Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Free Will or Predestination

Sermon given at Grace UMC 10/25/15

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Scripture Reading:

NRS  Psalm 139:13  For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. 17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!  18 I try to count them-- they are more than the sand; I come to the end-- I am still with you.

Free will – what is it

This morning I want to deal with one of the subjects of our faith. A subject that is both profound and confounding to us as we struggle to understand God and our relationship. When I come to you and speak on subjects of doctrine such as the doctrine of free will, I speak to you from the perspective of Wesleyan theology. In other words, we are Methodist. Some years ago a movie about Marshall university taught us their rallying cry, WE ARE, MARSHALL. I wonder if we shouldn’t mimic that each Sunday by proclaiming, WE ARE, METHODISTS. But the subject this week is the doctrine of free will. What is it, what are the consequences of it, why did God do it and there is a sense of urgency that we need to be mindful of. Mind you, some do not believe in free will. But as Methodists, we do.

What is free will? In the simplest of terms, it means the right to choose. The right to choose whether or not we are going to be Methodists, Baptists, Mormons, Buddhists, Scientologists or something else. The right to choose whether or not we are going to be good people or bad! The right to choose whether or not we are going to reach out to others unselfishly or take advantage of their situation for self gain! You see, what it really boils down to is simply what we choose to do and what we choose to believe. As human beings we believe that we have the right to choose. Every two years here in America we choose elected officials and we hope that they will do what we want them to do. However, unfortunately for us, we never hold them accountable by reminding them of that fact every time the run for reelection as we choose to forget their track record. But free choice means more than voting and elections.

Free choice means that we can decide what we believe, who we believe in and how we will act in the world around us. We can decide that we will become tolerant of our world where immorality runs rampant. A place where success means crawling over each other in order that we achieve the kind of material success we feel is justified for ourselves. Or we can practice good Christian attitudes and behaviors. That is not to say that we won’t stumble. All of us stumble at one time or another.

The real question is this. When we stumble, do we pick ourselves back up, ask for forgiveness and then decide to change our behaviors to be the kind of people God wants us to be? And if we truly have free will, then the answer is always that we have that choice to be this kind of person or that kind of person.            


Free will – what is the difference

Some religious movements do not believe in free will. In fact, some of you may be sitting here today believing in the voice of John Calvin who submits that we are all predestined by God, some will go to heaven, some will not, but that your end has been determined since the day that you were born. For you, if you are here, you believe that God is sovereign and God alone decides whether or not you get into heaven. Now that may sound like sound theology. That God alone decides and because God decides, that the determination for your eternity has already happened. But that goes against the concept of grace and free will. If we have already been determined what our after physical lives will be, why bother to live at all. But especially why bother to choose Jesus say over Buddha or Allah or yourselves. That becomes the ultimate question. Do you believe that we have choice about our eternal home? Certainly we all believe that God is the judge of our hearts and our choice and God is certainly watching our actions, words and deeds to determine the trueness of our hearts. But WE ARE METHODISTS.
And Methodists believe in divine grace that God has given to us which then allows us to choose whether we accept God’s offer or not. God does not send anyone to Hell. We send our selves. The question becomes, what will you choose.

Free will – what are the consequences

When we have free will, then we will also have consequences of that free will. As long as humans can do whatever they want to do, then we will have those who are hurt and those who hurt. So often people will ask the question, “why”, when they face some great tragedy or crisis. And the answer must always be simply because the world is. Several years ago there was a movie called Forest Gump. During the movie he began to run, and run and run. Along the way people began to follow him thinking he had all the answers. One day he encountered a young man who was designing a bumper sticker of great insight. When he asked Forest what the answer to life was, Forest simply said, it happens, or something like that. You probably remember the bumper sticker that took the world by storm. As silly as the bumper sticker was, it truly did give the right answer. When we seek to understand the reason for things, sometimes the only answer is because, “IT HAPPENS”. So often I hear people argue that God wanted someone in heaven or God has a plan or God needed that person. My faith and theology is profound enough to say that God does not need us at all, much less in heaven. That is not to suggest that God does not want us in heaven, but God does not need us there.

Free will is nothing more than God giving us the ability to make our own choice. Because of our free will, we get to choose who we model our lives after. If we truly want to be Christians, we will model our lives after Christ. We can choose to behave like Christ or we can choose to behave like some of our more modern models. But the simple fact is that as human beings, we are allowed to become the type of person we want to be. No-one decides that for us, no-one determines or forces us. September 11th happened because of free will. Not God punishing a sinful nation as some have suggested. What we believe about evil is that evil is played out in the human existence. We see evil in how humans treat other humans in oppressive and hurtful ways. Free will allows for bigotry and hate, for racism and oppression and for classes that define rich and poor.

Free will – why did God do it

In every pastoral message there is supposed to be good news. That is what they teach us at seminary. Bring the good news, build to the good news, and announce the good news to all the world. The bigger question of free will is why did God do it? Have you ever wondered why God would create the world and create human beings in God’s image and then allow them to choose whether or not they want to be in relationship with the creator? I want to present an idea this morning. The reason is because God loves us! Oh, well, preacher, we have heard that and we know that God loves us. But what does that have to do with free will? Have you ever heard the expression, if you love something set it free, if it truly is love, it will return to you? That expression comes from the concept of free will. God loves us so much that God is willing to take the chance at our refusal of that love. God loves us so much that God would create the world, create Eden and then place humans in the middle of paradise. But in that creation, God would allow Adam and Eve to rebel against that love. And they did! And we still do! Just as children rebel against their parents, humans rebel against the rules of God.

And yet God still loves us. My friends, free will is the ultimate love relationship a creator can provide. Not a creation where we are puppets on a string, but free thinking people who have the right to choose between good and evil, death and life, heaven and hell. And in that kind of creation, we experience the perfect love, agape love. You see even when we stumble, even when we are disobedient and even when choose world over God, materialism over service or hatred over love, God still reaches out to us in love. God’s grace is still there even when we choose not to be. A sense of urgency and a sense of time

But here is the deal. God gave us prophecy in order that we might know God’s plan. And about one quarter of the bible is prophetic. From the beginning of time, God had a plan. God’s plan was that God would create a being that could either choose or not choose a relationship with God. God wanted romance, not slavery. But we are running out of time. Many of modern day theologians believe that you and I might well be the final generation that sees the coming of Christ. But we have to choose Christ in order to be with Christ when he comes. And we are running out of time. We cannot know the hour or the day when our lives are ended. It may come naturally in your sleep tonight that you pass from this life into the next. It may come as a tragic event like 9/11. Or it may be that we see Christ coming in the clouds. But however it comes, we need to be prepared for it. That means that we need to choose. Chose Christ over the world! Chose God over Satan!

I heard a story the other day that describes us pretty well. It seems a man wanted to go on a diet, but he loved donuts. Not just any donut, but those fresh baked Krispy Kreme donuts. My personal favorite is the crème filled ones. But he needed to lose weight. And so he gave up his precious donuts. And he lost weight and was looking real good. One day one of his working partners saw him in the car eating a donut. He walked up to him and asked, what gives. The man said, "I made a pact with God." “I said to God that if you have determined that it is alright for me to have a donut, when I drive by the donut shop, the first parking spot will be empty. And it was after I drove around the block the eighth time.”

Today may be the most important day of your life. You must choose. Many of you are already Christians but your lives would hardly convict you if it were a crime to be a Christian. Choose to rededicate your lives this morning, right here, right now. And if your life is still a question mark about Christ, I would love to talk with you and share God’s love with you. Today is election day! What will you choose? 


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