Recently, on an airplane, I was beside a fellow from South Africa. I talked with him about the struggle of his people for freedom from the system of apartheid, which had kept them in for many years. How precious freedom now seems to them! The phrase "Free at last!" was popularized by Martin Luther King Jr., a leader in the civil rights movement in the U.S. We long for freedom.

What is true politically is true for us individually as well. We want to be free from the things which bind us -- guilt, shame, habits, brokenness, depression and bitterness.

Somewhere, if we have ever been exposed to Christian church, we may have heard that if you put your faith in Jesus Christ you will be free. But what does that mean?

The Need for Freedom

In the Bible, in Romans 8:1-4, there is a section about freedom. It explains what freedom is and how we get it.

This section was written by the Apostle Paul, who struggled with an inner dilemma. He writes about it in Romans 7, which comes just before the section on freedom. The dilemma was that he wanted to be free but found himself in . He describes it like this: 'I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do -- this I keep on doing" (Romans 7:18-19, NIV). He says, I had all these good intentions. Today I was going to do this, tomorrow I was going to start on that. These were all good things he wanted to do, but he found he never did them. To make matters worse, he ended up doing things that he didn't want to do. Instead of doing good, he found himself doing evil. For example, he might have said, I don't want to lose my temper, but I lose my temper. I don't want to be lazy, but I'm lazy. I don't want to be discouraged, but I am discouraged. So Paul found himself bound; he wasn't free. At the end of chapter 7, Paul exclaims, "What a wretched man I am!" (Romans 7:24).

Then Paul asks, "Who will rescue me?" (Romans 7:24), and immediately answers that "Jesus Christ" will rescue him (Romans 7:25).

No Condemnation!

Then, in Romans 8:1-4, Paul explains how believing in Jesus set him free.

In fact, Paul gets so excited about this freedom that he writes the first sentence of Romans 8 without a verb. Our English translators of the Bible want to be proper, so they put the verb "is" in, but Paul wasn't concerned about that because he didn't have to submit his manuscript to English teachers before it was printed. He just exclaims, "No condemnation!"

What Paul is saying is that, even though he still was not perfect, when he gave his life to Jesus, he was forgiven. He no longer saw God as standing over him out, "No with a big stick ready to beat him down every time he did something wrong or failed to do something right. A lot of people have that concept of God. They have a picture of God standing there ready to pounce on them if they do anything wrong. Paul had found that when he began to believe in Jesus Christ, he was freed from that picture of God. So he shouts condemnation!" God is not going to condemn those who are followers of Jesus Christ. We don't have to be afraid of God any longer.

Two Laws

How does that work? Well, here I need to get a little more complicated. In Romans 8:2, Paul goes on to say, "Through Christ Jesus the law of the spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. Did you notice that Paul uses the word "law" twice? Paul is saying that there are two kinds of law in the world, and every person lives under one of those two laws. In one sense, there is nobody who is absolutely free. All of us live under "the law of sinand death" or "the law of the spirit of life in Christ." There aren't any other options.

But there is some good news. One of the laws is stronger than the other.

Let me explain it this way. Picture in your mind a little bird just hatched out of an egg. This is an adventurous little bird, and it wants to explore its world, so it hops up onto the edge of the nest. Suddenly a gust of wind comes along, catches that bird by surprise and flips it off the nest and out into the air. As soon as that happens, the bird is going to learn about a law. It is called the law of gravity. The bird may not like that law, but it isn't going to matter -- because that law is going to take over, and this bird is going to plummet to the ground.

Now, a few months down the road, the same bird, assuming it survived, is back in the nest. It is now an adult bird, and it stands on the edge of the nest. A gust of wind comes along, and the bird falls off the nest again. But this time the bird spreads its wings, and another law, which is more powerful than gravity, takes over -- the law of flight or the law of aerodynamics. The bird begins to fly. Did the law of gravity disappear? No, but it was overpowered by a greater law.

Now Paul says in this chapter: There is a law of sin and death, which has everybody trapped, but it can be overpowered by a greater law -- Jesus Christ's law of the spirit of life.

Another Illustration

How do we do it? That leads to a third thing I need to tell you about.

A Third Law

In Romans 8:3, Paul goes on to say, "What the law was powerless to do … God did by sending His own Son … to be a sin offering."

At the risk of confusing you, I need to tell you that thereis one more kind of law. I have already mentioned two kinds -- the law of sin and death and the law of the spirit of life. But there is a third law -- God's law -- which Paul says is powerless.

You see, God spelled out how people were to live in the Old Testament, particularly in the Ten Commandments. That is the standard. God says, "This is how I want you to live. If you will live up to these ten things, you will be the kind of people I want you to be.

But there was a major problem. God gave the law, but the law did not have power to compel obedience. The law can tell us what is right, but it can't make us obey. That's why Paul says that God's law was powerless.

Let me illustrate. On the highway, there is a sign announcing the speed limit. It tells me how fast I can go. The sign is very clear. But the sign has no power to make us obey. In fact, the sign reminds me how much I want to disobey. That is why we have police -- because the government knows that you and I don't want to obey.

In the same way, God gave us His law, but it was powerless. It couldn't make people want to be good. God did something else. Paul says, "What the law was powerless to do ... God did by sending His Son.' God sent someone who could help us meet the standard. By ourselves, we could never meet it. But God sent Jesus, and through Jesus Christ we meet God's standard without even trying.

A 20/20 illustration

Let me explain that by taking you back to my eyes. I have told you about two laws concerning eyes -- the law of near-sightedness and the law of corrective lenses. But there is a third law -- the law of perfect vision. If your eyes are 20/20, then you have perfect vision, you can see perfectly. That is the standard.

Now, when I take my glasses off, my eyes fail to meet that standard. The problem is not that my eyes aren't trying. They are working as hard as they can to meet the standard. In fact, they are working so hard that if I don't wear glasses, I will soon have a headache. They are doing their best, but they are powerless.

But you know something? When I submit to the law of corrective lenses, all of a sudden I meet the standard without even trying. When I wear glasses, my eyes are 20/20, they have perfect vision. And they are not working hard. I am not getting a headache. My eyes are not straining. They are simply doing what they were designed to do.

That's what happens when we submit our lives to Jesus Christ. Without Him, we are in . We can fight it, we can argue against it, we can get angry, but it doesn't matter. We are in . We cannot change. We can try one day to be good, but then we will be bad the next day. We can try to be better in one area, and become worse in another. We cannot become perfect, which is what God's standard is.

So we come to Jesus Christ, and we say, "I give my life to you, Jesus." The amazing thing is that when we submit to Him like this, suddenly we meet God's standard. God now looks at us through Jesus and sees us as perfect people. There is a lot of work to be done on the inside, but God sees us as forgiven, as perfect -- and that is what freedom is. You and I don't have to spend our lives wondering if we are good enough -- because in Jesus Christ we have been set free. That's what makes being a follower of Jesus so terrific. It brings a freedom that you don't find anywhere else.

Now what?

So what do we do with this? I have two suggestions.

First, if you have already submitted to Jesus, then live in freedom. Recognize that in Jesus you have met God's standard. Your life is not based on how much you try to be good, but you are being set free in Jesus -- free to love Him, free to worship Him, free to love people, free to use every opportunity that God opens up in front of you.