The Vineyard Church of North Grand Rapids, MI

Ray Befus Galatians 3:23-4:7 Free to be Me! 22 November 2009

One of the great, dramas of the last quarter century was the tearing down of the Berlin wall in November 1989—a wall put up by the East German government in 1961 to deny it’s citizens the basic freedoms the government was sure they would abuse, if they were allowed to enjoy them. Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the day the wall was torn down.  MSNBC Video Clip.

When the Berlin Wall came down—the Wall of Shame—for the first time in a generation, East Germans were allowed to step over the boundaries established by Communism.  They were allowed to think for themselves, freely make decisions, travel to places they’d never gone and experience things that had been forbidden.  It was a wonderful new day of freedom.  The government , which had treated it’s citizens like children, decided to treat it’s citizens as adults.

In the NT letter we call Galatians, the Apostle Paul (who has sometimes been called the NT’s Apostle of Freedom) reveals that he gave his life and ministry to tearing down—destroying—a wall: the towering law of Moses (revealed in Genesis through Deuteronomy and reflected in the rest of the OT).  Everywhere Paul traveled as a missionary, meeting with Jews and preaching to Gentiles, he went to work tearing down law and raising up the cross. The good news that Paul lived and preached was that God is now graciously providing what the law could never provide, righteousness, blessing, and the Holy Spirit to those who simply decide to trust and follow Jesus, the crucified and resurrected Messiah. The law has become irrelevant to God’s plan for our salvation and spiritual growth.  The law treated God’s people like children. Paul announced that God is now treating Christians like adults, giving us the freedom to think for ourselves, freely to make decisions, to travel to places we’ve never been before, and experience things that had been forbidden under OT law.  Jesus’ death and resurrection inaugurated  a new day of freedom! To continue living a hidden life behind a wall of shame, to live your life in a small box, to avoid risks, and say ‘no’ to adventures, to withdraw from the rest of the world, is to live like a child when God has invited us to step up into his grace and live like adults.This morning we’re stepping into the middle of our study of Galatians, where Paul reveals three related freedoms that God is giving us, those who’ve decided to trust and follow Jesus as our God. Let’s Read Galatians 3:23-4:7.  For those of you who are new to the Bible, I should say that chapters and verses are a modern addition to the Bible, placed there by western, European editors who wanted to help us get around our Bibles more easily. God didn’t give us these chapters and verse divisions; neither did the Apostle Paul. Sometimes these chapter and verse divisions are helpful; sometimes they are not.  In this section, the chapter division is misleading: 4:1-7 is a continuation of the argument Paul begins in 3:23.  READ.

(1) The first freedom God has given us is freedom from the law—freedom from the law’s oversight, authority, and discipline.  In our previous studies, we’ve seen that  Paul has compared the law to a prison (3:22-23).  When he’s described our freedom from the law, he’s used the phrase ‘redeemed from the law’ (2:14;4:5); redemption is paying the price for a slave to go free.  Now Paul shifts the metaphor to that of an early childhood guardian or trustee (4:2).  In Paul’s ancient Hellenistic world, wealthy families often employed a highly educated and highly trusted slave called a pedagogue, who’s primary responsibility was to keep the young children of the house in tow—keep them from danger and trouble, discipline them for naughtiness, keep them in their proper place, and teach them the three R’s.  The pedagogue was a child’s coach, teacher, and disciplinarian until the child reached puberty—sometime around 13 years of age.  Until then, the children of the house, even the boys—the male heirs to the family fortune—lived like slaves under the authority of the pedagogue. Paul’s point is that those who’ve come to Christ in faith are no longer under the supervision (authority, discipline, instruction) of the law.  God now considers men and women who’ve decided to trust and follow Jesus to be his adult children. The law was given to Israel in its spiritual infancy/childhood. The laws were elemental spiritual forces (basic rules of the house) that kept God’s kids in check (4:3).  If we ask, “How did we come to be God’s adult children?” Paul responds in 3:27 that we’ve entered this amazing new freedom by sharing in a common baptism—a mystical union with Jesus accomplished by the Holy Spirit and expressed publicly by immersion in water.  Shocking but true: I’m free from God’s OT law—every last little bit of it! There isn’t a single law in the OT that has the authority to condemn me for my sins and failures; their isn’t a law that has the power to bless me for my obedience or withhold blessing because of my weaknesses. Can you say this right out loud?  “I’m free from the law.  The law has no power to condemn me or to bless me.  God loves me, forgives me, and accepts me as I am—unconditionally. All the blessings of heaven are mine through the cross.  Grace got me started on this journey and, grace will see me home.  I’M FREE!”

