Scripture Lesson: Galatians 5:1, 13-15

Sermon Transcript for April 27, 2008

By Pastor Bob Coleman

It seems that if I don’t watch over the Worship Planning Team, you never know what they are going to do. This is an example of a great joy for me to see so many people involved under Jane Johnson and her Membership Team leadership as part of the Hand and Hand Campaign. That was a powerful witness of the people that it takes to be the church of Jesus Christ that we call Grace United Methodist. It’s been fun to see the smiles and to see the joy. A lot of hard work, yes, a lot of planning. I want to encourage you, of course, to go by Price Hall, I guess they’ve renamed it the “Dug Out” this morning, to see all of the ministries that will be displayed there.

It is part of the freedom that we are given. In the last two Sundays then today we’ve looked at faith hearing that God has given us all of the faith we already need. Different than the disciples who said, “Lord, give us more faith.” Jesus essentially said that you have all of the faith you need but live in your faith, live it out, do not shy away from what I have given you. Then last week we talked about sacrifice. No greater sacrifice than to lay down ones life for a fellow person. Those who are in service to do that—military or fire, police, many other areas where there is protection and there is loss of life to serve and protect. But the greatest sacrifice of all is Jesus, the Christ. For it’s all mankind, not just one country. We are not just one person at a time but for all people of all time the greatest sacrifice.

And today a very powerful word called freedom. Freedom—we know about that, don’t we? We live in a country, in the land of the free, home of the brave. But freedom isn’t just for us in the United States or other free countries of the world. The freedom I want to speak to you is much greater than any political, geographical boundary. It is given by God for us to be free in our daily living and our lives. Now this isn’t exactly the freedom that most jump to. In fact, I was talking to Rob Morris this morning. He’s been over in Japan for a couple of weeks because of his work. He said the comparison of the community spirit there versus the individual spirit. We tend to translate individual freedom into “I can do what I want or what I don’t want”. And if I don’t want to be bothered I can be left alone. It’s a different culture. It takes a whole lone generation upon generation where there it’s a community that is very important. We don’t quite have that but we do have the freedom of individuality nailed down pretty well.

But I want to talk to you about the freedom which God gives us which is greater than anything I’ve shared, and that’s the freedom to serve and to give. It’s based upon Galatians, Chapter 5 where Paul is writing to the Christians at a church called Galatia. He’s trying to help them understand the gift that God has given them to break them from the bonds; in fact he uses the word slavery. But we only want to look at Verse 1 and then 13-15 because Paul sort of gets off on a sidetrack. It’s an important one for the people of Galatia; it’s about circumcision and uncircumcision and there is some meaning for us. But it is not where we need to go today. What we need is the first verse which says, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

Does that mean that Jesus Christ has set us free to be citizens in the United States? Much greater than that, much bigger, deeper and long lasting because we also may say, “That doesn’t fit for me. I’m not a slave.” Slavery in our country we outlawed that a long time ago. It may be in other parts of the world but not for here. But slavery isn’t the ownership of one person by another. This is a slavery of sin, slavery that encaptures us that makes us so way down we can’t be free. Let me call her Judy; it’s not her real name. Pastor’s sometimes get the privilege of hearing what we would hope people would say directly to God. But they need us sometimes for the short term. That’s what the priest part of who we are--the confession. And Judy came to me and shared not the particulars at this moment. She said, “I’ve been carrying a guilt around for over two years, before I was married, and I think it is still plaguing our marriage. How true she was. It’s been repeated several other places. Finding out further, the detail for you is not important, but finding out that I asked her, “Do you believe God has forgiven you?” “Yes, I do.” The husband, being very faithful, forgave her. Before their marriage, the event took place. “Do you believe your husband has forgiven you?” “Yes, I do.” Then the third question where you either hit a homerun or you strike out. “Have you forgiven yourself?” “I think I can.” I said, “No, can is still in the future. It’s not yet. Have you forgiven yourself?”

Christ died so that we can be forgiven by God, by our brothers and our sisters, our family, the one to whom we have sinned against, and to forgive ourselves. What a powerful gift that is. It means reconciliation. It means reconciliation of putting back the broken relationship between ourselves and God, between ourselves and other people, and yes even in ourselves. And it may sound strange to say between ourselves but we act as split personalities. We act as people who are at war with ourselves. One side of our spirit wants to yearn and be free but the other side says, “Well, you are a bad person. You’ve got to carry that guilt.” Instead of being shut off from others and from God, Jesus Christ, Paul is telling us, has set us free, a freedom to be free. Guilt blocks so many people. It’s an off repeated story because it also blinds us. It stops us from having the vision that God has said, “I’ve given you faith to see.” We have all kinds of excuses when we think we are not good enough or we’ve not been forgiven when whatever we have done is so bad that God can’t forgive us. But the freedom that Paul speaks of is the freedom to see ourselves and others as Jesus sees us.

