Sermons
Growing in Freedom - 2010-07-04
Sermons for the Growing SeasonGrowing in Freedom
Galatians 5:1-19
July 4, 2010
I am thankful for the freedom of this church and this pulpit to be totally unbothered by interference from anyone, to be able to stand here and say what I feel led to say. I am also mindful that no one made you come to church this morning or come to a particular church. You freely chose where you wanted to worship this morning. So it is good for all of us to be here today, on Independence Day.
Today’s sermon is on the topic of freedom but not nationalistic freedom. We have celebrated that. Today’s sermon is about soul freedom. This is the fourth in a series of sermons in the Growing Season. We have talked about growing in faith, in trust, and in spirit. In coming weeks we will talk about growing in service, in love, and in hope. You know, Kris Kristofferson was wrong when he wrote Me and Bobbie McGee. Freedom is not “just another word for nothing else to lose,” is it? That is a freedom of no commitments. That is a freedom of no responsibilities. That is a freedom of “I’ve tried everything.” It is a libertine kind of freedom of no allegiances.
The freedom of which we speak today is a soul freedom, which is a good and Godly part of the essence of who we are as human beings. Why does freedom mean so much to us? Why are we willing to fight for freedom, to suffer for it, even to die for it? I think it is because this yearning to be free comes from deep within our souls. It is a part of our spiritual DNA. We get it from our Creator. God is the freest of all. No one tells God what to do. God chooses his own course, chooses his own burdens, and chooses his own sacrifices. We are created in the image of God. God is our heavenly Father, and God’s nature is in us. God is free, and so we yearn to be free. So when systems or powers or responsibilities seem to shackle our freedoms we rebel and we cry out, “Get those chains off of me! I want to be free! I have to be free!” People have been shouting this for centuries.
So when the Apostle Paul came teaching freedom in Jesus Christ, freedom from weighty, impossible to keep laws of Judaism, it was a message that resonated everywhere he went. Groups of believers sprang up where Paul preached, and those little groups became churches. One of them was located in the region of Galatia to whom this letter is written. That young church started to grow and more people started to join. And wouldn’t you know it – before long they started to have trouble. That seems to be part of church life, doesn’t it? They started to have trouble because some people came after Paul and said that Paul’s message wasn’t totally correct. They told the Galatians that they had to keep all the Old Testament laws as well as believing in Jesus. They said that believing in Jesus is not enough. They said you can believe in Jesus if you like, but you’ve got to keep all those laws too. They said it is the law that justifies you before God.
Well Paul got wind of this, and he got mad, and he fired off this strongly worded letter to the church in Galatia. To the Galatians Paul says, “No! You are not a slave to the law! You are a child of Christ. It was for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm in your freedom. Don’t go back to the old way.” Paul tells them, “Don’t go back to defining your salvation by a written or even an unwritten list of do’s and don’ts.” He reminds them that their salvation has nothing to do with what they, themselves, have done, or are keeping, or will do, or won’t do. Paul tells the church at Galatia that their salvation is based on one thing and one thing only, and that is what Jesus Christ has done for them on the cross and the power of God exhibited in raising Christ from the grave. He said, “That is where your salvation comes from. That is where you freedom from sin and guilt and death comes from. And don’t let anyone tell you anything differently.” I love the way Paul writes here. He is not apologizing for what he believes. He is forcefully, blatantly stating what it is he believes, and he invites them to be just as firm in it as he is. “Stand firm in this belief,” he says. “You are free from all that, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
We like this talk about freedom, don’t we? We like it so much because it is part of us. It comes from God, and when our freedom is shackled, we rebel. In counseling people who are having trouble going in a direction in life, one of the things that has to be overcome is the voice inside them that says, “My parents were right.” You see this played out over and over again, usually in some form of destructive behavior. “If my daddy was mean and bossed my momma around, then I’m not a real man if I don’t do the same thing.” It is dysfunctional, but it is there. “My parents were right. If my mother was an alcoholic, regardless of how much I don’t want to, mom was right.” Usually it is a negative, but it can also be a positive. If your parents were a certain good way, it is likely that there is something in you that wants to follow that as well. God is free. Our heavenly Parent, our heavenly Father is free, so we want to be free as well. We just don’t want to stand for it when people or institutions get in our way, or to use the context of today’s scripture, when Old Testament law got in the way. Paul says, “Grow in your freedom.”
