“Free Indeed”
By
Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr.
SCRIPTURE: - John 8:36 “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”.
PRAYER: -
OPENING:- A little more than a year after the world watched the senseless, heartless, and cold blooded murder of George Floyd, heard of the shooting of Breanna Taylor during a botched raid by police, were shocked at the injustice that was done when Garrett Rolfe was reinstated as an Atlanta police officer after killing Rayshard Brooks in a Wendy’s parking lot. After the outburst of protests for racial justice sweeping across the nation, that sparked conversations on how to improve conditions for Black Lives on every front from the White House, news media, and in backyards around the BBQ, we just celebrated yesterday the 156th anniversary of one of its earliest liberation moments and thanks to President Biden signing it into law on Thursday now national holiday Juneteenth.
Juneteenth has been called many things over time Emancipation Day, Jubilee Day, Juneteenth National Freedom Day, Juneteenth Independence Day, and Black Independence Day. And yet despite the many different names, Juneteenth has faced competition from other emancipation holidays and has been unknown to many Americans.
SOME HISTORY: - Let me clear up first a misunderstanding, Juneteenth does not mark the end of slavery as many people believe - Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when a group of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, finally learned that they were free from slavery. This literally was almost two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which put an end to slavery effective January 1, 1863.
The Emancipation Proclamation, (or Proclamation 95), was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862, during the Civil War. The Proclamation reads That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three (1863), all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
On January 1, 1863, the Proclamation changed the legal status under federal law of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the Confederate states from enslaved to free. As soon as a slave escaped the control of the Confederate government, either by running away across Union lines or through the advance of federal troops, the person was permanently free. Ultimately, the Union victory brought the proclamation into effect in all of the former Confederacy.
Although Juneteenth represents freedom, it also represents how emancipation was remarkably delayed for people who were enslaved in the deepest reaches of the Confederate South. While the proclamation legally liberated millions of enslaved people in the Confederacy, it exempted those in the Union-loyal border states of Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky. These states held Confederate sympathies and could have seceded – which means to withdraw formally from membership of a federal union, an alliance, or a political or religious organization. Therefore, Lincoln exempted them from the proclamation to prevent this. A year later, in April 1864, the Senate attempted to close this loophole by passing the 13th Amendment, prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude in all states, Union and Confederate. But the amendment wouldn’t be enacted by ratification until December 1865. In other words, it took two years for the emancipation of enslaved people to materialize legally.
On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger of the Union army arrived in Galveston and issued General Order No. 3 that secured the Union army’s authority over Texas. The order stated the following: (Although freed they have stipulations place on them.) The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive office the United States, ‘all slaves are free.’ This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts, and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.
Still, even under Order No. 3, as historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. noted, freedom wasn’t automatic for Texas’s 250,000 enslaved people. “On plantations, masters had to decide when and how to announce the news — or wait for a government agent to arrive — and it was not uncommon for them to delay until after the harvest”.
Emancipation came gradually for many enslaved people, the culmination of a century of American abolition efforts. And even still, the formerly enslaved were viewed as chattel that merely existed to work and produce.
Black people began to prosper during Reconstruction (1863-1890) when it was the time to rebuild the Southern economy and society through the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments - which gave Black people freedom, due process, and the right to vote.
However, President Rutherford B. Hayes oversaw the end of Reconstruction in exchange for the withdrawal of Union troops from the South, according to historian Richard M. Valelly’s The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement. After Hayes’s win, leaders at the state and local levels “weakened black voting in the South by means of gerrymandering, violence, and intimidation,”.
Then in 1890, Mississippians drafted a white supremacist state constitution to disenfranchise local Black people; it included provisions that required people to be able to read and understand all parts of the state constitution in order to vote, according to the New York Times. This barred thousands of illiterate Black people from voting in the 1890s.
Meanwhile, the Federal Elections Bill, or Lodge Bill, to oversee Southern elections failed in the summer of 1890, effectively closing the last window for national voting rights jurisprudence for decades to come. This signaled the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow. “Once black southerners were disenfranchised by the early 1900s, the stage was set for a systematic entrenchment of white supremacist norms and public policies yet so-called Free!
