Freedom is a very interesting concept. There have been songs written about it. Like this popular one.
My country tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died!
Land of the Pilgrim’s pride!
From every mountain side,
Let freedom ring!
Our father’s God to, Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright
With freedom’s holy light;
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King!
Lives have been lost trying to save it and obtain it. We in America tend to take it for grant it. We even have a hard time trying to define it. Dr. King lost his life in the pursuit of it. He even had a dream about it.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning "my country ’tis of thee; sweet land of liberty; of thee I sing; land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountain side, let freedom ring" and if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants will be able to join hands and to sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.
Today we want to take a good hard look at freedom and see what it means for us in our walk with God.
Paul’s View Society’s view
“Slavery to God’s will” “Doing whatever one wants”
Relationship with God through being left alone
Christ in the Spirit
Interdependence Independence
“”We have only to choose between bondage to the Father, which makes us free, and bondage to the powers of this world, which enslaves us.”
How does this Apply to us?
1. People must see what we need to be free from before they can be free.
Paul Harvey read this on his radio show and I want to share it with you now.
A Wichita pastor’s opening prayer angered legislators in the Kansas House of Representatives. “We confess we have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it moral pluralism,” prayed Joe Wright of Central Christian Church, the guest chaplain Jan.23. “We have worshipped other gods and called it multiculturalism. We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem.” As one legislator walked out and another sat down, Wright continued. “We have abuse
power and called it political savvy. We have coveted our neighbors’ possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.” He closed with a plea for God’s forgiveness, blessings, and wisdom….Rep. Delbert Gross, who refused to stand during the prayer, called it “divisive, sanctimonious, self-serving, and overbearing,” press reports said. In the legislature, where there are people with strong convictions on many sides of issues, “the prayer should draw them together and recognize their integrity,” said Sam Muyskens, executive director of Inter-faith Ministries in Wichita.
The problem we face when we talk about freedom is trying to get people outside the faith to understand that they are in slavery. Imagine trying to tell a prisoner who lives out his life in a lush resort playing golf or bowling by day and dancing by night with wine, women and song that he needs to be set free. The problem is that most people don’t want to be set free from the world. It is just easier to live life and not be held accountable for your actions (in their mind). What people need to know is how awful their status is. They need to know where this present life will take them. They need to know what they are being set free from. They are being set free from Satan and all his trappings. He has a wonderful plan. Make submission to the Lordship of Jesus look like slavery. Tell us about the false sense of freedom we already have in the world. But don’t tell us the price we will pay in the end. For the 65 years or so of perceived freedom we spend eternity in Hell. You do the math is it worth it?
2. We must inform our world for what they are set free.
People are set free to serve God, to follow Jesus, and to live in the Spirit. But this is not what society wants. It wants “individual freedom” the freedom to be left alone, to tear down social barriers that hinder ones ability to find oneself. But for us who is in Christ Jesus that is not our aim at all. Christ did not set us free to become an island but to become a community. Not to disassociate ourselves from others to build up one another in love. Not to tear down social barriers just so we can be left alone but to tear them down so we could show people the Light of the World. And show them what true freedom looks like.
What Does True Freedom Look like?
The person who is truly free trusts, loves, and obeys God through Christ and in the Spirit, loves, and serves others. He also lives before Christ with a clear conscience as they grow in holiness and love.
We can agree with society there are at least three dimensions of freedom. We need to be free individually (so we can be who God wants), free socially (so all can see the glory of God), and free psychologically (so we can relate to God and others authentically and clearly).
We can achieve this three-fold sense of freedom through Christ and in the Spirit. But we must 1.
Three-fold Sense of Freedom
1. We must come “clean” with God - CONFESSION
Until we face the truth about who we are, sinful, imperfect people who live in the constant pain of our imperfection) we cannot and will not be set free. We need to come to him with the confession I am a sinner in need of your forgiving grace to receive the forgiveness won for us on the cross by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
2. We place our faith in Christ’s death and resurrection
We must come to God honestly by relying on Jesus Christ. Only when we stop trying to rely on our own abilities and trust in the Way the Truth and the Life can we experience true freedom. Jesus through his death and resurrection opened up our line to freedom. He did it through his death, which tore down barriers and cleansed us from all sin and imperfection.
3. We “live in the Spirit”
Last we must then live our life in the Spirit God’s appointed way of being renewed daily, of being healed, and of being made whole and complete. The Spirit makes our lives alive and vital before God so we can be and do what God wants and intended us to be. When we come to God and live before him through Christ and in the Spirit, we live in freedom. Three things happen to us. We are personally set free from our sin and our unfortunate pass, we are set free to serve others so that social barriers are broken down, and we become what we always wanted to be though we never knew what it was. For people who achieve this kind of freedom they are not bothered with legalistic invasions of their privacy, cultural oppression, racial prejudices, and denominational fixations because they know that in the Spirit and through Christ they can live above them and through them. But does this mean we ignore oppression and racism by heck no! Whatever cuts into the freedom of God’s Spirit needs to be cut out. But we need to know what we are fight for. Freedom to be what Christ has set out for us to be.
As we close what Paul shows us in this text is that he wants us to work out in our world to cut down those things that minimize freedom. What hampers our living in the freedom of Christ? What bites into our freedom in the Spirit? Perhaps the most obvious one is social customs. Why is it the local church has a set time for the Sunday Morning service, usually between 50-minutes and an hour and don’t you dare go over that. My guess would be that it developed over the years as a social custom generated over years of people needing to get home before the “roast burns,” to get home so the afternoon can be spent that way it was planned, to get home to catch the kickoff, to get home so that the family could make it to the lake. But how lock in are we to this time if say one Sunday morning God’s spirit suddenly broke into a service and created a renewed sense of holiness and fellowship? Would we say wow that was great, hey you know it’s 11:30 now time to wrapped this thing up and get out of here? Our social customs sometimes can stifle the work of God.
My thought is this cuts into the freedom of God’s Spirit needs to be cut out. We need to have services whose times are not determined by social convention, we need to have fellowships that are not segregated by race, and we need to have churches that are not restricted by cultural background. We need to have all things led by the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit is, there is the freedom of the Lord.
Paul’s whole message in Galatians may now be summarized; be free through Christ and in the Spirit! When we come to God through Christ in the Spirit, we are free at last. Thank God, Almighty! We are free at last.
