There is a story that has been around as long as I have been preaching, so the chances that you have heard it are right good. Even so, I share it.

A speaker was scheduled to address some cattlemen. A terrible sleet storm struck on the day of the meeting. When the speaker arrived at the meeting place there were just three men present. The three were seated on the front row of seats — two younger cowmen with an old man between them. After waiting in vain for more people to arrive, the speaker said,

“Frankly, gentlemen, I am somewhat at loss as to what I should do. I went to some effort to prepare a speech, and even more effort to get to this meeting place. But, now I find just the three of you here, and apparently no more are coming. Even the chairman did not make it. Do you have any suggestions as to what we should do?”

The old man, seated between the other two, said,

“Well, I sure ain’t no orator myself. All I know about is cattle. But I’ll say this: If I went down to feed a herd of cattle and only three critters showed up — I would sure feed ‘em.”

“That settles it,” the speaker said. “You asked for it.”

He thereupon proceeded to deliver the entire speech, just as he had prepared it for an expected audience of 300. After talking an hour and ten minutes, the speaker concluded his prepared effort, and remarked to his audience of three, “What do you say?”

The old man was again the spokesman, “Well, as I was sayin’, I don’t know nothin’ about speakin’. Cattle is my business But, it’s like I said, If’n I was to go down to feed a bunch of steers and only three head showed up – why, I would feed ‘em – but I don’t think I would give ‘em the whole load!”

Now, I share that because last Sunday I didn’t give you the whole load on Paul’s word about Christian freedom, and I want to continue today. Our text last Sunday was verse 1 of chapter 5 — a portion of our scripture lesson this morning. This verse is Paul’s Magna Carta of spiritual freedom. It is to such persons as we are – bound in bland conformity, and religious conventions, shackled by guilt which produces growth in dynamic discipleship – it is to such person as we are, smothered in our spiritual development, that this word of Paul comes like fresh air on a sultry day. Listen to it again: “For freedom, Christ has set us free; stand fast there fore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

We need to score that word indelibly upon our minds. We are set loose by Christ to be free persons.

 I want to consider the nature of Christian freedom.  For if there is any audience that knows the foundation of freedom it is those in the military that fight for it.

I’ll be saying three things this morning  One, freedom requires discipline; two, freedom requires love; and three, the freedom of Christ sets the stage and provides the power for our becoming all that God intends us to become.”- In the military we know discipline, we also do it because of love of country and as the Army used to say “Be all you can be.”

Let’s look at those three aspects of the nature of freedom.

I

FREEDOM REQUIRES DISCIPLINE

First, freedom requires discipline. Actually, the freedom Christ gives us, is a freedom to be responsible. Look at verse 13. “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, be servants of one another.”

The Greek word, aphormi, translated here as “opportunity” is sometimes translated and literally means “a place for jumping off.” It’s interesting that Paul alone among the New Testament writers used this word and it was one of his favorites. Originally the word designated a point from which to launch an attack, hence used in military parlance to weapon a base of operation.

Get Paul’s picture in mind. He knew that if freedom was interpreted merely as the removal of restraint, sin would seize the opportunity, and use the weakness of human nature to launch attack against the spirit.

So, freedom requires discipline. The freedom of Christ is a freedom to be responsible.

How often have we seen people throw off the bonds of legalism and rigid moralism, and then excuse their irresponsible behavior with such words as “I’m only human.” It’s one thing to acknowledge that we are weak sinners; it’s quite another to do so with a shrug of the shoulders and a nonchalant attitude that makes us content with lesser values and a below par performance.

Many of us here have rightly thrown off a depressing legalistic approach to Christianity. The Christian life is never to be measured in terms of law. It is not a moralistic system of do’s and don’ts. Some of you remember that ditty which was a caricature of Christian piety: “I don’t smoke, and I don’t chew, and I don’t go with girls who do.”

We don’t accept as credible those who reduce the Gospel to a set of demands and prohibitions and who would have a few paramount virtues by which they measure everyone. But I want to tell you, friends, that’s not the problem today. The problem today is that we have turned our freedom into license. There are dramatic results of this irresponsible freedom. Sexual promiscuity that is running rampant that plays havoc with individuals and families; the use of drugs at the elementary school level; abortion on demand; crime in the executive suites of big business.

Pleasure has become our God. Escape has become our goal. “If it feels good, do it”, is our unofficial motto.

Later on in this 5th chapter of Galatians, Paul gives a summary of the fruit of the Spirit and many of us know that list: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithful ness, gentleness, self-control.

Most of you are familiar with that list, but how many of you are aware that immediately preceding that list, Paul for us the works of the flesh, the works of the result of freedom becoming license. That list includes impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, strife, outbursts of anger, drunkedness, and jealousy.

So, Paul pictures the life of the Spirit in opposition to our sinful nature — the fruit of the Spirit fighting against freedom turned into license. And having set those two lists in contrast, Paul urges Christians not to grow weary in well-doing and then he reminds us that a person reaps what he sows.

If freedom is not to become license, then we must discipline ourselves to be responsible. That responsibility is primarily disciplined obedience to Christ. Our situational decisions are not made according to whim of the moment, nor by whether we can get away with it or not – but according to who we are by the power of Christ. The liberty Christ gives is responsible liberty that draws us out of ourselves with a transforming power to serve others. And that brings us to the second truth.

II

FREEDOM REQUIRES LOVE

Christian freedom requires love. Paul says that the criterion to guide our Christian freedom is love. See it there in verse 14:

“For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”’ Interestingly, this is the love that was defined in the law by God to Moses in Leviticus 19:18; and reiterated by Jesus in Mark 12: 29 — 31. Paul simply restates it. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is what Jesus meant when he said we would save our lives by losing them. If we give our life in love to others, we will find it. But as Paul said in verse 15, “If you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another.”

