| Sermons from Lone Rock Bible Church Stevensville, MT Index of LRBC Sermons: www.sermonlinks.com/Sermons/LoneRock/Sermons November 14, 2004 Freedom in Christ: What Are the Facts? We sometimes hear that Christians are free, under grace, to live as they please. We are wise to understand freedom as the Bible understands it. Here are some facts from this passage
This is a very special set of verses we’re going to be talking about today. When I was a kid I always liked Cracker Jacks – because of the prize inside. Something like that happened when Mom would bring home a box of cereal and it would have a prize inside. Suddenly that was everybody’s favorite kind of cereal because we’re going for the prize. I was meditating on these verses and I felt like I had my tiny hand in a box of Cracker Jacks and had hold of the prize inside. Sometimes this happens in study of Scripture. The topic is freedom. It’s a loaded word and it carries with it many connotations. What illumined my mind, the prize in the box to me, as I was pondering these verses and trying to connect the dots through them, was I believed I saw what Christian freedom truly is. You need to prepare to rethink. The world has done things with words that have slopped over into the Christian community and into our Biblical understanding that are not accurate. For instance, the word “love.” The world has a way with that word and it has come to us to mean that warm, good, fuzzy, even erotic, side of affection. Galatians 5 Freedom. Back in the days of the Enlightenment, as our country was being formed and as the great thinkers of the day were trying to put their fingers on exactly what this land of the free was all about, freedom came to be understood basically as autonomy; that is, opportunity, license for the individual. The individual under freedom could do whatever he or she wanted to do as long as it didn’t interfere with or harm someone else. That was the common definition of the enlightenment thinkers. That definition works very well under certain circumstances. Circumstances, perhaps, where God is excluded. If there is no God, or if God is far away, or if God is irrelevant, freedom means do what you want as long as you don’t hurt someone else. However, as we know, God is very much involved not only in human history but in each one of our lives and in all of our circumstances so we must rather than work a definition around God we must deal squarely with who He is and what He said. Freedom is sometimes understood that way. In an election year there is much talk of freedom, liberty, individual rights, the heritage of the nation. So much is at stake for those of us who are patriotic. Oftentimes our political view of freedom can seriously impact our understanding of freedom in Christ. Sometimes it’s hard to keep all that exactly straight. In the Christian world there has been, for centuries, a debate raging having to do with freedom. Just how much free will does an individual have? There are many Christians willing to go to the wall for a notion of free will that goes beyond anything the Bible presents. It’s a topic that runs fairly deep for many. For some, freedom is confused with a watered down version of grace. “We’re free,” they might say. “We’re under grace now that we’ve been forgiven of all our sins in Jesus so therefore freedom means we can pretty much do what we want and we’ll always be forgiven. We’re not under law, that oppressive law; we’re under grace. So eat, drink and be merry and get forgiven later.” For many, freedom is simply impunity. Simply getting away with it and not getting caught. God’s people need to understand freedom as it comes from Scripture. Just think through these verses as we work them. Leaving here today, ponder the implications of these verses. The foundation of new life is freedom (5:13a) There are a couple points of emphasis in this verse. “You, brothers.” The first thing the apostle does is to draw a distinction between those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ and everyone else. He emphasizes the word “you.” He underscores it by “brothers,” those who are in Christ. There is an eternal line drawn between those who are and those who are not. The body of Christ is, in God’s eyes, distinct. We may not be able to tell where the edges blur, but He can. “You brothers,” he says, “this is for you.” This is family mail, emphatic, to a distinct group. And then he underscores this notion of freedom. Again, a little bit of interpretation is in order. First of all, he says, you were called brethren upon the foundation of freedom. I realize the New American Standard says you were called to freedom. More correctly, and it’s important, at least to me, you were called on this very platform, “the foundation of freedom.” So whatever freedom is, we know it’s big. He represents it here as foundational to faith. Not as some libertine byproduct of misguided Biblical understanding, but actual foundation to our faith. The second way he emphasizes that is this word “freedom” there’s no article there. It’s kind of like John 1:1, the verse that certain groups like to mess up. