loved in the same way, but love is always voluntary.

And so he puts a tree in the garden that marks a boundary and he tells man not to eat from it. And the human?

He decides against God, wants to shake off this limit. But in doing so he also decides in favor of independence, separation from God, and that brings with it other consequences and limitations.

Paul writes in Romans 6:16 and 19 :

16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

 19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

Paul uses the image of a slave, which everyone around him knew at the time.

And he makes clear what I illustrated last Sunday and Thomas Depner two weeks ago:

There are only two possibilities in our life: either you live with or without God. There are gray areas in many things in our lives, but here it is only black and white. With or without God.

The Bible calls the realm without God sin, because sin means nothing other than living apart from God. But this area is not free.

We can see the effects of this condition in our world where so much is broken, but we also see it in our own lives. Where so much is broken in ourselves, we sometimes feel such an emptiness, we notice that we are not enough, that we do not treat others well.

Paul writes in Romans 7:20 : Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

What got into me there, I said earlier. Sin shapes and changes our character and from God’s point of view in a negative way. Ultimately, it results in death, which means eternal separation from God even after this life.

The Bible tells God’s story with us humans.

She tells how God begins to woo our trust, how he takes individuals and then a whole people to show that he is trustworthy and whoever puts his trust in him, he blesses and guides him through life well. But this story always has something to do with freedom.

God takes Abraham and promises him freedom in a new land. He leads his people Israel out of slavery in Egypt. The biggest festival that Israel celebrates to this day is a festival of freedom: the Passover festival, which commemorates the exodus from Egypt. Then God gives His people commandments. But these commandments are not a restriction, but because God knows how life works best, he gives his people a protective framework so that life and togetherness can succeed.

In the Psalms it becomes clear that the worshipers experience freedom in God’s presence. Freedom from fear, worry, depression, sadness, spite, self-loathing.

Then it is in the prophets that God pleads for the people to put their trust in him again and that he wants to lead them out of captivity in exile and into freedom, and does so.

And finally comes Jesus, who became man out of absolute freedom. In his life we ​​feel something of the freedom that God wants to give, to make independent decisions, to depend on God and to listen to his voice. He dies on the cross, as we saw in the play. It didn’t quite come across at the end, where he takes all these dark powers upon himself and defeats them on the cross.

He takes all our guilt out of love for us to give us freedom.

Jesus says: “ Only when the Son sets you free are you really free. John 6:38

And Paul exclaims: Galatians 5:1 Christ has set us free for freedom!

Jesus opens the door of our cage so we can be free. Free from the apparent immutability of life, free from all futility, free from hurt, free from our past, free from guilt, free from having to work for heaven through some religious achievement which we would not make anyway, free from fear and cares, free from addictions, free from worthlessness, free from death.

But there is one very important requirement that we need to understand:

You see this bird here.

If the bird that lives in the air and is completely free suddenly said, that’s unfair, I feel so unfree, I can’t live in the water, and it decides to dive into the water, so don’t just grab a fish on the surface but really deep in, then his life is over very quickly.

It is his destiny to live in the air, only there he can really develop. We only find our true fulfillment where we can live and develop according to our destiny. We are created in the image of God. We are not created for self but for relationship with God.

If Jesus had only come to set me free, then he would only be a means to an end. No, he doesn’t set me free for selfishness, but for a relationship with him. Freedom in the Bible means not determined by others, not self-determined but voluntarily God-determined in the knowledge that we have a good God!

And the fact that we have a good God is something I would like to address with my last point:

3. Free by grace

God doesn’t owe us that at all.

On the contrary: We read in Romans 5:8 : But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

His enemies because we didn’t want to have anything to do with him. Nevertheless, Jesus pays for our sins on the cross. That’s grace. It’s a gift from God. Grace is kindness, bounty, gratitude, acceptance, grace bestowed without expectation of retribution, having its sole motive in the goodness and boldness of the giver .

That means you can’t save yourself, you can’t earn your freedom, it’s given to you if you accept it. And why?

Because God loves you and because he is sooo good to you! Because he wants you to be free, free to live the relationship with him.

Jesus came to set us free.