"Set Free To Be Free"

I agree with the Baptist Faith and Message, and I don’t think the changes are significant enough to get in a tizzy over. If I disagreed with even one point of doctrine as presented there, I would not be Southern Baptist. But if you’re going to turn it into an idol, I have to chop it down!

It is one thing to be defensive and jealous for accurate doctrinal belief and presentation, but when it becomes a point of contention and strife, that is indicative of a deeper spiritual problem.

Now I’m either preaching to the choir, or seriously offending someone. Maybe a little of both. But I have an obligation before God and the purity of His word today, Christians, to warn you to flee from idolatry, seek from God a desire to know Him and not just His works, pursue Christ, devour His word, steep yourself in prayer, love the brethren actively, and stop being so all-fired concerned with being a good ‘ist’!

I’m running low on time here, so let’s just generalize a bit. Jesus didn’t set us free to be enslaved to a religion. A set of rules. Bound by a dogmatic chain. Repeating vain repetitions and rituals like ecclesiastical zombies, hardly knowing why we’re doing them anymore, if we ever knew at all.

Folks, I submit to you that the world has never seen the true church. And that is not because we haven’t shown them, it is because being dead in trespasses and sins they can’t see the true church. The church is spiritual, and must be spiritually discerned.

So when you hear those in the world criticizing the church and complaining about what they see coming out of the church, most of the time you are hearing about something other than the true church.

They think it’s the true church, but most times it is not. In fact in many cases they have just cause to criticize. But they aren’t criticizing the true church. They’re criticizing religion. Unfortunately, I think those within the church also see these things as being a part of Christianity, but what they are fighting for is religious rhetoric and the traditions of men. We should let them go and just go about the spiritual business of the real church.

During a Summer event near Columbine school a couple of years ago I was handing out little invitation cards for our church, along with other printed material.

One of the invitations begins by saying something like, ‘we don’t believe in dull, boring religion’. One man who was passing by picked one of those up and said, “I don’t like religion”. Then he looked up at me and I caught his eye and said, “Neither does Jesus”.

It turned out to be quite a conversation starter.

Friends, Jesus died to free you from religion. He set you free from ritual and empty philosophy, and the self-righteousness and self-flagellation that go with it.

Don’t wear Southern Baptist like a label of pride, and don’t, please don’t, be church members, warming a pew and insisting on having your ears tickled and your fanny patted. Be believers in Jesus Christ, who broke all your chains and set you free to follow Him.

Say with the song writer,