Excessive Celebration
I. Introduction
Flags fly. Penalties are assessed. Props are used. Sharpies. Teammates. Imaginary cameras. Choreographed antics. All fall in the category of excessive celebration. We are in the middle of a season of celebration as a nation. We celebrate our collective freedom. Yesterday is the designated day in our annual calendar and consciousness to celebrate the freedom we enjoy. However, in our history we have celebrated excessively. Excessive because while many were free . . . all were not free. While some celebrated freedom others continued to remain chained.
We are all aware and celebrate July 4th but do you know anything about Juneteenth? During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, with an effective date of January 1, 1863. 1863. 1863. The declaration of freedom for every slave in all Confederate States was made in 1863. However, By 1865, there were an estimated 250,000 slaves in Texas. News of end of the war moved slowly and did not reach Texas until May 1865, and the Army of the Trans-Mississippi did not surrender until June 2. On June 18, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger arrived at Galveston Island with 2,000 federal troops to occupy Texas on behalf of the federal government. On June 19, standing on the balcony of Galveston's Ashton Villa, Granger read aloud the contents of "General Order No. 3", announcing the total emancipation of slaves: "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free."
Freed by presidential order in 1862 but people who were free continued to live as slaves for almost 3 years. Others celebrated while 250,000 failed to experience promised and provided freedom.
2000 years ago, one greater than Lincoln, stood up and made a proclamation of freedom. He declared in Luke 4:18 . . . "The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,
Many have experienced and celebrated this freedom. However, like slaves in Texas there are scores who have yet to taste this freedom. Also like Texas there are authorities that don't want us to know about or exercise our freedom! In fact, these authorities do their very best to keep the truth about our freedom from us. These authorities lie to us about bondage. They convince us that we are bound when we are in fact free.
Paul exposes a truth in Ephesians 6:12. "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
Jesus understood this because we see Him address it in Mark 9 when He comes into contact with a possessed boy and makes this statement, "These kind only come out by prayer and fasting." These kind . . . so there must be other kinds. The disciples didn't catch it but Paul did. He understood that there are ranks and hierarchy in the kingdom of darkness. These levels, ranks do their best to keep us from accessing true freedom. We need a Juneteenth spiritually. We need to wake up and receive the truth that "Whom the Son sets free is free indeed." The enemy fights to keep us bound. So he assigns these ranks to stop us.
I want to spend my time today talking about principalities. I think this is the issue that many of us have. A principality is assigned to a region, area, and certain people groups. You can see this power as a regional manager. It is this power that causes people to refuse to make climate change. It is this power that causes folks to repeat issues. It is this power that causes dysfunction to set up in a culture.
I bring this to your attention because it is the responsibility of those who have experienced freedom to now identify, expose and break through the power of principalities in our region. Our job is to bring the freedom that our King has proclaimed to bear into every life.
So rather than excessively celebrating freedom while others remain as slaves to the enemy we must discover what principalities are assigned to us, our region, our people.
Here is what I know . . . you are not doing as good as you look. You look good cause God is good. However, your look doesn't reveal your level of bondage. There are people sitting in this room and sitting in this community who see people celebrate their freedom while they personally continue to wallow in bondage. We major in church but fail in life! I would say that there are some who walk in here every week and while you are celebrating your freedom to the sound of worship the sound that others hear is the rattle of chains. You hear God while they hear the devil. You hear liberty while they hear limitation. I am convinced that too many of you here today have boxed Jesus up to salvation when the truth is He wants to save some saved folks. God will allow you to live on whatever level in which you settle. Jesus said all authority is given to Him. How much does that leave for the devil? None! And yet we still have folks bound! Why? We allow it because we allow principles to produce principalities.
While we sing freedom there are men and women sitting right next to us that can't sing that and mean it because even though they have encountered Jesus as savior they have yet to experience Him as a liberator.
So let me try to identify, expose, and pull back the covers for this group of people. This may not be true of our "community" out there, but I believe these are the principalities that we are up against in this "community"!
1. Poverty.
Not a money issue. It is a mentality. I have seen people with no money who are not bound by poverty. I also find blessed people who are so bound by poverty that they are only looking for hand outs rather than changing their mindset and giving a hand up. Poverty causes you to make repeated unwise choices with the resources you do have. This causes you to dismiss God out of the equation and you try to take matters in your own hands. This causes your mind and heart to be distracted by lack. This fills your life with can'ts rather than cans. So you let what you can't do keep you from doing what you can do! We have so wanted to avoid the extremism and excessive teaching of the prosperity gospel that we have thrown away the truth revealed by Scripture that God, in fact, does want to bless His children!
