How Much Free Will Do We Really Have?
Good Morning Friends,
Today we practice focusing our attention on the power of the Holy Spirit in giving us proper perspective to guide our actions toward our own salvation and sanctification. Today we attempt to weave today’s scripture into an insight related to today’s question relevant for our own history. And as I look at my life, I marvel at how I made it through puberty, but I did. Oh, I had wonderful loving parents but I wanted to belong to something more than what I viewed as mindless automatons in societies institutions. Still I wanted to avoid being hated and kindly multiple the love I experienced out of the box.
But nothing I did seemed good enough for some or even in my own eyes. I desired the resolve and self-determination and motivation to show backbone but sometimes it eluded me. And over the last 50 years I have gotten better at dealing with people who hate me but am still baffled by people who love me. Perhaps you have had a similar experience or perhaps you have had a burning personal ambition, but perhaps it makes you wonder as much as it does me, How Much Free Will Do We Really Have?
Scripture: Paul went on also to Derbe and to Lystra, where there was a disciple named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer; but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the believers in Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him; and he took him and had him circumcised because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they went from town to town, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in numbers daily. They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.
Acts 16:1-10 (NRSV)
“If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world—therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Servants are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. It was to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’
John 15:18-25 (NRSV)
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.
1 John 5:1-6 (NRSV)
Message: In today’s hard sayings of Jesus from the Gospel of John, the word hate is used seven times and the word love once. Jesus is making it very clear that this will be the response of the world to Christians. And those to whom John was first writing know what John is talking about. You see, Nero had burned Rome to build a better version and instead of letting people think he was the one who gave the order he blamed the Christians as the culprits. They were fed to lions and burned alive and interestingly there arose a sentiment of pity, due to the impression that they were being sacrificed not for the welfare of the state but to the viciousness of a single man exacting his will on others. But it did not entirely work as planned. The Christians were being used as scapegoats. Nero was attempting to turn the loving and kind acts of the Christians around to be a sign of evil. He portrayed their worshipped of only one God as evil. That they did not call Caesar Lord, evil. They did not worship in temples or sacred places, but in homes, evil. That they would eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus, evil. They were being portrayed and viewed by some as a disease. And it makes me wonder who the scapegoats are today and who has the will to stand up for what is right and to stand against what is wrong. Friends, being associated with Jesus means being associated with the enemy of the world. So not everyone was cheering when the winner of yesterday’s Kentucky Derby thanked Jesus on national television. Sometimes it is so hard for us to understand that part of the world hates Christians. We see the love of Jesus which he has for the world … a love so deep that He was willing to come to this world and give His life for it …a love that is the same love which is to motivate us and drive us. That is how we see it. But that is not how the world sees it. So, enduring hate for the sake of Christ is not so easy. We say that when God opens a door no one can close it, and when God closes a door no one can open it. And we say that when one door closes God opens another one. Yes, God is in control of so much, one must wonder how much free will we have in all this. And here we learn the necessity of faith…acting on something beyond all the causative factors… and we learn the ways of loving God and our very act a believing and then obeying is what brings us victory over the world. It is a victory of joy over unhappiness, of fellowship over loneliness, and of honesty over moral pride, and confidence over fear, and of love over hatred. Our choices feel free in this regard, but I am not so sure they are for God loved us first. So indeed, it is so much better to change our perspective in what we believe than to keep trying harder. So was it my choice to be writing about the thorny issue of free will and its opposing thoughts this morning. Am I compelled to point out that if we do not have free will, what is the point of being. Am I forced to say that that from a purely scientific perspective there is a cause for everything. Friends, I know that most of our free will is really our biology and environment. I know that we become consciously aware of some of the decisions we make only after we have made them. But to receive and share love for the greater good that was my choice, wasn’t it?
Pray God has the will to turn the hate in our lives into love. Pray we realize that being associated with Jesus means being associated with the enemy of the world. Pray we learn to deal with the derision, mockery and ridicule thrown at Christians. Pray we develop Holy Spirit backbone with discerning perspective on the Will of God. Pray we believe and our belief gives us victory over life and death.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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