To Proclaim Release To The Captives

Christmas is an interesting time where the idea of sin in some ways is much more present because you have to deal with family that you can normally avoid. But now you have to go see them or they have to come see you. But I think there's a lot of extra effort around Christmas to sort of suppress this reality of sin. Nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to deal with it. It's supposed to be a happy time. I don't think that should be the way it is with Christians, at least not with us. Because at Christmas time, what we're... encountering, what we're facing up to, is God's answer to the problem of sin. I don't think it's something we should bury. I think it's something we should glory in. And so this evening we're going to be focusing on Luke's account of Jesus reading a section from Isaiah in the synagogue. You remember he went in and they handed him a scroll and he read it. We're going to be reading that prophecy in Isaiah.

And we're going to focus just on one section of it, just one, maybe two phrases of it. Those phrases are proclaiming release to the captives and setting free those who are oppressed. That's going to be our focus. And my hope is that God will help each one of us to desire and seek the freedom that Jesus came to accomplish for us, and not some other freedom. Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord? It says the word of the Lord, and it's eternally true. This is Luke chapter 4, verses 17 through 21. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and he opened the book and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. And he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him, and he began to say to them, Today this scripture has been fulfilled.

in your hearing. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. I realize that there's a lot of us not here because they're at family gatherings or whatnot, but those of us who are here have met to be strengthened, to be shown the good news on this Christmas Eve. And so when Jesus said that he, the Father, had sent him, the Son, to proclaim release to the captives, we have first to ask, what freedom is he proclaiming? What are we being set free from? Now, you may want to skip ahead and go, we're being freed from our sins, and we'll come to that. But my challenge to you at the beginning is to stop for a minute and say, in your day-to-day life, what is it that you want to be freed from? Not the Sunday school answer. What is it that you want to be freed from? Do you want to be freed from the consequences of your actions?

Meaning, do you want to be able to act without consequence? I can do whatever I want and there won't be any repercussions for it. Do you want to be freed from the limitations that your health or your finances provide? Is that what you think about all day? What do you want to be freed from? Annoying siblings? Grumpy spouse? Obnoxious parents? People spoiling your fun? Making you do things you don't enjoy? Work? What do you want to be freed from? I wish I could just not have to do that anymore. I wish I was free of it. What is it? The freedom that Jesus proclaims is a freedom from oppression and a freedom from captivity. And you'll remember that that time the Israelites were captives of the Roman government. They were an occupied country. And so the way Rome worked at that time generally is they would come in and they would subdue the resistance of an area. And then they would take people from that area and basically set up a government that was accountable to the Romans.

So there was still some authority structure, some hierarchy among the Israelites, but it was all understood to be under the authority and rule and watch care of the Romans. So they were prisoners at home. It's like being on house arrest, but on like country arrest. You're free to move about as long as you don't break our rules. It's not really freedom now, is it? And so Jesus says, I've come to proclaim release to the captives, and you would understand. Them to be thinking, yeah, let's get these Romans out of here. And you remember even when Jesus went, when Judas betrayed him and brought the mob to arrest Jesus, that there was still a misunderstanding about this freedom, even among the apostles. When they all came and Judas betrayed Jesus, Simon Peter gets out his sword and he cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant. He still thought that he were going to be freed from this oppression.

This sort of oppression, this Roman rule. These Pharisees, these hypocrites. I don't know that we're that much different from them. When we think about oppression, we tend to think very practically and very tangibly, very tactically. What is oppressing me? Who is it? Why are they doing it? And I wish they would go away. Kids often think their parents oppress them. You Meyer kids, you ever think your parents are oppressive? Beerbauer kids, are you old enough to think your parents are oppressive? My kids are old enough to think it. At some point, you parents, your kids will think you're oppressive. And they might be right. Maybe you are oppressive. But no parent who loves their child escapes the judgment of the child that they're being oppressive. What do you have to do as a parent to be oppressive? Say no. That's about it. No, you can't have a second help of ice cream. Why are you spoiling and ruining my life? Put away your toys. Don't you love me? We always think about...

