Free, but living in slavery

Drew spoke last Sunday night about a family in America who lived for a hundred years in slavery after the emancipation proclamation was signed. They had legally been set free from their life of bondage and slavery, but they didn’t receive the message and there were no televisions in those days so they just carried on serving as slaves, until a hundred years later when they found out that they were, in fact, free.

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine living as a slave, working the ground with no freedom or light at the end of the tunnel, only to find out that you were free the whole time? It’s not that far fetched though, is it?


How often do you feel inadequate when you walk into church because you sinned the night before? Or because you did not have ‘quiet times’ with God that week? Or even because you haven’t been to church since you were in Sunday school? How long does it take you to put those feelings aside and worship God? Two or three songs? The whole service? Or do you brush it off and think, “Maybe I’ll do better next week.” ?


I’ve got to be honest here, this was the way I ran my life for a long time. If I was playing guitar in the worship band, I would make sure I was ‘in tune’ with God the day before. I would make sure I had a quiet time at least. This would be okay if my reason for doing so was that I could lead more people closer to Him, but it totally wasn’t – it was a matter of passing some religious test I had made up in my mind in order to meet the qualifications I felt were required to stand in front of the church and lead them into worship. And the litmus test was this – if I didn’t spend a set amount of time with God before that Sunday, I would feel completely unqualified to be up there and, distracted by that feeling, I would not worship God at all (Yip, I know…“performance junkie” alert). Man, I look at that paragraph as I write it and I think, “You fool!” How did you think that performing a little task like having a quiet time would qualify you to worship God? Is that what God asked for anyway?


Jesus talked about this topic with the performance junkies of His day. He said to them, “You diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” It is not about you. It is not about your performance. It is not about how often you have messed up in the past. It is not even about how often you haven’t messed up. It’s about Jesus.


Stop. Read that again, because it is vital to your freedom. Don’t go on living a life of performance driven slavery when the emancipation proclamation has been signed on the cross.

Galatians 5 v1:“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not letyourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery”

John 8 v 34-36:Jesus replied, “ I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slavehas no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Sonsets you free, you will be free indeed.”

Stu