Tag Archives: freedom

Why Did He Come?

Christian life, ,

Ebenezer Family Church

Sunday 15th December, 2013

            WHY DID HE COME?

INTRODUCTION

Everyone knows that Nelson Mandela passed away last Thursday night. I heard the news early on Friday morning from a friend in California who heard it on the news from President Obama! Since then there have been snippets of his life and achievements on every TV channel and every newspaper around the country.

People everywhere are urged to celebrate his life and honour him for what he did for the country but I have read not one word about his birth! Funny, isn’t it? Every time I log in to FNB, the first page I have to get past has a picture of Nelson Mandela’s face with these words written across  his forehead – SACRIFICE, FORGIVENESS, FREEDOM.

Don’t these words sound familiar? They belong to someone else who is worthy to wear them.

When the apostles went out to take the good news of God’s kingdom to the world, they had to contend with claims made by the Roman rulers of their day. Because they refused to honour Caesar as Lord, and preached that Jesus, not Caesar, is the Son of God and the Prince of Peace, they lost their lives, as did thousands of people who believed their message and followed Jesus.

Without detracting anything from the greatness of the man who is being buried today, I want us to focus on the One whose sacrifice brings true forgiveness and freedom. Madiba may have modelled and propagated forgiveness and freedom because he was prepared to make sacrifices to bring about political transformation in South Africa but he could never do anything to effect change in the hearts of the people.

At this time of the year the people of the world, even those who do not acknowledge Jesus, celebrate the birth of a baby in Bethlehem by the worst of human behaviour — overindulgence, debt, carnage on the roads, suicide etc., without ever realising why He came. Now South Africa is celebrating the life of a man who made sacrifices, forgave and was part of the initiation of political freedom in this country. But none of this would be possible without the sacrifice that Jesus made that brought the forgiveness of sin and freedom from our worst enemy, ourselves to become sons and daughters of God.

1. SACRIFICE

Nelson Mandela made many sacrifices to achieve his dream of political freedom for his country. He spent 27 years behind bars because he believed in what he was doing. No one can play down what he did or what he suffered to make the day possible when he stood before the nation to take the oath of office as president of a new South Africa. Everything he suffered was geared towards one goal, the right of his people to vote. On 28th April, 1994, in spite of the fear of civil war and a bloodbath in South Africa, the people voted and a new era began in this country.

But Nelson Mandela’s sacrifice could never pay for the sin of the world. Even if he had shed his blood, it would not have brought us back to God. He was a human being like us. He was responsible for his own debt of sin he could never pay. What did his sacrifice achieve?

Now, after almost 20 years of so-called democarcy, what do we have? We have a nation that is free to vote in the same corrupt government run by the same corrupt politicians and civil servants as we voted in in 1994. Nelson Mandela’s sacrifice won political freedom but it did not change a single heart. It could not because Nelson Mandela was only a man.

The world also celebrates at this time of the year — with trees and ornaments and tinsel, and turkeys and ham, and snow and reindeers and sleighs and presents, and Santa Claus and toys! What are they celebrating? A baby born in a stable and asleep in a feed trough! Shepherds and wise men and a star!  And we hear Christmas carols blaring out in the supermarket while people shop to indulge their children and their appetites with money they need to pay their bills and buy school uniforms and books for next year, all in the name of Jesus!

Is that why Jesus was born?

In a few months time the world will celebrate Easter. How will they celebrate Easter? With Easter bunnies and Easter eggs, with crosses and mournful songs, with communion or mass. Some will even carry crosses and beat themselves. But what will that accomplish? Most will carry on as usual the next day, no different from the day before.

Is that why Jesus came?

We can celebrate great people’s lives and even learn lessons from them; we can celebrate great religious events and even go to church but unless the meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice enters our souls and changes our lives, it will mean no more in the end than the sacrifice Madiba made to give his people political freedom.

