Independence Day - Free From The Bondage Of Sin

Independence Day 2005

“Free from the Bondage of Sin!”

First Baptist Church Tawas City Michigan

Rev. Bruce A. Shields

www.TawasBaptist.org

Good morning and welcome!

If you are a visitor today, please be sure to fill out a visitor card and leave it on the pew when you leave. Someone will be by to pick those up after the service.

With the 4th of July coming, I felt that we should talk about what independence is.

What is bondage, and what exactly is freedom?

PRAYER

July 4th is celebrated as America’s official split from Britain’s rule and the beginning of the American Revolution.

The document that we know as the Declaration of Independence was adopted by Congress on July 4th although the resolution that led to the writing of the Declaration was actually approved two days earlier.

"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness), it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government."

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), from the Declaration of Independence

We have all heard life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We were oppressed by tyrants. Our lives were controlled by others, and happiness is sparse under tyranny.

This is a form of bondage.

But the day came when we said “ENOUGH!”

We are now free from Britain’s rule.

And we celebrate this every Independence Day.

But there is another type of bondage.

Another type of slavery and most of us do not realize we are enslaved.

John 8:31-36

“To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

33They answered him, "We are Abraham’s descendants[b] and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?"

34Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you do what you have heard from your father.[c]"

They did not understand that they were slaves and they needed Jesus to be free.

Everyone who sins is a slave.

Everyone who sins is in bondage.

2 Peter 2:18-19

“For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. 19They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.”

Who is your master, sin, lust, alcohol, pornography, sexual immorality?

You are a slave in bondage to your master.

Proverbs 5:22

“The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him;

the cords of his sin hold him fast.”

Romans 7:23

“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”

This is the battle of our flesh and spirit.

Romans 6:16-18

“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”

We are born into this sin which enslaves us.

We are in bondage from birth, and this bondage robs us of our life.

Slaves to sin leads to spiritual and eternal death.

It robs us of our liberty, for we do what our master instructs us.

Sin instructs us to turn from our Father in heaven and from the word of God.