BY : Michael Foust Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
The 2013 Oscar-winning song Let It Go captivated the hearts of countless children for its catchy melody and its ties to one of the most popular animated films of all time, Frozen. But at the heart of it, says pastor Alistair Begg, is a self-centered worldview that is antithetical to Scripture. The pastor of Parkside Church in Cleveland and voice of the Truth for Life broadcast said as much in a recent sermon in which he contrasted the biblical definition of freedom against the world’s definition.
“What our contemporary world regards as freedom is an illusion,” Begg said.
Biblical freedom, Begg said, means one is “free from guilt, free from a guilty conscience, free from meaninglessness, free from the prison of self-centeredness, freed from the shifting sands of subjectivity and being contemporary.”
“Because biblical freedom, under the yoke of Jesus, is paradoxical. To be myself, I have to deny myself. To be free, I have to give up my freedom. To live, I have to die to myself. To find myself, I have to lose myself.”
Begg contrasted the words of Deuteronomy 6 with the “winner of the Oscar for the best original song in 2013.”
“Deuteronomy 6: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.’ He is the one living, true God. ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart … with all your soul … with all your might.’ We were made by God to know God, to love God, and to serve God. On the strength of that, ‘these words,’ says Moses, ‘that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, [you] shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.’
“That [is] in contrast to the Oscar-winning song of 2013: Elsa in Frozen.”
Hearing laughter in his congregation, Begg responded, “This is not funny.”
“You see how skillful the Evil One is? That’s how the children sing about it,” he said. “Elsa in Frozen is no longer determined to meet the expectations of her parents or of society.
“Instead, she decides to ‘let it go’ to express her true identity: ‘No right, no wrong, no rules,’” he added, quoting the song.
“‘It’s Disney. It’s children,’” he said, as if anticipating parents’ response. “Listen: she’s a poster child for expressive individualism. She is a classic representation, in miniature form, of the egotistical framework of a society that has chosen to live without God — wants no notion of yoke. Freedom for Elsa, and for those who share her view, can only be found in a world where there are no boundaries at all.”
Begg then cited a Bob Dylan song from 1979: “You’re gonna have to serve somebody. … It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna … serve somebody.”
“In Jesus, I’ve no right to behave any way I want,” Begg said. “I’ve no right to believe anything I want. And instead of viewing freedom as freedom from responsibility to God and to others to live for myself, the Bible says that true freedom is freedom from myself to live for God and for the benefit of others. Instead of freedom belonging to the absence of restrictions, we recognize that true freedom is found in the restrictions. What is a game of golf without the white and the red stakes, without the diameter of the hole, without papr? There is no game.
“We either serve the living God and find freedom in Him, or we serve substitute gods, which can never satisfy and which are self-depleting.”
Photo Credit: ©Facebook/Truth for Life with Alistair Begg
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