2. FORGIVENESS

The world also admires and celebrates the forgiveness Madiba exended to those who arrested, tried, and had him incarcerated for 27 years, sometimes in solitary confinement and sometimes doing hard labour for his crimes. I often wonder whether there was a Gideon Bible beside his bed. Did he pick it up and read it when he sat alone in his prison cell,? Did he capture the heart of Jesus when He said, “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they are doing?”

The debt South Africa owed Madiba is a drop in the ocean compared with the debt the world owed God because of its offences against Him. No one person could pay that collective debt. We all have to pay our own. But God’s solution was to send His own Son to live as a human being, debt free in His relationship to God and then to pay our debt so that we can go free.

This is the miracle of God’s forgiveness. There is no longer any debt to pay. Jesus paid for all  the sin of all people for all time. The means that there is nothing we owe God, not even the debt we owe Him for the sins we will commit in the future. That clears the obstacle between us and God forever. That means that Madiba owes God nothing, whether he knew it or not.

Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice. He didn’t spend 27 years in prison to pay for our sin. He shed His blood and gave up His life as an atoning sacrifice to satisfy God’s wrath and the settle the debt we owed Him so that we can go free.

But He was not only a sacrifice of atonement to guarantee our forgiveness. He was also a terumah offering, the firstfruits offering which belongs to God, guaranteeing our resurrection. Let me explain.

God requries the first portion of everything we gain through our work. In the old Testament that meant that the first portion of their crops and the firstborn of their flocks and herds belonged to God. It became an offering when it was given to Him and was His guarantee that the rest of their crops and animals would be blessed. For it to become ‘terumah” or an offering, it had to to lifted up, i.e., offered to God and then given to the high priest for him and his family to live on.

When Jesus was crucified, He was “lifted up” on the cross, and He placed His spirit into the hands of His Father. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, explained the significance and implications of what He did. “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep…for as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn; Christ the firstfruits; then, when He comes, those who belong to Him.” 1 Corinthians 15:20,22-23 (NIV).

Jesus’ sacrifice not only made provision for the debt we owe the Father; His resurrection also guarantees that we will be resurrected when He comes again, to live with Him in perfected human bodies.

But what about the debt we owe one another? Are we still liable for the offenses we commit against each other? Can we still demand payment from those who are indebted to us?

Unless we realise that all sin is against God, we will think that those who have offended us owe us. When we refuse to forgive, we don’t understand that the debt someone else owes us had already been paid. We allow our feelings to dictate to us because what we believe is false.

The first miracle is that God has forgiven us.

The second miracle is even bigger, not that we HAVE TO forgive, but that we MAY forgive. We have the privilege and honour of forgiving any debt against us because Jesus has cleared it away and the other person owes us nothing. The opposite is equally true. Whatever debt we owe others has also been paid. We owe no one anything and, if he or she refuses to forgive, they pay the penalty, not we.

3. FREEDOM

This leads to the third word  written on Madiba’s forehead – freedom. What is freedom? Is it freedom from all laws and restrictions? Are people free when they can do as they like? No! This is what the Hebrew people called hell. Hell is a situation where there are no boudaries. Your home can be hell if the members of your family live as though there were no boundaries. Society can be hell if everyone does as he pleases without considering anyone else.

I drove to East London in the pouring rain on Wednesday. It was a nightmare trip. In spite of the poor visibility, many of the drivers, especially those with red number plates, drove at breakneck speed. As if that were not bad enough, instead of staying in the fast lane after they had passed another car to stop the spray from making visibilty worse, they pulled in front of the car they had just passed, shooting up a cloud of water on his windscreen. Thoughtless and careless — the attitude of many people who think they are free..

The forgiveness Jesus bought for us provided freedom from guilt and the pernalty of our sin but that is only half of the story. How can we enjoy the freedom God gives us through His forgiveness when we still hold other people accountable for the debt they owe us? When we try to make others pay for what had already been paid, we are out of sync with God; we are sinning and God’s forgiveness no longer applies.

My friends, the greatest freedom we can ever experience is not the freedom to vote, or the freedom to do as we like. It is the freedom to forgive because that is the only thing that sets us free to enjoy the blessing of fellowship with God. Jesus paid all debt but He said that we can only enjoy the benefit of God’s forgiveness when we forgive others.

