From Slaves to Heirs in Christ // You Have Been Set Free, Part 6

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Slavery. It’s not something we think about all that much. But so many people are enslaved … it’s just not funny. Freedom. From where God sits, it’s not so much being able to do what you want, it’s about being set free from the things that are holding you back.

Official figures tell us that there are around 21 million slaves on the earth today. That’s a shock isn’t it? Isn’t slavery a thing of the past? Surely? Well actually, no it’s not. And unofficial figures put it much higher at more like 100 million slaves on the earth today. It’s shocking to think of it but it’s true; there are that many people in slavery.

You might be thinking ‘Surely not.’ But the facts speak for themselves. But let me bring this even close to home. I wonder whether you would consider yourself as someone who to some extent, at least, is a person in slavery, a person in bondage.

Have a listen to this interesting exchange between Jesus and some Jews: God’s own people, men and women who consider themselves to be free. John chapter 8, verses 31-36:

Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you’ll know the truth and the truth will make you free.’

They answered him, ‘We’re descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying you’ll be made free?’

Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the Son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you’ll be free indeed.’

Perhaps you’ve heard part of that quoted before, that Jesus came to set you free. But it’s interesting how the Jews of the day, in a sense took offence at what Jesus said. "We’re not slaves", they responded indignantly. "Sure you are", said Jesus. "You’re slaves to sin and that, that’s what I’ve come to set you free from." Jesus came to set us – you, me, everyone else who puts their trust in him – free from the slavery to sin that robs us not just of our lives here on this earth, but from a permanent place in the household of God.

I wonder what sin is robbing you, enslaving you, keeping you from being all that you can be, all that God made you to be. Come on, what sin has put you in the shackles of slavery? Because it’s that very sin, that very slavery that Jesus came to set you free from. Is it really worth it, the anger swirling around in your heart, the resentment, the dishonesty, the sexual sin, whatever it is in your life? Whatever your Achilles’ heel happens to be, whatever sin you’re hanging on to, is it really, really worth it?

Would you like to be set free? Because let me tell you, if Jesus sets you free, you’ll be free indeed. A few years after that, Paul the Apostle continued on with this whole metaphor, this whole discussion about slavery. So here’s a question, "Would you rather be a slave in your master’s household, or one of his children?" I mean, come on, wind the clock back to the first century when the Apostle Paul posed that question to his friends in Galatia. Galatians chapter 4, Verses 1-7:

My point is this: heirs as long as they are minors are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property. But they remain under guardian and trustees until the date set by the father.

So it is with us: while we were minors we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

OK, what’s Paul’s point? There was a time when we were acting as minors. Yeah, you know how kids are, they don’t want to listen to their parents, they think they know better. When they become teenagers they roll their eyes in the back of their head when mum or dad tells them to do something. Ha, you’ve been there? Me too. And at that point, children are no better than slaves. They remain under guardianship, under a bunch of rules and regulations. Almost like slaves in a sense. They’re not free. When you’re a child, whether at home or at school, you’re told to do something and you have to do it.

And that’s what religion is all about. It’s about following a bunch of rules that quite simply is not freedom. But then God sent Jesus to redeem us from those rules. The idea of redeeming a slave was to pay a price to his or her master to set them free, to buy them out of their slavery. In a very real sense, that’s exactly what Jesus did. That’s why he’s able to say, "If I set you free, you’ll be free indeed."

So how many people today believe in Jesus but they aren’t living in the freedom that he purchased for them? I wonder, are you one of those? Are you still trying to follow a bunch of rules, kicking and bucking against them, wondering why you constantly fall short? Or do you wake up each morning, open your eyes and remember in your heart that you are a child of the living God because Jesus set you free?

Because that’s exactly what he did. He set you free from the rules and from your inability to keep those rules. Look, this isn’t some theory lesson; this is real. It’s about the sort of life that you’re living; it’s about how you feel each morning when you wake up. It’s about whether you look forward to the next day with a sense of anticipation or a sense of foreboding. You were made to live in freedom and Jesus came to set you free.

Now perhaps you’re kind of sitting there thinking to yourself, "Well, I don’t feel like a slave." Sure you don’t. Let me tell you, back before I met Jesus I wouldn’t have used that term about myself: slave, child, under a bunch of rules. Those weren’t ideas that swirled around in my head. But let you tell me what did. It was a sense that I was never good enough.

No matter how well I performed, how well I did at school or at university or at work or in my career, in where I lived, in what I earned, what house I lived in, what car I drove. I always had this nagging sense that I wasn’t good enough. I was trying to live up to something, to impress someone without ever really knowing why.

Have you ever felt that? At the same time, lurking deep down inside somewhere, was the knowledge that I wasn’t good enough for God. That’s what kept me away from him all those years. Just knowing somehow that I wasn’t good enough for God. Now there are people who believe in Jesus, who are living their lives that way.

Trying to impress the world, striving so hard to impress God, to obey the rules. But that’s not the sort of life we should be living. That’s not the freedom that Jesus purchased for us on the cross. He set us free from all that. He put his Holy Spirit in us so that we can wake up every morning, remember who we are, children and heirs of the living God, set free because of Jesus.

You know, I make mistakes every day, so I get up, dust myself off, ask God’s forgiveness through Jesus, move on, and enjoy the freedom that’s mine because my dad in heaven loved me enough to send Jesus his Son to set me free. How about you?