Is independence a value that Jesus embraces?

At the church where I serve, we gather every week in community so that we can create the space to explore faith, grow in our faith, and experience genuine and authentic community. As a church, we desire to create environments where you can move on a spiritual journey from the place of being a consumer who is either searching and shopping for answers when it comes to Jesus and the Bible or who view that church as a place that provides spiritual goods and services, to the place where you are an owner who owns and genuine and authentic relationship with Jesus and where you can move from the place of being an owner to being an investor who is investing their time, talents and treasure in the kingdom mission that we have been given.

Every week, we express that our goal is that everyone who attends here at City Bible Church would be investing their time in a community group, their talents serving God by serving others on a ministry team, and investing their treasure in a way that reveals and reflects the generosity of Jesus through regular and proportional giving. So this week I would like for us to spend our time together talking about why we believe it is essential for us to be consistently investing our time in a community group.

And to do that, I would like for us to look at a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible called the book of Galatians. The book of Galatians was written by a man that we know today as the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul, who once persecuted early followers of Jesus, became the greatest missionary of the early church after to his encounter with Jesus Christ after He had been raised from the dead on the Damascus Road, which we read about in Acts 9.

After that encounter with the resurrected Jesus, Paul was given the unique role and gifting to be the messenger that would deliver God’s new message to the world regarding Jesus Christ and message of the gospel. Paul was sent by Jesus with a message from Jesus as His representative to the churches of Galatia.

These were churches that Paul had previously planted in Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystre, and Derbe during his first missionary journey, which is recorded for us in Acts 13-14. These churches were located in the southern section of Asia Minor, or modern day Turkey.

After Paul had planted these churches and returned from his missionary journey, he decided to write this letter to these churches around 48 A.D., which was within 20 years of Jesus life, death, and resurrection. So, with this background information in mind, let’s jump into this section of this letter together, beginning in Galatians 5:13-15:

For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. ¹⁴ For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." ¹⁵ But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

Paul begins this section of his letter by turning his attention to the members of the churches of Galatia who were abandoning a gospel centered lifestyle to embrace a lifestyle of license. As we have talked about in the past, a lifestyle of license maintains that as a result of God’s grace, we can do whatever we want and still be right with God. For the lifestyle of license, the idea that forgiveness and a right relationship with God is solely based on placing one’s confident trust in what God has done for us through Jesus seems to give us license.

Paul responded to those who were embracing such a lifestyle of license by stating that while they were called to freedom; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh. In other words, Paul is explaining that while the message of the gospel provides us freedom from the slavery that came about from attempting to do things for God by keeping a list of religious rules for God, we are not to respond to that freedom by allowing our old nature apart from Jesus that is dominated by the evil and destructive power of selfishness, rebellion, and sin to become active and dominate how we live our day to day lives.

You see, Paul knew something that we all need to know, which is that when we allow our old nature apart from Jesus that is dominated by selfishness and rebellion to dominate our lives we will lives selfish, narcissistic lives. We will be driven to please ourselves and place ourselves above others.

Instead of embracing a lifestyle of license that is driven by our old selfish and rebellious nature to please ourselves and place ourselves above others, Paul called the members of the churches of Galatia to through love serve one another. Now the word love here refers to an other-centered warm regard and affection for others that places others before ourselves. When Paul states that we are to serve one another, this word literally means to conduct oneself in total service to another.

Paul then reinforces his call in verse 14 by pointing to a letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament letter called the book of Leviticus. In Leviticus 19:18, we see God command the Jewish people to love their neighbor as yourself. Paul’s point here is that the entire Old Testament is summed up and fulfilled when we love God with our total being and love our neighbor as ourselves.

Think of it this way: If we loved God with our total being and loved our neighbor as ourselves, would we break any of God's rules? Would we lie? Cheat? Steal? Sleep around on our spouses? You see, a selfless, other-centered love completes the Law; a life driven by love will be a life that fulfills the Law’s requirements.

However, Paul explains “But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.” With this phrase, Paul is painting a word picture of the discomfort and destruction that results when we engage in selfish and spiteful strife. When we are involved in division and dissension that arises from the selfishness that flows from a lifestyle of license, the result is that we can tear one another to pieces, can’t we? That is the word picture Paul is painting here.

And it is this word picture that we see Paul reveal for us the reality that a lifestyle that embraces independence inevitably results in the destruction of our relationships with others. While we as followers of Jesus have freedom from the slavery that comes from attempting to keep a list of religious rules for God in order to experience a right relationship with God, that freedom should not lead to independence. Instead, the freedom from the slavery that comes from attempting to keep a list of religious rules for God in order to experience a right relationship with God, should lead to interdependence.

You see, independence is not a Biblical value. Independence is an American value. Freedom is a Biblical value. Interdependence is a Biblical value. As followers of Jesus, we were created not for independence. As followers of Jesus we were created to live a life of dependence upon God and that live sin interdependent relationships with others in community with others.

However, when we turn the freedom that we have as followers of Jesus into a live that is driven by independence instead of interdependence, we will be driven to live selfish, narcissistic lives. We will be driven to please ourselves and place ourselves above others. And as a result, such a lifestyle of independence and license will eventually destroy and consume the community and connection that we were create for.

Now, a natural question that could arise here is “Well Dave, if that is the case, then what does the interdependence that you are talking about look like? What does such community and connection look like?”

If that question is running through your mind, I just want to let you know that you are asking a great question. And just a few verses later, we see Paul begin to provide the answers to those questions.

Tomorrow we will discover the answers to those questions…