July 6, 2025 • 19 mins
Freedom takes on profound new meaning when examined through the lens of Paul's letter to the Galatians. Beyond the political liberty we often celebrate, Paul reveals a deeper spiritual freedom that liberates believers from the burden of religious rule-following toward an authentic relationship with God.
The message unpacks how early Christianity navigated its Jewish roots while establishing a distinct identity. Paul's nuanced contrast between "law" and "faith" wasn't rejecting divine guidance but transforming how we understand it. The Levitical laws—from dietary restrictions to circumcision—once served as clear markers of religious devotion. But Paul suggests we've matured spiritually, much like children who grow from needing explicit rules to grasping the principles behind them.
This evolution brings remarkable freedom. No longer must we measure our worthiness through perfect adherence to religious regulations. Instead, we're justified through faith—trusting God's presence and living that trust in relationship with others. The focus shifts from numerous specific behaviors to core principles like loving God and neighbor. Most liberating is the "implied space for grace" that comes with this understanding. Where law offers only obedience or disobedience, faith creates room for growth, learning, and restoration when we inevitably fall short.
What does this mean for us today? We're invited to celebrate the freedom to be authentically human while growing toward who God created us to be. We aren't "enslaved by the worst things we seem to end up doing" because God's unconditional love provides a way forward. This Independence Day season, consider what it means to be spiritually free—to know a God who loves you completely and has equipped you with everything needed to bring something valuable to this world. That's true freedom worth celebrating.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pastor Darren (00:00):
Well, this turned out to be even more
serendipitous that we have thispassage here.
I didn't intend for this somuch, but this passage in
Galatians it doesn't actuallyuse the word freedom, but a lot
(00:20):
of passages from Paul in hisletters that are very similar to
this do so I thought, oh, thiswould be an interesting time to
talk about freedom, two daysafter our Independence Day
celebrations, and after wefinish I have arranged for some
fireworks to blow up in thisregion, and in this region I'm
(00:45):
suggesting you wet yourself down.
Just kidding if that wasn'tclear, anyway.
So do you ever wonder about theworld in which Christianity is
trying to get established?
Jesus has been crucified, beenresurrected.
(01:14):
Now we've got the apostles,we've got Paul out there trying
to establish Christianity, right, and we know that that is a
world where there was Romanoppression.
So there was that issue to dealwith, in fact very significant
Roman oppression to the extentthat they tore down the temple,
the Jewish temple.
So I mean it was verysignificant.
But then you also have thisrelationship between the Jewish
(01:38):
faith and the Christian faith,this new thing that has been
evolving from the Jewish faith,and if you think about it, you
can imagine the nuance thatwould be needed by somebody like
Paul to be able to describethat difference and the
(02:00):
importance of that differenceand the importance of that
difference.
We are a religion that isgrounded in the Hebrew Bible, in
the scriptures of the OldTestament.
So we are grounded in theJewish faith but we are a
significant evolution from thatfaith and so that nuance could
be pretty significant in thoseearly, early days.
Nuance could be prettysignificant in those early,
(02:23):
early days.
And today Christianity hasreached far, far more broad than
the Jewish faith.
But in the time the Jewishfaith was the established
religion.
So Christianity is kind of theupstart, trying to get out there
, get known.
So this is all that's going on,and in the midst of it Paul is
(02:45):
trying to say it's this and this, and I hope you can hear the
difficulty of that nuance, ofthat challenge, and he's trying
to do it persuasively.
He's trying to help peopleunderstand this Christianity.
This is the way to go.
This is the thing that's goingto bring you more identification
(03:07):
with God.
So at this point I want to makesure I say I'm comparing
Christianity to the Hebrew faithof 2,000 years ago and that the
Jewish faith has evolved sincethen.
So it's an unfair comparison tobe making.
So just understand that, aswe're doing this, because we're
(03:31):
trying to understand what waswritten and the context of it
being written in its time andwhat the conversation was about.
So we know that the Jewishfaith has evolved, just as the
Christian faith has evolved, andso a modern conversation would
be more useful.
But, digging into ourscriptures, we want to
(03:53):
understand exactly what wasgoing on there.
And Paul he's using two words todescribe this nuance he uses
law and he uses faith law and heuses faith.
Now, we should know law doesn'tmean what we generally believe
that it means today.
Right, when we think of law,we're thinking about government.
(04:15):
Right, we're talking about asociety developing a government
class that establishes the laws,adjusts the laws, withholds the
laws and tries to helpeverybody else follow the laws.
