Set Me Free

This past labor day Meggan, baby Elizabeth, our dog Riley and I traveled to Alabama to be with family and on the drive while baby was sleeping we were listening to the audiobook “A dog’s way home.”

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Anyone here read it? or maybe seen the movie? As farfetched as it sounds. The book has been a very entertaining listen. When Bella the dog is captured by a corrupt dog catcher. The young dog now caged, scared, and alone wonders if she was a bad dog and that is why she is behind bars. All she can think of is missing being free and safe with her human Lucas. The story continues with a lot more farfetched details, about the dog traveling a long distance across the state of Colorado to be back with her human.

Farfetched or not what is special about the story to me was the dog Bella seeing other stories of the humans in her life chained down by their own life circumstances. Army veterans coping with PTSD, other humans struggling with alcohol, drugs, or in bad relationships. She watches as her own human Lucas wrestles with his own experience of being abandoned as a kid and now also trying to take care of his rehabilitated mother and at the same time build a life for himself. Something about being around a dog brought light and joy to all the humans she encountered, minus the mean old dog catcher.

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Many today are walking around feeling as imprisoned as a dog at the pound. Maybe its addiction to any number of things, like drugs and alcohol, or maybe screens, video games, or pornograghy. Maybe your struggle isn’t with something sinful, but more life circumstance, heartbreak, or an abusive situation. Maybe you have become even a slave to legalism, which is a far cry from obedience but is a graceless existence worshipping the letter of the law with no understanding or comprehension of the spirit of the law. To often we are weighed down or chained down, living life in a way that isn’t truly living.

Paul writes to the believers in Galilea , in Galatians chapter 5. change slide

Galatians 5:1 ESV

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

For a man who spent many of later years confound to prison, he made sure it was known to the Christian believers, to the growing number of small group churches that had begun, that God wasn’t interested in chaining people down further, but that he wanted to set them free from the captivity of their decisions and circumstances.

This morning we are going to look at and analyze a familiar story about Paul and his traveling companion and ministry accomplice Silas. We will determine what freedom Paul is constantly writing about. Like every scripture we go through, we will look at the context and also see how it speaks to our present day situation. before we go further, lets take a moment to pray.

Prayer

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Have you ever heard the saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.” I often think of volunteers who get flack for performing a duty no one else was willing to do, but then gets criticized by those unwilling to help out themselves. As Christians we are called to do good deeds regardless if you are praised or not. Praise and adulation should not be the purpose of our good works. Thankyou’s were not what Jesus sought in performing miracles. Thankyou’s were certainly not what the apostle Paul was seeking as he went from town to town and city to city sharing and proclaiming the gospel.

Acts 16 describes

Paul, with authority from on high, had commanded a spirit out of a woman who had been making money for captors fortune telling. By Paul freeing the woman of demon occupation, he had also made her bad for business.

Her owners were not happy about this woman being freed from the spirit. Instead they had Paul and his ministry associate Silas seized and brought before the town magistrates of Philippi.

“These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. They exclaimed! 21 They advocate customs that are not lawful for us las Romans to accept or practice.”

This was said to excite the crowd, putting pressure on the magistrates to ignore policy and move to swift judgment.

Paul and Silas were attacked by the crowd and even ordered by the magistrates to be stripped and beaten with rods. Following this they were then thrown into prison.

I hope the irony is not lost here. Paul had just set a woman free from her affliction of being host to a demonic spirit, and for that he and his friend were now imprisoned with their feet shackled to the ground. But that was the job to offer people freedom, no matter the cost.

What kind of freedom are we talking about?

Lets look at one of Paul’s letters.

Through out the book of Galatians Paul compares people who have been exposed to the truth of the gospel and salvation yet still living sinful lifestyles or even turning to graceless and mindless law abiding legalism as becoming willful slavery.

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Galatians 3:1–5 ESV

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—

There was a problem that Christians in Galatia, the people whom Paul is writing to in this letter, were facing. Should they embrace Jewish laws and practices? Paul was preaching to them and emphasizing faith and seemed to be warning them about the dangers of emphasizing law above faith.

This law vs faith or faith vs works question has been confused throughout church history. This is the reason Paul, so many times, in his letters has to contextualize his words, and demonstrate clarity in his messages so that understanding could be reached by those whom he was ministering to. The people of Galatia wanted to follow God “correctly.” However, they seemed to want an instructions manual.

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And why wouldn’t they. Instruction manuals make life easier.

I struggle with following instruction manuals. Often I glance at them when I am attempting to put together our latest furniture purchase that came from Amazon. The chairs and desks we buy that have to be assembled can really turn out poorly if there is a misplaced screw. My wife has caught me frustrated trying to assemble these purchases. There is a reason we bought a preassembled crib rather than put the whole thing together. While Paul gets specific many times in his instructions he makes clear he wasn’t rewriting the law of Moses as a new instruction manuel. He wanted to return believers to the spirit of the law rather than the legalistic letter of the law.

