This morning in the spirit of the new year, there is liberty at its best. And it is the best way to start a brand-new year. Coming out of the cage, because breaking free is a mindset.

It means coming out and breaking some handcuffs and some chains. This means a brand new me and a brand new you! And the fact that you and I have been bound too long; the word bound in the adjective sense meaning “tied; in bonds”…being bound in anything is like having a noose around our necks.

It’s like being locked in a cage, jail, or a prison with chains around the ankles and wrist. To be bound in our mind has a crippling effect. It shuts everything down. Because if the mind is bound, the body is as well.

Ask those who have been mentally abused. It takes the very life out of you. It don’t make sense, community, to be bound by the same thing year after year. The new year says that some things need to change. But there comes a time when we take matters into our own hand, and we do what we have to do.

And what we can’t do we trust in the Lord to do what only he can do. Community, this is a brand new year — we are already in the race and we are to let nothing or nobody to cause us to be bound up. You can’t let nobody put you in a shell, to tie up your hands.

God didn’t save me and set me free to be bound by anything or anybody. Jesus himself said “Whom the Son has set free is free indeed (John 8:36).”

Paul said “Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free… and be not entangled again (Gal. 5:1).”

God didn’t set us free community to wallow in sin anymore. It cost him his only Son to bring us out…once he washed us clean, he expects for us to stay clean. Community friends, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2023 is the year for breaking free! It’s the year to come out of our comfort zone. It’s time for a new attitude; a brand new start. It’s time for spiritual involvement.

It’s time to witness to the lost. It’s time to encourage somebody and encourage each other. Readers, whatever it is that have you bowed or bound together this morning in this brand new year hear Jesus speak to you this morning “Thou are…You are loosed!”

Whatever it is that have your hands tied together and your feet too “thou are loosed!” Jesus is teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath day where the Jews would gather regularly for Jewish prayer, study, assembly, and reading of the Torah which consisted of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. And it is while he is there that the Bible makes mention of the fact that there was woman there in the synagogue which had an infirmity for eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no way lift herself up (Luke 13:10-17) .

Which means she had a severe curvature of the spine. Treatments for this can help, but this condition can’t be cured. It can be painful and disabling, as is the case here. Can you imagine being bowed together in a deformed kind of way? The Bible makes notice of the fact that she was bowed together for 18 years and could in no way lift herself up. Which means she was bent over and handicapped. And the Bible makes it clear in this case, that this debilitating condition was caused by an evil spirit (vs 16).

Debilitating meaning not able to function. Not able to provide for herself. Imagine trying to bathe herself, put on her own clothes, it must have been a struggle.

But now this verse does not imply that all deformities or illnesses are caused by demons. So that we don’t contribute every ache and pain, every disease, every cough and fever to demonic forces. This is a rare case. Don’t know if she was old or young, the Bible doesn’t say.

If I had been bowed together for eighteen years, I wonder if I would be faithful to worship God week after week in the church? Would I get up and go through all the struggles she went through to get to the church? I wonder if any of us would go?

Surely this woman had prayed and asked God for help over the years, and yet she was not delivered. However, she did not become bitter or resentful.

Community, visualize in our minds how painful it was for this woman to walk, every motion of her body was painful, her spinal cord curved and ached with every step; her breath was short. Putting her clothes on was a chore. But still she came. She is sitting in the synagogue. She pressed her way.

But friends, there is a blessing in the press. Always remember, that some blessings will only come when we press our way to the house of God; for the Lord has promised to meet us in the press.

Many of you can testify that there were Sundays you didn’t feel like going to church but you got up and pressed your way, and you were so glad that you did. In this brand-new year somebody ought to get up out of depression, discouragement, pain and hurt and get to church. It’s time to break free in 2023!