The Vineyard Church of North Grand Rapids, MI

Ray Befus Galatians 5:1-18      Living As God’s Children         27 December 2009

Over the next four Sunday’s we’re wrapping up our study of Paul’s letter to the Christians living in Galatia.  A major theme in Paul’s letter is God’s amazing grace . . . a revelation that, to many in the church, still seems too good to be true. We sing the old hymn Amazing Grace at funerals, just like we sing Silent Night at Christmas services.  When the emotional impact of the song (like a wave) passes over us, we’re still left with our fears and secrets, regrets and feelings of failure, our lonely struggles and hopelessness. So, Brennan Manning, in his his best-selling book The Ragamuffin Gospel, looks around at Christians like us and writes, “Something is radically wrong “. “Put bluntly: the American Church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice.  We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works—but our lives refute our faith.  By and large, the gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood, nor lived.  Too many Christians are living in the house of fear and not in the house of love”.  “Though lip service is paint to the gospel of grace, many Christians lives as if it is only personal discipline and self-denial that will mold the perfect me.  The  emphasis is on what I do rather than what God is doing”.  “Something is radically wrong.  Our huffing and puffing to impress God, our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat denial of the gospel of grace” (pp. 17-20).  If you haven’t picked up a copy of the Ragamuffin Gospel, give yourself a Christmas present and pick up a copy this morning at our information desk! And, if you haven’t participated in the last 12 Sunday teachings on Galatians, you can listen to them by pod-cast on our internet website.  This morning, I want to invite you to pick up your Bible and read with me, Galatians 5:1-18.  READ.  PRAY.

Last November, we marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  It’s a wonderful story of freedom breaking in on people who formerly lived in bondage.  Uwe Holmer and his family lived in East Berlin; they were eye witnesses to the wall coming down. During the years of communist rule in East Germany, Uwe Holmer’s eight children, one by one began graduating high school and making plans to go to university.  When each of the children applied to the East German Ministry of Education so that they could attend university in East Berlin, each child was denied entrance to the university. It was a crushing blow to the family.  The government’s Ministry of Education did not give reasons, but Uwe Holmer wasn’t clueless.  He was a Christian—a fairly well-known Christian; in fact, he was the pastor of a church in East Berlin. During the decades before the Berlin Wall was torn down, the Ministry of Education was headed by Margot Honecker, the wife of East Germany’s premier Erich Honecker. Both husband and wife were grim, party-line atheists. When the Berlin was came down in November 1989, Erich and Margot Honecker were unceremoniously dismissed from the nation’s highest office, put under house arrest and, investigated for crimes against the German people.  Within two months of the wall coming down (January), the Honeckers were evicted from a luxurious palace in an exclusive community of expansive homes enjoyed by the communist elite.  The Honeckers were jobless, homeless, and under a criminal investigation.  Quite literally, they were without a friend in the world . . . except for Uwe Holmer. Trusting that Jesus is really smart, that Jesus knows how life works, and that the path of the cross—humble self-sacrifice—is the path of life, Uwe decided to open his heart to offer the Honecker’s a taste of God’s love. So, Uwe Holmer invited Margot and Erich Honecker to stay in his home, next to the church, in one of his children’s bedrooms.  And, with no where else to go, the Honeckers gratefully moved in.  Free from bondage to the communist regime, Uwe Holmer used his new-found freedom to love and serve those who had hurt him deeply. That’s grace. That’s Jesus. And that’s a story that would have brought a smile to the Apostle Paul’s face.  Let me tell you why.

I. Paul has argued for four chapters that Christians like us are free from the law.  He’s argued the same point up and down, backward and forward, using personal illustrations and biblical arguments.  And, he’s argue with passion high enough to come close to rage.  Paul is convinced that a life-giving faith cannot be built on keeping OT law. And if the young, Gentile Christians in Galatia give into the ‘older, wiser, Jewish Christians’ who are urging them to be circumcised, keep Kosher food laws, and OT holy days, they will be lost.  Jesus’ death on a cross has changed forever the way God invites men and women relate to him.

