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FREEDOM THE GIFT OF GOD’S SON, A Sermon for Independence Day, The Fifth Sunday After Trinity, July 4th, 2010, by David J. Miller, Vicar, Redeemer AOC, Loganville, Georgia

July 4, 2010 | 3 Comments

FREEDOM THE GIFT OF GOD’S SON, A Sermon for Independence Day, The Fifth Sunday After Trinity, July 4th, 2010, by David J. Miller, Vicar, Redeemer AOC, Loganville, Georgia
John 8:34-36   34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.  35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.  36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
INTRODUCTION
You will notice that I am wearing black vestments for today’s service. These represent the pulpit clothes of the typical preacher of the American Colonies in the eighteenth century. Whether Lutheran, Baptist, Anglican or Presbyterian, this was the way a pastor would address his congregation at the time of the American Revolution.
The black cassock and white collar represent the calling of the preacher to be a servant of the Lord and of His Word. The two white tabs on the collar represent the minister’s authority to proclaim that Word. The black, open Geneva gown, reminiscent of that worn by John Calvin and the Reformers of Geneva, Switzerland, stands for the office of teaching the Word of God.
I am not wearing these because I happen to be a history buff, but because it’s good for us to remember that part the Gospel of Jesus Christ played in our country’s fight for independence. Notice that every aspect of these vestments says something about a real commitment to the Word of God and obedience to our Lord Christ.
The British troops referred to the American preachers as, “the black regiment,” because of their black vestments, for they realized a major force inspiring support of the revolution came from the Protestant preachers of the Gospel of free Grace, the message of the Cross. John Adams called the voice of the American preachers “a great and thunderous voice.”
What was this connection that the founding fathers of our country saw between the Christian Gospel, specifically the Gospel as it was preached in the Evangelical Revival History has named “The Great Awakening,” and the thinking that led law-abiding Christians to take up arms against the most powerful empire on earth at the time?
I hope to show you some of that connection today, in the light of the glorious Gospel of salvation from sin and death in the message of our Lord’s death and resurrection.
FIRST, WE ALL NEED TO BE SET FREE FROM SIN AND ITS DEADLY EFFECTS.
J. C. Ryle, Bishop of Liverpool, wrote in 1869,
Wherein does the liberty of true Christians consist? –They are free from the guilt and consequences of sin by the blood of Christ. Justified, pardoned, forgiven, they can look forward boldly to the day of judgment, and cry, “Who shall lay anything to our charge? Who is he that condemeth?” – They are free from the power of sin by the grace of Christ’s Spirit. Sin no longer has dominion over them. –Liberty, like this, is the portion of all true Christians in the day that they flee to Christ by faith, and commit their souls to Him. That day they become free men. Liberty like this, is their portion forevermore. Death cannot stop it. The grave cannot even hold their bodies for more than a little season. Those whom Christ makes free are free to all eternity!
The Scriptures that teach these doctrines are many:
Romans 3:23-26  23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;  24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:  25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;  26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
 Ephesians 2:1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;  2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:  3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.  4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,  5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)  6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:  7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.  8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
John 3:14-16   14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:  15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.  16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
So all mankind is under God’s just condemnation for sin, both actual committed sins and our sinful nature inherited from our first parents. But God did not leave us to perish in eternal hell, but sent His Son to die for us on the Cross; everyone who looks to Him in faith receives His righteousness and perfect record laid to his/her charge, and the sentence of eternal hell is paid in full by Jesus on the Cross. Our sin is atoned for, when we receive God’s gift by faith in Jesus Christ. The deadly fact of sin and guilt, the necessity of personal and individual conversion and the calm assurance of eternal life for all who receive the Lordship of Jesus Christ were all proclaimed with the Holy Spirit’s attending power by great preachers like George Whitefield and John and Charles Wesley, who were joined by local preachers like Jonathan Edwards and Gilbert and William Tennant.
While believers are not left to go it alone, but are joined in communion with other believers in what the Bible calls the Church, yet each one becomes a Christian individually, by his/her own faith in receiving God’s promises and trusting Jesus for him/herself.
