Freedom.... exciting?

I was driving back from Miami with a friend, somewhere in-between Ft Lauderdale and Atlanta when I finally picked up my phone and called Marko. We had spoken the day before and had decided to pray about what God had planned for us to speak with the youth about. I had been listened for some time now, and decided to see if Marko had heard the same....

"So... get anything?"

"Yeah.... I got 'freedom'...", he replied.

"Heh....no way. I've had my mind on the same thing."

We spoke for a few more minutes and I continued driving.

"White cafe mocha please." I told the girl behind the counter at Starbucks. Me and Marko grabbed a table and sat down, Bibles in hand with a blank notebook page. We had done it before... we pray... we hear... it goes down on paper.... then we speak about what is written. So what exactly did He have planned for the youth? We had been thinking about it all week. We had a broad topic.... how do we speak about freedom in an hour and a half?

I took the notebook and started us off:

April 9, 2008

        Plans for Youth: Freedom

We didn't have much to add to that!  We sat there thinking about freedom, trying to pinpoint how to start such an amazing topic.  I thought about different entries into the topic, how would we start.... an image came to my mind of us before the youth.. "You were bound.... now you have freedom through Christ...." 

 I could image their glossy eyes and unspoken questions, "Bound by what....I don't feel bound... why are they so excited....free through Christ..... aww man! I remember that time I got that dog leash wrapped around my ankles.....bound.... I miss that dog.... we should get another dog..... Ashton just got a dog and it tore a hole in her brother's jeans....I bet he got those jeans from American Eagle... so-and-so shops there a lot.... I need a car so I can go shopping.... I need a job to buy a car.... or I can use mom's car and use the money from the job to go shopping with...."  and I could see their attention being diverted.

Bound by what...whom...and freedom from what?  I knew thats where we had to start.  You can't receive freedom unless you know you are bound by something.  To the notebook we went:

April 9, 2008

 Plans for Youth: Freedom

        Freedom from what?

              -fear

              -sin              

             -death

We had a beginning.  I knew that for us to live in freedom, we need to understand the bondage.  Revelation of the bondage, of the flesh, always comes before divine revelation.....it is the revelation of our bondage that humbles us for salvation..... and gets us passionate about our freedom.

I laid an old leather journal of mine on the table between our coffees and thumbed through the pages.  I had some notes on the subject in there somewhere.  I found it and read it out to Marko:

"Not everyone, by any means, has had the experiences of the seventh of Romans, that agony of conflict.  It is a great blessing when a person begins to realize the awful conflict of his struggle and defeat.  Of all the needy classes of people, the neediest of this earth are not those who are having a heartbreaking, agonizing struggle for victory, but those who are having NO struggle at all and NO victory, and who do not know it and who are satisfied and jogging along in a pitiable absence of almost all the possessions that belong to them in Christ."   -Dr. Scofield

This took me to Romans 5.  Six hours later we were exhausted.... yet excited.  We drove to the church, turned down the lights, Marko went in the back to make some coffee, and I stood there inking a few things on the whiteboard.  As the youth filtered in and sat down I finished up drawing a few symbols on the board and Marko walked in.  We began with a few minutes of prayer, and then told them what all we had planned for the night.  

"It all started with the fall of man.....Adam...." I began.

I continued on, explaining what happened when Adam fell....what happened to us....do you know?

"When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. And though there was no law to break, since it had not yet been given, they all died anyway-even though they did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did." (Romans 5:12-14a)

When Adam fell, we fell, when he sinned, we sinned because we were joined to Adam.  We were born into this sin, born into this bondage...... we have been living in it so long....our whole life to be exact, and have become used to it....to the point that we dont even know it exists anymore.  I continued with Adam's story... our story....them I told them about Christ and His role in our freedom.

Christ lived this perfect life free from this bondage, He took our place, switched roles with us, so that when He died....we died with Him, when He rose, we rose with Him.

"My old self has been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.  So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20

"Or have you forgotten that when we became Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ Jesus, we died with him? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised as he was." Romans 6:3-5

We have this freedom from sin now, and we have to understand this.... knowing this is crucial to living in the freedom that is in Christ.  Marko used a story to illustrate this:

"Back in the Vietnam War some American soldiers were taken hostage and made into slaves.  They continued in bondage to their masters.  The war ended....but the continued working.  They didn't know that they were free, and the man that they were slaves to didn't tell them because he knew the moment they found out the war was over....they were free.  It wasn't until much later that someone told them that the war was over and that they no longer had to be slaves."

The whole time after the war was over.....they were free!!  Yet they continued living in that bondage because they didn't know they were free.  We spoke for a while after this about how Christ took our place in bondage....died....and rose again because He could not be bound by the power of sin and death.  We basically taught the rest of Romans 5:

"What a contrast between Adam and Christ, who was yet to come! And what a difference between our sin and God's generous gift of forgiveness. For this one man, Adam, brought death to many through his sin. But this other man, Jesus Christ, brought forgiveness to many through God's bountiful gift. And the result of God's gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man's sin. For Adam's sin led to condemnation, but we have the free gift of being accepted by God, even though we are guilty of many sins.

The sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over us, but all who receive God's wonderful, gracious gift of righteousness will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ. Yes, Adam's one sin brought condemnation upon everyone, but Christ's one act of righteousness makes all people right in God's sight and gives them life.  Because one person disobeyed God, many people became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many people will be made right in God's sight.

God's law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God's wonderful kindness became more abundant.

So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God's wonderful kindness rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

As time began to run out we tried to wrap up.  I asked them if they think they understood, or if they wanted us to continue on the same subject next week.  They asked us to speak more about it next week.  As they gathered their things and got ready to leave, one of the boys said, "Man, this was the best youth group meeting we have ever had...."  they talked among themselves for a minute.  

Amidst the conversations I hear, "This was awesome... God spoke to me for the first time during this meeting"

God is still speaking, and He has a lot to say....