Madiba experienced that because he forgave, even if he may not have understood why he was free to forgive. He sat in prison a free man long before he came out of prison a free man, He would have been free had he been in jail for the rest of his life. It was not what he did for South Africa or what FW de Klerk did for him that set him free. It was Jesus, who died on the cross to pay his debt that set him free.

Madam Jeanne Marie de la Motte-Guyon was imprisoned for her faith in France in the seventeenth century. She wrote these words in her prison cell:

“A little bird I am,

Shut from the fields of air;

And in my cage I sit and sing,

To Him who placed me there;

Well pleased a prisoner to be,

Because, my God, it pleases Thee.

 

Naught have I else to do;

I sing the whole day long;

And He whom most I love to please

Doth listen to my song;

He caught and bound my wandering wing,

But still He bends to hear me sing.

 

Thou hast an ear to hear,

A heart to love and bless;

And though my notes were ere so rude,

Thou would’st not hear the less;

Because Thou knowest, as they fall,

That love, sweet love, inspires them all.

 

My cage confines me round;

Abroad I cannot fly;

But though my wing is closely bound,

My heart’s at liberty.

My prison walls cannot control

The flight, the freedom of the soul.

 

O, it is good to soar

These bolts and bars above,

To Him whose purpose I adore,

Whose providence I love;

And in Thy mighty will to find

The joy, the freedom of the mind.

CONCLUSION

Today a great man is being laid to rest at Qunu but we need to understand that without Jesus, Madiba could never have achieved greatness. However, his greatness has all the limitations of his frail humanity.

Whatever he may have sacrificed could achieve only one thing, the right of his people to cast their vote and choose their government. After that they were and are at the mercy of those who rule.

He could only forgive those who were indebted to him because Jesus paid the debt of all people including the debt Madiba owed others.

The freedom Madiba enjoyed was only his own. He could do nothing to set another single person free. The freedom he experienced was the freedom he gained from the privilege of forgiving his debtors.

Today is decision day. There are people in your life that you think still owe you. There are people you are still trying to punish when their punishment has already been taken by Jesus.

Start with your father. Will you recognise today that Jesus has paid the debt your father owes you for not being a perfect father. Will you look him in the face and tell him, “Dad, you owe me nothing?” When you do that, you will be free to embrace your heavenly Father as a perfect father.

What about your mother, your siblings, your teachers, your friends, your colleagues at work, whoever has wronged you? Will you look them in the eyes and say, “You owe me nothing?” When you do that. you will step into freedom you never would have believed possible.

Jesus’ sacrifice paid your debt so that God could forgive you and so that you can forgive others. When you do that you will step through the door into real freedom, freedom from bitterness, resentment, and anger, from being a slave to yourself; freedom to be kind and generous and to love.

Peter Wades In

Christian Life, ,

PETER WADES IN

“Talking things over, they went into the house where Cornelius introduced Peter to everyone who had come. Peter addressed them. ‘You know — I’m sure that this is highly irregular. Jews just don’t do this — visit and relax with people of another race. But God has just shown me that no race is better than another race. So the minute I was sent for, I came, no questions asked. I’d like to know why you sent for me.'” Acts 10:27-29 (The Message).

All is about to be revealed! God’s “conspiracy” is about to be blown open!

It seems that unusual events accompanied the launch of the gospel into each new race group. Pentecost with its high drama set the whole thing going — wind, fire, unlearned languages and supernatural joy exploded in the city of Jerusalem, sweeping three thousand new believers into the kingdom of God.

Dramatic healings, followed by persecution and even the sudden and mysterious deaths of Ananias and Sapphira led to the explosive growth of the church, not the sort of events that would naturally attract new members. However, the church stayed within the confines of the Jewish race until two supernatural events happened that led the church to spill out of its confining racial prejudices into Africa and into the Gentile world.