We are free from the OT law!  Because of Jesus’ death on a cross and the coming of the promised Holy Spirit, we no longer need OT sign posts, boundary markers, and warning signs; we now have a guide—the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus—living within us. The indwelling Lord Jesus is now living his life through us, changing us from the inside out, molding and transforming our lives with the goal of forming us into the very image of his own character. We are free from the tyranny of the  law . . . the burden of endless introspection and regret, the bondage of fear that we went too far or haven’t done enough, the stress of trying to stay in control and to  do better and better and better.  Could Paul be any clearer than he is in verse one?  “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free!“ Or verse 15, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free?”  Freedom isn’t just a doctrine to be believed; it’s an experience to be enjoyed!  Those who ‘get grace’ feel it! You can see it in their smiles, hear it in their prayers, and watch it in the way they love those who disappoint and hurt them.

“Stand firm” is a command.  It’s the command a military officer gives to a soldier on the front line.  Hold your position at all costs.  Any time someone suggests that you’d be a better Christian if you dressed differently or wore more or less make up, or cut your hair differently . . . any time someone suggests that God would bless you more if you stopped drinking this or started eating that . . . every time someone suggests that one day matters more to God than another and some behaviors are only appropriate on certain days . . . anytime someone whispers that perhaps some hardship has come into your life because of your poor performance . . . take your stand.  Stand firm.  Stand fast.  The good news is still good news!  God, in grace, has forgiven us, accepted us, and blessed us.  When we lose our way, when we fall into trouble, when we dabble in rebellion, we just continue confessing the truth about ourselves, deciding to trust him, and running back into his embrace.  We are dearly loved children of a gracious heavenly Father who expects more weakness and failure from us than we expect of ourselves.  And, he had decided to graciously provide for our spiritual growth in ways we couldn’t manufacture ourselves.  Grace puts our whole focus on what God has done and is doing in us, by his Son and his Spirit, not on what we have decided, developed, and disciplined ourselves to do in order to earn his blessing.There is no blessing any pastor or any church can give you, no gift so valuable, no treasure so spectacular as the revelation that a profoundly  gracious God is crazy about you.  He was willing to go to any expense to have you know him and come home to him.  His love for you is unreasonable  . . . extreme—a scandal (5:11), really.  He sent his one and only son into this world, to reveal his heart and to pay your bill with his Son’s life, so that you might be adopted into his family forever as a daughter or son, freely coming to him with your deepest sorrows and greatest needs with a simple “Abba”.  Your God is gracious beyond belief; you are free from having to get up morning by morning to justify your existence, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, earn your keep, prove your sincerity, and secure your destiny.  Grace means that God helps those who ‘ve tried and tried and tried and still can’t help themselves.  Take a deep breath and breath the fresh air of freedom.

2. Now, when 21st Century Americans think ‘freedom,’ all kinds of thoughts and images come to our minds that would have been completely alien to Paul.  In other words, our cultural context defines freedom in ways that Paul never would have defined freedom.  We’re Americans, first of all, even before we’re Christians. For many of us, if we were to write out the phrase “American Christian,” AMERICAN would be all in caps; christian would be lower case. Our faith is primarily an American faith; only secondarily is it a Christian faith. We read the Bible with red-white-and blue glasses. When we read Scripture, we read it, not as the rest of the world—certainly not as first century Christians did—but as modern Americans do.  Consequently, when we think of freedom, we think of independence . . . freedom to do our own thing wherever and whenever we want to do it . . . absolute freedom of choice . . .  freedom from responsibility to other people or even God . . . freedom to chart our own course, call our own shots . . . freedom to make up our own truth, our own reality . . . freedom to withdraw and even isolate ourselves from other people.  We’re modern Americans; so when we read Galatians 5:1 or sings worship choruses based on this “I’m free, I’m free, I’m free” we think, “I’m a free agent.  I can do whatever I want whenever I want. I’m free from having to care about you.  I’m free from having to be responsible for anyone or anything but my own dreams.  I’m free to say whatever I think and do whatever comes to my mind”.  Paul’s response would be, “Wowsers! Where in the context of my letter —or all my letters, or the entire NT, or even the Gospels—did you get that? Freedom from the law is not freedom to live a profoundly selfish life. You’re importing something from a broken, self-serving world that has no place in a kingdom of love”.

