INDEPENDENCE DAY

John 8:36, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

Independence Day reminds us of the beginnings of our great country and the high price that was paid to win our freedom.  Divine providence led a group of men to deliberate and declare their freedom.  They signed their names to a document knowing full well the cost that would be borne.  Freedom was costly then and remains so in our day.  Ronald Reagan once said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”  Sadly, in our day, the freedom envisioned by our founders and won by the blood of patriots is waning.  The great light of freedom that has been a beacon to the world does not burn so brightly anymore.

Nations come and go.  Political freedom is relative.  Many in the world today have no freedom to worship as they please or express their own ideas.  What we take for granted, others only dream of.  But political freedom is earth bound and transitory.  It prospers or vanishes at the hands of those who wield power and yearn for more.

Jesus spoke of a greater freedom that He alone can provide—freedom from the penalty and power of sin.  That freedom was won for believers at a higher cost—the precious blood of the only begotten.  The true Independence Day took place two millennia ago on a hill and a cross.  Jesus uttered his own Declaration of Independence on that day when He cried “It is finished!”  In dying once-for-all for sin Jesus has done all that is necessary so that a sinner can be set free from sin.  He alone has the power to transform a rebel sinner into a worshipper of God.

True freedom is not the freedom to do whatever we want, but the freedom to do what we ought to do—what we were created to do.  It is for this freedom that Jesus came and died.  It is to this freedom that He saves.  To be free indeed is to be unleashed from the dominion of sin and set free to worship Him who alone is worthy of all praise and adoration. 

Thank God for those who sacrificed their lives for the cause of freedom, but ever more so should eternal thanksgivings be made for the Lord Jesus and His willing sacrifice on the cross.  His cause of independence will never wane or falter and cannot be thwarted by earthly powers or the spiritual forces of darkness.

Pastor Jerry