One Nation Under God

 Pastor Burcham's Sermon

  Sunday, July 3, 2005

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

Decar lives in Iraq . He's lived there his entire life. But something significant happened to him in 1994. Decar had been talking to his brother. His brother had become a Christian. Decar was somewhat interested. And sometime in 1994, God worked on his heart. Decar accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. He became a believer in Jesus. Now remember, this is pre-war Iraq . He has become a Christian.

Well, Decar gets convicted in his heart this is a message that needs to be shared with his countrymen, but he's not exactly sure how he can do that. Certainly, he can share a little bit with his friends and acquaintances where he lives, but he wants to do it more on a widespread basis. But how can he do that in Iraq ? He decided the best way to do it was through media. Certainly, he can't broadcast anything over the airwaves so he takes his boom box, nothing more than that, and he starts recording Christian messages to try to share with his countrymen the love that he's experienced from Jesus. Pretty soon, he starts handing them out and then people want more. All of a sudden, every week, he's down in his basement with this little dual cassette recorder dubbing one tape to the next making as many as he can and handing them out. Little did he know how much influence he was having as these tapes went out across the nation nor did he realize who was noticing what he was doing until one day the police arrived at his door.

You see, the political party that Saddam Hussain was a part of noticed what was happening with Decar and his tape ministry and they deemed what he was doing was subversive to the government and to the nation and it was wrong and it was illegal. Decar was thrown in prison in Baghdad , the one you hear about with all the abuses that take place, and that's where he sat.

That was then. This is now. Since the new government has come into place in Iraq , Decar was let out of prison. And now, all of a sudden, he's enjoying a freedom he's never experienced before. He can openly share the message of Jesus and his love for all of his countrymen. All of a sudden, his media ministry now has taken on a whole new look because now it's not just cassette tapes dubbed over one at a time. But in mass quantities, tapes and DVD's are being spread out by Decar as he touched an estimated 10,000 people with his weekly messages. Decar now has his own congregation in which, every week, he can get up publicly and proclaim Jesus as his Savior. He's never known that kind of freedom before and yet that's the freedom you and I experience every day of our lives.

It's the freedom we have grown up with. It's the freedom our ancestors have given to us. We've never known a time when we couldn't gather here in God's house and confess Jesus as the only true God. We've never known a time when we couldn't talk to somebody else about the faith we have in our Lord. We've never known a time when it was illegal to be Christian. This is the freedom of our country. It's just one of the many liberties that have been won for us but, for me, it's the most important one. The fact we could gather here, openly, publicly, and praise the one true God and confess Him as our Lord and Savior, to be able to share that with our children, that's the freedom of our country. And it's a freedom we dare not take for granted. It's a freedom we dare not abuse because, as you know, the freedom we enjoy is not free.

In fact, there's a close parallel in my mind between the freedom we have as a nation and the freedom we have as believers in Christ. The same concept is going on in both. The freedom we have in this country did not come free, and we all know that. Historians point back to the signing of the Declaration of Independence as 56 men gathered together. Now you know it all didn't begin there, but there was a long history behind it, a long history of the colonies not being recognized by the King of England, a long history of taxation without representation, a long history of the pleas they made to the king going unanswered, a long history of the fact the king put foreign mercenaries on our soil as a way of fighting against us and the list went on and on. You can read about it in the Declaration itself. But it is on the July 4 date that historians mark the beginning as 56 men penned their name onto the bottom and they sent it off to the king declaring this land would be a free land, that we would be our own independent country. The freedom they declared didn't come free.

The 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, most of them died in poverty although they were men of wealth and influence when they signed that document. Thomas Nelson was one of those men. Thomas Nelson was well known. He was respected. He was wealthy. And yet Thomas Nelson witnessed as General Cornwallis invaded his property. He witnessed as he took over his home and set up the headquarters for the British army in his home. And it was Thomas Nelson who quietly, in private, went to George Washington and urged him again and again to open fire on his home until finally General Washington did. And his home was destroyed. Thomas Nelson died penniless. Because he fought for our freedom, the freedom you and I enjoy every day.

