freedom in christ
Freedom is extremely valuable. Not only is freedom valuable, but it’s also fragile. Just like such things as trust and respect, it’s easily lost. When you think about it, freedom as a hope… as in something we hope for… is really common. Everybody wants freedom. I’d imagine every person who’s ever walked this earth has in some way, shape, or form hoped for freedom… to be free from something. Even Jesus Himself asked to be free from the cup of suffering He was going to endure for our sins. Freedom has a high price, and Jesus knows this better than anyone.
Freedom as an idea, is really common too. The idea of freedom seems to be everywhere because the actual existence of freedom isn’t much of anywhere. I would say that the idea of freedom is so abundant in fact, that it’s usually just a bunch of talk. When freedom is nothing but talk it’s cheap. Freedom as something that’s actually ACHIEVED and EXPERIENCED… well that’s unique. I’m not so sure many people ever actually experience it. We talk like we do. But remember, when freedom is just a bunch of talk it’s cheap.
I think what I’m saying here about not many people ever actually experiencing true freedom is proven true by what most people do with what they think freedom is. Most people, and I’ll include myself in this category much of the time, take what they consider to be freedom and spend it on themselves. We’ve been trained by the world and deceived by an enemy to do what we want, when we want, and how we wanna do it.
That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. That’s not what made Jesus go, “Yep, I better go pay the huge price for freedom.” (He’s not actually recorded as saying that anywhere.)
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I start to get really honest about how free I feel it becomes pretty plain to see that there’s often times a pretty big disconnect between what Jesus says I ought to experience, and what’s actually going on in my life. Jesus tells me that if the Son sets me free, then I’m free indeed. I’ve accepted Him as Lord and Savior, and so I am… I’m free indeed… just like all of you hopefully. The bottom line here is still that I don’t always experience that freedom the way I want to, or the way God says that I should.
Again, if we’re gonna get real honest here, I think we’d have to admit that the reason we don’t always experience freedom the way we want to is because we’ve all got ourselves a little problem. That problem is ourselves. We all struggle with the problem of self.
What if we weren’t so caught up with ourselves… always looking out for number one? What if we were to humble ourselves and take a back seat to who God says should be up front? That being Him and other people. But here’s the thing on that one… If we put Him and others ahead of ourselves, then that makes us last! And we don’t wanna be last! Because after all, we spend so much energy trying to get ahead and put ourselves first. But again, getting honest, when we’re selfish it has this way of robbing us of the things that really matter. Putting ourselves ahead of God and others robs us of things like love, peace, joy, and of course freedom.
Just imagine if we were all as other-centered as Jesus! Imagine if we could see beyond ourselves and really understand this freedom Jesus is trying to give us. Imagine if we could fully appreciate grace for what it is, and we could then respond in such a way that surrenders completely to the lead of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Would we be able to put God and other people first? Would we place a bit more value into our relationships? And then, what would the result of all that be? Would we experience more freedom? Would we realize Jesus’s promise when He says that if we humble ourselves, God will lift us up? Imagine what this might look like. Imagine how our experience of freedom would be intensified. Imagine how we would be able to impact the world around us. Imagine how God would be glorified in the process.
Have you ever seen the show “Kids Say the Darndest Things?” It’s the one where kids get interviewed, and we all laugh at the ridiculous things they say. When I was a kid, I said some pretty “darndest” things. Actually, I said some pretty dumb and ignorant things. One of the things I used to say a lot, especially when I found myself in some type of trouble, or somebody was getting on my case about something, was it’s a free country, and I can do whatever I want. It’s ridiculous. If I had known then what I know now, well… let’s just say I probably wouldn’t have said it so much.
In Galatians chapter 5 the Apostle Paul tells us that God has called us to live in freedom. He goes on to say that we need to make sure we don’t use that freedom to do whatever we want. Most of us know all too well that going around doing whatever we want is a recipe for taking away our freedoms. It puts us in a place where we get trapped by the consequences of selfish actions. That’s not freedom. It’s slavery.
Paul goes on to counsel us that instead of using our freedoms to do whatever we want, we ought to use our freedoms to serve and love one another. That’s how freedom grows and gets experienced to the fullest. Or like Jesus says… not just free, but free indeed.
