What comes to your mind when I say the word "freedom?" Freedom from slavery, freedom from hunger, freedom from poverty, or freedom from tyranny? Many of us would say freedom from sin. The Bible is clear when we trust in Jesus, and believe he took our sins upon himself on the cross and died so all of our sins can be forgiven we can be free. One of the verses of the great Charles Wesley hymn "And Can it Be" says it this way, "long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night; thine eye diffused a quickening ray; I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; my chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose went forth and followed thee."
If our daughter Elizabeth could talk she would probably say, freedom is getting out of her car seat. She’s not a big fan of being in her car seat because she has to wear this 5 point safety harnesses thing which latches her down like an astronaut getting ready to fly into space. She loves to move and squirm and have her freedom.
The early church dealt with another kind of freedom which Christ gave us which continues to occasionally creep into the church. That is freedom from the Law. Freedom from legalism. Freedom from traditionalism. When I say freedom from traditionalism I don’t mean freedom from tradition, tradition is can be good. We have a tradition of going camping with my family for a week every other year. Traditionalism on the other hand is when the form of our religious traditions becomes holy in and of itself and we forget the purpose behind it, and it takes a form all its own. At the conference I was just at, one of the speakers said, if you want to see if your church has a tradition do this [move the altar table or pulpit 6 inches and see what happens]. Our traditions could be the order of worship, how the church is decorated in a particular season, how many songs or the type of songs we sing, do we sit on chairs or pews.
The early church had allowed traditionalism and pride creep into their . In our passage two weeks ago Barnabas and Saul, had just been called by the Holy Spirit to be missionaries. They immediately headed into the Eastern Mediterranean world, first going to the island of Cyprus and then on to the region called Pisidia, which is modern day Turkey (map). In their missionary work they began doing something which had only been done a couple of times before, they began telling non-Jewish people (Gentiles) about Jesus. Up until that moment it was pretty much a Jewish movement.
Everything was going well for the Christian faith, Jews and Gentiles were coming to faith in Christ Jesus and being filled with the Holy Spirit. It was difficult but fruitful work for Paul and Barnabas (they were rejected, beaten, once so badly Paul was left for dead), however when they returned home they discovered not everyone was happy the Gentiles coming into the church. Why? Some of the Jewish Christians were getting upset because these new Gentile Christians weren’t following God’s Law (apparently they didn’t get the memo that you weren’t supposed to bring BBQ pork and pepperoni pizza to the potluck dinner). They weren’t following the religious traditions the Jews had established over centuries. In other words these new Christians weren’t doing things the way we’ve always done it before, which was God’s way...right?
That never happens in our churches does it? People getting upset because the new people don’t want to follow our traditions, the way we do church (whether it is in the Bible or not), especially the unspoken ones, like how you take communion or which song is supposed to be sung during the offering or at the close of worship. Perhaps they have their own ideas. Obviously, we still run into this problem today and it can become a barrier and a point of contention among people.
This view on following the Law became a barrier between the Jewish and Gentiles Christians. I can’t really blame the Jewish Christians, God gave them the commands, they’re right there in the Bible. They were trying to be obedient to God, and they wanted others to be faithful to God’s Word too. So some self-appointed Christians made it their responsibility to set these new Christians straight and teach them. They went to these new Christians and essentially said, if you don’t follow God’s Law, if you aren’t circumcised, if you don’t follow our traditions, you aren’t really saved (15:1). At the heart of the matter here was, what does it mean to be a Christian? Do we need to follow the food laws, to eat kosher meals, avoid certain combinations of fabrics, worship at the Temple, celebrate the feast and festivals of the Jewish calendar to be saved, to be Christian? It is clear Paul and Barnabas didn’t think so because when they returned they got into a heated argument with these Christians, in fact it became such a huge issue that they had to convene the church council in Jerusalem to settle the matter. It almost looked like this was heading for the first church split.
So they met, and they had "holy conferencing" as we Methodist like to call it (I think it’s just a way of saying they politely debated). The Christians who were formerly Pharisees (the legalists) presented one side of the argument, and then Peter stood up. The disciple who walked on water, one of Jesus’ closest disciples, what was he going to say. Read v. 7 ff. That last line is the key, "we believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." God chose the Gentiles to receive the Good News of Jesus Christ, that they are made right with God not because they followed the Law, or the traditions, or were circumcised, but because they believed in Jesus and received the grace of Jesus Christ. That’s it. God accepted the Gentiles just the way they were. They didn’t need to jump through any hoops, they simply said "yes" to Jesus as their Savior, and God filled them with the Holy Spirit.
The Apostle Paul echoes this in his letter to the churches in Galatia:
NLT Galatians 2:16 And yet we Jewish Christians know that we become right with God, not by doing what the law commands, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be accepted by God because of our faith in Christ-- and not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be saved by obeying the law."
