MCC Podcasts
Working It Out -The Trouble With Freedom
Well, we're picking up today, as we wind down in our series in 1 Timothy on a text, we're picking up today on a text that Pastor Jeff mentioned in passing a little while ago, I think last week actually, and it's that text that people have misused, it's a text where Paul references the use of wine to Timothy. People have misused it because they're nervous about any use of freedom, even if it's as expressed in the use of intoxicants or the drinking a little glass of wine, and it's been misused in giving unlimited freedom, but we're going to jump on it, it's just that one text, and then look at some of the things that are behind that text and come away with hopefully some good points, some good guidelines for living. I've entitled this message "The Trouble with Freedom," because Christianity is all about freedom, it was offered into a context that was overly restrictive, that defined whether or not you're a good person or a faithfully religious person by the things you said you weren't going to be involved in, and the list just kept on growing. Then here comes Jesus and those who follow it after Jesus, talking about freedom, freedom for women, freedom for children, freedom to practice life, and Jesus comes and says, "It is okay, you're free to walk down through a field on the Sabbath and pick a piece of grain and eat it while you're talking," and that's not against the rules, that's not considered harvesting, you're freer than that, it's for freedom that we endure. He said, "It is okay, in fact it's a good thing, to heal somebody, and to heal somebody give them sight, give sight to the blind on the Sabbath," that's not considered work. Come on, get real, and he's introducing this incredible freedom, freedom of thought, freedom of discussion, freedom of choice. That wasn't the first time it got introduced, you have in the Old Testament over and over and over again references to this, "Like, choose you this day whom you will serve." As for me and my house, we're exercising our freedom to choose to follow God. Remember that from Joshua, the words of Joshua, "Choose, choose, choose," all over the Bible. There's a problem with freedom, though, and we're going to deal with that today. Here's the deal, sometimes there's a difference between what we're free to do and what we probably should do. Have you learned that yet? There's a difference between what we're free to do sometimes and what we should do. And we're free to do all sorts of things that are neither, they're amoral, they're neither bad nor good, they're just there, and we're free to choose them, but sometimes we need to lay down those rights. For instance, though we have the right or the freedom to choose to sunbathe in the desert on the first day of summer all day long, it's not necessarily something we should choose to do. Bad things happen. He's smiling in that picture. I don't think he's smiling very long after that picture. This is what you look like on that day before the beer has worn off, you know what I mean? And he's going to be itching for a month after that. The fact that we, in another case, are free to be Raiders fans. It doesn't mean we should be Raiders fans. Bad things happen when you make choices. You shouldn't exercise every freedom just because you have it. Another example, just because we're free to climb a virtual ladder in the, up the backside of Half Dome, and then once we get to the top of Half Dome, walk out on a crazy, I mean I don't see how hard he had to work to get out to that little ledge because we're free to stand out there like a crazy man doesn't mean we should stand out there. Can we agree on that? By the way, do you know who that is? That's the chair of our church, Alan Edmondson. I look at that picture and I wonder really is Alan Edmondson smart enough to be, Edmond I just want to say get off, get that, when we're following Jesus, there's sometimes a difference between what we're free to do as Christians and what we should do. And knowing that difference is crucial to this idea, the idea of this series of working things out, how things work in a community of faith, which begs the question, when might we as Christians need to choose to deny ourselves a particular freedom? Something we have the right to do, but are there times when we need to be able to say, you know I have the right to do that, you can't on paper, show me how that's something I can't do, but I think in this case I need to choose not to do that. I need to say no to the right to say yes or there are times when that happens. And I think this example in 1 Timothy 5 must be one of those times when we look at that text. When are those times when we need to say no to the right to say yes? And so I want to just give you a couple of examples of when that might be true. First one is right here in 1 Timothy 5, which is our primary text for today. And here's the first example, first time you might want to say no to the right to say yes. It's when I have to choose between exercising my freedom and performing my ministry. If I have to choose between freedom and my ministry, the right to have that ministry in a particular context, that might be a time when I want to choose to exercise my right to say no to a yes. When I was a young intern at Arcade Baptist Church, it's where Brenda and I met. So I'm glad that I said no to a freedom that allowed me to minister there because I got blessed the rest of my life for it because we met there. She became a Christian there. There was a rule there that I thought was a silly rule. In fact, these two rules were the reason I decided I'm not going to be a Baptist. I'll never survive. Baptists are wonderful, but then you know, you're young, you say stupid things. But there was a rule and they said, we ask that anybody who's on our staff not consume alcohol at all. At the same rule when I taught at a Bible college up in Portland, we ask that you're not consume alcohol. And we ask that you not see a certain level of rated movies. And then at the church, they also ask that we not dance. Now if you've seen me dance, you know there's no risk of me ever violating that rule. Whatever you call it, you couldn't call it dancing. But I thought, man, this is driving me crazy, I don't