Freedom from the Law means that we’re free to live as God’s sons and daughters, not slaves to other people’s standards or judgments,  not slaves to our upbringing, or slaves to our own performance fears.  Because of the love poured out for us on the cross, we’re free to live as prodigals who have been welcomed home by their Father, welcomed into a trinitarian family whose heart beats with self-sacrificing love.  The freedom that flows from cross has profound negative implications: free from the bondage of shame, guilt, fear, and judgment.  But this freedom is exercised in positive ways as well—three ways that are reflected in these first 18 verses in Galatians 5.

First, there is the freedom of trusting Jesus like a little child.  Peacefully trusting without having all the answers . . . without being in control . . .  without worrying about how we look or what others think . . . trusting like a child trusts in the midst of pain, sorrow, and confusion. Trusting that he who got us started, will see us all the way home.  Trusting that his death paid the penalty for all my sins, not just my little stumbles.  ILLUS: I recently spoke about the good news of God’s grace at a meeting outside this church and, an unusually sensitive, gracious, and sophisticated woman my age asked if she could speak with me privately.  She was exceptionally well-dressed, intelligent, and highly regarded leader in her church. She’d sung a thousand worship songs in her life, taken communion thousands of times, said her prayers and confessed her sins times without number.  She was promoted in leadership at her church because of her genuine love for God and other people.  But, no one in her entire world of family and friends knew that her first husband divorced her because she cheated on him, got pregnant, and aborted the baby.  Those were sins she kept hidden because they seemed bigger than the love of God, bigger than the cross, bigger than the Gospel of Grace.  So, for the better part of a life-time, they were locked in a closet deep within her heart, pounding to get out.  And, there they might have remained to her dying day, but for grace, which invited her to trust these secrets to Jesus—like a little child.  And, in a flash of amazing grace, she humbled herself like a little child and confessed even these secrets to me. And, she walked away like it was Christmas morning—a woman set free.  In the first five verses of chapter five, Paul is consumed by Christ and what Christ has done for us.  Freedom from the law means that we are free to trust Christ Jesus like a little children -—trust that he paid for all our sins, trust that his death was enough for the worst failures, trust that God’s justice has been fully satisfied, trust that God isn’t hiding his disappointment with us or withholding his blessings, awaiting some heavenly opportunity to shame us, trust that following him and his teachings will lead to the best possible life now and a glorified life in the world to come, trusting that law-keeping can add nothing to our salvation or spiritual growth.

Second, freedom from the law means that we’re free to forget about ourselves—how we look and feel, what we deserve and what we’re going to get—and to love others by humbly serving their needs . . . like Uwe Holmer loved Erich and Margot Honecker. Think of it: our past is covered, our future is secure, our relationship with God is overflowing with love and grace .  Consequently, we can turn off all negative the self-talk, the constant evaluating, the never-ending judging, the daily desire to be right and maintain control.  We can turn off our selfish fears and angers, our selfish dreams and pursuits, and walk into a room like this and just focus on others, seeing them and men and women God loves, noticing their needs, and stepping out of ourselves to humbly offer ourselves to them in personal service.  That’s what it means to live as a son or daughter of our loving Heavenly Father.  He’s constantly pouring out his love on us, so we’re free to put our needs and interests on hold so that we can focus on others instead. Paul declares in verse 6, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love”.  Paul repeats himself in verse 14: “the entire law [not just the commands regarding circumcision] are fulfilled in keeping this one command, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’.  That’s what God did the first Christmas. That’s what faith that is real, faith that is alive does in a heart, a marriage, a family right now. Our Heavenly Father so loved us that he gave his one and only precious Son for us.  That’s the kind of self-sacrificing love that genuine faith produces. Freedom from the law means freedom to love other Christians like we love ourselves, to love prodigals like we have been loved, to love unrepentant sinners like Jesus loved them and gave his own life as a ransom for them.  When faith is real, it produces self-sacrificing love . . . and law-keeping can’t add anything to that!