That's what we do as a societytogether, so that we can exist A
(04:35):
little different from the timeof the kings, where the king, it
was mainly the directive of asingle person deciding what
would be true and what would belaw and what would be punishable
and what wouldn't.
We moved to this other systemthat was based in laws that we
establish as a society and thenuphold as a society.
(05:00):
So, for the early people offaith, this was not how they
understood the word law.
For them, the law was theinstruction of faith.
The law was how you lived outfaith.
It was a list of laws You'veheard the phrase Levitical laws.
(05:25):
They were behaviors that onewas expected to follow as a way
of showing that they had faith.
And if you were trying tomeasure your faith well, it was
somewhat easy you would measureit against how much did you
follow these rules and theselaws that basically define what
(05:47):
it is to be Jewish in the day?
So, paul, what he's trying to dois help everybody move into
this new awareness, this new wayof understanding God's presence
and God's desire for us,understanding God's presence and
God's desire for us.
It's an awareness that's notgrounded in religious laws and
(06:09):
rules, but in the presence ofthe Spirit that we are looking
to engage with this Spirit, thispresence of God in and amongst
us.
When he's talking about faithpresence of God in and amongst
us when he's talking about faith, he's talking about trusting
God's presence in the worldaround us, and you know me, I
(06:33):
would argue he's also talkingabout living that faith, living
that trust in God's presence,not just believing it but acting
as if it's true, and we wouldbe measuring our success in that
space a fair amount differently.
Right, as you can probablyimagine, you might refer to the
(06:56):
Great Commandment as a way tomeasure how we live into that
new understanding.
Right, love God and loveneighbor.
So now, we're not talking aboutrules about eating or keeping
food, or rules about women andmen and how they live together,
or talking about increasing thepopulation, if you know what I
(07:19):
mean.
We're talking about differentmarkers and measures, and they
imply a different and, I mightargue, a more intimate
relationship with God.
For me, the metaphor that Ioften will go to in this context
is about parenting, parentingwhen we're parenting young
(07:41):
children.
Really, all along the journeythere's these stages, there's
these places where they needstructure, they need rules, and
sometimes they don't evenunderstand why they have the
rules, and sometimes they aren'teven glad there are rules.
Amen, we know kids, although weprobably shouldn't pretend
(08:04):
we're any different.
All right, let's be honest.
Not all of us like rules, butwe know that progression.
There's a time that if we'regoing to send our kids to the
park, it starts off with okay,here are the rules around the
park.
First you only go with mom ordad and we've got to make sure
we look both ways and we alwaysare taking care of each other
(08:26):
and taking care of our.
You know there's these rules.
And then the more you do it,the more you start understanding
the spirit of the rules.
And as you build that trust inyour kids that they understand
the spirit of the rules, they'regiven more and more freedom to
(08:48):
be able to live that out all theway into teenage-dom.
You know where you go, fromhaving curfews and only being
able to drive and to certainplaces or during certain times
and things like that, all theway to okay, they've proven they
understand the spirit of theserules.
It's about safety, it's aboutrespect and all that stuff.
(09:09):
I think that is the bestmetaphor that I feel like I can
come up with, or at least thatcomes to my brain when I'm
talking about the distinctionPaul is trying to make 2,000
years ago from the Jewish faiththat we had reached a stage
where we were ready for a placewhere we understood the spirit
(09:31):
of the law and we didn'tnecessarily need all of the law,
and those of you who have readall of the law probably would
understand that it would comewith a good feeling of freedom
as well.
Right, we were moving away fromsome words like disciplinarian
(09:55):
as a guideline for our faith andmore to something more gracious
.
But can you imagine the peoplewho are living in those times
understanding that maybe itwasn't all about following these
rules?
All of a sudden, you canrealize wait, I might be able to
(10:16):
eat what I want.
I might be able to eat whateverI want.
I might be able to live howeverI want to live.
You can maybe imagine how thatmight have felt.
And I haven't even mentionedone of the big ones, right
Circumcision, am I right?
(10:39):
Okay, none of you are realimpressed with that.
I'm guessing my brothers back2,000, 3,000 years ago.
It was a bigger deal than theway you're treating it right now
.
I think it was significant.
We're reading Genesis right now.
I'm pretty convinced that theday that Abram went back to all
(11:00):
the fellas and said, hey, here'swhat God wants us to do, that
was not the happiest day at camp, right, in fact, it might have
been one of the worst, I wouldthink, second only to the day
they had to do it Right?
