Christ Died For Our Freedom

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 29th of June, 2025, the Sunday before Independence Day in the United States.  A recording of our service should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams.]

In mid-April of 1775, a small group of men – shopkeepers, farmers, and the like, including a number of young teenagers - wielding their own firearms stood face-to-face against British Army regulars… and opened fire.  The Battles of Lexington and Concord marked the start of the American War for Independence.  At this time each year we put out flags and hang bunting to celebrate our independence from foreign rule, documented by our Declaration of Independence, formalized on July the 4th, 1776.

Men and boys, and women, too, faced off against the mightiest army on earth at the time.  And they won.  The leaders of this ragtag band, most notably George Washington, knew and understood that this victory would not have been possible without divine intervention.  Washington gave all the glory and praise to God, who saw us through our efforts to defeat tyrannical forces, that we might become that light of the world, the city set on a hill.  Our fight for independence, our freedom to rule ourselves and determine our own future, was only won with God’s helping hand.

But there was another hard-fought battle, many years before this, against an even greater enemy, that was won only through God’s intervention.  In a war that began shortly after man’s creation from the dust of the ground, Satan and his evil forces have sought to undermine and overthrow God’s kingdom.  He tempted Adam and Eve to sin, and has been tempting mankind ever since.

That original sin brought death into the world.  God created us to live forever, because He wanted us to be with Him forever.  But when we sinned, that all changed.  God took away our immortality so that we would not be forever separated from Him.  We would die to this life in our sin.  In this way, we can see our time here on earth is limited, we’re just passing through for now.  But God still wanted us to be with Him forever, so He gave us a way to be forgiven of our sin, to be freed from the bonds of sin.

Please listen and follow along to what the Apostle Peter has to say on the subject of freedom, from the 2nd chapter of his 1st letter to the early church, verses 11 through 25, and I’ll be reading from the Contemporary English Version of our Holy Bible this morning…

11 Dear friends, you are foreigners and strangers on this earth. So I beg you not to surrender to those desires that fight against you. 12 Always let others see you behaving properly, even though they may still accuse you of doing wrong. Then on the day of judgment, they will honor God by telling the good things they saw you do.

13 The Lord wants you to obey all human authorities, especially the Emperor, who rules over everyone. 14 You must also obey governors, because they are sent by the Emperor to punish criminals and to praise good citizens. 15 God wants you to silence stupid and ignorant people by doing right. 16 You are free, but still you are God's servants, and you must not use your freedom as an excuse for doing wrong. 17 Respect everyone and show special love for God's people. Honor God and respect the Emperor.

18 Servants, you must obey your masters and always show respect to them. Do this, not only to those who are kind and thoughtful, but also to those who are cruel. 19 God will bless you, even if others treat you unfairly for being loyal to Him. 20 You don't gain anything by being punished for some wrong you have done. But God will bless you, if you have to suffer for doing something good. 21 After all, God chose you to suffer as you follow in the footsteps of Christ, who set an example by suffering for you.

22 Christ did not sin

or ever tell a lie.

23 Although He was abused,

He never tried to get even.

And when He suffered,

He made no threats.

Instead, He had faith in God,

who judges fairly.

24 Christ carried the burden

of our sins.

He was nailed to the cross,

so we would stop sinning

and start living right.

By His cuts and bruises

you are healed.

25 You had wandered away

like sheep.

Now you have returned

to the One

who is your Shepherd

and Protector.