oppression in terms of who gets in the way of us getting what we want. And we want them to get out of the way. The Israelites thought that, and we still think that. And it's very easy for us then to read this passage and go, yeah, that's not what he's talking about. But then we lose the whole context of what he is talking about. We just think, well, I just have to live and bear up underneath this until I reach the age of majority, if you're a kid. And you think, once I get old enough, then I can go do what I want. I can stay up as late as I want, and I can eat what I want, and I can date, and I can have a smartphone, and I can whatever it is you want. You can have it. And you know what the truth is, kids? You can. There'll come a time where you'll get to do that stuff. And with that will also come the responsibility for how you behave with those things.

Because you won't have your parents to run back to and say, well, you fixed all my problems for me. I've made a terrible mess. You'll have made a mess and it'll be your mess. And I'd venture to say that you'll understand your parents in a different light when those days come. That your impression of their oppression will shift. So when we think about oppression, we do tend to think about it in terms of people, groups, and society in general. Who are the victim people groups? Who are the oppressed? If you went and asked that question in society, could it be answered? Would there be an answer? Oh, yeah. Who are the oppressed? Minorities. Though they're losing their place at the table. They're not wanting to, but they're losing their place at the table somewhat. In favor of who? Yeah, the alphabet people or whatever you want to call them. Like the people who are in rebellion against who God made them with regard to their sex and living it out. They're the oppressed. So what's the goal?

In that context, what's the world's game plan for dealing with that oppression? Let's get the oppressors out of the way. If you feel oppressed by them, what's your game plan with them? Let's get the oppressors out of the way. You don't have anything to do with them. You see, that's how we think. And it doesn't really matter. If we're the ones that feel oppressed, then we just want to do away with the people. And that's as far as we get in our thinking of oppression most times. This is not the oppression that Jesus is freeing us from. I'm here to tell you. Jesus is proclaiming to us a freedom from the oldest and the strongest oppressor that you've ever faced. And that is the oppression of sin. The oppression of your own sin. Do you ever think about being oppressed by your own sin? Like when, as an example, when Lot was down there in Sodom and Gomorrah, how is he described? As being righteous Lot. And he was vexed daily. What vexed him? Well, we'd all be quick to say, well, it was all the

homosexuals and all that sort of problem. Do you ever wonder if he was oppressed by his own selfishness at taking the good land? And look at what he got for it. I wonder if he wasn't considering his life and his choices and wondering if he might not have been the man for the valley. We don't know, but it is a good question. Maybe he was oppressed by the sinfulness of his wife and the sinfulness of his children, the sinfulness of his land. He was oppressed by sin. When God sent judgment, you think, oh, it's all going to be good now. Now the sin's going to be judged and it's going to be great for him. So what happens to Lot? Righteous Lot, who's vexed daily about all of this, he loses his wife and ends up in a cave with his daughters in sin. What a mess. Sin is oppressive. Your sin's oppressive to you. Could you identify and name what your sins are that oppress you?

Man, it's a good question, isn't it? We could name what other people's sins are that oppress us. Our spouse, we know their sins that oppress us. Our siblings, oh yeah, I know what they do that drives me nuts. It keeps me from being happy. What about our own sins? Our own sins, they're just a part of our life. They're so familiar to us. We're used to them. We enjoy them. And we can't even identify them. Oppression is something that happens to us from outside, from other people. But the oppression that Jesus has come to set us free from is not all the bad people. It's not all the people who make our lives difficult. That's not what he came to free us from. Let me say it another way. You don't need to be freed from that. You can't be freed from that in this life. You can't be freed from that in this life. Do you understand me? There's nowhere you can run off to. There's no amount of effort you can put into your own family, even to your own house, to avoid it.

It just grows up inside of there because it's part of this fallen world. What did Paul tell us? We'd have to go out of the world, but we're not to go out of the world. And so this thing that oppresses us, it's our own sins. That's what I challenge you to think about right now is what are your sins that oppress you? What are you very familiar with? You probably, I'll tell you, you probably don't think of the thing that I'm talking about right now as sin. You probably think about it in terms of your personality. You probably think about it in terms of your gifting. It's so familiar to you. What is it, Dave? What is it? I don't know what it is for you. I've been racking my brain thinking about what it is for me. The problem is that our sin oppresses us, and that on top of that, we like it. How many of you guys have heard of the theory of Stockholm Syndrome? Sci-fi kind of people like to watch adventure, mystery, crime, thriller things.