(11:20):
So these laws that in some wayscan feel to some maybe
meaningless, maybe cumbersome.
They might start feeling thatthis freedom, that faith, isn't
about just following this bigset of laws.
Following God doesn't mean justthis.
(11:41):
It really, in a lot of ways,comes down to some simpler
things, some more direct things.
So let's see, I lost myselfjust a little bit.
Anyway, in addition, and maybemore importantly than all of
this, we move from this arena oflaw as being sort of an
(12:06):
obedience to this well, thisarena where law and obedience is
what faith is, to a differentarena.
It's an arena where it isgrounded in our faith and our
belief and our capacity to liveout that belief.
And then even one more stepbeing able to recognize God's
(12:31):
grace when we don't do it quiteas well as maybe we could have
or should have.
This whole new arena that justfeels, that must have felt just
so freeing to those who werebeginning to embrace it, this
new mindset, instead of faithbeing this realm of policemen
(12:55):
making sure we followed theserules, at least in its most
simplistic understanding, to adifferent realm where it feels
more like healthy parenting,where you have a parent entity,
like a God, that is wanting asmuch for us as we want for
ourselves and trying to createthe arena of grace that allows
(13:19):
us to live that out with someconfidence, some security.
So freedom, right?
What exactly is going on withthis idea of freedom in the way
Paul is understanding it?
Often when we talk about freedomin our modern society, we're
(13:42):
talking about some sort ofGod-ordained freedom amidst
society.
I think we might want to slowthe roll just a little bit on
that, because I don't think Paulis really talking about freedom
from following the laws ofsociety.
We have this system of justice.
(14:02):
It's built on laws to maintainjustice, to maintain equity.
In today's world we often seefreedom as a state of having as
few of these guidelines, as fewof these laws, as little of this
interference as possible, aslittle outward control of the
individual.
(14:23):
That's kind of how we talk whenwe're talking about freedom.
Often, the less control overthe individual, the better it is
, and maybe even God endowedthat Well.
When we're reading through ourscriptures we probably ought to
recognize that is not the typeof freedom that Paul is talking
(14:47):
about.
He's talking about.
Spiritual freedom is whatPaul's talking about.
We are free because we aren'tjust following rules as a way to
live faith.
Many of these rules again couldappear meaningless, can feel
cumbersome, where we're tryingto understand the connection
(15:10):
between that rule and how itbenefits God or how it benefits
God's world, if it's God's world.
No, in this new arena, this newawareness, we're focused on the
core of what matters, the coreof what God wants from us.
Love God, love neighbor, maybelike last week's passage from
(15:31):
the Hebrew Bible in Micah dojustice, love kindness, walk
humbly.
Those are the guidelines we'reworking from and there also
comes an intellectual peace,maybe even a freedom from having
that make a little more senseto us, god blessing us with an
(15:52):
understanding that connects inour own brains, and the freedom
that comes from that awarenessand that confidence.
Now, it's not that thisstatement about freedom being
God-ordained freedom fromgovernmental laws and societal
laws is theologically wrong,necessarily.
(16:15):
In fact, we could probably havesome interesting conversation
about that in the arena of faith, but we would want to recognize
that it is an extrapolation ofScripture.
We will have taken someliberties to go to that place,
that definition of freedom.
(16:35):
We'd been taking some libertiesin our reading of Scripture to
be able to do that.
That's not what Paul wasoriginally saying.
He's talking about spiritualfreedom.
A spiritual freedom I seemostly in verse 24 of our
passage today.
Therefore, the law was ourdisciplinarian until Christ came
(16:57):
, so that we might be justifiedby faith.
Some of you may remember wetalked about justified by faith.
I sometimes like the word madeworthy or made to know we have
worth in God's eyes.
In God's eyes we know we haveworth in the way God created us
(17:22):
and in God's intention for us.
That is the justification byfaith, but it's not coming from
this disciplinarian anymore.
With law there is a measure ofblind obedience that can feel
graceless.
We are justified or understandas worthy to God by how we obey.
(17:48):
But with faith there's thisimplied space for grace, god's
unconditional love.
In that space we can live morefreely, knowing we can maintain
a relationship, a meaningfulrelationship with God.
Despite our inevitable humanity, we aren't enslaved by the
(18:15):
worst things that we seem to endup doing, because God offers us
grace.
That's the freedom that Paul istalking about.