It is estimated over half a million lives have been lost winning and defending the freedom of our country. Five hundred thousand people have made the ultimate sacrifice so you and I could enjoy our way of life, so you and I could have our liberty, our independence, our freedom in this land. And you and I know there are still thousands of men and women deployed around the globe, defending our country and defending our way of life, defending our freedom. Freedom is not free. Freedom is costly. The freedom for this land is costly and the freedom we have in Christ is costly as well.

Theologians point back to the beginning of time recorded in the Book of Genesis. They mark that as the beginning. There, perfect people were put into a perfect world. God had created a paradise. Everything they could want or need was given to them. But it was at that moment when they were in the paradise they were given a choice. They could follow God or they could disobey God. And our first parents chose to disobey God. They did the very thing He asked them not to do. And because of that disobedience, sin entered into our world. And the perfection God had created all of a sudden became imperfect. And the people who were free to live in this world He created soon became slaves of it. They became slaves of sin, ensnared by it, unable to escape from it. But the moment mankind was held captive to sin, God promised freedom. He promised freedom from sin. He promised freedom from our conscience, freedom from shame, but that freedom would cost a lot. And God knew at that very moment what the price would be. God knew it would cost Him His own Son.

1 Peter 2, we read part of that, but if we go just a little bit further, we would see in Verse 24, where it talks about the cost. It says, “He bore our sins in His body on the tree so we might die to sin and live for righteousness. By His wounds, we have been healed.” It is only through the blood of Jesus that our sins could be forgiven. It is only by the sacrifice of His life, as He lived in our place and paid the debt for us, that you and I could be free. So we could walk out those doors this morning, not with a guilty conscience anymore, not with any shame over the things we've done in the past, but to walk out free with a clean conscience, knowing all of your sins, all of your mistakes, all of your regrets have been paid for by the blood of Jesus. That's freedom, freedom that cost God His Son. And a freedom that has even cost men and women through the ages the ultimate sacrifice.

Of the 12 apostles Jesus commissioned and sent out to change the world, of those 12 men He sent out to preach the Good News of Jesus and what He's done, 11 of them died a martyr's death. All of them were imprisoned. All of them suffered and were tortured because of their faith. Throughout the centuries, Christian upon Christian have paid the ultimate price for standing up for their faith because they wanted to share with another human being the love they've experienced through Christ. And you know and I know that even today, there are parts of the world where it's illegal to be a Christian. There are places in the globe today where if you speak about your faith, you could be jailed, you could be tortured, you could even die. And yet men and women are standing up for their faith because they want to pass it down to their children. They want to pass it down to future generations. They want other people to know of the freedom we have because of Christ.

The freedom we have in Jesus did not come free. It cost God His only Son, and it's cost human beings their lives to share that message with us so we could be here. Freedom is not free. Therefore, freedom should not be abused. It should not be neglected. It should not be assumed. It should not be taken for granted. And it certainly shouldn't be used as an excuse to do something that it was never intended to give to us. Peter again pointed out to us in the lesson today in that second chapter what freedom is all about. In Chapter 2, Verse 16, he says, “Live as free men. Live in the freedom God has given to you.” And I think you could say that to our country. “Live as free people but do not use your freedom as a coverup for evil but live as servants of God.” Do not use your freedom as a coverup for evil. How often have we, as Christians, used our forgiveness and the freedom we have in Christ as a coverup for evil? “It doesn't matter what I did yesterday because I know I'll be forgiven tomorrow. It doesn't matter if I make a bad choice here even though I know what I'm going to do is wrong, it's okay because Jesus still loves me and Jesus is going to forgive me.” We cannot use the freedom we've been granted in Christ, the forgiveness that cost Him His life, as an excuse to go out and do anything we want to do nor can we use the freedom God has given us in this country as an excuse to do things our founding fathers never imagined nor our God never desired for us. What have we done in the name of freedom?

