Freedom vs rules?

You can't do whatever you want...

Worship service, , , Kreuzkirche Leichlingen, more...

automatically translated

Introduction (Peter)

It was recently the European elections and there were election posters everywhere.

With most of them, I somehow had the feeling that the lack of content in the German election campaign had reached a new level.

But one FDP election poster stuck with me:

Europe thrives on freedom. Not from directives.

This slogan actually haunted me a bit, but not because I think the FDP is great, but rather because I find something wrong with this slogan, but I can't explain exactly what.

The poster copywriter may even have achieved his goal, because at least this slogan didn't get lost in the cloud of irrelevant election campaign phrases.

After some time had passed, this slogan had been shortened in my memory to "Freedom instead of guidelines" and it was only when I looked it up again while preparing the sermon that I came across the original slogan again.

Freedom and guidelines, is that a contradiction?

What are guidelines? The first thing I thought of when I heard the word was my work.

There are guidelines that you adhere to because they have proven to be useful. We have the nice English term "best practice" for this. Some problems are solved in a certain way because it simply makes sense. There will be such "best practices" in every profession, whether it's craftsmanship, care, programming, administration, etc. For many problems, you could always think again and again about an optimal solution, but in most cases there is a tried and tested procedure that is usually followed. And that is of course sensible.

There are also binding guidelines, which are probably better described as rules. For example, you have to follow traffic rules. There will also be rules at work that are mandatory. This also includes standards, e.g. norms that producers have to adhere to and product designers can let off steam within these standards. That sounds reasonable to me and I think that's what bothered me about this FDP slogan.

What other guidelines or rules are there?

What role do rules play in our lives as Christians? There are quite a few people who believe that the Bible is just a book of laws, full of rules, and that a Christian spends his life trying not to break any rules.

We know that this is not the case, and today we would like to take a closer look with you at this apparent contradiction between rules and freedom.

Celebration of the rules: Ps 119 (Peter)

Let's start with the rules. There is a psalm in the Bible, Psalm 119, which is by far the longest book in the Bible. This psalm has 176 verses.

It is usually described as a song of praise to God's word. There are such well-known verses as (Psalm 119, 105; NL):

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

But most of the verses focus less on God's word in general, but very often on laws and commandments, e.g. (Psalm 119:73; NL):

You made me and created me. Now give me the insight to obey your commandments.

or (Psalm 119, 92; NL):

Without the joy of your law, I would despair in my misery.

or the verse that follows (Psalm 119:93; NL):

I will never forget your commandments, for through them you have given me renewed happiness and health.

So the Bible does emphasise laws and rules?

Rules are a good thing in themselves. They make many things easier, such as living together. Traffic rules, for example, make it relatively safe to drive on our roads. Guidelines such as the "best practice" mentioned earlier help you to learn an activity more quickly because you don't have to think about everything from scratch.

Rules often take care of the rest, so you can concentrate on the important things.

Rules as a problem? (Peter.)

So guidelines and rules are not bad and can be very useful, but dealing with rules is not always easy. There can often be problems with them.

Rules as a source of salvation?

One problem is when rules are seen as a source of salvation.

Some people may naively think that I can simply keep all the commandments in the Bible and then nothing can happen to me and everything will be fine.

We find such a situation in Galatians. At first, it is not quite clear what the problem actually is. But Galatians 2:16; NET says:

Nevertheless we know that no human being can stand before God if he tries to keep the law. He can only stand by faith in Christ Jesus. And that is why we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we can stand before God through this faith - and not by fulfilling the law. No one can be justified before God by keeping the law.

Following rules does not save anyone.

In the following text, Galatians 3:1-7; NL, he makes this clear once again:

1 O foolish Galatians! Who has confused you like this? You recognised so clearly what the death of Christ means for us when I set before you Jesus Christ crucified! 2 Tell me, did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law? Of course not. The Holy Spirit came upon you after you heard the message of Christ and believed. 3 Do you really not understand this? You have begun to live a life with the Holy Spirit. Why do you now suddenly want to try to complete it in your own strength? 4 You have experienced so much through the good news. Should that have been in vain? Do you want to throw it all away now? 5 I ask you again: Does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the Law of Moses? Or does he do it because you believe the message you have heard about Christ? 6 For it was the same with Abraham: "Abraham believed God, and God declared him righteous because of his faith." 7 So the true children of Abraham are those who believe in God.

This was so important to Paul that he goes into a lot more detail in Galatians, but I would like to summarise it as follows:

Simply following rules can lead to wanting to try in your own strength. God's children are those who believe God and not those who are good at following rules.

Here, rules are no longer a useful tool, but are elevated to something salvific.

Relationships and rules (Peter)

There is another danger with rules.

Let's take a look at Romans 14:1-3; NL:

1 Accept the one who is weak in faith, and do not quarrel with him over differences of opinion.2 For example, while one person thinks he can eat anything, another abstains from meat because his conscience forbids it.3 The one who thinks he can eat everything should not look down on the one who does not eat everything. And those who avoid certain foods should not judge those who eat everything, because God has accepted them.

Each has its own rules. One says you can eat everything and does so, the other says my conscience forbids me to eat meat. The vegetarian diet in this biblical period probably comes from the fact that much of the meat that could be bought came from sacrificial animals in pagan sacrificial rituals and many Christians therefore did not want to eat it.

