Breaking Free From My Past

What would it look like for you to truly break free?

I'm calling this message "Breaking Free." These two simple words capture one of our most basic longings as human beings. They also capture the essence of God's will for us in Christ Jesus. But breaking free is anything but simple. In reality, breaking free can seem downright impossible. The process can push person into depression, or to brink of suicide.

Breaking free isn't something you think about occasionally. It's something you think about all the time. You think about it at work, at school, while driving, and while laying on your bed.

Sometimes it's a person we want to break free from. An absent father. An incompetent mother. An abusive family member. A shrewd employer. A personal rivalry. An old boyfriend or girlfriend who ensnares you by rekindling old temptations.

Sometimes it's an attitude, or a mentality, that we need to break free from. Bitterness, jealousy, or negativity. The negativity we often ooze can be all-consuming.

Sometimes it is an addictive pattern that ensnares us-- drinking to escape the stress, smoking marijuana to calm one's nerves, sexual sin to manufacture intimacy and cope with the loneliness, buying stuff to fill an inner void or create a sense of purpose, overeating.

Sometimes it's a real and present danger-- a controlling or violent spouse, a depraved neighbor who is taking you to court, or a bully. Maybe it's mistakes you made as a young adult, past indiscretions, or lapses in moral restraint that continually haunt you.

What would it look like for you to truly break free? What would your life become if only you could find a way out? I have good news for you this morning. God has indeed provided a way out. He has provided a path forward out of your sin. And God doesn't just want you to find forgiveness. He wants to set you free from the chains. This morning I am sharing God's plan to help you break free from your sin.

Step number one: Shedding tears.

Tears are part of God's redemptive plan. The opposite of tears is sin of pride. In the story of the exodus from Egypt, we repeatedly find God's people crying out for help. One example of this (and there are many) is in Exodus 3:7 (NIV) where the Lord says, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering."

Let's not fool ourselves. Lasting change doesn't happen without tears. Call it the law of consequences, but it's true. We don't change until the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of changing. God can do far more with a broken person than with a proud person. There is no freedom without there first being tears.

Step number two: Hearing new words.

We cannot break free with the same kind of thinking that got us into trouble in the first place. The renewal of your soul is contingent on thinking differently. And not just differently, but biblically, and with correct theology. If you are a stubborn and proud person, there isn't much hope for you. If you will not hear, or if you won't make time to hear, no one can help you, not even God.

There isn't a single example in scripture of a person being set free in any other way than by hearing God's words. God's plea to Israel throughout the Old Testament is, "Hear, O' Israel." Christ's complaint in the New Testament is that people are stubborn, blind, slow to understand, dull, and deaf.

God spoke to Adam. God spoke to Noah. God spoke to Abraham. God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, on the mountain, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness. God's word stimulates new thinking, and right thinking. Rest assured, you didn't get into the trouble you are in by thinking God's thoughts. You got into trouble when you stopped listening to God's words.

Romans 12:2 (NIV) is more than great advice. "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-- his good, pleasing, and perfect will." The most powerful, liberating force ever known to man is the word of God.

You can see in Exodus Moses how the Israelites, the Hebrews, and even Pharaoh have their way of thinking. But then what do we see God doing? He speaks new words over his people. Thus says the Lord! In Exodus 4:11-12 (NIV) the Lord says, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."

Step number three: Sincere repentance.

Repentance can be emotional. It can include tears, but repentance penetrates so much deeper. The acid test of authentic repentance is actions. Hebrews 6:1 (NIV) speaks of, "...repentance from acts that lead to death..." In Acts 26:20 (NIV) Paul is preaching, "that they (people) should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds."

One thing we know about the Israelites as detailed in Joshua 24:14 is that they worshipped and served the gods of Egypt. The ten plagues were just as much for the Israelites as they were for Pharaoh and the Egyptians. God was vividly demonstrating how their idolatrous actions would literally, not figuratively, lead to death. And that's the thing about sin. Sin leads to death. When we repent of our sins, it's not just sins we are turning away from, it's death. And turning is an action, not just a good intention.

In order to break free, we need to experience pain. For what other reason would we change? In order to break free, we need new thinking shaped by new words. In order to break free, we need new ways of living and acting. Faith without works is dead. Education will not set you free. In Romans 6:16 (NIV) Paul says, "Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey-- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?" If there isn't a sincere movement to obey God, we remain in our sin and our death.

Step number four: Trusting the blood.

To break free, we have to trust God's provision for our sin. Otherwise we have to make our own provisions. If the wages of sin is death, than death is the ultimate price that must be paid for our sins. In the ancient world, there was no higher price that could be paid than shedding one's own blood, and especially the blood of one's firstborn son. The ten plagues were just as much about the Israelites as they were about the Egyptians in coming to terms with the true cost of sin. Think of all the death reflected in the plagues. The Nile turns to blood. Dead, putrid, decaying frogs. Dead gnats. Dead flies. Dead livestock. Decaying flesh, in the form of boils. Dead locusts. The killing of every firstborn child. And then there is the blood of the passover lamb.

