What Does God Say About - Freedom?

Sunday, July 4, 2004, 9:30 A.M.

Rev. Ronald Burcham

Typed from audio transcript

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Each of us has experienced freedom in different ways throughout our life. We start out as a baby and, all of a sudden, we learn how to crawl and the freedom that gives us because now we can go get our own toys. Maybe it's the freedom of the adolescent who makes it through confirmation and realizes that he or she doesn't have to do all that memorization anymore, and it feels like a freedom every time Wednesday night rolls around. Maybe it's the 16-year-old who has a driver's license in one hand and the car keys in the other, and all of a sudden the world is opened up to them and they have a freedom they've never had before. The high school senior who graduates and then goes off to college for the first time and now life on their own. Mom and Dad are not around. What freedom that brings. Maybe it's just the freedom when you finally get a sitter and you have them watch the kids and the two of you go off to dinner together. Hey, that's freedom. Maybe it's when you retire from your career, and all the things you've wanted to have more time for, now you have that freedom.

Each of us has experienced freedom in a number of ways throughout our life. As different as they may be, all of us put a high value on freedom. And maybe we don't realize just how much we value that freedom until it's either taken away from us or it's threatened to take away from us. Think of the teenager who gets in trouble and, all of a sudden, they lose the car keys. And all of a sudden they find out just how much freedom they've lost because they have to rely upon somebody else to get them from Point A to Point B.

But think of us as a country. We enjoy our freedom and maybe even take that freedom for granted, but then certain events happen. Pearl Harbor . D Day. 9/11. And, all of a sudden, our freedom is threatened, and then we become acutely aware of just how important that freedom is to us, just how much we value that freedom.

So it seems appropriate then today, on the 4 th of July, a day that is all about the freedom we enjoy as a country, a day in which we commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, in which we said we would be a free nation and independent country, we should talk about what God has to say about freedom. What does God say about the freedom we have in this life? Now, obviously, God specifically doesn't talk about our country and the freedom we have as a nation; but He does talk about the freedom we have in Christ and I believe His Word is equally applicable, though, to the freedom we do enjoy as a nation.

You see, God reminds us the freedom we have is a gift from Him. And I believe all of us can agree the freedom we have as a country is a gift from God, that this great land in which we live is one of the greatest blessings God has ever bestowed upon us, that you and I have the privilege of being able to live here.

Comedian Yakov Smirnoff, when he wrote his book, America on Ten Rubles a Day , he said this: “When I first came to America , I didn't realize what a great country this was.” He says, “I went to the grocery store, and I didn't understand that you had so many choices available to you and all the products that were there.” He said, “I walked down one aisle. I saw a box. It said ‘Powdered Milk. Just add water. You have milk.' I walked down another aisle. It said ‘Powdered Orange Juice. You just add water. You have orange juice.'” He says, “I got to the last aisle, though, and I looked out and it said ‘Baby Powder' and I thought to myself ‘What a country!'”

What a country we live in that we can gather here this morning in freedom and worship the one true God. No fear that somehow we're going to be persecuted. No one is going to stop us from singing our hymns and offering our praises to Him. The freedom we have to live out our faith in our daily lives. This is a great country, and this country is a blessing from God and it is a gift from God. But the freedom we enjoy came at a cost, did it not? Because freedom is not free. You think of the 43 men who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. They might as well have signed their own death certificate when they attached their name and sent that off to the king, because they were taking a bold statement. And they were willing to put it all on the line so you and I could enjoy the freedom we have today.

No, the freedom we have is not free. It costs a lot. Of the 43 men who put their signature at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence, 12 of them had their homes ransacked and burned to the ground. Five of them were captured by the British and tortured and eventually put to death. Another handful had their sons taken away from them through the war. Another 12 of them lost their lives in the war itself. Each and every one of them suffered in some way because they were willing to stand up for the freedoms we enjoy today. They were willing to make that sacrifice.

That says nothing of the countless men and women through the years who have made the ultimate sacrifice so you and I can still have this freedom. And it bespeaks nothing of the men and women around the world today who stand ready and willing to make that same sacrifice so we can enjoy the freedom of this land.

Freedom is not free. It costs. And the freedom we enjoy in this country is a great gift from God, and we should recognize that and give Him glory because of it. In the same way, the freedom we have as individuals in Christ is a great blessing from God. Scripture specifically talks about the freedom we have in Christ, that we have been freed from the same kind of oppression, if you will, our country was under over 200 years ago. Over 200 years ago, our country was under oppression because of British rule. But since the beginning of time and when sin entered into the world, all of mankind has been under the oppression of what scripture calls the law. That is, God's law was bearing down upon us. And we were captives of that law. Because, if we look at God's Word and God's law, what God's love does to us is convict us. It convicts us of our own sinfulness. It convicts us of the fact that we are inadequate in God's eyes. It shows us God demands perfection, but we cannot be perfect. It shows us the result of our sin will be eternal death, and the law continuously reminds us of that. As we look at God's law, all it does is tell us and condemn us and remind us that we'll never measure up to what God wants. And God freed us from that. God freed us from the weight of that law bearing down upon us, condemning us, showing us our shortcomings, and showing us our sin and our failure.