--1 Peter 2:11-25 (CEV)

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, thank You for helping us gain freedom from foreign rule, foreign tyranny.  And thank You for also giving us freedom from eternal death, for providing a way for us to not live forever separated from You.  You want us to live forever with You, but You also want us to be a beacon, a light onto the world, shining through the darkness of sin to show the truth of Your Word.  You and Jesus ask so little of us, yet we often fail to follow through with what You command.  Too many things in life distract us, trying to pull us away from You.  Please forgive us our lapses, Father.  Help us more closely follow Your word so we can grow ever closer to You and our Lord Jesus.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit within us and better grasp the message You have for us this day.  Please keep us strong in our faith, of one mind and one purpose in our love, our worship, and our service.  And please keep us healthy and safe through these trying times.  This we pray in the precious name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

A sign once posted in a textile mill instructed, “When your thread becomes tangled, call the foreman.”  A young woman was new on the job.  Her thread became tangled and she thought, “I’ll just straighten this out myself.”  She tried, but the situation only worsened.  Finally she called the foreman.  “I did the best I could,” she said.  “No, you didn't,” the foreman replied.  “To do the best, you should have called me.”

Too often, we try to straighten out the tangles in our lives by our own hands, in our own way.  We do the best we can, we say, but things only get worse.  We should have called upon the great Foreman in heaven to clear up the mess.  That would be the best thing to do.

It's as Ruth Bell Graham noted in her book, Prodigals and Those Who Love Them, when she quoted this comment made by Lady Culross to John Livingston of the Covenanters:  “Since God has put His work into your weak hands, look not for long ease here: You must feel the full weight of your calling: a weak man with a strong God.”

We are weak but God is strong.  Through Him, anything is possible.  But we must put it all on Him.  We must acknowledge our dependence on Him.  Weak though we may be, God has given us the mission of carrying on His Son’s work of reconciling mankind back to Himself.  Especially in this effort, we depend on God’s help.

Now, if we pay close heed to Peter’s words, we would never have rebelled against British rule, cruel and capricious as it was, for Peter tells us to obey all human authorities, even the cruel.  He also tells us to always do what is right.  In the case of our war for independence, one can easily see that our founders were doing the right thing in freeing us from foreign rule that held us in servitude for a debt we had long since repaid.

God blessed us in that effort, and then we gave thanks and showed our loyalty by doing something pretty much unheard around the world: we made a friend of our defeated enemy.  This trend continued in US history – we have turned our defeated enemies into our allies and our friends.  So even though we may not have always obeyed human authorities, we tried to obey God.

And I believe Peter is trying to emphasize that point.  He uses Jesus as our example.  Jesus never sinned, or told a lie, or made threats, or sought revenge for harms He suffered.  Instead, He had faith in His Father God.

We should be more like Jesus.  He was nailed to a cross, gave up His earthly life, so that we would stop sinning and start living more righteously.  He washed us clean of our sin with His own blood.  He defeated death, so that we too can defeat eternal death and not be separated from God forever.

Family, thanks to Jesus we enjoy freedom from death!  Not mortal death, not death from this life, but the second death, everlasting death, the death of separation from the One who loves us and created us.  Jesus stood face-to-face with our greatest enemy – Satan – and defeated him.  And when we accept Jesus as Lord, we get to share in that victory.  By His sacrifice on the cross, Jesus freed us from the burden of sin.

The Apostle Paul speaks to this freedom in the 5th chapter of his letter to the Galatians, in the 1st verse and then verses 13 through 25, when he writes…

1 Christ has set us free! This means we are really free. Now hold on to your freedom and don't ever become slaves of the Law again.

13 My friends, you were chosen to be free. So don't use your freedom as an excuse to do anything you want. Use it as an opportunity to serve each other with love. 14  All the Law says can be summed up in the command to love others as much as you love yourself. 15 But if you keep attacking each other like wild animals, you had better watch out or you will destroy yourselves.

16 If you are guided by the Spirit, you won't obey your selfish desires. 17  The Spirit and your desires are enemies of each other. They are always fighting each other and keeping you from doing what you feel you should. 18 But if you obey the Spirit, the Law of Moses has no control over you.

19 People's desires make them give in to immoral ways, filthy thoughts, and shameful deeds. 20 They worship idols, practice witchcraft, hate others, and are hard to get along with. People become jealous, angry, and selfish. They not only argue and cause trouble, but they are 21 envious. They get drunk, carry on at wild parties, and do other evil things as well. I told you before, and I am telling you again: No one who does these things will share in the blessings of God's kingdom.