To say that we are free from the law, does not mean that the OT has little or no value.  The OT is still a big portion of our Bibles and is a very meaningful part of our faith-story.  We need to establish a new category in our minds for the OT: inspired and useful, but no longer essential or applicable to our situation (=irrelevant).  In II Timothy 3:16, Paul is referring to the OT when he describes Scripture as useful, for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. In times of personal suffering, reading through Job, the Psalms, and the prophets of Israel’s exile can be very useful—helpful, profitable, comforting.  But, as a comparative adjective, the term useful is several giant steps down from words like essential, mandatory, necessary.  Isn’t it? As part of our story, the law in particular and the OT in general, functions as gift—full of insight into God’s vision for humanity and his faithfulness, his mercy as well as his holiness, his wisdom as well as his ways.  The law has great value to people of faith.  The OT law is a gift from God to his adult children to do with as they freely choose. If you want to memorize the Ten Commandments, go for it. If you want to visit Israel or build a model of the ancient tabernacle in your back yard, follow your heart.  If you want to attend passover meals, and celebrate other Jewish holidays, more power to you. They can be valuable experiences.  If you want to eat Kosher and blow a shofar in worship, you’re free to do so. BUT . . . never think that God will love you more, forgive you more, or bless you more because you do . . . or you don’t.  God doesn’t care one way or the other (5:6).  And never think that you’re farther along in your spiritual journey than others because you do . . . or you don’t.  Of course, you can disagree with me.  We’re all adults here. But don’t deceive yourself.  You do not honor God the Father by making more of his law than he does.  You do not honor the Lord Jesus by insisting on taking an old path, when he has charted a new course. You do not honor the Holy Spirit when you make righteousness a dutiful work rather than a gracious fruit.

(2) So, the cross has set us free from the law. When men and women wonder what God is really like, and what he wants from us, legalists consistently misrepresent him. Paul highlights a second freedom in 3:28—freedom from the law’s enslaving limitations.  The law didn’t just curse the disobedient and bless the obedient.  The law also came with enslaving limitations—the kind of limitations that would never be placed on the sons and heirs of a king. In particular, the law treated Gentiles like outsiders, slaves like pets, and women like children.  If this comes as a surprise to you, you haven’t read the OT law, particularly Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. If you ask, “Why did the God of the Bible ever treat Gentiles like outsiders, slaves like household pets, and women like children?” I can offer you a couple reasons that make sense to me.  First, God is a good pastor/shepherd.  He starts where people are and leads them slowly and patiently into the future he has planned for them.  Remember that Jesus gives us our clearest view of what God is really like and how he works with mankind.  Jesus came as a baby.  He launched his ministry as a poor carpenter. He told stories and fed and healed the poor.  He laid down his life for us.  Jesus didn’t come as a revolutionary at the head of any army, cutting down his enemies and implementing martial law.  Jesus’ most common metaphors for how God works were either leading sheep to greener pastures or sowing seed and waiting for a harvest. And, that is precisely how God worked with Israel In the OT. Our wise and patient God began where his people were at.  And, in Moses’ world, the boundaries of racism were clear and harsh.  It wasn’t just a Jewish thing.  And, slavery was unquestioned.  Slavery was part of the warp and woof of every ancient culture.  And, all these cultures were patriarchal.  Women were often  treated like a man’s property throughout the Middle East.  So, God started where people were at and invited them into baby steps of transformation.  And that brings up a second point: from the start, the law provided for better treatment outsiders, slaves, and women than did Israel’s surrounding cultures.  God started where they were at, but it was never his intentional leave them there. So the law gave outsiders, slaves, and women a lift up toward greater acceptance, respect, and security.  Gentiles were given a separate place in God’s temple—not an equal place, but at least they were given a place.  The law required that slaves be treated humanely; they were not treated like mere tools in their master’s hands, to be taken up or thrown out at will. And, the law specified that women be treated like dear children, not mere property (no different than a motorcycle or a set of golf clubs).

