Last Sunday, I added a last-minute thought to the message which 1) was a much bigger thought than I gave it room for, 2) may have been distracting to the main message, 3) was not thought through fully, and 4) the one thing some people really latched onto. I still haven't decided if it was a good addition or not!
The idea was that in Christ, we have three possible paths to tread: License, Legalism, or Love. When we went through Galatians over a year ago, we talked about License, Legalism, and Liberty, which is a theologically accurate list, but I like the focus of Love more than that of Liberty.
License is the idea that because I have my sins forgiven by grace, I can live as I please, do whatever my flesh desires. Hey, it's all going to be forgiven, right? Sure, it might be disrespectful to the Cross, but if it's covered, it's covered. Paul repeated teaches against this view, especially in Galatians.
Legalism is the idea that our righteousness and our standing before God is dependent on how well we adhere to a certain moral code. There are plenty of non-Christian religions that are blatantly legalistic. Although it's relatively rare to find an evangelical church that teaches this outright (there are some!), this more often finds its way into church by stealth. A church can believe in grace and teach grace, but still end up with teachings and sermons that boil down to "try harder, do it right, it's all on your shoulders." We can inadvertently create an attitude of legalism while preaching grace.
Liberty is the idea that in Christ, we finally have the freedom and ability to obey Him. We have been set free from sin and death and set free for following Him from our heart. The bonds are gone, but we are also enabled for the first time to actually obey, which we choose to do freely.
But I prefer the third element to be labeled Love. Not because Liberty is inaccurate in any way, but because Love encompasses Liberty and so much more.
Love is more than an idea ... it's a relationship, it's a motive, it's a mode, it's an attachment, it's so many things. Rather than freely disobeying God (License) or obeying God in bondage (Legalism), it is freely obeying God drenched by love in every way. We obey Christ because we love, love is our attitude while following Him, we love Him by obeying Him, and we even love by obeying the command to love. We have been freed because of love, Christ's will has been revealed to us because of love, and His will is how He provides for us a way to love Him.
"Liberty" describes the freedom and enablement we have because of Christ. "Love" describes the what, the why, and the how to exercise that freedom and enablement.
It's easy to slip back into legalism, where we try to create a set of rules. It's even easier to slip into license - just do whatever we desire to do, whether or not it is Christ's will. Loving relationships are not the easiest routes, but they are clearly the best ones, because love is the only path of the three that reflects Christ's character.
No comments:
Post a Comment