I just got back yesterday afternoon from a Confirmation retreat. It was down at Camp Bonito. If you’ve not been there it was a beautiful time of year. The dogwood is just coming out. It’s a wonderful camp that the church owns, the conference. I’ve had many camp outs there. And I took eleven of the twelve confirmands and three other adults. It takes at least four adults to balance eleven middle schoolers. I think it’s a higher ratio but we got by okay. And I shared with them the story of Jesus in John 15 where he says, “I am the vine and you are the branches.” To summarize it, you can’t survive without me. It is from me that you get the strength. And I said, “Now look around in these woods. Look at all of these trees. You won’t see too many grapevines. There are a few. But think of every tree, every living tree that is out there. There are the branches, there is a trunk of some form and there is a root system. And where does it get the power? It gets it from the root, the base, the trunk, the main part of the tree. Those branches can’t survive without it. And I shared with them, I said, “But think of every tree, every living tree that is out there. There are the branches, there is a trunk of some form and there is a root system. And where does it get the power? It gets it from the root, the base, the trunk, the main part of the tree. Those branches can’t survive without it. And I shared with them, I said, “You need to be connected with Jesus. You need to know that is where the source of your life and your love and your grace and your forgiveness.” So we do have the freedom that God has given us—freedom from sinning. Not that we will be perfect at it, but the freedom from sin itself in the sense that we do not need to be weighed down by it.

It was interesting that I took them on an evening hike. The evening hike was in bright daylight, by the way. And this was a camp that I was very familiar with. We went down, up above the cabins actually, went down a hill to a creek. And all you had to do is take that age down to the creek and let them go. They had a great time. But it was time to go back so I said we would go back up the creek, find the trail and head on back. Somebody put in a new trail and I thought it was just, how can I get lost? No, we were just temporarily misplaced; we were never lost. But we kept going and I kept saying to myself, “Boy, it’s changed a lot since the last time.” Now you’ve got to know this camp borders on the Hoosier National Forest. So we have a couple hundred acres, they have a couple of thousand. You can keep going for a long time. And the adults said, “I don’t remember that either. We didn’t go by that when we came.” “Yeah, you’re right but I know there are ridges and we’ll make it.” And then I finally had to recognize this was not the trail back. We were lost. I didn’t tell them we were lost. I said, “We’ll find our way.” And I told all of these youth, “Don’t bring the CD players, don’t bring all that tech-no stuff, we’re just going to enjoy God’s creation.” But cell phones are hard to confiscate. You know, they had them with them. I found out later they were text messaging friends throughout the world. I am so pleased that they brought their cell phones along. One of the youth was there late. I knew she was going to be late. And we said, Tara is going to be late. And one of the said, “We’ll call her.” Ok, I didn’t think you could get reception. We got great reception. “Where are you?” “I’m at the cabin.” “Oh, good, honk your horn.” Well, you had to tell them all to be quiet. We finally got them all quiet. I said, “Let’s see if we can hear it.” Well, the whippoorwill was going and we could just barely hear a horn. Okay, that’s the way we need to go, towards that sound. So we kept going yet that’s still not the right way. Honk it again! Well, multiple times. Seriously, that’s exactly how we got back. And, I followed the other rule. There are two parts to it. God is saying, “This is where you need to go.” But do you know how we had to get there? We had to go back to our beginning and start over. Where we had gone off trail, where we had made the mistake, where we thought we were going down the right path, we went down the wrong path and when we recognized it, and yes, we repented and turned around and went the opposite direction.

And don’t laugh about the repentance, because that’s exactly what God is saying. Do you want to be free? Don’t go the way you are going! I’ve told you the place where I’m going and you are to follow me. And it may mean that you have to backtrack. It may mean you have to pick back up in your life and go back to another point. Start over and then go to the right direction. Thank you, God, for giving me the lesson. And I think they understood and I hope you do understand.

Because I also found a story this week and it was about Wendy. She’s age 12. At age 12 she had her first drink. By age 16 she was a confirmed alcoholic. And then she picked up heroin. It took her ten more years to relinquish the daily need for alcohol and heroin. Drinking became a consuming passion. Once she started she stopped going to school, she became a regular drinker on a daily basis almost all day, party to party to party until finally she recognized she had to go back down and start over again.

Now let’s take that same Wendy at the age of 12. Instead of taking that first drink, she was with a youth group who didn’t drink either. And the youth group helped her to be strong. And instead of taker her to parties they went to mission work fields on a monthly basis. And by 16 she was a full-fledged Christian. She had been guided down the right path and we trust and pray that she will not ever get off that path again. It’s all the difference. That freedom isn’t going down the path the world calls us to. Freedom is going down the path that we hear the horn in the distance. Simply very quiet at times because we are so far off, but we listen.

In Verse 13 of Galatians 5, Paul says, “You are my brothers. You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature because the freedom in Christ isn’t to do what you want and in the way you want all the time but it is rather to serve one another in love.” The freedom to serve—that’s one of the commitments that they will make this next Sunday when our confirmands join the church. They will be asked the question, “Do you profess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” And they all responded in individual gatherings over the weekend to me, “Yes they are.” Are they willing to serve as God gives them the power and strength? As much as they could understand.

