Article by Dr. Les Hollon, Pastor, Trinity Baptist Church

God made each of us with equal love and purpose.  Therefore we can be humbly confident of our importance to God. Where ever we go in this world, we know we belong because we being to God.

This truth is the basis for the Civil Rights movement which founded America.  And because this truth is magnificently big and important, we keep growing into the awareness of what God’s promise of equality means and how to apply it.

The Pilgrims grew into it by crossing the ocean to reach the shores of new opportunity.  They prayed, read their Geneva Bible with the wonder of newly felt freedom for expression.  They escaped the lack of freedom imposed by European leaders. And when these freedom leaders arrived at places like Plymouth Rock, they did the sweaty work of fleshing out what freedom means.  They formed themselves into freedom communities in order to form what Abraham Lincoln and others would later call “a more perfect union.”

We lose the sense of freedom if we pursue it apart from God and in spite of people.  Partnership with God and people strengthens freedom through interdependence and keeps it from imploding under the illusion of I don’t need anybody but “me.” 

The Freedom Movement

But the Pilgrim’s got a little too comfortable with themselves, which can happen to any of us, and began to exclude God’s freedom of equality promise from others “outside their group” … like the Native Americans who had received them with openness and curiosity.  So the freedom movement was challenged.  Brave people like Roger Williams and David Brainard met the challenge by lifting God’s illuminating promise for everyone’s participation.  Though persecuted for their efforts, they helped our nation to form in the hope that everyone would know they were equally valued at God’s table.

This freedom movement would ignite in people like John & Abigail Adams, George & Martha Washington, Isaac Bachus, John Ireland and others caught up in the wonder that God’s love for everyone assures each of us that we equally matter.  They and others labored to write this into our country’s founding documents.  And a people called Baptists would emerge in the freedom movement to be the primary movers to ensure that America’s first Constitutional Amendment, kicking off the Bill of Rights, guaranteed each person’s religious freedom.

The sin of slavery was tackled by such Christ followers as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Charles Finney. These and other brave people named & claimed that every person was made in God’s image.  And that our nation’s soul was shackled as we pursued the unjust practice of slavery. Many Christians disagreed with them because they too were mired in the false practice of building themselves up by keeping others down.  Any of us can get attached to the nasty practice of massaging our egos by living as though we aren’t all equal … mistakenly living as if some of us are inherently better than others … and therefore falsely thinking, “we deserve rights of privilege” which protects our “better than them” status.

Heirs to the Promise

God radically dealt with this disease through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  The Apostle Paul was grasped by this freedom power and realized that “in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.”  Therefore through Christ we are all “heirs to the promise.”

This was radical news for the world of Paul’s day.  Christ came to change how we see ourselves and as a consequence how we see other people.  We are freed as we see ourselves as we actually are, not more or less important than anyone else.

Contagious Freedom

The Church is where God wants this truth to be lived out with such marvelous freedom that the world is mesmerized.  That the people who know you and me, and see the church family in action, will exclaim “Wow … that’s the freedom I want in my life!” 

Are you living with contagious freedom?  Are we releasing God’s freedom of equality so people are inspired to excel because they know God wants them to live with excellence?
 
Freedom Rooted in the Bible

A decade ago I walked up the United States Supreme Court steps with my father.  He and Lowell Denton were lawyers leading a freedom charge in what has become known as an important freedom case.  I had walked into many courtrooms with my father since I was a boy.  Because of our ages I realized this would probably be my last courthouse entrance with him.  I was inspired by how natural and yet how unique the moment felt.  While climbing the steps we paused to take in the experience.

As we gazed upwards, Dad called out the chiseled words that greet anyone who enters that hallowed edifice – “Equal Justice Under Law.”  That law was inspired by the freedom book called the Bible.  And that God’s freedom movement of equality must stay rooted in God’s vision if we are to be truly free.

Remember … just as Paul laid out for a world stunned by God’s radical love which can make any one free … so can we …”For freedom Christ has set us free. Therefore don’t again put on the slave chains of sin.”

Pastor Les Hollon

“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate.  He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father.  So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world.  But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.  Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”  So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”

- Galatians 3:26-4:7 (NIV)

This article was written by Les Hollon, Pastor of Trinity Baptist Church.  For more information about God and your place in His world, contact Dr. Hollon, click over to Trinity Baptist Church.

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