While the past year has shown that some in America are willing to fight against the systemic racism that continues to plague the country, others are introducing legislation to ban anti-racist education, lessons that would help students understand the significance of a holiday like Juneteenth. Unfortunately, Critical race theory is now made to seem like the demise to our very democracy. Critical Race Theory is an academic movement of civil-rights scholars and activists in the United States who seek to critically examine the law as it intersects with issues of race and to challenge mainstream liberal approaches to racial justice. Critical race theory examines social, cultural and legal issues as they relate to race and racism.
As the American public continues to struggle with how to talk about slavery and its enduring consequences. Perceptions of Juneteenth have also changed. During World War I, white people and some Black people even considered it un-American, unpatriotic, and shameful “because it focused attention on a dark period in U.S. history”.
One reason Juneteenth’s history has remained widely misunderstood, or even unknown, until recently is because it’s not often taught in schools. Juneteenth is often thought of as it’s a “Black thing,” much like Kwanzaa. “It is seen as a holiday that is just observed by African Americans and is poorly understood outside of the African American community. It is perceived as being part of black culture and not American culture.
Now, the meaning of Juneteenth is more broadly understood and seen as an opportunity for the United States to come to terms with how slavery continues to affect the lives of all Americans today. It literally is something for everyone, of every race, to engage in. Stereotypes about Black people as being subhuman and lacking rationality are rooted in slavery. These harmful notions still rear themselves today as police officers disproportionately kill Black people and the health care system fails to adequately care for Black people. Advocates argue that the national holiday obviously wouldn’t put an end to racism but would rather help foster dialogue about the trauma that has resulted from the enslavement of 4 million people for more than 250 years.
Although Juneteenth represents freedom, it also represents how emancipation was tragically delayed for people who were enslaved – But the Bible says in John 8:36 “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed”.
TEXT: - In John 8:36 says, “So if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed.”
The Greek meaning of free can mean to liberate or to exempt from liability. Not only do it liberate or exempt from liability, but it liberates to. We are free from sin and death and free to worship God in the beauty of Holiness.
According to Strong’s Concordance NT 1211 - The word indeed is never placed at the beginning of a sentence, but is joined to some preceding word, and indicates that what it introduces can be taken as something settled, laid down in deed and in truth. It is final, it is established, it is so. It signifies that the thing enjoined must be done forthwith and at once, surely, certainly. There is no delay the Son has set you free you don’t have to wait 2 ½ years, you don’t have to wait until sin gets one more thing out of you, you don’t have to wait for the army to come and read a executive because it is already established whom the son has set free is free indeed.
Now that we are free indeed let’s look at what Christ has freed us from!
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Free from the Bondage of Sin. To be free or liberated you must first understand what it means to be bound or imprisoned. The definition of a captive means confined. You and I were prisoners held under the bondage of sin. We were held captive by the impulses of sin. Whatever and whenever sin wanted us to go or do, we did. We were slaves to the instincts of sin. Sin was our salve master the ruler that held us captive. What sins control us, enslave us? Two types according to Galatians 5:19-21 gives a list of sin actions and sin attitudes. Actions all of these enslave us before we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Adultery, Fornication, Uncleanness – filthy talk, filthy thoughts, filthy action, Lasciviousness which is lust and acting out ungodly desires, Idolatry and Witchcraft which are forms of religion. Heresies – the teaching of things that are blasphemous, Murders, Drunkenness, Revellings – rioting. Then there are Attitudes. Hatred you know what this is, Varience – always being at odds with others, Emulations – desiring to be like others, Wrath, Strife, Envy, Sedition – rebellion. You say, “those things are not in my life!” well it is all summed up in “such like.”
Romans 6 says we are dead to sin and we shall not lend our members as instruments of sin but yield ourselves unto God and our members unto righteousness. My hands my feet my mouth my heart belong to God who has set us free from sin therefore I will do His will. 2 Corinthians 3:17 says “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”.
Not only are we free from sin but we are free from the penalty of sin. When a person has been found guilty of a crime they will serve their time then often they are put on probation. Probation says you’re free but there are consequences you still have to pay. The Penalty of Sin as to do with Eternity. Romans 6:23 says “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Before we accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior we all had an eternal death sentence. Sadly, many people don’t understand that there is a price that must be paid. Jesus paid that price on Calvary, but unless a person accepts Jesus Christ into their lives and is born again both of water and spirit John 3:3 says, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”, that penalty of Hell’s damnation and eternal separation from God is real. Because of our sin, you and I were on a path to be eternally separated from the very presence of God. This was the eternal penalty or liability of our sin. Paul states here the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. When Jesus set you free, he took away your death sentence. The penalty you and I ultimately deserved has been removed and we now have eternal life. There has been literally a shift in our eternal destination. You ought to Thank God for the shift.
