Newsletter –July 2009

“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.  For, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:22-23 (NIV)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

      Freedom is a most illusive privilege.  Freedom is not easily found, but it easily given up and taken for granted.  This July we will again be celebrating the freedoms we have in our nation.  The freedoms stated clearly in the Declaration of Independence are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  The US Constitution guarantees freedom to worship according to our conscience and faith.  The former are rather illusive freedoms, the latter is a quite real.  Life, liberty and happiness are difficult to define.  Worship according to your conscience and faith is easy to define.

      St. Paul also speaks about freedom.  The freedom he describes also has similar components spoken of earlier.  Perhaps we might consider this freedom to flow from the Christian’s Declaration of Dependence and Constitution.  There is one difference however when the Christian considers the freedom we have been granted by God.  Such freedom is a movement from one slavery to another.

      Is that not a strange thought?  With slavery, there is freedom.  With freedom, there is slavery.  Such thinking goes against the conscience.  Our Declaration of Dependence and our Constitution are focused upon the cross of Christ.  In that cross of Christ, we witness the very dependence we have upon the grace and mercy of God.  When we are brought into that grace and mercy of God, we become servants/ slaves of God.  As Jesus Christ was bound by His Fathers will, so then are we who trust in the One who gave his life for all sinners.

      Yet we take such freedom and servant-hood for granted.  We mistake the freedom to gather for worship as the body of Christ as an option.  We let others cover for us while we pursue our own version of life, liberty and happiness.  We return to serving the Lord of Life when such service is convenient and does not interfere with other pursuits – personal, or for someone other than Jesus Christ.

      Blessed are we in Christ, because he accepted the will of His Father as his own will.  Jesus happiness and liberty and life were intimately wrapped up in living His life in obedience to His Father.  Such faithful obedience led to accomplishing the work set before him.  As Scripture says, Jesus’ attention was focused on the joy that would come through the burden and slavery of the cross.  His freedom was seen not in the world that was, but in the world that is still to come.  A world that is free from the effects of sin.

      Such a world and freedom awaits us as well.  The curse that God placed upon the earth, the judgment of death God placed upon man because of sin, yes even sin itself will not be a part of this new world.  Some will think that it is separate from the world in which we now live.  Yet, St Paul speaks of this world waiting to be reborn as are we when Christ returns on the Last Day.  St John, in his Revelation, speaks also of a new heaven and a new earth.  The newness is not with regard to something that has been never seen before, but of something new in quality and appearance.  The world restored to Eden’s holiness and perfection.

      So, we as Jesus’ forgiven and freed slaves of God and His grace live with a new sense of hope.  When we were slaves to sin, we had no hope, only the sure punishment for our sin.  As slaves to God in Jesus Christ, we live with the certain hope of eternal life.  As we celebrate the privileges of our earthly freedom in this coming month, remember also the spiritual freedom we have been given in Christ.  We are no longer slaves to sin and eternal death, but have been made slaves of God and heirs of eternal life in Christ Jesus.  This is the freedom to which we hold fast.  God bless you as you celebrate your freedom.

In Christ,

Rev. Robert Schneider