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Sunday, July 5, 2015

“Let Freedom Sing”

A Sermon Based Upon Galatians 1: 1-5, NRSV
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin.   
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Pentecost 6, July 5th, 2015

Yesterday we celebrated 239 of American freedom.   Interestingly, the same year Flat Rock constituted as a church (1783) was the very year American independence was recognized by Great Britain.   After the decisive siege of Yorktown by the Continentals, militia, and French regulars, under the leadership of General George Washington, General Cornwallis surrendered and America was free. 

But our American experience of freedom began even before winning our independence from England.   Most of us remember learning in grade school how the Mayflower set sail for the new world and landed at Plymouth Rock in November of 1620.  It was there that those English dissenters established the Plymouth Bay Colony in Massachusetts.    While the leadership of that historic new colony was seeking religious freedom, the majority of those who came to establish the first permanent settlement of Jamestown were seeking gold, not God (See “American Gospel” by Jon Meachham, p. 41).

Most Americans cherish freedom, but we cherish it in different ways.   Some cherish   individual freedom, which allows us to live any way we choose.   Others greatly cherish the political freedom we have to vote and to choose our own leaders.   Baptists have historically been at the forefront of the struggle for religious liberty, believing that the greatest freedom we have is to be able to worship God in a free country, a free state, and a free church.  

As Christians, we believe that all human freedom, secular and religious, has its true source in the God who liberated Israel from Egypt and who also redeemed us in this Jesus who said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” (Jn. 8.32).   The ‘truth’  Jesus clarified is the truth about himself: “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed”(Jn. 8.36).   However you  look at it, ‘freedom,’  individual and religious, is a core value of our Christian faith.

This is why Paul’s letter to the Galatians should be important to us.   Galatians is the New Testament book that has been nicked-named ‘the Magna Carta of Christian Liberty’.    As Paul himself expressed it:  “It is for freedom that Christ has set you free.  So, stand firm.”  (Gal. 5.1).   For the next several weeks we are going to consider how we should continue to ‘stand firm’ in this freedom that finds both its center and its source our Lord Jesus Christ.  

FREEDOM:  OUT OF THIS WORLD
Notice how Paul introduces us to his letter about Christian freedom with a very unique beginning.   He reminds his readers and us that he is ‘an apostle—sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities’  (1:1).   Already, we have our first important clue to help us define what Christian freedom means.   It is a freedom that is from beyond our human capability---it is a gift that only comes ‘through Jesus Christ, and God the Father….” (1.1b). 

Most of you have send or heard of the recent release of the Academy Award Winning movie,  “12 Years a slave.”   It is the true story of a Freeman, Solomon Northup, who  in 1853 was kidnapped from a free state in the North and then made to endure the suffering of being a slave in the deep south until he was able to prove his rights as a free man.    While most of us have not known what it is like to be ‘enslaved’ like African Americans have, we all need to understand that it our human tendency to hurt and to enslave each other.   You can read the story of bondage all the way back to the opening pages of the Bible, when Adam submitted to the bondage of sin,  or when Israel was overcome by the bondage of Egypt.    The ‘supernatural’ not the natural message from God through Moses was,  and still is,  “Let my people go….”

What Paul wants us to know is that this is the source and the reason for the gospel of Jesus Christ,  to help people become ‘free’ from those things in life that can capture us, hook us, entangle us, and enslave us.   No matter which way you define the gospel, you must finally understand that the gospel is a ‘liberating’ work of God, not liberating us to be free to destroy ourselves or others, nor to live in any way we want, but it is a liberating gospel that is sent from God to help us ‘get free’ from the forces of human life that can hurt and hinder us from living out our God-given potential.

Again, as we begin reading this letter, we must see that it is purposely ‘not’ a message like other human messages we hear all the time.   In advertisements we hear salesmen and sales women trying to get us to buy a certain product, so we have a better life, but often they get the better life because we buy their product.   This same kind of ‘false promise’ happens over and over in our world as people go after the kinds of ‘freedom’ that are only mirages.   The freedom that is ‘not of human origin’ is not another ‘get free’ product.   The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ that has been established on earth by God, when Jesus was ‘raised from the dead’ (1.1).   We are not talking about things that are ‘humanly possible’, but we are talking about something that is humanly hoped  for and desperately needed.   It is our human hope, but this is a hope of freedom that comes from God, and is not from humans.  

