“Then I Will Go With You.”

Thoughts on the Sabbath School lesson for 12.10.11

“There is an old story [probably apocryphal, according to one Lincoln historian] that Abraham Lincoln went down to the slave block to buy a slave girl. As she looked at the white man bidding on her, she figured he was another white man going to buy her and then abuse her. He won the bid, and as he was walking away with his property, he said, ‘Young lady, you are free.’
“She said, ‘What does that mean?’
“‘It means you are free.’
“‘Does that mean,’ she said, ‘that I can say whatever I want to say?’
“Lincoln said, ‘Yes, my dear, you can say whatever you want to say.’
“‘Does that mean,’ she said, ‘That I can be whatever I want to be?’
“Lincoln said, ‘Yes, you can be whatever you want to be.’
“‘Does that mean I can go wherever I want to go?’
“He said, ‘Yes, you can go wherever you want to go.’
“The girl, with tears streaming down her face, said, ‘Then I will go with you.’”[1]

Whether or not that story is true, can we argue with the girl’s desire to go anywhere with the person who bought her freedom?  Wouldn’t we think it strange, though, if the girl, having just been freed, stepped back onto the slave block and allowed herself to be sold back into slavery?  We’d think that she was ungrateful and, quite frankly, crazy to give up her freedom.

What if, on the other hand, the girl accepted her freedom from Abraham Lincoln, but without so much as a thank you very much, ran off and, say, became a bank robber or a prostitute?  Yes, she’d technically be free, but would she be experiencing her freedom in the way Mr. Lincoln had hoped she would?

Jesus has bought and paid for our freedom from Satan.  Paul reminds the Galatians to be careful not to let their freedom slip away from them.  

“IN [this] freedom Christ has made us free [and completely liberated us]; stand fast then, and do not be hampered and held ensnared and submit again to a yoke of slavery [which you have once put off].” Galatians 5:1 AMP

Paul seems to be worried about two specific problems that the Galatians were running into.  The first, Paul has been talking about all through the first part of Galatians:  legalism.  The other extreme, though, is also a threat.  

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”   Galatians 5:13

So, on one end of the spectrum we have legalism (I can save myself), and on the other end we have licentiousness (I can do whatever I want).  In the middle we have justification by faith.

 

It’s tough to stay in the middle isn’t it?  Most of us are so much more comfortable when we are given specific instructions for accomplishing something.  We like checklists and step-by-step instructions. 

Think back to when you were a teenager, becoming an adult.  You’d come to your parent for advice about what you should do in a certain situation.  When you were a little younger, your parent would have told you what to do, but now, he (or she) says something like, “It’s your decision.  Do what you think is best.”  Can you remember that frustration?  You wanted to be told what to do (even though if your parent had told you what to do, you would have argued about it).

One year in high school, the band needed to raise money for a trip we were taking.  We all split up and some people had bake sales and all kinds of sales or service projects.  My brother, some friends and I wanted to have a car wash, but we didn’t have a good place to have one, so we came up with an idea.  We would load up our parents car with hoses, buckets, and soap; go to a neighborhood and knock on doors and ask if the people who lived in the house would like us to wash their car.  Now the brilliance of this plan was not so much house to house part; it was the part where we didn’t set a price.  We did the job and when the people asked how much they owed us, we said whatever they thought the job was worth, or whatever they thought was fair.

That really put people off their guard.  They had to generate their own price.  Well they didn’t want to short change us because there we stood, sweaty, sunburned, soaking wet…we really made a lot of money that day.  And yes, we turned it all over to the band, but that was really an eye-opening experience for me.    People are much more comfortable when things are spelled out for them.

“An Arab chief tells a story of a spy who was captured and then sentenced to death by a general in the Persian army. This general had the strange custom of giving condemned criminals a choice between the firing squad and the big, black door. As the moment for execution drew near, the spy was brought to the Persian general, who asked the question, ‘What will it be: the firing squad or the big, black door?’
“The spy hesitated for a long time. It was a difficult decision. He chose the firing squad.
“Moments later shots rang out confirming his execution. The general turned to his aide and said, ‘They always prefer the known way to the unknown. It is characteristic of people to be afraid of the undefined. Yet, we gave him a choice.’
“The aide said, ‘What lies beyond the big door?’
“‘Freedom,’ replied the general. ‘I've known only a few brave enough to take it.’”[2]

What do you think?  Are you brave enough to take the freedom that Jesus has paid for with His life?  Am I?  If we accept that freedom, we also have to accept the change in our relationship with Jesus and with the world. 

“Christian freedom means receiving a new nature that institutes an internal transformation of behavior rather than an external regulation of behavior. The bicycle’s chain attaches to the rear sprocket and, from the center of the radiating spokes, transfers power that mobilizes the entire bicycle. Some motion could be accomplished by turning the tire outside the rim, but such motion is superficial when compared with the power radiating from the centered sprocket. Civil government does bear some responsibility for regulating society so that such egregious evils as violence, robbery, and so on will not go unchecked; but history has shown that spiritual revival is exponentially more effective in transforming behavior than is imprisonment and punishment. The Holy Spirit’s power, radiating from the completely surrendered heart, is humanity’s only realistic hope for lasting transformation and survival.”[3]

How will I serve my Savior?  By remaining a slave, by ignoring His wishes, or giving myself completely to Him?

