Operation Divine Freedom
Luke 13: 10 - Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the
sabbath. 11And just then there appeared a woman with
a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was
quite unable to stand up straight. 12When Jesus saw
her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” 13When
he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising
God. 14But the leader of the synagogue, indignant
because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are
six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and
not on the sabbath day.” 15But the Lord answered him
and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or
his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16And
ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long
years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” 17When
he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was
rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.[1]
I - Introduction
Author Max Lucado tells about a problem he experienced when playing
football during his childhood in
The fields on which Lucado and his friends played were full
of sandspurs that stuck in their skin. Sometimes, after a tackle, a player
would have a leg or arm full of sandspurs. They stung horribly. The game came
to a stop while the player pulled out each of the spurs. Some players wanted to
keep on playing in spite of the spurs, but it was usually too painful. Lucado
trusted no one but his father to pull out the spurs. So he would leave the
game, go home, and get his father to pull out every last spur, then he would
return to play.[2]
Sometimes we fall into patches of sandspurs and sometimes we jump
very intentionally into them. But, no matter how we get there, some of them
just will not come out. Like the woman in this passage, no matter what we do, we
cannot free ourselves from the spurs. You might be struggling this morning with
a spur that causes you and the ones you love great pain and sorrow. You have
tried everything, but you cannot free yourself. You have read self-help books,
attended seminars, talked with counselors, and confided with friends, but you
are still not free.
What is your spur? Is it an addiction: to drugs, alcohol,
sex, pornography, work, play, food or the fear of food? Is it self deprecating
thoughts; a low self esteem? Is it depression or anxiety? Is it memories of
abuse or neglect? Is it fear of growing old or the frustration of not being quite
old enough? Is it a relational matter: your marriage has grown cold; your child
has run wild? Or is yours a financial situation: you just can’t seem to make
ends meet?
Whatever sandspur enslaves you, remember: Jesus Christ can set you free. Christ can
set you free because he has the power
and the will to do so. And all that
you need to be set free is right here in this place.
II – Jesus has the power
to set you free.
Many of you know that I worked in commercial
nuclear power plants for 23 years. I know something about power. Enriched uranium,
the fuel most often used in the nuclear plants to produce heat for the
production of electricity, is one of the most powerful elements in the world. Take,
for instance, this simulated uranium pellet, about the size of a #2 pencil
eraser: it contains the power equivalence of 157 gallons of gasoline or enough
gas to run your car for about 3000 miles.
But, even if the entire earth was
made of uranium, the sum of its power would not approach the power of God to
free you from your sandspurs: your infirmities, your hang-ups, your addictions
- the things that enslave you. For, there is a power that trumps all other
powers. It is the power of God. And this power belongs to Jesus Christ because
he is God.
John speaks of Jesus Christ in
chapter 1 of his gospel. He writes, “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He
was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were
made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”[3]
God as Jesus Christ possesses the power of creation.
Two men met on the dikes that
surround the city of
III – Jesus has the will to set you free.
Yet, you know as well as I that it
is one thing to possess the power to do something, and another matter entirely to
have the will to do it.
Isaiah 61 says this in about the
then to come Messiah, Jesus Christ: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news
to the poor; he has
sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and
the opening of the prison to those who are bound…”[5]
It is the very mission of Jesus Christ to bind up your broken
heart – it is his desire to set you free. And this freedom comes to us when
least expected. It comes at his unsolicited initiative. In other words, there
is nothing we can do to cause him to free us. He alone is God. He alone is in
control. He alone chooses the time and the place for freedom.
A Frenchman named Charney incurred the displeasure of
Napoleon and was put into a dungeon. He seemed to be forsaken by his friend and
forgotten by everyone in the outside world. In loneliness and despair he took a
stone and scratched on the wall of his cell, “Nobody cares.” One day a green shoot came through the cracks in the
stones on the floor of the dungeon and began to reach up toward the light in
the tiny window at the top of the cell. The prisoner kept part of the water
brought to him each day by the jailer and poured it on the blade of green. It
grew until at last it became a plant with a beautiful blue flower. As the
petals opened in full blossom, the solitary captive crossed out the words
previously written on the wall and above them scratched, “God cares.”
But God had a further blessing for this prisoner. The man’s friend
in the next-cell had a little daughter who was permitted to visit the prison.
The little girl was pleased with Charney’s love for this plant. And the news
reached the amiable Empress Josephine, who commented: “A man who so devotedly loves and tends a flower cannot be a bad man.”
And so she persuaded the emperor to set him free.[6]
Jesus
Christ has the power to set you free and because he cares he will set you free in
his own time and in his own way.
IV – All we
need are…
We know
Jesus Christ has the power and we know he has the desire to set us free. All we
need now are his presence and his spoken word.
One day a
certain father went to visit his son's preschool. It was a day when dads came to
visit. But when he got there, he was shocked to discover that only a handful of
fathers had come to be with their children. Later on that morning, all the
children were sitting on the floor in a circle. The teacher asked the children
to tell the group something special about their fathers. One little boy said,
"Well, my daddy is a lawyer. He
makes a lot of money and we live in a big house." Another child said,
"My father is very smart. He teaches
at the college and a lot of important people know him." Finally it was
time for this father's son to say something special about his dad. The little
boy looked up at his father, then he looked around the circle of his friends,
and then he just smiled and proudly said, "My dad ... my dad is here!"[7]
People
of John Calvin; you who suffer the pain and agony of enslavement to all kinds
of sandspurs: know this morning that
Jesus Christ is here in this place with you. Know that your addictions, your
frailties, your hang-ups and bad habits can be overcome right here.
Martin
Buber tells of an unruly rabbi … who caused consternation in the synagogue
whenever his teacher would utter the words, "And God spoke" as he read the scriptures. The rabbi would
become so agitated that he had to be ushered out to stand in the corridor,
hammering his fists on the wall and crying out, "And God spoke! And God spoke!" He didn't calm down until his
master's sermon ended. Yet it was said, for all the wisdom he missed in this
way, he understood more than any other disciple.
What was
this power that so amazed and moved the rabbi, this power to create and change,
to transform individuals and peoples, whole societies and even worlds?[8] What
has the power to free you from your infirmities? It is the very word of God;
the power of God for the liberation of all who believe. Not only is Christ
present in this place, but he has now spoken his word within your hearing.
V –
Conclusion
You
and I serve a God who has revealed himself to us as Jesus Christ. He is the God
who has the power and the will to set you free. What does it mean to you this morning to find yourself
here in his presence? What does it mean to find yourself here in this setting
for freedom; here where he is present and where his word has been proclaimed? Freedom
is offered. Will you embrace it?
[1]The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1996, c1989 (Lk
[2] Attributed to “King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com” Modified to forthrightly
address the thesis of this sermon.
[3]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (Jn 1:1-4).
[4]
Attributed to “J. Wilbur Chapan, ‘Present Day Parable’” at
http://elbourne.org/sermons/index.mv? illustration+3096
[5]The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Is 61:1).
[6]Tan, P. L. (1996, c1979). Encyclopedia of 7700
illustrations : A treasury of illustrations, anecdotes, facts and quotations
for pastors, teachers and Christian workers.
[7] Obtained
from “http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration”
[8] Attributed to “J. Barrie Shepherd, Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church” at “http://www.homileticsonline.com/ subscriber/illustration”