Freedom- does it offend you?

Mr. Lincoln walked into the slave market, and placed the winning bid on a young African woman. Seeing the anger and suspicion in her eyes, he walked away from the slave market with her, then turned to her and said, “You are now free!”

A series of questions were hurled from her to Mr. Lincoln. “What does that mean? Does it mean I can say what I want to say? Does it mean I can do whatever I want to do? Does it mean I can go wherever I want to go, and be whatever I want to be?”

Mr. Lincoln assured her that indeed she could, because she was truly free. The story is told that she then said, “Then I would like to go with you.”

Some people tell us that when Christ sets us free, we are “free to obey, but not to disobey”. I’m sorry, but that really doesn’t make any sense. If we are truly free it means we are free to stay or go, to do right or to do wrong. When He said, “the one whom the Son sets free shall be free indeed” I think he really meant it.

As parents, we have eventually got to let our children go, release our control over them, and let them make their choices whether we agree with them or not. You don’t do that to a five year old. But to a twenty-five year old, you do!

As American citizens we have fought to establish a society based on freedom such as is unheard of in Beirut or Baghdad, North Vietnam or North Korea, Singapore or Saudi Arabia. Sure there are Americans who have abused this freedom. But that goes with the territory. Without potential for taking unworthy advantage, there is not true freedom.

Scripture tells us that our sins were paid for on a cross, and there is nothing left to pay, that it was “finished” and we are forgiven. To those who believe, there is given a new standing in grace, along with a new heart that at least desires to please God, even though we often fail.

For followers of Christ, there is some good news and some bad news: the good news is that you are really, actually, no strings attached, honestly free! The bad news is the same: you are really free, so you can’t hide behind the rules any more. You are responsible to let Him lead you without a tight-knit formula and a rigidly controlled protective cocoon. You may choose to follow Him or not. You may go away, into a world where there is freedom to choose to be careless and foolish if you want to. But there are also consequences to the choices you make. After experiencing some of those consequences, you are free to come back home. The light is always on, and the door is always open. After you come back, you are still free to leave again.

When we understand grace, and build our lives on the truth of grace, we know there are risks involved. Sometimes people go into sin. Many times I have had people tell me, “If I believed that, then it wouldn’t matter what I did, I could do anything I wanted to and still be saved and God would still love me!” It used to bother me and I would say, “No, you don’t understand!” Now I say, “Well…yeah, you’ve got it!” It scares me to say that, but it’s the truth.

I want to give you a quote from somebody who had more guts than I do. This man shook the Christian world by his understanding of radical grace.

Martin Luther said:

“There are some who have no understanding to hear the truth of freedom and insist upon their goodness as means for salvation. These people you must resist, do the very opposite, and offend them boldly lest by their impious views they drag many with them into error. For the sake of liberty of the faith do other things which they regarded as the greatest of sins… use your freedom constantly and consistently in the sight of and despite the tyrants and stubborn so that they may learn that they are impious, that their law and works are of no avail for righteousness.”

Luther was saying that it is better to sin with boldness because you are saved by grace, than to be so uptight about doing right that people will think that only “good people” can be Christians!

The true Gospel was an offense in Paul’s time, and in Luther’s time, and is also in our time. If you are trying instead of trusting, working instead of believing, or boasting in your goodness instead of admitting your present sinfulness, what I’ve written here will royally upset you. I will close with a quote from D.L. Moody, who was was travelling by railroad train and talking to a performance-oriented religious man. Moody said, “There is one big difference between your religion and mine. You spell yours “D-O.” I spell mine “D-O-N-E!”

More good news, and this is the best of all! If you, just like Mr. Lincoln’s former slave, want to just stay close to the One who set you free, you are free to do that, too. You’re welcome to remain!

But not as a slave.

The challenge to change*

I remember it well, even though it actually was many years ago. Our family was going through a hard time, so I thought it would help and encourage us if we visited a midweek “prayer meeting” church service. Unfortunately I was wrong. The prayer time was mostly a boring mixture of gossip and discouragement. The rest of the time was spent discussing the plans for a new building. We left feeling angry and disappointed, as if we had gone to a fish fry and they were out of fish.

However, this turned out to be the wake-up call that I needed, as I realized that this same kind of thing was happening to many people everywhere in this country. They walk in, they find nothing that relates to them, they walk out, and they never come back. Yet even today across this land there are pockets of faithful people who are still trying to hang on to the way they did it fifty years ago. They are diismayed over the fact that not as many people come out to the services any more. They think that people just don’t want God in their lives, that we are living in a hopelessly evil world, and that what we need is a “revival.”

I would like to propose an alternate interpretation, if I may. I think that there are a lot of people who DO want God in their lives, but we will never have an “old-fashioned revival”, because the old ways of doing religion no longer communicate with most people. During our lifetime our culture, including the way people think, has changed.

The problem is that somewhere along the way we took the Gospel message and mixed it up with our own nostalgia for the “good old days” of the brush arbor meetings, the fire and brimstone preachers, and the “come to church” mentality. Now we don’t know how to separate the two.

But separate the two we must! The Gospel was not meant to be locked in a time-warp with the way grandma used to do it! Thank God for all the things He used in the past, but if we want people to listen today, we must be willing to change the way we tell the story. We must tell it with our lives, our attitudes, and our practical service to others. We must throw away old churchy-sounding words that nobody uses any more. We must stop judging people, pressuring people, and shaming people. We must not be afraid to use “worldly” things such as movies and secular songs, because God is well able to speak His truth through all of these things!

There are some, of course, who refuse to see this and will never change. I recently had to stop broadcasting on a religious radio station because my program was “too secular and too entertaining!” In my communicating with the audience I dared to refer to worldly events and non-religious songs and movies, rather than bore people with worn-out Christian cliches. But I think that the ostriches are running out of sand.

If we are to reach the culture of today and tomorrow, our songs, our presentation, our vocabulary, and our methods must change. Furthermore, our theology itself needs to be tweaked a little. I have come to realize that God wants to do so much more with us than to just give us a “personal” salvation, or be a “personal savior” just for us to be ready to go to heaven when we die, or to avoid being “left behind” when He comes back! He has entrusted us with making this world a better place where the love of God can heal relationships and transform lives. “May your kingdom come, and your will be done, as it is in heaven, so on earth!”

The fact that there is still so much hunger and homelessness and racism, neglect and abuse and needless suffering, is an indictment upon our “just be saved and be ready to die” theology. Jim Palmer in “Divine Nobodies”, upon discovering that nine and ten year old girls were being sold as sex-slaves in Thailand, asked God, “How could you let this happen?” And God said, “How could YOU let this happen?” The point is that we have been given resources to change things, and instead have built religious systems that are now falling down in a heap of irrelevance.

I am ready to make a shocking recommendation for your consideration. Next week, instead of going to a midweek prayer meeting, get a friend to go with you to a coffee shop or a bar, and just “hang out” and listen to people’s stories. Show them that you care enough to really listen. Don’t be in a hurry to change them or “fix” them, but just show the love of Christ through your life and your attitude. It won’t be long before they ask you questions, and then you can tell them about your experiences of forgiveness and divine power in your life. Let God speak to them without pressure from you.

Oh, and before you go, ask the good church folks, when they meet together, to also pray for you as you go. That will probably wake up their meeting, too!