We are free from the Guilt and Shame of Sin. Have you ever experienced the feeling of guilt? Have you ever felt shame for things you have done in your past? Have you ever repented but felt like you need to repent again because you feel so bad that you want to make sure God “really forgave you?” We have all done things that we are ashamed of. Things that we wish we could take back and never do again. However, when you do this all you are doing is creating guilt and shame. This can devour you taking away the ability to live and develop properly spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. This is one of the biggest weapons the Devil will use on a person encouraging you to look back at the shameful moments of your past. When you do you can be overwhelmed by guilt, shame, and condemnation. This will ultimately strip your joy, rob your peace, and can even cause you to give up believing the lie that God hasn’t forgiven you. I want you to know INDEED that God forgave you. He removed that sin from you as far as the east is from the west and he doesn’t remember it anymore. He will never bring it up again and neither should you. However, forgiveness is not just about dealing with sin it also deals with your shame. Christ does not just forgive the sins of the past. He also liberates you from the shame and guilt of your past. He takes away the thing that has limited your ability to live and develop which is your guilt and shame. 1 John 3:20 says, “For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things”. Since we are forgiven, we are forgiven completely and totally. Sin, shame, guilt all of it is dealt with when Jesus sets you free. You don’t have to carry that burden of guilt and shame anymore. You are forgiven and free indeed.
Freedom is not just something that happens on the outside, it is something that must be experienced on the inside in our minds. Proverbs 23:7 says “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he..”. Our minds have been set free indeed. You no doubt have heard the story of the elephant chained to post. The elephant trainers will take an elephant tie its leg to a post with a chain, after a while of trying to pull the chain it causes the elephant pain so he give up trying to pull to avoid the pain, then they take the chain off and the elephant refuses to pull because in his mind he is still tied to the post. When Christ set us free, He freed our minds we are no longer conformed to this world or this way of thinking anymore we are transformed by the renewing of our minds Romans 12:2.
When you understand what Christ has freed you from, we can live in what Christ has freed you to.
What Has Christ Freed Us To?
The Freedom to Live Life more abundantly. John 10:10 says “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”. One of the reasons it’s so important to understand that you are free from the bondage, penalty and guilt of sin is because it now increases your life for abundant living. Jesus has free us to have love, to have joy, to experience peace, and to enjoy life.
You cannot have an abundant and vibrant life with a living, loving relationship with God or with anyone else for that matter, if you are holding on to the guilt and shame of your past.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they hid from God and their with God was hindered. When Jesus comes and sets you free you don’t have to hide anymore. You can now enjoy a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. James 4:8 says, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.” This is the essence of what Christ has freed you to. God wants close, intimate fellowship with you and the only way that happens is by Jesus freeing you. You can enter God’s presence with confidence because you know he wants you there and the hindrances have all been removed. This truly is living free.
The Freedom to Serve Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” One of the other reasons Christ has freed you is because he has work for you to do.
The Freedom of social, cultural and legal issues. Romans 11:17 says “And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree”. Galatians 3:28-29 says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female for ye are all one in Christ Jesus And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise”. The legal issue Jesus freed us from as well Galatians 3:13-15 says “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto”.
You are saved by grace. You live by grace. God will accomplish his plan in your life by grace. Christ frees you so that your activity doesn’t flow out of some sense of trying to win God’s approval. Your approval doesn’t come because of what you do, but because of what Christ has already done. When you understand this, you are free to accomplish the plan God has for you Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you saith the Lord, thought of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end”.
CLOSING:-
In the dictionary, freedom is defined as the power or right to act, speak, or think without hindrance or restraint. It further describes it as liberation from slavery or from the power of another. That definition completely wraps up everything Christ has done for us. There is only one thing left for you to do. Live free. Here’s what Paul says in Galatians 5:1says “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage”.
Enjoy your freedom today and go live the life Christ has freed you to live.
Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr.