On the day before spring, a story on the news was told about a young, less than 2 year-old boy in Pennsylvania, who fell into a cold creek and should have drowned.  For 101 minutes medical personnel worked to try to get his breathing and heart re-started.  Some call it a miracle that the boy not only survived, but he came back to life in a very normal way.  The news media said that ‘thanks to the training of the medical team….”.   Of course, they were like Paul,  sent, called, and trained to do a job to save a life,  but many times that training doesn’t work out.  This time it did.  One news person on ABC, pointed up to heaven acknowledging that this indeed was a miracle that could only be explained as a miracle from God in heaven.   I don’t think you have to figure out a miracle, but you can be thankful for it,  learn from it, and give God the glory for life that is always a gift.  

Paul wants us to know that our ‘freedom’ is a gift that is just like this.   There is a human side to freedom, especially in how it comes to us, but ultimately the gift of freedom is a gift that is ‘not from human beings nor through human authorities….   Freedom is a gift from the very God who in Christ ‘died to make us free’,  as the Battle hymn of the Republic so beautifully puts it.   Our freedom has many faces, but the ultimate source is not from us, but it is for us, because it is a gift from beyond.

A GIFT OF GRACE AND PEACE
Paul also describes the nature of this gift of freedom, as ultimately a gift of  grace and peace’ which comes from “God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ”.    Paul’s common greeting reflects ‘uncommon grace’ and much too ‘uncommon peace’.   Grace and Peace is Paul’s wish for the churches, because it is God’s wish and dream for the world,  to be a world that finds freedom through ‘grace and peace’.   Is there any other way to find it?

When we sing,  “Let Freedom Ring”,  we really mean,  “Let Grace and Peace” reign,  because without peace there is no true freedom and without grace---that is, without receiving God’s gift of grace and extending that grace to other people around us, there is no lasting, real, genuine peace.    If we want freedom, or if we want our freedom to continue, we must also be a people of ‘grace’ and a people of ‘peace’.

Where does such ‘grace and peace’ come from?    Doesn’t it come through the message of the gospel?   The message of good news is that because of what God has done in Jesus Christ, by forgiving us of our sins, and by extending God’s grace, not just to Israel who keeps the law, but also to any who will receive God’s love by faith, through grace.    Now that God has made ‘peace’ with us,   through Jesus Christ, we can God’s peace as a ‘gift’ of ‘grace’ which we can give to others.   It this way, our own freedom---that is the freedom God gives to us, comes to us as we receive grace and make peace.    This is how the wonderful gospel is received by us as we receive it and then pass it along.    It is this kind of new reality, which begins in our hearts, that makes freedom possible, not only in us, but around us, and it makes freedom ring out in a world where freedom is still under threat.


In our world today, one of the greatest threats to grace and peace is the radical Islamic nation of Isis.   We all have watched their bloody rampage across the world and how innocent people continue to be killed, how human culture and civility is being threatened and destroyed.   The question comes to us, as Christians and as Americans,  in regard to how we can wish ‘grace and peace’ in a fallen world when evil is still alive and well.   How can we follow and live the Sermon on the Mount, which calls us to love our enemies?   How can we give grace and make peace, when we have come to believe the only way to stop this evil is to ‘make war’?

This is not a new question.   It was the same kind of question that was put before the human race during the rise of Nazism, Communism, or many other kinds of extremely radical evil threats the world has known.    How do we ‘let freedom ring’,  when we know that there are threats to freedom that constantly raise up their heads,  like radical Islam is doing today?   How do we attempt to uphold justice, while extending our hand in goodness, righteousness, fairness and peace?   Isn’t this still the most pressing question for Christians, for Americans, and for the world?  

I don’t want to make this a political sermon about what our government should or shouldn’t do, but I want to keep with the biblical discussion that is before us in Paul.  But any discussion of liberty will, should and does affect how we live free as Christians in this free country, and how we support the values that God has set loose in the world---through Jesus Christ.   How can we wish ‘grace and peace’ even when we there comes a time or a historical moment, we may have to keep peace by deciding to ‘make war’?

