Month: September 2021

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This past Sunday, Pastor Craig gave his final sermon to us, the people of First United Methodist Church of Winter Park, and it was a compelling one. He spent time reviewing what we have learned over the last month and a half together from the letter to the Churches in Galatia and how the Good News of Jesus Christ offers us Freedom. This isn’t the freedom from something (the negative view) but freedom for something (the positive view). This positive view of freedom should come more easily to us, a freed people living in the United States, but often it gets convoluted by our culture. We have freedom from that which weighs us down, leads us astray, and breaks our relationship with God and others. Freedom is not because we are choosing to be A+ Christians or be a model for a deep spiritual walk. We have the freedom to choose another way; the fruit of the Spirit. Notice the word is Fruit, not Fruits meaning we can’t choose our favorites to emulate and leave the others out. For instance, I would love to just be a person of love, joy, and peace, but I don’t always like to practice patience (especially when I am tired) or practice self-control (especially when it involves chocolate)…can I get an AMEN?!

When we grow and nurture our Fruit of the Spirit, we have freedom from the checklist of “naughty” behaviors (Galatians 5:19-21) so we can live more like people with “nice” behaviors (Galatians 5:22-26). Understanding the both/and mindset takes time and spiritual maturity, but in some ways, it is how we move from simply being listeners to becoming leaders. We could abide by this list of behaviors because Christian culture can be a bit judge-y or because we see God as a God with a checklist looking down on us. Or we could choose to be leaders. People that others are attracted to and listen to and respect. Let me give you a personal example. Lately, we have struggled as parents to get our children to listen, especially in the mornings when they are cranky and not ready for what the day will bring. They are loud, they talk over each other, they instigate the other at times and they show little interest in listening to our directions or demands. And so in an effort to make changes for sanity’s sake, we have started using the language of leadership rather than listening. We give them a direction or ask them to do something and then when they do the opposite, we ask them to please be a good LEADER. It has changed things a bit for us. When they see themselves elevate and valued as someone that can have an influence on others, the results are different from simply just listening and obeying.

To me, I see this “naughty” and “nice” list in Galatians 5 as the difference between being a listener or a leader. Should we avoid sexual immorality, drunkenness, fits of rage and debauchery, and the rest of the “naughty” list, HECK YES! Paul is clear that we have freedom over those behaviors and choices. But what is our motivation for choosing the way of the Spirit? Is it because we are receiving praise from all temporary places or because we have been truly transformed? You see, Fruit of the Spirit is the outward evidence of an inward transformation. Just like Communion and Baptism is the outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace, so too is the Fruit of the Spirit that we display, practice, and live into daily.

And so the question I leave you with is if you are really set free, how are you leading others into that freedom? If it goes beyond simply listening to the “rules” of faith and moves you toward being a leader, are others following your example? As a church, we are finding new ways every week to engage the community in the freedom that Christ offers us. Just this past Sunday I had the opportunity to walk through the Open House at the 4Pillars Counseling Center. What an incredible vision this church had voted on in 2018 and then made the dream a reality over these last 2.5 years. This Counseling Center will be one of the many ways we are helping set people free and offering an opening toward inward transformation. I am so proud to be a part of a church that wants to introduce people to Jesus so that they can be set free! May we move towards being people that not only LISTEN to the ways that God is breaking our emotional, spiritual, and mental chains but also becoming LEADERS that help set others FREE!

A goal for our Reset sermon series is to read through the entire book of Galatians as a church family. We invite you to participate in the scripture devotional below.

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Galatians 4:21-5:15

Hagar and Sarah

²¹ Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? ²² For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. ²³ His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.

²⁴ These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. ²⁵ Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. ²⁶ But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. ²⁷ For it is written:

²⁸ Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. ²⁹ At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. ³⁰ But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”^[f] 31 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Freedom in Christ

5 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

² Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. ³ Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. ⁴ You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. ⁵ For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. ⁶ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

⁷ You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? ⁸ That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. ⁹ “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” ¹⁰ I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty. ¹¹ Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. ¹² As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!