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In the Greek language, there’s no article “a” there. When we translate to English, sometimes we’re free to put an “a” there. But the first thing we need to understand is when these people wrote in Greek they had all kinds of options. When they choose not to put an article, normally there’s a reason for that. There is in John 1:1. The same reason is here. When they deliberately withhold an article, it normally means they’re drawing attention to the quality of the object. In other words, it goes like this: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Same thing here. You, brothers, were called on the basis of freedom. That’s huge! The text shouts to me saying, “Underline this very important stuff.” Something big is coming. The definition of Christian freedom: Our new life by God’s Spirit in which we can live the way we were designed to live. New life, spiritual life, divine life, supernaturally given by the Spirit of God whereby God’s people can live the way we were designed to live. There are benefits of this freedom; for instance, peace or relief from the frustration of failure. He’s talking here to these Galatians who were trying so hard to impress God with their way of life, with their religious practices. They are doomed to frustration because they know they can never quite attain. They have peace from that now; they’re free from that now. No more need of the frustration of failure. It includes rest from self-centered religion. When you’re into a religion of works you’re all about yourself. “If I jump.” “If I refrain. “I, I, I.” Under those circumstances we become enmeshed in a very self-absorbed religious life where, subtly perhaps, but surely, it’s all about me. There’s freedom from that in the gospel, freedom from self-centered religion, from performance-based religion. Because the Spirit of God literally comes to dwell inside the believer, with this freedom comes power to do God’s will in accordance with the way He designed us to begin with. Freedom in Christ is not a “do whatever you want, be forgiven, you’re under grace, not under law.” That is a miscarriage of truth to the nth degree. Not so at all. If I may illustrate, let’s say someone did a crime and was sentenced to X number of years in the slammer. If I were put away in prison I would think of those years as being wasted years. Let’s say they put me down in the shop making license plates. So I get up in the morning, go to the shop, and start in making license plates. So I’m making them year after year. I’m sorry for my crime; I’ll never to it again. But – I was not designed to make license plates. Some may be, but not me. So every time I’m making the license plates, I‘m thinking, “Some day I won’t have to do this any more. Some day, I can do what I was designed and wired to do.” And on the day I am released and I’m able to walk free I finally, at long last, am free from the restraints of that institution. I can’t run around and do whatever I want, but I now have opportunity. I now am in a position to live as I was designed to live. Now I can be an artist or build houses or farm. Now I can do as I was designed, wired, constituted to do. A friend of mine went through this. He had a heart for the Lord, wanted to serve God. He’s a mechanic at a dealership. Every day he’d go to work. Yes, they paid him. Yes, he had friends. He was free to quit if he wanted to, but he needed the job. The day finally came when he had an opportunity to step from that world into the world for which be felt before God that he was designed. He was free then, to do what God had designed him to do. Do you get the idea? We’re going to move into more of a spiritual context. But first, foundationally, God wants us free; that is, He wants us doing and being as He originally designed us. And once we’re there, we’re free. The flesh is not the friend of
freedom (5:13b) Secondly, the flesh is not naturally the friend of freedom. The flesh -- the old nature of ours has preconditioned our bodies to gratify self. We are naturally preconditioned to gratify self. Paul calls it in Romans the old man, and it’s there, very real. Paul says there that this freedom is not freedom as an opportunity for your flesh. He’s not saying now you’re a Christian, you can just run off and give vent to your desires. “You’ll always be forgiven; you’re free.” No – that’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying clearly, explicitly, that the freedom he’s talking about is not freedom to sin in the flesh. Let’s make no mistake about that. Opportunity for the flesh – thats the word they use. The military term is staging area. We are poised. The flesh is always ready to go be the flesh. So he’s saying this platform, this foundation which is freedom is not the flesh’s staging area. Don’t use “I’m a Christian; I can do what I want” as an excuse to gratify self. It doesn’t wash biblically, he