want to do this. But the deal was, if you want to have a ministry through this church, and I really did, then you're going to need to set aside those rights. And you can sit there, here's what the Holy Spirit was banging me about. You know, you can sit here and complain about this stuff, or you can just say, heck, that's like nothing compared to the joy of being able to have a ministry here. And we're in covenant, we don't have any of those rules, but that was the time back then. Sometimes you want to say no to what you should otherwise be able to say yes to when it's for the sake of having a ministry. It's much more important to have access to people than it is to have access to an occasional drink. So when I have to choose between my freedom and my ministry, whether you think it's silly or not, I think that might be what's going on here in this admonition that Paul offers to Timothy in 1 Timothy 5. Just one verse, he says, stop drinking, Paul says to Timothy, stop drinking only water, use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses. And I asked the question, why did Paul even have to write that? For those of you who don't know, I'll just remind you, Timothy is the young pastor at a church in Ephesus, it's a brand new church. He's perceived maybe by some as being too young to be a pastor. So Paul is just trying to give Timothy some really practical instructions that are going to help him be successful in that given context. Here's what must have happened, at least some version of this for this admonition to make any sense. We don't know the details, so it's all guesswork. Something was going on behind that admonition though, right? Must have been that either Paul and Timothy had agreed that Timothy would not consume wine because of his own desire to go over the top in purity, and there's some connection between me, Timothy would say, my purity and me consuming wine, we don't know what if that was it, or they decided together, and so he might have said, Paul, hold me accountable to this. I really want the practice of this discipline in order to just grow a little bit, say no to this. Or there must have been, Timothy must have said, hey, we've got a problem with intoxicants in Ephesus. In chapter 3, verse 3, when Paul's giving Timothy the guidelines for who should be chosen to be a leader in that church, one of the standards he says is this, choose people who are literally goes like this, not long beside the wine. Not people who don't consume at all, but Timothy, don't pick one of those guys who loves to linger next to the bottle, who's got his easy chair right there and next to the wine cooler. Not long beside the wine. That gives us some insight. There might have been some issue where the abuse of intoxicants and toxicants, the abuse of that freedom was an issue for them, and so Paul and Timothy might have decided, we're going to go way beyond the standard and say no to something that should be a yes, because in this ministry context, success demands that. And Timothy must have taken that to the severe limit, to the point where he wouldn't even add wine to his water, which was considered medicinal in those days, and the water wasn't consistently great in those days, and he was experiencing physical trauma because of that. So it's like you have Paul writing permission for Timothy to go ahead and adjust the standard that they had agreed to, some standard of limitation going on there. My point is this, Timothy, once so far as to say, what rights do I have and should I have, that I'm willing and will need to set aside for the sake of my ministry, something like that is going on here. He had the right to drink wine. He had chosen to forgo that right, even to the point of risking his own health. Timothy had the freedom to consume, just like everyone else, but he recognized the difference between what he was free to do, and in that context, at that time at least, what he probably should do. You have Paul showing that he practiced this as well. In 1 Corinthians 9, I'm not going to read all the text. We have it up here for you if you want to follow along in detail as I sort of just work my way through it. But Paul is saying, "Am I not free? Am I not an apostle?" Paul has experienced all sorts of limitations in his ministry. He argues here, "Don't I have the right, like the other apostles, to take a wife with me, a believing wife with me, along in my journeys? Don't I have the right to take up offerings and receive payment to support my ministry? Don't I have the right, while I'm doing ministry? Don't I have the right, in other words, to not have to be an apostle and do the apostolic ministry and make tents on the side and have a job as well?" Which detracts from my energy and my ability to do all of that. Doesn't the Scriptures say, "Do not buzz the locks while it's treading out the grain? Is you think God's talking about oxen there really?" No. He's saying this for us, doesn't he? So it's not even, this isn't a new idea. And he says, "I have all these rights. If others have these rights of support from you, shouldn't we have it all the more?" And the answer is yes. But we did not use this right. We voluntarily laid that aside on the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ. So Paul's perceiving this in this context, for me to exercise those rights might hinder my ministry. What's my reward preaching the gospel and offering it free of charge to you? That's my reward. And so not to misuse my rights or misapply my rights. This is so drastic in Paul's thinking that he says this, "To have the right or the freedom to do something. And then not to be able to perceive when I should say, "No, I have that right. There's nothing wrong with doing it, but for the sake of this ministry I'm going to set that aside. I'm that committed." He considers that an abuse or a misuse of those rights. I'm free, I belong to no one, yet I make myself a slave to everyone so that I might win as many as possible. And then you have the ultimate example, I think, of Jesus in John chapter 10. Sometimes we say no when we shouldn't have to because of the ministry we want to do. Jesus says, "For this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again." And he did indeed lay it down on the cross and he did