Life by the Spirit

¹³ You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh^[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love. ¹⁴ For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”^[b] 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

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5 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

² Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. ³ Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. ⁴ You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. ⁵ For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. ⁶ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Galatians 5:1-6

On this Labor Day Monday, I am reflecting on the week that we have had and the week that is waiting for me. Usually, my Sundays are spent in worship with all of you, but this Sunday I had the opportunity to love on our littlest ones in the Church Nursery as all of our Nursery Staff were already back at college or off for the long holiday weekend. I did not get to hear Pastor David’s sermon live, but I did get to sing with the little ones on the catwalk in the final song in the Contemporary Service. The song was “Christ is Enough” and it modulated into the well-known hymn, “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back” and I couldn’t help but think that this might be Paul’s main point in his entire letter to the Galatians. Once we choose to follow Jesus and to make him the Lord of our life, we can’t go back to how things had been or who we once were.

As Paul expresses over and over again in this letter to the churches of Galatia, the hill that he is willing to die on is the argument regarding circumcision and whether or not it is needed for salvation. He has said it before and he will say it again, this is no longer the Law to obey. There is a new law to obey, and it is the law of freedom through the cross and it is expressed through grace and love. When it came to the rest of the religious rules and regulations that keep people out, Paul was only interested in a faith that is expressed through love. To quote verse 6, from chapter 5 again,

“⁶ For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

Think about that quantitative phrase for just a minute; “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Could Paul have written it any plainer?

Can you think of a time when you expressed your faith in a less than loving way? Can you remember a time perhaps in this last week or month when you chose impatience, judgment or anger over love? While the law of circumcision is not the litmus test in our faith community today, there are other things that we use to measure one’s faithfulness, even if those internal measurements are unintentional. I don’t know all of your faith stories or the homes you grew up in, but you can all think of the ‘measurements’ we use in the church. Not just our church, but THE CHURCH. What has the church or the people called Christians created over the years as measurements to keep others out?

I can remember, early in my Middle School years, I jumped on the Left Behind book series train and walked through a season of about 3 months of really feeling like the end of the world was eminent and I should both evangelize and save all of my friends from the impending doom. I believe I also started to be afraid of anyone with a Russian name (if you know, then you know.)

Well, my best friend was and is Catholic. I was 13 or 14 and because of this version of someone else’s fictitious understanding of a sacred text, I was worried for her soul. I don’t remember the conversation precisely, but I know I really laid into her one Wednesday night on the way home from youth group (I really wanted to drive the point home). I told her in a less than loving way that her way of understanding and expressing her faith was wrong and that I “loved her enough to not let her end up in hell…” (I promise, I am not making this up). Needless to say, I did not express my faith lovingly, not even respectfully; instead I executed it with judgment and fear. My mother, who was driving us home, had some important words for me that night after we dropped her off about how I could have handled that with more grace. It didn’t take me long to apologize and we are still best friends 20 years later, but as I reflect on this story, I cringe thinking about how I hurt, judged and alienated this beautiful friend of mine.

Maybe you too have had a moment like this when your love of rules surpassed your love of relationship. What was that moment like for you? For the people of Galatia, they bought into the false Gospel that only those circumcised could be truly saved and they were executing that belief with judgment and fear. But we do the same, don’t we? We inadvertently measure one’s faith journey based on how they look, home well-behaved their children are or their marriage appears. How one gives of their time or how they vote and the bumper stickers on their car. And lately, I confess, I have made my own judgments about who is wearing a mask and how you protect the ‘least of these.’ The point is, we all struggle from time to time, especially when we are emersed in an almost constant barrage of fear, distrust and misinformation to forget that the “Only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love.” What might the Holy Spirit be whispering into your heart today? How might you understand this text in your own life? And what is it that you might tweak about how you interact with the stranger or friend to lead with love, to offer grace and to be an example of Jesus?

May God add God’s blessing to the hearing, praying and contemplating of God’s Word.

AMEN