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"FREE INDEED!"
GOSPEL SCRIPTURE TEXT: JOHN 8:31-36
DAVE RING, PASTOR
LOS ALAMOS 1ST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
SUNDAY MORNING, JULY 1, 2007

A COMMUNION MEDITATION
FOR INDEPENDENCE SUNDAY

SCRIPTURE TEXT: 31To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." 33They answered him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?" 34Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." - John 8:31-36, New International Version

MESSAGE: The Fourth of July is upcoming this week. We'll be celebrating 231 years of American independence! What a wonderful opportunity to ponder the focus of it all - freedom!
As we prepare to celebrate our Lord's Supper in worship this morning, I invite you to consider - and to give thanks for - two kinds of freedoms: First, the ones we enjoy as Americans and, second, the ones we delight in as Christians.
One of the most vivid demonstrations of our national freedoms is the simple fact of our gathering here -- now, this very hour. We've assembled for the express purpose of worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we collectively believe to be the only begotten Son of God. That sounds simple enough. We take the opportunity to worship Him for granted - we come to worship here if we feel like it, stay home or go elsewhere if we don't. What a freedom that is!
In two nations today which together encompass almost half the world's population, what we're doing right now is severely restricted and dangerous in the extreme. China, with well over a billion people, is only just beginning to grant limited opportunity to worship to its citizens - and then only under careful watch and close scrutiny. If you step over the government's lines in either doctrine or enthusiasm, you wind up in jail. In neighboring India, nearly China's equal in population, Hinduism is the official state religion. Indian Christians worship, if they dare, at the risk of their lives. Hundreds of the 21st century's initial Christian martyrs have already been made by angry Indian Hindus.
Beyond those two, there are more than 30 nations in our world today where the Muslim faith is both the official state religion and the basis for the law of the land. A recent account in the "Albuquerque Journal" related the story of how two newly Christian families were brought before a judge in Cairo, Egypt. They had converted to Christianity through the witness of some "Campus Crusade for Christ" workers. The judge ordered them jailed indefinitely - until they were ready to publicly renounce Christianity and return their former faith in Allah, the Muslim god
These are just a few examples of the fact that still today, for the majority of the people of this world, freedom of religion is either limited or non-existent. In the United States of America, we are completely free to worship Jesus Christ, another god, or no god -- however we may choose. What a liberty that is!
The second category of freedoms which I would invite us to celebrate this morning, freedoms which are available to those who follow Jesus, are our Christian liberties. Jesus describes them this way: "…if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."
What does Jesus mean by this? And further, what does it mean to us? We're Americans. We live in the "good ole USA." We're already free. We've got our liberty, our independence, and we're very proud of it. So since we're already free, what has Christ to offer that we don't already have?
The Jews of Jesus' day said much the same to Him, although with far less basis of truth. Even though they lived under Roman dominance and enjoyed only partial liberty, they challenged Jesus on the issue of freedom. "We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?"
Jesus' reply, to them and to us, is this: "I tell you the truth. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin." That opens a whole new perspective. Is there anyone here this morning who hasn't, even just once in your life, committed a sin? I sure have. And the truth, according to Jesus, is that as sinners we are liable for - and enslaved by - the consequences of sin. The consequences of sin are well-described throughout the Bible. They include death, destruction, and hell. That's the destiny of sinners - our destiny. Bound up, locked in, imprisoned for eternity by sin. We're really not free, not at all.
Of course, we can delude ourselves for a few years on this earth - imagine, ignore, eat, drink, pretend to be merry. But there's an end to all that - a certain end, soon for some, a trifle later for others. Our earthly freedoms and our cherished status as Americans will last a few decades, at most maybe a century - which is an eye blink on the face of eternity. Then we'll move on to a different realm - in bondage forevermore. Unless -- unless the Son of God sets us free.
As we celebrate Holy Communion this morning, I remind you that this is a feast - a fiesta - of freedom. We are, here and now, reminding ourselves that the Son of God has set us free. When Jesus suffered on the cross, He did so for our sins - yours, mine. When He died, He died in our place. And when He rose from death, He opened the way to true, eternal freedom - for you, for me. "…if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."
The Fourth of July is this week. We celebrate liberty; we revel in freedom. Thank God for the United States of America. And thank God, forevermore, for our eternal freedom - in Christ! Amen.

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