The OT law started God’s people on an upward journey toward greater respect, dignity, and freedom.  And Paul here announces that the cross now stands as dramatic new milestone in this spiritual journey.  The cross has finally set all Christians free from the law’s enslaving limitations.  In 3:28 Paul makes a declaration so radical and profound that we can hardly imagine how ancient readers must have paused, asked a pastor to read this verse a second time, looked at one another and either sighed deeply or teared up, asked for a third reading, stood to their feet, asked for a fourth reading, and broken into spontaneous worship and prayer. Read 3:28-29. Paul is declaring that if you belong to Christ, there are no more enslaving limitations on you.  The only on-going distinction is between those who trust Jesus and are filled with the Spirit, and those who don’t. If you’re Christian, you’re an insider with all the rights and privileges of an heir—a male heir—a son according to the promise. In male-dominated, racially homogeneous, patriarchal societies (which both ancient Jewish and Gentile societies were), Paul says that there are no outsiders in the family of faith, no second-class members, no one who must endure any enslaving limitations because of race, economic or political misfortune, or even gender.  Gentiles, slaves, and women are given the status of male sons and heirs of Abraham . . . no . . . it’s bigger than that: male sons and heirs of God himself.

This is overwhelming.  Under the law, Gentiles had to become Jews to draw close to God and, even then, they were excluded from worshipping with Jews in the Temple’s holy place.  Under the law, Gentiles could not serve God as priests.  And, under the law, Gentiles were not allowed to share meals with Jewish people. Paul declares that, through the cross, the playing field has been leveled for people of every race. Fellow Christians of other races are now my brothers and sisters because we trust the same Savior.  No one is excluded from worship with me, limited in the way they can serve in my church, or shut out of the love feast because of racial distinctions. Based on this verse, in time Christians began to see that the social institution of slavery could not be tolerated in any form.  Under the law, slavery had been fully accepted and carefully regulated. The gospel of the cross changed everything.  Slavery, in all of its sociological manifestations, is an affront to the gospel of the cross. No Christian—no Christian who understands God’s grace— can enslave another human being, or even tolerate slavery.  How could anyone love his neighbor as himself and turn a blind eye to slavery? Paul tells Philemon, a slave-holder, that it is now time to treat Onesimus as his brother, not his slave.  Of  course, you may know that, prior to the Civil War, Christians did appeal to the OT law to argue for the right to hold slaves. The Gospel won the day in 1865 (against the will of generations of Christian legalists). The believing slave is my brother, my sister so I must tirelessly work for his or her freedom.  He or she will never again be excluded from worship, limited in the way he or she can serve, or shut out of the love feast because of the misfortunes of education, economy, or political injustice.

So, perhaps you can see why, I strongly believe that women too should be set free from the enslaving limitations the law placed on them.  Under the OT law, the law treated women, at best, like children in their father’s and husband’s households. And, this was a blessing in comparison to foreign cultures that treated women like pets or even property of male owners. The Gospel of the God’s grace, manifested by the Spirit in those who put their faith in Jesus, has set women free from the enslaving limitations of gender so that they may live, and serve, and lead freely out of the gifts the Holy Spirit has given them.  Once forbidden by OT law, women are now free to worship alongside men, free to live and serve as priests (the highest level of spiritual leadership among God’s people), and to freely use whatever gifts the Holy Spirit imparts to them at whatever level of leadership the Holy Spirit opens up to them.