will explain. The flesh can’t be trusted. In history, from the standpoint of sociology or politics, people getting to do whatever they want to do, doesn’t work. For instance, about the time our country was battling for independence with Great Britain, there was another revolution going on in France – the French Revolution. The basis for two revolutions was totally different from one another. In the case of the French Revolution, it was led by a bunch of individuals who were followers of the philosopher Rousseau. Rousseau taught that life would be great if we all were the same and we could just revert to the simplicity of life of what he would call “the noble savage,” the primitive person. Let’s all go be primitive, all the same, all together, all at once, all being equal, all being free. Like in the late 60’s, envisioning a commune but without the drugs. It may sound good to Rousseau, but it doesn’t dial in the natural inclinations of the flesh or of the human heart. What happened was that King Louis was dethroned. There was a massive uprising but nobody was free. That sort of mock freedom led to anarchy and people killing one another. In anarchy the more powerful tend to surface and the weaker tend to be subdued. Then you go from anarchy to tyranny. The architect of the French Revolution, Maxmillian Robespierre, who made use of the new device, the guillotine, to behead tens of thousands of the wealthy and influential lost his head to the guillotine because it came around and it was his turn. The flesh is not the friend of freedom. Anarchy doesn’t work on a personal basis with people, of free roaming flesh. Doesn’t that sound fun? If we could just do anything we wanted with impunity; that is, without fear of being caught. To many people that’s the ideal. We hear talk like that in the political world. People should just be free to do whatever they want; it’s their own business. However, once again, that position doesn’t dial in the flesh because we know if we give in to excesses of the flesh we become, sooner or later, slaves of the flesh, addicts, if you will, in different ways, and we’re not free at all then. We’re slaves. It doesn’t work in society; it doesn’t work individually. The flesh constantly seeks opportunity, wants that staging area but can’t be trusted. In the words of the apostle Paul, the flesh needs to be harnessed and needs to be retrained and restrained and flogged occasionally. In I Corinthians 9 Paul is talking about his own physical self. 1 Corinthians 9 “I give myself the old one-two.” Why? “I make it my slave; I have to. If I let it run, it will run. So I take it in tow and tell it no. I pound on it from time to time.”(I’m speaking figuratively.) .”Lest possibly after I have preached to others I myself should be disqualified. He says, “I’ve got to.” Freedom doesn’t mean letting the flesh run or the flesh will run straight to slavery. The flesh is not naturally the friend of freedom. The fulfillment of God’s
Law is freedom (5:14) Third - and this is where it comes together. I’m going to include the end of verse 13 as I read verse 14. “but
through love serve one another. Through the love of God is what he is saying here, be serving one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, in this you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Is that not a curveball to you? It is to me. I always thought Christian freedom is about me. Actually, it’s about us; it’s about others. Don’t give freedom a platform or an opportunity for the flesh but through love, be serving one another. That’s the opposite of living in the flesh to the apostle. Then he backs it up with a passage from Leviticus 19. This is the second greatest commandment lifted from the Old Testament, as quoted by Jesus. So he’s not just pulling a verse out of the air. He’s going to the source. He’s saying all the law is fulfilled in this. If you want to bring it all together as it touches down in human experience after loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (that gets you saved, by the way), love your neighbor as yourself. Everything else goes there. That, he says, is freedom. It’s almost as if to say, rather than giving your flesh opportunity to serve itself, freedom means putting yourself in an opportunity to serve others. It was kind of a surprise to me when that clicked and I saw what’s going on here. Through love, and this is a deliberate use of the word at the end of verse 13, you be serving. It’s a progressive, continuous, way of life word, not a one-time thing. It’s where we’re going. Paul uses this statement based on the words of Jesus. Now we have to think this through and I hope you will follow here. This is where the Law goes. It’s summarized and goes here, to the service of one another. Once our relationship with God is as should be, that’s the first commandment: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength – when that is where we are, when we’re a believer in that sense, this is where the Law takes us – to serve one another. This