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Monday, July 9, 2018

Christmas Stands for Freedom

It's Christmas in July
            At my church, our tradition is to have a Christmas in July service every year.  It's a way to do something special in the middle of July, which can sometimes be an off month while so many families are away on vacation.  I also enjoy the Christmas in July service because we get to hear the Christmas story and sing Christmas songs, without all the business and stress normally associated with the holiday in December.  And really, any time is a good time to celebrate Christmas because Christmas is the beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ.  The Good News goes on to tell us how Jesus lived, how he died on the cross for our sin, and how he rose again on the third day.  Today, I want to explain how Jesus did all this to win our freedom.  (Click here to watch a really cute and funny retelling of the Christmas story by the kids of Southland Christian Church.)

Galatians 2:19-21
19 For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. 20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.

There are 613 Old Testament Laws
            Some of the 613 Old Testament laws are moral laws.  They forbid things like murder, theft, adultery, sexually immoral, etc....  These moral laws seem to be universal across all cultures throughout history.  You almost don't need to be told not to do these things.  For instance, people just inherently seem to know you shouldn't murder--that killing another human being is abhorrent.  Even the most uncivilized cultures have known this.  (People still commit murder, but they know it's wrong or use some twisted reasoning to justify it.)
            Other laws in the Old Testament are civil laws.  They were designed to help the Hebrew/Israelite people living together in society get along.  Anytime you get a lot of people living together, it seems you need rules so everyone can get along.  Many of those civil laws are obsolete for us today, because we don't live in ancient Israel and most of us aren't farmers (and if we are, we don't do it the way they did it back then).  So many of the civil laws of the Old Testament no longer apply to us today.
            A third set of laws were ceremonial (or religious) laws.  These were rules about religious festivals and ceremonies designed to help people practice their religion.  These are law about what kinds of food will make you unclean if you eat them and how to sacrifice animals to atone for sin, etc. 
            Moral laws are universal principles of right and wrong (which we know in our heart, unless we are mentally ill or just choose to ignore our conscious).  The Old Testament civil laws are pretty much obsolete because we are so far removed from the context and culture they addressed.  And Jesus came and set us free from the religious, ceremonial laws. 

What is the Purpose of All these Laws?
            God gave the Law for a reason.  We have already mentioned some practical functions of the various laws.  However, in Romans 3:20, Paul tells us the main purpose of the Law.  He said, “No one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.”  The Law in the Old Testament shows us how messed up we are and how desperately we need God to come and save us because we cannot save ourselves.  When we start to think we are good people, the Law shows us how sinful we are.  You could say the Law is the Bad News that makes us so thankful for the Good News of Jesus Christ.  One thing we can know for sure:

The Law Cannot Save You
            Before Jesus came, the people of the Bible believed you could only earn God’s approval and be saved from sin and death by fulfilling all the 613 Old Testament laws.  People broke down into different schools of thought about this.  One group was the Sadducees.  These were very intellectual types.  They tended to be cynical about religion.  They saw how impossible it was to fulfill the whole law and so just looked at religion as a way to enhance your life, maybe a tool to advance yourself, or for the elite to wield power over the masses.  You might argue that many Sadducees were practical atheists or agnostics.  They believed this life was all you had to live and there was no life after death.  Therefore, they used religion to gain as much power as possible in this life.  They are still people like that in our world today.
            Another group that took the opposite approach of the Sadducees were the Essenes.  Many believe John the Baptist was an Essene.  The Essenes thought society was so corrupt you had to completely separate from it.  So they went out into the wilderness and decided to start over from scratch.  They were fanatical about their religion and wanted to build their own utopia where everyone followed the Old Testament Law perfectly.  Unfortunately, the Essenes soon realized the new society they formed was not be perfect because they were not perfect and their imperfection made their utopia imperfect.  There are people in our world today that subscribe to a similar view as the Essenes.  They think our world is so corrupt, they want to pull away from it.  So they start their own commune or cult that aims to start over.  Others, move way out into an isolated area of the country and try to live off the grid.  Things never work out the way they're planned, because people are sinful and imperfect and any society, cult, monastery, commune, or utopia we try to build always ends up ruined by our own problems.
            Then there were the Pharisees, which we read about a lot in the New Testament.  They chose to remain in society, but meticulously tried to follow the Law perfectly and taught others to do the same.  The Pharisees were so passionate about the Law they wrote detailed instructions about all of the 613 laws, so that they would know exactly what was expected.  So for instance, one very simple law in the Ten Commandments says, "Remember to observe the Sabbath Day and keep it holy."  But the Pharisees wanted to know exactly how to do that.  How far can you walk before it's considered work?  What if you are carrying a backpack, does that make it work?  How much weight would be allowable.  And so for instance, they said you could only walk about a half a mile; anything beyond that is work.  And I believe I read somewhere that you could only have so many tacks in your sandals to hold them together because too many tacks would make the load you carry as you walk too heavy and it would be considered work!  Does that sound ridiculous?  Well, I can tell you from experience, if you go to a hotel in Jerusalem today on the Sabbath Day and you get in an elevator, it is automatically programed to stop on every floor.  Why?  Because to push the button for the floor you want to get off at is considered work and is prohibited on the Sabbath Day!
            You can get so busy trying to following all these laws, you are no longer free to follow God!  And that's what the Apostle Paul found.  He started out as a Pharisee who devoted his entire life to following God's Law perfectly.  However, he never found any peace in it.  It actually lead him away from God.  He started persecuting Christians, having them arrested and killed, all in the name of his religion.   Until, one day, God appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus in a blinding light and said, "Why are you persecuting me?"  And Paul replied, "Who are you Lord?" He didn't even know who God was anymore, because of all his religious rules.  So Paul found God again.  And that's why he said in Galatians 2:19, “[I] stopped trying to meet all [the Law's] requirements—so that I might live for God.”
            Well, most of us today are not Pharisees and we don't live in Bible times.  However, there is a false religion in our day that says:  “If I’m a good person, I’ll go to heaven.” The same school of thought believes“If I am good, God will reward me.”  Sometimes this religious belief is expressed in the form of a troubling question.  We ask, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  But what the Law shows us is there are no good people.  "All have sinned, all fall short of God's glorious standard."  (Romans 3:23)
            It is incredibly ignorant to think we can be good enough to earn God's blessings.  Our modern notions of what it means to be a “good person” is absurdly naïve.  Compare to purest person you know today to some of the holy people from the past.  Take the great protestant reformer, Martin Luther as an example.  Luther was a Roman Catholic monk.  He had dedicated his entire life to the service of God.  He would not marry or have any romantic relationships.  He gave up the priviledge of producing children and took a vow of poverty.  On a pilgrimage to the Vatican in Rome, he crawled on his hands and knees to express his humility and devotion to God.  Yet none of Luther's strenuous religious devotion helped.  Luther said he never felt remotely worthy of God's love.  His sin was ever before him, convicting him, making him feel shame and guilt, and condemning him to hell.  And the Apostle Paul, the herald of freedom in Galatians, was at one time a Pharisee who said no one surpassed him in holiness and dedication to God's Law.  However, Paul was driven to madness by his guilt and shame, because the Law always condemned him.  Thankfully, both Luther and Paul finally woke up and realized you can't do anything to earn salvation; it is a free gift of God we receive through faith in Jesus Christ.  Do you know anyone who is as holy as men like Luther or the Apostle Paul?
            Isaiah 64:6 says, "When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags."  And James 2:10 says, "For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws."  Martin Luther said, "If my sin was so great and terrible that it required the crucifixion of the Son of God, how can I ever think that following the Law can have any affect whatsoever on my salvation or in winning God's approval?” 
            It can't.  Remember, Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsamene, just before his arrest and crucifixion, "Father, if there is any other way to do this, let this cup of suffering pass from me. However, not my will, but Your will be done."  And the cup didn't pass from Jesus.  He was crucified, because it was the only way to pay the price of our freedom from sin and death.

