I hope you are enjoying your summer.  Thank you so much for the special celebration you surprised me with for my 20^th Anniversary of Ordination!  It was really fun and I remain grateful to be your pastor at Trinity Glendora!  20 Years is a lot, but it is a lot less than 250.  This month we celebrate the 250^th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.  It was fun participating in the Three Oaks Flag Day parade last month and seeing all the flags everywhere, including ones commemorating the 250^th Birthday of our country.  I also saw a lot of signs expressing this:  Freedom is not free!  Our freedom has come at great cost to many, especially those who have bled and died or those whose many tears have wept for those that bled and died in the name of our country and for the freedoms we stand for and cherish.  Remembering that freedom is not free but has come at great cost can and should affect how we live and use the freedoms we have. 

            There is a striking parallel here to our lives as Christians, citizens not just of the USA but of Heaven.  As John greets the seven churches toward the beginning of Revelation, he says, “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood…”   Our freedom came at the greatest of costs—the holy and precious blood of the Son of God!  What is this freedom we have?  Paul says in Romans 8:1-2, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”  Jesus has freed us from our sins.  The consequence of sin is condemnation, but not for those of us who are in Christ, who believe in Him who died and rose for us.  We have been set free at the cost of the condemnation of the Holy One of God.  

            This freedom is both freedom from and freedom for.  St. Paul writes in Galatians 5:13-14, “For you were called to freedom, brothers.  Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.  For the whole law is fulfilled in one word:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Christ set us free from the Law not so that we wouldn’t do it but so that we would!  We are set free to love one another without fear of condemnation for not loving fully as we should.  God’s Law, His will for how His creation works and operates, has not changed and will not change.  God still expects the same things from us that he has always demanded and expected from people.  What is different is that through Christ we know that His expectations are perfectly fulfilled.  The burden is not on our shoulders to fulfill the law and so satisfy God’s expectations.  Rather, we get the blessed privilege of living according to His good and perfect will without fear of what should happen if I misstep.  It is not a freedom from living according to God’s ways but a freedom to do so without fear of condemnation.

            As you celebrate Independence Day and the freedoms we have as Americans, remember that your freedom, though freely given to you, is not free.  It has come at a high price and so is very valuable and should be cherished and respectfully and faithfully exercised.  The same is true for us as Christians.  Our freedom has come at the greatest of costs.  It is both freedom from and freedom for.  Freed from the condemnation of the law, may we live not for ourselves but for Him who died for us and was raised again.