What Frees You, Truly Frees You From Yourself? This Does.

Ever since an old member here, Steve Ellis (who works for Channel 10 by the way) told me, I have almost always found his words to hold true.   Look into any national news story, Steve said.  You will always find a Florida connection.   This past week his prophecy held true once more.  But I wish it hadn’t.  I wish this whole story had never taken place.

Did you see it?  It began in New Jersey.  A private jet arrived back from Paris.  Inside that jet, federal agents arrested a very rich man for appalling crimes.   But the story didn’t begin there.   It began close to twenty years ago, an hour or so north in Palm Beach.  There, this man used his vast wealth to prey upon high school, even middle school kids.  He left in his wake untold human wreckage.  Back then, for reasons still unclear, he faced little accountability.  But now, thanks to a Miami reporter who uncovered the story, justice may finally arrive. 

As I read the story, I couldn’t help but wonder.  Why. This man had untold riches. He owned not one but two islands for Pete’s sake.  He hobnobbed with countless rich and famous friends.  He garnered the respect of renowned scientists whose research he supported.   Yet, still he risked it all to commit heinous crimes against vulnerable children.  Why?

It’s the same reason, strangely enough, that someone may compulsively come to church, Sunday after Sunday.  This person serves in every way they can think of, not only in the church, but in the community.   Their service even does many good things, positively touches many lives.  

But even so, the same desperate impulse lies at the heart of both these folks’ acts, the one who does great evil, and the one who does great good.   How can this be?   More crucially, how can you make sure that the same impulse doesn’t rule in you?   In these words, God shows you the way.  Let’s listen and hear what God has to say.

Galatians 2:14-21

How can the same desperate impulse drive people in two different directions?  In one, it drives them to horrific evil.   In another, it drives them to great good.   Yet inside, the same impulse enslaves them both.   How does that happen?  More crucially, how can you make sure that the same desperate impulse isn’t driving you, isn’t even enslaving you?  In those words, God tells you.   God says that true freedom comes not from doing but from knowing.   Only when you know this one crucial truth about yourself does true freedom come. 

Now, what is this crucial truth?  To understand that, you need to look at one unusual word that God leads Paul to use here, justify.   In that word, justify, God is telling you what this truth is.  But to understand that word, you first need to understand the word to which it points, righteousness. 

What is it that makes you a Christian?   Is it loving your neighbor?  Is it caring for the poor?  Is it being kind-hearted and gracious?   Hopefully, those qualities characterize a Christian, but do they make you one?   No.

Think about it this way.   Let’s say.  You are a surgeon.  And someone asks you.  What makes you a surgeon?  And you said, surgeons wear green shirts.  That’s true actually.  But does that tell you what a surgeon is?   Does that get at the core?  After all, lots of folks were green shirts.  No, what makes you a surgeon goes deeper than that.  It’s the same with Christians.

After all, lots of folks who are not Christians love their neighbors.  Lot of folks who are not Christians care for the poor.   Lots of folks who are not Christians are kind-hearted and gracious. Heck, some are even more so than a lot of Christians.    So, what is it that makes a Christian a Christian?   A Christian knows something.  Deep within, Christians know they are right.   

Now, before anyone reacts, let me unpack what I mean by right.   I don’t mean right as in you are factually correct about something.   I don’t mean right even as in you are living a right sort of life.  No, I mean, right as in Goldilocks and the three bears.   Does anyone remember that story? 

This little girl goes to the house of the three bears, right?   And she tries their porridge, but one is too hot, and the other is too cold, but one is what?   Does anyone remember? It’s just right?      And the same things happen with the chairs, two are too big, but one is just right, at least until she breaks it.   And finally, it happens with the beds, one is too hard. Another is too soft. But the final one is what?  It’s just right.   

And everybody gets that.  We hear just right, and we know what that means.  We know what it is to search for it too.  That’s because human beings spend their whole lives looking for just right.   Why?  It’s because people sense at some deep level, something within them is not right.   So, people do all sorts of things to help with these feelings of not rightness.   And they do have moments when they feel they a bit of just right, but it fades away.  