Jim Wallace, who is a writer with a Christian connection, says this, “Two of the great hungers in our world today are the hunger for spirituality, the hunger for social justice. The connection between the two is the one the world is waiting for especially the new generations. And the first hunger will empower the second. And that’s the right order.” Meeting the spiritual hunger of the world will lead us to meet the social justice hunger of the world. When Jesus met those before at his kingdom and said those who had fed the hungry and fed me when I was hungry and clothed me when I was naked, visited me when I was in prison, comforted me when I was sick, when you’ve done all of these things for me, then you are welcome into my kingdom. And most of us say, “But when do we ever do that?” His response was, “Whenever you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me.”

That’s what social justice is. Caring for all those major needs. But we can’t go down that path that we think we are in charge. We can’t go down a path where we believe if we just do their system right, if we elect the right official, if we are good people, we can correct all these rules. No the path is where we first have our spiritual hunger met and see that is the foundation of meeting all those other needs. What good is it to clothe a person when they feel naked inside because of the guilt and the shame and the sin that they have?

Adam Hamilton says, “Christianity’s next reformation will draw upon what is best in both fundamentalism and liberalism by holding together the evangelicals and social gospels, by combining love of scripture with the willingness to see both its humanity as well as its divinity, and by coupling the passionate desire to follow Jesus Christ with a reclamation in his heart for those who religious people often have rejected.” What a powerful statement that we can help not just the confirmands but each to take the right path, the only true path, the path of freedom, freedom not just to meet their own personal needs but freedom to be in Christ, the freest position of all. That’s what Paul is trying to say. He goes on and completes the 14th and 15th verse by saying, “The entire law is summed up in a single command, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’. Paul seemed to emphasizing the words of Jesus not to the exclusion of the Shema which said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” But I tell you right now, the greatest barrier that I’ve seen is the guilt when a person doesn’t love themselves enough because they could never love someone else fully. But when they know God loves them fully and they are free of that as Christ provides, they can love their neighbors in the full sense as they love themselves. But it’s not that individualized, self-absorbed type of love. It’s the love that serves.

Because as Paul continues on to say, “If you continue biting devouring each other, watch out! You will destroy one another.” Or, you might say, as I have emphasized, you might continue to bite and destroy yourself by your guilt. Relationships are at the foundation of who we are to be, relationship first with Jesus Christ, and then with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. And the Holy Spirit is the unmerited love that binds us together in those relationships.

I told you that we had three other adults that were there. And Karl Fulton, he can tell his own story. And I hope sometime he might be able to share that with you here. But what he simply told us was something of a parallel of the Wendy story, the first one. Because he had been in church and then he chose differently. He went down another path and it was not a good path at all. But he came back and he is here now. And he gives God the praise for that. He told a story that was personal. This was a real person who did so. I can read all the scripture I want to confirmands. It takes a moment of understanding. But it’s a lifetime of living when you see it lived out in somebody else. Karl chose the wrong path. He was lost. But he backed up and started again with God’s help. That’s why it was enjoyable. Tiring, yes! Has it been a long week? To long! But when you get youth to say “Yes, I can say before the church ‘I believe in Jesus Christ and I want Him to be my savior’”, it makes it worth it.

Freedom to give. You can not give away what you don’t have. I don’t mean money; I mean your heart. God gives us our hearts. We think we have them until God gives us to it. In comparison there is no comparison. Freedom to give of yourself, yes, of our resources. Or really give the scripture that I shared, freedom in Christ, Paul says in Verse 1, of Chapter 5 in Galatians, “It is for the freedom that Christ has set us free. Stay firm in it. Do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of guilt and slavery. You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Rather, serve one another in love. For the entire law is summed up in one single command, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Further on in Verse 22, “The fruit of the spirit…” (Remember the vine story? Remember that the fruit that is out there which we think we produce) “…God has given us all the things we need and God will produce the fruit in us when we are connected with the vine.”

When we think we’re not, we may produce some kind of fruit, but it will never last. But the fruit of the spirit, that’s what Jesus and Paul is speaking of, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against these things, there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature and gone away from that path and its passions and its desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking, and envy each other. And, yes, we gave thanks to God for Tara whose parents were there with the van who honked the horn so that they could hear the voice and the signal and find the way home. That’s the greatest freedom of all.

I hope as you share, maybe go by and see the Ministry Fair, enjoy the work of that but think more deeply than just what you see. What does it represent? It represents opportunities to share the Good News in Jesus Christ. It represents opportunities to serve in the name of Christ, to love one another, to love others as we find out we can love ourselves. For God in Jesus, the Christ, has the greatest love of all. Thanks be to God for the freedom in which we can live. Let’s join together for a moment of prayer. “Lord you have given us all the faith that we need. Not just that we have faith we will be in heaven some day, but precisely the faith that we need to transform the world in which we live here and now. Transform it by sharing your spirit and your love. It may take a sacrifice on our parts, but we can never match your sacrifice in Jesus. And the end result is freedom. Freedom to be who you have created us to be, your children. All the world are your children. They need to hear that they too have been created to be free, free in spirit, in truth, and love. Help us, gracious God, as Grace United Methodist Church to do our part in responding to your kingdom here on earth. Amen.”

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