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[1] Steve Brown, Preaching Today, #58

[2] "Reasons to Fear Easter," Preaching Today, Tape No. 116

[3] Dan Solis, “Freedom in Christ,” The Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide

Mirror? Mirror!

Thoughts on the Sabbath School Lesson dated  11.5.11

Have you ever seen someone and found yourself thinking, “Did he (she) look in the mirror before he left the house?”  Ok, I know it’s wrong to judge people by the way they look, but sometimes I have to wonder…

 Anyway, the reason I thought of that was that I’ve heard/read some folks describe “the Law” as a kind of mirror.  A mirror can show us what we look like; it can show us if we have a piece of broccoli in our teeth or smudged mascara, but it can’t do anything about it.  The Law can’t save us, but it can show us our need for Jesus.

I’ve also seen the law compared to a microscope and to a light on a windshield.

“On a warm, summer night, my wife and I were traveling in our car with Micah, our 3-year-old son, who sat in the back seat. After many miles of driving in the darkness, we came to a stop in a remote area. The brightness of the traffic light revealed all of the dirt, dead bugs, and insects on our windshield. Micah said, ‘Look, how dirty!’
“My wife and I didn't think much of his comment until a moment later when we drove on—away from the light and back into the darkness. Upon reentering the darkness, we could no longer see the mess on our windshield, and Micah quickly piped up and said, ‘Now the glass is clean!’
“Before the law came, the dirt within us hid under the darkness. But when God gave the law, its light shined on the windshield of our hearts and revealed the filth of sin we'd collected on our journey. The law, then, is a light that shows us how sinful we really are. It cannot cleanse us or make us whole. But it does starkly highlight the true situation of our souls—and thus can lead us to Christ.”[1]

I love the way D.L. Moody said it: 

“Law tells me how crooked I am; grace comes along and straightens me out.”[2]  

Isn’t that great?  I really like that.

As simple as that is to say, the relationship between law and grace can really give us fits sometimes.  I’m surprised at just how much I take “justification by faith” for granted.  But then I’ll hear somebody say something like Mohammad Ali said in a Reader’s Digest article.  

"One day we're all going to die, and God is going to judge us—[our] good deeds and bad deeds. If the bad outweighs the good, you go to hell. If the good outweighs the bad, you go to heaven."[3]

The idea that we can earn our way to heaven is shockingly prevalent in Christianity, the one place where it has absolutely no business!

“In What's So Amazing about Grace, Philip Yancey recounts this story about C.S. Lewis:
“During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith.
“They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death.
“The debate went on for some time until C.S. Lewis wandered into the room. ‘What's the rumpus about?’ he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity's unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, ‘Oh, that's easy. It's grace.’ “After some discussion, the conferees had to agree.
“The notion of God's love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of humanity. The Buddhist eight-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of Karma, … , and Muslim code of law—each of these offers a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God's love unconditional.”[4]

So, how does it happen that we wander off into legalism so often when, if you think about it, living under grace is so much easier?  I mean, most of the time, we choose the path of least resistance, but when it comes to Salvation, we try to slog through the hard way…what’s up with that?

Talk about doing it the hard way, check this out: 

“It's amazing what some people will do to be spiritual. On September 18, 2003, Genshin Fujinami, 44, a Buddhist priest nicknamed the ‘Marathon Monk,’ finished a seven-year, 24,800-mile journey in the Hiei Mountains of Japan. It was intended to be a trek to enlightenment.

“Once a monk starts this journey he must finish or kill himself. According to an Associated Press article, for the first three years the pilgrim must rise at midnight for 100 consecutive days to pray and run 18 miles per day, stopping 250 times to pray along the way. During the next two years, he must up his schedule to 200 days. In the fifth year the pilgrim must sit and chant mantras for nine days without food, water, or sleep in a trial called doiri, or ‘entering the temple.’ In the sixth year, he must walk 37.5 miles every day for 100 days. In the seventh year, he must run 52.5 miles for 100 days, 18 miles for another 100 days, and then complete a 234-mile trek back to his home base.”[5]

It’s really easy for us to read that and shake our heads because we know that even a ritual that extreme will not earn anybody a spot in Heaven.

“Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’  So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.  For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’ Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because ‘the righteous will live by faith.’  The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, ‘The person who does these things will live by them.’  Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.’  He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.”  Galatians 3:8-14

Have you looked in “The Mirror” lately?  What do you see?  Are you covered with sin?  What will you do about it?

We all have a choice to make, the moment the Law shows us our sin.  We can either bash ourselves repeatedly with the Law, or we can turn our sins over to Jesus.  Which choice is less painful?  easier?   the only choice that leads to Salvation? 

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”  Galatians 3:26-29

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[1] William Wimmer, pastor of Grace Chapel Church of God, Benton, Arkansas

[2] D.L. Moody, Christian History, no. 25.

[3] "Ali," Reader's Digest (December 2001), p. 93

[4] Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing about Grace? (Zondervan, 1997), p.11

[5] 'Marathon Monk' Ends Seven Years on the Run, Chicago Tribune (9-20-03)