Called to Liberty

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In June of 1776, a man named Richard Henry Lee, one of the Virginia delegates to the Second Continental Congress, stood before that body with what was to some of them and many other people in the country at that time, what was a radical suggestion. And Mr. Lee’s suggestion, which sounds to us now, 200-some-odd years later, like, oh, it was just always that way.

Everybody agreed. His suggestion that was radical at that time was that the colonies, the 13 colonies from New Hampshire down to Georgia, could and should rule themselves independently of Great Britain, without any interference from the king and parliament. He suggested that in June.

He made a resolution in June of 1776, and they debated it for almost a month. Can you believe that we take it now for granted that we were just always on this collision course to be independent? But they had to debate this.

In some areas of the country, over 50% of the people were still loyal to the crown. So we wonder, why did he suggest that we should be independent? It wasn’t just because he hated the English.

It wasn’t because he was a rebellious man that just didn’t want authority over him. It wasn’t anything like that. It was a history of tyranny and abuse that had been heaped on the American colonists for decades.

The king had dissolved; George III had dissolved their colonial legislatures. the bodies that here in the colonies, I say here Oklahoma wasn’t a colony, but on this side of the ocean in the colonies, they had some kind of say in what they did and what happened to them. He had dissolved those.

He had taken it away. He had imposed taxes on them, you know, the whole taxation without representation. They had imposed taxes on them to pay for his wars without their approval because they were not allowed any seats in the parliament back in London.

And when they protested, he sent troops here, not only to occupy American cities, but actually to be quartered in Americans’ homes. That means the king ordered, and they had to obey, that the soldiers would live in the American people’s homes, that they would have to feed them, they would have to house them, they would have to take care of them. And in return for this, when they continued to protest the taxes, the soldiers that they were housing and feeding opened fire on Americans in Boston, in Lexington, Concord and probably some other places, they blockaded our ports.

People were losing their livelihoods, they were losing their rights, and in some cases they were losing their lives. And it was on the basis of this that Richard Henry Lee looked across the ocean at George III and the British Parliament and then looked back at the Second Continental Congress and said, enough is enough. We should be free.

And they debated this for almost a month, as I said, and on July 2nd, not July 4th, on July 2nd, they voted, yes, we need to be independent. We need to own country. It was just a matter of publishing some sort of nothing like the proposed American Republic had ever been done before.

Anytime people had split apart, it had been over ethnic hatred, it had been over one king hated another, and they were going to take their followers, and they were going to fight each other. Nothing like this had ever been done before where a country broke off on principle and said, we are going to be free. Not just free from your country, but our people are going to be free.

Nothing like this had ever been done before. And so they set out to write a declaration explaining to the world why this was. And two days later, Thomas Jefferson and his committee came back with the rough draft of what we now know as the Declaration of Independence.

On July 4th, 1776, they said, not only are we going to be independent, but we’re going to adopt this declaration explaining to the world why. But they signed it over the course of the next month, and by August 2nd, it was a done deal. And America had proclaimed its independence from Britain. They had proclaimed that we were no longer under the boot of the king and parliament, that we ought to be free.

And so when we go and watch fireworks tonight, tomorrow, if we’ve already done it, as we have our cookouts and things and think about the 4th of July, that’s what we’re commemorating. That’s what we’re celebrating is these 56 men who put their lives on the line adopting that declaration, that piece of paper that day that said, we’re not going to stand for this anymore. Enough is enough.

We’re going to be free. And by the way, some of our history teachers today try to tell us the founding fathers were atheists or agnostics or deists. Among the 56 signers of the Declaration that I mentioned a minute ago, only Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson claimed to be unbelievers.

54 out of the 56 were professing Christians. Now, I don’t know if they’re so orthodox that they’d be part of our church, but they at least profess to be Christians. And as I scanned the list again this morning, three that I know of were actually pastors.

Now, why am I telling you the story, again, that you probably already heard about the Declaration of Independence and our founders being Christian? First of all, because, like I said, people are attacking the idea of Christian foundations of our country, and we need to know our history. We need to know where we came from.

Because the things that led to the Declaration of Independence were not just a bunch of radical, rebellious men that said, we don’t want authority over us anymore and overthrew the king. They were mostly professing Christians who, based on what they understood to be Christian principles, said this is not right because liberty is God’s gift to mankind. Wherever liberty exists, wherever freedom exists, it exists because God put it there.

The history of the world, 6,000 years, is a history of war and tyranny and oppression and people being abused by those over them. And it’s only in countries where God has been recognized for who he is that liberty has existed, that freedom has existed, true freedom. I used to, when I was in college, I used to work as a substitute teacher at Christian Heritage Academy in Dell City.

And one day, walking down the hallway on the first floor, I noticed a small wooden plaque over one of the doorways. I’d walked under it dozens of times and never noticed it. But one day, I happened to notice it, and the verse has stuck in my mind ever since.