But how do we “look to Jesus by faith?” It is by believing the proclamation of the Gospel; that is, by hearing and trusting God’s promises in His Word:
Romans 10:17  17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
So the written, inscripturated Word is of tremendous importance! And since the printing press had been around for two hundred years and literacy was at a high level in the American colonies, folks could hear the preachers, read the Bible for themselves, and believe the promises. The individual experienced conversion; he wasn’t a Christian due to his being born into the right family or the right church, controlled by the state, but he was apprehended individually by Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit in his own heart.
Philippians 3:10-12 10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;  11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.  12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
This Gospel, and the personal apprehension of it by faith, empowered the sons and daughters of the Reformation every bit as much as it did the Christians of the first century. Those who sought to destroy the faith in Christ by bitter persecution only spread it further. By the written Word and bold preaching, the Gospel spread and continued to bear fruit. Banns on preaching meetings and Bible studies were ignored, as believers refused to be silent. They met in secret; they prayed in secret, and their Heavenly Father rewarded them openly.
Matthew 6:6   6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
SECOND, LET’S LOOK AT THE CONNECTION OF THE GOSPEL OF GRACE TO THE IDEALS OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.
But what is the connection to the American War of Independence? I believe that to answer this question we need to understand three important aspects of the Gospel:
 Christianity is not only a doctrine, it is also a vital experience; and even beyond that, it is a worldview.
If you imagine a large group of professing Christians in a room, probably all of them would have some idea of the teachings of the faith: they would give assent to the doctrine of Christianity.
But, if we’re talking about the experience of a living faith, that number would no doubt be smaller. It’s like the difference Jonathan Edwards made between the man who knows a lot about honey, how the bees make it, what its molecular composition is, etc, and the child who has simply tasted the honey. Nothing is wrong with knowing the facts about honey, but that intellectual knowledge does not substitute for the actual experience of honey’s sweetness.
The idea of Christianity as a worldview goes beyond experience, in that it’s the “conversion” of the practical intellect. The Christian who is able to see the implications of his faith as the lens through which he views the world is learning to see all of life from God’s point of view.  There are lots of examples throughout Scripture of how grace is wrapped up in a worldview: for example, there’s God’s insistence on choosing the second-born or the youngest in a society that gave all or most of the inheritance to the first-born; or His choosing plain Leah over beauty-queen Rachel, etc, etc. (See Tim Keller’s sermon on Genesis 48:15-20).
1 Corinthians 1:27-31   27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;  28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:  29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.  30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:  31 That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
In short, the connection is this: once individuals grasped the freedom they had in belonging to Christ, once they bowed in submission to the Almighty and knew the joy of forgiven sins and acceptance as children of the Most High, they no longer feared the tyranny of man. They were willing to “walk by faith and not by sight,” 2 Corinthians 5:7.
Patrick Henry, in his most memorable speech, gave expression to this spirit:
 “Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.”
“Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace– but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” (Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775).
On the occasion of the 61st anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, in 1837, John Quincy Adams delivered a stirring oration to the people of Newburyport, Massachusetts, in the pulpit once occupied by Jonathan Edwards:
“Friends and fellow citizens! I speak to you with the voice as of one risen from the dead. Were I now, as I shortly must be, cold in my grave, and could the sepulchre unbar its gates, and open to me a passage to this desk, devoted to the worship of almighty God, I would repeat the question with which this discourse was introduced: – Why are you assembled in this place? – And one of you would answer me for all, – Because the Declaration of Independence…proclaimed universal emancipation upon earth! … Freedom to the slave! Liberty to the captives! Redemption! Redemption forever to the race of man, from the yoke of oppression! It is not the work of a day; it is not the labor of an age; it is not the consummation of a century, that we are assembled to commemorate. It is the emancipation of our race. It is the emancipation of man from the thralldom of man!” (John Quincy Adams, An Oration, 1837).
Powerful and indeed, stirring words! The cause for which our forefathers fought in the War of Independence clearly followed upon the proclamation of a Gospel of free grace, freely proclaimed, and to all that would receive it, freedom from sin and death.
A Gospel that was proclaimed by preachers like George Whitefield to black slaves and freemen alike, that by its very offer to all who would believe, brought all men and women before the face of the Almighty, showed them their desperate need of a Savior and the only remedy for our common death-deserving sinfulness. A Gospel, which by its very nature destroys slavery of any kind and makes everyone equal before the throne of God. Our founding fathers understood these implications, and were moved to defy a king that placed himself above the law.