So here, in this sacred timefor we Americans, where we are
celebrating all that iswonderful about our country and
(18:37):
we're celebrating our valueslike freedom, I'm going to
suggest you take some time toreflect on what it means to be
spiritually free, to be blessedwith this understanding of God
in which we know a God thatloves us loves us to the extent
(18:58):
that it comes out in ways ofwanting us to succeed as much as
we ourselves want to succeed,an awareness that comes with
knowing that God put inside ofus the things that we need to be
able to bring something ofvalue and worth to this world.
(19:19):
That's the kind of freedom Paulwas hoping we would understand
Freedom to be exactly who Godwanted us to be and not to have
to worry about our humanitygetting in the way all the time.
To me, that's something tocelebrate to know that God is on
(19:43):
our side.
Amen.
Well, this turned out to be even more
serendipitous that we have thispassage here.
I didn't intend for this somuch, but this passage in
Galatians it doesn't actuallyuse the word freedom, but a lot
(00:20):
of passages from Paul in hisletters that are very similar to
this do so I thought, oh, thiswould be an interesting time to
talk about freedom, two daysafter our Independence Day
celebrations, and after wefinish I have arranged for some
fireworks to blow up in thisregion, and in this region I'm
(00:45):
suggesting you wet yourself down.
Just kidding if that wasn'tclear, anyway.
So do you ever wonder about theworld in which Christianity is
trying to get established?
Jesus has been crucified, beenresurrected.
(01:14):
Now we've got the apostles,we've got Paul out there trying
to establish Christianity, right, and we know that that is a
world where there was Romanoppression.
So there was that issue to dealwith, in fact very significant
Roman oppression to the extentthat they tore down the temple,
the Jewish temple.
So I mean it was verysignificant.
But then you also have thisrelationship between the Jewish
(01:38):
faith and the Christian faith,this new thing that has been
evolving from the Jewish faith,and if you think about it, you
can imagine the nuance thatwould be needed by somebody like
Paul to be able to describethat difference and the
(02:00):
importance of that differenceand the importance of that
difference.
We are a religion that isgrounded in the Hebrew Bible, in
the scriptures of the OldTestament.
So we are grounded in theJewish faith but we are a
significant evolution from thatfaith and so that nuance could
be pretty significant in thoseearly, early days.
Nuance could be prettysignificant in those early,
(02:23):
early days.
And today Christianity hasreached far, far more broad than
the Jewish faith.
But in the time the Jewishfaith was the established
religion.
So Christianity is kind of theupstart, trying to get out there
, get known.
So this is all that's going on,and in the midst of it Paul is
(02:45):
trying to say it's this and this, and I hope you can hear the
difficulty of that nuance, ofthat challenge, and he's trying
to do it persuasively.
He's trying to help peopleunderstand this Christianity.
This is the way to go.
This is the thing that's goingto bring you more identification
(03:07):
with God.
So at this point I want to makesure I say I'm comparing
Christianity to the Hebrew faithof 2,000 years ago and that the
Jewish faith has evolved sincethen.
So it's an unfair comparison tobe making.
So just understand that, aswe're doing this, because we're
(03:31):
trying to understand what waswritten and the context of it
being written in its time andwhat the conversation was about.
So we know that the Jewishfaith has evolved, just as the
Christian faith has evolved, andso a modern conversation would
be more useful.
But, digging into ourscriptures, we want to
(03:53):
understand exactly what wasgoing on there.
And Paul he's using two words todescribe this nuance he uses
law and he uses faith law and heuses faith.
Now, we should know law doesn'tmean what we generally believe
that it means today.
Right, when we think of law,we're thinking about government.
(04:15):
Right, we're talking about asociety developing a government
class that establishes the laws,adjusts the laws, withholds the
laws and tries to helpeverybody else follow the laws.
That's what we do as a societytogether, so that we can exist A
(04:35):
little different from the timeof the kings, where the king, it
was mainly the directive of asingle person deciding what
would be true and what would belaw and what would be punishable
and what wouldn't.
We moved to this other systemthat was based in laws that we
establish as a society and thenuphold as a society.
(05:00):
So, for the early people offaith, this was not how they
understood the word law.
For them, the law was theinstruction of faith.
The law was how you lived outfaith.
It was a list of laws You'veheard the phrase Levitical laws.
(05:25):
They were behaviors that onewas expected to follow as a way
of showing that they had faith.
And if you were trying tomeasure your faith well, it was
somewhat easy you would measureit against how much did you
follow these rules and theselaws that basically define what
(05:47):
it is to be Jewish in the day?
