If Religion Binds You Up, then What Truly Frees You? This Does.

Every week, I do it.   I try to create a catchy title on Facebook for my Sunday message.  I think.  Maybe, it’ll move somebody to click.   And I’ve come up with some doosies.  Like how about this one?   Why You Need to Get Naked More Than You Ever Realized.   What was that about?   Check the church’s Facebook post, March 24th. You’ll find out.   But the title I picked for last Sunday; it’s been hanging in my mind all week.  I asked a simple question.  How do you free yourself from yourself?   How do you do that?  How do you?

I’ve been reading this biography of Frederick Douglass.   Do you remember that name? Historians consider him one of the greatest Americans our nation ever produced.    He escaped from slavery in the 1840s.  Then, in his writings and speeches, he became one of the most famous people in the world.  In fact, during his lifetime, Douglass became the most photographed American in the entire world.  Abraham Lincoln had 126 photos.  But Douglass, he had 160!  Here are a few of them. 

But as famous and successful as Douglass became, he wrestled with the wounds of his past.   He could be super sensitive to criticism.  He often became deeply insecure.  He struggled with anxiety and depression.   In the midst of incredible accomplishments, he wrestled with those demons again and again.  

Hopefully you haven’t dealt with years in slavery or vicious racial attacks like Douglas did, but who doesn’t face struggles with themselves.  Who doesn’t wrestle with faults and insecurities?  Who doesn’t have to face fears and failings?   Years ago, the cartoonist Walt Kelley, had his character, Pogo, put it well.  We have met the enemy and he is us.   How do you fight that enemy?   How do you fight an enemy who lives in your head?   How do you win?  How do you free yourself from yourself?  How do you free yourself to become everything God created you to be, that you yearn to be.   In these words, God shows you the way.   Let’s listen and hear what God has to say. 

Galatians 3:1-14

How do you fight the enemy that is you?  More crucially, how do you win?  How do you free yourself from yourself?  Here, God tells you.   God says.  Freedom comes only as you trust in the relationship instead of relying on the rules.   The rules never free you.  Only the relationship does.  What do I mean?

Look at what Paul tells these folks in Galatia.  They have made a classic mistake.   Paul has told them that because of Jesus, God has forgiven them.   Because of Jesus, God has even changed the view.  When God looks at them, God only sees the goodness.  God only see the the rightness.   God only sees the beauty.  

That doesn’t mean the ugly doesn’t exist.  God just doesn’t see it.  But that ugly still trips you up.  That ugly still makes you miserable.  That ugly still keeps your life from being what it could be.  So, how do you change that?  How do you turn God’s view into your reality?  

To solve that problem, the Galatians have turned to rules.  They have turned to, for lack of a better word, being religious.  But God is telling them.  Being religious will never work.  So, what will?   What will work?  What works is when you believe in the view.  What works is when you trust that God’s view tells you the truth.   What does that mean?

Let’s look at this story, Paul brings up.  Look at the story of Abraham.  Abraham’s story begins with a promise.   For Abraham and his wife Sarah, the one thing they most wanted, they didn’t have.  They didn’t have a child. 

So, one day, Abraham has this strange encounter with God. God tells him.   Abraham, if you leave your home and trust me. I will give you a new land.  And most crucially, I will give you and Sarah a child.   I promise to even make your descendants so many they will be a nation all on their own.

So, Abraham goes.   He and Sarah trust God to take them someplace good, to give them the child they yearn for.  But then, nothing happens.   No kid comes.  One night, Abraham talks to God and basically says.   Come on God!  I’ve done my part.  When are you going to do yours?  When will you keep your promise?   What does God do?   God repeats the promise.   God says.  Look up, Abraham.  See the stars.   Try to count them.  That’s how many descendants I will give you.   And Abraham believes God.    And God does what Paul tells you here.   God accounts Abraham’s belief as righteousness.  In other words, God defines Abraham’s trust as what defines a right relationship with God.    Now, why does Paul tell you that story?

It’s because that story gets to the heart of what keeps you bound up, and what frees you.  In that story, God is showing you. Every mistake you make.  Every moral failing you face comes down to one basic problem.   You don’t believe God like Abraham does.  You don’t trust that God loves you.  You don’t believe that God already views you as utterly approved, utterly right.

