Sunday, July 6, 2008 
Scripture reading: Galatians 5:1, 12-15
For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 12I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!
13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters;* only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence,* but through love become slaves to one another. 14For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ 15If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.
Sermon Title: "FREEDOM FROM... FREEDOM FOR" Sunday, July 6, 2008
PASTOR HUDSON: Freedom is the theme of this Fourth of July
weekend. Obviously, we think of freedom from the
perspective of the heritage that we have as Americans,
to be a free and self-determining people, but we as
believers also understand that the gift of freedom was
first created in the mind and the heart of God and passed on to us.
Paul’s message in Galatians 5 is one of the cornerstone texts
of the doctrine of freedom in the life of the church.
This text has two different but complementary aspects. Thus, I
have chosen to entitle these thoughts, Freedom From and Freedom
For.
Paul begins by saying that we are free from
certain things. Now the way he says it is that Christ
has set us free. It goes back to what Jesus said in
the gospel when he says know the truth and the truth
will set you free, or that I might have come so that
you might have life more abundantly. All of those
statements affirm that Christ really understood his mission on
earth, his ministry as bringing a level of freedom and liberty to
people that they had known at no time in the past. It was and is
for the purpose of freedom that Christ has set us free.
The second half of the passage is that other side
of the coin where Paul says, you, my
brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but do not use your
freedom to indulge your sinful nature.
Sometimes in our culture we confuse the notion of
being free with the notion of just having liberty to
do anything we want to do no matter how dysfunctional
or injurious it is to ourselves or others. Every once
in a while you'll see a news story where a person
really crosses the line all in the name of their
freedom to do whatever it is that they want to do.
Recently, in the search to try to find something worth
watching on TV, I scanned across one of the comedy
channels, and they were showing a program called First
Amendment Comedy. I paused there for just a moment,
and it took me about 30 seconds to discover that the
definition of first amendment comedy for the producers of this
program was the
assumed privilege that they had to simply be
offensive, crude and vulgar, to push all boundaries
and make sure that you offend every individual without
any regard for race, creed, color, and all in the name of
freedom.
Now, on the other hand how many of us have ever been in church
settings where we really felt like that the law of Christ had
taken a backseat to the law of the pastor or deacons
or the church board, or whatever group within the
church? They truly were calling the shots about what
it meant to be or not to be a follower of Jesus
Christ. By shoving the liberty and freedom of Christ
to the background and accepting the requirements of humans,
we put ourselves in the position of nullifying
Christ's grace in our lives.
Many of you sitting here this morning have been a
part of such a church world where it was
defined “this” is what Christians are-- mandates and requirements
in abundance. You found it oftentimes kind of miserable as a
way of life. Your faith life was not
a life of joy, but a life of fear. Somebody might see
you doing something that did not match the paradigm.
I don't think that's exactly what Paul had in
mind when he said, listen, you were created for
freedom, but don't use your freedom as a license for
your own sinful nature. God wants us to rise above
that.
Rather, he said, serve one another in love. As
we serve and love one another a couple of other things
happen that are very, very good. The first is we
begin to become more patient, more gentle, more
forgiving and tolerant with ourselves.
Some of our sharpest critics oftentimes are not
other people, it's ourselves. Some of you in the
sanctuary have a real tendency to beat up on yourself
because you're not as Christian as you ought to be,
you're not as loving as you ought to be, and the list
goes on. Many of us fall prey to that notion that God
will only love me if I perform really, really well.
Jesus made it very clear, leave the logs and the
specks to me. Love one another. Paul said love your
neighbor as yourself. Freedom is the liberty to give your neighbor
every consideration that you would give yourself.
Freedom is rooted in an expression of loving
service. Let us celebrate that today as we thank God
not only for our national liberties, but for the
liberty that Christ has built this wonderful thing
called the church upon.
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit, amen.