What Kind of Church Would You Join?
Galatians 5:1, 13-26
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Rev. Lou Nyiri
July 1, 2007
“For Freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1).
What a great line for us to ponder on this weekend before our Independence Day picnics, parades and celebrations.
But be careful because if we’re not our freedom can be as explosive as a July Fourth firecracker.
As Americans we are great lovers of freedom, but we also must take a long, hard look at the dark side of independence. Like children who get their driver’s license and then wrap their cars around trees or students who go off to college, party too much and get placed on academic probation or worse die due to alcohol poisoning, we need to learn how to handle the freedom we are given.
And that’s what our text this morning is all about…
What do we do when we suddenly find ourselves without boundaries or constraints?
Do we become total party animals or is there a more uplifting outcome to being set free from the law?
How do we understand and embrace our freedom while staying within our limits?
“For Freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1).
Paul’s letter to the Galatians can be understood as our spiritual Declaration of Independence because it frees us from Jewish legal obligations and insists we become right with God ONLY through our faith in Jesus Christ.
Our liberty however, doesn’t have to exhibit itself in our lives as negative outcomes due to poor decision making skills.
Our liberty is such that we can and we will live up to all God has created us to be, if and only if we agree to participate with God in the process.
When I started my freshman year at Penn State I learned a great lesson – in a 300 student introductory to biology class the professor doesn’t take attendance and if I were to miss a few classes he would never know. I had the freedom to go or not go to class. And so I acted on this freedom – after all my parents weren’t bugging me to get up or even study at night. And then I learned that there was such a thing as Nittany Notes – a place where for just $15.00 I could buy the notes for the class taken by someone who got an “A” in the course – and I’d never have to go in order to get the notes for the test. And so I acted on that freedom as well. Judging from the fact that my parents paid for a course I never passed – I think you know I got a little carried away with my new found freedom. And I guess in retrospect it’s probably important for someone majoring in biology to go to his biology courses.
“For Freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1).
Our Christian liberty though is NOT a license to go crazy or get carried away in our new found freedom.
When we are set free from the Jewish law, we are not given permission to whatever we want. Freedom in Christ is a freedom to do what Christ wants – it’s a freedom that echoes Paul’s earlier words to the Galatians in 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”
“You were called to freedom,” Paul writes, “only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence” (5:13). We must never assume that our faith in Christ gives us a “get out of jail free” card for the pursuit of our own personal pleasures. We are not saved in order to do whatever we want. Rather, we are saved in order to participate in that which God is trying to do in this world. It echoes a scene in the newly released movie, Evan Almighty, where God – played by Morgan Freeman is talking with Evan Baxter – played by ??? and Evan asks God, “Why are you doing this to me?” And God replies, “You wanted to change the world, son. So do I.”
Our salvation does not allow us to rise above the moral laws to do whatever we want, whenever we want. No matter how broad or vast God’s grace is there are still limits to our freedom. And those limits are grounded in and spring forth from God. And this freedom should never go counter to what God desires for the creation.
In fact even the Apostle Paul confronts this thinking when he writes to the Roman church, “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” (Romans 6:1). The answer is a resounding “By no means!” It even borders on the expletive.
Paul, along with God, opposes self-indulgent tendencies when he says, “Through love become slaves to one another” (5:13). The reality of this statement is that if we become servants – if ALL of us become servants one to another – then we are not going to behave in selfish or abusive ways toward each other.
“For the whole law,” Paul continues, “is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (5:14).
The challenge is to love each other and serve each other as Christ loves and serves us.
The liberty, the freedom we have as Christians is to love our neighbors and act as slaves to one another.
And how does this show itself? How do we exhibit and live out this calling?
Simple…we go crazy with good works!
We open up the lid on all the different jars of jelly made from the fruits of the Spirit and we begin spreading them all over the place. Every where we go we take with us and live out things like: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. In our families; in our neighborhoods; in our workplaces; in the classroom; in the grocery store; at the gas pump; wherever we are we bring along a heaping helping of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
As Paul says, “there is no law against such things” (5:22-23).
There is absolutely no regulation against having too much joy or being far too patient or showing excessive generosity.
Paul in essence says, “Go ahead, and knock yourself out! There’s no law against it.”
When was the last time you ever heard your father say, “If I hear one more joyful remark I’m going to turn this car around and there’ll be no Dairy Queen tonight for anyone. I mean it!”
You rarely hear this type of conversation:
“Hey, dude.”
“Yeah, Wassup?”
“Well, you’ve been really supportive of me. You encourage me all the time. You’re so patient and always happy and cheerful, and when I need something, you’re there for me. You’ve always been kind to me and my family, you’ve totally got my back, and I appreciate it.”
“Aaaaah, don’t sweat it dude. It’s who I am and what I do.”
“Yeah, well that’s kinda what I need to talk to you about…I mean, ahh-umm, could you please cut it out? I mean, enough already. Your sweetness is stagnating.”
I have yet to hear someone say, “Would you please stop being so loving, joyful, peaceful or patient?”
No one is ever going to complain or put a limit on the love, the joy, the peace, the patience, the kindness, the generosity, the faithfulness, the gentleness, or the self-control we show to each other.
It just doesn’t happen.
And maybe it doesn’t happen because we’ve become timid about using the freedom we’ve been given.
“For Freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1).
Free to be followers and free to be living witnesses of Jesus the Christ.
We have been given an amazing gift to become the people God calls us to be through the power of the Holy Spirit and sadly it is a gift many of us are unwilling to put to use.
But it’s time to show our independence and unleash our good works on the world around us.
It’s time to put aside the desires of the flesh and focus on the fruits of the Spirit.
It’s time to share some more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control with the people we encounter.
Physician and author Bernie Siegel, recommends that we ask ourselves, “How would I behave today if I were a loving person?” AND then act that way.
Siegel says further, “I follow Don Quixote. I view the world with love. I tell people to experiment with this. Judge no one for the next 24 hours. Love everyone and watch. It’s incredible how that changes your relationship with people. When you judge everybody – he’s lazy, she’s no good, he only wants money, she doesn’t care about me – you project that and you affect those people. When I walk around being loving, it’s incredible how people respond.”
Today, let it be known, that we here at Gettysburg Presbyterian Church have been reminded that we are given unlimited freedom to unleash on this community in which we live the fruits of God’s Holy Spirit. And that today, we do declare that with the help of God’s Holy Spirit we will continue or begin again to live more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled lives.
The time has come to stop holding back.
On this our spiritual independence day, let’s break free from being stingy in sharing our God-given, Spirit empowered fruits with the people around us.
What kind of church would you join?
Well, I’d join a church that commits to living like that and by God’s grace I am serving a church that does.
In all we say and all we do, may it be done and said to the honor and glory of God!
Alleluia and Amen!!
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