A few weeks ago I was visiting a member in the hospital and on the way out he tossed me a National Geographic magazine and said, “I think you might be interested in this.”  The cover story was entitled, “The Birth of Religion.”  In an article about an archaeological dig uncovering the most ancient religious site from both the dawn and the cradle of human civilization, I read that Homo sapiens emerged as a species 200,000 years ago.

According to anthropologists, for the first 190 thousand years human beings were nomadic hunter/gatherers who traveled around in small bands of extended families in search of food.  That all changed 10,000 years ago when the last Ice Age receded and a temperate climate emerged in what is now called the Fertile Crescent which runs from Upper Egypt around the Holy Land and on through Mesopotamia.  This climate was perfect for growing things, and human beings got the idea that the cultivation of crops was a more consistent way to obtain food than hunting and gathering.

Anthropologists refer to this time period as the Neolithic Revolution when human beings began to settle down into sedentary communities with ever larger population densities, specialized and complex labor diversification, and cultural development which included widely held religious beliefs. According to one theory, the birth of religion came about to promote the kind of social cohesion required by such advances in human civilization. Granted, it is one of several competing theories to explain the emergence of widely held religious beliefs, but I find it fascinating to contemplate.

So much of religion in general and Christianity in particular promotes the common good even when it comes at the expense of personal self-sacrifice. The cross is the preeminent image of sacrifice on behalf of others. In the Scriptures we are instructed: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:3-5). And so it goes for myriad biblical texts in both testaments of scripture.

Apparently human beings need continual reminders to promote the common good since it doesn’t come naturally. The hunter/gatherer in us is naturally inclined to look out for numero uno. And that is fine if we are little more than beasts living under the law of the jungle. But how much better off we are in civilized societies which have drastically improved our lifespans and comfort and personal development? It really is in our personal best interest to look beyond our personal best interest to the interests of others.

Religion, spirituality, faith—whatever you want to call it—helps us do the needful things we are not naturally inclined to do without it. Paul speaks of this tension between what we ought to do and what we are naturally inclined to do in our text for this morning. He writes: I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do (Verse 15). It would be interesting to know exactly what it was that Paul was doing that he shouldn’t, but he speaks in general terms so that we won’t get distracted by the juicy details and forget to apply this to ourselves.

I don’t understand the things I do that I don’t want to do. I don’t want to eat like a pig, but I do. Sometimes I put on the pounds and feel like a fat pig wallowing in a mire of my own making. When I was an addict I did not want to be an addict. I did not want to pay good money for cigarettes so I could cough up a lung before breakfast, but I did. I’m glad I was never addicted to alcohol because I’ve seen that destroy marriages and livelihoods as well as health. Nobody wants to do those things, but some do.

There are lots of things we do that we do not want to do, and Paul says it is because of sin living in us. He continues: For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it (Verses 18-20). Paul may have been an apostle, and he may have authored a lot of the New Testament, but he never forgot who he was—a sinner, indeed, the worst of sinners because in a former life he persecuted the church.

If Paul was a sinner because he persecuted the church, and if Peter was a sinner because he denied Christ three times, and if the Old Testament Prophet Jonah was a sinner because he ran away from God and if King David was a sinner because he had an affair with Bathsheba, then I think it is safe to say that all of us are sinners with a sinful nature, and that the sin living in us causes us to do destructive things to ourselves and others that we otherwise would rather not do.

Paul concludes: What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Verse 24). If I cannot rescue myself, who will rescue me? If I cannot save myself, who will save me? That’s a great question. And Paul has a great answer: Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Verse 25). Paul’s faith in God through Jesus Christ his Lord enabled him to quit doing the destructive things he didn’t want to do but couldn’t quit on his own.

You have heard of the 12-Step Program begun by Alcoholics Anonymous and now reproduced in myriad recovery programs. Let me read for you the original three steps: 1) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable; 2) We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity; and 3) We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Faith in a Higher Power enables people to stop doing the destructive things they are powerless to stop doing on their own, and enables them to start doing the constructive things they are powerless to start doing on their own. Go to any 12-Step meeting and you will quickly discover from those present that being wealthy cannot save from the wretchedness of compulsive addictions; neither can being a genius, being powerful, being beautiful or being privildeged. But, according to Paul in our text, the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that faith in God can rescue us from our wretched self-destructive ways and save us when we are powerless to save ourselves

I think that is important to remember as our nation celebrates freedom on Independence Day. We Americans love the marked degree of freedom we enjoy as compared with the other peoples of the world. With almost evangelistic zeal we preach freedom to the other nations. Here at home we venerate freedom in our worship services as we do this day, and well we should because the cause of freedom is a major theme in the Bible.

God freed his people from their bondage in Egypt and settled them in a Promised Land of their own. But what did they do with their freedom? They gradually freed themselves from God and his laws so they could arrogantly indulge their carnal appetites at the expense of others. As a result, God could no longer rescue them from their hostile neighbors, and God could no longer save them from falling back into bondage. Big mistake. But the redeeming value of this humiliation was to turn them back to God and, once again, he freed them from their bondage in Babylon and led them back to the Promised Land.

Therefore St. Paul writes: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1). Christ has set us free, according to the New Testament. God has set us free according to the Old Testament. A Higher Power has set us free according to present experience. Without the Lord we eventually allow ourselves to be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. With the Lord we are rescued, we are saved and we are freed from our bondage to sin.

Freedom is a beautiful thing. It is for freedom that we were created by a liberator God. But, as the title of our message puts it, “Freedom is Not Enough.” Freedom, if it is to endure, must be balanced by an equal measure of faith. Faith is often going to call us to look beyond our own narrow self-interest to the interests of others. Faith is often going to call us to make personal sacrifices for the sake of the common good. Faith is often going to call us to take up our crosses to follow the Master, not so that our lives may be diminished or destroyed, but so that they may be resurrected to something better and more glorious than we can achieve without faith in a higher power.