After hearing this, it’s in our nature to take it and go forth and create some sort of a system, a list of do’s and don’ts and policies and procedures, on how to put God and other people ahead of ourselves. If we want to go the extra mile and get real deep with it, we might even put together a checklist for dying to self. Isn’t that what good Christians do? And if we got crazy intentional, we might even get super legalistic about keeping God’s law and doing all the right things and stuff!
Let me just pause real quick, and say that this is NOT what makes the news good (Gospel means good news). Let alone the greatest news conceivable. What makes the Gospel of Jesus Christ the greatest news conceivable is that even though you and I are sometimes selfish, and we don’t always do the right thing, we have Jesus. We have grace. We’re forgiven.
Jesus is the answer to everything, not us. Freedom comes from what Jesus has already done, and is doing within us.
READ GALATIANS CHAPTER 5 & 6
So… At some point early on, Paul was there in this region called Galatia sharing the Gospel, teaching discipleship, and planting churches. Paul’s message, the good news, was a message of grace. Grace meets people where they’re at. Paul knew this because he himself knew what it meant to be saved by grace. And so now you’ve got all these fairly new Christians scattered around trying to figure out what it means to live in Christ, and be good followers of Jesus, and be obedient and everything. This can be challenging because we’re often presented with situations and circumstances where we can trust Jesus and what He did on the cross, or we can take matters into our own hands and try to work our way into God’s favor. Here’s where we usually go with it: “I’m gonna go out there and out-good all my sin. I’m gonna try really hard to be good, and do all the right things. I’m going to follow all the rules and regulations, and live by a set of laws that I can’t even keep if I tried…”
Do you get the point?
And then, to make matters even more difficult on these Galatians (and us), after Paul leaves some other dudes come in and start talking about how if you want to be a real Christian you have to keep all the religious laws. So, Paul writes this letter back to the Galatians warning them about these false teachings. He writes the letter to the Galatians to expose the spiritual dangers and hazards these teachings cause. He says that to add anything to what Jesus already did on the cross is to say that He died for nothing. And, that if we could work our way into Heaven by doing all the right things and following all the rules there’d be no need for a savior.
Basically, Paul is saying that it’s not about a set of rules. It’s not about a list of do’s and don’ts and policies and procedures. The reason we go out and do good is simply a response to what Jesus has already done! True freedom is found in a person, and that person’s name is Jesus. He’s the perfect one who sets us free. When we believe this, it sets us free from ourselves. When we’re set free from ourselves, we’re free to go and live our lives.
When we’re living truly free, or free indeed, the natural result is love. Jesus says that to love God and to love others is to keep the entire law anyway.
Freedom is found in a relationship with Jesus. Freedom is not found in following all the rules. We can’t follow all the rules. Trying to work our way to God gets this all twisted, and only leaves us feeling like we’re not good enough.
Jesus is the answer to everything. Jesus plus nothing. Jesus has already taken care of it. He want you to BE free. He wants you to experience that freedom. Taking this teaching as a license to do whatever we want will rob us of freedom.
Jesus wants us to trust Him. He wants us to lay ourselves on the line by putting Him and other people first. It’s in the moments when fear is overcome by faith, and love gets experienced in relationships, that we realize the power of the Gospel. Then we begin to live free and forgiven. It’s then we understand freedom doesn’t give us the liberty to do whatever we want. Instead, it allows us to live in step with the Holy Spirit… with God Himself. It frees us up to move within the unforced rhythms of grace. Then we find even more freedom by connecting in greater and deeper ways with our creator. And that’s how we understand and receive God’s love. And when we understand and receive God’s love, we are finally capable of giving love. Not pretend love, but for real love.
When we're in relationship with Jesus, and we experience a love that only He can give, that love will overflow to others. Then they send it right back to us… and freedom grows. Love and freedom feed and fuel each other within relationships. Without relationships there is no love. Without love there is no freedom. Without safe and loving relationships, how would we ever learn that there can be mercy for mistakes? Or restoration for failures? How would we experience forgiveness and grace?
Freedom, relationships, and love are so intertwined that we will never truly experience one without the other two. Love strong. Experience more freedom.