Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Be Free | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 4.14-30

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Right now, we're learning what it looks like to follow Jesus by working our way through the Gospel of Luke. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to do a archaeological tour of Israel. That might sound cool to you or super lame. It's besides the point I loved it. And one of my favorite places that we visited was called Magdala.

Starting point is 00:00:33 Now, that name might sound a little bit familiar to you if you've ever heard of Jesus's disciple, Mary Magdalene, or we might say Mary of Magdalene, because that's where she was from. Now, this small town was on the coast of the Sea of Galilee, and it was almost certainly among the many towns that Jesus visited during his ministry, because he was an itinerant preacher and healer. Luke writes that after Jesus' temptation, this is what happened, Luke 414. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everybody praised him. I couldn't help but think of this passage and others like it when I visited Magdala, especially when we visited the

Starting point is 00:01:22 site of a first century synagogue. It was a surreal experience. I was standing in a synagogue that Jesus probably preached in. In many ways, that synagogue was different than I expected. Most synagogues in Galilee were built with basalt, which meant that they were made from black stone. They varied in size, but the one in Magdalas was about the size of two high school classrooms, which isn't very big. There were columns and benches for people to sit on, and on the floor there were mosaics, beautiful geometric designs. These would be in places where people would read and preach and lead singing. The scripture scrolls, they were stored in large chest because they were handled with the greatest care. So sitting in Magdalah, I imagined Mary Magdalene, hearing the stories of the

Starting point is 00:02:10 spirit, empowering a teacher, healing the sick, driving out demons, and proclaiming the good news that his healings were going to be signs of God's kingdom finally arriving on earth as in heaven. I wonder what questions she and others were asking. Could he be the one, the Messiah, the king, come to rescue Israel from exile, to set them free from pagan rule, from sin and death? They must have awaited the day that Jesus was going to come to Magdala. The day he arrived, the synagogue would have convened, and they would have seen his acts of power and his words of freedom. Of course, Mary Magdalene was likely like most Jews living in Galilee at the time. She was a poor peasant, maybe a farmer, or part of the fishing industry. She was barely making it. She was taxed. She was taxed.

Starting point is 00:02:59 within an inch of her life. She was longing for freedom from Rome, longing for the freedom that would come when God returned to Israel. Freedom, after all, is something that we all longed for. In the modern era, we tend to think about freedom as freedom to do what I want or to be what I want. Freedom means a complete lack of strictures and regulations. But the Jewish conception of freedom was very different. On the one hand, it meant freedom from their pagan rulers. But on the other hand, it meant freedom to obey God. Here's what I mean. They understood that they were oppressed and even controlled by sin

Starting point is 00:03:39 and that they needed to be set free from the power of sin and idolatry so that they could be free to follow God with their whole hearts so that they could be free to be the humans that God actually made them to be. We could put it different. Freedom wasn't the freedom to do whatever you want. Freedom was the freedom to live out your true human calling. Freedom was the freedom to reflect and to image God into the world. Freedom was the freedom to be what you were made to be.

Starting point is 00:04:12 Maybe an illustration helps make this point. I want you to imagine a lamp. Now, what would make that lamp free? By modern definitions, freedom means cutting the lamp's power cord. It means no strictures, no limits on where it can go. It means the lamp should be free to do whatever the lamp wants to do. If it wants to shatter its bulb, so be it. If it wants to fold its lamp shade in half until it breaks, fine.

Starting point is 00:04:38 If it wants to break off its power switch, well, as long as it's not hurting anybody else. The lamp is free to bend itself into whatever shape it wants. So by this definition, real freedom is the freedom to do whatever I want to do as long as it doesn't hurt any of the other lamps out there. But I hope you see the problem here. A lamp with a folded lamp shade, a cut power line, a shattered bowl, broken switch, bent frame. It may still be a lamp. But it's no longer a functional lamp.

Starting point is 00:05:07 It can't give light anymore. That lamp is not free to do what it was actually designed to do. True freedom for a lamp? Isn't it the freedom to do whatever it wants as long as it doesn't hurt anybody? true freedom for a lamp is the freedom to be a light, to fill a dark room with its electric glow. Yeah, there's going to be limitations. It's going to need a cord. It will need a bulb and a switch. But the lamp that lights a room is genuinely free, free to be what it was made to be. So the Jews in Magdalene, and throughout Galilee, in places like Nazareth, where Jesus grew up,

Starting point is 00:05:46 they were awaiting the day when God would return and bend their broken. frames back into shape, restore their shattered light bulbs, mend their broken switches, and set them free to finally be the humans that they were made to be. This was always God's plan through Israel, that through them he was going to mend everything that Adam broke, that through them he would mend people from all nations. So can you imagine the excitement that a powerful healer and preacher was going around Galilee, whispering the truth, that God was fun. finally returning to do just that. Can you imagine the buzz in Nazareth when all of this happened? You see, Jesus went to Nazareth, the place where he was brought up on a Sabbath day,

Starting point is 00:06:33 and he went into their synagogue, as was his custom, and he stood up to read. This is what Luke says. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written. The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, He sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everybody in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

Starting point is 00:07:16 Jesus came to announce a day of freedom. Freedom from the rule of pagan kings, freedom from the rule of sin and idolatry, freedom for all who are bodily broken, all who are broken in their own hearts, freedom to be what they were made to be, to be the humans that God designed them to be. It's the last verse that's the most stunning. Today, this scripture, a scripture about the day that God would proclaim freedom, that God would set everybody free. Today, it is fulfilled in your hearing. Jesus is telling us that this is his own mission statement. His mission was to set us free for our mission. Do you know what makes this claim so shocking that Jesus is fulfilling these promises? Well, here's what makes it shocking. These promises come from Isaiah 61. And in Isaiah 61,

Starting point is 00:08:10 it wasn't prophesying a day when a human would come along to do all these things. No, it was prophesying a day that God himself would come as an anointed conqueror to defeat the powers of idolatry, sin, and death. And Jesus is saying here, I am the conqueror, I am the freedom fighter, I am the kingdom of God, I am the king of the kingdom. Do you believe that truth? Have you let Jesus mend you, set you free from sin? idolatry and death. Have you let him set you free to be fully human, to do what you were designed to do? The fact is that to be fully free, it's always going to involve limitations.

Starting point is 00:08:53 You can't do whatever you want to do, even if you think it won't hurt someone else. True freedom means that you are not your own. True freedom means submitting to God's call in your life, to His holiness, to speak like him, to treat others as he would, to be patient and merciful and servant-hearted like him, to image and reflect him. Today, pray for God to set you free to be genuinely human, for him to mend all the places that you've been bent by sin, shattered by idolatry and broken by the powers of the world.

Starting point is 00:09:28 Pray for freedom to reflect his image into your world and receive that freedom by kneeling before him as your king. Thanks for listening. you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with? Texting an episode to a friend or a family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Be Free | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 4.14-30

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