“For FREEDOM Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore,
and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1)
That is the beauty of the Cross. Jesus allowed himself to be
beaten and betrayed. He stood trial and willingly accepted an unjust death
sentence. He submitted to the worst form of torture the Roman Empire could
muster. His body was bloodied by torture, stretched across a wooden frame, and
nailed into place. And from that most humble position, He looked upon the
people before him. His heart must have been broken, for He had created His
people for so much more. But they chose to run from His love. They chose a
“yoke of slavery” rather than the embrace of a loving Father (‘Baba’ in
Swahili). But God wasn’t willing to leave us enslaved to Sin. Jesus was on a
mission of Love, and of Grace, and of Freedom. Freedom from the yoke of bondage
that we willingly subjected ourselves to.
That is why He has set us free. He has set us free in order
that we may be free. Does that make sense? It sounds so simple, and maybe you
get it. I didn’t.
But if there is one thing that I have learned about these
people, it’s that they are rich in freedom. They have taken hold of the freedom
that Christ won for us on the cross, and they won’t give it up for anything. And
when I look at their situation, it makes sense. While so many of us are chained
down by our possessions, these people don’t see the importance in having stuff.
Shelter, one meal a day, some sort of clothing, and a little water get the job
done. They could care less what brand they wear or what color their shirt is.
One of my good friends, John, rocks this light pink jacket with a matching
bonnet-looking hat. But hey, it keeps him warm during the cool months. If you
ask anyone here what their favorite meal is, they will probably say Ugali. It’s
just corn meal and water cooked into a thick consistency. It’s really quite
bland, but it fills you up. Kenyans eat this almost every day of their lives.
And yet, it is the crowd favorite because it satisfies. So simple.
What is it that is separating you from dependency on God?
How quickly do you run to the Lord when life hits you with a curve ball? If
you’re like me, then maybe you sometimes see God as a last resort in times of
need. Let me expound on that a little. Would you agree that there exists a “spectrum
of hardships” in life? These can range from petty things such as burning the
toast to really difficult experiences such as the loss of a close friend or
family member. Every sucky event that we navigate in life falls somewhere along
this “spectrum of hardships.” And how do we respond? Well, if it is a small
thing then perhaps we just ignore it. Or maybe if it’s a little tougher, then
we deal with it by playing video games, or scrolling through Instagram posts,
or seeing if we got an extra couple likes on our Facebook status. It may be a
subconscious act, but something within us tries to forget the crappy situation by
replacing the thought of it with something that makes us temporarily happy.
That’s all we need. Just a quick distraction. Consider a hardship even further
along the spectrum, like a breakup or a season-ending injury. How do we respond
then? Maybe we vent to our friends to get sympathy, or we splurge on tons of
new clothes and a frosty from Wendy’s. Whatever
our coping mechanism may be, we are quick to run there to escape reality when
it gets too real. But then, there are the hardships at the very edge of the
spectrum. These things have the power to completely uproot us if we aren’t
“founded on the rock” (Matt. 7:25). And it’s in times like these, as believers,
that our coping mechanism comes up short and we are forced toward our last
resort – God. He was there all along, but we didn’t recognize our need for him
until things of this world failed to meet our need.
Maybe I’m just speaking for myself. Maybe this isn’t how you
deal with hardship. But if you are like me, and this is how you cope with
hardship, is it okay? I would say NO, because running to other things for
satisfaction rather than God is idolatry. It is sin, the exact thing that Jesus
died to set us free from. A couple Sundays back I heard a message from Oliver
Wong, the youth pastor at my church. He mentioned how so many people take the freedom
they have been given to run right back into slavery. How silly is that! But if
we are honest with ourselves, then perhaps that is us. We gladly receive the
freedom granted to us on the cross, say “Thank You”, and then blindly return to
our slave masters. In the case of dealing with hardship, our slave masters are
the material and worldly things that we run to when the going gets tough. But
what if we were to turn to Christ in the face of hardship, big or small? What
if we were to be dependent upon him in the petty things, as well as the big
daunting things? It’s tempting to run to things of this world, especially since
they are visible to the eye and offer quick satisfaction. But God provides good
and pure satisfaction that has the very power to heal our pain and remove our
sorrow, not just distract us from it.
This is the rich freedom that I mentioned earlier and that I
experienced so deeply in Kenya this summer. Part of it is that Kenyans don’t
have access to the material things that we are tempted to run to for
fulfillment. They don’t have all of the techno gadgets that we use every day or
money to go splurge on new clothes and frosties from Wendy’s. But the issue is
not with the things that we choose over God. It’s in the fact that we choose
those things over Him – slavery rather than freedom. He gives us free will to
choose Him in every situation. This summer, I witnessed several Kenyan people
mention the hardship of their life. But the conversation did not stop there.
Within a couple of moments they were proclaiming their hope in Christ, and
their dependence on Him to provide. While our response is to escape reality in
the face of hardship, the Kenyan people embrace reality with full dependence on
the Lord to provide and satisfy their need.
He has set us free in order that we may be free. So in
hardship of all kinds, let’s choose to lean on Him, and in doing so we will
loose our chains from this world and take hold of the freedom that He died for
us to have.
“For FREEDOM Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore,
and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1)
That’s all.
WC
Below is a beautiful mural I spotted in the Kibera Slum in Nairobi, Kenya.