is where God’s character is best seen. He puts His Spirit in us and then He lives through us, in real life, and His character then is visible through our lives. It’s all about His character, His life through us. We might think that it’s like the pinnacle of the Christian experience. Let’s say we’ve been a Christian for many years and finally we’re going to reach a threshold of maturity. Wouldn’t you think that threshold of Christian maturity would be more like a mysticism or something where I could just stop whatever I’m doing and suddenly God would flood me and fill me and I would have this personal, intimate, unique, indescribable experience with Him that would make me mature. Maybe that’s just for the emotionally and subjectively oriented. How about for those who are more cerebral -- wouldn’t you think then that this threshold of Christian maturity and experience would be when we finally reach the point where we really know our Bible and we find that we are scholars? “I can find that verse, I can tell you where it is and what it says and cross reference it three times. Finally, I’ve made it. Look at me. I’m a mature Christian. I’m a Bible scholar.” Wouldn’t you think that would be a little easier? I can fake the mystical experience. I can get the Bible knowledge. But can I serve? You can’t fake that very well, not for very long. Here’s how it works. We don’t self-actualize as Christians. We don’t suddenly reach a point of having 99 percent spiritual self esteem because we’ve been Christians for so long. Are we serving? If I wrote the Bible, this is what I would do. I’d say when you get to a certain level of spirituality you’ll be visible and measurable and you’ll do it by yourself. And you’ll feel good about yourself too, because we like to feel good about ourselves. The Bible doesn’t go there for us. Paul says very clearly here that freedom is in service to others. Let’s look at it theologically. Let’s break it down. Before a person is a believer, the Bible says that person is unregenerate, not born again, which means the Holy Spirit of God has not yet taken up residence in that individual. When the Holy Spirit takes up residence in a person and that person is converted, something changes because the Spirit of God is God Himself. When God shows up, things change. It has to, by the nature of it. So God shows up and He comes to live in me. Not because I deserve it. I certainly do not. But by His grace alone, He comes to live in me. That means something is going to be different. In the 36th chapter of the book of Ezekiel beginning in verse 25 we’re given a description of that. Ezekiel 36 God is saying that in this “born again” business, “I will change you.” I will change you how? To look like what? Well, who came to live in me? He did, so He’s going to change me to look like Him! The question remains then, what does He look like? The Bible says in Romans chapter 5, verse 5 that the love of God is shed abroad by the Holy Spirit in our hearts. The character trait of God, if you will, that He brings with Him to the inside, is His love, God’s love. It comes to me by His Holy Spirit. When God comes to live in me He brings Himself, and His attributes, and His character, and His power. So He comes to live in me and the Bible says in Romans 5:5 The love of God is within me. John 3 He gave for the sake of those to whom He is given. God invests laterally in people through His love. He saves people; He reaches out to them. Romans 8 talks about the Holy Spirit of God coming in, making us free to love and free to serve. It’s the character of God within causing us to live and to do as we were originally designed. You see, we’re coming back to the way He designed us to begin with. He comes to live in us and then He lives through us. When God lives out in the world He takes people and impacts their lives. He serves people, in a word. Isn’t that what Jesus did in the 13th chapter of John when he taught His disciples how to serve as he was leaving. He washed their feet and he said, “Now, go love one another. Go be like Me.” You want to be free? You want to be what I have designed and empowered you to be? Then go be like Me. That’s freedom. Philippians chapter 2, Jesus humbled Himself and emptied Himself. Why? For people. Not for enhanced Bible knowledge. Not even for a deeper mystical experience with the Almighty, but for people. I think that’s revolutionary. That’s why we talk about the grace of God by which we’re saved. Ephesians 2 In giving us freedom He has taken us to that position where He has designed us to be. He says, “Go, be that way.” The good works mentioned in Ephesians 2:10 can only be works designed to enhance those for whom Christ died. That’s all it can be. It’s ministry. It’s service. Good works. That’s where the freedom takes us. God’s character is seen, His design for us is realized when we serve. Not when we meditate. Nobody sees God when we meditate. His presence isn’t known in a lost and dying world when we sit down and read our Bibles, as important