In reflecting on our ongoing discussion about the power of God, a theme that you hopefully have seen emerging in recent weeks is the fact that nearly every breakthrough and miracle that we will experience in our Christian walk will require a faithful request or else some sort of bold initiation on our part. I have said it before: “God will use you to work your own miracles.” Scripture confirms this. Two weeks ago, we learned about the woman who was healed because she waded through a crowd just to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe (Mark 5:24-34). The two blind men in Matthew’s Gospel similarly had to call out to Jesus before having their sight returned to them (Matthew 20: 29-34).

This week’s story is a little different. It’s a little shocking, really. It starts off ordinarily enough—if one could ever really refer to Christ’s miracles as “ordinary”—beginning on the heels of yet another ‘self-initiated’ miracle, where a Roman officer has just offered a bold analysis of authority, thereby impressing Jesus and healing his slave (Luke 7:1-10). After this episode, Jesus travels the ten miles from Capernaum to Nain. It is here where this week’s story begins.

Jesus, as you can probably imagine, has garnered quite the following by this point in his ministry. He’s healed leapers (Luke 17:11-19); he’s cast out demons (Matthew 8:28-34); he’s fed the 5,000 (Matthew 14:13-21) and restored the sight to the blind through some rather unusual means (John 9: 1-34). What’s more, he’s probably earned the reputation as a particularly cheeky prophet at that. By now he’s worked a month’s worth of Sabbath days (thereby incensing the local Pharisaical devotees), and even managed to get kicked out of his hometown of Nazareth. Indeed, controversy tends to spiral in his wake. That is all to say that this young rabbi was likely to have a crowd of disciples, onlookers, enthusiasts and scrutinizers surrounding him wherever he went.

So on the road to Nain this entourage, all abuzz with the witnessing of miracles and ten miles of teaching, meets up with a crowd with an altogether different timbre. The crowd whom Jesus encounters in Nain is a funeral procession accompanying a widow who has just lost her only son. This is a rare and terrible blow for any single mother, but even more so for a woman in this time and culture, who would’ve lost not only her last blood relative but her financial safety net as well. She, in effect, has lost everything. At the front of this procession would likely have been a band of her peers wailing along with her in an act of demonstrative sisterhood.

These two crowds eventually meet—one craving life and the other mourning death. The emotional contrast could not be starker nor Jesus’ reaction more surprising. Upon witnessing this woman and intuiting her sad circumstances, he is moved to intervene. His intervention, however, is surprising in several ways. First, it is interesting to note that this woman, unlike the other stories mentioned above, does not ask for his intercession. Her dire worldview has probably become such that she is tired of the faithful and all their optimism. She’s stopped asking for miracles long ago. Her prayers, she tells herself, have not and will not be answered. She’s done. Jesus, though, spots her and calls to her, “Do not cry!” Authoritative. Curiously, Luke reports that his reaction was one of excessive compassion, though most of us are prone to intuit one’s yelling at a widow as an especially insensitive act. The thing to catch here is that Jesus is refusing to agree with her situation, and is instead provoking her to think otherwise. Tough love, some might call it.

But Jesus isn’t finished. He never is. He goes a step beyond speaking and moves to action. As Luke reports, he walks into this crowd, the death crowd, and tells the boy to “get up.” Equally authoritative. And out of an equal compassion. The boy, as you have read, does exactly that. Another miracle has been worked and witnessed.

As an aside, it is crucial to recognize that becoming a Christian is not a one-way ticket to The Good Life. Even after that altar call your day to day existence will more than likely remain a challenging endeavor and your obstacles will still be there where you left them. So let’s be frank, the Christian walk is not paved in bricks of gold. What Kingdom living does offer you is not only a Savior and Redeemer, but what’s more, a community of people who will speak into your world encouragement and, when necessary, conviction. They will become your brothers, sisters, friends, and mentors. It is the crowd round you, and not a plastic smile, that will help to keep your feet moving when life becomes nearly unlivable, and in this circle you will find hope. And Jesus will of course be there as well, teaching and affirming you every step of the way.

What Jesus has effectively done in this story (and beyond) is shaken death by its collar. Perhaps you require a similar ‘shaking.’ Perhaps you have responded to the wailing of the death crowd and decided long ago to tuck tail and walk in their ways—out of fear, or despondency, or faithlessness. Jesus is perhaps calling to you those same tough, provocative words: Stop crying and get up! And perhaps the local church will be the last thing, maybe the only thing, that can help get you back on your feet.

Vision is what drives us. If we don’t have vision, we go nowhere. As a man thinks, so he becomes.

