Title: Free to live I have the privilege of speaking tonight because Michelle called me last week and really made me feel that I should. She began to tall me why she felt I was the one who must speak, who god had ordained from before the beginning of time to speak on this night, on THIS occasion. She told me how on one of the very first meetings, Mark Z had spoke, how he had shared a story about a trip to Arlington National Cemetery, how he looked at the tomb stones with the date of birth of these heroes, these soldiers who had helped make and keep this nation free, the dash and the date on which they left us. He was reminded of the old poem read at some many funerals, a poem I read at my own father-­‐in-­‐law’s funeral, which begs the question, “how will you live your dash?” Michelle told how mesmerized the boys were listening to this wonderfully engaging and powerful speaker, how the very hand of God descended on the meeting and the very room shook. As she told me the story I thought, “so. . . . why is she not calling Mark to do a follow up? How appropriate that would be as several of these young men are making this commitment to identify themselves with the death and resurrection of Christ, commuting their dash to Him”? As I had this thought, Michelle said that while she was out on the lake on her Kayak in the most spiritual of moments, surrounded by the God revealing creation, that it came to her that Mark Z MUST speak and follow this up. . spiritual symmetry!! “So. . . why are you calling me? I just had the same thought and it seems perfect!” I replied. Apparently she called Mark and he agreed!! SUCCESS!! But then he remembered he had a meeting for a missions trip and was unavailable. . . . SOOOOO she went to the bench and here we are. Having sort of, “put myself on the bench” for the last year in terms of preaching, I have had a lot of things left unsaid and so struggled to find what God wanted said tonight. I kind of felt like I was back in 8th grade and was calling a girl for the first time. . . should I say this? Should I use a British accent? You write down what you want to say so you don’t mess up the words. . . dial the number, she says “hello” and you hang up as fast as you can. . . So, I asked myself if I knew this was the last time I would ever speak to you guys, what would I say? Several of you are making a public commitment tonight to walk with Christ on this journey we call life. . . what would I want to say? INTRO My favorite quote in all of movie-­‐dome came back to me from the movie Braveheart ALL MEN DIE. . . NOT ALL MEN TRULY LIVE It reminds me of my favorite quote from real-­‐life by Dr. Martin Luther King Junior: IF YOU DON”T HAVE SOMETHING WORTH DYING FOR, YOU ARE NOT FIT TO LIVE LIFE: Expl: Both quotes challenge – Both reflect men who passionately believed in their cause to the death – both include the word live: Illustr: Living your dash: The poem Mark Z spoke about pointed out that all men are born and all die. These are the dates on their grave marker, Important thing is what you do with the years in between. This is the point William Wallace makes with this statement: Keep in mind his situation: He is fighting for freedom from the English. For years the Scots lived under English control and perhaps grudgingly accepted it. Until finally some had enough of existing under those conditions. Were they “alive” yes. . . did they truly live? NO. . . SS: 1 John 10:10 I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more
abundantly (to the full)
Appl: Many of us, even those who have made a commitment to walk with Christ, Cry out at
some point, “there must be more” Jesus Himself says that he came to give us an abundance of
life. Unfortunately most of us too easily fall into the routine of simple existence: We wake up,
go to school or work, come home check email, eat dinner, go to sleep.
We try to fill our life with what our culture says brings abundant life: vacations, stuff,
experiences, but mostly this all just amusement:
Existence is predictable, it is safe,
WEBSTER: To live at an inferior level
Abundant Life: unpredictable: wild This was God’s original intent for Man
WEBSTER: to exhibit vigor, gusto or enthusiasm, to experience (as opposed to simply
dreaming), to be thoroughly absorbed by or involved with
I f we are truly walking out our time here with Christ he offers us an abundance of life not
simply the mundane: May not look the way we expect but it certainly won’t be boring.
Wallace and King were absorbed by their purpose. It flooded every fiber of who they were,
effected every aspect of their lives although from the outside we may say it didn’t look
right. Both were killed before they saw their dream fulfilled. But none would argue they
did not “truly live”
TRANS: What kind of Life is it that God offers us? A life of following new rules and
regulations? A life in which everything is dictated?
FREEDOM:
At the end of the Braveheart, Wallace is being executed and is asked if he would like to swear
his allegiance to the throne of England and end his torture. Instead he cries out one single word,
“FREEDOM” This is the defining word that describes the Abundant life
Illustration: PAUL
Paul is a man who met Christ in a very real way. He was a man of learning and of status
and of zeal. From the outside we may say that before Christ he was a man who was truth living.
He led the charge against the new heresy of Christianity. When he met Christ and gave in to the
truth, his life turned 180 degrees in the other direction – he became the William Wallace of the
Gospel: BARBARIC in his approach, uncivilized, not very worried about what the other
disciples thought of him, passionately living: Of his own account he states that he was beaten,
thrown in jail multiple times, flogged, run out of town, the cause of rioting, thrown off a ship,
stranded, and even stoned and left for dead. Not exactly how we would define living in freedom,
BUT he writes in his 2nd letter to the Church in the ancient city of Corinth:
2 Cor 3:17, “Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is
FREEDOM”.
Def: Gk Elyootheros
Unrestrained, not a slave, exempt from obligation
Appl: It was God’s intent from the first for man to live free, unrestrained
This is the answer to the common question asked by some many doubters, “if God is so loving,
why is there so much suffering?”
God designed man to live a life of choice NOT obligation – Adam and Eve and thereby Man
CHOSE to take for himself the knowledge of good and evil and so we took on a new nature of
obligation to what the Bible calls the sin nature, bearing little resemblance to God’s initial
creation of Humanity. Christ came to restore our humanity, to give us a life of Freedom:
FREE TO:
We know that we are not simply free to do as we please however, so what does this Freedom
allow?
We are free to Live the life God intended: abundant Life
Free from what the world says we are or can become
Free from what our past says we should be or can accomplish
Free from the apparent limitations our own mistakes or those of others seem to have laid on us
Free from an obligation to sin
Free from what our culture says is how things should be
Free to imagine the previously unimagined
1 Cor 2:9, for no eye has seen nor ear heard, nor mind imagined what God has
planned for those who love Him
Free to as Paul wrote in 2 Cor 3:18, “look into the face of Christ like in a mirror, and
become more like Him from Glory to glory” to become more and more human
Free to LIVE
Today is a day for several of you where you are publicly demonstrating your desire to live the
abundant life. Dying to what you thought was life and being raised into a new and abundant life.
To you I want to say: Stay Barbaric. You are not joining a country club with its rules and
regulations and it is very easy to settle into a mediocre civilized religious approach to life. This
is not what Jesus has offered. Do not allow anyone to civilize you but remain FREE:
I remember the scene when Wallace wanted to quit because he started to see freedom as
something external. His friend urged him and encouraged pointing out in that fighting and
refusing to live under obligation to England, they were already free.
Paul explained it this way: Through all the things he suffered, way worse and more
constant than anything we will endure I am sure, He refers to these things as temporary
LIGHT sufferings and continued to press on, to speak and live what he believed in his
heart:
how did he remain so Barbaric, so free?
2 Cor 4:18, “We fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen, since what is seen is
temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
The abundant life of freedom, doesn’t necessarily mean everything will go the way you would
expect or desire, it does not guarantee you an easy journey, but it does guarantee something we
all crave. . . freedom
Many of you here have been either outwardly or inwardly crying out, “There must be
more” unsatisfied, with what our world and our culture offer. Christ offers you life and
that more abundantly.