Angelic intervention sent Philip to intercept a high-ranking Ethiopian official on his way home from worshipping in Jerusalem, resulting in a new convert taking the message of Jesus back to the royal court in Ethiopia. Now another supernatural intervention of God sends Peter into the home of a Roman soldier in response to his search to know the true God.

Peter, to his credit, responded promptly to the vision and to the subsequent whispering of the Holy Spirit to reassure him that he was not having a nightmare after a heavy meal! His initial reluctance to “kill and eat” was overridden by God’s insistence that he drop his inhibitions and launch into the next phase of his missionary calling with the full confidence of God’s command,

For the first time ever in his life, Peter entered a Gentile home without feeling the abhorrence and false guilt of his upbringing. He must have felt much lighter in his spirit, knowing that it was God who had set him free from this ensnaring lie that had bound his conscience since childhood. Another chain had fallen off on his personal journey to freedom.

Everyone is on a journey to somewhere depending on the destination to which our choices take us. There are only two possible destinies — the realm of perfect freedom that follows obedience to the voice of God or the ultimate terrible eternal imprisonment to the foolish choices we keep making in this life.

God’s passionate desire is for His children to be free — not from the restrictions and requirements people put on us, good or bad, but from the inner slave-drivers we acquire on our journey through our choices and responses.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1 (NIV).

There is only one source of true freedom. “To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,'” John 8:31-32 (NIV).

Joyful Generosity

Christian Life, , ,

JOYFUL GENEROSITY

“The man went into the Temple with them, walking back and forth, dancing and praising God. Everybody there saw him walking around and praising God. They recognised him as the one who sat begging at the Temple’s Gate Beautiful and rubbed their eyes astonished, scarcely believing what they were seeing.

“The man threw his arms around Peter and John, ecstatic. All the people ran up to where they were at Solomon’s Porch to see it for themselves.” Acts 3:9-11 (The Message).

What a commotion! What a sensation! The healed beggar was certainly creating enough noise to attract the attention of the worshippers in the Temple.

The Healer had come and gone and life in Jerusalem had settled down to business as usual. There was this new sect that had arisen around Him but they seemed quite harmless. They were joyful and generous, doing life together, sharing their resources, spending a lot of time with their leaders and just generally being pleasant to be around. They weren’t militant. They were no activists, stirring up trouble, and the people of the city had grown used to them.

Now this! A man crippled from birth, a familiar face at the gate of the Temple, suddenly gets up and walks. And, what’s more, two of Jesus’ disciples are in the mix and, mysteriously, the name of Jesus of Nazareth had reappears as the one responsible for this miracle.

The beggar’s reaction got the attention of the people. People are the same everywhere, curious, inquisitive; any commotion is sure to draw a crowd. This is not what the disciples intended. They were not out to get attention. Their action was purely out of compassion for the crippled man. What happened next was more than they bargained for.

The crippled man’s actions were quite amusing. He went “ballistic”! Wouldn’t you? He had never walked. His legs were shrivelled and weak from lack of exercise. He had always viewed life from ground level. He had always been treated with pity or contempt. He always depended on others for help. There was no wheel chair to get him around. Wherever he was dumped for the day, he had to stay put. What a life! One shudders to think about everyday things like going to the toilet, or washing his hands.

In an instant everything changed for him. A new and unfamiliar life had begun. He was walking — it was that simple and yet it opened up a whole new life of learning and possibility.

That’s what Jesus does. It’s not always about a physical miracle, though He does that too. Jesus is about setting people free. It’s His passion. There are many ways in which we are held captive to a life that has only one perspective, ourselves. We are crippled by bitterness, unforgiveness, small-mindedness, selfishness, greed, anger, guilt, shame, fear, everything that robs us of the freedom to realise our potential as beloved children of God.

He came to reconcile us to the Father so that we can enjoy freedom from the crippling enslavement to ourselves that robs us of really living. Living is about loving others for God’s sake. Only Jesus can set us free from loving ourselves for our sake into the same life of joyful generosity that Peter and John were living.

It takes a miracle to do that!