When I go back to the original American Revolution, which was fought on the very good ground of ‘liberty and justice for all’, I think we can find a way to understand  that sometimes, even to live out the God’s dream of ‘grace and peace’ sometimes may require us to put up a ‘fight’.    But what kind of fight, is the question, isn’t it?    There is all kinds of imagery in the Bible about ‘putting on armor’ that is more spiritual than militaristic.   There is also powerful words from Paul about ‘fighting the good fight’  which not at all the same as fighting the way the world fights.    Is there a place for fighting ‘a good fight’ that puts on the ‘armor of humanity’ rather than the ‘armor of God?    How do we keep our freedom secure?    While we can never justify war, or killing, or violence, on any grounds, are their times we must seek justice, righteousness, and goodness ‘through strength’ because we know that we also live in a fallen world?  

FREE FROM THIS EVIL AGE
For me, at least,  the answer to how to wish ‘grace, peace’ and ‘freedom’ in a fallen world comes in what Paul says next, when he reminds us that ‘the Lord Jesus Christ….gave himself for OUR SINS,  that he might DELIEVER US FROM THIS PRESENT EVIL AGE….”  Paul reminds us that there is no lasting ‘freedom’ without being ‘delivered’ or made ‘free’ from ‘this present evil age’, which we are all subjected under.   In other words,  even if we, or our government, decides that we too must take up arms to fight,  we can only fight with the full understanding that it’s not just ‘them’ who are the sinners, but it is us too.

My recent studies about the Muslim world seem to verify this.   While there is no excuse for the violent acts of radical Islam, there are reasons.  Part of the reasons radical Islam is able to attract followers is because, as Western nations of power and influence must admit, the radicalization in the Middle East today is feeding off the mistakes and the misdeeds of our own western governments in the past.   There is just no way around the truth that before we can receive the ‘good news’ of the gospel, and before we can take the ‘good news’ of ‘grace and peace’ to the world,  we must also be willing to receive the bad news about ourselves.   The gospel that brings freedom must always be a gospel that includes ‘OUR SINS’ as the reason for Jesus’ death.   It is never as simple as ‘us’ against ‘them.   Even if we decide to fight the enemy, we must remember and never forget, that the enemy is also inside of us.

I believe that Jesus and Paul are right to understand that the source of freedom is the freedom that begins in each of our own hearts.   Until we find ‘freedom’ within ourselves, we can’t understand the full importance of freedom, nor can we take the wonderful of message of freedom to the world.   And we have to take this message to the world, don’t we?  We can’t wait until the whole world comes to us seeking the freedom we have.  We have to go out there and take the message, so that they can have what we have.   But do we even realize what we have?   Do we remember how freedom rings, not just in our ears, but also in our hearts?

Not long ago, I was getting a haircut and my barber reminded me of a story I once told about freedom.  It was a story about siblings, a brother and sister, who spent the summer together at grandma’s.   One day, the little boy was skipping rocks on the farm pond and accidently hit and killed one of grandma’s prize winning ducks.  He did not go to tell Grandma, but his sister was hanging up clothes nearby and saw the whole thing.   After supper the sister asked her brother to help her wash dishes.   He didn’t want to until she made him, because she would tell grandma about the duck.   Then,  she got him to do other things,  on top of his own chores of taking care of the farm animals.   As time went by,  he was doing as much of her chores as he was his own.  

Finally,  the boy decided he would not being enslaved by his sister’s wishes any longer.  He went to his grandma to tell her the truth.   To his surprise, grandmother told him that  she had also seen him kill the duck, and she had also watched him live in slavery to his sister’s wishes and wondered how long it would take him to come and tell the truth.   All he had to do to be forgiven and free, would have been to come and tell Grandma the truth.   If only he had loved the freedom of being forgiven as much as he loved the freedom of hiding the truth.   But now, he has learned, and he is free, so he can enjoy the rest of the summer.

If only we could understand what kind of ‘freedom’ we could ALL have if we would let freedom ring, not just in our ears, but also 'sing' in our hearts.   Isn’t this where all freedom begins?   It begins within as we let our lives be free in God’s amazing, redeeming grace.  Let freedom Sing!, then is will always ring!  Amen.

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