Born Free

Born Free 2021 05 30

Acts 22:24 – 30

Born Free is a 1966 British drama film starring Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers as Joy and George Adamson, a real-life couple who raised Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned lion cub, to adulthood, and released her into the wilderness of Kenya. The movie was produced by Open Road Films Ltd. and Columbia Pictures. The screenplay, written by blacklisted Hollywood writer Lester Cole (under the pseudonym “Gerald L.C. Copley”), was based upon Joy Adamson’s 1960 non-fictional book Born Free. The film was directed byJames Hill and produced by Sam Jaffe and Paul Radin. Born Free, and its musical score by John Barry, won numerous awards.   – Wikipedia –

 

Interestingly, a news story came out some time after the movie was released, where a woman caught after a crime spree was found to have been playing the theme from the movie in her car.

 

What about those of us who were blessed to be born here in North America?  We’re free right?  At least we were born free…

 

In fact, there are many places in the world where people are born free.  But those places don’t always remain free.  In this fallen world, freedom comes with its privileges, but it’s not guaranteed. What a difference it will be in heaven!

 

Acts 22:24 – 30

 

Paul, while in Jerusalem, was falsely accused of defiling the temple and blasphemy.  However, when rescued by the Roman guard, he was able to speak to the people and give his testimony, right up to the point where he explained that God was sending him to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.  This put these self-righteous Jews into such a rage that they would have torn him apart, were it not for the Roman guard.

 

Paul was not only a Jew, but he was a Roman, as well as being a Christian.  Unlike the chief captain in our account, Paul did not buy his Roman citizenship, but he was born free, a free born Roman citizen.  In order for him to be both a Jew and a free born Roman citizen, his father would have had to be a Roman citizen, and his mother, Jewish.

 

Freedom is very important to us.  The concept of being free seems to be part of who we are as we were created.  Yet freedom in this world seems always to be under attack and few are truly free.

 

 

I Paul was Born Free

  1. This is obvious; our passage says so.
    1. The chief captain had to pay a great sum of money for his freedom, but Paul was born free.
      1. The chief captain, in other words, had to work hard for his freedom. But Paul’s freedom was a gift received at birth.
    2. Our freedom in Christ is free by the new birth, when we put our faith in Him.
      1. The price for this freedom is greater than anything we could ever pay, ourselves, but to us it is freely given.

 

           

II  Freedom is Very Valuable

  1. The Roman soldier bought his freedom, his Roman citizenship, at a very high price.
    1. As Christians, we are born free, but a great price was paid to make this possible. That price was the blood of Jesus Christ.  “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”  1 Co 6:20

 

III  Being Born Free is Better

  1. The Roman soldier had to pay a very high price for his citizenship, but Paul had something so much better; he was born a free Roman citizen, meaning he had enjoyed all the rights, freedom and protection of Roman citizenship his entire life.
    1. It was illegal to crucify a Roman, illegal to put a Roman to death except for sedition, illegal to scourge a Roman, illegal to hold a Roman without charges, just to name a few of the rights of a Roman citizen. Jews and others who did not have Roman citizenship did not have these rights or protection.

 

IV Paul is a Free Born Christian

  1. Paul was both a Jew and a Roman citizen, but he was something even better than both: he was born again, as a Christian.
    1. Our citizenship may be officially in Canada in this life, but our eternal citizenship is in heaven! Philippians 3:20 “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:”
  2. There is great concern in our country, today, that we are losing our freedom. Indeed, governments at all levels have imposed restrictions on our freedoms such as have never been seen in North America.
    1. In both Canada and the United States, people have been confined to their homes, prevented from working or traveling, not allowed to worship together, and more.
    2. We have been told it is for our own good, yet how can it be good for people to be prevented from seeing the ones they love? How can it possibly be good for churches to be closed?
  3. Many have protested and fought back against this loss of freedom, including Christians and even pastors. There has been a lot of focus on this loss of freedom and where it could and may be leading.
    1. Christians in the first century met in secret at great peril to their lives, because to be a Christian meant having no freedoms or rights of any kind in this world.
      1. The danger to them was not in being unable to sit together in a comfortable church building, but in being made a spectacle in one of the colosseums or being crucified or burned to death.
      2. They lost every freedom they had in this world when they became Christians.
    2. Paul, a free born Roman, lost his rightful freedom as a citizen because of his unwavering faith in Christ.
      1. But Paul did not fight back, nor stand up for his freedom. He willingly gave up his earthly freedom to serve God as a prisoner of his own country, so that he could continue to preach the gospel, even from prison.
      2. Paul had something so much better than the freedom he enjoyed as a Roman citizen. He had citizenship in Heaven!

 

V  Every Christian is Born Free

  1. Christians are free born. In fact, there’s no other way to loss
  2. become a Christian. John 3:3 “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
  3. You cannot buy your citizenship in heaven. It is the gift of God.  Yet it is worth so much more than silver and gold!  It is worth infinitely much more than the greatest freedom this world offers.

 

Conclusion

If you have put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you have been born again, a free born citizen of Heaven.  You might lose your freedom in this world, but it is nothing compared to the freedom you have as a Christian.  Paul said, “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.”  Philippians 3:8. As Christians, let’s recognize who we are, free born citizens of Heaven.  We know the day is coming in this world when freedom will be no more, but we are not of this world.  Our freedom is not a temporary, corrupt version of what God intended for mankind, but eternal, incorruptible, and always free!