What's Stockholm Syndrome? Stockholm Syndrome is a theory that explains why victims have a positive bond with their oppressors. They end up being protective of those who harm them. So you'll see children who've been abused having affection for their abuser and wanting to protect them and not wanting to see bad things happen to them. They have a positive view of that person. Maybe they feel sorry for that person. Maybe they see themselves as helping that person. Nevertheless, they have a positive view of it. Isn't that how we are with our sins? Don't we feel sorry for ourselves? Way more than we should, or not for the right things. If we needed sympathy, it wouldn't be for the sins we've given ourselves to. Martin Luther famously said that we ought to apply grace to our consciences and the law to our flesh. But we don't do it like that. The law plagues our conscience, and there's lots of grace.

For our flesh inside of us. We write ourselves a past because we like it. We're familiar with it. We couldn't imagine life without it. If you're angry, maybe the sin, we'll use an example, maybe the sin of anger. Can you even imagine life without anger? Could you imagine responding differently? Swap out anger and put in bitterness. Put in fear. Could you live without alcohol? because of your temptation to drunkenness? Could you live without pornography? Can you even conceive of what life would look like? I think many times if we were to walk down that road, we say, well, that is completely foreign to me and probably will not be very enjoyable. It might be miserable. I'd just get trampled on and taken advantage of and I'd just have an awful time of it. That's what bondage looks like, brothers. I guess those are done for the night. Thank you. You hear me? That's what bondage looks like.

Remember when the Israelites came out of Egypt? Oppressive. An oppressive place to live. Make bricks with no straw. Be beaten if you don't produce. And it wasn't long after they got out of Egypt, what did they want? They want to go back to Egypt. Take me back to Egypt. At least there's meat in the pots in Egypt. Yes, and you were being put to death and you were being beaten. But by all means, have the meat. The same thing going on with Lot's wife when she turned around and looked back. Sodom and Gomorrah were a miserable place to live. She couldn't be taken away from it. And she was warned, don't look back. She looked back. It's really hard. It's really deep-rooted. It's got a hold of us. These sins that we struggle with. We can't even really conceive of joy and happiness and peace apart from the things we want. Things our flesh wants. Demands of us. And we've become accustomed to giving it. If that's true of us, or to the extent that that's true of us,

It is appropriate to say that we are then captives, in bondage to those sins, shackled by them, unable to get away from them. That doesn't sound happy, does it? When you think of it that way, it's like, well, that sounds like it stinks. It's very hard to imagine a life free from the sins that plague us. And because it's hard to imagine, there's a danger. And the danger is this, that we would stop seeking. Stop desiring and stop seeking freedom from them. We'd stop fighting our sins. We'd just go, well, you know what? God's just going to have to forgive me and I'm just going to have to deal. This is just who I am. This is what I struggle with. It's just nothing can be done. In that moment when you say that, when you think that, when you believe that, what you're saying is, I want to be a slave. Not a slave of Jesus, but a slave of my sin. I don't want to fight anymore. I don't want to be set free. I don't know what freedom looks like.

You've probably all heard the stories of men who've been in prison and become very accustomed to that way of life such that when they get out of prison, they don't know how to function. Same thing's true of the military. I think a lot of PTSD and a lot of the struggles with alcohol and drugs and the sorts of troubles that military men have afterwards is they don't know how to reintegrate into life. They've become so accustomed to a way of life and not a good way of life. They don't know how to get on. They can't conceive of life. with freedom where they're not told, be here and do that and don't think. They stop desiring or seeking freedom. They stop wanting to be free of that stuff. They succumb to the slavery. We can see that in those examples. We have sympathy for it. We can understand it. We ought also to see that in our own sins and ask ourselves, do I want to be free from this?