3) Jesus death on the cross and our faith in him has brought freedom from the law and freedom from the enslaving limitations that were part of the OT law.  Paul draws our attention to a third freedom: freedom for every Christian to live from his or her heart rather than any written OT law.

When we write letters, usually by email, we just tap out our thoughts and feelings in a rush of inspiration that often has little form or art.  We just express ourselves the best we can in the moment, and hit send.  When the receiver doesn’t seem to understand our point (or even take offense), we just tap out another email and, hit send again, and again, and again.  The Apostle Paul had a very different approach to writing a letter. Paul used conventional, recognizable literary structures to give his thoughts a bigger punch (than a rambling email might have).  He uses one of these structures in chapter 3—a chiastic structure. A Chi is the Greek letter we write as a “X”.  Paul has been developing his argument in the way sand might flow through an hour-glass, from a broad, first point at the top of the chapter, down  through a narrow middle point and back out to broad base at the end of the chapter. The top and the bottom of Paul’s argument will contain the heart of Paul’s message. So notice that Paul both begins and ends this section by clarifying that all of the blessings purchased at the cross and graciously provided to all who have faith in Christ, come to us through the Holy Spirit.  The person and ministry of the Holy Spirit is central to this great transition from law to grace. The Holy Spirit is central to our salvation and our spiritual growth.  It’s the Spirit who gives life, from start to finish.  It’s the Spirit who transforms us from start to finish.   If you minimize or marginalize the role of the Holy Spirit in your life or your marriage, or your family, or your church, or your ministry you will consistently lose your way and fall back into legalistic perspectives, attitudes, and lifestyle choices . . . bondage to laws of one sort or another.

Watch how Paul’s argument flows. Paul begins chapter three by challenging the Galatians to remember that their simple decision to trust Jesus was confirmed by dramatic experiences with the Holy Spirit.  There is nothing Law can add to faith, for the Spirit of God rushes in wherever faith opens a door. Faith in Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.  That’s the new package, the new process for salvation, spiritual growth, and community life. There’s nothing you can add to faith and the Spirit.  As Paul develops his argument, he moves next to focus on the sufficiency of faith. Righteousness, empowered and guided by the Holy Spirit, is by faith alone, not faith and law.  It’s by faith that we receive the promise of the life-giving Spirit and all the blessings promised Abraham.  So Paul begins with the Spirit, and argues that the gift of the Spirit comes through faith.  And in the middle of the hour glass, Paul pin points the inherent problem with law:  law can control behavior but, law cannot give life, and giving life and sharing life has always been God’s central concern for mankind. At the top of God’s agenda is life—a life that is full and overflowing. As the argument progresses past the middle, Paul returns to faith: faith in Jesus’ redeeming death has set us free from the law’s enslaving authority to curse and to bless, to include and exclude, to limit and restrain.  Paul ends the chapter by returning to the ministry of the Spirit (always the energizing power in our faith), as the operative force that stirs a hunger for intimacy within us and draws us, as believers, closer and closer to the heart of our Heavenly Father. It is the empowering of the Holy Spirit that marks our salvation at the beginning of our spiritual journey and, it is the drawing of the Holy Spirit toward intimacy with the Father that energizes our spiritual growth into the character of a Holy God.

Some of you have expressed deep concern to me that I’m not making a big enough issue of sin and repentance and holiness.  Holiness is indeed, one of God’s high priorities for our lives—our spiritual growth and our community life.  He just differs from legalists in how he goes about getting what he wants.  Instead of demanding conformity to an external law, he creates a hunger and a thirst within us.  And he does this by the Holy Spirit.  When you and I decide to begin trusting and following Jesus, God imparts his Holy Spirit to us.  Holy Spirit rushes into our lives like a mysterious wind and begins to stir us from the inside out.  We begin to long to know God more intimately, to walk with him through daily life, and to serve him in the causes that matter most to him.  These new and deep longings are actually being stirred by the Holy Spirit—a longing to pray and to worship and to hear back from our Heavenly Father when we pray.  A longing to talk with him and know that he is close, while we are at home and while we are at work.  A desire to learn from him when we are tied up in knots over finances or relationships.  A desire to participate in his kingdom’s advance, sharing the love that he has poured into our hearts.  How do brand new Christians  who are still pretty rough around the attitudes, become wise, stable, fruitful, mature Christians—truly holy, profoundly different than the day they started the journey?  They open themselves over and over again to the Holy Spirit.  They turn from behaviors that grieve and attitudes that quench the Spirit.  They invite the Spirit to them.  They take risks with the little breezes that enter their lives.  They pray in the Spirit and walk in step with the Spirit over time, while the fruit of the Spirit’s presence grows within them.