A week or so ago, my wife asked me about a piece of paper with some contact information on it.  She mentioned I was the last person to use it.  And I freaked.  I got all defensive.  I said.  I didn’t use it last.  How should I know where it is?  Why are you asking me?   Now my freak out moment passed fairly quickly.   I did find the paper. All was well. 

But why did I get so defensive?   I got defensive because I wanted to be right.  I didn’t want to be the guy who lost the paper.  I didn’t want to be that guy. Because, if I’m the guy who lost the paper, what does that say about me? It says.  I’m the guy who loses the paper.  I’m the guy who can’t keep it together.  I’m the guy who my wife, my family can’t rely on.   So, I got defensive.   I didn’t want to be that guy. 

But here’s the truth.    Sometimes I am that guy.  I do get forgetful.  I do lose things.   And when I do, I feel terrible.   I feel terrible because I believe my performance defines my value, my rightness.   I feel terrible because I don’t believe God.  I don’t trust that in God’s eyes, I am already utterly and completely valued.    And when I don’t believe that, when I believe instead my performance determines my value, it messes everything up.  I get all bound up in performance anxieties, insecurities, self-judgments. 

And that false belief leads me to lie, to hide my faults, to blame others.   It leads me not only out of a right relationship with God, but with right relationships with everyone, even myself. 

And behind every moral failing, you find this same lack of trust.   You overwork and neglect your family.  Why?  You believe works gives you your value, not God.   You cheat on your spouse.  Why?   You cheat because you don’t trust how utterly valued, even desired you are by God.  So, you look to feel that value and desire somewhere else.  The great Catholic writer, G.K. Chesterton put it well.  “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God.”  

You see, before you do anything wrong, it begins in your head.  It all begins with false beliefs or some false vision of what gives you your value, your worth.  And all those lies bind you up.   But the more you know, the more you know that in Jesus you already have infinite worth.  The more you know the truth, that in  God you already have infinite value, the more God can free you from those false beliefs, those false visions.   The more God can free you from yourself.

But the Galatians don’t get that.   They think.   I gotta abide by the rules.  I’ve gotta do these rituals.   Then, I’ll have that right relationship with God.   Then, I’ll be right inside and out.  But God is saying to them.  Don’t you get it?   All you are doing is buying into another false belief.   Paul even says that their reliance on religion isn’t a blessing, it’s a curse.  Why?  The rules don’t make you right.  The religious stuff doesn’t make you right.  

In Paul’s words, God is reminding you.  I make you right.   In Jesus, I did that.  All you need to do is believe it.  The more you believe that, the more you trust in that, the more you become free.  The more you will become free to become the very person God created you to be.

Do you see what truly works?  What works is when you believe in the view, the view God already has of you.   The more you believe that view tells you the truth, the more you become free.  The more you become free of every false vision that lead you to the wrong place.  The more you become free of every insecurity, every fear that leads you to a bad decision.    You become free the more you realize that the value, the worth you are looking for, you already have.  

After Abraham believes God, God gave him a dream.   And in the dream, Abraham sees these animals cut up on the ground.   And then he sees, God, in the form of a flame, going between the animals.    In Abraham’s day, the Hittite empire had come up with a way of sealing promises, a way Abraham knew well. You cut up these animals and go between them.   And in doing that, you are saying.   If I break this promise, cut me up like these animals.  I seal this promise with my life.   And so, God seals his words to Abraham like that, with God’s very life.  

And in Jesus, God didn’t do that just symbolically.  God did it for real.  God went that far to show you.   You can trust me.  You can trust. I love you.   I have made you right.   And only that trust in that truth will set you free. 

That trust by the way did free Fredrick Douglass.   It freed Douglass to wrestle his demons and most days win.   As a slave even, Douglass came to know God’s love.  He came to know that God had made him worthy and valued no matter what his master said or did.  He had come to know that God had made him free, no matter what the law said.    And that knowledge, that truth did free him to write words that changed the course of a nation.  

And that same truth will free you.   It will free you from yourself.  It will free you to become everything God created you to be.  Believe it.  Trust it.  When temptation comes, when fear strikes, trust who you already are in Jesus, beloved, valued, worthy.  For when you know that truth, when you trust that truth, that truth, and that truth alone will set you free.