Freedom In Christ

TRUE FREEDOM IS IN CHRIST

I TIMOTHY 2:1-7

I hope your 4th of July weekend has been awesome. This time of year has always been special for me. Some of my greatest memories growing up happened around the 4th of July. It was a tradition each year that my whole family would go to my grandparent’s house way out in the country. (Show Picture) We would have a big dinner together, which I didn’t like that part because we always had the adult table and kid table and I hated sitting at the kid table. After dinner me, my sister and our cousins always had fun in our little pre show lighting black cats and lady fingers then when it got dark my uncle would start the show. I loved watching all of the cool stuff like rockets and tanks and seeing the different colors. After the show we would finish by lighting sparklers and all of us kids would be writing our names in the air.

As a kid I never thought much about the 4th of July. I looked forward to it because I loved being with family, eating food and lighting fire works but I never put much thought into why we celebrated it. But now as an adult I have a new appreciation for this time of year. It is my chance to say thank you to all the men and women throughout our history who have sacrificed their lives in order to bring us the freedom we have today. It’s not just a chance to light fireworks but it’s also our chance to praise God for allowing us to live in such a great country. I love my country and if called upon I would die for my country. Because I love my country it makes it that much harder to watch first hand the choices that our culture has made in the last 50 years all in the name of freedom.

We have increasingly grown in greed and immorality. We continue to turn our backs on God and the Gospel. We are increasingly looking to man made ideas that will help bail us out of our economic and social problems. We continue to justify sin and call it no big deal. We do this all in the name of freedom and equal rights. But let’s be honest. Nobody is truly free. There are laws that must be followed. If there were no laws there would be chaos.

Spiritually no body is free. You and I and everyone else in this world only have one choice to make and that choice is to live a life of sin. We are born in sin and we live in sin. We don’t choose God we run from God. But what is so amazing and something that I celebrate not just on July 4th but everyday is that there is a way for you and me to experience life changing true unhindered freedom, real freedom in life that removes us from the penalty of sin and death and that is through Jesus. Christ died to set us free. Christ sets us free from the world’s corrupt sense of freedom. Christ sets us free from our guilt, from our past, from our mistakes. The world will never let you forget, the world refuses to let go and forgive but when we call on Christ name and repent then we will finally experience real freedom that no constitution or bill of rights can give us.

I wake up everyday thankful for this country that I live in. I see how war, poverty, corrupt government, famine have ravaged 3rd world countries, and I’m thankful that I can live in a country where I can drive a car to a store ½ mile away and buy whatever food I need anytime. I am thankful for the freedom’s we have in speech, religion, choice here in America and I am thankful for our laws that protect the people but I am most thankful for the freedom I have in Christ. I’m thankful that as a Christian who has been set free from the blinders of sin and selfishness that I can step back and see the big picture. I can now see the sin and corruption around me and because of that I now have the freedom because of Christ and the Holy Spirit working in me to do something about it. You and I, the saints, who are no longer slaves to sin but are now free from sin and slaves to Jesus have an amazing opportunity to give back not just to our country but more importantly give back to our God by devoting our lives to His service and telling others about the freedom that is found in Jesus.

You might say, “What can I possibly do to help change a world that is so corrupt and has fallen so far away from where it began 200 years ago?” In I Timothy Paul gives us 3 things that we can do as believers to help restore our nation to a country that looks to Christ rather to sin. I Timothy 2:1-7