So let’s grow in our freedom. Our freedom is not a license to do whatever we want. Viewing freedom like that is immature, childish, and self destructive and it is destructive of others. Our freedom is not a license to do whatever we want without consequence. No, it is about something more grand than that. The freedom that Paul is preaching and the freedom that we are called to is a freedom to join a new kingdom, a kingdom which supersedes all other earthly kingdoms. It is a setting at liberty all who are oppressed by law, by others, or by political systems. It is an inviting of everyone of every race, nationality, gender, or status in life to a new community, which is the body of Christ, where all differences and all prejudices are overcome at the communion table and where we are all one in Christ. We are free because Christ has invaded our world and conquered everything that would keep us from being free. We are free from the power of anything that would keep us from being who we are. We are free from the temptation of sin. Jesus came and set at liberty those who were having trouble being who they were; who were held down by oppression or shackled in sin. He preached to everyone that they could be free. He preached to all the disenfranchised; to women, sinners, tax collectors, and adulterers. He called all of them away from their sin that enslaved them, granted them a pardon, and assured them a seat at the heavenly banquet. That is the message of the Gospel.
Paul says to his people at Galatia, “You’ve heard that, and now you want to go back? You want to retreat from that? You are free! Don’t regress in your freedom. Grow in your freedom. Use your freedom to say, ‘No’ to sin. It can’t have its way with you. Use your freedom to say, ‘Yes’ to God’s way of living in life. You are free to live God’s way. You are totally free,” he is saying. Then it is as if, in verses 13 and 14, Paul is reading our minds. It is in those verses where Paul is saying, “I know what you are thinking, and I want to caution you. Don’t use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” After all Paul’s writing about freedom, he has to put the brakes on right here. He says, “Folks, you are totally free. Don’t get carried away with it. Do you want freedom without responsibility? You can have it, but I don’t think you really want it. Do you want freedom with no rules? I don’t think you really want that,” Paul is saying. Give me good life giving rules to follow. God does that in scripture. Live God’s way and you will be freer and happier than you ever thought possible, because in God’s realm you have the power, the presence, the protection, and the help of God. Outside of God’s realm, living a life that is not godly is pretty dangerous. It is a pretty dangerous world. Paul says that you are free to choose that, but he advises against it. Forsaking God and doing whatever you want may sound wonderful, but ultimately it is unfulfilling. It is self destructive. It can be destructive to others. It can bring emptiness, despair, unhappiness, disease, and even death.
I was finishing up a workout the other day at the Y. The locker room has sections divided by rows of lockers. I was getting dressed and there were two guys in the next section. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them. One of them was saying, “I am glad to be living alone again.” And the other man said, “I know what you mean.” And he said, “I am tired of answering to other people. I am glad to be alone.” The other guy said, “Women will do that to you.” And the man said, “I am not going to answer to anyone. I am tired of having to explain where I have been and what I have been doing. I don’t want anybody keeping tabs on me.” And the other guy said, “I know what you mean. They’ll do that to you.” “I like having things my own way and living like I want to.” “Yea, man. I hear ya’”. On and on it went. He’s free! He’s free from marriage. He doesn’t have anybody keeping tabs on him. But he is free from true intimacy. He is free from the joy of sacrificing self for another. He is free from watching another person grow and blossom into the person that God created her to be. He may never have a front row seat like you get in marriage again in his life. If you want that kind of hollowness and emptiness, then you can have it. You are free to make that choice.