as those things are. That isn’t the freedom that’s discussed, the freedom to be and to do as He designs us. This is often how we think. I will indict the Christian community at large here, myself included. We like conversion; we think that’s great. We encourage people in all sincerity if you have never put all your trust in Jesus only to get you to heaven and change you on earth, please don’t hesitate to go before Him and surrender. All our trust in Jesus only; that’s the key. We seek to evangelize and encourage and persuade and convince people that this is right; and it is. The next step in the thinking of many is, “Now we have to go to church.” And that’s good. I believe in going to church. We think we have to get them to church. Good. That’s like step two – we got them in church. What’s step three? We have to get them to Sunday school. We know that if we get them in church that’s a good thing and we get to worship together, but Sunday school is a little more Bible, a little more depth. I like Sunday school. In Sunday school we do things we can’t do here. Now Sunday school is not really the end. If you really, really want to make it, you have to get in Bible study. Once a person is converted, is in church, in Sunday school, they have to get to Bible study! We have this way of thinking, “They’re in.” I am an absolute fan of all those. I do all those. I believe in all those. I encourage all those. But when someone goes the next step, we see happening what the apostle is describing here. So far we haven’t seen God in action, but when someone steps out and says, “In the name of Jesus and for His sake and by His power I’m going to love someone deliberately. I’m going to serve someone deliberately. I’m going to put someone else ahead of myself deliberately.” Then we’re seeing God’s life lived out through ours. That’s the design here. The clearest indicator that the Holy Spirit lives in someone is when He’s seen living through someone into the lives of others. We’re talking here about deliberate ministry, continual ministry. At the end of verse13, “through the love,” that is, by the love of the Holy Spirit in you, “be continually serving one another.” The fellowship is not a
feeding frenzy (5:15) One final point -- this free fellowship we’re talking about is not a feeding frenzy. It’s not supposed to be, anyway. Here’s how the verse goes. 15
But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are
not consumed by one another. If you’re going to fight and devour one another, you’re going to self-destruct. When we talk about wolves and sharks and piranha having a feeding frenzy – they pull down a caribou or someone throws a cow in the river or something like that. You know how the water kind of boils and you see pictures of all these fish and then somebody pulls out the skeleton. That’s a feeding frenzy. He’s talking here about biting and tearing one another. There’s a difference between a feeding frenzy in the Amazon River and a feeding frenzy among God’s people. In the Amazon a cow gets eaten. In church, we eat ourselves. That’s even worse. That is not a flattering picture. In a church, we think about Galatians. We can apply it here too; we have differences among people -- ethic differences, particular among them, economic differences, personality differences. Some people are wired one way and some another. We have misunderstandings; we have sometimes theological differences, hopefully of a minor degree. Sometimes we’re confused about what the Bible says on a given point that will create misunderstandings, and sometimes God’s people really think that being right with God is based on how well they perform. When you have a batch of folks performing for God, those folks tend to compare with one another and comparison breeds competition and competition, confusion and destruction. Contention – it’s bad. We self-destruct in our feeding frenzy. The church at Corinth had a feeding frenzy. They had factions; they had immorality. They disagreed on how to handle it, if at all. Who to follow. Whether they should go to court against one another. They had drunkards and had gluttons. They had people competing for the most ostentatious spiritual gifts. They were self-destructing in Corinth and needed to hear from God. The solution is not independence. The solution is service. I really believe the Bible teaches that God calls us to himself, put his spirit inside us and burdens us to serve others. If we’re not listening to Him, we’re not free. We’re not realizing what He has designed us to be. We will one day, as we grow. He encourages us to move there. Freedom cannot be divorced from service. This is where the rest of Galatians is going. That’s why the works of the flesh look like this, but the fruit of the spirit looks like that. And on through the rest of the book, he’s going to say, “This is what it looks like when God’s people are free."
"Scripture
taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Jim Carlson 2004, Lone Rock Bible Church, Stevensville Montana, USA |