You can only go so far without Divine power. Man’s wisdom only goes so far. When we reach our limits, and don’t want to accept defeat, we need to go to prayer. The only thing that can do anything is God, and we have his power inside of us when we give our live to Christ. There is nothing more powerful spiritually than when you give your heart to God.

The doorway into the power of God is the understanding of the promises of God- the Bible. If you don’t understand the words of God, then you will not understand the power of God. It is our job to get into the Bible, and get to know what God says about our lives. Stuff is going to happen in our lives; we are going to get challenged. We need to put the promises from the Bible into practice in our lives. When we step over into the supernatural, we are unstoppable.

John 20:1-18 (NIV): “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead) Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. “Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (Which means Teacher). Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ “Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.”

Let’s take a trip into the tomb for a minute. The tomb is place where you die with Christ. When you die with Christ, your eyes are opened to the spiritual atmosphere around you. There are things going on around our lives that we have no idea about. As Mary Magdalene ran into the tomb to make sure that Jesus was gone, her eyes were opened to the things inside of the tomb that the disciples had overlooked.

There were three things inside of the tomb, in addition to the Angels sitting in reverence and praise at the head and foot of where Jesus had lain. The first of these things were the strips of linen that Jesus’ body had been clothed in. This means that as Jesus rose from the grave, he donned new garments. For those of us dying with Christ, this means that we become new people. We have the same person inside of us, but we are now clothed with the King of all Kings, with the best of the best. Our attitudes in life are radically changed, and people notice that.

The second thing that is found in the tomb is the burial cloth, the face cloth that covered Jesus’ face as his body lay in the tomb. For us, this means that we will be washed clean of our past, not forgotten, but washed clean. It is a brand new day; the freshness of God is on our lives. We have the brightest of futures to look forward to.

The third thing we find in the tomb is Mary’s humanity. She falls down on her knees and weeps, begging for her savior to be given back to her, to know where his body lay. She died to herself, wanting nothing more than her savior. As she realized who was standing before her, she wept with joy, not sorrow. As we ourselves die with Christ in the tomb, our humanities are also stripped away. As we die to ourselves, we turn around and find our lives in the hands of our savior. Joy floods into our lives, replacing the sorrow.

It is hard to believe what Jesus says sometimes, but his promises are true. Visit the tomb- so that you can die with Christ and come alive with a new life. The same spirit that rose Jesus from the dead is also alive within us. Take a hold of that, and don’t you ever let go.

In this story, Jesus is found in His House preaching the Word. The crowds are drawn to Him. Some receive what He is saying; some don’t. Why is that? It is not the issue of God wanting to get something to you; it is a heart issue. Are you submitted to God? Or is your heart hardened against the seed?

Attitude is crucial in living a life for God. Submitting to God’s word is very easy. It is the simple answer to life’s complicated problems. See, in ministry, people often think the pastor has all the answers. They want his council, but the answer is easy: come into the House of God; submit to the Word.

In this story, four young men are carrying a burden. They are drawn to Jesus’ House by His Words (the same Word we have today). They want to receive what He is offering. But they are faced with a challenge. Life throws challenges at you every time you decide to step out. For instance, you decide to come to church, but then, suddenly, you have to work or someone dies and you need to go to the funeral service or you sleep in. So many things try to get between you and your answer. For these men, it was a large crowd. Yet, they are not deterred. They climb onto the roof and dig through. They push through until they reach Jesus.

What obstacles are in your way? Push through! Submit to God’s Word, and your burdens will fall away.

Following man-made rules makes us feel good. We feel holy and pious when we do things and show off to the world. But Jesus came to break rules. He came to set us free from the law, and yet, we still bind ourselves with rules. That is not what God intended. God wants only freedom. He breaks the rules; back then and here now, He is still shattering every rule we place upon ourselves in hopes of faking piety.

Freedom is taught through the Word of God. The Bible challenges the man-made traditions that were instilled in the mind during childhood while growing up in one denomination or the other. It can be angering, but the challenge is the road to freedom. The Bible answers every question in life and addresses every issue that comes up. When you understand the Word, it becomes a foundation for freedom. Freedom let’s us move towards the things of the Kingdom and allows the Kingdom to have a major impact on our lives.

Jesus purchased our freedom with His blood. Salvation is submitting your life to Jesus, laying down your pride, and asking Jesus for help, and He does! In that moment, the spirit inside you–the part that God knew even before time as documented in Psalm 139–is reunited with God.

Freedom is what God cares about. He doesn’t care what clothes you wear to church or what denomination you were originally raised in or any of the other things in this life that hinder our walk with Him. The Blood of Christ covers you; when God looks down, He sees the Blood and sees grace. However, we as humans create things that help us define how to walk in His will. Thus, we become bound in traditions.

