The World Has Gone Crazy

The World Has Gone Crazy

1 Peter 4:12-16 (NLT)

( for an audio and visual of this sermon go to www.thecreekmonroe.com)

Intro: Back in 1995, there was a movie that starred Mel Gibson titled “Brave Heart”. It was about the beginning of the Scottish revolution in their quest for separation from England. Sound familiar? Gibson played the Scottish hero William Wallace. There is a scene in that movie where Wallace (Gibson) is riding a horse back and forth in front of a small army encouraging them to fight for their freedom. There is one line there that I want to share with you. Wallace tells the army this; “They may take our lives but they will never take our freedom”. This of course rallies the men and they fight. Eventually Wallace is captured and executed by the King of England but his battle cry, his rallying cry was never forgotten.

. Freedom, that was the cry

. Yesterday, we celebrated our freedom as a nation. We celebrated our independence from England. Just what Wallace was fighting for.

. Freedom is something all people strive for. The freedom to live their lives as they see fit without the rest of the world telling them how to live and what they can and cannot do.

. The freedom to make of ourselves all that we can with the talents and abilities God bestowed upon us at birth.

. The freedom to worship and bow before our God.

. Sounds simple doesn’t it. Hard to achieve.

. This country that we live in was founded on two principles I believe.

. The first is that if you are going to be taxed, you should have some say in how your tax money is spent.

. We did not have that as a colony of England.

. You probably know this as “no taxation without representation”

. The second thing we were founded on is freedom of religion.

. The principle that we are free to exercise our rights in the free worship of our God.

. Our founders had come out of a society that had one religion and everyone was required to be part of that. They were required by the state to live and believe a certain way or they were branded as heretics and punished.

. Long before the American Revolution, many tried to do the same thing in the colony.

. Puritans in Connecticut set up the congregational church and deemed it to be the state church. They would deem people as heretics that did not conform themselves into what they believed was the proper religion.

. When our country fought and gained it’s independence from England, the founders created a document called the constitution with attachments that we call amendments.

. Religious freedom was so important and essential to the founders that they dealt with it in the very first attachment to the constitution.

. We know it as the first amendment and the opening sentence of the very first item that they sought to make crystal clear to all is this:

. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

. Translation: They government cannot establish a state religion. They cannot use the power of the state to force you to be part of any religion. You are free from state authorized religion, period.

. The second part of this sentence then tells us that the state cannot interfere with anyone in the practice of their faith, period.

. The citizens of this new country would have the right to believe what they wanted to and the state would have no authority to tell them differently.

. What a profound concept. Freedom to worship and believe the way we feel God intends.

. That has worked very well for a little over 200 years.

. Not so any more.

. Folks, the world has gone crazy. Especially the United States.

. Pam and I went on a cruise last week. Everybody asked me how much weight I gained and I had to be honest and tell them that I actually lost 2 pounds. See me later and I will tell you my secret.

. While you are on a cruise, you kind of lose touch with the world for ever how many days you are gone. We were gone 4 days and during that time, you would have thought that the world had turned upside down.

. We got off the boat and started listening to the radio to get caught up and heard about all these decisions that had been handed down by the Supreme Court. Everyone had an opinion and they were all warning that this religious freedom that we enjoy is now in Jeopardy because of the freedom of marriage decision allowing homosexuals to marry in every state and forcing all states to recognize that marriage.