REAL FREEDOM

REAL FREEDOM

NCU Chapel – December 5, 2006

I want to talk about the difference Jesus makes in our past, present and future. Jesus made an incredible profound statement in John 8. He said, [32]"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make your free. [36] "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed." You will really be free, He said. What was Jesus talking about? What does He set me free from?

He wants to set you free the Pain of Your Past/Yesterday.
So many people are stuck in the past and it makes them so unhappy. They hold on to hurts—reacting to the past. Discovered from working with people that there are two basic kinds of things people have a hard time getting over: resentment and regret. Resentment over the way people have hurt them. Regret over the way they have hurt other people or themselves. Jesus wants to set you free from both of them. That is really a good thing! Isaiah 43:18-19 NCV "The Lord says, 'Forget about what has happened before. Do not think about the past. Instead, look at the new thing I am going to do.'" You say, "I would really like to do that, but I can't. They hurt me so deeply. What they did hurts so bad, I can't forget what they did. I just can't let it go."

You are right—that is why you need Jesus! Humanly it is impossible to forget the past. You need supernatural power, you need God's love/power in your heart—never get free from the past until God is really working in your life (may be visiting here today and…). Where is God when you hurt? He is close to you. But you have to be plugged in—God is not distant—you just have to be plugged in. There are so many people who feel like Humpty Dumpty, "Nothing could put me back together again." Friend, you are wrong. God specializes in freedom! Freedom from the past.

Jesus also wants to set you free from the PRESSURES OF TODAY.
This I know about pressure—when it's on you need two things: strength & stability. God offers them both to you. "God never grows faint or weary…He gives power to the those who are tired and worn out." Isaiah 40:28-29 NLT God says I want to give you power when you are worn out. The reason so many are tired all the time is because they were never meant to live life simply on their own power. God designed you to have a relationship with Him, to be plugged in to Him, to get power from Him! I was working on my laptop one time and it kept shutting down because the battery was drained. So I plugged it in the wall but about every two minutes it would shut down on me. I would restart and reboot but it kept shutting down. After 3 or 5 times I finally figured out that I had plugged it into the wall but it wasn't plugged properly into my laptop. I was running off a drained battery. Life can be like that. You keep shutting down when your battery's drained—when your emotional, physical, spiritual battery is drained, you will shut down. But when we build our lives on Jesus Christ, when we make Him the center of our lives—then we can handle anything… And that is the truth.

One more thing —Jesus Christ wants to set you free from pessimistic about TOMORROW.
Lot of pessimistic people today. People have lost faith in a lot of things. But when you really get down to it, most people are discouraged about personal issues:
a.People lose hope when they face situations that need to be changed but they just don't seem ...
b. Another reason we lose hope and become pessimistic is when we don't know the purpose that God made us for. Bible is very clear that we were all created for a purpose, a reason. The sad thing is that so many people go thru life never discovering (a) a relationship with God, or (b) the purpose God put them on earth for.

Have you ever wondered, "What does God think of me?" The Bible is clear what God think about you. "I know what I am planning for you," says the Lord, "I have good plans for you, not plan to hurt you, I will give you hope and a good future." Jer. 29:11 NCV. That is what God is thinking about you. He has plans for you—good plans, filled with hope—and we all have to have hope—have to have hope to cope. Can live without food for 40 days, 3 days without water, 8 minutes without air, but you can't live one second without hope. The moment you lose hope you are no longer living, you are just existing—that's when get pessimistic. We are living in a time of rapid change—everything seems to be up in the air. Need what Alvin Toffler calls "islands of stability."—something that never changes in your life, some emotional and spiritual anchors that hold you down when everything else is flying apart.

Do you have spiritual anchors? Do you have a real relationship to God? Psalm 125:1 LB "Those who trust in the Lord are as steady as Mount Zion unmoved by any circumstance."-This I know, God has a gift for you through Christ—it is freedom, freedom from the pain of your past, the pressures of today and being pessimistic about tomorrow.