How to Live Free!
Various Texts
Introduction””
“Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.”
~Moshe Dayan
“There are two freedoms – the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.”
~Charles Kingsley
“Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.”
~Harry Emerson Fosdick
“I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery.”
~Author Unknown
Nelson Mandela: “For to be free is not merely to cast off one”™s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedoms of others.”
We are FREE in God”™s grace in Jesus! Free from God”™s condemnation, free from the dread of death and hell! Free in grace to live by the power and direction of the Holy Spirit to God”™s glory! Free from the opinions and religious standards of men! We are FREE!
BUT, . . .
Swindoll: “Believing grace is one thing. Living it is another.”
“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
~George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, “Maxims: Liberty and Equality,” 1905
4 Responsibilities with regard to your freedom in Jesus:
1. Enjoy your freedom as a gift from God.
READ Acts 15:10-11 from The Message
Galatians 2:15-16 [The Message]””“We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it””and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.”
John 3:16 [Quote]
—Cup of Water + 1 Drop of Arsenic=Poison
(NOT Refreshment!)
We are saved by grace in Jesus to live daily in the grace of Jesus!
1 Tim. 4:1-6–“The Spirit makes it clear that as time goes on, some are going to give up on the faith and chase after demonic illusions put forth by professional liars. These liars have lied so well and for so long that they”™ve lost their capacity for truth. They will tell you not to get married. They”™ll tell you not to eat this or that food””perfectly good food God created to be eaten heartily and with thanksgiving by believers who know better! Everything God created is good, and to be received with thanks. Nothing is to be sneered at and thrown out. God”™s Word and our prayers make every item in creation holy.” (The Message)
Colossians 2:16-23 [READ from The Message]
Enjoy God”™s gifts with prayerful and grateful hearts! God wants you to worship Him in the exercise of your freedom in Jesus!
2. Guard your freedom because it is a gift from God.
Galatians 5:1-2”” “Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ”™s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered.” (The Message)
Do not let others bind you with their rules, their standards, their personal practices, when God doesn”™t make the same demands!
Swindoll: “Faith plus works is a catchy tune. It sounds harmless, even helpful at first. If we listen long enough, we”™ll find ourselves humming it. Then singing it. Then living it. Then forgetting all about grace” (8).
Swindoll: “We”™ll go to the wall and square off against any enemy who threatens to take away our national freedom, but we”™ll not be nearly so passionate as Christians under grace to fight for our rightful liberty. Let enough legalists come aboard and we will virtually give them command of the ship. We will fear their frowns, we will adapt our lives to their lists, we”™ll allow ourselves to be intimidated, and for the sake of peace at any price (even though it may lead to nothing short of slavery), we will succumb to their agenda” (91).
NOT Jesus! He openly rebuked them!
Matthew 23:24-26”“ “Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisees, first cleanse the inside of the cup and the dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.” (NKJV)
Swindoll: “Trust me, legalists don”™t get the message if you”™re unsure and soft with them” (113).
Are you guilty of trying to “out-god” God by imposing your personal preferences on others? Or, are you guilty of trying to “out-god” God by submitting to others”™ standards in fear? With all energy and vigor””and by way of clear rebuke and assertion of the truth–we must guard our freedom in Christ against both the legalist within ourselves and in our community.
*HOW do you know the difference between a modern-day Pharisee and a Christian who isn”™t quite as free as you may be? The same way Jesus and Paul did. The legalist will always assert his/her legalism as the main thing and will try to impose it on others. The growing believer who still struggles with some of these issues will focus on the gospel and be confused about freedom.
3. Limit your use of your freedom out of love for other Christians.
1 Cor. 10:31-10:33”“ “So eat your meals heartily, not worrying about what others say about you””you”™re eating to God”™s glory, after all, not to please them. As a matter of fact, do everything that way, heartily and freely to God”™s glory. At the same time, don”™t be callous in your exercise of freedom, thoughtlessly stepping on the toes of those who aren”™t as free as you are. I try my best to be considerate of everyone”™s feelings in all these matters; I hope you will be, too.” (The Message)
Galatians 5:13-14”” “It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure you don”™t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that”™s how freedom grows.” (The Message)
Is our priority our own pleasure in the exercise of our freedom, or helping/building up a brother/sister in Christ who doesn”™t fully understand our freedom in Christ?
4. Limit your use of your freedom in order to be able to share the Gospel with unbelievers.
1 Corinthians 9:19-23–“Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized””whoever. I didn”™t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ””but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I”™ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn”™t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it.” (The Message)
How might you need to limit your use of your freedom in Jesus so that a friend or co-worker or family member can hear the truth of Jesus”™ grace from you? What might you be doing that could be hindering that person from really understanding Jesus?
Piper: “You might say, ”˜That sure sounds involved.”™ But life is involved. This is the sort of careful thinking you must do if you are going to take the risks involved in adapting to all kinds of people so that you might save some. As soon as you say, ”˜I have made myself slave to all”™ and ”˜I have become all things to all me”™, you are on the brink of idolatry and compromise and worldliness and sin. You are walking the razor”™s edge between fruitless separatism and unprincipled expediency. If you fall one way you are of no use because you have no connection with the world; if you fall the other you are of no use because you are just like the world. How do you keep your faith and your freedom and your radical zeal to win people and not just copy people? . . . I am not bound to earn my salvation by the law . . . We are not without the law of God . . . We are under the law of Christ. This is the law of love . . . Galatians 5:14, “The whole law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ”˜You shall love your neighbor as yourself”™ . . . In freedom, for love”™s sake, you try to overcome unnecessary, alienating differences that cut you off from unbelievers . . . Christ died to set us free. Free from the wrath of God, and free from the loveless limits of the law. Free for love and eternal life. Are we using our freedom to make this good news plain? Or are we so separatistic that we have no connection with unbelievers; or are we so worldly that they don”™t know we have anything radically different to offer?”
Paul would say this: “Don”™t tell me there are rules I must keep to be saved””and, if you do, I”™ll fight you over that! Salvation is by faith in Jesus alone! But if I need to live by someone else”™s rules for a time, out of love, in order to build up a fellow Christian or so that an unbeliever might hear and understand the message of God”™s free grace in Jesus, then I”™m more than happy to limit my use of my freedom, because Christ has freed me, first and foremost, to love as He loved!
Conclusion””“If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I think of as my strong points; if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting ”˜Who made thee to differ?”™ And ”˜what has thou that thou hast not received?”™ then I know nothing of Calvary love. If I take offense easily, if I am content to continue in cool unfriendliness, though friendship be possible, then I know nothing of Calvary love. If I feel bitterly towards those who condemn me, as it seems to me, unjustly, forgetting that if they knew me as I know myself they would condemn me much more, then I know nothing of Calvary love.” (Amy Carmichael, Swindoll, 356).
“Love has a hem to her garment that trails in the very dust; it can reach the stains of the streets and the lanes . . . and because it can, it must” (G. Frederick Owens, Swindoll, 356).
1 John 3:16””“This is how we”™ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves.” (The Message)