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Living Hope SDA Church

Christian Martin

The Biblical Dimensions of Freedom

Our message on this day is entitled, The Biblical Dimensions of Freedom.

I invite you to bow your heads with me as we acknowledge God.

Father in heaven, we have come to Your house to give You of our time, to give You of our attention.

But above all, Lord, we want to Give You our hearts and our minds, that You may speak.

Give us the ability, Lord, the discernment to be able to hear Your voice.

We pray, Lord, that the Holy Spirit would bring understanding and conviction to our hearts.

Hundreds of thousands of Men, women, and children flock all around Him.

Both the faithful and the intrigued follow Him wherever He goes.

When He appears, the noise of the crowds, crescendos, and people become frantic to get to him, hoisting their children to be blessed by him.

People often responded to him with the intimacy that they would give a beloved relative, men and women often wept openly, overwhelmed by His presence.

The year was AD 28, and His name was Jesus.

And Matthew, the gospel writer wrote, and Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all kinds of sicknesses and all kinds of diseases among the people.

Verse 25, great multitudes followed him from Galilee and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and beyond the Jordan.

And in chapter 5 of his Gospel, Matthew writes that there, on the mountaintop, surrounded by thousands, Jesus speaks to the multitude, a sermon that would be known as the Sermon on the Mount.

What many regard as the greatest sermon ever preached.

It was delivered to give his hearers a proper understanding of his kingdom.

Jesus spoke words that describe the character of the people of the kingdom of heaven.

People who glorify God with their good works.

He described a people who go the second mile and love their enemies.

He spoke of a people who do good to please God.

He spoke of people who lay up treasures in heaven.

He described a people who live in freedom.

And if we were to summarize the Sermon on the Mount, if we took the words that Jesus spoke and summarized them in 1 single sentence, it would look something like this.

How converted Christians who are bound for the Kingdom of Heaven ought to live.

That's what Jesus has outlined, has described in the greatest sermon ever preached.

A people who proclaim as in the words of Martin Luther King, free at last, free at last.

A people who know something About freedom.

To another multitude, another man, to another speech.

A crowd of about 15 to 20, 000 have gathered around the speaker's platform at the small market town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

At the dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery.

And he took his seat on the platform and he looked over the field, sight of 1 of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War that had just been fought 4 months earlier, killing over 51, 000 men in a period of 3 days.

A prayer was offered, followed by some music by the marine band, and the ceremony's chief speaker spoke for 2 hours.

And after the long speech, more music was played and then he was given the hand signal to stand as make his way to the lectern.

His name was Abraham Lincoln And he delivered what became known as the Gettysburg Address.

Lincoln's 272 words would go down by some as the greatest speech ever delivered in America, in American history.

4 score and 7 years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

And he ended with the words that this nation under God should have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." There can be little doubt that the theme of freedom was very much on Lincoln's mind when he penned the famous words.

And from the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 to the end of the war, the Civil War, and later finally in 1865, the way was paved through sweat, blood, and tears.

The way was paved for the permanent, permanent, permanent abolishment of slavery in the United States.

It would take a lot of blood, a lot of sweat, but it would happen.

The news spread quickly, and yet there were many slaves that were living in isolation on the coast of Galveston, Texas.

They were far removed, they were remote, and they were unaware of the events that were unfolding in the East.

But on June 19, on this day 156 years ago, 1865, a bearer of good news, publicly read General Order Number 3, which stated, the people of Texas are informed that in accordance with the proclamation from the executive of the United States, all slaves are free.

And upon hearing this declaration, enslaved African Americans were shocked.

They could not believe what they were hearing.

They had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation enacted 2 and a half years earlier by the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

And as the news spread, a wave of rejoicing spread throughout the land.

Over 250, 000 slaves broke out in jubilation upon hearing the news that they were free.

In the book Lone Star Pass Memories and History in Texas, a former slave named Felix Hayward recalled the first celebration of June 19, 1865, and I quote, 1865, and I quote, we was all walking on golden clouds.

By December of 1865, the 13th Amendment forever abolished slavery in all U.S.

States and ended nearly 250 years of African slavery in North America.

Indeed, Juneteenth, a mix of June and 19th, reminds us of the celebration of freedom.

I want us to to just wrap our minds around the word freedom.

There is no single word that resonates with the human race quite like freedom.

People around the world celebrate their country's independence with songs of freedom on their lips and ringing in their ears.

There is an excitement, an enthusiasm, a joy that overwhelms us when we speak of freedom.

Politicians, business people, advertisers, salesmen, military leaders, recruiters, they all know how to use the concept of freedom to attract attention and draw interest.

It resounds with our hearts as human beings.

Because as inhabitants of a world of bondage, we know about bondage, the theme of freedom, evokes images and memories and emotions.

Maybe because as citizens of a nation with its own government, we think of freedom as a social and legal value that gives us benefits.

In the occupied territory, we call my country, tis of thee, sweet land of liberty.

The human race in our world, collectively, as a human race, we think about freedom in this world in terms of fundamental human rights.

From a constitutional perspective, simply put, freedom is the idea that we are free to legally, socially, and ethically do as we please.

Such as my right to worship as I choose, as I please.

It's my right To vote as I please, to do as I please with my body, to do as I please my right to express myself publicly.

Again, the freedom to legally, socially, and ethically do as we please.

However, when we consider it from a biblical perspective, we discover that this concept of freedom has a lot more to do with it than this.

The biblical perspective is 1 that unfolds a whole new picture and understanding of freedom.

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The Biblical Dimensions of Freedom

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