It is interesting that there is no discussion here about who is right. Objectively speaking, the first one is right. In Mark 7, 19; NL Jesus Christ says:

Food does not come into contact with his heart, but only passes through the stomach and is then excreted." Jesus thus declared all food to be permitted.

But that doesn't matter here. The text from Romans 14 continues like this:

4 Who are you to judge a servant of God? He is responsible to the Lord, so leave it to God to judge his behaviour. The Lord has the power to help him so that he will do what is right.5 It is the same with someone who considers certain days to be holier than others, while for someone else all days count the same. But the important thing is that everyone is convinced of what they think!6 Whoever chooses a special day to worship the Lord wants to honour him with it. And whoever eats everything without exception does so to honour the Lord, for he gives thanks to God for the food. And the one who does not eat everything also wants to please the Lord with it and thank him.7 For we are not our own, whether we live or die.8 If we live, we live to please the Lord, and if we die, we die to be with the Lord. Whether we live or die: We belong to the Lord.

There are certainly questions where we have to wrestle with what is right. We heard this earlier with the example of the Galatians, that faith in Jesus Christ is the right way and not following laws leads to the goal.

But there seem to be many rules where God gets along quite well with different insights. As just mentioned, many Christians consider some days to be special: Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, Pentecost and others not. The church year does not actually apply to all Christians.

For me, however, this point is not the decisive one in this text, but we live, very modernly translated here, to please God. And God doesn't seem to care what we eat or whether we celebrate any holidays in particular. But for us personally, it does matter and that's okay.

Romans 14, 12-15; NL

12 Yes, each of us will have to answer personally to God. 13 Therefore do not judge one another any longer, but live in such a way that you do not hinder anyone or lead anyone astray from the way of God. 14 I know and am convinced through the Lord Jesus that nothing God has made is unclean. Only if someone thinks it is unclean is it unclean. 15 And if what you eat burdens someone else's conscience, you are not acting out of love if you do it anyway. Don't let it come to the point where someone else, for whom Christ died, is brought down by your behaviour.

More important than your rules and mine is that we do not harm others. The good of our neighbour always comes before the rules.

The following verses summarise this beautifully (Romans 14:16-17; NL):

16 What has been given to you by God is good and should not be made bad.17 For in the kingdom of God it is not what you eat or drink that matters, but that you live a life of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

A life of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit is what matters, not the rules. Rules can and should only be a useful tool that contributes to this.

Beyond the rules... (Mathis)

Romans 14 is similar to the following example:

An adult is walking towards a pedestrian crossing. The traffic light is red, but the street is deserted; there is not a car to be seen or heard for miles around. The adult decides to ignore the red light and crosses the road.

Imagine a child who has just learnt the basic rules of the road running towards the same traffic lights. Should they stop or go? They should probably apply the rule they have learnt and stop.

But why can the adult disregard the rule in this situation?

The main difference between the child and the adult in this example is that the adult knows what the rule is there for: to avoid being run over.

The adult knows that the purpose of this rule is fulfilled if you walk without putting yourself or others in danger; he is better able to judge the traffic situation because of his experience and by crossing the road, he fulfils the purpose of the rule without following the rule himself. Would it now be good if the adult tried to explain to the child that sometimes you can also walk on red? Wouldn't the child be a bit overwhelmed by having to judge the traffic situation for themselves every time? And perhaps confused because a rule that is supposed to be so important for their safety suddenly no longer applies?

There would be a risk that they would end up simply deciding for themselves when they want to cross a red light and when not.

Just as the rule "stop on red and go on green" can be summarised as "don't put yourself and others in danger when crossing the road", the entire road traffic regulations could be summarised as:

Act in such a way that no accidents happen and everyone gets to where they need to go on time.

If everyone adhered to this, there would be no more accidents.

But we are only human and don't know who has to go where and when, or what the other person is planning to do next and how to behave so that everything runs smoothly.

We would need a kind of "SuperGPS" that knows all these things and always tells us the best way to behave. We would just have to follow its instructions and trust that everything would be fine.

However, there is no such device, which is why we need the StVo after all.

Just as I have just summarised the rules of the StVo, Jesus also summarised the laws of the OT in the NT as "Love God and your neighbour as yourself". Paul also says this in Romans 13:10:

Love does no wrong to a neighbour. That is why love fulfils the whole law.

If only we all loved one another, there would be no more quarrelling or hatred. Sounds simple enough, but, as in the traffic example, it can't work without a "SuperGPS".

But God has a solution for us: (of all things) in Ezekiel 36:26.27 in the Old Testament:

26 I will give you a new heart and a new spirit: I will take the stony heart out of your breast and give you a living one in its place. 27 I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to obey my laws and keep my statutes.

There we have it! That's our "SuperGPS"! If we live in union with Jesus and allow God to give us a new heart and a new spirit, then we can make decisions, filled with the Holy Spirit, without having to adhere to the specific rules of action in the Bible.

We can then leave the role of the child who follows the rules because he has no other standard and take on the role of the adult who knows what he is doing and can act responsibly.

In short, the Holy Spirit of God enables us to fulfil the law without having to keep the laws of the Bible.

Summary

We summarise: