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Plainly Speaking
with Karl J. Forehand
Responsible
Freedom
(Colossians 2:16-17)
by Karl J. Forehand
Okay…do or don’t I have freedom in Christ?
First of all, let us define freedom a
bit. Freedom is not a license to do
whatever you want. Freedom does not
mean that we can abandon responsibility.
Freedom is not an excuse to ignore authority or the laws of your
government. It does not mean we can
violate God’s Word or ignore what it says.
It does not remove us from the authority within the church.
In this study, we will try to get a handle
on the following
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how we obtained
this freedom we have
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how to stand
against the wrong authority in our life
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how to correctly
handle this new freedom
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how to recognize
the real deal
1.
Realize the basis of liberty
And when you were
dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you
alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of
debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has
taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and
authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them
through Him. (Colossians 2:13-15)
We were dead and have been made
alive. We now have the ability to
spiritually discern (I Cor. 2:14).
God forgave us when we owed a debt we couldn’t pay. He disarmed our adversary and even made us
compete (Col. 2:10). We are under new
authority. Understanding our freedom
demands that we understand who NOW owns us.
Freedom never removes responsibility.
But what should we do now? The next verse begins “Therefore…”
2. Reject the boneheads that enslave you
Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to
food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath
day-- (Colossians 2:16-17)
Many of us are people-pleasers. Okay, maybe it’s just me. Paul asked a penetrating questions to all
people-pleasers, “For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? If I were still trying to please men, I
would not be a bond-servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10). We have to make a choice – we can’t have
it both ways. Being a people pleaser
makes us a targets for religious dictators.
The command is, “Let no one act as
judge…” You could insert just about
anything into the list mentioned here.
Some want us all to dress the same.
Some focus on what we eat or don’t eat. To the Gnostics, it was about their asceticism. For some today, it would be about
earrings. But, often it is not the
religious dictator so much as our people pleasing propensity. That is what gives them their power.
The reality is that our flesh is
weak in spiritual things (Matthew 26:41).
In other words, we don’t DO spiritual things without a lot of
motivation. While our flesh is weak
for spiritual things, it is very strong in practicing rituals. If we have DONE it before, we are apt to
do it again. We often tell God, “Give
me something I can DO.” We often
adhere to rituals (even worthless ones) to make us feel better about
ourselves.
The people that help facilitate
these processes are those that say, “I will only approve of you if you…” Paul stresses to us, “Don’t allow
that!” We often reason, “Well, I’ll
just do it to make them happy and then they will be happy with me and my life
will be more bearable.” The reality
is that it only gets worse. Control
freaks are never satisfied and we teach people how to treat us.
The danger is spending all of our
energy on pleasing people and having nothing left for God.
The right focus is to not allow any
human to judge you in areas not clear in Scripture. Adultery will always be wrong.
Murder will never be right. Again,
this doesn’t take us out from under authority, it just puts us under the
right authority. If we allow God to
rule us, we won’t need 20 people to tell us what to do.
3. Be
responsible in your liberty
I’ll try to summarize this.
First, we should not heap customs and
rituals, that are only symbols, upon others (Acts 15:10. Second, we can’t put aside God’s commands
for a ritual (Matthew 15:10). Often
in rejecting old rituals, we create new ones that have little or not
spiritual value. Third, we should
realize that we are not saved by works and we live righteously by allowing
Christ to work through us (Galatians 2:16-21). We must make sure that our freedom exercised does not become a
stumbling block to someone else (1 Cor. 8:8-9, Romans 14).
Food, drink and special days may not be an
issue to us; but we have our own hang-ups.
Think about discussion you have heard involving: choruses/hymns,
instruments/no instruments, liturgy/no liturgy, etc. Liberty is not a license to do whatever we
want and trample whoever in the process.
4.
Learn to recognize what is real
things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but
the substance belongs to Christ.
(Colossians 2:17)
Rituals are a shadow of the real
thing. Where does a shadow come
from? When light shines on something
with mass, it creates a shadow. A
shadow is an indicator or warning of that the substance is near. In worshipping our rituals, we are trying
to hug the shadow. We even have been
arguing over which shadow to embrace, all the while missing what is
real. The Bible says that human
priests are a shadow (Hebrews 8:5). The Mosaic Law was a shadow (Hebrews 10:1). All rituals are a shadow of what is
real. Circumcision represents
salvation when are sins are stripped away.
Are we embracing Jesus Christ or the many
shadows?
When we listen to the sermon, are we listening
to the Word of the pastor?
Are we ministering and serving people or
enslaving ourselves to their expectations?
Are we allowing the religious dictators
to become God to us and missing Jesus?
Some simple truths:
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There
is a difference between ministering / serving and allowing them to run our
lives.
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There
is a difference between leadership and control
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There
is a difference between responsible liberty and recklessness
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There
is a huge difference between the real thing and the shadows
Are you living out your freedom
responsibly?
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