The will of God is His Word. If you want to seek His Will, seek His word. The Word is the central focus. You will never default from God’s will as long as you are in the Word. Everything comes back to the crossroads of the Word. The translation does not matter. It is still the Word of God, whether it is KJV or NIV or NLT or the Message. God wrote His Word. We translated it into these different version. Use one. It does not matter which. God does not care which you use. As long as you are reading His Word.

Paul addresses the issues of man-made traditions in Galatians 2. He points out the danger of adopting man-made traditions as the Will of God. The original church was made up of multiple cultures. God was shifting from being the God of the Israelite to the God of all peoples. But, some “so-called Christians” tried to take the freedom of this new faith and bind it in old traditions (like circumcision). The people of Galatia worshiped differently than the people in Corinth. The people in Corinth worshiped differently than the Jewish believers. Traditions that try to force all peoples of different cultures to worship God one way becomes bondage. That is what Paul and God warn about constantly in the Word of God. The sacrifice of Christ freed us from the law, and yet humanity creates lies to bind us. Jesus set us free. Focus on God’s Word, and you will find freedom.

Where the Spirit is, there is freedom. Traditions are birthed out of a need to change the outward appearance. However, what tends to be forgotten is that the Holy Spirit is the one who changes the believer in time. Jesus focuses on the heart. When a person gets covered by the Blood, the Holy Spirit immediately comes down to start the journey. He is the one who slowly begins to shift the heart away from old habits and old ways. Slowly but surely, you become sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Slowly, you become convicted when the old you comes up. Then, He begins to change you. It is His job, not ours, to change, shape, and mold the heart. And, like He promises in His Word, the outside will begin to reflect the inside. Out of the heart will come change. When we begin to follow tradition and fix ourselves, the Holy Spirit backs off. But when He is allowed in, there is order and freedom.

God wants us to be free in the spirit. God wants to take us from being trapped and bound into living a free life. You adhere more to righteousness when living in God’s freedom than when you live under your own rules and regulations. Freedom in God leads to His correction and change. Under the old system, there is only condemnation and self-loathing over your short-comings. Under the freedom of God, you aren’t trying so much as you allow God to shift and change you. He goes much deeper than salvation. Freedom from sin is instant; freedom from self takes a lifetime. It is a Journey. God walks it with you. Are you ready for the Journey?

Galatians 5:13-15: “For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.” (NLT)

I am talking about freedom this morning. I am not talking about political or religious freedom. I’m talking about the freedom that comes from who God is. Because, contrary to how you may have been raised or how you picture God–you perceive God through a grid forged by upbringing and the voices of authority in our lives. We take this baggage, this concept on, and it determines how we view God and life. It can be very tough to break out of these old thoughts of who God is. God is Freedom. The only real definition of “Freedom” is out of the Heart of God, Himself. He is the only free being in the universe.

Down here, we are becoming free-er, but we will never be fully free of the bondage of our flesh. Even though we are free from it, we live in the midst of violence, hatred, killing, and murder; as much as we are not of the world, we are in the world. The world tries to mess with our thinking. That is why you need the Word. It will lead you out of that thinking and lead you into the God Space. We are not called to be apart from the world. We are called to win the world. If the world does not respect us, we have no chance of winning. We don’t follow what we don’t respect. The world has to respect us, and there needs to be a level of relationship and connection in order to gain and develop respect. We are not cutting ties with the world. The world is caught in sin, the same as us, but we are covered by the Blood. The world is still trapped in its sin.

In all of this, we are journeying out of rules and fear and journeying into freedom.

The Book of Galatians deals with a very sensative subject. Paul was the champion of Freedom. We are dosconnecting with the law and attaching ourselves with God’s freedom; that is the theme of Galatians.

Anything you have to hide is not freedom. Example: When we came to America in ‘98, we struggled with the concept of alcohol being banned in Christian life. We encountered people who hid there beer in shame. I hate things that are hidden, so I would grab the beer and ask why it wasn’t in the fridge, and this fear would overtake their faces. It was like they were called out. Anything that is in the darkness gains power over us. We hide things because we are embarrassed or we think people won’t understand or because of tradition; that thing for which we hide gains 1000x more power over us. I don’t want anything to have power over me except for God.

Freedom starts with a foundation of being honest. We start in this platform of saying, “I’ve got an issue and I need to confront my issue.” That is why we strive to create an environment of family and no judgement so that people will feel comfortable in facing their issues here. Too often, Christian put on a facade and hide the truth inside in order to avoid the judgment. Your Sunday best may cover, for a period of a few hours, what you have going on for the rest of the week. I have this scoundrel part of me that wants to slap religion. I hate(that is a strong word, but I will use it anyway) religion. Religion keeps people in fear, which keeps them in bondage, which keeps them closed off, which leads to them to never discovering God’s freedom.