A small wooden plaque that said, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, quoting 2 Corinthians 3. 17. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

well folks that’s not only true of our American democracy I won’t claim that all 54 of those 56 were born again I won’t claim that they were all orthodox in every aspect of their thinking but they were people that were looking to the principles of God’s word at the very least and they took their inspiration from what God said and folks just as in 1776 today where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty we as Americans we like that freedom I know I do We tend to, especially among all countries, tend to look at things and say, they can’t tell me what to do. I have rights. And we prize our rights.

And we think that our liberty means that we can just do whatever we want without interference from anybody else. But that’s not quite the whole picture. That’s not what Christian liberty is all about.

See, even more important than our political liberty that we have here in America is our Christian liberty that Jesus Christ bled and died and rose again for. Because, see, they can come and take our freedoms away. They can come and take away our rights here, take away our right to vote, our right to worship, our right to speak our minds freely.

But nobody can ever take away the liberty that Jesus Christ has given us. No one can take that away. Unfortunately, and as we’ll look here at Galatians chapter 5, sometimes we can try to give that up or hand it back.

But nobody can take it away from us because it’s something that Jesus purchased himself. Sorry, I almost said second Galatians. That’s not in there if you’re looking for it.

In Galatians chapter 5, verse 1, Paul says to the churches in Galatia, Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law, grace.

For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. Ye did run well.

Who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you, a little otherwise minded, but he that troubleth you will bear his judgment whosoever he be. And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution?

Then is the offense of the cross ceased. I would they were even cut off which trouble you. For brethren, ye have been called unto liberty.

Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another of the flesh.

What Paul is writing to the church at Galatia, I’m sorry, the churches. If you look in chapter 1, there were several churches there that he’s writing to. If you look at what he’s writing to them about, you read this whole book, and it’s one of my favorite books.

I encourage you to go back and read it sometime from chapter 1, because not only does Paul defend the gospel very well in this book, but you actually see some of his passion getting angry at people who were trying to mix the gospel with other things, who were trying to teach people a false way into heaven. And you see how important it is to know that we understand what the Bible teaches about salvation.

But in chapter 5, as in the rest of the book, he’s talking to these churches that, obviously as Christians, they’ve been set free from the things that they were under by Jesus Christ. And yet there were these teachers creeping in as they did in other churches that were teaching them that not only did you have to trust Christ, not only did you have to receive him as your Savior and be born again, not only did you have to do that to be saved, but once you did that, you actually had to go back and be Jewish on top of it. You had to be circumcised. You had to observe the Mosaic law.

And then and only then would you truly be a child of God. Then and only then would you be saved. So they’re saying it’s Jesus, it’s grace, plus the law.

You had to go back and keep this entire Old Testament if you wanted to be saved. The reason the law existed was to show us how unworthy we were of God. We could not keep the law in its entirety.

That was the point. of the law. And so if Jesus came to fulfill the law and to die, to set us free from those things, what kind of sense did it make for him to die and then us go back and have to do those things?

Because we’re still not able to completely fulfill the law. We can be good by human standards. We can do the right thing.

We can be nice to people. But folks, we still fall far short of a holy God every day. Even if we don’t do something bad, our hearts, our attitudes are not what they need to be.

And we cannot live up to God’s standard of perfection. And that’s what they were insisting on. Yes, you need Jesus, plus you need to go back and you need to fulfill God’s standard of perfection.

You are bound to the law again. And Paul’s question to them is, if you’re bound to the law again, what was the point of Jesus? He says in verse 4, Christ is become of no effect unto you, Whosoever are justified by the law, you’re fallen from grace.

He says, Jesus is irrelevant to you if you’re trying to be justified by the law. And when he says here, you’re fallen from grace, he’s not talking about people losing their salvation. He’s talking about people that are choosing to follow the law.

There’s no more grace there because it’s the law or grace. You can’t have a mixture of both. And Paul’s point in telling them this goes on in chapter 5 to tell us, you were set free from the law.

You were set free from the Old Testament law. We no longer have to follow all the ceremonial laws about hand-washing and sacrifices. And hand-washing is a good idea, though, by the way.

I just would like to clarify that. I am not. I’m kind of a germaphobe.

I am not anti-hand-washing at all. As a matter of fact, I think we should do more. But we shouldn’t have to do it to get into heaven.

Amen? We don’t have to follow the old ceremonial laws and the sacrifices and knowing that so many days I’m unclean and then I have to sacrifice this animal and we’re not under that anymore. And he says if you’re going back to that, what was Jesus for?

And he’s trying to tell the churches in Galatia, wake up, these people are lying to you because they’re saying you’ve got freedom in Christ and now you’re bound to the law again. You can’t have it both ways. You’re either set free in Christ or you’re not.