Here is the losing and finding of life in a person. Marian Preminger was born in Hungary in 1913, raised in a castle with her aristocratic family, surrounded with maids, tutors, governesses, butlers, and chauffeurs. Her grandmother, who lived with them, insisted that whenever they traveled, they take their own linen, for she believed it was beneath their dignity to sleep between sheets used by common people.

While attending school in Vienna, Marian met a handsome young Viennese doctor. They fell in love, eloped and married when she was only eighteen. The marriage lasted only a year, and she returned to Vienna to begin her life as an actress.

While auditioning for a play, she met the brilliant young German director, Otto Preminger. They fell in love and soon married. They went to America soon thereafter, where he began his career as a movie director. Unfortunately and tragically, Hollywood is a place of dramatic illustrations of people “biting, devouring, and consuming” one another. Marian was caught up in the glamour, lights and superficial excitement and soon began to live a sordid, promiscuous life. When Preminger discovered it, he divorced her.

She returned to Europe to live the life of a socialite in Paris. In 1948 she learned through the newspaper that Albert Schweitzer, the man she had read about as a little girl, was making one of his periodic visits to Europe and was staying at Gunsbach. She phoned his secretary and was given an appointment to see Dr. Schweitzer the next day. When she arrived in Gunsbach she discovered he was in the village church playing an organ. She listened and turned the pages of music for him. After a visit he invited her to have dinner at his house. By the end of the day she knew she had discovered what she had been looking for all her life. She was with him every day thereafter during his visit, and when he returned to Africa he invited her to come to Lambarene and work in the hospital.

She did – and she found herself. There in Lambarene, the girl born in a castle and raised like a princess, who was accustomed to being waited on with all the luxuries of a spoiled life, became a servant. She changed bandages, bathed babies, fed lepers…and became free. She wrote her autobiography and called it All I Ever Wanted Was Everything. She could not get the everything that would satisfy and give meaning until she could give everything. When she died in 1979, the New York Times carried her obituary, which included this statement from her: “Albert Schweitzer said there are two classes of people in this world – the helpers, and the non- helpers. I’m a helper.”

What an obituary! It is the way we find ourselves — by losing ourselves. The criterion of Christian freedom is serving one another in love.

III

And that brings us to the last truth on which we need to focus. The freedom of Christ sets the stage and provides the power for our becoming all that God intends us to become.

The reason Christ’s freedom provides a dynamic power for becoming is that it’s a freedom that has come through forgiveness. We’re no longer slaves to the past, weighed down by guilt, by morbid regret – we are set free, because Christ has wiped the slate clean, as it were.

Let me ask you a question. When you think about God, do you become sad and remorseful and quiver because you are aware of your past sins, or do you rejoice with exhilaration because you’re so aware of God’s loving forgiveness?

I was stimulated to ask that question because Kierkegaard, the great Danish philosopher—theologian, once said that a person rests in forgiveness when the thought of God does not remind him of sin, but reminds him of forgiveness. Forgiveness is the dynamic power in our lives that it should be, when the past is not a memory of how much we have trespassed, but of how much we have been forgiven, and of the exciting possibilities before us.

I’ve never seen this as dramatically as in some friends of mine. A chaplain and his wife I know their story well a story of heart-break and despair. A ten year recent span in their 30 years of marriage had become empty. Neither was sensitive to the other’s needs. The relationship deteriorated to the point of near destruction for both of them. She came to the breaking point on drugs. They separated, then she was committed to a state mental hospital.

At the edge of divorce, with the woman, still institutionalized. One day the minister was praying for his wife. “Clearly,” he said, “a voice said to me, “You’ve got to turn your prayers into action now. You must love Dale – love her with no strings attached love her like Hosea loved Gomer.”

Of course that meant total forgiveness.

Well, it’s a modern day miracle. Dale has been completely transformed, and, amazingly, has become, I believe, a great poet. She’s teaching in one of the great universities of our country. Listen to one of her poems which celebrates the renewal of their marriage —— the fact that we are empowered by the freedom of forgiveness to be what God wants us to be. She called her poem, “Prodigal Wife”.

Oh, call out the guards and stop the search
Tell my love that I’m found again.
Wandering is over, back home at last,
Saved from the storm, returned to the fold.
Oh sing out the welcome, find the ring.
Turn out the others, reclaim our name.
Spread out the banners, destroy the blame.
Tell my love, I’m home again.
The heart is at rest, the present is here.
Blessings restored, come happiness now.
United in joy — resolved in love.

Ask that couple. They’ll tell you about the freedom of Christ setting the stage and providing the power for our becoming all that God intends us to become.

For freedom Christ has set you free. The clanking chains of slavery loosed by Christ as we are judged and forgiven. We’re then free from the sins that burden us down, free from meaninglessness, guilt, and the threat of death —— set loose to become the unique sons and daughters God created us to be.

A certain chaplain was greeted each Sunday morning by a man whose life as an alcoholic had been turned around by God. He had been free from those burdensome chains. They met in the narrow corridor that led from the chaplain’s office to the chancel of the sanctuary. Each week the alcoholic who had been set free by Christ would stop the preacher and take his hand and say, “Tell the congregation that they can!”

That’s what I’ve been doing telling you that you can if you realize that your freedom requires discipline and love, then that freedom will set the stage and provide the power for you to be all that God intends you to be.

I’m telling you – you can!