The Gospel According to Freedom Part 3

Jesus adopts us into his family. He marks us and he gives us a new name as his children so that we will live as freed men and women, not as slaves to this world who tries to make us into what it wants us to make us into, selfish human beings who choose to not look at the needs of others. [00:48:56] (24 seconds)  #AdoptedAndFree

She tried a second time. And somewhere in that dark journey north, she realized she couldn't carry all four children to safety. The distance, it was just too far. The danger was too great. The little legs of the children were too tired. And with her captors on their heels, she was forced to make a choice that no mother should ever be forced to have to make. She fled with her two daughters and left her two young sons behind. They were sold the sons were sold into slavery back down in the Deep South. [00:33:02] (39 seconds)  #FleeingForFreedom

So a local family helped hide and helped to hide and protect them. And in gratitude and for protection's sake, they adopted a new last name, the name of the family who helped them evade capture. Still, they built a stall a small life in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. They worked hard. They prayed. But every night, there were two empty places in their hearts. Two sons left behind. [00:34:26] (31 seconds)  #HiddenAndRenamed

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. God didn't just come as a human as a last ditch effort to save us. This is the intentional way that he chose and that he chose to come and truly free us. [00:42:20] (27 seconds)  #AdoptionThroughChrist

The Jesus story, it's the poor person's story because God in Christ becomes poor and weak in order that the oppressed might become liberated from poverty and powerlessness. God becomes a victim in their places and thus transforms the condition of slavery into the battleground for the struggle for free of freedom. This is what Christ's resurrection means. The oppressed are free are freed for struggle, for battle in the pursuit of humanity. [00:43:17] (35 seconds)  #ResurrectionLiberation

And it all began when two parents who refused to be identified as slaves, even when the world told them that they were, they chose to instead adopt the name of a family who saw them as precious human beings, worthy of being respected and living in freedom. This is exactly what Jesus does for us. [00:48:34] (23 seconds)  #ChoosingDignity

Even in our story today with the Still family, we see how the governments of this time had used scriptures to endorse and say that the mistreatment of people was not only good, it was biblical. And Paul notes that in this wretched state, God has sent his spirit or has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts crying, Abba, father. [00:44:39] (31 seconds)  #AbbaSpirit

So you are no longer a slave, but a child. And his logic is if you're a child, then you're also an heir through God. So Jesus claims, and Paul is claiming that as his children, we are adopted out of a broken system that we were enslaved to for so long. [00:45:11] (25 seconds)  #FromSlaveToHeir