Today is July 4th in the US—Independence Day, a day Americans celebrate and remember our freedoms, most specifically the freedoms we gained from the British during our War of Independence. I’ve been watching the so-far most excellent John Adams mini-series this week, and it’s a great reminder that when we use the words freedom and independence in America, that those words are not abstract ideals; they are ideals rooted in a specific time and place. All things considered, this fact is something the Founding Fathers of the US probably understood very well.

In the same way, our society talks today a great deal about freedom but freedom in and of itself is not a neutral, abstract ideal that modern secular culture often makes it out to be. Today, many people see freedom as more of a license for any person to do almost anything that person sees fit to do, an idea that would have been foreign to all of the Founding Fathers (whether Christian, Deist or other), and very foreign to the Bible.

The Bible complicates terribly our modern understanding of freedom. The Merriam-Webster English dictionary defines freedom first as “the absence of constraint in action” (the modern idea), but then second as the “liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another” (the classical idea—and far closer to the biblical sense). In its best and most classic sense, freedom is not the absence of oppression or tyranny; freedom is the removal of a tyrannical power over our lives generally by or for a different power/ideal. Let me say it another way: There is no such thing in our world as freedom without allegiance to someone or something. When citizens living in an oppressive society flee that nation, they always must flee to another nation. While that other nation may have ‘freedom,’ that ‘freedom’ comes at the cost of allegiance to that new, more ‘free’ nation. Freedom in our world is always liberation and not a complete absence of all constraints.



In the same way, the Bible tells us that all people live under the oppression and tyranny of sin. When we move away from sin in our lives, we have freedom. This freedom is not an abstract place of goodness (or non-sin), but is a liberation and allegiance to God. Without this allegiance to God, we are fooling ourselves to think we are in any way free from our corrupt, self-centered nature. In a biblical sense, freedom is a gift from God to live without oppression but only within God’s sphere of influence.

While there are people in our world who deny God, and his role in our world, it is just that—a denial. Without God, there can be no real freedom, because without God we are oppressed by our own humanity. We cannot become neutral ideals of freedom; either we are in allegiance with ourselves or in allegiance with God. The Bible says we are slaves either way—but a slave to sin only endures slavery, whereas a slave to God is freed, liberated, redeemed by Jesus’ great sacrifice.

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“But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:16–17

In our last message series at BVC, “Testing the Limits,” we talked about how we as Christians struggle with ‘fences.’ Wow, what a difficult series—and so I had a few more thoughts I wanted to add to our discussion. Think of it like this: In our day-to-day world, a fence is a marker or barrier that separates two different places. When we become a follower of Jesus, we start to be aware that there are things we shouldn’t do, and things that maybe we should start doing if we love God. We begin to see two different places: areas outside of God’s plan for our lives (where we are in disobedience), and areas within God’s plan for our lives (where we are faithful). When we study the Bible, pray, and seek God’s will, we sense where these markers are—the ‘fences’ that God says, “Don’t cross,” because if we do we enter into an area outside of God’s plan for us. These fences are helpful because they show us where the line is between God’s plan for us and our own self-centered desires (sin). The problem is that once we have been a Christian for a while, we actually get comfortable with many of these smaller fences—I know I do—and even though we may not cross one of these fences, we can live our lives right up against them very comfortably. In fact, against our own best interests, we test the limits that God has set for us with these fences.

Some of the fences that God says, “Don’t cross,” are big and obvious, such as idolatry (Galatians 5:17). If the Bible addresses an issue at all, it’s a big fence that we cross at our peril. So, if we build an idol and worship it, this is a huge (and deadly) fence for us to cross. Snuggling up to this fence is a bad move as well, because at best we are keeping God at a distance and worse just putting us an inch away from being outside of God’s will. Anything the Bible mentions is a big fence.

But many of the fences that God doesn’t want us to cross are less obvious. These little white fences seem innocent enough, but crossing them moves us into an area outside of God’s will. Like little white lies, little white fences that we cross start adding up in limiting our relationship with God—not to mention our abundant life here on Earth and our service for the Kingdom. But the problem is that we often have a hard time telling the difference between little white fences and grey areas (areas that are ok by God’s will). For example, if I lie to a dying person that they will get well, am I crossing a little white fence (because I am speaking untruthfully), or is this a grey area (ok by God)? If I download copyrighted music from the internet, is this a little white fence or a grey area? If I find a loophole when I file my taxes, is this a little white fence or a grey area?



How do we determine if something is a little white fence or not?

The Bible doesn’t really mention little white fences per se. Romans 14 is probably the best example of a little white fence issue, though it is rooted in a specific problem in the early church. Based on this passage and few others, we can say this:

* If something bothers us at all, it’s probably a little white fence.

* If it bothers other people around us, it’s also probably a little white fence.

* If you can do (or not do) something and have peace in your spirit about it—even if it’s a hard decision—it’s probably a grey area.

One of the greatest challenges in faithfully following Jesus is to be able to see the little white fences that are holding us back from greater relationship with God–and not just dismissing them as grey areas.

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“Blessed are those who don’t feel guilty for doing something they have decided is right. But if you have doubts about whether or not you should [do or not do] something, you are sinning if you go ahead and do it. For you are not following your convictions. If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.” Romans 14:22–23