Jesus sets us free from the Law. We are no longer bound by the Law, or the traditions of man. Not that God’s Law or the traditions that were established were bad, they were good (are good), it helped people know what God’s standard is, right and wrong. The problem was it was impossible to follow God’s commandments 100% of the time. They knew right from wrong but didn’t have the power to do it. In that sense the Law became a burden which brought sin and shame, guilt, and death. But God’s word tells us Jesus set us free from the Law.
Living in Freedom, Avoiding the Measuring Stick
We are saved by grace, but we also live by grace. The issue for the Gentiles was, what do you do after you are saved. Are we then bound by the Law after we are saved? Are we required to follow God’s commands? Listen to what Paul writes in Galatians:
NLT Galatians 4:10 You are trying to find favor with God by what you do or don�t do on certain days or months or seasons or years. 12 Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to live as I do in freedom from these things, for I have become like you Gentiles were-- free from the law.
NLT Galatians 5:4 For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God�s grace.
We live by grace, and if we are not careful we can allow legalism to creep into our attitudes and our behaviors. We live in freedom. This is a hard one for us Christians because, like those Pharisee Christians, we want to see people obeying God’s commands. And we start measuring other Christians based on certain standards, to see how "Christian" they really are. We ask questions like where do you go to church, which denomination are you from? How often do you go to church? What translation of Bible do you use? Do you pray and read the Bible every day? What music do you listen to (hymns or praise songs, or perhaps even that secular music)? Were you dunked or sprinkled when you were baptized? Were you an infant or an adult? Are you born again, or better yet, are you born again, Spirit filled? Are you liberal or conservative? Do you believe the Bible should be translated literally or metaphorically? When we do this we are going down our mental spiritual checklist to see if these persons are really earning the right to be "saved". Are they the right kind of Christian? Are they our kind of Christian? If they don’t answer to our satisfaction we become skeptical of their true salvation. Yet God says we are saved by his amazing grace through is Son, and given true freedom.
We must be careful that we don’t allow ourselves to fall back into the trap of trying to earn God’s favor? Perhaps we start slipping in our Christian life, we fall back into a sinful pattern and we start doing the "right" things hoping God will be pleased with me. If I...go to church every week...if I...attend Bible study, serve on a committee, obey every commandment in the Bible then God will be happy with me again. It doesn’t work that way. When we receive God’s grace we are already accepted by God, we’ve already been justified and made right with God. We ask for God’s forgiveness, and our sins are forgiven. There is nothing additional we must do. We are free in Christ.
With unbelievers we can make the danger of making additional requirements before people can accept the grace of Jesus Christ? You have to become just like us to be saved? Do we send an unspoken message, you have to clean yourself up before receiving Jesus? Or that you have to act like us, dress like us, have all your stuff together before joining us for worship or being in a small group or Bible study? Do we accept people where they are at and allow God’s grace to do the work in their life? What if they have tattoos, or multiple body piercings?
Freedom to Love God and Follow the Spirit
If you’re like me you’re wondering, wait a minute if we are truly free and no longer bound by the God’s Law then how can we expect people to be obedient to God? Won’t it be anarchy? In the OT prophet Jeremiah he wrote from God’s perspective,
NLT Jeremiah 31:33 "But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day," says the LORD. "I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
In the New Covenant, the Law was no longer needed as a measuring stick because God would place his Law on their minds and hearts. When Jesus shared communion with his disciples he said "this cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you." When we become Christians we become part of the New Covenant, a new promise God makes with us. When we believe in Jesus, God he places his Spirit within us, and we no longer need a Law to tell us if something is wrong because God’s Spirit will remind us.
Following God’s commands no longer becomes a matter of winning God’s favor, but rather we do it because we love God. Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey what I command (John 14:15)." To understand if you live in freedom and by grace, ask yourself what is my motivation for obeying God’s commands. Do I do it so I can get to heaven? Do I obey God’s commands out of fear to try to avoid his anger/wrath or eternal damnation? Or do we do it because we love God for saving us by his grace?
The Law was intended to identify our sin, to point out what is right and wrong, but it doesn’t have the power to save us. Otherwise it would be impossible to be saved because it’s impossible to follow every command God has given us, all the time.
Freedom does not mean lawlessness, it means freedom to love God and one another.
NLT Galatians 5:13 For you have been called to live in freedom-- not freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love. 14 For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." 16 So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit. Then you won�t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict. 18 But when you are directed by the Holy Spirit, you are no longer subject to the law.
We are given our freedom to be directed by the Holy Spirit to serve one another in love. What are we doing with the freedom God gives us? [move directly to communion].