M. Scott Peck, a very thoughtful Christian psychaiatrist wrote a 20th Century classic titled, The Road Less Traveled, as he was becoming a Christan. He defines the road less traveled in American culture as the road of loving other people as God loves us. Taking exception with our American culture as a whole, Peck writes that love is not a feeling that certain people give us when we are around them.  Love—mature, healthy, genuine love—is not a feeling at all.  Most often, Peck writes, when we, as modern Americans tell someone, “I just love you” what we mean is . . . I love the feeling I experience when I am with you. You give me that lovin’ feeling.  When people say, I love my church, they often mean, “I love the feelings I get from these meetings, the feelings I get from this music and teaching. I love the Feelings I experience when people greet me in the hallway or pray for me at the end of a service.  The painful reality, Peck notes,  is that when we say “I love you,” all we’re saying is that I love myself, I love my happy feelings right now.  “I love you” means little more than I love the feelings I experience when you do certain things for me”.  As a culture, we have redefined freedom and we have redefined love out of profound selfishness.  Freedom and love have become all about me and what I want and what I need you to give me. Even as a not-yet-Christian, Peck responds that real love—healthy, mature, God-like love—doesn’t even begin until we’re feeling disappointed, frustrated, even betrayed by the people around us.  Authentic love a a courageous, faith-filled decision to give oneself for another in the midst of relational breakdown.  It’s at that point of disappointment and frustration—when my wife is acting like an ordinary woman, my kids are acting like ordinary teenagers, my church friends are is acting like just like people on the outside, that loves decides to respond like God—suffering-long, extending grace, forgiving, serving, carrying another’s burdens.  Love isn’t a feeling; it’s a courageous, faith-filled choice to commit myself—even sacrifice myself (my heart, my time, my money, my resources)—for your good. It’s not until we fall out of love with a spouse . . . it’s not until our kids drive us crazy . . . it’s not until our church lets us down . . . it’s not until our co-workers have truly hurt us . . . that we can claim that we can claim that we have loved.  Far from being a warm and fuzzy internal feeling, Peck declares that “Love is as love does”.  Those who are truly free from the law, love their neighbors as they love themselves, not because their neighbors are loving, but because their Father in Heaven is loving.

3. There’s a third mark of men and women who live as God’s children.  Step for step along their spiritual journey, they respond to the inner stirrings of the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of Jesus dwelling within them and working around them. Paul has reminded the Christians in Galatia that they are children of the promised Holy Spirit.  The Spirit has given them a new birth into a living hope.  The Spirit stirs their longing for intimacy with their Fahter, the Spirit guides and empowers their spiritual growth and the formation of Jesus’ character within them.  The Spirit is transforming them from the inside out, something law-keeping could never do.

We are now sons and daughters of a King.  Our Heavenly Father is a King at war.  We live in a world at war, and even our lives are a battle ground. Every day a battle is being fought to determine who deserves to be trusted, who deserves to be worshipped, who deserves to be followed. And our lives are answering back: Jesus is Lord—he alone deserves to be trusted, worshipped, followed.    C.S. Lewis wrote, “There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan”.  When we’re tempted to live by lies and selfish pursuits, tempted to blame other people for all our troubles, tempted to give up and fall back into sinful passions,  the Spirit of God  (within us) is able to take us through the battle lines and over the obstacles, to persevere and to overcome.  Sons and daughters have not been called to figure it out, gut it out, or to walk it out all alone.  God has sent his Spirit into our hearts to remind us that we’re not alone.  Part of trusting Jesus is keeping our minds and hearts open to responding to the inner stirrings of the Holy Spirit, walking in step with the Holy Spirit, letting the Holy Spirit lead us from day to day.

