Freedom: God given

​Happy 248th birthday, United States of America.
 


​We live in a system of governance that “allows” us freedom to be disciples of Jesus. It “allows” us some autonomy to be disciples without threat of violence and death that the early Christians lived under those first centuries of Christianity.
 
And you may be wondering why I put quotation marks around “allows?” Even though the government allows freedom to worship, express my faith in public and private, to serve God in the manner that I so choose, the government cannot keep Satan, sin, and the sinful human nature from attempting to thwart, sidetrack, disrupt, and dimmish my expression of faith and life with God.
 
I am not free. We are not free from my sinfulness, my sins, and Satan’s influence upon me.
 
The only way that me, you, and all people, will be free is to believe and trust God changed your life from sinner to saint. God did that when Jesus lived the perfect obedience of God’s Law. Jesus’ perfect obedience is not an example of how to live. It is the fulfillment of God’s Law because we cannot and do not follow God’s Law. Jesus did it for our benefit. Jesus’ obedience freed us from the constraints of God’s Law. Jesus went right to the cross. Jesus became the curse of sin and carried our consequence of our sin. Jesus died so that we are free to live. We are free from the punishment of God because Jesus was “punished” to free us. And Jesus rose so that we will rise to a brand life that is free both now and forever.
 
So, what are you going to do with that freedom? Are you going to indulge your desires and wants? St. Paul asked that same question of the Roman congregation almost 2000 years ago. God writes through St. Paul:
 
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 5:18-6:4
 
We are free to follow God. We are free to follow Jesus right to heaven, trusting and believing in Jesus and what He did. We were freed from death into life.
 
See you in worship and study,
Pastor Robert

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