Scripture: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ecclesiastes 1:9; Matthew 6:21 Series: 2022
Opening a new-year sermon series called ‘Freedom,’ the preacher contrasts the world’s freedom-of-choice with biblical freedom. Using Roman consul history, Luther, the Wesleys, Augustine, and the Methodist covenant service, he argues that true freedom in Christ is the paradoxical freedom to love God and neighbor against our own sin-curved desires, not unobstructed individualism, and invites the congregation into covenant renewal for the new year.
Illustrations: roman-consuls-january-calendar, coke-pepsi-plaid-stripes-choice, martin-luther-free-and-dutiful, steve-earle-aint-ever-satisfied, wesleys-coal-mine-preaching, wesley-covenant-service-prayer, augustine-saving-for-children
January 2
The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. It won’t be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant with me even though I was their husband, declares the Lord. No, this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. They will no longer need to teach each other to say, “Know the Lord!” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord; for I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins. Jeremiah 31:31-34
Our annual calendar comes from the Ancient Rome and the innovations that Julius Caesar did about 45 BC that put us on a schedule of a 365 and a quarter days a year, with a leap year every four years. January 1st was an important day in ancient Rome. Ancient Roman Republic was ruled by two consoles. So the consoles had a one year term and they had a ton of power. I could go into a lot more of the details of this, but the main thing is that you were immune from prosecution while you were a console, but once you got out of office, you were open for trial. And the office of the console was January 1st until December 31st. So if you had done some shady things by the Consoles at the end of the year because they would want to put themselves in positions so that they would not be prosecuted once leaving office. They would want to make sure the next year consoles would not prosecute them, I don’t know this for sure, but my assumption is that the reason why in the original US constitution, presidential inaugurations were in March, was to avoid the end of year violence that sometimes happened in ancient Rome. The founding fathers read Cicero and other Roman’s voraciously and tried to learn from them. Now we are in a new year, 2022, and the new year is stil important and tumultuous. There is this idea that anything can happen. My friends, we are starting a new sermon series and this new year called Freedom. How should we understand God’s freedom and our freedom and God? The world today has a different idea of freedom than the Bible. Today, freedom is most often portrayed as a freedom of choice. I’m free to drink Coke or Pepsi. I’m free to wear plaid or stripes. I am free to root for A&M or Texas or even Tech. This is not the freedom of scripture. In the Bible, we are given the freedom to love God to do the cut. Because on our own, we do not do the things of God. We do not seek the good. Even if we end up doing good things, it is not for good reasons. We give away a couch because it is taking up space. We give to the poor to make ourselves feel good. We seek whatever our heart desires and good or bad fits only within our prior desires. So scripturally, whether you pick plaid or stripes, whether you pick Coke or Pepsi, you are not free. You are not free because you’re limited by what your heart desires. And our hearts are limited by sin. We are curved inward what we desire so that what we desire is what makes us feel happy. But ultimately this is not freedom, but a different kind of servitude. This is why a lot of contemporary political language around freedom is very antithetical to the freedom of the gospel. A hyper focus on individuals seeking what they find as good and not being obstructed in that is nowhere found in the Bible. Jesus sends out disciples in pairs and calls folks to join a new body. Jesus calls us to turn the other cheek when we are hurt, not lift up the right of self-defense upon all others. But what God offers is not this freedom to be individuals to the fullest possible extent, But the freedom to love God to do something that our heart doesn’t want on its own. The freedom to love our neighbor, not for personal benefit, but because of who God is. As Martin Luther said, “the Christian is utterly free, master of all, subject to none. The Christian is utterly dutiful, servant of all, subject to all.”
Our freedom is a paradox. It is not about rights or contracts or what we deserve. In Christ, we are free to love and serve and find joy in love in service. In Christ we are free to build up our treasure in heaven, where their cannot steal, because where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
The freedom of Christ is to love people who don’t love us back. To delight in giving more than receiving. The freedom of Christ is to not have an angle for every relationship. The freedom of Christ is that you don’t need to win at life, Christ has won for you. You don’t need to prove yourself, Christ has found you worthy. Grace is grace because we don’t deserve it, and there is freedom in that. We are free to see ourselves as more than consumers or workers or leaders, but as children of God.
The word for conversion in Greek is metanoia, it means changing direction, it means your life was going one way and now it is going another. This change of direction is not wrought by a strength of will. God is with us from before we are aware of God. And God desires all to be saved. So God is working in us to help us change directions so that we can be more free. God doesn’t want us to slaves to our own desires. Because our own heart is never satisfied. The human heart without God is just like that Steve Earle song, “I ain’t ever satisfied.”
And then if we are blessed to change directions in life. If we are blessed to enter the freedom of God, the old way of life is still there. We are called to a life that is filled more and more with love, it is easy to become complacent in faith. To think that we have done enough or given enough or loved enough. The root of idolatry is thinking you are finished.
The Methodist movement took fire in England and the colonies 250 years ago in a world that had heard of the church and grown complacent. The world thought that it was finished with faith. You get baptized and you are fine. John and Charles Wesley hoped all people to be offered grace but also the discipline to stay in love with God. The Wesley’s preached in front of coal mines before 6am shifts because the workers were too tired on Sunday to come to service. They also organized meetings for everyone to grow in faith together. It was this combination of the head and the heart. A heart on fire for God is amazing, but life in the world needs a good head to navigate together.
From the early time of the Methodist movement, John Wesley would recommend a covenant service at the beginning of the year. It would be a time to re-commit to God for the year: to make covenant. Not because we had left God, but just in anticipation that the human heart does sway and we should seek to stand firm in who God is for us. This is how it starts
I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low for thee. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
The covenant language is hard to hear if you’re focused on freedom being purely individualistic. If freedom is about me and my choices and what I want to do and making sure nobody tells me what to do, it doesn’t make sense. But in the same way, if my focus on freedom is solely about me, the gospel of Jesus Christ doesn’t make sense because the gospel of Jesus Christ is not about me. It isn’t. It’s not about you as individuals. That is not the focus. God calls us together to be the body of Christ together, to care for our neighbors together, to care for widows and orphans together. Even if it impinges upon my freedom, even if the existence of others means I can’t do all the things I want to do. God shows us a world where we are more free in spending our time caring for others than if we spend our time just for ourselves, we are more free in giving of ourselves for others than when we are saving all the things we have for ourselves. We are more free in giving away our resources with generosity now than saving things up for our children and our children’s children and our children’s children. This is something that’s been going on for a long time. Augustine writes in an early sermon
“I’m saving it for my children!” a marvelous excuse. He’s saving it for his children. Let’s see, shall we? Your father saves it for you, you save it for your children, your children for their children, and so on through all generations. 1
As it says in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun.
We are in a new year. We are offered an opportunity to step into a new kind of freedom this year, the freedom to love, the freedom to seek God, the freedom to not be slaves to our own desires. You don’t need to protect God from this world. You don’t need to be a servant to your desires. God has created you for more.
Let us pray,
Footnotes
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Augustine Sermon 9.20 ↩