22 God's Spirit makes us loving, happy, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, 23 gentle, and self-controlled. There is no law against behaving in any of these ways. 24 And because we belong to Christ Jesus, we have killed our selfish feelings and desires. 25 God's Spirit has given us life, and so we should follow the Spirit.

--Galatians 5:1, 13-25 (CEV)

Jesus set us free from the tyranny of the Law that was handed down by Moses, the Law that humankind is incapable of fully obeying.  Jesus came to free us from the chains of the Law, and the first step was to free us of our sin.  He washed away our sin with His precious blood.

But it’s just so easy to sin again, isn’t it?  It’s so easy to becomes slaves of sin, turning our backs on the One who saved us and doing whatever we want to do, as if we didn’t know better.  But we who were saved have God’s own Holy Spirit living within us, trying to guide us, prodding us in the direction of righteousness and away from sin.  We just need to pay better attention to Him.  He’ll continue the work in us that Jesus began if we let Him, if we heed His still, quiet voice.  We need to let the Spirit do His work, making us more loving, happy, peaceful, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled, just like Paul says.

Let’s kill our selfish feelings and desires.  Jesus gives us a second chance, God’s Spirit gives us life, so let’s obey Jesus and follow the Spirit.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Almighty God, thank You for giving us victory over tyranny, freedom from foreign rule so that we can govern ourselves.  But more importantly, thank You for sending Your Son to free us from sin and death, and for sending Your Spirit to continue Your work within us.  By Your mercy, You offer salvation to all who will accept Your Son as Lord.  It saddens us, Father, when we think of all the souls who will never recognize Jesus as Your Son or obey Him as their Lord.  There are many who have not heard of Jesus, have not been told of all He did and taught.  And there are even those who deny Your existence, and the existence of Your Holy Spirit.  We admit that we have not done as good a job as we could reaching out to these people.  Too often we find excuses not to carry out our mission of making more disciples.  Sometimes we’re too busy, too distracted.  Sometimes we’re just too hesitant, too afraid of getting it all wrong and doing more harm than good.  Please forgive us those times, dear Father.  Please help us reach out to the lost, to anyone who does not know Jesus as their personal Savior.  Help us be more like Your Son in our love and our ways.  Help us show Your love to others by giving of ourselves, giving of our love freely, unconditionally, sacrificially, just as Jesus gave of Himself for us.  And please help us share our Lord Jesus with others so that they too may be saved by Your mercy and His sacrifice.  

Father, please shield us from Satan as he attacks our faith, trying to make us his own.  Help us be better servants, glorifying You in all we do so that the world can see You in us, through our deeds, in how we live.  And help us remain strong, faithful, and true to You in all things, no matter what comes our way.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to Your commands, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, thank You for freeing us from sin and death!  By Your sacrifice and our faith, we are given eternal life.  You died to mortal life so that we can avoid the second death.  You died for our freedom.  Thank You, Jesus, for giving Your all for us.  Lord, we know it disappoints You, but sometimes we struggle to do as You commanded us.  You told us to love others, even our enemies.  But it's so hard to love all people, to give of ourselves to those who don’t care about us.  It’s not even all that easy to love some of our fellow believers.  It hurts to admit it, be we let too many simple, foolish things get in the way of our love.  And too often we hesitate to witness to You and the Gospel, making more disciples.  Please help us in our struggles to show You to the world.  Help us be more like You, loving all others, even those who hate us and wish us harm, without any concern for reward or recognition or even being loved in return.  Help us reach out to the non-believing world, sharing the Gospel message, showing Your love through our love.  Give us the words to say, show us the deeds to do to lead the lost to You.

Holy Spirit, please shield our minds and our hearts from Satan’s lies and the world’s empty promises.  Guide us around all the devil’s traps and snares.  Help us see though his temptations.  Help us keep our focus on the things of heaven and the needs of others rather than on anything this world might offer.  All this we pray in the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.