Bishop Jerry Ogles sent an email this past week from the AOC representative for Persecuted Christians, the Rev John Patterson. He enclosed an attached message about the plight of the poor people of North Korea. Bishop Jerry writes, “It is thought provoking and heart-breaking to see how these people’s every freedom is squashed by an evil leader bent on power. There may even be a civics lesson in it for Americans who seem to be headed in the same direction. Please pray that the walls will be destroyed so that the Gospel may be preached in that land, for where the Gospel is freely received, there is liberty.” (2 Corinthians 3:17).
To return to the Oration of John Quincy Adams:
You are not here even to commemorate the mere … birthday of the Nation. You are here, to pause a moment and take breath, in the ceaseless and rapid race of time; – to look back and forward; –to turn your final reflections inward upon yourselves, and to say: – These are the glories of a generation past away, – what are the duties which they devolve upon us?
“The Declaration if Independence … explicitly unfolded the principles upon which their national association had … been formed. It was an association of mutual covenants. Every intelligent individual member (bound)their souls to a promise, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world … that they would for life and death be faithful members of that community, and bear true allegiance to that Sovereign (God), upon the principles set forth in that paper.”
Adams goes on to warn against a dangerous doctrine he saw as arising in the political thought of his day; he called it “a pernicious and fatal malignity.” This doctrine he defined as the idea, “that sovereignty is identical with unlimited and illimitable power.”
Having issued that warning, Adams proceeds to point out the authority deeper than the merely political: the sovereign authority conferred by the Declaration of Independence,
“could not dispense them, nor any individual citizen of them, from the fulfillment of all their moral obligations; for to these they were bound by the laws of Nature’s God, nor is there any power upon earth capable of granting absolution from them… The People, who assumed their equal and separate station among the powers of the earth by the laws of Nature’s God … by that very act acknowledged themselves bound to the observance of those laws, and could neither exercise nor confer any power inconsistent with them.”
Adams goes on to explain further:
”The Declaration of Independence …  did not recognize, but implicitly denied, the unlimited nature of sovereignty. By the affirmation that the principal natural rights of mankind are unalienable, it placed them beyond the reach of organized human power; and by affirming that governments are instituted to secure them, and may and ought to be abolished if they become destructive of those ends, they made all government subordinate to the moral supremacy of the People.”
Adams hits the proverbial nail on the head, when he continues and says this Declaration of Independence,
“virtually disclaimed all power to do wrong. This was a novelty in the moral philosophy of nations, and it is the essential point of difference between the system of government announced in the Declaration of Independence, and those systems which had until then prevailed among men.”
He goes on to note, “the inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence,” and declares that the founding fathers,
“ saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence, slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth.”
There is much more in John Quincy Adams’s Oration that we could discuss, but this is enough to see that there was clearly an attitude that the nation was bound under the laws of God, and (although he may not say so clearly here, it was nevertheless generally assumed in his day) that those laws of God were known by divine revelation, that is, by reading the Bible.
THIRD, TRUE FREEDOM ONLY COMES FROM THE SON, OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.
It is essential that we grasp this point!
2 Corinthians 3:17-18  Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
There is, however, a need for a warning against confusing the social and political improvement of this life with the freedom of those in Christ, close as that connection is, in a Christian context.  All human writing is a mixture of truth and error, and this Oration, valuable and good though it is, is no exception.
The danger is, and I think I can detect it somewhat in Adams’s Oration, of the influence of the historical philosophical movement that originated in the eighteenth century known as “The Enlightenment.” There were many forms of that movement of thought, but the essence of it was to exalt human reason to virtually the same level of authority, in Christian circles, as Holy Scripture.
Any form of the hope of creating an earthly utopia is a counterfeit gospel, whether that utopia is conceived in terms of communism or something else.
This is not to say that as Christians, we should not take any part or interest in the affairs of our nation; on the contrary, the blessings of liberty have brought this country a prosperity that has not only given us a high standard of living, but has made possible a missionary outreach unprecedented in history. For that we must be deeply grateful to our sovereign God.
But we must always keep the biblical perspective. The bottom line is, that ultimately, it doesn’t really matter what kind of government the Lord, in His sovereign dispensing of the affairs of earth, ordains for us to live under – not, by any means to say that it’s a matter of indifference or not of our concern to make life the best it can be and to the best of our abilities – but (and here is the main point), God is the real Shepherd and Sustainer of His people, no matter what their lot in this life!
