The Freedom of “No”

What we are considering here is a reason for which many people reject any association with, or submission to, God. Those reasons are many and varied, and there are probably many people who reject God’s authority for several different reasons at the same time. But somewhere in all those reasons there is often a misunderstanding of freedom.

While there are people who desire that someone else tells them what to do, there are surely more who would prefer that everyone left them alone to do whatever they please. These people will decide where they will go. They will decide when they will go. They will decide why they will go, and what they will do when they get where ever they go. If someone attempts to make those decisions for them they will become angry. They prize their “freedom.”

But what is freedom? Essentially, freedom is the condition of being free. But what does it mean to be free? The people discussed in the previous paragraph would say, “it means I can do what I want, when I want, where I want and the way I want.” Anything less in their minds would be the absence of freedom and they would not be free.

I offer this concept of freedom: “freedom is the ability to control, or limit, oneself,” and it might be more instructive to add, “before someone else controls or limits you.” Unless you happen to be the only person in the universe or are unquestionably the master of your universe so that none is able to rise up against you and control or limit you, this definition is true and appropriate.

As an example, suppose you like to swing your fist, extended at arms length in a wide arc in front of you. You do it in your back yard. You do it in your room. You do it in the gym when other people are more than 50 feet away from you. In the gym some people think you’re odd, but you’re not bothering them so they don’t try to stop you. You are free because you are limiting your behavior, controlling it, so that no one else has an interest in limiting you.

In time, however, you begin swinging your fist in your favorite arc in other situations. You do it in the classroom, or in a crowded coffee shop, or walking down a busy sidewalk. Even if you don’t hit someone, but most assuredly if you do, (and you will,) someone is going to intervene to stop you. Most likely many people would begin to physically control you and limit you, possibly even stop you from being able to move your arm at all. You have lost your freedom. You are not free. Why? Because you did not limit yourself, so other people intervened to place limits on you.

Something similar is what has happened to all who are legally and correctly incarcerated. They stole money from a bank or business cash register. They drove too fast and recklessly and killed people in an accident. Each one is responsible for their own failure in self-control. They all share in common that theyfailed or refused to limit themselves and now someone else is limiting them.

Starting at the age of 6, Bobby began to play the piano. Other boys were playing kick the can, but Bobby stayed inside to practice. Later other boys ran the streets being nuisances and they despised Bobby, but Bobby stayed inside and practiced. Other boys quit school because they chose their “freedom” over the control of teachers, principals, coaches and other authority figures. Bobby followed the rules, went to school and continued to practice and the other boys ridiculed Bobby.

Other boys placed no limits on themselves and were not under control. The word for this is licentiousness. It is often mistaken for freedom. But by their mid 20’s other boys were living subsistence lives with no fulfillment, no future, no place to go and no way to get there. They neither limited nor controlled themselves and now are both limited and controlled by their circumstances.

Bobby, in his 20’s, was touring the world in luxury as an acclaimed pianist, choosing where he would go and how he would live. Bobby limited himself and controlled his life. Who is really free and who is it that has no freedom?

Similarly, in our religious lives the one who seeks to live their lives without constraints will find themselves constrained by that in which they sought their freedom, such as drugs or lasciviousness. At the same time, those who practiced self-control and limited the scope of their lives to disciplined adherence to Christian principles will be free from the very same things that are constraining those who sought freedom in them.

The only freedom God is interested in, and the only freedom the Bible talks about is freedom from sin and the eternal results of that sin. “And having been set free from sin, [you] have become slaves of righteousness,” Romans 6:18, and then in verse 22, “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.” Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” John 8:32.

The “other boys” in our example followed after false freedoms by refusing to limit themselves and control their desires. They were reduced to subsistence living with no future. So it will be with those who refuse to limit themselves but instead follow after the ‘pleasures of sin’ without control. They will be reduced to being the slaves of sin and reap it’s eternal reward of separation from God in a hell reserved

for the devil and his angels.

As Bobby’s life of dedication to his purpose brought to him a luxurious reward, so those who excercise self-control to limit their influence from sin will be free from sin and its “reward”. They will instead be “slaves’ of righteousness and God and receive the reward appropriate for those on the right hand of Jesus - ‘enter into the joy of thy Lord.’ Freedom is not interchangeable with licentiousness. Understood as the opportunity to limit and control oneself, to say “no,” freedom offers everything anybody could possibly hope to gain.