THE LIBERTY WHEREWITH CHRIST HATH MADE US FREE

Sermon for the Fourth of July (Ind. Day)

4 July, AD 2010

TEXT:  The Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians, selected verses

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

“Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”  (Galatians 5:1).

Today marks the two hundred and thirty-fourth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the document which founded and set forth the principles which made this country a free nation.  All across America celebrations are being held to remind us of that event and the reality that we, the People, are, indeed, a free nation; no longer hindered, oppressed, or bound to any other country, nation, or government save our own.  You all remember the words of that document.  It has become our nation’s most cherished symbol of liberty.  Maybe you, like me, had to memorize them for Social Studies class in grade school.  They are very familiar to us:

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Our Founding Fathers, from the very outset of that document appealed to the Law – in this case, the Laws of Nature, also known as Natural Law, which governs all of Creation, and, being created by God, also sets the parameters in which God, Himself, operates.  In that document we find that there are three unalienable rights which we as human beings hold in possession as people.  The first is life – the gift of being or existing.  We as human beings have worth; first of all in the eyes of God and secondly as members of this free nation.  Secondly, we are granted as an unalienable right from God, our liberty.  What, exactly, is liberty?  It means to be set free; to be released from constraint, captivity, slavery, or tyranny.  Those were some of the conditions the colonies were experiencing, politically, when this document was written, to the end that we did, indeed, proclaim our liberty from those oppressive and coercive conditions in order to exercise our freedom as a nation.  Lastly, we are granted the opportunity for the pursuit of happiness, expressing or characterized by a sense of well-being, contentment, inner peace, and/or prosperity.  It is these three aspects of our human-hood, our human-being, that our Founding Fathers set as the corner-stone of our nation and it is those concepts and realities that all of our soldiers in all branches of military service strive to maintain for us throughout the ages, so that they may, indeed, continue to be unalienable rights of the people of this great nation.  So it is, then, that we remember and give thanks for the ideals upon which this great country was founded.  We remember and give thanks for the men and women who have defended them and defend them still.  And we pray God that those ideals and realities will be remembered and maintained as this country moves forward into an uncertain political future.  

As great as the Declaration of Independence is and how important it is as the document which established our individual political freedoms as a corporate expression of our nationhood and our relationship within it, let us remember that we, as human beings, are involved in another aspect of relationship as individuals – that of our relationship with God, whom the Founding Fathers freely and purposefully mentioned  in all of our founding documents.  If the Declaration of Independence is the founding document of our political freedoms, there is a book of Holy Scripture which sets forth our spiritual independence and freedoms with respect to our relationship with God.  It is one of the oldest books of the New Testament; the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians.  Galatians is the charter of our Christian freedom and sets forth the reality of our liberty in Christ.  On the surface, St. Paul is refuting the Judaizers who were teaching the newly converted Gentile believers that they had to obey the Jewish Law – all aspects of it – if they truly intended to be saved or to be free.  Their teachings, when compared to the message of the Gospel preached by St. Paul, Barnabas, and Silas, tore the Church in Galatia apart.  St. Paul wrote Galatians, therefore, to refute the Judaizers, and to call believers back to the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is, Salvation is available to all people, Jews and Gentiles alike; not through the keeping of some overly complicated law code of ethics and moralities which could not be kept and was not able to save, but Salvation comes through God’s Grace by faith in Jesus Christ, and nothing else!  Faith in Jesus Christ is the key to true freedom!  St. Paul takes four chapters to lay the foundation of what Salvation in Christ means and then in chapter five he begins to reveal his case for Christian liberty.  He explains that we are saved by faith, not by keeping the law.  Christian freedom means that we are free to love God and to serve one another, not to do wrong, which is our only course so long as we are enslaved to sin.  He writes to the Galatians, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”  Gal. 5:1).  In other words, St. Paul says, through the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, those who believe in Him, have been set free from the bondage of sin, slavery, and spiritual death and never have to return to that state of being ever again!  We are now free to live like we have never lived before.  We have been set free from sin and from a long list of laws and regulations.  If we had to summarize the two main points of what our new-found freedom in Christ means, it would be these:  First, we have been set free from the power of sin which wishes to lead us back into slavery, back into our former way of life, ruled by our own selfish desires and, secondly, we now have the freedom to serve God and to live in Him unselfishly!  

There is a wonderful Collect in Morning Prayer which mentions this liberty we have in Jesus Christ.  It is on page 17 and is entitled, A Collect for Peace.  It begins, “O GOD, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom . . .”  For a long time, that phrase gave me trouble.  I thought freedom meant that we were free, that we could do anything that we wanted too.  Now while that may be true in the Declaration of Independence and is appropriate and necessary for our political freedoms, that is not the same liberty or freedom that Jesus Christ gives to us.  Christian freedom does not mean that we can do anything we want, anytime we want.  That would lead us back into slavery to our selfish desires.  Those who appeal to their “freedom” so that they can have their own way or indulge their own desires often fall back into the bondage of sin.  But true freedom in Christ frees us to live unselfishly; serving God and our neighbors which is the Law of God’s Love.  In that respect, serving God in Jesus Christ is perfect freedom and is available to us all and we are reminded of that fact every time we say the Morning Office.

But finally, what is the basis of our Christian freedom in Jesus Christ?  To find that we turn to the eighth chapter of the Gospel of St. John and an encounter between Jesus and the religious authority.  We pick it up in verse 28,

“Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.  And He that sent me is with me:  the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please Him.  As he spake these words, many believed on him.  Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”(St. John 8:28-32)

It is Jesus, Himself, who is our Freedom.  It is His Passion, Death, and Resurrection that makes us free.  Just as the Declaration of Independence set us free from the tyranny of political oppression and slavery, the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ sets our souls and bodies free from the corruption of sin, Satan, and Death.  So we see that our true Christian Liberty is not a construct of thought or philosophy but a living, breathing, person – God with us, who showed us that faith in God, the Creator of all that is, is the source of our real freedom and we can never again be enslaved by any power, dominion, or principality.  As the Declaration of Independence liberated us as a people, the Cross of Jesus Christ liberates and frees our soul to love God and neighbor!  Therefore, as St. Paul wrote, stand fast this Fourth of July, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath truly made you free and pray with me this prayer for our country:

INTO thy hands, O Lord God of our fathers, we commend our nation and her people this day.  Grant that we may all do Thee service in the joy of true freedom that only Christ can bring.  Defend our liberties, preserve our unity, endue with the spirit of wisdom and fortitude all those to whom is entrusted the authority of government; and grant that there may be justice and peace at home, and obedience to Thy laws among the nations of the earth; to Thy honour and glory, Who livest and reignest, God over all.  Amen.

And now, unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all might, majesty, power, and dominion as is most justly due this day both now and forever; world without end.  Amen.