True Freedom

By Steve Crain, from a message by Pastor Greg Davenport

“Where is our freedom taking us?” asked the Rev. Greg Davenport in a sermon he preached a few years ago at Vineyard Assembly in Tramway, N.C. He still serves as pastor of that church.

He quoted Harry Conn, who said, “Freedom without restraint leads to license, and license leads to bondage; bondage then evaporates freedom.”

Davenport read Galatians 5:1, 13-25: “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…You, my brothers, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Rather serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: love your neighbor as yourself.”

“One freedom is ‘being free from the control of self,’” Davenport said. “Christ set us free to stay free. Your passions and desires led you around by the nose…Being able to do what I want to do is bondage—not freedom. Too many times we find freedom and then go back to things we used to do and be. We’ve been set free to live a new life, but we go back, instead of moving ahead into the unknown of God’s glory—sometimes that (God’s path) is what scares us.”

Believers are also free from “the law,” he said.

Romans 7:5-6 indicates God’s commandments (“the law”) reveal our sinfulness and show us we need Christ as Savior. Accepting Christ frees us from “the law.”

“We’re free from having to keep a set of laws like they did in the Old Testament,” Davenport said. “There’s a new way to serve God - with the ways of God engraved on our hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3).

Davenport said real freedom means loving and forgiving others.

“Ted Whaley says our culture has become more self-centered over the past 30 years,” Davenport said. “Starting with baby boomers, the myth that you can do your own thing as long as you don’t hurt anyone has been widely accepted. Paul makes it clear: though we are individuals, we are parts of one body. Real freedom means ‘I’m free to love you’—not ‘I’m free to shun you.’ Real freedom means I’m free to embrace, not free to kick you when you’re down. We take our freedom to the point that we feel free to do things against the nature of God. Unforgiveness is an epidemic in the church today. Somehow, if someone has done something against me, I feel I have the right to hold it against him. You can do that, but you won’t be free. Forgiving somebody doesn’t equate to telling them it’s okay that they did it (a wrong thing). But it does release us from the bondage of sin—which unforgiveness is—and brings us to live life unfettered.”

When Tammy Faye Messner appeared on Larry King Live, King asked about her relationships with those who wronged her during the PTL ordeal. She said she moved beyond those horrific days by forgiving people.

“Forgiveness is the best gift you can give yourself,” Messner said.

She described an ancient practice of chaining a murderer to his victim and forcing that murderer to carry the victim on his back. As the victim’s body decomposed, the victim caused the murderer’s death through transmitted disease.

Messner said, “Maybe you’re carrying somebody on your back. If so, put them down.”

Davenport said, “Free yourself by forgiving others. We can’t advance the gospel of Jesus Christ, if we’re holding unforgiveness toward each other.”

Davenport said real freedom means denying your flesh—denying what your flesh wants.

“A world maxed out on materialism is like the two lost children in the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel,” Davenport said. “We happily make our way to the gingerbread house of materialism, only to find a prison inside. Going after fleshly desires may feel good, but in the end, it steals the very freedom you thought it would bring.”

Davenport said real freedom means identifying with Christ. He said J. Walter Cross told of flying a kite with his son in Florida. The harder the wind blew, the higher the kite rose—until suddenly the string snapped. The kite was free but no longer soared higher and higher. It began tumbling to the ground.

“We are not free until we are restrained by something that pulls us higher and higher,” Davenport said. “The restraint in our lives causes us to be able to soar. Without it, we fall. It’s not the absence of restraints that makes us free—it is the restraints that make us free. I have been bought with a price. Only in being identified with Christ do we find freedom.”