“Thawed Out”
Sermon series: “Narnia Explored”
This morning we finish our series on Narnia Explored! One of the prevailing themes in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is how the White Witch turns the people or beings she doesn’t like into frozen stones. She freezes them for good. Sort of like the Greek mythology story of Medusa. She was so hideous looking that anyone who looked at her would turn into stone. The White Witch froze people so that they would become as stone forever.
In the movie, Aslan, the creator and ruler of Narnia, has returned to take back his land from the witch. As the story unfolds, Aslan is sacrificed on the altar called the “Stone Table” to free the life of a boy who has become the witch’s slave. So Aslan gets killed but miraculously comes back to life stronger than ever. The lion, then, goes to the witch’s castle, where the frozen statues are, and breathes on them and they come back to life again.
Let’s make this applicable to where we live. You and I have a spiritual enemy called Satan. He is also described in the Bible as a thief, a liar, and a murderer. He wants to stop you, freeze you, if you will, from getting close to God and being all you can be for God. Let’s think of the enemy and how he works for a few moments,
• Satan’s target is your mind. To make you believe that you don’t need Jesus Christ as Savior. That you are alright and not a “bad” person. That this world is worth all your time and effort. That you shouldn’t even think about eternity or a heaven to gain and a hell to miss. He wants to make you think that this “Christian thing/religion” is a waste of your precious time. A perfect example of this is C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Prior to writing his books, considered Christian classics today, he had become an atheist and wanted no part of God at one point in his life. I don’t remember where I found this quote but check out something Lewis had written, “I believe in no religion. There is absolutely no proof for any of them, and from a philosophical standpoint, Christianity is not even the best. All religions, that is, all mythologies, to give them their proper name, are merely man’s own invention.” Satan targets your mind.
• Satan’s goal is to keep you a slave to your own sin and make you a prisoner in hell with him one day. He knows that if he can get people to ignore the “nudge” of Jesus Christ in their soul and reject the “tug” of the Holy Spirit to by faith trust Jesus Christ as their Savior to forgive them of sin, he’ll have them as slaves for eternity.
• His tactic is to blind you from your need of a Savior. Check out how Paul put it, “The god who rules this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers. They cannot see the light, which is the good news about our glorious Christ, who shows what God is like.” (2Corinthians 4:4 CEV)
Have you ever met people who think that what you do by going to church, and reading your Bible, and giving at church is crazy? Its like they just don’t get it. People without God are “blind”, spiritually frozen.
The other day I was watching Jeff Corwin on tv. He had extracted poison from a Mexican snake. He had human blood in a test tube and was going to test what the poison would do to human blood. He added one drop of poison to the blood and it coagulated it, hardened it so that the blood wouldn’t move. It looked like jello-jiggles. People die from snake bites because the blood hardens and is not able to flow through the veins.
That’s sort of what Satan does to people. He keeps working them so that they so harden their hearts against God, live without enjoying their God-designed purpose, and die without hope of eternity in heaven. We are told that, “We are God’s Masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10 NLT). In other words, without God you and I are spiritually dead, inactive to what God made us for. We are “frozen” in sin. But when we open our heart to Jesus Christ he “thaws us” and activates our life for God. He makes an incredible work of art out of your life and mine. He puts new desires in you and equips you with spiritual gifts and talents so you can do what God designed you for.
God releases us, frees us, so we can become all we are destined for. The Bible says that, “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2Corinthians 3:17).
In Narnia, the lion breathes on the statues and they start like…melting and they come to life and they help Aslan fight the witch and her army. In the Bible, God makes man out of dirt. He got a pile of dirt together, formed and squeezed man into shape. And then, God breathed on him… “hhhhhh”… and he came to life. After his death on the cross and resurrection, the disciples were hiding out inside closed doors. All of a sudden, Jesus Christ showed up where they were, got close to them, and breathed on them. He said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” and their lives changed from then on forever. Today, what God is saying to us is, “give me your life and I, in turn, will give you life like you’ve never know it. The best life you’ve ever had!”
So, what is freedom like for us today? What is being “thawed out” like?
1. The life and teaching of Jesus Christ. He is what true freedom looks like and acts like. He said, “If you hold to my teaching you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32 NIV).
2. Choosing to do what’s right all. Paul wrote, “You used to be slaves of sin. But I thank God that with all your heart you obeyed the teaching you received from me. Now you are set free from sin and are slaves who please God” (Romans 6:17-18 CEV). I heard someone say that freedom is not doing whatever you want. True freedom is knowing what the right thing to do is and doing it.
3. Freedom is total acceptance from God. To know that you don’t have to measure up to God because God loves you unconditionally, that’s freedom. God loves you the way you are and accepts you into his family just the way you are. Check out this great scripture, “Yet, to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God!” (John 1:12 NIV). True freedom is being accepted by God. Jesus put it this way, “So, if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36 NIV). Free from what? Free from anything: sin and its consequences, anxiety, fear, habits, feeling like your life is empty, hopelessness, discouragement, bitterness, eternity in hell, and many others.
4. Freedom is also the ability to overcome anything that comes your way through God’s power alive in you.
A few days ago my family and I went to feed the homeless at an Orlando shelter. As we were setting up and people were lining up outside the door, one of the workers had already prepared his part of the work for dinner and was now sitting down reading a New Testament. He was a big, tough looking guy that lives at the shelter as well. He called me over, pointed to a part in his Bible and asked, “What does this mean?” I said, “Man, I can’t see that, I didn’t bring my glasses with me.” He answered, “Why not? Here use mine.” He gave me his glasses. They had a “leg missing” but I put them on all crooked. The man was reading the last part of third John. He was pointing to this “funky” word, “Diotrephes.” He said, “What’s that?” I answered, “That’s a name, bro, the name of a guy that was bad news. He said, “Ohh.” He, then, asked me, “But what about works of charity that John is writing about? What’s that? Is that what I’m doing tonight? Helping this people?” While he was talking to me I was praying for wisdom and I went on to encourage him and told him that he was doing the kind of work God wants from him and all of us. He kept on asking more questions. This man was seeking and hungry for more. But people started coming in and we went on to serve food. Then, I saw him in action, carrying trays for moms with kids and joking around with the small children and getting deserts and drinks for whomever. And I thought, this is what the fresh breath of Jesus does to a life, it releases it, “thaws” it out, gives it a new hope and joy and meaning. That’s what God want to do for us and in us…when we let him. Let’s pray.