2. Hopelessness.
This comes through a variety of channels - sickness, finances, and relationships. We think the cause is the issue but it is the desired result of what we face that is the goal. The principality wants you to give up hope and will keep trying different things to get you to throw in the towel, sleep in the same bed but live separate lives, wallow in pain and give up on the "by His stripes we are healed" promise! The principality tries to beat the hope out of you because he knows without hope, which we are told comes from the Lord (not health, wealth or station in life) our strength is diminished and we open the door to every other form of evil. Men without hope do incredible evil and stupid things.
3. Apathy.
Cares of life squeeze out room to rally to anything. Indifference. No passion for people. No passion for praise. No passion for need. We shouldn't be surprised attacked in this area cause it strikes at the core of who we are. If we can't live up to our name, then we can't live up to our purpose. We have become apathetic because our mind has become consumed until no room left. We have forgotten the kingdom mandate to seek His kingdom first! How do you know if you are battling apathy? Take it or leave it attitude. Importance or rank drops.
4. Isolation.
Lone rangers. Easy to pick off. This causes you to attack those who are helping and run to those who are hurting. You search for what can only be found here (in the body) . . . elsewhere. No meaningful relationships in body. You attend and that is it. You have truth without connection. You want to connect to God but not His people. This leads to people who know what to do but have no ability to do it because there is no support system.
Proverbs 18:1 - A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; He rages against all wise judgment.
Psalm 68:6 - God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; (God's desire is to move you from isolation to connection . . . not the opposite direction! Your first step away from God is invariably a step away from the body!)
I have said it before but it is worth saying again . . . Lone rangers become lone victims. Two are better than one. Pity one who falls and has no one to help him up. Just because you attend church doesn't mean you have connected at a deep enough level to have someone help you up. What are you doing to connect? What steps are you taking?
5. Compartmentalism
Another name for this could be double mindedness. This leads to double life. Leads to self righteousness and religious spirit. You play church on Sunday but it has no bearing on the rest of your life. What you hear goes in one ear and never comes out your hands, feet or attitude. Has no impact on where you go or habits you perpetuate. This is how we segment off our dating, viewing, spending, and actions in life. The God stuff is for church and I can deal with the rest anyway I want. It is this principality that allows us to fall prey to works based righteousness. I do the right things on Sunday and it makes everything I do wrong in the week OK.
I declare that what we need to combat these principalities is an "intellectual exorcism". Root of principality is "principle". We follow principles into bondage. I have told you in the past that if we are going to be truly free we must come out head first. I am convinced that we are possessed by principles of old thinking that principalities have put on us. We have believed lies for so long and heard them so often that we now think that it is truth.
Principles/Lies like . . . I can't afford to give. I can't afford to tithe. I can trust God with salvation but not my savings. When we believe that lie we ensure poverty. We take control of our finances and dismiss God and then we wonder why we struggle to make it. You are doing it on your own. You are living under a curse.
Lies like . . . it will always be like this. Things will never change. So we utter self-fulfilling prophecies. My marriage will never be any better. I will never love my job. I will always be sick. We begin to believe that and so we make choices that lead to our own destruction. We self medicate. We avoid. We drown our sorrow. We give up. We quit trying. Hopelessness causes us to make excuses rather than the changes we are responsible to make.
Lies like . . . I am too tired. I can't help. I can't serve. One person won't make a difference. So we sit on the sidelines and squander our gifts. We waste our time. We fight for things that don't matter instead of getting involved in things that would bring change.
Lies like . . . I am all by myself. No one cares. No one knows. No one sees. So we walk away from assigned relationships. We sabotage divine allies. We clam up and wall off. We refuse to do the hard work of developing and sustaining relationship.
Lies like . . . I can live like I want. The rules don't apply to me. So we end up ranking ourselves against what others are doing rather than judging by the standard outlined in His Word. Well I don't drink as much as they do. I don't watch as bad as they watch. We throw away standards of holiness because we refuse to apply the standards to every aspect and area of our life.
I expose and pull back the covers on these principalities so that we can allow Jesus to liberate us. We can't shout ourselves out of something we have worked our way into. Prayer won't fix principle. We must learn to think differently. Every time we are about to repeat the cycles caused by these principalities we need to stop and think like Jesus! What does Jesus say about your finances? What does Jesus say about hope? What does Jesus say about passion? What does Jesus say about being connected to the body? What does Jesus say about living a double life? In order to be truly free , we must stop thinking according to how the principalities have taught us and we must go back and get the "mind of Christ!" Too many of us trust our own thoughts. We have to remember His thoughts are not our thoughts! His thoughts are higher than our thoughts!
I don't want us to continue to celebrate freedom while we are bound! I want to challenge you to take this summer and think through the principles you are living by and see if you like Christ but are not Christlike in the way you believe and think!
In the coming months we are going to address these things head on. We, as your pastoral team, are doing some things behind the scene to help us destroy these principalities!
If we are going to celebrate freedom, then let's make sure we have actually experienced what we celebrate!