And he says in verse 1, Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. It’s not even a question. Did he or didn’t he?

He says, wherewith Christ hath made us free. He has already set us free by what he did. He says, stand fast in that liberty.

Hold on to the freedom that you have in Christ. Hold on to that freedom and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. And he tells him again in verse 13, for brethren, you have been called unto liberty. You’ve been called unto liberty.

It’s not something that we just stumbled into. That, okay, we’re Christians, so we’re just going to do what we want. It was actually something that God gave to us that once we’ve trusted Christ, this burden, this weight of the law has been taken off of us.

But we so often are willing to hand over our liberty in Christ. We’re so often willing to neglect it or abuse it. That’s why he had to warn them, again, stand fast in that liberty because it’s so easy to give it up or to neglect it or to abuse it. And as I said a minute ago, I think we tend to have more of an American perspective of what liberty is than we do a Christian perspective.

I’m one of those guys. I think the government should not be telling me what to do. My wife doesn’t even like me to watch the news anymore because the tea party going on in my head kind of spills out my mouth and it’s just kind of tense around the house.

I’m one of those guys. You mean I have the privilege of driving? I’m one of those guys.

I think nobody should be telling me what to do as an American. And as a Christian, I come back and I think that’s not what freedom is about. Freedom doesn’t mean you do whatever you want with no control, with no input from anybody else.

If that were true, the old cliche, we could yell fire in a crowded movie theater and be fine with it. But we know that’s not covered under the right to free speech, or so the Supreme Court tells us. We have more of an American perspective too often on liberty, which means I do what I want when I want, nobody tells me any different, than we do a Christian perspective that says I am free to do the right thing, not because I have to, but because I choose to.

But I’m telling you, church, we need to get away from our American perspective of liberty and get back to a Christian perspective of liberty. A responsible view where we say I am free to do what I’m supposed to, not because I have to, but because it’s a good idea, and because I love God and I want to. Let’s talk for just a minute about what liberty is not.

liberty is first of all not bondage to sin he says in verse one do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage if you read in the book of romans a lot of it talks about being in bondage to sin liberty is not as I said I’m going to do what I want when I want how I want to do it and nobody can tell me anything and that includes god that’s not liberty that’s what the world looks at and thinks they’re free they can do whatever they want but they don’t realize without Christ how in bondage they really are. Before we came to Christ, we didn’t realize what kind of bondage we were really in. Yeah, they can go and they can run the streets and do whatever they want, and nobody can tell them any different or so they think, but they don’t realize that we as human beings are either serving somebody.

We’re either serving God or we’re serving the devil. We’re serving sin. We’re bound to somebody one way or another, and that sin that we allow ourselves to get entangled with will take over our lives, it will drag us down and it will destroy us.

The Bible says that sin is fun for a season. You know what? If there’s anything I’ve learned from Oklahoma weather, it’s that seasons don’t last forever.

They don’t. The fun of sin does not last forever. And so we can think, yeah, I’m free to go and drink and party and sleep around.

But folks, eventually there will come consequences for those things. We will get addicted to things. We will destroy our relationships.

We will destroy our families. We will destroy our joy and happiness. We will if we continue to live the life we lived outside of Christ. And folks, I’m not even talking to the Christian here.

I’m talking to the person who’s never trusted Christ. If we continue on that path, it may feel fun and it may feel good for a while, but eventually our sin will destroy us. If not in this life, then in the next one. The Bible is clear about that.

It says the soul that sins, it shall die. That freedom we think is actually bondage to sin that will take us farther than we ever thought we wanted to go. Will make us do things that we never thought we would do.

But think about that. Have you seen that? People that say, I’m going to go do what I want, and it ends up destroying them.

Folks, that’s the road we’re all on before we receive Christ. We are on a road that will destroy us in this life and lead us to hell in the next. And Satan’s great lie in that fact is that we think we’re free. We think we’re making the choice, but that sin compels us to go further.

Folks, it’s bondage. the world thinks we give up so much to become a Christian. We do give up a lot.

We give up a lot of bondage. We give up a lot of burden that we can’t carry anyway. We give up the things, or we should give up the things, that are going to destroy us.

He says, don’t be entangled again in the yoke of bondage. This idea of going and serving sin and just having a good time is not liberty. It’s not freedom.

It is what the Bible calls the yoke of bondage. It calls bondage to sin. It calls being a slave to sin.

We don’t master sin. According to the book of Romans, sin makes us its slave. It’s bondage.

And that’s not liberty. The second thing that liberty is not is it’s not legalism in religion. This is a real easy one.

Nobody, I don’t think anybody looks at legalism and thinks, oh yeah, I’m free. But Paul obviously thinks it’s important to mention because the whole, well, the bulk of chapter 5 deals with this topic of legalism. returning to laws and rituals and ordinances that we have to follow in order to earn God’s grace, which we can’t do anyway, instead of just receiving the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. That’s certainly not liberty.

