The Lord Alone Brings True Freedom

"You have freed me from my chains." - Psalm 116:16

What is true freedom? Some would say that true freedom is being able to do whatever you want to do. But what if what we want to do ends up enslaving us? Jesus said, "everyone who sins is a slave to sin (John 8:34)."

I remember when I was 13 and what I thought I wanted was to smoke cigarettes and cigars and drink alcohol. Because I lived in Germany at the time, getting these things was not hard. But what a sad sight it was for me to be 13 years old and smoking and drinking. I soon found it much harder to stop than it was to start. Thankfully, God moved me back from Germany at age 14 and I found a new set of friends and a better set of habits.

True freedom is not found in just doing whatever we want to do, but is found in wanting and doing what we were created to do. When our desires and our actions line up with God's will for our lives, then we have found true freedom. But the slavery of sin is a hard slavery to break; we all choose to sin and so we all put ourselves into voluntary slavery to sin. Once we do, we find out what a harsh task-master our sin really is and we find it exceedingly difficult to break free. How many of us find ourselves bound by compulsive behaviors we cannot seem to stop- eating, lying, cheating, drinking, spending too much time on the Internet, getting angry, people-pleasing, etc.? Some may seem more obvious to us than others, but our patterns of sin are the real slavery that binds our lives in chains.

In the words of the Apostle Paul: "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 8:24)" The answer: "Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! (8:25)" This is the deliverance the Psalmist celebrates in Psalm 116:16 and it is the promise Jesus gives in John 8:36, "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."

How does Jesus set us free? How does He break these chains? Isn't it true that Christians sin too? Yes, Christians do sin, but the freedom Christ brings is true freedom. He brings it into our lives in stages, freeing us first from the penalty of sin, then gradually from its persistent power and finally from its very presence in our lives.

Freedom from the Penalty of Sin: "The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23)." Jesus, by taking upon Himself the death we deserve for our sin, has broken the back of sin by removing the sting of death. "The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came upon me," the Psalmist says (v. 5). Yet the terror of death, that we will have to die and be eternally condemned for what we have done, for the slavery we have chosen, was taken in full be Jesus on the cross for all of those who will trust in Him. In Christ, the sting of death, the penalty of sin, is removed and it's threat no longer hangs over our heads. Those chains, those "cords of death" are broken and cannot bind the believer any more.

Freedom from the Persistent Power of Sin: When Jesus removes from us the penalty for our sin, He also gives us a new heart and sends His Holy Spirit to live in us and walk with us. As we grow in the Lord and as the Spirit does His work in our lives, we gradually learn to walk in holiness and obedience to Christ's commands. While we continue to sin, sin no longer has the same enslaving power over every aspect of our lives that it has for the unbeliever. This is called "progressive sanctification" or growth in holiness. Galatians 5:22-25 says that as we walk in the Spirit, we will bear the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. We will grow love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control in our lives. No Christian ever experiences perfect sanctification in this life; we all continue to struggle against sin. Sometimes it can feel like we're making no progress at all. But God is faithful. His Gospel promises are true and His Spirit's power is truly at work in our lives.

Freedom from the Presence of Sin: One day, God promises, "when he [Jesus] appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2)." The Spirit is growing us to be more like Jesus now, but one day we will be completely and gloriously transformed into His image. One day, every remnant of sin in us and in the whole universe will be removed and God's glory and holiness will shine perfectly in us and in the New Heavens and the New Earth. The beauty and the glory of that coming Day will be unlike anything we can imagine. Then, and only then, the final chains will be broken and we will be fully FREE!

So, how does Christ bring freedom? He frees us from the penalty of sin by His death on the cross. He frees us from the persistent power of sin by His Holy Spirit. He will free us one day from the very presence of sin in our lives and our world. So I can sit here today, sinner that I am, and say with the Psalmist, "You have freed me from my chains!" I have been set free from sin's penalty. I am being set free from sin's enslaving power. I will be set free from sin's polluting presence. What more can I say than what Paul has said, "Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Rom. 8:25)"