The great UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden, died just a few weeks ago. John Wooden was a legendary basketball coach who won something like ten or twelve national championships. He had all kinds of rules for his players. He had restrictions and ways of doing things. My wife went to a clinic he was leading one time. When she came out I asked, “What did the great coach John Wooden talk about?” She said, “How to put on your socks!” I am not making this up. He instructed players on, if you are going to play basketball at UCLA, how to properly put your socks on. He had rules, restrictions, and regulations about everything. In the early seventies Wooden had a fabulous player, I am sure you probably remember, Bill Walton. He was 6ft.,11 inch center and one of the best college basketball players of all time. That was at the time when everybody was trying to grow their hair long. All John Wooden’s players had closely cropped hair, not long floppy hair. Bill Walton went to John Wooden and said, “I don’t think you should make me cut my hair. I don’t think you have the right to tell me how to wear my hair.” And John Wooden said, “Bill, I would never think to tell you how to wear your hair! You may wear your hair any way you want to. You are a grown man, twenty one years old. You can wear your hair however you please. If you wish to wear your hair long, we will thank you for your years of service at UCLA and wish you well in the future as you go wherever you want to go.” In other words, “You are free to do what you want, but if you are going to be on my team, there are certain ways we are going to do things.”
God is not saying to us, “If you want to be on my team I am going to put a bunch of burdens and restrictions on you.” But God is saying to us, “If you want to be a part of the body of Christ there is a way to live. It is a way of love, service, sacrifice, and putting others first. It is a way that doesn’t practice self indulgence or seek pleasure above all else. It is a way that has something to do with self control instead of being a total libertine. “Come and follow my way,” God is saying, “and you will be freer, happier, and more fulfilled than you ever dreamed possible.” Still, we resist it. It has to do with trust. Do we really believe God? Do we really believe that we can become who we are in Christ as opposed to in our own little world that we create in our own rules for living?
One of the saddest afternoons of my life occurred when I was a very young minister. I was in seminary and part time minister to youth and college students. I sat in my office one day and a young man came in and said, “I want to go to heaven.” “Well good! That’s good,” I said. He said, “But I don’t want to do all this stuff in the Bible.” “Oh, what are you talking about?” He said, “Well I’ve been reading the Bible….” (by the way, the rest of this sermon is rated PG-13. I am talking to a young college student. You know where this is going!) He went on to say, “The Bible says to not have sex outside of marriage.” I said, “Yes, it does.” He said, “I haven’t read it all. Does it say that everywhere?” I said, “Yes, it does.” He said, “Well, do I have to do that in order to go to heaven?” I said, “Well, now, what you are talking about is Lordship. You are not really talking about sex. You are really talking about whether you are going to follow God in your life or do what you want to in life.” I said, “I’m not the judge. I don’t know the answer to the question you just asked. I know what the Bible says. I think I know the will of God in this realm of life that you are talking about. Are you going to follow God, or are you going to follow yourself? That is the question.” He said, “I was just asking you a simple question.” And I said, “No, you are asking a profound question. Who is going to be the Lord of your life? Who do you trust? Your ways, as you define them, what’s good for you, of God’s ways? ” He said, “I’ve got to think about this,” and he went outside. There was a grassy area with lots of trees behind the church. He sat, for a long time, leaning against a large water oak. He later came back in and said, “If this is the way you’ve got to live to be a Christian, I don’t want to be any part of it.” We are free to make whatever choices we want to make, and sometimes we make sad choices.
Paul says, “God has given you the freedom to live in Christ, to follow Christ. And in following him, to experience the overwhelming, wonderful joy of discovering who you really are, and that is good! Do you choose freely to be in Christ and follow Christ, or are you going to use this freedom to pursue other things in life. We have talked about moral issues, but you could use your freedom to forsake the work of the church, the work of your calling as a Christian, to pursue your own interests and pad your own pocket book. You could put your career ahead of God. You could put any desire for prestige or power or money ahead of God. It could be any of that including moral issues as we discussed. But what Paul is asking us is, “What are you going to do with the freedom you have been given? Are you going to choose to live in Christ and follow Christ, or are you going to use your freedom to indulge yourself?” It is implicit, in what he is writing that you need to make that choice. You need to make that choice this day. Will I follow God and put God first in my life, or will I follow my own desires? You have this wonderful, wonderful freedom to choose. Now choose. That is the message of today. God’s way or some other way? You have the freedom to choose. Choosing God’s way is the way of life – good life – eternal life! Choosing the other way – well, I hope you enjoy it, because that would be all there is. That would be it.