J. C. Ryle, Bishop of Liverpool, continued, in 1869 commented on John 8:36,
Liberty, most Englishmen know, is rightly esteemed one of the highest temporal blessings. Freedom from foreign dominion, a free constitution, free trade, a free press, civil and religious liberty, — what a world of meaning lies beneath these phrases! How many would sacrifice life and fortune to maintain the things which they represent!
Yet, after all our boasting, there are many so-called freemen who are nothing better than slaves. There are many who are totally ignorant of the highest, purest form of liberty. The noblest liberty is that which is the property of the true Christian. Those only are perfectly free people whom the Son of God makes free. All else will sooner or later be found slaves.
We may easily lose the right perspective if we loose sight of the first two properties of the Gospel: that is, if we forget that the worldview of grace only makes ultimate sense to someone who has believed the doctrine and has experienced the Gospel in his/her own life by faith!
There are political debates going on at present in our nation that reveal that many folks are either trying to maintain the worldview of the Founders, without understanding the connection to the Gospel, or else, trying to change that worldview, arguing that that worldview is inadequate for today’s needs (often under the name of Progressivism), because they explicitly reject the presuppositions of Christianity that provided the basis for that worldview. But very often, neither side recognizes that the necessary connection of the worldview written into our Constitution and Bill of Rights was derived from the doctrine and experience of Gospel-preaching Christianity.
When Benjamin Franklin was asked, by a woman in the crowd at the Constitutional Convention in 1788, “What kind of government have you given us? A republic or a monarchy?” He replied, “A republic…if you can keep it.”
Likewise, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” Just as the life of any Christian is always a life characterized by repentance, because even the best of us sin throughout our lives; and “The Reformed Church is always reforming,” as John Calvin said, so any country’s political government that is self-consciously built upon principles derived from the Christian Gospel of God’s free grace, must fail, if the men charged with “keeping” it are, in their hearts, opposed to that Gospel doctrine and experience. If those who are entrusted with preserving the Constitution and the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence hold worldviews inimical to those documents, then we have “a house divided against itself,” which cannot stand, as our Lord said:
Matthew 12:25-26   25 And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:  26 And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?
CONCLUSION
What will the future bring? Let us pray earnestly for our country, for it seems, if you really listen to the political debating that is currently going on, that we could be in real danger of losing our republic, and with it our liberty.
Perhaps this is the inevitable result of pluralism in society. Tolerance is a good thing, but tolerance is not defined as “anything goes,” or that anybody’s ideas are just as valid as anybody else’s. Tolerance is holding in respect any person as an equal before God, even those persons with whom you profoundly disagree. It’s OK to disagree, and there must always be free and open debate, but once the notion of absolute truth is abandoned, the way is open to dictatorship and tyranny.
But what if we do lose our freedoms? It is not surprising that Satan would oppose the free preaching of the Gospel, and in the past, has certainly used oppressive regimes to try to silence the Gospel. What if the forces of tyranny were to take over our nation sometime in the future? God forbid! May it never be!  We do need to pray and work against that disaster with all the resources that our Lord puts in our hands! But, what if that were to happen? Our hope is not in our abilities or in acquiring political power, but in our Lord personally.
Let these Scriptures encourage your faith as we close:
 Psalm 39:7   7 And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.
Lamentations 3:24-26  24 The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.  25 The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.  26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
Psalm 124:8 – 125:1   Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth. 
Our hope is not in this earth. There’s no such place as Utopia, and there never will be. And if our hope is in an earthly Utopia, whether we call it America or Rome or anything else, it will disappoint us. Every counterfeit god will always let you down. When the Roman Empire fell, many thought all civilization and order was to vanish from the earth. There were indeed times of chaos and distress; but the LORD was the hope of believers during the fear, superstition and ignorance of the (so-called) Dark Ages, and He will be the sure and certain hope for us, no matter what happens.
Psalm 46:1-2   God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  2 Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.
Our Lord Jesus reigns!  Hallelujah!

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favour and glad to do thy will. Bless our land with honourable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.
AMEN.
David J. Miller, Vicar, Redeemer AOC, Loganville, Georgia. 7/4/2010.

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