So, paul, what he's trying to dois help everybody move into
this new awareness, this new wayof understanding God's presence
and God's desire for us,understanding God's presence and
God's desire for us.
It's an awareness that's notgrounded in religious laws and
(06:09):
rules, but in the presence ofthe Spirit that we are looking
to engage with this Spirit, thispresence of God in and amongst
us.
When he's talking about faithpresence of God in and amongst
us when he's talking about faith, he's talking about trusting
God's presence in the worldaround us, and you know me, I
(06:33):
would argue he's also talkingabout living that faith, living
that trust in God's presence,not just believing it but acting
as if it's true, and we wouldbe measuring our success in that
space a fair amount differently.
Right, as you can probablyimagine, you might refer to the
(06:56):
Great Commandment as a way tomeasure how we live into that
new understanding.
Right, love God and loveneighbor.
So now, we're not talking aboutrules about eating or keeping
food, or rules about women andmen and how they live together,
or talking about increasing thepopulation, if you know what I
(07:19):
mean.
We're talking about differentmarkers and measures, and they
imply a different and, I mightargue, a more intimate
relationship with God.
For me, the metaphor that Ioften will go to in this context
is about parenting, parentingwhen we're parenting young
(07:41):
children.
Really, all along the journeythere's these stages, there's
these places where they needstructure, they need rules, and
sometimes they don't evenunderstand why they have the
rules, and sometimes they aren'teven glad there are rules.
Amen, we know kids, although weprobably shouldn't pretend
(08:04):
we're any different.
All right, let's be honest.
Not all of us like rules, butwe know that progression.
There's a time that if we'regoing to send our kids to the
park, it starts off with okay,here are the rules around the
park.
First you only go with mom ordad and we've got to make sure
we look both ways and we alwaysare taking care of each other
(08:26):
and taking care of our.
You know there's these rules.
And then the more you do it,the more you start understanding
the spirit of the rules.
And as you build that trust inyour kids that they understand
the spirit of the rules, they'regiven more and more freedom to
(08:48):
be able to live that out all theway into teenage-dom.
You know where you go, fromhaving curfews and only being
able to drive and to certainplaces or during certain times
and things like that, all theway to okay, they've proven they
understand the spirit of theserules.
It's about safety, it's aboutrespect and all that stuff.
(09:09):
I think that is the bestmetaphor that I feel like I can
come up with, or at least thatcomes to my brain when I'm
talking about the distinctionPaul is trying to make 2,000
years ago from the Jewish faiththat we had reached a stage
where we were ready for a placewhere we understood the spirit
(09:31):
of the law and we didn'tnecessarily need all of the law,
and those of you who have readall of the law probably would
understand that it would comewith a good feeling of freedom
as well.
Right, we were moving away fromsome words like disciplinarian
(09:55):
as a guideline for our faith andmore to something more gracious
.
But can you imagine the peoplewho are living in those times
understanding that maybe itwasn't all about following these
rules?
All of a sudden, you canrealize wait, I might be able to
(10:16):
eat what I want.
I might be able to eat whateverI want.
I might be able to live howeverI want to live.
You can maybe imagine how thatmight have felt.
And I haven't even mentionedone of the big ones, right
Circumcision, am I right?
(10:39):
Okay, none of you are realimpressed with that.
I'm guessing my brothers back2,000, 3,000 years ago.
It was a bigger deal than theway you're treating it right now
.
I think it was significant.
We're reading Genesis right now.
I'm pretty convinced that theday that Abram went back to all
(11:00):
the fellas and said, hey, here'swhat God wants us to do, that
was not the happiest day at camp, right, in fact, it might have
been one of the worst, I wouldthink, second only to the day
they had to do it Right?
(11:20):
So these laws that in some wayscan feel to some maybe
meaningless, maybe cumbersome.
They might start feeling thatthis freedom, that faith, isn't
about just following this bigset of laws.
Following God doesn't mean justthis.
(11:41):
It really, in a lot of ways,comes down to some simpler
things, some more direct things.
So let's see, I lost myselfjust a little bit.
Anyway, in addition, and maybemore importantly than all of
this, we move from this arena oflaw as being sort of an
(12:06):
obedience to this well, thisarena where law and obedience is
what faith is, to a differentarena.
It's an arena where it isgrounded in our faith and our
belief and our capacity to liveout that belief.