Receive God's Christmas Gift
            That's why it's so glorious and joyous that Jesus was born as a baby? No wonder we sing Christmas carols like – “Joy to the World!  The Lord Has Come!  Let Earth Receive Her King!”  Jesus didn’t come as a God (He was God, but he was born as a man).  He lived life as one of us and faced all the same trials and temptations and suffered like we suffer.  He knows our struggle.  He lived as one of us, but did not sin.  He perfectly fulfilled the Law that we couldn’t.  He died on the cross as the atonement for our sins.  His blood paid the penalty for our sin and set us free from the consequences of our sin.  His resurrection from the grave heralds the hope we have in Christ—that we are set free from sin and death and can rise to new life if we trust in Christ.  
            So now, we are made right with God through Christ—not by trying to be good enough.  God loved us so much He sent His Son to save us!  How much more could God possibly do to prove He loves us?  He has already done everything! 
            Now it is up to you.  All you have to do is accept it—receive this incredible Christmas gift God gave to you.  Will you? Will you accept God’s Christmas gift to you?

Thursday, July 5, 2018

Bearing Good Fruit - The Truth As Far As I Can Tell...


Here’s a poem I once wrote:
                 
This way friend!  Look, what do you see?
Here, taste the fruit of this fruitful tree.
A good tree bears good fruit.  It’s a pleasure to behold.
A bad tree bares bad fruit—rotten, mushy, mold.
 
Crisp refreshment, sweet juices drip.
Scents so heavenly—fruity, airy, whiffs.
Abundance, running over, the harvest bursting full.
This good tree bears good fruit, with a bounty left to pull.
 
Sour repulsion, slimy, mushy pulp.
Pungent, reeking odor—worm-ridden bulbs.
Worthless waste of labor, good only for the flies.
This bad tree bears bad fruit, and those who eat it die.
 
The soil is richly fertile, prepared with care and love.
The trees are pruned so neatly and watered by God above.
The roots do their duty and nourish each budding branch.
But the only thing that matters is if the fruit will make Him dance.
 
So what makes it bad or good?  What makes the discrimination?
Come on, you already know! It’s within your determination.
Good fruit is sweet and tasty—a pleasure to behold.
Bad fruit is spoiled and sour—rotten, mushy, mold.
 
Matthew 7:17-20 – 17A healthy tree produces good fruit, and an unhealthy tree produces bad fruit. 18A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. 19So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. 20Yes, the way to identify a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit that is produced.
 
Of course, I’m no expert and certainly don’t claim to know everything, but that’s the Truth as far as I can tell…
 
Remember, God loves you and so do I!
 

Monday, July 2, 2018

Freedom!

Introduction
            One of the great and classic movies about freedom is Braveheart, which chronicles William Wallace's epic struggle to help Scotland win independence from the British in the 11th century.  In his rousing (yet fictional) speech before the Battle of Stirling Bridge, Wallace inspires his rag tag army to tell their enemies, "...They may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom!"
            On 1775, the American patriot, Patrick Henry, gave another rousing speech in favor of the fight for freedom, where he said, “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
            A couple months ago, I was privileged to travel to San Antonio, Texas where I visited the Alamo, known as the cradle of Texas liberty.  It was at the Alamo that a handful of Texas patriots held off the vastly larger Mexican army for 13 days before they gave their lives in service of Texas liberty.  Texas went on to win independence from Mexico and was a free country for nine years before becoming a state in our American Union.  From those Texas patriots who gave their life for liberty, the expression "Remember the Alamo!" lives on today as a call to free men to stand up and fight, whatever the cost, for freedom.
            It is always inspiring to remember those who have thought it so important to sacrifice for freedom--especially during this time of year when we celebrate the independence of our free United States of America.  Freedom is the paramount theme of our nation.  However, freedom is not originally an American idea.  Freedom was instilled in us by our Creator and freedom has been sought by people throughout the ages because it is part of the human soul. 
            The truest form of freedom was won by Christ, the Son of the Living God on the cross at Calvary.  It was, indeed, the freedom won by Christ that inspired our American forefathers to imagine a country where people were endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
            Over the next five blog post, I will share my thoughts on the Christian idea of freedom based on a reading of Paul's Letter to the Galatians.  For my first installment, let us read Galatians 1:6-10.

