Is It About You… Or Jesus? Series

OPEN: How many of you have heard of Harry Truman? No, not the Harry Truman that became President of the United States and lived in Washington D.C.. I’m talking about the Harry Truman who owned 23 cats and lived in the STATE Washington. Harry and his cats lived on the side of a mountain called “Mount St. Helens” back in the late 1900’s. It was a volcano. The volcano had lain dormant for over 150 years but now it was beginning to rumble, and a number of people told Harry he should move because volcano was going to blow. But Harry refused. He said: “I’ve lived here all my life. I know this old mountain better than anybody else. And I’m not going anywhere.”

On May 18th, 1980, at 8:31 a.m., the mountain blew, and the force of the explosion was 500 times greater than the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The debris blackened the sky from Seattle to New York, and as far south as Oklahoma. And nobody’s seen Harry or his 23 cats ever since.

APPLY: Now a question: was Harry free to remain on the side of the mountain? I mean – could they force him to leave? Apparently not! Harry was free to remain on that mountain as long as he liked. But he was not free from the consequences of his decision.

That observation brings us to our text tells us this morning. Galatians 5:1 says “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Or as another version put it: “Christ has liberated us into freedom….” (HCSB)

We are a free people. As Christians, we’ve been freed from the condemnation of sin, and we’ve been liberated from the Old Testament Law with its lists of do’s and don’ts to be acceptable to God. We’re not under the Law anymore. But false teachers had begun to convince Christians in Galatia that they needed to go back to those rules and regulations. They needed to be brought back under the yoke of slavery to the Law.

Nowadays a lot of people don’t understand the Old Testament Law. They probably couldn’t even recite the 10 commandments. But does that mean that they’re no longer in slavery to those rules & regulations? Well… no. You see, they may not know much about the Old Testament and its laws, but they still sense when they’ve messed things up in their lives. It’s like the Law is written on their hearts, and they feel they need to do SOMETHING to pay for those sins. I call it Karma. You see, everybody believes in this idea of Karma. They recognize that the scales of their lives are out of balance. They’ve done so many bad things in their lives and so they need to balance those failures by doing an equivalent number of good things.

I saw a graphic recently that asked: “Can you do enough “good” to deserve to go to heaven?” Well - the problem is that MOST people don’t really think they can. They know they’ve done bad things… and they’re not quite sure that (no matter what they do) that they can do ENOUGH to balance out the scales. And the reason most people don’t think they can do enough is because… the Bible says you can’t. You can’t do enough good to satisfy your conscience, and you can’t do enough good to satisfy God’s righteousness!

So, you’re always going to be dissatisfied, because you simply can’t do enough!!!

Your only hope is to accept God’s grace. Ephesians 2:8-9 says to us “you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast”

You see, it’s by the grace of God that we CAN be freed from sin; and (by that grace) we CAN be freed from the constant tyranny of DO’S and DON’Ts (the lists) that would run and ruin our lives.

One of the key teachings of Scripture– we’ve been saved to become a FREE people. Jesus said “…If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36) And 2 Corinthians 3:17 says “… Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” And Peter tells us we tells us we should “Live as free men…” (1 Peter 2:16)

But that does raise a question: IF you’ve been set free from rules & regulations, and lists of do’s & don’ts, are you free to live however you please? I mean, if there’s NO list, how can someone say you’re wrong to do what you want?

Well, there are actually people who’ve said things like that.

ILLUS: Back in 2004, there was a very famous televangelist named Robert Schuller. He was especially famous because he preached in Crystal Palace. And because he was so famous and influential he was asked to address a group called National Evangelical Association. This is what he said: “There are some things in the Bible I cannot swallow – but you get saved not by the Book but by the blood. Keep your message positive. Understand God is a God of grace and glory so forget the matter of justice… Repentance is not a healthy response… Jesus never called a person a sinner. Rather He reserved His righteous rebuke for those who used their authority to generate guilt and caused people to lose their ability to taste and enjoy their right to dignity.”