Free For All (1)

Freedom

Are you free? Or are you subject to another?

The world defines freedom as the “power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.”

We pursue laws that grant certain freedoms.

In 1941, during the State of the Union address, FDR shared the goal of 4 freedoms:

Speech

Worship

From Want

From Fear

The First Amendment is written to protect the freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition the government.

Weird laws:

Arizona - you can’t have a donkey sleeping in you bathtub after 7 pm

California - you can’t eat an orange while bathing

Louisiana - woman can’t drive a car unless her husband walks in front waving a flag

Maine - you can’t bite your landlord

Alaska - you can’t push a moose out of a moving airplane

Culture says there are 3 kinds of freedoms:

“From” constraint

“To” do what you want

“Be” who you were meant to be

In many ways, our identify can become wrapped up in our freedom or lack thereof

Who is RIGHT? (Justification = to be in the right)

fruit = forgiveness

Basis = atonement

At heart, the push is to be RIGHT by adherence to the law (or an interpretation of it). Law finds its origin with God as the divine requirements given to Israel through Moses. Reality of the law - by it’s nature, it cannot produce right standing before God. Righteousness is not achieved through adherence to a code of conduct.

Problem with the church in Galatia - the gospel message had been diluted. The church culture was struggling with legalism from false teachers. This teaching endangered to truth of the gospel message. Paul wrote to redirect the church.

Galatians 5:1 ESV

1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Salvation (or right standing) cannot come from adherence to a set of laws because in our brokenness, they cannot be kept. Freedom, or acceptance before God, can only come through an act of trust in Jesus Christ - nothing else!

Galatians 2:16 ESV

16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Galatians 2:20–21 ESV

20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

In Christ, our standing has shifted.

From the Future (last judgment)

From the Present (moral striving)

To the Past (Finished work of Christ)

Do you want to be free? We are grateful for the sacrifice of others which gives us the opportunity to pursue freedom. But we must be vigilant and stay on guard, the evil one will try to create a bait and switch on us to pursue false freedom.

Freedom comes only through Jesus Christ.

Have you found Jesus?

Are you walking in relationship with Jesus?