FREEDOM!

Sermon Summary, July 5, 2015 “Freedom!” (Galatians 5:13-14) 

Fourth of July was a big deal growing up, especially with the freedoms of small towns.  John Adams had believed the approval of the Declaration of Independence would be long remembered with “pomp and parade, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end the continent to the other.” And growing up, we had it all.

But 1700 years before 1776, there was a greater Declaration even more important than ours, one that without which there may not have been Christianity or Western Culture as we know it.  God would have had to find another way.  At the heart of it was this: “You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love become servants of one another.  For the whole law is summed up in one word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5:13-14; in fact the whole book of Galatians is the Christian Declaration of Independence.

Paul had founded churches in Galatia (Central and Northern Asia Minor) and upon returning found they had regressed to legalism, espousing that Gentiles (that’s us) must follow the 613 laws of Moses and be circumcised to be a follower of Jesus.  Paul was emphatic that it was by grace we have been saved by faith and not of our own doing.  No one can be saved by works of the law.  “You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters.”

Even “love” is not a legalism.  God through the Holy Spirit, Christ within us, will make us into the kind of person whose nature it is to be loving.  When we respond to the nudging of the Holy Spirit we will find our lives producing the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  (Galatians 5:22-23)  And, there is no law against these things!  Live by the Spirit; be guided by the Spirit!  The measure of our life in the Spirit is the quality of our relationships.  If we find them diminished we ask, “Did I miss the nudging of the Spirit to be more loving, more patient, more gentle, exercising more self-control?  Live by the Spirit.  Be guided by the Spirit.  Amen.