And then even one more stepbeing able to recognize God's
(12:31):
grace when we don't do it quiteas well as maybe we could have
or should have.
This whole new arena that justfeels, that must have felt just
so freeing to those who werebeginning to embrace it, this
new mindset, instead of faithbeing this realm of policemen
(12:55):
making sure we followed theserules, at least in its most
simplistic understanding, to adifferent realm where it feels
more like healthy parenting,where you have a parent entity,
like a God, that is wanting asmuch for us as we want for
ourselves and trying to createthe arena of grace that allows
(13:19):
us to live that out with someconfidence, some security.
So freedom, right?
What exactly is going on withthis idea of freedom in the way
Paul is understanding it?
Often when we talk about freedomin our modern society, we're
(13:42):
talking about some sort ofGod-ordained freedom amidst
society.
I think we might want to slowthe roll just a little bit on
that, because I don't think Paulis really talking about freedom
from following the laws ofsociety.
We have this system of justice.
(14:02):
It's built on laws to maintainjustice, to maintain equity.
In today's world we often seefreedom as a state of having as
few of these guidelines, as fewof these laws, as little of this
interference as possible, aslittle outward control of the
individual.
(14:23):
That's kind of how we talk whenwe're talking about freedom.
Often, the less control overthe individual, the better it is
, and maybe even God endowedthat Well.
When we're reading through ourscriptures we probably ought to
recognize that is not the typeof freedom that Paul is talking
(14:47):
about.
He's talking about.
Spiritual freedom is whatPaul's talking about.
We are free because we aren'tjust following rules as a way to
live faith.
Many of these rules again couldappear meaningless, can feel
cumbersome, where we're tryingto understand the connection
(15:10):
between that rule and how itbenefits God or how it benefits
God's world, if it's God's world.
No, in this new arena, this newawareness, we're focused on the
core of what matters, the coreof what God wants from us.
Love God, love neighbor, maybelike last week's passage from
(15:31):
the Hebrew Bible in Micah dojustice, love kindness, walk
humbly.
Those are the guidelines we'reworking from and there also
comes an intellectual peace,maybe even a freedom from having
that make a little more senseto us, god blessing us with an
(15:52):
understanding that connects inour own brains, and the freedom
that comes from that awarenessand that confidence.
Now, it's not that thisstatement about freedom being
God-ordained freedom fromgovernmental laws and societal
laws is theologically wrong,necessarily.
(16:15):
In fact, we could probably havesome interesting conversation
about that in the arena of faith, but we would want to recognize
that it is an extrapolation ofScripture.
We will have taken someliberties to go to that place,
that definition of freedom.
(16:35):
We'd been taking some libertiesin our reading of Scripture to
be able to do that.
That's not what Paul wasoriginally saying.
He's talking about spiritualfreedom.
A spiritual freedom I seemostly in verse 24 of our
passage today.
Therefore, the law was ourdisciplinarian until Christ came
(16:57):
, so that we might be justifiedby faith.
Some of you may remember wetalked about justified by faith.
I sometimes like the word madeworthy or made to know we have
worth in God's eyes.
In God's eyes we know we haveworth in the way God created us
(17:22):
and in God's intention for us.
That is the justification byfaith, but it's not coming from
this disciplinarian anymore.
With law there is a measure ofblind obedience that can feel
graceless.
We are justified or understandas worthy to God by how we obey.
(17:48):
But with faith there's thisimplied space for grace, god's
unconditional love.
In that space we can live morefreely, knowing we can maintain
a relationship, a meaningfulrelationship with God.
Despite our inevitable humanity, we aren't enslaved by the
(18:15):
worst things that we seem to endup doing, because God offers us
grace.
That's the freedom that Paul istalking about.
So here, in this sacred timefor we Americans, where we are
celebrating all that iswonderful about our country and
(18:37):
we're celebrating our valueslike freedom, I'm going to
suggest you take some time toreflect on what it means to be
spiritually free, to be blessedwith this understanding of God
in which we know a God thatloves us loves us to the extent
(18:58):
that it comes out in ways ofwanting us to succeed as much as
we ourselves want to succeed,an awareness that comes with
knowing that God put inside ofus the things that we need to be
able to bring something ofvalue and worth to this world.
(19:19):
That's the kind of freedom Paulwas hoping we would understand
Freedom to be exactly who Godwanted us to be and not to have
to worry about our humanitygetting in the way all the time.
To me, that's something tocelebrate to know that God is on
(19:43):
our side.
Amen.
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