One of the areas the believers in Galatia were confused on was circumcision. Circumcision was introduced to Abraham by God as an instruction as a physical sign identifying them as God’s chosen people. However, in the new covenant that was made for God’s people after Christ’s death, (no longer simply the bloodline of the Jewish people) circumcision was no longer an identifying mark necessary, and had no spiritual significance. He says,

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2 Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses. 4 For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace. –Gal 5:2-4

What Paul, here is teaching, is not diminishing the law. He is simply stating that law keeping does not make a man or woman righteous. He is warning against falling away from God’s grace, because only through God’s grace are we made righteous.

Circumcision is just the example here. When Jesus began his ministry on Earth, the reason he was most confrontational with the religious leaders was because they had twisted the law into a corrupted system of exclusivism and elitism and had made salvation something to be attained by counting steps rather than genuine worship.

Even the Jews who accepted Christ and were among those in the early church still struggling to break away from non salvation traditions.

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Listen, hear me out for a second. Following tradition is not in itself bad. Traditions help us better understand our history and maintain order. Traditions also bring a lot of joy. The problem is when we equate tradition with law. The Jewish religious leaders were not just having the people follow the mosaic laws but had very much expounded on them and unfortunately had not educated the people as to its purpose and spirit. It was blind legalistic following rather than faith and understanding.

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Can we as Seventh day adventists fall into this same trap the Jewish religious leaders did? For some we may already have. As an example: For lunch today my wife and I are having haystacks. Might there be anyone in this room who is not familiar with what haystacks are. If you don’t know, your likely in the minority of this room, but not knowing what haystacks are, does NOT make you any less Adventist. Its not a salvation issue for you to know what haystacks are. The reality is if you don’t know what they are, you could ask your neighbor to your left and right and they might give you a different description. Just know this, saying its a “taco salad” is not an acceptable answer in my book. Haystacks have become an Adventist traditional dish, but if someone tells you you are not a REAL adventist until you’ve tried them, is off base.

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The same could be said for food items like Big Franks or Fri-chic, or any other worthington or loma linda products, camp meeting, boarding schools, saying Happy Sabbath, playing rook cards, reading Uncle Arther books.

I am not knocking any of those things that have become a part of Adventist culture and tradition, but none of which can we derive salvation over.

This week my wife was substitute teaching at Eddlemon for a few days so that put me on day time Daddy duty. In the afternoon pest control was coming out to get rid of some ant hills in our yard and spray the house for bugs. The young man servicing us that day had been by a couple times already this year and he asked me what I did for a living that allowed me to be home during the day. I told him, well my days are not normally like this but that I worked as a pastor. His eyes lit up and he said he was about to enter the ministry. What church was I with. I said the Seventh-day Adventist Christian church off of John B White SR. BLVD.

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Oh wow! I serve a number of homes of SDA’s, I’ve always wanted to ask what do Adventists believe. Now what do you think I should start with? “We believe in eating veggie hotdogs over meat hotdogs”....No I chose to stay simple. I said “Well its right in our name actually, Seventh-day refers to following the seventh day as our Sabbath which we understand to be Saturday, and then Adventist refers to our belief in the 2nd coming of Jesus and the resurrection of those who died in Christ. Then I got to hear about his journey as a Christian and how he felt God calling him into ministry, specifically Men’s ministries.

To often, when we are given the opportunity to share what we believe in, we start rattling off a bunch of things we are not allowed to do. That sounds like a legalistic boring way of life to many people. How about sharing what we believe, and what we do, and what we are excited about. I’m convinced more and more people are attracted to a day of the week where they don’t have to work and get to worship instead. Equating our beliefs with a list of rules sounds like chaining worn out people down even further. Offering rest and peace that our faith clearly teaches and supports is offering freedom.

Paul had a growing frustration that he would plant churches among the gentiles and then likely well meaning Jewish traditionalist Christians would mess things up by harping on Jewish traditional practices such as circumcision or unleavened bread for that matter.

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Galatians 5:7–12 ESV

You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!

It’s not that Paul didn’t want these new believers to be faithful and obedient to God, its that he wanted to them to obey God over man-made traditions. Paul had been pointing out that many of these traditions had been established to point toward the cross, circumcision, and sacrifice, and unleavened bread were pointing toward the cross. Paul was saying Jesus came! He died, now live your lives that point toward his 2nd coming! Obey this truth you’ve been given. Paul wanted the new church to understand the purpose of obedience to God, not a blind allegiance to tradition easily confused with salvation by works.