And why is that?  It’s because this feeling of just right has everything to with what the Bible calls righteousness.   In the Bible righteousness doesn’t mean doing right things.  In the Bible righteousness means simply being in a right relationship.   And human beings can’t figure out how to be in right relationship anywhere.  Even in Goldilocks, you see that. 

The bears come home. They angrily discover Goldilocks has been eating their food, busting up one of their chairs, and even now is sleeping in one of their beds.   Goldilocks wakes up.  She freaks out at the bears.  She runs away.  And she never returns to the bear’s house again.  Not exactly what you call a happy ending.  But it is a profoundly true one.    You could sum up the story like this.  Human being in desperate search for finding something just right ends up messing things up for her and everyone else.

And that’s not just the Goldilocks story, it’s the human story.   So, we find ourselves in conflicted relationships with nature, with people, heck even with ourselves.  And all those not right relationships, all that unrighteousness stems from one core reality.  We have lost a right relationship with God.  

We don’t believe that God loves us.  Yet we desperately crave to know that very love.  We want to know that ultimate security.  We want to know we are loved, infinitely, unconditionally.  We yearn to know we are right like that.  We yearn to know that God looks at us and smiles.   Now people may not put it that way.  But ultimately in searching for that just right feeling, that’s what they are ultimately looking for. 

And without that assurance of love, people go looking for that love, that approval in all the wrong places.   Why did Epstein do the awful things he did?   He did it for the same reason he amassed huge wealth and famous friends.  He was looking to feel just right.  In the twisted places of his mind, he didn’t care who he exploited or damaged in order to get there.   But you don’t have to do horrendous things such as Epstein to be captured by that same desperate desire for just right. 

After all, Paul admits here that the same desire captured him.  But in his case, it led him to religion not to crime.   He turned to religion to feel just right.   And only as he died to that, as he died to the law, as he puts it here, did he become free.   And free he did become.  How did it happen?   Paul became free because he discovered the power of a word he used again and again, justification. 

This past Wednesday I got home from work.  And do you know the first thing my son said to me.  He said to me.   He had eaten a cupcake.   In our family, we have a pretty strict treat policy.   On Friday, only on Friday, Patrick gets one treat, like a candy or say a cupcake.   So, he knew.  This Wednesday cupcake violated that policy.

But Patrick didn’t stop there.  He explained. This was no ordinary cupcake.  This was a craft activity cupcake.  In his class, they had made cookie monster cupcakes.  He himself had put on the cookie and the edible eyes.    Not only that, he had not even eaten the whole cupcake, just part of it.   Now what was Patrick doing?   He was justifying himself. 

Now his justification didn’t change the basic fact.  He had still eaten a cupcake.  He had still eaten a treat on a day other than Friday.   But those details changed how I viewed that fact.  That’s what a justification does.  It doesn’t change the fact.   But it does change the view.  And in Jesus, God has done just that for you.  God has changed the view.  God has justified you.  

In Jesus, God didn’t erase all your wrong actions, all the brokenness of your life.  But in Jesus, God changed the view.  Jesus shows you in spite of all that, God still sees you with eyes of love. Jesus shows you that God has never stopped seeing you that way. 

In our desperate, misdirected drive to feel just right in Jesus, we even killed God.  Yet God even then did not stop loving us, loving you.  Even death did not stop God love.  And you know that love; when you know that love gave up everything for you, even seeing you at your worst, you become free.  You know.  God sees all of you, even your ugliest places.  Yet in his love, God chooses to view you still as beautiful, as approved, as right.  Why?  Because God loves you like that. God loves you no matter what.  All you need to do it believe it.  That’s why it’s called justification by faith. 

And when you know that, you know.  You know you are just right.  You don’t have to do looking for it, trying to get it.  Even when you’re not feeling just right, even when your life is far from just right, you still know.   Deep within, you know.  You are just right, always and forever.  And that knowledge, that sense of rightness deep within frees you as nothing else can.   Do you know that?   If you don’t, then make today the day you know you are.