If I'm lazy, do I actually want to be known at some point as a hard worker? If I'm unreliable, do I want to become known as a reliable man or woman, husband or wife, son or daughter? Can I conceive of telling the truth if I'm accustomed to lying? Or living by faith if I'm bent in the shape of fear? These are the questions. This is, in fact, the freedom that Jesus is proclaiming. Freedom from that thing that we can't conceive of being free from. I wouldn't know how to do it if I wasn't a nag of a wife. Do you know what my husband would be if I wasn't always telling him he was wrong? Do you know what kind of wife my wife would be if I wasn't always putting her in her place? I can't conceive of it. I have to do this with my kids because if I don't, all hell will break loose. When in point of fact, it seems as though all hell has already broken loose. Jesus is proclaiming a freedom, freedom from guilt, from the guilt and the power of sin. And in a growing degree, over time in your life, a freedom from the desire to sin.

That's the freedom he's proclaiming to you. And the question to us is, do we want that freedom? Do you want to be free from your sins? That's the question. Do you actually want to be free from them? It's scary. It's scary when sin gets a hold of you and you become so used to it. The idea of living without it, it's really intimidating. To the alcoholic who faces the prospect of never touching a drop again, they don't know what life will look like. They can't conceive of it. It's terrifying. They're afraid of what will happen to their body. They're afraid of what will happen to their relationships. They're afraid of how guilty they're going to feel for all the stuff they've been numbing all these years. They're really scared about it. Do they want to be free? That's the question. Do you want to be free from it? And if the answer to that question is no, then you remain in your bondage and your slavery. But if the answer to that question is yes.

then you understand some small piece of what Jesus is proclaiming here to the captives. You see yourself as a captive, not of the government and not of your family and not of society, but of your own sins. And you say, I want to be free from them. I want to be free from them. Whatever that means in the future, I want to be free from them. I think Abraham leaving out of Haran and going on his way had some... element, some ingredient of this in it. He was old and settled and established in Haran and was going, this is not it. Because he went out looking for a city that had a foundation, which does say something about the city he was currently residing in. He saw a problem. And so he pulled up his tent stakes and he took off to the land that the Lord would show him. He wanted to be free. Do you want to be free? That's the question.

This is what Jesus came to do. This is the good news. This is what he meant when he said today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. It hadn't officially and completely been done in that moment, but it was why he came to earth to set us free. That's it. That's the good news. As much theology and as much other interests that you have, if you're a Christian, this is the whole ball of wax. Do you want to be free from your sins? If you're talking to someone in your family gatherings tomorrow, or you're talking to someone at work, That's the question. This is what sin is. Do you want to be free from it? Jesus will set you free from it. He can set you free from it. I've seen him do it. He's done it for me. Do you want to be free from it? He'll receive you and he'll help you and he'll break the chains that you don't have the strength to break. This is a cause for joy. This is the source of our perspective as to what goes on in our society and goes on around us. All the stuff that kind of creeps up and is scary and infuriating.

And we go, well, I'd like this to happen, but if that guy doesn't get elected, I can still serve God. I'm still free from my sins. I'll still go to be with God in heaven. And that's what I want to teach my kids to do. And that's what I want to teach my neighbors to do. And God will take care of this other things. It seems really foolish and really childish and really unsophisticated and really faithful to me. So don't get caught up in or distracted by the secondary freedoms. that I started asking you about. They really don't matter. You can go to heaven without an eye or without a hand. You can go to heaven poor. You can go to heaven sick. You can go to heaven as a slave of the government. So those freedoms are secondary and a long way behind first place, this freedom from sin. And so put them in their place and make sure not to lose sight of the true freedom that Jesus came to secure for us. And so tonight, tomorrow,

As you meet with family, as you gather, as you think about this. And I do want you to think about it. Ask yourself, what do you need to be freed from? Do you want to be free from it? Or do you just want to act like you want to be free from it? Will you seek freedom from it? Will there be changed life? That's the question. Do you want the freedom that Jesus is proclaiming here? A favorable year of the Lord. Do you want that? That's the question. Let's pray.