FREEDOM’S WALK
ROMANS 8:1-4
INTRODUCTION: In a few days, our nation will celebrate Independence Day. It is a day set aside to celebrate our freedom as Americans and to reflect upon what it means and what it cost for us to be free men and women. Those of us who have trusted in Jesus Christ have a greater freedom to celebrate - freedom from bondage to sin, its tyranny, and from a debt that we could never pay. As believers, we are called to walk in the freedom that is ours through the Spirit of God and to remember the cost of that freedom.
I. The Price of Freedom
A. Our national liberty did not come cheap.
1. Just over 643,000 American soldiers have given their lives in various wars since the birth of our nation in the pursuit and defense of freedom.
2. Perhaps best expressed in a tribute entitled "The Price of Freedom" concerning those who fought in distant lands defending our freedom... "Some were ready and prepared, Others were so young and so naive. Some of them chose to serve our country, Others had no choice, they were called to serve. As they hugged and kissed their loved ones bye, Their hearts were heavy and tears filled in their eyes. Not knowing if they would be coming back home, Or if they would die, it was all so unknown. As they prepared to fight for our freedom, We prayed to God for their safety. They all left their loved ones, And their lives that they had known. They departed to an unfamiliar land, risking their lives and making so many sacrifices. Being away from family and friends, Giving up what most can’t even comprehend. The horrors and atrocities that Our Veterans faced and endured. You may not ever know or totally understand. They protected our rights, our freedom, and the rights of others, So that we could have and enjoy freedom in our land. Some came home to a Hero’s welcome, Others didn’t come home at all, they made the ultimate sacrifice. Some came home and were disgracefully shunned; others have been so shamefully forgotten. All of our Veterans served our country, With great pride and true honor. There is a price for freedom, which they ALL so graciously paid. They ALL greatly deserve to be remembered and honored, After all.... They are truly America’s Heroes!" (Written by ~ HTxRose)
B. Our spiritual liberty was most costly
1. We had a debt of bondage that we could not pay.
2. Romans 5:6-8 "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. [7] For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. [8] But God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
3. 1 Peter 1:18-19 "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:"
II. The Walk of Freedom
A. We are called to walk as freemen in the Spirit.
Colossians 2:6-7 “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” — HCSB™
B. Walking as freemen is only possible through the Spirit.
C. To fail to walk in the freedom of the Spirit is to become enslaved again.
D. When we fail to walk as freemen and stand up for the liberty our forefathers fought for we forget the price that was paid and we lose the rights and privileges of that liberty.
1. Kruschev said that America would be conquered from within.
2. In 1863, President Lincoln designated April 30th as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. National humiliation, fasting, and prayer. Let me read a portion of his proclamation on that occasion: "It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, who owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by a history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. The awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has grown, but we have forgotten God."
3. Our patriots fought for freedom of religion not from religion as many expound today.
a. Reverend Doctor John Witherspoon, signer of the Declaration of Independence, member of the Continental Congress, described as the "man who shaped the man that shaped America" said, "God grant that in America true religion and civil liberty may be inseparable."
b. Patrick Henry said, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospels of Jesus Christ."
c. John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States and "Chief Architect" of the Constitution said, "The highest glory of the American Revolution was it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."
d. 52 out of 55 of the founding fathers were Christians"
e. No religion can long continue to maintain its purity when the church becomes the subservient vassal of the state." - Felix Adler Instant Quotation Dictionary p. 59.
4. They fought for freedom from a tyrannical and oppressive government.
a. On April 18, 1775 John Adams and John Hancock were at the home of Rev. Jonas Clarke, a Lexington pastor and militia leader. That same night Paul Revere arrived to warn them of the approaching Redcoats. The next morning British Major Pitcairn shouted to an assembled regiment of Minutemen; "Disperse, ye villains, lay down your arms in the name of George the Sovereign King of England." The immediate response of Rev. Jonas Clarke or one of his company was: "We recognize no Sovereign but God and no King but Jesus."
b. Today, men in black robes sitting in their ivory tower courtrooms systematically are inviting the wrath of God by, as one radio commentator has said, poking God in the eye with anti-godly decisions.
c. We have replaced the tyrant King George by a tyrannical Federal bureaucracy.
E. When as Believers, we fail to walk in the liberty of the Spirit.
1. We become entangled in the legalism of the law.
a. Galatians 5:1 "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
b. We get caught up in rules and regulations. Rules blunt the appetite for Christ. Joy is found in walking in the freedom of the Spirit.
c. There are people who do not want us to be free. They don’t want us to be free before God, accepted just as we are by his grace. They don’t want us to be free to express our faith originally and creatively in the world. They ... insist that all look alike, talk alike and act alike, thus validating one another’s worth. Without being aware of it we become anxious about what others will say about us, obsessively concerned about what others think we should do. We no longer live the good news but anxiously try to memorize and recite the script that someone else has assigned to us. We may be secure, but we will not be free. - Eugene Peterson
2. We needlessly become in bondage to sin.
a. Romans 6:16 "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?"
b. Harry Houdini, the famed escape artist from a few years back, issued a challenge wherever he went. He could be locked in any jail cell in the country, he claimed, and set himself free in short order. Always he kept his promise, but one time something went wrong. Houdini entered the jail in his street clothes; the heavy, metal doors clanged shut behind him. He took from his belt a concealed piece of metal, strong and flexible. He set to work immediately, but something seemed to be unusual about this lock. For thirty minutes he worked and got nowhere. An hour passed, and still he had not opened the door. By now he was bathed in sweat and panting in exasperation, but he still could not pick the lock. Finally, after laboring for two hours, Harry Houdini collapsed in frustration and failure against the door he could not unlock. But when he fell against the door, it swung open! It had never been locked at all! But in his mind it was locked, and that was all it took to keep him from opening the door and walking out of the jail cell.
c. He who makes the law his standard is obligated to perform all its precepts, for to break one commandment is to break the law. He who lives by faith and love is not judged on that basis, but by a standard infinitely higher and at the same time more attainable. Joseph Fletcher
3. We forget the price of our freedom
a. 2 Peter 1:4-9 "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. [5] And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; [6] And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; [7] And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. [8] For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. [9] But he that lacks these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins."
b. Deuteronomy 6:12 "Then beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage."
c. "King Of My Life I Crown Thee Now Thine shall the glory be; Lest I forget Thy thorn crowned brow, Lead me to Calvary. Lest I forget Gethsemane, Lest I forget Thine agony, Lest I forget Thy love for me, Lead me to Calvary." (Hussey, Jennie E. / Kirkpatrick, William J. © 1921. Renewed 1949 Hope Publishing Company CCLI License No. 754427)
