If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. John 8:36

I am a patriot. My kids learned long ago to give me a little privacy when patriotic music plays. I get choked up and cry easily. I’m a flag-waving, history loving, unapologetic American. I have the constitution on the wall of my living room, one of those kinds of patriots. I’m proud of everything our country stands for: the whole melting pot, freedom of speech, everyone has a chance to make whatever they want out of their lives, equality for all, pursuit of happiness idea. I’m in! The Fourth of July is something to be celebrated. On that day, we declared our freedom from tyranny, proclaimed our God-given rights and set out on a course that would change the world.

Tyranny is defined as cruel and oppressive rule. Just as our colonial ancestors suffered under the tyranny of King George, we, as sinners, suffered under the tyrannical weight of our sin. There is nothing more oppressive than living a sinful life with no hope of freeing ourselves from the condemnation that comes as a result. When our colonial fore-fathers sought freedom from a Tyrant King across the seas, they had options, they chose to stand up and proclaim their freedom and fight to win it. They sacrificed themselves so that their descendants could enjoy the God-given freedoms that we still live in today. When we realize the truth of our condition as sinners, we have no such recourse. We can’t do enough good acts to win our freedom. Our guilt was predetermined before our birth by the sin nature that we were born with. It’s literally impossible. We have to look outside ourselves for escape. We are totally dependent on a perfect Savior, who was willing to sacrifice Himself for our failures.

How then, can we not celebrate our freedom from sin every single day? As happy as I am to live in a free country and as much as I enjoy the benefits of that freedom, I can’t even begin to understand the goodness of it, because I’ve never had to live in a country that did not have the freedoms we enjoy here. I’ve lived my entire life here, I don’t have any basis for understanding what our forefathers fought so hard for, because I haven’t experienced the lack of it. That’s not true about my salvation. I have experienced the crushing pain of being separated from God by my sin. I know what it feels like to experience that God shaped hole in my soul. The pain and fear of knowing that if I died outside of a relationship with God, I would be condemned to a Devil’s Hell that was not meant for me. I well remember the sudden realization that I was incapable of doing anything to change those facts on my own. As scary as those days and months of living outside a relationship with God were for me, they are incomparable to the peace and comfort that followed surrendering my soul to the care of Jesus Christ.

Nearly 250 years ago, our fore-fathers declared their independence from a King who sought to rule them with an iron fist, with no representation and undue and unfair treatment. Today and every day, I repeatedly declare the opposite in my relationship to the King of Kings: I am dependent upon Him! I gladly submit myself as a willing slave to the Creator of the Universe. The gift of His son has given me the ultimate freedom: freedom from my sins. For that precious gift, I will happily toil the rest of my days doing His will. I seek no representation, no control of my future, I only wish to bring glory to the One who died in my place.

Considering all of this, as we celebrate the birth of our country, how can we forget our second birth? Is it any less worthy of celebration? How often do you celebrate your spiritual freedom? Take time to remember… remember how good our God is! How great a debt Jesus paid on our behalf. Celebrate it! Proclaim the glorious mercy we’ve been given for all to hear!