Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.  1 Peter 2:16 ESV

I’ve got good new and bad news on this 4th of July morning.  If you are living in the land of the free, here in the United States of America, you are still free to worship the Lord your God.  For now, anyway.  But I’m sure you have all heard the saying, “use it or lose it”.  Well, that very well may apply to us, my friends.

The bad news is that freedom has been perverted into something that gives us free reign to sin as much as we want.  And if that’s the way you see it, you know what?  You are right.  We have the privilege of destroying ourselves.  We are free to do so.  We are free to sin and separate ourselves from God (Isaiah 59:2).  We serve a loving God who allows us to do whatsoever our little hearts desire.  Now this freedom that we have can save us, or it can be our downfall.  It all comes down to the choices we make.  We can live a life of debauchery and become slaves to our sin or we can live a life lead by the Spirit and be free indeed (John 8:36).

Today, we celebrate our nation’s independence.  Our forefathers fought for our religious freedom.  They founded our nation on biblical principals and this served us well for a while, but then people began to use the freedom that our forefathers fought for and perverted that into the kind of freedom that leads us into bondage to our sin.

Now one thing we are hearing a lot about in our nation today is human trafficking.  This used to be something that happened in other countries, well not anymore.  It is right here at our door.  It’s going on all over our country.  I can’t imagine the horror that these people go through.  To be taken away from your home and family and sold as a sex slave is more horrific than I can wrap my head around.  After 25 years in law enforcement, I can stomach a lot, but this is one thing I can hardly bare to watch on television and in movies.  We see cases like Jaycee Dugard, where a young woman was kidnapped and held captive for 18 years, giving birth to two children while in captivity.  We see cases like those of the three young women in Cincinnati who just vanished and were later discovered to be the victims of a kidnapping.  These cases show situations where young people were just going about their daily lives and suddenly were taken captive by a monster who held them for years before they were rescued.

Well, my friend, sin does the exact same thing.  Sin lures us in.  It looks good on the surface, it looks innocent.  It looks like someone who is simply asking for directions or searching for a lost puppy or kitten.  It looks like  someone nice who just wants to buy you an ice cream cone or a snowball on a hot summer day.  But once it gets you in its clutches, it turns into that monster that intends to hold you in captivity.  By the time you realize that sin has a hold on you, you feel powerless to escape its grasp.  But you must remember that we are never powerless.  We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13).

So, how do you break free?  Well, first of all you find the truth in God’s word.  We are told in John 8:32 that the truth will set us free.  The truth is that Jesus not only wants us to have a life, but a more abundant life (John 10:10).  He wants us to live our lives in the freedom that comes through a relationship with Him.

Many people see a commitment to Christ as giving up the things that they love like drinking and smoking and promiscuity.  But they’ve got it all wrong. They think that if they turn to God that they will no longer have any fun.  They think that they will live this mundane life where there is no pleasure and no joy.  Boy, are they wrong!  I used to think that way too, but I was so wrong.  I never knew true peace and joy until I gave my life to Christ, and I mean gave it all to  Christ.  I gave Him my sin.  I asked for His forgiveness and I asked him to help me to not sin anymore.  Things that I thought I couldn’t give up, well, God made sure that I could give them up with no problem.  God broke the chains of sin that had held me down in bondage for so many years.  Sin had kidnapped me.  It had lured me in by making me think that it was a good thing.  It had kept me there by thinking that God would just understand my behavior and let it go.  But once I realized that I couldn’t love God with my whole heart and remain in bondage to my sin, I accepted God’s rescue.  I turned it all over to Him.  And let me tell you something, I have never made a better decision in my life.

Now I live my life with a peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7).  I live my life filled with unending joy (Isaiah 35:10).  I know what it means to be free and I know that my God has rescued me and that I am free indeed.

No matter what your situation, you can be free in Christ.  So, whether you are in a prison cell or being held captive, or living free but in bondage to sin, give it all to Him and ask Him to set you free.

If God has already set you free, then know that the devil is lurking around and hoping to capture you and return you to a life of slavery to him (1 Peter 5:8), then choose to resist him and stand firm in your faith (1 Peter 5:9).  For the Bible tells us that if we resist the devil, he will flee from us (James 4:7).

My hope for you today is that you are celebrating not only the freedom of this nation that we live in, but that you are celebrating a personal freedom that you have found in Jesus Christ.  Freedom must begin in our hearts.  If we abuse the freedoms that we have and use them to cover up our evil ways, we may find that God takes that freedom away from us.  We may find that He just gives us over to our sin (Romans 1:24).  I pray today that we don’t let this happen.  Pray for our leaders and be mindful of what they do and what they say.  Does it line up with the scripture?  If it doesn’t you better get to the polls and vote them out when you have the chance.  Look for leaders that have a reverential fear of God as our forefathers did.  The only way that this nation can survive is by turning back to God (2 Chronicles 7:14).  I pray that you will do your part to preserve our freedom.  And remember, sometimes the fiercest fighting is done on our knees!

Have a wonderful Fourth of July Holiday!