take it up again at resurrection. No one has taken it away from me, my life. I lay it down on my own initiative. I have the right to live and I surrender the right to live for the sake of my ministry. In fact, that was Christ's ministry. The trouble with freedom is that we sometimes don't understand the difference between what we're free to do and what we should do. When it comes to choosing between a freedom and doing ministry, we choose the ministry no matter what it costs. That's the example of Paul, Timothy, Jesus, everybody. Secondly, second time you might want to say no to a yes. When saying no is of spiritual benefit to me or to others. The dominant, a dominant theme in the teaching of Jesus is the theme of self-denial, of dying to yourself. We have largely forsaken that. Jesus would love it if we could recapture that. We have the freedom to do things, but sometimes the simple act of saying no, at least for a season, I'm going to forgo that freedom and I'm going to look for some spiritual benefit from the discipline of saying no to something I shouldn't normally have to say no to. Or somebody else's spiritual benefit. There's going to be some growth here. You have the example of Paul in that famous, as the New American Standard version of the Bible puts it, that famous buffeting my body text. And the context of that text is the idea of, hey, an athlete trains with a purpose in mind. I don't train with no purpose in mind, but I buffet my body. I punish my body. I say no to my body so that I can be stronger spiritually. I'm formed somehow for more dynamic and powerful ministries by saying no to things. I have the freedom to say yes to without sinning. In 1 Corinthians 9, though I'm free and belong to no, and I've made myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible. And then he goes into this text, to the Jew I've become like a Jew, to the free I've become like the free. To the weak, he goes so far, to the weak, as I say, to the weak, I've become as weak. This isn't Paul saying I'm a chameleon. I compromise myself wherever I need to be compromised so that I blend in with everybody. No, it's just the opposite. This is Paul saying, look. I'm going to lay aside what needs to be laid aside and can be laid aside without me pretending I'm somebody I'm not and identify contextualized with the people around me. So I'm going to live with sensitivity to the Jewish folks I'm reaching, which means I choose not to practice certain things that they find offensive. As long as it doesn't compromise what I believe in who I am, I'm not going to go offending them just because they have the right to. So the weak, I'm not going to come and show how much I've accomplished or how great my education is or how much better I am than them, how much better I am than them. Please applaud me for getting through this. No, I'm going to come humbly. I'm going to come identifying with them as weak. In fact, we'll get into this in a couple of weeks. I'm going to come aware of the fact that I actually am weak so that I can win them. I'm setting aside anything that hinders my sense of connection with them, their sense of connection with me. Sometimes you say no because saying no is going to mean spiritual growth for you or spiritual growth for someone else. These were not mandatory buffettings that Paul chose to encounter. They were self-chosen, self-imposed, settings aside of personal freedom. I do not run, verse 26, like someone running aimlessly, I do not fight like a boxer beating the air when I live. No, I strike a blow to my body and I make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the price. That's actually a smooth over translation, buffett my body. Literally, that would be more like this. I punch myself in the face. Or even some argue, that's Paul is saying I don't just train aimlessly. I give myself a black eye with a closed fist in order to make sure, darn sure, that having preached to others, I'm not going to be, you know, proven to disqualify myself. I say no to all sorts of things that should be yeses because there's spiritual benefit to me and spiritual benefit for others. And then finally, this example. So when you choose between freedom and ministry, maybe you need to say no to the freedom, at least temporarily. Choosing between freedom and personal growth and opportunity to go way deeper, demand much more of yourself and contribute to your own growth or the growth of others, you say no to the freedom. And though there's nothing wrong with the practice of freedom itself. And a third time, and this will finish with, sometimes we say no to what should be a yes. When my freedom and the practice of my freedom contributes to your bondage. Now a correction is needed here. It doesn't mean that every seemingly insignificant point of stumbling that somebody in a congregation might have means, I have to say no to something. Now we were joking between gatherings. It was completely a joke, but somebody says, oh art, that means you have to say no to sugar because eating sugar really causes me to stumble. And I, you know, in so many words said, well, you're going to stumble, sister. So, you know, people will come and say, well, you can't practice at freedom because I struggle with that. That's not what Paul means by stumbling here. But we're going to dedicate some infants here in just a minute. They are looking up to us, they're dependent upon us. You know, some of the, the practice of the church's freedom can, if we're not sensitive and careful, crash their faith forever. So to live without sensitivity to major problems people have by what they see is not something we do have the freedom to do. We're talking about, man, this is going to cause you to crash and burn. We're talking about somebody coming and saying, art, I'm so trying to maintain my sobriety. And I know there's nothing wrong. I know you don't have the same problems with me with drinking, but man, if you see me at a party, if you could just choose not to have a glass of wine, because for you, it's one glass for me, it can't be one glass. It would sure help me survive. And if I say to them, well, that's your problem, deal with it. Just because you have a hang up doesn't mean I should, I'm going to enjoy my glass of wine. That's what this is