That Young & Free Life

Well, good morning. Welcome to Gateway Church. I’m Carlos Summers, senior pastor. And even though you may not want to, help me welcome everybody online—even if they’re on vacation for one of these five-day weekends. If you’re here at North or watching online, we hope you’re enjoying that time off.

It’s still the beginning of the year, and what happens at the beginning of the year is there are new shows and new movies that come out. I don’t know about you, but some of my favorite movies or shows are period pieces—stories that take us back to a certain time in history. Maybe it’s the dynasties of Asia. Maybe it’s the tribes of Africa. Maybe it’s the people groups in North, Central, and South America. Or maybe it’s the World Wars. Whatever it might be, these time periods really bring us back.

There’s something about the way they dressed, the context, how gritty it was, how tough it was. And yet one of the things that really stands out to me is the language—the words that were spoken. Even though I speak Spanish and English, there’s something about the English language from a few hundred years ago that really gets my attention.

As I was getting ready for this message, I was online. Sometimes I get a question in my head and I want to figure it out and research it. Yes, I have books and things that I study, but every once in a while I just go online and say, “What about this?” I found an article titled “50 Rarely Used Words That Are Good to Know in the English Language.” A few of them stuck out to me. They’re on the screen right now.

Let’s see how many you know: acquiesce, bastion, behoove—I like that word, behoove—conundrum, edify, egregious, impetus, metanoia, sanguine. I know you’re from Texas. That one is sanguine, not sanguine. Get it right—sanguine. And I’m not trying to trigger your fears. This does that for a lot of people.

These are words that are important. They have power when we understand them, and sometimes they get lost in translation. One of the words we’re talking about in our series is redeem. We’re talking about the redeemed life. Now, redeem is a word we still use in modern context. Many of you redeem a coupon, or you buy something online and redeem it to get access to a theater or the circus or wherever you’re going. You redeem a ticket. Or maybe you redeem yourself after a mistake. You miss the first free throw on a one-and-one, and if you get fouled again, you redeem yourself by making the next shots.

So we do use the word, but we don’t often use it when it comes to our soul. What does it mean to redeem? To buy back, to repair or restore, to make better, to remove the obligation of payment.

The first time I remember hearing the word redeemed, I was probably seven or eight years old. I grew up in a Spanish-speaking home. My parents primarily spoke Spanish. When my younger brother came along, my parents decided to speak English in the home so they could learn alongside us. So I grew up speaking Spanish and then learned English. My younger brother learned both. My youngest brother doesn’t know a lick of Spanish—he’s mostly English.

My parents are pastors, so sometimes we’d sing songs in English. That never happened when I was really young—it was all Spanish. I remember one of the first English songs we sang. I’m not going to sing it for you—don’t worry—but I’ll say it in rhythm. It went like this: “I’ve been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.” And it kept going.

Growing up in a Spanish church hearing this English song, I was thinking, what is redeemed? And the blood of who? Who’s the Lamb? You might not have grown up in church—God bless you—but I had all these questions, and my parents explained them to me.

That’s what we’re going to talk about today. It’s this powerful word—actually a gift to you and me. One of the first times we see it in Scripture is in Exodus chapter 6. The people of Israel are slaves in Egypt. It’s been hundreds of years, and they don’t want to be slaves anymore. God raises up Moses to bring freedom.

Exodus 6 says, “Therefore say to the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God.”

God is telling this people group, “I am going to redeem you. I’m going to buy you back. I’m going to restore you.” The Hebrew word used here is ga’al, and it appears over 100 times in the Old Testament. It means to release from loss or debt, slavery or death, and restore to wholeness within covenant community.

It’s not just unlocking the chains. It’s pulling them out of bondage and into covenant with God.

Words evolve, and so does this concept. Later we see the word kaphar, meaning to cover, to atone, to reconcile, to purge a debt. God is saying, “I will cover you. I will cover your wrongs.”

And just like the word redeem has a history, so do you. You and I have a background. Parents, grandparents, maybe no parents. I’m part of the latchkey generation—many of us raised ourselves. In the 80s there was a high value on success, possessions, status. So our parents worked hard to provide that life.

Every generation has hang-ups with the previous one. But here’s the problem: most of us think we are far more free than we actually are.

The question isn’t whether your family shaped you—that’s a given. The question is, which story is ultimately defining you? Your family’s story or God’s redemptive story? They both matter—but which has ultimate authority?

God’s design was perfect relationship. Genesis 1 and 2 show harmony within the Godhead and harmony with creation. Out of that overflow, God created humanity for relationship—with Him and with each other. Deep connection with God that flows into healthy connection with others.

But sin entered the world in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve chose to define good and evil on their own terms. Shame entered. Sin distorts both vertical and horizontal relationships.

Genesis 4 shows something else: sin patterns get passed down. Almost every person in this room has experienced that reality. Sin is described as crouching at the door. It desires to have you, but you must rule over it.

Sin isn’t just something we commit. It’s something that wants to rule us.

But redemption is God’s way out of these cycles. God does not abandon humanity. He makes a way. Ultimately, that way is Jesus.

Jesus didn’t come to do us a favor. He came to give us a new identity in redemption. When Jesus redeems, He doesn’t just forgive sin—He reshapes our story.

Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 6 that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

When we follow Jesus, our bodies are not our own. This isn’t about restriction—it’s about redemption of desire. God wants to redeem our desires, our stories, our patterns.

My dad was a heroin addict. When he surrendered his life to Jesus, his mind was renewed through Scripture. He broke generational cycles. He chose surrender over perfection.

Redemption means God interrupts the cycle. He breaks the pattern. He returns us to Himself.

You are not defined by your mistakes, your parents, your past. You are defined by the work of Jesus.

He’s not asking for perfection. He’s asking for surrender.

So can we surrender today? Not to perfection—but to redemption. To the work of Christ bringing us back to the original design. Being filled with Him, and out of that overflow, everything else.

You don’t have to be perfect. Just be His. Keep coming back to Him.