True Freedom
But, you may say, “all that goes with it” is precisely what I want freedom from—freedom from a moral standard, freedom from answering to God, freedom from the obligation of going to church. But what is real freedom? Is it merely doing whatever you want, sleeping with whomever you wish and answering to no one but yourself?
The irony is that such freedom actually leads to its very opposite—slavery to your own desires. Whether your pursuit of freedom takes you in the direction of alcohol, drugs, sex, power, wealth, success, an alternate identity or anything else, you will find that you either become enslaved to that pursuit or are disappointed with its attainment. The alcohol, drugs and sex may well become addictive and ensnare you, leaving you empty but still longing for more, even as they destroy you. The pursuit of power, wealth and success will most often come up short, but even if, due to hard work, talent, intelligence and a few good breaks, you achieve what most consider to be the pinnacle, you will still feel driven for more, because you will find that pinnacle to be lonely and less fulfilling than you thought. None of these things are bad necessarily or in and of themselves. In fact, they can be good in their proper context. But the unrestrained pursuit of them will not leave you feeling free, but rather trapped in a never ending quest for more.
What is true freedom then? Jesus says:
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:32).
And in the same chapter, he also says:
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (John 8:36).
In saying “free indeed,” he distinguishes it from the false freedom of which we have just spoken. What does it mean to be free indeed—really free, free in a way that does not leave one feeling trapped and frustrated but soaring and fulfilled? True freedom means being free to experience life as you were created to experience it within the safe boundaries established by your Creator.
Mankind was created to experience a relationship with God. He established boundaries so that we would have a “safe space” in which to enjoy that relationship with him. Freedom comes when we are content to live within those boundaries, knowing that they are established by a loving Father God for our own good, and in doing so experience the relationship with God for which we were created.
But we humans, beginning with Adam and Eve, came to feel that these boundaries were holding us back from experiencing something good, that they were limitations to our freedom. We stepped over those boundaries—transgressed God’s laws, trespassed into forbidden territory. When we did so, we moved away from God and our relationship with him was broken. We were free, we thought, but lonely for the relationship that was lost, free, but lost in our freedom, free, but plagued with guilt for transgressing the commands of the only one who truly loved us while knowing us completely.
You think that freedom from guilt will be the result of no longer believing in God. Then you will be free from a moral standard, free from answering to God, free from the condemning glances of church goers. But you still have your own values, your own standards, more or less shared with your peer group. Do you always live up to your standards? Do you always live up to the expectations of your friends? When you don’t, do you not feel guilty? And what if doubt plagues your disbelief? What if you really want to be free from God but you cannot escape the sense that he is there and that someday you will be accountable to him?
You don’t like that religious people are always judging, trying to make you feel guilty. You say that they are intolerant because they hold convictions that some behaviors are wrong. You call them “haters” because they oppose lifestyles based on some of these behaviors. But do you not judge the judgers and hate the haters? Are you not intolerant of the intolerant? And so you become guilty of the very things you condemn.
Freedom from guilt is not achieved by being free from God, but by returning to a relationship with God through experiencing his forgiveness. Although mankind’s relationship with God was broken, as previously described, God did not stop loving us. He desired for that relationship to be restored, and when the time was right, he did something about it. He sent his own Son, Jesus Christ, to become human like us. He lived a perfect life, which none of us ever did. He died on the cross to pay for our sins, to bring us back into a relationship with God, as the Bible says:
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God (1 Peter 3:18)
.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
In dying for us, Jesus turned away God’s displeasure from us. God’s sense of what was needed to make us right with him was satisfied.
True freedom is costly. The freedoms we enjoy in our nation cost the lives of many of our young men and women who fought for those freedoms. Likewise, the freedom we are talking about here, spiritual freedom, if you will, the freedom to experience life as we were created to experience it, is a costly freedom. God sacrificed his own Son for it. Jesus submitted to the will of the Father to die for us, as he anticipated when he said,
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep (John 10:11).
The Apostle spoke of the cost of this freedom when he said:
You were bought at a price (1 Corinthians 6:19).
But, you may say, being “bought at a price” doesn’t sound like being free. That is the paradox. Jesus paid the price—his own life, his own blood shed for you, to set you free from sin, to set you free from your own lostness, so that you could belong to him, and by doing so become truly free. And so his statement is fulfilled:
If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
But why, you may ask, does God require a bloody sacrifice in order to be satisfied? If he is a God of love, why doesn’t he accept me as I am without need of a sacrifice? “God is love,” but not a God of soft love without standards, but a God of sacrificial love whose love rises to meet those standards. “God is love,” but that is not all he is. He is also holy as the prophet Isaiah reported to us when he said:
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory (Isaiah 6:3).
God holds an exalted position, set above his creation. God is absolute purity and justice and righteousness. In his justice as the Judge of the Universe, he requires that those who transgress his boundaries should pay a price. If he simply overlooks the transgression, if he dismisses it as trivial, then he has not been true to his own character. We who are guilty should pay the price. But God’s love intervenes with a plan to restore us without us having to suffer the consequences. But still the consequences must be paid. God, in his sacrificial love, sent his Son to pay the price that we ought to have paid so that we would not have to pay it ourselves.
If you acknowledge that you have turned away from your Creator, if you repent, that is, make a spiritual U-turn, and turn back to him by believing in his Son Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, then you will experience forgiveness, as the scripture says:
Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved (Acts 16:31).
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord (Acts 3:19).
And with that forgiveness comes freedom from guilt and freedom to enjoy a relationship with God within the safe boundaries that he has provided.
But, you may say, I “prayed the prayer” when I was young. I tried the church routine. If I step back into that arena, I will just be under the burden of rules and restrictions. If that is what you think, then you have misunderstood what Jesus is all about. For he is the one who said:
Take my yoke upon me and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is
easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:29-30).
Jesus is not saying that it is easy to follow him, for often that is not the case, but that he does not, like the Pharisaical religion of his time, impose on his followers a heavy burden of legalistic rules and regulations. This is what Paul also meant when he said:
You are not under the law, but under grace (Romans 6:14).
This does not mean you can live however you please when you follow Jesus, for, speaking of this freedom from the law, Paul said:
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 (Galatians 5:13).
The follower of Christ should live to please God and to be a blessing to those around him, but not by focusing on a list of legalistic rules, but by following the law of love and doing so in the power of the Holy Spirit, as Paul also explains when he says:
We have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code
(Romans 7:6).
Next Chapter: What is Truth?