One area that Paul was attempting to reach new believers was by offering freedom from a misunderstanding of the purpose of the law. This misunderstanding of the law had been handcuffing people down further. The purpose of the Law was always to help identify sin and live a healthy and godly life. If anyone out there is attempting to tell you Paul was doing away with the law, has a misunderstanding of his writings, Paul wasn’t doing away with the law, he was helping believers understand it and how it relates to a loving God who had given it.

Paul was also offering freedom from sinful and unhealthy lifestyle practices. Paul shared with them best practices for healthy marriages. Paul weighed in on best practices for following the Sabbath. Paul weighs in how to treat your neighbor. Paul weighs in on how stubborness, anger, and partiality can be destroyers of your own faith and those around you. Paul addresses throughout his writings, the problem with blending their practices of worship with those of the pagans around them. Paul addresses very specifically the problem of being led by the flesh as opposed to the Spirit, in Galatians 5:17-26. Paul addresses all the concerns most of the legalists had out there. Paul addresses both ditches, those a slave to vanity and those a slave to the law.

Galatians 5:13–14 ESV

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Paul wanted to set his listeners free from sinful lifestyles and also free from active finger pointing and condemnation.

I imagine there are some of you here who have participated in small group accountability meetings, 10 step meetings, or some equivalent of. The purpose of those meetings is not to make someone who wrestles with an addiction to drugs, or alcohol, or overeating, managing anger, or pornograghy addiction, feel even more guilt or shame for what they are wrestling with. The purpose is to help them find freedom from something they acknowledge or are in the process of acknowledging is damaging to their lives, and relationships, and are seeking help and relief.

What if our church became known for offering just that.

Listen to this testimony of a man by the name of Danny.

Danny Testimony Brooklyn Tabernacle----8 minutes.

I know there are some Danny’s here present today, with a few details changed from his story to yours.

What if when we point out sin in someone’s life we did so with compassion while offering an open ended offer to be a resource or maybe offer the same resource each of us already has access to, a church community filled with smaller communities.

You can literally help set someone free!

Over Labor day weekend, our family gathered at the lake in Alabama. My Dad is always sure to make sure each day we have family worship together. Many of you who know my father know he’s transitioned from his long time roll of serving our conference as Youth director to now working as a hospital chaplain.

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Her

He shared of a recent experience of visiting a man

who was wrestling with his identity. The man was someone who nurses, doctors, and even other chaplains were having difficulty talking to because of erratic behavior. However Dad shared after spending a little time with the man, the man told him…I want to give my life to Jesus, how do I give my life to Jesus?! I want to be baptized! Dad recalled to us this man was looking for freedom from what had plagued him. Dad said, at the moment were not set up to do a baptism, but we can do an anointing now. He said and as far as giving your life to Jesus we can do that right now to. We just need to pray! How do I pray, I don’t know how to pray, I have never prayed!” Dad said, its easy, would you like to repeat the words I say, only saying them out-loud to Jesus?

My Dad had served as an SDA minister for 40 years, and suddenly he was back to the basics of teaching a grown man how to pray, was being given the opportunity to offer freedom and peace that can be found through Jesus!

This brings me back to our original story. Paul and Silas chained down in a prison in Philipi. change slide

Acts 16:25–28 ESV

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”

Paul and Silas had been imprisoned for delivering freedom to a woman afflicted with a spirit holding her body hostage. They were literally chained down and singing, praising, and praying. When you count it a joy to suffer for the cause of Christ, there’s really nothing man can do to you. It’s tremendously hard to break this kind of spirit.

Honestly if the Jailer were out of the equation, itd make for an easier escape for all the prisoners. But something about Paul and Silas had voluntarily changed those in prison.

Acts 16:29–32 ESV

And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.

Later Paul and Silas would be freed, the town magistrates attempting to do it quietly, when they discovered their beating had been done illegally because of being untried Roman citizens. The reality was though. That jail had been exactly where God wanted them. Because although they were bound they offered freedom to those who were there. They offered freedom to a jailer, who was saying “Set me free!”

Believe in the Lord Jesus! You’ll be saved! You’ll be free!

Don’t you want to be like the woman who offered freedom to Danny?

Be like Paul freeing the prisoners from more than their shackles,

Be like the hospital chaplains like my Dad offering hope in peoples lives in their greatest moments of grief!

Or maybe you are the one weighed down yourself, maybe you are the one seeking relief. Are you convicted God is calling you away from sin in your life, sin you have tried and tried and tried to overcome? Are you looking for community? Accountability? Maybe one of our soon to be starting up small groups is the place for you to find that peace, and freedom?

Are you the person who has slipped into legalism, or at the very least been lacking in compassion? Hey the good news, together we can find freedom from that!

May Paul’s words remind you today, “We were meant to live in Freedom!” We were meant to live in Freedom! Say it with me, “We were meant to live in Freedom!

Stand with me if that is your desire as we pray, and then sing!