When I was first introduced to the ministry of the Holy Spirit, I wondered whether or not this profound experience was from God or just an emotional rush of some sort.  So, I called a mentor from my seminary days.  He suggested that the only way to know was to test the fruit of this experience.  He said, “Over the next month, take a personal inventory of your life”.  If this encounter was just an emotional rush, it won’t produce much of a change in your life. It’ll just be an emotional high.  But, if this experience was the rushing wind of the Holy Spirit in your life, you’ll see the fruit of holiness.  At the end of the month, I called him back and said, “You know, honestly, I find myself praying more, reading the Bible with renewed interest, and worshipping with greater passion.  And, I find that my life-struggles with anger and lust seem dramatically diminished”.  You know what he said? That doesn’t sound like the Devil. And, if an emotional experience caused all that, bring on the emotional experiences. If you ask me, I think you were filled with the Holy Spirit”.  So Paul ends this section as he began it.  If you’re concerned about sin, repentance, and holiness in your life, in your children, or in your church, you’re concerned about the right thing.  it’s time to open your heart again to the the Holy Spirit, invite the Holy Spirit to fill you again, to take a risk with the Holy Spirit, to give voice to the longings the Holy Spirit is stirring within you . . . and to introduce your family and friends to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

Paul’s point is that when the Spirit of God invades your heart, you’re free to begin living from your heart.  You’re free to follow your heart.  Make being filled and staying filled with the Holy Spirit your daily focus, and you can trust your heart, follow your heart, and give your heart away.  You can stop worrying about what others will think or say. You’re free to be you.  You can stop worrying about how you look and whether or not you’ll fail or what will happen if people find out about your past. You can take bigger risks and take on bigger assignments.  Don’t let any law or any legalist limit your vision, or shrink your possibilities, and or tie you down with fearful insecurities.  Ask God to fill you with his Spirit; then, just follow your heart.  You’re free! You’re free from the law, free from enslaving limitations, and free step out of the box you’ve been living in. Those whom the Son sets free are free indeed! Do you want to memorize the Ten Commandments?  You’re free; memorize away.  Do you want to take a break from reading the Bible?  You’re free; relax and take a break.  Do you want to step up to provide leadership even though your age or your race or your gender sometimes make you feel like an outsider? You’re free; step up lead away. Do you want to vote Republican instead of Democrat? Go for it? You’re free.  Do you want to listen to WOOD Radio instead of NPR.  You’re free; follow your heart.  Do you want to drink alcohol or dance at a party?  You’re free.  Follow your heart.  Do you want to abstain from alcohol and dancing.  You’re free to order a Ginger Ale and sit at your table.  God isn’t watching nervously to see if you do our you don’t. Do you want to come forward to ask for prayer this morning—to be filled with the Holy Spirit—even though your spouse might not come with you or, your friends might wonder if you’ve got a big sin problem.  You’re free—free to follow your heart.  You’re free to go back to school.  You’re free to explore a different career.  You’re free to stand up and speak out about things that are important to you.  You’re free to move to the sunbelt, or stay in Grand Rapids.  You’re free to do a missions trip on Spring break; your free to just sit on a beach in the Caribbean and do nothing.  You’re free to follow your heart. You are child of God and an heir to his kingdom. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (5:1). 

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