Covering one's doorposts with the blood of the passover lamb was the only provision God made to spare the Israelites from certain death. If your doorpost was covered by blood, the destroyer passed over that household. The blood was a way for the Israelites to demonstrate that they understood the high price of sin. But it was also a sign of the high price God would later pay, through the death of his one and only Son, to redeem us from the curse of the law, from our sins, and from our eternal condemnation.

There isn't a third choice when it comes to blood. It's either our blood, or the blood of Jesus Christ. And God would rather it be the blood of his beloved Son. Hebrews 9:22 (NIV) says, "In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." 1 Peter 1:18-19 (NIV) says, "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect."

This is why we sing the song, "Nothing but the Blood." It's because there isn't any other way. The blood of Jesus Christ is the only thing precious enough in God's sight to appease his wrath and render our debt paid in full.

Step number five: Consecrating our firstfruits.

In Exodus 13 God instructs Moses and all the Israelites to consecrate the firstfruits of everything to God. When they had sons, they were to consecrate their firstborn males in service to God. When they had offspring, whether a lamb or goat, or any other kind of animal, they were to consecrate the firstborn to God. Later in Exodus God would ask them to consecrate the firstfruits of their grain, their gold and silver. God also instructed them to eat unleavened, yeast-less bread, to commemorate the suddenness in which God delivered them from captivity in Egypt. There wouldn't be time for their bread to rise because they would need to leave quickly.

To consecrate is to dedicate something in order to set it aside for a set for a holy purpose. When we set aside our firstborn, our firstfruits, our tithes and offerings, it points to the fact that God's set purpose, from all eternity, was to offer his one and only Son as a provision for our sins.

In Exodus 13:14-16 (NIV) God says, "In the days to come, when your son asks you, 'What does this mean?' say to him, 'With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man and animal. This is why I sacrifice to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.' And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the Lord brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand."

Consecrating our gifts to the Lord is more than a statement of our gratitude. It isn't a reflection of how materially blessed we do or don't feel. Our tithes and firstfruits are a sign of the high cost God was willing to pay to redeem us from death. God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up freely for us all. Jesus became a curse in order that we might be set free from slavery and sin.

Step number 6: Passing through the water.

As the Israelites left Egypt, even though there was a shorter way to the promised land, God sent them on an unexpected detour toward the Red Sea. In Exodus 13:17 (NIV) God tells the reason why he did that. "If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt."

Next Sunday, I want to talk about the manner in which God led the Israelites out of Egypt and in the wilderness. He used a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. But for now, notice that in Exodus 14 as the Israelites head toward the Red Sea, the Egyptians are in hot pursuit. If the Israelites turned back, they would face certain death. Moreover, if the Israelites didn't trust God, it would also mean certain death. As they headed toward the Red Sea, they were entirely powerless and vulnerable. By themselves, they could not pass through the sea without dying.

The Red Sea represents for the Israelites an impossible barrier to salvation. But what's impossible with man is not impossible for God. In the days of Noah, Peter tells us that God saved Noah and his family through water. And this water symbolizes the baptism that now saves us also. It is not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a good conscience. Baptism saves us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In the exodus, God chose to save Israel through water. In 1 Corinthians 10:1-2 (NIV) the apostle Paul talks about this. He says, "For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea."

In John 3 Jesus explains to Nicodemus how just as a baby is born through water, so we must be born of water and the spirit. In Romans 6 Paul explains how in baptism, as we're immersed, we're reenacting the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

The Red Sea is a powerful metaphor. It's the occasion where the Israelites must decide to die to their old way of life and embrace the new life God had for them. It's a line drawn in the sand, on the shore of the Red Sea, that they all must cross. No exceptions. Passing through the water was the only way to the life God had in store for them. It was their baptism, their cleansing, and their start of a new journey.

The Red Sea was for Israel what our baptism is for us. It signals a time and place in history when we turn from our old life once and for all, to be forgiven, and to enter into all that God has in store for us. It signals our desire to trust God and literally pass from death to life. Our baptism is our declaration that we trust God. We recognize that there is no other name given among men, and there is no other way by which we must be saved, other than by trusting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of mankind.

Faith is a continuous motion.

Why do we pray? Tears demonstrate that we're ready to break free.

Why do we preach? Hearing renews our minds.

Why do we repent? Obeying God demonstrates our sincerity.

Why do we take communion? It shows that we are trusting Christ's blood to redeem us.

Why do we take a monetary offering? Giving our first, and giving our best, reflect that God gave his best.

Why do we stress the importance of baptism? Because God draws a line inviting us into a new life, and he draws a line that we should be set free from sin and death forever.

Acts 2:38 (NIV) says, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of you sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."