In the name of freedom and the freedom of speech, we've maligned one another. We've lied against other people. We've slandered their names. We've labeled them if they don't agree with us. We've called them liberals. We've called them conservatives. We've called them Democrats, Republicans, and Independents and, depending upon which side of the fence we stand upon, we point our fingers at them and look at them as witless people who have no idea of reality. In the name of freedom, how would we use our speech? In the name of freedom, what have we filled the airwaves with? One cannot turn on the radio or the television, even at prime time, and not be assaulted by the sex, the violence, and the foul language there. In the name of freedom, we put that into the airwaves. We won't even get into what's on the internet and all the spam we get in our e-mail and we're shocked as we opened it up. And it's all done in the name of freedom.

In the name of freedom, we've taken the unborn and the elderly and we've reduced them to a medical procedure. In the name of freedom, we have taken what God calls an abomination and just labeled it as an alternative. What have we done in the name of freedom that our founding fathers never dreamed, never imagined? What have we done in the name of freedom that God never desired for us to do? Do not use your freedom as a coverup for sin. The freedom we have is too precious. The freedom we have is too costly to simply make it an excuse to live ways God does not desire. Just because we're free to do something doesn't mean we should. Just because something is legal for us to do doesn't make it right for us to do. Live as free men but do not use your freedom as a coverup for sin. Instead, live for God. Freedom is too costly, freedom is too precious for us to just throw it away to the side. No, freedom needs to be respected and honored and not taken for granted. It is a precious gift from God. The freedom of this land and the freedom we have in Christ. Therefore, we use our freedom to live for God. We use that freedom to dedicate our lives to Him, not because we must, not because we're being forced to but because we're free to. Because we've been freed from our sins, freed from the baggage of the past, because we live in a land where we're free to do so, we're free to live for God. Peter even tells us how we should live for God. Chapter 2, Verse 17, he says, “This is what it means to live for God. Show proper respect to everyone. Love the brotherhood of believers. Fear God. Honor the king. Show respect to people whether you agree with them or don't agree with them, whether they're of your political party or not of your political party, show respect for them. Respect them for human beings and who they are.” It doesn't mean you like them. It doesn't mean you agree with them, but it means you're going to show and honor them with respect.

We're going to love the brotherhood of believers. That means we all have a connection, whether you know the person who's across the church or not, whether you know the person who's across town or not, every person who gathers this morning in the name of Jesus, we have a connection with them. They're our brotherhood. They're our family. They're our Christian family. Whether it's here, across the state, or across the globe, Decar over in Iraq is part of our Christian family. Let's love that family. Let's not malign that family. Let's not point fingers at that family. Let's love the brotherhood of believers.

Fear God, not that we're afraid of God but that we show respect for God, that we hold God in awe because of who He is, that we listen to what God has to say. In response to the love He's shown to us, we become obedient to God so His Word is our Word, how God directs us to live, that's how we're going to live. We fear God. We become obedient to God. We honor the government. We honor those who are in office, the leaders among us. Again, whether we agree or disagree with them, because of this country, we have means, we have vehicles by which our ways, our opinions can be made known. How often do we just dismiss people as politicians and we call all of them crooks? Honor them. Honor the office they hold.

Could you imagine the impact we'd have on our community, the impact on our nation if all of us together would live as God's people, if we would respect people, if we'd love the believers, if we'd fear God, and we'd honor the government? Can you imagine the impact we would have? We would be living as free people, free people in America and free people in Christ. That's what freedom is all about. It's the freedom to serve God. It's the freedom to know Him as our Lord and Savior. And thank God we live in a country where that can happen.

You see, I imagine when Decar conducted his worship services, I'm guessing for us that would seem like yesterday, I never get the time change right, he didn't take his freedom for granted. And he stood in front of his congregation and he appreciated, among all other things, the freedom he had to declare Jesus.

This morning, all of us as we celebrate our freedom, let's not take it for granted. Let's recognize the great privilege and the honor God has bestowed upon us to let us live in such a great country that we are free, free to serve God. Amen.

. Copyright 2005 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church