If Jesus Christ has set us free, why don’t we feel free?
Pastor Noel Heikkinen says that it doesn’t take long for us to realize that even though we are saved, we will still wrestle with our sinful nature.
“That’s the Christian walk, it’s again and again grappling with the fact that our sin does separate us from God, but because of what Jesus has done, it is not going to separate us eternally from Him.”
“So we’re set free and He begins to change my affections and I want to obey Him. Then, it’s like our sinful carcass here on earth is slowly being knit into who we already are positionally in Christ Jesus. Over the course of our lifetime those affections change and we begin to have different desires.”
Pastor Noel shares an illustration to help us understand how God changes our affections.
“When I was growing up my mom used to drink coffee with like a tablespoon of coffee, a cup of cream, and two pounds of sugar. It was the only way I ever knew to drink coffee.”
Then while Noel was a freshman at the Michigan State, he went on a mission trip to Africa for three months and they didn’t have access to any cream and sugar.
“But we had access to coffee. I remember the first time I tasted black coffee. I thought it was terrible and disgusting. But over the course of the summer, my taste buds changed.”
Now, Noel no longer tolerates the sugary coffee, and black coffee, which once was disgusting, is what he wants to drink.
“It’s been 25 years and I still can’t drink sweet coffee. That’s what happens in our lives. Slowly, over time, that sweetness of gross, sugary coffee becomes disgusting to us as we really become to taste the nuances of the freedom we have in Jesus and what it means to live for Him. It’s a lifetime. A lifetime of our taste buds and our flesh changing.”
Noel Jesse Heikkinen serves as the primary preaching pastor at Riverview Church, a fast-growing, multi-site church of over 3,000 near Lansing, Michigan. Noel also serves as the U.S. Midwest Network Director for the church planting network Acts 29 and is the chairman of the board of directors for the mission agency Reliant. He and his wife, Grace, have four children. Noel loves planting churches, being a baseball dad, and talking to people about Jesus.
Key Scripture: Galatians 5:1
Featured Songs: Glorious Day – Passion; Chain Breaker – Zach Williams; Impossible Things – Chris Tomlin
Unchained