Galatians 1:6-10
6 I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News 7 but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.
8 Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you. 9 I say again what we have said before: If anyone preaches any other Good News than the one you welcomed, let that person be cursed.
10 Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.
 
The Galatians and Freedom
            Have you heard of the Celts?  We usually think of Irish or Scottish people when we think of the Celtic culture, but the Celts were a great civilization that spread throughout ancient Europe.  Some of the Celts in that empire invaded what is now modern-day Turkey.  These Celts settled down in Turkey and became the Galatians.  The Galatians were Pagans.  They did not believe in the One True God of the Bible.  They believed in many different Pagan gods.  So suppose they believed there was one god who was in charge of rain, and one over the harvest and another over fertility, and another over war, and so on and so forth.  And the ancient Galatians believed they had to perform so many different religious rituals and sacrifices to appease and gain the favor of the various gods for different seasons of life.  Can you imagine what a headache that would be?  And all this was further complicated by the belief that all the gods didn't get along and they didn't necessarily like human beings!
              And along comes the Apostle Paul with the Good News of Jesus Christ.  Paul preaches to the Galatians:  "All these so called gods you've been worshiping are not gods at all.  There is only One True God; and He is all powerful and all knowing.  He created everything and is over it all.  And furthermore, this One universal God cares about you so much, He came down to earth (as Jesus the Christ) to live as one of us.  And He died on the cross to ransom us from our sins and set us free from the penalty of death that was a consequence of our sins.  On the third day, Jesus rose from the grave and is alive again!  He has defeated death and we can rise to new life too if we trust in Jesus!" 
            And so this was really great news to the Galatians.  Jesus set them free from all the tedious rules and regulations of their pagan religions and the fear of the gods, as well as setting them free from sin and death!  And they received the Good News.  They put their faith in Christ as Lord and Savior.  They willingly and wholeheartedly became Christians.  And the Apostle Paul joyously helped them establish a church--a community of Christian believers who work together to worship Christ and build each other up in the faith and go out and spread the Good News to all they can.
            However, there was a problem.  At this early stage in the Christian era, most Christians in the world were still Jews.  You see, Jesus was a Jew and all his disciples were Jews.  Even the apostle Paul was a Jew.  These people followed the Jewish religion--the rules and ceremonies, festivals, and traditions of the Old Testament Jewish religion.  And so many of the earliest Christians mistakenly thought new converts to the Christian faith must also start following the Jewish religion.  They must follow the Old Testament customs, ceremonies, festivals, and especially they must be circumcised (because circumcision was the hallmark trait of all devout Jews). 
            After Paul left the Galatians to go to another province to preach the Good News about Christ, some of these "Jewish" Christians came to the Galatians and began teaching, "You must be circumcised and start following the Jewish religion or else you're not a real follower of Christ and you will not have eternal life.  And the Galatians, being new to the Gospel and new to the whole concept the One True God, started to believe they must indeed become Jews in order to really be Christians.
            This is a big deal, because it goes down to the very core of our Christian faith.  Are we saved by living the right way or are we saved by faith in Jesus Christ?  Are we justified by a religion or by trusting in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross?  The Apostle Paul taught it was only by faith in Jesus Christ.  The Jewish Christians (known as Judaizers) said it was by faith in Jesus and following the Jewish religion.  Which is it?
             So, Paul wrote this letter to the Galatians to show the Galatians (and us) that we are saved by faith in Jesus Christ alone.  No religion, no ceremony, no rule, no sacrifice, no extra action other than trusting in Jesus Christ is necessary to receive the grace and forgiveness and salvation of God.  Furthermore, Paul argues, if you are trusting in any other requirement, it actually nullifies the salvation we receive by faith in Christ.  Christ came to set us free of the impossible burden of trying to earn God's love.  God loves us as a completely free gift when we trust in Christ alone.  If we ever try to do anything to earn salvation, we cannot receive it. 