talking about. As we say, no to the right to say yes, because saying yes to a freedom is actually endorsing or encouraging your failure, someone's failure. We experience that with some of the church parties, they're not actually official church parties, but parties we have at Marin Covenant Church. We don't have any of these rules. We've got maximum freedom here. But we as staff notice, well, you know what, there aren't that many parties we get invited to from people from the church where there's not wine flowing and not just wine, good wine, which by the way is the rule at Marin Covenant. There's no rule against drinking wine, but don't invite me over for a box of wine. The rule here is has to be good one. We've noticed though as pastors, hey, we have a pastoral responsibility and a real pastoral concern. Occasionally, really find people at these parties that are mostly populated by folks from our church. They're having one glass too many. That's not good. And boy, are we contributing to that as pastors? What can we do? We want the freedom, but not the abuse of the freedom. So we decided, this is a choice we made, that when there's a party that's so big that it's not clear who's had how many glasses, you know, at six or seven of you are at dinner, everybody knows how many glasses of wine you've had. 60 or 70 of you are at dinner and it's mostly folks from the church, it's not so clear. So as pastors, we have said, those parties, we're agreeing not to partake at all. We're going to have perrier instead of pino, you know, I mean, and we're going to be holding that glass of perrier and everybody's going to know that's okay for you not to drink. Not everybody's having wine. And look, my pastors aren't having wine. We're just thinking, first of all, that encourages us to be able to come up along somebody and say, "Okay, shut it off. No more for you, okay?" Because you're slurring your words, man, that's not what we're about. Or to say to the person who's working a program and managing this issue, which is an issue for them, it sort of encourages them. They don't have to do that. You lay down a right when the exercise of the right actually contributes to somebody else's bondage. And most of us have situations where we know that's happening. And there you have the classic, weaker brother scenario. Don't destroy the work of God for the sake of food. So in this case, this is a Romans 14. In this case, food is sometimes being sacrificed to idols that were used in pagan worship. But you could get that food for a discount after it was used in pagan worship. It's 50 cents a pound for the meat that was sacrificed to an idol because it wasn't so fresh and a dollar a pound if you just go to the market and get it, heck, I'm going to the place where it's at price. I know there's only one God. It doesn't matter to me that that was sacrificed to an idol. All that is is dead cow except to someone who was a newer Christian, especially if they've come out of that worship, that pagan worship, they can't disconnect like that. It just tears them up to think, that's the stuff that was sacrificed to whatever God and now we're using any Christian worship. I can't quite get there. That's just really bothering me. So Paul in that context says, even though you have the freedom and the more mature person would know there's really nothing to that because there's only one God anyway, choose not to eat that meat. Don't destroy the work of God for the sake of food. It's all clean, but it's wrong for a person to eat something that causes somebody else to stumble in their faith in a major way. Better not to eat meat or drink wine or wear white tennis shoes or anything, whatever it is that causes people major stumblings. It's a minor thing to give that up, except when it comes to the sports teams you celebrate, but we'll save that for another day. Whatever you believe about these things, keep that stuff between you and God. Blessed are those who do not condemn themselves, which in the context is by contributing to somebody else's addiction, by what they approve, the proper use of freedom. And he deals with it again in 1 Corinthians 8, "Take care that your liberty does not some will become a stumbling block to those who are less advanced in their faith." It's translated here a week, but it really means to those who are less advanced in their faith. They haven't gained that kind of momentum yet, strength in their faith, and we have that going right through 1 Corinthians 8. Here's just a guideline to use, because it gets a little tricky, doesn't it? To figure out, "Oh, I had this freedom, but when should I choose not to use it? I have this yes, but when should I choose to say no to a yes?" I want to close by giving you this verse. It works everywhere when you make every decision and apply every freedom to choose under the umbrella of this text. It's from Colossians chapter 3, verses 14 through 17. I didn't make a slide for it, because I want you to listen to it, not read it. Every time apply this, and you'll be okay. Whatever all virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace or to shalom or to everything falling into place together and doing what it should do, to harmony, and be thankful, and let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through songs and hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts, and then hear especially this verse. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, whatever freedom you are facing to involve yourself in or not involve yourself in. Whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. I'm free to do this, but if I do this, does it limit my ministry? I'd rather give it away than my ministry. I'm free to practice this thing, but if I say no, is there some spiritual gain and benefit out of the discipline for me or for someone else? I'm not going to practice it then, I want to go deeper than that. I'm free to have a cigar or a glass of wine or whatever it might be, but if I do that, is it causing somebody who's not as free as me to stumble and fall? I don't want to own that. I'm going to say no to my right, at least temporarily, for the sake of someone else. Stop putting on love, whatever you do, in word or deed, let the filter be the love of Christ. [BLANK_AUDIO]