Galatians 5:13 says that “you have been called.” Now, we don’t talk about calling in this church. It is a very subjective thing, but there are a few things in the New Testament that you have been called into; meaning you have been called out of something else. You have been called to live in freedom. When you came out of darkness and into light, you came into a world where you didn’t have to hide anymore. Where you didn’t have to cover up; the only covering you need is the blood of Christ. Now, you can live openly. In the Garden of Eden, before they sinned, they lived uncovered. When they sinned, they felt guilt, and they covered themselves. The message is clear. When you’re in Christ, it is like you can live uncovered and free from trying to hide. “What if someone judges me?” They’ll hear my sermon on “Judge not least you be judged.” They’ll hear us talk about living a non-judgmental life. There is only one Judge, and He’s not judging right now. He will convene His court at the Day of Judgment, but that is not now. Right now, the only Judge is not sitting in judgment. He has released mercy and grace over the planet so that those who come to their senses and say “God I need you!” can come under the covering of the blood so then that we can be uncovered and live in freedom.

The Book of Psalms talks about the garment of heaviness. There is a heaviness you live under when you are bound by religious tradition, laws, and rules. Paul says, “Don;t live like you can’t eat this or touch that. Everything has become lawful in Christ.” This, to a Jewish mind, was confrontational and confounding. In Christ, all the things they couldn’t do, they could now do because of the covering of Christ. In Christ, you can make choices because you are free. We have a conscious in Christ, and we have the Holy Spirit. The more time you spend in God’s Kingdom, the more you understand when the Holy Spirit is talking to you. That’s why he says that you are not free to go live in sin. We adhere our lives to a higher standard because of the freedom that God has given us and because we feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Free people live in righteousness. People who live in rules, don’t. Every society that puts rules and laws on people breed an environment of rebellion. People will find any way to break the rules placed upon them. Example: If you parent out of fear and force rules, you will lose your children. If you try to bind your child, you will find that he or she will lose respect for you. They may nod in agreement, but, on the inside, they are refusing.

Outwards appearances and actions mean nothing to the intention of the heart. How do we get to a place where we thought we could fool God and fool ourselves? How do we think that if we had some outward demonstration of perfection that we could live righteously? It is a deception. It is a deception to think you can live and govern your life in such a way that in contrary to the Word of God. That’s why when you have a true encounter with God, you’ll find that God is trying to peal away the pride and layers and walls–He is trying to strip you back and get you back to the raw you. He’s trying to break stuff off because He loves us and He wants to shape us and He sees value in us and He sees what He’s gonna do with us and He says, “I can’t do that which I want to do with you right now so I want to break this stuff off of you, and I want to get you into true freedom. I want to get you so yielded, I want to get you so free that when I start to breath in you and give you a glimpse of where I want to take you, you will trust and go with me where I want to take you.”

Many Christians try to fake it. You don’t have to do that. We aren’t going to do that. We are not going to project to you something we are not. We are going to talk to you about our troubles sometimes, if only to give you permission to give you the same. You don’t have to do it in public like we do. It is part of the leadership calling. Yet, people come to us and thank us for how our honesty helps them find freedom. That is family. That is what we are doing. We are building a community of faith that respects and serves one another. God does not put an expectation on you, we do that to ourselves. Here, we love to dismantle that mindset and try to shake you up a bit. Sometimes, people are afraid of freedom, but they are more afraid to look within and see the truth. They prefer to keep the facade. The super-control freaks will manage the facade their whole life, but it won’t last. It always comes crashing down. The better thing to do is to let go and let God take a hold of you. Freedom in not having control and keeping a mask of perfection. That is the greatest bondage you can live in. Come to the other side where you don’t have to work for God’s love or His favor. On the other side, you just say, “God, I need You. I’m nothing without You.” And you serve one another in love.

Freedom begins in the heart. Freedom is a heart issue. The heart is the source of life; it is connected to the mouth. Luke 6: Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. You can change and begin to get free of all that junk if you begin to speak. Find a little piece of freedom and begin to speak out of it. “I love you”; “I respect you”; “I want to serve you.” When you speak that, the change begins. It will attack your pride and your traditions and you will change. Your heart will fill with love and freedom and your desire to serve will come naturally and out of that abundance, you will live your life. That is Bible freedom. Words that build and encourage. Try not tearing someone down; build them up. Find freedom in serving one another in love. That will change your life and theirs.

Amen.