So What?  Who Cares? What difference does it make to us today?
            Jesus said, “If the Son sets you free, you are truly free.”  (John 8:36)  Jesus came to set us free from “the rules” of religion.  In fact, Christianity is not a religion; it is a relationship.  You see, Jesus came to the most religious people of his day (the Jewish Pharisees and Sadducees) and told them, you must repent of your sin and turn to God.  Now that was a surprising claim (from these religious leaders perspectives).  The Pharisees and Sadducees were the holiest, most devoutly religious people of Jesus day.  To tell them they were sinners who needed to repent and turn to God sounded ludicrous.  No one was more religious than them. 
            However, Jesus taught that following the rules is not enough.  Even if you could follow them perfectly, you still have a broken relationship with God.  Following the rules is not the issue.  A broken relationship with God is the issue.  Jesus came to heal that broken relationship.  When we have faith in Jesus, the relationship is restored.  People who devoutly follow all the religious rules are often the ones who struggle the most to have faith in Christ to restore their relationship with God.  You see, deeply religious people are often very good people who do what God says and so they may feel God owes them and should be good to them as a reward for their good behavior.  But God doesn't owe us anything and love is freely given, not earned.  A love relationship is built on love and trust, not rules and regulations and rituals and religion.
            Jesus said the first and second greatest commandments are these:  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all you strength, and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as your self.  He said all the religious laws of the Old Testament and all of what the prophets said hangs on these two relational commandments.  They sum up all the religious rules.  They are the heart of the matter.
            Religion and rules are easy, but relationships are messy.  Religion is black and white, but relationships are made up of a thousand million shades of beautiful colors.  Jesus came to set us free from religion so we can enjoy the full beauty of a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  Unfortunately, people often want to leave the less spontaneous and beautiful possibilities of a relationship with the One True and Living God and go back to the confined, black and white (and more predictable) chains of religion.  "A living relationship with God is too complicate," many people complain.  "Just tell me the rules I need follow and I'll do that."
            It will never do.  There is no life in religion.  There is no salvation in rules and ceremonies.  Jesus set us free from all that.  Shall we then go back and enslave ourselves to religions now that we've been set free.  Never!  "Give me liberty or give me death!'
            Trying to live by religious rules is also hopeless because we confuse our culture with our Christianity.  Our culture is the social rules and traditions of the American people.  America was founded on Christian principles and many folks have lived by them for so long they often equate our American way of life with Christianity itself.  The line between what it means to be an American and what it means to be a Christian is fuzzy and many don't know the difference; they think to be one is to be the other and this is not necessarily true.  Still, people believe "good people" must dress a certain way, look a certain, act a certain way, eat certain food, talk a certain way in order to be good in God's eyes.  Yet this is all very confusing because the rules change according to where you live in this great country.  What is acceptable in New York is different from what is acceptable in Georgia.  And as someone who's lived in Georgia almost all my life--though in many different parts--I can tell you the rules are slightly different in middle Georgia than they are in Northwest Georgia and that's different from Northeast Georgia or coastal Georgia!  The rules can even be different depending on the social class or generation to which you belong. 
            Today, many so called "Christians" equate social justice with Christianity.  They say you have to do good and fight for those who are oppressed and help the needy and that this is what real Christianity is at it's heart.  And we should help those in need, but we must be careful that our charity does not become a religion divorced from a relationship with God through Jesus Christ or else it is merely a means to make us feel good about ourselves and earn the favor of "god" in whatever form we imagine god to be (for it certainly is then no longer the God Jesus showed us).  There are many non-Christian charitable organizations in the world that do good.  What makes Christians unique is we feel God has loved us so much--even though we don't deserve it--that we in turn are compelled to love our neighbor as God loves us. 

An Important Question
            As we begin a journey to understand Christian freedom, Galatians challenges us with an important question.  Are you following a different “gospel” than the Gospel of Christ?  We must never forget:  Faith in Christ alone is the only thing that can save you.´ Or as the Apostle Paul puts it in Galatians 5:6 – “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”  So, we will look at this over the next few weeks—the freedom we have through faith in Jesus Christ.  Do you want to know what real freedom is?  Do you want to truly be free?  Our freedom in Christ is so much deeper than fireworks or the fourth of July.  It goes far, far deeper than even America—“the land of the free and the home of the brave.”  Join me for this journey through Galatians and learn about true freedom—something worth dying for, something Christ already died for so that you I could be free indeed.