But that freedom was not free either, was it? There was a cost attached to it. And God made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom spiritually. God sent His Son into the world, and scripture tells us Jesus came into the world and He was born of a woman and He was born under the law. So Jesus had the full weight of the law upon Him, all of the demands God had put. Only Jesus, unlike us, was able to stand up under the weight of the law. Jesus was able to fulfill the law completely and to live the perfect life and yet He was willing to take our place. He was willing to take the eternal death that was supposed to be ours, and He took that upon Himself so you and I could be set free. When He died upon the cross, He set us free. Because, through His blood, forgiveness has been given to us. No longer do we have the shame. No longer do we have the guilt. It's been removed in Jesus. Through faith in Him, we know we're completely forgiven and, in God the Father's eyes, we are perfect. That's freedom. Because it didn't cost us a thing. It is God's free gift to us. It is His undeserved and it is His unconditional love that God says all of us have been set free, all of us are in a right standing in His eyes. No longer is the law weighting us down, threatening us.

No, we no longer serve God for fear we have to but we serve God because we can and because we want to. That's what God set us free to do. And that is God's gift to us. Now God says of the freedom He's given to us, the fact that He has freed us so every time we sin we know we're forgiven, God says do not abuse the freedom. He says, “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge in the sinful nature.” In other words, do not think, “Well, since I'm forgiven for everything I do, then it doesn't matter what I do. I can go out and live any which way I want to live and always come back and know I am forgiven.” He says, “Do not use your freedom to indulge in the sinful nature.” Now God is specifically talking about our freedom in Christ, but I think it's equally appropriate when it talks about the freedom we have in this land, the freedom we enjoy in this country. I believe God is also saying to us that we are free and that we enjoy many freedoms in this land but do not use that freedom to indulge in the sinful nature.

How have we used the freedom God has given to us? What have we done in the name of freedom in this country? In the name of freedom of speech, we have filled the Internet with pornography and we filled the airways with obscenities and claimed it to be our right because we're free to do so. In the name of freedom of religion, we've removed prayer from our schools and from all public events. We've taken the Ten Commandments out of courtrooms, and we've used that as an excuse to remove the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and our currency. In the name of freedom, freedom of choice, we've taken away the lives of the unborn and we've threatened the lives of those who can't speak for themselves.

We were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge in the sinful nature. Our forefathers, when they penned the Constitution and they gave us the unprecedented freedoms of this land, never envisioned, never could have imagined some of the things that we would do in the name of freedom. We are not to use our freedom that way. Nor are we to use that freedom as individuals that way.

How often do we, as individuals, exercise the freedom of knowing God will forgive us? The little phrase we smirk as we say, “Well, you know, it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.” How many times have we knowingly gone against God's will? Full knowledge of what we were about to do was wrong. It was sinful. It was against everything God stood for, but we did it anyway, maybe even with the thought in the back of our mind, “Well, later on, we'll make confession and get forgiveness for that one.” We were called to be free and set free in Christ Jesus, but we are not to use that freedom as a license to do anything we want. God set us free to serve Him, to serve Him not because we must, because of oppression, but because out of a willingness in our heart as a response to the love He's shown to us. God has set us free so we can use our freedom to bring glory and honor to Him. And we, as a nation, need to bring glory and honor to God because it is only by His grace we are here. It is only by His grace we have lasted over 200 years, and it's only by His grace we have all the blessings of this land. Therefore, we should use our freedom to give Him glory and honor and praise. It's time for us to stand up and to stop allowing the excuse of freedom and rights as an excuse and a license for people to go off in the sinful nature. It's time for us to stop distorting what our forefathers meant when they gave us those freedoms, for you and I to stand up as Christians and to stand up for what God has to say, to stand up for what is right and to make that known, to exercise our freedom so God's will can be followed in our land. It's time for us as individuals to use our freedom to bring glory and honor to God. Scripture tells us we do that when we have the fruits of the spirit, when we love one another as we love ourselves, when we have patience, gentleness, kindness, and we have joy in our lives, when we exercise that freedom. That's what brings glory and honor to God, and that's when people sit up and notice and say what's different about them as opposed to everyone else. That's the freedom God has called us to. He's freed us from the burden of the law and enables us to worship Him and to serve Him, not because somehow we must to earn points but because we can, because we want to, and it's the desire of our heart. That's what freedom is all about, and I believe that's what the freedom in our land is all about.

Let's celebrate that freedom today. Let's celebrate it with music and song. Let's celebrate it in our lives, recognizing the freedom we have in Christ, the freedom we have in our nation as a gift from God, recognizing that we will not abuse the freedom God has given to us but we will use it to bring glory and honor to His name alone. Amen.

Copyright 2004 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church