Scripture John
8:32
Do you live in freedom?
As I considered the fact that I have
preached on or near the 4th of July (celebrating America’s
Independence) over 35 times and each of those sermons merely used that
momentous event as a hook for then preaching about our freedom in Jesus, I
wondered if there was not something else that could be done?
To speak of freedom without first
speaking of the thing that enslaves us is like eating a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich without the bread – it may seem sweet but is difficult to handle and
creates a mess. Peanut butter was originally paired with a diverse set of
savory foods, such as pimento, cheese, celery, watercress. In a Good Housekeeping article
published in May 1896, a recipe "urged homemakers to use a meat grinder to
make peanut butter and spread the result on bread." The following month,
the culinary magazine Table Talk published a "peanut butter
sandwich" recipe. An early recipe for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
appeared in
the Boston Cooking School Magazine in 1901 (121 years ago); it called for "three very thin layers of bread and two of filling, one of peanut paste, and currant or crabapple jelly for the other". It became popular with children with the advent of sliced bread in the 1920s, which allowed them to make their own sandwiches easily. I wonder if there is history and a recipe for freedom? So let’s begin with what is on everyone’s mind this weekend, how we got our freedom in the first place, and move to something similar near biblical times and within those two slices of bread, see if we can have a taste of the peanut butter and jelly of freedom.
the Boston Cooking School Magazine in 1901 (121 years ago); it called for "three very thin layers of bread and two of filling, one of peanut paste, and currant or crabapple jelly for the other". It became popular with children with the advent of sliced bread in the 1920s, which allowed them to make their own sandwiches easily. I wonder if there is history and a recipe for freedom? So let’s begin with what is on everyone’s mind this weekend, how we got our freedom in the first place, and move to something similar near biblical times and within those two slices of bread, see if we can have a taste of the peanut butter and jelly of freedom.
What were the causes of the Revolution –
what were we trying to get free from?
Through aiding the American colonists
during the French and Indian War, the British government amassed an enormous
debt thanks to the cost of raising, supplying, and funding an army on foreign
soil. Expecting the Americans to shoulder the financial burden, Parliament
levied several acts of taxation.
Years of unrest and discord followed.
The Americans maintained that Parliament could make laws but insisted only their
elected representatives could tax them. The English felt that Parliament had
supreme authority over the colonies.
The Americans formed Committees of
Correspondence, and later, a Continental Congress, to find solutions, but could
not find common ground with the English. When fighting broke out in 1775,
American revolutionaries determined that separation was the only means of
obtaining liberty and justice.
The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th, 1776,
formally dissolving the colonies' relationship with their mother country, and
plunging the continent into war.
Jews had to fight for freedom from Roman
tyranny which came to a head in 70 AD
“The Roman siege of Jerusalem began in
April, A.D. 70, (1705 years) immediately after the Passover, when Jerusalem was
filled with visitors. Captured Jews were crucified at a rate of 500 a
day, crosses encircling the city. Daily temple sacrifices
ceased JULY 17; all hands being needed for defense. The
Romans, using catapults and battering rams, finally broke through the
walls. The Jews fled to the temple for refuge...A firebrand was hurled
through the golden gate and exploded like a bomb. The temple became an
ocean of fire.”
APPLICATION
Try to imagine the conflicting emotions
these Priests must have felt. On the one hand, it was their
responsibility to offer daily sacrifices to cover the sins of the people. On
the other hand, their city was under siege and every hand was needed to defend
it. Which was more important, more necessary? And where was God in all of
this? Shouldn't the Lord defend His Temple?
For three months these Priests continued
offering sacrifices, all the while waiting for God to intervene. What they
failed to realize was that Jesus predicted the destruction of the temple and God
had already intervened, almost forty years earlier. By His sacrificial
death, Jesus fulfilled all that the Temple sacrifices merely symbolized. As the
author of Hebrews explained, "Unlike the other high priests, Jesus does
not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then
for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he
offered himself" (Hebrews 7:27). 3 attempts to build a new
temple over the next 600 years all failed till the Muslims built the Dome of
the Rock in 692 AD, 1330 years ago.
Ironically, the crisis of faith on the
part of these Priests was a crisis invented by their own lack of faith. God's
promise had already been fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah.
Many people experience moments of doubt
when we are tempted to ask, "where is God?" When this happens, check
to be sure that the deliverance you're expecting is, in fact, the deliverance
God has actually promised you. Over the past few years many Christ followers
have been more concerned with the freedom to wear or not wear a mask, to get or
to not get a vaccine than the freedom from sin in Jesus Christ which has
eternal consequences.
That now leads us to the scripture which
begs the question, what do we really need freedom from? The simple and only
answer is sin.
What is sin? We could list sins – the
scripture has several lists of them. Then we get into interpretation and make
the scripture say what we want it to say. Instead let’s look at the heart of
what sin is, where did it come from, why do we struggle with it?
Lucifer
Isaiah 14:12-15
How you have fallen from
heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, "I will ascend
to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned
on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will
ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most
High." But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit.
This is one of a few texts where we understand that Lucifer
was an angel who wanted to become equal to God and God kicked him out of heaven
to earth where he has been reigning ever since. It seems the first sin from an
angelic source is wanting to become like God – taking God’s place. Let’s look
at the first human sin that serves as a template for every human sin to follow.
Adam & Eve
Describe the serpent and their choice.
I hate free will when people use it to harm someone else
(Cain killed Abel)
I hate
my own free will because it harms my relationship with God and sometimes with
others.
The thing that disturbs me
most about my own sin is that it is always an attempt to put myself in the
place of God. Lucifer, Adam and Eve, Me and you – SIN says I am God and God is
not!
Jesus tempted to “be in charge”
Matt 4:8-10 Again, the devil (who reigns as king on
earth) took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of
the world and their splendor. "All this I will
give you, if you will bow down and worship me." (If Jesus had done this, he would have been saying Satan
is God and God is not – that would have been sin of the highest measure.)
Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it
is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'"
Jesus resisted the temptation we all face to bring God down by raising
ourselves up and placing ourselves on God’s throne.
The American Revolutionary war – the Roman revolt against
Jerusalem in 70 AD are the slices of bread with which to hold our peanut butter
and jelly. They show us two wars for freedom – one was lost and one was
victorious. As we have just described sin, we now know what freedom we seek and
need more than any other – freedom from sin, from attempting to put ourselves
in God’s place deciding that our choices are better than His; that our
boundaries make more sense than His, that we can be the author of our lives
better than the author and perfector of our faith.
John 8:32 is the greatest verse in all of scripture –
it is to me – my life verse. “You will know the truth and the truth will set
you free.” It comes after a story about a sinful woman and people which would
serve as her judge and jury. (Describe the story of the woman caught in the act
of adultery) “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no
one condemned you?” “No one, sir,”
“Then neither do I condemn you, Go now and leave your
life of sin.”
She received freedom from the sin she
was charged with but also freedom in being told to leave her life of sin. Only
in Christ to have the ability to resist temptation. To resist, we first have to
know we are free.
INVITAITON:
Give your life to Jesus. If you have, then know that he does not not condemn
you. John 3:16-21 "For God so loved the world that he
gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the
world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not
condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has
not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the
world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for
fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into
the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done
through God."
Galatians
5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has
set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a
yoke of slavery.
COMMUNION
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