Our study of Galatians continues this morning as we move into chapter five. Throughout his letter, Paul has developed the theme of freedom; freedom from the law, freedom to be forgiven by God in Christ, freedom to become who God created us to be. Paul now shifts from the theological to the ethical. He always ends his letters in this way, on a practical note. He doesn’t leave you hanging in the clouds. Paul always brings you back to earth. After traveling through the lofty places of thought, Paul is able to reduce it all to something that the ordinary person can understand and do. I will be reading from chapter five, verse one, then I will pick up reading at verse thirteen through the end of the chapter. Listen for and hear the word of God. (read Galatians 5:1,13-26). This is the Word of the Lord.
“For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (5:1) We Americans love to celebrate Independence Day. Thomas Jefferson's bold assertion that each individual has an "inalienable right" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" still sounds sweet to our freedom-loving ears. Despite the imperfections and foibles of our political system, we still enjoy tremendous economic freedom, political freedom, religious freedom, personal freedom and communal freedom. But we must be careful that we don't define the freedoms we enjoy so much solely as "freedom from" -- forgetting that the real test of freedom's value is how we use our "freedom to."
Paul's caution to the Galatians likewise reminds us that sometimes our greatest liberation can be found in our commitments; in our freedoms to. There is our freedom to gather together for the benefit of others, our freedom to love and serve each other and our freedom to express our feelings, concerns, hopes and aspirations for our community, neighbors and friends. Remember that the same philosophers and statesmen who boldly announced this country's "Declaration of Independence" were also the ones who worked long and hard to craft our Constitution -- a document that sculpts our freedom along the prescribed guidelines and responsibilities necessary to make freedom work -- our freedom to govern, to serve, to defend, to protect, to honor and to be loyal.
The Fourth of July is Thursday this week. It is a good time to celebrate the paradox at the center of the Christian faith: We are most free when we are most bonded. Through Jesus Christ's supreme example of freedom in service, we all become the most free when we bind ourselves to Christ. He freely divested himself of his divinity so that he could make the ultimate sacrifice for our sake and for our freedom.
We must take care not to confuse this freely offered liberty for doing whatever we want to do. Suppose a sky diver at 10,000 feet announces to the rest of the group, "I'm not using a parachute this time. I want freedom!" The fact is that the skydiver is constrained by a greater law- the law of gravity. But when the skydiver chooses the "constraint" of the parachute, he is free to enjoy the exhilaration.
Former Cowboys Head Coach Tom Landry said, “Most successful football players not only accept rules and limitations but, I believe, they NEED them. Players are free to perform at their best only when they know what the expectations are, where the limits stand. I see this as a biblical principle that also applies to life, a principle our society as a whole has forgotten; you can’t enjoy true freedom without limits”.
God's moral laws act the same way: They restrain, but they are absolutely necessary to enjoy the exhilaration of real freedom. The long list of what Paul calls in Galatians "fleshly works" is what results when we let our freedom “to” ... become freedom “from”.
Freedom to love becomes ... fornication. Freedom to worship becomes ... idolatry.
Freedom to serve becomes ... factions.
Freedom to inquire becomes ... enmity.
Freedom to discuss becomes ... quarrels.
Freedom to disagree becomes ... dissension.
Freedom to thrive becomes ... envy.[i]
The political and personal freedoms we celebrate every Independence Day always remind us that with great freedom comes great responsibility. For our freedom to "work" we must be good citizens -- we must vote, pay taxes, obey the laws, respect property, be loyal and keep the peace. The freedom we enjoy every day of our lives as Christians demands of us only two things -- faithfulness and love. Despite the long list of fleshly "works" versus spiritual "fruits", Paul takes care to preface these itemizations with a single reminder: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Galatians 5:14).
Writer Oswald Chambers once wrote, “Freedom is the ability not to insist on my rights, but to see that God gets his.” Christ's mandate of freedom through service reveals that the only way to achieve happiness is to love and serve others. Pursuing happiness, focusing solely on the self and its personal pleasures, will never bring genuine joy or the fulfilling happiness of peace. When we pursue happiness for the self, it is like looking for the ending point of a rainbow -- as soon as you think you've reached the end, your perspective changes, and the rainbow's end has moved again.
Loving ourselves was not the goal Jesus had in mind for us when he freely gave his life for our salvation. We can't hold out a hand to our neighbor when our arms are wrapped around ourselves. The love Christ calls us to is agape love, a sacrificial love bonded to Christ, and therefore cannot be self-directed. Only when offering ourselves in sacrificial service for others will we run headlong into the "happiness" we thought we had to pursue. The movement of the Christian life is from self-centeredness to centeredness in self to centeredness in God.
When do you feel better about yourself? Do you feel better about yourself after a long, admittedly restful afternoon as a "couch potato" watching football games or after a long, admittedly exhausting afternoon coaching a Little League game? Do you feel better about yourself after whipping up one of your favorite desserts in the kitchen or after delivering it to a shut-in member of your church? Do you feel better about yourself after a special "night on the town" or after an evening serving a mom and her children families in need with Longview Interfaith Hospitality Network?
Christian apologist Joseph Parker found himself listening to a "self-made men" tell the story of how he became a "self-made man." After his presentation was over, he remarked to Dr. Parker, "What did you think of my story?" To which Dr. Parker replied, "My dear man, you have just relieved Almighty God of an enormous responsibility."
"Self-made persons are a truly powerful argument against the use of unskilled labor. Self-serving is an oxymoron! We are neither human enough, nor divine enough, to serve ourselves, and in the end, if that is what we use our gifts for, we will come up empty" (J. Walter Cross, "When One Plus One is More than Two").
On this Fourth of July, as we celebrate the birth of our nation and the great experiment in democratic rule, we remember Christianity is the only true democracy, because in a true Christian state everyone would think as much of their neighbor as of themselves. Christian freedom is not a license to do anything you want. It is for the simple but tremendous reason that the Christian is not a person who has become free to sin, but a person who, by the grace of God, has become free NOT to sin. And the fruits of the Spirit are the outward signs of that amazing freedom.
In the words of the great George Matheson poem, "Make Me a Captive, Lord, and Then I Shall Be Free."
[i] Bob Kaylor, Senior Writer for homileticsonline.com, and Senior Minister of the Park City United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah.
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