Trying to earn your way to heaven through good works, through following rules. He says in verse 4 again, Christ has become of no effect unto you. Whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.

Legalism, let me tell you, is not strict adherence to God’s word. That’s called obedience. Legalism is when we start adding things and people have to live up to my standard and my ideas, and we make our ideas and our opinions and our preferences the standard.

Folks, that’s legalism. When we tell people, you have to dress a certain way, and you have to read the books I read, and you have to walk like I do and talk like I do, or God’s not going to love you, folks, that is legalism. I say again, strict adherence to God’s word.

A lot of times the more liberal people, and I don’t mean politically, I mean theologically, who claim to be Christians try to tell us, oh, you stick to God’s word. You’re one of those legalistic, fundamentalist people. Folks, that’s not legalism.

That’s just being obedient. But when we begin, like the Pharisees, to add things to God’s word, when we begin to add rules, even if we mean well. The Pharisees meant well in the beginning.

They added these hedges, these extra rules around God’s rules, so they couldn’t even get close enough to God’s rules to break them. Well, then their rules that they made up became the standard. God said, rest on the Sabbath, told them that.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The Pharisees said, oh, we don’t want to risk breaking the Sabbath, so you can’t even carry so and so in the standard for getting into heaven. Folks, that’s legalism, not liberty.

When we begin to say, you have to be like me, you have to be like us. We’re the standard. Live up to what we expect, or God won’t love you, folks.

That’s not liberty in Christ. That’s legalism. Paul calls it earlier in the book of Galatians a false gospel. Folks, the standard is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that he freely offers to us when we have no righteousness of our own.

And if we try to do it on our own through our rules, Christ is irrelevant, and we’re not going to get where we’re trying to go. And the third thing that liberty is not is license and lifestyle. This is kind of like the first one, but it’s for Christians.

Bondage and sin is the world saying, yeah, I don’t need God, I’m free to do my own thing, do what I want to do. License and lifestyle is the Christian who adopts that attitude and says, Yes, I’ve been saved, I’m forgiven, and I can just go do what I want and God will forgive me. If I’m living that kind of lifestyle where I don’t care what God says, I’ll just go do what I want and He’ll forgive me, I probably need to check back and see if I really was born again back there.

Check and see if I really was saved, if I really received Christ, because something ought to have changed in my life. And Paul warns them in verse 13, For brethren, you have been called unto liberty. Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

People accuse us as Baptists because we believe in eternal security. We believe that God, that Jesus Christ is powerful enough to hold us eternally secure in him. It’s his righteousness and not our works in the first place.

And so if we can’t get it by works, we don’t lose it by works. And we believe that’s what the Bible teaches. They accuse us of believing that we have a license to sin.

that we can just sin and get by with it and God will forgive us. And, you know, we do believe God will forgive us if we sin. But, folks, we as a church don’t believe or teach, and I hope that we as individuals don’t believe or teach, that as a Christian we have this license to sin where because God will forgive us, we can just go do what we want.

We belong to Christ. Something should have changed. But he was warning them, you have this liberty, and again, this American idea, I’m going to go do what I want. The Christian idea says, no, I’m free to do the right thing.

He says, you have this liberty, don’t use it as an occasion to go and serve the flesh. It would be real easy to think, God has set me free from going and serving the law. God has set me free and he’s going to forgive me.

I’ve got this freedom in Christ, I can just go crazy. That would be the easy thing to think. Folks, God hasn’t just set us free to go do whatever.

He set us free for some very specific purposes. Just like in the American Revolution, I mentioned that these guys were not just rebellious people. They didn’t want any authority over them.

You’re not going to tell me what to do. If that was the case, they wouldn’t have set up the government, but they did. They set up a representative democracy where we make rules we abide by through our elected representatives.

And there was federalism and checks and balance and balance of power. They did all these things so that nobody just got no one important to have liberty within limits, that we were free to do the right thing. By the way, they got that from the Bible.

Paul said here, you have liberty, use it the right way. So he’s given us this liberty so that we don’t have to worry about the law. We don’t have to worry about the Old Testament rituals and sacrifices in order to get to heaven.

But we follow the principles of God’s word because it’s right and because it’s what’s best for us. I’m not saying here, when I talk about Christian liberty and doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, I’m not saying we throw out the Old Testament. I’m not saying we’re not under any law.

we’re under the law of Christ, as the New Testament makes clear. We still follow the principles of God’s Word, but not because we’re worried that if we step out of line once, He’s going to zap us and that’s the end of it. We follow the principles of God’s Word because we love God, because we know He loves us, and we know that what He’s set up is what’s best for us.

And we are free to choose to do the right thing. We are free to choose to serve God.