During the period of the OT law, a few heroes experienced the presence and power of the Holy Spirit from time to time.  Moses felt the Spirit, like a wind, blow into his life. So did some of the craftsmen who built the taberrnacle.  So did Israel’s judges like Gideon and Deborah,  and kings like Saul and David.  So did prophets like Elijah, Isaiah, and Daniel. But the majority of God’s OT people—living under the law—never experienced a Pentecost when the Spirit rushed into the room and settled into the hearts of lives of every believer. This deposit of the Holy Spirit in our lives is one of the amazing graces of being a son or daughter of God.  We no longer have to read up on the rules, listen to priests explain and apply the rules, and endlessly remind each other to stop breaking the rules.  Because of this grace of the Holy Spirit within us, we get up morning by morning, as God’s adult children, not helpless little ones.  We invite the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with a fresh love for God and others, and then we follow our hearts into our days . . . paying attention to  inner convictions, taking risks with inner leadings, stepping up to use the gifts that he gives us, saying ‘no’ to things that trouble us, saying ‘yes’ to opportunities to express love.

Again, with regard to the ministry of the Holy Spirit, there is a significant gap between Paul’s perspective of the Christian life, and ours—as contemporary American Christmas.  Many of us, when it comes to the Holy Spirit, are agnostic.  We’re so invested in scientific rationalism, that we’re embarrassed to talk about opening our minds to mystical, subjective experiences. Our faith is not really Tri-nitarian; it’s bi-nitarian.  That is, we believe in the Father and we’re grateful for the Son, but when it comes to daily life, we picture ourselves pretty much on our own, trying our best to get it right, being as good as we can be, going to church as much as our busy schedule permits,and building a reputation ant school and work for being a decent human being.  Paul (and the Galatians) lived in a different world.  They lived by listening for the Spirit’s voice within their minds.  They prayed for miracles and saw them take place in their gatherings. They valued the exercise of spiritual gift in their meetings, even though it opened the door to some big messes.  They took personal risks to respond to inner promptings. They developed a sensitivity to grieving the Spirit and turned from things that broke intimacy.  They built whole ministry trips on prophetic guidance. They stepped into Jesus-brand ministries and asked for gifts of power to enable them to do what Jesus did. It was the Spirit of God that kept them full and moving ahead to the end of their lives, rather than giving up, retiring early, or withdrawing from the cost of loving.

To celebrate freedom from the law without embracing a life of love, is to miss the point of your freedom.  To celebrate your freedom from the law without welcoming the Holy Spirit in new and fresh and deeper ways, is to make yourself vulnerable to legalism—i.e., performing for forgiveness, acceptance, and blessing.  I hope that you’ll register for the upcoming Naturally Supernatural conference. The pre-registration deadline is just two weeks away.  If you decide to participate in this three day conference (Thursday evening through Saturday afternoon), you’ll have an entire weekend to explore a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit.  You’ll have the opportunity to learn to discern the Holy Spirit’s voice, feel his stirrings within you,  take a few risky steps with the Holy Spirit’s leading, and witness his power at work through your prayers.  Agnostics aren’t against the Holy Spirit, they just don’t exercise the kind of real-life faith to explore and expand their boundaries.

We’re free from the law.  It’s an amazing grace.  Positively, this means that we’re free to live as God’s sons and daughters.  How? By (1) trusting Jesus—his example and his teachers, his death and resurrection, with childlike faith, (2)by loving others by humbly serving them,  and(3) by responding, day by day, to the inner stirrings of the Holy Spirit.  This is what it means to live in grace, to live the Good News in a New Year.

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