Because Freedom Is Worth Fighting For

“In this freedom Christ has made us free (and completely liberated us); stand fast then, and do not be hampered and held ensnared and submit again to a yoke of slavery (which you have once put off).” (Galatians 5:1 Amplified Bible)

Last Tuesday, on the Fourth of July, Colleen and I attended the film, Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviezel, playing Tim Ballard a real-life American hero. Ballard was a federal agent who rescued a boy from ruthless Columbian child traffickers. After he learned that his older sister was still captive, he decides to embark on a dangerous mission to save her. With time running out, he quits his job and journeys deep into the Columbian jungle and puts his life at great risk, willing to die to save her.

It becomes clear in the film that the slavery these children experienced went even deeper than the emotional and physical pain they endured through the exploitation of greedy and perverted adults. Their very identities, their purpose for living and their future hope to grow up and have families of their own were cruelly being stolen from them. It was not just an illegal commercial enterprise. It was pure evil.

Tim Ballard could see this. He knew as we all instinctively know that these innocent children were born to be free. He knew that the slavery they were forced into a terrible injustice and that every one of those children were as precious to God as his own children were precious to him. He said that famous line in the film, “God’s children are not for sale.” In other words, they were not born to be slaves. He was willing to pay for that belief with his very own life if necessary. We were all stirred up by watching the film depicting what this man do what he did. Because freedom is worth fighting for.

There is another kind of slavery. Spiritual slavery. We were all born into it. The inconceivably high price to set us free by taking our place on a cross of a judgment we deserved is the core of the message of the good news, the gospel. Our spiritual slavery meant identity as a member of Satan’s kingdom of slavery to sin, hopelessly an enemy to God, serving the enemy’s dark purposes in this life only to be facing horrifying future of eternal judgment in the next. To be freed from this slavery has required of us to simply trust in HIM, to rely upon the fact that what HE did for us at the cross was enough…that who HE says we are now united to Him in death, burial and resurrection is enough. 

But the enemy is now seeking to enslave us again by subtracting from this sufficiency, the “enoughness” of Him and His finished work on our behalf by adding a Marxist-based teaching being adopted by growing number of Christian leaders called “Critical Race Theory” or “wokeness.” This has enslaved us with “human thinking” and ideas “from the spiritual powers of this world” (Colossians 2:8) that Christ died for us to be liberated from! This false teaching rather than confronting, is aiding and abetting what is happening in the culture at large. It has infiltrated denominations, seminaries, Christian universities, and is being taught by popular speakers, authors, and “celebrity” mega church pastors.

This ideology not only enslaves us back to a works-based “salvation”, but it divides us from one another in Christ’s body based upon skin tone. Noelle Mering in her excellent book, “Awake Not Woke: A Christian Response to the Cult of Progressive Ideology,” summarizes the problem with it very well. “In a most perverse way woke theory promises its disciples power by stripping them of it in two ways. First, by denying them a path of moral agency, prompting them to be slaves of their desire; and second, by defining them around an axis of oppression, making the oppressors irredeemable and the oppressed powerless against the systemic forces aligned against them.” (Pg. 104)

Like in the film, Sound of Freedom, what was depicted was not just “commercial,” this heresy is not just “theological.” It is not something that has no real consequence beyond the ivory towers of academia. This is an attack on the integrity of the gospel itself. This is an attack of our very core identity as Christians, who have been made “complete in Him” (Colossians 2:10) It is an attack on the unity of the body of Christ who have been reconciled to live together in love and unity. (Ephesians the whole book!) This is also an attack on God, our creator who made us beautifully diverse ethnicities but as only two genders. And much more…

Now more than ever, we need to dig into our Bibles, to be like the Bereans in the book of Acts (Acts 17:11) and compare this ideology with what the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and boldly reject it if it does not match up, no matter who (celebrity “saint”, educated elite, or “enlightened” politician) may disagree. To protect the Savior’s blood-bought freedom for us and the whole world from the forever slavery to sin, death and judgment we deserved is worth any price. Because freedom IS worth fighting for!